The First Blade of Ostia (21 page)

B
ryn had never been
near a war before and beyond the tales of fluttering banners, heroic deeds and glory that filled the books on the subject, he knew little of it. Those stories had always struck him as being unlikely, and he had no idea of what to really expect. When they moved from what was definitely Ostia to the region that was contested, there was no mistaking the fact.

The land gradually took on a look of depredation. Fields didn’t seem as well tended, nor did the roads, something his back could testify to, jarred as it was by the frequent potholes that the wagon now encountered. There were not as many people. Indeed, potholes were the only things he saw with any increasing regularity. The land seemed to have been stripped of anything of value—foodstuffs, building material; anything that could be carried away.

Seeing the first body came as something of a shock. No one else on the convoy paid it any attention, but it was the first Bryn had seen under those circumstances. He’d seen Mistria killed in the Amphitheatre, but that had been neat. Tidy almost. The men he had killed had seemed likewise. This corpse was anything but. It lay, crumpled, by the side of the road, what remained of the face twisted in an expression of pain and terror. It had been there for some time by the look of it; it was the stuff nightmares were made of.

He wondered why no one had collected the body and taken it away, family or friends perhaps. It didn’t take long to realise that it was probably because they were all dead too. Bryn didn’t notice any weapons. They could have been looted, but more than likely the person never had any to begin with. It was a grim introduction to war.

T
he army had moved
on since the wagoners were last in the North. Deverardo had to send out scouts in an effort to find it, but a marching army was not a difficult thing to track. Bryn was hopeful he might be chosen to go—anything to break the monotony—but realised he was too new to be given command of the scouting party, and anything less would be an affront to a banneret. He remained behind with the convoy as it continued to wend its way north.

T
hey were
twenty days into their journey north—the point at which Bryn expected they would have completed their mission and be heading for home—and still waiting to hear back from their scouts when Deverardo spotted smoke on the horizon. He halted the wagons while he considered what it might mean. Bryn slipped from his wagon bench onto his horse and rode forward to Deverardo’s wagon.

‘Trouble?’ Bryn said.

‘Possibly. Hard to tell from here. With no sign of the army, any fighting should still be a long way north.’

‘Bandits then?’

‘Most likely. We’ve enough swords to scare them off. We’ll continue on. No need to be concerned yet.’

The smoke grew less as they moved toward it, the fires that caused it dying out. When they arrived at its source, they were greeted by the burnt out husk of what had once been a small village—probably as recently as that morning. There was no sign of any life.

Deverardo clambered down from his wagon and surveyed the destruction. ‘A quick stop to check for survivors and then we move on,’ he said.

Bryn nodded and fell in behind him. They walked toward the charred ground, and the rest of the escort men followed after them. The wagoners took the chance to unharness their oxen and water them.

No one said a word as they walked into the village, surveying the devastation. Bryn had only taken a few steps onto the blackened ground when he saw the first of the former inhabitants, a blackened husk that bore little resemblance to the human being it had once been. The features were so badly burned that it was impossible to tell whether it had been a man or a woman. As they moved farther in, bodies became a frequent sight. They were all burned; the entire village had been torched, but from the position of the bodies it looked as though they had been killed before the flames got to them. Bryn felt the bile rise in his throat and he struggled to stop himself from vomiting.

In one or two places there were still fires burning, but there was no sign of anything living or any trace of the men that had caused the devastation. Bryn felt a mix of anger and revulsion. It was difficult to separate the romantic and honourable notions he had of soldiering from the reality he was faced with. He couldn’t understand what would drive men to such barbarity.

Deverardo approached and saw the look on Bryn’s face. ‘First time you’ve seen something like this?’ he said.

Bryn nodded.

Deverardo grimaced and looked around. ‘Best get used to it. You’ll see plenty more like it in this line of work. Always what’s left behind after the fighting. People who can’t take care of themselves usually end up dead. Just be glad it’s not anyone you care about.’

‘What drives men to do something like this? They were just village folk. They can’t have had anything worth stealing.’

‘Not a whole lot. I’ve passed by this village before. There wasn’t much here to begin with. But I’ve seen men kill each other over a chicken, so it doesn’t need to be much if the want for it’s great enough. We’d best get back to the wagons and be on our way. If anyone survived this, they’re long gone.’

Deverardo shouted to the other men and they turned and started back toward the wagons. The sound of approaching horses joined his voice. Some of the more alert men drew their blades and Bryn thought it was prudent to do likewise. Considering where they were, there was no way of knowing if the approaching horsemen were friend or foe. Deverardo looked to Bryn with a spooked expression that said Bryn drawing his sword was the correct reaction.

The horsemen came into view, all wearing the grey uniforms of Ruripathian soldiers. On foot, running away wasn’t an option; they wouldn’t have gotten far before the horsemen were on them. When Bryn cast a glance back to the wagons, he could see another, smaller group of grey uniformed horsemen approaching them. Each group outnumbered the men of the Guilds’ Company; there was nowhere to run.

‘Who commands here?’ the leader of the horsemen said.

They had the look of regular soldiers, rather than bandits. Bryn was hopeful that their behaviour would be more measured as a result. That they had not charged in and attacked was a positive sign; perhaps Deverardo could talk them out of the situation, but probably without the contents of the wagons.

‘I do,’ Deverardo said, after a moment’s hesitation.

‘I am Colonel dal Ewalt. In the name of the Crown of Ruripathia I place you under arrest for the pillage and destruction of the village of Grelitz.’

‘Now listen here,’ Deverardo said. ‘We’ve only just gotten here ourselves. This destruction had nothing to do with us. We’re not even soldiers. We’re just escorting the wagons north. We wanted to see if there was anyone left we could help.’

The Ruripathian colonel sneered. ‘A likely story. You are Ostians, yes?’

‘We are,’ Deverardo said, puffing out his chest in what struck Bryn as a rather ridiculous and futile demonstration of bravado, as though being Ostian meant his word was beyond reproach. ‘This could as easily have been done by Ruripathian brigands.’

‘No. This was done by Ostians,’ dal Ewalt said, gesturing to the charred remains of the village and its citizens. ‘You are Ostians. In the absence of any others, the guilt seems most likely to lie with you.’

Bryn could see they were getting the blame no matter what. The Ruripathians wanted heads for what had happened to the village, and so long as those heads were Ostian, guilt was unimportant.

Surrender was not an option as far as Bryn was concerned, although he worried that Deverardo’s nerve would not be up to starting a fight. If they were to lay down their arms, immediate execution seemed the most likely outcome. The Ruripathians wanted Ostian blood, one way or the other.

There was a moment of quiet where both sides regarded each other. Several of the Ostians, including Bryn, had weapons drawn while all of the Ruripathians still had theirs sheathed. If there was to be any hope for them, taking the initiative seemed to be it. Deverardo was proving himself to be completely unable to make a decision; years of easy wagon duty had dulled his reactions, and Bryn was unwilling to squander this single advantage.

‘At them, lads!’ he shouted.

They rushed at the Ruripathians before they had a chance to draw their weapons. Bryn was so caught up in the moment that he didn’t have time to think about the danger. The sounds of shouts, whinnying, and clashing steel filled the air as Bryn traded a couple of blows with a Ruripathian trooper before pulling him off his horse and running him through.

Deverardo was in the middle of it all, roaring and hacking like a man possessed. He was not a bad swordsman, despite his physique and his initial ambivalence was forgotten.

Bryn cut down a second Ruripathian and pulled another from his horse, ducking a blow aimed at his head in the process. Caught up in the centre of things it was difficult to see which way the fight was going, but outnumbered as they were, Bryn didn’t get his hopes up. There was nothing for it but to fight as hard as he could and hope for the best. So much for simply going along to frighten off bandits, Bryn thought.

He clashed blades with another man, knocking his guard to one side and prepared for a killing strike when there was a bright flash behind his eyes, and then nothing.

C
oming back
to one’s senses after an injury was not pleasant, and something that Bryn seemed to be doing all too often for his liking. As was always the case, it took a moment for memory to return as he looked around trying to fend off the feelings of anxiety that accompany such confusion.

He was sitting with his back against a tree. His hands were tied behind him, uncomfortably crushed between his body and the trunk. He tried to lean forward a little to take some of the pressure off them, and his movement attracted attention.

‘Colonel! He’s awake!’

A group of men made their way into Bryn’s field of view, one of whom he recognised as the Colonel of the Ruripathian horsemen. They stopped in front of Bryn, draping him in their shadow.

‘You are a banneret?’

Bryn looked up at the silhouetted shape above him. ‘I am.’

‘Your men said as much. That’s why you are still alive.’

‘Banneret Deverardo?’ Bryn asked.

‘The fat one?’

Bryn nodded.

‘Dead in the skirmish.’

Bryn didn’t feel one way or the other about it; it was to be expected. The only real surprise was that he was still alive.

‘Your wagons have been seized and your men have been executed for what happened here. As a banneret you will be held to a higher standard however.’ He turned back to his men. ‘Hang him!’

T
he sun rose
, signalling an end to a hellish night and the start of what would be an even worse day. The rope suspending Bryn from the tree swayed gently from side to side in the breeze, and each time it tugged on his shoulders agonisingly. The Ruripathian understanding of hanging differed from the Ostian, theirs being a far more brutal experience. They had tied his hands behind his back, and suspended him from the branch by his bound wrists. He had lost the feeling in his arms at some point, as his body weight pulled him down, slowly tearing his shoulders from their sockets. He found it difficult to breathe. All things considered, a further deterioration in that regard was probably a blessing.

As the sun grew stronger, he could feel it sear his bare skin; the Ruripathians had been charitable enough to spare him his dignity and leave him in his britches, but the bare, stretched, red skin of his chest and shoulders stung furiously.

He rotated slowly one way before the tension in the rope built and twisted it back the other. The slow spinning made him dizzy and nauseated. He didn’t have the strength left in his shoulders and neck to lift his head, but he could hear birds on the branch above him. His imagination filled in what his eyes could not tell him. He pictured a flock of evil looking carrion birds, patiently waiting for their chance to get at him without interruption. He wished more than anything he had fallen during the fight like Deverardo. It seemed that in this, as with everything else, Divine Fortune did not favour him.

B
ryn could hear
a crackling noise and the faintest scent of smoke tinged the air. He realised he was lying on his back rather than hanging from a tree. He tried to open his eyes, and they did so only grudgingly. Darkness and flame were all he could see. One of the Three Hells perhaps? His first emotion was indignation. Had he not already suffered enough in life only to be punished further in death?

He shifted a little, but that small movement was enough to make him gasp as his shoulders screamed in pain. He had never been a particularly diligent student of theology and could not recall which of the Three Hells tortured its inhabitants, but he would no doubt discover sooner rather than later. His skin felt as though it had been roasted, and he couldn’t even begin to describe the pain in his shoulders. He had never experienced anything like it, and it made him wonder at the nature of the injury they had sustained. His hands and arms were numb, but he wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a cause for concern.

‘You’re awake.’

A woman’s voice. An unusual accent, not Ostian, not Ruripathian. A Borderlander? Unfortunate enough to be joining him for an eternity in this awful place? He tried to speak, but no words would come, only a dry and painful croak.

‘You shouldn’t try to talk yet. Drink first.’

The teat of a water-skin was pressed to his lips and he felt cool liquid spill into his mouth. It made him realise how thirsty he was and he gulped at it greedily. It was an instant relief to his swollen tongue and dry throat. He tried to speak again. The result was no more successful than his first effort, but there was less pain in his throat.

‘Don’t talk. Just rest. You’re safe now.’ The same female voice. He didn’t feel as though there was any possible alternative to simply complying with her instructions. His head still felt like it was spinning as it had been when he was suspended from the rope. He tried to relax and closed his eyes. Sleep followed swiftly.

W
hen he next
woke there was less pain when he moved. The raw feeling on his skin had lessened, but the agony in his shoulders had not. As he shifted his body awkwardly, his arms dragged behind. He tried to move them, but there was no response and, just as worryingly, no feeling. The pain from his shoulders more than made up for it though.

The fire was still there and he could see a dark shape moving around on the other side.

‘I can’t move my arms,’ he said. At least his voice was working.

The dark shape stopped moving and he thought he could make out a pair of eyes twinkling in the firelight. The fire crackled and popped and filled the air with smoky warmth.

‘You were hanging from them for at least a day, maybe longer. They were both out of their sockets when I cut you down.’

As best he could tell, they were both back where they should be now. Had she done that? ‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Ayla. I lived in the village.’

‘I’m Bryn. Do you have any more water?’

She shuffled around the fire and put the teat of the water skin to his lips again. As he drank he wondered why she had cut him down and kept him alive.

‘Thank you for cutting me down,’ he said, when he had finished drinking.

‘Nearly didn’t, but I reckoned that you were strung up for what happened to the village and I know you aren’t responsible. The ones that did it were long gone before the flames had died. With the state you were in when I found you, I didn’t see much point binding your hands, so don’t go thinking that was me being soft. I’ve a knife and a sword and I’ve no problems using either if you don’t behave.’

Bryn tried moving one of his arms again, to no effect. He hoped he was not imagining it but the pain seemed a little less. Not pleasant, but encouraging nonetheless. ‘Who did do it?’

‘Doesn’t matter. This year it was Ostians; last year Ruripathians came close to doing the same. Soldiers are never good for ordinary folk. Doesn’t matter who they fight for. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.’

Bryn thought he heard her voice catch a little toward the end as she spoke. ‘Where are we?’

‘An old hunting shack. I’ve been here ever since they burned the village. I don’t think anyone else managed to get away. I’ve been looking, but I can’t find anyone.’

‘What happened to the others who were with me?’

‘Dead. Some were in the ashes of the village, more were behind the tree where you were hanging. Friends?’

‘No, just men I worked with. I hardly knew any of them really.’

‘Why didn’t they kill you too?’ she asked.

‘I’m a banneret. They thought I deserved worse than a quick death.’

‘Well, joke’s on them then. The gods must have been smiling on you.’

Bryn laughed sardonically. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Don’t know. I was looking for anyone else who got away, but I suppose that if anyone did they’ll have gone somewhere else by now. Nothing left to keep them in Grelitz now except burnt bodies. If it hadn’t been for finding you, I’d probably be gone by now myself.’

‘Where?’

‘Don’t know. All my kin and everyone I knew were in Grelitz.’ Her voice faltered again as she spoke.

‘Grelitz is the name of the village?’

She nodded. ‘Was the name.’

It was only now that Bryn realised that he still had no idea what she looked like, whether she was old or young. The only light in the shack came from the fire, and that left plenty of shadows. He would have tried moving to get a better look, but his shoulders hurt so badly the thought of moving made him want to vomit.

‘You from Ostenheim?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not a soldier. What brought you all the way out here?’

‘I needed work. Escorting supply wagons was all I could get. Doesn’t seem like such a good idea now though.’

She let out a staccato laugh. ‘Plenty of things are like that.’

I
t only took
a couple of days cooped up inside the shack before Bryn felt strong enough to venture outside again. In truth it was as much boredom as recovery that encouraged him to try. He was still not sure that he would make it farther than a few paces. He was weak and unsteady on his feet, and wasn’t able to put his hand out quickly to grab onto something for support, which made his efforts perilous.

Ayla watched him warily. Despite the hours that they had spent talking, and the many more that she had spent caring for him, feeding him, it was obvious that she didn’t trust him. For the first few days she had appeared to him only as a shadowy figure in the gloomy hunting shack. He had come to know her by the sound of her voice alone, his imagination creating an image of what she looked like. Fair hair and skin were common in the north, and that was how he pictured her. Her voice was always tense, strained, so it was impossible to tell how old she was. It could be a sign of age, or as a result of recent events. Each time she spoke he changed his mind.

When he first saw her out of doors, he smiled with satisfaction at the accuracy of his prediction. She was fair skinned, with hair the colour of wheat at harvest time. She was no older than he although, like her voice, her face showed the stress caused by the destruction of her village and it added years to her. Bryn couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose everyone you know and care about. His own troubles paled in comparison.

On his first attempt at going for a walk, Bryn was able for little more than limping outside and sitting on a tree stump a few steps from the door of the shack. Ayla had to leave him to his own devices when she went to fetch water or look for food—something she had previously done when he slept, which was most of the time.

After a few more days, he found that he could walk farther, and that some of his old stamina was returning—far more quickly than if building it from scratch. He slowly made his way toward the remains of the village, for no more reason than it was the only destination in the area that he knew of. The pain had started to fade from his shoulders—there was also an element of him growing accustomed to it—but his hands and arms were still numb. He couldn’t feel anything at all. He didn’t know what that meant, but it was difficult not to be concerned.

Ayla had gone off to look for food earlier and had yet to return, so he decided to take another walk. Each day he set himself a more ambitious goal. The shack was not far from the village, but it was far enough that Bryn was beginning to wonder if he had pushed himself too hard when it finally came into view. It looked much the same as it had when he had first encountered the place, little more than a black stain on the landscape with charred pieces of wood occasionally hinting at where a building had once been. The only difference was a solitary figure standing amidst the ash.

Ayla stood motionless, staring at a patch of charred ground, oblivious to everything around her. Abruptly, she walked forward quickly and bent down to examine something on the ground. She stood again after a moment, not having picked anything up. Watching her felt like an invasion of privacy, so Bryn backed away. She had been so diligent in caring for him, so attentive, he hadn’t thought of how much she must have been hurting. She had done so much for him; he didn’t have the first idea of what he could do for her.

He hobbled back to the shack and was well and truly exhausted by the time he got there. Ayla was clutching a small cloth parcel of food when she returned. She dropped it down on the table in the corner before sitting down in the shadows, beyond the light of the small fire.

‘Foraging’s getting harder,’ she said.

Having seen her standing in the village, so sad, he felt he needed to make some gesture toward her, but didn’t know what form it should take or how to put it. It occurred to him that her loved ones probably still lay where they were killed and that just didn’t seem right.

‘I was thinking,’ he said. ‘I know your loved ones must still be in the village. I thought maybe when my arms are better I could go down and help you bury them.’

‘Unless you plan on digging more than two hundred holes there’s not much point,’ she said, bitterly. ‘I can’t tell who’s who. They’re all too badly burned. I didn’t see where they fell; they weren’t in our house. Anyhow, who knows when your arms will start working again?’

She got up and walked out of the shack.

Bryn sighed. At times he felt like he was an idiot. At times he knew he was one.