by S E Meliers
‘By the Monad, it was a glorious sight to see that great red dragon snatch that necromancer from the balcony,’ Granite grinned. ‘And watch that black mage dangle like a mouse in an eagle’s claws.’
‘Did you see what became of him? Did the dragon drop him, or eat him?’ Cinder asked, distractedly.
Granite shrugged. ‘Probably dropped him. I do not think necromancers would be kind to even the palate of a dragon,’ he commented.
Cinder laughed. ‘No, I imagine not. But, damn the serpent, my orders were to set him ablaze. Let them know I’m less than pleased,’ he frowned, then shook off his irritation. ‘Let us go then, my friend, people to kill, cities to be razed,’ he lead the way back out on the street. Granite summoned the assigned soldiers to their side. They were less in number now, Cinder noticed. Two were in the common room with the girl, he remembered. Had two died? Or had Obsidian sent them on an errand? He shrugged the thought aside; soldiers died, that was the point of war.
He made his way through the streets, pausing when summoned to give approval to an action or as his eye was caught by a piece of property being brought out onto the streets as the homes and businesses were searched for items of value. As they were occupying the city, the bodies were being collected – to be used as projectiles to be hurled at the castle in the hopes of spreading unease and disease, and to be burnt rather than be left to moulder and spread disease amongst his men. His original order had been full scale slaughter, and his men had been efficient; the bodies were great in number and displayed the savagery of attack.
The bodies of children, pregnant women, and the old disturbed the man within the war leader, but he repressed the feeling; innocent blood was always the price of victory. Those civilians that were being ousted now from their hiding places were herded through the streets as per his amended orders, Obsidian was efficient in having the word spread, and there were many children among them. ‘Send the children to Amori,’ he instructed Granite, ‘to my Lady Patience, with a message that their lives are a gift for her. She can add them to her school, suckle them herself, give them to her ladies to play with, whatever her fancy dictates,’ he laughed at the tenderness of his mistress, so much in contrast to his present occupation.
Granite bowed, and issued the orders.
They continued to where a moat of water and land separated the castle from the city. A line of arrows impaled in the ground marked the range of the archers manning the castle walls. Cinder made a rude hand gesture at the castle, which surprised Granite into laughter. The prisoners were being brought here, and Cinder could see the battlements of the castle were crowded with observers. Veils and glinting jewellery directed his gaze to where the nobility watched from the necromancer’s empty balcony and others of the same sort.
‘Your orders my Prince?’ Ironwood asked as he joined them.
‘Young children, small children only, to Amori,’ Cinder repeated. ‘The young boys and untouched girls send to Shoethal as slaves. The women can go to the men; they deserve to celebrate this victory with a warm body or two. The rest, impale.’
Ironwood oversaw the separation of the Lyendar civilians as Cinder had directed. The men slated for execution by impalement were staked to the ground, belly down as they were impaled upon the blunt ended hole through the perineum. Partially impaled, the victim was then hoisted into the air, the end of the pole set into the earth, so that his own body weight would slowly drag him down to the ground, pushing the pole through his body. It was, Cinder reflected, watching the process, a terrible way to die, and a slow one; one designed to communicate a message. He hoped Honesty was watching.
As his men finished their gory work, and the last man was hoisted to dance like a demented scarecrow atop his pole, writhing in agony, the castle let lose a volley of arrows. Ironwood danced out the way as arrows clove the ground at his feet. ‘Shit,’ he swore. ‘Who determined this as outside of range?’
The shots were aimed at the impaled men, silencing their misery in a hail of iron tipped arrows. Cinder cried out in surprise as one caught him in the shoulder, where pauldron met breastplate. It did not pierce deeply, thanks mostly to the fact that he was just out of range and the shot had been an extraordinarily lucky one, but it was enough to cause him to recoil. ‘Damn!’ Granite hauled him into a building and propped him against a wall. ‘Get a healer,’ he yelled at one of the soldiers who set off at a run. Granite tugged the buckle holding the pauldron in place, causing the arrow to jerk. Cinder snarled. ‘Sorry,’ Granite apologised, and freed the buckle. He drew the pauldron off with more care, and using his dagger cut the leather jerkin Cinder wore beneath away. ‘It is not bad,’ Granite breathed a sigh of relief.
‘It is not your shoulder,’ Cinder joked, ‘let me shoot you and see how bad you find it.’
‘Haha,’ Granite groaned. ‘That evil green eyed witch of yours is going to have my balls for supper.’
‘You might enjoy that,’ Cinder mocked trying to sit up but grimacing as he knocked the arrow. ‘She’s quite talented enough to keep two EAeryians occupied, I am sure she could please you – you are nowhere near particular from what I hear.’
‘Oh, my Prince, you are a bundle of laughs, today,’ Granite helped him into a chair. ‘Seriously, though, I request sanctuary from your cursed Hallow bitch.’
‘I will ensure she knows I grant it,’ Cinder acknowledged. ‘It was not your fault. Mine own. She can have my balls for supper,’ he grinned.
The healer came and examined it. ‘I do not think it barbed,’ the woman decided, ‘so we shall try to draw it out the way it came.’
‘Wonderful, I look forward to that,’ Cinder groaned.
‘My Prince,’ the woman was distressed.
‘Proceed, I jest,’ he said. She handed him a strip of leather to clench between his teeth and gave the arrow a sharp jerk, pulling it free. He roared through the leather gag. ‘Damn!’ he said, spitting the gag out as she swiftly cleaned and bandaged the wound. ‘I say this every time I am arrow-shot; it is not an experience I seek to repeat.’
‘Stand out of the way of arrows then, my Prince,’ Granite suggested helpfully, straight faced.
‘I will take that under advisement,’ Cinder sneered. ‘Are we done here?’ he asked the healer, who bowed and retreated with her bag of cure-alls. ‘Back to the business of war, then,’ Cinder stood, holding on to the chair a moment as he had a moment of dizziness.
‘My Prince,’ Granite was concerned. ‘You lost a lot of blood. Mayhap you should take some wine and a meal before venturing forth again?’
‘Maybe we both should,’ Cinder ceded. ‘Just some wine and a heel of bread, will be fine.’
‘Yes, my Prince,’ Granite stepped out to send for the items.
‘Granite,’ Cinder called after him.
‘My Lord?’ Granite re-entered the door.
‘Tell them to begin bombarding the castle immediately. I want Honesty broken and bleeding at my feet.’
Cedar
Cedar stared unseeingly over the swamps of Guarn. The wind blew strong on the battlements, scented with peat. Whilst still as a guardian gargoyle on his perch, Cedar’s mind worked at a frantic pace. He had known, he realised, from the start, but had not wanted to face the truth.
‘You are unhappy,’ Lovel commented with her usual bluntness.
‘You are very insightful today,’ he retorted, irritated by the invasion of his thinking space.
‘I will go if you like,’ she shrugged as if hearing his inner monologue. ‘But, sometimes, when thoughts weigh this heavy, the weight can be lessened by speaking them aloud to someone who is non-judgemental.’
‘Are you?’ he asked, frowning at her. ‘Non-judgemental?’
‘As much as anyone can be,’ she leaned her elbows against the battlements. ‘It is kind of pretty from up here, is it not?’ she nodded at the swamps. ‘The weeds are sort of purple, green and brown in a nice way from up here, and the sun on the water is pretty. Look, I can see swans.’
He looked in the direction she pointed. ‘I suppose there’s beauty even in the swamps,’ he agreed. ‘It is peaceful.’
‘Yes, down there at least,’ she added with a pointed glance.
He sighed. ‘Is this compassionate interest really for my benefit, Lovel, or are you simply curious as to what is going on?’
‘A little of both,’ she admitted with ease. ‘I like to keep informed of what happens around me. Makes it easier to choose which way to go, if I know which way not to.’
‘What do you know about Shoethal?’ he asked, squinting against the glare of sun off of the swamp water.
‘Ahhh,’ she turned to prop her back against the wall and set her arms akimbo, tapping her free fingers against her thigh as she thought. ‘My school days were long ago, but… I remember that Shoethalian was divided into many small holdings, with the feudal lords forming a council where majority vote ruled.’
‘Yes, that is so,’ he agreed. ‘It was not a perfect system, as the more powerful lords could effectively buy the votes of the less powerful lords through various means and threats, but it was a system that had been in place for hundreds of years. What else do you recall?’
‘Shoethal, much like Rhyndel, had many different religious beliefs,’ she offered with a shrug. ‘I was never much for the schoolroom.’
‘I am surprised that you know so much,’ he raised his eyebrows.
‘My people believe that one should know the peoples around you, and their might, as one never knows when they will become your enemy,’ her lips curled in a smile that wasn’t. ‘I learnt that lesson well.’
‘Hmmm,’ he considered that a warning. ‘The most powerful religion of Shoethal has always been the Monads, but the other beliefs were respected as well before the then Lord Cinder joined with the Monadistic Priests with the aim of unifying Shoethalian under one ruler, himself, and one god, the Monad.’
‘They obviously succeeded,’ Lovel commented.
‘Yes, through sheer numbers. Cinder had an army of followers of the Monad to lead against any resistance. Many, many lives were lost.’ He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘The Lords that capitulated to his demands retained their holdings and gained those that rallied against him. In less than five years, Shoethal has changed from being a council ruled multi-religion land, to being a monarchy with a single religion. However, that is not enough for Prince Cinder and the Monadistic Priests. The Monad demands more followers, and the Priests will not name Cinder King until the Monad’s needs are met, and so they now reach into Rhyndel.’
‘So why does this upset you so personally?’ she asked.
He hesitated then sighed. ‘Because, a long time ago, when I was just a lad… I was the heir to a Lordship within Shoethal. My father had aspirations to grow his power, and so arranged a political marriage for me with a neighbouring lord. The girl was nice, and I had no objections to the marriage, however my brother fell passionately in love with her, and she with him and, with the nobility and idealism of youth, I stepped aside from my inheritance so that my brother could marry his love.’
Lovel regarded him with a small smile. ‘That is rather romantic,’ she said.
He smiled back, amused. ‘Yes, recounted, it does come off a little ballad-like. Typical of a ballad, as well, my father was furious with me, and banished me from his lands. I had thought my brother would summon me back once he came into the inheritance however I never heard from him again. Will you walk? I need to walk, as I talk,’ he said restlessly.
‘I am happy to walk,’ she gestured him to lead the way, and ambled alongside companionably.
‘I had some hardships initially, finding my feet outside the shelter of power and privilege,’ he admitted almost absently, his mind busy on remembered moments of childhood and youth, ‘and harboured some resentment towards my brother for never putting out a hand to help me. In time, I stopped expecting to hear from him. Later I found out that not long after the death of my father, my brother also lost his wife and child, and I understood why I had not heard and been recalled to my homeland.’
‘So, your brother is Cinder?’ He shot her a look and a frown. ‘Well,’ she explained, ‘Prince Cinder is the ultimate matter of discussion here, is he not? Therefore, as you are telling me about your brother, it is a logical conclusion that they are one and the same.’
‘You are smarter than you look,’ he replied disgruntled.
She smiled serenely. ‘Men always mistake a pretty face as meaning one lacks in intelligence. But,’ she raised one shoulder in a disparaging shrug, ‘the knowledge is also hot on the tongues of Guarnian gossips.’
‘Hmmm,’ he had been aware that the gazes of the soldiers and nobles gathered in Guarn held a mixture of curiosity, suspicion, and a growing respect; the latter earned through the training of his army of young boys, the former through the spreading knowledge of his heritage. He wondered if suspicion would unseat the respect, and what he would do if that time came.
He was also slowly reconciling the young idealistic and romantic brother that he had known with the warlord he had become, and wondering if knowing and understanding the why meant also forgiving the how. ‘When Cinder’s wife died in childbirth, only a year into their marriage, taking their child with her, Cinder in his grief, apparently became a devout follower of the Monadic Way, and met a charismatic and ambitious Priest by the name of Gallant. Together, they proceeded to unify Shoethal and invade Rhyndel,’ he decided that no, some things were unforgivable. ‘So, I suppose, you can say that it is my fault. If I had not stepped down, than Cinder would never have been in a position to take over Shoethal and Rhyndel.’
‘That is a rather interesting point of view,’ Lovel raised her eyebrows. ‘Erroneous, but interesting. So, you are left in an interesting position, yes?’
‘Yes,’ he did not pretend not to know what she referred to, what all the nobles in Guarn wondered now that the story had become known. ‘Do I side with my brother, whom I have not seen in too many years, or with the country I now call home?’
‘And?’
He paused in his restless pacing. ‘It has been a long time.’
‘Yes, it has. Shall we go in?’ she nodded at a turret stair near them. ‘Does Charity know that you are Cinder’s brother?’
Cedar nodded grimly. ‘He believed me that I did not know that Cinder was the Shoethalian Prince who has invaded.’ He laughed without humour. ‘My father would be proud of the glory Cinder has brought to our family. I guess he did not lose a son so much as gain a Prince; a pity he did not live to see it.’ He hunched his shoulders beneath a mental burden. ‘Charity and I know that Calico’s hand guided us to meet, and now we have a better understanding of why – my knowledge of my brother and Shoethal may be the very thing to turn the tide of this invasion.’
‘He took it well, then?’
‘The Lord Charity of Amori is a noble man, I did not appreciate how noble until I found myself related to his enemy,’ Cedar replied quietly.
‘I believe they are having a war meeting at the moment.’
‘Yes, I was invited.’ He sighed. ‘I shall make my way there. I believe I should contribute.’
‘Did you get anything useful from the captive?’
‘Besides confirming the fact that our enemy is my brother?’ he ran a hand down the cold stone wall as he descended the stair. ‘Yes, we did, actually. We know a bit more about the distribution of his forces, about the battle for Lyendar, about the support forces still in Shoethal which will soon be passing through Amori into Rhyndel, and we may be able to get more information if they let the poor lad live long enough.’
‘You know him?’ she caught the note in his voice.
‘Yes,’ he murmured quietly. He had not missed that Sheath had recognised him; had addressed him as Lord. ‘Yes, I knew him. He is only a few years younger than I. His family is an old family, not a noble one, but one which has been in service to mine for many generations.’
‘This must be
hard for you,’ she was empathetic.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. They passed through the courtyard into the castle. In the great hall, the Lords had appropriated the tables normally used for dining for planning a war. The tables were lined with maps and littered with parchment and ink, figurines of horses, archers, ships, and knights representing armies of men placed at target locations, around which gathered the nobles of Guarn, representatives from the more westerly cities, a scattering of displaced nobility from Lyendar, Truen and Amori, the Lord Charity, the army chiefs, and the servants that attended them all.
‘I think I will go bully your lads a little, set them an impossible task and then punish them for an imagined slight, or something equally heinous,’ Lovel murmured.
He grinned briefly in humorous appreciation, as she had summed up the complaints and attitudes of the difficult lads perfectly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for the talk, and for your work with the lads. They are shaping up well, thanks to you.’ The growing discipline and skills of the young boys had been noticed by many of the seasoned soldiers from the training yards, and word of their achievements in espionage and guerrilla warfare, practiced on many of the nobles present, was also spreading. Cedar had been offered considerable bribes by many of the nobility to ensure silence on certain indiscretions which the lads had brought, or possibly might bring, to light.