The Trials of Empire, page 9
We did not have to wait long. Vonvalt did not close the door to our little subdivision of the hold, to give the Kasari boarders plenty of time to see that we were not a threat. It was a good idea, though in the event it made little difference.
“Peace! Peace!” Vonvalt shouted as the Kasar approached, four burly wolfmen who had to stoop under the low beams of the hold. We all held our hands out, and I can only imagine how we must have looked. Few things on the mortal plane truly frightened Vonvalt, and von Osterlen’s physical courage was beyond question. But in those awful moments, the stink of fear was tangible.
I could not help but cry out as the Kasar burst into the chamber. I gripped two fistfuls of the back of von Osterlen’s surcoat. Every muscle in my body tensed as I waited to be cut down by one of those cruel-looking scimitars.
“Peace!” Vonvalt continued to shout, standing perfectly still with his hands out. The Kasar reared over him, easily seven feet tall. Already it seemed to hesitate. “Peace!” Vonvalt implored one last time. “Gods, please!”
The wolfman regarded him for a few long, excruciating moments; then, vexed, it growled, grabbed him roughly, and dragged him out of the chamber.
“No!” von Osterlen shouted, putting both arms behind her to try and protect me; but she too was grabbed by her surcoat and yanked after Vonvalt, leaving me alone in her wake.
I shrank back into the boards of the hold, putting some distance between myself and these lupine interlopers; but it was instinct more than anything, and completely pointless. I closed my eyes as a third Kasar lurched forward and plucked me off my feet, and slung me over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
And then, like the others, I was carried off the ship and into the light.
The wolfman’s shoulder dug painfully into my gut as I was carried along the wharf. Ahead, I could see von Osterlen being similarly lugged. She appeared to have taken a knock to the mouth, for she periodically spat a gob of blood on the hot stones of the dockside. She did not meet my gaze.
We were taken down a wide, flagstoned boulevard which ran adjacent to one of the many branches of the Yaro. Here, dozens of Kasar, as well as Qareshians, Southern Plainsmen and the odd sun-reddened Sovan, gathered at the edges of the road to watch this shabby procession. There was an undeniable air of hostility. The Kasar growled and howled angrily in the same way a plains wolf would, whilst those humans present offered much more readable expressions, ranging from sympathy, to indifference, to contempt.
On we went. Sweat dribbled from my forehead and stung my eyes. I was wearing clothes appropriate for the Hauner spring and the cold mountains of Hasse, but the stifling heat of Port Talaka was something else. Never before had I experienced such clammy, sultry weather, as though the air was twice as heavy here. It was making me feel lightheaded and nauseous.
We were taken into a wide open space. Here were stone plinths and statues of colourful snarling beasts and intricate geometric patterns cut into the flagstones and distant encircling walls. Shades of dusty red and yellow were in abundance. There were more Kasar, too, and Plainsmen, and I thought the place must have been some sort of market, though if it was, then this was not a market day.
I was taken across the length of this space, and then my captor began to ascend a set of stone steps.
“No,” I croaked through dry lips. We were ascending the side of one of the large temples I had seen on our way into port. Blood was very clearly visible on the stones underfoot, and not just crusts of old, desiccated brown, but fresh wet crimson too. I craned my neck to identify its source, and saw, strung up on wooden armatures at regular intervals either side of the steps, human bodies clothed in the unmistakable livery of the Savaran Templars.
I let out a groan of dismay. The Templars were in a sorry state. Some of the corpses were old and had shrivelled in the punishing heat of the sun. Others were fresh, and were still being worried at by meat-eating birds. Few were whole. Throats cut, limbs missing, eyes and tongues and hearts removed. Theirs had been bad deaths.
I realised with a sour jolt what was happening. The Kasar thought we were Templars. We were about to suffer the same dismal fate as these brutalised men.
I slouched back down over the wolfman’s shoulder. Weak, roasting in my hot clothes, confused and frightened, all hope left me.
We reached the top of the stepped pyramid. At its peak it was surprisingly spacious, and housed an ornate construction of stone and timber which looked like a temple of some kind. From the pyramid’s apex I was afforded an extraordinary view of Port Talaka, a remarkable city which seemed to have been built around, and in competition with, the many distributaries of the Yaro Delta.
I would have traded anything to linger for a while longer, to take in the view, to have some water, to strip out of my hot clothes. Dying was one thing, but dying wretchedly was another entirely. Indeed, our end was going to be particularly unimpressive. In spite of the awesome setting, few had gathered in the square below. They watched us with something approaching indifference, and I wondered how many people had been killed here to arouse such a muted reaction from the commonfolk.
“Please!” Vonvalt was shouting, his voice hoarse. “Let them go! It is me the Emperor is after! My retainers had nothing to do with it! Anything they did was at my command! Release them! I am the only one you want! No one else need die here today, I beg of you!”
He continued on like this. It was clear he considered that word of his disavowal had reached the Kyarai, and that the Kasar – being allies of the Autun – had taken it upon themselves to execute him. But the Kasar either did not understand Saxan, or they did not care. Either way, they ignored him. Still, I was grateful for the attempt.
Vonvalt, von Osterlen and I were wrestled into a corner and forced on to the floor. A moment later, a Savaran Templar was produced from within the structure behind, his face so savagely beaten that his eyes were swollen shut. I almost felt sorry for him as he was manhandled to a stone block and manacled to it. He struggled weakly – though he might as well have been pulling against the roots of a mountain.
We were all shouting now. Even though the man was a Templar and therefore our sworn enemy, it felt very quickly as though we had gone from the forces of secularism versus the forces of religion, to humans versus wolfmen. We begged and pleaded for the man to be released, but we might as well have been begging the sun not to rise. The Kasar nearest the Templar, a black-coated wolfman who wore what looked to be a number of tokens of office – including a breastplate of finely wrought steel – spoke a few guttural words, raised his sword, and beheaded the captive in one swift, brutal chop.
We all fell silent, each of us wretched and stunned. The crowd below let out a desultory cheer as the Templar’s head was thrown down the steps, spinning hair and blood as it tumbled like a loosed cartwheel.
Next to me, von Osterlen quietly prayed for the man’s soul.
Another man was brought forth, another Templar, raving so violently that something ruptured in his throat and gave his voice a peculiar breathy, high-pitched quality.
“Father Claver save me!” were his final words. He was wrestled on to the stone tablet and killed.
I sat in a daze, watching fresh blood cascade down the side of the execution slab. “I can’t believe this is it,” I murmured. The second Templar’s head was tossed aside with such callous disregard that I found my choler rising. The sense of injustice was sudden, incredible and overwhelming. We had done nothing – nothing – and yet here we were being murdered, one by one, as a matter of public spectacle.
My anger boiled over. “Prince of Hell, stop!” I suddenly raged at the Kasar. I found myself, as often happened in these situations, reverting back to the person I had been in Muldau. “How… dare you do this! By what right?!” I demanded.
I achieved nothing except marking myself out as the next victim.
My blood pounded in my ears – blood that would soon be coating the temple steps – as the Kasar grabbed me by my upper arms and pulled me effortlessly over to the stone table. It looked for all the world like a Neman altar. The body of the second Templar had been removed and placed to one side, to be later skewered on a pole like a rotisserie chicken and set in its bracket on the stone steps beneath.
I was too dazed even to scream. We had been in the Kyarai for less than an hour, and here we were, about to be killed. I could not comprehend it. I felt Templar blood soak into my hair as the manacles were affixed around my wrists and ankles. I looked over to Vonvalt and saw him raging with such violent effort that for a few moments I thought he might actually break free. But even if he did, what then? They would cut him down in an instant. The wolfmen stood seven feet tall. They wouldn’t even need swords to do it.
I found myself looking up at a hazy yellow sky, my breath rasping in my throat. The black-coated Kasar stood above me, sword in hand, the armoured segmenta of his breastplate clattering together as he raised his weapon.
I was too dazed to be angry, now, too numb with incomprehension. But I was so weary of everything, of all that had led to this point – the fighting, the constant fear, the crushing weight of our mission – that it almost felt like relief. I did not close my eyes, or shirk from the blade. The only thing that frightened me was knowing that this was not the end.
The scimitar came whistling down—
VII
Empire of the Wolfmen
“To hear the people of Sova speak of Sova you would think it was the only place on the mortal plane worth existing in.”
MIROSLAVA TADIĆ
The blade deviated at the last moment and slammed into the slab with an almighty clang. A chip of stone, the apex of a triangular carving, shot free like a cannonball and scratched my cheek.
For a moment I thought I had been killed. Vonvalt had told me a story once of a man he had beheaded so cleanly that the eyes within the severed head had looked around desperately for a few moments afterwards. I wondered if I, too, had suffered this grim fate; that the scimitar had sliced my head so neatly from my shoulders that my brain had yet to acknowledge I was dead.
Then I heard a man shouting. It was not Vonvalt, but rather someone more distant. It was coming from the base of the stepped pyramid, that guttural merchants’ creole. The man shouted long and loud, over and over again, and – judging by the steadily increasing volume – he was also approaching, moving up the steps of the pyramid.
I looked over to the edge of the platform. Eventually, the man crested the lip. He had originally been a pale-skinned Sovan, though years of living in the sun-baked Kyarai had turned him a permanent reddish-brown, more akin to von Osterlen’s Estran colouring. He looked to be about ten years Vonvalt’s senior, perhaps even older, his hair bleached a pale golden blond. He wore a knee-length tunic fastened at the waist with a belt, from which hung a Kasari scimitar. Whoever he was, he had embraced the ways of the wolfmen entirely, and they in turn appeared to have embraced him.
He reached the top of the stairs, his hands outstretched in supplication. Sweat dripped freely from him, and he took a few moments to catch his breath. Then he resumed his entreaties, this time more calmly. Those of us that remained – me, Vonvalt and von Osterlen, followed this exchange keenly, though I had no idea what I was listening to. I could pick up the odd word in Saxan, spoken incongruously amongst a torrent of harsh nonsense, but that was all.
What was clear was that he was asking for our lives to be spared. It was also clear that the Kasar, although they were clearly unhappy about it, were acquiescing. However, it was not until two more of the wolfmen appeared at the top of the steps, who looked to be part of some official coterie, that I was unchained and released. Von Osterlen immediately moved forward to help me, whilst Vonvalt closed with this welcome arrival.
“What in the name of Nema is going on?” he demanded. He gestured angrily to the executioners’ block. “We could have been murdered!”
“I will explain everything in a moment,” the man said in a very strangely accented Saxan. He looked flustered. “Come, quickly. We need to get you out of sight.”
We were taken to an ostentatious residence on the outskirts of the city. It was a construction of white stone, with intricate timber facings. We arranged ourselves on a large balcony which sat above an acre of water gardens, too shocked and dazed to do anything except sit and drink from cold, sweating glasses of sweet tea garnished with ice. Beyond the gardens was a large stretch of arable farmland where Kasar wearing broad wicker hats tended to the fields, and through the haze I could see distant fortifications which marked the original southern boundary of Port Talaka.
Eventually our saviour reappeared and sat with us. He had in his hand a letter, which he passed wordlessly to Vonvalt. Vonvalt spent a few moments taking in its contents, before nodding and handing it back.
“You are very lucky this reached me,” the man said. “Very few Imperials will brave the Frontier any more, and fewer still will come by the Jade Sea now that Port Talaka is closed to Sovan shipping.”
Vonvalt removed his outer layers, stripping down to his shirt and breeches. “Sir Anzo Amalric,” he said to the man, and the man inclined his head. “This is my clerk, Helena, and my associate, Margrave Severina von Osterlen.”
We both greeted Sir Anzo. Von Osterlen did so cursorily, though I was still reeling from my experience atop the pyramid, and could not help but thank him over and over again for saving my life.
“I only wish that I could have got there sooner,” Sir Anzo said grimly.
Vonvalt rubbed the sweat from his forehead and eyes. “What happened here?” he asked. “Why were we taken to be killed? Has news of my disavowal reached the Kyarai?”
Sir Anzo shook his head, wincing. “’Tis the fault of the Templars – the Savarans from Zetland and Keraq.” Von Osterlen stirred uncomfortably beside me. “Normally they keep out of the Kyarai, and only trouble to throw themselves at Qaresh. But in recent months they have taken to chipping away at the edges.” Sir Anzo shrugged. “The Kasar have had enough. They have closed the borders to Sova, and they kill every Templar they can get their hands on. I’m sorry to say that that includes anyone who looks like a Templar, even if they are not one.”
“You mean we nearly lost our lives due to a misunderstanding?” Vonvalt asked bitterly.
Sir Anzo was not put out by Vonvalt’s confrontational tone. “I suspect so. Though I am surprised they took you to the mordplaak straight away. Did you do anything to antagonise them?”
“Our shipmaster and his crew panicked after they had strung the tow lines. They tried to cut themselves free.”
“That will be it, then,” Sir Anzo said.
Vonvalt scoffed. “It hardly warrants a death sentence.”
Sir Anzo nodded. “I agree. But the Kasar are sick to their back teeth of Templar raids, and of Sova herself. These days it takes but an ember to touch off the barrel.” He gestured to the letter which I guessed – correctly – he had received from Senator Jansen. “You have a difficult task ahead of you.”
“When did these raids begin?” von Osterlen asked quietly.
“I cannot tell you exactly, but they have been going on for some time,” Sir Anzo said. “Like I said, a few months at least.” He seemed to look at her as if suddenly noticing her for the first time. “I have heard of you. You are the Margrave of Südenburg.”
Von Osterlen nodded. “I am not sure I can properly call myself that any more. But yes.”
When she did not continue, Sir Anzo turned back to Vonvalt. “I am sure you have many questions. Come inside, wash, eat, and then we can consider how best to proceed.”
I welcomed the time alone. The experience in the mordplaak had shaken me deeply. I had faced death a number of times in Vonvalt’s service, but there was some quality to death by execution, the combination of anticipation, helplessness, and fear, which when mixed together created a particularly affecting concoction. I found that in the hour or so we were given to bathe and make ourselves decent, I actually sat in a state of near-catatonia, as all the pent-up fear left my system and my nerves unwound.
Eventually, I roused and washed myself in the cool, fragrant water. A servant brought clothes for me, a garment not unlike a kirtle but made of very thin fabric which Sir Anzo had dispatched someone to purchase. The simple process of washing and dressing did a great deal to reset my constitution, and in spite of the morning’s misadventures, I did feel somewhat restored afterwards.
Once I had performed my ablutions I was guided to a dining hall, where platters of food had been set out beneath protective meshes and cloths. Flies were in abundance here, and I watched with fascination as another servant opened a cage and released six tiny lime-green birds into the hall. They immediately made for the rafters, but soon after began to dart down like loosed arrows, snapping the fat black flies out of the air.
“The Kasar call them vliegvangers,” Sir Anzo said from behind me. “Flycatchers. Nema knows you need them in a place like this.”
“What’s a mordplaak?” I asked, reminded of his use of the other Kasari word he’d spoken.
“The pyramid. Once it was a temple, until about a hundred years ago. Now it’s… well, it’s basically the Kasari equivalent of the main watch house in Sova. Who is the sheriff there, by the way? Is it still Keller?”
“Sir Gerold Bertilo,” I said.
Sir Anzo shook his head. “I don’t know him.”
We stood in silence for a moment. “How long have you been here?” I asked him as he moved to join me. He lifted up one of the cloths and began to load a plate with a variety of fresh fruits.
“Oh, much too long,” he said offhandedly. “I came here to squire under Sir Stanislav Perić. Tymoteusz and I were contemporaries. The Empire and the Kasar were much closer under Kzosic III.”
My eyes widened. It seemed impossible to envisage the Empire being helmed by anyone other than Lothar Kzosic IV; but Senator Jansen and Sir Anzo were easily ten or fifteen years older than Vonvalt, and had known a younger, smaller, hungrier empire than I.
