Captain Callan unloaded his cargo along with his men. He commanded the ship, he made a good wage, but he did not shirk his portion of the workload. That was why the men liked him well enough to let him call himself “captain”. By the time they were done he was pleasantly tired and his crew was happy for the break. Dealing with the Brellar was always a risk, but this time it had paid off handsomely.
Freeholdt was busier than usual and he rather liked it. The port town was always busy, yes, but this time around, the activity was not as simple as he’d have expected. There were ships unloading cargo, but there were just as many hauling new cargo onboard.
What he found interesting, though he was barely aware of it, was how few of the Guntha or the Roathians he saw in port. He’d expected to see a good deal more of both, seeing as their lands were gone. Instead there was just business and, more business, with none of the begging masses he’d half dreaded encountering. Business was excellent in Freeholdt.
That meant a good chance at another commission. Commission meant a good chance at enough money to celebrate properly. After spending time with the witch Tataya he had a powerful desire to find a dozen wenches and rut himself senseless. Paying for it hardly bothered him. He wasn’t likely to be around any port town long enough to make a relationship, but he could surely spend enough time to handle the finer physical aspects of one.
Vondum climbed the gangplank back onboard with a grin on his face. “It seems everyone wants to leave the area, Callan. But wave a flag to let them know you’re ready to negotiate and you’ll have a dozen passengers and their goods to carry out of this town.”
“What? Why?” He smiled as he asked. The reasons hardly mattered as long as the money was good, and by the smile on his first mate’s face the passengers seemed willing to pay good coin for their travels.
“The Empress heads back for Canhoon. People either take their wagons along the Imperial Highway or they take the Freeholdt River to the Jeurgis and ride into Canhoon in safety and comfort.”
“So people are heading south to get to Freeholdt so they won’t have to take a wagon north?” Callan chuckled.
Vondum laughed out loud. “Isn’t it lovely?”
“By the gods, man, anyone willing to take a long way to a short cut must be willing to pay good coin indeed.” Callan’s grin refused to go away.
“I say we spend a night celebrating, restock in the morning and then head out tomorrow night, Captain.”
Callan nodded. “Whores, supplies and feasts, in that order.”
“Feasts, indeed. We have some of the finest of Tyrne’s merchants looking to take their supplies and stock to Canhoon.”
“Well, if we could find the finest brothel willing to transport their whores by river, we could sail out tonight.” Callan wiped at his brow and looked out at the town.
“I don’t think we’ll be quite that lucky, Callan, but it would be a lovely thing.”
Callan shrugged. “Tell the lads to enjoy their night. We’re going to see about earning some extra gold and heading into Canhoon.” They didn’t often take the river routes, but they could. That was one of the things about a smaller ship that Callan liked. The Brellar’s vessels would have managed nothing but getting themselves mired in sand bars if they tried a river run. Callan’s little ship was a deal smaller, but also faster and mobile. Still, he’d actually have to work this time around. Piloting through the rougher areas of the rivers would take concentration.
Vondum said he’d pass the order around and Callan took him at his word. His second had long since earned his trust.
The night was spent exactly the way he’d wanted, with three lovelies who did their best to take away the hurt of never bedding the redhead who’d paid him handsomely to get her to her destinations safely.
And in the morning the lads looked as ill as he felt, but most of them managed a smile just the same as they started restocking the holds. The trip would take a few weeks, but not much more so they went light on supplies. Better to hold a little storage space for the customers who wanted to move with their possessions.
Sadly there were no brothels willing to transport their wenches as cargo. One could only get so lucky.
By the time the sun had reached its zenith and started a leisurely crawl to the west, Callan, his crew were helping a few very wealthy folks get their cargo stowed and were nearly salivating over how much they were earning.
The captain was considering the merits of leaving in the morning versus leaving earlier for a bit of extra coin when Vondum reported the news that set them for immediate evacuation.
Three words made all the difference. “Black ships, Captain.” Vondum pointed to the horizon, in the direction of where the Guntha Islands had been.
There were indeed black ships. Callan couldn’t see exactly how many, but it was enough to make his blood sing and his testicles try to hide themselves away. He found himself thinking of the redhead again and wishing he had a way to warn her that she was right. It seemed the black ships were looking to Fellein, and at the moment that meant they were looking at Freeholdt.
He wondered how long it would be before news of the port town being attacked made it to his ears.
He hoped it would be a long time, and possibly never. He feared it would be much sooner.
Either way, he’d be heavier with coin before this trip was done. One merely had to polish the silver to make it reflect properly.
Drask eyed the sloping mountain of ice before him and nodded. Brackka was nearby, but currently had no interest in climbing.
Drask did not have that option. Ydramil demanded and he obeyed, and so he set his hands carefully into the places where the ice had broken away and started climbing.
The surface was pitted with hundreds of spots where a hand or foot could find purchase, but most were filled with ice. It took time and patience to start scaling the structure. And it took a good axe to make fresh handholds. The silver hand held him with ease, the fingertips crushing the ice into a new shape when he gripped. He used his other hand to cut away the ice and allow him a fresh grip before moving upward again. It was an arduous task, but one he managed well enough.
By the time he’d reached an area where he could stand and walk, the sun was almost up and he had a perfect view of the wagon and tent where the others slept.
They’d danced around each other for over a day now and he was tired of it. Rather than worrying about them he chose to observe what they did for the day without conflict.
Drask crouched and dug into one of his pouches until he found a few nuts and dried meat. Better to have a bit of food in his stomach while he waited for the foreigners to start their explorations again.
The winds were starting up again with proper fury and he pulled his furs closer around his body, taking the time to tie them to his wrists and ankles. The hood was drawn over his head and he crouched lower. The winds could be damned for all he was concerned. He had a task to do and he would do it.
Soon enough he was rewarded.
Nolan climbed from the tent and shook his head.
The air outside was bad. The stench inside the tent was worse. Maun was dying, but taking his time about it. His breath stank of infection and his skin was pasty white and sweaty.
Stradly was no better. The man’s body had taken on a yellowish tint. His eyes were also yellowing. Nolan was not a healer, but he knew that the colors were bad. The large, jovial solder was not dead but he was definitely dying.
Vonders and Tolpen were as fit as Nolan himself, uninjured by the Pra-Moresh or whatever sorcery Tega had done. But Darus was not well. His arm had swelled, the fingers barely recognizable, and he was in agony. The best plans for seeking a way into the Mounds had fallen quickly into ruin and there was nothing to be done for it.
Vonders climbed from the tent next and the worried expression on his face made clear he knew exactly what Nolan did, that their three companions would not survive this trip. With Vonders along they might survive themselves, despite the lack of horses, but he was having doubts.
Tolpen was a hunter. He’d spent the last day looking for anything he could hunt, but so far had failed. If there were creatures out there, like the rider they thought they’d seen, then the wind was scouring away any tracks that might have been left in the drifts of dirtied snow or on the rare patches of bare ground.
And off to the left was the wagon Tega slept in. The damned thing seemed nearly unaltered by the ice and sand and wind. The ground under Nolan’s boots crunched with every step he took, but the wagon remained untouched by it. He resented the damned thing, irrationally, he knew. It had certainly proven a worthy shelter when they had stayed in it.
One of the men in the tent let out a moan and Nolan closed his eyes. At least one of them would die today, he could feel it.
The sun was up, which meant that the darkness was kissed with lighter shades of gray and brown.
The structures around them, the towers and lumps that made up the Mounds, took on detail again. The closest of the things had a beauty to it he’d deliberately refused to acknowledge before but after days on end of nothing, he allowed himself the pleasure of staring at the texture of the thing. There were striations of what looked like ice or glass, fused with flecks of metal and layers of different stones. The feeble sunlight washed the surface and let him see all of that under the thin layer of ice that had grown over the last two days. No noise from the Mounds, which meant nothing to break the ice away and so it was thickening again, like a scab over the open sore of the slanted tower itself.
“Maun won’t make it.” Vonders’s voice was soft, just loud enough to make the distance between them past the wind
Nolan nodded. “I don’t think any of them will. We’ve no way to take care of them properly.
Vonders glared at the wagon and Nolan knew he was thinking that Tega was to blame. She had saved them. She had damned half of them. That was still something to consider. She was powerful, but she had flaws. Didn’t they all, really?
Tolpen came out of the tent, his face pale and grim. “Stradly is dead.”
Vonders spit. Nolan nodded his head. “Best tell Tega.”
Without waiting for one of the others to do it, he headed for her wagon.
So he saw the thing first.
It was moving not far from the wagon, not really looking at anything but the ground as it shuffled forward. He doubted it could have moved faster if it had to.
There was no sense to it. The skin of the thing was mottled gray, and covered in several places with bubbled clusters of watery blisters. At the very best it made him think of the monstrous lumps they’d fought on the road to Tyrne, but the comparison was merely because, like those beasts, it hurt his eyes and head to look at the thing. It was bloated and its body was squat. The torso was as wide as three men and the limbs on it made no sense.
It moved forward on one foreleg and two rear legs, none of which matched in thickness or length, which lent it a very uneven shuffling gait. A second forelimb was there, but like the rest did not seem to fit. It was much shorter than the – it hardly seemed right to call it a mate – other foreleg, and ended in a mass of stubby clawed fingers, and a thumb. The body was heavy, yes, but muscular. The four legs differed so much that none even matched in width. Judging by the mass dangling from its hindquarters he suspected the beast was male, but, frankly, he didn’t want to consider that appendage, as it was as malformed as the rest of the thing.
None of which prepared him for the face. There were two eyes, but neither of them matched. One was as large as his balled fist and the other, higher up on the left side of the face, no bigger than a grape. Both gave off a pale gray light that Tega said the Sa’ba Taalor also cast from their eyes. The nose was a gash in the front of the face. The mouth was a great, drooling, uneven thing, an angry slash that had somehow sprouted teeth and a tongue.
Nolan noticed all of that at the same time that the thing saw him and looked him over from his head to his boots.
For exactly four heartbeats he thought the thing might simply keep going. His hands shook a bit and he almost reached for his axe before he remembered that it was back in the tent. He’d only come out to relieve his bladder and had certainly not planned to meet a fiend or learn that one of his companions was dead.
And then that great mouth opened and the thing grunted.
And then it charged him, screaming out a shrill battle cry. It did not roar. He knew a battle cry when he heard one. Hell, half the soldiers he’d trained with tended to let them out when they attacked.
Nolan threw himself sideways and dodged as the malformed brute came for him. His elbow slammed into the thing’s face, hitting and mashing the oversized eye on its right side.
It yelped and the foreleg it ran with slapped him across his chest and staggered him backward. Had he not already been in motion it would likely have caved his ribcage in.
“Attacked! Arms!” It was all he could think to say.
The thing looked like it could barely stand, but it charged him again, as fast as the attack dogs his uncle had trained. Nolan let out a scream of pure panic and cuffed the thing in the face a second time, feeling its wet breath blast across him. Gods, it gave off a frightful heat.
His knee came up into the side of the thing’s face as it lost balance and tried to recover. The blow was good and it fell back, grunting again. Nolan danced back, repulsed, his heart hammering and his eyes wide.
Vonders called out, but Nolan didn’t have time to focus on him because the thing was coming again, loping forward, and as he watched, the thing planted both rear legs, squatted and then jumped at him, clearing the distance with ease.
Nolan did exactly as his father had trained him to do and caught the immense weight, pivoted his body at the hips and helped the thing on its way, adding his strength to its momentum.
It crashed into the side of Tega’s wagon, hitting one of the wheels and disproving his thought that magic protected the wagon. The wheel broke, several spokes snapping, and the wagon rocked on its axles.
The thing was back up before he could even congratulate himself on the maneuver. That mouth, that ugly slit in its face, bloomed open until it was large enough to give a Pra-Moresh feelings of inadequacy. Those mismatched eyes glared at him as the thing jumped again and Nolan met it head on, slamming his body against the thing’s bulk, hoping to kick it aside.
He failed. He staggered backward, tried to find his footing and instead slid and skidded like a skipped stone, bouncing along until he ran into the side of the tent. His ears rang and he tasted blood in his mouth.
Tolpen put an arrow through the hellish thing’s fat, bruised right eye. It let out half a squeal and fell on its backside. It was possibly dying, but it was not dead. It kicked and shrieked and rolled itself to hands and knees and then flopped down on its face. Still, it managed to get back up, its one remaining eye glaring undying hatred in Tolpen’s direction.
The hunter let out a curse under his breath and reached for another arrow from the quiver at his feet. His hand was shaking and the first arrow slipped from his fingers. His calm demeanor broke as the thing came for him, once again leaping instead of running.
Vonders tried to step in with a spear to stop the thing’s charge, but instead was knocked aside.
Tolpen gave up on the arrows and swung his bow like a great sword, clubbing the misshapen face with all the strength he could muster. The thing fell to the ground again and let out a squealing noise.
The wagon door opened and Tega stepped halfway out. Without even considering, Nolan moved to stand between her and the monster. His duty was to protect her. His father had always taught that duty was all a soldier had to concern himself with. The rest was dressing.
Tolpen whapped the monster’s head four more times with his bow, screeching with each blow delivered. As his arms rose up for a fifth, Vonders caught his elbow and shook his head. “Might need that bow yet.”
Tolpen glared for only a moment and then calmed down.
The thing let out one long sigh and seemed to deflate a bit. The body relaxed to the point where Nolan knew it must surely be dead. He stayed exactly where he was, however. Some dead things didn’t stay as still as they should. That was a lesson he would not easily forget.
Tega stepped from the wagon with surprising calm and looked down at the dead thing.
Nolan turned to her and relaxed a little. “Stradly is dead.” He had no desire to protect her from the truth and no reason to. She had seen as much as they had and still she held herself together.
Tega’s face lost composure for only an instant and then she nodded. “I had thought it would surely be Maun first.”
She pointed to the dead thing on the ground. “Roll that over, please. I want to see it better.”
Nolan almost told her where she could take her desire to examine it, but remembered that, while here, he worked for her. Instead he nodded and, with Vonders’s help, maneuvered the thing onto its back.
The monster obliged him and remained dead.
He silently thanked all of the gods for that small blessing.
And then he watched in mute surprise while Tega studied the body and cut samples of the hair and the skin from it.
Drask watched the fight in absolute silence. He did not move. He did not consider helping either side. Instead he studied every move the Fellein made and filed the information away. Better to know an enemy than to guess what might be in their hearts.
The Broken they fought was not very skilled. They killed it with ease and all of them lived through it. Still, he stayed where he was as the girl – he thought it might be the sorcerer’s apprentice, Tega, but could not be certain from this distance – first looked the corpse over and then began cutting.
If she planned to eat the flesh it would go poorly for her. The Broken had poisoned flesh. That was part of the punishment the Daxar Taalor rewarded them with for their failures.
They could no longer offer anything to anyone. They were useless. They were broken.
They were godless.
The men with the blonde girl stepped away as she started her examination, and shortly entered the tent and came out with the body of a man who was older than the rest of them and flabby besides. Drask shook his head. He had seen several people in Tyrne who were overweight and the notion horrified him. That anyone could consider themselves capable of fighting when they weighed so much… Still, there were a few among the Sa’ba Taalor who were as large and carried extra flesh and they were only alive because they were skilled combatants. Physical prowess alone did not make a warrior.
After a bit of discussion, the group decided the man needed to be burned. They managed to start a small fire and lit the man’s clothes, which smoldered and sputtered and finally burned. When his remains were burning well enough, they dragged the Broken over and cast it into the flames.
Through it all, Drask stayed on his perch, moving his legs from time to time and carefully stretching to avoid letting his muscles cramp or his joints lock.
And that was how they spent the day, killing a Broken and burning corpses.
It was a wonder to him that the Fellein ever managed to accomplish anything.
From his perspective Drask saw the troops moving from the Seven Forges toward the place the Fellein called the Temmis Pass. He nodded his satisfaction at the careful movement of the soldiers. He did not know exactly what Tarag Paedori was planning, but he also understood that there were no better tacticians for a land battle among his people.
They moved at night, and from this distance they were little more than a smudge on the horizon. He doubted that any of the people below him would have spotted the army moving.
He could not guess how many of the Sa’ba Taalor were moving in that column, but part of him longed to walk with them.
Andover Lashk stepped from the castle at Prydiria and moved into the daylight. The skies above were mostly clear, and the temperature was pleasant. His skin felt dry after what seemed like days in the intense heat of the god’s heart. Seemed like days. In truth he could not begin to guess how long he had been in the presence of the Iron God.
All he truly knew was that he was changed. Again.
Some truths seemed to remain constant no matter what. One did not face a god and come away unchanged.
The second Great Scar on his face was larger, and bisected his mouth. He could feel the changes in his flesh far more easily this time. Below his nose to just above his chin there was a line of flesh that split his mouth in half. That line could move and could open, and when it did he suspected he looked like a monster. He understood now why the veils were important. Anyone not prepared for the ways of the Sa’ba Taalor would have been terrified by what they saw when they looked upon the warriors.
Andover knew that he should have been horrified, but he was not. The culture he was with admired scars as signs of achievement. Great Scars even more so. A person with no Great Scars was either young or, in the eyes of the people of the valley, godless. What could be worse for them?
He had never cared much for the gods when he was growing up. The gods, it seemed, had never much cared for him, either. But here, in the Taalor Valley, the people and the gods had a relationship that was extremely different. He was only beginning to understand it, but it seemed to him that it might be something wondrous.
He looked at his hands and the iron rings that he held in his grip. The rings, like the scar, were a gift from the god of the mountain. He suspected he knew what they were for.
Delil waited nearby, sitting on a flat stone that had been carved, smoothed, sanded and polished until it was as flawless as still water and almost as reflective. The woman was sharpening one of her swords and had several other weapons nearby. There were daggers and throwing knives and several long, thin darts that looked like they should have been harmless. He’d seen her use them and knew better.
She smiled at him as he approached and he smiled back. Her face was revealed to him. Andover felt like she and the rest of her people had given him a great honor by taking their veils away around him.
She looked at his face and saw the new scar and as he came closer she stood up and ran one callused fingertip across it gently.
“You are blessed indeed, Andover. Two gods have favored you in less than a week. That is very rare.”
He looked into her eyes and smiled. “Where did everyone go?” The last time he’d been outside there had been crowds of armored Sa’ba Taalor around, most of them with weapons and supplies aplenty.
“They have gone to meet with your rulers to discuss whether or not a war will happen.”
He felt oddly relieved. He’d felt a certain dread that the King would make him go along. He was supposed to be an ambassador, according to Drask. “Is there anyone left here?”
“Oh, yes, there are many people left here. But they are training.”
“Training for what?”
“If there is to be a war, everyone must be prepared.” Her voice carried an odd tone to it. He couldn’t decide if she was disappointed that she was still with him instead of with the rest of her people. He also wasn't quite brave enough to ask her. Andover had dreamed of being with a woman and Delil had made that dream come true, but he didn’t know the intricacies of what happened next. He had never been close to a woman before this journey.
Delil stood up and started putting away her weapons. He was amazed even after months of being with her by how quickly she could slip the various blades into their sheaths. “We should go now. There are places we have to take you yet and time is short.”
“It is?”
Delil looked at him and nodded, her expression solemn. Behind the scars and the gray skin and the odd silvery light of her eyes she was rather average in looks, but that did not matter. He’d grown very fond of her and knew he could trust her and the lingering memories of what they had done together made her lovely.
He pushed away thoughts of what they had done, how her flesh had felt in his hands, and touched by his lips, and made himself focus as she started to speak. “Time here is short. There are places you must see within this valley and there are other places you must go as well, Andover Lashk.”
“How do you know that, Delil? How do you know what I must do?”
She tilted her head in that odd way of hers. He understood what it meant now. The way she looked at him sometimes was both an expression of surprise at how naïve he was and exasperation that he could ask so foolish a question. “I know because Wrommish tells me. You have been marked by the Daxar Taalor, Andover Lashk. You should start listening when they speak to you.”
Shame washed through him quickly but was shoved aside by irritation. “This is new to me, Delil. You have had a lifetime to learn how to listen to your gods. I have not.”
“And that is why I am here. I am here to help you listen.” Her voice was surprisingly light. She finished strapping her weapons in place and grabbed the bundle of clothing she’d been carrying. Somewhere along the way he had left his behind. He was about to start cursing when she reached to the side of her perch and lifted his supplies. “Come.”
“Not yet.” He shook his head.
“What?”
“The Daxar Taalor have spoken to you and they have spoken to me, too. I was told to finish this before I go further.” He unrolled the bundled goods and took out the separate sections of obsidian. Putting them back together was easy. They fit as if they had always belonged together.
Andover stared at the assembled axe with a critical eye and considered how best to make sure the pieces would stay together. Delil looked with him and finally nodded her head.
“You need hide.”
“Hide?”
“You killed Pra-Moresh. You took their fur for your own. The skin of the beasts is good, tough leather. A little and you can tie it. Or better still, you could use metal wire.” Her fingers touched the edges where the two pieces joined and she ran a line of imaginary wire, showing him how she would secure the two segments.
Andover nodded again and then rolled the iron rings between his thumb and forefinger. They were just the right size to wedge into the obsidian and lock the parts together. “I think maybe the gods have plans for me and though they may not speak as clearly to me as they do to you, the Daxar Taalor are still telling me things.”
The rings locked into the socket of the obsidian blade, above and below. Once in place the blade that had wobbled was properly secured.
Delil squatted and watched as he worked the metal and the volcanic substances together. She spoke very softly. “Never have I seen the like.”
“What? An axe?”
“No,” she responded. “Two gods working together on one weapon.”
That was all she said on the matter. When she stood again she started walking, moving down the path away from where they had already been and moving deeper into the valley.
Without another word Andover followed her. There were places to go and according to her they were running out of time.
“What did Wrommish tell you, Delil?”
“That we must visit each of the mountains before the time comes to leave the valley.”
“What? I thought I was supposed to stay here with the Sa’ba Taalor.”
“No, you are supposed to stay with my people, but you are not supposed to stay in this valley. We are not staying in the valley forever. It has almost served its purpose.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say, Andover.” She was growing tired of his questions and so he shut his mouth. He would wait a while for more answers. Still, he looked around as they continued walking and wondered why the people would leave.
And, of course, he wondered where they would go. There seemed only one possible answer and he found that answer lay uneasy within him.
The streets in Tyrne were crowded with people and supplies. Many of the people looked shocked to find themselves on the streets and moving away from their homes, but more were angered by the idea.
At first, when the announcement came that the Empress would be leaving Tyrne and heading for Old Canhoon, there was shock and disappointment. Several times gatherings of citizens attempted to reach the palace and ask their new ruler to change her mind, but they were turned back. Surprise was the usual response to that. Pathra Krous had almost always managed to find time for concerned citizens of the city. Pathra Krous was well thought of, and had been a boon to Tyrne.
And now his replacement came along and changed everything without warning. At first it was just the increased military strength in the city, which, after the murder of the Emperor most people could understand. Then came the decision to leave Tyrne. And then, oh, the madness, the latest insanity.
Town criers had been about, announcing the Imperial order to leave the city within days. There were a few people who scoffed. No one wanted to believe the decrees. That was when the madness began.
Libari Welliso had been warned to expect trouble, but this? He shook his head at the reports coming into his command center.
In the Gardens district, where many of the fine old homes had walls and gates and guards to keep the families safe from intruders, a few families were refusing to vacate. That was to be expected, really, as many had been situated in the same place for generations and had more invested in the property than merely possessions.
Libari sent guards to explain the position of the City Guard: if the people in those palatial homes wished to stay, there would be no one to assist them. Their guards were being told to leave as well, and the families of their guards. That seemed to make it through a few people’s heads and several families prepared to move their possessions to other places or at least to lock up their homes. Some of the newer inhabitants had already left, which was a pleasant surprise.
To the south, where the largest collection of immigrants congregated, he had less trouble and more chaos. The Roathians who’d made it to the area were already homeless and few of them had possessions. The families he saw looked wounded at the idea of moving on, but few of them protested.
The biggest problem in that part of town was caused by his own guards, some of whom felt that they should be allowed to take out their frustrations on the poor wretches who were already lost and abandoned. He was doing what he could. Currently seventeen of his City Guard were awaiting his punishment for complaints ranging from abuse of authority to rape and murder. Welliso ground his teeth at the thought of administering justice, but he would do it, if only to guarantee that others were not foolish enough to think they could get away with breaking the rules.
Still, he’d never gelded a man before. It was not a task he looked forward to performing.
Around the palace, where the majority of houses and apartments were used by the people who served at the palace, the city was calmer. When the Empress and her entourage had moved on to handle the parley, those who served at the palace began the massive task of moving the offices of the Empire to Canhoon. Many of those very same people were moving too, preferring to keep their jobs and relocate to the old capital.
There were entire streets that were abandoned. Walking the same places he had walked for most of his life, Welliso felt his skin crawl and his hackles rise at the unsettling silences.
But mostly, in the other parts of the town, there was chaos. It took time to pack belongings and most did not want to leave behind anything that might be important. Wagons that were overloaded with worldly goods lumbered onto streets never meant to accommodate the sheer volume of traffic trying to leave Tyrne, and in short order tempers flared and the fighting began.
The City Guard and the Imperial Guard worked together to clear the streets. The situation was growing worse, despite their efforts.
In the westernmost part of the city someone had either been careless or had deliberately set a fire. The blaze was growing and there seemed little that could be done to quell it. Soldiers were attempting to put the fire out with buckets of water run up from the Freeholdt River, but with little success. The river was too far away and the way to the wells in the area were blocked by the growing blaze.
The people there were going out of the city by heading either south or directly across the city to the Eastern Gate, the main access to the river. The only obstacle in their way was, of course, the palace, which lead to a lot of name calling, stone throwing, and worse forms of civil disobedience. The congestion had reached a level where no one was moving anymore and the City Guard were doing what they could to break up skirmishes and calm down the already angry and distressed citizens.
And the Imperial Army was doing what it could to back up the City Guard.
And ultimately, nothing was getting accomplished.
Libari Welliso had no choice, not in his own opinion. He brought the combined forces down to hammer out the problems quickly and efficiently.
The clusters of traffic that blocked the roads were broken apart. The soldiers under Welliso’s command pushed carts from the road and ushered people and their draft horses out of the city, often insisting that the ruined wagons be left behind. A few fools tried to grab at the remaining supplies and the soldiers put an end to that action as soon as it started. The damaged wagons were confiscated, either dragged away completely or rolled far enough off the road to allow more evacuees through.
A few of the first people who encountered troubles tried to protest the rough treatment, but Welliso had his orders and he intended to keep them. The first time he whipped a man in public was enough to stop most of the protests. He took no satisfaction from his task, but he did it.
He would do all that he could to see Tyrne cleared of people as effectively and quickly as possible, regardless of how that made him look in the eyes of the people. The City Guard had been feared and loathed by a good number of people over the years and some things simply did not change.
Of course some reputations are earned, even if they are earned for all the right reasons.
Several skirmishes broke out along the road to the Summer Palace.
Had Merros Dulver been there to discuss the matter with Welliso Libari he’d have likely told the older man to let them stay if their lives meant less than their possessions. But Merros was not there; he had his own troubles to deal with at the edge of the Empire.
Instead, Welliso did what he thought best. His people followed orders and the Imperial Guard followed his orders as well. It was only a matter of hours before the city’s cells were filled with angry citizens who’d attempted to fight. There had been no fatalities because Welliso refused his forces the right to attack with swords, but there were broken bones and busted skulls aplenty, and that was on both sides of the law. More than one of the aggressors were either soldiers themselves or had trained to defend their homes. Tempers flared and fights broke out, and in the end peace was restored again and again, only to face another disruption.
And that was only on the first day of the forced evacuation of Tyrne. There were plans in place to start sweeps of all the streets after the majority left the city. City Guard walked the areas where people had already moved on, making sure that homes were left abandoned and did not become victims of looting.
Libari Welliso came home from his first day of the evacuation in a state of exhaustion unlike any he had dealt with in his career. Tyrne had always been a peaceful town, regardless of its size, and he had never run across the sheer volume of people in motion, the large number of angry citizens or the massive swell of traffic at any point in his life. Dealing with all of that together was enough to make him consider moving on and forgoing the rest of his career with the Guard.
Of course his wife, Annushi, would have put an end to that notion. He smiled when he thought of her. Annushi was more than he had ever hoped for when he’d agreed to the arranged marriage. She was smart, funny, lovely and strong of will. All things that he admired.
They were fighting just now, because, after sending the children on to Canhoon, she had insisted on staying in the town with him until he was ready to leave with her. She was a stubborn woman and he loved her for it, even when the risk to her life made him nervous.
He opened the door to his apartment and started to call for her when he saw her corpse on the ground.
Annushi. Dead. He walked into the room and looked down, his eyes staring at the ruin of his beloved, uncomprehending.
There was no moment when he thought it was a joke. There was no time when he expected his wife to get up. She was dead and there was no denying it. Her throat was cut. He could see that as soon as he entered the room. She had been bathing, perhaps, or she had planned to bathe, because her body was naked and Annushi was nothing if not modest. She seldom let him see her without clothes unless they were making love.
“Annu?” She did not respond. She could not. She was dead. He knew that. But even though he could see she was dead – murdered, surely – he could not make his mind accept it. “Annu, what are you doing down there?”
All thoughts of the City Guard he had to punish, the people he had to let free from their cells when they had calmed down and the evacuation of the city were gone. What little they planned to take with them from the city was already packed into several bundles; Annushi had been busy preparing for their journey. She’d been optimistic about his promotion and looked forward to seeing new places. Like Welliso she had spent most of her life in Tyrne and had considered Canhoon only as a place where powerful people lived. The thought that they would move there had excited her and her enthusiasm had been infectious enough to make him look forward to the idea.
Annushi did not answer him.
Could not.
He stepped into the room properly and walked toward her body. Annushi stared past him at the wall near the door. There was nothing particularly exciting about that spot. He had looked at it many times. It hardly seemed like a thing she should have been stuck with as her last sight in her life. He would have hoped she could see a thing of beauty as she died.
Libari did not believe in the gods or in any sort of afterlife. He had always believed solely in what he could see with his own eyes.
There was a dryness in his mouth. His eyes felt wrong. His heart had gone still, near as he could tell, and his ears rang with a light note that took away all other sounds.
Annushi still stared at the wall, dead, as he moved closer to her and crouched beside her, reached to touch her face. Maybe she was injured, but alive. Perhaps there was a chance that she could still be mended, saved from death. He did not truly believe that, but he had to try because the thought that she was gone from his life was simply too large for him to consider.
His hand touched her lips, felt for a hint of breath. Her skin was cold. She was not freshly dead, but had been killed at least a few hours earlier. He had seen enough dead bodies to know that much.
Libari tried to stand but his legs did not work.
“Annu?” How had his voice gotten so small? He wasn't quite sure.
“She will not answer you. She is dead.”
Libari turned his head and looked to the voice that spoke. A woman looked back at him, her eyes studying his face.
“Did you do this?” Blood surged in him as he stared. She had dark hair and dark eyes and was dressed for the road. He had seen a hundred or more just like her through the course of the day and wondered if the woman he looked at was one he had offended somehow through his actions.
She did not seem offended. She looked at him without much expression on her face at all.
“She had to die. Just as you have to die.”
When Libari tried to move again it was easy. He thought of Annushi and the woman who had killed her and he thought of how much she would suffer at his hands. He was not angry, not really. He merely knew that she would be dead soon and then he would allow anger and grief to take better rein of his heart.
He had ordered his men not to draw their swords against the citizens of Tyrne. Libari Welliso did not follow that rule himself. His blade slid from the scabbard with a whisper and then sang as it cut the air and sliced toward the bitch who’d murdered his wife.
She was not there.
The blade clattered and rang out against the wall where she had been leaning, but struck nothing aside from the plaster over the stone of the wall itself.
He looked around, eyes rolling with a sort of madness all their own, and heard himself growl as he sought the woman out.
She crouched on the other side of Annushi’s body, her left foot resting in the blood that was congealing into the floor.
Her face was still calm and she continued to look at him.
“Kill you. I. Will. Kill. You.” He spoke the vow softly and adjusted his grip on the blade.
“No. You will not. You are already dead.”
Libari moved one step forward and his leg collapsed under him. He fell to his knee and grunted, puzzled by the lack of strength.
It was only then that he felt the pain of the cut. As he had tried to strike, she had done the same, but she had been successful. The blood flowed down his side, from a deep incision in his stomach.
A cut, yes, but not enough to stop him from his revenge.
Libari tried to rise a second time and moaned instead. His legs would not hold him, would not move. His arms felt too heavy to lift. The sword dropped down, cutting a bloodless wound into Annushi’s calf.
He looked down at his wife’s new wound and felt his eyes water. Never in his life had he ever meant to cause her harm.
Libari toppled, then, falling across his dead wife’s body.
The poison in his system was quick but not quite fast enough to prevent his suffering. The last thing he ever saw was the floor beside Annushi’s cold hip. He had hoped his last sight would be something more beautiful.
Swech searched the man’s corpse and found the key she was looking for around his neck. There were things she needed from the palace and without a key it would have taken too long to get to them.
Time was becoming a rare commodity and she had spent too much of it already in the city of Tyrne. She had places she needed to be that had nothing to do with the place.
The blade went back into the sheath along her left hip. Moments later she was gone from the building and heading for the offices of the General of the City Guard.
The gods made demands and Swech obeyed, grateful for the chance to please the Daxar Taalor.