Chapter 14:
A Time of Reckoning
I
Hanuvar rode his way upstream through the knots of frightened, disheveled men, women, and children. Some families fled on wagons piled high with belongings, others sat horses or donkeys, but most walked, bearing only a few sacks of belongings.
Household slaves were common sights amongst those along the thoroughfare. Probably fear and familiarity kept them united with the greater majority of their owners, though Hanuvar supposed misplaced loyalty and even genuine affection might play some role.
Field and estate slaves were almost entirely absent. Hanuvar overheard that most had sided with a new gladiator-led revolt rampaging through the countryside. Given the brutal working conditions at many of the large farms, owned by patricians far from the property and overseen by miserly managers, the impetus of those slaves to risk rebellion was fully understandable.
The Dervan legions would violently crush this revolt, like those before it. But there were always those bowed by circumstances so desperate that even a few moments of freedom before death were better than servitude.
While Hanuvar sympathized, the rebellion’s timing slowed his progress, and the lives of everyone, slave or free, depended upon him stopping Calenius before night fall. As he fought his way closer—the only one travelling toward rather than away from Apicius—he heard a mix of news that was alternately absurdly optimistic or improbably doom laden. Some said five legions were already on their way south, which was unlikely unless they’d been recalled from the frontiers weeks before the revolt began. Others claimed an army of gladiators thousands strong was readying to march on Derva itself.
Most of the refugees agreed that Apicius, or parts of it, had been occupied, and Hanuvar’s fears for Izivar, Antires, and all his allies were only minimally allayed by reports that the Nuvaran in charge had kept his men under strict control. There were no stories of wholescale murders, rapes, or looting common to armed conflict, nor injuries visible in those leaving. Apparently Tafari had allowed people to depart the settlement relatively unmolested. What his real aims were, no one in the crowds could guess.
Drawing closer to the little seaside town, Hanuvar heard a further rumor that Ciprion himself was barricaded within the fort overlooking the harbor. That sounded almost as unlikely as some of the wilder contentions, but gave Hanuvar a small modicum of hope. Moving against Calenius would require an armed force, and he didn’t especially care how he got one. It would certainly be easier to convince Ciprion of the danger than a gladiator he barely knew, but then if his friend had taken up post in the fort, Hanuvar would have to contend with the rebels to reach him.
He found a blockade of overturned carts along the road just south of the unwalled town outskirts. It was manned by warriors in a mix of gladiatorial and legionary armor and weapons. Beyond them the buildings along the brick streets looked intact. He saw no fires or burned out homes, nor did he glimpse bodies lying in the streets. He could hope then that Tafari truly had constrained his men, but was aware that he might simply have imposed tidiness upon them.
Hanuvar dismounted twenty yards from the road block and led his old farm horse forward. The half-grown brindle mastiff, Kalak, trotted at his side. Two men in front of the barricade watched him alertly as he drew up and one of them, tall with a bull neck, raised a restraining hand.
“The city’s not taking visitors at this time.”
That was a far more measured response than he had expected.
“I’m a messenger, sent to speak with Tafari.”
The lead sentry eyed him more shrewdly. Over the last days Hanuvar had shaved regularly, with supplies purchased or gifted along the way, but he and his clothes alike were stained from travel. That could well be expected of a messenger, but such men were usually younger, and riding better horses.
“Who sent you?” the sentry inquired skeptically.
“Tell Tafari I have a message from Fabius, whom he met earlier in the year.”
“General Tafari’s busy.”
“If Eshmun serves with you, he will vouch for me. The news I carry is quite important.”
From the way the sentry’s brows furrowed Hanuvar saw that he recognized the name of the Volani gladiator. Hanuvar understood the man’s dilemma. The sentry weighed whether to risk a superior’s condemnation at the word of a road-weary, name dropping, older man armed with a sword in a crusty scabbard.
After studying Hanuvar for another long moment the sentry ordered one of his companions to retrieve “Centurion” Eshmun. He then instructed Hanuvar to remove his sword belt, which he did, and motioned other sentries closer. He didn’t warn that any suspicious behavior was liable to get Hanuvar beaten or speared; it wasn’t necessary.
The gladiators didn’t invite small talk and Hanuvar didn’t attempt any. He studied the town beyond. Only a few men and women moved amongst the buildings, a shadow of the usual morning bustle. The harbor lay half empty, but a bireme sat at the long quay nearest the fortress, and the helmeted heads of many soldiers could be glimpsed above the ramparts. Hanuvar had hoped to see Izivar’s ship departed, but could have anticipated that she would not leave without him. It floated among a handful of others.
After what seemed an interminable time, the messenger sentry returned at a fair clip with a tall, sun-bronzed younger man jogging at his side. This was Eshmun, who slowed just before reaching the barricade. He drew up beside the bull-necked sentry with a nod, listening politely as Hanuvar’s claim was repeated. His eyes shifted to Hanuvar and then he grinned.
“You did right to send for me,” Eshmun said to the guard, and walked for Hanuvar, hand outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to see you—”
“Decius Antoninus,” Hanuvar said quickly, lest Eshmun call him by name, or even title. He suspected the younger man had been about to address him as general, or shofet. “You recall meeting me earlier this year, I’m sure.”
Though momentarily confused, Eshmun recovered swiftly. “Of course. Come with me.”
“These men took my sword.” It wasn’t an especially good sword, but it was the only one Hanuvar had.
Eshmun ordered the lead sentry to give it back, and Hanuvar belted it on as he led his horse through the blockade. Kalak alertly scanned their surroundings from his side as the Volani walked them into the town. The inns appeared empty; upstairs shutters were sealed.
The young gladiator switched to Volani. “I’m very glad to see you.”
“It’s good to see a friendly face. Is Izivar Lenereva here, and is she unharmed?”
“Yes, and yes. I was called in as soon as it was clear one of the households was Volani and she’s been under my protection. She’s offered shelter to all the local women, though Tafari has assured her it’s not necessary.”
“What of Amelia, wife of Ciprion?”
“She’s in our custody.”
That alarmed him. “She’s well?”
“Of course. She’s too useful. Especially with Ciprion in the fortress.”
So that news hadn’t been nonsense after all. “What’s Ciprion doing here?”
“Word has it he came in advance of his troops, who should arrive in the next few days, and to reinforce the garrison. The only thing that’s holding us back from the harbor and its ships is the fortress. They’ll sink us if we try to leave. But we’ve got our own catapults lined up now. They can’t leave either. We need help. You couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Tafari’s going to be glad to speak with you.”
The gladiators had taken over the municipal capital, a two-story brick building fronted with square pillars. Hanuvar was led through its main entrance, up interior stairs, and into a council room on the second floor with a long rectangular table plattered with food. Windows overlooked the light blue waters and the dark sand of the town’s best beach, empty of crowds, umbrellas, and merchant carts.
At the table’s head sat the handsome Nuvaran, his kinked hair even more closely trimmed than Hanuvar remembered. With him were a half dozen advisors, among them a familiar man and woman. Both stood at Hanuvar’s entrance.
Eshmun shut the door behind them, and Tafari raised a hand in recognition and rose. Hanuvar, though, had shifted his attention to Bomilcar, plain and bluff, happily striding toward him with Elistala, who smiled broadly. She wore a man’s tunic and a long, thick leather skirt, and while she did not wear a chest piece or helmet, her hair was tightly braided, suggesting she was ready to don her warrior’s kit at a moment’s notice.
The enthusiastic Volani interrupted Tafari’s line of approach. Hanuvar grasped the arms of both in turn. Sensing the excitement, Kalak thumped his tail vigorously, uncaring that it drummed a table leg.
“Bomilcar and Elistala,” Hanuvar said in Volani. “It does me good to see you both.”
“And me you, General,” Elistala answered, smiling with savage pleasure.
Bomilcar beamed. “We found her, General. Narisia’s alive and well.”
He nodded in appreciation, and would have said more, but Tafari had grown impatient and came around the table to stress his presence. Eshmun and Bomilcar made room for him.
Tafari glanced down at the dog, then spoke in his cultured Nuvaran accent. “I bid you welcome as well, great General. And I hate to interrupt this reunion, but we’ve pressing matters.”
“More than you know.” Hanuvar had dozens of questions he would have asked Elistala and Bomilcar, but they would have to wait.
Tafari passed over any implication in Hanuvar’s statement and continued: “Our soothsayer declared this a crucial time for action, while the moon is full and the planet of war rides above the constellation of the spear, so we have momentous planning and preparation underway. You’ve come just when needed most. Your mortal enemy Ciprion and a garrison are sealed up in the city fortress, and I need to get them out.”
Hanuvar saw that he’d have to hear the man’s wishes before he could change his course. Best, then, to let him say what troubled him before he asserted control. “What’s your objective?”
“To sail away, just as you would have advised. But the Dervans command the harbor.”
That was a far more reasonable goal than razing the countryside in rebellion or exacting vengeance on wealthy patricians. “How many men do you have?”
Tafari hesitated only a moment, then must have decided Hanuvar would have to be trusted if he were to be any use. “Eighty gladiators. Three hundred auxiliary, drawn from the men and women we’ve freed. We’ve been teaching them to fight.”
“And how many soldiers are in the garrison?”
“We can’t be entirely certain. But we believe there to be close to a hundred.”
“And where is Calenius?”
Tafari’s expression clouded. “Calenius?”
“The big red-haired man,” Hanuvar explained. “He controls a dig site on the slope of Esuvia.”
“He’s on that mountain. Why is that important? He has a small force entrenched there, but they’ve shown no interest in coming after us.”
“He’s more dangerous than Ciprion and the legions. How many followers does he retain?”
Tafari shook his head. “I don’t know for certain. Our scouts estimated around a hundred. But we are not concerned with him. Ciprion”—he emphasized the name as if Hanuvar hadn’t heard him properly the first time—“is in the fortress. If we try for the harbor he’ll either sink the ships or set them on fire. His entire legion is marching down from Derva and should be here in two days, so we’re short on time.”
“Calenius has to be stopped this evening.”
Though all in the room had been listening, Hanuvar’s declaration stilled them completely. Their scrutiny intensified.
Tafari looked especially puzzled. “Stopped from what?”
“He’s been readying a spell that’s going to destroy the region. Tonight. Friend, foe, and everyone in between will be lost.”
“Spells,” the Nuvaran muttered. “This is no time to worry over some charlatan’s show.”
“He’s the sorcerer who fashioned the false Hanuvar. And he did that in his spare time. He’s been preparing for this night for a very long time.”
Tafari’s brow furrowed and he shook his head impatiently. “We must get my people out of here before the legion comes.” His hand tightened into a fist that he raised, his dark eyes lighting. “Now’s your chance to fight Ciprion and gain your vengeance.”
“You’re not listening.”
The Nuvaran’s smile shifted into a frown with the speed of a rejected lover. He slammed a palm against the wall.
Kalak growled warning, and Hanuvar shushed him.
Tafari shouted. “You’re not listening! I want a war leader, not an old woman. My people are in danger, and I need to get them out. The man who beat you is down in the fortress!”
“All of us will die unless we fight Calenius.”
Tafari studied him in disbelief, then addressed him with quiet contempt. “You’re frightened of Ciprion.”
“On the contrary. I intend to meet with him today.”
“What?” If Tafari had looked surprised before, his expression now betrayed utter confusion.
Bomilcar, Eshmun, and Elistala talked at him in Volani at the same time, questioning his judgment with varied degrees of politeness. Elistala offered that the general she’d met might be an honorable man, but that some struggles could not be avoided.
She and the others fell silent as Hanuvar held up a hand and addressed Tafari. “Yes. Ciprion will hear me. And we can come to an accord when I explain the situation.”
The floor trembled; a rumble of thunder sounded. The legs of the table rattled against the stone floor and plaster dust rained from the ceiling. Just as Hanuvar’s gaze swayed up, wondering if the building was going to collapse around them, the tremor stopped.
While the others exclaimed and nervously compared observations, Hanuvar strode to a side window and flung open the shutters, leaning out to better take in the horizon. People in the street below were gabbling among themselves and some pointed toward the cone of Esuvia, whose forested slopes lay down a dark line of road. Black smoke pillowed from its height.
Hanuvar pointed to it. “Calenius is on the slope of Esuvia right now, working his magic.”
“Does he mean to destroy himself as well as all others?” Tafari asked caustically.
“His aims do not include suicide, just the erasure of everyone else. I need to speak to Ciprion about them.”
Tafari contemplated the volcano. “Fine. Go talk to Ciprion. If he gives us ships, none of his people die. If he doesn’t, I start with his wife.”
This man might be a capable leader, but he had much to learn about the nature of his opponent. “If you hurt his wife, you will succeed only in making Ciprion very angry.”
“And I should care about making him angry?” Tafari’s astonishment made it seem as though he thought Hanuvar crazy.
“You should care about making him reasonable,” Hanuvar countered. “I’ll take Amelia with me to demonstrate we’re serious.”
Tafari laughed in disbelief. “You want to give both yourself and his woman to him? Right now we have the superior position—”
Hanuvar sliced the air with a hand. “I know him, which is far more important than any abstract study of warfare. Conflict isn’t a set of patterns you memorize then execute without examination. You must constantly evaluate not just the ground, but the leaders who hold it.”
Tafari frowned, uncertain and dismayed.
“The Dervans will kill you, General,” Eshmun objected.
Hanuvar shook his head. “I have something else in mind.”
The room fell silent while Tafari considered his choices. Bomilcar and Elistala exchanged troubled glances.
The rumbling resumed. Hanuvar turned again to the window. The mountain continued to smoke, though the vapors were whiter than before, more like storm clouds.
“Very well,” Tafari snapped. “Take the woman. You’re either more clever than I understand or a damned fool, and I’ve no love for torturing a woman in any case. If they kill you, I’m hardly worse off than I was this morning.”
The Volani seemed about to protest before Hanuvar silenced them with a flinty look. That was about the best he could have expected. Hanuvar stepped to the table and helped himself to a hunk of bread and some of the peeled hardboiled eggs that had been laid out, wolfing them down. Bomilcar hurried to assist him but Hanuvar was already pouring himself a goblet of wine as he chewed.
He swallowed and paused with the wine halfway to his mouth. “I need a black eyepatch,” he said. “And some armor. If the Dervans are receiving Hanuvar, let’s give them the man they expect to see.”
II
To Hanuvar’s knock Amelia said: “You’re going to come in anyway, so you might as well not pretend at civility.”
She glowered from where she sat under a small lattice window, a scroll in her lap, then gaped at sight of Hanuvar, now wearing a centurion’s breastplate. He did not carry the concave shield of a legionary but a smaller oval one handed him by a gladiator. His helm, too, wasn’t standard issue, but a modern version of an old Herrenic model, with cheek pieces that nearly covered the whole of his face apart from slots for his eyes and mouth. He had already donned his eye patch.
He wasn’t entirely sure that she recognized him until he said: “Are you ready to get out of here?”
“By glorious Jovren,” she said softly, and continued to stare.
She wore a fine blue stola and appeared reasonably comfortable. But then she’d been housed in a downstairs office complete with small, barred window, a shelf with books, a chair, and a table. Someone had even dragged in a worn old bedframe, narrow and dark and clashing with the fine lines of the office furniture.
When Amelia seemed uncertain how to reply, Hanuvar spoke again. “If you’re happy where you are, I can just meet Ciprion without you.”
She let out a single, soft bark of laughter and set her sandaled feet on the floor.
Amelia was rarely one for extravagant beauty steps. In captivity she had no maid to help her with her hair, but she looked little different, a handsome woman of middle years trending toward stoutness. “Have you been injured?” she asked. “Or are you in some sort of costume?”
“In point of fact, I have been injured. But my vision’s fine. And this is a costume. I’m the terrible Hanuvar. Don’t you recognize me? I’m here to transport you to safety.”
She adjusted her stola. “You are full of surprises. I didn’t hear any swordplay, or battle cries.”
“Those are overrated,” he said, and she chuckled.
“Why is it that it’s always evil barbarians rescuing me? That never happens in the stories.”
“Maybe you’re reading the wrong stories.” He grew more serious. “I’m told you were treated well. Is it true?”
“There were no . . . indignities forced.”
“Good. Come. Time wastes.”
She felt her hair, patted it, then he stepped aside and she came with him into the hallway.
Tafari and one of his attendants escorted them to the outer door, followed by Bomilcar, Eshmun, and Elistala. Before them Amelia’s pleasant countenance retreated into cold hauteur. She noted the dog but did not comment. Indeed, she said nothing, and Tafari did not address her.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” the Nuvaran said in parting.
That went without saying, and Hanuvar saw no real point in reply. He had penned a brief note to Izivar, who would surely share the information with Antires, and requested Elistala and Bomilcar deliver it to her. Then he and Amelia and the dog started down the road and on toward the hill above the docks where the fort sat. Eshmun walked along their right, a torn white cloth drooping from a spear shaft that he leaned against his shoulder.26
Amelia was quiet for long strides. All watched the shining helmets upon the distant battlement as their approach brought them gradually better into focus. The streets were mostly deserted; carts were overturned as incremental barricades, behind which gladiators were positioned, and they stared as the trio and the dog passed them.
“You have acquired a dog,” Amelia said at last.
“More precisely, he acquired me.”
“What are you planning to do?” she asked quietly. “How did you arrange my freedom?”
“I convinced Tafari that the only way to confer with your husband was to take you along, unharmed, as sign of our good faith.”
“That was very kind of you. But what are you going to do then?” Her aristocratic façade had vanished, and she spoke to him now as if they were old confederates.
“Calenius is planning something that may kill us all.”
Her eyebrows arched in consternation.
“So naturally I’m planning something mad.”
“How mad?”
“I’m going to propose an alliance between escaped slaves and the forces of Derva.”
“That is mad,” she said after little reflection. “There is no bargaining with rebellious slaves, ever.”
“Very true. Nor can there be peace between the noble Ciprion and the treacherous Hanuvar.”
She snorted.
“But we have little choice,” he finished.
“She’s right, sir,” Eshmun said cautiously, and Amelia finally acknowledged the gladiator by meeting his eyes. “The Dervans have never truly negotiated with slaves, and they have never granted any of their demands.”
“When the storm winds rise, adversaries must take the oar bench,” Hanuvar said in Volani. To Amelia’s questioning look he said in Dervan: “In desperate times, men must align or drown.”
“What is it, exactly, that Calenius is doing, and why?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
She scoffed. “I can believe quite a lot at this point.”
They passed the final barricade. They were now well within range of the fort’s ballistae. Helmeted heads upon the battlements shifted as officers were made way for. At this distance Hanuvar could not discern whether Ciprion was among them, but someone up there was a revenant, judging by the black helm with black crest. He was also on the smaller side, and Hanuvar wondered if this might be Legate Aquilius himself. There was also another figure in white armor, helmetless, with an eye patch of his own. Metellus.
“Any idea why the revenant legate would be here?” Hanuvar asked.
“None. But then my husband arrived via ship after the slave revolt. I have not had the pleasure of his company.”
“I think you’re about to, Lady Amelia,” Eshmun said with tight politeness. “Unless I miss my guess.”
The helmeted heads at the battlement made way for another who planted hands between the merlons and stared down at them. He raised his hand and spoke to the men at his shoulder.
Hanuvar called his companions to halt a few dozen feet beyond the sealed, brass-studded wooden gate of the fort. He saw the stern look upon his friend’s face. If Ciprion felt relieved by the presence of his wife, he did not show it. Amelia’s own expression had shifted into a tranquil mask, for it would be unseemly to betray emotions construable as weakness in public.
Eshmun waved the flag the legionaries had surely noticed long before, and Hanuvar made a speaking trumpet of his hands. It wasn’t until he began to talk that Ciprion recognized him, for he straightened in surprise.
“Legate Ciprion! I come in peace, and have arranged for your wife’s freedom as sign of my good intention. You and I need to meet in conference, but you must pledge that I can go free after.” He said that not because he believed Ciprion would imprison him, but so that others understood his intention from the outset, and would hear the general’s pledge.
Black helmed Aquilius stepped to Ciprion’s side and others consulted with him. Hanuvar heard none of their exchange.
Before very long Ciprion stepped away and called down to him. “I will meet with you. I pledge, by my honor, that you may depart unharmed at the conclusion of our talks.”
Eshmun frowned.
“He will be fine,” Amelia assured him, with more confidence than Hanuvar himself felt.
“Retreat,” Hanuvar instructed the young gladiator.
“What should we do if they won’t hear you out?” Eshmun asked.
“He will.”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” Eshmun said. “But if there’s one man who can achieve the impossible, it is you, sir.”
A sally door built into the left gate panel opened. Hanuvar gestured Amelia to precede him, and she started ahead. Hanuvar bade Kalak to stay and he did, though he whined. He’d commanded plenty of soldiers less obedient.
An entire phalanx of Dervan legionaries waited just beyond the open portal, their expressions grim. Their spears weren’t pointed at Hanuvar, but they looked ready to use them at the first sign of provocation.
A centurion, his rank obvious not just from his campaign medals but the transverse horsehair crest on his helmet, ordered the door shut behind him. “Turn over your weapon,” he snapped at Hanuvar.
“Leave him be,” Ciprion called down from the stairs he descended into the courtyard. The centurion, frowning, stepped back.
Amelia remained beside Hanuvar, almost protectively, until Ciprion and a small cadre of officers had climbed down the stairs built into the wall. Her husband walked in front, and Metellus and Aquilius flanked him, though keeping well clear of one another.
Ciprion’s eyes caught his own; there were questions in his gaze, but he did not speak them.
“Who is this man?” Aquilius demanded. “The empire does not negotiate with slaves!”
“This is no slave,” Ciprion said simply. He stopped before Hanuvar, and his eyes shifted to Amelia. Neither hugged the other but their eyes were alive with pleasure.
“You look well, my wife,” he said.
“Husband. I’ve merely been inconvenienced.”
Metellus had only one eye, but it was sharper than that of Aquilius. He actually chuckled. “Decius! What are you doing in the middle of this?”
Amelia answered him. “He convinced the leader of the gladiators to release me.”
Ciprion bowed his head to Hanuvar. “I thank you.”
“Decius?” Aquilius repeated. “Who is Decius? The one working for the Lenereva woman?”
Metellus smirked. Aquilius’ dark brows furrowed and he peered suspiciously at Hanuvar’s face.
Ciprion waved one of his men forward. His voice was kind, and softer, as he spoke to Amelia. “My aide Cantor will see to your needs. We will talk later.”
“I look forward to it.”
The warmth in her gaze spoke more volumes than their sober words. Ciprion ordered the young man to see that his wife was given food, drink, and anything else she required, then motioned Hanuvar after him. The others fell in step behind as Ciprion headed for the door of the stone building built into the far wall. A white-armored soldier stood on either side of it, which clued Hanuvar as to who was likely to lie beyond.
As soon as the door was opened, Hanuvar saw his guess had been accurate. Standing just inside the mess hall was a familiar young man with handsome, affable features and unruly brown hair. Enarius, the emperor, who cut a dashing figure in the legion armor someone had loaned him. He wore neither helmet nor greaves, but a sword belt with sheathed gladius hung at his waist.
“So your wife is well?” Enarius asked Ciprion. “And who’s this?”
Metellus answered before anyone else could. “It’s Decius,” he said, “Izivar’s security man. Disguised as Hanuvar,” he added with a grin.
That explanation suited Hanuvar just fine, and so he removed his helmet even as Aquilius could be heard to wonder gruffly why he was disguised. “The real Hanuvar doesn’t have an eye patch,” he finished.
Enarius stared, his mouth opening ever so slightly, in recognition that grew more pronounced as Hanuvar removed the eyepatch. He laughed.
“Sire,” Hanuvar said with a head bow. “My sons have spoken well of you.”
“By the Gods!” Enarius said. “The resemblance is uncanny!”
“I told you,” Metellus said good-humoredly.
“But what are you doing here, dressed like this? Is Izivar all right?”
“I haven’t seen her in weeks, but I’m told she’s unharmed.”
Enarius let out a relieved sigh.
Aquilius had finally recognized Hanuvar from their encounter earlier in the summer. The little man’s heavy chin dropped. “Decius?” He pointed at Hanuvar and addressed the emperor. “I met this man and he gave me an entirely different name.”
“I was in the field, in disguise,” Hanuvar explained. “I apologize for the deception.”
Aquilius frowned at that. Hanuvar hadn’t said it for his benefit, but for Metellus.
“Who exactly do you work for, then?” Aquilius demanded. “The praetorians?”
Ciprion cut him off. “That’s not important right now.”
Hanuvar had an answer in mind, but was grateful for the change in subject.
“Can you give me a disposition on the enemy troops?” Ciprion asked.
“Why don’t we sit, like civilized men, with some wine,” Enarius suggested. “Let’s talk at the conference table.”
Through a door in the mess hall lay a small meeting room with an oaken table, benches, and a door into what was almost surely the commanding centurion’s office. Two slaves bustled inside, quickly pouring goblets, although only Enarius and Hanuvar himself seemed interested in taking one. After the tense walk here, in the sun in a helmet, Hanuvar’s throat was dry, and he reasoned the emperor’s wine would be worth drinking.
The slaves left them, and then Enarius gestured for everyone to take the benches after he occupied the chair at the table’s head. Ciprion sat on the emperor’s right hand, Metellus on his left. Hanuvar ended up beside Ciprion, across from Aquilius, who continued to frown at him. He stretched out his leg beneath the table and flexed his sore ankle, then placed his helmet on the bench. Metellus did the same, then raked his hair into shape.
“So tell us about the gladiator army, and what you’re planning,” Ciprion said.
Hanuvar took a long gulp of the wine. He was right, it was excellent. He set the goblet down and eyed his friend, and then the emperor. “Defeating the gladiators can’t be our focus right now.”
“Why not?” Aquilius demanded.
“Because Calenius will release a spell tonight that’s going to kill all of us. Everyone. No matter their allegiance.”
Aquilius’ lips shaped a horrified circle of surprise. Ciprion blinked. Enarius and Metellus appeared confused and doubtful, respectfully.
“Who is Calenius?” the emperor demanded. “And why would he do that?”
“He’s a powerful mage,” Ciprion explained. “The revenants used him in the siege of Volanus, and he’s been up to something secret around the volcano, on his own.” He turned to Decius. “What’s he doing?”
Because what he said would challenge belief, Hanuvar explained it bluntly, and as simply as he could. “He’s going to summon the lord of time and trade the souls of the Volani killed when their city fell to bring back an epoch he craves, effectively erasing all of us.”
Silence reigned for a long moment. Metellus openly laughed.
Enarius, though, was both serious and curious. “What do you mean, erase us?”
“He means to change the past so his ancestor’s27 lands never fell. And that will mean all of us cease to exist. If their cities had stayed in power, Derva would never have risen, and none of us would be here.”
Metellus scoffed. “That’s preposterous! Why are you wasting our time with this? We should just stick with our plan for the raid tonight.”
“Tonight will be too late,” Hanuvar said.
“Decius would never waste our time,” Ciprion said coolly.
Enarius trusted Ciprion, clearly, for he absorbed this input before shifting his attention to Aquilius. The revenant legate had removed his own helm to expose his pale, blocky features. For a man heading up one of the most secretive organizations in the world, his own expression was extraordinarily transparent. His dark-brown eyes were furtive.
The emperor had noted Aquilius’ alarm at mention of Calenius. “This man has worked with the revenants?” he asked. “You look concerned, Aquilius. How powerful is he?”
“He has . . . some talent. Although I myself have been underwhelmed by him.”
“He’s the one who fashioned that fake Hanuvar for you, isn’t he?” Metellus crowed.
Ciprion’s gaze was calculating. Aquilius actually gaped for a moment before slamming his mouth shut.
“Fake Hanuvar?” Enarius prompted.
“Those Hanuvar sightings?” Metellus said. “Earlier in the year? That was some half-assed plan Aquilius cooked up with a sorcerer to try and draw out Hanuvar’s daughter or something.” Metellus smirked and then fell silent, watching. Hanuvar wondered how long the praetorian’s own sources had known about Aquilius’ bungled efforts and how long he had been waiting for just the right moment to reveal them to the emperor.
“Is this true, Aquilius?” Enarius demanded.
Almost Hanuvar interceded, because all of this delayed action. But he recognized that the drama needed to be played out, and kept silent.
“I involved Calenius not to draw out Hanuvar’s daughter, but to find the man himself.”
“By creating a lookalike?” Metellus asked, smirking.
“By fashioning a man who thought like him!”
“And he escaped,” Metellus said, gloating.
Aquilius glared daggers at Metellus.
“That man almost had the whole south in an uproar,” the emperor said. “That doesn’t strike me as very wise, Aquilius. Why was I not consulted?”
“The leader of these gladiators is one of those released and inspired by the false Hanuvar,” Hanuvar said.
Aquilius turned his ire on him. “This man looks much more like Hanuvar than the one I conjured ever did. He was even travelling with a young Herrene the time I saw him, just like Hanuvar was reported to do!”
“Is travelling with a Herrene a crime?” Ciprion asked.
Metellus relished the revenant’s discomfiture.
But Aquilius’ nostrils flared in anger. “If this is the Decius Antoninus who’s assisting the Lenereva woman, I’ve run security checks on him. Do you know that there’s no known information on the origin of either him or his children?”
The troubled gaze Enarius fastened upon the legate suggested he listened to a desperate man.
Aquilius sputtered. “You do realize that most of the Volani have gone missing, don’t you? That they’ve all been bought up or escaped or simply disappeared? Who do you think is behind this? I have conclusive proof that Volani all up and down Tyvol have been systematically removed!”
“How is this germane to the matters at hand?” Ciprion asked calmly.
“Izivar Lenereva is behind it, and I submit that this man beside you is her agent! He may even be Hanuvar himself! When my men found him he was on the road with slaves I’d bet were Volani, and a Herrene! Just like Hanuvar!”
“And you didn’t think to arrest him at the time?” Metellus asked, still smirking.
“I had other things on my mind!” Aquilius snapped.
“You’re saying this is Hanuvar.” Enarius’ voice was cool and level.
“Yes! Or someone in his service.”
Enarius’ voice hardened. “This man, whose children saved my life, twice. This man, who saved my father, the emperor, from assassins, in the home of Izivar Lenereva. You’re telling me he’s Hanuvar.”
Aquilius saw his arguments were failing, and grew more passionate. “Don’t you see? It could all have been arranged to blind you to the Volani plans! To win your trust! To slide that young Volani woman into your bed!”
Only after he said the last did the revenant legate understand he had gone too far. For the first time Hanuvar had ever seen, Enarius actually looked angry. His jaw firmed, and his mouth was one straight line. His brows were drawn.
Metellus grinned in triumph but put a hand to his mouth rather than bursting into outright laughter.
“I apologize, sire,” Aquilius said quickly. “I did not mean to imply that your mistress—”
“Leave,” Enarius said, his voice icy. “Now.”
“Sire?”
“You are dismissed from my service. You are dismissed from the revenants. Do not speak again, or I shall not bother with a stipend.”
Aquilius gulped and stood. He opened his mouth, staring helplessly at the emperor, his gaze swinging to Metellus.
The praetorian couldn’t help a final dig. “Idiot. Ciprion’s met Hanuvar. Don’t you think he’d recognize him?”
Aquilius couldn’t hold himself back from that. “He’s in on it!” He thrust a finger, shaking with rage, at Ciprion. “He bought Volani children and sold them to Izivar Lenereva! Don’t you see the connection?”
“You’re through!” the emperor shouted.
“It’s Metellus you should dismiss!” Aquilius shouted back. “I’ve tracked all of his schemes for the last year. It’s all there—every denarius he siphoned from the praetorian funds! Witnesses, payments, everything! I can prove it!”
Metellus’ expression closed and cooled. Enarius did not look at him. He stood and pointed to the exit.
Aquilius strode for it, opened it, exited, and slammed it behind him.
Metellus cleared his throat. “I hope, sire, that you don’t give those accusations any more credence than—”
“I don’t care about any of that right now,” Enarius said, a growl in his voice. “I want to hear about the wizard Calenius and what he’s doing. Decius? You’re sure about this? How do you know?”
“I’ve seen his preparations. I travelled with him, in his confidence, when he sought one of the tools to work his magic.”
“How are the gladiators involved?” Enarius asked.
“They’re not with Calenius. Their leader doesn’t believe a word of what I’m telling you.”
The emperor stroked his chin. “What’s your connection with them?”
Hanuvar smiled ruefully. “They think I’m Hanuvar.”
The emperor let out a bark of laughter. Even Metellus, obviously troubled, appeared faintly amused.
“How did you convince them of that?” the emperor asked. “Why would you?”
“I have to improvise to get the job done.”
“And what’s your job?”
“Right now, it’s keeping the empire safe.”
“And before now?”
“Among other things, it was keeping you safe.”
Enarius considered this. “Who do you work for? Ciprion?”
Hanuvar had an answer ready so that he would not involve his friend in a further lie. “Lucius tasked my family to watch you at key junctures.”
“Lucius, the priest? But he said he couldn’t entice your sons to work for me.” Suddenly the emperor’s expression cleared. “Gods—that’s because he wanted them free to move about, wasn’t it?”
Ciprion wisely chose to shift the topic of conversation. “So what do you propose we do about Calenius and the gladiators?”
Hanuvar was glad his friend was at hand to cleverly divert problematic avenues of inquiry. “Calenius has to be stopped. Today. You have two options. One, agree to let the gladiators leave on the ships while we deal with Calenius.”
“Out of the question,” Ciprion said.
“It’s unthinkable,” Enarius agreed. “What’s the other option?”
“You’re not going to like it,” Ciprion said, for he had already deduced what it was.
“He’s right,” Hanuvar agreed. “You won’t.”
“I won’t?” Enarius looked back and forth between them. “What is it?”
Hanuvar explained. “You agree to pardon the gladiators if they help you fight Calenius.”
Enarius had been reaching for his goblet. His hand froze and his eyes bulged. “Impossible! These are escaped slaves! If we show clemency to even one—”
Hanuvar cut him off. “Calenius is going to wipe all of us out. All. Men, women, children. Nobles and slaves, soldiers and fish mongers, emperors and revenants. And we don’t have time to hesitate. He’s almost a half day’s march away and it’s closing on eleven bells.”
“What do you get out of this?” Metellus asked. “Lucius is long dead.” He shifted his attention to the emperor. “I know this man’s family has done you good turns but this entire magic time story is preposterous. How do we know he doesn’t just have some longstanding grievance against Calenius?”
“Decius has my complete trust,” Ciprion declared. And apparently that meant much to Enarius, who eyed him soberly.
“And it seems he should have mine as well,” Enarius said. “His previous actions have surely earned it.”
Ciprion turned to Hanuvar. “What about Calenius’ forces?”
“Information is limited. It is thought he has a small private army of approximately a hundred men.” Hanuvar reasoned that many were recently employed mercenaries but didn’t elaborate. “The gladiators report that his men have fortified Calenius’ position. About two weeks ago I saw them readying some entrenchments on the side of Esuvia. There are certain to be some sorcerous safeguards as well, but I can’t estimate their strength. Calenius is a dangerous adversary because we cannot know the extent of his power or his preparations and we don’t have the luxury of scouting this out. He must be stopped today.”
Enarius listened, sipping slowly. Metellus watched, a troubled man failing to hide his unease. He wanted to demonstrate his worth to the emperor but had yet to see a way to distinguish himself in these unfamiliar conditions.
Ciprion tapped the tabletop. “He would never expect us to join up with the gladiators.”
“Exactly,” Hanuvar agreed. He halfway expected Calenius’ machinations had somehow helped bring this revolt to life, the better to sow confusion and improve his chances for success, as his military preparations on the mountain could not have gone unnoticed indefinitely by a state paranoid about any challenge to their power.
“How disciplined are the gladiators?” Ciprion asked.
“The ones I saw were well regulated. I’m told they’ve trained a further three hundred.”
“They won’t be veterans,” Enarius cautioned.
“We can still find use for them,” Ciprion said. “Just seeing the approach of that large a force might get Calenius’ men to change their positioning.”
Metellus shook his head. “You can’t honestly be considering allying with escaped slaves.”
“I’m considering how to win a battle for the empire’s safety,” Ciprion said.
“Metellus is right,” Enarius said. “If I work with these men, I’m setting a terrible precedent.”
Hanuvar had known that he would hear that objection, and had a counterargument ready. “It’s a unique circumstance, one that they and others must be told won’t ever come again. They have to earn their pardon. You’re elevating them in the state’s hour of need to fight under your banner and providing them with a chance to be freedmen if they gain their emperor’s favor. Same as happens in the arena. Offer them this choice, and be a leader that can grant the honor and recognition they crave.”
Enarius grasped the goblet’s stem and thought it through. “You think the gladiators will accept this offer? Will they believe you?”
“I think they will believe you. I can prepare the way, and then you will address them. So far they don’t know you’re here, and I think that surprise will help.”
“We can have them pledge their loyalty to you,” Ciprion suggested. “If they agree to fight, they will have their freedom. I’ll write up an oath.”
Metellus sullenly watched the young emperor swirl wine in his goblet. Probably he struggled now to develop a different gambit to prove useful in the course of the conversation. Hanuvar didn’t like or trust him enough to invite his input as he brooded silently, a dark look cast upon Hanuvar and Ciprion.
“Very well,” Enarius said finally. “I have placed a great deal of trust in you, Decius. If not for the aid your family has already given me, and the word of Ciprion, I would be more hesitant. I’m also frankly inspired by your dedication to the empire, as well as your bravery. What you’ve done already must have been accomplished at considerable risk.”
“I do what I can,” Hanuvar said. “Once I leave, give me a half hour to address the gladiators, and then ride out with an honor guard.”
“Very well. Ciprion, I think I should like to write this oath myself. Metellus, get us some paper and ink.”
His expression that of a man sucking lemons, Metellus pushed out from the table and stalked for the door.
Ciprion rose. “I’d like a few moments to confer with Decius about additional military concerns,” he said.
Outside in the hallway, Metellus could be heard snarling for a slave.
“Of course.” The emperor stood. “Good luck to you, Decius. If this succeeds, I will honor you above all other men.”
“I don’t think you ought to do that,” Hanuvar said, “but that’s a topic for another day. Convincing the gladiators to side with us is just the first step. Winning against Calenius is a whole other challenge.”
“One the empire can face.”
“I hope so.” Hanuvar saluted the young man, Dervan style. Ciprion did the same, and the two excused themselves. Metellus scowled at them as he reentered, followed by a nervous slave supporting an arm full of paper, an ink jar, and a clutch of reed pens.
Ciprion led them halfway across the empty hall and then stopped in its midst after Metellus had shut the door to the briefing area.
“Did you ever think to hear a promise of a triumph from the emperor?” Ciprion asked quietly.
“I had something of a nightmare about it once.”
Ciprion offered his arm, and Hanuvar clasped it. The Dervan general’s gaze and grip were firm. “Thank you for bringing my Amelia.”
Hanuvar inclined his head. “She was kept in a room with a bed, and books. As prisons went, it wasn’t a terrible one, and she told me she was not mistreated.”
They released arms. “You think you can reason with the gladiators?”
“Most of the gladiators, yes. I may have trouble with their leader.”
“How dangerous is Calenius?”
“He is ages old, a skilled warrior, and a powerful mage. I don’t think they come more dangerous. The revenants may be able to tell you more, though I don’t know how you can trust what they say. We’ll be going into battle with very little understanding of the weapons at his disposal. It’s liable to be costly.”
Ciprion nodded, once.
“I’ve seen him send spirits out to rip the souls from his opponents. But he may be disinclined to use them, because these spirits are his currency. He has tools that cut deeper, or bind. And he can quickly heal himself. He’s fast and strong and liable to have other sorcerous defenses I can’t anticipate.”
“We’ll have to be adaptable, then. There are surveyor’s maps of Esuvia in the archives here. We’ll scour them while you arrange this alliance.” Ciprion paused to consider his friend. “How can you possibly play all of these roles? A real Hanuvar for the gladiators, a man the Dervans think is pretending to be Hanuvar, and . . . others. It can’t hold up for long.”
“It just needs to hold up until the battle’s over. Then I intend to vanish. My work in Tyvol is nearly done.” Hanuvar lifted his chin toward where the praetorian legate was closeted with the emperor. “What was this raid you were planning?”
“We’ve made some swim bladders. I was going to lead a crack group out across the harbor late tonight and take out their catapults. Then we could at least get the emperor out. He insisted on accompanying me here.”
“I thought as much. Had you just come to reinforce the garrison, or did you have some other plan in mind?”
“The garrison had only a few dozen men—I was afraid the gladiators could overwhelm them. And . . . I wished to see the conditions of the town and attempt a parlay with Tafari. But that hasn’t gotten us anywhere, because there are few terms I can offer. He kept hinting about Amelia, and I was certain he was going to do something terrible.”
“For a warrior, he’s pretty considerate. He reminds me of that Ermanian mercenary you told me about.”
Ciprion laughed. “Hortlekt! His brothers mocked him when he refused to let them kill those captured horses for meat. And it wasn’t about the value or practicality, he told me it was about the look in their eyes.” He sighed wistfully. “We never have managed that proper dinner so we can trade more war stories.”
“If all goes well, in an hour we can share some rations while staring over a map of terrain.”
The Dervan general was silent for a moment, then smiled slowly. “We shall finally wage a battle on the same side.”
“Let’s hope that’s enough to win us a victory.”
III
Hanuvar found Eshmun waiting beyond the wall of carts outside the fortress, his face bright with expectation. The dog had remained nearby and leapt with pleasure, wagging his tail. Hanuvar patted Kalak and praised him as the gladiators standing watch declared they hadn’t thought to see him return alive.
“Don’t be alarmed when the gate opens,” Hanuvar said. “A procession will emerge soon, under truce. The emperor himself will be riding forth to speak with you.”
The gladiators repeated this news with disbelief.
“But what’s he going to say?” Eshmun asked.
“He’s going to offer freedom to those gladiators and their allies who join forces with him to fight the wizard on mount Esuvia. Eshmun, I need you to gather everyone who’s not standing guard at the roads. Tell them to meet on the steps of the town hall. Tell them Hanuvar will lead them.”
Eshmun looked as though he wished to ask more. “Go, man!” Hanuvar urged. “Time wastes!”
The young gladiator dashed away. Hanuvar looked back at the fortress and the silent, helmeted soldiers watching from the battlement, and strode the rest of the way up the street, on past the silent shops. The dog trod the bricks at his side.
It did not take long for word to spread, and by the time Hanuvar arrived at the town square gladiators and the former slaves Tafari’s men had trained as soldiers were filtering in, talking among themselves about Hanuvar and the emperor’s plan to grant them freedom.
As Hanuvar climbed the stairs to the capital building’s portico, dozens already waited expectantly in the street. Eshmun must have told other men to aid him, for shouts rang through the town that Hanuvar himself had forged a deal with the emperor and had come to lead them in a battle for liberty. Who would not have gathered to hear about that? Shutters in the apartments above closed shops were thrown open and people looked down. Before very long at all, hundreds had formed up: men, a few women, and even some children.
Some of the townsfolk huddled in groups apart from their occupiers. And there, at the crowd’s edge, he spotted Izivar and a retinue of her retainers. Antires was pushing his way toward Hanuvar, his hand raised in greeting. Hanuvar returned it, although his eyes found his lover, whose expression was clearly troubled, and perhaps a little angry, probably because he had publicly identified himself.
“What have you done?” an irate male voice demanded behind him.
Tafari had emerged from the government hall, his mouth twisted in fury. His voice was low as he crowded up to Hanuvar. “You called these men here? Without consulting me?”
Hanuvar removed his helmet but kept the eyepatch in place. His own reply was soft. “You either need to join me, or get out of the way.”
“You dare?” Tafari was the larger man, and leaned close, one hand upon his sword pommel.
Hanuvar did not back down, though he stilled Kalak’s growl by putting his hand out. “I have forged an alliance, and a path to your freedom.”
“My freedom?”
“The freedom of all your people. But they must fight.”
“They are prepared to fight,” Tafari said through gritted teeth. “At my command.”
“At the emperor’s command,” Hanuvar countered.
Eshmun had joined him, and Bomilcar and Antires had reached his side with Elistala, ranged behind him in a protective cordon to match the one about Tafari. The gladiator fumed but said nothing more as Hanuvar turned to the crowd with hands raised.
They silenced their chattering as he began to speak, his voice pitched to carry through the streets. “You know me. I brought the Dervans to their knees! Go ask them who ambushed their legions at Lake Tralesis, and who destroyed eight legions in a single day at Acanar!”
He had them then; he had not felt so much attention from so many upturned faces since he had addressed the people of New Volanus on the third anniversary of the colony’s founding. “I have no love for Dervans! Like you, I fought for the freedom of my people! But I am not here today to bring war to them. I have returned from consult with general Ciprion, and we spoke to the emperor himself. Both are men of honor, and they have given their pledges to me. And they mean to give that pledge to you! A great battle looms on the mountain, where evil forces even now shake the earth. If we take their side to defeat it, you will have your freedom!”
Gasps spread through the crowd, which then broke into excited murmuring. Their exchanges trailed into silence as Hanuvar resumed. He pointed toward the cone of Esuvia. “On that mountain, an enemy plots to destroy us all. By midnight tonight, his magics will have killed every man, woman, and child within a hundred miles!” He would exterminate many more than that, but Hanuvar didn’t want to complicate his message any further than necessary. “His sorcery cannot be outrun, but it can be outfought! If we work together, we can take battle to the wizard. Legionary and gladiator, warriors all and slaves no longer, striking a blow as one!”
A gruff male voice cried out that the Dervans couldn’t be trusted and others called their agreement even as others shouted them to silence.
“All that I’ve said is true,” Hanuvar declared. “The emperor himself is coming to warrant my words!”
The gathered men and women talked loudly among themselves. Someone cried to Tafari for confirmation, and Hanuvar turned to him.
Tafari stalked close, fire in his eyes. Bomilcar stepped to intervene, but Hanuvar motioned him back and allowed the leader forward.
“You’re stealing my army,” Tafari said with a snarl.
“I’m giving them what you wanted for them. Freedom.”
Tafari’s nostrils flared in frustration.
Hanuvar knew he had only a brief moment to win him over. “I need you as much as you need me. You know your men and their qualities. I don’t have days to learn them. I have delivered promise of their freedom, but they are your warriors. Loyal first to the man who’s led them so far.”
Tafari weighed his words and some of his anger ebbed. “And what about when this is over?”
“Assuming we live,” Hanuvar said, “I will not need your army. My plans will carry me far away from here as soon as possible.”
“And you trust the emperor? Why should I believe him? Or you?”
“You think I would league with the emperor of Derva if there were any other option?”
Tafari was silent for a long moment, then shook his head no. “You think he will keep his word?”
“Against all odds, the youngster on the throne is a man of principal. And Ciprion, his general, is a man of integrity no matter our prior conflict. I would trust him with my life. So yes. I think their oaths will be honored and I think this is the best opportunity you will have. Are you wise enough to seize it?”
Shouting erupted from outside their field of view, and the words, indecipherable at first, spread through the throng: the emperor was riding to the town square.
A tall man with a bushy beard cried out that now was their chance—they could take the emperor and bargain for anything they wanted.
Hanuvar stepped to the edge of the stairs. “Hear me!”
He had to shout twice more before they had quieted enough for his voice to reach them. “Don’t be fools! Would you live free for a half day, or would you win freedom for the rest of your lives?”
His words set a fresh round of arguments in motion, though none were directed at Hanuvar. Tafari listened to the factions calling to one another and stepped up beside Hanuvar. “The emperor says he will offer us freedom! Let us hear him out!”
That caused a lull in the commotion, over which the steady clatter of multiple hooves grew audible. Those in the crowd settled then and looked expectantly east.
A pair of praetorians, fully armored, their white horsehair crests bobbing, rode in the vanguard. Their advance forced the crowd back without threat.
A slim figure in ordinary legionary armor sat saddle on a spirited ebon mount at the center of the small procession, beside the helmetless Ciprion. A centurion amongst the horsemen called a halt, and then all was so silent that one of the horses snorting sounded like thunder.
The slim figure beside Ciprion removed his helmet, revealing the handsome countenance of Enarius, his dark hair even wilder than usual. He coaxed his gelding ahead, and it clopped through the praetorians until he sat saddle only a few spear lengths out from hundreds of escaped slaves. Ciprion followed on a white horse.
Enarius’ curious gaze raked over the men and women before them, and strayed to a handful of children. He took in Izivar, on the far edge beside a shorter, rounder woman, and lingered there for a long moment before his eyes brushed across Hanuvar’s. Finally he lifted his head and addressed the throng. “I had planned to bring retribution to enemies. But I do not see enemies. Today, I need brave warriors to join me in the fight. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, only what you will do for me now. A madman means to kill us all with his magics. Working together, we can stop him. Working together, we can win. And I pledge you this—fight under my banner, and you will have your freedom!”
Stunned silence followed the young man’s declamation. A few murmured among themselves. Hanuvar saw that Enarius appeared confused, even disappointed by the reaction. The crowd wasn’t sure how to respond.
Hanuvar raised his fist and shouted. “Hail the emperor!”
The call was taken up by another man out in the crowd, and then Hanuvar shouted once more: “Hail the emperor!”
His cry grew into a chant that crackled through the square. Enarius smiled and lifted his hand. Ciprion, still eying the throngs, rode up to the ruler’s side.
As the chants faded, the same tall, bushy-haired man who’d cried to take the emperor hostage called out: “What kind of magic will they be using against us?”
Ciprion raised his palm for silence as others demanded similar details, and the throngs stilled to hear him.
“I can’t say what kind of sorceries we’ll see,” he said. “But I ask you this. How could a wizard prevail against a band of warriors such as yourselves, allied with the legion’s finest? With a force led by none other than Ciprion and Hanuvar?” His voice rose. “Who can stand against us? No one!”
Cheering erupted then, followed by another chant for the emperor, and then one for Hanuvar.
As that died down Tafari ordered his men to gather with equipment and a day’s worth of supplies. Ciprion sent two of his soldiers back to order his men out of the fortress, then advanced with the emperor and the rest of the honor guard to discuss strategy. Metellus, Hanuvar noted, was distinctly absent.
While many dispersed, many more remained to stare at the unbelievable sight of the Dervan emperor dismounting to clasp the hand of Hanuvar. Quietly, Hanuvar praised the young man. “Nicely done, sire. What about the oath?”
“I’ll have them swear it when they come back in armor.” Enarius grinned. “That way they can raise their swords to me.”
Hanuvar approved. He introduced Ciprion and Enarius to Tafari, who bowed his head formally, his discomfort with the situation apparent only in the stiffness of his expression.
“We’ve plans to make,” Hanuvar said. “But I hope you will give me a moment.” He bent toward Enarius and spoke quietly. “The Lady Izivar is here, and I’d best explain about my assumed identity so she doesn’t say something to set things awry.”
Enarius’ expression cleared. “Of course,” he said.
“We’ll need to consult the maps,” Ciprion said to Tafari as the man ushered them forward.
“Naturally.”
The others headed in, followed by a small train of centurions, praetorians, and officers of the gladiator army, each group skeptically eying the other. Hanuvar remained outside with Bomilcar and Antires and Elistala. Izivar, accompanied by her muscular doorman, Reshef, and the unfamiliar younger woman, made her way through the thinning crowd and started up the stairs, her expression cloudy.
He wished dearly to embrace her and he saw that same impulse in her own eyes. She wore her green this day, a Dervan stola, though her arms were graced with Volani bracelets, and glass beads of Volani make dangled from her ears.
Hanuvar glanced at her companions. “Give us a moment.”
“But I’ve got a lot of questions,” Antires objected. He was clean-shaven and better groomed than when they’d last spoken. The unfamiliar woman lingered close beside him, and her striking brown eyes studied Hanuvar in that uncomfortable way mages had, almost as though he were more specimen than man.
“Question later,” he told them both.
The playwright sighed and stepped apart with the others, the woman taking his hand. Izivar searched Hanuvar’s face, as if to sort her own warring emotions. Her eyes had fastened worriedly on the eyepatch and he shook his head to reassure her. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said quietly. He thought that he really ought to kiss her, since their proximity made their relationship blatantly obvious to anyone, but they quietly drank each other in for a moment.
Her eyes swept down to the dog, standing protectively beside his master, then she spoke softly to him, in irritation and disbelief. “You’ve told Enarius?”
“He knows that I am Decius, pretending to be Hanuvar.”
She blinked in astonishment. “How long do you expect that to last?”
“It needs to last no longer than today. After that, we can be on our way. Is the household prepared for departure?”
“It is. I sent—” She broke off in midsentence before resuming. “I sent our mutual friend north with the rest of what we recovered, and much of the baggage and all but a few servants.” She meant Carthalo, a name she did not wish to repeat in front of others. “His work to the south is finished. You were gone too long,” she said in a rush. “We’d had no word. Bomilcar turned up but then the gladiators swept in—”
“But you’re all right?” he asked.
She sighed, clearly restraining any number of passions. “I am now. What happened? Do you really have to go off to war?”
“We do. Calenius has been planning this moment for a long time. He tried to kill me once he thought I understood what he was doing, but it took me a few more days to work it out.”
“What is he doing?”
“He either engineered or capitalized on the deaths at Volanus to capture souls.”
Her expression changed to one of horror as Hanuvar continued. “He means to trade them with an entity he’ll summon this evening to either turn back time, or transport himself into the far past. Either way, everything we know will vanish. If his people never fall, ours will never rise. Entire civilizations will cease to be.”
She appeared to be having trouble taking in the idea, so he explained further. “If even one of our ancestors is removed from the chain that leads to us, then we never come to exist. Or at least, not the we that we are.”
“I guess I understand.” She frowned. Her eyes bored deeply into his own. “Why does there always have to be a battle? We’re ready to shift focus to the provinces and the lands beyond. It shouldn’t take much longer. But you . . . you’re marching off to fight a dark wizard.” She lifted a scroll tube. “And there’s this. Your daughter has sent it for you. Can’t you leave this fight to Ciprion and the gladiators?”
He took the paper, glancing at the thing in his hand he had wanted for so long, then met her pleading eyes. “I have to do this,” he said finally. “I have faced Calenius. I know his strengths and his weaknesses better than anyone else.”
“Ciprion’s very clever,” she insisted. “You’ve said so yourself.”
“But he has not faced Calenius.”
“You want to do this,” she said curtly.
“Not really. But it’s too important to trust to other hands. If we lose, there’s no second chance. We’ll all be swept away.” He weighed the letter in his hands. “What does she say?”
“I do not know,” Izivar answered wearily. “I have been awaiting you to open it.”
He push the scroll back toward her, and she accepted it reluctantly. “I will read it at my leisure. At your side. Now, I must plan our steps. We haven’t long.”
“And I will be waiting.” There was no missing a note of bitterness in her voice, or the sorrow in her eyes. He wished to kiss the pain away, but he merely nodded, and stepped apart. Antires, Bomilcar, and Eshmun fell into step behind him.
“I feel like I’ve missed much,” Antires confided to him as they passed under the archway.
“True. But I gather the same. Who’s that woman who was with you?”
Antires cleared his throat awkwardly. “That’s Ishana.”
“So she’s a new advisor? Your barber, perhaps?” Hanuvar couldn’t help smiling.
Antires’ cheeks colored and he chuckled. He offered empty hands and then sighed with pleasure. “I like her. A lot.”
IV
Hanuvar had seldom spent less time learning the ground over which he fought. His father’s old maxim was to know the enemy as well as a lover and the battlefield even better, and to avoid any fight when you were going in blind.
The eyepatch he wore among the Dervans—who thought him pretending to be Hanuvar so as to fool the gladiators, who actually knew the truth—limited his sight, but it did not limit his insight that careful review of the maps would not reveal all the secrets that lay before them. He and Ciprion knew Calenius would take better advantage of terrain, thoroughly explored; knew that he would have counterattacks ready for them; knew that he would see their approach for long hours.
But they could not delay, even to advance under cover of darkness. And thus they headed forth, some of Tafari’s spearmen and scouts under Ciprion’s command, to better even out their numbers. Once separated into their twin companies and on the march, Hanuvar removed his eye patch. The time for play acting had passed.
He had left the old farm horse with a stable for safe keeping, thinking he would have the gelding returned to Kliment if they managed to survive. Hanuvar now rode a dark gray that Ciprion had found for him, a reliable and responsive animal with a good gait. He often preferred to walk with his soldiers, but he needed to rest his leg, which was still weaker than he would have liked.
With Hanuvar came Antires, outfitted with armor the gladiators had given him. He looked a Herrenic hero of old. Bomilcar, Elistala, and Eshmun helped fill out Hanuvar’s personal protective squad, along with Kalak.
Over the afternoon march toward the smoking mountain Bomilcar told him what he’d learned from Narisia—of her desperate escape with her companions, and how one of their number, badly wounded, sacrificed herself to lead pursuers astray. Narisia and the survivors had remained hidden in Turia for long weeks while she recovered from a festering leg wound, then stole a fishing boat, narrowly missing a Dervan trireme on patrol. They had stopped in some Herrenic colonies, landed at Surru, and were then blown off course when they headed further west, eventually finding their way into the confidence of a Faedahni prince, who wanted to join with Cerdia in a fight against Derva.
“They mean to build a league to oppose the empire,” Bomilcar said. “An army of gladiators would be welcome aid.”
To Hanuvar’s mind, a small force of gladiators would fare no better against the Dervan war machine than his well-trained levees, much less those commanded by Cerdian aristocrats, but he said nothing.
Antires did, though. “The time for an alliance was a generation back. Where was Cerdia when three of the Herrenic cities rebelled? When some of the Faedahni cities declared for Volanus?”
“We can’t do anything about that,” Bomilcar said impatiently. “But the Cerdians have reached out again to the Herrenes, and the Ilodoneans, and other lands.”
The misplaced optimism was tiresome. What city-state was left among the Herrenes to oppose Derva? Their great leaders were dead or in exile, and the cities determined upon freedom were crushed. The most rebellious of them had been razed like Volanus, as an object lesson to the rest. Only fools could expect much help from Herrenia now. Most of the Faedahni cities were Dervan satellites, and the Ilodoneans could be trusted only to use other states to run interference for them.
“My niece was purchased by Ilodoneans and I’ve learned she’s now in Cerdia, correct?” Hanuvar wanted to confirm that Narisia was able to protect Edonia.
Elistala looked honestly surprised. “How did you know?”
“A long story. What’s she doing with them?”
“The Ilodonean prince has promised to free her and the others after they perform some sort of mystical spell to call an asalda,” Elistala answered. “Edonia’s been permitted regular contact with Narisia, and is being well cared for.”
To Hanuvar’s questioning look, she added: “Narisia doesn’t like it, but they’re in a foreign land, and the Cerdian customs are different.” She swiftly shifted topics to Narisia’s goals. “The king and his advisors can’t agree on their tactics. They don’t have any true generals.”
Bomilcar’s eyes shone with anticipated pleasure. “You would arrive like a thunderbolt. Think how the Dervans would feel to see you at the head of a Cerdian army.”
“They’d be nearly as surprised as me,” Hanuvar said. “One battle at a time. Narisia is well?”
“She is,” Bomilcar confirmed.
“She cried with joy when she heard your survival was no rumor,” Elistala added. “She knows you could whip the Cerdian army into shape. And they might listen better to your advice. Even though she’s your daughter, and an Eltyr, they still discount her because she’s a woman.” Elistala shook her head in disgust.
Antires shot him a questioning look. Hanuvar guessed the younger man knew his thoughts. Unbidden, a memory of Calenius’ words came to him: that men and women made the same mistakes each generation. He looked off toward that green-girt mountain beyond the helmets of the troops marching before him, thinking that the big man was right.
It was easy for the inexperienced to dismiss wise counsel. When very young himself he’d thought he’d never grow weary of the fight, as had his brother-in-law Andalaval, worn down by the stress of holding their forces together in Biranus. He had not then appreciated all the political headaches Andalaval had borne after the death of Himli Cabera. His brother-in-law had led the Volani forces in the colony until his own assassination.
Hanuvar had never used rash words against Andalaval, but the man had surely known Hanuvar’s impatience, sometimes bordering on contempt. He had seen further than Andalaval, but he understood now that, bright though he had been, there were things he did not appreciate simply because he lacked the perspective of long years in command. How much further might he see from where Calenius stood? With centuries, possibly eons between him and others, might he sound much the same as the wizard? With the requisite power, might he follow a similar course?
He would like to think not, and wondered if that was arrogance. For Hanuvar already felt a distance from these people twenty-five years his junior, and did not know how to explain to Elistala and Bomilcar and his own daughter the futility of their aspirations for vengeance. He’d spoken to Bomilcar about it before he’d left, but the captain seemed not to have taken the message to heart. Hanuvar had hazarded every bit of his being uncounted times to save his people and yet with sudden clarity understood that any gratitude they felt did not necessarily bend their thinking to his own. Wisdom was hard to come by. Anger was far easier to grasp, and less ephemeral, the blanket on a chill night rather than the faded lettering on an old scroll read by guttering candlelight.
For all that, he would find a way to reach them. He must. But that too was a problem for another time.
They travelled through the afternoon, splitting their forces further when they arrived at the mountains’ base. The gladiators and their allied spear and bowmen accompanied Tafari and Hanuvar to the east slope, swinging past Calenius’ abandoned excavations, the black stones from his bygone youth thrust up like the bones of giants. Ciprion’s force headed for the south.
Esuvia’s clouds rose, blending with a gathering thunderhead.
Hanuvar dismounted and sent his people up the slope. For the first hundred feet it felt as though they would rise unopposed. But the archers of Calenius had merely waited for better range.
The scouts fared worst. It was easy to pick them off during the ascent, for tree cover was sparse and Calenius had positioned his marksman on bluffs. A dozen gladiators were down before Hanuvar’s spearmen were in position, and six more fell getting close enough to pin down the archers. Had he Melgar’s slingers it would have been a simple matter, for their accuracy had been astounding.
The gladiators charged, cleared out the archery nest, and were all for racing further up slope, but Hanuvar shouted for them to fall back, and it was only Tafari’s repeated order that halted them.
It was well for them they heeded his command, for the surviving archers had meant to lead them into an ambush against some thirty of Calenius’ spearmen, discovered by one sharp-eyed scout who shouted their location. The spear one of the ambushers tossed only grazed him, but the poor fellow slipped on a steep bluff and plummeted into the scrub below.
The death of their comrades enraged gladiators and former farm slaves alike, and they charged upward. Fury more than skill took them close, despite heavy losses. A well-trained force would have handled it better.
The next few hundred feet passed without challenge. Hanuvar heard the sound of trumpets and the shouts of men, and screams, and the clash of arms. Around the mountain’s side Ciprion’s forces must have come to grips with another band Calenius had set.
“Do you think we’ve seen the end of it?” Antires asked. There was that in his voice that suggested he knew the answer. Hanuvar’s return look confirmed it. Calenius possessed more armed men than they had known.
Above them loomed a sixty-foot rise over bushes and scraggly pines. Beyond that lay a wide shelf that stretched halfway around Esuvia and the cinder cone. The scouts pushed up through the brush, arriving at the shelf. One of the three shouted a warning before a thunderous roar sounded.
A wall of boulders slammed down, careened onto the shelf, and rumbled toward their position. Hanuvar shouted for the troops to scatter, and they took cover behind hillocks and rocks.
Two factors saved them. First, the majority of the boulders missed his people precisely because they had been arranged to cascade down the most obvious access point upon the slope, which Hanuvar had avoided. Second, Calenius could not have anticipated so large a force and hadn’t had long to adjust his tactics. The boulders might well have finished a troop of twenty or thirty, but it could not destroy their expedition. While the avalanche smashed fifteen warriors, Hanuvar shouted everyone else forward before the dust had even settled.
More of Calenius’ spearmen emerged from another hiding spot and charged onto the rocky shelf to send their weapons raining down.
Two of the scouts had survived the drop of the boulders. One fell immediately, but one, the same bushy-haired Ruminian who’d raised so many objections in the town square, attacked the spearmen with a savage cry, hewing right and left and severing limbs like a hero from legend. His example galvanized the gladiator troop. Some cried they were coming, others called out his name, Lorca, and ran to help.
Hanuvar and his guards followed in the second rank. Antires could be heard muttering good wishes for the mad Ruminian.
The gladiators reached Lorca before he could be overwhelmed, arriving just before two teams of ten emerged from hiding. These were warriors who looked the part, perhaps the best of Calenius’ force, let by the fierce Arbatean guard that had guided Hanuvar’s first meeting with the wizard. When they clashed into Tafari’s troops the blood ran thick. Hanuvar urged his personal cadre back, for he meant to hold them in reserve for the final push.
But a trio of Calenius’ warriors broke through the front rank. Hanuvar’s guard brought them down, but not before Eshmun took a slash to the thigh. It wasn’t crippling, but it left him limping badly, and Hanuvar ordered him to fall back.
With the wizard’s forces defeated, a panting Tafari raised his sword on high and let out a victory shout. Of the almost three hundred they’d begun the climb with more than seventy were dead or wounded, but the survivors echoed his cry.
They started around the mountain’s rocky shelf, arriving at a point where ancient carved stones led some fifty feet higher to a flattened shoulder where an old ruin stood, obscured in shifting mist.
Ciprion’s legionaries had arrived before them and some had dared that climb. Twenty bodies lay twisted upon or beside the stairs. The living were spread along the barren shelf facing away from Hanuvar’s people, shields lifted in formation against a stony horror even now plodding forward from the west, occupying almost all of the forty feet between mountain rise and drop-off.
A vast black bull fashioned of volcanic stone shook the ground with each stamp of its hooves. With a start Hanuvar recalled the serpentine bull hybrids he’d observed carved into the huge pictographic stones Calenius had studied. This was one of those monstrous entities brought to a semblance of life, fully twenty feet tall at the shoulder and armed with three horns and a snakey tail. It swung its head into the legionaries. Most swayed clear but two on the edge were clipped in their shields and sent screaming over the side. Ciprion sent his men streaming under its belly for its back legs, led by a shouting centurion, as the creature lashed its whiplike rear. Its open mouth released no sound but the din of swords against it and shouts of warriors filled the air.
Another band of soldiers had readied ropes and cast lassos toward the horns as the huge thing ponderously shifted its long neck once more.
Brave though the Dervans were, their numbers had been cut in half, and fifty soldiers with their handful of gladiators seemed too few. Tafari called his greater force of men forward, shouting for them to ready their own ropes. Every fifth man had carried some in their packs, in case mountain scaling had proven necessary.
Soldiers and gladiators together drove the thing back, the legionaries chopping at the legs with their hatchets while others fought to fasten ropes to the limbs and horns.
Ciprion and a pair of his officers joined Hanuvar. “There’s another of the cursed things behind it.” Tafari’s gladiators streamed past to press their attack. “We’re lucky they’re so slow.” His cheek was bruised and his armor dented, but he looked hale.
“That’s a wall of spirits, isn’t it?” Hanuvar was looking toward the stairs where the bodies lay, and the upper ledge of rock where what seemed a wall of mist shifted slowly against the wind.
“Yes. Those that didn’t die on the stair cracked and ran. And small wonder. The ghosts can tear the soul straight out of a man. Just like you said.”
Seeing the two leaders in conference, Tafari pulled back from the earthshaking conflict and joined them, watching silently with Antires, Bomilcar, and Elistala.
Ciprion’s gaze settled glumly on the bodies of his dead above. “If he’d wanted, it appears Calenius could have killed us all. There was no defense.”
Hanuvar shook his head. “He won’t use any more than he has to. He needs them to arrange his bargain and loses one with each kill.”
Tafari frowned. “I’m not going to send my men to die to clear those out.”
“No one expects you to,” Hanuvar said. “I’ll go.”
“What?” Antires’ brows rose in dismay. “No!”
From Bomilcar and Elistala’s skeptical looks it was certain they shared Antires’ sentiment.
Ciprion’s gaze was searching. He understood Hanuvar would not take such a risk without good reason. “What do you know?”
“When Calenius used the spirits earlier they kept well clear of me. They recognized me.”
Ciprion briefly mulled that over. “Did they avoid you because you were Volani, or because you weren’t the target?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s too great a risk,” Antires said.
“It certainly is,” Bomilcar assented.
Ciprion swung to take the captain in, his eyes briefly touching upon those of Elistala. Glumly, he faced Hanuvar and turned over an open hand. “I have nothing better,” he admitted. “And the fight has to be carried up there. To Calenius.”
“Yes. We must trust to luck, and opportunity in the end,” Hanuvar said.
Ciprion nodded.
Hanuvar turned to his allies. “If I get through, be prepared to follow up.”
Bomilcar flexed his shoulders. “I’m going too,” he said. “If they know you’re Volani, then they will know me too.”
“And me,” Elistala assented.
Hanuvar shook his head. “They might simply have recognized me.”
“I’m not letting my general go up there alone,” Bomilcar vowed.
Elistala saluted. “Nor I.”
“Me either,” Antires said.
“You’re definitely not Volani,” Hanuvar reminded him.
“I’ve noticed. You said that if we don’t stop them, we’re all going to die. And Etiocles said that it’s better to die among friends.”
There wasn’t time for debate. He doubted he could talk the playwright out of joining this time, and the end of all was nigh. “Your loyalty is touching, but I will not waste lives. I’ll be in the forefront. If I fall, retreat, and sell your lives more dearly elsewhere. Maybe there’s another way up.”
“We began explorations,” Ciprion offered. “But that’s when those monsters turned up.”
A cheer roared out from just around the bend where the battle raged and then the smash of rock against rock tumbling down the mountainside, and a tremor. A man’s scream of pain followed in its wake.
Wincing in empathy, Tafari thrust a finger toward the stairs and addressed Ciprion directly. “What if there are more forces up there? How can these four handle them?”
Ciprion sounded disappointed that he must explain the obvious. “He will trust to inspiration while we seek additional opportunities.” He extended his arm to Hanuvar, who took it, and spoke to him with somber dignity. “It has been an honor. May all our gods watch over you.”
A band of injured legionaries, sitting bandaged in the mountain’s shadow, gaped in amazement to see the two clasp arms. Hanuvar was unsure how many had been told he was an agent of the emperor. Many might well think him Hanuvar.
He broke the grip. “If this doesn’t work, you’ll just have to push through the spirits. Every man you have. Maybe in a tight cohort at speed someone in the middle can get through.”
“Whatever it takes,” Ciprion agreed. “Good luck, my friend.”
Tafari held a fist out parallel to his chest and twice struck above his heart, a Nuvaran sign of respect. Hanuvar bowed his head to him, then considered Kalak and pointed him to Antires with the word “guard.” The Herrene’s eyes widened in surprise when the dog walked to his side. “See that he gets down safe if I don’t make it,” Hanuvar told his would-be chronicler. Then he started up the stairs, Bomilcar and Elistala following in single file. The dog, as ordered, paced beside Antires.
The steps had been carved so long ago that they were scarcely visible through dirt and weeds, and portions of the exposed black stone were spider-webbed with old cracks.
A trail of pale phantasmic men and women broke free of of a misty mass to glide down the stairs for them. Hanuvar breathed out slowly to steady himself. Bomilcar tried to push past, but Hanuvar stiff-armed him. “No.”
He removed his helm, stepped over a legionary staring with sightless eyes into the darkening sky, and walked around another lying face down. He advanced as if to greet the spirits, hand raised.
Down came the ghosts, their transparent feet passing above the steps.
These were the people of Volanus. Many of the women wore the traditional garb of his people, their legs hidden in layered skirts, their curling hair arrayed with jewels. Some held to memories of themselves on their best days. Other’s images had been shaped by the moment of death, and bore signs of ghastly burns. Among those who looked down on them from the highest stair Hanuvar spotted one with the top of his head sheared off. In the front rank was an older man whose face and hands were burn withered.
Hanuvar paused two thirds of the way up, only six steps below the spirits. His hand still raised in greeting, he addressed them in their shared language. “People of Volanus, I am Hanuvar Cabera. Let me and mine pass, and I will set you free.”
They did not halt, but swept on toward him. They were but five steps out, then four. “We come to aid you,” he tried.
The mournful, set expressions of the phantoms did not change, but the armored soldier in front stopped two stairs up to regard him with unblinking, transparent eyes.
Below, Kalak whined a warning. The distant sounds of battle were strangely muffled.
Hanuvar patted his chest. “Look upon me! I am Hanuvar! And I am one of you.”
The burned man drifted down beside the soldier and stretched a hand toward Hanuvar. Though his senses recoiled at the thought, Hanuvar extended his arm, and the chill of the grave touched him as the spirit’s palm pressed to his.
Nothing he had ever done could fully have prepared him for this moment, looking up into the eyes of the dead of his people. Every hair upon his arms and neck stood upright. His heart hammered, and he fought panic, the instinctive need to run from the unknown and the wrong and the very face of death. But he could not break—if he did, he would not just fail, he would lose all that mattered beyond himself.
The spirit lowered its hand. Its gaze, vacant before, grew somehow more alert. Curious.
“I was too late to help you in life,” Hanuvar said, looking first to the burned man, then to the soldier, then the matron just behind them. “But we will aid you now. Let us pass.”
It might be that they could not, that Calenius held too great a hold upon them. It might be that they were nothing but mindless slaves.
But he held out hope, for the spirits fixed their gazes upon him, as if they had awakened to understanding. One of the women touched her face. The man in armor moved his mouth and Hanuvar recognized the shape of the syllables he formed.
He was saying Hanuvar’s name.
Kalak bounded up, panting, wriggling past Hanuvar’s companions and stood at his leg, growling.
Hanuvar put a hand down, telling him to silence.
The ghosts paid no attention to the mastiff. Hanuvar’s name was then visible on other mouths, spreading one to the other until all repeated it. He did not hear them, but he felt them, deep in his bones. They called to him. No longer did they look frightened, or vacant, but determined.
Their voices rose in what would have been a chant to shake the trees, although to human ears it was nothing more than a whisper of wind.
They parted for him and the dog, and they started up. Behind came Bomilcar and Elistala and Antires, the Eltyr softly saying a prayer to Tasarte again and again while the captain swore almost reverently. Antires, ever watchful, said nothing at all.
The wall of spirits closed up behind them, following them forward, but the way before remained open.
The dead paced to either side as they climbed the final steps. Hanuvar saw boys and girls of varied ages, and old men, and young women. Some wore carpenter’s aprons and one wore a wedding dress, stained with ashes. One man he recognized as a lecturer at the university. Hanuvar raised his hand in greeting, but the man’s recognition, the individual spark in him and all the others, seemed dull. Very little of their will or sense of individual function remained.
Yet they had retained hope for something better, and they held to faith in the man who had once led their city, and whose name they now called. Some of the ghosts seemed to be restaining others for whom the wizard’s directives were too strong.
Hanuvar arrived at the top step. A wall of shifting spirits stretched dozens deep all along the mountain’s edge. Surely these were more than just those slain in the aftermath of Volanus’ fall. Might that black stone contain the whole of his fallen people? Hanuvar felt the entirety of their regard upon him, an icy hand upon his spine.
Ahead lay an outcropping of rock, flat and relatively even, and upon it stood a decrepit temple of black stone unearthed beneath the mountain’s cone, rising into the darkening sky. Roof and pediment were crumbled to ruin, and square columns stretched heavenward, pitted with age.
Stepping down one of the five grand steps leading to its interior came a massive figure with dark red hair and cold, cold eyes. Dull gray armor ribbed his chest, and his deadly straight sword hung at his side. He breathed heavily, as though wearied, but he raised his hand in greeting.
Hanuvar advanced, his people behind him, his hound at his side, the ghosts of his people ringing all. A tremor shook the ground.
Calenius’ descent had revealed a squat stone pillar near the temple’s front, the height of an altar, where a dull amber orb the size of a skull lay upon a crimson pillow, beside the ancient curved horn he’d taken from the mountain. “I knew that you would challenge me, if you lived.” Calenius laughed, shaking his head. “You really are remarkable. You remind me of myself.”
Hanuvar did not halt. “You said you would release my people. But you meant you would trade their souls.”
Calenius scoffed. “You judge me? I’ve spent millennia finding a way to save my people. What have you spent? A year? Two? How can your pain compare with mine? How can these thousands compare with the hundred thousands of mine?”
Hanuvar halted eight feet out. “You’re not trying to save your people. They’re already gone. You’re trying to make yourself feel better. Was it you who brought them down? Your magical experiments?” He saw from big man’s scowl that he’d judged right. “So now you’ll slay more, to assuage your guilt? How many centuries did you spend wandering before you finally decided to act by destroying more lives?”
The ground rocked. Below them the legionaries and gladiators cried out in dismay, and the ringing sound of metal on stone echoed distantly. Calenius’ gaze swung south and Hanuvar permitted a look himself. One of the distant sister mountains of Esuvia had released a cloud of black smoke, laced with lightning bolts.
“The end is near,” Calenius said. “Just as it happened with my people.”
“Because you, and they, pushed too greedily without heed of the the consequences?”
“We did. But surely you cannot fault us for seeking knowledge.”
“That’s not what I fault you for.”
Calenius crossed powerful arms over his massive chest. “One last time I offer this. Come with me. Bring these people, if you want. You would work at my right hand. A man of your gifts would flourish in my time. Your own is so backward. My people were builders. Dreamers. Had they not perished, we might now be sailing among the stars.”
“You don’t seek just to delay me, do you?” Hanuvar asked. “You talk to justify. To convince yourself you’re on the right path. Are you?”
Calenius snarled. At the same moment Hanuvar’s throwing knife was streaming toward him, and Hanuvar himself charged. Bomilcar and Elistala let out battle cries and hurled their spears. Antires ran forward, his spear before him, and Kalak surged ahead of all.
With almost contemptuous ease Calenius watched the flight of the weapons and sidled to the right as the spears rose in their arc. Hanuvar’s knife he caught upon an armored forearm.
Kalak reached him a few steps before Hanuvar. By then Calenius had drawn his blade. He had cast no spell, but the weapon burned blue from within.
He caught the leaping dog by the throat and lifted it, slavering and kicking, at the same time slicing out with the shining blade. Calenius deflected Hanuvar’s strike on his bracer and immediately returned a cut of his own. Bomilcar interposed his shield, but the weapon sheared through its upper third, the sharpened edge of which slammed into the captain’s armored shoulder and set him spinning.
Calenius flung the dog at the charging Antires. His legs were tangled by the beast and he fell over him with a grunt. The dog yelped and staggered upright.
Calenius smiled in sheer delight. Here was a man who thrilled to the battle. He leapt down with a mighty sideways slash. Hanuvar did not try to intercept that stroke. He slid away.
Elistala rushed in and scored a slash across the wizard’s armored shoulder that set him back just as Kalak darted in once more. Calenius’ great sword swung at him. The dog ducked. Hanuvar took the opening and cut into the sorcerer’s upper arm. He nearly had his head taken off for his trouble; the gleaming sword point swung past his eyes as he threw himself backward, sending shooting pain up his ankle.
Elistala rushed in as the swing finished. Her strike bit the edge of the big man’s armor, but Calenius spun and drove the pommel of his sword into the Eltyr’s face, staggering her. Bomilcar had flanked quietly from the right and had probably thought himself undetected, but the warrior wizard pivoted to send his blade down across the dent in the captain’s shoulder armor and deep through his body. Gasping, Bomilcar sagged, and his life’s blood spurted from the terrible wound.
Hanuvar’s stomach sank.
The dog snapped at the big man’s ankle. Hanuvar delivered a stroke that should have struck Calenius’ chest, but his adversary twisted and the blow slashed armor below his armpit instead. A knife had appeared in Calenius’ off hand and he sliced Hanuvar’s forearm. Before he could stab again Antires interposed himself with a competent spear jab. Calenius sheared the weapon’s point off and Antires flung the pole at the wizard before backstepping to draw his sword.
The Herrene’s action had given Hanuvar time to reach for a different weapon, though he did not yet pull it. That the grip was weakened on his right was a worry for another moment.
Kalak bit deeply into Calenius’ calf but stayed a moment too long. The big man’s sword tore into the dog’s side and sent him sprawling. Elistala reached to her belt for a shining metal disc.
The sorcerer must have been expecting that all along. He hurled his knife. Elistala, veteran warrior, lowered her head so it would not take her throat and the blade drove into her chin and helmet clasp before falling away, splashing blood with it.
But she had thrown the disk, and Calenius shouted out a spell at last. The golden plate disintegrated into lovely motes. While Antires swept in from the right Hanuvar tossed the true restraining circle Calenius had tried and failed to wield against the metal guardian. Study had shown him the tiny depression on its side. He had pressed it, and thrown, and now it caught the big man in the legs the same way a similar circlet had tripped the mechanical centaur thing at the ruined bridge. The golden lines snared the wizard’s powerful limbs and felled him like a tree.
Within the temple a bright blue pinpoint of light sparked into existence, then flamed into a tall archway, as though a doorway was being sculpted in the air.
Hanuvar moved closer, but Calenius was hardly helpless. He had rolled and lashed at Antires, who tripped backward as he flung himself out of the way. The glowing blade scored the stone where the playwright had stood. Hanuvar stepped on the wizard’s sword only to face another knife. From where Calenius had pulled it he did not see, but it was in the big man’s off hand now, and it drove deep into Hanuvar’s calf, on his already injured leg.
He snarled as he took the blow, and swung hard against the big man’s helmed head.
Calenius twisted his neck so that he did not get struck at the most powerful point of the swing, but the blade still lodged into the helm’s edge and bit into the scalp beyond.
That stilled the big man at last.
Hanuvar called to Antires. “He has small gold discs in his left side pouch! Apply them to the injured!”
He bent to grasp Calenius’ sword. Even coated with the blood of Hanuvar’s allies the weapon was a thing of beauty, shining from within, unmarred along its perfect edge.
Limping on his bloody leg, Hanuvar reached the pedestal where the globe sat with the horn. He only glanced at them, searching the ground for his true objective. And there, in the midst of a hexagram of ash arranged in complex symbols, he found the black stone.
Hanuvar broke the hexagram’s outer edge with a booted foot, then the inner, then plodded to the center and sank to a knee, wincing against the pain. He stared down at the black stone that anchored the spirits of his people, and beheld a shifting radiance. He lifted the sword.
Behind him he heard a weak, guttural cry as he lifted the sword. “No!”
But Hanuvar raised the stone in the palm of his injured right hand, trying not to trouble himself over his clumsy grip. He lobbed the stone into the air, then struck it full force with the great blade.
At the moment of contact the sword blazed brilliantly from within. The stone cracked once and then splintered into thousands of shards that rained against the temple floor. The sword itself flared more and more brightly and Hanuvar released it as he continued his swing. It spun away, lighting the area with its growing light. Sensing danger, he threw himself sideways from the sorcerous hexagram. The sword struck the black wall of the temple, and then melted with an almost human shriek of metal.
The air around him filled then with phantoms, rising skyward. His people, freed of the spell that had prisoned them. Their faces were no long contorted by anguish, but incandescent with yearning. Those who’d remembered only their final ruined moments had been rendered whole.
In the distance, radiant red streams of lava flowed down the face of the far mountain, for Esuvia’s second sister had erupted. Half of its cinder cone was blasted away and roared into the sky, a plume of black smoke boiling toward the heavens.
At the sound of footsteps beside him Hanuvar pushed up. He was weak, dazed.
So should Calenius have been, but he loomed over Hanuvar like an avenging demon, a spear in one huge hand. Of the restraining band there was no further sign. He’d torn his helmet off. The scalp above his right temple bled freely and lips were curled back from his teeth. The ground shuddered, and a distant explosion rent the air. Antires was tending Bomilcar; Elistala rose from where she’d bent over Kalak’s still form.
“You’ve ruined centuries of work!” Calenius snarled.
“I freed my people, and stopped your spell.”
“Fool. All you did was eliminate the coin I meant to pay Tondros. The spell can’t be stopped. I already cast it. The portal’s just opened.”
“You can stop it.”
“With what?” Calenius roared.
“You’re the wizard,” Hanuvar said. Calenius still stood with spear poised but did not yet strike. Above, the final phantoms faded into the night. Beyond, Bomilcar had roused weakly from Antires’ ministrations, propped upon a single elbow. Elistala advanced with her sword ready.
“Back, woman,” Calenius snarled. “I can end him in a single thrust.”
Again the ground rumbled. Elistala halted her progress.
“You did this because you wanted to aid your people,” Hanuvar said. “And yet you would have made others die in their place.”
Calenius shook his head as if experiencing the final disappointment from him. “If I had changed time, none of this would have happened. None of it would have mattered, because the suffering would never have taken place!”
“Are you sure that’s how it works? Do you think Tondros would take payment in souls if they were to vanish after you traded them? I see in your eyes you’ve thought of this before. But you haven’t wanted to reckon with it.”
Beyond Elistala, Ciprion led the first rank of Dervans onto the plateau.
“Warn them back,” Hanuvar urged her. Though somewhat doubtful, she moved away.
Hanuvar got his good leg under him and rose, slowly. Calenius still watched, expression clouded with shifting anger and grief, and a new emotion, doubt.
“You’ve fooled yourself, Calenius.” Though Hanuvar’s voice was soft, his tone was intent and certain. “You’ve wanted this so badly you’ve forced yourself to believe it. You already destroyed one people. Do you want to be remembered for destroying another? Is that your legacy?”
Calenius responded in like tones, shaking his head in disdain. “What does that matter? I’ve waged battles and wars that sent tens of thousands to their deaths.”
Hanuvar understood that sentiment well. “You can pretend that you’re a man beyond morals, but I have seen you practice fairness. Kindness even. I have seen you honor your word. Time and again you offered me a chance to live.”
“That was weakness.” The big man’s teeth showed and his hand tightened around the spear. “Clearly, I should have made sure that you were dead.”
“You think yourself beyond affection but what has all of this been for except affection? You loved your people, and blame yourself for their end. It drives you on. I understand. There is nothing you can do for them now, though. Their souls are long since passed. Do you think Lady Death would return them to you?”
Hanuvar saw the big man’s hands flexing ever so slightly in their grip, and pressed on, saying things he had scarce admitted to himself. “Any day I could board a ship and start for the colony I’ve founded. I would be acclaimed and honored the moment I stepped ashore. But I don’t know that I can go home, any more than you. I had a part in the death of my city. I made mistakes, and nothing I ever do can fully atone for them.”
“I do not mean to atone. You and I are beyond such things.”
“Are we? Then the dead should be beyond us too. For it is the living who need our help. The people in the land below this mountain have done nothing to you. But because of you they will be buried in ash and stone. Is that what you want?”
Calenius’ eerie blue eyes stared intently to his own, and then he looked away.
The ground rattled beneath them and Esuvia sent a plume of smoke into the air.
“There is one thing I might yet do,” Calenius said. “Bide here.”
He turned, exposing his back. Hanuvar might have struck, but let him retreat to the shining portal.
Antires came to his other side. “Bomilcar’s wounds have healed but he’s very weak,” he said. “He lost a lot of blood. I brought you a part of the final disk. Your leg looks terrible.”
“My arm is worse.” The leg had been struck in the muscle; something more vital had been injured in his arm.
Antires spoke with quiet regret. “Elistala tried to save Kalak . . .” his voice trailed off. Elistala now knelt beside her captain helping him to drink, while Ciprion quietly ordered his soldiers into an encircling position. Hanuvar shook his head to him, advising him to wait, and then, almost against his will, looked to where the faithful brown mastiff lay unmoving on his side.
Hanuvar tried to gulp down the lump in his throat. He watched the big man stand before the shifting blue archway. Calenius lifted the horn from the pedestal, raised it to his lips, and blew.
Blue light filled the archway, and the suggestion of something writhed within it. Suddenly a man’s shape emerged, standing taller even than Calenius, and oddly elongated. The movements of the being were disjointed, slow one movement and rapid and jerky the next. It wore only a skirt over its red loins.
Hanuvar could not fully take in its features, for they were brilliant as a bonfire’s heart. He could not see if it was beauty or something else entirely that glowed within it.
A voice rang out from the being, though Hanuvar did not understand its ringing language.
Calenius answered in kind.
Antires pressed the disk into Hanuvar’s good hand, and he lifted it to the seeping red slash upon his arm. The magical object, whatever it truly was, had been partly dissolved, as though some thief had ground down a sliver from a coin. But he applied it to his arm and the limb tingled. A soothing warmth spread down and the skin sealed. It did not complete its transition, for a scar remained, rather than the clear skin that had come with Calenius’ healing. He tested his fingers and something still was off, for the grip of the bottom two lacked strength. Still, they moved, and perhaps the injury would improve.
Calenius’ arm swept wide and then pointed south, toward the volcanoes. The entity’s voice rang on.
Elistala bent to tend his leg. Ciprion arrived at his side, a mixed band of legionaries and gladiators close at hand. Tafari was near but did not draw closer.
“How badly are you wounded?” Ciprion asked.
“I’ll live. Feeling a little dizzy,” Hanuvar added.
“What did you say to Calenius, and what’s he doing?”
“I talked him into stopping the spell.”
Ciprion raised his heavy eyebrows in surprise. “I thought he was going to destroy us all.”
“So did he.”
Ciprion stared at Hanuvar, then surveyed the area around the temple. “He killed your dog.”
“That dog deserves a hero’s funeral,” Hanuvar said quietly.
His Dervan friend seemed to register Hanuvar’s depth of feeling on the matter and grunted meditatively. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you finish off the stone beasts?” Hanuvar asked.
“We did. We tripped both right off the mountain side.” Ciprion pointed to the blood leaking from the bandage Elistala applied to Hanuvar’s wound and was about to speak, but fell silent as Calenius faced them. The being still waited behind him.
The big man motioned Hanuvar forward.
Elistala knotted the bandage, already half soaked through, and looked up to her general. “This needs to be sewn.”
“In a moment.” Earlier he had scarce noticed the wound, but with the excitement of combat fading it was difficult to put any weight upon the limb at all. He limped forward, trying not to stare at the shifting godling. Its very presence filled him with dread. It did not belong here, in this world, and Hanuvar did not belong in its presence.
“I’ve made an arrangement,” Calenius said stiffly. “The moment I give the word, he will halt time, a little. Only around the volcanoes themselves. Because of . . . my actions to summon the energy, they will still erupt. But I’ve bought you two days, and hopefully that will be enough.”
In one hand Calenius had cradled the amber globe. He passed it across to Hanuvar. “I want you to have this.”
He took it in his good hand, aware of swirling clouds within, and the image of a street, and high towers, and people walking along a flowered lane.
“My people recorded memory stones, of times and places. To have Tondros take me to the proper place, I had to know the proper time.”
“That’s what you were searching for in the tunnel.”
“Yes.” He pointed to the globe. “I want some part of our people to live on, at least in memory. The images within may at least inspire yours to greater heights.”
“You don’t want it?”
“I must go. I am the bargain. One man of lengthy life span isn’t nearly as enticing as thousands of souls, but I’m not without some value.” He shook his head to Hanuvar’s questioning look. “There was no other way.”
The ground shook. Something close by cracked like a thunderbolt.
“What will happen to you?”
“I shall serve for a hundred years.” The hint of a smile brushed the big man’s lips. “It may be instructive.”
“It may be terrible.”
“Yes. Go, Hanuvar, before I change my mind.”
This time Hanuvar offered the parting words he had always hesitated to speak. “Fare well, Calenius.”
“Live long, Hanuvar. Find your people and lead them home.”
Calenius turned without further word. He raised a hand to the entity and spoke to it, head held high.
A heartbeat later the ground rocked . . .
And then suddenly the tremblor ceased, in midshake. Hanuvar, still staggering, teeth gritted against the pain in his leg, looked up, thinking to see the mountain explode above them, but all was still.
A moment later one of the Dervans cried out that the lava had halted, and Hanuvar turned his head to observe the long stream down Delania’s cone stopped halfway along the mountainside, glowing with lethal energy but no longer advancing. The warriors muttered in wonder.
By the time Hanuvar had returned his gaze to the shining archway, it was closing shut. Of Calenius and Tondros, he saw no sign.
“So I don’t entirely follow,” Antires said. “Calenius was going to sacrifice us all, and tried to kill you, but then he saved us?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Obviously. I was kind of hoping you could explain.”
“He remembered his humanity,” Hanuvar said tiredly. “Or maybe I just reminded him too much of himself. We can’t stand around talking now, though.”
“You look as though you can barely stand.”
“There’s that. But we have to get down off this mountain. You heard Calenius. There’s but two days to evacuate the entire region.”
Ciprion was already dictating to a soldier writing upon a papyrus clipped to a small slate. He sent the man running as Hanuvar limped up, and motioned some others back. “We’d best get that leg treated. I’ve a medic standing by.”
“Thank you. I need to be out of here. I’ve never been more exposed. Sooner or later people will wonder whether I really was pretending.”
“Yes.”
Antires lifted his arms in consternation. “But it shouldn’t matter. Your bravery should earn you the emperor’s gratitude! You’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives.” He reconsidered. “By the gods, you saved everyone here for miles around!”
“He has,” Ciprion agreed. “And in a just world, he would be honored above all. But that is not what would play out.”
“Why not just tell all?” Antires asked.
“Then the emperor will know that all of us deceived him,” Hanuvar explained. “Not just me, but Izivar, and Ciprion.” The betrayal alone might inspire tireless efforts to track them down.
Antires frowned, but understood.
“I’ll get you down the mountain,” Ciprion said. “I don’t think you’re up to walking far in any case.”
“No.”
“And where will you go?”
“To find more of my people, and my daughter. I’ve learned at last where she is.”
Ciprion’s smile was genuine, heartfelt. “She lives?”
“She does, and is well.”
His friend clapped Hanuvar’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you.” His smile eased. “There’s much to do. I’ve many questions about what happened, but you can tell me on the way down.” He turned from him and shouted for a medic, a graying, alert fellow who dashed up to him. “Give this man the finest of care,” he said. “He’s a highly valued warrior for the empire.”
Hanuvar leaned against Antires to help him to sit; the grizzled combat doctor knelt beside him while Ciprion strode off, sent one messenger running with orders to arrange the withdrawal, and dictated further orders to his secretary. In a moment, Hanuvar had no other concern than focusing against the pain. He looked up over the doctor’s dark curling hair and up to Antires and Elistala, frowning, and up past the cone of Esuvia and onto the carpet of stars.
Somewhere, beyond the skies, beyond time itself, Calenius was the prisoner of the god of time. Death might have been better for him. And somewhere, in the lands of the death goddess, more of Hanuvar’s people were free.
Here in the living realm his daughter lived, and he would see her before too long. There was more challenge to their reunion than that, for she had apparently set her course on a mission of vengeance. But for now, he was content.
Hanuvar was in worse shape than he let on. He had lost a lot of blood and Ciprion insisted he be removed by litter, then sent his fleetest messengers on with his suggestions to the emperor, who’d observed the battle from a distant hill, under the protection of his praetorians. Another man was tasked with galloping north with commands for the oncoming legion.
By the time we arrived at Apicius the population remnant was already in motion, in fairly orderly fashion. Enarius had ably taken charge of the evacuation, putting all carts and wagons to use, and deploying all but two of the available boats and ships. One was the emperor’s bireme, and the other was Izivar’s ship.
With the excuse that Decius had been too badly injured to consult that evening, Ciprion kept Hanuvar separated from a grateful emperor, who was kept busy arranging for the safety of the surrounding settlements in any case. Hanuvar departed with Izivar, her staff, and a small number of the gladiators. And me and Ishana, of course, along with Eshmun and Elistala and Bomilcar, he too borne on a litter.
The rest of the gladiators stayed on in service of the emperor, under command of Tafari, both to help spread word of the evacuation and to see that law and order remained in force and that supplies and conveyances were fairly distributed. You might think it strange that Enarius should trust rebels with this, but the emperor was shorthanded, and so he sent out teams of soldiers bolstered by the newly freed men, who were said to have served with distinction.
Two full days and one full night they had before all three of the volcanoes erupted again. One cast lava, one blew ash. Esuvia itself expelled only the latter, and one full side of its cone collapsed, taking the ancient temple with it. Between the three of them, around a hundred miles of farmland were devastated and four villages utterly destroyed, but owing to the advanced notice the vast majority of the inhabitants escaped alive. The only recorded deaths were among those too stubborn to leave. Much of Apicius itself was buried in ash, apart from a narrow triangle from the town square down to the harbor. Izivar’s home was completely destroyed.
Enarius and his staff remained in place until almost the last instant, and his efforts on behalf of the people inspired not just gratitude but an affection that rooted so deeply the people of the region today still speak reverently of him.
In the days after, the emperor kept to his word and awarded citizenship to the gladiators and slave allies who marched up Esuvia. Decades later a pair of them made it into the senate, as you may have heard. Their leader Tafari departed eventually for his homeland, where he rose to a position of prominence, although he returned later in life as an ambassador known for his sagacity.
You probably know that Aquilius was summarily dismissed, just as Enarius had vowed. The kindly emperor permitted the revenant legate to retain one of his villas, but appointed an outsider to oversee the revenants and report upon all of their activities. Metellus would have loved to have been involved with this, but the records about his embezzlement Aquilius provided were damning, and a final straw for Enarius, who had grown more and more dissatisfied with his conduct.
Still believing Metellus had actively risked his life twice to save him, Enarius did not officially punish him over the extensive evidence of corruption, but sent him to the frontier. There, he thought, Metellus might put his talents to better use, or at least acquire the seasoning needed to become a better man.
Enarius acted in good faith, but it is not always true that one kind act begets another, for his clemency was eventually to have dire consequences.
As for Hanuvar, he spent much of the next day in Izivar’s company, alone in their cabin. We rendezvoused with Bomilcar’s vessel, and together we sailed north for Selanto, where we would shortly send the final Volani of Tyvol out from our harbor. Other voyages still lay before us, but we paused, ever so briefly, to give thanks, and to care for our dead. We built a pyre on the shore and lay the cloth-wrapped dog upon it. And then, while a trumpeter sounded the last call, we set fire to the wood, and sent him blazing into eternity.
—Sosilos, Book Seventeen
26. Though the Dervans indicated the desire for parley with a raised shield, the Volani deployed white cloths, and Hanuvar expected Ciprion and his officers to be familiar with the symbol. —Silenus
27. Hanuvar well knew that Calenius meant to return to his early days or bring that past to him here, but told Antires this is how he presented the information, because he didn’t want to have to complicate the situation with additional details.—Sosilos