The Argument of Empires (The Corrossan Trilogy Book 1)

by Jacob T. Helvey

  Grith finished the meal and gave his bowl to one of the men assigned wash duty. “Thank you,” he said quietly and turned to leave.

  “You don’t eat with the rest,” the man said. Grith turned back to him, a frown crossing his face. The soldier looked to be thirty, with creamy skin and light brown hair pulled back into a tail. “You train with us, you march with us, but you never eat with us. And that lord who comes to see you every night? Who is he?”

  There was no accusation in the man’s voice. Only interest. Grith couldn’t blame him. If he had been in the washerman’s place, he would have likely shared the same suspicions. He opened his mouth to respond, but on second thought, closed it. Tain would skin him alive for letting even the smallest of secrets pass his lips.

  No… best this man was left with burning questions instead of damning answers. Grith turned to walk away, praying to the Spirits that the washerman wouldn’t make a scene. The man wisely kept his mouth shut, and went back to scouring one of cookpots.

  Grith wasn’t the least bit tired, but set his small tent anyway, laying out his bedroll and throwing himself on the rough fabric. Energy roiled within his body like the storm at the heart of the Eye. He wanted to run, wanted to fight, wanted to burn off the power in the stew and bread and the frustration at the turn his life had taken.

  He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

  * * *

  Grith was woken by the sound of shouting. He went bolt upright, hitting his head on the top of his low tent and cursing as the poles came loose of the sandy soil, sending the canvas tumbling to fall atop him. Cursing as he untangled himself from the tent fabric, he stood to see the pike squads forming up along the road.

  Tribest was atop him mount, his armor like a myriad of faceted mirrors in the firelight, his sword drawn. “Form ranks! Form ranks!” he shouted, using his weapon to direct the scramble of soldiers. Grith looked up the road towards Erno. Smoke still rose into the air, but it was strangely thick, like… burning buildings!

  Grith ran to the formation forming in the middle of the road, strapping on his sword and knife and grabbing a pike from a pile next to the fire. He left the armor. He didn’t have time to mess with the straps, and besides, with his Delving it wasn’t like he needed it.

  Tribest directed them into ranks, and Grith took his position at the back right corner. He could still remember the cane he had taken that first day for not getting into formation quickly enough. Perhaps Tribest’s training was finally starting to payoff.

  “FORM UP!” the captain shouted. “CAVALRY SQUARE!” The formation broke at the command, spreading outward and forming a double line on four sides. Grith took one of the corners. Tribest rode around the empty square at the center of the formation, inspecting the spacing of his soldiers and looking for gaps in the line. Grith went down on one knee and stuck the butt of his pike into the dirt facing outward at a diagonal. The man behind him held his pike up so that it emerged over Grith’s head. Tribest had said the double-line formation could stop a charge from even the most spirited heavy cavalry, but Grith still had his doubts. Two pikes seemed like scant protection against a hundreds of pounds of horse and rider at full gallop.

  “Where’s the enemy, captain?” one of the men shouted. Grith scanned the light forest on either side of the road, looking for movement in the shadows or the glint of steel, any sign of a hostile presence. Nothing, even in the Deepening.

  “Orders came down from the High Lord!” Tribest replied. “We’re to hold this position until told otherwise!” It didn’t answer the soldier’s question, but he was wise enough to refrain from asking a second time.

  Grith glanced at Erno yet again. Had the smoke grown heavier since he had woken? Through the enhanced senses of the Deepening, he could just make out sounds up ahead. The clash of steel and something else. Was that screaming? Something was happening in the town, whether Tribest, and by extension Irrin, wanted to acknowledge it or not.

  Tain was up there, Grith knew it. He should be beside him. His body ached to use his abilities. He could feel his muscles tighten on the haft of his pike, the wood creaking beneath his grip.

  Why the hell do you care about them? The rational part of his mind demanded. Irrin wanted to kill you and burn your village. Why would you even lift a finger to help him after that?

  The truth was, he didn’t know. But something possessed him.

  Grith gritted his teeth and looked back over his shoulder towards Tribest. He could run now. With his Delving, he might even be able to outpace a horse. The captain wheeled around to chastise a trio of soldiers who had let their pikes fall below diagonal. Grith tensed. Tribest would be occupied for a few moments. If he was going to make his move, now was the time.

  Grith took a deep breath and dropped his pike, fully entering the Deepening and breaking into a dead run towards Erno. He pulled the small bottle of mysterious liquid Tain had given him from his belt and took a sip. The stuff still tasted like old coffee, but he forced it down anyway, feeling strength enter his body once again. Someday, he would have to ask Tain what the damn stuff was made of.

  He passed a half-a-dozen formations just like the Seventh, with their own shouting captains and terrified half-trained soldiers. Grith looked for familiar faces among the assembled pikemen, but it was too dark to make out anyone clearly and he was running too quickly to dwell on any particular figure for long.

  Grith was surprised when he turned his head to see the buildings of Erno already looming before him. He could only have been running for a minute, maybe less. I could get used to this, he mused as he took cover behind a three story building near the outskirts of the town.

  The houses and shops of Erno were built in a similar style to the others he had seen since coming to Toashan. Where structures in Hadalkir were normally wide and only a story or two in height, the Toashani preferred tall and thin buildings, sometimes five stories in the most extreme cases, and built of heavy stone or brick.

  Grith glanced back at the army. Crossbowmen were forming up along the road, taking positions in between the pike squares. Still others groups were moving in towards the town, led by heavy infantry in plate armor. These men were armed for pitched battle with halberds, poleaxes, and greatswords.

  Grith poked his head around the corner of building, slowly drawing his shortsword from its scabbard. It felt like a horribly pitiful weapon for a battle, but in the close quarters of house to house fighting, it might just give him an advantage over anyone wielding a longer blade.

  There were men in the street, moving from house to house and throwing torches through open windows. Their features were hidden beneath brown hoods, and they had leaves stuck in their cloaks.

  Some of the more experienced hunters back home had been known to weave reads and sticks into their hats to hide from seabirds. Grith supposed the tactic could be just as effective in hunting men.

  They carried swords and daggers, spears, and even the occasional recurve bow, and Grith could see the glint of armor under their cloaks. Still, they weren’t heavily equipped enough to be an attacking army. These men had the look of assassins, or saboteurs at the very least, meant to sow as much chaos in as little time as possible.

  Grith slipped around the side of the building and hugged the walls of the stacked houses, concealing himself in the shadows cast by the fires. This kind of clandestine action was what he had been made for. His father and mother had taught him well in the ways of the Shaleese Warrior, all stealth and unexpected action. He wouldn’t fail them now, as they had failed him so many years ago on the fields of Anton. He took a final short breath and burst from the shadow of an alleyway just behind one of the cloaked figures.

  To his credit, the man managed to turn half-way around before Grith planted his sword in the gap between the front and back plates of his cuirass. He let out a grunt and fell, pawing at the bleeding wound along his side. Grith was sure he had hit th
e liver. The man would be dead in an hour even if he got medical attention. Grith wouldn’t give him that long. He grabbed the hood of the assassin’s cloak and brought the enemy up to face him. He felt like little more than a child under Grith’s increased strength.

  He was old, with nut brown skin and short black hair. If Grith hadn’t known better, he might thought the man was Shaleese, but no, the eyes were wrong, blue instead of the typical brown. Heranan perhaps? Many had light eyes, didn’t they?

  Grith’s momentary hesitation provided just enough time for the assassin to get out his belt knife. Grith brought up a knee, cursing himself, and knocked the blade from the man’s fingers. He drove his sword into the dark warrior’s neck, and let him fall bleeding to the ground. Dammit! He’d wanted to question the man, to try and figure out who he was, why he was here, and who had sent him.

  Grith looked to his left to see two of the assassin’s comrades already coming down on him. One bore a sword and dagger, while the other had his short spear lowered, charging and shouting in a language Grith couldn’t understand.

  The one with the sword came in at full tilt, his blades held wide. Grith let a grin pass cross his face. Such a reckless guard left him wide open. He moved in to exploit the weakness, but just as the swordsman came into range, he shifted his body weight to the side, tossing himself in a move that should have thrown him off his feet. Somehow, the man controlled the jerking change of direction and got around Grith’s left, thrusting out with the point of his sword and bringing his dagger up in a parry meant to predict where he thought Grith would counterattack.

  Grith brought his sword around and nocked the thrust away, just in time to see the man with the spear out of the corner of his eye. He twisted on his heel and leaped, taking himself out of range of both his attackers. He spun back around to see them standing almost frozen in position, still staring at the spot where Grith had been standing only moments before. He wondered for a moment just how quickly he had moved.

  Both cloaked men suddenly looked to their right. Grith followed their eyes to see a company of Irrin’s heavy infantry approaching. Crossbowmen ran out ahead of the group and aimed their weapons, but by then, the two assassins had already disappeared down another alleyway.

  The figure at the head of the Selivian soldiers gave several commands, and his men spread out in a line to cover the width of the boulevard. Grith expected to be reprimanded for leaving his pike squad. Instead, the officer simply nodded, seemingly unaware of who Grith was.

  He mimed the gesture and turned towards the center of town, breaking into a run yet again, passing houses set ablaze and groups of soldiers and townsfolk trying to quench the fires with buckets of water. They’re distractions, Grith wanted to shout to them. These assassins, they had to be after Irrin, that much was clear. But why? Was this a clandestine action by some rival High Lord, or was something deeper at play? Grith had heard tales of House Wars, where nobles would wage shadowy conflicts of assassination and poisoning against one another. But this seemed like too much. This wasn’t some veiled plot, easily concealed after the fact. This was the next worst thing to open war.

  And the center of that war seemed to be focused on Erno’s market square. Men had begun forming up around the town’s largest structure, a five-story inn. The sign over the door read: “Zabrel’s Rest.” Just the kind of place where Irrin would bed down. The dozen assassins wore the same brown cloaks as the ones Grith had fought earlier, and looked to be preparing for an assault.

  Bodies already littered the cobbles, most in green uniforms, the leavings of a battle that the High Lord’s men had clearly gotten the worse of. A captain was trying to rally a disparate collection of soldiers on the far side of the square. Perhaps they could pull together some kind of counter-attack.

  Grith’s hopes were quashed as something bright lanced out of the darkness. A sound like a snapping limb echoed in the night and the officer fell, smoke pouring from his chest.

  What? Before Grith could discover the source of attack, there were a dozen more flashes of light, and the others were struck dead. Heart pounding, Grith edged forward cautiously, watching the darkness for whatever was responsible for killing the soldiers. He pulled out his bottle of liquid and took another drink. It calmed his shaking hands and his racing mind. The Deepening returned like a warm blanket, wrapping him in calm and serenity.

  With Irrin’s soldiers dead or in retreat, the brown cloaked figures turned their attention back to the inn. Grith thought they might try the front door, but to his shock, they began to climb, using the inn’s uneven stone façade to gain handholds as they ascended to the higher floors, breaking through windows and slipping inside.

  Grith took the opportunity to crawl forward, slipping around a set of stairs that jutted out into the street. He had killed one of these assassins before, but only when taken by surprise. Could he really fight a dozen? Could Tain? And what had killed those soldiers?

  His last questioned was answered in full as a burst of glowing projectiles pierced the darkness, landing in a spray around Grith. He cursed, searching for somewhere to hide. The closest cover was a low wall that outlined the front garden of a large townhouse. He ran towards the shelter, ducking as more projectiles whizzed over his head, whistling and cracking as they glanced off brick and cobble.

  He let out a curse as he hit the wall head first, hugging it like a lover and praying to whatever spirits or gods that would listen. The Deepening shattered, leaving him in a sweat that had nothing to do with the spring heat. He took several calming breaths, trying to rationalize what he had seen with his preconceived notions of the world. Those were flaming projectiles! Storybook magic! The kind that should have been impossible.

  But I’m as strong as five men, and twice as fast, he reminded himself. That’s storybook magic if I’ve ever heard it. Unless the Grim Sister had just come out of a fairytale to haunt him, he was dealing with another Delver, and of a kind he didn’t yet know.

  “Use your strengths,” Tain always said, “to hide your weaknesses.” Grith tried to think, to go through what he could do in the face of this strange Delver. His skin could turn the worst of a sword blow, and stop an arrow before it pierced through to his vital organs. But so could armor, and the breastplates the soldiers in the square had worn had done little to stop those projectiles. If he tried to face this Delver head on, he would die as easily as those poor bastards.

  But he did have one thing in spades, and it was the one thing that might save him. Speed…

  Grith poked his head out from behind his hiding spot. The front door to the inn was open, letting out a soft yellow light. If he could just cross the square… yes, he would have to face the brown cloaked men, but it had to be better than sitting out here, waiting to be struck through by this Delver.

  He took several long breaths, seeking to calm his racing mind, and reentered the Deepening. He needed more focus, more speed than he had ever drawn on before. The peace came in fits and starts, but after a moment, the serenity finally descended, his confidence returning, his breathing slowing, his arms and legs tensing with new strength. He could do this. He would do this.

  I am like a bolt of lightning, he told himself, repeating one of his mother’s favorite sayings. I move in silence, strike without warning, leaving only echoes in my wake.

  Grith leaped from behind cover and broke into a dead run across the cobblestones. The square offered little in the way of cover. If it had been a market day in the town, their might be stalls and barrels and carts that he could shelter behind, but not today. Grith had only his speed and the hope that whoever this Delver was, his shots didn’t find flesh.

  Inside the Deepening, seconds stretched to what felt like minutes. His footsteps echoed hollowly across the cobbles. A flight of projectiles shot through the air behind him, breaking the dead silence, so close he could feel their heat. Panic raced through his body. He was only feet from the front doo
r…

  Concentrate! Concentrate! He screamed at the animal part of his mind, but it refused to listen. The Deepening collapsed around him. He began to slow, the strength sapped from his body with such immediacy that he gasped at its absence.

  Blinding pain arched through him as he threw himself up the stair and through the entryway to the inn. He screamed, grasping at his left thigh as he hit the floor, trying desperately to find whatever had struck him. There was a wound, thick with blood. He tried to think through the pain, but it was like a white heat eating at the center of his mind, impossible to push aside. The Deepening would have helped, but standing as he was on the precipice of unconsciousness, its serenity was far outside his grasp.

  Something possessed Grith to stick his fingers into the wound, probing out, trying to find whatever had been thrust into his leg. All the while, the smell of burning flesh coming from the wound became stronger. More than two inches into the puncture, his fingers hit something hot. Grith gritted his teeth, trying to fight back a wave of nausea as agony washed over him.

  The Delver had hit him with something, that much was clear, but what that something was, he still couldn’t tell. All he knew was that it was hot as the inside of a forge, and that it needed to come out. He probed for several more moments, breathing deeply to fight back the blackness that threatened to overwhelm him. Spirits! If only he had the Deepening!

  Taking one last gulp of air, Grith grasped at the object imbedded in his leg with his thumb and pointer finger. It was hot, unbelievably so, and it took all of his control to keep from cringing back as it burned the skin of his fingers. He let a single curse pass his lips and with a scream, pulled the projectile from within his thigh.

  Girth sat up, hands shaking, weak as a babe as he looked down at his legs. There was a small hole in his breeches where the projectile had gone in, a combination of speed and heat driving it through the cloth and into the meat of his thigh. Blood welled up in thick rivulets from the smoking wound. It still hurt, burned like he’d stuck his leg in a fire, but it was the kind of pain he could handle. The kind that came after the worst part of an ordeal was done.