by David McAfee
There is always a choice, even if it is not always a good choice.
Taras had made his a long time ago. He had chosen to live rather than to die, and he’d done so again earlier, when he forced his body up from the metal rod Ramah had used to impale him. But this was different. In both previous cases, his death would have accomplished nothing except to remove him from the world. But now, with Theron’s life hanging on Taras’s decision, he could finally die with dignity, and do the world a favor at the same time.
Taras made his choice.
“So be it, then. I would rather die burning in the sunlight than share my sanctuary with you. At least I will rid the world of your presence.” Taras advanced on his oldest enemy, claws once again at the ready. Now that he had a purpose, he was anxious to get started. In the back of his mind, he wondered how long it would take the sun to kill them and how much it would hurt. He’d never seen a Bachiyr burn to death before. With luck, he would get to see Theron burning, as well. That would be a wonderful last sight.
“I thought that would be your answer,” Theron said, still smiling. “But you are forgetting something.”
Taras paused, suspecting a trick. “What?”
“Her,” Theron pointed to the woman on the ground. “I saw you protect her. I’ve been following you for a while now. She is not dead. Not yet. Would you let her die in the street like a dog?”
Taras looked over at the woman. She lay in the street amidst a growing pool of blood, both hers and the legionaries’. Her right arm was outstretched, reaching for her dagger, which lay a foot beyond her reach. She looked dead, but her heart still beat a faint rhythm in her chest. The heartbeat was weak, but it was there. Even so, she would not be alive for much longer. The brigands had seen to it she would die a slow, painful death, but there was nothing he could do to help her.
“She is dead no matter what I do,” Taras replied. “Stop wasting what time we have left and let’s get on with it.” He sprang forward, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Before Theron had even raised a hand to defend himself, Taras had his claws pressed into his throat. They drew a thin line of blood from the flesh, but Theron seemed not to notice. He didn’t even move.
“She doesn’t have to die,” Theron said.
“What?”
“She doesn’t. I can save her.”
“What are you playing at?” Taras kept the tip of his claw at Theron’s throat, just in case it was a trick.
“Do you remember how I healed you in Jerusalem,” Theron asked. “After that fool Gordian had you stretched on the rack?”
Taras did remember. He had felt so strong and so indebted to Theron, whom he knew then as Ephraim, that he had raided his dead friend’s gold and paid half of Jerusalem to vote for Jesus’ execution over Barabbas. It was not something he remembered fondly. “You should have let me die,” he said. “Your damned healing touch has brought me nothing but regret.”
“I probably should have,” Theron agreed. “But I made you an offer, and you accepted it. Jesus’ life for your own. Living was your choice. What would her choice be?” He pointed to the woman in the street. “Do you think she would choose death? Or do you think she would rather see the sun rise tomorrow? Is your pride worth her life? And please hurry. The sun is starting to tip the lower buildings.”
Taras looked again at the woman in the street. He’d gone to a great deal of trouble to try and keep her alive. Not because she was useful or important, but because he felt he needed to help her, somehow. Because it was the right thing to do. “How do I know you will not try to kill us once we arrive at my sanctuary?”
“What if I gave you my word?”
“I would say your word is worth less than the dirt under my feet.”
“Then I have nothing else to offer you,” Theron said. “And you are wasting time.”
Taras stared at the woman, listening to the shallow sound of her breathing, and asked himself if he had the right to make that choice for her. To allow Theron to die would be a good thing, even if it meant his own death. But could he die with a clean conscience if killing Theron meant she had to die, as well? Granted, his morality had become skewed over the last three decades. Maybe Theron’s death was worth her life, but it felt wrong to leave her to such a fate.
A gleam of light across the street caught his attention. The sun had breached the rooftops and now shone brightly on the surface of a shiny coin. Dawn had arrived. He was out of time. “Very well,” he said. “I will accept your terms. But I will have your word that you will leave tomorrow night and that you will leave both of us alive and unharmed.”
“I thought my word was worth less than dirt,” Theron said.
“Do I have it or would you prefer to die?”
“I swear by The Father that I will leave your sanctum tomorrow night and will not harm either of you. May he judge me unfit to live should I break my oath. There, will that do?”
Taras nodded. “I will be watching you, Theron. If you try to harm her in any way I will kill you, regardless of what will become of her.”
“Save your threats. We should be going now.”
Already the shaft of sunlight had moved several feet deeper into the street, soon it would reach the woman and Taras would have to burn himself to save her. He hesitated a moment, unsure of whether saving Theron was the right course of action, then he scooped the woman up in his arms and ran toward his shelter.
Theron ran alongside him, a satisfied smile on his face. “I knew you couldn’t do it, Roman. That is the difference between you and the rest of the Bachiyr. I would have been in my sanctuary long before you could have forced me into a deal.”
Taras did not reply. He had no interest in entering this debate with Theron. Instead he concentrated on getting to his hiding place. The going was difficult, as he had to dodge several spots where the sun shone on his path, but fortunately it wasn’t far.
“Do you even know her name?” Theron pressed.
Taras ignored him.
“I thought not,” Theron said, shaking his head. “You would risk everything, even death, for someone you don’t even know.”
“And you would kill a complete stranger for no reason at all,” Taras countered.
“As should you. You are Bachiyr, after all. Whether you are willing to admit it to yourself or not. I saw what you did to that legionary. There was nothing left of him but pulp and blood. What’s more you enjoyed it, to judge by the look on your face.”
“Spare me your cackling. I—”
“Do you deny that you enjoyed it? Tell me true, and I will leave you be.”
Taras opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again. Theron was right, he had enjoyed killing the legionary. He didn’t know if it was because of his nature or because the bastard deserved it, but he could not deny the elation he felt when the Roman’s blood sprayed him in the face. “I am not you,” was all he said.
“The truest thing you have said all night!” Theron replied, laughing. “You are starting to remind me of Ephraim. Near the end of his life, he turned into a fool, too.”
Taras grunted, unwilling to dignify the remark with words.
Soon they arrived at the door to the building that hid the smuggler’s tunnel. So far it seemed unscathed from the ballistae attacks and the invading Iceni, but that would change soon enough. The sounds of men screaming and dying grew closer by the second, it seemed. It would not take long for the barbarians to reach this place. When they did, they would probably loot the building and then set it alight, which seemed to be their preference.
He set the woman down and allowed the nail of his right index finger to grow, then he stabbed it into his left wrist, waiting for the blood to pool. Once the blood formed a tiny puddle on his wrist, he dipped his finger into it and brought it to the door, tracing a rune he had learned in Greece. The door opened into the street, and he picked the woman up and ran inside.
Theron came along behind, his eyes on the door. “The Locking Psalm
,” he said. “You have not been idle these twenty seven years.”
Taras walked to the back of the room and lay the woman down. Then he sifted through the dust on the floor until he found an edge. He strained for a moment, but soon lifted up a slab of stone several paces wide and over a foot thick, revealing the tunnel entrance. He propped up the stone with a thick metal rod he kept nearby for just that purpose, then grabbed the woman and carried her into the shadows. Theron followed, removing the rod and letting the stone close back upon the entrance. The tunnel plunged into blackness.
Taras could see fine, however, and he knew that Theron could, as well. He stepped aside, indicating that the older vampire should pass.
“Don’t trust me at your back, Roman?” Theron asked.
“No,” Taras replied bluntly.
“Very well.” Theron stepped around Taras and took the lead, following the walls of rough-hewn stone deeper into the earth.
“So you have saved this woman—who is an Iceni princess, by the way,” Theron said. “Now what? You will still be Bachiyr. Her blood will still sing to you. And when she wakes up she will either try to kill you or run from you. Either way, you are not likely to receive anything in the way of thanks.”
“Her thanks are not needed.”
“She will not bring Mary back to you,” Theron said, looking over his shoulder and nodding at the swatch of blue cloth on Taras’s belt. “No matter how many you save,” he continued, “it will never bring her back.”
Taras stopped, the muscles on his arms tightening to the point of pain. His vision swam in a red haze as he stared at the back of the creature who had murdered his Mary all those years ago. The urge to drop the woman in his arms to the floor and drive his claws into Theron’s back was so strong he actually started to let go of the Iceni princess.
He caught himself just in time, and tightened his grip on her. If he killed Theron now, the woman would die. Of course, Theron knew that as well, which is probably why the bastard mentioned it. He swallowed his anger and his retort, preferring to walk in silence rather than goad Theron into mocking him further.
Up ahead, Theron chuckled.
“Enough,” Taras said, laying the woman gently on the ground. “We have gone far enough to be safe. Heal her, as you agreed.”
Theron stopped and turned around, favoring the walls of the tunnel with a skeptical glance. “How deep are we?”
“Deep enough that the sun will not find us.”
“And the humans?”
“Have been unable to locate this place for over a decade. I doubt they will find it today.”
“Very well.” Theron stepped up to the injured Iceni and knelt next to her head. He bent down and put his mouth on her throat. The woman moaned, and Taras grabbed Theron by his shoulder and jerked him upward. Two bright red holes marred the skin of the woman’s throat.
“What are you doing?” Taras asked.
“Healing her, as we agreed.”
“It looks like you’re about to feed on her.”
“I am. I did this to you, too. Did you never wonder why you healed so quickly in Jerusalem?”
Taras realized he was grinding his teeth, and forced himself to calm down. “You will not turn her into one of us. I will not allow it.” He pulled Theron’s shoulder back, but the older vampire shrugged out of his grip and glared back.
“How did you survive thirty years while knowing so little?” Theron asked.
“If you don’t begin to make sense soon—”
Theron got to his feet and shoved Taras’s hand away. “For her to change, she would have to drink Bachiyr blood. As long as she doesn’t do that, she will be fine. As you would have been had I not spilled some of my own blood in your mouth by mistake. Your fault, by the way. You stabbed me in the back. The blood from that wound is what fell on your face. You have only yourself to blame for your change.”
You have only yourself to blame, he thought. I did this to myself? Taras looked from Theron to the woman on the ground. “I was not already a Bachiyr that night?”
“Hardly,” Theron sneered. “You were a human with enhanced physical abilities, nothing more. The effects would have worn off in a month or so.”
A month or so. He would have been human again in a month or so. In his anger over Mary’s death and his role in the crucifixion of the Nazarene, he had sealed his own fate. Twenty-seven years of hiding, running, and killing, all because he stabbed Theron in the back. Yet he would do it again, he knew. Theron had deserved to die that night. Who could have known he would live through a sword in his back? If he had it to do all over again, however, this time he would close his mouth.
“So all you have to do in order to heal her is feed on her?” Taras asked.
“Correct.”
Taras scowled. “I could have done that.”
“Of course you could have,” Theron said. “Now that you know, you still could. But it would mean breaking our deal, leaving me free to act on my own while you tried.”
“Get on with it, then.”
Theron barked a laugh, then knelt by the woman again. Just before he sank his teeth into her throat, he looked up at Taras and grinned. “You always were easy to manipulate, Roman.” Then the renegade Bachiyr bit the woman on the neck and began to drink.
After a perhaps a minute, he lifted his head from her throat. Blood dripped from his jaws onto the punctured, swollen flesh of her neck.
“Is it done?” Taras asked.
Theron nodded. “It is. When she wakes up she will be completely healed.”
“Good.” Taras drove his clawed hand into Theron’s back, making sure to keep his mouth shut tight.
***
Boudica stared at Heanua’s body, lying in a pool of half-dried blood. “I warned you,” she said. Strangely, she felt no pity. Heanua had gone against her will and chosen her course, with predictable results. “I told you the Bachiyr was dangerous.”
The sun shone through the bars of the cage, casting her dead daughter in a surreal, orange light. She looked peaceful, almost angelic. The effect was marred somewhat by the shadows of the cage bars, which striped the corpse at regular intervals. The bloody red tear in her throat also ruined the illusion.
She would have to burn the body before nightfall in order to make certain her daughter did not rise again as one of the Bachiyr. To think she had survived being raped and beaten by the Romans only to die in a foolish attempt to make a deal with the dead. Such a waste. Particularly since Lannosea was surely dead by now, as well. Who would assume leadership of the Iceni if anything happened to Boudica?
She shook her head and turned away. The city of Londinium lay in smoldering ruins before her, spread out across the horizon like a huge, gray stain on the country side. Smoke hung thick in the morning air, heavy with the smells of charred wood and burned flesh. Her men marched through the streets, putting any survivors to the sword. The screams of the dying dotted the air, punctuated by the sounds of her army setting up for the day ahead. To judge by the sky, it would be bright and cloudless.
There would be little time to rest. Once her men finished their grim work in the city, the Iceni army would have one day to recuperate, then they would be off again. Boudica was determined to take back as much of Brittania as she could before Nero mustered a coordinated military response. They had made it this far slaughtering primarily civilians. Suetonius had abandoned the city before they arrived, and had taken most of his troops with him. Had he stayed, the battle would not have been so easy. Though she had little doubt the eventual outcome would have been the same. She looked across the burning remains of the city, as if she could see past it to the countryside beyond, and silently wondered when Suetonius would strike back.
Cyric appeared at her side. He took a knee, then bowed his head in respect.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
Cyric stood and nodded. “Captain Haegre has been located. He and his men were on the northern wall. Haegre claims it was Heanua herself who
sent him there, on your orders.”
“Mine?”
“He gave me this.” Cyric handed her a folded sheaf of parchment. The seal had been broken, but it was still easy to read. Heanua had gone into her tent and forged the document, using Boudica’s own seal to make it look official.
“This is my large seal,” she noted. “From my tent. But you knew that already. Didn’t you, Cyric?”
He nodded. “I noticed it the moment he gave me the parchment.”
“I’m sure you did.” Boudica looked back at the seal. “Haegre should have noticed it, too.”
“He is young, my queen, and not terribly experienced. That is why you left him behind, if I remember correctly.”
“True enough,” she sighed. “It would have been a moot point if she had not been so stubborn. Still...”
“What are your orders?”
Boudica turned to look at Heanua’s corpse. Blood had pooled on the floor of the cage and dripped onto the ground beneath it. A cloud of flies, not satisfied with the many bodies in and around the city, buzzed madly about the cage, feasting on Heanua’s flesh.
“Lock him in the cage with my daughter’s body,” she said, “so he might look upon the cost of his disobedience.”
Cyric saluted, then turned to carry out her orders.
“Cyric,” Boudica called.
He stopped and turned to face her. “Yes, my queen?”
“Once you have locked Haegre in the cage, set it on fire.”
“Yes, my queen,” he said, and turned to leave.
Boudica turned to regard Heanua’s body one last time. With Lannosea undoubtedly dead, as well, she no longer had an heir. Perhaps after the war she would remarry. She was young enough to bear more children, and she had no shortage of suitors. In any case, she owed it to her people to provide an heir.
That is a problem for another day, she thought. She turned away from the body and walked toward her tent, her mind already on the next city. The dead could wait. Suetonius would not.
