by A J Burns
Evoru laid his head against the door for several minutes before unlocking it.
“Should I wait outside?” Admon asked him.
Evoru nodded. “I just wanna say my final goodbye. I won’t be long.” He entered the room and closed the door behind him.
There was a minute or two of silence, but then he heard the sobs, first faintly and then distinctly and then back to a faint whisper before they become harsh and uncontrolled.
Evoru had hardly spoken to her since they had left Parven, and anytime her name had been mentioned, he had responded with spite. He had rejoiced at news of Gregh’s death but soon felt ashamed at the rejoicing and hence stopped before returning to the rejoicing a couple of days later.
Admon and Evoru had served together for nearly twenty-three years, with Admon having saved his life in the first rebellion, having served him after the war, and having been there at the wedding. Through all of the emotions, all the drama, Admon had witnessed them both dismiss the relationship what seemed to have been a hundred times. Both he and she were perhaps the most stubborn people Admon had ever met.
Evoru was a workaholic, romance the furthest topic from his mind; Admon had never known him to sit idly and just let the world continue on without him, but despite all his effort, in both work and love, he never did seem to try any alternative approaches. Fryne was guilty in almost the same way, refusing to give up but giving into the same temptations.
They had never been a happy couple, and Admon was hardly surprised by their untimely fate. Evoru had been nestled within the arms of another woman when the news had reached him.
When Evoru returned from the sickroom, his eyes were swollen and puffy. He sulked his way to the end of the corridor and pushed open the doors. Sunlight seemed to blind him as he made his way to the trough.
“Do you have any obligations?” Evoru asked.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Admon said.
“Are you hungry?”
“I already ate breakfast.”
“That was like five hours ago.” Evoru chuckled. “I feel like going for a ride. There’s nothing to do in this fucking place except ride…. I’ve an idea,” he said, mounting his horse.
“And what’s that?” Admon maneuvered his horse to trot alongside Evoru.
“A place I haven’t been in sixteen—or seventeen—years now. I can’t keep track of time anymore. It’s where I met Fryne. It’s where I met her father too.” He chuckled. “I’ve never told anybody this before, but I was a virgin when I married…. As was she. And I hadn’t been with anybody else since. Maybe that’s where I went wrong.”
“Never regret the choices you made from your own morality,” Admon said. “Temperance is what separates us from animals.”
“Yes, yes,” Evoru said somewhat mockingly. “‘Do not drink more than quenches your thirst, and do not eat more than your body requires.’”
“Good words to live by.”
“But where’s the fun in that? You’ve always been so serious. What is it you actually find pleasure in?”
“A healthy mind and a healthy body,” Admon said. “That’s a gift in and of itself.”
“To each their own I suppose.” Evoru shrugged. “But see, maybe if I had slept around, I wouldn’t have been so damn jealous of her.” He said to himself, “Who knows? Too late for that, I guess.”
“It don’t matter now.”
“What kills me is the way she died,” Evoru said, ignoring Admon. “After all these years together, she died alone. Not only alone, but without warning as well. What do you think her last thoughts were about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think she ever actually loved me or was it all just for show?” He wore a necklace, and on that necklace was a medallion with the likeness of a pig.
Admon felt uncomfortable speaking about their relationship but offered his words anyhow. “Yeah. Of course, she did…. She didn’t always express it appropriately, but there’s no doubting that she loved you.”
“It’s a good thought.” Evoru wiped tears from his eyes. “But, I guess, you’re right; it doesn’t matter now.”
“I wasn’t talking about her love when I said that.”
“She was always a good woman at least,” Evoru muttered. “Was always patient with me. Not impatient when it came to sleeping with other men, either, but I digress.”
Evoru kept on talking, mostly to himself, but occasionally asking Admon a question, and Admon would struggle for words as he tried to recall what Evoru had been talking about.
Even with the sun, bright as it was, the air was beginning to chill. The foliage was bright and lively; but in a few weeks, the leaves would begin to fall, and soon after that, winter would be upon them. There were many things Admon looked forward to, but snow was not one of them.
“We’re almost there,” Evoru said, pointing at the hills as they rode against the edge of the forest. “I miss the old days, before bureaucracy, before the paperwork.”
“If I recall correctly, you didn’t find much joy in being a soldier, either.”
“Ah, yeah, you’re right.” Evoru cleared his throat. “Artillery is loud. If I can go the rest of my life without standing beside a cannon, then the gods are good…. Fuck women. What exactly are they good for? It can never match the bond that men feel on the battlefield—the sacrifices, the triumphs.”
Admon coughed and reminded him: “Fryne also sacrificed herself for you.”
Her sacrifice was an act that had aggrieved Admon greatly. He had been instructing his subordinates to patrol the avenues that night of the Grofven raid and had ventured a kilometer from the palace in doing so. He had been doing what he had been instructed to do, and he knew on some rational level that it wasn’t his fault; but had he remained at the palace, he thought, he would’ve been able to rescue both Fryne and Evoru.
“Yeah, I guess she did. It was all for nothing, though.” Evoru groaned. “Ignore me. I’m not thinking straight. I’m starting to sound like a woman myself.”
Admon heard a twang, and not even a second later, an arrow had pierced Evoru’s stomach. He yelped and groped at his side. Five soldiers appeared over the hillside, their armor red and black.
“Rofynaurians.” Evoru moaned. A second arrow struck his horse, which panicked and flung him to the ground.
Admon peered into the forest and found the archer; he held his breath and flung his knife at the man, barely hitting him, but causing him to fall from the branch he had been perched on.
“Go warn the others.” Admon leapt from his horse and pushed the reins into Evoru’s hands. “Now. You’ll have to hurry.”
The five scouts came rushing down the hillside.
“No.” Evoru dropped the reins. “I won’t leave you behind.”
“This isn’t about us.” He again grabbed the reins and shoved them into Evoru’s grip. “Run back and warn the others.” Without waiting for a retort, Admon ran at the enemy and sliced through armor.
He could hear Evoru shouting behind him. “I shall never forget you, friend.”
Admon pushed past the scouts and ran for the top of the hill; on the other side, he saw thousands of men marching toward him. “Evoru!” He shouted, turning to see if he was still within range. “It’s an ambush!”
Evoru turned his horse to the side and was now riding parallel to the hills.
What is he doing?
Admon lifted his sword and sliced into a scout. He swatted away an attack from a different scout and jumped back to avoid another, but a third came from behind and slashed at his arm. Admon growled, twisted around, and punched the man in his nose, causing blood to squirt out at him. He seized the man by his neck and shoved his sword into him.
A scout thrust his blade at Admon and caught a piece of his chainmail, ripping off a couple of links as he drew back his arm. Admon kicked him backwards and sent him to roll down the hill.
Evoru was riding for the hilltop, a couple of hundred yards to the east, looki
ng out at the enemy’s brigade as he made his way toward the scouts.
“Leave!” Admon shouted at his friend. He fought off the two remaining scouts as they circled around him, trying to find an opening.
More twangs came from the main host and Evoru ducked, steering his horse so that it was out of sight from them. “Admon!”
When one of the scouts tried to stab Admon, Admon slid to his side and snatched a fallen sword. Using one arm, he decapitated the first attacker, and using his other arm he impaled the remaining attacker. An arrow struck him in the back, and he stumbled forward.
Evoru pulled up beside Admon and offered a hand. “Come on!”
Admon stared up at him. There were two more arrows poking out Evoru’s side. “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”
“I refuse to leave you behind. Let’s go!”
Admon climbed onto the horse, but there was barely enough room for both riders. The horse galloped down the hill and towards Orynen’s capital city.
Horsemen were spilling over the hill and charging after them. “There’s no way we’re gonna make it,” Admon said defiantly. “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”
“I don’t care what you think I should’ve done,” Evoru said. “I’m not leaving you behind.” The blood was draining from his face. He was pale as snow.
“I’m weighing us down.” Admon pulled the arrow from his own back and threw it to the ground. “They’re gaining on us.”
“We’re gonna make it. Now shut up and trust me.”
“No, friend, we won’t.” He patted Evoru on his back and jumped from the horse.
“Get back here!” Evoru slowed down his horse and turned around, almost throwing himself off in the process. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Then think of it as me leaving you behind. Go, now, and warn them of the enemy.” Admon refused to listen to another word, and he charged towards the horsemen, charging towards the inevitable.
27
Surkin Asmod
Chancellor of Vehymen
The Flayed Prophet hacked at their captive’s throat until the blade thudded against spine. He cut through flesh more like a butcher than like an executioner; he had developed a knack for prolonging suffering, having learned to cut around the trachea, leaving the airflow intact and the victim conscious.
A traditional, small-blade beheading produced enough syrnel for one man to last a week, but, with this technique, they could extract that and a half. There were other, more torturous methods, but the turnaround was not enough to justify the means and wasted time.
“Keep watching,” Surkin said to his son: a pathetic, wimpy boy of thirteen years.
“I know, Father.” The boy twitched his head, as if to look away, but never committed to the motion; he knew the punishment for disobedience.
Surkin had seven wives, and, with them, thirty-three children, not including the bastards he had conceived in Orynen and on that pitiful Elynaurian isle.
This child was the product of some Wostaurian whore that he had stolen from her chief. She was pleasant enough if one were to ignore the acrid stench that flowed from her cavities; but her offspring were all hapless cowards, unfit to rule a household, yet here he was, trying to teach them to rule the most volatile territory of the empire.
His second wife was some Vyktaurian spoil. He had ordered the Hytaurian chief to smash her son’s face against the wall repeatedly. And she never did forgive me for that. Over the years, however, she did learn to become obedient if not entirely complacent. After all these years together, she was still his favorite; but she was old, almost the same age as he was, and unable to bear any more children. Even in her prime, she had only produced two; they were promising, but the first died in Sypren, and the second died from the plague.
The Hytaurs had provided him with two wives, both fat, but one slightly more so than the other, and she had always been envious of that “skinny” cousin of hers. He did his duty with both of them, but grotesque was not a fetish of his, and so it was a difficult duty indeed. Two of his wives were from the motherland, beautiful Noconyx girls that the clergy had blest him with; but what they had in beauty, they either lacked in diligence or made up for in narcissism.
Should they fail me, there’s one last hope, he thought, and that hope was the Rofynaurian bride that had been sold to him in exchange for a trivial stretch of land that extended past the Grofvaurian border.
Surkin looked on as the prophet finished with his work and brought out another prisoner to be sacrificed. This man was skinny, and his face had a hundred pockmarks. “Have mercy, Your Holiness.” The wretch cowered before him.
“No.” There had been a time when Surkin was unnerved by the violence around him, but with enough time in the darkness, it became easy to succumb to the apathy that it induced. He took a knife from the table and shoved the handle into his son’s right hand. “The time has come.”
“Please, Father, don’t make me do this.” He glanced down at the knife.
“Do you know why you feel disturbed, child? It is because you imagine yourself in his situation, but you are not him; do not let him project his suffering onto you. Stab him.”
“Father, please.”
“I will not tell you again.”
His son prodded at the butcher. “I can’t.”
“Hold the knife steady.” With his son holding the knife to the man’s stomach, Surkin stomped on the handle and drove the blade into his abdomen. The wretch cried out for them to stop. “Do you hesitate when you swat a mosquito?”
“No, Father.”
“I see no man lying in front of us. Do you know what I see?”
“I know, Father.” He bowed his head. “You see a mosquito.”
“But you do not.”
“No, Father.”
“You are young yet.” He plucked the knife out from the butcher’s body and tossed it to the Flayed Prophet. “Finish with this and follow up with me when you are done.” He took his son by the shoulder and walked with him down the hallway. “How do you expect to become my heir if you cannot obey me?”
“It’s difficult, Father.”
“We all must face adversity. How we handle it is what makes us strong, what turns us into leaders.” Surkin scraped his fingernails against the wall, an obsessive tick of his that he had never bothered to overcome.
“I know, Father.”
“I remember the first time I had seen someone murdered,” he said, looking into his son’s eyes, “and how I had squirmed at the sight of it. I shuddered at the scene, the boy being detached from his neck, his last attempt at words a bloody gurgle. You will become indifferent to it someday. Your strength lies in overcoming the hesitation before you are indifferent. If you do not fear something, there is no bravery in vanquishing it. True bravery comes from denying the temptation to flee.”
“I know, Father.” He lowered his head and watched his feet as he walked.
“Without the suffering of these mosquitos, the plague will wipe us from the earth. Do you wish to see us die, to see your own family die, just so you can save an insect?”
“No, Father, but why must they die like this? If we can drown the children, why not the adults?”
“Fear produces some syrnel, but not enough to sustain us. It is my mercy that permits the swift execution of children, not my wrath that incurs the long executions of their parents.”
“Why do I have to do it? Why can’t I just tell somebody else to do it?”
“Your subjects will see you as weak,” Surkin said harshly. “You must show them that you are capable of fulfilling your own orders. Only then may you delegate the task to others. The clergy will not take kindly to a weakling upon the throne. You have been bred to become a Surkin, to take my name, like I have taken that of my father. If you cannot lead, the name will be bestowed upon one of your brothers. Take this one for example.”
Surkin pointed to Magistrate Alena’s murderer, whose arms had been suspended from the top of
a banister. His legs dangled above the walkway. Patches of skin were missing from his arms.
“This one I have taken as a personal hobby of mine.”
A eunuch rushed through the corridor. “Chancellor, Your Holiness,” he said as he panted. “The clergy has commanded your presence.”
“For what matter?” Surkin removed his hand from his son’s shoulder. “Go speak with your mother. I have business I must attend to.”
“I don’t know,” the eunuch said. “They said to convene in an hour.”
Surkin walked to the inner sanctum and brooded there alone with fifty-eight minutes to spare. The room was dark, as was the entire shrine: a stone building inside the courtyard of the Starred Fortress.
His legs were weak, the cartilage slowly withering away as the plague burdened his body more each day. He was not entirely sure syrnel was effective, but he had been infected for more than a year, and his heart was still beating. He had accepted that it would not eradicate his infection, but if he could prolong his life enough to raise a decent heir, then he could die a happy man.
Marble statues of the Five Goddesses surrounded the five entrances of the inner sanctum. Manutra was their goddess of love, “and she so loved the world and the people of it, that she released the plague to bring them forever together in the afterlife.” Surkin defied her wishes but only so that he could serve the realm and lead them to the victory that had been prophesized.
Kornelia was the goddess of fortune, and she was so analogous to the Mesallian god Nerrigal that the congregation had renamed her, when in mixed company, to appease the Mesals.
The goddess of hunger, Rabusa, “was the end of all starvation and all desires, and all who followed her were forever granted with what they coveted; but the food she provided them with was a poison in and of itself, and all who ate from her orchard were bound to feast there for the rest of their lives, for those who wandered from her path would find no solace or satisfaction in the earthly foods of this world.”
