by Andy Remic
They broke into laughter, but they caught the chatter at the next round table and faces soon soured.
“Pepper, what have you heard about these new tax increases? Do you think there’s any meat to it?” Rokroth took a hefty gulp of brandy, dribbling just a few drops down his rich gold waistcoat.
“Not from the King himself, but the rumour mill is hard at work. If the gossip is to be believed, we are due another hefty tax hike, not just on imports, which affects us all, but on the bloody sales! And only six months after the previous inflation. It’s said Yoon wishes to extend his bloody Moon Tower by another thirty levels and we, we have to pay for the folly!”
“A disgrace.”
“Ridiculous.”
“A bloody outrage is what it is.”
They chatted about the changes in King Yoon’s tax policies for the next ten minutes, then talk turned to the King himself.
Rokroth lowered his voice, and looked around in an almost conspiratorial manner. “Some say his outfits have become more and more garish, and more and more expensive. He has started wearing thick make-up like the players who walk the Vagandrak stage, and that he giggles at random moments like some child embarrassed about a puddle on the kitchen floor.”
“There have definitely been changes to his character during this past year,” said Pepper, his face growing serious. “Not only does he seem obsessed with the building of this tower, what was it called again? The Tower of the Moon? He has a thousand men working round the clock, which must be costing our Kingdom a pretty penny. But worse, you remember last winter, the army was cut back?”
“By forty thousand men,” said Rokroth, grimly. “Now, we have barely enough to patrol our borders with Zakora and the Plague Lands.”
“Yoon claims they can be called up in an instant, if needed; yet Desekra Fortress is manned by a skeletal force, less than ten thousand, and the navy lies hobbled far north at the Crystal Sea. Why use so many war triremes if there are no experienced crews?”
Great Dale was nodding. “It is a drastic cost-cutting tactic, I’d wager.”
“But why? To build this damn tower? I tell you, the man is obsessed. But it cannot just be for that. Forty thousand men stood down! I swear by all the gods, if King Tarek were alive to see the mess Yoon is making of his realm.” He sighed. “I miss the old bastard. He was a hard man, but fair.”
Rokroth nodded. “And spinning in his ancestral tomb, no doubt, at the effeminate, gold-pissing popinjay into which his son has metamorphosed. Serving girl! More brandy! Over here, girl!”
“I swear, people are getting nervous on the streets. There is less laughter. People walk on, with hurried gait, heads down, not wishing to offend. And have you noticed the King’s Guard?”
“I doubt it, he travels in a gilt-laden carriage!” laughed Great Dale, and they laughed alongside him.
“No man, but seriously,” persisted Pepper. “There are more guards.”
“You’re imagining it, man, surely?”
“I tell you, I am not!” and he slammed down his glass so that brandy slopped over the rim.
There came a sudden disturbance at the entrance to the hall, accompanied by raised voices. There was a shine of armour and a man marched forward, King’s Guard, with a short black plume denoting captain. He strode down the central carpet, and behind followed another twenty men. But what was most disturbing was they all carried swords, unsheathed, and their eyes were hard as steel.
“What is this outrage?” boomed Lord Deltari, huge frame waddling forward to meet the intrusion. “You, sir, what is your name? Identify yourself! You dare enter the Guild House with drawn weapons? I shall see you hang for this, in the name of the King!”
The captain halted and relaxed and his eyes raked the room, finally coming to rest on Lord Deltari, face puffed and red, his blood up after too much port and brandy, his velvet jacket slightly skewed.
The man was tall, powerful and had a commanding stance. Beneath his helm was neat white hair, a neatly trimmed white moustache and a hard face with tracings of pale old scars beneath a dark tan which spoke of many years in the field. “I,” he said, once more scanning the room of wealthy spice barons and lords, “am Captain Dokta; Captain of the King’s Guard.”
A sigh escaped many present. Captain Dokta was infamous for having committed many acts of cruelty the length and breadth of Vagandrak over the last few years; acts which had, supposedly, gone unpunished, and were maybe even sanctioned by the king.
“I… I…” stuttered Deltari.
“I what, you fat buffoon? Well, I’ll tell you I what,” snarled Dokta suddenly, and at this point he gave a quick glance towards Great Dale, who stood up and gave a solemn meaningful nod, “this entire room is under arrest in the name of King Yoon. I have been sent here to serve you notice, gentlemen.”
“Arrested?” managed Deltari, huffing and puffing, spittle on his chin. “But that is preposterous! On what charges? Come on, man, spit it out!”
“On the count of treason,” said Dokta, voice low, words little more than a hot exhalation.
Silence fell across the Guild Hall like ash.
Lord Deltari staggered forward. “Ridiculous!” he bellowed, face frowning, his pompousness and affront returning like a surge. “An absolute mockery to the name of justice! I demand…” and his hand came up, finger poking Sergeant Dokta in the chest, but his sentence got no further.
Dokta’s sword flickered up, removing Lord Deltari’s hand at the wrist. The severed hand slapped on rich rugs, index finger twitching, jewelled fingers sparkling, and blood pumped out as Deltari cried out, staggered back clutching his stump, then fell over unceremoniously. There came a shocked hush, before servants rushed to their master’s aid.
Great Dale moved to stand behind Dokta and his armed men.
Captain Dokta swept the room with narrowed eyes, and slowly the group began to back away. To the rear of the hall, several spice merchants and lords had tried to slip from the Guild Hall unnoticed, only to discover the rearward doors had been barricaded.
“You have all been condemned by King Yoon,” said Dokta, voice clear across the finely tuned acoustics of the Hall. They carried to every guild member. They carried to every frightened man and woman, no matter what their station.
More men appeared behind the King’s Guard, and they each carried wooden flasks, several with barrels, which they rolled silently across thick rugs and carpets. They moved forward and began pouring oil over furniture, carpets, and splashing it up the walls.
Lord Rokroth surged forward this time. “Captain! What, in the name of the Three Gods and the Holy Mother, are you doing?”
“You have all been found guilty of treason. Your sentence is to burn,” said Dokta, as barrels were cast down and smashed with axes. Nostrils twitched. A flaming torch was brought forward; the gathered annual meeting of spice merchants were looking extremely panicked now. Several had drawn decorative sabres, but most were plump and old, and even if they had been swordsmen in their day, wealth and hedonistic excess had stolen any skill they might once have possessed.
The brand was tossed forward, and a whoosh filled the hall as a curtain of flame rose in sudden combustion. Now, every merchant and spice lord rushed for the back of the Guild Hall only to discover, as had their comrades, that they had been trapped. Shouts rang out and several men ran, leaping through the flames which ignited their clothing and perfume and powdered wigs as easily as if they’d been soaked in oil themselves. Lord Rokroth sprinted forward, leaping through the roaring fire and screaming as he did so. He landed, burning, coat on fire and sabre raised, only to be met by Dokta.
“Get back in there and burn,” Dokta snarled, his boot coming up as he front-kicked Lord Rokroth in the chest. Rokroth grunted and was sent sprawling back into the flames where he screamed and screamed and quickly sank, crumpling, into a foetal position.
The tapestries and wood panelling were roaring now, the air hot and filled with smoke and ash. The ancient, six hundred
year-old oak beams had caught like kindling thanks to the oil and, satisfied, the King’s Guard backed from the Guild Hall as a hundred pleading screams, cries for help, and promises of wealth followed them.
Captain Dokta strode down the magnificent steps, breathing deeply on crisp, iced air. He gave a narrow smile which had nothing to do with humour, and sheathed his sword. Several small groups of people had gathered, but Dokta bellowed, “Move on! There’s nothing to see here!” as behind him the screams continued. For a moment Dokta was transported back to the slaughterhouse he had worked in as a youth: the pigs, in narrow channelled rows, being dragged forward one by one on lengths of rope, and the screaming, the pigs screaming, screaming like children as he stood at the head of the tunnel, bloodied knife in one hand, rope in the other and a grim focused determination glittering in his eyes…
“Are you well, sir?”
“Yes, Glader. Secure the perimeter. Make sure nobody gets in. Or more importantly, out. Any resistance from civilians, kill them. We’ll give it twenty minutes, then form a line bringing water from the river. Pass around the word.”
“Yes, sir. And… can I just say something, sir?”
“Of course, Glader.”
The man’s eyes were shining, face almost… euphoric.
“I just wanted to say, it’s fabulous to finally work with you, Captain Dokta.”
THE SEER
General Dalgoran stood on the white marble steps of his sprawling, white-walled villa, back ramrod straight, short grey hair neatly combed in place, his large frame proud and his bearing still that of a military man despite this, the first day of his seventy-first year.
“Cigar, old man?” said General Jagged, stepping out into the crisp cold air beside Dalgoran, and Dalgoran gave a chuckle.
“Less of the old man, you bloody slack old goat. I’m a damn month younger than you!”
“And yet you look so much older,” grinned Jagged, passing over a thick cigar and resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. General Jagged was completely bald, a short, squat, powerful man, brown face heavily creased, like tanned and wrinkled antique leather from years of outdoor soldiering. He wore a short goatee beard, white as the purest snow. Despite his age, he still carried himself well. They both did.
Dalgoran lit the cigar, and thick blue plumes engulfed him for a moment. “Ahh. But that’s good. Bad for my chest, you understand, but on a special occasion like this, I’m sure one won’t kill me. Not yet, anyway.” He gazed off, towards the distant White Lion Mountains, silhouetted and vast and noble in the fast approaching gloom. They towered over the Skell Forest to the northeast and, if one looked carefully, one could make out the distant, high towers in the city of Kantarok.
“How’s your head, Jagged?”
“Nothing wrong with my head. What the bloody hell does that mean?”
“I thought, you know, with the promise of snow in the air, the biting chill… your lack of hair…”
“Pah!”
“That’s a damn cold wind blowing from the White Lions…” Dalgoran shivered theatrically, and enjoyed his cigar. “Could give a bald man like yourself a real nasty cold. I’d be covering yourself up, if I were you. Inside, Alaya can maybe find you a hat?”
“General, if it wasn’t your birthday, I’d break your nose.”
“Again? That would be exciting. But of course, not before I’d knocked out your teeth.”
The two old men laughed, and Dalgoran leant back against a white pillar, gazing across his acres of land. Down by the distant tree line were several cottages, housing woodsmen, the cook and his estate gardeners. His eyes travelled along the tree line bordering the north of his estates, admiring the finely sculpted hedgerows, the vast flowerbeds now a riot of white and blue with winter pansies and various patterned evergreen bushes which Dalgoran had planted himself. This place was idyllic. And yet the cold wind made him shiver and the smile slowly dropped from his face as he thought again about his wife.
“I tell you something,” said Jagged. “The bloody doctors in Drakerath are now saying, and I cannot believe this so-called fact, that smoking a cigar or pipe is bad for your lungs! What a nonsense! It clears me out a treat, I tell you.”
“And of course, you know better than all the medical minds of Vagandrak put together?”
“Of course,” growled General Jagged. “Without me, there’d be no damn medical minds, no damn universities and doctors and scholars. If I, and I concede you had a small part to play here Dalgoran, well if I hadn’t been in charge of organising the King’s armies when that bastard Morkagoth led his forces north… well. You and I both know, we’d be speaking and grunting in fucking mud-orc now. That, or be buried six feet under the ground.”
Dalgoran, who had spluttered on his cigar, gave Jagged a sideways look. “You’re a modest old skunk.”
“I was a good soldier.”
“I recognise the past tense.”
“Just smoke your cigar and look out for the guests. I believe the cake is huge – it has to be, to fit on so many bloody candles.”
They smoked in amiable silence for a while, as the winter sun sank behind the trees and painted the horizon scarlet. Pines turned to black sentinels. The shadows grew longer and eddies of snow eased from bruised heavens.
“You’re a good friend,” said Jagged, at last.
“Mighty fine of you to say so.”
“We’ve been through some shit together, haven’t we?”
Dalgoran grinned. “Remember Desekra Fortress? Charging that squad of mud-orcs, we thought there were a hundred men behind us, and there was just one – that simpleton Jorgrek. We were screaming, spears levelled, the mud-orcs with their wide eyes and slavering jaws, we thought they were staring in terror, but they must have been simply stunned at the stupidity of three men charging thirty.”
“You hit the leader between the eyes with your spear, didn’t you? And the impact popped his head from his body like a pea from a pod?”
“Aye. Made the bastards jump. Made me jump all that yellow jelly shit coming out of his neck.”
Dalgoran stared off across his lands. “I’ll never forget that look on your face when you realised you didn’t have a hundred lances behind you. It was priceless! You don’t get moments better than that. Not in this lifetime.”
“Yes,” growled Jagged, his feathers ruffled. “A bit like the time you came waltzing drunk out of that whorehouse in Lower Vagan and that half-dressed lady-friend came running out after you because you’d forgotten your hat, and she was scratching like a whole family of mice had nested in her panties! Har har!”
“I didn’t realise you were there that night?”
“I wasn’t. Old Sergeant Harkrock told me about it. Laugh? I think I actually pissed myself.”
“I see your incontinence problems persist.”
“Come on, Dalgoran. That was funny. The way she was scratching between her legs... Apparently you went so bloody pale it was said you’d pass out on the spot. You went to the battalion surgeon, still pissed, begging him to see to your groin, but he was busy building a model with his little boy and wouldn’t have anything to do with you. Oh, how we all roared and slapped our thighs.”
Dalgoran burst out laughing suddenly, and slapped Jagged on the back making him drop the stump of his cigar. “Yes. Funny. Good old days. Whatever happened to Harkrock? He was the one with the limp, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah. Broke his ankle in a fall from a horse and it turned bad. They had to amputate below the knee.”
“Ahh. Is he still alive?”
“Dalgoran, he died at the Pass. With most of the others.”
“That’s a shame,” said Dalgoran, finishing his cigar.
“Your guests are beginning to arrive.”
Dalgoran nodded, and they both watched several coaches start the long ascent up the sweeping stone drive, teams of horses straining.
Jagged gave a theatrical look around. “Why the hell did you build your villa up here, General? You had yo
ur pick of the King’s land.”
Dalgoran gave a shrug and ground the stub of his cigar under his gleaming, well-polished boot. “I like watching the horses struggle. Either that, or I have a pathological hatred of… people.”
“People?”
“People in general. No offence meant.”
“None taken, you cunning old bastard. You going to ask me in for a brandy?”
“Ha. Yes. No point reaching seventy if you can’t drink with your friends.”
General Jagged fixed him with a beady eye. “Friend? Whatever made you think that, old boy? Men like us don’t have friends. Just memories, acquaintances and a wish that we’d done things differently during our youths.”
Dalgoran considered this. “And you had to ask why I built my house up here?”
“Just curious, old boy. Just curious.”
Night had fallen, and during the last hour nearly two hundred guests had arrived, old friends, new friends, family and acquaintances. Many were of military bearing; one didn’t spend a lifetime in the army and not have a certain bias with regards to the trade of people one knew.
Fires roared in various wide stone hearths, and a band played discreetly in the corner: piano and strings, narrative songs about the heroes of Vagandrak. General Dalgoran circulated the several large rooms which had been set aside for his birthday celebration, smiling, chatting, kissing the odd proffered hand of a beautiful woman. Servants circulated with trays containing crystal glasses of honeyed wine, sweet meats and delicacies from as far south as Oram and as far north as Zalazar and the fabled Elf Rat Lands.
After a while, General Jagged moved to one of the large roaring fires and in his booming, parade-ground bellow, shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please?” Everybody paused, turning their eyes on Jagged, with his wide grin and a fresh cigar. “As you know, we are here to celebrate the beginning of the seventy-first year of our friend, comrade and military hero, General Dalgoran. You all know him as a caring man, a great father and sadly a widower in these recent months. But I tell you! I knew Farsala like no other, an incredible woman – she had to be, to put up with this stubborn oaf–” there came a sprinkling of laughter, “but I know, if she were here today, she would talk about how proud she was of this fine, strong, charismatic general who is not just a brilliant soldier, a genuine morale builder for those who follow him and an unparalleled tactician, but is above all a superb and much-loved father, grandfather, and of course Farsala would have said husband. I’m not going to say that, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to marry the grumpy old bastard now.” More laughter. “So, without further ado, I ask you to raise your glasses and wish, along with me, a very happy birthday for General Dalgoran. One of Vagandrak’s finest.”