Princeps' fury (3 page)

“This stinks,” complained Tonnar, from five yards behind Kestus’s mount. “This is like some kind of bad dream.”

Kestus glanced down at the field hatchet strapped to his horse’s saddlebag. It would be hard to get much strength behind a throw while riding a horse, but Tonnar’s head was so soft, it probably wouldn’t matter. Of course, then there would be the matter of the moron’s corpse and potential murder charges.

True, Kestus had the entire deserted run of the wilderness southwest of the Waste to hide the body in, but there was the issue of the new man to complicate things. He glanced back at the third member of the patrol, the slender, wiry pip-squeak who called himself Ivarus and had enough sense to keep his mouth shut most of the time.

Kestus was a strong believer in avoiding complications. So he did what he usually did when Tonnar flapped his lips. He ignored him.

“Do you know what it’s like closer to the Waste?” Tonnar continued. “Wild furies everywhere. Outlaws. Pestilence. Starvation.” He shook his head mournfully. “And when old Gaius blew Kalare off the face of the earth, he sent about half the able-bodied men in the whole area away with it. Women are throwing themselves at men for a couple of copper rams or the heel of a loaf of bread. Or just to have someone around who they think will protect their brats.”

Kestus thought wistfully of murder.

“I talked to this one guy from the northern march,” Tonnar went on. “He plowed four women in one day.” The loudmouth slashed the extra length of his reins savagely at the branches of a nearby tree, scattering autumn leaves and striking his mount’s neck sharply by mistake. The horse twitched and jolted, and Tonnar barely kept from being thrown.

The man cursed the horse savagely, kicking harder than necessary with his heels and jerking hard on the reins to bring it back under control.

Kestus idly added theoretical torture to the theoretical murder, because done right, it might be funny.

“And here we are,” Tonnar snarled, waving his arm in a broad circle at the silent expanse of trees all around them. “Men are making fortunes and living like lords, and Julius leads us out into the middle of nowhere. Nothing to see. Nothing to loot. No women to bed.”

Ivarus, his face mostly hidden beneath the hood of his cloak, broke a branch about as thick as a man’s thumb from a tree beside the trail. Then he nudged his horse up into a trot and drew up alongside Tonnar.

“We could have them lining up to spread their legs for us for the price of a piece of bread,” Tonnar was saying. “But no—”

Ivarus quite calmly lifted the branch and broke it over Tonnar’s head. Then, without a word, he turned and nudged his horse back into his original position.

“Bloody crows!” Tonnar bellowed, reaching one hand up to clutch at his skull. “Crows and bloody furies, what is wrong with you, man?”

Kestus didn’t bother trying to hide his smile. “He thinks you’re a bloody idiot. So do I.”

“What?” Tonnar protested. “Because I want to tumble a girl or two?”

“Because you want to take advantage of people who are desperate and dying,” Kestus said. “And because you haven’t thought things through. People are starving. Disease is rampant. And soldiers get paid. How many
legionares
do you think have been murdered in their sleep for the clothes on their back, the coins in their purse? How many do you think have fallen sick and died, just like all those holders? And in case it slipped your notice, Tonnar, all those outlaws would have every reason to kill you. You’d probably be too busy trying to stay alive to spend any time humiliating women.”

Tonnar scowled.

“Look,” Kestus said. “Julius got us all the way through Kalare’s rebellion in one piece. None of our company died. And out here, we’re out of the worst of it. It might not pay as well, or have the . . . opportunities, as the patrols nearer the Waste. But we aren’t dying of plague or getting our throats cut while we sleep, either.”

“Good,” Ivarus said. “Once we hide the body, Kestus and I can switch out our mounts with yours and pick up the pace.” The hooded man glanced up at Kestus. “How much longer until we get back to camp?”

As twilight settled over the land, they rode into the glade that Julius had chosen as their camp. It was a good site. A steep hillside had provided them a place to earthcraft something that almost resembled shelter from the weather. A small stream trickled nearby, and the horses whickered, their steps quickening as they recognized the place where they would receive some grain and rest.

But just before he rode out of the shelter of the belt of heavy evergreens that surrounded the glade, Kestus stopped his horse.

Something was wrong.

His heartbeat sped up a little, as a tension with no obvious explanation seized him. He remained still for a moment, trying to trace the source of his unease.

The company of rangers patrolling this area of what had once been the lands of the High Lord Kalarus Brencis numbered a dozen strong, but three-and four-man patrols moved in and out of the camp on a regular basis. It was not inconceivable that all but a pair of the rangers were out on their rounds. It was not unthinkable that whoever was minding the camp might have gone on a quick local sweep, hoping to turn up some game.

But it didn’t seem very likely.

Ivarus brought his horse up beside Kestus’s, and murmured, “The fire’s out.”

And that pinpointed it. In an active camp, a fire was kept alight almost as a matter of course. It was too much of a headache to let it go out and continually rebuild it. Even if the fire had burned down to hot coals and ashes, there would still be the scent of woodsmoke. But Kestus couldn’t smell the camp’s fire.

The wind shifted slightly, and Kestus’s horse tensed and quivered with sudden apprehension, its wide nostrils flaring. Something moved, perhaps thirty yards away. Kestus remained still, fully aware that any motion would draw attention toward him. Footsteps sounded, crunching on fallen autumn leaves.

Julius appeared. The grizzled ranger wore his usual forest leathers, all deep browns, greys, and greens. He stopped at the fire pit, staring down at it and otherwise not moving. His mouth hung slightly open. He looked pale and weary, and his eyes were dull and flat.

He just
stood
there.

Julius never did that. There was always work to be done, and he detested wasted time. If nothing else, the man would spend any idle time he had fletching more arrows for the company.

Kestus traded a glance with Ivarus. Though the younger man did not know Julius the way Kestus did, Ivarus’s expression said that he had reached the same conclusion Kestus had as to the proper course of action—a cautious, silent withdrawal.

“Well, there’s old Julius,” Tonnar muttered. “Happy now?” He growled, kicking his heels into his horse’s flanks and nudging the beast into motion. “Can’t believe he let the fire die. Now we’ll have to rebuild it before we can eat.”

“No, fool!” hissed Kestus.

Tonnar looked back over his shoulder at them with an exasperated expression. “I’m
hungry
,” he said plaintively. “Come
on
.”

The thing that ripped its way from the earth beneath the feet of Tonnar’s mount was like nothing Kestus had ever seen.

It was huge, the size of a wagon, and covered in a gleaming, slick-looking green-black shell or armor of some kind. It had legs, a lot of them, almost like a crab’s, and great, grasping pincers like the claws of a lobster, and glittering eyes recessed into deep divots in that strange shell.

And it was strong.

It ripped a leg from Tonnar’s horse before Kestus could so much as cry out a warning.

The animal went down, screaming, blood flowing everywhere. Kestus heard Tonnar’s bones breaking as the horse landed on him. Tonnar began to scream in agony—and kept screaming as, with the other claw, the monster, whatever it was, ripped his belly open, right through his mail, and spilled his entrails into the cool air.

A half-hysterical thought flashed through Kestus’s stunned mind: The man couldn’t even
die
quietly.

The creature began to methodically rip the horse apart, its motions as swift and sure as a butcher hard at work.

Kestus felt his eyes drawn to Julius. His commander turned his head slowly to face them and opened his mouth in a slow, wide gape.

Julius screamed. But the deafening sound that came out was nothing even remotely human. There was something metallic to it, something dissonant, an odd, warbling tone that set Kestus’s teeth on edge and set the horses to dancing and tossing their heads, their eyes rolling whitely in sudden fear.

The sound died away

And an instant later, the forest came alive with rustling.

Ivarus lifted his hands and drew back his hood, the better to hear the sound. It came from all around them, cracklings of crushed fallen leaves, rasping of pine needles against something brushing through them, snapping of twigs, pinecones, fallen branches. No one sound was more than a bare murmur. But there were
thousands
of them.

The forest sounded as if it had become one enormous bonfire.

“Oh, great furies,” breathed Ivarus. “Oh bloody crows.” He shot a wide-eyed glance at Kestus as he whirled his horse, his face pale with terror. “No questions!” he snarled. “Just run! Run!”

Ivarus suited action to his words, kicking his mount into a run.

Kestus tore his eyes away from the empty-eyed
thing
that had been his commander, and sent his horse leaping after Ivarus’s.

As he did, he became aware of . . .

Things.

Things, in the forest. Things moving, keeping pace with them, shadows that remained only half-seen in the deepening darkness. None of them looked human. None of them looked like anything Kestus had ever seen. His heart pounded with raw, instinctive terror, and he called to his mount, demanding more speed.

It was madness to ride like this—through the forest, in the deepening dark. A tree trunk, a low branch, a protruding root, or any of a thousand other common things could kill a man or his horse if they collided with them in the night.

But the things were drawing closer, behind and on either side of them, and Kestus realized what it meant: They were being hunted, like fleeing deer, with the pack in full pursuit, working together to bring down the game. Terror of those hunters overrode his judgment. He only wished his horse could run faster.

Ivarus splashed across a creek and abruptly altered his course, sending his mount plowing through a thorny thicket, and Kestus was hot on his heels. As they tore through the thicket, ripping their hides and the hides of their mounts, Ivarus reached into his belt pouch and drew forth a small globe made of what looked like black glass. He said something to it, then spun in his saddle, shouted, “Down!” and threw it at Kestus’s face.

Kestus ducked. The globe zipped over his hunched shoulders, and into the dark behind them.

There was a sudden flash of light and a roar of flame. Kestus shot a glance over his shoulder, to see fire spreading over the thicket with such manic intensity that it could only have been the result of some kind of furycraft. It washed out like a wave, spreading in all directions, burning the dried material of the thickets in eager conflagration—and it was moving fast. Faster than their horses were running.

They burst free of the thicket barely a panicked heartbeat ahead of the roaring flame—but not before two creatures the size of large cats came flying out of the blaze, burning like a flock of comets. Kestus got a glimpse of a too-large, spiderlike creature—and then one of them landed on the back of Ivarus’s horse, still blazing.

The horse screamed, and its hoof struck a fallen log or a depression in the forest floor. It went down in a bone-breaking tumble, taking Ivarus with it.

Kestus was sure that the man was as good as dead, just as Tonnar had been. But Ivarus leapt clear of the falling horse, tucked into a roll, and controlled his fall, coming back to his feet several yards later. Without missing a beat, he drew the short
gladius
from his belt, impaled the creature still clinging to his mount’s haunches, then hacked the second burning spider-thing from the air before it could reach him.

Before the corpse had hit the ground, Ivarus hurled two more of the black globes into the night behind them, one to the left and the other to the right. Blazing curtains of fire sprang to life in seconds, joining with the inferno of the burning thicket.

Kestus fought his panicked horse to a halt, savagely forced it to turn, and rode back for Ivarus, while the wounded horse continued to scream in agony. He extended his hand. “Come on!”

Ivarus turned and, with a single, clean stroke, ended the horse’s suffering. “We won’t get away from them riding double,” he said.

“You don’t know that!”

“Crows, man, there’s no time! They’ll circle that screen and be on top of us in seconds. Get
out
of here, Kestus! You’ve got to report this.”

“Report
what
?” Kestus all but screamed. “Bloody crows and—”