Ironroot tote-2

by S. J. A. Turney

  Varro growled and suddenly lunged, thrusting his sword at Cristus’ belly. The man laughed and wheeled aside, bringing his own blade down on Varro’s theatrically, with a ringing noise. In an almost blinding flash of speed, the prefect’s blade flicked across the captain’s hand guard and scraped along the wood and leather contraption Salonius had created. Within, Var5ro heaved a sigh of relief. Even that fancy scratch could have ended it. He looked up at Cristus, who was smiling benignly.

  “Tut tut, captain. Calmly, now.”

  Spinning around to face the man again, Varro felt a wrenching in his side. He reached down and grasped his waist, his eyes momentarily blurring.

  “Not yet…”

  “What was that?” Cristus chuckled. “Your wound and the venom causing trouble. Please rise above it. If I finish this too quickly it’s such a wasted opportunity.”

  Varro suddenly winced and dropped to all fours, making a hacking sound. Cristus sighed as he wandered casually over to the stricken captain.

  “Come on, Varro. Get up and die on your feet.”

  Varro grinned. In a lightning quick move, he rolled onto his side, bringing his sword down to the grass, directly onto Cristus’ foot. With satisfaction, he drove the blade through flesh and bone and into the earth, breaking several bones in the middle of the man’s foot and pinning him agonisingly to the floor.

  Cristus stared down in shock and horror at his maimed foot as Varro rolled back out of reach and slowly and painfully climbed to his feet.

  “Never be drawn in by deception, you piece of shit.” He tapped his wounded side and smiled at the dull, echoey thudding noise.

  Cristus moved ever so slightly and, as the muscles in his foot tore further around the deeply-wedged blade, let out a piercing shriek that cut through the silence of the hillside. Varro laughed.

  “You are a good swordsman, Cristus. You’re also an idiot, a liar, a traitor and shortly a corpse. Best concentrate on pulling that blade out of your foot. Can’t reach me until you do, and the blood’s trickling away slowly.”

  As he spoke, he began slowly to circle Cristus. The prefect attempted to keep his front facing the captain but, as Varro circled behind him, it was impossible. Even the effort made his face contort with the agony shooting up from his foot. Varro stopped directly behind him, smiled, and very, very gently kicked the stricken leg from behind. Cristus shrieked again, so loud that the birds left the canopy of the sacred wood. Combat all but forgotten, the prefect reached down toward the hilt of the sword pinning him, his mouth opening and closing in an ‘O’ of exquisite horror and agony.

  With a calm smile, Varro reached out and gently plucked the man’s sword from his hand. The smile deepened as Cristus tried to turn once more and raised a hand to ward off the blow. Almost causally, Varro swung the prefect’s sword, cutting the fingers from the raised hand.

  Fresh agony rang through Cristus as he stared first at his hand, with only a ‘V’ of thumb and forefinger remaining, the others lying like uncooked meat on the grass. With a grisly, determined look, Varro took his other arm by the wrist.

  Cristus stared at him, repeatedly mouthing the word ‘no’ through a veil of tears, though no sound issued.

  Varro stopped.

  “You want mercy? You? After the deaths you’ve caused, you have the audacity to ask for mercy. Catilina’s wounds? Petrus’ death? And that poor messenger too? The soldiers in the valley station who didn’t even know what they were dying for? Turning Corda against me? And after all that, my wound and the poison? And you want mercy?”

  Cristus stared at him, the pain and shock clearly evident, but another strange look of confusion joining them.

  “Poison?”

  Varro growled and tightened his grip on the man’s wrist.

  “Yes. The Ironroot. Very subtle. Much more subtle than the rest of your activities…”

  Cristus stared through the tears.

  “I’ve never used Ironroot, Varro. I wouldn’t even know where to get it this far north.”

  Sighing, Varro swung the blade and cut a single finger from Cristus’ hand.

  “I know that me winning proves your fault anyway, but I’d really appreciate you unburdening yourself of your guilt quite noisily so that everyone else can hear it.”

  Cristus whimpered, staring at his hand, still in the captain’s grip.

  “I’ll confess to anyone. Just stop torturing me!”

  Varro growled again.

  “Then tell me how you got the poison to that barbarian!”

  “What barbarian? What are you talking about, Varro? Please?”

  The captain stopped and frowned.

  “The Imperial sword. The nice officer’s sword that barbarian stuck me with? Covered in Ironroot? The one that killed me?”

  Cristus stopped crying. For a horrible moment, he began to smile. Even through the tears and the pain, the prefect’s sides began to shake with laughter.

  “What’s funny?” Varro barked.

  “You!” Cristus coughed out. “You did all this to pay me back for something I didn’t do! Priceless. Oh, the Gods like a joke, Varro. They love a good joke, and this one’s on both of us. You’ve ruined me in retaliation for something I didn’t do, and now you’re going to die without even finding out who really did!”

  Varro stared at this laughing maniac and suddenly felt a sharp pain. Staring down, he realise that Cristus had used his two remaining fingers on the other hand to draw a small, slender knife from his belt and thrust it into the captain’s side. Still gripping Cristus’ wrist, he stared in shock and suddenly collapsed to his knees, bringing the prefect with him. With a tearing noise the disfigured man’s foot tore in half around the blade in the floor.

  Cristus drew his small knife back in his maimed hand, the blade making curious sounds as it tore back out through the leather support, and laughed again.

  “Varro, Ironroot is an ingestive, you idiot. It would probably do you some damage on a blade, but not enough to be fatal. If only I had some on this blade, I could make your last minutes a little more interesting.”

  He thrust forward with the blade again, going for the chest this time, but Varro’s own hand swung up, bearing his opponent’s sword and breaking the offending arm at the wrist.

  Staring it his limp, broken hand, Cristus giggled.

  “Best put me out of my pain Varro. I need to die first or my cause wins and I die a free and honoured soldier. And you’ll not even make it to the marshal. I know my anatomy, Varro. That was your liver. See how the blood pooling out at your belt and running down your leg is nice and dark? Darker than mine? That’s liver, that is. I…”

  Mid sentence, the prefect stopped, his eyes glazing over as the tip of Varro’s sword broke through the man’s back and out through his tunic with a tearing sound. Cristus slumped over him, a mangled, bleeding mess.

  Varro toppled backwards to the ground and looked down at his legs, tangled beneath him.

  “Dark.”

  It was true. The blood running in thick streams down his thigh was dark and wicked.

  Clutching at the grass with whitening knuckles, he forced himself to his knees and looked around. Everything was blurred, as though seen through a pain of glass in heavy rain.

  Rain.

  It has been raining when he’d first met Catilina. He remembered it well. At Vengen. He’d reported to the senior officer in the square before the marshal’s palace. The rain was turning the gravel and dirt beneath his feet into a browny-grey mud that clung to his boots. He knew he looked dirty and haggard from a long ride, but then the palace doors had opened and she had appeared in her finery, a young lady; much younger than him, but so beautiful.

  He smiled wistfully as he looked down at his knees and thighs, soaked through with deep, dark, red; the colour of Catilina’s dress that day, if he remembered correctly.

  She had climbed onto her horse and walked it slowly across the square toward the civilian sector, pulling her hood up against the rain. Half way
across the square she’d first looked at him. She’d stared and then slowly warmed to a smile. Rummaging in a pocket, she produced a coin and tossed it to him.

  “Get indoors somewhere and get some wine while you dry off.”

  With a lingering look, she’d ridden off.

  He’d known that day that they’d be together til death. Curiously it hadn’t occurred to him it would happen this soon, but still, he’d known. And he was right, because here she was, his beautiful Catilina, with him in the arena. He couldn’t see at all now. Everything was a milky white, but his nose still worked. Even days on the road and nights in the woods hadn’t disguised that scent, like roses in the early morning dew. And other hands too; strong hands. He recognised those hands. Who did they belong to again?

  There was a pain as he was slowly helped to his feet. He vaguely recognised the heady sensation of standing suddenly; light-headed. The pain was nicely distant. Like something experienced through that same window. If only he could see through the window, but it was so white. And someone was talking to him. He could hear that there were voices, but they were drowned under the surging noises in his ears, like a great torrent of water rushing down a gulley; like the bridge where they’d fought Cristus’ men in the mountain village. Such a loud rushing that there was little hope of hearing the voices. Shame, really. Catilina had a lovely voice when she wasn’t shouting, and Salonius… that was his name… Salonius… he had such a soft and calm voice for an engineer. He’d miss them.

  Oh dear. He couldn’t smell Catilina anymore.

  Silence.

  Salonius gripped the slumped body of his captain with his left arm, holding him upright with all his strength, his right arm clamped tightly around the shoulders of the shuddering woman beside him. Catilina wailed and howled, shaking and snorting. Though only moments passed, it felt like hours to the young man, supporting the two most important people in his life. He waited patiently for the grief to plateau and finally the shaking subsided, the cries turned to sobs and the distraught young lady began to take her own weight once more.

  As Catilina stepped back, wiping the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the back of her good wrist, Salonius turned the limp and suddenly light body of the captain to face him. That face; so white. With a sigh, he threw Varro over his shoulder and turned to follow Catilina back out of the arena, pausing only momentarily to deliver a hefty kick to the prone heap that was Cristus.

  The arena wall, formed of two rows of men from their own army, stepped respectfully aside as Salonius carried the victor up the slope towards the marshal. As he walked, captain Iasus joined them. Glancing to his other side, he was, as ever, impressed by Catilina. The visual signs of grief had all but fled, leaving her with a resolute and proud look. Salonius tried to match her expression as they reached the marshal.

  Sabian’s face was blank as they approached.

  “Sir,” Salonius announced, “I believe since prefect Cristus died first, that this man deserves to be honoured appropriately?”

  Sabian took a short breath; then another; then turned to Cristus’ second, captain Crino.

  “Do you wish to take up the challenge, Crino?”

  The relief on the captain’s face melted away as he came under scrutiny once more.

  “No sir. I believe justice has been served.”

  “Hmmm.” Sabian glared at the captain for a moment and then turned back to the small group before him.

  “Iasus? I want you to start working through the Fourth. I want everyone separated into three groups to deal with: those who were a clear part of Cristus’ treachery, those who were unwillingly or unwittingly roped in, and those who are innocent. I trust you’re able to do this?”

  The captain nodded curtly.

  “Those with some level of culpability will be placed under guard at Vengen. And those who are innocent, sir?”

  Send them to Crow Hill to await the arrival of a new prefect. Let them take their banners and their honours with them. And get the camp commandant and the quartermaster to organise setting up camp here for the night. I doubt we’ll be leaving until you’ve finished your questioning.”

  Iasus nodded.

  “I’ll have a palisade erected, sir. I already have pickets and guards out to prevent desertion.”

  “Good,” Sabian waved away toward the wagons. “Get started.”

  As Iasus stalked away, taking several of the black-clad guards with him, Sabian turned back to Salonius, Catilina, and the wilted body of Varro.

  “Sad to see him end so. But a good way for him to go, I think. I suspect he’s content, wherever he is.”

  Salonius smiled sadly.

  “We were tasked by the Gods, sir, to achieve something great. I believe we’ve done so. I think the afterlife is waiting with honours to welcome captain Varro.”

  Catilina shot him a quick and very strange look.

  “It’s not quite over for us, Salonius” she said darkly.

  And vengeance sends the last goodbye…

  The problem with Varro and Salonius is that they both only ever think, or thought, in such limited ways. They had always assumed that the stag God had chosen them to do great works. Them and only them. I didn’t like to puncture their bubble of importance. I let them go on dropping to hushed tones when I appeared and whispering secretively like small children who’ve found a secret place.

  I never told them about that night at Crow Hill where Cernus first found me, floundering in my despair; of how the Stag Lord explained to my heart why these things were so; of why Varro was important. They never seemed to wonder why I put my whole world at risk to follow them into the wilderness on their great errand, putting it down to my ‘wilfulness’.

  And I never told them how Cernus found me again at Vengen; how I was wounded and felt close to the end at times, weak as a kitten from that wound in my shoulder, but how the Stag Lord came to me at that critical moment as my will dissolved and brought me strength to go on, and purpose to do so.

  But the strange thing is, that even through my secret clandestine liaisons with Cernus, it never occurred to me that my path was different from theirs. Perhaps that Salonius was the peg that joined our tasks. For I was far from instrumental in their success in bringing down a traitor to the Empire. I played a part, certainly, but they would have arrived at their end without me, I now know. For the Stag Lord had chosen a dying man for his own goals. Cernus is a Lord of the forests and a God of the Northern tribes. What cares he that Imperial justice is served?

  No. Quite simply, Cernus chose Varro to right a wrong visited on his own people. Cristus had to die, not for any betrayal of the Empire or his army, but for the violent extinction of the tribe of the Clianii. Varro was his instrument. Salonius was chosen as a son of the northern peoples.

  But me? I had no part to play there.

  My part was supplementary to the God. My part was to right the wrong done to Varro in return for his efforts.

  I was, as so many times before, losing my resolve. We were in the sacred wood of Phaianis. I would never have set foot on such sacred ground under normal circumstances, but the situation demanded it. And beneath those hallowed eaves, I watched the man I loved open the last door to the afterlife. I saw him die once again and knew that his time had come. I doubted he would see another dawn and I broke.

  I made some excuse about praying to Phaianis and left them. I just had to be alone to break. I was in the depth of the most hopeless loss I could imagine, and after all that Cernus had done for me, there was nothing I could do for Varro to help him with what he must face. I couldn’t understand how I could have come so far, only to be useless now.

  And that was the third time the Stag Lord found me. Deep in the woods we associate with Phaianis the huntress, here was that most hunted of creatures, the stag, all unconcerned. To my dying day, I will live in the belief that Phaianis, and probably all of our Gods, are a fiction of our proud minds and that the only true spirits are those that actually touch us.

&nbs
p; Cernus found me there in the pit of despair and brought me the knowledge of what I must do. By the time he turned and left me alone in the dark woods, my resolve had returned and I knew that I must harden myself and go on. Varro and Salonius had avenged the Empire.

  And now I would avenge Varro.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Catilina knocked quietly on the doorpost of the tent. The heavy leather flaps were down, but untied. No sound issued from within, and the only windows were holes high up that allowed light to filter within. Her knock was greeted with silence. She paused for a long moment and then rapped once more on the post, this time a little harder, glancing around at the scene.

  This area of the makeshift camp was set aside from the rows of accommodation, on the rear slope of the summit on which stood the command tents of the marshal and his various officers. The sky was a bright blue with only the occasional fine cloud wandering aimlessly across the firmament. The commanding view here took in the distant main road and the whole wide vale that lay between Crow Hill and her father’s fortress at Vengen.

  Somewhere down beyond the rows of tents and the peripheral stockade, she could just make out the funerary detail of the Fourth preparing the pyre in an open patch of cleared ground. Bees buzzed to hide her sadness.

  “Come!” called a voice from within the tent.

  Biting her lip, she reached out for the leather flap and then stopped. This was not a time to show any uncertainty or weakness. With a deep breath, she brushed the tent flap aside and strode in purposefully.

  The interior was a little dull. Small holes cast precious little light into the tent and with the time being only a little after lunch, no lamps or candles had been lit. She allowed the leather flap to drop back behind her and waited for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  Most of the occupant’s goods had remained packed for the return journey to the fort. A cot, a table, a small cupboard and three chairs formed the entire contents of the room.

  Scortius sat at the table, papers and a stylus lying in front of him, alongside a goblet and an almost-empty wine jug. Catilina noted with some satisfaction the deep hollows beneath the man’s eyes and his haunted expression. He looked up at her and frowned slightly, taking another deep pull from his goblet and then casting it aside, somewhat drunkenly.