A Sword Of Wrath, Book I by K. E. MacLeod (best way to read ebooks TXT) 📕

"Look," the rebel-leader laughed nervously, his hands raised, "we can make a deal, right? Everyone can be bought, what's your price?"

"Is that what Magnus taught you? That anyone can be bought?" Severus stepped closer eyeing Otho's bare, ale-covered chest. He lowered his sword to the other man's ribs, which rapidly rose and shrunk with his every fear-filled breath.

"Wait, wait - what're you doing? Look, we can come to a deal, I swear! Please!" His panic grew even more as Severus pressed his sword tip into his skin and dragged it in a straight line down his chest, causing Otho to cry out in pain. As the blood began to drip from the wound, Severus then took his sword and made another line perpendicular to the first one, giving the wound the appearance of the letter "T".

"You're a thief, Otho."

"Alright, yes, so what?" He grimaced at the pain of his wounds, "You never saw something you wanted and just reached out and took it?"

Severus ignored his questions, "And you're also a murderer."

"No. Now see, see that's wh-where you're wrong. I never killed anybody! Maybe my men did, but I didn't!"

"Are you afraid now, Otho?"

He started to nod, his face covered in sweat and dirt. "Yes, I'm-I'm terrified. Is that what you want to hear?"

"No," Severus shook his head and sliced open Otho's belly with one quick smooth swipe of his sword.

The other man cried aloud and fell to the ground, wrapping his arms around his abdomen in order to try and keep his insides from tumbling out onto the leaves.

Severus knelt down beside the dying man, "I should tell you, a belly wound takes a long time to kill a person. It is a painful and slow death, which means you will have a lot of time to beg the gods for forgiveness."

"No, Giant-Killer, no, kill me now... just kill me now, please... don't leave me here... not like this... please!"

Severus shook his head, "My brother begged the same of you and you never granted his request and so now, neither will I. You die here, alone, as a coward, a thief and a murder." He turned and walked away as the dying man begged for him to come back and end his agony and suffering.

After Tacitus had regained consciousness a few days later, he never spoke again of Otho and his gang and Severus had never told him of the bloody vengeance that he had taken that night on his behalf.

***

A line of newly commissioned guards flanked each side of Tiberius' marble throne in the crowded curia. Formed from the battlefield's elite, they stood as silent and unmoving statues before the members of the Emperor's court, each armed with a spear and a Lycanian Long Shield. In the last few days, as Tiberius' suspicions of an assassination attempt on his life grew, the guards had become a steady presence in the palace, patrolling her halls both day and night.

 Nearby, the Emperor's son, Spurius, stood silently next to the throne and, along with his father, stared out over the audience of the most powerful people that still remained in Odalia. The child's large brown eyes, an uncommon color for a Lycanian, scanned the room and paused a moment when they fell upon Euric the Vandal standing towards the back of the crowd. The young boy grinned and waved upon seeing him, for there was nothing more exciting to the young Spurius than a munus and seeing the lanista reminded him of the upcoming week's festivities.

Euric gave a hesitant nod to the prince but remained unusually quiet amidst the murmurs of those that surrounded him. He had been summoned, along with the others, to have an audience with the Emperor and while it was by no means an unusual request, there was something about its timing that nagged at the lanista and an ominous feeling settled over his spirit.

Meanwhile, Tiberius sat mutely smiling upon his chair as his mind burned with blue and purple sparks and his thoughts hammered painfully against the sides of his head. The smile he bore was a trick to fool the spies that he knew were watching him, for he was anything but happy as over the last few days his eyes had begun to tell him lies and his blood in his veins betrayed him but at last he could see those before him for what they were. They were demons. Writhing, half-goat men sent from Lord of the Dead to frighten him. But Tiberius was a god-king who knew no fear and so they didn't make him afraid.

The night before he had spoken to the wind and the wind had told him that there was a viper among them. He knew. He could feel its venomous eyes staring at him from somewhere hidden in the room and soon he would flush it into the open and cut it off at the head. He would bathe in its blood and then his mind would stop burning and he could sleep again peacefully as he did before his mind caught fire.

"Decanus!" he spoke the single word aloud and the crowd of goat-demons stopped their horrendous bleating and fell into an immediate silence. "Bring forward the prisoner."

The squad leader, dressed in a ceremonial suit of silver and gold battle armor and wearing a helm that had a plume of vulture feathers sticking up from its side, appeared in front of the crowd, dragging the heavy and frightened figure of the advisor, Lucan, beside him.

"Ah, Advisor," Tiberius kept the smile on his face as his thoughts burned brighter and struck like lightening behind his temples. It took all of his concentration to speak his next words aloud, "How good it is to see you after you've had so late a night, sneaking around in the shadows." The Emperor grimaced slightly as the lightening struck again.

"My lord, I do not know what you mean!" the other man's jelly-like countenance shook with fright.

"Oh you know very well what I mean. The Eagles tell me," he eyed the silent guards on either side of his chair. "They tell me many things - like how you become a rat god at night, crawling on your belly through the palace's tunnels. You think I would not know that?"

Euric, who had been steadily staring at the back of the Decanus' head, now raised his gaze up to the Emperor's tortured face. He watched as the Emperor grimaced again and rubbed his right temple. It was a swift, subtle move that probably went unnoticed by most in the room. Then, as Tiberius then stood up from his throne, again Euric picked up a slight waver.

Outside of the small aberrant movements, the Emperor's face remained placid, "My dear Advisor, what is it that the rat god would take from me? My throne?"

"No, Your Highness! I-I am your most fervent supporter! Your most loyal subject! I would no sooner betray you than I would my own blood!"

"I don't believe you. You sent my Legate away because you know he would protect his Emperor." Lucan's face went pale, which was enough of a confirmation for Tiberius. "See? Your whiskered nose twitches at your own lies. Maybe I should cut your tail off and wear it as a belt."

In reply, Lucan could only stand within the Decanus' firm grasp and continue to shake.

"Tell me, Advisor, would you like to know what the gods taste like?"

His panicked face clouded with confusion, "I don't und-"

"They taste like nectar. Did you know that? Honey and nectar." The Emperor stepped down from his throne and placed his face before Lucan's. He turned his own head from one side to the other, as a dog would upon seeing something it couldn't understand. "You see, I have eaten stronger gods than you, my little rat." Tiberius stepped back and nodded to the Decanus who immediately ran Lucan through the chest with his dagger.

Euric's eyes widened as he watched the body of a man that he had known for many years fall to the floor.

The Emperor grinned triumphantly over Lucan's body and raised his hands to the crowd, "Now see, I have appeased you demons by killing the rat god. Praise me, my people!" He raised his hands higher and closed his eyes, as if soaking in the roar of a crowd even as only a silent one stood before him.

The uneasy court members stared at one another in stunned bewilderment, unsure of what to do - until someone began to clap, quietly. Other court members quickly joined in the action, afraid of what might happen if they didn't and soon the applause and cheers that existed solely in the Emperor's fractured mind became reality.

"Yes," Tiberius mouthed in ecstasy amidst their accolades, encouraging them to keep up the applause with gestures of his hands in the air. He then opened his eyes and looked back towards his young son, "Spurius!"

"Yes, father," the boy stepped forward, calm and unmoved by neither the strange actions of his father, the crowd nor the execution that had occurred right before him.

"Join me, my boy!" Tiberius reached out his hand and as his son grasped it, he raised it high in the air along with his own. "Can't you hear them? They love us, my son. We are their kings. We are their gods!"

The lanista, seeing that most of the people around him were distracted, slipped out of the curia unnoticed.

***

Timonus and the venefica he now knew as Hannah had set out that morning from the caves at a steady pace. The weather seemed to clear up a bit as they continued their trek up the path to Feronia, although the gray skies above them remained. Timonus, who had awoken in an optimistic mood despite the previous day's hardship, breathed in deeply as he listened to the waves crashing against the rocks below them, "You know, the smell of the land is so different here. I'm enjoying it as the city can be a bit, well, putrid at times."

The venefica, walking a few steps behind the Legate, nodded in response to his comment but remained silent as her mind was on other things.

Timonus continued speaking, the girl's silence going unnoticed by him, "You know, I've heard that Feronia has the most amazing hand-raised freshwater mullet farms. I've wanted to try them for years but have never seemed to be able to get around to it."

"Have you?" she spoke at last. "Seems an odd thing to want."

"Yes," he laughed. "I suppose it does but when you reach my age, you start to want things that once seemed odd."

"Oh? What other things have you desired?" Her voice sounded far away but the Legate continued to take no notice, reveling in his own uncommonly good spirits.

"Well," he looked upwards as he thought of an answer to her question, "mostly the things that I've missed in my previous military tours. Things like fine foods, perfumes, oils... art that I never really appreciated when I was a young soldier. I've been all over the known world, I've been to places that others only dream of, but I never took the time to explore them properly because in my mind - well," he laughed slightly, "battle and fighting were the only things in my mind at the time." He smiled a bit sadly, "I suppose that's one regret I have."

"Regret? Do-do you have any others?" the venefica asked apprehensively, her thin fingers nervously playing at the sides of her long, black dress.

"Yes," he laughed deeply, "like most men my age, I have many."

"I-I suppose we all do, really."

"Ah, my dear," he cast a glance back towards the young girl, "you are not yet old enough to have regret."

She stared at the ground, watching her feet plodding along the path as they continued to make their way along the cliffside, "But you forget, Legate, I have lived more life in my short years than most have lived in their entire lives."

"Aye...," he