Blood of the Redd Guard - Part One Page 4

  It was the utter height of insanity that the council hadn’t already let a Rahid open the portal, but since they hadn’t and it didn’t look like it would happen soon—the challenges Adar was up against would take years for him to pass—Helam had long ago made plans to go around the system.

  Most of his plans were still in motion, but their outcomes were becoming less certain with every meddlesome act of Adar. Helam was confident that if his original master plan had played out that he would have been on track to rid Rarbon of Abel Rahid and his son Adar, along with the hegemony associated with them. With them out of the way, Helam’s own path into the Portal would have been all but assured.

  But things were changing far faster than he’d anticipated.

  Adar shouldn’t have been made a general so soon. It bothered Helam that the Rarbon Council had chosen Adar over his son Molach who was the better-qualified candidate, of a more senior rank than Adar, and had proven himself time after time. Adar’s selection for the open position had taken everybody else by surprise as well.

  Even Adar had worn a shocked look on his face for a partial moment before covering it up.

  Helam’s spies on the council hadn’t been able or were refusing to yield any useful explanations. His best guess was that Abel had done something to get Adar the position, which didn’t make sense given that Abel had scorned his son in public on several occasions; Helam believed Abel to have been behind countless incidents of sabotage that had undermined Adar’s advancement.

  Why would Abel all of the sudden be supporting the efforts of his son to become Ghar when by all accounts he was jealous of Adar’s successes? Helam would have to give that some thought. Perhaps there was an angle here that he was somehow missing.

  When Helam had learned that Adar was out on patrol and wasn’t due back until tomorrow, he’d sent Birgemat and his mercenaries to lie in wait for merchant trains approaching from the south hoping to show that the venerable Adar Rahid wasn’t immune to such attacks.

  That was just the beginning of the trap, Helam planned to make it look like Adar was behind the attacks and had his own territory attacked while he was away to cast blame somewhere else.

  Lieutenant Briggs cleared his throat, but Helam didn’t look his way.

  The news that Briggs had hurried back with was disturbing yet foreseeable. This was why Helam had sent Briggs to spy on Birgemat and his brigands in the first place. Adar had a tendency to break from the script and today was no exception because he’d come back earlier than planned. There had to be a way for Helam to turn Adar’s sudden changes in the plan against him; yet another thing for Helam to mull over.

  “You’re sure that Birgemat is the one Adar took captive?” Helam asked.

  Briggs nodded. “That stupid earring of his makes him unmistakable.”

  Helam thought it over and grimaced. “How fast can you get a warrant to Jarren?”

  “Within the hour, well before they return.”

  Perhaps Briggs’ fear of Adar would give Helam a way out of this mess. It was a blow to Helam’s designs that Adar had not only captured his brigands but executed them there on the spot.

  It was a move of questionable legality, but chances were high that the other generals would be sympathetic to Adar and follow his example. This bold action would further expand the tension between the Radim armies and the Rarbon Council. It would also mean that the Rarbon Council would give Adar a harder first task on his path to becoming Ghar. Adar had known that when he’d decided to hold the execution in the field and probably hadn’t given it a second thought.

  If Helam had been in Adar’s position, he wouldn’t have done anything to make the council assign more difficult tasks. If Helam was reading things correctly, they were running out of time.

  But what’s done was done and it was further evidence of why Rarbon’s fate couldn’t be left in the hands of the Rahids.

  In fact, Helam decided he would exacerbate the schism by being one of the first to follow suit and execute some brigands in his own territory. Not only would it further his overall goal of strengthening the position of the Radim generals, it would serve to make the Council even more wary of Adar and the effect he was having in Rarbon. That would guarantee Adar an almost impossible task if Helam acted within the next few days.

  If Adar were to fail on his own before Helam’s machinations were complete, then it would be a matter of ending the Rahids altogether to ensure the hegemony was abolished.

  Biting his lip in thought, Helam made a mental note to set up the execution and returned his focus to the problem at hand. Somehow Adar had decided to take Birgemat as his captive; he was the sole man on the team that could tie the brigands back to Helam. A coincidence to be sure, but still a concerning one in light of Helam’s concerns about having a spy in his ranks.

  If Adar had any actionable information on Helam, he would have long ago done something about it. He wasn’t much for patience. Another thing that Helam should be able to turn against him given the proper preparation.

  “Who will be the one issuing the warrant?” Helam asked.

  “I will.”

  Helam looked at Briggs appraisingly. “You sure you’re up for that?” Adar’s full attention would be turned to Briggs once the warrant came to light and by association, Helam as well. Given more time, Helam and Briggs would have been able to lay the groundwork for something more elaborate that would lead back to somebody who didn’t report to Helam, but that wasn’t an option.

  There wasn’t much Helam could do to keep Adar from being suspicious of him anyway, that ship had sailed when Helam had taken advantage of Adar while he’d been drunk after his victory.

  What a stupid mistake that had been. Not only did it mean that Adar was keeping an eye on him, Helam had it on good authority that Adar hadn’t touched alcohol since. Helam would have been able to do a lot more damage if Adar still had an over-fondness for wine. The information Helam had learned from Adar that night had come with a high cost and he wasn’t certain that it had been worth it.

  Birgemat would talk eventually, if he didn’t spit out what he knew right away to save his own skin; either way it would be a matter of time. If Birgemat wasn’t dealt with, Helam would have to move his own plans up, perhaps even resorting to his final fallback plan.

  If they moved fast though, they could plant a warrant for Birgemat’s arrest. That would connect Birgemat to one of Helam’s men but avoid giving Adar actual evidence.

  “Do it. If our guy isn’t able to plant it in time, give him orders to kill Birgemat.” Helam looked at Briggs. “In that eventuality make Jarren’s death look like the work of thieves.”

  “Sir?”

  “How many times have I told you? You have an opinion? Spit it out.”

  “We could skip the warrant altogether,” Briggs said with a stutter, he was still unused to the way that Helam did things, but he’d get over his hesitation with time. Many people in authority didn’t like their subordinates to speak their minds, but Helam had found that to be a terrible waste. He even let his men go so far to call his own ideas stupid as long as their tone and manner didn’t undermine his authority. “There would be less risk with that.”

  The thought had also occurred to Helam, but he’d discarded it. His spy was too well placed to throw him away for something like this; it would be a shame to lose his inside source of information on Adar.

  No, Briggs could handle the questions that would come with the warrant and so could Helam if it came to that. Helam would be taken by Melyah before he’d trust their fate to the hands of a Rahid.

  “A good thought, but too dire. You have your orders.”

  Chapter 4

  The warm breeze blew in through the open Rarbon Palace doors that were double the height and twice the width of a normal door, it caressed the face of Nelion Torez as it passed by and she sighed when she felt the warm breath of air.

  Spending all day inside perusing ancient scrolls a
nd books wasn’t how she preferred to spend her time, but it was what she had signed up for. She’d been hoping to find definitive proof that the Hunwei had existed and were going to return, but she seemed destined to spend her time working through old dusty tomes that provided anything but certainty because the authors all worked from the assumption that the Hunwei were real.

  Neither of the guards standing to either side of the open doors took notice of her as she stepped past them and out into the courtyard. As soon as she stepped outside, she realized that she’d left her bag back in the Palace Archives and turned to go back the way she’d left, only to find two spears blocking her path.

  The guards stared at her with cold expressions. She blushed. How could she have forgotten so quickly? She’d done the same thing just last week. Lucky for her, it had been a different set of guards on duty. Twice was just embarrassing.

  “This is not the entrance,” said the guard to her right. Their uniforms were dark blue and their armor gleamed with the light of the falling sun. “If you need to go back in, you must use the north or south entrance. The hour is late and unless you have an invite to the ball you’ll have to run to make it in time.”

  She muttered her apologies and left, cursing under her breath. The last time she’d almost taken a spear in the gut; the guard at the other end had been wearing a hopeful look on his face and she’d been curt rather than apologetic.

  Ever since she’d taken this job as a scribe working for Professor Semal, she’d become more prone to getting lost in her thoughts. What would her mother say if she’d been here to witness this little forgetful episode? Nelion didn’t want to know. What were the chances that the story would get around?

  Melyah, she thought, it’s almost guaranteed since I’ve done it twice now. She hoped it didn’t, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

  The guard was right about the lateness of the hour, she’d have to wait until tomorrow to retrieve her bag. She sighed again when the fact that it was almost sunset registered with her. She’d noticed it earlier, but the fact hadn’t set in until now.

  As much as she enjoyed helping Professor Semal probe the secrets of the past, at times she found herself missing Korew army. It had been weeks since she'd last made the trip up to the civilian lookout atop the Inner Wall to see the sunset. When she'd been a soldier, she'd volunteered for guard duty at night on the walls as often as she could, just so she could observe the sun's slow descent until it disappeared.

  There was a moment every clear evening when the sun would illuminate the walls and Rarbon Palace in such a way that the whole city seemed to glow. When it happened, she would savor it until it disappeared.

  Her rotation had been on the Outer Wall, which gave her quite a view of the surrounding countryside and the mountains in the distance. Now, the only time she could find anything approaching it was on the Inner Wall at the place civilians were allowed up. The view wasn’t quite as fantastic from there, but it was better than not experiencing it at all.

  What she would have given to be up on the Outer Wall right now. There had been a time or two over the last month when she’d been tempted to enlist again, but she’d decided that it had been a passing fancy because she still wasn’t used to all the time indoors. Besides, she wasn’t ready to enlist until she’d sorted out this whole business about the Hunwei returning.

  Much of what the Radim armies did was geared towards protecting against that event. When she’d signed up for Korew army, she’d known that the belief in the Hunwei’s return guided what the armies did, but she’d had no idea the extent to which the beliefs had been ingrained into every last action.

  Once she’d realized the truth, the customs of Rarbon and its citizens began to take on a different perspective. From the way that homes and apartment buildings had gardens instead of roofs, to the fact that there was little in the way landscaping within the city that didn’t focus on fruit or vegetable bearing plants, to the full integration of the military into the political structure of Rarbon, almost everything was done because of a belief that the Hunwei would return from the stars and that the people of Rarbon would need to protect themselves when they did.

  Nelion wasn’t the only person that had doubts about the impending doom of a Hunwei strike. Evidence of the growing disbelief was all around. The Hunwei had become a joke to a lot of the civilians. Many of the rooftop gardens were overgrown with weeds and the Rarbon Council was always looking for ways to limit the power of the Radim armies. While she’d seen little evidence of doubts while on duty during her time in Korew army, she’d witnessed it firsthand in many private conversations.

  She couldn’t swear to the Radim Oaths if everything they were based on was a lie.

  While she couldn’t say for certain that her decision to not take the Radim Oaths had been wrong, she did miss that natural tan color her skin had taken on from all her exposure to the sun, and it had been a long time since her last breath of fresh air unencumbered by the smells of the city.

  Instead, as her skin returned to its normal pale color, she'd been cooped up in a large room all day that was beginning to feel small because of the ever increasing number of books that Semal kept bringing in to add to her research projects.

  At first the assignments had been fun, even exciting, and they'd been a welcome break to the hard labor of a soldier’s life. But as time wore on, she began to recognize that while Semal was intelligent, and the smartest person she knew, the research he was giving her to do lacked any focus on the area she was interested in studying.

  Semal took the existence of the Hunwei for granted and spent his time researching any scrap of document that could provide insight as to their plans and how to fight them.

  One hour Semal would ask her to look up all known translations for an ancient word, focusing on various idiomatic uses. Then the next, he'd be asking her to see if she could find historical records detailing the strategies the Hunwei had used at the end of the Hunwei War just before the Severing. It was exhausting and by the end of the day, she found that working on answering her own questions could wait.

  Nelion stopped when she spotted her mother sitting at one of the stone tables that dotted the courtyard of the palace. Without realizing what she was doing, she started to reach for where she kept a dagger on her belt and stopped before her hand had reached it. Her mother had never threatened her or given her a cause to suspect violent intent, but being around her mother made her hackles go up. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to stop herself from reaching for a weapon when her mother had surprised her.

  Stifling a sigh of resignation, she made eye contact with her mother who gave her a thin smile and beckoned her over. As she approached, she stiffened when she thought of her mistake moments before at the Palace doors and hoped that her mother hadn’t witnessed her trying to enter through the wrong doors and getting turned back at the point of a spear. In many ways, Nelion was a disappointment to her mother, and she was fine with that, but she didn’t want her mother to think of her as stupid as well.

  There were flower gardens between where her mother sat and the east entrance Nelion had come from and she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to determine if her mother had been able to see anything. If her mother had, she wouldn’t bring it up directly, not at first.

  Nelion hoped she could navigate the coming conversation without letting her mother feel like she was in a hurry. She had agreed to meet up with Semal and Kyson—another scribe—at the Paroke Army archives to help them look for several old ledgers. She didn't have time to get drawn into another long discussion with her mother about her future and the plans that she needed to be making.

  The thought of looking for the ledgers made her quicken her step; she was anxious to be done with her mother. The secretive group known as the Kopal had communicated via ledgers and other innocuous documents. Even though the Kopal had been exterminated years ago, she felt a thrill at the thought of tracking down dangerous secret
s from the recent past. Semal had noticed her excitement and told her that they most likely wouldn’t find anything interesting, just bits of hidden code buried in ledgers that were decades old.

  Taking a deep breath and doing her best to relax, Nelion sat beside her mother, shifting her dagger as she did. The movement wasn't lost on her mother and Nelion could see her mother was satisfied that she didn't go around unarmed. The look disappeared when her mother took in her dress. The only time she’d seen her mother wear a dress had been at her father’s funeral and that had lasted until the funeral was over. While it galled Nelion to do anything that satisfied her mother, she felt naked without the dagger on her side and the other two thin ones she kept secreted away in her boots.

  Nelion wasn’t surprised to see that her mother still wore her sword. The worn black hilt peeked up over her back. Nelion had been hoping that her mother wouldn’t follow after that particular fashion of retired generals and other high-ranking officers. When she had brought up the matter up with her mother, she’d become indignant and said that a certain amount of dignity was now attached to the name Mien Torez and she wouldn’t do anything different than the other retired military officers. It worried Nelion to see her mother still so entrenched in that world. It had been six months since her retirement, it was time for her to enjoy the quiet days of her life.

  “I wasn't expecting you,” Nelion said, her smile wide enough it felt like her lips might crack from the effort. “You should have let me know. I could have left the Archives sooner.”

  Her mother smiled. It was small and cold; a hint of it touching the rest of her face. “Can't a mother drop in to see her daughter? I have some time before the ball starts and I wanted to see how your work with Semal was going.” There was a slight hint of distaste around Semal’s name, and Nelion believed that nobody else would have noticed it. Her mother hadn’t been happy when Nelion had refused to take the oaths that would have bound her to Korew army for the rest of her functional adult life.