Arrows of Ladis

by RG Long

  Arrows of Ladis

  Legends of Gilia

  RG Long

  Published by Retrovert Books, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  ARROWS OF LADIS

  First edition. August 27, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 RG Long.

  Written by RG Long.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Maps and More

  1: The Red Porch

  2: The Disputed Lands

  3: The Crew of the Juliet

  4: Port City

  5: No Trouble

  6: The White Lion

  7: Unexpected Consequences

  8: The Old Gods

  9: Old Friends Don’t Forget

  10: Grudges and Grievances

  11: The Veiled Ones

  12: Gods of the State

  13: Hunt to Eat

  14: No Rest

  15: The Ancient Sleepers

  16: Prince and the Prophet

  17: Magic’s Demise

  18: Olma and Her Uncle

  19: Those Who Suffer

  20: The Forward Scouts

  21: Things Held in Common

  22: The Wars of Previous Years

  23: Not Boss

  24: Up with the Suns

  25: Twice Unlucky

  26: Just Punishment

  27: Circumstances Required

  28: Crafty

  29: New Plans

  30: Prepare for the Dawn

  31: Family Ties

  32: Form the Line

  33: The Prophet’s Chance

  34: Blood and Stone

  35: Death by Magic

  36: A Lack of Grace

  37: Shaken History

  38: The Fall of Many

  39: Bravery

  40: Dimming Lights

  41: A Meeting

  42: To Use the Sword

  43: Delayed Justice

  44: Uneasy Alliances

  45: Flesh for Flesh

  The Story Continues

  Maps and More

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  1: The Red Porch

  The twin suns began to lower down past the imperial palace’s walls. The ancient structure had stood for a thousand years and it would stand for a thousand more. Gray stones absorbed both the suns’ last rays and the wind that blew against it. Fall was setting in. Crows flew in flocks overhead and let out their mournful cries.

  A few spectators looked up at the caws and shook their heads as they turned to leave. No matter how important the person being executed, they wouldn’t stay within the sound of the crows. A few of the dark birds landed around the walls that surrounded the Red Porch. It wasn’t the official name of the platform were those found guilty of the meanest offenses were put to death in full view of the public. But it was the name that stuck. Besides, “Emperor Augustus the Third’s Ceremonial Balcony” didn’t have the same ring to it.

  Frellum had spent the last few hours honing his blade and looking at the small crowd outside his window. The rhythmic ring of metal on metal was steady in his ears. With each slow scrape, he counted the moments passing by before he would do another day’s work with one swing of his ax.

  He couldn’t help that he was an executioner. It was hard to come by a steady, good paying job in the Theocracy these days. The only problem was that the job included removing people’s heads from their necks with the ax he had inherited from his father. And his father had inherited it from his father before him.

  Not that he had much choice.

  Very few people found the skills of an executioner useful outside of his usual realm of work.

  Frellum didn’t mind his job so much as he didn’t know how to do much else. But he was very good at what he needed to do. Each stroke of the metal block scraped away at the blade’s perfect edge. He prided himself in being able to end the life of the convicted with one clean stroke. There was talk of some of his station wanting their victims to suffer. He never could make himself square with that kind of thought.

  Criminals though they be, he never wanted to send someone to the great death with any unnecessary slowness. If the dead really thrived after they crossed the cold divide between life and death, he didn’t want any of them to hold grudges once they got there. Especially not against the man who sent them there.

  He would go himself one day. The last thing he wanted was to be greeted by a host of angry, vengeful dead. That might happen anyway. The notches in the handle of his ax were getting harder and harder to tell apart.

  Checking once more out the window of his small room, he checked the height of the first and lower sun. It wouldn’t be long now. His strike must come as the last light of the lesser sun passed below the wall.

  Death was always to be ushered in with the darkness if possible. Criminals were given this grace at the very least. Their deaths would be given to them within sight of the temple and at the blessed time.

  Not many in the nine kingdoms could ask for such a blessing.

  Frellum stood from his labor and proceeded with his last task before the ceremony of death. Only three pieces of furniture adorned his apartment. A bed of straw with a scratchy blanket, a rough hewn table, and a chair. There had once been two places to sit, but that had long since been an unnecessary feature. Frellum had used it for firewood last winter in the bitter cold to keep his room warm. It was a difficult choice to break it apart, but one that he wasn’t sorry to make.

  He was still alive, after all.

  The most elaborate thing in his dwelling was an ornate box that sat upon a wooden shelf set in the wall. This Frellum took down with the most care before placing it on his table and opening it.

  A beautiful, black ribbon with tiny silver threads running through it was carefully wound inside. With rough and calloused hands, Frellum removed it from the beautiful box and wrapped it around and around the handle of his ax, until no wood could be seen at all. It was ordained by the Temple that this ribbon be tied around any weapon used to end the life of a criminal.

  Inspecting his work, Frellum nodded at the job well done, hefted the ax, and walked out his door.

  The small crowd shifted with excitement as they saw his door open. Undoubtedly, they knew what the approach of the executioner meant.

  It didn’t matter to Frellum. He would do his job, then return to a quiet evening in his room, pondering as he often did the journey of the dead and the day he would join them. Such was the fate of older men without sons of their own.

  A smooth path guided him to his destination: a raised stone platform as tall as a man and twice as wide. At the top there was only a solid block of black stone. This was where the offender would lay and, subsequently, lose, his or her head. Eight steps allowed him to join the three others on the top of it. Two temple guards and the condemned man: an older looking man, but there was an odd light about him.

  Most cowered at the final moments. They saw their inevitable deaths approaching and were struck with fear. Not this man. The prisoner held his head high, even nodding at Frellum as he came eye to eye with him, as if greeting a longtime friend.

  Frellum knew that this man was a long sought-after rebel, though the particulars escaped him. He didn’t care much for the news of the current day. He was a man of hi
story. A man of death. He cared solely for what had once been, not what was.

  If there was anything he was to do for his worship of the way of the temple, he would be a man of the past.

  Seeing a brave soul, ready to face his own death head on, was not unsettling to Frellum. He found it comforting. No whimpering. No pleading. Just a clean death. A good job well done.

  Frellum took his place and waited for the priest overseeing the ceremony. He looked up at the balcony that overlooked the platform. The lesser sun had just touched the wall when the priest walked from behind the black curtain that separated the inner sanctum within and the balcony without.

  Priest Armus hobbled out and weakly grabbed the railing with frail hands. For as long as Frellum could remember, Armus had overseen all the executions of criminals on the Red Porch. His presence was not unusual this day. It looked to Frellum like he had several Prophets with him as well. These were his proteges, though one Frellum didn’t recognize at first. He didn’t mind that. What was odd was the two men who followed him: High Priest Regis and King Gravis. These two only oversaw criminals who threatened the very stability of the Theocracy. As brothers, they ruled the land of Ladis with an iron fist.

  Perhaps Frellum needed to brush up on current history. These two hadn’t come out to see an execution in thirty years. Frellum’s first, in fact.

  But that was the last of the rebellion and the end of many, many deaths.

  Frellum glanced around at the crowd gathered. Surely, if this was a man of such importance, then he would have seen more attend his death ceremony? Perhaps not.

  Priest Armus held up a hand and motioned once, beginning the proceedings. Being outranked by High Priest Regis, however, he looked expectantly at the ruler of the Theocracy. Frellum held his ax at his side, ready to be called for his task.

  “Having been found guilty of inciting rebellion against the Theocracy of Ladis, the nine kingdoms, and worshiping the false religion of the enemies of the island, both previous and in the current state, you are hereby sentenced to death’s journey by the waning of the suns this day.”

  A few heads turned from the High Priest to the man standing condemned to die. Frellum joined them. He certainly had been late to know these current events. It sounded as if this man were being condemned as an instigator in the old rebellion. But surely all of those men were sent on their own journeys of death long ago?

  “What have you to say in answer?”

  The man only met the gaze of the high priest and said nothing. A bold, defiant stare marked his face. Regardless, almost as if he expected as much, High Priest Regis sniffed once before lifting his hand into the air and left go a dark portion of paper.

  This man’s death rune.

  His fate sealed, Frellum turned to take his place beside the black stone, in order to prepare himself for the final strike. The two temple guards took up positions beside the older man, but he didn’t fight them. Instead, he laid his head down on the block willingly.

  Frellum noted the brighter sun’s path over the palace walls. It was nearly time. He raised his ax and looked up at the High Priest, waiting for his signal.

  “Journey well to death’s door,” Regis said with a sneer. “And pass into the next world unhindered, Holve Bravestead.”

  2: The Disputed Lands

  A steady, relentless wind blew over the plains of the south. It never rained here. Or else it seemed so. Dust and dirt flew with the wind as it wailed over the rocky terrain. Red as the suns and as desolate as death itself. Why it was called the Disputed lands was beyond Pul’s imagination. Who would want it?

  Pul was not an ambitious man. He fought when he was told to fight and rested whenever their blessed generals gave them the luxury. Today, however, was not a day of rest. Today was a day of death.

  Running beside his squad, Pul watched as friend after friend succumbed to the blasts that came from the enemy lines. It was like running into a fire with dry grass for clothes. This was madness and suicide all wrapped up into one.

  But that was the war in the Disputed south.

  For thirty long years the war had gone on. Pul’s father had died in this war. Pul’s grandfather had commanded troops that died in the war. Pul’s brother and uncle were both here now, and probably dead as well. They had been recruited on the same day, then shipped to three separate units.

  That was the thought.

  No one in the nine kingdoms should serve themselves down in these lands. They were Ladis. That was it. Only Ladis.

  The Isolians who were attacking them on this day were no different than the ones who always raided their territory. They had made a defensive wall from the very stones of the earth. Now, from above and behind that wall, they sent their flaming balls of death.

  Ladis had always been the superior army. They had more men than the heretics did. They had better generals than the Isol army did. They certainly had more resources, ships, and swords.

  But the one thing they did not have was all they needed.

  “Look above!” came the call. Pul instinctively dove forward. He had learned this skill from experience. Just behind him a crater formed in the dusty ground. With it, twenty of his squad disappeared in a blink. Pul didn’t stop to mourn them. He got back up to his feet and ran towards the objective.

  The wall that hid the Speakers.

  Magic was forbidden in Ladis. Pul hadn’t needed to be told that. All of his stories growing up were about brave knights who went after horrible witches and warlocks. The worst of these were from Isol. Everyone in the nine kingdoms knew of Ladis’ struggle with the magic wielders.

  And most of them came here to fight and die for that struggle.

  Pul was scrambling now, all that was left of his squad was a handful of soldiers and their captain.

  Funny how that seemed to work out.

  The remainder of his battle brothers hunkered down against a rock as the Speakers rested. That was the one thing they could count on. The magic users couldn’t produce their witchcraft forever. And even the strongest of them had to take a break from their spells of death. So, in theory, a general could throw enough bodies at a defended position to take out the Speakers once they became so weary they could no longer defend themselves magically.

  Unfortunately, this was also the greatest strategic plan Ladis had come up with in thirty years.

  Isol had magic on their side. It was not relegated to only spells, but also to suits of armor, swords, and shields. These warriors were terrifying to come across. But when enough Ladis soldiers were cast into the fight, they would succumb to death just like any mortal man.

  Eventually.

  “Good work, men!” Pul’s captain shouted, panting as he said it. “They’re weakening!”

  Pul nodded, but he really felt like punching the man in the face. What type of addition was he counting as good work? Twenty spans and thirty dead out of forty was good work?

  But that was Ladis thinking. Die well or fight until it happens.

  Pul looked over his shoulder at the wall of stone. It bristled with the green and blue energy he had come to recognize as a type of after effect of exhaustive magic. The Speakers there were running on the last vestiges of their strength.

  He felt like that, too.

  All around he could see several such small skirmishes occurring. Ladis soldiers charged Isol held positions. Sometimes they won them, and the line moved forward. Other times they were defeated and forced to move back. All over the disputed lands, Ladis gained about a day’s walk worth of ground in a single month. Then Isol would take it back in a month’s time. They would fight and bleed and die for a line that had hardly moved in thirty years. But Ladis would never surrender to Isol. It would not agree to peace. It wasn’t even considered a possibility. These were heretics and users of the dark arts. No treaty could be formed with them. They had to be annihilated. So said the king and the high priest.

  And so their generals obeyed and their soldiers died and the Disputed Lands remained
just that.

  Gripping his spear more tightly and making sure his sword was still attached to his belt, he readied himself for the command of his captain. And, sure as the dust would get in his tent every night, it came.

  “Back on your feet, men!” Captain Tel roared. “We have to support the next squad!”

  The next squadron of men was running around the crater made just moments ago. Isol had at least learned not to bunch up their men in a line and send them at the Speakers. That was asking for death.

  A lot more death.

  Pul got to his feet and ran beside the new group of recruits. Men whom he’d seen and shared a base camp with before. Men who had told him their stories about where they came from, who they loved, and who they left back in the nine kingdoms.

  The wall the Speakers hid behind was only three spans away from them when another blast of magical energy shot out from it and decimated both the remnants of the old troop of men and the newest group as well.

  Pul was blasted off his feet as the blue bolt exploded around him. The Speakers had waited until the very last moment to strike back. It was brave. And it was brutal.

  Landing hard on his side, Pul felt his spear snap in half. Not even stopping to consider the damage done, he grabbed at his sword on his belt. It came free with a twist and he was back on his feet again.

  One man out of sixty who had charged was still alive. Pul was the only one left to fight the wizards who stood behind that wall.

  “Oh, sweet gates of death, are you finally opening up for me?”

  It was a common cry among the soldiers who outlived their squads. Pul had done it twice now. But to make it out a third time was legendary status. Only one other man had ever done that.

  Pul looked and saw that his own captain had been taken with the blast, as well as the other squad’s officer. He was alone. This close to the Speakers meant that he was vulnerable for attack. If he ran, however, it would give them time to rest and cast another spell. Was the magic they had just performed all they had left in them?