“My Lord, this is no time for Terrowin’s games. The Dryades are rampant: raping, pillaging, and massacring both village and countryside. We must act, while we can.”
“And what do you suggest, Tiberius?” The Great King, Drogan Malice I, asked.
Tiberius watched Terrowin, and said, “Sever the leg to spare the body.” He gestured to the counsel, “Before this threat mounts, we must rally the western legion. At my command, a force ten thousand strong will ride on the south, and slaughter the Dryades. None will remain.”
Tiberius hated diplomacy. He was a warrior, not a politician, a man of action unsettled by governmental games. Besides, in Tiberius’s thirty years as Warden of the West, he had vigorously fought the Dryades, holding them at bay. He had witnessed the blackness of their morality firsthand, so he knew what they were capable of—if someone allowed them the time to spread.
“Excellent strategy.” Terrowin applauded bitingly. “But liability thrives in tactic. Tell me, Tiberius, what would you have us do about our countrymen held prisoner in the south? A thousand of my soldiers defend Southern Guard, as we speak. Certainly we cannot risk the Dryades executing them.” He grinned, playing his hand on the Great King’s mercy.
Terrowin, unlike the steel-wielding whirlwind beside him, was a barrister. But he was no common weasel. He was a regal kind of aristocrat, of privileged blood, and sly character. He had built his fortune on controlling power. When Terrowin spoke honey spilt from the buzzing hive of his mind. Though, now and again, it attracted a bear.
Tiberius and Terrowin both held considerable power in the Great King’s council. Each man governed the wealthiest provinces in the Arklands. Each man was a battle-weary soldier. Each man played his game.
Tiberius oversaw Belfor, in the Lowlands. It was a place filled with stout soldiers, bound into brotherhood by blood oath. Though they did not bow their knee to any monarch or government or administration, they were mercenaries, swearing allegiance only to the Arklands. The House of Horselords stood alone like a bright star in the west, fighting hostiles of the Great Kings’ for as long as there had been Great Kings to fight for, and were paid well to do so.
At the heart of the province was Gailding, named for the Gailding Plains on which it sat. The city was a stronghold, built for defense. Its walls were tall and thick, with six stone towers that painted the skyline. Surrounding the city, straw covered roofs and farmhouses sat on the plains, which rolled like a tranquil sea, cut by fast rivers through green pasture. In the wintertime, heavy rains dampened the ground, and in the spring, blood red lilies grew lavishly, dappling the high hills.
The Guild of Elect—Terrowin’s motherland—took a cleaner approach to life. They preferred sweet-smelling wine and brunch to warm ale and afternoon jousts. Their wealth came from trade within the Arklands and far south across the Shinning Sea. Southern Guard, the port capital of the Forge, displayed their opulence in stone and gold, as a symbol of economic stability and religious doctrine in the Arklands. Inside the walled city, gold-fleeced children played on the boardwalks while their fathers gossiped about politics and their mothers gossiped about their fathers. It was a haven.
But it held a darker place too. The Arcane.
Moored at the center of the city, a monolithic, black brick cathedral cast into a sea of faithful followers fear. Its Arcanian Order—priests of the many gods and demons of the Arklands—helming the craft. The Knights of the Arcane, their butchers, bestowed justice upon sinners, bearing crested rings and swinging black blades, which read: Damned to Hunt the Damned.
The damned were oath breakers of the Great King and the Arcanian Order. Man, woman, and child, slave or free, all sinners suffered. The Black Crow saw no difference. It made its feast on sacrilege. It was always consuming. It was never full.
When the Knights of the Arcane arrested an oath breaker, a choice was given: “bow or endure.” Endure, some chose. They were not killed. Death was too easy…to quick. They had to suffer. So the mark of the Black Crow was burned into their right hand, and the misery began. Anyone bearing the mark was stripped of all titles and land. Their surname was replaced with Crow, and they were exiled from their family like a lost pilgrim, forced to scavenge for food and shelter, never finding rest. And scavenge they must. For those found trading with a Crow would receive the same fate.
But there was a horrid hope. A way back. A Black Crow could return to grace by severing their hand—removing the Black Crow mark—and presenting it as tribute before the Great King. Until tribute was given, all Black Crows were forced to ride in the vanguard, in every one of the Great King’s battles.
Those who bowed or bled were admonished of their sin.
Tiberius’s councilman whispered into his ear attempting to offer some kind of peaceful solution, but he brushed him away continuing his speech, “Our countrymen have been infected for weeks. My spies report that the transfigurations have already begun. The men are budding spikes on their backs. The women’s fingers are sprouting claws. The children—even the children…” Tiberius’s calloused eyes bled a tear, and stillness fell over the counsel, as they experienced the warrior’s ache. The silence was brief, shattered by Tiberius’s fist hammering on the table in front of him. “These are not my countrymen anymore—these things are demon spawn. They are septic to anyone foolish enough to tolerate them! They must burn!”
Terrowin stepped between Tiberius and the counsel, and bowed. “Your eminence, the illustriousness of your splendor is grand, but this is not a matter for the hands of mortals. We must castoff these sinners to the will of the Gods. Pray for justice. Pray for vengeance. All we need to do is look up to the heavens, and it will be ours.”
“Lies!” Tiberius cried. “We have endured the will of the Gods for far too long. Was it not you, Terrowin, who allowed the Dryades to overthrow the empire? The Forge, which you swore on blood to king and counsel to protect, is in decay. But still, I see you standing in front of me, spreading your venomous lies with each mystic plea. All the while, those dogs fester in your cage hungering for a taste of men.” Tiberius appealed directly to the Great King, “My Lord, the longer we scheme the greater a bite they will take.” Returning a baleful glare to Terrowin, he said, “How can you not see that? How can your pride even bear to entertain this counsel? Your head should be a prize garnishing the Dryades’s victory feast.”
“You will speak to me with respect! I am still ruler of Southern Guard.”
“Not anymore.”
“Do not threaten me, Tiberius. You know not my power.”
“By the Gods, I beg of you, show me your power! Scatter the Dryades. Muster the God of the Sea, chant to the God of the Stone, summon the God of the Bird, or the Mountain, or the Wind. Surely one of them will hear you and come.” Tiberius wasted no time waiting on Terrowin’s response, and pleaded with the Great King, “Your Majesty, hear me. These creatures challenge us on every front. From north, east, and west hell spawn appears, breeding unreservedly from Terrowin’s mountains. Abandon the Gods. For they have abandoned us.”
“Sacrilege!” Terrowin screamed.
“Foolishness!” Tiberius bellowed.
“Enough!” The Great King roared.
Until that moment he had listened carefully. Now, he would make his decision. Every eye turned to the throne, and waited.
“In my head and in my heart, you are a disease to me. You were to advise this counsel, to protect this land, to give noble judgment, and for all your petitions of peace, you have only spread havoc and fear. I have suffered both of you for far too long.” The Great King pointed to the Guild Chamber door, and said, “Guards! Open the gates, and let the streets run with their shit!”
The Guild Chamber was suddenly filled with troubled eyes.
YOU ARE READING
The Things the Creator Has Made
Action"A thousand sorrows I seek to mend. A thousand reserves I would expend. To give a thousand dogs their end. The Butcher of Belfor forever, and then." The broken cry of a Ranger who has lost his wife and daughter to the cannibals. In desperation, he e...
