by kai
A collection of snippets following Degrees of Separation
"Accipiter, Accipiter! You must come quickly!"
Kronos looked up from the map-strewn table as a miniature human whirlwind--all sun-browned, gangly limbs and messy brown hair--swept into his tent.
Acestes, his burly personal guard was one step behind, hand outstretched to grab the youth. "I apologize, Legatus." He gave Veit a good shake. "The brat managed to slip past me."
"Is that so?" Kronos said, one eyebrow raised, amused despite the interruption. "Then you should take a few lessons from Veit, here, in speed and cunning. And you," he turned to the boy, frowning to hide a smile. "I sent you off with nine scrolls to deliver, yet your bag is still half full."
Veit swallowed hard but made no excuses. "It's important, Accipiter, really it is. She said she had a message for you, but they--his men are going to kill her. I know it!"
His eyes narrowed and his senses came alert. "She said. Kill who? Speak!"
"She came into camp early this morning, I heard, and asked for you. But Legatus Claudianus ordered her held."
Kronos gripped the hilt of his sword; one day, Claudianus, son of Grey, would press him too far. "Describe her to me."
"She's not like any woman I ever saw," Veit said. "Tall, black, with hair like a thousand snakes. I heard them say she wore armor and carried a bow. She even had a sword."
His heart leapt in his chest. He pushed Veit towards the entrance to the tent and beckoned to Acestes. "Come with me."
Outside, he set the watch to be alert for trouble and had their horses brought round. He and Acestes mounted and Kronos swept Veit up to sit before him in the saddle. "Show us where, Veit."
The boy pointed the way; they moved swiftly through his lines, to the hillside where Claudianus's legions were camped.
Bringing only one guardsman with him could be seen as either prudence or an insult. Kronos hoped that Claudianus would interpret it as the latter.
*
The crowd of jeering, gawking soldiers parted before his horse. Kronos let Veit slip from the saddle to wind his way through the throng to the small clearing. There, two centurions stood guard over the specter from his recent past.
Qwara knelt in the dirt, straight-backed, defiant, clothing torn and her hands bound behind her back. When Kronos and Acestes pushed into the clearing, she looked up.
"Brother Hawk," she said, speaking the language of distant Persia. "I think little of these, your companions." She spat a glob of blood in Claudianus's direction. "I bring an important message from your honored elder brother."
Claudianus, the laughing fool, sat horse off to one side. Kronos looked to him and felt his fury rise.
"I might have guessed that your meddlesome catamite would have brought you word," the young idiot said lazily, nodding to Veit. "You should be grateful that I chose to verify her claim of bearing some supposed message to you. Given your importance to Darius, it wouldn't do to have someone slip a blade between your ribs one night."
A few men in the gathering laughed. Beside him, Acestes tensed; Kronos's own sword hand twitched. "Release her. Immediately."
"I think not," Claudianus said. "For all we know, she could be a spy."
"She is no spy." One deep breath and the lightnings rose to the surface of his skin. His horse moved restlessly beneath him and, instinctively, the men crowding him moved away. "I said release her now, Claudianus."
"And if I decline, *Accipitelle*?" he sneered. "After all, she has trespassed on my watch."
Kronos drew his sword in one smooth movement. "If you decline, young, fatherless whelp, then, Lutetia or no--Darius or no--you and I will settle this now. Forever."
Light shivered the length of his blade and, fool or no, Claudianus understood; Kronos did not make empty threats.
Demonstrating good sense, for once, he accepted the loss of face and nodded to his centurions. They immediately cut Qwara loose. She stood slowly, flexing her arms and wrists, shaking blood into numb, stiff limbs.
"Bring me her horse and her gear."
One of the men looked distressed. "But sir," he said to Claudianus, "we've already--"
Claudianus glared murderously at Kronos but raised his hand, cutting the man's reply short. "Do it. Now."
Kronos waited, ignoring the curses and arguments, while Claudianus's men frantically collected her gear; they'd already divided the spoils, of course. Acestes, calm and alert despite the resentful mood of the crowd, kept careful watch over the proceedings, tallying the gear with the list that Qwara relayed through Kronos.
As her saddled horse was led forward, Kronos directed Veit to help her don her armor and gather her weapons. When she was armored and mounted, he collected Veit again and only then, sheathed his sword.
"You have value to him, Claudianus, but not to me. Remember that," he told the youngster. "And never again interfere with a messenger who is on my business."
He whirled his horse and they cantered back to his encampment. The spot between his shoulder blades itched until they were well out of line of sight. Even then, he knew that one day, either soon or late, he and Claudianus would cross blades.
*
Qwara refused to yield the message until she had inspected every piece of her gear, had bathed, had had his quartermaster replace all of her ruined clothing, and had her hurts tended to by his surgeon. She'd also charmed Veit into bringing a light meal of fruit, cheese, and watered wine.
Meanwhile, Kronos paced, round and round his tent, chafing at the delay. Nearly out of patience, he busied himself at his map-table, while three of his bed slaves fussed and exclaimed over Qwara's exotic skin and hair, her battle scars, and the general novelty of a woman whose trade was war.
Clearly her message was not urgent, otherwise she would have shared it immediately; she was extracting payment for the harsh treatment at the hands of Claudianus. Justified, yes, but that fact only further increased his ire.
Finally, Kronos had had enough. "Leave us!" He slammed his fist on the table upsetting a stack of scrolls.
The three slaves looked up, startled, then slunk out of the tent, wary of his temper. Qwara was unimpressed. She sauntered over to his bed and sat cross-legged, squeezing water out of her braids with a scrap of towel.
"You have mastered patience since last we met, Brother Hawk," she said in Persian. Her broad smile leeched the words of any possible insult.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the table. "My mastery is still newly come."
She snorted. "That much is in evidence. Therefore, I will not test it further. As you have heard, Mattathias sent me with a message for you. It is here," she tapped her forehead, "as he would not commit it to parchment."
Interest piqued, Kronos hooked a stool with his foot and dragged it over to the bedside. He sat down and focussed his attention. "Tell me, then."
Qwara nodded once then began, speaking the tongue they'd first shared on the long trail from the steppes to the Dying Sea, a far distant kin to Persian, one unlikely to be known by eavesdroppers.
"Mattathias has followed your travels with the Lion of War with interest. He knows of the vow to take Lutetia Parisiorum."
Kronos tilted his head, eyes narrowed. "And?"
"He said that he has crossed paths with the Guardian of Lutetia more than once in his many years. He said that the Lion of War should be wary of this man. He set me to memorize this phrase. It is a language I do not know, but he assured me you would understand it. He said: Beware the Most Ancient and the Most Skilled. The one who drinks his lightning will be forever transformed."
He started to hear the guttural sounds of the first tongue that he and Methos had shared fall, no matter how heavily accented, from Qwara's lips.
So. The rumors were true.
Kronos rubbed his stubbled chin and considered; Qwara watched him carefully.
Amongst their kind, the Emrys, the Guardian of Lutetia, was reputed to be one of the eldest, if not the eldest. Certainly his lifeline stretched back at least as far as Methos's.
That he possessed Skill was no surprise. Given time, inclination, and practice, they all developed such talents. Even untrained, some could manage impressive feats; Kronos thought grimly of one of them, newly made, a devious sorceress who'd stabbed him and then fled into the desert. There were other such encounters in his lengthy past...Old Ones, who'd believed in this false Game, who'd forced him to fight, to take their heads...and who'd tormented him waking and sleeping, for years afterwards, with vile compulsions and visions.
But this Emrys, a man with untold thousands of years in which to train, to experiment, to achieve mastery...ah! This unpleasant confirmation cast the success of Darius's mission very much in doubt.
"Brother Hawk?" Qwara put her hand on his knee. "Do you understand? Have I repeated it correctly?"
"Yes," he said. "You have it exactly right. I understand." He shook off her hand and stood, restless and apprehensive. I understand. I simply do not know what to do about it.
*
The hour was late.
Rain drummed steadily on the pavilion overhead. It sluiced down the sides and rope-stays of the tent to churn the ground to mud. Outside, the two sentries stationed at the doorway stamped their feet and grumbled about the cold and wet.
Inside, however, was warm and dry. Several braziers had been lit and the rich carpets spread over the floor and hung upon the walls kept away the chill. It was a pavilion fit for a king, and king of Lutetia he would soon be if his advisors, their reports, and his own analyses held the smallest bit of truth.
But therein lay the crux of the matter, one which had kept him sleepless for several nights running.
Darius set aside his wine goblet and the map he'd been studying and massaged his temples. The oil lamps had burned low and the details of the map--troop positions, terrain, enemy fortifications--had grown dim and indistinct. He glanced over to his most senior field commander and advisor. Kronos lounged half-naked upon the furs and silks strewn over the divan, hands and mouth currently occupied with a lush, tawny slave dressed in naught but jewelry and scarves.
"So, what say you, Accipitelle?" Darius asked, leaning his chin against his laced fingers. "Do you still insist that--after all we've gained thus far, after all we stand to gain by taking the Lutetia Parisiorum--I should turn aside?"
Kronos continued to nibble on the slave's neck. "We have had this discussion before."
"Yes, and I wish to have it again," Darius said, with an edge to his voice.
Kronos growled and thrust the whore away. She coiled at the end of the couch and pouted; Kronos was unimpressed. "Go now," he said, pointing to one shadowy corner of the pavilion, where the other pleasure girls slept. The slave slunk off.
Kronos sat up and ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. With his hair so ruffled and his cold blue eyes glittering in the half-light, he was a spitting image of his namesake, the red hawk. "I have warned you again and again about these Old Ones, Darius."
"So you have," he said shortly.
"Then what is so difficult for you to understand?"
Darius slammed his fist on his desk. The goblet jumped and overturned. "I am the Leonanimus!"
One eyebrow raised, Kronos leaned back against the furs, like some barbarian prince who'd deigned stop by for a visit. "Heart of the Lion, yes. So you may be, Darius," he said, "But you are not as old as I am. You have not seen what I have seen."
"Tell me."
"I have told you--"
Darius struggled to rein in his temper. "Then tell me again."
Patiently, as if speaking to a child, Kronos said, "To take Lutetia, you must first take her Guardian, the Emrys. If you do not, his company will fight to the last man to preserve the city. His men are loyal to him unto death. It will be naught but slaughter."
Valued commander or no, the patronizing tone rankled. "The Emrys," he spat, "a man who has not lifted a sword in decades, to hear it told. Claudianus says--"
"Claudianus is a young fool." When Darius narrowed his eyes, Kronos held up his hand; Darius let him continue. "He has great talent with the blade and skill in war, yes, I know. How could he not, for you to accept him as your student, freshly-risen from the battlefield upon which you slew him." Kronos scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin and smiled thinly. "I have little quibble with regarding his command, as you know. He is rash, yes, in the way of our kind in their youth. Too willing to spend lives for too little gain. But, should he live to keep his head, a few centuries might teach him strategy. He shows promise."
Darius took a deep breath and let his anger drain away. He valued both men, Kronos and Claudianus, once known as Gaut, son of Grey. But they'd disliked one another on sight and took no pains to hide the fact. To hear Kronos credit the other man with being able to so much as piss in a pot was as astonishing as it was unsettling.
"But he is not Skilled, Darius," Kronos continued, "he believes this to be an ordinary Challenge between our kind. I assure you, it is not."
With a sigh, Darius leaned back in his chair, stroking his fingers over the intricate ivory inlay. "How can I believe this, my friend?" he asked softly. "What you have told me sounds, absurd, fantastical."
"As absurd as men who live forever?"
Darius snorted.
"If you do not trust my own counsel, then trust Mattathias, who sent me to you."
They sat in silence while Darius considered. He was old, but Kronos was older still, as was Mattathias. Neither man had yet played him false, in all their years as comrades. "So you have seen evidence of this 'Skill' with your own eyes," he said leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
"There was a witch once," Kronos began softly. "One of us. We killed her people, Mattathias gave her first death and took her as a slave. Trained her well, or so I thought." He sounded rueful. "One night, I took her for myself. Oh, and she had Skills, yes. Weak, but present nonetheless. She tried to cloud my mind and when I was distracted, she stabbed me with my own blade, and escaped."
"What do this have to do with--"
Kronos held up his hand. "Many years later, Mattathias encountered her student in Greece. She had perfected her art and taught him the Skill. He could weave an enchantment with his voice. Mattathias only escaped because he'd learned how centuries earlier from an old Egyptian. Another one of us."
"Can you do these things?"
"We all learn tricks over the years," Kronos said, eyes narrowed, "and like Mattathias, I have encountered others, men and women who could use their quickenings as weapons, or seed them with compulsions after death."
Darius frowned. "Compulsions?"
"Yes. As I have said before. Once, after taking the quickening of an Old One, I spent two years fighting the constant urge to fling myself off of very high cliffs. It is amusing now, but believe me, those two years were quite...unpleasant."
A chill crept down his spine and settled into his belly. "And you believe that this Emrys could..."
"Yes," Kronos answered shortly. "He is legend, Darius, the oldest of us living. Who knows what tricks he might possess?" Kronos rose and came to crouch before Darius's chair, one arm resting over his knees. "His sword is the very least of the things you should fear from him."
Startled, Darius placed one hand over the strong forearm on his thigh. He looked down at his advisor and friend.
"Each quickening transforms us, Darius," Kronos was saying. His voice was distant and blue eyes seemed to gaze into elsewhere, "Sometimes just a bit, other times...we are forever changed." Abruptly Kronos met his eyes with an intensity that stole his breath. "I like you as you are, my friend. I would not have you warped beyond my recognition."
Darius closed his eyes. "I cannot turn from this course, Accipitelle," he said.
A strong, calloused hand closed over his. "I know."
"I swore an oath: from the Urals to the Sea. Lutetia stands between me and where I must go."
"I know."
Darius took a deep breath. "Though I must ignore your counsel, will you still ride with me, my friend?"
When Kronos didn't reply, Darius opened his eyes.
His friend's scarred face was pale and stark with grief, but his voice was steady. "I will not abandon you," he said. "In the meantime, it is late. Come to bed. You must be rested if you are to be ready to face this next Challenge."
Darius rolled up the maps and scrolls and allowed himself to be led to one of the divans. Kronos pushed him down, helped him remove his boots, then covered him with the furs. After quenching the lamps, Kronos joined him, crowding close beneath the bedclothes.
"Two days from now, we will arrive at Lutetia," Darius said into the darkness. "In that time, can you teach me to guard my quickening?"
They lay a long time in silence, long enough that the rain had thinned to trickle and the guards had changed.
"I can do naught but try," Kronos said finally.
Though the furs were warm and nearness of the other man was comforting, Darius still heard the words his friend refused to speak aloud: "I can do naught but try, though I know you shall fail."
"But I am the Leonanimus," he thought silently, "None can conquer me!"
Nonetheless, he shivered. And when it came, he welcomed the warming touch of his friend's hands as they slid along his inner thigh and up, beneath his tunic.
Accipitelle: Little Hawk.
*
The ground was churned to bloody muck by the feet of thousands of men, horses, and the treads of war machines. The uncertain footing, however, was the least of his concerns.
Squinting into the sunrise, Kronos sat his well-armored horse at the edge of the clearing, seventy-five paces from the disaster yet to come.
As he had predicted, the Emrys would not yield the city.
For nearly five days they'd fought. The fields and forests surrounding the city were thick with rotting corpses, clotted pools of blood, and men dying of festering wounds. Still the Emrys would not yield.
"Nearly a thousand of his men are dead, was have cut their supply lines, the city is besieged and still this fool refuses to see sense," Darius had snarled the night before.
Kronos had said nothing. He'd merely wiped the grime from his helm, wearily poured wine into a dented silver goblet, then passed it over to his friend. They'd had this particular discussion before.
Claudianus glowered at them both from the other side of the map table. "He hides behind his men like a timid maiden before her bride bed. I say you call him out, Darius. He is one of us. Face him, one to one, and take his head. One stroke," he savagely mimed the cut, "and Lutetia is ours."
Ours.
Kronos snorted aloud. Had he ever been so young, so greedy, so incredibly dense?
No, he'd been a warleader in his own right by the time the lightnings had snatched him from his people. And later, he and Methos had been kings, gods! He had never begged for scraps, not even during his brief time as a slave. Always he had taken what he'd wanted, when he had wanted it, and gods and demons help those who stood in his way!
"A Challenge may not aid us here, Claudianus," Darius said.
But in the way of all young beasts, the yapping pup believed that he knew best. "A Challenge would end this," he snapped, chin jutting with belligerence. "Have you grown weak, too, Darius, to shrink from battle with a man who hasn't lifted a sword in centuries?"
Darius had looked to him but Kronos had already said what needed saying. "I have rounds to make," he'd claimed, then turned and left the pavilion.
In the early hours before dawn, Darius had come to him, dressed for battle, the ancient broadsword gleaming at his hip. Kronos had blinked hard to clear his vision of the knowledge of what was to come.
Would he never cease to lose those he loved best to the white flash, crack, and growl of the lightnings' insatiable hunger?
"How ever this ends, I am glad that Mattathias sent me word of you, my Accipitelle," Darius said, taking Kronos's forearm in a warrior's clasp. "I am glad that you joined me."
He gripped his friend's forearm tightly in return. "As am I, Darius Leonanimus. I do not regret a moment of it."
Darius smiled, and then, for a single moment, uncertainty flickered across his face. "My friend. If it should come to pass that--"
Unwilling to hear the words spoken aloud, Kronos held up his hand. "If it should come to pass, then I will see to what comes after. I swear it."
Darius nodded gravely, then he was gone.
Now, in the gray light of the new day, the Emrys and the Leonanimus stood face to face, swords drawn. Rare though the practice had become over the centuries, two opposing commanders could still decide the fate of a war in single combat.
The Emrys--the Most Ancient One--looked little more than a youth, barely grown into his beard. Slender, without armor, dressed in a simple black linen tunic and trousers and boots. His sword was in good repair, though of an unfamiliar design; it was nearly as long as he was tall. A boy playing at war with his father's sword.
By contrast, Darius was the very image of a conquering war leader. Well-worn armor, polished insignias of office, a head taller than the Emrys and half-again as heavy.
The legions--who were situated well back from the contest outside the city walls--jeered at the Emrys, drowning out the cries of support from his retinue. Nearby, Claudianus shook his mailed fist and shouted, "Death to the Guardian, Lutetia is ours!"
But Kronos was too old to be fooled by appearances. Even at a distance, he could taste the Emrys's power. And the fist clenched in his gut, the ripple of goose-flesh over his arms and legs, the scent of lightning and the distant snarl of thunder all warned him of disaster soon to come.
To his left, Acestes, sat his horse, steadfast and watchful. Kronos leaned toward him. "Is everything ready?"
Acestes nodded. "Yes, Legatus. It is as you commanded." Though there was a clear question in his eyes: "But why have you asked this of me?"
Kronos smiled thinly with satisfaction. Confused or not, Acestes would follow his orders to the letter; it would have to be enough. He turned his attention to the drama unfolding within the circle.
The two men stood close to one another, but despite the catcalls and shouts of encouragement, there was none of the usual posturing and sneering that accompanied a Challenge. Rather, they conversed, almost politely, in an old dialect of the nomadic Goths.
"This is not necessary, you realize," the Emrys said.
"I am honor-bound. I have made a vow."
"Yes. I have made, and broken, many vows in my life, Darius. As you may do now. You need only to gather your legions and go."
"You know I cannot."
The Emrys looked thoughtful, a strange, wizened expression for one so young of face. "Did you realize that I knew your first teacher? Ahasuerus the Parthian. I know that he taught you all that he knew of war, and of philosophy."
Darius visibly tensed. "He did."
"Do you recall his first lesson in warfare? The most important factor to determine, before lifting a sword, nocking an arrow, or raising ones axe or ones fist?"
That question did not sit well with his friend, though he answered it. "He taught that you should never start a battle that you cannot win."
"Just so," said the Emrys. "Walk away now, Darius and you will live."
"You are no match for me," Darius said. To Kronos's ears, his scorn sounded forced. "Your sword skills have grown rusty, you know that I will beat you down."
"Perhaps. But I have lived a long, long time. Long enough that you are but a babe to me. And I say, you will not win this war. You may strike me dead, but you can not escape unscathed. You will not take Lutetia and you will not survive this day," he said, placing a strange emphasis on the word. "There are more ways to win than by the sword, Darius."
Darius laughed outright, though Kronos could hear the tenor of fear beneath it. "You've gone senile in your old age, Emrys. You have lived too long. I will take your head. I will take Lutetia. And then, I will spit on your grave!"
The Emrys smiled sadly. "So be it," he said.
Then it began.
In the circle, the two men bowed formally to one another, touched blades briefly, then stepped back and struck fighting stances.
The graceful dance of steel that followed defied easy description.
Perhaps a poet might have rendered into words the skree of clashing blades, the fleetness of foot, the leap, block, dodge and strike that formed the outer shape of combat. A bard might have fashioned a song that captured the thrumming of the heart and blood, the bright clarity of vision, the inhale-exhale, rhythmic fury and calm that was the inner essence of the dance.
Kronos was neither. For once, he could not perceive the beauty in the flash of blades, the grunts and gasps of the combatants, the crimson spatter upon the rich black mud. Instead, his vision was consumed with the victory that would not be, that Methos and the Emrys had foretold. He was consumed with fury that the unspoken laws of this time, of honor between men had made Darius deaf to the truth. He knew only of the wintry grief of what would come, what must come upon the final stroke.
So he waited, body relaxed and loose, for that moment to arrive.
"Yield now, Darius," the Emrys panted. His face was red and sweaty and his sword dipped towards the ground.
"I will not yield. I do not know how to yield," Darius shouted.
The tip of the Emrys's odd sword touched the ground. His guard was fully open, there was better moment to strike.
"No, you do not. But you will learn," the Emrys said, smiling.
In the next instant, Darius stepped in close and struck the killing blow.
...The inevitable whirr and thunk of a blade striking flesh, bone, continuing the arc in a spray of blood and fluids. The whisper of cloth as the body fell, the curious *pfft* as it sprawled bonelessly. The separate, muted thud of the head hitting soft earth...
Kronos held his breath. The roar of the crowd drained away, into the void, like water from a cracked cistern.
Silence.
He'd heard it said that a man's mind lived on for moments after a beheading. What thoughts might such a shortened man think in those awful seconds?
Across the clearing, Darius met his eyes. Kronos saw no triumph there, only fury and abject terror.
Then a mist rose up from the body, indistinguishable, at first, from the usual morning fog, except to those few in the company who knew enough what would soon occur.
The mist rose and thickened. It brightened overhead and flickers of lightning limned breastplates and helms, here and there; the amassed crowd muttered with dismay.
"Be ready," Kronos ordered Acestes. "Stand fast, hold your horse, and be ready."
Acestes wildly looked a question at him but tightened his hands on the reins.
A sudden, fierce wind swept through the clearing, ripping the banners from their poles, whipping battlefield trash into a frenzy, as the glowing mist stretched skywards, up and up, until it hovered above them, like a mighty hammer wielded by the fist of a god, poised to fall.
Kronos thought he heard voices, a cacophony of all the world's tongues spoken at once. He shielded his eyes against the glare and it was as if he saw a face in the roiling clouds, a kindly yet wrathful face, neither young nor old. His heart was squeezed in a vise, he couldn't breathe. He felt a strange sense of peace, of...of all ridiculous things, he felt love wash through him, calling forth ancient, long set aside memories of laughter, of spring, of fire-light and tales, of a lover's touch, of the sharp-fierce-exultant joy of holding his newborn son aloft. He saw his friend standing alone in the clearing, legs braced apart, blood dripping from his blade, gazing upward with an expression of awe and dread, as if he'd looked upon the face of a god.
One breath, two.
Then the hammer descended. The lightnings struck. The world dissolved into chaos.
Even their most well-seasoned and disciplined officers and soldiers broke ranks and fled. Horses screamed, their eyes showing white; they plunged, throwing their riders, trampling them underfoot.
"Legatus!" Acestes shouted, struggling to hold his horse steady. "What is this sorcery?"
Kronos forcibly shook his head clear. "Stand firm!" He yelled back, thankful that he rode the yellow gelding this day, Methos's gift, a horse who'd witnessed his fair share of quickenings, though none as terrible as this. "Be ready to shield me when I give the word!"
Darius was on his knees, screaming as the brightness poured into him.
Across the clearing, Claudianus mastered his bucking horse and foolishly galloped towards Darius. A fiery tongue of lightning arced away from the column of brightness. It struck his chest and flung him from the saddle to lie in the mud, stunned or dead. His terrified horse fled alone.
"Wait for it," Kronos muttered to himself. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it...
"Legatus!"
"Wait for it, damn your eyes!"
He counted over a thousand heartbeats and still it did not end.
Could any one man hope to withstand such ferocity, such focussed wrathful intent? Could any one man hope to contain the immensity of age and power that streamed downward from the heavens, like a torrent of starlight, seemingly without end?
All around him, the field seethed and surged with confused men and animals. But their terrified screams could scarcely be heard above the white-hot fury of the quickening.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the light and sound was extinguished.
Darius collapsed and lay still, face down in the mud.
"Now!" Kronos shouted and put heels to his horse. Acestes followed him a split second later.
They arrived at Darius's side; the charred and headless corpse of the Emrys had been flung a goodly distance away. Claudianus lay twitching nearby.
Kronos threw himself from his horse and knelt beside his friend and turned him on his back, scrabbling through mud and clotting blood for a pulse. He felt none. Live, damn you! he wanted to shout, but Acestes was near. He settled for pounding Darius's chest with his fist and cracking him sharply across the face.
Acestes leaned close. "Legatus, is he...is he dead?"
"No, merely stunned."
"Are you certain?" his guardsman said doubtfully. "His lips are blue, he's not breathing..."
"Yes, I am certain," he snapped, willing his friend to breathe, to awaken, to prove his and Methos's speculations false with a sneer and a curse, to do anything other than lie pale, limp, and bloody under his hands.
But, he heard nothing, felt nothing...except the thunder of hooves and outraged shouts as the few riders, friend and foe, who'd kept their wits and had managed to stay horsed, bore down, through the crowd, upon the two fallen champions. Damn it all!
"The Emrys is dead, the city is ours!"
"The Leonanimus has fallen!"
"Foul trickery and sorcery, the Legatus has killed Darius Leonanimus!"
"Acestes, shield me now," Kronos said, and continued to pound on Darius's chest.
"It's no good, sir, he's gone. As is the Legatus Claudianus, I think...Aiee!" Acestes leapt back as Darius's eyes opened suddenly; he inhaled once, then hacked up great gouts of blood.
"I said guard our backs, damn you!"
Kronos turned Darius to his side and whacked his back to help him expel more of the blood. When he had finished hacking up clots, Kronos took Darius head in his hands and stared down into his friend's eyes. "Darius. Can you hear me?" he said. Then, he leaned close and said, in a voice pitched for their ears alone, "Do you know me?"
Darius blinked slowly.
"Darius?" The stranger behind those familiar eyes said softly. "Who is this Darius?"
The hair rose on the back of his neck; Kronos felt cold and sick. From their short years together, he knew the crackle of Darius's quickening against his very well. The man who had awakened was not his Darius.
And he could not risk trying to reestablish order amongst their frightened men while Darius was not...himself. Assuming that he would ever be himself again.
Damn! Kronos struck his thigh with his fist and fought not to scream his rage at the morning sky. Once again, the lightnings had stripped him of both friend and choice.
Arrows began to rain down upon them. A drizzle at first, followed by a light shower. Apparently recovered from his shock, Acestes raised his shield to cover them both. "Legatus, we must hurry, they're nearly upon us!"
Kronos didn't reply. He focussed on heaving Darius's larger, uncoordinated, and passively resisting, body off the ground and up, over his saddle bow.
Darius struggled weakly. "Who are you? What are you doing? Let go of me!"
"I'm saving your life, you idiot!" Whoever the hell you are.
Darius subsided when Kronos knocked him out again with a crack to the back of his head with the pommel of his knife. He lashed Darius's body to the saddle, then swung up behind him. "Acestes, mount up."
Acestes shifted his arm to shield himself and wheeled his horse about, then they rode.
Kronos touched Darius's bloodied hair lightly, then drew his sword as he encountered the first of the enraged men who rode to intercept them.
He had remounts up ahead, just beyond the bridge, and fifty men--loyal to him alone--less than two milia passuum to the east. Qwara and Veit awaited his arrival three days hence. If momentum and unwavering purpose could get them through this unruly rabble--bruised and bleeding mayhap--but mostly unharmed, then he might have time and space to cheat the lightnings.
Lutetia might never be taken; Claudianus, the foolish whelp, might revive and choose to dog his steps until the end of days; Darius might curse his name forever.
But his friend might yet come back to himself.
Kronos leaned down and hacked his attacker's head from his shoulders; he smiled through the sudden spray of blood across his lips.
Accipiter: hawk.
Finis.