By the Sword

by Christian Kachel

  Davos and I arrived at the intersection of two dark streets where the meeting was to take place in approximately ninety minutes. Davos immediately went to work walking each of the alleys and identifying places to ambush and drag the body. Once he decided where to lay in wait, I stood against the predetermined wall wearing Shifty’s tunic and facing east as our captive had instructed. A light rain began to fall, which allowed me to plausibly don a shoal over my head- prohibiting Pirus from discerning my facial features. Davos remained crouched down in an alley that gave him a good line of sight to my location, like a predator awaiting prey. I stood in that spot for about an hour, frequently shifting my body’s weight from one leg to the next and fidgeting with my hands impatiently. I refrained from looking in Davos’ direction but frequently strained to catch a glimpse of him through my periphery. Despite my knowledge of his presence, I still could not see him in the shadows, which convinced me our victim would not notice him either. A lone drunkard walked down the small street taking little notice of me. Given Shifty’s description, the man was clearly not our target. I abstained from making eye contact lest he take some inebriated interest in me while I clutched the handle of my concealed blade. My stillness emboldened several rats to run down the street, two of which ran over my feet, causing me to startle.

  I caught myself nodding off when I looked up and saw a shadowy figure cautiously making his way towards my direction. I quickly turned my head to bar him from seeing my face and made several gestures to my nose which was the preplanned signal to Davos that our prey was coming. I could hear Pirus clearing his throat as he neared, and I could feel his gaze against my back. I took a couple of steps in the opposite direction to ensure he would pass Davos’ alley. As I did so, he called out to Shifty in a hushed tone, to which I did not reply and kept walking. He called out Shifty’s name louder but did not finish the last syllable because Davos had struck him in the back of the head with his short wooden club. I turned around to see the man fall to his hands and knees, with Davos standing over him ready to deliver another blow. Pirus looked up at me, not comprehending what had happened and I kicked his forehead with my heel, causing his eyes to roll back into his head. As he fell to the ground, Davos brought a powerful strike down on his temple to ensure his unconsciousness. Davos grabbed Pirus by the hair and inspected his facial expression. Satisfied with his level of coma, Davos ordered me to help him drag the body into the alley. The two of us quickly wrapped the body into the rug, still stained with Shifty’s blood, and hurriedly carried it over our shoulders back to Vettias’ lair.

  The sun was beginning to rise, but no one stirred on the quiet streets. We made it back to Vettias’ quarters without seeing another individual and barged through the door, violently throwing the rug onto the floor. Shifty made a muffled sound after recognizing our ominous payload and realizing he had directly contributed to his master’s current situation. Vettias and Davos rapidly dragged the limp body to another chair on the other side of the room that Vettias had prepared and tied his limbs to it in the same manner as our first captive. Once Pirus was stripped naked and secured, his head hung down onto his chest and blood dripped on the small piece of fabric covering his lap.

  Vettias grabbed a bowl of brackish water and threw it in Pirus’ face. The captive did not react, which prompted Vettias to smack his face several times while shouting at him to wake. Pirus began stirring and regained hold of his neck while looking around the room, trying to comprehend his new surroundings. He performed the familiar routine of attempting to free himself from his restraints and yelling out. Vettias quickly broke his nose, which instructed our new victim that raising his voice was not an option.

  “I wouldn’t do that again,” Vettias sternly warned.

  “Who are you? What is this? Do you know what you’ve just done?” Pirus hissed at a muted decibel.

  “I don’t think I have to tell you that I will be the one asking questions during our cordial discussion.” Vettias winked at Pirus with a smile that bore the true contentment I believed he felt while conducting these insidious endeavours. “Andrikos, bring over my little table please.” I promptly presented my master with the table bearing his instruments of pain. As I did so our captive’s eyes followed me and caught their first glimpse of Shifty’s battered façade sitting on the opposite side of the room covered in bruises, blood, vomit, sweat, and urine. His expression became enraged and worried all at once.

  “He look familiar?” Vettias asked, pointing at Shifty with a grin. Pirus remained silent as the hopelessness of his situation began to set in. “You don’t have to answer that- needless to say I already know quite a bit about you. More than even this pathetic piece of meat knows, to be sure. I will assume you know how this works, so I will spare you my macabre introduction,” Vettias taunted as he passed his fingers over his tools of agony in view of Pirus. The look of terror began poking through Pirus’ stoicism despite his best efforts. “Your friend here didn’t quite understand the situation at first so I had to provide him a minor lesson,” Vettias continued holding up Shifty’s hand which was missing its pinkie. “And I do mean minor. What I am going to do to you if you don’t talk may be justifiably called severe. He came around soon enough, and thus, now we have you. Unfortunately, time is not on our side, so I am going to have to move fast, despite my desire to verbally spar with someone in your position…Basically, if you don’t cooperate in the next couple minutes, I’m going to begin flaying you. I think you’re going to talk- what do you think? If I have to put this gag in your mouth, believe me, you are going to beg for a chance to tell me everything you know. Now, shall we begin?”

  Pirus sat motionless while his eyes frantically searched for the same absent saviour held within his new surroundings that eluded Shifty as well. “I want to know who you take orders from. I want to know who he takes orders from. I want to know who you give orders to. I want every name in your network.” Vettias dropped the sadistically jovial disposition he took with Shifty and became severely hostile with our new captive. Pirus was taking several deep breathes while looking at the floor. “This is the only way you’re walking out of this room alive. Consider yourself lucky; you may survive this ordeal. If a colleague of yours were sitting where you are now, they would eventually talk and you would be the one that was assassinated, probably in your sleep. I want that information and I want it now.”

  Pirus continued avoiding eye contact and remained silent. “Davos, hold him down.” Davos came from his position behind the captive and clenched his arms around Pirus’ torso, holding it firmly to the seat. “Andrikos, come over here. Pin his elbow down to the arm of the chair.” I positioned myself to the side of the captive and locked my forearm into the crook of his arm, nervously waiting for whatever horror Vettias was about to inflict. I watched as he took a small, sharp knife from the table and made an incision lengthwise along Pirus’ arm, starting from his wrist and moving in the direction of his elbow, about four inches long. The wound was fairly minor and did not elicit much reaction from the captive. Vettias then made two horizontal incisions perpendicular to the first cut along his wrist and in the middle of his forearm, creating an ‘I’ pattern. He looked up at Pirus when his meticulous work was done and stated sinisterly, “this is your last chance.”

  Pirus remained silent and Vettias placed three of his fingers along the vertical incision, grabbed hold of Pirus’ flesh and peeled his skin back revealing the grotesque inner layers of Pirus’ muscle tissue. Pirus let out a violent muffled scream and writhed within his seat. The sight and sound of this action opened a pit in my stomach. Vettias then grabbed Pirus by the face and informed him he was going to begin peeling off the other side of the wound unless he began talking. Pirus screamed and convulsed, but his eyes defiantly gave Vettias his answer. Vettias then brutally peeled the skin back from other side of the incision which caused Pirus to let out another manic scream before he lost consciousness.

  “Wake him up!” Vettias ordered as he calmly walked toward
s the small fireplace to retrieve the flat iron rod. “I don’t want him to miss this.” Davos released his grip around Pirus’ torso and began throwing water in his face and smacking him. The captive awoke to the sight of Vettias staring cruelly at him holding the glowing hot rod. “We don’t want you to bleed out now do we?” Vettias asked viciously as he placed the instrument on Pirus’ exposed muscle tissue. The act produced a horrid smell and Pirus again let out a muffled scream of agony before vomiting. “Get the gag out, let him puke,” Vettias barked at me as Pirus vomited over his naked body. The smell of vomit and burnt skin caused me to unexpectedly vomit on the floor next to Pirus, which prompted a severe rebuke from Vettias. “Now clean up both messes!” he yelled as I scrambled to regain my composure. He and Davos retired to the far end of the room to discuss further lines of questioning while I conducted the disgusting task of cleaning up vomit next to a bloody, whimpering, beaten man awaiting a cruel death.

  Shifty no longer took an interest in his surroundings. He sat motionless, staring at the floor. Vettias examined his injured finger to ensure no infection was taking hold. “Don’t think we’ve forgotten about you boy,” Vettias taunted as he retired to the corner to whisper with Davos. When Vettias noticed I had finished my gruesome chore he resumed his position in front of the captive and Davos took his place behind him, ready to clutch his torso to the chair again if necessary.

  “Alright, you’ve had some time to think about your options, so let us resume, shall we?” Pirus did not take notice to Vettias’ return and continued staring at the vomit-stained ground. Vettias forcefully grabbed Pirus’ face and looked him in the eye. “You can try and resist talking to me, but you are going to respect me while you’re doing it. When I speak, you will look me in the eye or else I will gauge them out. I’m avoiding doing anything permanent for now. Do not do anything that will lesson my restraint. Now, you know the information I seek. Let’s start with the man who gives you orders. What is his name?” Pirus remained silent but his eyes, still red and glassy, stared defiantly at his torturer. “Davos, Andrikos, hold this piece of meat down!”

  Davos and I braced the captive in the same manner while Vettias flayed another four inch swath of skin off the man’s forearm, inducing more muted screams of anguish and violent convulsions. Pirus again vomited after Vettias gleefully cauterized the wound. “Shouldn’t have ate a big breakfast this morning, huh?” Vettias mocked while gently slapping him on the face. “Andrikos my gentle colleague, please clean this up.” Vettias’ thinly veiled insult made me a little nervous that he was losing confidence in my nerve. I was also having serious doubts about my willingness to participate in such activities going forward. When my sickening task was complete, Vettias angrily repeated the previous question and received no answer. This time, however, even I could tell Pirus’ eyes had lost their fiery determination. Vettias stuck a barbed pin into his now eight inch wound and explained it would stay there for the duration of questioning and more would be added. Pirus let out a muffled shriek as it punctured his muscle tissue and hit his bone. As Davos and I braced him for another flaying, Pirus let out one last pain-filled gasp before begging Vettias to cease.

  “And is there something you want to tell me friend?” Vettias asked with a smile, knowing he had broken his victim.

  Pirus hesitated, causing Vettias to twist the barbed pin, inducing an audible wince. “Nikandros! Nikandros is his name.” Vettias looked up at Davos who shook his head indicating this name was unfamiliar to him. “But that isn’t the name everyone knows him by, is it?”

  “No one knows him, period,” Pirus replied in a defeated tone as if he were watching an apparition of himself divulge the prized details and there was nothing he could do to stop it. “You don’t find him, he finds you. He lives in the shadows.”

  “Unlike his boss, who’s also here isn’t he? He was one of Ptolemy’s advisors in his battle staff entourage. But Ptolemy isn’t here, however. Nikandros’ boss, the boss, arrived with Seleucus, posing as one of his staff advisors, didn’t he? But the boss won’t be leaving with Seleucus. Not if he willingly left the safe confines of Egypt. He’ll be leaving with another benefactor. And so will his network. Maybe even you were planning on accompanying him.”

  Pirus looked up in a startle towards Shifty. His expression conveyed both disbelief that the lowly prisoner would have known this information and confusion as to how Vettias came to know it. I was impressed at the small calculated leap Vettias had made. While Vettias knew Orontes better then Pirus himself, he was unaware of this new Nikandros character. It appeared Vettias had enough information to deduce Nikandros was the second in command and it only made sense Orontes had travelled with Seleucus in some advisory position. Vettias also estimated Seleucus was not powerful enough to best carry out Orontes’ grand schemes and he was here in Triparadeisus on behalf of a new, more powerful benefactor. Antipater or Antigonus were the likely candidates. Having as much information as he did already required little reasoning to come to this conclusion, yet it had its intended effect on the prisoner.

  “Hmm, I’m right aren’t I? Don’t worry about how we know this. Let’s just focus on this Nikandros.”

  “He is second in command,” Pirus confirmed. “He takes all the risks, delivers the orders, and receives the information. You will not know him. He serves in some menial administrative capacity to escape the attention of anyone interested in such matters. He has recently returned from operating inside the camp of General Eumenes.” Vettias was not prepared for this last bit of information.

  “Describe him. Now! May the Gods help you if you cannot provide me a means to find this man.” Vettias’ expression denoted he was racking his thoughts for countless nameless faces he may have suspected of nefariousness over the past few months within Eumenes’ camp.

  “He has dark features, of average build, average height, a number of spots on his skin. He keeps a short beard, frequently travels with a dark cloak. He is a man of few words. His face has a number of pock marks but he is a good-looking man. He has one large black mark on the left side of his face. He is not a true believer like Orontes, but Orontes pays him well for his exceptional skills in criminality and brutality. His one vulnerability is women. He will regularly bed prostitutes but is careful not to establish patterns. Normally when in a city for an extended time, like here in Triparadeisus, he will discreetly keep one woman.” I paid little attention to Pirus’ description at first, but as he gave more details, a face shot in front of my mind’s eye out of the wilderness of my subconscious. It was the quiet man first pointed out to us by Mara on the night of our first encounter with her. I hesitantly pulled Vettias’ arm to grab his attention and led him out of earshot of our prisoner. At first Vettias seemed agitated that I would interrupt a captive just as he was cooperating, but calmed down when I informed him that we may know this man.

  “This could be the quiet one from the night we met Mara,” I whispered. “Think about it. His description fits what Pirus is telling us.”

  “A lot of people would fit that vague description,” Vettias countered sceptically.

  “Yes, but Pirus said he was travelling from our camp and he is now here in Triparadeisus. That would place him roughly in the same region of Cappadocia at the same time as us. We met Mara in Tarsus, where one of the royal treasuries resides. Wouldn’t he stop there to receive funds, especially since his faction is now on the side of the Kings? Mara said she slept with him. Perhaps she can confirm or deny my suspicion.”

  Vettias began considering my theory and took a mental account of all the angles that would be involved if what I said were true. “Alright, we will look into this possibility. Say nothing of it now, lest we alert Pirus to this knowledge.” Vettias returned to our captive as if what I had told him had no bearing on his line of questioning.

  “So you meet with your operatives and deliver what is learned to this Nikandros? And then he supplies this information to the head of your network.”

  “Yes,” P
irus replied.

  “I want you to say his name. The leader. Say his name.”

  There was a pause. As Vettias reached to twist the barbed pin, Pirus let out with a sigh. “Orontes.”

  “Good. And what is Orontes doing here?”

  “As you said yourself, he aligned with Ptolemy in Egypt after Alexander’s death and accompanied Seleucus here to Triparadeisus after Ptolemy’s triumph over Lord Regent Perdiccas. Orontes orchestrated the entire coup.”

  “Why? Why not remain in Egypt with his powerful benefactor?”

  “Because Ptolemy’s ultimate goals were not his goals. Ptolemy seeks his own dynasty centred in Egypt built upon his legitimate succession to Alexander, the rightful founder of the empire. Orontes has found a new master to serve who shares his hatred of the Argeads and has the resources to ensure their line never inherits the Macedonian Empire.”

  “Who is this villain?” Vettias shouted. The thought of two individuals whose purpose lay in direct contrast to his sworn oath outraged him. Pirus hesitated answering, causing Vettias to strike his face so hard a bloody tooth was ejected from his mouth. “Who is this swine?! Antipater? Antigonus?” Vettias struck him again, causing another tooth to be cast out.

  Vettias then stabbed Pirus’ wounds with several more barbed pins and twisted them to bring forth a gruesome ooze of fluid. Pirus screamed in agony and finally yelled out, “The son of Antipater! Cassander! He remains in Macedon while his father travels to Triparadeisus. Cassander has made arrangements for Orontes to serve as an advisor to Antipater’s military council but in reality he will be serving Cassander. He will also fund the movement of Orontes’ chosen captains so he can establish his network in Macedon. From there he seeks to plant operatives in every rival’s court. He already left several operatives in Egypt. When Cassander succeeds his father, Orontes will serve by his side and together they will attempt to usurp the entire empire through bribery, usurpation, murder, and conquest; while eliminating all remnants of the Argead line along the way. It will begin with the two Kings, who will accompany Lord Regent Antipater back to Pella upon the conclusion of this summit. This will be followed by Alexander’s mother, Olympias, who currently resides in her native Epirus since being banished from the royal court by Antipater.”