Silence of the Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  “Nearly half my force,” she whispered as the Ferens prepared for the ride back to Rifka. And those weren’t the only men she’d lost. Three or four had run home to their wives. The sand-dwellers had claimed two, and another dozen had been sent out to man the abandoned outposts. She guessed she had seventy spears at her side, maybe less. They were good men, but it was less than half the force she’d rode out with when she left Rifka, and it made her feel vulnerable. Immediately, she was aware of how tentative her situation had become. She had an escort with limited provisions. They would need additional foodstuffs, and soon. If the new king meant to insult Merit, he’d clearly done so. And if he wanted to humiliate her, she guessed he had done so again, but he had better show his face, or her escort might just vanish.

  In the fading light, she looked to Harwen and, unintentionally, caught sight once more of the Battered Wall. It did little to improve her mood. The wall made her think of her father and the times they’d spent beneath it. She expected some pang of grief to strike at her heart, but instead of pain she felt only a sense of hollowness: a space with no feeling—no hurt and no happiness.

  She did not even notice when the gates of the city opened.

  Riders came forth, two of them, set atop destriers. She had not supped. In fact, she could not even recall when she had last had a chance to eat or change clothes. She wore a decent gown, worthy of a regent but also caked in dust. She brushed at the dirt as the riders approached, trying to look the part of a queen when they arrived, standing erect, chin raised.

  Her tent carried the emblem of the king, the silver horns of Harkana emblazoned upon black goatskin. The riders must have caught sight of the crest because they were coming right at her, galloping at a frightful pace. Merit was eager to talk, so she strode toward the approaching soldiers, eyes fierce, teeth bared.

  “Out with it,” she said. Neither man had spoken his name.

  “The king will see you,” said the first of the two riders. He was an older man, hair white and a bit short for a Harkan, his skin a little too pale. He didn’t look like a deep-desert man. His teeth were too clean, but she followed him, gesturing for Sevin to rouse the men.

  “No guards,” said the other soldier, a clean-shaven fellow who looked to be no older than a boy, “but you can follow along behind us if you’d like.”

  Merit clenched her fists. She’d wanted a triumphal return, seventy soldiers at her back, banners raised, but she was once again denied.

  “No soldiers, none at all. That’s the king’s command, not mine,” said the older man, voice gruff. “You may enter along with your husband,” he added, as if Shenn were some kind of protection.

  “I will enter as I left the Hornring,” she said.

  “And how is that?” asked the older man, the one with the pale skin and white hair.

  “As queen regent—it is the law.”

  “Queen, eh? Well, we don’t have one of those, but you can enter all the same. Come,” said the rider as he galloped off toward the gates.

  The walk from her camp to the Blackwood Bridge was not far, but Shenn’s stumbling made for slow going and the journey seemed to last hours when it might have been minutes. They passed over the bridge and beneath the arch. They were home, but nothing felt familiar. The court was empty, a ghost yard where once there had been a thriving castle. Where were the merchants and the soldiers? Where were the proud banners and the lookouts upon the towers? Even the badgir seemed to slump, as if the wind itself had abandoned this place. It was late in the day, sunset, but surely that was no excuse. The Harwen she recalled had bustled at every hour of the day.

  The corridors of the Hornring were no different from the streets.

  The halls were quiet, empty almost—no servants rushing about their business, no soldiers or workmen of any kind. Even the mice seemed to be in hiding.

  Everything’s wrong, Merit thought, but she went along with it anyway, dread filling that hollow place in her heart as the doors to the throne room opened and she waited to see what was inside.

  11

  The lamps went out and Mered’s soldiers surrounded the Harkans, taking up positions but not advancing. They held, waiting for the ransoms to surrender themselves to the empire. No one came forward, so Admentus told the ransoms to take the night, to think things over, he said with a chuckle. Then the red soldiers encircled the exposed portions of the cistern. They blocked the Harkans from leaving through the open archways, but the backside of the cistern was shot through with pipes and passages. Thus, when Admentus billeted the red army, Ren went looking for a way to escape.

  In fact, he’d been at it all night.

  “What’s this? Tye asked. “The twelfth passage—the thirteenth?” They’d obviously lost track of the number. Not one of the corridors had led to the surface. In truth, they’d each ended in a brick wall or some other obstruction.

  “No.” Ren picked up the conversation. “I think it’s the fourteenth. Remember that narrow one?”

  “Ughhh.” Tye shook her head. Ren had tried to force his way through the slender passage but had only gotten himself stuck. It had taken the black shields an hour to free him, and time was in short supply. Nevertheless, they’d been through every imaginable sort of passageway. Some were new, others ancient. A few were dug in mud and clay, while most were set with carefully laid stones. Ren had put every last bit of his strength into the search. He wanted to find a way out before the morning came around and the soldiers in red advanced, but that was not his sole motivation. He feared that if he slowed for a moment, that if he gave up the chase, he might have to think about what Admentus said. He’d need to reckon with the truth, if it was indeed the truth: Ren was a bastard and not the true heir of Harkana. If that was the case, then he’d suffered in the priory for nothing. He’d claimed a throne that might not even belong to him. Arko made Ren his heir. He’d acknowledged him in front of the guard, but did he know Ren was a bastard?

  “It’s darker up ahead,” Tye said, breaking his chain of thought and drawing his attention back to the task at hand.

  “Is that good?” Ren asked.

  “Damned if I know.” Tye held up the tiny lamp, trying to illuminate the passage, but she was too late and Ren slammed into a wall.

  “Definitely not good,” said Ren, shaking his head, fingers rubbing at his temples.

  Tye held the guttering flame up to the wall, illuminating her face. In spite of all they’d suffered, there was still a glint of hope in her eyes, a bit of red blossoming across her pale cheeks and nose. This was the girl he’d saved from the burning ruins of the priory, the same girl he’d fought Oren Thrako to rescue. He’d once stood beneath the sun for five days, baking like a bit of bread, just to spare her the injury, and he’d do it all again. Ren wondered if she’d noticed all he’d done, if she cared.

  “These stones are freshly set.” Edric, one of the captains, interrupted Ren’s thoughts. “Someone laid them recently. The grout has only just set.” He dug at the mortar. It was hard on the surface, but when Edric poked at it with his sword, the top layer chipped off and the cement beneath was damp.

  “They’re blocking the passages,” said Ren.

  “Yes, but they’re not far ahead of us,” said Tye. “If we’d come this way first, perhaps we’d have beaten them to this tunnel, maybe…”

  “I know,” said Ren. “Maybe we wouldn’t be in this damned mess. They must’ve paid off every smuggler in Solus, bribed them to reveal their passages, making certain we’d never find our way out of here.”

  Edric grunted.

  Ren was exhausted, hungry. He hadn’t eaten, and the amber he’d swallowed was worse than foul.

  “All the fucking corridors are blocked,” said Kollen. He came upon them unexpectedly, appearing out of the darkness, beard caked in sweat.

  “How many did you find?” asked Ren. And must you always curse?

  “A measly six.”

  “We found twice that number,” Tye said, a bit proud, but not to
o haughty. After all, the passages had been blocked.

  “There could be other paths,” Ren ventured.

  “And there might be a golden stairway that leads us straight up to Tolemy’s fucking brothel, but we’re not going to find it,” Kollen said.

  “Not if we don’t try,” Ren shot back, his anger making his headache clear.

  “All we’ve done is try,” said Kollen. “It must be morning, or it soon will be. They offered us a night and we spent it. The time has come and gone and we’ve got nothing to show for it. Just a few headaches and some empty bellies. I spoke to your captain, Gneuss. His soldiers crowded into every hole they could find, but they were all blocked. He sent a dozen men to test Mered’s line. None of them returned.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Ren said.

  “Of course not, you’ve been smacking into walls. I saw the red soldiers slaughter those men,” said Kollen. “They cut them up and left them to bleed out. Gneuss had to shoot them full of arrows just to put a stop to their whimpering. Not a pretty end.”

  “Did you think it would be?” Ren asked.

  “No, and I doubt we’ll find a better one, not unless we surrender.”

  Ren shook his head. He knew what Kollen was after, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to consider their surrender until they’d exhausted every other option. He had escaped death more than once already and walked through a wall of flame. He’d done plenty, and all of it had seemed impossible right up until the moment he accomplished it.

  Hence he retraced his steps, hurrying back down the passage toward the great drum of the cistern, where the body of the kingsguard waited. There, they bided their time, some sleeping in shifts, others chewing at the last of their provisions, pissing behind rocks, or tossing their waste into the black stream. There were almost five hundred of them and they filled nearly half the space. He smelled them before he caught sight of the guard and, in the distance, he glimpsed the men in red, aligned in rows, waiting in the darkness, standing idle like tokens on a game board, ready for someone to set them in motion.

  “It must be morning,” said Tye. “I wish I’d slept.”

  “I don’t,” muttered Ren. He needed to keep the promise he’d made. Bastard or not, he’d named himself king and told every one of these men he’d find a way out of the city. He’d made this mess, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d done something to clean it up.

  “What’s happening?” Ren asked when he caught sight of the captain.

  “Happening? We’re about to be overrun by four armies, maybe five.” Gneuss grimaced. “The men in red are repositioning their soldiers and we’re up to something similar. Our boys slept in shifts while my captains worked up a defense. I’ve got most of the men in place for the counterattack. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

  “It’s morning—isn’t it?” Ren asked.

  “I’ve got no way to know the hour, but the red army started reshuffling their troops a while back, so I guessed it was time,” Gneuss said. There was something bitter in his voice. Maybe it was anger or just some last bit of defiance. “Take a look,” he said. “Seems they have a present for the men.”

  In the distance, soldiers upended great sacks. Rats scurried in every direction, but Mered’s men had already blocked most of the ways. They used torches to corral the rats, to send them scampering toward the archways of the cistern. The patter of a thousand little feet made tiny echoes in the dark.

  “Back,” said Ren, but Gneuss wouldn’t budge. He refused to even look down at the things.

  “I’ve eaten rat for midday meal. If this is the worst they can offer, we might as well have us a snack.” Gneuss stood tall, but when the rats came he seemed to change his mind. “In rows,” he told his soldiers.

  The men made a wall with their shields. They tried to hold back the creatures, but their armor wasn’t meant to repel rodents. The rats scurried over the soldiers, tangling themselves in the men’s cloaks, looking for food or a bit of flesh to snack upon.

  “They must have emptied the stores of every haruspex in the city,” said Gneuss, explaining where all the rats had come from and why they seemed particularly hungry.

  “What is this?” asked Tye, who had clasped a hand to her mouth.

  “They want to make certain that your lot surrenders. You didn’t come when they first called, so they’re going to soften you up a bit before they make their second offer,” said Gneuss, and again his voice was tinged with bitterness. Gneuss knew what waited for his men, or maybe he’d just guessed at it.

  “Why don’t they just attack?” Tye asked, hand still clasped to her mouth, eyes filled with disgust.

  “It’s damned obvious—isn’t it?” Gneuss asked. “They’ve got the numbers, but they want to keep you folk alive. If they sent a thousand swords scurrying into this bowl there’d be no way to know a ransom from a soldier.”

  “I’m what’s keeping you alive?” asked Ren.

  “You royal brats are doing a fine job of protecting us. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will last. Sooner or later, when they’ve toyed with us for a bit, they’re going to ask for you folk to turn yourselves over.”

  “That’s when we fight,” said Ren.

  “That is when my men fight.”

  “Your men?” asked Ren. Was he just a bastard? Had he lost his authority? Every bit of him bristled at the suggestion.

  Gneuss must have seen the confusion on Ren’s face. “These are your men, but we all know that each of you will be a whole lot safer if you hand yourself over to the red army. The kingsguard lives to protect the king, but I’m not sure we can protect anyone down here. Bastard or not, Ren, you should go. This won’t end well.”

  “I’d rather it didn’t end at all. I made a promise to get us out of here. I mean to keep it. Gneuss, you must have something to live for. A wife, anything?”

  The captain laughed. “No one gives a damn about me. I’m second to Asher Hacal, your father’s captain.”

  “The king?” asked Ren, his interested piqued. He knew so little about his father. The mere mention of him made Ren yearn to know more about the man. “You knew him?”

  “I did. We hunted together and killed. I stood with him against the outlanders. I swore an oath to protect your father, but if you ask me, words are just shit. I fought alongside the man and more than once I saw the king take a blow just to protect one of his own.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “You want to know about me? Damn, even your father didn’t care where I came from. Mother died giving birth to me. Lost my father when the men from Solus came to take my older brother.”

  “He was one of the tributes?” Ren asked.

  Gneuss grunted. “He died fighting the soldiers. They left my brother, but Erich wasted away a year later. His skin turned black and he vomited till there was nothing left of him. He might have lived if my father let the soldiers take him. They say the servants in Solus eat better than most commoners in Harkana. I was left with no family, so I turned to thieving. I was good at it too. I almost lifted a dagger off the king’s belt, but I wasn’t that good. Your father caught me by the hand and shoved me to the ground, said I’d done a decent job of robbing him, but not a good enough one. He did note that I was fast, faster than most of his men, so he gave me a choice. He could lop off my hand right there and then, in the market, or I could pledge my service to him and join his soldiers.” Gneuss held up his hand, indicating that he had chosen the latter.

  “You’re a one-eyed thief,” Ren said.

  “And you’re a bastard. Aren’t we a lovely couple? Look ahead and stop asking your damned questions.”

  In the darkness beyond, there was movement. A black thing, sheathed in glimmering fur, leapt at the Harkan shields. The creature tore at one soldier’s throat, nearly parting the head from the torso, and when a second man stabbed at the thing, it leapt on him and mauled his face, licking up the blood and looking for more.

  “W
hat is that?” asked Tye.

  Ren didn’t know what it was, but he worried for Adin. If that thing came upon him, prone and defenseless, he was a dead man. Fearing what might happen next, Ren moved between the creature and his friend, scrambling as he went, trying to find a weapon. “Swords,” he said. “Find swords.” He set eyes on the red blade he’d stolen in the garden, but Tye screamed before he could snatch it up. Ren spun, thinking she’d been mauled, but Tye had only just caught sight of the beast as it flashed in the torchlight.

  “A panther,” she said. “Never seen one, but I think—”

  “No,” said Ren. “It’s something else, see those horns?” Like an addax, the creature had a pair of tall and curling horns. Its fur was black, but beneath that pelt there were hints of something shiny and scale-like.

  “It’s nothing I’ve ever seen or heard of,” said Kollen. “A monster.”

  “There are no monsters, just men and beasts,” said Gneuss. “The darkness plays tricks on your eyes. As long as it bleeds we’ll kill it,” he said, but his words held little conviction. Worse yet, Ren saw no blood on the thing. The men struck it with sword and ax. One after another they dealt what looked like mortal wounds, but the creature was undeterred, undamaged even, and it was coming toward them.

  Four or five men thrust their spears at it. One went clear through the gut, coming out the other side and striking the stones. Two more went elbow-deep into its scaly hide.

  “It’s done,” said Tye, but Kollen was already shaking his head, cursing. The whole thing ought to have been over, but it wasn’t. The creature rolled, breaking off the spears that poked from its back before continuing its attack, undaunted, the broken shafts protruding from its black fur as it bounded toward the ransoms.

  “It’s death itself, Horu in disguise,” cried Kollen as the creature leapt at them. It might have struck him, but one of the men managed to knock it aside with his shield.

  Gneuss’s voice boomed in the chamber, calling the men to his side. The kingsguard surrounded the nameless terror, but the creature flailed about, its tail striking them like a whip made of iron, cutting shields and rending limbs. Once more, it cleared a path to the ransoms. It came charging straight at them and Ren found himself standing face-to-face with the beast. It’s slitlike eyes fell on him, but they were not the hungry eyes of a predator. The creature looked him up and down. Then, almost inexplicably, it retreated.