95 Ishalem Wall

His face ashen and his thoughts heavy, Mateo led a grim convoy under the hot noonday sun. In the distance, out at sea, thickening clouds hinted at a storm to come—a large one—but the darkness hanging over the travelers was more oppressive than any storm.

Weeds had overgrown the rugged Pilgrims' Road because so few traveled it any longer; ruts and rocks made the cart wheels thump and wobble as they groaned forward under their heavy loads. The horses were restless from the cloying stink.

At least they were away from the sounds of the hungry, desperate, and terrified Urecari captives.

The accompanying soldiers shambled along in a self-protective daze that numbed them to their own memories. There were no words here. To a man, they were appalled by their own actions, and the necessity that had driven them. Only another hour before they delivered their gift to the soldan-shah.

Mateo felt queasy, suffocated by his own responsibility in this. Though the worst was over, he doubted he would ever again sleep without nightmares… if he slept at all.

By the queen's command…

In desperation, he tried to think of sweet Vicka. She would be back in Calay at her father's smithy, scolding and supervising their numerous young apprentices. She would have dinner with her father, without Mateo, but he knew she would think of him. Vicka would be managing the constant production of weapons and armor. When she stood beside the flying sparks of the grindstone, did the thought cross her mind what those fine Sonnen blades would be used for… sharpened to a well-honed edge that could chop through the neck of any Uraban prisoner who had the misfortune to be captured at the wrong time?

He forcibly drove Vicka's face from his memory, because he did not want to associate thoughts of her with this. He moved forward in solemn silence.

Destrar Shenro had ridden down from Alamont to join this mission, to honor the martyred Alamont horsemen who had bravely—foolishly—died in an ill-conceived attempt to recapture the holy city. But his drawn face showed clear regret. He already bore guilt for executing hundreds of work-camp prisoners in retaliation for the betrayal at the Ishalem wall.

And then there was poor Tomas.

And now these Uraban victims.

Would the cycle never end? The momentum of hatred swept them along like the foamy waters of an uncontrolled flood. This war had changed both Tierran and Uraban, followers of Aiden and followers of Urec alike. It left scars so thick and ugly that not even victory could make them fade….

With hopeless dread, Mateo knew that today's actions would not stop further vengeful bloodshed. But there was nothing he could do about it, nothing he could change… perhaps nothing he even wanted to change….

Before setting out from Calay Castle, he had met with Queen Anjine and begged her to reconsider. “I understand your sorrow and your hatred… but if you do this, you step over a precipice. You can never take it back.”

He expected her anger to flash, but her eyes remained oddly dull. “Take it back? Can they take back what they did to Tomas? They murdered him in cold blood, took that poor sweet boy and chopped off his head.A thousand Urecari are not enough to pay back that pain, but I will be merciful.”

He had raised his eyes with a glimmer of hope. “Mercy?”

“Yes… I will stop at one thousand. That is all the mercy I'm prepared to show them.” Anjine had looked up at him, her expression softening to reveal a hint of the woman he had once known so well. “My decision is made. I need you. Mateo. I need you to do this for me.”

He had bowed, partly to hide his face. “I have always sworn my heart and my life to you… my Queen.”

He had tried not to see the faces as he carried out his orders: men begging, women wailing, children crying, all pleading in a language he didn't understand. He had tried to see Tomas instead of these victims, to remember why he was doing this.

As commander, he was not required to bloody his own sword. He could have ordered his soldiers to do all of the killing. But that would not have kept his hands clean. He was a part of this. Mateo had killed thirty-seven captives himself, with strong, clean strokes of his own sharpened sword… the one that Vicka had given him. With each death, he hoped it would make up for Tomas, but it didn't.

And it didn't.

Nor did the next…

Ahead now, they could see the towering stone wall that barred faithful Aidenists from Ishalem. God's Barricade, the Urecari mockingly called it. Within clear sight of the imposing barrier, Mateo called a halt to the procession.

A commotion occurred atop the wall as soldiers took up bows and waited to see if this was some sort of enemy attack. Next to Mateo, Shenro covered his nose. “Let's be done with this, Subcomdar, and get far from here.”

“Not yet. Give them time to call the city governor or the soldan-shah, if he's there.”

When all the carts were pulled forward into a line, Mateo gestured to the soldiers. “Abandon the wagons and cut the horses free. We'll have to ride swiftly, once the Curlies see the harvest we brought them.”

“There he is!” Destrar Shenro pointed out a man wearing pale robes, with a clean white olba wrapped around his head and a glint of gold at his neck. Clearly, a person of some importance.

Mateo nodded grimly. “Good enough. Now.”

The men strained as they rocked the wagons and overturned them to spill their contents on the ground. Cartload after cartload of severed Uraban heads rolled like lumpy, rotten gourds into the dirt outside the Ishalem wall. Men, women, children.

One thousand of them.

Even at that, Anjine did not consider it sufficient payment for what these monsters had done to the prince.

Mateo wheeled his horse and whistled to his men, as howls of outrage erupted behind them from the Ishalem wall. Soon the gates would open and war chargers burst forth. Mateo did not have the army to fight them. They rode away at a gallop along the old Pilgrims' Road, to where ships awaited them at the temporary prisoner camp, miles north.

In front of them, at the now abandoned camp, towering clouds of black smoke already rose into the air, marking the huge pyres that burned the headless bodies. Mateo hoped the Tierran ships were ready to depart as soon as they arrived at the anchorage. He wanted to go home, to Calay, to Vicka, and to the queen.

But he would never leave these memories behind.