Honey for Celephaïs: Chapter 9

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They gathered at the Boreas Gate to High City, blocking traffic and earning shouts of anger from carts and passers-by, which they studiously ignored.

In addition to the six dozen city constables with their sergeants and all armed and armored for combat, the Captain also brought his own personal force of a dozen veterans. With him were Commander Britomartis, leading two dozen of the King’s Guard and a dozen raptors. They were joined by the Chief Artificer with a few assistants, and the Alchemist and her assistant, who pulled a cart carrying small ceramic jars.

Britomartis standing at his shoulder, Captain Ragnarsson issued last-minute commands.

“Sergeants Ng and Rodriguez, I want all gates to High City sealed. Nobody gets in or out without authorization from me, Commander Britomartis, or Master Chuang. Or a Writ.

“Sergeant Wright, this is your ward and you are most familiar with it. Surround and isolate the estate. Again, nobody in or out. I want at least a half dozen constables on the cistern next to the estate, too. You can call on Sergeant Rossi if you have a problem.

“Sergeant Jabari, since you started this whole thing, you get to come with me inside.

“Sergeant Rossi, you are to protect the Chief Artificer and the Alchemist, and escort them inside the estate when I call. If Sergeant Wright needs help, stopping any breakout has top priority.

“All of you, commandeer more horses or anything else if you need it. This is High City and we don’t want to kill anybody important if we can avoid it, but defend yourselves, and kill if you must.

“Let me be very clear: I expect us to be attacked by armed enemies. If they do not yield, kill them, and make sure they are either dead or very securely bound before moving on. Capture or kill, but nobody gets out of there.

“Any questions?”

There was a rumble of conversation and shuffling, but no verbal response.

Britomartis stepped forward.

“Britomartis of the King’s Guard. With me is Master Chuang. Call one of us if some noble attempts to interfere. Sergeant Wright, I expect you to have the most sensitive mission, and difficult even with your two dozen men. While I also hope you can avoid killing any nobles, nobody gets in or out. If you have to kill them to ensure that, so be it.”

While they spoke, Chuang had been watching the gate, apparently waiting for someone, and finally the slapping of sandals announced that he had arrived: a fat man with graying hair and overly red face, perhaps in his fifties, came rushing to the gate from the High City side.

“Master Chuang!” he panted. “My sincere apologies for having kept you waiting; I came at once at your summons.”

“Wardmaster Debrai, I summoned you as commanded by Captain Ragnarsson of the Constabulary.”

The Captain stepped forward.

“Wardmaster Debrai, I hereby render notice that we are entering High City as an emergency measure. Your cooperation is appreciated.” He turned to his troops. “Forward!”

Debrai, mouth agape and only just understanding what was happening, hurriedly moved to the side as the constables rode through the gate, followed immediately by the smaller force under Britomartis.

Chuang walked over to Debrai.

“Thank you, Wardmaster. At the present time we have no intention of entering your estate, but we would appreciate it if you would return there. It would be better if you stayed at home, I think.”

“I… Yes, Master Chuang!”

He scuttled off, presumably back to his estate.

Chuang walked through the gate after him. The troopers were already quite some distance, but Chuang knew he’d catch up soon enough… Poietes Liang Caihong’s estate was only a short distance away.

Behind him the costables took up positions at the gate. The other entrances to High City would all be closing, too, sealing it completely.

Captain Ragnarsson, backed by two dozen constables and a dozen raptors, walked to the gate of Poietes Liang’s estate. A single guardsman, dressed in beautiful silks but armed with only a dagger, nervously watched them approach.

“This is the estate of the Poietes Liang!” he called voice quavering. “What is your business?”

“I am on the Captain of the Constabulary, on the business of the King! Stand aside!” cried Ragnarsson, pushing past the bewildered man.

“Stop! You cannot…!”

One of the constables grabbed the man by the neck.

“Shut up,” he said, waving his sword in front of the man’s face. “Count your blessings that I don’t spit you where you stand.” He handed the frightened gateman off to one of Sergeant Wright’s men, who were now spreading out to seal the gates in the estate perimeter wall.

If the Poietes hadn’t known they were coming already, he certainly knew now.

His estate was another Roman-style domus, a wall surrounding the main building complex, with several wings and gardens. Normally the wall on such estates was fairly low, especially here in High City, but this one was about three meters tall.

Ragnarsson hammered on the massive wood door. “Open in the name of the King!”

He waited at least five seconds before waving the four men forward with the ram.

They swung it back and forth to build up inertia, and then slammed it into the door. It groaned, splintered, but held.

Again. And again.

The frame buckled on one side.

A fourth time to dislodge the doorframe from the wall, and a fifth to hammer the door fully open.

The path was clear.

Inside the doorway an open pathway led deeper inside, flanked by mortared walls and doorways on both sides.

“Jabari, clear both rooms,” commanded Ragnarsson.

“Bhavna, your triad sweep and clear the right room! Georgina’s triad, left room! Beth, stay here and be ready to assist. Larima and Ihala, with me,” shouted Jabari.

Her force split up, with three constables splitting off to each flanking room. The door to the room on the right was barred from the inside, but a few determined kicks and shoulders forced it open.

As soon as the opening was wide enough, Bhavna leapt through, crouching low and just slipping under a sword thrust from the darkness. She rolled, and swung her own sword in that direction. Behind her the other two followed closely..

A curse as her blade crashed into something metallic: she’d hit the other’s shinguard, but the impact was enough to make him stagger. She backed up to the far wall, rising to her feet with sword ready to defend as one of the other constables, Sajja, smashed her shield into the defender, knocking him backward off-balance.

“Yield or die!”

The man snarled, and caught himself with one foot against the far wall, turning with sword flashing to slice into Sajja’s shoulder as her own sword ran though his chest. Both dropped, and Bhavna stepped forward to administer the coup de grâce. He’d had his chance to surrender.

“Sajja! Hang on!”

The room was empty, but Sajja sat leaning against the wall, shoulder bleeding profusely.

“Sajja’s down! Aliza! Gimme a hand here!”

The third constable in their triad, Aliza, grabbed a nearby curtain and used her dagger to slice it into smaller pieces. They bound Sajja up quickly and efficiently and then moved to the next door.

“Beth!” called Bhavna. “Sajja’s hurt! Get Chuang in here!”

Beth ran in from the pathway to Sajja, and gave her a drink. “He’ll be here in a second, Saj. Hang on!”

From the other side of the pathway came Georgina’s shout: “Kitchen’s clear! We’re moving into the garden!”

Bhavna looked to Aliza, who nodded that she was ready, then yanked the door open.

Four sets of eyes looked up at her from the floor.

Children, the oldest not more than ten or so, stared at her with eyes wide and expressions frozen. She lowered her bloody sword a fraction.

“…children…”

She turned to Aliza.

“What the hell are we going to do with…” she began, when suddenly the children jumped up, daggers in hand, attacking both of them.

She screamed as a dagger plunged into her thigh from below, in the hands of a girl not more than five. Another dagger came flying toward her chest, held by the oldest boy.

She threw herself backwards, sword sweeping across the doorway in front of her.

Something scuttled across the floor toward her and she stabbed it blindly.

Aliza was cursing as she hacked at something again and again, her sword already dripping with blood.

Silence fell again.

Panting, Bhavna sat back down on the floor. She looked at what she just stabbed… it was a baby, perhaps old enough to crawl, she thought. It had long, pointed teeth.

“Aliza… you OK?”

“…yeah. Just a scratch. You?”

“Stabbed me in the leg. You got any more of that curtain?”

“Heh,” she snorted. “Plenty more where that came from.”

She tore another curtain down and ripped it into a makeshift bandage.

“Nothing like children to brighten your day, huh?”

“I don’t think these were children,” said Bhavna, pointing to the baby’s teeth. She cinched the bandage tight, grunting. “Wonder what else he’s got for us. Fucking noble.”

* * *

Ragnarsson walked down the pathway, trying to ignore the shouts and swordplay at his rear. That was Jabari’s problem; she’d handle it.

He had to find Liang.

Britomartis walked on his flank, twin scimitars glinting in the sunlight from overhead.

“Captain,” she called quietly, “Let the raptors flush them out.”

Ragnarsson stopped. He been approaching this as a straightforward private home, but after what Chuang and Britomartis had told him, he knew now it wasn’t. No need to play nice anymore.

He nodded.

Britomartis gave a piercing whistle and the raptors, already drooling with eagerness at the smell of blood, streaked forward into the depths of the domus in search of prey.

Reptilian shrieks were met with human shouts and then screams of pain. In tight spaces where a swordman lacked space to maneuver or swing freely, raptors had the edge. And a mouthful of long, serrated fangs.

A group of a dozen men and women were retreating into the garden, swords and spears flashing in the sunlight as they tried to fend off hissing raptors.

Two of the men knelt down at the garden wall; Captain Ragnarsson craned his neck as he tried to see what they were doing. Suddenly, a section of the wall collapsed and they spilled outside the estate, spearing an astonished constable. There was a stable right in front of them.

A six stayed to defend the gap in the wall as the remaining few slipped into the stable.

“Damn it! Horses!” cried Ragnarsson.

“Sergeant Wright!” shouted Britomartis, leaping into the fray in spite of the blood-mad raptors to strike down one of the defenders. She pushed past the melee, racing toward the stables, but it was too late.

Four horses burst out through the stable doors, narrowly missing Britomartis. She leapt backwards out of their way, and swung her scimitar as she jumped. It hit.

The horse, hind leg cut deep, staggered, fell, throwing the rider off.

Britomartis rolled, recovered, stepped forward, scimitar pointing at the woman’s throat.

“Yield!”

The woman bared her teeth in fury and tried to swing her own sword.

Almost contemptuously Britomartis blocked it with one scimitar as she plunged the other deep into the other’s belly, then pulled it out in a spray of blood to knock the sword out of the dying woman’s hand.

It descended once more to chop into her neck, leaving her head half severed.

She sprinted to the stable, shouting for Sergeant Wright.

“Mount up! He’s on horse!”

She heard more shouts from the other side of the estate as she pushed the bar open and entered the horse’s stall. It was spooked and she was an unknown smell, but she leapt on its back anyway, and spurred it out of the stall and after Liang.

She couldn’t see Liang or his guard anymore, but she knew the direction they had headed, and there was only one place they could be going: the gate to the Avenue of Boreas, and then out of the city.

“They’re heading for the gate! Cut them off!”

She galloped after them, and as she turned the corner of the estate she caught a glimpse of them far ahead, racing headlong toward the Boreas Gate.

She could see Sergeant Ng and his troop hurriedly mounting their own horses, but there weren’t enough of them to hold the gate. Nobody had expected cavalry!

Liang and his two bodyguards bulled through with the force of their horses, cutting down the lone man in their way. Before he was felled, though, the constable managed to wound one of the horses, spearing it in the flank. It wasn’t a fatal wound but it would slow it down.

Britomartis reached the gate about the same time as Sergeant Ng and a few of his troopers did, and they galloped through together after Poietes Liang.

* * *

Captain Ragnarsson rested his sword on the paving stone, hands on the pommel, frowning.

The few survivors from Liang’s estate huddled in front of him, blindfolded, kneeling on the dirt of the open garden. There was one guard left, with a bloody bandage wrapped around his head—he’d been knocked unconscious by a shield boss and escaped most of the fight. Next to him to were half a dozen servants of both sexes, weeping or shocked into silence by the bloodshed.

“Chuang? What do you think?”

Chuang sighed.

“I’m sorry, Captain. The only way to tell is to watch them for the rest of their lives and see if they’ve been infected or not.”

“But they’re not attacking us!”

“True, but even the infected can still think and plot.”

“So you see no alternative?”

“None.”

The Captain shook his head.

He didn’t like what he had to do.

Jabari coughed.

“Captain? I’ll do it.”

“No, Sergeant. I can’t ask you to do that. This is my debt.”

He unsheathed his dagger and walked up to the wounded guard, pulling his head back by the hair and quickly slashing his throat. He ignored the blood that splashed onto his hand and walked to the next prisoner, a woman—probably the cook, he thought. Another slash. Another prisoner, and another, and another.

He stood, dagger in hand, and looked up at the clouds scudding across the sky.

Bent over, wiped the dagger on the tunic of the body in front of him.

Slammed the dagger home into its sheath.

“Sergeant Wright!”

“Yes sir!” responded Wright, looking into the garden from beyond the fallen wall.

“Send to Sergeant Rossi—the Alchemist will provide you with thalassion fire to torch the estate. I want nothing left but ash, and no stone standing. Sergeant Rossi and his men are to bring the Alchemist and the Chief Artificer to the cistern immediately.”

Ragnarsson turned back toward the others, waiting in the garden.

“To the cistern. Sergeant Jabari, call your people. It’s time to end this.”

He led them over the fallen wall toward the stone enclosure protecting the cistern as Sergeant Wright began moving wounded constables out of the estate to safety. The four surviving raptors had already been recalled and were securely roped to some trees nearby.

The cistern was mostly underground.

The Captain signaled to surround the area. He turned to see the Chief Artificer Marcus approaching, still protected by a dozen constables under Sergeant Rossi.

“Where is the Alchemist?”

“Ihejirika will be along in a moment, just as soon as the domus is blazing,” said Marcus. “That thalassion fire is nasty stuff!”

“Which stones do we need to lift?”

Marcus pointed. “See the double circle there? That marks an opening. There are four in all.”

“All right, everyone. Listen up!” trumpeted Captain Ragnarsson. “We have a pretty good idea of what’s down there, and it’s probably awake. Think poisonous snakes and keep your wits about you! If you’re bitten, you’re dead. Just like those poor servants.

“Jabari! Rossi! Get those stones open!

The sergeants split their constables into teams and began prying up the paving stones, standing as far back from the openings as they could and still get leverage.

The stench of rotting meat filled the air and as a paving stone fell open, one of the women stumbled back, retching and rubbing her eyes.

Another paving stone lifted and slid to the side to leave the opening half open, a black semicircle, and suddenly a grayish-white tentacle whipped out to grasp a man, wrapping around his leg and yanking him back into the hole.

He screamed and caught himself on the edges, arms outstretched, seeking help. The other constables working on the paving stone with him jumped forward, grasping his arms and pulling.

He screamed, and with a terrible, wet sound pulled free—his right leg missing from the thigh down, blood spurting and he screamed in agony.

Another man at a different opening cursed and fell back, sword slashing down to sever a seeking tentacle, and then people began climbing up out of the openings—many, many people.

As dozens of men, women, and children emerged from the underground cistern, the constables fell back, using spears and bows to hold them off, or swords when they got too close. The attackers were unarmed, for the most part, and all a grayish-green in color. Silent, they moved with surprising speed to the attack, biting and clawing without any attempt to protect themselves. A few small children were able to duck under or around the constables’ defense, but unarmed and facing armed and armored warriors they were doomed from the start.

Tentacles waved from the openings, seeking unwary targets but unable to reach them.

“Get back!” came shout from behind, and a small jar arced forward to fall into the closest hole, leaving a trail of smoke in the air behind it.

A muffled whomp sounded from underground as the thalassion fire ignited. The Alchemist and her assistant lobbed jars into all the openings and flames and smoke began shooting up into the sky.

Alchemist Ihejirika pulled her assistant, a young black man, farther back from the flames and watched the black smoke billow up.

“Nasty stuff,” she mused. “Naphtha.”

She turned to Captain Ragnarsson. Her dark skin was dirty with ash, beads of sweat glistening in the ruddy sunlight that filter through the billowing smoke. A large, delicate fragment of ash wafted down to land on one of her braids; she brushed it off impatiently. The ash lay white on her dark hair, but black on Ragnarsson’s own blond braids.

“Whatever was down there, it’s very, very dead,” she said.

“Master Chuang, may I leave this to you?”

Chuang nodded. “Ihejirika and I have it well in hand, I believe. Go!”

The Captain nodded his thanks.

“Sergeant Rossi! You’re in overall command here, including the King’s Guards. Get all those things into the cistern and burn them. Or build a pyre here, but make sure there’s nothing left but ashes!”

“Yessir!”

“Sergeant Jabari, get those horses over here. We have to catch up to Liang!”

* * *

Their morning shopping complete, Mistress Kileesh left the noises and smells of the farm market and stepped onto the Avenue of Boreas. It was busy as always, people and carts with business in the markets, or just moving along the avenue through the city. As the farm market was in the Circe’s Cirque, the outermost ring of the city, they would have to walk a few ten twelves of meters toward the Pinnacle to reach the Boreas Gate to Skala Eresou.

Suddenly, three horses burst out into the avenue from High City, scattering passers-by and toppling a cart full of melons.

“Out of the way! Make way! Make way!” they shouted, swinging their swords at hapless people who couldn’t move fast enough.

The avenue turned into a chaotic mess of people, horses and carts as the confusion spread, nobody sure of what was happening, but trying to flee at the sound of swordplay.

Pursuing horses following quickly, this time carrying warriors in the garb of the Guard.

“Halt! Halt in the name of the King!”

The first three men, stymied by the crush of people and animals, realized they couldn’t escape their pursuers easily. The man in the middle, muscular, with short-clipped salt-and-pepper hair and wearing expensive silks, reached down and grabbed Rogier by the arm, yanking him up to sit in front of him on the horse. He tore the boy’s pack off, mackerel and all, and threw it to the ground.

“Take the children hostage!” he shouted. “The Guard won’t kill innocent children!”

The other two men tried to capture their own hostages; one succeeded, picking up a flailing Opal and draping her sideways over the horse’s neck, the other man grabbed Ri Torshell but she twisted away, ducked and rolled to safety.

The pursuers galloped closer, revealing Britomartis and several city constables.

“Surrender, Liang! Surrender in the name of the King!”

“Let us go, Britomartis, and the children live!” came his reply.

The horses were moving slower now as the pursued and their hostages continued toward the gate to the outside fields, through the Wall of Thalia. The road was mostly empty now, but the three men had to defend themselves against their pursuers while controlling the hostages.

Britomartis drew her bow and shot at the third man, the one who had been unable to take a student hostage, striking him in the upper shoulder close to the neck. He screamed, hand on the arrow, and began to lean forward in the saddle, slumping over the horse’s neck. His horse began to drift in a different direction from the other two as he dropped the reins and finally slipped off to fall to the ground.

“Back, Britomartis, or the children die!”

“Surrender, Liang. You have no chance!”

Rogier, who had been sitting still in front of Liang, suddenly reached out and up, and without turning or hesitating, plunged his dagger into his captor’s eye. Liang screamed, convulsed, and toppled to the ground.

“Poietes Liang!”

The remaining man shouted in fear and anger, and plunged his own dagger into Opal’s back, throwing her limp body to the ground and spurring his horse, hoping to escape through speed alone.

Sergeant Ng, riding in from his blind side, chopped him in the neck, and watched as his horse carried him another ten twelves of meters toward the gate before he slipped off to lie in the dust.

Sergeant Ng slowly rode over to where Rogier sat on Liang’s horse.

“So, Roach, it seems you and I are fated to meet once more after all.”

Rogier just cocked his head, expression blank.

“My name is Rogier.”

“Rogier or Roach, you’ve killed a noble, and you’re to pay for it. Off the horse, boy!”

He dismounted quietly and stood waiting.

Britomartis rode up.

“Rogier, I will stand for you, for you acted in self-defense, but you must submit for now.”

“Hold it right there!” cried Mistress Kileesh, pushing past the horses to stand between Britomartis and Rogier. “Rogier was defending himself! He did nothing wrong!”

Britomartis dismounted and walked up to face Kileesh.

“I’m sorry, but the law is clear,” she said. “I agree he acted in self-defense, but the King must decide his fate.”

“The King!? And who are you to be demanding such? You’re not a copper!”

“No, I am no constable. I am Britomartis, Commander of the King’s Guard, and this is a matter of treason, and will be dealt with as such. I will stand for Rogier until the King’s judgment, and render truth in the telling of the matter.”

“Britomartis? I…” Kileesh fell quiet, mumbling the rest of her apology to herself, bowing as she retreated to straighten Opal’s bloody corpse. The other student, Ri Torshell, was still huddled against the wall, tears coursing down her face as she watched, wide-eyed.

Britomartis held out her hand to Sergeant Ng.

“Rope, please, Sergeant.”

Ng straightened up, and took a binding rope from his horse’s saddlebag.

“Shall I…?”

“No, I’ll do it,” replied Britomartis, taking the rope and walking to face Rogier. “I will stand for you, Rogier, but you must submit. It is the law.”

He silently held out his hands as she bound them, holding the end of the rope herself.

She lifted him up onto her horse.

“Captain Ragnarsson, may I ask you to clean this up? Those two,” she said, pointing to Liang’s fallen men, “are to be cremated immediately. Send a constable to ask Master Chuang what to do with Liang’s body.”

She snapped her reins.

“I’m taking the boy to The Pinnacle.”

>* * *

“Sergeant, all those women and children… the Captain just slaughtered them…”

The woman, a veteran with almost two decades of experience in the Constabulary, stood watching the foul smoke from the cistern. She made no effort to help carry the bodies to the conflagration.

Sergeant Rossi spat into the flames.

Captain Ragnarsson

“They looked like people, but they weren’t. Not anymore.”

He turned, searching for someone.

“Bhavna!” He called, summoning her over. “Everyone else, stop what you’re doing and come here a minute.”

She limped up, and he pointed to the pile of bodies waiting to be fed into the fire.

“Which ones were the children who attacked you?”

“There, Sergeant. The two on the right for sure; can’t see the others.”

Rossi walked over to the bodies she pointed to, and kicked the smallest one—a baby—out into the open.

“You all don’t like the idea of killing women and children. I get that,” he said, and held out his hand to a nearby trooper. “Lend me your axe for a minute.”

The man handed over his axe, and without a word Rossi swung it down and through the baby’s skull, slicing it neatly open.

There was little blood.

And no brains at all… the inside of the baby’s skull was full of a spongy, greenish gray blob, a smooth bubble that looked like the belly of a dead fish—or the cap of a mushroom.

“This is not a baby. It probably never was human, but now it’s just a part of that thing underground, one of its fingers. Worse than a Honeysucker, this is the spawn of the Goddess Herself. For years we have been destroying the Honey of the Goddess, but this is what those evil things really are: eggs to spawn monsters like these!”

The constables shuffled their feet, muttering to themselves, and returned to the pile of bodies, now more hesitant to touch them than feed them to the flames.

Honey for Celephaïs: Chapter 10