A Sword Of Wrath, Book I: Blood And Dust Page 3

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  "Sixteen years...," the man muttered to himself, his words heavy with remorse as he sat upon a fallen log that rested beside a sculpted memorial in the middle of the Aulus forest.

  His name was Tacitus and he cut a forlorn figure sitting there, his long black and gray hair wrapped to its end with a piece of leather. His slightly wrinkled face, painted in the traditional decorative ink-swirled designs of the Cavalli people, told the story of a man who had been broken long ago.

  The wind lightly rustled the vest made of fur pelts that he wore over a simple linen shirt and brown breeches. It then whirled red and golden leaves around his suede boots, fluttering the fringe that ringed their tops as it did.

  Behind him, Tacitus heard the not entirely unexpected crunch of leaves beneath someone else’s feet and knew instantly who had arrived to disrupt his mourning. The new visitor, larger in stature and possessing a booming voice that carried throughout the dense forest, demanded "What are you doing here, Cauda?" He spat out the last word like a curse and it may well have been, for it was the old word meaning 'coward.' To a Cavalli, there was no greater insult than being called a coward.

  "Same as you, Vibius." Tacitus didn't to look up as his gaze remained locked onto the moss-covered statue.

  "I find it odd that you would pay your respects to my wife. Especially when it is your fault she is dead." Vibius stepped forward, his face covered in similar ink designs as Tacitus', although his signified his allegiance to the Little Fish village of the Cavalli. "Cauda," he repeated, "you are not supposed to be here."

  Tacitus stood and the other man reached for the heavy long-sword at his side. Tacitus looked into Vibius' eyes, coolly, "I won't fight you." He looked back at the memorial stone, "Not here. Not in front of her."

  "You won't fight because you are a coward. You do not even possess a sword! Your brother should've ended your life years ago."

  "Perhaps...," Tacitus knelt down and began to clean the moss off of the stone. His lips parted and he began to whisper a silent prayer to the gods that he was no longer entirely sure he believed in.

  Vibius' patience with Tacitus was showing signs of wearing thin, "I want you to leave. Now. Because I will fight you in front of her, sword or no sword."

  "We are both Cavalli, Vibius," Tacitus stood again, "therefore we are brothers in the eyes of the gods but," he shook his head, "I should have never allowed her to marry you." He cast a stern but silent glance at the other man, "That is my regret." He then began to walk away but before he left the clearing entirely, he stopped and turned, "You were no better at protecting her than I was." His eyes fell on the white stone, "Goodbye, my daughter. Until another year has passed."

  He reluctantly left the clearing and took to his horse, a two-year-old bay he'd just received from a neighboring village as payment for his "good medicine." He pulled himself up onto its back and with a last look behind him, began the return trek to his home in Two-Crows.

  As the horse plodded rhythmically along throughout the dense forest, he pushed the thoughts of Vibius from his mind and wondered, instead, what he should name the mare. He wanted something regal yet simple. For once, long ago, the Cavalli, or Horse People as they were known throughout the world, had lived alongside herds and herds of the equines. They had run wild in ever-shifting masses of browns and reds upon the Lower Plains before the Desolate Wars had rendered the grasslands into a useless desert and the Lycanian forces had brought most of them back to Odalia as spoils of war.

  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 sto
p 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 may be."

  "Then ask him why he didn't fight!"

  "Yeah!" Another chimed in, "Why is the coward alive? A true man would've fought! He would've died with honor!"

  Still another, "He is a true coward!"

  Severus walked into his house and laid his brother upon his own bed. The villagers, still in their war coverings and paint, crowded around the gutted doorway, all talking at once. Severus turned and glared at them as he pushed his way through, "Get away from my home!"

  The oldest village Elder, Seneca, a man of white hair and frail body who had nevertheless joined them in fighting the rebels, addressed Severus, "Tacitus should face trial. The Cavalli are not men of weakness."

  Severus nostrils flared with anger, "I have lost three brothers already, I will not lose another."

  The crowd grew agitated and began asking for Severus to be reprimanded as well.

  Frustrated with those he had just fought beside not even a fortnight ago, he looked out over the crowd and shouted, "You know me! Who am I?"

  The crowd mumbled.

  "Who am I?" he demanded at the top of his lungs.

  "The Chaos-bringer!" Someone shouted back.

  "The Giant Killer!"

  "The Sword Bearer!"

  "The Defeater of the Rebels!"

  "That's right! I have many names as I am the bravest among you. I have shown in battle that I have no fear and have led you in many victories and given you stories that you will pass on for generations to come. If I have no fear of the Giants, no fear of the Rebels and no fear of death, what makes you think I will be afraid of you?" Severus pulled his sword from its sheath and with two hands upon its hilt, lifted the sword high, then plunged it deep into the ground before Seneca.

  "From where my sword sits, and everything behind it, is now mine. What once belonged to my brothers is now mine. I take their dwellings and pledge to protect this village as I bear my brother's cowardly mantle upon my own back. But, I swear by the gods, that if any of you cross the land where this sword has marked without being asked,
I will thrust it through your hearts." He looked around the crowd, his chest rising and falling as he seethed, his eyes landing on the Elder.

  The Elder spoke slow and loud, "I agree with the Sword Bearer. His bravery in our recent battles has proven that the gods are on his side and as long as he aligns with us, we shall honor his request. Tend to your women and children, those of you that still have them. If you have been among those that have lost here today, we will perform the purification ceremony tonight and plead with the gods to allow them into Heaven." The crowd was silent, but unmoving. Seneca shouted, "That is all for now, tend to your flocks!"

  When the crowds had dissipated, Seneca spoke to Severus, "To bear your brother's shame will not be easy."

  "Yet, it will be so," was the only response the warrior gave as he turned away and went back into his home.

  In the many weeks that followed, Severus tended to Tacitus, nursing him back to health and even using his brother's own advice for which remedies to apply when he was able to speak again. But, despite the fact that he loved his remaining brother very much, Severus couldn't deny that there was an underlying resentment that he felt towards Tacitus' cowardice during the attack - though he would never say so aloud, even as he spent the next generation trying to redeem his family's bloodline.

  Meanwhile, in the decade and a half that had followed the Cavalli Rebellion, the people of Two-Crows had rebuilt. Only the fewest of trees still bore the scars of the events that had occurred and where the ashes of the dead were once piled, there now stood a Willow tree, whose branches hung low with the sadness of its weeping. Tacitus rode his new horse into the village and while the people had never quite fully accepted him again, he was happy to be back in the place that he called home.

  The village was quiet as Tacitus entered, for most of her inhabitants were away honoring their lost ancestors for the Day of Remembrances. In the midst of the silence, he could hear the telltale sound of his brother laboring hard in the distance, working on what he hoped would soon house the village’s own Order of the Sword, an ancient guild that had once thrived eons ago within the Cavalli.

  Tacitus tied off the horse in front of his home, which had been rebuilt upon its old site. Like the other buildings in the Two-Crows village, it was a half-barrel shaped wooden structure with a thatched roof that went all the way down to the ground. It was located between two trees and its outside was decorated with various Cavalli symbols meaning good medicine and health.

  "Hello, Brother," an unexpected voice spoke as Tacitus tended his horse.

  He turned at the musical sound, unable to hide the smile that spread too easily upon his face at the appearance of his very pregnant sister-in-law, Nona.

  "Hello, Nona, how are you getting along?"

  She held a basket of herbs against her side, her dark red hair piled in a mound of braids atop her head as her green eyes seemed more tired than normal, "The time grows closer." Nona patted her swollen belly, "It's a boy this time."

  He laughed, "So sure?"

  "Yes," she smiled back, "very. He doesn't fight as hard as Aelia, though." The light in her eyes dulled slightly as she tried to maintain her smile, "I do hope Severus will be pleased."

  Tacitus glanced across the grove towards his brother and watched as the other man set stones into the wall that would one day surround a new set of barracks, "He will be pleased, regardless." He looked back at Nona, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. "Well, I-I have a remedy setting up that I need to get back to."

  "Did you find any new plants while you were away?"

  "No." He smiled again, "I will probably need to venture out into the desert for some new ones one of these days."

  Her face paled slightly, "Please don't, Tacitus, there is dark magic there."

  "Nona, you know I don't believe-"

  "Please," her hand rested on his chest and his heart began to pound at her touch. "I would never recover if you... if something happened to you."

  He closed his eyes, "Nona, please don't. I can't."

  She pulled her hand away, sadness touching her eyes, "You have your brother's honor. It's the one thing I do love in him." Her eyes drifted towards her husband as he continuously worked, then back to Tacitus. She tried to change the subject, though her smile was still full of sorrow, "I've left a new book of forest vegetation on your table."

  "Thank you, Nona. We will speak again." He turned away and left her there, reluctantly, as he walked into his house. Once inside he saw the book she had mentioned, "A History of the Plants of the Aulus Forest" resting on his front room table. He smiled upon seeing it and lifted it up slowly, admiring its simple cover. As he did, a small folded piece of paper slipped out onto the table. He picked it up and opened it, reading to himself, "My heart and soul are yours, always... even if this body is not." Tacitus crumbled the paper up immediately and tossed it into the fire burning in the hearth.

  He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, then walked into the back room of his house. He set the book on top of a nearby shelf, which was already overflowing with tomes of various shapes, sizes and origins. A large heavy oaken table rested in the center of the small room with a thick rough-hewn cloth thrown across the top of it, outlining whatever mess lay beneath. On top of the cloth rested several reports from the scouts that his brother had sent out across the land. He took a certain pride in the fact that only the Cavalli knew the secrets of the desert and, according to one of the reports, it looked as if it would be that way for a while, yet. The scout in the Mountains of Selene reported that the N’bari wished to continue their treaty with the Cavalli for another year, while the scout to the west had nothing to report, as there was nothing out in the west except for a few small villages. The scout to the north in Odalia said that the Lycanians still openly declared that the Forest of Aulus was rightfully theirs.

  Tacitus nodded to himself as he read. This was what he wanted. He hoped, secretly, that the Lycanians would always claim the Cavalli land, for that way he may one day have the chance to redeem himself.

  He threw back the cloth that covered the table and revealed a scaled model of Odalia and the White Palace. He smirked as he leaned over it, shifting a few things to reflect the new info gleaned from one of the scout's more detailed reports.

  One day he would lead a rebellion and one day Lycania would fall. Tacitus subconsciously placed a hand over his chest, feeling the scar beneath his shirt. He would redeem himself, one way or another, and make his family's name worthy again.