The House of Sacrifice. Anna Smith Spark

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      So.

      Marith looked down at him. Pale dying eyes. Refused to meet Marith’s gaze.

      Marith said slowly, ‘I left Arunmen untouched. I granted you freedom under my suzerainty. I left you unharmed. Yet you defied me. Usurped my crown. Claimed you could destroy me. Why?’

      The prisoner spat at him. A great gobbet of yellow phlegm on the gold-painted dais.

      ‘Why?’

      Clatter of iron chains. The prisoner looked up straight at Marith. Stared at him. A wild man’s eyes. Pale and dying. Filled with hate. Empty croaking voice like a fucking frog: ‘Filth. Pestilence. Poison. Better all the world died in torment, than lived under your rule.’

      That’s why? That’s all? Marith stared at the phlegm oozing slowly down the steps of the dais. I call myself King Ruin, King of Death, King of Shadows. You think I don’t know what I am?

      ‘I am your king,’ Marith said. ‘The Lord of All Irlast.’

      The prisoner lowered his eyes again. ‘You are my king. The Lord of All Irlast. So better that I die.’

      ‘You let a lot of your men die for you first,’ said Alleen. ‘And a lot of mine.’ He looked at Marith. ‘This is pointless. Just get it over with and kill him.’

      ‘Better that every living thing in Irlast dies than submits to you.’ Spat more phlegm. Opened his bowels and shat himself at Marith’s feet. ‘My soldiers were lucky, that they died before they had to look at your face.’

      ‘They looked at our faces perfectly happily when we marched in triumphantly a few months ago,’ Alleen snapped. ‘Threw flowers at us, made us very welcome in every possible way, then. They were perfectly happy and alive and most of them seemed to be enjoying themselves.’

      A great big feast. The city’s fountains running with wine instead of water. King Marith and Queen Thalia distributing largesse in the streets. Girls wearing crowns of roses. Singing and dancing all day and all night. Yes, the people of Arunmen had seemed happy and alive and enjoying themselves. Alleen and Osen and the other generals had been virtually fighting admirers off.

      ‘So why? Why?’

      The prisoner stared at him in silence. Shit pooling on the marble. Phlegm dripping down the gold-painted steps. Stared. Lowered his eyes, stared at the floor.

      Spat again.

      ‘Filth. Pestilence. Rot.’

      Osen rolled his eyes at Marith. Mouthed something that might have been ‘hurry up’.

      Always the same. Every few months, somewhere in his empire. Someone standing up, sword in hand, promising they could overthrow the tyrant, save the world from something it was never quite clear what. Being ruled by one man rather than another, perhaps. Overthrow the rule of evil! Freedom beckons! Kill the tyrant, throw off our chains, make me king! And all the young men and women jumping up shouting agreement, muttering prophecies, singing uplifting bloodthirsty war songs. And he’d have to break off whatever he was doing, march over with an army, deal with them. And they were all freed from the tyrant indeed, and never again had to suffer beneath his yoke.

      The smell and the sight of the filth dripping on the dais was making him feel nauseous. Really seriously worried he was about to be sick again in front of them all. Curse Alleen Durith and his choice of drinks.

      Hang on, hang on, it suddenly occurred to him. I’d already drawn up my battle plan giving Osen command of the assault on the Salen Gateway. There’s no way I would have changed it if they’d asked me to. They tossed for it? What?

      ‘Shall I kill him?’ said Osen. Osen’s hand was hovering on the hilt of his sword.

      Marith nodded wearily. The prisoner’s shoulders sagged. Osen drew the sword.

      The prisoner raised his head, shouted out: ‘You think yourself so powerful! But one of your own generals plots to betray you! Conspires against you! Thinks you nothing but filth and death! Think on that, King Ruin! Even those who serve you wish you dead! Betray you! I know!’

      The prisoner’s face leering at him.

      The hate in those eyes. Why? Marith thought again. Why? I left your city untouched. I. Left. Your. City. Un. Touched.

      ‘I won’t tell,’ the prisoner whispered. Smiled at Marith through bloody lips. ‘I won’t tell you. Even those closest to you loathe you. Plot to destroy you. See you for what you are. Encouraged me. Gave me money. Betrayed you. I know. But I won’t tell. I won’t tell you the name.’

      ‘You’re lying!’ Hot desperate flush in Marith’s face. ‘I left Arunmen untouched!’

      ‘Filth. Rot. Corruption. They all loathe you, King Ruin. Want to see you dead.’

      ‘Marith—’ Alleen Durith gestured to the guards. ‘Take him away. Get him out of here. Now.’

      ‘Betraying you!’

      ‘Get him out of here now!’

      Osen ripped down with his sword. The Calien Mal. The Eagle Blade. Sword that had killed mages and lords and kings.

      No sound. The prisoner dead on the floor.

      Alleen rubbed his eyes. ‘Marith …’

      ‘He was lying,’ said Marith.

      Alleen said, ‘Gods, Osen, we needed to question him.’

      ‘He was lying. There was nothing to find out.’

      Alis Nymen made a croaking sound. Dansa Arual was staring at Osen with her mouth open.

      ‘He was lying, he was a traitor,’ said Osen. ‘Who wanted to listen to any more of that poison?’ He shrugged at Marith. ‘Let’s go and get a drink.’

      Four glorious years. Half the world broken at his feet. Broken towers, burned fields, silver crowns, gold crowns, thrones of gold, thrones of iron, thrones of wood, thrones of stone. We march on and on to the horizon, places I barely knew existed places that I cannot imagine. Impossible to think, really, that these places drawn in ink on a map are real places where real people live. Look to the far south, stare at the clouds where the land and the sky meet – there are people living there, houses, tilled fields, people dying and being born, people thinking feeling dreaming as I dream. Children, he thought, live there. And it is absurd that they are real and exist there. I cannot imagine these places these people. I march my army on. We kill them. All across Irlast my dead lie scattered, mounds of them, my soldiers, dead! Their bones lie on the dark earth for the crows and the dogs, all out of love for me. They march beneath my banners to die for me in places they do not believe are real places, killed by men they cannot imagine are real and live. Ask them why and they will give a thousand excuses. And yet they are ordinary men.

       ‘I need to earn coin, I need to feed my family, my children will starve unless I earn a wage somehow.’

       ‘I’ve got responsibilities to the rest of them in the squad. We’re a team. I can’t let them down.’

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