by Duncan Lay
“Refusing to obey an order? What order? What men?” Durzu demanded. Swane’s arrogance was becoming far more than an irritation now.
“We have to secure the churches. They were supposed to go into the churches and remove all the priests and either kill them or add them to the slave warehouses.”
Durzu shook his head in disbelief. “Are you mad? Attack the churches? Why?”
Swane glared at him. “Have you lost your mind? Have you not forgotten who we owe our power to? The churches of Aroaril will forever be our foes. We have to crush them before they realize what we are.”
Durzu imagined Swane slowly dying and it helped him keep his temper. “My men still worship Aroaril,” he said icily. “Three times a day. Ask them to attack churches of Aroaril and of course they will take a step back. Do you want them to turn on us?”
“Well, what do you suggest we do? We cannot leave those churches untouched, to rally opposition against me.”
“Don’t you have men of your own? Use them,” Durzu said disdainfully.
“This is not part of our agreement. I must have control of your men. How else can I rule the country?” Swane insisted.
Durzu was about to dismiss him outright before he remembered he was not quite ready to dispose of Swane.
“Once I am named as my father’s heir, then we shall have more freedom,” he said smoothly. “The very day after, I shall order the regiments that attacked the castle to serve as your own. You can do with them as you wish.”
Swane did not look happy but after a moment he nodded and turned away.
“The churches can do nothing,” Durzu added. “We have ten regiments inside the city and another six outside. Against that, who can do anything? Why don’t you go down to the east gate, where the refugees are coming back, and take their obeisance?”
Swane did not answer him and kept walking. Durzu watched him go sourly and then signaled to his guards, who moved to his side instantly.
“Make sure you have the items I ordered with you at all times. The next time Swane defies me will be his last.”
CHAPTER 78
“I wish to Aroaril I’d listened to Bridgit more,” Fallon said.
“Don’t let her hear that. She’d never let you forget it,” Kemal said, with the ghost of a smile.
“The mistakes I have made. Why did I think I could get rid of Swane with a poisoned quarrel? It was madness!”
“Well, it might have worked. And then you’d only have my brother to deal with.”
“I had to stand there and watch my men die. And now I am waiting for Swane to kill the rest of them and, if I am lucky, finish me off first. I killed Prince Cavan. It was my quarrel that ended his life. I deserve what is coming.”
“Nobody deserves to be sacrificed to Zorva,” Kemal said bitterly.
“I almost welcome the punishment to come.”
“Well, what does Swane deserve, then? What do I deserve? Where does it all stop? I let my hatred consume me. I could have sailed back to Kotterman with your deal and none of this would have happened.” He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “Yet it all goes further back. I stole your families from their homes. Yet King Aidan was the one who pointed me in your direction. He turned to Zorva and unleashed an evil we had not seen for many years, although he was only doing that because we wanted his country. Ultimately, is all of this my father’s fault? Or Aidan’s? There is so much blame going around—no point in taking it all for yourself.”
Fallon grimaced. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Kemal shrugged. “Or just pass the time.”
“I look forward to death,” Fallon whispered. “I look forward to the cowards who deserted me learning that their lives will become eternal misery with Swane as ruler. I want them to wish they had stood by me. I want them to regret they abandoned me. I want them to hear rumors of a secret island, where Gaelish live in peace and happiness, ruled by a wise woman, and I want them to cry bitter tears at the thought of it.”
“That’s not going to do you much good though,” Kemal observed.
“And I hope that Cavan can forgive me, when I meet him again. I hope that dying like this will atone for my sins.”
Kemal shook his head. “I know we both worship Aroaril but the way you Gaelish go on, sometimes it doesn’t seem like it!”
*
“What do you think they’ll do to us?” Brendan asked, looking in vain out of the cell in the hopes of spotting a friendly face. He knew Fallon was further down the line of cells but couldn’t see him.
“Best not to think about it,” Devlin replied, cradling his forearm.
“How’s the arm?”
“Just wonderful,” the farmer snapped. “How do you think? It hurts like a bastard.”
“I’m hungry. Do you think they’ll feed us? I could chew my own arm off.”
“If this one hurts any more, you can chew it off for me,” Devlin told him.
Brendan sighed gustily. “Do you think we’ll be judged for what we’ve done? Will Aroaril look on us as evil?”
“Brendan, we have been fighting Zorva all this time,” Devlin said irritably. “What else does He want from us?”
“I killed a lot of men. And I enjoyed doing it,” the smith said miserably. He turned his hands over, which were still covered in dried blood and worse, although it was slowly flaking away.
“You should have killed more. Like Swane and that Kottermani Prince that was kissing his arse. If we can just take him with us, I’ll be happy.”
Brendan shook his head. “I can’t do it anymore. Even if Swane was here, and I had my hammer, I could not kill him. I have killed my last man.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. You’re talking me to death right now,” Devlin grumbled.
“You should not have stayed. I had lost Nola, there was nothing to keep me. But you had Riona and the kids.”
Devlin shook his head. “We’ve been through too much for me to walk away. I would have been less than a man, not fit to stand beside my family if I had left you.”
“Even though it means your death?”
“Well, I’d be happier to be going home. But at least I can die beside my friends. Not many can say that.”
“I just wish I could see Nola and the girls one last time. Tell them I’m sorry.”
“You’ll see them again,” Devlin said gently. “And they will understand. And that is no joke, my friend.”
*
Fallon knew time had passed, although it was hard to tell in the cells. They couldn’t see the light and the only way to judge time was when the guards were changed. It seemed like an age and yet no time at all. But he felt this time had changed him, given him a chance to look back over his mistakes.
“I wasn’t really suited to rule a country. I thought I knew how, because I could run a village. But they’re not the same thing. Bridgit had more of an idea than me, I see that now. Although it’s a bit late,” Fallon said.
“Don’t waste your time worrying about mistakes you made. It’s not as if you can go back and change them,” Kemal said tiredly.
“But there must be things you would do differently, if you had another chance,” Fallon insisted.
“Of course,” Kemal shrugged. “But wishing for another chance is not going to get us out of this cell, nor change what we did. Besides, my second chance would not have ended well for you.”
“Really? We have sat here for the best part of two days talking and you would still want to go back and have me killed?” Fallon asked, amused. “Maybe I should ask you to kill me as a favor then, and rob Swane of the pleasure.”
“No,” Kemal said. “I could not do that. Actually, if I had a second chance, I would like to start from here. It would be better this way. Now, after what I have experienced, I know what it is like to be a slave and what true evil looks like. I would be a far better Emperor and more besides.”
“Great, now all we need is to get out of here and put you back on the throne,�
� Fallon said lightly.
Kemal nodded slowly. “When they come for us. We’ll pretend to be too tired to get up and we’ll strike then.”
Fallon shrugged. “We have nothing to lose,” he said. “I’ll take the ones to the left, you take the ones to the right.”
Almost as soon as he had finished speaking, a trip of guards appeared at the cell door.
“It is time,” one said in rough Gaelish.
The door was opened and the guards strode in. Fallon let them help him up, then tried to headbutt the nearest guard. Kemal, meanwhile, flung himself at the other two. But Fallon was struck in the stomach, air whooping out of his lungs, while Kemal went down under a flurry of blows.
Fallon was only just aware that his friends were all being dragged out of their cells as well and roped together. He closed his eyes, knowing he would not see them again in this world.
*
Swane inspected the square with pleasure. The city was his again, without a doubt. The returning refugees had been carefully sorted, with several hundred dragged away to join the ranks of slaves. The merchants had produced the money, as he knew they would, and Durzu seemed delighted. The crowd that had been rounded up to witness the day’s events was sullen but there were four regiments of Durzu’s guards around the square and in the castle, with another one patrolling the streets and guarding the warehouses full of slaves. The front rows were made up of Kottermani officers from all the regiments, as well as the prominent citizens of Berry. Right where everyone could keep an eye on them. There was a short ceremony to go through with the Emperor and then the spectacle of Fallon being tortured to death. This, truly, was his day.
“Are you ready?” Durzu asked. “Is my father ready?”
“Of course,” Swane said. “Give him the scroll you want read out and he will tell everyone that you are heir.”
He saw Durzu smile and look towards the Emperor, who stood like a statue, surrounded by his guards. “He does not look well, does he?” Durzu remarked.
“It looks like the strain of campaigning was too much for him. I would not be surprised if he passed away peacefully in the night one day soon,” Swane agreed.
Durzu held out his hand. “You have been a good friend,” he said. “Without you, I would not have got this far.”
“Nor would I,” Swane agreed. “It has been a profitable partnership. We make a good team.”
He saw Durzu’s head nod, but the Kottermani Prince’s eyes were focused on a spot over Swane’s shoulder, while his hand tightened on Swane’s.
Swane had been expecting this. Behind him, he heard a series of thuds, gasps and a long gurgle that ended in a throaty groan but he didn’t need to turn around to see what had happened. He could read it on Durzu’s face. The Kottermani Prince let go of his hand and staggered backwards, his face looking suddenly gray.
Swane glanced over his shoulder and saw Durzu’s guards lying in spreading pools of blood on the cobbles, the weapons they had produced still in their hands. The Emperor’s guards, the surviving pair of them anyway, stood over the bodies. Swane shook his head.
“You retrieved the quarrels that Fallon loosed at me? Now that is underhanded,” he said disapprovingly. “And yet inventive. I could almost admire it.”
Durzu fumbled out a dagger but, while it looked as if he knew how to use it, Swane already knew the hilt was wooden.
“I can see why you were never the Crown Prince,” he said conversationally. “You did not think things through. Did you think I would be happy with just Gaelland? After all the power I have been granted by Zorva? Of course I had to get rid of you and I needed a way to do that. You had to try to kill me but you needed more, far more, than this pitiful attempt at a trap.”
As he spoke, he watched Durzu slowly recover himself and prepare to at least go down fighting. Swane locked the Prince’s legs, making the leather of his boots stick to both the skin of his legs and feet but also to the cobbles. Durzu cried out as he froze in place, and then Swane raised his hand, making the wooden hilt of the dagger copy his every movement. Durzu could do nothing to stop the dagger rising towards his throat.
“Wait! You need me! You cannot rule without me, my people will never accept you!” he cried desperately.
“I will simply issue my orders through your father. And, in a year or two, they will have become so used to me that I can dispose of him,” Swane said with a smile. He paused with his hand just inches from his own throat.
“Wait a moment,” he said, watching hope bloom on Durzu’s face. Then he slashed his hand across the air.
“That looked so funny!” he chuckled as he released Durzu, letting the Prince topple to the ground and thrash for a few moments until he bled out.
“Clean this up,” he ordered the guards. “Get some servants here.”
He walked over to the Emperor and plucked Durzu’s scroll out of the man’s unfeeling hand, replacing it with one of his own. “Read this. It is much more entertaining,” he told the Emperor. “Well, at least to me.”
He walked past a file of servants returning with the guards to clean up the bodies. The Kottermanis would be told that Durzu had attempted to kill the Emperor after finding out he wouldn’t be named as heir and then had cut his own throat from shame when the attempt failed. As long as the Emperor said it, they would swallow anything. With Durzu dead and Kemal soon to follow, there were no voices that could be raised against him.
Dina had pretended all this was difficult. But, to him, it was all too simple.
CHAPTER 79
Fallon did not even bother to resist as the Kottermanis dragged him into a cart and tied him to a stake in the back, in such a way that he could only move his head. It was the same sort of stake that had been used to burn women accused of being witches, before he had caught the Snatchers and ended that terror. Around him, he could see that Kemal and the others were being loaded into more carts. The message was clear. Once he was dead, they would follow.
The carts ambled to the castle gates, where they then waited just behind it. Fallon felt like telling the Kottermanis to get a move on. Waiting to be tortured to death in public seemed to be worse than what was to follow—even though he knew that was impossible.
But it seemed Swane still had other plans. He was giving a speech to the people, his voice magically enhanced so Fallon could not avoid hearing it. First Swane announced that Gaelland was now part of the Kotterman Empire and they would have to submit to the Emperor. A cheer followed this, the sort of cheer that people made when soldiers were pointing weapons at them.
Then someone droned on in Kottermani for what seemed like an age. Fallon could see Kemal out of the corner of his eye and the Prince’s face was beyond fury. Swane finally spoke again and all was explained.
“I thank the Emperor for anointing me as his successor and swear I shall not take this honor lightly. To be responsible for all the peoples of the Empire is a heavy task and one I shall live up to,” Swane announced, his voice magically booming around the castle, and Fallon smiled humorlessly at what that would mean for Kotterman.
“It is a tragedy that so many of the Kottermani nobility were killed in the cowardly attack by the traitor Fallon and his rebellious scum a few days ago in the castle.”
Fallon’s head snapped up at that. What was Swane blithering on about?
“Worse, it is a tragedy that the Emperor’s own son, Prince Durzu, attacked the Emperor and killed himself out of shame when he failed. Truly it is a pity, but I pledge myself to serve the Emperor as I served my own father.” There was a long pause and then another half-hearted cheer.
Whips cracked and the pair of horses pulling the cart jerked into life, pulling it past the castle gate. But the cart did not go straight to the stage where Swane stood. Instead it took a longer route, through the crowd that filled the square and watched from the windows. Even though Fallon refused to look to either side, there were many faces he recognized as the cart rumbled through the crowd. Some he had fought; some had f
ought for him. Most looked away rather than meet his eyes. The square stank of fear.
Around and throughout the crowd stood Kottermani soldiers, men in bright helmets and dark armor, making sure there was no trouble, making sure the crowd knew who had won the war. The square was silent despite the people packed into it. There was still a faint smell of blood etched into the cobbles and nobody wanted to speak and have their own blood stain the ground. The only noise was Swane as he hectored the crowd, telling them this was the fate that awaited anyone who even thought of defying him.
“Look upon this man and pray you do not suffer his end! Anyone who does not obey my every order will suffer even worse. You all stood by and let this traitor kill my father, King Aidan! You are lucky I do not kill every child under the age of five to punish you. As it is, taxes will be doubled for the next five summers and one in twenty will be shipped to Kotterman as slaves.”
A whisper of horror went through the crowd, which faded as Swane shouted again, his voice magically booming over the square.
“Lift one finger in protest and it shall be double taxes for ten summers and one in fifteen sent away! You are animals that must be whipped back into line and I do not care how many have to die to make my point!”
Fallon let Swane’s voice wash over him and fixed his face in an expression of contempt. These fools had let Swane back in and now they were going to pay.
Finally the procession was over and rough hands untied him and dragged him up the makeshift stairs to the stage they had built for his execution. It was taller and wider than the one Brendan had knocked up for Aidan’s death and was hung with bright fabrics.
“Let this be a lesson for all of you! Those who defy the Crown will meet the same fate!” Swane screamed from the side of the stage.
Even though he knew what waited for him, Fallon could not keep the bitter smile from his face. The people had been so terrified that witches haunted their streets and now something far worse would sit on the throne. And they had let it happen.