by Aderyn Wood
In Bablim, General Tigan had taken them to the dungeons deep within the bowels of Bablim’s palace. And there Sargan witnessed cruelties he’d never dreamed of, as two of the general’s soldiers used thin blades to make the traitor talk, cutting lines of red all over the man’s flesh. All it did was make him scream. Sargan begged them to untie the man’s hands, and allow him to drink and relieve himself properly, but then he died. They found a phial of venom at his throat. He’d poisoned himself before they could get any more information from him.
“Sargan!”
Sargan jolted and sat up in his chair. “Yes, Father?” He wiped his eyes. His brother-prince had calmed and his father appeared to have gained control once more. Hadanash sat fuming in his chair though.
Sargan scrunched his nose. The bitter preservation fluids from the embalmed head filled the room with their stench.
“Did you recognise the traitor?” his father asked.
Sargan shook his head. “No, Father.”
“Was there any useful information he confessed before he died?”
Dannu spoke, “He was reported bragging in a beer house about the fact that Azzuri would soon become its own demise. He claimed a traitor resides in the Azzurian palace…”
Sargan let Dannu’s words flow over him as his attention moved to Qisht, who stood with straight shoulders behind the king. The traitor caught in Bablim had bragged of being a contact for someone high up in the Azzurian palace. Someone leal to Urul, who called himself the ‘Wraith’. The man had claimed it was why Urul knew so much about Azzuri’s attack, and also why Sargan’s father had been given misleading information about the siege in Bablim. Only someone with power and reach could arrange such treachery. A double treachery, and one that nearly cost Sargan his life. If it wasn’t for Danael…
“If it weren’t for Danael, we’d all be dead,” Dannu was saying.
Sargan shook his head and told himself to focus on the conversation. But still his eyes went to Qisht, and he recalled his sister’s warning. He frowned. It was too hard to believe Qisht, his teacher and friend, could betray them. But he couldn’t deny it was possible. After all, Urul was Qisht’s birthplace. He’d always have ties there. Perhaps it was old King Amar-Khamunah’s plan all along. Put Qisht in the Azzurian palace, a convenient and intelligent spy for Urul. If it were true, Qisht had played his part very well. He’d risen to the rank of headslave, he was tutor to the king’s children, as well as key advisor to the king, and above all else, the king’s lover. He had access to the most secret information any enemy could hope to glean. It would explain how Urul seemed to know Azzuri’s next move, even before Azzuri did. The enemy’s five thousand strong army swelled to at least thrice that mere days before Sargan and the others landed in Bablim to deal with the siege. It was as though the enemy king knew they were coming.
Sargan slowly realised that Qisht was returning his stare. The slave’s heavily kohl-lined eyes gave him a warm, yet curious look. Sargan blinked and snapped his attention back to the dead king’s vacant gaze. What did it all mean now that Amar-Eshu was dead? Had they won the war? Had they avoided Gedjon-Brak altogether? If Hadanash was to be believed, by killing the enemy king, they’d started it.
“Amar-Eshu is dead. Surely this brings an end to it.” Danael voiced Sargan’s own thoughts.
Hadanash raised his hands to the heavens. “What have I been trying to tell you? Can you get the concept through that barbarian skull? We’ve given them every reason now to rally their ever-growing supporters and come for us.”
“But they’re without a leader,” Blessed Siduri said, glancing at the embalmed head. “We at the temple know how difficult that makes things.”
Sargan turned to his father. It wasn’t the first time Blessed Siduri had complained about the continued absence of a high priest in Azzuri. But, if his father was concerned about it, he didn’t let it show. The king still looked worse for wear, and Sargan wondered with a sickening clench in his stomach if his father had contracted the dreaded flux, like so many Azzurians along the river streets. It would explain that cough for one thing.
“Hadanash is right,” Dannu said.
“Thank you, Uncle.”
“To a degree.” The wizened admiral put his hand up. “They will indeed be as a snake without its head for a time. It will give us the delay we need to ready our defences.”
“Not defences.” Hadanash raised his voice once more. “We must attack. Now is the time to strike, not lick injured pride like cats.”
“Even so,” Uncle Thedor spoke, he’d been silent up until now. “There are more injuries with every new day.” Thedor looked at his brother-king with his raincloud-grey eyes. “This disease, the flux as the Drakians call it, it spreads with every bell. I fear that soon it will not be contained to the river-side streets.”
“Indeed,” Blessed Siduri chimed in. “Blessed Verdualla is losing every case she faces. The deaths now count sixty-one.”
“Mostly elders?” the king asked with a flick of his knot beads.
Siduri nodded, and one of her two feathers moved a little in her headband. “And young children, but even the young and strong are falling victim to this illness.”
“You’re sure it’s the flux, Danael?”
Danael shrugged. “It shows the very symptoms that every Drakian knows too well. Only—” He shook his head. “It rarely causes death in Drakia. Only the very old, or those already afflicted with another illness will pass from it.”
“How many are afflicted?” the king asked.
“Almost the entire population of the river-side streets and some of the adjacent streets as well now. At least a thousand people,” Uncle Thedor answered. “It’s past time we considered quarantine.”
The king nodded and turned his attention to Sargan. “What say you, Sargan?”
Sargan cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “About the quarantine?”
“About all of Azzuri’s troubles. What say you about the flux, about Urul, about… claims of treachery.”
Sargan shifted on his seat and knotted his hands together. “It’s a shame Heduanna isn’t here to offer her insights.”
Hadanash exhaled a short audible breath. “Is that all you can say, brother? Uncle Mutat is the only one of us still doing something. He holds Urgash, only just, surely that is our starting point?”
Sargan shook his head. Uncle Mutat’s forces were still holding the one city in the Five Sisters that Urul had failed to conquer, but how was that a starting point?
“I think Sargan raises an interesting point,” the king said quietly. “We’ve always turned to Phadite. Always. It is her guidance alone that has led us here.”
“What are you suggesting, Father,” Hadanash said. “That we summon Heduanna back from the desert?”
“No, but there is another who can read the portents.”
Sargan’s stomach clenched when his father stared at him with fire in his eyes. “But, Father, she’s not accustomed to such things.”
“We shall see.” The king lifted his chin and spoke quietly to Qisht, who nodded and left the room.
“There is another matter we need to bring to your attention,” Uncle Dannu said, giving Sargan a knowing look.
“Go on,” the king said.
“King Tutah’s brother, Prince Ektar told us of a seer of a kind, who was very close to King Amar-Eshu.”
“You mean Xan,” Hadanash said with a shrug. “He is harmless enough. Lots of palaver about hocus-pocus but he’s never foreseen events the way Heduanna does. He didn’t while I was in Urul, at least.”
The way Hadanash dismissed Dannu’s concerns irritated Sargan. Hadanash thought he knew all there was to know about everything. Well, he hadn’t been there in Bablim after the battle. He’d fled well before. He didn’t know as much as he thought he did.
“There’s more to it then that,” Sargan spoke up, an edge of irritation to his voice.
Hadanash raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? Well, out with it.�
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Sargan licked his lips as he glanced at his father who had edged forward a little on his seat. “Apparently he is using human sacrifice to feed him the power he needs to interpret the signs.”
Hadanash scoffed again. “Camel dung. I never saw such a thing—”
“It’s what the refugees in Bablim are saying,” Sargan spoke with force over his brother.
“Refugees make up all sorts of outlandish tales to justify their cowardice.”
“Well, how do you explain so many of them telling the very same tale on different occasions?” Sargan had his chin stuck out and he realised how childish he must have looked. He lowered it and straightened his shoulders giving his father another glance. “I heard their tales for myself. Prince Ektar allowed me to speak with as many refugees as I needed. I spoke with people from all over the Sisters, other leal cities, and even from Urul itself. Their tales are haunting. Innocent people are being charged with crimes they never committed and all of them forced into slavery. The very poor are all effectively slaves now in Urul, forced to do what the king commands of them if they’re to earn their grain rations. And grain rations have depleted markedly as a result of the swell in population, namely from a flush of slaves brought in from Zraemian cities and beyond.” He faced Hadanash. “And they all say that slaves are given over for blood sacrifice, so that this seer called Xan may perform his sickening rituals. They call him an ichorseer, it means power of the blood.”
Hadanash shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“How else do you explain Urul’s success, brother?”
“It’s hardly a success now is it?” Hadanash gestured to the head on the table.
Sargan took a calming breath. “No, but before, you have to admit his advances have been alarmingly victorious.”
“Indeed,” Dannu said, nodding. “Over half of our eastern leal cities now pay homage to Urul and their armies keep swelling.”
Hadanash threw a hand in the air. “I’ve been trying to tell you why Urul has made such advances. Treachery. You gleaned as much yourselves in Bablim.”
Just then Qisht entered and Sargan thought he detected a look of guilt in the slave’s eye.
Yana followed him and when she saw Sargan she smiled broadly. She seemed relieved. It was the first they’d seen each other since Sargan had left for Bablim.
“Thank you for coming, Yana,” the king said.
Yana’s pale skin had tanned somewhat, and the scar on her upper lip was clearly visible, but faded when she gave the king a nervous smile. Then her eyes fell on the head on the table. She didn’t react as Sargan had when he’d first seen it – with utter disgust. Rather, her black eyes narrowed and she slowly stepped toward it.
“Our enemy, slain by your khanal in battle,” the king said softly.
A stony look of concentration filled Yana’s face as she stepped closer and reached toward the monstrosity.
Hadanash shifted in his seat and opened his mouth, to protest probably, but their father gestured to him to remain silent, and he slouched back in his chair.
Ever so slowly, Yana’s fingers touched the dead king’s face, both hands held the cheeks and Yana closed her eyes, head up, as though listening.
Sargan had been holding his breath and he forced the air into his lungs. He glanced around the room. Everyone was focused on Yana, waiting with a growing sense of anticipation for what she may reveal.
Finally, her eyes fluttered open and a frown creased her brow.
“What is it?” the king asked. “What did you see?”
Yana glanced at Sargan who gave her a nod, before she returned her gaze to the king. “A new king has already been named.”
Hadanash exhaled a long breath. “This is no surprise. Of course Urul would have named its new king. Puzu will be Urul’s next Amar.”
“Not him,” Yana said.
Hadanash frowned. “But it must be Puzu, he was heir-prince.”
Yana shook her head. “No, it is not him. Another brother, much younger.”
Sargan smirked. Hadanash didn’t know everything after all.
“Much younger?” Hadanash shook his head. “Surely not Rabi.”
“Yes, him,” Yana replied.
“What?” Sargan’s stomach clenched again. “Rabi, king? But what about the other brothers?”
Yana turned to him. “All dead.”
“Dead?” Hadanash was frowning at the floor. “How is that possible?”
“Whatever the reasons, I’m sure Yana speaks the truth,” the king said. “Is there anything else you foresee, Yana?”
Yana raised troubled eyes to the king. “The new king is marshaling his armies and prepares to march here to Azzuri. Your Great War begins.”
Part XXIV
The Great Zraemian Desert
Sommer
Seasonal Migration of the Cassite Tribe
5,846 years ago…
Heduanna
Heduanna woke from yet more dreams in which Zamug returned to them, trekking down a rocky mountain trail. In the dream, an old woman travelled with him, but the woman had a pair of wings for arms. Black wings that shone in the sun.
Seer dreams.
Heduanna threw back her furs, flung a cloak round her shoulders, and left the tent. It was early, maybe a hand before dawn. The sky was tar-black, save for a dull grey line on the eastern horizon. Heduanna turned her back to it and picked her way past the tents to the other side of the encampment where she followed the trail Zamug had taken two nights’ past, up the mountain.
The moon was a quarter full, but it lit her path nicely. The mountain goats here had formed a trail easy enough for humans to follow. It wasn’t long before her breath quickened and her heart raced, and she sat on a boulder to rest, wishing she’d thought to bring her waterskin with her.
The greyness in the east had spread, and a low light now draped over the mountainside bringing out the colours. Dark green from the forest mingled with the shadows of the mountain rock, but the forest thickened further up. Enlil had been right about that.
Heduanna kept walking and the next time she stopped, her breath coming faster than before, it was dawn. She turned, and her eyes widened at the beauty before her. A lazy fog had settled on the mountain and covered their encampment completely. The sun’s rays gave all a rosy hue, magical and wondrous in appearance. She was so taken by the morning’s beauty she didn’t notice at first the voices or the footfalls that broke the stillness.
She shrank behind a tree trunk and listened intently, her breath caught in her throat. The voices grew nearer, from further up the mountain trail. One of them, the unmistakeable warm tone of Zamug.
Heduanna closed her eyes in relief. Yes, they’d been seer dreams, and she had forecast Zamug’s return. A sign her skills were improving at long last.
But who was Zamug’s companion?
Heduanna stepped back onto the trail, and looked up, but something flew straight at her, wiping the smile from her face and making her stumble off the trail and hold her hands above her head.
A blur of blue-black feathers whizzed past and cried a mournful sound. She turned to scan the mountain, but the creature had disappeared amongst the canopy.
“Don’t mind my Rhast, Princess.”
Heduanna spun to find Zamug and the woman from her dream standing on the trail little more than an arm’s length away. The woman was short, with black long hair streaked heavily with silver. When she smiled, deep lines fanned from the corners of her dark eyes.
The woman had spoken desert speech, with a very subtle accent that reminded her of Danael.
“You know me?” Heduanna asked.
The old woman shrugged. “I do now.”
Zamug put a hand on the stranger’s shoulder, and Heduanna’s eyes were drawn to the cloak she wore. It was made entirely of black feathers. “Heduanna,” Zamug said. “This is my oldest friend, and fellow seer, Rayna ilt Corva.”
Barely two hands of time later, Heduanna studied the old woman
as they ate a quick breakfast of curd washed down with cypress tea. Zamug had woken Enlil when they returned, and the bard set to work rousing the sleeping coals in front of his tent.
They sat on their mats around the fire, as Rayna tucked in to her curds while chatting amiably to the bird with black feathers perched on a nearby sapling. A raven, just like the one she’d seen in Phadite’s vision. The one who’d carried her on his back over the mountains and to the peak where Yana had been waiting.
The old woman was like Yana in many ways. Both had dark hair and fine features, and were much shorter then their Drakian brothers and sisters.
“Are you Yana’s grandmother?” Heduanna asked.
Rayna looked at her, surprise in her eye, then nodded at Zamug. “She’s perceptive.”
Zamug grinned.
“I am that, in a way,” Rayna began. “Yana and I are part of a long line of women that go all the way back to the dawn of time itself. There’s branches of that line in all sorts of places from north of Drakia to even your own lands, Princess.” She gave Heduanna one of her intense stares, and her dark eyes made Heduanna dizzy, then she crinkled her brow. “I best not say any more about it now, though.”
“Why? Is it secret?”
“In a way, but you see, Yana doesn’t know her heritage yet. I’d rather tell her the fullness of it before anyone else. I’ll not make that mistake again.”
“You best pack, Princess.” Zamug stood. “As light as possible. Your sleeping mat, waterskin and meal bowl. Anything else leave behind.”
“We’re leaving the tribe?”
“Yes.” The old seer glanced at Rayna. “We three must return to Azzuri.”