by Ash Stinson
A few uneventful weeks passed. As the fervor of war died away in the fort it became as though the fight against Cykkus and his abassy had never happened at all. Sometimes Raettonus couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t just dreamed the whole thing as he strolled emptily through the silent halls of the citadel.
“You want to go for a walk?” Brecan would come to his room to ask him now and again. Raettonus would always shake his head and roll over so his face was buried in his pillow. Brecan would always hesitate for a moment before quietly withdrawing. The same scene, every two or three days. Always just the same. Brecan would come and then go and leave Raettonus in desolate silence. As Raettonus pressed his face hard into his pillow, he couldn’t help but think that he used to be able to hear a clock from his room. At some point, he was sure, that clock had given up ticking. Now all he heard from his room was cold silence.
It must’ve been two months after the battle. Maeleht still couldn’t come to lessons, and Dohrleht still wouldn’t. Raettonus was lying in his bed letting a fire come to life in his palm and then smothering it in his fingers again and again. The door opened slowly at a timid push from the hall. Assuming it was Brecan or a messenger from Diahsis, he didn’t bother to look up. However, when the intruder spoke it was with Rhodes’ gravelly voice, words all slurred together.
“Mashter Raettonush,” he said. “May I come in?”
Raettonus closed his hand on the little fire, suffocating it. He looked up at Rhodes through the thin curls of smoke rising between his fingers. In the doorway, Rhodes stared back at him with one brown eye surrounded by rotting flesh and one filmy white eye in a skeletal socket, the thin, greasy strands of what remained of his hair falling across his face. He wasn’t able to make facial expressions but Raettonus could tell by his posture that he was nervous. “If you want,” Raettonus said, sitting up. He motioned vaguely toward the desk chair.
Rhodes bowed slightly and entered, leaving the door open. He went slowly to the chair, dragging his left leg uselessly behind him. The reanimation job Raettonus had done on him was a sloppy one, and it had been done before Raettonus knew good ways to preserve flesh, so much of Rhodes’ body had decayed while Raettonus figured it out. Raettonus watched him unblinkingly as he crossed the room and pulled out the chair. With difficulty, Rhodes sat down and laid his decayed hands on his knees.
“Mashter Rattonush, I know you’re upshet right now,” began the corpse after a silent minute. “But Shlade wouldn’t want you to mourn him like thish.”
“That a fact?” said Raettonus. “Seems to me that the man who pretended to be his friend and then tried to kill him shouldn’t be lecturing me about what Slade would want.”
Rhodes sighed raggedly. “Are you going to hold that againsht me forever?” he asked tiredly.
“Yes, I think so. After all, you tried to kill him.”
The rotted tissue on the half of Rhodes’ face that still had any muscle at all twitched, as if he were trying very hard to make some sort of expression. “There were…circumshtancesh,” said Rhodes. “I never wanted to kill him, but…”
“But you were still willing to,” Raettonus said.
Rhodes sighed again. The sound hissed and came out through his ribs and through a hole in his throat, causing the shreds of damaged flesh there to flap weakly. “Yesh, I wash willing to,” he said. “I wash…in a bad way. There were debtsh I needed to pay, and a man approached me with an offer of quite a lot to kill Shlade.” He rubbed at the back of his neck with one bony hand and turned his eyes to the floor. In a small voice, he said, “For what it’sh worth, I refushed at firsht. I threw him out, told him never to come to me again. But…thosh debtsh jusht kept piling up, and… And I’m a weak, weak man, Raettonush.” He lowered his hand from his neck to pick at a loose thread on the hem of his tunic that Raettonus couldn’t see. “I didn’t desherve to shurvive that fight that day in the orchard. I’m a worm. Lower than a worm, even.”
“Yes, you are,” said Raettonus. The gaze he regarded Rhodes with was icy cold.
“Even sho,” continued Rhodes, looking up. “I knew Shlade for many, many yearsh. We grew up together. He wouldn’t want you to do thish to yourshelf. He’d want you to be happy.”
Raettonus looked away. “I’m tired of this place,” he said after a moment. “Pack up Slade’s stuff and take it north. We’re leaving soon.”
Rhodes hesitated slightly before he said, “Ash you wish.” Slowly he stood and left the room, closing the door gently behind himself.
For a while, Raettonus stared silently at the door before standing with a sigh. Sliding his rapier into his belt, he ventured out into the hall to skulk aimlessly about the citadel.
* * *
The corridors were mostly empty, with only a few centaurs loitering about between shifts on the roof and repairing the damage to the outer walls. The main exception to this was the shrine, which was less crowded than it had been but still markedly busy as Raettonus passed it by.
When Raettonus made his way through the courtyard, he found a few soldiers drilling and jousting, but not as many as he had expected. With a slight sense of disappointment, he noted Brecan was not with them. A shadow fell across the yard, and Raettonus looked upward to see a hippogryph circling the steel cage above the citadel. One of the patrolling guards on the roof waved to it, and it glided over to him and landed on the metal bars. He took a rolled up paper out of its beak and gave it something from a pouch at his hip, and the hippogryph took off again into the sky. Raettonus watched it disappear beyond the walls and continued across the yard.
His mind wandered as he meandered along the stark, stone halls of the citadel, lonely footfalls echoing behind him. He didn’t even notice he was in one of the subterranean levels until it became dark enough he needed to light a fire to see by. He continued meanderingly onward along a cobweb-filled passage with a high ceiling. As he made his way down a broad staircase the scent of putrefaction caught in his nose. He stepped off the last stair and coughed slightly as the odor stung his lungs. It was drifting in, he noted, from a side path. Curiously, he turned and followed the smell to its source and shortly found himself entering the citadel’s dungeon level through a little-used stairway entrance covered in dirt and grime.
There were no guards posted on the cell, Raettonus observed as he entered. Beyond the bars, Raettonus saw centaurs lying all across each other, entirely still. He edged closer, letting the firelight illuminate their forms. As he expected, their throats had been cut. Dried blood stained their cloth uniforms or the bare chainmail they were wearing. Flies buzzed about the cell in great black swarms, and Raettonus could see maggots wriggling up out of the decaying bodies near the bottom of the stack. The maggots struck too many chords, which brought to his mind the fight against Cykkus, so he turned his face away from them.
It was difficult to say how long the oldest bodies had been there. The weight of the corpses piled atop them had crushed them down into what was mostly pulp and rot. Raettonus’ best guess came from the smell of all of it. He would’ve ventured that the executions had started just on the heels of the attack by Cykkus’ army.
Across the room, up the well-kept staircase usually used to approach the cells, he heard a couple centaurs coming down. Extinguishing his fire, Raettonus withdrew to the access he had entered by. As he ascended the stairs, he heard the centaurs speaking in Kaerikyna as they unlocked the cell and tossed something heavy in. Quietly, Raettonus left them to their dubious activities.
He decided to return to his room and had almost reached his floor when a soldier in Tahlehson armor came around a corner. “Ah, Magician!” called the soldier in a thick accent. He spoke common Zylekkhan haltingly, as if unsure how to put the words together into a thought. “I am sent by General Diahsis to find you. He is requesting of your company in his chambers. He says that I should to tell you he’ll be, ah, very disappointed if you are to not show up.”
Raettonus gave the soldier a tired look and suppressed a small sigh. “Yes, all righ
t,” he said at last. “You don’t need to show me the way. I know it myself.”
The Tahlehson bowed his head slightly and, passing Raettonus, continued down the hall. Raettonus bit back another sigh and made his way up to Diahsis’ floor.
There was only one guard posted on the staircase when Raettonus reached the level, and he seemed to have been drinking. He moved aside to let Raettonus in, swaying slightly as he did.
Somewhere beyond the halls and empty passages, someone was playing a sorrowful song on a flute. He followed the sound to Diahsis’ airy study, where the general was seated beside Deggho dek’Kariss on a couch, playing a gleaming white flute. Lorum and another centaur were standing behind the couch, listening to the general play while Daeblau stood off beside a window overlooking the courtyard, staring down into the yard. As Raettonus stood in the doorway Deggho waved him in, but the others didn’t seem to notice him at all. Diahsis was playing with his eyes closed, a look of concentration on his face.
At some point after the battle someone had sewn Deggho’s head back onto his shoulders. The stitch work was neat and tidy, so Raettonus guessed it must have been Ebha or maybe Maeleht. Anger boiled up in Raettonus’ belly as he looked at the goblin. Deggho was just as unnatural as Slade, but yet here he still was. No one came to drag him back to Hell. All the other corpses that might have risen when Hell’s wall was breached—were they simply inconsequential? Was it only Slade’s life which had to be ended again? Was it only the life of the one man Raettonus cared about which needed to be taken away?
Apparently so.
Smothering the anger as best he could, Raettonus took a seat in a cushy armchair, throwing up his legs over one of the arms. Diahsis half opened his eyes as he was playing and stopped abruptly. “Magician!” he exclaimed. “You decided to come see us! I’m glad.”
“Well, I was already out and about,” said Raettonus.
Diahsis smiled. “Deggho painted a picture of me,” he said, pointing with his flute toward where the canvas leaned against a wall drying. In the painting, Diahsis stood proudly adorned in his shining dress armor, all bronze and silver and wrapped with yellow and blue silk. “It’s good, isn’t it? It looks just like me!” Diahsis wrapped one arm around Deggho’s shoulders. “You’re amazing, Deggy, you really are.”
“You’re too kind, General,” said Deggho. The goblin might’ve blushed a little if he still had blood circulating in his body to blush with.
Raettonus arched one eyebrow. “You’ve been drinking today, haven’t you?” he asked Diahsis.
Diahsis nodded, still smiling. “Just a little,” he said. “And it was only wine. Ah—would you like some? Vyrah, where did you put that bottle? You had it last, I think.”
The centaur standing beside Lorum—a young man with long, black hair and a scar that ran from his lower lip all the way to his navel—shrugged and said in a voice without an accent, “I think you emptied that one, actually.”
“Did I?” asked Diahsis, looking slightly distressed. He looked back toward Raettonus. “Gods, I’m sorry. I guess I drank that bottle. We could get a fresh one, though, if you want.”
“I’m fine,” Raettonus said. “I’m not in a mood to drink anyway.”
“Are you sure?” said Diahsis. “It’s very good wine. I think we have some brandy too. And—oh, we definitely had some rum.”
“I’m fine, really.”
Diahsis’ smile faltered a little. “Oh, all right,” he said. “Hey, Daeby, come over here and join us. Why don’t you tell us that story you told this morning? Raettonus and Vyrah weren’t here to hear it.”
“Hm?” Daeblau glanced at him quickly before returning his gaze to the yard. “Ah, forgive me, General, I don’t seem to recall what story that was.”
“Oh, you know—the one about that slave fighting ring in Ti Tunfa,” said Diahsis. “You tell it so well. Come over here and join us. What’s so interesting down there anyway?”
For a moment, Daeblau was tense. Suddenly, however, his shoulders relaxed and he turned away from the window. “Nothing,” he said. “Just watching the men at their drills. That’s all.”
“Oh, is that all?” said Diahsis, chuckling slightly. “See anything you like down there, Dae?”
Daeblau shrugged and came to stand beside Lorum. “Like?” he said vaguely. “No, not particularly.”
“So, are you going to tell the story?” asked Diahsis.
“If you wish, General,” said Daeblau with a smile Raettonus could tell was carefully practiced.
“Oh, but start with the maid with one eye,” said Diahsis. “The bit before that drags. Start with the maid.”
Somewhere beyond the room there was a shout and the sound of a scuffle. Diahsis tried to get up, but Vyrah put on hand firmly on his shoulder. “I’m sure it was nothing,” he said. “We were about to hear a story, Daeblau?”
“Are you insane? Something’s going on out there,” said Lorum. He moved to make for the door, but Daeblau caught him by the arm. Outside the room, the sound had died away, and now there was only the clatter of hooves on stone approaching them.
“Stay. We’re in the middle of telling stories,” said Daeblau, smiling. He’d drawn a knife and was holding it to Lorum’s throat. “It’d be rude to go off while I’m in the middle of my story.”
There was a dagger in Vyrah’s hand now, as well, and he was holding it to Diahsis’ temple. The unarmed general stared at Raettonus. “I don’t suppose you’ll help me here, will you, Magician?” he asked, his sharp ears flattening against the sides of his head.
“This doesn’t concern me,” Raettonus answered.
“Hm. That’s pretty much just as I was expecting,” responded Diahsis, voice emotionless, as the doors clattered open. The general let out a small sigh. “Oh, well. I had to ask just for thoroughness’ sake, I suppose.”
Five centaurs in Zylekkhan armor and adorned with red and purple banners bustled into the room, wielding swords and halberds. “Diahsis of Tahlehsohr, my name is General Ahkuriin of the Royal Zylekkhan Army,” said the lead centaur. “We are here to demand your immediate surrender of this fort.”
Diahsis glanced from Ahkuriin to Daeblau. “Well. I suppose it’s all on me that I lost it, isn’t it?” he remarked. “I surrender, of course. There’s a bloody knife to my head, and all I’ve got is a flute. Do you think I’m going to fight?”
Ahkuriin signaled for two of his men to take Diahsis and Lorum into chains and crossed to Daeblau. “The King would like to recognize you for your wits in dealing with this infiltration,” he said, clapping one gauntleted hand down on Daeblau’s shoulder. “You’ve been promoted to general. Congratulations.”
“It’s an honor,” said Daeblau, bowing his head.
“General Ahkuriin, what about this one?” asked one of the soldiers, nodding toward Deggho.
Ahkuriin regarded him distastefully. “A goblin?”
“He was a hostage taken by the late General Tykkleht,” Daeblau informed him.
“Whatever,” said Ahkuriin. “Kill him, release him. I don’t care.”
“Um, I’d rather prefer to be released,” Deggho ventured in a small voice. “I’ve died once before. Didn’t care for it.”
“Fine, fine,” muttered Ahkuriin, obviously not paying much attention. “Bebukh, escort him out.”
The soldier took Deggho by the arm and pulled him to his feet. Silently, he led the goblin out of the room. Deggho cast a worried look backward at Diahsis as he reached the door, but allowed himself to be taken away without any resistance.
Ahkuriin turned his attention to Lorum. “What’s your name and rank?” he asked.
“Lorum of Bhelstra. I’m a captain,” Lorum said reluctantly.
“Well, we can’t sell a captain into slave labor. It wouldn’t be right,” said Ahkuriin. “What hand do you fight with, son?”
“My right,” answered Lorum wearily.
“Remove the top two fingers on his right hand,” said Ahkuriin to his soldiers. “Sam
e with the other captains. Get Nahruk and his division to lead them out to the Koa after dawn tomorrow. You can let them go there.”
“Yes, sir,” said one of the soldiers. He looked at Diahsis. “Do we do the same with him?”
“Him?” said Ahkuriin. “No, he’s a general. You can’t cut off a captured general’s fingers. It’s disrespectful.” He paused a moment, flicking his equine tail. “Hang him.”
Diahsis’ facial expression didn’t change. He stared at Ahkuriin with a controlled look on his face, much the same as if the Zylekkhan general were only an uninvited guest who had loudly interrupted his party. At Ahkuriin’s motion, Diahsis was hauled to his feet and escorted from the room. As Ahkuriin and Daeblau began to converse in Kaerikyna, Raettonus stood and slunk out of the room and made his way toward the stairwell.
Kaebha Citadel was filled with soldiers wearing the Zylekkhan colors. They were shouting and joking to each other as they rounded up the Tahlehson soldiers and chained their arms and legs. No one spoke to Raettonus as he passed, and when the Zylekkhans looked at him they’d quickly look away after catching sight of his pale red eyes. Vaguely, he wondered what kinds of stories they’d heard about him.
On a third floor landing, Brecan found him. “Raet!” exclaimed the unicorn, cantering over to him and nearly bowling over a centaur youth as he did. “Hey, did you know? Zylekkha’s reclaimed Kaebha.”
Raettonus made a point of turning his head to look at all the Zylekkhan soldiers milling about them. “No,” he said flatly. “I had no idea.”
“Oh,” said Brecan, pulling into a stop as he reached Raettonus. “Well, they have! I’m not sure how they managed it, but when the Zylekkhan army reached the mountain there were loyalists on the gates and the rooftops, and they just opened the doors right up for them.”
“I was with Diahsis when they came in,” Raettonus said. He started again down the hall and Brecan followed with prancing steps. “Daeblau engineered it, I think. The Zylekkhan general seemed pleased with him, at any rate, and he seemed to be looking for something out in the courtyard. Probably some sort of signal that the fort was in Zylekkhan hands and it was safe to apprehend Diahsis.”