The man who sat behind the room’s lone table matched the décor perfectly. General Oranhur was a short man, broad of shoulder and perhaps a bit weighty around the middle. His square jaw was clean shaven, showing off pockmarks that spoke of a particularly nasty case of acne in his younger years. He wore a shirt of rich cotton and trousers that hugged his immense legs, over which was thrown a red and green tartan cloak.
“So you’re the girl my guard told me about,” he said in a voice, surprisingly soft yet still possessed of depth, like that of a good baritone. “The one who walked in off the southern plains.” He looked her up and down and pushed aside a set of ledgers he had been studying. “He said you escaped from a Cutaran camp.” He sounded suspicious. “I didn’t believe him, but from the state of you… well, now I’m not so sure.”
“My name is Kareen Stevalen,” she said. “Daughter of Thuman Stevalen of Kilri.” She remembered herself and curtsied.
“The rebel.” Kareen bit her lip. She didn’t like mentioning her family name for this very reason, but regardless, she was still a Peer of the Empire, and being a Peer had its benefits, rebel or not.
“My father never fought-”
His upraised hand halted her in her tracks. “I understand. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing here.” He sighed. “You have to understand, I fought at the Battle of the Telu Ford, was one of the commanders, in fact.”
She understood fully. The Autumn Rebellion had been short, less than eighty days in all, thus the name, and had consisted of only two major battles. The first was at Telu Ford, on the border with Whitestone. There, a small Whitestone contingent had been routed by the army of High Lord Pedrin Komay. The second, was the famed and disastrous Battle of Anton. Komay, now calling himself King, had been slaughtered along with half his army while trying to make a push towards the Imperial capital at Akiv.
While she had never believed in the ideals of the rebellion—Blessed Tirrak, she had been nine at the time—or the poisonous words of the book that had been its catalyst, by Kareen’s reckoning, Oranhur had received his vengeance ten times over on the fields of Anton. “I am sorry for what happened that day,” she said. “I’ve heard the stories.”
The general picked up a mug of something steaming and took a sip. “It can’t be helped. Every time I meet a Kilrian, I am reminded of the Rebellion. But I imagine those hours will haunt me until the day I make my final trip to the Sea Above.” He leaned forward in his chair, signaling that that particular line of conversation was closed. “So, is it true you walked off the plains?”
“Yes, general. As your guard likely told you, I was captured by the Cutarans along with a few men of Sir Livran’s retinue.”
“The Kirov boy?” Oranhur asked, rising slightly in his seat. “Is he with you? If he’s here, I’d like to speak with him.”
She shook her head. She tried to say the words. He’s dead, but they wouldn’t come. She felt herself beginning to tear up and wiped vigorously at her eyes. She wouldn’t act like a foolish girl in front of this man. Not after what she had seen, what she had done to get here.
“He’s dead?” Oranhur asked. His words were careful and measured, as if he was afraid the wrong phrase might crack her like a china doll.
“Yes,” she finally managed to squeeze out. “Killed by a chieftain named Xisa.”
She finally managed to look the general in the eye again and was frightened by what she saw in his dark pupils. He looked disturbed by the news, not of Livran’s death, but of who had killed him. He knew Xisa’s name, and if his expression was anything to go by, feared it as much as Kareen herself.
“And you were captured behind our lines?” he took a piece of paper from the stack on his desk and began to scribble down line after line of script.
“Yes. They ambushed our party during halflight and took me, Livran, and some of his soldiers back to their camp.”
“That’s what I have a difficulty believing,” he said, not looking up from his writing. “The Cutarans normally kill the prisoners that they take. We find them sometimes, heads taken off, left for the vultures. What made you different?”
He’s been on campaign too long, Kareen thought. No man with a decent bearing would speak to a woman of beheadings and the work of carrion birds. It wouldn’t be proper. Some noble ladies would have been offended by the way Oranhur spoke. Kareen instead found it refreshing. It was good to have someone other than Livran speak plainly to her for once in her life.
“They want the knowledge to make steel,” Kareen replied.
Oranhur’s quill scratched to a halt. He glanced up at her. “Steel? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” she replied, as coolly as she could manage.
“We always wondered why they used bronze. It never made sense, with the Fanalkiri so close. From what we can tell, they’ve been forging steel for as long as we have.”
“Whatever the reason, they don’t have it. I didn’t see a single piece of iron the entire time I was held captive. Even their chieftain uses a sword cast from bronze.”
“And this chieftain,” Oranhur said, his voice rising in intensity. “Are you sure her name was Xisa?”
“That’s what she said.” Kareen gritted her teeth and looked away for a moment, gathering herself. Now came the hard part, the part she wasn’t looking forward to, the part that would decide whether or not she was trusted. “General, you have to understand: she had seven thousand warriors at her back when I escaped. She may have more now, I can’t be sure, but this is something you have to take seriously.”
Oranhur shook his head. “That would be the largest force they have assembled since the beginning of the war. Perhaps the largest force they have ever assembled.”
“General? If you don’t mind me asking, how many men do you have here?”
“A little over four thousand. More than enough to protect His Highness, at least that’s what I first thought. Now, after what you’ve said, I can’t be sure.” He got to his feet with surprising speed for a man of his size and headed towards the tent flap. “The Emperor has to hear of this.”
“The Emperor!?” Kareen cried, her heart leaping into her throat. “I can’t…” she looked down at the state of her clothing, sweat stained and covered with several days’ worth of dirt. And her smell… she must have reeked like a barnyard to someone whose nose hadn’t gone completely blind. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
Oranhur gave her a serious look. “Emperor Hadan has been campaigning for four hundred years, girl. He is well aware of what people who’ve been on the road look and smell like, I assure you.”
Kareen swallowed hard, trying to come up with another excuse for why she couldn’t appear before the Hadan. But they all sounded petulant in the face of the events that had transpired over the past days. She had to do this, had to stand face to face with Hadan. For the good of the Empire, for the memory of Livran, she would do it.
Oranhur opened the tent flap and let her through. He gave a command to his guard in the Whitestone language and led her across the wide path that ran between his command tent and the Emperor’s compound. Behind the hedgehog of defenses, barely visible, she thought she could make out a complex of interconnected tents, illuminated by the light of a dozen braziers.
The Highlanders were watching her with unreadable expressions from the commanding positions of their watchtowers. She shivered and tried to ignore their stares, keeping her eyes focused on the path ahead. Behind the first line of defense were even more guards, armed in a more modern style than their comrades. They wore brown cloaks over light plate armor and carried swords and long daggers at their belts. This was a side of the Highlanders that was rarely seen by outsiders. The deadly agents of the Emperor, in all their glory.
“Who is this?” one of the cloaked men demanded in a hissing voice, intercepting them before they could reach the tent entrance. His hands rested naturally, almost l
azily, on the hilt of his sword and dagger, but Kareen knew that he would cut her down at a moment’s notice, if provoked.
He pulled back the hood of his cloak to get a better look at her. Kareen was shocked to see that his face bore the tell-tale milky skin and black hair of a Kilrian. With the name Highlander, she had assumed that the warriors would all be Whitestone natives. Clearly, she had been wrong in that assertion.
“One of my kinsmen,” he observed, pulling his hood back over his head.
“Her name is Kareen Stevalen,” Oranhur replied.
“As in Thuman Stevalen, the rebel?”
Kareen wanted to scream. Was this all she would be remembered for in life—the foolish decisions of her father? “I…” she nearly faltered, cleared her throat, and started again. “I have important information for Emperor Hadan.”
“His Highness is meeting with his advisors at the moment. It would be best if he was not—”
“The meeting can wait.” It was Oranhur’s turn to speak. “We could have seven thousand Cutarans bearing down on us in a matter of days. Do you really want to be the one who stood in the way of the Emperor hearing the news?”
The man’s expression darkened beneath the shadow of his hood. “Are you threatening me, Oranhur?”
“No,” the burly general countered. “I’m imploring you. We must speak with him!”
The Highlander clicked his tongue and glanced back towards the tents behind him. He seemed to be considering something. The value of his own skin, perhaps, if he barged into the Emperor’s meeting unannounced. “Fine,” he finally replied, the casual nonchalance fled from his voice. “But I won’t be held responsible for this, you understand?” He stalked off towards the entrance to the darkened tent like some skulking cat.
“The bastards think they own the place,” Oranhur whispered to her. “Only the Emperor can give them, and they like to hold that fact over all our heads.”
Kareen nodded a silent reply. The Highlanders, loyal only to the Emperor—she had always dreamed of seeing them. They were so… disappointing. She had expected warriors out of legend, not this ragtag collection of rangy killers before her. But perhaps that was what had made them so deadly. Behind the armor, behind the formal cloaks, they were all murderers. Loyal murderers granted, but murderers all the same. Livran had been honorable—just the kind of man she would have once expected to guard the ruler of two continents. Where had all that honor gotten him in the end? Perhaps Hadan had the right of it, hiring men and women like these to watch his back.
The dark-haired Highlander returned a moment later, trailed by an older woman in the same brown cloak. Her hood was left pulled back, revealing a shock of short red hair, graying at the temples. Hard blue eyes stared out from sunken sockets, piercing everything they looked upon, with Kareen and Oranhur seeming to receive the brunt of that gaze.
“What is this, Argin?” Oranhur asked the woman. Kareen could see the general’s face tighten. “More security?”
“You are free to have your meeting, Oranhur. Emperor Hadan has requested you personally. The girl, on the other hand, will come with me.”
Oranhur stiffened. “Why?”
“His Highness doesn’t need a why, General. You should know that by now.” She looked his way, and seeing his expression, gave a weary sigh. “If you must know, he fears her rebel heritage. It is hard to trust the Kilrians after what they did to the Empire. You, of all people, should know that.”
Kareen couldn’t stop herself. Anger boiled up inside her, uncontrollable. She’d had enough of this… this bullshit! “You trust that Kilrian well enough!” She motioned to the Highlander standing beside Argin.
“He has been properly conditioned,” she replied easily, seemingly unfazed by Kareen’s outburst.
“My father never fought your people! He never so much as raised his hand against the Emperor!” Blessed Tirrak! She wanted to punch this woman, to pull back her fist and break the bitch’s nose in front of all her comrades! Argin was putting the life of the man she was sworn to protect in danger, and she didn’t even know it.
“And for that, his Highness let him live. It was a kindness. A rare thing. He doesn’t often show mercy.”
“I will vouch for her,” Oranhur put forward before Kareen could continue on with her tirade. She shot a look his way, shocked. He had hardly known her for half-an-hour and he was already defending her against one of Hadan’s own?
“Then you betray your people,” Argin told him. She gave Kareen another disdainful glare.
“Argin.” The general paused for a breath. “She isn’t a rebel. And she has seen things that no other Corrossan has before. Knows things that no one else does. As much as I hate the Kilrians and the Vashavans for what they did, it has no bearing on this. Surely you can see that?”
Kareen smiled for the first time in what felt like an age. There had been an insult in what Oranhur had said, but that same insult had been used in her defense. Perhaps she had one friend in this camp after all.
“Fine,” Argin spat. “But I’ll be there with her. I don’t want this little chit getting any ideas.”
“What are you afraid of? Do you think she’s some kind of assassin?” The general motioned to Kareen’s clothes, her dirty face, and the state of her hair.
“I assume everyone is an assassin, Oranhur. It makes my job that much easier.” Argin turned and motioned for them to follow her into the tent. Oranhur looked Kareen’s way and gave a nod. It was time to step into the belly of the beast. Time to meet Emperor Hadan.
Nineteen:
Grith
“It makes a sick kind of sense,” Tain said when Grith had finished his story. “This Kret could become a thorn in my side, our sides if we don’t keep our eyes open.” He lounged on a decorative rock, just outside the door to Irrin’s bedroom. The sun had risen an hour ago, but the High Lord was still being tended to by his servants. “I’ll need to tell Irrin.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Grith asked. He’d been pacing the whole morning. He’d hoped it might get rid of some of his anxiety, but if anything, the constant motion had served only to strengthen his sense of unease. “Uche is a close friend. What if Irrin tells him that Kret is looking to kill you? It could create a rift between them and put us all in danger.”
“Perhaps…” Tain considered. “We’ll keep it between us for now, and deal with it when it becomes a problem. He’s after me and not the High Lord, after all.”
Grith nodded his agreement and finally stopped his pacing. “Tain, I have to ask.” Tain glanced up for long enough to meet his stare. “Is everything he said true? About you running away and all.”
Tain nodded, the motion seeming to cause him real pain. “I trained for three years at El’kabal. Passed through the ranks faster than anyone the masters had ever seen. I think they knew I was a Delver even when I didn’t. I was fast and strong and dedicated and all the things they wanted to see.” He shrugged. “Except maybe the piety. I was never much for sitting down and praying to pagan gods. But it wasn’t piety that held me back, it was skill.”
“In the weeks leading up to my final tests, I knew that I didn’t have what it took. Most of the novices took a decade or more to get where I had, all in a third the time. I lacked their finesse, the instincts they had built up over all those years. I knew that I would fail, and that the masters would put me out on my ass at the temple door. I hated the thought of it, but I think by the end I’d come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to make the final cut.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, one day, one of the masters asked me to deliver a ledger to the Abbot’s chambers. They were deep within the temple. Most of the time, those areas were off limits to the newer students. It was further in than I’d ever been.”
“While I was carrying the message, I must have gotten lost, because I came to a hall, this massive space with great co
lumns supporting the ceiling.” He held up his hands for effect. “I should have known what it was from the second I stepped inside.” Tain paused for a moment, looking out at the multitude of flowers and crawling vines that snaked their way through the garden’s many beds. He wore a blank, slightly disturbed expression. Whatever he had found, deep within the temple… it still haunted him.
“There were markers along the walls, dozens maybe hundreds. I can’t remember the exact number. No names, no way to identify them, but I knew who they were. Every one of the them I passed had the same message carved on it, over and over: ‘In the eternity of the heavens, they were not worthy of your light.’ It was a prayer of death.” He bit his lip. “They were the ones who failed. The ones who couldn’t pass the test.”
Grith grimaced. “Spirits… why not just let them go?”
“Think about it like you’re the leader of an order of monks who all make a living plying their trade as mercenaries. You couldn’t have men running around, advertising themselves as El’kabal trained when they had failed their final test. They would be an embarrassment to the temple, to everything you had worked for.” Tain gave a humorless chuckle. “Best to sweep your mistakes under the rug and pretend like they never happened in the first place.”
“And after that, you ran away?” Grith thought he could understand Tain’s reasons for fleeing the temple now. He was no coward. Spirits, he had found a mausoleum full of dead children!
“That night, I delivered the ledger to the Abbot as I had been ordered, packed my things, and stole a sword.” He patted the blade at his belt. “And I simply… ran out the front gate. I managed to avoid the watchmen the masters kept posted and made it into the desert. If I hadn’t been a Delver I likely would have died of thirst before I reached civilization. I think that was why they didn’t send men after me. They would have the desert do the dirty work for them, and let the sand and carrion birds hide the evidence.”
The Argument of Empires Page 27
