Talystasia: A Faerytale

by Haadiyah Cardinalis

  "Yes, and I'll murder his," Andreas interrupted, his smile again broadening. "The ‘men’ included. They can't fight, haha, only kill or be killed. Pussies with worthless trainers." He snorted his contempt. “I’m tempted to just commit genocide on his entire line and finish this, except that I don’t think that’s even possible. There's a lot of Lorens. It’d take a far more dedicated and methodical mind than mine to hunt each of them down. As it is, I’ll enjoy what I get."

  Rizaq opened his mouth and paused thoughtfully, his eyes darting briefly to the field. "You cannot hide from me, Andreas. If revenge were your motive for satisfaction, would you abuse yourself for it?"

  "—Revenge for killing my mother and our friends; for spilling generations of my people’s blood since they crossed the sea at the dawn of time—?"

  "—Right."

  "No. There is no pleasure in that. There is nothing righteous in my pleasure, only my killing urge."

  “And for that, a common enough thing, you damn yourself. It’s only human.”

  “… There’s no excuse for that, Rizaq. None.”

  “This is what I cannot understand about you. There is for you. If you didn't fight back, your citizenry would fall victim to those pompous aristocratic buffoons! You have nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing unrighteous—"

  Andreas laughed. "Are you trying to reassure me, Rizaq? Against what, myself?"

  "You were your mother's only son ... It's not your fault you inherited—"

  "—What, drawing out a perpetual civil war and pretending I can conclude it as so many fools have before me ...? Ancestors to avenge! Family honour to redeem ...! Each time I participate in the cycle, I perpetuate it, but I will not feed into their rationalizations. Revenge, honour, duty—they sugar-coat their brutality. Loren's excuse—other than the same—is that I don't deserve to live because I'm ... not right. That may be the only point I have ever agreed with him on. I'm not. I want to kill people, Rizaq. Do you know what I’m feeling right now, aside from rage?”

  Rizaq shook his head half-heartedly.

  “… Elation. Relief. But I won’t pretend to myself that it’s about honour or justice."

  Rizaq’s hand clenched around his arm. Instinctively, Andreas raised it to defend himself, before realizing what he was doing.

  "Why must you torment yourself ...!" he shouted.

  "Because I will not excuse my bloodlust. I enjoy killing because I enjoy it. This is a stupid time for an argument."

  His comrade closed his eyes, and for a moment, he looked much older, his expression time-drawn and spent. “Not all revenge is an evil, Andreas. The friends we’ve lost … those we never had a chance to avenge.” He turned and looked him squarely in the eye. “Because you’re not like Malek. Because you’d never do something like this.”

  “… Logan.”

  “Logan. Funny how rank doesn’t matter after someone dies.”

  “Friendship outstrips any rank,” Andreas answered promptly. “… His name will be the last word Malek hears. That much I can do.”

  Rizaq nodded solemnly. "Can you believe he's got his only son out there ...?"

  "Then the boy dies," Andreas shrugged.

  … I could die today, he mused, if I just let it all go. One glorious moment of surrender. Lift up my arms to the sky and drown in a sea of blood.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Damn the inner voice that kept him here, clinging to his broken existence. It was as brutal and intractable as the crown around his head.

  The slowly revolving darkness above the battlement rumbled, the thunder shaking the wall like the marching cadence of Loren’s waiting army. They were still out there, distant and immobile, but he felt the sense of danger in his groin, pressing and immediate.

  He turned to Rizaq, whose eyes were captivated by the remote red line, his mouth moving silently. His comrade blinked several times and shook his head.

  "What's wrong, Rizaq—" he asked through clenched teeth.

  "I counted their companies this morning and there were six prepped for attack, but I counted again just now and they’re about half a company short."

  “How could you miss that? Forty men?”

  “I didn’t. I haven’t been here. I was wi—”

  Andreas stared at him uncomprehending as he broke off; simultaneously he heard the explosion and turned to face the bloom of fire over the roofs.

  "That was the market square—" Rizaq called as Andreas tore across to the elevator.

  Leaping onto the platform, he flipped the lever that would lower him down the ropes and pulleys to the street.

  As of last night, not a soul had passed through his gates without his express command, and he had set a watch on the summit. Whoever had set the market ablaze had been here for days, weeks or months, possibly even years, awaiting a signal. These people, the people he was going to kill, he had welcomed with open arms, maybe even granted citizenship.

  "That's not your missing company ...!" he hollered back up to the battlement. "They're still out there, Rizaq!”

  Ever hopeful, and foolishly, I ...

  Six feet from the ground, he sprang, the elevator still descending. Seleda surged up to meet him, a swell of heat and muscle breaking against his body, powerful between his legs. Her vigour engulfed him, a cyclone in his veins, flooding him with heady, unbroken hate—the animal wildness he’d never entirely trained out of her.

  "THE MARKET!" he roared, gesticulating furiously to his mobilizing team. Impatient, Seleda broke past them without so much as a lean or a squeeze, instinct drawing her toward the conflagration. He hardly noticed the fearful hush of the passing streets or the cold, light lash of the rain. The stench of burning wood and cooking flesh singed his nostrils.

  They burst around a corner into a cloud of smoke, and the unnatural silence blew apart into a chorus of screams. Lightning made white fire of the marketplace.

  Choking, he yanked on the reins. A man was sprawled across their path, clutching a broken bottle in his rigid hand, dead eyes empty in a mask of pain he’d wear until the maggots got his flesh. His entrails, splayed carelessly across the cobbles, gleamed in the half-light like old trash. Drizzle splattered dust into mud in his open flesh.

  Revolted, he turned Seleda into the screaming din. Silhouettes in pairs and trios twirled beyond the smokescreen like shadow puppets in a deadly dance. A lightning rod, he caught the energy from the sky, his sword arm shaking with liberated fury. Seleda reared, catching the wave of his adrenaline. There was a stifled shout as her forelegs slammed into something solid.

  He’d been holding this death blow pent up for so long he felt he’d die if he waited any longer. Drawing his weapon, he cleaved it down in the wake of her viciousness, an indifferent executioner.

  The head that tumbled from the neck he’d cleaved spattered blood on a butcher’s apron.

  He caught his breath, horrified.

  … Civilian.

  Then he saw the dishevelled old woman sobbing on the ground a few feet away, a gash in her side spilling blood onto the street as copiously as a drainpipe. A meat cleaver clattered to the cobbles beside the butcher’s decapitated corpse, as red as the wound in her abdomen.

  “Let me help you—" he started, dismounting.

  The old woman screamed and scuttled backwards out of sight.

  He whirled to defend himself.

  But there was nothing there.

  … Only me.

  Timbers crackled and split, the percussion of steel and the metal-bright cacophony of screams muffled by the fog.

  As he skewered the corpse again, Seleda galloped off alone, hot on the scent of blood. Seconds later, light blossomed overhead, framing her in a hazy corona across the square, towering over her prey. The soldier’s upraised dirk beneath her was as futile as a blade of grass against an avalanche of murder.

  Andreas smiled affectionately. In the next flash, the man was pulverized meat beneath her hooves.

  Out of the smoke, a shape materia
lized, plunging at him recklessly. It resolved into a man, his shoulder bleeding profusely. He barely managed to stop himself from a headlong collision. “Tonight, Telyra!” he bellowed as he spun aside. “Tonight you’ll sleep in the ground with the whore that bore you!”

  As he turned to run, Andreas hooked his sword between his ribs and pulled him round.

  The man’s eyes went wide with terror. Laughing, Andreas disarmed him casually with his empty hand. His own blade felt like an extension of his body, and he twisted it, violating the man through the bloody hole in his side. In the soldier’s eyes, each jolt of agony flared like torchlight; he could almost see his soul twisting out of shape with his ruined insides.

  Leaning forward, he smiled and courteously wiped away the blood that foamed at his victim’s mouth. The eyes darkened, and the body jerked once, abandoned.

  A new thunder rang out across the plaza—the rumbling hooves of a dozen horses.

  "The fires! Put them OUT, NOW!"

  "But Milord—!" Mathias shouted, pulling up alongside him. “Go back to the battlement. We can handle thi—"

  Andreas shook his head, parrying a blow, and stabbed a man in the stomach.

  "Damnit! I will deal with these—no more than a dozen—moved on us early." He laughed savagely. "Didn't realize I was still here."

  Mathias snorted. “Didn’t realize any of us were, apparently. What did they hope to accomplish with such a small team?”

  “FIRE,” Andreas growled pointedly, cleaving his blade up against an attacker’s thrust. The blades sang and parted. Whirling, he dodged the next blow and plunged his sword into his opponent’s chest. He withdrew the weapon, glittering with blood.

  “Which they have—and which will do far more damage than their weapons. You don’t need an army to burn down a city, or even good fighters … All you need is surprise. Don’t go thinking this is all they sent us either. There will be others.”

  As he finished speaking, two figures emerged from the smoke. One was unarmed; the other flew at him with a maniac yell. Leaping forward, Andreas threw his arm around the assailant's neck. Pain seared across the exposed underside of his arm, a dark cloud blooming on his sleeve. Roaring, he managed to grab the dirk, wrestling it out of his captive’s grasp.

  "… But how do we know which are which?" Mathias asked.

  "Because the Loren soldiers are trained and my civilians aren't; and some of them are carrying military- issue weapons." He raised the dirk for Mathias to see. "Recognize this? Look around you, it's a massacre, not a fight. Protect the ones being massacred, kill their assailants; simple. But it's no matter, I'll finish this up."

  "Lord, there are more than enough of us to—"

  "Don't deny me this. Get to the well!"

  Mathias mumbled something mutinous but withdrew. The team rode after him, the captain’s shouts stifled as clouds of smoke enfolded them.

  The rescued townsman was still standing there, stiff as a lamppost, his eyes fastened on his disabled, thrashing attacker.

  "Go and help Mathias!" Andreas ordered, burning eyes watering from heat, ash and pain. He blinked, trying to clear his vision—he couldn’t wipe his eyes with his sleeve. “Take this.” He held out the handle of the dirk, freeing up his hand, and mopped the tears and sweat away. “But only until you find something else, and keep it concealed. My soldiers may mistake you for one of Loren’s. What's the matter with you? You want to stay and watch me gut this fuck ...?"

  "He was my neighbour—" the man stammered, inching closer, his pallid eyes glued to the sneering enemy’s face. Clenching the handle weakly, he withdrew the dirk from Andreas’ grasp.

  "He was a Loren killer," spat Andreas, unsheathing his own weapon again, "and soon he'll be food for city rats. He was never your neighbour. Now go and douse those fires, or I'll kill you myself after this!"

  He pressed tighter on his enemy's windpipe as the townsman fled, coughing; the soldier thrashed harder, to no avail.

  "What were you?" he snarled in his ear with a voice like rusty knives. Smouldering, crackling beams made patterns of light in his eyes.

  "What ...?" the soldier gasped.

  "What were you? What did you do in my city while you waited? Were you a butcher of meat as well as men, like your dead comrade over there? Tailor? Smith? Cook? Shop keep? Did you drink with that man there you just tried to murder? Did you greet his wife and kids when you passed them in the market? How long did you wait for your master's call ...?"

  He relaxed his grip enough for the man to choke out an answer.

  "Bartender," he wheezed, through an intake of breath.

  "And?" Andreas gripped him harder.

  "... T-two years!" stammered the man. "Are you gonna let me live ..?"

  "How many of you are inside my walls?"

  "... Thirty-nine."

  “Thirty-eight,” he corrected, and lifted his sword. The soldier's head fell backwards from his neck, squirting warm blood. Dropping the limp body, he staggered for his bearings.

  Restaurants and storefronts had been replaced by impressionistic blots of fire and black, anonymous wreckage, the pieces floating jumbled and meaningless in the haze like flotsam in a burning sea. Shredded fabric choked the ground at his feet, the remnants of colourful canvas tents now as black and crippled as burnt flesh. The wares from the stalls clogged the rubble like cremated bones.

  Adrift in that formless chaos some distance away was a flickering ball of light, seemingly suspended in space between tongues of flame and broken frameworks. It hovered there, mysterious and surreal, and then wobbled and dimmed, vanishing into the gloom.

  Recognition dawning, he tore after it.

  The clocktower loomed overhead, materializing out of the smoke, but just as he caught up, the torchbearer chucked his flame through an open ground floor window.

  “Damnit!”

  He hurled himself after, gripping the windowsill to pivot into the room. He cleared the frame effortlessly, but overshot the distance. Inside, he collided devastatingly with the floor, yelping as fire mauled his unprotected flesh with blistering teeth. Rolling over, he smothered it with his body, then, having averted another blaze, barrelled out the door again.

  The torchbearer—! There he was, disappearing into the fog. Leaping onto his back, he sent both of them crashing to the ground in a pile of muscle, sweat, and blood.

  The soldier shoved the torch in his face. Hollering, Andreas flung his sword aside—it was too much at these quarters. He extracted his knife from his belt, stabbing the man twice in the stomach, savouring his screams. Staggering to his feet as his opponent fell limp, he wiped his bloody hands on his trousers, lifting his sword off the ground. The torch had slipped out of the soldier’s hand. Kicking it into a puddle of blood, he watched disinterestedly as it went out, his cheek still searing.

  The dying combatant propped himself on one elbow with a protracted groan and opened his mouth, blood gurgling down his chin and throat, his streaming eyes on his destroyer. He moaned something, but choked on the blood welling out of his mouth.

  Andreas took two steps forward, lifting his boot, heady with the lust for blood. "What was that ...?" he asked callously, pressing down on the man's larynx, smearing mud across his neck. Without waiting for an answer, he shifted his weight and smashed the man’s spine with a crack.

  Tilting back his head, he filled his lungs with air coming in from above, metallic with the taste of ozone and blood and heavy with the promise of rain. Timid drizzle soothed his scorching body, teasing him with its cool caress.

  Fuck, it felt good to kill again.

  The roar of the inferno was still unrelenting, but underneath it there was silence: the screams had stopped.

  "—It's all finished, sir."

  He opened his eyes, looking down.

  A boy was standing in front of him, dressed in regimental blue and clutching his ear. Andreas kicked the body aside, and the boy’s eyes followed the action, delayed, withdrawn, unseeing. There was no acknowledgemen
t in his face that the man he had kicked aside was, in fact, a man.

  I know that look.

  The strings of habit pulled, and the child gave a clumsy salute before seizing his ear again. Blood trickled between his fingers. Andreas was almost surprised when he spoke.

  "Math—Captain Mathias—he doesn't think—” He started again. “They jumped their signal. That’s what he said. Or that you rather—"

  His words were a spiritless muddle, witless motion in a doll’s face.

  Three years ago, this child wouldn’t have been old enough to enlist. This had been his first taste of action. Some men took to combat like it was second nature. Others it stole something from.

  "The fires, boy?" he inquired crisply, sheathing both sword and knife.

  "They’re … this way, sir.”

  The boy turned, and Andreas could almost see the abyss opening within his fragile young heart. Sick with vertigo, he grabbed his shoulder roughly, dragging him back.

  "Don't you turn your back on me,” he growled.

  "What—? Ow! The fi—"

  Light blazed back into his eyes as Andreas crushed his trapezius in his fist and slapped him across the face, summoning his spirit back from the edge.

  No warmth though, no kindness. No time for that.

  "—Just show me where they are!" he barked.

  The boy opened his mouth to retaliate, but seemed to make up his mind that his life still had value. He turned away, leading him back through the ruined square.

  "How many are dead?" asked Andreas, scarcely concealing the relief in his voice.

  "Ours or—"

  "Theirs. You think I care about ours? I can’t do anything for them; they’re dead! Tell me something useful.”

  "T-ten or twelve.”

  "Can't you fucking count? What, are you ten years old …?"

  "—May be some bodies in the smoke! Where we can't see.” He glared back over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes.

  Andreas smiled; another sign of life.

  “… No, sir. I’m fourteen. We got a team runnin' back and forth to the well! Thing is—”

  "—That there are more fires.”

  The boy dropped his hand, stumbling and swaying around the debris. "... Yeah," he snivelled under his breath. "… Salacia Boulevard and Delia. The fires at Delia are out, but Salacia is still, umm …."