To say Kiva didn’t trust the lad would be to make too much of it. Quintillian was naive and young. The deeper problem was that, as far as Kiva was concerned, he was a disaster looking for someone to happen to. One day someone who recognised the boy would capture and use him. Then everything would explode and the world would probably go to shit. He was too valuable a piece in the eternal game of power and politics and, as the last living descendant of the late Emperor, he would be important to some factions alive, but to a lot more dead.
Following the perimeter wall, the captain wandered away from the increasingly unpleasant smell of warm dung. With the farmer and his family having fled, no one had cleared the yard for several days and the acrid aroma at this end where animals had obviously been fed was too strong for prolonged exposure. Scanning the distant tree line for any sign of activity, he walked around the building and to the rear gate. There seemed to be plenty of time. Even at best it would be three quarters of an hour before Scauvus returned. He exited the gate and wandered down the gentle gradient alongside the farm wall. As he moved toward the north western corner, the ground began to slope away toward a stream and he brought his attention back sharply, almost losing his footing on the loose earth and stones of the slope. Concentrating hard on not sliding down the hill, he reached the corner.
His years of combat-honed alertness saved Kiva at the last minute. He heard the stretch of a bowstring and a couple of skittering pebbles as he rounded the heavily buttressed corner and allowed himself to slip along the loose ground as he passed. The arrow, loosed in perfect time to pass through the air where Kiva’s chest would have been, whistled off into the distance. The captain arrested his sliding descent with a kick and rolled to one side, coming back up into a carefully balanced stance for his next move.
Four men stood in a small knot, one fumbling for another arrow, while the other three hefted their swords menacingly. They wore the pale green tunics of Lord Celio, a lighter shade than the old Imperial Green. They also had the look of professional soldiers, rather than mercenaries. As always in situations like this, instinct took over, leaving no time for practical thought. As he came up and before he’d fully registered the situation, already his hand had wrenched his two throwing knives from the leather thong on which they hung and had brought them up in a sharp, underhand throw. The knives; straight, chisel-tipped steel blades with bone handles, hurtled through the air and hit the bowman in the left shoulder and the left leg. Athas had tried time and again to teach him with the best weighted knives available but, regardless, Kiva would never make a marksman. Still, the bow was effectively out of commission. The archer grunted and stumbled, the bow dropping from his suddenly spasming fingers.
As one of the four soldiers opened his mouth to speak, Kiva was already diving into his next move, rolling between them with his fingertips touching the pommels of his swords.
“Captain Tre…”
The soldier’s voice tailed off as Kiva’s blade tore through his hamstring. As the Captain had dropped and somersaulted, he’d whipped both his slightly curved blades out to the sides and had come up half a sentence later behind the middle two, having sliced neatly through the tendons at the back of the knees. From rounding the corner to standing behind them and watching them fall had been mere seconds.
With a sharp cry of pain the speaker collapsed in a heap, his blade flailing out at random. The man on the other side had slid to the ground, whimpering and clutching his knee. The archer began to back away down the hill, while the remaining enemy soldier stood facing the captain, looking somewhat startled. Kiva lifted one foot and kicked against the high perimeter wall, spinning in a half circle and lashing out with his swords as he turned. Before he even saw his opponent, he heard the slicing sound of carved meat and felt the slight resistance tugging at the blades. As he landed, catlike, on his feet before the man, he watched his victim’s torso slide gently off the pelvis, the spine entirely severed. He looked down at the half body, registering with distaste the startled look still on the face as the lower half of the body toppled slowly backwards. Kiva stepped back.
He looked down at the two crippled but active men flailing around on the floor and clutching their wounds. They looked a great deal less smug now than they had a moment ago.
“The problem with full-time soldiers” he noted coldly as he trod carefully among the viscera, “is you tend to stand there and bluff and bluster when you could be busy actually killing.”
He kicked the half-body out of his way and strode over to the two.
“Another problem is that you’re hampered by certain codes” Kiva said with a feral grin. “I’m not.”
Stepping on the hamstrung knee, causing another scream of pain, he leaned forward and thrust his blade into the second man’s gullet. As he pulled the sword back out, he twisted and a large piece of the soldier’s neck came with it. The gush of dark blood washed over his companion who was now visibly terrified.
“I don’t like leaving a live enemy” he continued as if instructing a new recruit. “They tend to come back to haunt you.”
With a heavy slash, he beheaded the remaining man and, turning, shaded his eyes with his hand, trying to spot the archer. The severed head rolled past his feet and off down the hill. The archer hadn’t got very far, clutching his painful, bleeding leg and stumbling down the slightly treacherous slope toward the stream. Kiva growled. He hated having to chase people down.
“Can we help, sir?”
The captain turned and glanced up at the top of the wall. Three of the company were peering over the parapet at the grisly scene and he could hear the others scrambling across the farmyard now. Athas gestured down the hill.
“I might miss at that distance,” the big sergeant admitted, “but it’s a shot I’d bet the lad could make. He’s more of a huntsman.”
Kiva merely nodded and then set about the job of looting the bodies below the wall. Athas and Quintillian appeared at the top and the lad looked down. He squinted for a moment as he tried to make out the details of the scene below and then the colour slowly drained from his face. Muffled gagging sounds accompanied his desperate attempts to hold in his breakfast. The captain crouched, grey and unconcerned, among the severed pieces of human beings, busily rifling through their pouches. Athas grabbed a handful of the boy’s tunic and hauled him back upright.
“I know it’s not nice when you’re not used to it,” he told the lad soothingly, “but we haven’t got time for this. See that man in green? Down near the river?”
Quintillian continued to stare blankly at the sergeant, his face white.
“Can you hit him or not ?” Athas queried, his voice more commanding.
The boy turned robotically to look down the hill, trying not to catch the huge splash of red beneath him out of the corner of his eye. The archer had almost reached the stream. It would be a very long shot, but he’d hit worse. He nodded, gulping in air rapidly.
“Then do it.”
Athas stuck three arrows in the wall while the boy unhooked his bow and tested the string gingerly. As the sergeant looked across, he saw some colour returning to Quintillian’s face. The lad plucked one of the arrows from the wall and nocked it, aiming carefully. Steadying his breath, he released the arrow.
The shaft arced up into the sunlit air and curved down, picking up speed as it fell toward the river. Athas realised he too was holding his breath as the arrow narrowly missed the soldier and splashed into the water. The lad let out his breath in a huge rush and slapped his hand on the wall in irritation.