The Eagle and the Sword by Attanasio A. A

Author:Attanasio, A. A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A. A. Attanasio
Published: 2013-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18: Procession of Clouds

Hay dust smokes with morning light as Brokk thrashes in the dry grass at the top of the valley above Cold Kitchen. He must feed the lamia. Beating a path through golden grass taller than himself, the dwarf ascends to a vantage from which to seek prey. Atop a humpbacked boulder, he watches a young girl bringing her three sheep and two lambs to the clover patches under some myrtle shrubs that the Roman legionnaires planted generations ago. He gnashes his teeth with disappointment, for her size will not provide as much strength as the weakened lamia needs. But then, she will be easier for the monster to subdue.

Brokk lopes along the ridge of the valley until he finds himself directly above the myrtle grove and the young woman in her hempen gown. She is not alone. Her sheep sense the intruder before she does—a burly, cleft-jawed man in a soldier's tunic with the black-and-crimson shoulder panels of Severus Syrax's infantry. He has come to take his pleasure and makes no effort at seduction. With one hand, he grabs her shepherd's crook and, with the other, rends her gown.

She stumbles backward and collapses, and the soldier leers over her at the exact moment that Brokk lurches from the brake of crackling myrtles. For a baffled interval, the infantryman stands back, gawking at the homuncular dwarf who holds a fistful of smoke toward him as if in blessing.

Irate at this ugly intrusion, the soldier draws his sword, yet even as the blade rings from its scabbard, Brokk is upon him. The dwarf's grip cracks the ulna and radius bones of the aggressive sword arm, and when the large man goes down on his knees, the dwarf smears the lamia's vaporous remnants onto his grimacing face.

A harrowing scream bounds across the valley, chasing the frantic shepherd girl and her sheep down the path to the hamlet. When the village men clamber into the myrtle grove alerted by her terrified report, they find the soldier's corpse hung head down, viscera dangling from him like obscene fruits.

By then, Brokk has returned to Mons Caliburnus in the shadowy gorge of the River Amnis. Disguised as Chief Kyner, he gruffly sends away the handful of curious soldiers and pilgrims who have gathered to view the legendary sword, and he paces around the stone, scowling attentively, seeing no clue to its structure, until in frustration he kicks it and sits down in pain. Crawling through the feathery weeds, he seeks a lever and finds none. With his dagger, he cuts away loaves of minty earth around the stone, seeking some buried apparatus.

Morgeu watches him for a while from where she sits, secluded among the incense shrubs of lime at the spur of the mount. Her back leans against a glacial boulder. Satisfied that Brokk will remain busy for the time being and that no one will disturb her, she closes her eyes to the grove's teal blue sky and green shadows and listens to the quiet thunder of her pulse in the rushing darkness.

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