by Multiple
Svella was too weary to question that, instead she just gave a wry laugh as if her friend were up to some shenanigans again. The other women however, took her seriously and they rushed to her call.
It wasn’t long before they had formed up behind her as their troops, and they marched into the streets. The Ka’reem warriors typically rode on horseback at all times, but in the city and on such a mission as this they went by foot instead.
She led them through the damaged streets of Ariste, its beautiful white stonework chipped, damaged or otherwise burnt by the invasion and the quakes. Its people were hiding, for though the main force of the occupation army was gone, they still feared the tall Amazonian warriors in their terrifying black raiment.
Mirella didn’t have to search long. For though the largest, richest homes had been confiscated for the Ka’reem occupiers, the commoners still had their church. She heard their prayers even from outside, and as they pushed in she saw him. Priest Quaylin, fat off the wealth of others as he preached from the pulpit.
Her eyes were hard, that green gaze falling on the slob of a man. She wondered how much he was getting, or thought he’d be getting, for saving the poor Princess. Her arms folded across her chest, across the raven feathered garb as she scanned the crowd, listening to his sermon.
The hall was rich, for though it allowed commoners Ariste was a beautiful city regardless, and would not suffer worshippers to go into a less than beautiful space. From out of the spiralling columns she heard the echo of the priests voice travel down to her. “The gods shall gift to us freedom, my children! Hold true to your faith and the line of rightfully appointed rulers, and you shall be delivered unto the bliss you once had and deserve.”
The dozens who were there were listening attentively, and she noticed amongst them some former nobles, now dressed in more raggedy clothing as they were forced to live like commoners. “A test from above!” cried the priest. “Our faith in their will has waned, and so they’ve taken their holy children from us by the unleashing of these dogs from the north! Show your true loyalty to the gods, restore your true rulers and they shall reward your faithfulness.”
She didn’t feel pity for the formerly privileged, who had slung insults and ignored her as something less than human. Like a dog. Like the northerners. She was nothing to them in the great halls, and in the beautiful church, they were nothing to her.
Nothing but heretics to her God.
“Priest Quaylin,” she said as she entered the hall. “I need to speak with you.”
Silence took over the chapel, silence but for the echoing boot steps of over a dozen armed Raven Guard marching down the leviathan halls of the chapel. The priest went wide-eyed and slack-jawed, his bald head sinking down. “T-traitor,” he managed out, though the word barely managed to carry through the room, despite his earlier bombasticity.
It was true. She stood out as a traitor amidst the Raven Guard. They were all statuesque pale women, she was short, darker skinned.
“You’ve betrayed your own people for wealth and fortune. Surely I’m just following in your footsteps, oh wise one,” she hissed bitterly.
Her devoted sisters marched quickly, passing her, flanking her side and keeping the parishioners at bay as she strode towards the altar.
The priest backed away, and looked towards the rear doors. “Rise up, my fellow Aristeans! Spread the word! Your true leaders shall be restored and you shall be rewarded!” The hall was struck dumb and silent though, they watched, weak and hungry in disbelief as this last sacred ground was violated.
She turned her back on the priest, instead looking towards the supplicants. “There is no help. This is life, and you are not comfortable with it. I appreciate that. You may not remember me, but I know toil. I know torment, and for more than thirty years, I’ve served. I’ve scrounged. I’ve gone to bed hungry and sore, stained from the day and with the knowledge that it will only happen again the next. And the day after.”
Mirella’s voice gained confidence and power as she spoke to the former nobles and commoners, “I still serve. I still work hard, tirelessly, for my betters. The difference is that now, my betters deserve their place. They’ve fought for it, and won it. They’ve known the pleasure and pain of hard work, of dedication. Of power hard won and harder kept. This man knows only greed. Envy. He wishes he were born like you, into a home of wealth and tidings, and instead he is forced to take from others. To lie to them. Manipulate them.”
She turned back towards the priest, her emerald eyes turned stony, “God does not care for thieves.”
The people were stunned by her outburst, and as she lectured them the priest turned and ran for the back door, screaming as he left. “Rise up!” he cried, though the people in the chapel instead screamed and panicked themselves. They tried to run around the pews and take off into the streets. There were so many of them the Raven Guard couldn’t hope to contain them entirely, instead they focussed on containing those they could.
“Useless Aristeans,” Mirella muttered, looking around idly at the tidings of the old religion, and she wondered briefly if the Princess would hear of this. She fingered the letter as she began to walk out the back door, following after the priest as she took in the panic around her.
The door led to a hallway that went down into the basement, and two of her Guard sisters joined her. “We’ll apprehend him, sister,” they said with respect, taking off down the stairs after the portly old man. Those were fit guardswomen, not showing signs of pregnancy, and she had no doubt they would catch up to him before long.
She trusted them. It was a new feeling, for even in her life before, she’d never trusted the other servants. Even those she called her friends, she understood that they would take from her if they needed it badly enough, yet these women that were so sceptical at first had become something stronger. As she moved back into the church, she settled into one of the benches, her eyes going up along the beautiful architecture, and for a brief spell, she felt at peace.
She felt closer to her God—the God-King—and before she even realized she was doing it, she had spoken a modified prayer, bidding his safe return. It had only taken a moment, but it felt good.
Chapter 17
They hadn’t even gotten the priest back to the palace when chaos began to break loose in the city below. The fleeing former-nobles spread word of the desecration of the altar and the apprehension of the priest and the lower classes—already hungry and desperate—were pushed to their limits.
At the top of the hill Mirella had looked back and saw the swarms of people move through Ariste’s winding roads, torches and whatever implements to use as makeshift weapons that they could find.
Arriving into the tent that formerly housed the God-King’s concubines but was now the concubine-warriors headquarters, the other women were buzzing about getting ready. They were small in number compared to the masses of revolting citizens below, but they were highly trained and battle hardened.
One of the younger members of their order came up to Mirella and saluted with a pounded fist to her chest. “Sister!” she called, “We are mustering together our forces here. We’ve pulled back our patrols to await your orders,” she explained. Svella was nowhere in sight, she realized, leaving her the one they were turning to.
“When the God-King returns, he will find this city to be truly his,” she promised as she strode confidently towards the other women. She hadn’t a lot of battle experience, but she knew the Aristeans. Their panic. Their fear.
They were falling, just like her former home had fallen, and they were making a last ditch effort to save themselves through self-destruction. “Any who refuses to swear to the God-King will be made example of.”
The Raven Guard—those concubine-warriors and religious zealots—threw up their fists and cheered to her words. Their enthusiasm had not dimmed. Not in the least.
~~
The coming days put that to the test. The same young recruit who’d met her on her return from the ca
thedral that day met her again, breathless as always as she delivered her news at such a galloping pace. “Sister,” she said saluting, “we can’t pin the rebels down. They attack us from homes and alleyways without any pattern we can find. We can’t catch them in an open battle. They hurl arrows, rocks and anything they can get at us but disappear before we can strike back decisively,” she said, frustration obvious on her youthful features. Nimala, as Mirella had come to know her, looked to her for guidance.
She’d grown more comfortable in her role, more confident, and even at the advancing stages of her pregnancy, she’d been kept busy with stamping out what fires she could. She would do her God’s work, and was grateful for the task.
She stood staring out the window and flicked the token the princess had given her between her fingers. “They have archaic magics, and who knows how they’re communicating. I think we can lure them,” Mirella paused her motions. “We need to send a message to the rebels, that there’s a weak point. Freedom. A way to reclaim their Princess and their supplies. Find the old aqueduct, Nimala. See to it they find out about their path to glory. I trust you can see to the fact that they won’t survive after that?” she asked.
The tall but relatively slender woman blinked, “In a battle the Raven Guard shall not fail, sister,” she said without hesitation. “But… how will we get them to believe such a ruse?” Like most of her other sisters, Nimala did not grasp subtleties of warfare like subterfuge.
She pulled out the paper that the princess had given her, eyes scanning over the words, “Just plan the trap, sister. I’ll have a letter within the hour that will convince them.”
Chapter 18
Things moved quickly from there. The city was lit up again by torches and fires as she made her way down to the old section of the city. None of the other Raven Guard could be used for such a mission. They were too obvious, their height and features marking them as towering northerners. And whom amongst the Aristean’s could she trust for such a vital mission?
Donning the ratty old robes she wore to see the princess, that could do little to hide her pregnancy, she approached the crumbling old aqueduct structure. It looked unused, the stonework jutting out of the Aristean Mountains. It wasn’t until she had wandered about there for some time looking for the entrance that she heard a voice, harsh and masculine. “What’re you doin’ wandering around out here?”
“The Princess sent me,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed. She’d become such a natural actress in such a short period of time, though really, wasn’t her whole life an act? Putting aside her own emotions and thoughts to please the noble lords and a spoiled princess?
“Please, let me pass. If they catch me,” her voice hitched.
There was silence then until she heard in the shadows the sound of murmuring. They were cautious, and knew better than to whisper, for whispering carried further.
When finally they spoke however, it was with some hope to their scepticism. “Come over here,” and she heard then a light creak coming from the stonework beneath the aqueduct, like the sound of a door.
Following after it she entered and once it closed the room lit up showing her a small stone entryway, buttressed by wood. There was a door that led further in, but this was obviously the start of the rebels’ hideout. “Explain yourself,” said the same man as before, pulling back his hood and revealing a stubbly but handsome face. Obviously a man of the Aristean working classes.
She wouldn’t feel pity for them, and her hand stretched out to give him the letter, to show him the ring, “I’m the Princess’s handmaiden. She’s given me this to come to you, to tell you of a hidden way into the castle.” Mirella stared at him, her eyes pleading.
The man looked at the offered letter and ring, his eyes went wide and it was obvious he understood the significance of such rich paper and a fabulous ring. “This is…”
Before he could finish though the other man stepped forward, the source of the other voice. This man was very different. It was obvious he was noble born, for who else could wear such rich clothes and spend so much time shaving and caring for his hair in a time of rebellion. “Let me see that,” he demanded.
Mirella’s heart raced as he opened the letter and studied it, scrutinized it. Moving to one of the candles he held the ring up to it, examining it with the eye of a jeweller as he checked.
After such a long wait he said. “It’s real,” then looked back to her. “So it’s true then,” stepping over to her. “The quake has opened a gap we can use to break into the palace armoury and cells. We could free the priest, princess and arm ourselves with real weapons to take back our city?” It was a question, but already she could detect the rising authority in his voice, as if he was ready to claim responsibility for this brilliant new plan then and there.
She simply nodded dumbly, back to playing the role of the simple serving woman. Being in this man’s presence assuaged her guilt, her concern. He was one of them. “Please, you must save us.”
The nobleman had no more to say, he saw her for what she appeared—a servant—and rushed off into the old structures beyond. She could hear his voice bellowing out, but it was the dark haired man that came to her. “Is it safe for you to go back? You can stay here with us until the palace is retaken,” he offered.
Despite it all, despite her utter devotion to her God, her loathing of the nobles, and her distrust of everyone else, she’d only been able to cope with the horrors surrounding her by ignoring them. By pushing aside the fact that they couldn’t get enough food through the mountains, by trusting that once he rightfully ruled the land he could begin to rebuild and care for the people. By understanding the reality of war, and poverty.
She couldn’t stand to look at the man that looked at her with such kindness, and she felt her throat constrict.
She didn’t want to kill these people. She didn’t want to be responsible for their deaths, but she would do it. She believed in her God. She believed in Kulav. She knew there would be peace and prosperity that Ariste had never known before, welcoming in a new era of strength and devotion, rather than catering to the whims of the affluent.
And people would die because of it. Because of her.
“There’s much I need to do,” Mirella finally whispered, her vocal cords taut. “Thank you for your kindness.”
The man nodded and guided her back to the door, “I understand. We all have much to give so that we might live like people again,” he said. “Gods speed you, brave maid,” he said, snuffing out the candle before opening the door and releasing her back into the night.
Tears fell, and she did nothing to stop them. She’d been so brave and confident, ever since he’d left, yet every time she met with an Aristean, she left with tears. She mourned for them, for their insolence and for their stubbornness, but by the time she reached the Concubine-Warrior’s tent once more, her green eyes were hard once more.
~~
The attack came in the middle of the night as Mirella predicted. They came through a gap in the wall that the quake had indeed created, though since the Raven Guard had sealed it up immediately in their immense discipline, she had to have it ordered reopened just for the trap.
From the palace parapets she watched with her sisters as the rebels advanced through the gardens. When she gave the order a blood curdling cry went up through her fellow sisters, they rose with bows at the ready as she’d intended and the rebels froze or ran for cover with futility. All the exits were blocked, and shield-maidens stood at the hole they came through with spears pointed at them.
It was over.
“People of Ariste,” she declared loudly, her voice carrying over the rebels. The working class. The poor. The downtrodden.
The nobles’ pawns, just like she.
“Your city has been taken, and will continue to be that way. As I speak, the nobles are being wiped out. There is no hope for them, but there is hope for you! I know it doesn’t matter to you who you s
erve. One hand is as good as another, and I promise you. Fight for us. Fight for your future, and you will be rewarded.”
She paused for a brief moment, “Food is scarce. Times are hard, but we can work together to make Ariste better. The Northerners lack agriculture, but you thrive at it. Stop fighting us so that we may work together, to rid us of our noble lords and their cruelties. Ariste can be yours. Truly yours,” Mirella finished, her stance, her voice, so utterly certain. She believed what she was saying.
There was silence for a while and she felt her sisters grow anxious. They were used to fighting and killing, not to negotiation. When things had gotten tense and she feared it was hopeless one of the Aristean rebels rose up and the recognized the voice from the aqueduct. “We surrender. Our families need food. That is why we’re here. There is no point in dying for anything less,” he stated, sounding glum but resilient yet.
She was so thankful for that one man, for that one voice, and she nodded. “I grew up hungry, without food. Sold from one family to another before I was finally brought here, and I remember it too well. You have suffered long, but I will help you become strong again,” Mirella said, her voice dipping at the personal nature of her disclosure.
There were no cheers this time. Her sisters did not understand her leniency but obeyed it, for she was respected now, and the rebels below were too battered, too desperate and broken to cheer such words. All they could do was wait.
Chapter 19
Svella returned to Mirella the next morning, “The job is done, sister.” She sounded so proud, the woman already looking more like the battle-hardened warrior she was before conceiving the God-King’s child. “The noble leaders were wiped out,” she declared with a slam of her fist on the table. “Damn it feels good to be back in action!” Mirella knew just how much it had troubled her that the giant of a woman had missed so much of the fight already.