‘State your business,’ one of them called.
‘My business is with the fortress prefect.’
‘Name?’
The marshal glanced this way and that. So much for incognito, but then a strange, hairy horseman with no credentials was unlikely to gain entrance to the citadel. ‘Titus Tythianus, Marshal of the First Army.’
His announcement was met with initial disbelief, bordering on hilarity, and then, as he held their gaze, his own serious, they shifted to doubt.
‘Do you have identification?’
Titus stroked his horse’s nose. The beast was becoming restless. ‘Prefect Aurelian knows me well. Open the gate.’
There was a brief discussion, but as they erred on the side of caution there was soon a wooden clonk and rattle as the gate swung ponderously inward, revealing four soldiers, one a captain.
‘If you would follow me, my men will take care of your horse,’ he said curtly. Titus couldn’t help but notice that while one man took his reins and another closed and fastened the gate once more, the third followed him and the officer, his hand on his sword at all times. The marshal was pleased to see such adherence to the rules, and smiled as they passed through the courtyard of the fortress, past the barrack blocks and the small regional hospital, and into the headquarters building with its colonnaded front. Inside, he was requested to hand over his weapons, which he did without complaint. The captain then took him on alone, leaving the other watchful soldier in charge of the marshal’s blades. A moment later, the captain knocked on an office door leading off the long hall with its statues of the emperor and of Martus, the war god.
‘Come.’
The captain pushed the door open and beckoned the marshal to follow him. Coming to attention inside, he cleared his throat.
‘Good afternoon, Prefect. This man approached the citadel gate claiming to be…’
‘Titus!’ boomed the man behind the desk, rising with a grin. ‘In the name of all the gods what’s happened to you? I mean, you’ve never been the tidiest of men, but still!’
The marshal chuckled as the captain, wide-eyed, stepped back.
‘Sorry about this, Aurelian. I’m travelling incognito with a few men. Something quite important, so I’d appreciate it if word didn’t get out that I was here?’
‘Of course, old fellow,’ the prefect laughed. ‘Captain, fetch us some wine.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve not time to socialize, Prefect,’ Titus apologized. ‘I have to dash straightaway, but I had a couple of things to ask and I’ve a request to make.’
‘Go on?’
‘Have you had any trouble in Calacon the last few days?’
‘Trouble? No, nothing worth mentioning.’
‘Any unusual visitors?’
‘Titus, we’re a major town on a major road. The emperor himself could pass through, painted purple and dancing on the back of a horse, and we’d probably not find out for days. No one interesting’s come up to the citadel, that’s all I can confirm.’
The marshal nodded. ‘Fair enough. A favour, then? There’s a village called Nessana on the coast a few days from here.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘I’m not surprised. The locals are involved in avoiding your taxmen, though seriously it’s not worth your effort trying to sort it all out. I’d just write it off. But there’s a sea captain there named Sorvio, a friend of mine, who’s been shipwrecked in the line of imperial duty. Not only do I owe him for his ship, but I’m a little concerned for his safety in that place. Can you send a small unit out there to help him, and escort him and his men wherever they need to go. Oh, and pay him whatever ridiculous figure he names. I’ll sort it out for you when I get back to Velutio.’
‘I’ll see to it this afternoon.’
‘Thank you.’
The conversation turned swiftly to more personal reminiscences, and Titus was forced, after a short while, to remind the prefect that he was in something of a rush. As he stood to leave, he turned with a smile. ‘I’ll be gone in the morning, and I may not be back this way in the near future. Oh, and next time you see Marshal Sciras, pass on my regards, will you? I keep missing him whenever he’s in Velutio.’
The prefect’s brow folded, and his expression soured immediately. ‘Have you not heard, Titus?’
‘What?’ Once again, the hairs stood proud on the back of Titus’s neck in anticipation.
‘The marshal’s dead.’
‘How?’ Titus slumped back into his seat.
‘Poor bugger got a knife in the back. He’d been at the theatre to celebrate his daughter’s naming day. His wife was killed too. The daughter got away, but she’s traumatized. They never caught the assailants.’
Titus’s mind dredged up an image of that man in the palace corridor, yanking desperately to pull an axe back out of the wall plaster. Somehow, this did not sound like random thuggery. Quintillian gone, Sciras knifed, and an axeman trying to take his own head? That was three of the empire’s four senior generals.
‘Can you get word to the fortress at Cercina? Just check that Marshal Partho is all right, and if so, tell him to be on his guard. There is something at work here, and I don’t like it, Aurelian.’
A few minutes later, Titus left the concerned and slightly befuddled prefect, collecting his weapons at the headquarters arch and his horse at the main gate. He took a different route back down, despite the zigzagging Way of the Gods being the most direct path. For some reason, the news of Marshal Sciras’s death had him examining every shadow as he passed, and those shadows were growing in number, depth and size by the minute as the sun disappeared behind the cliffs. In the gorge where Calacon lay, sunrise came late and sunset early. With a swift pace, he led his horse down the stepped streets between and beneath the strange buildings, descending the vertiginous city until he reached the street upon which the Crossed Swords tavern lay. The gloom was already oppressive by the time he arrived, and torches and lamps were being lit around the city.
Two of his men were in the main room as he pushed the door open, along with eight locals, all of whom carried themselves in such a way as to suggest to Titus that they were off-duty soldiers. Bars like the Crossed Swords existed across the empire, catering largely for the military.
‘You got rooms?’ he asked the men.
One of them nodded. ‘Three four-man bunk rooms.’
Titus crossed to the bar and ordered himself a drink.
‘Get that and come upstairs,’ the other man said quietly. Titus frowned at him, but the guardsman was almost twitching, stopping just short of waggling his eyebrows conspiratorially. The marshal paid for his cup of wine, and then followed his men as they led him upstairs and along a corridor. At the end of the passage, they knocked on one of the doors marked with a number three, and it was opened. The men entered and Titus saw four of his guards sitting at the room’s table drinking wine and playing dice. They stopped as he entered and the others closed the door behind him.
‘Your room is number two, sir, but you’re going to want to hear this first.’
The marshal crossed to one of the bunks and sank onto it, sipping his wine.
‘Go ahead.’
‘There’s a rumour that a Pelasian girl was seen in Calacon yesterday. I haven’t been able to find specific details, but I overheard a man talking about it in the wine shop across the street. One of the others agreed, which I guess is confirmation. No specifics, as I say, but it seems a Pelasian is rare enough in Calacon to be noteworthy.’
‘A girl on her own?’ Titus frowned.
‘I can’t say for sure, sir. I didn’t want to pry, since you told us to be really careful, but the way they talked it sounded to me like she was on her own. They certainly didn’t say she was being held or escorted.’
‘That’s damned odd,’ Titus murmured. ‘I think we might need to do some more prying. After dinner, though. I’m ravenous. It seems to have been a long time since we’ve been anywhere we could have a proper hot meal.’
‘Did you hear that, sir?’ one of the guards said sharply.
The marshal paused, confused. Then a muffled curse was clearly audible from elsewhere in the inn, accompanied by a dulled steely clang.
‘Damn it,’ Titus grunted, leaping up from the bed, his wine cup discarded and falling to the floor. The others were already drawing their blades. The man who’d closed the door behind them gripped the handle and looked to Titus for confirmation. The marshal nodded.
The corridor outside was in chaos. Men with scarred, mean-looking faces were right outside the door. Titus could see across the corridor to the room on the far side, where a fight was already underway, his men battling against these unexpected opponents, and the other room’s door, further along, was also open, the sound of fighting emerging from there too. Titus was the second into the corridor.
The man in front of him thrust his blade into the press of the enemy in the passage. He could hardly miss, and the blow brought forth a cry of pain from someone. A head among the crowd dropped out of sight in response to the unseen wound, but the victorious guardsman was immediately made the target of the enemy’s fury and was hewn down by half a dozen blows, his cries of agony filling the corridor as axes and swords hammered into him, carving his muscle and smashing his bones.
Titus stared in shock, but recovered at speed and edged out of the doorway jabbing out with his sword and taking one of the attackers in the chest. As he twisted his blade, cracking ribs, and ripped it back out with a gout of blood and a sigh of escaping air from a ruptured lung, one of his men stepped out of the door and lunged, taking down another of the enemy.
The press was awkward, with so many men in such a confined space, and Titus parried two blows with difficulty, finding himself too busy defending himself from the crowd to make in-roads.
There was a dull thudding noise, and the marshal turned at the sound to see the tip of a crossbow bolt emerge from the back of the other guardsman’s skull, sending shattered pieces of bone, blood and hair across the corridor where they spattered the marshal. The guard turned, still alive, his empty hand reaching up in disbelief and touching the shaft of the bolt that transfixed his head before the enemy hacked him, too, to pieces.
The marshal’s gaze rose for a moment across the top of the dying man and a shock of recognition rang through him. The man at the far end of the corridor, who was even now lowering his light crossbow and fetching another bolt from a belted quiver, was a familiar one. So pale as to be almost translucent and with moonlight-white hair, he caught Titus’s eye and held it for a moment.
‘Get back,’ someone shouted, and Titus felt himself being dragged backward into the room again. Even as two of the enemy tried to stab at him, he was hauled to safety and the door slammed shut and locked just as a second crossbow bolt thunked into wall where he had just been.
‘What the shit is going on?’ the marshal shouted as two of the room’s other men jammed the table against the door, which was already reverberating to the blows on the far side. The white-haired man outside had been so desperately familiar, though he couldn’t quite remember from where. A few moments later the noise in the corridor stopped, and instead there was a brief shout from the street outside. Titus ran across to the window and peered out. In the alley below, the enemy were pouring back out of the inn, carrying the bodies of their dead comrades. Among them, he could see the white-haired man directing them into various different alleys, and in moments the street was empty again and eerily silent. The marshal’s jaw hardened as he remembered that moment months ago when he had seen that same man from almost this same angle. The man had fought a Gota champion in the hall at Velutio during the emperor’s feast. He had dispatched the powerful, impressive barbarian with seeming ease. He had been the servant of one of the northern lords, though irritatingly, the name of that lord wouldn’t quite come to mind right now.
What in seven hells was he doing here? The idea that he could be here and attacking an incognito marshal and a unit of imperial guard without there being some connection to the disappearance of the empress was simply unbelievable. Clearly, this man was the one who had taken Jala from her ship, and the notion that they were somehow also linked to the death of Marshal Sciras and the attempt on his own life back in the palace was hard to put down.
‘Do we pursue?’ the man by the door asked quietly.
‘No,’ Titus muttered. ‘They clearly couldn’t have had the empress with them while they were here, and by the time we get down into the street, they’ll be long gone. They obviously know the place, too, and we need to take stock of our situation. I want to know how they knew we were here.’
The men pulled the table away from the door and out in the corridor his men were busy checking on each other.
‘Casualties?’ Titus called out.
‘Four dead, one badly wounded,’ answered the man just outside the door.
‘We came out better than I expected, then,’ Titus snarled. ‘They took us completely by surprise.’
‘I reckon they were after you, sir,’ murmured the man who’d pulled him back into the room.
‘How’d you figure that?’
‘I think the bolt that took Parsas was meant for you. He was just unlucky enough to get in the way.’
‘Perhaps,’ Titus conceded, remembering once more the axeman in the palace corridor. His memory slid to images of the white-haired ghost and the man he’d served, sitting in that great hall. ‘Either way, we now know who we’re dealing with,’ he smiled viciously. ‘Aldegund. That pale killer serves Lord Aldegund. And Aldegund has a small fleet of ocean-going ships of just the sort the survivors described from the sinking of the empress’s vessel.’
‘Why attack us?’ the guardsman mused.
‘What?’
‘Why attack us now, sir?’ he repeated. ‘I mean, they had the advantage. We didn’t know who they were and we were still behind them. Why risk it?’
‘Because we’ve caught up with them,’ Titus said quietly. ‘They didn’t expect such dogged pursuit, and we’re right on their tail. That ghost is trying to put us off following him – trying to deter further pursuit. I suspect he’s making the most of Calacon, because he knows the place and they can disappear easily here, which they couldn’t if we caught up with them in open country. I wonder if they’ve been further slowed by their prisoners? If the empress or one of her maids managed to get loose in the city, the way it looks, then they may have been trying to bring her back in when they came across us. It’s all moot, anyway. The fact is that there are still seven of us, and we know who we’re dealing with now. We won’t get jumped the same way twice. We’ve no call for subtlety any more, though. Time to get back into uniform. Then we’re off up to the citadel to see the prefect. The gates of the city should be closed after dark, so unless that white bastard is some sort of magician, they’re trapped in Calacon. I can have Prefect Aurelian seal the city, and then we have them.’
The men sagged with relief at the thought of wearing their uniforms once more, and Titus looked down into the empty, dark street blow.
‘Now, you pale shitbag, I’m coming for you. I know who you are now. I know who you are.’
Part Three
The West
‘Sometimes it is not the destination that counts, but the journey.’
Ancient saying
Chapter XVI
Of Betrayals and Consequences
Jala Parishid Augusta, Empress of Velutio and Princess of Pelasia, slapped at the rough hand that shoved her urgently up the step and into the carriage. The hard northerner cursed her, but she had survived worse than curses, and she would survive this too. Her former handmaiden Nisha sat in the rear of the wagon already, her face turned from the doorway to hide her hideousness.
Nisha would survive this, too.
Clambering into the seat, Jala cast a sympathetic look across at her companion as the same rough-handed villain threw her cases in, bruising her leg in the process.
‘Ke
ep that desert bitch voice down until we’re safe. Boss says you’ve got to have all your limbs when we get there, but he never mentioned your tongue.’
Jala swept her gaze back across to the unpleasant soldier and fixed him with a look of implacable, imperious revulsion. ‘I am quite aware of how to deport myself in any situation, thank you. A talent sadly lacking, apparently, in many of my subjects.’
The man frowned as though trying to work out whether he had been insulted, and the dawning of realization across his face was like the progress of a glacier. Finally, at the end of the slow dawn, he raised an angry fist, only to have a slender, pale hand with perfectly manicured nails wrap around it in a vice-like grip. The ghost, who seemed to be in command of the party of kidnappers, shook his head at the thug, tutting.
‘Use that brain, Corris. If you administer casual beatings all the time, then when we have real cause to punish, we will have to escalate just to make the point. Take your poor addled brain back to the house and use it to make sure we’ve left nothing.’
Halfdan – the awful ghost’s name was Halfdan – leaned into the carriage doorway as his hireling left, muttering.
‘I do apologize for the quality of my men. They are the best of a poor lot, but then I did not select them for their manners and knowledge of etiquette.’
Jala wrinkled her nose. ‘Where are we going?’
‘My dear princess, you ask me the same questions every day. Have I ever given you cause to believe I will answer them? No. The same holds true today. Within an hour we will be safe and far from Calacon, and then you may scream and rail and holler, should you wish. Until then, I would take it as a favour if you hold your tongue, as my colleague demanded. Shouting will not affect the end result, but it will likely cause a scuffle and these carriage walls are hardly crossbow resistant. Any unpleasantness will endanger you as much as it will us. Do we have an understanding?’
Insurgency (Tales of the Empire Book 4) Page 20
