The Long War 03 - The Red Prince

by A. J. Smith

  Rham Jas tried to get to him, but his path was now blocked. Ahead, the central chamber beckoned and no guards stood in his way.

  Through bloodied teeth, Dalian spat out the words, ‘Move, you Kirin scum.’ He pressed at the wound in his side, blood flowing out from between his fingers. Nausea enveloped him and he had to use the wall in order to keep moving. ‘Kill her, Rham Jas!’

  The assassin nodded and bounded into the central chamber. Dalian tackled a man and stabbed him in the head, then flailed to his left and killed another. If he could just reach the central chamber, he’d be able to stay alive. If Rham Jas could kill the enchantress, they might yet escape.

  I will fear nothing but Jaa. I will fear nothing but Jaa.

  He gritted his teeth and kept moving. The last man was a lesser wind claw, a traitor to his god and his people. Dalian let his rage consume him and he savagely crushed the man’s skull against the wall. With blood on his hands, his chest and seeping from his mouth, the greatest of the wind claws followed into the wide-open catacombs.

  Rham Jas had advanced quickly and was now in front of the raised platform and the seated enchantress. Wind claws guarded Saara but they stood back, merely blocking the Kirin’s advance. The enchantress herself appeared euphoric and her body swayed in a sensual dance, though she also looked unwashed and had deep shadows under her eyes. To the left stood Elihas of Du Ban, looking impassively past the Kirin to where Dalian was entering the chamber.

  ‘Time to die, bitch,’ spat the assassin, holding his blood-covered katana in both hands and running at the wind claws.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she replied in a girlish chuckle.

  Men of Ro emerged from the passageway behind and took up position blocking the exit. There were dozens of them.

  ‘Do not kill the old man,’ ordered Saara. ‘He is now harmless.’

  ‘Harmless!’ he roared. ‘I am Dalian Thief Taker, the greatest of the wind claws.’

  ‘Then die as a man,’ replied Elihas, lunging forward.

  Dalian parried with both his knives and spun the cleric round, kicking him hard in the groin. His armour bore the blow and he turned quickly, holding his longsword at arm’s length.

  Rham Jas, roaring with anger, was duelling four wind claws and trying to reach the enchantress. They were highly trained and even the unnaturally skilled Kirin was hard-pressed. More treacherous warriors now stood with Saara, guarding her closely. Her laughter rose in volume and echoed around the huge chamber.

  ‘You’re wounded, old man,’ said Elihas. ‘But I will give you the gift of death.’

  Dalian tried to slow his breathing, but he felt cold and his skin crackled with pain. ‘I will fear nothing but Jaa,’ he stated.

  ‘Fear me!’ shouted the cleric, swinging his sword.

  Dalian had to use both blades to parry the heavy blows and each time he deflected the longsword his strength waned a little more. Elihas was strong and his technique was brutal. But I’m quicker than you, he thought, drawing the cleric forwards and overbalancing him. The longsword hit the stone floor and Dalian, fighting against pain and loss of blood, stepped past the blade and stabbed at the man’s face. The cut glanced off Elihas’s cheek and Dalian discarded his other knife, wrapping himself round the cleric’s neck and forcing him to drop his sword.

  As the two men wrestled to the ground, with Dalian’s blade inches from the Ro’s face, Rham Jas could be heard screaming curses at the men who stood before him.

  ‘I will fear... nothing... but... Jaa,’ growled the Thief Taker, using the last of his strength to press down on the hilt of his knife.

  Elihas was on his back, grasping Dalian’s wrists and preventing the kris blade from entering his forehead. Then the Black cleric smiled. From his forearm, a punch-dagger sprung out, piercing Dalian’s hand through the palm. He flew back in sharp pain and surprise, all the strength now fled from his bloodied body.

  ‘Jaa...’

  ‘Dalian, get up,’ screamed Rham Jas. ‘You don’t die before me.’

  Men rushed in and the greatest of the wind claws was surrounded. He was kicked and punched until his vision grew cloudy and he felt the beckoning of the fire halls beyond the world.

  ‘Rham Jas!’ shouted a familiar voice from the side of the chamber.

  The men surrounding Dalian stopped attacking him and roughly pulled him to his feet, holding him in mid-air. Rham Jas stood over five dead wind claws, but now he paused, looking in astonishment at the man who had spoken. Entering the light in the centre of the chamber, Kale Glenwood came forward with a young Kirin girl in front of him. The man of Leith had a euphoric look in his eyes.

  ‘Kale...’ spluttered the Kirin. ‘What...?’

  ‘A glance from one of the Seven Sisters is sufficient, my dear Rham Jas,’ said Saara mockingly.

  Glenwood, staring at the enchantress with hollow eyes, placed his longsword across Keisha’s neck and held her head back. The girl looked confused and scared, but nothing in her demeanour suggested that she knew her father.

  ‘Stop!’ roared Rham Jas.

  ‘Drop your sword,’ demanded Elihas, getting to his feet and clutching his wounded face. He retrieved his longsword and flashed a sneer at the Thief Taker.

  ‘Kill her!’ implored Dalian, blood spewing from his mouth.

  ‘You are a worm of a man,’ said Glenwood. ‘It made me choke to follow you this last week. Now drop your sword or I’ll slit the girl’s throat.’

  Rham Jas Rami, dark-blood and Kirin assassin, started to cry. His eyes turned red with anguish and his legs began to wobble beneath him. He looked at Dalian, and then at Glenwood. A weak smile appeared as he saw his daughter’s face for the first time in more than ten years. Finally, with a deep breath, he dropped his katana.

  ‘You look like your mother,’ he said, as Elihas swung at his neck.

  ‘No!’ roared Dalian as he saw the Kirin’s head severed and his body crumple to the floor. ‘I... Jaa, please...’ His last words were directed skywards. Then he was beaten into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  Saara stepped from her throne. For a moment her mind was quiet, with no background voices calling to her and no phantom thralls causing her pain. All was peaceful, all was serene. She didn’t see the blood, the bodies, the Thief Taker or her minions. She only saw the dark-blood. His body was sprawled on the floor, his head had rolled to a stop near her and his katana had skittered away. Blood dripped from the blade, the head and the body, but they were all motionless.

  He didn’t look dangerous any more. His power had left the world, his will and his strength eclipsed by the might of Shub-Nillurath.

  Then the body moved. It was a violent twitch that sent it into the air before it slumped back to the stone. From the severed neck, splitting the flesh, came a black tentacle. It grew, flailing from the corpse and writhing in the air, spraying out blood and black ichor.

  Elihas, panicked by the monstrosity, hacked at the tentacle, slicing at its base. His face, cut and bloodied, screwed up in revulsion, but he kept striking until the tentacle was severed and the body again lay motionless. Then another tentacle followed it, then another, and another, until a flailing mass grew from the neck.

  ‘Elihas, step back,’ said Saara. ‘No one approach it.’

  There were dozens of men in the catacombs now and all of them backed away, terrified of what was taking form in front of them.

  ‘Kale, take the girl away,’ she commanded.

  The tentacles slowed. Now they vibrated sensually in the air, lifting the corpse from the stone. One tentacle grasped the severed head and pulled it back to the body. The clothes split and the trunk was now black and bark-like, but it was not a Dark Young.

  ‘Everyone leave!’ she shouted. ‘Take the Thief Taker to a cell and make sure he doesn’t die.’

  The chamber cleared of men in seconds. Elihas remained, but even he was showing his fear of the thing that had been Rham Jas Rami.

  ‘Come to me, creature,’ she said,
beckoning it towards her.

  Its body was pulsing and the head was jammed back on to the neck to form a bizarre contortion of man and monster, which rocked slowly forwards. More tentacles had burst from the limbs and it steadied itself, the face twisting into a human scream of unimaginable terror.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, creature,’ she said, smiling. ‘You can join your brothers in service.’

  The thing scuttled across the floor. It stopped before her, facing the twisted statue on the raised platform, its tentacles feeling at the surroundings. They caressed the bloody floor, the statue, and then they reached for Saara. She flinched from the black appendages as the grotesque face snapped at her. In death, Rham Jas’s face was pallid and twisted but the teeth were bared and the unseeing eyes were filled with anger. For an instant, Saara was afraid of the creature, then its tentacles returned to the statue.

  She took a step back and the beast left her, moving into the darkness beyond the raised platform. There, in the catacombs of Weir, the creature that had been Rham Jas Rami joined the growing horde of Dark Young.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Elihas.

  ‘I don’t know. I read about something in Ar Kral Desh Jek... the blood has made aberrations before. It joins the thousand young of Shub-Nillurath.’

  If only I’d known this before I had Zeldantor dissolved, she thought. If she had cut off the boy’s head, she would now have two aberrations. Perhaps she would execute Keisha in the morning.

  Then her headache returned and Saara the Mistress of Pain left the catacombs in search of rest.

  EPILOGUE

  THE BROWN CATHEDRAL of Ro Tiris had many names. To the common populace, who relied on it for food and healing, it was the House of the Kind. To the nobles, men and women who thought it beneath them, it was Old Gerard’s. To the other churchmen, arrogant in their sensed of superiority, it was the Low Cathedral.

  To Cardinal Cerro of Darkwald, it was home. He had lived there through thick and thin, through invasions and wars, peacetime and famine. As long as there were people in need of care, he would stay in Ro Tiris until the One claimed him.

  ‘You can’t just stick your head in the earth and hope the world doesn’t notice you, my lord,’ said Brother Artus, the Blue cleric, recently arrived from Ro Haran.

  Cerro looked at him, absently stroking his grey beard. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was doing that,’ replied the cardinal. ‘Simply because I don’t wish to see an invasion fleet appear over the horizon... that does not make me naive.’

  Artus was in the city in secret. He had prevailed upon Cerro’s goodwill and his friendship with Brother Daganay to keep his presence from the Purple clerics. They were short of allies. Cardinal Severen and Lord Markos of Rayne were both senior to him but unlikely to help Prince Alexander.

  Cerro didn’t like conspiracies. He didn’t like complications, difficulties or surprises. What he liked was peace. Hearing Brother Artus talk of invasion and the Hawks of Ro was not conducive to peace.

  ‘He’s starting a civil war,’ said the cardinal, closing his chamber windows to keep out the nightly chill.

  ‘No, he’s liberating Tor Funweir,’ replied Artus.

  Cerro frowned at him. ‘The one does not necessarily exclude the other.’

  ‘What would you do? If your arm was stronger and you had fewer years behind you?’

  ‘Would I fight, do you mean?’ asked Cerro. ‘And don’t try to turn this into a matter of patriotism.’

  Artus was young, barely twenty, but he had a stern certitude in his manner.

  ‘These are the lands of Ro, my lord, we have a duty to the One,’ said the cleric stubbornly. ‘I am not a warrior, but if I were, I would fight these traitors.’

  ‘These traitors... being?’ prompted Cerro. ‘You mean the guardsmen of Tiris? Men of Ro. Soldiers whose only crime is to obey Lord Archibald.’

  The cardinal sat in his rocking chair and poured them a cup of tea from an old teapot. Despite the tension in their conversation, he was nothing if not hospitable.

  ‘I have honey if you prefer sweet tea.’

  ‘What?’ stuttered Artus, taken aback by the sudden change of topic.

  ‘I could probably rustle up some food if you’re hungry,’ said Cerro. ‘It’s a long way from Ro Haran. I don’t know what the roadside taverns are like, but...’

  The young Blue cleric was open-mouthed. His eyes narrowed and he peered at the cardinal. ‘I’m not hungry, my lord. I’m eager to get things in place for the general’s arrival.’

  ‘Hmm,’ replied Cerro sceptically. ‘The term “arrival” has acres of implied meaning. I think I’d prefer to just drink tea... for now.’

  ‘This city flies a banner not of Ro,’ said Artus, banging his hand on the table.

  ‘Hmm,’ Cerro replied again, crossing to the window and parting the simple, woven curtains.

  He looked out over Ro Tiris. The Brown church was in Stone Town, a small section of the city inhabited by the poor and destitute. Flying over inner walls and the House of Tiris, he could see the new banner. A black design with a twisted tree hung from the Spire of the King.

  Archibald and Cardinal Severen had enacted martial law. The terrified populace, fresh from a rash of public executions, would obey rather than argue. The city guard of watchmen were loyal to whoever occupied the palace and had, so far, proved compliant. With Purple clerics and Karesian warriors implementing Archibald’s whims, the city had been reduced to a mockery of order – a strange, nihilistic new world where it was becoming dangerous to mention the One. Only Lord Markos of the White, newly arrived, spoke out against the new regime, but his knights of the dawn were in Arnon and he had to tread a fine line.

  Cerro, on the other hand, had worked hard at remaining invisible to those to whom status meant everything, and he was sufficiently beloved by the populace that to kill him would cause unnecessary trouble. He kept the soup kitchens open, healed the sick, delivered last rites, and kept his preaching to a minimum. So far, he’d been ignored.

  ‘I don’t like the banner,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure that’s enough. Men die for all sorts of reasons... I think patriotism is the worst. The virtue of the vicious. We’re all the same really, even the Karesians and the Kirin. Our blood is red.’

  ‘I hear the Hounds bleed black,’ replied Artus.

  ‘Do you now? I’m sure some Ranen eat babies as well. Perhaps we can discount random gossip, young man.’

  Artus sipped at his tea. ‘My lord cardinal, we need your help.’

  ‘I know. Attacking a city is not the same as securing a city,’ replied Cerro.

  ‘Liberating,’ corrected Artus. ‘And the population respect you. They will need your wisdom after the battle.’

  ‘The battle,’ mused Cerro. ‘Yes, after the battle.’

  ‘Unless, of course, you can open the gate or kill Lord Archibald,’ quipped the young cleric.

  ‘Hmm... you are aware that the purpose of humour is to make people laugh, or at least smile?’

  He turned back to the window, leaving Artus feeling awkward for a moment.

  What was he going to do? Drink tea until things were back to normal? Sit in his chapel and watch Prince Alexander destroy the sea wall and assault the king’s dock? Two hundred thousand people lived in Ro Tiris. Hardly any of them cared who was in charge, so long as they still had food, money and their loved ones. One overly fed, pampered leader was as bad as another. Would the Red Prince be any different? Cerro wanted to believe so. He followed the One, at least nominally. He was a former knight, a hard, honourable man. He’d pull down that bloody banner and get rid of the Karesian wind claws. But how many men would he kill? How many innocent guardsmen and civilians?

  Cerro puffed out his cheeks and took a sip of tea. It was refreshing and sweet, and the aroma filled his nostrils. Closing his eyes, he imagined a more peaceful time. A time of plenty and sunshine, when the winds were gentle and the tides low.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ he said, his eyes still closed
.

  ‘I knew you would,’ replied Artus. ‘Daganay respects you... he wouldn’t have sent me otherwise.’

  ‘What is Prince Alexander’s plan?’ asked Cerro. ‘And does he need me to do more than care for thousands of dying men after the battle?’

  Artus joined him by the window. The young man was muscular for a Blue cleric, with a wide neck and calloused hands. ‘General Tiris will be here in a week. He’ll have seven thousand warriors on... I don’t know how many ships. They’ll destroy the sea wall. If they were to sail through the channels, they’d be cut to pieces by catapults. Once inside the city… well, the guardsmen would do well to surrender.’

  Seven thousand warriors? Cerro didn’t know that many soldiers were left in Tor Funweir... not outside the control of the Seven Sisters. As for destroying the sea wall, it was inconceivable.

  ‘And afterwards?’ he asked.

  ‘We need you to assemble those still loyal to the One, to Tor Funweir, and to the family of Tiris, for the battles ahead.’

  Cerro shook his head, fighting the urge to fall asleep and only wake again when everything was at peace. ‘Once I’ve ministered to the dead and dying, I will be at Prince Alexander’s disposal.’

  BOOK 2

  THE GREY KNIGHT

  THE TALE OF JAA

  THE FIRE BURNED and the Giant felt stronger. As each lick of flame caressed his scaly hide, Jaa looked upon the world and felt that fire no longer hurt, that cold no longer froze, that rock no longer wounded, that shadow no longer obscured.

  The flames danced and formed shapes. He looked upon the fire and built himself a hall of flame and fear. All lesser beings would fear nothing but him. He had harnessed fire and bent it to his will. He had risen from the world to his hall beyond.