Path of the Stonebreaker

Chapter 3

An Efficient Sacking

Femira stepped uneasily.

Garld escorted ‘Vreth’ up the steps to the main upper chambers of Osiri. The ones she had so carefully avoided when making her way to the sealed room. Femira was shocked by the staggering number of soldiers all running about. To her it seemed chaotic, but Garld calmly laid out orders as he passed other soldiers, many of whom were to assist in moving the stormstone cache. Her heart was pounding, throbbing against the weight of the earthstone cord. She had never been caught thieving before—well, at least not in any situations that had actually mattered. She still wasn’t certain whether this Lord-whatever Garld actually meant what he said or if he was just planning to lock her up. But why lie in the first place? He would have no reason to, I’m already caught.

“Stay quiet when I speak and go along with whatever I say,” he said. He had that kind of voice you just didn’t disagree with, the kind that was well used to telling others what to do. She nodded and followed him into a small chamber. There was a corpse pushed against the wall and a horrific amount of blood and fleshy bits on the floor that Femira couldn’t bring herself to look at. There was a mix of Reldoni and unarmed Altarean soldiers in the room.

“Darza, your men have assisted admirably.” Garld said to a shorter older Altarean stormguard. The stormguard’s armor was so ostensibly ornate that even Femira could tell this man was not a real soldier, the breastplate gilded with small decorative wings inlaid and a fanciful blue cape, stark contrasts to the simple black and red uniforms of the Reldoni soldiers.

“Thank you general… and our agreement?”

“Your men will continue to assist until we are sure we have unearthed every cache.”

“And the others?”

“They will be kept safe. You will find, Captain Darza, that the Reldoni are a merciful — ”

“Merciful” Femira had not noticed the other woman in the corner of the room, she had the same darker Keiran skin as Femira—and looked to be similar age, maybe a bit older—the woman’s face was a knot of revulsion, “you would call this invasion merciful! You murdered my husband, he would have surrendered if you allowed him, he— ”

“—Lady Annali,” Darza interjected, “Please, if you would only—”

“—And you,” the Keiran woman rounded on Darza, “you coward! You’re a disgrace to the stormguards, you would stand here and treat with them. They killed your King!”

“And they will kill you as well if you resist, my Lady. I beg you, please. The palace is lost and they are offering us our lives.”

“If your men had been fighting with the rest of the stormguards—”

“—That is enough,” Garld said, holding up his hand and gesturing to two of his own soldiers “Put the Lady Annali with the other less cooperative nobles. Perhaps a few days in a cell will help give her some perspective.” Annali spewed more insults as two of the Reldoni soldiers not-very-gently escorted her from the room.

“Another we found in the lower levels,” Garld said, gesturing toward Femira, “she was hiding in the larger storerooms, see her put with the other highborn.” Femira felt the weight of all the eyes in the room on her. If she hadn’t felt so uncomfortable under all those eyes she would have laughed hysterically at the prospect that they would think her highborn. Captain Darza did not look impressed, his dark eyes the heaviest of all, “My lord, forgive me but this girl. She—”

“A relative of Lady Annali’s, I’m sure,” Garld said sternly, “have her put with the group to be brought to the Ambition.”

“Of course, my lord,” Darza said, bowing his head, he beckoned Femira to follow him and together with a Reldoni soldier escort they moved into a far larger chamber. Unlike the smaller rooms and hallways of Osiri, this room had lines of thin windows along one of the walls, at this hour there was no light from the outside and so the chamber was lit by the long rows of braziers. The chamber was packed full with easily a hundred terrified, rich little snot bags and their more rich and equally terrified parents.

“You were either incredibly stupid or incredibly desperate to have chosen tonight to sneak into the mine, thief.” Darza said to her as he walked her down the lines of braziers.

“What makes you think this was the first time, old man?” Darza bristled visibly at the comment and Femira felt a smirk pull at her mouth. Hit a nerve, did I?

“Regardless,” he said, “you’re likely in more danger being highborn tonight than a thief. Consider yourself very fortunate should you see the morning” He seemed satisfied when she didn’t respond and didn’t continue. They walked on, some of the highborn calling out to Darza as they passed, all of them distressed or mournful

“Darza! What are they going to do with us?”

“Darza! have you seen the king?” — or lord whats-his-face, or lady whatever.

“Darza! Are they going to kill us?”

Whenever Darza did respond, it was with calming—and completely futile—words, for the people were not in any way relieved after they passed. Occasionally, someone would accuse Darza of being a traitor or a coward for helping the invaders but the Reldoni soldiers were quick to take them away in the same manner as that highborn Keiran lady. The commonfolk in the city knew who Lady Annali was; she had married the King’s cousin Lord Reselas the past unionsday. Femira herself had not joined the unionsday celebration on the sand, all those people heading out past the city tidewalls had meant that the city was ripe for thieving. Not that any commonfolk could have gotten anywhere near any of the Highborn weddings, a kindly contingent of city guards were tasked with making sure that the rabble from commoner weddings didn’t flow over into their fancy celebrations, even more of a reason for thieving. It was well known that Annali and Raselas’ marriage had been an arranged bond between Keiran and Altarea. Little good it did them when the Reldoni warships appeared on the horizon. The Keiran alliance it seems was as much security as a stone wall; when someone with a hammer or earthstone came, it fell to dust.

Darza left her with a large group of very anxious highborn. All wearing fine clothing of silk and linen. Femira stuck out like dog’s balls in her black climbing gear. None of the others tried to make conversation with her, just the occasional suspicious glance. That suited her fine, don’t want to talk to any of you pompous shitbags either. When they did speak to one another, they did so in hushed concerned tones, “what do you think they’ll do with us?” or “where are we going” were the general themes of their discussions. The conversations did little to ease Femira’s own ever-growing concerns, why did I agree to this? She began questioning herself after sitting on the tiles for a while. Perhaps, she should be finding a way to escape, to sneak away. The effort of the arduous climb earlier in the evening, in addition to her bruised hip and the scrapes on her fingers had left her exhausted. After a few hours a woman in an Altarea servants liveries treating small injuries passed by and offered her fresh bandages for her hands. The woman didn’t question how Femira had gotten then injuries, she simply washed, bandaged and moved on. Femira fought against herself to lie down on tiles and sleep, fatigue threatening to overwhelm her. The earthstone was almost full—meaning it was also heavy, adding to her tiredness—so it would be useless to her but if she could make it back to the other side of the destroyed bridge, she could climb back the way she had come. She could summon enough energy for that, couldn’t she? She could just disappear into the night like a real vreth. She could just return back to Lichtin’s crew with her tail between her legs, achieving nothing but a few scrapes on her hands for her bold burglary of Osiri itself. Not entirely true, she thought, patting the chip of stormstone she had pocketed from the dead stormguard earlier. Surely the job Garld had offered her wasn’t real, why would a general need someone like her to kill someone? Didn’t he have an entire army to kill a whole bunch of people?

“Are they taking you to their warship also?” It took her a moment to realise that the speaker, a younger pretty highborn girl, had asked Femira in her own Keiran language. Warship?

“I’m not sure,” Femira responded in common tongue.

The girl vanished among all the other highborn faces when Femira didn’t offer anything else for conversation. As the night pressed on, she moved to one of the walls and sat with her back against it. The highborns were grumbling about not having comfortable seating, but Femira had spent more nights than she cared to remember asleep in the street, rainwater leaking from the makeshift shelters that her once bigger—now forever little—brothers had built in alleyways. The sky outside started to lighten, light blue at first and gradually growing into the stronger purple and pinks that often came with the morning after a storm.

Eventually more Reldoni soldiers came and began taking groups of people out of the room, at first there was some mild opposition from the highborn, scared people just looking for answers on what might happen to them but nobody openly spoke out against the armed men. Femira huddled along with those around her, they were brought out of Osiri, and across the wooden reconstruction bridge that connected the main palace to Osiri. The Reldoni were already at work clearing away the bodies, piling the Altareans into huge pyres, The fallen Reldoni being carted off elsewhere for funeral rites. Femira wasn’t sure if it was the light of the rising sun casting the courtyard in red, or if it was stains and trails of blood that seemed unavoidable to walk through. The highborns wailed as they passed the pyres and although Femira had not known any of the fallen soldiers personally, she couldn’t help but feel their loss. The sulfuric smell of the burning bodies made some of the highborn wretch as clouds of smoke drifted across the courtyard. Femira herself tried to stifle the stench with her hands but it did little good to mask it. In all the stories she heard of great battles and wars fought, she never considered what happened after the battle, who cleaned up the mess left behind by the fallen. The people cleaning up didn’t look like soldiers as they weren’t wearing armor or the black and red tabards the soldiers did. These were just regular men and women with blood stained tunics and masks getting on with their work. Was this just an everyday job to them? To just follow along and clean up the bodies of their enemies… and friends, she thought grimly as they passed her carting more bodies. All were stripped of any usable weapons, armour and most importantly; runestones. She thought about resisting at first when a soldier had ordered her to hand over the pocketful of stormstone she’d picked up in the metal room. Reluctantly she made the wiser choice and handed them over. She still had the one she’d looted earlier from the corpse of that stormguard tucked into a secret pocket—and more importantly, he hadn’t spotted the glow of her earthstone tucked under her shirt. The soldier’s eyes widened at the handful of stormstone and he excitedly ran off back . It reminded her of when the other thugs in the crewhouse would take a cut of the things that she’d stolen. The highborn around her looked relieved when the soldier had left, she could see some had pendants of stormstone, status symbols for them rather than any functional use. Don’t worry he’ll be back for those too.

She’d figured that now while they were being moved would be the best chance to slip away. She didn’t know what Garld’s plans were for her and she didn’t particularly feel like sticking around to find out, despite the tempting offer to train her how to use her earthstone. But then again, would Lichtin ever be able to live up to his promises? Maybe she was better off taking the chance here.

As they passed through the courtyard and into the Palace buildings, Femira tried to decide when her best opportunity would arise to sneak away. They would pass dark hallways where she couldn’t see any soldiers loitering but every time she thought to do it her legs wouldn’t run, she just kept in line with the Altareans as they were marched to—what she guessed—were the lower levels of the palace. Her exhaustion once again tried to crush her but she lumbered on step after step. They were led down to the Palace docks, on the northern side of the small but towering island, the opposite side of where Femira had climbed earlier that night.

The enormous warship dwarfed the tiny palace dock, a great beast of a ship, made of wood and steel. There were four imposing masts for sails, and rows of cannons along both sides. Those cannons that had spewn fire and chaos on the palace walls in the days leading up to the capture of the palace. The city itself had been spared such treatment, having already been under Reldoni occupation for weeks. When the warships first arrived almost two months before, the King had refused to treat with the invaders and sealed himself—along with his most important highborn—in the palace to hold out for Keiran reinforcements that would never arrive. The city mayor surrendered when the first warships arrived and had been rewarded with minimal casualties in the city.

Through her haze of fatigue, Femira couldn’t fully grasp the scale of the warship or the hundreds of soldiers and sailors moving about. She quietly followed along as her group was taken to one of the many holds inside the bowels of the ship and shown to a sleeping roll, where she finally allowed herself to collapse into sleep.