Chapter Eleven: A New Day

With the battle of Arkaius over and many dead, Leogun and his friends begin to plan their next step.

Slowly, Leogun came back to his wits. Light from the window washed over him, and he realized over time that he was still in Taisa’s room in the embassy. He sat up, reaching for his staff and limping out of the room, back towards the main foyer of the palatial building. He emerged from the hallway to see the destruction of the embassy.
Rocks and debris covered the floor, and bodies were everywhere. By now, most of them had been thrown into a pile of slowly-rotting corpses in the corner of the room, but others were still crushed by fallen shards of the ceiling. A number of Stormfires were lifting the rocks, one by one, from the doorway and away from the bodies.
Leogun found Falyn dragging a body away from the doorway. It was missing its lower half, and a trail of blood marked their path as the selae dragged it along. “What happened?” Falyn slung the half-corpse into the pile, grimacing as he looked at it. Leogun estimated that there was about forty or fifty bodies there. They were already starting to smell.
He explained what had happened quickly as they watched Taisa lift a stone away from a body for Pychi to drag away. The stocky man slung it over his back as he and Taisa approached, Taisa slowly moving the chunk of stone to the side of the room.
“Good to see you back with the living, Asmundvard.” Pychi said grimly. “Taisa, what are we going to do with these?” The Stormfire looked at the pile sadly, leaning on her arm as she thought.
“I suppose we’ll have to see if we can identify them, and if we can’t, then they’ll just have to go in a mass grave.” Leogun examined the grisly mess more closely, trying to see it in detail. It was all Brymians. All of the bodies of the things- the Fell, as Falyn later explained to him- had disappeared, likely burned after the battle. Leogun sighed.
It took another two and a half hours to get rid of all the wreckage. The Stormfires worked diligently while the other survivors gathered the bodies, weapons and armor of the lost, separating them into different piles. Ultimately, it was decided that, when so few of the corpses could be identified, it would be more feasible to burn the bodies in a mass funeral pyre.
Leogun stood behind Taisa as her peers arranged the corpses. They numbered fifty-four in all, some men and some women, and most were the servants. Nearly all of Abaus’ paladins, too, who had been on duty had died; ten remained living. Others had returned to the embassy after the battle, others had deserted, Taisa theorized, and others yet had died in the chaos.

Taisa personally ignited the pyre, setting the gathering wood aflame. Another magi led the prayer for the souls of the dead as Leogun stared into the flames. Just watching them caused the voices to flare up, babbling incoherently. Fire. Gift. Life. Death. Vengeance.

“Taisa, I need to speak with you. You and the Northerner,” Abaus said. The people that had cleaned up the embassy were now taking a break before moving out into the city to help with the clean up. Even from the steps of the enormous building Leogun could tell that it would take a while for Arkaius to recover. Other buildings, be they homes, inns, shops or anything else, had collapsed all about, and blood ran in the gutters from wounds in corpses, still lying about. The very sight of them turned his stomach.

“What, Abaus?” Taisa asked. Her voice was quiet, and she, too, stared at the dead. Here, the fallen were much more diverse. There were lighter-skinned Sempetians, and selae, and even a few Northerners, all scattered about the streets. Some were in clumps, perhaps families, while others were all alone. It saddened Leogun to know that they had been all alone in their final moments.

“Come with me.” Abaus led the way into the ruined remains of his home-away-from-home. Even with the clean up crew finished their work for a time, a few of the servants remained to clean up the dust and rubble. Abaus looked around slowly, taking in the ruins. “I doubt it’ll ever be usable again. We’ll probably have to tear it down, once things settle down again.” They ascended the stairs and entered a long room off of the hallway. There was a tall throne-like chair, likely intended to be reminiscent of the Shining Throne. It was solid gold- or at least it looked it- with sapphires scattered about it, with two large yellow sapphires at the top of the chair.

Abaus sat in his makeshift throne and gestured for Taisa and Leogun to sit. “We have things to discuss. Starting with you, Northerner. My men told me you were slinging some impressive magicks about, and in my experience, nothing Flameweavers can produce can be described by anyone but Iron Arms and Ordspeakers as impressive.” He leaned forwards, staring deep into Leogun’s eyes. “So what are you? The Flameweavers aren’t adept enough to take down as many men as Taisa claimed you did. Do you have a Stormfire ring I’m unaware of?” Leogun waited for a moment, plumbing his mind for a way to explain.

“I- I don’t know what I am, Your Majesty.” He stopped himself from continuing. “Actually, that’s not true- I’m a servant of the High One. I pledged Him my body and mind, and I will use this power to serve Him.” Abaus gritted his teeth, a quiet growl coming forth from his gullet. The emperor sat back in the chair, his posture informal, and leaned on his hand.

“See that what you do to serve your god doesn’t obstruct my own gods, Northerner. I don’t take kindly to obstruction.” From the corner of his eye, Leogun saw Taisa glance at him, her gaze flickering between the monk and the monarch.

“I’m assuming, Abaus,” Taisa said as tactfully as she could, “since you invited me in here that you didn’t just want to speak with Brother Asmundvard.” Abaus turned to the magi opposite Leogun and nodded.

“We are at war, Taisa.” He began. “I don’t know what those things were, but the only thing I can think of is that they’re a scourge, sent from the gods to destroy us. Whatever we’ve done to anger Them is more than anything we’ve done before.” He glanced away, as if trying to remember something, but quickly returned to the conversation. “I need you to find what those things are. They slaughtered my people, and I intend to slaughter them back.”

Taisa and Leogun decided to begin in the Arkaien Library. Pychi, Falyn, and Alaire had gone their separate ways for a time, pledging to return to the Guardsman by nightfall. Leogun planned to be back as well, but he knew he had a bad tendency to get lost in his books.

The two started in the Religious Texts section of the gigantic library, where Taisa planned to begin with searching the Holy Scrolls. “My theory is that Abaus did something wrong.” Taisa explained as she gingerly placed the scrolls on the desk between them. “As much as I hate to say it, he’s not exactly the best emperor. He’s constantly thinking about Sagah and Ntir- as you’d know, you saw how he treated Alaire- and it drives him at every moment. They say Sagah betrayed the gods,” Leogun blinked. “but that doesn’t mean that everything Abaus does to bring down his dynasty is necessarily a good thing.” She handed him one of the scrolls. “Whenever the dynasty in Brym changes, we’ve always called it the Will of the Gods, finding some reason to justify why they went to ruin. With Vasilian, we said it was that he was consorting with the selae.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s always the selae with them.” Leogun chuckled, opening the scroll.

“So what are we looking for?”

“Just look for things Abaus has done that might be against anything in there.” Leogun sat up, looking at the eight remaining scrolls on the side of the table. He slowly unrolled the scroll he held, seeing that it was easily as tall as him, with its writing in extremely small Brymian letters.

“This is ridiculous. It’ll take forever,” he said. Taisa sighed, shoulders slumping as she looked over at the pile.

“I know. But the alternative is getting Abaus really, actually mad, and I’ve seen that- it’s not a good place to be.” She smiled weakly. “You don’t have to do this, of course. But I’d really appreciate it if you would.” Leogun sighed, muttering something quietly.

“You’re lucky Ivar says not to refuse a woman in need.” He smiled again, not looking up from the scroll he was unfurling. “Of course, I’m not sure if he’d say that applies to Brymian women.” Taisa grinned as they got to work.

The day crept away without either of them realizing, both lost in their reading. Every few hours, one would re-roll the scroll and put it in a separate pile, taking another from the remaining unread scripture. By twilight, the last scroll had been taken up from the pile, and Leogun put his own down with a grim look. Taisa finished soon after, looking no more optimistic than the monk. She shook her head when he asked if she’d found anything, just to be safe.

“Nothing. Not a word.” Leogun sighed and looked at the discarded parchment. He squinted, trying to make out what was on the back of the browning, ancient paper. He grabbed one up, unfurling it again and taking a look at the back.

“What is this?” He asked. Taisa looked up slowly.

“That? It’s the map to the Arkus Artanon. The First Temple, it’s called. Old Brymian. There’s a great record there of the First Days of the Chosen, when-” She stopped herself mid-sentence and grabbed the scroll from him. A second later, she was gone, striding off further into the library. Leogun ran off after her, trying to keep up, but she was quick. He was a few steps behind when she stopped, turning into one of the aisles of books. She picked one off the shelf, an old, leather-bound book reading The Royal Atlas of Brym. She flipped through it quickly, finally stopping on one page.

“Here.” She said. “A newer map to the Temple. We need to go here.”

“What’s there?” Leogun asked, leaning over her shoulder to see it. It seemed the old holy place was in the middle of the Brymian Desert, miles away from any city or village. Taisa snapped the book shut and began to walk away.

“In the Arkus Artanon,” she said, “we keep the oldest records of the Faith, including the original version of our story of creation. It’s like your Great Monastery, but more... deserted.” Leogun nodded, and Taisa went to the Head Librarian’s desk at the back of the library. The man looked up. He was balding, with white hair flecked with grey, and he had fine vibrant clothes.

“I’m taking this atlas.” Taisa said with certainty. The librarian took it from her, looking it over. He snorted.

“Sure you are. Do you know what this is, young lady? It’s over three hundred years old. It’s older than the Hamun dynasty.” Taisa rolled her eyes and picked her ring out of her pocket. She leaned in close to the man and showed it to him, running her fingers over the platinum fire on top of it.

“Do you know what this is?” She asked. Once again, the man snorted, and he looked at Taisa with derision. His gaze slid cooly over Leogun, ignoring the Northerner’s presence.

“Child, that is a Stormfire ring. Don’t take me for a-” Taisa cut him off again, flipping the ring over and pushing the small piece of jewelery towards the librarian. He seemed slightly confused, looking at it.

“Then do you know what this is, if you’re not a fool?” The man gulped.

“It’s the gold band of the Royal Magi, mistress,” he whispered. Taisa nodded patronizingly and stashed the ring in the folds of her tunic again. She stood up straight and looked down at the old man, still sitting in his chair. She snatched the book from the crook of his arm again and signalled to Leogun that they were leaving.

“I will be taking this, then. If you have any complaints, voice them with the emperor.” She turned. “Right, I should have mentioned. The Royal Magi of the kingdom of Brym itself would be the Imperial Magi, wouldn’t she?” The man smiled and nodded. Leogun noticed a dark patch of sweat around his armpits as Taisa turned away and walked off. Leogun, smiled, and, unlike the librarian’s own feeble attempt at a content expression, it was sincere.

“Thank you,” he said. The librarian nodded slowly and picked up his quill, returning to his writing as Leogun returned to Taisa’s side.

“To the Temple?” Leogun asked. Taisa nodded firmly.

“To the Temple.”

When they got to the Guardsman, they found Falyn and Alaire practicing swordplay out in front of the tavern. By now, Rano had, indeed, replaced the window, mostly using the coin the brawlers had ‘left behind’ after Leogun and Falyn had thrown them out in the streets. Alaire was sweating a good deal already, while Falyn was perfectly clean. He had discarded his thicker tunic in exchange for a thin white shirt. Alaire’s sword wasn’t like Falyn’s typical Deharlean ones; instead, it had a slender steel blade coming from the crossguard. Not curved, like a Ntirian saber, and slightly thicker than one, but straight, like a Brymian blade. She attacked Falyn quickly with a speed that surprised Leogun, but the deft swordsman parried it with a clean stroke away from his body. When Falyn saw the two approach, he raised a hand, gesturing for Alaire to stop, and picked his sword up from the ground.

“That’s all for today, Alaire. Good work.” He said with a smile. “We need to work on your reactions more, I think, but you’ve got a good control over your weapon.” Alaire glowed under the older man’s praise, and Taisa led the way inside while Leogun held the door open for the others.

“Where’s Pychi?” He asked Falyn as he passed. They moved into the tavern, and Falyn pointed out the daronu telling tales to one of the serving girls. Leogun waved him over, and Pychi came quickly, bidding farewell to the woman and sitting down in one of the chairs at the table Falyn had slung his feet over.

“You couldn’t have waited another minute?” He said with a half-smile. Leogun laughed a little and took his place at the table. “I’m serious.” That only made the monk laugh harder.

“Ivar said to destroy indecency wherever you walk.” He said. Pychi shot him a dry look as Taisa took her place. Unlike Alaire or Leogun, her posture was more relaxed, sitting comfortably while not slouching like Pychi or Falyn. She took a moment before speaking, trying to decide what words to use before finally speaking.

“I need you to help me,” she said. “The Arkus Artanon is in the middle of the desert, and the desert isn’t a hospitable place for anyone, even disregarding the heat and the dryness. There are brigands, and there are beasts. I wanted to ask if you would all come with me.” Pychi spoke first.

“The Arkus Artanon...” He whistled in amazement. “I’ve never been. I doubt any daronu’s been in decades, if not centuries.” He smiled. “I’m in.”