Ghosts of Mehan'Gir, page 8
part #3 of The Four Trophies Series
Towards the very top, they at last reached the palace courtyard and were greeted by the Master of the Household, who directed both the billeting of their escort and the stabling of their animals and carts. He then escorted them to the south wing of the palace, where they would stay for two nights. The rooms struck Pireon as basic and rather bare for a “palace” – they were simply rows of beds, like the dormitories on Elagion. He assumed that other parts of the palace were more comfortable, wherever the family slept.
After they ate that evening, Ykerios took him aside and asked: ‘I have an official meeting with Duke Struving tomorrow, to talk politics and diplomacy. It will probably be dry and deadly boring, but it occurred to me that you might like to attend.’
‘Of course I would, Father.’ It would be a unique opportunity.
‘This would be on the understanding that you keep your mouth shut, and your ears open.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘And not a word of what you see or hear to go any further.’
‘Of course not, Father.’
‘Very well, then. Be ready tomorrow, after the morning meal.’
‘I will be, Father. Thank you.’
‘And wear one of the dress tunics.’
The next morning, at the tenth hour, a herald arrived to collect the Hierarch and his party.
At the heart of the palace was a thick stone Keep with narrow windows and an easily defensible thick door. North and south wings had been added some time later, but the security features of the Keep had not been compromised: as a result, there were no direct connections linking the three parts of the palace. The herald led their small party out of the south wing, along a walkway around the Keep, sheltered by a wooden awning roof, and then back inside through the doors of the north wing.
They eventually reached a grand room with patterns of precious stones set into wooden panels around the walls. There were comfortable seats on both sides of a large table. From the ceiling, the bear’s head emblem of Ruthin gazed down at them in deep relief: the symbol of both sides, it seemed, in the ongoing war.
Father Ykerios was accompanied by four Senior Priests, as well has Pireon. Duke Struving also had a number of advisors with him.
‘Hierarch,’ the Duke stood when they entered.
‘My Lord.’ Ykerios bowed his head. The Duke stepped forwards and kissed the Hierarch’s ring.
Pireon wondered who was deferring to whom – or was it intended to be equal and mutual, implying that there was no seniority of rank between them? Perhaps their positions were simply not comparable. In Corvak, the Temple was senior to any lay office, and there was no single ruler – no Duke, King or Emperor who ruled the state. There was the Priesthood, the Council of the Cities, and the Council of the Great Families: together, they decided everything and the Hierarch was an influential voice in all three. But in a land where the spiritual and the temporal were separate, then perhaps it was a useful pretence that there could be pre-eminent figures in each. If that was the case, Pireon suspected that it was only a convention – inevitably, spiritual and temporal matters overlapped.
Ykerios indicated that Pireon should use one of the simple wooden seats against the back walls, rather than sit at the main table. A number of attendants already occupied the matching seats against the opposite wall; the herald joined them there.
Duke Struving introduced his son, Vinderich, who sat on his right and looked uncomfortable in his uniform. He fidgeted all the way through their meeting, and was quite unlike the members of the Imperial family that Pireon had seen in Emindur – just a spoiled boy who wanted to be somewhere else.
The other three members of the Duke’s party were older: advisors, with specific responsibilities. Despite their impressive titles, they spoke very little during the meeting. Pireon had no idea if that was because they had very little actual status or authority, or because the Duke did not trust them to speak. Ykerios had explained beforehand that the Duke hailed from a minor but ambitious branch of the Imperial Family, and was therefore unlikely to feel either secure or comfortable delegating power.
‘I was saddened to discover that Ruthin and the Gap are still not at peace,’ Ykerios remarked, once pleasantries had been exchanged. ‘The impact of the war upon the ordinary people of Ruthin appears to be even greater than during my last visit.’
The Duke objected that there was no “war”, as such, but that groups of brigands, thieves and robbers exploited the situation in order to operate in Ruthin. By flying the flag of old Ruthin, they commanded sympathy and assistance from some parts of the population, and received arms, training and funds from the enemies of the new rulers … from those who were unhappy that allies of the Empire now controlled the Iron Gate.
Ykerios reiterated his concerns regarding the civilian population, and the scale of the apparent military response – particularly the use of so many regular Imperial troops. In reply, the Duke suggested that it was sometimes not straightforward to distinguish between the general population and the armed resistance. He also expressed the opinion that the conflict had been artificially extended by the actions and stated positions of Ruthin’s neighbours and near-neighbours. Corvak, with its moral authority in the wider region, could perhaps issue words of guidance that might help bring the fighting to swifter conclusion.
The Hierarch indicated that Corvak had neither interfered nor commented on Ruthin’s internal affairs, but he also mentioned his recent meeting with Crown Prince Silvendor and suggested that the Empire and Corvak shared concerns over how long it was taking to stabilise the situation. He expressed concern over the ongoing campaigns in neighbouring Belsace and Rossony, which had increased disruption in the region, and stressed how important it was that the conflict did not spill over any further into, say, Mirrenlea or Erevald.
He accepted that Ruthin had a right to protect its interests, but implied that Corvak might soon reach a point where it felt a need to intervene more directly – in order to protect its own interests, and those of its allies.
Pireon had no idea what forces Corvak could have used in a war. Here, there were hundreds of soldiers on the roads, at checkpoints and in the countryside – far more than he had ever seen in Corvak. But perhaps the Hierarch had meant that Corvak could use money and other resources.
Following that long and uncomfortable discussion, the representatives from both sides went on to discuss the security of trade and travel through the Iron Gate, the fees and tariffs it commanded and the importance of long-term stability. They also agreed to share information regarding the broader influence of “external threats”, which Pireon took to mean the Confederacy.
The next morning, the Hierarch’s delegation rode out from Ravensgill and continued their journey eastwards, down from the Ruthin Gap. Their escort had been replaced by a company of eighty mounted soldiers: they wore different uniforms, but there was little pretence that the Guard in Ruthin were anything other than regular Imperial troops.
Again, almost as soon as they left the capital, their route took them through a broken landscape, flanked by empty buildings and half-barren fields that spoke of both violence and famine.
Pireon wondered if the new Dukes of Ravensgill, securely locked behind the high walls of the palace compound, were honestly unaware of the real state of Ruthin. Did they never leave the palace or the capital, never travel through the land that they ruled? Or were they able to ignore anything they saw or heard that didn’t conform to their interpretation of the situation? Were they deliberately deceitful or genuinely ignorant? Or perhaps their judgements were governed by poor information coming from their advisors and subordinates.
He couldn’t decide. The Duke had seemed practical and had conversed intelligently, so how could his interpretation of reality be so wide of the truth? Or perhaps it was Pireon’s own interpretation of what he saw that was flawed …
As their caravan gradually descended from the Gap, people near the road sometimes stood and stared at them with expressions that were guarded and impossible to read, perhaps through practice or experience. Of course, with their armed escort, they looked like nothing so much as a military convoy of some sort.
Closer to the eastern borders of Ruthin, the evidence of conflict became far fresher than west of the Gate. Here, the army was active: there were checkpoints and new watchtowers, patrols and small groups of troops on duty. The land might be calm now, but there had been recent fighting – there were fresh scorchmarks on some of the walls, some damaged buildings under repair and others newly derelict, abandoned crops and untended land: fields left uncultivated and overgrown. They saw occasional groups of refugees on foot, some of them barefoot, heading east: carrying blankets, children, bundles of clothes and bags of possessions on their backs.
Pireon wondered how people could still be fleeing, twelve years after the war had started? How could it have carried on for so long, and still be so bad that people were only now deciding to abandon their homes and their families?
Along the eastern slopes of the White Mountains, Ruthin was bordered by two small kingdoms: Belsace and Rossony – lands that were high mountains and meadows in the west and then rushed down to the wide fertile valleys and flood plains of the Great River and its tributaries in the east. This land marked the start of the great steppes that spread for nine hundred miles east to the Peragian Hills and seven hundred miles south to the Inner Sea.
Their route towards Corvak led south through Belsace, which had been one of the first places that refugees had fled to.
As the war had progressed, the loyalist fighters who found themselves isolated and vulnerable in the western half of Ruthin, had flourished here. They could flit back and fore across the borders, receiving both overt and covert support. Refugees in Belsace quickly discovered that the presence of these fighters in their temporary camps meant that they were no longer safe. As well as hiding there, the fighters found fresh recruits among the families, feeding on the resentment and the hatred and the boredom. So, many of those who had fled Ruthin had fled Belsace as well, to neighbouring Mirrenlea and Erevald as well as further afield.
After centuries safe behind Ruthin and its Gate, Belsace and Rossony had responded to the situation as their consciences dictated, but they had found themselves woefully unprepared for the brutal reality of enemy forces not only on their borders, but working actively across them.
With the Iron Gate under their control, the Empire had sent waves of soldiers over Ruthin’s borders in pursuit of their enemies. The earliest camps became battlegrounds and now lay mostly desolate and empty. Initial protests by the local authorities gave way to jointly-patrolled borders, checkpoints, arrests and deportations, and eventually to the imposition of treaties and the appointment of state officials more closely aligned to the Empire’s requirements. Those who continued to object suddenly found themselves harassed, arrested or worse.
Yet in Belsace and Rossony they fought on: they developed a stubborn habit of resistance. The more the Empire crushed them, the greater the number of ordinary people who were inspired to fight back and then, in turn, the more extreme the Imperial reaction. The whole area became a seething mass of sudden flashpoints, detentions, retaliations and ambushes.
Those who might have doubted the Empire’s resolve and ambition when Ruthin had fallen, had only to look at Belsace and Rossony. The Empire may not have achieved quick or easy victories there, but the neighbouring kingdoms of Mirrenlea and Erevald and Flax saw the devastation and destruction of their neighbours and chose to say nothing. They policed their borders and their streets and the camps; they rooted out armed fighters and deported them westwards … doing the Empire’s work for them. Voices that objected were quickly silenced.
With the Great Iron Gate under Imperial control, no-one was eager to give the Empire any further excuse to expand the conflict.
Prudence had won out over any sense of idealism, or natural justice.
Chapter Three
In the Shadow of Corvak
1
After three weeks, the Company were becoming restless. However busy they kept, there were arguments, fights and bickering: it seemed that it was not in their nature, as a group, to simply relax for very long.
Eventually, Kiergard Slorn called them together to discuss what they would do next.
Across the Three Lands, there was an informal network of shops and inns and bars, local postal services, legal agents and small banks with secure communications. It was by way of this network that people could contact them, could offer them work, and that they could send replies and reach other people who might normally be difficult to contact – people such as Captain Redwolf. In addition, the Company maintained their own small network of representatives, who collected and relayed messages with no knowledge of who they were handling material for. Eventually these messages reached a convenient central point on a nearby island, and Halldyn checked there from time to time.
‘While we were away,’ Slorn told the others, ‘we were contacted for five possible pieces of work. Two of these were tied to a certain time and have now expired, but let me tell you about the others … see what you think.’ He laid a three-page letter on the table in front of him and read from it:
‘There is a certain corrupt local official – a deputy governor in the province of Upper Tharsten, which is apparently in Dimovia. The commission would be to despatch him, in whatever way we were able. They are offering two hundred Crowns, on completion. Any thoughts?’
‘That’s just killing someone, and that’s not really what we do, is it?’ Magda said.
‘And the money’s rubbish,’ Garran said.
‘We’re not cut-price assassins,’ Thawn agreed.
‘Does anyone want to speak in favour of this job?’ Slorn asked. ‘Or want the details for themselves? I’m sure any one of us could try that one …?’ No-one spoke up, so he unfolded a second letter.
‘This is a proposition that we break into the Treasury on Iyatu and steal the Tanashak Ehal.’ Lanvik recognised the name “Iyatu”, an island in the Evallian Sea. ‘The client would provide us with a key to the strongroom at the heart of the Treasury. Apparently, this “Tanashak Ehal” is a holy relic of some sort from the neighbouring island of Kirrogat: they’re offering us six thousand Crowns to return it to them. I assume that if we gained entry to the Treasury we could probably help ourselves to anything else that we found there.’
‘That one sounds like common thievery,’ Karuin said.
‘I thought it sounded more like common fighting,’ Bane said. ‘I assume we’d have to fight our way in and then fight our way out again. There have to be more obstacles than the locked door, otherwise the client wouldn’t need us. Especially for that kind of money.’
‘It has potential,’ Menska agreed. ‘But it would depend what other security exists around the Treasury. We’d have to do more research.’
Slorn picked up the next letter: ‘This last one is to investigate the disappearance of a forty-five year old Dark Elf in Port Evendar. We would ideally find and retrieve him, or at least discover solid evidence regarding his fate. He seems to have spent a night out with friends, but never returned to his family that evening. They’re offering five hundred for the job, a further five hundred if we return with him alive, plus our expenses.’
‘That sounds like someone who just left,’ Ethryk shrugged. ‘Probably getting away from his pair-bond and children. Even if we found him, he wouldn’t want to go back to them.’
‘It’s nearby, but that money would barely cover our expenses,’ Karuin said.
‘I don’t think it’s the kind of work that would require the whole Company,’ Bane said. ‘It might be worth it for a smaller group – four or five of us, say.’
‘Perhaps we could split into two groups,’ Vorrigan suggested. ‘Some of us could search for the missing Madarinn, and the rest could look into that job on Iyatu. The Treasury.’
‘Maybe,’ Bane nodded.
‘Before we decide on that,’ Slorn said, ‘I’d like to put another option in front of you as well. Something personal.’
‘Here we go,’ Vorrigan laughed.
‘Would anyone like to sail west, west for as far as we can go, rather than taking any of these jobs?’
‘You mean the Twilight Isles?’
‘Yes.’
‘So now that Lanvik’s not going to Ceran’Don, you’re going to try and find the Ruby Hand instead?’
Vander looked from side to side, confused. When it became obvious that no-one was going to explain, he asked, ‘The Ruby Hand?’
‘Kiergard is on a quest to collect the Four Trophies,’ Ethryk told him, as if it was the most normal thing in the Three Lands. ‘You know, the Trophies of the Dead God.’
Vander laughed uncertainly. ‘How many do you have so far?’
‘Just the Emerald Crown …,’ Kiergard Slorn said.‘So far.’
‘You have the Emerald Crown?’
‘Did you think we went all the way to Darkfall in the middle of winter just to rescue you?’ Garran chuckled. Then he put his hands to his face, feigned disbelief and said: ‘Oh … hold on … that was what we were all supposed to believe.’
‘You have the Emerald Crown?’ Vander repeated, apparently astounded.
‘Well, I suppose I’m glad that I kept it secret from at least one person in the Company,’ Kiergard Slorn said. ‘Yes, I have the Emerald Crown.’
‘Where do you think he goes every afternoon? ’ Karuin asked. ‘Sometimes with Lanvik and that accursed staff? They’re trying to make them work, trying to access their powers.’
‘And completely failing, judging by their expressions when they return,’ Magda added.
