Marcus turned and looked again, willing his stomach to stay where it should. He looked down at the pathetic, crumpled little body that lay before him. The boy had been torn to pieces, his guts scattered on the grass, a pathetically small and delicate dagger still clutched tight in his small hand. Even on a battle field there was no reason to butcher a child like that, Marcus thought, not when he could have been killed cleanly. Marcus wondered why the boy hadn’t just turned to run. By the time the imperial forces had made it this far, the Estavaci had to have known they would lose. And this child was twelve at the most. He should have run. Marcus shook his head.
Far overhead, a pair of crows wheeled in the sky, and a crowd of little butterflies gambolled over the battlefield. It seemed strange to Marcus that nature was so insensitive of the bloodshed and gore that had played out here on the battlefield. He wondered if the aftermath of all battles was as prosaic and ordinary as this. His horse certainly seemed to think so. The large, grey animal had managed to find an unbloodied, uncrushed patch of grass. She was chomping away with vigour, apparently oblivious to the death all around. The horse even seemed untroubled by the smoke rising from funeral pyres tended by a corps of soldiers whose Abilities tended towards remote control of fires.
Marcus knelt by the small ruined body. He shuddered as he pushed a sweaty, brown hank of hair out of his eyes, the fine links of his mail shirt cool against his wrist. He looked down at the child, black hair smooth and surprisingly unruffled, less shocking than the child’s wide, staring brown eyes. The boy’s clothes were of good quality – that tunic was linen, if Marcus was any judge – so the child might have something of value on his person. And that’s why Marcus was here, wasn’t it? To enrich his paltry clerk’s salary with his portion of the spoils of war? He reached out a hand, tentatively, but then drew the hand back. No, he thought. Whatever valuables this boy had owned in life, he ought to keep them in death. This had been a child of no more than 12; he had no business being dead. Marcus didn't feel right going through the pockets of this sad little corpse, battlefield or no. Marcus stood up again, the nausea waning. He should be used to this by now, but his clerk's training had focused on forms and protocol, and this was only his third battle. The older men had told him it would become easier with time, but the nausea never seemed to leave him.
Marcus turned to walk away, but then stopped - he knew why the child hadn’t run. He knew why the boy had allowed someone to tear him to pieces. The child had been protecting something. And anything someone would die to protect had to be valuable. Marcus’ eyes scanned the ground, ignoring the gore, the fallen men, the metallic smell of blood. His eyes narrowed as he noticed a flicker of movement in a hollow that dipped just out of view. Marcus drew his sword in one fluid motion, its short, sharp blade gleaming in the sunlight. He vaulted over the remains of a collapsed chariot, prepared to put an end to whatever enemy was lurking in wait.
Mid-leap, Marcus tried to skid to a stop. As it was, he nearly threw the sword aside, drawing it away from its intended target and wrenching his shoulder as he crashed down on one knee, his breath suddenly ragged. Lying in the hollow, on a pile of delicate blankets, was a baby.
As Marcus stared, the baby took a big, hiccupping breath, and began to wail.
~*~
Two young women stood half-hidden in the shadows, only the contours of their bodies visible. One was tall and lanky - gawky as a teenager, though she was older than that. The other girl was short and plump and moved with smooth assurance, a study in well-trained coordination.
“What do we do now, Senior Salix?” the taller woman asked, nervously, “It looks like he’s going to keep her.”
“What do we do now? We keep following, of course. This makes things easier, in a way. The kid will be safe. Well-cared for.”
“Should we contact headquarters, though?”
“Not yet. Not until we know what the Estavaci are doing. “
“The Estavaci, senior?” The tall woman’s brow wrinkled in confusion.
The plump woman sighed, “Yes, Junior Tsuga. Our army will be moving to follow the Estavaci, will it not? And the Estavaci are not predictable, especially when they are routed, is that not so? Thus, if you leave now, it will be hard to find me again, since we do not yet know where the child will be.”
The taller woman nodded, feeling foolish. Then she asked, “Do you really think she is the child of the prophecy?”
The plump woman snorted, “Of course not. That prophecy is as much a piece of garbage as any other prophecy. I don’t know why the child is important, Tsuga, but it isn’t because of some dream the founder of our Order had two hundred years ago. The baby might still turn out to be Able, though.”
“Yes, Senior,” Tsuga agreed, nodding. Then she turned, and, leaping upwards like a frightened deer, threw herself into a somersault. Before the woman had finished half a turn the cloak had extended to cover her whole body, at the same time as she seemed to shrink in size. By the time she was right-side up, she was no longer a gawky young woman, but a lithe young crow. The crow called once, loudly, and disappeared into the sky.
YOU ARE READING
The Baby and the Battlefield
FantasyA baby? On a battlefield? Marcus is a clerk in the Imperial army. When he finds an abandoned baby on a battlefield, he has no idea what to do with her. His best friend is no help; he thinks Marcus is a sucker for taking the kid in. The slave who end...
