The Swords of Rasna by Bondoni Gustavo

Author:Bondoni, Gustavo [Bondoni, Gustavo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henchman Press
Published: 2022-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

***

An hour later, the small door opened once more, and the distinctive white robes began their trek back to the Roman camp.

Impatient, Cilo walked as close to the city as he dared to meet the returning messenger. But as the man approached, Cilo began to feel uneasy. The gait, the stance, the way the man held his head—they were all completely wrong. He motioned his bodyguard closer.

By the time the man was thirty paces away, it became clear that the messenger was not the same person that Cilo had sent in. This was a younger man, of sallow complexion with a puckered, half-healed, scarlet scar running down one side of his face. He held a bundle in one hand.

The Roman stepped forward, livid. “What have your masters done to my messenger?” he shouted across the distance. Unfazed, the other man gave no answer, or even any indication that he’d heard the question. The Etruscan messenger just kept advancing.

Seeing that the emissary wasn’t armed, Cilo let him approach. Surely, he knew that he came to his death… unless his Etruscan masters had betrayed him by hiding the fact that they’d detained—or more likely murdered—a Roman messenger. Was this another slave that simply didn't care?

The messenger halted ten paces away. Moving clumsily, he unwrapped the bundle and let its contents fall to the ground.

The dead eyes of Cilo’s emissary looked up from the severed head on the grass.

Before Cilo could react, the Etruscan messenger let the robe he was wearing fall beside the discarded head as he turned to walk unhurriedly back in the direction of the walls. There was a huge stain—blackened blood—on the side of his tunic, clearly visible in the bright sun.

“Archers!” Cilo cried. “Kill that man!” All of the codes of war, every instinct in his belly, urged him to belay the order—screamed that the sanctity of the emissary was paramount. But he couldn’t show that kind of weakness in front of an enemy that had already gone beyond the acceptable. Ten archers let fly; four arrows found their mark, fletched shafts sprouting from within the messenger’s shoulder blades.

The man didn’t fall. He just kept walking, at his own tranquil pace, sprouting arrows with each step until he reached the closed gate. Once he arrived, an Etruscan on the wall threw down a sword which the messenger—who Cilo could now clearly see was dressed in the uniform of an enemy soldier—picked up.

Then the wight—the first one Cilo had ever seen—stood there, facing the Romans: a reanimated defender.

His legions would cut the abomination down with ease when the attack began, but that mattered little to the obvious meaning of the Etruscan response. The message was clear. His proposal had been declined.

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