Blood of the Redd Guard - Part One (7 page)

Halfway down, the hall intersected with another hallway that circled the entire Outer Wall. This hall was double the width and had a portcullis on either side as well. On the left side was a staircase that went up to the top of the Outer Wall and on the right was a staircase that went down to the catacombs below the city.

The stairs to either side were wide enough that the Radim armies would run them in columns of four. Before any recruit could complete their training, they had to be able to make a run that took them to the top of the Inner Wall which was forty-five stories high, across a connecting wall to the Outer Wall, which was thirty-five stories, around the circumference of the Outer Wall and down again. They did this all while carrying a pack loaded with fifty pounds of gear and supplies. A recruit could not become a soldier until he could complete a lap.

When Adar came to the guard room on the other side he was glad to see that this station was now manned as well, but with fewer guards. Several nodded to Adar from the room as he passed but didn't try to speak with him. This room had arrow slits looking out into the courtyard. Slasher tossed his head and snorted, drawing the admiring eye of one of the men. A moment after that, Adar was past the portcullis here and down the ramp that led out into the yard.

When Adar had taken over the training grounds had reminded him of a farmyard both in smell and appearance. There had been several large piles of manure with many years of horse poop and it had been a long time since anybody had done anything about the stray cats, dogs, and chickens running around the place.

Rats had been a frequent site as well and Adar was surprised that his predecessor hadn’t tried to do anything about them. It was a wonder that disease hadn't been rampant among the Napael army.

Today was a different story, there wasn't a clod of manure to be seen anywhere on the extensive grounds. The dogs had all been rounded up and either put down or into training, and Adar had put a bounty on rats that had eradicated all but a few. The cats he'd left alone to help deal with the vermin.

He walked up to a group of new recruits and their training officer, Sergeant Stamer, called them to attention. Stamer stood before them as Adar walked around and inspected the uniforms, to ensure that everything was improving. Three weeks ago, when he'd inspected the clothing of this same group of men, he'd found them misshapen and disheveled.

Today, however, things were more organized though they still had a long way to go. He stopped before one soldier with a large bulbous nose and an even larger head. The recruit was a head taller than Adar and almost double in width. It took a second, but Adar remembered his name.

“Landal,” he said with an approving nod, “I see you've learned to wash your clothes.” The last time he'd seen the man, Landal had food stains on his shirt that had looked like the remnants of more than several days of meals and there had been a smell that was making others keep their distance.

“Yes, sir!”

Landal's sword was at the wrong angle on his back, he was missing a dagger, and a part of his shirt had come loose, but it was a start. At least the smell was gone. Adar didn't enjoy being a disciplinarian, but with an organization this big the only way anything would ever get done was if order and process were in place. Making a mental note to meet with Sergeant Stamer to discuss the lapses further, he gave everybody else an approving nod and continued on.

At the stable, Adar was met by a boy that took his horse. When he smiled at the lad, the boy ducked his head and took the reins. In his attempts to learn the kid’s name, the boy had thwarted his efforts by pretending not to hear. Apparently some of the rumors that had gone around about Adar had made it to the children.

It was an effort to keep the grimace off his face when Adar thought of the lies that were being spread about him. Deep within his chest the silent fury that reminded him that it shouldn't have been this way tried to rear its head and he squashed it down. Abel was behind many of those stories and had even generated incidents and evidence that seemed to back up the wild claims. What kind of father would do that to his son?

Adar couldn't blame the boy and the others like him that believed the worst stories, but Adar hoped to overcome the boy's fear.

With a few words to Slasher and instructions to the boy, he gave his horse a final pat and turned to leave when the boy started to say something. Adar looked back and the words died on the boy's lips, his eyes frozen with terror. His face was still chubby, but that wouldn't last for long because he'd been gaining height, even in the short time that Adar had known him.

“Less than half the rumors you hear have a grain of truth.” Adar snorted. “Those that do are so far beyond the mark they might as well be about somebody else.”

“My ma says you believe the Hunwei will come back,” the boy blurted out. “That true?”

“Our fathers planned on it. Why do you think we have so many armies? Spend so much time training and keeping at the ready? They knew something and did their best to pass it on to us though many—too many—have forgotten.” Adar had even heard that there were still some that were hoping for the Hunwei to return because they believed the Hunwei would come to help them. When he'd first heard of such foolishness, he'd dismissed it out of hand, but the stories still turned up. Semal had wondered if those that believed them were still around.

The Kopal—a hidden organization that had been eradicated more than a decade ago—were believed to have that as a central belief. It had never been confirmed because none of their members had ever been brought in alive for questioning because they’d managed to commit suicide before capture. Adar had seen the masks that they’d worn in the Rarbon Palace archives, where they were on prominent display. He’d also reviewed a record that documented what little was known of them.

The boy shook his head. “What do we do?”

It was a good question and for once Adar didn't have a ready answer. If the boy would have been older, he would have encouraged him to get his parents to let him enlist ahead of his requirement.

The question also brought with it the reminder that only Adar could gain access to the Rarbon Portal because Abel had failed to pass the trials. Perhaps his father's failure was a partial explanation for his feelings towards Adar, but it wasn't enough to explain the pure vitriol and hatred that Adar had to put up with from his father.

Adar was thinking of another response to the kid when someone behind him cleared his throat. When he turned, Adar didn't know the soldier's name but he recognized him as one of the soldiers that had been on guard at the gate earlier. The guard was tall and had a face scarred by burns.

“What’s your name?” Adar asked, he’d been making a point of learning as many as he could. For the people that he saw regularly, he intended to call them all by name.

“Jarren Alfaro. We made a mistake. There’s a warrant for your prisoner. Keen missed a new poster that just came in.”

Adar frowned. It wasn't like Keen to forget or miss a warrant. “Doesn't sound like him.” Unless Keen was the spy. It wasn’t hard for Adar to imagine him selling information for money. It had been a mistake for Gardison to allow the lad to enlist.

Jarren shrugged. “All I know is that there is a warrant for your man from Lieutenant Briggs.”

“Haven’t heard of him. What army?”

“Paroke.”

Adar's frown deepened at the mention of Paroke Army and he had to keep from reaching for his sword hilt where it rose above his back. General Helam Morgol’s army.

The soldier didn't appear to have noticed, Adar didn't need his suspicions about Helam getting around. Helam was well respected and took care to keep it that way.

Adar also didn't like the way the soldier had referred to the captive as Adar's man. It should have been our captive or something else that didn't set Adar apart. There was something in Jarren’s tone as well, perhaps that was the reason why Adar had picked up on it in the first place.

He growled. He was allowing his paranoia to take control again. “We have a day before I have to tell Briggs.”

Adar watched Jarren’s response for signs of discomfort or worry, but the man gave a nod as he left.

The fact that Keen had missed the warrant made Adar uncomfortable. As he watched Jarren leave, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the work of the spy he’d been hoping to ferret out.

The fact that it was Helam’s man who had a warrant out for the prisoner raised Adar’s suspicions even further, but it seemed like a mistake on Helam’s part, he had enough connections to have the warrant come from a different source. Perhaps Adar had been wrong about Helam.

If the false Radim were working for Helam, why would he do anything that would tie them back to him? Or maybe Helam was desperate enough to keep the captive man from speaking that he was willing to take the risk.

Adar would need to check to see if there had been warrants out for any of the other men that had been posing as Radim. He had the list of names he got today and he could track down the other captives who had been killed as well. If any of those led back to Helam, than Adar would have something more to go on than wild speculation.

Perhaps Helam was using the arrest warrants as an alert system so he could have his spy kill them discretely. If that was the case his captive might be in more immediate danger than he’d supposed.

Knowing that he was giving into paranoia, Adar nodded to the stable boy as he left and went to find Lucas so he could start the interrogation. It would have been better to wait until the man had been deprived of sleep and was exhausted from being on his feet all night, but Adar had the feeling that time wasn’t on his side.

After Adar had bested Helam in the competition, there had been a look on Helam's face that Adar had ignored; it had seemed to be a promise. When Helam had found him drunk and without a sword, Adar had thought back to that look and realized he should have trusted his instincts.

It was a mistake that he hoped to never repeat.

As Nelion hurried through the street on the Paroke army base, she wondered how long it had taken for her to get here and noticed that she’d been chewing on her lip. It was a nervous tic of hers. She released it and was glad that she didn’t taste blood. It wouldn’t have been the first time that she’d bitten herself. She was following the instructions she’d received from the Paroke guards at the Inner Wall and had taken a left before the large trash pile as instructed.

It had been a few moments since she had passed it and the smell was beginning to fade. She gulped for a breath of cleaner air, amazed that the trash was so close to their quarters in the Inner Wall. She’d heard that the army trash pile hadn’t always been right by the gate and wondered why it had been moved there. She didn’t know much about General Helam Morgol, but she figured he’d done it on purpose. Perhaps it was easier for the soldiers to remove their trash from the barracks if it was closer to where they lived. It was a pungent reminder for them to keep their quarters clean.

Korew army had no such trash pile. All refuse was either burned or disposed of outside of the city in Korew’s firebreak where it was buried. It made sense that the men were too lazy to do that and had to have it moved closer to where they lived.

Taking another deep breath, which smelled worse than the last, she guessed that it hadn’t been more than half an hour since the conversation with her mother, but even without seeing a clock, she knew that she was late for her appointment. She’d done her best to avoid running since she’d left the Palace courtyard, but she’d still moved at a quick enough pace that her breathing had become labored and she could feel sweat dripping down her back. If she’d taken the oaths and still been training, the brisk walk wouldn’t have bothered her in the slightest.

Every Radim army base had a section where buildings had been erected to supplement the barracks that were built into the Inner Wall. On most of the other Radim bases, the structures were stark affairs and had all the appeal of a darkly lit alley at night but that wasn’t the case here. This portion of the Paroke army base was more like a civilian street than she was used to seeing.

Children played in the failing light of the day while women dressed in fine clothes were finishing up their shopping. The Paroke grounds were nothing like what she was familiar with from her time with Korew army. She’d heard that some of the Radim army bases had allowed in civilian services, but she hadn’t seen it firsthand until now.

As Nelion passed a tailor shop, a well-dressed woman stepped out and Nelion wondered what the woman could have been shopping for until she looked at the display window and noticed that there were dresses for sale.

Doing her best to hide her shock, she’d continued on. Dresses hadn’t been available on the Korew army base and had been all but banned. If a woman on the Korew grounds ever wore a dress, at best she could expect dirty looks from anybody she saw; at worst, she could expect hazing. Nelion had heard of women waking up with their heads shaven. She hadn’t believed it because who would be stupid enough to wear a dress on the Korew base?

Shaking her head, she sped up her pace. Things were far stranger over here than she would have thought.

When she came to the Paroke archives, she was surprised to find that it was a three story building with a prominent place on the street. She’d been expecting a small one-room building where she could have browsed all the contents within an hour. No wonder why Semal had asked Kyson and her to help him out.

The final light of the day gave the building a deserted look and it was dark except for some light coming through a window up on the second floor.

Nelion tried the door, found it was locked, and knocked. After a few minutes passed without anybody answering, she tried knocking again; this time pounding with her fist so that those on the second floor would hear her. More time passed without anything happening and she was beginning to think about returning to the guards at the gate in the Inner Wall for help when she heard the lock turn. The door creaked open.