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

Timonus was quite hungry, having only been given small amounts of millet mixed with water to eat over the last few days. He tentatively tried to bite into the hard biscuit but only managed to chew off a corner, which sucked up all of the saliva in his mouth and yet, still refused to soften.

Julian sat down beside him, "So, I bet you wonder where we're going, huh?"

He shrugged, "Does it matter?"

"Yes! I mean, you want to know what our plan is, right?"

Timonus sighed, exhausted, "Julian, I've been in this camp long enough to know that you don't have a plan. You told me as much in the beginning."

"Yes, but what if I told you that just to confuse you?"

The Legate eyed him snidely, "Trust me, boy, you're not that smart."

Julian scowled as he stood back up, "What do you know anyway?" He walked a little ways away from the camp to relieve himself, though he remained in shouting distance.

"I'll tell you what I know," Timonus called out to him over his shoulder. "I know that this so called 'Lupa Faction' is a farce! You talk like you're going to rush into the Palace, bows drawn and take it over."

"So?" Julian called back, "what's wrong with that?"

"The Palace is home to a military the size of a small village. You won't make it past the gates, let alone into the Emperor's chambers."

"He's right, Julian," the N'bari girl named Camilla joined them and, after getting comfortable across from the Legate, began to sharpen a small pile of arrowheads that were resting in her lap.

Julian returned, sitting beside Timonus again, "Then what are your grand ideas?"

She didn't look up from her task as she answered, "I don’t have ideas. I just shoot the things that people pay me to shoot."

Timonus chuckled, which irked Julian, who spat out at him, "Fine. Then what about you, old man? What would you do?"

"Well, I wouldn't attack the Palace."

Julian looked at him matter-of-factly, "I have to. I started this group to rebel against the Emperor. If I don't attack the Palace, how will we be considered any kind of threat to the Empire?"

"You're a group of degenerate kids from the poorest district in Odalia. You can't defeat an Emperor. He is a man like no other in existence, with more power than you can imagine."

"Why do you still defend him? How can you when you know he is a murderous tyrant?"

The Legate's face grew grim, "Because I know a very different man from the one that you see now." He leaned back against the rock, glancing up at the sky, "You have to understand, he wasn't always like this."

"But he is now and we can't let it keep happening! He's murdered fifty-two men and women in the last month alone - simply for the worship of 'false' gods and blasphemy against the Twin Brothers! These were gods that we have been worshipping since we were born! The same gods he was brought up on!"

Timonus nodded, "I know." He knew because he had personally signed the death certificates for each one of the fifty-two.

"And now he's killing people for who they choose to love or marry? Tell me that isn't a man you still wish to serve!"

He looked at Julian, "I... I'm not really sure."

"Pff, can you believe this man?" he asked Camilla.

She shrugged as she set the arrowheads to the side and began to restring her bow, "Yes, but the Emperor is not just his commander, remember. He is also his friend."

"Aye," Timonus nodded. "Or at least he was."

"Well," she looked at him, "then I guess you have to ask yourself if what he is doing to your people is worth keeping that friendship?"

Julian declared, "Exactly! How long will you accept his tyranny? At what point do you walk away? When he starts slaughtering babies?"

Timonus looked at him in alarm, "He wouldn't dare-" but he couldn't even finish his own sentence because the truth was he no longer knew what Tiberius would or wouldn't do. No one did.

Camilla continued, speaking wryly to Julian, "Now, if I was the thinking type, I would say that the Legate here would make a much better ally than a prisoner."

Julian looked at her, hesitant, "You... would say that, would you?"

She continued to pull the string tighter, "If I was the thinking type, I would, yes."

He looked back at Timonus, "Well? How about it, then? Will join us, Legate?"

"Join you?" Timonus asked disbelievingly.

Julian attempted to make his case, "We've been out here for months, with no clear idea of what we should do. You could be the man that leads us to our destiny!"

Timonus thought the idea over. It seemed so far-fetched, so unlikely but as he looked around over the scattered members of the Lupa Faction he wondered if maybe the Mother Wolf had indeed answered his prayer after all. Maybe leading the Lupa Faction against the Emperor was what he needed to do to right the wrongs of the last few months.

 The Legate started to nod, slowly at first, "Yes. Yes, Julian, I will join the Lupa Faction."

Julian jumped up immediately and began to run back into the direction of his bedroll, "I'll go get your sword!"

"Wait, Julian! You could've untied me first!" Timonus called after him.

Camilla plucked at the string on her bow then, satisfied with its tension, she took a small dagger from her belt and cut away the ropes that were on Timonus' wrists. "He's resourceful, that one, but he's not very smart."

"What about you?"

She shrugged, "There are some people around here that would say I think too much." She smiled at the Legate as she put away her knife.

***

"No!" Euric angrily rose to his feet from his seat within the Emperor's box in the arena. "You're still not doing it right, you filth!"

Juko, sweating in the midday sun, held out his hand to his teammate, Kai, who lay on his back in the dust of the arena. The Golden Man took it with his free hand and nodded, saying in a broken accent, "Thank you." In his other hand he held a spear.

Juko looked up to Euric in the stands and shouted, "What's wrong?"

"You're not convincing! What about to you, Felix? What does it look like from over there?" He shouted at the trainer who was standing at ground level against the back of the arena.

"I think Kai needs to hit the ground harder."

Euric then gripped Posides, who was standing beside him holding on to his ubiquitous sun umbrella, and pushed him a little ways over from the royal box. "You stand there," he barked and then shouted back down to Juko, "do you see where I have Posides standing?"

"Yes."

"That is where the Decanus will be! If there is any doubt of the authenticity of this fight, this man, the Centurion beside him and the Legate beside him will see it. And those are not the men we want to be able to see through our little ruse!"

Juko stared up at the Emperor's seats and, picturing the Decanus standing where Posides was, took Kai's spear from out of his hand and launched it into the stands. It landed just a hair's breadth from Euric's servant, bouncing uselessly off of the seats.

Posides face went pale as Euric laughed deep and loud, "My boy, if you can manage to do that before anyone suspects anything, the Decanus won't know what hit him!"

"Though I sincerely hope that he does," Juko brooded.

"Well, once you do manage to do that, the entire arena will be thrown into chaos. We will have, at most, mere minutes to get down below into the catacombs where the High Priestess will be waiting for us." He addressed the rest of the gladiators out on the field, "Once Juko and Kai take to the dust the rest of you had better be well enough away with your freedman papers in hand. I might can guarantee your freedom but I will not be able to guarantee your safety." The lanista then looked gravely upon the figure of Juko, "Son, I hope this is what you wanted."

The N'bari fighter nodded stoically and Euric muttered, "Then gods help us all..."

***

As night fell, the entire membership of the Cavalli's Elder Council met around a large fire that was lit within the middle of the village of Two-Crows. Severus stood before them and looked upon many of the faces that he had fought beside in years past. He addressed them, "Gentlemen, I have called you here to tell you that something ominous looms upon the horizon. We have recently had a report that the Giants have reappeared within our borders." He paused, giving them a moment to grasp what he had just told them before continuing, "But that is not the only reason I have called you, for I have also had reports from my scouts in the North. They tell me that something unsettling is happening in the capital of Lycania as well."

"What are we to do then, Giant-Killer?"

"I must admit," he paced as he spoke, "that I do not have the answers, which is why I've called us all together. I am asking for any aid that your village can spare but I do not know which course to take. I do not know if we should go to the Eastern Shore to try to gather information about the Giants or if we should travel through the dangers of the Unclaimed Desert to Odalia and see what strange things are happening there."

"We cannot fight the Lycanians now!" cried a detractor from the Silver Leaf village. "Yes, once maybe, in our fathers' time when we numbered many - like the leaves on the trees. But now," he shook his head, "we are not even half that number."

"Aye," Severus agreed, his voice rising, "but we also cannot sit back and do nothing, for that is not the Cavalli way!"

The rest of the Elders shouted in agreement.

"For the Cavalli do not run!"

The shouts grew louder.

"The Cavalli are not cowards!"

The men jumped up from their seats and raised their voices as their patriotic fervor increased.

"Enough of this!" Nona's voice cut across the Elders' cheers of bravado as she entered from the shadows and joined her husband.

Severus turned, surprised to see her, "What are you doing here? Where are the children?"

She turned her back slightly to him so that he could see Marcus tied securely to her as Aelia's smiling face appeared from behind her legs, waving excitedly to her father. Nona boldly stepped forward, "If I may, I, too, wish to speak to the Council."

Vibius, the Elder from the Little Fish village, sneered at her, "Women are not allowed into these meetings. Severus, isn't this your wife? Control her so that we may continue!"

Her eyes narrowed at him as she hissed, "I have just as much right to be here as any of you! Is the Cavalli blood that flows in my veins any different than the blood that flows in yours?"

Vibius did not answer.

Aelia ran to her father and grasped him around the leg. Severus smiled down at her as he placed his hand protectively upon her back and motioned for her to be quiet.

Nona continued, looking from one Elder before her to another, "The Ways say I am not allowed here. But by what right do you claim that?"

They remained silent.

She continued, undaunted by their reticence, "Is it simply because I am a woman and nothing more? Is that why I am ordered away?"

"The Ways," one of the members of Five Bears began to speak, "state that you cannot comprehend the sacrifice that is required for the good of the Cavalli."

 Her face flushed, "I dare any of you to claim that I, or any woman, have not sacrificed as much as you for our people!"

"Women do not go to war," another of them ventured. "A man does. A man must sacrifice his life for his people. What have you done that would equal such a thing?"

Her face