The clouds in the east were growing lighter and Gray, the rest of the Guard kneeling behind him, led the prayers that morning. Roper had taken to praying with them and found himself kneeling beside Asger. The disgraced guardsman stole belligerent glances at Roper whilst dutifully reciting the prayers. Roper paid no attention, considering Asger broken. Gosta was on Asger’s other side and he neither prayed out loud nor shut his eyes. He just stared unblinkingly at the back of the guardsman in front of him.
Other legionaries, particularly the auxiliaries, would come and watch the Sacred Guard at prayer, fascinated. They did not often get the opportunity to campaign with these heroes. The Sacred Guard were the most glorified echelon of Anakim society and the auxiliaries took every opportunity to observe their alien practices. They would stare greedily at the eye engraved on a guardsman’s right shoulder-plate, or the silver-wire wolf embedded in his cuirass, or his steel helmet through which he had threaded his long ponytail. Their eyes would linger on the guardsmen’s sword-hilts, which had, embedded in the pommel, a ring particular to the Sacred Guard, gifted by the Black Lord himself to symbolise the mutual obligation between guardsman and lord. If the guardsman had a Prize of Valour, signified by a silver arm-ring, they were more glorified still.
The auxiliaries would watch the way the guardsmen moved in pairs; still bonded, mentor and protégé, to fight together on the battlefield. They would listen anxiously to anything a guardsman might say, seeking to understand some essence of what made these men so special; how they had achieved such contentedness in the face of death and skill before the enemy. They knew each guardsman’s name. They knew the name of his sword; what deeds it had performed. They would fight all the harder if they knew they were watched by one of these heroes.
This was another reason for the Sacred Guard’s piety; before the Almighty alone could they appear humble. They were so elevated and glorified among other men, it was considered important that they show utter deference to a higher power, to which they were exposed each day through prayer.
“Until we walk with you,” finished Gray, at last. Most of the Guard stood and moved off to prepare breakfast, but some, including Gray, remained kneeling, eyes shut for a while in personal prayer. Roper, inspired by Gray’s example, had begun to do this as well. Kynortas had not been a pious man; indeed, he had had little patience for the religious devotion of the Sacred Guard. That was why he had allowed Uvoren so much licence with it; the two of them agreed it was unnecessary.
Roper prayed for his brothers in the northern haskoli. He prayed for the souls of his father and mother. He prayed to become a better man. He prayed for a secure throne from which he might rule the country justly and effectively. But, no matter how much he prayed, he was always finished before Gray, who would stay kneeling towards the east, eyes closed, mouth framing the softest of whispers.
Roper stood. Something was towering in the corner of his eye: a dark silhouette that blocked out the day’s grey light. A huge figure was watching over the guardsmen still at prayer: a man who must have been a foot taller than Roper himself. There was nothing unusual about another warrior watching the Guard; a dozen or so were doing it at that moment. But Roper knew this one. He had spotted him several times before, watching the Guard. The plate on his chest bore a dog-headed angel that wielded a sword and his left shoulder was unarmoured, with an iron band affixed around his upper arm instead. These signs marked him out as a lictor in Ramnea’s Own Legion but, elevated as that position was, there were many of them. It was his unnatural height and the position of his sword on his right side, showing that he was left-handed, which marked this man apart.
This was Vigtyr the Quick.
He was not as famous as Uvoren the Mighty or Pryce Rubenson or Leon Kaldison or one of those heroes but, to those who knew what they were talking about, Vigtyr was the best of them all. It was said that this left-handed monster had not been beaten in the practice ring for decades: other warriors simply could not match his speed, his reach or his precision.
It was said too that Vigtyr craved the Sacred Guard with a desperate thirst. That was why he watched this morning. He was the most skilled warrior in the country but would not get that recognition until he wore the Almighty Eye over his right arm. Roper paused and watched him for a moment. Vigtyr had not noticed. He had eyes only for the kneeling guardsmen.
“Vigtyr the Quick,” said a voice behind Roper. He turned and found Tekoa standing immediately behind him.
“How quick is he?” said Roper.
Tekoa placed an arm behind Roper’s back and steered him towards the fire to join the other legates. “Not as fast as Pryce,” he said. “But he looks faster because his movements are so economical. That man has perfected sword-craft. He’d skewer Pryce.”
“So why isn’t he a Sacred Guardsman?”
“He isn’t a good man. Everyone owes him favours and he knows all their secrets: nobody wants him any more influential than he is already. He could have
