Blood of the Fold

Chapter 4

“My arms do be itching like ants,” Lunetta complained. “It be powerful here.”

Tobias Brogan glanced back over his shoulder. Scraps and patches of tattered, faded cloth fluttered in the faint light as Lunetta scratched herself. Amid the ranks of men bedecked with gleaming armor and mail, draped with crimson capes, her squat form hunched atop her horse looked as if it peered out from a rag pile. Her plump cheeks dimpled with a gap-toothed grin as she chortled to herself and scratched again.

Brogan’s mouth twisted in disgust, and he turned away, knuckling his wiry mustache as his gaze again passed over the Wizard’s Keep up on the mountainside. The dark gray stone walls caught the first weak rays of the winter sun that blushed the snow on the higher slopes. His mouth tightened further.

“Magic, I say, my lord general,” Lunetta insisted. “There be magic here. Powerful magic.” She prattled on, grumbling about the way it made her skin crawl.

“Be silent, you old hag. Even a half-wit wouldn’t need your filthy talent to know that Aydindril seethes with the taint of magic.”

Feral eyes gleamed from under her fleshy brows. “This be different from any you have seen before,” she said in a voice too thin for the rest of her. “Different from any I have ever felt before. And some be to the southwest, too, not just here.” She scratched her forearms more vigorously as she cackled again.

Brogan glowered past the throngs of people hurrying down the street, casting a critical eye at the exquisite palaces lining the wide thoroughfare called, he had been informed, Kings Row. The palaces were meant to impress the viewer with the wealth, might, and spirit of the people they represented. Each structure vied for attention with towering columns, elaborate ornamentation, and flamboyant sweeps of windows, roofs, and decorated entablatures. To Tobias Brogan, they looked like nothing more than stone peacocks: an ostentatious waste if ever he had seen one.

On a distant rise lay the sprawling Confessors’ Palace, its stone columns and spires unmatched by the elegance of Kings Row, and somehow whiter than the snow around it, as if trying to mask the profanity of its existence with the illusion of purity. Brogan’s stare probed the recesses of that sanctuary of wickedness, the shrine to magic’s power over the pious, as his bony fingers idly caressed the leather trophy case at his belt.

“My lord general,” Lunetta pressed, leaning forward, “did you hear what I said—”

Brogan twisted around, his polished boots creaking against the stirrup leather in the cold. “Galtero!”

Eyes like black ice shone from under the brow of a polished helmet beneath a horsehair plume dyed crimson to match the soldiers’ capes. He held his reins easily in one gauntleted hand as he swayed in his saddle with the fluid grace of a mountain lion. “Lord General?”

“If my sister can’t keep quiet when ordered to”—he shot her a glare—“gag her.”

Lunetta darted an uneasy glance at the broad-shouldered man riding beside her, at his polished-to-perfection armor and mail, at his well-honed weapons. She opened her mouth to protest, but as she returned her gaze to those icy eyes she closed it again, and instead scratched her arms. “Forgive me, Lord General Brogan,” she murmured as she bowed her head deferentially toward her brother.

Galtero aggressively sidestepped his horse closer to Lunetta, his powerful gray gelding jostling her bay mare, “Silence, streganicha.”

Her cheeks colored at the affront, and her eyes, for an instant, flashed with menace, but just as quickly it was gone, and she seemed to wilt into her tattered rags as her eyes lowered in submission.

“I not be a witch,” she whispered to herself.

A brow lifted over one cold eye, causing her to sag further, and she fell silent for good.

Galtero was a good man; the fact that Lunetta was sister to Lord General Brogan would count for nothing if the order were ever given. She was streganicha, one tainted by evil. Given the word, Galtero or any of the other men would spill her lifeblood without a moment’s hesitation or regret.

That she was Brogan’s kin only hardened him to his duty. She served as a constant reminder of the Keeper’s ability to strike out at the righteous, and blight even the finest of families.

Seven years after Lunetta’s birth, the Creator had balanced the injustice and Tobias had been born, born to counter what the Keeper had corrupted; but it had been too late for their mother, who had already begun to slip into the arms of madness. From the time he was eight, when the disrepute had delivered his father into an early grave and his mother had finally and fully nestled into the bosom of madness, Tobias had been burdened with the duty of ruling the gift his sister possessed, lest it rule her. At that age Lunetta had doted on him, and he had used that love to convince her to listen only to the Creator’s wishes, and to guide her in moral conduct, the way the men of the king’s circle had schooled him. Lunetta had always needed, in fact embraced, guidance. She was a helpless soul trapped by a curse that was beyond her ability to expunge or her power to escape.

Through ruthless effort, he had cleansed the ignominy of having one with the gift born into his family. It had taken most of his life, but Tobias had returned honor to the family name. He had shown them all; he had turned the stigma to his advantage, and had become the most exalted among the exalted.

Tobias Brogan loved his sister—loved her enough to slit her throat himself, if need be, to free her from the Keeper’s tendrils, from the torment of his taint, if it ever slipped the bounds of control. She would live only so long as she was useful, only so long as she helped them root out evil, root out banelings. For now, she fought the scourge snatching at her soul, and she was useful. He realized she didn’t look like much, swathed in scraps of different-colored cloth—it was the one thing that brought her pleasure and kept her content, having different colors draped around her, her “pretties” she called them—but the Keeper had invested Lunetta with rare talent and strength. Through tenacious effort, Tobias had expropriated it.

That was the flaw with the Keeper’s creation—the flaw in anything the Keeper created: it could be used as a tool by the pious, if they were astute enough. The Creator always provided weapons to fight profanity, if one only looked for them and had the wisdom, the sheer audacity, to use them. That was what impressed him about the Imperial Order; they were shrewd enough to understand this, and resourceful enough to use magic as a tool to seek out profanity and destroy it.

As he did, the Order used streganicha, and apparently valued and trusted them. He didn’t like it, though, that they were allowed to roam free and unguarded to bring information and proposals, but if they ever turned against the cause, well, he always kept Lunelta nearby.

Still, he didn’t like being so close to evil. It repulsed him, sister or not.

Dawn was just breaking and the streets were already crowded with people. In abundance, too, were soldiers of different lands, each patrolling the grounds of their own palaces, and others, mostly D’Haran, patrolling the city. Many of the troops looked ill at ease, as if they anticipated an attack an any moment. Brogan had been assured that they had everything well in hand. Never one to take on faith anything he was told, he had sent out his own patrols the night before, and they had confirmed that there were no Midland insurgents anywhere near Aydindril.

Brogan always favored arriving when least expected, and in greater numbers than expected, just in case he had to take matters into his own hands. He had brought a full fist—five hundred men—into the city, but if there proved to be trouble, he could always bring his main force into the Aydindril. His main force had proven themselves quite capable of crushing any insurrection.

Had the D’Harans not been allies, the indications of their numbers would have been alarming. Though Brogan had well-founded faith in his men’s abilities, only the vain fought battles when the odds were even, much less long; the Creator didn’t hold the vain in kind regard.

Lifting a hand, Tobias slowed the horses, lest they trample a squad of D’Haran foot soldiers crossing before the column. He thought it untoward of them to be winged out in a battle formation, similar to his own flying wedge, as they crossed the main thoroughfare, but perhaps the D’Harans, charged with the task of patrolling a vanquished city, were reduced to frightening footpads and cutpurses with a show of might.

The D’Harans, weapons to hand and looking to be in an ill mood, swept gazes over the column of cavalry bearing down on them, apparently looking for any sign of threat. Brogan thought it rather odd that they carried their weapons unsheathed. A cautious lot, the D’Harans.

Unconcerned with what they saw, they didn’t hurry their pace. Brogan smiled; lesser men would have stepped up their stride. Their weapons, mostly swords and battle-axes, were neither embellished nor fancy, and that in itself made them look all the more impressive. They were weapons carried because they had proven brutally effective, and not for flash.

Outnumbered well over twentyfold, the men in dark leather and mail regarded all the polished metal with indifference; polish and precision often displayed nothing more that conceit, and although in this case they were a reflection of Brogan’s discipline, a display of deadly attention to detail, the D’Haran’s probably didn’t know that. Where he and his men were better known, a glimpse of their crimson capes was enough to make strong men blanch, and the glint off their polished armor was enough to make an enemy break and run.

When they had come across the Rang’Shada Mountains from Nicobarese, Brogan had met with one of the Order’s armies, made up of men of many nations, but mostly D’Hara, and had been impressed with the D’Haran’s general, Riggs, who had accepted counsel with interest and attention. Brogan, in fact, had been so impressed with the man that he had left some of his own troops with him to help in the conquest of the Midlands. The Order had been on its way to bring the heathen city of Ebinissia, the Crown city of Galea, to heel under the Order. The Creator willing, they had succeeded.

Brogan had learned that D’Harans didn’t hold much favor with magic, and that pleased him. That they also feared magic disgusted him. Magic was the Keeper’s conduit into the world of man. The Creator was to be feared. Magic, the Keeper’s witchery, was to be expunged. Until the boundary had been brought down the past spring, D’Hara had been cordoned off from the Midlands for generations, so in large part D’Hara and its people were still an unknown to Brogan, a vast new territory in need of enlightenment and, possibly, purification.

Darken Rahl, the leader of D’Hara, had brought the boundary down, allowing his troops to sweep into the Midlands and capture Aydindril, among other cities. If he had been more interested in confining himself to the affairs of man, Rahl might have seized all of the Midlands before they could raise armies against him, but he had been more interested in pursuing magic, and that had been his undoing. Once Darken Rahl was dead, assassinated by a pretender to the throne, as Brogan had heard it told, the D’Haran troops had joined with the Imperial Order in its cause.

There was no longer a place in the world for the ancient, dying religion called magic. The Imperial Order was upon the world, now; the Creator’s glory would guide man. Tobias Brogan’s prayers had been answered, and every day he thanked the Creator for placing him in the world at this time, when he could be at the center of it all, to see the blasphemy of magic vanquished, to lead the righteous in the final battle. This was the making of history, and he was part of it.

The Creator, in fact, had recently come to Tobias in his dreams, to tell him how pleased He was with his efforts. He didn’t reveal this to any of his men; that might be seen as presumptuous. To be honored by the Creator was satisfaction enough. Of course he had told Lunetta, and she had been awed; after all, it wasn’t often the Creator chose to speak directly to one of His children.

Brogan squeezed his legs around his horse to pick up the pace as he watched the D’Harans move on down a side street. None turned to see if they were to be followed or challenged, but only a fool would take that for complacency; Brogan was no fool. The throng parted for the column, giving them a wide path as they proceeded down Kings Row. Brogan recognized some of the uniforms of soldiers at various palaces: Sandarians, Jarians, and Keltans. He saw no Galeans; the Order must have been successful in their task at Galea’s Crown city of Ebinissia.

At last Brogan saw troops from his homeland. With an impatient wave he signaled a squad forward. Their capes, crimson to announce who they were, billowed out behind as they charged past the swordsmen, lancers, standard-bearers, and finally Brogan. Accompanied by the racket of iron shoes on stone, the horsemen charged right up the vast steps of the Nicobarese Palace. It was an edifice as garish as any of the others, with tapered, fluted columns of rare white-veined brown marble, a difficult-to-obtain stone quarried from the mountains in eastern Nicobarese. The profligacy galled him.

The regular soldiers guarding the palace stumbled back at the sight of the men on horseback and flinched into shaky salutes. The squad of horsemen herded them back farther, opening a wide corridor for the lord general.

At the top of the steps, between statues of soldiers atop rearing stallions carved from buff-colored stone, Brogan dismounted. He tossed the reins to one of the ashen-faced Palace Guard as he smiled out at the city, his eyes settling on the Confessors’ Palace. Today Tobias Brogan was in a good mood. Lately, such moods were becoming increasingly rare. He drew a deep breath of the dawn air: the dawn of a new day.

The man who had taken the reins bowed as Brogan turned back. “Long live the king.”

Brogan straightened his cape. “A little late for that.”

The man cleared his throat, working up the courage. “Sir?”

“The king,” Brogan said, as he knuckled his mustache, “turned out to be more than all of us who loved him thought. He burned for his sins. Now, see to my horse.” He gestured to another guard. “You—go tell the cooks I’m hungry. I don’t want to be kept waiting.”

The guard backed away, bowing, as Brogan glanced up at the man still on horseback. “Galtero.” The man stepped his horse closer, his crimson cape limp in the still air. “Take half the men, and bring her to me. I’m going to breakfast, and then I will judge her.”

With a gentle touch, his bony fingers absently stroked the case at his belt. Soon he would add the prize of prizes to his collection. He smiled grimly at the thought, the smile tightening the old scar at the corner of his mouth, but not touching his dark eyes. The glory of moral redress would be his.

“Lunetta.” She was staring at the Confessors’ Palace, her motley patches of tattered cloth drawn tight to her as she idly scratched her forearms. “Lunetta!”

She flinched, hearing him at last. “Yes, Lord General?”

He flipped his crimson cape back over his shoulder and straightened his sash of rank. “Come, breakfast with me. We’ll have a talk. I’ll tell you about the dream I had last night.”

Her eyes widened with excitement. “Another one, my lord general? Yes, I should like very much to hear about it. You honor me.”

“Indeed.” She followed as he marched through the tall brassbound double doors, into the Nicobarese palace. “We have matters to discuss. You will listen attentively, won’t you, Lunetta?”

She shuffled along at his heels. “Yes, my lord general. Always.”

He paused at a window with a heavy blue draper. Drawing his dress knife, he sliced a good-sized piece from the side, including a strip of edging with gold tassels.

Licking her lips, Lunetta rocked from side to side, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she waited.

Brogan smiled. “A pretty for you, Lunetta.”

Eyes glistening, she clutched it excitedly to herself before holding it in one place, then another, searching for the perfect spot to add it to the others. She giggled with glee. “Thank you, Lord General. It be beautiful.”

He marched off, Lunetta scurrying to follow behind. Portraits of royalty hung from the rich paneling, and underfoot sumptuous carpets ran into the distance. Gold-leafed frames surrounded round-topped doors to either side. Gilt-edged mirrors reflected the passing flash of crimson.

A servant in brown-and-white livery bowed his way into the hall, holding out his arm to indicate the direction to the dining hall before scuttling along, looking sideways to be sure he kept himself clear of harm, and bowing every few steps.

Tobias Brogan was not a man who had ever frightened anyone with his size, but the servants, staff, Palace Guard, and partially dressed officials who charged into the hall to see what was causing such a fuss all paled at the sight of him—at seeing the lord general himself, the man who commanded the Blood of the Fold.

At his word banelings burned for their sins—whether they be beggars or soldiers, lords or ladies, or even kings.