Priest's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

"Get over the wall" Cesare hissed.

  "What?" Skiouros said incredulously, rising just enough to look over the parapet again.

  "Jump!"

  Skiouros looked down. He'd a reasonable head for heights, unlike poor Lykaion, and under normal circumstances a drop of perhaps twice his own height would not even faze him enough to make him pause. Now, however, he was stiff as a board from two days of camel-riding, with aching bandy legs, jumbled insides and a still-fresh wound in his side that could very easily have killed him. The very idea of dropping that short distance to the paving of the narrow road below was unthinkable!

  "I…" he began, but clamped his mouth shut as he suddenly found himself hurtling out into empty space, Cesare's grip as he hauled the Greek over the parapet strong and solid. Skiouros had the presence of mind not to scream as he dropped like a stone towards the flagged road, using the single heartbeat it took to push out his arms to prevent him landing head first.

  The shock and pain as he hit the road was intense, and for a moment he panicked that he'd broken his arm, but a brief exploration revealed only bruises and scrapes, albeit painful ones. What was Cesare thinking? If he hadn't put his arms out in time, his head wound have burst on that paving like an overripe watermelon!

  The answer came to him as he rose painfully and slowly, testing his side that was - yes, he confirmed - leaking once again:

  Skiouros had been wounded, encumbered by his robes, and entirely unarmed. The young nobleman had not been meaning the two of them to evade their attackers by leaping the wall. He had been meaning to save Skiouros' life. Above, unseen over that parapet, the Greek could hear the ring of steel on steel as Orsini fought for his life against three opponents, with an archer still hidden and aiming to take them out. It was all well and noble to sacrifice himself to save Skiouros, but the Greek could hardly countenance Cesare falling to an assassin's blade out here, especially one that might have been meant for him.

  It took only another two heartbeats to formulate his plan.

  Crouching, his hand closed around a heavy, jagged piece of marble, about the size of a small wine jug and perhaps an inch thick. As he began to jog up the street, keeping low and close to the wall, ignoring the throbbing insistent pain in his side, he noted with interest that the slab was covered in incised Latin words. It seemed almost divine ordination that the only word he could fully make out was NEMESIS.

  With a grim smile, he moved on towards where the high wall became gradually lower. Dry scrub grass and rubble formed the majority of the landscape above the low wall that bounded the north edge of the street and led across to the auditorium where Cesare fought desperately, the clang, grate and smash of swords still echoing around the night.

  It occurred to Skiouros that other trade encampments could probably hear the noises of combat, and probably their own travelling companions too, but it would take too long for them to work out where the echoing sounds came from and they would be too late to save at least the Italian.

  Gritting his teeth against the inevitable pain, Skiouros placed the marble fragment on top of the lowest section of wall he could find and then hauled himself up to the grass before retrieving it.

  A large, bulbous cactus stood a few feet up the slope, and Skiouros ducked behind it, taking care not to get too close to the spines. After a quick deep breath, taken to a soundtrack of traded sword blows, he glanced around it and scanned the slope.

  His gaze had passed across the whole area twice before he spotted the figure crouched behind a low wall. Peering into the dim starlit landscape, Skiouros could see the bow stretched taut in the man's hands, swinging gently to left and right as he sought a shot at Cesare without the likelihood of striking one of his own companions. Half a dozen arrows jutted out of the ground next to him in a line, awaiting their turn.

  Noting the man's position, Skiouros hitched up his black robe, tucking it up at the waist and dropping the veiled hat to the floor, and ran to his right, keeping low as he skirted around the edge of the grassy slope. The ache from the camel ride loosened a little as he ran and he did his best to ignore the discomfort. As subtly as he could manage, he skipped across the grass, horribly aware of the warm trickle from his open wound that would be gradually weakening him once again.

  He was not quiet. He was, in fact, far from quiet. Fortunate was he that the combination of the archer's concentration on his target, the swordfight's clamour, and the nearby bleating and shuffling of goats masked the worst sounds of brushed grass and grit crunched underfoot.

  Suddenly, he was around a low acacia bush and directly behind the archer. His arm coming back with the rock, he went into a low run, all pretence at silence now abandoned.

  The crunch of a stick breaking beneath his foot alerted his intended target and the archer's head snapped round, his eyes widening as he noticed the assailant bearing down on him from behind.

  Skiouros felt his heart pounding as he raced against the archer, his silent voice offering up a hundred prayers to a God he felt sure he had offended, just to make him that tiny bit faster; to allow him the time to close before the archer got off his shot.

  The man was turning, his bow still drawn back, arrow still sitting in position awaiting release. Skiouros was almost on him, the rock ready to bring down as a weapon. Running. Turning. Running. Turning. A heartbeat.

  It was only when he was less than two yards from the archer that he knew he was not going to make it. The archer finished turning and released as Skiouros dived, the rock now closing the end of its swing, out in front of him, descending on the man's head.

  The marble-slab blow struck the Hafsid thug just above the left eye, smashing the socket so that the eye revolved loosely and lolled, blood flowing out of his broken face. Beneath the smashed skull and the river of free-flowing blood, the tiniest hint of white-pink brain showed, confirming the efficacy of the strike.

  Skiouros could not arrest his desperate leaping attack in time, and crashed painfully into the slumping body of the senseless archer, the two men collapsing in a heap, blood from the pair mingling on the ground beneath them.

  The young Greek stared at his victim, at the hint of brain visible and the gushing blood, at the misshapen eye socket and the pupils that had rolled - unevenly - upwards as the man fell unconscious in the precursor to a slow and painful death.

  A sure death.

  Skiouros hit him again.

  And then again, just to be sure.

  A quick check brought no sign of breath from the man, but Skiouros hit him again, in case.

  Then he looked all over his chest and side, his arms and legs, felt his neck and face and shoulders. No arrow wound! Nothing other than the unhealed cut in his side.

  What the hell had happened?

  It was as he was lifting himself upright that he looked down at the marble slab in his hand and began to laugh. The M now had an extra stroke to it where the arrow had struck and been deflected off to the side.

  Coated with crimson and damaged by the arrow, the slab stared back at him.

  NEMESIS.

  "I couldn't have put it better myself, Lord."

  Crouching, he drew the curved sword from the scabbard at the thug's waist, admiring its keen edge and simple design. He had never held one of these Muslim blades, even in his most unusual training sessions, but it bore a close resemblance to the swords of the Ottoman army.

  It would take just a little adjustment, but the basic fact of which end did the damage was not lost on him and he hefted it, grimacing at fresh waves of pain from his waist.

  Figures were now coming over the low ruins at the top of this grassy area - the traders who had finally been drawn by the commotion. Paying them no heed, since they wore veils identifying them as the real thing, Skiouros ran over towards the desperate sounds of sword-fighting, commandeered Arabic blade in one hand, ancient Latin, blood-smeared rock in the other.

  At the small auditorium's perimeter wall, Skiouros took in the scene and was once more impressed at the skill
of his Italian friend. Despite being outnumbered three-to-one, Cesare had managed to dispatch one of the thugs, who lay on the lower steps, his head at an unnatural angle, half-cleaved from his neck. The other two were, however, pressing him, had him backed into the corner by a column, and soon Orsini would probably make a mistake. He was clearly tiring and had suffered several small cuts.

  Paused at the wall, Skiouros hefted his 'nemesis stone' for a moment, wondering whether he could remove one assailant from the equation from here, but there was at least a small chance that he might err and brain Cesare, so he quickly put away that idea, left his stone on the wall, and dropped from the top onto the auditorium floor with a gentle slap.

  The two men were busy with Orsini had had not noticed Skiouros' quiet approach and so, trading speed for silence, he moved quietly across the flagged floor on the balls of his feet until he was a few yards behind them.

  Cesare could not have helped but notice him and yet, professional that he was, he made no sign that he had spotted the approach, keeping the two men's attention on himself as they cut, thrust, swiped and parried.

  Skiouros smiled as he took two steps forward, sword coming up and to the right, gripped in both hands. As he swung with all his might, he realised how his companionship with his three friends and the experience of their shared nightmare had changed him. There was no fear now in battle. No hesitation or panic while his eyes closed to whisk him away to his safe place. The fact had been simple: Cesare was in danger and without his help, the noble would be dead. And so he had killed the archer without a second thought, and now…

  The keen edge of the curved sword cut through the thug's arm just below the shoulder, severing it completely and continuing on a foot deep into the man's chest, wedging in the spine. One of many simple facts of the swordsman's art that Don Diego had drummed into him early on was that straight weapons were born for the thrust. Curved weapons were designed for the slice. Now he could see how effective the Arabic curved scimitar was when used so.

  The thug was already almost dead as Skiouros slid the blade back out of his chest, the severed arm with the sword still gripped in its hand bouncing away across the flags, blood jetting from the stub at his shoulder and joining the torrent flowing like a crimson waterfall from his scythed chest.

  With a strangling sound, the dying man fell.

  The sudden surprise attack was enough of a shock to distract the other swordsman and he swung wide, presenting a perfect target for Orsini, who thrust his own straight, old-fashioned blade up into the thug's armpit and deep into his chest.

  Twitching, the last man fell and Orsini met Skiouros' gaze and slowly broke into a weary smile.

  "Timely. Thank you. Just what I needed, was another life debt to you!"

  Skiouros laughed and winced at the pain in his side.

  "I think we could just about call that one even, though I’d be grateful if, next time you throw me over a wall, you try and make sure I'm the right way up!"

  "I was a touch pressed for time."

  The two laughed and sagged in that post-battle relief period.

  "You found the archer then?"

  Skiouros nodded and strode back over to the wall.

  "Did you kill him?"

  Retrieving the marble slab, Skiouros nodded, proffering it to Orsini, who read the inscription and laughed. "You hit him with this? You have a great sense of irony, my friend."

  "Irony, no. Marbly, perhaps?" grinned Skiouros.

  Footsteps from above announced the arrival of others. The pair looked around to see Parmenio and Nicolo plodding wearily down the steps, barefoot in just breeches and shirt but with swords in hand and both spattered with blood.

  "You're alright then?" Nicolo asked with relief.

  "Yes. You?"

  "Just about. Good job you shouted" Parmenio grinned, wiping blood from his face. "Your commotion woke me up just in time to see a cloaked bastard pulling aside my door with a knife in his hand. Just got to my dagger in time. They'd have killed us in our sleep without your warning."

  Nicolo nodded his agreement.

  "I think it is a family of goats to whom you owe the thanks, captain," smiled Cesare, wiping his blade on one of the cleaner parts of his victim and then on a rag from his belt before sheathing it, almost pristine clean.

  The Tuareg were now spreading out across the site, making sure there were no more attackers.

  "Perhaps we should have left one to interrogate?" Nicolo grunted.

  "Hardly necessary. I think we can be fairly sure who they are and why they were here" Parmenio answered.

  "Yes, but was that all of them, or are there any more?"

  "Time will have to answer that for us" Orsini shrugged. "I suggest, gentlemen, that you arm yourself from their weapons and we take anything of value. Let us be prepared in future. Where are you going?" he said, this last aimed at Skiouros, who was strolling back towards the grassy area and climbing wearily over the wall.

  "There's a basin of water down there. I need to wash my wound before one of you helpful gentlemen gets to stitch me up again. Besides, I have a souvenir that's rather sticky and I think I might want to wash."

  He hefted the marble slab as he turned away once more.

  "Peculiar lad" sighed Parmenio behind him and started walking.

  "And where are you going?" muttered Nicolo.

  "You think I'm going to let the foolhardy boy wander round on his own in the dark after this?"

  By the time he had reached the wall and climbed up, following Skiouros, the other two had joined him, swords in hand.

  Chapter Fifteen - Of the journey

  "Eleven days."

  "Are you sure?"

  Skiouros shrugged at Parmenio, wincing. "I've been marking them off on my camel stick with a knife."

  "Eleven days since Tunis. It feels like a bloody lifetime. I cannot remember a time when I smelled anything but camel or when I spoke to anyone but you three. You realise that means we're only about a quarter of the way" the captain said with a weary sigh.

  "At least it's been quiet."

  The pair lapsed into silence as Skiouros examined his stick - the badge of office of a camel handler, used for everything from directional control to goading stick to scratching pole. Eleven notches.

  His eyes strayed up to the countryside, still green and cultivated, as it - surprisingly - had been all through the journey, though it was gradually becoming noticeably less verdant and more interspersed with dry brown dust as they moved westwards. The locals all, he noticed, nodded in greeting at the Tuareg, but on the whole the caravan kept to itself. Three in every four stops or so had been open country pauses, pitching tents together as an insular group, but on occasions they came to stopovers like the one at Tugga where numerous caravans would meet, exchange news or goods and even socialise before departing their separate ways in the morning.

  Such a place, apparently, was Sedif, which loomed ahead half a mile away - a sizeable town from all appearances. In deference to the fact that trade caravans were not always welcomed in civic areas, they would camp along with any other groups on the edge of the town.

  Skeletal trees reached up to the grey-blue sky on both sides of the old road that had brought them from the previous night at Tajenanet. The road - little more than a flatter, greyer line in the dirt - drew them towards Sedif and, much exchange of sign language had revealed, the lands of the Zayyanid Sultan Abdallah the Fourth. While the physical change between the two realms was impossible to identify, that invisible line marked an important point, as they were finally in the domain of a ruler who had no knowledge of them and no contact - as far as they knew - with Etci Hassan. While there had been no sign of further pursuit since Tugga, Skiouros remained watchful and suspicious, almost certain that, though nothing had been seen, more hired killers were out there somewhere regardless. Perhaps things would be easier now, in Zayyanid lands?

  "Looks like we'll be in the big tent with 'Honker' and 'Farter' again" Parmenio gave an exa
ggerated sigh with a touch of humour. They had grown accustomed to, and somewhat fond of, the tall, thin trader and his bear-shouldered companion who were in truth very friendly and generous. If only any of them had a clue what the pair were saying…

  Skiouros nodded. "I think we'll be camping as if we're on our own in the countryside, despite the town beside us."

  Both men pictured the noisy pair that would be sharing their tent that night with a smile and then lapsed into mindless chatter until a few minutes later one of the more senior, older Tuareg wandered up to them, nodding in greeting.

  Taking a breath, he began to launch into the usual signs and signals that the four travellers had become rather used to translating, voicing his message in his complex language for his own ease, despite their incomprehension.

  "Tomorrow? Moving west?" Parmenio nodded.

  The man nodded in return, turned and pointed south.

  "South?"

  Nod.

  "West and south?"

  Nod. Point, point, point, point.

  "I'm lost already" the captain grumbled. "Seven words. That has to be a record."

  "No," Skiouros held out a hand. "Look. He pointed at us and then west; then at himself and south."

  "We're splitting up?"

  Parmenio waved his hands to clear the conversation as if wiping chalk from a slate, and then pointed at the man and the camels and then off to the south. The Tuareg nodded. The captain then pointed at himself and the west. Again, the man nodded, but this time also gestured to the town of Sedif ahead.

  "No. Still lost."

  "I think" Skiouros hazarded, "that he's telling us that we're swapping over to another caravan here as they're going south."

  Parmenio grunted. "Wonderful. Having to break in another set of incomprehensible desert dwellers."

  "I doubt it'll be the last time we change, though" Skiouros sighed. "It's a long way and the chances that one caravan will be going all the way from Sedif to Ceuta have to be tiny."

  Now, they could see the goat-skin tents that betrayed the presence of other Tuareg caravans, pitched in the lee of a barren hill to the south west of the town, and the camels at the head of their line were beginning to peel off the road and head in that direction. Skiouros nodded his thanks to the Tuareg, who smiled, returned the nod and then shuffled off back to his own concerns ahead.