by RG Long
Though the captains and sergeants and generals all shouted orders, the cannons were slowly put in their places. It was delicate work.
Cas wondered if the sound of cursing Speakers and bellowing commanders would be the last he would hear. He had already lost his entire tent to the terrible events of the night.
Would he make it out alive?
“Stand and face me,” Her Holiness ordered.
Cas stumbled to obey, rising to his feet as quickly as he could. Holding his head high, he came face to face with his captain, his sergeant, his general, and the Holy Leader of their nation.
He had seen better days.
“Report to the front,” General Cern commanded. “And I will see that you arrived.”
“Have my servant escort him,” Yada said, pointing to the same shirtless man Cas had threatened earlier. His smug face came into view from behind Yada and he bowed down low.
“Should you survive the battle,” she continued. “I will give you a second chance to show me you are a faithful servant of Isol and Yada. However, should you perish, I will determine that you were unworthy and unfit to hold my teachings to heart. Your family will be shamed and your hometown will be informed of your lack of faith.”
Cas swallowed hard. He didn’t back down, however. He only bowed. Taking four steps backwards, he turned as the servant led him down the path of tents towards where the lizards and demons clashed against Isolian lines.
“What do you make of this, Your Holiness?” General Cern asked as Cas walked further away.
“An obvious plot by the treacherous Temple of Ladis,” she replied. “They’ve clearly aligned themselves with these beasts against us. Unleash the cannons on them. Then we march for Prommus at once!”
Cas didn’t hear the reply to her statement.
The first blast of magical cannon fire echoed in his ears, along with the terrible howl of the demon it was targeted at.
If he did survive this night, he thought, there would be a vengeful Yada who would lead her troops to Prommus come the first light of dawn.
36: Home
“Companies! March!”
The command was the same. Every morning before the sun came up the lines and lines of Isolian troops were to form ranks and wait.
Before the first sun poked its bright lights over the horizon, they were on the move. Today was no different. Except that the suns weren’t visible through the jungle trees the army was maneuvering through this time. Pul had different emotions running through him as they continued to march north.
For one, he was glad to be covered in the canopies of the jungle again. It had been so many years since he had last walked in their shelter. Now that he was here, however, he thought of how long he had been gone and the friends who had come with him.
And the people he had left in the Disputed Lands.
Even though he was marching through the same trees he had grown up under, he felt lonely. He wasn’t the same as the young boy who had left for the war in the south. He was a man now. One who had seen the tragedy and scope of the war of the south. Now he was going to fight the same battle against the same foe, but in different lands.
Lands that he had not been to before.
Their numbers had dwindled only slightly since leaving the south. Isolian Speakers had been employing hit and run tactics on their lines, but they diminished greatly as soon as they crossed the sea to the northern part of Ladis.
Still, the troops were on edge. Pul felt it. Every time they began their marching, he was cautious. The mages had so far begun their assaults right when they started moving for the day or right when they let off.
The sound of their marching boots filled the trees, but no shouts or bursts of magical energy split the morning air.
Just their boots.
Pul stood up straighter as he marched. His pack was light. He had been tent mates with three others. The last to survive the Disputed Lands drowned in the sea. It wasn’t too great of a loss. He would be reassigned eventually. For the time being, however, he enjoyed sleeping under the trees.
Now he was becoming more and more anxious. They couldn’t march in the wide lines they used so often in the plains of the south. Now they were barely able to walk four abreast in the thick forest paths. That meant he could see everything on the left and the right of him.
He kept his eyes open for what he knew must be coming soon.
“You been here before?”
Pul had to blink a few times before he realized the voice belonged to the man who marched beside him. He hadn’t paid much attention to who he was marching beside since his tent mates were all gone.
This man was tall and fair. Broad chested and muscular. Pul felt very small compared to him.
“Have you been here before?” he asked again.
Pul nodded.
“I have,” he said plainly. He wasn’t sure what to make of this soldier. Most of the others he had marched with had been quiet, their eyes just as unfocused as his own. They were searching.
The big man shook his head.
“I’ve never seen so many trees,” he said, looking above him. “And the sky is up there, I guess? It’s weird not to see it.”
“You’re not from Arranus, soldier?” Pul asked, thinking he might remind the man he was speaking to of his rank.
“Tremus,” he answered. “I came by ship to the Disputed Lands a few months ago. Only saw one battle. Or close to a battle at least. I’ve never seen much of the jungles of Ladis. Just what I could see from the boat we came down on.”
Pul had found himself a talker.
“Aren’t there trees?” he asked.
“Oh sure,” the big man replied. “We’ve got lots. Short ones, though. They never get this tall. I guess they’re more like bushes compared to what you’ve got here. You say you’ve from here? How close? My name’s Tars by the way.”
“Pul,” he said, holding out his hand and forgetting his rank entirely. They shook.
“Our little town is mostly rock buildings. I’ve heard in the jungles they live in the trees!”
He said this with such excitement that Pul didn’t bother to correct him. They continued their march over the uneven ground, sidestepping large rocks and climbing over very thick vines and branches. After a moment, however, Tars got a look of concern on his face.
“Wait. You live in the jungle, don’t you? I’m sorry! Was that... Did I say something wrong?”
Pul shook his head.
“Didn’t bother me,” he said. “But I wouldn’t ask too many people if they live in trees.”
Tars nodded.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m just not used to this. Being around people from all over Ladis that is. It’s kind of exciting isn’t it?”
Pul thought the very last thing about being forced to fight the wars of the Theocracy was how exciting it was. Demanding. Cruel. A tragedy in the making, maybe. But exciting? Certainly not.
“Hey, what’s everybody pointing at?” Tars asked.
Pul brought his attention back to where they were. He recognized these trees. The trail they were walking on and the stream beside them were familiar.
“Looks pretty ugly...”
“What?” Pul said, looking in the direction where all of the soldiers were pointing and not at the surrounding area he knew so well.
It was at that moment that the smell hit him. Smoke from a fire that was not only burning wood or brush. He had gotten this in his face far too many times in the Disputed Lands to not notice it.
It was the smell of destruction and fire.
His heart sank as he looked up.
Soldiers were pointing out several huts that were burned out shells. Broken bodies lay scattered over the forest floor, burned and charred and mangled. The blackness stretched from the beginning of the little village to the end. Worst of all, however, was in the middle of the destruction, stood what looked to be a horrible idol. It was made of the burnt wood and strips of cloth from wreckage. Crude wings
of smoldering branches spanned out from its broad center.
The bones of some unfortunate victim were arranged in a terrible display of a face.
Pul wanted to look away, but found that he couldn’t. As he marched, the effigy came closer, then disappeared into the distance behind him as he could no longer turn his head and continue walking forward.
It had been eerily quiet as they passed the village. Now some soft whispers broke out over the lines.
“What was that?”
“Bet that’s why they stopped us early last night.”
“Did you see that thing?”
“Who would do that?”
Tars had been quiet, unlike the rest of the time they had been walking together. After they had put some good distance between the destroyed village and themselves, he finally spoke up.
“That was terrible,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You used to live in this area.”
“Mmm.”
“Did you know that place? Or been there before?”
Pul cleared his throat and looked up at the forest canopy. All of a sudden, it didn’t look so inviting and home-like anymore.
“Yeah,” Pul managed to answer.
He had been there before. Tars began talking of his own homeland and the people he was excited to see again if he got the chance. Pul let him talk.
As their boots trodded along the forest floor and this new recruit spoke of home and family, Pul hoped he wouldn’t notice how every so often, he would wipe his cheek.
The only tears he would shed for his home be ones he would smear with his hand.
37: Cell Mates
It was dark when Gorplin finally opened his eyes. Or rather, when he opened the only eye he could. His right one still stung from the black eye he had been given. Or at least, he assumed that's why it was swollen painfully shut.
And even though the light at the end of the long tunnel was dim, it still made his head pound with every beat of his heart. That must be what had knocked him unconscious.
He tried to move his arms, but found they stayed in place. Which was odd since that place was above his head.
“Bah. Shackled again,” he spat. His mouth was dry and his lips cracked. He surely had been bleeding at some point.
“Finally awake, then?” said a familiar voice from not too far away.
“Holve? Is that you?”
“If it weren’t for your steady snoring I would have been more concerned for your life,” the older man replied.
“Agreed,” the weak voice of Donald rang out.
Gorplin blinked several times, righting both his sight and the pounding in his head. He sat on a stone floor in a room with many chains hanging from the ceiling. Some moldy straw lay at his feet. Their beds, he assumed.
Holve and Donald were restrained by the chains that hung from the ceiling as well. But their arms lightly touched the ground without much difficulty. Gorplin passed over the roughness of Holve’s own face and the tears and rips in his clothes.
“How come you got the longer chains? Bah. That’s just cruel.”
“I believe the warden’s words were something like, ‘This ought to be fun’,” Holve said.
“Bloody cruel,” Gorplin repeated.
“I seriously doubt they brought us here for anything but their own enjoyment,” Holve said. “We may have let the others get away, but our trials are far from over, dwarf prince.”
Now that he was actually awake, his senses were returning to him. He felt that he was in fact sitting on a thin layer of the wet straw. There was a pile of it in the corner, supposedly for their use. He knew he was on at least some of the straw due to the dampness he felt in his legs and the slight change from hard stone on his left to hard straw on his right.
He could also smell the place.
“Ugh,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “What is that awful stench?”
“Me,” grumbled a new voice.
Gorplin turned his head left and right in order to see where the words had come from. From what he could see in the dim light, they were in a cell that was half cavern and half hewn stones. The floor was entirely made up of cut rock and the barred cell door let in the only light source he could see, the far torch.
Four more chains hung from the ceiling for two more sad souls to join them in this prison.
“There, I think,” Donald said, nodding his head towards the corner of the cell.
Gorplin looked at the pile of straw laying there, and saw it move.
“Who are you?”
The pile of straw sat up and Gorplin gasped audibly.
“Bah!” he said after regaining his composure. “You can’t be a...”
“Galp,” said the matted, bony, sad looking creature. “I’m a prisoner of Prince Grattus just like you. Been here for ten years. And yes. I suppose the word you’re trying to find is ‘Skrilx.’”
38: A Lesson in Religion
Jerius left the chamber of the Voice after, once again, giving out the notes and thoughts of the high priest while being riddled with questions he did not know the answer to. The shouting and bickering only subsided a little when he closed the door and began walking down the hallway to his study.
Luca was at his side as soon as he appeared in the portal.
He wanted her to say something so he had an excuse to shout at her. He wanted to shout at any that dared speak to him. In the few months he had been at Prommus, he had given out proclamations he did not know the effects of, told several members of the king’s counsel what the high priest’s opinion was, only to be thwarted and spoken down to, and given several of these speeches to the Voice with each of them ending in screaming matches between different groups within the people’s arena.
The long hall of the Temple of Prommus fell behind him as he stepped quickly towards his study. He wanted to throw something. To break something. To do anything that would affect the area around him. Every word he said, he felt, didn’t matter at all. Not a single sentence he uttered made anyone change their mind. He was powerless here.
And he hated it.
What he thought would be power had so far turned out to be nothing but errands and saying yes to ideas he didn’t agree with and solutions to problems he thought would solve nothing.
“Argh!” he yelled as soon as he burst into his study, flinging the table that contained the next mediocre task he was set. Throwing the notes in his hand against the wall, he took a mug of ale and slammed in into the floor.
“Clean it up!” he shouted at Luca before storming back out of his miniscule office and out into the hall again. He walked with purpose and determination. To where, he didn’t know.
It was sometime before he looked up from his brisk pace. He found himself in a hallway that was opened to one side and had a balcony overlooking the city. He marched out to it and slammed his fists down on the stone railing.
The pain it brought only gave him a small bit of clarity.
“I was wondering when you would break,” came a voice from behind him.
Jerius spun around to see the high priest standing against a wall, arms folded and eyes narrowed. His white hair blew slightly in the breeze that the balcony provided for them.
Jerius wanted nothing more than to strangle the man where he stood. He felt like it might even cause his station to rise for the second time since coming to Prommus.
“My Lord,” Jerius said, bowing slightly out of respect and in an attempt to quell his more violent thoughts.
When he returned he saw that the high priest was wearing a gloating smile.
“Are you finished being a lap dog, then?”
Jerius didn’t know what to say to this. He was, in fact, very sick and tired of being a lap dog. He wanted power. If anything he wanted to return back to Arranus. There, at least, he was the highest ranking Priest and could do as he wished. So long as he avoided confrontation with whoever the new prince would be.
“I am at your disposal,” he said through gri
tted teeth.
The high priest scoffed.
“You are sick of being at my disposal,” he replied.
That was all Jerius needed to hear in order to unleash his rage.
“Fine! Yes! I am very disillusioned with what I thought being the Priest of Arranus would afford me!” he yelled. “I do not want to read your notes to a yelling crowd of the Voice or take messages from Priest to guards. I want power! I want to be in control! I am tired of being your lap dog! I want to return to Arranus where I can be the master of my own province!”
He expected the high priest to scold him. He thought that at the very least the high priest would send him on some errand of reading the ancient texts and scriptures that their faith was based upon. Surely his outburst would not go unpunished.
“Follow me,” Regis said, turning to walk back into the hallway Jerius had just come from.
Here it was.
His punishment.
The high priest walked down the hall, past the study where Jerius saw Luca dutifully cleaning up the mess he had made. They walked down the corridor that led to the high priest’s own windowed study, but they did not enter it. Instead, they walked through a door Jerius had not seen before. It was half concealed behind a curtain and so nondescript that it might have been a part of the wall itself.
Forcing open the door, the high priest walked through it. He stopped Jerius before he was able to enter, however, and pointed to the wall opposite them. A lantern hung from a peg, lit and burning.
Jerius walked over to it and, taking it off the wall, turned to see that the high priest had not waited for him. Rather, the door was now empty. Stepping more quickly, Jerius walked over to the door and passed through it, shutting it behind him because he felt that was what he was supposed to do.
He was still fuming at the high priest for how he had treated him these last few weeks, but now he was intrigued. The passage went down almost immediately. A winding stone stair spiraled lower and lower. Jerius thought once or twice he heard the shuffling footsteps of the high priest ahead of him, but he either did not catch up quickly enough, or the high priest was intentionally keeping himself just beyond the light of the lantern.