“You claim a dedication to peace and harmony,” Ulmek said to Adu’lin, “but those men have the look of warriors given more to taking life, than preserving it.”
“Alas, the defense of our home is a distasteful burden the Yatoans force us to endure. At one time, when first we arrived to these lands, we gladly sacrificed our lives on Yatoan swords. We hoped our lack of resistance, and our message of peace, would cool their savagery. The effort decimated our numbers so much that even now, after all these years, we are still few. For the sake of preserving and spreading our beliefs, we swallowed our aversion to touching the implements of death. We took up arms, but only as a means of defense, and the preservation of our life. And, for long years, just the possibility that we would defend ourselves has been enough to keep the Yatoans at bay. Of late, that has changed.”
Ba’Sel moved closer to the golden-skinned man. “If you need help, only ask, and my men and I will beat back these enemies for you.”
Ulmek’s head whipped around, his features tight with incredulity. Leitos blinked slowly, thinking he had heard wrong. Glancing at the others, he knew he had not. We will beat back these enemies for you. After so long of ordering the Brothers to always run and hide, to always shun their only purpose as free warriors, now he spoke of joining battle against unknown foes. It made no sense.
“I thank you, Ba’Sel,” Adu’lin said with a slight bow. “But that will not be necessary. While we are few, my people have the means to repel those who would destroy us. For now, it would honor me to serve you and your men by providing you with refuge, while our shipwrights repair one of the wrecked vessels.”
Ba’Sel accepted that with a nod, seemingly oblivious of the Brothers’ questioning stares. Adu’lin, Leitos noted, did not seem so unaware. By his estimation, the man’s eyes missed very little.
Adu’lin moved to a small, rusted iron door set to one side of the main gate. A shutter grated open, and a narrow Fauthian face peered through. Adu’lin spoke a quiet word, and a moment later the door screeched inward. Adu’lin led the Brothers and Kelren prisoners through. Behind them, the guard closed and barred the door.
Four more guards emerged from a squat gatehouse, each as tall and striking as Adu’lin and the rest of the Fauthians. Two guards took the unresisting sea-wolves down a paved street, vanishing into a city as dark and still as a tomb. Braced by Adu’lin’s retinue, the other two guards stood fast, halberds held across their chests. Where their leader’s gaze was inscrutable, theirs spoke of open mistrust, if not outright dislike.
Adu’lin bowed with an air of formality. “I bid you welcome to our city, Armala.” His thin smile did not match the warmth of his graciousness. “You will be safe here, and all your needs met.” His tone raised a tickle of suspicion in Leitos’s mind. As far as Adu’lin and his kindred knew, the Brothers of the Crimson Shield might be every bit as troublesome as the Yatoans, yet he behaved as if they could not be a threat.
“To ensure your safety, and to allay my people’s concerns,” Adu’lin went on hurriedly, as if embarrassed, “I must ask that you relinquish your weapons. We will hold them in our armory for safekeeping. And, of course, they will be returned upon your departure.”
Before anyone could protest, Ba’Sel’s sword whispered from its scabbard, and he presented the weapon to Adu’lin. Eyes bulging indignantly, Sumahn stepped forward. The way he clutched his hilt prompted the two Fauthian guards to swing their halberds in his direction. Adu’lin’s eyes widened with fear-the first true emotion Leitos believed he had seen from the man.
Ulmek caught the young warrior’s arm before he could bare an inch of steel. “We are guests here, youngling. Mind your manners.” After Sumahn acquiesced with a reluctant nod, Ulmek released him. As Ba’Sel had before him, Ulmek drew his weapons, and presented them to Adu’lin.
Adu’lin gestured absently to the ground at his guards’ feet. “Stack your weapons there. My men will see them safely delivered to the armory.”
Sumahn was the last to relinquish his sword and dagger. Instead of adding them to the pile, he hurled the dagger at Adu’lin’s feet, burying half the blade into a crack between the paving stones, making the Fauthian leader take a hasty step backward. Sumahn’s sword joined the dagger, the steel throwing sparks as he drove into the gap. His defiance brought a secret gladness to Leitos and, he was sure, to all the Brothers. All except a scowling Ba’Sel.
“Very good,” Adu’lin said, only a little flustered. “Come. I will show you to your quarters.”
When no one moved, Ba’Sel wheeled, his dark face tight with anger. “As Ulmek said, we are guests. Behave as such.”
Many of the Brothers looked to Ulmek, who inclined his head almost imperceptibly. If it disturbed Ba’Sel to see his men look to another for approval, he hid it well.
He abruptly spun on his heel and moved beside Adu’lin. Hesitantly, the rest of the Brothers fell in line. Behind them, the Fauthian guards wheeled a cart next to the weapons, and began carelessly tossing them into the wooden bed.
Leitos moved between Adham and Halan, doing his best to make himself seem the most uninteresting Brother of the lot. More than Ulmek’s order to do so, he wanted to remain anonymous. He did not feel as if he were coming into a place of safety, but rather into an enemy stronghold. It concerned him that Ba’Sel seemed oblivious. Even now, their leader walked alongside Adu’lin as a deferential servant, speaking quietly and smiling a great deal. The Fauthian paid Ba’Sel little mind.
As they progressed through the city, Leitos began to think less about their situation, and more about his surroundings.
Built upon a narrow plateau, the city climbed gently to the south, joining a moonlit ridgeline that meandered down from high peaks, and passed through milky curtains of mist. Leitos guessed Armala stretched north to south for a league, but was only a quarter that in width. A snaking wall surrounded the city. At the center of it all stood a domed palace, with four towers at each corner of its curtain wall. It was the only place in Armala with lights of any sort.
He saw no signs of activity or life beyond the center of the city. In truth, the streets they walked, the buildings they passed, all had the look of long disuse. They reminded him of the bone-towns he and Zera had passed through. The thought of those, and the Mahk’lar that had claimed them for their own, made him uneasy. But other than a familiar feeling of abandonment and a decrepit aspect, he saw no indication of demonic spirits within Armala.
“This city,” Adham whispered, searching the darkness as intently as Leitos and the rest of the Brothers, “it reminds me of Fortress El’hadar and the Black Keep, a place my father spoke of.”
Leitos cocked his head in curiosity, as the party moved through a broad, circular intersection of two streets. His eyes fixed on a feminine figure carved from bone-pale stone, and towering thrice his height. Naked and majestic, she stood frozen between steps, one hand brushing her smooth hip, the other eternally reaching for something unknown. Above her rounded breasts, she ceased to be a woman. The creature’s skull was grotesquely swollen and elongated, and it peered northward with huge, rounded sockets.
Leitos jerked his gaze away. Beside him, Adham shivered, his face ashen in the moonlight. When he spoke again, his voice was rough.
“Since before the dawn of our people, the Black Keep has stood. Many tales say it has been there at the edge of the Qaharadin Marshes since the forming of the world. Walls built around it crumble faster than stone and mortar should, and nothing wholesome will grow in its shadow. Yet the dark stone of that keep resists time and decay. Armala is a city of Black Keeps.”
Leitos realized then that the paving stones beneath their feet, the walls of the buildings around them, the monuments and fountains they had passed, were all built of dark stone.