Chains of the Heretic

by Jeff Salyards

  We were here in a dusty village on the edge of nothing to meet a deposed emperor. And that was that.

  Some children were curious about our arrival until their parents grabbed them by the ears or swatted them on the back of the head and told them to go somewhere else. But the adults, by and large, maintained the same level expression. Some made effort not to look at all, as if a band of armed soldiers rode down their rutted dirt street every day, and others seemed only vaguely interested.

  A short man with a pronounced nose and paunch approached. His face looked like something unearthed from the unforgiving land as well—hard, pocked, as lumpy as a potato. He looked at the captain and his men, then singled out Azmorgon. “Would you be Captain Braylar, then?”

  Azmorgon boomed out a long laugh, and kept right on laughing even though no one else was, as if he’d just heard the most uproarious jest in the world.

  Braylar said, “You see, that is the benefit of being a man of average size. If a man had a mind to assassinate ‘Captain Killcoin,’ he might aim for that large bastard as well, giving me time to bring my shield to bear or ride for the russet hills. And even if he knew me by face, well, I am certainly a smaller target. In fact, I might make it a point to ask Lieutenant to precede me down all streets and through all doors from this day forward.”

  Azmorgon stopped laughing and Braylar addressed the paunchy man. “So. We have learned that it is dangerous to make assumptions. So I ask, are you the mayor? Village elder? Chief gourd grinder?”

  The lumpy man gave the captain a stony stare. “Me? Nothing important about me. No sir. Not with the likes of you and would-be emperors prowling about. Expecting you’ll be wanting to see that other man of great import now, huh?”

  Braylar said, “It is always good to meet someone shrewd. Such a rarity these days.”

  The man wisely chose not to draw the conversation out further. I wished more men could have shown such restraint. Bloodsounder—the man and flail—would have consumed far fewer memories. “This way then,” he said, starting off.

  He led us down a winding dirt track, away from the rest of the village, such as it was, past a pen of goats, some graves, and towards a barn that looked to have been abandoned a century before but remarkably somehow still stood.

  The man of no import stopped near the entrance and faced Braylar again. It seemed like he had something else to add, weighed the words against what they might cost him, and then settled on, “Sunwrack’s a long hike from here. Might as well be on the other side of the Godveil. I got no quarrel with one emperor nor the other. Nobody here does. We want no trouble. But . . .” He wiped his bulging brow, and again seemed to be mulling over what words to choose, if any. He took a step closer to Braylar and lowered his voice. “We offered what hospitality we can, no grudges, no complaints. But it sure would be nice if you convinced the emperor of old in there to do his meetings in some other village from now on.”

  Azmorgon said, “Count yourself lucky we don’t raze this horseshit village, raze it good, raze it some more, just because razing is so plaguing fun, turn this place to ash and burn those ashes too.”

  Mulldoos said, “Can’t set fire to ashes, you whopping huge horsecunt. And even if you could, you think they’re worried about what you’d do to their plaguing ashes? Plague me, but you got a queer way of doling out threats.”

  Braylar turned back to the gourdy man. “Your request is duly noted. I cannot promise my overlords will be receptive, but I will pass along the sentiment. And there will be no razing. Not today, at least.”

  Then he dismounted and said, “Officers, sister, Nustenzia, Arki, with me. The rest of you, settle here for a moment.” He gave a twitchy smile. “Though don’t take off your boots to stretch your toes. We will ride on soon enough, I am thinking.”

  “You are right on that score,” someone behind Braylar said.

  We all turned and looked, and for a moment my breath hitched in my chest, lodged there. The resemblance was only nominal, really—a long braided beard fixed with coins, a bare upper lip, and skin like dark wood. But while the beard was full gray, and the man was nowhere near Hewspear’s height, and had a bald pate besides, there was no mistaking that they hailed from the same lands. The man and his gear were both weathered and aged— the face deeply lined, with the largish nose and ears that only came with poor luck or advanced seasons, the clothing no better than our own and possibly in a worse state, the mail cuirass patched in several spots—but neither seemed anything less than sturdy.

  Braylar stepped forward and gave their quirky Syldoonian salute, fist twisting this way and that before slamming emphatically into the chest. “General Kruzinios.”

  The general returned the salute. A bit overly formal, more at place in court than a discreet meeting in a far-flung, flea-infested village. “You’re late,” he said, letting the statement hang there, half recrimination, half flattened question.

  Braylar replied, “My apologies, General. Unavoidable, I’m afraid, and not for lack of effort to be punctual, I can assure you.”

  “Imperials?” Kruzinios asked.

  “The Leopards were not entirely keen to see us reconnect with Emperor Thumaar, as you might imagine.”

  The older man nodded. “Imagination has never been my strength. But in this case, it does not require much. I should warn you: Thumaar has nearly paced himself into a ravine. His patience is even weaker than my fancy.” All the wrinkles seemed to delta towards his nose as he squinted. “I’m assuming you had to outrun them, fight through them. But that still hardly explains the delay, even with precautions for making certain you weren’t followed.”

  Braylar replied, “You are right, General. If that had been the full extent of our opposition, we would have arrived sooner. There were . . . exceptional circumstances.”

  “Exceptional?” he asked. “Explain, Captain. Quickly.”

  Braylar said, “We were trapped and had to cross over the Godveil, General. Though after discovering what is on the other side, we might need to de-deify that name a bit. No longer fitting, really.”

  I expected some dramatic reaction—amazement, skepticism, fear, anger, anything really. What I saw instead was the slight arch of an eyebrow, followed by a wildly understated, “Well. That would cause some unexpected delays then, wouldn’t it?” Kruzinios’s eyes dropped to Bloodsounder, but only for the briefest moment, before returning to the wielder, flinty as ever. “Looks like that whoreson Cynead was right to hound you then, wasn’t he? So then. What’s so ungodly about the Veil then?”

  Braylar crossed his arms at the wrist behind his back. “Not the Veil itself, General. But what lay beyond.”

  “Beyond,” the general said with no obvious inflection.

  Most men would have shrunk a size under that weathered, flinty stare. But Braylar, in Braylarian fashion, did no such thing. “That’s right. We did encounter Deserters on the other side. We unfortunately ran afoul of them early and often. But they are not gods. Giants for certain, and possibly monsters, demons, or something else, depending on how you classify such things. But the Deserters are not gods. So we have taken to just referring to the border as the Veil now.”

  Kruzinios finally allowed a touch of something besides impatience to creep into his voice, thought it was hard to tell whether incredulity or awe. “So. You crossed the Veil. And you encountered Deserters. Giants, you say. Only they are no more gods than you or me. Is what you are saying?”

  The captain uncrossed his arms. “Yes, General. That is a fine summation.”

  If that irked the older man, he gave no sign. But he did give a long sigh, and followed that with several seconds of silence before saying, “Well. That is a tale and a half. For certain. But right about now I am just wishing you had stuck with, ‘Imperials trailed us. We led them astray. Killed them, even. And now we are here.’ And do you know why, Captain?”

  For the first time, Braylar seemed ill at ease. “Because it would be a shorter tale?”

  Kruzinios
reached up and fingered the coins on the bottom of a braid, and I was again reminded of Hewspear and felt a sharp pang that couldn’t have been mine alone. “I am trying to warn you, Captain Killcoin. I’m not even sure I should.” He hazarded a look over his shoulder. “You will need to tread lightly. Especially as far as this topic is concerned.”

  “Oh?” Braylar asked. “I do not recall the Emperor being especially religious. Or sacrilegious for that matter. Why is this a dangerous topic, then?”

  Kruzinios looked at the captain and his retinue, and it was clear for the first time that there was something warring on his face. “First, call him only deposed emperor or nothing at all. He detests the honorific while he is absent the throne. And second, these years have . . . not been generous. Be hard on any man, really, accustomed to power. But you hear of some rulers in exile eating dates, wearing perfumed slippers, whiling away their days, happy to have simply survived a coup. But a man like Thumaar? Ambition. Ambition is all. Teeming with the stuff. Well. These years, this man, his ambitions thwarted but not blunted, sharpened even in the interim. There have been changes. He’s turned to the old gods. Now more than ever. That’s all I will say for now. It’s hard to predict how he’ll take that news. You crossing over. Hard to say. He might even be excited. Always had a curious mind. But that business about the Deserters not being gods? Well. The less you say about that the better. You’ve been warned.”

  He turned and started towards the barn, and then stopped. “Oh. One other thing. You mention my warning at all to the man, and you’ll be hanging from the rafters, and not even your sister there will be able to cut you down. Understood?”

  Everyone slowly nodded.

  “Good,” Kruzinios said. “Follow me then.”

  I can’t remember ever wanting to follow anyone less.

  We passed into the barn, so filled with shadows I couldn’t make out much at first, even though portions of the ceiling had fallen in and shafts of murky sunlight crisscrossed the dirt floor.

  When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw that there were at least thirty or forty Syldoon soldiers inside. They were hardly in parade gear either, and looked more like a luckless mercenary company in mismatched pieces of armor than the former elite guards to an emperor. Though whether that was necessity or subterfuge, I couldn’t say.

  Kruzinios announced, “They are here, my lord.”

  A figure stepped its way through the heavy shadows and stark shafts. “So. The Jackals at last.”

  The deposed emperor stopped before us. Where Cynead was hardly ostentatious, that was its own kind of peculiar pride, as if he were so confident in his power and position he didn’t feel the need to overawe with rich trappings or showy accoutrements.

  But Thumaar was like an old lean wolf—tall, gaunt, tensed, a tight collection of spare muscle and hungry energy, lank hair down to his shoulders as fair as flax, gray stubble on his cheeks, and dark circles under his eyes that might as well have been tattooed there. He was dressed like a farmer in simple worn linens under his tarnished scale cuirass, but there was no mistaking him for one of them. Even with only a simple longsword angled at his side, the hilt weathered, the pommel unadorned, and no trumpets or leopards on chains or massive drums or chariots heralding his arrival, the man carried himself like one who had ruled vast tracts of the known world.

  He was shorter than Azmorgon, of course, but would have been nearly of height with Hewspear, and so he looked down on the rest of the retinue, eyes slowly taking each of us in, and it felt like a cold assessment. If he paused when he came across me or Nustenzia, I didn’t register it, despite our being very much out of place and depth here. Thumaar rubbed his large hands together, a dry, almost rasping noise. “Darzaak’s Jackals, come to pay their respects to their former ruler at last, is it?”

  The Jackals all saluted, and then bowed slightly at the waist, and Braylar said, “Your Majesty, we—”

  “No,” Thumaar said, and rarely had a single utterance been more definitive. “Not now, Captain. There is nothing majestic about wasting away in the wilds, pining for what is rightfully mine. I am no Emperor right now. It is a mockery of nomenclature. When you have helped me retake Sunwrack, reclaim my empire, then you may revert. Then it is ‘Your Majesty’ this and ‘Your Majesty’ that. But not now. Not today.”

  Braylar replied, “As you command. What would you have us call you instead, my lord?”

  “‘My lord.’ Even that is spoiled fruit, but it will suffice.” Thumaar looked at Soffjian again and then back to Braylar. “That is why you are here, is it not? To help me seize what is rightfully mine. Reseize, as it were. That was the message Darzaak sent. Though it is curious why you are so negligent in arriving to get started.”

  Braylar paused briefly before replying. “My lord, the Jackals have ever been your faithful men. We supported your bid to the throne, worked at your behest in Anjuria while you were Emperor, and continue to be your staunchest supporters today in helping you reclaim what is yours. That is precisely why we are here.”

  Thumaar replied, “How very stalwart of you. And yet, years have come and gone since I was ousted, and what have you done for me, eh? I will tell you. Nothing. Nothing and less. In fact, I was beginning to suspect the Jackals were tonguing Cynead’s asshole with all the rest.”

  Kruzinios said, “My lord, they came here at great risk, and have endured—”

  Thumaar raised a long single finger. “Do not speak to me of risk, General. Or endurance.” He addressed the captain. “So why the delay arriving?”

  Braylar replied, “I am sure Tower Commander Darzaak included this in his report, but Cynead drove us from the city. He cut down a significant number of my men before we even cleared the gates. His troops hounded us as we rode hard to deliver ourselves to you, and attrition was no less kind. You can be sure, if I ever see Cynead’s asshole, I will drive a suroka into it.”

  Thumaar smiled, but it was a grim, thin thing. “Are you telling me you were unable to throw off a little pursuit or dispatch your foes, and this is what kept me waiting? You have served me well in the past, Captain, it is true. One of my finest operatives, in fact. I expected better.”

  Braylar glanced briefly at Kruzinios, who said nothing and only gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. Which Braylar ignored. “Commander Darzaak sent us to you for two reasons, my lord. One, he did not want this”—he reached down and shook the flail heads at his hip—“to remain in the puckered Emperor’s possession. And two, he believes there might be a way to reverse Cynead’s control of the Memoridons, to tether them to you. But if you have no use for either, please let us ride on our way. My lord.”

  As ever, I wished the captain had a modicum more sense of self-preservation. But if Thumaar took offense, he gave no sign. “Oh, yes. The Memoridons. I did have some with me a few days ago. Several tried to slip away in the night, to return to Sunwrack when they felt the bonds shift. I cannot say I blamed them. After all, what would I do in their place? Of course I cut them down, those I could catch, anyway. And yet”—he gave Soffjian a pointed look “unless I am mistaken, you have one in your employ just now. Curious. Most curious. Are you sure you are not licking the Great Leopard’s ass, Captain?”

  Before Braylar could offer a reply, Soffjian said, “I am bound to Cynead. Bound. There is no choice in that. But I am aligned with my brother.”

  Thumaar gave her a long look. “You would have me believe you risk husking out of familial loyalty, even while my own Memoridons abandoned me?”

  Soffjian didn’t back down. She and her brother surely had that much in common, if little else. “Absolutely not. I do not even care for my brother. You can confirm this with anyone.”

  “Plaguing true,” Mulldoos said, slurring a little.

  Soffjian said, “I owe him no loyalty at all. And you only marginally more, truth be told. But commander Darzaak promised me my freedom if I assisted him and you, and I am exceptionally loyal to myself. So there it is.”

  Thumaar nod
ded once. “Honesty at last. You and these Jackals have done it then? Discovered a way to undo Cynead’s treachery?” There was an urgency there, underpinning the question, that was impossible to miss.

  Braylar said, “We believe so, my lord.” He pointed at me, “My scribe here has been translating ancient Anjurian texts, and we believe we have uncovered a method to reverse what Cynead has accomplished. To bind the Memoridons to you.”

  Thumaar laughed. “Anjurians? What could they possibly teach us about Memoridons, Captain? We are Syldoon.”

  Soffjian stepped into a shaft of light, motes dancing all around her. “And the Syldoon are the most arrogant creatures to stalk the earth, my lord. They did not invent the methods or the binds. They simply adopted them and improved them on a scale unimagined.”

  That seemed to take Thumaar off guard. “You are truly suggesting Anjurians pioneered this, then?”

  “Not suggesting. Stating,” she said. “Stating it as an unassailable fact. Cynead uncovered similar Anjurian texts and performed his own research. That is how he broke the binds each of the Tower Commanders had.”

  There was a stern set to the deposed emperor’s jaw. “So, what are you suggesting? That some Anjurian lords learned how to control Memoridons and failed to utilize it?”

  “Not precisely, no,” she said. Thumaar’s eyes narrowed and she continued, “Arki is the scribe, and I will let him explain it, as he is more familiar. Though, and forgive my impudence, ‘stating’ will still be more accurate.”

  The gaunt man turned his hot stare on me. “What of it, then? I have no use for mummery or games, boy. What is this plaguing witch going on about?”

  I cleared my throat, no less comfortable around this man than Cynead, and possibly less so. “Soffjian speaks true, my lord. The Anjurians did explore binding before there was even a Syldoon Empire. But these experiments were conducted by rogue priests of the Temple of Truth, not kings or barons. And that is why the efforts were kept secret and stricken from most records.”