Chapter 67

“They’re dead,” Kestrel said. His voice was low. He didn’t know why. It not like he needed to keep it a secret. In the morning the whole town would know.

“All of them?” Aris asked, stunned. “They’re all dead? Every single one of them?”

Kestrel nodded. His stomach twisted as he did so. He felt partially responsible for what had happened. He had helped push Aris into recruiting the nobles, knowing that a revolution without power behind it was often little more than simple platitudes.

Aris had expected spies. He had even expected the inevitable betrayal.

But he hadn’t expected this.

He hadn’t expected the murder of all the nobles. It was beyond madness to kill all of the ruling class. It was true insanity. He’d expected Emperor Evrain to be cruel. He’d expected jail and maybe even torture at the hands of the Inquisitors for some of them, but he hadn’t expected a wholesale slaughter.

That was beyond the pale.

It truly seemed as if the man thirsted for the destruction of their country. He had done so once before during his ascension to power, but even then the nobles had lived.

He had destroyed the Twin Cities during his rise and had nearly wiped out the old guard of Memory Mages, but this was different. This was assured destruction.

“What if that’s what he wants,” a melodic tone gave voice to the thoughts that hadn’t yet quite formed in his mind. It was Sephira who had spoken.

All eyes of the small council that included Aris, Corrine, Sephira, Kestrel, Wallace and the Captain of the guards along with a few high ranking soldiers, turned towards Sephira.

“I mean, think of it,” she said. “We’re treating him like he’s rational, like he’s tearing everything down to start again here with a clean slate, but what if we’re wrong? What if that’s the opposite of what he wants. I mean you said it yourself,” she gestured to Aris. “You said it seems like he’s going out of his way to cause destruction. You said it seems like he’s trying to destroy Vealand. So…What if he is? What if our destruction is exactly what he wants?”

The weight of her words fell heavy on the group gathered in Aris’ manor. They made sense. Her words made far too much sense.

“You really think that he would do that? You think that he would be willing to destroy the Empire? His own nation? Do you really think that he would be willing to destroy his own base of power for some mad reason?” Sephira’s mother, Corrine said.

“Yes actually. Just think about it. That’s exactly what he did when he rose to power during the destruction of the coast. He tore everything to the ground to gain the power that he now has. It’s madness, but I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again,” Aris answered.

Wallace nodded. He still remembered the burning of the bodies. He remembered when they took his mother and executed her for being a Memory Mage. It sounded exactly like something the mad Emperor would do. “It’s not only something that he would do, but something that he’s doing now,” his gravelly voice said. “It’s as if he feeds on chaos. We know that by this morning, the city will erupt in violence at the news of the slaughter of their noblemen. The army that Edrian Wolls brought in will say that the commoners who lost everything to the fires took out the nobles as an act of revenge for losing everything, and the commoners will think that the military had something to do with it. By this time tomorrow, our city will be engulfed in violence,” he said.

His words cast a pall over the room. All knew what he said to be true. They needed to act. They needed to stop the violence that was bound to erupt from Emperor Evrain’s manipulations.

They needed to fight and to save their Empire.

“You’re sure of this aren’t you?” The red haired captain asked Wallace who nodded a ‘yes’ in reply.

“I’m not sure. I’m certain,” he replied. “Mark my words. The death of the nobles will mark the death of this city. Not because the nobles live up to their name and instill us with a sense of nobility. No, not that. It’s that they uphold order. Corrupt though many of them may be, they are the backbone of our economy. They are the skeleton to our social structure. Without them our society will crumble. They, for good and bad, run the system that we live in, and unless we put something good, no rather, something noble, something to hold on to in front of them, there will be anarchy and anarchy is the enemy of society. It’s the great destroyer.”

It was as if Wallace’s bear-like voice had hypnotized his audience. The silence that greeted him was almost suffocating in its absoluteness. Each were lost to their own thoughts.

“How can we fight both Emperor Evrain and the mobs who will be certain to be forming?” Kestrel put voice to what all of them were thinking.

Silence again.

This time it was longer. The silence held heavy while each was in their own world.

Finally Aris spoke up. “I’m sorry Kestrel, but our first priority is to protect the people of Fiell. I swore an oath to do so. I know how much you want to fight Evrain directly. How you want to confront him and find out what happened to Cillia, but I’m going to have to ask you to wait. You’re going to need to hold off the anger that rises each day. I need you with me. I need you by my side, helping keep the order that the slaughter of our nobles will destroy. I need your smarts to help us…no, not us. Our city, our country, survive this. I know it’s more to ask of you than I should, but can you do that for me?”

Kestrel nodded. He had expected as much. His heart ached to find Cillia and rescue her. He wanted her return more than anything else in the world, but he knew that rescuing her would be worthless if what was awaiting her was worse than what she would escape from.

He would fight. He would protect Fiell. He would protect Vealand.

“Swear it.”

“I do,” the young, former, street-rat, said solemnly.

Sephira grasped his hand. “Be safe.”

He nodded.

They left to sleep. They would be greeted with violence in the morning, but there would be now way of protecting their city and the ones they loved if they were operating on sleepless reserves.

“Sweet dreams,” Kestrel wished Sephire a good night and stumbled off to the barracks where he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

*****

It felt like Kestrel had just laid down by the time he woke and drug himself out of bed. He quickly dipped himself in the bath. He had sworn to himself that first day he’d lowered himself into its warm waters that he would never go back to bathing only once a week in the river, and much less than that during the winter.

No he would take a bath every day it was available to him. It was the most luxurious feeling he’d ever felt. If he moved into his own home and had a personal bath and a loving wife, he wouldn’t need anything else in life.

A loving wife.

A picture of Sephira draped in a luxurious traditional Veaish wedding gown of deep ocean blue popped into his mind. She was beautiful in everything she wore, but he could think of nothing he would love to see more than her in that gown as she swore the vows that bonded one life to another.

Maybe in another life. Maybe if he weren’t a poor boy abandoned to the streets, left to fend for himself, practically from the moment he had his feet beneath him. Maybe if he could ever be a match for her. If he could ever be a man that she needed.

Maybe then he could see her in that gown.

Maybe if he didn’t die today.

*****

Aris brought Kestrel with him. He brought them to the refugee camps where the majority of those dispossessed of their livelihoods and living quarters had gathered. It was dingy and depressing and the news was already making its way to the heart of the tent city. He heard the panicked gossip making its way to the heart of the dwellings, as if it was following his path. They whispered as they saw him marching his horse at the front of the company of city guards into the epicenter of the development.

By the time he and his company of men stopped, the voices had rose to a fever pitch.

They were saying that the nobles had all been slaughtered. That they had been murdered. Only Aris and his household had escaped. They said that Aris was behind the murders. That he was restarting the revolution that his brother had paid with his blood for a decade ago.

No that wasn’t right.

They were saying it was Emperor Evrain.

They were saying that he was jealous of the love that Aris had developed among the people. That in the act of saving the Emperor, he had elevated himself above the man, and Evrain didn’t take kindly to one taking his spotlight as the savior of Vealand.

Some were saying that the nobles hadn’t died at all, rather it was all a big distraction. For what, they didn’t know, but that was how the government worked.

Tragedy was a diversion. An opportunity to advance power. ‘Just you watch,’ one had said, ‘we will panic and fight and the so called ‘dead’ will suddenly rise when we’re at our weakest and take more from us than they ever had before. I swear on my grave that’s what’s gonna happen.’

Aris shouted loudly, gathering the attention of all gathered. “Attention!” he ordered them as if they were in his own city guard.

He had to step in front of this.

He was already receiving reports of violence breaking out in the East in Weston Ream’s district where he and the rest of his family had been found without their tongues and their bodies defiled.

“Good,” he barked as the attention focused on him. “Your leaders are dead,” he said. “Our nobles, all of them except for me, were murdered last night. They were taken by cowards! To a man, all of them were slaughtered!”

Murmurs broke out. Had Aris Ravenscroft just said that all the nobles had been murdered!?

By whom?

Who could have killed so many vital people —people who spent their days surrounded by the best bodyguards in the city— with such ease? Had it been Aris himself? If the stories of his exploits were true, it could have been him.

Why was he the only one still alive? Why had he survived when everyone died? The whispers soon became grumbles. He had to be a part of it. It was his fault so many had died. It had to be his fault.

Then the chatter turned to talks of magic. The rumors of Inquisitors were mixed in with those centering around Aris.

The General sat in silence. He let the tides of the chatter turn. The news of the Inquisitors had turned their focus from him to the true enemy.

He praised his wife Corrine for sending out agents last night, having them infiltrate each corridor of the city and spread the news of who was really behind the slaughter of their nation’s leaders, behind taking the national identity of the Veaish people in one fell swoop by taking all of their rulers at once.

“I hear some of you talking about me.” Aris projected his voice. The crowd silenced again. “I hear you saying that it was me who murdered them. That this is a grab for power from me,” some nodding heads. “I don’t fault you for it. I would believe the same thing if I were in your shoes. I would believe that I was behind their murders too. But you know me! You know I fought right alongside many of you as the fires threatened to destroy our beloved city of Fiell! You saw me, worked alongside me. You’ve seen me in these streets, personally looking into cases of disappearances. Personally investigating the murders of those that you love, have you not?!”

Nods.

He had long worked alongside them. He was different than those slaughtered nobles. He was little different than those gathered listening to him.

He was one of them.

A brother.

“I did not do this, but I know who did. It was…”

His words were interrupted by a chorus of screams that broke out among the crowd and among his soldiers.

They were being overwhelmed with visions of horrific tortures.

Inquisitors. Emperor Evrain had sent Inquisitors. He’d unleashed them on the masses. That madman wasn’t content just letting the populace fight itself, he had to feed the flames of discontent.

Sephira’s words rung in his mind as he strained to find the source of the visions that were overwhelming so many at once. ‘What if it’s our destruction he wants?’ she had asked.

It was exactly what he lusted for.

Why though? What was fueling his desire for destruction? He had seen a brief glimpse of an impossibly long past from the Emperor when he’d caught him and kept him from falling.

He had seen something that couldn’t have been real but he knew it was.

That was the key. The vision he’d seen. He would find his answers there.

But first he needed to find the source of the visions that were torturing all those gathered to listen to his speech in the tent city.

He fought back the visions that had filled many with nausea and focused his mind.

“There!” Kestrel, who’s face was pale, but focused, pointed to a man. A knife slipped from the Inquisitor’s sleeve. Kestrel was already running towards him, trying to stop the weapon from finding its home.

It was too late.

The knife slammed into one of the bystander’s throat. He didn’t need to see the horrific gash that tore through the man’s neck to know he was dead.

As if the murder was a signal, the intensity of the visions worsened and twenty Inquisitors sprung up and started slamming knives and weapons into anyone who was unfortunate enough to within reach of the monsters who raced their way towards Aris and his men.

Kestrel hurled a knife that buried itself into the chest of the Inquisitor he’d been too slow to stop from murdering the innocent bystander.

One of the voices in the wave of memories of tortures was extinguished.

Kestrel turned heel and rushed back to Aris’ side. Almost two thirds of his men had fallen to the ground, overwhelmed by the memories of horrific tortures that slammed into their minds. Knives found their homes in the men’s flesh. Blood spurted from arteries and painted the sky with brief spurts of red.

His comrades were being slaughtered as they kneeled, helpless against the monstrous visions that crashed against their minds.

They would all be dead soon, and the few who were able to resist the visions were fighting sluggishly.

Kestrel drove forward, barely thinking as he snatched a knife from the chest of a fallen comrade and drove it into the base of the neck of one of the Inquisitors whose back had been turned to him. He left the knife in the man’s neck and drove forward, driving a shoulder into the nearest Inquisitor who was unprepared for the attack and bowled him over. Kestrel unsheathed his metalvine and in one smooth move slammed the point into the nose of the fallen man. It spurted with blood. A vision of his attack rebounded in his mind.

It was nothing.

He slammed his foot into the jaw of the Inquisitor who was struggling to find his footing. He fell to the ground limp. Kestrel stomped on the man’s throat, collapsing his windpipe.

Two down.

Aris wasn’t shocked. He should have been. The violence was horrifying and his men were being slaughtered in front of his eyes. Many were holding their own and fighting through the pain that clouded their vision, but more were dying. He should have been horrified that the Inquisitors were blindly slaughtering their countrymen, but he wasn’t. They had been bred into violence. They were conceived in torment and conditioned to fight blindly for a monster that manipulated them for his perverse whims. Their blind violence was something to be expected from them, it was who they had been forced to become.

That didn’t stop him from killing them though. He would kill anyone who threatened the life of his loved ones and these men did just that.

He barely batted an eye as he kicked one of the Inquisitors in the kidney, doubling the man over and then slammed the butt of his metalvine into the back of his neck with enough force that the popping of the vertebrae were audible even amidst the screams of those tormented by the visions pouring from the force of Inquisitors.

He slammed his foot into the head of the collapsed man. An enemy could never be dead enough in a battle. He’d lost comrades to men thought dead before.

He didn’t take chances in a war.

Aris slaughtered dispassionately.

Two Inquisitors broke from their battle with his men and rushed him. They filled his mind with a plague of horrors as they barreled towards him but he brushed it aside. This was a battle. He was surrounded by blood, seeing more of it meant nothing to him in the moment. He ran to greet them with his metalvine and right before the leader of the two rose his curved kukri blade to swipe at the general, Aris dropped, slid, and slammed his metalvine onto the man’s knees.

The Inquisitor collapsed in agony.

Visions of the pain he’d just inflicted slammed into Aris’ mind.

He would have to ignore that for now. He could kill the fallen man later. His companion was still there and a half step away from slamming his metalvine into his skull.

Aris’ hand whipped to his side. He drew out a dagger and plunged it into the groin of the man before the arc of the swing had reached its maximum potential. The blow bounced painfully, but ultimately harmlessly off of Aris’ collarbone. The Inquisitor’s pain though was too much for him to reflect back at Aris as he fell to the ground. Aris took the knife and slammed it into the man’s chest, once, twice, putting him out of his misery. He then took the dagger and jammed it into the neck of the first Inquisitor who was trying and failing to regain his footing.

Kestrel lost sight of Aris.

Three Inquisitors had broke off from their group and surrounded him. A blade tore across his shoulder setting it on fire with pain. Kestrel twisted away from the knife before it could score him again. The man on his side stepped in for a blow with his metalvine. Kestrel leapt inside the man’s guard and trapped his swinging arm. Kestrel slip his feet behind the Inquisitor’s and with a twisting of the hips the man was hurled downwards. He slammed into the ground and his head rebounded off of the hard packed dirt. Kestrel drove his heel into the man’s groin before he could regain his breathing.

The knife man swiped again and again scored a cut on Kestrel’s lead arm. Kestrel danced backwards but was greeted with a metalvine that slammed into his ribs from another attacker and caused him to gasp for breath.

Everything hurt.

He wouldn’t let that stop him though. He wrapped his arm around the metalvine before it could retreat, and twisted, breaking it free from the man’s grasp. He let it clatter to the ground harmlessly. Kestrel then stepped into the man’s guard and jammed the ridge of his free hand’s palm into the Inquisitor’s windpipe. Kestrel grabbed him before he could fall to the ground and shoved him into his knife wielding companion.

They tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs.

Kestrel pounced on the two and wrestled the knife from the grasp of the first man. Three stabs later and the first of the two was dead. Another couple of slashes and an arc of blood later, the second man lay bleeding out.

He shared his horror at dying with Kestrel.

He had done that. He’d killed the man. He watched as if he were sharing the man’s eyes as he last moments played in Kestrel’s mind.

Aris’ force were down to half.

The twenty Inquisitors had torn through them, but now there were only five of them left. The torturous soldiers poured every ounce of pain that they could into the minds of those defending against their sneak attack but were soon overwhelmed and fell under a wave of metalvine attacks. By the time everything was finished, the two last of the Inquisitors was barely recognizable his face was so disfigured from the beating he’d took before his life fled from him.

They had won.

They had been attacked, tricked and corralled like lambs being led to the slaughter, but they had survived and won. Edrian Wolls and Emperor Evrain had tipped their hand and now their secret force of Memory Mages lay dead on the ground.

They had survived. They had won the battle, but that unsettled Aris. They had lost many, but it shouldn’t have been that easy.

Emperor Evrain had all of Edrian Wolls armies at his disposal. Why had they sent that small force of Inquisitors?

Why so few when so many were available?

The question gnawed at Aris’ mind.

Why?

Why had the attacking force been so small? Yes they were Evrain’s elite secret soldiers. They were a special force of Memory Mages trained to inflict both mental and physical torture, but if the Emperor truly wanted them dead he could have sent more soldier. He could have brought down the military might of Vealand upon them. He could have destroyed them.

Even now the people still loved Evrain.

He still held sway over their minds.

He had no reason why he needed them alive. Evrain knew for certain of Aris’ rebellion. Aris had practically shouted the evils of the regime of the man he had spent so many years serving in the streets.

His rebellion had gotten all the other nobles killed.

Why had they not brought down the hammer on him?