The Ten Thousand(5)

Rictus staggered, straightened, and slowly rose to his feet. He stared at the death of his city, the red bloom of its fall now beginning to light the darkening sky. Such things happened perhaps once in a generation. He had merely been unlucky, he and all his comrades.

“I say,” he said quietly, “that it took not one, nor two, but three cities in alliance to bring us to this. Without the men of Bas Mathon, and Caralis, you would have been chased clear off the field.”

“Bastard!” and Broken-nose raised his spear. Remion took one step forward, so that he was between them. His eyes did not shift from the sights in the valley below. “The boy speaks the truth,” he said. “The Iscans bested us. Had it not been for the arrival of our allies, it would be Gan Burian burning now.”

Ogio, he of the swollen, punctured face, spoke up. “The Iscans began it. They reap what they have sown.”

“Yes,” Remion said. “They have earned this.” He turned to regard Rictus squarely. “You Iscans put yourselves apart, drilled like mercenaries, made war in the same way others planted the vine and the olive. You made it your business, and became better at it than we. But you forgot something.” Remion leaned closer, so that Rictus was washed by the garlic of his breath. “We are all the same, in the end, all of us. In this world, there are the Kufr, and the Macht. You and I are of the same blood, with the same iron in our veins. We are brothers in our flesh. But forgetting this, you chose to take war—which is a natural thing—to an unnatural end. You sought to enslave my city.”

He straightened. “The extinction of a city is a sin in the eyes of God. A blasphemy. We will be forgiven for it only because it was forced upon us. Look upon Isca, boy. This is God’s punishment for your crime. For seeking to make slaves of your own people.”

Up into the sky the red light of the sack reached, vying with the sunset, merging with it so that it seemed to be all one, the burning city, the dying day, the loom of the white mountains all around, stark peaks blackening with shadow. The end of the world, it seemed. And for Rictus, it was. The end of the life he had known before. For a moment, he was a boy indeed, and he had to blink his stinging eyes to keep the tears from falling.

Broken-nose hoisted his shield up so that the hollow of it rested on his shoulder. “I’m off. If we don’t shift ourselves the prettiest women will all be taken.” He grinned, for a moment becoming almost a likeable man, someone who would stand by his friends, share his wine. “Come, Remion; leave that big ox harnessed here for the wolves. What say you to a scarlet night? We’ll drink each cup to the lees, and rest our heads on something softer than this frozen ground.”

Remion smiled. “You go on, you and Ogio. I will catch you up presently. I have one last business to attend to.”

“You want help?” Ogio asked. His misshapen face leered with hatred as he peered at Rictus.

“Go get the carnifex to look at that hole,” Remion said. “I can attend to this on my own.”

The other two Burians looked at one another and shrugged. They set off, sandals pattering on the cold ground, Rictus’s helm dangling from one of their belts. Down the hillside, following the hardened mud of the road, into the roar and glow of the valley below where they would find recompense for their long day’s trouble.

With a sigh, Remion set down the heavy bronze-faced shield, then laid his spear on the ground. His helm, a light, leather bowl, he left dangling at his waist. From the look of it, he had eaten broth out of it that morning. He took his knife and thumbed the edge.

Rictus raised his head, exposing his throat.

“Don’t be a damned fool,” Remion snapped. He cut the bindings from Rictus’s wrists, and slid the spear-shaft free of his elbows. Rictus gasped with pain. His hands flooded with fire. He sat back on the ground, air whistling through his teeth, white agony, a feeling to match the sights of the evening.

They sat side by side, the grizzled veteran and the big-boned youth, and watched the dramas below.

“I remember Arienus, when it went up, twenty, twenty-five years ago,” Remion said. “I was a fighting man then, selling my spear for a living, with mercenary scarlet on my back instead of farmer’s felt. I got two women out of the sack and some coin, a horse, and a mule. I thought I had climbed the pig’s back.” He smiled, Isca’s burning lit tiny yellow worms in his eyes.

“I married one of the girls; the other I gave to my brother. The horse bought me citizenship and a taenon of hill-land. I became a Burian, put aside the red cloak. I had—I had a son, daughters. The blessings of life. I had heart’s desire.”