by Shel, Mike
Auric nodded and gave her an indulgent smile. It was always thus with antiquarians. Unimportant minutiae and observations littered their reports. One needed patience to arrive at the needed information.
Arbena looked like she was about to argue with Sulo’s assertion but seemed to catch Auric’s look of pained tolerance. “That is beside the point for now. Sir Auric, forgive us. The place is described as a collection of natural caves and caverns, quite beautiful apparently, along with manmade carvings and side chambers hewn from the very rock. There are some features reminiscent of the Buskers, but others that suggest a pedigree of unknown origin.”
“It’s not certain,” offered Sulo, “but use of the caves as a place of worship may actually predate the Buskers. There are signs that portions are dedicated to their god of fire and the forge, but Parma believes the Buskers appropriated the site from the cult of some god of the underworld venerated by another people.”
“Parma?”
“An historian,” answered Arbena with grinning overbite. “Native of Maurwy, Warwede. Died in 554, during the plague that ravaged the eastern empire that year. Wrote seven volumes on the history of the mountain earldoms. A bit dry, but excellent sourcing.”
“I see.”
“Whatever the more ancient history of Gnexes,” continued Sulo, “the Cult of Pember has denied us the privilege of exploring its depths. You do understand it is the aspect of Pember as god of divination and prophecy that is venerated there. The god’s more festive and theatrical elements have nothing to do with the place.”
“It is the Kingdom of the Toad,” said Arbena, affecting a comically ominous tone and fluttering her fingers.
“I’m afraid I miss your meaning, Miss Arbena,” said Auric. He felt a tickle of annoyance.
“Ah! Apologies,” said Arbena. “When one speaks of Pember, one is most likely referring to their province as the god of the arts, at least in the more popular understanding of the god: at once male and female and neither, their symbol a lyre, celebrating painting, sculpture, theater, music—”
“But there is a small subsect of the god,” Sulo said, putting a quieting hand on her sister’s shoulder, “devoted to scrying the future. Most of us Syraeics have no truck with that, of course. We’re forever looking into the past, eh? The symbol of that sect is the toad.”
Auric nodded, taking a seat and crossing his arms over his chest, settling in for the long haul. He had nothing to do with the god himself, in any of his or her varied aspects: he wasn’t an artist or performer, and he had no interest in astrology or divination. His former colleague Ursula had often consulted an augur before they undertook expeditions, inquiring about what hour of the day was most auspicious for them to set off, or which way to go with this or that decision regarding their preparations. Auric had allowed her to indulge this eccentricity, so long as it didn’t interfere with their greater goals. He smiled, thinking of the clever, able woman. He pictured her face, with its forever pinched and quizzical expression—as though she was always on the verge of asking a question. The smile vanished when he imagined her as he had seen her at the last, standing before him with her entrails cascading down from a terrible rent in her abdomen, like bloody drapery. His hand went to Szaa’da’shaela’s pommel for reassurance.
“Gnexes is a site of pilgrimage now,” said Arbena, picking up the thread, “for those wishing to query holy augurs of the god, or the Videna herself, the chief priest and highest oracle of the sect. That’s her title: the Videna. One needs a great deal of coin to secure an audience with her, somewhere deep within the cavern complex.”
“The throne,” said Auric, excited. “We were told that our objective lies beyond the throne of this oracle. What’s required to reach it and explore deeper?”
Arbena and Sulo both frowned and exchanged glances. It was Sulo who spoke, brows knitted. “We’re still seeking that information, but no one is permitted beyond the throne but the Videna herself, Sir Auric. It is a sacred place where she is said to commune with the god.”
“And no one knows what lies beyond?”
“No,” the two said in unison.
A loud slam reverberated about the great library: someone—a sweaty novice, breathing heavily, a look of consternation on his face—had crashed through the doors of the cavernous chamber. His dramatic entrance earned him hisses and scowls from the library’s late-night patrons, but he shouted out, undeterred by their disapproval.
“An attack! They’re attacking the Citadel!”
Auric shot up from his seat and hurried over to the boy. “Who’s attacking the Citadel?”
The lad shook his head. “Dunno, sir! We’ve barricaded the doors and the lictor’s ordered all to arm themselves and report to the Grand Hall to repulse them!”
An assault on the Citadel? Auric had sensed the seething unease in the city, a nameless unrest floating in the air, but it had seemed aimless, amorphous, not directed at anyone or anything, least of all the Syraeic League. The Citadel had come under attack in the past, during times of famine or unrest, but not in living memory.
The antiquarians forgotten, Auric left the library and headed for the Grand Entry Hall, a hand on Szaa’da’shaela, humming at his hip.
The original structure that came to be known as the Citadel was a tower, a scant ninety feet across and six stories tall. Over the centuries, however, the League added to it, buying up properties that surrounded their headquarters and expanding outward, like some living thing. Sprawling and far larger than it had once been, the complex was encircled by the Grand Entry Hall, like two embracing, covetous arms. Auric ran down the hall now, a few others running with him. Those they passed asked what the commotion was about. He alerted them to the threat, but never slackened his pace.
Frescoes of Syraeic luminaries decorated the walls, notables from the League’s long history. Auric ran by them without recognition, until he came upon a portrait of especial significance. Though he did little more than glance at it, its impact was profound. Some inferior artist had restored the damage done to it, replacing the forms of Ariellum Brisk, Galadayem Pela, and Cosus of Mourcort. Gower Morz’s eyes had been repaired as well. But the crimson slashes across the hearts of Wallach Bessemer and Quintus Valec remained, an appropriate stain on their cursed memories.
Or a warning, thought Auric. A warning that we all are capable of cowardice and sin.
When he reached the end of the Grand Hall, he found about two or three dozen novices there, crowded close to the broad oak doors of the Citadel’s main entrance. Among them were a few more seasoned Syraeics—their instructors, Auric assumed. Some had familiar faces, but he knew none by name. He realized then that he had never inquired about how many brothers and sisters succumbed to the plague that had decimated the League last year. How many of his colleagues lay entombed beneath the Citadel or ensconced in funerary urns? His eyes at last found a face, someone he had known during his career: a swordsman named Beckerlin. A self-important fellow, he recalled, very sure of himself, an upturned nose announcing his low opinion of those around him. But now, Auric saw, he was garbed in the robe of a lictor.
A loud crash reverberated along the hall. The doors of the Citadel, barred by a great oak beam, shuddered. Whoever was outside tonight was using a battering ram.
Auric approached Beckerlin, who ordered novices here and there with tasks in the Citadel’s defense. His head swiveled around when Auric tapped him on the shoulder, and the arrogance in the man fled for a moment when he saw who summoned his attention. It was as though he had seen a ghost. It didn’t take long for the arrogance to return. “Manteo! Word was about you were wandering our halls again.”
“Lomas,” Auric said, responding with the man’s given name rather than his rank. It was a petty thing to deny him the title, but Auric was irked that Lictor Beckerlin had failed to do him the courtesy of acknowledging his knighthood. And since when have you given a go
od goddamn about that? “Do you have any idea what this is about?”
“Not exactly, no,” Beckerlin answered sourly, with a slight curl of his lip. “It’s a big mob of Boudun malcontents, baying for our blood.”
Auric’s own petty-mindedness embarrassed him as he realized he was pleased the man seemed to have noticed his slight. He had to work to keep an equally petty, satisfied smile from his lips. “You’ve sent out observers through the back doors to spy on this mob?”
“Better than that,” said Beckerlin, the smile Auric had suppressed appearing on the man’s face as he gestured with a thumb to the east wall. “My scout is on the roof.” A ladder stood beneath one of the windows high on the wall, the glass propped open. A lad was stationed at the ladder’s summit, his head poking out of the opening.
“Just the one with his head a target, or did you manage to get someone on the roof?”
“Not just anyone, Manteo. Your daughter Agnes is up there now, relaying what she sees to Whelan on the ladder. It was a narrow squeeze and there isn’t much purchase to access the roof from there, but the girl insisted she could manage.”
Auric’s heart skipped a beat as another violent blow resounded against the doors, punctuated by an alarming report of cracking wood. Auric frowned. “She’s on the roof?”
“My eyes and ears, Manteo. A brave and clever one, that daughter of yours, and limber. Surprised she managed to get up there without falling to her death.”
Auric turned and shouted to the novice atop the ladder. “What does she see, Whelan?”
The sandy-haired lad looked down when his named was called. “Saint Faebiana! I think they’ve torn down Saint Faebiana from Martyr’s Square! They’re using her to batter the doors!”
The statue the boy spoke of was a ten-foot-tall effigy of weathered hardwood, blackened by age and exposure. It was nearly five hundred years old. Auric’s mind reeled at the impiety of the act, and the violence necessary to bring it down from its pedestal. Just what was fueling the mob’s fury, and why was it directed here? “How many are they? Are they armed? Have you identified a ringleader?”
“At least a hundred, maybe more, with clubs and knives and the like. Don’t think they’ve got a leader. By their shouts, I’d say they want us all dead!” The young man’s voice teetered between youthful excitement and terror.
“Can you make out what they’re saying? What’s their grievance?”
“Agnes says it’s something about us ‘sharing the wealth,’” he replied.
Many of the common folk assumed that the Citadel housed great vaults brimming with coin and jewels. In times of scarcity or famine, angry wags would say the Syraeic League hoarded foodstuffs, feasting on rich fare denied the starving poor outside its walls. But right now, there was no threat of famine—as far as Auric knew, the city’s silos were full. It had to be the rumor of glittering treasure. But what had stirred so large a gathering of people willing to do violence to steal the imagined hoard?
Another crash against the wood, and a vertical crack yawned in the oak beam that braced the Citadel’s tall doors. Auric looked around at the novices, bearing short swords and shields, a few clad in old leather cuirasses borrowed from the practice yard rather than the armory. The instructors amongst them preached courage. “Keep your wits about you,” said a stout woman his own age, clapping both shoulders of a worried-looking youth with her palms. The lad wore a breastplate a size too large.
Yet another crash and the doors and beam bowed in farther, threatening to burst open into the hall. Only a few more such blows from the mob’s horizontal saint were required to breach the Citadel, Auric surmised. More novices and instructors were in the hall now, but far fewer than the hostiles on the other side of those doors.
“Divide into groups of six!” shouted Beckerlin, drawing his own short sword from its scabbard. “Form a wall, do your best to disarm them. Remember that they’re citizens of the empire, whatever madness has gripped them tonight!” His next command was drowned out by bloodcurdling, angry cries from outside that preceded another violent blow to the doors. Auric heard shouts now, hysterical accusations of murder, perversion, theft. Had the esteem of the League fallen so low in the past year? And Agnes was out in this. Pray all good gods she’s safe on the roof.
He made to draw Szaa’da’shaela from its sheath but stopped when four inches of the blade were revealed. He couldn’t use a longsword in these close quarters! He wouldn’t have room to swing the elegant weapon! As likely as not, he’d skewer a novice. And given the blade’s unnatural properties, its uncanny ability to slice through whatever it struck…he needed a mundane weapon with a shorter blade.
Another blow and three planks of the door cracked, bringing more shouts and curses from the besiegers without. Auric’s eyes landed on a novice nearby who hadn’t joined a sextet. Bee-stung lips quivered and the short sword in his pale-fingered grasp trembled. The boy was a washout for certain. He put a steadying hand on the lad’s shoulder, eliciting a spastic recoil, then held him more forcefully and took the weapon from his hand. The young man surrendered it without protest.
“Son, I want you to head to the main library and barricade the doors from the inside. If this mob gets past us, they’ll search for riches they won’t find. I wouldn’t put it past them to burn our books out of spite, and we can’t have that, eh?” Auric grinned and slapped the lad on the back.
“Y-yes, sir!” squeaked the youth. He headed down the broad corridor with great speed, soon taking a wrong turn that would land him in the kitchens. Washout for certain, thought Auric, providing any of us survive.
Auric slapped the flat of the blade against his palm just as Saint Faebiana’s head slammed again into the Citadel’s doors. The sword was a simple, well-kept weapon; it would serve his purpose. He wasn’t sure what was coming through those doors, but he wondered how well this collection of students and their teachers would fare against its boiling wrath.
The next impact cracked the oak beam nearly in two and the doors bowed ominously, a hateful roar of elation coming from the mob. The wooden head of the saint, chipped and scarred from brutal use, poked through the gap between the doors to force the opening wider. In seconds, the beam cracked in half. The saint and the ruined wood of the doors, which had stood for hundreds of years, spilled inward and scattered on the floor of polished stone. The attackers flooded through the breach with cries of triumph and rage.
Swinging their clubs, daggers, and improvised weapons, the ferocious mob collided with the clustered novices and their instructors nearest the doors, pushing them back or knocking them down as they surged forward. Bludgeons and knives connected with bone and flesh, doing their cruel work. One thing was quickly plain to Auric: if they were to survive, there would be no honoring Beckerlin’s admirable admonition to disarm the attackers. Auric saw a fellow wielding a butcher’s knife ready to fall on an adolescent Syraeic girl prone on the floor, her shield having skittered across the stone. He shot forward and caught the man in the chest with the point of his blade, which provoked puzzlement on his furious face before he fell to the ground, dead.
The girl, still clad in a nightshirt, strawberry locks falling past her ears, was up in a flash, a short sword in her grasp. “Stand with me, lass, back to back!” shouted Auric. “And drive the pointy end of that thing in any breast that isn’t a Syraeic one!”
She was a tall young woman, taller than him, and grinned wide, revealing a gap-toothed smile. The splash of freckles on her pale cheeks reminded him of Agnes. Wordlessly she obeyed, stepping behind him. He felt her backside against his, more reassuring now than any armor might have proved. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Beela!” she replied. “Beela Wynther, of Sethwick!”
“Well, stay close, Beela Wynther of Sethwick, and you and I will teach these uninvited guests some manners!”
Auric barely managed to parry a clumsy blow from a swar
thy man in fish-stinking homespun who was swinging a chair leg as a cudgel. His quick riposte caught the man in the throat. The attacker dropped the chair leg and stumbled backwards, gurgling, fingers pressing futilely to the wound. Auric felt the girl shift with him as he faced another attacker, an elderly woman with unkempt white hair and a wild look in her eyes. He fended off the surprisingly powerful blows of a rolling pin with the sword, once, twice, a third time. He nearly laughed: why was this grandmother, who should be at home in bed, trying to brain him with an implement from her kitchen? When she swung it again, he caught it with his hand, the rolling pin still dusty with flour. He wrenched it from her gnarled hand.
Disarmed, she yelled at him, spraying him with spittle. “Bloody Syraeic bugger! Raped my granddaughter, you did!” She launched herself at him, fingernails scratching his cheeks, drawing blood. He was forced back a step before his dancing partner Beela steadied him. With a sick feeling in his gut, he drove an elbow into the old woman’s toothless mouth. This bought him only the briefest respite before her now-bloodied nails sought out his eyes. He kicked out, catching the woman in her chest, imagining he heard feeble ribs crack.
What in the Yellow Hells is going on?
Before he could ponder the question further, two more assailants, one with a head wound that bled down his forehead, advanced on him with drunken leers. As he warded off their blows—one brandished a club while the other swung an unlit brass lantern—Auric noted that both sported obvious erections, straining at the front of their pants. He ducked a swing of the lantern at his forehead, stabbing out with his sword to impale the wielder in the gut. He withdrew the blade from that wound, and lunged up, piercing the man with the club in the armpit. The lout howled and dropped his weapon.
Auric heard Beela cry out behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he spied her attacker, a middle-aged dockworker with heavily muscled arms and an unshaven square chin like the prow of a ship. He had cut the young Syraeic across her cheek with the pocket knife he clutched in his meaty fist. Before Auric could come to her aid, she arrested the man’s next attack by bringing the edge of her blade up into the flesh of his unprotected forearm and driving her bony knee up into his stomach. Auric marveled at the girl’s prowess. A gifted fighter, this one! Survive this and your academics, lass, and you’ll make a fine field agent.