Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5) Read online

  Protected to the west and south by a natural rocky escarpment that would present an impossible barrier to any attacker, the derelict fortress was surrounded on the other sides by twin ditches and ramparts of a size that would make an imperial engineer sweat to think of. A single ramp crossed the ditches and cut through the mounds to the centre.

  The men had needed to do none of the usual fortifying of the night’s camp, simply setting guard and then going about the business of raising tents and cooking meals.

  The whole army seemed to be feeling heartened and relaxed by this and, despite the hard march, encouraged by the possibility of loot to be had in further campaigns. The victory at the Dunarii fortress seemed to have gone to everyone’s heads, making them feel invincible. No one seemed to share Bellacon’s memory of a desperate, dangerous gambit that could as easily have failed dreadfully as succeeded.

  Lissa also seemed less enchanted with the situation, though. Whenever the tribune had caught sight of her around camp over the last few days, or in the army on the march, she’d looked expectant and worried. Haunted. And worst of all, she maintained that odd preternatural awareness, and whenever he looked at her, she was invariably already looking back at him, her gaze loaded with tension and questions. About what, though?

  Bellacon had hardly expected glory or acclaim for his victory in the face of the general’s anger over his earlier demonstration, but nor had he been prepared for the backlash that actually occurred. The general had heaped praise on the artillerists, the archers and the cavalry in particular for the victory, and had not once spoken Bellacon’s name.

  Then, in the aftermath of the battle, as things were settled, loot distributed, prisoners roped up and so on, the depth of the general’s spite became clear. All officers were invited to a victory feast in the general’s tent. Except Tribune Bellacon. All officers were then summoned the next day to the briefing. Except Bellacon. And so on.

  His fellow officers displayed surprising sympathy. His careful planning, preserving of life and cunning tactics had earned him their respect, but still they kept away for clearly the general had made it known that Bellacon was now a pariah. He had not been disciplined or removed, for he was the emperor’s man, and therefore immune to such things. But he had been effectively shut out of the army’s command system.

  He had attempted to see the general several times, each time to no avail. Volentius’ guards would not admit him. And so the legion marched north-east with the tribune on the periphery, fuming, uncertain as to why they had moved on so quickly without consolidating their victory in the west. The general wouldn’t see him, and the rest of the officers, those who weren’t avoiding him altogether, would tell him nothing that had been discussed in the command meeting, their lips sealed by order of the general.

  But now the time had come. Bellacon was determined. Furious. Because here, at this ancient native fort, the scouts informed him, the trade road veered off to the west and made for Silvanes lands. Perhaps that was what had made Lissa so tense, though she need not be. The scouts had been sent to range north, not west, while the army encamped. The Silvanes, it seemed, were to be ignored.

  No general with an ounce of wit swept through a land conquering but leaving the beaten peoples alone to reform and create new resistance. Consolidation was the key to imperial expansion and always had been.

  Gritting his teeth, determined, Bellacon heeled his horse and rode along the high rampart to the causeway, dropping to the lower turf and making for the gate where already six soldiers stood guard. He gave his name and the agreed password and rode inside, along the rows of identical leather tents, heading to the huge command tent at the camp’s highest point, and the general’s own quarters close by.

  It was time to confront Volentius, persuade him that he was letting childish self-importance and jealousy get in the way of good military command and that his policy of moving onwards was foolish.

  The command tent was guarded by two soldiers in the general’s personal guard uniform and they eyed Bellacon warily as he dismounted, tied up his horse, and approached.

  ‘Is the general within?’

  One of the soldiers shook his head and issued a grunt. ‘The general’s in his quarters.’

  Bellacon nodded and turned, walking away with a deliberate air of ignorance as the soldiers both opened their mouths to tell him he would not be admitted. Leaving behind their calls, he marched to the general’s tent, where two more soldiers stood on guard.

  ‘I need to see the general.’

  ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible,’ one of the guards said, politely but with an edge of threat.

  Bellacon fixed him with a stare that would melt steel.

  ‘Be assured, soldier, that I am going to see the general. I am this army’s second-in-command, appointed by the empire’s chief marshal on the authority of the emperor himself. If you attempt to prevent my entry, I will take that as a matter of insurrection – mutiny, even, against your second most senior officer. My authority extends to field executions. Did you know that?’

  He leaned menacingly close to the man.

  ‘If I decide that you are wilfully disobeying my orders, I am quite within my rights to take your head here and now. Some would argue with me, but ultimately the decision as to whether I did the right thing would rest with the emperor. I have a feeling I might be vindicated, but even if I were not, you would still be staring up at your own neck, so that wouldn’t be much consolation for you, would it?’

  The soldier shared a panicked look with his companion, who shrugged and locked his gaze on some point in the middle distance.

  ‘Now either I can hand you my sword and go in to see the general, or you can have my sword point-first. What’s it to be?’

  ‘He didn’t see you, sir,’ hissed the other man, his eyes still on the hills beyond.

  ‘What?’ barked his friend.

  ‘We didn’t see him, did we, Tullus?’

  Grasping at this possibility, the more vocal guard straightened and fixed his gaze on that same distant spot. ‘See who?’

  ‘Anyone who wasn’t here,’ replied his companion.

  Bellacon frowned for a moment, then nodded and slid his sword from its scabbard with a rasping hiss, passing it to the man called Tullus, who took it reluctantly, not convinced he wanted to safeguard the sword of a man he most definitely hadn’t seen.

  Pushing aside the tent flap without knocking – he would be unwelcome at best, and so knocking seemed a pointless formality – Bellacon was intrigued to learn more of the general’s private world. Volentius met his officers in the command tent and, to Bellacon’s knowledge, none but his body-slave and Lissa had been inside his quarters.

  The general was not in the main room of the tent, which showed sterile organisation, having been recently erected, furnished and installed by the men, and clearly untouched by its owner. At the centre, a small fire pit had been dug and lined with stones and now a healthy blaze of coals burned gold in there, lending the room a stifling cosy warmth that warded off the chill of the evening outside. A small oculus in the tent’s apex let out the smoke and kept the room clear of fug.

  ‘General Volentius?’

  There was a surprised murmur from one of the two rear compartments, each accessible through a canvas door to the rear of this room. Bellacon was disappointed, though hardly surprised, to hear the distinctive clunk of a wine jar dropping to the ground, followed by the clack and rattle of a cup.

  ‘Mmph?’

  A moment later, the dividing door was swept aside and Volentius appeared in the gap. He was still wearing his travel- and sweat-stained uniform tunic and breeches. His face sagged as though tired of clinging to the bone, trying to run down and join his chest. His eyes were a bleary pink, and he staggered as though exhausted.

  They had only been in camp for an hour. How had the man managed to get himself in this state so quickly? He must, Bellacon decided, have been drinking throughout the journey too.

 
‘Who? Bellacon?’

  The incredulity in the general’s voice was marred by a slur to his speech.

  ‘I needed to see you, General.’

  ‘How did you get in here? You have no right!’

  ‘On the contrary, General, as your second-in-command who has been deliberately excluded from all command, I consider it entirely my right. If you will answer my queries, then I will depart and leave you in peace. I have no wish to anger you further or to draw up lines in opposition, but it is my duty to see that the campaign proceeds according to plan and to aid you in the prosecution of the war as best I can.’

  Tension crackled in the air like lightning, raising the hairs on the tribune’s arm. He could feel the gods manoeuvring the pieces on their playing board and had never felt more at risk than he did right now. He was acutely aware that he was unarmed and the men outside were skilled with the weapons at their sides. All it would take was an angry shout, and the general seemed to think he had reason enough for that shout.

  Volentius staggered over to a chair and slumped into it, his pink, watery eyes narrowed as they regarded the tribune suspiciously.

  Bellacon realised with disgust that the soldiers or slaves who had put the room together had left a small tray beside that chair with a jar and a cup on it. The general reached down and gathered them shakily, tilting the jar and slopping wine into the cup, only missing a little. He threw a sizeable gulp down and, returning the jar, rubbed the top of his nose.

  ‘I have no desire to go to war with my own officers, Bellacon,’ Volentius said suddenly, and the tribune now frowned to match his commander. He’d expected confrontation from the general’s manner. But then who could predict the actions of a drunk?

  ‘It’s just…’ Volentius went on wearily, ‘that there is a lot of pressure on me here. I have… I have to show that I can achieve now what I couldn’t so long ago. And I’m old, Bellacon. Old and tired. But I have to be the man of the hour. I have to. Do you know why?’

  The tribune was so taken aback by this shifting attitude that he merely mumbled something unintelligible, his frown locked in place. He could feel the gods’ dice rolling, and this seeming civility would only hold, he was sure, until they stopped bouncing and came to rest.

  ‘We were all disgraced,’ Volentius went on, ‘when we returned from Alba years ago. All of us. Generals, officers and men. We had failed. Utterly. But it was worst for Crito, Quietus and I, for we had found the key to the place. We were on the cusp of success when it all collapsed. And instead of returning to Velutio to ride through the noble streets on chariots as the people threw flowers at us, instead of receiving corona from the emperor himself, instead of assuring the advance of our houses and names forever more, we returned in sullen darkness, landing and slinking off to our commands while the great General Anicius Rufus reported our disaster to the emperor in person. You have no idea what that is like. You just don’t know.’

  The general drained his cup and refilled it and, oddly, for the first time, Bellacon felt he had something of the measure of the old sot. An understanding of what had brought him so low. Still the hairs on his neck bristled, waiting for those dice to finish rolling.

  ‘So, Tribune, I am old and unwell. This is my last chance to secure a future for the line of the Volentii. I have two sons and seven grandsons. And some girls here and there too. And they live with the stigma of being sired by a shamed man. But if I can be the one to bring Alba to heel, I can rebuild it. Not for me. I’m old and broken. But for my family. For my grandsons. I can be the hero at last, and they can hold their heads proud. Do you see what I mean?’

  Bellacon nodded. This was all well and good, and had done something to rob him of the anger that had driven him here, but it was doing nothing to solve the problems.

  ‘General, I came to ask about our policy of campaign. You had led me to believe we were to pacify the west and then move elsewhere. Well, we broke the Dunarii, yes, but we did nothing to consolidate our gains. We should have gathered the beaten tribes and delivered them the imperial oath. We should have left a small garrison at that fortress. We needed to spend some time striking deals with their nobles and priests and making the place a settled province. Instead, we marched away almost immediately, and now the Dunarii are probably already re-inhabiting that fortress and rebuilding, ready to resist us again.’

  He paced back and forth for a moment, preparing to push things.

  ‘What was the point in breaking them if we were not going to remain and consolidate? And now it seems we march north again, ignoring the Silvanes, who are clearly the second most powerful tribe in the region. Once more we seem to be leaving the west to fester behind us as we turn prematurely north. I need to understand your thinking, General, because I simply cannot fathom your strategy.’

  Volentius chuckled and reached for the jug even as he downed the next cup. His searching fingers knocked over the jar and he cursed as he scrabbled to right it and then refill the cup once again.

  ‘I actually like you, Bellacon. That’s why it irritated me to cut you out. But I cannot afford to be seen to be one-upped by my deputy. When you second guess me and are proved justified it cuts holes in what’s left of my reputation. It puts further obstacles in the way of my regaining favour. Do you see? If you would only support me, we could both rise. Because if I am the man who takes Alba, imagine what glory awaits my second-in-command.’

  His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper and he tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘You want to know why we don’t tarry in the west when we did earlier?’

  Bellacon’s breathing became shallow in expectation. One of the divine dice rolled to a stop.

  ‘Yes, General. I seek to understand.’

  ‘You will not have heard of the Albantes?’

  ‘No, General.’

  ‘Of course not. They’re the biggest and most powerful tribe on this whole wet, stinking island. They cover much of its northern half, up there in the blasted heathland where the warriors paint themselves blue and eat the flesh of their enemies. It’s not for nothing that their tribe shares a name with the island. The Albantes are the key to Alba, and they always have been. The tribes down here in the south are pitiful by comparison – relatively calm and civilised. The Albantes are our ultimate goal, Bellacon. Their defeat is what will subdue this island. Anything we do down here will be largely irrelevant if the Albantes fall.’

  Bellacon’s frown merely deepened. The general’s answers were just raising more questions.

  ‘And the Albantes,’ Volentius went on, ‘have a fortress like the one we just fought. Bigger. More powerful. I forget its name, but it sits like a hub at the heart of this land, amid the Albantes in the north. We found the place twenty years ago, you see… Quietus and Crito and I. We were prefects then in the northernmost force of a huge invasion army. Our commander had contracted some virulent disease in this stinking place and died, leaving us largely looking after our own units. We found the fortress but we failed to take it. It was too powerful. We returned south only to find that Anicius Rufus had made a mess of the whole thing and the army had been massacred. We pulled out and the fortress was never taken. We went home in disgrace.’

  Bellacon nodded, more questions presenting themselves as he thought through the whole thing. Why then were the three generals still moving separately? Why not march for this place to begin with in strength? Why go west at all, let alone dithering and failing to secure it?

  ‘We have only to take the Albantes’ fortress, Bellacon, and Alba will be ours. And we will take it. We will. Lissa has seen it. She has seen the Vulture flag flying over it and me standing beneath that banner. So that is where we now march, Bellacon. We move on the Albantes and to victory. And my sons… my sons will know glory.’

  ‘General,’ Bellacon said folding his arms, his brow still furrowed, ‘why then did we go west? Why not go straight north in the first place?’

  Volentius snorted and then tapped the side of his nose co
nspiratorially. ‘Because it’s all a matter of timing, Tribune. Some things need to happen. Plans need to succeed first.’

  Suspicion flooded Bellacon, and must have shown clearly on his face, for the general straightened suddenly. The second die teetered, ready to drop. The gods held their breath. A frisson prickled Bellacon’s skin.

  ‘Sometimes it is important to be seen to be innocent,’ the general said, putting down his cup and narrowly missing the tray. The half-full vessel tipped on its side, the dark red liquid pouring out onto the creased rug.

  ‘You mean… like an alibi?’ muttered Bellacon, beginning to feel rather uncomfortable.

  Volentius suddenly launched himself upright, swaying slightly as the gods’ last die came down showing a one.

  ‘You! You almost had me then, Bellacon. You got me trusting you again, you weasel. I’m foolish, but not that foolish. I can see through you like a window. An imperial appointment my arse. Who are you really working for? Quietus? That unpredictable lunatic. Or is it Crito, the barbarian-loving traitor? Or maybe even sour old Senator Anicius Rufus? Who is it, eh, Bellacon?’

  The tribune suddenly became aware that the general was armed, as Volentius’ trembling fingers reached the pommel of the sword at his side and spidered around it.

  ‘General –’

  ‘No, Bellacon. I’ll not have a snake in my ranks. You’re done with your spying and undermining.’

  ‘General, I am not your enemy,’ Bellacon said quietly. ‘This is the wine talking.’

  ‘Oh, so now I cannot think because I am so drunk? And what have you put in my wine, eh, Bellacon? Poppy is it? To fog my brain? You slimy reptile.’

  ‘General, none of that is true.’

  But the general let out a roar of anger and tore the blade from its scabbard. Bellacon’s desperate eyes slid around the room for something with which to defend himself. Somehow he doubted that shouting for the guards outside would improve matters. The only other blade was behind Volentius, next to an ornate shield and the general’s helmet. He backed away, realising even as he did so that he was simply cornering himself.