Interregnum (3 page)
Authors: S. J. A. Turney
Tags: #Historical, #Fiction, #Rome, #Fantasy, #Generals
An eerie silence fell across the ruin as the Grey Company waited for battle. Ten of the company waited at this wall, while two others kept positions at the opposite corners where they could watch for any kind of flanking action.
The only sound that announced the arrival of the enemy was the scrape of a boot on rock as a man tried not to fall foul of the treacherous slope. Kiva nodded a second time to Thalo next to him, and the small archer dipped the tip of his arrow into the burning tinder before lifting and firing it deep into the thick undergrowth. There had been no rain now for almost three weeks and the brush was so dry that they’d already started three small fires accidentally and consequently could be fairly assured of a burning oil-covered arrow triggering a blaze. Indeed, the moment the arrow hit, orange flame leapt up from the flora, throwing back the curtain of the night and crawling along the intertwined branches at breathtaking speed.
As the fire spread among the bushes at a phenomenal rate, Kiva was beginning to ponder on the wisdom of his plan when a scream announced that the fire had taken its first target. The horrible crisping, gurgling sound of a man suffering an agonising death by fire was something that Kiva had never truly come to terms with. He’d hardened himself such that he could usually ignore it, but in the depths of night when dream came in his black robe, with unbidden images of fire and death, to take the remaining fractured shards of his soul, then the flames still ate away at his conscience.
Moments later a number of agonised voices added to the tumultuous roar as the flames took man after man, dragging Kiva’s attention back to the fight.
Almost a minute went tensely by before the first intact figure appeared from the brush, looking startled, having exited the smoke and the undergrowth and come face to face with the waiting Grey Company. They barely had time to register the surprise on his face and hear his brief monosyllable before Athas’ first arrow took him in the throat. The man toppled backwards, his blade clattering to the floor, and disappeared once more from view into the roiling thick black smoke. Glancing round, the big sergeant spotted another smoke-wreathed figure ghosting out of the brush.
“Here they come!”
Shapes began to appear, those who’d managed to find their way around the edges of the ever-growing conflagration and stumble through the smoke. The company let fly with arrows as fast as they could, each marking a single target as it appeared and announcing their shot to preserve their companions’ ammunition. Few of the attackers managed to move more than a couple of feet from their cover before being struck, invariably with instantly fatal results.
Gradually, fewer and fewer of them appeared until at last there was just the crackle of flames and the groans of the few who lay bleeding their last. Athas waited for a moment to be sure of the lull and then called down the line “count off!”
“I took three,” shouted Scauvus.
“Five,” Thalo called, nocking another arrow ready.
“Four for Marco,” called a light voice, “but only three for Alessus!”
There was the sound of a punch landing on an upper arm somewhere along the wall and a carefree laugh.
Athas nodded as he carried out his mental arithmetic. “And I took five.” He added. “That’s twenty down to arrow shots, plus however many dead in the flames. Not enough to turn a full brigade away, sir.”
Kiva strained to see into the distance. “They won’t come that way again until the fire’s gone out” he confirmed. Turning to face his unit, he added “three groups! One remaining wall each.”
As the dozen men split off to watch the walls, Kiva walked over to where the young man in white cowered, hatchet clutched in equally alabaster knuckles.
“Make yourself useful,” the captain barked, “long as you’re here. Stand and watch the fires. If a single living thing comes towards you up that hill, shout me or Athas, right?”
The young man nodded, the look of a startled rabbit about his eyes. Kiva returned to the rear wall, shaking his head, and looked up the hill toward yesterday’s field of battle. He glanced across at Athas and beckoned to him.
“We’d see them if they came at us from there, but we still don’t know how many of ‘em there are. I can’t run an effective defence without knowing what’s happening or what we’re up against. Get Scauvus to make a run to the top and see what’s going on.”
Nodding, Athas ran across to a side wall and spoke to a small, wiry looking man with dark, close-cropped hair and at least four days’ growth of facial hair. Scauvus dropped his bow next to his shield and walked across to the other side of the ruin. Dropping to a crouch and taking a couple of deep breaths, he tore off at high speed for the crest of the hill. The company watched as he ran, fast and nimble as a mountain wolf, up the steep incline and to the top, where he slowed considerably. A bad sign thought Kiva and, as the scout reached the crest and dropped to his stomach, his worst fears appeared to be realised.
“Ahh, shit” the captain groaned.
Athas appeared to have had similar thoughts. He began to nock and store arrows, gesturing to the men to be ready. Kiva strained his eyes once more to see Scauvus hurtling back down the hill as if the hordes of hell were at his heels his form disappearing momentarily from view as a brief change in the wind drove the column of choking smoke across in front of him. A couple of seconds later, the scout appeared out of the grey and jogged back up to the wall, out of breath and wild-eyed.
“The other camps are…” he gasped “all on fire and the enemy … are everywhere. I think … we’re the last.”
“Shit! Fuck!” The captain spat. “They’ve done this deliberately to catch us!”
Kiva stood for a moment, fighting the obvious decision. He hated abandoning a contract, but if the rest of the army had gone, what chance did twelve men stand against thousands? He sighed unhappily and gestured once more at Athas.
“Get the kit together as fast as you can” he ordered. “We’re leaving, and we’re leaving
now
!”
Without questioning, Athas relayed the orders to the men. As the company gathered their gear, two men still on watch for the enemy to reappear, Kiva jogged back to the young man in white, crouched by the wall and keeping a close eye on the burning mass.
“We gotta move, so you’re on your own, lad” he said. “Surrender fast and they’ll probably just rob you; they can’t mistake you for a soldier.”
He turned to retrieve his kit bag just in time to see Athas glaring at him.
“What?” he growled.
The sergeant merely shook his head and then returned to his work. The company’s bags were already shouldered when one of the lookouts called out the warning.
“Here they come again!”
Athas waved Kiva away. “Take the rest and get to the farmhouse, sir. I’ll keep Thalo. We’ll cover you for five minutes, then follow on ourselves.”
Kiva nodded. The two were quite capable of taking care of themselves. Better to risk two than to condemn twelve. He followed as his men started moving out, and then stopped. Some strange need drove him to turn at the last minute and look at the lad in white, standing by the wall with a look of defiant despair. There was something hauntingly familiar about that look and Kiva tried very hard to push it to the back of his mind. Deliberately turning his back on the boy he joined his men as they rushed down the hill, around the perimeter of the forest fire and into the concealing darkness.
Chapter II.
The marble columns wreathed in fire. The purple and gold drapes blazing and falling away into burning heaps on the floor. A chalice of wine on a small table by a couch, boiling in the intense heat. The panicked twittering of the ornamental birds in their golden cages as the room around them was consumed by the inferno. And in the centre of the room, standing in robes of white and purple, a man. He doesn’t look frightened, though the flames lick at his whole world and his face is already grimy with the smoke. What he looks is disappointed, his arm extended toward the sealed and barred door separating him from a future and a life. Extended toward the figure standing behind that door, turning the final key in the final lock.
Kiva woke, the grimy soot and dirt on his forehead running down and into his eyes with the sweat. Despite the sweat, he felt so cold and so agonisingly sad. Of all the thoughts jostling for a return to his mind after the horror of the nightmare, strangely, his first and most insistent thought was ‘did the birds die?’
He glanced around the room. The farm had been unoccupied for three or four days at most. When they’d made their way to the field to meet up with the rest Lord Bergama’s army, they’d found this building the night before the battle, already empty. There had still been half-eaten meals on the table and the fireplace had been warm. Yet another case of the constant feuding between Lords disrupting the lives of the ordinary folk. This family had probably heard tell of the armies descending upon their district and fled, hoping to return after the trouble and find their home intact. He clicked his tongue irritably. He was starting to think like Athas. Screw it. They made their way and he made his. Every man has a path and some are easier than others. He’d move on to the next contract; the next battle. Kicking out in irritation at a table leg, he scraped the chair back and stood. The night was old, with dawn not far off. They’d reached the house around an hour ago and set up shifts for watch. Kiva had immediately surrendered to exhaustion and would still be in the arms of dream had not the old problem driven him to wakefulness. It was no wonder really that his once proud blond hair was now almost entirely grey and that his face had taken on a dark-eyed, haggard look. Sleep was neither a friend nor a comfort to Kiva Tregaron.
He had been the only one in the kitchen, seated by the thick wall on a heavy bench padded with a blanket. He approached the door to the main living space and peered round into the darkness. The slumbering forms of the Grey Company filled the floor. Trying not to disturb their rest, he rounded the corner and climbed the creaking stairs to the upper floor. On one side of the upper room Scauvus sat on a stool, peering out of the upstairs window and watching for any stray scout that might stumble on their location. At the other side, Brendan and Marco sat on the balcony, keeping the rest of the valley under surveillance.
Touching his brow in recognition to Scauvus, Kiva made his way to the balcony.
“Morning. Any sign of Athas and Thalo yet?”
Brendan, a bulky man with a shaved head and greying whiskers nodded and pointed down into the grounds of the farmhouse.
“They got ‘ere about ‘alf an hour ago an’ collapsed into that ‘ay. If yer listen real ‘ard, yer can ‘ear Athas snorin’ from ‘ere.”
Kiva followed the soldier’s gesture and growled, leaning so heavily on the balcony rail that the wood creaked threateningly and a shower of dust drifted down into the yard.
“There’s a boy in white down there” he uttered through gritted teeth. “Did they bring him with them?”
Marco turned, a piece of straw jutting from the corner of his mouth. “Nah, he came in a few minutes later. They let him join ‘em though.”
“Idiots” Kiva snarled.
Ignoring the questioning look from the two on the balcony, he snatched a piece of broken wood from the edge of the rail and hurled it down into the hay. Despite his almost legendary lack of prowess with aimed weapons, he noted with satisfaction the thump of the wood hitting something hard and a groan. Athas sat up suddenly, his hand reaching for the sword slung over his back. He spun several times, eyeing every dark corner of the farmyard and then looked up. Kiva made an angry gesture, motioning him toward the house. As the heavy sergeant walked toward the door, the captain turned and padded back through the room and down the stairs. He reached the bottom as Athas entered and he gestured toward the kitchen. As soon as they were both in, he closed the door and jabbed a finger at Athas’ chest.
“I told you before,” he growled “we don’t need the kid.”
The sergeant looked around to make sure none of the other soldiers were listening in on their conversation and then grasped Kiva’s gesticulating finger and, jerking his hand aside, brought his angry face very close to that of his captain.
