Interregnum (59 page)

Julius ran to another pile of bodies and located a heavy fighting knife. Snatching it, he ran back across to the second door and jammed the blade behind the nailed wooden bar. Heaving with all his might he thought he heard the bar creak, but there was no visible movement and now a slight kink in the blade. Desperately now, he ran to the nearest shuttered window and tried the same. The blade snapped sharply and he fell back to the ground.

Looking around the courtyard, his eyes fell upon two of the farm horses tied up near the other gate and an idea struck him. These horses were not good specimens; flea-bitten and old and no use to the victorious army, they had been left behind. Trying hard to ignore the third horse that had been used for target practice, Julius untied the reins and then, gripping both in one hand, geed up the horses, leading them across the cobbles. At the barracks once more, he spent a long moment feeding the leather reins through the heavy iron handle of the door. Tying them off as tightly as he could, he stepped back and slapped the horses’ rumps as hard as he could. The reins became taught and strained and the timber creaking at the tremendous stress it had been placed under but steadfastly refused to give. Determined, Julius urged the horses on desperately and became aware of another noise. Someone inside must have realised what was going on. There were tremendous heavy thuds as something heavy was slammed into the inside of the heavy oak door. With renewed vigour, Julius slapped the horses once more and then added what little weight he had to the rope, hauling for all he was worth.

When the door gave, it opened with a crash, splinters and chunks of wood bouncing across the cobbles. The horses hurtled across the courtyard and disappeared from the boy’s field of vision as he sprawled, winded, on the floor. Thick, dark smoke billowed out of the door and panicky, choking men spewed out into the open air, collapsing to the ground and retching. Julius sat up and watched, slightly dazed from a chunk of wood that had struck a glancing blow to his head.

Gradually the men who’d been crammed in, enduring inhuman conditions inside for almost an hour and life-threatening smoke for a quarter of that time, spilled out into the courtyard, catching their breath and then moving to make room for the others pushing away behind them. Somewhere among the flood of choking men, a sergeant that the boy recognised looked up from his choking and gagging and noticed him.

“Julian? Thank the gods.”

The boy’s face didn’t look grateful. In fact, from the first glance the sergeant knew that something terrible had happened.

“What is it? Where have they gone?”

Julian rubbed his sore head and stood slowly and carefully. The sergeant noted with surprise and some trepidation the sword slung at the young lad’s side. He was about to enquire again when the boy yelled out “Quiet!”

It was not a strong voice. Barely audible even above the coughing and choking sounds, still it caught the attention of enough of the men that their coughing became lower; muted, they turned to see from where the small but highly emotional voice had come. Julius stretched and then, turning, climbed up onto a broken barrel behind him.

“I said quiet!”

Men five times his age fell silent and stared at the young man. The sergeant leaned forward, his arms on his knees. “We’re listening, young master.”

The boy gripped the hilt of his sword with white knuckles. “Your lord, my father, is dead; killed by Lord Velutio. That makes
me
the lord of this estate now and I need you.”

By now all other sound had died away and everyone faced the young lord, though still sharing surprised glances.

“I heard my father tell the murderer before he died that there are some rebels who are defying him at a place called Munda. Someone called Caerdin. I don’t know who he is, but if he’s an enemy of Velutio, that makes him my friend. I’m leaving here. Today. And I’m going to find this Munda and this Caerdin. I want to pledge my family’s support to him and that means you men.”

A low muttering rippled through the crowd and the boy raised his voice a little again.

“I know you’ve just fought a hard battle, and if you want to go back to your homes and protect your lands you can. How could I stop you? But I’m going to find these rebels and I’m asking any of you who still have the strength to come with me.”

One of the soldiers leaned back and waved an arm.

“’Ow’re you going to find ‘em, Julian? I’ve a vague idea where Munda is, but I doubt there’s anyone ‘ere who knows ‘ow to get there, ‘specially when we’d got to avoid Velutio and all ‘is allies.”

Julian frowned. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out. I’m going to get justice for my father no matter what it takes.”

An uncomfortable silence settled on the courtyard as soldiers glanced at each other and then back at the young lord on his half-barrel.

A voice somewhere among the crowd cut through the silence; a slightly croaky sound, but strong. “I know where Munda is. I can take you there and by fairly safe routes.”

Julian strained to see through the drifting smoke, still wisping around the courtyard. An old man sat clutching one knee. He had long grey hair or would have, had he not suffered some dreadful disfiguring wound many years ago. The left side of his head was devoid of hair, marked with scars and furrows that continued down his face and cheek as far as his neck. He wore the uniform of Pelian’s army, but the boy couldn’t remember ever seeing him before. Still, he’d never spent much time with his father’s troops, so it was no surprise that even this frightening specimen of a man was unknown to him.

“I can guarantee your safety and acceptance” the man continued. “I know general Caerdin of old. I served with him a long time ago.”

The man grinned, an unpleasant sight, given the dreadful facial wounds he’d suffered, and took a deep swig from a darkened metal flask emblazoned with a wolf’s head.

Chapter XXVII.
          

Kiva stood, leaning on the fence with his elbows, watching the training. Sithis, the captain of the ‘Swords’ had named his unit well. Twenty and more years ago the man had been a captain in Kiva’s army and, when Caerdin had disappeared and the army had fallen apart following Velutio’s rise to power and the collapse of Imperial order Sithis, like many other officers, had taken a unit and gone his separate way. Sithis, however, unlike the others, had not taken his own unit per se, but had carefully selected a number of men he especially had his eye on. Consequently, the ‘Swords’ had been born of some of the best swordsmen the Imperial army had to offer. And it showed in their training methods, even in just the four days since Sithis and his unit had arrived. Some of the lowliest men who’d turned up at Munda had been indentured farmers whose livelihoods had been swept away from under them by Velutio’s reprisals against unsupportive lords or just his pure acquisition of lands. And some of these peasants who’d never wielded anything more dangerous than a hoe in their lives had a glint of steel in their eye and swiped and parried as well as the career soldiers. Sithis’ regime was tough and lasted almost as long as the light each day.

All in all the training was going well. They’d made last minute plans before Tythias and Darius and their party had left on the political mission to gather support. Sithis, Marco and Mercurias had stated that the more time they got to train the army, the better chance they would stand when they finally brought someone to battle, but equally, Sarios and Kiva had pointed out that every day their army got better, Velutio’s army and power grew. In the end, a route was agreed that would take the Emperor’s entourage in a circuit through seven of the more local lords in the space of two weeks, returning to Hadrus then. One more week would be allowed for any lords who joined them to reach the meeting point at Munda, and then the army would march, hopefully picking up further allies as they travelled.

There were approaching ten thousand men stationed at Hadrus now and, with the exception of certain mercenary units that maintained their independence due to the specific tasks they’d been allocated, the entire force had been organised along traditional Imperial lines. There had been some grumbling among lords who thought they were far too clever commanders to have been allocated lesser positions, such as quartermaster or officer of only a hundred men, but on the whole most people had been placed in positions for which they were suited. The private forces of the various lords had been broken up and dispersed alongside some of the lesser mercenary units and prior loyalties had been abandoned; Kiva had made that clear in his first speech to the army. Every new recruit, no matter what his background, was made to take the oath once more, to Darius, to the people and to the Empire. A second oath had been elicited from every man, pledging individual allegiance to their own officer and the commanders of the army.

It was with tremendous satisfaction that Kiva noted how speedily the engineers had been put together and how little outside organisation and training was required. Engineers were always like that though, and the entire corps had been formed of men with prior engineering experience or interest. They knew their jobs and enjoyed them and the entire force had been constructing, testing and reworking different machines from the moment they’d first formed. Now, in what was once the massive exercise yard of the prison, bolt throwers, catapults, siege engines and strange constructions that Kiva couldn’t easily identify lined the walls and he could see even now a half dozen engineers crawling over one of them with tools and sheets of schematics.

The cavalry was nominally under the command and guidance of Tythias, though due to his continued absence, one of his men had remained in Hadrus to train and organise them. Kiva had never been a great believer in the value of cavalry on the battlefield, though Tythias had argued vociferously for their inclusion at a command level. Given his own way, Kiva would use them only as scouts and light, mounted skirmishers, but Tythias had badgered Athas until the big sergeant had ordered his armourers to begin work on chain armour for the steeds. The Lion Riders intended to make serious use of heavy cavalry after the fashion of the eastern peoples.

As Kiva stood watching, a small unit of newly-recruited horsemen in full uniform came riding into the cavalry training area, a large space of lawn that had been previously unused just inside the walls. Dressed in shirts of chain mail that hung down to their knees, they each carried an oval shield and a short spear, with a long sword hanging by the belt loop from the saddle. They clutched the reins and hauled on them as they reached their training officer, a Lion Rider named Peris, who shook his head in irritation.

“Firstly, forget everything you’ve ever been taught about horses. You’re all either trained to ride for fun or sport or you’ve been trained for battle by an idiot.”

There was a grumbling among the horsemen.

“Shut the fuck up. When I talk, you listen and you pay attention. Every one of you needs to lean forward and remove the reins, bit, bridle; the whole frigging lot from all your horses.”

Three of the men did so immediately while the others stared at each other. One brave young man thrust a hand in the air.

“This is not a fucking classroom, lad. What?”

“Sir,” the young man asked, “why are we getting rid of our reins?”

Peris growled. “You’ve all been given proper military saddles. I intend to show you how to use them. The saddles are different from the ones you’re used to. The four horns at the corners are keeping you wedged in your seat, as I presume you’ve noticed. You’ll also have noticed there’s no stirrups. I’m going to teach you how to control your steed with just your knees. Your feet will be free to kick the horse gently or any footman bloody hard. Your hands’ll be free to wield both sword, spear and shield liberally without having to fight for control with the horse too.”

As he spoke, others began to remove their reins. “As far as your weapons are concerned, you’ll bear your shield on your left arm, whether you’re left
or
right handed. You’ll go into any combat with the spear. Don’t throw the fucking thing; that’s a waste. When you first ride in, jam it under your arm and lock it as best you can and aim for the torso of the man in front of you. If you’re lucky you’ll impale the bastard and the spear’ll break. If you’re
really
lucky, you’ll do that and the spear won’t break. Best you can realistically hope to get from it’s three goes; they don’t last that long. You’ll then draw your sword and go to work.”

The last of the men was now removing his bridle and they sat holding the leather straps aimlessly. The training officer grumbled in his throat.