Empire of the Saviours (Chronicles of/Cosmic Warlord 1) (61 page)

Samnir slammed his fist down on the table and the cutlery and plates jumped. A beaker fell over and wine spilled into the wood. Hella yelped and Jacob leaned back as far as he could.

‘You will both listen to me and then there will be an end to this, understand?’ Samnir commanded, his grey eyes glinting like blades in the candlelight. Hella and Jacob nodded fearfully. ‘Hella, you have no right to talk to your father so. You will show him respect for all he has done for you. I doubt it has been easy raising a daughter on his own. He has always been worried for you and done everything he can to protect you. He has smiled at cruel masters, nodded and allowed ruffians to steal from him, and bent a knee to those for whom he secretly has nothing but contempt. But what else could he do when it’s not just his own life and future at stake? He has swallowed his pride and been less than a man all for the love of
you
, child. Where would you have ended up without him watching over you, eh? You know well that orphans are carted off to serve as retainers in the Great Temple. Have you ever heard of a retainer returning from the Great Temple? No. So let me tell you that their lives are horribly short. I have seen their ruined bodies, buried them even! So hear me when I say he is a stronger man than you can understand. I am not sure I could have been as strong. My selfishness would have come in the way and, were you my daughter, you would have consequently been dead long ago.

‘As for you, Jacob, you talk of everything the Empire has given you without thinking of what it has taken from you. You have no freedom to think or believe anything except that which the Empire prescribes. You have no freedom to express your thoughts or be yourself. They have taken your very life and soul, man. You are a shadow of who you should have been. Even your own daughter struggles to know you. You have let the Empire take her father from her! You have let the Empire make an orphan of her, despite all your efforts. Is that what you want for Hella? And would you then allow them to take her and break her as they did you? Do you want to give your daughter into the hands of those cruel masters, people for whom you have a secret contempt? Well, do you?’

‘No!’ the trader moaned. ‘Do not let them take her from me! She is all I have!’

‘Yet you will lose her, and you will lose each other, if you do not let Jillan heal you.’

‘Please, Father!’ Hella whispered through her tears.

Shaking violently, Jacob looked into his daughter’s eyes and held out his arms to Jillan.

Hella and Jacob had gone and Jillan and Samnir were just making up their beds when there was a quiet knock at the door.

‘Who’s there?’ Samnir asked as he went near.

‘Samnir, it is your mistress at last. You will open the door to me.’

Samnir stared at the door, his mouth hanging open, and his hand rose to obey. Sensing that all was not right, Jillan called, ‘Samnir, wait! Who is it?’

The soldier pulled the bolt back and let in the late-night visitor. The newcomer was slender, dressed in a long black cape and wearing a grotesque wooden mask. The character of the face was beautiful and knowing on the left side, but ugly and leering on the other. Even so, it was one continuous visage and quite unnerving. At one moment the ugliness would seem honest and the beauty deceiving; the next the ugliness threatened pain and the beauty promised mercy. It was apparently a depiction of Miserath, but why would the pagan god come wearing a mask of himself? The mask was removed and a totally new face was revealed.

‘Holy one, it has been so long,’ Samnir whimpered and performed a deep bow.

‘Rise, most cherished Samnir. You have aged but still cut a fine figure, eh?’ The stranger’s attention moved straight to Jillan. ‘And this is the boy about whom there’s been such a fuss. Good evening, my young fellow. I am Saint Izat and I have come to take you away from all this noise and hullabaloo. This region is positively putrid, no? I have no idea how anyone ever manages to keep their shoes clean. A chair if you please, darling Samnir. Sweet man.’

The Saint perched herself on the edge of the seat provided and looked Jillan up and down. ‘A bit rough around the edges, but I’m sure you’ll come up a treat after a scented bath or two.’

Jillan glared at the Saint, not liking her thin eyebrows and disconcertingly full lips. There was barely a line on the face of the Saviours’ representative. This creature was clearly skilled at keeping expression from its face, to prevent others from reading its thoughts. What ambitions and desires did this Saint have that were so terrible they had to be hidden? What ambitions and desires did any Saint have, come to that? Nothing too savoury, that was for sure.

‘Come to offer me Salvation, have you?’ Jillan asked neutrally. ‘Or to Draw me to the Saviours? Come to threaten me with damnation if I resist?’

Saint Izat smiled gently. ‘I would be cynical too, if I had been treated as you have, Jillan. Saint Azual can be quite a zealot and a brute, I know. He misdirects his passion, you see. Things are different in the western region, my region, however. It is a garden of love and understanding. There is no killing and oppression there. Come with me! Bring your friends and you can live the life you’ve always wanted, you’ll see! Leave this squalor behind.’

‘But your region is still part of the Empire, is it not? The mechanisms of control in your region might be different to this region’s – you may use loving arms rather than force of arms – but they are mechanisms all the same. In your region I would not be free to lead my own life the way I want. You would want to Draw all my magic from me, wouldn’t you, just like Saint Azual? You may not like this squalor, but it is
my
squalor, where none may own, control or Draw me. Samnir, please show the holy one out.’

Saint Izat smiled again and tapped her thigh in amusement. ‘Samnir is mine to command, my precocious and provocative young man. But I like you, so must now insist that you come—’

A heavy hand landed on the Saint’s shoulder.

‘Samnir! What is the meaning of this? How dare you lay one of your grubby hands on my holy person without my gracious permission!’ the Saint squawked in outrage.

The fingers tightened.

‘Samnir! Does your lust so fire you—’

A blade of sun-metal was pressed against the Saint’s pretty throat, silencing her. ‘Jillan has invited you to leave, holy one. I suggest you do so, before I fully recall the things you did when I was young to bind me to you.
Love
you called it? Why then do I only feel dirty and used? Hesitate one more second and it will be your last,
holy
one.’

Saint Izat came straight to her feet and Samnir walked her to the door and pushed her out. The soldier quickly slammed the door closed and double-bolted it. He put his back against it and slid down to the floor, his face pasty-white.

Through the wood at his ear came a gentle voice. ‘You will be mine again, sweet Samnir, and you will beg for my love before I am through with you.’

Samnir stumbled back to the chair and stared and stared at the door.

Jillan poured the last of the wine into a beaker and pressed it into his friend’s hand. ‘Drink this. I thought you were going to kill her.’

‘I wish I had,’ Samnir said through rattling teeth. ‘But it took everything I had just to get the blade up to her neck and hold it steady.’

In the dark Praxis finished loading the wagon with every bottle of wine and liquor he had in his personal cellar and drove it through Godsend to the northern gates. He called the pagan guards down to him and handed a bottle of the strongest liquor to each of them.

‘From Chief Braggar, so that you may toast tomorrow evening’s victory and help keep out the cold tonight. The Chief said he would take it as a personal insult if you did not finish your bottles within the hour, and also a blasphemy against the gods.’

The men laughed. They assured him they were of good faith.

‘And an extra bottle for he who best proves his faith by finishing first!’

They cheered the Minister as he drove the remaining hundred or so bottles over to the inn, not far from the gates.

Jillan thought he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep that night but entered his dreams as soon as he closed his eyes. He was in the middle of a ruined landscape once more, the blackened ground cracked, with lava flowing through caves below. He walked across the smoking crust of the earth, the roots of any trees long since burned away and their bulks toppled atop one another to make a charred pyre of the forest that had once stood here. The sky was a pall of soot and ash and the sulphurous air hurt his lungs. As he came over a slight rise, he found he walked upon the crumbling and powdery bones of the dead.

Again a large green hill rose high above him, a sea of humanity washing up its slopes only to be driven back by a waiting line of cruel-eyed heavily armed Heroes. The green of the lower slopes had long since been replaced by the red and brown of lost lives. Still people fought vainly against each other to be the first to reach the killing spears of sun-metal.

On the crown of the hill was a throne of skulls where the mutilated and mad Saint sightlessly surveyed his domain. He laughed as if watching a mummers’ play. A woman in rags crossed the path of a stocky man, who twisted her head sharply round to break her neck. In her final instant of life her eyes fell on Jillan, and the Saint saw him.

The grizzly shape of Azual stood and pointed down at the boy. ‘There is the one who has driven you to your deaths. See there! He stands behind you with the threat of his magic and you flee towards the verdant sanctuary of my hill. See how he has ruined the landscape all around so that you may have no haven elsewhere. See how he seeks to have you overwhelm this hill, your one place of safety. Turn on him! Do not allow him to force death upon you. Have your revenge! And the one who brings me his head will have a place at my side here in this restful garden.’

The wild-eyed mob turned as one to stare hungrily at Jillan. They began to race towards him. In the tumult the slow were trodden underfoot and smeared across the ground. Unfortunates were pushed into fissures, to fall screaming into the steaming lava. Children and babes-in-arms were dropped in the chaos, speared upon fire-hardened branches and broken on rocks.

‘No! Stay back!’ Jillan pleaded and spun away. He slipped and floundered on the treacherous remains of what had once lived here. ‘Please!’ He ran for his life, nowhere to go. He vaulted a tree trunk and leapt a yawning gulf with only just enough momentum to stop himself toppling into the fiery depths. An old man little more than an animated skeleton hurled himself across the gap after Jillan, fell short, caught the crumbling lip of the edge and frantically tried to haul himself up. ‘Forgive me!’ Jillan sobbed, and continued to run as the man fell into the molten rock below.

They came pouring around the small chasm. Fear and adrenalin gave him a new burst of speed and he outdistanced them by a handful of yards, but he soon began to flag while the mad horde did not slacken for a moment. Hands grabbed and tore at his clothing. They dragged him to the ground and clawed at his head, fighting to get a hold so that they could rip it from his shoulders. He bit hard on fingers, down to the bone, but the insane owners were oblivious. They gouged at his eyes, stuck sharp fingernails into his ears to burst his eardrums, ripped open his nostrils and yanked out handfuls of his hair.

His head came up, and he all but vomited his entire self out through his mouth. He screamed and screamed.

Samnir had him by the shoulders and was shaking him hard. A stinging slap to the cheek. ‘I’m here, Jillan.’

‘He’s here!’ Jillan cried in a cold sweat.

There were scratches at the front door and it shook as hands tried to pull it open. Kicking feet and barging shoulders rattled it in its frame. They called and howled bestially for his head. It was no dream. The People had come for him.

‘The Saint’s here!’

‘How?’ Samnir demanded frantically, pulling his sword free and facing the door. ‘It shouldn’t be for another day at least. We’re not ready. We’ll be slaughtered!’

Dawn was threatening when the last of the stinking pagans in the inn slumped into drunken unconsciousness. He snored as loudly as the others, a fly lazily circling his open mouth.

Minister Praxis shrugged off the arm the sot next to him had affectionately put round his shoulders and pushed the warrior’s face away. Praxis climbed over the table, wove his way between the slumbering bodies and empty bottles and gained the door.

‘At last! These animals will soon be skewered and set to roast over the greedy flames of their own corruption. Pigs!’ he sneered in disgust.

He stepped out into the false dawn and all but ran for the gates. In his excitement he did not notice the shadow slip out of the inn after him.

The Minister could not contain himself. ‘Master, I come to do your bidding! Glory be this moment, for the rising sun heralds the start of a new age of civilisation, a world where only the worthy will exist, a land where godly Saviours, their holy Saints and the People intermingle and become one. The day of eternal communion is upon us. Praise be!’

‘Who goesh there?’ slurred a boss-eyed warrior at the top of the steps next to the gates. ‘Oh, it’sh you, lowla-la-lander.’

The Minister ignored him and went to lift one end of the bar across the gates. ‘Master, your holy city awaits you!’

Good, Saint Praxis. We are ready. Quickly, for I am famished and would break my fast with pagan blood and bones! Quickly!

‘Here! What are you about there, lowla-la-lander? Wanna hand?’ hiccuped the warrior as he swayed down the first few steps and then, losing control, took the rest at breakneck speed. He bounced like a clownish acrobat at the bottom and shouted, ‘Ta-da!’ There were groans of protest from those on the ramparts above.

‘Going for a walk then, lowla-la-lander? Don’t think you sh-should really, not without an eshcort or something. Let me rouse shome of the others.’

Quickly!

The Minister bared his teeth, incapable of smiling at the vile semi-naked devil. He stepped in close to the Chaos creature, extracted a needle-like blade from within the sleeve of his ministerial longcoat and stabbed the weapon into the side of the pagan’s neck. The Minister tried to saw the blade round to the front to prevent any scream, but the lack of a serrated edge meant he just waggled the blade in the wound. Blood sprayed into the Minister’s eyes and mouth, and then over the hand holding the knife, making his hand slip.