The Blasted Lands

by James A. Moore

  “You need hide.”

  “Hide?”

  “You killed Pra-Moresh. You took their fur for your own. The skin of the beasts is good, touch leather. A little and you can tie it. Or better still, you could use metal wire.” Her fingers touched the edges where the two pieces joined and she ran a line of imaginary wire, showing him how she would secure the two segments.

  Andover nodded again and then rolled the iron rings between his thumb and forefinger. They were just the right size to wedge into the obsidian and lock the parts together. “I think maybe the gods have plans for me and though they may not speak as clearly to me as they do to you, the Daxar Taalor are still telling me things.”

  The rings locked into the socket of the obsidian blade, above and below. Once in place the blade that had wobbled was properly secured.

  Delil squatted and watched as he worked the metal and the volcanic substances together. She spoke very softly. “Never have I seen the like.”

  “What? An axe?”

  “No,” she responded. “Two gods working together on one weapon.”

  That was all she said on the matter. When she stood again she started walking, moving down the path away from where they had already been and moving deeper into the valley.

  Without another word Andover followed her. There were places to go and according to her they were running out of time.

  “What did Wrommish tell you, Delil?”

  “That we must visit each of the mountains before the time comes to leave the valley.”

  “What? I thought I was supposed to stay here with the Sa’ba Taalor.”

  “No, you are supposed to stay with my people, but you are not supposed to stay in this valley. We are not staying in the valley forever. It has almost served its purpose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what I say, Andover.” She was growing tired of his questions and so he shut his mouth. He would wait a while for more answers. Still, he looked around as they continued walking and wondered why the people would leave.

  And, of course, he wondered where they would go. There seemed only one possible answer and he found that answer lay uneasy within him.

  ***

  The streets in Tyrne were crowded with people and supplies. Many of the people looked shocked to find themselves on the streets and moving away from their homes, but more looked angered by the idea.

  At first when the announcement came that the Empress would be leaving Tyrne and heading for Old Canhoon and there was shock and disappointment. Several times gatherings of citizens attempted to reach the palace and ask their new ruler to change her mind, but they were turned back. Surprise was the usual response to that. Pathra Krous had almost always managed to find time for concerned citizens of the city. Pathra Krous was well thought of and had been a boon to Tyrne.

  And now his replacement came along and changed everything without warning. At first it was just the increased military strength in the city, which, after the murder of the Emperor most people could understand. Then came the decision to leave Tyrne. And then, oh, the madness, the latest insanity.

  Town criers had been about, announcing the Imperial order to leave the city within days. There were a few people who scoffed. No one wanted to believe the decrees. That was when the madness began.

  Libari Welliso had been warned to expect trouble, but this? He shook his head at the reports coming into his command center.

  In the Gardens district, where many of the fine old homes had walls and gates and guards to keep the families safe from intruders, a few families were refusing to vacate. That was to be expected, really, as many had been situated in the same place for generations and had more invested in the property than merely possessions.

  Libari sent guards to explain the position of the City Guard: if the people in those palatial homes wished to stay, there would be no one to assist them. Their guards were being told to leave as well, and the families of their guards. That seemed to make it through a few people’s heads and several families prepared to move their possessions to other places or at least to lock up their homes. Some of the newer inhabitants had already left, which was a pleasant surprise.

  To the south, where the largest collection of immigrants congregated, he had less trouble and more chaos. The Roathians who’d made it to the area were already homeless and few of them had supplies. The families he saw looked wounded at the idea of moving on, but few of them protested.

  The biggest problem in that part of town was caused by his own guards, some of whom felt that they should be allowed to take out their frustrations on the poor wretches who were already lost and abandoned. He was doing what he could. Currently seventeen of his City Guard were awaiting his punishment for complaints ranging from abuse of authority to rape and murder. Welliso ground his teeth at the thought of administering justice, but he would do it, if only to guarantee that others were not foolish enough to think they could get away with breaking the rules.

  Still, he’d never gelded a man before. It was not a task he looked forward to performing.

  Around the palace, where the majority of houses and apartments were used by the people who served at the palace, the city was calmer. When the Empress and her entourage moved on to handle the parley, those who served at the palace began the massive task of moving the offices of the Empire to Canhoon. Many of those very same people were moving too, preferring to keep their jobs and relocate to the old capital.

  There were entire streets that were abandoned. Walking the same places he had walked for most of his life, Welliso felt his skin crawl and his hair rise into hackles at the unsettling silences.

  But mostly, in the other parts of the town, there was chaos. It took time to pack belongings and most did not want to leave behind anything that might be important. Wagons that were overloaded with worldly goods lumbered onto streets never meant to accommodate the sheer volume of traffic trying to leave Tyrne, and in short order tempers flared and the fighting began.

  The City Guard and the Imperial Guard worked together to clear the streets. The situation was growing worse, despite their efforts.

  In the westernmost part of the city someone had either been careless or had deliberately set a fire. The blaze was growing and there seemed little that could be done to quell it. Soldiers were attempting to put the fire out with buckets of water run up from the Freeholdt River, but with little success. The river was too far away and the wells in the area were blocked by the growing blaze.

  The people there were going out of the city by heading either south or directly across the city to the Eastern Gate, the main access to the river. The only obstacle in their way was, of course, the palace, which lead to a lot of name calling, stone throwing, and worse forms of civil disobedience. The congestion had reached a level where no one was moving anymore and the City Guard were doing what they could to break up skirmishes and calm down the already angry and distressed citizens.

  And the Imperial Army was doing what it could to back up the City Guard.

  And ultimately, nothing was getting accomplished.

  Libari Welliso had no choice, not in his own opinion. He brought the combined forces down to hammer out the problems quickly and efficiently.

  The clusters of traffic that blocked the roads were broken apart. The soldiers under Welliso’s command pushed carts from the road and ushered people and their draft horses out of the city, often insisting that the ruined wagons be left behind. A few fools tried to grab at the remaining supplies and the soldiers put an end to that action as soon as it started. The damaged wagons were confiscated, either dragged off the road completely or rolled far enough away to allow more evacuees through the rough openings left behind.

  A few of the first people who encountered troubles tried to protest the rough treatment, but Welliso had his orders and he intended to keep them. The first time he whipped a man in public was enough to stop most of the protests. He took no satisfaction from his task, but he did it.

 
; He would do all that he could to see Tyrne cleared of people as effectively and quickly as possible, regardless of how that made him look in the eyes of the people. The City Guard had been feared and loathed by a good number of people over the years and some things simply did not change.

  Of course some reputations are earned, even if they are earned for all of the right reasons.

  Several skirmishes broke out along the road to the Summer Palace. Though most people accepted the orders to leave the city there were inevitably a few who refused to leave their homes.

  Had Merros Dulver been there to discuss the matter with Welliso Libari he’d have likely told the older man to let them stay if their lives meant less than their possessions. But Merros was not there; he had his own troubles to deal with at the edge of the Empire.

  Instead Welliso did what he thought best. His people followed orders and the Imperial Guard followed his orders as well. It was only a matter of hours before the city’s cells were filled with angry citizens who’d attempted to fight. There had been no fatalities because Welliso refused his forces the right to attack with swords, but there were broken bones and busted skulls aplenty, and that was on both sides of the law. More than one of the aggressors were either soldiers themselves or trained to defend their homes. Tempers flared and fights broke out, and in the end peace was restored again and again only to face another disruption.

  And that was only on the first day of the forced evacuation of Tyrne. There were plans in place to start sweeps of all the streets after the majority left the area. City Guard walked the areas where people had already moved on, making sure that homes were left abandoned and did not become victims of looting.

  Libari Welliso came home from his first day of the evacuation in a state of exhaustion unlike any he had dealt with in his career. Tyrne had always been a peaceful town, regardless of its size, and he had never run across the sheer volume of people in motion, the large number of angry citizens or the massive swell of traffic at any point in his life. Dealing with all of that together was enough to make him consider moving on and forgoing the rest of his career with the Guard.

  Of course his wife, Annushi, would have put an end to that notion. He smiled when he thought of her. Annushi was more than he had ever hoped for when he agreed to the arranged marriage. She was smart, funny, lovely and strong of will. All things that he admired.

  They were fighting just now, because after sending the children on to Canhoon she had insisted on staying in the town with him until he was ready to leave with her. She was a stubborn woman and he loved her for it, even when the risk to her health made him nervous.

  He opened the door to his apartment and started to call for her when he saw her corpse on the ground.

  Annushi. Dead. He walked into the room and looked down, his eyes staring at the ruin of his beloved, uncomprehending.

  There was no moment when he thought it was a joke. There was no time when he expected his wife to get up. She was dead and there was no denying it. Her throat was cut. He could see that as soon as he entered the room. She had been bathing, perhaps, or she had planned to bathe, because her body was naked and Annushi was nothing if not modest. She seldom let him see her without clothes unless they were making love.

  “Annu?” She did not respond. She could not. She was dead. He knew that. But even though he could see she was dead, murdered, surely, he could not make his mind accept it. “Annu, what are you doing down there?”

  All thoughts of the City Guard he had to punish, the people he had to let free from their cells when they had calmed down and the evacuation of the city were gone. What little they planned to take with them from the city was already packed into several bundles, Annushi had been busy preparing for their journey. She’d been optimistic about his promotion and looked forward to seeing new places. Like Welliso she had spent most of her life in Tyrne and had considered Canhoon only as a place where powerful people lived. The thought that they would move there had excited her and her enthusiasm had been infectious enough to make him look forward to the idea.

  Annushi did not answer him.

  Could not.

  Still dead.

  He stepped into the room properly and walked toward her body. Annushi stared past him at the wall near the door. There was nothing particularly exciting about that spot. He had looked at it many times. It hardly seemed like a thing she should have been stuck with as her last sight in her life. He would have hoped she could see a thing of beauty as she died.

  Libari did not believe in the gods or in any sort of afterlife. He had always believed solely in what he could see with his own eyes.

  There was a dryness in his mouth. His eyes felt wrong. His heart had gone still, near as he could tell, and his ears rang with a light note that took away all other sounds.

  Annushi still stared at the wall, dead, as he moved closer to her and crouched beside her, reached to touch her face. Maybe she was injured, but alive. Perhaps there was a chance that she could still be mended, saved from death. He did not truly believe that, but he had to try because the thought that she was gone from his life was simply too large for him to consider.

  His hand touched her lips, felt for a hint of breath. Her skin was cold. She was not freshly dead, but had been killed at least a few hours earlier. He had seen enough dead bodies to know that much.

  Libari tried to stand but his legs did not work.

  “Annu?” How had his voice gotten so small? He wasn't quite sure.

  “She will not answer you. She is dead.”

  Libari turned his head and looked to the voice that spoke. A woman looked back at him, her eyes studying his face.

  “Did you do this?” Blood surged in him as he stared. She had dark hair and dark eyes and was dressed for the road. He had seen a hundred or more just like her through the course of the day and wondered if the woman he looked at was one he had offended somehow through his actions.

  She did not seem offended. She looked at him without much expression on her face at all.

  “She had to die. Just as you have to die.”

  When Libari tried to move again it was easy. He thought of Annushi and the woman who had killed her and he thought of how much she would suffer at his hands. He was not angry, not really. He merely knew that she would be dead soon and then he would allow anger and grief to take better rein of his heart.

  He had ordered his men not to draw their swords against the citizens of Tyrne. Libari Welliso did not follow that rule himself. His blade slid from the scabbard with a whisper and then sang as it cut the air and sliced toward the bitch who’d murdered his wife.

  She was not there.

  The blade clattered and rang out against the wall where she had been leaning, but struck nothing aside from the plaster over the stone of the wall itself.

  He looked around, eyes rolling with a sort of madness all their own, and heard himself growl as he sought the woman out.

  She crouched on the other side of Annushi’s body, her left foot resting in the blood that was congealing into the floor.

  Her face was still calm and she continued to look at him.

  “Kill you. I. Will. Kill. You.” He spoke the vow softly and adjusted his grip on the blade.

  “No. You will not. You are already dead.”

  Libari moved one step forward and his leg collapsed under him. He fell to his knee and grunted, puzzled by the lack of strength.

  It was only then that he felt the pain of the cut. As he had tried to strike, she had done the same, but she had been successful. The blood flowed down his side, from a deep incision in his stomach.

  A cut, yes, but not enough to stop him from his revenge.

  Libari tried to rise a second time and moaned instead. His legs would not hold him, would not move. His arms felt too heavy to lift. The sword dropped down, cutting a bloodless wound into Annushi’s calf.

  He looked down at his wife’s new wound and felt his eyes water. Never in his life had he ever meant to cause her harm.


  Libari toppled then, falling across his dead wife’s body.

  The poison in his system was quick but not quite fast enough to avoid his suffering. The last thing he ever saw was the floor beside Annushi’s cold hip. He had hoped his last sight would be something more beautiful.

  ***

  Swech searched the man’s corpse and found the key she was looking for around his neck. There were things she needed from the palace and without a key it would have taken too long to get to them.

  Time was becoming a rare commodity and she had spent too much of it already in the city of Tyrne. She had places she needed to be that had nothing to do with the place.

  The blade went back into the sheath along her left hip. Moments later she was gone from the building and heading for the offices of the General of the City Guard.

  The gods made demands and Swech obeyed, grateful for the chance to please the Daxar Taalor.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tuskandru looked down from the top of Durhallem and studied the Blasted Lands. The air was thin here and the cloud that usually hid away the devastation beyond the Seven Forges was thinner than he had ever seen it. He could see the Mounds from where he stood and he could see the distant wall of the barrier that separated the Blasted Lands from the Fellein Empire. Somewhere in that vast distance an army moved and prepared themselves for parley.

  A thin smile crossed his lips as he considered that notion.

  Beyond him the rest of the mountains stood silent guard over the valley. The gods were generous with their protection. How then could the Sa’ba Taalor be any less than obedient to the wishes of their benefactors?

  Durhallem touched him, allowed him to see further than should have been possible. It was almost time. Before the sun set, the world would be changed by the Daxar Taalor and he would be prepared for his part in that change. He had to be. It was what he was meant to do and what his god demanded of him.