Age of Azmoq: The Valantian Imperium

by Rajamayyoor Sharma

  “Kind sirs,” he said meekly. “Could you tell me when the envoy will arrive? I couldn’t see them during the procession, but thought I could at least see them depart from here.”

  The guard looked at him in revulsion. “Get lost. Lazy bum. Couldn’t be bothered with the procession so you think you can come and disturb us! Haven’t you heard? There was a terrible revolutionary attack at the procession. Multiple elite warriors are dead! Many of the Final 100 are injured. There will be no procession now. The entire Morgenian and Valantian army has been mobilized to find the revolutionaries responsible.”

  Karn was crestfallen, which suited the character he was playing in front of the guard. “Thank you, kind sir. Sorry for the bother,” he said as he retreated. He could sense the guard was already pissed. Karn wasn’t sure what to do next. He then remembered he could read minds now. He cursed himself for not having thought about it earlier. He calmed himself down and entered the guard’s mind.

  “Disturb me… the bloody street thug! First the convoy duty gets cancelled because of the attacks, so my chance to go to the High Seat slips away, then Steven gets picked for the death carriage duty over me and now this! My life sucks!”

  Death carriage. Of course. The dead archers, being the elite that they were, would be cremated in the High Seat. They would have to be transferred there as soon as their bodies were ready for transportation. That was an opportunity the trio could use.

  Karn returned to Elbir and Dev with this news. They seemed less excited by the idea. Dev was particularly disgusted by the thought of having to lie with the dead, decaying bodies, while Elbir was more worried that they were dishonoring the dead.

  Karn said, “Guys, guys, guys. These are Valantian elite. They wouldn’t be shoved into random boxes and left to rot till they reach the High Seat. They will be laid on large slabs of ice in big carriages so that they stay frozen through the journey. The Valantian dead get a better treatment than even the Morgenian royalty.”

  That gave rise to a new issue in Karn’s mind. The bodies wouldn’t mind being frozen, but what about them? How will they not get frozen within the first few minutes of being inside the carriage? “We will deal with that when it comes up,” he thought to himself as they tried to figure out where the dead were being kept.

  He read the minds of many guards as they tried to sneak around to find where the archers were being kept. It took them almost half a day before they could figure it out. The bodies were kept in one of the royal kitchen’s freezers. That was a problem. To reach there, they couldn’t go as civilians. Dev solved that. With a rather simple solution. A floating glove, in the middle of a deserted hall way was bound to attract soldiers. Once the soldiers were in position, knocking them out was easy. They hid the soldiers and took their uniforms. Now in Morgenian soldier uniform, carrying their weapons in a bundle, they sneaked up to the royal kitchen. The kitchen was massive, large enough to feed the entire village of Villasboro at one go.

  It was bustling as usual, so they could move around without being stopped. Soldiers moving around the kitchen was nothing new. They wandered around till they came upon one section that was pretty deserted. There was a freezer in the vicinity for sure as the place was cold. They sneaked up to a door and stopped. They could hear a conversation. It was between a frustrated man, and Haimon, one of the Final 100.

  “Lord Haimon, there is no way to transport them otherwise. I have explored all options.”

  “Do you mean to say that these imperial soldiers, the best of the best, will have to be put on open ice?!” Haimon shouted. “What if the carriage shakes? And the bodies get tossed around. What then? They will arrive as a mangled mess!”

  Somebody else walked in from another entrance on the side of the room.

  “Haimon, I have figured out the solution,” said the voice.

  Elbir recognized the voice. It was Azrial. Elbir’s body involuntarily moved to kill. Karn held Elbir’s arm and shook his head. Elbir somehow resisted the urge to go and kill the man. They were in the middle of the royal kitchen and there were two of the Final 100 who were probably armed.

  “What is the solution, Azrial?”

  “There is a religion here that buries their dead. They use coffins as well. We can use those to transport the bodies to the closest Valantian barracks. There the Valantian coffins will arrive within three to four days of our arrival. Subsequent transportation can be done in the proper manner.”

  “Fantastic Azrial! Let us get these coffins… the best of them of course.”

  “Goes without saying. And I am way ahead of you. Those coffins should be arriving here at any time now.”

  Azrial then seemed to address the other person in the room. “You! Call us when the coffins come in and the bodies are loaded in them. Now make sure that the ice pack surrounds them so that they stay fresh till the barracks. But if any of their bodies get damaged as you packed the ice, your body will be left to rot here.”

  An idea came into Karn’s mind. The three of them hid behind some shelves near the freezer as Azrial and Haimon exited. There was no activity near that kitchen section, given the bodies were inside.

  In a couple of hours, they saw the coffins arrive. The bearers were being looked upon with suspicion and ridicule as they walked through the kitchen. There were eleven coffins. Large enough to hold three bodies if packed tightly. They were perfect. Karn stopped the front man directing the coffins, just as they neared the right freezer.

  “Are you the man in charge?” Karn asked, in a loud confident tone.

  “Yes, sir,” the man said timidly.

  “Leave the coffins here with us. We will inspect each of them before using it for the brave martyrs.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  They left the coffins one by one, near the freezer. No one from the rest of the kitchen cared anymore—the coffins were being transferred to Morgenian troops. Dev made a show of inspecting the coffins, while Elbir and Karn engaged the men in random conversation to prevent them from coming too close to the freezer door.

  “These look fine. You can leave,” Dev said. The men left, too scared to ask for payment for a Valantian task.

  As soon as the men left, the three kept their weapons in one of the coffins, before entering the freezer room.

  “What do you want?” asked the man, who clearly was the one being shouted at by Haimon and Azrial.

  “The coffins are here, sir.”

  “Where are the men who brought them? Why are you guys getting them?” asked the man brusquely.

  “They just handed them over to us at the kitchen entrance and left. We brought them till here. What do you want us to do with them?”

  The man lost it. “What the hell is wrong with everyone?! I am one man! How can I possibly do all this? And if I don’t do it perfectly, I get killed! What do I do?!”

  Karn was at his sympathetic best. “You seem to be under a lot of strain, sir. Can we help in any way? We don’t mind leaving our posts for some time to help you.”

  The man looked at us. “Of course you will help. In fact, you must do it. I thought I would make those who delivered the coffins do it. But they ran away. I am one of the royal physicians here. How can I do manual labor?!”

  Karn bowed. “We will do it, sir. You don’t need to sully your precious hands doing this. In fact, it would be beneath you to even be here. Just instruct us as to what is to be done. We will do it and call you. You can then check everything.”

  The man’s ego seemed adequately satiated. “Good. You know your manners. Now, here’s what you do. You take these coffins, put an even layer of ice chips in each, lay one body in the coffin, then pour some pieces of ice chips over the bodies till they are covered and then close the coffins. Make sure the bodies are not damaged in any way. I’ll check them myself. Knock on my chamber door when done. I stay in R1007.”

  “Sure, sir. Thank you for this opportunity to serve you,” said Karn, as both Dev and Elbir stifled a smile.

  The phy
sician nodded as he left. It was time to get to work.

  Chapter 24: The ride of the macabre carriage

  Karn’s idea comes to fruition…

  I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be stuffing dead bodies into coffins. But it was my idea. And it was the perfect way to escape the walled city without detection. Dev stood guard outside to make sure no one would enter the freezer room. Elbir and I went to work. We packed all the coffins with ice. Then we moved the bodies into eight of them, with three of them containing twice the number of bodies, leaving three coffins empty for us and our weapons. That sounded more ominous to me than it was meant to be.

  We made small, unobservable holes in our coffins (our coffins—again, two words that had a really ominous sound to it) for us to breathe from, to ensure we don’t give them three extra bodies. After we were done packing, we stacked up the coffins into four stacks, with our designated coffins in the middle of the stacks, and the ones with two bodies at the bottom. We then created makeshift covers for our coffins, so that we could cover it with some ice and put it on top of our own coffins.

  Then was the difficult part. We had to get other guards to do the final stacking once we entered our coffins. They also had to ensure the order of stacking as we wanted it. We could have gotten someone from the kitchen to help. But that wasn’t ideal. It had to be someone incentivized to not speak about their involvement.

  There was one place where we could get this help. I went to the physician’s chamber, R1007. Although it was a large house, it took me a while to find this place. He was an important man, but not important enough for an accommodation that was easy to find. As expected, a royal physician had a couple of guards outside his house.

  I approached one of them. Dev and Elbir would probably already be inside their coffins waiting. Literally, not figuratively.

  “Hey you, you there!”

  One of the guards looked at me. “What do you want?”

  “Hey, you know the important task that your master has been assigned? For which, I am sure, members of the Final 100 were here.”

  The guy looked scared. “Yes, yes I do.” The Final 100 scared everyone. And even if this guy hadn’t seen any Final 100 member, a guy with an ego like the physician would have boasted about his recent encounter to everyone.

  “So the task he was assigned—he wants some help. There are coffins in the royal kitchen. They need to be stacked up. Into four columns. Someone did half the job and left. I just got a message from the kitchen to ask for help. But I am on carriage duty. So can you help me out and stack up the coffins?”

  The guard was suspicious. “Why does he need me? We can ask one of the kitchen assistants to help.”

  I had to get this done quick. “Well, obviously he doesn’t trust the kitchen staff. It is fine if you don’t want to. I will head to carriage duty. I am anyway out of here. If your master asks me why it wasn’t done, I’ll tell him that you didn’t want to.”

  He panicked, the blood draining from his face.

  “I never said I wouldn’t. I was just asking for details. I’ll go there right away… But how can I leave my post? The guy gets angry if I leave my post.”

  It was time to be sympathetic. “Hmmmm…. Don’t worry. You do the job and come back here. He wouldn’t know it was you who did it. Then when I am back from carriage duty, I’ll tell him that you helped me. He wouldn’t remember you were on duty today. I promise, I’ll split any reward I get half way.”

  So, his options were to either piss off his master either by not doing the task, or do it and get a potential payoff. Obviously, he agreed. I was, and still am, really smart.

  I hurried back to the kitchen, and just managed to get into my coffin as the other guard came in, also in a hurry. He quickly stacked the remaining coffins over ours and left. Now it was time to wait.

  We waited for about an hour, before we heard footsteps again. I recognized it as the voice of the physician.

  “It is useless to trust these people… I am already late… I….”

  He must have seen the stacks. He opened the closest one, the stack with three coffins. He seemed satisfied, as he hurried and dispatched a message to the Final 100. Soon enough, there were Valantian soldiers, carrying us to our ride out of Welehölla. We were also able to listen to some conversations.

  “Well… at least we are out of here….”

  “Ya… but this might not be the best time….”

  “What are you saying? With revolutionaries killing such an Elite unit, I am sure the barracks will be safer.”

  “Usually yes… but I heard they are mobilizing a two-thousand-member unit for some mission… I don’t want to be a part of any such mission….”

  “Really? A two-thousand-man mission? What is it? It’s too small to relieve the blockade, too large for anything else going on the continent.”

  “Exactly… I really don’t want to find out….”

  That was interesting to know. The Valantian army mobilizing for anything right now was news. It had been almost ten years since any major revolutionary activity. For a moment I thought it could be due to the events in Nuevida, but two thousand was overkill for that. And Valantian army would not dispatch units for a country level problem.

  There were other bits of conversation as well, where Nuevida did come up.

  “Did you hear of the massacre in Nuevida?”

  “No… what happened?”

  “Eighty soldiers chased two criminals out of the village. Only one of the soldiers returned.”

  “No way… Two men killed eighty soldiers! Were they at least captured?”

  “Don’t think so. That one soldier was sent back when there were only 20 soldiers left, so that the news could reach Morgenian state barracks. Get this… one of the two criminals, brought down a tree with one strike! The falling tree was so large, it killed 10 men before they could get out from under it.”

  “No way! Who are these two men?”

  “No idea… I heard they entered the town and challenged the police there. Led them on a chase around town, and then led them out… to their death. They have been named one strike man and six bladed man.”

  Dev would be happy with that nick name. Me, well, I have had better. But I was glad to hear Nuevida was able to come up with a way where we were safe and the town was safe. I was sure that they had chosen the right soldier and had threatened the man with his life and the lives of his family to make sure he lied convincingly.

  There were many more random discussions. But nothing else of interest to us. The ice was slowly melting and dripping onto me. It was getting really cold. We were going to freeze if we didn’t get out fast.

  We finally seemed to be entering the carriage. They loaded me into one, and thankfully I didn’t have another on top. As soon as I heard the door close, I slowly began to open my coffin door.

  Then, as I finally got out, I realized that there was a tiny flaw in my plan. There were only six coffins in this one, and Dev’s coffin wasn’t among them. I quickly moved to open Elbir’s coffin as well.

  “Dev is in a different vehicle. What do we do now?” I asked, unsure of what to do.

  Elbir was pensive as well.

  “We have to stay in the carriage till we reach the barracks. Otherwise Dev will stay stuck in the other carriage. We can only escape once we are inside and together again.”

  He paused. “This is going to be tough. The other option is we can jump now and then hope that Dev would jump out.”

  “I doubt he will jump,” I said.

  I couldn’t take that chance. In case the kid didn’t jump and we did, he would be in trouble. This was almost a classic prisoner’s dilemma,[5] only in reverse.

  If we both jumped at the same time, both of us would be safe. But if we jumped and he didn’t, alone he would be caught for sure. And if he jumped and we didn’t, we might get caught, but he would be free. If neither of us jumped, all three of us might get caught, but there was also a chance that we coul
d work together and improve our odds of escaping.

  “We have to stay put,” I said, “if he is thinking logically, he would conclude that too. The two of us anyway can’t take a chance.”

  Elbir agreed. “But do you think the kid would stay in the coffin?”

  That was a risk. But if I assumed he was smart and logical, which he had become, he would wait in the boxes as well. So we decided to wait till the carriages stopped. The rest of the journey, we were going to ride with the dead.

  As I peered out of the locked windows, I could see we were exiting the city suburbs and reaching the western gate. To make sure we weren’t caught if they checked, I grudgingly returned to my coffin. It wasn’t necessary as the Valantian carriages were passed through the checkpoint easily, barely pausing to show identifications.

  We stepped outside our coffins to peer outside again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other carriage. I saw the group assigned to escort the carriages. My heart stopped. There was no way we could exit. We had a complete platoon travelling with us, with a carriage for the Final 100 also. Surely either one of Haimon or Azrial was travelling with us. Jumping out unnoticed before the barracks was anyway impossible. We had no choice. We had to stay in.

  It didn’t make sense—why would the division be called in when there were “revolutionaries” loose in Welehölla? The Valantian Imperium usually jumped at every chance to crush the revolution, using larger than necessary force.

  Elbir was thinking about something else. “You know, if we get a chance, we should look around the barracks. There are chances that we can get some information about the Yerin assassins you are looking for. Those assassins might have been sent by the Valantian army. They are the primary source of employment for the rogue Yerins in these parts.”

  Something connected. There was only one thing that they cared about more than the revolution. And that was Azmoq. And then I began to piece it together. The troop movement, moving Final 100 members back to the barracks, despite “revolutionaries” in Welehölla, and the fact that Yerin assassins could be in the barracks. But there was something that didn’t add up.