Buy them time…
‘Something I hardly think your empire is innocent of, given your army’s current failure. Now dance the iron dance with me.’
She moved with fluid grace, very much like a dancer, and her first blow came with unexpected speed. Convocus turned it aside at the last moment with a step to his left, but his hand screamed with pain at the sword’s vibration from the blow, and he had to fight not to drop the weapon.
Gripping the sword with three numb fingers, he lifted it again.
‘I will have your head boiled clean of flesh,’ the queen said with a rictus smile. ‘Then I will set the skull in my shrine to the goddess. She will favour me for the gift even of such a womanish man.’
Convocus saw the only opening he was likely to get. The warriors in the room gave a rumble of appreciation at their queen’s plan and she turned with that feral smile, arms out, drinking in their support. Convocus leapt.
The tip of his sword tore into her side, but delivering far from a killing blow. She had been turning and his strength and accuracy were both reduced to naught by the pain and lack of control in his sword hand. The blade slid through flesh and even felt the resistance of a little muscle, but he also felt it glance across the ribs harmlessly.
The queen might as well be made from ice, not flesh, for she failed even to flinch at the blow. Convocus, his attack spent, lurched on and tried to recover himself. Her next blow almost severed his arm below the shoulder as he passed. He staggered on with the momentum, his arm flopping uselessly at his side, blood gushing from the dreadful wound. His sword was gone now, on the floor again, his arm useless, barely attached.
‘Forgive me, my friends,’ Convocus whispered, picturing the other two tribunes, as warriors stopped him with rough hands, turned him, and thrust him back, unarmed, towards the queen. ‘Drink a drink to me when you win.’
The queen smiled, still that smile of cold hatred, and her sword came up, angled slowly. He did not fight it. The pain was too much and he was done now, spent, and knew it. His end was coming and he would not struggle. All he could do was hope he had bought enough time for Cantex and the prince.
‘Your end will be a bad one, Queen of the Albantes. I promise you that.’
The point of the blade hit him at the base of the throat where his collarbones met and punched through, driving into bone and muscle until it ripped out of the back beside his spine, carrying his life with it.
Oddly, Convocus’ last image was a memory. Lying on the grass, hissing as he clutched the arrow jutting from his shoulder and looking up to see Bellacon and Cantex back to back, fighting to protect him from the Khan’s panicked army.
Comrades.
And then blackness.
Chapter 25
Cantex and his men barely waited for the door to close behind Convocus to move off on their search. Time was of the essence. Gesturing to three of his men, he pointed to the door at one end of the outer room, while he took the other man to the portal opposite. Subtlety would be of little use here, when compared to speed and surprise. With a nod to his man, Cantex readied himself. The soldier took a deep breath, braced, and then pulled the door open.
Cantex leapt inside, sword brandished ready.
There was a strange grunt and Cantex turned this way and that in the gloom. This room, like the previous, was lit by means of a single opening in the outer wall, though this one was smaller than the others and admitted considerably less light. To one side of the room was a bed that consisted of a rough straw pallet covered in sheepskins and woollen blankets.
A couple were moving rhythmically among the covers, though the male’s attention had slipped from the task at hand with the arrival of a grinning intruder.
Cantex took no chances. If the alarm was raised then they were all dead. His sword smashed down on the naked warrior, flat-side on, a heavy weight of steel thudding into the top of the man’s skull and robbing him of his wits instantly. The man collapsed with a groan.
Behind Cantex, the other soldier was now in the room, rushing over to another door opposite, pulling it open and ducking inside. Leaving the soldier to his work, Cantex rolled the big native off the pale young woman, who stared up at him with terrified eyes. Her mouth opened to shout, though whether by design or by instinct the tribune could not tell.
He dropped to his knees, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the tip of which dug into the ground below, the other hand dropping to the girl and covering that open mouth just before the scream issued. It came out only as a muffled whisper between his fingers.
‘Hello, my dear. Too much to ask that you speak my tongue, I guess?’
The incomprehension was clear in the girl’s eyes, and Cantex sighed. ‘You are a lovely thing, and this pains me more than it will you. Well, probably not in truth, but figuratively speaking…’
In a fluid move, he swung the sword point up, backhanded, and slammed the pommel into the girl’s cranium. Her eyes rolled up into her skull. Checking her breathing and that her lover was out for the count he rose and turned. The soldier was closing that second door once more and shook his head. ‘Nothing but blankets and straw and pelts and stuff, sir.’
‘Other side, then,’ Cantex replied, turning and leaving the room with his man at his back. There were muffled sounds a lot like combat coming from the queen’s hall, the detail hidden by the stifling door and the drumming rain outside. Convocus was obviously dealing with the queen. Good. Cantex resisted the urge to open the door and rush to his friend’s side. They each had a task, and each was important.
At the far side of the outer room, the opposite door was open and one of the soldiers stood beside it. As Cantex crossed the vestibule, the soldier beckoned to him and he and his companion ran across and followed him in.
The room beyond the door appeared to be some kind of guard room. A table with two low seats, a barrel of ale with the top off and two used mugs on the table. A single body lay on the floor in a growing lake of crimson, his neck slit from side to side, neatly and with absolute silence. Like a mirror of the chamber at the far side, another door stood ahead, this one also open.
Cantex ran across and through it. This was a store room, with several more barrels as well as boxes and sacks. A further door lay to one side. This one must lead along the side of the building, around the edge of the queen’s room. The chamber was dim, though not as dark as the store room with its barrels, for two small apertures in the wall let in the cold damp morning light. Better yet, the apertures lay on either side of a small external door, secured with a bar across the inside and no lock.
A second door lay ahead, and the remaining two of his soldiers stood at it, one with an ear cupped to the timber, the other silently beckoning. With his man at his shoulder, Cantex ran across.
‘What?’ he asked in hushed tones.
‘I think I heard a voice, sir,’ whispered the man, ‘but I didn’t want to shout.’
‘Get the door open.’
‘I tried, sir. This one appears to use a key lock. Didn’t even know they had such things here.’
Cantex gestured to the small external door. ‘That’s our exit. Get it unbarred and open it a crack. Have a look outside.’
As the other men did so, Cantex examined the door in front of him. It did indeed have a keyhole and a fairly heavy tug failed to pull it open. Casting up a brief prayer to any god that might be listening, he stepped back, raised a leg and slammed his foot into the door on top of the lock. There was a splintering sound and the wall shook. He could only hope that Convocus’ actions in the next room and the downpour outside would combine to mask the sound of his attempts to open the door. With another deep breath, he pulled back his foot and struck again.
The door burst inwards with a sound like a tree torn in half, though Cantex could see nothing in the blackness of the interior. The stench of faeces and rot almost floored him, however. Rubbing his eyes and manoeuvring for better position, the tribune peered myopically into the gloom.
; Two figures, wearing what appeared to be rough woollen sacks, torn and covered in filth, looked up, blinking at the intrusion of even so little light. The men had long, tangled manes of dark hair and beards in which their faces were lost. It had to be them. Had to be.
‘Ambassadors?’ he said quietly.
One of the men moved forward a tentative pace, blinking, his face a mask of confusion. His mouth opened, but all that emerged was a husky gurgle. Cantex tried to smile supportively. He was positive they’d found their goal, even if the man hadn’t yet confirmed it. But then the ambassadors had been captives of the queen for almost three years. Years, almost certainly, of living in the same small, cramped, dark space. No fresh air or light. No one to talk to but each other. Very likely they had hardly spoken in years. Would they even remember the imperial language?
‘You two,’ he gestured to two of the four other soldiers in the room. ‘Help them up and out. Be gentle with them. We don’t know how long they’ve been in there.’
Leaving his men to help the ambassadors up from their pit of stinking filth, Cantex, gagging slightly, nodded at the external door. The men had removed the bar and creaked it open a fragment. ‘Well?’
‘No one, sir,’ whispered the soldier. ‘I can hear the lot out front, but there’s nothing between us and the next house.’
‘Good. Guard that door and don’t go anywhere.’
Leaving the lot of them, Cantex hurried back through the store room and out into the guard room. Now he just needed Convocus…
He was almost bowled over in the doorway by Prince Suolceno coming the other way, wild-eyed and panting.
‘What is it?’
‘Run,’ was all the prince said, then pushed past him and on into the store room. Cantex, his heart turning to ice with the realisation of what that must mean, quickly shut the door and ran after the prince.
‘Convocus?’
‘The queen was ready for us. They are all dead and if we don’t leave now we will join them.’
As they passed through the store room and out into the room with the doors, Cantex shivered. In a dozen years of service, he’d never been without his friends. They’d oft-times been parted by duty, of course, but they had still always been there, and they’d all known it.
Convocus…
‘Move,’ the prince hissed, thrusting him towards the exit. Behind them, they could hear the slamming of doors and the bellowing of harsh voices. The soldiers ripped open the door and stepped out into the rain, the blinking, petrified ambassadors following on, then the prince, and then Cantex.
The tribune felt the fate of men resting on his shoulders at the realisation that the remaining soldiers out front would be killed any moment. Or worse still, they might be kept alive and tortured.
‘Stop dithering, sir,’ said the soldier who’d beckoned him to the door. ‘You go. I’ll cover your exit.’
Cantex flashed the man a sad look. Another soldier’s fate on his shoulders. The man’s expression was stern, professional, though inflected with more than a hint of fear. ‘Go, sir. While you can.’
Cantex gave him a nod and stepped out into the torrents of rain. Behind him, the soldier shut the door and he could hear the bar slide back into place and the muffled creak of another door as the soldier retreated to hide in the darkness and push the cell door closed. At first glance, particularly in the gloom, there would appear to be nothing out of place inside.
The sounds of steel on iron and shouts in two languages arose from the front of the building, and Cantex shook his head to clear it. His mind was reeling at the loss of Convocus, but he had to shed that and concentrate. They had a pair of men with them who were almost certainly two of the three ambassadors, and they were still in the very heart of enemy territory. Whatever he felt, he had no time to deal with it now. Escape was all that mattered.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward through the group. Four warriors, two civilians, a tribune and a prince. Eight men. And although the prince knew this place better than any of them, it was to Cantex they would all look. And for all the little he could discern of the place, he knew everything he needed to in order to put the plan into action.
‘Come on,’ he hissed, his voice lost in the general hiss of the rain around them. Deftly, he ducked around the side of the large royal structure into the garden. There, he began to sprint from tree to tree, using their spring-summer foliage to help cover them from the few individuals visible at the top of the compound’s rampart. Fortunately, the natives up there were as yet unaware of any problem and were more intent on holding cloaks and shields over their head and hunkering down out of the rain than carefully scanning their surroundings.
Once Cantex judged that they were far enough from the house that they would not be too obvious for anyone who survived the fight going on there, he waved the others on behind him and ducked to the right, emerging from the trees at the base of the compound’s rampart.
It took him a few moments to spot what he was looking for, but it transpired that the prince’s information had been correct. Thank the gods. This was the lowest point of the high ground upon which the noble enclosure had been constructed, as was clearly evidenced by the fact that the rain, which had already saturated the grass and gathered in pools during the short time they had been at the queen’s house, was seeping down this way in rivulets and gathering at the base of the turf wall.
And here some clever fellow in the past ordered a culvert through the entire breadth of the rampart, which was somewhere between thirty and forty feet thick at the base. The rain gurgled and chattered into the hole, where it drained the enclosure and ran outside into the main grounds of Steinvic…
and down to the stream.
Eying the top of the rampart and hoping they had not yet been seen, Cantex dropped to his knees and peered into the hole. Gods, it was narrow. The prince had said that would be the case, but Cantex hadn’t realised quite how narrow.
‘This is it. Armour and weapons have to stay here,’ he hissed, undoing his sword belt so that it dropped to the ground. He began to shrug out of his mail shirt with difficulty. The others followed suit as fast as they could, all eyes repeatedly darting up to the wall top and back to the main house. Figures moved in the gap between buildings now.
The fight was over. They might not yet be aware that the ambassadors had gone, but they would be searching for Prince Suolceno at the very least. The heavy rain and the fruit trees’ foliage combined to keep their presence undetected as they slid the last of their armour and weapons to the ground.
Cantex took a deep breath, peering with a mix of tension and concern at the ambassadors. They were weak and atrophied, filthy, pale and blinking. Would determination and hope be enough to drive them through the numerous hardships that stood between here and safety? He could only hope. One of them at least had to make it out, or there could be no legally binding agreement between the Prince and the empire.
‘Follow me.’ He gestured at the ambassadors. ‘Stay close, don’t make a noise, and move as fast as you can, sirs, and we’ll have you out to safety in no time.’
A moment later he was on his knees, then his belly in the cold trickle of rainwater and the mud of the culvert entrance. This was no imperial construction of neat flagstones and shaped bricks. This was a narrow tunnel formed of roughly-wedged rocks, the floor just mud. With some difficulty, he struggled into the narrow tunnel and began to wriggle his way along with a worm’s gait, the only method the space allowed, wriggling this way and that in the confined space, and pulling himself along a hand-span at a time.
‘Hurry,’ hissed the prince’s voice from behind, and Cantex bit down on the urge to throw out a sarcastic reply.
He had never been subject to that fear of close spaces that crippled some people, but he could now begin to understand how that terror must fray the edges of a man’s sanity. The knowledge that a hundred tons of earth and rubble were held above him merely by the careful placing of wedged rocks, and that it would take
him some time to drag himself along the narrow tunnel, left him with a cold knot of panic that wouldn’t shift. It was like trying to lie still under a mountain.
The moments passed by slowly in this tight, black, hellish prison, Cantex’s vision locked on the tiny point of light ahead. At least he had that. The others would just have the person in front, as black as the rest of their surroundings. Each heartbeat came with agonising slowness, and each one brought with it the increased likelihood of their whereabouts being discovered by the queen’s men.
The cold of the water and mud crept into the tribune’s bones and he would have shivered uncontrollably had there been enough room. The black solitude of the tunnel gave him ample time to reflect upon what had happened.
Convocus had died.
The very idea seemed unthinkable. Despite the clear danger, and perhaps idiocy, of what they had been doing, he’d not even considered the possibility that they wouldn’t escape. That Convocus wouldn’t escape. He was, after all, the clever one, and they all acknowledged that. Every shuffle of his body, every nudge and scrape of his shoulders against the wedged stones, every beat of his heart was like a pendulous weight swinging against his soul.
Convocus was dead.
Bang.
Convocus was dead.
Bang.
Convocus was dead.
Bang.
After what felt like an eternity of crushing soil, freezing water and oppressive darkness, he was close enough to the end of the culvert that he could start to pick out details, and that fact was welcome most of all as a distraction from the loss and ache of that repeated pendulum swing.
If it were possible to feel positive about anything, it would be this potential freedom from black claustrophobia. His fingers were suddenly in the open, the fresh rain drumming his skin. Then his hands. Then his arms. And suddenly he felt the muck and soil being washed from his hair and face by the cleansing rain. Born and bred in the central provinces near Munda, he was a child of a temperate environment and the cold rains of the north had never suited him. But after that eternity of muck and pressing darkness, the chilly torrent felt like the most soothing of balms on his flesh.
Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5) Page 29
