Rebel Read online

  Rebel

  Cover

  Title Page

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part Three

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Geraint Jones

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  In the final seconds of my life I tasted blood and felt cold steel.

  The blood was not my own. It belonged to my friend, King Pinnes, rebel leader of the Pannonians, who had surrendered his people to Rome. For that he had died, but not at the Empire’s hands – it was his former allies, the Dalmatians, who had robbed the world of one of its brightest sons, and now my neck rested on the same chopping block where the king had been put to death. There was a spike waiting for my head, and an impatient crowd waiting to see it put there.

  Ziva was amongst them. The reptile. The snake. Known for his cruelty, he had served Pinnes as a trusted commander, but the young man had turned on his lord to gain power for himself. He had whispered words of treason to Bato, the Dalmatian war master, spreading rumours that Pinnes had agreed to do the Romans’ fighting for them, and attack those who had stood beside him in this brutal rebellion.

  They were lies. All lies. Peace was all that King Pinnes desired. He had ridden with his royal bodyguard to Bato not to shed blood but to spare it, and so Ziva and his men had fallen on them in a trap. Vuk, one of my few friends in the world, was killed along with the king he had sworn to defend. To further inflame the enmity between the tribes, Ziva had left soldiers to kill the Dalmatian hostages held by the Pannonian army. These women and children were the families of Dalmatian nobility, and they had been put to the sword so that Bato’s rage against King Pinnes’s people would be complete.

  Only two hostages had survived. A fierce mother, and her young son. She was Miran, he was Borna, and I loved them both.

  Their freedom had been bought with the life of my friend Thumper. It was he who had led me to the rebel army, and service with Pinnes. I had once been a hero of Rome, the man who saved an eagle, but all that had changed when I deserted my legion. So it was that I came to fight the Empire instead, and so it was that I came to believe wholeheartedly in the rebel cause:

  Freedom from Rome.

  With Miran and Borna, I had struggled to reach Bato’s camp in the mountains before the king was put to death, but I was too late. Ziva’s treacherous poison had already seeped into the mind of Bato, and King Pinnes’s head was taken from his shoulders.

  And now I was to join him. It did not matter that I had saved two of the Dalmatian hostages from slaughter. It did not matter that I had proven myself in battle against Rome. All that mattered was that Bato believed Ziva.

  ‘He is the agent of Rome that turned Pinnes against you,’ he hissed to Bato. ‘He must die, lord.’

  And die I would. There was a blade against the back of my neck. I could feel the hunger of it against my spine. The executioner stood beside me, and soon he would swing, and I would die, and Ziva would win. Rome would win.

  I wanted to spit, but I had nothing to give. My life had been nothing if not brutal. I had killed more men than I cared to remember, and lost so many that I didn’t dare to forget. I would see them when I died, and I would meet them with pride. At the end of my life, I had done something right. Something honourable. The lives of Miran and Borna were worth far more than my own, and I had smiled at the thought.

  Ziva hadn’t liked that. He didn’t like that I was heading to my death with anything other than dread, and so he had knelt beside me, and whispered the names of the four Roman soldiers that had murdered my father. Names that he had extracted under torture from Roman prisoners. Only one of them mattered to me.

  Marcus.

  My oldest friend. My most painful betrayer. Now there was no hiding from the truth. The only escape was in death.

  ‘Do it!’ I tried to roar at the executioner, but my tongue was so dry it stuck to the top of my mouth. ‘Do it!’

  The crowd wanted blood. The crowd wanted steel.

  ‘Kill him!’

  ‘Kill the Roman!’

  ‘Kill the traitor!’

  There was violence in their voice, and violence in their ranks. I only saw a ripple of it, my eyes blurred by blood and dirt, but I could feel it. The buzz of confrontation. Raised voices. Hard voices.

  ‘Get it over with!’ I knew who those words belonged to. Bato, the warrior, chieftain of the Dalmatians. He was a mountain made of flesh and muscle, but in that moment I could not see him, and it did not matter. That the executioner could hear him was all that did, and I felt the steel move from my neck as he lifted the blade to swing, and sever.

  I was ready to die.

  Ready for death.

  But it was not ready for me.

  There was a scuffle. There were curses. Men swore, grunted and spat. I heard swords being drawn. Orders being shouted.

  I was hauled to my feet.

  I was at the centre of a knot of men who faced away from me, with blades in their hands. I was being held by the arm, and looking into the face of their leader. His thick beard was shot through with white, his face as lined and scarred as the land where the rebellion raged. I was taller than most, but he was taller again, though he was without the boulder-like muscle of Bato. The man was appraising me, as one does a newborn lamb.

  ‘Just kill me,’ I told him. I had no humour for entertaining Dalmatian warriors, and from his shining armour, and the quality of his helmet, there was no doubt that he was that.

  ‘You won’t die that easily.’

  I knew what was coming, then. I knew what my end would be. No quick death by the sword. That was a fate for kings, not traitors.

  I would be tortured.

  How would they do it? Ziva had once wanted to crucify me – would he get his wish? Perhaps I would be boiled alive, or pulled apart by horses. There is no end to man’s imagination – at least not when it comes to creating suffering for others – and it was only the fact that I had already resigned myself to death that stopped my stomach from lifting out of my mouth, and my hands from shaking.

  But the eyes could not lie. The nobleman saw the thoughts behind mine, and laughed at me.

  Bastard. I would not show him weakness.

  ‘What will it be?’ I demanded in a tone that I hoped showed defiance. If Miran was watching, I wanted her to see me die well.

  A sly grin crept over the man’s face. He was enjoying this. Every moment.

  ‘The most painful torture of all, lad,’ he whispered in my ea
r.

  ‘Marriage.’

  Chapter 2

  I didn’t have time to think about what the nobleman had said to me.

  My head span as I was pushed away from the chopping block. The heads of my friend Vuk and King Pinnes were grisly trophies atop their spikes, and anger surged through me as I saw the flies dancing over their dead eyes.

  ‘Take them down!’ I ordered. ‘Take them down!’

  No one listened. Instead, surrounded by the knot of armed and grim men, I was being half-dragged by the warrior with the greying beard. He wasn’t manhandling me, but he didn’t have to – I was weak from fatigue. To get to this camp and save Miran and Borna I had pushed myself beyond exhaustion. Beyond limits. It was a miracle I was still on my feet, but imminent death has a way of holding your attention.

  I could hear someone shouting. Bato, I realised. His words were like claps of thunder.

  ‘Stop! Agron! Stop!’

  ‘Just keep walking,’ the man beside me said.

  I kept walking.

  Bato’s hall was at our backs. It was the biggest building in the camp, but not the only one. Constructions of stone and timber showed evidence of weathering at least one winter, and into one of these dwellings I was now led.

  ‘Wait outside,’ the nobleman told his men. He let go of my arm. Looked at me. ‘We don’t have long.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘My name is Agron.’ He didn’t offer me his hand. ‘Miran says that she owes you her life.’

  Again, I stayed silent. He saw the question on my face.

  ‘When Bato ordered you killed, she went into the crowd to look for someone to help you,’ Agron explained.

  Ziva had delayed my death by trying to convince me to ‘confess’ my crimes to Bato, and so cement Ziva’s lies, but evidently that time had bought Miran the chance to find what she was looking for.

  ‘Who are you to her?’ I asked him.

  ‘We are of the same tribe. Her father was a dear cousin of mine, and her husband was a brave warrior. If what she says is true, then we were about to kill the wrong man. Is that so?’

  I nodded. ‘Ziva’s men ambushed King Pinnes, and he ordered the hostages in the Pannonian camp to be killed.’

  The man looked grave. ‘That’s what Miran said.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘She also said that you saved her, and the boy.’

  I didn’t deny it. ‘They deserved saving.’

  ‘And King Pinnes, it seems, did not deserve death.’ He looked pained.

  ‘Neither did his men.’ Vuk had been a loyal friend. One of the only ones I had left.

  Agron met my eye, then nodded in grim agreement. ‘You are right.’ he said. ‘There were those of us who opposed the execution – at least one so hastily carried out – but we were voted down. Ziva’s announcement that the hostages had been butchered was all the tribal leaders needed to hear. Those people were dear to us, and we wanted blood to pay for blood.’ He let out a breath. ‘Were we tricked into killing a good man…?’

  ‘Pinnes wanted to end the war for all sides. He didn’t plot any harm against you. He just wanted Bato to come to the same agreement with Rome as he had.’ That agreement was a stop to the war, tribute paid, and soldiers provided for the Empire’s never-ending desire to conquer new lands.

  The nobleman opened his mouth to ask more, but then there was a roar from outside.

  ‘Agron!’

  Something of a smile played at his lips. It was dry, and humourless.

  ‘It appears that Lord Bato would like to join our conversation.’

  * * *

  When we stepped outside I saw that we, and Agron’s dozen men, were surrounded by a thick ring of more than a hundred warriors, three ranks deep. These were Bato’s household troops, hard men all – every one had the eyes of a killer.

  Bato was standing alone in the space between the two groups. He did not have a weapon drawn, and neither did his men, but their looks were enough for me to know that violence was only a word away.

  ‘Agron…’ Bato tried to speak calmly. ‘Hand over the Roman.’

  I bristled at that. I may have been tired to the marrow of my bones, but I had pride, and I was no bastard Roman. Bato and Ziva had long enjoyed needling me over the Empire that I had deserted, and now I saw that shit was standing with Bato’s men at the edge of the crowd. His eyes burned into mine with hate.

  ‘Kill him, Lord Bato,’ Ziva beseeched the rebel commander. ‘He is a traitor.’

  ‘This is a conversation for Dalmatians,’ Agron silenced the Pannonian. ‘I believe you’ll want to hear what Corvus has to say, Bato.’ He said it politely, but without grovelling deference. ‘It makes for good listening.’

  ‘I’ve already listened to this turd,’ Bato snorted, and that was true enough. I had tried pleading my case when the two hostages and I had been brought into the camp, but my words had fallen on deaf ears. Miran’s, too.

  I broke my eyes from Ziva’s hateful stare, and looked to the rebel leader instead. Bato and fewer than a hundred thousand Dalmatians were all that stood against Rome now.

  ‘You have been deceived, lord.’

  Bato spat. ‘Yes, by you, Roman. You and Pinnes have conspired against me, and the sooner your head is beside his the better. Agron, stop this nonsense.’

  ‘I’m afraid that I can’t do that.’

  A scar on Bato’s skull pulsed like a bright red worm. ‘What do you mean, can’t? You can, and you will! I am the leader of this army, and if I say the Roman dies, then that is the end of it!’

  Bato’s boiling rage was something to behold, but if it bothered Agron then he showed no sign. ‘You are indeed commander of this army, Lord Bato,’ he replied evenly, ‘and my people make up a willing part of it.’

  Agron let the implication hang. When Bato said nothing, he made his intention clear.

  ‘Corvus is under the protection of my tribe,’ Agron announced to the rebel leader, ‘and any harm done to him will mean the end of our alliance.’

  For a second, nothing happened. The entire mountain seemed to hold its breath… and then it erupted.

  Bato roared and raged, spit flying from his mouth and veins bulging in his neck.

  But Agron did not flinch. Agron did not back down.

  ‘I take it you accept what I am saying, lord?’ he asked in a rare breath between Bato’s curses.

  ‘Accept? ACCEPT? You would threaten our alliance, our war, for a Roman?’

  The calm nobleman shook his head. ‘For a Dalmatian, lord.’

  At this Bato snorted. ‘He is as Dalmatian as Julius Caesar!’

  ‘He was born and raised in Iadar.’

  ‘He is a Roman.’

  ‘He is Dalmatian,’ Agron corrected gently, then firmed his tone, ‘and he will marry a Dalmatian.’

  Bato’s eyes burned into me, but I was not looking at him. I was looking at the ranks of Bato’s men. I was looking at Miran, pushing her way through the circle of killers as though they were merely petulant children.

  My heart leapt to see her. Her slender frame. Her jet black hair. Her nose, perfectly crooked and bumped. She had broken it while risking her life for her son, and Miran showed that same courage now as she shoved past another of Bato’s men.

  Her face was tight with anger. She’d looked that way when we’d first met. Her eyes had been ablaze, and they were that way now, the set of her jaw was as proud as ever. Miran’s look to me was quick, but said it all – ‘don’t make this worse.’

  And so I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘I will marry Corvus,’ she declared to Bato.

  His eyes popped. Words failed him. Agron spoke before Bato could cough out his anger.

  ‘Corvus will marry into my tribe, Lord Bato. He will be of my tribe, and as such,’ he looked at the assembly of Bato’s killers, ‘any attack against him will be considered an attack against us all.’

  ‘Madness,’ Bato was mumbling, ‘madness…’

  I expected
that at any moment he would give the order to seize me, and men would draw blades and fight, and we would surely die. I did not want that for Miran, and opened my mouth to speak.

  She shut it for me with a look, and then everything changed.

  Bato was laughing.

  ‘Ha!’ The rebel rumbled once, twice, and soon there was no stopping it, his huge frame shaking with the convulsions of his humour. He was the only one privy to the joke, and the rest of the assembly watched on in silence until Bato wore himself out, and rubbed a thick hand across his face. ‘The gods eh, Agron? How they love their drama! How they love their comedy!’

  A moment ago every man’s hand had been ready to draw their blade, but now men shared befuddled looks at the laughter of the rebel leader. I was as confused as any of them, and tried to read what was truly behind the humour – was Bato claiming to embrace the idea because he knew that to do otherwise would risk losing him part of his alliance? At any other time I would dismiss the thought, but days ago a hundred thousand Pannonian rebels had surrendered to Rome. Without doubt there would be leaders in Bato’s camp considering the same path. At a time of tribal friction, perhaps taking my head was not worth the potential cost to Bato.

  ‘You are betrothed, eh?’ he asked of Miran.

  ‘We are,’ she answered defiantly.

  This was news to me.

  ‘As of when?’ the warlord demanded.

  ‘As of now,’ Agron replied for her, and from his tone there was no doubt that he, and his tribe, stood armed and ready behind that decision.

  Bato nodded to Agron, then smiled at me. It was a scary thing to see. I had never seen a lion, but I had heard stories of predators with hungry eyes and long teeth. I felt myself being devoured by his gaze.

  ‘Are you wed to anyone else, Roman?’

  This bastard. ‘I am not a Roman,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Answer the question,’ he snapped back.

  I felt Miran’s stare. The unspoken words – don’t make things worse.

  I swallowed my pride. Part of it, at least. ‘No, lord,’ I told him, burying the word in contempt. I could feel Miran’s look growing hotter: I was making things worse.

  ‘No, I am not married, lord.’

  Bato snorted again. ‘Then this will be a new experience for you.’ He turned to his soldiers. ‘No doubt he will be begging for me to kill him before the year is out, eh?’