Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alaric turned, his seax leaving its scabbard in a battle-mad hiss. Mistakes piled upon mistakes. If he hadn’t been so distracted. If he hadn’t allowed the damn fire. He cursed his own fire-blind sight.
Julia was staring at him in shock. He gripped her arm, and for an instant all he wanted was to kiss her hard, to put into it everything he felt. Instead he gave her a shove away from him, in the direction of the horses and safety. “Run,” he gritted. “I’ll guard your back.”
And she was off, running like a deer into the dark.
Movement caught his eye up the slope, at the cliff that loomed at the back of the sanctuary. Half a dozen shapes dropped in the darkness, swarming down the ruined temple.
This was the chaos that a few moments of lapsed vigilance wrought.
In minutes, Riga’s arrows were flying and he and the twins were fighting back-to-back at the center of a maelstrom of whirring blades. He had trained the twins himself. Polished them to a killing edge; when they fought together, it was as one lethal, perfectly tuned machine. From the corner of his eye, he saw Horsa bring his hunting knife low under his opponent’s defenses and overreach only slightly—but enough to make him stumble into the path of the Gaul’s heavy downward blow. Alaric whipped around, acting on reflex, his Hunnic hatchet flying over the boy’s shoulder. It landed with a thunk in the Gaul’s skull.
“What a throw!” Horsa gave a mad, fevered laugh. “Hengist, did you see—”
“Shut up and watch your fucking reach.” The boy was going to get himself killed, fighting like that. Alaric braced his foot against the dead man’s head and yanked the hatchet out of his skull with a jerk.
There was a lull in the battle. Riga emerged from his sniper position and walked among the dead, kicking them over on their backs. “Foederati,” he said. “Mercenaries.”
Thorismund strode toward him amidst the fallen statues and corpses. “Some are searching for Julia. I’ll hunt them down.”
Julia. Of course they were here for her. Alaric’s instinct was to take off at a run in her direction, but something stopped him.
He felt the air change, felt the earth shift beneath his feet.
“Get her up the mountain,” he said quietly. “I’ll buy you time.”
Thorismund’s face darkened. “I will not let you lay down your life for a Roman .”
“That Roman will buy us back our homeland, Thorismund.” There were others as loyal, but what bound him to Thorismund was the will to bring back what was lost, no matter what it took. “I need your oath. There is none but you I would ask to do this.”
Thorismund cursed, low beneath his breath. “I’ll stick to her like a burr to a camel’s arse. That is my sacred oath.”
“I accept your oath and hold you to it.” The Batavi took their oaths to the grave. “If I haven’t found you by morning, go to Brisca.” He reached into his pocket for the finger-bone flute he’d carried all this way. “Do you remember the tune?”
“I remember.”
“Good. Play it wrong and you may get your throat slit.”
Now Thorismund was gone after Julia, and it could not be a moment too soon. Down the slope to the south, the moon-drenched tree line had begun to move.
* * *
Julia crouched near the spring where the horses had been tethered, faint with terror. She could hear the distant sounds of battle, but that was a distraction. There were footsteps echoing off the ruins. Looking for her.
Someone gripped the back of her tunic and yanked her out of her hiding place.
Her scream was throttled by a huge hand clamping down on her mouth. “Quit your yelling,” Thorismund whispered hoarsely. “I’m trying to save your life.”
He hauled her down the slope. Julia grasped his wrist, thick with muscle. “Where are we going ?”
“Fucking Alaric ,” Thorismund spat, dragging her along like a sack of wheat. “Sending me off into the mountains while he stays and dies. Says I’m the only one he trusts to get you to safety. Bollocks. ”
“What?” Julia tried to dig her heels in. Thorismund did not seem to notice. “Did Alaric order this?”
“Yes. The fool. He’ll be dead by sunup. He orders us to go.”
The nerve of that man. “He doesn’t get to order me . He isn’t my king—”
They’d reached the horses. In the next instant, she found herself lifted and thrown on the back of the nearest. “Run,” Thorismund growled, slapping the horse’s rump. It surged forward, and Julia could do nothing but hang on as the animal plunged at a flat gallop down the hill.
She glanced behind to see six men were emerging from the trees. Thorismund was running at them, battle-axe raised and its blade glinting coldly like a sickle moon. Going to his death.
* * *
There were hundreds. Too many to fight.
Behind a wall, Riga was readying another arrow. “How many of those do you have left?” Riga held up one hand, palm open, then another. Ten. Not enough.
They would die here. He, Riga, and the twins, who had refused to flee. Alaric had not wanted that; he wanted the boys to live . After Gaufrid had died, Alaric had named the boys among his most select bodyguards and kept them close so he could protect them . If the boys died, he would go with them and explain it to Gaufrid himself. Soon he would get his chance.
He could only hope Julia and Thorismund made it into the mountains. He would do his best to give them a head start.
Just then, the moon emerged from behind a cloud, and he recognized a figure leading the men below. Swathed in barbarian chain mail, face concealed by a slit-eyed Thracian helmet. Alaric would know him blind.
He stepped out from the shelter of the ruined temple and propped a boot up on a crumbling wall. “What took you so long, Calthrax?”
“You kept me busy chasing down dead ends.” Calthrax produced a bundle wrapped in cloth and gave it a heave. It hit the stone wall below Alaric with a wet thunk . A severed head. One of his fifty, not much older than the twins. Neck a jagged stump. Eyes rolled back, rotted whites. Fuck.
“They put up a good fight, but I couldn’t let them live for wasting my time.” Calthrax’s brutal laugh rang through the ruined temple. “Send the woman, Alaric.”
“Over my rotting corpse.”
“That can be arranged.” Calthrax gave the signal and his men moved forward.
Horsa and Hengist came to stand at his right and left, looking down the sweep of desiccated grass. “Can we fight them?” Hengist asked.
Alaric shook his head grimly.
At a signal from Calthrax, an archer cocked an arrow and aimed it up the slope toward the twins. A fierce shrieking rose from the chinks in the ruined walls as the wind snatched breath from lungs and sent the arrow awry, tumbling down the mountain.
It was the bora . The demon wind. Alaric knew it from the battle of Frigidus.
Horsa held up a hank of dry grass, a jagged grin spreading across his face. Fire blooming in his hand.
Alaric nodded. Do it. The boy opened his hand and let the grass fall. Then all the world was fire.