Night Of The Taking

by Scott Kaelen

  The Volami opened the walls of their shining city of Midhallow and invited the surrounding tribesfolk to venture within. Decades later, the two races dwelt together inside the city, not quite as equals and watched over by the ever-present Retainers.

  A treaty was offered by the tribes to the Volami, meant to seal their tenuous union during a long-held ritual.

  But it was a ruse.

  The celebrations became the bloodiest treachery the Volami would ever know, and set in motion events that would echo down the ages.

  THE

  FRACTURED TAPESTRY

  NIGHT

  OF THE

  TAKING

  Scott Kaelen

  2015

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Night of the Taking

  Note to the Reader

  Verragos Vocabulary

  Author Biography

  DEDICATION

  If it weren’t for such richly-detailed locales as Tolkien’s Arda, Hickman/Weis’s Krynn, Feist’s Midkemia, and a handful of other such treasure troves of wonder, there would be no world of Verragos. Night of the Taking, as a short entry tale into that world, is dedicated to the great epic fantasy authors of yesterday, many of whom are still around and still producing great stories, but some of whom are sadly no longer with us. Their tales and worlds are the closest things we have to true magic, may they survive as long as there are people to be awed by them.

  NIGHT

  OF THE

  TAKING

  “If the crow would not crow,

  the corpse would be his alone.”

  In the Year 112 of the Fourth Age

  Season of Herfos

  First Day of the First Week of Vindere

  NIGHT OF THE TAKING

  Agony tore through Lonaris’s abdomen. The cries of the dying rose all around him as he clutched at the wound in stunned disbelief. He sank to his knees and stared mutely at his attacker – his friend – but Hakhos showed no remorse as the scimitar lowered to his side. Lonaris turned in search of Epheema and found her lying beside him in the grass, the last of her lifeblood spreading from a ragged hole in her chest. A cry of anguish welled within him and erupted into the night. His strength faded and he slumped beside his wife. His bloodied fingers reached out and touched her cheek.

  “My love,” he whispered. “What have they done?”

  But Epheema had no answers as she stared sightlessly up at the stars. A blur of torchlight flickered all around the plain, silhouetting the standing tribesmen and glinting from their weapons. The death-cries of his kin were already diminishing, replaced by a shout of triumph from the tribesfolk.

  Hakhos loomed over him, his weathered features carved in shadows and flickering with amber. His eyes were a cold contrast to the torch in his hand, but were fitting siblings to his bronze blade.

  “Why?” Lonaris demanded.

  Hakhos sneered. “You made us do it, Lonaris. You and your kin, with your hair like blood and your skin like bone. We tried to live with you.” He spat on the ground. “I was a young man when my tribe was welcomed into Midhallow by your ever-placid Retainers. We thought you were demigods, aspects of Banael, the great sun. We believed that Cherak’s heart and Khariali’s soul had returned from the Void to dwell again upon Verragos. And we believed that those Retainers were the gods’ servants.” A hateful bitterness hardened his features. “But the crimson fire in your eyes is not god-born. We know that now.”

  Lonaris swallowed the acrid taste of blood. “You were told from the start. The Volami are – were! – no different from the tribes. You accepted this, after a time. We lived as equals.”

  Hakhos shook his head. “Not quite as equals. How long would it be before you turned against us? We may be simple folk, but we are not stupid. We knew of the secret meetings among the Volami. It’s been thirty years since Midhallow rose from the dirt. Thirty years, and still parts of the city are forbidden to us, the doors kept locked by your hallowed symbols. We lived beside you, but we could never understand you.”

  “Yes, Hakhos, and what you did not understand, you destroyed.” A fit of coughing wracked Lonaris, and blood frothed at his lips. When it was over, he looked wearily at the tribesman. “You may have left the plains, but the warring ways are still with you. When did a Volami ever lift a finger against a tribesman?”

  Hakhos shrugged. “Perhaps never. But I’m old now, and you haven’t aged a cursed day. None of you have, none but the few children among you. And no Volami has ever died, until today.”

  “By your hands! Children, Hakhos! Women and children! My own Epheema, curse you! She was one of your people. She was your friend. She loved you like a brother…” Lonaris’s vision blurred, his senses dulling as the wound in his middle pooled blood around him. The grass was warm and comfortable, but his anger fought against the fatigue. “You killed her. For what? Because she chose to marry a Volami?”

  “I did not kill her!” Hakhos pointed his blade at Lonaris. “You did that. You condemned Epheema the day you enthralled her and took her into your bed.”

  Lonaris barked a laugh. “Look around you. What do you see? A slaughter of an entire people. You disgust me. Congratulations, child murderer. I hope you rest easy tonight, knowing how easy it was to kill so many supposed gods, not one of whom fought back.”

  “The Volami were demons. It took us time to see it, but we did, and we struck first. Goodbye, Lonaris, old friend.” The tribesman leaned down and the scimitar slid between Lonaris’s ribs.

  Slowly, after an unknown time, visions of Epheema with their baby girl trickled into the blackness like a crimson shower. Little Tira had not yet taken the naming rite, though Lonaris had whispered her name the moment she came quietly into the world.

  In his fever-dream, Epheema passed the swaddled babe into the arms of their aged neighbours – a man and wife who had never been blessed with their own children and were too frail to partake in the Night of the Giving, the ancient ceremony of the tribes. Each year, the custom still took place on the first day of the Herfos season. On that sacred night, the tribesfolk from the city joined with their cousins on the plain and the festivity numbered in the thousands.

  Lonaris’s meandering thoughts returned to the moment of the betrayal. Not once had he or his people been invited to the ritual of giving, but this year a decree was passed to allow them to take part in the ceremonies and complete a bond of two peoples. But it was a ruse. There had been no warning as hands grabbed his arms and he watched the blade flash before Epheema. It was over in an instant, but in that instant his wife turned to him, her eyes searching for an answer, a reason, and then came the pain as his own flesh was torn open.

  The memory gave way to sensations of movement, of things soft and hard pressing into him all around. He swallowed, trying to suck air through his blood-thick throat. He drew a ragged breath, then gagged at the pungent taste of decay.

  The wounds to his torso throbbed with a pain that should have kept him unconscious. The second cruel thrust had surely found his heart, and yet still it fluttered as it fought the injury. Somehow, he was alive. He took another breath and tried to kick out, but his legs were pinned down. He cracked his eyes open. The sight that greeted Lonaris struck him harder than any weapon ever could. He lay not on bumpy ground but was half-buried atop a heap of corpses. Their pale skin and crimson hair were caked with blood and dirt, but he recognised his own kin. Hundreds of men, women and children intertwined in death, bloated beneath the sun. Arms and legs sticking out from the pile, reaching skywards like macabre banners. Vultures tore at their eyes, pecking and pulling fervently. Creatures like oversized maggots were attached to their mouths, pulsating as they sucked out the corpse juice.

  The last r
emnants of an entire race lay here, a proud and peaceful people who had already lost so much. To die like this… His wife’s body was here, too, somewhere in the pile, though Epheema was not a Volami but a tribeswoman he had befriended and come to love. Their betrothal was held merely by words, but that mattered little to her tribal kin. She had conspired with a demon, lived with him, loved him, bore him a daughter. And so her own people had killed her. The lullabies she sang to Tira would never be heard again.

  Was his baby girl alive? Surely the ones they had entrusted her to would not harm her. But she was tainted with demon blood. If Tira were safe, he could never risk exposing her by attempting a rescue. If she lived, then she was doomed to a short life of secrecy until her mixed heritage became obvious. The crimson hair could be hidden, but her eyes would eventually betray her. There was little chance Epheema’s genes would prove stronger than his own. He could only hope that the elderly couple had not… had not… He loosed a painful sob. He was separated from his daughter as surely as from his wife.

  The city of Midhallow, the last home of the Volami, was also lost. Theirs had been an exodus of generations, but now all was gone. The Volami were too trusting, too generous and kind. After decades, all it took was one night and he had lost everything. A harsh croak of anguish burned his parched throat, and he wept.

  The dead regarded him with their fading, copper irises – those that had not yet been torn from their sockets by the birds. Their open mouths mourned his loss – those that were not being sucked dry by the maggot-creatures. They urged him to pull himself loose, to be gone from this pit where only the dead belonged.

  He struggled in the shackles of his brethren. Epheema beckoned him, not from the flesh but from the spirit, not to lose hope but to survive. Slowly, he dragged himself through the tangled limbs and ruptured innards. The stench ravaged his senses. The pain and the constant need to vomit pushed him into delirium, but still he crawled across the lake of the dead.

  He grabbed hold of a cold, stiff hand to pull himself onwards. Its grip tightened. Something tugged at the rear of his tunic and heaved him into the air. The dazzling sky bore down on him, and Lonaris screamed as he plummeted into nothingness.

  He roused with a breeze upon the side of his face, while the other was pressed against something hard. His hands were nestled in his lap, and his feet dangled. There was a gentle up-and-down motion, rocking him in time with a crunch, crunch, crunch. Something was carrying him. Something strong. He was pinned in its grasp like a babe in a cradle. He tried to twist around, to strike out, but his arms only flapped weakly. He cracked his eyes open and waited for the blurry image to sharpen.

  Crumbling, vine-covered pillars and arches were all that remained of the overgrown ruins that surrounded him. The pit of his slaughtered kinfolk was nowhere to be seen. He lifted his eyes to seek the face of his captor, dreading the sight that would greet him. The mask of a Retainer tilted to meet his gaze, and he loosed a rattling sigh of relief.

  “I am pleased you live, Lonaris Cri,” the cowled Retainer said from behind its unmoving features. “You were the first I found alive, and, regrettably, the last.”

  Lonaris’s heart clenched. He’d known it would be so, but to hear it validated by a Retainer was like sealing a decree. “Where are we?”

  “The ruins of Ang-Khur.”

  “How…” He shook his head. It was of no matter how he was so far from the city.

  “The guests returned to Midhallow with blood on their clothes,” the Retainer said, “and not one Volami among them. I waited and watched. They celebrated, parading through the streets. They called upon the names of the Dyad, and of Teuveyr, their Battle God. I left Midhallow and entered the plains, where I found evidence of much carnage. The mud was mixed with blood and worse, trodden into a paste by a great number of feet. I sampled a number of blood patterns and matched them to Volami, plus several of the indigenous guests whose patterns are on record. I followed the trail and arrived at Ang-Khur. In the centre of the ruins I located the crater. Indications suggest it was used by ancients as a battle arena. Its base was filled with fresh bodies – the bodies of the Volami.”

  Lonaris opened his eyes and looked past the serene mask, peered beyond the ruins to the distant, mountainous horizon. Between the peaks, the sun glinted from the western walls of the city, almost hidden at this angle. The Needle at the heart of Midhallow rose above the tallest peak like a crimson lance piercing the clouds.

  Through the fatigue and the pain, a thought came to him. “How could you travel such a distance? Retainers are bound by the limits of the Needle. You should not be able to venture beyond its zone.”

  “I did what was necessary.”

  Impossible, he thought. And yet not, because here you are. “Put me down,” he said. “I can stand.”

  The Retainer lowered him to his feet and held him steady as Lonaris gripped tight to its cloaked shoulder. His chest wound flared, but the pain was slowly becoming more bearable.

  “Did you arrive with others?” he asked.

  “I came alone.” The Retainer turned to face him squarely. “The other Retainers are… limited. I am afraid they are lost to you. They will continue to hold vigil as instructed, and the sealed sections will remain sealed, but with no Volami in Midhallow they will modify their duties to serve the guests.”

  Lonaris began a slow, unsteady walk and motioned for the Retainer to follow. “And you? What of you, Retainer?”

  “I am here, therefore I am in your service, Lonaris Cri. You are the last Volami.”

  He coughed, and this time there was no blood. “My daughter, Tira. She was the only halfblood child left behind. Did you see her before you left? Did you see any of the Volami babies?”

  “I did not. Statistics suggest that the fullblood Volamis have likely been slain. I can not be certain, but with your daughter being a halfblood, there is a chance she will remain unharmed. Those you placed her in the care of show the characteristics of loyal and peaceful individuals.”

  Lonaris grunted. “But loyal to whom? And peaceful until when? My own friend of many years dealt me the killing blow, and I believed him to be a peaceable man.” As he shuffled onward, he touched his torn, soiled tunic. “These wounds should have ended my life. I should have died with my people. With my wife.” Anger took him and he swiped the air. “I neither know nor care why I still live. I wish I did not.” He turned his face away from the Retainer to hide the tears that welled in his eyes. “Whether my daughter lives or not, all true members of the Volami race died today, Lonaris Cri among them. His body festers back there in the crater of Ang-Khur.”

  Dizziness hit him. His step faltered and he swayed. The Retainer caught him and steadied him until the moment passed.

  He looked into its empty features. “You are not like the others. There is something curious about you. Perhaps it is merely the grief talking – perception skewed by emotion – but, somehow, the word Retainer seems unfitting to describe you.”

  “And yet I am a Retainer.” Aside from the mild emphasis, its voice was as impassive as the mask through which it was spoken.

  “There is no denying what you are, even with the necessary aesthetic additions, but now that I’m the only one who can give you orders… Well, to call you a Retainer seems somewhat redundant, don’t you think, when you no longer have anything to retain?”

  The cowled figure said nothing.

  “What would you have me call you?”

  A long moment passed. He was sure the Retainer would decline to answer, but then it spoke. “If it is now a matter of import that I receive a unique designation, then I will think on it.”

  “Very well. Would it please you to have a name, to be granted an identity?”

  The Retainer tilted its head askance, a gesture which seemed to mimic curiosity. “I already have an identity. I know myself. That no other knows me has never been a concern.”

  “Never, you say?” He frowned, peripherally aware that he was sublimating his emot
ions, making the Retainer the subject of attention. “I wonder… How long have you been free and yet remained in servitude when you could have released yourself?” The question was muttered rhetorically, and the Retainer gave no answer.

  He glanced to the horizon. The metallic spires and buttresses of Midhallow were coming into view. They shone like a legion of armoured sentinels between the jagged mountains, with the Needle towering above them all. A sadness engulfed him, and he knew it ran far deeper than his personal loss.

  “These tribes are not ready for the likes of us,” he said. “We should have studied them longer.” He swept a hand before him in frustration. “We could have avoided all of this. Now we must fade into the shadows, you and I. None will miss one rotting corpse among so many, and none will notice the absence of one Retainer. This was not the Night of the Giving. This was the Night of the Taking. In time, the truth will be told.” He sighed in resignation. “But, for now, we must wait.”

  “How am I to address you,” the Retainer asked, “if not as Lonaris Cri?”

  “Why must you address me at all?” His emotions were a maelstrom. He glared at the distant city and barked a laugh. It was a rueful, bitter sound, new to his ears. “Perhaps names are not so important, after all. I should not have survived these wounds, and you should not have been able to leave Midhallow, yet here we both stand. There is no place left we can call home, so where on this world are the likes of us to go?”

  “Verragos has many lands,” the Retainer said. “To the east lies Vörendhwel. To the west, Bhar’a’Toth. In the north—”

  “Stop.” The man who had been Lonaris Cri was weary beyond measure. “My mood is black, Retainer, or whatever, if anything, you decide to be called. I care not where we go, only that we put distance between ourselves and this place of death. Come, I never wish to return to Ang-Khur as long as there is breath in my body. But Midhallow… Midhallow will see my return, when the time is right.”