“I have the full community’s loyalty. We’ll march on your orders.”
“I have no need of your rabble. Just be ready to fill your part of the bargain when hostilities end. I expect you to accompany me from Obis to Andel. After that, we’ll go to the Ibitsal portal and see this business finished.”
Warburm didn’t stay to hear the rest of the conversation. There was no need. Stunned by what he now knew, he returned to his cabin in a state of shock, doffed his furs and boots, and clambered back into bed next to his sleeping wife.
Ferguson was an agent of The Lord of Fire. There was no escaping the truth of what he had heard, no way to believe it was anything else. Now everything that had happened recently took on a sinister cast. How long had those two been aligned? Was this a recent development or did it predate Vantok’s fall? Had Ferguson turned against “his” wizard as a result of Sorial’s repudiation of the prelate?
The immediate question was what he should do with the information. This wasn’t something he could ignore. He couldn’t rise from bed on the morrow and pretend that all was well in Sussaman. Ferguson had pledged Vantok’s refugees and the citizens of Sussaman to Justin’s service. It mattered little that The Lord of Fire had rejected them; the offer had been made. That marked Ferguson as a traitor. It wasn’t the first time the charge had been leveled at him, of course, but this was the most blatant of instances. Ferguson had killed Gorton so he could steal the remains of Vantok’s people from Myselene and give them to Justin. Even Sorial, Ferguson’s most vociferous critic, hadn’t forecast this depth of disloyalty.
Had Carannan known this? Rexall? Were they dead or had they carried this information to their queen? Warburm suddenly found himself on the wrong side of this struggle. A few days ago, he had been mulling over the ethics of hunkering down here out of harm’s way while the battle raged at Obis. Now, the question was murkier and Ferguson had placed himself in a position where he could still retain a position of authority regardless of who won or lost. Warburm wondered what the old man’s price might have been to commit the ultimate perfidy. For more than forty years, he had followed Ferguson. Had he misjudged the prelate from the beginning or had the priest’s self-appointed position of the sole keeper of “the will of the gods” warped him beyond salvation?
The coming dawn would offer no comfort for Warburm. It would require action and this was one demand he couldn’t refuse.
* * *
“Lassie, can I have a word with you? In private?” Warburm was standing just outside the doorway to Shiree’s family house. Her mother, inside cooking a meal, glanced away when she saw who the visitor was, not wanting to seem rude. A longtime resident of Sussaman, she knew Warburm of old.
Shiree nodded her head earnestly then, after momentarily disappearing inside to don warmer clothing, she slipped out into the cold to join him. By now, with the sun low in the morning sky, the village was waking. The large number of refugees made the streets more crowded than they would normally have been even at mid-day during this time of year. With several freezing nights having ended the harvest, attention would now turn to developing stocks of firewood. The expanded population would require a larger reserve than usual but there were also more able bodies to cut down the trees and split the wood. Shiree’s father and brother had left at daybreak on a logging expedition.
Warburm had thought long and hard about how to proceed. Myselene needed to be informed about Ferguson’s defection. He couldn’t leave, though. Not only would his presence be missed but there were actions he could take here to rectify the situation. It was possible that Carannan or Rexall had gone to Obis but, since their whereabouts remained unknown, he couldn’t make assumptions. It might be that Ferguson had killed all those he deemed unreliable; Warburm harbored no doubts regarding the prelate’s intentions where those two were concerned. Rexall had always been in it more for the money, but Carannan had been a true believer. For the prelate to seek the overcommander’s death was a tragic indication of how far Ferguson had fallen.
Shiree was the perfect messenger with her most attractive quality being her trustworthiness. In this climate, there were few others Warburm could count on not to betray him to Ferguson. He wouldn’t send her alone - a solo girl on the roads was an invitation to rape and murder, even in a season when most bandits were hunkered down in make-shift shelters - but the guards accompanying her wouldn’t be told the real reason for the journey. For them, Warburm could spin a convincing lie but Shiree needed to know at least some of the truth. What’s more, her connection to Rexall would be sufficient to gain her an audience with the queen regardless of whether or not her lover was there. Strange to think that dropping the name of a man who had spent his youth as a scoundrel and a rogue could gain one access to royalty.
As they walked, seemingly just a father and daughter out and about, Warburm discussed his plan with her, keeping his voice low so passers-by with a penchant for eavesdropping would catch only disjoined snippets of the discourse. “The most difficult part may be getting to see the queen. If Rexall be there, he’ll get you admittance but, if he ain’t arrived yet, you’ll need to convince others. The wizard Sorial be your best bet. He were Rexall’s best friend as a lad. But it be important that the queen hear what you’ve got to say. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Why me, Master Warburm?” He could tell she was interested; the lure of possibly being reunited with Rexall was enough. But she was wary as might be expected of a young girl being asked by a stranger to leave behind her family and travel two-hundred miles across country. He guessed she had never in her life ventured farther than a dozen miles away from Sussaman.
“War requires us to make sacrifices and act in ways we might not normally do. This be one of those. What I need you ta tell Queen Myselene be secret information and I canna share it with anyone else. I need someone I know to be true.”
“But I won’t be alone?” There was a tremor in her voice. Fear of the unknown. It had been a long, long time since Warburm had experienced that, if he ever had.
“Nay, lass. You’ll have three warriors with you ta keep you safe. But only you’ll know the message.” Warburm had thought about committing it to papyrus but had decided against it. Although few members of the militia possessed the skills of reading and writing, they could take the missive to Ferguson or one of his priests and that would mean Warburm’s neck in a noose. Of course, things could easily turn out that way in the end, anyway.
“My ma and pa? Can they come too?”
Warburm shook his head. “Only you. But once you be gone, I’ll explain everything to them.” That was a lie. No one could know. Cruel as it might seem, Shiree’s parents would have to cope with the disappearance of a child, at least for the time being.
“And Rexall… we’ll be together?”
She was asking for reassurance, a confirmation that her dream might be realized. Warburm felt bad deceiving her. Although it was true that Rexall might be in Obis and he might welcome her arrival, the confluence of those two possibilities seemed unlikely at best. He was lying to manipulate her - the very thing that, until learning the darker truth last night, had made him uncomfortable about Ferguson. But the revelation of the alliance between the prelate and Justin changed everything. His best chance of getting a message to Obis was by deluding Shiree. Her heartbreak might be the cost of revealing Ferguson’s treachery to Myselene. Compared with the price Warburm might pay, it was light but that didn’t make it easier to speak the words that would gain her complicity.
“Aye. That be one reason I chose you rather than others. Because of him. This done give you two a chance ta spend some time together before the war. After that, I canna promise nothin’. People die in battles and if Rexall be unlucky… But you’ll have at least a few weeks, if’n you can leave in a few hours.”
“I’ll do it,” she whispered fervently. “What’s the message?”
Warburm had given this some thought. It had to be short, so Shiree could commit it to m
emory, and it had to be clear to Sorial and Myselene but ambiguous to anyone else, including the one delivering it. “Tell this to the queen: ‘Your old mentor be no more. The one Sorial don’t trust made a pact with another of the four. The refugees be not in play at Obis.’ Speak it back to me and memorize it.” Even if that wasn’t the fullest account of the situation, it should be enough to warn Myselene that all was not well and Ferguson had cast his lot with Justin. The news would come as less of a surprise to Sorial than it would the queen, who had championed adding Ferguson to her council.
After spending a few more minutes coaching Shiree then promising to come for her shortly after noon, he went in search of the three men who would accompany her. He had a trio in mind - ex-Watch members who had been regulars at The Wayfarer’s Comfort and wouldn’t double-check the orders with Ferguson. While he didn’t trust them enough to reveal Shiree’s mission, he believed that, if forced to decide, they would choose him over Ferguson. The story he told them was credible: Shiree was his illegitimate daughter and he was sending her to the ‘safety’ of Obis to escape the scourge of Justin’s approaching army. Ferguson’s decision to keep the refugees uninformed about the disposition of the enemy helped him, since it allowed him to argue that Sussaman was in greater jeopardy than Obis. One of the soldiers, when given this commission, asked Warburm about his wife and “other” daughter; he responded that, despite his urging, they refused to be parted from him.
His position as liaison between the refugees and the village allowed him to procure four stout, well-rested horses. Shortly after noon, he introduced Shiree to her escort and bade the four of them farewell. That part of his task completed, he steeled himself to accomplish the rest of it.
* * *
Ferguson was frustrated. Things had not been going well for a while and the news just brought to him by a messenger confirmed his fears. The wizard candidates were not where they were supposed to be. A group of fast riders dispatched to scout the trails between Widow’s Pass and Ibitsal had found no sign of them. They had either been killed without a trace, taken an unmarked route, or been diverted at the behest of rebels. The third was by far the most likely. If Rexall and his fellow deserters had ambushed the escorts, the group might have reached Obis by now.
Was it too much to hope that Sorial, Alicia, and Justin might all perish in the upcoming conflict? Probably; he had to be flexible to take advantage of whatever the result was and feign allegiance to either Myselene or The Lord of Fire.
He had called a meeting of his officers, assistants, and various other functionaries. The time had come for him to explain elements of his plan for the immediate future. Many were of the opinion that they would soon be embarking on a trip to Obis. Because most would end up hibernating in this cold, under provisioned hamlet, they had to understand that this was where they would be for the foreseeable future so preparations could be made to blunt the hardships.
The Sussaman meeting hall was really just an oversized cabin. The tiny fire was inadequate to heat the building so everyone, Ferguson included, was dressed as if out-of-doors. Over the past few days, it had become unseasonably cold. This weather was more what one might expect from mid-Winter than the waning weeks of Harvest. He wondered whether Justin’s manipulation of the weather around Vantok might have upset climatological patterns all across the continent.
The room was nearly full by the time the late arrivals trickled in. In addition to the ten “battle priests” who served as Ferguson’s personal protectors, there were also the various commanders and sub-commanders of the remnants of Vantok’s militia, the head of Sussaman’s small “home guard”, the elders of the settlement, the ever-faithful Warburm, and various others of minor import.
“Brothers and sisters, welcome. I’ve asked you here this evening so I might discuss plans for the immediate future. At this moment, the army of The Lord of Fire is encamped outside Syre in preparation for the long march to Obis. I have recently received a direct communique from Her Majesty, Queen Myselene, instructing us to remain in Sussaman and not to approach Obis until after the battle is decided. Since I am ever her loyal subject, I will obey.
“We have all been given a new calling, a great calling. Vantok lies in partial ruins. Earlford has been razed. Regardless of who wins at Obis, the city will be devastated. Out of this, a new bastion for humanity will arise. Sussaman will be at its center. I have long foreseen this. This small community will become the next great city, the capitol of a new nation. We will be beholden to no one as we carry out the last mandate of the gods to rescue this world and keep it safe.
“The times are dangerous, brothers and sisters. We must have unity. The Lord of Fire sees this although he has gone about it in a needlessly bloody fashion. It’s our duty as the architects of a new order to stride purposefully into the future, to lead the others. And those who refuse to be led must unfortunately be cast out. With the gods no longer around to shepherd us, we must find our own way.”
This was Ferguson’s vision - at least as much of it as he was willing to reveal in these circumstances. The specifics depended on who won at Obis. In either case, however, he could adapt. Justin’s obsession with the Otherverse was a concern - a breach attempt could not be permitted. In the end, with the current roster of wizards eliminated, he could begin rebuilding. All the energy invested in Sorial and Alicia had been wasted… so much time lost because of those ingrates. If they had only agreed to be guided by him, things would have been different now. But all wasn’t lost. The key to empire building was adaptability, and Ferguson had never been anchored to a single plan. Ever since his first failure - Braddock’s unfortunate death - he had known the road would be characterized by twists and forks. Where one opportunity closed, another opened.
He could tell by the rapt faces that his words had found favor with the audience. He was ready to continue when a lone dissenting voice spoke out. “This be all well an’ good, Yer Eminence, but what about Queen Myselene? Don’t she get a say in this? She be yer sovereign, after all. An’ you be only her vice chancellor.”
Warburm made his way through the densely packed group of people ringing the prelate until he was face-to-face with him. Ferguson’s speech had left him feeling more uneasy than ever. Aside from the token mention of Myselene as part of his lie about why the refugees weren’t moving on to Obis, he had conveniently ignored her existence. This was all about his aspirations, and they were more grandiose than Warburm had expected. It was hard to reconcile the man before him today with the diligent priest the gods had chosen as their messenger.
His words marked him as an enemy. They couldn’t be taken back, nor would he unsay them if it had been possible. These were questions that needed to be asked, sentiments that demanded to be spoken aloud. But voicing them had moved him from the list of trusted lackeys to undesirables, joining Gorton, Carannan, Rexall, and others. That didn’t matter to Warburm. Of concern, however, was the negative reaction to his words, with the anger directed not at Ferguson but at him for having the temerity to challenge the Great Leader.
The prelate stared hard at Warburm before answering. The mildness of his words was belied by an icy glare. “All rulers, including Queen Myselene, will fall in line under the new order. I have no desire to be a king or queen. The secular leaders will retain their crowns and live in their palaces. But they, like all of us, are subject to the will of the gods. As their sole messenger, only I can dispense the wisdom of their last whisper.”
The statement was treasonous but Warburm doubted anyone listening cared. Although Ferguson was careful not to make any overt threats against the queen, the prelate’s ambitions represented a threat to her future well-being.
Almost as a single entity, Ferguson’s protectors stirred as they sensed the building tension. One moved a gloved hand close to the hilt of the sword scabbarded at his waist. Those ten men were the only ones allowed to bear arms in the prelate’s presence. Priests with martial training, they were as good - or better - than the army’s so
ldiers. Some had been regular members of Vantok’s militia; others had spent their adult lives cloistered. Regardless of their background, they were all elite fighters.
As was customary, Warburm had left his big, ugly dagger at the door. No one had bothered to search for concealed weapons, however, since he was known to be in the prelate’s trusted inner circle. So, despite the prohibition, he would not be entirely reliant on his fists in the event of a conflict. The dull, rusty breadknife tucked into his belt under his vest wouldn’t be much of a defense in a fight, but it was better than nothing. His weapons of choice were pistols but this wasn’t a time when they would be useful. The damn things could be notoriously unreliable.
“And what if Her Majesty doesn’t agree with your implementation of the will of the gods?”
“No one is above the will of the gods. All must submit.”
Warburm nodded sadly. It had come to this as he knew it would.
He moved swiftly with actions so unexpected that no one was able to stop him. The old instincts of a warrior served him well, even dulled as they were by many years running an inn. He knew how to kill a man at close range even with something as seemingly nonlethal as a breadknife.
The weapon was in his hand and at Ferguson’s neck before anyone reacted. With all the force he could muster, he jerked the blade across the prelate’s throat, tearing open a wide, uneven gash from right to left, nearly severing the head from the torso. The jugular and cardioid were both severed, spraying everyone and everything in the vicinity with blood: warm, sticky, and under pressure. Ferguson’s face, gone ghostly pale in an instant, displayed naked shock even as the light in his eyes faded. He tried to say something but no words emerged.
The first sword thrust split Warburm’s side before the prelate’s body hit the ground. Then another. And another. Altogether, he was stabbed more than a dozen times by ten different blades. It didn’t matter. The deed was done. He knew from the moment he had made the final decision that this would be the result. Recriminations and self-sacrifice had never been part of his nature. Ferguson had too long been a wild card in Myselene and Sorial’s struggle to counter The Lord of Fire. No longer. The exchange - his life for the prelate’s - was fair. They had both outlived their usefulness.
Shadow of the Otherverse (The Last Whisper of the Gods Saga Book 3) Page 38
