Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5)

by S. J. A. Turney

  His attention was drawn by a bellow of fury, and he turned to see a native wearing enough gold and bronze to sink him in a river, his face rabid and furious, hair wild and sword weaving in anticipation. Clearly a leader of some sort among the rabble, the man was calling out a challenge, and yet apparently not at him. Cantex peered in the direction the man was stomping, and spotted the tribune’s crest he’d seen earlier coming through the crowd. His heart thundered as he recognised the tall, slightly gaunt figure of his friend Convocus emerging from the ranks of their rescuers.

  Half a dozen soldiers rushed out to head off the bellowing barbarian leader, but Convocus waved them back.

  Cantex started to jog across the open space, but it appeared that his friend was not seeking help, even if he needed it. The native flourished his long, heavy sword and brought it round in a wide swing, aiming to bite deep into the tribune’s side. Cantex found himself willing his friend to block, but Convocus apparently had other ideas.

  As the blade came swinging towards him with unstoppable force, the tribune dropped suddenly to one knee, the blade skimming across above him, close enough to snick half the crest from the top of his helmet. From his half-kneeling position, Convocus’ blade lanced out twice at his head height, jabbing into the native’s midriff, each time ripped back out sideways. The tribune rose and began to clean his blade, turning towards Cantex. Behind him, the native spun, snarling in fury, but that snarl turned to a terrified whimper as his guts slithered out of the holes opened by the tribune and dangled towards the floor.

  Cantex ripped his eyes from the gruesome sight and planted his gaze firmly on his friend.

  ‘You do like to make an entrance, don’t you, Convocus,’ he grinned.

  ‘Allow me to introduce you to Prince Doribunus of the Ibelli,’ Convocus replied with a straight face. ‘He’s having a bad day.’

  ‘He’s not alone.’ Cantex laughed, gesturing to the mass of enemy warriors who were mostly now dropping their weapons and raising their arms in surrender as their prince struggled to hold his innards in. ‘When this lot turned up I thought you must have been overrun already out in the east. You have no idea how glad I am to see you.’

  All around them, the battle was clearly over. They could not see as far as the river, of course, but there would be little doubt that as word of what happened here filtered through the enemy, so would that attack falter and fail too.

  ‘We’ve had our own little fight,’ Convocus admitted. ‘Nothing on this scale, mind. Doribunus over there had it in mind to win vast imperial favour by stopping your general from being the man to conquer Alba, along with my general.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The good prince is… was… general Crito’s cousin. It’s a long story. Suffice it to say the general is no longer commanding Raven Legion. I now have that honour.’

  Cantex frowned. ‘You killed the general?’

  ‘Oh, no. Assassins from the Vulture Legion did that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘As I said: a long story. Might need to speak to your general carefully, though. It’s more than a little complicated.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Cantex muttered in reply. ‘General Quietus died yesterday. Took an arrow through the neck in the first hour of battle. Interesting that it was an imperial arrow, though.’

  Convocus nodded. ‘Seems likely that our friends in Vulture Legion have been busy. Assassins sent after both the other generals? Does that mean you’re leading Hawk Legion now, then?’

  ‘I am,’ Cantex said wearily. ‘We’re exhausted, under-provisioned, and now with a lot of casualties. But we’re alive.’

  He looked around. Everything seemed to be under control. The various tribunes and captains were overseeing the putting down of the last resistance and the disarming of the captives. Prince Doribunus was struggling to hold himself together, quite literally. If he was lucky, a passing soldier might put him out of his misery but, given what Convocus had said, Cantex was happy to leave the traitor struggling his slow way into an agonising grave.

  Putting an arm around Convocus, with difficulty – the man was a good head taller than him – he led his friend away from the mass of men and across the debris left by the dismantled tents to an area devoid of men. Once he was certain they were alone and out of earshot of everyone, he stopped.

  ‘That’s better. Away from anxious ears where we can talk freely. Tell me about the east.’

  Convocus sighed and dropped to the grass, folding his legs as his friend followed suit.

  ‘This cannot be spread to the men, or it will destroy morale and endanger the chain of command, but General Crito has been manipulating matters from the outset. He was the one, using his familial connections with the Ibelli, who started the piracy and the raids on imperial territory. In his desperation to rebuild his reputation, he created a reason to go to war, and had promised his mother’s people they would receive preferential treatment with the empire when it was all over if they aided him in his dealings with the other generals. This lot were supposed to stop you and remove your leaders so that Crito could inherit the army and secure the glory for himself.’

  He heaved in a relieved breath. ‘I’m not sure what went wrong there, though I suspect the native attitude to war makes it rather difficult to rein in the war-band once they have dealt with the commanders. In fact, I seriously doubt even the prince would bother stopping the wholesale slaughter. It seems that Crito was not the only devious, treacherous figure in this play. The general was killed by a man from the Vulture Legion. Garrotted in his tent. The blame for that seems likely to be laid firmly at the feet of general Volentius. And if your general was killed by an imperial arrow, it seems highly unlikely to have come from any other source. I’d say that this campaign was doomed from the start, if two of the generals were more intent on ruining each other than achieving our goals.’

  Cantex nodded vehemently. ‘Worse yet, while General Quietus seemed to have no nefarious plan other than to beat his peers to their goal, he voiced concerns that perhaps Senator Anicius Rufus might have been interfering with the campaign too. It seems that the specific section of our legion who disappeared and left us with no warning of the attack might have been assigned to us by the good senator.’

  Convocus shook his head in disbelief. ‘No wonder Titus wanted us to keep an eye on them all. Left to their own devices the three generals would have pulled this entire invasion apart and sacrificed the legions on the altar of personal gain. This whole thing is an almighty shit pile hovering on the brink of disaster.’

  ‘But still hovering,’ smiled Cantex. ‘Despite everything, we’re together in the north, alive, and with maybe a legion and half intact. That’s better than one might expect, considering what we’ve been through, and we’re beholden to no one. You and I are in command now. And once we’ve sorted everything out and taken stock, I’ll tell you about the fortress in the north that could change everything.’

  ‘So what do we do about Vulture Legion and General Volentius?’

  Cantex shrugged. ‘There can be little doubt, given the nature of where we were bound, that the Vulture Legion will be on their way. From what I understand of the scouts, this part of the island is a bit of a bottle-neck. Unless they want to come up a horrible rocky coast to the west and then cross a spine of mountains, Volentius will bring his men this route, the same as he did twenty years ago. I don’t know about your men, but mine are exhausted and we could do with time to bury the dead and tend to the wounded.’

  ‘Us too.’

  ‘Then let’s stay here, fortify the place properly and await the good general. I would like a word with him.’

  Convocus chewed his lip. ‘We’ll need to be careful. He’s still our superior, remember. I just hope Bellacon’s alright and hasn’t done anything stupid. He has a habit of confronting corruption and idiocy.’

  ‘Whereas you’re clearly innocent of that,’ snorted Cantex.

  ‘Whatever the case, we should wait here, fortif
y and recuperate while we wait for the Vulture Legion. Then we can decide on our next move.’

  Part Four

  The Three Tribunes

  As the three legions converged on their goal in the north, so did they draw closer to their fate. War was being waged on my island, between native and invader, as well as between the aggressors themselves. At the same time, inside, I felt the old war being waged in my heart. I was aiding these men in assimilating my homeland into their cold, materialistic empire. I knew that my actions and my encouragement would destroy our old ways and replace them with heated floors, marble statues, and tax men.

  I had power. I could have stopped them, if I’d wanted, and part of me did want that. It is no easy thing to turn one’s back on one’s heritage, but sometimes it is best to remember that one cannot walk safely forwards while looking back. It was Alba’s destiny to fall to the empire. It would happen eventually. I could have stopped this particular victory, yes, but these were good men, and their success would be subtle and sympathetic. If I stopped them then the next time, when I was not around to intervene, it might be men like Volentius or Crito in command. Better the velvet glove than the armoured gauntlet.

  And so I led the Vulture Legion to the River Aora, where I now knew from the casting of bones the other legions to be waiting.

  Chapter 16

  The scout waited patiently at the foot of the ladder while Cantex and Convocus scoured the horizon. The watchtower was one of six surrounding the camp, which had been fully fortified now for the past three days while the wounded were tended, the dead buried, and the survivors rested and renewed. A tall tree had had its extraneous branches removed and a flat wooden platform erected some twenty feet up, reachable by a ladder. At the top of the bluff itself, the added height gave the platform an almost unparalleled view.

  ‘Is that them?’

  Cantex grinned. ‘Has to be. The natives don’t kick up that much dust when they travel. That’s an imperial column if ever I saw one.’

  Convocus nodded. ‘I shall still have the men stand to just in case. Nothing on this trip is what it seems.’

  His friend peered off into the distance, where the huge force was now spilling across a wide meadow in neat rows and columns, and Convocus curved his feet around the ladder’s uprights and, grateful for the gloves he wore, slid swiftly down the ladder. Nodding his thanks to the scout, he gestured to the adjutant nearby.

  ‘Imperial column, but have the camp stand to and man the walls anyway. We can’t be certain that the general’s intentions are good.’

  The man hurried off and Convocus waited for Cantex to drop down and join him. ‘Do we wait for them to arrive or ride out to meet them?’

  ‘I’d say we ride,’ the smiling tribune replied, pointing at the Hawk Legion commander’s guard who waited patiently nearby. ‘We can take your bodyguards. That way if we find ourselves in trouble we should be able to get out swiftly enough.’

  A short while later the two men rode across the lush grass amid a forty-strong unit of elite guards, the sound of horns and officers’ commands ringing out across the camp behind them. The approaching force was not difficult to spot, from the huge dust cloud they kicked up. As the small party reached a low rise and crested it, they were treated to their first clear view of the new arrivals.

  It was most certainly the Vulture Legion, their banners waving and declaring their identity, and they were moving fast, at a good march, which means that they must have left behind their wagons. A small party of officers rode at the front, their bodyguard close behind. As the two tribunes and their escort closed on the command party, so their opposite numbers rushed forward to protect their own.

  Cantex and Convocus shared a look.

  ‘Is that Bellacon?’

  ‘D’you know, I think it is. And no sign of General Volentius.’

  ‘But that’s his tame witch next to Bellacon.’

  They slowed and came to a halt ahead of the Vulture Legion and off to one side, and a moment later a small group broke free of the approaching staff and rode towards them. Bellacon, at the party’s head, wore a grin that threatened to split his face in half.

  ‘By all the gods, this is a welcome sight,’ the travel-worn and dusty tribune laughed. ‘Here we are racing north in the hope of saving my old friend Cantex from a grizzly end, and instead I find both of you, hale and hearty and waiting for me.’

  ‘Bellacon,’ Cantex smiled. ‘We thought to see the general. We were unsure of what reception we might get.’

  ‘That would explain the sounds of battle preparation I can hear ahead, then. I think we need to dismiss the guards and have a private chinwag.’

  As Bellacon waved his guard back to the tired legion, Convocus ordered his own escort to join the column and make for the camp along with them.

  ‘The watchword is Fat arse,’ he told the departing men, so they would be able to enter the camp as allies and not be held at the gate.

  ‘Fat arse?’ prompted Bellacon.

  ‘Cantex,’ Convocus replied with rolled eyes. ‘He likes to make things as ridiculous as possible, especially when he knows it will annoy me. Fat arse is about the most sensible watchword we’ve had so far. Some would have made a whore blush. I’ve had a very straight-laced and pious captain held at the gate for over an hour because he refused to befoul his mouth with one of Cantex’s favourites.’

  Cantex flashed a grin at his newly-arrived friend, and Bellacon laughed. ‘Well now, I don’t know what’s happened to both of you, but I have rather a tale to tell. A tale which concludes with the death of General Volentius and my slipping into his shoes.’

  ‘We are not free of all ears,’ noted Convocus, nodding at the witch woman who sat in the saddle nearby in the manner of a man.

  ‘Lissa is a friend. An ally even.’ There was something about Bellacon’s expression when he glanced at her that made Convocus narrow his eyes. Respect, and something more…

  ‘She’s a native,’ he noted carefully, ‘and she belonged to Volentius.’

  ‘And now she is free, and she accompanies me,’ Bellacon said quietly. ‘Trust me, Convocus, you want this woman with us. Did my riders reach you then? Are your generals in the camp?’

  ‘Riders?’ Cantex shrugged. ‘No. But then we’ve been racing all over the island, so there would be little chance of anyone finding us. And the generals have fallen. Crito was throttled by one of your general’s assassins, and Quietus took an imperial arrow through the neck. What happened to Volentius? Did he get careless and assassinate himself? Smother himself in the night with a pillow or something?’

  ‘Oddly, it was an accident,’ Bellacon replied quietly, ignoring his friend’s wit. ‘Good job, really. I might have had to kill him otherwise, but he fell into the fire when he was drunk. It was not pretty and I even pitied him in the end, but it was probably for the best. You know of his assassins, then?’

  ‘We put two and two together,’ Convocus said. ‘I must warn you that this entire campaign is one monumental cock-up, far beyond just the treachery of your general. Crito was behind the pirates, in order to push the empire into a new invasion, and he sent a native force to stop Quietus and his men. The assassin probably saved us a struggle for command and a lengthy trial back home in the end.’

  ‘Volentius intended to remove his opposite numbers,’ Bellacon noted. ‘That way he could combine the three legions and move against a fortress in the north.’

  ‘I have heard of this place,’ Cantex replied. ‘A people called the Albantes. Very strong. More or less the key to controlling the island. Quietus may not have tried to move against his fellow generals, but he was certainly determined to beat them to the goal and take the credit for the campaign.’

  Bellacon stretched. ‘Is this it, then? The generals are gone and we have command. All the threats and treachery have been stamped on and we’re left with a simple, if rather difficult, task?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Cantex said quietly, ‘but then maybe not. General Quietus
informed me that a section of the Hawk Legion had been sent to him by the senator Anicius Rufus back home, and those men abandoned us a few nights back and left us defenceless against an enemy attack. It turns out that enemy was the one that came from the east, and Convocus saved us. But the senator cannot surely have known about Crito’s plot, so I suspect we can still anticipate something else initiated by Rufus back home.’

  ‘Whatever the case, we now have three legions. Well, two and a half anyway. We lost a number of men in the south-west.’

  ‘And we lost men here,’ Cantex added. ‘So in all we probably have the equivalent of two full legions of healthy soldiers.’

  ‘Will it be enough to deal with these Albantes?’

  ‘It will have to be,’ Convocus noted. ‘Gentlemen, we are now the commanders of this invasion, with all the responsibility that brings. We have orders from the emperor to conquer Alba. If we return without completing that mission, we will face the same ignominy that struck our predecessors, and even Titus will not be able to shield us from it. We have no choice. On the bright side, from what Cantex and you have said, at least we have some idea how to go about it. The generals seemed to be convinced that this fortress and its resident tribe would be the key to taking Alba. It may be daunting, but at least we have a plan and a goal.’

  Bellacon turned to the woman sitting on the horse beside him, who had thus far remained silent, nodding at odd junctures.

  ‘Lissa, what can you tell us?’

  The witch settled in the saddle and pursed her lips. ‘I have seen a vision of your victory. The Vulture Legion’s flag will fly over the fortress, and its general – Bellacon – will be triumphant. Of you or your legions I cannot be sure, but Vulture Legion at least will most certainly win their war.’

  ‘Then we all will,’ Cantex said with a grin. ‘Because you’re not doing it alone.’ Convocus nodded his agreement.

  ‘The Albantes are the strongest of the tribes,’ Lissa said, her voice quiet and yet oddly carrying great weight and gravitas. ‘Numerically they account for a quarter of the island’s population, more or less.’