Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1)

by Frances Smith

  The crowd erupted in such cheering at his name that it was as though Gabriel himself had been reborn amongst them, and the cheering only redoubled when Michael strode out of the dark tunnel and into the arena itself.

  The red stone walls of the amphitheatre loomed over him, and the stands of the crowd loomed higher still, packed in with men and women of every class and station. In the Royal Box, which still bore that name though it had been more than five hundred years since Corona was ruled by a prince of Corona's blood, the proconsul sat with the high priest and Master Dolabella along with other notable men and intimates of the Imperial governor. Michael was hardly able to make out any individuals in the stands so tight was the crowding, but he could see the excitement in their faces as young and old, rich and poor they stared down upon him. For Michael to stand there, with all the faces of the crowd looking down upon him, was to stand in the very centre of the world, observed by earth and sky. For the arena was the world, rendered in miniature: the sandy ground on which they fought the surface of the earth, the walls which bounded it the firmament of sky, and the spectators looking on mirroring the vast crowd of a man's ancestors, who observed his every word and deed from beyond the veil of death. And when a gladiator walked upon these hallowed sands his tread was broad as any great man who had ever bestrode the wider earth. And though the wider world had moved along from heroes; thought it had, some said, no more need of them, then here in this miniature world that was not yet so. And Michael thanked God for it.

  Michael squared off against his wretched foeman, a scowl disfiguring a countenance that had not been handsome to begin with.

  "Why so angry?" Judas demanded. "Do I know you?"

  "You have forgotten me?" Michael shouted. "Forgotten how you kidnapped my brother and slew him far from home? My name is Michael Sebastian Callistus ban Ezekiel and do not think, villain, that your disgrace shall stain the glory of my name any longer!"

  Judas tilted his head to one side before he asked, "Didn't I drive a knife through your heart seven years ago?"

  Michael made no response, other than to ready himself to strike. His rage surged with anticipation of what was to come.

  "We who are about to die," he declared, his voice ringing out across the arena. "Commend our souls to God and praise the Emperor! For Throne and Empire!"

  "God defend the right," the Proconsul declared. "Let it begin!"

  It began with a clash of blades, a testing by the two combatants of the measure of their foe. They advanced, clashed swords, and then retreated. They advanced, clashed swords again, fell back once again. Michael smiled. He was a cruel fellow, this Judas who had haunted his dreams these seven years past, but Michael knew himself to be superior. God be praised, this fight was his.

  "Since you are to soon to face the judgement of Turo," Michael said. "I suggest that you now make confession and repent of all your sins."

  "I have no sins to confess," Judas said.

  "None!" Michael yelled. "What of my brother's kidnap? What of the severed arm left at our door as token of his death? What of my mother? What would you call such horrendous acts, if not sins that must be acknowledged before God?"

  "The price of liberty," Judas declared. "What matter if ten thousand die, so long as Corona lives?"

  Michael's response was a wordless snarl as he charged for the foe. He struck in a fury, his spatha striking Judas' shield like waves upon the shore over and over and over again. Judas struck back, thrusting his shield forward, but Michael flowed around the lunge to slash at Judas' leg. The rebel dropped to one knee.

  "Wasn't clever of you to give your name," Judas said. "I've got a lot of friends, and everybody has someone that they care about."

  Michael did not dignify that petty threat with a response, his lip curling into a sneer. "Stand up, varlet; try and muster in death a little of that dignity that eluded you in life."

  "If you're going to kill me get it over with," Judas said. "The Empire may put me to death, but it will not strip my pride from me."

  "Pride!" Michael kicked him in the face, taking grim satisfaction from the crunch of Judas' nose as it crumpled under Michael's strength. "If this is what you call pride, then by Turo I vow you'll beg for shame long ere you sue for death. Now stand up!"

  Judas lunged to his feet with an angry cry and threw himself at Michael. Their blades clashed, and Michael lowered his guard just long enough for Judas to sink his sword into Michael's side.

  Michael felt the steel penetrate his flesh, felt the pain spasm up his body, felt the blood run down his side and leg, soaking his loincloth; and he laughed. He threw back his head and cackled to sky and sea as Judas stepped away from him. He laughed because he knew it would unnerve his opponent, and laughed all the harder because of it.

  "You stabbed me through the heart once and it did not send me down to Turo's Hall, yet now you think a blow such as this will lay me low?" Michael said, and enjoyed the look of dismay coming over Judas' face as Michael gave no sign that the wound had hurt him. At the same time, he knew he had to finish this quickly.

  And would it not be something grand and glorious if we both fell today, and stood side by side before Turo's judgement?

  "One last opportunity," Michael said. "Confess your sins before you die."

  "Never," Judas said.

  "So be it," Michael said, and came at him. He soon forgot the crowd and the notables above. All he knew was the enemy before him, and his need for vengeance. Wounded though he was he fought with a speed Judas could not match, as though he was fighting not with the strength of his body but with the fury of his wrath; as though he were become less a man than an inhuman spirit of vengeance.

  "Confess," Michael said, as he sliced off Judas' shield arm below the shoulder.

  "No," Judas shouted out through the pain.

  Michael attacked him again, and Judas was no match for Michael's anger. The rebel's sword flew from his hand. Michael sliced through his hamstring and dropped him onto the sand.

  "Confess," Michael said again as his sabre swung down to slice off Judas' other hand.

  Judas only response was to howl in agony.

  Michael dropped to his knees, and hammered his sabre hilt into Judas' eye. "Confess your crimes! By Turo I'll rob you of everything save your tongue if I must."

  Judas coughed, and said, "You and your kind are what we fight against. Long live the Rose!"

  Michael yelled as he put out Judas's other eye, and started jamming his swords into the other man, anywhere that would hurt, anywhere to make him cry out, anywhere that would make Judas desperate for the pain to stop. And still he would not make confession.

  "CONFESS YOUR SINS!" Michael screamed, ramming his spatha near up to the hilt in the stump of Judas' arm. Judas screamed too, and it was only then Michael realised that that was the only sound he could hear.

  He looked up. The crowd had long since stopped cheering, and were watching the spectacle unfolding before them with horror and grim fascination. In their eyes, Michael saw fear. In their faces he beheld disgust. In their silence he stood condemned.

  Judas laughed, the harsh and rattling laugh of a man with moments to live and nothing to lose. "From the sounds of it, the mob is finding it hard to tell which of us is the monster, isn't it?"

  Michael bowed his head, his long black hair falling down over it like curtain that protected him from the harsh gazes of the world, and hid his face from view as he realised just how far he had fallen. How terrified would Felix have been of him, if he had beheld such rage? What would Amy have thought, to see her protector transfigured thus into a beast?

  What would his mother have thought of her young firstborn, her man of honour, if she could see him now.

  Turo have mercy on my soul, Michael prayed.

  "No. It is not hard to tell at all," he murmured, and cut Judas' throat quickly and cleanly.

  He stayed where he was kneeling on the ground, as Judas body was taken away. No one said anything to him, nor did he say aught to
them. They were afraid of him. They all knew that his foe had been a sinner most deserving, yet now they feared that he would turn his blade on honest men. The thought made him laugh, for his head was light as a cloud now and even pain seemed amusing. He laughed alone, in the silence of the arena.

  God forgive me, Michael prayed. Mother, Felix, forgive me.

  He was still bleeding. It felt like a drumbeat pounding in his veins, like the sea surging through him from the wound inwards; but the tide was receding, and the beat of the drums was dying. Dying, yes, dying would be preferable to feeling all of his shame.

  Michael tipped forwards, his face striking the sand yet he barely felt it getting in his eyes. He felt nothing but the weariness in his soul, and the cold and weakness embracing his limbs.

  He felt so very tired. Michael closed his eyes, and let the darkness embrace him.

  The sky was dark, for Raphael was melancholy that night and so the moon was dim and scarcely visible. A little candlelight leaked out from the house into the doorway. Enough to illuminate the body, and the blood...

  Michael's mother was lying on the ground, a knife driven into her side, her raven hair askew, her breathing shallow. A white rose, its petals turning crimson as they were stained by his mother's blood, had been left by her side.

  "Help!" Michael screamed, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. "Someone, please help me!"

  "Hush now, Michael," his mother said, her voice low, quiet, fading. "You'll wake your brother and sister."

  "But, Mother─"

  Mother pushed his hand away, Michael's palm was covered in the black ichor of the poison that had coated the knife. She whispered, "I'm afraid there's nothing you can do. God has called me, and none can fail to answer when Turo calls for them; soon he will send his naiads to gather me to his side."

  Michael crouched over his mother's body, his face so close to hers their noses were almost touching, not knowing what to do.

  “Mother,” Michael whispered, so small and quiet the word seemed to have been spoken by a voice far off, so hard was it to hear. “Mother?”

  His mother smiled, a soft and gentle smile. “Look after Miranda, and Felix too. Do you remember what a man does?”

  Michael nodded, tears beginning to fall down his face, “A man guards his family. He serves them and protects them all his days; else he is no man at all. I remember, Mother.”

  “Of course you do. You’re a good boy. A good man. My brave little Firstborn."

  Michael's tears, the tears he could not restrain, fell onto his mother's face.

  "Are you crying?" she asked him.

  Michael nodded. “I don’t want you to go. Please stay.”

  His mother reached up, and tenderly wiped the tears from his cheek, “Don’t cry. Men never cry, and I need you to be a man now for your brother and sister. Do you understand?”

  “I won’t let them see Mother; not Felix or Miranda or anybody. I won’t let them see. I promise.”

  “Open your eyes, Michael,” an imperative voice said loudly. "Michael, wake up."

  Her tone would brook no argument. Michael’s eyes flickered open and he looked into the face of his little sister crouched over him. Rebecca Miranda Callistus ban Ezekiel had the same brown eyes as the rest of the Callistus family, but instead of black her hair was silver white as though some god had stolen moonlight from the heavens and woven it in her hair as an adornment to her beauty. Her face was round and softly curved; Miranda was lovely as her namesake, Turo's daughter. It was a constant disappointment to Michael, whenever he asked news of his sister, that there seemed to be no young woman in her life.

  Miranda stood up, leaning on a silver-topped ebony cane. She was dressed simply but well, in a light blue chiton dress with a modest neckline that looked to have been tailored to fit her near exactly. A small pearl adorned each ear. In Michael's sparse cell, amidst the straw and the smell of sweat and blood, she stood out as an emissary from another world.

  Michael sat up on the pile of straw that served him for a bed. "I did not expect to see you."

  "You're welcome. For saving your life."

  Michael felt his side, the wound where Judas had stabbed him was gone, vanished by Miranda's power. He smiled wryly. "I apologise, my low state has eroded my high manners. Thank you for saving me, you have my gratitude."

  "Liar," Miranda said tartly. "All you want is death and we both know it."

  Michael did not reply to that. If this visit of his sister's could end without a blistering quarrel he would thank Turo for it. Instead he looked down, at the clean unbroken flesh that had last time he looked been bleeding his life away. That was Miranda's power, her unique glory: to heal any wound, unmake any injury, cure any bodily ache. No one else in all Pelarius could do this, nobody could remember anybody who had save for Michael, whose interest in the tales of Old Corona led him to recall that many centuries ago Aurelia the White had worked such marvels. He had oft wondered if there was some connection, 'twixt Aurelia's high blood and the low estate of the Callisti. But no, that thought was the height of conceited arrogance, and Miranda would never believe him if he laid his theory in front of her.

  But still. If not from there, then where?

  Miranda said, "Was it necessary for you to get so angry out there?"

  Michael looked away. "So you saw that did you?" Miranda did not answer, but disapproval radiated off her like the rays of the sun. "That was the man. The one from five years ago. He killed our Felix."

  "And do you feel better now, having killed him and mutilated his body?"

  Michael frowned. "No."

  "I didn't think so," Miranda said.

  Michael still could not meet her eyes. "Are you well, sister?"

  "Well enough," Miranda replied. "I continue...to continue. I thought about moving to Davidheyr, but...I changed my mind."

  Michael said nothing to that. It was his personal opinion that Miranda would shine in the provincial capital, but she would not want to hear his thoughts upon the subject. Instead he asked, "How is Mater Doraeus?"

  "Declining, I think," Miranda said. "The ailment is in her mind, and the mind is beyond even my powers to heal. She forgets everything except that her daughter is gone, and yet she swears up and down that Amy went under the ocean to live with the naiads and the merfolk, and that she will return any day now. I think that's as bad as it sounds. Honestly I find it very hard to visit her... the way that she talks about the past like it's happening, like Felix is still alive... I can't stand it. I send my maid to see how she is from time to time but I seldom go myself."

  "Miranda," Michael said, letting reproach slip into his tone. "That family did right by us after mother died. The least you could do is look in on her."

  "When I want to be lectured on my behaviour, I'll go to someone who didn't sell his moral authority along with his freedom," Miranda said coldly. "And on you, self-righteousness is a cloak even more tatty than that red rag you wear. Now get up, I'm getting you out of here."

  Michael's brow furrowed. Seven years ago he had sold himself into slavery to Jonathon Dolabella, and the proceeds had gone to keep a roof over Miranda's head and food upon her table. But though she probably now had the money to buy him back - last year she'd moved into a new house, which was large enough to have a garden, of all luxuries - Master Dolabella would not sell a gladiator with a record of victories and years of fight left in him, would he?

  Or would he, after what he'd seen today?

  Michael hoped not. He did not particularly want to go back to the real world. All he knew how to do was fight and kill, what was he supposed to do in the real world? When he was growing up, he had only ever considered doing two things: joining the priesthood of Turo, or serving his younger brother and sister as their protector like the Firstborn of old had done. But he had failed to protect Felix, Miranda had rejected him as a warrior guardian, and his hands were now too stained with blood for him to ever be thought fit to serve God.

  The world outside the
arena held nothing for him. He preferred the certainties of slavery and these confining halls.

  "What are you talking about, Miranda?" Michael asked. "You never wanted me before."

  "I said I didn't want you 'protecting me' following me around, hitting anyone who looked at me wrong the way you used to trail after Felix and Amy," Miranda snapped. "I never said I didn't want a brother."

  "That is what a brother is-"

  "Oh bollocks," Miranda spat. "And if you say one word about the damn Firstborn I swear I'm going to slap you. You aren't an ancient hero, I'm not your damned princess and you need to grow up and start to live in the real world."

  "Why should I if I don't want to? It's not like I'm hurting anyone," Michael snapped.

  Miranda swallowed, and her voice was quiet as she said, "Yes you are."

  Michael was silent for a moment, his eyes wide and mouth open. At last he spoke, "I regret, Miranda, that this is who I am, for all that you do not approve. And if you have bought me then I would prefer you treated me as your slave, rather than granting me my liberty. I would not know how to begin being free in such a world as this."

  "I haven't paid anything for you. Jonathon Dolabella doesn't want my money and won't take any price," Miranda said. "So I'm breaking you out of here. Lysimachus!"

  A man stepped out of the corridor and into the cell, fortunately his wiry frame did not take up too much room. Lysimachus' hair was dark and flecked with grey; his nose, recalling somewhat a bird of prey, was but the sharpest in a collection of sharp features. His eyes, one blue and the other red, swept over Michael briefly and perfunctorily as he stood, half lounging, in the doorway fingering a curved knife at his belt.

  Miranda said, "This is Lysimachus Castra, I hired him to get you out of here, him and his men. Lysimachus can you do it?"

  "Easily, ma'am," Lysimachus said in slow, deliberate drawl. "Julian's got the door and Ascanius can take care of the guards outside. No killing, just as you said, but he'll get them out the way. We can all be off quick as you like once we're done here."