Echoes of memory, p.44
Echoes of Memory, page 44
No that wasn’t right.
They were saying it was Emperor Evrain.
They were saying that he was jealous of the love that Aris had developed among the people. In the act of saving the Emperor, he had elevated himself above the man, and Evrain didn’t take kindly to one taking his spotlight as the savior of Vealand.
Some were saying that the nobles hadn’t died at all, rather it was all a big distraction. For what, they didn’t know, but that was how the government worked.
The tragedy was a diversion. An opportunity to advance power. ‘Just you watch,’ one had said, ‘we will panic and fight and the so-called ‘dead’ will suddenly rise when we’re at our weakest and take more from us than they ever had before. I swear on my grave that’s what’s gonna happen.’
Aris shouted, gathering the attention of all gathered. “Attention!” he ordered them as if they were in his own city guard.
He had to step in front of this.
He was already receiving reports of violence breaking out in the East in Weston Ream’s district where he and the rest of his family had been found without their tongues and their bodies defiled.
“Good,” he barked as the attention focused on him. “Your leaders are dead,” he said. “Our nobles, all of them except for me, were murdered last night. They were taken by cowards! To a man, all of them were slaughtered!”
Murmurs broke out. Had Aris Ravenscroft just said that all the nobles had been murdered!?
By whom?
Who could have killed so many vital people —people who spent their days surrounded by the best bodyguards in the city— with such ease? Had it been Aris himself? If the stories of his exploits were true, it could have been him.
Why was he the only one still alive? Why had he survived when everyone died? The whispers soon became grumbles. He had to be a part of it. It was his fault so many had died. It had to be his fault.
Then the chatter turned to talks of magic. The rumors of Inquisitors were mixed in with those centering around Aris.
The General sat in silence. He let the tides of the chatter turn. The news of the Inquisitors had turned their focus from him to the true enemy.
He praised his wife Corrine for sending out agents last night, having them infiltrate each corridor of the city and spread the news of who was really behind the slaughter of their nation’s leaders, behind taking the national identity of the Veaish people in one fell swoop by taking all of their rulers at once.
“I hear some of you talking about me.” Aris projected his voice. The crowd silenced again. “I hear you saying that it was me who murdered them. That this is a grab for power from me,” some nodding heads. “I don’t fault you for it. I would believe the same thing if I were in your shoes. I would believe that I was behind their murders too. But you know me! You know I fought right alongside many of you as the fires threatened to destroy our beloved city of Fiell! You saw me, worked alongside me. You’ve seen me in these streets, personally looking into cases of disappearances. Personally investigating the murders of those that you love, have you not?!”
Nods.
He had long worked alongside them. He was different than those slaughtered nobles. He was little different than those gathered listening to him.
He was one of them.
A brother.
“I did not do this, but I know who did. It was...”
His words were interrupted by a chorus of screams that broke out among the crowd and his soldiers.
They were being overwhelmed with visions of horrific tortures.
Inquisitors. Emperor Evrain had sent Inquisitors. He’d unleashed them on the masses. That madman wasn’t content just letting the populace fight itself, he had to feed the flames of discontent.
Sephira’s words rung in his mind as he strained to find the source of the visions that were overwhelming so many at once. ‘What if it’s our destruction he wants?’ she had asked.
It was exactly what he lusted for.
Why though? What was fueling his desire for destruction? He had seen a brief glimpse of an impossibly long past from the Emperor when he’d caught him and kept him from falling.
He had seen something that couldn’t have been real but he knew it was.
That was the key. The vision he’d seen. He would find his answers there.
But first, he needed to find the source of the visions that were torturing all those gathered to listen to his speech in the tent city.
He fought back the visions that had filled many with nausea and focused his mind.
“There!” Kestrel, whose face was pale, but focused, pointed to a man. A knife slipped from the Inquisitor’s sleeve. Kestrel was already running towards him, trying to stop the weapon from finding its home.
It was too late.
The knife slammed into one of the bystander’s throats. He didn’t need to see the horrific gash that tore through the man’s neck to know he was dead.
As if the murder was a signal, the intensity of the visions worsened and twenty Inquisitors sprung up and started slamming knives and weapons into anyone unfortunate enough to be within reach of the monsters who raced their way towards Aris and his men.
Kestrel hurled a knife that buried itself into the chest of the Inquisitor he’d been too slow to stop from murdering the innocent bystander.
One voice in the wave of memories of tortures was extinguished.
Kestrel turned his heel and rushed back to Aris’ side. Almost two-thirds of his men had fallen to the ground, overwhelmed by the memories of horrific tortures that slammed into their minds. Knives found homes in the men’s flesh. Blood spurted from arteries and painted the sky with brief spurts of red.
His comrades were being slaughtered as they kneeled, helpless against the monstrous visions that crashed against their minds.
They would all be dead soon, and the few who were able to resist the visions were fighting sluggishly.
Kestrel drove forward, barely thinking as he snatched a knife from the chest of a fallen comrade and drove it into the base of the neck of one of the Inquisitors whose back had been turned to him. He left the knife in the man’s neck and drove forward, driving a shoulder into the nearest Inquisitor who was unprepared for the attack and bowled him over. Kestrel unsheathed his metalvine and in one smooth move slammed the point into the nose of the fallen man. It spurted with blood. A vision of his attack rebounded in his mind.
It was nothing.
He slammed his foot into the jaw of the Inquisitor who was struggling to find his footing. He fell to the ground limply. Kestrel stomped on the man’s throat, collapsing his windpipe.
Two down.
Aris wasn’t shocked. He should have been. The violence was horrifying and his men were being slaughtered in front of his eyes. Many were holding their own and fighting through the pain that clouded their vision, but more were dying. He should have been horrified that the Inquisitors were blindly slaughtering their countrymen, but he wasn’t. They had been bred into violence. They were conceived in torment and conditioned to fight blindly for a monster that manipulated them for his perverse whims. That blind violence was something to be expected from them, it was who they had been forced to become.
That didn’t stop him from killing them though. He would kill anyone who threatened the life of his loved ones and these men did just that.
He barely batted an eye as he kicked one of the Inquisitors in the kidney, doubling the man over, and then slammed the butt of his metalvine into the back of his neck with enough force that the popping of the vertebrae was audible even amidst the screams of those tormented by the visions pouring from the force of Inquisitors.
He slammed his foot into the head of the collapsed man. An enemy could never be dead enough in a battle. He’d lost comrades to men thought dead before.
He didn’t take chances in a war.
Aris slaughtered dispassionately.
Two Inquisitors broke from their battle with his men and rushed him. They filled his mind with a plague of horrors as they barreled towards him but he brushed it aside. This was a battle. He was surrounded by blood, seeing more of it meant nothing to him at the moment. He ran to greet them with his metalvine and right before the leader of the two rose his curved kukri blade to swipe at the general, Aris dropped, slid, and slammed his metalvine onto the man’s knees.
The Inquisitor collapsed in agony.
Visions of the pain he’d just inflicted slammed into Aris’ mind.
He would have to ignore that for now. He could kill the fallen man later. His companion was still there and a half step away from slamming a metalvine into his skull.
Aris’ hand whipped to his side. He drew out a dagger and plunged it into the groin of the man before the arc of the swing had reached its maximum potential. The blow bounced painfully, but ultimately harmlessly off of Aris’ collarbone. The Inquisitor’s pain though was too much for him to reflect at Aris as he fell to the ground. Aris took the knife and slammed it into the man’s chest, once, twice, putting him out of his misery. He then took the dagger and jammed it into the neck of the first Inquisitor who was trying and failing to regain his footing.
Kestrel lost sight of Aris.
Three Inquisitors had broken off from their group and surrounded him. A blade tore across his shoulder setting it on fire with pain. Kestrel twisted away from the knife before it could score him again. The man on his right sidestepped in for a blow with his metalvine. Kestrel leaped inside the man’s guard and trapped his swinging arm. Kestrel slipped his feet behind the Inquisitor’s and with a twisting of the hips, the man was hurled downwards. He slammed into the ground and his head rebounded off of the hard-packed dirt. Kestrel drove his heel into the man’s groin before he could regain his breathing.
The knife-wielding man swiped, again and again, scoring a cut on Kestrel’s lead arm. Kestrel danced backward but was greeted with a metalvine that slammed into his ribs from another attacker and caused him to gasp for breath.
Everything hurt.
He wouldn’t let that stop him though. He wrapped his arm around the metalvine before it could retreat, and twisted, breaking it free from the man’s grasp. He let it clatter to the ground harmlessly. Kestrel then stepped into the man’s guard and jammed the ridge of his free hand into the Inquisitor’s windpipe. Kestrel grabbed him before he could fall to the ground and shoved him into his knife-wielding companion.
They tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs.
Kestrel pounced on the two and wrestled the knife from the grasp of the first man. Three stabs later and the first of the two was dead. Another couple of slashes and an arc of blood later, the second man lay bleeding out.
He shared his horror at dying with Kestrel.
He had done that. He’d killed the man. He watched as if he were sharing the man’s eyes as his last moments played in Kestrel’s mind. It was a sight sure to cause nightmares in years to come.
Aris’ forces were down to half.
The twenty Inquisitors had torn through them, but now there were only five left. The torturous soldiers poured every ounce of pain that they could into the minds of those defending against their sneak attack but were soon overwhelmed and fell under a wave of metalvine attacks. By the time everything was finished, the two last of the Inquisitors was barely recognizable. His face disfigured from the beating he’d taken before his life fled from him.
They had won.
They had been attacked, tricked, and corralled like lambs being led to the slaughter, but they had survived and won. Edrian Wolls and Emperor Evrain had tipped their hand and now their secret force of Memory Mages lay dead on the ground.
They had survived. They had won the battle, but that unsettled Aris. They had lost many, but it shouldn’t have been that easy.
Emperor Evrain had all of Edrian Wolls' armies at his disposal. Why had they sent that small force of Inquisitors?
Why so few when so many were available?
The question gnawed at Aris’ mind.
Why?
Why had the attacking force been so small? Yes, they were Evrain’s elite secret soldiers. They were a special force of Memory Mages trained to inflict both mental and physical torture, but if the Emperor truly wanted them dead he could have sent more soldiers. He could have brought down the military might of Vealand upon them. He could have destroyed them.
Even now the people still loved Evrain.
He still held sway over their minds.
He had no reason to need them alive. Evrain knew for certain of Aris’ rebellion. Aris had practically shouted the evils of the regime of the man he had spent so many years serving in the streets.
His rebellion had gotten all the other nobles killed. Why had they not brought down the hammer on him?
Chapter 68
ARIS SPENT THE REST of the day putting out fires. Violence had broken out across the capital city of Fiell just as he had predicted, but his proactive action and the fact that he’d experienced the violent visions and had lost men just like the masses had during the attack from the Inquisitors had made the news that he was with them spread quickly. It traveled with him as Aris led his company trodding across the town, quelling the miniature riots that broke out around the various dead nobles' estates.
Not one of the houses had escaped ransacking from the frightened and greedy public whose recent loss had fueled avarice for something, anything, that could act as a salve for the uncertainty and fear that infected their whole existence.
They looted everything.
They fought over the valuables. More than one life had been taken in the violence that had ensued when the mobs had stumbled onto the jewelry boxes and the safes of the dead Veaish noble families.
Aris mobilized every city guard on post, and they kept the violence at bay, but even then it was barely enough to keep Fiell from exploding like a poorly maintained flour mill. Violence was everywhere and bled out from the estates into the streets. Aris’ forces clashed with Edrian’s troops who were intent on killing the dissidents.
The fighting bled long into the night and it was well past one in the morning when exhaustion forced Aris and his company to head back to his estate.
Most of the fires had been put out. There would be more violent clashes throughout the night, but the city had gained a somewhat passable semblance of equilibrium. They wouldn’t be losing their home tonight and for now, at least this evening, no, morning, there was enough of a break in the chaos that Aris could return home.
He could return to the embrace of his wife.
Still, Sephira’s words nagged at him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Evrain was just stirring the pot. That he was slowly building the violence until it boiled over into an orgy of death.
He couldn’t escape the idea that Evrain was thriving off of the violence and confusion. That he couldn’t afford a route by his troops. That he needed the chaos.
If he were to destroy what was left of the Vealand he had brought to its knees as he’d rose to power all those years ago after ‘saving’ the empire he would lose something precious to him.
Aris needed to know what it was the Emperor would lose.
He needed to confront the man.
Kestrel was so tired by the time he returned to the barracks and fell into bed, his eyes being pulled into a world of sleep, that he hadn’t noticed Aris leaving. He hadn’t seen the General take his horse and ride off to the keep. Every part of his body had hurt and though his knife wounds had been cleaned and bandaged he knew that he would have long scars crossing his body the rest of his days as souvenirs from the battle this morning.
Even then, despite the burning intensity of the wounds he had sustained, his tiredness had trumped it.
He couldn’t move.
He collapsed into his bed and fell into the deep embrace of dreamless sleep. He fell asleep and let Aris ride off to the keep on his own like a monumental fool.
The guards had seen Aris coming. They tried to stop him.
He informed them that he would take their lives if they fought him and they would be giving up their breath for the traitor who’d started the fires and kidnapped their children and turned them into the monstrous Inquisitors that had caused so much fear and pain.
Half of them had walked away then.
Three of them joined him after he explained Memory Magic and had gazed into their past.
They trusted him. He had known them since they had started in their service. Aris had personally trained nearly half of them.
He held to his word and killed the few left standing against them.
Twenty minutes later Aris had done what his brother Van and his friend Dren had given their lives for. He was standing in front of Emperor Evrain who was bedecked in silken night-robes. One of the men who had joined him had fallen to the resistant guards, but two remained by his side. They had been loyal city guards under him before receiving their elevated posts.
“I’ve been expecting you. I am disappointed in my men though,” Evrain greeted Aris as the man strode into his room. “I’ll have to kill them later. They’ve betrayed me, and those who betray me die. Always.”
“I’m not going to let you do that,” Aris said.
Emperor Evrain laughed. A deep belly guffaw. “You think that you can stop me? Seriously?”
“Probably not,” Aris said. “But I can try.”
Evrain laughed more. “This is why I love you, my friend. I saw your spark. I saw that you had a chip on your shoulder. That you always had to prove the world wrong. They said you were too young to make General, then you make it five years earlier than the previous record. You’ll never be a good politician? Well, you played my cabinet masterfully. I love that. You remind me of me. We exist to prove the world wrong. I exist to prove the world wrong. Would you like to see?” he asked. “I would love to show you, to see your despair. To see you fight me.”
