Blood and Iron: The Book of the Black Earth (Part One)

by Jon Sprunk

  Emanon's teeth gleamed in the night. “That's not plain steel on the end of that pig-sticker.”

  The rebel fighters with bows were bending them, aiming silver-headed arrows at the pavilion. The rest of the rebels gathered into a knot, their weapons likewise glowing in the intermittent light. Emanon drew a sword from the scabbard on his hip. Jirom half-expected the blade of the weapon to be zoahadin, but it appeared to be ordinary steel. Jirom held out his lance to the rebel captain, but Emanon shook his head.

  The signal was a low whistle. The archers let fly, sending their arrows through the thin material of the pavilion. The bowmen reloaded and continued shooting even as shouts rose from inside the great tent. Emanon waved, and the rest of the rebels charged forward.

  Jirom hesitated. Was this the right path? He couldn't be sure. Yet, when the first death-scream pierced the night air, he lowered his weapon and ran forward to join his comrades, for better or worse.

  The sentries fanned out to meet the attack. A soldier charged at Jirom with a drawn sword held in both hands. Jirom dropped into a low stance and thrust. The lance's brilliant point snapped iron scales as it drove into the soldier's stomach. His attacker fell back, screaming like an exotic bird with both hands clutching the new hole in his belly. The demi-lance came free like it was eager for more, but Jirom stepped away as more shapes appeared around him.

  He batted aside a bronze-headed mace aimed at his face and responded with the butt of his weapon to the soldier's temple, which didn't drop the man but slowed him down long enough for Jirom to reset and lunge. He struck the soldier in the chest, but the man's armor held, and only the tip of the lance penetrated. Before Jirom could make a second thrust, a bearded axe swung at his head. He caught the blow on the shaft of his weapon and wrenched its wielder off-balance. He skewered the axe-wielder through the throat one-handed and was pulling back for another thrust when a hard blow hit him in the back. The lance fell from his hand.

  With painful tingles running up his spine, Jirom pulled the axe from the dying soldier's hand, spun it around, and buried the head in the shoulder of the man behind him. Warm blood splashed across Jirom's face and neck as he wrenched the axe free and whirled around to find a new foe, but the soldiers surrounding the pavilion were all down, along with two rebel fighters. Emanon slashed open the tent wall and leapt inside. Jirom followed on his heels.

  A lamp had fallen over on a large bronzewood table at the center of the pavilion, leaking burning oil across a parchment map. Light also came from flaming braziers in the corners of the single room, one of which had been knocked over. An older man with short, gray hair lay beside the toppled brazier, both hands around the shaft of the arrow protruding from his stomach. Three other men were scattered on the floor around the table, but four were still on their feet, including a middle-aged man with receding hair in gold scale armor and a pair of courtiers in silken raiment. Emanon jumped over the table, swinging his sword at the general.

  Jirom's entire body tingled as he ran up to assist, and a gush of water wrapped around his middle like a great constrictor snake. The air rushed out of his lungs as his insides were crushed under the sudden pressure. While his legs shook under the tremendous weight, he spotted one of the courtiers staring at him with fierce concentration. Wishing he had brought the lance instead, Jirom shuffled toward the sorcerer. The other courtier started to raise his hands, but then an arrow sprouted from his chest and he went down with a pitiful groan. Jirom strained to take another step. The watery appendage was dragging him down as it squeezed. With a grunt, he twisted his shoulders and threw. The axe flew from his hands to split the face of the sorcerer attacking him. The water fell away, and Jirom dropped to one knee on the drenched carpet, his breath coming in labored gulps. His hands shook as he forced himself to stand up.

  Emanon pulled his sword from the Akeshian general's chest. Moving around the burning table, Jirom stooped to pick up a fallen tulwar. It was heavy but well-balanced with a keen edge. He looked around, but none of the dead were Hazael. “The kapikul's not here.”

  Emanon frowned as he kicked over a fallen courtier. “He was supposed to be. I won't feel right until that snake is dealt—”

  A blur sliced through the tent wall. One of the rebel soldiers, Eiger, collapsed.

  “Down!” Jirom shouted as he dropped to his stomach.

  Crossbow bolts whizzed through the air. Emanon lay beside him, their noses inches apart. The rebel captain's face was grim.

  “I'm guessing this wasn't part of your plan?”

  Emanon answered with a grunt. Jirom tried to estimate how many shooters were firing from outside. It had to be at least half a dozen. Their ambush had been ambushed. “We need to get out of here.”

  The crossbow fire hesitated, replaced by the sounds of clashing steel from outside the pavilion. With a roar, Emanon jumped up and raced for the tear in the cloth wall. With an uneasy feeling in his stomach, Jirom ran after him. They plunged into a chaotic brawl. Emanon's remaining men were locked into combat with a score of soldiers. Near the rows of tents, a squad of arbalesters was reloading furiously. A familiar figure sat above the fray on his brown mare, assurana sword flashing in the lightning barrage that continued over the town.

  Jirom followed Emanon toward the crossbowmen, but a heavyset Akeshian soldier leapt in his way. Jirom lashed out with a horizontal slash. Blood spurted from the severed stump of the soldier's wrist, but Jirom was already moving past him. Emanon had cut down a pair of arbalesters before he joined him. A bolt shot between Jirom's legs, almost hitting his left kneecap, and he cut down the shooter with an overhead strike. The tulwar clove through the soldier's shoulder and got struck in the links of armor as he fell. As Jirom used both hands to wrench it loose, a wooden stock connected with his chin, knocking him back a step. A red veil dropped over his vision as he returned a vicious thrust. The tulwar's point pierced armor and flesh to spill his attacker's entrails to the bloody ground.

  Jirom's lungs heaved as he turned around. Emanon stood a few steps away, his sword dripping with fresh blood. Just past the rebel captain, Kapikul Hazael leaned low in his saddle as he rode toward them. An intense heat flared up inside Jirom's chest like he had downed a bottle of Haranian fire spirits, searing his lungs with every breath. It was the old rage, the inner demon that had plagued him all his life. It pressed against his skin, clawing to get out. Jirom clenched the tulwar's hilt tight in both hands as Hazael's assurana sword swept down in a smooth arc, and he flinched when blood sprayed. But then he saw Emanon diving away from the horse's churning hooves. A young rebel fighter from Jerkul's squad collapsed behind him without a head.

  Jirom felt a rumbling in his chest that drowned out the fury of the storm in his ears. His sight dimmed, and his hands went numb. All his fear vanished, melting away like morning mist, as he started to run.

  Cracks riddled the walls of the pit. Droplets of condensation collected in these crevices. Horace wriggled his tongue inside those he could reach. It was maddeningly slow work drawing out the water drop by drop, but he didn't have much else to do.

  Darkness defined his existence. He had spent a long time huddled on the floor of the pit, battered by thoughts of what would become of him. But after an hour, or five hours—time was impossible to track down here—he forced himself to move around. He avoided the center of the floor where the former occupant had tried to kill him, instead pacing around the circular wall on stiff legs, his right hand keeping contact with the rough brickwork.

  The pit wasn't very large, perhaps twenty feet across. He didn't expect to find any handholds in the wall, but he couldn't resist searching for some anyway. He discovered a couple spots where the exterior brick had crumbled away to make rectangular holes, but they were down at knee-height. Reaching into one of them, he found a handful of spiky pebbles. He was putting them back when he realized he was handling teeth. Human teeth. He dropped them and wiped his hands on his shirt, and thereafter he avoided sticking his hands into the small holes. Tha
t is, until he found a crack running down the wall. It was too narrow to use for climbing, but his fingers felt the dampness within.

  At times he slept and suffered dreams in which he was blind or crazed or both, dreams in which he was the last person in the world, alone in a vast nothingness. He woke from one of these dreams thinking he'd heard a familiar voice. The words were too soft to make out, but he thought it might have been Lord Mulcibar talking. Sitting in the dark, his arms wrapped around his knees, he wondered if Lord Mulcibar was languishing down in one of these abattoirs as well. The nobleman might even be nearby, separated by as little as a few yards of earth and stone, yet so unreachable he might as well have been on the far side of the world. Horace strained to hear the voice again, but the pit was silent except for the sound of his own breathing. He pushed his forehead against the brick wall.

  God, why are you doing this to me? Wasn't taking my wife and my son enough? What else do you want? Will you make me suffer until I grovel like a worm? Is that what you need?

  Horace shook his head back and forth as a wave of bile rose up inside him, driven by an anger so hot he couldn't contain it.

  No! Fuck you and all your saints. I gave you my heart and my soul, and you've never given me back anything except pain. You took Sari and Josef from me, and then you cast me to my enemies.

  The words echoed off the walls, and Horace realized he had been muttering out loud. He squinted, trying to see anything in the darkness, but everything was black. He might as well have been blind. The cold was beginning to sink into his bones, making his teeth chatter. The understanding that this was how he would spend the rest of his life, however long or short, motivated him to keep looking for a way out. He shook his wrists, making the shackles chatter. The first step was getting rid of these chains.

  He searched for something to help him get the shackles off, but all he could find on the pit floor were slivers of broken brick that were too small and crumbly to be useful. In fact, the more he examined the cuffs, he more he came to realize that he would need a hammer and chisel to break them. The metal was strong, and the chain links joining the cuffs were too thick to break with anything less. He felt the keyholes that locked the cuffs. If only he had a key.

  Horace lifted his shirt and felt for his waist. He was still wearing his belt, the length of supple leather joined with a bronze buckle. Taking it off, he sat on the floor and inserted the buckle's thin prong into the keyhole of his left cuff. He twisted it around for several minutes, trying to trip the lock, until his fingers and wrists were sore. Frustrated, he jimmied it harder and dug the prong deeper into the lock with each thrust, until a tiny sound made him freeze. He felt the buckle, and his heart sank into his stomach. The post had broken off.

  Horace threw the belt down and covered his face with his hands. It was hopeless. He wasn't a burglar. He was just a—

  A simple shipbuilder, right? You've been telling everyone that, but you know it's not the truth. Once, you were a husband and a father, but you let them go and now you're nothing but a failure. Death is all you deserve, so just lie down and close your eyes until it takes you. Or better yet, bash your head against these walls and end it.

  He jumped to his feet, ready to give in to his conscience. He raised his head and froze. A light had appeared above him, a tiny circle of yellow. He held still, not even daring to breathe, as a distant sound reached his ears. The jangling of a chain.

  A dozen scenarios played through his mind as he listened to the noises. Had Isiratu returned to torment him some more, or was this some new torture? The lowering of the chain seemed to take forever, and every second Horace feared the priests would stop and pull it back up. By the time he could see the links swinging above him, his hands were clenched into hard, shaking fists. Then the jangling stopped. The hook at the end was three feet above his head.

  You rotten sons of—

  “Grab onto it!” a voice cried from above.

  Horace's breath exploded from his lungs as the woman's voice touched his ears. For a moment, he thought it was Sari calling for him, even though he knew that was impossible. Tears came to his eyes as his sorrow was swallowed by a burst of joy. “Alyra?”

  “Horace! Grab the chain and we'll pull you up!”

  “I can't! I can't reach it yet!”

  Moments passed, and then the chain was lowered to within his grasp. He pulled himself up until he could put a foot in the hook. “Got it!”

  A giddy sensation filled Horace as he was lifted up the dark shaft of the pit. His fears of spending an eternity in solitude evaporated, replaced by concerns for his immediate future. As soon as he reached the top, he clambered out and pulled Alyra into a tight embrace. She went rigid in his arms, but only for a moment, and then she melted against him. He was content to bury his face in her hair.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  He wasn't sure who he was thanking—God or the pagan idols that ruled this murky land, or some other power entirely—but he let his gratefulness fill him up. “How did you get down here?”

  “I had to bring someone.”

  Dread washed over Horace as a tall man in black robes stepped out of the shadows by the door. “There are many secrets under Erugash,” a deep voice intoned. “And the adherents of the Sun God do not know them all.”

  Horace forced himself to meet his savior's gaze. “Lord Astaptah. You might be the last person I expected to see here.”

  “He was the only one I could find who was willing to help,” Alyra said.

  Horace held out his hand. “You have my thanks, my lord. But I must ask why you would put yourself at such risk for someone you barely know.”

  Lord Astaptah glanced at the proffered hand but did not move to take it. Although they were almost the same height, the vizier seemed to loom taller. His eyes gleamed like discs of electrum in their deep-set sockets. “Today the queen is to wed and lose her status as ruler of this city,” the vizier said. “A circumstance I much desire to prevent. This one convinced me that you would assist my efforts to prevent that from happening.”

  Horace looked to Alyra, who was biting her bottom lip. “I see. You were informed correctly. I would help the queen if I can. What do you propose?”

  Astaptah reached out and seized Horace's hands. With quick movements, he opened the shackles with a brass key and tossed them into the pit. Horace rubbed his wrists. The skin was broken and raw, but as soon as the cuffs were removed he felt his power return in a surge that made him light-headed.

  “The ceremony has already begun,” Lord Astaptah said. “And the priests will not willingly allow it to be stopped. Therefore, force is in order.”

  “You mean fighting them. The priests.”

  Lord Astaptah drew his hands up into the long sleeves of his robe. “If you would save the queen, yes.”

  Horace resisted the urge to look down into the pit. Unless they did something, he would be sent back down there and Byleth would die at the hands of her husband, the new king of Erugash. He looked to Alyra. “Is this what you would have me do?”

  “I don't know,” she answered. “The queen has shown little love for the common people of her realm, but the Sun Cult won't stop here. With Ceasa and Nisus and now Erugash under their control, their power throughout the empire will become absolute. I fear what that may mean for all our futures.”

  Horace considered it. Arnos and the other western nations had enough trouble fighting a divided Akeshia. How would they fare against an empire united under the banner of a pagan religion? He thought back to the destruction of Omikur. “Fine. I'll do it, but first we must find Lord Mulcibar. I think he's being kept in one of these pits.”

  Astaptah's dark brows came together in a fierce line, making him look even more menacing in the dim light. “That was not the bargain. The lady insisted that, once liberated, you would assist me in disrupting the nuptials. To do that, we must go now. Once the vows are spoken, nothing we do will change the fate of this city.”

  Astaptah st
rode out of the chamber before he could answer. Horace ground his teeth together. He had just been saved from a fate possibly worse than death, and now he was being asked to let a friend suffer that same doom without doing anything to help him. But what choice did he have? If Byleth married and control of Erugash passed to her cult-puppet husband, everything was over.

  Telling himself that it was what Mulcibar would have wanted, Horace started to follow the vizier out, but Alyra grabbed his arm. “Wait. I need to tell you something. I'm sorry for lying to you. It hasn't been easy these past few years. I didn't know if I could trust you. And I didn't want to put you at risk.”

  Horace placed his hand over hers. “You did what you thought was right, and I don't blame you. When I was down in that hole, the thing I regretted most was that I wouldn't see you again. This feels like a second chance at life. A chance to do things better.”

  “Horace, I—”

  He cut her off. “That's why I need you to do something for me. I want you to get out of here and find a place to hide. Just lay low until this is over, and it wouldn't hurt to be ready to flee the city if things go badly.”

  “No, I'm not leaving without you.”

  He wanted to shake her but instead placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. “I can't do this—go up there and fight—unless I know you're safe. Please, do it for me.”

  “This was my fight before you set foot on Akeshian soil, Horace. I won't leave now.”

  Seeing the intensity in her eyes, he relented. “All right. But you'll stay close to me, right?”

  “There's one more thing. Your friend Jirom. I met him.”

  “You did? Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “He's a soldier in the queen's legions. The last I heard, he was marching northwest.”

  “Omikur,” Horace whispered to himself. Then, louder, “All right. We'll worry about that later. Right now, we need to help the queen, or all this is for nothing.”

  They left the chamber together, out the door and down a dark corridor. Alyra had brought a small lantern. She clutched his arm with her other hand as they walked together, and he was grateful for the contact.