“No,” Cor said, and he pushed Marya off of him, sending her across the tiny room. “You’re lying to me. I need you as a Dahken. I need your loyalty as a warrior, but this I don’t need from you. Go get some sleep.”
The cell’s door swung open inward, and he saw just a flash of her nude, nubile body right before the door slammed shut behind her. He thought that he heard its echo carry throughout the temple for several minutes. Cor sighed, feeling empty and frustrated at once. He abandoned his corner and lay down, stretching out across the straw mat. It was going to be a long night.
* * *
Marya trudged her way through Byrverus’ sewers once more, hopefully the last time she would ever be in such a place. She would exit one of the outflow tunnels further upriver from the one they entered and steal away under the cover of night. She didn’t want any of them to know she had gone until she was well away. She didn’t know where she was going, but she would know when she got there.
Getting out of the temple had been somewhat tricky. She collected her things and stalked the sleeping halls for a while before making the decision to leave. She found her way back to the lower levels and the grate that served as a drain into the sewers. Two of Rederick’s soldiers guarded it, leaning half asleep against a stack of nearby barrels. They paid her no mind at first, at least until she tried to pry up the grate.
“Wait! What!” they shouted as they jerked awake. “Where do you think yer going?”
“Into the sewers,” she replied calmly.
“No yer not! No one does. Stric’ orders.”
“I am under orders from Lord Dahken Cor to get back to the rest of his men,” she lied. “They need to know that we’re coming for them soon. They need to be ready.”
The lie slowed their exhaustion addled minds for a minute, and they looked to each other for someone to make a decision. That way, they could point fingers at one another should things turn out badly, but her explanation seemed reasonable enough. Then, one thought better of it.
“Better go an’ wake the cap’n,” one said.
“An’ the Lord Dak’n,” agreed the other.
She knew a decision when she heard one, so it was time to change tactics. She could kill them both, quickly, but that would raise an alarm. A hundred soldiers would be on her before she could pry up the grate to make her escape.
“Look, I just want to leave,” she pleaded, removing her helm to give them the best view possible of her hazel eyes and auburn hair. “I’m no coward, but I don’t want this war. It was never mine to begin with.”
In the end, Marya had to fuck them both twice to make her escape. It was empowering to know that her sword and dagger were not the only weapons she had against men. Sometimes, it was easier to use one over the other.
Marya was a Dahken, and she knew that made her better than any Westerner or Loszian. She couldn’t believe that neither Cor nor Keth saw it. She would find her own path, become a warrior queen or Lord Dahken by her own hand. May the gods take the rest of them.
26.
It had not been a restful night for Rederick either. He’d prayed in the temple commons for several hours after his meeting with the Dahken, in the vain hopes that Garod would shed some light on the matter. Returning to his cell, he found Mora there, as she had been every night since the first they were trapped within the temple. He thought that she had resigned herself to death and endeavored to spend every night in his arms, apparently something for which she had longed since she first met him. Tonight was different though – her lovemaking seemed to be full of some new emotion that hadn’t been present in the last few weeks. When he looked in her eyes, he saw hope.
“My Lord, did Garod answer you?” she asked afterward, as they lay together. She was on her side, pressed up against the length of his massive body, and she rested her head against his chest. It took him a long moment to answer, and by the slow rise and fall of his chest, she thought he might actually have been asleep.
“I’m afraid that I heard nothing, felt nothing,” he replied quietly.
“Do you trust the Dahken?”
“Cor is wise beyond his years. He’s right in that I have no choice.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” Mora replied, and she shifted slightly to move her arm into a more comfortable position.
Again Rederick took some time to answer; it just was not that simple. “He is no liar, I am sure. I think him to be a man of honor.”
“He admitted to murdering Queen Erella. How can he be a man of honor if he slew the queen he promised fealty to?” she asked, elbowing herself up slightly to see into his eyes.
“He did not deny the act.” Rederick offered no more on the matter, and Mora left him to his thoughts. She dozed contentedly in his arms.
However, he did not sleep. He knew the decision he must make in the morning, and the path upon which it would take him. Yet, her questions brought back to the forefront of his mind all the doubts that he himself had. How could he trust the Dahken? Cor himself had slain dozens of Westerners for apparently little reason except that they got in his way. The man was chaotic and uncontrollable, and that was what made him so dangerous. Though in the end, he was no liar, and that suggested that he had some code of honor, bizarre though it may be. Rederick was sure the Lord Dahken had no love for the Loszians.
These thoughts kept the Paladin awake through most of the night, and his head throbbed painfully when he was awakened in the early morning hours. The guard seemed loath to wake the giant warrior priest, but Rederick’s command had been specific. He was to be roused when the sky began to grow purple at the lowest point from the rising sun. It would give him perhaps an hour before full dawn to break his fast and beseech Garod for guidance one last time. The guard silently helped him strap on and buckle the heavy plate armor, and Rederick shrugged on a tattered priest’s robe over top of it.
“Allow my Paladin to sleep into the morning,” he said, exiting the cell. “She will need her rest for the day ahead. We all will.”
His meal and his prayers frustrated him, for he was not hungry, and Garod did not answer him. Rederick found himself pacing the floor of the Auditorium for the better part of an hour before guards led Lord Dahken Cor to him. Rederick hadn’t really sized up the Dahken the previous day, and he now somehow wondered if he could follow through on the promise to have killed the man. Rederick was huge, but Cor was no less formidable, forebodingly resplendent in black armor and a helm with no visor. The Dahken looked like a great insect, walking upright like a man with a wicked single edged longsword for a stinger.
Interesting. He had told Cor that his oath was a double edged sword, yet Lord Dahken Cor Pelson carried a single edged sword,
Rederick ceased his pacing and nodded respectfully. “Your lieutenant is welcome here with us, Lord Dahken Cor.”
“No. She has gone.”
“Where? How?” Rederick asked, shocked as much by how she had disappeared as the sudden disappearance itself.
“I can’t say, Lord Rederick,” Cor replied, “except to say that sometimes we Dahken simply have a need to go elsewhere, and sometimes we cannot deny that need. Perhaps one day my path will cross Dahken Marya’s again.”
“A grave tiding, as I’m sure we could have used her sword.”
“Then, we are together in this,” Cor concluded.
“As you noted, I have little choice, but do I have my reservations,” Rederick said. He lowered his massive frame onto one of the marble benches and crossed one armored leg over the other rather cordially. “Let’s drop all pretenses, shall we? I don’t know how far I trust you. Your race has a history of declaring itself superior and committing acts of apathy, if not evil, while the world burns around it.”
“And your race has a history of changing history to suit its own needs,” Cor interjected, turning Rederick’s face grave.
“Perhaps,” the priest whispered, then raising his voice, “however, I do believe that we have the same enemy this time. You say you want
to free us of the Loszians, send them back to their side of the Spine, and I believe you. But what then?”
“There are thousands upon thousands of Westerners who live in the Loszian Empire in slavery. I’ve seen it,” Cor replied. “I would free them from that life. I would see to it that the evil of the Loszian Empire is extinguished forever.”
“Interesting, and how –”
Rederick could not finish his thought as Cor interjected, “I would also see the oppression end in the Shining West.”
“What oppression?” Rederick asked, a hard edge to his voice.
“The Shining West suppressed freedom in its own way since The Cleansing. Dahk is no less true a god than Garod, and in fact, the two are brothers of a sort,” Cor paused as the blasphemy registered in Rederick’s eyes. He continued, “That is exactly that reaction that must end. All of the true gods must be recognized from now on.”
“And what of the Loszian gods?” Rederick asked slowly, turning his head slightly as a bird might.
“The Loszian gods were never meant to be here in Rumedia,” Cor replied. “I don’t know much, except that they are the enemies of our gods - yours and mine, the gods of Dulkur, Tigol, everywhere in Rumedia.”
“How do you know this?” Rederick warily asked.
“Dahk has told me of it.”
Something different, a sort of sadness perhaps, took hold of the paladin’s face, and he leaned heavily back against the marble tier behind him. He almost seemed to deflate, no longer the giant that he had been seconds before. “I envy you, Lord Dahken Cor, for Garod has never sought to speak with me. To know your god in such a way must be… ecstatically enlightening.”
“Or frustrating,” Cor mused. “At times, I think He left me with more questions than answers. Regardless, the Loszians must be pushed from Aquis. I am here to help, but Aquis must change.”
At this, Rederick pushed himself forward. “Change how?”
“To start, I’d expect an end to any vilification of the other gods, excluding the Loszians of course. Again, Dahk is no less true than Garod, and he is no more evil than Garod is good,” Cor said, knowing that he tread on dangerous ground. Rederick merely nodded as he spoke, but the man’s face had grown hard as stone. “Also, there must be an end to the theocracy, the governing power of the priests.”
“Impossible!” Rederick shouted. The giant returned as he rose to his feet. “The priests have protected the people of Aquis for almost a thousand years! We educate them! We protect them from evils, within and out, and our ruler is chosen from the best of us.”
“You protect them so well that we are here, trapped within Garod’s greatest temple,” Cor motioned about the auditorium, and he knew he had struck between the plates of Rederick’s armor. The warrior priest clenched his hands into fists, and his knuckles turned white. Cor sighed, stepped back once and bowed. “Forgive me Lord Rederick. This is not the time to argue over politics, religion and governing bodies. We need to recover this city and quickly, for I am running out of time.”
Accepting his momentary victory, Rederick relaxed slightly. “How so?”
“I spoke of a thousand that wait outside the outflow tunnels. If I don’t return to them within three days of having left, they will disperse under the belief that I have failed,” Cor explained. “I will not lose my people, my lover or my son.”
“Then,” Rederick said as he stepped down and headed for the door, “we have little time. Follow me.”
They strode out of the marble auditorium, down halls and corridors and past any number of Westerners, both soldiers and commoners who simply stared after them. Rederick’s stride was huge, and Cor very nearly had to run to keep up with the man. They reached the bottom of a stair just as Mora had reached it, also armored, and she wordlessly fell in behind them as they climbed flight after flight. Cor guessed that they had climbed a hundred steps at least when Rederick finally left the staircase, which still continued up, and again stalked through corridors. Finally, he stopped at a tall and narrow window over which a board had been nailed.
“You know the plaza that connects the temple to the palace? Good, beyond you will see it.”
With one great motion, Rederick ripped the wide plank off of the slit of a window, allowing bright yellow morning light to spill within. As he stepped back, Cor looked down from a dizzying height, and he placed his hands on the walls to either side to steady himself. Immediately below were thousands of Nadav’s dead, facing the temple’s main doors, and they just stood, completely motionless as they decayed in the cool, late autumn sun. After a moment, the stench made its way inside his helm, and it made his gorge rise slightly even after trudging through the miles of tunnel underneath the city. As he glanced around, Cor could see that some of the nearby buildings, while still standing, had been burned out from the inside. He leaned forward a bit to see the palace, and four black armored guards stood outside the entrance to its main hall.
He heard a twang, and Cor stepped back out of sight just as a crossbow bolt shot through the open window to clink harmlessly against the opposite wall.
“I am sorry, I should have warned you,” Rederick said, genuinely apologetic. “There is a few crossbowmen scattered down there, and we’re still within crossbow range, even up here. There are a few other exits, and they are covered just like this one.
“If we do nothing, they do nothing,” he said with a motion at the mass below, “but if we open the doors, even for a just a moment, they charge us.”
“Fortunately,” Mora chimed in from behind them, “those things are not exactly fast on their feet.”
“True, but even with your three thousand, I don’t know that we can take them. The doors create a choke point that will make it almost impossible for us to go on the offensive. So Lord Dahken Cor, what is your plan?” Rederick asked, his distaste at the answer he knew was coming plain on his face.
“If there are any necromancers still in the city, they’ll be in the palace along with the few living troops. We slay them, and the dead will be easy fare. We’ll come from behind.”
“I can only assume you know a way into the palace from the sewers?” Rederick asked uneasily.
“I do,” Cor said as he turned to face the paladins. “It’s the way I escaped almost six months ago.”
* * *
Finding their way through the tunnels into the palace’s dungeons was a rather easy affair. The general direction of the palace in relation to the temple had them follow the large tunnel upstream. There were few branches from the large tunnel, all of which they ignored, and within twenty minutes, Cor stood before the bars Thyss had melted in their flight from the palace. The iron bars had never been replaced, a fact upon which Cor counted, and he breathed a deep sigh of relief when he saw the gap. Cor assumed that the Westerners had never expected an attack from their own sewers, and the Loszians may not even know of the existence of the entrance.
Cor and a few soldiers slowly reconnoitered the lower level, which was pitch black except for the torches that had brought, while Rederick oversaw the host as it filed out of the tunnel. The dungeon was vacant of any Loszians, guards or otherwise, and in fact had but one inhabitant. A barred and locked cell, not far from the sewer tunnel’s entrance, contained a lone figure that Cor had not seen at first. A revolted cry of surprise had brought him running to see a skeleton, its bones held together by Nadav’s magic, as it threw itself at the bars and clawed the air. One vertical swipe of Soulmourn sent the old bones clattering to the floor in a disheveled heap.
Clinking of armor and steel weapons and the stomping of booted feet echoed through the stone and iron dungeon louder than Cor would have liked, but it couldn’t be helped. As they filled in the wide space between the rows of cells that lined the walls, the fighting men organized themselves back into coherent units behind their individual sergeants. They moved quickly, with anxious purpose, as they knew that they would soon strike the first blow to freeing Byrverus, maybe even all of Aquis.
Cor pulled Rederick aside as the last few hundred soldiers spilled out of the tunnel. “I’m going up the stairs into the upper level to look around. I’ll return shortly.”
“You should take some of the men with you.”
“No,” Cor disagreed, and he could feel Rederick’s scrutiny from under the man’s great basinet. “Still don’t trust me, do you? Lord Rederick, I’ll be able to move faster and quieter by myself. I’ll return at the first sign of anything or anyone.”
“Very well. I will send Mora with a few dozen men to sweep the lower levels. I expect no Loszians, but the dead may wander down there. And I would rather not leave them behind us.”
“Wise,” Cor agreed with a nod. “I’ll be back.”
“Be careful, Lord Dahken,” Cor heard the big man call as he strode for the stairs leading upward into the dungeon’s first level.
He heard nothing from above as he climbed the stone steps. Only the stirrings of the assembling host below disrupted the quiet. He took no torch, seeing only by the reach of the light from the flickering torches below, light that grew weaker the further he went. When he emerged from the staircase, only a soft glow emerged with him. Cor heard he sounds of raucous laughter and bawdy words from up ahead, echoing throughout the cell block, but no light that he could see accompanied it. He cautiously moved forward, following the sounds as he endeavored to move in a straight line. A sudden clang from his armor striking iron bars would doubtless bring someone running to investigate, and Cor wanted to keep his existence a secret as long as possible. As he drew closer, he began to make out the flickering orange light of torches and another sound, something far more subtle under the male voices – the whimpering of a girl.
His temper flared, but he forced himself to calm. He needed to be closer; he needed to see how many he faced. He edged forward until shapes began to form and become coherent, and he saw four men, one of whom had a young girl pinned to the gaolers’ table. They all showed traits of mixed Loszian blood, and they all wore armor of sorts. At least, they all wore armor on their torsos and arms, as their lower halves were completely exposed for their sport. In the dim light, it seemed to Cor that the girl they raped was younger than Marya.
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