In addition to the man’s gray cloak, which bore no ornamentation, he was dressed in adamant armor. Adamant was a substance found only in the World Above and impossible to work save by messengers or Great Wizards. It was effectively invulnerable to magic and even the strongest weapons were hard pressed to penetrate it. At his waist hung a two-bladed handax that was too small to be a practical weapon, yet was covered in the most advanced mystical runes I’d ever seen. There was also an aura of power, violence, and fury that radiated off of him I hadn’t felt since my first encounter with the King Below during the final battle of the Fourth War.
Thermic Redhand.
Prince Alfreid spoke first, his voice barely audible over the din despite the fact he had voice-enhancement cantrips worked on him. “People of Kerifas, it is I, your prince! Troubled have these days been in recent months, but I come to you speaking words of peace—”
The crowd wasn’t listening to them, as deafening boos and hisses filled the air. One man climbed onto the side of the platform, waving a bloody rag, which I took to be a shirt. A Burning Blade soldier raised his crossbow and fired a bolt through the protestor’s chest. The crowd immediately balked away from the body as the prince looked shocked. The Burning Blade soldier’s crossbow reloaded without him moving and he fired three more times into the spot the man had come from, killing a peasant instantly each time.
It would have sparked a riot then and there with many about to run, when a group of Burning Blade mages on the rooftops above us created towering six-foot walls of fire over all the exit points, causing screams and confusion. Several in the crowd were trampled as the prince tried to regain control, only for Thermic to push him back. I had to place my hand on Regina’s shoulder to prevent her from running forward to put an end to the slaughter. We were exposed and couldn’t risk starting a fight here—too many people were counting on us. Of course, if Gewain was to be executed, nothing I said or did would stop her.
I felt Redhand’s gaze wash over the crowd and drained away my group’s power so much that it appeared no greater than any other in the teaming mass. I had made a career of fighting beings more powerful than myself, god or not, but the magical weapons around us were all blessed. I could feel the Lawgiver’s touch infusing every single bolt as well as their swords and armor. I had no idea if I could be killed or not but I had the sneaking suspicion I could be. I didn’t want to think what would happen to my soul then.
Destroyed, most likely, the Trickster said. Perhaps simply joined with mine permanently.
It’s the same to me.
That was when Redhand spoke. His voice was a diseased, raspy thing that still echoed throughout the area. “You, diseased wretches and wastes of the empire, make me sick. The Lawgiver has blessed you all with a perfect pristine world and life but you all waste it in pettiness. If any of you were worth a damn, you’d have one hand holding a bloody sword and the other raised in his praises.”
“Lord Redhand, perhaps I—” Prince Alfreid started to say.
“Silence,” Redhand said, raising his right fist as the limb caught fire and burned before our eyes. I see the top flesh burn and the brief twitch of agony across his face, though it was soon replaced with a kind of ecstasy. “Six years ago, I and the other Nine saved this city along with every city in this world from the horror of the King Below. We struck him down outside Everfrost and, by right of deed, rule this entire world. Winterholme’s king sought to defy the empire and we crushed his armies. His line and all relations to that line were ended to the eighth degree. Five years ago, we installed Prince Alfreid so that we might show benevolence by giving you a taste of the empire’s compassion. His gentleness has wrought only chaos and violence, though. So now you will know the price of defiance. The price of not knowing your place. Those who bite the hand that feeds them shall know not the muzzle but death.”
A hushed whisper fell over the crowd as I wondered, along with everyone else, whether he was going to murder the entirety of the gathering then and there.
When no one responded with the force or defiance he expected, he lifted his flaming hand over his head. “Bring the prisoners!”
A group of half a dozen seven-foot-tall Fir Bolg prisoners were led up in chains. Each was a mountain of muscle, bare chested, and dressed only in loincloths, including two women. They’d been badly treated with some of the men having had their stag-like horns sawed off, others missing eyes, and a few mutilated in other places. The signs of scourging, branding irons, and other traditional tools of torture were all about them, and I grimaced. I was also grateful there were no one-armed elfblooded nobles amongst them.
“I know those men,” Ketra whispered. “Oh, Caius, Joshua, Isaac, Zaal…”
“I’m sorry,” I replied.
“Do not be sorry,” Kana replied, comforting Ketra with a hand on her shoulder. “Be angry. Memorize their faces so that we may paint the walls of this hell of mortar, mud, wood, and straw red with blood and gore.”
I knew the price of such thinking but kept silent.
“Let the torments begin!” Redhand shouted with the glee of a child on Victory Day.
I had never seen the efficacy of torture. I was no stranger to evil deeds in the name of a just purpose. I had murdered, stolen, blackmailed, and worse in the cause of bringing an end to my enemies. Torture’s purpose eluded me, though. It did not serve as a deterrent because the threat of death and imprisonment was every bit as ineffective as pouring oil on flame. But, for Redhand, at least, I expected the point of the act was the act itself.
“Oh gods,” Ketra whispered, looking up at the six in horror.
“Be silent,” Regina whispered, her own hand moving downward to her weapon before removing it.
It was probably the hardest thing she’d done in my service.
“Do you think I do not know where the disease rests in this city? The source of the rot? It is you filthy Stagmen and your heathen religion, practiced in secret with obscene rituals. They drink the blood of children and plot to take over this city! They use night- and blood magic! They are the horror in the heart of this land!”
I was appalled, for multiple reasons, not the least being someone was sharing the blood libel slander propagated by madmen and fools in my time as if it was serious fact. The accusation of tremendous crimes that people believed because they wanted to think the worst of the race. Burning of Fir Bolg quarters and massacres had been driven by such accusations.
Recently, too, as a story of Regina witnessing a pogrom resonated in my head. The Fir Bolg and boggans in the crowd shouted at last, screams of lies and outrage, only for much of the mood in its ranks to shift. Much to my disgust, the crowd’s mood was splitting, as there were many now looking suspiciously at the Fir Bolg amongst them.
“You ask who amongst you is responsible for the curfews, taxes, punishments, and the new laws? I say unto you that you know who is responsible! You have let savages pollute, destroy, and weaken this land! There is a weed in this city and it has been treated as a flower when all it does is choke the life from our fair metropolis.” Redhand’s voice rose until it became a booming crack of thunder across a hundred city blocks. “You ask when the occupation will end? It will end when you have shown the evil amongst you is cleansed!”
“Hells,” Regina said. “What is he hoping to accomplish?”
“It is not to kill the city,” Serah said. “Just the part of the city they want to massacre.”
“Gods Between,” Kana whispered. “He’s trying to incite a purge.”
Redhand turned his flaming hand toward the prisoners and from it shot forth a torrent of burning mystical fire. The Fir Bolg’s skin melted across their bones as they were cooked inside out, somehow kept alive long enough to experience the entirety of their deaths despite the fact they should have died mercifully within seconds.
Their screams lasted for a minute.
Prince Alfreid stared in as much horror as the rest, shaking in fear.
Redhead turned to
face the crowd. “I have killed these men, their families, and their relations. They were all traitors who gave succor and aid to those who murder the loyal guards who protect you. Those who enrich this city with their coin. Those who have shown themselves to love this city by attempting to end the violence by cooperating. I will not let their deaths go unavenged. Every day the violence continues, I will inflict ten times the blood lost in revenge. Those who cooperate will be rewarded with gold—not silver, but gold. They will be protected against the guards, Firefists, and the revenge of the Golden Arrow. Those who are found aiding them or even turning a blind eye will die.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Go.”
Ketra held her hand over her face as Rose placed his hands on her shoulders, giving her as much comfort as he could. The crowd’s attitude was, much to my shock, pacified as the people were too confused and terrified to even think about rioting.
Suspicion of the Fir Bolg and other nonhumans in the crowd, suspicions of the humans by the nonhumans, despair, desperation, fear, greed at the possible benefits to them for collaboration, plus everything in between was now the dominant mood. Behind us, the walls of fire collapsed and large numbers of people did their best to file out as quickly as possible.
I exchanged a look with Regina. “Saving this city is going to be more difficult than expected.”
Regina stared, then quietly mouthed, “Not really. We just have to kill the monsters responsible for this madness. Tonight.”
Chapter Twenty
Thermic Redhand was far from the most eloquent speaker I’d ever heard but he knew his audience. He’d done nothing to calm the tensions in the crowd, but he’d done an excellent job of redirecting them. It didn’t start with the two sides turning on one another but the mood had shifted. Humans and nonhumans suspected the other side was thinking of turning on them first, and that kind of paranoia fed on itself.
By the time we were allowed out of the forum, I could hear people whispering about whether it would be a good idea to turn on the “Stagmen” and “Beastmen”, as the Fir Bolg were known, to save their own skins. Redhand and the Burning Hand were too formidable to oppose in their minds.
I would have to convince them otherwise.
Storm clouds gathered on the horizon as the crowd dispersed, some moving quicker than others, and the Burning Hand departing to guard Redhand and Prince Alfreid as they departed. A light rain began to pour down as my companions put up their cloaks and began to walk toward where Rose said our meeting with the Jarls was supposed to take place.
Troubled by the scene I’d just witnessed, I gauged the reaction of my companions. Regina was more determined than ever to destroy the Nine here and liberate this city. Serah looked troubled, perhaps because she suspected how difficult uniting the city might be. Kana maintained a blank expression on her face, having been forced to watch companions of hers burned alive as a public spectacle. Ketra, I could tell, was sick to her stomach, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the violence or worry about her brother. Rose? Rose had the most curious of expressions.
Guilt.
“Well, that was disturbing,” Rose finally said, covering himself with a purple parasol that looked ridiculous compared to us. He’d picked it up from a pocket-dimension-filled sack attached to his belt, hoisting it over his head to protect himself from the gentle rain above us.
“Fir Bolg are always the first to die when humans and elves need a scapegoat,” Kana said, looking suspiciously to her surroundings. “I decided to join the Golden Arrow after I was stabbed, beaten, and left to die on my wedding day. My intended was not so lucky.”
Regina looked over. “Why did they do that?”
“Because it was my wedding day,” Kana said. “It is a human custom in Fireforge to try and make sure fewer Fir Bolg are born.”
Regina opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it, realizing there was nothing that could be said. It had been that way in my time too. Just not in Fireforge. The antipathy between Imperials and Fir Bolg dated back to the days before Anessia the Conqueror and the First War. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just the unthinking hatred of two groups of people who struck at each other blindly.
“We will someday build a nation where humans and Fir Bolg can live in peace,” Ketra said, trying to speak with the same conviction she’d had earlier. It was a hollow but heartening gesture.
Kana looked back at Ketra, a sad expression on her face. “Oh, child, it is good that you think that is what my people want.”
“We need to get to the Fire District,” Rose said, turning around to face us and walking backward as he talked. “The Jarls are assembled there.”
“Yes, it would be a shame for the rich and powerful of this nation to be caught up in any massacre Thermic has planned,” Kana said. “I bet they’re already complaining about the fleas and lice they’re catching from my people.”
“Your people are not in any danger!” Rose snapped back. It was a denial of reality given what we’d seen back there. “The Jarls and their allies have the full backing of the resistance gathered there.”
“Which is hopelessly outmatched,” I said.
Ketra didn’t deny it. “We’re hoping you can help with that.”
“Of course,” Regina said, answering before I could.
“Assuming the people want help,” I said.
I spotted at least three individuals, planted agents I’d wager, talking about various crimes they’d heard the Fir Bolg committing. I imagined there were dozens more paid to do so spread throughout the area. I could hear their whispers and slander, as well as seeing silver change hands. If there wasn’t a riot against the nonhumans in the next few days, I would eat my cloak.
That’s assuming he doesn’t kill them all himself, the Trickster said. I know Redhand. He doesn’t have much in the way of patience. You tend to lose that when you suffer no consequences for your actions.
Yes, look at you, I replied.
“It depends which people you’re speaking of, Jacob,” Serah said. “Whenever war is fought, you must choose a side.”
Or no side at all.
Still, I couldn’t just abandon the Fir Bolg. I had seen what happened when they were left to the mercy of those who sought to blame them for the misdeeds of others.
So had Regina.
“My people know what to do when this sort of thing happens,” Kana said, her voice darkening as she narrowed her eyes at Rose. “They will seize the gates to keep out the outsiders for as long as they can. They will kill the children and the elderly with poison, both to prevent their slaughter and to prevent the former from being taken as slaves. The Grand Temple’s laws against such things have never been well enforced when my people are what is being sold. The elders will arm every man and woman who can fight to make one last stand, or, if they have no stomach for bloodshed, pass the midnight leaf in the sacred bread around the Grand Pyre in the district’s center. They will sing until they all fall asleep to wake no more.”
Rose paused and looked away. “It’s not going to come to that. We will negotiate with the nobles, smuggle them out, and carry on making our alliance with the King Below. We can put the revolt on hold indefinitely—let tensions cool.”
“Tensions will not cool while Gewain is suffering whatever tortures the Imperials have cooked up for him,” Kana said, her tone vicious. “We cannot delay the revolt either.”
“We cannot revolt now!” Rose said. “It would be suicide!”
“Craven!” Kana hissed.
“Kana, please, you’re not helping!” Ketra said, grabbing her by the arm before the shamaness pulled free. “What are you doing?”
“I doubt our propagandist’s commitment to the cause,” Kana said, slamming her staff’s bottom against the flagstones. “Since Gewain’s capture, you have been undermining us at every opportunity. You have been defending the empire and urging caution when we need bold action! There is also the question of Ketra’s mission being betrayed and several other curious
issues.”
Rose sputtered and raised his hands defensively. “What are you suggesting!?”
I decided to follow up on this but not here. Here, we needed unity. “Enough. There will be no purge of the Fire District.”
“Oh, you can guarantee that, can you?” Kana asked, turning to me and raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” I said. “Let us each take a vow now to relay no tactical information about our plans to anyone outside our circle. I will lay a geas upon us to do so.”
“Is that necessary?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Assuming there are no objections.”
Everyone reluctantly agreed and I cast a minor spell that bound us all to silence before relaying my plan. “We will eliminate Hellsword and Redhand tonight. I know that is unlikely to contribute to the city’s stability, but Serah, I want you to contact our people to get an occupation ready via our ships and conceal them. Before they arrive, we need a collection of knights to be smuggled into the city. We’ll use them to kill the dragons in their pens and get our gryphon-riders to finish off the ones that aren’t. Timing will be critical, but if we can seize the prince of the city we can force the garrison commander to surrender. If not, well, Serah and I have enough magical power between us to kill everyone in the garrison outright.”
I imagined a terrifying blizzard murdering every man and woman inside the fortresses around the city, their bodies frozen in ice without even a chance to resist. It sickened me, since becoming a Wraith Knight, how beautiful I found such sights. It would not be as easy as I described it but the city’s lack of defenses against external attack was a glaring weakness in an otherwise over-defended city.
Wraith Lord Page 17