Fires of Memory

by Washburn, Scott;

  “I hope the general sees it that way,” said Lieutenant Prinz.

  “None of us have any choice, Lieutenant.”

  The passengers of the coach fell silent. They passed over some rough paving and they were shaken back and forth a bit. Jarren was extremely aware of Lyni’s warm arm pressed against his. She had enjoyed the concert, he was certain of that. They had worked together a lot in the last two months, and she hardly ever snarled at him anymore. Did she still hate him?

  “This does not appear to be the way back to the estate,” she said suddenly. Jarren looked out the coach window and saw that she was right.

  “Where are we going, Colonel?” he demanded.

  “To the harbor. Our ship is waiting.”

  “What? We weren’t scheduled to leave for another two days!”

  “Change of plans. We’ve received word from a spy.” Krasner paused and ran his gaze over the other passengers.

  “The Kaifs are on the move.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kareen could not hide the horror on her face as she sat on her horse next to Thelena and stared through the shattered gate of the ruined city. She had thought the sack of Berssenburg had been bad, but now she realized that Berssenberg had been nothing, nothing at all. The city of Gira, the great northern port of Berssia, lay before her and it had been… butchered. She didn’t have any other word for it. It was like a cow or a pig or a sheep that had been cut open. The entrails and blood lay scattered on the ground, and the meat was being cut up into slices.

  A huge mound of severed heads lay next to the gate. It was easily fifteen feet high. Kareen could not guess how many had died to make that pile, but she knew it was not the only one in the city. And it was not the only—or the worst—example of the Kaifengs’ cruelty. A line of stakes marched away in either direction, curling around the walls of the city. A body had been impaled on each one. Most of them were already dead, but a few still twitched or moaned in the last paroxysm of agony. Kareen could scarcely imagine how much those victims must have suffered. It could take days for them to die.

  A shrill scream made her jerk her head around. A hundred yards away a man—no, it was just a boy—came dashing through one of the many openings in the walls. Several mounted Kaifeng warriors were in hot pursuit. The boy shrieked and ran, but one of the warriors had a rope and expertly lassoed the Berssian, bringing him to the ground. A small crowd of Kaifeng on foot came into view through the same gap, and Kareen gasped when she saw they were carrying a long pole. They weren’t actually going to…?

  Her stomach heaved when she realized that they were. She was too far away to see anything, but the boy’s shrieks became more and more desperate and finally rose into a terrible cry of pain. A few moments later, another pole was added to the grisly fence surrounding the city. The body on this one flopped about and wailed without hope.

  Kareen tore her eyes away and sobbed. “Why? Why are they doing this?”

  “The city refused to surrender,” said Thelena. “They are being made an example of.”

  “He was just a boy!”

  “Zarruk has decreed that all the males—all of them—are to die. That one must have been hiding somewhere. They are burning the city now, and the fires will drive out the last survivors and they will be killed.”

  “Gods, how can anyone be so cruel?”

  “I’ll make no excuses, Kareen. It sickens me, too. But the leaders hope that this example will persuade the rest of the east to surrender without a fight. If they do, then maybe the rest will be spared this horror.”

  “They will kill all the men? The boys, too?”

  “Even babies. Yes, that is the command.”

  “What…what about the women?” Kareen knew they would be enslaved, but what else might have been ordered to punish Gira?

  “As you’d expect: rape and more rape. There are five times as many warriors now as when Berssenburg fell—and this is a smaller city—so I’m quite sure each and every woman and girl has been quite thoroughly…punished for the city’s resistance.” Kareen could hear the bitterness in Thelena’s voice. “Those that survived will be slaves, of course.”

  Kareen just shook her head and her tears fell and splattered on her saddle. “Did they spare anyone? Anyone at all?”

  “Oh yes; that was part of the plan, after all: someone has to spread the word about the consequences of resistance. All of the priests and priestesses from the temples were not harmed. They were given horses and sent east.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

  Thelena gave a bitter laugh. “No, it wasn’t. Don’t think any of those clerics were really spared.”

  “What… what did they do?” asked Kareen in horrid anticipation.

  “They were witnesses while all the male nobility was forced to watch their sons being impaled and their wives and daughters being raped and beaten to death—before they were impaled themselves. Most of those clerics probably wish they were dead, too.”

  Just at the moment, Kareen was wishing the same thing. This was all like some vision of the hells…

  Thelena kneed her horse into motion and started through the gate. Kareen did not know why Thelena was going in here, or why she had agreed to go along, but she and their guard detachment followed. It was just as bad inside as out. Most of the bodies that those stacked heads belonged to were inside the walls. A thick cloud of smoke was rising from the city’s western quarter. By tomorrow, all the city was to be burned.

  “I’ve been thinking a great deal about what is happening, Kareen,” said Thelena. She spoke in Berssian, and none of the guards could understand that tongue. “I thought about it when I was a slave, and I thought about it during the sack of Berssenburg.” She motioned to the carnage around them. “This seems evil to you; it would seem evil to most people. But it is not the Kaifeng or the Berssians who are evil: the real evil is power, Kareen. Power is where the evil comes from. Years ago, back before my father discovered the magic, the Berssians and their Varag vassals had the power. They had the guns and the cannons, and my people could not match them. They could come out onto the plains and kill and burn and torture. My mother and brother died, and I was beaten and raped. I would have died, too, but for your kindness.

  “Were the Varags evil? Were the Berssian generals who set them on us evil? I don’t think so—even after all that I’ve suffered, I don’t think so. They weren’t evil, but they had the power, and the power is what’s evil. They did those things because they could! There was nothing to restrain them, so they did what they did because they could. Power, Kareen, unrestrained power is the great evil.” Kareen stared at her friend wide-eyed. She’d never seen her like this before.

  “And now we have the power. My father’s magic gives the Kaifeng the power. He has made the east’s guns and cannons useless, and the unrestrained power lies in our hands. Gira died because we could make it die. No other reason! And unless the east submits, all those other cities will die, too. I weep for them—and I weep for my own people. The power will consume them as surely as it will your people. We are all utterly damned.”

  “Gods…gods, oh, Thelena I’m going to be sick. Please let me go back to the tent.”

  “Go. Take one of the guards with you. The warriors’ blood is still up and they might go after you.”

  Kareen nodded, turned her horse, and galloped back toward camp.

  * * * * *

  Thelena watched Kareen ride off. A large part of her wanted to follow, but she was looking for someone, and apparently he was in the city. She turned around to face forward and put her horse in motion again. She probably should not have said what she did to Kareen, but it had been building up inside her for days now and it needed to get out—and Kareen was the one person she could safely say it to. Damnation. The whole of the Kaifeng were on the road to damnation. But who was really leading that march? She intended to find out.

  By the time she had ridden a block, she regretted her decision to come into th
e city. She should just wait until later to find the man she was looking for. She knew it was going to be bad once the city refused to surrender, but this was far worse than she had feared. Headless bodies were everywhere. For once, the old saying about the streets running with blood was actually true. Small streams of dark red flowed down the cobblestone streets to collect in pools.

  She had known it was going to be bad. The great army had set out from Berssenburg with six helars, over fifty thousand warriors. It had only been about three hundred miles from Berssenburg to Gira, a distance that could have been covered in five days by the warriors, but it had actually taken over three weeks. The families and herds were following, and they could not travel so fast. More importantly, there was a constant influx of new tribes who were pouring through the mountain passes. Hardly a day went by when a new helar was not formed. New helars meant new kas. These had to be elected by the noyens, and they then had to swear loyalty to Zarruk. All of this held the army’s progress down to little more than fifteen miles a day. There were twenty helars now, over one hundred and fifty thousand warriors. It made an incredible sight, but most of those warriors were eager for loot and slaves.

  And the land had been empty.

  Towns and villages were abandoned and deserted when the scouts entered. Little of value was left behind. A few unlucky people had been caught, but only a few. Depending on the mood of the men who caught them, these people had been killed or enslaved, or just driven east to spread panic. Few of the newcomers even saw any of them. They grew more frustrated with each passing day. By the time they reached Gira, they were ready to take the loot and the women they had been promised. Some of them had ridden a thousand miles or more to be here, and they were determined to take what they had been promised.

  They had taken it from Gira.

  The city never had a chance. When the army was still a week away, Atark had ridden north with a single helar and come upon the city by surprise. He had used his magic to destroy their gunpowder and then to burn all the ships in the harbor. The city was sealed. No one could get out. But they refused to surrender. So they had waited until the main army arrived, and then Atark threw down the city’s walls as he had done at Berssenburg, and the warriors had stormed in. The slaughter and rape had gone on for three days.

  As she went down the street, there was a steady stream of warriors heading the other way. All had some sort of loot piled on their horses, but the luckiest ones had a new slave, either lying limply across the saddle in front of him, or stumbling along behind on a tether. There had only been enough women to provide one warrior in four with a slave, so there were still plenty of men looking eagerly forward to the sack of the next city.

  She reached a broad square and turned down another street. The archduke’s palace was that way, and she would find the man she sought there. It was said that the archduke had refused to abandon his city and had died during the fighting. His bravery had spared the female members of his family from the fate of the other noble ladies. His oldest daughter had been taken by Zarruk to replace the general’s mistress, and his wife and the other daughters had been given out to the new kas. Thelena wasn’t sure what sort of message that would send to the rest of the east.

  The buildings here were mostly intact. Her father had used a lesser spell to breach the city’s walls and there was less damage inside. Of course, all of this would be burned when the time came. Her father had spoken of using another, far more powerful earth-shaking spell before they left to complete the destruction. She would have to be sure she was miles away before that happened. In Berssenburg, she had acquired a supply of the poppy juice, and she had used it this time when her father took the sacrifices. It had helped a great deal, but she hated the sick, disoriented feeling it produced. She didn’t want to use any more unless she really had to.

  As she neared the archduke’s palace, she saw where the new sacrifices were being held. She had not been quite truthful when she told Kareen that all the men had been killed. Well, maybe she had been: these men were dead, too. They just had not been killed yet. Dead and damned. She shook her head. In spite of her pleas, her father was still using the sacrifices to fuel his magic. She reflected that if people really understood what the fate of the sacrifices was, the whole terror campaign Zarruk was waging would not have been needed. The threat of being condemned to an eternity of bodiless wandering would be enough to break any resistance.

  Or maybe to stiffen it. She wasn’t really sure what would happen if the Easterners understood. Perhaps they would surrender to avoid that fate, but perhaps they would fight to the death to avoid it in another fashion. It was pointless to speculate in any case: no one really understood but her.

  She and her escort reached the palace and a few inquiries confirmed the man she sought was there. Many men were bustling about dragging loot out of the building before, it too, was burned. She looked with sadness on the marvelous art and architecture that would soon be rubble. Inside, it was even busier. Boxes and bags of loot stood in the foyer. A dozen women, roped together, huddled in a corner, weeping. She went past them without sparing them a glance and down one of the side corridors. She heard voices ahead and stopped hesitantly outside the door of a large room. Inside were eight men. One was a warrior, probably one of the noyens from his dress, but the other seven clearly were not. Six of the seven were plainly dressed in tunics and trousers, but all had large copper medallions on chains around their necks. They were loremasters, the keepers of the history of the Kaifeng. The warrior was reciting his exploits in the fall of Gira, and the men were committing it to memory. Unlike the Easterners, the Kaifeng kept no written histories—kept very few written records of any kind, although some men could read and write. Carrying libraries of books and scrolls across the plains would have been impractical. Instead, men gifted with terrific memories kept the tales in their heads and passed them from generation to generation by word of mouth.

  Thelena’s attention was drawn to the eighth man in the room. He was very old, with a long white beard and heavy robes. A gold medallion hung about his neck, and the weight of it seemed to be bowing him to the floor. He was Vardeen, the chief loremaster. When Thelena heard that he was here, she knew she had to speak with him.

  She hesitated to intrude. This was not a place for women, in any case. After listening for a few moments, it appeared that the warrior was finished, and one of the younger loremasters was reciting back what he had heard. Thelena took the opportunity to send in one of her guards to request an audience with Vardeen. To her surprise and relief, Vardeen nodded immediately and got up with unexpected agility. But one of the other loremasters was immediately at his side, and as the pair came out of the room, Thelena could see that the old man was blind. As he approached, Thelena made a deep bow, even though the man could not see her.

  “Hail Vardeen, loremaster of our people,” she said formally. “I thank you for consenting to speak with me.”

  “Well met, Thelena, daughter of Atark, son of Ardak, son of Ardan,” said the old man with a rich, strong voice, and he smiled. “How may I serve you?”

  “I have a question to ask you about the far past. But…but I would wish to speak with you in private.”

  “As you wish. Ulari, is there somewhere we can go?”

  “I believe there is a small room down the hall, Lord,” said the other man. They went the direction he indicated and found the room. The younger loremaster found a spot for Vardeen to sit and then stepped back. “Will you be all right here, Lord?”

  “Yes, quite. Now leave us, please.” The man bowed and then shut the door after him. Thelena stood there uncertainly.

  “Sit, my dear, sit,” said the old man. Thelena did so, but she still could not bring herself to ask her question. “You may speak, Thelena, daughter of Atark the Great, I will not bite, I promise.”

  “My lord, do you know of a man named Ransurr?” she blurted suddenly.

  The old man frowned. “The name does not immediately bring any memor
ies to mind. Can you tell me anything more that might help?”

  “He… he was a mighty shaman from long ago, Lord. I think he fought in the Great Battle.”

  “Ah. Well, let me think for a bit.” Vardeen closed his eyes and presently began to hum to himself. Thelena sat patiently. A long time passed. A quarter hour, perhaps a half hour, and the man just sat there. Were it not for the humming, she might have thought he had fallen asleep.

  She was trying to nerve herself to say something when the old loremaster’s eyes opened. They were filmed over with white, but they seemed to be staring right at her. “Ransurr,” he said. “How did you hear his name, my dear?”

  “I just heard the name and was curious.”

  “You do not lie well, Thelena, Daughter of Atark, but I will not press you further. You are correct. Ransurr was a shaman who fought in the Great Battle. I am afraid I have little more to tell you.”

  Thelena sighed in disappointment, but Vardeen went on. “All that I can remember comes from an old ballad. In part, it goes like this:

  The warriors gathered, row upon row,

  And rode to the east to throw back the Foe.

  And with them the shamans, mighty with power,

  Their spells they prepared for the deadly hour.

  Hadjnar and Glartus, Tlernan and Yarloles,

  E’en blood-soaked Ransurr, Drinker of Souls.

  Vardeen stopped his chanting and his blind gaze seemed even more piercing. “I’m afraid that’s all there is.”

  Thelena stood up and bowed. “Thank you, Lord. It is more than enough.”

  * * * * *

  “Are you all right, Lyni?” asked Jarren. The young woman had her head down on a table next to a small keg of gunpowder. They were in a house in Northern Laponia near where General DeSlitz had made his headquarters. After a moment, Lyni stirred and sat upright.