by Dan Decker
The well-maintained blade hung in the air while Helam and Elaire stared into each other’s eyes. Her calmness at war with his rage.
At last, he lowered the sword and looked around at his soldiers, making eye contact wherever possible. “Today we have discovered an infection. We have fought this sickness before but it continues to come back. With the Hunwei so close we have no choice. There is no place for mercy. The Kopal die today.” His order was met with silence. Several of his men exchanged looks, but most of them stiffened their faces. “Start with that one.”
He pointed at a man. The figure was brought forward, pushed to his knees and his hood was lowered. After asking if the man had any last words, Helam performed the first execution himself.
Several of the soldiers covered their mouths but all looked on. Nelion had witnessed executions before while out on patrol. It had been a point of responsibility for all Radim soldiers to not avert their eyes. As a matter of habit, Nelion watched as well. On the one hand, she was glad to see the Kopal receiving their due and while the smell of blood filling the room sickened her, she could see Helam’s perspective. The Kopal were dangerous, as she’d experienced firsthand tonight. They were a rot that needed to be removed.
But Nelion also recognized that Helam’s actions were illegal unless the building the Kopal had taken her to was on the Paroke base, something she very much doubted. The way his men had been exchanging looks was enough to settle that question. Even if they’d been on base, the custom was to turn issues over to the Rarbon Council if the people in question weren’t soldiers.
As far as Nelion knew, Helam’s actions were unprecedented. The Rarbon Council might give him an award or he could be court-martialed and hung. She didn’t follow politics enough to know which way it would go.
Towards the end of the executions, several of the soldiers approached Nelion and cut the ropes with which she was bound to the chair and helped her to stand up. One covered the cuts on her arm with a handkerchief. They avoided making eye contact as they rescued her. It appeared that some weren’t on board with what Helam was doing here, even if they weren’t voicing dissent.
There were a few more scuffles as some of the Kopal tried to escape, but their attempts were stamped down. The only people left alive after several minutes had passed were Elaire, Nelion, Helam, and the Paroke soldiers.
At first, Helam didn’t take notice of Nelion, and they were about to leave when one of his soldiers asked what they should do with her. She could have skinned the man. She’d been planning to slip away in the commotion of their exit. The last thing she wanted to do was to try to convince a wounded angry general to leave her alive.
Helam regarded her with a slight frown, he’d calmed down but there was still murder in his eyes. She could see forming on his face the order to kill her as well. Her pulse raced as she tried to think of something to say to convince Helam to let her go. She could promise to not tell about the executions.
No, that would be coming from a position of weakness. That wouldn’t work. As he opened his mouth, Nelion spoke up.
“General. Thank you for rescuing me.” Nelion inwardly cringed at her choice of words. It ate at her that she’d needed to be rescued in the first place, but gratitude could be a powerful asset and she didn’t regret her word choice, just the fact that she was in a position where she had to say them. She needed to frame the conversation correctly to have a chance of surviving. “The Kopal must be eradicated and you should be commended for taking quick and decisive action.”
Helam looked through Nelion, lost somewhere she couldn’t see. He absently wiped his hand across his face, leaving behind a smudge of blood. Nelion repressed a shudder when several droplets fell on his shirt. The impassive face for which he was known once again kept his emotions hidden beneath the surface. She couldn’t tell if she was getting through to him or not.
“Bring her with us. We’ll release her when this is all over.”
Nelion heaved a quiet sigh of relief as Helam turned his back to her and left the room without looking again at his wife.
Chapter 14
The Kopal were traitors, but their execution was illegal. Most of the carnage had happened in the spacious entryway of the second floor room and Adar had to watch where he walked to avoid stepping in blood or on a hand or foot.
The Kopal masks had been stomped to pieces and lay beside the bodies of their owners. A few, who appeared to have died fighting, still had hoods covering their heads, but their masks were broken as well. Thirteen were dead from the execution and it looked like the others had died when Helam and his men had first taken the room.
The smell of blood tickled Adar’s nose, he noticed that several of his soldiers looked like they were trying to keep down their dinner; though, considering the time, it had been hours since any of them had eaten.
Adar wasn’t a stranger to blood, but it never got any easier, particularly when there were women among the dead. If the bandits he’d apprehended earlier had been made up of women, he would have had a more difficult time putting them to death. If he would have known the gender of the Kopal woman he’d killed, he wouldn’t have acted so quickly.
It didn’t matter who he killed, he would afterward stew about the events leading up to the death, wondering what he could have done to get a different outcome. Life was a fragile thing and he hated that he had been responsible for taking it away so often, but sometimes, it was the right option.
Adar and his men had been leaving the Napael base when Maual had sent another runner to bring them here. The soldier hadn’t known what Helam and his men were up to and if the runner would have come with news of this, Adar would have left sooner and pushed harder.
It was for the best that Adar had come to this after the fact. A fight between Napael and Paroke soldiers was becoming a real possibility, now that he knew that Helam’s current state of mind was in a place where he could do something like this. If Adar had shown up in the middle of the executions, Helam would have attacked without preamble.
The last thing Adar needed right now was for the Radim armies to have further reason to distrust one another, fighting between the armies would be a major step backwards. He needed to restore their sense of purpose and discipline.
The thought of Radim soldiers fighting one another in the streets of Rarbon made him shudder.
If it came to that, Adar would make certain that Helam didn’t live through the experience.
Adar wanted to avoid a fight, but he doubted now that he could. A confrontation was coming, he could feel it. With the way Helam had acted earlier this evening and the execution of the Kopal, it was just a matter of time. The best thing to do would be to choose it on his own terms.
He looked around as he mulled over this last thought. The Kopal had picked a strange room to interrogate Nelion. It was large, with more than thirty tables that could sit ten people apiece. Adar wasn’t certain what the room was used for, but it reminded him of a small ballroom, only without a high ceiling and not as well furnished. He supposed it could be a general meeting room of some sort, but it was unusual to find such a place outside of an army base, the Council chambers, or the Palace.
While most of the chairs rested upside down on the tables, one had been set upright on the floor. That chair had pieces of rope around it as if somebody had been held captive and then cut loose.
Adar growled under his breath when he spotted blood underneath the rope. An image of Nelion tied to the chair came to mind, her face scrunched up in pain.
“Tell me again what you saw,” Adar said to Maual who had come to give a report of what he had observed. He’d left his other men to keep an eye on what Helam is doing.
Tere frowned and stood beside Maual, taking in the scene without comment. He was probably thinking that none of this would have happened if Adar had reported Helam’s behavior years ago. Tere didn’t see the whole picture. If Adar had done that, things wouldn’t have happened how Tere thought.
“Well, Sir
,” Maual said, the disrespect in his tone hadn’t returned, something that Adar would have given more thought to if he wouldn’t have been in a room surrounded by a bunch of corpses whose bodies were still warm. “We followed Helam and his men here. They didn’t hesitate before they entered the building. They knew what they were doing.”
Maual went on to give him a description of what had overheard. At one point, Helam had been yelling, but Maual hadn’t gotten close enough to make out any of the words. After that, there had been silence punctuated by the sounds of the executions. By the time Maual had figured out what was happening, it was over.
“When they left,” Maual said. “Several of Helam’s soldiers looked ashamed but they were the minority.”
Tere folded his arms. “You’re certain Helam had his wife and another woman captive?”
“Yes, Sir. It’s hard to say if the other was under arrest. She wasn’t tied up the way Helam’s wife was, but I don’t think she had the option to leave. She was followed by several men who were keeping an eye on her.”
As Adar surveyed the room, dozens of questions about the scene, Helam, Elaire, and Nelion danced around his head. He didn’t have any doubt about what had happened here—there had been a fight and the losers had been executed—but that didn’t explain why it had happened. Part of him wanted to assume that Helam was a member of the Kopal, but that didn’t line up with what he saw here. Everything pointed to Elaire being a member of that organization instead.
“Why would Helam rescue the scribe only to take her captive himself?” Tere asked. “She’s gotta be Kopal as well.”
Adar shook his head. “A possibility, but it’s remote. Nelion killed one of the Kopal earlier.” It wasn’t from Nelion that he had learned that little tidbit. Semal had mentioned it as if Adar had already known.
“So did Helam,” Tere said.
“Helam will kill for his own purposes,” Adar said. “She seemed like a straight forward woman.”
Tere stepped closer to Adar and whispered so that Maual couldn’t hear. “Women can be hard to read, especially if they’re attractive.”
Adar felt the blood rush to his ears and hoped that nobody noticed. He wouldn’t deny that Nelion was pretty. “She didn’t seem the type.” Adar didn’t bother to whisper back. Tere shook his head but kept silent.
Nelion hadn’t spoken much during Adar’s confrontation with Helam. Helam had looked at her a couple of times, but never addressed her. That was far too little to read into. Until he had something more to go on, Adar would believe that Nelion had been kidnapped by the Kopal and then taken captive by Helam.
“Elaire’s capture is the critical piece of information,” Adar said. “Right after Helam’s personal guard had been hit by an arrow, he muttered something that I couldn’t make out. I did catch the word boundaries.”
Helam had subsequently given an order that seemed to be related to the situation. Why had Tymy been ordered to get an update from Hanri right after the incident? Adar had asked around his men and learned that there was a man named Hanri Tecomsa who was the captain of Helam’s personal guard.
It could have been another coincidence. Or the arrow and order could be connected in some way.
“If Elaire was Kopal,” Maual said, breaking into Adar’s thoughts, “and Helam had known about it, he could have been protecting her.
Adar shook his head.
“The boundaries comment implies something more than just knowing about it,” Tere said. “They had an agreement. We need to know now if the pact was between Helam and the Kopal or just his wife.”
“Helam could be protecting them in exchange for their help in causing a shift in the government,” Adar said.
Tere snorted. “It hasn’t been much of a secret that Helam would be happy change things, especially when it comes to selecting the next Ghar.”
“This could also explain Helam’s connection to the bandits,” Adar said. “He’s orchestrating the attacks to sow chaos and doubt about the current government and then when things get dire, he’ll sweep in to defeat the bandits and become a prime candidate for becoming Ghar. Something that would be possible with both Abel and me out of the way.”
Maual made a face when Adar had mentioned Abel’s name. At first, Adar thought it was because Maual didn’t like Abel either, but then he realized it must have been because Adar had left off the honorific Rahar. He would have to be more careful, few people knew how Adar felt about his father and he wished to keep it that way. He wouldn’t have made such a mistake on a normal day, but the fatigue must have been getting to him.
“Helam is over the edge,” Adar said. “If Molach is mixed up in all this too, that could explain why.” Adar would get somebody close to Molach to determine if the man was wounded or not. As a precaution, he’d make sure to investigate the other men he suspected as well.
“Sir,” Maual said, “I best be going. I need to catch up to my men.”
Adar nodded, as Maual left he wondered how Maual would be able to find his men if he hadn’t known where Helam was going. Perhaps Maual was assuming that Helam would return to the Paroke base. Adar wasn’t so sure.
“If there had been a compromise between Elaire and Helam,” Tere said. “It could have been an agreement of tolerance, not protection.”
“That could explain some things.” Adar had thought that Helam had started keeping guards because of the tension between Helam and himself, but maybe the timing coincided instead with the discovery of his wife’s affiliation with the Kopal. “It could also be that she was breaking from the script. My guess is that Molach was sent by Helam to take care of Nelion. That would also explain why Helam took her captive, but all this supposition doesn’t matter until we know more. I’m more concerned about what to do now. If he’s illegally executing people in the city, we’re in a dangerous position.”
Tere lowered his voice. “I’d be careful with that line of reasoning. This is the second execution within the last twelve hours.” Tere held up his hands when Adar shot him a glare. “I’m not saying that there aren’t some differences, but I won’t be the only one to draw the same comparison. You know it. The Rahar will use this to discredit you. Not openly, of course, but privately he’ll say that you’ve become dangerous and gone rogue. He’ll point to Helam as evidence of that.”
Adar stared into the face of his friend, trying to discern Tere’s thoughts. There were several big distinctions between the two executions. Adar had gone up against custom, not the law, and the people he’d executed had been murderers, not kidnappers. Regardless of custom, it was Adar’s responsibility to ensure peace and order in the Napael territory. But Tere did have a point. In light of what Helam had done, Abel would use this to discredit him.
Adar couldn’t afford to dwell on that now. Politics would have to be dealt with later.
Helam was taking risks where he was normally cautious, something that he didn’t do often, but the scar on Adar’s chest was evidence of what happened when Helam’s passion got the better of him. If Helam had felt it necessary to execute people in the middle of the city, was there anything that he wouldn’t do?
Adar picked a man—another young soldier whose name he didn’t know, he’d have to learn it later—who looked like he could move fast. “Run to the palace and inform Abel’s guard that I have reason to believe there may be an attempt on the Rahar’s life tonight. Tell them to increase their forces.” The lad nodded his head and took off without a word.
Chapter 15
The heat of the day had dissipated and the night’s chill was making it hard for Nelion to keep her teeth from chattering. It wasn’t just the cold, but the loss of blood and the injuries she’d received during her interrogation added to her condition. Her face felt like there wasn’t a place without a bruise and her lower lip was swollen. Her upper lip was puffy as well, but in comparison to the other, it felt normal.
After examining the three wounds on her arm, she had wrapped around it a handkerchief from one of the s
oldiers who was keeping an eye on her. Helam had assigned two men to that task and they had taken up position behind her and were whispering. As luck would have it, her words to Helam had apparently had the effect of him not appearing to worry too much about her. She had not been bound with rope and was located near the back of the group.
She curled her hand into a fist. The cuts on her arm weren’t deep, though she would be inclined to wear long sleeve shirts more often if the scars didn’t heal well. At least they hadn’t broken any bones or done something that would have left her impaired.
She wished that she had skipped going to the Paroke archives when she had realized that her mother had already made her late. Then she could have been home in her bed, blissfully and ignorantly asleep.
Elaire was ahead of her, walking with her back straight and her head forward. While Nelion didn't take joy in seeing somebody tied up, she wouldn't have minded an opportunity to give back to Elaire a little of what she'd suffered at the woman's hands.
Nelion put the thoughts from her mind, dwelling on what had been done to her or what she could have done different, wasn't going to help her find a way out of the present situation.
It wasn’t long before Nelion realized that Helam and his men weren’t heading back to the Paroke army base.
Helam’s activities for the night were not over yet. She believed he was going to hold her until she could no longer affect his plan or until he escaped the city, which made it all the more urgent for her to get away. He needed to be stopped.
As they moved along the dark roads and through patches lit by moonlight, she tried to get an accurate idea of how many men Helam had with him but kept losing count when they plunged back into shadow again. She guessed there were more than forty, but she couldn’t be certain. If she could find somebody to stop Helam, it would hopefully be good enough to go on.
