Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (5 page)

"And what did Sarah Doraeus take from you, that she stood under a fate of death?" Michael roared. "Did one of you kill her? Do you know who did? Was this not her home too? Was she not Coronim enough to deserve a share in the world you hope to make?"

"Anyone who is not a friend of the Crimson Rose is a friend of the Empire by their apathy," the Voice of Corona replied. "When the status quo is tyranny, there can be no neutral ground. Those who support the Empire must be taught that there is no place for treachery in this land."
              "As my mother was taught?"

"Your mother slighted patriots and spat in the face of our noble cause," the Voice said. "Her transgression could not go unpunished. I mourn the death of every son and daughter of Corona. I mourn your mother and Mater Doraeus and all who have died this day and before, but this nation must be washed clean in blood ere it can be renewed. When Corona is reborn history will record the Crimson Rose did what it must."

"Only those who have no honour say that they do what they must, using harsh circumstance to disguise their lack of principle," Michael said. "What of these people here? If I join you, will they be spared? Or will they be used to wash this country clean?"

"I do not think you would believe me if I guaranteed their safety," the Voice said. "And if you caught me in the lie you would turn on me, would you not?"

"Without hesitation."

"Do you think these feeble folk care for the life of a slave?" the Voice asked. "You are but an object in their eyes."

"Then I am an object, as all slaves are; and what right do objects have to set the value of themselves?" Michael said. "As well expect the broom to say it is too good to sweep the floor. And as I am an object, then I think I am an object sharp enough to do you injury if you come closer." He drew himself up proudly, setting himself square in the broken doorway. "Here is my station, lodge me from it if you can."

"You leave me no choice," the Voice of Corona boomed, pointing at Michael with a grand gesture. "Take him! Kill the rest!"

The Crimson Rose surged up the steps with a great roar, weapons held before them. Their column of hoplites had been shattered in Michael's charge, and so it was the great mass of unwashed rebels who met him now with short swords, knives and clubs; with fishing spears, tridents and boathooks.

"If any pass me," Michael murmured to Wyrrin, who stood at his back. "It will be your charge to see they go no further."

"They shall die once they meet me," Wyrrin replied.

The rebels charged for the temple doors, screaming and shouting like barbarians, and inside the temple the women wept and the children cried to hear the screaming. Michael did not fear the onrushing horde. He feared nothing now, for everything that he could lose he had already lost save only his life, and he cared nothing for that. He would not let them pass. He would spare other families the pain of grief, the tears of bereavement, the anger of mothers, brothers, sisters slain. He would protect them all. That was a man's duty, a warrior's duty; and if he had but played at being those before he would live as such now, in the moments before life fled.

The rabble of the enemy reached him, and in the first moment of the battle Michael cut down two men. More followed. Michael did not move as their blades reached for him; bound to guard the doors as he was he could not dance with blades in hand as he had trained to do, but in truth he might not have done so anyway. He made no attempt to defend himself against such multitudes as assailed him but merely hacked at them in his fury, seeking to slay so many that the rest would flee.

Come cowards, come dogs, come murderers and rebels all, and I will pay back all my hurts upon you.
Michael's battle madness was upon him, and he felt like screaming in delirium as the Crimson Rose fell before his blades. Their blades wounded him, their weapons scarring his arms and body and leaving him bleeding in a half dozen places or more, but Michael only laughed in their faces and added yet more libations to Miranda's funeral offerings. He was a lion on the high plains, and the lion did not fear the jackals no matter how numerous, even if they pulled him down they would not smell his fear or pain.

A spear pierced his shoulder, but Michael cut down the man who bore it. A sword blow cut him at the hip but Michael stayed standing and slew that foe as well. He was Turoth's wrath incarnate, and though the people in the temple wailed in terror no rebel passed Michael's guard to trouble them.

Like the tide, the press of fighters of the Crimson Rose began to ebb backwards, first in a trickle and then in a flow that left the dais around Michael choked with their dead. And yet there were still so many of them remaining.

"Your persistence is admirable, your skill with the sword less so in present circumstances," the Voice of Corona said.

Michael breathed deeply, weariness that could be ignored in battle demanded attention during the respite. "You could never welcome as an ally one so stained in the blood of your followers, could you?"

"You underestimate me," the Voice said. "I would ally with the worst monster in Corona's history to free Corona from the Empire's chains."

"Then I would feel sorry for your men, did I not despise them so," Michael said.

The Voice chuckled. "You will learn better. Rachael, the time has come!"

The supporters of the Crimson Rose parted for Rachael of Simonheyr, she who had slain Magdalene in their arena bout. Her leather cuirass was black as the night, black as the sins of the Crimson Rose, and in her hands she bore a bow, with an arrow upon the string. As Michael watched, she drew back the bow and aimed at him.

Michael scowled. "Are you so lost to honour that you will shoot me down like a hare in the hunt?"

"Will you surrender?" the Voice asked.

"Never."

Rachael loosed her shaft. The arrow struck Michael in the leg, just above the knee, and he cried out as his leg buckled beneath him. He had been shot before, but while he had been accustomed to the cuts of swords, every arrow wound was as fresh and painful as the first: the pain of the puncture, the pain of the bone, the pain of the hooks dug into his flesh, worse than any sword or spear could achieve. Michael's hands shook as he fought to keep hold of his blades.

"One way or another, Michael, you are coming with us," the Voice declared. "The only question is how much healing you will require in our camp."

Michael gritted his teeth and grunted with the pain and effort that it took him to rise to his feet, slowly like a mountain emerging out of the ocean at the command of God.

"You fool," the Voice cried. "Rachael, again!"

Rachael smirked as she loosed another black dart at Michael, piercing his shoulder and sending him reeling backwards. He rested against the temple wall, dropping his sabre as the strength left his arm. He gasped deeply for breath, feeling the beating of his heart as blood stained his chest and stomach.

Rachael placed another shaft upon her bowstring.

"No!" Wyrrin yelled as he dashed out of the temple, making a flying leap off the top of the temple steps, a leap that carried him square towards Rachael, descending on her like some ancient spirit of revengement as primal as his fire drake race. Rachael's eyes widened in shock as she loosed her shaft upon him. The arrow struck Wyrrin in his lithe chest and he cried out, but his progress through the air did not cease or falter. Rachael dropped her bow and reached for her knife. Wyrrin was on her before she could draw. The sickle-claw on his toe scythed down, burying itself in Rachael's gut. Rachael screamed. Wyrrin used his grip to steady himself as he placed his black swords upon Rachael's neck and in smoothe strokes cut off her head.

Wyrrin's claws were still buried in Rachael's stomach as her body toppled backwards. Wyrrin fell with her, and did not rise; orange blood poured from the arrow wound. 

"Gods grant that your spirit be lifted to a glorious place, where you may feast on nectar and ambrosia," Michael murmured. "God intercede on behalf of that bold servant of Arus, for he was valiant and gave his life in defence of faithful Turonim. Now grant me strength to stand as resolute without his aid."

Slowly, his gait acquiring a shuffling bent as though some heavenly power had transfigured him into an old man, Michael resumed his place in the doorway of the temple. "Is there anyone else?"

"Many more," the Voice replied. "And you are already wounded, I advise you to surrender now."

"Prince Gabriel once fought on though a spear had pierced his heart," Michael said. "I would shame my mother and the long line of my ancestors if I should falter from mare pricks and scratches. I will not yield while one of these people remains in danger from your blades."

"Why risk your life for such ungrateful wretches?" the Voice demanded. "Are you not worth a hundred of them?"

"Worth a hundred? Why, because I carry a sword and I know how to use it? No!" Michael said. "There is no honour in fighting unless you fight so that others need not." He loved the tales of the Corona Firstborn, but what you always had to remember was that every first born son had served in war so that their younger brothers might in safety devote themselves to peaceful occupations. "My brother Felix feared to fight, he feared even his own shadow, but he was kind and gentle and a better man than I in every way. My sister could not fight even if she would, yet her virtues put my own small stock to shame. I am stronger than any man behind me, and fleeter too of foot. But the fact that all I can do is stand here and offer my body as a breastwork for them is cause for sorrow not for joy.

"Yet God has disposed that I shall be their protector, and who am I to quarrel with his design? Come again, if you have the stomach for it, and I shall carve the names Miranda and Felix into your skins before I am done."

The Voice of Corona stared at him, his face invisible behind his helm. He gestured imperiously. "Take him now! Fear not, Michael ban David, we will take care of you."

 The rebels did not surge forward this time, but advanced in slow and cautious fashion. They did not charge, but pelted him with stones in such multitudes he could not help but be struck. Michael cried out as the rocks bruised him and when the barrage ceased he was bleeding from the cuts they had dealt him, his head ringing from a blow, his right hand too badly hurt to hold his sabre, his leg scarce able to support him.

Michael struggled to raise his spatha, putting both hands upon the hilt. If he could not stand, then he would fight from his knees as best he could. Curse these wounds of his.

 
God, give me strength. Please. Help me Mother.

 His sword was kicked out of his hand. Michael looked up to see Matthew standing over him, sword raised.

Michael snarled. "Was there a man in Master's employ who was not in the service of the Crimson Rose?"

"Some," Matthew replied. "But they're all dead now, except for you." His words were dispassionate, undercut only by a hint of cruelty. "I never liked you very much." He reversed his sword, to strike Michael with the hilt and knock him out.

 Michael flinched in expectation of the blow. The wailing in the temple rose to a crescendo.

 With staggering speed, the beggar who had been huddling by the temple doorway cast off his all concealing cloak, revealing a pair of handsome blades, one of which he drove through Matthew's cuirass and his chest as he leapt between Michael and the rebel troops. A scything blow cut down another warrior of the Rose.

 "I'd rather you didn't lay down and die just yet," the man said casually. He was tall, six foot three if Michael was any judge, and he possessed what Michael would call a lordly bearing that his worn and weathered clothes in their various shades of grey could not disguise. In fact it was the very casual idleness of his stance that gave it to him, for what in other men might have been a slouch became in this particular man commanding ease.

 "I don't expect you to do anything at the moment of course," the man said, cutting down several more rebels as he did so. His blades moved so fast that Michael could not follow their movements. "Just leave this rabble to me. I would have intervened earlier, had you not seemed to be doing so creditably on your own."

 "Who... who are you?" Michael asked as his benefactor cut through the rebel host with the ease of a pike in a school of salmon, without once altering the look of supreme boredom upon his face.

 "Lord Gideon Commenae, by Aegea's grace I have the honour to be First Sword of the Divine Empire," Gideon replied. "Just a little longer, I'll wager."

 Already the ranks of the Crimson Rose began to falter, the rebels falling back gradually at first and then in a wild rush, swallowing up the Voice in their panicked flight. They ran through the ruins of the town, through the devastation they had wrought, and into the sand dunes beyond and out of sight.

 "Will they be back, my lord?" Michael said.

 "I doubt it," Gideon said. "Their numbers are much diminished, and there is little for them to gain by a return to this place. The only thing they want is you, and you will be gone from here soon enough."

 "I thought you did not wish me to die yet, my lord," Michael said, trying to pull himself up using the temple wall. He got half way before his protesting legs gave way again and he fell.

 Gideon caught him before he hit the ground. "It's alright Michael, I've got you. Just stay alive now and pay attention. Your sister is alive."