Once walked with Gods

Chapter 33

If you do one thing for yourself, let it be this. Never let your blade’s edge dull. Garan and Keller watched the boats come in. After last night it had been decided to anchor the fleet offshore. Even the most prodigious leap of the TaiGethen would get only one per cent of the way. Even so, every crewman had been given a bow for his watch.

Behind them, Garan’s men picked at the ruins of the warehouse. Most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition. Elves and men were no different when reduced to blackened bone and ash. It was impossible to say how many elves had died around or inside the collapsed building, which was still too hot to check. Garan had lost forty men and his one eyewitness claimed to have seen only five elves fighting.

‘How many are coming ashore, did you say?’ he asked.

‘Two thousand, two hundred and seventeen,’ said Keller. ‘Think it’ll be enough?’

‘I was going to ask you the same question.’

‘Ystormun is with them.’

‘Oh, great. Come to give us the blessing of the One College or just the usual advice on how to conduct an offensive.’

‘You’re talking about a lord of Triverne,’ said Keller sharply.

‘Don’t get all loyal-to-the-lords with me, Keller. Gods burning, you weren’t sent here with me because you’re in favour, were you? All the favourites are either disembarking now or safely at home drinking in the beauty of the Blackthorne Mountains and the Triverne Valley.’

‘And you knew it was likely one of them would come. This is a significant investment.’

‘They’re dangerous. Him and his cadre have way too much power and are way too careless with how they go about securing more.’

‘There will always be conflict in the ring of towers,’ said Keller.

‘I was glad to get away from there,’ said Garan. ‘Couldn’t you feel it? Like a poorly shielded fire ward waiting to explode. I worry about what might happen, I really do.’

‘Well, you can ask him all about it yourself,’ said Keller. ‘He’s in the first boat.’

And so he was. A tall thin figure in a deep-blue cloak with hood thrown back to reveal a bald pate and hawkish features. His nose was so thin it looked likely to break if he sneezed too hard. His eyes were tiny and set close. His cheekbones were high and prominent like an Ynissul’s and his mouth had almost bloodless thin lips set in a perpetual line of contempt.

Garan considered that, in all honesty, he was the best of them. The most liberal. It really could have been much worse. Pamun, for instance. Now there was a real bastard.

‘You should remain a few paces back,’ said Keller. ‘I’ll welcome him.’

‘If you insist.’

Garan watched the boat approach. Keller walked to the relevant jetty and waited with his arms held across his waist, his fingers linked together. Ystormun stood as the boat approached, his guards and attendants with him. The three pairs of oarsmen slowed their pace and kept the boat level on the placid water. Keller was standing by the steps. Ystormun took one look at him and lifted gently off the deck, his mistwings moving him serenely to the jetty.

‘Bloody show-off,’ muttered Garan.

The wings were dispelled when his feet touched the ground and he marched past Keller without a second glance. Keller hurried after his master. Garan took a deep breath and felt a shiver pass through him.

‘Here we go,’ he said.

Ystormun strode up to him, his thin lips pursed so hard they were practically invisible. The frown above his eyes almost closed them.

‘My Lord Ystormun,’ Garan said. ‘Welcome to Calaius.’

‘They have put a soldier in charge of our conquest,’ said Ystormun, gaze arrowing down past his nose. ‘And hence, when the benefactor arrives, he is greeted not by bunting but by smoke, ash and flame and the quite extraordinary odour of burning human flesh. I had heard this city was firmly under your control.’

‘We suffered a small attack last night. It has been repelled.’

‘An interesting choice of adjective.’ Ystormun’s voice, at odds with the depth of his chest, was sonorous and powerful, carrying to echo from building and ruin alike. ‘I could see the flames from my ship. My Communions suggest a significant problem with a group called the TaiGethen. Is this true?’

Garan stared at Keller, whose eyes were elsewhere.

‘I’m not in the business of fabrication. In the context of the city and our control of it, this was a small attack. Successful in that prisoners were released. But these are all ordinary elves broken by internal conflict. They are no danger to our venture. Your informant is right. The TaiGethen are a significant problem.’

Ystormun glanced up at the sky, which was filling with dense, dark cloud.

‘It rains a lot here,’ said Garan.

‘Then we shall seek cover. Where’s my carriage?’

‘Keller, can you help with that one?’ asked Garan. ‘Carriages?’

Keller shot Garan a venomous look. Ystormun swung around, his eyebrows already on the rise.

‘This is a hot, uncomfortable country,’ he said. ‘I do not expect to walk or fly when I can sit in comfort. I presume these savages do have carriages, do they?’

‘Yes,’ said Keller. ‘Ornate state carriages in some cases. We had a second attack in the main compound at the temple of Shorth last night. There was significant damage to carriages, oxen and stabling.’

Soldiers and mages were beginning to mass on the docks as boat after boat landed at the many jetties that ran their length. Ystormun watched them for a moment before gesturing Keller and Garan together so that he could address them both.

‘How many TaiGethen attacks were there last night?’

‘Eight.’

Ystormun paused, the answer clearly not anticipated. ‘Eight.’

‘They are a persistent thorn,’ said Garan.

‘And where do they hide?’

‘The rainforest is vast.’

‘But they cannot fly unless I am mistaken. So they are not deep within it if they can strike here seemingly at will.’

Ystormun looked meaningfully at Garan.

‘We are looking for them and we will find them,’ said Garan.

‘That should reassure me, should it?’ snapped Ystormun. ‘Which way must I walk through this ludicrous architecture? While I am listening to your incompetence, I feel I should do something useful.’

Keller gestured and they began walking towards the temple piazza. Thunder was rumbling and the first lightning flashed as prelude to a heavy downpour. Garan grimaced and prayed the rain held off. He knew his prayer would be ignored.

‘What I want,’ said Ystormun, ‘is for you to tell me that you know where they are and that you will kill them.’

‘And that will come,’ said Garan. ‘They are not numerous, but they are masters of stealth and concealment. It will take time.’

‘Not numerous? Really. How many of them do you estimate are mounting these attacks.’

Garan thought to lie but Keller was already speaking.

‘They are a particularly skilled class of warrior. Far better than anything we have seen on Balaia. Assuming our information is accurate, the total number of these people is in the region of ninety. At the moment we believe around thirty are in the vicinity of the city.’

Ystormun closed his eyes and walked on though he had clearly thought to stop. His cheeks had reddened and his fingers, laced in front of him, had tensed. A knuckle cracked.

‘How many did you kill last night?’ he asked quietly.

‘Two definite fatalities on the dock,’ said Garan.

‘And how many of our people did they kill?’

‘In all attacks, fifty-seven.’

‘Fifty-seven!’ Ystormun’s hold on his temper expired. ‘That is ten per cent of the advance force. In one night. Bloody hell, Garan, what are you doing here?’

‘Securing the city and hunting down our enemies,’ said Garan carefully.

‘No need to hunt, is there? Apparently. They’re coming to us. Seems to me they are doing the hunting. And therefore you are not securing the city. In fact, after last night, are there not more potential problems on the streets not less?’

‘We have been holding. Waiting for the main force. Another two thousand soldiers and a hundred-plus mages will make our strangle-hold complete.’

‘And why should I have confidence in that statement? By my calculations, they’ll have killed the lot of us in about fifty days and there’ll still be a quarter of them left. Whatever your plans are, they are not good enough. My information suggests your methods are, in the main, weak. You are negotiating with elves, not dominating them. You have made examples of a few in one park one early morning. Where is your strategy for the demonstration of our power?’

Garan moved up alongside Ystormun. Keller stayed a pace or so behind. Meek fool. Garan determined to keep any sense of complaint from his voice.

‘I accept that conditions and enemies here have surprised us and that our erstwhile elven allies did not deliver on their promises to hand us the TaiGethen before we had to remove them from authority. But we have doubled our guard on approaches to the city and we have a comprehensive system of wards, both alarm and explosive, as a first line of defence.’

‘It isn’t working!’ screamed Ystormun and now he stopped. ‘You’re telling me these elves are a different class of fighter to anything we’ve seen, yet you’ve set up a defensive perimeter to keep back Wesmen and Rache barbarians. Ridiculous. Must I point out to you that differing enemies require differing tactics?’

‘We could lay more wards,’ suggested Keller.

Ystormun’s gaze drilled so hard into Keller he backed up a pace towards the lord mage’s guards, who were trying very hard not to show their amusement at the tormenting of their seniors.

‘Did I really pick you for your perceptive qualities? If so I resign my place in the ring. Differing. It means other, not the same. You have to stop these bastards wanting to get in because it is already clear you won’t stop them getting in if they so choose. And once you have done that, you have to go out and drive them away. How are you searching? A couple of mages in the sky and a few scared soldiers in the fringes of the forest?’

Neither Garan nor Keller said anything.

‘Then listen,’ said Ystormun. ‘Here is how you deal with these people.’

And they listened. And when Ystormun was finished he walked away with just his guards for company, the spires of the temple piazza his guide. Keller looked at Garan.

‘Do we have any choice?’ he asked.

‘Not if we want to stay alive,’ said Garan.

‘It’s just going to make them angrier,’ said Keller. ‘He doesn’t understand.’

‘He will. Probably by the end of the night, or if not tonight, then tomorrow night, when their rage has had a chance to bake.’

‘We have to tell him his error.’

Garan looked askance at Keller. ‘Right. Well. I’ll buy you a drink when you get back.’ The guards were all gone. There were X-frames hammered into the earth at regular intervals and hanging from each one was an elf. Ordinary civilians. It was this way at the Ultan bridge, at the Apposan crossing, the Ix south bridge and every other entry point.

Forty elves in all, slashed at the gut to let their intestines trail on the ground for animals to feast on while they still lived. Their eyelids removed so that they faced the fierce heat of the sun and the stinging lash of the rain. Their limbs bound tight against the frames, bloodied at wrist and ankle from their desperate, futile struggles to escape. Each had a parchment pinned to the chest. Each parchment carried identical wording.

Katyett led prayers at the Ix bridge before sending her elves to remove all the bodies. They were to be laid out for reclamation. Prayers were to be spoken throughout the night. There would be no attacks. Before she read the parchment she knew that to be the intent of the demonstration. It could be nothing else.

Katyett read the words to Merrat and Grafyrre as they walked back towards the forest and disappeared within, their elven dead dragged behind them until they were beneath the canopy proper. They paused like every night to ensure they weren’t being followed.

‘This is the hand of an elf,’ said Katyett. ‘Their betrayal is complete. No mercy for the cascarg when this is done. These words are evil.’

‘Do we want to hear them?’ asked Merrat.

‘No but you must. This is what we are up against.’ Katyett cleared her throat and read. ‘ “Elves of the TaiGethen, the fight for Ysundeneth is over, and with it the fight for Calaius. You will make no further incursions into the city. The blood of these forty dead is on your hands. Set foot in the city again and forty times forty will suffer their fate. Kill another soldier or mage and forty times forty times forty will suffer their fate. The life of every elf in this city is yours to save or sacrifice.

‘ “Furthermore, you will surrender the Ynissul civilians you are protecting and the Al-Arynaar in your midst. Lastly you will surrender yourselves. You have two days. If you have not presented yourselves at Ultan-in-Caeyin at dawn on the third day, we will kill forty elves at every bell and at every fresh drop of rain that falls. Executions will take place outside the temple of Shorth. We are not without mercy. The souls of the dead will have just a short distance to find embrace.

‘ “There will be no negotiation entered into. You are so warned.” ’

‘Is it signed?’ asked Merrat.

‘What do you think? And they call us uncivilised. Come on.’ Dawn had come but it was bloodied and sick. Hithuur had barely slept. The sounds of the innocent being dragged from their homes and eviscerated at the borders of the city would haunt him the rest of his life. It was not so much the screams of pain. It was the pleading. And they hadn’t been pleading with men for their lives. They had been calling out to Llyron.

Hithuur put on his clothes with deliberate care, hoping to still the nausea he felt throughout his body. He had committed crimes. But they had been for the good of elves. To advance the nation by returning to the way of life they all knew instinctively was the best one. Yes, it had inequality but it had certainty and security. It worked. Yniss knew it worked. But this. This was hideous. And he had helped perpetrate it. It had to stop. It had to.

Hithuur walked from his room and walked the short distance to the panoramic chamber where he hoped to find Llyron and Sildaan. He could hear Llyron’s voice before he put his hand on the latch. He paused to listen. Helias was in there. Sildaan too. So were men. Garan. And the gaunt mage lord who despised them all and who smelled so very dangerous. Hithuur took his hand from the latch.

‘… but you could not give me the TaiGethen,’ said Garan.

‘I needed time,’ said Llyron. ‘And I would have delivered them to you.’

‘Time is irrelevant. Action produces results, as I have proved,’ hissed the mage lord, Ystormun. His elvish was very accurate, if a little accented. ‘I have removed their capacity to strike.’

Sildaan choked back a laugh.

‘You have done no such thing. They will not surrender, as you believe. They will worry about how to get to you without you murdering thousands of their people, but if they have to sacrifice every elven soul in Ysundeneth to get to you, that is exactly what they will do. The only difference now is that they won’t just kill you, they’ll rip out your heart and show it to you while it still beats.’

The room fell silent. Hithuur fancied he could feel the chill through the closed door. Fear oozed through the timbers and into his heart. He shuddered, forcing himself not to back away.

‘You exaggerate,’ said Ystormun eventually, his voice cold and malevolent. ‘And your melodrama does you no credit. The TaiGethen will be eliminated. No elf, however quick, is immune to magic. And I am very, very good at magic.’

‘I merely wanted to warn you that they will come for you,’ said Sildaan.

‘Then let them come,’ snapped Ystormun. ‘And let them burn. Enough. Why am I wasting my breath talking to you? Now then, Helias, isn’t it?’

‘My lord Ystormun,’ said Helias. ‘What is your wish?’

Hithuur shook his head. ‘Snake,’ he whispered.

‘Your proposals have merit and we will discuss them at greater length. The fewer the moments I must remain here, the better my mood will be. But there are more pressing matters. Tell me, Helias, which of your… threads, is it? Threads, yes. Which of your threads are of use to me and which are not?’

‘I beg your pardon, my lord?’ asked Helias.

‘It is a simple process,’ said Ystormun.

Outside in the corridor, Hithuur felt a slick of cold sweat over his body.

‘I don’t-’ began Llyron.

‘I am addressing another,’ said Ystormun. ‘Be seated. One by one, Helias. Let’s begin with the, ummm, Ynissul, they call themselves. Priests and warriors, I understand. What about the rest? Do they work? Can they create wealth and produce resources for Balaia? For me?’

There was a silence. Helias weighing up his words. Hithuur prayed he spoke wisely. He did not.

‘They are traditionally the ruling class. Most are business owners. Employers. Not labourers. A very strong priesthood and warrior ethic.’

‘See? Easy,’ said Ystormun, his voice laden with judgement. ‘There is a new ruling class. And I am at its head. The Ynissul are superfluous, barring their priests. Worse, they provide bodies for the TaiGethen order. It seems to me their existence causes more trouble than it solves. Garan. Eliminate them.’

‘You cannot do that!’ stormed Llyron.

There was the sound of a hand slapping a face.

‘You will discover, Ynissul, that I can do whatever I choose.’

Sildaan snorted. ‘You don’t even know where they are.’

‘Wrong again,’ said Ystormun. ‘How stupid you truly are. Moving on. There’s a long list of threads, isn’t there? So let’s get down to business. Who lives and who dies?’

Outside, Hithuur fought down a rising panic.

‘What have I done?’ he whispered.

He listened further and his soul cried.