by David McAfee
The clop-clop of a horse’s hooves caught her attention, and she turned to look behind her. Heanua sat rigid in her saddle, sword in hand. Despite her misgivings about her eldest daughter’s ambition, Boudica couldn’t quite stifle the feeling of pride she felt at the sight. Heanua looked like a queen. Regal, strong, and ready to fight for her people. If only Lannosea...
No, she thought. No distractions. Lannosea does what she does, and that is the end of it. Except it wasn’t, and she knew it. Lannosea had been acting strange for months, and if rumors could be believed, had even dismissed her bathing staff. She’d even begun to dress differently, wearing delicate, loose-fitting clothes not suitable for life on the road. Not only that, but her appetite had grown as her health declined. It was a wonder she—
Boudica stopped in mid thought, assembling the facts together in her mind. Lannosea’s recent bouts of nausea, her increased appetite, the lack of servants in her bath. Those servants were the only people who would ever see her with no clothes. Why would she dismiss them unless she had something she didn’t want them to see? Something like…
No…could she?
As if Boudica’s thoughts had summoned her, Lannosea rode up to her post, clad in her leather and steel armor. A cheer rose from the ranks as the soldiers nearby recognized the lovely Iceni woman, and it spread through the troops, despite Boudica’s strict warning for her men to keep silent. Lannosea stopped her horse ten feet away from her mother’s, and raised her hand in greeting. “I am ready, my Queen,” she said.
Boudica stared, unable to speak. Lannosea wore the same armor she always wore, yet this time it seemed a bit snug, straining at the middle where it wrapped her belly in protective leather. Lannosea herself pretended not to notice, but Boudica saw the strain of the leather, and she knew her hunch to be correct. Pregnant. Of course! It made perfect sense now. Those Roman bastards had gotten Lannosea pregnant.
As the ramifications began to pile up in her head—the dishonor, the laughter, the indignity—Heanua cleared her throat.
Boudica jumped, then realized Heanua’s meaning. She’d been staring at Lannie’s belly. That wouldn’t do at all. Soon the soldiers around her would notice what she had, and that would be the end of Lannosea’s future. If she still has one. She shook her head, knowing otherwise. Lannie will never rule the Iceni.
For her part, Lannosea sat straight and stiff in her saddle, her expression a mixture of stoic bravery and resignation. Boudica understood. Lannosea had been raised a princess. She would know better than anyone the inevitable results of her pregnancy. She would be forced to live in disgrace, unwanted and unwed. No one would make a move against her, of course. She was still royalty, but her future would be marred by scandal. For someone as strong and proud as Lannie, that would hurt much more than any blade.
She had not come to fight. She had come to die with her honor intact. The mother inside her remembered Lannie’s birth, and the feel of her mouth on her teat. She recalled the girl’s first sword, and the smile on her face when she first put an arrow into the target. When she was a babe, Boudica would sing soft, soothing songs to her until she fell asleep in her arms. Her father would cradle her as though she were the most precious of his treasures, girl or no, and he covered her tiny face with kisses made prickly by the stubble on his rarely-shaven face. The part of the queen that remembered those things cried out at the injustice of what had been done to her beautiful daughter.
But above all else, Boudica was a Queen and an Iceni warrior. The rulership of her people took precedence over all, and an Iceni was only as good as his or her honor. Without it, they might as well go to Rome and join the emperor’s minions. If Lannie sought an honorable death rather than the shame of bearing the animal in her belly, Boudica would not deny it to her.
“Very well,” she replied, and Lannosea’s face relaxed. “We will attack soon.”
She turned to Heanua, and the look on her eldest daughter’s face told her she had already known. How long had they been planning to keep this a secret? An unexpected pain stabbed at her heart. Her daughters had lied to her, kept secrets from her. No matter the dire nature of Lannosea’s condition or the severity of their coming battle, it felt like a mutiny. She might have expected as much from Heanua, but Lannie? Never.
She and Lannie had always been close. There had never been any secrets between them until now. Heanua was another matter. Willful and stubborn, she had proven a challenge on more than one occasion, constantly arguing with her mother over the distribution of supplies, training for the troops, even the weapons they brought into battle. It seemed to her Heanua thought she was the Queen, and not her mother. Once this battle was over, Boudica would have to show her once and for all who was in charge.
***
Theron and Baella left the city by way of the easternmost gate. A pair of armed legionaries let them go without even questioning them, probably under orders from Suetonius. Just outside the gate, two off-duty soldiers played nervously at a game of dice. They stared at the numbers as if they didn’t really see them, then picked them up and tossed them again. Theron recognized the vacant looks on their faces. They had been left behind to die, and they knew it. The scene reminded Theron of the night he killed Ephraim. That night, he’d been forced to kill two legionaries on patrol who’d stopped to play dice. He’d ripped the head from the first one, then turned and stabbed the second.
The memory brought a smile to his face. It was a good night.
They walked past the two soldiers and down the path leading away from the city. Theron didn’t know where they were going, he just followed Baella’s lead. Baella, for her part, said nothing, but she seemed in a hurry to put the city far behind them. Theron couldn’t really argue. Knowing that Ramah was somewhere behind them spurred his legs on, too. He would be only too happy to put as much distance between himself and the Blood Letter as possible. His only real regret in leaving Londinium was that he’d had to leave Taras alive.
“I hope Ramah kills you slowly, Roman,” Theron muttered.
“What?” Baella asked.
“Nothing.” Theron shook his head. His opportunity for revenge had slipped away, but at least he would live another night, which is more than he could say for Taras. “I was just saying goodbye.”
Baella’s lips curved into a smirk. She probably knew what he meant, but she said nothing. Just as well, he didn’t want to talk about it. The memory of his failure in Jerusalem still stung, and the farther he got from those involved, the better. Until he killed Baella, of course. Then he would only have to dodge Ramah long enough to find his way to the Halls of the Bachiyr. Once there he could find Headcouncil Herris and present the renegade’s head to him as a gift.
The two traveled further away from the walls, walking as fast as they could without arousing suspicion. Even this late at night there were travelers on the road, and while under normal circumstances they would provide a welcome diversion, with Ramah on their trail all Theron wanted to do was keep going. They didn’t have time to stop and feed. Besides, he had plenty of blood to do what he needed to do.
One traveler approached them on the road, and Theron thought something was odd about him. As he tried to put his finger on the problem, Baella grabbed his arm.
“Have you noticed anything strange about the people on this road?”
Theron had noticed, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. So he kept silent.
“They are all men,” Baella continued. “And every one of them is armed, even though they are dressed like peasants.”
She was right. Now that he thought about it, Theron hadn’t seen a single woman since they left the city, though there had been dozens of people. And every one of them had carried a sword. He studied the next person walking up the road toward them, and caught the unmistakable glint of steel peeking out from under the man’s filthy tunic.
Soldiers.
That didn’t bode well. The only reason there would be such a large number of soldier on the road
was if...
“Londinium is about to be attacked,” he whispered.
Baella nodded.
“Looks like we got out just in time,” he said.
“Or maybe not.”
He was about to ask what she meant when the soldier on the path drew his sword.
“Don’t move,” the man ordered.
Theron almost laughed, but then the sound of many booted feet behind him drew his attention. He turned to see a group of soldiers, at least two score of them, moving to surround him. Every one of them was dressed as a peasant, and each one had his sword out and pointed at Theron’s chest.
Stupid! He hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. He should have heard the men doubling back on the path and coming up behind them, but he’d been too focused on how to kill his new companion. Now he and Baella were surrounded by forty armed men who were rapidly closing in on them. He turned to Baella to ask what they should do, but the renegade vampire was gone.
***
Ramah stood in an alley near the city gate, staring at the land beyond the city wall and trying to judge how long it had been since his quarry had left Londinium. Twenty minutes? Thirty? More? A minute can seem like an hour to a man watching and waiting for time to pass, but he felt certain that enough time had gone by to allow Theron and Baella to get far out into the countryside. They should be well beyond the wall by now, and more importantly, out of view of the city’s remaining guards.
Time to get to work.
He strode up to the gate, gaining only a glance from the two guards, and left.
Once outside the city, he walked to a nearby tree and leaned his back against it. Ramah repeated the web psalm, reaching out with the strands of his mental trap, looking for Theron. It required a great deal more effort this time due to the increase in range—for all Ramah knew, Theron could be riding fast on horseback—but he had plenty of blood for the task, he was more worried about the amount of time he had left to work his psalm. With enough time and enough blood, Ramah could cast it over the whole country, if the need arose.
Thankfully, it didn’t. Ramah located Theron easily enough. The former Enforcer stood about two miles to the east, a short distance indeed for a Bachiyr of Ramah’s power, but he was not alone. Ramah had expected to sense Theron’s traveling companion, but instead he found scores of people near the renegade.
They stood around him in a ring of bodies. The net could not differentiate between human and Bachiyr, but Ramah figured the newcomers had to be human. Such a large gathering of vampires in a single place would be so rare as to be unheard of, even for Baella, who reportedly never traveled with more than one or two companions.
Why would Theron be surrounded by so many humans?
Ramah stood by the tree, trying to puzzle out this new development.
He was still standing there when the first flaming missile hit the gate.
24
Taras stumbled from the building just as the first boulder struck. The noise of the impact could be felt as much as heard, and the entire structure shook with the force of the blow. The outer wall vanished into a cloud of dust and shrapnel. Bits of debris rained down on his head, pelting him with shards of wood, pebbles, and dirt. When the world around him went still again, he turned to look at the pile of rubble behind him that had once been a building. I escaped just in time, he thought.
Londinium was under attack.
Fires were everywhere. As he watched, ball after ball of flaming tar flew over the city wall to land with a sickening splat in the middle of Londinium’s mostly wooden structures. The smell of burning pitch hung in the air, mixed with the smells of burning wood and flesh. The few remaining inhabitants of Londinium ran screaming through the streets. Some of them screamed in fear, but many others screamed in pain. He watched as one man swatted futilely at the flames on his arm, desperate to quench the fire. Taras could have told him it was no use; the man’s arm was covered in burning pitch. He could swat it all he wanted and it would only grow hotter. The man ran back into the heart of the city, swatting at his arm and screaming in pain. Taras watched him go, shaking his head. The man was already dead, he just didn’t realize it yet.
Mixed in with the sound of crumbling stone and people dying were the cries of those who wept for the dead. To his right, a woman in brown homespun wailed over the body of a young man who lay in a pool of blood. Half the man’s face was gone, sheared off by whatever calamity had killed him, but enough remained that Taras could see the similar features of mother and son. If she continued to sit in the street, oblivious to the chaos around her, the mother would be dead soon enough, as well. They would not be the last people to die tonight.
He should leave. Now.
He tried to walk away, but his feet would not obey the order. He tripped and fell face first into the street, his legs too weak to hold him. Taras needed blood. Badly. All around him people ran through the city, but none of them would slake his thirst. Some of them moved with a calm sense of purpose, carrying buckets of water or drawing weapons and running into battle, but far more screamed and ran in a blind panic that caused more problems than it solved.
To judge by the frequency of the boulders and pitch, a very large, heavily armed force had the city under siege. Taras, no stranger to battle, guessed there much be as many as twenty or thirty ballistae. A large number to attack such a relatively small city as Londinium. Whoever was behind the attack, they obviously wanted more than mere surrender. This was not a war for conquest, but for destruction. Before the sun rose, Londinium would be nothing but a blackened swath of charred earth, soaked to near saturation with the blood of its inhabitants.
Taras regained his feet, swaying a bit but somehow managing to keep from falling over into the dirt. Blood or no blood, he needed to get out of the city before the attackers sent in the infantry. Once they invaded, they would kill anything that moved, and in his present condition he would be hard pressed to fight them off.
He got his feet under him and staggered away, headed for the area near the western gate. His hovel should be safe for the moment, as it would be out of range of most of the boulders, but that was temporary at best. If he was lucky, he’d find someone to feed on along the way. If not, then at least he wouldn’t care for much longer.
***
When she rounded a corner about two hundred yards from the Eastern gate of Londinium, she saw Ramah standing beneath the boughs of a tree. His dark form, large by human standards, stood huddled in the shadows on the tree’s trunk. It was probably instinctive for him to seek the darkness. After four thousand years as a vampire, he would prefer it. Baella could relate. She preferred not to be seen, either. But she was better at hiding than Ramah. Through the course of the last four millennia she had seen him often, but he had never seen her, despite the fact that he and his ridiculous Council had hunted her for centuries.
Actually, she amended, he’s seen me many times. He just didn’t know it.
Ramah’s face was tight with concentration. His eyes were closed, his jaw slightly open, and his brow furrowed like a field in early Spring. The shouting and screaming from inside the city did not disturb his efforts, which spoke volumes about the man’s will. Probably in the middle of a web psalm. Just as well, if he was deep into the psalm he wouldn’t notice her. And he would be looking for Theron, in any case.
Baella’s lip curled. Theron was a fool. It had been all too easy to lead the former Enforcer right into the arms of the invading Iceni and Trinovante. Theron’s mind was simple to manipulate. All she had to do was let him think she would allow him to join her, and he was hers. She could probably have done it without touching his mind at all, if she’d cared to try.
But she would never allow a Bachiyr like Theron into her midst. Despite all his power and considerable skill, Theron had one fatal flaw: he was no good on his own. He’d spent centuries following the orders of Herris and the other Councilors, obeying their every whim and working only toward their gains. He remained a faithfu
l, if dangerous, servant to The Father’s laws right up until the Council blamed him for the problems in Israel, which were not truly his fault in any case. Just another example of how the Council of Thirteen gets everything wrong, she thought.
Yet despite the way they treated him in Jerusalem, Theron desperately wanted to be back in the Council’s good graces. She could read that on him as easily as she could read the look of concentration on Ramah’s face. Theron would never be a leader, he would forever be a follower, and Baella wanted no followers.
Ramah, on the other hand, had been leading vampires for centuries. Even before he died, he was the chief of his human village. All his life, he’d given orders and seen them obeyed. The man was born a leader, trained as such, and remained one even four thousand years after he died. In addition, Baella believed Ramah would leave the Council in an instant as long as she presented him with a tempting reason. After centuries of wondering, the time had come to see if she could provide him that reason. But first she had to take Ramah where she wanted him to go, and that would not be easy, especially since she couldn’t let him see her face.
But he’d be leaving soon enough. Baella knew how a web psalm worked. Right now, Ramah would be wondering why his quarry was surrounded by a large number of humans, but soon enough he would leave the tree and run to Theron’s location. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Theron had eluded him for too long, the large group of humans would not be enough of a deterrent to keep Ramah away.
If Theron’s weakness was a deep-rooted desire to be told what to do, then Ramah’s was his single minded determination. He would try to complete his task no matter what stood in his way, and to the Abyss with the cost. That’s why Herris liked him; he got the job done. It’s why she wanted him, too.
