They were close to the end of the Council, and Cor decided to discuss the moving of the Dahken from Fort Haldon to Byrverus. Originally, he thought to address it with King Rederick behind closed doors, but it likely would have been brought to Council anyway. Lord Red’s reaction had been unexpected, and he was dismayed to see that most of the Counselors, including Mora, seemed to side against him. Cor suddenly wished he had waited.
“This has nothing to do with power,” Cor argued, keeping his voice calm and even.
“It has everything to do with power!” Red shouted back. “Somehow, you’ve managed to put yourself in such a position. You have convinced our King to change everything and award your people two positions of power of which there are only eight!”
“My people and your people,” Cor said, and his jaw began to clench, “share a past that goes back further than you could possibly imagine. Somehow, we became splintered against each other when we should have been united against the Loszians. It was they who came to Rumedia and enslaved the West, and it was they who invaded Aquis. My people have shed their blood for this kingdom, defending and liberating it.”
“And three of them betrayed it,” Red fired back as he sat back into the chair that a servant had righted. No one else spoke, but a few nodded. “We cannot trust the Dahken.”
Cor opened his mouth but was cut off by Rederick from across the table. “My son, name one race that can be trusted. When I was Lord of the North, I found that some Northmen deserved trust and others did not. As a priest, I found the entangling political webs distasteful, never knowing who was true to Garod. I judge men, and women, for who they are by their actions.
“Lord Dahken Cor has proven himself in my eyes. He could have betrayed me many times over, but he has shown to be a man of his word, young as he may be.”
“Yes,” Cor agreed, “and I too have been betrayed by two of my Dahken, one of whom paid the price by my own hand. Judge me not by the actions of another, just because we both have gray skin. Queen Erella’s closest advisor betrayed her, just as Nadav was betrayed in the end by his own lords as they lifted no finger to help him.”
“Surely you are not putting us on the same level as Loszians?” Mora asked, appalled.
“No,” Cor agreed, “but I might suggest that the motivations of a Loszian lord may not be much different from those of a Western lord.”
4.
Marya stood before an inn that seemed rather impressive for a relatively small village, and the sign outside declared it to be The Steaming Potato. She had noted that some inns and the like had names while many others did not, and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why a proprietor would name his or her establishment. Regardless of this fact, she pushed her way through the door to enter the main room. She had no coin of course, but it was common practice in the West for an inn’s common room to be free to all.
Marya had lost five fingers between both hands and nearly all of her toes. It was interesting how difficult it was to walk with balance and speed on feet with no toes; she had never realized how important they were. She wore gloves that were fingerless in the same places she was, and a heavy wool scarf wound its way about her face. The scarf was meant to both keep her warm and hide the fact she had lost most of one ear, part of another and much of the flesh of her nose. Everyone she came across, as they thought her a leper, had shunned her, but one farmer had taken mercy upon her. He had provided her the scarf and gloves, new boots and a very warm hooded cloak for defense against the wind. She repaid his kindness by not killing him.
As such, she crossed countless miles, avoiding people wherever possible and they her. At some point, she was certain that she had entered the kingdom of Akor on the northwestern coast of the Shining West. She found herself picking up a road and following it, which was in and of itself odd as she had actively avoided roads for weeks. The road, a well traveled rut carved into the countryside, led her to a relatively small and sleepy village right at sundown. Rather than leaving immediately or somehow circumventing the cluster of homes and small buildings, she walked right into the middle of the village to find the inn she now entered.
The warmth of the place nearly knocked her off of her feet as the door shut behind her. Several fires burned steadily, warding off the cold nights of early spring. Over one of these a pot steamed, and a pig roasted over another. The smell of cooking meat and spices filled the air, and it made Marya’s stomach grumble with both hunger and nausea at once. She had eaten nothing but bark, other plants and the occasional raw rodent for quite some time, and the smell of real food was both delicious and sickening. Many small tables had been placed together to form one giant but rickety table in the center of the room. Around this were seated quite a few people –a few children, but mostly adults. Some were dressed commonly, but many wore varying types of armor. A man and woman sat side by side at the head of the makeshift feasting table, clearly a lord and lady. Additional armed men stood around the periphery of the room.
“There’s no room for you here tonight young sir!” called a man from behind the bar. “Perhaps someone will take you in for the night.”
Marya tried to speak, but only a dry croak emerged from her throat. She slowly approached the bar and tried again with more success, though her voice sounded like no one’s she had ever heard. “I can’t even sleep in the common room?”
“I’m sorry, young sir, but Lord Parol has rented the whole place for the night,” the innkeeper responded in a lower voice. He was a boring man, average of height and portly like every other innkeeper she had ever seen.
“Lord Parol?”
“You must not be from around here,” he replied, more of a statement than a question. “He’s a man of great import here in Akor. He controls easily a quarter of all trade. I think he’s on his way to the king’s palace, and I couldn’t afford to refuse him.
“The people here are friendly. I am sure one of them could take you in for the night, especially if you have coin.”
“I don’t,” Marya replied. She planted her hands on her hips and tapped one foot in thought, pushing her cloak back as she did so. It plainly exposed the dagger near her right hip and the hilt of her sword on her left.
“I’m sorry sir, I don’t want any trouble,” the innkeeper said more loudly, backing away from his bar a few steps.
Marya dropped her hands to let her cloak again cover her steel and said, “I guess I’ll leave then.”
“Was that the glint of cold steel I saw under that cloak?” she heard from across the main room as she turned to leave.
She looked to see the lord in silk and velvet finery standing from his seat. He was tall but not overly so at nearly six feet, and he seemed to be trim and fit. In fact, nothing seemed out of place on this man, as his clothes were all perfectly fitted and pressed. Neither a black hair of his head nor of the well-trimmed goatee and mustache he wore went astray from the others. Marya thought him old, but this was a result of her own young age, for Lord Parol could not have been over forty. A pretty, fair haired woman perhaps ten years his junior sat to his right, and no one else at or around the table spoke or even moved.
Marya nodded in answer to his question.
“Is that for showmanship, or does a lad of your age know how to use such weapons?”
Marya struggled to make her cracked voice carry across the room, “As well as any man in this room.”
“Brave words, well done!” Lord Parol replied, and he motioned at an empty chair on the side of the table close to her. “Please lad, join us at our table. A warrior should never be bereft of coin, especially as long as he has his blade. Bring our young warrior food and drink!”
Marya pulled the chair away from the table with harsh sound of wood legs scraping on wood floors. Before she sat, she became suddenly aware of the heat in the room and the fact that all eyes were locked onto her still bundled form. She nonchalantly began to pull at the fingers of her gloves, exposing both her Dahken skin and absence of some fingers. She u
ntied the cloak’s neck, shrugged it onto the back of the chair and unwound the scarf to leave it on top of the cloak. Gasps went up from around the table, the most noticeable of which came from Lady Parol and her children. One pointed and whispered. Marya at first thought their reaction was due to the sudden realization that she was in fact a girl, a young woman, and not a boy. Then it dawned on her what a grim visage she must be. The gray of her Dahken skin was accentuated by clumps of hair that had fallen out due to frostbite, and there was no flesh on her chin at all where the cold had worn and rotted it away. A fighting man off to her left swore softly as she sat and pulled her chair up to the table.
“I must apologize,” Lord Parol said as a servant delivered a large platter of still sizzling potatoes to Marya. She dove into them, heedless of the burns to her fingertips, tongue and mouth. “I saw steel and assumed you to be a man, but you are not. Fighters of the fairer sex are not unknown, but at your age as well? Yes, eat. You’ve clearly endured much hardship.”
“I’ve walked all the way from Byrverus,” Marya replied around a mouthful of potatoes. She’d never tasted anything so wonderful, but as more slid down her throat, she began to feel sick.
“Walked?” Parol asked incredulously. “Through the snows of this winter? Surely, your steel is well forged then. Such determination. All to reach me.”
Marya looked up sharply at that and stared at her host. She wondered at the fact that she should trudge across the snowy lands of Aquis to find herself in Akor before this particular lord. Had she been pulled here? She tried to focus on the idea, tried to feel the pull in her blood as she had heard Cor speak of so many times, but there was nothing.
Her gaze shifted to the small boy, no more than eight, sitting immediately to Parol’s left. He was a good looking Western boy, and his eyes locked with Marya’s for a long moment as he stared at her ruined visage. Never taking his eyes from hers, he slowly reached forward toward the small wooden cup near his plate. Either for his young age or lack of attention, his hand fumbled clumsily, and he knocked it over. A milk of some form spilled across the table, spreading its volume greatly, some of which splashed up onto Lord Parol’s platter.
“Stupid child!” Parol shouted, and his face screwed in anger. The boy began to wail some apology when Parol pushed him backward. The boy and his chair fell back from the table hard to the floor, and he began to cry and wail loudly. Parol again shouted, “Shut up!”
“He didn’t mean to,” Lady Parol said as she began to rise from her chair to go to her fallen son.
Parol pulled back and slapped her hard across the face with his open right hand. She fell back into her chair, the side of her face white with the impact as tears welled up in her eyes. The boy continued to cry behind Parol as he righted his chair. All of the soldiers, guards and warriors around the table merely stared straight ahead or down at their plates, as if to silently hide their disapproval in their food. Marya found herself standing from her chair, and her stomach felt sick from either the hot food to which her stomach was unaccustomed or her anger at Parol’s actions. Parol turned his attention back to the Dahken.
“You have something to say Lady Warrior?” he asked with a sneer.
Marya replied, “I don’t think you should treat them so.”
“I am Lord Parol of Akor, the richest man in this kingdom and soon to be the most powerful,” Parol declared loudly, causing some uncomfortable stirrings. “Who are you to tell me what I should and should not do? I would fuck you over this table right now were it not for the presence of my children and that you are so disgusting to look upon.”
“Your tongue has wagged to much, my lord,” Marya said, and she began to circumvent the table. Her hands moved to the hilts of her steel, and they felt strange with her decreased number of digits.
“Stupid bitch,” Parol said with a sigh, and he clapped his hands together crisply. Steel clad men suddenly appeared at Marya’s sides, and one firmly grasped each of her arms. A third, as wide as he was tall, stood directly in front of her with a very plain and very sharp dagger pointed in her direction. He stood looking at her, and then he turned so that he may look sidelong toward his master.
“She attacked me, did she not?” Parol called across the common room. “You saw it. Did you not, innkeeper?”
The friendly, rotund man came forward slightly. His eyes darted from Parol to the now prisoner Marya and back again. Fear showed on his face, for he knew that he was being forced to commit a great evil for the purpose of sparing his business and maybe even his life. He nodded jerkily. “Umm yes, milord, yes. I saw her. It was terrible.”
“Good man,” Parol answered, turning his eyes back to Marya. He motioned nonchalantly with his open left hand.
The burly man nodded grimly and again turned to fully block Marya’s view of Parol. He came close, and she could feel his hot breath upon her face. It smelled of spiced potatoes. He placed his left hand on her right shoulder and leaned in to whisper in her right ear, “I’m very sorry for this.” He then struck, the dagger piercing her just under the ribcage. He angled the blade upward as it came so as to penetrate directly through her heart. Marya did not scream with the pain, and as her life gushed away quickly, it was all that she needed.
She suddenly jerked her head forward, catching her would be executioner directly in the mouth with her forehead. She felt it give way as teeth shattered and cracked with his sudden surprised grunt. He fell back several feet with both of his hands covering his mouth, but Marya did not wait to see what he did next. With a force that he could not have expected from her small form, she ripped her right arm away from one of her captors and yanked the long dagger from her own chest. The hilt was slippery and hot from the gouts of her blood that poured forth, and were it not for her race, she surely could not have survived thus far. She quickly turned to the man who still held her left arm, writhed free, grasped the back of his head and jammed the dagger up through his head from under his chin. The man’s legs jerked spasmodically as his torso slumped away.
Marya spun and threw herself backward up against one of the great timber supports that held up the ceiling and the floor of the level above, drawing her own sword and dagger as she did so. Though her tunic was soaked red, her chest no longer poured blood, while the man she head butted leaned with his hands on his knees, spitting blood and broken teeth onto the wood floor. Many of the warriors and soldiers seated around the table had backed away, some with their own weapons drawn.
She quickly ducked as her other captor brought his sword around in a high stroke meant for no other purpose than to decapitate her. As she avoided the blow, the sword bit deeply into the thick timber, and splinters flew. The man was clad from head to toe in scale mail, but his armor provided little protection against Dahken strength, in fact only slowing his movements. He barely removed his sword before Marya had impaled him with hers as well as punctured him twice with her dagger.
As she turned to face the rest of the crowd, they gasped at the young woman who now stood before them. All signs of frostbite on her face had completely vanished, and Marya’s hair had returned fully across her scalp, auburn and lush. She even had four fingers and a thumb wrapped around the hilt of each of her weapons where mere moments before there had been less. Everyone in the room stared in a mix of awe, confusion and fear, with the exception of Lord Parol. He looked entranced, almost enthralled as a young lover.
“Amazing,” he whispered. Then he said louder with a bow, “You are the most incredible thing I have ever seen. I apologize for offending your sensibilities and beg you to sit back at the table. Sit here, to my left,” Parol said, shooing his own son from the chair. The innkeeper suddenly rushed to sop up the spilled milk with a dirty rag, just as his workers worked to clean up the massive puddles of blood. “Lady, what is your name?”
“I am Marya,” she said. Then she added, “Lord Dahken Marya.”
“My dear Lord Dahken Marya,” Parol fawned, “we have so much to discuss.”
5.<
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The black lightning bolt sprung from Nadav’s fingertips and pierced the body of the first of twelve slaves that knelt naked on the steps before him. The slave, a Western male of about twenty years, shouted with the shock of it, but he quickly realized that no pain accompanied the magick. As it passed through him, the lightning spread to the next in line who was also a male, though slightly older perhaps. It spread in turn to another ten, having long left the first before it reached the last. The first man to be affected turned to watch as it passed through six women and six men, including himself. When it was done, the twelve Westerners looked at each other and then looked to Nadav in awed expectation.
The choice for an equal number from each sex was necessary to Nadav’s future plans.
“Your loyalty has been bound to me by the power of the gods,” Nadav told them. “You are bound to each other as well. Should only one of you betray me to my enemies or falter carrying out any of my commands, the flesh shall rot from the bones of all of you. I am sure you all understand me, despite the limitations of Western intelligence.
“You all pledged yourselves wholly to me, and I promised you power beyond your dreams and nightmares. I promised you strength, wealth and servants, and you shall have it. But first, you must bear witness as I visit my vengeance upon those who have betrayed me.”
Nadav waited patiently as his steward, garbed always in his robes of silver, handed clothing to each of the slaves in turn. He did not give them silk robes, as those were reserved for Loszian masters, but sensible garb of honored servants. They each received tunics, leggings and soft boots of black, each one emblazoned with the sigil of the Emperor of Losz - another reminder of their servitude. The slaves all knelt silently until Nadav finally nodded his approval, and then they all dressed quietly. Once they were ready, Nadav swept down the steps past them to stride out of his empty throne room and hall. At the steward’s sign, they followed.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Page 4