The First Blade Of Ostia Read online

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Don’t know. All my kin and everyone I knew were in Grelitz.’ Her voice faltered again as she spoke.

  ‘Grelitz is the name of the village?’

  She nodded. ‘Was the name.’

  It was only now that Bryn realised that he still had no idea what she looked like, whether she was old or young. The only light in the shack came from the fire, and that left plenty of shadows. He would have tried moving to get a better look, but his shoulders hurt so badly the thought of moving made him want to vomit.

  ‘You from Ostenheim?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not a soldier. What brought you all the way out here?’

  ‘I needed work. Escorting supply wagons was all I could get. Doesn’t seem like such a good idea now though.’

  She let out a staccato laugh. ‘Plenty of things are like that.’

  * * *

  IT ONLY TOOK a couple of days cooped up inside the shack before Bryn felt strong enough to venture outside again. In truth it was as much boredom as recovery that encouraged him to try. He was still not sure that he would make it farther than a few paces. He was weak and unsteady on his feet, and wasn’t able to put his hand out quickly to grab onto something for support, which made his efforts perilous.

  Ayla watched him warily. Despite the hours that they had spent talking, and the many more that she had spent caring for him, feeding him, it was obvious that she didn’t trust him. For the first few days she had appeared to him only as a shadowy figure in the gloomy hunting shack. He had come to know her by the sound of her voice alone, his imagination creating an image of what she looked like. Fair hair and skin were common in the north, and that was how he pictured her. Her voice was always tense, strained, so it was impossible to tell how old she was. It could be a sign of age, or as a result of recent events. Each time she spoke he changed his mind.

  When he first saw her out of doors, he smiled with satisfaction at the accuracy of his prediction. She was fair skinned, with hair the colour of wheat at harvest time. She was no older than he although, like her voice, her face showed the stress caused by the destruction of her village and it added years to her. Bryn couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose everyone you know and care about. His own troubles paled in comparison.

  On his first attempt at going for a walk, Bryn was able for little more than limping outside and sitting on a tree stump a few steps from the door of the shack. Ayla had to leave him to his own devices when she went to fetch water or look for food—something she had previously done when he slept, which was most of the time.

  After a few more days, he found that he could walk farther, and that some of his old stamina was returning—far more quickly than if building it from scratch. He slowly made his way toward the remains of the village, for no more reason than it was the only destination in the area that he knew of. The pain had started to fade from his shoulders—there was also an element of him growing accustomed to it—but his hands and arms were still numb. He couldn’t feel anything at all. He didn’t know what that meant, but it was difficult not to be concerned.

  Ayla had gone off to look for food earlier and had yet to return, so he decided to take another walk. Each day he set himself a more ambitious goal. The shack was not far from the village, but it was far enough that Bryn was beginning to wonder if he had pushed himself too hard when it finally came into view. It looked much the same as it had when he had first encountered the place, little more than a black stain on the landscape with charred pieces of wood occasionally hinting at where a building had once been. The only difference was a solitary figure standing amidst the ash.

  Ayla stood motionless, staring at a patch of charred ground, oblivious to everything around her. Abruptly, she walked forward quickly and bent down to examine something on the ground. She stood again after a moment, not having picked anything up. Watching her felt like an invasion of privacy, so Bryn backed away. She had been so diligent in caring for him, so attentive, he hadn’t thought of how much she must have been hurting. She had done so much for him; he didn’t have the first idea of what he could do for her.

  He hobbled back to the shack and was well and truly exhausted by the time he got there. Ayla was clutching a small cloth parcel of food when she returned. She dropped it down on the table in the corner before sitting down in the shadows, beyond the light of the small fire.

  ‘Foraging’s getting harder,’ she said.

  Having seen her standing in the village, so sad, he felt he needed to make some gesture toward her, but didn’t know what form it should take or how to put it. It occurred to him that her loved ones probably still lay where they were killed and that just didn’t seem right.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he said. ‘I know your loved ones must still be in the village. I thought maybe when my arms are better I could go down and help you bury them.’

  ‘Unless you plan on digging more than two hundred holes there’s not much point,’ she said, bitterly. ‘I can’t tell who’s who. They’re all too badly burned. I didn’t see where they fell; they weren’t in our house. Anyhow, who knows when your arms will start working again?’

  She got up and walked out of the shack.

  Bryn sighed. At times he felt like he was an idiot. At times he knew he was one.

  CHAPTER 37

  Amero sat in his apartment reviewing the Amphitheatre listings for the coming month. His name featured frequently on the long sheet of parchment—too frequently, some might say. It came as a surprise to him that the benefits of the old man’s healing would linger. Even without the regular sessions, he found that his recuperation was far faster than it ever was before. He did not expect that to remain the case for very long, and decided that it would be foolish not to take advantage of it so long as it lingered.

  A duel a week was unusual, but not unheard of. Two or even three in a week was something a duellist might manage once, with a long break afterward. Amero planned on keeping up that pace for several weeks. With the inhuman load of training he had subjected himself to over the previous weeks, he felt invincible.

  He knew his style was a part of that. It was mesmerising, and lethal. Thinking of the crowd reacting brought a smile to his face. It inflamed them and made fools of his opponents. He had taken the things he thought useful from others, but he altered, embellished and enhanced them all to suit himself. The magic may have helped him, but it only allowed him to realise his potential sooner. The victories, the style, that was all him. He knew nothing and no-one else could take credit for that.

  All that remained for him to achieve in the arena was the legendary one hundred and twenty-five. He wanted it, and he wasn’t willing to wait. Not only would he achieve that vaunted number, he would do it faster than anyone before him.

  * * *

  BRYN HAD BEEN at the shack for ten days when the feeling started to return to his hands. It began with a tingling in his fingers and was followed by them responding slightly to his commands to move. He almost wept with joy as he saw his fingers twitch; a wave of hope flooded through his frustration and despair. The deadness had lasted long enough for him to fear that the feeling would never return. He lifted his hands to look at them and was cut down by the two stabs of pain that shot in from his shoulders through his torso. His stomach twisted and he thought he was going to be sick. More disappointingly, the sensation in his fingers was gone.

  He continued to walk every day. He gently moved his arms as he went, testing them against the limits of pain, trying to push them more on each outing. Conversation with Ayla had been stilted since his suggestion of burying her loved ones. He knew that she returned to the village for several hours each day, ostensibly to forage for food. How she had managed to find enough to keep them going for as long as she had was something of a marvel, but it could only get harder in a region that had been stripped of so much. She had shown enough trust in him to give him the sword.

  It turned out that it wa
s his, driven into the ground beneath where he was hanging, to let everyone who passed by know the executed man was a banneret. If it came to it he doubted he would be able to do much with it, but it felt good to have at his waist nonetheless. With the fighting far away, and the village destroyed, there was no reason for anyone to pass through the area, but there was always the risk of a roving band of marauders happening upon them. Appearances alone often counted for a great deal, even if he couldn’t pull it from the scabbard.

  He tended to avoid going too close to the village after the previous time, wanting to respect Ayla’s privacy as much as he could, and also not wanting to compound his previous clumsiness. She had saved his life, nursed him back to health, and he had nothing to offer her in return—not even a sensitively chosen word.

  He reached the extremity of his day’s exercise, a low hill that in other circumstances would have given a captivating view of the Telastrian Mountains to the east, but now did little more than showcase a desolated land. It was clear to him that he was ready to start thinking seriously about making the journey home. With no money and no realistic notion of how to come by any, it would be a very long walk. Until his arms were working reasonably well again, starvation was the only thing that awaited him on the road. That was of course only if he had to travel alone.

  An idea had come to him of a way to repay Ayla’s kindness and help to get her on her feet again. When Grelitz was destroyed and her family killed, she had lost everything. He didn’t have much, but at the very least she could stay with his mother and sister until she found work as a cook or lady’s maid, or any of the other jobs available to a single young woman in the city. If she could read and write the options would be even greater, as would the quality of life available to her. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could come up with. He decided to suggest the idea of her coming back to Ostenheim with him when she returned to the shack that evening.

  * * *

  BEING FED WAS the most emasculating thing Bryn had ever experienced. He was grateful that Ayla did it without comment, but he was as hungry for the moment when he could do it himself as he was for their meagre meals. She gave him a mouthful of water to wash the food down. He made to wipe his mouth and his head throbbed with frustration when his arms remained still. What if they stayed like that? The last thing his family needed was an invalid to support. He pushed the thought out of his head as quickly as it had entered. There were other things he had to address. He cleared his throat, and started his pitch.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘We can’t stay here forever. There’s nothing for you here now…’ He realised how insensitive his words sounded, and continued in the hope he hadn’t caused offence. ‘You’ve been so kind to me. I want to repay that. I want you to come to Ostenheim with me. You’ll have a roof over your head, people who will care about you, and the chance to start a new life. A good life.’

  While he could not see her face in the shack’s darkness, Bryn could tell by her body language that Ayla was uncomfortable with the offer. She said nothing, but set about clearing up the few utensils they used to eat with.

  ‘Will you think on it, at least?’ Bryn said.

  She nodded. ‘I’ll think on it.’

  * * *

  BRYN STARED SOUTH, roughly toward where he imagined Ostenheim lay, many miles distant. He couldn’t deny that his motives had in part been selfish; without Ayla he had little or no chance of being able to make the journey.

  In spite of her avoiding the issue, the idea grew on him the more he thought of it. She had nothing here and wherever she chose to go she would be a stranger trying to survive. She might as well be a stranger in Ostenheim, where at least there would be a couple of people looking out for her. Otherwise, pretty young women in her situation usually ended up doing only one thing, and after all she had done for him he refused to allow that happen unopposed. He would have to give her a little more time and try again.

  He had turned the idea over in his head all night, and as he walked that morning he tried to work out how to demonstrate to Ayla that this idea was the best option for her. His legs were getting tired, so he turned around and headed back toward the shack, keenly feeling homesick and wondering how his mother and sister were doing. Would they have had word of the disappearance of the wagon train? Did they think he was dead?

  His route took him near to the village. He knew that Ayla would be there and part of him longed to be able to do something to help her cope with the grief and shock of losing everything that she knew. Sadly it didn’t seem to be that simple, and he knew he lacked the emotional subtlety needed in such situations. Most of the things he had learned in life were with a sword in his hand, which left him ill prepared for dealing with things that required sensitivity.

  As he neared the village, he could hear noise. The sound was unmistakably that of a group of dismounted men. Whatever danger they represented to him, they were a far greater one to Ayla if they spotted her. He knew that she was smart and aware enough to stay out of their way, but he couldn’t take the chance that she would spot their approach in time to avoid them. When he had seen her in the village that first time, she had seemed so lost in thought he feared she wouldn’t notice them at all.

  He broke into a steady run, little faster than a jog but the most that he could maintain for any length of time. As he had suspected, she was at the remains of the house she had been standing by the previous time. She was sitting cross-legged in the centre, her attention somewhere far away. She didn’t seem to have noticed the sound, which was growing closer all the time.

  ‘Ayla!’

  She looked up, a puzzled expression on her face.

  ‘Men are coming! We have to go!’

  The tension in his voice had the desired effect and she stood, concern appearing on her face as she looked toward the source of the sound that was now unmissable. He rushed over to her with the intention of taking her hand and leading her in the direction of the shack, but in his haste forgot his injury and contorted in pain, his hand not moving from his side.

  She took his hand and led the way as they broke into a run in the opposite direction to the sound. The had gone no more than a dozen paces when a crossbow bolt thudded into the soft turf at their feet, bringing them to an abrupt halt. There was a roar of laughter from behind them, a half dozen voices at least.

  ‘Watch where you go there, friend!’ called a voice.

  Bryn turned to face its source, unintentionally letting Ayla’s hand slip from his unresponsive fingers.

  ‘No need to be in such a hurry. Not seemly to make such a lovely young lady run, no matter how impatient you might be to get her home.’

  There was more raucous laughter.

  The men spread out as they approached, forming a semicircle in front of Bryn and Ayla. She remained silent, standing close by and Bryn could feel the tension in her body. She knew only too well what could come of a situation like this.

  ‘We hoped to find a town hereabouts, friend. Any idea where it is?’ More laughter.

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ Bryn said. He wondered if they were the ones that had caused the destruction, but it seemed unlikely that the perpetrators would return. They knew there was nothing left of value.

  ‘No need to be rude about it, friend. You’re from Ostenheim?’

  Bryn nodded. The leader of the group, for the comedian was clearly the leader, reminded Bryn of every bully he had ever encountered. He was brave, swaggering and invincible so long as he had six men to back him up.

  ‘I’m from Ostenheim too. Artisans, born and bred. What brings you to the inhospitable North?’ He stood arms akimbo, and although his words were addressed to Bryn, his eyes were firmly on Ayla.

  His overt friendliness worried Bryn. ‘Same as you I expect,’ said Bryn.

  The man nodded and rubbed at the several days of dark stubble on his chin. ‘No uniform?’

  Bryn shook his head. ‘No, came up on private work with the wagons.’


  ‘Don’t see no wagons, friend.’

  ‘I don’t see no regiment,’ Bryn said, trying to drag the man’s gaze away from Ayla and back to him.

  The man laughed and his cronies joined in. ‘Guess you got us on that. We’re not with a regiment anymore. That’s a very pretty northern wench you’ve got yourself there.’

  Bryn remained silent. There was nothing to say, but they were getting to the point of things nonetheless.

  ‘Well? What do you have to say, friend?’ the man said.

  ‘You wouldn’t like what I have to say, friend. She’s mine.’

  ‘Oh, come now.’ He turned to his cronies for a reaction; they all oohed. He turned back to Bryn. ‘We’re all Ostians here, all friends. We just think you should share and share alike.’

  The men all laughed, much to their leader’s pleasure. Bryn willed his left hand to the neck of his sword scabbard, as though he was preparing the sword to be drawn. He tried not to show the strain he was under to make it do his bidding. ‘You and your friends should move along. There’s nothing for you here.’

  ‘Not so sure about that, friend,’ the man said, his eyes hungry, locked on Ayla. ‘There’s seven of us. Think we’ll be doing what we like.’

  If Bryn had the use of his arms, the man would already be dead. So too would his friends. ‘There might be seven of you, and I might not be able to kill you all, but you, I will definitely kill.’ One of the men behind the leader looked particularly confident. Bryn glared at him. ‘You’ll be the next after him.’

  His face dropped a little, some of the bluster knocked out of him.

  Finally the leader turned his gaze to Bryn. ‘Nice sword.’ He nodded his head to Bryn’s blade. ‘You a banneret?’

  ‘Do you really want to find out?’ Bryn felt his stomach clench. He couldn’t even draw his sword, let alone use it.