Tim Leach - A Winter War

But as they drew closer, he could see men lolling drunk in the saddles – not from the little wine and koumiss that most took to find their courage before a battle, but in the way that doomed men drink. Many of the riders were still winter-thin, skeletons in the saddle, while others rode fattened and content. Always before they had shared and gifted their food before the mustering, but what use was there in sharing anything at the ending of the world?

At last some invisible line was crossed. For a horn was calling in the air, drowned out at once by something else – a howling and screaming, as the army spoke with one voice. For here they saw the enemy, an enemy that they could kill. The Sarmatians were swarming forward then, seeming blind to the truce signs, spears levelled for the charge.

All about him, Kai heard the Romans speaking, panicking, making ready to flee. ‘Do not run,’ he said, and held the truce spear high. For he could see figures amongst the Sarmatians, riding across the lines and screaming at their men. The captains of the warband, those who would bear the dishonour of their men as their own, who were threatening and pleading with their warriors to stop. And so it was the swarming riders broke like a wave, through fortune or fate or the old habits of command, sweeping around and encircling the trespassers.

A strange silence, for a time, filled only with the heavy breathing of the horses, the clatter and rattle of arms and armour. Then, without speaking to one another, the captains broke away from the swarming riders, coming forward with their spears held low. Kai searched amongst them, hoping against hope to find a man or woman he might recognise and bargain with. And he did. The gods, it seemed, had a sense of humour.

For one man bore a familiar crooked smile, a scar across the face, his neck and arms dripping with gold that he had not worn before. And Gaevani leaned forward over the saddle, and said: ‘So. It seems you did come back to die.’

‘I keep my promises,’ said Kai. ‘And there will be time for that one soon enough.’ He laid his hand to the twists of grass on his spear. ‘But we come under the sign of truce.’

‘No truce with the Romans. Not anymore. We have made our sword oaths for war.’

‘Yet they would speak with—’

A chant from the crowd, drowning Kai out. ‘No truce! No truce!’ as the swords beat against armour and lances danced in the air. And Kai saw his people for the first time as the Romans must have – blood-mad, blinded by their honour. Murderers to be put to the sword, wild animals on the border.

Kai lifted his spear towards the sky and held it there, point tilted towards the earth, and the strangeness of the gesture brought the mob to silence once more. ‘Let us speak, then, before you kill us,’ he said. ‘What harm can there be in that?’

A voice from the crowd: ‘We want to hear no trickery from Rome.’

Kai answered. ‘I did not ever think to see a Sarmatian be afraid of words. Are you?’

Hisses from the crowd, moving and shifting like a wave in water. But Gaevani was laughing then – a merry, murderous sound.

‘Let them speak,’ he said. ‘When they have emptied themselves of the air, they shall be easier to skin. They will make fine trophies for the hunt.’

All at once, the killing mood seemed to lighten, to pass. The mob drifted apart. A few Sarmatians came forward in the semblance of friendship, offering wineskins and speaking what broken Latin they had – mocking the horses that the Romans rode, asking questions about the women over the river. The Romans took the wineskins doubtfully, gave the briefest answers in return.

‘What is this, Kai?’ Lucius whispered to him.

‘We are their guests now.’

‘They meant to kill us a moment before.’

‘And perhaps they shall before long,’ said Kai, ‘but we are safe until it is decided otherwise.’

Voices calling, the captains circling about them – an honour guard to lead them to the chieftain’s fire.

‘I have given you your chance, Lucius,’ said Kai, before they were parted by the crowd. ‘Do not waste it.’

‘I will not,’ he said.

It was Gaevani who led the way – some kind of champion he seemed to the Sarmatians now, and Kai set his horse forward until he was at that man’s side, leaned close as they rode. ‘I owe a great debt to you,’ he said, ‘for letting them go. Tomyris, and Arite.’

Gaevani went still. On his face was an expression that Kai had not seen before – the look of a man caught in something shameful. Then he smiled, and said: ‘Shame to waste a handsome woman such as Arite. Perhaps I will have her for my own, when all this is done.’ He leered at Kai. ‘I have heard she is one who men may share, is she not?’

The feeling of hate rolling hot across his skin, his hand dancing towards the knife at his side – Kai took a hard breath, made himself be still once more. ‘Always the testing with you,’ he said. ‘I wonder if it is that you find yourself so wanting.’

‘Oh, that is not my way,’ said Gaevani. ‘I do love myself very well. But I grant you that yes, I do enjoy the testing. How else can you know if you are the best?’ He swept his hand towards the army – the mad, straggling army, stumbling towards their death. ‘That is what we are all here to do. That is why the chieftains will say no to you.’

‘Does this seem a band of heroes to you? Do you think it will make a good death?’

Gaevani hesitated. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I feel like an old man, wandering towards his grave, ruined and stupid. I would wish for a way other than this one.’

‘That is what we come to offer,’ said Kai. ‘Another way.’

‘Oh, I know. But it shall do you no good. And now, you will see why.’

For once more before them rose the great chieftains’ fire. But four men now gathered there, not five. And one who sat raised above the rest upon a pile of furs, iron in his hand and gold at his throat, a mantle of scalps slung about his shoulders. There were fresh ones there now, gleaming wet in the light of the fire, and upon his brow something that no Sarmatian had worn for generations. A thin, battered circlet of iron wrapped about his forehead.

It was Zanticus, the man with whom they had come to bargain. But he was a chieftain of the Wolves no longer. This was a man who had made himself a king at the end of the world.

Lucius had thought that there could be no fear left for him, after his audience with the Emperor. He had seen this chieftain in the winter, from afar – heavy-set for a cavalryman, a thick braided beard and bright, hollow eyes, wearing the dead as trophies. An intimidating man to meet on the battlefield, but a warlord like any other, and what was a warlord compared to a god?

Yet there was something in the way that man smiled and laughed about the fire, even as he led a rotting army, a broken nation, towards its own destruction. And when Lucius saw the crown of iron upon his head, he felt the battle calm descend as though the swords were already drawn. For he knew all too well what men might do for a trophy such as that.

As they came beside the fire, Zanticus did not look upon Lucius at first. He stared at Kai, and he laid his hand to the fresh scalps on his cloak, fingers knotting into the hair, nails running across stitch and scar.

‘What brings a man from a dead clan to my fire?’ said Zanticus. ‘Have you come to join these kinsmen of yours, here upon my cloak?’

Beside him, Lucius felt Kai quiver once, go still. A moment of waiting about the fire – half a step forward, an inch of iron shown, a single insult called in response, and the Sarmatians would swarm upon them and tear them to pieces. But Kai only breathed deep, and held his silence.