The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  Teth snuffled at his side. She looked up at the late afternoon sun and blinked back tears. “Curse you,” she whispered. “Even now. You have to torture us even now. To the Maelstrom with you.” Her hands clenched before her as she spoke, then her countenance changed as if struck by a revelation. She stood to her full height, gave a dark chuckle, nodded, wiped her tears, took a deep breath, and looked straight ahead. “Fuck you. I’m not playing anymore. I don’t care about your plan. I’m done. I’m done with everything.”

  Before Dasen could react to the inexplicable rant, she strode from him and approached one of the men walking along the side of a cart. “Excuse me, sir.” The porter did not acknowledge her, but she continued despite the snub. “Which way to the Temple of the Order?”

  “On the hill,” he said and gestured with his thumb.

  Dasen followed the thumb and found the squat stone fortress that seemed to float above the wooden buildings around it.

  “It’s our only option, so that must be where the Order wants us to go,” Teth told him with almost all the certainty of the girl he had known in the forest. “There’s no use fighting it, so we might as well go along.” She snuffled then took a long shaking breath, which seemed to serve as the final dismissal of her misery. She looked at him, wiped her eyes, and even forced a smile.

  Dasen gaped. She looked beyond dreadful, covered in grey dirt that had streaked to black where her tears and snot had tracked. Her hair was a greasy tangle. Her face was sunken and hollow. Her entire body was withered to bones. But through that, there was, at last, a sign of life. Her eyes were sad, but they were not dead. Her posture was weak, but it was no longer defeated. Even her limbs seemed not to hang so loose, her spine seemed not to bow. And the small smile remained despite every reason for it to fail.

  Watching the transformation, Dasen felt his own tensions ease as the emotional burden was lifted, and he realized how much weight he had been carrying. He felt suddenly lighter, despite all the hardships they faced as if they were inconsequential now that he had Teth back. Yet, somewhere, something tugged at his memory. He remembered seeing that smile, that look, and he knew that he should not trust it. His own smile faltered as it began, but Teth was off, literally pulling him across the street by his hand, before he could find the source of his concern.

  #

  The scene at the Temple of Order was worse even than Dasen had imagined. The temple was old and seemed small for the size of the city it served. It was composed of a large rectangular building three stories in height with a short tower on each corner. Clumsy stained glass windows were widely spaced along the heavy block walls. The grey stones streaked with mildew were crumbling in places, crudely patched in others. The roof was sharply pitched and formed of moss-covered terracotta tiles. Dirty, rain pitted valati stood guard around the walls, their countenances and robes set in stone by middling craftsmen.

  Situated on the long secondary hump below the taller, steeper slope that housed the fortress at the city’s center, the two structures were separated by a tiered garden that appeared from its density to be sparsely maintained. Beyond the garden’s ornamental trees, the windowless grey walls of the fortress peeked like a predator preparing the pounce from the grass. The only other structures visible on the hill were a large shed and the ornate manor that housed the valati, counselors, and their attendants. Clinging to the slope of the hill behind the temple, these were closed tight, doors locked and windows shuttered against the rabble outside.

  Rabble like us, Dasen thought to himself. And the rabble was all around. Ragged looking refugees were packed around the temple in such numbers that Dasen could barely see over them to the buildings beyond.

  He looked to Teth. She had not shed a tear since they were robbed, had not moaned or whined or cowered. Her strength seemed to have returned, her spine was straight, shoulders back, head up as if she had simply come out of a dream. Yet the sense remained that it was a mask. The truth was something else, but Dasen could not place it. He knew the look in her eye, had seen it before, and it told him to be wary.

  “Sir, excuse me? What’s happening here?” Teth asked a man in front of them. He was probably only a few years older, but he had his arm around his wife, held his other protectively on the shoulder of his waist-high son, who in turn held a slightly younger girl. His wife rocked to comfort the sleeping babe in her arms.

  The man studied them, eyes roving up and down, disapproval obvious. He was ragged but his face was clean. His hands were long and nimble, fingers soft, nails smooth, stained with ink. He had a softness about him. His wife was plump as were the children. “They open the temple at twilight,” he explained despite his distaste. He crumpled his nose as if just noticing the odor. “They have soup until they run out and places to sleep if you can find one.” He clasped his wife’s shoulder tighter as she sputtered a sob. The children looked at her, eyes wide. “We should’ve been here earlier,” he admitted in a whisper as if forced to justify himself, “but I heard they were looking for bookkeepers to return to Wildern.” He stopped, looked at his wife, then swallowed. “They were but not with their families.” His eyes turned red, and he brought his hand to cover them. “Worst mistake I ever made, leaving,” he said before his voice broke. He grabbed his children and held them close as he fought his despair. The children just stared, seemingly out of tears.

  Dasen wanted to join them. He looked at the crowd and saw that they were organized into a line that snaked to the door of the temple in the distance. There were hundreds of people before them, and it was still an hour until the sun hit the horizon. There was almost no chance that they would get any of the soup, much less a place to sleep. His stomach rumbled despite having been filled a few hours before in the duty office. And now that might be their last meal for a long time. He looked down at Teth, at her sunken cheeks, hollow eyes. She was already reduced to bones. How much longer could she last?

  She caught his eye, found his hand, and squeezed. Dasen was transported to the field outside of Thoren. He saw the creatures closing on them, the soldiers dying behind them, and Teth. She had looked at him in exactly the same way then, had squeezed his hand just like that when she said goodbye, when she had been certain that they would die. His blood ran cold. She’s given up, he realized. She’s accepted that she’s going to die. This is not strength, it’s surrender.

  “Men of these Kingdoms,” a voice rose over the mutters of the crowd and drew Dasen’s attention from the terrible realization, “why are you here? Why do you allow a traitor, a tyrant to steal the bread from the mouths of your children and give it to his murdering horde?”

  The voice broke off. Dasen looked up and saw a big man ten paces away standing on a bench. He wore a sword over his shoulder, held a club in his hand, used it to punctuate his words. The lower half of his face was covered by a grey cloth, but he had the look of a soldier, broad shoulders, thick arms, sturdy legs. An old scab marred the line of his hair healing into a long red scar. Other men with faces hidden pushed in around him. Like their leader, these were big men, rough, with cold eyes. They beat clubs into their hands and eyed the crowd as they cleared a circle.

  “I was in Thoren,” the man on the bench bellowed. “I saw what the invaders do to cities they capture. The traitor said we’d be spared if we fought, but it was only the first of his lies. They burnt Thoren to the ground! They killed every man that stood against them. They have no mercy. They are chaos! They are the Exiles!” He paused to let that sink in, stared at the crowd as if expecting them to rise up and join him at any moment. Grumbles greeted him instead. “I have seen their magic!” he screamed, frustration growing. “I have seen the demons they call to fight for them, have seen them destroy an entire city for no reason other than as a tribute to that demon Hilaal!” Again grumbles and indifference answered his claims. But Dasen was captivated. He was in Thoren. How did he get here?

  “Your food, your coins, your tools, your craftsmen are going to serve the Exiles,” the man continued.
“To serve Chaos!” He screamed the last and glared. “Governor Colmar, the tyrant’s puppet, has told you that this will buy you peace. That is a lie, just as it was in Thoren. The Exiles know no peace. They know only destruction. Sooner or later, you too will be consumed by their chaos. The only hope is to fight, to resist the powers of chaos. How can you claim to love Order if you will not fight the chaos that would destroy it?” The grumbles grew at this. Many people openly waved the man off or yelled insults of their own. It was clear that they had heard it all before.

  “We must fight!” the man started again. “We must rise up. We must not let them take what is ours. We are only making our enemies stronger while we grow weaker.”

  “And the invaders will destroy this city just like they did Thoren,” yelled a man from the crowd. “They took Wildern without losing a man, destroyed half the city. You said it yourself. We can’t fight them.”

  “No, but he can!” the speaker yelled. He pulled out one of the dreaded flyers and held it out to the crowd. “This is no ordinary boy! I saw him outside Thoren.”

  “Not that again,” someone from the crowd yelled. “We’re tired of your fantasies. Let us be.”

  The man on the bench seemed only to feed off the dissent. “It was no fantasy. I was there. I was twenty paces behind him when he turned the demons to dust. I saw him run into the river. I saw him escape, and I followed. He saved me on that field more times than I can count. He can defeat the invaders. And the tyrant knows it. Why else make this poster, why else set the world against his own son? He knows that the boy is the only one who can defeat him. And he knows that he is here! He can save us from these invaders. He can protect us from their armies and their demons. But first we must show him that we will fight. That we are worth saving!”

  Dasen was so shocked by the site of a madman brandishing his face and proclaiming him a messiah that he barely heard the words the man was saying. He could only look on in shock as the lunatic extolled his powers to the world, as he revealed his location, as he called his father a tyrant and claimed that Dasen was there to defeat him. Teth was pulling on his arm. She was saying something about leaving, but he did not hear her. He only heard that man’s twisted words spelling out every fear he had known since that terrible day three weeks gone when he had broken the laws of Order and sworn to never do so again.

  As Dasen stared in disbelief, the man’s eyes passed over him. His face transformed, his eyes grew, and his head shot back. He choked as he tried to get the air needed to yell. His hand rose to point.

  Shouts erupted from the crowd. Men yelled indistinct commands. Women screamed and babies cried. Dasen noticed the disturbance at the same time as the man on the bench. Behind them, a squad of soldiers were forcing their way through the crowd. “Make way!” one of them yelled. “That man is under arrest! Stop him!”

  The man on the bench studied Dasen with longing, but his compatriots were already pulling him from the bench and pushing him through the crowd to make their escape. Only then did Dasen think to lower his face and keep it down until the guards had chased the agitators away.

  He looked at the people around him. They were desperate, faces slack, cheeks stained with tears. They had come to Gorin looking for safety from the invaders and had found closed doors and empty bellies. And Dasen had no reason to expect anything better. He found Teth, remembered the look she had given him. How long could she last out here without food or shelter? He needed a way to protect her, to show her that they still had hope, that they weren’t defeated. But the only hope the Order seemed to offer was that of a madman. He sighed and said a prayer, asking the Order for guidance. It was lost among the thousands of similar pleas being muttered all around him.

  #

  The soup ran out long before Dasen and Teth made it to the doors of the temple. The man before them, his baby crying, wife snapping, and older children despondent, took to begging those who’d been lucky enough to get a bowl. He came away with crusts of bread. The children stuffed them in their mouths with barely a pause to breathe as their father fought his tears. His wife started berating him about a place to sleep, but he could only sag to the ground and hold his children as their jaws worked the only food they’d see that day.

  “We can’t stay here,” Dasen told Teth.

  They did not have choice. The crowd let out a cry. The acolytes were closing the doors to the temple. People clamored to get in, to block the doors from swinging shut. They screamed and begged and cried and threatened. The acolytes apologized, differed, ignored, and pushed. It was a stalemate until the soldiers broke the siege.

  Uniformed men with clubs came from both sides of the temple. A man on a horse began yelling orders, telling the people to load peacefully into the caged wagons that appeared behind the soldiers so that they could be transported to “the camp.” The people ran, scattering like chickens from a butcher, ran from those wagons as if they were the ovens. And the soldiers fell on them with the butcher’s callous disregard. Those who were too close, too slow, or too defeated were dragged away and stuffed into a cart – men, women, children. If they fought, the soldiers’ clubs ensured that it was a short, bloody, and pointless struggle.

  At the edge of the crowd, Dasen had the time to watch the brutality before it came close enough to force him into action. He wondered for a moment if the people in the carts were the lucky ones – at least a cell has a roof. But hadn’t the sergeant at the docks told them to avoid the camp? And those people’s cries, the way they fought, suggested that they knew something more, that the camp was someplace far worse than a prison cell. The carts were nearly full, with others arriving, when Dasen finally jolted into action. He grabbed Teth’s hand and ran down the nearest street – one that, for some reason, very few of the other refugees had chosen for their retreat.

  The wide road led them to what had to be the city’s most prosperous district. The street was paved with cobblestones, gutters ran down the sides to carry away the water and refuse. The buildings were taller, older, built in long rows like three-story walls running along either side of the street. Signs hung above the doorways, advertising luxuries – fine hats, furs, jewelry, wines, and sweets – with bright colors and intricate carvings. Above the shops, the merchants kept their residences, two story structures freshly painted with flower boxes below each glass-paned window. As Dasen watched, brightly painted shutters slammed shut all along the street to cover those windows. Any door that had been open was likewise closed. The sound of bars and bolts sliding into place confirmed that they would find no refuge here.

  Searching for a place to hide, an alcove or alley. Dasen found another patrol of soldiers and another wagon. The soldiers were at the far end of the street, but they were coming. There were a dozen men, all with helmets, light chain armor, and wooden clubs. Behind them, the wagon rolled, pulled by a pair of donkeys. Already a dozen bodies huddled together in that cart, nursing wounds, and mumbling prayers. Down the street, the few clumps of homeless who still lingered along the walkway pounded on doors, begged, ran, hobbled, or cried.

  “Gov’nors set a curfew,” a sergeant at the front of the patrol yelled. “Everyone off the streets after sundown. If you’ve nowhere ta go, we’ll take ya ta the camp.”

  His men spread out, corralling the few who were too infirm to run, but the biggest prize was a family, three generations ranging from middle-aged to new born. They stood outside a furrier in a protective clump. The only man among them was in his middle years with patches of frazzled brown hair marked with gray along the sides of his bald pate. He wore a dark suit that was dirty and worn, but at one time fine. The women behind him had rich clothes as well – silk and satin, embroidery and lace. Their long necks and faces were pale, hands delicate. But not a trace of gold or jewel adorned those necks or hands. The children were plump, clothed in tailored shirts and pants, with good shoes on their feet, but their faces were every bit as despondent, eyes every bit as dead as those of the children outside the temple.

&nbs
p; The patriarch held a mud splattered fur before him in stunned disbelief as the door to the furrier swung closed behind him. He said something to a woman at the front of his family and let the stole fall from his hands. The women cried out, tears turning to screams as the soldiers appeared. Only then did the man seem to see them.

  He looked to the soldiers then to the west where the sun was a distant glow, reflecting off a few puffy clouds. “No!” he cried. He turned to meet the sergeant. “My sons are finding us a place.” He faced the guards, placing himself between them and his retreating family. The women formed a circle around the children and tried to move as one from the soldiers. “They have money. They won’t know where to find us if we leave.” The man held up his hands, showed he meant no harm, then brought them together as if praying. “Please, these are children. Their fathers will be right back. We have to wait here.”

  The sergeant hesitated then looked up at the fortress looming above them. “You heard me. He swallowed hard and made his face stern. “If you’ve nowhere to sleep, you have to go to the camp. That’s my orders. Your sons can find ya there.”

  “No!” the man screamed. “You can’t send us there. The sickness. The children. By the Order, my sons will be back. They’re going to find us a place. I promise. Just give us some time.”

  The sergeant ignored them. He turned his back and let his men herd the family toward the wagon. At the same time, Dasen heard the last of the shutters above slam shut. The man pleaded, reaching toward the sergeant, begging, until a guard planted the end of a club into his gut. The women cried. The children screamed.