Chapter 5 #2
Varius marched through the city, and gradually the soldiers followed him, fighting him less and less but keeping a careful eye on his progress.
Eventually they formed lines to block certain routes difficult to see through the smoke.
Varius recognized belatedly they were places the golems wouldn't fit, or that might be too structurally delicate to support their passage.
Maybe the soldiers suspected who was controlling the golems, but they didn't know. Did the deniability matter? And if they did know—
Varius couldn't let them down now. Not after how he'd left them, to this.
And the further Varius went, the less he recognized what the city had become.
But, of course, he did: the place he'd fought for so long to protect was now itself a battlefield.
It always had been, he realized. But not like this. Blood and rubble in the streets, screams of anguish rending the smoke-filled air.
By the time he reached the densest part of the inner-city action, soldiers within the city had broken into desperate segments as citizens hurled boiling pitch at them from behind houses, poured it from roofs.
Varius' pride in his people swelled. He'd reported on the tactics of sorcerous traps to the patricians, absolutely. But not only to them, and Aurelian citizens wouldn't simply lie down and take whatever Caius Sobanus thought they deserved.
He got his own golem between a barrage of pitch and soldiers, defending them. Then as the soldiers began to cheer their good fortune, he directed the golems toward them.
One step. Two.
The soldiers froze.
Varius almost did too.
Then he did what he always did: he steeled himself, and braced for impact.
And so he popped the top of his golem long enough to yell in an instantly recognizable voice that had carried over countless battlefields, "LEGIONS, DISPERSE!"
A beat, where he could practically feel their fear and confusion keeping them immobile.
And then his soldiers—his soldiers—the ones who'd followed him from the border, took matters into their own hands.
They didn't help their fellows reform a shield wall to deploy against the citizens.
They ran in and herded their compatriots away.
Following his orders, even now.
The only reason Varius didn't cry was his body was too caught up in the sorcery of managing a clay army.
An elderly woman with long gray hair, soot covering her hands and face, and an absolutely furious expression stepped out from behind a corner.
"Varius, you had better have a godscursed good explanation for this!" Fabiana hollered at him.
Ha! He knew it. Exultation filled him, relief fast on its heels.
They would be okay. With or without him, they would be okay.
Varius had been practicing with Theira, but it was hard to make a golem's bow ironic. He must have managed well enough, though, because the old woman snorted, scowled, and promptly snagged a passing soldier by the arm.
"You! Get started gathering the wounded."
The soldier froze—all of them did—turning as one to the golem Varius' voice had come from.
No help for it. At least he was wearing his armor this time.
Varius popped the top again, hauled himself up, and pointed at the soldier in question. "Do whatever the hell she says and thank her for the privilege. You destroyed this city, you will earn back the right to call it yours."
He cast his legatus stare—the one Theira had so recently mocked him for—around every soldier he could see.
Until, one after another, they saluted him.
Not forsaking him.
Theira wouldn't have done more than raise an eyebrow at him, but that was Theira.
Varius had too much experience ordering troops to clear his throat in front of them from emotion, but he was losing composure fast. How in the hells had Theira managed to keep it together swindling Tychon to his face not once, but twice?
He pointed to the old woman. "She has your marching orders now."
Every soldier turned in unison to her, pounding a fist on their breastplates. Instant willingness to following civilian leadership.
She just eyed Varius. "And you?"
"Tell me where to find Caius Sobanus," Varius said, his voice low and dangerous, "and I will end this."
No one moved.
Would they truly stand by a patrician of the empire against a sorcerous incursion, even after everything?
Would they truly and undeniably support him, even after everything?
"Legatus Varius, sir!" A voice finally yelled. "He is sheltered in the patricians' dome, sir."
Varius managed not to collapse as it felt like his bones lost all their strength beneath him in sheer relief, but it was a near thing.
It helped that his heart was pounding in anticipation, though.
The old woman shrugged. "That's what I would have guessed, too. Not like him to be seen anywhere a bit of dirt might touch him, is it?"
"Let's see," Varius said, "if I can't fix that."
He looked at the soldier who'd spoken; saluted. The man was ashen, but at this he glowed. Varius' chest constricted.
Maybe they didn't know what Varius had done to leave, or maybe they doubted what Caius Sobanus had told them before, or maybe—maybe they didn't blame him, for surviving. Maybe they recognized he'd been as caught as they were.
It had been too long since the soldiers of the empire could make a choice they felt good about. Varius had changed that, with Theira's help.
That was the answer to what he could offer them now.
A chance.
To make their own choices; to live.
He could break them all out of this cycle, once and for all, and he would.
Varius gathered the golems, and the rhythmic boom of their steps was as inexorable as the drum of the legions.
His soldiers ran ahead of him, removed any resistance. They took care of their own.
No soldier was loyal to the patricians who sent them to die over the legatus who'd saved their lives time and time again, who'd paid out his own money for their gear, who'd stood by their side to break news to their families.
Caius Sobanus' real mistake was believing his people were stupid.
Varius doubted he appreciated that, but soon it wouldn't matter.
As his golems closed in on the enormous stone dome, two soldiers carried a struggling Sobanus out.
"The patricians are inside, sir," one of them yelled up to Varius. "And only patricians, sir."
Well, well.
A perfect field for military exercises after all.
And a place where he didn't need to hold back his strength.
Varius approached in his own golem, reaching out to pluck Sobanus from between them and lifting him. The real trick was not to squeeze him to death.
With the golem's other hand, he pointed, and the soldiers got the hell out of the way.
He popped the top of his golem once more.
"You," Sobanus shrieked, "Traitor to the empire! You've marched against your own people—"
He broke off, choking, as Varius tightened his grip just a little.
"Only against you, Sobanus, and the ones who keep this war going."
The patrician said nothing, but his eyes were still furious, uncowed.
Caius Sobanus spat on the golem.
This wasn't a man who would learn anything. At least, not anything that mattered.
Varius felt responsible for his soldiers, and for the civilians in the city, but this? This was freeing.
"You wanted to know what would happen when you pushed me," Varius told him. "I invite you to watch."
Without waiting for a response, because nothing Sobanus could say had to matter to him anymore, he sealed himself back inside.
The golems surrounded the dome completely, like the shield wall of a legion.
And as one, they moved.
A boom with one step, as the ground shook.
A boom with the second, as their hands reached out as one.
This now, all of them together, was the easiest thing possible for Varius to do.
He forced sorcerous rock against an imperial hard place, and he pushed.
And he pushed, and he pushed.
Until the patricians' sanctuary, the seat of their power where now they cowered, shook.
In another moment, it began to crumble.
Varius kept pushing.
Loud cracks sounded, and inside, they would finally begin to understand what was happening.
A few men in the robes of patricians ran out screaming only to meet a wall of rock and be crushed underfoot.
The rest were silent as the stone dome collapsed on top of them.
Dust and debris from the force of the fall blew outward, blocking Varius' vision, but it too broke against the enormous stone soldiers.
When he could see again, Caius Sobanus was still held in his fist.
Varius wasn't sure if he was dazed or dead from the storm of the physical embodiment of his power physically collapsing to dust around him.
He also didn't care.
With one move, he smashed what remained of the man who'd sent Varius' own men after him into the rubble at his feet with such force that Sobanus was ignominiously pulverized against the stones.
No part of him was free from the dirt he scorned now.
Not a sound mourned his passing.
Varius took a breath. It was done.
His part was done.
A weight on his shoulders lifted, and he scarcely heard the cheers erupting around him.
He had already turned his sorcerous vision back to the border where he'd left Theira.
In time to see her take a hit from one of the ten godscursed sorceresses that surrounded her.
Varius ran.
Theira was a whirlwind of power, throwing spell after spell, stemming the sorcerous tide of ten adepts at once, who at least even if they were fighting her at the same time weren't coordinating with each other, because sorceresses worked alone.
As much as Theira had been able to experiment since leaving Castle Korossia, and even more since she had Varius to play with, she had plenty of new tricks these sorceresses had never seen.
But improvisation was no substitute for advance planning, and she couldn't use much from the ground against them.