The False Martyr (27 page)

“
But why ask it then?”
Ipid knew that he was on thin ice, could almost hear it cracking
beneath him. “I am sorry, Great Leader, but I do not understand.”
He tried to make up for his questions with the last. He hung his
head and held out his hands in deference, hoping that would be
enough to save him.

Arin gave a low grunt and
glanced at the men around him. They were clearly listening and just
as clearly trying to look like they weren’t, but it was equally
clear that they had not understood. Ipid knew it was that fact
alone that kept him from being cast out at the least – and from the
window before him at the worst.

“
For me, you fool,” Arin
hissed. “I can’t be worrying about who’s in charge of this nation,
about who is meeting the terms of your surrender, so it is you who
will get us what we need, you who will keep the people in line, you
who will be my hand.” He clenched his fist to leave no doubt as to
the kind of hand he wanted. “Because you know the cost of failure,
it will be you. Do you understand now?”

Ipid nodded. If possible,
he liked the proposal even less than he had when he thought it was
some sort of twisted reward.

Arin turned back to the
window, looked down at the grass then to the sky. He made a gesture
out the window and turned to the te-ashute. “The te-am ‘eiruh are
ready. Does the Uhramar Ashute agree that we should
proceed?”

The big men around him –
the non-Darthur te-ashute had taken command of the defensive
formations arrayed in the fields before the tower to deter any
thought of a counter-attack – nodded their agreement. Arin smiled
grimly, turned his attention back to the window, and made another
gesture. Finally, he looked back at Ipid. “Make room for
k’amach-tur Ipid,” he ordered. “He should see this.”

The te-ashute looked up at
the order, but each seemed to expect another to make way. When no
progress seemed likely, Thorold took it upon himself. With a growl,
he reached out and shoved the man to his right. The big man there
did not stumble, but he was forced far enough to the side for
Thorold to steal a few feet from him. That left a space immediately
to Arin’s right. Ipid tentatively took it and looked out the window
just in time to see the hoods of the te-am ‘eiruh rise.

Gathered at the foot of
the tower, there were at least a hundred of them, shrouded in their
robes like a company of wraiths. Ipid searched those robes for some
sign of Eia. He told himself that he could find her even through
her vestments, but it was hopeless. The robes could have been held
up by sticks and wires for all that he could tell about their
occupants.

Guts twisted with horror,
he watched the city, expected to see it erupt in fire. He saw
something far worse. Hundreds of dark things sailed across the sky
– their shapes too varied and terrible to grasp – and swept down on
the city. Ipid knew it was impossible, but he would almost swear
that he heard the screams of the people five miles away.

From the tower, the city
below looked like a child’s block creation. Walls, towers, houses,
all reduced to geometric shapes laid out in a haphazard cluster.
Ipid identified the most important landmarks, watched the flying
stoche buzzing above them like wasps, tiny in comparison to the
great masses of stone, but those wasps could do far more than
sting. As Arin had ordered, the creatures flew past the outer
sections of the city. They remained high, then dove down in a great
swarm toward the tall towers, broad halls, and majestic edifices
that defined the city’s center, the political and economic heart of
a nation. As they descended, a flurry of tiny flashes rose to meet
them. Far too large to be arrows, Ipid could only guess what kind
of defenses the city had prepared, but he was silently elated to
see several of those mighty bolts strike home. He bit his tongue to
keep his cheers restrained as a dozen or more creatures crashed to
the ground.

His celebration was
premature. The city’s defenses brought down only a fraction of the
creatures. The others wove around the bolts and dove into
buildings, released balls of fire, ripped defenders from walls,
toppled towers, then rose again to survey their destruction. And at
the same time, Ipid felt –
somehow
felt
– the rise of emotions emanating from
the city: fear, pain, sorrow, anger. The creatures had sent the
people of Wildern over the edge, had snapped any slight control
they had maintained over their emotions. It was exactly what the
te-am ‘eiruh wanted.

Ipid shifted his eyes to
the ground before the tower, saw the wizards hands moving in their
robes, saw them swaying slightly with the force of their
concentration. His eyes returned to the city in time to see the
buildings begin to explode. Towers shattered. Fire spouted. The
ground split. Walls crumbled. And the emotions of the people
increased, only served to further their own destruction. Then came
the creatures, falling again from the sky to feast on the
destruction below. A scatter of bolts flew from the walls. A
handful of creatures fell. The city was defenseless, was in
disarray, was at Arin’s mercy. Ipid wondered if he had any to
spare.

#

It only took an hour for
the stoche and te-am ‘eiruh to reduce the center of Wildern to fire
and rubble. When the devastation finally paused, when the creatures
withdrew to the skies, not a single tower stood. Fire raged through
nearly every building. The great Hall of Understanding was a black
scar. The Chancellor’s Palace was a crater. The Monument to
Unification had been erased. The administrative buildings were
rubble. The wall that protected it all looked like it had been
struck repeatedly by a hammer. And it only took an hour. One
terrible hour and Arin had erased the heart of one of the world’s
great cities. As promised, they had not touched anything beyond
those walls, but there was no doubt that those areas would fall
just as fast should Arin so desire, no doubt that thousands of
innocents would die.

Ipid looked to Arin. He
surveyed the destruction below with a look of grim satisfaction.
“So k’amach-tur Ipid, do you think your leaders are ready to
reconsider?”

Ipid swallowed the lump in
his throat. He had seen too much now to feel anything more than
resignation at what had happened. There was no point in being angry
or sad. It was what had to happen, and it certainly could have been
worse. Arin didn’t have to stop. He could have annihilated the
entire city, could have killed every resident. He was unstoppable.
Ipid had no doubt of that now. With the te-am ‘eiruh and stoche,
the Kingdoms, Liandria, the Empire, even the Morgs had not the
slightest chance against him. And that only made what Ipid had to
do all the more urgent, redoubled his conviction that it was only
from the inside that the Darthur could be defeated. Anger, so
useful on a field of battle, was his enemy here. He could not
afford it, could not allow it to cloud his judgment, or temper his
reason, so he just sighed. “I certainly hope so,” he answered. “How
will you . . . ?”

Ipid did not have the
chance to finish his questions. Horns rang out. Every eye turned to
watch ten columns of knights emerge from the city and charge at
full gallop across the field. The late morning sun glinted off
their armor and the top of their lances as they formed into a wedge
and tore toward the hill where Ipid stood. Mud flew from the hooves
of their horses with such velocity that it rained down behind them
in a solid track of brown that marked their progress across the
green grass. But it was nearly five miles across the field to the
tower. No matter how fast they rode, they could not surprise the
thousands of men standing between them and their goal. What’s more,
they had just seen a city devastated in less than an hour, had to
know that the same power could be turned against them. How could
they possibly think this was anything more than heroic – but
utterly pointless – suicide?

“
Fools,” Arin growled.
“What do they think to accomplish with this beyond the deaths of
men who should be serving us? He scoffed then looked down and
yelled. “Belab! Stop them, but do not kill them. They cannot escape
their service with their deaths. And when you are finished, destroy
the area inside the wall on the other side of the
river.”

Ipid watched as a robed
figure in the center of the formation below turned and cast his
head up toward the tower. The sun penetrated the hood to reveal
Belab’s familiar features. He nodded then turned to his fellows.
Again they began to move.

And in the field below,
the Chancellor’s Own grew closer. They approached the line of
defenders, prepared to meet their spears and arrows with lances and
shields. They tightened their wedge, hoping to penetrate the
defenders at a single point and push through to the wizards, hoping
to strike at the heart of the invaders, and buy their city some
chance of survival. They lowered their lances, closed the final
half-mile, and were hit by an unseen wave.

Out of nowhere, the men
and their horses were thrown back, as if they had struck a wall.
Universally, the men were cast from their mounts. They clattered to
the ground in piles of iron and struggled to rise for the weight of
their armor. Their horses staggered. A few stumbled. A few failed
to rise. But the majority had seen enough. The best trained stayed
by their masters, pawing the ground with uncertainty, but far more
ran back to their stables. The charge had been dispersed. The city
had expended its best weapon, had deployed its best trained, best
equipped force, and failed to inflict a single casualty on the
invaders.

Arin slapped his hand on
the sill of the window where he watched. “Excellent!” He turned and
found a warrior standing ready behind him. “Karm, go. Tell the
Theirens to collect those men. I want them held on the field so
that they can be seen from the city.”

A young warrior with long,
blond hair snapped to attention. “Immediately, Uhramar.” He
saluted, spun, and ran from the room.

Arin watched out the
window a moment longer then turned and followed the man from the
room. “When that next area is destroyed, we will return to the
tent. We will give them until sunset to respond. If no one comes to
surrender, we will destroy what is left on the far side of the
river. Be ready to ride in two hours.” And with that he was gone.
Several of the te-ashute followed, leaving only Ipid and a
blood-thirsty few to watch Wildern’s most prosperous commercial and
residential district reduced to fire and rubble. Through the smoke
and haze, Ipid searched for his own
house
and offices
. He found them just in time to
see them explode into a spray of rubble and fire.

#

Two hours later, Ipid was
riding over even rougher ground back to the open tent in the middle
of the field. They stopped only briefly to inspect the still
armor-clad knights that had been gathered into a stunned mass a few
hundred paced before the first line of defenders. The knights had
been disarmed and were surrounded by men with crossbows, but they
did not appear to have any further interest in fighting. Most of
them had removed their helms and repurposed them as stools, heads
hanging, eyes cast to the ground, shoulders slumped. No doubt they
had built themselves up for their inevitable deaths, had never
expected to live past their charge, had hoped only that their
deaths might bring them glory, would ensure they lived on in songs
and stories. Then it had all ended in a single, sudden blast of
magical force, and all the bluster they had built to power
themselves had been pushed from them like the air leaving a man hit
hard in the gut. Now, they had neither death nor glory nor the will
to reclaim either.

Satisfied that they had
been secured, Arin thanked the men who held them and rode to the
tent. They arrived just as they had that morning, dismounted, and
entered. Neither Arin nor his guards showed any concern that
another cadre of defenders might charge from between the buildings
in the distance and catch them unprepared in the middle of a
field.

They waited for what
seemed to Ipid like days. He watched the smoke rise from the city
in two great black columns that eventually met and drifted north.
He was glad that the wind was from the south, that it spared him
from yet another way of experiencing the city’s misery. The day was
growing hot as the sun finally broke through the clouds in earnest.
The intensifying sun turned the rain that had fallen that morning
into a sticky morass that left him pulling at his shirt where it
clung to him beneath the jacket that he desperately wished to
remove.

Arin spent his time pacing
before the tent, watching the walls and the sun, grumbling and
cursing as the clan chiefs formed their own clumps of conversation.
Eventually, a few of them began a game that Ipid had seen before
but never had a chance to study. In what seemed like a child’s
sport, they formed a circle around a sword that had been planted in
their center, then with a yell, they literally fought their way to
it. The first man to pull and raise the sword was the winner. Ipid
watched the men tackle, punch, kick, and trip one another in ways
that made him cringe, but the game, no matter how brutal, always
ended in laughter and goodwill. It was a decidedly Darthur
activity. They didn’t care about who won or lost. The glory was in
the struggle. They loved the battle, fed off the fight, longed for
conflict. Ipid could imagine Darthur boys raised on this game,
taught from birth to fight, taught that the battle was all the
mattered, and he understood how they had conquered a continent, how
they would do the same thing here.