Origins

by A D Starrling

  She became conscious of a stare and glanced to her left to find Aäron’s eyes on her. He held her gaze for a moment before looking away.

  Mila blinked. Her growing awareness of the captain perplexed her like few things could. There was more to the man than met the eye, an indisputable fact that was clear to see in the light of day. Beneath his calm demeanor and intense blue gaze, she sensed a cauldron of emotions held in check by an iron will.

  Nazul exited the outskirts of the city and headed up a steep trail that cut across the fields. Mila observed the dying crops filling the terraces dotting the inclines of the cliff on either side of them. Her gaze landed on the black mounds she had seen from the ridge above the valley. She stiffened when she recognized what they were.

  Nazul finally slowed. Here, the land arrowed to a promontory that projected over the abyss surrounding the crag upon which Hazaara sat astride. Two rock outcrops stabbed at the sky on the very edge of the gulf. Nazul made for the gap between them. Mila followed with Jared and the soldiers.

  The mouth of a cave appeared at the end of a short gully. She slowed and watched Nazul duck and melt into the gloom beyond the low entrance. Her hand found the hilt of her sword.

  The governor reappeared, his expression more weary than angry. ‘You may draw your blades if you wish. You will not need them.’ He slipped a piece of cloth from his belt. ‘I would advise you to cover your mouth and nose though.’

  Mila exchanged a cautious glance with Jared.

  The ceiling rose beyond the entrance to the full height of a man. Fifteen feet into the cave, the walls narrowed to a rugged tunnel that spiraled into the very foundations of the bluff. Steps had been carved into the floor to facilitate access. Flaming torches sat in metal baskets dotting the walls and cast their shadows ahead of them as they proceeded down the stairs.

  ‘This cave has been here since before my birth,’ said Nazul. ‘My brothers and I spent many a happy hour here when we were children, as did my sons and daughters. Alas, my grandchildren will not do so.’ Bitterness underscored his voice. ‘I had the passage enlarged when it started.’

  ‘When what started?’ said Jared impatiently. ‘I wish you would speak plainly, Governor. These delay tactics may have worked with my cousin but they will not do so with—’

  It was the smell that hit them first.

  Jared slowed and pulled a face. ‘What in the name of the Empire is that stench?’

  The noise came next, a low murmur that grew to a dull roar.

  Coldness filled Mila when they came to the end of the tunnel. She ignored the muffled retching from the soldiers behind her and stopped beside Nazul on the edge of a stone landing, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on what lay at the bottom of the final flight of steps.

  The cavern below them measured some three hundred feet in width and was almost as long, its farthest reaches swaddled in layers of darkness broken by the odd flaming torch. The floor fell away in a series of terraces arrowing toward the north face of the cave. Water gleamed on the distant wall, a thin chute that breached the underground chamber through a rock channel before disappearing in a shallow pool.

  But it was not the sight of the cavern’s impressive dimensions nor the tapering rock formations hanging from its soaring ceiling that commanded her attention.

  Crowding the expanse beneath them, filling almost every corner of level ground, were people.

  Some lay on straw pallets, their emaciated bodies motionless beneath thin sheets. Most, however, writhed around, shivers and coughs racking their thin frames while their wretched moans filled the vast space. Here and there, pale figures tended to them, ghosts in the shadows. Mila registered the protective clothing they wore and the masks covering their faces.

  ‘It took us a while to realize that the disease was airborne,’ said Nazul quietly. ‘By then, we had lost a hundred souls and twice as many lay bedridden.’

  He brought his cloth to his face and headed down into the cavern. Mila removed the polishing fabric she used for her blade and held it over her nose and mouth before going after him, Jared and Aäron in her wake.

  She paused and turned to the remaining soldiers. ‘Stay here.’

  They nodded, their expressions grateful.

  ‘We were already struggling to pay the rising tithes over the last few years when a deadly blight ruined the past two seasons’ crops,’ said Nazul as they entered the foul miasma saturating the air. ‘In the wake of the famine that followed, an unwelcome sickness entered our valley from the east, brought by hunters who came to trade with us. The illness is characterized by delirious feverishness and cramps that make grown men cry. It rots the lungs and gut, and robs the afflicted of their breath. Many die choking on their own blood.’

  Some of the people attending to the ill looked up at his approach. A few took hasty steps back when they saw the Immortals and the soldiers, their eyes widening in alarm above their masks.

  ‘It is alright,’ Nazul called out reassuringly. ‘Carry on with your ministrations.’

  ‘I thought the tithe had been fixed for another ten years,’ said Jared quietly.

  Nazul stopped and eyed him coolly. ‘It seems Princess Hosanna was right. The kings do not always tell their children of their dark deeds.’ A muscle jumped in his jawline. ‘Why do you think there have been so many uprisings of late? The people of the Empire are struggling to satisfy the selfish demands of the ones who rule them. Many can no longer feed themselves and their children. You may not have noticed, but there are hardly any pot-bellied people left in these lands, myself included.’

  Mila recalled the conversation she had had with Tobias and Baruch following the conflict in Terka.

  Lines creased her brow. ‘Do you mean that the kings are forcing these levies through when they know people are dying of disease and hunger?’

  Nazul spread his arms and indicated the cave. ‘Look around you, Princess. Do you see us reveling in our wealth? Do you see our wives and children merry and plump, their cheeks rosy with health and happiness?’

  There was a commotion behind them. Mila turned.

  A young man barely out of boyhood had reached out from where he lay on the ground and was grasping Aäron’s ankle.

  ‘Help—help me!’ he gasped, his chest shuddering with effort.

  One of the caregivers looked over in consternation from where she tended to a feverish child.

  She climbed awkwardly to her feet and stumbled toward them. ‘I am sorry. I will—’

  Aäron raised a hand and cut her off. He dropped on his haunches and took the sick man’s hand in his own. A moment later, the latter took his final breath, air leaving his discolored, dry lips in a guttural rasp while his thin body relaxed in eternal rest. The captain gazed at him silently before gently closing his eyes.

  He crossed the dead man’s hands on his chest, covered him with the dirty sheet on the pallet, and stood up, his expression unreadable. ‘What do you do with the bodies?’

  Nazul eyed him steadily. ‘There is another tunnel at the end of the cave. It leads to the chasm. We give the dead their last rites there.’ Sorrow darkened his eyes. ‘We buried and burned as many as we could at first. When the number of the dead outstripped that of the living, we decided the abyss would be a fit tomb for them. Nothing lives at the bottom of the gorge. It is a cold and dark place that never sees sunlight.’

  Aäron wrapped the dead youth in the sheet and lifted him in his arms. ‘Show me.’

  Nazul hesitated and glanced at Mila and Jared. ‘I cannot ask you to—’

  ‘Show me,’ the captain ordered, his voice hardening.

  Nazul stared. ‘Come with me.’

  He turned and led the way further into the cavern.

  ‘Hosanna knows of your woes?’ said Jared stiffly, his gaze lingering on the sick and dying around them.

  ‘Yes, the princess knows. She pleaded our case with King Crovir many months ago, on our behalf and on that of other cities similarly afflicted by famine.’ Nazul wavered fo
r a moment. ‘Although she would curse me for saying this, she even paid our tithes out of her own pocket the past year, after the illness started. Alas, one of her collectors was loose of tongue and the matter came to the ears of King Crovir. The provisions she had secretly been sending us stopped a while ago, no doubt intercepted by soldiers of the Empire. She promised to ask Prince Rafael to come to our assistance but I gather King Crovir has kept all of you engaged suppressing the rebellions breaking out across the Empire.’ Nazul’s eyes grew hooded. ‘Although I have not heard of other cities afflicted by this particular scourge, I fear disease will soon spread through these lands if its citizens continue to be forced beyond their endurance by hunger and war.’

  A narrow passage appeared in the north face of the cave, to the left of the pool. Nazul led them through it and into a small chamber on the other side. There, they were bathed in a cool breeze that wafted through an opening in the cliff face and took away some of the pervading stench. In a silence that spoke of grief, four women carefully washed the dead and wrapped them in clean linen sheets. Two more stood on the edge of the chasm and mouthed low prayers before gently tipping the bodies into the gaping void.

  One of the women on the ground looked up when she registered their presence. She watched wordlessly as Aäron laid the dead youth next to the pile of corpses to the right, then washed her hands in a bowl of water and climbed to her knees with a wince. She pulled her mask down as she approached. The lines at the corners of her eyes deepened when she stopped before Nazul.

  ‘Your presence here can only mean one thing. Our granddaughter has gone to her eternal rest,’ she said in a lifeless voice.

  Nazul swallowed convulsively. ‘That she has, my love.’

  The old woman’s gaze moved to Mila and the two men beside her. ‘I see representatives of the Empire have finally come to Hazaara.’ She looked back at Nazul and raised a hand to his cheek. ‘Is this to be our end then, husband? Does our city fall today?’

  The other women stopped what they were doing and looked up, eyes filled with fearful expectation.

  Nazul took his wife’s hand in his own and turned to Mila. ‘That I do not know.’

  Mila looked at the corpses on the ground for a long time. Then, she twisted on her heels and made her way back through the main cave, bitter thoughts and questions raging through her mind, conscious of the gazes that followed her passage and the others behind her.

  It was not until she exited the gully and reached a ridge overlooking the chasm that she stopped. She inhaled the fresh, cool air and watched Abu hover in the clear blue skies above her head.

  ‘What is it to be, Red Queen?’ said Nazul in the tense silence, a trace of defiance in his voice.

  Mila turned and observed the governor and his wife for a moment. She met Aäron’s guarded stare and finally looked at Jared.

  The grim decision she had reached was reflected in her brother’s dark eyes.

  ‘I will support you, sister,’ he said in a steely voice.

  Mila smiled faintly then. As the lieutenant commander of their army, she had seniority over him in their military endeavors. Whatever she decided to do next, he would have to obey. Yet, she was confident the action she was about to take would be the one he would champion were he in her position.

  With a heavy heart, she raised a hand to her waist and drew her sword.

  Chapter Eleven

  Crovir stood on the terrace outside his private chambers and stared out over the palace grounds. This high up, he could see beyond the walls of the citadel to the plains outside the capital. He brought a gold tumbler to his lips and savored the rich taste of the wine within it as he studied the horizon.

  A hazy sun glowed in a pale sky, the golden rays partially obscured by the morning mist rolling off the Ufratü River. The eerie light made the air shimmer in the distance, creating ghostly shapes that danced fleetingly above the land.

  A welcome breeze swept the sundeck and cooled his bare arms. Gauzy curtains fluttered behind him. He looked over his shoulder and glimpsed Delaiah, his latest concubine, sleeping naked on his bed, body exhausted and skin covered with the marks and bruises of the past night. A thin smile curved his lips. However many humans he allowed to grace his chambers, none could keep up with his carnal appetite, not even a princess of Tarsus sold by her own father for his political ambitions.

  His smile faded. He had heard her lay claim to the title of princess on several occasions now. It was a habit he would have to curb, and quickly. Although he indulged her more than his previous lovers, he would soon grow bored of her youthful body and have to dispose of her as he had done the others who came before her, either by dispatching her to one of the garrisons to serve as his soldiers’ plaything, or selling her off into slavery in distant lands. She did not yet know the fate that awaited her. Indeed, not even his brother Bastian had knowledge of such dark deeds, for they were always accomplished in secrecy, under the cover of night. In the years to come, she would die, like the others, succumbing to disease or the assault she would suffer every night from the men who ravaged her body.

  Crovir frowned. None but his and Bastian’s children and grandchildren could lay claim to the title of prince or princess of the Empire. He stared beyond the walls of Uryl, toward the citadel of his father. A mixture of emotions assaulted him as he thought of Romerus, the one who had brought him into this world and gifted him with immortality through his mysterious actions so many moons ago.

  Love, irritation, apprehension, all these he was familiar with. But increasingly, as the years went by, hate had started to seep into his heart, a hot dagger twisting inside his soul and filling him with shame.

  He had lost count of the number of times he heard the tale of how, when a deadly plague shrouded the land in darkness, Romerus had ventured into the desert for twenty-one days and nights, in search of a cure to save his dying children. His mother Zara and his stepmother Joanna had never divulged the details of how exactly Romerus came by the remedies he eventually administered to his two sons, although Crovir suspected they knew the truth. And it became evident that something had happened to Romerus himself in that desert, for he continued to live far beyond the years that should rightfully have been his as a mere human, while Zara and Joanna succumbed to eternal rest.

  As Crovir and Bastian grew out of boyhood, their unique abilities quickly became apparent. They were stronger, faster, and more astute than normal men. And not only did they possess accelerated healing, they could survive death itself. Crovir never truly believed the story of the seventeen lives they had inherited until he woke up in shock after his first passing, having accidentally fallen off a horse and broken his neck. In the years that followed, his iron will and determination, combined with Bastian’s great tactical mind, led them to build an army that conquered villages, cities, and, eventually, entire nations. They perished on numerous occasions during those first hundred years of establishing their empire, only to rise again and again to defeat those who stood before them. Now, with the help of their children, they ruled a kingdom of more than fifteen million souls, spanning thousands of leagues.

  It was in the four-hundredth year of the Empire that Bastian decided to leave the command of their army and their military campaigns in Crovir’s hands, choosing instead to concentrate on managing the kingdom’s increasingly complex administration. Crovir could not have been any happier at his younger brother’s choice, as it allowed him complete freedom to pursue his increasingly hungry ambitions. For he wanted dominion over more lands. In the vast, unexplored territories and seas that lay beyond their realm, he sensed there were more nations to conquer and wealth to plunder.

  But one person still possessed the power to make him doubt his actions. His father, Romerus. Although he knew the old man loved him and his brother unconditionally, there were times when Crovir could sense unspoken accusation and judgment in his rheumy gaze. It irked him and had given rise to the resentment that now clouded his affection for the one who had given
him life and granted him his unworldly talents.

  A disturbance in the palace grounds scattered his dark thoughts. Crovir looked down and caught a glimpse of a group of people striding through a garden. Leading them was a figure in a red cape.

  A thrill coursed through him. It appeared Mila had accomplished the mission he had assigned her and her brother.

  As he left his chambers and made his way to the throne room, Crovir reflected on his feelings for his youngest child. There was no doubt in his mind that she was the strongest warrior of all the children he and Bastian had borne. But although pride was the emotion she had initially inspired in him, unease had slowly filtered through his heart over time and given rise to the same misgivings he felt for Romerus.

  Deep inside the very marrow of his dark soul, Crovir knew Mila was capable of toppling the kings and taking the Empire for herself if she so wished.

  That she had any such desire was never apparent to him or the odd spy he sent to Issin. But the thought, once birthed, would not leave his mind. She was a potential threat to his aspirations. As such, he made sure to quash any sign of insubordination quickly and resolutely, like her latest action in Terka.

  Crovir entered the lavishly decorated, pillared throne room through a ceremonial side door and took a seat on one of the two gilded chairs dominating the dais that presided over the grand space. He dismissed the servants who rushed up the wide marble steps lined with ten golden lion statues, signaled to the soldiers standing by the main entrance, and sat back lazily in his throne. The men opened the imposing bronze portal guarding the access to the royal hall and lowered their spears respectfully when they saw the group waiting outside.

  Mila stormed across the threshold, Jared, Hosanna, Baruch, and Kronos in tow. The latter murmured urgently to his wife as they navigated the polished floor, his expression pale and pleading.

  Crovir frowned.

  Mila stopped before the steps below him and motioned to a soldier bearing the uniform of a captain who stood beyond the entrance.