The Column of Ash [Epic Fantasy]

The rest of the day was one of ceremony and celebration. He hardly partook. Laczlo wondered what was wrong with him as people danced and sang their drunken songs in the great tsar's hall. As voivodes and boyars mingled and whispered of politics, bearing vague, deceptive smiles as if to pretend they were just chatting. He saw through it all. There was no honor among men anymore. How could there be? After everything he failed to do, despite the grand effort, how could he admit it existed anywhere in others?

The night passed. His family's belongings were moved to the tsar's palace. His palace.

He roamed the halls with hands behind his back, mind busy yet empty. The world silent except for the padding of feet. Two druzhina followed a respectful distance behind, always in pairs to discourage assassination attempts from the inside. What was he to do? What ought he do? The questions haunted him. Already, voivodes hinted at their preferences for the future. Unspoken deals and offers and favors and asks swirled like a fog covering the path forward. Was there even one?

The Rodezians were busy with infighting as Kapitalena and the others had predicted. Some business about who could be heir between the multitude of siblings. Accordingly, his first real act as tsar had been to follow the advice of others and send gold to the weaker claimant of the bunch, hoping to continue to unsettle their politics. A weak Rodezia was a strong Vasia. With them distracted, he could march east toward the mountain pass in preparation for Spring, when crossing would be safer. That was one reason why the official ceremony was so important. It wasn't just about bringing the voivodes here to swear oaths but also to gather them here with their armies. Then it would be war against the Free Cities that had bucked Vasian rule decades ago.

A matter of months. So much to do in so little time.

When he returned to his bed, Kapitalena was waiting, sitting up attentively, wearing a thin dress of silk that shimmered faintly in the window-filtered moonlight. She was beautiful in a sharp, mature, knowing sense. An intimidating sense, even still, if he were being honest. She used to remind him of his father in a strange fashion, but recently, she was more like his mother—not directly condescending or demanding, but certainly expectant of more than he could give. As if she thought more of him than he, and was then disappointed when he failed to live up to such expectations.

"I had to think," he said, not meeting her eye as he shed his tunic and cloak and slipped into bed.

"It's dangerous to wander the halls at night, Husband."

"I know."

"You worry about the future: this is not a shameful thing. To be concerned is a sign of wisdom."

Laczlo rolled over to squint at her. She looked down at him, still sitting up. "Why are you trying to appease me?"

"I'm not." Her brow raised a tad. "I'm being honest, is all. You needn't feel ashamed for being swept up in your thoughts. I just ask you do so safely."

"I just needed to be alone. To walk… I don't know." How could he tell her that when at war, he was always on the move, always doing, but here he felt trapped by the vain complexity of it all? He lacked the pure simplicity in the objectives of a campaign. Deus, am I a soldier, finally? Were they right about me? Was it more than just a lie: the Warrior Prince?

"Very well," she said. "I will not push."

"Good. You've pushed me enough already." It came out before his mind could weigh the wisdom of the words. Pure instinct, pure emotion.

She inhaled sharply. The start of a fight, of course. "And what do you mean by that?"

"All of this, Kapitalena. All of it. You pushed me to it. This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't listened to you back in the parley! But I betrayed my oath and stole what wasn't mine!"

"The tsardom doesn't belong to anyone."

"That's a fucking lie. It belonged to Amon."

"He was a child, Laczlo," she said, voice dripping with condescension, it seemed. "We had to be pragmatic. And before you argue it, yes, Alasa could have been regent for him, but she was inexperienced and, if we are being honest, would not have fared much better than the boy."

He stood and began pacing the room. "I could have been there for them! I could have made it work!"

"Maybe so," she replied with a sense of finality. "But that has come and passed."

"Deus, woman. How can you be so callous?"

"One of us must."

She rolled over at that, barely contained anger seeping from her. Part of him wanted it to escalate. He used to fear fights, but now? He'd seen enough bloodshed to manage just fine. In truth, if he could name it, place it, what Laczlo felt as if he wanted was release. Someone to blame but himself, so he could move forward. And though she'd pushed him, yes, it was his fault. His choice.

His burden.

You need to be stronger. You need to just get a grip on yourself and deal with it. You're the tsar now. Be the leader Radokh wasn't. The one people deserve. He chastised himself as the night drew on. His eyes ached, head pounded, and tongue felt parched even when he drank watered wine. And then sleep.

And then dreams. Nightmares. Upon his horse once more, riding through the fields. But this time away. From what? He couldn't see. It was gaining on him, impossibly. A flash of pale, dead skin. Dread crawled up his flesh like angry ants. Pinpricks and goosebumps. Soulborne standing in the grain like statues ready to break from their stillness to tear him apart—

"Laczlo!"

He sat up in bed and stared about in the darkness like a blind man trying to see what he could not, hand patting about his dagger.

"Who is it?" he hissed back into the night.

He caught the glow of a light under the door to his chamber and looked at Kapitalena, who was sitting up, looking at him. "You weren't waking," she said. "It's Mikha. Go and speak to him."

He cursed under his breath and did as his wife suggested, going to the door, cracking it, and peering out at his head servant's wizened face, harshly lit by a single candle, two guards standing a respectful distance back and to the flanks. "Tsar Vilsky—"

"Don't you start with that."

Mikha sighed. "It is proper… Ah, never mind. We have received word of Vida—she's being held by those mercenaries of Prince Karnys's employ. The Rutenians. They're asking for you to come and ransom her yourself."

Laczlo stared back at the man's grave, somewhat uncertain expression, feeling stunned. They what?! Questions sped past in his mind. How had they captured her? How were they even in Vasia, let alone his warcamp? And how did they get into the damn city?

But before he could voice any such thoughts, Kapitalena spoke, "Absolutely not."

"What?" He rounded on her. "They'll kill her!"

"They want revenge for their lord's death, Husband. Karnys was hated by most, and though I doubt his former men's loyalty, they most certainly see his capture and killing as a mark on their pride."

"I don't care what they think! Vida is… she's my servant. A servant of the tsar," he said it as an excuse, but then the thought of her death made his jaw clench tight and eyes narrow in anger. "They are disrespecting my authority on the first day of my rule. I cannot just let that stand, now can I?"

"Most certainly not. But the solution isn't to rush headfirst into their trap."

"Then what? Let them kill her?"

"As I was going to say, no. They have no leverage besides the spy. Kill her, and then what? You are the tsar, and they are a bunch of…" She rose from the bed in her thin shift to stand by Laczlo. The dress hung from her breasts and revealed some of her legs, but it was Mikha, after all, so such immodesty mattered little. "Are they alone? What do we know of them?"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The old servant shook his head. "Just that one approached a guard at the palace gates and delivered the message himself. The men tried to apprehend him but were too slow," his head servant replied. "We will see them disciplined, naturally."

"Dammit. Of course the messenger escapes," Laczlo muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Well, how do we know they even have her? This could all be a bluff. Perhaps we can fetch Marion Olverin, the merchantwoman from Delues. She might know something."

"They provided a description." He handed Laczlo a folded piece of parchment. "Marion's been under a steady guard. I doubt anyone—"

Laczlo stopped listening and began reading the note. The writing was shaky and poor—about what one might expect of a foreign hand—and gave a detailed description of Vida, including a description of a few scars no one else should know of. They also asked him to meet them in a plaza near one of the city's slums. Laczlo about crumpled the page in his fist. Those bastards. I'll cut them apart. He forced himself to read the rest of it. They wanted him to come with forty pounds of gold.

"Forty?" Kapitalena exclaimed, reading over his shoulder. "That's ransom for a voivode!"

Mikha nodded. "It's a large sum. Larger than they should expect."

"This doesn't make any sense." His wife shook her head in dismay. "What's the point? They'll want revenge for their lord's death, but this way? It's so needlessly risky."

"Perhaps they intend to lure the tsar in for an ambush and steal the gold, taking off with Vida," Mikha said.

"Yes, but why ask for so much in the first place? They risk undercutting their own plan with such a ransom."

Laczlo felt the impulse to dress, arm himself, and grab a few good men to chase down the damn rogues. Put them to the sword and eliminate them for good. Why attack Vida of all people? Because she was close to him in a way that few others were? She foiled their plans. She caused their lord's death as much as anyone. And they know she was close to me. No, they were cowards is what they were. Pathetic, shadow-dwelling cowards with no sense of honor!

He strode to his clothing chests at the wall. "They want to provoke me into a fight! They may even wish to capture me." Dammit, where had they put his gambeson? He needed to arm himself now! "It would embarrass Vasia like nothing else could. Cowards!" He kicked his armor stand to the floor, sending it down with a great crash. "She might be dead, and we'd have no idea!"

"Then demand proof of life," Kapitalena answered, standing behind him, a hand upon his back, calming, steadying. "We can track them with that perfectly reasonable request. Find out where they are hiding—"

"I won't risk her."

"Laczlo…"

"I know, but… Deus, it's just cowardly. I can't just toss her aside." He searched for a better argument to sate Kapitalena's cold, analytical considerations. "What kind of tsar would that make me in the eyes of others if I sacrifice people like that? Loyal people? We are starting over for a reason, aren't we? With me?"

He watched her expression shift in consideration. These days, her shield of stoic blankness was up less often around him, it seemed, so he could make out at least somewhat of what she thought. "Perhaps. But I will not have you walking in there alone, and preferably not even with a strong escort. It's just too dangerous. You're more than a voivode now."

"Fine. Both Stanilo and Isak fought them before. Once we find out where they're hiding, we'll hit them with druzhina and force a surrender."

"And if they threaten Vida?"

He swallowed the question with a scowl, turning to Mikha. "Get me someone trustworthy and discreet. We'll send a messenger asking for proof of life to flush them out." His head servant hesitated, looking at him with consternation, brow wrinkled. "Go!" Laczlo shouted, and Mikha finally ran off with the task, faster than one might expect for a man of his age. After a moment, Laczlo glanced back to Kapitalena. "If they hurt her, I'll only kill the ones I need to take the rest alive. Besides, I don't think they'll risk it, not with who I'm bringing."

"And who's that?" she asked with a raised brow, an echo of concern buried somewhere there.

"My Vicarr."

…

They knew he was coming. There was no hiding it. Laczlo and twenty men in good armor bearing swords, axes, and shields could be heard before seen, and the enemy would have scouts lying in wait. He saw their shadowed outlines on rooftops, watching his force's approach. Isak and Stanilo were at his side—both elevated in station with new holdings to mark their ascent. If there was one good thing about the voivodes' rebellion, there was a lot of land to pass around, and Laczlo ensured his men got their due and then some.

"Up here," Isak muttered, nodding to the street's intersection with a major plaza.

Laczlo brought the old tsar's sword—his, now—up to a readied position, prepared for thrusts. "Shields high. We approach with caution."

They marched in unison out to the front of the square. It wasn't open as he expected, but cramped with stands for a daily market and littered with trash and discarded objects, making navigating troublesome. In the center was a small group of Rutenian men in armor of varying states of quality and condition. They carried spears and bludgeons and axes.

In their midst, he thought he could see her. Vida.

"You was to come alone!" one of them shouted in passable Vasian. "Give gold! Or she dies!"

I need to buy him time, Laczlo thought, risking a glance at the roofs all around, then focused back on them. "Is she alive?"

They talked among themselves, then parted to reveal her, bound and gagged. He couldn't see in the dark if she was hurt.

"Vida?" he called out. "Are you hurt?"

She tried to speak but couldn't through the gag.

"Remove that, and let her answer me!"

"You see she lives. No more!"

"Remove the fucking gag, you worm," he barked. "I'll ask her myself!"

They did as commanded after a moment.

She took a deep breath and replied to him, shouting across the plaza, "It's a trap! There's more in the eastern building! The cobbler shop—"

One of them wrestled a gag back on with excessive force. Laczlo growled but eyed the structure she spoke of. All the buildings were side-by-side with hardly a gap, looking like one long structure. Was there movement there? No matter. That was not his immediate concern. "Surrender her, Rodezians, and you might all just live."

"Gold, now," came the response, guttural and foolish.

"Get ready," he muttered to Isak and the others.

"They fight hard." Isak stepped forward slightly as if to put himself before Laczlo. "They'll hold nothing back to get to us."

Stanilo grunted. "Good. We still owe them for Waker."

Right. The one who sacrificed himself to hold them at bay. He eyed the shop again and caught the faintest flash of light. "Move up."

They marched as one, looking like a shield wall on the battlefield. The Rutenians stirred.

"Just tsar!" the one who was speaking before yelled, voice cracking. "Just one!"

"If you hurt her, I will do worse than execute each of you. Do you understand?"

More muttering. Good. It bought him time to close the distance.

The leader called out something, waving to the shop. There was no response. He stared, wide-eyed, then looked back to Laczlo. "What you do?"

"Your ambush has failed, I'm afraid." He stopped the shield wall a good ten paces away. "I've Sorcerers ready all about. If you hurt Vida, I'll send the survivors to be experimented on, your Souls used for Dead. Do you want that? Give up now."

The leader hesitated, then translated for the others.

Laczlo waited, fingers tight around the hilt of his fine new sword. He wanted to plunge it into their flesh with almost desperate fury. Bastards. Thinking they could cross him? Cross Vasia itself?

The Rutenians hesitated. Vida writhed under their grip, trying to find an opening to escape, clearly, but they were cautious and kept her bound and held. Finally, the leader took her by the arm and stepped forward before the others but stopped. He had a short blade in hand and brought it up to her neck.

Laczlo broke into a sprint.

The leader pressed the iron to her flesh.

Vida smashed her head back into his nose. The crunch echoed through the plaza, and the man gasped as she jerked from his hold, throwing herself forward. The warrior recovered quickly and stumbled after her, snatching at her, missing, catching her bound arms as she fell. But then Laczlo was upon him.

He turned and raised the small blade to ward off Laczlo's strike. Laczlo bashed into him with his shield, knocking him back, grabbing Vida, hauling her to her feet, and pulling her back. "Form up!"

His men stayed tight all around him as the enemy prepared a counter-charge of their own in desperation. But it was over. They'd already lost.

A streak of Soulfire, green, sparking, and sickly, arced down from a second-story slatted window, bursting in the mass of Rutenian cowards. It looked like a burning log dropped, sending up sparks of Sorcery, ash, and blackened bones. A handful of men died instantly, hands tossed up in agony and pleas, ignored by all their gods. The rest pushed forward toward Laczlo, some injured, some still in fighting condition, all frightened. His force met them without issue, better armed, trained, and led. The enemy were cut down one by one, any runners or stragglers picked off with arcs of Sorcery from multiple angles, though only one source of Soulfire. His Vicarr, his head of the Column, Varul, was responsible for that.

When it was done, and the enemy were all dead, Laczlo had all the corpses decapitated. If an iron fist worked with rebels, then it would work here, and he'd put their heads upon poles outside the gates as reminders of what happened to those who crossed him.

He knelt down beside Vida and looked at her. She was dirtied and a little roughed up but had no obvious, serious injuries. Even in her more distraught, messier state, she was strikingly beautiful. He wanted to whisk her up and take her somewhere safe. Protect her for good. But he held himself there, in charge and stone-faced. "Are you alright?"

"My pride is marred, but otherwise, yes." She pulled off her bindings and stood on wobbly legs. He stood as well. "I thought I could see what they were plotting after I found them hiding back west. They wanted to try to take your life, I think." Vida glanced back at the grisly work being done. "They changed their plan when they discovered me, foolish though it was." Then back to him, eyes large and dark and easy to get lost in. "Thank you, Laczlo."

"I'm sorry they tried to use you to get to me."

She shrugged. "It was my fault, mostly. But I expected something like this. It's one of the dangers of my position. If not me, then someone else."

He glanced at the growing stack of heads. "Let us hope not."

"But what's happened, Laczlo? I've been in the dark for a while now. They called you tsar?"

Varul approached from the side, clean and put-together in the robe of a priest, though Laczlo saw the violence Varul was capable of to think him a mere scholar or politician. "Times have changed," Laczlo said. "I had to become what was necessary, I suppose."

"And you've done it well, Tsar Vilsky." The Vicarr bowed. "Your plan, while dangerous, was a good one."

"Thank you for the support."

"A slight against you is one against Vasia. And that, we cannot stand." He turned his penetrating stare toward Vida. "Your service to the tsardom has not gone unnoticed. We are thankful for your safety."

She looked him up and down with a frown. "Thank you, I suppose."

"You are welcome. We shall require your skills in the coming months."

Laczlo sheathed his sword and looked Vida in the eyes. "The war has shifted. We're going east now, and I'll need you with me. Our enemies are greater than mere rebels."

Vida nodded slowly, unsurely. "Of course, Tsar Vilsky..."

And maybe it was just his imagination, but there was something hesitant in her gaze. Worry, perhaps. Or worse, fear.