by Ben Stivers
Joanie glanced at Octavus who shrugged. “You know what he wants?”
Perplexity infested Leet at first and then he replied, “Have you not seen? He murdered your grandfather and grandmother. I assume his only aim is to uproot your family’s tree. Look at the center of the detonation. Jae stood upon your grandfather’s stone when he died. The target was Lieala. Thus, you must flee.”
“I will fight.”
“No,” he replied, sternly. “I am the eldest druid descended from the Council. The three who are missing were poisoned on their way to the Council gathering. You will do as I say and I say that you leave.”
When the names were posted from the lottery, conducted in private in the confines of the Governor’s offices, Lomast found his name and those of his family on the list.
“There must be some mistake,” he said to Mur. “I am an official.”
Mur, however, had no answers for him other than Lomast and his family had best report to duty and do so quickly. Bewildered, Lomast quickly gathered his wife and two daughters and scurried them away toward the mostly abandoned western gate. They would not partake of the governor’s latest madness.
His oldest daughter was seven years old and his youngest daughter had turned five the month before. His wife had always been fragile and had nearly died in childbirth. Sending them into labor meant a death sentence.
The western gate had collapsed during the last war and there had never been guards there. Wagons could not come and go, but there was plenty of room for a person to pass, and Lomast and his family took nothing but the few personal articles they could carry. When they arrived at the gate, however, half a dozen of Raliax’s men waited.
“Master Lomax, off for an errand and with the family I see?” the lead guard asked with a broad smile.
“Lomast—my name is Lomast. I—yes—in fact, a quite urgent errand. Do I know you?”
The man nodded and stepped back as if he were going to allow Lomast and his family to pass, but behind him another guard held documents in his hand. “It says here that you are supposed to be at the south gate for the next three months to remove rock and rubble. All of you. Beyond that, or when the work is completed, Nerva left a directive that you work in the lower sewers for the remainder of your time. After that, all of you are at liberty to run your—errand.”
Lomast felt the noose tighten. The guards were heavily armed. They wore metal and leather armor, but the gate was only a few sprinted steps away.
“I am sorry,” he said to the guard as a way of apology. “I have not been informed.”
The guard gazed at him impassively.
“My daughters—such duty—you can surely see that they are not fit for such a task. Lengthen my own task if you will, but please, do not sentence them to death. Even one such as you cannot fault my logic.”
“I have my orders,” the guard stiffly replied. “All must report today or tomorrow you will be punished.”
Defeated, Lomast replied, “I see.”
He turned to his daughters and hugged them each. After that, he hugged his wife and said, “We are all going on a journey.”
His youngest daughter’s eyes went wide with expectation, but her smile faltered as her father leaned in close. “When I tell you, I want you to run. Run through that gate. Do not point. The men will yell. Pay them no mind. They are just noisy. Run and don’t stop, no matter what you hear.”
Tears welling up in his wife’s eyes told him she knew his meaning. He kissed her on the forehead one last time and then yelled, “Run!”
He spun and crashed into the surprised guard. The two men crashed to the ground. Lomast wrestled the guard for the dagger on the guard’s belt. The contubernium forsook the women and tried to drag Lomast off, but Lomast’s love for his womenfolk persisted and he managed to catch the guard with a wild punch. In a mound, the men piled on, and within that heap, he remembered the bright day when he and his wife married. He wished for the world that he had let Griere have his way.
“What the hell is going on here?” came a coarse shout full of threatening inquiry. The guards who piled on Lomast struggled to stand up and look presentable.
Ham inspected each of them with an angry eye while behind him, his contubernium of men stood at attention, glad they were not a part of whatever these men had been caught doing.
“What have we here, a bunch of camel humpers?” Ham asked.
“No sir,” the lead guard replied. “Raliax ordered us here to guard the gate. We have papers.”
“Guard the gate? That’s not what it looked like to me.” He looked past them to a man who lay in the rubble. “Who is that?”
“Citizen Lomax. He tried to escape the city with his wife and daughters. We stopped him.”
Ham, concerned, stepped past the frozen contubernium of men to examine Lomast. “You have papers for one man?”
“We do.”
“Well, something new every day. Still, his name is Lomast. He is a bureaucrat, a supply officer for the army, you idiot! You have killed him.”
The guard tried to explain what happened, but Ham had no interest in that. Lomast was dead. He could not repair that.”
“You said his wife and children were with him?”
“They escaped through the gate. We were about to pursue.”
Ham found the crack that he needed to insert his wedge. “So, it took all of you to hold down a dead man while his family escaped? Maybe my first assessment was more accurate than I thought.”
“It wasn’t like that,” the guard faltered. Ham knew the soldier’s predicament, so he played to it.
“I—I don’t even know what to say. You have served the city well, but Nerva specifically said no one was to be killed. Now this. All of you will probably swing from the city wall. I am sorry for you and your children.”
This time about half the men tried to plead their case and tell their story, but their leader shut them up with a slap across one man’s face.
Before he could speak, Ham inserted, “We must cover this up.”
The nervous contubernium surrendered their attention. Cover-ups were penalized by death in Overlord City, but they thought they already had a death sentence hanging around their necks like a millstone. What worse could happen?
“Report to the south gate. We just came from there. Oversee the men removing stones. Be careful of the children. Make sure they are not overtaxed. Nerva wants work done. He doesn’t want to see how fast we can exterminate the populace. Idiots.”
“What about the woman and the children who escaped?”
Ham pulled on his ear as if thinking over what actions he might take, but in truth, he signaled his men to stay with him through the process. They would work out the details once he had dispatched this crew.
“We will capture them and bury Lomast—somewhere. He must not be found by the Death Handlers. If he is, there will be an inquiry. As for the woman and children, we will reassign them to someplace no one will listen to their story, if you get my meaning.”
The faltering in the leader’s eyes turned to sternness. He had been given an out, a complete reprieve, and he would not waste it.
“I understand,” he said.
“None of you speak of this. So help me, if it gets out, my men will deny it all and we charge you with treason. I won’t risk my career for those who cannot maintain a certain loyalty.”
The men begged off and shuffled away.
Ham and his contubernium watched them go onto the boulevard and down, away and around a corner. He had been a servant to Overlord City since the day he had become a man. With Nerva impressing his stamp on so many mindless orders on behalf of the “common good”, men who meant well could be coerced to do evil.
Ham had already spirited away half a dozen families that had not been on the lottery list. Lomast had been warned. If he had gone when Ham had told him—.
He rose from Lomast’s corpse and ordered, “Take this man outside the wall and find his wife and children. They
will probably fear you. Thus, be temperate in what you say to them and how you approach. Take them around to the north gate. Find Lexis and have him take them to Ploor where they can be cared for.” He tossed a bag of coins from his belt to the man who first met his eyes. “Give this to Lexis. Half to him for the danger. Half to the women when he gets them where they are going. He is a good scout and an honorable man. See to this.”
Half the men tended to carting off Lomast’s corpse while the others went in search on the plain. The women would not be hard to find, and Ham doubted he would need to explain their disappearance.
Hooking his thumbs through his belt, he stood, looking out through the broken gate and onto the plain, remembering the day that hellhounds chased him outside of the city walls. He did not consider then that the real danger might come in the form of an army he no longer truly served. At first chance, he must spirit word to Ptolomus.
Insurrection might be the only option open. For that, Ham’s soul suffered because in the end Overlord City might burn once again.
The Snipe caught Scralz off guard, but not completely. On instinct, she lunged backward at the first scent, so the Snipe’s teeth gripped her shoulder and not her neck. Pain asserted.
“Oh, for gods damn sake!” she growled and bodily spun the creature into the packed dirt wall to land upon a pile of crates. Its teeth did not release her, but tore at her mottled flesh. Sucker feet grasped onto the side of Scralz’s face and the tiny hooks gripped her flesh as they tried to rip it from the bone.
Blood flowed down her arm, slicking her apron. With her left hand, she gripped the thing by the neck and squeezed, hoping to pop its head from its shoulders, but still it did not release her. Instead, it snapped, once and twice, doing its best to chomp all the way through her ensconced arm. Within it, a deep growl rose, but Scralz had no time for that, and if she did, she would not have wasted it trying to fear the noise.
She hefted the thing from the wall, hurled it over her head, and slammed her shoulder directly into the creature’s mouth as it met the dirt floor. Teeth cracked from its skull and the Snipe wheezed.
“Bastard,” she gritted, for the Snipe maintained its grip, despite the punishing blow. Already, she felt a twinge of poison running through her veins from the suckers.
Raising the thing again, she hammered two powerful steps and sprang a short distance through the air, jamming her whimpering shoulder into the creature’s mouth as its back met the solid acajou stairs, constructed from what had been the old tavern door before the razing. The beast’s spine snapped and it thrashed uncontrollably, the suckers releasing her.
Still, the abomination clung to her. She hoisted the thing again, this time climbing up three of the seven stairs before crushing it down against the unforgiving slabs of wood. Her knees wobbled, threatening to give way and the edges of her vision threatened her with fog.
She tried to lift the beast again, but her arm finally protested too much. Scralz, however, would not be denied. Using her knee to assist her arm, she drove her leg into the beast’s chest as it struck the stairs.
At last, the grip broke. Too few teeth to maintain it, or, too much of a beating? She did not care.
Drawing back a fist, she crushed its skull. Grabbing the misshapened orb, she twisted it around with both arms until the head separated from the spine though it did not tear free.
She took a breath, though her heart labored. To the top of the stairs, she remained on her feet, but there she faltered. The entry door tilted as she leaned heavily against the jamb.
Stepping to the woodstove, she fumbled for and finally secured a mug, dipped it in the boiling elixir. Her right arm looked a mess. Therefore, she tended it first, pouring the boiling stuff directly on the wounds. So much blood lay there, she could not assess the damage of the not-quite-done elixir’s affect or damage. Usually, she would have tested it.
She dipped the cup once more, but color bled out of her vision. Sighing softly, she dipped the cup part way in a standing barrel of water, letting some run over the side. Still hot has flame, she tipped the cup to her lips and let the burn set her guts afire.
Below, she heard the recognizable sound of another Snipe scratching through the dirt. Scralz did not consider that the end of her hard life would come on a bright summer afternoon. Instead, she climbed to her feet and slammed the cellar root door, trapping the second Snipe’s head between the door and the landing with a stomp. As the creature gagged its final breath, she threw the bolt.
“Mess with me,” she started, but when she went to step away, she collapsed.
Chapter 17
Shanay and Adam instructed the tradesmen to bring the children inside, an onerous request, as the sun would come up and the day would be hot. The buildings would be stifling and the children restless.
“I understand your complaint,” she admitted to the master architect as he followed her and Adam to the stables with a constantly running string of objections. “Open the shutters if you must, but until we return, keep everyone indoors.”
“It is not a complaint, Miss, only an observation. Nevertheless, what is the danger? We have been here for more than a month and we’ve not had even so much as a wolf wander through.”
Shanay wanted to tell him the peril that might lurk, but then again, the valley was distant. If she did tell him, a panic could ensue and all of them might pack up and leave. The estate work did not concern her, but having tradesmen and their families alone and unescorted in the open land could be more dangerous than the panic itself.
Her tale would frighten the most stolid of them. They had not been on the plains of Wizard’s Tower. They had never seen the undead. She had heard none of them speak of ever having seen a troll. To tell them such tales might cause them to think her daft, or it may cause them to believe her, which might be worse.
“Look, we will only be gone for a few days—a week at most. All I ask—”
“But the weather is ideal for building. We have everything we need.”
Adam had already saddled Artex and pushed his boot into the stirrup. “Listen to my mother, Addle. She pays your way.”
Addle, however, was not so easily put aside. “I will be penalized if we lose schedule. We took the risk to come here.”
“The forest is dangerous,” Shanay tried one last time. “I am telling you so that you can take precautions.”
The architect fidgeted until Shanay finished seating herself on her mare.
“I will inform the others,” he said. “But they are extremely engaged with this. Nevertheless, I will advise them of your caution.”
The man still had an argument in his head, and had she felt the urge, she could have frightened him into complying, but there was no time for that. She had to get word to Ptolomus and Arthur.
With a nod to Adam, they charged out of the stables and across the open field onto the rutted road. They needed to ride hard again and perhaps beyond Ploor; they would need to ride to Hellsgate. While Ptolomus and his Templars readied their forces, Arthur must do the same. They would need his leadership and sword to quell the new breed of hellhounds.
Ptolomus had taken twenty-four, three contubernium of his men and left the remaining one hundred seventy-six to maintain order in Ploor. The latest incident left a heavy burden of guilt upon him, and a debt that even his life could not repay.
Wolf had left him to shepherd Ploor. He had thought that his actions had a positive effect. The vendors plied their trade a bit less nervously. The ebb and flow of the population stabilized as transients still came in from the ships, but only volunteers, as far as he could tell, left.
At first, it had been difficult for the harbormaster to crew up the incoming ships, but that had caused at least two ships to go and return. Conditions aboard the ships had improved since the word of the sailors either attracted or repelled recruits. That might not hold true in the end, he had been warned, but for the moment, ships sailed with mostly legal crews and men were free to disembark when their contra
cts expired.
Those of his men not on duty spent an ample amount of their time bartering sweat equity with the carpentry guild, sweeping up, swinging hammers, sawing wood in the mill. They could not go to the forest to harvest trees. They did not have leeway to travel back and forth, but Ptolomus allowed what he could. The carpenters, for their part, were glad to have the mostly skilled help. Though the soldiers were not professional carpenters, many of them had served in the Roman Legion. They were used to building and destroying a fort every time they marched, be that every day, or by command. Thus, rough carpentry was a skill they knew.
Ptolomus had gone to the furthest west edge of town where only two shacks stood. An old woman lived in one of them, a frightening old crone with young, crystal blue eyes that belied her age. She worked animal skins into leather for the armorers and she smelled to high heaven, but Ptolomus prayed that if he lived to be her age, he might work as well.
Across the road from her, another old woman occupied a house. If she had a trade, Ptolomus did not know what it might be, for she ate rats and bugs that lived in the house with her.
After much negotiation, he had his men and the carpenters build suitable houses behind the shacks, then tore down the dilapidated structures and relocated the women into their new homes. The task had taken only a few days and the lives of the women had greatly improved, though the woman without a trade bitterly criticized the whole undertaking as they had exterminated her food source. Ptolomus had a third of his rations sent to her each day to ease her grumbling.
Beyond their houses, he granted a plot of land to each soldier, and plotted out another fifty more for two-hundred fifty-two parcels. Men could take their pick of plot. Thus, their bartering with the carpenters spread to the ironmongers and even to a few stonemasons.
There was hardly enough of any trade to accomplish all of the tasks at hand, as Ploor improved, but with his men bartering their time and strength, the community as a whole had already seen a modicum of new prosperity. Vendors stopped hoarding gold and included themselves in the bartering sessions. Some guards did nothing more than hire on as “helpers,” to some vendors, but “protection” could not be purchased.