by A J Burns
Brenton pushed on. “Then Tefvon will have to disregard his senate.”
“He hasn’t the influence he once had.” Walton reached into his desk drawer and retrieved a stack of papers. “Much has changed since you were relevant—with all due respect. The fealty of the higher nobles has shifted to that of the province. The chief is still allotted his respect, but it’s not the world that you remember.”
“What of your brother?” Brenton asked.
“Theon?” He was perusing one of the documents. “He’s since followed the spirit of the time—a member of the Commonwealth Movement.”
“I expected more from him.”
“Let us not cast too much judgment,” said Walton. “He’s still loyal to the throne. He wants change, not an overhaul.”
“What of your younger brothers?”
“They’re Traditionalists, like you and I.” Frustrated, Walton dropped the papers into the drawer and nudged it shut. “Sometimes more like me than I am.”
“What were you searching for?” Brenton pointed his chin to the drawer.
“Come by tomorrow night. I have something to show you.”
A year and a day after that conversation, Gregh was sitting beside Brenton, singing: “O’ Vehymen—sweet Vehymen.”
“Are you doing this on purpose?” Brenton turned his head to stare at Gregh. “You couldn’t hit a note to save your life.”
“Well thank the gods that’s not my reason for singing.”
Brenton looked around the room, hoping to find a means of escape, or, something more probable: a weapon. Gregh hummed to himself. Brenton checked under the bed but found nothing of interest. The door was sturdy; they had no way of opening it from the inside. Gregh continued to hum.
After Ritek’s betrayal, the Elynaurian forces that had remained loyal to the rebellion were placed under Kron’s command. Gregh had taken control of the Orynaurian forces while the rebels awaited news of Mauro’s condition: dead, injured, or captured. The eldest Tekotaurian heir, Absalon, would be leading them in his father’s absence. Brenton could do nothing but hope that one of them would be able to muster an offense.
Brenton snapped at Gregh. “I’m begging you—stop.”
“I’m not enjoying this either, you know.” Gregh slammed his boot against the frame. “There’s … nothing … we … can … do. I know you like to be in control, but you’re not. I’m not. Even our men on the outside only have influential control. What will happen, will happen.”
“At the very least, stop the singing.” Brenton thought about Kron and how he had been imprisoned for a month. He and Gregh had only been here an hour.
Somebody unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open. “Come with me,” said the sheriff.
“Where?” Gregh asked.
“It looks like your friends want a trade.” The sheriff turned to the side and waved them out. “Time is of the essence.” He walked behind them, a musket in his hand.
“Still an honor to be in our presence?” scoffed Gregh.
“It never was.”
They reached the antechamber; beyond its entrance stood an array of rebel soldiers at the palace’s summit. The Vyktaurian flag hung from one of the officers’ horses. Brenton didn’t have much hope, and he could see dread in Gregh’s eyes.
Yvon rushed towards them. He seized Brenton by the collar and tried dragging him to the stairs. “Let us see your worth,” said Yvon. He pushed Brenton onto his knees, and the sheriff did similar to Gregh.
Rebels and imperialists aimed weapons at their enemies.
“Here are your men!” shouted Yvon. “Tell me, what are they worth to you?”
A Vyktaurian man dismounted his horse and ascended the steps; Brenton’s eyesight was blurry, but he knew who the man was. “Let them ago,” said Kron.
“We’re just enjoying ourselves some tea,” Yvon said. “You’re free to join us—though I am rather short on sugar, if you’d be a doll and pick some up.” He brushed Brenton’s hair. “Aren’t you having fun? I know I am!”
“Time of my life,” snarled Brenton. To be dependent upon another man wasn’t something to which he had become accustomed; he prayed that Kron would come through.
Yvon turned his head to address Kron. “Look around you. Jutting from every loophole is a barrel aimed at your men—a dozen aimed at you.”
“And how many of them are trained with bows and iron? Sixty seconds to reload your firearms—a mere two to launch an arrow.” Kron began to speak with abhorrence. “So do it! Give your orders. Even if every bullet hits flesh, we’ll overtake the entire city in an hour.”
“Challenge accepted!” Yvon turned to address one of his generals. “Prepare for battle.”
Soldiers on both sides prepared their weapons, numbering about five-hundred for each army. Officers gave their commands: first to load, then to shoot. The smog of war expelled from their guns, accompanied by the roar of metal and whistle of bullets.
Brenton fell sideways, using his arms in an attempt to shield his face. A bullet hissed by his head. The shooting stopped, replaced by the calls of officers. Twangs resonated from the base of the palace; arrows struck into Parven soldiers, and some of them stumbled off the platform, plummeting into the depths below. A thin layer of snow soaked up blood of the slain.
Brenton gnawed on his restraints as the world around him turned blurry. Bullets and arrows continued to whiz by him. One fiber of the rope began to split and then another. As he pulled his hands away, the rope unknotted.
He moved his head around, looking for the magistrate. “Yvon!” Brenton yanked a harquebus away from the ground, sifting through some corpse’s satchel for its ammunition. There existed a dreadful silence: the kind that precedes a barrage of fire. Brenton dashed behind a pillar and started to load his firearm.
The medley of a thousand booms roared through the air. The rebels were using firearms too, and Brenton assumed that Evoru’s peasant army had joined the fray. The marble of the pillar splintered and burst in myriad directions. Again came the shouting of generals. Brenton ran into the palace, where he came upon the magistrate tearing drawers out from his desk.
“How’d your plan work out for you?” Brenton said, readying his gun.
Yvon turned around. “Not quite what I anticipated.” He gave a nervous chuckle. “What about we just put the past in the past?”
“Yes.” Brenton pulled the trigger.
Yvon slammed against his desk and slid off it. “You fool,” he muttered. “Your time will come soon enough.”
Brenton walked to stand over him. “You betrayed us for money, and so you die a traitor’s death.”
“You betray us with money.” Life was beginning to fade from his body. “For all these feuds of thrones, you fools forget the most important factor—us. You cannot win a war on status alone … and yet, you forsake us.”
“Gods be with you.” Brenton left him to die alone.
The Parven forces broke into a rout and swarmed the palace, running for the hallways. The rebel army was in pursuit, their swords unsheathed. Brenton kept to the wayside, careful to not provoke a jittery finger. The soldiers halted on command of their officers.
Kron entered the palace. He whispered something to his lieutenant before walking over to Brenton. “So, you’re alive, thick head and all,” he said dully.
Brenton sighed with relief. “I am. How many casualties?”
“Looks to be about fifty—maybe upwards of seventy—on our part.” Kron looked at the corpse on the ground and responded with a nod.
“Have them clear out the palace,” said Brenton. “Kill every traitor you see.”
“I’ll be taking them hostage instead.”
“Then do as you please.” Brenton started walking away. “But I am going to have a ‘talk’ with the senate.”
“You’re gonna need the sheriff for that.” Kron turned around and jutted his hand into the air. “Gregh! Come over here.”
“Or I’ll just kill every beardless m
an in the city.” Brenton had completely forgotten about Gregh during the firefight. He shied away from making eye contact.
“You can’t be serious,” said Kron. “Not every shaven face is a eunuch.” He scratched at the already-irritated skin of his forearm.
“Do you wish to inspect every pair of genitals in this city…? That’s what I thought.”
“Go for the senate, fine, but leave everybody else out of this.”
Gregh had finished walking over to them. He smirked at Brenton. “Did you forget something back there?”
Brenton lowered his head. “I … don’t know what to say. I got lost in the commotion. I’m sorry.”
“All is forgiven.” He laughed and shook his head. “But goddamn.”
Kron looked at them oddly. “Gregh, could you show Brenton to the sheriff?”
“This way.” Gregh led him to the palace entrance.
The sheriff was lying on the tile, staring at his boots. “What do you want?” he asked as they approached.
“I need some information,” said Brenton.
“Good for you.”
Brenton smacked the sheriff across his face. “Give me a list of every senator and militia in the province.”
“There’s no need.” The sheriff shook his head. “The ordinance officer denied their requests for arms. They go out every weekend and play make-believe.”
“Nevertheless,” said Brenton.
“Lot of good it will do you.” He paused. “The Krutchen family has raised a guard—one company. Another down at the docks and one in the village south of here. You’re dreaming if you think I’ve a muster-roll.”
“The senate?”
“Hell if I know. They live in their houses. What more do you expect me to know?”
“A ledger of their names will suffice.” Brenton was becoming impatient at the sheriff’s rambling.
“No,” said the sheriff. “I won’t give you anything.”
“Is that so?” His knuckles cracked against cheekbone. “You’re not saving anybody in your defiance. Quite the opposite.”
“Your words mean nothing.” He shrugged a shoulder and rested his head against the wall. “Do with me as you please.”
Brenton gestured for Gregh to grab the sheriff’s arm. Together they picked him up and slammed him onto his stomach so that his face hung over the edge. Brenton placed his boot atop his head. “Come again?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
So apparently, the sheriff had an irrational fear of heights; he gave in within two seconds of being dangled over the edge. Gregh dispatched three groups of riders to hunt down the senators. Brenton sent out three and then rallied a fourth for him to accompany.
Brenton was preparing to embark when Kron came to speak with him.
“Promise me no innocents are hurt,” said Kron.
“From where did this self-righteousness come?” Brenton draped his saddle over the steed. “You had a boy killed for misbehavior, but you wish to spare our enemies?”
“They had their cocks shoved inside of a poor girl. Her face was gashed open—she was screaming for help and they kept pounding into her. If they’re not worthy of death, then who is? Emowyn got married last week. All I could picture was something like that happening to her.”
Brenton stuttered with his thoughts; he knew that Emowyn had never gotten as far as her wedding vows. She was another sacrifice at the altar of death; from her blood would spring forth ten-thousand Vyktaurian and Sworfaurian soldiers. He had orchestrated her death, planned it to seem that the Hytaurs had assailed their most sacred event. Brenton had never felt such a hollowing shame. He felt that the death of one sister was worth the salvation of a people; but even in its justification, he could not underwhelm himself of the guilt.
“Just promise me,” Kron insisted. “You’re like a brother to me, and I stand here asking you, as a brother.”
Brenton lowered his head. “Of course, brother. I shall respect your wishes.”
The central avenue spread out for almost a mile, twisting around willows until it neared the front gate. Springtide has brought with it a rich array of red, from the scarlet grass to the crimson treetops that cast shade over the patios. Women were hanging sheets from their clotheslines, hollering at their children to stop running on the sidewalk.
“As much as they gripe about poverty, they have it better than half the families in Vykten,” said Brenton. “Where is this ‘injustice’ I hear so much about?”
The sheriff tilted his hat to a passing girl. “All we ask is to be left alone. I remember life here before the rebellion…. My father fought against the congregation. Gave his blood to keep you on your pedestal. How did ya’ll repay him? Some drunken clansmen stabbed him over a funny look. Wanna know what his wergild was?” He paused, having finished with the rhetorical questions. “One day’s wage. His wage.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Brenton spoke sincerely but in a tone from which irony could be discerned; sentiment wasn’t his specialty, and his voice stilted whenever he tried to express it.
“Are you?” asked the sheriff. “Do you actually care?” He glared at Brenton until their eyes met and thence shifted his sight.
“We fight for every Raur.” Brenton hadn’t deigned to answer the question. “We are both children of the first men.”
“We’re here. Senator Merlon of the Franetta family.” A black swan was perched atop the building’s roof.
A year ago, when Brenton had returned to Walton’s house, he did so with the intention of killing him. The senate of a royal province was comprised of the noble patriarchs, their heirs apparent, and the rectors of every town and village. As convoluted as the plan was, if Theon and Walton were to die, their Traditionalist brothers would succeed them; this would help them sway not only the senate but the whole eastern territory.
What am I becoming? he thought as he shook hands with Walton. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“This way.” He led Brenton to a study that warranted no description. “It’s an account of the congregation’s atrocities,” he said, reaching for a bundle of papers. “Written by an oath breaker.”
“The congregation’s atrocities are common knowledge.” Brenton peered down at the fifty-page bundle.
“Not these ones.” Walton traipsed to his workstation. “Syrnel, the wise-men call it—a chemical secreted by the brain during moments of great pain.”
“Go on.”
“According to the report, the Noconyx have been harvesting it from civilians, mainly those found guilty of heresy, but they’ve been known to raid voyid settlements in the dark of night.” He instructed Brenton to sit. “Their adoption of the Mesallian god, Nerrigal, didn’t just service their assimilation. They’re using him as a front—to broaden the scope of their experiments.”
“What are the properties of this substance?” Brenton asked. “What do they hope to achieve?”
“It’s difficult to say.” He dropped the bundle onto the table. “Some of the radicals think it can facilitate immortality. The more modest claims are that it boosts the immune system, that it makes the injector capable of fighting any ailment.”
Brenton squinted at the tiny font. The records therein would haunt his dreams, stories that destroyed his faith in humanity. One boy, fourteen years of age, had been taken from his home in Sypren. The abductors forced him into a stock; they screwed a metal tube into his head and then watched as the Flayed Prophet hacked off his right leg with an ax. The boy tried to curl his body, but the abductors stretched him out and heaved off the other leg. They applied salt to the wounds and left him there for ten minutes. When they went back, they removed his arms.
“What the fuck is this?” He observed Walton above his brow.
“Human depravity knows no bounds. Keep reading.”
He stopped reading during the account of the strappado: a form of torture in which the victim had their hands tied behind them and suspended in the air by ropes. “Remind me not to be t
aken prisoner,” Brenton said. “May I take this with me?”
“I figured as much.”
“My gratitude.” Brenton folded the bundle into his satchel. “I must be going.”
“I’ve thought about it, and if this is the evil that looms over us, what option do I have? I’ll show you to the schematics.”
Brenton dismounted his horse in a wealthy district of Parven. “This is the location,” he said to his men. Twelve climbed from their saddles and followed him to the door. One of them knocked on the door. There was no response for that or for the knocks that followed. The men spread out and one thwacked the door with a ram: once and the deadbolt rattled, twice and the frame began to split. There was one more wallop and the door burst open.
Brenton and his men charged into the house, not knowing if they were there to slay or to slaughter. When the deed was done and the clansmen returned to their horses, they could hear the faint sobs of a widow.
“Where to next?” asked Brenton. He wrapped the reins around his hands and gave an order to march.
Neighbors crept from their houses and organized themselves into throngs, speechless and timid, not doing much more than pointing and watching in astonishment.
“Feel better?” The sheriff spoke in a manner that suggested mockery. “Down a few streets.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t go through with my initial impulse.”
“You know…, most people, when they have these sick thoughts—and believe me, they do—they dissolve with the anger.” The sheriff shuddered. “What does this achieve? Expel them from the city. You haven’t a need to kill them.”
“So that they can hunt me down tomorrow?”
“What made you such a delusional prick?”
Brenton shook his head. “Fort Vella,” he mumbled. “I was just a green-boy. Had two companies under my command.”
“Not bad for a green-boy.”
“I was an heir of the Epson family,” said Brenton. “My father was fighting Vyktaur’s campaign in the north. I don’t know what I thought—exactly—when they brought my wife out, my son, my daughter. ‘Surrender my garrison’, they said. I don’t know what I thought—that I could make a difference? Push back their conquest? Each of them, so innocent and precious and, yet, the last sight their eyes would ever see was of me. And for all I sacrificed, so defiant—they just marched on…. I had too few men to oppose them in open battle. And so I just … watched them walk away.” Brenton appeared older than he really was, a hoary man with deep-set wrinkles and near-moldering flesh. “I fight that my children may live again.”
