by Morgan Rice
He didn’t know these nobles. He didn’t know if they were good, or evil, or somewhere in between. That wasn’t the point, and he suspected it hadn’t been the point to whoever had killed them either.
When he heard the screams ahead, he knew for sure.
“Quickly!” Sartes yelled, and leapt down, taking the sword his father had crafted with him. He plunged through the trees, knowing, hoping, that the others would follow.
He burst into a clearing and saw the figures within it spin to face him. There were two groups there, easy to pick apart by the clothes they wore. One group consisted of maybe ten nobles, men and women, even a few children, all wearing the jewels and silks that marked their wealth.
They looked terrified. Sartes saw one of the children reaching up to a woman who looked too young to be its mother. More likely an older sister. She was looking around, not with the hatred some nobles had for peasants, but with the kind of fear Sartes had seen on the faces of far too many people being attacked.
The other group had twice as many in it, dressed in the rough wool and hessian of peasants. There were men and women there, and all had weapons, or at least tools that had become weapons. Some had knives, some hammers, some sickles and pitchforks. Sartes would have been reminded of the weapons the rebellion had brought with them before his father had helped to supply them with swords, except that the rebellion wouldn’t have treated them like this.
He hoped.
“What’s going on here?” Sartes demanded, and he watched them turn to face him as he said it. The expressions of the nobles were the worst, because too many of them looked at him in terror, as if expecting him to join in their torment.
“Nothing to concern you,” one of the villagers there said. He was a burly man who reminded Sartes a little of his father. Just an ordinary man.
“I’ll decide what concerns me,” Sartes said. He looked around, just to make sure that the other conscripts were there. He would face down twenty men alone if he really had to, but he would definitely prefer not to. “Are you responsible for the bodies down the road?”
“Nobles,” the man spat. “The same scum that has oppressed us all these years.”
Sartes had seen the family symbols on their clothes. They’d oppressed no one he’d heard of. They’d done nothing but sat in their houses and tried to run their businesses.
“Are you with the army?” the peasant leader demanded.
Sartes could hear the fear there, and see the people shrinking back.
“We’re with the rebellion,” Sartes said. “I’m Sartes.”
“Ceres’s brother?” a woman said. There was blood on the sickle she held. “I’ve heard about you.”
Sartes saw the first man sizing him up. “You’re Sartes? Then you’re here to help us?”
The fear there had been bad enough, but the sudden assumption that they were on the same side was worse. This man smiled as though they were long-lost friends, and just that was enough to make Sartes hate him.
Even so, Sartes forced himself to return the smile. “It looks as though you’ve been busy.”
“We heard that the rebellion had taken the city,” the man said. “We heard that Ceres was going to take the wealth from the nobles. We just thought we’d get a head start.”
Again, he said it as though Sartes was an old friend. A confidant who agreed with him.
“So you’ve been… what?” Sartes asked. “Driving nobles out of their homes?”
He saw the other man shrug. “Taking back what should be ours.”
“Stealing and killing,” one of the small group of nobles said. The others tried to quiet him, and Sartes could see how frightened they were. Sartes could see why, too. He saw one of the peasants step toward him with a hammer raised in his hand. He stepped in the way.
“Looks as though you’ve already killed plenty,” he said.
“You saw the bodies?” the woman with the sickle said. “I did some, and Jeffers there did another. Oh, and the Borens boy did one, didn’t you? Didn’t have the stomach for it, though.”
“Who were they?” Sartes asked. He tried to keep it sounding neutral.
“The Volarts,” the woman said. “Local lords. Thought they owned everything.”
It fit with the symbols Sartes had seen on the bodies, and the ones on the nobles still cowering. He’d heard of them coming down to the villages with grain sometimes, when times were hard.
Sartes looked her in the eye. “It was just you three then?” He turned to the nobles. “Is that true? It was those three who did the actual killing?”
He saw the nods there, and he was glad of that much, at least. If it had been all of them, he wasn’t sure what he would have done. He found himself thinking back to the happiness of folk in the last village, and wished that it could all be like that on the road.
It wasn’t, though, and if he ignored this, it would only get worse. The peasants would turn into something as cruel as the nobles had been. There was only one thing he could do.
“And those nobles you killed,” Sartes said. “Were they murderers? Were they ones who came into your homes and took your daughters?”
Maybe, maybe they’d deserved it. Maybe there was something he hadn’t heard. Maybe he should listen to all of it, take this to Ceres.
“They were nobles,” the man called Jeffers said. “Isn’t that enough?”
It wasn’t. It wasn’t even close.
“Bring the three who did the killing,” Sartes said to the conscripts, and they must have heard something in his tone, because they didn’t argue. Either that, or they were as disgusted by what these people had done in the name of the rebellion as Sartes was.
The former conscripts moved forward to grab the peasants, pulling out the three who’d performed the murders and pushing them to their knees in front of Sartes. He could see the disbelief on their faces there.
“What are you doing?” the man asked. “We’ve done nothing the rebellion hasn’t! We’re on your side!”
“It’s not about sides,” Sartes said. “It’s about what you do. We fought against the Empire because they stole and murdered, because they oppressed people and killed them. Now you’re doing the same. There’s only one answer for that.”
He hated doing this, but he couldn’t ask any of the others to do it for him. He wasn’t going to pretend that this was easy. He struck out with his sword, thrusting through the man’s heart.
“Ceres said—” the woman began, but Sartes thrust again before she could finish. She looked down at it, as though shocked that he’d actually done it.
He fought down his feelings of disgust at what he was doing, moving to the third prisoner. He was little more than a boy, really, only a few years older than Sartes was. This time, Sartes didn’t even give him time to speak. He wasn’t sure his resolve would hold if he did.
“If you rob people on the road, you are not a rebel,” Sartes said. “You are a bandit. If you murder them, you are not a rebel, you’re a killer. My sister fought to overthrow the Empire. I will not allow you to replace it with something worse.”
He walked to the trees, trying not to let the others see the way his hands were shaking. The nobles gathered around him as though he was their protector then, staying close as though afraid of what might happen if they stepped away. The other conscripts joined him and Sartes could see the new way they looked at him—as though he was their leader. He could see the respect in their eyes, the respect for justice served, the respect for making the hard decision and not asking anyone else to do it for him.
Sartes was, he realized, now their leader.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Ceres stood above the gates to Delos and fought back tears as she watched her people leave. They poured out of the city, not in ones and twos, not even in small bands or lines, but in a seemingly endless stream that stretched out well beyond the city’s walls.
“Why would they do it?” she asked her father. He stood there with her, along with a dozen of
the combatlords who now followed her wherever she went. He’d been the one to spot this while overseeing repairs on the city’s broken gates. If it had been almost anyone else, Ceres wouldn’t have believed that it was true.
“They’re afraid,” her father said. “Rumors of an invasion have come, and they want to escape.”
Ceres could understand that part. These were people who had already seen far too much violence. Thanos was going to try to stop Lucious from bringing an army back from Felldust, but the people of the city didn’t know that, and they probably didn’t want to trust their lives to his success.
Ceres trusted Thanos, but even so, she had her father helping to repair the gates.
“They’re not planning to come back,” Ceres said.
Below, she could see people with all their belongings on their backs. There were carts there among them, carrying furniture and possessions, sacks of food, and those who couldn’t walk fast enough.
Beside her, Ceres saw the combatlord Karak spit over the city’s walls.
“Cowards,” he said. “Why not stay and fight for what they have?”
Ceres shook her head. “Not everyone can fight like you. They’re trying to stay safe. But this isn’t the way to do it.”
How could it be? They were walking out from the protection of the walls, and from the one place where the forces of the rebellion were gathered, able to defend them.
“Do they think that an invasion is going to stop at the city?” Ceres asked her father.
“Maybe they’re hoping for it,” her father replied. “The rebellion succeeded because it took the city.”
It was a different thing though. Ceres and the others had been interested in overthrowing a regime that put all its resources into the capital, and in doing so while causing the minimum amount of harm elsewhere.
An invading force, particularly one with Lucious in charge, wouldn’t be like that. They would sweep in and ravage the countryside. There was a good chance that they would slaughter anyone they found. They might even be deliberately brutal in an effort to draw the rebellion out of the city. Even if they did focus on taking the city, they would quickly spread out to attack the countryside.
Ceres came to a decision.
She hurried down from the walls, leaving her father and the combatlords running to keep up. She ran down among the crowds of those leaving the city, trying to find a space among the bent-backed traders and workers, the families laboring to take what they could with them. She walked out past the gates, where the stream of refugees became a sea of them, all trying to decide where to go next.
“Stop!” she called out. “All of you, stop!”
Some of them did. Others kept going. Ceres leapt up onto a cart, where they would be able to see her.
“Listen to me!” she yelled, and waited while people turned to watch her. “You’re in great danger if you leave!”
She could see how uncertain the people around her looked. She could guess what they were thinking. On the one hand, Ceres was there, trying to stop them. On the other, they’d heard the rumors about an army coming. There had been messages coming in, both with the ravens the Empire had and through the channels the resistance used. Inevitably, it had gotten out beyond the confines of the castle.
“You think that you’re going to run,” Ceres said. “But where are you going to run to that will be safe? To the villages? An invasion will sack the villages! To hide in the forests? You’ll starve there! When winter comes, you’ll freeze. In Delos, we can protect you!”
One of those leaving gestured to the gates. “With holes in your walls and gates that couldn’t keep out a strong wind?”
Ceres knew what the city had to look like to someone who lived there. Frankly, the defenses didn’t look that good to her either. The difference was that she knew how much her father and the others were doing to rebuild the walls.
“If you don’t like the holes there then patch them,” Ceres said. “Help us to make the city stronger. By the time our enemies get here, the walls will be enough to keep them out, but you’ll all be out in the open.”
Some of those leaving stopped then. Not many, but a few. She made one last attempt.
“You’ll be safer here. If you won’t think of yourselves, think of your children.”
That did get some of them to stop. Ceres could hear the murmur of voices arguing quietly among themselves.
Finally, a woman stepped forward bringing a child with her, barely more than a toddler.
“You’re right,” she said. “We can’t drag our girl through the wilds, but we can’t stay either. Not while it’s like this. Even if you win, there won’t be enough food for everyone, or work, or anything.”
The small girl stared up at Ceres, clearly not understanding what was happening.
“Hebby,” the woman said, “this is Ceres. Your father and I have to go away for a while, but she will make sure that you’re safe.”
Ceres held up a hand. “Wait a minute, that wasn’t what I meant.”
Yet she could see the desperation on the other woman’s face. She clearly didn’t want to leave her child behind, yet it seemed as though she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“Then what did you mean?” she asked. “I know… I know you can’t keep all of us safe, but please… our child can’t survive the road like we can.”
Ceres looked down, and to her surprise, the child had her hand out. Ceres took it.
After that, there were more children.
And more after that. A small army of them formed around her.
Ceres felt her heart warm at the notion of protecting them, of giving them safe harbor; yet she also knew she should have been cruel about it, should have demanded that the adults stay to fight for their children, but she simply couldn’t. She gathered them around her, the older ones helping the younger, while far too many of the adults kept walking.
“If you change your minds,” Ceres called out, “you can always find safety in Delos. But when the invasion comes, we’ll have to shut the gates.”
She wished she could do more then. Disappointment ran through her at the thought of how little she’d been able to do to protect these people, and fear for them at the thought of what might happen next. In spite of the crowd of them who now stood around Ceres, looking at her with uncomprehending eyes, there were still children with the refugees, who might suffer and die along with all the rest of them if the invasion overtook them.
“You’ve done all you can,” her father said, and Ceres could see that he understood just how difficult this was. “Think of all those we’ll be able to protect in the city.”
It wasn’t enough. Ceres didn’t want to have to rely on luck to protect these people, but there was nothing else she could do. And for now, she had a group of children with her, standing there expecting her to have answers for them.
She would keep them safe, at least, even if everyone else died.
She was pulled from the bleakness of that thought by cries ahead of her. She looked out over the crowd to see some of them running back in her direction, while others scattered. Beyond them, she saw the approaching forms of riders.
If she hadn’t seen the banners they flew, Ceres might have assumed that the invasion had begun. Instead, she saw the banners of Lord West’s men fluttering in the wind, along with a far less welcome pennant. Ceres stood there atop the cart and waited.
Nyel de Langolin, third cousin to Lord West and protector of the village of Upper Flewt, rode forward at the head of a column of armored men as if he ruled the land around him. His visor was up, revealing a reddish beard and a face filled with arrogance. He had probably close to a hundred men with him, all on horseback, all armed with spears, shields, and swords. They rode through the crowd, apparently not caring who got in their way.
Ceres stood there before them, her combatlords spreading out with their array of less conventional weaponry. Her father had found better armor for them than the showy stuff of the Stade, but they
still looked far from the steel-covered figures Lord Nyel had with him.
“Lord Nyel,” Ceres said. “What brings you to Delos? I was under the impression that you preferred the safety of your own lands to the dangers of the city.”
“I did not tell you to speak,” Lord Nyel replied.
Ceres spread her hands, forcing herself to be polite. This man was everything that was worst in a noble, but he was still Lord West’s cousin, and his memory still hurt.
“The Empire is gone,” Ceres said. “No one needs permission to simply say what is on their mind anymore.”
“I shall be the judge of that,” Lord Nyel replied. “As the man of the highest blood here now that my cousin has fallen, I claim the throne of the Empire.”
Ceres would have thought it was a joke, if she hadn’t met Lord Nyel before. He definitely had the pomposity and self-opinion to attempt to set himself up as an emperor.
“No, my lord,” Ceres said. “There will be no more kings here.”
“I have a professionally trained army that says otherwise,” Lord Nyel countered. He snapped his fingers at his men. “Arrest these… people.”
If he hadn’t shoved a child out of his way as he did it, Ceres wouldn’t have reacted. If she hadn’t heard a small girl cry out, she wouldn’t have sprung. But the girl did, and Ceres attacked. Soldiers started forward, still on horseback. Ceres didn’t wait for them. Instead, using her cart as a springboard, she leapt. Her foot caught Lord Nyel in the middle of the chest, knocking him sprawling.
“Help!” he called to his men, and then seemed to realize how that must sound. “Kill them! Kill these traitors!”
Ceres was already leaping up into Lord Nyel’s saddle, grabbing his spear. She hefted it and thrust as a man came rushing in at her, feeling it punch through his armor.
The violence burst around her like a storm. She made sure her people pushed the children back, out of harm’s way. She saw her combatlords charge forward with axes and broadswords, punch daggers, and hacking cleavers. She saw Lord Nyel’s men moving in to meet them.