Trials

by Pedro Urvi

  “I believe you already know Ukbi, my Military Counselor, don’t you?” Mulko waved his hand toward the renowned Nocean General on his left.

  Sumal glanced at the Counselor. The whole Empire knew of the brilliance of that small man with harsh features, his brilliance and… pitiless cruelty. It was his custom to torture and then put to the knife all the enemies captured in battle, to instill fear in the hearts of the rest of his opponents. Sumal looked into the soldier’s black eyes and knew at once that pity did not exist in this man. Sumal would never forget, no matter how long he lived, what he had witnessed at the hands of the General in Silanda.

  Ukbi had ordered punitive action with the object of demoralizing the enemy: to skin alive the Rogdonian soldiers captured. Hundreds of them had been caught during the fall back to the second wall: one by one they were tortured before the great door, in plain sight of the Rogdonian troops but out of reach of the merciful arrows their comrades could let fly. For days their cries of pain were insufferable. The torture was only interrupted when an attack began, to be resumed until there were no more prisoners left. But there were so many that for days and days their screams filled the defenders with horror. The General’s methods were inhuman, but Sumal knew they were effective. If they had their effect on him, he could only begin to guess how the Rogdonians on the wall would feel as they watched.

  Nevertheless, Duke Galen had addressed his troops from the top of the walls. Sumal remembered the scene well:

  “Soldiers of Rogdon! Listen to me, all of you! Today we watch impotently how the enemy tortures our comrades in arms, Rogdonians, men of great courage who gave their lives for their country. Those tortures, those cries of our countrymen are witness to the baseness of a race which has no scruples, morals or bowels of compassion. These are the actions of a cowardly people without honor, of sewer rats. Nothing, I repeat, nothing will make us yield one step, and now still less! Remember the suffering you are now witnessing in your comrades when you have these rotten rats before you and give them the death they deserve. For Rogdon! For our comrades!”

  Sumal remembered them well: great words of a great leader. He wondered if he were still alive. Lowering his gaze before Ukbi, he made a deep bow as protocol required before someone of higher rank or power. The General replied to the bow with a slight nod of his turbaned head. Sumal understood the greeting as a clear indication that the spy was not considered worthy of the General’s attention. Sumal did not feel slighted, he was well aware of his position within the hierarchy of power at the Regent’s Court.

  “Of course, my lord,” said Sumal in reply to the Regent’s comment. “Everybody knows the Great General’s brilliance and the skill with which he leads our armies to victory.”

  “Ha! I’m not so sure about that anymore,” said Mulko to his Military Counselor. “We’ve been stuck here for months in this never-ending siege. This accursed city should have fallen long ago. We must advance north towards Rilentor, where that coward Solin is hiding. And worst of all, the Norghanians have not only taken the fortress of the pass, they’re now camped at their leisure north and east of Rogdon. They’ll advance to the capital before long, and if they take it before we do, Rogdon will be theirs. The whole West of Tremia will be theirs. I cannot allow that to happen! What have you found out about their plans, Sumal?”

  “The Norghanian army is trying to reach Rilentor, but they’ve met with a few mishaps. Their heavy infantry is being attacked by the Lancers as soon as they come out into the open. The Norghanian infantry is helpless against the Rogdonian heavy cavalry. The Lancers are undefeatable in the open field. Because of that, the Norghanians are being forced to advance very slowly, making use of their greater numbers. Right now they’re moving like a giant turtle, well-shielded but slow. Around them the Lancers, although fewer in number, attack their flanks and rearguard, then run away fast. They avoid any direct confrontation. Instead they use this campaign of attrition to wear the Norghanian army down little by little and slow its advance. At the same time, I’ve tried to contact Count Volgren, but he’s hiding his movements. He doesn’t seem interested in listening to any offer from our side. A joint attack would be highly beneficial for both parties, but he doesn’t respond to our requests for dialogue. I believe, my lord, they know they have the advantage and they expect to reach Rilentor before us. I don’t believe he’ll cooperate with us, my lord.”

  “By the sun of the Red Deserts! We must begin to level the whole south of Rogdon and reach the Rogdonian King at once! I want his head on a pike! A Nocean pike, not a Norghanian one!”

  “And so it shall be,” said Ukbi. He sounded troubled. “The Rogdonian resilience is something out of the ordinary, but they haven’t enough soldiers left to defend the wall. They will fall, I promise.”

  “Promises, promises, promises! You’ve been making promises for an eternity! Promising a victory that never comes!”

  “The Rogdonian Mage of Battles is tearing our men to pieces with his magic of the four elements.” Ukbi said accusingly, looking at Zecly as he did so. “One day he scorches us with infernal fires, the next he freezes our men as they climb the walls. I need our own Sorcerers to give us more protection. They aren’t counteracting the enemy’s magic.”

  Zecly smiled. “My dear General, as you know very well, Mirkos the Scholar is not just any Mage. His power is great, as is his intelligence. In order to beat him we must use cunning, and not brute force. No matter how many waves of men you send against that wall, you’ll do no more than erode it. Yes, in the end it will fall, but it will take time and many men.”

  “There’s no more time!” shouted Mulko in a fury. “The Great Emperor Malotas himself has sent me a letter making plain his unease at the delay in the invasion of Rogdon. He expects Silanda to fall immediately, as the first step in the conquest. And that means that if it doesn’t fall he’ll ask for my head on a platter. The city must fall, now! Is that understood? Now!”

  Zecly rose to his feet and went to Sumal’s side.

  “We’ll take charge, my lord. The city will be yours. Tonight!”

  It was midnight when the casting of the Great Spell began. Sumal, wholly absorbed, watched one of the most incredible and frightening spectacles a man could ever imagine. In front of the great door of the second Rogdonian wall, out of reach of enemy arrows, three Nocean Sorcerers had begun to invoke the terrible Curses Magic. Sumal recognized Isos, the Great Master, in the center, escorted by the two others. Sitting around them in a circle, a dozen acolytes had put their bodies at the service of their masters. Sumal could almost feel the magical energy of the acolytes as it was consumed in order to bring the effect of the Great Spell into being.

  Behind them, twenty-five thousand Nocean soldiers were waiting restlessly for the order to attack the wall. They were armed to their teeth and wearing long tunics in shades of blue and black over dark pants and were protected by chainmail which reached down to their thighs. Over chest and back they wore armor decorated with the golden sun-emblem of the Noceans. Their heads were covered with round helmets which bore a sharp spike a hand’s-breadth high. They were ready for action, but Sumal knew that the secret spectacle they were witnessing filled their hearts with fear.

  Isos raised his arms and shouted incomprehensible words to the night, chilling the blood of all who beheld him. A column of blackness began to rise from the pile of dead bodies which had been left there to haunt the spirits of the defenders. It formed a great cloud. A thread of pestilence and rot began to feed the cloud from each of the bodies in the pile, charging it with putrid, sickly horror. Sumal felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of the foul cloud being conjured. Isos and the other two Sorcerers of Curses kept on invoking that ghost, absorbing all the vileness of the putrefied corpses as they did so.

  When Sumal saw Asuris, the Great Master of the Blood Magic, he immediately guessed that something even more dreadful was about to happen. One look at the face of Asuris, pale as if all life had abandoned his body, and those red b
lood-shot eyes which chilled the soul, filled Sumal with a real panic. Asuris placed himself behind the circle of acolytes and motioned to a group of soldiers, who were dragging hand-cuffed prisoners and slaves behind them. Sumal counted two dozen being taken to the Great Sorcerer.

  All were made to kneel, one Nocean soldier behind each. Asuris began to intone a chant as he looked up to the dark sky. He raised his arms and shouted ancient, secret words, wielding a silver dagger in the shape of a snake. He approached the first prisoner. The soldier pulled the head of the slave back, and Asuris cut his throat. Sumal swallowed hard. Blood began to run down the chest of the sacrifice, and under the cut the Sorcerer placed a golden chalice bearing the symbol of a scorpion to gather the blood. Asuris slowly repeated the process with all the prisoners, one by one, amid the hysteria of those remaining, until there was none left. When he had finished, he murmured a few words and drank from the chalice. Sumal felt his stomach turn. Asuris lifted the chalice above his head and intoned a grim chant, which hovered over the audience like an evil curse.

  The dark, putrid cloud began to expand across the space which separated the Sorcerers from the wall crowned by the Rogdonian defenders. The blood ritual was expanding the area of the spell’s effect and with it, very probably —Sumal guessed— its duration and power. This was Asuris’ specialty.

  The rotten cloud of horror began to grow ever greater. Soon it would reach the wall, and Sumal had no doubt of the terrible effect it would have on the defenders. He did not even want to imagine the horror of the enemy soldiers. Borne by the fateful chanting of the Sorcerers, the maleficent cloud reached the wall. Yet the defenders did not move. Sumal could make out the bodies and flashes of armor and helmets under the torches and oil lamps.

  Nobody was moving.

  “They’re crazy! Why don’t they retreat inside? The horror’s going to reach them!”

  At that moment, Sumal saw a blinding light explode above the door. The dazzling power of the light was such that it lit up the whole city, forcing them to cover their eyes.

  “Mirkos! It’s Mirkos. He’ll destroy the cloud and the attempt will fail.” Sumal raised his eyes and saw that the foul cloud had retreated but had not been destroyed.

  Then Zecly came out of the shadows.

  He walked wearily to stand beside Asuris, who offered him the chalice with the blood of sacrifice. The Great Master Zecly drank and intoned a sinister chant. He gave the chalice back to Asuris, and the Sorcerer offered him the silver dagger. Zecly took it and used it to make a cut in his hand. Blood dripped to the ground. At the same time Zecly began to cast a spell, with Asuris assisting him. As the spell took shape, the cloud of pestilence advanced again towards the wall. Sumal feared Mirkos would be ready to reject it, so that the cloud would never reach its destination.

  But something odd caught the spy’s attention. Over the Great Master Zecly, a strange shape was beginning to form. It looked like… an enormous bird-demon. Its body was translucent and intense red, and there was a quality of evil about it. The beak was murderous, the claws bleeding knife-blades. To Sumal it looked like an enormous evil vulture, but a ghostly one. He was awed by the sight of it.

  Above the wall the blinding light exploded once again, throwing back the cloud which the Nocean Sorcerers were trying to send to the enemy with all their power. Several of the acolytes had already fainted, all their energy spent. Sumal thought it was probably true of their vital energy as well. They would never waken.

  The Great Master Zecly pointed the dagger at the source of the light and murmured ancient words.

  The bird of blood flew in the direction indicated by its master.

  The blinding light became visible again, pushing the pestilent cloud even further back.

  Sumal thought they were not going to manage it.

  Then the great bird with its lethal beak and claws of blood fell upon the origin of the light.

  And the light vanished.

  It did not come back.

  Zecly turned and addressed Sumal in a whisper:

  “A blood demon. It’s extremely dangerous to invoke one, as it has a tendency to turn against its master. But it was necessary. When the cloud reaches the battlements, no human being will be left alive. Wait for the spell to disappear, then take the wall. Make sure you go with them, I need eyes I can trust up there, and I must rest. The spell has spent all my magic and left me weak,”

  “Yes, Master. As you command.”

  Sumal reached the top of the battlements shortly before dawn, and with him five thousand Nocean soldiers. They were part of the second wave. The first had already taken the wall and the Duke’s Castle. His surprise when he arrived on the parapet was so great he would never forget it.

  He looked around. “No… no… It can’t be…” he mumbled. On the wall where should have been the bodies of at least four thousand enemy soldiers, dead and twisted in horror, what he found was something unheard of.

  “Sir… they’re sacks of wheat,” an officer explained to Sumal when he saw his look of shock. “They’ve been dressed up with armor and helmets to make them look like soldiers from a distance. It’s a ruse.”

  “But… then… where are the defenders? In the castle?” Sumal asked trying to make sense of what had happened.

  The officer looked at him with fear in his eyes.

  “No, sir. The castle is deserted too. We’ve only found Duke Galen, dead in his chambers. As for the rest, there’s not a living soul in the whole fortress… It’s… it’s as if they’d been swallowed up by the earth…”

  Sumal could not believe what was in front of him. Five thousand men had vanished before his eyes. But that simply could not be. Mirkos had been casting a spell right there, above the door and that was impossible. Sumal was looking at the rock floor, trying to find some logical explanation, when something caught his attention. He went to it. On the ground was a wooden object: a staff crowned with a crystalline sphere. He crouched to study it.

  Beside the staff he found blood… a lot of blood which formed a puddle.

  The defenders had vanished mysteriously, but at least there was one piece of good news to make the Great Master Zecly happy.

  The blood demon had killed Mirkos the Scholar.

  You not worthy…

  Sonea looked at Yakumo with imploring eyes as she crouched beside the Ilenian symbols engraved on the floor.

  “Before anything else,” she said, pointing at them, “please let me try to decipher these.”

  “I don’t trust this place,” replied the Assassin, his black eyes scrutinizing their surroundings, “but… all right, go ahead. It might help us find the way out of this cave.”

  Sonea began to study the symbols. Immediately Lindaro offered to help her.

  Both scholars spent a long time analyzing and deciphering the Ilenian symbols. Yakumo and Iruki, meanwhile were looking for a way out of that underwater cavern, but were disappointed. The chamber was sealed, so there was no way to leave except through the lake. They were buried alive in the depths of the immense lake.

  “I don’t like this at all,” said Iruki with a voice that shook a little. “What if we run out of air? I don’t think it’ll last forever…”

  “No, certainly not naturally, unless it’s kept going by the magic of the Ilenians… although actually I don’t think that’s true, because at the moment I don’t feel any active magic in this place… I can only feel a very distant presence… I’ve used my Gift several times, but I can’t locate it. For now… I don’t feel there’s any imminent danger.”

  “I believe we’ve discovered something!” cried Sonea excitedly.

  Yakumo and Iruki stared at the two scholars.

  “What have you found? Can it help us get out of here?” Yakumo wanted to know.

  “This is really intriguing!” said Lindaro, equally excited.

  Sonea clapped enthusiastically.

  “This hieroglyph indicates there is a way to leave the cavern.”

  “How?”
said Iruki.

  Sonea smiled. “It’s not so easy, it’s really a riddle. In order to leave this place we must find the key that opens the hidden exit.”

  “A key…? How? What does it open?” said Yakumo doubtfully.

  “As far as we can gather, the key makes reference to one of the four natural elements. It’s taken us so long to decipher because the reference to the element isn’t a direct one. The hieroglyph only says it’s the element which allows whoever reads it to decipher it…”

  “I don’t understand,” said Iruki.

  “It was difficult for us too to realize what the riddle meant. What allows us to decipher this hieroglyph is essentially the same thing that allows us to live down here.”

  “Down here?” Iruki asked baffled.

  “Air!” said Yakumo, “They mean air.”

  “Exactly! Good instincts, Yakumo,” said Sonea.

  “So the key to leave here is Air, or rather Wind,” Said Lindaro. “There’s not much we can do with air, but wind gives us more of a chance. But of course this is all just a guess, based on an inconclusive theory…” said Lindaro.

  Iruki looked at the man of faith without fully grasping his meaning.

  “We’ve also discovered the symbol of the Guardian and the symbol of the exit, but we think we have the key: the wind will guide us to the exit but we don’t know where that is. And as for the Guardian…”

  “Finding a reference to the way out is wonderful,” said Lindaro, “but finding the symbol of the Guardian scares me to death.” There was perspiration on his forehead.

  “Let’s focus on the one for the exit,” said Yakumo. “That’s the really important thing.”

  “Which one is it?” asked Iruki with interest.

  Sonea pointed at it.

  Iruki came to look closer. With all her heart she wanted to leave that underwater cave and return to the surface and her beloved plains. And at that moment, the medallion around her neck gave out its characteristic lively blue flash. The Ilenian symbol for the exit, the one Sonea had identified, lit up with an intense golden sheen as if it were liquid gold.