Julius Pelianus had turned eight years old this summer. In his short life he’d watched three other lords of lands hereabouts fall to mercenary forces or retributive strikes by their enemies, but it had always remained a distant thing; a ‘something that happens to other people’ affair. And then this afternoon, he’d seen his father’s throat cut by the man whom he had apparently served. Anger coursed anew through his veins as he thought of his mother where he’d left her, heaped over the body of his father, crying in anguish. He’d not cried. There was grief, of course, but something stronger, hard and heavy as a rock had settled in his chest and he couldn’t have shed a tear now if he’d tried. He’d waited until the soldiers had been ordered back into formation and marched off over the crest of the hill in search of fresh slaughter and then with only a single, wordless glance at his family, had walked purposefully back into the courtyard of the palace.
The bodies of his father’s army hadn’t been buried. They hadn’t even been cleared away very thoroughly, resting instead in heaps where Velutio’s soldiers had gathered them. Pausing at the gate to the palace, he examined one such pile of lifeless corpses. The less tasteful members of Velutio’s army had done a good job of looting their enemies as they heaped them up. Most of the jewellery was missing, along with fingers where the knuckle had been too tight for them to slip off the rings. Some of the better armour and weapons had gone too, but a lot had been left. He reached down without flinching into the pile and laid his hand on the slimy hilt of a sword. Dragging it out, still covered in blood, he had trouble lifting it higher than his knee. Another delve and he managed to locate the man’s sword belt and spent a moment unbuckling it and feeding it out. Finally he was able to sheathe the sword and discovered that, so long as the belt was tight and high and not slouching around his hips, the sword swung freely as he moved without dragging on the floor.
Armed, he made his way to the barrack block. There were four such buildings attached to the curtain walls surrounding the palace, each home to a hundred and fifty men with the rest garrisoned in the main building or outlying fortlets. These huge, long, low stone buildings were divided into fifteen large rooms, each with bunk beds sleeping ten men, leading off a single long corridor with a heavy external door at each end. Velutio’s men had left, but had made sure that life would be as uncomfortable and short as possible for their beaten enemy. All the wooden shutters over the windows had been closed and nailed shut with heavy planks of wood and the two doors had been sealed in a similar fashion. Despite the lord’s assurance that the guards would not be harmed, the devils had gathered a large pile of wood and cloth and a few bodies against one of the doors and set fire to it. Though it had been less than fifteen minutes since the men could have done this, the smoke and the stench were terrible and inside the building the oxygen would fast be running out. Presumably the men would shut themselves in their rooms, but the boy was willing to bet the bastards had removed the internal doors. In fact it looked suspiciously like those doors had been broken up and used to seal the building.
Julius ran to another pile of bodies and located a heavy fighting knife. Snatching it, he ran back across to the second door and jammed the blade behind the nailed wooden bar. Heaving with all his might he thought he heard the bar creak, but there was no visible movement and now a slight kink in the blade. Desperately now, he ran to the nearest shuttered window and tried the same. The blade snapped sharply and he fell back to the ground.
Looking around the courtyard, his eyes fell upon two of the farm horses tied up near the other gate and an idea struck him. These horses were not good specimens; flea-bitten and old and no use to the victorious army, they had been left behind. Trying hard to ignore the third horse that had been used for target practice, Julius untied the reins and then, gripping both in one hand, geed up the horses, leading them across the cobbles. At the barracks once more, he spent a long moment feeding the leather reins through the heavy iron handle of the door. Tying them off as tightly as he could, he stepped back and slapped the horses’ rumps as hard as he could. The reins became taught and strained and the timber creaking at the tremendous stress it had been placed under but steadfastly refused to give. Determined, Julius urged the horses on desperately and became aware of another noise. Someone inside must have realised what was going on. There were tremendous heavy thuds as something heavy was slammed into the inside of the heavy oak door. With renewed vigour, Julius slapped the horses once more and then added what little weight he had to the rope, hauling for all he was worth.
When the door gave, it opened with a crash, splinters and chunks of wood bouncing across the cobbles. The horses hurtled across the courtyard and disappeared from the boy’s field of vision as he sprawled, winded, on the floor. Thick, dark smoke billowed out of the door and panicky, choking men spewed out into the open air, collapsing to the ground and retching. Julius sat up and watched, slightly dazed from a chunk of wood that had struck a glancing blow to his head.
Gradually the men who’d been crammed in, enduring inhuman conditions inside for almost an hour and life-threatening smoke for a quarter of that time, spilled out into the courtyard, catching their breath and then moving to make room for the others pushing away behind them. Somewhere among the flood of choking men, a sergeant that the boy recognised looked up from his choking and gagging and noticed him.
“Julian? Thank the gods.”
The boy’s face didn’t look grateful. In fact, from the first glance the sergeant knew that something terrible had happened.
“What is it? Where have they gone?”
Julian rubbed his sore head and stood slowly and carefully. The sergeant noted with surprise and some trepidation the sword slung at the young lad’s side. He was about to enquire again when the boy yelled out “Quiet!”
It was not a strong voice. Barely audible even above the coughing and choking sounds, still it caught the attention of enough of the men that their coughing became lower; muted, they turned to see from where the small but highly emotional voice had come. Julius stretched and then, turning, climbed up onto a broken barrel behind him.
“I said quiet!”
Men five times his age fell silent and stared at the young man. The sergeant leaned forward, his arms on his knees. “We’re listening, young master.”
The boy gripped the hilt of his sword with white knuckles. “Your lord, my father, is dead; killed by Lord Velutio. That makes me the lord of this estate now and I need you.”
By now all other sound had died away and everyone faced the young lord, though still sharing surprised glances.
“I heard my father tell the murderer before he died that there are some rebels who are defying him at a place called Munda. Someone called Caerdin. I don’t know who he is, but if he’s an enemy of Velutio, that makes him my friend. I’m leaving here. Today. And I’m going to find this Munda and this Caerdin. I want to pledge my family’s support to him and that means you men.”
A low muttering rippled through the crowd and the boy raised his voice a little again.
“I know you’ve just fought a hard battle, and if you want to go back to your homes and protect your lands you can. How could I stop you? But I’m going to find these rebels and I’m asking any of you who still have the strength to come with me.”
One of the soldiers leaned back and waved an arm.
“’Ow’re you going to find ‘em, Julian? I’ve a vague idea where Munda is, but I doubt there’s anyone ‘ere who knows ‘ow to get there, ‘specially when we’d got to avoid Velutio and all ‘is allies.”
Julian frowned. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out. I’m going to get justice for my father no matter what it takes.”