Interregnum Read online

  Four men stood in a small knot, one fumbling for another arrow, while the other three hefted their swords menacingly. They wore the pale green tunics of Lord Celio, a lighter shade than the old Imperial Green. They also had the look of professional soldiers, rather than mercenaries. As always in situations like this, instinct took over, leaving no time for practical thought. As he came up and before he’d fully registered the situation, already his hand had wrenched his two throwing knives from the leather thong on which they hung and had brought them up in a sharp, underhand throw. The knives; straight, chisel-tipped steel blades with bone handles, hurtled through the air and hit the bowman in the left shoulder and the left leg. Athas had tried time and again to teach him with the best weighted knives available but, regardless, Kiva would never make a marksman. Still, the bow was effectively out of commission. The archer grunted and stumbled, the bow dropping from his suddenly spasming fingers.

  As one of the four soldiers opened his mouth to speak, Kiva was already diving into his next move, rolling between them with his fingertips touching the pommels of his swords.

  “Captain Tre…”

  The soldier’s voice tailed off as Kiva’s blade tore through his hamstring. As the Captain had dropped and somersaulted, he’d whipped both his slightly curved blades out to the sides and had come up half a sentence later behind the middle two, having sliced neatly through the tendons at the back of the knees. From rounding the corner to standing behind them and watching them fall had been mere seconds.

  With a sharp cry of pain the speaker collapsed in a heap, his blade flailing out at random. The man on the other side had slid to the ground, whimpering and clutching his knee. The archer began to back away down the hill, while the remaining enemy soldier stood facing the captain, looking somewhat startled. Kiva lifted one foot and kicked against the high perimeter wall, spinning in a half circle and lashing out with his swords as he turned. Before he even saw his opponent, he heard the slicing sound of carved meat and felt the slight resistance tugging at the blades. As he landed, catlike, on his feet before the man, he watched his victim’s torso slide gently off the pelvis, the spine entirely severed. He looked down at the half body, registering with distaste the startled look still on the face as the lower half of the body toppled slowly backwards. Kiva stepped back.

  He looked down at the two crippled but active men flailing around on the floor and clutching their wounds. They looked a great deal less smug now than they had a moment ago.

  “The problem with full-time soldiers” he noted coldly as he trod carefully among the viscera, “is you tend to stand there and bluff and bluster when you could be busy actually killing.”

  He kicked the half-body out of his way and strode over to the two.

  “Another problem is that you’re hampered by certain codes” Kiva said with a feral grin. “I’m not.”

  Stepping on the hamstrung knee, causing another scream of pain, he leaned forward and thrust his blade into the second man’s gullet. As he pulled the sword back out, he twisted and a large piece of the soldier’s neck came with it. The gush of dark blood washed over his companion who was now visibly terrified.

  “I don’t like leaving a live enemy” he continued as if instructing a new recruit. “They tend to come back to haunt you.”

  With a heavy slash, he beheaded the remaining man and, turning, shaded his eyes with his hand, trying to spot the archer. The severed head rolled past his feet and off down the hill. The archer hadn’t got very far, clutching his painful, bleeding leg and stumbling down the slightly treacherous slope toward the stream. Kiva growled. He hated having to chase people down.

  “Can we help, sir?”

  The captain turned and glanced up at the top of the wall. Three of the company were peering over the parapet at the grisly scene and he could hear the others scrambling across the farmyard now. Athas gestured down the hill.

  “I might miss at that distance,” the big sergeant admitted, “but it’s a shot I’d bet the lad could make. He’s more of a huntsman.”

  Kiva merely nodded and then set about the job of looting the bodies below the wall. Athas and Quintillian appeared at the top and the lad looked down. He squinted for a moment as he tried to make out the details of the scene below and then the colour slowly drained from his face. Muffled gagging sounds accompanied his desperate attempts to hold in his breakfast. The captain crouched, grey and unconcerned, among the severed pieces of human beings, busily rifling through their pouches. Athas grabbed a handful of the boy’s tunic and hauled him back upright.

  “I know it’s not nice when you’re not used to it,” he told the lad soothingly, “but we haven’t got time for this. See that man in green? Down near the river?”

  Quintillian continued to stare blankly at the sergeant, his face white.

  “Can you hit him or not?” Athas queried, his voice more commanding.

  The boy turned robotically to look down the hill, trying not to catch the huge splash of red beneath him out of the corner of his eye. The archer had almost reached the stream. It would be a very long shot, but he’d hit worse. He nodded, gulping in air rapidly.

  “Then do it.”

  Athas stuck three arrows in the wall while the boy unhooked his bow and tested the string gingerly. As the sergeant looked across, he saw some colour returning to Quintillian’s face. The lad plucked one of the arrows from the wall and nocked it, aiming carefully. Steadying his breath, he released the arrow.

  The shaft arced up into the sunlit air and curved down, picking up speed as it fell toward the river. Athas realised he too was holding his breath as the arrow narrowly missed the soldier and splashed into the water. The lad let out his breath in a huge rush and slapped his hand on the wall in irritation.

  “It’s too far” he shook his head. “He’s almost out of range.”

  Athas plucked the second arrow and thrust it towards Quintillian, who accepted it reluctantly. The sergeant gestured to Thalo, who nodded and proffered another bow. In return, Athas held the arrow to him. Thalo stepped up to the wall, stretched out the bow, took the arrow, nocked it and fired with barely a pause to aim. Quintillian’s carefully-aimed shot flew out away from the wall a mere fraction of a second later.

  Even Kiva stopped and turned to watch as the two arrows reached their apex and then began their descent. Thalo’s came down first, remarkably accurate considering his lack of aim, punching deep into the man’s calf, splintering the bone and jutting out of his shin. Before the figure even hit the water the second arrow, quintillian’s, struck him in the back, entering just below the shoulder blade. The distant figure crumpled into the stream, quickly staining the slow-running water red. Kiva stood back and looked up at the wall.

  “Whoever goes down there to get my throwing knives back gets to keep anything they loot from his body.”

  As Kiva stretched and made his way back along the wall toward the gate, Marco and Thalo turned and raced toward the gate in the wall. Athas slapped Quintillian on the shoulder.

  “Not too bad” he said admiringly. “That was a hard shot.”

  The lad was still very pale and shaky. He smiled weakly and then leaned forward over the parapet and retched convulsively for the best part of a minute, though nothing actually came up. Wiping his mouth with an exceedingly shaky hand, he leaned heavily on the wall, letting the bow fall to the ground, unheeded.

  “He… the captain… butchered them all himself, didn’t he?”

  “He did, lad” Athas answered mildly. “He’s very good at it. You could be that good one day with enough training and practice. Unfortunately, like me you’ve got a conscience and they tend to get in the way. He hasn’t. Not any more.”

  The rest of the company had drifted back toward the main door of the farmhouse. Kiva had continued on round the wall of the house, and Thalo and Marco were racing for the body in the stream. The sergeant and the young man were practically alone. Quintillian looked up at the huge warrior.

  “What ma
de him this cold?” he asked with true feeling. “You’ve known him a long time. He must tell you everything, yes?”

  Once again, Athas raised an eyebrow. The boy was always prying; probing for information. In another man it might be indicative of a spy, but for some reason Athas was sure of the lad’s trustworthiness. The sergeant rarely pried too deeply into peoples’ lives, tending to rely mostly on gut instinct. He sighed; gut instinct was good, but some things weren’t his to tell.

  “I’ll tell you a lot of things you need or want to know lad, but not things like that.” Turning, the big sergeant fixed Quintillian with a direct glance. “You want to know about the captain, you’ll have to ask him. And I’d recommend you get to know him a lot better first. D’you drink?”

  Quintillian smiled. “I’ve been known to have a few glasses of wine after lunch.”

  “Hah. Well never mind.” Athas grinned and proffered a flask. The boy took it curiously, unplugged the lid, and sniffed delicately at the contents. He recoiled in horror.

  “What in the name of … What is that?”

  The sergeant grinned.

  “It’s something they make in the northlands” he laughed. “The captain introduced me to it many years ago. It tastes like someone scraping their boot on your tongue, but it grows on you and there’s nothing better for hiding the smell of fresh carnage and the taste of bile.”

  Quintillian took a slight pull at the tip of the flask and the look of horror intensified. He made a hollow throaty noise, reminiscent of his earlier retching.

  “That’s foul!”

  “Isn’t it though?” Athas beamed. “Have more. It’ll do you good.”

  The sergeant glanced down once more at the scene below the wall.

  “Come on” he sighed. “Let’s get back to the house.”

  The two of them wandered along the farmyard until they reached the front gate, where Athas collared Brendan.

  “Can you take someone and dispose of the mess below the wall. I don’t think we want the kind of attention that brings. Let’s not leave a trail for anyone to follow.”

  Brendan rubbed his shaved head unhappily, but nodded nonetheless.

  “Aye” he said reluctantly. “S’right. We’ll sort it sarge.”

  Kiva wandered back in through the gate as two of the soldiers left to deal with the mess. He eyed Athas and the boy thoughtfully.

  “They were pretty good shots” he said to the boy. “Care to get up in one of those windows and keep watch for us? Four of Celio’s men were looking for our unit, so I’d bet there’ll be more out there.”

  Quintillian looked up at Athas questioningly, and the sergeant nodded. The boy frowned.

  “I don’t mind keeping watch sir, but I’m not sure I’m the right man for shooting people. I’ve never shot anything animate before other than rabbits and birds. I’m not really sure how I feel about what I’ve just done.”

  Kiva narrowed his eyes.

  “What you just did helped save the company” he replied, his voice firm but understanding. “Get used to it. There’ll be times in your life when you’ll need to be capable of acts of brutality.”

  His frown deepened as his thoughts raced and the monologue continued inside his head ‘…and your family carry the most brutal of all madnesses.’

  Instead, he forced a smile and slapped Athas on the shoulder.

  “You’d best go with him and talk” he added. “You’re the sensitive sort. I just border on ‘don’t give a shit!’”

  As Kiva wandered off to sit in the shade of an old haywain, Athas escorted the young man up the staircase to the top floor of the farmhouse. The wide balcony let in a great deal of light, though the window on the far wall stood shuttered, blocking the worst glare of the sun. Athas gestured to the balcony and the two chairs that sat there. The pair wandered over and made themselves comfortable, the sergeant with his feet up on the worryingly rickety balcony. He shifted his weight and dust and fragments of worm-eaten wood drifted down into the farmyard.

  Quintillian glanced out of the corner of his eye at the now relaxed-looking sergeant. Athas rubbed his nose and then drew out his flask of brew. Taking a slug, he recorked it and returned it to its accustomed place on his belt.

  The young man cleared his throat nervously and Athas realised another difficult question was looming over him.

  “What now?”

  Quintillian sat up straighter in the chair and turned to face the older man.

  “Your flask” he said, “has some engraving on it, yes?”

  “Mmm. So?”

  “A wolf’s head and some writing?” pushed the boy.

  Athas narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at lad?”

  The boy shuffled uncomfortably.

  “I saw the same markings on the captain’s flask. The wolf and the lettering. Does it have meaning for the Grey Company? The flask you issued me doesn’t have it on.”

  Athas let out a long sigh.

  “You’ve got to stop asking questions” he implored. “They make everyone feel uncomfortable. We’re a mercenary unit and that means that there isn’t a single man here that doesn’t have something to hide; usually something he’s ashamed of in his past.”

  Quintillian smiled.

  “Just one more, then.”

  “What?” replied the sergeant.

  “Was the captain ever married?” the boy asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

  Athas growled and turned to face him.

  “All right,” he answered, “but this is the last time you ever mention that subject, and I’m only telling you so you don’t make a mistake and ask him. Yes, he was. She died just after the collapse. It’s not a very nice or happy story and it’s one I never want to hear you ask the captain. Understood?”

  Quintillian nodded and shuffled back to face the countryside over the balcony. The sun was glorious, lighting the green and gold fields as far as the eye could see.

  “I’m just interested in what makes him what he is” the boy continued. “I’ve never met anyone who seems so bitter and yet I can’t get over the feeling that that’s not really him. D’you know what I mean?”

  “Story closed. Ok?”

  The two sat in silence for a long moment and finally the sergeant sighed.

  “Tell me something for a change” he said, rounding on Quintillian. “You studied in that community. I find it hard to picture a scholarly community getting by these days. It was ok in the old days before the Emperor went m… Before the collapse. But now? There’s precious little room in the world for quiet thought and study. What kind of people are they?”

  The lad smiled.

  “So now you’ll interrogate me, yes?”

  Athas merely raised an eyebrow and made a beckoning motion.

  “Ok” the boy began. “Well, I suppose the most important person to me on the island is my best friend Darius. I suspect you’d like him. He’s about the same age as me, but a little more active. He doesn’t study as much as I do. Well he does, but only really history, war, geography and politics. He is good at sports; and at fighting. We used to be trained in all sorts of fighting, even unarmed, and the only thing I ever regularly beat him at was archery. I can usually trick him into things though.”

  “So why wasn’t he sent out instead of you?” the sergeant queried, his eyebrows raised in genuine interest. “Sounds more like someone you want charging round the countryside with money, no offence intended.”

  “None taken” the boy replied. “The honest answer is that I don’t actually know. He would be better in truth. And he would fit in much better with the Grey Company. Still, I’m here on the orders of the elders and he’s not.”

  A shout from below drew their attention to the grassland before the farm. A figure was jogging down the hill at some pace. Athas had the bow at the ready but, after a moment he laughed, dropped the weapon and leaned over the balcony.

  “Scauvus is back already” he grinned. “He looks happy and he’s waving somethin
g.”

  He turned and smiled at Quintillian as he began to make for the stairs.

  “Conversation’s now for another time. Gotta go. Coming?”

  The lad returned the smile.

  “I’ll follow on in just a moment” he replied.

  Quintillian had always thought of himself as a lateral thinker; a planner. He hated having to lie to people, but he knew when he had to and he was good at it. He’d always been one step ahead of the game, his entire life. And yet no matter how much he tried to think it through he couldn’t figure out why they’d left. They’d put the rest of the community in danger and fled in the middle of the night to gather money for heaven knows what purpose. No matter what reasons the elders had given him, he was well aware of the island’s status and the complete isolation from the world in which they were kept. Darius would have been much better on that dangerous night-time boat trip; much better at the hiding and travelling by night they’d have to put up with before they’d reached a safe enough distance from the island. Why was he here then, and not Darius? Why did they need money when they’d never have the opportunity to buy something? With Tomas and Enarion dead, there was little hope of finding anything out until he made it back to Isera. The elders were too clever by far and their reasons escaped him. As he turned and followed down the stairs to see his gold returned, he couldn’t help but wonder what the whole point was.

  Chapter IV.

  Quintillian sighed and rounded his shoulders before reaching down and removing his boots with a great deal of relief. It had been a long and arduous march since leaving the farmhouse and he’d watched with growing frustration as they’d passed four villages that the captain had considered too risky to enter. After twenty miles or so Tregaron had begun to relax a little, since they were out of Lord Bergama’s lands and considerably safer. A further ten miles had brought them to the small town of Acasio and its warm, welcoming tavern. In fairness, he’d been allowed to spend a great deal of the journey in the cart with the equipment; a cart that he was fairly sure the captain had stolen from a nearby farm. Of the thirty-some miles they’d travelled, the lad had probably walked between ten and fifteen, but then he wasn’t used to such long distance hiking, and especially not with weapons and kit.