“I see…” Yanlim finally responded, then leaned over toward his cousin and whispered softly, until finally the Prince nodded.
“We are not willing to part with our labor or the hard won land but… we are willing to consider opening up trade ties to the House of Aiwenor. If she will establish a permanent representative with the merchant’s guild so that both our… interests are secured properly. Forging ties between houses can be fraught with misunderstandings, and it is best that we avoid those.” The Prince remarked.
“Of course, individuals who wish to sell their prisoners of war are free to do so, but I consider it unlikely you will net many takers. Still, you are free to try, we will host a banquet tomorrow and draw the merchant houses here.” Prince Yanmelu waved a hand toward one of the servants nearby, a young woman who wore her hair high in a tight bun, and she bowed before retreating by backing away to carry out the order.
“I am sure that will be amenable, my mistress has a great interest in trade, and it would be my honor to represent her before the merchant’s guild heads, here in your very palace… I’m sure that Prince Rasgen will also be pleased to know that the representatives of his nobles are so well received in Hanak’sen. This will surely deepen ties between the great allies who brought down mighty Komestra.” Diana displayed no emotion as she uttered her last words, and it was only with the greatest of efforts that the fallen Prince kept his face equally neutral.
“Naturally.” Prince Yanmelu gave an arrogant smirk toward the defeated Prince, and added, “Of course, you will be staying the night here as guests in my palace so that you can spare your mistress the expense of staying at the inn.”
Diana deepened her blush and cast her gaze away demurely, “The Prince of this mighty city is generous to humble servants, and we are grateful.”
“See to it.” The Prince ordered another servant, and a young man in the absurd style of Hanak’sen approached, bowed to Sado and Diana as they stood, and gestured with both hands toward a door.
“This way, please.” The young man said indulgently, and walked in front to lead the way.
The youth opened a door a few minutes later, and gestured within. “These will be your quarters, slave.” The young man said to Sado.
“Mine, not ‘ours’ good sir?” Sado asked formally with a cockeyed look.
“The safety of our guest is the responsibility of the Prince within the palace, I assure you, your charge is safe… you do not doubt Prince Yanmelu, do you?” The youth said as if he’d uttered it ten thousand times.
Before Sado could answer, Diana released his arm and gave the young man her most charming smile, “Of course not, after all, he is our host, I have no fear of our goods or lives being stolen, while he promises their safety.”
Sado grunted an uncomfortable yes, and waited while the door was closed with him alone within it. He began to peel off his armor and stretched out in front of the mirror. “Diana, one of you is worth a legion.”
----------------------------------------
Diana followed the young man with easy confidence, her feet falling steadily over the stone floor of the narrow hall, she ascended the stairs to the next floor up, pretending innocence as she was led to yet another room. “Yours will be here, slave.” The young man said and Diana stepped within, spun, and bowed deeply.
“Thank you for taking such… good care of us. May I enjoy the garden this evening, or must I remain here?” She gave the young man an almost motherly look, and watched his face become vaguely pitying.
“Ah, yes, of course. The palace is open to you, you’ll find the garden…” He began, only for her to wink.
“No need, I remember the way. That’s why I want to see it, it is a beautiful place.” She let his eyes linger on her sparkling hazel before he backed out to depart.
“Of course… ah, have a pleasant evening, slave.” He was gone a moment later and Diana looked around the room. As expected, a bottle of wine that was definitely not within Sado’s room, was sitting on the dresser by her bed, and she began to run down what she knew.
‘The merchant banquet might as well have been ripped from my own head, Yanmelu is as clever as I remember, and as… unlikeable. It was so petty of him to be that cruel to Sado. Wasn’t it enough that his enemy had fallen? Did he have to do all the rest?’ Diana could only sigh with some annoyance about it all.
She waited for a while, seeing fit to pour herself a glass of the wine in the room, and going to the window in the stone to look outside. As luck would have it, she found that she had a view of the garden. It was as she remembered it, long rows of flowering plants, water wheels turned and there was of course the constant sound of flowing artificial streams, among the gardens there were fruit trees, which none but the Prince and his household could touch. The gardens were terraced, with level upon level rising up and projecting outward, it was more broad than a dozen bowshots in any direction if one stood at the center.
The prosperity of the city was second to none. It was the only way such an exclusive place could exist.
Diana rested her arms on the windowsill, folded them, one over the other, and continued to watch and wait.
Her eyes went from the setting sun to the entrance down below, and out over the gardens repeatedly, occasionally the warm breeze picked up, and she caught the scent of the place just as she remembered it.
Diana’s deep breath lasted only for a few seconds, as when she exhaled, she saw exactly what she sought.
She went to her door, entered the hall, went to the stairs at the far end, and descended down to the ground level where she exited out into the gardens.
She removed her sandals and set them by the door where a pair of boots sat, as soon as she exited, and began to walk barefoot through the grass. Not in any rush as the light continued to fade, she walked the familiar path of soft stone that split and varied like an endless maze save that it all led back to the entrance eventually. She touched the flowers and drew their bright yellow, red, and purple petals to her nose to breath the sweet fragrance. She dipped her toes into the cool flowing waters, and stopped to watch and listen as waterwheels took buckets up to tilt them over and create the illusion of falling rain in various places about the terraced designs.
Finally she stopped at a bench of stone beneath a fruit tree and in front of a fountain, and stretched out with eyes closed. The shade of the branches was comfortable, the way they creaked and swayed in the light breeze, all she did, was sit and wait.
“Diana… what are you doing here…?” General Yanlim asked, clearly surprised to see her.
She cast herself off the bench and prostrated before him. “General… forgive this humble slave! She thought it was acceptable to visit the garden again, as she had when she came here with Lady Kaiji!”
Her voice was taut with fear as if she’d crossed a line, and General Yanlim replied with only a mild laugh, “Of course… no, I didn’t mean you shouldn’t have come, only that I didn’t expect to see you in this place… there is no need to be afraid of me, slave, I’m not going to punish you for enjoying a place like this. It is a compliment, if anything.” She rose to all fours and turned her face up to him, her eyes bright with pooled tears.
“It is… it is a beautiful place… it reminds me of the forests of my home and the gardens of the former Prince… oh! Forgive me! I shouldn’t bring up your enemy in your home…” She pressed her forehead to the grass again, but he waved it off.
“Rise, rise, it’s fine.” He shrugged, “He’s no longer my enemy, he is defeated and his city is gone. My cousin’s feelings on the matter are not the same as mine.” Yanlim extended a hand down to her, “Since you’re here, why not walk with me a bit, the gardens are always better with company.”
She appeared reticent at first, but slowly put her dainty fingers into his palm, and let him help her to her feet. “Th-Thank you, sir.” She said, blushing in the yellow light of the fireflies that had begun to flit around them beneath the tree.
They walked together in silence until his stomach growled when they were beneath a tree bearing a large red fruit the size of a fist and covered with many tall tan colored seeds. “May I touch the royal fruit… sir?” She asked, and at his nod, she stretched up on her toes and plucked two from the branch. They released easily, though the branch swayed more powerfully for a moment. The sound of rustling leaves was over them still when she went to her knees and offered them up.
“For your sustenance, sire.” She said with absolute deference, her eyes down toward his feet he didn’t take them.
Her stomach growled. “Aren’t you hungry, slave?” He asked, “You’re not going to ask for one?”
Diana shook her head with vigor. “I am hungry… but this belongs to the royal house, I remember the rules, and don’t wish to be punished for wanting to eat one.”
“I see. Well then, I order you to eat. As you are without any orders from your mistress on this matter, and I have authority here, you are safe to obey me in this.” He said it in a lordly, formal voice, and took one of the fruits from her hands.
As he took a large bite, she took a small, dainty one, careful not to lose any of the sweet juices to her pale cheeks. She held the large red fruit with both of her hands, and felt his eyes on her while she took each succulent bite until there was nothing left but the stem.
He had long since finished his own, but had waited until she finished before he began to walk and she fell in beside him.
“Amuse me, slave, tell me about yourself.” He said while brushing a free hand over a bell flower and causing its petals to ring out when it swayed.
“If that is your command… as I said… I am Diana. A slave since birth, but from a former noble Komestran house… I served my city, my Prince and my mistress for years, until you and your cousin took them from me and I was sold again.” She gave that pause, and looked mournfully toward the distant moon.
She watched his face out of the corner of one eye, and a faint pang hit her as she recognized his pity. “It worked out, I took service with the one to buy me, I was sold for ten Skull Platinums…” She paused again after the ‘exaggeration’ and let that sink in. ‘By now they’ll have seen a few of the coins of my mistress, though I wonder what they’re ‘actually’ called… he’ll know what I mean.’ She watched his face look at her all over again as if he were looking at a gold statue.
“Does your mistress… is she one of those who favors women?” He asked, struggling to understand how anyone could pay even one of those thick platinums, let alone ten.
‘Of course he jumps to sex, as men tend to do, and… not really wrongly either, not this time.’ Diana thought and let her silvery laughter fall over him. “No, General, no, not as far as I am aware. If she were, I’m sure she would have summoned me for that before going over the border.”
“I… see. Is she kind to you? Do you like your life? Are you safe there?” The General asked, losing all track of her social status relative to his own as she let him draw her closer and closer to his body while they spoke.
Diana answered General Yanlim’s questions, and peppered him with some of her own.
“You and the Prince seem so different… it is amazing how well you work together.” She said with a praising voice, keeping her eyes turned up toward him.
“We are… he’s always been more clever than I. But I’ve always had a mind for war, I’m not fit to rule a city, and his father raised me after my own parents passed away. So we grew up like brothers. He can be… a lot of things. But he has always treated me well, and so I have always supported him.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I see… I never knew what it was like to be a true noble, despite my birth, I was raised only to serve, and though I do it well, I think… no, it’s stupid.” She said as they rounded a long bend, she reached her hand into a fountain and let the cool water spraying from above land in her palm, pool, and splash outward when it filled.
“No, go on, I’m curious… Diana?” The General replied, intrigued.
“I think, in some ways, a slave has much in common with the pinnacle of the nobility. Like you, like your cousin. Forgive me if this displeases you, but… a merchant house with no title, they have many peers among them, they are equals, even when rivals. They can speak openly and share their troubles. The same is true of common laborers who bear no ownership over themselves. Wouldn’t you agree, General?” She asked, and he nodded.
“Very much so, soldiers share the same struggles, and become a large family as a result, they share bonds most never do, and I think it can be said that most other commoners do the same in some form.” He put a hand around her waist and she allowed him to guide her on, deeper into the garden.
“Yes, sir. But nobles? Look at Sado and your cousin, mortal enemies. Sado is broken, and yet still your cousin taunted him about using his city’s women to staff his harem. Or even look at Sado and Prince Rasgen. They were like brothers when they were children, or so I’ve heard Kaiji say. Yet when it came down to it, Rasgen left him in a collar as a slave. In the same way even though we share work, we slaves must be careful with what we say.” She shook her head decisively.
“A word of disloyalty, even if it is just an idle complaint, may see a slave’s life ruined or ended, and so it is with you. We at the bottom, and you at the top, yet we both share three things…” She let her hand fall to his arm.
“What is that…?” The General inquired. He didn’t brush her hand away, nor did he notice when she guided him off the path and toward a grove where a tall tree stood alone.
Diana went up to her tiptoes so that she was close to his face, “Fear of betrayal… loneliness… and a need to forget them both…” She did not resist when he kissed her, and when he began to undress her, she let her hands wander to his belt to do the same with him.
----------------------------------------
Lodira woke up before the sun, went to the bath normally prepared for the Count, and smirked. His tub was one of his few true pleasures, carved from a single large cube of black marble it was enchanted at great expense to heat the water up to the point of steaming.
‘My last hours as Lodira… I wonder how long it will be before I get to take a bath again? Probably not that long really.’ She pondered with a kind of tranquil calm when her hand traced over the smooth surface.
The water within looked quite inviting, she stepped on the stool just before the edge, and slipped in. The waters barely rippled with the smoothness of her entry, and she barely made a sound as she washed herself. A tan sandstone sat on the edge of the tub against the cedar wall, which she then took up and used to scrub herself. ‘At least I’m taking one more thing from him.’ She managed a vindictive, pointless smile at the mirror on the wall, when she was done, she emerged dripping from the waters, took up the only towel in the room, and dried herself thoroughly with it.
‘Petty, Lodira, you’re a very petty woman.’ She thought as she draped it lazily over the spot it hung, in the exact opposite manner of its previously neat and perfect placement.
She put her camisk back on her body, secured the thin fabric that left her sides bare, slipped on her sandals, and unbound her long golden hair to allow it to tumble down her back.
She gave it a mild toss and ran her fingers through it, when she saw a comb sitting on the corner counter. ‘Using this isn’t even petty, when was the last time he even had any hair?’ She spitefully thought and snatched it up to remove any tangles, she then stood before the mirror and practiced the poses she’d seen at various auctions.
‘You know what’s going to happen if they don’t find you? Or if they don’t find you soon enough, why are you so calm?’ She asked herself that question as she went to the kitchen and ate a light meal of porridge and bread. She still had no answers as she went from there to the main hall and simply stood waiting.
In the open hall there was no place to sit, it was, of all the places in her father’s estate, the place she hated most. ‘Useless.’ She condemned the cavernous room for the final time. On the wall there sat only a painting of himself and nothing else. ‘Whichever of my brothers becomes head of the family next will probably just put their own in place of his… and keep the room as worthless as an empty tomb.’
Her thoughts turned to her siblings… ‘They walked out on you, graspers… they knew what was coming… and they’d rather leave me to that than… what? Well, Anton is very old, maybe one of them will seek me out after becoming head of the family…’ She clenched her dainty fingers into fists.
‘No, they won’t. Even with Anton dead, his spirit will live on in their joyless hearts, in a joyless city obsessed with the coming doom. Better a slave in Pas’en, or Kai’sen, or any of the city-states, than a noblewoman here in this tomb of walls and buildings! Whatever happens out there, there is a chance I can do more than just ‘exist’.’
It was in a way, a twisted way that she recognized was wrong but could not eliminate, a liberating feeling since there was no chance for a woman like herself being sold in Shog’nai. ‘I’ll be more free in a cage leaving this place, than I was walking free within the walls.’
A sense of pity for her siblings and their mates, the grasping desperation for a few more useless bits of gold to line the pockets of their joyless hearts before they marched toward gray hairs and cold graves. ‘Shog’nai will have failed to consume me as it has Anton, and my mother, and Albaer, and my siblings…’
The light that came through the window over the stones did nothing to quell her distasteful thoughts of her homeland or the family that inhabited it, nor did the appearance of the steward when a maid admitted him. Lodira felt his eyes linger on her as the maid led him through a side door to what was no doubt the chamber of the count.
Lodira could not help but smirk at his pathetic face. He was a young man, no more than twenty-two at a glance, poised and perfect in his posture, dressed in black clothing, he might as well have been a younger version of Albaer. Sharp features and bright eyes, dark hair that she vaguely recalled Albaer having the remnants of when she was very small.
‘An innocent, Shog’nai produces a lot of men who don’t know what they’re doing, another thing I won’t miss.’ She rolled her eyes derisively and crossed her arms.
Her father emerged with the young man a short while later and stood a few feet away from her. She ignored them both, “This one is to be sold off. Your first task is to see her to the Lur’gin company headquarters, present the document of noble heritage, and sign her over.”
“Not negotiate, master Valoisin?” The youth asked.
Anton shook his head, “No need, she’ll negotiate her own price far better. Once she’s delivered and you’re back here, you are never to speak of her again.”
“I see… sir.” He said in a voice that said he didn’t ‘entirely’ see but knew better than to push the matter further.
“If she acts up, bring her into line, but no damage… but I don’t believe she will. Oh and, give them this.” Anton reached into his pocket and removed a folded paper.
“That is very kind of you, sir. Albaer was very dear to me when I was young.” He said after taking the folded paper, and Lodira snapped her eyes over to look at the young man again, peeling away the years from Albaer in her mind and seeing the flesh standing before her.
“Then you should enjoy this, as she wasn’t always very good to your uncle.” Anton pointed out.
Lodira hung her head, and felt the hateful glare of Albaer’s nephew on her.
“I will, sir.” He answered. “I will.”
----------------------------------------
The undead Yersin had made for her, and the slave she’d made of the traveling merchant, shambled slowly to her as she made her way through the brush. She swept her arm out to move aside bushes, moved easily and silently through the trees as if they were her native lands. ‘Home… by the beating heart of death… I barely remember it at all anymore… but the deep wood… it makes it seem like I’m there.’ Nua reflected while she listened to the growing number of stomping feet at her back as Yersin continued to summon the undead to her. She came across a shallow valley, no more than twice her height, a part of the river cut through it, though whether it returned to the whole or fed a pond or lake, she doubted that question would ever be answered. She jumped down, slid along the dark red dirt, and landed with a small hop into the babbling brook. The cool water splashed around her, and rocks tumbled from around her feet.
The sound of bees buzzing hit her ears, and the sound of a cawing bird was not far behind. She glanced up, and saw an eagle chick pushing its sibling over the side of the nest. The little thing fell, desperately trying to flap featherless wings, and landed out of view, with a crash into the bushes and brambles that would further tear its body apart.
Nua moved on, she climbed to the other side of the bank, the corpses and the slave she’d made, followed clumsily, falling face first into the valley before coming to their feet with slow motions, as if they were held down by the weight of their binding to her service.
Still, they followed, breaking through and making their own paths to their shared master.
It took hours to reach the other side, but finally, there it was. A clearing, Nua looked through the treetops, to gauge the position of the sun.
‘Yersin, how long before the rest are here?’ Nua asked, staring out into the open ground.
‘Nightfall, if I were to give you a rough estimate.’ Yersin answered after a moment’s thought.
‘How many?’ Nua asked again, her eyes scanning the horizon.
‘A hundred, some seem to have encountered others along the way, and those were turned, and they did not go quickly.’ Yersin replied, she could hear the smile in his voice.
‘Good, we’ll wait.’ Nua said, and lay down on the soft ground, hidden behind thick bushes. She peeped through the open spaces between the many small green leaves, and the hours slipped past. The sun disappeared on the horizon, the stars emerged, and all was quiet.
When the darkest part of the night took hold, only then did a patient Nua rise to her feet. She went to the rhinoman, it stood beside an undead bearman villager. They swayed unsteadily on their feet as if drunk. She lifted the bearman’s paw with both hands, and jabbed it into the rhinoman’s arm. The thick hide gave only reluctantly, but it didn’t have to give by much, just a little.
She saw spots of blood form, and she raked the claws along the side.
“There we go. Now you’re just a necromancy cultist who screwed up and got injured by his own zombie. They’ll think you did this to try to desperately gain enough mana to become a lich and preserve your mind… it’ll be a bit of a scandal if they ever identify you… ‘if’. But… a lot more believable than a stray elven death worshipper on the wrong side of the border, isn’t it, slave?” She chuckled at the rhetorical question the dominated rhinoman could not answer.
She turned around and pointed toward the ranch. “Kill everything in your path.” Nua ordered in a sharp voice, “And you, slave, will use the mana in your staff in short bursts, kill their weakest, and then let yourself be killed. Now go.”
The shambling began, and Nua added, “Run.”
They began to pick up speed.
She closed her eyes, counted the seconds down, and made a prayer to her god. ‘Divine lord of death and change, I deliver souls to your glory, know that I take no life out of greed or hatred. I take only those lives I cannot save, and offer those lives to you which are deserving of your retribution. Forgive this sinner her weakness… that I may strive to grow strong.’
Nua ended her prayer to her god, and followed the undead, and the mind dominated living puppet.
She took out her knife, watched the shadows move into the distance, in the distance, Nua saw the shadows of various buildings, earthen ones mostly, and brick at a distance if she had to guess.
Then the first scream went up. A ratman by the sound of it. There was a long wailing screech to the timbre of the terrorized or wounded, though it was just beyond Nua’s sight, it was not beyond the hearing of those who lived and worked there.
[Shadowstep], [Scent of Water]. Nua uttered and went far around the path of the undead. She saw lights come on and her sharp ears caught the noise of beastmen scrambling to respond. Shouts and barking orders, scrambled feet over stairs and slamming doors, her distraction was immediately obvious to them, while she was not.
What she wanted to know, however, was quickly revealed to her. A single figure emerged alone from a large building.
Firelight lit the night far to her left.
“The undead?! What are they doing here?!” She heard the screeching voice of a ratman, and then the bright flash of her puppet using the stored mana of the staff, and a screeching wail as the weakest of the beastmen races died from a blast to the face that burned it with black flames. The bright orange of the fires, held by the living beastmen, contrasted the nightmarish black flames that consumed their brethren, and the battle between the living and the dead began in earnest. The alarm was high in the night, the sickening tearing sound of living claws tearing into dead flesh, and dead claws tearing into living flesh, rang out behind her.
Still she ran on, that initial response would be overwhelmed, ‘A minute or two, they bought time to summon guards, nothing more.’ Nua reasoned, just as she reached the back of the building.
She could hear desperate voices within. The building was of simple brick, all that was needed to confine the humanoid races. It reminded her of a barn, save that the top was not all that high, she could have almost jumped up to it without any magic at all. She raised her false hand, and jammed it into the stone at the cement seal, then curled her finger and tore it out. There was a faint sound of scraping, as her fingers tore at the red and grey material, and then she got a look within.
There were posts… lots of them, wooden ones of the sort used to hitch horses. However, at the top of every post was a steel metal loop at which a pair of chains was attached. Each chain ran to either a male or a female, so that a pair of each was secured to each post.
‘Breeding pairs…’ Nua had the sickening realization. Goblins, humans, orcs… even a centaur pair, though elves were conspicuously absent.
Notably there was not much space for anyone to move. ‘They’re kept weak… too weak to run… also soft, tender for… for later.’ A knot formed in the elven assassin’s stomach. They were clean, clearly well fed, but their fate…
She quashed the welling pity. Along the wall, there were also chains secured, maximizing the efficiency of the space, the chattering voices were wondering what all the noise was outside, but none even tried to find out. Not a tug on a chain. It was telling that they didn’t even try.
‘I can’t save them.’ Nua knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. She continued her careful scanning, looking into the dark, and saw that on the wall there were also chains, and here there were young ones.
Not a single living person within had a stitch of clothing, the sense of pity rose again, and her heart pounded with rage. Her teeth clenched. ‘Save what you can, when you can’t save them all.’
The rows of chains were all equal in distance, so she went to the other side after slipping the brick back into place, counting out a quiet pace.
In the distance, the shouts of the living were diminishing, as the last of the beastmen to initially respond to the calamity she’d brought them died.
She finished counting her pace when the last roar of defiance perished, the shouting of the undead were all that remained. ‘They’ll come here next…’ Nua thought, brought back her fist, and punched the brick inward where the chain attached to the wall.
It shattered and the metal bounced into the straw covered floor and slid away from where a young child sat mute.
“Run!” Nua ordered, and went to the door at the entrance, a sturdy thing of oak, she heard the sound of the young one moving, ‘I earned a prize in the arena, I guess I’ll take it from here instead.’ She had the grim thought pass through her head and kicked the door near the latch, sending it flying within to slam against the interior wall.
A confused child stopped stock still, frozen in fear. Nua’s legs pumped with violent energy, she moved two paces within the dark little hell, snatched the wayward hand, and shouted only once… “I’m sorry!” Her voice was heartbroken, her face twisted with anger and frustration as she yanked the child into her arms, and ran. [Endurance of Unlife][Unliving Strength][Speed of Death] She ran, and ran, and ran.
Behind her, she heard the faint cries of captives as the undead found the beastman’s ‘livestock’. Wails of pain, screams, and that tearing sound Nua could not get out of her head, all were there, and faded as she put distance between herself and the hell she showed her heels to.
Over hill and plain she moved in the swift loping step that brought one foot far in front of the other, more of a constant leaping to cover broad ground, she did not stop until dawn, nor even look at the face of the child that lay limp and quiet as death in her arms.
The grass broke beneath her feet, and she listened with care to the sound of beastmen rushing to the calamity. ‘May your undead hands find themselves around the throats of beastmen, and at least have that much revenge before your final rest.’ Nua cast the prayer for the dead behind her while darting into the wind, then into the waiting woods.