Chapter 46

A rider was coming in full gallop from the east of the town and charged toward the Coward’s Gate. The Alorian priesthood’s procession marching into Katerra occupied the path to the gate but the rider didn’t rein his horse. The clergymen had to jump off the road not to be trampled. Even so, the rider could not immediately pass the gate since it was clogged with priests who had no room to sidestep him. Order-warriors encircled the rider as soon as he halted his horse.

“Are you a messenger?” A Bhansun asked.

“I’m Thorjas Juniper, Third Commander of the Forsaken Army,” the rider answered. “Get out of my way!”

The Untar of the Bhansun approached the tumult at the gate. “I remember you,” Ashun Kal’Thys remarked. “Three days ago you said you were the Fourth Commander of the Forsaken Army. Has General Vassun promoted you since then?”

“Yes; he did,” Juniper spat. “Now order your men to let me pass.”

“And where do you intend to ride?” The Untar asked.

“I don’t care as long it will be a far distance away from Katerra,” Juniper answered.

“He’s a deserter!” An order-warrior accused.

“No, you idiot,” Juniper objected. “I’m a survivor.”

“We saw a large flock of crows swoop down from the sky earlier.” Ashun Kal’Thys remarked. “Was that by the fighting in the harbor? What happened at the piers?”

“One of the Ibanee war galleys we heard about at the gathering in Clagesh Abbey landed in the harbor,” the mercenary commander answered. “Evanis Danjala was aboard the galley. First, she killed General Vassun. Then, she and a hundred of the monsters she commands massacred the five-thousand men at the piers - and our dead joined her army! Now she’s leading five-thousand dead warriors toward the White Citadel. They’ll kill everything standing in their way and every dead soldier will join Evanis’ forces.”

“So the message was true,” the Untar of the Bhansun inferred. “The Nameless Son has returned.”

Thorjas Juniper barked out a short, hollow laugh. “Maybe it’s true and he’s returned. I wouldn’t know, though. He didn’t show himself. Why should he? Evanis Danjala and her dead men will destroy your glorious Alliance of the Faithful without the Nameless Son even needing to lift a single finger.”

“You were right,” Ashun Kal’Thys said. “The man is a deserter. Take him behind some shack and execute him,” he ordered the Bhansun, then turned and left.

The Bhansun pulled the protesting mercenary commander from the back of his horse and took him away.

King Dharos was looking out a window of his study at his soldiers busy forming up along the parapets of the White Citadel’s eastern fortifications. Habsun, his servant, guided Lord Khanras of Elsass, one of the three highest ranking officers of the garrison, into the room before the King had to call for him.

“What’s happening out there that has all my soldiers in a tizzy?” The old King asked his officer.

“The enemy is concentrating a large part of his forces east of the Citadel, my King,” Lord Elsass replied. “Not only forces of the Forsaken Army, either. A contingent of an estimated five-thousand men, carrying the banners of the Lords of Barthobar, is joining from the south. An army from Danuba, with another five-thousand men, is coming from the north. Combined with the five-thousand mercenaries of the Forsaken Army, that’s a force of fifteen-thousand men gathering east of the White Citadel’s main gate.”

King Dharos frowned. “Without any siege weapons, even a hundred thousand men couldn’t breach our walls.”

“Yes, my King,” Lord Elsass agreed. “I also don’t believe our enemies are gathering their forces for an attack on the Citadel. It looks much more as if they are moving into positions to defend against an attack themselves – an attack from the east.”

The King returned to the window. “An attack from the east?” He reflected. “The harbor is in the east and crows have been darkening the eastern sky since the afternoon.”

Lord Elsass gulped. “Yes, my King.”

“Habsun!” Dharos shouted. “Where is my damn crutch? I want to take a walk along the battlements and look at the east.”

“Very good, your Majesty,” the old manservant said as he brought the King’s crutch.

“It’s said the sun rises in the east.”

Members of the Midnight Council kept the group of non-combatants informed about the happenings at the frontline while they marched through Katerra in the wake of Evanis and her army of patch-men. The latest news prompted them to take a break and discuss their further approach.

“They are gathering their entire army in front of the White Citadel,” Agon concluded from the news.

Shinta nodded. “And Evanis lets them gather. She wants them all in one place and then she’ll crush them.”

“How many patch-men does she have yet?” Anseyla asked.

“Two to three-thousand according to the reports we received so far,” Agon answered.

Sybelien snorted. “I remember Eva saying with a battalion of patch-men she’d conquer the world. Now she has much more than a battalion.”

“I’ve never pitied my enemies,” Shinta said, “and I won’t start with it today.”

“Women are distinctly more merciless than men,” Kuwasi agreed.

“There is no reason for mercy,” Rhaseris opined. “Our enemies chose to fight a war against my God. Now they first need to surrender before they can ask for mercy.”

“They should surrender,” Agon replied. “Apparently they won’t, though. However, Evanis doesn’t need help from us mere mortals to defeat the enemies, so I suggest we stay out of the fray.”

“I agree,” the Lady Onessa said. “Our scouts will keep us informed about the battle but unless Evanis needs us, we should stay away from fighting. Enough people will die today; we don’t need to add to their numbers.”

No one voiced a diverging opinion. Agon, Kuwasi, and Shinta set up defensive positions for the combined Ibanee-Alorian guarding force. Afterward, they all sat down together, waiting for news about the beginning of the expected battle.

Every window shutter and door of the houses they passed was closed. At first Anjatta was silent, too, as she followed Jabbit walking along the deserted roads of Katerra. The silence lasted until a group of fleeing mercenaries appeared at a corner in front of them. Confronted with an unarmed young man and a small Ibanee princess, their need to escape took a break. The four mercenaries regained their natural bravery and, drawing their weapons, they advanced toward the pair down the road.

Anjatta clutched the clamshell pendant at her necklace and screamed.

“Stop!”

The expression on the faces of the men turned into sneers, but aside from that nothing happened.

“You don’t believe in me, Anja,” Jabbit explained the malfunction of the seashell.

“I don’t believe in you, either,” one of the approaching mercenaries mocked.

“I know,” Jabbit answered, “but I don’t care about you.”

The sound of a growl coming out of a small side alley made the mercenaries spin around to watch for the source of the growl. It was a small, scraggly dog with felted, long brown hair. The men relaxed but more snarls joined the growling of the small stray. Behind the mutt, out of the shadows in the side-alley, a whole pack of dogs appeared and suddenly the sound of growling was all around them. The four mercenaries turned in every direction but street dogs streamed out of every side road and rounded every corner.

The mercenaries froze and stared at Jabbit when a murder of crows flew in and settled on the rooftops along the road.

“Maybe you believe in me now,” Jabbit noted, “but I still don’t care about you.”

A crow screeched.

The street dogs stopped snarling and attacked.

After the conclusion of their encounter with the mercenaries, it was silent again on the roads. Jabbit continued on his way through Katerra and Anjatta wordlessly followed him once again. Her reticence did not last for long this time.

“Why did you choose me to come with you today?” She asked.

“I’ve chosen you to learn something,” he answered.

“What do you want me to learn?”

“No, not you,” he answered. “I want to learn something new.”

“You are doing that on purpose!” Anjatta accused.

“What do I do on purpose?”

“You’re intentionally confusing me with inscrutable answers to my questions.”

“Is confusing you better or worse than lying to you?” He asked.

“That’s a poor choice. Why do you need to either confuse or lie to me?”

“Because I want to learn something new.”

“I hate you!”

They walked on in silence.

“I do believe in you, you know,” Anjatta said a little while later.

“You don’t believe in me,” Jabbit denied. “You know I am. That’s not the same.”

Anjatta groaned. “‘You know I am’. What does that mean?”

“You don’t have to believe in my existence; you know I exist,” he explained. “You only can choose to believe in things you don’t know.”

“You mean I chose to believe in the wrong things, don’t you?”

“That’s a part of what I want to learn today,” he answered.

Another time of quietness followed.

“I know where we are going,” Anjatta stated when she decided it had been quiet long enough.

“You believe you know where we’re going?” Jabbit asked with a grin.

“No, I know it,” she answered. “We are going to the Temple Hill - The Marble Cemetery. I’ve seen it in my dreams. I knew this day would come.”

“Are you scared?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“And still you say you believe in me.”

“I’m scared to death but I am following you,” Anjatta replied. “Doesn’t that mean I believe in you?”

“Maybe we both will learn something today,” he answered.

Unlike the rest of Katerra, the temple district didn’t only appear to be deserted - it truly was. The residents hadn’t just closed the windows and doors of their houses to hide from war. The clerical occupants truly had abandoned their homes after Emperor Dharos had hoisted the imperial banner and the leaders of the Alorian priesthood fled from the capital. Therefore, the once splendid view of the white marble temples, which was gone as well, was not as painfully missed as otherwise might have been the case. On the serpentine road to the top of the Temple Hill, Anjatta noticed that the closer they came, the worse the temples looked. The dark mist pouring over the edges of the hill didn’t make the sight any more appealing at all.