by Scott Bury
“Can you not see a plan in the calamities that have struck all the civilizations?” Brother Theodor’s smooth voice carried back. “Earthquakes, plagues, repeated attacks by successive waves of uncivilized hordes? And not just against Rome, but against the settled peoples who once lived peacefully beyond its borders. And also against Persia, Bactria—which has disappeared, by the way. Even ancient Serica has been divided into two kingdoms because of pressures and calamities.”
Some days, the Danuvius River was close by on their right, and at others it meandered away. At night they would camp under some sheltering trees or stones. Austinus made sure they stayed away from ruined villages and towns they passed, even if they had to take a wide detour. “It’s best to stay away from places of death,” he explained.
One evening, one such abandoned town came into view as the sun sank. Javor was the first to see its ancient jetties in the river. Austinus decided to stop for the night before getting closer to the town. They camped downstream from the crumbling walls. As Theodor bent over the fire to make supper, his hood fell back. The setting sun outlined the thin face, the straight nose, the long neck. It was as if confirming something Javor had known all along, but it was still a shock.
“Mother Tiana?”
She turned toward him and smiled. “Yes, Javor?”
“It’s been you all along?”
“Who did you think it was?”
“Brother Theodor! But where is he?”
“‘He’ is right here,” she said, smiling her indulgent smile.
Javor took some time to think about that. There never had been a Brother Theodor—it was just a robe that Tiana wore to allow her free movement about the Abbey. And the relationship with Austinus—now their closeness made sense.
Ideas fell into place. The raid. Danisa. The dragon, Sarbox. It was planned. I allowed the dagger to separate from the amulet, which allowed the dragon to find it. The riot was a diversion, allowing the raiders to attack the city. And the dragon chose that moment to strike.
It’s all connected. Danisa was after my dagger from the beginning.
She never loved me.
Javor realized that his birthday would be soon. It would be nearly a year since he had left his home. He wondered how far away home was, now, and what the people in his village were doing. Were they getting ready for the kupalo festival? Were they even alive? He thought of Elli, her thin body in the moonlight. He thought of his parents and almost cried, when he felt his amulet tremble.
Danger.
“Do you hear that?” Tiana whispered. In the failing light, Javor could not see Tiana’s face.
“What is it?” Austinus whispered back. “I don’t hear anything.”
“There are people in the town,” Malleus muttered. He crept a closer, making sure he remained hidden under trees. They could see the glow of fires in the town, and hear voices.
“The town looked deserted in the daylight,” Austinus said.
They waited until the sun set, then picked up their weapons and stole closer, trying to stay in the shadows. The moon hadn’t risen, so the night was as dark as any Javor could remember.
The amulet trembled. I know, amulet. Thank you for warning me. From now on, I will call you “Preyatel”—good friend.
Even the swishing of grass against their ankles alarmed Javor. They all tried to be silent. They peeked over the remnants of the town wall—little more than a row of stones, chest-high, wrecked by some battle.
Javor’s amulet started vibrating harder, faster. Danger! said its voice in his head.
Don’t worry, I’m being careful. No one can see me.
Behind the wall’s meagre protection was a camp: little fires burned in a circle. Men in leather armour finished a meal and got ready for the night. One man, a commander of some kind, was telling others who would stand watch.
They were tall, and in the flickering firelight they appeared fair-haired. They all had ragged beards and most had scars; they seemed to have been travelling for a long time.
Then Javor realized that he could understand them!
“Where are they?” one warrior asked another. “We’ve been waiting here a week!”
“Shut up,” the other growled in a low voice. “Don’t let Stanislaw hear you complain. As far as I’m concerned, the longer they take to get here, the better.”
So that’s how we caught up with them: they’ve been waiting here.
“Well, still, this place gives me the willies,” said the first warrior.
Javor crouched back down. “They aren’t Goths, they’re Sklavenes!” he whispered.
“And they’re waiting for someone,” said Tiana.
“What? How did you know?” Javor whispered.
Tiana smiled her patient smile. “Because I speak Sklavenic.”
Javor didn’t know what to think of that, and the amulet didn’t help—it kept clamouring in his mind, Danger! Danger! Danger!
“I knew they were Sklavenic from their weapons!” Malleus hissed back. “So what?”
“So I can talk to them!” said Javor. “They’re not the people we’ve been looking for!”
“Is that so? Then how did they get the Gothic princess?”
“What?”
Malleus slowly put his head over the wall and squinted into the firelight and smoke. He pointed across the biggest fire.
Too many surprises in one day. Javor tried not to let the amulet distract him too much as he stood up to look over the wall again. Across the fire, a young woman sat on a wooden stool. She wore a thin tunic and a necklace glittered around her neck. There was no doubt it was Ingund: thin, long nose, large eyes, hair that seemed to flow from her head and over her shoulders like water. Danisa!
She didn’t act like a captive. She seemed completely at ease, talking comfortably with the rough warriors around her, stretching her delicate feet toward the fire and wiggling her toes. She even had what appeared to be a decorative knife in a jewelled scabbard, attached to a jewelled belt around her waist. Javor was struck again by how much she resembled Elli.
Danger! Danger is coming closer! said the amulet.
They slumped down again behind the wall. “Okay, it’s her. She was rescued by Sklavenes, not Goths.” It’s all right, Preyatel. We’re hidden back here.
“She must be Sklavene, herself,” said Tiana. “Or at least, she speaks their language.”
“Or maybe her guards speak Gothic,” Austinus countered.
“She’s Sklavene,” Javor whispered, and ignored the questions about how he knew that. His amulet seemed to catch fire. “What do we do now?”
In answer, something hit Javor hard on the side of the head. He tumbled to the side, landing on his back in time to see Austinus flying over the wall straight into the warrior’s camp. There was sudden yelling from all around as men scrambled for their weapons. Malleus had his sword out but was knocked on his face by something in the dark. Tiana, back against the wall, lifted her hands and rapidly recited a spell. There was a flash of light from everywhere at once and for an instant they could all see their attackers: five warriors carrying double-recurved bows with arrows aimed at them, and one with a cudgel who had done all the damage.
Then more Sklavenic warriors jumped over the wall, swords out.
“Qui vado!” shouted one, misusing Latin as the common language.
“It’s me!” Javor replied in his own tongue, hoping to give the idea they were friendly. “It’s Javor!”
Red light flared, then flickered as more men came with torches, bows and drawn swords. They grabbed Javor, Tiana and Malleus, but Tiana waved her hands again and there was another flash of light. The warriors sprang back, yelling. An arrow flew over Javor’s head as one archer fell back onto his butt.
“Hold it!” yelled another warrior in Sklavenic, and in the torchlight they could see him pulling a dazed Austinus forward. “No one move or I cut your friend’s throat!” The warrior stepped closer, shoving Austinus, who stumbled, and they could al
l see the knife at his neck. “Who are you?”
“I’m Javor,” he said, meekly.
“I don’t know any maple trees. What are you doing here?”
“We are just travelling, and we saw your fire and thought …”
“Don’t you know this is a very dangerous area? Don’t you know not to trust strangers? And how are you making those flashes of light? Bring them to the fire!”
Tiana put down her hands and the soldiers dragged the company into their camp. They took away their weapons and brought them before their captain, a heavy-set, bald man with a red face and long moustaches. He wore chain mail armour and a leather skirt, and a long iron sword was buckled at his side.
The princess, Ingund or Danisa, stood at ease beside him. She had a long amber necklace around her neck and gold rings on her fingers, and her cloak was held in place with a complex brooch in front of her shoulder.
“Captain Stanislaw, Miro found these four spying on us!” said the warrior who had held his knife to Austinus.
The captain looked at all four without expression. Danisa also looked at them, especially at Javor. He did not know what to think.
“Well? What do you want here?” the captain asked at last, in heavily accented Greek. No one answered. “Who sent you?” he barked.
We should have had a plan for situations like this. Javor pointed at Danisa. “I am her lover,” he said in Sklavenic.
“What!” said Danisa in unison with one of the warriors and, surprisingly, Tiana.
“Danisa, where did you go after the Roman fort? After you tried to steal my knife?” Javor demanded.
Stanislaw grabbed Javor around the throat. “Do not try to lie to me, boy,” he said in Javor’s language, but with a strange accent. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
“No one sent us, sir. Lord.” The others were looking at Javor, and he realized they couldn’t understand him. Apparently, Tiana can. “We have come from—from Constantinople. No one sent us.”
“Then where are you going and what do you want?”
Think fast, Javor. “I told you. Ingund—well, I know her as Danisa—we’re lovers. When I heard she had been taken out of Constantinople, I followed her.”
“And who are these others?”
“They are my friends. They’ve come along to protect me.” That sounds reasonable.
“You look like you can take care of yourself. And who brings a woman along for protection? Unless she’s some kind of witch?”
“She used magic on us, Lord,” interjected the warrior who had captured them. “She made a bright light with words and her hands!”
“Javor, do you really know that girl?” Austinus whispered in Greek.
“Shut up, you fool!” the captain roared. “Bind them!”
The warriors roughly tied their hands behind them with coarse rope, then sat them in the dirt beside one of the fires and tied their ankles. Malleus wriggled, testing the knots, so the warrior with the cudgel hit him on the head. He groaned and fell.
The warriors were clearly nervous. They kept looking out into the night, fingering their bows and swords.
Stanislaw, the captain, sat on a stool talking quickly with his lieutenants. Ingund/Danisa listened intently, but said nothing. “We should just kill them now,” said Miro, a thin young man with long dark hair and a moustache clearly modelled after his captain’s.
“Do you think they’re alone? I want to find out what they’re really doing. Bring the young blabbermouth to me!”
“The big blonde?” Stanislaw nodded and went into his tent.
Two men grabbed Javor under the arms and dragged, then tossed him into Stanislaw’s tent. I’m not a blabbermouth! Javor rolled over until he was looking up. Stanislaw had taken off his mail shirt and was sitting on a stool and drinking from a wineskin.
The leather tent was very comfortable, held up by a central pole that allowed Stanislaw to stand upright. Javor thought it might even have been high enough for him. The floor was covered with thick carpets bearing patterns that Javor had learned in Constantinople came from Persia. There was furniture and racks for Stanislaw’s clothing and armour and weapons, and what looked like a comfortable bed in the corner. Behind Stanislaw was a table with scrolls and even a book. “Well, youngster, why don’t you just tell me where the rest of the force is,” Stanislaw said as he wiped his chin.
“There is no force. There’s only us.”
Stanislaw stood and glared directly downward at Javor. “That’s the one and only lie I’ll allow you, boy. I know a full Legion followed us all the way from Constantinople! Where are they?”
“We’re not Legionnaires! We’re not wearing Legion uniforms and we don’t even have Legionnaire weapons!” Stanislaw drew back his foot to kick Javor. “The Legion was wiped out days ago!” he cried. “We found them on the bank of the river—there were only twelve left, and two of them died that night!”
“Then who are you? And don’t give me that horse-shit about being Ingund’s lover!”
Tell him the truth. Javor couldn’t tell if that was his thought, or the amulet’s.
“I am Javor. I am a warrior from the north. I’m searching for my great-grandfather’s…”
Stanislaw aimed a powerful kick at Javor’s side, but his foot struck the carpet instead and he fell across Javor’s body, swearing. He stumbled to his knees beside Javor.
Tell him what you really think.
Javor struggled to sit up. “Let me join you.”
“Hah! Why should I ever trust you?”
“I told you—I am a Sklavene, too!”
“ ‘Sklavene’ is the language we speak, it’s not a nation or a people!” Stanislaw growled. “It doesn’t make me your uncle or your father. Anyway, you talk like a country bumpkin from some backwater in the Carpathians, not like a warrior.”
“I have killed Avars in battle. I killed a monster. And a dragon. And you can’t hurt me—I am protected by magic!”
Javor, you should not have said that!
Stanislaw smiled. Javor saw a massive fist at the end of a forearm as thick as his own calf for just an instant, and then it slammed straight into his stomach. He heard his breath wheeze out and he fell back, retching up bloody vomit.
“Well, it seems I can hurt you whenever I want, boy. In any case, if you’re killing monsters and Avars, you’ve already sided with our enemies. I should take Miro’s advice and kill you now.”
Javor struggled to breathe. His stomach kept heaving. “Wait. You don’t understand,” he hissed.
One of the warriors poked his head into the tent. “Captain Stanislaw! They’re here!”
“Who’s here?” growled Stanislaw without turning.
“Them…the…things…”
Stanislaw grunted, rose, pulled his mail shirt back on and put on a pointed iron helmet. He buckled on his sword and told the warrior, “Bring him outside.” Then he stepped out of the tent.
The warrior dragged Javor out by his ankles and left him sprawling in the dirt. Outside, the Sklavenes had lit more torches. Javor, still retching and heaving, could see his friends were still tied, but were standing now. Malleus had regained consciousness, but had a big dark bruise on his face.
All the warriors were standing, and they all looked nervous—some looked truly afraid. Stanislaw stood in front of his tent, back erect and head high. To his side, a young warrior scolded Danisa in hushed but urgent tones. “When did you meet him? How could you take another lover, when you know—”
“Shut up,” she said, not even looking at Javor.
One of the warriors pulled Javor to his feet and, at Stanislaw’s signal, brought him to stand next to Malleus. “What are we waiting for?” Javor asked him.
“Silence!” hissed the thin young warrior with the big moustache. Miro, Javor remembered.
Then, at the edge of the faint orange light cast by the torches and campfires, Javor could see someone approaching. But as they came into view, all the warriors and their captives caught t
heir breath.
The newcomers were not human. They were an assembly of monstrosities with horns and tentacles and long fangs. They slobbered and grunted and sniffed, scuffled and shuffled and slithered and stumbled closer. The men, all scarred and heavily armed, shrank back from the sight, instinctively pulling closer together and closer to the fires.
A leader of the gruesome horde strode forward: roughly man-shaped, but bigger, a full head taller than Stanislaw. And what a head: huge and scaly, as long as a wolf’s but shaped almost like a snake’s. A ridge where a man’s eyebrows might be circled all the way around, and another curved from the front of its snout over its mouth, merging down into a thick, powerful neck. Except for a decorated belt that went over one shoulder and around its waist, and a long knife that hung from it, the monster was naked, but its scaly hide, greyish in the firelight, was a better protection than any armour. Its arms were thick and wrinkled as an old tree-trunk, its legs thicker than bridge posts. Every finger and toe ended with a curved claw. It might be Ghastog’s little brother, Javor thought. Why would it need a knife with claws like that?
Most of the foul host stopped short of the firelight. They blinked in the light and smoke and seemed to try to stay clear of it. But the leader strode past the fires until it stood directly in front of Stanislaw and looked down on him.
“You’re late, Stuhach,” Stanislaw said in Greek, as if he were talking to one of his men instead of a demon.
The thing hissed slowly. “Destroying a Legion takes some time. We will reach King Ingolf by the appointed day,” it said in a voice like tin scraping over gravel. It swivelled its head toward Ingund. “Is this the princess?”
“Yes,” Stanislaw nodded. Miro moved closer to her and fingered his bow.
The monster looked at her for a long moment. “Yes, she will do,” it scraped. “She is pregnant, according to the plan.”
“What?” shouted Miro, Tiana and Javor, all together.
“Never mind about her,” Stanislaw said. “We rescued her, and we’ll take her back to her father, the King. Did you hold up your end of the bargain?”