Ghost of the Wall

by Jeff Mariotte

  Invictus bit back his frustration at his brother and the governor, knowing it would do no good to unleash it on them. “Very well,” he said. “I trust that nothing will be done until I have spoken with you again.”

  “First light,” Sharzen reminded him. “With or without you.”

  Invictus stalked away, trying to ignore the man’s comment. Sharzen’s boldness no doubt had to do with Lupinius’s presence and the fact that he was on his own home ground. Invictus knew that, one-on-one, he could persuade the governor to his own views on nearly any subject. But he had fallen under Lupinius’s sway, and for some reason Lupinius was determined to attack the Pictish village. Invictus wished he could know his brother’s mind. What was he after, across the river?

  He had heard from time to time that the Bear Clan guarded a great prize. Nothing an Aquilonian would find valuable, he was sure. The things the Picts cared about were meaningless to civilized people. He had assumed it was something of religious significance to their dark gods, but of no import to anyone else.

  Was that it? Could Lupinius have heard such stories and become determined to find whatever it was the Bear Clan kept?

  Alanya was simply an excuse, he knew. A justification for something Lupinius wanted to do.

  Something that would have more far-reaching consequences than Lupinius had imagined, he was sure.

  Breaking the peace here would be a blow to King Conan’s border pacification efforts, and to his own prestige in the king’s eyes. But the hot yellow disk of the afternoon sun already lowered toward the western horizon. He had precious little time left to come up with a way to preserve it. From the sound of things, a visit to the Bear Clan village would not help, either. Even if he persuaded them that danger loomed and they should hide, they wouldn’t stay away from their homes forever. Once the soldiers crossed the river, the truce would be over.

  Lupinius’s house wasn’t far away, and Invictus was there in a few minutes. The clanging of steel on steel echoed through the lanes as he walked, mirroring the conflict he felt in his heart. His duty to his country was to broker peace, but if his duty to his family contradicted that . . .

  He banged through the front door and called to his children. His shout was answered immediately by two voices, and Donial and Alanya both rushed into the room and threw their arms around him. He held his children, breathing in their scents, relishing their presence. Though Donial more closely resembled him and his brother Lupinius, both reminded Invictus of Marta, his wife, and he was eternally grateful that she had left him these gifts before the sickness snatched her from him.

  After catching up with them and describing briefly how he had been occupied during his absence, he sent Donial away and took Alanya into Lupinius’s study. They both sat down, and he looked her over carefully. She seemed sad, her eyes red and puffy from crying, but otherwise she was the same girl he had left just weeks before.

  “Tell me about this Pictish boy,” he said.

  Alanya looked as if she might begin to weep again. “I cannot believe that Governor Sharzen is sending soldiers to punish his village,” she began. “He did not even do anything wrong. We only talked.”

  “But how did you meet him? Why were you alone, away from Koronaka?”

  “Life is so boring here, Father,” she said with a sniffle. “You cannot imagine what it’s like, especially when you’re gone. I just had to get away from everyone, to be by myself for a time.”

  Invictus remembered feeling the same way himself on occasion, during his own youth, though it had been passed in and around Tarantia. He supposed it was common to people of Alanya’s age. Still, not a good enough reason to put oneself in danger. “You can’t just leave the fort on your own, Alanya. It isn’t safe out there.”

  “I felt perfectly safe,” she insisted. “Kral would not have hurt me. I have said the same to Uncle Lupinius, and Governor Sharzen, and anyone else who would listen. He needed someone to talk to, the same as I did. We were friends, nothing more.”

  “An Aquilonian girl cannot be friends with a Pictish boy,” Invictus stated flatly.

  The skin of Alanya’s pretty face was turning red, almost edging toward purple, as she answered. Tears began to flow from her eyes. “But I was. Everyone says there’s something wrong with it, or with me, but Kral and I were just talking and learning about each other’s lives. What could possibly be wrong with that? Is that not what peace means?”

  Invictus sighed. “You are idealistic, Alanya. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s the province of youth. But now things have been set in motion that I do not think can be changed. You can be as idealistic as you want; but you also have to understand that your actions have consequences, and they’re not always the ones you would have preferred had you been able to choose.”

  She sniffed again and looked at Invictus through her tears. He wished there was a way he could wipe away her pain, ease her mind of the anguish he knew she felt. She hadn’t intended anything like this to come from her private excursions, and if she truly liked the Pict boy, she wouldn’t want anything to happen to him in the coming battle.

  It seemed there was nothing anyone could do about that now. Sharzen and Lupinius had seen to that. The best he could do would be to go along, to try to keep the carnage to a minimum and do what he could to restore the peace after their little adventure was over.

  It wasn’t perfect, but he couldn’t see any other options.

  6

  “OH, DONIAL,” ALANYA said later, in her brother’s room. “If only you hadn’t told Uncle . . .”

  “I had to, Alanya,” he complained. “I had no choice.”

  “There is always a choice!” she shot back. He sat on his bed, and she leaned against the closed wooden door. He had already changed into clean white nightclothes, but she remained fully dressed. “You could have just believed me when I said that we were friends and that he would never hurt me.”

  “He is a Pict,” Donial pointed out needlessly. “And not to be trusted.”

  “Obviously, it is you who is not to be trusted,” she said. “The first hint of a secret, and you go running to tell.”

  “Alanya, you know better than that.” He looked genuinely hurt—which had, after all, been her intent. He had caused her plenty of pain the last few days. He had fallen under Lupinius’s sway, that much was clear. “You can trust me.”

  “It would be nice if I could,” she said. “You are my only brother, after all. I would rather be able to trust you than not, but so far you have not demonstrated that I can.”

  “What do I need to do?” he wondered. “What can I do?”

  “I know not,” Alanya replied. “I suppose the next time you have a chance to keep a secret, you should keep it. Otherwise, I will wonder if you really want to be a brother to me at all.”

  She knew she was being harsher on him than he might have deserved. But outside, soldiers were preparing to march in defense of her honor—honor that had not been threatened in the first place—because of Donial’s report to Lupinius. There was nothing she could do to stop it, now, and the helplessness she felt caused her to strike out at the nearest available target.

  Which was Donial, her unfortunate brother.

  His bad luck, she thought. She tossed him a shrug and opened the door, letting herself out. She would get precious little sleep tonight, she knew. Let him see if he could claim any for himself.

  DRESSING BY TORCHLIGHT, Calvert donned a green wool tunic that came just short of his knees, then strapped on a leather cuirass, slipping a shirt of mail over the top of that. The interlocked metal rings jingled softly as he fastened greaves by their metal straps to his legs, then strapped on arm guards. Buckskin boots followed. Finally, a belt from which he could hang his dagger and sword, and a helmet with cheekpieces, a neckguard sticking out in back, and a browguard in front. All this equipment was stored in the front room of the barracks in which he lived, one of several arrayed around Lupinius’s house. Around him other men did the same thing
—some grimly silent, like him, others joking and laughing to defray the tension they all felt. The air in the room was close, tinged with sweat and iron.

  Sharzen had made clear that Lupinius would be the military commander of this mission, even though the soldiers of Koronaka were nominally under the command of Gestian, an Aquilonian captain. So far from home, normal standards were often not followed, and here Lupinius’s Rangers had just as much status as the regular army soldiers did.

  That was fine with Calvert. He had joined the Rangers as a mercenary, traveling from Nemedia in search of someone who would pay in gold for the use of his fighting arm, and if necessary, his blood. Lupinius had been willing to part with the gold, so he had joined the man’s forces. He had seen some action in Lupinius’s employ, and had occasionally been well paid just to sit around protecting his boss from unseen, probably imaginary, enemies. He had worked his way up to the rank of captain, so he would be in charge of the fifty Rangers, relaying Lupinius’s orders to the men and translating them into effective tactics.

  Calvert glanced over at his friend Rossun, who was shoving his sword into his scabbard and drawing it out again. Rossun was years younger than he was, strong but with little experience in battle. “Not much room in here for that,” Calvert said. “Maybe you ought to practice outside.”

  “Merely checking the slide,” Rossun returned. “I need no further practice—just Pictish flesh in front of me to cut.”

  “Be sure you wipe it after you do,” Calvert reminded him. “Last thing you need is putting away your sword bloody and having it stick when you need it next.”

  “I know,” Rossun said. “Happened to a Gunderman I knew once.”

  “And don’t know anymore, I’d wager,” Calvert guessed.

  Rossun laughed and raised an eyebrow at him. “Right.”

  A hammering sounded on the outer door of the barracks. Calvert knew what that signified. “Time to move out,” he said.

  “I am ready,” Rossun answered. Other Rangers responded similarly. Fully garbed, they started out the door to join the ones already outside. Everyone knew the Picts were unmatched at woodcraft, and it would be nigh impossible to sneak up on them in daylight. So the plan was to cross the Black by night. The Picts would still know they were coming before they arrived, but not by much. Regardless of what defenses they could manage in that time, the larger Aquilonian force would overrun the small village and destroy it.

  Lupinius had made one thing extremely clear—there were to be no survivors.

  That, also, was fine with Calvert. He had no love for the Picts, who piled the skulls of their victims around their huts just to enjoy the view. All he loved was the gold that Lupinius paid him. Each month he sent as much as he could home to his wife in Aquilonia, against the eventual day when he would give up the service of others, buy his own land, and they would live out the rest of their days in comfort.

  In the meantime, whoever found himself on the wrong end of his sword would suffer for his mistake.

  INVICTUS HAD RESIGNED himself to the idea of battle. Lupinius would not be dissuaded, and since he had known Sharzen much longer than Invictus had, there was no getting to the governor, either. So the truce would be broken by midmorning, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Years of effort by dozens of ambassadors would be for naught. He couldn’t help wishing that Lupinius and Sharzen would have to tell King Conan in person what they had accomplished, when the dust cleared. Both would, he believed, be carried away from that royal encounter on their shields.

  He had marched toward the Black River alongside the rest of the soldiers. He would try to keep the bloodshed down, to make sure that the soldiers obeyed reasonable rules of warfare. He was afraid his brother was capable of atrocities matching those of the Picts, and felt his relationship with the Bear Clan would enable him to intercede if necessary.

  They moved through the forest as quietly as several hundred armored men could move. At the river, they crossed in any way they could—some in skiffs or small boats, some on makeshift bridges, others wading or swimming. Soaking their armor wasn’t the best preparation for battle, but it was unavoidable—the Black River was the natural dividing line between their territory and that of the Picts, and to take the time to bring the whole force across on boats and bridges would allow the enemy too much time to prepare defenses or leave the area altogether.

  Now the thin light of predawn paled the eastern sky, though here among the trees it remained dark. Invictus had tried a couple of times to talk to Lupinius—not to turn him away from his goal, since it was too late for that, but to try to determine what it was, besides his plainly exaggerated concern for family honor, that he was after in the village of the Bear Clan. He knew his brother too well to trust him fully.

  Lupinius wasn’t talking, though. He seemed strangely somber, as if the nearer they came to the Pictish village, the more he regretted something.

  Or lusted after something. No telling which. Either could have caused quiet reflection in Lupinius.

  The landscape changed as they neared the village. The Picts had built their village on a flat table at the top of a rocky slope. Trees thinned and became more stunted as they came closer, and Invictus knew that it had been a strategically sound place to locate their homes—anyone attacking would have to give up cover and attack uphill. At the same time, if the Picts chose retreat over battle, they simply had to slip down the other side of the hill and into more of the deep woods, where their native skills would serve them well. But eventually they would return to this place, which was sacred to them, so that would only be the most temporary of solutions.

  Sensing their proximity, the soldiers stopped even their whispered jokes and curses. To a man, they approached their goal silent, grim-faced, serious in the bloody chore that lay ahead. Invictus was glad of that much. They were engaged in dirty work here, but at least they weren’t gleeful about it. Only on Lupinius did he think he sometimes saw a self-satisfied smirk, when his brother didn’t think anyone was looking.

  Trey, one of Lupinius’s Rangers, approached him as they neared the village. “They have seen us by now, have they not?” the man asked. He was a Bossonian, and he held his traditional longbow in strong, large-knuckled hands. His brown eyes were barely visible in the half-light.

  “Yes,” Invictus replied. “Likely as soon as we crossed the river, or shortly after. We’ve passed by at least a dozen lookouts by now, each one signaling our progress back to the main force.”

  “And yet they have not attacked us?”

  “Their best position is on the hill,” Invictus explained. “They cannot hold us off indefinitely from there, but they can make advancing hard on us, and they can send many of us to hell as they go.”

  “Why not flank them, then?” Trey asked. “Send some of our men around to the other side of their camp and come at them from both sides?”

  “You would have to ask your master, Lupinius,” Invictus replied. “This is his plan, not mine. But I think the answer lies in expediency. To get around them we would have to have landed another force earlier, and the Picts could have fought them as they tried to get around. Unless we had time to land an army by sea, from the Western Ocean, and allowed them to approach that way, there is no easy way to flank them. A frontal attack, up the hill, without cover, is the best we can do on short notice.”

  Trey nodded. He had probably figured out the answers for himself, Invictus guessed, but wanted someone else to tell him he was correct. “Nearly there, are we not?” he said.

  Invictus pointed ahead, through the scrawny, twisted trees toward a sloping landscape of granite dotted with small clutches of vegetation. The sun floated in the sky behind the hill, making it hard to see who or what was on top, but he could make out dozens of wooden huts with scurrying figures darting about between them. Some of them formed themselves into ranks at the top of the hill. “We are there,” he agreed.

  The soldiers came to a stop, and the sound of their halting was like d
istant thunder. Invictus knew the Picts were armed and just waiting for them to charge. Even if they had been sound asleep, they were awake now. Might as well have approached with torches and drums. None of the normal forest noises could be heard; no insects or birds sang their usual songs.

  As the men stood waiting, Lupinius worked his way through them, toward Invictus. “Here we are, brother,” he said when he made it through. “Are you ready to avenge your daughter?”

  “She needs no vengeance,” Invictus replied angrily. “This is your campaign, brother, not hers. Do not pretend otherwise. Whatever you hope to accomplish here, let it be on your head. And I hope you find it worth the price.”

  Lupinius shrugged. “We are here now. The whys of it don’t matter anymore. Only the killing.”

  Invictus shook his head. “I wish I knew where you learned your lust for blood,” he said. “Not at the knees of our father.”

  “I wish I knew how you developed your fear of it,” Lupinius countered. “So I can make sure it never happens to me.”

  Invictus had nothing further to say to his younger brother, and apparently Lupinius felt the same way. He turned away from Invictus and drew a short sword from its scabbard. Raising it high, he brought it down fast and banged it against his shield. “Attack!” he shouted, at the top of his lungs. “For Aquilonia!”

  “For Aquilonia!” hundreds of voices echoed.

  Invictus didn’t return the battle cry. He knew that this was not an attack for Aquilonia at all.

  But he drew his sword, just the same.

  7

  TREY AND TWO dozen of his Bossonian fellows, most in the employ of Lupinius’s Ranger troop, raised bows toward the sky, nocked arrows, and let them fly at the Pictish ranks. They could have used another half hundred bowmen effectively to pin down the Picts, but made do with what they had available.

  As soon as one arrow was airborne he plucked another from his quiver and set it in place, then drew the string to his cheekbone and let go. The air was full of the twanging sound of bowstrings and the rush of arrows, then the clatter as they struck rock or shield, and finally, happily, the occasional scream as one found its target. Beneath the flurry, the Aquilonian troops dashed up the hill, spears out, swords drawn, shields at the ready.