The Fall of Ossard (37 page)

What had happened to my city?

The streets seemed deserted, but if you stopped and listened you could hear the movement of looters as they rifled through the rubble. More often, drowning out all else, came the mournful sobs of those left bereaved or homeless.

All of it dared me to consider that perhaps the city
was
too far gone, but I refused to accept it. I thought I could still have the old Ossard back
and
Pedro and Maria too. I had to believe it.

By the time we’d reached the waterfront, the numbers of those following me had tripled. Two dozen walked behind me, a mix of Heletians and Flets.

Thankfully, something distracted me from that uncomfortable realisation; the Lae Velsanan ship that had been in port only four days ago was again moored. A full score of its soldiers stood on the wharf, armed and barring access, while they eyed the smoke rising over the city.

Even at a glance, it was obvious that the sleek ship had taken damage. One of its three main masts was down, snapped near the base, other harm was also clear.

I walked towards it with Marco and Baruna, and followed by the rest. The Lae Velsanan guards in their sea-greens didn’t move, but watched our approach. I slowed as we neared.

Looking across the deck, I searched for the officer I’d spoken to before, but was wary of his cold-souled senior.

Activity covered the ship. Reset rigging dangled and strained as it was adjusted, a section of the bow’s railing was being mended, and new supplies delivered. The crew were busy, and amongst them laboured a bare-chested common-man.

The blonde Flet, broad-backed and muscled, toiled to move heavy crates into position on the deck. He turned about to expose his thick arms and toned chest, his torso covered in a gentle mat of golden hair. He laboured alone amongst the Lae Velsanans, but showed no sign of fear.

I looked to his face, from where sweat ran down his brow and temples, despite a cloth tied about his forehead. He straightened up and stretched, brushing back his hair to take with it the sweatband. The movement uncovered his pointed ears.

He was no middling; it was the Lae Velsanan.

If not for his ears, he could’ve so easily passed for a Flet. His chest spread twice as thick in width and depth compared to those surrounding him, and he stood around my height, making him very short for one of his own kind. He also carried a hard masculine air that his tall and lean fellows lacked, consequently he’d missed out on their innate sense of grace. He was an enigma.

He’d noticed that the crew about him had fallen silent, so turned towards the city and saw me. Casually, he waved, as if we were longtime friends, and then he bent down to grab his shirt as he called out orders.

After squeezing into his sea-green shirt, he made his way towards us. Behind him, three of his fellows moved to finish his hard tasks.

I felt embarrassed. I’d been ogling him, and now he interrupted his work to come and see what I wanted.

What did I want?

My mind swam with shameful images of his chest and strong arms. They were quickly chased away by guilty thoughts of my own family, and a city being lost to Death.

How could I think of such a thing, and with a Lae Velsanan!

He smiled as he closed the gap between us, but I still had no idea of what I wanted. His warm manner disarmed my growing unease. “How are you?” he asked, remembering that last time we’d met I’d fainted.

“Well, and much better than before.”

He nodded, and glanced past to the rising smoke that marked the city. “It has begun?”

I turned to look behind me, to that growing forest of twisting plumes that climbed over Ossard. Fresh fires were being lit all the time, adding to the haunting pall.

I said, “The city has split into factions.”

He grimaced as he wiped late sweat from his brow. “We lost a mast and some supplies at sea. You can’t see it from here, but just over the horizon is an arc of diabolical storms. Our Cabalist says that they’ve been raised with magic. It left us little choice but to return.”

“So you’ll stay?” My hopeful tone surprised me.

“No.” He looked to the skyline and shook his head. “None can stay, not now. We’ll try to leave again, and if necessary we’ll die in the trying. We have to get news of this to home.”

“Home, to Lae Wair-Rae?”

“Yes, to our High King.”

I began to worry. “Why? What business is it of his?”

“This is the business of everyone. It’s not about mortal politics, but divine power.” He then shook his head in anger at himself for his bluntness. After a pause, he forced a smile and asked, “Your child is safe?“

I could feel the blood drain from my face. “She’s been taken.”

He winced. “I’m so sorry.”

“Her father and his parents as well; they took the whole bloodline.”

And his jaw dropped in surprise. “The whole bloodline?”

“All of it, three generations.”

“By Velsana!”

“What does it mean?”

He took a step back as he looked to the smoke-dressed city. His eyes then darted back, but now held a mix of sympathy and fear. “It means too much…” and his words trailed off.

“I need your help, I need to understand.”

He shrugged. “I can’t tell you much, I’m no priest or cabalist.”

“Please, tell me what you can.”

After a moment, he said, “They need sacrifices to feed
things
during their rituals. Using souls linked by a bloodline boosts the power harvested, it means they can use less people to get the strength required. If they’re gathering them, then a ritual can’t be far off.”

“A ritual for what?”

“For control of the city. They want to create a haven, something that will become a base from where they’ll build an empire of corruption.”

I whispered, “They? The cultists?”

He nodded. “High King Caemarou won’t let it happen. He’ll go to war to stop it.”

“But Ossard is part of the Heletian League, and only the smallest member - just a city-state despite its wealth.” And how those words tasted sour, for the evidence about me spoke only of ruin. “If Lae Wair-Rae went to war against Ossard, King Giovanni of Greater Baimiopia would be forced to intervene. The Church of Baimiopia wouldn’t allow any other action…” my voice failed as I pictured the carnage.

He spoke my thoughts, “And the remaining Heletian League states would also be drawn in. It would make Dormetia a battlefield, and the sea at its heart a foul pond littered with butchered bodies.”

“It would be lunacy.”

“Letting Ossard fall to the cults is a greater madness.“

“Is it? Could they possibly cause as much destruction as Lae Wair-Rae and the Heletian League going to war?”

“Please, listen to me…” He shook his head as he waged some inner battle. “I want to help you, but…” he hesitated before finally speaking, “You ask if a cult-controlled Ossard could be worse than a war that took in all of Dormetia?”

“How could it?” I sighed. “It’s but one city!”

“Yes, but that dark Ossard would launch its own war, one waged with ritual magic. And with that they could win!”

Sincerity rode his words, yet how could one city bring such doom?

He saw my doubts and challenged them. “Look around you at the carnage and destruction, and this has only just begun. Imagine this happening in every village, town, and city. Imagine all nations falling into chaos, all streets seeing discord and riot, and all farms and houses being looted and razed. Imagine every child abducted, and every parent willing to take up arms to get their kin back. Imagine, in that chaos, how many innocents will die.”

His words reminded me of what Sef had said. I asked, “Will peace never have a chance?”

He shook his head. “If the cults ruled Ossard, peace would only come when all else has fallen. Any survivors would then have to suffer through war’s closest friends; pestilence and famine. Afterwards, Dormetia would spread as a bleak and wasted land, from the misty forests of Wairanir, to the icy coves of Quor, and the sunbaked bluffs of Serhaem. All of it would lie ruined and lifeless as a shrine to madness.”

He was right. I hated it, but he was right.

He went on, “Ritual magic will give them that power, and that’s why they must be stopped.”

Smoke rose over the city to add to the dark pall. A haze hung everywhere, and through it, I could hear occasional screams and distant fighting. Ossard had already fallen far, but had it fallen too far?

I still wasn’t sure…

I asked, “What are these rituals supposed to do?”

“There are many and they come in stages, and I’d think the first have already passed. The easiest things to watch for are three major rituals. The first uses the blood and souls of ninety-nine
innocents
. It creates a celestial beacon that will attract the gods.”

“Innocents?”

“Children.”

I swallowed. “Do you think they’ve already done that?”

“Yes, not that we know the when or where of it, but the beacon
is
lit and calling into the celestial.”

My mind went to the gory discovery in the warehouse of only days ago.

He went on, “Then there’s a ritual that requires one thousand and one sacrifices. It sanctifies the city.”

I nodded. “Is that what we’re facing now?”

“I would think so.”

“And the next?”

“The last ritual is the largest, and the most important to stop. It happens a year and a day after the city has been sanctified…” he paused, screwing up his mouth in revulsion, “and it takes ten thousand and one souls.”

I cursed, trying to conceive of the power.

He went on, “It creates a gate, a divine focus, a place where the celestial and the real world meet. It’s a place for raw energy to spill through, even the gods if they so wish. With such power behind it, a cult-ruled Ossard would be unbeatable.”

My grandmother whispered, “He speaks the truth.”

I asked, “Can we stop it?”

He nodded, but his face was grim. “It would be best to stop them sanctifying the city, but for a place this size, one thousand and one souls are not hard to find. We have to assume that they’ll be able to do it, and if they do, then our best course of action is to deny them the ten thousand and one souls they need for the next ritual.”

“How?”

He shifted his gaze to Baruna and Marco. “Who are these?”

The question surprised me, but worse still I didn’t have an answer.

Marco offered something in my hesitation, but his words only startled me more, “We follow her.”

I blushed. Gods had followers, not Flet housewives.

The Lae Velsanan looked back to me to share my surprise.

I glanced away in embarrassment, my gaze coming to rest on his ship’s crew. Some of them were watching us. Without even trying I found myself sampling their thoughts.

“Half-breed, look at him panting after that Flet!”

“Only second in command because of his family!”

“Look at the back of his shirt, already stained with sweat. He’s an animal, just like the middlings he mixes with!”

“Hairy mongrel, it’s demeaning to serve under him!”

I flinched at their resentment, but the officer didn’t notice, he’d dropped his eyes and was bowing.

“I am Felmaradis of House Jenn.”

I offered a curtsy in turn. “Juvela Liberigo.”

He said, “I know what I’m saying might sound incredible, particularly coming from a Lae Velsanan.”

I gave a slight nod.

“But Ossard is tainted, and now that corruption is blooming. There’s no easy way to stop it. You need to understand how much danger you’re in.”

I said, “Isn’t it possible that these troubles will pass?”

“Every city sees disturbances, even majestic Yamere, but this is different. This is not about local grievance or injustice. These aren’t mortal problems, but those fuelled by the divine. None of the factions involved will stop, not until they win control or are destroyed in the trying.”

I was beginning to believe him. “But I worry that Ossard will free itself of the cults, only to end up in the hands of the Inquisition.”

He said, “That’s preferable to the cults winning control and establishing a gate. If they’re collecting bloodlines, then they’re already preparing for powerful magic. When the city is dedicated to the Terura Kala, the cults of the Horned God, they’ll be able to conduct other rituals to secure their power. The more souls present in their sanctified city, the stronger the magic that they can call upon. Ossard will become a bridgehead, a place of dark magic, and the starting place for all things to come.”

“Can we stop it?”

He grimaced as he shook his head. “Them taking the city, no, it’s already lost. What we have to do is stop them keeping it, and going on to found their gate. You should leave the city and take any who’ll go with you, and you should do it while you can.”

“I won’t leave until I find my family.”

He grew intense. “Juvela, you don’t understand: I’m not asking you to leave and save yourself, I’m asking you to leave and save the rest of us. If you can get enough people out of the city, you might weaken them and delay their rituals.”

“Me? What if I can’t?”

“Ossard becomes a city of damnation. From here they’ll spread through their celestial gate to deliver their followers wherever they want. In time they’ll bring down all of Dormetia; from the Holy City of Baimiopia, to the cities of Fletland and Evora, and even the pillar-cities of Lae Wair-Rae and its colonies. In the end, we’ll all taste the bitterness of their corruption.”

I was confused. I just wanted Maria and Pedro back. “You’re telling me that my world is dying. It’s too much.”

He took a small step forward before whispering in perfect Flet, “I am second in command of this expedition, it led by Prince Jusbudere. We’ve been searching for the nest of the Terura Kala, and that search has brought us here. We’ve been watching for the last few seasons with suspicion, but now we know:
They
have chosen Ossard!

“You can only stop them by taking away what it is they want; Ossard’s souls. Find your daughter and husband if you can, but regardless you must get out.”