The Great River snaked for thousands of miles, from its source deep inland to the many mouths of the Delta, where it met the Circle Sea. The seat of the Subori empire, the capital, had had many names over the centuries, and was still called several of them in everyday parlance. But most simply called it the capital and left it at that.
It stood at the river’s first great divide, at the very root of the Delta, nearly four hundred miles from the coast. Most of the empire’s citizens lived in the span between the capital and the sea, where water was plentiful and the land, already green due to the many branchings of the river, had been made lush and bountiful by irrigation and unceasing labor.
Though the Subori claimed the river and its environs all the way up to the Fourth Cataract, in truth only the merest fraction of its citizens lived in the barren, untamed lands south of the capital. The holy but small city of Ip Hab was the only metropolis of note upriver from the Concubine’s Tomb. Because of this, continued possession of most of the empire’s vastness was a matter of pride and stubbornness rather than necessity.
It could not all be patrolled, not even by the mighty Subori military machine. Indeed, there were remote villages and tribes that would be surprised to learn they were part of any empire, having never seen a representative of it in their lifetime. And then there were the desert nomads, who considered the idea of claiming ownership of the endless sands to be a very specific and highly amusing form of insanity.
Nighteyes’ Fifty, and indeed all the Eternal Guard, were well-used to the desert and its conditions. They had been taught, and later forced, to survive in it from an early age. They knew nearly as much of its moods, its dangers and its secrets as any of its inhabitants. Of the Nine Bows - the Subori term for its countless enemies - the majority of them were desert peoples, and so it was necessary for the Eternal Guard to be able to fight them without disadvantage.
They had made good time across the increasingly severe, increasingly uninhabited landscape and were, by Nighteyes’ estimation, halfway to their destination. They had seen no one for most of their journey except passing merchants and fishermen on the river. They had encountered no trouble to speak of.
Just after dawn, they passed the Rock – a very small island in the center of the Great River that boasted a half dozen buildings of dubious structural integrity, composed of a random assortment of materials. It was a place of transients; fishermen and merchants used it as a place to rest and drink. Nighteyes’ troop passed by it without a second glance. But the single conscious, sober inhabitant of the rock watched the passing Eternal Guardsmen from behind a broken reed sunscreen with a great deal of fear.
~ ~ ~
On the day of the massacre, Orthus had assisted his master Anomus to prepare the Old God’s offering just as he had dozens of times before. Just as he had dozens of times before. Just as he had dozens of times before, he had offered a silent prayer to Mordun, begging forgiveness for the blasphemy he was helping to commit. He knew as well as Anomus that it was either blasphemy or death, which was why he had never once tried to dissuade Anomus from placating the Old God. But it was still very much blasphemy, and the punishment, should Anomus be found out, would certainly be death. For six years, Anomus had gone against the Subori gods’ will, with none the wiser. On that last day, he had thought their secret safe forever.
Somehow, someone must have found out.
If Anomus’s tent had been on the far side of the river along with all the other workmen, Orthus would have been dead that day. He had no doubt of that. The Eternal Guard had slaughtered every single man in camp with frightening efficiency. As soon as the first screams had pierced the air, Orthus knew in his heart that Anomus’s deception had been found out. His master was inside the Tomb with the emperor and many Eternal Guard – therefore his master was dead as well.
Orthus did not want to die. He knew that his life was now forfeit; that even if he somehow escaped the slaughter, if he were discovered, he would be killed out of hand. For being a blasphemer, or for being the property of a blasphemer. It didn’t matter which, really. Dead was dead.
Fearfully, Orthus had peered out of the tent towards the far shore, towards the sounds of slaughter. He was greeted with the sight of slaughter. The thousand Eternal Guard that had watched over them for a decade had been joined by many, many more. The unarmed workmen stood no chance, though in the few moments that he watched, he saw a few trying to defend themselves with mallets and pickaxes. Pointless.
He looked downriver, and saw the banks lined by more Eternal Guardsmen, armed with bows. They were shooting anyone who attempted to swim to safety. The silent soldiers pin-cushioned even obviously dead bodies.
Orthus was trapped. Soon they would come for the solitary tent on the Tomb-side of the river, search it, and slaughter him. Once the chaos abated.
Now was his only chance to do anything, while they were focused on their butchery. But what?
Orthus cast about the tent, looking for anything that might aid him, might give him some hope of survival. For a crazed moment he considered grabbing up Anomus’s knife and rushing into the Tomb, and taking the emperor hostage. Insanity. Or just running into the Tomb and trying to hide. Less insane, no less hopeless.
Then his eye fell upon an empty leather scroll case, and he decided his course of action.
He could not run or swim away. Hiding in the Tomb was pointless – the emperor and Eternal Guardsmen were already inside, and anyway, the Tomb was sure to be searched thoroughly before the imperials left. But there was one place he might be able to hide that they could not search, not so easily at least.
Orthus snatched up the long, hollow tube and, praying fervently to any deity who might be listening, slipped out of the tent and into the Great River’s flow. He took as large a breath as he could, then slipped beneath the surface and started swimming upriver, against the powerful current.
The river’s water was opaque at this time of year, bearing so much silt. It made it unlikely that he would be spotted as long as he kept his head below water, but it also made finding his hiding spot hellishly difficult.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
There was only one place on the Tomb-side of the river where reeds had been allowed to grow. Only one place where his makeshift breathing tube would have any chance of not being remarked upon – the water wheel, as a screen for the contraption that pumped water up to the top level of the Tomb. Orthus swam until his lungs burned and his head began to pound. The scroll case he clutched in one hand, in a death grip. With the other, he propelled himself forward, and when he thought he had gone far enough, he began to feel for the reeds and their roots.
When it came to the point where he would either breach or drown, Orthus rose, praying he had gone far enough.
He hadn’t. But the stand of reeds was only a few feet away. He expelled the spent air from his lungs and took more in – nothing like enough – and submerged himself once more. No arrow found him.
Orthus quickly found the sand of reeds after that and, after nearly breathing water through the tube, got it and himself positioned properly. And then he had waited for hours in the water. Waited to be discovered, by Eternal Guardsman or crocodile, or for the slaughter to be finished.
He had not been discovered.
When he finally emerged, late in the night, the slaughter was complete, the workers buried in a mass grave, their tents burned, their stores removed. It was almost as if they had never been there at all. Almost.
Anomus’s tent had disappeared, along with most of its contents. Orthus assumed it had all just been dumped into the river. He found a few things scattered around the wide stone ledge that was the entrance to the Tomb, most of it rubbish except for a couple of copper coins and a brass lamp. He had gathered them up, then sat down on the stone and let a few tears loose.
What to do next? Where to go?
There was only one direction he could travel. North, towards civilization. Any other direction meant death. Orthus had no skills that would allow him to survive the wilderness of the desert.
He wiped his face and stood, and then began the long walk towards the capital.
Perhaps something would come to him as he went. Some plan. If he made it to the capital, he could decide whether it was wise to approach Anomus’s wife. Whether it would be a danger to her. Or to him. He was a dead man, after all.
And dead men were, if nothing else, free.
~ ~ ~
Orthus watched the Eternal Guard pass the Rock, heading upriver. That they were not camping or waiting for passage to the Rock assuaged his fears; he slept lightly, and poorly, and had already been awake before they appeared on the horizon, woken from his fugitive’s slumber by the loud grousing of the fishermen. Their practice was to depart before dawn to chase their catch.
They’d rescued him from exhaustion and hunger three days after he had escaped the slaughter, spying him as he’d collapsed along the river’s bank. They’d brought him to the Rock to recuperate. They’d asked him no questions he could not answer – apparently the Rock was a place that had had its share of visitors whose past would bear little scrutiny.
His eight rescuers were simple folk, all men, who fished all day and drank all night. They inhabited the speck of land in the river only in a semi-permanent fashion; when they’d made enough coin from the passing merchants from their catch, they would return to their permanent village in the Delta until their coin ran out. Then they would come upriver again.
“Aren’t there fish near your village?” Orthus had asked. “Why come all the way up here?”
One Thumb, the eldest of the eight, had laughed. “Oh, yes, we have fish at home. But we also have wives at home. Most of us. Wives who don’t like it when we drink. And when we spend too much coin on drink. And also, here we fish for something we don’t have back home. Ras, show our new friend.”
Ras, the youngest, had grinned a gap-toothed grin and wandered off into the dark at the edge of the Rock. He returned holding a crocodile not much bigger than his hand – and it was white.
“You’d be surprised how much some’ll pay for the white ones,” One Thumb told him told him.
“But- but don’t the mother crocs object?” Orthus had asked.
All the fishermen had laughed at that, long and hard. When One Thumb got his breath back, he’d wiped at his eyes with his whole hand and held out his maimed one for Orthus’s inspection, saying “Yes, yes they surely do.”
The fishermen were leaving soon. They’d sold some of their ‘catch’ to passing merchants; enough to stay in a constant state of inebriation once the sun went down. Orthus had repaid their hospitality by making food for all that was actually edible, compared to what they had cooked for themselves.
One Thumb had offered to take him with them the night before.
“Our village ain’t much. But if you’re all right with the Rock, I imagine you’ll take to it well enough. And you can teach my wife how to cook. Actually, that’s a lie. She knows how to cook. She just hates me.”
Orthus had accepted the offer. What else was he to do? But seeing the Eternal Guard pass by had reminded him of the slaughter, and of Anomus.
Yes, Anomus had been his master, his owner. But they had grown up together and, while always cognizant of the boundaries of their respective stations, Anomus had always treated him as a confidant, and even as a friend.
Orthus had already decided that he would never willingly go back to being a slave. But he felt he owed something to Anomus. Seeing the Eternal Guard spurred him to a decision.
He would ask One Thumb to leave him at the capital. Perhaps they would wait for him, perhaps not. But he would at least give Anomus’s family word of his death.
He hoped that Anomus’s family had not suffered for his blasphemy.
He also hoped that he was not making a mistake, that his sense of duty would not lead to his re-enslavement, or death.
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” he said to himself, and sighed.
~ ~ ~
Far away from the Rock, in the place of death, old Wrna had already burrowed down into the sands for the day, but he could not sleep.
Ngrum had not returned.
Wrna was not worried for Ngrum. Ngrum always set old Wrna to watch for danger, even though Ngrum knew Wrna could not run fast, or fight well. No. Not ‘even though’. ‘Because’. Wrna was not the cleverest ghoul, but Wrna was not stupid. And Ngrum did not care if Wrna did not like it. Ngrum was pack leader.
Wrna would be happy if Ngrum never returned.
But Wrna was also worried. Because a pack with no leader was a pack with no decider. And if something happened while Ngrum was away, the pack would not act as one.
And a pack that did not act as one, was soon to be a pack that died.
It was very rare that a pack leader died, leaving the pack leaderless. It was very rare that the pack leader would go off and leave the pack without a leader. But Ngrum had done so, because Ngrum hated Krrsh and wanted the outcast to die. And Ngrum was not content to wait and let hunger do it. Ngrum wanted to do it himself.
Wrna had tried to warn Ngrum, when the leader had announced he would go after Krrsh. But Wrna was wise enough to do it away from the others.
“Outcast cannot survive. Ngrum stronger, Ngrum pissed on Krrsh. It is over. Stay.”
Ngrum had casually backhanded Wrna, then, knocking the old ghoul to the sand.
“Old one eats. Be happy. No question.”
Wrna had wiped the blood from his muzzle, but had not risen from the sand. One like Ngrum wanted to see others with less power. Yes. He tried again. For the good of the pack.
“Ngrum is angry because of the water horses. Now Ngrum wants to hunt Krrsh. Ghouls do not hunt. It is forbidden, pack leader.”
Even Ngrum took pause at this.
“Not hunt. Look. If I find, I kill.” Then Ngrum was loping away towards the river.
Wrna had shaken his head. The gods would not be fooled by changing a word. But Ngrum had never been clever, and had always been confident.
Now a night had passed, and day had arrived, and Ngrum had not returned.
Wrna hoped that Ngrum would return with the next night, having not found Krrsh. He hoped more that Krrsh would return, having killed Ngrum. But he did not think that likely, no.
He hoped either would return before trouble found the pack. Because Wrna felt in his old bones that trouble was loping across the sands towards them. And Wrna was seldom wrong.