The Crown of the Blood

by Gav Thorpe

  While shock pulsed back through the caravan, a few groups tried to turn their wagons around. Carts became entangled with each other in the panic, while women started screaming and children wailed. A few cowardly souls broke altogether, leaping the ditch that flanked the road to sprint away across the hills on the other side. Ullsaard was happy for them to go; he wanted people to know what he was doing.

  With the general leading the advance, the greater part of Ullsaard's legions marched down the ridge, descending on the caravan in a bronze, red and black wave ready to sweep away all in its way. Families clustered around the menfolk, while the unruly snorts of the abada and cries of other animals added to the commotion.

  Ullsaard headed for a particularly elaborate covered wagon a little from the front of the line, judging it to belong to the caravan's master. The men who stood guard beside the wagon warily eyed the general and his bodyguard as the legionnaires drew up into a block just in front of them. A short, chubby man with heavy rings on his fingers and a few stray locks of hair plastered over his bald scalp peered nervously from under the canopy.

  "Is this your caravan?" Ullsaard asked. The man nodded uncertainly, and climbed down from the wagon at a wave from the general.

  "You're the renegades, aren't you?" the merchant said, gulping heavily with fright. "Are you going to kill us?"

  "Not unless you want us to," replied Ullsaard. He looked up and down the line of wagons filling the road, while other traders approached cautiously to hear what was happening. "I'm buying all of your stock."

  "You're… buying our stock?"

  Ullsaard nodded and waved his men on. They climbed up onto the wagons, shoving drivers from their seats. There were fierce shouts from up ahead. A harassed-looking second captain came hurrying along the line and saluted Ullsaard.

  "There's a man refusing to give us his wagons," the officer reported. "What should we do?"

  "Kick his cunt in," said Ullsaard.

  "General?"

  "Rough him up, but don't kill him, that should stop trouble spreading," Ullsaard growled. The captain nodded in understanding and set off. Ullsaard turned his attention back to the caravan master. "We're not robbing you, unless you refuse to sell us what you have."

  "You have money?"

  "Of course," laughed Ullsaard. "Why wouldn't we?"

  "I heard you were all starving in the mountains," said the merchant.

  "Homeless vagabonds, that's what Nemtun called you lot," added another from a safe distance. "Cowards and traitors, too."

  Cries of pain cut through the hubbub from the head of the caravan, punctuated by snarled curses and sounds of a thorough beating. A sobbing call for mercy ended with a snapping noise that caused the gathering merchants to wince in fear.

  "We're doing you a service," said Ullsaard. The merchant captain cringed as the general leant an arm on the shorter man's shoulder and smiled. "You should know that Salphorian rebels and hillmen are running amok in the mountains coldwards of here. They would rob you; we won't. As long as you give us a fair price, of course."

  "A fair price?" This came from a young man not far to Ullsaard's left. "What do you think is a fair price?"

  Ullsaard straightened, strode over to the dissenting merchant and rested a hand on his sword.

  "We'll start with your lives and work up from there, eh?" said the general with a pleasant smile. "But don't get too fussy, I have no stomach for haggling."

  The youthful trader retreated a few steps and looked at his fellow merchants.

  "They warned us about this!" he said. "I said we should have brought more men, but you were all worried about the cost. 'Shut up, Lenruun', you said. 'We can handle a gang of halfarsed ruffians', you all said. Look where that's got us. I hope you're Askhos-damned happy now, you bunch of misers!"

  "And you're taking our wagons!" protested another voice from the crowd.

  "We'll pay for those too," said Ullsaard. He pointed back along the road. "Leskhan is only two days' walking that way, stop complaining."

  There was an impromptu conference amongst the senior merchants, whose heads bobbed and beards wagged as they discussed the situation. The caravan master approached Ullsaard, urged on by approving glances from his companions.

  "All right, renegade," he said. "We'll give you everything at seventy sindins on the askharin. That's nearly a third of market value. That's a good price."

  Ullsaard leisurely folded his arms and shook his head.

  "Sixty?" offered the merchant.

  Ullsaard looked over his shoulder towards a nearby phalanx of legionnaires. They booed and shook their heads. The general's gaze returned to the merchant, who sighed heavily.

  "We can't go lower than fifty."

  "Half price will be fine," Ullsaard said with a smile. "Pass the word to your men not to interfere, and make sure the Nemurians don't start anything. Take any personal belongings with you. I'm not paying for anything not on your ledgers."

  The merchants gave reluctant nods and dispersed back to their wagons and families. Rondin approached Ullsaard, cocking an eye at the merchants.

  "I still don't understand why we're paying for stuff we could just take," said the First Captain. "This lot wouldn't even make the boys break a sweat."

  "We're going to need all the help we can get if we're to beat Nemtun and the king," Ullsaard said quietly. "The last thing we need is word spreading that we're murderous, thieving bastards. We forage what we can, pay for what we take and act like proper legions. Lutaar would love to paint us as lawless brigands, let's not give him the chance. Things are going to be difficult enough as it is without having to worry about every common man and woman in Greater Askhor hating us. If we get them on our side, we've half-won the war."

  "And what's going to win the other half?" asked Rondin.

  "We'll starve Anrair and Enair into submission, and then chop off Nemtun's head. That should do it." Ullsaard slapped a hand to Rondin's shoulder. "Let's get these wagons off to Anglhan before any of these idiots start having second thoughts."

  II

  Wandering along the clean, paved streets of Talladmun, Gelthius was again convinced that he had made the right choice siding with the Askhans. Magilnada aside, there was nowhere in all of Salphoria that could match the size and achievement of an Askhan town. Gelthius had never seen one before, and it was amazing to him that only twenty years earlier, Talladmun had been little more than a fishing village on the Ladmun River. He guessed there must be thousands living here now, in stone and wood buildings, brought from quarries and forests at least a dozen days' travel away. In contrast, even Carantathi, capital of Aegenuis, Salphoria's current king, looked like a dishevelled collection of rough barns and mud-brick hovels.

  It'd be easy, thought Gelthius, to slip away into the town and hide until this all blew over. He could be a shoemaker again. Even Askhans needed shoes. He was not young, but Gelthius was sure he could find another wife; he still had it in him to raise another son or two. He could start all over; put the cattle thievery, the debts behind him. Nobody would care, nobody would know.

  But Gelthius couldn't bring himself to slip away. He wasn't much for thinking, he was the first to admit, but he hadn't survived in an uncaring world by being slow-witted. The general was a man with an idea, and that sort of person, once started, was hard to stop. And Gelthius had no doubt that if he abandoned his current mission he would end up getting caught out in the end. Somehow, Ullsaard would find him and make him pay for any disobedience. If there was one thing above everything that he had learnt in his time in the Thirteenth, it was the price of failure.

  There was something else that nagged at him as he walked along the main road that led to the town's central district. He already had a wife, two sons and a daughter. It would not be right for him to forget them while he enjoyed the comforts of this Askhan life. If he wanted this, it was only right that he shared it with them.

  Family was important to Askhans: legionnaires got pensions, farmers got money fr
om the king when their crop failed; even a middle-aged shoemaker could expect the odd bit of trade thrown his way by the legions or governors if he really needed it.

  He crossed the street, nimbly stepping between two lumbering abada, as he caught sight of the distinctive black robe of a Brother amongst the growing crowd of townsfolk. He was in two minds about that lot. The other men in his company had told him how the Brotherhood was the glue that kept the Askhan Empire stuck together. A word from a Brother could make or break a man, but they couldn't be bribed, couldn't be flattered, couldn't be tricked. They were, as third captain Leagois had put it, "straight as the Royal Way," whatever that meant.

  The Brotherhood upheld the law – even governors and kings had to obey it. They collected the taxes, but did so without favour, and sometimes they even paid people money if they could prove they had suffered a bad year. They wrote lots of things down, Gelthius had heard. Who was born and who was dead, who was married and who had what jobs. They arbitrated disputes between merchants and families, judged those who broke the law and kept everything working.

  It was a huge difference from the chieftains and their cronies who ruled the Salphorian tribes, from the king on down. Gelthius had long ago accepted that his betters would be self-serving bullies, until he had met the Askhans. If Gelthius had a complaint about Naraghlin, chieftain of his people, there was nothing he could do but shut up and bear it. If he had something to say about Captain Leagois, he could speak to the second captain, Aladaan. Not that any legionnaire ever did make a complaint, but they could if they really wanted to.

  But the Brotherhood made Gelthius uneasy. He glanced over his shoulder as the black-robed man disappeared down the road. For everything they did, the Askhans never liked talking to them, and for Gelthius there was something deeply wrong with a whole bunch of men who claimed to know the will of a man dead for two hundred years and who denied the existence of the spirits. That denial scared him more than anything. He had realised in Magilnada that he owed the spirits nothing for the woes he had suffered under their gaze, but that was a long throw from going out of his way to insult them by pretending they didn't exist.

  Caught up in his thoughts, Gelthius wandered into the path of a patrol of legionnaires. There were twenty of them with heads of ailurs painted on their shields, from the Second Legion commanded by Nemtun. Seeing the soldiers reminded Gelthius of his mission – and of several dozen other men sent by the general – prompting him into action.

  Unslinging a small bag from his shoulder, Gelthius tripped in front of the soldiers, spilling its contents. Bunches of spring berries scattered across the paving slabs in a shower of red and purple. He fell to his knees and hurriedly gathered them up, with a glance of apology at the patrol's officer.

  "Morning there, Captain," said Gelthius. He noticed the men looking at the fruit he scooped back into the sack. "I'll be out of your way in a moment."

  "Where'd you get those?" the captain demanded, pointing at Gelthius's bag.

  "These?" Gelthius replied innocently. "Picked them meself, I did. You boys look hungry. D'you want some?"

  He proffered the bag towards the legionnaires, who stepped up with arms outstretched until their captain barked at them to stay in line.

  "Where you from, stranger?" the captain asked. "You talk funny."

  "I do talk funny, Captain. I'm from the Free Country, thought I'd try to see if things were better up here. Things haven't been going so well since the rebels took Magilnada."

  "The renegades have taken Magilnada?" This was from a young, round-faced legionnaire. He stepped back into line as the captain rounded on him with a snarl.

  "Keep your fucking mouth shut!" The officer turned his temper on Gelthius, grabbing him by the scruff of his jerkin. "What do you know about the rebels?"

  "Not your rebels, captain," Gelthius said as he squirmed in the captain's grip. "Some other lot. Took the city to spite King Aegenuis, I reckon, and now they're raiding left and right without a care in the world. It's been hard, there ain't nothing coming from duskwards, I tell you. Not a piece of tin, nor a plank of wood nor drop of beer. Still, I'm sure you boys'll be all right. Got your own stores and everything, right enough."

  The captain shoved Gelthius to one side.

  "Mind your own business."

  "I was lucky, got saved by one of your legions when I thought I was done for," Gelthius continued. "Drove them rebel bastards back into the hills quick enough when they came for us. Like the spirits of vengeance themselves they came down on them brigands."

  Gelthius threw the bag of fruit to the captain, who caught it awkwardly out of instinct.

  "You boys saved my life; I reckon you should have these more than me."

  "We didn't save anybody's life," said the captain, his anger replaced with confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "I told you, legionnaires what chased off the rebels in the hills. I saw them meself. Black shields, red crests."

  "That's the Thirteenth, Captain," muttered one of the legionnaires.

  "I know that," said the captain, forgetting to admonish the soldier for speaking out of turn. The officer bore down on Gelthius once again and grabbed him by the collar. "You fucking idiot, the Thirteenth are the rebels. How did they look, how many of them were there?"

  "Thousands of them, and they was hungry for a fight. Butchered them thieves good and proper, the ones what they caught."

  "What about their gear?" the captain continued. "How did that look?"

  "Bright and shiny as a new askharin, I'd say. Not that I've ever seen an askharin, but I can imag–"

  "Where was this?" The captain let go of Gelthius, looking worried.

  "Somewhere between here and Magilnada, Captain. We kept walking for quite a time before we got here."

  "How long? How many days?"

  "Sorry, Captain, I can't remember rightly and I'm not so good at counting. I'd say more than less."

  "You're no fucking help," said the captain. He waved his men to continue, the sack of fruit still in hand.

  Gelthius watched them go and chuckled. The Second's legionnaires were getting all sorts of news about their enemies, and none of it matched up. The general had given each of those sent to Talladmun a different story to tell, some putting him far to hotwards, others claimed he was just a couple of days' march away. Some of the tales had the legions as a bedraggled remnant of their former glory preying on whoever they could find, while others spoke of an army numbering fifty thousand well-equipped soldiers. Gelthius guessed all of the bad information was really Anglhan's idea; it smelt like the sort of thing he would think up.

  It was a mean trick to play on men already missing their first three supply shipments, intercepted by Ullsaard's legions before they reached Talladmun. Hungry and confused, after a rough season quartered in the Anrairian cold and rain, the legionnaires would be dispirited.

  No doubt the patrol Gelthius had just met would enjoy their fruit back in camp; unfortunately for them it was laced with canaris juice, which made it pretty much certain they would be throwing up their guts before the end of the watch. Gelthius had been assured that he wouldn't be poisoning anyone, just making them ill for a few days. The aim was to get the Second to refuse orders or disintegrate by desertion. Gelthius didn't really care whether they drifted away or fell down dead, as long as it meant there were less spears pointed at him when the Thirteenth had to face them.

  Pleased with his first success, Gelthius turned back towards the house he shared with some of the others, to get another bag of fruit.

  MAGILNADA

  Early Spring, 209th Year of Askh

  I

  The city bustled with activity. Every market square was filled, and men at the gates claimed never to have seen so many people coming to Magilnada. Anglhan stood on the long balcony at the front of the old lord's hall and looked over his city. The wind was still fresh down from the mountains, and the sky was overcast, but he was warmed from within by a deep glow of satisf
action.

  Everybody was happy, and that was the key. Anglhan had lowered the taxes – not by much but just enough – and had emptied the city's coffers to make some much-needed repairs and improvements. The fire-damaged buildings had been torn down and were being replaced by new houses and businesses. Anglhan had also made generous offerings at the garden of shrines on behalf of the city, which had confused his Askhan underlings, but been well-received by the citizens of Magilnada.

  When he had bought his first debt, Anglhan had realised that in order to make money it was necessary to spend some, and he had taken that philosophy with him through life. Back then it had been half-a-dozen debtors and two handcarts, his caravan growing in size each year until he had enough money for the landship. That had been an extravagance; he could have just as easily been a caravan captain and moved as much cargo. But the pleasure had been in the ownership of such a vessel, of knowing that he was in charge and answerable to nobody.