Husam grabbed the end of the rope and jerked the prisoner to his feet. They were almost the same height, though Husam was thick and hale, a stark contrast to his gaunt, ashen captive.
“The day is not yet done, Monster,” Husam growled as he shoved the man forward. “Amin al Asad,” he announced, then, with less enthusiasm, added, “of the Ilawehans.”
The prisoner turned his head toward Husam, his features twisted in fury, “Kafir! Traitor! How dare you name me such!”
Husam returned the glare, then nodded quick assent, and announced, “Amin al Asad, of Elgar.”
Al Asad held Husam’s gaze briefly before returning the nod, then turned back to face Xanthius. “The name of a dead man,” he muttered. “I am Carsogenicus now.”
Amrath feigned wonder and admiration, spreading his arms wide to the prisoner and plastering on a false grin. “Amin al Asad, Carsogenicus, Odio Sinistera: the list keeps growing. Have you thought of any new names while you were swinging?”
Husam kicked Carsogenicus again, this time in the back of his leg. “You will not escape justice by changing your name, dog. Ilaweh will know you, whatever you call yourself.”
Al Asad staggered but kept his footing. He turned and spat in Husam’s face. The huge warrior reached for his sword, but Xanthius raised a hand to stop him. If ever a man deserved to be tortured or murdered, here stood the one, but such things were barbarism. At some other time, one might risk descending into a touch of brutality but not here, not now. Civilization was but a candle flickering in the wind. The slightest of breezes could put it out for a thousand years. This fiasco had to carry at least the thin veneer of a trial, or they were simply playing al Asad’s game. That had already happened far too many times.
And I intend to burn him alive and call it justice. The world has gone mad these last few years. “Amin al Asad, you have been found guilty of treason and crimes against humanity. For these crimes, you have been sentenced to death.”
Carsogenicus laughed again. “You seem to be having some problems carrying out the sentence.”
Amrath’s smile was gone now. “Rest assured, we have plenty of ideas.”
“You talk as if you are the victor here, sorcerer.”
“You’ll be dead soon. I think that counts as at least a small victory.”
“My life has meant nothing since Alexander drove me out. I merely had debts to pay.” Carsogenicus raised a hand to Amrath and clenched into a fist. “I have torn from my enemies that which they most loved, as they once did to me and my men.” He swept them all with his impossible gaze, his empty sockets like cold, black holes in the fabric of the world. “I am the victor here. I welcome oblivion. I take your honor and your pride with me as sweet spoils.”
He grinned at Xanthius, exposing bloody teeth. “The great Imperator Xanthius, guilty of war crimes, sentenced to death. They hate you even more than they hate me. Now you’re a traitor for defying the Senate. How does that sit with the great and honorable hero of Laurea?”
Xanthius ignored the barbs and the question. Engaging in conversation with this man was not merely pointless, it was dangerous. “Have you anything else to say in your defense, anything that might sway the judgment of this court?”
“I deny this court. The Senate has ruled.”
Amrath snickered, then laughed out loud. “The cowards behind the wall haven’t the authority to rule a cabbage patch. The Council of Twelve is the true authority of Laurea, by right of conquest.”
Carsogenicus chuckled again. “You, too, are conquered now, Meite.”
“By Xanthius, not the Senate. My allegiance is to him.”
“Xanthius wields the sword, but he lacks the will to swing it. He is a groveling toad in the end.” He turned to leer at Husam. “As I always told you.”
Husam’s sword flashed in the light, too quick for Xanthius to countermand, and buried itself in the prisoner’s shoulder.
Carsogenicus, instead of crying out in agony, calmly turned his head to look at the wound, a dark, malevolent grin spreading across his face. The muscles in his arms bulged with sudden effort, and the rope binding his wrists parted with a snap.
Gods! I had no idea he had that sort of strength!
Carsogenicus grabbed Husam’s blade and held it in place, cackling as black blood oozed from the wound, bubbling and eating at Husam’s weapon like acid, sending tiny streamers of smoke into the air as it worked at the metal.
“I gave you this blade,” Carsogenicus hissed at Husam. “A poor strike, brother, but your hate is strong. Why did you turn from us? From me?”
Husam struggled with both hands to free the sword, but Carsogenicus held it fast with a grip of iron. The weakened blade parted with a snap, and Husam staggered backward, breathing heavily. “You turned from me, brother,” he growled and tossed the useless hilt to the ground.
“Elgar loves you still. A hate such as yours cannot be denied, even when turned against him.”
Husam spat in Carsogenicus’s face. “I serve Ilaweh now. I renounce Elgar. I renounce you.”
Carsogenicus flashed a cruel smile as he wiped the spittle from his face. “How can such righteous fury be anything but Elgar’s?”
“I deny you!” Husam roared.
Carsogenicus turned his back to Husam. “You delude yourself. You are one of us still.” Husam cried out and rushed toward Carsogenicus, his face twisted in fury.
Amrath cocked his head, and the very air between the two men rippled as an invisible wave of force exploded between them. Husam stopped mid-charge and rebounded as if he had tried to tackle a brick wall. He fell in a heap, cursing, as Carsogenicus staggered and dropped to his knees.
“Enough,” Amrath commanded. His eyes were cold, merciless, almost inhumanly bright and alive. He regarded Carsogenicus as he might a bug pinned in a collection. “Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because I choose to sheathe my sword, I am unarmed.”
“The much-vaunted will of the Meites,” Carsogenicus sneered as he rose to his feet again. “So why do you stand here trembling like a cringing lapdog, taking orders from the great Xanthius, while the fools within the wall spit on you?”
“Mei hates waste. This war is over.”
“Liar! I know you, rabble-rouser. You broke the both of us from their prison for a reason. You are not here to kneel.”
Amrath shrugged, inscrutable. “I am here because Tasinal sent me.”
“More lies!” Carsogenicus pointed an accusing finger at Amrath. “Tasinal is your creature, not the reverse.”
“He is the leader of our order.”
“A puppet leader,” Carsogenicus said. “And you pull his strings. What’s your game, sorcerer? Do you work for the fools inside the wall? Perhaps you were allowed to free us. Perhaps they asked you to carry out their sentence so they could avoid the blame?”
Amrath shook his head, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “A fine attempt, that tale, but flawed at the core. My fight is with those spineless vermin hiding behind that wall, as it has always been. Now that they have made an enemy of Xanthius, I would suddenly befriend them instead of allying myself with him? Preposterous.”
Xanthius gestured to Amrath to stand aside. If there were but one truth about Meites, it was that they would argue until the end of time, at least until one or the other decided bloodshed was in order. The will of the Meites is indeed the stuff of legend, but Carsogenicus could provoke a saint. The sorcerer nodded and stepped back, and Xanthius moved to stand before his prisoner.
“Amin al Asad, for your villainy, I hereby sentence you to death by fire. Have you any last words?”
Al Asad turned from Xanthius to Husam. For a brief moment, the hate faded from him, leaving only a gaping chasm of pain and sorrow. “Will you light the flame yourself? Do you not owe me that at least?”
Husam clenched his jaw, biting back more words, and nodded.
Carsogenicus seemed to relax at this. He turned his eyeless gaze back to Xanthius. “I have been cold for so long,�
� he said, his voice almost wistful. “You can’t begin to imagine how it feels.” He wrenched the broken blade from his shoulder with a grunt and cast it down. A trail of black droplets followed it to the ground, and where they fell, the dirt smoked and crackled in protest. “I welcome your flame, Imperator. I would be warm one last time.”
Outside the Praetorium, Xanthius’s men bound the Monster to the central pole of the gallows, then tore down the rest and used the wood to build a pyre. Husam stood in brooding silence, observing, unlit torch in hand, as the banners of Xanthius’s legions flapped in the growing wind. An ill wind, it feels. The gathering shadows hid Husam’s expression, making him seem a huge, man-shaped pool of ink blotting out the last rays of the rapidly setting sun.
When the pyre was ready, Xanthius called anyone within shouting distance to attention as witnesses, and Husam did as he had promised. He lit his torch from the large brazier outside the praetorium and laid to the mound of wood as Carsogenicus stood mute, refusing to even meet Husam’s gaze. The silence, Xanthius thought, seemed to cause Husam even worse pain than being cursed as a traitor. For all his rage and talk earlier, Husam was clearly shouldering a burden that was almost more than he could bear. There had been something between those two once, though it was difficult to know truth from rumor. Some claimed they were brothers, others that they were lovers, but whatever the case, clearly, the bond had been strong. And Husam now ended it with fire.
Amrath stood alongside Xanthius, sniffing the air, his lips pressed in a thin frown. “I don’t like this.”
Xanthius nodded. “Aye, it is ugly business, but we do what we must.”
Amrath’s eyes narrowed as he shifted his gaze toward Xanthius. “I could dance a jig to see that bastard burn,” he snapped. “Look there.” He pointed to the line of trees just beyond the praetorium. Xanthius turned, following the gesture, and barely suppressed a gasp.
Xanthius felt himself slipping into some surreal, half sanity. How could this be? But in the end, the mind of a soldier does not have the luxury of denial. The word ‘crow’ bubbled in his thoughts, over and over. Such a small word. It doesn’t actually apply to this. They were everywhere, thousands even hundreds of thousands, covering the trees like black snow, silent, unmoving. Watching.
“How—”
“In the normal way,” Amrath said softly. “They’ve been pouring in since the gallows were struck. Just damned quiet about it.”
“And you didn’t see fit to mention it?”
Amrath stared at the mass of birds, his brow furrowed. “It seemed normal at first. And then mesmerizing. Then sinister. I decided to talk about it at ‘sinister.’”
“It’s unusual,” Xanthius allowed, already recovering from the shock. “But they carry no swords. I see no reason to fear them.”
“Don’t be foolish. This is dark sorcery, make no mistake.”
“I see only one sorcerer,” Xanthius said.
Amrath’s eyes widened in anger. “Will you let him provoke us even from the flames?”
Xanthius chuckled. “A jest, Amrath. You said it yourself, we could use some good humor.”
“This is not the time.”
“You should have been born a woman, Amrath. It would suit your moods better.”
Amrath glared at his old enemy briefly, then softened. “And you should have been born a mole. It would suit your vision better.”
Xanthius shrugged. “Fine. I confess, it’s disturbing. But what would you have me do? Order an advance on their position?”
“I would not dare.”
Xanthius raised an eyebrow at this. “An unusual stance for a Meite.”
“It is an unusual circumstance.”
“You have not seen things like this before?”
“If we could charm beasts, we could charm men. Free will is precious, aye, but perhaps it’s more the pity. What would the cost of a few minds be compared to the blood we’ve shed?” He swept the idea aside with a wave of his hand. “This is something else, something…primal.”
“The Torians?”
“I think not. I suppose their methods could produce a beast master, but why would one be here? And in any event, Torium was in no condition after….” Amrath let the comment hang. “As I said, I will spare you the details.”
Xanthius snorted. “More gods nonsense?”
Amrath waved a hand toward the army of crows. “Explain it to me, then.”
Xanthius stood a long moment, watching them, considering. “In Prima, I once survived an earthquake.” He stroked his chin. “There’s no warning, you know. Suddenly, the land just swats men and their works aside like gnats. There is little you can do. You live or die according to your luck and your reflexes. This seems like that.”
“Yes,” Amrath murmured. “Implacable. Elemental. That is just how they felt, in Torium.”
Xanthius sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. I will try to be open-minded. “You truly believe you saw gods there?”
“Aye. I know we did.”
“But even if I accept that there are gods, why would they be here?”
Amrath, suddenly haggard, turned a weary gaze to Xanthius. “For the third time, I tell you, I would spare you the nightmares.”
“And you should stop with such foolishness. I am not a child.”
Amrath looked back at the army of crows, his brow furrowing. “Why would gods walk the earth?” he asked softly. “When would they? It is not the beginning. What else can it be?”
Xanthius stood in grim silence, staring at the sorcerer, his jaw clenched. “Madness.”
“Find me another answer then, if you can. I would welcome a pleasant delusion to warm me against cold certainty.”
Xanthius pondered the question for a while, the rational part of his mind rejecting notions of gods walking the earth, of the end of the world. And yet, as he watched the silent, unmoving crows, he knew this was beyond his experience. Amrath was the closest thing at hand to an expert on such things.
“I have seen no gods,” Xanthius said at last. “But if I do, and they would make war on me, I will oblige them.”
“Bold,” Amrath said, smiling. “Futile, but bold.”
“If I am to die, I would as soon have it be as I have lived.”
“Aye,” Amrath said. “It is the same for me.”
Al Asad’s cry cut through the night, drawing their attention back to more immediate concerns. It was not, Xanthius noted, a cry of pain. It was long and low, a rumbling moan of release, almost sexual. The wood had taken some time to truly catch, but now the fire was blazing, the flames just beginning to lick at the Monster’s flesh. His sandals were smoldering, and his ashen skin was darkening to an almost healthy color.
“The road to oblivion is warm!” Carsogenicus shouted. “This is no punishment! This is a reward!”
One of the witness soldiers, an Ilawehan, hurled a curse at the condemned man and followed up with a stone. The rock hit Carsogenicus in the forehead with a dull thud, splitting the skin. White bone peeked from the ragged gash. Black, dead blood ran down his cheeks like tears and dripped into the flames, popping and spitting as Carsogenicus cackled like a madman.
Xanthius bristled as he suddenly realized the grave danger this spectacle posed. I am a damned fool! He had to take control of the situation quickly, before Carsogenicus could provoke his men further. A failure of discipline now could be the end of civilization, a fact which Carsogenicus knew as well as Xanthius. The Monster might still take them to the grave with him. I should have cut out his tongue. Xanthius cursed the oversight under his breath as he strode quickly to the entrance of the praetorium. “I will have order!” he roared in his best battlefield voice. “The next man to break discipline will join the Monster!”
Carsogenicus howled in amusement as the flames rose higher. His pants were afire now. More black blood oozed from his split, charred legs, dripping into the hissing fire, and the flames surged with each drop, growing and feeding on the vitriolic liquid rather tha
n being driven back. Xanthius cursed himself again for ever agreeing to this madness. He should have known this would happen. The man was already dead! There would be no passing out from smoke or heat. The Monster would taunt them until his tongue burned away, and the memory of this horror, this inhuman act, would haunt them to their deaths.
Xanthius longed to turn away from the sight, but he could not have his men see him deny the very thing he had commanded them to do. Nor would he spare himself the ugliness of watching his sentence carried out. A leader who flinched from his own justice was not just at all. He ground his teeth and made his face a stone mask. He would not turn from this.
Amrath appeared at Xanthius’s side and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Strength, soldier. It is nearly done.”
The smell of cooking meat rolled over them, as tantalizing as it was foul. Xanthius was ravenous, as were all his men. This great host, this prodigious force of destruction that Alexander had forged with the Eye, was now a headless juggernaut, lashing out in its death throes. The supply lines had been the first organs to fail. Since Alexander’s fall, few had eaten well but the crows. This smell was as cruel a revenge as any the Monster might have devised. The only good thing it brought was perspective. The memory of months of butchery, the rivers of blood they had spilled, made even this pale in comparison. Truly, what was burning the Monster compared to butchering the world?
“Elgar!” Carsogenicus screamed, his voice ragged but still manic. His dreadlocks were beginning to burn now, the ends curling inward, tiny bits of them breaking off and floating upward in the draft of the fire. They spiraled above his head, fading as they drifted, like a crown of falling stars. “Grant me prophecy, that I might show these fools their fate!”
The response was immediate. The crows, hundreds of thousands of them, took flight at once, the beating of their wings pounding like a hurricane. The witnesses looked to the sky in awe and terror as the great flight of crows rose, cawing, individual birds losing shape as they flocked. Black dots melded into groups, groups into lines, at last, forming a cohesive, moving, three-dimensional image of a clenched gauntlet in the sky above Carsogenicus. As Xanthius watched, several other flocks shaped themselves into huge spikes and flew at the gauntlet, penetrating it, leaving it with the appearance of the fingers having been nailed into a permanently clenched fist. The birds continued to twirl and spin in the air, holding the pattern as they rose and dove.
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