Daygo's Fury (2 page)

Suddenly he started to yell, screaming out as he reared his horse erratically, pulling it back and forth among the men, galloping through some lines and out the sides of others, consuming them, filling them up with his righteous rage as he screamed at them. It built within Connia, a rage as strong as any in his life, but accompanied by a sudden feeling for life unlike any he had ever known. He was alive, he was aware; these were his last, dramatic moments and it would finally end.

“They have killed our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, fathers, brothers, sons. They have feasted upon them!”

“We will show them now a unified fist, to beat them back until one day again we have grown strong enough to come back to these lands, to reclaim these lands, and to make those Daygo cursed beasts regret ever invading these lands.

“They will die for their sins! They will die for their crimes! They will run in terror! They will fear for their offspring! They will know torment up until the day they die!

“Seven days! That is what we need! Seven days! Seven days! Seven days!”

Connia could see the hands shaking of the nearest leader as he repeated the words. His voice was loud but shook with emotion, the words cracked on his tongue and he fumbled through some, only managing to speak half. The effect seemed even more. He saw his men, switching their gaze between the far-off general and their own leader, starting to shake and batter their hands off one another almost unconsciously. There was a noise, slowly building, line after line, like a slow roar, growing and growing, almost drowning out the chant of the hundred leaders. The words were mostly the same, slightly altered, repeated over and over again, driving home the point. Connia realised that he was banging his fist against the steel of his thigh with each line and roaring along with the rest. He did not stop; he could not have stopped if he tried. Horses started to rear and snort and neigh, struggling against the reins of their masters, creating more and more animated noise. Connia realised that work had suddenly stopped on the mountain pass as a million eyes looked out over the commotion below. And then it came time to march.

There was no fear in the ten thousand, Connia knew, for they felt the same as he, filled with fanatical need to end it, a fanatical need to succeed in their final task and then to die, spitting in the eye of the beasts.

The chant and cries of Levitas grew and started to repeat themselves.

“No! Do not chant my name, chant that of humanity. Chant the name of our species! Chant the name of us all, we here, who will save mankind.” Leaders looked up from the words on the page in astonishment at that, even more fanatical fervour in their eyes as they sought out their leader, before returning to their task. “Mankind, who will not be defeated, who will not be extinct, who will not be exterminated. MANKIND! MANKIND! MANKIND!” The chant rang out, roared from ten thousand throats as they cantered their horses forward towards the far-off hordes of beasts. It was the last march. The march of the ten thousand.

“Let them come,” he whispered to the wind, tears in his eyes, “let them come.”

They were everywhere still, feasting on their spoils, unworried by the occasional groan or cry of those who were still alive; a scene now too familiar to Connia’s eyes.

With spear, shield, sword and bow, ten thousand of the best remaining had fought. On horseback they were on a level footing, able to stare the beasts down eye to eye. Horses reared, having grown to hate, nostrils flared aggressively from their retched scent. They fought for their species too, whether they knew it or not. The finest war animals, millions of their peers already dead.

They had bought a week. Seven days of skirmishes, of false trails and sleepless nights that had culminated in this final battle when the beasts could not be evaded or misled any longer. And here they had held, for one day more. He had been unconscious for hours before awakening to this hell. Hell on Earth. It felt as though it had always been hell as opposed to Earth. Such a long journey. The sound of his blood dropping onto the cloth of the dead man below him was a background noise, present but unidentified within his brain. His eyes met those of the beast, now rising from its meal, intent written into its movements.

He realised he was laughing uncontrollably. This was it. Finally, it was over. Relief washed over him, overawing his senses, making his limbs weak as he shook with a manic edge. He could stop now, it was at an end. He fell to his knees and hunched over slightly, tears streaming down his face. He did not know if he cried or laughed, he was simply awash with too much emotion to deal with. He cried out into the sky as his limbs shook loosely.

He had done his duty, to the very end. It was finished. Sometimes it seemed as though he would never make it to this day. Sometimes it felt as though there would be no end. For so long he had thought that he could not keep going. He looked forward at the colossal beast in front of him, almost lazily galloping towards him, and he turned his head, not wanting that abomination to be the last thing that he saw. His gaze landed on a face, a familiar face. His laughter ended in escaped air. He closed his eyes tight and lifted his head. He felt himself fall backwards, the change of perspective, the whoosh of air, like a dream. He never hit the ground. So a man. A man after all.
I’m sorry Lev. I’m sorry, most of all, that you had to die here too. It was done.

172 years later …

The streets of the inner city of Teruel were quiet in the evening time, before the revelry of night began and after the store fronts were closed up. Among this subdued atmosphere, in the home of a privileged man, a disobedient whore was raped and tossed out. Not just tossed out of the house but out of her society and all she knew, kicked from the inner city, sent to the slums and told never to return for fear of death. Her face and name were known. She would never be allowed back into the society of the rich or middle class again, condemned to poverty and considered lucky not to be condemned to death.

It was no matter anyway. Eight months later she gave birth to a baby boy, a boy who exited the womb in silence. A stillborn baby, for the childbirth became complicated. The boy’s cord connecting it to his mother was cut and the child wrapped in swaddling and taken away. Amidst the mother’s pain, anguish added its considerable fuel to her screams. The bleeding would not stop. The makeshift midwifes of the city’s poorest quarter looked at each other with well-known sadness as they tried forlornly to plug the bleeding with dirty towels and cloth. The screams, the thrashing and the pain slowly faded in energy, in vibrant life, until moment by moment the woman fell into a more peaceful slumber, before life faded completely and death’s waiting embrace took her from the world.

But the boy didn’t die. Inexplicably, among the quiet tears of the midwives as they tried to deal with the gruesome mess, they heard a cry, a baby’s cry. The cry rang out with a strength and velocity unusual from any new born child. The cry sent a chill through the midwives, for it felt as a cry of rage. A rage, perhaps, at being entered into this harsh world, and entered in such a sad fashion.

The two midwives rushed from the room to the one adjacent, where a small baby boy sat in the swaddling and bloody gore of his birth, crying, mouth open as his tonsils vibrated with his roar. The two women looked at each other in amazement. Finally, one asked of the other “How long …?” The question unfinished was nevertheless enough, for both women were thinking the same thing. “At least ten minutes,” replied the other. Slowly, the women returned from the grasp of shock and did what they had to do. They cleaned the boy up and brought him to the place where such boys go.

In reality, though the midwives doubted their own words, the boy had been stillborn for over eleven minutes. He had experienced eleven minutes of blissful silence before life inhabited him with more ferocity than the world had ever seen. This boy was infused with a power unheard of by man. He weighed six and a half pounds.

The impossibility of his body being brought to life continued in the improbability of his survival. There was no surrogate mother at the baby orphanage that he was brought to and none to be found. So in vain hope, in consideration of his unlikely arrival, the orphan keeper persisted with feeding the baby goats’ milk, convinced it was only a matter of time; even though normally, in the cruel reality of the poor in the slums, a baby in such a position would be smothered and buried somewhere as a mercy. But the baby boy was somehow possessed with a life that would not fade or dim. He survived, he continued and he grew.

This boy became a source of local folklore among the housewives and orphan keepers. His birth and survival afterwards were unprecedented mysteries. Unfortunately for the boy, his fame at birth was as small in stature in comparison to what it would become as the baby was to the later man.

Liam walked through the slums of Teruel slowly. He had time to take his ease. He was not due to meet up with Calum, Carrick and his men for another hour. He prowled the streets with a predator’s air, despite being only thirteen.

Dust blew along his bare feet. All moisture was gone from the hard packed clay underfoot from a week of the baking hot sun. The air was thick around him. The refuse in the gutters festering with flies.

It was still relatively early in the morning, not yet noon, and the streets were busy as usual. Many eyed him suspiciously as he passed. Liam ignored them, used to the unwelcome scrutiny, as he scrutinised the pedestrians in return. He did it purely out of habit, sizing them up, placing them by their clothes, judging them by their size, gait and expression. His eyes scanned belts and the pouches, swords or knives tied to their sides. He looked at necklaces, shoes, hemlines, anything and everything that gave him information on the people possessing them. He could judge the men or women in moments, in a natural way, as his eyes darted over their bodies. It was street instinct that had been beaten into him by thirteen years in the slums. He sized everyone up by habit. Even today, when he was not looking for an easy take.

There were the farmers, easily recognisable by the straw hats they liked to wear when out in the sun, sticking out like a sore thumb, easy targets. Stupid spuds. Their problem was that they rarely had much of worth on them; most of their wealth likely stolen or cheated off them already. They wore a hunted look as they walked, head moving from side to side suspiciously but unable to identify where the real threats were.

There were the toughs, the enforcers of the gang’s justice. They took to wearing leather jerkins over their chests, the tough material good for deflecting a knife, but doing nothing for a blow to the balls. They strode through the streets with an air of ownership, smug satisfaction written all over their faces.

There were the tradesmen or women going about their daily business. They were worth extra scrutiny, occasionally offering opportunity but were also natives of the slums and well used to the dangers it held and where they lay.

There were the traders, the pedlars and merchants, the housewives going about their business, the drunks, still unsteady from the previous night’s drinking.

Among all of these people were foreigners of different nationalities from all across Levitashand.

There were the strange tribesmen from the north who wore a multitude of nose and ear rings. They tended to wear colourful linen tunics that were long at the arms. They were normally small, squat men with very dark skin. Sometimes there was even a man of pure black. Liam would stop and stare at these, studying their strange skin with interest. On occasion they would stare back but Liam would only give them a thumbs up, laughing at their frown.

There were the famous Haryani tradesmen in their long linen robes that draped to their ankles. The robes were finely made and tended to boast bright yellow and red colours, a symbol of their national pride. Their hands tended to be covered by the long sleeves but glimpses often showed gold and silver rings glittering from their fingers. Liam had often pondered how to slip these from the men. However, he had noticed they often had a burly guard trailing a step behind them with a large wooden club and a knife strapped to their sides. No doubt ready to club any slummer that got too close to their master without much thought. Liam preferred easier targets.

There were even some Manitobans from the west. However, these were a squat, wide people with slanted eyes that held a dangerous look about them. Liam had never harboured much thought about any hidden treasures that they might hold on their person.

But sometimes it was hard to tell nationality among the foreigners, as there was such a wide range of racial difference. This was a result of the great migration Liam had been taught as a boy.

His eyes unconsciously slid over the bums, beggars and homeless that were found on every street corner. He looked at one, wearing rags, torn and dirty. His face was covered with dust and mud and caked in drool. His hair was a greasy, lumpy mess and his expression was one of permanent desperation. He looked lost as he barely looked up to the people passing him by, a cracked wooden bowl in his hand pressed forward, hoping for the sound of a few spare klats to rattle into it
.

Liam looked away again, disgusted. He felt the familiar frustration and anger at the sight of them. They were such weak, pathetic people. Why did they sit there, doing nothing while they starved to death? Why didn’t they
do
something? Even if it was just to get up and stab someone for their purse; show some guts, some fight. He could never understand them. Why were they so weak? How could they just sit there? Why?
Fucking wasters!

Liam continued on, light of foot, and turned onto Baker’s Corner where the street emptied slightly. The smell of freshly baking bread hit his nostrils, and he inhaled deeply, savouring the scent. He looked lazily into the small bakery along the side of the street as he passed and stopped suddenly. A smile spread across his face. There was no sign of the baker and he had seen a freshly cooking loaf in the oven. Did he dare?

His smile widened as he turned and ran into the bakery. He leaped over the waist-high counter without hesitation, reaching instantly for the oven. He turned the latch and pulled, but the oven door wouldn’t budge. He winced, letting go of the latch again as his fingers began to burn with the heat.

“There’s another latch at the top.” Liam jumped with fright, turning around in an instant. There, sitting in the corner of the room staring back at him, was a girl close to his own age. Liam realised that where she sat she was hidden from view from the outside. She had an oval face and sleek black hair that fell below her shoulders. Her eyes were wide with surprise but she spoke again, pointing.

“There, at the top!” she whispered urgently. Liam looked and almost laughed. He reached up in amazement and turned the other latch, opened the door and grabbed the loaf from inside. He turned again and jumped over the counter.

He stood there, looking at her for a moment. She returned his gaze. She had dark blue eyes that seemed to sparkle with gold dust. The moment seemed to last an eternity but was broken abruptly by the sounds of the baker coming down the stairs in the next room.

“Racquel! What’s going on down there, girl?” he shouted. Racquel’s face went wide in panic and Liam decided it was time for him to go.

“See ya,” he said, smiling, and ran out the door.

“Uncle Galo …” he heard her shout as he ran from the baker’s with the prize. A couple of passersby on the street stopped and looked at him. One, glancing at the loaf, frowned and made to grab for him but Liam only laughed and skipped away. He danced around the people in the street as he made his escape, the man giving up his half-hearted pursuit.

******

Liam had half the roll eaten by the time he arrived at Fade Street. It was a street appropriately named, with an old, grimy and faded appearance. The street was wide enough to accommodate two hand-drawn carts to pass each other from between the gutters that ran on either side of it. Since it hadn’t rained in days, the two-footdeep gutter was getting clogged up with shit and debris that had been thrown in by the street’s inhabitants.

The heat of the midday sun ripened the stink of the gutter, but it was a scent familiar to all of the slums.

The buildings to either side of the street were a mix of brick and wood. The tavern that was Liam’s destination lay halfway up. Well-built from stone and brick, it had a thatch roof and a sign hanging over the doorway proclaiming it as “Sal  s”, the second “l” and the “y” having been scratched off long ago by a regular patron. To one side of the tavern was a building made out of wood that looked as though it was hastily erected, and then upon its failure to collapse over the years, never replaced. The street was full of such ramshackle buildings varying in size from one to three stories. There was even a large wooden warehouse at the street’s end. Liam was unsure of its contents.

As he approached the tavern, Liam spotted Calum lounging against its wall and waved his half loaf at him.

“Picked up something on the way,” he shouted over as he approached, throwing Calum the loaf. Calum laughed as he snatched it out of the air and took a bite.

“Fresh,” he said around a mouthful. “Where’d ye come by this?”

“Ah, I just stopped by the baker’s on the way over.” Liam smirked. Calum laughed again. He was of average height and build for his age, with sandy coloured hair and blue eyes. The only stand-out feature he possessed was a jagged scar that extended all the way down the left side of his face from temple to jaw. He was a year older than Liam and had been his best friend for the last seven years.

“You know what this is about?” Liam continued, nodding to the tavern door.

Calum grunted in response, raising his eyes to the sky.

“You don’t wanna know!” he said in exasperation. “I’ll tell ye afterwards., Carrick is waitin’ for us inside, in a pissed-off mood too, so don’t wanna keep ’im too long.” He handed Liam back the remainder of the loaf. Liam put it into a pocket he had stitched into the side of his tunic and followed Calum in the door.

The tavern still stank of smoke from the day before. It was a square room with the bar at the centre and to the right against the wall. Bar stools encircled its three sides, and tables, benches and chairs stood along the three walls. There were two groups at the bar and another at a bench at the far right of the room. Liam spotted Carrick in one of the bar groups just as Calum turned towards him.

Carrick sat to the side of three other companions, his hand over a mug of ale. He was a man of about nineteen years and of average build. He was beginning to show the first signs of a pot belly under his faded white tunic. He had thin blond hair receding at the temples and had a sharp, bony nose contrasted by a withdrawn chin.

Liam looked over to his companions. He recognised one as Faolan but couldn’t name the other two, though their faces were familiar.

The barkeep, Dave, eyed them as they came in but said nothing. Calum headed straight over to Carrick.

“Alright, Carrick!” he greeted him. The group turned to the newcomers.

“Ay, Carrick, ye bring a couple spotters to watch yer back?” spurted one of the nameless at the far end. The other two laughed and Carrick’s face went red. Liam saw that he had a faded bruise over his left eye.

“Come on!” Carrick said to the boys, nodding to a table in the corner and heading over. Liam noticed that he held his left arm in close to his side as he walked. They sat down around the table, and the boys waited for Carrick to continue.

“I have a job for yehs,” he said. Liam looked at Calum.
Obviously, or why would we be here?
“Some fuckin’ hard arse and his sons thou’ he’d give me and the lads a beatin’ down and ther’d be no consequences.” Carrick rubbed his shoulder as he said it, then took a drink of ale before he continued.

“Damn near broke my arm,” he muttered. “We goina get ’em back though. Me and the lads been thinkin’ we just need to draw ’em out. He’s a blacksmith up by Caipur Street. Needs a seein’ to. That’s what we want you two for, to draw ’em out.” He stopped there, taking another drink of ale, then looked at them.

“Well?” he asked. Liam and Calum looked at each other again.

“Alright,” Calum said tentatively. “What is it ye wan’ us to do again?”

“Din’t I already fuckin’ tell ye!” he spluttered. “Ye’r te go into the smith’s and draw ’im out. Me an’ the lads’ll be outside waitin’ for him. Once he’s outside an’ we know he’s alone, we goin’ a beat the livin’ daylights out of him!”

“Alright,” Calum said again. “How we goin’ a get ’im out of the smithy?”

“Well, I don’t fuckin’ know, do I? Fuckin’ go in there and fuckin’ rob somet’in’ or somet’in’, be out after yehs in no time.”

Liam suppressed a sigh. Carrick was such a fucking idiot.

“When we doin’ this?” he asked.

Carrick looked at him. “Two days,” he said and stood up. “Meet yehs at the corner of Caipur Street and Laiker at noon. We go do it then.” At that he walked back over to join his friends at the bar. There were a few jokes and more laughter at Carrick’s expense.

Liam sat back in his chair for a moment looking across at Calum.

“We go?” he asked and Calum nodded. They got up and walked from the tavern.

“Could do with an ale after that myself,” Calum said on the way out.

******

“So what’s this all about?” Liam asked as they walked through the streets and back alleys of Teruel. Calum sighed.

“Carrick’s rippin’ after bein’ made a fool of by the blacksmith and his sons and bein’ handed out a beatin’ as well,” he said. “It all started when Carrick found out that the blacksmith wasn’t payin’ protection money to the matis. Reason being of course that the blacksmith didn’t need protection.”

The matis ran things in the slums of Teruel. Protection was something they offered all businesses in the slums. If the business paid up, they were given a red flag to fly over the doorway of their premises. If anyone was caught who had broken into or stolen from premises with the red flag above it, the punishment from the matis was severe. And they normally found the people who did it. This meant that anyone paying for protection could be fairly sure that their place would be left alone.