S. Turney: Interregnum

“Without you, your soldiers will be unsure. They’re unlikely to blindly serve a man they don’t know except by reputation, like Sabian or Velutio, and I expect people they don’t know trying to push them into the front of a fight for a man they don’t serve will probably just make them all the more obstinate. Velutio will lose a third of his army before this even begins and my officers know exactly what to do to end this without a single drop of blood being drawn in the valley. Darius will be Emperor by sunset.” He shuffled in his seat. “But that, unfortunately, requires that you gentlemen be removed from the equation.”

“You want to keep us here until the battle’s over?” demanded Irio incredulously.

“Oh, no. I’m afraid you’ll all be dead by then.”

Irio laughed. “There are twelve of us and only one of you. Even with your crossbows, most of us could just walk out of here.”

Kiva smiled again, his pale, drawn smile. “I used to be rather bad with a missile weapon, you know, but I’ve had practice recently; lessons from an expert. The first three or four men who rush me are dead before they get here,” he said, pointing two bows at the gathering of lords. “You’ll find the place sealed tighter than Velutio’s arse anyway. All the windows are locked and the doors are barred. I’ve had Cialo and his men seal this place completely. We’re here until the end, people.”

Irio staggered toward him.

“You’re a bluffer, Caerdin. You can’t keep us away from the battle like this.”

“Oh, I can.” There was a twang and a crossbow bolt dug deep into Irio’s neck, amidst a spray of blood. The barrel-chested lord fell to the floor gurgling and writhing.

“Who’s next?” Kiva asked, dropping the spent bow and picking up the third in his offhand. “Anyone feeling brave? No good getting past me anyway. That door behind me’s well and truly sealed.”

A thin, reedy lord at the back stood sharply.

“Can anyone else smell smoke?”

Kiva grinned. “Yes, it’s nice and cosy in here and it’s about to get an awful lot hotter.”

“They’ve set fire to the building!” one of the lords cried, triggering pandemonium. Men ran to and fro. Tito, a small, wiry lord with a squint eye, ran to the window through which Irio had recently been looking.

“This is only lead-paned glass!” He picked up the chair the barrel-chested lord Irio had used and smashed it against the window. The glass shattered outwards in a glittering cloud, catching the very first rays of the sun and lead strips buckled and came away. The group of lords rushed towards him and his means of escape, but fell away again in a panic as an arrow flew with deadly accuracy through the window and took Tito in the eye, hurling him back away from the hole, still holding the fragmented remains of the chair. He skidded across the floor, dead before he came to rest against the small table, tipping the jug of wine and the bowl of fruit to the floor.

Kiva laughed. “I told you I had fifty men outside. You can be damn sure they’re not going to let you get away. Hell, they’ve got orders to let nothing escape, even me.”

“You!” a tall thin lord whose name escaped Kiva bellowed as he made a run at the general. Kiva lazily, almost as if in a daze, raised his hand and released another bolt. All those hours of tuition with Phythian’s men had been well worth it. Besides, these things were much easier to use than a bow. The bolt took the man in the solar plexus, shattering his breastbone and punching through into internal organs. He took advantage of the widespread confusion to reload the other bow and rest his hands on the chair arms.

“I can assure you that there really is no way out. Consider this penance for siding with a spineless and self-centred megalomaniac and not supporting the Emperor.”

The men in the room ran hither and thither in a panic, opening the other side doors of the room, only to find outer doors heavily locked and barred and any window they came to covered from outside by archers. Some tried to climb out to freedom, only to be struck by whistling shafts of ash before they’d even touched the earth outside. Others ran in a panic looking for other ways out, only to find that when they opened a door, the room behind was already an inferno. Battered by waves of heat and clouds of choking smoke, they ran in blind panic and not one of them paid any further attention to the sentinel by the main door with his two loaded weapons.

Kiva watched them run. In his mind he remembered a room of marble and gold. He remembered the golden-haired Quintus in his purple tunic smiling as he moved a white tower, knowing he’d beaten his favourite marshal. Quintus would laugh in that buoyant way of his and reach out to the wine jar, pouring another drink for both himself and his opponent and stop, mid-way as he realised his error. It was then that Kiva Caerdin, marshal of the northern armies and friend and confidant of the Emperor would trigger his unexpected move and seven of the Emperor’s remaining eight towers would vanish in one move.

“You’d be proud of me now, Quintus” he muttered to himself as the flames licked at the panes of glass and the lead of the room’s windows. “Twelve towers in one move. That’s more than I ever managed in our games.”

He smiled as he watched the room explode into a ball or yellow and orange flame, timbers finally giving way under the extreme heat and stressed glass shattering inwards in a million shards reflecting the inferno. He would burn soon enough, but that wouldn’t matter now. He reached up with a hand, ignoring the crossbow in it, and wiped at his chin. Dark blood flowed in rivers down it. The pale northerner smiled as his life and spirit flowed from him for the final time; from his mouth and from the wound in his side, where it spilled out into a dark stain on his grey tunic; a tunic of the Grey Company who were no more. Funny that; how now everything looked grey. Even the orange flames as they tore across the rug in the middle of the room. Somewhere there was a scream, but even that seemed grey and faded.

Kiva was dead long minutes before the fire reached his boots and breeches and ran up and across his body, wreathing him in a golden liquid fire.

And with him passed the last of the old world and the lords that had stood in the way of the new. The villa sighed and collapsed in on itself.

Velutio urged his horse forward, the colour rising in his face, and pushed Sabian out of the way, almost unhorsing him. “What is the meaning of this? We came to parlay with your general, not some underling or his puppet ‘ emperor ’.”

Balo smiled, regarding the lord of Velutio coldly. “Caerdin is no longer the general of this army. He resigned his commission this morning as I myself was there to witness. He firmly believes there will be no need of a general today but that if there is, Tythias here is amply able and prepared for the role. I also am not a commissioned member of this army and am here only as a spokesman for Caerdin.”

Sabian nodded bleakly and pushed his way to the front once more, glaring at his lord. “Caerdin has gone to deal with those other lords in our army that he could rely on to think of themselves before they thought of you, Velutio. He’s had something going on for some time now obviously, possibly even for months. We’ve had deserters all the way around the coast and I thought it was because they believed in Darius or possibly felt oppressed by us, but perhaps it was Caerdin’s doing all along.”

Balo smiled. “In actual fact commander, we’ve had nothing to do with your desertions. Caerdin only intended to deal with certain individuals he felt he could trust to rely on greed overcoming their loyalty. Only a dozen lords or so have been dealt with, but that’ll cripple a large portion of your army. Your army’s deserting because they don’t believe in your cause. They don’t want this man to be their emperor, and I can see why, whereas Darius is a man of Imperial blood with a solid claim to the throne and the Gods are with him.”