Falhorne: Dark Dawn: Falhorne, #2

By Tristan Dineen

Pursuing the slavers who stole away his people, Tagus enters Trastamere, where thousands toil in chains beneath the scorching sky. From plantation fields to burgeoning shantytowns and hilltop rebel camps, he follows a trail of clues that draws him deeper into the unknown – while a long forgotten evil blocks the sun and pulls the stars from the firmament.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tristan Dineen
• Release date: Mar 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781777978839

Tristan Dineen

Tristan Dineen is the author of the Falhorne series of dark fantasy novels. He's an ESL teacher based in Ontario Canada, at least when the nether realms of his imagination aren’t calling him away!

Book preview

Characters

The Falhorne

Vitus, Praetor of the Falhorne in the Grand Principality of Vinos

Tagus, Falhorne and Vitus’s former apprentice

Piso, Falhorne and Vitus’s apprentice (killed at Fallonier Fields)

Callidus, renegade Falhorne and leader of the resistance in Trastamere

Piero, Falhorne of Trastamere

Janus, Falhorne of Trastamere

Clodia, Falhorne of Trastamere and Callidus’s spouse

Trastamere

Rigo, former Falhorne and military veteran

Castor, Farmer and ally of the Furies

Athos, Callidus’s weaponsmith

Suthis, Klaxon Hospondar

Shaku, Minotaur Hospondar

Priscus Scarrus, Southmarch warlord

Kenus, Captain of the Guard at the Eagle’s Manse

Mides, Sergeant at Eagle’s Manse and secret Hospondar

Fiore City

Sir Cosimo Gratano, son of Duke Sandro of Trastamere

Cornelia (Corrie), Tagus’s wife and local midwife

Callus, Vitus’s serving boy and Tagus’s informal apprentice

Thea, Asylum girl captured during the pogrom

Jesta, Speaker of the Asylum’s Agoge Council, former armorer

Secunda, Councillor of the Agoge, former weaver

Clodius, Councillor of the Agoge, former dockworker

Nicco, gnomish member of the Association, former weaver

Gorgo, Samosian refugee and Association member

Meno, gnomish alchemist and brother of Nicco

Aileanor, Meno’s mysterious companion

Agelaus, Captain of the prince’s Gendarmerie

Arnim, Captain of the prince’s Gendarmerie

Chero Julianus-Agricola, Grand Prince of Vinos

Theophilus, Bishop of Fiore

Owain Trevelyan, Tarnish Ambassador to Vinos

Giovanni Lechianno, Alchemist

Prelude – The Cruelest Teacher

The sun was rising over the small hilltop as Piso threw back his hood, leaning his face into the wind blowing across the fields beyond Fallonier village. It smelled of earth, soon to be mixed with blood. The time had come. Everything this apprentice had learned would be put to the test. And tests were bloody for a warrior of the gods.

He turned his gaze away from destiny and smiled.

Tagus was trying to be tough again. The look of a hardened soldier plastered across his dark face as he stared at the enemy army assembling in the distance. In truth, the thirty-year-old resembled a grey old man, sick of life and awaiting the inevitable. Even the droopy-faced Tarquinus, who was sharpening his mighty sword a short distance away, could not match the Young Lion when it came to dourness and brooding.

The ridiculous sight drew the words from Piso’s mouth as surely as the merry songs at the autumn Fire Festival.

Don’t worry brother, he said, Look at those low-hanging clouds. Surely the Black King is preparing the greatest of storms to break upon the usurpers!

Shaken from his reverie, Tagus gripped his halberd even more tightly as he scanned the forward ranks of the foe. 

How can you jest at a time like this, brother? He finally replied in a flat monotone, brows furrowed like a cliff-face, I fail to see anything entertaining about a field of fanatics, likely studded with an Inquisitor or two.

Piso brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and leered at his younger comrade. Tagus could be such a stubborn ass. As stubborn as Rigo and as headstrong as Porus, yet decidedly less amusing to be around.

Would you face death so downcast, Young Lion? He sighed, I may be a half-senile elder of thirty-five years, but at least I’m young enough at heart to enter Barbarus with a grin.

Accepting death means taking as many of the enemy with us as we can, the younger man grimly rejoined, We offer our lives to the Black King along with our tributes. That is all.

Tagus placed his gauntleted hand defiantly against his hip. The furrowed brow had given way to a smug pride, like a boy who believes he has just outsmarted his teacher. He pointed off to the left where the royal army of mercenaries and feudal levies was taking the field, sporting the colorful livery of their lords and grand captains. 

His words poured forth with all the confidence of Vitus’s favored pupil.

We Falhorne are the guardians of these people. But the Praetor would never approve of us joining them in their bawdy songs and swilling of ale before battle; it would only drown out the call of Barbarus. Why should we lower ourselves to their wretched level?

Piso grinned wider at these pompous words. It was time for another lesson. Hopefully it would be enough to save Vitus some time later, if he or any of them survived this day.

Your knowledge of our ways is most excellent, Brother Tagus. But do not judge our little brothers over there so harshly. More than a few of them know what it means to live as a hunted animal, never revealing yourself for fear of ending up in some Inquisitor’s dungeon. Can you blame them for being afraid of having their flesh picked off until they’re too mad with pain to care about their friends and families? They do not have Mortis to protect them like we do. No, all they want is some peace, a chance to live without fear along with their wives and children.

He leaned closer to his scowling counterpart, gazing deep into those sullen brown eyes that had seen so much, yet understood so little.

I’ve never known a moment of peace. They took my father when I was seven. The old wretch ended up in four pieces hanging in Tema’s market square. I’ve spent the rest of my days learning to laugh at the brutalities of life. The usurpers may kill me, but they cannot have my soul. Remember that when your time comes, brother. Do not allow yourself to die before the Black King calls your name. 

Piso turned away, spitting into the grass before sliding his hood back into place and praying silently to Lady Antillia for fortune and guidance. 

He had said enough. Like Ishan the Founder, his fellow apprentice would have to learn through experience. The cruelest teacher.

Chapter 1 – Nightmare Country

Empty eye sockets stared menacingly down at Tagus as he turned his weary eyes toward the gibbet. The corpse encased within the cage of iron hoops had been reduced no more than a skeleton, while the metal was streaked with rust. But the terrible word, crudely painted and re-painted, on the wooden sign nailed to the outside of the cage, screamed its brutal message with urgency and malice: HERETIC. 

The gibbet swayed sickeningly in the breeze as the three companions paused at the deserted crossroads on the forest’s edge and took in the sight before them. 

To Tagus, the picturesque silhouette of Castle Trastamere, crowning the high hill above the rooftops of the town and the endless expanse of cultivated fields beyond, resembled a gigantic carrion bird awaiting its victim’s last breath. The waters of the River Tamus, sparkling in the sunlight alongside the open veins of irrigation ditches, might have been liquid fire from the pits of Gormani itself, the underworld boiling and burning its way into the upper air.

This grim thought was reinforced by the state of the other body swinging from the gallows. This one dangling naked. The eyes had been pecked out by crows and the face was unrecognizable beneath the twin black holes, but of the man’s true identity there could be no doubt. That flesh, although rotting and stinking under the cruel and blazing sun, was still visibly tanned and leathery from a life under the overseer’s whip. The sign that hung from the corpse’s broken neck screamed as loudly and cruelly as the sign on the gibbet: RUNAWAY. 

The body was missing its hands and feet. 

By all the gods...

He resisted the urge to cover his face with his trembling hands. 

It took Aileanor’s hand on his shoulder for Tagus to tear his eyes from the awful sight.

The road beyond the crossroads widened to the span of five wagons as they entered the lush and verdant valley. Colorful birds sang in trees that seemed to dance on the wind.

The north bank of the Tamus was dotted with picturesque farms and hamlets with neatly thatched roofs. Golden fields of wheat stood ripening in the sun. Here and there the old imperial highway intersected with the twisted unpaved roads and byways that linked the area’s villages. Farmer’s carts plodded by them, piled high with sacks of grain on the way to market, as they passed the weathered milestones that marked the straight, orderly path of the Great South Way. 

As they drew nearer to the river, the remains of old toll gates and waystations could be seen at regular intervals by the roadside. Their broken stonework poking from bushes or rising out of weedy ditches. Remnants of a time when an army of messengers had crisscrossed the land from the imperial court in Hipireus.

The ruins resembled corpses resting in shallow graves, and Tagus silently prayed that nothing would ever disturb their slumber.

The sun was high in a cloudless azure sky when they reached the great arcing span of the famed and ancient Elephant Bridge. 

It was said to have been the crossing point where, centuries before the time of the Five Kingdoms, the fabled King Aten-Mupharo of Reshi had led an entire legion of war elephants over the Tamus. A campaign which would win him an empire, reaching from the southern deserts as far as the Noctus. The ancient bridge stood as a monument to his triumph, its chipped azurite columns having been stolen from a temple of the water goddess. They still held up the high central span, which was wide enough for three wagons to pass simultaneously.

Tagus felt the gentle breeze on his cheeks as he walked silently across with the others, his ears filled with the peaceful rushing of river water. For the briefest of moments, he almost forgot his past. He almost forgot the horrific sight of the hanging corpses. For a few fleeting seconds, he wondered if this truly was the land of his nightmares. 

It was only after he had set foot on the south bank that the phantoms came to meet him.

The first thing he saw was the old imperial fort beside the causeway, its broken walls concealing the plantations beyond. 

Twenty years ago, it had been nothing but a dilapidated ruin, its decayed battlements of weathered stone sending chills down his young spine as he beheld them through the bars of the wagon. Even five years ago, when he had marched south with the Royal Army, the picture had been the same. It was just another rotting monument to a fallen empire, a fetid mausoleum perched upon the artificial hilltop that shielded it from the Tamus’s floodwaters. 

But no longer.

The fort’s once empty walls were now swarming with laborers, masons hauling craggy lumps of stone via great wooden treadmill cranes to fill the gaps in the old stonework. Scaffolding surrounded the towers that dominated the four corners of the fort and the ring of pickaxes and hammers echoed into the noon sky along with shouts and bellowed commands. Along the roadway, sweat-sodden slaves in black tunics were unloading carts loaded with lumber and quarried stone blocks, all under the watchful eye of a cordon of armored guards in the green and white livery of Duke Gratano.

Tagus’s fear tightened in his chest as he drew closer and the stench of sweat and dust overwhelmed his nostrils. The Duke of Trastamere had dared to disturb the dead; resurrecting dreams of imperial glory to cement his power as the mightiest of the planter lords. Tagus had to will himself to continue walking, averting his eyes as the three of them skirted around the guards and wagons. 

But it did not take long for the wealthiest domain in Vinos to reach out its bloody hands to him.

No sooner had they gotten clear of the clang of hammers and clouds of dust, the thunder of hoofbeats began to echo in the distance along the causeway. This elevated section of the Great South Way, raised above the surrounding floodplain centuries ago by the emperor’s engineers, was all but deserted. There was nowhere to hide from the twelve mounted men-at-arms, approaching swiftly from the direction of the castle-town and its grim keep.

Meno urgently beckoned Aileanor and Tagus to the side of the road. 

It’s probably just a routine patrol of Gratano’s goons, he said, I’ll do the talking if they stop us. Just don’t get in their way.

He was trying to sound confident, but there was fear in the gnome’s round eyes.

Tagus nodded; as a fugitive he had no intention of drawing attention to himself. He pulled the hood of his cloak down further over his unshaven face. 

He had seen those riders before. They would sometimes show up at the plantation gate with the severed heads of runaways dangling naked from their saddles, ensuring that the slaves would see the awful price of robbery with one’s feet. His master even had the retainers of his family parade in front of them in full armor one day. Those wicked blades had shone in the sun, and there had not been a man, woman or child present who doubted as to their purpose. 

His fear only increased and he found his heart thumping in time with the rider’s hooves as they approached at a brisk trot, before slowing their pace and finally reining in their whinnying mounts.

At the head of the twelve mounted warriors sat a resplendent knight, who raised his gauntleted hand imperiously toward them.

Hail, travellers! State your business in Trastamere and place of origin!

The patrol commander’s voice boomed from inside an ornate great helm, the gun-metal blue visor engraved with the image of two roaring golden lions. His finely wrought fluted plate armor was covered with similarly gilded renditions of the animal. The other riders wore simple suits of field plate, but they were no less highly polished and expertly maintained. Their long lances glittered in the sun. Clearly these were the retainers of a wealthy patron indeed. All had long swords and cavalry maces at their hips.

Meno looked truly tiny in the face of these armored men and their giant steeds, as he took a step forward and answered the man with all the confidence of a gadfly facing a great bull.

Mercenaries and soldiers of fortune, if it please your lordship, the alchemist said in the deferential tone of an uneducated soldier. We be looking for employment in the southlands. The north’s too dry these days.

A gnome? Ha! Should put the little pecker to work polishing my armor! Bellowed a loudmouth among the men. Mocking laughter echoed up and down the road until their commander shouted at them to be quiet.

You did not answer my question, little man, he boomed. Where do you and your companions come from? I have no patience for simpletons and am in a mood to cut out loose tongues.

Beg yer pardon, noble sir. No offense meant... Meno’s groveling voice grew shaky in the face of the leader’s blatant aggression, Me and my companions hail from Brisi...

A gnome’s word means nothing and I can tell a Brisi accent any day, you shit-eating little liar!

The booming voice of the commander raged like the lions on his extravagant armor. With the speed of a snake, seven lances were lowered in their direction.

More dirty vagabonds soiling His Lordship’s roads. Looks like it’ll be good hunting today boys...

The commander was in the midst of pulling his sword from its expensive-looking sheath, when Aileanor suddenly ran to Meno’s side, with all the frantic concern of a mother rushing to protect her child.

No! He’s telling the truth! She shouted. 

The lion helm jerked to one side.

He’s my step-father and he’s from Tema, your lordship. Please, it is I and my brother who hail from Brisi.

She gestured furiously at Tagus before continuing, making a grand show of groveling desperation.

Our mother, bless her soul to the Most High, died of the Pox. There is nothing for us there. Soldiery is the only trade we know and his excellency Duke Gratano is known far and wide for his generosity...please, let us pass.

Tagus’s eyes were wide beneath the shadow of the hood. He had served many times on the eastern borderlands and her light, slightly rustic Brisian accent, capturing the rugged spirit of the green hills between Vinos and Karados, was nothing short of perfect. No mean feat, considering that the locals spoke a curious hybrid of Vinosian Ceremus and Samosian Arkanoi.

The commander paused; the first two feet of his longsword already pulled free. But before he could respond, the same loudmouth man-at-arms, a big man who had by now ridden to the front of the pack, guffawed loudly.

A pretty girl playing soldier, eh? The only action you’ll be getting around here, deary, is in the Happy Landlord’s whore house. I hear they pay double for virgins!

Tagus could picture the commander grinning inside the protection of his great helm, as his men once again erupted into the peals of laughter. This time he did not shout, but waited for the rude noise to die down before replying, leaning his face down toward Aileanor menacingly.

A runty gnome for a step-father? You had best be able to prove your words, girl. Otherwise, I might just take up my subordinate’s suggestion. We have no time for vagrants in this land.

A chorus of cruel snickering followed, but Aileanor appeared unphased. She calmly reached for something inside of her green jerkin and held it up into the rays of the midday sun.

The snickering died instantly. 

Tagus had to squint to see the four-pointed golden sun of Solar Dominatus shining in the midday light. The golden seal identical to that worn by ranking members of the clergy.

Sir, we travel by the will of His Holiness, the Bishop Theophilus of Fiore. He has blessed our journey and we have his full protection.

The longsword snapped neatly back into its gilded sheath in response to Aileanor’s words, her perfect Brisian accent no longer tinged with desperation and instead possessing all the calm assurance of nobility. 

The knight sat rigid in the saddle for a moment, studying the shimmering object held in his direction, before drawing something from his belt. He unrolled the sheet of parchment and held it out toward them.

You’re lucky, my lady, he replied with some reservation. The seal looks authentic, though I can only wonder why a religiously proper woman such as yourself would be consorting with non-humans. Well, if you’re such a godly follower of Father Church, you’ll be good enough to tell me if you’ve seen this heretic wretch whilst on the road.

The image on the wanted poster was poorly done. A rushed job based on hearsay and wild rumors, but it was accurate enough. 

Tagus recognized Callidus’s lean features almost immediately, just above that same screaming, murderous word, HERETIC. Perhaps his brother Falhorne had escaped Fiore’s undercity unscathed after all. He could imagine how many similar patrols were on the roads between the capital and Castle Trastamere, hunting Maxim de Tolley’s killer. And the sudden appearance of that familiar face in the commander’s gauntleted fingers struck him like a fist to the gut.

Meno was silent, staring expectantly at Aileanor, who had lowered the golden sun insignia she had been holding. She replied to the captain in formal tones, her frantic mask of concern replaced by her usual calm certainty, even as she maintained her false accent.

I am sorry, good sir, we have not.

Her voice, as well as her face had hardened to white marble, but the commander did not appear to notice. He sounded almost jovial as he replied, the uncertainty in his voice having disappeared.

I do not doubt you, my lady. Still, apprehending such archfiends is but one aspect of our work. And I am curious about this silent ‘brother’ of yours, who hides his face so deeply in his hood...I think I shall take a closer look. Varro, kindly remove it for him!

Armored boots struck the pavement as the same muscle-bound loudmouth gruffly dismounted and strode forward. Tagus did not move as the hood was roughly yanked back from his head, exposing his brown skin and the beginnings of an unkempt black beard.

Ha! Only a grizzled Resh too ugly to show his face! The soldier bellowed, his breath stinking in Tagus’s nostrils.

So indeed, said the commander, coolly. Ignoring the laughter of his men. Perhaps our Resh friend would like to finally open his mouth? You claimed he was your brother, my lady, did you not? I can’t say that I see a resemblance...are you from Brisi too, boy?

Tagus had been staring straight at the man who had just yanked off his hood. Without blinking, he answered: No. Fiore.

The commander’s helmet spun toward Aileanor, while Varro’s eyes narrowed menacingly. 

The big soldier stepped closer until his frowning mouth was scant inches from Tagus’s forehead, emphasizing his superior size as he grunted, You better not be lying, boy, we don’t like lying Resh bastards around here...especially when they give us lip.

Who is your master? The commander boomed, again facing Tagus with his furious lion helm.

What? Tagus struggled to keep his voice steady.

Who is your master? And why are you carrying that sword, slave? Are you deaf?

I am a free man, sir. Not a slave.

Don’t you dare take that tone with your betters, Resh! The big soldier seized Tagus roughly by the shoulders. Where’d you run away from?

I am a free man, sir. Not a slave. His heart was pounding furiously, but his face lacked all emotion. Any emotion would mean death.

The soldier’s neat, clean-shaven face went bright red and contorted with murderous anger at this reply. Cursing, he stepped back and raised a gauntleted fist, bringing it forward for what would have been a crushing blow to Tagus’s nose. 

But the blow never landed. Aileanor’s hands moved like lightning and the man’s arm stopped dead in mid-air, as if held in a vice. 

Tagus could hear a gasp as the air left the shocked soldier’s lungs.

He’s mine. Don’t you dare touch my property. She hissed icily, raging dark eyes boring into the man’s astonished face. They were as deep as Gormani’s pits.

She turned to look up at the commander.

And yes, he is a free man. I have freed him. By the law, he is under my protection. Her voice was grim and commanding.

None of the soldiers moved. When the commander finally spoke again, all the exaggerated pomp of a petty authority figure had left his voice, which was now flat like an empty wineskin.

You lying bitch. Why did you say he was your brother? Where is your deed of ownership?

The roads are dangerous these days, good sir, and I do not need a deed of ownership for a free man. Nor do the servants of His Holiness need to be troubled by you and your louts. This is Church business.

She visibly tightened her grip on the soldier’s arm, who nearly doubled over in pain, crying out as she twisted it.

The commander paused for almost a full minute before responding, in a voice that was now cautious and tinged with the slightest hint of fear.

Well, miss, you had best keep your dog on a short leash then. We may be hunting more satisfying prey now, but, mark my words, we know what to do with runaways. Remember that while you’re in Trastamere.

Aileanor nodded and released the loudmouthed soldier, who hurriedly backed away, panic in his eyes as he fumbled with the visor of his half-helm.

Damn you, Resh! The big man spat as he retreated to his horse. None of his fellow soldiers were laughing now. We cut the balls as well as the feet off the last of your kind we caught running...you’d best watch yourself!

He swung himself awkwardly back into the saddle and followed his commander, who had signaled for them to move off, spitting a vast gob of saliva at Tagus’s feet as he swept past, hooves clattering over the bridge as they rode away to the north in the direction of the gallows.

Tagus did not move as they departed. He was breathing heavily, hand still clasped firmly around the hilt of Jesta’s mother’s sword as the riders vanished. He did not bother to pull his hood back up.

One thought. One stubborn, furious, raging thought revolved endlessly in his mind: I am a free man. No one can take that away. I am a free man...

No one, Aileanor said, an iron conviction in her voice as she seized him by the shoulders, No one will make you a slave.

Her obsidian eyes burned bright and Tagus could not meet her gaze as she loosened her grip. Even after she had turned away, he could feel the imprint of her fingertips in his flesh beneath the armor as her words echoed in his ears.

Meno was fidgeting nervously by the edge of the road, his ruddy face pale as ice after the bruising encounter. His gait was halting as he moved to follow Aileanor, who was already marching toward the distant gates. 

Tagus laid a hand on his aching chest and exhaled a gout of stale air before forcing his legs to move.

Familiar landmarks emerged to haunt him as the great castle loomed closer, its walls and towers appearing cold and menacing in the midday sun. The high pottery gables of affluent townhouses clustered around its bulk like children clinging to a stern, overprotective mother. He knew who those houses belonged to. The same people who owned the grandiose villas that rose majestically above the orderly rows of cypress and poplar trees on either side of the road, which had by now left the causeway and was striking out arrow-straight between the plantations. One was almost cathedral-like, its tall towers crowned with quadruple gilded spires soaring above the Great South Way, reminding him of the pompous marble edifice growing in the heart of Fiore. 

Below the towers, looking pitifully small against their titan blocks of stone, were the slaves, spread out across a field of tall satincane stalks and invisible apart from their white tunics. Whereas domestics and household slaves were made to wear black so that they stood out against the finery of their aristocratic masters, the white tunics of the field slaves had been chosen for their visibility to the overseers. 

Tagus remembered how the flimsy white linen would rapidly soak with sweat, becoming nearly transparent by the time work had ceased at sundown. To sow, nurture and harvest the lucrative cash crop required weeks of toil. Weeks spent fearing whether one was bending to one’s task fast enough, bringing back enough cane at the end of the day to please the overseer, or waking one’s exhausted body up in time for another twelve hours of fear – knowing full well what the penalty was for even the slightest failure or misstep.

They passed four great plantations and each of them went on for miles. 

Twenty years ago, the countryside had been dotted with simple picturesque villages. Now there was no sign of them, and the rural folk who passed them by, sullen eyes to the ground, looked thinner, their clothes ragged, tattered, and patched. Now every break in the tree-line opened onto a scene of bonded misery. 

Sometimes he could hear the hateful shouts of the overseers carried down on the gentle autumn breeze.

There were eleven milestones between the Elephant Bridge and Trastamere castle-town. As Tagus passed each one, he remembered the boy who first laid eyes on those smooth pillars of white stone from within a jolting cage on wheels. 

Stone one: safe. Stone two: driver screams at Elus, a boy of ten, to stop his moaning. Elus had been sick for the previous two days. Stone three: safe. Stone four: guard orders Nulus to stop jangling his chains or he’d break his legs for him. Stone five: Elus threatened with fifty lashes if he does not shut up. Stone six: safe. Stone seven: driver screams at peasants to get out of the way, guard strikes an older man and pushes him into the ditch when he is slow to obey. Stone eight: safe. Stone nine: Wagon stops. Elus dragged from the back. Driver throws him to the ground and lays into the boy with a whip. He is pronounced worthless and thrown into the ditch. Stone ten: safe. Stone eleven: slave patrol meets the wagon, everyone ordered out. Struck by one guard; he said he did not like my face. 

That was what Tagus remembered, counting the moments of agony until he was once more in the shadow of the gates and breathing in the overpowering aroma of hot tar.

Up close the walls were massive. At least fifteen feet high and almost as thick. Hardly surprising, given that the founder of House Gratano, like Prince Chero’s great grandfather, had been a successful mercenary captain in the waning days of the Empire, and bent on securing his ill-gotten gains from potential competitors. The castle-town had been his handiwork, or more accurately, the handiwork of the thousands of war captives that he had taken on his campaigns across Southmarch and the Vinosian heartland. It was said that Castle Trastamere was built upon a foundation of bones, and Tagus could more than believe it. One hundred and fifty years ago, House Gratano and House Julianus-Agricola had turned on each other after defying the will and armies of the last emperor, fighting one another for the spoils of a newly independent Vinos. It had only been through the Order’s diplomacy that peace had been restored and the rampaging noble families tamed.

The town gates were massive ten-foot-high rectangles of oak, divided into paneled squares by crisscrossing iron-bars. Circling the walls was a deep moat, fed by canal stretching like an artery all the way to the Tamus, eleven miles away. 

No less than a dozen guards, armored no less finely than the riders had been, stood outside the gates, suits of plate shining in the sun along with the fearsome blades of their halberds. Their surcoats were House Gratano’s emerald green, with three white swords crowned with a laurel wreath and bordered with twisting white ivy. Most of the soldiers were clustered around a farmer and his cart, making a grand show of inspecting the man’s sacks of barley and bushels of green vegetables, while their captain stood over the browbeaten peasant. 

But Tagus’s gaze was held by the sightless eyes that looked down over the bully and his chosen victim: three tarred and severed heads stuck on pikes, thrusting from the gatehouse wall like banner poles. 

Just outside the gates was another gallows with three tarred and gibbetted bodies rotting in the sun. Each was labeled with brutal clarity: HERETIC. This was the very castle where the Treaty of Trastamere was once signed. The treaty that was to guarantee the religious freedom of his people forever more. Now it was well and truly dead.

Tagus could hardly believe that he had once walked freely through those gates at Vitus’s side. He had clutched the hilt of his sword the entire way up the ascending cobbled street to the inner portcullis, expecting to be set upon at every turn.

Stay back, Meno warned in a jittery voice, as they drew close to the wide bridge over the moat, The inn is outside the walls, another mile or so west. Let’s take the moat path and try not to get into more tangles with the authorities...

Aileanor was looking up at the high castle, flocks of birds spiraling around its spear-point-like turrets, a faraway look in her eyes as she silently and firmly took an unresisting Tagus by the hand.

Ever since the incident with the soldiers, she had remained close to him, as though she were a guardian or mistress, shielding him in this land where the authorities were always on the lookout for escaped slaves. Tagus’s pride cursed her; she was treating him like a child...but it was because they were traveling in a place where people who looked as he did were never treated as men. If a Black Vinosian were to claim his rightful dignity in the heart of the plantation country, he would bring lethal retribution upon himself. This fundamental understanding was enough to drive away any sense of shame. 

She said nothing as they turned away from the gate, never relaxing her grip as they made their way along the unpaved circular road that skirted the perimeter of the moat. The banners of House Gratano fluttering grandly from the battlements above. 

She never explained how she had replied so directly to his earlier unspoken fears.

Below the walls, another world came into view. A world of tumbled-down shacks built of wooden planks, mud, and damp thatch, each looking like a stiff breeze would blow it over. They lined the course of the moat, which was stagnant and stinking. 

The inhabitants of these squalid dwellings, mostly hard-faced women dressed in rags, cast suspicious glances at the three strangers as they passed by along the unpaved track that skirted the water’s edge.

Half-naked children laughed amid the muck, not seeming to care. One of them, a small girl dressed in sack cloth, with raven-black hair, approached a thin-faced woman huddled in a tattered shawl that might have once been red and blue, sitting outside one of the shacks. The girl held a handful of mud from the riverbank, but she did not throw it, merely extending the clod of earth toward her elder like an offering. But the woman, who was visibly shivering, in spite of the midday heat, waved her away and the girl ran off. 

Behind the woman, pinned to the flimsy timber wall of the shack, was another wanted poster, nearly identical to the one that the captain had held up.

The posters kept appearing as they moved on: nailed to posts, to trees, and to the outside walls of the shacks. All of them bore that same ugly caricature of Callidus’s face. But the crimes he was accused of kept changing from poster to poster: murder, arson, robbery, blasphemy, heresy, high treason. The list went on, the wayward Falhorne stood accused of every capital crime imaginable. 

Tagus briefly stopped to look at one such poster that had been nailed roughly to a slightly crooked wooden post beside the path. 

It read: Wanted for Grand Theft. The rebel Callidus, for depriving his lordship Gratano of his rightful chattel and property. Reward: 10,000 ducats, dead or alive. Bondsmen shall receive their freedom upon delivery.

The relatively new poster was affixed with the official seal of House Gratano. Looking around him, the shacks had multiplied into a dilapidated shantytown of squalor and miserable faces. He could imagine the wretched inhabitants being willing to turn over their own mothers to the authorities for a chance of escape. 

This was not the Asylum of Fiore. Like the Ox Guts, with its mass of penniless migrant laborers and landless peasants, it was chaos as well as misery. 

The shantytown spilled out from Trastamere’s southern gate and into the countryside beyond for what must have been several miles. Most of it was clustered around the edges of the Great South Way, which seemed to form the center of the slum, if it could be said to possess such a thing. Here there were no trees, not a single blade of grass, nothing apart from the ever-present mud and the heaps of filth and garbage lining the moat road, now nothing but a narrow lane between the tiny hovels. Tagus and his companions had to pick their way along carefully to avoid plunging a foot into a stinking midden heap or trampling one of the dirty-faced children who scooted about between the shacks, gaunt women shouting at them to mind themselves.

Life went on amid the squalor. The stench was as bad as Fiore’s sewers had been, even though they were in the open air. Some of the dwellings were mere lean-tos, propped up against the sides of the handful of crumbling buildings that might have once been a farm. The barn’s roof, along with sections of its walls, were gone, pulled apart by desperate people trying to put a cover over their primitive dwellings, no matter how flimsy or dangerous. 

Old men, the only men that could be seen, sat outside the shacks, some of them gathering in groups, talking or playing some sort of game with different sized stones and lines drawn in the dirt with sticks, pausing to cough violently before concentrating on their next move within the little universes they had created. 

Most barely even noticed the strangers going by, with only a handful briefly glancing up in surprise before hurriedly looking away. 

The children continued with their games, oblivious to the dour expressions of their elders. One boy was standing on a barrel, gesturing triumphantly to his playmates like he was king of the world. 

Tagus averted his eyes and held Aileanor’s hand tighter. He tried not to think about his own childhood cut short. 

When they had finally reached the paved expanse of the Great South Way, Tagus saw that a crude market of sorts had formed amid a cluster of five older buildings. On the far side of this small square, the two-story inn was immediately obvious for its sturdy stone construction and the gaudily colored sign outside, while the four others were squat rectangular mud-brick structures with flat roofs, only one of which had two floors. 

But there was a sixth structure as well. Its imposing outline and gilded spear-point spire dwarfing all the other buildings and making the shanties seem pitifully insignificant, sent chills down his spine. It was a church of Solar Dominatus, although its walls of grey stone blocks made it look more like a fortress. It was clearly new, the masonry appearing freshly laid.

The small market at its base was nothing like the vast hub of commerce outside the Fiore guildhall. Here there were only a bare handful of wooden stalls. Ragged lines of shanty-dwellers stood before them, their meagre belongings clutched in their hands, hoping to pawn something in exchange for food or some other necessity. Their tattered browns and greys stood in stark contrast to the deep reds, blues, and greens of the merchants’ fine clothing. And every stall was flanked by two or more rough looking men in leather jerkins, wielding metal-studded truncheons. 

Tagus immediately thought of the moneylenders in the Ox Guts.

But it was my father’s best! Wore it on the day of blessed Saint Kremos, he did! Please sir, my children have not a morsel between them!

The woman’s shrill voice sounded in the clear air, and Tagus could see her, in a tattered grey dress, furiously shaking a faded red and white shirt under the nose of a hard-faced merchant.

Three vints, no more, came the stern reply.

I beg ye...

Out.

A burly tough promptly gripped the woman by the shoulders and flung her thin framed body aside. She fell down in the mud, only to be helped by up by the weathered hands of other women. They were not in the same shoes as her, for they had none. It was a fellowship of bare feet and hungry stomachs.

A short distance away, in the shadow of the church, stood the priests. But these holy men did not harangue the crowd with sermons, nor did they exhort the masses to submit their souls for the judgement of the Most High. No, theirs was the largest market stall of all. Impoverished women crowded around it, trying to sell their meagre goods, trying to haggle with the white-robed clergymen, who were just as hard-faced as the other merchants. 

Two rickety carts were laid up beside the stall, two peasants in faded green tunics in heated argument with a heavy-set priest standing before a wagon laden with sacks of grain.

We are but farmers, your worship! Poor men! We cannot sell at such prices! One of them was shouting.

Greed is a sin in the eye of the Most High, child. Do you deny His divine laws?

No...

Then accept your fate.

But...

Another priest, bigger than the others, approached, a heavy iron mace in his hands. The farmers regarded him in fear before backing away.

Tagus then spied the menfolk who had been missing from the shanties. A whole crowd of them was assembled outside the two-story building, all waving their arms and shouting at a pair of grim-faced sentries who stood beside the front door.

Give us work!

Please sir, I’ve a family!

Please, I’m a hardworking man!

Sir! I’m fit and willing, I know a trade!

I lost my farm, sir, please, have pity!

Please, I was an honest yeoman...a good family of honest breeding!

The two guards, leather jacketed and wielding truncheons, coolly scanned the crowd and began to point fingers. Men rushed forward. Some making it to the doorway, others knocked back by a well-placed blow before falling into the mud. The noisy chaos continued as others begged for a chance at a day’s work.

A handful of women and girls stood in perfect line outside another of the mud-brick structures. Old, young, for some it was impossible to tell. Many were no bigger than the children that he had seen running and playing between the hovels. They stood, wearing skirts and dresses of faded red and blue, awkwardly smiling at passersby. But their eyes did not match their lips. 

Tagus felt their stony gaze on him as they drew near, and glimpsed the fear behind the smiles. He saw the weasel-faced man in the doorway, looking over the girls like a kennel master looks over his dogs. No words were exchanged, but he knew. They were just trying to survive.

Beggars clustered at the far end of the square. Not daring to move closer to the town gates lest they face the potentially murderous wrath of Duke Gratano’s men. All were in rags, and most had no shirt at all. The stench of their unwashed bodies was apparent even at twenty paces.

The most desperate among them wore nothing, their naked and emaciated flesh tinged a fireweed orange. Broken shells of men, they crouched in the shadows. But their eyes were hungry. One fiend, whom even the other addicts shied away from, had skin covered with reddish boils and was giving off a particularly hateful odor.

All the beggars seemed to shout at them at once as they approached.

Spare a vint, sir...

A vint, oh gracious lady, I have children...

Please...

But Tagus was looking at one man in particular. Broad shouldered, he was standing, with difficulty, on one leg. The other was gone, its stump hidden by a mass of black rags that might once have been a tunic. His back was bent almost double, his haggard face lined with cracks and wrinkles, but Tagus could see the withered remnants of a soldier’s muscular frame in the man’s bony arms and once barrel-like chest. His head was bald and his dark skin looked as though it had been burnt black by the sun, while his face was dominated by an unkempt beard. But there was still a twinkle in those deep-set eyes that had shone so brightly in the heat of battle. 

Those eyes turned to him, and each man recognized the other.

Rigo...?

The man’s wide mouth opened, and a wheezy yet full-bodied laugh burst forth from a nearly toothless maw.

Tagus! By our goddess of the shithouse, the hero is coming!

The laugh turned into a hacking cough, but the grin remained.

Aileanor glanced at the beggar in alarm, and Meno jerked his head to one side at the sound of his ally’s name.

A blive morning to my old comrade in arms, Rigo shouted, I thought I saw the last o ya’ when you took that little splash at Allia Bridge! Guess our heretic gods are still smilin’ on your sorry ass!

Good sir, there must be some mistake...

Meno hastily tried to interject, but the beggar furiously rounded on the gnome, causing him to jump back.

Shut up, you mangy little bug, Rigo bellowed, or I’ll thump you good! I be talking to my old soldier friend here!

The angry roar faded into a dry chuckle as the big man turned his attention back to Tagus.

So, you finally gave up on the brethren, eh? I told Tarquinus years ago that he should give up chasing miracles and earn some decent coin. The gods never meant for us to be passive bloody monks without a pot to piss in. Of course, he never listened, the old pin head...how’s the skinny fellow doing anyhow?

Tagus had not seen Rigo since he had walked out of the Black Horseman three years ago, choosing to abandon the sworn brotherhood of the Falhorne rather than give up the mercenary life. He had been a loudmouth boaster who always loved a good scrap, especially when his friend Tarquinus was involved. Nor had he been one for religion, obeying the Order’s strictures more as formality than anything else. But Vitus had always overlooked this because he followed orders and was utterly lethal on the battlefield. He had served at Fallonier Fields and the Braxian Civil War, before the laws changed and the money ran out, along with his patience. Looking at him now, it seemed that Tarquinus, in dying in defense of the Asylum, had been the lucky one.

He was killed in battle, Rigo, Tagus replied tersely, knowing that he shouldn’t, but it just felt wrong to deny it to a former Falhorne down on his luck. Even if the crippled man had no honor.

Brother Tarquinus fought bravely to the end. Unlike you.

Damn, that’s a shame, Rigo said through a half-smirk, ignoring the obvious look of disapproval in his former comrade’s eye. 

I liked him. Just never understood why he chose guard duty over mercenary work. It doesn’t pay to be a heretic and it looks like faith did about as much good for him as it did for me. Still, going down fighting is better than this shit. I guess I can’t blame him...

You have only yourself to blame.

Tagus tried to sound indignant, although in truth he did not know what to feel. The renegade Falhorne had abandoned his brethren in the name of gold. At the same time that Porus had met his fate on the gallows after defending the Order’s principles to the end. Yet Rigo’s piteous state hardly inspired anger.

The beggarman gestured all around: to the rags at his waist, the stump of his leg, and grimacing bitterly.

Ha! Tell your praetor that he’s had his revenge on me and then some, he spat. It’s been two years since I lost my leg fighting those bloody Braxians. Serves me right for agreeing to return to that cursed country. The King of Galthran smashed that simpleton Tilly and I barely made it out alive. It took all my wages just to get a wagon ride back south. Even lost my shirt, I did...had to sell it to buy food. Never sold my pride though; a soldier never loses that! Just ask the bandit scum who tried to stop me outside Brisi. I bashed his damn brains out!

Tagus glanced nervously over his shoulder as Rigo again burst out laughing. One of the white-robed priests was staring icily in their direction. Still, the bombast of this old soldier with a begging bowl was enough to put a half-smile on his face. He had to remind himself that the one-legged man was a coward and a deserter.

He must have been one stupid bandit.

Damn right!

Rigo’s laugh was hoarse and dry, yet still forceful.

The nerve of some bastards! So how have you been keeping, you bloody puritan? You can’t be living by the Book if you’re out in these parts. I take it Vitus finally disowned you for some stupid reason or other...

Tagus could only shrug his shoulders against the pain, not wanting to explain the details of what had befallen him since his old life had gone up in flames. Nor did the wretched Rigo deserve to hear what had happened to his former home.

I remain what I am, he said, And from what you tell me, so does the northern war.

Rigo chuckled wickedly in response, his withered belly shaking.

Gormani’s flames, boy, that war will never end! Those nobles breed like rabbits. No sooner does one of em’ fall, the son steps into papa’s armor and herds another lot of peasants to the slaughter. Margrave Tilly grandson’s leading his house now, with the personal blessing of His Holiness the Hierophant I might add. Seems he’s decided that the boy’s the chosen of the Most High, come to purify the Braxian reaches of heresy. And before I hobbled out of there, some of the men told me that Duke Lothar’s boy was back from Grimagen and that he’d won favor with the empress. Try to stop a war when churchmen and emperors keep coming to its rescue!

Tagus paused and took in the wry, cynical smile that had once made Templars tremble.

You are still alive, and still a soldier, he finally replied, pulling one of the ducats that Meno had given him from his cloak and throwing it to the former giant of the battlefield.

This is for a comrade. I will see you again, brother. I promise.

That’s up to fate, I guess, Rigo shrugged, I wish I could have seen old Tarquinus one more time...but you know what they say: straight trees get chopped for firewood, while crooked ones live happily ever after.

He turned the coin over and over in his grimy hands.

You’re a good Reshian bastard, you know that?

Rigo’s sunken eyes took a sorrowful turn, but no tears came. He was a Black Vinosian mountain man from the eastern hill country on the Samosian border, tough as boot leather, stubborn as an ox, and furious as a bull in a melee. No one with paler skin than he had ever called the former Falhorne a Resh unless he desired a fist to the face. And they were not small fists either. 

When Tagus had told his comrade about his near brawl with the Duke of Atocha’s son at Fallonier Fields, Rigo had said he would have eaten the insolent knight’s guts and asked for seconds if he had dared to insult him like that. Noble blood would not have saved his skin. Tagus remembered the deadly serious look in the big man’s eyes that day.

Above all, Rigo was a survivor. Perhaps the greatest that Tagus had ever known. Against all the odds, he had held his own at Allia against the enemy host almost single-handed, as the survivors of the collapse had struggled to pull themselves from the water. Without him they would have surely been overrun. He had been badly injured in the battle, but had recovered faster than a young horse, threatening to punch out the saw-bones when they tried to cut off his leg. But in the end, he had lost it anyway. Perhaps it was a blessing. A penniless beggar missing a leg was less attractive to the slavers and less threatening to the ever-present guards and patrolmen.

The former Falhorne’s eyes looked tired, and they dropped away, staring at the ground. 

Tagus could feel Aileanor squeeze his hand. She had never let go the entire time. With difficulty, he turned away and followed his companions toward the inn.

Chapter 2 – Refuge

It was an impressive structure to be sure. The large inn was made up of four interconnected stone buildings and the ominous bulk of the nearby fortress-church rendered it inviting by comparison.

Tagus wondered how the priests liked being stationed so close to an ale-house, and if any of them cast aside their vows when their superiors were not looking.

The sturdy main building might once have been a farmhouse. It had no windows on the ground floor and those on the second floor were more like archery slits, reminding Tagus that they were getting close to Southmarch and the threat of armed marauders bent on plunder. While the warlords would never dare to venture so far north these days, years ago it had been common for them to reach the banks of the Tamus in their murderous forays. His former master on the plantation had not employed so many guards out of fear his own slaves, but rather of those who might steal what he considered to be his rightful property.

To the right of the front door, painted a deep bold red, was a gap between the main building and a smaller stone structure, just wide enough for a single cart to go through. It probably led to a back courtyard and the inn’s stables.

Tagus cast another furtive glance over his shoulder as he and the others approached the entrance. 

Rigo was extending his hand plaintively to passers-by, his back to him. Of the hooded white-robed priest who had stared daggers at them moments before, there was no sign, although the gaggle of clerics plying their charity outside the church were still at it and busier than ever with their ragged throngs of supplicants.

"Prince’s Respite, by Olaf’s crashing thunderstones! I could have done better..."

Meno, having recovered slightly from his earlier ill-treatment, was grumpily looking up at the swaying signboard. It showed a richly dressed and supremely fat man, lying on a couch eating grapes while the bold italic letters of the inn’s name unfurled above his hairless head.

"Landlord’s lost his creativity it seems. I liked it better years ago when he called the place The Drunken Elephant, far more original."

Tagus marveled that the fat man was eating the grapes himself, holding them in one clumsy hand before his gaping mouth. Everyone knew that in Trastamere the rich had slaves to do that for them.

Meno pushed on it and the heavy door swung open to reveal a long smoky room, sparsely lit by flickering oil lamps. The smell of alcohol was thick in the air and a few drunken faces turned to look at them as sunlight flooded across the creaking wooden floor, briefly illuminating a score of trestle tables lined with benches.

The inn was not very crowded at midday, and the few people present appeared to be travellers rather than locals. There were no ragged edges to their clothing, and some bore the livery of various noble families. They were gathered in twos and threes, nursing flagons of wine and talking in hushed voices. 

None of the patrons gave the newcomers a second glance after the big door closed behind them, plunging the barroom once more into dingy shadow. The place was a world apart from the crowded squalor of the shantytown beyond its thick walls. 

The bar itself sat at the rear of the dimly lit room. As the three of them began weaving through the chaos of tables toward it, Tagus was able to catch some of the conversation.

There’s been another attack, he heard one man say. 

The fellow appeared to be middle-aged and well-to-do, with a finely trimmed beard. His leather jerkin bore the golden shield and scales device of the Comossa merchant family.

Damn it, where now? Cursed a tall, thin man in a green doublet sitting opposite him across the table.

The western spur near Feremonte, the man explained, a whole caravan of slaves sacked. The worthless peasant guards just ran like mice. They say that the fiend Callidus dared to show his face personally.

Gormani take it! How can profits be kept up with this kind of lawlessness? The thin man raged. You saw how prices fluctuated last week when the bastard shot the guildmaster himself in Fiore! At this rate, the investors in Torio will lose confidence and his lordship will have my head on a spike!

Worry not, my friend.

The first man seemed amused by his companion’s outburst.

Do you really think Tarn would abandon its chief source of satincane? I hear the Gulf of Remas Company has been given two thousand marines by the decree of the Lord Protector, specifically to stamp out our little problem. We’ll see how this stinking rabble of beggars and runaways stands up against professional soldiers. I bet you it’ll be more entertaining than Lord Gratano’s annual grouse shoot.

The two men laughed, their opinion on the rebels having been made clear enough for the whole inn to hear. 

Although Tagus could see no wanted posters, his former comrade’s name seemed to be on everyone’s lips in the half-empty room.

They say he chops the limbs off small children and boils em’ in his stew pots, blurted out one spirited looking youth. His travel-stained cloak marked him out as one of the itinerant workmen that his former master had hired on occasion to fix things around the estate. Things that he did not trust his chattel with.

That stable of runaways he keeps are godless monsters, totally blood mad. They’ll kill anyone they get their hands on!

Tagus could not help from feeling amused by the young man’s dramatic gestures, as he vigorously insisted that what the region needed was more guards, and more slave patrols. 

It was then that Tagus recognized the two farmers that he had seen arguing with the priests over grain prices. They were sitting in a dark corner, having evidently come to drown their sorrows with what little coin they had left.

As the three companions proceeded, the low ceiling of the inn abruptly rose to a height of two stories above their heads, although the dingy atmosphere remained. To their left, a wooden stairway led up to a balcony which marked the entrance to the second floor. To their right stood the bar, which was lined with great oak barrels. There were several doors in this area, probably leading to back rooms.

The large, jovial looking woman behind the counter, who had a moon face as round Meno’s, abruptly stopped polishing wine glasses when the alchemist addressed her in a casual tone, as though he were an old customer.

A grand afternoon to you Maria! I’ll be having the usual: that’d be three Arawn Specials and an Eirontes Essence for me and my compatriots.

Tagus couldn’t help but notice how the gnome conspicuously ran his hand down one side of his face while placing the drink order, making a curious flicking gesture across his left temple for a split second. 

The woman’s face turned serious and she gave brisk nod.

By all means, good sir, I’ll be with ya in a minute. Please take your seats.

She gestured to an empty table not far from where the two farmers still sat talking in low voices, nursing their cups of ale. 

Meno nodded, and three of them went to sit down. The woman disappeared through a doorway behind the bar, half-hidden behind the large rack of barrels.

Aileanor finally released his hand when they reached the table, but remained protectively close.

From where he sat on the rough wooden bench, Tagus could overhear some of what the farmers were saying. He was not surprised that it too concerned Callidus, but its tone was very different from the well-to-do loudmouths in the center of the room. They were so deeply involved in their conversation that they did not seem