by Alex Faure
“Yes. It is only the northern tribes who refuse to allow women to inherit property, though they still may inherit positions of leadership in certain circumstances. After my sister’s death, my father took it upon himself to mould me into a fighter in his own image.”
“He could scarcely have been disappointed in your abilities,” Darius said.
“My father and I have never been friends,” Fionn said. There was something in his voice that discouraged questions. “He and I are not alike, certainly not in the way he and my sister were. I suspect he would prefer to name my younger sister his heir, but I’m the eldest now, and the law is the law.”
“You have one other sister?” Darius said. “Then she is the one who knows what you are?”
“As much as I,” Fionn said. “Her name is Brigit. She is spoiled, cocky, and utterly bloodthirsty. Pray you never meet her.”
There was an affectionate note in his voice. Darius smiled. “You are fortunate to have a sister. As a child, I often wished that my father would remarry and gift me with siblings.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“I believe the part of him that could love another died with my mother.” He spoke plainly, voicing a truth he had scarcely allowed himself to think before now. “He had enough left in him to be a good father. And it was.”
“It was what?”
“Enough.” Darius thought of the sparse, quiet man who had raised him. A man who had always had an excuse to avoid company. Like Fionn, he had not been made in his father’s image—far from it. And yet his relationship with his father had been filled with mutual respect, and a certain amount of curiosity. Darius realized that his father likely found Darius’s love for company and yearning for adventure as much a mystery as Darius found his desire for eternal solitude.
“Tell me about your village,” Darius said.
Fionn’s silver gaze softened. He spoke of a lake framed by mountains, a raging river that tumbled and thrust its way to the vast western sea. Forests and fields through which he had gamboled as a child. Many of his reminiscences included Brigit, and Darius felt himself smiling as Fionn described a wild, golden-haired girl who sought to match Fionn in running and wrestling and every other physical pursuit, and when she couldn’t match him, cheated her way to victory.
They made love again afterwards, and then they simply lay in each other’s arms. The sun was rising above the trees—it was midday, Darius realized, his arms tightening around Fionn. He should rise. He should set out for Attervalis now to ensure he reached it before dark. And yet neither he nor Fionn spoke of it, as if by speaking the name of the fort they would hasten the moment when Darius would step through its mighty gates, and Fionn would melt back into the forest.
Darius didn’t hear it at first. Fionn stiffened in his arms, and then he was sitting upright in a frozen posture, head cocked like a wary deer.
“Dress,” he said shortly, springing to his feet.
Darius wasn’t easily shaken from the embrace of pleasure and weariness, which dulled his soldier’s instincts. “Fionn, what—”
Fionn had already pulled on his trousers. He tossed Darius his tunic. “They’re coming.”
Darius’s other self, honed on battlefields and in midnight raids, slid back into place. He stood. “How many?”
“Four.” Fionn was fully dressed now. He set to scattering the makeshift bed, tossing most of it into the river. “They saw the smoke.”
Darius had lit the fire while Fionn drowsed that morning, just to get the feeling back in his toes. He wasn’t a creature of the forest, unbothered by the cool damp, and it had seemed a harmless thing. Now he cursed his foolishness. At the same time, he became aware that four was not a force that should trouble Fionn, even if they were trained Robogdi assassins. The consternation on his face was because they weren’t Robogdi, nor Roman.
It was because they weren’t visitors he could fight—they were friends.
Darius swore again. If Fionn’s people realized what they’d done…That was his first thought, before it struck him that he should also be worrying about his own safety. He cast about instinctively for his sword before remembering that he had lost it long ago.
Fionn seized him by the arm and pulled him, not gently, into the shadowy undergrowth. Darius dove into a bush, though it was one of the hostile thorny things that were forever catching at his clothing. There was no better symbol for Hibernia, he thought as he burrowed as deeply into the brambles as he could. The tribesmen should paint it on their shields.
Darius could now hear the approach of footsteps through the brush, the soft patter of voices. Fionn cast a last look about the campsite and then arranged himself on a rock with a bit of wood that he began carving. It was a settled, elegant pose that gave the impression of an hour’s unbroken industry, and Darius was sure it would fool anyone who didn’t look too closely—if they did, they would see the over-quick rise and fall of Fionn’s chest, not to mention, Darius realize with a shiver of dread, the love mark his own lips had left on his neck.
They burst into the clearing a moment later—two large men and a reedy one of middle height, their hair varying lustres of gold. The reedy one was perhaps Fionn’s age, or a little older, while the other two appeared to be in their thirties. From the rock, Fionn looked up and called out a calm greeting in his own language.
The men stopped. Fionn had seen them first, not surprisingly—he had an uncanny ability to blend into whatever wild backdrop he perched against. One of the men replied, surprise in his tone. The reedy boy smiled. Fionn rose, idly casting the stick aside and sliding the dagger into his belt. His posture was perfectly at ease.
The men came forward. One clasped his hand and then, curiously, kissed it, bowing his forehead over Fionn’s long, graceful fingers. The other brawny one inclined his head and asked a question. Fionn responded dismissively, gesturing at the river. He gave the reedy young man a different greeting that had a note of warmth in it. The boy nodded, also inclining his head, though more shallowly than the others. His smile was amused, in contrast to the two older men, who both wore expressions closer to relief. Fionn spoke again.
Darius had no idea what excuse Fionn was giving the men for his absence from his tribal obligations—if Fionn had any obligations. Perhaps someone with his capabilities was given the freedom to do as he wished, and could simply flit through the woods as the fancy took him. But no—he had been among the Celts who had attacked Darius and his men on the riverbank after they fled Sylvanum. He had been part of the attack on the fort, though in precisely what capacity, it wasn’t clear. Surely that meant he would have been missed during the past two days, not to mention all the time he had spent nursing Darius back to health.
Darius felt a familiar sense of frustration. Fionn knew Darius’s full name, homeland, rank, and value to the Empire, not to mention his family’s history, as short a story as that had been to tell. By comparison, Darius knew next to nothing about Fionn.
Another figure entered the clearing—Darius caught the flash of a golden head, paler than the men’s. Whoever the forth visitor was, they seemed to be hiding behind the largest man, mischievously mocking their own smaller stature.
Fionn let out a pure peal of laughter that tugged at Darius’s heart. Then he said in an exasperated voice, “Brigit, meanne co conchora.”
At least, that was what it sounded like to Darius’s unschooled ears. The figure—a teenage girl—leapt out from behind the man with a giggle. She was perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with a lean and willowy beauty. Darius would have known she was his sister even if Fionn hadn’t spoken her name. Her colouring was darker, but her vividly blue eyes were the same shape as Fionn’s, and her chin had the same stubborn sharpness. There was something of Fionn’s grace in her build, though hers was more warm-blooded, having its origins in youth and the confidence of beauty rather than some fey mystery.
She leapt into Fionn’s arms, wrapping him in a fierce hug. Then she paused and stepped back with a surprised,
thoughtful look on her face. She looked Fionn up and down quickly, and then she glanced back at their partly dismantled camp.
Darius had to suppress a curse. There by the fire were two flat rocks bearing the remnants of the breakfast he had shared with Fionn. Brigit’s eyes narrowed slightly. The mischief hadn’t left her face, though now it was tempered by puzzlement. Her gaze lifted to scan the shadows.
Fionn murmured something to his sister with an edge in his voice, though he still wore a slight smile and stood relaxed among the others. To Darius, the mark on his neck was like a beacon, as was Fionn’s rumpled clothing.
Darius forced himself to take a step back mentally, to examine Fionn with the eyes of an unknowing fellow tribesman who had happened upon him in the forest after he’d spent a night or two tracking Roman spies, or something equally explicable. The mark became a blemish, a bruise perhaps, and his rumpled clothing merely the result of a night spent sleeping on uneven ground. Darius felt certain from their easy chatter that these were conclusions the men drew.
Not Brigit, though. Her eyes roved over the place where Darius crouched, hidden by the darkness, and then returned to her brother.
Fionn took his sister’s hand and led her from the clearing, and perhaps only Darius noticed the unnecessary firmness with which he gripped her, or the sharp look she gave him in reply.
He didn’t glance back. A moment later, their voices faded into the rustle and song of the forest, and Darius was alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Darius remained in the bushes for another quarter hour. It was a strange feeling, crouched there with only the wind and the birds for company. Attervalis, he knew, was hours away—he was closer to his people than he had been in days, and yet he felt perfectly alone. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.
Finally, he left the underbrush and set off. The place where he and Fionn had lain was barely distinguishable—Fionn had effectively scattered the leaves and soft mosses. Abandoned in the early afternoon light, there was something gloomy and unwelcoming about the clearing now. Darius hurried along the riverbank as fast as he could given his limp.
The unwelcoming feeling only deepened the farther he walked. He felt as if the wall of green trees on either side of the river gazed down at him in disapproval, if not outright hostility. A bird darted across the water with a squawk, and Darius jumped. He moved quickly, for the river was broad and shallow here, offering flat banks scattered with stones to walk along, a much easier course than tramping through the forest.
Darius paused only once, to wash. As he rubbed the icy water of the river over his skin, he was met with evidence that the hours he’d shared with Fionn hadn’t, in fact, been a dream. It wasn’t that he wanted that. It was that it all seemed so unreal. He felt disoriented, as if Fionn’s departure had broken some internal compass. A part of him wanted to turn and follow Fionn, if only to see him again, to prove to himself that he hadn’t imagined his very existence.
Would he see him again?
Darius shoved those thoughts from his mind. What would his reception be at Attervalis? Rome had lost a fort under his command. It was a failure the like of which he’d never seen in his career, which with few exceptions had been one long string of successes—peace treaties negotiated; hostile foes set against each other, leaving Rome to pick up the pieces; chieftains charmed and placated until they came to understand the benefits of accepting the Empire’s rule. Darius wasn’t a general. He had little interest in battles, though he was competent enough at strategy. His skill was men—understanding the need that underlay the desires, and feeding that need. Darius didn’t think that another man, in his shoes, could have prevented what had happened at Sylvanum, but that didn’t lessen his guilt.
He became aware, suddenly, of the sound of voices up ahead. He had been walking for two or three hours—was he already nearing Attervalis? Darius slunk into the trees and crept towards the sound. His thoughts leapt immediately to Fionn and his companions—yet they had been heading in the other direction. And why would Fionn follow him? Angry at himself, Darius shoved the silver-eyed Celt from his mind.
As he neared the voices, he became aware also of a metallic rustling that he recognized immediately. He sheathed his sword and hurried on, no longer bothering to move quietly.
He came to a little hill. Below him was a clearing where a shallow stream broke off from the river, creating a broad, flat island devoid of trees. Upon this island was a cluster of Roman soldiers, their armour clanking softly as they moved. One man, whose bearing communicated command, stood a little apart from the main body, consulting with a man dressed in a scout’s uniform. The others stood waiting, their faces wary and watchful. They hadn’t yet noted Darius upon the hilltop—he stood in the shadows, his Celtic clothing blurred against the forest backdrop.
“Marcus,” Darius called.
The name was half a question. Marcus standing there below him seemed nearly as improbable as his time with Fionn. Marcus turned away from the sentinel, his eyes squinting against the sun.
He gave a start, and his long face paled. “Darius!” he said. And then: “Gods!”
He surged forward, forgetting himself. He remembered before he reached Darius’s side, and rather than embracing him, settled for a fervent clap on Darius’s back. “Commander. By all the gods, where did you come from? Do you live?”
Darius managed a smile. Standing there with Marcus, gazing at his familiar, unshaven face topped with its uneven fringe of dark hair, stirred a curious mixture of emotions. On the one hand, he was relieved beyond words to see him; on the other, he had thought the man was dead. “As much as one can, in this unhealthy damp,” he said. “I could ask the same of you, Captain.”
“Commander, now.” Marcus signalled to one of the other men. “Albinus is dead. I’m in charge of Attervalis. What’s left of it.”
Darius rocked back, and Marcus nodded at the look on Darius’s face. “It’s not a tale to hear standing up. Let’s get back to the fort—I’ll explain there.” He signalled to his men. “We’ve lost them anyhow.”
“Who?” Darius said.
Marcus shook his head, and let out a low laugh. “No you don’t. You appear in our midst like something animated by Erictho, dressed up in barbarian robes—” He plucked at Darius’s cloak—“and think you’re owed answers first? I don’t think so.”
“I was injured,” Darius said as they set off, the soldiers falling into formation behind them. Darius recognized none of their faces, and wondered again how many had survived from Sylvanum.
“Was the infection bad?” Marcus said, and Darius realized that Marcus, of course, with his keen eye for identifying an opponent’s weaknesses, had already guessed the nature of Darius’s injuries.
Darius hesitated. From Rome’s perspective, there was no reason why he shouldn’t tell Marcus about Fionn. And yet his instinct was to say nothing about him, to lead Marcus to believe that Darius had been healed of his injuries without assistance. But this was improbable, and Darius had no desire to have Marcus think him a liar.
So, Darius told Marcus most of what he had endured over the past days, though he said nothing about the supernatural elements, nor his last night with Fionn. He also didn’t tell Marcus that Fionn was the frighteningly skilled warrior who had bested him on the riverbank; he implied that the Celt who had doctored him had been a stranger, his motives for helping Darius unclear. The last part was true enough, after all.
Marcus, to Darius’s surprise, accepted his story without questions. “It’s strange, of course,” he said. “But who can understand the workings of an elf’s mind? Naturally, some must be sympathetic to Rome’s cause, and would prefer our rule to that of their savage kings.”
Darius nodded, though he had grown less convinced of this in recent days. Marcus added, “Perhaps the man who helped you thought he could gain a bargaining chip for later use. I’m not sure it matters, though.” His voice was heavy.
Darius looked him over. He might not be as ade
pt as Marcus at measuring physical weaknesses, but he was a far better reader of human emotion. On Marcus’s face, and even in his proud, graceful bearing, he saw not only fatigue but the ragged edges of a gathering despair. “How did you survive?”
“How?” Marcus raised his eyebrows. “I had nothing to do with it, I assure you. They didn’t bother to kill me. After that grey-eyed demon knocked me over the head, I awoke on the beach, surrounded by corpses. I suppose the Robogdi assumed I was among them. Or perhaps the party that attacked us were Volundi—we’ve learned they have an alliance.”
Darius said nothing. He couldn’t tell Marcus that this wasn’t news to him—even if he’d wanted to, there was no way to explain his ability to speak the language of a forest demon. Particularly to a man like Marcus, who was about as superstitious as a horse.
They reached Attervalis within an hour, moving swiftly through the diminishing forest. Attervalis perched on a rocky cliff overlooking the grey, unfriendly sea that stretched between Hibernia and Britannia. It was a mighty fortress, its high wall guarded by a sharp-tipped palisade. Darius had visited it once before, when he first arrived in Hibernia. It had been a comforting sight to approach by ship, punched into the green landscape like a fist, something sharp and practical and familiar driven into that alien place, dwarfing any fortress the Celts were capable of imagining.
“By the gods.” Darius drew in a sharp breath.
Half of the southern wall had been obliterated. The sky was hazed with smoke—the line of brush near the fort was smouldering, as were several stands of trees that lay between it and the tree line.
Darius turned to his former captain and saw his own dismay reflected in his face, tempered by grim acceptance. “How were the tribes capable of this?” Darius said. “Not even the Turks ever managed to wreak this sort of havoc on our forts.”
“The tribes weren’t capable of it.” Marcus’s voice was even, his gaze distant. “But we were. Sylvanum was.”