Ironroot (43 page)

Varro struck first.

It was a thorough, hard, military blow; backhanded and aimed horizontally at elbow height. As he’d predicted, Cristus suffered a fleeting moment of indecision as to how to block the blow before hurriedly raising his blade and bringing it back down, awkwardly and barely in time to turn the blow away.

Varro took a step back.

“That’s your problem, you see, Cristus? You’ve only ever fought gentlemen under peaceable circumstances. You’ve never fought anyone who’s only goal is to kill you. That’s why you’ll lose.”

Cristus stepped back.

“You’re an idiot Varro,” he said, quietly enough to be inaudible beyond the pair of them. “You’ve damaged my reputation almost beyond repair. If I’m to come out of this smelling sweet, I need to make this a show. I need them to think I deserved to win. You’re just going to look like a thug.”

Varro growled and suddenly lunged, thrusting his sword at Cristus’ belly. The man laughed and wheeled aside, bringing his own blade down on Varro’s theatrically, with a ringing noise. In an almost blinding flash of speed, the prefect’s blade flicked across the captain’s hand guard and scraped along the wood and leather contraption Salonius had created. Within, Var5ro heaved a sigh of relief. Even that fancy scratch could have ended it. He looked up at Cristus, who was smiling benignly.

“Tut tut, captain. Calmly, now.”

Spinning around to face the man again, Varro felt a wrenching in his side. He reached down and grasped his waist, his eyes momentarily blurring.

“Not yet…”

“What was that?” Cristus chuckled. “Your wound and the venom causing trouble. Please rise above it. If I finish this too quickly it’s such a wasted opportunity.”

Varro suddenly winced and dropped to all fours, making a hacking sound. Cristus sighed as he wandered casually over to the stricken captain.

“Come on, Varro. Get up and die on your feet.”

Varro grinned. In a lightning quick move, he rolled onto his side, bringing his sword down to the grass, directly onto Cristus’ foot. With satisfaction, he drove the blade through flesh and bone and into the earth, breaking several bones in the middle of the man’s foot and pinning him agonisingly to the floor.

Cristus stared down in shock and horror at his maimed foot as Varro rolled back out of reach and slowly and painfully climbed to his feet.

“Never be drawn in by deception, you piece of shit.” He tapped his wounded side and smiled at the dull, echoey thudding noise.

Cristus moved ever so slightly and, as the muscles in his foot tore further around the deeply-wedged blade, let out a piercing shriek that cut through the silence of the hillside. Varro laughed.

“You are a good swordsman, Cristus. You’re also an idiot, a liar, a traitor and shortly a corpse. Best concentrate on pulling that blade out of your foot. Can’t reach me until you do, and the blood’s trickling away slowly.”

As he spoke, he began slowly to circle Cristus. The prefect attempted to keep his front facing the captain but, as Varro circled behind him, it was impossible. Even the effort made his face contort with the agony shooting up from his foot. Varro stopped directly behind him, smiled, and very, very gently kicked the stricken leg from behind. Cristus shrieked again, so loud that the birds left the canopy of the sacred wood. Combat all but forgotten, the prefect reached down toward the hilt of the sword pinning him, his mouth opening and closing in an ‘O’ of exquisite horror and agony.

With a calm smile, Varro reached out and gently plucked the man’s sword from his hand. The smile deepened as Cristus tried to turn once more and raised a hand to ward off the blow. Almost causally, Varro swung the prefect’s sword, cutting the fingers from the raised hand.

Fresh agony rang through Cristus as he stared first at his hand, with only a ‘V’ of thumb and forefinger remaining, the others lying like uncooked meat on the grass. With a grisly, determined look, Varro took his other arm by the wrist.

Cristus stared at him, repeatedly mouthing the word ‘no’ through a veil of tears, though no sound issued.

Varro stopped.

“You want mercy? You? After the deaths you’ve caused, you have the audacity to ask for mercy. Catilina’s wounds? Petrus’ death? And that poor messenger too? The soldiers in the valley station who didn’t even know what they were dying for? Turning Corda against me? And after all that, my wound and the poison? And you want mercy?”

“I know that me winning proves your fault anyway, but I’d really appreciate you unburdening yourself of your guilt quite noisily so that everyone else can hear it.”

Cristus stopped crying. For a horrible moment, he began to smile. Even through the tears and the pain, the prefect’s sides began to shake with laughter.

“What’s funny?” Varro barked.

“You!” Cristus coughed out. “You did all this to pay me back for something I didn’t do! Priceless. Oh, the Gods like a joke, Varro. They love a good joke, and this one’s on both of us. You’ve ruined me in retaliation for something I didn’t do, and now you’re going to die without even finding out who really did!”

Varro stared at this laughing maniac and suddenly felt a sharp pain. Staring down, he realise that Cristus had used his two remaining fingers on the other hand to draw a small, slender knife from his belt and thrust it into the captain’s side. Still gripping Cristus’ wrist, he stared in shock and suddenly collapsed to his knees, bringing the prefect with him. With a tearing noise the disfigured man’s foot tore in half around the blade in the floor.

Cristus drew his small knife back in his maimed hand, the blade making curious sounds as it tore back out through the leather support, and laughed again.

“Varro, Ironroot is an ingestive, you idiot. It would probably do you some damage on a blade, but not enough to be fatal. If only I had some on this blade, I could make your last minutes a little more interesting.”

He thrust forward with the blade again, going for the chest this time, but Varro’s own hand swung up, bearing his opponent’s sword and breaking the offending arm at the wrist.

Staring it his limp, broken hand, Cristus giggled.

“Best put me out of my pain Varro. I need to die first or my cause wins and I die a free and honoured soldier. And you’ll not even make it to the marshal. I know my anatomy, Varro. That was your liver. See how the blood pooling out at your belt and running down your leg is nice and dark? Darker than mine? That’s liver, that is. I…”

Mid sentence, the prefect stopped, his eyes glazing over as the tip of Varro’s sword broke through the man’s back and out through his tunic with a tearing sound. Cristus slumped over him, a mangled, bleeding mess.

Clutching at the grass with whitening knuckles, he forced himself to his knees and looked around. Everything was blurred, as though seen through a pain of glass in heavy rain.

Rain.

It has been raining when he’d first met Catilina. He remembered it well. At Vengen. He’d reported to the senior officer in the square before the marshal’s palace. The rain was turning the gravel and dirt beneath his feet into a browny-grey mud that clung to his boots. He knew he looked dirty and haggard from a long ride, but then the palace doors had opened and she had appeared in her finery, a young lady; much younger than him, but so beautiful.

He smiled wistfully as he looked down at his knees and thighs, soaked through with deep, dark, red; the colour of Catilina’s dress that day, if he remembered correctly.

She had climbed onto her horse and walked it slowly across the square toward the civilian sector, pulling her hood up against the rain. Half way across the square she’d first looked at him. She’d stared and then slowly warmed to a smile. Rummaging in a pocket, she produced a coin and tossed it to him.

“Get indoors somewhere and get some wine while you dry off.”

With a lingering look, she’d ridden off.

He’d known that day that they’d be together til death. Curiously it hadn’t occurred to him it would happen this soon, but still, he’d known. And he was right, because here she was, his beautiful Catilina, with him in the arena. He couldn’t see at all now. Everything was a milky white, but his nose still worked. Even days on the road and nights in the woods hadn’t disguised that scent, like roses in the early morning dew. And other hands too; strong hands. He recognised those hands. Who did they belong to again?

There was a pain as he was slowly helped to his feet. He vaguely recognised the heady sensation of standing suddenly; light-headed. The pain was nicely distant. Like something experienced through that same window. If only he could see through the window, but it was so white. And someone was talking to him. He could hear that there were voices, but they were drowned under the surging noises in his ears, like a great torrent of water rushing down a gulley; like the bridge where they’d fought Cristus’ men in the mountain village. Such a loud rushing that there was little hope of hearing the voices. Shame, really. Catilina had a lovely voice when she wasn’t shouting, and Salonius… that was his name… Salonius… he had such a soft and calm voice for an engineer. He’d miss them.

Oh dear. He couldn’t smell Catilina anymore.

Silence.

Salonius gripped the slumped body of his captain with his left arm, holding him upright with all his strength, his right arm clamped tightly around the shoulders of the shuddering woman beside him. Catilina wailed and howled, shaking and snorting. Though only moments passed, it felt like hours to the young man, supporting the two most important people in his life. He waited patiently for the grief to plateau and finally the shaking subsided, the cries turned to sobs and the distraught young lady began to take her own weight once more.

As Catilina stepped back, wiping the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the back of her good wrist, Salonius turned the limp and suddenly light body of the captain to face him. That face; so white. With a sigh, he threw Varro over his shoulder and turned to follow Catilina back out of the arena, pausing only momentarily to deliver a hefty kick to the prone heap that was Cristus.

The arena wall, formed of two rows of men from their own army, stepped respectfully aside as Salonius carried the victor up the slope towards the marshal. As he walked, captain Iasus joined them. Glancing to his other side, he was, as ever, impressed by Catilina. The visual signs of grief had all but fled, leaving her with a resolute and proud look. Salonius tried to match her expression as they reached the marshal.

“Iasus? I want you to start working through the Fourth. I want everyone separated into three groups to deal with: those who were a clear part of Cristus’ treachery, those who were unwillingly or unwittingly roped in, and those who are innocent. I trust you’re able to do this?”

The captain nodded curtly.

“Those with some level of culpability will be placed under guard at Vengen. And those who are innocent, sir?”

Send them to Crow Hill to await the arrival of a new prefect. Let them take their banners and their honours with them. And get the camp commandant and the quartermaster to organise setting up camp here for the night. I doubt we’ll be leaving until you’ve finished your questioning.”

As Iasus stalked away, taking several of the black-clad guards with him, Sabian turned back to Salonius, Catilina, and the wilted body of Varro.

“Sad to see him end so. But a good way for him to go, I think. I suspect he’s content, wherever he is.”

Salonius smiled sadly.