Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (15 page)

"Far be it from me, Filia, to tell you what to do with your own wealth, but if I were you I would ask Lord Quirian if you can store your holdings in his vault - I am sure that he has one - for the time being. One can hardly keep five hundred eternals under the bed."

Miranda nodded. "I probably shall. I think that is where he is storing my wages in any case."

"Filia, I would like to ask you about something you said earlier," Major Skleros said, cutting in. "You said the poison they used on his Lordship was used by the Crimson Rose?"

"That is correct," Miranda replied. "To my knowledge they used it to assassinate the praetor last year, and the proconsul before this one four years ago. Including Lord Manzikes, I have treated three victims of it."

"Why in the Empire would the Crimson Rose want to murder Lord Manzikes?" Lord Commenae asked. "They've not struck outside of Corona Province since the Revolt of the Covenant ended."

"Major Commenae," Dux Nikephorus said. "This is not a matter to be discussed in front of...outsiders."

Miranda smiled thinly. "Don't mind me, gentlemen, I'll leave you to your plotting. I'm sure I can find my own way out."

The Lord Commenae said, "But before that, Filia Miranda, one more thing: you have seen this poison before, how is it usually administered? Food? Drink?"

"Not drink certainly, it is too thick and dark, it would be seen," Miranda replied. "Food...it might be disguised in a particularly thick broth, or perhaps a sauce on meat; but in both the victims I treated prior to Lord Manzikes the method was a poisoned blade. The victims were scratched with a very slender weapon, on the hand or leg, while in a crowded space. Neither spotted their assailant and, at the time, neither really noticed the injury."

"I see," the Lord Commenae said. "Thank you, Filia."

"Aye, thank you," Major Skleros said. "Now, if you'll excuse us, your work is done but ours remains to do. Sergeant Abraham! Get a couple of skivvies up here with mops and buckets to clean that pile of shit off the floor in his lordship's room. And have that soup brought up here on the double, he's awake and most likely hungry too. So tell Syphax to start working on something more solid to follow. Lucius! Go through his lordship's wardrobe and find him something to wear, then look through the rest of his clothes and see if you can see any tears in it. Levi! Make sure the bath is at a decent temperature, his lordship might want a wash."

He kept giving such orders until Miranda was out of earshot, whereupon she saw him turn back into a huddle with Dux Nikephorus and the Lord Commenae.
Miranda made no effort to overhear them as she walked as swiftly as she could down the steps and back into the hallway. Octavia drew level with her.

"What are they talking about?" she asked.

"They fear that Prince Antiochus, or someone at the palace at least, tried to murder Lord Manzikes," Miranda said. "Hence I am eager to go before they must kidnap me to keep their secrets."

"But Lord Father says that the prince is a force for stability against the dukes," Octavia said.

"And it is quite possible that one of Lord Manzikes' subordinates tried to murder him to take his position," Miranda muttered. "Perhaps even Dux Nikephorus himself, and this pretence of paternal concern is all an elaborate charade. However that is none of my business really, I have made Lord Manzikes and that is the extent of my involvement.

At that moment there was an explosion, like someone had dropped a flaming touch into a vat of wine, accompanied by a crescendo of screams of pain and agony.

"To arms!" Miranda heard someone yelling in the courtyard. "Seventh Legion to arms! Stand fast!"

A snare drum began to beat a rapid tatoo outside, and Miranda was buffeted by soldiers pushing past her to get outside like a ship caught in a storm, tossed on the waves this way and that. It was only because Octavia grabbed hold of her and half picked her up that she did not fall over and get trampled by the men of the seventh who rushed outside to confront whatever menace awaited them. Some pulled on their helmets as they ran, others buckled their swords onto their waists. Some had no shields, some had no armour. Yet they all ran out.

Through the doorway, which they flung open in their headlong rush, Miranda could see that a section of the courtyard wall enclosing the Manzikes' house had been smashed down, as if by a siege engine, though no such weapon was in evidence. Around the breach, and in the gateway, lay mounds of bodies: the men who had guarded the gate, and those of Lord Quirian's Lost who had escorted Miranda to this place. Their limbs had been severed, or worse perhaps, though it was hard to tell at a distance. And in the midst of the carnage, his sandals and feet stained with blood, stood man draped in a black cloak, hiding his face behind a hood and a mask, holding a sword in one hand and a curved knife in the other, both weapons already bloody and dripping. All that was visible beneath his hood was a pair of bright blue eyes, glowing like fire.

He stared with those bright eyes at the soldiers rushing to confront him as if their numbers dismayed him not at all. On the contrary, it was the men of the Seventh who seemed dismayed by what one man had already done.

But then Major Skleros was amongst them, forcing his way through the troops to stand at their head, his red cloak rustling in the breeze; his voice was as loud as a trumpet call, cutting through fear and doubt and uncertainty, rallying men to arms, even to face death.

"Seventh Legion!" he screamed so loud they probably heard him on the other side of the city at least. "Seventh Legion will form into line five ranks by company! Shields to the front, archers to the rear, and the next man I see falter will answer to me! Fall in! Valiant and Victorious!"

"Valiant and Victorious!" the men yelled, as roused from their stupour they rushed to form a sturdy line, barring the hooded intruder's way any closer to the house of Lord Manzikes. The men at the front locked their shields, the archers knocked arrows to their strings, those who had spears prepared to throw them.

"I don't know who you are," Narses said, gesturing at the intruder. "But you'll get no further. I demand that you surrender in the name of the Empress."

"Who am I?" the hooded man replied. "I am...I am justice! And I have come for Tiberius Manzikes at long last. Let him come out, or let him hide, either way he shall pay for his sins."

"You'll have to get past me first," Narses growled, drawing his sword.

"I'm very glad you said that, Major Skleros," the hooded man said as he began to advance upon the Seventh's battle line.

"Archers!" Narses shouted. "Commence volley fire by line: loose!"

The first arrows rose into the sky as the hooded man began to run.

Miranda felt herself jerked upwards as Octavia lifted her up and began to carry her at a brisk run out of sight of the fighting and into the recesses of the Manzikes' house.

"Octavia, what are you doing?" Miranda demanded.

"What I swore to Lord Father that I'd do," Octavia said. "I'm the last of the Lost, I have to keep you safe."

Miranda could see nothing now, but she could still hear the angry shouts, the screams of pain, the curses, the clashing sound of weapons that she knew so well from all her days at the arena, watching Michael and praying that today was not the today his luck ran out.

Whose luck is running out today, as blood is spilled on stone instead of sand? How many of those men out there have sisters who will weep over their bodies?

How can one man deal so much death.

Octavia opened the door to a broom cupboard and threw Miranda bodily inside of it. Miranda cried out as she struck the wall and brooms and mops half fell on her.

"Be quiet," Octavia hissed. "Stay here. Whatever happens I'll protect you, I promise."

"What are-" Miranda had time to say before Octavia slammed the door on her.

And then all Miranda could do was listen to the sounds of fighting raging outside. The sounds of fighting, and the sounds of screaming.

Nothing she heard really told her what was going on, unless the continued sounds of battle told her that Major Skleros and his men had not yet stopped the hooded intruder.
One man against hundreds, how is it possible?
There were more explosions, more howls of agony, more cries of anger. Someone, many someones, howled like wolves on the hunt, but many of those howls were cut off before they could finish.

She heard footsteps on the floor of the house, heavy footsteps but moving at speed. Miranda heard a woman scream, a man roar in fury, then another scream, longer than the first, turning into a wail of horror and grief.

Then there was more running, more fighting, but the sounds were diminished now, reduced from a battle to a mere skirmish.

And then there was nothing but the moaning.

"Octavia," Miranda whispered. "Octavia, are you there?"
Please, God, protect her
, she prayed, who found it hard to bend herself to pray for anything.
Please keep her safe, and I'll even start going to temple again.

"Miranda?" Octavia asked, her voice quiet. "I'm going to open the door now. Don't be afraid."

Octavia opened the door. Her eyes...there was a hollowness in her eyes, and lines beneath them as if she had suddenly become very old and very tired all in the space of a few minutes. Miranda guessed that she had never seen death before. She had looked like that, the first time she had seen a man die in the arena. She had spent hours trying to understand how everyone else had enjoyed the day out so much and she had felt only revolted inside.

"Is it over?" Miranda asked.

Octavia nodded.

Miranda pushed herself off the wall and leaned upon her cane as she hobbled out of the cupboard. "Then my work has just begun."

She hobbled into the corridor, the smell of blood assailing her nostrils. She glanced at Octavia. "I'm glad that you're all right."

Octavia shook her head. "He never went anywhere near me. It's like he knew where he was going."

"Very probably he did," Miranda muttered.

The first men she passed were dead, and beyond help, she could tell that at a glance. It was not until she reached the front doorway that she came across Major Skleros slumped there, leaning against the doorframe, his face pale and his breathing shallow, but still alive. His sword was broken in his lap, and his right arm had been cut off above the elbow. The ground around him was a mess of blood that trailed out into the courtyard. It looked as if he had tried to fight on even without an arm, which no doubt lay somewhere out there in the mass of dead and wounded men, amongst whom the living shuffled aimlessly as though they were the ghosts in the shadowlands and not the living men who had been fortunate enough to escape.

"Major Skleros?" Miranda murmured, ignoring her own petty pain to crouch down beside him. "Major Skleros, I need you to fight for me, can you hear me? You're a soldier, you should be able to fight for life, shouldn't you? Someone find me Major Skleros' arm!" she bellowed out the door at the surviving soldiers. "And start separating the wounded from the dead so I can treat them."

Narses' eyes snapped open as he grabbed her shoulder tight with his left hand. "His Lordship!" he gasped, his breath ragged, but his eyes burning as intensely as ever, seeming more so in fact against the pallor of his skin. "Save His Lordship!"

"But you-"

"Go!" Narses snarled into her face. His head lolled a little, his eyes began to water; whether it was pain or grief that brought it on Miranda could not have said. "Go," he pleaded. "Save him."

Miranda nodded, and started up the stairs as swiftly as she could. A few dead men lay there, slaves by the look of them, not soldiers. All the soldiers had perished trying to stop the hooded man from getting in the house, it seemed.

She found the Lord Commenae on the landing, leaning against the bannister overlooking the hall. The intruder had sliced through his glittering coat of scales like was nought but cloth, and his insides were spilling out over his legs. Behind her, Miranda heard Octavia retching. Lady Commenae lay not far from her husband, with what looked like a stab wound in her back. Her hand, gentle, pale and delicate, lay outstretched, the tips of her fingers touching her husband's palm.

"Don't go, Anna," the Lord Commenae murmured. "The children need you."

"No child will be made motherless today if I can help it," Miranda growled, throwing herself to the ground beside the stricken patricians and summoning her magic. She confirmed that the Lady Commenae yet lived, if only just, and bent her magic bucking and protesting to the task of saving her.

It started with the Lady Commenae, but it did not end when the wound in her back was stitched shut and she began to breathe more steadily. It did not end when she and Octavia pushed the Lord Commenae's guts back into his stomach before Miranda used her magic to place everything back where it should have gone - her powers may have been ethereal, but she had grounded them in hard knowledge acquired from dissecting the bodies of executed criminals, and she considered she knew as much of the anatomy as any physician of comparable experience - and seal him up before Octavia started to throw up.

Some she could restore almost completely: someone had found Major Skleros' arm, and though he screamed as Miranda reattached it he would have two hands again when all was said and done. Dux Nikephorus was not so fortunate, his leg had been blown apart, there was nothing left of it but blood and drops of flesh. He would never stand on his own feet again.