Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

Something struck me then. “All the Syldoon seem to travel in pairs, or even greater number. Is that a requirement?”

“If you are fond of your heart pumping blood, it is,” Hewspear replied.

“I don’t understand. This is the capital, and the Syldoon are the overlords. Is it so unsafe to travel alone?”

Braylar replied, “You just hit upon your answer, archivist. We are overlords. We rule over a much larger population of Thurvacians. While there have been very few uprisings, lone Syldoon have been murdered on occasion.”

“I would expect murderers to suffer a pretty awful penalty. The murderers, I mean.”

“When caught, they do suffer a very long, very public death. And when not caught, usually someone is taken in their place and executed as well. It does tend to ensure such violence against us is very rare. But one can never be too careful. And the other Towers are no friends of ours either.”

Braylar turned down a street that led us through the middle of the city, which seemed to incense Soffjian. “The Avenue of Towers would be quicker.”

“Yes,” Braylar replied. “Yes it would.”

She waited for him to say more, and when it was clear he didn’t intend to, she grew more irritated. “So then, you are taking the slowest route because…?”

“Because, sweet sister, while it does have the most traffic in general, it has the fewest Syldoon. And until we have spoken to our Tower Commander, I would rather not trumpet our arrival for every other Tower in Sunwrack. You hastened us here. We are here. An extra hour or two will make no difference. Feel free to ride ahead or take whatever route you fancy, by all means.”

She scowled. “My charge is to escort you the entire way, and-”

“You will not shirk in your duty. Not even in the capital city. Truly impressive diligence. Are you afraid I will whip the horses and drive them out of Sunwrack the second you disappear around a corner?”

Soffjian rode a little further ahead but not so far as to disappear around any corners.

We trekked through the center of the city. Where Alespell had been a confusing warren with streets running in every conceivable direction, and the buildings so crowded they blocked out most of the sky, most of the lanes and alleys in Sunwrack were orderly, running to the four points of the compass. And though there were several buildings that were taller than anything Alespell boasted, they weren’t pressed up against each other nearly as close, as least not on the main streets.

Bells were tolling, heavy and leaden, too muted to actually be called “ringing.” While I couldn’t tell where they were coming from exactly, it was definitely somewhere ahead of us. Braylar’s eyes lit up a little, and he stopped the wagon. The other Syldoon reined in their horses as well. A few men in rough tunics and trousers walked around us in the street and looked ready to complain about the holdup until they saw the nooses.

The captain looked at Hewspear. “When was the last time you saw a ceremony? Five, six years?”

“Seven, I believe.”

“And you, Mulldoos?”

Mulldoos looked up at the unmoving clouds as the bells continued tolling. “About that. You thinking of taking a gander? Ain’t our Tower. And your bitch sister won’t be too keen.” It didn’t sound like he was too thrilled with the idea either, though.

“She wanted us to speed things up. Let us grant her wish and see what the other Tower is up to, shall we?”

We crossed several more side streets, the tolling growing louder with each one, and then Braylar called out to his sister once before turning and heading east. She spun her horse about and trotted back to catch up. Clearly not keen.

The street opened up into a square, and the first thing I saw was the large crowd gathered there, as if ready to watch a performance of some kind.

The second thing I saw was the gallows. A broad platform with ten nooses in the middle and ten men standing alongside them, and two armed men on either end

“Just in time,” Braylar said, as we stopped near the edge of the square.

While the captain seemed to be at ease, the rest of the Syldoon were tensed up. Which struck me as odd, given the death they had doled out in the short time I’d known them. I had no wish to watch anyone hang-I’d seen it before a time or two, and it was nothing next to the messy, painful, and plentiful ways I’d seen men die while in their company.

Soffjian and Skeelana seemed to be indifferent, with Braylar’s sister only saying, “I would have thought you’d seen this one time too much already, brother.”

He ignored her and watched, as quiet as the crowd assembled before us. This was also unusual. Ghoulish as it was, hangings often drew an unruly audience, with rotten food and insults thrown in equal measure. But that was usually only with one condemned man choking at the end of a rope, or sometimes a pair. Did the fact that it was ten men somehow change things? I wouldn’t think so. Or if it did, it was more likely to stir the crowd to greater depravity. Bloodlust was bloodlust, after all.

And then I noticed a few other oddities as well. None of the men next to the nooses were bound at all. Yet they all stood in attention, one step away, and they weren’t dressed like the local militia I’d seen; they had no armor on at all in fact, and were garbed head to toe in layered black. Some with fair hair, others with locks and beards as dark as tar, a few with hair the color of rust or dried blood.

“Are those… are those Syldoon?”

“They are,” Braylar replied.

“Why are they being hung? What crime did they commit?”

A man clothed all in gray stepped forward and began speaking to the men on the gallows, though I couldn’t make out anything he said.

“No crime at all. This is their manumission, Arki. From this day forward, they will be free men, full Syldoon. Well, most of them, I assume. You never can tell.”

The men on the platform replied as one to some question or directive they’d been given.

“Freed? But… they are about to be hung. Aren’t they?”

“Indeed.”

Hewspear said, “You are about to see Syldoon slaves leave off their bondage, transforming into Syldoon soldiers. They have been offered the chance to leave Sunwrack forever, or undergo the rite of manumission. These here have chosen to stay, to be bound forever to their Tower and barracks mates, but no longer as slaves. It is… something to behold.”

I still didn’t understand, and started to ask another question when Braylar silenced me. “Enough. Be still and watch, and you shall have your answers.”

Somehow I doubted that, but I shut my mouth. The men on the gallows responded to a query or command in unison again, several times. Then they stepped to the edge of the platform and slipped the nooses around their own necks and pulled the knots tight.

Aside from a little murmuring, the crowd was still hushed, and there was a sense of expectation that was almost oppressive.

A figure appeared on either end of the gallows platform, both women, both with the standard surokas on their hips, but otherwise unarmed and unarmored. They wore the same outfit, turquoise jackets belted over brown trousers. The Memoridons were still as statues as the men stood on the edge of the platforms, ropes slack for the moment, and the crowd was dead silent now. You would have thought we were watching corpses being interred in a tomb rather than men about to have the life choked out of them.

The man in gray robes said something else, raised his arm up, and then all ten men willingly stepped off the platform and began to swing and dangle and choke, feet kicking several feet above the ground. The armed Syldoon drew their swords and watched from above.