Belial - Episode 1 of the Elder Bornshire Chronicles

by Ben Stivers

  “Captain,” Ham acknowledged. Raliax failed to respond for half a breath and then he gave Ham his attention, but said nothing. “You need not do this.”

  “Nerva proclaimed it, Ham. We all heard him. His instructions were clear. Stand aside.”

  Ham, however, was not ready to do so. “I know these people. I have kicked rocks with their children on milder days. Please, I beg you, let me talk to them and allow them to work without a beating. They will be better workers if they are uninjured. Nerva will get what he wants. No one will be harmed.”

  Raliax clenched his jaw in and out several times. Ham had seen that look before on young officer’s faces. Their moral compass challenged their duties, a conflict nearly never-ending for the best soldiers. He could only hope that Raliax would listen.

  Moments passed as Raliax considered and second over second his shoulders sagged slightly as though the burden of the event physically weighed upon him. He glanced back up the road where a single soldier stood with a banner in his hand. “You see that man there, Ham?”

  Ham leaned out away from the horse to look around and up the street. “I do.”

  “He is waiting to signal Nerva that the deed is done. I have no choice but to follow the proclamation.”

  Hoping for a last minute reprieve from the insanity, Ham said, “I will go with you. We can go to Nerva and speak with him. Surely, he will listen to the logic of what I have said.”

  “Get out of the way,” Raliax ordered and tapped his heels on his horse’s side. He rode to the center of the square.

  Ham returned to his men and they stayed to watch as first the children, then the wife and finally the husband received their lashes, were cut down from the poles and doused again with water. After that, they were ordered into line to muster the stones for the wall.

  Within the hour, they were flogged for not keeping pace. An hour after that, Raliax stood the four of them against the pole and beheaded them in the same order that they were flogged.

  “This is preposterous,” Ham’s second murmured quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “Are we just going to stand here?”

  “For now,” Ham replied, his numb mind reeling from what he truly wanted to say. “Gather our men. Steel yourselves for what we must do when the time comes.”

  Arthur did not resist when Crabwell told him that they had to blindfold him to take him back to Scralz. Had he been in the same place, he imagined he probably would have done the same. Even so, by the time they paused in their journey, Arthur’s patience had worn thin. Crabwell, and the men that sounded to be with him, had taken excessive measures to walk him in circles.

  “If I wanted to find my way into your headquarters, I could have done that when I was a general,” he complained.

  “I doubt that,” came Crabwell’s return and with that, they stopped and removed Arthur’s blindfold.

  They stood in a large underground room with a ceiling far above and more than a dozen tunnels leading off in different directions. Within the room, torches illuminated the space to near daylight. Perhaps three times the number of Hellsgate’s vendors lined the walls as though they were in a prosperous city, trading with comers and goers, customers who looked for certain that they could be deadly given the prompt.

  Several children floated within the ebb and flow of the crowd. Women called to them and they minded their manners, following after their mothers and disappearing down the tunnels.

  “What is this?” Arthur asked.

  “The true Downs,” Crabwell answered. Behind him, a half dozen or so men casually guarded him, calling to others in the room or waving to others. A few approached and the conversation, though stern, remained amicable enough for rough men. “I trust you to keep this secret.”

  Arthur continued to absorb the view. Wagons traveled from one tunnel to the next. Horses came and went. “You have families here.”

  Crabwell hooked his thumbs into his belt and rocked back and forth. “Yes. Some of them have never been out of the Downs, you know.”

  “Why not?”

  “They have everything they need here, including safety.”

  Arthur’s eyebrows rose. The Downs looked half again as big as Hellsgate with double the population. Right under Arthur’s nose, they had built a city. “How long?”

  “How long?”

  “How long did all of this take?”

  “We took our business underground two years before your first appearance in Hellsgate. You were full of piss and vinegar in those days, son, but Rumbar liked you, so we left you be. Rumbar conducted business with us then. He helped us get supplies under the noses of the Romans.”

  “He never mentioned any of this.”

  “I don’t suppose he would. You were a Roman soldier.”

  Arthur squinted in deep consternation, “But we were friends.”

  “He did not wish to compromise you or us. You had a duty then to the empire. Nothing worse than forcing a man to choose between his duty and his friends. If he chooses it, that is a different beast, but he would not do that to either of us.”

  “You were friends?”

  Crabwell simply smiled and continued, “During the wars, we kept refuge here. We never lacked our freedom. We never served in their armies.”

  “But how? The logistics of this—”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The task was harder then. We dug dirt and stone out by the wagonload. Took it out to the Syrillian where nobody noticed and spread it. The wind and rain took care of any piles, of course. After a few years, we hired four miners to come in and teach us to shore the place up. They still live here, though they are older than me now. I think the bastards might live forever.

  “The roof doesn’t leak. We have more than enough water from three underground rivers along and through the desert. We have small groves of food in the desert. The water keeps them growing. The desert itself keeps people away. Few people are brave enough to wander into the upper part of the Downs to search for us. If they do, they do not leave. There’s plenty enough people hiding down here that will kill a man if the need presents itself.”

  “I see,” Arthur said. Had he had a notion to escape, he would have put that away. Every man in the room had visible weapons. They knew how to use them. Those might have been enough to dissuade him, but the weapons he could not see, the portions of the complex he could not guess, would have stilled him. “Why show me this? Why now?”

  “Because another despicable war is here, Arthur.”

  That Crabwell called him by his first name was not wasted on Arthur. “The Alones and Snipes.”

  Crabwell narrowed his good eye at Arthur. “They told me you were the best strategist in the empire.”

  Arthur liked to think himself so. Crabwell had a notion of something, and Arthur felt inclination to figure it out himself. He stood quietly, staring at the ground, ignoring for a moment the underground of the Downs.

  Crabwell, however, had evidently reached the last quarter of his patience. “What if the Snipes and Alones are but a distraction?”

  The pieces fell into Arthur’s mind, fitting snugly together. Acerbity clenched his throat like an iron fist.

  “I need to go,” Arthur said. “I won’t forget what you did for me.”

  Crabwell’s alabaster eye glistened in the flickering torchlight.

  Mrandor left his guarded harbor with ten of his largest ships. Between them, they could carry two hundred soldiers, though he doubted he would need but a few. Lieala Bornshire was a powerful sorceress, but like Daemon, she was just a single individual. As his ships cast onto the open ocean, he surveyed the map. Just where the spell had ignited, he did not know, though he knew the general direction. He had designed it to only ignite in the presence of a specific druid and with enough force to disable her. He relished the thought of slowly torturing, then murdering the mother of his nemesis. He had guessed correctly that she would be the one who came to investigate Daemon’s demise. His mind played with the various ways he could cause her pain
, create a tale with witnesses that would carry to Arthur so that he would know that his mother died poorly. Even now, he doubted that Arthur knew his father had passed from the world. Britannia was a great distance from the continent. Word traveled slowly, but the butchering of an old woman—and for reason—would kick a few legs off Arthur’s chair, leaving him teetering.

  After that, he would begin to make mistakes, including coming out of hiding in Hellsgate. Mrandor had rather half-heartedly sent men to the Eastern Mountains expecting to find nothing of that rumor. Men like Arthur did not simply leave the battlefield behind. Oh no, they lived for blood. Therefore, Ploor had always been his second option. Though that particular operation had gone poorly, it had given Mrandor Arthur’s location and that of his wife and closest comrade.

  Mrandor had sent three men to remove Wolf from consideration. Those men had not returned before Mrandor left, perhaps because Aerilius had found Arthur, another man, and a trollish woman in Hellsgate rather than Ploor. If Wolf were with Arthur, the three men might have to wait.

  With Wolf and his daughter in the ground, Mrandor would mete out vengeance on Arthur’s daughter and her insignificant husband. They would both collect the same fate as Arthur’s father and mother. The next patient step, Arthur’s wife.

  From there, he would maneuver the army of Overlord City to harvest Hellsgate. Nerva would suffer a timely and unfortunate accident and Mrandor would assume rule. With everything Arthur loved scoured from the earth, Mrandor’s thirst for vengeance would be quenched.

  Only then, Mrandor would face Arthur, show him that he was not the better. With that done, Mrandor would levy his combined armies and constrain Belial to serve him. He would seize the tower and force the world to its knees.

  The Templars rode into the estate in rank with the dawn just beginning to blink its eyes. Ptolomus and Elizabeth had joined them in the evening before. Just before they moved out, he said to her, “Join the first squad. The lieutenant and decanus’ name is Reavis. You know the drill.”

  The sentry observed but said nothing. Elizabeth’s joining the Templars probably did not surprise the man.

  Elizabeth nodded and dropped into file with a nod from Reavis.

  Riding onto Arthur’s estate gave Ptolomus reason to rethink his decision of how to approach the tradesmen.

  Around the perimeter lay piles of ash, the remnants of bonfires, perhaps a day or so old. They had been built from material from the surrounding forest. Some of the charred logs remained around the edge, but not enough to sustain a barricade. He held up his right hand, bending his arm at the elbow, bringing his men to a simultaneous and in-unison halt.

  Only the sound of creaking saddles, a cough or two, and the horses themselves illuminated the accompanying sunrise. He let the situation soak into him, ferment, until his plan, a contingency plan, and a contingency plan for the contingency plan solidified.

  The site appeared abandoned. A small house stood close to center, but just left of where stakes had been driven into the ground, evidently marking walls and corners for what would be the permanent residence. Four large wooden treadwheel cranes for the hoisting of heavy stone stood silent. Ptolomus had seen them used to lift six-thousand kilos using only four men. They were impressive, a marvel of engineering cooperation between rope makers, carpenters and the stonemason engineers.

  Beyond that were two smaller treadwheel cranes set to manipulate a roped stone to the top of a column, perhaps for a small aqueduct to supply the estate. Arthur and Shanay had thought ahead, employing some of the best architects in Ploor to create their plan. The aqueduct would supply not only water for them, but for the community that surrounded them. That did not surprise him.

  There were numerous small outbuildings and temporary shelters for the workmen. A half-finished stable looked as though it could house his men’s horses while they guarded the area, but just barely. He imagined that Arthur anticipated keeping a contingent of Templars near him once the estate settled. For that he would need facilities for his family, the Templars, and a variety of blacksmiths, ironmongers, carpenters, tanners—a small community within his property.

  The furthest building back was the largest. All the buildings looked empty, the doors closed, no smoke from internal or external fires, no people. No sound of living—of life.

  With his left hand, he signaled Reavis to take Elizabeth and circle to the left around the perimeter. With them in motion, he sent a second decanus to the right with an additional man. Templars believed in pairing, and when possible using a triple-line checkerboard formation. The riders made their way completely around the perimeter in both directions and returned to the squad.

  “No sign,” Reavis reported, the first words spoken since they reached the fringe.

  “Same here,” the second decanus reported.

  Still, Ptolomus sat. A dubious situation. Shanay had left behind a contingent of workers. They had even argued their point to keep working, but no one had greeted the Templars, and certainly, work had stopped. As if it had just suddenly quit in mid-task, tools remained where they would be during the day.

  Had they left?

  By what means could they?

  If they did leave, why?

  “Frontem allargate,” he ordered. In answer to his command, the troop spread out and then on his signal, they moved inside of the perimeter. As they reached half of the radius of the circle, they split into two groups with Ptolomus riding forward between them toward the largest structure. As they reached each outbuilding, his men dismounted, checked the doors that yielded to them and then disappeared inside. Ptolomus also dismounted upon arriving at the furthest building and stepped down into the straw and dirt.

  Immediately, he noticed an abnormality. Gouges were ripped in the dirt, especially along the north wall. Something huge had dug at the door. The door itself displayed deep and long gashes. If a bear had tried to get in, it was a damned big one.

  He knelt and fingered the gouges. They were wider than his thumb. Bears, unless the tradesmen had already left, did not usually stray into the warrens of humans. Cubs learned from their first outing to avoid predators and humans certainly were if there were more than one. Bears seldom attempted to dig into occupied buildings, though they might claw doors or walls.

  Rising to his feet, he noted that his men returned to formation with nothing to report. He placed his hand on the door, letting his fingers search the mysterious slashes. His mind wrestled with where the people could have gone. Pressing his ear to the door, he listened. Something was inside. He sensed it more than felt it and signaled his men.

  “Something is moving in here,” he said, as the squads formed up. The men drew their swords and circled the door. “There is digging here. Could be something got in.”

  “What about the civilians?”

  Ptolomus shrugged. Wherever they had gone, they had to have left a trail. He would put his best tracker on it as soon as they had cleared the building.

  He pulled the door’s handle. It remained steadfast. He tried again, but the thick, wooden slab refused his effort.

  “You men open this,” he said and four men came forward, grasping for a hold, but still the door resisted. “That’s enough. If something did get in, it did not go through the door and even that hole would not accommodate anything like a bear. Strange and more strange. The sun cleared the trees at that moment, and promised them a bright, hot, and humid day. “Over there by the stones. Get shovels. We are going to dig.”

  Nearly a quarter of an hour later, they had managed a hole big enough in the rocky soil to allow a soldier to pass through. Hopefully, Arthur did not plan to farm this land.

  “I will go,” volunteered Reavis. He started to shuck his armor.

  “No,” Ptolomus replied. “I will go. If my decision to enter turns out to be malapropos, I’ll expect you to extricate me.”

  He smirked at the decanus who did not return the humor. “It could be dangerous.”

  “What did I tell you the da
y I recruited you?” Ptolomus asked.

  “It could be dangerous,” Reavis replied, but he did not smile.

  Ptolomus patted his man on the shoulder. “I will be fine.”

  With that, he crawled into the shallow dig, grabbed the bottom of the door and wormed his way under.

  Chapter 20

  Scralz sat in a small boat on a small pond. She thought the situation odd. The morning fog lay on the lake, but she could see the shore from where she sat. The boat itself looked barely large enough to seat her, but it floated buoyantly even with the large number of fish she had caught. The weak sun shined and the marvelous lunch she had prepared on the long table in the dining room looked inviting.

  She stumbled on that, looking down at a troll that looked to be staring back through the wooden table as though it was water.

  Where did the fish go?

  For that matter, what about the boat?

  She stood up and stepped away to find herself treading upon the blistering sand of the Syrillian Desert near the lake near the table.

  In the distance, Rumbar drifted through the air like a bulbous cloud. She blinked and then did so again. Arthur sat next to her bed upon an old, familiar stool, gazing intently back at her.

  “I liked the fish better,” she grumbled and closed her eyes. Arthur, however, unlike the fish and the lake and the table and Rumbar, could not be denied.

  “Wake up! We have planning to do.”

  “Go to hell,” she replied, trying to turn over and wash this particular dream away. After a few moments, she turned back and he still sat there. “I guess I didn’t die.”

  Arthur shook his head. “Me either. Was close though. We could have ended up in Heaven together.”

  “If we were together, it might be Heaven for you, but hell for me.”

  “Probably be hell for both of us,” he admitted.

  She eased up and rolled her feet off the side of the pallet where she lay. “That thing dead?”