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

The Desolate Wars had been a pointless endeavor brought about by Lycanian empirical greed. They had claimed that the Cavalli were Lycanians by birth and blood and therefore the Lower Plains, and everything beneath it, rightfully belonged to the Empire. Meanwhile, the Cavalli, who believed they were descended from only one of the Two Brothers, disputed their claim. In the end, the Desolate Wars had brought about no true victors and was never officially resolved, though it did mar the once beautiful landscape forever.

Both sides of the conflict publicly blamed each other for the devastation of the Lower Plains, though no one could offer an explanation as to why it happened. The Cavalli, a naturally superstitious people, believed that the desertification had actually been the work of a venefica sorceress who had wanted to impress her lover, the Lycanian emperor Gaius, by poisoning the ground.

Whatever the source of the destruction, the Cavalli were forced to retreat into the forests of Aulus, leaving what remained of the Lower Plains a terra nullius, or a "no man's land." Then, as the desertification spread throughout the grasslands, neither the Cavalli nor the Lycanians laid any more claim to the thirty-mile stretch of arid wasteland and thus it was referred to as the Unclaimed Desert.

The Unclaimed Desert had come to serve as an unofficial armistice for the Lycanian side, since no man that had attempted to cross it had ever come back alive. The Cavalli, on the other hand, already well versed with living in harmony with their environment, soon learned the secrets of the desert and occasionally ventured as far as the White Palace, either to scout or to pull childish pranks meant to keep the guards on their toes. This didn't happen very often, though, as the Cavalli superstitions made them terrified of the Desert's "bad medicine."

The transition of the Cavalli people from the freedom of a lifestyle of living out on the open plains to one of being forced to become forest dwellers was not an easy one and a group of rebels eventually rose up amongst the different branches of the Horse People in the intervening decade. They had begun to claim that certain families within their own people had worked with the venefica in order to encourage the desert to spread, though no reason why was ever given. And, thus the Cavalli then fell into a civil war, which lasted well over three years.

It was in that war that Tacitus lost his wife, Valeria, and daughter, Tacita Valeriani, whom they called Valeri. Valeri was only a young girl of sixteen when he'd arranged for her to marry Vibius, an older son of the neighboring Little Fish's village elder, hoping it would bring her a comfortable life and peace between the two peoples. Initially, she was angry with him when he told her of his decision but, being a good and dutiful daughter, she went ahead with the nuptials. Because of the status of her new husband, which, to her relief, kept him busy and away from home, she was frequently allowed to visit her mother back in Two-Crows, which is where she found herself when the village was invaded.

Normally a peaceful village, Two-Crows held no obvious strategic advantages for an attacking band of rebels and had stayed relatively safe and hidden away during the early part of the civil war. Because of this, Two-Crows felt comfortable with sending every man over the age of thirteen to fight for their side in the war - including the village elders. They embraced the war with all the passionate vigor that men often do when fighting for a cause they believe in.

Well, most men. Tacitus, a young man of around thirty-two at the time, was not a fighter. Rather, he was a medicus, or one who practiced good medicine and felt that volunteering to murder men, despite the cause, went against everything he stood for. He owned no sword and carried only a dagger for survival reasons. The others of his village gave him a hard time but always quickly shut their mouths whenever he healed them and their children from a litany of different maladies.

He had three strong older brothers, and one younger, that went in his stead. They, like everyone, believed that the village being left behind would be of little interest to those fighting on the other side. But in war, humans often become little more than beasts and late in the night, Two-Crows was ambushed.

Tacitus awoke to the screams of the women and children of the village. Leaving his own wife and daughter secured in his home, he ran out to see the enemy rebels attacking. To his horror, they slaughtered the ponies first, then began to set fire to the village homes built in amongst the trees. He watched helplessly as they pulled children from their beds and murdered them in front of him.

Filled with anger, Tacitus ran up to a group of the rebels, trying, but unable to stop them. He was repeatedly flung back, until the rebel leader, Otho, caught sight of him. Coming upon Tacitus fallen form, he laughed while the carnage continued behind him, "Why look, they did leave a man here. Or did they not?" Otho dragged his sword down the front of Tacitus' breeches.

Tacitus swallowed, the forest ground cold and wet beneath him.

"Where's your sword, fool?" Otho pulled his own weapon back up towards Tacitus' bobbing throat.

"I don't-I don't have one..."

Otho cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes questioningly, "Why did they leave you here?"

"I-I am not a fighter. I would've been of very little use to them."

"Aye," Otho laughed low and darkly, "you are of very little use here as well. For what is a man without a sword? He is a woman and thus shall be treated as such! Grab him, tie him up before we burn them-"

"Wait!" Tatius yelled out to Otho as two of his Cavalli brothers grabbed each one of his arms. "If death awaits me, at least let me die knowing why you have attacked us! We offer you nothing of value! We are not a farming community, we're too near the desert to offer protection and we're too far away from the fighting to give you an advantage! Why would you attack us, your brothers, your fellow man?"

Otho took a few steps closer to Tacitus so that he was only a breath from his face, "You are no man. Neither are you the brother of Otho the Rebel." A scream of a woman could be heard in the distance as a grin slowly spread across his face, "There are other things to fight for besides victory. Pleasures and riches, my brother. And, now?" He stood back, his arms outstretched, "I will take pleasure in your riches. Tie him up!"

Tacitus tried to fight but it was of no use, the men overpowered him quickly and bound him to two trees that sat in the middle of the village, his arms stretched far apart. Throughout the night, as they became drunker on the ale stores they had found, the rebels intermittently beat him, some slicing his face and body with their swords while others heated their daggers in fires and laid them against his skin. The beat him so much that Tacitus' eyes became swelled to the point where he could hardly see; they shattered his jaw, breaking some of his teeth. The torture continued for hours and the only thing that helped him live through it was the thought of his wife and daughter, for he'd not seen either in the pile of bodies that had begun to form in front of him.

As dawn broke, some of the men, still drunk on stolen ale, full on stolen food and spent on stolen women mounted their horses and began to disperse. Tacitus barely clung to what little life he had left inside of him while Otho shouted for the last of the bodies to be brought out of the smoldering houses and the few survivors there were, to be left to die.

It was then that Tacitus caught sight of his wife and daughter's bodies being dragged haphazardly out of their lodge and added to the pile. Their clothes were in shreds and their faces bloodstained, though still unmistakably recognizable. He let out a cry of such woeful agony upon seeing them in that state that it reverberated throughout the entire forest, causing the crows in the trees above to awaken and entwine their cries with his.

The few rebels who remained were ordered to set the bodies alight, leaving Tacitus to wail himself until his voice cracked. Not only did he mourn the loss of his family but also the fact that the Cavalli forbade the burning of their dead, believing it prevented them the ability to walk into the halls of Heaven.

When he heard the continued anguish of his captive, Otho walked over, a smirk across his mouth as he cut Tacitus free of the ropes that held him, “Now then, perhaps you will carry a sword in the future?"

Tacitus was barely coherent; his eyes had completely swollen shut and were crusted with the dried blood that had earlier spilled down his face. "Kill me," he whispered from his cracked, dry lips, "slow or fast, Otho, it doesn't matter. Kill me now. I beg by the blood that we share."

"So soon after you've learned your lesson? Just what kind of teacher would that make me?" He then ripped Tacitus vest and shirt apart and produced a dagger. "No, no, Brother, you must stay alive to tell the others about the lesson you have learned today! Here," he pressed the dagger against the skin of his captive's chest, "I'll give you a reminder." He carved the letter 'C' into Tacitus skin and the blood of the wound flowed down the front of his breeches.

"Look, you even bleed like a woman," Otho laughed heartily as he stood and ordered his men, "leave him by the bodies. Let the men of Two-Crows punish him in their own way."

The day stretched on, but Tacitus had no way of knowing how long as he was unable to remain conscious for any length of the time. At some point during one of his rare moments of consciousness, the men of Two-Crows returned home.

Already disheartened by the numbers they'd lost during their campaign, the bedraggled and horseless men stood in shock at the scene before them. Slowly, as the initial impact wore away, they began to sift through the rubble, going over it in the hope that they would find survivors. It was during this search that one of the men discovered Tacitus, bloody and dirty, partially hidden by the ash pile, which had blown across his body.

Severus, the only one of Tacitus' four brothers to return home alive from battle, ran over quickly to aid him. He rinsed his brother's bloodied face with water from his own waterskin. "Tacitus? Tacitus, speak if you're able."

"Kill me, Otho...kill me and be done with it. Gods forgive me, please forgive me," he whispered, his mind temporarily gone from him.

"It's me, Brother, it's me, Severus."

"Kill me, kill me, Otho," he whispered over and over, until there was very little sound coming from his lips. Severus then hoisted the beaten and broken body of his brother upon his shoulder and began to walk toward the remains of his own home - the outside of which was badly burned while the inside had remained largely untouched. Upon seeing him do so, the village men began to gather around.

One of them shouted, "Is he alive?"

Severus didn't look back at the man as he answered, "He