Strategos: Born in the Borderlands by Gordon Doherty Page A

series of sobs as she ran to grasp Father’s arm. ‘Where is Ap . . . ’ Father turned and struck her hard across the cheek. Instantly she was silent, one hand on her stinging face and eyes wide in shock, blood dripping from her lip. Father glared at her, terror and urgency contorting his features.
     
    ‘Rest easy, Loukas, for tonight you will all die for your sins,’ the leader purred, flicking a finger either side of the cowering pair. The three armed henchmen stalked around to encircle them. Then the leader stopped, twisting his head back to the fourth intruder. ‘What about you? Why are you suddenly so shy, hero?’ The fourth intruder remained stock-still. ‘So maybe your reputation is exaggerated? So be it,’ the leader spat, then turned back to Mother and Father. ‘Slaughter them and then torch this hovel!’ Then he nudged at the wooden blocks and carved toy soldiers on the floor. ‘There is a boy child in this house; make sure you find him . . . and stick him like a pig!’
     
    Apion could only watch as Mother’s scream filled the farmhouse before it was cut short in a single swipe of a scimitar across her neck, her body collapsing like a sack of rubble, head dangling behind the gaping wound and crimson soaking her night robe in a heartbeat. Father roared, thrashing out at his opponents with balled fists, but the intruders danced back easily from every blow.
     
    ‘You have brought this upon yourself, Loukas!’
     
    Father could only muster a pained snarl in reply.
     
    ‘Take him down,’ the leader sneered, ‘make it slow . . . then bring me his head.’
     
    Apion’s stomach lurched at the words. He stepped forward from the shadows but his feet froze on the floor as one of the henchmen jabbed his scimitar hilt into Father’s face. A dull thud of metal on cracking bone was accompanied by the light patter of blood on the flagstones. Apion’s throat clenched, mouthing a silent scream, as Father toppled to the flagstones, sprawled across Mother. The henchmen flicked their scimitars over and over in their hands and circled Father, like butchers eyeing a fresh slaughter. Then Apion felt a change, like a roaring river suddenly drying to a trickle, his fear was gone. What was there to fear when all was lost? His eyes fell on Father’s battle gear resting in the shadows by the table. The helmet, the klibanion and the spathion.
     
    Apion strode from the shadows, taking the helmet and placing it on his head, the rim resting on the bridge of his nose and the mail veil icy cold on his face, the leather aventail dangling around his neck and shoulders. The flickering torchlight bathed him but the intruders were captivated with their work as he approached them, prodding Father with the razor tip of their scimitars, puncturing his flesh, showering the hearth with blood. Father roared in pain at each prod but his face was drawn and exhausted as he cradled the bloody form of Mother underneath him, his spirit conquered. Father’s eyes were dimming but as Apion took up the spathion, their eyes met. Father extended a hand out past the legs of his torturers, reached out, then shook his head, his mouth haemorrhaging blood.
     
    ‘No,’ he spluttered as Apion lifted the weighty blade.
     
    Then the leader stepped in between them, still oblivious of Apion, and snarled. ‘Now finish him!’
     
    One of the henchmen wrenched Father’s head back by the hair and the other swept his scimitar down. Apion’s stomach turned over at the ripping of sinew as Father was beheaded, eyes staring, mouth agape in shock. Apion’s mouth gaped likewise to scream but his voice was simply not there.
     
    ‘Now find this dog’s child and bring him to me!’ The leader turned to the silent intruder, ‘and you, you useless whoreson, go outside and make sure nobody gets in or out of this place before we burn it to the ground.’
     
    In a nauseous blur, Apion moved back into the shadows, to his bedroom; this would buy him a precious