Seed of Rage Read online

  I registered a flying blur at the edge of my vision and raised my hand on instinct to catch it. The rock didn’t touch me. I never stopped munching on my bread as it hit my palm and my fingers curled around it. “Good morning to you too,” I said between two mouthfuls.

  “Next time I’ll be coming at you with a knife,” Victrix announced casually, matching his stride to mine.

  “Then I’ll find myself a lorica.”

  He shrugged. “Sooner than you think.”

  I raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask for an explanation. Knowing him, he wouldn’t give any. We strolled alongside each other in comfortable silence, until he tugged at my sleeve and said, “This way.” I blinked, frowned, but allowed him to divert my steps from the pit and to the horse pen. “Today I’m taking you for a ride. I want to show you something.”

  Ugh. My nose wrinkled up at the smell of fresh horse dung in the air. The beasts all turned their big heads at the same time when they picked up on our presence, their ears twitching forward. I might have gotten better at it, but I still didn’t like riding—I trusted my own legs more than the horse’s. I went to fetch one of the saddles stacked under an askew wooden shed with an exaggerated huff.

  “Keep giving me salt and you ride bareback, birdshit.”

  I ignored him, too busy choosing my mount. Hedaris was too big, and I didn’t like the shifty eye he was giving me while chewing on fodder. Seferos was shorter, but his peaceful stance didn’t fool me; that one was a cunt. I’d seen him throw Plescus off with a gleeful neigh a few days ago. I eventually decided to saddle up a spotted mare I could find nothing against, while Victrix dropped a thick woolen pad on Seferos’s back—who bucked and swished his tail irritably in response. Clearly those two were made for each other.

  We trotted out of the mine and up the hill, through reddening woods emerging from the morning fog. With the breeze caressing my cheeks and the heady scent of sap and damp leaves, my self-clipped wings stirred; I was leaving the mine for the first time since Victrix had captured me. What did it make me that I had gotten so used to his constant abuse that I no longer thought of escaping? When was the last time I’d dreamed of Leis’s lifeless body lying in the pit after Irius executed him?

  I could go, if I wanted to. I could give a sharp kick to my horse’s flank and bolt, gallop away from him. I felt the mare’s warm belly under my calves, tightened my grip on the reins. I could forget about Nerie, Clearchos’s promise, Gemina, and everyone else.

  “Look.”

  My head snapped up at Victrix’s command, and I pulled at the reins to hold my mount. We’d reached the end of the trail—the top of the hill. Ahead of us, a steep slope dove into a rust-colored canopy that stretched all the way to the lake and hemmed a foggy plain. Another hill stood on that plain, taller, crisscrossed by roads and a patchwork of fields.

  I took it all in at once, my lips parting in shock, oblivious to Victrix’s self-satisfied smile. A jeweled crown sat atop the hill, a compact mass of gilded domes, tiled roofs, and soaring belfries, all tucked inside tall fortifications. On the right flank, a trail of scattered roofs clustered around the Bride’s Lake shore. There were even more brick-and-stone buildings, more gleaming roofs, and even several ships. Nyos was no town; it was a city—the first one I ever saw.

  On the plain below, a wooden fort and thousands of tents peeked through the mist. “Whose legion is that?” I asked, wiggling on my saddle to get a better look.

  “Manicus’s Western thirteenth. Their legate is called Spurius. Clearchos says he’s an idiot who prefers to listen to Aus’s priests rather than his own tribunes. His men hold the harbor and the hill outside of Nyos’s walls. Reinforcements from the Twentieth arrived yesterday, but Varalius is sending troops too, to help Nyos.”

  “Will they be here soon?”

  “One week, maybe two if the weather is against them.”

  Which meant time was running out for Manicus, if he wanted to take the city before the Eastern legions arrived. My gaze drifted to a gigantic gate in the walls, gleaming golden even in the dull morning light. The farms scattered on the hill looked ridiculously tiny compared to the sculpted columns flanking it. It was as if Loris had bent down from the skies and placed it there with his big hands. “Is it made of gold, that gate?”

  Victrix’s eyebrows jumped. “The Magnatura? Are you kidding me? We’d be long done if it was. It’s everwood from the north, all of it. Your ‘gold’ is just a layer of brass plates because those rich assholes like to show off.”

  “So… everwood is hard to break?”

  I sensed in the side-eye he gave me that a warrior worth his salt ought to know these things, but he indulged me anyway. “Everwood comes from a species of giant blue trees that froze and turned to stone a very long time ago. Probably hundreds of years. It gets hard as rock and less brittle. The legions tried catapulting boulders at the Magnatura with their onagers, but the brass is soft; it absorbs some of the impact, and the everwood behind is so tough all the stones in the world can’t break it.”

  “So that’s why they can’t take Nyos? Because of the walls and the everwood gate? Nerie told me they’ve been trying for a while, that they lost a lot of men.”

  Victrix shook his head, the usual smirk returning to his lips. “A mollis and a military strategist, uh?”

  “Shut up,” I muttered.

  “Careful, birdshit,” he warned, before resuming his explanations in an even voice. “The lake freezes in winter and the boats get stuck. Western officers don’t think their men will enjoy another shitty winter starving and losing their toes. So that’s it.” He shrugged. “Ready or not, we’re moving.”

  I stared at the fort, a whole new kind of fear pulsing through my body. War. Not just training and punches. A real war, where I’d have to fight for Clearchos. And die?

  “I don’t have any armor,” I said, my voice distant even to my own ears.

  “Getting scared?” Victrix teased, almost gently—that was new.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” I admitted. “I just never thought… that my life would be like this.” I closed my eyes, picturing the other life I would never live: married—likely to Arun—growing old and dying on Servilius’s farm. Like a too-tight skin I’d have shed, the idea now felt absurd.

  Victrix leaned back in his saddle and crossed his arms, gazing at the future battlefield as I was. Now that the sun was high and the fog was lifting, I could see the men swarming like ants, some practicing their formation with their indigo shields. Clearchos’s Legion suddenly seemed insignificant, just a few more ants in the grand scheme of things. “It’s a good life, you know,” Victrix said quietly. “Once we’ve taken Nyos, you’ll get your share. You’ll never see that kind of money in your shithole.”

  “But can we do that?” I asked, considering the walls, which were so high you could have stacked ten farms on top of each other and still not reached the top.

  He patted Seferos with a determined grin. “Clearchos has a plan.”

  •♦•

  We paused to eat bread and cured meat in a clearing on the way back, and we also had to stop to pick up Ocotea roots and mushrooms for Gemina—an errand that seemed to inflame Victrix. By the time we returned to the camp, it was the middle of the afternoon already, and I had missed lunch’s lentil soup. I wasn’t sorry for that, but Thurias kindly saved a bowl for me…

  I gulped it down under his attentive gaze—because he was one of the rare people I never wanted to pick a fight with. He wasn’t very skilled with weapons but all he would need to do to win was sit on me.

  “Clearchos wants to see you,” he announced after I handed him the wooden bowl back. “Victrix and the others are already there.”

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “What others?”

  He lifted his upturned palms in a shrug.

  “I’ll find out soon enough,” I replied with an easy smile, before dashing across the mine to the heavy doors barring the ent
rance to Clearchos’s troglodyte lair. No negotiation was necessary this time; the guards stepped aside to let me in with a quick nod. I hurried up the darkened staircase, barely paying attention to the cool drops of divine water dripping from the ceiling. When I reached Clearchos’s chamber, the guards whispered to each other with taut expressions while one of them rapped the code on the iron doors. The news of the imminent assault had spread already, infected all minds; there was a new tension in the air, something I felt echoing inside me with each clanking of the soldier’s knuckles against the metal.

  Rusty hinges moaned in protest as the door came ajar and I ventured inside Clearchos’s dim, stuffy lair. He stood hunched over one of the maps covering his command table, flanked by Victrix and Irius. Two other members of Clearchos’s personal guard were here too: nine-fingered Vatluna, a bristly bull of a man who wore a special leather glove to fit his left hand where half of the thumb was missing, and Hastius, who hailed from the south, like Thurias, and whose striking green eyes and glossy brown curls made him a favorite among girls. Thurias said he didn’t even have to pay—might explain how he had saved the money for that shiny feathered lorica and the ivory grip of the short sword tucked in his back.

  Clearchos looked up from his maps, smoothing a hand across them. “There he is, my fast boy…”

  My arrival was met with a general sense of indifferent contempt, save for Victrix, who crossed his arms and sized me up with a scowl. “Constanter won’t stop arrows with just his tunic.”

  Clearchos waved a dismissive hand. “See to that later with Rascius.”

  “So, we’re gonna… attack the walls?” I asked, trying—and failing—to suppress any trace of shyness from my voice.

  My input elicited a series of deep chuckles all around the table, soon followed by a flush of shame on my cheeks. My arms rigid at my sides, I stood straighter and taller when Clearchos flattened his hand on the map and spoke. “Manicus has lost enough men already trying to break through Nyos’s fortifications, and I wouldn’t agree to sacrifice my own forces to such a foolish endeavor.” A lopsided smile pulled at his scarred skin. “I’d rather we march into the city through the Magnatura.”

  I was sorely tempted to ask how that was possible, but I decided I had shamed myself enough as it was. Instead, I waited for him to go on, darting nervous glances at the parchments scattered in front of him.

  Clearchos’s forefinger landed in the middle of the map closest to him. “And if the prefect of Nyos won’t open it for us, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.” He motioned for me to join them around the table. “Come, take a look.”

  I crept closer and flattened my palms on the sturdy wood to examine the finely inked plans and recognized Bride’s Lake, painted in blue on the parchment. The part that looked like a mountain must be the mine, with its tangle of caves and tunnels snaking in all directions. I stared at the various annotations in vain, wondering if they all knew how to read and it was just me who couldn’t. I gathered the words must be important, what with the arrows and dotted lines scribbled everywhere, but to me, they were meaningless ink strokes. I plastered a frown of concentration on my face and nodded expertly under Victrix’s amused gaze.

  I followed Clearchos’s finger as it swiped along a narrow tunnel all the way to a big hill crowned with a fortified city. My jaw went slack. “The mine is connected to Nyos?”

  Hastius, the ladies’ man, flashed me one of those suave smiles they liked so much. “The mine closed some sixty years ago when the aediles of Nyos realized that the city itself would collapse if they kept digging through their hills like moles. We studied all the old maps. If you follow the divine water, you’ll end up right here.” He pulled another plan for us to see, this one full of streets and buildings. “Under the Meditrinal’s temple. The water supplies a pool in the gardens.”

  My head bobbed slowly as the information poured in. “You want to open the gate from the inside, so the legion can rush in. But it’s huge, how are we ever going to—”

  “Leave the thinking to Hastius,” Clearchos said cuttingly. His silvery gaze swiped around the table. “The rest of you will clear the path. Draw your blade only if necessary, but if you do, do it to kill. Fast.” He looked at me as he stressed this last word, sparking a thrill that was equal parts fear and excitement. It was really happening: I was going to be a mercenary, and a secret one at that.

  “Any more stupid questions?” Victrix asked me.

  That drew some more collective chuckling at my expense, which died all of a sudden when Clearchos pulled Victrix to him and placed a kiss on his forehead. I watched in curiosity as Irius bowed his head ever so slightly in turn to receive the same treatment, followed by Hastius, and lastly, Vatluna, who had to fold down for Clearchos’s mouth to reach his big head. Clearchos then made his way around the table to stand before me. I stiffened when he leaned in; the woodsy notes of his strange perfume were suddenly nauseating, and every instinct inside me screamed to reject his touch. Yet the spell of his unblinking gaze paralyzed my legs. I let him draw me closer to him, his voice a whisper between us as he applied his dry lips to my forehead. “Don’t disappoint me.

  “One more thing,” Clearchos said aloud, drawing back. His eyes were still on me, a challenge gleaming in their gray depths. “Tonight, we will gather at the pit.”

  Hastius raised an eyebrow, while Victrix looked back and forth between his mentor and me, his mouth a thin line. I said nothing, only stared at the specks of light reflected in Clearchos’s armor. The wolf’s eyes were burning with impatience.

  “You’re dismissed,” he stated, returning to his maps.

  I felt the weight of Victrix’s probing gaze on me as we walked through the iron doors together. I didn’t care; my mind was in the pit already. For all my inexperience, I understood that there was nothing fortuitous about Clearchos’s announcement. He wanted to know if I was worthy of the time he and Victrix had invested in me, if I could kill the soldiers guarding Nyos’s impassable gate for him.

  Clearchos had fulfilled his end of our bargain. Now he wanted to see me fulfill mine.

  15

  “There gun’ be nuthin’ lef’ o’ tha’ blade.”

  Mesmerized by the glare of steel, I paid little attention to the words old Rascius struggled to chew through his toothless gums. I wanted the blade lighter and sharper. Ever sharper, until all that was left was a silvery filament that would slice everything it touched.

  Rascius scratched the couple of white hairs dueling atop his sun-dappled skull and let go of the dagger he had been tempering. He wiped his hands on his leather apron and dragged a stool across the forge shed to watch me run my blade across his stone over and over. The continuous scratching soothed the storm in my mind as night fell on the camp and the torches lining the pit’s wall were lit, one after another. The moons hid behind dark tendrils of clouds, gazing down sadly at Clearchos’s Legion on the eve of battle.

  Rascius mumbled something to himself that sounded like, “That steel ain’t right for what yer tryna do.”

  He was right. I wanted a lighter, supple blade, and this Lorian one was larger, heavier, and so hard it bordered on brittle. “It’ll have to do,” I said quietly. “Do you have wax?”

  Rascius unfolded with a groan and went to rummage through the wooden shelves lining the walls, retrieving a jar of beeswax that he handed to me. I spread some on the blade and grabbed a worn piece of leather to finish polishing the blade. “How much would it cost if I wanted you to improve it? Temper it and make it lighter?” I asked while rubbing at the mirror-like edge of the blade.

  He held out four gnarled fingers.

  “Four assari?”

  “Sigli.”

  So, forty assari? I shot up from my stool and gave him back the leather rag and the jar of wax. “Thanks for the wax, but go to hell.”

  A breathless laugh rattled his bony frame. “Come back any’ime!”

  I slipped my sword back into its she
ath and marched out of the forge and into the night, rubbing my palms to suppress a shiver. Maybe I’d need to wear my brown tunic on top of the old one tomorrow.

  “Ready?” a voice called from the shadows.

  My heart jolted and I reached for my sword instinctively, only to release the grip when I recognized Victrix. “Don’t creep up on me like that. Someday I’ll behead you.”

  He emerged from behind the forge’s wall, looking… different. It wasn’t his hair, or even his face. I squinted my eyes at his silhouette, barely outlined by the campfire’s dying flame. His braided cuirass, the one he wore all the time, was missing—he carried it in his hand, actually. He tossed it to me without warning, along with a pair of finely engraved greaves I had never seen him wear.

  I lunged to catch Victrix’s gear with a glare. “River’s the other way. Don’t expect me to carry your clothes if you’re going to strip here.”

  He moved closer, his eyes two angry slits. “Listen to me, you tart little cocksucker. I spent three months training you and rolling in the dirt with you and the other dimwits. If you get yourself gutted tonight, I’ll have wasted my entire summer in the pit. For shit. So, you shut the fuck up and you wear this.”

  Had the gesture come from anyone else, I’d have reckoned genuine concern for my safety and thanked him for this touching gesture. But this was Victrix, and I was tempted to believe that his sole motive was, indeed, to protect his and Clearchos’s investment. Regardless, the loan was a valuable one; after I’d strapped the silvery greaves to my shins over their layer of padded cloth, I slipped the cuirass over my head and fastened the leather straps running down the sides, tightening them until it more or less fitted my lithe torso. I tugged at the collar to sniff the fierce tang of sweat and horse dung that clung to the leather. “Loris help me, you wash even less than I do…”

  “You’re welcome, birdshit.”

  I turned to the procession of ghostly silhouettes drifting among the tents toward the orange glow rising from the pit. The legion was gathering. Whatever fleeting relief Victrix’s antics had brought me vanished. I wasn’t really scared, but my chest felt tight and my legs restless.