Chapter 18: The Brotherhood

Orzad urged his men on with shrill war cries, tasting victory as he saw Sholim fall. It wasn't until he drew in a deep breath to shout commands that he realized that something was wrong, terribly wrong. A chill wisp of green fog touched wetly on his face, swirling deep into his lungs as he gasped and tried to bat it away. Around him, his men had already frozen into impotent statues. His sword fell to the ground as his thoughts, too, ground to a halt. He was dimly aware of being pulled from his unmoving pony, of being herded forward with his men to where a skinny old man in a flowing green robe was having his wounded shoulder bandaged.

"So this is the mighty Orzad, King of the Hill men," Sholim sneered, his face twisted with an ugly mixture of pain and triumph. "Strip him, and put him with the rest of the slaves. But, hold! First, bring King Khamul to me."

"He is dead, Your Reverence," one of his attendants answered, cowering back as though from an expected blow. "He was skewered by a spear, just as the battle ended."

"I had ordered him taken alive!" Sholim raged thinly, sweat beading his forehead as a too sudden movement pulled at his wound. "Find the man who killed him. Let him join the slaves in Khamul's place!"

A great cry of sorrow and rage had risen from Talai's walls when King Khamul fell. Now, a deep silence reigned as Sholim was carried in his ceremonial chair to a point just out of range of the defenders' weapons. In the still air, the High Priest's voice easily spanned the distance to his listeners.

"Your King is dead, people of Talai. Your army is defeated. You have no choice but to lay down your arms in surrender. Open the gates to my army."

"And if we don't?" The reply came from an officer atop the wall.

"If you don't surrender, your men will be slaves, tilling our fields. Your women will be the playthings of my soldiers. Your leaders shall go under the sea, to dance in Kathool's dreams."

"And if we do surrender? What happens then?"

"You shall be treated as honorable captives. Most of you will remain free. Only a select few of your women will be taken from you, and Mighty Kathool will receive only His usual number of souls. Think well on your answer, but think quickly. I shall require your reply within the hour."

Inside Talai, chaos was only avoided by the quick action of Talai's remaining soldiers. Their King was gone, along with most of his army. Only Talai's strong walls remained, a frail enough barrier between them and their besiegers. In the audience room of the RoyalPalace, the Princess Ashaia resolutely faced a panic stricken delegation of nobles and rich merchants.

"I tell you, we must surrender," a fat princeling wailed. "If we don't, we shall all be sacrificed."

"And what makes you think that you won't be, anyway?"

"Sholim has promised in the hearing of all Talai," a merchant snarled. "He wouldn't dare to go back on his word."

"I am sure that he will find a way," she replied, her voice icy with controlled anger and fear.

"You must consider the good of all of your people," the merchant insisted. "We will all be ruined if we try to resist."

"We shall be ruined anyway. At least we can die fighting." She caught up a sword from the council table. "Now get to the walls, and show that rabble that we know how to fight and die like men!"

"And wind up on Kathool's altar? It's no use, the soldiers won't fight."

"They'll fight if they have a leader!" She swung the flat of her sword against a gong to call the head of the palace guard. "Follow me to the walls!"

Regal in her lacquered armor, she led the way to the top of the wall. Below, Sholim waited, his army drawn up in seemingly endless ranks.

"Your time is up!" Sholim rose to his feet as she appeared. "Open the gates in the name of Kathool!"

"Go back to your rightful task of frightening children and ignorant peasants with your worm faced God," she answered, her clear young voice striking shame into the men who had been clamoring for Talai's surrender. "Go back to your musty temples. You are not fit to rule over Kath."

"We shall see who is not fit to rule," Sholim shrieked. "Begin the attack!"

The defenders watched uneasily as strange wooden contrivances were dragged into view. The first one was carefully positioned, its crew taking a seemingly endless time to make sure that everything was just right. An axe swung against a tightly stretched rope, and with a sharp crack a wooden arm lofted a large clay jug high into the air. They could see it clearly as it sailed toward them, striking just below the top of the wall. The projectile shattered, and a cloud of green vapor spread in all directions.

Men fled with cries of panic as another jug, and still another crashed down upon them. Slaughtering a lone officer who stood against them, soldiers rushed to the gate and flung it open, casting their weapons aside as though they had suddenly become red hot.

"For Kathool!" The green jacketed army poured forward in a solid wave, cutting down anyone who stood in their way. Talai was taken!

"Bring me the Princess!" Sholim demanded imperiously as soon as he was inside the RoyalPalace. "Bring her to me at once! Find her, and bring her to me!"

Squads of soldiers searched high and low throughout Talai, but by then Ashaia was well hidden. Far below their marching feet, she crouched in an artificial cavern hewn from solid rock.

"But I don't want to hide down here in this damnable damp hole," she protested, dashing away the tears that still streamed down her cheeks. "I should be up there with my people."

"Don't be silly," Chinzel reproved, bluntly. "If I'd left you up there, you'd be in front of Sholim right now, getting ready to meet old Worm Face. You can do your people a lot more good by hiding down here and waiting for a better time to act."

"Act how? What possible good can I do? I'm just one lone woman against the whole land of Kath, and all of Sholim's armies."

"Maybe so, but to the people of Kath you're also the Princess Ashaia, blood sister to their late, beloved King Khamul who died so gloriously for their sakes. Kings are always beloved after they are dead." A wry smile flickered on his lips. "It's traditional."

"You're as impertinent as that Hill man, Shantar," she sighed. "All right! So I'm better off down here, at least for now. What happens next?"

"As soon as things calm down, I'll stick my head up and take a look for myself at what's happening. Then, as soon as I can, I'll smuggle you out of here. I think that it would be best to send you to my people in the GreatSwamp. you'll be safe enough there, at least for now, and by the time danger threatens you we should know enough so that we can make more plans."

Although he stayed out of sight, Chinzel was far from blind to what was happening in Talai. Furtive messengers slipped cautiously along underground passages, bringing him both messages and information, and carrying away his messages and orders in return. By the next night, Chinzel had a much better idea of what was going on in Talai than did Sholim himself.

"Are you sure that it is safe for you to go out?" Ashaia glanced around fearfully, as though enemies might be hiding in the nearby shadows. Her nerves were wearing thin, abraded by the silence and unending darkness around her.

"Pretty sure," he soothed, his pocked face reflecting a confidence that he didn't wholly feel. "If anything happens to me, I've left orders that you are to be taken care of. It's a Guild matter, now."

He looked around carefully before stepping out of an alley. The street was still busy, even this long after dark. Soldiers in groups of three or more, never only one or two at a time, wandered from one tavern to another. Shadowy figures slid by on dubious errands, but most of the passers by seemed bent on legitimate business.

"Hey, there," an officious voice boomed. "Who are you, and where are you going?"

Chinzel faced about at the soldier's command, fishing a rolled document from beneath his robe.

"I am the merchant Ho," he answered, proffering the roll. "Here is my pass. It is good to see the peace kept by such staunch men as yourself, sergeant. Won't you and your men take these few coins? They will buy you drinks when you've gone off duty."

"We will that, but there is still the matter of where you are going so late in the evening."

"I go to the street of the Blue Fish. I must see about some stores that are to be turned over to the Temple of Kathool. I expect to return this way shortly before the Hour of Darkest Night."

"All right, then. Just be sure that you are off the streets by that time, or it will go hard with you."

"I'll do that, sergeant." As the soldiers marched away, Chinzel turned to walk on, only to receive a sudden, violent shock to his already overly tense nerves. A husky slave, walking along the street and carrying a heavy sack, turned and looked him full in the face!

"Don't look back at me, Chinzel. Turn and follow me into that alley up ahead."

"Shantar! We thought that you were either dead or really a slave," Chinzel exclaimed in a low voice as soon as they were out of sight of the street.

"No such luck." Shantar smiled, a wry twist of the lips that failed to lighten the bleak expression of his eyes. "I got a good whiff of the slave drug vapor, just like everyone else. Somehow, I managed to fight it off long enough to get away to the hills. After that, I stayed knocked out for a few days, mostly because I fought it so hard. I sneaked back into the city with a work gang from one of the farms, and since then I've been pretending to be a slave. Nobody notices slaves."