Clovis climbed the dais and stood in the center. The Black Spire loomed behind him like a portal to the underworld. All in attendance, prisoner, soldier, and elf alike, began muttering among one another. Clovis rubbed his hands together, and his eyes burned a deeper red than ever before, eliciting shocked gasps from his audience.
“This is a glorious day!” Clovis declared, his lips peeling back further. His voice was harsh, as if flames were ejecting from his gullet along with his words. He looked down at the three hundred people of Ang who huddled before him. “Tonight, we celebrate the end of our time together. Tonight, all sins are forgotten with a purging feast. When that feast is done, you will be freed.” The soldiers grumbled; the elves, both Quellan and Dezren, passed suspicious glances back and forth.
“It’s a trick!” Bardiya heard one of his people shout.
“No, no trick,” Clovis said, his grin growing ever wider. “I am a. . man of my word. When the feast is over, consider yourselves free souls in Karak’s eyes.” He folded one arm over his withered chest and propped the other atop it, fingering his chin as he scanned the crowd. “In fact, I feel a demonstration of trust is necessary. Your singing has brightened many of my evenings since we have been together, and it has saddened me that all but the giant has stopped. I wish to hear a song once more.”
More grumbling followed, but no one stepped forward.
“Come now, can we not have some beauty during these dark times? I wish to hear a song, an innocent song, a pure song, the one about mothers and lions and mountains. You know the one.”
A woman suddenly began singing, only to be hushed by a wave of Clovis’s hand.
“No,” he said. “I wish for innocent voices. Are there any children among you who will sing for me? Will you come join me, allow your voices to fill me with warmth? Should you do so, you will be freed. . ”
The man gestured to a group of soldiers off to the right, and three of them shuffled through the sand in front of the prisoners, looking each child up and down. Finally one child stepped forward, then two, then more, until there were seven. The soldiers climbed the dais steps, urging the young ones to follow them. Bardiya noticed one of the soldiers was the one he had healed. Clovis knelt down, kissing each of the children’s hands before directing them to form a line on the front of the platform.
Bardiya’s heart was overwhelmed as he stared at those seven angelic faces. He knew them all, of course: Keisha, Sasha, Minora, Robbet, Yassar, Boren, and Stev. They were all eight years old or younger, and their eyes were filled with worry as they gazed down at the audience of nearly one thousand. Keisha Hempsman raised her head, her eyes finding Bardiya, and she nodded to him. This is for you, her look seemed to say.
“Now sing,” Clovis demanded.
Keisha and Sasha were the first to open their mouths, but soon the other five followed. The sound of their seven voices melded into sweetness and honey.
Bardiya closed his eyes, allowed the singing to wash over him. His energy seemed to return, the pain in his body subsiding. He even began to sway, humming along with their song.
He remembered the first time his mother had sung this song to him, when he was still a very young child suffering night terrors beneath the blankets in their hut. He thought of his father, the mighty Bessus, and how he had chastised his wife for filling young Bardiya’s head with foolishness. His heart ached, especially when the next verse began. His father had been right all along. It was beyond foolishness; it was a complete lie.
“Enough,” Clovis said, his voice loud and shrill. Bardiya opened his eyes and saw the man standing behind the row of smiling children, his eyes bulging with excitement to the point of popping from his skull. Clovis whispered something to the soldier beside him, whose face paled, whose hands shook.
“No,” Bardiya said, dread overcoming him.
Clovis shoved the soldier and grabbed the sword hanging from his belt with quickness that someone in his state should not have possessed. He ripped the blade free with a glare, and the two other soldiers, including the one Bardiya had healed, needed no more invitation. They too drew their blades and approached the children from behind. The crowd in front of the dais pitched forward in a frenzy, and those standing guard struggled against their mass.
“NO!” Bardiya cried.
Clovis lifted his eyes, and it was like they were on fire, they glowed so brightly. He stared right at Bardiya.
“I will set their souls free,” he said. “Now let us bring some beauty to the world! The feast begins!”
The man reared back and brought the longsword across in a wide arc. Bardiya surged ahead, pulling against his chains, the ox harness, the wagons themselves. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he watched the blades, Clovis’s and the soldiers’, find purchase in innocent flesh. Keisha was the first to die, her head sheared clean from her neck. In a matter of seconds, there were seven corpses atop the dais.
Women shrieked, and the anger and dread of Bardiya’s people spread like a disease. Gordo shoved past a soldier and climbed onto the dais. Bardiya saw the parents of the other slain children emerge from the sea of humanity, and his massive heart thrummed so hard that it might have shaken the earth itself. He thrust his arms with such force that the four-inch-thick iron chains binding them shattered. His mind went blank, and he threw his head forward, splintering the ox harness about his neck. His vision went red as he watched Gordo cradle his daughter’s headless body, and when a pair of elves rushed Bardiya, he lashed out without thinking. He grabbed them each by the top of the head, even after one slashed at his wrist with his khandar, and slammed their heads together. Their skulls exploded into a bloody pulp that coated his hands even after he tossed their corpses aside.
“NO!” he screamed, shaking his bloody fists before him. It seemed the very heavens echoed his call.
More soldiers charged, but Bardiya focused on Clovis. The skeletal man was hopping up and down in what appeared to be excitement, his gaze aimed somewhere to the side. Bardiya looked that way, his blood racing, and saw men sprinting down the tall dune. They were dark skinned and brandished weapons of steel, and they bellowed their battle cry as they ran. He recognized every one of them.
Bardiya only looked away when a soldier stabbed him in the side. He reached down, grabbed the soldier by the leg, and then threw him as hard as he could against one of the wagons. The soldier’s body crumpled like a dried leaf, his head spinning around on his torso until it hung there by a single, gummy thread. Bardiya yanked the sword out of his side, such a tiny thing in his massive fingers, and flicked it away. Four more soldiers and two elves came at him next from all directions. He swung his arm, and the thick iron chains still locked around his wrists pulverized two men’s skulls. The rest he smashed with his fists until they were formless piles of flesh, bone, blood, and steel.