“Gauragar is our homeland, my lady. We have the same duty as you to fight off the oppressors.” He was not prepared to drop the subject. “We are glad to have you at our side. If the Urgon group were here, they would say the same.”
Zedrik stood up. One of the sentries at Topholiton’s gates, he was a rough man of rough appearance. He was only ever to be seen in armor, as if there were no life for him outside military service. “May the gods and yourself, my lady, forgive me, but I have been wondering about our cause for a long time-whether there’s any point. We steal the tribute, kill a few thirdlings maybe, but does this make anything better for the people here in Gauragar?” Zedrik sounded disconsolate. “The people support us but they are the ones to suffer when the reprisals come.”
“What do you suggest?” Frederik studied him. “Do you want to kowtow to the black-eyes forever and a day? Is that what you want for your children and their children? This oppression?”
“It’s how it used to be, and we managed all right; it’s not a bad life,” replied Zedrik with a sigh. “We pay up and they leave us in peace.”
Mallenia followed the dispute attentively, her decision now reinforced by what she’d heard. They must break up their organization. The butcher did not want to give up, as she had first thought, but some of the others did. Too many. Fear could lead to betrayal, just as a high reward might.
Frederik was disgusted. “Just how stupid are you, Zedrik? What happens when we’ve nothing left to pay them with? When they raze our villages to the ground because they want the land for their preposterous art projects; want to change everything to fit in with their mad ideas of aesthetics?” he cried, exasperated. “Does nobody remember what happened in Tareniaborn?”
Tareniaborn. Mallenia swallowed hard and the thought of the town with its forty thousand men, women and children, filled her with horror. Nothing like that had ever happened before.
It had been eleven cycles ago. One of the alfar princes had decided to turn the town into a work of art: Tareniaborn and all the land surrounding it.
To this day no one knew whether the alf had gone mad or whether each and every town in Idoslane could expect a similar fate.
“You were there, my lady. Think of how cruel our over-lords were,” Frederik demanded grimly. “And bear in mind, they’re not going to shrink from violence on that scale if the fancy takes them again.” All eyes in the cellar were on Mallenia.
“I can’t say how it happened. I arrived when it was all over,” she said. “I came on the town by accident when out riding with some volunteers. We were up on a hill and had a good view of the town and plain.” She felt a fluttering in her stomach and started to feel sick. “We saw patterns in the snow round the walls, and the whole town glistened red. Everything, absolutely everything, was covered in a layer of frozen blood. Red ice, everywhere!” She saw in her mind’s eye the ghastly lanes and alleys of Tareniaborn. “In the marketplace they’d strung up the hearts of the inhabitants, pierced with silver wire and silver rods, twisting them together to make a giant tree, the hearts of the adults on the trunk, those of the children on the twigs. And they’d hung the heads of newborn babes like fruit from the branches.”
She could not go on. The tree and all its gory detail had swamped her imagination. The tiny bunches of different-colored hair, attached to look like leaves, making the whole work so horrendous…
Mallenia saw the disgust in the eyes of those around her. “Be glad you didn’t see it.” She continued softly, “In the fields round about they’d stripped and eviscerated the bodies, using the bones to form huge symbols on the ground, with the town at the center. Maybe it was all dedicated to one of their gods, who knows. But it was so incredibly awful that you actually had to look at it. A terrifying fascination. Bone laid next to bone as if there had never been another function for them apart from making those symbols on the ground.” The young woman looked at Zedrik. “They’d placed the intestines in between the bones to give color. When we first saw it from the distance we didn’t know what it was made of. Then we used our telescopes…”
The watchman ran outside, two others following him, not wanting to vomit over the feet of their friends.
Frederik had grown very pale, but kept his head. “And yet you think of giving up?” he confronted the others. “If the alfar decide to turn Topholiton into a work of art-you’ll die with the knowledge that you were too cowardly to stand up and resist!” Anger had brought out the veins on his forehead.
“So what do we do?” called Zedrik from the doorway, wiping his mouth. The tips of his boots were shiny and wet, bits of food still clinging to them. “Go to war? Against the thirdlings and the alfar? We’d have to kill our own families first so they’re not executed by the enemy.” He gave a choked laugh. “No one can save us from them, Frederik. Only the gods, perhaps, but they must have made up their minds to make us suffer for many cycles yet.”
“The gods would come to our help if we dared to rebel against the vassal-rulers,” replied the butcher fervently, but he was calmed by Mallenia’s hand on his shoulder.
“I know how worried you all are but I do see that I should withdraw from the campaign for a time, as my good friend Frederik suggests,” she announced, and a sigh of relief went round the room. “I shall let you know when we next ride out together but, until then, stay with your families and behave as if nothing were wrong. I need you alive.” She stood up. “There will come a time when we will rise up against the alfar, but it will not be tomorrow and will not be in thirty orbits. We will know when an opportunity presents itself, and all three of the realms will be ready and waiting.” She drew her sword and held it high. “For Gauragar, Urgon and Idoslane! For freedom for all!”
They all echoed her cry, cheering and applauding Mallenia, descendant of the famous prince.
Suddenly the lamps went out!
Somebody laughed nervously in the dark, others cried out in dismay, calling for light; Mallenia could hear that at least two of the conspirators had drawn their swords, fearing an attack-or was this an attack?
She ducked down and placed her left hand on her second sword, thinking through various possibilities of who could be attacking her here in the cellar: The thirdlings with Hargorin, some bounty hunters or the Dson Aklan alfar?
She realized there had not been a draft strong enough to extinguish all four lamps. Magic? A particular sort of magic. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Have they found me?
The cellar door banged open, dim light coming from the windows opposite.
A figure stood on the threshold, bending slightly forward, a long sword in his hand. The conspirators immediately recognized the sharply pointed ears and were terrified by the sight, because they knew what it meant for all those in the cellar: Death.
Behind the alf stood the sheriff, his face like wax in the light of a single ray of light.
“Well, well, what have we here? The rebels,” said the alf in a velvety voice. “Well spotted, Sheriff. They have indeed broken into your cellar to steal supplies.” The tone betrayed that he was protecting the sheriff and did not intend to connect him with the deeds of the rebels. The alf took a bag of gold from his belt and threw it over his shoulder, so that it fell in the snow in front of the sheriff. “Here-here’s your reward.”
“Have mercy, sire!” Zedrik was the first to whine. “Have mercy on our families! They knew nothing about what we’ve done.” Sinking to his knees at the bottom of the steps, which were the only way out of the cellar, he stretched up his arms in supplication. “Spare their lives!”
The alf took two steps down in order to accommodate his full height. They could still only see his silhouette because the light was behind him. No one had dared try to relight the candles.