The Noisy Neighbor: Part 1

Based on the work of Robyn Bee, In 7 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Connected.

An Empress' Guard Remembers.

Then, as sudden as the crash after lightning, the weight was gone.

I didn't immediately react. My mind was a storm of pounding fury, my breath ragged in my ears and my body frozen and tense.

After a few heartbeats of nothing, my soldier's instincts forced me into motion. I lowered my shield, becoming suddenly aware of my shrieking muscles.

I groaned, swayed, and would have fallen over had another body not leaned into me.

Helena. My shield mate.

Her eyes were glazed and her breath was the uneven, gasping hitch of a body pushed beyond all limits.

But she was alive.

She was here beside me, and together, we steadied each other enough to stand on our own. I blinked my vision into focus and raised my head.

We were in a charnel house.

Dozens lay dead before us, a carpet of blood and pale bodies that stretched from our feet to the splintered entrance. They'd been gutted and cut open, their insides spilled onto the surrounding stones.

And the stench.

It was shit and misery and death; a miasma of horror worse than any sort of butcher's yard. Beside me, Helena coughed, staggered to the side, and retched. I just swayed in place, breathing through my mouth.

"They ran away," a voice rasped. "They all ran away."

It was the Empress. She was just a handful of steps behind us, leaning heavily onto the haft of her spear. Her limbs shook with exhaustion.

"Augusta," I croaked. "Are you hurt?"

Blood stained the sweat-darkened purple of her dress. Thick droplets of it that were splattered along her chest and shoulders. It oozed from between her fingers, trickling down from the splintered tip of her spear.

"Ah," she said, seeming to notice herself for the first time. "No. I, I don't believe any of this is mine. And you?"

She reached a hand up to push at the strip of purple that held back her hair, leaving a streak of red behind on her forehead.

I didn't answer, refusing to look down and examine myself. I wasn't ready to see, so I forced myself to stare down the hallway, distracting myself with thoughts of survival.

And indeed, it appeared as if the Empress was correct. Nothing moved within the corridor, and I could hear nothing in the room beyond the shattered portal. The invaders had fled, and not a moment too soon, as I finally noticed that we'd been pushed most of the way back to Theodora's sitting room.

Not far away, Helena groaned. She managed to push herself upright, leaning heavily against the wall, her face wan.

"Helena," I said. "Are you,”

I coughed, feeling a wave of bile rise through me. The smell was horrific, made so much worse by the thick summer air and the windless confines of this tunnel. My stomach writhed, but I clamped down on it ruthlessly.

Not yet.

Helena was covered in blood. Her chest, legs, and sword arm were caked in death, her face and neck splattered with it. I staggered over to her, conscious of the gumminess between my own fingers.

"I'm fine," she said, trying to smile. "I'm fine. It's just, how,”

She turned and threw up once again. It was a hacking, heaving sort of retch; the kind that left you shaking. I came to stand beside her, pressing my hip to her side, all I could do without dropping my sword and shield. She leaned some of her weight into me.

"Leontius," the Empress said, moving to join us. She lay a hand on the unarmored part of Helena's hip, providing what comfort she could. "Is it safe to move?"

I blinked, stirred, and shook my head. "Not yet. We still don't know what's going on in the rest of the palace. This is still the safest place for us."

Theodora nodded, turning her head to gaze down the length of the passageway. An ocean of red dotted with pale islands of green and blue.

"It seems remarkable," she said. "That we survived against so many."

"These weren't soldiers, Augusta," I said, exhaling. "They were potters, blacksmiths, dockworkers, They were drunk, pushed onto our swords by those further back. They were badly led, unarmored and most didn't even have any weapons. They were just,”

"People," Theodora finished for me. "Dead because they believed in something strongly enough to fight for it."

I shifted, my gaze going back to Helena. She was still bent into the wall, her eyes screwed tightly shut and her frame vibrating with repressed feeling. She'd just gone through her first battle, and every single thought and feeling that she'd pushed aside while in the midst of it was tearing into he...