Quintillian snorted as they approached the fight.
‘You can’t drink out of a skull, idiot. Too many holes.’
Roaring, Ganbaatar swept aside the last of the shield-wall defenders and he and his nomads burst forth onto the roof of the imperial apartments. Some poor soldier managed to score a line of red across the calf of the Khan’s son even as he lay on the floor bleeding out his life. Ganbaatar barely seemed to feel it, lifting that leg to peer in interest at the blood before he stomped down on the head of his attacker, bursting the soldier’s skull like an overripe watermelon.
The nomads spread out, trying to deal with the last imperial soldiers on the roof, buying room for the Khan’s son to face the emperor’s brother, and Laetius gave a few economical gestures to his men, who peeled off to take on those nomads. The prefect stayed close by Quintillian as the giant warrior approached him, but the prince shook his head. ‘Find someone else to fight, Laetius. Ganbaatar is mine.’
The Khan’s son had his sword out already, the blade slick with blood and filth. The prince remembered that blade well from the first time they met at Ual-Aahbor, a sword no normal man would be able to wield in a fight, so long and heavy was it. And now, watching the man raise it, he was aware of just how terrifying the weapon was. Quintillian bore two blades, though both were little more than knives compared with that thing. His sword was a traditional imperial infantry one, 2½ feet of steel with an almost straight, slightly tapering blade which came to a wicked point. His dagger was a standard issue one, tapering from the hilt and then widening to a leaf shape. He’d learned long ago that when not carrying a shield, a soldier could parry effectively with a knife and counter-attack with a sword, but that seemed a rather feeble assumption when facing a blade almost as long as he was tall.
Ganbaatar swung.
The first blow was slow, wide and ponderous, but it had not been intended as a true attack. It was simply testing the water. After all, Ganbaatar had never fought Quintillian but the nomad city had been rife with tales of the imperial prince’s fight with Arse-hat in the woodland arena, and the Khan’s son would have heard embellished accounts.
Quintillian settled on his plan of action quickly and started to edge to his left. Over there, Prefect Laetius was busy cutting a nomad to pieces, but there was a reasonable amount of space.
Ganbaatar’s sword came swinging again, this time with force and unpredictability. The blade began at head height, then dipped as low as Quintillian’s knee mid-swing before rising to chest height once more. And the sword was recovered quickly, coming back ready to parry. But Quintillian had no intention of launching an attack yet. Instead, he simply danced back as he moved to the side, staying out of the way of the heavy, swinging blade and wincing at the pain the jerky movements brought to the aching mass at the back of his head. The nomad champion’s face twisted into a number of expressions in quick succession. A sneer of superior disdain for this man who merely stayed out of the way of the blade. Suspicion as to why and what was coming next. Joy at the knowledge that he had killed one of the brothers and would soon kill the other. And hunger. Naked, slavering, salivating, disgusting hunger. Ganbaatar wanted Quintillian dead more than anything else in the world. Possibly more even than life itself.
Now the prince was passing him, and the big nomad turned as he danced around the edge. ‘There’s no escape,’ he snarled as he brought that monstrous sword around in another arc. This time, either Quintillian had misjudged the blade’s reach or Ganbaatar had been quicker than he anticipated, for the tip of the blade scratched a red line across Quintillian’s upper arm, cutting neatly through three of the leather strops that hung protectively from his shoulder armour. Like Kiva, Quintillian had foregone polished steel armour today and settled for a shirt of leather-backed mail that was much less glorious and imperial, but much more manoeuvrable in a fight. Sadly, as Kiva had found out to his cost, mail was poor defence against a well-placed arrow.
Mentally reminding himself not to underestimate Ganbaatar just because he was a primitive, Quintillian took another pace back. And then sideways again, but slowly now, as he was near where he wanted to be. He felt his foot sink into something that squelched.
The man with the burst head. He was here.
Ganbaatar leapt forward a pace, uncoiling as he did so. His huge sword had been pulled back behind him and now it swept out and around with the force and inevitability of history, swiping through the air unstoppably. Quintillian threw his dagger away and dropped to the floor, heedless of the unspeakable goo in which he was now rolling. His head pulsed with the unpleasant movement, and he fought a brief wave of nausea brought on by his earlier wound. His grasping hand found what he was looking for and he seized it even as the nomad’s blade swished through the air just half a hand above him.
With little difficulty, he pulled the dead soldier’s sword from his fingers and continued in his roll, springing to his feet a few paces further on just as the nomad champion readied himself once more. Quickly, the prince swapped the blades between his hands. The dead soldier had been wielding a cavalry sword, almost a foot longer and built more for sweeping with an edge than thrusting with a point. Now he had the longer and heavier weapon in his stronger hand. Handedness counted in a fight.
He took two slow, deep breaths, and steadied himself. Two swords was not an easy skill to master, and even Quintillian, who’d had the best teachers in the empire, could hardly call himself an expert. But when faced with something like Ganbaatar’s sword, he had to seek any advantage.
The nomad pulled his sword back, and Quintillian prepared himself for the next swing. Instead, at the last moment, and in a move subtle and agile for a man his size, Ganbaatar masterfully twisted, turning the swing into a thrust that lanced out with almost the reach of a spear. Had Quintillian not only just reminded himself not to underestimate his opponent, he might have been caught out, but he was watching his enemy closely. And as he’d always been taught, he did not watch the blade. Blades could be tricky. Instead, he had been taught ‘watch their feet and eyes before they move and their hands before they strike’.
And the Khan’s son’s grip on his huge sword hilt had shifted very slightly before the blow, so that the power of his arms would be driven with the tip rather than sideways into the slicing blade. The sword point that would have taken most opponents through the gut instead slid harmlessly past Quintillian, a hand’s breadth from his ribs.
The prince didn’t have much opportunity for a counter-strike, given the need to dodge out of the way at the last moment, but his sword caught the nomad’s arm a glancing blow and he felt it bite through fur and into flesh. Ganbaatar simply grunted and stepped back, examining his arm in surprise.
‘You are better than I thought, princeling.’
‘And you are uglier than I believed possible, shithead.’
Ganbaatar roared and swung again. Quintillian back-stepped twice and ducked to the side, easily avoiding the swing. Pride. Pride was the key. It was like fighting barbarians. In the imperial army even officers were trained knowing that the key to all war from the grandest battle to the smallest punch-up was control. When you lost control you lost the ability to anticipate and to react. And Ganbaatar was proud of being the best, which made him easy to goad.
Good, because in a straight fight, and knowing that the nomad was good enough to be able to change his tactics even as he carried them out, Quintillian hadn’t been sure how he could beat the man. But now it was just a matter of goading him into mistakes and then finding a way to deliver the fight-stopping blow.
Ganbaatar was glaring at him now with intense hatred, watching him carefully.
‘Nice sword, yours,’ Quintillian noted lightly. ‘A little too large for comfort. You can’t do much with it but lunge and chop and swing.’
‘I can kill with it,’ snarled Ganbaatar.
‘But can you kill me?’
A risk now. A gamble, but he had to enrage the man. How had he been taught? Did he watch
the blade, or the eyes, or the hand, or the feet? The feet, Quintillian decided. Nomads fought on horseback by nature, so when dismounted they would be less sure. They would automatically watch the feet.
Accordingly, Quintillian, his eyes still locked on those of his opponent, his swords held ready at each side, danced to the left, ready to swing and, as Ganbaatar’s own gaze flicked momentarily down, catching the tell-tale movement, and he brought his sword out to the right to counter, Quintillian changed his own strike. Moving with the agility of a dancer, he twisted on his right foot, mid-lunge, and instead arced past the nomad’s left side rather than the right.
Both swords lanced out as he passed and both drew blood. A moment later, Quintillian was still as Ganbaatar, furious, spun to face him, blood spraying from the two large gashes in his left arm. The nomad champion roared, his eyes burning with rage. Quintillian chuckled. He’d not be able to do that again. The nomad was bright enough to learn and adjust as he went. But he was also becoming angry to the point of idiocy. A few more nudges…
Shock rang through Quintillian as he felt a white-hot piercing pain in his left thigh. Momentarily, he glanced down to see his breeches beginning to saturate with blood. A tear several inches long identified the wound. A thrown spear had grazed him and come dangerously close to severing the hamstrings. The spear itself clattered off across the ground. His eyes rising once more as he tested his leg for strength and found it acceptable, Quintillian spotted a triumphant nomad a mere five paces away. Ganbaatar had also seen the man who had come to his aid. He took two long steps towards the grinning nomad and with a roar, swung that great sword of his, severing the victorious spear arm and biting deep into the man’s body, lodging halfway through the ribcage.
Pride.
Ganbaatar would not now be able to gloat that he had killed Ba’atu single-handedly.
The dead nomad fell away, his eyes wide with shock as the champion pulled his long blade back out of the body and turned, stamping towards the prince once more. Quintillian chuckled.
‘This amuses you?’ the nomad snapped. ‘Your skull will smile when I wipe my arse with it!’
The prince simply laughed. ‘Then even from beyond the grave I would still irritate you and cause you pain.’
The nomad’s eyes narrowed and he heaved in steadying breaths. Can’t afford to let him regain his temper, Quintillian mused.
‘Will this help? Make it a fairer fight for you?’
Almost casually, he tossed away the shorter of his two blades.
‘I need no aid in besting a whelp.’
‘Then explain how that poor bastard with the spear did me more damage in a heartbeat than you’ve managed so far. You have muscle and speed by the wagonload, Ganbaatar, but you lack discipline, and that makes you weak.’
The nomad champion let out a dreadful roar and thundered suddenly towards Quintillian, his sword flicking this way and that, rising and falling, sweeping and stroking, a blinding, flashing, brilliant gold web of reflections in the dying sunlight. Another gamble.
Quintillian stood firm and let it come.
Two blows, well aimed and executed, were all he needed, and for all the skill and unpredictability of the nomad’s furious onslaught, any strike from such a web of swings would fail to carry the full strength that a single sweep would.
Quintillian took the blow that could kill him with stoic calm, hardly moving. He only began to gauge the seriousness of the strike as he turned and delivered his answer. As the raging Ganbaatar barrelled past with his own blow, Quintillian turned, lancing out with his sword. The slash as the big man passed was perfectly-placed and caught his enormous sword arm at the inner crook of the elbow. And as the huge beast stumbled on to a halt, a second swift blow caught the back of his knee.
As the big nomad staggered to a standstill, fuddled by what had just happened, Quintillian closed his eyes and flexed every muscle he could think of. Only when he leaned to his left did he learn where the champion’s blow had landed. His gut, on the left-hand side. Finally, preparing himself for the worst, Quintillian opened his eyes and looked down. His mail shirt was shredded. The blow had entered somewhere below his ribs and as the man barrelled past, his blade had torn back out, leaving a huge, deep rent in both the shirt and the man beneath it.
He couldn’t be sure. He felt as though everything was working, but a blow there could be fatal for many reasons, some of which would tear the life from him in mere heartbeats and some of which could take days to kill him. Or, just possibly, it had torn flesh and muscle, and nothing else.
But the blow could have been so much worse had Ganbaatar landed it with precision rather than raging past in a flurry of lesser strikes.
Quintillian, on the other hand, had taken care and done exactly what he intended.
He straightened and looked into the nomad’s confused eyes as the great sword fell from his grasp.
‘You are right-handed, I note,’ Quintillian said as he lurched forward, gripping the wound at his side. ‘You often use both hands, but never just your left. I conclude that your left arm is not strong enough to swing the blade alone. And I have severed the cords in your right elbow. You will never swing anything again with that arm, though the deficiency will not trouble you for long, I assure you.’
Ganbaatar simply continued to stare in horrified fascination as he toppled to one knee.
‘And because you are so clearly right-handed, you are almost certainly right-footed. I also cut the strings on your right knee. You will never run again, or even walk without aid.’
Ganbaatar’s mouth opened and closed in shock.
‘And because you cannot walk and you cannot swing your sword, I would say that you have lost.’
Stepping close, despite the danger of the man still having strength in his other limbs, Quintillian slowly circled his downed opponent as he clutched at the angry wound in his side, ignoring the fiery pain emanating from it. The big warrior seemed disinclined to attempt rising, perhaps still suffering from shock. Just in case, Quintillian took careful aim and pulled back his cavalry sword. Swinging it down, he hit the nomad’s bent left knee, smashing the kneecap into tiny shards and ruining the joint, all-but severing the leg altogether. The prince staggered back, gasping at the intense pain in his side the movement brought. Ganbaatar howled as he fell to the stone-flagged roof, floundering on his back, tears streaming down his bulging cheeks. Quintillian was not in a merciful mood, nor any longer willing to gamble. With little difficulty he stepped close and swung down, severing the champion’s left arm above the elbow.
Not one working limb. The man was truly at his mercy now, and he had none.
‘If I were you, I would now be finding my skinning knife and torturing you beyond the ken of a normal human for what you have done to my brother, my people, my city and my empire. Fortunately for you, while I have no mercy to give, I am an imperial soldier and therefore civilized. And a civilized man does not stoop to your depths.’ He cast aside his borrowed cavalry blade and, bending, picked up the Khan’s huge sword with some difficulty. The pain in his side was so intense.
Placing the tip of the huge blade over the big warrior’s throat apple, he pushed down with all his strength and every bit of his weight. The blade tore into Ganbaatar’s throat, pushing through skin, bone, gristle and soft matter, severing the spine and finally digging with a grating noise into the mortar between two paving slabs beneath. The nomad’s eyes bulged and he gasped for a moment as pink froth bubbled up amid the torrent of blood. His skin began to grey even as Quintillian watched the eyes whiten and fade. Finally, as the man’s ruined limbs stopped twitching, Quintillian collapsed.
‘Laetius?’ he bellowed.
A moment later half a dozen guards were there, helping him rise. Prefect Laetius was beside him.
‘How’s Kiva?’
‘The emperor lives, sir. Beyond that I can say nothing for sure.’
Quintillian nodded, gritting his teeth against the pain. A quick scan of the roof t
old him they’d won. Only imperial soldiers and fur-and-leather-clad corpses remained. ‘Any update on the siege?’
‘They’re all on the run, sir. The nomads are milling about in panic, but their camp is already under attack by the army who’re landing more men every moment. They’ll not escape in force. Aldegund, on the other hand, was far enough away that the fight against the nomads has kept him relatively free so far, so he’s decamping and preparing to leave.’
Quintillian smiled at the look on the prefect’s face. ‘You want him, don’t you?’
‘A rebel lord and a traitor army? Shit, yes, sir.’
The prince laughed. Ripping the signet ring from his finger – a crown with a sword down through it – he passed it to Laetius. ‘The empire is still short by two marshals, Laetius. I’m giving you a field promotion and making you Marshal of the West. The ring carries my full authority. Head down to the army assembling on the beach and gather all the forces you think you need, then chase that traitor bastard west and make him suffer.’
Laetius stared at the ring and then up into Quintillian’s pained face. ‘Sir?’
‘Every moment you waste, Aldegund gets further away. Go, Marshal.’
With a savage grin, former Prefect Laetius saluted and ran off.
Quintillian listened as he was helped slowly across the roof. Every moment in a battle had a tone, and this was the discordant, melancholic timbre of a rout. The city was filled with troops fleeing from a trap into a fight for their lives. Velutio would survive. Buildings could be rebuilt and territory recaptured. But they had saved the people, and people were what mattered.
Kiva’s still form sat propped by the wall, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. The soldiers hadn’t laid him down due to the arrow protruding from both chest and back.
The emperor wouldn’t die, either. Not if Quintillian had anything to say about it.
‘Someone get down to the harbour and fetch the doctor.’
Insurgency (Tales of the Empire Book 4) Page 38
