Curling his lip in disdain, Gramus produced a rolled piece of parchment. "He left you this to explain himself."
The seal of the parchment was broken when she took it. "You read it, didn't you?" She shot Gramus an inquiring look.
"Yes, I did." He held her gaze.
Payton stepped back until he was out of earshot when Rona glanced at him. "You cannot open my letters before I allow so."
"Do you have secrets that you can only share with your vassals but not with me?" Her towering guardian leaned forward toward her. "Or are you worried I might read something private?"
Rona did not like what Gramus might be hinting at. "What are you talking about?"
"You know what I am talking about." He grimaced. "Everybody is gossiping about Queen Rona who has a liking to the new lord of Subrel."
"What is this nonsense?" she snapped, though she knew it was not nonsense at all.
"You allowed this nonsense to be said."
"How dare you talk to me like that? Have you lost your mind?" Though Rona would always remain grateful for Gramus's undying loyalty, she had to remind him of his place.
"I haven't lost my mind." Gramus bared his teeth. "He is the one who has lost his mind. In the middle of the night, he rushed out of the palace with his Murasen friend, as if they were running away from the plague."
Oh no! He abandoned me. She hurriedly spread the scroll and scanned it with her eyes. For a farewell letter from a lover, it was way too short, and fortunately it was not a lover's letter. Bearing in mind that Gramus had already allowed himself to read it, Rona was relieved to know that her nosy guardian had found nothing "sentimental" in it. Part of her was a bit irked though. Even when he has a chance to tell me something in private, he says nothing. Coward.
Alright then. There was nothing intimate in this cold letter, which was a just a brief message from Masolon Lord of Subrel to Her Grace Queen Rona Charlwood, but still it was hard to understand. "Didn't he talk to anybody before he left the city?" Rona asked Gramus. "He must have talked to someone to tell him what he is exactly looking for in Rusakia."
"Who would he talk to?" Gramus spat. "He only talks to his Murasen friend, and that Murasen has already joined him in his foolish ride."
"What about Jonson? He is the senior lord in Ramos. Masolon shouldn't leave without his permission or at least notifying him."
Gramus sighed. "Jonson knew nothing, like everybody else in the palace. Before running away, Masolon left that letter with a guard on duty and stressed that it had to be handed to the man in charge of the battalion heading to our host besieging Paril."
A battalion to guard two engineers, and yet she lost one of them. "Bring me that surviving engineer," Rona demanded. "I need to talk to him."
When Gramus went to fetch that engineer, Payton warily came closer. "Perhaps this is not the best timing to discuss this, Your Grace, but we have two general commanders in the camp."
A ship with two captains would sink, so she must choose one. She never questioned Gramus's bravery or his fierceness in battle, but a leader should have vision, otherwise, he might just throw his men to die cheaply on the battlefield. Like the way he destroyed my cavalry at Subrel. She bit her lower lip when the dreadful memory crossed her mind.
"You will need to decide if Lord Foubert will continue to lead the troops," Payton continued, "unless you see Lord Gramus fit now to return to his position as the general commander of your army."
Rona needed a second to realize that Payton was actually suggesting a way out of her dilemma. Were it not for Masolon, I should have loved that witty handsome captain instead, she thought.
"General Gramus seems in need of more time to recover. We appreciate his coming despite his condition though." She looked Payton in the eye, making sure he was following her.
"Of course, Your Grace." Payton smiled.
Rona observed Gramus, who was struggling to hide that limp in his gait. Following the half-Skandivian giant was a slender lad whose left arm was wrapped in bandages. This is not my engineer, she hoped as Gramus came back to her with the wounded lad.
The terrified lad must have thought he was called to be executed when Gramus urged him to stand before his queen. "The surviving engineer, Your Grace." Well, that was exactly the introduction she did not wish to hear from her general.
"How old are you, boy?" Rona could not help clenching her fists.
"Th...th...thirteen." The lad's lip twitched, just to utter one word. "Almost fourteen, if it pleases you, Your Grace."
It would please me if you were twenty years older, with a sound arm. "Come here." She beckoned to him. When the lad hesitantly approached her, she firmly held the nape of his neck, bringing his face closer to hers. "You know why you are here, boy, don't you?"
The lad swallowed. "I swe...I swear I told them I had been an apprentice for only a couple of weeks. They didn't—"
"An apprentice?" Rona blustered.
"I beg you, Your Grace. Don't hurt me or my family." The lad lowered his head as he clutched her hand. When Payton dragged the lad away from her, he continued, "I only wanted to protect my family. They were killing everybody they suspected he knew anything."
"What is this gibberish?" Rona snapped. "Who was killing whom? And those who were killed; what did they know?"
To her surprise, Gramus gently laid a massive hand on the lad's shoulder. "There is nothing to be afraid of. Pull yourself together and tell your queen everything you know."
The way Payton arched his eyebrow almost made her laugh despite her fury.
After taking two deep breaths of air, the lad decided to say, "I never saw them—the murderers, I mean—but I heard the rumor spread everywhere in Ramos. Our neighbors urged me and my family to seek shelter in the Lord's palace because we would never be safe in our house. The King's men would look for me if they knew. . . Oh! I beg your pardon, Your Grace! The former king's men! The former! Please, forgive me! I didn't mean to—"
"Do you know how to build a trebuchet?" Rona put in as she ran out of patience.
"B...b...build?" The lad's jaw dropped, glancing over his shoulder at the towering general looming behind him. "I remember the basics, but I. . . I. . ."
"You what?" Rona glowered at the stuttering engineer.
"I never built one, Your Grace." The lad swallowed. "But I understand the torsion concept. It is—"
"Get him out of my sight." Rona's command came out through her clenched teeth.
The horrified lad was at loss for words when Payton dragged him away from her. I have waited long enough, and all I get is this. Rona wished she could summon Jonson here now to ask him how allowed this farce to happen. "You only had two men to protect. Only two, Gramus!" she bristled. "Couldn't you do better than showing up with a corpse and a witless lad?"
Gramus scowled. "May I remind you that this was not my mission in the first place?"
"But it was you who undertook the damned mission, Gramus. Blast!" Putting her hands on her waist, she paced back and forth to release her tension. Curse you, Masolon! You put me in this! At this very moment, he was the most person she was mad at. When would that fool realize he had become a lord who must answer to his queen?
"We can conquer this city without the trebuchets, can't we?" she muttered as she gazed at the walls of Paril.
"I haven't seen the city defenses for myself. But I'm sure we—"
"General Gramus." Foubert chose a perfect moment to come and join the conversation. "You have brought the engineers, I was told."
The Duke of the East was here to do nothing but gloat over the former general. Surely, the news of the battalion ambushed in the woods must have reached him. "Tell me, Lord Foubert," she said before Gramus might start a quarrel she could not stop. "Can you get our army behind these walls without our trebuchets?"
"Of course, I can, my queen." Foubert seemed to be prepared to answer her question. "Yet I must bring to your attention that the cost could be huge. Our men are going to face a heavy barrage of
arrows, bolts, and stones before they scale one inch of that wall. If you allow it, my queen, I shall send for my engineers at once."
"No more idle days." Rona was done with the waiting. "Order all the men to build ladders, siege towers, and rams. Even the Skandivian mercenaries shall take part in this."
Gramus did not like the part concerning his dear Skandivians; she knew before he said, "Those heartless beasts are meant to destroy and reap souls, not to build."
"They will do whatever I say as long as they fight under my command," Rona insisted. "By next morning, I want an army of siege towers."
9. MASOLON
"That is the most entertaining tale I have ever heard." Ziyad stretched his arms as he sat on the moist grass, leaning his back against a tree trunk.
Disappointment crept into Masolon as he pondered his brother's reaction. "I tell you my biggest secret, and all I get is your scorn?"
"You tell me that we are traveling hundreds of miles to Rusakia in its coldest season just because you think that a cursed creature has been guiding you somehow?"
"He has been guiding me since the very beginning, and obviously, he knows what he is doing. Look what I have become now."
"So, your previous little speech to me and Frankil was not about fate."
Masolon fed the cookfire with a broken branch. "What if that demon knows my fate?"
"That's blasphemy, brother." Ziyad waved dismissively. "That cursed creature is manipulating you, if he exists in the first place. You are not the first person who says he hears voices in his head."
"I know I am not sick. I told you what Payton saw me do."
"He had better be sick as well." Ziyad sighed then shook his head. "Merciful Lord. We are doomed, brother, you know that? Your. . . demon's existence doesn't only prove the Tales of Gorania right, it also means that the Last Day is about to begin, if it hasn't begun already."
The late Lord Lanark, may he burn in Hell, had briefly told Masolon about it. And if Masolon was not wrong, he had already seen a glimpse of it in his sleep after the battle of Ramos.
"Alright then," Masolon hugged his knees as he sat on his haunches, "are you still coming with me after all?"
Ziyad chuckled. "If we are doomed anyway, then I had better enjoy my last day in the company of the guided Lord Masolon."
Masolon chortled. "I am afraid to disappoint you, but Lord Masolon is not planning to spend the days of his lordship throwing parties in the big hall of his castle."
"You are not planning to spend your lordship days wandering the woods either, are you?"
"You see? My company could be dangerous."
"Not with your guardian angel protecting us." Ziyad's smile faded when he went on, "He will protect both of us, not just you, right?"
Masolon laughed. "Not when you insult him like that. Shall we resume our journey?"
"I am really tired." Ziyad grunted as he slowly rose to his feet. "But I'm willing to push on myself to spend a night in a roofed, warm chamber. We can make it to Vakiv today, I hope."
A straight passage by the Skandivian coast could have spared them more time, but Ziyad had insisted on avoiding that deadly den of Skandivian bandits. As Masolon was saving his demon for opponents more worthy than those outlaws, he did not disagree with his brother's recommendation.
The wind blew hard when they rode outside the wooded area. The trees were shielding us against the worst of the winter, Masolon realized as he pulled his coat about his shoulders. They had not seen the real Rusakian winter yet, he knew. Here, in the southernmost parts of Rusakia, it was summer if compared to what was waiting for them in the north. At least, it was not snowing here. Not yet.
"What is exactly written in the Tales of Gorania about the Last Day?" Masolon tried to make his voice louder than the blowing wind.
"Not good, from all I have heard since I was a kid." Ziyad rubbed his gloved hands. "Before that day comes, there will be signs. The Signs. First, snow will stop falling all over Gorania for a whole year. You know what that means? Rusakia will witness its first snowless winter ever."
"So, we should pray it is still snowing where we are headed, eh?" Masolon scoffed.
"What comes next? Let me remember." Ziyad mused for a moment. "Look. I am not sure about the sequence, but I remember there will be the Great War. A war in which half the Goranian population will be decimated. There will be also that plague that will kill most of the Goranian people, but as I told you, I'm not sure which comes first, the plague or the Great War.
"Ah, and there will be that dragon flying from the east. A monstrous scaled creature, wings spread over fifty feet, its roar heard a hundred miles away. With its blazing breath, it will scorch a thousand acres of lands."
The dragon part did take Masolon's attention. "Is it not a queer coincidence that your dragon's description matches to a great extent that of our mythical Tayong?"
"According to the Tales, dragons won't be mythical when the Last Day comes, brother. I once heard a drunken bard sing about the dragons that had existed before the Age of Goran, before the Five Kings even. He claimed that the clerics all over the world had been keeping dragonskin in secret chambers beneath the temples."
"Dragonskin?"
Ziyad nodded. "As the name suggests: it's the real skin of those horrifying creatures, and it's the only thing that can stand a dragon's fire. The clerics have been keeping the skin for generations until the day to use them comes."
All of these were just the Signs, not the Last Day itself; Masolon reminded himself. "And you say my tale is an entertaining one?"
"They were just drunken travelers' tales to me until I heard your little story about your cursed invisible companion."
"I thought you believed in the Last Day, even before we met."
Ziyad allowed a mocking chuckle. "I thought the same too." He glanced at Masolon. "It is not easy to believe in what you can't see or hear, is it?"
Masolon's father, the great Golson, was among the few men who only believed in their own will. While everybody was following the prophecies of Obeira, Golson was certain he could forge his people's fate on his own. "Sometimes we need that belief to soothe our minds, to relieve ourselves from the burden of responsibility. We need to believe there is a greater force that takes care of everything in our life," said Masolon, memories of charcoaled corpses flashing across his mind. Rivers of blood had been shed and whole villages had been razed to the ground to fulfill Golson's mission. And did he fulfill it? The great Golson had eventually lost his family, his sanity, his life. Everything.
"Any more Signs to tell me about?" Masolon asked.
"Sure, how did I forget? There is that horrendous earthquake that will shake the southern part of Murase. The Demons' Mountains will crumble and turn into dust, and nothing will be standing between us and the cursed creatures trapped in the Great Desert. And that's when the Last Day starts. The demons will invade our world, literally turning it into a living hell. Every man and woman existing in Gorania will perish."
Masolon expected more to hear. "That is all?"
"And then the Cursed Waters will flood every yard of Gorania, and the Boiling Eyes will emit gigantic flames, together cleansing our world off every cursed creature coming from the Great Desert.
"After that, all good people of pure souls will be resurrected in a new everlasting paradise."
"Where? In Gorania?"
"Where else?"
"Why not somewhere in the sky?" As the monks used to tell us, Masolon thought.
"Would it matter to you where paradise is?" Ziyad asked in disapproval. "As if you have already guaranteed your place there."
"You think we do not deserve a place in paradise?"
"Deserve?" Again, the disapproval was obvious in Ziyad's tone. "The likes of us do not deserve anything, brother. All we can do is beg the Lord of Sky and Earth for his mercy and hope He grants it to us."
Masolon would not dare to disagree with his brother. If there was one of them more likely to earn the Lord's
mercy, it would not be the man possessed by a demon.
For an hour, they barely talked, which was something unusual, especially when your companion was Ziyad. Masolon did not complain though, his ears alert to any suspicious movements nearby. Yes, they were fifty miles away from the Skandivian coast, but every region was ruled by its own gangs of bandits. There was some sort of respect between those scum, Masolon reflected, and how ironic that was. While the wars over the border fiefs never stopped between the kings of Gorania, the outlaws always abided by their assigned territories.
The wind grew colder as they approached Vakiv. "It will be over soon," Masolon muttered as he gazed at the town in the distance. All he desired right now was a bowl of hot soup and a warm, dry bed. He was done sleeping on moist grass. My years in Gorania have turned me soft, Masolon thought, recalling those days in Ogono, his homeland. The most luxurious house he had ever had was a shack built of wood and straw, its floor flooded by the rain every winter. His mother would urge him and his brother to help their elder sister wipe the floor, but usually the boys would find a way to escape from the task. A small house it was, but it had room for all those I loved.
The night fell when Masolon and Ziyad arrived in Vakiv, which was quiet, like most of the nearby towns at such time of the day. All the doors and shutters of the gable, single-roofed houses were closed, probably to prevent burglars as well as cold air from sneaking inside. The ambiance reminded Masolon of his first visit to Horstad with Antram two years ago, when they together had gone to recruit Frankil and his brothers-in-arms. Vakiv was a bigger town though; Masolon judged from the number of houses he glimpsed so far. The other difference he noticed was the ironwood trees; they were way more than he remembered in Horstad.
Masolon asked the first—and probably the only—passerby where the tavern was, and shortly after they found it. Finding it was not that hard anyway; it was the only place in Vakiv whose door was not shut.
"Good Lord! What do we have here?" Ziyad mumbled as they both stepped into the tavern, which was surprisingly too crowded for such a quiet town. Not a vacant seat Masolon could spot.
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