S. Turney - Interregnum

A vague chorus of agreement went up behind him and he paid no further attention to the men with him as he and Balo led almost a hundred men down the hill and charged the rear lines of the attacking force.

At first there was a silence; the silence born of the brain not being able to comprehend the tremendous noise assailing it. As Pelian’s men became accustomed to the din around them, sound crept back in, distant at first and then louder and closer until the crash of steel on steel and the screams of the wounded and dying became impossible to ignore. With a fury born of absolute pride and belief, Kiva’s unit fell on their enemy. Kiva was aware of men around him hacking, slashing and stabbing, trying to cleave a path through the lines. Their attack was served well by the fact that they hit the enemy from behind and lord Tilis’ army was ill-prepared to defend against attacks from that direction. Crushed as they were in their efforts to push forward against the walls of Silvas’ palace, the enemy were at a tremendous disadvantage, often failing to turn in time to block the blows crashing down on them. Kiva was familiar with the pure butchery that came with a surprise attack and his men cleaved limbs and severed heads and torsos as they moved like a harvest through the corn of the enemy ranks. Some of Pelian’s men who’d obviously not served long in the force and had received little training from Sithis had to pause to vomit copiously among spilled livers and intestines and hacked-off limbs. Kiva ignored them. Such men would become used to the horrors of battle or would soon desert. In that case, the army could well do without them.

Kiva glanced over his shoulder as one of his men went down in a spray of blood, an unnoticed blow from one of the more astute and prepared defenders catching him in the neck. Kiva thrust out with his own blade and neatly skewered the offender, turning back just in time to duck a sweeping blow that threatened to remove his scalp and it was then he realised what a mistake he’d made getting personally involved in the fight. A sudden pain hit him so hard he doubled over further. Balo noticed the general bent double beside him and ignoring his own opponent, blocked the blow of the man attacking Kiva before delivering a second, sweeping blow that cut from shoulder to shoulder, carving a deep line across the man’s chest.

Balo bellowed at the men. “Make for the tower and tip it!” before reaching out and gripping Kiva by the upper arm. The general straightened slowly, wiping his mouth, but not before Balo had noticed the smear of blood. The general had coughed up dark blood and was trying to hide it. “Kiva, you bloody fool!”

Caerdin pushed his old ally away and wiped his mouth further, removing as much as he could of the blood, though more welled into his mouth. He stood as straight as he could and gripped Balo’s shoulder for support. “Lead them. You know how to do it and I don’t give a shit whether you think you’re right for it or not.”

Balo fought a cascade of conflicting emotions and tried to hold Kiva steady. “You need looking after, general!”

“Fuck that!!” Kiva waved his sword loosely and weakly toward the tower. “The men need you. I’ll see you afterwards.”

Balo took a long, steady glance at his commander and then nodded curtly, if unhappily. Letting go carefully, he watched in grim silence as Kiva once more doubled over and a fresh gobbet of black blood fell from his mouth. Tearing himself away, he turned to the fray and cried “make for the ropes!”

Kiva continued to stand as he was for a while, clutching at the hilt of his sword with white knuckles as the pain roared and seared its way through his abdomen. He coughed once more and a further stream of dark blood poured forth.

“I can’t die here,” a voice muttered nearby.

“What?” Kiva barked, glancing up as best he could. A man stood in front of him with a vicious gash from his right shoulder down to his hip, his right arm flapping helplessly around. Kiva squinted through the pain. The man wore a green uniform.

“Who’s your lord?”

The man staggered slightly and his blood ran down to mingle with Kiva’s growing pool on the floor. “I’m Geraldus’ man. A sergeant.”

There was a moment of silence.

“And I think I know who you are.”

Kiva sighed. “Then you’ve got to kill me where we are.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, general. I’ve no sword and I can’t lift my arm or turn my head. I’m done here.” He sighed deeply and winced. “Possibly done for altogether.”

Kiva nodded. “I can’t be. Too much more to do.”

He coughed once more and was surprised and disheartened at the quantity of life’s blood that ran from his mouth. “Help me get back to our line and you’ll be treated.”

The wounded sergeant grinned painfully, his eyes showing a deep sadness. “How can I pass up an offer like that?”

The two men limped and stumbled their way across the bodies and limbs, slipping in puddles of blood and viscera, slowly making their way back toward the column of the rebel army. A deafening twang and a rumbling and whistling noise announced the arrival of Athas’ war machines into the fray. Their stumbling continued and then suddenly there were arms around them, helping them up the hill. The concerned face of Athas appeared and said something that Kiva entirely missed.

“Athas!” he demanded breathlessly. “Shut up and stop fussing. Have us taken to Favio and don’t let word of this reach Mercurias or I’ll nail your testicles to that machine.”

Athas frowned at his commander and then nodded at the men supporting them.

Kiva must have blacked out somewhere along the column, for he stopped hurting for a while.

The marble columns wreathed in fire. The purple and gold drapes blazing and falling away into burning heaps on the floor. A chalice of wine on a small table by a couch, boiling in the intense heat. The panicked twittering of the ornamental birds in their golden cages as the room around them was consumed by the inferno. And in the centre of the room, standing in robes of white and purple, a man. He doesn’t look frightened, though the flames lick at his whole world and his face is already grimy with the smoke. What he looks is desperate, his arm extended toward the sealed and barred door separating him from a future and a life. Dark pools of blood surround the man and he takes a step toward the door, slipping and slithering in the blood until he collapses on the floor and is brought face to face with the knife that’s been drive hilt-deep into his side.

Kiva woke with a small cry and looked around him in panic. He was in his command tent and there were braziers flickering within and by the entrance. It was night and he was alone. They must have won the fight for the men had taken the time to erect the command tent before laying him carefully inside. Ideas had hammered at his consciousness as he awoke. Something to do with the old dream. That one thing; the one plan that so tantalisingly hung an inch away from his reach was there. Given a minute he might remember it. He focused slowly on the world around him and finally saw the items on the table next to his shoulder. There was a loaf of bread and some butter, some fruit and a bottle with a scruffily-written label on. He picked up the bottle, wincing at the pain and squinted at it. In Favio’s writing it said “drink this — at this point it can’t hurt.” Suspiciously, he pulled the stopper and sniffed. Mare’s mead and very strongly mixed by the smell. He smiled a weak smile and took a deep swig just as the curtains at the entrance were pushed aside and Tythias strode in.

“Thought I heard you shout.”

Kiva nodded slowly. “I take it everything went well?”