He leaned forward menacingly, hand gripping the hilt of his sword as he peered down at the cowering fisherman. ‘Are they attacking the Raven Legion? General Crito? At Venta?’
The man looked confused and Convocus lifted his arms and formed his hands into a bird shape, making a corvid croak, then pointing to his uniform and in the rough direction of Venta. The man frowned for a moment, then shook his head.
‘Nort. Fulc. Impor.’
Lifting his hands carefully so as not to alarm his captors, he formed them into a streamline shape and swooped them down.
‘Shit.’
‘What is it, sir? What does he mean?’
‘Not the raven. Not Raven Legion. That’s a hawk. They’ve gone after General Quietus’ Hawk Legion. Why, I cannot imagine. It’s hard to believe General Crito’s familial links with Prince Doribunus will protect us all now. This is just the start of something, lads. We have to see the general. And I’ll be interested to see whether he’s surprised when I ask him about the pirates, too.’
‘Sir?’
‘Oh come on. These are his people, and they are the pirates? Is it even credible that he might not know about them?’
‘What do we do with this one?’
‘Bring him with you. I know the way back from here.’
In fact, it took a few moments of searching before he could adequately identify which of the narrow paths leading from the island had been the one along which he’d first come that morning, but a short while later they were hurrying along the raised pathway, turning the corner at the junction with the footprint, and hurrying back to town.
The settlement seemed oddly deserted, but the legion’s camp was as busy as usual when they burst from one of the radiating streets into the town’s central square. Another tribune, the auxiliary commander, was emerging from the prince’s meeting hall, a small group of men behind him. Spotting Convocus hurrying into the square with the men at his back, he moved to intercept, waving the tired tribune and his wide eyed cavalrymen to a halt.
‘What’s the matter, man?’
‘Gallus, we have to see the general.’
‘You? He’ll spit fucking feathers that you’re even in the town. His men won’t let you within a hundred paces of him. In fact, if you hadn’t been foisted on us by imperial warrant, you’d probably be chained to a wall by now being lashed. You must have a death wish, man.’
Convocus shook his head. ‘This is important, Gallus. You have to back me up. I need to see him and warn him. The Ibelli are on the move.’
‘Well of course they are,’ the man replied with a smile.
‘What?’
‘The Ibelli and all their allies. Now why couldn’t you just have been a little more convenient and buggered off down south like the general told you?’
Convocus straightened, his eyes narrowing. ‘You know about it. The general. He knows about it too, doesn’t he? Always did. That’s why we met up with the prince at the river. I bet it was the general’s doing, wasn’t it? This isn’t the Ibelli’s plan. This is General Crito’s. He’s combined the Raven Legion with a force of his fellow natives. Does he also know they’re the tribe that have been doing all the raiding on our coast?’
His fellow tribune rolled his eyes. ‘How else was the general to persuade the emperor that an invasion was even necessary? Come on, Convocus. Use your brain.’
Convocus almost fell to his knees with dismay. ‘This? This is all his doing? He’s engineered an attack on the empire just to give him an excuse to invade?’
‘And to regain his reputation, Convocus. But think about it. Why we’re here doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re here and we can win. We can conquer Alba, and we’ll all be made for life then, not just the general. A place in the senate. Statues. A triumph. For all the officers, and awards for the men.’
‘You lunatic,’ Convocus spat. ‘The Ibelli aren’t going to help you conquer Alba. They’re going after the Hawk Legion. They’re going to take on Quietus’ men. This is just the start.’
He was shocked by the easy acceptance in his fellow tribune’s eyes as the auxiliary commander simply nodded. ‘They’re not going to massacre our own countrymen, Convocus. Just halt their advance and ensure Quietus is removed from command. Then the Hawk Legion will be brought back and joined up with Raven Legion under one general – ours. Then we can truly conquer this island. It was never going to be possible with three separate legions and three separate generals.’
‘Not when they’re at war with each other, no. You’re all mad,’ Convocus snapped and started to move towards the camp. Tribune Gallus stepped into his path.
‘It’s no use. The general won’t see you anyway.’
Convocus heaved the man to the side, but Gallus barged in front again. ‘Stop, Convocus.’
Rage boiled up inside the tribune, and he lashed out before he’d really thought about it, his knuckles smashing hard into his fellow officer’s jaw and sending him spinning off into the dirt. As Gallus yelled at him, Convocus held up a hand, brushed him aside, and marched on the camp. The general had a few questions to answer.
Chapter 10
With one of the cavalrymen at his shoulder, Convocus stormed angrily towards the camp gate. The rest of his unit remained in the square outside, engaged in a dangerous stand-off with the shouting, bloody-lipped Tribune Gallus and his men. While they danced around a potential fist fight, though, Convocus marched on the general’s tent, disbelief and fury in his heart.
The gate guard held up his hand and even went so far as to level his weapon. Convocus snapped the watchword at him without slowing and the soldier only just withdrew his weapon and stepped out of the way in time as the tribune stormed past, the dismounted cavalryman right behind him.
The lines of orderly tents to either side were filled with men going about their everyday camp life, unaware of the momentous and dreadful events going on among their officers. Hopefully unaware, Convocus corrected himself. If Tribune Gallus was in on the general’s reprehensible plans, then how far through the ranks did this corruption spread?
As the two men closed on the command tent at the camp’s centre, he found himself wondering about his friends. Friendly Bellacon, out west with the Vultures, and the joker Cantex in the north with the Hawks, unaware that a native force was coming for them from the south. How were they both faring? Were their commanders better men? He cast a quick prayer up for their fortune, and then fixed his gaze on the tent ahead, allowing the full force of his anger to flood him.
‘Sir?’ prompted the man at his shoulder.
‘What?’
‘Can it be true? Would the general really help natives raid our own lands just to give him the opportunity to resurrect his career?’
Convocus nodded. ‘The ability of the empire’s nobles to use anything and anyone to their own benefit never fails to disgust me. Ten years ago, we nearly lost the empire to the horse lords entirely through betrayal by one of our own lords for mere personal gain. It’s not a new disease. I do wonder if either Titus or the emperor knew something was going on when they assigned my friends and me to the army. Some warning might have been nice, if so. Still, with any luck we still have time to pull something good out of this dung heap. Are you with me?’
‘To stop imperial troops being jumped by the natives? Shit, yes, sir. Which tent?’
Convocus gestured to the command tent. ‘I think he’ll be there at this time of day, especially with what’s going on.’
His fingers danced on the hilt of his sword and he almost drew it, but decided against it. Confrontation could hardly be avoided, but he had failed as an officer and an agent of the emperor if this immediately devolved into a violent struggle. It seemed his companion was less concerned, from the hiss of a sword being drawn from its sheath behind him.
For just a heartbeat, he felt a lack of certainty in the horseman, wondering if he would feel that cold steel thrust into his back at any moment. He was fairly sure he could trust the man, thoug
h, and all the cavalrymen who’d been with him. Their dismayed reactions at the discovery of the ships and surprise at the empty weapons cache spoke of men who were not part of the general’s dangerous plan. Well, if there was ever a test of loyalty…
Convocus reached the tent door without a blade sinking into his back. Taking a deep breath he rapped once, sharply, on the tent frame before marching inside, without waiting for a reply or to be announced. This was no social visit.
The fact that there had been no guards standing outside the tent had entirely escaped him in his complex turmoil of emotion and focused anger, and the worrying omission struck him just as he tumbled over the bodies of the general’s guards lying just inside the doorway, thudding face first onto the carpeted floor.
Convocus floundered in panicked confusion, his eyes straying across the two bodies, each staring up at the tent ceiling with glassy eyes. Neither had bled out, their flesh still pink. As the cavalry trooper, caught by the same surprise immediately behind him, staggered and tripped over the corpses, one rolled over and Convocus was treated to a close view of the back of the neck where a blade had entered – a narrow, needle-pointed blade – for an instant, silent kill.
He was scrambling upright a moment later, his wild eyes roving around the room. It was empty.
A faint scrabbling sound reached him from the office in the rear, subdivided from the rest of the tent by heavy leather walls. Whatever was going on back there, very likely the two men had been heard falling over the bodies. Regardless, Convocus rose and put a finger to his lips to silence the cavalryman who had let out an explosive breath.
As quietly as he could, he drew his sword and moved, hurriedly but softly, towards the dividing door. Behind him, the trooper rose quickly, righted his own blade, and followed on.
The tent door thrust aside, Convocus took in the scene in the general’s office in the blink of a horrified eye. A man – a big man in patched grey and black tunic and breeches with a ragged brown cloak was behind General Crito, snarling. The general’s eyes were bulging like horrible white orbs, shot through with pink lines, his tongue jutting as he worked desperately with his fingers at the cord biting into his throat.
Instinct took over. Though Convocus had come to confront the general and had expected trouble on some level, he’d not been prepared for this. Dropping his sword, he ran at the dreadful tableau, hurling himself onto the attacker, knocking him back. The assassin surprisingly managed to maintain his grip on the garrotte and the three men fell backwards in a heap, the cord pulling the general agonisingly along.
The man was either a professional killer, or a very talented amateur. Not only had he maintained his killing grip as he was knocked flat, but even now as a maddened imperial officer floundered on top of him, still he concentrated on throttling the life from his victim rather than defending himself.
Convocus raised himself up so that he was kneeling on the man’s chest and delivered a powerful punch to his cheek, snapping his head sideways. The force and pain of the blow finally broke the man’s grip on the cord and the general fell away, slumped.
Convocus was readying himself for a second punch when he felt a blow to his groin, unprotected above the man’s ribs. Pain flooded through his midriff, immediately leaving a powerful kidney ache, and he was powerless for a moment to prevent the assassin, dazed as he was, rolling out from beneath him.
The trooper was suddenly beside him, sword raised, but Convocus, still gasping in pain, reached up with the hand not cupping his crotch and stayed the soldier’s arm.
‘Alive,’ he puffed, his eyes watering. ‘Alive. To question.’
Leaving the soldier with his sword pointing at the assassin, still huffing at the pain the man had caused him, Convocus shuffled over to the general. Grasping the huddled form of General Crito, he pulled him back over and began hurriedly to untangle the cord.
He knew it was too late before he had even unwrapped the garrotte. The pink bubbles at the throat he’d seen before in battle, more than once. It meant his windpipe had been cut and there was no recovering from that. Besides, from the leaden weight of the unresponsive general, it was clear there was no spark left in him.
Still, uncertain what else to do, Convocus unwrapped the cord and cast the bloodied, sticky item away, examining the general in case there was some chance he had been wrong about the man’s fate.
Crito was clearly deceased. A brief flash of guilt ran through the tribune that perhaps by knocking the two men over while trying to save the general from his attacker, he had unwittingly been the one to cause the line to bite too deep into the throat.
No. The general had been a dead man even when his two would-be saviours had entered.
‘Is he…?’ the trooper asked quietly.
‘Very.’
The tribune rose to his feet with only a little trouble, still suffering kidney pain. He turned to peer at the killer. He was wearing clothing of a very nondescript nature, but it was equally clearly imperial clothing, and the man’s colouring suggested he was no native islander. Just how did this nightmare fit in with the deceitful plot of the general’s?
‘Talk.’
The cavalry trooper turned to say something to the tribune and in that split second the assassin whipped a small knife from some hidden recess. Even as Convocus leapt towards him, too desperate to heed the potential danger, the killer stabbed the blade into the side of his own neck, dragging the razor edge around to the other side in a single, slick movement.
It was the work of a single heartbeat, and the man’s face erupted into a smug smile even as the blood began to flow from the thin slice in his neck in sheets, soaking into his tunic. The assassin fell to the ground in a heap with a sigh.
‘Shit.’
‘Sir, what’s going on?’
Convocus shrugged. ‘We may never know now. Is this the work of the Ibelli? The Dobani? His own men? Another legion? Someone back in Velutio? I needed to speak to this man. Damn it.’
As he probed his tender nethers, the horseman crouched and searched the black-clad corpse. A moment later he rose and turned.
‘One answer here, sir, though to my mind it just raises more questions.’
Convocus peered at the object in the soldier’s hand. The small, deadly-sharp knife was a beautiful piece of work, fine steel blade now sticky with gore, the hilt of artistically-worked silver and red leather binding. But tellingly the small, round pommel bore a spread-winged bird of a very recognisable form.
‘Vulture Legion?’
‘Looks like it, sir. That’s the same as their standard.’
‘General Volentius? Surely not.’
But then, who else would send a killer after the general of the Raven Legion?
‘What in seven hells is going on with this army? Generals selling each other out to native tribes. Generals sending assassins after each other. We had an almost impossible remit from the start: to conquer an unconquerable island with an inadequate force of men, and the longer we spend here the more in becomes apparent that our own officers are working against us and each other. We’ll be lucky to leave the damned place alive, let alone conquer it!’
The soldier opened his mouth to contribute, but noises from the main room of the tent silenced them both. A moment later, Tribune Gallus thrust aside the tent flap and took in the scene.
‘What have you done, you lunatic?’
Convocus turned, the fury beginning to rise once more. The auxiliary tribune had two of his men with him, and all three of them were battered from a fist fight. Convocus hoped his cavalrymen had given as good as they got.
‘You’re not pinning this mess on me, Gallus,’ he snarled. ‘I came here to confront the general, not to kill him. Killing our own people is your speciality.’
‘Convocus, you’ve gone too far. And who is that?’ he gestured at the black-clad corpse with his blade.
‘If you look closely you’ll see that he’s been gripping a garrotte. The same garrotte I just removed from the
general’s neck. His knife tells us he’s from the Vulture Legion. Did Volentius know about all this? Maybe he sent the man to stop your insane plan?’
Gallus straightened.
‘Think what you like, Convocus, but I served my general and my legion, as any good imperial officer should. And you might not like what the general has done, but in the long run it will give us victory and save lives. Sometimes you need to cut out the rot to save the body. That’s what we were doing.’
‘I suspect General Volentius might say the same thing,’ grunted Convocus, pointing at the huddled body of the deceased commander.
‘I have to arrest you, Convocus. If what you say is borne out, maybe we can –’
‘Bollocks,’ snapped the tribune, ‘if you think I’m submitting to a conspirator. I think this entire thing was cooked up by a few dangerous officers. Maybe you have a few soldiers in on it too, but I would be willing to bet my life that most of this legion know nothing about how you’ve both conspired to kill imperial officers and men just to advance your own careers. These men take their oaths to the emperor and to the honour of their legion very seriously. I don’t see them taking the news well, do you? I can’t imagine they will be pleased to know that even now a force of natives, unleashed by you, is marching on their sister legion in the north?’
Gallus sneered. ‘This from a man who so clearly killed the general. No one will believe you.’
Convocus stomped across the tent to his fellow tribune, who recoiled as he came close.
‘On the contrary, Gallus. I have plenty of witnesses to the fleet of Ibelli pirates anchored nearby. And to the now-empty weapons cache, from which I even have a prisoner to interrogate. And here is the man that killed the general, still with the marks of the murder weapon on his hands. You can’t pin this on me, Gallus. And if the worst comes to the worst, we would have to be subjected to interrogation. I can hold out, because I will be clinging to the truth. How long, I wonder, would it be before you blab your guilt?’
There was a definite air of nervousness about Gallus now, and Convocus noted with some satisfaction the doubt in the other soldiers’ eyes as they stepped back away from their commander.
Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5) Page 13