Farlander (12 page)

What else could he do, though? The old bitch was his grandmother, after all.

*

The Toin was one of the great rivers of the Midèr
s. It fell from the highlands of the mighty Aradèr
s mountains, first as small rushing torrents that rapidly gathered in tributaries before descending into the Lake of Birds, then, continuing as an ever-widening flow that stretched at some points for over a laq across. The river provided the commercial lifeblood of Nathal, and all of the nation’s major cities could be found along its natural course.

As a nation, the Nathalese were a proud people. They had never been conquered by their neighbours – Serat to the west, Tilana and Pathia to the east. For a thousand years their culture had blossomed, uninterrupted, with philosophy, learning, and the arts. Daoism had come to them and they had embraced it also, as they embraced all such new ideas and thinking, adding it to the many other faiths that were practised and nurtured in their lands.

No longer could they feel so proud, though. Fifteen years ago their cherished independence had fallen beneath the studded boots of the Holy Empire of Mann. For a while they had fought a guerrilla war against the occupiers, but even those small flares of resistance had finally been extinguished. The crucifixion of entire towns in retribution for such rebelliousness had hammered even the proud Nathalese into submission. Nathal was now yet another province of the Holy Empire. It was ruled, as all the other fallen nations were ruled, by a hierarchy of administrating priests of Mann, its traditional beliefs outlawed, all concepts and faiths not in accordance with the divine flesh being vigorously censored and destroyed.

As the extravagant imperial barge finally pulled into the docks of Skara-Brae, the riverfront looked like that of any other settlement within the Empire. Signs hung overlarge from the fronts of old and new buildings alike, displaying goods and services for those unable to read in Trade, while outside the stockhouses gangs of unemployed men waited in the hopes of finding employment for the day, and fat patricians and their bodyguards oversaw the loading and unloading of their precious cargoes. Prostitutes and beggars waited in the shadowy openings of alleyways, many of them ill from missing their regular fixes of dross. Everywhere, imperial auxiliaries could be seen maintaining the peace, mostly drawn from the local population, wearing suits of white leather armour and the hard, wary expressions of those despised by their own people.

However loud the Nathalese might cry out for independence, occupation by the Empire had been good for them in one obvious way. Fifteen years ago this riverfront would have been the site of only a sluggish interchange of goods, just like the river it relied upon. Now, business was booming.

As the barge came to a stop, a hush fell upon the riverfront. Sixty oars rose dripping into the air as one. A detachment of Acolytes marched first from the deck, armed with spears and long-swords – even the occasional rifle. They were armoured with heavy suits of chainmail that hung down to their knees; awful to wear in such heat, though these male and female warrior-priests betrayed no signs of discomfort. Masks covered their faces, white and featureless save for a smattering of holes to breathe and see through, and over the mail they wore the striking white robes of the order, with hoods covering their heads, the material thin, embroidered with patterns of white silk thread that reflected the sunlight in subtle, ever-changing ways. From their ranks, a runner instantly set off into the city at a jog, bearing news for its high priest and governor. Like it or not, tonight he would be receiving visitors for dinner.

The Acolytes moved into the crowd with the confidence of fanatics born and raised to a purpose, pushing the locals back to form a large open circle. Once that was established, they forced those standing nearest to their knees. The local auxiliaries began to follow their example – pushing children and wealthy merchants alike to the ground, until the only people left standing were the Acolytes themselves.

That done, two priests emerged, reclining on a heavy palanquin borne by twelve slaves shackled together at the neck by gilded chains. Around them the Acolytes formed up in ranks, while several hundred faces gazed dutifully at the ground, or tried, from the corners of their eyes, to catch a glimpse of these beings who claimed to be divinities. They did not see much: merely two figures reclining on the sedan, their faces masked with gold and their heads shaved bare and gleaming.

With a shout the procession set off into the quieter streets of the city, breaking the previous stillness with the crash of studded boots against cobbles and the occasional bark of command from the Acolyte captain. At its head walked a single young man bearing the imperial banner, displaying the red hand of Mann. Again the Acolytes broke aside in ones and twos to force onlookers roughly to the ground.

‘Captain,’ the grandmother, Kira, said quietly to the commander of the guards, ‘let them be for now. We cannot see them if they are all lying on their bellies.’

The captain nodded and passed on the instruction.

The two reclining priests were clothed in the same white robes as their Acolytes. They sprawled in comfort and nibbled on the occasional piece of dried fruit through the narrow slits of their masks. It was all that Kirkus was allowed to eat for now. Excitement glinted in their eyes, for it had been two days since their last venture into a Nathalese town, and they both needed the distraction it would offer them.

It was Kirkus who first spotted something that caught his attention: a young girl with dirty, bare feet selling sticks of keesh from a basket.

The old priestess eyed her young protégé, aware of his interest. She studied him, waiting, until Kirkus cleared his throat.

‘That one,’ he instructed, pointing a finger at the girl. The captain gave a command, and a group detached itself from the vanguard to quickly surround her. They threw her basket to the ground and carried her, struggling, back to the rear of the procession. Those townsfolk still on their feet shouted in alarm. A few even made a move to help the girl, though others pulled them back for their own sake, and for everyone’s sake.

All they could do was watch as the Acolytes shackled her in chains and led her away to the rear, the girl crying now, looking about her for support. The silent stares of the street folk grew more openly defiant; it was the only protest left to them. But even that would not last long.

It was next the turn of the grandmother, Kira. With a snap of her fingers she set the Acolytes on to the hostile populace. Soon, people were scattering in all directions, away from the sudden violence, as the warrior priests began dragging bodies out of the fray.

‘Wonderful,’ sneered Kirkus. ‘Now you frighten away our sport.’

‘It is a large city. It has many streets.’

She was right, of course. Other streets, in different quarters, were calmer than those left in the procession’s wake. Word must surely have already reached them, though, for the streets were emptier than might have been expected. Still, people went about their daily business, perhaps figuring rumour for exaggeration, or they were simply not in a mind to be chased from their own ground. By now, no one looked directly at the passing procession.

‘Do you see anything else of interest, my child?’

Kirkus shook his head within his sharp-contoured mask. But he stared with fascination, appraising everyone that he saw, waiting for something further to grab his attention.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ mused Kira, as she studied the young girl captive now walking in chains at the rear, ‘if we have not lost something in the gaining of an empire. At least, it seems that way to me sometimes. For every gain there is a loss. And every loss a gain. Once upon a time we had to do this through stealth and deceit: drunks stumbling home from the inns, street children out late, unwary travellers on the road. But that was long ago. In my memory, it seemed somehow better.’

Kirkus was barely listening, his gaze still intense – waiting, waiting.

The palanquin finally halted in a noisy market square. This was the city centre, Kirkus knew – for where else would one expect to see a one-hundred-foot rusting spike rising sheer from the stone flagging? He stared at the great pole towering above the marketplace.

His grandmother noticed his wonder. ‘It was Mokabi’s idea,’ she began. ‘After the town fell he—’

‘
I know
.’

The locals seemed to pay the monument little heed as they went about their business. He could see wreaths of flowers piled around its mottled base, where soldiers stood guard, eyeing the crowds.

The city of Skara-Brae had been the final Nathalese stronghold to hold out during the Third Conquest. Hano, the young queen and military genius of Nathal, having been defeated at last in the field, had bolted here to Skara-Brae with the last of her forces. Archgeneral Mokabi, commanding the Fourth Army, had given chase and laid siege to the city, demanding the gates be opened, else all within would be slain. At this, it was said, the young queen had offered to surrender herself, but her soldiers and the city’s population refused to let her go. They paid the ultimate price for their defiance.

When the city finally fell, at great cost to the Fourth Army, Arch-general Mokabi decided to hold a celebration for his conquering troops, one befitting those who had sacrificed so much during the campaign. First, they turned the town into an open brothel, slaying what they finished with or did not want in the first place. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, the archgeneral ordered a great spike to be forged from the melted armour of all those men of his army who had fallen during the siege. Fashioning a spike running a hundred feet in length, they fastened a great plug of concrete to the base of it, then positioned the entire thing, on its side, in the city square for all to see.

On the fifth night following the fall of the city, amidst an orgy of drinking and excess, the archgeneral’s men forced the defeated officers and the town leaders one by one on to the spike’s point. Impaled sideways like this, the male and female victims were drawn along its entire length, most dying in the process, until the spike was entirely filled by them. At its very tip, they placed Hano herself.

At a signal from the archgeneral, and with a shouted salutation to the defeated queen – at least, as Valores told it – the corpse-laden spike was hoisted vertically by three hundred enslaved townsfolk, there to be planted as a permanent monument to conquest.

It was a rousing tale and, years later, when Kirkus finally met Mokabi at a celebration for the birthday of the Holy Matriarch, Kirkus’s own mother, he had found himself stuck for words in replying to the old man’s kindly questions concerning his youthful studies – struck with awe at being in the presence of a living, breathing legend. But there had been something else too, something more subtle that had stilled his young tongue as he stood in front of the archgeneral and which took him several sleepless nights in his bed in the Temple of Whispers to fathom. For when young Kirkus had held the man’s large hand in his own, something about that fleshy touch, cool and a little sweaty, had terrified him. Suddenly, all the stories of the general’s exploits had become more than mere words on a page. This very man, his grip living and pulsing against his own, had commanded the slaughter of thousands; and not only defeated soldiers, but women and children, old men and babes. In that moment Kirkus had felt repelled by his touch, as though a mere handshake might infect him with something dreadful, something tainted. Afterwards, he imagined he could even smell blood on his hands. No matter how often he scrubbed at them, he could still smell it faintly, the metallic scent of it, when he lay alone at night with his own thoughts.