by A J Dalton
‘They’re from outside the walls, lad. They’re the sorts of people that live on the lower slopes of Corinus. Every week, patrols of wardens come out of the city and round up the poorest and the sickest. Their crime? Well, they’re technically homeless, living outside the walls, so whatever they live on to survive is stolen. Since the King owns everything in Dur Memnos. Theft is treason, as you know, punishable by death.’
‘But… but… it’s too much to believe. Why? Why kill them?’
‘Did your family ever have to eat human meat? You said you struggled for food.’
‘What? No!’ Young Strap gasped in horror. ‘The very idea is… is just wrong.’
‘There is very little food on these plains, lad. There is little enough available in the city, even less here outside the walls. The warden patrols control the population outside, while providing meat for those outdwellers that avoid their trawl. As for what the indwellers get in return for managing the outdwellers – human tallow aside – there is of course a willing workforce for all the really dirty jobs that indwellers don’t fancy, and then there are people that can be forced into the army.’
Young Strap reeled. Up was down. He could no longer trust what he saw and knew. The home he had so looked forward to returning to was now so ugly that he could barely stand to look at it. He had often thought of Corinus as a beautiful woman, but now he could only think of it as a corpse that was rotten and crawling with maggots just beneath the skin.
‘How can this be, Old Hound?’ Young Strap wheezed. ‘By Shakri’s holy creation, how can this be? Do the temples know? How can the gods permit it?’ The Old Hound sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t know, lad, I don’t know.’
Young Strap’s laugh was brittle. ‘It’s always such a pleasure riding with you, Old Hound. Your touch is like death itself, turning everything to decay. I was young just a few days ago. Hell, I was innocent too. Now I feel like a sinful, old man on his deathbed, trying to repent before it’s too late.’
The Old Hound smiled sadly. ‘I’m sorry, lad. And here was me hoping to rediscover something of my youth and innocence through you. Maybe that’s why I took you on. I don’t know anymore.’
‘Well,’ the youth said with forced brightness. ‘We’ll just have to put a stop to all of it. Maybe the King will help us when we see him.’
The Old Hound looked up in alarm.
‘Just kidding!’ Young Strap said, gazing at the old soldier. He now better understood what he was looking at: a good man finding it increasingly hard to be so. A desperate man who knew things had gone wrong despite his best efforts. ‘I now know what it is to read the field. Not only do I have to know what happens around me, but I also have to know where I came from and who I am. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive you, but I suppose I should thank you for what you’ve taught me.’
The Old Hound nodded apologetically.
‘Just one more thing, though I’m sure I won’t like the answer: when families inside the walls inter their dead in the catacombs… well, it’s said there are entrances to the catacombs at the bottom of the slopes… do people from outside… people who need to eat…’
The Old Hound took pity on the youth. ‘Many people live in the lower levels of the catacombs. No doubt they find their way into places where indwellers lay their dead to rest. And I doubt the denizens of the catacombs have any qualms about nibbling on the flesh of a noble or two. They will of course take the burial shroud and any valuable burial goods as well.’
‘But why do they stay? It’s no life feeding on the dead. Why don’t they just leave Corinus and go into the countryside to find a better place to live, where there is light and game to be found?’
‘Aye, that’s a question I’ve often asked myself. I’ve wrestled with it some, but now think I have something of an answer. For many, it’s all they know. Imagine being born amidst the catacombs: you’d think it was natural to feed on the dead and live in this necropolis. You wouldn’t know anything of the world anywhere else, except perhaps stories of necromancers and wars. You wouldn’t really have the skills to live off the land either. No, much safer to stay here, where at least the supply of meat is regular.’
‘The poor wretches! But, as you say, they might not know any different. They might even be happy in a perverse sort of way. Some of them might not even understand what they do as wrong, having grown up without that particular sense of morality. But the temples! Do the priests never step outside of the walls and preach of the sanctity of life?’
The Old Hound scratched at his head, appearing to contemplate the question, but actually thinking he needed a proper bath and scrub to remove the itchy dirt from his body. ‘Well, the priests of Wim, the god of luck, see it all as holy chance whether someone is born inside or outside of the walls. It would be blasphemy for them to seek to interfere with the random order of things ordained by Wim. Crazy, I know, but Wim is often depicted as mad. They argue that it is for an individual to make their own luck and escape their situation.
‘Another powerful temple in Corinus is the temple of Cognis, the god of knowledge and wisdom. Of course, the priests of Cognis know exactly what’s going on, but they think the wise path is to maintain the status quo. You can appeal to their sense of reason upon occasion but in the main they are not men and women of action – they prefer quiet reflection, abstraction and meditation instead. You could go to them and describe the problem, but they would then go into retreat to pray and come up with a solution. When they finally emerged, they would seek to charge you an exorbitant sum for the wisdom passed onto them by their god, and you would then find that the world had moved on during their lengthy deliberations and that their solution was no longer of any relevance or value, and was only of academic interest.’
‘But what about the priests of Shakri?’ Young Strap protested hopefully. ‘I know they have a temple here. I was taken there once when I was young. If anyone should be seeking to change things, it should be them.’
‘Their temple in Corinus has fallen on hard times, I’m sorry to say, lad. I think the people of Corinus are far from impressed with their lives. They seem to blame Shakri, even though this city is of their own making. Rather than praying to Shakri to improve their lives, they accuse her of having abandoned them. They don’t see it as their having forsaken Shakri, you see. I heard of a young, idealistic priest of Shakri who did venture outside of the walls once. He disappeared. Probably ended up on a spit.’
Young Strap felt nauseous. ‘This cannot be. How long has it been like this? How can the King permit it? How can you permit it? How can you sit there looking so unconcerned? You are the King’s Scourge, the most feared of the Guardians. You brought law to a lawless kingdom. You rooted out all the evil magicians… didn’t you?’ And then his voice became a piteous whisper. ‘Or were those stories just lies to keep the population within the city distracted? Were they false hopes and dreams? False beliefs that everything was fine and would always work out for the best, to stop people worrying about what was going on and rising up?’
‘Sounds like you can answer most of your own questions, lad,’ the Old Hound said tiredly. ‘I’m an old man now. I’ve killed my fair share of bad people over the years, but there are just too many of them. There seem to be more of them now than when I started.’
‘How can that be? There are lots of King’s Guardians, aren’t there? If they all hunt out necromancers, then they should all be gone, shouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, they should, but for a reason I haven’t been able to discover, they continue to proliferate. I suspect Accritania’s to blame. It’s said necromancers are welcomed there in the war against us. I’ve sent a Guardian to Accritania to ascertain how things really stand. There must be some source of power there that fuels their evil. If we can discover it and destroy it, we may one day be able to end this war and free Corinus and our beleaguered kingdom.’
‘Well that gives me some hope, at least.’
***
They rode across
the bare valley and finally reached the lower slopes of Corinus. There were boulders strewn about with pools of shadow in between despite the sunlit day. Out of the corner of his eye, Young Strap caught a movement and turned to see a boy in rags scampering over and behind one of the boulders.
‘There are people living here!’
‘No doubt, but their eyes aren’t so good in the daylight so we’re safe enough.’
Young Strap gulped. ‘Right!’
The road began to climb and they were soon amongst the first black granite buildings lining the route. The simple constructions narrowed the road to a mere wagon’s width and Young Strap looked around nervously, expecting some sort of surprise attack. He felt watched. Or was his mind just playing tricks on him?
The Old Hound appeared untroubled and sat his horse in his usual, relaxed manner.
‘Yer still alive then!’ cackled an old man on a doorstep not far away, showing off pointed, brown teeth. Where had he come from all of a sudden?
The Old Hound stopped his horse and leaned forwards on his pommel. ‘Trajan, that you? I swear there’s less of you each time I see you.’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised! There’s less and less to eat. I’m gonna have to start eating meself if things don’t change soon.’ Another cackle.
‘Who’s that with you?’
Young Strap blinked. What’s he’d taken for a bundle of rags at the old man’s side now resolved itself into a small boy. The boy was staring at Young Strap with ravenous eyes.
‘Me grandson. And who’s that with you? Looks a mite green.’
‘Never you mind him, Trajan, he’s tougher than he looks. He was fighting cannibals up in the mountains for a year before he decided to look for more of a challenge hunting zombie-makers with me. What news from the city?’
Trajan sneered, although whether at Young Strap or the topic of the city it wasn’t clear.
‘The wardens have been overstepping themselves, rounding up more than the usual numbers. They even took old Lilly the other day, and she was a house-owner who always paid them well. We outdwellers have always had an understanding with the wardens but now they’ve gone and got themselves a new Chief Warden and things are changing for the worse. An ugly giant of a man called Brax is who he is, or some such. He’s as big as a normal man sitting his horse, they say. I don’t know where this will end, but it won’t be anywhere good, mark me. I’m telling you this, Guardian, because you’ve always been straight with me in the past and I’ve a feeling that the time’s fast approaching when we will all be relying on straight-thinking men.’
The Old Hound looked sombre. ‘It is of concern, though I’m not sure what I can do. To be sure, Corinus can ill afford to suffer internal divisions when Accritania dares set foot in Dur Memnos. Yes, we won the battle, but that does not change the significance of Accritania’s move.’
‘Perhaps they were desperate,’ Trajan pondered.
‘Perhaps, perhaps. This Chief Warden, where did he come from? I’ve never heard of any Brax, nor of one who apparently stands out so well.’
Trajan tutted and shook his head. ‘No one knows. Few indwellers dare talk of him. And how fares the kingdom, Guardian? Do the dead rest in peace?’
‘Not enough for my liking. And they kept Young Strap awake at nights, eh, lad?’
‘Sadly,’ the youth murmured as Trajan treated them all to another of his spine-jarring cackles. Irritated, Young Strap blurted: ‘It might be no coincidence.’
Trajan stilled and cocked his head like a bird. The Old Hound frowned. ‘What do you mean, lad?’
‘I mean the wardens are taking more of the outdwellers and there seem to be greater numbers of necromancers and the undead at large in the kingdom. That’s as much as the two of you have already said. All I’m saying is that there might be a connection.’
‘What manner of connection, be you thinking?’ the Old Hound asked thoughtfully.
Young Strap shrugged. Trajan’s eyebrows beetled up his forehead and he sucked on his gums. ‘This young fellow reminds me of you when you were younger, Guardian. Green, perhaps, but smart enough to cause us all a whole heap of trouble. Hope you survive your visit to the palace, Guardian. Tread carefully. Come along, grandson! We dawdle here much longer and the hungry night will find us.’
The Old Hound nodded to Trajan and led his companion further up the hill.
‘Friend of yours?’ Young Strap asked curiously.
‘No one has friends outside the walls, just people who share an understanding of how all lives in a society are ultimately dependent on each other. No one would be left alive at all if there weren’t at least some of us with that understanding.’
‘Oh. And how do you know when someone has that understanding?’
‘When they don’t try and kill you and when they don’t betray you despite an obvious opportunity. Now stop talking, lad. Trajan’s right – you’re smart enough to get us all in a whole heap of trouble.
***
They climbed higher and passed through the gates to Corinus, unchallenged by the enormous, watchful guards. The streets here were much busier and their progress slowed the deeper in they got. They were now surrounded by black granite buildings and it would have been like stepping into the darkest of nights if it weren’t for the gaudy, bright fashions of the indwellers. They lit the place like a meteor storm, blazing comets, shooting stars and the aurora borealis happening all at once.
‘This place always makes me feel more queasy than a battlefield!’ the Old Hound complained.
‘Doesn’t smell much better either,’ Young Strap wrinkled. ‘Funny, you don’t really realise it until you’ve been away for a while. Straight for the palace?’
‘No. A small detour to the Bloated Corpse first.’
‘Excellent, I’d welcome a hot tub and an ale.’
‘No ale.’
‘But…’
‘No ale.’
‘Why…’
‘No ale.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good. I’d hate to think how much you’d talk with your tongue loosened even further by alcohol.’
The Bloated Corpse was the tavern used by all King’s Guardians whenever in Corinus. As King’s Guardians, they were always offered free board and the costs were charged back to the palace. A long as the tavern never presented costs beyond what the palace thought reasonable, the tavern owner avoided a charge of treason and a summary execution. The rooms and fare at the tavern were always good since the tavern owner was also eager to avoid any complaints to the palace about the tavern by the Guardians.
‘Uncommonly quiet,’ the Old Hound observed to the twitchy tavern keeper.
‘Yes!’ he yelped, alarmed at having the Scourge back in his tavern. He took a deep, steadying breath and put on his most practised smile. ‘Haven’t had any Guardians through in a good while.’
‘How long?’
‘A month?’ he hazarded, hoping that his answer wasn’t going to upset his customer. Then the tavern keeper began pouring two tankards of ale, much to Young Strap’s delight.
‘A month!’ the Old Hound pondered, distracted by the information, and not noticing when Young Strap grabbed one of the foaming tankards. ‘That’s a long time but I suppose there have been such gaps before. With all the necromancer activity going on at the moment, they’ll have been kept busy.’
Young Strap wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, contemplated the second tankard and decided against it. ‘How many Guardians are there actually?’
‘That’s not for discussion here, lad. Suffice it to say, there are enough to be in every part of the kingdom at once. We have to make necromancers think that we’re everywhere and that they cannot avoid us. We have to make them feel desperate because then they’ll do desperate things, make mistakes and reveal themselves.’
‘I see. And, anyway, the population in the countryside’s on our side, from what you’ve said.’
‘Largely, but we get quite a few wasting our time with f
alse accusations about neighbours they’re trying to get into trouble. We never trust information from a merchant who’s accusing another merchant, for example. But enough of this! Tavern keeper, two baths, and trenchers of food. Cheese, bread, onions and wild fowl. And be quick about it. The King awaits us!’
The tavern keeper jumped. ‘Yes, sirs! The Bloated Corpse is here to serve, and only tarries to check the King’s Guardians are satisfied they are receiving the best fare!’
***
With the dirt of the road washed off him and a comfortable feeling in his stomach, Young Strap stepped out into the descending night with a spring in his step. The royal palace waited, a building that he had only ever glimpsed from afar even as a native of Corinus. He deliberately had to slow his step to stay even with the Old Hound’s unhurried gait.
They took numerous turnings but always moved upwards. Young Strap did not know this wealthy district of the city, his family always confined to the poorer areas near the city walls. The buildings here were splendidly large and all had decorated facades that made statements. He goggled at the winged gargoyles, the trees and flowers in bas relief and the giant columns.
‘Try to look as if you’re at ease, lad. You’re making us conspicuous.’
Young Strap realised his jaw had been hanging open. He closed his mouth, squared his shoulders and looked straight ahead, only peeking out of the corner of his eye occasionally.
‘We’ll be reaching the royal precinct soon, lad. The guards are frightening, even to the likes of me. They do not hesitate to kill if they sense anything out of place. I am well known, but you are not. Just being with me, however, will not protect you if you do or say anything to raise their suspicion. And understand this: I will not draw any weapon to defend you. It is forbidden to show steel or aggression in the precinct. Do you understand?’