The Hollow March

by Chris Galford

  She stared for a time before she actually lifted the keys. She had not expected him to be so forthcoming, or anyone for that matter, but she certainly did not object. The man remained as he was, though the smile faded back into a noncommittal look. After a moment of unease, she murmured a thank you, and he grunted indifferently. Unsure of how to proceed, she glanced to the door, then back to him. He stared back, unflinchingly.

  “If you are quite through, might I return to my writing? I am on a particularly eventful chapter, you know. Just got the tone just right.” Sirche seemed to lapse into a trance-like haze, staring off into the space behind her a moment longer than he should have. Then, with a longing sigh, he breathed, “Marvelous flow to it.”

  “Get up,” she ordered.

  Reluctantly, he acquiesced. Keys traded for a dagger. Pressing the blade into his spine, Essa handed the keys back to him and motioned toward the door.

  He went as instructed, though muttering the word “tedious” as he did so. Standing up, she got a full look at the man. He was larger than her, though not by much. He was not overtly possessed of muscle tone, though he was not a frail man either. He was lean, but not thin. His hair was trimmed short, but he kept a ragged beard that was more stubble than beard, and the hairs, once black, had begun to gray. Overall, he was remarkable for his unremarkability.

  Funny thing was, she could never remember seeing him around the manor, either.

  The keys rattled against the door and the lock clicked open. “Coming in,” Sirche called out. With a push, the door swung inward and he marched inside, hands held up. Another guard beside the cells stood up at his approach, face warped with confusion at the sight. One hand idly caressed a club on his belt.

  “They’ve got me,” Sirche shrugged.

  “Sirche? What you playing at? Why—”

  With the heel of her foot, Essa swung the door closed again behind her. As it clanged shut, the guardsman dispensed with questions and pulled his club. Only then did Essa ease herself out from behind the gaoler. Her right hand kept her blade pressed against his spine, however, lest he find a sudden burst of daring. When the guardsman advanced, though, she swung it around and to the gaoler’s throat, lifting his chin with it. The guard stopped, drawn rigid. Someone whistled at his back.

  She moved around to the other side of her captive, shaking her head. “No heroics. The club, and anything else.” She held her free hand out expectantly, but the guard hesitated. In response, she drew her dagger a little tighter, her body and the gaoler’s nearly touching.

  The guardsman dropped his club and kicked it toward them. Then he unhitched his belt and tossed it to her. She caught it and tossed it beside his club. He looked at them longingly, but remained as he was, spread wide, back slightly hitched, as though he weighed the value of a rush. She looked him in the eye, made sure he saw that she knew, and then she shook her head again, tapping the flat of her steel against the gaoler’s adam’s apple. The guardsman slackened a bit, though none of the fire went out of his eyes.

  “Back,” she said, and the man obeyed. They moved slowly down the hall, toward the occupied cells. Others, empty holds without light or attendance, moved solemnly past. It was a claustrophobic little cave, with only a pair of lanterns dangling from the wall.

  “The guard will come, little girl. You must know that,” the guardsman ventured brazenly. “A shout would bring them. Armory’s just out there. They’ll come, and not one of you’ll live for it. You want that?”

  “Stop,” she commanded. He thought she meant his words, and kept moving. Kept talking, too, thinking he had gotten under her skin. “Stop, I said.” Then he realized she had abruptly halted, and he followed suit.

  At last, she dared to look. The cell was dark, the lanterns of the hall merely casting shadows through it. There were no windows. Still, Essa saw with clarity, saw the darkened figures stretching out toward her. Alviss had risen against his chains, more alarmed than comforted. Beside him, though, hands bound above his head and smile shining through, was Rowan.

  Her cousin. Her brother-born.

  “Who lit your fire, coz?”

  The dandy wriggled against his binds like a hooked fish. A few bruises welled along his pretty face, and some bits of his clothes were torn from being dragged, but otherwise, he was little worse for wear. She could feel the wetness welling beneath her eyes. It was a concentrated effort to hold them back, but she twisted away anyway, fearing some might leak through. Weakness was not something that could be shown. Not now.

  “I would embrace you, but as you can see, I’ve been detained,” Rowan chuckled. “Good service here, I must say, but the lodging’s dreadful. How’s a man to sleep?”

  “You are well?” She tapped the blade against the gaoler’s cheek, then tapped the bar of Rowan’s cell. The man moved with her to unlock it. Her eyes never left the guardsman, though.

  “I have been better, much better, and much worse, in equal measure, I should say. Rough handling without a happy ending, but I live and I breathe, so there is hope for the happy ending in due time.” He paused thoughtfully, then let out a delighted sigh as the door swung freely. “Perhaps on my own terms now, eh?”

  She glanced in, noted the chains, and leaned in close to the gaoler’s ear. “The chains,” she said, “you’ve keys for those as well?”

  “Aye. Keys, keys, keys. I’ve all the keys you might could ever need.” Sirche breathed heavily. “Master of the keys, yet my quill sits beyond my reach. Injustice, I say.”

  Ignoring him, Essa gestured both him and the other guard further down the line. The guard went until his back was to the wall, Essa and the gaoler until they stood alongside Chigenda’s cell. The Zuti looked at her with thinly veiled emotion. Something burned there—anger? Regret? Hope? She could not say, but such heated looks unnerved her, as they always had. The Zuti was a cold person. To see such fire reminded her of an inn, far away, where the walls had dug into her flesh and the wind had gone from her lungs.

  She had nearly lost something precious then, though there was much he could have taken. She had kicked and clawed and punched her way to nothing, and he had stood there as cool as ice, lecturing her as to her own failings. One did not forgive such things in years, let alone months. This man, this Zuti.

  There was but one other moment when she had felt as helpless. Death had been the fear then. The Zuti evoked far darker terrors than that. A person could only die once. Yet the body and the mind could be killed a hundred times in a hundred ways, such that breath, still drawn, left nothing but a hollow agony in its wake.

  Under other circumstances she might have taken a moment to reconsider. As it was, she did not have that luxury. Besides, Alviss would have never forgiven her, and she could not bring herself to hurt the old man in such a way.

  “His, too,” she murmured, and the gaoler complied.

  The Zuti had been shackled to the floor, and he looked much worse for wear than either of the others. Where skin showed between the mesh of cloth and leather were bruises ripe as apples. His shoulder was marred by the ill-treated and telltale punctures of a dog’s maw. Even his face had been beaten raw, his left eye swelling over itself, lips cracked, with a thin line of dried blood across his throat from where a blade had been pressed.

  “Little girl grow up,” he said with a hint of humor. “Good to see she learn.”

  Too much to ask, I suppose, that he lose his sarcasm?

  “Give the keys to him,” she said, gesturing her knife toward the guardsman. “Then get in the cell and let him be.”

  The guardsman blanched as the gaoler tossed the keys to him. “Let…let Chigenda free? Are you daft? The others, fine, but—no, are you mad?”

  “Quite mad enough. The chains, if you’d kindly.”

  “He’ll kill us.”

  She had her own doubts in that area, but for the guard all she offered was an uncaring shrug. He went despairingly to the task, and she remained beyond the cell, with her blade to the gaoler.

&nb
sp; In all the time Chigenda had walked amongst them, she had never sorted out which of the tales about him were real. Alviss seemed to believe the murders of men were true enough, but that the rumors of rapes and child-killings were mere fancy. She was inclined to believe otherwise, but she kept her suspicions largely to herself. Rowan thought the man a boar, but grudgingly respected his skill. Chigenda himself remained tight-lipped on any matters pertaining to himself, but for his stated desire for battle, which served as an ever-looming prod to Rurik’s own impatience. It had been he alone, after all, that had supported Rurik’s mad trek to Verdan.

  As the chains came loose, Chigenda rose up to his full height, which was not too tall—being of a height with Rowan—and rubbed at his raw wrists. What he lacked in height, he made up for in sheer presence. The Zuti dominated whatever room he walked into, barring Alviss, or perhaps, the memories she had of Rurik’s father. The guardsman seemed well enough aware of that as well, as he began to back away. Chigenda looked up as he did, smiled, and drove a single punch into the bridge of the man’s nose.

  Blood sprayed as the man went down, howling. Chigenda scooped the keys from his hand and stepped over him on the way to freedom. Behind him, the guard rolled onto his belly and started crawling for the door, only to have it swung shut against him.

  As he passed Essa, Chigenda stopped, noting how she turned the gaoler between the two of them. He reached out, past a fidgeting Sirche, and put a hand on Essa’s head.

  With a rare smile, he said, “Good work, child.” Then he wiped his face of any such good humor and turned into the adjacent cell.

  Essa shuddered at the touch. She had not let him touch her since that inn, or rarely even to take her company. “Know how easy I could take what de boy desire,” he had taunted her.

  He might have plucked her, but he didn’t. He had delivered his message. Grow up. You are not what you seem. Children in their fathers’ skins, playing at the world. Its price and its consequence had been scorn, hatred, fear. The Zuti seemed to take them all in stride, even take pleasure in their being.

  She had not spoken to anyone of it, save her cousin. Even Rurik was left in the dark, and she and Rowan had both agreed on that. If Rurik had known, there was little doubt of what he would have tried to do. Either he would have shot Chigenda in the back or he would have done something truly stupid and incurred the Zuti’s wrath in turn—something that he could not possibly have weathered.

  Still, he had noticed something of the change about her. Chigenda’s actions had hurt her deeper than words. It was not merely between him and her. That would have been simple. It was between Rurik and her, as well. Something that was a woman’s right to give. She had been close, but…much as she tried to deny it, the Zuti had frightened her—dearly—and as close as she was to Rurik, when she thought of that, she was petrified.

  Do all men possess such potential?

  Rurik loved her. She knew that. Cared for her. Cherished her. Whatever one wanted to call it. But he had been with other women, quite a few. He knew what he was doing, how to talk his way into what he wanted. Not one of them he had loved. Yet he…

  She tried to put the thought from her mind. Now was neither the time, nor the place, and she was not the same as them.

  Chigenda made quick work of the chains. Rowan slumped against him as he tried to take his first steps, but after the Zuti helped him to right himself, her cousin managed to stagger out of the cell. He went immediately to Essa’s side, while Chigenda freed Alviss. Rowan threw an arm about Essa’s waist and squeezed her tight, but quickly, lest he break her concentration on the gaoler. Circling behind her, he laid a kiss on the back of her head, and shuffled out of the way.

  “I’ll be needing my sword, you know. I’ll not lose another.”

  “A point,” Essa said. Tapping her dagger against the gaoler’s throat, she asked, “Where did you take their things?”

  “The lockup, in the armory. Upstairs, end of the hall to your right.” Essa cringed. It was right where they had struck the guard. Sirche sniffed disconcertingly. “Am I to be committed to the cells now, as well?” He looked over his shoulder, was met by a somewhat sympathetic nod. “Must I?”

  Chigenda reemerged from the cell, a somewhat reluctant-looking Alviss trailing behind him. Once they were out, Essa shoved the gaoler in and sealed the cell. The man moved to the bars and hung himself despondently between them. He scarcely even flinched when the Zuti took a menacing step toward him. He blinked once, leaned his head on the side of the cell, and watched the other guardsman rattling them with fists and screams.

  “Help,” the gaurdsman cried. “Help us! Escape! The prisoners have escaaaped!”

  Yet none could hear him. Essa knew that well enough—he must have known it, too. The walls were thick, the halls empty. Regardless, the screams poured on, like a wounded child wailing for its mother. Shaking her head at him pityingly, she dipped her arm under Rowan’s shoulder, despite protest, and made to help him down the hall. Chigenda was already off and away, moving through the sitting room and bounding up the stairs.

  Alviss lingered however, putting himself in the doorway to bar their path. He looked down at her, through her, ignoring Rowan’s protests. She could not help but shrink a bit before him. There was an anger there she was not used to seeing, a well of emotion so carefully withheld in most moments, and it wasn’t directed at an enemy, or a calculated press on a contact or a hirer. It was directed at her and her alone, the rest of the world slipping away before it.

  “Where is Rurik,” he demanded.

  “Upstairs,” she managed, trying to stand her ground, but unconsciously leaning more heavily into her cousin. “Looking for his father.”

  The northman snorted derisively. “Why come? Do you not think he knows you would?”

  “Alviss,” her cousin interposed. “She just rescued us from Assal knows what. Perhaps you might—”

  “And it was foolish thing. As it all was, from the start.” Alviss leaned forward, laying his powerful hands about her shoulders. She squirmed. There was a frenzy there not so different from his battle lust. Rowan howled at him to let go of her. The guard was still screaming behind them. “It will be a trap. Does he not see? Cullick has eyes, ears, all about these walls, foolish child. If he is caught…”

  “I know,” she said heavily. “I know. But he knew that going in. In a way, I think…”

  He wants it. The words would not come. She could not say it. Not there, with everyone watching. She had to be strong. She had to smile. Rurik would return. There was no way he wanted that. Not that. The one thing he could never come back from, the exile of the soul. Too much would be lost. Perhaps he saw some vein of hope the rest of them simply could not see.

  But there, looking into the saddened terror of his guardian, she could not bring herself to deny it. Perhaps, she thought, he means to die.

  * *

  It was no easy feat to take the stairs.

  There was but one route to the upper echelon of his family’s manor, and that way lay through the grand hall and the massive oaken steps that rose from its glamour. There were, as Essa had told him, no less than three guardsmen wandering the hall. Two sat at one of the feast tables, playing at a game of cards. The third roved restlessly. No one place did he claim, but for those briefest of moments when he stopped to put his two pence on the game’s progression.

  They all chatted, boisterously at that. Friends. Family. Weather. Him. The war put in an appearance as well, though none were things he had not heard before, or cared to hear again.

  They debated the reasons, the goals, even the man himself—the Emperor—and his intentions on the front. He was an old man, well into his eighties. He had been an acclaimed warrior in his day, and an unparalleled strategist, but the thought that he had now joined the war in the east himself was more than a touch disconcerting to a great many people. The man was the heart and soul of Idasia. Were he to fall, it would be chaos in the courts.

  Not to mention
his own family.

  It was widely whispered that Lord Marshall Othmann had mishandled the war, having stalled in his progression somewhere weeks yet away from the Effisian capital, at a time when its encirclement was already to have been complete. Armies did not march in winter. Such had been the case for hundreds of years, with a few exceptions. The winter should have been spent at an easy siege, slowly starving out the Effisian royals. Instead, they remained with every vice at their command, protected behind walls yet miles from the war.

  It was only a matter of time before Othmann was relieved of his command. He was an old-timer, and of good, noble breeding, but he had failed. Many suspected the Emperor’s brother, the equally-aged but exceedingly renowned general Mauritz, would be called to take his place. Something needed to be done, but the Emperor had apparently endeavored to do it himself.

  While many fretted over what could be, others heralded the man’s bravery. There were reasons, they said, that friends and foes alike styled him “the bold.” In contrast, Rurik was of the mind that it was simply stupidity. Two out of three guardsmen seemed to agree with him.

  As if an emperor determined to endanger himself wasn’t bad enough, however, it was whispered that the man had not rode out with his distinguished heir, but with one of his bastards. The man—Rurik always forgot his name—was a skilled soldier himself, but his presence would only incense the nobles. They despised him, and not merely for his ill-begotten blood. He was a Farren—as though that name somehow made him even less of a man. To think that he now rode at the Emperor’s side to death, and to glory—it was an affront many would find hard to swallow.

  The Emperor was a master reformer, and beloved for it in many circles of his own nation, but even he could not suppress the fractional nature of the court. His own family was split along lines far deeper than blood, and the Visaji Church—the Holy Church of Assal—had been growing increasingly denunciative of his acceptance of the supposed “firebrands” that peppered the continent. Farrens, they called themselves. Asantil to the west was the real start of that problem, but it had taken root most deeply in the Empire. In their own eyes, Farrens were reformers of the God’s word. To the Church, they were blasphemers, guided by a devil.