Crowns of Rust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 2)

by Daniel Arenson

  The crowd seethed. A few Zoharites tried to shove their way between legionaries, only to be beaten back. A javelin thrust, impaling a Zoharite's thigh. A shield knocked down a woman.

  "Behold those who fought Aelar upon the coast!" Remus cried from the balcony. "They sought to cast Aelar back into the sea, and they cursed our emperor. Shefael bent the knee and lived! Now, Zoharites, you will see the fate of those who resisted."

  The crowd roiled. Men cried out in rage, cried for vengeance, cried in hatred of Aelar, cried the names of those prisoners they knew.

  Shiloh cried out above them all. "Mercy!"

  The legionaries stood still, shields raised, as behind them the prisoners bled, backs bent under the crosses they bore. At Shiloh's side, a man picked up the cry. "Mercy!"

  Soon a thousand were chanting across the crowd. "Mercy!"

  Remus Marcellus stood on the balcony, staring down at the crowd. His eyes were hard, but Shiloh thought that, even from this distance, she could see a thin smile on his face.

  "Mercy! Mercy!"

  Remus stepped closer to the edge of the balcony and raised his arms. The crowd hushed.

  "I have heard your cry!" said Remus. "Aelar is not without mercy. As a gift to Zohar, I will release a single prisoner. Choose, Zoharites! Choose one among the rebels."

  In the crowd, people began calling out names. Zohar was a small kingdom, and many of these soldiers of Gefen had family and friends here in the capital.

  "Free Baras!" shouted an old man. "He's my son."

  "Free Amalia!" cried another man. "She's a woman. She should not die in blood. Free Amalia!"

  "Free Malaci!" rose another voice, and soon other voices repeated the chant. "Free Malaci! Free Malaci!"

  Shiloh counted seventy-three prisoners on the dais, but only nine or ten names were being called, and soon the cries of "Free Malaci!" drowned out all other voices. The chant rose across the crowd, for Master Malaci was renowned across Zohar, a great thinker and teacher, as beloved as any king.

  Remus nodded, and legionaries pulled the cross off Malaci, then began unlocking the old man's chains.

  "No!" Malaci cried. "Not me. I'm old. I'm old!" The sage hobbled forward and stared up at the balcony. "Prefect Remus! Spare my grandchild. Spare Ramael. He is young. Spare his life and let me take his spot upon the cross."

  Pain twisted Shiloh's heart, and she lowered her head.

  You've always been noble, Malaci. You've always been Zohar's finest.

  The legionaries tugged Malaci back to the line of prisoners, and soon the sage was holding a cross again, nearly crumpling under the weight. His grandson was tossed forward, freed from his burden. The young soldier fell to his knees, crying out wordlessly for his grandfather.

  Shiloh raised her chin. Tears on her cheeks, she stepped through the crowd. At the foot of the dais, legionaries stood, blocking her passage. Shiloh stared up at Remus Marcellus. The prefect stared down from the balcony.

  "Hear me, Prefect Remus Marcellus of Aelar!" Shiloh called out, her voice ringing across the courtyard. "I am Shiloh Sela, born to House Elior, aunt to Shefael Elior, the King of Zohar." Her chest ached, and her knees shook, but still she spoke, summoning all the strength inside her. "You let Malaci exchange his freedom for his grandson. Let me exchange my life too. Spare another lion of Zohar! Spare a man or woman, and let me take their place upon the cross."

  "Mother!" Epher cried behind her, reaching out to grab her.

  Shiloh was shocked at her own words, that she would make this sacrifice. Yet how could she not? How could she live, linger on in guilt, as these sons and daughters—these lions whose only sin had been to roar for Jerael—perished in agony? She could not. She would die a thousand deaths for them.

  "Mother!" Epher cried again, and the crowd roared out its dismay, crying for Shiloh to turn back, calling for Remus to reject the offer.

  For I too am loved among the people, Shiloh realized. Though I do not deserve their love, for it was my family—the line of Elior—that led them to servitude.

  "Mother Shiloh, come back to us!" cried men behind her.

  "Spare Mother Shiloh!" rose another cry.

  "Mercy, mercy!" rose voices in the crowd.

  "Grandfather!" cried Ramael, reaching toward Malaci.

  A man in the crowd tossed a stone. It hit a legionary's shield. Other men tried to push between the soldiers, to reach the prisoners, and cries of rage and terror rose, and the legionaries drew their swords. More stones flew.

  "Enough!" roared Remus from the balcony. "Shiloh Sela, return to the bosom of your people. You did not sin, and so you will live. Legionaries! March them out!"

  With wails, with blood, with tears, the march of grief began.

  Through the city of Beth Eloh the condemned walked. Whips tore into their backs. Crowns of thorns dug into their brows. On shaking feet, they walked the cobbled streets, between homes and workshops, past temples and towers, through markets and cemeteries. Hundreds of legionaries guarded their way, shields raised, whips lashing.

  From rooftops, windows, towers, alleyways, the people of Beth Eloh watched the procession. A mother wept for her condemned child, reaching out to him, shoved back. Prostitutes hung their heads low. A priest ran forward with a jug of honeyed milk, tried to feed a trembling prisoner, was knocked down. On and on, the procession marched, leaving a trail of blood. A trail of grief. A trail of suffering.

  Forever this blood will stain our city, Shiloh thought, following the procession. Ever this shall be a path of tears.

  She wanted to turn away. She did not want to witness this torture, this desecration of her ancient, holy city. Yet she couldn't turn away. All these men and women under the cross, they were all her sons and daughters. Her sister was dead. Her husband was dead. Shefael sat upon a mockery of a throne, the strings of the Empire tugging him as a puppet.

  Perhaps Zohar is now entrusted to me, Shiloh thought. Yet how can I save her from this blood?

  "Mercy!" cried some.

  "Aelarian dogs, go home!" shouted another man, his voice dying as a javelin thrust into his chest.

  The march of grief continued. The sun beat down, cruel as the whips. Stray dogs, skeletal and feral, lapped the blood off the cobblestones. Donkeys and camels fled. The condemned walked down alleyways, brick walls rising so close at their sides the crosses scraped across them. Arches rose above, crumbling and ancient. These stones had seen three thousand years of travelers; now they witnessed the death of a nation. Past bleached domes splotched with bird droppings, around an olive grove, past the tomb of King Elshalom, along the Old City walls where palm trees grew, they marched on. Dying already. Flayed, dripping blood, crying out in pain, their crosses red—onward they marched.

  Remus led the way, riding a splendid white stallion, his armor brilliant in the sunlight, his cloak billowing—a deity of iron and gold. Finally, after what seemed like eras, like generations, the prefect led the procession into the Valley of Ash. Thousands of years ago, before Elshalom, idolaters had sacrificed their children here to the cruel god Baal. They would burn the young ones inside great bronze idols, cooking their flesh, dancing as the screams rose. Today new life would be sacrificed here to new gods.

  The legionaries led the condemned into the valley, and the hammers rose.

  Shiloh knelt on the hot soil. "Mercy," she whispered.

  The voices rose across the crowd of onlookers. "Mercy. Mercy."

  Yet still the hammers fell. Still the crosses rose. Seventy-two lions. Sons. Daughters.

  Shiloh rose to her feet. She raised her head and stared to the sky, tears on her cheeks.

  "Hear, O Zohar!" she cried in a trembling voice—the ancient prayer of her people. "Ours is the light."

  Across the valley, the thousands raised their hands to the heavens. "Ours is the light!"

  Shiloh remained in the valley long after Remus Marcellus rode off, long after the rest of the crowd dispersed. She wanted to give the dying milk and honey, to soothe them, to
shoo away the crows, but Shiloh would not, and her prayer for mercy changed to a new prayer.

  "Let them die, Eloh," she whispered. "Please, let them die."

  They hung on the crosses before her, old Master Malaci among them, and they lived. Through the night, nailed to the wood, arms dislocated and twisted, they lived. And Shiloh remained, kneeling before them, praying, waiting through searing sunlight and night again, and still they lived.

  On the third day, legionaries came to the hill, laughing and drinking and spitting, to tug the corpses down. That day, a second march began. The priests of the city led the way, as they carried the fallen through the streets, as the people prayed, as the legionaries laughed. Shiloh buried the fallen among kings and queens and prophets, and she placed stones upon their graves.

  Let them be the last, she prayed between the tombstones. Let us kneel, serve, suffer if we must, but let no more die.

  She looked at her son. Epher stood at her side, staring at the graves, and more than grief in his eyes, she saw rage. His fists trembled, and Shiloh trembled too, and she knew that more would die.

  ATALIA

  In the belly of the ship, the galley slaves oared.

  Stroke after stroke.

  Day after day, night after night.

  Whipping after whipping.

  The hours, the days, the weeks blended together. Atalia no longer knew darkness from light, pain from sleep, life from death. She had become but a creature. Oaring. Oaring. Her muscles stiff, aching, screaming. The whip on her back. Gruel in her belly. Brief hours of sleep, chained to her bench. Then rowing again, and the drum beating, and the stench of piss and shit and blood and sweat, and every few days a dead rower left to rot for hours before they dragged out his corpse.

  Thus was her life as a galley slave—not a life at all but a nightmare, crushing, twisting her, melting her into a beast, a creature as pathetic as a stray dog.

  "Soon, Commander," Daor whispered over and over. "Soon we'll be at Aelar."

  Yet what did the boy know? What awaited them at Aelar?

  "Who says they'll even let us off?" Atalia snapped at him once. "Maybe we'll never set foot on land again. Maybe this is our life now—oaring back and forth across the Encircled Sea."

  Daor turned to look at her, and a thin smile tugged at his thin face. "You are the daughter of Sela. They'll want to parade you in the streets of Aelar. You'll get out of here."

  Those words were not comforting.

  Sometimes, when the wind filled the ship's sails, the masters let the rowers sleep. The slaves never left the hold of the ship. They never saw those sails, never saw the sky or sea, never smelled the salty air. But when the wind was right, when the ships sailed smoothly upon the water, when the drum beat stopped, when the whips rested, the galley slaves slept.

  They lay on the floor during those hours—sometimes only moments—stuffed between the wooden benches like corpses in graves. Their chains twisted their ankles, and the benches dug into their sides, and they woke more pained and weary than ever.

  Atalia lost count of how many nights she had spent like this. She spent them with Daor between two benches, pressed against him, her nose against his cheek, his knees against her belly, both of them filthy and stinking and so weary it seemed likely they would die before they woke.

  She tried to be strong for him. She was his commander. She had trained him for war. She had fought with him, had watched their phalanx perish. She had to lead him, even here. Yet it was on one of these nights, crowded with him on the floor, their oar atop them, that Atalia finally wept.

  She couldn't stop herself. Her tears just flowed, and her lips shook, and her body trembled. She thought that Daor was asleep. She had waited for him to sleep before weeping. Yet at the sound of her sobs, he opened his eyes, and he stroked her hair.

  "Commander," he whispered.

  She tried to look away, to hide her tears, but there was no room here. She was never apart from him, their bodies always pressed together, the other galley slaves pressed against their sides.

  "Go back to sleep, soldier," she said, tears on her cheeks.

  "Commander, it's all right to cry." He touched her hair. "I cry. We all cry here in the belly of this ship."

  "I don't!" Yet her fresh tears still fell. "I can't. I'm a segen in the army of Zohar, a commander of a phalanx. I must still fight. Still be strong."

  Daor exhaled slowly. "Maybe the war is over, Atalia, maybe—"

  "You will call me 'Commander.'" She glared at him through her tears. "Is that understood, soldier?"

  He stiffened, and his eyes hardened, and he looked ready to argue . . . but then he only nodded. "Understood, Commander."

  He placed his arm around her, pulling her close, so that she nuzzled his neck.

  "Why are you like this anyway?" Atalia whispered, her lips pressed against his skin.

  "Like what?" Daor asked.

  "So . . . so calm. You don't tremble. You don't shout. You don't talk about killing or escaping." Lying pressed against him, she stared into his eyes. "Who are you, Daor? Back in my phalanx, you were just my soldier. But who are you? Who were you?"

  "A potter's boy," he said. "You know that."

  "I don't give a fuck who your dad was." She wrapped her fingers around his arm. "Who are you? Did you ever play with wooden swords? How many times did you sneak out of temple during Restday services? Which girls in Gefen did you fuck?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "Does a commander need to know all this about her soldier?"

  "Yes." She nodded. "Standard military procedure, asking these questions."

  Daor smiled wanly. Footsteps sounded, and Daor hushed, waiting until the overseer walked by. Once the burly man had passed them, Daor spoke again, his voice but a whisper.

  "I never played with wooden swords. But I played mancala with my brothers quite often. I was rather good at it. I played with the fellow soldiers too. And I sneaked out of temple services almost every Restday."

  "I knew it!" Atalia couldn't help but grin. "Naughty soldier was a naughty temple boy."

  He smiled too. "My brothers and I would crouch low and skulk between the pews so that the priests couldn't see. We'd go outside into the yard, and you know those fruit trees there, the ones that grow those little hard, green fruit that look like grapes, but are rock hard? What are those fruit anyway?"

  Atalia bit her lip. "I was going to ask you the same thing. What were those trees?"

  "I don't know, but those little grapes were like marbles, whatever they are. Some kind of round olives maybe? Could break all your teeth, but we never ate them. My brothers and I would collect them, hide between trees, and toss them at one another in mock wars. Right there outside of Gefen's temple, right in the yard, while everyone else prayed inside."

  Atalia's laughter snorted out of her. She forced herself to bite her lip, to stifle the sound lest the overseer heard. "God, I'm jealous. My mother never let me sneak out. Every Restday, we all had to go, we all had to sit there in the pews all morning, just to set an example. Just because we're the Sela family, lords of Gefen." Her eyes dampened anew to remember those days. "Daor, do you remember that time when the chandelier broke in the temple, and some servant tossed it out into the yard, and it completely shattered? And all the crystals—hundreds of them—scattered under the fallen leaves and pine needles?"

  "Of course I do," Daor said. "God, we were digging up crystals for a year. I used to think them a treasure. I had collected a few of them, kept them at home on my windowsill. I was sure they were giant diamonds, worth a fortune, but they were only glass."

  Atalia laughed. "I had three on my windowsill too. I used to pretend they were magical, that I could see the future in them. My sister Maya always told me that magic only comes from Luminosity, but I liked to pretend." She poked Daor's ribs. "What about my other question?"

  He tilted his head. "Which one?"

  She bit his chin—hard. "You know!"

  He winced. "About which girls I . . ."
>
  She nodded. "Which ones did you deflower? Or which ones deflowered you? Or . . ." Atalia's eyes lit up. "Are you still waiting to be deflowered?"

  The young man sighed. "No longer waiting. There was one girl." His voice dropped, so low she could barely hear. "Did you know Odaleet?"

  Atalia frowned, thinking. "Who's her father?"

  "Benta, the baker."

  Atalia nodded. "I know Benta. Big man with a big wife. Odaleet . . ." She gasped. "I know! A skinny little girl, the opposite of her parents."

  "Not so skinny!" Daor said. "I used to buy bread there sometimes. At first. Then a lot. Then every day. Just to see her."

  "Until one day you came for bread rolls and ended up with a pair of nice tits in your hands instead."

  Daor looked away. "I love her, Atalia. Don't talk of her like that."

  "Call me 'Commander,' soldier."

  "I love her, Commander. And . . . I'm scared. I don't know what happened to her." Suddenly he was shaking. "I don't know if she lives. If any of them live. If—"

  "She lives." Atalia nodded. "The Aelarians like bread too. They won't kill the bakers. Just the soldiers. She's still there, baking breads, thinking of you, soldier. One day we'll return there. And we'll visit that bakery again. And we'll hunt for crystals outside of Gefen's temple, and we'll argue about what kind of fruit those are, and we'll toss them at each other, and you'll come dine with us in the villa on Pine Hill, and . . ."

  Suddenly Atalia was crying again, and now Daor was shedding tears too. They cried together between the benches of the ship, holding each other, their tears mingling.

  "I miss home," Daor whispered.

  "Me too." She stroked his cheek. "I promise you, soldier. I promise you. We will see Zohar again. We will see our families again."

  She kissed him—a peck on the cheek, then on the lips, then something deeper, a kiss that was warm, salty, tasting of their tears, that lasted forever but ended too soon.

  "Is that standard military procedure too, Commander?" he asked.

  She nodded. "You performed admirably, soldier."