A Gathering of Fools (Vensille Saga Book 1)

by James Evans

  There were corpses in the street and for a moment he remembered his own pain, his own losses and sacrifices. He stopped to inspect the body of a woman clad in unadorned but elegant plate mail but there is no sign of injury. He paused long enough to roll the corpse onto its back with his foot. His guards hold station around him, looking nervously at the surrounding buildings as the man stares sadly down at the corpse. She had been beautiful, once, but the shock of death has made her ugly, the ragged hole in her breastplate an obvious cause of death. He sighed, distressed by the waste, by the sheer number of the dead and injured, by the awful cost of taking the city.

  Then he straightened and turned away from the corpse, wondering briefly if she had lived a full life despite her apparent youth. He continued, moving more quickly as he neared the temple-palace at the centre of the city. Suddenly the avenue opened out into a great square. The man was assailed by the noise of battle, the dreadful clamour of arms and the screams of the dying and injured.

  Across the square his soldiers had pushed all the way to the canal that separated the temple-palace from its city. but here, unable to cross the narrow bridge, the attackers have stopped, sheltering behind makeshift barriers from the darts and missiles flung by defenders on the walls beyond the canal.

  The man walked swiftly across the square, heading directly for the bridge that led to the great gate of the temple-palace, heedless of the missiles falling around him. He focussed more power into his armour and extended his shields as he walked. Arrows glanced off the transparent blue-tinged barriers before even reaching his person and he wove his way through his huddled forces, pushing ever forward, until he stood, alone, at the edge of the canal. Before him lay only the bridge and the mighty gates of the inner complex.

  “Enough,” he said in a voice that carried along the lines of fighting men and over the walls of the complex. He held up his hand and waited, his soldiers waiting with him, until the rain of missiles slows and stops.

  “I have come,” said the man, addressing the defenders on the walls above the gate, “and I would treat with your king. Let him come forth and surrender with honour, let us end the slaughter.”

  From the gatehouse there came a sudden burst of maniacal laughter, out of place amongst the death and carnage, and then a man screamed down at him.

  “Honour? Surrender? This slaughter is yours, Tentalus, and yours alone. Leave. Take your armies and go. That is the only honourable course left to either of us.”

  Tentalus looked up and shook his head sadly.

  “I offered peace once before, Drickma, and I offer it again now. I will not offer a third time.”

  “I rejected your terms before,” said Drickma, King of Aziypolinne, “and I reject them now, utterly.”

  Tentalus sighed again and shook his head.

  “As you wish.”

  Tentalus focussed a trickle of power into the large-calibre shock cannon mounted on the outside of his right arm, activating the weapon and drawing power from the vast reservoirs of iridium and gold worked into his armour. Then in one fluid motion he took half a step forward with his right foot and raised his arm until it pointed directly at the section of wall upon which Drickma stood. He dropped his shields and pushed all his power into the shock cannon, directing three titanic blasts of energy at the gatehouse.

  The noise was colossal noise, a vast rumbling shock of light and heat and horror as the gatehouse was blasted apart by the force of Tentalus’s attack. A great cloud of dust rose above the scene but it didn’t hide the sounds of collapsing masonry and the screams of the injured. As the dust cleared the waiting soldiers saw that the inner defences had been breached, the gatehouse destroyed, the defenders thrown back.

  Tentalus raised his voice again, this time to address his own troops.

  “Bring me Drickma, bring me his generals, his advisors, his wives and concubines, his children, his servants and his horses. I will pay bounty for each one brought to me alive.”

  He gestured at the ruined gate and screamed, “Attack!”

  His soldiers surged forward, charging across the narrow bridge and scrambling over the rubble in their eagerness to obey their Emperor. The defenders, stunned by the ferocity of Tentalus’s assault, overwhelmed by the power of his army, exhausted after months of battle and weeks of siege and shattered by the loss of their king, finally surrender. As Tentalus’s soldiers swarmed across the broken walls and rampaged through the temple-palace, the defenders threw down their weapons and begged for mercy.

  But even the promise of wealth and an Emperor’s gratitude couldn’t douse the bloodlust. Hundreds died as the soldiers swept through the temple-palace, raping and stealing and venting their anger and fear and frustration. Tentalus waited under a shade erected by his staff in the centre of the square. Still clad in full plate mail, he sat in his campaign chair and sipped wine from a tall glass goblet.

  Eventually the hostages began to emerge from the temple-palace, smeared in dirt and blood, clothes torn and damaged, faces shocked and pale. One by one they filed past Tentalus, their names and positions noted by the clerks who dispensed the Emperor’s promised reward to the captors.

  Some of the captives were released, some were taken to help with the re-building of the city, some were sent to the baggage train as hostages, some were taken for interrogation. The nobles were the most interesting of the bunch. Tentalus killed one himself, the Lord Chancellor, Drickma’s long-standing and most powerful minister. His body was left on the cobbles of the square, face up for all to see. The rest of the captors filed slowly past the corpse, their faces showing shock as the scale of their defeat became apparent.

  With the palace under his control, Tentalus moved quickly to secure the city and the realm. He appointed a regent chosen from the local nobility to rule in his absence and a governor from amongst his own staff to represent his interests. Teams of engineers and masons were tasked with the rapid re-building of the city’s walls and public buildings. His quartermasters brought in food and supplies for the local population while his second army secured his rule across the wider kingdom.

  Drickma’s body, still robed in the finery that befitted a king of Aziypolinne, wasn’t found until most of the rubble had been cleared from the site of the new gatehouse.

  An Imperial infantry regiment was garrisoned within the city in the barracks of the former household guard and tasked with the defence of the city and the creation of a new Imperial army for the defence of the extended realm.

  A week passed in relative calm. The markets reopened, refugees from the outlying towns and villages returned home, merchants and traders resumed travelling to and from the city. Life began to return to normal.

  In the palace, Tentalus debated his next move with his generals and wondered, not for the first time, if a period of consolidation and peace might not be a good idea. The debate flowed back and forth, as it had done a hundred times before, but on this day it was interrupted by the arrival of a messenger. The man, dirty and tired from long travel, was shown into the map room by bodyguards who lurked close behind him, watching with wary eyes, their hands on the hilts of their swords.

  The messenger knelt before his Emperor and apologised profusely for the delay in the delivery of his message. Tentalus, calm today and in good spirits after his victory, gestured to the messenger to deliver his charge while around them the generals continue to discuss their options.

  “Your Majesty, I come from Esterengel with a message from the Governor,” he held out the message tube, relieved finally to be getting rid of it, “she said this was to be given only to you, sire.”

  Tentalus hesitated, then took the tube. It’s locked but he knew its secret and in moments he had disarmed the trap and retrieved the message. His mood changed as he read it, his face darkening, his lips drawing back from his teeth. The messenger shuffled nervously backward, still on his knees, before standing awkwardly and slipping quietly between the bodyguards to escape.

  Tentalus hissed, reading the me
ssage again and again.

  The ship transporting Abaythian Marrinek to Ankeron West foundered in a heavy storm. His was not amongst the bodies recovered. We believe he has escaped west to the town of Catshed in the Dukedom of Vensille. His location is unknown but we suspect he is heading for Vensille.

  The note was signed by Lady Camille, Governor of the western province and Tentalus’s close friend, a woman whose judgement he both trusted and valued. Tentalus walked back to the map table and slammed his hand down, ending the discussion of his generals immediately. He spoke quietly but his anger was palpable.

  “The Traitor has escaped,” he began, and everyone around the table, generals and staff, knew who the Traitor was, “and is in Vensille.”

  There was shock around the map table and a degree of uncertainty. The silence lasted a few seconds until Tentalus spoke again.

  “Larigan, Zarren; we head west tomorrow. Hendool, you will secure our new possessions in the east, put down any further resistance and establish Imperial law. Questions?”

  There was a little awkward shuffling from around the table. This was a big change from their previous discussions and seemed, even to Tantalus’s long-standing servants, to be an over-reaction. None dared voice that opinion, though. Hendool, cleared his throat.

  “Vensille is a major city, sire, heavily fortified. Do you mean to take it and turn our attention west instead of east?”

  Tentalus looked at him and leant forward over the map, fists planted on the table.

  “The Traitor must die,” he said, too loudly for the crowded room, “and if he’s in Vensille they’ll either surrender him or burn.” He was shouting now, unaware and uncaring.

  “We march tomorrow. I want the Traitor dead.”

  And he tossed the empty message cylinder onto the table and stormed from the room.

  To be continued in…

  A Gathering of Princes

  Hi there,

  Thanks for reading ‘A Gathering of Fools’. I hope you enjoyed it and that, if you get a moment, you’ll leave a review.

  The next book in the Vensille Saga, ‘A Gathering of Princes’, will be published in 2018.

  For more information, to get in touch or to get a taster of upcoming books, please visit my website: http://jamesevansbooks.co.uk

  Cheers,

  James.