Chapter 18

Frieda stalked the forest.

There was something indescribable about the way noises travelled through the air and yet everything was silent and calm.

Leaves rustled under the early summer sun, animals scurried in the undergrowth as she approached and the trees seemed to sway in the soft wind; as if they were speaking to each other.

Frieda wondered what horrors these trees had seen in their long lives. But she also wondered what delights they had observed as well.

The trees around her village back in Britannia had seen many a joyous day of laughing children but a single night of carnage had torn all of that from their long memory.

The trees, whose bark had turned black from the fire that ravaged her village, seemed to turn from the light in Frieda’s memory.

Frieda had learnt to hunt from her father amongst those trees before his death and her capture, but those memories slipped so easily away that Frieda was forgetting the way he instructed her to hold a bow.

Or the way he showed her how to skin a rabbit beside the river.

It was those memories, full of goodness and purity, that she, and everyone, needed to hold on to.

But the memories of pain and anguish were easier to remember.

Frieda shook her head at the irony of it all; the memories they all worked so hard to forget were the first to spring into their minds when some new horror arose.

Stopping for a moment, Frieda took a small reprieve.

She had been hunting since dawn; the lands near the camp had grown scarce of food and they needed to travel further each day to find fresh game.

Frieda had volunteered for today’s hunt; the camp had changed.

It was no longer a place of prosperity where people could regain their freedom but a place of disease and death.

Every time Frieda stepped out of her tent she could taste the sickness in the air and hear the crying of people in pain. Pain they could not cure because nobody knew what it was they were meant to be curing.

So Frieda had leapt at the chance to breathe in fresh air; air that not been contaminated with illness.

But now that she was here, Frieda oddly missed the wailing of women and the crying of infants.

The forest felt too silent. Too foreign.

Frieda had spent the majority of her life in shackles, surrounded by at least a dozen other people.

She no longer remembered the peace of her seven-year old self running through the forest around her village with her father and sister.

That was a life she could no longer cling to no matter how much she prayed her sister, Agatha, still lived, unharmed.

They had been separated by the slavers; Frieda was taken by the pirates after she fought back against the Roman invaders.

And she never knew what happened to Agatha; Frieda only prayed that her torture, whatever it may be, ended quickly.

Frieda felt her eyes begin to sting as she pondered on the topic of her lost family for too long.

Shaking the thoughts out of her mind, Frieda turned back to task. The people needed to eat and she could not bear another bowl of watered down rabbit stew.

And neither could Artorius; he needed to keep his strength if he was to fight this illness.

Frieda shivered to think of the pain Krista would enact upon them if she found Artorius on his death bed; especially with a little one on the way.

The thought of new life made Frieda smile as she could only imagine the torture Krista must be feeling.

Krista had been intent on finding her revenge only now to be lumbered with the fears to her unborn child.

Frieda didn’t trust Krista’s judgement in this emotional time so she put all her energy into finding a hearty meal for supper.

And it seemed as if the Gods were on her side as Frieda spotted a deer in the distance, darting across the trees.

Quietly arming her bow, Frieda raised her arm and took aim.

Gazing down the arrow shaft and into the distance at the deer, Frieda took a few steady breaths.

Trees blocked her path as the deer took a few more steps but Frieda was in no hurry.

The sun had barely hit mid-day and she was not due back until the evening.

Waiting for the deer, Frieda licked her lips when she reappeared and started to graze.

Hoping she had not forgotten how to shoot an arrow, Frieda lined up the shot and released.

Frieda barely saw the arrow slicing through the air before it impacted against the deer’s stomach.

Her heart beat a little faster as she hurried through the forest, the deer’s cries of pain torturing her ears.

Collapsing to the ground beside the animal, Frieda took the poor creature’s slender neck into her hands and, with a firm twist, broke the animal’s neck.

Frieda could kill a human being upon the field of battle but this animal had done nothing against Frieda. It was for pure survival.

Laying the deer’s head gently back against the ground, Frieda removed the dagger from her hip when she heard footsteps behind her.

Curling her fingers tightly around the hilt of her dagger, Frieda waited until the footsteps were directly behind her.

When she could hear their ragged breathing, Frieda leapt to her feet and spun to face her attacker.

But the person stood before Frieda turned out to be a group of poor village folk, terrified by her sudden attack.

Gazing awkwardly at the dagger clutched in her hand, Frieda slowly began to lower it.

“Is it her?”

“Should we ask her?”

The group of half a dozen young men and women were whispering among themselves whilst the girl at the front, with brown hair and freckles, simply looked at Frieda.

She had been the one to receive the brunt of Frieda’s abrupt reaction but she seemed to be looking more with shocked amazement than fear.

“What,” Frieda sighed, turning from the girl,  “is it that you wish to ask?”

The three men gazed at each other, unaware of how to proceed.

“We came across a woman in the woods and she gave us a task,” The freckled girl told Frieda dutifully.

Frieda rolled her eyes as she heard the story and immediately sheathed her dagger. These people were no threat. To anyone.

“Is that so?” Frieda sighed, unsure if she wanted to hear any more.

“She was a fearsome creature,” The older man exclaimed, his white hair contrasting against his dark eyes, “I had never seen such a person in my entire life,”

Frieda doubted if he had seen anything worth warranting a story in his entire life.

“And what is this task she gave you?” Frieda asked, rushing to the end of the story as she wished to return to her catch.

“She said that it was important we reached the-”

Frieda frowned as the girl suddenly stopped speaking, her eyes searching the forest wildly, as if the trees themselves held the answer as to whether or not she should tell Frieda the truth.

Frieda could taste the fear in her limbs as she recalled the consequences of revealing the truth to the wrong person.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” Frieda frowned, suddenly curious about what she was going to say.

“The woman instructed us-”

“-Damn near ordered us!” The elder man corrected the girl.

“-To find the rebel camp.”

Frieda’s spine straightened into a rod as she heard the news.

“She told us to find a man named Artorius,” The girl rushed as she began to rummage through the bag that hung off her shoulder, “And give him this.”

Frieda gazed at the glass jar the girl removed from her bag, lifting it up for Frieda to look at.

Her heart almost stopped when she saw what rested inside.

“Can you instruct us on how to find this camp?” The girl asked, pulling Frieda from her thoughts.

Frieda slowly began to shake her head, “I cannot instruct you,”

The group sighed in disappointment and the girl began to conceal the jar inside her satchel once more.

“But I can show you,” Frieda promised.

* * *

Diomed stood upon the hill, one among a hundred, as they waited for the signal.

Silence rained over them as their torches flicked in the night sky; each of their thoughts turning to the same thing; duty.

What they did and were about to do was their duty to the Roman Empire.

Diomed gazed at the village that rested at the bottom of the hull, unaware of the hell about to enter their simple lives.

He could not think of husbands, wives, sons and daughters that were about to be killed or the brothers and sisters who were going to be sold into slavery.

Diomed could only think of his duty; it was the only thing that allowed him to remain sane as he slid his sword through the gut of an innocent.

Everything he did was for mother Rome.

That is what Diomed told himself when he went to bed at night after washing the blood of another man off his hands.

He may be able to wash the blood off his hands but it would always stain his soul; when his time came he would meet Pluto in Tartarus than his family in the Elysium Fields.

Diomed looked towards the road that entered the village and saw the, amongst the shadows, the returning horse of their messenger.

Swallowing, Diomed looked over his shoulder towards their Commander, Lucius Niclaus.

A fearsome man that sat astride his mighty stead with a sense of godliness, his eyes locked upon the next village he would conquer and enslave.

The man’s face was shrouded in darkness, his position flanked by his generals, but Diomed could taste the hostility in the air when the foot soldiers surrounding him grew unsettled.

Looking to the sky, Diomed saw the flaming arrow. It was the signal.

They were to attack the village-

“-NO!” Diomed yelled abruptly as he forced himself awake; the dreams too vivid for his mind that they brought him out in a cold sweat.

Blinking rapidly, Diomed could feel his heart pumping against his chest just as it was that fateful day eleven years ago.

Diomed had been a young man from a poor family of farmers; his only prospect to bring honour to his family was to join the military.

A uniform, the chance to travel, pay, glory and valour; it was a simple choice for the young Diomed to make.

But it was not long before he saw that he had made the wrong decision; how many nights had he lain awake and prayed for the chance to go back and change his mind?

Choose to become a farmer instead of a solider.

There were too many to count, the same as the faces of the people he killed.

They haunted his mind every day; he would forget his own name before he forgot their faces.

Brushing the beads of sweat away from his forehead, Diomed reached for his water skin and took a healthy drink, replenishing the water he lost through sweat.

Gazing down at his arm, Diomed saw the outlines of his old soldier brand and looked away in disgust.

When they branded him he had hoped he could have left that life behind but he could still feel it, burning into his soul for eternity.

Diomed had been a fool to leave his arm bare for Krista to see; he had been hoping to tell her about himself.

He had travelled over hundreds of miles to find her; he needed to find her. To tell her.

But before he got the chance, Krista had uncovered his past and fled in the middle of the night, taking his horse along with her.

Diomed did not blame her; a woman who was fighting the Roman’s suddenly discovered one lying beside her.

Diomed would have done the same thing although he was shocked to find his satchel, filled with food and drink, not too far from their camp.

Krista did not strike him as the kind to knowingly abandon food unless she left it there for him to find.

Did Krista trust him more than she thought?

Obviously, Diomed thought, she did not take the chance to kill me in my sleep.

A man who had seen her camp and knew where it rested, how many men guarded it and the layout of their tents; it was only logical that she should have killed him.

He knew too much and yet he had awoken from his slumber rather than waking up to Charon and his boat.

But none of this mattered; this was the past and it did not help Diomed find Krista in the present.

He had a good hunch on where she would go next but he prayed for her sake that he was wrong.