Chapter 1247: The great hunger(3)
Chapter 1247: The great hunger(3)
They walked through the streets of a conquered and tamed city, the heavy crunch of Vilon’s iron boots keeping rhythm with the lighter footfalls of the legionaries. Vilon kept to one side of the grand road, his hazel eyes drifting upward to watch the wooden tenements that peered down from either side of the thoroughfare, leaning over the cobbles like old men huddled in prayer.
Most of his life, he and his father had evading cities entirely. Cities meant gates, gates meant toll-collectors, and tolls meant parting with coins they rarely had. It was hard to find honest work for a hedge knight within stone walls, unless a jousting tourney was being held. In those rare, golden moments, his father would always confidently pay the entry toll, strut into the lists with his chest puffed out, lose his very first match, and spend the night drinking away their last copper while muttering, "Next time will be ours, boy. Next time."
But it had never been their time.
As Vilon gazed at the sheer scale of Oizen, with its double ring of towering stone walls and a vast, labyrinthine maze of houses, taverns, and shuttered merchant stalls that had just recently begun to open, he wondered what the sight would have been like had he been among the vanguard storming the gates, with stones and arrows falling down at him.
He knew what awaited a city after sieges. Did he have the actual spirit to do what that entailed? Rape, Looting , killing of actuall innocents. Could he actually do it?
The eerie, fragile peace that reigned now would have been broken like glass then. He could almost see it: women clutching screaming children, running like frightened chickens across the lanes; men with blood-drunk, hungry eyes bashing down heavy oak doors to take their brutal rights as victors until every gutter ran red.
Never partecipated in a looting, but he knew if he kept on this road he would inevitably do.
There would have been a different kind of slaughter, too, the slaves turning on their masters. Prince Sorza may have promised them their freedom to man the battlements, but once the walls turned to shit, those bondsmen would have been the first to either throw down their weapons or slaughter their owners to ingratiate themselves with the conquerors.
And they likely would have found a sympathetic ear. The King of Yarzat was well known to despise slavery.
He never sold captured enemies into chains, strictly forbade the buying or selling of Yarzat born flesh on Yarzat soil, and levied taxes on any trade or estate that utilized slave labor for anything outside of basic farming. Now that Oizen was part of Yarzat, the same would happen.
Vilon wondered idly how many slaves even remained in the Yarzat capital. He had never owned a man, nor really seen one in chains; small, muddy villages had no use for such expensive property. Slavery was a disease of the deep cities, where fat merchants used men to carry their silk wares, or sometimes treated the men themselves as the ware.
Could I have been a slave? the thought crept in, cold and intrusive. He had been a mere babe when he was given to his father, born in a back-alley village where a desperate woman had whored herself to a passing hedge knight.
The union had no legal basis. Vilon was technically born of a free man, but in the lawless corners of the world, what had really stopped his father from claiming otherwise? What stopped him from selling a quiet, thick-skulled boy to a passing caravan for a handful of silver?
Nothing, really. Blood, after all, did not speak. Though high-born lords liked to boast that it did, Vilon had seen princes with noble blood act like cruel monsters, and simple commoners show a dignity that belonged in a palace.
He was a bastard, and the priest of the Five Gods always preached that bastards were born with wicked, twisted blood. Yet, Vilon did not feel wicked. He didn’t think himself evil or cruel, even if the stain of his birth was as permanent as the iron on his back.
A sharp, rattling cackle shattered his brooding. Vilon blinked, turning his massive head toward Drustan. The regular legionary was looking up at him, repeating himself after Vilon offered nothing but a muffled, confused "What?"
"I asked if you’ve ever laid eyes on him?" Drustan barked, shifting his halberd to his other shoulder.
"Who?"
"The bloody damn ’Mad Bull,’ who else?" Drustan said, his open visor revealing a grin that was half-mocking, half-awed. "You said you’re a Kakunian. Have you ever actually taken a glimpse at the monster?"
Vilon nodded slowly, the memory of a looming, golden-clad figure rising in his mind. "Twice, really."
"So many?" Drustan asked, his eyebrows shooting up as he tilted his helmeted head. "And? Is he as massive as the stories say? They say he eats the hearts and bathe himself in their ashes?"
"He is no monster," Vilon said, his voice dropping into a firm, stubborn rumble. "He is a generous, brave, and kind man."
"On brave, we certainly agree," Drustan scoffed, chewing rhythmically on his piece of lard. "I’ve heard enough rumors about what he did at Epietoli and the Ford to know the man has a demon’s courage. And generous? Sure, lords are rich enough to throw gold at their problems. But kind?" He burst into a loud, mocking laugh, the sound echoing off the stone walls of the alley as if he had just heard a jester’s best punchline. "A kind warlord! That’s a good one, Ser."
Vilon didn’t laugh. His jaw tightened.
Merelao had been graceful and kind to him.He was a godly man. Who else in the entire South would have stopped more than a look to speak with a tattered, muddy giant riding a dying horse, a boy who could do nothing but stammer a clumsy claim to knighthood?
Merelao hadn’t laughed. He had listened with a strange, courtly grace, and he had given him the very armor Vilon was wearing for the battle. The only reason Vilon now possessed a proper, strong-backed destrier, a balanced sword, and a purse of heavy coins was because of that fateful meeting, a meeting where he had originally stood with a dozen Kakunian spears aimed at a dozen different parts of his flesh, all of them deadly.
"What’s he like?" Drustan suddenly asked, lurching closer until the iron plate of his shoulder brushed against Vilon’s arm. "I’ve heard a thousand different descriptions of the man. Some say he’s as beautiful as a temple angel and as fickle as a wildfire. Others swear he’s mad in blood and cruel in steel. I even heard a rumor from a scout that he likes to pluck the eyes out of his victims and impale them on his helmet horns. Now, isn’t that complete nonsense?’’ He chuckled’’ Anyway, what’s your take on him?"
"You just said there were a thousand different stories," Vilon replied, his voice a slow, steady rumble as he kept his eyes on the cobbled road ahead. "What need have you of mine?"
Drustan shrugged, the iron links of his gorget rattling. "Better to make my own judgment from a thousand and one tales than just a thousand."
I suppose that’s a fair way to look at it, Vilon reflected.
He took his sweet time thinking it over, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the stone. It was hard to find the right words to capture what a man like Merelao represented. It wasn’t like describing a horse or a castle wall where everyone could look and agree on the dimensions; it was trying to describe something only you had beheld in a moment of pure terror and grace.Something that only you held.
"A flame that always burns," Vilon said once he got his thoughts straight.
Drustan turned his head, his deep-set eyes squinting with sudden interest beneath the brim of his open visor. "What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said. A flame that always burns, whether someone is watching it or not," Vilon explained, his northern accent softening slightly as he remembered the gold-clad lord. "I saw him in the midst of the bloodshed at the Ford, and I saw him in a quiet moment of peace when he had absolutely nothing to gain or lose from a peasant like me. I couldn’t find a single difference in him between those two places. Most men shine bright when the court is watching them, and then they go dark and small when they are alone in the tents. His lordship... I think he is always burning."
Vilon turned his massive head to look down at the regular legionary, wondering if this truly was the thousand-and-first description Drustan had been hunting for. From the sudden seriousness on the veteran’s square face, it seemed it was.
"And you gathered all of that from just two meetings?" Drustan asked, a hint of skepticism filtering back into his tone.
Vilon shrugged his broad shoulders. "You asked for an opinion, not the absolute truth. That is mine. Was it not what you were seeking?"
"I really didn’t seek anything in particular," Drustan sighed, shifting the weight of his heavy halberd as they rounded a corner into a wider thoroughfare. "There have just been rumors,dark ones, you could say, about the Bull. I wanted to see if the man lived up to the myth." He passed a gauntleted hand through the back of his neck, the metal scraping against his coarse hair. "Especially considering the interest our new King has for him. We just won this damn war, and yet another one is already looming on the horizon."
A heavy silence settled between them for a moment, filled only by the distant, echoing shouts of other patrols.
"It was especially bloody for my brothers in the Third," Drustan continued, his voice dropping into a somber, gravelly register. "More than half of our legion is gone. Nothing left but empty tents and broken helmets.Lost many good brothers in this black soil. It’s going to be nothing but green boys we’ll have to train up from the plow once more when we get back to Yarzat. I lost a lot of good friends to those Oizenian fuckers.Should have really sacked and burned this fucking city..."
"War is death," Vilon said softly, thinking that was something wise to say.
"Aye," Drustan muttered, his grip tightening on his weapon. "But at least at the Bastion, we knew who we were killing and why. Now? If we ride North with your Mad Bull, we’ll be bleeding for Kakunian silver and a foreign throne. It makes a man wonder when the marching ever stops." He broke off, shaking his head as if to clear the ghosts, before squinting down the long avenue. "Still Kakunians marched down for us, only fair we exchange favor. We haven’t got a lucky strike with foreign war you know?The previous Hounds’ commanders died fighting in the Romelian civil war. Nasty business that one.
Hope we ain’t gonne lose another fighting for your lord and his rebellion. ’’ He sighed and raised his head’’ There. Look there. See those high timber frames past the market? That’s the start of the granary square. We’re close to the eastern gate now."
Vilon saw the cluster of campfires and tents in the distance, and somehow, against all logic, a fragile sprout of hope bloomed in his chest. He had no real reason for it; there was absolutely no way of knowing whether Owen was among that particular rabble of crownland levies.
"Well, I think that’s my cue to turn back," Drustan said, halting on the cobbles and squinting toward the eastern quarter. He leaned on his halberd, giving the massive Kakunian knight a long look.
"Thank you for the kindness," Vilon said, offering a deep, grateful nod. He looked past the regular soldier toward the sea of canvas tents being raised against the ancient stone walls of the city they had conquered.
"Don’t sweat it, big man. Didn’t have much else to do on a freezing morning," Drustan muttered, though his eyes lingered on Vilon’s face. "Still... what are you going to do, by the way?"
Vilon blinked, the wind whistling through his visor. "With what?"
"After this war. When the King signs the papers and the marching stops, what are you going to do?"
The question caught Vilon square in the chest. He opened his mouth to give a quick answer, only to find... he didn’t have a plan. Not a real one. His grand strategy ended with finding Owen, asking the lad to be his squire, and then... taking the road.As wandering knights do. But to where? What did a hedge knight do when the war of the century finally went cold?
"Will you continue serving the Lord of Epietoli?" Drustan suggested, misinterpreting the blank look on Vilon’s face. "There’s bound to be a bloody circus up north in Kakunia. Plenty of silver and luck to be had for a freelancer with a sword that long."
I am not a sell-sword.
"The Kakunian army will probably disband once we touch home soil," Vilon rumbled softly, his eyes tracing the gray smoke of the campfires. "I could perhaps try my luck in the spring, once the lords muster their men again... though I have to say, the trade of war doesn’t really appeal to me anymore."
Drustan gave him a long look, as if asking what else was the trade of a knight.
"Well... our Prince just became a King," Drustan offered, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper.
Vilon looked down at the regular legionary with a strange, puzzled gaze. The man must be profoundly proud of his country’s fortunes to keep repeating that title over and over again like a holy mantra.
Drustan saw the blankness in the giant’s eyes and let out a dry, rattling chuckle, realizing he was entirely missing the point. "Come on, Ser Knight. Use that big head of yours. When something as massive as a coronation happens on a battlefield, certain things are bound to follow. I’m no high-born lord, but even a trench-rat knows how the lords play the game."
"Follow? What do—" Vilon started, the question dying on his tongue as the gears in his thick brain finally ground together and clicked into place.
He realized it then.
The very thing his father had chased across every tournament field. Was Yarzat really going to launch one?
A tournament.