A Sliver of Redemption (14 page)

John crossed his arms and leaned back into the corner.

“How far are you willing to go?” he asked the assassin.

Deathmask looked down at Veliana’s battered form, and he remembered his friends, the twins, who had died during Melorak’s victorious assault.

“As far as my life will take me,” he said. “You all must remember, we won’t be heroes. No one will remember our names. If we’re lucky, Antonil will show up, retake allegiance of the Mordan soldiers, and then crush this new priest-king dead. Until then, we starve them. We bleed them. We take their coin and bloody their noses. They’ve cowed the citizenry. We need to make them angry! Fire and hunger are our weapons now. And if any of you here aren’t willing to give up everything, and I mean
everything
, to free this city from Karak’s rule, then I suggest you leave right now and never let me see your face again, because the next time you see mine, it’ll be covered with ash.”

“We fight for our survival,” Bernard said, standing and helping Veliana to her feet. Already her skin looked healthier, and the shaking of her hands had finally stopped. “Deathmask, you yearn for the bloodshed and destruction, but we are not the same. You are right, but I ask that we ensure our victims are only those sworn to Karak. I will not aid you in slaughtering innocents.”

“There are no innocents in this war,” Deathmask nearly snarled.

“Maybe so,” Bernard said. His shoulders sagged, and he looked as if he bore a great burden. “But I still want you to try.”

“So be it.” Deathmask turned to Dagan. “Send your mercenaries to the Great Fields. They’re harvesting the grain to feed his army massing north of the city. Burn the fields to the ground.”

He shot a look at John, who sighed, then nodded.

“Burn everything,” the lord said. “And may Ashhur have mercy on us all.”

Deathmask laughed.

“Mercy,” he said. “I’ve fallen in the company of fools. John, I assume you were paid a pittance when your lands were stolen from you? Take it and start distributing it among the poor under the condition they buy food and only food.”

“What for?”

“When the fields burn, Melorak will need to obtain food from elsewhere. I want every spare loaf in the hands of Mordeina’s people. If we’re lucky, he’ll get desperate and try to take it from them. Either that, or he buys it back, otherwise his army starves. No matter his choice, we win.”

“You ask me to bankrupt myself,” said John.

“No heroes, remember?”

“Already you burn my fields, and now ask for all my wealth? You’re doing a better job destroying me than the priest-king.”

“Quit complaining,” Dagan said. “You think I haven’t spent every coin I have keeping the mercenaries?”

“I have nothing left,” Hocking said. “My house guards stay with me out of loyalty and a hope for revenge. At least you might one day retake your fields. Karak’s priests have my fortune.”

Lord Ewes threw up his hands in surrender. “So be it. This better work, rogue.”

“Night will soon be over,” Bernard said, ending the taut silence that had followed. “I will pray for your safety. Return to your homes. I will send a messenger for when we are to meet again. Go with Ashhur’s blessing.”

One by one the men left, until only Bernard, Deathmask, and Veliana remained in the cellar.

“You need to learn how to speak with subtlety and kindness,” Bernard said, sitting back down and leaning against the wall. He let out a grunt of displeasure as his back popped. “These men are scared and desperate. Every day Karak’s priests whisper in their ears, promising their wealth returned a hundredfold if they prove their loyalty and devotion.”

“This is no time for childish handholding,” Deathmask said. “We are at war, and they need to learn that.”

Veliana tapped him on the shoulder, then tilted her head back and made a drinking motion with her hand.

“Do you have any wine or water?” he asked Bernard.

“Up the stairs,” the priest said. “What few stores we have are in a cupboard to your left.”

Deathmask left and came back with a wineskin. Veliana guzzled it down, even though she winced and clearly fought against the pain in her throat.

“This is some rebellion,” Deathmask said, plopping down atop a stool. “Burning the fields will hurt them, but he won’t disband the army. Melorak’s been kind so far to the general populace, but I fear that will end soon enough. They’ll pillage and tax like never before. We’re about to make a lot of people unhappy on both sides. Are you sure your…fragile sensibilities will endure this? These are not times for grace and forgiveness, only blood and ash.”

Bernard closed his eyes, losing himself in his memories.

“When Karak’s army stormed the walls, my priests and I did our best to fend off the undead emerging through the tunnels. When the bulk of the army was trapped atop the walls, I sent my followers after them in hopes of freeing the soldiers so they might fight. Alone, I hurried to the queen, fearful of what her advisor, a priest of Karak named Hayden, might do. I arrived too late. Melorak and his priests were already there, singing Karak’s praises. My beloved queen was dead. They scattered her ashes across the steps. As for my brethren, Karak’s priests covered their heads with tar and put them atop spikes throughout the city.”

He opened his eyes and looked at Deathmask.

“I am ready to do whatever must be done. I can endure no worse a day than that, hiding like a coward while my friends were tortured and killed.”

Veliana knelt beside him, tapped her throat, then tapped his heart.

‘Thank you’ she mouthed.

“You will regain your voice in a few days,” he told her, trying to smile. “Until then, you may stay down here and rest. I have cast many protections, and if this Haern is undead, he will burst into flame should he take a single step into the cellar.”

They piled up pillows, and then Deathmask wrapped her in a blanket after she lay down. It wasn’t long until she slept, unable to fight off her exhaustion. He kissed her forehead, then headed for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Bernard asked.

“After today, I really need a drink.”

“Drinking’s illegal now. You know that right?”

Deathmask chuckled, then outright laughed.

“Then I’ll drink twice as much,” he said. “Fuck this priest-king and his laws. It’s time we showed him the world isn’t ready to roll over and die.”

12

T
essanna watched the forest burn and cried.

“I know,” said Velixar, standing beside her. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

The smoke clogged the air for miles, blotting out the sky in a gray and black plume. Everywhere she looked she saw fire. The red haze made her feel trapped in a nightmare, one she could never wake from. She wore a sparkling red dress, her hair long and carefully cut. Velixar’s dead queen, she’d begun calling herself. The bride of a corpse. Romance of the grave.

“Here come the elves,” said a war demon standing beside them. He carried two flags, and he raised the red one above his head and then took flight. In response, a great patrol on horseback turned toward them, having ridden along the Erze Forest’s edge waiting for the counterattack. They were over four-hundred in number, men that had bowed their knee at Felwood. Tessanna hoped the elves would see this and flee, but instead they raced out of the burning trees with their swords drawn. A single thin line of undead stood in their way, but Velixar appeared unworried.

The elves cut through the undead and continued on, but the distance was too great. The horsed archers unleashed their barrage. The first of many arrows landed, and then they fell like rain. Ten elves died, their corpses trampled as the archers rode across them before looping around in search of more targets.

Still Tessanna cried.

Thulos’s plan had been simple. They’d scattered out along the forest’s edge for several miles, then sent a thousand undead carrying torches in a single wave. The elves stopped many, but not all, and throughout the day war demons had flung pitch and torches from above. They’d started early in the morning, and after a day they’d burned hundreds of miles. As night approached, the fire only grew, devouring more and more of the forest. The elves couldn’t fire their arrows due to the inferno between them and their enemy, and their swords meant nothing to the flying war demons and the patrolling archers on horseback.

“Look,” Velixar said, pointing to the south-west. “Do you see the clouds? What spellcasters the elves have must be creating rainfall to protect Nellassar. The distance is too great, though, and they have too few. The fire will curl about them and destroy their great city. So beautiful. Tell me, Tessanna, does the goddess weep for the death of her children?”

“Mother doesn’t speak to me anymore,” Tessanna replied.

“A shame.” Velixar smiled in the abyssal light and enjoyed the burning. “Perhaps your goddess is dead, and this night, we strangle the last remnants of her life.”

Tessanna didn’t answer. She only watched as yet another part of the world died.

T
hulos’s forces followed the forest to the south, rekindling fires where they dwindled and setting flames anew when they curled around the lower segments that had been beyond their original formation. They kept the task of burning to the undead, unwilling to sacrifice any fighting soldiers or demons to the suicidal task. After that first day, no elves dared attack. Velixar was certain they’d retreated back to their capital, and told Tessanna so. She said not a word back.

“I believe Jerico tried this trick on you,” Karak’s prophet said when he realized she was staying silent. “I don’t remember it working too well for him.”

Tessanna smiled bitterly.

They marched amid the thousands of troops taken from Felwood. Thulos had given Velixar command of them all, which he took to with eager joy. Before any drills or sparring, he enforced ritual prayers to Karak. The vast bulk said them without truthfulness or feeling, but he knew the frailty of men. Given time, they’d believe what they thought were lies. Given time, their souls would belong to Karak.

The collective army of Thulos halted for two days when it reached an ancient wall of rocks barely knee high, which marked the entrance into the Ramere. Tessanna was kept away from the proceedings, but Velixar always told her what transpired afterward. She couldn’t decide if he was hoping to win her over with honesty and conversation, or if he were simply so confident of their success he wanted to gloat before it even transpired.

“The lords of Angelport have prepared for our arrival,” Velixar told her the second night. “Thulos isn’t happy that Ulamn left them alone the first time we travelled west, but never mind that. They cannot defend their lands against us. Have you ever been to Angelport, Tess?”

They sat beside a fire that seemed to offer her no warmth. She shook her head and scooted so close her toes were nearly in the flame.

“I have, back when their majestic ships were nothing but tiny little toys rowed by children. A great city, with many walls that stretch even into the water. There is but a single gate, not that it will slow us any. Wings and magic so ruin a lengthy siege…”

He stopped and stood.

“You still won’t talk?” he asked. She kept her eyes down, her arms wrapped about her knees. “I thought so. You need a lesson, Tessanna. I am not surprised at your strength, but I thought in time you would have seen the truth in this life, the honor in our conquest. But it appears I must break you like I would break a mule.”

Velixar walked to the nearest fire, one chosen at random from the hundreds that dotted the hillside. He came back with a rough looking man, his hair unevenly cut and half his teeth were missing when he smiled nervously at the two of them.

“Are you sure?” the man asked Velixar, who nodded. The soldier loosened his belt and took a step closer. “I’m a lucky man.”

“That you are,” said Velixar.

He knelt down beside Tessanna and moved to kiss her. When she pushed back, he laughed and grabbed her wrists. He was a big man, much bigger than her. She shrieked and clawed, but he held firm, and then his weight was atop her. When he let go of one hand to pull down his pants she slashed his face. In return, he struck her again and again, beating her chest and bloodying her nose. His forearm crushed her larynx, and she gasped for air as he pushed himself inside. He started out slow, then sped up, laughing and cussing as he held her down. At last he slowed, and he climbed off while trying to reattach his buckle.

“A pretty lass, but a bit loose,” he said.

“Return to your tent,” Velixar said. Tessanna lay on her back, her clothes in disarray. She kept her knees pressed tightly together, and they rocked left to right as if she were trying to force out the vile seed spent within her.

Karak’s prophet knelt beside her and whispered into her ear.

“Every night I will find another. You know the diseases of men. Soon you will ache and blister and rot from within. No more silence. No more withering at my touch. My bride, or the army’s whore. Choose.”

She looked up at him, her face wet with tears.

“I’d rather be a whore.”

Velixar stepped back and frowned.

“I make no idle threats,” he said. “This is no lie. Every night, another man.”

“And every night I’ll thank Celestia that man is not you.”

He kicked the fire, scattering it dead.

“Sleep well,” he told her, seeking solitude for his prayers. She watched him go, and she did pray to Celestia, the first time since her childhood. Anything, she prayed, she’d do anything to have her power to crush Velixar and scatter his ashes to the far corners of the world.

Instead she fell asleep a cold, scared, powerless woman.

T
he next night, and every night after on the march to Angelport, Velixar kept his word.

T
he army pillaged as they traveled south-east to the coast, following the trade routes beaten into the hills from hundreds of years of wagons and merchants. Sometimes they’d send out squads to search further off the trail for more food. The delays and distractions made Velixar wish for the days when his army had been purely of the dead. Perhaps they lacked skill in fighting, but at least they didn’t have to eat, or sleep, or waste precious energy fooling around with the steadily growing trail of camp followers. He’d nearly killed all the women, but Thulos ordered him to let them live. He seemed confident the constant rutting like animals would keep their nerves cooled and his men’s tempers down.

They encountered the first few scouts as they neared Angelport, but before any could flee for safety, Thulos’s advance patrols swooped down behind and took their lives. Unencumbered and with clear weather, they camped a mere day away to plan their attack.

“Thulos has kept his plan to himself,” Velixar said as he started a fire and tossed Tessanna a scrap of bread. A red-bearded soldier was with him, and he leered at her hungrily. “Keep her company while I am away.”

“Will do,” said the soldier.

“What’s your name?” Tessanna asked, nibbling on the food as if not the least bit worried or upset.

“Robbie.” He crossed his arms and admired her form. From his vantage point she knew he could see straight down her shirt, and his pants bulged in appreciation. “Robbie the horse.”

“They say that because you’re smart?” she asked.

“You wish. You’ll find out, girlie. That creepy man said I have all night, and I plan to use it.”

Tessanna smiled at him.

“Touch me and I’ll cut your manhood off.”

“That so?” Robbie laughed. “How about you watch your mouth unless you want some black eyes and bruises to pretty up that face of yours? He didn’t say nothing about being nice to you or leaving no marks.”

“Beat me all you want,” she said. “But rape me and I’ll cut it off. Horsie.”

“That’s enough!”

He backhanded her. His knuckles bled from her teeth. Her smile seemed to grow at his anger.

“I’ve had worse than you,” she said. “I’ve been fucked by six men at once, all while they beat me to make me scream. What are you? What does your tiny little prick matter to me? Listen to me closely, Robbie. You can tell the others what a great time you had, tell them I moaned like a virgin, but you won’t touch me again. Now leave.”

But Robbie didn’t appear to have any intentions of leaving. His face flushed red, and he sucked his bleeding knuckles while wearing an expression more appropriate for an animal than a man.

“You think you’re tough, bitch?” he asked her. “You see any around to help you? Any to save you? Take off your dress and maybe I’ll play nice.”