The Path of Anger

by Antoine Rouaud

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I am certain of it. I was told you spoke of the Eastern territories, beyond the Vershan mountains. That’s where you hid it, didn’t you?’

  ‘Even admitting I ever had Eraëd in my possession, why would it be of interest to the Republic?’

  ‘The sword served the Imperial family for years, and before that, the royal dynasties of the Caglieri, the Perthuis, the Majoranes . . . I can go back even further if you like.’

  ‘I’ve never been fond of history lessons.’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’

  Dun looked away, not sure what to make of her.

  ‘That sword represents everything your Republic hates,’ he said, meeting Viola’s eyes once more.

  ‘That sword is reputed to be magical. It has been wielded by many heroes . . . it has even fought dragons. It’s part of the history of this world, regardless of whether an Empire or a Republic currently determines its destiny.’

  Dun’s eyes narrowed and his lips began to twitch. He leaned back and gave a thunderous roar of laughter which drew attention from the neighbouring tables. A plump woman sitting on the lap of an old merchant who looked as fragile as a dry twig, visibly pricked up her ears. But one baleful gaze from the Nâaga quickly discouraged her from eavesdropping.

  ‘Heroes?’ Dun guffawed. ‘Dragons? Listen to yourself. There’s nothing easier than being a hero. Or slaying dragons. Do you know what a dragon is? Have you ever come across one?’

  Viola hesitated before shaking her head, looking ill at ease. The old soldier’s sneering tone did not sit well with her. But she would have to put up with it. She’d been forewarned, after all.

  ‘They’re just lizards,’ Dun continued. ‘Big stupid lizards like the ones your guard dog here venerates.’

  He tilted his head towards Rogant.

  ‘Now, let me guess. You and your friend here are going to ask me to accompany you to the Eastern territories in search of Eraëd. And what dangers shall we face along the way?’ His tone wavered between mockery and contempt. ‘Fighting monsters no one has ever heard of, saving besieged castles, slaying dragons? Ha! You’re young. And you remind me of someone else I knew who was always dreaming, always believing in great deeds, always imagining a destiny. That’s exactly what you’ve got with your . . . Republic. The world belongs to you, eh? You have nothing to fear, you can just forge ahead. But in the end you know nothing about the world that surrounds you . . . and when reality comes rushing in—’

  He clapped his hands suddenly and gritted his teeth.

  ‘It will crush you like a bug. You believe all the legends and waste your energy trying to write your own. You think you can succeed at anything, at the dawn of your life, because you possess the truth. Well, here’s some truth for you.’

  With a wave of his hand, he beckoned Viola to draw closer. And leaning forward, he whispered:

  ‘You don’t get to choose. No, no. You’re not that important. You’ve convinced yourself that your destiny belongs to you, that you just have to create the right opportunities. Well, know this: men’s destiny has never been anything but the murmur of the gods.’

  Keeping his gaze locked on Viola’s he straightened up, nodding.

  ‘Nothing but a murmur . . . The gods sealed our fates when they created this world. But you, with all your grand ideas, have forgotten that, haven’t you? You don’t believe in anything. I’m surprised you haven’t burnt all the churches.’

  ‘The Order of Fangol is respected, despite what you may think.’

  ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word respect,’ Dun scoffed, shaking his head in contempt. ‘You’ve forsaken the Book, renounced it.’

  ‘Each individual may choose to believe or not. It’s a new world.’

  ‘It’s not mine,’ the old man said with a grimace, glancing at the Nâaga.

  Viola did not doubt for a single instant that he was the man she’d been looking for. But perhaps she needed a different strategy to find a way to prod him into giving up his secrets.

  ‘Who’s speaking now? The soldier skulking far behind the battle lines, or the drunk old man?’ she asked. ‘Both, perhaps? I have trouble telling them apart, they’re so alike in their cowardice.’

  The old man’s face stiffened.

  ‘You insult me,’ he muttered.

  ‘Really, Dun? What do I know about you, apart from the fact that you fled Emeris after stealing Eraëd?’

  Dun wasn’t drunk enough to succumb to his anger, but nor was he lucid enough to consider the consequences of his next act. He stretched out his hand towards the jug and, without his fingers touching it, it began to slide across the table towards him. Viola was speechless, her eyes widening in astonishment. She slowly pushed her spectacles up to the bridge of her nose with the tip of her index finger as if to reassure herself that she was seeing clearly. His arms crossed, Rogant grew very still.

  The animus. Only the great knights of the Empire knew how to use it. And since the Empire’s fall, there were few left who could have given such a demonstration. The gift had been lost.

  The carousing in the tavern had become a distant buzz, the customers no more than ghostly silhouettes. Viola and Rogant only had eyes for the jug before them. It had well and truly moved and Dun suddenly realised what his simple gesture, born of annoyance, would cost him. Here, where he had always acted the part of an ordinary soldier, he had revealed his true face to a chit of a girl just graduated from the Great College of Emeris. She had barely known the Empire. How would she judge him? As one of the butchers of the former Kingdoms, an enemy of the Republic she served? How could she, escorted by a barbarian, an enemy from his previous life, possibly understand him?

  ‘You’re n-not simply a s-soldier,’ stammered Viola. ‘You’re a knight.’

  ‘Bah!’ said Dun dismissively, looking away. ‘The Knighthood died along with the Empire . . .’

  Dun. She repeated the name to herself, trying to recall as much as possible from her history classes. Dun . . . the name was familiar to her.

  ‘Dun-Cadal,’ she whispered.

  The old man’s eyes shone with sadness.

  ‘You’re Dun-Cadal, General Dun-Cadal of the House of Daermon,’ Viola continued. ‘Dun-Cadal, the commander at the battle of the Saltmarsh, you—’

  ‘And was I cowering far behind the battle lines, then?’ the old man interrupted her.

  Viola was at a loss for words. The battle of the Saltmarsh was noteworthy in history for its consequences, but above all for its terrible violence. Few had survived. Dun-Cadal had been trapped in enemy territory for months before he managed to slip through the lines and return to Emeris. He’d accomplished his fair share of great deeds, but, of them all, his escape was the feat that stuck in people’s memories.

  ‘The sword is in the Eastern territories. Go and look for it there and stop pestering me. Go ahead, take what’s left of the Empire and expose it for all to see.’

  ‘So you admit you carried it—’

  Dun looked distracted, his gaze lost in the distance, his eyelids beginning to droop.

  ‘I say many things when I’ve been drinking,’ he fumed. ‘You’ll spill your venom on that blade and its guard will seem quite dull compared to your arrogance,’ he added in a low mutter.

  He wanted nothing to do with her, or with the Nâaga, or with what he had once been. Here, he was simply Dun and that was enough. Viola observed him closely, noting the details of his time-worn face, the brown wrinkles marking his cheeks. Dun-Cadal, the glorious general, now gone to ground in the slums of Masalia. He had not come here looking to make a new life for himself, but in search of death. She then noticed he was seated with his back to the door, so that any cutthroat could take him by surprise. If he was recounting, night after night, how he had been a soldier of the Empire, perhaps he hoped that someone seeking vengeance would finally put an end to his torment.

  ‘You await death here,’ Viola said.

  ‘I await wha
tever is given to me. Another jug, for example?’

  With a sad expression, he upturned the empty container on the table with a trembling hand and gave the Nâaga to his right a twisted scowl. As was his wont, Rogant did not react.

  ‘Help us,’ pleaded Viola. ‘That sword is more important than you can imagine. I must find it.’

  But amidst the raucous noise of the tavern her request seemed to go unheard. The smoke from the pipe of a fat man seated at an adjoining table drifted between the old general and herself.

  ‘I beg you, Dun-Cadal . . .’

  He slowly waved away the cloud of smoke, lost in his thoughts. She was wasting her breath. He wasn’t listening any more. Rogant leaned towards her and the look he gave her was eloquent enough to need no words. She swallowed and ran her gloved hands over her cape which had barely had time to dry. Then she stood up.

  ‘Very well,’ she declared. ‘I suppose it’s useless to plead with you.’

  She slowly drew up her hood so that only the sparkle of her green eyes penetrated the darkness masking her face.

  ‘I thought I was speaking to the great General Dun-Cadal but I’m forced to conclude I was mistaken. Look at you . . . you’re not even the shadow of what you once were. You’re an empty husk without any dignity, only fit to raise a glass in bitterness. I can scarcely believe the legend of your deeds at the battle of the Saltmarsh can be true. Seeing you like this, I’m forced to doubt you ever had greatness in you.’

  He did not once lift his eyes to hers while she spoke.

  ‘Yes . . . you came here to find death. You haven’t understood: you’re already dead. You can try to hide your true identity, to protect your reputation, but you’re wasting your time. When the world learns what has become of Dun-Cadal Daermon . . . the only tears shed will be of pity, not of sorrow.’

  She disappeared into the crowd without waiting for a reply, followed by the Nâaga. As the fresher air in the alley cleared away the stale smell of sweat and alcohol, she was still asking herself if she had found the right words, and she slowed her stride as they walked through the pouring rain.

  ‘Have faith,’ Rogant advised.

  Have faith? When she hadn’t even been warned she’d be dealing with Dun-Cadal Daermon, not some ordinary soldier.

  ‘I’ve known him longer than you have,’ Rogant was saying. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  As if to confirm this statement, a voice called out from behind them.

  ‘Hey!’

  Viola turned round slowly. Dun-Cadal was an even more miserable sight standing on the tavern step than he had been seated at his table. The rain dripped down his face and it was possible there were tears mixed in with it.

  ‘What do you know of Dun-Cadal?’ he snarled with a quaver in his voice. ‘You come here, you sit at my table and you spit all over what I was. What I am . . . what I will still be . . .’ He balled his fists, tottering on his feet. ‘But what do you know?’ he raged. ‘What has the Republic taught you?’

  He took a few paces and then slumped against a wall. A flash of lightning illuminated his wrinkled face. He seemed so . . . ravaged.

  ‘What do you know of my story?’ he asked, lifting his eyes to the sky. ‘What I’ve seen, what I’ve done? What do you know about the battle of the Saltmarsh?’

  Viola did not move a muscle. She simply looked at him leaning against the façade of a house, his boots covered in mud, his cracked leather vest, his wine-stained shirt sleeves soaking in the rain.

  ‘So tell me.’

  2

  THE BATTLE OF THE SALTMARSH

  My childhood ended

  The day I hesitated,

  For the first time . . .

  Fifteen years ago. The air had been fresh despite the overcast sky but there was a rumbling in the background. A dull roaring which continued to swell, sweeping over the tall grasses of the marshes. There were no signs of any storm, just heavy clouds of sparkling white, edged with hints of grey as if to better define their shapes. There was no need for direct sunlight to blind the men at their posts in the trench. The dazzling clouds alone achieved that effect.

  There was no storm, or even anger, in the air, only a sense of fulfilling one’s duty.

  ‘You should step back, Dun-Cadal,’ advised a voice.

  A black shape came hurtling out of the sky in a perfect arc, followed by a sharp whistle. Even before the sound lowered in pitch, the ball of rock and tow, covered with burning grease, crashed to the ground right in front of the knight without his taking the slightest step to avoid it.

  ‘You think so . . . ?’ murmured Dun-Cadal as he stared at the horizon.

  Before him stretched saltwater marshes and swamps, so long and wide that the most distant portions were blurred by haze. He could hardly make out the outline of the enemy camp. Lowering his eyes to the boiling crater at his feet, he observed the streams of smoke coming off the hot ball. He turned it over with a kick.

  ‘Negus,’ he said in a pensive tone. ‘I’m getting the sense they’re growing restless over there.’ He spun round with a mocking smile on his lips. ‘Shall we give them a rude awakening?’

  The small round man, squeezed into his armour, raised his eyes to the sky before replying:

  ‘If you are thinking up ways to get yourself killed before even crossing blades with them, then it would indeed be quite rude on your part.’

  They had been waiting on the edge of the Saltmarsh for two weeks now without a single blow being struck. Just a few catapult shots that never managed to hit their targets. The Imperial Army had not even made use of its own artillery yet. The Saltmarsh revolt was, if possible, to be suppressed without bloodshed. Tucked up in the warmth of his palace in Emeris, the Emperor believed that the fear generated by his regiments would be enough to persuade the insurgents to lay down their weapons. But although no sword had been unsheathed during the last two weeks, neither had any been abandoned on the field of battle . . .

  Dun-Cadal joined his brother-in-arms and patted his shoulder.

  ‘Have no fear, Negus. I can always detect the smell of death. And here, except for salt, nothing has pricked my nostrils.’

  He had short brown hair, which the wind barely ruffled. A small goatee surrounded his thin lips and his face, while still youthful in appearance, was marked by a life of combat. This was not his first battle and he was counting on it not being his last. He had just arrived and had insisted on assessing the situation himself before other generals could paint the picture for him in a more flattering light. He jumped down into the trench and waited for his friend to do the same before continuing his inspection.

  He had lost count of the fights they had come through together, from small skirmishes to great fields of battle. Of all the Empire’s generals. Negus had always been his closest friend, a kindred spirit who dismissed the rumours about Dun-Cadal and accepted his rough character. Dun-Cadal came from the House of Daermon, whose title of nobility only dated back a century. Negus’s line-age, on the other hand, had been associated with the aristocracy, from the first Kingdoms right up to the Empire. Affable by nature, Anselme Nagolé Egos, more commonly known as Negus, had never seen their difference in social standing as reason to despise a man who had repeatedly saved his life in the midst of chaos. Their friendship, known to all, was unstinting, as deep as the rift valleys in the wild territories and as enduring as the stones from the Kapernevic mines. The dangers they had faced together only confirmed it and the bond between them resembled something like true brotherhood.

  All along the dug-in line, soldiers were studying the horizon, spears at their side. As the two generals passed, they tried to look sharp despite being tense, saluting with a fist pressed against their chest. They all knew of Dun-Cadal and his bravery in combat. All of them felt a sincere admiration for him. Seeing him walk past at Negus’s side might have been reassuring in other circumstances but, although it was heartening, the commanders’ presence was not enough to dispel the prevailing mood. The troops were d
istressed by the waiting, and the situation was becoming unbearable – as witnessed by the excrement stagnating at the bottom of the trench and the terrible odour. It had been two weeks since they had arrived and already the camp was suffering from the poor conditions in the Saltmarsh. Mud and swamp combined to prevent the soldiers from disposing of their waste properly.

  ‘They’re terrified,’ observed Negus.

  ‘They don’t look too frightened.’

  ‘They dare not. They belong to Captain Azdeki’s unit.’

  ‘Azinn’s nephew? That young good-for-nothing?’ Dun-Cadal exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘Didn’t they warn you at the border? He’s been in charge of the region for the past two years. He’s the one who’s held it since the revolt began.’

  ‘Held it?!’ scoffed Dun-Cadal. ‘That idiot can’t even keep a hold on himself.’

  ‘There hasn’t been a battle up until now,’ retorted Negus as he climbed a makeshift ladder leading to the edge of the camp, ‘so one might argue he has held it.’

  Really? Etienne Azdeki, nephew of Baron Azinn Azdeki of the East Vershan baronies, was not known for his level-headedness and still less for his ability as a strategist. The fact that the Emperor had placed him in charge of the Saltmarsh region could pass for a mere mistake, but now that war had come to these lands he was supposed to control he became a risky proposition. Etienne Azdeki had been appointed captain without any experience of combat. Acting as he should never entered his mind. Acting as he pleased, on the other hand, was his sole rule of conduct.

  ‘No matter,’ Dun-Cadal said aloud. ‘The Emperor sent me here to coordinate the troops. Azdeki will have to content himself with following my orders.’

  ‘Cocky as always, Daermon?’ said Negus with a smile.

  ‘Out here I feel like I’m in a courtesan’s arms!’ Dun-Cadal replied with a wide grin. ‘In love as in war, in war as in love!’

  Tens of thousands of dark green tents stretched across the marshes, standing among the reeds and the tall grasses. Here and there, knights were training in single combat, surrounded by circles of attentive spectators. The waiting was an even more serious risk than battle itself. Boredom blunted the soldiers’ readiness. It gave them too much time to contemplate the dangers they faced. It robbed them of any spontaneity once combat was engaged. Two weeks was not much in the course of a war, but was far too long without even a skirmish to break the enforced idleness. Dun-Cadal feared the Salt-marsh rebels were counting on this lethargy to impose their own rhythm on the forthcoming battle.