Interregnum (61 page)

There was a chorus of nods around the general and a couple of the crossbowmen bent to collect twigs and foliage to add to the small fire on the milestone. Kiva watched in trepidation for another minute or so until the entire group settled and units stopped manoeuvring on the road. He gave a wave to the small group of heralds at the front of the column. Seconds later a complex trumpet call blared out and the infantry units began to move over the hill. Around Kiva the archers, their missiles doused in oil, dipped the tip into the flame and watched the arrows and bolts leap to life, wreathed in fire and deadly. Stepping a couple of paces forward, they could see over the crest of the hill and spotted the siege tower jammed up against the powerful walls of Silvas’ fortress-like palace. Without waiting for the order, the unit released their bolts and arrows and the various missiles thudded into the siege tower with a crash, followed by a deafening roar as the flames immediately took the dry wood. The men inside filled every floor, with the top group fighting the defenders for a means of egress onto the wall. There was a shout of alarm and burning bodies fell from the upper levels.

“Good! Now step around to the left until you can see the next siege tower, start another fire and do the same.” He looked down at the young man. “Lord Pelian: you have to protect these archers at all costs. If the second tower goes and the battering ram’s still moving, start them on that. Otherwise they can pick their targets.”

The young lord gave a disappointed nod and gathered the twenty or so men that Kiva hadn’t waved aside to move along with the archers. Kiva started to jog across the brow of the hill. As the various swordsmen of Pelian’s unit fell in behind him, Balo jogged ahead with him.

“Just like old times, eh general?”

Kiva turned to look at his old comrade. “Yes and no.” He turned to look at the men as he ran. “Fight as much as you need to to get through them. Don’t stop to pose or play; just get through them and keep going for that siege tower. When we get there, we just need to make sure it’s out of commission. If you see anyone carrying a bucket of water, make sure he dies. If we all get in there, we need to tip the damn thing over somehow. It’s been guided into position with ropes and if they’re not burned away we should be able to use those to tip it.”

A vague chorus of agreement went up behind him and he paid no further attention to the men with him as he and Balo led almost a hundred men down the hill and charged the rear lines of the attacking force.

At first there was a silence; the silence born of the brain not being able to comprehend the tremendous noise assailing it. As Pelian’s men became accustomed to the din around them, sound crept back in, distant at first and then louder and closer until the crash of steel on steel and the screams of the wounded and dying became impossible to ignore. With a fury born of absolute pride and belief, Kiva’s unit fell on their enemy. Kiva was aware of men around him hacking, slashing and stabbing, trying to cleave a path through the lines. Their attack was served well by the fact that they hit the enemy from behind and lord Tilis’ army was ill-prepared to defend against attacks from that direction. Crushed as they were in their efforts to push forward against the walls of Silvas’ palace, the enemy were at a tremendous disadvantage, often failing to turn in time to block the blows crashing down on them. Kiva was familiar with the pure butchery that came with a surprise attack and his men cleaved limbs and severed heads and torsos as they moved like a harvest through the corn of the enemy ranks. Some of Pelian’s men who’d obviously not served long in the force and had received little training from Sithis had to pause to vomit copiously among spilled livers and intestines and hacked-off limbs. Kiva ignored them. Such men would become used to the horrors of battle or would soon desert. In that case, the army could well do without them.

Kiva glanced over his shoulder as one of his men went down in a spray of blood, an unnoticed blow from one of the more astute and prepared defenders catching him in the neck. Kiva thrust out with his own blade and neatly skewered the offender, turning back just in time to duck a sweeping blow that threatened to remove his scalp and it was then he realised what a mistake he’d made getting personally involved in the fight. A sudden pain hit him so hard he doubled over further. Balo noticed the general bent double beside him and ignoring his own opponent, blocked the blow of the man attacking Kiva before delivering a second, sweeping blow that cut from shoulder to shoulder, carving a deep line across the man’s chest.

Balo bellowed at the men. “Make for the tower and tip it!” before reaching out and gripping Kiva by the upper arm. The general straightened slowly, wiping his mouth, but not before Balo had noticed the smear of blood. The general had coughed up dark blood and was trying to hide it. “Kiva, you bloody fool!”

Caerdin pushed his old ally away and wiped his mouth further, removing as much as he could of the blood, though more welled into his mouth. He stood as straight as he could and gripped Balo’s shoulder for support. “Lead them. You know how to do it and I don’t give a shit whether you think you’re right for it or not.”

Balo fought a cascade of conflicting emotions and tried to hold Kiva steady. “You need looking after, general!”

“Fuck that!!” Kiva waved his sword loosely and weakly toward the tower. “The men need you. I’ll see you afterwards.”

Balo took a long, steady glance at his commander and then nodded curtly, if unhappily. Letting go carefully, he watched in grim silence as Kiva once more doubled over and a fresh gobbet of black blood fell from his mouth. Tearing himself away, he turned to the fray and cried “make for the ropes!”

Kiva continued to stand as he was for a while, clutching at the hilt of his sword with white knuckles as the pain roared and seared its way through his abdomen. He coughed once more and a further stream of dark blood poured forth.

“I can’t die here,” a voice muttered nearby.

“What?” Kiva barked, glancing up as best he could. A man stood in front of him with a vicious gash from his right shoulder down to his hip, his right arm flapping helplessly around. Kiva squinted through the pain. The man wore a green uniform.

“Who’s your lord?”

The man staggered slightly and his blood ran down to mingle with Kiva’s growing pool on the floor. “I’m Geraldus’ man. A sergeant.”

There was a moment of silence.

“And I think I know who you are.”

Kiva sighed. “Then you’ve got to kill me where we are.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, general. I’ve no sword and I can’t lift my arm or turn my head. I’m done here.” He sighed deeply and winced. “Possibly done for altogether.”

Kiva nodded. “I can’t be. Too much more to do.”

He coughed once more and was surprised and disheartened at the quantity of life’s blood that ran from his mouth. “Help me get back to our line and you’ll be treated.”

The wounded sergeant grinned painfully, his eyes showing a deep sadness. “How can I pass up an offer like that?”

The two men limped and stumbled their way across the bodies and limbs, slipping in puddles of blood and viscera, slowly making their way back toward the column of the rebel army. A deafening twang and a rumbling and whistling noise announced the arrival of Athas’ war machines into the fray. Their stumbling continued and then suddenly there were arms around them, helping them up the hill. The concerned face of Athas appeared and said something that Kiva entirely missed.

“Athas!” he demanded breathlessly. “Shut up and stop fussing. Have us taken to Favio and don’t let word of this reach Mercurias or I’ll nail your testicles to that machine.”

Athas frowned at his commander and then nodded at the men supporting them.

Kiva must have blacked out somewhere along the column, for he stopped hurting for a while.

The marble columns wreathed in fire. The purple and gold drapes blazing and falling away into burning heaps on the floor. A chalice of wine on a small table by a couch, boiling in the intense heat. The panicked twittering of the ornamental birds in their golden cages as the room around them was consumed by the inferno. And in the centre of the room, standing in robes of white and purple, a man. He doesn’t look frightened, though the flames lick at his whole world and his face is already grimy with the smoke. What he looks is desperate, his arm extended toward the sealed and barred door separating him from a future and a life. Dark pools of blood surround the man and he takes a step toward the door, slipping and slithering in the blood until he collapses on the floor and is brought face to face with the knife that’s been drive hilt-deep into his side.

Kiva woke with a small cry and looked around him in panic. He was in his command tent and there were braziers flickering within and by the entrance. It was night and he was alone. They must have won the fight for the men had taken the time to erect the command tent before laying him carefully inside. Ideas had hammered at his consciousness as he awoke. Something to do with the old dream. That one thing; the one plan that so tantalisingly hung an inch away from his reach was there. Given a minute he might remember it. He focused slowly on the world around him and finally saw the items on the table next to his shoulder. There was a loaf of bread and some butter, some fruit and a bottle with a scruffily-written label on. He picked up the bottle, wincing at the pain and squinted at it. In Favio’s writing it said “drink this – at this point it can’t hurt.” Suspiciously, he pulled the stopper and sniffed. Mare’s mead and very strongly mixed by the smell. He smiled a weak smile and took a deep swig just as the curtains at the entrance were pushed aside and Tythias strode in.

“Thought I heard you shout.”

Kiva nodded slowly. “I take it everything went well?”

“Pretty good. Very few losses considering. I see despite his protests, Balo ended up leading your unit. What happened to you then? Favio wouldn’t tell us.”

The doctor, arriving at that moment behind him, aimed a meaningful look at Kiva as he replied: “he took a glancing blow to the ribs that might have done him some serious damage. He’s lucky to be here.”

Tythias glanced over his shoulder suspiciously at the doctor and then shrugged. “Fair enough. I take my own fair share of stupid wounds. Well now you’re awake I’d better report. Lord Tilis was taken prisoner, lord Geraldus was found about an hour ago impaled on a cavalry spear and there’s no sign of lord Herro. We presume he’s long gone with his bodyguard. The siege engines were all taken out and we’ve a total of around five hundred prisoners. Don’t know what you want to do with them, but Brendan’s convinced we can’t spare the manpower to guard them if we take them with us.”

Kiva nodded. “He’s absolutely right. Tell him to have their weapons and armour taken away from them and then let them go. They’re only farmers and servants pressed into service for their lords.”

Tythias pulled up a seat and collapsed next to the bed as Favio bustled around, holding Kiva’s wrist and counting under his breath.

“Silvas is a happy man” the one armed Prefect continued. “He’s done nothing but sing your praises and Darius’ since he joined us. His men are quartered with everyone else now, but he’s retaining control of them. I’ve assigned them the title ‘Ninth Regiment’ and left him in control. Seemed the best way to deal with it. They’re pretty well trained and organised anyway.”

Another nod from Kiva who, though listening, was watching Favio’s ministrations suspiciously. “And?”

“And everyone wants to come in and see you, but the first in line is sergeant Cialo who arrived in camp about an hour or two ago. I think you can safely say he’s not going back. He spat on his Velutio uniform and then burned it, along with the rest of his unit’s. Oh, and he’s brought a few more this time. There were twenty three of them when they turned up tonight.”

A smile suddenly flashed across Kiva’s lips. That was it. The missing piece. He pulled himself a little further upright in the bed and his eyes rolled as the pain lanced through his middle. Favio grumbled. “What’s the fucking use in me mending you if you go and do it all again. Lie still.”

Kiva looked urgently across at Tythias. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to speak to Favio for a minute and then I need to see a couple of people. Send Cialo in five minutes, then Balo in ten and tell the most senior crossbowman to find me first thing in the morning. After I’ve seen the other two, I’ll put in a general appearance.”

Tythias nodded unhappily and stood, stretching. “Ok. I’ll see you in a while, you mad old bastard.”

As the second in command left, Kiva reached up and gripped Favio’s wrist. “You told them I’d been knifed?”

“Seemed the best way,” the doctor agreed. “Believable and realistic. I assumed you didn’t want anyone knowing the truth or you’d have gone to see Mercurias.”

“And what is the truth?” the general pushed.

“You’ll be dead next time you do anything like that. You may even die tonight anyway. I think it’s settled in place again, but now you’ve got some actual liver damage. Any serious exercise and you’ll be bringing up blood again. If it’s serious enough, you might open it up properly and then you’ll just bleed to death where you stand. You’re looking quite pale right now and I don’t know if you could stand another session of what happened today.”

“So,” Kiva pressed further, “how long can you keep me going? I reckon I need a week or two.”

Favio shook his head. “You’re a strong man, general, but even you can’t make it that long. If you lie very still you might make it past a month, but if you walk and ride you’ll be dead in days I reckon. It’ll only take the one wrong move that jars that little shard on your liver and you’ll be gone in minutes. What happened today was just a scratch. Put a hole in your liver and this’ll seem like a little headache.”

Kiva growled. “I need at least a week.”

Favio nodded. “Well you’d best start praying then.”

Without looking any longer at the general, Favio turned and strode from the tent. Kiva growled gently. He’d survived a duel to the death, twenty years of war and a crucifixion. He damn well wasn’t going to lie down and accept this when there was still something to be done. And as for prayers…”