by A J Burns
The carpet had been rolled up and tossed into the corner. A trapdoor was open where the carpet should’ve been.
“Kron?” There was no answer. “Well, this should be fun.” He started his descent into darkness.
Empty tinderboxes had been strewn across the floor of the basement. He heard footsteps above him.
“Kron, is that you?”
“What are you doing in the dark?” It was Kron’s voice.
“I’m good at handling regret. Get down here—and bring a lantern.” He heard the footsteps moving away and he decided to wait until they returned.
Kron came down holding a lantern; as he walked, the light revealed a bunch of strange, cryptic symbols on the walls.
“Ancient Noconyx,” said Kron. “Not that I can read it.”
“How’d you know?” Byson let Kron walk in front of him.
“Theon Beritta’s brother taught me.”
They arrived at a studded wooden door. Kron unhooked the latch and pushed it open. The stench of human decay rushed out to greet them.
Byson gagged. He was trying to speak and not vomit: a difficult combination. “What the hell is that?”
Kron motioned for him to follow. “Let’s find out.”
The first room they entered had nothing of any particular importance; chemistry implements and books were cluttered atop a desk in the center. The second room, however, is where they saw the source of rot; bodies, numbering in the fifties, had been served from their limbs and heads.
“Gods, have mercy,” Kron mumbled.
“Mother of hell.” Byson puked into his own hand. “What kind of … person….” He held his hand in front of his mouth.
Kron bent down and examined a head. “A hole’s been drilled into the side.”
“How dare they….” Byson strained to see a corpse at the top of the pile: a child, he deduced. “No human could do something like this.”
“What is to be gained?” Kron meandered into the first room.
Byson followed him. “It makes your average murder seem … almost peaceful.” He pointed at the two unopened doors. “Should we?”
Kron shrugged; he then opened the door to the third room and saw the remains of a woman who had been cut in halves; each half hung from a chain.
Byson spotted a tube that had been implanted in the right side of her skull. A vial, filled with blood, was attached to the end. He glanced back at the table; screwed into a series of tubes was the same type of vial. Beside it was a longer, skinnier container.
“They’re experimenting with their blood,” Byson said.
“Grab it and let’s go.”
Having returned to the warmth of the sun, the men could do nothing but continue in silence. Occasionally, they would trade glances, but no words were exchanged between them.
When the sun was visible on the horizon, Byson decided to end the silence. “What are the Noconyx doing this far west?”
Kron simply looked at him, upholding his part in the silence.
After some hours, they came to the capital. Violet flags were raised high above the parapets. The edges of the curtain-wall blended into the mountain range.
Byson saw no human life, but the drawbridge was down, and the portcullis remained suspended.
“We’ll bivouac here and wait for my father’s command,” said Kron.
For hours Byson sat, scanning the city for signs of life. He would occasionally see what he thought to be a shimmer or a shadow, but they were gone so fast and occurring so sparsely that he dismissed them as figments of his imagination.
When the main army had caught up with the vanguard, Byson followed Kron to the area of their chief’s attention.
“What do you mean it’s deserted?” Tefvon asked.
“They must’ve evacuated in the wake of our arrival.” Kron seemed to be at a loss for words.
“Doubtful.” Tefvon studied the walls. “It’s a ruse of some kind.”
Gevon noticed Byson, and he maintained eye-contact for a second before turning away. “We did see the fleet setting sail,” Gevon said.
“The fleet is all we saw—not the people aboard it.” Tefvon took his sight off the city. “We’ll wait them out.”
For three days they tried to wait them out, and for three days they witnessed no evidence of their enemy. A couple of scouts had been sent into the city; they returned safely with no reports of activity.
“I still don’t trust it,” Tefvon said. “Kron, you’ll be leading the advance.”
“Of course. I’ll get my men ready.” He left them behind.
Tefvon looked Byson up and down. “Keep him safe.”
Byson nodded. “No harm will fall upon him, Your Majesty.”
Two-hundred dragoons rode through the gate, Kron and Byson in the front.
Red bricks composed the streets and buildings, the purest of them having been selected for the shrine. Rarely did its bricks differ in hue. Shops and restaurants appeared to have been evacuated on a moment’s notice; spoiled steak remained untouched beneath the shade of fifty parasols.
As the dragoons rode farther into the city’s depths, reinforcements continued to pour in from the entrance.
Kron ordered a dozen of men to spread out and explore the city; hesitant as they were, they obeyed the command. Kron’s dragoons were some of the most disciplined soldiers in Vehymen.
“We’ll wait for their return,” Kron said to Byson. “See if they find anything.”
“If they are truly here, they’ll take our reluctance as a sign of weakness.” Byson moved his sight from window to window. “We should strut to the palace.”
“If we throw caution to the wind, they’ll think us foolish.”
Seven of the riders returned; the other five never returned.
Kron pulled on the long hairs of his beard. “Take eighty of the men down the western road and search for the riders.” He pointed his chin in that direction. “Be careful.”
Byson set out through an upscale neighborhood. Hedges encircled the apartments, five-feet tall with a rich verdant hue. “Be careful,” he mumbled. It was probably a throwaway comment, but it felt like an affront to his pride.
The path became narrow as it turned southward, the apartments flush against the road. Bricks had been stacked like pyramids atop the roofs.
“We should find a different route,” urged a dragoon. “This street is ripe for an ambush.”
“Are you scared?” Byson was mocking him. “If they wish to ambush us, then best we discover it now.”
“We should send for reinforcements—at the least.”
“I was ordered to secure the area. I will not be calling upon the help of another. Besides, do you honestly think our enemies could orchestrate something this complex? They fled like cowards.” Byson turned his neck from right to left, peering into the alleyways, which were cluttered with trash and broken parts.
Movement in a window above caught his attention; he thought he had seen a curtain being pulled up and dropped.
This entire campaign was taking a toll on his resolve. It became increasingly difficult to differentiate between imagination and reality.
Fear fell upon him as he thought back to the manor. Is that what destiny awaits us? He saw the movement again. A white face was peering down at him.
He stuttered at first, questioning his sanity; but this was real, and he knew it. “Noconyx!”
Arrows rained down upon them and crisscrossed at the street level. Barrels were slid beneath the windows, expelling death from their chambers.
“Into the buildings—go!” Byson jumped from his horse and ran to an apartment door.
He kicked, punched, and slammed himself against it, but it wouldn’t budge. He witnessed his men being struck down, and then suddenly the violence had stopped.
There was a scratching sound from above. When he looked up, the bricks came crashing down on him. A stone crushed his right arm, his sword arm, bending it backwards and bringing him to the ground.
> Bodies were strewn about, crushed or pierced, some moaning and gasping for air. Byson lay against the side of an apartment, his head to the sky.
The footsteps came closer, scratching and stomping against the brick. Steel pierced through the chainmail of the dragoons. He felt their shadows moving over him. There was nothing he could do to stop them. A milky-white face hung over him, a stolid, uncaring face that stared into his eyes.
Twangs resonated from the north. The pale face fell against the wall with a resounding crack. Byson curled up against the steps as the volleys struck those around him.
Tefvon’s voice had never sounded sweet as it did now. “Hunt them down!”
Byson clambered back to his feet and watched as Tefvon’s guard hacked the enemies into pieces. Thirty-seven dragoons had survived the assault.
“You’re lucky,” Tefvon said as he rode up to Byson. “Indeed, insubordination can be a good thing—at least in regards to you.”
“What do you mean?”
Tefvon pointed at a dragoon: the same one who had urged Byson to seek help. “He alerted us to your stupidity.”
Pain surged through his arm; he bit his tongue to stop from crying out. “If he disobeys one order, he’ll disobey another.”
“Only yours. Come on—let’s go; this battle won’t finish itself.”
The city was eerily quiet. His paranoia was now tenfold of what it was before the attack; his sight dashed from window to window, from alley to alley. Every shadow and shimmer was a cause of fright.
The Vyktaurian army coalesced at the palace. As Byson rode towards the entrance, the pointing and whispering began; a Raurian man had been impaled on a stake, his arms tied behind his back.
“Who is he?” Gevon asked.
“Is that…?” Kron’s speech trailed off.
Tefvon removed his helm. “The Wostaurian chief.”
Gevon looked at his father. “Why would the congregation want the Wostaurs dead?”
Tefvon sent a team into the palace. The rest of the army was on high alert as they waited for answers.
According to Kron, the attack on the narrow road had been the only sighting thus far. Byson could overhear him disciplining the dragoon.
“They would’ve been dead,” the boy responded.
“You’re not wrong about that,” said Kron, “but there’s a chain-of-command, and you didn’t follow it. A day’s rations—and it’s non-negotiable.”
“Yes, my lord.” The boy hung his head.
Good, Byson thought. He took a bag of peanuts from his satchel. The anticipation felt like torture as he cracked open the shells.
The team returned from the palace, a woman walking between them. “We found her hiding in the storage room.”
“What’s your name?” Tefvon asked politely.
“It don’t matter.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” He glanced at Heston Wostaur’s body. “Be a doll and explain this to me.”
“The congregation had him killed for treason,” she said.
“What are they doing this far west?”
“The Wostaurs are a proxy of the congregation. They haven’t ruled over the province in years.”
“How did this happen?” Byson asked.
“They forced intermarriage. The chief’s daughters have been pushing out half-breeds, one after another for two decades. The chief’s resolve was weak. He let them in one at a time until they were able to seize his power from him.”
“He was there with us in Bwumen,” said Tefvon.
“And so was the congregation. More importantly, they were here in his home, keeping an eye on his family. He thought to rebel, to join with you and reclaim his city, but they took no chances and poisoned his supporters.”
“Where is everybody?” Kron asked.
“In the sewers, in the mountains; they’re closing in around us—thousands upon thousands crawling out of the woodwork as we speak.”
“Everyone, inside the palace,” said Tefvon. “Go now.”
They came, pale figures in the night, swarming the palace from every angle. They drew steel against the infantry, they burned fear into the horses, and they pushed onward, a sweeping hoard of chaos and death.
The Raurs remained firm in the palace, shooting at the menace below, but before long, the essence of the ruse was upon them; the figures retreated to the shadows, and boulders came to slam against the palace walls. Catapults, hidden in the mountains, were launching volley after volley; the bricks began to crumble beneath the Raurs.
“If we don’t do something, we’re going to die!” Kron was yelling in his father’s face.
Byson tried to steady himself as another rock ravaged the building. Gevon was crying in a corner, his knees pulled to his chest.
“Thank you for the obvious,” Tefvon snarled. “Take the nectors and dragoons and split them into groups of two-forty. Have each group take one end of a street and have another group approach from the other end. I’ll stay here and direct the archers to their center.”
A boulder broke through the wall and flattened a group of soldiers.
Kron rallied his troops. With some of the mounts having been killed, he commanded the lesser warriors to concede their horses.
Byson refused to show his pain as he strolled over to Kron. “Am I riding with you?” He jerked his arm the wrong way, and the pain intensified.
“We don’t have enough horses,” Kron said.
“I am the Warden of the Southern Territory. You’ll let a dragoon ride before your own nectors?”
“I’m sorry, but you’re no use to us down there.” Kron placed his hand on Byson’s shoulder. “I need you to stay here and protect the others.”
“You don’t need me to protect anyone.” Byson slid his shoulder out from under Kron’s grip. “You just don’t want me down there. I can still fight.”
“Someday perhaps but not now.” Kron lowered his head but left with a gait of confidence.
“Kron!”
The horsemen rode across the drawbridge and into the city. Byson ran to a window and watched as they vanished into the darkness. The cries of human and horse blended into a wretched duet. He listened on, trying to find the rhythm of the battle, but all men cried the same tune.
He felt the vibrations as another volley was launched. A boulder slammed against the wall that Gevon was sitting against. The bricks crumbled around him; the wall tilted till it hung over him.
“Get over here!” Byson yelled.
Gevon uncurled himself and stared above but refused to move.
Boulders pounded the streets around them.
“Gods damn it!” Byson ran at Gevon and yanked him with his left arm.
The wall was collapsing into a heap, starting from the center and moving towards them. Byson jutted his right arm out for whatever strength it could provide.
“Steady yourselves!” Tefvon commanded at the far end of the palace.
Screeching in pain, Byson pulled the boy closer and tumbled backwards; he tossed him a couple of inches past his own head and raised his legs to avoid the bricks.
Tefvon commanded the archers to halt. “The boulders are misfiring on their own men.”
Byson clambered back onto his feet. “Are you good?” he asked Gevon.
“I think.” Gevon sat up.
He drew back his left arm and bashed Gevon across the cheek. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
21
Osynek Velore
Raurian Commoner
Osynek hoped his health would allow him to attend the duel between Drathon Slochan and Winston Kolsetta’s champion, wherein Winston aspired to prove the guilt of Wynore’s assailant.
For now, Osynek eased the bangs from his daughter’s face, revealing the bruise around her right eyebrow. Her solemn visage was a contrast to her younger, merrier self, from before the troubles of wedlock: so distant and fleeting it seemed to be of a time immemorial. She nestled the top of her head against his stomach.
�
��What happened?” The words were solid in this throat.
“Nothing happened, Father.” Throughout her life, salutations were her way of avoiding questions: a trait she had shared with her mother. “He’s gone.”
“I think it’s time for you to let go.” He rubbed the hair that flowed down her back. “You’ve done everything you could.”
“I’m realizing that,” she admitted. “Everything’s my fault. Evoru thinks I cheated on him, and now Gregh has left in shame. He wrote a letter to me, talking about killing Evoru so we could be together. Evoru was in the bathroom when it was delivered. He came out and snatched it from me.”
“Is that why he hit you?” He spoke gently.
“Yes—but please don’t do anything about it. It was the first time … and I can’t say I blame him.” She was now sobbing into his linens. “Don’t say anything to him.”
He rocked her shoulder back-and-forth. “Marriage is a complicated thing. I have no intent of interfering.”
“He read the letter aloud—in front of everyone…. They all think I’m some type of whore.”
He poised himself to ask for the answer he was most curious about. “Did you? Cheat on him, I mean.”
“No!” She jolted her body up and stared at him, vehement evident in her eyes. “Is that what you think of me—that I’m some type of slut?”
“It was just a question, dear.”
Outside, the rebel army was preparing to withdraw from Parven and embark on a journey to the Orynen capital.
“Come with us.” Fryne had been urging him to undertake the trek since the heralds first made it common knowledge.
“I’m too weak.” The cancer continued to spread; according to the doctors, he had a week to prepare for his fate. “I have to question why you’re going.”
“Evoru is my husband.”
“Oh dear…. Don’t you ever have conflicting emotions?” He admired her devotion, but he loathed it at the same time.
“Every day. I’m not the single-minded girl that you take me for, Father. The past year has been now-or-never. Was I supposed to ponder my relationship as the Elynaurian nectors chased us down? What about now—when he might leave and never return?”
