“It didn’t sound like he was stirring up trouble,” Issa said. “If anything, his words seemed to calm the crowd.”
“Sure, his words are one thing, but what he represents to the people is another.” Nysin snorted. “Too many Shalandrans believe that damned Prophecy of the Final Destruction.”
“Prophecy?” This was the first Issa had heard of it.
“You don’t know about Hallar’s prophecy?” The question came from Rilith, two rows back.
“No.” Issa shook her head.
“No one outside the Keeper’s Priests knows the full thing,” Nysin said, “but somehow, word spread about how some ‘child of secrets, child of spirits, child of gold’ was going to bring about Hallar’s Final Destruction.”
“And what does this Aterallis have to do with that?” Issa asked.
“Because the people are calling him those things.” Nysin snorted. “Child of Gold, because he’s a member of the Dhukari. Child of Spirits, because they say he speaks to the Long Keeper and the Long Keeper answers back. Child of Secrets, because no one knows what made him do what he’s doing.”
Issa snorted. “That’s a bit of a stretch!”
“It certainly is.” Nysin’s voice dripped derision. “But that hasn’t stopped people from whispering that he’s the one foretold by the prophecy. A lot of Shalandrans, especially the Mahjuri and Kabili, are flocking to him, proclaiming him Hallar Reborn, Hallar’s heir, even the voice of the Long Keeper. It doesn’t matter if he really is this person prophesized about—all that matters is that the people believe he is.”
“The Mahjuri are so badly off that anything, even the promise of a better afterlife in the Sleepless Lands, offers them hope,” Rilith added. “Too many of us had nothing to live for. It’s why we joined the Indomitables. Anything is better than dying of hunger, thirst, or the Azure Rot.”
The explanation made sense. Issa herself had clung to the dreams of becoming a Dhukari after her acceptance into the Blades. She and her grandparents would have a better life among the highest-ranked caste, away from the labor of the Earaqi. That hope had driven her to train as hard as she could.
But what if her dreams hadn’t paid off? What about all the Mahjuri, Kabili, and Earaqi that had failed to claim a sword in the Crucible, or that hadn’t been accepted into the Indomitables? With no hope of escape from the life they’d been condemned to by merit of their birth, they had nothing to look forward to in this life. Hoping that things would get better in the next life was all many had to cling to.
“I fail to see how giving people hope is a bad thing,” Issa said.
“Not bad, dangerous,” Nysin responded. “When people give him power, call him Hallar Reborn or Hallar’s heir, they start to see him as a savior, a messiah, someone that will lift them out of the misery of their lives. That gives him a dangerous amount of power, power that only the Pharus and the servants of the Long Keeper should possess.”
Issa could understand that—she’d spent every day of her training in the Keeper’s Blades learning about the great generals and leaders of Shalandran history. The one thing they’d all had in common was that their armies and followers believed in them, many willing to follow their commands in defiance of logic. Some of the greatest military battles had been won by a dynamic commander that convinced his men to face impossible odds. Invictus Dyrkton had told her, “Never overestimate the power of a charismatic leader. A man who can convince others to follow his commands is mightier than the strongest warrior.”
If Aterallis did truly have sway over the people of the Slave’s Tier, he was as dangerous as Nysin believed. She’d make sure to emphasize it in her report to Sentinel Imale, the officer responsible for all the trainees assigned to her patrol. And to Hykos, Tannard, and any others of her commanders in the Blades.
Night washed the color from the golden sandstone buildings of the Slave’s Tier, leaving only dark grey shapes barely illuminated by the few torches and braziers that burned along the Way of Chains. The few people visible along the streets appeared even more wretched in the dim light. Emaciated men, women, and children lay in the dust of the streets, among the rubble of collapsed stone houses, or the debris littering the alleys.
The dead lay among the living—the only way Issa could tell them apart was by searching for the blue spots dotting their skin. The Azure Rot, a blight that had pervaded the Slave’s Tier for nearly three months now, caused the skin to crack and weep pus. It took days to weaken its victims until, too starved and exhausted to move, they simply succumbed to the bleeding. Blue spots deepened to a dark purple then black as the Rot killed its victims.
Issa’s gut tightened as they approached the Lower Wellspring, the only source of fresh water on the Slave’s Tier. The Wellspring stood next to the Hall of Bounty, the warehouse where all of the food rationed to the Kabili and Mahjuri was stored. Sentinel Imale had warned her in no uncertain terms that this was the most fractious section of the Slave’s Tier. Every man, woman, and child on the lowest level had to come here to receive their daily allotment of food and water. Dozens of arguments, scuffles, and even full-fledged fights broke out every day.
Sure enough, as Issa had feared, the sound of angry shouts and curses echoed from ahead.
“Double time!” she called, and broke into a fast march. The clanking of the Indomitables’ armor served as a warning of their approach—hopefully enough of a deterrent to break up whatever fracas lay ahead.
Torches and lanterns hung in front of the huge wooden Hall of Bounty, with more lighting the way to the small stone structure protecting the Wellspring. A full sixty-man company of Indomitables stood divided between the two structures. Twin lines of starving-looking men and women formed in front of the Wellspring and Hall of Bounty, carrying cracked buckets and threadbare sacks in hope of procuring food or drink. Even at this late hour, the lines numbered more than two hundred souls desperate to eat or drink.
A group of close to twenty men and women fought in the space that had cleared between the two lines. Lean, hungry-eyed people watched the fray, and the occasional cheer or shout egged on the combatants. Most, however, were simply too tired, hungry, or thirsty to do more than watch with world-weary faces.
“Break it up!” Issa shouted. “Cease this at once, or we will arrest you!”
Her words had no effect. The people bit, clawed, scratched, and punched at each other like rabid animals. In the minute it took Issa to reach the melee, four people had been knocked unconscious to the ground.
“Company, draw batons!” Issa called. She left her sword sheathed and instead reached for the wooden club at her hip. Her orders were only to draw her blade if her life was threatened.
Issa tried one last time. “Stop this in the name of the Pharus!” When her words fell on deaf ears, Issa waded into the fray, laying about her with the baton. She held back her blows as much as she dared, avoiding broken bones whenever possible, but her primary purpose was to break up the fight. With ten heavily armored, well-fed Indomitables at her back, she put an end to the scuffle in less than a minute.
“Enough!” she shouted when she had shoved the last two combatants apart. She whirled on the crowd of furious, red-faced, bleeding men and women. “The next one who raises a hand against their fellow citizen will be clapped in irons!”
This elicited a chorus of angry shouts and mutters, not only from the combatants, but from the people formed in line.
“What is the meaning of this?” Issa demanded.
“There is no more food!” shouted a voice from the crowd.
“What?” Issa turned toward the source of the call.
A white-haired Kabili woman with a stooped back, hunched shoulders, and wagon-rut wrinkles at the head of the line turned toward her fire blazing in her eyes. “The guards at the Hall of Bounty just said there would be no more rations until noon tomorrow.” She thrust a gnarled finger toward the ground at Issa’s feet. “That was the last of the barley.”
Issa glanced down. A t
iny sack, barely larger than her mailed fist, lay on the dusty street, its seams split, a handful of small while pearls spilling out. She sucked in a sharp breath. Twenty people, fighting over this! That wouldn’t be enough to feed her grandparents for a day.
And yet, the ones that had gotten such small portions were the fortunate ones. The rest, those still in the line, would have to wait until noon the following day. Thirteen hours of hunger gnawing at their bellies.
Of course they’re fighting over the food. Sorrow roiled within Issa’s chest. If it were me, I’d do the same thing.
But right now, her job was to keep the peace. That meant ensuring that the fight stayed ended.
Kneeling, Issa scooped up the tiny portion of barley and poured as much as she could back into the sack. She scanned the crowd of hungry people waiting in front of the granary. Finally, she singled out an old man, easily in his eighth decade of life, who sat on the ground, too weak to stand.
The Mahjuri cringed away from her as she loomed over him, but she simply knelt and held out the sack. “Here. Take this.”
Shouts of protest rang out, but Issa ignored them. She knew her actions would only add to the anger of those around her, yet she had to do something.
The old man stared up at her, nervous, eyes shifting between the sack and Issa’s armor and weapon. Finally, hunger won out, and he snatched the precious food. Issa helped him to stand, but he shambled away on his own, to a chorus of angry protests.
Issa turned a furious glare on the crowds. “Food will come!” she shouted. “The Pharus will not let his people starve.”
“Easy for you to say, Dhukari!” snarled a voice from the crowd. “You live on your gold-covered streets, eating feasts fit for the Pharus every day.”
Issa wanted to continue, to try and calm the crowd, but she knew that anything she said would only make things worse. They saw only her armor and the gold stripe across her snarling lion helmet. Her attempts to pacify the people would only rile them up further. Jaw clenched in frustration, she turned on her heel and marched back toward her patrol.
“Indomitables, on me!” Remorse mingled with anger in her chest. She could do nothing to help these people, or the thousands of others like them that faced starvation, thirst, and death on a daily basis.
With those thoughts churning in her mind, she marched her company down the Way of Chains. The indignant shouts of the crowd followed her with every step.
Chapter Eleven
Burning anger drove back the pain of Aisha’s still-healing leg as she marched down Death Row beside Briana and Kodyn. Hykos and the small procession of servants loyal to the Briana followed in their footsteps, drawing stares from every Dhukari they passed.
Briana’s spine was ramrod straight and stiff, her face an expressionless mask. But Aisha caught the tightness in the girl’s jaw, the lines around her pressed lips.
“The sniveling weasel!” Briana muttered a string of angry curses, all insulting to Councilor Angrak.
Aisha waved to get the girl’s attention, then spoke using the silent hand language. “What did he mean by ‘Your father should never have spoken to me thus’?”
Fire flashed in Briana’s eyes. “He asked to marry me, more to advance his power in the city than out of any actual interest. My father turned down his marriage proposal in no uncertain terms.”
“Marriage?” Aisha sucked in a breath. “To that hippopotamus?”
Kodyn let out a harsh chuckle, but Briana didn’t smile. “My father always knew Angrak was sucking up to the Keeper’s Council, currying favor by doing anything they asked, and now we have proof!”
“That false messenger was sent to get us out of the mansion so the Necroseti’s guards could swoop in.” Kodyn said what Aisha was thinking. “Now, with Angrak as the final Councilor, the Keeper’s Priests have the Council fully under their control.”
“Which means they can do whatever they want.” Fury was etched into every line of Briana’s face. “To think my father died protecting those cowardly rats!”
“Protecting the Pharus.” Aisha shook her head. “Thanks to his actions, the Pharus will help us in our mission to take down the Gatherers.”
“And the Necroseti.” Briana’s fingers moved in short, sharp gestures. “This happened too fast for me to believe that they didn’t have this planned well in advance.”
“So either they were the ones behind the attack,” Kodyn said, “or they anticipated it and made preparations for that eventuality.”
“Which makes them responsible for my father’s death.” Briana’s face hardened. “And for that, they will pay.”
The sight ahead drove all thoughts of response from Aisha’s mind. More heavy-set men draped in ornate black-and-gold robes stood clustered by the gate to the Defender’s Tier.
Keeper’s Priests. Aisha’s fists clenched.
As they approached, one of the priests stepped forward and held out a pudgy hand. “Hold.”
Briana straightened, defiance written in her eyes. “What in the Keeper’s name do you want?” Her voice came out in a very un-ladylike growl.
The priest straightened, which set the ornate golden bangles on his Dhukari headdress rattling. “You wear the gold of the Dhukari, but that is forbidden to those of the lower castes.” The priest’s piggish, close-set eyes locked with Briana. “You must don white, as is expected of the Zadii.”
Briana went white with rage, her lips pressed so tight together all blood drained away. “You would do this, now?” she snarled. “After all the other indignities heaped on my house this day?”
The Keeper’s Priest gave no response, his face a mask of arrogance, hand outstretched expectantly.
Briana’s fingers trembled as she reached up and untied her Dhukari tiara. Even in the face of humiliation, she was the picture of elegance, draping the gold chain circlet with its inlaid mother-of-pearl teardrops delicately over the priest’s pudgy hands.
Aisha, however, felt no need for restraint. She seized her gold-cloth headband and tore it free of her head with one mighty yank. She growled a curse in Ghandian—one she’d told Kodyn meant “May your arm shrivel up and be eaten by a howling baboon”, but which actually referred to a lower part of the male anatomy—and hurled the cloth at the Keeper’s Priest, barking a derisive laugh when he flinched.
Kodyn tore his headband free and threw it on the ground at the priest’s feet. The rest of Briana’s servants—Nessa, Rothin, and the two other servants—did likewise.
The Necroseti’s face reddened. “Go, Zadii.” He sneered the word like a curse. “You are not welcome here.”
Head held high, Briana strode toward the gate. Aisha hurled another Ghandian curse at the priest as she passed, eliciting another flinch. Kodyn simply glared at the Necroseti and the black-armored Indomitables.
Aisha glanced back at the Keeper’s Blade accompanying them. Hykos’ face was an inscrutable mask, yet a hint of disgust flashed through his eyes as he passed the Necroseti’s guards.
The eyes of thirty Indomitables turned toward them, a hint of indignation mingling with the respect etched into their faces. They all knew who she was—who her father was and what he’d done for the Pharus the previous night. A few even bowed in silent, deferential farewell.
Aisha wanted to reach out and grip Briana’s hand, offer what comfort she could, but decided against it. The girl was already humiliated, evicted from her home, her rank stripped away, forced to walk bare-headed—the mark of a Kabili slave—down two tiers and through the marketplaces of Artisan’s Tier. Whoever was behind this plan had to have truly loathed the Arch-Guardian. It took a malicious, petty mind to strike such a deep-cutting blow at the daughter of a dead man.
To Briana’s credit, she kept her face expressionless, her eyes blank. It was as if she’d locked away all the emotions that had to be roiling within her at the moment. A proud Dhukari, even if she no longer wore the golden headband or bore the title.
People all along Death Row stopped to watch the
solemn march—as funereal as the procession that likely escorted Arch-Guardian Suroth to his final resting place at that very moment. One went to the realm of the dead and eternity in the arms of the Long Keeper; the other swallowed shame and humiliation to bear life with noble stoicism.
Some stared, many whispered, and a few even pointed at the straight-backed girl with the ornate robes, flowing hair, and bare head. Aisha caught the clenching of Briana’s jaw, the way her fingers balled into fists. Yet she held her peace as she strode through Industry Square, crossed the broad Trader’s Way, then marched through Commerce Square. Aisha was glad for the concealment of the early evening darkness. The setting sun had driven most of the crowds from the nearly empty markets. Only a handful of people bore witness to Briana’s humiliation.
Without a word, Briana guided them toward the Temple District, but turned north at an intersection just a few hundred paces from the nearest temple—the squat, fortress-like Temple of Derelana. Her steps led down a narrower street that ran parallel to the Artificer’s Courseway, thirty paces from the cliff face that bordered the northern edge of the Artisan’s Tier. She stopped at a small two-story building with crumbling whitewash and a sagging thatched roof. A final insult from the Keeper’s Priests.
Kodyn strode ahead to open the door—a solid, well-built door, Aisha saw, complete with a heavy lock—and stepped inside to scan the interior. He emerged a few moments later and nodded, his fingers signaling, “All clear.”
Briana said nothing, simply strode into her new home. The furnishings were simple: a crooked wooden table sized for four with hard-backed chairs to match, a few moth-eaten armchairs, and a modest bookshelf that served as home to an abundance of dust and a pair of black spiders. A door led into a small kitchen that doubled as a pantry.
Aisha couldn’t help noticing how cold the house was. She’d learned that, like the Palace of Golden Eternity, all the houses on the Keeper’s Tier and Defender’s Tier were heated by the steam collected from geysers deep within the mountain. But here, only cold stone and darkness met her gaze.
Crucible of Fortune: An Epic Fantasy Young Adult Adventure (Heirs of Destiny Book 2) Page 9