026

"Defense!" Gregor shouted. "Defensive position." 'Baran's balls what was the position? Too many years at a desk!' "What do we have?"

"Nothing Sir!" Antio shouted. "If they want it we will go to the crows!"

"Culus!" Years streamed by Gregor, he searched his mind to find something from his training of twenty years ago, but his sons and his wife would not let his mind roam freely. Their existence and his now obvious absence from it made any remembrance impossible. Halar. His father. 'Baran.' "To the crows then, we fight!"

Gregor milked the reigns, an unconscious reaction to years of self-teaching, his horse Hungry Ghost spun. His lictors reacted, their arc wide and the time it took for them to fall back in line left Gregor out in front.

His sword was in his left hand and his right held the reigns in his fighting stance, awkward, but a curse of birth. He struggled to empty his mind to ready himself for what was to come. Twenty years was a long time for any training to remain, not matter how rigorous.

Barath flew from his saddle, a red notched arrow as thick as Gregor's thumb pireced his neck just above his breast-plate. Gregor screamed to urge his horse further as he saw the riders in front of him raise more bows. They wore skulls as faces and their bows bent in unnatural forms. Two more lictors fell.

"Frontem allargate!" Gregor screamed at the top of his lungs. His lictors broke away in an instant. 'To the wind.' All was lost.