Sarkiades: The Echoes of Resolution
Part 5: The Return
“What do you think of his tale?” Nestullius asked, as much to break the oppressive silence that had fallen over the throne room as from sincere curiosity.
“Even if he didn't come with documents spelling out exactly what the Ukni intend to do, I trust Sarkiades as much as any of the men in this chamber.” King Telemeus answered. “The veracity of his account, if not the precise interpretation, is beyond dispute in my eyes. Furthermore, exempting the appearance of the Shugatyad, everything he's said seems to accord with our other intelligence sources. We'd been wearing circuits through the marble trying to figure out why King Vatrevian had suddenly gone mute at the exact moment our greatest enemy launched a full scale invasion of his kingdom. The only reason we sent Sarkiades down there instead of half a dozen more qualified diplomats was that many of you thought Vatrevian was in league with the Dark God, and wanted to make sure that our ambassador had the skills and willpower to take initiative should the worst come to bear. Given that we can now feel fairly certain that he wasn't working with the enemy, the most plausible explanation for Vatrevian's silence is that he'd uncovered intelligence that Lyst was the Ukni's primary target. If Arikhe had not torn down the walls of Piristrus; if Vatrevian had been able to draw out that siege for months or years, then it is not difficult to imagine a situation where the enemy's desire to capture Lyst could used to lure them away from his capital. Sarkiades had indicated that all of the mountain fortresses were manned at full capacity, though he believed this to be a result of the influx of refugees. It is also possible that Vatrevian understood that those passes through the Lianin were his best chance of victory. After all, it doesn't matter how large your army is when they're moving three abreast through a narrow defile.”
“But a Shugatyad?” Nestullius asked. “Nobody has seen any trace of the order for generations. For one of their mages to appear from the ether, slaughter an Onguloch, and then disappear into the forest in the company of two men in Ukni uniforms seems beyond absurd.”
“Then let us pull our thoughts away from the order and find some firmer ground to rest upon. We know with certainty that the enemy entered the Velian Plains with an Onguloch that was built to bring down city walls. Given that we've seen no sign of the creature since the siege on Piristrus, and that any sensible general would be making use of Arikhe's abilities, it seems reasonably certain that the beast is dead. Now, if King Vatrevian had had the means to slay the Onguloch himself, then he certainly would not have waited until he was dead and his city was in ruins to make use of it. Given just these three pieces of information, Sarkiades' story about a single, independent mage slaying Arikhe is the most sensible account available to us. Thus, the only real question is whether this mage is truly of the Shugatyad order, or whether there is another, equally powerful, equally strange school of magic whose practitioners chose this exact moment to reveal themselves. In either case, however, our situation remains fundamentally the same.” Telemeus said.
“Then what will we do?” Nestullius asked.
“That, my friend, is where my confidence falls silent. The best reason I can think of for the Ukni to create such a painfully detailed mock-up of our city walls would be in the service of a lightning advance over the Velian immediately after Piristrus fell; using the Onguloch to tear down our walls so that the elite strike force they've been training can rush the royal palace, slaying me before I've had the chance to take any, shall we say drastic action. If the Dark God held the Gates of Menneas, then he'd be able to quickly build a pontoon bridge linking us to Fostrii and his army would have an overland route straight to the walls of Stakalphis.”
“And now that Arikhe's dead?”
“I believe that Sarkiades' mage has purchased us some time, nothing more. That does not mean that I'm not grateful for the Onguloch's demise, as we have every reason to believe it would have been just as effective against our walls as it was against Piristrus. Rather, it would be better to say that I don't believe that Saklugz would go through all the trouble of reconstructing our city in the heart of his empire without having a few contingency plans in case everything went to hell.”
“So what should we do from here?” Nestullius asked.
“Well the cost of ferrying those refugees has taken a hefty bite out of my treasury, but that doesn't mean that there haven't been a few fringe benefits from this ordeal. Our own intelligence network has always been laughably inferior to the major powers, but if I'm not mistaken just this morning you were telling me about a boat bearing two dozen of Vatrevian's spies swearing allegiance to us in their lord's absence. Given all that, my first order is the immediate integration of every Piristran spy at our disposal into our own network, at which point we will set them to work discovering everything they can about the Shugatyad and his two companions.”
“Do you really think they can save us?”
“No.” Telemeus answered. “Or, at the very least, I do not think that we should depend upon their intervention. The Shugatyads are justly renowned as the Dark God's greatest enemies: the one order of mages that can invoke fear in the Tower of Dissak. However, their reputation as a cryptic band of unpredictable lunatics is equally deserved. It is just as likely that those two men in Ukni uniform were carefully placed spies acting out a long-rehearsed plan to draw Arikhe from the city as that they were two random Ukni soldiers whom he happened to take pity on. The Shugatyads have a deep reverence for the pacts of defense that their ancestors made with ours, but they do not understand them in the same way that we do. Were that mage to be standing on our walls when the enemy arrive, then I have no doubt that he would fight for us with the same fervor as my most loyal soldiers. However, that same mage could just as easily spend months in the forest following some mad impulse without the slightest thought for our survival.”
“What are we to do then, sit around and wait to see whether he comes to rescue us before or after our city's been destroyed?”
“No. We prepare as best as we are able under the assumption that we're on our own. As we're doing that, we throw every free resource at our disposal into learning the identities of those two men in Ukni armor. Our best chance at discerning the Shugatyad's intent rests with them.”
Sarkiades found himself gasping for air as he made his way up the battlements. There could be no denying that his time as an ambassador had softened him. It was often said that the walls of Lyst were the source of that distinct combination of austerity and egalitarianism that characterized his people. Every male citizen, be they a king or a commoner, had to make regular trips up those grueling stairs, and the threat of being seen gasping and wheezing as the mountain herdsman who made up the bulk of the infantry rushed past was enough to stifle the pompousness and gluttony that often came over the high and mighty.
Still, he was glad to be back. After hearing his story, King Telemeus had offered him a position on the royal council, but he'd refused it. In better times, he might not have been able to resist the call of such a prestigious posting, but a storm was coming from the north. The strength of every child of Naviras would soon be tested, be they man or woman, peasant or noble. The only real question was where he'd be standing in the hour of his trial, and if his experience at Piristrus had taught him nothing else, it was that he'd much rather pay the price his city demanded of him up here, where there was at least the delusion that a single warrior's skill could affect the outcome of a war of hundreds of thousands.
Sarkiades walked over to the rail, looking down upon the bedlam in the harbor. Dozens of ships struggled over a few meager slips that, in better times, would have barely seen this much traffic over the course of an entire day. His eyes caught upon one particularly aggressive vessel shoving it's way out of the press, and he wondered whether it might be Targan and his crew. Without a navy worthy of the name, King Telemeus said that he'd be unable to bestow the kind of posting deserving of their heroic efforts, but that he would send a letter in his personal seal to Soledis of Boronea, the city's newly elected strategos, attesting to their skill and valor. In the meantime, however, the needs of the evacuation were such that he implored them to lend their aid.
Looking further out, Sarkiades was shocked at how calm and familiar the hazy outline of Fostrii's walls looked. If it weren't for the scene in the harbor, he could almost believe that things were just as they were before he'd left. That the horror's he'd witnessed were the problems of Piristrus and the other power players. That if he simply planted his feet upon these ancient stones and returned to his old duties, everything would go back to the way it had always been.
It was a lie, of course. Sarkiades let his gaze drift even further out, to the distant silhouettes of the Lianin Mountains, imagining the thousands of enemy soldiers gathering behind them for the coming war. Further still, he could just barely make out the hazy green of the Silipian Forest rubbing up against the mountain's foothills, and he found himself wondering whether the Shugatyad was out there somewhere, waiting for the opportunity to reveal himself to the adversary in earnest.
He'd heard enough tales of the order to feel confident that, eventually, the mage would move openly against the Dark God. However, those same stories made it abundantly clear that such an encounter would happen on the Shugatyad's own terms. Whether that was before or after the tiny city that was his home was devoured in the fires of war was another question entirely.
Sarkiades let the matter rest. The good thing about being a soldier was that the only things you really needed to worry about were whether you were standing where you were supposed to be standing, and whether your sword found it's way into the soft flesh beneath your enemy's armor. After everything he'd gone through, not having to think about whether his decisions would change the fate of nations seemed about as good as warm meat and cold ale on a feast day, which was nice because the way things were going he doubted there'd be much cause for celebration.
"Sarkiades: The Echoes of Resolution" has been published freely online in order to introduce readers to the world of the "Under the Burning Tower" series. Because of this, hiring an editor for the project simply isn't feasible. If you happen across any typographical or grammatical errors while reading, especially if you see something that looks like a missing paragraph, please feel free to reach out and let me know.
