The Dark Lord

CHAPTER TWO

A Street, North of the Forum Bovarium, Constantinople, Late Spring A.D. 625

A faint groan issued from beneath a heap of corpses. Pale sunlight fell on dead staring eyes, picking out faint gleams from buckles and rusted links of chain armor. The entire street was filled with scattered bodies-most of them burned beyond recognition-though many still held the semblance of life. There were no flies, no rooting, bloody-nosed dogs, no scavenging peasants, no crows or ravens or seagulls feasting on the flotsam of war. Empty windows stared down onto the sloping street, shutters scorched black by some awesome blast of flame that had raged up and down the avenue.

Bodies shifted, heavy gray arms falling away, thighs encased in armor clanging to the ground. A man clawed his way out of the corpse midden, face streaked with dried blood, armor dented and scratched. He stood, trying to muster the spit to clear his mouth. Dark eyes, almost black, took in the wreckage all around and the soldier grimaced. There was nothing moving, certainly nothing alive as far as his eye reached in either direction.

A great stillness pervaded the houses and crouched in the doors of the little shops. The soldier realized nothing lived, even in the dark, close rooms behind the facades. Grunting, he tried to climb up over the heap of half-naked bodies-part of his conscious mind registered Slavic spearmen, long hair stiff with white clay, their bodies intricately diagrammed with whorled signs in black and dark blue dye-and found his right arm weak. Frowning, he looked down on his forearm and realized a huge gash ripped from his wrist to the elbow, tearing through a sleeve of linked iron rings.

"Merciful gods!" The man hissed. Something had shattered his arm, cleaving right to the bone. An axe? He remembered something bright flashing towards him.

The soldier reached to undo the buckle at his shoulder and his left arm caught on something. Cursing, the man realized a long black-shafted arrow had wedged itself through the center of the iron links and clear through his forearm. The stubs of two more arrows were buried in his chest. Snarling, without even words to express his rage, the man broke the shaft of the arrow off at the base, rewarding himself with a popping sound and the slow welling of thick, dark blood around the wound. He ignored the arrows in his chest for the moment.

With swift, experienced motions, Rufio unbuckled the straps holding the armored sleeves to his shoulder plates, then jerked the heavy iron hauberk off over his head. The arrows in his chest snapped with a wet sound and he hissed with pain. A pale, welted body crisscrossed with terrible scars was revealed. The street remained silent and desolate. Even the sky was empty of birds. The uncanny stillness weighed on the soldier's mind. He assumed the city had fallen-but where was the occupying army? Where were the oppressed citizens?

Blunt fingers gripped the head of the arrow in his left arm, then dragged the shaft out through the muscle. The point emerged, slick with reddish-yellow fluid, and Rufio tossed the arrow away. He bent over, feeling abused muscle and bone creak. Two arrows were buried deep in his chest. Squatting, bracing his shoulders against the nearest building wall, Rufio lifted a spent shaft from the ground. Another dead Slav, lying facedown, flesh distended and purple, provided him with a moderately clean knife. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his left arm, Rufio cut the head from the arrow, then trimmed the resulting shaft, notching the blunt head into four quarters.

Clenching his jaw, Rufio wedged his trimmed arrow against the broken butt of the one in his shoulder, wiggling it until the notched head settled properly against its new friend. Then, holding his body as still as he could manage, the soldier bore down, pushing the arrow lodged in his body through, feeling it grind past bone and muscle, until it punched through the skin of his back. Tears streamed down his cheeks, cutting tracks in dried, crusty blood. Despite being half-blind, his entire body shimmering with pain, he carefully withdrew his dowel. With the iron head of the shaft sticking out of his back, Rufio managed to reach around and snag it with his thumb. Some wiggling around managed to slide the bolt free.

One more to go. Rufio lay back, panting, staring at the pale sky. A haze seemed to lie over the city, making even a clear bright sun, high in the bowl of heaven, seem faded and washed out. Oh, you cursed gods, the soldier thought bitterly, I never asked for this… to see nothing but an eternity of ruin and destruction! You should have left me safely dead, cursed physician!

But he remained alive, and though his entire body was trembling, he fitted the dowel, again, to the broken stub jutting from his chest and began to push. A long agonized groan escaped the soldier's lips as the arrow punched out his back.