Tim Leach - A Winter War

‘You have not wasted it.’

‘That I do not know.’ A flashing smile. ‘He is a big bastard.’

‘Whatever happens, you have not wasted it,’ said Kai. ‘Courage is never wasted. You always meant to challenge him?’

‘I did. I thought he could not refuse me in front of his people.’

‘You do know us well.’ Kai ran his hand one last time across the neck of the horse. ‘Is it for hate or love that you fight?’ he said.

‘What?’

Kai smiled at him. ‘I have always heard it said that one may only fight well for hate or for love. Better to choose now.’

‘Let it be for love, then,’ Lucius said. And he fell silent for a moment, searching. Many times before had Kai seen it, in friends and close companions, on the eve of battle and duel, or by those struck by fever or sickness who do not know if they shall see the sun rise another time. The search for the parting words, the ones that might matter most.

At last, the Roman spoke. ‘Amongst my people,’ he said, ‘it is the worst of crimes to kill one’s father. There is little that the gods hate more than that. I do not know whose gods speak true, yours or mine. But your shame is not fixed, it is not certain. My gods are not yours, but even so, perhaps that may mean something.’

‘It does. I thank you for it.’

A calling then – a roaring, wordless challenge from the Sarmatian king across the field.

‘I wish there was more time,’ said Lucius.

‘Go and earn it, then,’ Kai answered.

‘I will. For all of us.’ And he was mounted in a moment, snatching up his spear and setting the horse to dance its way to the killing ground, sitting with the easy grace of a man born to the saddle. And though many Sarmatians howled their scorn, a few lifted their weapons in a warrior’s salute, wished him good fortune, a brave death. For they loved horsemanship above all else, beyond the blood ties of clan, the feuds of nations, beyond honour or love.

They took their places, little more than a bowshot apart. The ground between Lucius and Zanticus was no clear horseman’s run. Rough sodden earth, long grass that might still hold traps of bog and mire. Yet for all that, the light fell across it well, and the wildflowers fringed it with colour – perhaps, for all their searching for the best ground to fight upon, that was what had made their choice for them. A beautiful place to fight, and to die.

Zanticus set his horse stamping and feinting, trying to goad the Roman into charging first across uncertain ground. But Lucius let the reins go slack in his hands, leaned back and let the sun play across his face. He looked as though he would be willing to wait forever.

It began with silence. Not a sound, but the absence of sound, that moment where a horse’s hooves are in flight but have not yet struck the ground. And then the horses tore across the plain, the light shining upon the spearheads, the great crowd struck to stillness. Kai saw it all so slowly – the careful placement of each horse’s hoof, the shift in weight of the riders in the saddle. The spears weaving in the air, moving forward and back. But one of them was moving too far back, Lucius’s spear drawing away from the mark, giving up all advantage of weight and reach. Then the weapon came forward once more and took flight into the air.

It was a heavy cavalry spear, not weighted for throwing. And so Lucius had waited almost to the last moment – thrown half a heartbeat before or after and it would have been for nothing.

For a single breath, the spear seemed to hang still in the air. Then all moved too fast to be seen – the rending crash of iron against iron, the screaming of a horse. Impossible, at that distance, but Kai thought he could taste blood in the air.

The horses together, then parted, slowing, still. Both men still in the saddle, but a cry from the crowd about them, the sound men made when they sighted a wound. And how frightening it was to know someone was wounded but to not know who.

Zanticus swayed in his saddle, the armour spiderwebbed with cracks from where the thrown spear had struck home. But the iron had held. There was blood upon the grass, and it was not his. For as Lucius turned his mount around, Kai could see the flank of the horse laid open, the quiver of muscle and meat in the open air.

A little sigh from the crowd, as Zanticus moved his horse slowly, carefully, finding the place for the next charge, the last one there would be. There was no urgency – Lucius had no spear, and a dying horse beneath him. It would be a careful, patient killing.

Then the Roman slipped from the saddle, stepped lightly upon the ground. He backed away quickly, for his horse knew of its wound now, and was apt to kick and kill any who came close. When Lucius was clear of it, he stood in a swordsman’s even stance. The Roman cavalry sword in his hand, levelled in challenge for a moment, before it dipped back down again.

Zanticus cocked his head to the side, at a loss. A Sarmatian would choose to keep even a wounded horse under him, to be spared the shame of dying on the ground. But then, a smile upon his lips. Doomed men did mad things – no doubt he thought it no more than that.

The last charge. The long spear levelled, blood dancing from the iron head with every strike of the horse’s hooves. And Lucius standing still, sword low to the ground, waiting.

Afterwards, long afterwards, the Sarmatians would tell stories of that sword he held in his hand. Mutterings of witchcraft and magic, a blade that made a man invincible and brought miracles with it. But it was the man and not the blade that brought a miracle that day.

For there was a scream from Zanticus’s horse – it was rearing, stumbling, forelegs painted in thick black mud, the treacherous ground giving way beneath it. Lucius rushing forward, the sword lifting high, and the mere sight of the light upon the blade was enough to send the horse twisting and rolling, to set the Sarmatian tumbling from the saddle and beneath the hooves of his own horse.

A stumbling pursuit then, Lucius running and tripping across bad ground, clumsy and desperate, no time for honour or grace. Only the desperate race to be there first, before Zanticus rose from the earth. Kai alone willing him on, screaming his name, while the rest of the Sarmatians called for their king to stand and fight.

But Zanticus made no move to rise – lying on his side, one hand cast across his face as though in shame at what had happened to him. When Lucius reached the king he rolled him over, lifted the sword high. The point trembled for a moment at the apex, and then slowly lowered once more. For the king’s head lolled impossibly to the side, neck broken from the fall, sunlight glittering upon the dull iron crown.

Little sound from the Sarmatians who watched then. Only a whispering, passing like a wave from the front to the back of the crowd, giving the word to those who could not see. And Lucius looked about himself, a dreamer waking. The sword fell from nerveless fingers, and he was on his knees, bowing his head until he almost laid it upon Zanticus’s chest, weeping and shaking as though he had killed a man that he loved. And even when Kai ran to him, lifted Lucius to his feet and spoke the words of victory, still he seemed weak as a child. He clung to Kai, for it seemed that Lucius had spent all his courage there upon the field. A lifetime’s worth, perhaps.

They walked slowly together, and all about them the silence held, no one else moved. Perhaps the Sarmatians, too, were learning to wait – perhaps it was that Lucius could teach them the art of patience. Kai had the sense that if they could just get to their horses before the spell was broken, they might be safe.

But a figure stepped forward from the crowd before they could get there – the sun at his back, and Kai could not see his face. At first Kai thought it some son of Zanticus’s coming forward for revenge, or another chieftain wishing to claim the kingship for himself. But there was no weapon in the man’s hand, and a smile upon his face – Gaevani, come to greet them, the one to break the silence.