The pair laughed, this scene having played out a hundred times over the years, each perfectly aware of the other’s thoughts, before the King grew slightly more serious for a moment, eyes darting meaningfully towards the section of the crowd where the Lords of the land and their retinues feasted and drank.
“Tell me, what do you know of Arbistrath?”
The Seeress frowned, not because the question was unexpected – it was her duty as leader of the Seers to survey the kingdom from afar and spy out any trace of sedition – but because of the subject of his enquiry.
“He’s the ruler of Pen-Tulador, a town of no real interest to the Seers – he has few troops, his garrison small, most of his land devoted to the farming of crops.”
The King nodded, already knowing all this, but patient. It befitted an immortal to have patience.
“He seemed put out by the speed at which we will construct the Beacon, is all. What is Tulador like for wealth, these days?”
Another voice answered this, from the other side of him, a man’s voice, deep and youthful, full of mirth, instantly likeable.
“Their coffers are reasonable, my king,” replied Bavard, taking a deep glug of rich wine from a golden goblet, pushing his long, braided hair out of his handsome face so as to not get it in his beverage. “The lands there are fertile, the people happy. I rather enjoyed my stay!”
It was unsurprising to the King that Bavard should have been there recently; his duty as general of the King’s armies involved him travelling from town to town, inspecting the training of the troops, ensuring that they be ready should they be levied to support the core of Clansmen in the event they march to war. It was also unsurprising that the handsome warrior should have had a good time there; for a general, there was rarely a serious bone in his body.
The same could not be said for the maidens of whichever town he happened to be visiting at the time…
“Hmph. They have too easy a time of it, if you ask me.”
A gruff, bellowing voice now, from the other end of the table.
The King frowned.
“Why do you say that, Kurnos?”
The rotund, bearded Master of the Hunt slammed his stone tankard to the table, nearly shattering it, for though he had an appearance of someone older and out of shape compared to the rest of the council, his barrel-chested frame belied the might of his seasoned limbs. Here was a true descendant of the Barbarian Clans of old.
“When the Hunt rides the land,” he spat, “the villages of his land are invariably empty. Always a market on in the Pen, a festival, a feast, a re-enactment. There is never any sport to be had in Tulador lands…”
“Aww…” cooed Bavard. “The Lord spoils your fun? It’s almost as though he doesn’t want his villagers plundered and captured at random…”
The two, the fresh-faced, flippant General and the ruddy, grizzled Huntsman, descended into good-natured squabbling as they were so often wont to do and the King smiled, despite himself, even as he mulled things over.
That Arbistrath would forewarn his people of the impending Hunts was both admirable and a concern, for though it spoke volumes of the haughty man’s loyalty to his people that he wanted them to be safe from Kurnos’ predations, the Hunt was there for a reason.
It was decades now, nearly a century, even, since the Barbarian King had risen to power, vanquishing his mortal predecessor and establishing his rule with an iron fist, and as such, far-flung towns would sometimes forget his might, his generosity with his gifts of learning and protection. Taxes would sometimes come in late, or worse, not at all.
The monthly Hunts led by Kurnos, with his ruthless henchmen and packs of baying hounds, served as a reminder to the provinces that they were not Kingdoms in their own right and that they still had a duty to their distant ruler.
The Seeress caught his attention, her cool blue eyes seeing in his the reason for his quiet contemplation.
“You wish me to summon my girls, scry his lands?”
He thought for a moment, before nodding.
“Yes, but not now, tomorrow. Tonight, my dear, we enjoy ourselves, have fun.”
She smiled, raising her fine, crystal goblet of wine.
“Then to fun, my King!”
***
The night was drawing on yet the party still in full-swing, the stone walls of the Great Hall echoing to the sounds of merriment and cheer, as the King rose from the table and turned to the council.
“I wish you good night, my friends.”
Groans from the gathered lieutenants, Bavard in particular.
“Stay awhile, my king! The night is yet young and if we don’t drink what’s left then this fat tub of lard is gonna have it all!” He thumbed over his shoulder to the swaying Huntmaster to his side who’d obviously not heard him.
“Eh, what?”
The King smiled, but shook his head.
“I’m afraid not, my friends; I need to walk, clear my head.”
The council nodded, understanding, for their King’s senses were a level beyond and he always found such raucous gatherings tiresome on his ears after a while.
“Rest easy, my King,” bade the Seeress, her eyes ever-twinkling with amusement.
With that, the Barbarian King strode from his own jubilee festivities, leaving the Grand Hall via a small doorway at the side of the dais, entering the relative quiet of a long passageway of cold sandstone along which bustled the myriad servants, carrying yet more food and drink to the feasting guests, even many hours after the celebrations had begun. He paused and, with a thought, cleared his mind of the intoxicating alcohol, feeling sobriety restored in an instant; the poison only affected him when he chose to let it. Eyes widened as he walked on, servants flattening themselves against the wall in an effort to be out of his way as he strode towards the kitchens that served this section of Pen-Merethia.
After the cool of the corridor, the heat of the cookfires washed over him like walking out of a house and into the blazing heat of a summer afternoon. The kitchens were large, vaulted, with stone ovens attended by bellows-wielding kitchen slaves and overseen by baton-wielding chefs, yelling orders at bustling porters and cooks.
He passed an entire boar skewered on a spit, slowly roasting as two children turned it so that it cooked evenly, the crackling crisping nicely and the juices and fat dripping down into the roaring fire, causing it spit and crackle as though it were some ravenously hungry dog, snapping at a tantalising bone.
Through the kitchen he strolled, the servants and chefs bustling about him at a respectful distance, taking in the sounds and smells of the gargantuan culinary effort, before leaving through another door at the far end, out into the cool, castle corridors once more.
Up a spiral staircase, he strode, taking the servants route out of sight of the main drag, for people seldom ventured this way and he enjoyed being alone from time to time. Up, up, past numerous doors that led to the servant’s quarters, till at last he found himself entering the Seers’ Tower, where the lady sorcerers plied their trade, scrying his land for any hint of threat.
Even as the women slumbered behind locked doors, he could feel their power, their dreams haunted by visions of times and places, faces and voices that they might never understand.
Further he strode, leaving the feeling of latent eldritch power behind him, till he came to a thick oak door, which he wrenched open, feeling the blast of cold night air caressing his skin as it blew in with a sigh.
Closing the door behind him, he walked out onto the high, stone bridge that connected the Seers’ Tower with his own, the blasting gusts of coastal wind trying their damndest to topple him, but they might as well have been blowing at a mountain for all the effect they had on his muscled frame.
Halfway across the bridge, he stopped, his hands on the cold, stone bannister as he looked out upon his Kingdom with eyes that saw beyond the usual wavelengths of light.
On one side of him, the city-fortress of Pen-Merethia lay spread out before him, many
hundreds of feet below, the winking of lights and faint, faint calls in the night signalling a city that bustled, vibrant and alive, even after dark, the commerce of the night thriving in a city that prided itself on the pleasures of the flesh.
With a smile, the Barbarian King focused his senses, spying on his subjects as they went about their nocturnal activities, oblivious to the unnatural green eyes that watched from afar.
There, to the left, a quarter of a mile distant on the citadel walls; a lady of the night bartering with an on-duty guard for a few short minutes of illicit pleasure to break the monotony of guarding an impregnable fortress.
Just to the right of centre, nine-hundred yards, not too far from the city gates; through an open window he spied a group of youths, faces blackened with soot from working the forges of the city’s weapons district, lying drooling and insensate in the flickering light of a dying oil-lamp, spread-eagled across a scattering of cushions and blankets. A discarded pipe lay on the floor, a glaring clue to their condition. He narrowed his eyes, focusing harder on the caked remnants that lay unburnt in the bowl of the device; opium, imported from afar and carried by cart from the Merchant Coast. Pure, not cut with powdered rock as so often it was.
The King nodded appreciatively; the lads must have spent a considerable portion of their meagre earnings in pursuit of their stupor.
A cry of help that would have gone unnoticed by lesser ears drew his attention to a small alleyway off a market place just under a half mile distant; a merchant, reasonably wealthy by the looks of his robes and hat, had obviously made the mistake of venturing into the poor quarter in search of a drink and some female company. They were wont to do that, those who thought themselves wealthy and high of station, venturing into the less well-off areas late of a night, thinking themselves thrill-seekers for mingling with the unwashed masses.
It was not their hygiene that so concerned this particular merchant, rather the sharp blades of his assailants that glinted in the light of the moons, as they stabbed him repeatedly, before running off into the night with his coin-purse, leaving him to die, cold and alone, in the gutter.
The thought crossed the King’s mind momentarily that he could maybe help this poor fellow; he could be there in an instant, take him to an apothecary in another. No sooner had the idea crossed his mind than he quashed it with a wry smile. Were he to go about helping every dreg of society that should get himself in trouble, then he would get nothing done. Besides, he didn’t care if some poor fool got himself stabbed for his own misadventures.
Long ago had he resolved to stop caring about people; his pretty words of earlier a mere mask, for his manipulation of the masses served only to make life easier for himself, the pursuit of an immortality of decadence and living in the moment his only real passion. The people were united for it served his purpose, allowing him to keep control on everything, ruling with an iron fist, taking what he wanted, when he wanted.
He turned, away from the city, looking out from the other side of the bridge to the coast not far beyond, spying the rising crags of the Isle of Storms that rose, jagged and threatening from the choppy black sea.
Soon, after the posturing and ceremony of the Beacon was all over and done with, he would venture further beyond, having grown almost bored of his current lands. Fresh pleasures lay beyond those waves, further even than he could see with his incredible eyes.
He chastised himself, momentarily, for the Beacon was more than just pomp; it was the idea of the Seeress, and nothing she ever suggested was mere vanity, everything having a purpose, her every action geared towards furthering his power and, by extension, her own. The Beacon would further unite his people, building their patriotism to a rising climax, at which point he would unleash them in a wave of bloodthirsty Clansmen upon unsuspecting peoples from across the sea.
He nodded to himself, turned and continued across the bridge, entering the tower that served as his own personal wing of the keep.
The corridors here were luxuriant, the floor covered in carpets, thick and warm, the colour of spilt blood. Tapestries hung from the walls in the torchlight, depicting his myriad victories over the years.
He walked, slowly, taking in once again, as he had for a century, the scope of his power, the scale of his realm, before passing into the antechamber of his quarters.
Here, sheathed in a stone plinth, his swords rested, slumbering.
He surveyed the weapons, warmly, as though gazing upon old friends, his eyes taking in the flickering torchlight that rebounded, trapped within the facets of the translucent obsidian Glaives, whose blades would never dull, whose intricate hilts would never lose their lustre.
Dexter, the right hand sword, its blade long, coming to a point like an apothecary’s knife, six feet in length and weighted perfectly for stabbing his foes. Dexter had tasted the hearts of many a foe.
Sinister, the left hand sword, shorter, stubbier, its blade thicker like that of a butcher’s cleaver, the weight more on the blade to make easier the crushing and dismemberment of those foolish enough to be in his way.
As he walked past, he trailed his fingers along the cool material, feeling the weapons stir, but he bade them remain asleep. There will be other wars, he told them. There will be blood. But it is night-time. Rest.
He left the antechamber, making to brush aside the velvet curtain that led to his room, but stopped, sniffing gently.
A perfume, light, floral, heady, applied with oil upon freshly washed skin.
He pushed his way gently into his chamber.
The servant girl who had first poured his wine earlier that evening stood there, bare-footed on the warm carpet, wriggling it between her toes as though unused to the feel of comfort, and he smiled slightly as he remembered the amused glint of blue eyes as he’d left the Great Hall.
She stood, naked but for a silk robe wrapped about her lithe form, her milky skin soft and smooth in the dim light from the oil-lamp on the bedside table. She seemed tiny, doll-like in front of the four-posted bed that dominated the centre of the chamber, its proportions suited to fit a god-king.
He could feel the disgust with herself, yet also her longing. Her eyes were averted, looking to the carpet rather than him. She was trembling.
He spoke to her, his tones quiet, gentle, as one would speak chancing upon a delicate fawn in a forest clearing that might bolt at any second.
“You don’t need to be here, if you would rather not be,” he told her, sincerely. “I know you hate me.”
Silence for a few moments, then the serving girl dragged her eyes from the floor, summoning the courage to look deep into his green eyes, war raging within her soul until finally one side won.
She let the robe drop to the floor in a ruffling of slippery fabric, revealing the pale and slender curves beneath.
The King smiled. He always gave them the choice.
But, in the end, it was really no choice at all.
Chapter Two:
The warrior descended from the North, where the red glow touched the heavens and, from that day on, nothing would ever be the same again.
The curious crowds gathered about him from the villages that lay nestled in the deep, dark forests of the Hills, youths running here and there to tell people of the giant with his twin swords.
The warrior was bare-chested, his only clothes the charred hide about his waist and the fresh bear-skin across his shoulders. He spoke to no-one, stopping neither for food nor rest, as he left the mountains, crossing the Plains, heading South towards the Steppes and the Barbarian City.
At one point, a passing raiding party of twenty Savaran crossed his path, unsheathing their weapons at the approaching giant with his strange, crystalline swords, demanding to know his business.
The sole survivor was allowed to flee on his horse, wide-eyed with terror as he galloped at full-tilt to the Barbarian City to deliver the warrior’s warning to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
Word spread through the villages
of the stranger’s power and his intention to attack the Barbarian King. Soon, the crowds grew, until it seemed the whole population of the Hills and the Plains followed the colossus as he strode ever southward, keeping a safe distance, setting camp of a night, speeding to catch up in the morning after he’d invariably marched on.
Another party of Steppes Barbarians, this time fifty, journeyed North to meet him, the King himself not deigning to meet his challenge, sending a high-ranking Marzban in his stead.
Only the Marzban escaped this time, sent packing, tied backwards to his horse, his urine-stained undergarments bare for the world to witness his humiliation.
Again, the message was delivered to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
***
It was on the dawn of the fourteenth day of the warrior’s march that he beheld the Barbarian City rising high on the Steppes, the Yow running before it, the coast at its back.
After ten long years he had returned to claim the fate that had been promised him.
The armies of the Barbarian King were arrayed against him on the plain before the city, ten thousand strong; mounted Savaran, Clansmen warriors on foot, axe-wielding berserkers and score upon score of archers wielding both long- and crossbow.
At their rear, safe atop the walls of the city, the Barbarian King himself watched with interest as the battle unfolded, playing with his long, greying moustache, his keen eyes unreadable as they looked out from his scarred and pockmarked face.
The warrior from the North raised his hand, bidding his followers from the Plains and Hills to remain on the hillside behind him, before striding down to meet his enemies.
As per Steppes tradition, each Clan sent forth a champion, warriors of renown amongst a warrior race, each skilled, strong, brave and unbeaten, each wielding a weapon gifted to them as they lay in their cot, each groomed by masters of the killing arts to be slayers of men.
A dozen such warriors ranged out to meet the stranger before the army, each, in turn, seeking his blood, seeking to claim his head – and the honour of victory – in the name of their respective clans.
The Fall to Power (The Graeme Stone Saga) Page 2
