Their presence here confirmed his suspicion that this was not an invasion, but an extermination. No one would leave the city tonight. Not until it had burned to the ground, and its inhabitants with it.
Unfortunately, that included Taras.
Ramah followed the trail, lured on by the signs left by dozens of men. Several hundred paces back he’d come to the site of a nasty battle. Over a score of men had been killed. Their corpses littered the area, laying in the dirt and grass with their bowels exposed, hanging from their bellies like thick, wet ropes. Many were missing limbs, and a few lay headless, their life’s blood trickling into the thirsty ground. One of the men groaned as Ramah passed, and reached out a single trembling hand to the Bachiyr’s leg, grasping his pants in a weak and faltering grip.
“Please…” he wheezed. Ramah noted the blood on the soldier’s face, and the large red hole in his chest where something had clawed away the flesh, revealing the bare ribs beneath. Blood poured freely from the wound, soaking the man’s leather jerkin and pooling beneath him. “Please, help…”
Ramah’s boot caved in the soldier’s skull, which gave with a sharp crack that sounded like splintering boards in the otherwise still silence of the clearing. A mercy killing. The man should have been long dead, Ramah just helped send him to the next world all the sooner.
He knelt into the bloody grass, taking stock of the carnage around him. The smell of blood was everywhere, and a cloud of flies had begun to buzz madly through the air, laying their eggs in the stricken flesh of the fallen. The killings had been brutal, fast, and effective. It must have scared the life from the soldiers; the survivors had not even bothered to waste time gathering up their dead.
He recognized Theron’s handiwork when he saw it.
To his right, a slight breeze stirred the grass, bringing the smells of fire and war. That would be Londinium, burning as the Iceni lay waste to the city. He could still hear the screams as people died behind the walls. With only a token resistance to slow the Iceni horde, the entire city would be destroyed by dawn. Sooner or later the gatehouse would be affected, and Ramah’s passage back to the Halls would go up in flames. No matter, he thought. I can find someplace else to spend the day. The country around Londinium was spotted with thousands of small farms and holdfasts, he would be fine. In any case, he’d come too far to go running back to the Halls. Now that he was so close to capturing Theron, he refused to return empty handed.
Ramah resumed his examination of the site. There was no indication that Theron had escaped the soldiers and run, which would have been the sensible thing to do. Thus, he came to the conclusion that the renegade had allowed himself to be captured by the Iceni. What will their righteous queen make of that? he wondered. By all accounts, Boudica was a sharp one. Would she know what she had? If so, what would she do with him? Would she kill him? Or would she try to use him?
Ramah grinned. The better option would be to leave Theron securely chained someplace where, come dawn, the sun would find him. If that turned out to be the case, he could return to the Halls and report that the renegade had been dealt with. It wouldn’t be enough to appease Lannis or Algor, who both wanted to make Theron a Lost One, but Headcouncil Herris would be satisfied.
It still left the issue of Taras, but Ramah didn’t think that would be an issue much longer. The renegade was pinned to the cellar floor of a building that was locked and bolted, waiting for the fires that would end his life. Ramah would have liked to go back into the city and check, just to make sure, but Theron was more important. In any case, Taras had been too weak to do anything but lay in a pool of blood and whimper. He wasn’t likely to have escaped.
But what about Baella? Was she a prisoner of the humans, as well? Or had she escaped? He couldn’t tell anything by the marks around the site. It was possible the humans had captured both, but he doubted it. Baella had managed to evade the entire Bachiyr race for thousands of years, the idea that a small group of humans could catch her seemed absurd. And yet…
Ramah learned long ago never to discount anything where humans were involved. He found the trail again and followed the tracks of the survivors. If they had captured Theron or Baella or both, he meant to know about it. Perhaps he could even steal Baella away from the Iceni. He could fight off a large group of humans. Possibly thirty of them, or more. If they stood between him and Baella, he would shred his way through them until he reached her. He even looked forward to it. The thrill of battle, the smell of blood in the air as it mixed with the screams of the dying, the fear his enemies felt when they realized they were about to die.
Like music, he thought.
Ramah followed the trail through a dense group of trees, keeping to the shadows and enacting a Psalm of Silence to disguise his approach. As he threaded his way through the oaks, maples, and alders, his ears picked up a low, persistent buzz to the east. It sounded like a large number of people gathered in one place talking, screaming, eating, and probably fucking, as would befit the Iceni and neighboring tribes. The trail of the humans also led east, so Ramah followed his ears, thinking he’d found his quarry at last.
Before he caught sight of the group, he had already come to the conclusion that it was more than just thirty humans. The low buzz had evolved into a din of voices, indecipherable on their own and merging into one long, hushed sound. The trail continued toward the noise, and so Ramah kept following, though he began to think he would not be able to capture Theron and Baella as easily as he’d first thought. If the group proved as large as it sounded, he might not even be able to see them.
He poked his head around one wide maple and saw that the group of trees ended about thirty feet away, opening up into a large field of short, hardy grass that stretched for miles in every direction.
Standing in that field was an army.
Ramah swore, scanning the groups. He spotted the infantry right away, the chaotic, disorderly humans who stood on edge and waited, fidgeting with their weapons. They were a largely undisciplined lot, which would make sense. Only those Iceni capable of learning to ride or work the ballistae would be spared infantry duty. To the south of the infantry he spotted the ballistae troops. Missile after missile launched from the mechanical monsters to drop upon the city. The attack must have started just after he left.
Movement near the ballistae caught his eye, and he noted the mounted riders near their head. The generals, no doubt, planning the attack. Not that it did him any good. He could not rip his way through fifty thousand human troops. Theron and Baella were nowhere to be seen, not that he had much chance of spotting them in this chaos. Ramah watched the army, unwilling to give up his search.
After ten minutes with no sign of his prey, he swore under his breath. He was just about to turn away when a group of men crested a distant hill and approached the mounted officers. Many of the men in the new group limped gamely along, and several were missing limbs. But every one of them held a crossbow trained and ready, pointed at the center of their group. Ramah tensed.
There, chained to a mobile platform, was Theron. The renegade’s shredded clothing was soaked through with blood. It hung from his flesh in tatters and rags, revealing dozens of fresh, pink scars. He struggled in his bonds and shouted curses at the humans around him, but he seemed secure. Still, the humans were taking no chances. Several of the crossbows were loaded with flaming bolts. The men might not know exactly what they had captured, but they had an idea how dangerous it was. Baella was nowhere to be seen. Ramah had figured as much. Another day, Baella, he thought.