IMPERIAL TREACHERY

At dusk, Nyra met with General Lord Davonnii. His was the last meeting of the day.

“Am I being questioned, Commander?”

Davonnii’s question was made deadpan, but the shadow of a smirk revealed his amusement.

“No, my lord, you aren’t”, Nyra replied.

They were walking along the battlements of the Imperial Castle, and below them was the Imperial Barracks, and farther, a section of the city itself.  She had asked him about any rumors or intelligence about potential threats, anything even small that he might not have shared with Teldas or Hemdor. It had been a long shot. Davonnii had been careful with his words.

“I hear you’ve accustomed yourself with all the high and noble of the city. I take it you’ve been gentle in your probing”, Davonnii went on, now smiling. He didn’t seem to take her seriously. Or at least all the time – Nyra had seen his sharp sideway glances. He was amiable, soft-spoken even, compared to Teldas and Hemdor, and was at least trying to be helpful.

Nyra opened her mouth to answer.

“I could get you in touch with others as well, if you like”, he added and nodded to himself.

Why was he being so helpful?

It wasn’t Nyra’s habit to say no to help when any was extended to her. She wasn’t that proud.

“Much obliged, my lord”, Nyra ended up saying.

“Good. I’ve been thinking about the last time we spoke.”

“What of it?”

“You seemed put off.”

Nyra stopped, turned to the groomed officer.

“I was.. Surprised. I had expected else of Canorate. Molthune. Something more.. Straightforward and simple.”

Davonnii’s smile seemed even wider.

“You’re not a politician, Commander. Be thankful for it. You’d hate it, I imagine. Being an administrator instead of a warrior.”

“I’m a soldier of Iomedae.”

“And that is so beautifully simple. I envy you.”

The General Lord gazed upon the city and let out a long sigh.

“What would I give to only command. To rid myself of the mundane routines of leading this nation”, then: “To be free of the politicking that appalled you.”

“You aren’t interested in becoming Imperial Governor?”

Davonnii snorted. “I look up to Teldas, but the bureaucracy is no place for a soldier. Teldas plays the long game with his grand schemes to fill our expansive, resource-rich nation with loyal citizens. Fate has taken me to the highest echelons of Molthuni leadership, but to be honest, I’d rather be out there with my men, fighting, than advising the Imperial Governor how to rule. Than playing games with nobles and foreigners. I am a man of action.”

“Maybe that day will come”, Nyra said.

Davonnii nodded, tight-lipped.

“If the fates allow it, maybe.”

 

**

 

“What do we have?”

Nyra’s question to Shevar, Jocelyn, and Edvor drew no immediate replies. They were all sitting around a round table, in a small sanctum within the Cathedral of Iomedae, usually used for priests’ conferences. Outside, a new day had just dawned, but their room had no windows, only bleak stone walls covered in religious artistry and torches that burned forever, creating light but no warmth.

“A seemingly disciplined military leadership, a bunch of competing, powerful noble families and two smug cults”, Jocelyn finally said the obvious.

Edvor shook his head.

“That is just the surface, First Lance-Commander.”

Edvor had gained confidence during the past days and wasn’t a nervous boy anymore, unwilling to give voice to his own opinions. Nyra was pleased. He wanted to have people in his inner circle who believed in their own abilities. Iomedae knew she needed that belief.

Shevar signed.

<There are the cultists.>

While Nyra had been visiting noble houses, Shevar had sent the company to the streets to search for the warrior-brothers. Nyra’s information about them had been thin – both were tall and broad-shouldered, similarly built, and the other shimmered with golden light while the other had blazing eyes and a burning rune on his forehead.

It had sounded ludicrous to Nyra when she had described her vision, but it was what she had seen. How hard would it be for such people to hide? Quite, Nyra imagined, even if such people actually existed, but Shevar and the swords of faith had nonetheless scoured the city, looking for two men fitting the description. But whereas the brothers had not been found, traces of something suspicious had.

During evenings, cultists of the Asmodean cult had been seen stalking in and out of Sweet Orchard, and the Imperial Castle. They had gone in pairs, threes, and fours, seemingly randomly, but Shevar’s gut was telling her there was a pattern hidden.

Of course, Abadarans went the same ways too. Nyra wasn’t keen on jumping to conclusions too quickly.

“I don’t think the Asmodean cult is the main threat here”, Edvor started, “they might have the prestige, but being the main orchestrator of something sinister that would threaten the entire city? They don’t have the resources for anything of that scale.”

“Even if the banks are loaning them gold by the coffins?” Nyra challenged her young scribe and advisor. But he had a response ready.

“They’ll need the gold to advance their interests outside of Canorate, my lady. Build shrines, and so on. Expanding a cult is expensive.”

“What do you think is the main threat then”, Jocelyn questioned the lanky nobleman-turned-scribe.

He put his palms, the long musician’s fingers, gently on the stone table.

“I think the nobility is more restless than it appears to be. Yes, the military oligarchy has been effective the past decades when free Molthune was built, but the war with Nirmathi still goes on, demanding precious resources that should be invested in something that can grow instead of just being consumed. War is good for business, but ultimately peace and stability are better.”

“So the nobility is hatching a plan for a coup?” Jocelyn asked, impatiently suggesting a conclusion.

Edvor shrugged.

It was Nyra’s turn to shake her head.

“They don’t have the manpower and armed strength. And they are divided.”

“Seemingly divided, my lady”, Edvor pointed out.

“If the heads of the most powerful Houses are anything like Eximedes Horryn, they are all self-centered, self-serving greedy bastards.” Nyra was cold. “Such people cannot co-operate with one another.”

<That leaves us with the oligarchy itself>, Shevar signed.

<Or a player we haven’t yet identified>, Nyra signed back and sighed. Or what if the source of the darkness was something intangible?

“Damned Gorum’s bitch”, Jocelyn snarled, mainly to herself. Nyra had to share her sentiment, rude as it was. Castellan Pia Hemdor hadn’t been ecstatic to hear warriors of Iomedae patrolled the streets for a reason she wasn’t aware of. Yes, Teldas had told Nyra to seek for evidence of a threat, but she realized doing it on this scale, with the history of Hellknights still in recent memory, might have appeared excessive. And Nyra didn’t want Hemdor to know her warriors were searching for ghosts – the brothers – based on her visions alone. There had been run-ins, thankfully non-violent, where Imperial guardsmen had stopped her warriors and demanded to know what they were doing, before forcibly directing them back to the city barracks.

It didn’t matter to Hemdor and her men that Canorate was a free city and outside the gates of the Imperial Castle and Sweet Orchard, Nyra’s people could go where they damn well pleased. To them, different sort of rules seemed to apply, and it enraged Nyra.

It had required an audience with Davonnii to get Hemdor off her back, for now. Imperial Governor’s second-in-command had taken the news of the saber-rattling with mild amusement. Davonnii was still a mystery to Nyra. He had seemed open and transparent, he had helped her, but his attitude towards her was strange. As if he was observing her and her actions like she was some sort of exotic animal in a cage.

She pushed Davonnii off her mind. He was an eccentric.  She had to focus on uncovering tangible evidence of a real threat to the city for him and the Imperial Governor to take her seriously. And for Hemdor to finally give up with her passive aggression.

“Maybe Hemdor is herself hiding something. Maybe she’s afraid we’ll find out what, and that’s the reason she’s so keen on driving our company out”, Jocelyn speculated. The hawkish knight was eager to put blame on the Castellan. It would have been ironic to have the protector of the city as the main threat to its security. To Nyra, it even made sense, in a way.

“If she’s planning to overthrow Teldas, for example, she might be afraid we’d fight for the lawful ruler of the nation if it came to blows”, Nyra thought aloud.

“Which is exactly what we’d do”, Jocelyn pointed out and beamed martial pride.

“She does command the Imperial Guard of the Castle. And the rest of the Imperial armies are all far away at the borders. Even part of the city guard has been assigned to the war against Nirmathi”, Edvor reminded the others.

“She’d have free reign”, Jocelyn grumbled as her smile vanished. “To let loose all kinds of hell.”

<We don’t know if all of the city guard are loyal to her.>

“She would need to have allies outside of the city as well”, Edvor muttered.

No – blaming Hemdor was too simple, Nyra decided. Whatever she did, she’d have to face all the General Lords, not only Teldas. It couldn’t be her.

“What are we not seeing here”, she asked suddenly. “What if the hell within the gates is an individual, a rabble-rouser, or someone more dangerous? Someone who wants to spread a plague, or raise the undead? An agent of a foreign faction, like Hemdor suspected us to be?”

“What motives could such a person have, my lady?” Edvor smiled, his curiosity piqued. “Other than serving the interests of another nation.”

“Maybe there is a group or an individual from Nirmathi planning something on a massive scale?” Nyra suggested.

Shevar was signing frantically.

<There are rumors that Molthune has been terrorizing the normal folk of Nirmathi, using shock forces formed from half-breeds and monstrous outcasts to slaughter unsuspecting villages>

“Exactly”, Nyra continued the thought, “what if the Nirmathi are finally taking the fight to the citizens of Molthune? Having their revenge of terror?”

Jocelyn crossed her strong arms.

“Why would the Inheritor then want us to intervene? It’s a clash of nations. Our Lady hardly takes interest in such politics.”

A silence fell on the table as the four people all considered the options.

When Nyra spoke, she had her eyes tightly shut. She recalled her first vision.

“Our Lady told me to stop the darkness from rising, and ensure that the nation does not fall into chaos.”

Before anyone could say anything, there was a tap on the lone wooden door, and a holy knight entered. Laras was his name, and he was a native of Augustana, Nyra remembered. She knew the names and histories of all her subordinates. Laras was a fine lancer, second son of a fisherman.

He was also pale, panting and his eyes were wild. He had come in running in a hurry.

“My lady”, he addressed Nyra and bowed deeply, holding a fist over his heart. “We have serious news.”

“Spit it out, Laras”, Jocelyn commanded the man.

It’s not good, Nyra saw it in the man’s face.

“There have been deaths. Two of our soldiers have been found dead, and a third is missing.  They were a patrol that looked for the warrior-brothers.”

“What?” Jocelyn roared. Her fists ground onto the table as she got to her feet.

“Who and where”, Nyra queried calmly. All too calmly – she was surprised herself. Being in the eye of the storm and something like that.

“Tomas Metzger and Shadran Safinas were shot with arrows and stabbed in the laborers district of Lowgrove last night. Eldric Hadrianus is the one missing – he was with Tomas and Shadran.”

All three were fresh recruits from Augustana. Young people, like her. Brave, dutiful, honest. Eldric especially had great potential and a unique soul – he could be a paladin one day.

She hasn’t even reached the battlefront and already she’s losing good men and women – for what? Nyra couldn’t stop herself imagining what others would think of her. The rumors that would arise and spread among the crusading company. The dent to her credibility. It meant three new names of good crusaders in black ink to the skin of her arm.

She thought of a young boy falling into the sea, and his name at the top of the others.

Her fingers started to tap against the table.

“Who’s behind this”, Jocelyn snarled.

“My lady, we cannot say for certain. One beggar claims to have seen the back-alley fight and he called it an ambush. Ten men attacked and vanished without a trace, taking Eldric with them.” Laras turned to face Nyra and somehow even more color was drained from his face. “My lady.. The beggar says the attackers were Imperial guardsmen.”

Shevar hissed and snarled. Jocelyn’s eyes bulged and she let out a string of thundering curses before slamming the table. Edvor looked aghast, mouth half-open, watching nowhere.

Nyra’s voice was receded and trembling. “Why would they do that.. Why would they take our man-”,

Jocelyn was barely staying still. “That Gorum’s whore!”

I need to do something. Focus, Nyra!

Her head started to work as it untangled itself from the initial shock. “Cleric Stormborn, or Cleric Oldcreek – get him there immediately, a quick spell can save them, maybe raise dead, a breath of life, something-”

Edvor spoke out of turn, but he knew what he was talking about.

“My lady.. We don’t have clerics capable enough to cast such spells.”

He was right, Nyra realized. She knew only a handful of individuals who could wield such magic. And none of them were in Canorate to help her.

“But we can still communicate with them”, Edvor reminded her. Such magic existed, and it was simple enough for Nyra’s clerics. It allowed her to ask a few questions from them – enough to confirm what Laras was saying.

Was it truly so? Had Hemdor pitted her guardsmen against Nyra’s crusaders? Is she mad, the young paladin asked herself. What could possibly be her motivation?

“Bring the corpses and Cleric Stormborn here”, she said. “And get the beggar for questioning.”

Only then she noted her hands shaking uncontrollably.