The Legions of the Mist

by Damion Hunter

  Gwytha, watching nervously from across the street, saw Justin haul a ragged child out of the crowd. Faced with the spears of the soldiers, the boy seemed to disintegrate with terror.

  ‘He give me a penny to do it,’ the child wailed. ‘The man did, a penny!’ He exhibited the evidence in a grubby paw.

  ‘What man?’

  ‘I don’t know! A big man. Oh, please, let me go, I didn’t mean no harm!’

  Justin knelt down and looked him in the eye. ‘You’re lucky you aren’t older, my boy. As it is, I think you’re too young to be much of a threat to the Empire. Now you tell me what man gave you a penny.’

  ‘One o’ them.’ The child pointed at the soldiers still lining the street.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No… but he was like ’em.’ The child tugged at Justin’s grip on his forearm. ‘I didn’t mean no harm.’

  ‘No, but I’ll be bound someone else did,’ Justin muttered. He turned the child over his knee and gave him a swift smack. ‘That’s for throwing rocks at your betters, even for a penny. Now take yourself off.’

  He stood up and surveyed the crowd. There would be precious little chance of finding the man with the penny. In uniform, one legionary would look very much like another to a seven-year-old. He swore and turned back. ‘All right, move along. The parade’s over. And remember that this kind of thing does none of us any good.’

  The crowd melted away like smoke and Justin made his way over to Gwytha and his friends. ‘It’s going to be a long day.’

  ‘Was that what it looked like?’ Licinius asked.

  ‘Mmmm. One of ours. Damn them!’

  ‘This is hardly going to dispose the Governor in our favor,’ Hilarion said. ‘Any idea who it was?’

  ‘No. “A man gave him a penny.”’

  ‘Justin, this is serious.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. I just hope it doesn’t give some other damn idiot any ideas.’

  * * *

  Justin returned to the house in town late that night, tired and disgruntled. Gwytha was curled on a couch in the atrium, a pool of light from the oil lamp casting her face into sharp relief. She opened one eye as the door opened, closed it again, sat up, and stretched. Slowly both eyes opened, and she gazed at him foggily. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Well into the third watch.’ He dragged his breastplate over his head and flung it in the corner. ‘What are you doing still up?’

  ‘I wanted to be sure you were all right.’

  ‘What did you think was going to happen to me?’

  ‘How should I know what your precious Legion is going to do? But you talked as if there might be trouble.’

  ‘There’s trouble enough when a man of the Legion commissions a rock for the Governor. If he’d been caught that would have been the end of him. As it is, things aren’t going to be very pleasant for any of us. We’ve all drawn double duty for a month.’

  ‘Was there any more trouble?’

  ‘No, they’re all tucked safe in their little beds,’ he said disgustedly. Justin had spent a trying night collaring drunks, settling financial disputes between the wine-sellers and their customers, and separating legionaries who wanted to punch each other’s noses out of sheer exuberance. In between he had overseen the search for ‘the man with the penny.’ His shin ached where it had been kicked in the process of breaking up a fight between one of Venus Julia’s girls and a local competitor; he was tired, and he wanted to go to bed.

  Gwytha held out her hand, and he let her lead him into the bedroom, sitting docilely while she unbuckled his sandals and stripped his tunic over his head. She pushed him gently down on the bed and curled up beside him. Next to her soft warmth, he found the prospect of an uninterrupted month in barracks long and bleak. Stirring, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. As always, the same wild longing took him as he cradled her.

  Gwytha turned her eyes to his, caught them, as if searching for something… and then suddenly it was as if a door had opened and set free a longing in her to match his own. She ran her hands along his body and smiled in delight as she felt his response. And then, her eyes still on his own, she pulled him down to her.

  Gwytha had been a compliant and agreeable bed partner from the first, but always her own emotions had been held in reserve, and Justin had known that the wild and dark desire which always took him when he lay with her was not something which she shared. Lately it had seemed that that reserve had begun to thaw… and now suddenly it was washed away on a wild spring flood of emotions so strong he could watch their changes in her eyes. He pressed deeper inside her, his eyes locked hungrily on hers, and the joy on her face as she felt and mirrored his throbbing want of her was blinding.

  Exultantly, he laughed and gripped her harder, and together his hard, scarred body and her soft one rolled entwined, and Justin knew for the first time the satisfaction of giving over his whole soul to one whose soul came flying out to meet him.

  As their mounting passion pulled them higher, he felt he could not bear to lose this wonder yet, and he sat up and back, astride her. For the first time she took her eyes from his and lowered them to watch his body join with hers. He reached out his hands to the upturned tips of her breasts, feeling them harden between his fingers, until she reached up to him with her eyes and brought him down to her again.

  And suddenly the desire that drove him was longing no more, but the joy of the one half as it comes together with the other. And thus, deep in each other’s eyes, they mounted the peaks of the world together, and lay at last spent at the gates of Paradise.

  * * *

  A bitter wind from the north rustled in the streets, scattering the night’s debris, and the grey dawn hung in the trees as a shivering bugler made his way across the Principia and blew an icy reveille.

  In the house below the walls, the light of the forgotten oil lamp shone where two sleeping figures lay still entwined.

  XI

  The Spring of Many Horses

  The meadow was alive with new foals. Bays and duns and blacks, they frisked about their placid dams, heels high in the air, sending up showers of pebbles and tufts of new grass. Galt, leaning his arms on the stone wall that fenced in the lower end of the little valley, watched them with approval. He nodded his satisfaction at Ewan, the grey-haired horseman who schooled the chariot herd.

  ‘Aye, they be a good lot.’ Ewan scratched his chin and followed the careening foals with an approving eye. He was a taciturn man who spoke more freely to his beloved horses than to his fellow tribesmen, and Galt privately suspected that the old trainer thought him a frivolous fellow. But since Galt’s skill with horses was near the equal of Ewan’s own, he had the old man’s grudging respect.

  Of the mares taken in the Painted People’s raid, all but two had been recovered, and the herd had been augmented by twenty more sturdy brood mares and as many promising two- and three-year-olds as Vortrix had been able to buy. The additions had been made quietly, bought singly for the most part, with no mention of a purchase on the High King’s behalf.

  ‘How many could be war-trained in, say, a year, think you?’ Galt asked.

  ‘Of our own stock, all of this year’s two-year-olds, and they’re the biggest lot we’ve had yet. You might put some of this season’s yearlings in, but it’s not a thing I’d advise,’ he added drily.

  ‘Nor I, friend, unless it’s do or die.’ Galt knew well the price of taking an untrained horse into battle, and it generally came high. ‘What of the new stock?’

  Ewan scratched his head. ‘Early days yet, Lord Galt. I’ve not had time to work with all of them yet, and some of them with bad habits already, no doubt. ’Tis best we breed our own when we can.’

  Galt smiled. ‘Ewan, if you can come up with a way to breed a three-year-old in a year, the Mother herself has indeed smiled on you.’

  ‘Hmmmph. A year, is it? He’s mad.’

  ‘A year, perhaps more. But better we were ready, eh? Come now, what can be done wit
h the new stock in a year?’

  ‘See for yourself, then.’ He turned and walked away down the lane, bowlegged and irascible. He led the way to a paddock where a young tribesman was schooling one of the newcomers. The stallion was a dark steel grey color, wicked as a sword blade, and a full hand higher than any of the horse herd. He circled, ears flattened, at the end of his lead line and appeared to be barely under control.

  ‘That’s one of your precious “finds”,’ Ewan spat. ‘Three years old and evil as a demon.’

  ‘Ah, you beauty.’ Galt took in the fine head and powerful shoulders, and the fire in the dark eyes. A war-horse out of legend, that one. ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘Away to south. He’s had bad treatment, I’m thinking, and now he hates the lot of us.’

  ‘Is he trainable?’

  ‘By one man maybe. If there was one with the time and skill to do it.’

  At a signal from the young trainer, the stallion halted his gallop and stood quivering as the boy approached. Suddenly there was a flash of hooves and the trainer was rolling frantically out from under the plunging horse.

  ‘The devil!’ Ewan was over the paddock fence in a second, with Galt behind him. The horse reared and came down hard on the trainer’s legs, and there was the sickening crunch of bone.

  ‘See to the lad!’ Galt yelled to Ewan, grabbing for the lead line as the horse raised his great forequarters up again in panic. Galt caught the line just below the halter, and before the powerful neck muscles could shake him, he had caught a handful of the flying mane and leapt on the horse’s back. The stallion screamed and plunged, while Galt, the lead line still in his hand, strove to pull the grey head around.

  Ewan caught the injured trainer under the shoulders and dragged him out of the paddock while the stallion kicked and twisted to rid himself of the terrifying creature who clung to his back. Galt, one hand wrapped in the grey mane, increased the pressure on the lead line with the other, hoping the stallion wouldn’t tangle his forelegs in the flying end of it and bring himself down. Slowly his frantic plunging began to move in an ever-narrowing circle, as Galt pulled his head steadily around to the left… and finally, with his muzzle almost against his shoulder, the grey stallion stood still, shivering in panic and terror.

  Gently Galt stroked the quivering shoulders. ‘Someone has put the fear in you well, brother, and it would take longer than I can give you to show you different.’ He slipped down from the stallion’s back, a careful grip on the lead line, and led him to the far gate where the paddock opened onto the brood mares’ meadow. ‘Is there another stallion with them now?’ he called to Ewan.

  Ewan looked up from the splint he was fashioning. ‘Nay, the old boy’s on t’other side o’ hill. And old he is, too. Are you thinking what I am?’

  Galt opened the paddock gate and slipped the halter from the grey head. The stallion stood stock-still. ‘Go on, then, brother,’ Galt said softly. ‘It’s a better life than I can give you. And mayhap someday I’ll drive your sons instead.’ Suddenly the stallion shot like a streak through the open gate. Galt closed it behind him, watching sadly the grey form flying in freedom down the hillside.

  Then he turned his back, and together he and Ewan gently carried the injured boy up the hill to the house.

  * * *

  Taking the homeward trail, Galt looked about him wistfully. Ewan’s tally sticks were tucked in his saddlebags, a full record of the number of brood mares, foals, yearlings, and older horses in the herd. In his head he carried Ewan’s estimate of how many chariot-trained he could provide in a year’s time… and the memory of Ewan’s parting comment: ‘You’d do better to stay here wi’ me, young harper. Any man may carry a spear… but you’ve a rare way wi’ a horse.’

  He could see the grey stallion below him in the meadow, head up against the wind, guarding his mares and his newfound freedom. Rounding the hill, he came to another little valley pasture, and the old bay stallion, among his mares, recognized him and whickered as he rode by. Galt had spent most of his childhood summers here in the horse runs, and the old stallion was a friend. He stopped to rub the bay nose thrust across the fence, and searched his saddle for a piece of sweetcake to give him. The stallion whuffled appreciatively in Galt’s ear, slobbering sweetcake down his collar, and the harper laughed.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry to have cut you out with some of your mares, old friend, but Grey Brother will sire fine colts for the herd.’ He gave the old stallion a final pat and remounted, turning his horse’s nose homeward again. It was pleasant and peaceful to the soul here with the frisking colts and the cool green hills. Maybe when there was peace for the Tribe again, he would come back.

  He moved on, through familiar territory now, far different from the roads he had ridden north two months ago, and came, as the sun fell on the next day, to the High King’s northern hall. A crowd of urchins was rolling happily in the dirt with a half-grown litter of puppies as he turned through the gates. One of them, seeing him, detached himself from the melee, shook off a cloud of dust, and galloped ecstatically to the harper’s side.

  ‘You are back, sir!’ He turned a pair of shining eyes on the older man. ‘Come and hear what I have learned to play! The High King my uncle said I might play in the hall the night you came home if you permitted!’

  Galt slid down from his horse and hoisted Dawid into the saddle. ‘Steady, youngling. I will listen very soon, but first I have business with Lord Vortrix.’ He unstrapped a long, awkward bundle wrapped in hides. ‘Take Nighthawk here and give him water – but not too much, mind – and then put him in the paddock for me.’

  The boy rode off happily, his short legs dangling from his perch, pausing only long enough to exhibit himself to the envy of his earthbound companions. Galt turned up the steps of the High King’s hall.

  Inside, the hearth fire was smoking abominably, and Galt peered through the murk to find the High King seated well out of the draft. Old Cathuil was with him, looking sternly at the small ‘hound’ who was frantically trying to keep the wet wood under control.

  Galt plunged coughing through the cloud and knelt before Vortrix. ‘My lord has need of a drier place to store his wood,’ he murmured, clasping the High King’s hand in greeting.

  Vortrix smiled. ‘Even kings get holes in their roofs, brother. There now, young one, leave it be. There’s nothing you can do.’ The boy bowed and scampered off, and Vortrix turned to Galt. ‘How was thy trail, brother?’

  Galt took the hide-wrapped bundle and unwrapped it carefully. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at Vortrix while Cathuil whistled softly under his breath. It lay on a bed of wolf skin, wicked and gleaming: a six-foot spear, deadly sharp at the blade, and collared with a ring of white swan’s feathers.

  After a moment Galt handed Vortrix the tally sticks and began to speak of the horse herd, but again and again their eyes came back to the war spear at their feet.

  ‘A dangerous game,’ Cathuil said once, and again there was silence.

  And once Galt flicked a finger along the haft. ‘It may bite us still,’ was all he said.

  Finally the High King rose to his feet, bent and reached his right arm down for the spear. He hesitated, and whether it was for the wound in his arm or the deadly life in the spear, neither man could tell. Then, with one swift movement, he grasped the haft and raised the spear upright. ‘Call the Council,’ he said.

  * * *

  Branwen took stock of her reflection in the polished bronze of the mirror, while one of her women plaited her blonde hair into two neat braids, each ending in a little gold sheath at the tip. Her body was still as slim as ever, and she had arranged her girdle to best advantage to show it. With luck there would be no need for anyone to know about the child she carried for another two months. She dismissed the waiting woman and turned sideways to the mirror, looking for the telltale rounding of the belly she had seen in other women. Not yet.

  Vortrix knew – she had told him as soon as she was sure, and if necess
ary, he would send her home to her father and brother rather than let anyone know the High King’s queen was with child while there was yet any doubt of the High King’s right to rule. Too many of the tribal lords would rebel at the prospect of another regency and the division and civil war it might bring with it. If she, and the unborn babe with her, should meet with an accident, there would be many, even among the loyal lords, who would breathe a sigh of relief. And some, like Cawdor, would have no compunction about killing her outright. Even if the babe was a girl, she would remain a potential source of dangerous descendants.

  The curtain in the doorway fluttered and the High King burst through it, shattering her grim reverie. ‘Come, it’s time we were in the hall.’

  ‘To face such of your Council as have arrived?’

  His eyes were dancing. ‘I’ll have a thing or two to show my Council,’ he said. ‘Look.’ He pulled his sword from its sheath and executed a pass against an imaginary opponent. Another pass, and then another, and the sword slipped from his grasp. Branwen bent to pick it up, but he was ahead of her, retrieving it with his left hand and slipping it into the sheath.

  ‘You see, it is healing,’ he said, and only the two of them knew what that progress had cost him in hours spent forcing pain-twisted muscles to move at his will. He slipped an arm around her gently. ‘By summer’s end there will be no more need to bluff.’