“The Bachiyr,” she whispered. “You captured the Devil.”
Taras ran through the city as fast as his wobbly legs would carry him, dodging through people and bodies while skirting the areas of heavy fire and fighting, trying to reach the western gate ahead of the invading army. By the looks of things, the enemy-Taras had heard rumors of everything from the Iceni to the Romans to even monsters from another realm, but had yet to see any of them, himself-had not sent in the infantry yet, but that didn’t stop the denizens of Londinium from attacking everything that moved. Already he’d been accosted four times. Each time, he managed to evade the aggressor, but it was getting harder and harder to do. Taras needed blood. He would have to find a suitable victim soon or he would die in the fires of this burning hell.
As he neared the center of Londinium, another knot of men emerged from around a corner forty paces ahead. When they saw him, they yelled a challenge, pulled out their weapons, and charged. Only one of them had a sword, the rest were armed with sharpened sticks. Taras eyed the sticks, knowing that if he allowed any of the men to put one through his heart he would be done for. The stick wouldn’t kill him, but it would leave him paralyzed in the street, after which the rest of the men could finish the job, or the invaders, or the fire, or even the sun. He dodged to the right as the man with the sword charged, leading with his off-balanced weapon. Oblivious, the man swung the sword in a wide arc. He swung hard, leaning in toward Taras and extending his arm to its full length, not realizing that by doing so he overbalanced himself. Predictably, he stumbled over his own feet and fell to his knees, scraping his thick, coarse clothes on the ash-covered cobbles.
No training, Taras thought. Just a man who found a sword. He stepped around the sputtering, cursing Briton, and just managed to avoid a blow from one of his stick-wielding compatriots. Taras ducked under the newcomer’s weapon and launched a sharp, hard right hand into his solar plexus. The man grunted, dropped his weapon, and rolled into the fetal position, huffing and wheezing while he tried to force air back into his lungs. Taras stepped around him, knowing another would be on him in a moment.
The next man came in with an overhand chop which Taras easily sidestepped. Taras planted his left foot on the street and launched his right boot into the man’s back as he stumbled by. The man fell face first into the street, and Taras ducked under yet another blow. Behind him, he heard the sword-wielder grunt and rise to his feet, shouting for his friends to circle Taras and attack him en masse.
But Taras had other ideas. There was only one man standing between him and the empty street, and when the fellow stepped forward, Taras reached out and grabbed his wrist. Despite his lack of blood, Taras was still stronger and faster than his opponent, and he twisted the man’s arms down and to the side, turning as he went. The man ended up rolling over Taras’s hip, then landed flat on his back, issuing as loud whumph! As the air left his lungs. Taras, meanwhile, maintained control of the man’s weapon. It wasn’t much, just a three foot wooden pole with one end sharpened to a deadly point, but Taras swung it hard, keeping the wood in front of him as he spun around to face the rest of his attackers.
The stick jarred his hand as it struck the sword-wielder in the temple, and a loud crack sounded through the street, though Taras could not tell if it was the wood that cracked or the man’s skull. The man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped to the street, but Taras had no idea whether or not he was still alive, and the man’s friends didn’t give him time to find out.
They came on him as a group now. Only four of them were on their feet. The man Taras had punched in the solar plexus remained on the ground, clutching his midsection and howling in pain. Probably broke his ribs, Taras thought. The man was lucky. Had Taras fought with his claws, or with the sword on his belt, he would likely be bleeding his life away right now.
The four men stood no more than five paces in front of him, grumbling and brandishing their crude weapons. One of them pointed at Taras and made a slashing motion across his throat. But no one remained at his back. Taras turned and ran, ignoring the men behind as they shouted insults at his back. They could call him craven all they wanted, by the end of this evening they would all be dead. Taras meant to live, and to do that he needed to reach the western gate.
He ran in that direction, dodging several more skirmishes along the way, but it seemed the closer he got to the gate, the more intense the fighting became. Finally he came in sight of the gate and saw the problem. While the city was being attacked through the air at the eastern gate, the western gate was being overrun with soldiers piling in to the city and setting fire to everything. The infantry had come, after all, they had just gone around the rear of the city.
So that was the plan. The enemy surrounded Londinium and cut off the exits. It must be a sizable troop to have such forces on both sides of the city. The men scrambling through the gate and over the walls wore no plate and hoisted no banners. Many of them wore no armor at all and fought in little more than furry vests, their bare, muscular arms vulnerable to any Roman soldier who could get close enough to hit them. Many of their weapons were crude, huge things, and their wielders swung them about with little regard for tactics or style. It seemed strength and ferocity were enough. Barbarians, then. The rumors regarding the Iceni were true.
Their presence here confirmed his suspicion that this was not an invasion, but an extermination. No one would leave the city tonight. Not until it had burned to the ground, and its inhabitants with it.
Unfortunately, that included Taras.
Ramah followed the trail, lured on by the signs left by dozens of men. Several hundred paces back he’d come to the site of a nasty battle. Over a score of men had been killed. Their corpses littered the area, laying in the dirt and grass with their bowels exposed, hanging from their bellies like thick, wet ropes. Many were missing limbs, and a few lay headless, their life’s blood trickling into the thirsty ground. One of the men groaned as Ramah passed, and reached out a single trembling hand to the Bachiyr’s leg, grasping his pants in a weak and faltering grip.
“Please…” he wheezed. Ramah noted the blood on the soldier’s face, and the large red hole in his chest where something had clawed away the flesh, revealing the bare ribs beneath. Blood poured freely from the wound, soaking the man’s leather jerkin and pooling beneath him. “Please, help…”
Ramah’s boot caved in the soldier’s skull, which gave with a sharp crack that sounded like splintering boards in the otherwise still silence of the clearing. A mercy killing. The man should have been long dead, Ramah just helped send him to the next world all the sooner.
He knelt into the bloody grass, taking stock of the carnage around him. The smell of blood was everywhere, and a cloud of flies had begun to buzz madly through the air, laying their eggs in the stricken flesh of the fallen. The killings had been brutal, fast, and effective. It must have scared the life from the soldiers; the survivors had not even bothered to waste time gathering up their dead.
He recognized Theron’s handiwork when he saw it.
To his right, a slight breeze stirred the grass, bringing the smells of fire and war. That would be Londinium, burning as the Iceni lay waste to the city. He could still hear the screams as people died behind the walls. With only a token resistance to slow the Iceni horde, the entire city would be destroyed by dawn. Sooner or later the gatehouse would be affected, and Ramah’s passage back to the Halls would go up in flames. No matter, he thought. I can find someplace else to spend the day. The country around Londinium was spotted with thousands of small farms and holdfasts, he would be fine. In any case, he’d come too far to go running back to the Halls. Now that he was so close to capturing Theron, he refused to return empty handed.
Ramah resumed his examination of the site. There was no indication that Theron had escaped the soldiers and run, which would have been the sensible thing to do. Thus, he came to the conclusion that the renegade had allowed himself to be captured by the Iceni. What will their righteous queen make of that? he wondered. By all accounts, Boudica was a sharp one. Would she know what she had? If so, what would she do with him? Would she kill him? Or would she try to use him?
Ramah grinned. The better option would be to leave Theron securely chained someplace where, come dawn, the sun would find him. If that turned out to be the case, he could return to the Halls and report that the renegade had been dealt with. It wouldn’t be enough to appease Lannis or Algor, who both wanted to make Theron a Lost One, but Headcouncil Herris would be satisfied.
It still left the issue of Taras, but Ramah didn’t think that would be an issue much longer. The renegade was
