by Tim Mathias
A crowd was forming near the light of a small fire, and as Zayd hurried over he could see several soldiers restraining one of the Tauthri sentries. It was Renton Allus, one of Tascell’s men, and he was struggling violently against the soldiers who held him. As Zayd pushed his way through the crowd, he saw a bloodied sword lying in the dirt at Renton’s feet, and on the ground next to the fire was a Ryferian soldier, his hands covering a horrendous wound to the stomach. Blood ran down from the soldier’s mouth. His eyes stared blankly up into the night.
“Silence!” Zayd yelled. The shouting stopped as every eye in the crowd turned to him. Renton still struggled. “Tell me what happened.”
“He killed Perinn,” one of the soldiers from the Ninth Regiment said, pointing to Renton. “Perrin wasn’t even armed. We was sitting by the fire, nothin’ more.” Zayd looked to the Tauthri. Renton met his stare and said nothing. Zayd stepped forward and picked up the bloody sword by the hilt, looking from it to Renton.
“What have you to say?”
Renton looked around the crowd. The face of every Ryferian soldier was hot with rage.
“He called me dark eyes… and said I was at home in the night because the Tauthri are corrupted by the Beyond!” Renton renewed his struggle against the soldiers holding him. More shouts erupted from the crowd.
“Enough!” Zayd held up his hand. He saw, at the edge of his vision, that Barrett Stern had pushed his way through the crowd and stood watching him. He expected Stern to take over; as a knight of the Silver Sun, he greatly outranked Zayd. Yet he remained silent.
“He said all Tauthri were unworthy,” Renton cried, his anger fading into panic. “Unworthy of redemption!”
Zayd grimaced and, as he looked away from Renton, noticed that all eyes were now upon him, fixed and hard with anticipation. “You have only proven that you are unworthy, Corporal Allus.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Stop struggling. It’s done. You know what needs to happen now, so accept your fate with dignity. Pray for forgiveness.”
Renton spent the night bound tightly to a tree next with Talazz sitting close by. The way the morning sun gleamed off of the blade, it was clear that the giant had spent the last hours of the night cleaning it in preparation for the morning’s duties. For the En Kazyr executioner, meting out the law of the Empire was a sacred duty and was done with great reverence.
“We’ll see the sentence carried out at dawn,” Areagus had said the night before. “The Beacon will watch over us. I’ll not feed the evil in the dark with another death.” The commander returned to his tent, cursing the evil of the foreign land as he went.
The sentries changed watches, though Zayd doubted Tascell or any of his men would find rest after what happened.
“What of the others?” Zayd asked Tascell. “Are they all as impetuous as Renton?”
The lieutenant furrowed his brow and frowned. “I would have said that none of them are. Renton is as even-tempered a soldier that I’ve seen. How this simple mockery could have stirred him…”
“Watch the others closely,” Zayd said. “I’m going to tell Daruthin the same.”
Zayd spent most of his watch within sight of where Renton was bound. There was a look of confusion on his face as he sat waiting for the morning to come, when his life would end. He was staring blankly, perhaps reliving the events that led him to this. It would have been more merciful to kill him now and not to have him languish in these long hours.
He carried that expression, the profound dearth of understanding, to the very end. As the ranking officer, Areagus needed to deliver the sentence formally despite the sentence being safely assumed by every soldier already, and they were all watching as Talazz, towering over a kneeling Renton, heaved the massive blade over his hand and brought it down with such force that the Tauthri’s head shot forward and rolled into a tree ten feet away. The blade lodged half its own length into ground from the incredible power of the swing. If there were any lingering thoughts of disobedience from his men, Zayd hoped they would be dispelled after this display.
Areagus stood over Renton’s body and held a scroll over his head. “As is the mandated punishment for traitors, I have completed the writ for the family of Renton Allus.” The commander handed the writ to one of his lieutenants. “I have tasked several men from the Ninth Regiment to carry it out, and I thank these men; it is a hard sentence to deliver, but our laws must be upheld.”
In the year following the Ryferian victory over Tauth, Zayd had witnessed the punishment meted out to the families of traitors and deserters, the wives and children paraded about for all to see before they bled out on the ground. In the first years of his service, Zayd had nightmares where he saw the faces of his family, pale and lifeless on the ground in his village. But those nightmares faded after a time. His wife and son were alive because he had yielded all those years ago and had been loyal every day hence. It would be Renton’s family now who would share the sentence for his crime.
They were marching again within the hour. Still in uniform, Renton’s body was strung up by the feet and hung from a tree, a reminder for passersby of how the Empire rewards disloyalty. Zayd climbed into the covered carriage with the rest of the scouts. They stared sullenly at their feet or at their hands or the ceiling. Zayd was tired but thought better of falling asleep in front of his men.
“Did Renton speak with any of you before?” Zayd asked the group.
“No, sir,” came several replies, along with shaking heads.
“Did anyone hear what was said? What Corporal Perinn said to him?”
“Just what we all heard him say,” said Gavras as he tapped his fingers on his kneecap. “The same things they always say to us.”
Zayd leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Every Tauthri in the army could expect to experience this sort of behaviour from the Trueborn, those born within the natural borders of the Empire. As the Empire expanded, it brought those it defeated into it, and over time, made them in mind and spirit no different from any Trueborn. The En Kazyr were among the oldest of the conquered and thus did not experience what the more recent vassals like the Tauthri did, though Zayd assumed their stature was likely a factor as well. Renton would have been accustomed to this sort of hate. Indeed, he would have expected it each day.
It made little sense to Zayd, so he determined that there must be more to it than what they knew. But if Perinn had committed any crimes against Renton, he was already dead and beyond punishment. There was nothing more to be done.
“If Perinn did something besides taunt him, then he has already paid the price,” Zayd said.
“There was nothing else,” Gavras said. “I saw what happened. Only words. That’s all that passed between them. Words, and nothing more. Renton did not even look angered until the blade was already bloodied.”
They were out of the forest a few hours before dark, and though there were still conifers all around them, they were less dense, thanks in part to the increasingly rocky terrain. Areagus called for forward scouts, so Zayd led three of the other Tauthri, including Gavras, to the front of the column, and they clambered up the rocky slopes that flanked the road ahead of them. They stayed low to the ground as they climbed up, and once at the top they remained crouched. From atop the rocks, Zayd could see the land before them awash in the red glow of the setting sun: a sea of trees and rolling hills, all dissected by the road they travelled.
“One landslide on this stretch and we’d be forced to turn back,” Gavras said.
Zayd nodded. “That carriage can’t manage these rocks if we were forced to go overland.”
“If we had a few more giants, they could carry those gold slabs and we wouldn’t need the bloody carriage.”
“No problem cannot be solved with more giants.” Zayd allowed himself a laugh, but Gavras was right: they were marching an unknown path. The army had not come down this direction when they had marched on Yasri, so the only knowledge of the terrain they had were maps they after the siege, and the maps
were next to useless as the Dramandi had drawn them to a strange scale and had few annotations, if they had any at all.
The rocky outcroppings shouldered the road closely for miles, leaving the column with no defensible place to make camp for the night. Zayd and the scouts made the descent back down to the column. Commander Areagus, accompanied by Barrett Stern and Alain Tullus, approached on horseback.
“The road is hemmed in by rocks like this for at least another four miles, perhaps five,” Zayd reported.
Areagus looked into the sky and frowned as the sunlight diminished further by the moment. He grunted as his glare traced the horizon, as though he could try to convince the sun to rise again.
“I could scout further ahead to find a more suitable area to set up camp,” Barrett offered.
Areagus looked to Stern briefly before shaking his head. “We should get clear of these rocks immediately.” The commander turned again to Stern. “Give the men a short rest, then we’ll start again at a double march.”
Stern wheeled his horse around and gave the orders to the column, his booming voice echoing off the walls of rock around them. Zayd heard grumblings from some of the soldiers, but he could tell his own men were pleased; night marches always reminded them of home, and a reminder would help ease their minds over the troubles of the previous night. He remained at the head of the column as the rest of the Tauthri returned to the carriage for a short rest, and as the day’s light began to relent, Zayd sat on the hard-packed earth next to the road and could not help but think of home.
There had always been a great anticipation in them, energy that was barely contained, as he and his kin would set out into the night to menace their enemy. The unrestrained jubilance he had felt since doing so as a child had not faded over time; careening through the night, their senses as keen as a blade, was a celebration of what they were. They embraced it.
It had been over three years since Zayd had been home, and then only briefly, and nearly ten since he had left it after its defeat, yet he still felt the exhilaration when he thought about their night raids against the encamped Ryferian army. They were like vengeful shadows, and the fear they struck in the Trueborn was palpable. If only the sun never rose they may have won the war. It must have been the will of Xidius that he survive the war and become a servant to the Empire and to the Beacon. It was a mercy, he knew, that he could relish times such as this when he could still embrace his nature, to know where he came from, and to acknowledge that he had been saved from the darkness he and his people had worshipped for so long.
Zayd sat there, unmoving, until Areagus ordered the march nearly an hour later, when the sun had released its grasp on the horizon. The sound of the hundreds of soldiers stirring pulled him out of the forests of his homeland and back to this foreign, enemy land. He exhaled as he pictured Symm’s face and the expression she could not hide when he had left home again, when this campaign had started.
He set his palms flat on the soil. Soon enough he would place his palms on the ground of his home, in his own village. Only a few months more. Once they delivered the golden monolith to Lycernum he would be released from his service. Ten years of loyalty, unquestioning and unwavering. He could see Cassian then, too, and the man he had become. Zayd wondered what his discipline would be. A scholar? An artisan? A poet? Perhaps he had trained to be a warrior like his father. He would listen as his son recounted the past decade of his life. And if it was the will of Xidius, Cassian would return home with him.
Habit took hold of Zayd as he traced lines in the dirt. They came easily as a practiced ritual does, the four flowing lines converging to a single point inside the convex centre of an imperfect crescent. Zayd often traced the Cothar sigil into the earth, as his father had done. It gave him peace to know that this sigil on foreign soil had a twin somewhere in Tauthri. ‘When there is conflict’, his father had said, ‘the earth knows who you are and will remember you. And your enemies will know you. And remember you.’
His lieutenants, Daruthin and Tascell, approached him, followed by the other scouts; they would need all of them, as many vigilant eyes as possible to protect the column as it made its rapid march down the narrow, rock-walled road. Zayd alone would stay on the road a distance ahead of the column, while Daruthin and Tascell took their men and fanned out on each of the flanks.
The road slanted slowly upward as it stretched out before him. Behind him, he heard Barrett Stern bellow out the order to start the double march, and it spurred Zayd into motion. He did not anticipate any sort of ambush. If there had been enemies nearby, they could have struck the column as it rested. Even so, Zayd equipped himself with a light wooden shield for the march, enough to protect him from an arrow or two, if there were indeed attackers lying in wait.
For the sound of the marching hundreds behind him and the din of jangling armour echoing across the stone, Zayd could not hear the sound of sliding rocks, nor could he feel the vibrations of their impact, barely half a mile behind the column, as they collapsed onto the road where the column had been stopped only a few minutes before.
Chapter 4
In the days following his trial, Osmun slept fitfully when he slept at all. At first it was the doubt which troubled him; Egus and Andrican had not seen the entity as he had, and it made him wonder if he had seen it at all. But then there would be times when, from the corner of his eye, he saw the silhouette of it moving fluidly…… menacingly. The first time was the day of the trial in the late evening as he walked the outskirts of the monastery. The shadow was there one moment, standing beside a stone altar, but when Osmun blinked, he only saw one of the devout, the sect of Xidian worshippers as silent as they were pious.
That night he lay awake in his bed for hours, physically and mentally drained, yet he could do nothing to stop himself from hearing the thing speak to him. Over and over he heard the alien words reverberate in his mind until he doubted he was even alone in his room. Morning came after long, excruciating hours, and Osmun walked his usual route through the city. His feet dragged, his arms hung lifeless at his sides, and he stared at the ground just a few feet in front of him. As he drifted through the long alleys and lanes of the marketplace he barely noticed the stares of the vendors, farmers, merchants, and artisans, all so accustomed to seeing him stroll through with vigor, pride, and purpose. He did not look up as he walked for fear that he would see the lurking shadow again.
He entered the Cathedral with no real purpose. He went to one of the cloisters, lit all the candles that he could, and prayed. Osmun felt as though he was safe there, in the silent holiness of that place, distant enough from the reach of whatever plagued him, even though he was only a few hundred yards away from the iron room where the trial took place.
Footsteps approached from behind, and Osmun bumped into one of the tall, brass candle-holders as he lurched to his feet. Cleric Andrican was there to steady it before it fell over. He tilted his head at Osmun.
“Careful, Brother Osmun.”
Osmun flushed red, straightened himself, and gave a slight bow. “Cleric Andrican.”
“You look unwell.” Andrican gave him a troubled look. He stood perfectly straight, both hands clasped behind his back.
“My night was restless.”
“Why was it so?” Andrican asked flatly.
It was hardly a question at all, Osmun thought.
“You know very well why.” He surprised himself with the terse reply.
Andrican made no reaction.
“How can you remain so skeptical?” Osmun pressed, his voice just above a whisper.
“Because there is simply no reason to believe you. What you’ve described appears nowhere in the Recounting or any of the annals.”
“Phantoms exerting influence over the living is commonplace,” Osmun shot back.
“None where it was able to exert the kind of control you are describing over a skilled cleric, and you think it happened here to two clerics! What would you believe, if you were me? That this young, arro
gant priest has discovered something wholly unheard of? Or would you believe the more likely explanation that he is simply mistaken?”
“I am not imagining this…”
“I did not say that.”
It took Osmun a moment to grasp the implication through the fog of his exhaustion. “You think that I am lying? Why would I lie about this?”
“I would certainly like to know that as well. Perhaps because you want us to believe that we need you. That the Xidian Church needs you. You have become taken with your own reputation, and you’re afraid we are not.” Andrican turned and walked away. “Our deliberation continues,” he said over his shoulder. Osmun stood agape. He was uncertain, but he thought he saw the hint of a smile when Andrican spoke over his shoulder as he walked out of the candlelit cloister.
He sat outside the Cathedral on the steps of the monument, trying for hours to fully understand the reality of the present. All of his instincts told him that what he thought he had witnessed was real, not a delusion as Andrican thought. A delusion would not plague him so. A delusion could not stalk him. He felt it, as he had felt spirits every time he had communed with the Beyond, every time he had banished them.
But what it meant to him if he were right was nearly too dreadful to contemplate. Malign spirits were beholden to a focal point of some kind, usually a relic or a place of religious significance. He had also read that in some places, the natural barrier between the two worlds was especially thin, and rifts could appear. Yet he was certain he had seen the shadow far from the Cathedral and the relics used to summon the spirits through the rift that Egus and Andrican had created.
A realization came to him like water over a broken dam: the trial had not ended. The clerics had created the rift, a feat Osmun did not know was possible. What other unknown abilities did they possess? Andrican had even said that their deliberation was incomplete, that they were, in essence, still judging him. He laughed to himself and felt a twinge of embarrassment that he had been taken by such an obvious trick. Banishing the spirits and closing the rift had been too easy. He should have expected some trick.
