by Alex Faure
Darius set his bowl aside as soon as he had finished, though his stomach yearned for a second serving. “What did you do to me?”
Fionn took another bite. He was only half-finished his portion. “I told you.”
“You gave me the ability to speak your language.” Darius shivered at how easy it felt to converse in a tongue he had only known for a few moments—he barely even noticed the words spilling from his lips, though when he forced himself to focus on them, he heard a soft rush of breathy sounds entirely unlike Latin.
“Not my language. There’s no spell to teach a man a human tongue. We’re speaking the language of the forest.” Fionn smirked. “You don’t have to look at me like that. It’s not going to kill you.”
“How?”
“I was born with the ability to speak their tongue. I simply shared my gift with you. They told me how.”
“They,” Darius repeated.
Fionn didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Darius’s mind returned to the creatures he had seen in the forest, all gleaming eyes and sharp limbs.
He rubbed his eyes with shaking fingers. So. He had been given the ability to speak with some barbarian form of dryad. Roman dryads were generally depicted as naked maidens, breathtakingly lovely. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise him so that the Hibernian variety were frightful, savage things.
“What are you?” Darius said. “Why did you save my life? Why are you helping me?” The questions poured out like a river. “Why would you kill your own people to protect me?”
Fionn gave him a long look. Then, unexpectedly, he set his bowl aside and strode to Darius.
Darius had to stop himself from flinching away. Fionn sank with an easy grace before him, so close that their folded knees were almost touching. He took Darius’s chin in one hand—not gently—and pulled him forward, searching his eyes. Darius was too surprised to do anything but let it happen. After a seemingly endless moment, Fionn released him.
He leaned back, a strange look on his face. It was lost, almost childlike.
“You truly don’t know me,” he said. “I thought—Perhaps some sort of test—” He bit off the rest of the words. The lost look changed to one of bone-deep disappointment, and then he seemed to compose himself. He returned Darius’s blank stare with a look that was newly calculating.
Darius couldn’t fathom what any of it meant. Why would Fionn have thought he would know him? “If you don’t want to answer my questions, I wonder why you bothered giving me the ability to speak to you,” he said, anger creeping back into his voice.
“I thought it would stop you running off if I informed you that your fort has been abandoned,” Fionn said.
Darius froze. “I don’t believe you. Agricola has never ordered a garrison to retreat.” He added, having briefly forgotten who he was speaking to, “Agricola is the commander of the Roman forces.”
“I know who he is,” Fionn said.
Darius didn’t know how a Robogdi assassin would know Agricola’s name—perhaps from the Darini? He was used to viewing the Robogdi, along with most of the Celts, as savage denizens of the forest, barely capable of communication. But of course, that was far from the truth. His head was spinning.
“Your mighty general didn’t order anything,” Fionn said. “The garrison is a ruin. The fire consumed everything.”
It came as a heavy blow, and Darius briefly closed his eyes. “They’ll rebuild.”
“Do you think so?”
The question struck Darius as ominously sly, but when he searched Fionn’s face, he found nothing to confirm his suspicion. He said, “Rome never retreats. Undanum and Attervalis will provide shelter to the survivors, and stand strong against the tribes until Sylvanum is rebuilt.”
Fionn smirked. “Quite the fighting spirit. I don’t recall much evidence of that the night your fort burned.”
Darius stared at him. Then, absurdly, he felt his face grow hot. He remembered how the nightfire had felt coursing through his veins. The absurd scene in the briefing room. “You—you saw—”
“No,” Fionn said, amused. “But I heard how the night…unfolded. Clever idea to drug the well, don’t you think?”
Darius’s anger rose. “Dozens of my men lost their lives because of that damnable nightfire. I don’t expect you to sympathize, but I will ask you not to make light of the loss of my countrymen.”
“There are worse ways to die, surely?” The Celt’s voice was mild, his expression impossible to interpret. Darius had no idea how to respond. Was he making a joke, or delivering a barbed insult? Speaking with Fionn was like trying to pin down the wind. This new gift was turning out to be more curse than blessing.
“Why did you say they were your men?” Fionn said before Darius could get his bearings.
“Because they are,” Darius said. “Or rather were. I was the commander of Sylvanum.”
“Sylvanum was under the command of Darius Lucilius,” Fionn said, pronouncing Darius’s name completely wrong, turning the D into a V and giving the R a strange twist. “I was told he was killed.”
“You were either misinformed, or are presently communing with a ghost.”
Fionn looked thoughtful at this, though not especially surprised. Darius felt unreasonably irritated. Surely he hadn’t expected the Celt to be impressed by his rank?
“You know who I am now,” he said. “Am I to be permitted to know more about the Robogdi assassin who persists in saving the life of his enemy?”
“I am not Robogdi,” Fionn said with some pique, as if Darius should somehow have known better. “My tribe is the Volundi. My loyalty is to King Odran, not Culland.”
Darius blinked. He knew little of the Volundi. Their territory was said to be vast, stretching across central Hibernia to the western sea. Yet their land was rugged and sparsely populated, and they were not thought to be as powerful as the Robogdi or the Darini. “But you carried the blade of a Robogdi assassin.”
Fionn snorted. “The dagger? Our warriors carry them too.”
“It was the Robogdi who attacked our fort.”
“Not the Robogdi alone. We are allies. For a time,” he added in a quieter voice, as if half to himself.
Darius grimaced. That the Robogdi had allies among the other Hibernian tribes was unwelcome news. Yet it wasn’t wholly surprising—the Robogdi were known for their ferocity, not strategic foresight. Perhaps the plan to overthrow Sylvanum with the aid of nightfire had been developed by the mysterious Volundi, who were rumoured to be less warlike.
He felt a surge of frustration. He needed to take this information to Commander Albinus at Attervalis. Yet the fort was far away—he doubted he could make it in his present state.
He leaned his head back against the stone, letting the feeling ebb and then flow away. He became aware that Fionn was watching him. He was not sitting as close anymore, but still too close for comfort. His silver eyes flickered with the firelight.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Darius said.
“You have asked so many questions. I thought Romans valued weapons over words. Which are you referring to?”
He didn’t answer. He held Fionn’s gaze until the other man glanced away. Was there a flush on his pale cheeks, or was it only the light of the fire?
“You—” Fionn stopped. “You remind me of someone.”
His voice was quiet. Fionn didn’t elaborate, and somehow Darius knew he wasn’t going to, though it was hardly an answer. He returned to the fire and began brewing tea—Darius recognized the pot and the leaves by now.
“What are you?” he said, expecting the question to cause offense. But Fionn only shrugged, as if Darius had asked about the weather.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t—” Darius took a breath. “How can you not know what you are?”
“Do you know what you are?”
“I’m a soldier,” Darius snapped.
Fionn laughed quietly, as if at a private joke. “A soldier. Of course you would be
a soldier.”
“You can do impossible things,” Darius pointed out. “I’ve never seen anyone move like you. Not to mention that, by all the laws of nature, you should have an arrow buried in your back.”
“You know a great deal about the laws of nature, do you?” Fionn sounded amused. “You with your overbuilt forts and endless roads, your cities that reach higher than trees.”
“What do you know of our cities?” Dimly, he was aware that Fionn had drawn him away from his questions, but he felt powerless to stop it.
“I’ve heard stories. We trade with several tribes in what you call Britannia.”
This was an unwelcome revelation. Darius wondered what else Rome’s enemies in Hibernia knew about the Empire. Were they also versed in Roman battle tactics? It made some sense, though—Rome had occupied Britannia for over a century. Clearly these barbarian hinterlands were in closer contact than Rome realized.
“And what I am to you?” he said. “A prisoner? A hostage?”
“Our first conversation is to be an interrogation, is it?” Fionn said. “How strangely you Romans express gratitude.”
“Gratitude?”
“As you pointed out, I’ve saved your life several times now.”
“So that you could hold me captive? You might as well have killed me.” Darius meant it.
Fionn’s gaze drifted away. “I haven’t decided what to do with you yet.”
“And I’m to stay here until you do?”
“Do you have another option? Your fort is in ruins. The others will follow soon enough.”
Darius felt cold. “What are you talking about?”
Fionn gave him a puzzled stare. “Do you think we meant to stop with Sylvanum? To let you trample us into submission as you have the Britannians, to swear fealty to your emperor, the fat tyrant who murdered his way to the throne and now thinks himself the new Augustus?”
Darius stared at him. One could hear Domitian so characterized in many a Roman tavern, but he never expected to hear such mockery from a Hibernian barbarian. Emperor Titus’s murder by his brother was mere rumour—how had it made its way to this far-flung backwater?
“We’ll raze them as we razed Sylvanum,” Fionn said, “and kill every man within their walls.”
“There are three thousand soldiers at Attervalis alone,” Darius said, shocked. “Surely you can’t imagine you can stand against them. They won’t fall for your trickery a second time.”
Fionn’s smile was dark. Darius remembered how he had seemed to enjoy killing his soldiers. Darius made it his business to keep well away from men who liked killing, and to weed them out of the ranks where possible. Killing was a necessity, not an art, as any civilized man knew. It was worse seeing that same bloodlust in Fionn’s eyes, who was half a feral creature of the forest.
“We’ll find a way,” Fionn said. “You’re Romans—your arrogance is the seed of your defeat. You managed to scare the Britannian tribes into submission, and the Darini with their bottomless hunger for gold, but the Volundi will never rest until your ships are driven from our shores. At Sylvanum, we cut you down as you fucked each other senseless—it was like lopping the heads off dandelions, the men said. All because you thought us unthinking savages, incapable of strategy or foresight. So we mounted your heads upon the broken scraps of your mighty fort. Perhaps we should have done the same with your cocks, as a reminder of the limitations of Roman intellect.”
Darius rose, horrified by the callous vulgarity with which Fionn spoke of the dead. What the Celts had done had been completely without honour, violating every principle of a fair fight. To brag about it as Fionn did was something else entirely. He regarded Fionn as he would a demon that had appeared in his midst. He had been mad to think him anything other than a monster.
Fionn only laughed at his expression. “I’ve upset your noble Roman sensibilities. Are you going to run away again?”
“Yes.” Darius’s mouth was dry. “I have no intention of being prisoner to one so dishonourable as you.”
“You wouldn’t survive an hour in these woods. You have no idea what lurks between here and Attervalis.”
Surprise made him pause. “I’ve spent time in your forests.”
“No, you haven’t. A few forays with your clanking, blundering soldiers, perhaps. That’s not the same as making your way alone beneath these boughs.”
Darius saw a feral face full of teeth, hands with leaves budding from the palms, reaching for him. With difficulty, he kept his voice even. “You won’t stop me. I’ll fight you if I have to.”
“Oh, you’ll fight me. Did you not see what I did to your men on the beach? You’re not even as competent as your soldiers. I wonder how you maintained your authority over them.”
Ridiculously, Darius’s face heated. He knew he was nothing compared to Fionn, but the fact that the man had noticed he was an indifferent fighter by the standards of his own people galled him. He doubted that Fionn would understand if Darius explained that it was more honourable to win men’s allegiance through the strength of your words and character than your sword arm.
“The only Roman I’ve met who knew how to fight was that ugly fellow,” Fionn continued. It took Darius a moment to realize he was referring to Marcus. “Now that he’s dead, I doubt I’ll see his equal again among you lumbering oafs.”
The blood throbbed in Darius’s ears. He hadn’t had any love for Marcus before, but their last night together had reshaped his feelings. “You didn’t kill him. I saw you. You spared his life.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Fionn agreed. “But what do you think the Robogdi did when they found his body on that beach?” He laughed. “His head is probably on a stake right now, next to his fellows. Hopefully his face won’t scare the crows away.”
Darius struck him.
Fionn’s head snapped sideways, and he stumbled back a step. But only a step. He fixed Darius with a look that was more surprised than angry. From his reaction, Darius could have been an overlarge fly that had bitten him.
Darius’s anger only intensified. For the second time that evening, he turned and blindly stumbled away from the firelight. He would make for Attervalis. He would rid himself of this feral creature if it killed him. As he fled, he grabbed the knife Fionn had used to gut the rabbit. It was still sticky with blood.
Fionn seized his shoulder, and Darius struck out blindly with the knife. The Celt had to leap back to avoid the blade. He let out a sharp word in his own tongue.
Anger beat in Darius’s veins. He lunged at Fionn again, who sidestepped neatly. Darius had no idea what he was doing. He had no hope of besting Fionn—he knew that, or at least part of him did. But that part of him didn’t seem to be in control anymore. The surprise had left Fionn’s face, and he was beginning to look annoyed. Whatever else he was, no man liked being threatened with a knife, even if he had the skill to avoid every thrust.
Darius struck out again and again, rage making him even clumsier than usual. Each time, Fionn dodged, or knocked Darius’s arm aside. If Darius had been in his right mind, he would have recognized that Fionn wasn’t truly sparring with him, but merely waiting until he tired himself out. Finally, though, Fionn’s patience seemed to ebb. He grabbed Darius’s wrist and expertly twisted it, making him drop the knife. Then he took him by the throat and shoved him against the rock.
“Stop that,” he said, reminding Darius of an idle hunter giving direction to one of his over-exuberant hounds. He didn’t bother to restrain Darius with his other arm, merely gripped him by the throat. His leg was between Darius’s, the better to pin him against the rock. Darius, in spite of himself, found himself overly aware of the warmth of Fionn’s thigh. Their chests were almost touching.
Fionn seemed oblivious. There was a small frown between his eyes as he watched Darius.
Darius slid his hand into Fionn’s hair, intending to wrench his head back. The hair was astonishingly soft, like pussywillow, falling in waves that were neither straight nor curly, but someth
ing approximating the churning of foam in a river rapid. It slid through his fingers before he was able to get a good grip. When he did, he pulled, forcing Fionn’s chin up. Then he rolled Fionn over so that he was pressed between Darius and the rock.
Though Fionn could have stopped him, he let Darius gain the advantage, as if curious what he would do with it. Darius pressed him harder into the rock, his hand still tangled in Fionn’s impossible hair. He still wanted to hit Fionn, but now the desire to inflict pain was mixed up with something else. He reached for Fionn’s fighting hand, intending to pin it to the rock.
Fionn’s lips parted in a smile that was almost appreciative. He neatly twisted his wrist free, then knocked one of Darius’s legs out from under him, forcing him off balance. He rolled them again so that Darius was pinned to the rock once more. Somehow, Fionn’s leg ended up pressed even more firmly between Darius’s. He shifted position, rubbing against him, and Darius felt himself harden.
His face heated, and he flipped Fionn over again before—he hoped—the other man noticed. He couldn’t blame the involuntary reactions of his body, but the last thing he wanted was Fionn realizing that Darius was aroused by men—or rather, in Fionn’s case, a thing that wore the face of a man. Whatever reason he had for keeping Darius alive, Darius wouldn’t be surprised if Fionn forgot it in the face of his disgust at Roman predilections. He was a Celt, after all.
Fionn—who could certainly have ended the scuffle by now—got his own fist around a hank of Darius’s hair, drawing his head down. Then he leaned in and bit him on the ear.
Darius yelped in pain. Fionn hadn’t bitten him hard enough to draw blood, and Darius was more surprised than anything. Fionn bit him again, and Darius yanked his hair hard to dislodge him. He pushed Fionn hard against the rock and leaned the full weight of his body against him. He didn’t know what they were doing. It certainly wasn’t any sort of fighting style Darius knew.
Away. He had to get away. He gripped the neck of Fionn’s tunic and slammed him into the rock, hard enough to snap his head back. Before Fionn could recover his bearings, Darius dragged him away from the rock and across the smooth granite through which the river carved its way, intending to throw him into the rushing water.
