Echoes of memory, p.48
Echoes of Memory, page 48
Aris spent the rest of the evening reaching out to his contacts, and currying every favor he could from the various lowlives he knew in the city. By the morning he had gathered himself an army.
He brought the fight to Edrian’s soldiers.
Aris and his band of criminals, murderers, and scoundrels cut through the first battalion they came upon. The Vaeish military was indeed formidable but Aris trained his own men to his standards, and those standards were by no means easy. But Evrain’s men were used to fighting in the open.
The Veaish military hadn’t battled in an urban environment. They hadn’t fought inside the city.
Aris had.
He was leading violent men who’d never left the city and lusted for revenge on those who had destroyed so much of their city. The first battalion they came upon had as little chance of protecting themselves as a puppy would at the hands of a hungry Wendig.
Aris had offered them to join his army or face death.
They had chosen death.
He gave it to them.
Aris’ heart tore at the thought of the violence he was bringing to his city. Who was he, leading men that he despised? Leading monsters, many of whom he’d thrown into prison and now released to fight.
His heart wrenched at the thought that he was feeding Evrain the very violence he’d sworn he would keep Vealand from descending into. Each death fed the chaos that would fuel the mad Emperor’s disgusting possession of a new host body. The problem was that he saw no other way. Edrian Wolls and his men needed to be dealt with. If he somehow did succeed in killing Emperor Evrain, it would leave an empty throne, and Edrian Wolls, the Minister of Defense, if not dealt with now, would plague the country that would soon find itself without a leader.
Anything would be better than that snake having the throne. As evil as Evrain was, he ran his country well. The citizens, though many lived in squalor, were mostly well off, more so than their neighboring countries, despite the razing of the coast all those years ago when Evrain had ascended.
Evrain was evil, but he was a good ruler despite it all. Edrian Wolls, however, burned for power. Lust for distinction burned in his loins. He would destroy what was left of Vealand if he were to gain power, in a blind quest to rule all in his sight and beyond.
So Aris would destroy his forces, find the man, then kill him. He was a rabid dog that needed to be put down. It was the Inquisitors, under his control, who had slaughtered the rest of the noblemen of Vealand.
He needed to pay for his crimes, and his debt would be met at the end of Aris’ blade.
The next battalion Aris and his band of criminals came across as they fought their way towards the Imperial Keep put up more of a fight. A few of the men who had escaped from the first band had alerted the second battalion.
Aris met them with the same offer, join or die.
He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth before they tried to kill him. A knife from Wallace, who hadn’t left Aris’ side since their meeting on the mountaintop after securing guards for the twins, found its home in the opposing Captain’s chest before the swing of his sword had reached the pinnacle of the arc meant to swipe Aris’ head from his shoulders.
That signaled the battle.
Aris and Wallace, caught in the middle of the battle on the front lines, fought like demons as their men swarmed the battalion, sniping men from rooftops and luring them into houses where they were ganged up on and slaughtered.
It was an ugly battle, but soon, Aris, Wallace, and Kestrel, found themselves leading a diminished, but battle-hungry force, with Sephira at their side. The trio of men had tried to stop her from joining their quest to save her mother but she had followed them despite their warnings.
“How is she?” Aris asked Kestrel, who had hung back at the edges of battle where he’d been tasked with protecting Sephira after they found her tailing them. It chaffed him to not be in the middle of the action, but he had hung back and killed or debilitated all who had tried to escape from the wave of violence that Aris’ force brought with them.
He hated what he had done, but it was necessary.
These men would just as soon kill him and everyone he loved if they escaped.
“I’m fine,” there was an edge to Sephira’s voice. She’d never seen this side of her uncle, and despite herself, it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
She couldn’t quash the disgust at the sneaky way they murdered the soldiers. What they were doing wasn’t up-right.
It was the farthest thing from noble.
“Some broke through,” Kestrel said. “I couldn’t stop them. They’ve surely gone to inform Edrian Wolls of what we’re doing. We aren’t gonna have it so easy in the next battle. Word of us has traveled. He’s surely gathering his forces to face us. Hell will meet us.”
Aris nodded. He looked at Kestrel and something swelled in him at the sight of the boy, well, he wasn’t a boy anymore.
He hadn’t really ever been, but he hadn’t yet been a man either.
Now though, he had grown into his skin. He’d transformed from a distrusting stubborn skulker to a strong young man with a surprising mind for the martial ways...and still as stubborn as a hundred-year-old donkey.
Kestrel had indeed grown into a fine man. Aris hadn’t expected to love this young man like his own son as Kestrel, despite facing a plethora of small injuries, helped fight their way to freedom.
Should the love between him and Sephira blossom, Aris would readily welcome him into the family.
“It was to be expected. We would be crazy to think that we’d have it easy this whole time,” Wallace grunted as he finished wiping and sheathing his Kukri blade. “How many men do we still have?”
Aris shouted a command and a minute later a runner came to them huffing. “Two-hundred-sixty-four men sir,” he saluted crisply. He was wearing a guardsman uniform. He was one of the few that hadn’t been slaughtered in the melee that had taken so many lives and had taken his home, friends, and wife from him.
Aris nodded his thanks and the man went back to his command post. As much as the ruffians liked killing the soldiers that were there to foster distrust after burning down a whole district of their capital city, Aris knew that they couldn’t be fully trusted.
For every group of five criminals, he’d done his best to assign one of his men. It hadn’t been exact, and Aris knew that there would be a lot of cleaning up to be done in the aftermath of his so-called army, but they were the only men left able to stand against the tides of soldiers that Evrain had thrown against them.
Ideally, Aris would bide his time before striking. He would gather strength and resources.
He would make a plan.
He would make another plan.
He would make plans for the backup plans.
Aris couldn’t afford to do that now. Not when they had his wife. Not when the fifteen thousand that guarded the borders were descending on his city and would arrive any day, sure to quell any rebellion that might happen.
No, he needed to act.
He needed to strike now.
They were expecting him, they knew he was coming, the surprise of the first few attacks had long been spent.
They would be ready for him and his ragtag army, but that didn’t matter. None of it mattered as long as he stopped Evrain.
Even if he fell and all his men with him, they would save Vealand from the monster that wanted its destruction.
He would not fail.
The force that Edrian Wolls had gathered was truly impressive. Despite the battalions that Aris and his men had sliced through, there were still near one thousand men that gathered and positioned themselves around the Imperial keep.
“How are we going to get past them?” Kestrel asked, sidling up to the General’s flank.
“We aren’t,” Aris said, surprising him.
“What do you mean?”
“Look at them, we’re beyond outnumbered. We have no idea how many Memory Mages they have mixed in with the regular soldiers. I can’t tell you how many Inquisitors are there, waiting to torture our men with visions they aren’t equipped to handle. All our men who had been trained for that are dead now. No. We aren’t going to fight. We’re going to do the last thing that they’ll expect...”
“And that is?” Kestrel asked.
“We’re going to surrender.”
Kestrel’s eyes knit together. Had Aris really said that?
“We’ve killed enough men already. I don’t want to tear our country any further apart. I know these men. I was one of them. I trained some of them before I gained my Generalship. They will honor our surrender. They will bring us right to Edrian Wolls, and when we’re in front of him, and only then, we will strike. Now go inform the squads.”
Kestrel rode off, Aris’ plan was foolhardy, but he had long ago learned that his trust in Aris was well earned. He would do as his commander asked.
Kestrel winced as his steed galloped to inform Aris’ other commanders. He still hated horses. They terrified him, but he was getting the hang of it.
Necessity was an excellent teacher.
Could Aris’ plan truly be trusted? Was his faith in the honor of the soldiers misplaced? Experience told him so, but experience also told him that faith in Aris was well-placed.
There needed to be a contingency.
Kestrel found the leaders of the rebellion, he singled out Trask and Frenz, to whom Aris had delegated the leading of his forces. He told them of the plan to surrender. He told them exactly what Aris had relayed to him.
He also told them his plan.
It was nearly half an hour later when Kestrel returned to Aris’ side with affirmations from every squad.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Aris nodded.
Kestrel, together with Aris, Wallace, and Sephira —who no amount of insistence against her coming could stop her— strode into the middle of Edrian Wolls’ large force of men, hands raised.
Shouts greeted their sight. Spears and crossbows were lowered and surrounded them as far as the eye could see.
It was as if they were swimming in an ocean of blades.
“I call for parlay,” Aris shouted, his voice still carrying weight even in the middle of such a sea of hostiles.
It demanded their obedience.
Nothing happened.
Wood creaked. Fingers hovered far too close to crossbow triggers for the comfort of any halfway sane man. Spear tips hung inches from their throats. Kestrel wrapped his arms around Sephira in an unconscious display of protection.
She squeezed him so tightly he thought his ribs might break.
Despite the quiet hum of thousands of slightly shuffling men garbed in chain mail, the atmosphere of silence was deafening.
Sephira could feel her heart thundering in her chest. What was she doing!?
She didn’t belong here in the middle of a thousand heavily armed men with commands to kill her and everyone she loved! She was insane!
Kestrel squeezed her back.
How was he so calm?! He looked at the crowd with the same disdain he would if it were a thousand newborn ducklings surrounding him.
When had he transformed from that awkward, quiet boy into this man who radiated strength in the middle of an army of enemies?
“HE SAID WE CALL FOR A PARLAY!” Kestrel shouted.
Silence still.
It carried on for nearly five minutes before the line broke and a face that was familiar to only Aris and Wallace strode before them.
It was the face of a man who had been born from a vulture. The nose was long and hooked and the man’s cheekbones were sharp enough to cut. His eyes were a cold dark blue and so full of schemes they practically leaked from his sockets.
“Aris my dear, what a surprise,” The Minister Of Defense, Edrian Wolls, said in a sugary tone. It was as if his vocal cords were made of molasses. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”
Aris scowled at him. “Enough of the pointless pleasantries,” he said.
“I’m fine with that. I never liked dealing with you anyway,” the hawkish man said, the sweetness gone from his voice in an instant. “What do you want?”
Aris didn’t answer quickly, he let the silence hang between them, he waited until he saw the Minister of Defense start shifting uncomfortably. He stared into the man’s eyes, he waited until they broke contact. Aris’ dominance established, he finally spoke. “I want to surrender.”
A wave of whispers broke free at the General’s words. Had he really given himself up?
Why?
What had his slaughter of their comrades been for? Was it some sort of trick? Was he mad? What could it possibly be?
“Excuse me? I don’t think that I heard you right?” Edrian Wolls’ voice gained its formal edge again. “Did you just tell me that you wish to surrender to me? Do you want to surrender to me now after you’ve slaughtered two battalions of my men? Are you insane?!”
Aris nodded and smiled. “That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to surrender myself, and my right-hand men, Wallace and Kestrel to you,” open palm indicated the duo. “We wish to discuss the terms of our surrender.”
Edrian Wolls’ eyes furrowed. Could he trust the man? What was Aris planning? He knew without a doubt that Aris was far more cunning than most would ever give him credit for, but he was also a man of honor.
It was his honor that was bringing him against the Emperor now.
It was the slaughter that had happened at the hands of the Inquisitors Edrian himself had overseen that had caused Aris’ madness to grow to the point that he fought against his own military.
“Tie them up,” he commanded the man who stood beside him.
The soldier snapped to attention and soon the coterie was patted down, their weapons relieved from them and their hands tied in front of them. They were led through the sea of swords that parted as Edrian Wolls led them into the keep.
Edrian Wolls’ mind danced as he led Aris and his men, and that girl. Was that his daughter? No, the age was wrong.
That had to be her, the daughter of the traitor Van.
Treachery must run in their blood. First, the big brother had risked and ultimately lost his own life trying to lead a rebellion against Emperor Evrain, and now the dead revolutionary’s baby brother had followed in the elder’s footsteps.
Edrian still couldn’t figure out why Aris Ravenscroft had surrendered to him. It was a foolish move. He had to know that he was laying down his life. Surely he knew that there was no way he was going to survive this.
And why had he allowed his niece —what was her name?— Sephira, that was it, to come with them?
Edrian led them deep into the keep, they hadn’t known it, but he’d surrounded them with Memory Mages. All of the soldiers that had followed them into the keep were the Mages that Emperor Evrain had put under his command.
It was a death trap for Aris and that made Evrain nervous.
That he had surrendered so calmly meant that Aris had a plan.
Did he have someone on the inside? Was that what he was planning? A rebellion by his own people led by a mole inside his own force?
Edrian’s skin crawled. He quickened his pace down the granite hallway.
Was Aris planning on killing him for what he’d done to the other nobles? Did he even know he was behind it?
Of course he did.
The only two who’d escape the blades of the Inquisitors had been Aris and himself.
Aris would have to be a mindless dolt to think there was anyone else to blame.
No, he knew.
He knew and he wanted to get him alone and bring him to justice.
What scared Edrian Wolls was that he knew that Aris’ desire was just.
Not only just, but righteous.
He was an ambitious man, there was nothing wrong with that. He had even gone so far as to have many men killed at his behest. That young girl that the Emperor was so interested in had been but a small casualty in his war for power.
What Emperor Evrain had commanded him do was different though.
It wasn’t just having enemies killed. It was a slaughter.
It was destroying the foundation of Vealand.
But Edrian could use that to build new foundations.
Alongside Emperor Evrain, he could restore this country to its former greatness. He could bring Vealand to a place it hadn’t been since before the fall of the Coast. He could make Vealand more than great.
He could make it a world power again. Something it hadn’t been since before the fall that had destroyed the coast and transformed the country of Vealand from a thriving empire to a middling kingdom that had barely expanded its borders in nearly half a century.
Something clicked in Edrian’s mind.
He knew what he needed to do.
He turned his head slightly and nodded.
Aris waited until he saw it.
He knew that Edrian was bound to betray them.
It wasn’t a matter of if, rather, when. He’d hoped it would be later, in his offices, making it much easier to find a weapon and dispatch the man, but it didn’t matter. It only mattered that Edrian died.
At the nod, Aris whipped his leg to the side with crushing force.
His heel slammed into the side of the knee of the soldier a half step behind him.
He collapsed.
Aris used his tied hands to trap the man’s head and slammed his knee into the man’s face, then drove his hand downward, retrieving the knife that the man hadn’t had time to draw and slammed it into his guard's throat.
The man was dead in less than the space of ten heartbeats.
At the same time, Kestrel and Wallace threw themselves forward, slamming their bodies into the two guards who were swinging their blades to pierce Aris.
The bodies were driven into the wall by the powerful shoulder slams from the two men. Wallace’s military experience showed and he immediately drove a knee into his guard’s sternum, then stepped close to the crouching body and slipped the rope that tied his hands together under the man’s chin, twisted, using his back as a lever, and snapped the neck of the suffocating man.
