The False Martyr (105 page)

That was the first order
of business, but Ipid gave in to his curiosity before pursuing it.
He scanned the room behind him. Just as in Thoren, it was the old
throne room of the lords who had declared themselves kings of the
south prior to Unification. This, however, was nearly twice the
size and barren. It appeared that almost every piece of furniture
had been removed – the chairs from the gallery, the desks for the
secretaries – so that only the great, long council table remained.
Like Thoren, a dais had been constructed for the table, but it had
been abandoned. The thirty foot table – through what must have been
extraordinary effort – had been removed from the dais and set
before it. A few chairs had been placed around it, but not nearly
enough for the number of advisors that had been in the room. Around
it, Ipid could trace the course of the battle.

Naidi and Eia had placed
the soldiers perfectly. One portal had opened just before the
table. The knights rushing through had cut down officers and
advisors before they knew what was happening. Their bodies were
piled around the wooden surface like wheat newly cut in a field.
Blood ran across the floor and dripped from the table where more
than a few of the dead had sprawled as the life ran from them. The
second portal had opened at the other end of the room, almost
exactly where Ipid stood. The men who rushed from it had been
positioned to take the guards who lined the walls. Like the
officers, they slumped in their armor almost exactly where they had
stood.

Knights wandered around
those bodies, kicking them over, ensuring that they breathed no
more, solemnly finishing those that did. Their faces were grim,
pale, screwed up tight. Most of them had never killed before, had
never been part of something like this. They looked like Ipid felt.
He wanted to drop to the tiles at his feet and cry, to release his
stomach, to scream. Instead, he tightened his jaw and forced
himself to admire the skill and bravery of the men who served
him.

His anger spiked as his
eyes found the source of all this suffering. Gathered with a
handful of old men at the back of the room, surrounded by knights
so that Ipid could barely see him, was the would-be Chancellor of
the South, Tares Bairn. He was staring wide-eyed from between the
knights, looking like nothing more than the defeated old man he
was. Ipid almost felt sorry for him as he followed his darting eyes
to the indistinct bodies of two of the men lying dead on the floor
– no doubt his sons. Despite himself, Ipid smirked at that. After
what that bastard had done, he had no right to sympathy. And his
life was only going to get worse before it ended in a few short
hours.

Turning from that scene,
trying to wash it from his mind so that it would not overpower him,
Ipid looked at the backs of the Darthur before him. “Did you leave
this room?” he asked in Darthur.

“
No, Uhram Machtur,” one
of the warriors bellowed without turning, using a term the Darthur
had taken to calling him, which meant ‘leader of the
honorable’.

“
Let me
through.”

“
It is not safe,” the same
man said. “There are still many soldiers in the other room. We
would kill them, but you told us not to leave this room. They cower
in their like sheep. Shall we rid you of them?”

“
No! I need those men.” He
pushed his way through the warriors. The Darthur allowed him to
pass but gathered around him, moving with him to the door. Ipid
just groaned. “Captain Olinse,” he yelled into the room. “It is
time. Step forward.”

It took far longer than
Ipid would have liked for the man to make himself known – he
counted the heartbeats by the throb in his arm. He was just about
to yell again when a man in an officer’s uniform stepped from the
crowd. The others moved carefully away from him and eyed him
warily. Several of the men were splattered with blood, a few were
on the ground or doubled over moaning with injuries. Clearly some
of them had been part of the attack that had nearly ended Ipid’s
life, but true to their word, the Darthur had not pursued them into
the other room when they retreated. Ipid wondered what to do with
them now. He had declared that any man who raised arms against him
must die, but if he killed every officer in the city, there’d be no
one to bring the common soldiers into line.

“
Are you prepared to
assume command, Captain?” Ipid asked, deciding that the double
standard was the lesser evil. He took a step forward. His foot hit
something. Glancing down, he saw the bodies – how had he not
noticed them before? There were only a dozen, maybe fifteen, and
the Darthur had not needed to ensure they were no longer breathing.
Their bodies were mangled and twisted, blood slick under his
boots.

Fighting nausea, Ipid
returned his attention to the room before him and hoped that none
of the officers in the other room had noticed his hesitation. They
retracted, nearly falling over themselves. Ipid marveled at the
power of his stare, until he saw that Eia had broken through the
warriors and come to stand at his side. Clearly, the officers had
seen what the wizard could do. Ipid was almost relieved that it was
not him that had invoked such fear.

“
Sir . . . I mean, Lord
Chancellor . . . sir, I . . . I am, sir,” Captain Olinse stuttered.
He was a well-built man in his thirties with shoulders that filled
his uniform, a thick neck, and big hands, but he was far from
handsome. His face was lumpy, skin pock-marked and blotchy, nose
bulbous and rough, teeth a tangle on the bottom and overbite above.
His eyes were pale almost lost under his heavy brow, but they
looked clever, and Ipid didn’t care about any of his other feature.
Vontel had said the man was capable and ambitious. He had started
disgruntled by being passed over for promotion and ended mutinous
when a favorite cousin – and lover? – had been killed in the purge.
At least that was the story Vontel wove. Now, it was time to find
the truth.

“
Are you prepared to
assume command?” Ipid asked again with a sharper edge.

“
Lord Chancellor, I am,
sir!” the officer snapped back and saluted.

Ipid eyed the men around
the captain. Most looked confused, a few pleased, others murderous.
“Gentlemen,” Ipid called, scanning the officers. He stepped over a
body, trying not to see it, and walked into the room. Eia and the
Darthur accompanied him. The waiting soldiers cowered back from
them. “This is your new commander. I hereby name him High Commander
of the Dorington garrison and surrounding defenses. Does any man
here object to or question his command?”

Only one of the officers
had the temerity to do something with his head other than shake it.
The dapper older man, whose uniform marked him as the highest
ranking officer in the room, scowled and nodded absently. Ipid
gestured and a warrior ended the dissent. The old man sputtered as
he clutched at the knife standing from his chest. The others
gasped, eyes wide, heads shaking vigorously.

“
If we are then in
agreement as to the new command structure, you will do as Commander
Olinse asks without question or hesitation.” Nods this
time.

“
Lord Chancellor,”
Commander Olinse’ voice rose over the fear. “What are your orders,
sir?”

“
Secure the city. Martial
law is now in effect. A curfew will begin immediately. Anyone found
on the street by sunset will be arrested. Bring your men down from
the walls and prepare to meet your brothers when they arrive from
Denton. You will find them places to sleep in your barracks or
local houses. And make preparations for your own departure. All but
two hundred of the men gathered here will accompany Field Marshal
Landon to join the invaders. We take with us any and all food and
provisions that have been gathered for the pending
siege.”

There was a gasp from the
officers. The men seemed to think better of it, but even Commander
Olinse was unable to keep his opinions in line. “The outposts, Lord
Chancellor?” he asked, giving voice to all the concerns behind
him.

“
Will be abandoned,” Ipid
finished for him. The soldiers barely caught their gasps and
mumbles of dissent. As it was, they looked from one to another in
disbelief. Bairn had already drawn all the men in from the outposts
that served to guard the Kingdoms from Sylian raiders. Ipid had
known that he would. It was why he had waited to reclaim the city –
why do a job yourself when you can get someone better suited to do
it for you? Ipid knew that even that must have been difficult for
these men to swallow. Protecting the Kingdoms from the Sylians was
what most of them had built their reputations on, and unlike the
knights in the other room, most of them had actually fought and
killed the savages. They knew that two hundred men would be
stretched to do anything more than hold the city should the Sylians
drive north with any kind of force. Ipid knew it as well, but he
also knew what the Darthur would do if he did not deliver the
soldiers he’d promised.
Better to be
stabbed in the palm than the chest, as they say.

“
Any other questions?” he
yelled and stared at the men in a way that conveyed the danger they
courted should they decide to accept the offer. None did. “Then I
must attend to the traitors in the other room. Know that any
dissent will be punished quickly and with great finality.” He
glanced meaningfully at the bodies behind him then at the old man
sputtering his last breaths on the floor before. “You, I am giving
another chance, but do not make me regret it.”

Ipid turned on a heel,
stepped over the bodies and returned to the Directorate Hall.
Behind him, he heard mumbles fall to silence as Commander Olinse’
voice rose in command.
One task
down
, Ipid told himself.
Now for the harder one.

He strode through the
hall, Eia at his side, Darthur entourage in tow. Already, the
knights had cleared most of the bodies, streaks of red running
across the floor marking each man’s journey to the pile at the far
end of the room. Near that pile, a knight crouched. Another
standing over him patted his back while watching to see what eyes
may be witnessing. The boy stood as Ipid watched, wiping a line of
bile from his chin, looking lost in his armor and helm. He did not
begrudge the boy his sickness. Certainly, he wished he could do the
very same thing.

A cry of pain called his
attention to the other side of the room and briefly interrupted his
stride. His eyes went to a line of knights holding wads of cloth to
faces, arms, or legs with bloody hands. At their front, the surgeon
stitched the leg of a man who bit on a folded strap of leather and
squeezed the hand of his comrade. He bellowed as the surgeon
stitched, writhing but for the men holding him to the ground. The
surgeon shook his head as he worked and cursed under his breath.
The other men in the line watched like boys waiting their turn to
be bent over their father’s knee, looking increasingly green,
though none of their injuries appeared to rival that of the man on
the ground.

By my order, Ipid thought
as he resumed his walk. The dead, the injured, the distraught. They
were his responsibility. This was his making. He made himself look,
forced himself to see the faces of the dead, to look at the men
whose lives had been ruined, to watch the eyes of the boys he had
made into killers.
You did this!
he cursed himself.
They
are boys. Boys like Dasen. They will live with this for the rest of
their lives. And it is all because of you.
Bile rising, head spinning, arm throbbing, Ipid forced
himself to take it all in then push it away.
You are hard
, he ordered.
You did what had to be done. Now own it. The
blame is yours, but that does not mean you are guilty.

A hand on his arm
interrupted his dark deliberations. He looked down and found Eia
walking close beside him – too close. She smiled sympathetically as
if sensing his every emotion – which she probably was. He forced
himself to nod to her and double his resolution.

“
Make way,” he called to
the knights before him.

They stepped aside to give
him access to the men they guarded. There were only six of them
left alive. Four of them were old men even worse equipped for
battle than Ipid. The fifth was Lord Bairn’s middle son, a stocky
boy in his early thirties with a block face to match his father’s.
The lord himself was the last. He was of approximately the same
height and build as Ipid but looked nothing like him. He was at
least ten years Ipid’s senior, but still solidly built with broad
shoulders, short burly arms, and a barrel chest. His head was
almost perfectly square with a full head of short-cropped silver
hair that joined almost seamlessly to the square beard that framed
his jaw and mouth. Blood was sprayed across his cheek and nose,
reaching in dots up to the line of his hair. He wore a uniform to
match those of his officers, and like theirs, it was marred by red.
Most prominent was an almost perfect handprint on his left lapel
that streaked down to a pant leg that clung to him, red and
glistening. His blue-grey eyes, so striking and severe, looked
bewildered now, darting across the room in disbelief, landing again
and again on the broken bodies of his other two son’s. His strong
jaw, usually clenched in determination, hung slack. His arm
remained back to restrain his remaining son, who seemed the only
one in the group with any idea of what had happened. Or was it the
other way around?