The Trials of Empire, page 36
Ramayah.
I did not move, could not breathe. I became aware of a pattering, trickling sound, like someone slowly tipping water out of a jug. The boards and rug around Ramayah’s feet were darkening with some black liquid. At first I thought it to be ectoplasm, but I realised with a lurch that it was blood.
He took a step forward. A part of my brain was telling me to run, to make a mad dash for the door and flee; but my body would not obey. I was rooted to the bed, so frightened that my heart felt as though it were about to give out.
Another step forward. And then another. A shrill, keening whistle, like the humming of a tuning fork, was ringing in my ears. It was growing in volume. It was the sound of a thousand screaming souls, screaming with calamitous intensity, never pausing, never stopping for any mortal breath. The terror and agony of their ongoing existence was rendered in one unending, unyielding shriek.
Somewhere in the distance, a hundred miles away, I could hear Heinrich barking dementedly at the door, scratching and thumping against it with his bulk.
The blood began to flow upwards now, as though someone were turning back time. I watched as the droplets pattered from the floor up to the ceiling like rain in reverse, and spread there, too. Soon both the floor and the ceiling were covered in blood. The screaming never stopped. It faded, but never went entirely.
Ramayah was at the foot of my bed now. I could not see his face. The shadow clung to his features like a veil. The bedclothes began to turn red like soiled bandages. He reached out a hand to me. Still I could not move. I felt it close around my ankle. For the first time I let out a grunt. I had meant it to be a long, bloodcurdling scream of terror, but a single, guttural grunt was all my rigid body could muster. There was no air in my lungs to expel.
Ramayah began to pull me towards him. His grip was strong and unyielding. I slid down the bed towards him.
“I need you,” he said in Vonvalt’s voice.
Heinrich was barking still. The screaming gave way to a pounding sound. It was like listening to the heartbeat of the earth.
Suddenly the blood was draining away. Ramayah’s grip on me relaxed. In the distance, I heard the caw of a rook. I saw many things; a two-headed snake; Lady Karol Frost; a man tied to a stake in a wildflower meadow, flames licking at his feet.
There was a flash of golden light. I saw a city of gold under a fast blue sky. A statue of a deer-headed woman.
Ramayah withdrew. The door burst open. Heinrich launched in, barking madly and frothing at the mouth. He ran to the end of the chamber where Ramayah had first appeared and agitated madly at invisible interlopers. Several Imperial Guardsmen including Captain Rainer followed him in, swords drawn.
“Helena!” Rainer shouted. “Are you all right? We heard screaming.”
I shook my head, stupefied. “It was not me. It was not my screaming,” I said. For some reason it felt important to clarify, though when I said the words, my throat was raw, as though I had indeed been screaming at the very top of my lungs.
The three Guardsmen overturned the chamber anyway, opening drawers, wardrobes, even looking under the bed as though I were a frightened child. Of course there was nothing. No Ramayah, no blood. Just a nightmare. They were constant now, and so real.
But just a nightmare.
“Sir Konrad has asked for you,” Rainer said, striding across the chamber. “A great host has arrived from the north. We are to have a council of war this morning.”
My features creased in confusion. I had only turned in perhaps five or ten minutes before.
“It is still night-time, is it not? I have only just gone abed.”
Rainer threw open the heavy curtains, filling the chamber with grey light.
“Nay; ’tis dawn, milady. And the pagans are arrived.”
XXVI
An Alliance of Convenience
“A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
SOVAN PROVERB
I could not help but feel a thrill of excitement as I watched the procession pass beneath the Wolf Gate. I exchanged a glance with Captain Rainer. I do not know what honey Sir Radomir had poured into the ears of the Hauners, but whatever he was being paid, it wasn’t enough. The lords of the north had turned out in force.
At the head of the column was Duke Hofmann himself, the foremost Lord of the Hauner Vale. His device was three honeybees against a purple shield, which was being carried by a retainer to his right. Immediately behind Duke Hofmann was Count Maier von Oldenburg, surrounded by his own men, and behind him the first of the lords I recognised, the blond-haired and blond-bearded Baron Hangmar, who had answered Vonvalt’s frantic summons for help in Galen’s Vale.
All of these men were riding armoured and caparisoned warhorses, as were the retainers around them, so that a huge clattering rumble echoed off the flagstones of the high-way. The colours, too, were extraordinary, bold reds, yellows, greens, blues, purples, whites and blacks, intricate heraldic devices, expensive polished plate armour, fine destriers with plaited manes and glossy coats. This was not the brutal functionality of a Legion on the march, where armour was packed away in strongboxes on wagons and horses were given as little weight to carry as possible. This was a display of force and pageantry and confidence as much as anything else. It was a stroke of genius, for the watching commonfolk let up great rapturous cries and the mood in the city was lifted immediately.
Following the Hauner lords and their retinues came the pagan leaders: Lady Frost, Kunagas Ulrich, a sizeable Draedist life guard, and Captain Llyr ken Slaineduro, as well as her own life guard of Brigalanders. In fact it was easy to miss them; the Hauners and their martial ostentation were sucking up all of the attention in the same way a fire drinks all of the air in a room. Captain Llyr looked like a man-at-arms; Lady Frost could have been just about anyone, perhaps a private matria that the more pious lords liked to keep on retainer.
They headed directly for the palace, and I watched the long tail of soldiers follow them through the gate: not just the armed peasantry, auxiliaries and men-at-arms of the Sovans, but thousands of pagans too. Behind them there were more, a further mass of men and women shepherding a vast number of horses, donkeys and oxen who in turn pulled wagons piled high with food, armour and weapons. They moved straight down the Baden High-Way, to the Nastjan Fields staging area in the southern closure of the city.
“Come,” Captain Rainer said, unable to keep the optimism from her voice as she drank in the procession of soldiers. “The Lord Regent is waiting for us inside.”
The strategium was too small to accommodate everybody, and the Hall of Solitude had effectively become a secondary barracks, too open and too filled with Imperial Guardsmen and their equipment. We therefore set up in what had once been a private dining chamber for the Emperor, a large, bright, rectangular room which overlooked the Wolf Gate. In here, heavy mahogany tables were dragged across expensive rugs and boards until a cluster of them made a rough square in the centre of the hall, around which was placed every available chair. In an adjacent kitchen, Vonvalt bade cooks to prepare a light meal, and it was not long before large flagons of ale and wine and dozens of Sovan tankards rendered from ceramic and pewter thumped down in great quantities.
Lady Frost and her pagan associates sat quietly. Hived off from their army, I expected they were actually intimidated by these rambunctious Sovan lords, all of whom made a great display of hugging one another and clapping each other roughly on the shoulders, shaking hands and forearms and making great exclamations of mirth. I myself was clapped on the shoulder a few times by Baron Hangmar, though he might as well have punched me.
Everybody smelt like the road; horses and dogs, mud and muck, hastily consumed victuals, body odour, damp hauberks and oiled mail. The room was so full of heraldry it was like wandering past one of those little pennant stalls that abutted the Arena on games day.
The conversation continued whilst servants fetched maps down from the strategium, until Vonvalt called for order and the hall felt silent.
I studied those around the table. Opposite me and at the far end was Lady Karol Frost, her chief shaman Kunagas Ulrich, and the Brigalander and general of the pagan army, Captain Llyr. Next to her was Sir Gerold Bertilo, and next to him were several Hauners in Legionary colours whom I did not recognise. To my right were the three Hauner lords, Duke Hofmann, Count Maier and Baron Hangmar, whilst opposite them to my left were several more Legionary captains and Sir Radomir. Rounding out the count was a pair of Haugenate senators, and Valter Lončar, who was the most senior ranking Templar from the Order of Saint Saxanhilde, Severina von Osterlen’s order and the only remaining loyalist Templars in the city.
Finally, the head of the table, there was Vonvalt, Captain Rainer, and of course, myself.
“Thank you,” Vonvalt said, standing. It seemed strange to see him out of his armour, for he had taken to wearing the Imperial Guard cuirass and heavy white cloak that had fast become the symbol of his Regency. “Thank you for coming here. For listening to Sir Radomir and my entreaties. For trusting me, and my judgement. For taking the threat seriously. For the longest time I was myself blind to the danger that Bartholomew Claver posed to this Empire. Now I have seen – many times – the great evil he is capable of.”
“Before we go any further, Sir Konrad,” Lord Hofmann said. He was a sour, red-faced man, the oldest at the table by some considerable margin, and not someone I would have taken as a natural ally of Vonvalt. “There is the question of the Emperor to address.”
A murmur of grumbled agreement went up from the other Hauners and Legionaries around the table.
“I have deposed the Emperor,” Vonvalt said simply.
Various noises were produced, most some degree of incredulous. “By what authority?” Hofmann asked.
“Not authority, my lord. Obligation. The obligation of any Sovan citizen to preserve the realm and all its holdings and persons. The Emperor is not himself. His mental faculties are much diminished. I have good reason to believe that the enemy has penetrated his mind and turned it inwards. When I arrived in Sova, I found it in disarray. Mlyanars and rogue elements of the Imperial Guard had attempted a coup, which the Emperor had done almost nothing to detect, avoid and combat. It was clear to me that extreme measures were necessary to preserve the Sovan state. And the holdings of those who owe it their allegiance,” he added pointedly.
Hofmann grumbled. He gestured roughly to Lady Karol Frost. “‘Extreme measures’ is the right phrase. You have forced me and my lords—” he gestured to Count Maier and Baron Hangmar, the former who nodded his agreement vigorously, the latter remaining impassive “— to tolerate – nay, accommodate – those who but several weeks ago we would have been moving to crush.”
“Vi estus provinta,” Captain Llyr muttered.
“What was that?” Lord Hofmann demanded, but the Brigalander simply offered him a sarcastic smile.
“Lady Frost and her host are here at my invitation,” Vonvalt said. “I know that for centuries we have considered the Draedists of the Northmark and beyond to be our natural enemies, but together we all have an enemy in Bartholomew Claver. It has taken a great deal of foresight and level-headedness for you all to have come here in the spirit of alliance, and I – and the commonfolk of the Empire, certainly – are grateful for that.”
“As well you should be. There are plenty more who did not answer the call,” Hofmann grumbled. “And you,” he said, now addressing the two Haugenate senators at the table. “You are fine with this arrangement?”
Both of these carefully selected and positioned political allies inclined their head. One of them said, “Kardas gero žmogaus rankoje,” an old proverb which translated as “A sword in hand of a good man.”
Hofmann rolled his eyes. “He has the Imperial Guard, and now the city is his. It is like Valentina’s Rebellion all over again.”
“Peace, my lord. Sir Konrad answers to none of us. To the contrary. He is a Justice,” Baron Hangmar said.
“Was,” Hofmann groused. “I see the Grand Lodge is burned. And neither hair nor hide of another Justice. Or is Sir Konrad the Magistratum as well as the Emperor? Perhaps we should make him the Senate, too. Seems to me we have simply traded the risk of one dictator for the reality of another.”
There was silence. Hofmann had gone too far, and he knew it, judging by his expression. I knew that his comment about the absence of other Justices would especially have stung Vonvalt given the purge of the Magistratum he had led in weeks gone by.
“Are you finished?” Vonvalt asked.
Hofmann mumbled something. Vonvalt decided to leave the matter there.
“The fact of the matter is, the Empire is in a precarious position. The Legions have struggled to find success along the Kova. I have sent instructions for every garrison to be abandoned and for every Legion to return to the capital as quickly as possible, but—”
“You have not had the news?” Baron Hangmar asked. The way he said it made my blood surge.
“What news?” Vonvalt demanded, his temper flaring, both at the interruption and in anticipation of more bad tidings.
“More of a rumour than news. The Prince Tasa is killed at Reussberg. Word is by the Lady Iliyana herself, though personally that is a little neat for my blood.”
“A bard’s fancy,” Maier agreed idly.
Vonvalt gritted his teeth. “When did this take place?”
“A week ago perhaps? The talk in Wolfenshut was that the whole Confederation was on the move. Reussberg has fallen, as has Kolstadt and Kovaburg. Blackpowder, vast quantities of it detonated in a rash of attacks all up the length of the river.”
“There was talk of a Kovan host east of Haugenstadt,” Maier added.
Hangmar nodded. “Aye. We had thought to stay in Wolfenshut for another few days, for Baron Mlakar said there was another hundred coming from Zlatkosberg, but we left immediately when we heard. There will be some Legionaries cutting down from the north-east, but they could well be overrun en route.” Hangmar looked apologetic. “Just to throw another few troubles on to the pile.”
“They do not wield the arcana.” Everybody turned. It was Lady Frost who had spoken. “The walls of Sova can hold them. They cannot hold Claver. He remains our primary concern.”
Vonvalt nodded along at this piece of wisdom, even though his expression was darkened by the news of an assault from the east. I knew his thoughts had immediately turned to von Osterlen and the raid she was orchestrating with the Grasvlaktekraag. That had always been a desperate throw of the dice, but nonetheless I felt as though we had all come to rely on it as a fait accompli.
“Were there any other rumours? Anything to do with Kasar?” Vonvalt asked.
Hangmar shook his head without even considering the matter for a moment. “No.”
“Why would there be a rumour about Kasar?” Hofmann asked sharply, but Vonvalt did not answer. Instead, he let out a long sigh.
“We are living in dangerous times,” Vonvalt said. “You must have many questions.”
“Not least about the arcana,” Hofmann grumbled. “It is being said that this Neman, ‘Claver’, is able to compel people in the same way a Magistrate could. That he has some other dark sorceries under his belt. What was it you were telling me?” he asked Hangmar directly. “That he can move people with his mind alone?”
Hangmar nodded. “It happened in the Vale of Galen. After Westenholtz and his insurrection.”
“Damn that man,” Hofmann muttered. “He always was such a sour cunt.”
The irony of that statement coming from a man as disagreeable as Duke Hofmann seemed to be lost on him. Still, he had come, and he had come with an army. It was more than most. Vonvalt could weather a great deal of surliness if the ultimate outcome was compliance.
“We do not know precisely what powers he has managed to acquaint himself with. But I do know that Helena managed to curtail them by burning the old lore in Keraq.”
“That was well done, milady,” Hofmann said to me.
I inclined my head in thanks. I was grateful for the compliment, but all I could think about were the demons and the death of Bressinger.
“What can he do, then? Aside from this… psychic battery?” Hofmann asked.
“He can wield the Emperor’s Voice. With it, he can compel a man to disarm himself. He has taught this power to a great many of his acolytes, too, and I expect these warrior priests will be in abundance in the Templar vanguard.”
“Put the Imperial Guard in our van,” Hofmann said dismissively. “They are trained to withstand the Voice, are they not?”
Captain Rainer nodded. “We are.”
“What else has Claver acquainted himself with? What is to stop us feathering him from the walls at a hundred paces?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Vonvalt said dourly, immune to optimism. In truth, though, I was taking some comfort from the old duke’s aggressive confidence. “Unfortunately, he is able to shield himself. It is as though he has a second suit of armour on, an inch thick and made of air as hard as iron.”
“Hm. That’s no fun,” Hofmann said, sounding a little incredulous in spite of the circumstances.
“It gets worse. Claver is able to create thralls. Demonic thralls. He vacates a person of their spiritual matter and then allows an entity of great strength and malevolence to possess them. So harnessed, they make formidable fighters.”
There was a tense silence. I looked up to see Lady Frost looking at me. She had a peculiar look in her eye.
“Prince of Blood—” Hofmann swore, but I cut across him.
“Please don’t say that,” I said quietly.
The duke gave me a quizzical look. “Eh?”
Vonvalt shot me an irritated glance.
“Ŝi finfine vidis lin,” Lady Frost said. There was sympathy in her voice. Next to her, Kunagas Ulrich nodded his agreement. His expression was pained. Even Captain Llyr looked sympathetic. It was funny how in a room full of fellow Sovans, it was this odd coven of Draedists in the corner whom I felt the closest connexion with, even when I could not understand them.
