Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (2 page)

Book 03

Tournament

Though the fighting had ended several days previous,
the streets were clogged with soldiers as if the battle still waged.  Many
carried messages while others took inventory of every useful item that had
survived intact.  Buildings were cleared out and warehouses gutted, only to be
filled anew with different stores.  Clusters of cowering natives were rooted
out and tied neck-to-neck with noose ropes to prevent escape.  They were herded
toward an unknown fate down the streets of a city that had once been theirs. 
Very few possessed enough spirit to fight back.

General Adrian Ceylon spared hardly a glance for it
all.  Surrounded by his covey of aides, he waded through the wash of people,
heading for the estate serving as his field headquarters.  Once belonging to a
Tullainian lord or perhaps a king, Adrian had claimed it for his own use now
that this kingdom’s aristocracy fled eastward.

The estate’s tall walls enclosed several wings, a
woodland grove and more gardens than the general cared to waste time counting.
In the center rose the five-story manor in a single-minded display of obscene
wealth.  It was a village unto itself in the city’s heart.  Adrian’s only joy
with it was that the massive walls shut out most of the noise.  His guards
closed the heavy gates behind him and he relished the relative silence for a
moment.

Moments were all he possessed these days.  A new aide
hurried from the main building.  The sheaf of papers in his hand spoke
volumes.  “Is this an emergency?” Adrian demanded when the man slowed for
breath.

The aide blinked at the suggestion there might be
situations other than ‘urgent’ or ‘crisis’.  “Sir, we’ve brought several
captives in for questioning, as you ordered.  I’ve also taken a dispatch from
one of the patrols.  They’ve captured a foreign lord.”

Since I doubt the upper echelon of Arronath is
wandering around this benighted land, what other type of lord would they have
captured?
  Adrian kept the thought
unspoken.  His mood had been sour all day.  “Who?”

“Sir, they couldn’t make anything out.  They’re
bringing him in.  They’ll arrive tonight.”

“Have our damned linguists made any forward progress
yet?”

“No, sir.”

Of course not.  The mongrel barking these Tullainians
thought was a language sounded like storm shutters falling off a window, and
made as much sense.  Hardly any natives spoke Traders Tongue, the few who did
making little sense beyond those who did not.  Generations of severed contact
between their nations had mutated the language so badly it was hardly
recognizable.  These ‘communications specialists’ who spent most of their time
extolling their priceless value to any who would listen were suddenly having to
prove their worth, a task none of them had ever expected to perform.

Just knowing the name of the local language was a
triumph.  In the centuries since contact had been lost, kingdom names and
borders on this continent had shifted.  Shaking an appropriated map under a
merchant’s nose while shouting in Traders had eventually pried loose the
kingdom’s name, Tullainia, but not much else.

He might as well get the current round of questioning
out of the way first.  All his other orders were being carried out.  They would
bear no fruit for hours yet.  “Lead on, then.  Is everything prepared?”

“Yes, sir.”

Once they entered the manor, the aide shifted
functions, becoming the hallway navigator.  Lefts and rights, up stairs and
down, Adrian soon lost all directional sense yet bothered to memorize nothing. 
His aides were purposed with knowing their way around this aspiring palace. 
They needed to work for their pay, same as every other soldier in his army. 
Tasks enough awaited his attention without his wasting time mapping this maze’s
twists and turns.

Eventually they came to a broad double doorway. 
Golden candelabra were strewn across the hall in painted niches, illuminating
expensive furniture and tapestries depicting battle scenes.  Beyond the door
lay a small interior courtyard.  A square pond a foot deep filled the center. 
Forming a second square between the pond and the yard’s walls were numerous
columns.  Thick, gray and supporting nothing, they served no purpose other than
the esthetic.  Potted plants crowded the perimeter to create a semi-convincing
illusion of an exterior glade.

In one corner huddled six men and women, tied together
at the neck with rope and watched over by guards.  The prisoners cringed,
clearly unnerved by the creature in the corner directly opposite them.

A woman in a white robe held a chain connected to an
iron collar.  The collar encircled the neck of a brown Taur.  It concentrated
on its meal, its human-like, furry body crouched in a squat while it gnawed at
the meat.  A flock of sheep had been slaughtered for the Taurs that morning but
the flesh being ripped from the bone by razor-sharp fangs probably looked all
too human to the prisoners.

In a third corner, a man in a black shirt and equally
dark trousers picked over his table.  The small table, like an upended box,
held several gleaming tools.  Even if the prisoners walked away with never a
closer view of the menacing objects, they would, for years after, awaken from
nightmares in a cold sweat with sliver flashes haunting their memories.

Adrian’s steps echoed in the enclosed court.  His
footfalls underscored the wet ripping from the Taur’s meal.  The guard captain
who had been waiting for the general to arrive stepped from the cowed
Tullainians to exchange quiet words.

“Sir, we’ve tried to select the most likely prisoners
for questioning.”

“Good.  I expect you speak Traders?”

“Yes, sir.  I’ve been working with the linguists since
we arrived.  These prisoners all speak Traders as well.  Two of the men were servants
in this estate.  The two women worked for a merchant.  One of the other men was
a different merchant, and the last was a magistrate for his king.”

Adrian studied his prisoners.  All but one man, the
magistrate, wore sashes around their waists and sleeveless overshirts above
their tunics.  Both women wore white cotton breeches that were mostly hidden by
their odd dresses.  They were long-sleeved, falling to the ankle, slit up the
sides to the hip.  Below the thigh, they were basically cloth flaps in front
and back.

Behind Adrian the Taur finished its mutton and threw
the bone, which ricocheted off a column before bouncing into the water.  It
must have been restless because it let out a low roar, soft for a Taur but loud
in this enclosed space.  The controller shook its chain until it settled down. 
New ripping sounds came when it set into a fresh haunch.

The prisoners tried to withdraw further but were
stopped when the guards poked their backs with spear butts.

Adrian addressed them.  “If you answer my questions,
no harm will befall you.”

They looked blank until the captain who spoke Traders
translated.  He spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable to make his words as
clear as he could.  One of the men replied.

“I think he said they don’t know anything we would be
interested in.”

“Tell them that is for me to decide, not them.”  After
the guard translated, Adrian considered his first question.  He had learned
much about interrogation over the years.  These people were innocents,
concerned with their private lives and mostly uninvolved in their kingdom’s
larger affairs.  They would be willing to tell him everything they knew if he
would spare them in return, except the problem was they were convinced they
knew nothing important.  Important information, as often as not, ended up being
the trivial details no one placed value upon, and thus never mentioned without
a direct question.  So focused would they be on dredging up an impressive fact
to satisfy him, these people would charge past the irrelevant facts that were
what Adrian actually needed.

At the moment, his biggest problem was that he had no
clear idea exactly
what
he wanted.  The investigation King Lambert
charged him with remained too general.  Signs relating to the ominous shadow
threatening Arronath’s peace, if there were any signs, might never have been
noticed by these commoners.

One lesson he
had
learned was that when
investigating a possible evil, no matter its nature, rumors and fears among the
locals were usually the best place to start.

“Ask them about any rumors circulating over the past
few years.  I don’t care about who is buying what cow, or how much the price of
a dozen eggs has gone up.  Simply ask about general news that has persisted.”

A nod from his translator, then slow Traders Tongue passed
between them all for several minutes.  Adrian watched his prisoners closely. 
It was satisfying when tiny signs of relaxation began appearing.  The easy
question combined with their jailers’ soft tone sparked in them the hope that
they might survive the day.  Harsh behaviors had been strictly forbidden by
Adrian for this session.  That was why their guards were using the butt of
their spears instead of the points.  He wanted them calm and talking.

But he also wanted them on the edge.  In the face of the
Taur and the Interrogator with his tools of persuasion, they should be eager to
answer questions from friendlier captors.

“They say there was a war between two high-lords about
two years ago.  Nearly the whole kingdom was caught up in it.”

“Anything unusual about it?”

“Both sides mustered a large army and cut each other
up some, but they dispersed when winter came.”

Adrian nodded.  It was the common man’s perspective. 
Obviously there must be more to the story.  He stored the information away. 
“What else?”

“Rumors say another war happened in the neighboring
kingdom, between them and the next kingdom beyond.  Both kingdoms put their
entire armies to field.  Sorry, but I can’t make out the names of the places. 
They did say it was unusual because their neighbor hadn’t been in a serious war
in anybody’s living memory.”

Adrian frowned.  That might be an exaggeration, yet he
cared little for the pattern.  Two kingdom-wide wars involving three kingdoms
on the Merinor continent…at nearly the same time?  Perhaps King Lambert had
surmised correctly.  Perhaps the evil predicted by the seers
was
rooted
in this land, growing and inciting turmoil as it did so.  Greedy men plotting
against the rest of the world if they were lucky.  If not, then what were the
possibilities of something far darker?

“What else?  Anything relevant?”

“Bandits were causing trouble along the roads and a
religious zealot wandered through prophesizing the end of the world, but
nothing else of relevance.”

“A seer?”

“I think so.  The word they used was different.  I
can’t narrow it down beyond that.”

Adrian considered.  “Where is this man?”

The guard spent several moments in Traders before
addressing his general again.  “They say they don’t know.  He was a wanderer
passing through and left shortly before we landed.”

“Get a full description and pass it out to all patrol
units.  I’d like to see this seer who is so free with his visions.  Move on to
the local politics.  Were there any changes before we arrived?”

After a full hour of questioning, Adrian decided the
captives could tell him little else.  One last casual inquiry might reveal
information relevant to his investigation.  Then other matters required his
attention.  When he opened his mouth, the Taur abruptly moved, the scraping of
its clawed toes accompanying the clinking from its chain.  Its controller
allowed it to approach the pool for water.

Adrian paused to allow these Tullainians time to
observe the monstrous body.  Its hands, easily twice the size of a massive
blacksmith’s, gripped the pool’s edge while it lowered the elongated snout to
the water.  Horn tips dipped under the surface and its lips drew back,
revealing wide gums nurturing numerous sharp teeth.  The snout delved under the
surface as the Taur drew in great gulps, slobbering loudly as it swallowed.

After it drank its fill, it reared back, bellowing
anew.  A full cry this time.  Even Adrian, as jaded as he was to them, stepped
away when the bull-like head tipped back and the roar punched at his heart,
making it skip a beat.  Its controller, miniscule beside the behemoth,
reasserted herself.  She stared at it until the beast retreated to its corner. 
The yard seemed to vibrate under the force of its feet pounding against the
paving stones.  Once it settled, it retrieved one of its previous bones and
chewed on it, hoping for meat it might have missed.

Adrian returned his attention to the Tullainians. 
They had each curled into tight balls, huddled as far away from the Taur as
they could manage in their bonds.  It was well that his business with them had
nearly ended.

“Ask them what they fear.”

“Sir?”

“I want to know what they fear most, living here as
they do.  What do they dread in this city?  A call from the tax collector?  A
gang of thieves?  What do they travel out of their way to avoid?  Tell them
they may go if they answer truthfully, and to my satisfaction.”