21
From where Hurley sat on his horse he could see over the crest of the knoll ahead. In the distance, easily twenty kilometers before him, the church spires towered over the houses of the village. He twisted in his saddle and watched his marching Centurions approach in two even columns. One hundred men fully armed. Rifles, handguns, hand grenades and a rocket launcher.
He was the only one mounted, as it should be. The battle would always be fought and won by the foot soldiers. His Centurions.
Two days into their mission south and the men had proven themselves worthy of his estimation. The laziness and sloth he’d witnessed in Dublin before the second EMP was gone, replaced by hard-core obedience and discipline.
He smiled as he watched them march around him and his horse as he stood in the center of the road. Just like the Roman armies did it, he thought. None of them looked him in the eye. They knew his place and they knew theirs.
Had it been the brilliance of the lion pit that had spearheaded this transformation? Or the fact that Hurley had kept the soldiers fed and working? Was it because he’d given them back their pride in themselves? Or a goal to work toward?
Whatever the reasons, in the end, he’d succeeded in reminding them—brutally in some instances—that they were men. They were men in a world that had forgotten the meaning of the word. Until Centurion Commander Padraig Hurley.
He held up his hand and heard Brady yell out, “Troops, halt!”
His men kept their eyes pointed in the direction they marched, but Hurley’s Camp Prefect kept his eyes on his commander.
The men stopped. They didn’t shift in their tracks or rearrange their packs. They stood like machines, facing straight ahead.
“There’s a village up ahead,” Hurley said. “We’ll camp here tonight. For those who have earned it, you may visit the town and take what you need.”
He detected movement in the ranks at his words. He didn’t need to explain. They knew. They would take what a Roman army marching through the countryside would take—comfort, food and succor from the citizens. Hurley glanced at Brady and nodded.
Camp Prefect Brady barked out, “Make camp!”
The light had begun to leach from the sky as Hurley dismounted and handed his reins to the Centurion who ran to take his horse. Hurley walked to the woods and relieved himself and then watched his men set up camp.
The feeling he’d experienced four weeks ago when the second EMP had balanced out the scales was one of realization and near euphoria. It was a message from the cosmos that this was the time—his time—to step forward. And he’d done that without hesitation or doubt by killing thirty officers and their juniors and by throwing to the lions no fewer than fifteen politicians. Although many had escaped into the streets or countryside they wouldn’t soon be back to attempt to lead the country.
Hurley had further demonstrated his benevolence and strength of purpose to his troops by setting up army sanctioned whore houses—forcibly enlisting junior administrative secretaries as well as the daughters and wives of politicians and military officers who hadn’t had the brains to flee beforehand—thereby cleaning up the streets of Dublin and rewarding his Centurions all in one.
Yes, the work he’d done since taking over as Centurion Commander had been nothing less than superhuman, he thought as he watched his men erect tents and build campfires. Brady was giving instructions to a squad of armed men—likely the first wave of visitors to the unsuspecting town.
But all of that was nothing compared to his mission. A mission that ignited deep within his very soul. The pure necessity of it urged him like a drug, relentlessly driving him, feeding his fury, and abated only by images of its promised fulfillment: Michael Donovan’s head on a pike.
There was nothing to compare.
Three days later the temperatures had dropped significantly and it had rained every day and most nights. Hurley’s saddle squeaked as he rode. His horse’s mane hung in bedraggled wet clumps. The days were so much shorter now and they were only making twenty-five miles a day.
He could see many of the men were limping from blisters or other foot sores. Twice he looked at Brady to see if there was a problem but received a thumbs up every time. Taking food from the villages was proving problematic as well. There was usually not enough to feed the troops and there were few hunters among their number to make up the lack.
The captive Chezzie had sworn that the convent was brimming with food—smoked pork, chickens, fresh vegetables—but that was still two days away at the rate they were marching.
The roads were potted and broken this far south. They hadn’t seen anyone traveling them although it was likely anyone would be able to see them first and slip into the woods. The pastures to the south were already barren and brown even this early in the season, with no hint of anything growing and no animals grazing.
Hurley stood in the door of his tent and watched the water drip off the roof to create a puddle of mud at the entrance. It angered him that Brady or someone hadn’t seen the likelihood of this happening and placed a plank there. It was already long past dinner and most of the Centurions were sitting in their tents playing cards or trying to sleep.
There were ten sentries set around the perimeter of the makeshift camp but even Hurley knew they weren’t needed. No one in his right mind would attempt to interfere with a cadre of the Irish Imperial Army.
He leaned against the main tent pole at the entrance of his tent, a tepid cup of tea in his hand and gazed out at the banked campfires and wet tents of his troops. There was a squad out at the nearby village. With luck they’d bring back enough food to fuel the rest of the trip without having to stop and raid another village.
It took everything Hurley had not to jump on his horse and barrel down the road, leaping over all obstacles, until he arrived at the convent. He envisioned himself kicking in the door and shocking the bastard Donovan at his dinner with one of the comely nuns perched on his lap, her eyes wide with surprise.
In some scenarios, Hurley killed the bastard immediately with his blood spurting in the face of the startled nun before Hurley raped her and slit her throat too. But in others—and these were so much more satisfying—he tied Donovan up while Hurley raped and killed his family in front of him before turning to Donovan himself now apoplectic with hate and fear.
One thing these reveries taught Hurley was that waiting was key to his maximum satisfaction. He would wait for his army of one hundred strong to rest and soak their feet and take the time to raid the villages for food before the two days necessary to arrive at the convent.
Two days that stood between Hurley and complete and bloody satisfaction.
“Commander?”
Brady had materialized a few feet away from the tent. Seeing the Camp Prefect reminded Hurley of his annoyance with the tent puddle but before he could address it, the man pointed toward the village.
“A Centurion was killed, Commander, in the village.”
Hurley felt his blood rise to his face.
How dare these bastards touch one of the Irish Imperial?
“How?” he managed to say as the bile bubbled up in his throat.
“A father,” Brady said. “Objecting to O’Reilly’s procurement of his daughter.”
“And this father?” Hurley spat out, his eyes looking in the direction that Brady pointed. Even from here he could see the church spire that pinpointed the village.
“Killed immediately, Commander. And the girl. And her mother and two small brothers.”
“Where is O’Reilly now?”
“We are preparing him for a morning burial, Commander.”
Hurley nodded and threw the dregs of his tea on the ground.
“Prefect Brady,” he said tightly.
“Yes sir?”
“Repair this threshold tonight. You will sleep naked on the ground away from the furthest campfire because I had to tell you.”
“Yes sir.”
“Then tomorrow, after the burial, gather ten volunteers and burn the village to the ground.”
Chezzie’s wrists were chafed and rubbed raw from the rope around them. He was unbound only long enough to do whatever disgusting work was required of him during the trek—usually digging latrine ditches—and fed only whatever scraps fell from the Centurions’ plates.
During every step of every mile he asked himself if death by a lion’s claws could be worse. His hell would be over by now instead of awaiting him.
Hurley had interrogated Chezzie three times so far. Once for more details on the convent and Donovan which had resulted in Hurley beating Chezzie unconscious because he had so little to offer in the way of Donovan’s description.
During the second interview, Chezzie had invented as much as he dared until it became clear he was making it up. The man who guarded Chezzie by night said Chezzie’s screams had echoed up and down the valley. Chezzie didn’t remember that. The concussion from Hurley’s throwing him headfirst into the nearest tree had given him a blissful reprieve from the memory of the beating.
Thankfully for their third conversation Hurley only cared about the details of the trail to the convent. Unfortunately for Chezzie, the anxiety which he’d carried away from the convent the day Donovan threw him out—along with the terror of Hurley’s questioning methods—combined to make him seriously doubt he knew exactly how to get to the convent.
And if he couldn’t remember, Chezzie knew he’d be begging to be thrown to the lions.
Chezzie was kept away from the troops. But sometimes, when the men were pissing in the woods near him they would forget he was there, and he could hear them talking. It was how he learned that a few Centurions had run off.
Chezzie was amazed more hadn’t. Hurley was a brutal and volatile commander. But Chezzie never heard any of his men speak ill of him. No complaints at all. If they mentioned him at all, it was with awe.
“The Commander is coming to ask you a few questions,” said his guard, a young and solemn youth of nineteen, as he pulled on the rope that connected to Chezzie’s bonds. Chezzie’s lacerated wrists screamed in pain as the rope razored against his open wounds. He staggered to his feet. He was weak from hunger, from the trek and from his constant terror.
Hurley walked over to Chezzie. He held in his hands a large butcher knife.
“Yesterday you said we were a day’s ride away,” Hurley said as he loomed over Chezzie, his eyes looking like slits.
Chezzie could not tear his eyes away from the knife. He nodded numbly.
“I’m going to start cutting pieces off you until you describe exactly how we get to the convent from here. Do you understand?”
Chezzie had an image develop in his mind. It was last summer. The nuns’ garden was brimming with fresh vegetables and every day was a feast. He remembered how they looked at him when he stayed with them—smiling, laughing, scolding. They didn’t hate him. They took care of him. And now he was bringing this man to their door.
“How about an ear?” Hurley said. “Would losing an ear help you hear me better?”
“The path is over the next rise,” Chezzie said.
“The path. What path?” Hurley said impatiently.
He wants to cut me no matter what I say.
“The path through the woods. To the convent.”
The silence seemed to stretch forever. It went on until Chezzie began to think it was all a dream. Or perhaps Hurley had cut off both his ears and he couldn’t hear anything.
“Bring him to the front of the line,” Hurley said finally. “He can point the way to this path.” He held the knife to Chezzie’s head and sliced down firmly opening up his scalp until just where his left ear began. Chezzie felt the blood trickle down his cheek as the blaze of agony finally caught up with his senses.
The Camp Prefect ran up to where they were standing. He was breathless and his eyes wide.
“Commander,” he said, gasping for breath. “A wagon is heading toward us.”
“Indeed?” Hurley said. He cocked his bald head like an inquisitive bird attempting to hear better.
“Two women,” the Prefect said, “in a pony cart with fecking flowers painted on the side. We are moving to intercept now.”
Chezzie watched the two men walk away.
Flowers painted on the side of a pony cart…and as sure as day follows night driven by a feisty little gypsy girl and an angel with a scowl. Chezzie sagged to his knees, the agony of the gash on his face beginning to push through his shock.
Poor little bitches. They don’t stand a chance.