Interregnum

Sithis shut his eyes and lowered his head. “You keep going like this for a month more and the only thing you’re going to be on top of is a pyre!”

Kiva growled. “It has to be done. I can’t stop now. Darius needs to be the Emperor in front of every man, woman and child in Hadrus and I need to be every inch the general. Appearances are half the battle here. And I’ve still too much of a part to play yet to dodder around on sticks.”

Sithis stood and wandered over to where the general sat. Reaching down, he prodded Kiva gently in the side. The general grunted and winced.

“Thought so,” grumbled the swordsman. “Don’t know what’s doing you more harm: that shard in your side or the medication you take. I used to have to punch you there for it to hurt like that. I hardly touched you this time. You’ve got some of the world’s best medics here in Hadrus. Let them have a look at you and maybe try and remove it.”

Kiva shook his head. “That’d kill me for sure and even if, by some miracle, I lived through the operation, I’d be completely out of commission throughout this whole thing.”

He sat up and glared into Sithis’ face.

“Promise me now you’ll not breathe a word of this to anyone else in the camp. I think we’ve got the slimmest chance of coming out of this on top anyway, but if word gets out that I’m dancing around the edge of a grave and trying not to fall in, we’ll really be in the shit. As I said, appearances are half the game.”

Sithis nodded. “Fair enough, but make sure Tythias and Athas know about it. If you get too bad you’re going to have to take a back seat and let your second in command do more of the work.”

He stood and flexed his muscles. “I’m here as an officer and a trainer. I don’t make decisions above unit level and I sure as hell don’t have the brain for strategy. I don’t know whether we can win or not, but if there was ever a man who could come up with a way to do it, that’s you. That’s why I’m captain Sithis and you’re general Caerdin. Use that brain of yours and find a way to turn it round. That’s what you’re known for.”

Kiva’s face remained largely blank and expressionless as Sithis stood and walked over to the table. He looked down a grabbed the first book he saw.

“See this?” the captain said, some strain showing in his voice. “Rastus’ battles book? I read this a few years back and half the battles in it are yours. The Emperor’s reading about your victories, Kiva. The book’s open at the Mivor plains debacle. Less than two hundred men against over a thousand? Ridiculous! But what happened? Well, it’s a bit embellished here, but I remember that battle. Athas came back from Mivor and got drunk for three days and all he could talk about was your solution. What was it you did again, Kiva?”

“I just repositioned some of my men. Any commander could have done it.”

Sithis grinned. “No commander would have though. They wouldn’t have thought of it. You ‘repositioned’ enough men between their two lines and caused enough panic and havoc that the enemy started shooting each other. Athas reckoned he and the others got out of the middle as it all really started and they lost just four men. Four! That barbarian psychopath you were up against lost three hundred before they even realised they were killing each other and not you. It’s clever little ideas like that make the history books.”

Kiva nodded. “I suppose so, but I’m older and slower and a lot more tired these days. Still, something’ll turn up I expect. And whatever happens I damn well have to try.”

Sithis grinned. “You realise, I haven’t had a chance to talk to you without being surrounded by your adoring public since I arrived. I’ve been here four days and not a single minute of social time. And I haven’t seen you in, what? Six years I’d reckon. Since that ‘incident’ at Rilva.”

“Incident!” Kiva laughed loud. “That’s a mild term. I’ve not been able to work on the south coast since, and I’ll bet you haven’t either!”

Sithis howled with laughter and sat back in the Emperor’s chair at the table. “That pompous, camp little dick thought he’d hired the greatest unit in the northern hemisphere. I got best part of a year’s wages for one week with him, and you matched the amount with his lover, didn’t you?”

Kiva wiped a tear of laughter away from his cheek. “Oh hell, yes. Lover, enemy, opponent, ‘special friend’… call him what you will. A little lover’s tiff and it cost them more than most wars I’ve been in. And your face when you saw us coming up the hill against his tower; it was a picture. What did you actually say to him when you saw us? I never did find out.”

Sithis grinned. “Held the bag of money out and told him to shove it where his ‘lover’ put things. He told me I’d been hired and I’d taken the money so I’d damn well defend his tower. He was getting awfully red.”

“And?” Kiva prompted.

“And I hit him in the face with the bag of coins before we left.”

Kiva collapsed in hysterics again. “His ‘special friend’ wasn’t too happy when we walked away either. Athas saw you coming out of the postern gate and we just turned and left.”

“You didn’t even give him the money back?”

“No,” replied Kiva with a grin. “We’d walked a long way to get to that tower. I don’t know where you disappeared to so fast, but we watched that daft little pretty-boy jumping up and down by the tower’s door and ranting at his boyfriend. It was really quite funny. I wouldn’t have laughed quite so much but for the fact that Brendan went up to him and gave him a corona for his troubles!”

Sithis collapsed in laughter once more. “I don’t know how we missed each other in Rilva that night. We must have been in every bar getting drunk and laughing about those idiots and if you kept the money, you must have done much the same.”

Kiva grinned. “We just settled in a bar down near the dock and stayed there until we couldn’t walk.”

Sithis grinned. “I didn’t know whether you’d left or not until almost a week later. We were waiting for a ship to Velutio when the two pretty boys rolled in to the bar arm in arm, all made up and happy as anything. They never even noticed us, which is probably a good thing, but they kept going on to the innkeeper about the two captains that had seen through their argument and helped them save their relationship. We had to leave. I didn’t know whether to laugh or just throw up.”

The swordsman looked around the room. “You don’t suppose the Emperor’s got any special Imperial drink around here? You’ve nothing serious on or you wouldn’t be wandering around watching people train, and I’ve done a full morning of instruction and handed them over to one of mine for the afternoon. I think it’s crucial to the future well-being of the Empire that we get roaring drunk and talk about old times.”

Kiva opened his mouth, presumably to object, since he was waving a warning finger, but Sithis laughed. “Oh, no. You don’t get to make all the decisions, just the big important ones. And when we’re both ready to crawl back home in a stupor, I’ll find myself a nice warm, comforting companion for the night and I’ll do my level best to see you get one too. If there’s anything you need, Kiva, it’s that!”

Kiva’s face twisted as a number of emotions crossed it at the captain’s insolent comments. Thoughts fleetingly passed him of Livilla and his son, of the few women he’d had any time for over the past two decades, of Sathina and her obsession with Tythias, and finally of the two camp lovers they’d left arguing through the walls of a tower in Rilva. He looked up into the grinning face of Sithis and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Alright you idiot. You’re a dangerous man, Sithis of the Swords. You find the drink; I’ll get the glasses.”

Chapter XXVIII

Darius squinted into the shadows as the party of Imperial courtiers passed out of the bright sunlight and beneath the arch of the massive gatehouse into the palace of Lord Silvas. The palace was a massive and impressive structure, designed a hundred years ago as a strategically placed fortress rather than a grand residence. Silvas would be the third lord they’d visited in five days and Darius, though knowing the stakes he kept the facade up, was getting rather bored of the whole affair. Plus, of course, the rich food and wine the lords plied him with were causing upsets with his system. Guards in red and white stood around the battlements and towers of the encircling wall watching the party with a mix of suspicion and interest. Behind him rattled the small carriage that had been sent to carry the Emperor and his close companions, Needless to say, Darius had steadfastly refused to sit in the