by Greg Curtis
He was tired, so very tired. His body ached in ways it had never ached before. And his control was slipping all the time. Just little bits, tiny lapses in concentration, but enough to scare him. He never lost concentration. Not normally anyway. But then he had never been this sick.
Still, he counted. He endured it all, giving everything he could to his count, and when the light finally started leaving his eyes he knew he had done everything he could. He had nothing left to give. He was about to collapse and he let the last of the fire leave him before the last of the light left his eyes. And when it did and he started sinking into the comforting darkness he didn't know if his eyes would ever see the light again. But there was no choice.
All he had left was hope that the light might return. But that hope was more than he had had before.
Chapter Nineteen
It was during his second week in Bitter Crest that Marcus finally saw someone he actually wanted to see.
Up until then he'd seen many, many people. Too many. In fact he'd had a difficult time avoiding people. But then they were all people that he didn't want to see. Mostly they were the sick and injured, refugees and of course innumerable traders and hawkers trying to sell them anything they could. There were people everywhere and none of them were his friends, the missing members of his family or his loyal soldiers.
It was only to be expected. As the destruction of Theria had progressed people had fled in all directions. To Bitter Crest, to the cities of Farring Cross, further afield again to Cloverlands and Bridgeton. People had fled in all directions. To anywhere where they had property or family, or even the hope of a job. Because of that he had no idea of where most of his friends were. Whether they were alive or dead.
As for his family, most were safe, but not all. Edouard could be dead. He had no way of knowing. And though messages had been sent to their father they'd had no word on whether he'd received the latest ones or not. He could be riding back even now, either to Bitter Crest or Theria. The Seven only knew what would happen to him if he arrived in Simon's stolen kingdom.
But there was another reason he didn't want to see the people all around him. They were a constant reminder of the terrible crimes his own brother had committed. Crimes that had destroyed not just one city and its surrounding lands, but also hurt the neighbouring realms as they had to deal with the refugees. Crimes that had shamed the house of Barris and the Severin family.
The streets were impossibly crowded and they were so busy with people that wagons and carriages could not pass. Every house and building was full, and every inn and hostel overcrowded. So much so that the city's systems were failing. Sewage and waste water ran down the streets. Fresh water was in short supply and many people were turning to ale, which didn't help with the orderly running of the city. Naturally a great many of the people who had flooded into the city were angry. They'd lost homes and families. They had reason for their anger. So there had been riots. Riots that couldn't be easily contained when Bitter Crest's own guards had to force their way through the overcrowded streets like all the others.
Accommodation was scarce, especially for a large family and they'd had to negotiate hard to get the top floor of an inn – the Basilisk's Stool – and then paid far too much silver for it. Thirteen people living in a single room with only six beds. But the only other accommodation they could find in the city were their family's warehouses and market, and they had never been intended for anyone to stay in them. They had no hot water, no beds, and no place to wash or cook. Still, it had nearly come to that.
The city was overflowing with people, bursting at the seams with refugees from Theria. Those who the mammoths hadn't driven out as they levelled half the city had then been sent running by the tree warriors. The sprigs.
He still didn't really know what they were – his brother had identified them as sprigs when he'd laid waste to them with those shockingly powerful weapons of his – but it was only a word. What he did know was that they were deadly. According to what he'd been told they had torn through his fellow guards as though they were unarmed. Weapons – anything short of a cannon at least – were nearly useless against them, though they didn't like fire a whole lot. Armour was even more useless. It just made the soldiers an easier target for those sharpened wooden spears of theirs that were supposed to be limbs.
In the end, when the city guards had bathed the streets in their own blood and their bodies were strewn everywhere, the attack had ended. Not because they had driven the enemy back, but rather because they had chosen to leave. Someone had called them back. Everyone agreed on that although no one knew who had called them or why they'd left. If they'd wanted they could have taken the city there and then.
Marcus wished he'd been there instead of at Edouard's holding, snoring his head off. Maybe he couldn't have done a lot – one man with a sword and a pistol wasn't an army – but he could have done something surely. He could have saved some of his comrades in arms. But instead he had done nothing, and when he'd turned up the following morning to discover a scene of utter carnage, it was to know an overwhelming sense of failure. That was a hard thing to live with.
Harder was the fact that he could not save his brother. That he had not even realised he had to. Not at first. No one had been able to tell him where Edouard was or what he was doing. Not that first day. All he had been told was that he was locked away with the rest of the Court and that the Court was in private session. When he'd asked he’d simply been told to help with the wounded by that insolent veiled soldier, Lockbar Wright. A man who claimed to be the aide-de-camp to Lord Julius, though Marcus now knew that for a lie. Lord Julius had died during the battle, cut down with the rest of his soldiers. He would never have hired such a man. But Marcus hadn’t known that at the time and so had obeyed his orders.
At no time had he been allowed to go to the Court so he could find out what had happened to Edouard. The Court was in session, meeting to discuss the crisis, and they were not to be disturbed. That had troubled him, but not for a moment had he thought that Edouard was in danger. He had simply assumed that Edouard was a part of that session and carried on with his duties.
Then, as that terrible day had progressed and he had spent it helping the survivors and carrying away the dead on wagons – endless wagons – he had heard the news that the king was dead, murdered in his bed chamber along with his entire retinue. The sprigs had got them all. Apparently the king had been sending him his orders from his death bed. Or so that false soldier had told him on his next visit.
The news had come like a body blow to the entire city. People had collapsed in the street at the news. They had cried out and wailed. He'd nearly done the same.
King Byron wasn't just a good king, a wise ruler and a fair minded man; he was loved by the people. For twenty years he had been loved, ever since he had assumed the throne from his ailing father. And for twenty years he had proven himself to be one of the people. His death was like losing a member of the family. And of course with the king's family also dead in the attack there was no obvious heir. No one to lead them. Prince Edmond should have become king in due course. Or if he had died, then Prince Drake. But they were both dead too and neither of them had had children. Therion was leaderless. It was then that the exodus had truly begun.
With no one to lead and protect them, and an unknown enemy knocking at their walls twice in a week the people had panicked, and Marcus couldn't blame them. No one could. In fact the word had come down from the Court that those who wished to leave the city were free to do so, and that they would be protected as they travelled. An unheard of command but a righteous one. Except that now Marcus knew it had only been a way of getting him and a few other high ranked soldiers and nobles away from the city for a time.
He had been assigned the duty of escorting one of the first parties to safety in the nearby cities and realms, ordered with another writ from the dead king. Apparently King Byron had demanded his service with his dying breath and that was never the sort of
command Marcus could refuse. No matter that the king was dead. He had left that afternoon, before the sun had even set.
It was a not a long trip to The Golden Citadel of Farring Cross, barely thirty leagues north. On his own on horseback he could have done it in a day if he'd pushed it. But with nearly three hundred people in the group, many of them on foot, many also injured and all of them caught somewhere between hysteria and disbelief, it had taken three. Three long days as people had cried for their losses the whole way. That was a journey he hoped never to make again. And most of those he'd escorted would have had longer journeys yet to make. Onwards to whatever towns and cities were home to their families or friends.
But then had come the return and his horror had only grown. Riding hard all the way back to Theria, hoping to help with the defences or maybe with the rebuilding, it was only then that he'd discovered that his elder brother had assumed the throne. Actually he now knew that Simon had assumed it on that very first night. And then he'd locked away the Court until they had submitted to his rule. Now Marcus knew that the orders he had been given, supposedly by the king, had come from his elder brother instead.
How could that have happened? How could Simon have taken the throne? Marcus still had no clue, though there were rumours of writs and deals being made behind the scene. And secret deals were always his older brother's way. All Marcus really knew though was that he was sure it had something to do with the black robed advisor who'd arrived out of nowhere and who was constantly at his side.
Everyone who had seen him had spoken of him. The sarcastic, lying, and above all else untrustworthy, black robed advisor Vesar, who seemed to be everywhere. There was something wrong with the man. The black priest as they called him. Even though he'd never seen him Marcus agreed. There had to be something wrong with a man who wouldn't show his face.
But if there was something wrong with him there was something far more wrong with Simon. He had whipped Edouard half to death! His own brother! He had whipped dozens more the same way – and some of them had died. As Marcus had ridden to Bitter Crest with his family and a number of the other nobles fleeing the city, he had been told of the shocking crimes. Of the stocks being brought into the throne room. Of the floggings of nobles. Of the veiled soldiers pretending to be the royal guard, preventing anyone from leaving. And strapping anyone in to the torture rack if they dared to disagree with the pretend king. If Marcus had been there it wouldn't have been Edouard in those stocks. But he hadn't been there, and as it turned out, he had been deliberately left ignorant of the events of the night. That had all been part of Simon's plan.
Simon obviously hadn't been able to kill him. Marcus guessed that his older brother knew he couldn't have stood against him in a duel, and arresting him or having him executed would have cemented the opposition to him. He couldn't have dealt with that. Not then. Until he had more support he'd needed the guards to enforce his false claim to the throne. Whatever claim that might be. Simon had only a few soldiers loyal to him. These veiled royal guards.
Marcus suspected they were mercenaries, maybe even wanted criminals. It was a good reason to wear a veil and who else would take the coin of a false king as he seized the throne? The rest of the guards were either under Marcus' direct command or loyal to him as the captain of the Royal Guard. To kill him would have left Simon vulnerable. But neither could he let Marcus know the truth of what had happened. So he'd had him watched, sent him away at the first opportunity, and used those first few days to take control of the guards. He had brought in his own commanders. More mercenaries as far as Marcus could tell. Some of them cut throats.
In the days after that of course, the body count had risen. The mammoths and the sprigs had killed hundreds or even thousands. But the deaths caused from these attacks could not match the numbers of soldiers Simon had killed from what he'd been told. Simon and his advisor had gone through the surviving guards with a hatchet, killing the officers one and all and leaving those who remained frightened and powerless. The men had swiftly learned that they had no choice save to obey their orders.
Likewise the heads of the various houses, trading concerns, guilds and orders had also been given the same brutal choice in his court. Swear fealty or face the stocks and the gallows. And thanks to the example Simon had made of his own brother, there was no doubt that he would do as he threatened. Maybe that was why he'd treated Edouard so abominably. To show the court his lack of mercy. But still some had resisted – and it had cost them. Many of the nobles' bodies now littered the fields too. Their heads were said to be adorning pikes in the royal garden. The rest had sworn fealty. It was what they needed to do to survive.
It was a coup. That much was clear. The only thing he didn't understand was how the mammoths and the sprigs had played into Simon's plans. Had they simply provided the opportunity? Or had he somehow sent them? Was he the evil mastermind behind these terrible attacks? Or was it the black robed advisor?
Whatever the truth Marcus knew they were answers he would never hear. He had returned from his escort duty to find Leona waiting for him at the city's broken gates, the rest of the family with her. And with the words of his little brother on her lips, he had had to listen.
Edouard was right, curse him. He usually was. Simon would come for them. The man had launched a coup and even now his position was precarious. If he fell he would be killed. And Simon would never let anyone stand between him and his survival. That included his family. The family had to be protected. That was his first duty. To escape the city with the rest of his family and get them to safety. So they had ridden hard that evening and the following morning they had reached the city. Since that day Bitter Crest had been their home.
It was a very sad home. Leona had cried for days after seeing Edouard. She said he was in a bad way, but she had also told them faithfully what Edouard had told her. Leave. Get out of the city and look after the rest of the family. He would get himself to safety and meet them when he could. It had been the right thing to do Marcus knew. They had to protect the family, most especially the women and children first. Just as his brother had known. Marcus knew that Edouard had the spark but he doubted that it would truly be enough to let him escape the royal dungeons. Edouard had simply said what he'd said to get the rest of the family to safety.
But were they really safe even here? He doubted it.
Bitter Crest wasn't that far from Theria. Less than a day’s ride on a good steed. And it was a free city, not part of any larger realm. It wasn't well defended either, with no walls and few cannon. Soon he knew, or rather he guessed, if Simon's ambition was as terrible as he feared, he would launch an attack on the free city, and they would have to flee again. There was no other reason he could think of that would lead his brother to hire so many mercenaries as it was claimed he was. He didn't want to be just king of Therion. He wanted to be an emperor.
There were other mysteries. The exodus from the city had slowed over time. Not because there weren't more people inside the city wanting to flee, for there were many remaining according to all those who had made it to Bitter Crest after them. But rather because they were being prevented from going. The front gate was guarded by soldiers. Soldiers who didn't seem to be protecting the city from outsiders, but who were now stopping the refugees from leaving. And one by one all the other gates and the holes in the wall were being blockaded too. Within a week of their arrival in Bitter Crest the number of refugees still arriving had fallen away. His best guess was that between ten and twenty thousand souls were now imprisoned in Theria.
Why that was Marcus didn't know, save that of course a city was nothing without people to call it home. But the thought troubled him. As did the understanding that whatever happened in Theria from then on would be unknown to him and everyone else. The city was locked down. No one entered it and no one left it.
Traders were turned away at the gate. So too were emissaries. Farmers bringing their fare to the markets were stopped and sent home too – and that was madness.
How much food was stored within the city walls? Not enough was Marcus' thought. Not even for those who remained inside. And those who arrived seeking to find their loved ones and bring them back were also barred. That was something that had never happened before.
But as he spied the woman in the alehouse trying to stand by herself in the middle of the crush and sip her drink, Marcus remembered that there was always one group who were never denied entry into a city. Not even in times of war – the priests. They could come and go freely, even he hoped, into Theria.
So standing there in front of him was the one person in this entire city who might be able to find out what was happening in Theria. Who might be able to check on Edouard and bring him some medicine. Who he might be able to persuade to his cause. Not that he knew her, or even that he expected her to consider him as anything more than a defiler of women. But Edouard was known to her precious Mother, and had looked after her sisters. Even defended them. That had to count for something.
Yet at the same time as he spotted the handmaiden in her home spun gown Marcus suddenly discovered that there were other questions he needed to ask. Who was she? Why was she in Bitter Crest? He wasn't even aware that there was a shrine in the city. Nor would he expect to find one of her calling in an alehouse. Suddenly the wheels were turning in his mind, as were the rumours about the handmaidens he had heard over the years.