Empire of Bones

by Christian Warren Freed

  She didn’t care for his tone but he had a point. Ingrid stole the leadership role from Inaella and success or defeat was squarely on her shoulders. She needed to force aside all thoughts of friendship, loss, or grief, and focus on being the leader the people needed. The rebellion was at a crossroads. Any movement in the wrong direction would damn their cause irrevocably. Ingrid felt the pressure mounting and wondered if she was strong enough to carry the burden.

  They finally arrived at the small village of Fendi in the late afternoon of their third day of travel. Both Ingrid and Orlek were worn out. Their bodies ached from being in the saddle for so long. An impossible chill ran deep through their bones. Each had a few fingertips or toes with early symptoms of frostbite. Orlek had a large, raw spot on his right cheek from constantly being exposed to severe winds. Frost glistened in his hair. He’d endured worse over the course of his life, but nothing was as sweet as smelling freshly baked bread on the crisp winter air. His stomach grumbled in concurrence. Orlek slid to the ground and went to help Ingrid.

  “We’ve made it. Hopefully others will have arrived,” he said.

  Ingrid scanned the village. All of the thatch roofs had chimneys pouring rich, dark smoke. A good sign. The plague didn’t appear to have made it this far west. She needed a new base of power. One Harnin wouldn’t think to look, at least for the immediate future. Ingrid knew the rebellion was reeling, suffering defeat after defeat. There had to be a way for a quick victory. She just didn’t know how. Nothing in her life prepared her for any of this. She didn’t know much about tactics or warfare. She’d been a housewife up until the moment her husband died. More than ever she felt like a child playing with adults.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  Not a soul could be seen.

  Orlek, discouraged by the lack of reception, remained wary. His own past was private, for good reason. He cringed to think what Ingrid would say if she learned he was a murderer. Some crimes were simply not forgiven. The rope marks burned into his neck were proof of that. He respected Ingrid, even with her lack of experience. Sometimes luck was worth more than real life experience. He looked around the village, seeing the same things she had noticed.

  “It is cold outside. No sane person would be out in the elements,” he speculated. His hand crept towards his sword. He couldn’t trust anything to chance.

  “There are few sane people left in Delranan,” she countered. “We need to get inside. I don’t want to be caught in the cold again when the sun goes down.”

  “Agreed. I believe the village inn is this way,” Orlek said and nudged his horse forward.

  They remained cautious even as they tied their horses up to the post outside the inn and went up the steps. Orlek led the way. Aged doors squealed open, threatening to fall from the hinges. Confidence uninspired, he pushed inside. Old clouds of smoke clung to the rafters. Most of the wood was yellowed, reminding him of jaundice. A thin coat of dust clung to the floor, marred only by the occasional boot print. Most of the tables hadn’t been used in months. A half-burned fire stretched up the chimney. While safe from the elements, the common room felt anything but friendly. Three old timers sat at the chipped and scratched bar. A surly looking Man with thinning hair and massive fists the size of slabs of beef stood behind the scratched counter. His right eye was missing and he either didn’t care or was too poor to afford an eye patch. He stared hard at the newcomers.

  “Close the door. I ain’t paying to heat the outdoors,” he ordered once they entered.

  Orlek gently shut the door behind him and led Ingrid up to the bar. He doubted he’d be able to take the bigger Man in a fair fight. Fortunately he was well-versed in fighting unfair. He took an empty stool and stared back.

  “You got a problem, little Man?” the bartender threatened.

  Orlek shrugged. “I might if you don’t do your job and pour me and my friend here a drink. It’s damned cold outside and we’ve been out in the weather for three days.”

  “Sounds to me like you should keep on running. We don’t like trouble around here.”

  “We didn’t come bringing trouble,” Orlek replied straightforwardly.

  “Stranger, people always come with trouble. Just the way that it is these days.” He turned to pour two wooden mugs of watered-down ale. “Where ya coming from?”

  Ingrid passed Orlek a nervous glance, not unnoticed by the bartender. The soldier waved off her concerns, at least pretending he knew what he was doing. “South. Been a bad winter, what with the plague hitting us.”

  Those few patrons stiffened at the mention of plague and shifted away. Even the bartender balked. “We don’t have none of that in Fendi and don’t want none either. You need to finish your drinks and be heading on.”

  Orlek took the mug and gulped a hearty drink. “We’re not going anywhere until we get some rest, food, and a warm room to sleep in. I’m tired of being on the road.”

  “How do we know you ain’t carrying the disease?” the bartender pressed.

  “Because they’d be dead already,” a new voice answered.

  A slender Man with a bushy mustache stood at the bottom of the steps watching the scene unfold. The small handheld crossbow was barely visible from beneath his cloak. The bartender backed off, knowing danger when he saw it. The stranger, with eyes so odd they appeared almost red, walked straight up to Orlek.

  “You took your sweet time in getting here,” he said crisply.

  Orlek rose and faced him. “You would have to if you had half the army looking for you.”

  The stranger extended his free hand. “Orlek. It’s good to see you again.”

  “Harlan. Been a long time,” Orlek said, returning the gesture.

  Ingrid finally let out the breath she’d been holding and took a drink. The unanticipated tension was all too much for her already fragile nerves.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the town?” Harlan asked, holstering his crossbow.

  “Not really, but we did have to dodge more than a few patrols the closer we were to Chadra. Delranan’s not safe anymore.”

  Harlan frowned. “Perhaps we should take this up to your rooms. I took the liberty of securing adjoining rooms for you on the second floor. Mister Farley here won’t mind having two prestigious individuals spending a few days in his inn. Will you, Farley?”

  The bartender scowled, but merely nodded. “No trouble at all, so long as the tab is paid.”

  “Don’t fret about your purse. You’ll be compensated handsomely,” Harlan told him. “Have two plates of food brought up to my room with a pitcher of ale, the good stuff, not that swill you’re serving behind the bar, and a pitcher of fresh water.”

  Farley didn’t take kindly to being insulted but knew Harlan was more dangerous than he looked. The red-eyed man was easily capable of killing everyone in the common room without breaking a sweat. Some situations were best solved by keeping your mouth shut and doing what you were told. Farley did just that, cursing Harlan and his friends behind their back as they went upstairs.

  Once inside the room, Harlan immediately went to look out the window. He purposefully chose rooms facing the eastern approach. He’d been playing the game long enough not to fall prey to being ambushed without every precaution being taken. Offering a chair for Ingrid, he took off his cloak and set the crossbow on the nearest table.

  “You shouldn’t have come in during the daylight. The One Eye has spies everywhere. I’m sure someone here is on his payroll, or looking to secure the safety of their family,” he added. Harlan despised the One Eye almost as much as he did Badron. His reasons were his own and not a single living soul knew why. It was a secret he’d take the grave.

  Orlek all but collapsed on the bed. “We didn’t have much choice. That last storm almost did us in. You haven’t been to Chadra in a while. The plague weakened everyone. People are starving. I barely had enough food to make it here.”

  “Is everything in place?” Ingrid interrupted. She was impatient to begin th
e next phase of the rebellion.

  Harlan eyed her appraisingly. She had fire that translated to personal strength he could respect. Just what the rebellion needed if they were to win the struggle against Harnin. “Mostly. I have found enough people willing to carry on the fight. My people are scouring the countryside as we speak, moving from town to town in efforts to raise support and troop strength. Most of the outer towns hold no favor towards the crown. Badron’s done a poor enough job garnering the support of the commoners. He’s neglected most of these small towns. They don’t care who’s in control so long as they have a say in how the kingdom is run.”

  “Sounds like they’re deluded to me,” Orlek answered. “No king bothers with the peasants, at least not this far north.”

  “And it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Harlan replied. “Harnin is running this kingdom into the ground one corpse at a time. We’ve got the upper hand even if he doesn’t know it. Delranan is ready to explode. The previous rebellion leadership saw it but didn’t know how to instigate it.”

  Orlek and Ingrid shared guarded looks. Reluctantly, Ingrid added, “It’s worse than you think. Inaella survived the coup and the plague and has gone over to Harnin.”

  Harlan was taken back. “You mean she’s now working against us?”

  Ingrid nodded. The sting bit deep, fueling her desire to finally free her kingdom and be done with the whole sordid affair. Her eyelids fluttered closed. She hadn’t realized just how tired she was until now. The pillow at the head of the bed, plump and soft, had never been so inviting.

  Orlek saw the fatigue on her face and pushed on. “How many fighters can you raise in this part of the kingdom?”

  “A few hundred I imagine,” Harlan replied after some thought. “The winter makes it difficult to gather in large numbers.”

  “We’ll need more than a few hundred. Harnin has thousands,” Orlek replied, knowing just how grave the situation really was. Very few Men, especially married ones, were willing to abandon their lives in deep winter in order to risk getting killed for no reason. Until a few weeks ago Orlek had been one of them.

  “Which brings me to my second point. We are sorely outnumbered. The hundreds of volunteers we have willing to join in with us are peasants. Farmers mostly. They’re untrained, ill-disciplined, and likely to kill their friends rather than the enemy. Harnin’s soldiers are battle tested. They may be reserves, but they are Wolfsreik reserves. The best the rebellion had died during the plague or the great purges. We don’t stand a chance with what remains.”

  Orlek ran a hand through his thinning hair. He didn’t have the answers anyone sought. “There’s always hope,” he said defiantly. The words sounded empty even to his ears.

  “Orlek, you should consider taking her and leaving to the south,” Harlan advised. “Matters here will continue to devolve until the Delranan we knew is dead. Cut your losses and run while you still can.”

  The mercenary looked down on Ingrid, who’d fallen asleep. “She believes in us. What choice does that leave me?”

  NINETEEN

  Ruins

  The combination of smoke and burnt flesh choked the air. A dark, miasmic cloud hung low over the city, reminding the combined army of a large death shroud. Trees stabbed up, void of all life. Their blackened trunks added death for miles. What forces Badron retained not only burned the city but the surrounding countryside. All water sources were poisoned, mostly with corpses. Supply warehouses were looted and burned to the ground. Any citizens still living, of which there were very few, dug deep underground to hide, silently praying they’d go unnoticed by the rampaging Goblins.

  King Aurec insisted on being the first to ride into Rogscroft proper. He brushed off the cries and pleas from his top commanders. One monarch had already fallen. The fragile alliance couldn’t bear to go through another. General Rolnir insisted a guard of five hundred if Aurec was to continue with his foolishness. Begrudgingly, he accepted. Banners and pennants waved in the dying breeze, the colors of two kingdoms as well as the shadow kingdom of the Pell Darga, whose swarthy warriors skimmed the shadows well ahead of the rest of the army. They had one purpose: kill any enemy left behind.

  The last stretch of the road seemed to go on forever. Aurec was impatient to return to the castle. To right the wrongs committed by Badron and his army of defilers. His sword was already in his hand, even while knowing the enemy was long gone. Whatever he hoped to find buried in the rubble of the heart of his kingdom wasn’t comparable to what awaited them.

  Aurec reined in his horse and struggled not to vomit. Mounds of bodies lay piled along both sides of the road. Their grotesque angles, haunted faces, and putrid odors permeated the very ground. Hacked-off limbs and heads filled in the gaps. Badron, more likely Grugnak, ordered all of the dead in Rogscroft to be left on the main avenues of approach as a welcoming home present for the fledgling king. Crows and vultures flocked by the hundreds to feast. Several soldiers in the guard turned their heads to empty their stomachs.

  “How?” was all Aurec managed to say.

  Venten, ever at his side, struggled to control his emotions. Many of the faces were of people he’d known over the course of his long life. Friends. Attendants. Shopkeepers and merchants. The soul of Rogscroft lay butchered like sheep. “Badron is an evil Man.”

  “Do you think…do you think my…father is in there?” Aurec stammered.

  “Not even Badron would allow his favored enemy such a fate,” Venten added. “King Stelskor will be in the castle.”

  “But all these people. What did they do to deserve such?” Aurec asked. His youth and lack of experience burdened him greatly. He needed to lash out. To retaliate, but against who? Without a target his aggression was pointless.

  “We are at war. Armies of Goblins rampage across our lands. There will be more scenes like this from here to the Murdes Mountains. You must steel yourself against the atrocity. It is bound to worsen before the end.”

  Aurec squared off on his trusted advisor. “Your words are cold, callous, old friend. Did you counsel my father like this?”

  “When he needed it,” Venten replied solemnly. The pain of loss was still too much to bear. He viewed Stelskor’s death as personal failure. “What are your orders?”

  Aurec reluctantly set aside his personal issues to become king again. All of his rage boiled down to impotence. He had no enemy to fight. No city to return to like the rescuing hero they deserved. His gaze lifted beyond the heaps of bodies to his beloved city. Once grand buildings of stone and wood were little better than rubble. Rogscroft was thoroughly destroyed. Not even the dead lived there any longer.

  Untold desecrations filled the palace. Murals painted in human blood covered walls, arching up to the high ceilings. Bones, gnawed upon, lay scattered down the long halls. There was a terrible odor that no amount of cleaning would easily get rid of. Waste and offal from things Aurec wasn’t willing to guess filled the shadowed corners. Lost was all the splendor Stelskor had tried to create. A gift to his people so that they might find strength when weakness threatened to subsume their will. Aurec stood in the middle of the throne room and struggled not to weep.

  “Sire, patrols have finished sweeping the city. The enemy is gone.”

  Using his sleeve to wipe the tears filling his eyes, Aurec turned. “Thank you, Mahn. Were there any casualties?”

  “Balko’s horse tripped in the rubble and broke a leg. We had to put it down and he twisted his wrist pretty well,” the old scout reported. “He’ll be fine but can’t use his sword until the wrist heals.”

  Better than any dead or wounded. Well, I’ve reclaimed my kingdom. Now what do I do? By all rights I shouldn’t even be here. My father was the true monarch. I’m just a boy playing at being a man. This war has changed us all and I’m not sure for the better. Is it all a joke? Am I merely a pawn, a joke in some theological circle I’m not meant to understand? I wish you were here, Father. I need your wisdom. I’m not the Man I should be. The longer this war lasts
the more I can’t help but think it was all my fault. I never should have gone to Delranan to take Maleela. Our love is the great curse between our kingdoms.

  “Send the word to the main body. I want the Wolfsreik occupying the city by nightfall. Detail work crews to put the fires out, look for survivors, and begin constructing enough shelters for the civilians to get out of the cold.” He paused. “Our city may be in ruin but we have an obligation to look beyond ourselves for the good of all. Make it happen, Mahn.”

  “Yes sire,” the scout replied and headed off on his task. He knew Rolnir hadn’t left anything to chance and most of the Wolfsreik was already moving into position around the disaster of Rogscroft. Battle-hardened soldiers from all three armies saw it as their duty to restore order and faith to those few survivors still trapped in the city. Many of Aurec’s forces were from the city proper and took it as personal insult. Those were the ones who worked the hardest. Mahn let Aurec alone for a while. The young king certainly had more to process than a mere scout. Even if that scout was nominated to the king’s council.

  A host of others passed him as he was leaving, bringing any personal moments for the king to an abrupt end. He grinned ruefully, suddenly grateful for being just a scout. Trading the freedom of the open road for the confinement of a throne wasn’t wise. Mahn was made to roam the unexplored parts of the world, not wither away inside while life rode past.

  “Mahn didn’t feel like sitting through another meeting?” Vajna asked lightheartedly.

  Aurec smiled, despite the solemnity of his surroundings. “He has a purpose to be about. Besides, he’s earned the right to do what he does. How many others have put themselves on the line like that?”

  Vajna could name plenty off the top of his head. The entire army had risked everything to meet with the Wolfsreik, Pell Darga, and attempt to reclaim a kingdom against hordes of Goblins soldiers. Boiling those actions down to a single Man, regardless of who it was, diminished their deeds. Vajna believed that every soldier in the combined army deserved praise for his actions. He couldn’t figure out how to tell that to his youthful king and still maintain his position.