Corvus by Paul Kearney Read Free Book Online Page A

a whispered hiss. Fornyx grimaced, ducked
behind a tree and donned his helm. The two men nodded silently at one another,
grasping their spears at the mid-point.
    They could make
out men talking now, strange accents, a bark of laughter, and the truckle of
air through a horse’s nose. The trail down the hillside was buried in snow, but
still made a clear way through the trees, a white ribbon uncoiling across the
slopes of the forest.
    Up close now. They
could smell the sweat of the horses.
    Again, the
cock-pheasant rasped, as though counting down the moments. Behind his tree,
Rictus breathed deep and even, as his father had taught him in boyhood, as he
had in turn taught so many men who had fought under him.
    The spear-grip in
his hand was more familiar to him than the feel of his wife’s breast. The black
cuirass was feather-light on his back. The world was a bright slot of light. He
had known these sensations all his life. They were what his life was about.
They were what made him alive.
    He stepped out
from behind the tree.
     
    That first moment , counting bodies.
How they are standing, what is in their hands, what they are wearing - the weak
points. Who is the leader? Deal with him first.
    They were
soldiers, all of them. He saw that at once, despite the dun-coloured cloaks,
the winter-gear. They had swords - the heavy curved drepana of the
lowland cities - hung at their hips, and from the pommel of the nearest horse
hung three bronze helms, like outsized onions. But no red cloaks on display -
they were not mercenaries.
    The men froze as
Rictus and Fornyx materialized in front of them, gleaming faceless statues of
ebony and scarlet, spears held easily at the shoulder. Rictus’s eyes flicked
back and forth within the helm-slot. He breathed out a little, relaxing
somewhat, looking at the deeds and intentions of their eyes. No need for death,
not right away.
    “Good morning,
lads,” he called out, the bronze robbing his voice of tone and warmth. “What’s
up here for you in the snow and the hills this time of year?”
    One of the men edged
closer to the lead pack-horse, where a bundle of javelins was slung. Rictus
stepped forward two paces and levelled the aichme of his spear at the man’s
throat.
    “You’ll not be
needing those, friend. Not today.”
    A black-bearded
man held up his hands in the air.
    He had a broad,
likeable face which was at once good-humoured and sinister. He might have been
Fornyx’s younger brother.
    “The Curse of God,
here in the middle of nothing and nowhere - now there’s a prodigy! Lower your
spear, brother. We mean you no harm. We are merely travellers, on our way to
better things.”
    Rictus cocked his
head, the spear stone-steady in his fist. He was aware of Fornyx at his left,
breathing quiet clouds of breath into the still air. No-one else was stirring -
they had sense enough for that, at any rate. One brisk movement would resolve
the morning in carnage, and they knew it.
    “Who are you?”
Rictus asked the dark-bearded man.
    The man bowed his
head, grinning. “I am Druze, and these are my friends, my comrades in arms
Grakos, Gabinius, and a couple of other rascals. We were seeking the quickest
way to Hal Goshen and seemed to have gotten ourselves turned around in the
night. Our apologies if we have trespassed upon your ground. We mean no harm.
We may take a rabbit or two out of your woods, but that’s all.”
    He was lying. The
straight road to Hal Goshen lay up along the ridge, impossible to miss. Only an
imbecile could wander off it, and this man was no fool. Rictus knew that just
by the sloe-black twinkle in his eyes. He was not afraid, either, or even
apprehensive. That was worrying.
    One of the man’s
friends trudged down the slope from the rear of the party, also holding up
empty palms. This was a smaller fellow, and slender. He wore the short woollen
chlamys of the mountain folk, with the hood pulled up so his face was hard to
make out except for a bright gleam of the