by Paul Kearney
And Rictus smelled it, that salt in that air, that slake of earth. He pushed his way through the raucous crowds on the hilltop and stood at their fore, his knuckles white on the shaft of his spear. So dazzled was he by his tears and the sunlight that for a moment all he could see was a bright blur, a blueness. He blinked his eyes clear, and there it was, all the way to the horizon.
“The sea, the sea,” he whispered, the tears streaming down his cheeks. The immensity of it, and on the edge of that vast blueness, the darker shapes of the Harukush Mountains, a mere guess at the end of sight. He bent his head, and the hammering of his heart began to ease. He was thinking of Gasca, of Phiron and Pasion and a dozen others. The faces of the dead filled his heart until he thought it would burst.
Jason set an arm about his shoulders. “I wish you joy of the sight, brother,” he said quietly. “I wish you joy.”
They camped that night within sound of the breakers, and men left the campfires to splash in the shallows like children and throw up cascades of moonlit spray at one other, laughing. Phobos cast a long glittering path of broken light below him, so that men said he was making a road for them across the waters to the Harukush beyond. He had forgiven them their failings; his brother and his mother had softened his heart. He would let them see home again after all.
Rictus sat by a driftwood fire at the shoreline, his toes buried in sand. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared out at the waters, the vast panoply of the stars above them, the white foam of the waves catching the moonlight. All around him, the Macht had lit their fires up and down the coast and men were talking around the flames as they had not done in a long time. They talked of home, of ships, of Sinon. Some even broached the topic of employment. They talked of the future. It was something they had not cared to raise since Kunaksa. Something in them had come alive again, if only for tonight.
Mynon, Jason, and Mochran joined Rictus at his fire. All of them had left off their armour and reclined in the sand with just their filthy chitons on their backs.
“I never liked the sea, until now,” Mynon said, poking at the fire with a wave-worn stick. “I believe I could sit up all night just to stare at it.” Unconsciously, he clenched and unclenched the fist of his once-broken arm as he lay there.
“Sinon is up the coast a ways from here, at the end of the Imperial Road,” Mochran said gruffly. He rubbed at his eyes; they had been troubling him ever since the mountains.
“Two days’ march,” Jason told him, “across the Haneikos River.”
“At Sinon, we will use the gold to hire ships to take us home, and then whatever is left, we will share out among the men,” Rictus said. “Agreed?” They all nodded.
“You think Aristos will be waiting for us there?” Mynon asked. “He’s not got the coin to hire ships. His men may well be stranded.”
“He can be sitting in hell for all I care,” Jason snorted. “What is he to us, now? He can’t loot Sinon as he has been these Kufr villages. May he rot there.”
“He deserted the colour,” Rictus said in a low voice. “The penalty for that is death.”
The others stared at him. “You won’t keep to that now, not now?” Mynon asked.
“When he left he took food out of our mouths when we needed it most. He could have warned us of the Qaf had he chose, and perhaps saved hundreds of lives. He betrayed us. He must die for it.”
The cold, even tone of these words silenced them all. The fire cracked and spat, blue salt-flames hissing out of the driftwood.
“Let it go, Rictus,” Jason said at last. “We’ve come too far to end it by killing our own.”
“One man, Jason—it is just one man. When it is done it will be over for me, and not before.” Rictus rose and walked away from the firelight, down to the breaking waves of the sea.
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VEIL
They came upon Sinon in the late afternoon, after tramping through the shallows of the Haneikos River as it foamed and flashed in its broad bed. On the southern bank of the river the Imperial Road ended and on the far side a dirt track took its place, rutted by the wagons of those who carried on the trade between Sinon and the Empire. As the army set its feet on the bare earth of that road, so they left the Asurian Empire at last, and were back in the lands of the Macht. Before them the walls of Sinon reared up mustard-pale in the sunlight, and out from them the great encircling arms of the harbour projected, cradling within them the docks and wharves at which were moored the masts of half a thousand ships, their spars like a forest of spears against the shining water. Built on a hill, the fortress-port reminded them of the cities of the Middle Empire, each perched on its ancient tell.
Before the city walls the army grounded spears and set out its camp for the last time, whilst a steady stream of curious folk trickled out of the city to look at them, and the more enterprising of the traders clustered on the fringes of the camp, setting up makeshift stalls, hawking food, drink, clothing, and the services of women. Here, the Macht looked once more on their own people, not soldiers, but ordinary folk, and women. They had nothing to barter with save the weapons in their hands, and Rictus had to quickly ban the traders from the camp, lest their goods be taken from them by force. After living off the land for so long, the remnants of the Ten Thousand found old habits hard to break. They would have scattered into the city at once, were it not for the gold in the beds of the mule-carts.
This, the generals who were left to the army counted out coin by coin that night, in the midst of the assembled men. It was put to them that some should be held back to hire ships for their return to the Harukush, but this suggestion was howled down. They wanted it all in their hands, now, to do with as they pleased.
So there would be no ships. They would not sail back to the Harukush en masse. The army was no more. They had come back to their own people and were now disbanding, the centons breaking up, some disintegrating entirely, others being formed anew by friendships of the road. They wanted no more to do with generals, or a Kerusia. They wanted the old ways of their mercenary life, where battle was a struggle of a few hundreds here and there, and was fought among their own kind, according to rules they knew and understood. They wanted no more orders from on high. They respected the generals, especially Rictus and Jason. They wished them well, and would be glad to have them lead a centon if they had a mind to, but they would have no more truck with big marching armies, with great campaigns. All this became clear as the men crowded round in their thousands for assembly. Their last assembly.
“They want to go back to their little dunghills and crow upon them,” Jason said, standing to one side of the cloaks whereon the gold had been piled. Centurions were now calling the men forward one by one and putting coin in their hands, the men grinning like fools.
Rictus was thinking of the stones that had been piled up on cloaks such as these in the mountains. They had voted for him then in their thousands. Now the process was in reverse. As soon as a man took coin from the cloaks he was free to go, and most that had been paid were already on their way into the city, their pitiful belongings bundled up in their cloaks, the gold like an ember in their hands.
“It’s over,” he said.
“Did you expect something different?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose I did. Something more than this.”
“They’re the scum of this earth,” Jason said with great affection. “They’re at their best when times are hard, but give them something to spend, and they’ll squander it with all the wisdom of half-witted children. Most of these will be destitute in a month, and ready to try their hand at soldiering again, you mark my words. It’s a tale as old as man himself.”
Rictus clinked the coins in his palm. They were heavy, stamped on one side with the face of the Great King, and on the other the Kufr god Bel was killing the Great Bull.
“One of those will buy a farm and the tools to farm it, if you have a mind,” Jason said lightly.
“That’s wha
t you’ll do now?”
“That’s what I’ll do. In my free hours I shall learn how the Kufr speak. I shall perhaps sit down in the evenings and try to write out some of my memories. And I shall try and make children.”
“What will they be like, I wonder, those children?” Rictus mused.
“Let us hope they take after their mother in stature, at least,” Jason grinned. “I must say goodbye now, Rictus. Tiryn waits for me outside the camp. She’s found us a mule from somewhere, and the poor beast is like to fold under the load it’s carrying.”
“Drink with me, just once,” Rictus said quickly. “Come into the city with me, for an hour, no more. Please, Jason.”
Jason looked at him, lips pursed. There, just there, was the boy still in him, the earnest look in the eyes, the fear of abandonment.
“All right, then. One drink, to seal our farewells. That’s if our comrades have left the city with any to spare.”
Sinon was a running hive of humanity, the streets clogged with paid-off mercenaries and those who were trying to relieve them of their pay. The men were running riot through the city, their gold allowing them to satisfy every appetite they had nurtured in the long months of marching and fighting. A scarlet night, lamps lit at every window and doorway, wine running in the gutters, mobs of Macht howling out greetings to one another. They shouted tearful protestations of friendship, bade lugubrious farewell to old comrades, and indulged in not a few brawls as long-held grievances were finally aired. Brightly painted whores helped their drunken clients through the crowds. Men robbed each other at knifepoint, or rifled through the bundles of the incapacitated. They gorged themselves on wine, on the food of the eating houses, on the charms of the prostitutes. They were making up for the hardships, the wounds, the friends buried under cold stone in the mountains or burned on pyres in the heat of the lowlands. They were, as one of them cried, guzzling at Antimone’s tits while they could.
“And who’s to blame them?” Jason asked. He and Rictus stood at a streetside wine-shop and lifted the deep bowls the owner had filled. “No cheap shit,” Jason had told him. “We are Macht generals, leaders of an army. Bring out your best and nothing less.”
They clinked the earthenware bowls together. Jason was about to volunteer a toast when Rictus said, “To a new life.”
Jason smiled. “To a new life.” They drank deep, savouring the taste, the warmth of the good wine as it touched their throats. They emptied the bowls and called for more. The drink brimmed red as blood in the flickering lamplight, whilst up and down the street beside them the pantomime of the night went on. Rictus cocked his head to one side, listening. “It sounds almost like the city is being sacked.”
“Na,” Jason said equably. “She’s not being raped; she’s just getting it a little rough, is all. The good city fathers are pissing in their beds, I’ll bet, but they’ll be glad enough of the gold once their teeth have stopped chattering. The men will spend a city’s ransom in the streets tonight. If they want to break some crockery along the way, well, they’ll have paid for it, fleeced like sheep by every hard-hearted whore and sharp trader in the place. It’s the easiest thing in the world, to part a drunken soldier from his money.”
“Perhaps we should do something.”
“Like what—make a speech? There’s nothing we could do would make them see sense. It’s their money. Let them have a night where they don’t have to count it, or collect every crumb that falls.”
“There is that,” Rictus said. The wine was sliding into place behind his eyes; he felt he could speak more easily, make more sense than he had before.
“What will you do now, Rictus? Will you keep to the colour, or have you hefted a spear long enough already?”
Rictus shrugged. “There’s nothing for me in the Harukush. My city is gone, my family all dead. You are the closest thing to a brother I have in the world, and you’re about to disappear too. I suppose I’ll carry a spear. It’s all I know.”
“Then take my advice. Stay here for now. If you remain in Sinon you’ll be able to have the pick of a centon in a matter of days. Right now, there are more mercenaries in this city than in half the Harukush put together, and the best of them at that.”
Rictus smiled. “Well, it’s something to think on.”
They clinked their bowls again, as if they had made a bargain. Used to short commons and plain water, Rictus was quickly becoming drunk. “You know—” he said, leaning closer to Jason.
“Here he is, brothers. The strawhead general. Well, Rictus, how does the night find you?”
It was Aristos, standing hands on hips in the Curse of God. Gominos bulked large beside him, and a group of their men straddled the street to their rear.
“Speak up boy—or are you too drunk?”
Rictus straightened up from the streetside bar. In one moment, all the wine in him burned away, seared to nothing by a white-cold rush through his limbs. His fist fastened on the knife at his belt. Neither he nor Jason were wearing their cuirasses. Rictus had left his with Whistler, and Tiryn had Jason’s strapped to her mule.
“Ah, hell,” Jason said. “Aristos, the fighting is done with. Have a drink and pluck that spear-shaft from up your arse.”
Aristos stepped forward. His face was flushed, his eyes bright; he, too, had been drinking. “I heard tell young Rictus here was going to see me dead,” he said. “Did I hear wrong, or was he just yapping?”
Rictus stepped forward but Jason held him back, moved in front of him. “What’s on your mind, Aristos?”
“I want my money, Jason. We all do. I brought over a thousand men out of the mountains and they haven’t so much as smelled the gold that’s due to them. Pay us, and we’ll leave you be. We’ll call it settled, no hard feelings.”
“Pay you for what?” Rictus hissed. “For desertion, for stealing our food, for running away? Come here and I’ll pay you myself, in coin you’ll understand.”
“Shut up,” Jason snapped. “Aristos, the money is all gone—we shared it out already. If you want gold, you can talk to any drunk soldier in the city, for they’re the ones who have it now. They’re paid off, Aristos. The thing is over.”
Aristos seemed taken aback. He hesitated a second, the men behind him murmuring. Then he smiled, and drew his sword. “I’ll have yours, then.”
“Come take mine,” Rictus snarled, drawing his knife. “Come and try, you piece of shit.” He shoved Jason aside and lunged forward. Aristos did the same. They came together like two stags clashing antlers, each searching for the other’s sword-arm with his free hand. The iron of their weapons snicked together and they slashed and side-stepped, then stepped in again, breast to breast. A flurry of blows, clicked aside or dodged. Blood sprang out like a badge along Rictus’s collarbone, a long slice. He dashed aside another blow with his knife, the metal screeching. He stabbed, and the point careered harmlessly off Aristos’s armour.
“Enough!” Jason bellowed. He elbowed into the fight, thumping Rictus aside, and kicking Aristos in the chest. Both younger men went down on their backs, breathing like sprinters. Jason stood between them. “Enough of this,” he said. “Gominos—take your friend here and—”
Up sprang Rictus and Aristos again, their faces flooded with fury, all reasoning gone. They charged each other once more. Jason got between them. For a second he had them at arm’s length one on each side of him, and then they had come together again. Jason was knocked sideways. He fell heavily to the beaten earth of the street, and lay there with the lees of the wine running about his legs. He opened his mouth to speak, and then coughed. His feet scrabbled uselessly along the ground. He pulled his hand away from his side and saw the dark shine there. It was spewing out of him. “You’ve killed me,” he said, wide eyed and incredulous, and fell back.
Aristos’s men streamed forward, Gominos at their head. Rictus and Aristos stood looking first at each other, and then at Jason, appalled. Rictus tossed his knife to the ground and knelt down beside the prone man. “Jason, Jas
on.”
They stood around him. Rictus clamped his hand to the deep hole in Jason’s side. His face was as white as marble.
“Damn you,” Jason whispered. “I had a life. Ah, Phobos. Antimone, keep me.” His voice trailed away.
“Tiryn,” he breathed, almost inaudible. And then he died.
All around them, the clamour of the city went on, the night bright and gaudy and tattered with the celebrations of the Ten Thousand. Aristos and Gominos and their men stood mute, frozen, staring. Rictus closed Jason’s eyes, then bent and kissed his forehead.
“You were the best of us,” he whispered.
Of its own accord, his hand went out and found the hilt of his knife. He stood up, and when he turned to face the Macht in the street they backed away from the light in his eyes, as men will give space to a mad dog. Three strides he took, the movement a swift flash, and the blade gleamed in the air as he swept it out before him. Aristos dropped his own weapon, startled. His hands scrabbled for his throat, to the great, gouting hole that had opened there. He gargled words through the blood, staggered, went down on his knees. One scarlet hand grasped Rictus’s thigh. Then he fell to his side in the street, struggling to stillness in the steaming puddle of blood which was both Jason’s and his own. Rictus watched him, and finally tossed the knife onto his body. He looked up at Gominos, at the rest of Aristos’s men who stood silent and still before him.
“Now, it’s over,” he said.
EPILOGUE
THE DEBT
The flames of the pyre were nearly out; that which had burned in the midst of them was now no more than blackened ash. A wind came off the sea and lifted the ash into the air, sending it scattered about the heads of the assembled men like a flock of dark birds.
On the beach stood several hundred spearmen, shields on their shoulders, scarlet cloaks on their backs. Some wore the Curse of God. All had torn their chitons in the grief-mark. As the flames sank, so they began to sing the Paean, the death-song of the Macht, the hymn that had accompanied them into battle so many times. Standing at a slight distance from them were a tall, fair-headed young man and a veiled Kufr woman.
