Fraught with unease, Lorenzo lowered his gaze.
His hands, bound behind him, fumbled for the chip of a blade sewn to the back of his hauberk.
After the Battle of Aztek, Moon Xeator asked the lucky centurion Marius to spread the tale that sewing a chip of a blade to the lower back of the mail was his secret of good luck. In hopes of emulating the same fortune, soldiers all did the same. None realized that it was an order, and naturally, neither did the mole. Lorenzo initially objected when Xeator presented him with such a plan so audacious it tempted his outrage.
How do you know Julius wouldn't kill us? He wrote before the hissing campfire, his hands shaking. And what if they cuff us with irons?
Xeator replied that no one could bargain with corpses, and irons were too heavy for a pursuing army.
Puffing greedily on the thin mountain air, Lorenzo dropped his head forward. Despite the cold that had settled in his bones, sweat prickled his back. If only his strategist could have scried the difficulties involved in executing his plan, he winced, twisting his fingers. The blade grazed his hands and stayed fastened. His eyes roamed the men.
Some were nonplussed, having not even thought of the blade; others were distraught like him, flailing their fingers in failed attempts to retrieve it. But a few had indeed succeeded. Lorenzo noted how they pinched their forefinger and thumb against the rope around their wrists. Among those few was the lucky centurion Marius, who had been promoted to primus pilus now, and whose plaited hair shaded his face. Engrossed in reaching the finishing line he must have seen before his eyes, he didn't notice that Quirinus Silvius was striding toward him.
It suddenly dawned on Lorenzo that his strategist had indeed foreseen the difficulties involved in executing the plan, whose success hinged on the fact that most of them would botch! Had they all been preoccupied like the lucky centurion, they would have drawn attention, hence dooming the mission all by themselves. A shudder came unbidden. Lorenzo flicked his eyes between Marius and Quirinus as the latter closed in. Gulping the cold air, he fashioned it to a gale of a terrible cough.
"Lord Silvius!" he called, choking on his own breaths; must he look smothered as he felt. But the tribune showed no sign of stopping. Lorenzo puffed in a feeble attempt to pump more air into his lungs, scrambling for a plan to stall the man. "Hearken to me, Quirinus Silvius, bastard of Tarquinius Tatius Saturnius!" he croaked with all his might, his voice gruff and distraught.
Quirinus halted his feet, veering to the voice. "You know who I am?" He crouched before Lorenzo, in his pale eyes a smile of contempt.
"Why is it a surprise, Quirinus?" Lorenzo chuckled. "You're the right hand to the Commander General, who has made you the tribune to the west flank of the northern legion despite your birth. I wouldn't dare raise a war in the north without learning a thing or two about you, would I?" He coughed more and stared back into those eyes. "Not only that I know your name, I know where you're born, your lord father, and your mother. Well, how should I describe her?" He cocked a brow, pretending to deliberate his choice of word, "There really isn't a better word for a harlot, is there?"
"I know what you're doing," Quirinus scoffed, his elbow resting upon a knee. "The game you play might work in Pethens, but unfortunately for you, it wouldn't drive a wedge between me and my brothers. My past is no secret here. And unlike all you scum, General Julius never cares who we are but what we can."
"Does he?" Lorenzo teased. Behind the miasm of smoke, the rising sun glowed in an unusual cerise hue. Below it, steep slopes of ridges slashed into one another like untrimmed hedges. Out of the corner of his eyes, he espied that Marius had passed on the blade to the soldier next to him. "Let's say he doesn't care who you are," Steading his gaze on Quirinus, Lorenzo drew out the distraction. "But don't you care who he is?"
Quirinus squinted, a tad peeved by the game of puzzles, his jaw moving side to side.
Lorenzo smiled as he went forth. "Hew to the dual consulship, your lord father was one of the few who opposed Exonian independence when Marcus Uranus declared himself the Praetor Magnum. Do you know what happened to him? Augustus Cassius Gaius, your Commander General's father, cleaved his head open just to swear loyalty to the new man in power. The Gaius executed everyone in the Saturninus clan, and you were lucky to have survived exactly because of your unlucky birth. Life really is a bit of a joke, init?"
"Nice try," Quirinus pulled a dirk from his flank. "But too bad, I don't know the Saturninus that well, and certainly don't give a shit about my lord father." Then, he drew the dirk along the square of skin next to Lorenzo's mouth. "I promised General Julius I'd keep you alive," he continued. "I said nothing about keeping you unharmed. So, do deliberate on what comes out next of these wretched lips of yours."
Lorenzo flinched, shutting his eyes to the stinging pain across his cheek, but quickly regained his composure. "Fair enough," he replied, shrugging as airily as his rigid shoulders would permit him. "But before I shut up, Tribune, why should the Gaius befriend you after the downfall of House Saturnius? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer - I'd advise you to deliberate on that." With a long hiss of sigh, white breath shattered in the direction of the gorge where the route forked. His lips stretched flat.
The footprints that had led to either route were more than a ruse. Lorenzo grinned inwardly. He did split the men according to his strategist's plan. While Omari Ahmed and the mercenaries took the wider road, others followed him into the narrow passage and awaited Julius' capture. Once Julius' backup entered the gorge from the north, Ahmed would send a squad to tail behind, setting ambuscades as they advanced. The rest of the mercenaries would wait until they saw fire break out from Julius' camp as their signal and came back for their rescue. Upon their return, men such as Marius Ectorius should have cut their bounds, and they would be ready to fight.
An arrow swooshed over their heads and jabbed into the dirt a few feet to Quirinus' left. Quirinus shot up and sheathed the dirk in the same breath he drew out his sword. "Close ranks for defense!" Swinging the blade in a swift arch, he bellowed. "Close ranks! We're under attack!" Then, he grabbed the shoulder of the nearest soldier, "Ride! Ride to camp and inform the General! Take the route through the gorge! It's faster!"
The soldier returned a solemn nod and whirled to his mount. Clatters of hoofs sent dirt in the air, making Lorenzo sneeze. He looked to the back of the galloping horse and its rider, whose silhouette faded into a blossom of sand. If only the poor lad knew what awaited him behind the wind-carved ridge, Lorenzo thought ruefully. Soldier aside, he might as well be a son, a brother, a father, and yet all those who would remember him would only remember how he had failed to fulfill his other duties. Lorenzo took a genuine pity. The haft of a spear shoved him to the side.
"Don't move, m'lord," a gruff voice came up behind his ear. "And don't look around." Hidden behind other hostages, Marius grabbed his wrists and started sawing the rope. Lorenzo held still, his dry lips pinching. Before him, soldiers of the northern legion amassed in a phalanx with their shields up around them, making it impenetrable for the mercenary troopers. Over the distance, he heard Ahmed voicing commands, and a flight of arrows hailed, aiming at the soldiers' feet. The moment some dropped to their knees, taking down with them their shields, the troopers pounced with sarissas that broke up the phalanx, and the rest of the mercenaries gushed out from the gorge like flooding.
Releasing a feral snarl, Quirinus Silvus cleaved through his enemy with the fervor of a fearless warrior such as Lorenzo had never seen. Parrying a cut with the shield, he ducked and severed the attacker's knee. Blood burst, and before the first drop landed to dye the dirt, Quirinus spun to his back and stabbed the midriff of the one coming from behind him. Wringing his wrist, he stirred the blade before wrenching it out and whirled as he held the shield to fend off another sword coming at his neck. He slashed across the enemy's shoulder and somersaulted sideways while two more hurtled toward him. Raising his forearm to shield himself, he raked his sword upward into a gaunt man's neck. Then, he tilted to his flank and swung backward as he lopped off the other's arm, sending it to a spin with the sword clasped still in the hand.
Lorenzo clutched up, growing more aware that the mercenaries were no match.
"Don't worry, m'lord," said Marius. "The cavalry and the Exonian hostages will be here soon."
At a sudden drop of weight, his bound was cut. Lorenzo gulped. Arid chill chafed his throat. Of course, he thought, the cavalry and the hostages! They didn't need the Exonians to fight for them – as his strategist expounded – but only their presence. Their own cavalry and the Exonian hostages would together appear to be a formidable march from a distance. With Ahmed launching the attack, and the backup made up of hostages blocking the way to the southwest, they'd cut off all possible retreats for Quirinus and corner his men through the jagged spires where a squad of mercenaries had set ambuscades!
"Tribune!" An outrider galloped right into the fray. "Cavalry!" he rumbled, "Cavalry and infantry coming from the south!"
"How many?" Quirinus roared back as he whirled, cutting down another with a lance.
"Three cohorts at least!" the outrider replied, drawing an arrow from the quiver.
"Close ranks!" Quirinus boomed and ducked while his foe leveled a javelin at his throat. He pounced on another, burying his blade deep in the man's heart, then twirled back to the one with the javelin and hacked off his head. "Gather the hostages! We'll take the trek through the gorge!"
Lorenzo gawked and trembled. The pity he took earlier on the soldier sent to his doom was now laughing in his face. Who would pity him now if he was to die in an ambush of random arrows? He set out to wrestle from his brother what was his in the name of justice. But when such justice was about to cost his dear life, he found no difficulties in relinquishing what was his. A postern to his fortified heart clanked open, through which peered the inside that shared many commonalities with a lesser man.
"Now!" Marius' voice broke from behind, jolting Lorenzo out of his trance. Soldiers who had cut their bound leaped up and wrenched weapons from the enemies guarding them. Marius shifted to the side as he pushed Lorenzo away while a sword slashed down at their heads. Leaning to his flank, Marius clutched their attacker's wrist and twisted. At a light crack of bones, pain churned the man's dirt-streaked face. His sword dropped from his grip. Marius snatched it with the other hand and delivered the final blow through the mail into the man's chest.
"Stay close to me, m'lord," he roared, spinning behind as he lacerated another throat. "Help another lose their bonds! And claim weapons!"
As more men broke free, the hostages sped up towards the pile of their impounded arms. Seething with them, Lorenzo descried Quirinus approaching. Blood splashed in arcs where he advanced.
"The bloody hostages!" Quirinus bawled, his taut face smudged with gore, his swinging swords a deathly drone. Lowering his chin, he growled and charged.
"Marius!" Lorenzo shrieked.
Hoofbeats broke over the distance. Through the smoke of dust and the mist of blood, the dark outline of a rider grew large. With a lance in one hand and a longsword in the other, Omari Ahmed galloped from the depth of the craggy gorge, thundering a battle cry in Turisian dialect. Swift as lightning, he scythed his longsword downward in the same beat Quirinus looked agape over his shoulder, and the head of the most fearless warrior raised one last time before it dropped.
Blood sprouted from the neck with rising steam and splashed on Lorenzo's face. Quirinus' knees buckled, taking down his headless corpse. When the sword that had claimed countless lives finally thunked to the ground, it clanged a metal sigh so profound it left Lorenzo too dumbfounded to even squeal.
Marius gaped at the head bouncing to his feet. "Do you know who the fuck he is?" he bawled out, his eyes red with rage."Do you?"
"So rude!" the Turisian cackled. "Was it wrong of me to expect some gratitude? I just saved you!"
"Fuck you!" Marius howled as he sliced open another man. "You're taking it personal!"
"This man has killed too many of our Turisian brothers. So what I want some justice?" Ahmed retorted. "Besides, he's dead while you're still gallivanting, and that's what matters! Or, do you prefer to swap with him?"
"Don't change the subject, you swine!" Marius wrenched his sword. "You were supposed to wait until we drove them to the gorge and capture as many alive! We need Quirinus alive to negotiate with Julius!"
"Oops, were I?" The Turisian cackled more, wielding his lance. "Can't blame me though, you wusses were taking far too long, and I needed some exercise or I'd freeze to death! I know what the Moon boy says about keeping hostages. Blah, blah. Curse him! Look around! Once you take down the leader, the rest scramble!"
Lorenzo looked around. The remaining soldiers had surrendered one after another. Maybe fear was a good thing – he thought – a necessary thing. Those who stay alive, stay fearful. Then again, he wondered if it was another brick in the fortress that fended the heart of a lesser man.