by Gav Thorpe
"What did you say, pig fucker?" This was from the Fifteenth's sergeant, who emptied a goblet of wine into his mouth and tossed the cup to the floor in front of Muuril.
"What did you just call me?" Muuril cracked his knuckles, as much a part of the pre-fight ritual as the insults.
"Pig fucker."
Muuril looked around at his men, and then across to the soldiers from the Fifth.
"But I ain't never met your wife," said Muuril. Laughter filled the cellar for a moment while the Fifteenth's sergeant looked on impassively. "Tell you what, why don't you suck my cock for me instead?"
This brought a few gasps from the Fifth, spits and curses from the Fifteenth. This time it was their sergeant's turn to smile.
"But I don't want to know what your mother's shit tastes like," he said.
Gelthius didn't see who threw the first jug; it might have even been one of the Fifth. Within moments, the two groups of legionnaires were lunging at each other, fists ready.
A solid left hook caught Gelthius on the brow, knocking him back. A legionnaire backed away, shaking his hand painfully, knuckles likely broken against Gelthius's skull. Gelthius launched into the fray, kicking and punching, aiming for arms and legs.
It was a brawl, not a proper fight. No knives were drawn and in the close press of bodies it was hard to land a proper blow. Bodies grappled and rolled over the tables; bottles smashed. There were as many curses and insults as punches. Muuril and the other sergeant made for each other immediately. Gelthius's superior landed a good blow against his opponent's chin, rocking him back a step. He followed up by driving his knee into the man's gut. That was a mistake. His kneecap rang against armour. Muuril howled and fell back, clutching his leg.
The Fifteenth's sergeant raised a foot to stomp on Muuril but Gelthius dived into the gap, tackling the other sergeant to the ground. He smashed his elbow into the man's nose before being shoved to one side, rolling out of the way as a legionnaire from the Fifth lost his footing and almost fell on top of Gelthius.
Gebriun caught Gelthius in the eye with a flailing hand as he fended off a punch. The Salphor heaved himself to his feet, driving his shoulder into the chest of another man, legs pumping until the two of them tripped over a fallen chair and collapsed in a heap.
Untangling himself from man and furniture, Gelthius heard the tramping of more feet on the steps. He looked over his shoulder and saw armed legionnaires jogging down into the cellar. The designs on their shields marked them out as the Second Magilnadan, their officer calling for peace.
"This will not be tolerated!" the captain bellowed.
The struggling slowly ceased as the officer reached the bottom of the steps.
"Your names and companies will be taken. You will be punished for this ill-discipline."
There were glances between the legionnaires; nods of agreement between men who had been trying to batter each other unconscious just moments before. Gelthius helped up the man he had hurled to the floor and received a pat on the shoulder as thanks.
Muuril and the other sergeant seemed to lean against each other. As they broke apart, the man from the Fifteenth spun around to his men.
"Run for it!"
The legionnaires — Fifteenth, Thirteenth and Fifth — needed no further encouragement. As a solid mass, they swept pass the officer and plunged into the legionnaires on the stairs, sending them sprawling. Gelthius ran with the rest of them, shouting an apology over his shoulder as he stepped on the arm of a man who had fallen.
There were more soldiers from the Second Magilnadan upstairs; five of them between the erupting mob and the door to the street. Three had enough sense to jump out of the way; the other two were swept out of the tavern by the mass of legionnaires making a bid for freedom. Tumbling into the dirt street outside, shields and spears trampled underfoot, they were soon lost from view. Gelthius was one of the first to reach the door and broke left.
"Scatter! Back to the camp when you can!"
Gelthius didn't recognise the voice but took the advice anyway. With the others, he pounded down the cobbled road, the group growing smaller and smaller as others broke away into side streets and alleys. Laughing, Gelthius stumbled under an arched bridge linking two buildings.
He almost ran straight into another officer. Pulling himself back at the last moment, he twisted aside. The officer stopped and turned. With horror, Gelthius realised it was King Ullsaard. He straightened himself as best as he could, banging a fist to his chest in salute.
Ullsaard looked at him for a moment. The king cocked his head to one side, listening as the shouts of the hue and cry echoed through the archway.
"Are you running away from someone, legionnaire?" asked Ullsaard.
"Yes, your majesty," said Gelthius. There was no point denying it.
The king looked at him for a moment longer, and then his gaze moved past Gelthius and under the arch.
"Best keep running," said Ullsaard, gently but firmly pushing Gelthius to the left, back towards the centre of Magilnada.
With a grateful nod and a lop-sided smile, Gelthius set off, winking at the bodyguard of Thirteenth Legionnaires following their king. Just as the road took a sharp turn, he looked back and saw King Ullsaard haranguing the captain of the Second Magilnadan.
"Spirits bless you, general," Gelthius whispered to himself as he disappeared into the market crowds.
II
A second city as large as Magilnada stretched across the plains hotwards of the city gate. The gap between the Lidean and Minean mountain ranges was full of Askhans, nearly ninety thousand of them. More than ten thousand had already marched duskwards into Salphoria, led by impatient amateur commanders.
As he had done many times in the past days, Anglhan rubbed his hands with glee. All those men, who needed food, water, whores, abadas, rope, wine, sandals, and a hundred other things beside; all of them bringing chests full of askharins into his city. He had not hoarded it all to himself; he was greedy but not stupid. More than half the gold he had taken in taxes had been spent improving his two Magilnadan legions; recruiting and equipping three thousand more men, and ensuring both legions had plentiful armour, weapons and rations. He had invested in twenty of the Askhan spear-throwing machines, and had been disappointed to discover that with the Brotherhood prohibited by Ullsaard, lava-throwers were no longer available.
That was the money he considered his 'civic' fund, which he set aside for expenses concerning the city. From his personal fortune he had bribed quite a few Hillman chiefs to cease their raids from further into the mountains, persuading them that they could get more by staying at home than they could by harassing the caravans moving between Greater Askhor and the newly-conquered territories of the Free Country.
The rest he was spending as the mood took him. The palaces on the Hill of Chieftains at Magilnada's heart had never looked so grand, nor been filled with so many servants, administrators and general lackeys.
He huffed onto the gold and silver rings adorning his left hand and polished them on his woollen shirt, enjoying the lustre of gems and pearls. A clatter of feet on the gatehouse steps caused him to turn. Ullsaard was the first out of the tower. Seeing the Askhan king reminded Anglhan that he would need to despatch agents to procure him an ailur, purely for display; he had no intention of riding one of the fearsome war-cats.
"Hail King Ullsaard," Anglhan said with a grin. "I trust everything is to your satisfaction?"
"No, it isn't" said Ullsaard. "There's no decent road to march on beyond ten miles from the city and half of the legions haven't got campsites with fresh water."
"I have been sending water from our wells to help them," said Anglhan.
"Yes, and charging the First Captains for the pleasure," said Ullsaard.
"I have expenses," Anglhan said with a lugubrious shrug. "Wells don't dig themselves, and water doesn't leap into the buckets on its own, nor flow into barrels or drive abada carts."
Ullsaard answered only with a long, penetrati
ng stare. Anglhan smiled.
"I promise that I have made no profit on the water, Ullsaard," said the governor. "My costs and charges are open to be examined."
"Yes, I'm sure they are," said Ullsaard. He sighed heavily. "What about the whores and merchants you keep sending into the camps?"
"I have not sent anybody, spirits strike me down if I lie!" said Anglhan. "It is not my place to tell proper tradesmen, and women, where they can and cannot go."
"You're a fucking governor, not a market stall holder," snapped Ullsaard. "I am issuing a general order tomorrow: any person found within half a mile of a legion camp without a token of passage will be killed. This whole area is full of mongrel bastards from all over the mountains and Salphoria. There's no telling what they've seen and who they're telling it to."
"And how does someone get a token of passage?" asked Anglhan.
"From me or a First Captain."
Anglhan pouted for a moment.
"Can a governor not issue them?"
Ullsaard's jaw twitched with irritation and his eyes narrowed.
"No, a governor can't," he said. "And if they could, I wouldn't let you near the things. You'd be selling them to the highest bidder quicker than they could be made."
Anglhan chose not to comment. He leaned his arms on the parapet and stared out over the assembling armies.
"This province needs a name," Ullsaard said, joining the governor. "Your patch is bigger than just Magilnada, and I'm not inclined to call it Free Country for long, it gives people the wrong idea."
"It used to be called the Faellina, or at least the tribes who used to live here were called that. That's how it works in Salphoria; the place is named after the people, not the other way around like you Askhans."
"I'm not Askhan, remember? I was born in Enair."
Anglhan waved away the quibble.
"The point still stands, Ullsaard. In Salphoria, the peoples and the areas are the same. There are no borders, none that you'd recognise. One chieftain says to another chieftain, 'The land this side of the forest is mine' and the other chieftain says that is fine with him or gets an axe in the head. That area gets named after the tribe, until the second chieftain gets brave enough to put an axe in the other man's head or his people grow numerous enough to gently shoulder the first tribe out of the way. You think Magilnada is a mongrel region? You're going to get even more confused the further duskwards you go."
Ullsaard cleared his throat, tapped his fingers on the top of the wall for a moment and then turned sideways to look at Anglhan.
"Faellina? Right. That's what we'll put on the maps."
The two of them said nothing for a while, both with their own thoughts. It was Anglhan that broke the quiet.
"Have you seen your family yet?"
Ullsaard shook his head.
"Haven't plucked up the courage for it yet. I'm going to get it in the neck because of the whole Meliu and Noran divorce… thing. I can't face my wives just yet. Ullnaar came with me; he headed to the house as soon as we arrived. I'll let him comfort his mother for a while before I show my face."
Anglhan said nothing. He had not delivered the letter from Ullsaard announcing his intent to divorce his youngest wife. Ullsaard must have seen something in Anglhan's face.
"Is there something else I should be worried about?" asked the king. "My wives are well? Noran is still alive?"
Anglhan couldn't meet Ullsaard's fierce stare.
"I didn't exactly hand over the letter…" said the governor. He continued before Ullsaard could say anything, the words spilling out. "Look, it didn't seem the right time when Noran was so bad, and you weren't king yet, and Allenya was heartbroken, and so was Meliu. They didn't need anything else to concern themselves with."
Ullsaard growled and stalked away. Anglhan watched the king until he had stepped into the tower. It was clear that not everything was going as well as Ullsaard had imagined. The governor would have to tread lightly while the king was around.
And that reminded him of another appointment. If he hurried back to the palace, he would have a bit of free time before Furlthia arrived.
III
It seemed as if every third person on the streets was a legionnaire. Furlthia weaved through the crowds, his hood drawn up as a gentle shower enveloped Magilnada. From the shadow, his eyes roved over everything. He noted the shield insignia of the different legions — at least five that he recognised, two others that were new to him. He watched the captains and victuallers haggling with craftsmen and armourers, while groups of soldiers emptied entire stalls of meat and vegetables into their sacks. The army had taken so much grain there was barely a sack or loaf of bread for the people of the city.
Furlthia grunted with annoyance. This was exactly what he had warned Anglhan would happen; the Askhans taking what they wanted and leaving nothing for anyone else. He knew any protests he might make would fall on deaf ears. Anglhan was involved in every part of the city, from the gate taxes to the bribes and contract levies. No doubt the governor was enjoying every moment of the boom.
And there was little likelihood of the situation changing. Magilnada was perfectly placed between Greater Askhor and Salphoria, and when the empire had conquered everything to duskward, the city would remain the pivotal centre of trade, dominating the road between the mountains.
As Furlthia cut through the Garden of Spirits, he dawdled for a while, paying his respects at the multitude of shrines. He looked at the decorated trees, the piles of pebbles on the chapelstones, the prayer-scripts and colourful ribbons hanging tattered from the flowering bushes. At least Anglhan had kept the Askhan Brotherhood out of the city. If he had not, these shrines would have been swept aside. Furlthia imagined one of the austere pyramids of the Brotherhood where he was standing, glowering down upon the city below.
As he heard bells ringing the time, he admitted to himself there were a few Askhan innovations that were preferable. The water clocks and watch candles were one example. Furlthia had learnt their Askhan measure of time when he had been among the pretend rebels who took Magilnada for Ullsaard. It was the second hour High Watch, halfway through the afternoon. He had another hour until he was due to meet Anglhan and left the gardens to find something to eat.
A plaza dawnwards of the gardens was filled with tables and benches, which in turn were filled with people eating and drinking. The majority of them seemed to be native Magilnadans, doubtlessly driven from their usual haunts by the mass of soldiers coming in and out of the city.
He found a space on a bench beside two older women, who were happy to ignore him and carry on their conversation in hushed voices. A serving girl, no more than eight or nine years old, came over with a steaming bowl and a cup of water.
"What is it?" Furlthia asked as she plonked the bowl in front of him. The contents were brownish-grey sludge with islands of unidentifiable meat poking from a gravy sea.
"Meat stew," she said.
"What sort of meat?"
The girl gave him an exasperated look and held out her hand.
"Best not to ask. Seven salts."
"Seven?" Furlthia was horrified at the price, almost double what he would have paid before the arrival of the Askhan legions. He glanced at the bad fare as he counted out the tin coins. There were pitifully few left; the loose group of anti-Askhan sentiment he represented gave him a stipend for each visit, but he could not afford to stay in the city any longer than necessary. Next time he would have to ask for more from the shadowy collection of Magilnadan chieftains, traders and ex-rebels who supported the cause for a free Magilnada.
Despite its grisly even gristly appearance, the stew was not unpleasant. The meat was probably rabbit, though it was impossible to tell for sure. It certainly didn't come from any animal raised on a farm. The water was also clean and refreshing, one of the other benefits of Askhan influence. In the short time they had been in control of the city, half a dozen more wells had been dug and improvements had been made to the sewers beneath the ci
ty.
Furlthia idled for a while, glad to surround himself with the normal folk of the city. He listened in to their conversations, detecting excitement about the Askhan invasion. He didn't hear a single word of dissent or anger, which irritated him considerably. He wanted to ask how they could be so careless about the future of their city, and point out just how hard times would be for them once they became just another Salphorian province of Greater Askhor.
He knew it would make no difference and held his tongue. He, and others who shared his allegiance, had tried hard to build a popular movement against Askhan rule, but they had failed to stir up any trouble at all. The Askhan system was clever, giving people the illusion of security and wealth, while at the same time it robbed them of dignity and freedom. It was no great thing to labour under the self-serving warlords of Salphoria, but at least the chieftains were a part of the society they ruled, raised in the same traditions and values. The Askhans obliterated people's identity; crushed their beliefs in everything but the glory of Askhor; imposed their laws and their customs.
Getting agitated, Furlthia left the plaza and headed up the Hill of Chieftains to the governor's palace. Anglhan's influence was clear to see. The plain white pillars of the great porch on its front were now covered with gilded pictures, and the steps up to them had been replaced with red and black marble. Colourful banners hung from newly constructed balconies, while a full company of legionnaires from the First Magilnadan stood guard to either side of the huge double doors.
The doors were open and a steady procession wound in and out; the palace did not just house the governor, but also his many treasurers, clerks, customs officers and sundry officials. Supervising this organised chaos was Lenorin, Anglhan's chamberlain, chief treasurer and overall civilian second-in-command. He was, luckily for Furlthia, also a vehement opponent of the Askhans and one of the chief sponsors of Furlthia's anti-Askhan movement. The chancellor saw Furlthia enter the dim hallway and gestured for him to approach.