Mighty Hammer Down (3 page)

Tannis had a puzzled look on his face.
Smiles were rare, puzzled looks could be counted on one
hand.

"No, nothing about a bloodline, but I
was asked my name. I suppose that’s pretty much the same
thing."

Pirius cut in. "Two attempts on the
only two known people in Medora named Tirinius in one day. Sounds
pretty strange to me. Emperor, why don’t you come away from the
window where an arrow might reach you?"

Piro ignored his son and
placed his hands on the marble railing as he stared into the coming
dark. Rommus could see that the man was starting to show his age.
He walked a little slower, he had lost a lot of his weight, and his
hair was now mostly gray, with only hints of its former dark color.
Many years ago, he was a strong man with a great history of
victories in wars with Vindyrion and Bhoor-Rahn. Because of him, an
alliance was formed
¾
albeit an uneasy
one
¾
with the Vindyri, and since Vindyrion
stood between Medora and Bhoor-Rahn, peace had held on the eastern
front for almost 20 years. Emperor Piro Tecadelion was a man loved
by his people. He was honest and fair and ensured that the people
of Medora remained prosperous and safe.

Rommus took his eyes from the Emperor
and turned back to his father. He didn’t want to ask how the
assassin got away without getting his neck snapped by his father or
introduced to a cold sword by a quick and ready guard. He assumed
that the person sent to kill his father was much more skilled than
the two fools he encountered on the road. He was certain he saw
them travel far away from Brinn before he started toward the city,
so there was no way that it was one of them who stabbed his father.
But what was going on? How did these men know he would be there on
the road, and why were they trying to kill his father but only
capture him?

His forehead knotted as he tried to
think of any enemies he might have. His father probably had
countless people who hated him; from soldiers who thought he was
too harsh, to anyone who stood before the steel jaws of his
Legions. Rommus himself didn’t make any effort to offend people, so
his list of enemies was short. Nevertheless, there was obviously
some connection between the attempts, and at least one reason that
someone wanted him and his father dead.

Pirius was occupying himself by
arranging some coins on a table into different patterns with one
hand, and squeezing his round, dimpled cheeks in mock thought with
the other. Women from all over adored his dimples; or at least they
claimed to. It was more likely that they adored his family fortune
and told themselves it was his babyish looks that charmed them.
Whatever the truth was, he had no problem getting the attention of
females. He looked up when Rommus came up beside him.

"What do you make of this? Any
thoughts?" Rommus said, picking up one of the coins and idly
tapping it on the table.

Pirius smiled with one side of his
mouth. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart
one."

"Come on, I know you have to have some
comment on all of this. What do you think is happening?"

"I haven’t the slightest idea. If I
were an assassin, I would try to kill the Emperor, not the General
of an army. Both men are almost impossible to get to, but if you
kill the Emperor, the empire might fall, if you kill a General, the
empire still stands, but you might just anger the army enough to
start a war."

"There might be something to that.
Maybe someone does want a war. But what country is crazy enough to
tempt us to that? And how does my attack fit in? I don’t think the
army would want to go to war if I were murdered. Most people don’t
care if I am alive or dead."

"Now Rommus, enough of that dark
talk." Pirius said as he went back to playing with the coins.
Pirius avoided most serious talk unless it was serious talk about
women.

"I’m serious. My father is an
important person. Why would they want me alive and him dead? Some
kind of ransom maybe?"

Pirius shrugged. "Maybe, but there are
easier people to kidnap I’d think."

Rommus thought for a while and the
room remained silent except for the clicking of coins on the table.
Finally Piro, still staring to the west, spoke slowly,
softly:

"Chapter of change, these pages better
left to burn. I have seen it coming for years, and I could not stop
it. My nation rots from within like some carcass in the sun. Its
bones still red with the memory of life, but soon picked clean by
the beasts that hide in our own shadows. Many among us hear in
their roars only a lovely melody, their silver words in golden
song. They have fed the people their poison telling them it is
nothing but sweet wine. Now a new order comes. Now a great enemy
raises its head from the waters, and this enemy the Legions cannot
touch, for it is made up of all those who support them like the
columns that support this great city."

He turned to face them in the room
with tears beginning to wet his eyes. "Once their evil takes root,
we will hear the screams of all those in this world, all in key
with the final song. This enemy struck us today, here, at the heart
of the army itself. My General, my friend, they are coming for us
all."

The words affected everyone. The
servant was weeping as quietly as she could manage while she began
to sew Tannis’s wound shut. The rest of them just stared at the
Emperor for a moment before he turned back to the
window.

"No enemy can escape the sword, no
matter how ghostly he seems," Tannis said after he took another
sip. "Men are responsible for actions taken to move the pieces into
play. We must simply find the men and kill them. Rebellion
over."

"With all due respect sir, that is a
warrior’s point of view. Not Everyone in Medora wants blood in the
streets, not Medoran blood anyway," Pirius stated as carefully as
he could.

"That’s the problem. Everyone is so
caught up in everything else. By the time you decide to act, your
enemy has slit your throat and taken your women and your gold.
Nations are not kept free by avoiding war. War is what has won you
your freedoms. Peace is born through bloodshed, and then maintained
through threat of war if any nation should try to come and end it."
He repositioned himself more comfortably in his chair. "That is why
Arius is a god of light and not a god of darkness."

"Let’s not bring the gods into this,"
Rommus said. "Like you said, man is responsible for moving the
pieces. I have a hard enough time understanding how man has enough
power to do the things we do, let alone how seven suspiciously
silent and invisible beings can magically influence
events."

"You are free to believe what you
wish, my son, but I have seen the Columns of Inshae
myself."

"And the bridge into the Land of the
Gods? Was it there as well?"

Tannis repositioned himself again. He
waited a long moment before answering. "No. I saw no bridge. But
the columns of the temple that once stood there are too large to
have been made by man. They are solid rock, carved right from a
mountain that once stood in their place. They make the columns here
in Brinn look like children made them. Most of the temple has
fallen, some into a giant pile behind the columns, and some into
the chasm the bridge once spanned. There is no way to cross there,
and there is no way to build a bridge that long. The gods are the
only ones who could have done it, and that is where the gods cross
into this world to walk among us. When you see it, you cannot deny
it."

Rommus was always slightly irritated
with people who believed in the gods so blindly. They offer only
wispy shadows of evidence, but see it as being solid as a rock. In
this case, the evidence really was rocks. Rommus could not imagine
any columns of any size convincing him that the gods were over
there on the other side, playing their little games with nothing
less than humans as pieces on the game board. He knew better than
to argue though. He grew tired of stating his opinions on the gods
long ago. For that matter, he rarely gave his opinion on anything
anymore because he learned that people are unwilling to accept
ideas that are not their own. There was no sense in giving people
another reason to dislike him. He decided to change the
subject.

"The men who attacked me looked to be
soldiers, but they wore black cloaks like the Mages do." He
realized that changing the subject to Mages wasn’t really changing
it at all since the Mages were the ones who claimed to speak to the
gods and demonstrate their power in this world. He hoped no one
would notice.

"Soldiers in black. Sounds like they
got the idea from me," Tannis said with a bit of pride. "Were they
Medoran?"

"Well they had Medoran swords and
boots, but they wore hoods so I couldn’t see if they had our dark
hair or not. But I didn’t recognize them, and they had to ask who I
was, so maybe they were imposters from Vindyrion or even
beyond."

"How many did you say there were? And
is there anything that stood out about them?"

"There were two. One came from the
front and one from behind. One had a deep voice and said I wasn’t
to be harmed." He thought a moment as he stroked his chin and
looked up at the colorful war painting on the wall. "Oh, and they
were clumsy. They seemed to lack any sort of rigid training or
discipline. They acted more like thugs than soldiers."

"And you’re sure they were Mages?" his
father asked.

"I am not sure of anything. All the
soldiers I know avoid Mages at all cost. I can’t imagine any of
them wanting to actually become one. All I know is that two men
attacked me and ran off when they failed in their
attempt."

"I see," said Tannis as the servant
cut the last of the thread from his stitches and got up to mix
herbs to place on the wound. Tannis swirled his drink absently as
he thought on the matter. He stared at the floor as if waiting for
it to tell him who these people were and what the true meaning was
for the day’s odd events. Maybe he sat there waiting for one of the
gods to come whisper the answers to him. Either way, the floor and
the gods were silent in Rommus’s ears.

Pirius, who had gone to see what was
so special about this window his father stood by, turned to Tannis.
"Were these the same men who attacked you General
Tirinius?"

"No. This assassin was alone, and wore
no cloak," He paused to drink from his cup. "Probably from
Vindyrion since she had long blonde hair."

The whole room stood
shocked.

Chapter 4

Alana crouched alone in the darkness.
She had completed her mission and killed Tannis Tirinius, although
she realized now that the feeling it left behind made her rather
uncomfortable. Tears had even stung her eyes a few times thinking
about it. She had never expected to be able to escape, but the gods
must have been smiling upon her on this glorious day. Perhaps
glorious wasn’t the best word for this occasion since she sat
rather uncomfortably in wet horse feed in an unoccupied stable
somewhere in the city of Brinn. While avoiding her pursuers, she
could only think to hide there in the piles of apparently discarded
wet feed. The smell was heavy and overpowering, and made her feel
as if she couldn’t get a full breath.

She had been sitting there silently
since just after sunset. There was no telling how late it was, but
she assumed she had been waiting there about three hours. When she
began her mission, she felt she was ready to die in the attempt,
but now with death out there at the tip of every Medoran sword, she
wasn’t so sure she was ready to go to the gods.

No army could walk right into Brinn
and kill the General, but she knew that a lone person had a chance.
No one would suspect her of such a thing. Times had changed in
Medora in the years since the alliance. Ten years ago they probably
would not have allowed a Vindyri anywhere near a city, and
certainly not the capital. Of course, that was what she was told.
This was her first time in Medora, and she didn’t know anyone who
had come this far west. Alana didn’t put much faith in peoples’
word. So far, the people she met were very well-mannered and
polite, not the brutes she had always heard that they
were.

The cities were amazing too. Things
were well-built in Vindyrion, but everything there was much more
plain and practical. The stones used for buildings were not
polished marble, but drab-colored stones, cut neatly, but lacking
the level of elegance or ornate design found in Medora. Even the
capital, Burnhamheade, didn’t compare to the smallest of Medoran
cities. Gold was used as currency, but here they decorated with it,
somehow covering parts of buildings and even weapons with the
yellow metal. She was amazed at the wealth she could see sparkling
in every corner of this nation. It was like the stars were made of
diamonds, and each morning they fell into the shimmering sea, just
to please these people. She wondered how it all was
possible.

Of course, such opulence is easily
forgotten sitting in a giant pile of rotting grain. She wanted to
leave the wretched place, but she knew that out there in the
streets thousands of bloodthirsty soldiers roamed around looking
for a female with long blonde hair. How they had not thought to
look in this stable was beyond her. She picked at the hem of her
shirt as she sat there, frustrated that she didn’t think to plan an
escape, or at least bring some kind of disguise.