Page 78 of Of Empires and Dust

A man bumped into Rist’s shoulder, apologising profusely, his hand covering his mouth with a cloth. The man’s eyes were bloodshot and weeping, yellow crusts forming along his lids. Dark lesions cracked outwards from behind the cloth.

Rist had read about illness and squalor inThe Art of War. There were entire chapters dedicated to the collapse of cities without the swing of a single blade. The logic had been sound. If you forced enough of your enemies into a single place where the infrastructure could no longer contain them, collapse would ensue. Space would vanish, food would be consumed faster than it could be produced, and illness would spread. When you finally marched your armies through the gates, the city would already be crumbling, more akin to a tomb than a fortress.

The way Sumara Tuzan had written it, it had seemed almost poetic. Intellect over brute force. A masterful method of taking a city without losing a soul. But this was not poetic or masterful; this was brutal, and cruel, and horrid.

Two men passed, dragging a woman in a barrow lined with straw. Both men stared at the ground, their hands bloody and cracked around the wooden handles.

The woman was dead. Her legs had been shattered from the knees down, bandages and splints failing to hold the broken bones together. Had Rist not seen battle, he wouldn’t have known she was dead just by looking. But he knew what dead bodies looked like now. Her skin was too pale, her chest had no rise or fall, and she was far too still.

“If the Uraks or elves attack, all of these people will be slaughtered…”

Garramon didn’t answer. It hadn’t been a question. There was no other outcome. If the city’s gates were already closed, then Berona was close to bursting. If the guards opened the gates and let these people in, their fate would be sealed. Sure, they would avoid a quick death beneath Urak or elven steel, but disease would spread like wildfire, starvation would kill within weeks, and then the corpses would pile.

Rist did not envy the man or woman who would be forced to make that choice. Open the gates and invite a slow death to all within, or leave the gates closed and watch these people die at the walls.

“Is this what it’s like in the South?” Rist stared at a motionless man who lay on the ground by a tent as a blend of sunlight and pink-hued moonlight crept in through the gaps in the shanties. His hands, feet, eyes, and mouth were marred by deep black stains.Consumption.

“From what I hear, no,” Garramon answered. “Though some places are faring worse than others, the Uraks seemed to have focused a large portion of their efforts in the North.” Garramon looked to Rist, slowly understanding the true meaning behind his question. His mouth formed a grim line, and he hesitated before continuing. “I’ve not heard word from The Glade or the other villages. No new letters, no new reports.”

Rist stared back at Garramon before shifting his gaze to the faces that peered from shanty doorways, dirty and disheveled.

His heart hurt.

After Ilnaen, he would have given anything just to hear his mam’s over-enthusiastic voice or have his dad spend hours explaining how the pollen of different flowers affected the taste of honey and, in turn, mead.

“There are several armies stationed in western Illyanara,” Garramon continued. “I’m sure your parents are fine. Between the Uraks and the elves, news from the South has grown scarce. The best we can do is keep fighting here and trust our forces in the South to do the same.”

“I wouldn’t be allowed to go back even if I wanted to, would I?” Rist knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it spoken aloud. He needed to hear it from Garramon’s lips.

Garramon hesitated, then shook his head. “Not unless you were instructed to do so. You would be branded a deserter.”

Deserters were killed. He knew this from Orduro Alanta’sThe Forging of an Empire, butThe Art of Warhad also recommended the execution of any deserters from a standing army. He understood the principle: if soldiers could abandon their duty with no repercussions, an army would quickly crumble and wither at the first sight of hardship. The overarching threat of repercussion was what kept society from collapse. It was practiced by mothers and fathers to keep children on the correct path. And it was often the only deterrent from theft or murder – which was a sobering thought in itself. It was a sound principle for the moral framework of a society. But just because he understood it didn’t mean he liked it.

It was something he was finding to be true more often than not recently: the written word had a distance from the reality of things. A way of focusing on cold, hard logic with no allowance for the humanity of an act. Logic had always been something Rist cherished. It was essential and inarguable. But his recent experiences were tarnishing his love of logic.

“Rist?” Garramon leaned forwards, meeting Rist’s gaze.

Rist gave him a weak smile, nodding. He didn’t want to talk on it any further.

Over a hundred spearmen were arranged in two blocks on either side of Berona’s main gates, their backs stiff, eyes watching. A number of Varsundi Blackthorns stood at the ready, towering over any refugee who dared approach the gates. Above, archers lined the parapets.

Soldiers of the First and Fourth armies marched through the assembled guard and into the city, the spikes of the iron portcullis looming overhead.

“Where are we going?” Rist asked as they pushed through the crowded streets. The stench of piss blended noxiously with what should have been the sweet aroma of fresh-baked bread, the acrid sting of vomit dulling the scents of lavender and rosemary that Rist was sure would have been beautiful in a time before the war.

“You’re asking that now?”

“I wanted to change the subject.” Rist hadn’t asked the question when he and Garramon had first set off from the camp. It hadn’t seemed important. Wherever Garramon was taking him, he wouldn’t have had much choice in the matter either way. He may have earned his colours, but Garramon was still an Exarch and he was still Rist’s mentor. Besides, he trusted the man.

Garramon laughed at that, shaking his head. His expression sobered. “You’ll see soon enough. Come, we’re late.”

As Garramon ledRist through the Beronan streets and past the enormous keep at the city’s centre, it didn’t take Rist long to realise where he was being brought.

A tower rose in the northeast of the city. Carved from white stone, it stood three times the height of all else around it, a low cloud obscuring its peak. Sweeping bridges and broad walkways sprawled from its base as though the tower was the centre point of all life within Berona’s walls. Not even Al’Nasla’s palace pulled the breath from Rist’s lungs the way the High Tower did. It was easily hundreds of feet wide with markings and symbols etched into the stone, red and black banners flapping in the wind. Balconies and plateaus stretched outwards from arched openings, overlooking the city from impossible heights.

But more than what he could see with his eyes, the closer he drew to the tower the fiercer the air rippled with the energy of the Spark. In Al’Nasla, Emperor Mortem had spoken of how Berona – like the capital – was one of few cities where the very fabric of the world resonated with the Spark’s power for those who could feel it.

Rist had spent so long in Al’Nasla that the sensation had become little more than background noise in his mind, like the burbling of a river or the chatter in an inn. It had been the same when he’d first stepped through Berona’s gates, but with each step towards the tower, that thrum rose and deepened until it became a tangible thing, a sound rushing in his ears, a sensation burning in his blood. Al’Nasla was a trickle, a meagre drip, in comparison.

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