Brave Men Die: Part 3

by Dan Adams

  ‘The meeting with the Council elder on your mind?’

  Carina turned back over her shoulder. His body was prone and his eyes were closed. He wasn’t watching her but could just feel her mood, sense how tense her body was. She hated that he could do that.

  ‘It will be fine if they pull their heads out of their arses.’

  ‘So it’s not that. Did you find out where Ara went?’

  ‘I asked around but no one has seen her for a few weeks. And Daria is gone too, she would have been the only one she told where she was going.’

  ‘I’m sure she is fine.’

  Carina rolled her eyes and turned to look over at him, but now his eyes were closed and his face looked serene.

  ‘Ara’s up to something, I know it.’

  ‘Sure she is.’

  Carina leant over and punched him in the side. ‘Don’t be so condescending with me.’

  Rigel sat up and rubbed where she hit him, and looked at her apologetically. ‘How can I make it up to you?’

  Carina looked around the empty courtyard, sighed, and smiled cheekily. ‘You’ll have to do a lot …’

  Happily sated, the rush of power and lust that had built from working with the incantations earlier had been replaced with a sense of relaxation. Carina hadn’t realised just how badly she had wanted him to touch her. Happy that she had relented, it did cross the boundaries that she had created to keep them at a distance within the Academy walls. In here, relationships could be used against you.

  Rigel didn’t seem to be fazed by what had just happened and what it meant. He untangled himself from her legs and walked naked across her room to the small fireplace and put the kettle on the rack. Carina rolled on her side and propped her head up with her arm and stared at his scarred torso. He looked back and coughed, tilting his head at the fireplace. Whispering the incant, a ball of flame appeared under the kettle and boiled the water quickly.

  It was one thing to give him the impression that she enjoyed using his body, but Carina was determined never to tell him exactly how much. Rigel returned with a cup of coffee in each hand and waited until she had sat up before handing her hers. He stood there, naked and oblivious, as he sipped the hot liquid.

  ‘It’s probably time to get ready for your appointment right?’ Rigel asked, taking another gulp of his coffee.

  ‘Yeah, something like that, so go put on some pants and put that thing away.’

  There were two acolytes standing guard outside the elder’s door when Carina and Rigel arrived late for the appointment. They stood loosely against the wall, both older men that had served for decades longer than Rigel and were armed with blades strapped to their waists. If Elder Kilke called, they would both be inside in seconds.

  They stepped inside and Kilke graciously looked up from her desk, ‘Close the door behind you please.’ Inside the room were another two acolytes, both at ease, just waiting to strike if the command was given.

  Carina hadn’t planned on this, she thought she would just be reporting in and speaking quietly with a member of the Council about the events in Firadon. This situation felt like something else altogether, like something else was going on that she was unaware of. Rigel instantly picked up on her discomfort and stepped closer to her body.

  Carina moved away from Rigel’s rigid body, making her choice to distance herself from the acolyte, despite the feeling of unrest that had settled over her. He had surrendered to his instinctive protectiveness and his body had tensed, his hands clenched into tight fists and the veins in his forearms bulged to the surface.

  The memory of Rigel’s last stand flashed quickly to the forefront of her mind. He was young, temperamental and even more protective of her back then. One of the elders had detained her, had said something that Rigel had overheard and took as an immediate threat. Before she could detain him, he had gone nose to nose with the elder, puffed out his chest and stared her down. The elder could have killed him on the spot, burned him from the inside out. Instead, more cruelly, the elder had ordered that Carina be whipped as he watched and that had broken him. After her five lashes, having heard her screams of pain, he stood there and took fifty, with the elder amplifying the pain tenfold. He never uttered a sound as the lash struck, but sunk to his knees after the first twenty, brought down to his hands after the next twenty. The last ten made her wish she had never kissed him the day before. It was excruciating watching him suffer because whatever loyalty he felt for her had foolishly led to this.

  When it was over, the elder satisfied that she had broken him for his insolence, Carina waited until the public courtyard had emptied completely before walking over to him and ordered him to his feet, had told him that if he was to continue as her acolyte he was to never act without her instruction and if she had to undergo another lashing she would see to it that he suffered a pain so intense he would wish he was dead.

  She cringed at the memory but had hoped it would prevent him from repeating the same mistake again. Carina didn’t know if she could watch him take that kind of punishment again. And yet he’d stepped forward again instinctively as soon as he realised the shift in the room. He hadn’t put a hand to his weapon yet, but he had stepped forward and that was enough for the two other men in the room to stand up and take positions to either side of Kilke.

  He had to remember the lashes, the way the leather had torn open the flesh of his back, the magically enhanced pain he had underwent. And the idiot didn’t even hesitate. Maybe she loved him because of it.

  Carina silently drew breath and moved in front of Rigel, hoping that he got the message that she could handle this and that Kilke didn’t see Rigel’s reaction as a challenge to her authority.

  Submitting to the older woman’s superiority, Carina bowed, before starting her report.

  ‘Recently I was in Firadon, in the north of the country, at a dig site that a group of archaeologists are excavating. They have uncovered a secret chamber that is centuries old, that contains many relics from the age before the purge. I feel that the historians here at the Academy would be interested in some of the artefacts that they have discovered.’

  ‘Secondly, and the more concerning matter of why I sought an appointment with one of the Council, my acolyte slayed a demon in the surrounding countryside that was terrorising the diggers. It had somehow been summoned when they opened the chamber.’

  ‘It is my advisement that we send someone down to Firadon to find out where the demon came from. It was a creature of magic and darkness, but I have a limited knowledge in demon lore and couldn’t identify it successfully.’

  Kilke looked back at her calmly, absorbing all the facts from Carina’s brief report. ‘Was there any sign that there were others like it?’

  Carina screwed up her face. ‘I don’t think that’s the point.’

  ‘Certainly it is. We need to assess the situation before we commit any of our magi. I will not have anyone walk into a horde of these demons in the name of research.’

  ‘Both myself and my acolyte could only sense the one, and we scoured the surrounding countryside.’

  ‘Then the populace is safe.’

  ‘Not if another one comes through whatever portal the first one came through.’

  Kilke stood up to emphasise her point. ‘The demons can be killed. Your acolyte did so. Ultimately there is no threat that cannot be dealt with.’

  ‘If Rigel hadn’t been there to deal with it, it would have devoured the population and then went searching for more people to eat. It would have terrorised the surrounding towns and cities.’

  ‘But your acolyte dealt with it. And if it had bettered him, you would have destroyed it — you are more than capable of doing so.’

  ‘So you’ll post a mage and acolyte down at the site to ensure the safety of the Firadon people? So that if another one of these demons appears it can be stopped?’

  ‘You said yourself that there was no sign of another demonic creature. A pointless posting in case another arrives is a wast
e of time and manpower. War has broken out between the Kyzantium Empire and Murukia, and the Murukans have sought us out for assistance. And just two weeks ago one of the Fourth Circles burnt out and destroyed herself trying something dangerous in the middle of the night.’

  Carina didn’t fail to notice that the Council mage put the same weight on the mention of war as the death of a mage. The tone of her voice was neutral and non-committal and showed she was so out of touch with life outside the Academy.

  ‘Well how many are we committing? Is there anyone already involved?’

  ‘The Council have yet to decide if we will participate, let alone the numbers. And in any case, the Council would not involve a Seventh Circle to be part of that decision.’

  ‘Who is already there?’

  ‘There are three Academy magi currently involved in the conflict, two of which were visiting Buckthorne and were dragged into the opening battle, the other had travelled north–west for a research project. For the time being, we believe they are capable of representing the Academy’s interests.’

  Ara popped instantly into her head and Carina instinctively knew that the other Seventh Circle mage was already involved in the war. She had no idea what Ara was playing at but it clearly had something to do with surpassing her. Cursing under her breath, Carina had few precious seconds to think of what she could do.

  ‘When you do decide to send magi to aid the Murukans, I’m volunteering to go.’

  ‘The decision to go will be up to the Council and whom we will send.’

  ‘Send magi who are willing to go, Elder Kilke, they are the ones more likely to return.’

  Kikle reluctantly nodded her head and dismissed her with a wave of her hand. Carina led the way out of the office, Rigel right on her toes.

  ‘We’re going to war now?’ he asked.

  ‘Soon enough. That’s where Ara is, and she’s up to something. I need to figure out what that is. But first we need to find somewhere away from the Academy so I can begin casting these new spells away from prying eyes.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Patric had been feeding him any information he could find, and Chase’s ears on the street had been informing him that the Church had ramped up their anti-magic campaign to such an extent they were recruiting soldiers left right and centre by scare tactics.

  Thousands had re-enlisted in Dagenham alone and entered the training camps to adapt back into military life. There were steady streams of caravans moving south across the Empire that would eventually find themselves in the mountains or down in Murukia.

  Chase was sitting at the desk that had been delivered upon his request to the Stony Feather and was opening the correspondence from Redisberg. Alina was writing him letters, offering her condolences about his posting and doing her best to convince him to let her travel to the capital to be with him. He knew it would be nice to hold her in his arms again, but travel in the southern countries of the Empire were dangerous with the rogue Murukan unit riding behind their front lines. More so, he was concerned about the dangers of the city itself. The more reports he read, the more danger he considered himself to be in.

  His main concern was the eye witness accounts from Tarkinholm, where the few survivors, the ones who hadn’t mysteriously vanished from the city, had changed their statements. In the earlier comments, all of them had said the cell was comprised of three men, but when members of the Voice of God had gone to investigate and clean up the mess in the tunnels, they had explained away their mistakes and now reported that it was two men and a woman — and that she was the spellcaster. That they all saw her throwing fireballs around the city and summoning lightning from the sky.

  He found it interesting that in the space of a week their statements could have changed so dramatically, especially when they were so adamant in the beginning that the mage was a man. Some of the descriptions were so vivid, and so consistent — bald head, robed, tattoos on his arms — and now a woman who varied in height, colouring and description.

  Chase knew that someone had gotten to the witnesses, and he had his suspicions.

  Some of the other reports that had passed his desk were more illuminating. The fighting was heavy. He hadn’t expected otherwise, but where it was happening was the surprise. He had expected Black Claw to fold the quickest, it was a large compound and only supported by a small number of rotated personnel — but the resistance was the strongest there. They had defied wave after wave of attack and were holding with minimum numbers. He hadn’t even heard of their commander before the war had started, apparently he was some young man named Fallon who lived on the wall with his men. And he wasn’t the only name to have come from Black Claw, the battlefield was creating some legends.

  The Gorgon Pass was a stalemate, Riles had done as he was instructed and was ensuring that Duncan stayed inside the bastion. But the twins had stumbled their way south through the third pass and would besiege Gravid’s Drift after annihilating the earl and his men in the field.

  The most interesting thing, above all else, was the reports from the camps about the presence of the Church of the One God. The injured were being healed at an alarming rate and being sent back to the front. The bishops were trawling through the infirmaries and muttering their healing prayers and the wounded soldiers were up and fighting the next day.

  The Church had always felt that the prayers they offered to the One God granted them the power to heal the faithful and destroy his enemies, but in Chase’s opinion channelling the One God’s power closely resembled the magic of the Murukan magi. The witches could heal, there were stories from the legends where a touch from a mage had sent the giant Dimitri back out onto the bridge after his third opponent had opened his chest. There was another instant where King Adam had taken an arrow in the lung when he was a boy and one of the witches had healed him and granted him long life.

  Chase hadn’t seen the devastating power that the bishops’ commanded but had been present when they had activated their shields over the camps, or the marching columns as they had advanced upon their enemies. They were an effective tool, but he didn’t think they were sent from the One God. With every passing day he was beginning to believe that the bishops of the Church were throwbacks to the banished magi from centuries ago.

  After Rayn’s downfall and the fallout of the Academy’s Council, the male magi that supported him and his path were hunted down and destroyed, for better or worse, but Chase had always suspected that they would have never found every last one of them. The ability to cast, as his military textbooks had indicated, was a genetic skill, not one that you were trained for. More could have been born, others just slipped away unnoticed.

  What he considered as a much more likely outcome, was that some of them slipped into the clergy of the One God. The powers that they insisted were a gift from their faith were nothing more than their own ability to cast. As the centuries passed, the clergy could have welcomed their former brotherhood in under the safety of the Church, more so in a magic-fearing Empire, where the hunters would never be able to come after them directly.

  They adapted their powers, focused more on the healing attributes and defensive spells that the Church preached defined their One God and as such become better known as the Hand of God. But that God now seemed more likely to be one associated with the dark arts rather than the all powerful deity that the Kyzantine people believed in.

  However, he couldn’t share these findings with the Emperor’s advisors, not now that the majority of the council were members of the Church. His hand covered his mouth as he scratched his cheeks. There were few people in the capital he could trust apart from the entourage that he had brought with him from Redisberg. The phalanx of guards had been in his service for years and he knew their loyalty was unwavering.

  But that didn’t mean that the information they gathered hadn’t been intercepted somewhere along the line. Others could have been reading all of his reports, forming their own conclusions and calculating where his analysis would l
ead.

  Strangely, he had always thought that the Church might have been behind the assassination attempt, but had never sought to confirm his suspicions. He would need to prove that they could cast without prayer, one would assume that should be easy enough. If it came down to their life, he was sure they were selfish enough to save their own arses.

  ‘Todd, send word to Patric, I need to speak with him urgently.’

  As Todd ran off, Chase knew that was the best possible way to get in contact with the Emperor. He alone needed to hear what he had discovered. He would know who could be trusted, how the Church could be found out.

  Chase paced his office, looking at the clock on the wall every five seconds, waiting for the appointed time. He rubbed his wrist, clenching and unclenching his left hand repeatedly, in an attempt to release the tension. He sat back down at the desk and shuffled through the papers again. It was all there for anyone to see, it had just taken him forever to link it all together. How it had escaped every other person’s attention for the better part of five centuries he had no idea. Either they were bought off to stop revealing the secret, or they disappeared.

  When he had accepted the Emperor’s request, he honestly hadn’t expected it to end here. The names of Derrick’s killers — Chase scoffed at the bishop’s folly. There had been no ownership of the murder from inside Murukia. No celebrations of the Prince’s death that suggested it was an authorised hit. No mage had suddenly risen to power, nor was there a recent appointment to the Academy Council. No, this attack had not come from the south, that was conclusive.

  Which only meant one of two things. That it had come from another country or within his own. The fact that the caster was a male — of that Chase was now one hundred percent certain — meant that either one of the southern countries were harbouring a supposed terminated cult. Or the more obvious answer and thus the more likely: that the bishops of the Church were actually magi themselves and that one of them had been responsible for the murder.