LORD RIVA
THE SARASINIAN 5th ARMY
SOUTHERN AHRENIA
BORDIS
In the darkness beyond the tent, he could hear the men of Herena gathering. When it finally started, the killing opened with confused shouts followed by a stretch of prolonged silence. The quiet was not to last, though, and soon the city erupted.
“Hold him,” said Riva, putting on his gauntlets. He spoke to Nohrt, who had Amulius’s arm twisted behind his back.
“Riva,” said Amulius, his voice breaking in terror. Of course, you couldn’t exactly fault him for it. “What have you done?”
Riva looked past him. “Make sure he doesn’t move around too much.” He readied his sword.
Outside, the sounds of savagery redoubled. Bodily shrieking overlaid the screaming of steel on steel. Amulius listened, almost in tears. “Riva! What have you done?”
“Birthed an empire,” said Riva. He ran a finger along the length of his blade, admiring the whorls and ripples in the steel. How many years of plotting had led to this moment? Years of meticulous planning and preparation? Years of cajoling those who needed cajoling, threatening those who couldn’t be cajoled, and killing those whom he couldn’t otherwise bend to his will?
“Oh!” cried Istome suddenly. Sitting on the floor, deep in meditation, her voice seemed to come from far away. “They’re dying. The youngsters are fighting. But dying… Oh, can you feel them?”
“No,” said Riva.
Istome opened her eyes briefly but then closed them again. “Our lady joins us. So many minds. All working together. I can see it, and yet not! Oh, I wish… I wish I had the words to describe it. It’s so… beautiful…”
Amulius regarded Istome with revulsion, then spat. “So you are a witch! I always knew it.”
Riva didn’t expect her to reply, so it was a surprise when she did. “You have no idea what I am, worm.”
Judging by the expression on his face, Nohrt was every bit as appalled as Amulius. The man might be at home on the battlefield, unafraid of blades and making sport of death, but put a witch in his midst and watch him practically fill his pants in terror! One of the hardest parts about the coming months, unfortunately, would be convincing all the men like Nohrt that women like Istome shared their cause.
“Do you remember our time at the Bastion, Amulius?” asked Riva.
Amulius’s eyes snapped to him. “The Bastion?”
“Yes. The Bastion.” He reached forward to prod the man’s stomach with his blade. “Do you remember our time there?”
“No? Well yes, I suppose. But what do you mean?”
“You graduated when I was still a junior. I was glad to see you go, Amulius. For two years you were the bane of my existence. Do you remember?”
Amulius shook his head, and his jowls quivered. Perhaps he was lying. Maybe not. It was hard to tell, and didn’t matter anyway.
Riva let him see the blade up close. The patterns along its length gleamed in the lamplight. “Hmm.” He spoke again to Nohrt. “Break his arm.”
“As you wish,” said Nohrt. Amulius’s bone snapped with a click and he gasped in pain.
“Still don’t remember?” asked Riva.
“No.” Amulius panted and grit his teeth.
“On the night you left the Bastion for good, you did the same thing to me all those years ago. You and your friends. Prick.”
“Urgh!” said Istome, blood suddenly springing from her nose. “Oh, that doesn’t feel good.”
“What is it?” asked Riva, annoyed at her for stealing his thunder.
“You...know…” And with that she paled, gagged, and finally threw up.
“What deviltry is this?” asked Amulius, aghast. “Riva?”
“No deviltry,” said Riva. A lie told more to assuage Nohrt than anything else, since the man had gone even whiter than Istome. “So you don’t remember breaking my arm when we were at the Bastion?”
The man digested the words, his eyes reflecting his confusion and pain. “No.”
Istome gasped. “I think they have him!”
Riva almost rolled his eyes at her. Did she not realise she was ruining what was supposed to be the delicious moment when he finally let Amulius know he was to die horribly, and why? “Him, him? Virgilio?”
“Yes!” she cried. “His thoughts are so vivid I can almost see what he sees! Oh, his mind is a whirl. He has no idea what’s going on. None of them do…”
“As long as they don’t kill him.”
“They won’t. Yes, they have him! He’s alive.”
Outside, the din of combat rose to a ferocious pitch. “But we haven’t won yet.”
“No,” said Istome, making an attempt to wipe herself clean with her hands. “But we will.”
Reading his thoughts? “Can you tell if Goraric is still…?”
She paused, concentrating. “Mm. Yes. Sleeping.”
“Even with all this racket?” Outside, some nameless man howled.
“Our lady is keeping him from waking.” She opened her eyes and stood up. “Sorry. Continue what you were doing–I won’t interrupt you again.”
Riva turned back to Amulius. “I had prepared a whole speech about waiting half my life to take revenge on you for what you and your friends did to me. But you know what? Fuck it.” And with a grunt, he lunged.
“Urp!” said Amulius as Riva’s blade punched through his nightshirt. His mouth opened, and judging by the smell that filled the room, so did his arse.
“You might have warned me,” said Nohrt, giving Riva a black look. The point had come out of Amulius’s back and stopped perilously close to his chest.
Riva acknowledged his carelessness with the hint of a shrug. For fuck’s sake, the man wore an iron breastplate over mail! Unafraid of blades, was he? It was an effort to keep from laughing.
Amulius made a horrible keening noise as Nohrt dumped him on the ground, and another when Riva twisted and pulled the sword out of his body. “There you go, Amulius,” he said, standing over him. “I only hope you live through the night. It’ll give you time to reflect on a few things, eh? For starters, I’d like you to think about the fact that, come tomorrow, every purple shield in this city will be dead or a slave. You hear me, Amulius? Every veteran, every youngster.”
The man just lay there. No doubt he was too deep in shock to do much else.
“I’ve freed Herena from the League.”
No response to that, either. Noticing a gold chain around the man’s neck, Riva stooped to take it.
“For me?” asked Istome when he stood up again and motioned that he wanted to put the chain on her.
“A gift.” He gathered up her hair. He wiped away some flecks of blood before settling the links around her neck and closing the hasp. “For my little witch.”
Istome scowled. “You know I don’t like that word,” she said, but then struck a pose. “It feels heavy. How does it look?”
“Made for a man, but somehow it suits you.”
“Thank you.” She spared Nohrt a glance, for though he was unperturbed by Amulius’s fate he seemed genuinely troubled by the ongoing mention of witches.
“What say you and I go kill ourselves some Sarasinians, Nohrt?” Riva gestured with his sword. “Before there aren’t any left.”
“Yes, lord,” said Nohrt, unsheathing his own blade.
Before they left, Riva let a gobbet of spit fall on Amulius, who mewled weakly at being disturbed. “Maybe I’ll see you in the Otherworld, brother,” he said. “But until then…”