The Merchant Emperor (57 page)

The Bolg king merely met his gaze in silence.

Finally Dranth exhaled again. “You should perhaps let someone with more distance handle this,” he said finally. “That is always the wise way in matters of revenge.”

Achmed picked up his gear.

“It’s not revenge, not mine at any rate,” he said. “Grunthor and the Archons will see to everything in the kingdom while I am gone. Keep away from the Lightcatcher. Guard the Child.”

He could feel the ancient hunter’s gaze boring into him all the way out of the room.

It didn’t impact him in the slightest.

52

SEPULVARTA

Fhremus was in the midst of the organized frenzy of battle preparations when word reached him in the city center of the return of Titactyk’s regiment. He finished his list for the quartermaster, arranged a delay in his fourth and fifth meeting that morning, and hurried to the wall overlooking the barracks where the weary garrison was disembarking, returning their horses to the livery and their empty packs to the depot.

He saw Kymel almost immediately; it would have been difficult to miss him, wandering somewhat aimlessly among his comrades who, despite the evidence of exhaustion, were systematically breaking formation in preparation to bathe, eat, and sleep. The lack of light in his nephew’s eyes disturbed him; he turned to his aide-de-camp.

“Tell Titactyk I have requested that you bring the soldier named Kymel to my office immediately. I need to debrief him.”

His aide saluted and left.

*   *   *

Within the quarter hour his aide had returned, the young soldier in tow. Fhremus dismissed him, then walked past his nephew, closing the office door.

“Report,” he said.

“The emperor was successfully escorted to the crossroads leading west to Jierna’sid and south to Windswere.” Kymel stared straight ahead.

“Then what happened? What happened in Windswere?”

“Our mission was accomplished.”

Fhremus slammed his hand down on his desk.

“Fine. I am done hearing your report as a soldier under my command. Tell me what happened as your uncle.”

“With respect, sir, I would not do so, were I not under your command.”

Fhremus’s stomach was boiling at the look in Kymel’s eyes. He willed his voice to be gentle but to ring with military discipline at the same time.

“Tell me,” he said. “Without frosting.”

Something in his last word struck home; Fhremus was not certain how he knew, but he was sure of it. The young soldier looked at him for the first time.

“We were deployed to an ancient military site that had been converted long ago into a refuge for orphans, street children and their mothers known as the Abbey of Nikkid’sar,” he said softly. “A hidden place of harsh clime and gentle oversight, built atop a seacliff on a sandspit jutting out into the southern sea. I was specifically tasked with locating an object whose image the emperor showed me in a fresco on a wall in the basilica of Lianta’ar.” He fell silent.

“Go on,” Fhremus said after a few long moments of heavy silence in the air.

“The titan Faron was tasked with widening a small passage in a rocky moraine that had been the rampart and defense of the abbey,” Kymel said. “When this was accomplished, the cohort went in. I was last; when Titactyk told me that the site had been secured, I searched and located many of the objects the emperor had shown me in the fresco. I located the one of the best integrity I could find, boxed it carefully in a wooden chest from the abbey, and transported it successfully to Jierna Tal, where I presented it to the emperor. He dismissed me, but bade me tell you to deploy. I did not know what he meant, but it was made clear that you would. This ends my report.”

“Not quite, it doesn’t,” Fhremus said dryly. “You are showing signs of severe trauma, soldier; if I had not known you prior to your enlistment, I might not recognize those signs, but having been your uncle all your life, I do. What happened at the abbey?”

Kymel said nothing.

“Tell me,” Fhremus said tersely.

Kymel inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly.

“There was an ancient weapon, a catapult of a sort, from the days before the abbey, when the site was a defensive outpost,” he said, his voice hollow. “When the cohort was finished securing the target, it was discovered that the catapult was still operational, the soldiers used it to take turns disposing of the bodies and the—”

“Halt,” said Fhremus. His voice was shaking. “Bodies?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kymel.

“What bodies?”

Kymel said nothing.

“
What bodies?
Tell me. That’s an order, soldier.”

Kymel exhaled again.

“We encountered seventeen women, one of whom was in charge of the abbey, the abbess, I believe, fifty-seven children and eleven infants. By drawing of lots, the soldiers of the cohort—”

His voice broke. Instinctively Fhremus stood in silence, waiting for Kymel to recover his calm, while he struggled to recover his own. Finally Kymel spoke again.

“In order of lot, the soldiers selected women to ravage, taking turns with some of the more attractive and younger ones. The children and infants were rounded up and used as catapult fodder; the infants were all shot from it, live, into the sea, in a game of distance and accuracy. Some of the children were used as the women had been, some just put to the sword, or shot from the catapult, live, as well. The bodies of the women were similarly committed to the sea, but not until all of their throats had been cut.” He swallowed, forcing the last words to come out of his throat. “Each soldier took a turn with the abbess, sodomizing—”

“Stop.” Fhremus was trembling with rage. “Did you take a turn?”

“No, sir. I was tasked with search and reconnaissance.”

“For what? What was this object that the emperor was so interested in?”

Kymel looked away.

“Speak, soldier. What was so important as to send a cohort to an abbey for it?”

“It was a cookie, sir.”

Fhremus’s eyes opened to the size of the full moon. “A—a
cookie
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A cookie?”

“There were dozens of them, sir, on plates on the table in the main building. I heard one of the other soldiers say that the legends of this place, the Well of the Moon, had said that it was a haven for damaged or poor children where if they could find it they would also find kindness, gentle treatment, toys, cookies, and sweetmeats. I can attest to existence there of the last three; the first two seem likely from what I could reconnoiter as well. Nothing magical, epic, or significant, just—just—”

“Just what?”

Kymel swallowed again. “Just humanity, sir.”

Fhremus’s rage exploded. “I will have Titactyk hanged for this.”

His nephew blinked. “I don’t think you can, sir, at least not by the code of military justice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything he did was fulfilling a direct command of the emperor,” Kymel said without emotion. “We were told to leave no one alive.”

“Did—did he know what sort of place it was, that it was an orphanage, a refuge for children?”

“Most certainly, sir. Titactyk was ordered to dispose of the bodies, but there was no place to bury them, and the wet wind prevented pyres atop the cliffs or on the beach. But even if it hadn’t, the catapult was extremely popular.” He looked at the floor. “I did nothing to stop it, sir. For that, I have dishonored our family and myself.”

No more than I have,
thought Fhremus.
Sweet All-God.

“What will you do now, sir?”

The supreme commander looked out the window of his office, in what had once been, in the days before the invasion, a dispensary of medicine.

“Deploy,” he said.

There was no emotion at all in his voice.

53

TRAEG, NORTHWESTERN SEACOAST

Ashe had reached the high cliffs overlooking the crashing sea when a faint blue light appeared, hovering in the air above the beach below him.

“Rhapsody?” he called. “Is that you?”

A blurry image, filmy and almost invisible, returned his gaze.

I am here.

The voice was foreign, almost alien, bearing none of the warmth that he knew as well as he knew his own name, the beating of his own heart.
I have returned from the journey I told you about the last time we spoke. All was done in accordance to plan. In addition, Anwyn is dead; history will record me as her executioner, as her killer
.

There was no sadness in her words, just simple statement of fact blended with the whine of the sea wind. Ashe swallowed hard.

“Being victorious in battle with a wyrm, or any other opponent, does not make a killer of the winner, Rhapsody.”

She did not die in battle, though one did take place between us eleven days before. I followed her into the broken ruins of Kurimah Milani, where she was hiding, injured and compromised, and put her to the sword, ignored her pleas for her life. I do not regret it; I am merely telling you the truth. I took her life and burned her body; there is no possibility she will return
.

Ashe’s brow furrowed, but otherwise his expression did not change.

“Good,” he said. “Tell me of your journey.”

The look in Rhapsody’s eyes grew colder.
All is in place, as I told you. If something should happen to me, you will know what to do. I do not judge it wise to say more in the open air.

The Lord Cymrian nodded, quietly dismayed to have no specific report of Meridion, a reassurance that had sustained him ever since he had sent his wife and son away to the Bolglands with Achmed. He rubbed his hands briskly over his arms, as if to ward off the chill of the wind, or perhaps in her voice.

“Where are you going now, Rhapsody?”

The howl of the sea wind almost blotted out the sound of her answer.

Wherever the Lord Marshal deploys me. I leave on the morrow to meet up with him and your namesake.

“Please, please be careful, my love,” Ashe said fervently. “I don’t like the look in your eyes.”

The image of Rhapsody seemed to inhale, then let her breath out steadily. She said nothing.

The gusts off the waves below picked up, whipping the Lord Cymrian’s cape about him.

“Rhapsody,” he said, his voice serious and grave, “listen to me. You and I have both made bitter sacrifices to fulfill our responsibilities as Lord and Lady Cymrian, but those duties are not what need to guide us now. If you and I feel the weight of every person who depends on our actions, we will surely buckle under the guardianship of an entire continent. So, having put safeguards in place, we are both wading forward, you into the fray, I into the sea—but what needs to anchor us both is our vow of love to each other. I know what you have given up to protect—”

He stopped at the furious gleam in her eyes, then dropped his gaze.

“If anything were to happen to you, it would have been better to throw myself from this cliff into the sea right now. I cannot go on until I have your assurance that you will fight with everything you have to come back to me, to us.” He raised his eyes and looked at her image again.

The woman who returned his gaze was all but unrecognizable.

Within him, he felt the rise of the dragon as it began to panic.

I will do the best I can,
she said.
Perhaps you can take comfort in knowing that, because I am numb, I am logical, and focused. The lack of pain should serve to keep me sensible.

Ashe exhaled, tears filling his eyes.

“I love you,” he said as the blue light faded and the image disappeared into the wind. “Gods, I love you.”

There was no reply.

HIGHMEADOW

The Lord Cymrian had left without warning, telling no one but his namesake.

Not even his chamberlain.

So when Gerald Owen heard the voice in the dark of foredawn, he had no idea that its instructions would come to naught.

The voice had been nattering subsonically for some time, whispering outlandish instructions and wheedling charmingly. Owen was beginning to think he was ill from worry or succumbing to the frailty of old age, when the order that appeared in his mind sounded.