Sadness, he thought, watching as the group dispersed, the town’s faithful heading for the door and the members of the temple going about their duties, or perhaps worse.
Once the hall had all but emptied, Kal breathed a deep sigh.
“With every week we see less and less of the faithful come to discuss Azbar’s situation,” he said sadly, motioning to a triad of chairs that had been vacated, set up near one side of the hearth. “You should have seen this place when Tern first started claiming debtors for the pits. We couldn’t fit everyone inside the temple! People were clamoring to have us stand up to him, begging the Laorin to put a stop to the madness.”
“What happened?” Carro asked, helping Talo ease into the middle chair before taking one beside him. “I didn’t count more than fifteen from the town.”
Kal sighed again, claiming the last chair, and nodded.
“Much and more.” He shrugged, then thanked a small girl in acolyte’s robes as she appeared and presented him with a steaming cup of some strong tea smelling of herbs. As the girl offered a cup in turn to Talo and Carro, promising to return with bread and cheese from the kitchen, he continued.
“For one thing, the longer it goes on, the less people care. We see it every year during the summer months. For the first week or so the town clamors to help those most affected by the freeze. Collapsed roofs are fixed, the hungry are fed, clothes and blankets and firewood are donated in droves. After that week, though, the help slows. The donations become less frequent, until they stop almost altogether. Within the month even the hungry are invisible again.”
“It becomes part of the life they live,” Talo said with a nod, swirling his drink absent-mindedly as he listened. “The desire for change is enacted by change, not by a lack of it. When things shift, there is a natural outcry, a desire for a shift back. Sometimes this is a positive reaction, sometimes not. Regardless, once that shift becomes the new normal, that desire to effect dissipates and is eventually forgotten.”
“Exactly.” Kal brooded for a moment before continuing, watching the fire flicker as he sipped his drink. “And such has it been with the Arena. Not immediately, mind you. There were enough volunteers to last for a while, so no one was immediately alarmed. By the time I started to think I should reach out to you, however, things were already slanting towards bad. Those guilty of violent crimes were being offered a chance at freedom if they fought. Soon after, they weren’t even given the choice. From there it only got worse. The prisons were emptied, the woods around the town hunted free of bears and wolves and any other dangerous game that could provide some form of entertainment. Minor crimes suddenly became punishable by bouts in the Arena. Dozens died before the only criminals left in the city were the ones too smart to be caught.”
“And that’s when Tern started claiming debtors?” Carro asked.
“It is,” Kal nodded. “For the first week or so they tried to make do with deathless fights, using the gladiators the Arena keeps for true entertainment, but that didn’t last long. People are bloodthirsty at heart. The crowds demanded murder, and the Chairman was happy to sate them when he found his answer. Men, women, even children. If you could die, you could fight.”
Talo felt his whole body still. He’d been in the process of raising the cooling tea to his lips, but froze instead. After a moment he lowered the cup slowly, hard-pressed to keep his hand still.
Beside him, Carro’s face registered much of the emotion Talo was feeling.
“Children?” he hissed in fury, one hand gripping the arm of his chair so tight the old wood looked liable to break. “Tern is having children thrown to the pit?”
“He was.” Kal frowned. “That was when we attempted to make our voices heard in truth. We’d tried before, mind, but nothing overtly aggressive. Public displays of intolerance. Petitions for the closing of the Arena, and then—when that didn’t work—for the banning of fights involving anyone but trained gladiators. We had some success for a time, but eventually Tern had the guard break up our gatherings, citing us for ‘disruption of the peace’ of all things. When it became clear he had no conscience for who he threw in the pit, so long as they bled, though, we had to act. I took the matter to Tern and the council directly. I pleaded, begged, even threatened. I warned them of the wrath of Laor they might incur for spitting so casually on His gifts, of the wrath of man they would bring upon their heads if they kept tearing families apart and butchering the innocent in the name of the law.”
“I’m assuming that didn’t go over as well as you would have liked,” Talo said, leaning back in his chair, still listening raptly.
“They laughed.” Kal’s jaw was a hard line, clenched and tight as he fought to control the anger in his voice. “These men who claim to seek nothing but the good of the town and its people. These men, many of whom I have consoled through life and loss and hard times, telling them to seek the Lifegiver. They laughed, called me an old fool with outdated morals, and had me thrown from the town hall. When I tried to go back the next day, I was barred entry under suspicion of ‘seeking to harm one or more members of the council.’”
There was a moment of heavy, seething silence. Talo absorbed it all, eyes on the fire, letting everything sink in and take hold.
Children, he thought numbly. Not even in my time did the Arena allow children into the pit…
Eventually, he turned back to Kal.
“What happened, though?” he asked. “You said ‘he was.’ You imply Tern only allowed these fights to go on for so long. Why? Was the Arena failing to draw the crowds?”
Kal snorted.
“Failing to draw the crowds?” He laughed. “No such luck. If anything, fights between commoners or criminals drew greater attention to the place than ever before. It seems there’s nothing quite like witnessing two parties of equally lacking skill and knowledge have it out in a desperate battle for survival.”
“The feeling of power, of control,” Talo nodded absently. “It’s what drew the crowds in truth the last time, the only thing that kept the gold flowing in earnest once the spectators got mostly bored of gladiators and wild animals having at it.”
“Then it seems your Arena of old was missing Raz i’Syul Arro.”
There was another pause.
“i’Syul?” Carro said tentatively after a moment. “… You’ll have to explain.”
“The atherian is the reason.” Kal drained his cup of tea, then set it carefully on the arm of his chair. “You asked what happened? What changed to make Tern stop claiming minor criminals and debtors as fodder for the pits? Then I tell you: Raz i’Syul Arro. The man appeared out of thin air, a week or so after I’d sent you the bird. No one is sure how or why, but one day everything is normal, and the next morning there’s a Southern lizard-kind wandering the streets of Azbar. Took some getting used to, to say the least.”
“And he… what?” Talo pressed. “Convinced Tern there was nothing to be gained from stealing men and women from the populace? What did he have to say that you didn’t?”
“It’s not what he had to say that made the difference. It’s what he had to offer. It’s not all clear, but the rumors say i’Syul was able to make an exchange for the freedom of the captives. He bargained to have them set free, and Tern hasn’t claimed a single man or woman from within the walls of Azbar since.”
“But what did he bargain with?” Carro demanded, obviously shocked. “What could he possibly have had that would press the Chairman away from a lucrative system already in place?”
Kal opened his mouth to speak, but Talo beat him to it. The High Priest was gazing at the far wall, putting together the pieces as they clicked with what he’d known of the man beforehand.
So that’s why he’s doing it. That’s why he’s thrown himself to the pit…
“He bargained with the only thing he had, and the one thing that might be more valuable than the lives of debtors and criminals,” Talo said.
Then he turned to look at his partner.
&nb
sp; “Himself, Carro. Raz i’Syul gambled his life for theirs.”
XV
“Though the Tundra beyond the Northern Ranges is vast and largely unexplored, I cannot imagine it a more unforgiving place than these mountains in winter. Despite our shelter, family, and warmth, beyond the comfort of these great walls the world rages with the fierceness of titans. Even as I sit here, scribbling away in the faded light of my lantern, I hear the wind ripping against the stone. I will not sleep well tonight, I fear. And if I do, I imagine dreams of winter demons will plague my slumber.”
—PRIVATE JOURNAL OF ERET TA’HIR
THE BATTLEMENTS of the High Citadel were among the few places in the great temple one could be truly alone. The Laorin had no use for them, after all, and few thought to explore the tops of the keep’s walls when they were quite content simply staying within them.
For those among the faith who were not so fulfilled, however, they proved sometimes to be a place of freedom in a world otherwise caged in stone.
Syrah’s boots crunched in the thick layer of snow built up over the parapets as she walked. The storm had passed, the winds shifting to carry the blizzard south, but not before framing the world and all its vast entirety in gray and white. Had Syrah looked in either direction as she walked, she might have been dazzled by how the snow had softened the hard edge of the surrounding mountains. Rather than teeth seeking to devour the sky, for now the ranges seemed more like the tips of reaching fingers, curious to touch and feel the clouds and darkness beyond.
As it was, Syrah saw nothing but the snow beneath her feet, her mind preoccupied with the letter clenched in one gloved hand at her side.
When she reached the most southeastern corner of the wall, she finally stopped. In truth it was less a corner and more the rounded lip of a bastion jutting out over the cliffs, a suspended mass of worn granite hanging over empty air. Overtop of its crenellations, the world was laid out for Syrah, an intricate patchwork of woodland beneath the wisps of low-hanging clouds. In the clarity of the day, the Arocklen sprawled from the base of the mountain, weaving and dipping over land carved by time and nature. A great blanket of white and green, it stretched almost to the lip of the horizon—a substantial ways, considering Syrah’s vantage. At the very edge of view, a thin, broken line of paler green marked the end of the woods and the start of the Dehn, the great plains beyond.
It seemed such a peaceful world. So tranquil in the stillness that followed every storm. It seemed that nothing could shatter the quiet, the utter silence broken only by the occasional lazy gust of late wind, or the distant shriek of a cliff hawk somewhere in the ranges below.
Syrah, though, knew better. The fragile parchment in her hand crunched and crumpled in her clenched fist as she looked out over the false calmness of the North.
The letter had come as she was breaking her fast, presented to her by Priest Jofrey so calmly she’d known right away something was wrong. Her thoughts had immediately gone to Talo and his foolish haste southward, but as she’d opened the letter a whole different set of fears came rushing forth.
She knew that handwriting. She’d seen it scrawled many a time on little notes she had found the mornings after their relations, each one charming and clever. The young captain of Harond’s night—watch had certainly not been her only lover in her years out in the world, but he’d been her favorite and—Syrah liked to think—she his. That had been nearly a year ago now, though, and in truth she hadn’t thought of the man much since coming home. On the one hand she’d had duties to return to, more than ever since Talo had run off to patch the mess up in Azbar, leaving Jofrey in his place. On the other, she and Reyn had become closer and closer of late, spending more and more nights in each other’s beds than their own individually. Syrah had rarely given in to fanciful thoughts of settling down, always knowing she would leave and move on when Laor called her again. When she did, though, she’d even chanced to think of what Reyn would be like as more than a simple bedmate…
It was odd, therefore, with such things weighing on her mind, to be handed a letter, scrawled in the distinct hand of a former lover, bearing such grave news.
Metcaf was burning.
Abruptly, fury rose up in Syrah like hot water brought suddenly to boil. It raged through her unchecked, the kind of fiery wrath that can only be brought on by the loss of something so meaningful it becomes a part of the soul.
Like one’s greatest accomplishments, and the peace between two peoples.
The feeling reached full measure, and Syrah sucked in a breath of icy mountain air. She released it in a keening scream of anger that rang out, echoing over the mountains. There was a flash and whoosh of flames, and the letter in Syrah’s hands turned to ash in a glister of white fire. In the same moment the snow around Syrah’s feet vaporized in a blink, vanishing into eruptive mist in the brief onslaught of heat she released with all her fury.
“FOOLS!” Syrah yelled to the sky. “BASTARDS! ALL OF YOU! BASTARDS!”
Breathing hard, she listened until those echoes faded away. Then, at last, she took another deep breath, and calmed herself.
Fools, she thought again, though privately. Idiots. What do they have to gain? What is there possibly to gain?
The letter had been obviously rushed, but it had given Syrah all the information she needed. Three years she’d spent hammering out treaties for mutual peace and prosperity between the Sigûrth tribe and valley towns of Metcaf and Harond. For three years she had toiled on both sides of the line—often at great risk—to end the age-old war between the raiding mountain men, who knew no other way of life, and the retaliating towns, who had found only fire could fight fire.
And in the space of a few months, she thought, turning her palm up to look at the grayish soot that clung to the wool of her gloves, it all turns to ash.
Emhret Grahst, the old Kayle of the tribe whom Syrah had dealt with extensively, was dead. Killed in ritual combat, he’d been succeeded by his murderer and nephew, Gûlraht Baoill. Syrah had only seen the man a few times, but each experience had left her with a distinct understanding: had Baoill had his way, she would have been as a victim of “the old ways”—impaled alive outside the burning walls of her home, or kept as a slave to be used and raped as was seen fit.
Grahst had had his own respect for the customs and traditions of his people, but he’d also been no fool. With the onslaught of the last freeze, more brutal than any recorded in a hundred years, he’d known he’d had the choice to bow to a new way, or risk the doom of his people altogether. The old Kayle had made peace with the towns, returning captives and slaves, trading pelts and mined gems, and signing guarantees that the raids would end and that the Sigûrth would find another means to survive in their mountains. In exchange, Metcaf and Harond had provided the tribe with the firewood, wool, food, clothing, and tools they’d needed to make it through the winters. It hadn’t been easy, and there had been obstacle after obstacle right up until the signing, but the alliances had come to fruition in the end.
Now… those same treaties probably burned with the valley town.
Twenty-five thousand.
The number was staggering to Syrah. That Baoill had amassed himself an army was unsurprising. If he were indeed intent on returning his tribe to the old ways, he would need a force to match his ambition. But the new Kayle had descended on Metcaf with a force of twenty-five thousand hardened mountain warriors. To amass such a group, Baoill would have had to have spent the entirety of the summer and early winter challenging the other tribes and conquering them. He’d allowed the treaties to hold, at least for a time. The towns hadn’t even been told that Emhret Grahst had been deposed, to keep the ruse intact.
Bastard, Syrah thought again, turning her back to the battlement wall and sliding down to seat herself on stone, now cleared of offending snow. Clever, evil bastard.
But clever he was. There was no denying it. And it concerned Syrah more than she was willing to admit. Gûlraht Baoill had never seemed overtly
stupid, to be fair, but neither had he demonstrated any overarching inclination towards intellect. Apart from a blatant outrage as his uncle had shifted away from tradition, in fact, Syrah had always had the impression that Baoill had little to offer in the form of opinion or advice, preferring to sit quietly while the others discussed and argued.
Now, though… Now Syrah realized that saying nothing and having nothing to say were—while presenting similarly—two very different concepts.
He’s thought it through. He’s planned and plotted in detail. Months of preparation, of bolstering his troops with the warriors of other tribes. He was so ardently opposed to bending knee to the treaties, yet he didn’t attack right away…
It showed patience, above all things, something Syrah had not come to expect from the mountain tribe in more than small quantities. Patience and cunning.
Syrah tilted her head back to rest it against the stone, looking up into the endless blue of the sky. The moon was visible, as it was on occasion during the day, a mere shadow of itself, so brightly outshined by the sun it shared the heavens with.
What would he do next? What was Baoill’s plan? It didn’t seem plausible that the burning of Metcaf was his ultimate goal. The letter had spoken of atrocities the likes of which the mountain tribes hadn’t partaken in years. Slaves driven away in droves into the ranges with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The elderly burned at the stake, deemed infirm and unworthy of keeping. The children too young to survive the journey ripped from their parents’ arms and left to the elements and fires.
Worst of all, the bodies of the city guard and any citizen who had raised arms against the Sigûrth, quartered and strung from chains over Metcaf’s walls, or else impaled as gruesome keepers around each of the city’s gates.
Such tactics were meant to send a warning, and what sort of general sent warnings if his campaign was already over?
The Warring Son (The Wings of War Book 2) Page 14
