Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5)

by Robert J. Crane

  Amenon paused, and turned his head toward the house in question. Soldiers were visible in the back alley next to it, moving slowly.

  “They’ll hear them,” Terian said. “With the water filling the streets, there’s no way to move silently in that—”

  “We go now,” Amenon said, and started across the street. “Make your attack on the second floor in fifteen seconds.” He drew his sword as he went, Grinnd and Dahveed trailing behind him.

  “Son of a …” Terian muttered and then shook his head. Drips from above were pelting his armor like a lightest rain. He glanced at Bowe, who stared at the building across the street, and then at Sareea, who seemed to be casting him a What are you waiting for? look. “You heard the man. We have an appointment to keep in about ten seconds. Let’s move.”

  Chapter 44

  Terian’s axe shredded through the thick-spun cloth, some cheap threading manufactured from low quality vek’tag silk castoffs. He could hear Sareea’s blade doing the same next to him, and they burst through into the dwelling and into a world of shouts and screams.

  Most of them were coming from downstairs, Terian realized as he plunged his axe into the chest of a man carrying a short blade sword. The look of shock was muted as dark blood ran down the man’s chin, pouring from his lips like the water rushing down the slopes of Sovar.

  Sareea was already sweeping forward into the room as Terian pulled his axe out of the man’s chest and let him fall. Traitors are supposed to bleed to death anyway.

  A trio of screams from below hurt Terian’s ears and he cringed. One of the shouts of agony degenerated into cursing, and he recognized the voice as Grinnd’s, the loudest of the three. Another was a little higher, more accented—Dahveed.

  The third was his father’s.

  He broke toward the outline of a stairwell ahead but was halted by a hard gauntlet slapping him in the chest. “Go up,” Sareea shot at him as she pushed him back. Bowe flew past him in her wake, and Terian froze, watching the two of them descend. Another scream penetrated louder than the others, and he knew from the sound of it that Sareea had dealt with someone—and quite harshly.

  Terian steered his course woodenly toward the stairs up to the third floor. His feet were still drifting above the old planks that made up the floor.

  He’s not dead. He’s not. He’s fine. The screams below were fading as he stepped into the open stairwell and looked up to the floor above. He could see nothing looking back down at him save for the beams of the ceiling above. With a quick motion, he squatted and jumped as hard as he could.

  He felt his feet catch firmly as the spell prevented him from falling once his upward momentum was arrested. He leapt again and came over the railing of the third floor of the building with his sword at the ready. There was only one man waiting for him there, a scrawny runt of a dark elf, thin fingers extended in front of him. “Wait!”

  Terian buried the axe in his shoulder and it cut down through the collarbone until it lodged. The man cried out, and blood dripped down his ragged tunic, dyed green. He fell to his knees, the axe still buried in him.

  “When I pull this weapon out, you’ll have about a minute to live,” Terian said, keeping a snug grip on the handle. His eyes took in the rest of the room. There were ratty little bedrolls on the hard floor, a handful of possessions scattered about the room. The whole place stunk, the chamber pots full to the brimming.

  “Please,” the man said, and blood was dripping from his thin lips. “Please.”

  “You have women and children in here?” Terian asked. He looked up, trying to see if there was a stairwell to the roof. The planks looked rotted and there were countless gaps. Not sturdy enough for people to live up there, or they would, sure as shit.

  “No,” the man said, and his body shuddered. “We’re not …” His voice sounded far away, like it was fading. He looked up at Terian, looked him straight in the eyes with dark pupils that appeared to be getting larger by the moment. “… monsters.”

  Movement behind him caused Terian to rip his axe free and bring it up in a defensive posture as he spun toward the stairwell. Sareea stood there, watching him, looking grim until she broke into a faint smile.

  “What happened?” Terian asked, glancing to the fallen rebel he’d pulled the axe from. The man made a faint choking noise, his thin frame rattling as it tried to cling to a life that was already fleeing.

  “Wizard caught our team with an ice spell as they entered,” Sareea said. “Froze the standing water and their legs within it.”

  “Huh,” Terian said, still watching the skinny rebel. The man reached out toward him with those long, thin fingers. They touched his boot, smearing dark blood on the toe where the spikes jutted. “Are they all right?”

  “They’ll be fine,” Sareea said. “Is this the last one?”

  “Seems that way,” Terian said, glancing around the room. “They had most of the resistance stacked up on the first floor, then?”

  “Where we were most likely to hit, yes,” Sareea said. “And nobody up here?”

  “Their leader,” Terian said with a shake of the head. “We should … attend to the rest of our team.”

  “Right,” Sareea said, already descending. She paused, just for a moment. “What are you doing?”

  “The sentence for a rebel is death,” Terian said, and stared down at the man. “Death by bleeding, if it happens in the course of resistance. I’m just watching the sentence carried out.” He shot a look around the room. “The man’s near dead, I’ll bring him with us.” He reached down and grabbed the skinny body with one hand, laying it over his shoulder, spikes on his pauldrons burying themselves into the man’s guts.

  “Why not leave him for the army?” Sareea asked, still paused on the stairs.

  Terian hesitated. “Because I want to watch him die. Did you kill the wizard already?”

  “Couldn’t be avoided,” Sareea said, and she broke into a faint smile. “We could resurrect him, though, if you’d like to make him suffer—”

  “We’ll leave that to my father,” Terian said, heading toward the stairs. Every step gave way to a creaking noise, the weight of his armor making the floor seem as though it would give at any moment. “Let’s collect the bodies from the second floor and toss them out into the street for disposal.”

  “Aye,” Sareea said, descending below where he could see her. “I wonder if they’ll tar and hang them as examples?”

  “No,” Terian said, pausing just before he reached the edge of the staircase. He checked to make certain that Sareea could not see him. The body on his shoulder was drawing its last breath, one last, dying gasp, a rattle, and then it went quiet.

  He glanced around the room, the empty room—where water dripped in from the ceiling above, splashing in the corner in a strange pattern that looked like hair. Hair bereft of substance, hair that was colored in the exact manner of the wall behind it, like a lizard Terian had once seen that could blend in with whatever it was pressed against.

  The colorless hair hung there, the barest outline of a head visible with it, only a couple feet off the ground.

  A child.

  Terian held up his finger and placed it on his lips, then spoke low as he tossed the body over the edge of the railing, hoping its landing would keep Sareea from hearing his words. “Stay quiet, stay hidden until the army is gone. Do not make a sound until they’ve left.”

  He looked around the room, wondering how many of them there were, hiding, invisible from the spell the wizard had surely cast upon them. He would have guessed at least five, maybe ten. Maybe more.

  “What are you doing?” Sareea called up from below.

  “Hurt my shoulder throwing that corpse over the edge.” He stepped into view and looked down the stairs to see her standing there, the body at her feet. “Too much desk work. I think I’m atrophying away.”

  She cocked her head at him and smiled faintly. “You need more exertion in your life.”<
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  He smiled back, but there was no warmth in it. Say what you have to. “I trust you’ll help me with that.” Without another look back, he descended the stairs toward her. The thin, bony face of the rebel he’d killed stared back at him with hollow eyes.

  Chapter 45

  “Utter foolishness,” Amenon pronounced as the carriage made its way back up the tunnel toward Saekaj. “An insurrection not even in name, nor half measure.” The bumping of the carriage along the tunnel road jarred Terian’s tense body. Sareea sat next to him, aloof as ever. Dahveed was in the seat next to his father, who had his helm off.

  “You would wish for a more dramatic and troublesome rebellion, then?” Dahveed asked with some amusement. His head rocked slightly as they hit a rut in the road. “I suppose we could send down a few more wizards, perhaps some enchanters with the instruction to make a true mess of it.”

  “I think that the mess we had was quite enough,” Amenon said with a slight smile. “That wizard acted with far more craftiness than I would have expected from Sovar trash. Any idea who he was?”

  “I don’t know the wizards as well as the head of the Commonwealth of Arcanists might,” Dahveed said with a shrug. “I could have him come down to the Depths to try and identify the body on the rot pile, if you’d like.”

  Amenon hesitated for just a moment, lips pursed. “Do so. I do not wish to let this matter go to rest without investigating all possibilities.”

  “The Third Army will be tied up in Sovar for quite some time, yes?” Terian asked, trying to control his voice.

  “At least a week to allow tensions to dissolve, I would think,” Amenon said, his face pinched in contemplation. “It may not have been an actual rebellion or riot, but I see no reason to let it spark another before we have a chance to dampen Sovar’s enthusiasm for one.”

  “I’d be surprised if their enthusiasm wasn’t already dampened,” Terian said, looking out the window to see the thin sheen of water making its way down the slope. It was only a trickle now, compared to what they’d faced on the way down. “Among other things.”

  “A week will see the Back Deep dried out,” Amenon said with a nod. “When I was a child I saw many a harsher flood than this. The ground will accept the water, and it will make its way down to the Great Sea after a time. Such is the way of things there. This is normal.”

  Normal to see your home turned into a flooded bog with water in the streets. Terian kept himself from grimacing. I suppose hanging out nearer the Front Gate in the Unnamed, I had no idea how bad it got down in the Back Deep.

  “What I’m curious about is what prompted this particular uprising,” Sareea said.

  “Do rabble need cause to rise?” Amenon said, staring out the window.

  “No, but seldom will you find a man willing to toss himself into death without good cause,” Dahveed said, his eyes canny.

  “The one I fought looked underfed,” Terian said, thinking about it. “I haven’t seen any fishing production reports in the last couple weeks.”

  Amenon looked over at him, eyes focused in the distance, as if staring through him. “You’re quite right. I hadn’t noticed.” He tapped a finger on his chin. “Now that I think on it, I haven’t seen production reports for wildroot or mushrooms in at least a few weeks, either.”

  “Starvation has been the cause of more than a few desperate maneuvers,” Terian said.

  “It’s not quite reached starvation levels,” Dahveed said, “but there are some who are most certainly getting close.”

  “You knew this was a problem?” Amenon snapped.

  “Whispers and secondhand rumors,” Dahveed said, holding his hands up. “Until this visit, I had not been to Sovar in a few weeks. Too busy attending to other matters.”

  “If they are edging close to starving,” Amenon said, “Shrawn is holding back information from me.”

  “And you didn’t notice?” Terian asked.

  “Did you?” Amenon spat back at him. “I’ve been dealing with the upsurge in training reports for the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh armies.”

  “I haven’t read those,” Terian said. He could feel the sharp surprise. “I didn’t even know we had seven armies now.”

  “We have ten,” Amenon said, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “And you did not know because I had set you to watching the civilian side of Saekaj and Sovar, not the army. You were supposed to keep an eye on things here for me.”

  Terian stared at his father, keeping his jaw from hanging open. We haven’t had ten full armies since the last war. “I am sorry, Father,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully. “I assumed you were holding back the reports since you prefer to filter what I receive.”

  “I expected you to—” Amenon paused, cocked his head to listen. Terian turned his head as well, and could hear some commotion outside the carriage.

  “Lord Amenon!” came a shout from outside. “Lord Amenon!” Terian rose from his bench to look out into the tunnel. The dark cave was lit by lanterns suspended from the walls, casting illumination over the seeping floor. The ground was a muddy, rocky mix, and even with the vek’tag pulling the carriage, it was moving more slowly than a man might run.

  Out of the darkness behind them, Terian could see a man sprinting up the slope. He wore the livery of the Third Army, draped in the boiled leather and bearing a metal helm as befit an officer. He was a far cry from the runners typically used to deliver messages. This was an officer, a curious choice to send after the General of the Armies of the entire Sovereignty.

  “Stop,” Terian ordered the carriage driver, and he could hear the vek’tag at the front of the carriage receive the driver’s shouts and curses. “Sareea, with me,” Terian said. He heard her move behind him as he jumped from the carriage.

  There was a line of other conveyances behind them, carts and the sort. If their drivers were irritated at the inconvenience of the stop of traffic, they were wise enough to say nothing to Terian as he waited just behind the carriage, Sareea at his side, sword drawn. He held his axe loosely in his hands as the officer chasing them huffed his way up the slope.

  “Identify yourself,” Terian said, moving to intercept the man as he closed on the carriage. Sareea was right there with him, and he could feel her tension without looking at her.

  The officer pulled himself upright, fired off a sharp salute, and eyed Terian with a genuine fatigue. “Apologies, my lord. I bring a message for Lord Amenon that I must deliver to his ears only.”

  “I bet,” Terian said, holding up his axe. “And they send you, a fat, slow officer rather than a thin, fast messenger boy?” He raised his axe. “I think—”

  “Terian, hold.” His father’s voice washed over him from behind. “This is Colonel Harsmyth’s adjutant, I doubt he’s some assassin in disguise.” Terian glanced at his father, who stood at the door to the carriage and motioned them forward. “Come. Deliver your message.”

  “Yes, sir,” the adjutant said, breathless. He worked his way up the last few steps. Terian and Sareea flanked him the whole way. He carried the sweaty air of a man who’d been running, a brisk smell. “I come with a message from Colonel Harsmyth.”

  “I figured that much out,” Amenon said, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “Out with it.”

  “Colonel Harsmyth requests your immediate return to Sovar,” the man said, nearly gasping. He slumped, placing his hands on his knees. He’s more winded than even I would be, Terian thought.

  “Did the Colonel give a reason for this request?” Amenon asked, almost hesitant.

  “He did, sir, but he asked me to please wait to tell you of it if at all possible until you are far removed from any … prying ears.” The adjutant spoke the last part of the sentence with an apologetic hesitation, as though he had done some great wrong he needed to hide.

  Amenon showed little reaction to that which Terian could read. “I’m afraid I’m going to need to know before I turn around.”

>   The adjutant swallowed hard. “Of course, sir.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “We have had a problem.”

  Terian could feel the blood run out of his face. They found them. They found them—dear gods, they found them and now I’m in for all manner of hell—

  “One of the squads of the Third Army, sir,” the adjutant said, talking over Terian’s racing thoughts. “They—” He faltered.

  “They what?” Amenon snapped. “Out with it, lad. I’ll not have you mince words here in front of my staff. Get on with what you mean to say.”

  “One of the squads has … rebelled,” the adjutant whispered. “Killed their Lieutenant … and struck out against their fellow soldiers. They say …” He swallowed again, as though the words might disappear into his throat by his actions, “they said they would not be bound by the laws and rule of a Sovereign who would starve and kill his own people.”

  Chapter 46

  “I don’t see the problem,” Terian said as they rolled through the near-empty streets of Sovar. Soldiers ran in clusters here and there, but the citizenry were still indoors. “So a squad went stupid and decided to revolt. That’s hardly—”

  “That is the beginning of the end of everything,” Amenon said, cutting him off. “And you should know it.”

  “Patience, my old friend,” Dahveed said, but his expression was pinched. “It might not be as bad as you think.”

  “A squad going renegade and starting an insurrection?” Amenon said with barely contained fury. “I can think of nothing worse.”

  “An entire division going renegade,” Terian said. “A whole army. All the armies.” An overwhelming sense of silence greeted him. “It’s a squad. A squad of what? Four people. Three of them lost their minds and did something incredibly stupid. It’s not like we weren’t just in a situation where we watched several civilians and a wizard do exactly the same thing.”