Bones of the Empire (22 page)

Orls shifted behind him, keeping one hand on Raeln’s manacles. His job seemed to be to keep Raeln from trying to stand as Yiral killed him.

“Finish it,” he told her through a thick tongue.

Yiral raised her left hand over Raeln’s back and lifted the sword in her right over Raeln’s head. He immediately lowered his eyes to the feet of the council’s lead man, directly in front of him. If he were very lucky, he would never feel that sword come down. They had promised him a painless death, and between the drink and whatever magic Yiral possessed, he had to hope they were right.

“About that decree,” Ceran said, eliciting a whisper through the crowd. “The councilman whose seal is on it…when did you last see her?”

Yiral remained perfectly still at his side, but Raeln could not force himself to look up. The numbness was making it difficult to concentrate anymore.

“You said yourself it was signed less than two weeks ago,” the council’s man answered, while several of the others muttered amongst themselves. “Get this done with, preserver. I am tired of your questions. You wish to stall for the life of your slave. It is admirable, but it must end now. You have done well by those you care for. Do what you must.”

“I only have one more question,” Ceran added, and Raeln listened to the faint crackling of the sword over his neck. It slowly warmed his skin through his clothing and fur. “How long has Dorralt controlled the council and lied to us?”

Before the others could react, Yiral’s weapon passed low over Raeln’s head with a sizzling hiss. The steaming, severed head of the council’s man landed at Raeln’s knees just before the body fell over, the neck already cauterized.

“It is time we had a reckoning,” Ceran said as fighting broke out in front of Raeln. It took only a few seconds before the Turessians and slaves were holding down the nineteen remaining people from the council. A few steps away, Yoska had one of the men pinned down with a knife at his throat, all of his anger refocused. “I wish to know how many of you knew that the signatory for the council whose seal was on those papers has been dead for a month…and missing for nearly a month longer. I know this because we found her remains among those of a dozen other assistants to the council, left to rot where dire wolves could find them. If you lie to me further, your clan will never find
your
remains. Honesty will earn you a place among our slaves.”

“You have no right!” screamed one of the council’s women, struggling to free herself from Ildorn, who held her down. “We’re acting on council orders! They died because they refused orders of their own!”

“Kill that one,” Ceran declared calmly, and Raeln heard the telltale pop of a neck being broken. “The council was chosen. They are not kings or emperors. Their decrees have gone against tradition for more than a year, and against Turessian law for months. None of you stood against them. It took three strangers to show us the truth, and it is with pride that I declare two clans united against the council and the creature that now rules them. I would rather fight beside my own slaves in a losing battle than serve a council that has left behind our land’s customs.”

Seconds passed with only the occasional muttered curse from council representatives on the ground. Not one tried to seek forgiveness or explain their actions.

“Kill them all,” Ceran added, turning to Raeln as the remaining members of the council’s party were quickly butchered, staining the snow red as far as Raeln could see. “Now,” Ceran said, bending over to look into Raeln’s eyes. He could barely see her through the haze the drink had filled his head with, and he had to struggle to keep looking straight ahead. “You are not quite finished, wolf.” Reaching to the back of her belt, Ceran drew a gleaming knife that looked as though it had never been used. Given the way Turessians relied on their magic, it was not beyond belief.

Orls’s hand on Raeln’s manacles grew hot for a moment, and then the manacles fell away. He removed the rope from his neck, leaving Raeln unrestrained, though still kneeling. Both Orls and Yiral backed away, allowing him freedom to move, even as Yiral’s magic weapon vanished from her hand.

“My people have wronged yours,” Ceran said, taking Raeln’s hand and pressing the hilt of the dagger into it. “You have every right to kill me. Strike and flee. It is no less than any of us would expect from anyone we have treated this way. There is no law and no moral obligation to resist this. War is upon our clan, and you are not even considered a person, let alone an ally. No law mandates your death or punishment anymore. Do what you must. I give you yet another chance to free yourself at great cost to myself. I will not make the offer again.”

Raeln struggled to stay upright. He stared at the knife in his hand, his eyes drifting lazily between it and Ceran, whose hard expression reminded him all too much of Liris. Memories of the fights with undead Turessians crossed his foggy mind, and he grabbed Ceran by the robe and slammed her to the ground. To his surprise, neither Turessian standing over him made any effort to stop him as he put the knife to the vein along her neck.

He could kill her. It would take only a second to end her life, and only a minute or two to ensure no one could heal her before her blood cooled. It would be easy, and Raeln knew he would be told he was justified by everyone outside of these lands. Yoska would throw a party for him. Even Dalania might forgive him for that bloodshed.

Looking over at the crowd of slaves who had mingled with the Turessian clan, he easily spotted Dalania, watching him with horror in her eyes. She was terrified of what he was about to do. His own sister would have had that same look. He had seen Ilarra give him that worried stare the first time he had lost his temper in a fight with another wolf who had tried to kill him. He knew he was doing something neither Dalania or Ilarra could easily forgive. No amount of anger would ever change the guilt he would put on himself if he carried through.

He held on a little longer, trying to concentrate through the lingering haze of the drink, wondering if he was thinking as clearly as he hoped. Finally, Raeln tossed aside the knife and offered Ceran a hand up off the ground.

Taking his hand gingerly, Ceran sat up and eyed their clasped hands. “I would have killed you for that simple gesture a year ago. There is no time for pride, now. The council will send a hundred or thousand more zealots this way within a week.”

“The council is dead,” Raeln said, eliciting a slight rise of one of her eyebrows. “They were undead under Dorralt’s control. When they tried to defy him, he turned them to ash. Dorralt is the only one left in charge.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Do you want to hear about the last three from the prophecy or not?” he asked in reply. “Turess wrote that jumbled mess. It should be worth something to you. I’m guessing you read it before you gave it back to us. We’re all that’s left.”

Prying her hand free of Raeln’s, Ceran slid a short distance from him and gave Yiral and the others nearby significant looks. After a moment, she said, “Welcome to the clan, Raeln. It seems it is time for some old traditions to be…adjusted.”

*

Raeln remained on the hillside well into the evening, with Yiral at his side, watching the clan drag off the bodies of the council’s people. The clan’s slaves drifted aimlessly, unsure of what to do. Word had already spread that they were no longer to be considered anyone’s property and would be asked to aid the clan, but no one seemed confident of what that really meant. The Turessians did not see the slaves as equals, even as they said they were no longer to be called slaves. It was a strange state for all of them. The clan needed the slaves to work beside them, but neither the clansmen nor the slaves knew how to behave anymore.

Midafternoon, a rider had come into the area to announce the whole population of the clan once headed by Nellic was on its way to join with Ceran’s. The rider claimed they were bringing a hundred Turessians and nearly twice that many slaves and ancestors. The area would soon be very crowded.

“This is why I chose to protect the three of you,” Yiral said, sitting in the snow near Raeln, long after Ceran had hurried off to help with preparations. “Ceran was quite certain that anyone able to fulfil the prophecy would dishonor themselves, thereby denying the prophecy. I was less convinced. She truly believed you would kill her and prove yourself to be anything but the ones Turess spoke of in those rambling words he wrote. She was willing to sacrifice herself to prove the prophecies false. In that, Nellic and her had much in common. Years past, I would have attempted to match those two, but times do change.”

Raeln looked over Yiral, who smiled at him in return. “You tortured and branded us to prove a point.”

“Much of that was Ceran’s idea, to be honest. She felt that sparing you anything that the other slaves endured would nullify any purpose to keeping you alive. You had to be just like any other slave, or it meant nothing. I would not apologize for any of it. Our customs require three offers of sanctuary to our former enemies before we may accept them in. She felt three offers to trade her life for yours was fitting. Had you taken her up on it, we would have gone to the council and resworn our allegiance.”

Raeln snorted and let his eyes drift over the dark stains on the snow where the blood of the fallen had faded to black with the sunset. He still had trouble focusing his eyes on details far away, though most of the feeling had returned to his limbs. In the back of his mind, he wondered how he had been freezing just hours earlier, but the violence he had not taken part in had managed to make him forget that for so long.

“What does this stupid prophecy say this time?” he asked eventually, not sure he wanted to know. “I’ve heard so much insane babble from Turess that I want to have some time to let this one sink in. No one’s bothered to read the whole parchment to me.”

Laughing, Yiral pulled out the scroll tube that Ceran had won fighting Nellic. Opening it, she pulled out a single sheet of parchment, with only a few small scribbled runewords. “Each clan got their own small prophecy when Turess passed into death. Legend states that his dearest friend delivered them,” she explained, smoothing the parchment on her knees. “Ours told us that when the empire sought to become whole again, we would embrace all who would be slaves and stand against the darkness that consumes our nation from within. A rather unpopular prophecy, to say the least. This one…it may be simpler.”

Touching the different runes as she spoke, the way an adult would read to a child who still had trouble with their letters, Yiral translated, “Let the dog lead them. Sacrifice all and follow, if he does not bite.”

“He prophesied that I wouldn’t maul you? You know, this isn’t really my war,” he argued, shivering as the wind picked up briefly. “I was led here. I shouldn’t lead your clan anymore than you should go to war over something Turess wrote thousands of years ago.”

“We are all led to where we belong, Raeln. You are no different. This was going to happen with or without you and your friends. I am not telling you to help us…I am asking. We will have our war with or without you. If you help us, more lives may yet be spared.”

Raeln looked over at Yiral, finding she appeared tired beyond words. “What are our chances of standing up to Dorralt?”

“I do not even know who that is, despite you using the name a lot. The name has been whispered by the council as their newest member, but none of us know of him,” she admitted. “We have seen the undead, though. Not like our ancestors, but twisted and angry creatures that are being used as pawns in a war against the south. We have seen those who lead them, who appear to still walk among us but instead are as twisted as their armies. They are the darkness that consumes our nation.

“You ask our chances, Raeln, so let me be honest. One clan against these forces will die. In the last two days, we have gained the support of a second. That will never be enough, even if we only fight the undead that the council controls. With all of the major clans and all of the tribal communities joined together, we are outmatched. Turessi will tear itself apart, and they will use our remains to create a new army. We see that, and it is why you are still alive. We need information and help from outside our lands. You have seen places we have chosen not to visit and have seen how our enemy fights. For perhaps the first time in history, a southerner may have knowledge we desperately lack.”

“I don’t believe you would ask a stranger, marked as a slave, to lead your forces. Not at all, Yiral. You have no reason to trust me.”