The leader of New Kethia’s former slaves named himself as Karavek, apparently the name of the master he had beaten to death during the first night of riots. “He stole freedom from me, I stole his name,” he said with a thin smile. “Seemed a fair exchange.”
He was a large man, somewhere in his fifties, with grey-black hair sprouting in an unkempt mass from his once-shaven head. However, despite his size and fierce appearance his voice told of an educated past and a mind keen enough to fully appreciate the reality of their circumstance, unalloyed by the glow of recent triumphs.
“Volar is not New Kethia,” Karavek said when the Meldenean made his formal request for alliance on behalf of Queen Lyrna. He had arrived at the governor’s mansion in company with a dozen fighters, all bristling with weaponry and regarding Fleet Lord Ell-Nurin with a naked suspicion that bordered on hostility. “This city is a village in comparison.”
“There are many still in bondage there,” Frentis said. “As you were.”
“True enough, but I don’t know them and neither do my people.”
“The queen has granted all in this province a place in the Unified Realm,” Ell-Nurin said. “You are now free subjects under her protection. But freedom carries a price . . .”
“Don’t lecture me on freedom, pirate,” Karavek growled. “Half the slaves in this city died paying that price.” He turned to Frentis, lowering his voice. “Brother, you know as well as I how precarious our position is. Any day now the southern garrisons will march to reclaim this city for the empire. We can’t fight them if our strength is off dying in Volar.”
Victory at Volar will end this empire, Frentis wanted to say but felt the words die on his tongue, knowing how hollow they would sound. “I know,” he said. “But myself and my people must sail to Volar, with any willing to join us.”
“We rose because of you,” Karavek said. “The Red Brother’s rebellion, the great crusade birthing hope in the hearts of those condemned to a life in chains. Now it seems just a diversion so your queen faces fewer enemies on the road to Volar. And if it falls, what then? Sail away leaving us to face the chaos of a fractured empire?”
“You have my word,” Frentis said. “Regardless of my queen’s intentions, when our business in Volar is complete I will return here to help in any way I can.” He glanced at Ell-Nurin. “And the queen has given assurance that, should your position here prove untenable, her fleet will carry your people across the ocean where you will be granted land and full rights in the Unified Realm.”
Karavek straightened at this, narrowing his gaze at the Fleet Lord. “He speaks true?”
Ell-Nurin maintained an admirably placid expression as he said, “Only a fool with no regard for his life would dare to speak falsely in the queen’s name.”
The rebel leader grunted, running a hand through the shaggy mess of his hair, brow knotted in consideration. “I’ll speak to my people,” he said eventually. “Should be able to muster a thousand swords to go with you. I trust your queen will appreciate the gesture.”
“She is your queen now,” Frentis reminded him. “And she never forgets a debt.”
? ? ?
The freed Varitai were encamped in the ruins of Old Kethia, along with a large number of grey-clads who found the former slave soldiers more welcoming company than the newly freed denizens of the city itself. A few dozen had been chased into the ruins by a mob in the immediate aftermath of the city’s fall. Their pursuers’ bloodlust abated somewhat at the sight of seven hundred Varitai drawn up in full battle order, Weaver standing at their head with his arms crossed and face set in stern disapproval. Even so the mob had lingered for a time, their fury still unquenched, and the matter might have degenerated further but for the arrival of Master Rensial’s mounted company. Since then a steady stream of beggared Volarians had made their way to the ruins, more trickling in from the south every day, having found life in the wilderness too great a trial.
“Will the Varitai come?” Frentis asked Weaver as they sat together in what he assumed had been the old city’s council chamber. It was a rectangular structure comprising six rows of ascending marble benches around a large flat space. The roof had vanished but the massive pillars that once supported it remained, though standing at perhaps half their former height. The floor was covered in a vast mosaic, the tiles faded in the sun and pounded to fragments in many places, but still complete enough to convey a sense of accomplished artistry, a greatness brought low in the fury of war.
“They have a new name now,” Weaver said. “Politai, which means unchained in old Volarian. And yes they’ll come, there being so many more of their brothers to free in Volar. I shall ask them to leave enough men here to guard these people though.”