H A Z E

by Bandy

Chapter 23

In the east, a lone trumpet sounded. Sixty more echoed the call. The sound rolled across the endless grassy plains, swept upward by the wind. Citizens in the market, senators in their offices, servants in the slums, all dropped what they were doing. Those who could fly took to the skies. Those who couldn’t rushed for higher ground.

Senator Giesu heard the commotion and almost snapped his pen in half. It was finally happening. Romulus had come back.

Right as he rose from his cloudstone desk, ten aides burst into his room. He held up a hoof before any of them could speak. “I know. I heard. Secure a good spot in Hero’s Park for my entourage. Take the gold off my ceremonial armor and rough it up a little. Make it look like we were there with him. Get ale for his troops. Make sure they know who it’s from.” He pointed to one particularly scrawny aide. “You. Coffee. Now.”

The aides scattered, leaving him alone again. Sounds of pandemonium echoed down the hall. He put his head in his hooves and tried to enjoy a few final moments of relative quiet.

The scrawny aide knocked on the door and pulled him from his peace all too soon. “Uh, senator? Your coffee.”

Giesu motioned him in. “What’s your name again?” he asked.

“Veneer, senator.”

“Thank you, Veneer. I appreciate your patience with me.”

“Of course, senator. It’s a very stressful time. We’re all there with you.”

Giesu stared tiredly into his reflection in the coffee. “Do you think he’ll find our gifts acceptable?”

The aide swallowed hard. Everypony in the general staff knew the kind of gifts Giesu liked to give.

The aide finally said, “I think they’ll convey a strong message, senator.”

---

The parade came together in the courtyard. Ceremonial armor, chests full of gold and rare jewels from vassal diamond dog states, rare animals for entertainment and consumption, tributes of fur from the Griffon kingdoms, thrones of gold leaf and flowers woven from the grassland tribes, and narwhal horns from the northwestern shores were all carefully laid out on parade floats. When Romulus’s army arrived, the floats would be presented as tribute for all to see.

One of the senator’s senior underlings, a Prench unicorn stallion named LeBaine, hustled into his meager office. LeBaine’s assistant, an earth pony named Floore, was agonizing over a long list of items from the western changeling hive which would be included in the parade. Being changelings, most of their gifts were goo-based and highly corrosive to precious metals. Right now, Floore was trying to find a place for the gifts which would neither spurn the bug diplomats nor burn a hole through the city. —

“Get up, Floore,” LeBaine snapped, his accented voice heavy and harsh. “Those idiots down the hall forgot to prep the servants. Take care of it.”

Floore sprang up, saluted, and zipped out the door. A moment later, he peeked his head sheepishly around the doorframe. “Uh. Aren’t you coming?”

“I’ll meet you in the courtyard. I need to get the pony in the cage.”

“The cage, sir? It’s fifty yards away. Tell him to walk.”

“I don’t think he’s walked since—” He made a slicing motion with his hoof and went, “Zoop.”

“Oh.” Floore’s face went pale. He nodded and dashed out the doorway.

---

Hypha was in the same position LeBaine had left him in the other day. Senator Giesu, in all his satanic wisdom, had invited a cadre of medical students from the local university to practice healing spells and force-feeding on him, so physically speaking Hypha looked just fine. No one bothered shocking the cage anymore. Small mercy. The smell of burnt fur was driving everyone crazy.

“Okay, big guy,” LeBaine said, tapping on the bars of the cage. “Time to wake up.”

Hypha didn’t move. LeBaine rolled his eyes and fished out the keys to the cage. Stepping onto the electrified pad made his fur bristle, even if the controls were locked up.

“Where’s your leg?” he asked. Hypha didn’t respond. “I want us to go for a walk. Some real sunlight would feel good, yeah?”

Hypha relaxed a little. He untucked the splintery wooden prosthetic from underneath him and started to throw the leather straps over his shoulder. LeBaine stood over him and buckled everything together.

“Do you see it?”

Hypha's voice was weak. Almost a whisper. LeBaine nearly missed it with all the hustle and bustle going on behind him. He leaned closer to Hypha and said, “See what?”

“The mountains.” He nodded at the wall.

“I don’t see any mountains,” LeBaine said. “But if you put on your leg and promise to be good, I’ll see what I can do about getting you some fresh hay. Maybe there’ll be birds out today. You’d like to hear the birds, yeah?”

Hypha stirred. His eyes peeled away from the wall and his imaginary mountains. “Yeah.”

Hypha perked up the instant the sunlight touched his fur. In the middle of the crowded courtyard, with military units assembling into formation, aides scrambling from one side of the complex to the other, and pegasi going up and down, Hypha stood still, the eye of a strange storm.

“Feels good, yeah?” LeBaine asked.

Hypha nodded.

LeBaine produced a thick black thermos. “I have something else for you. Coffee.” Hypha reached for the thermos, but LeBaine pulled it out of reach. “You have to do something for me first. We need to go on a little walk. You can take the thermos with you, but—”

“He’s here,” Hypha said. His stoney posture broke. His eyes fell on LeBaine with unsettling weight. “He’s here, isn’t he.”

LeBaine had lived his whole life in Derecho. He’d never once touched the ground. But in that moment, he felt the pressure of a billion tons of earth hanging over his head.

“He’s here,” LeBaine said. “We’re going to go see him.”

The parade was one of the biggest spectacles Derecho had ever seen. For the past two years, Romulus and his renegade legion had marched east, sending back a steady supply of wealth and tall tales. Now it was time to return the favor.

From a pegasus-eye view, the parade looked like strands of rainbow thread spiraling towards the city center. Convoys merged and separated as the city rotated. All ground traffic ceased. Even pegasi, famously flighty, packed themselves shoulder-to-shoulder on rooftop ledges like rows of brightly-colored birds.

Senator Giesu’s convoy of tribute turned heads as it made its way towards Hero’s Park. Hypha found himself squarely in the middle, surrounded by carts of gold and cloudstone statues of Romulus and his lieutenants. Walking with the new prosthetic still demanded his entire attention. The snail’s pace agreed with him.

Hero’s Park was a living monument nestled equidistantly between the colosseum, the central bank, and the senate. Half a mile of pristinely manicured natural clouds formed the floor of the park. Cloudstone colonnades four columns deep and lined with ceiling mosaics ringed the park on three sides. The place had been hastily outfitted with a raised dias and banners bearing the black and red V of Romulus’s legion.

It took another hour for the tribute convoys to finish filing in. Citizens spilled in behind the carts, filling up every inch of the square. More pegasi packed the colonnade roofs as if they were colosseum seats.

Just then, a roar went up from the ponies closest to the dias. Shapes in dark armor stepped onto the stage. The air crackled with electricity as a magically amplified voice shouted, “Derecho! Here me now!”

The park exploded with applause. The crowd pressed in. Pegasi flocked towards the dias like clouds of birds. Hypha covered his ears. His prosthetic leg left a splinter in the soft flesh.

The voice went on, “When I left with my legion two long years ago, I promised to return with wealth and glory. And here I am!” Another cheer went up. “In return for all that wealth and glory, I asked all of you for something in return. Prosperity.” The crowd leaned in. “And from this gathering, I can see...” He paused. The tension soared. “That you have exceeded my every expectation!”

The crowd went wild. LeBaine tried to roll his eyes discreetly.

“What we’ve done together will ensure the supremacy of Derecho for the next five hundred years. The world is ever changing, but the sun always rises. The sun always sets. And Derecho keeps on turning!” Murmurs in the crowd turned to cries of adulation. “The earth is ever-changing, but the skies are eternal. Derecho is eternal!”

The crowd roared back, “Derecho!”

The figures disappeared from the dias. A moment later, a pegasus courier landed beside LeBaine and whispered something into his ear. Lines of worry appeared on the aide’s forehead.

“Are you serious?” LeBaine gestured at the crowd. “It’s impossible.” The pegasus gave a helpless shrug. “Well, maybe you could fly us out on your back.”

The pegasus laughed and flew away.

“Tarfeathers.” LeBaine tapped Hypha on the shoulder. “We have to go to general Romulus’s estate. Senator Giesu wants to present you and the other tributes to Romulus personally.”

Hypha glanced nervously at the crowd. “I can’t. I’ll get trampled.”

“It’s not up to us. We have to go.”

“We should wait until the crowd thins out. Then it won’t be so hard for me to walk through.”

“Hypha.” LeBaine’s voice grew dark. “We’re going.”

Hypha’s chest tightened. His breathing quickened. “I can’t. I—”

“I’m done arguing. If you don’t come with me now, I’ll take your leg and make you walk to the senator’s palace by yourself.”

A chill ran up Hypha’s spine. With all the pushing and shoving going on, he’d wind up flat on his back in no time. And excited crowds couldn’t just stop on a dime.

“I’ll go,” he said. “Please don’t take my leg.”

LeBaine relaxed his expression. “Was that so hard? Let’s get going.”

---

The interior of general Romulus’s estate reeked of cooked duck.

General Romulus had picked up the taste while subjugating the griffon territories half a decade earlier. The recipe in question called for a long, slow braise in wine-infused stock, followed by a short and heavy sear to crisp the carcass.

The smell of rendered duck fat clung to everything and made most of the servants gag. Hypha took one whiff and promptly fainted.

“Not to your taste?” asked LeBaine. He made no effort to hide the displeasure from his face.

“I’m fine,” Hypha muttered as he struggled to stand. He wouldn’t dare admit it out loud, but the smell intoxicated him. He hoped it had less to do with personal preference and more the fact that, in all the commotion of that morning, no one had remembered to force-feed him.

Inside a grand ballroom, thirty ponies sat on all sides of a long rectangular hardwood table—a colossal luxury in a place where no trees grew naturally. At one end of the table, Giesu was licking one plate clean and reaching for another simultaneously. Peas and carrots and bits of roasted tofu went everywhere. His high-ranking guests, not wanting to seem out of sync with their host, ate with similar abandon.

At the other end of the table, barely peeking over the other guests’ epaulets, sat a subdued earth pony stallion picking at a meager portion of roast duck. His frame radiated childhood malnutrition. The ornate gold chair all but consumed him. Around his neck hung the red cloak of an army general.

Romulus.

Hypha’s blood ran cold. The rage he’d tried to bury broke through, and every ounce of pain he’d felt in the past three months came roaring back to life.It ripped him back in time, held him over the hot coals of his worst memories until his lungs cooked and his skin crackled.

LeBaine pulled Hypha to the far side of the hall, to the end of a lineup of ponies looking similarly bleak. The rest of Romulus's gifts, no doubt.

LeBaine tousled Hypha’s mane so it would lay flat. “Don’t talk,” LeBaine said in a low voice. “They’re drunk. They’ll have you killed.”

Just then, Romulus said something across the table to Giesu. He had a naturally soft voice, and between LeBaine whispering in his ear and all the silverware clattering Hypha couldn’t quite make out the words.

Giesu, however, did. “Two million?” he shouted.

With a searing screech of silverware, the entire table went dead silent.

Without missing a beat, Romulus replied, “Sorry senator, I wasn’t being very clear. I meant two million more.”

For the first time in Hypha’s memory, Giesu fell silent. His face twisted up. His eyes blinked furiously. “So... that’s—”

“Four point two million in total.”

Giesu plopped back down in his chair. “Four point...” He picked up his fork and knife and attempted to saw through his meal. “I’m afraid,” he said, inflecting his words with draws of the knife, “that simply isn’t possible.”

The plate cracked. Hypha’s knees went weak.

“Southern plains buffalo are as prideful as they are large. Do you know how they hunt?”

“Who cares how they hunt?” Giesu spewed half-chewed tofu back onto his plate. “As far as I know, they haven’t even left the stone age.”

“They haven’t. But if you’ll indulge my inner historian—they hunt by herding their prey into a high-walled gorge to trap them. Once the entrance is sealed off, they leap off the top of the gorge like buffalo cannonball.” He clapped his hooves together. The ponies on either side of him flinched. “Can you imagine what clever things they’ll do to us when we come knocking?”

“I have every confidence that you can pacify them.”

“Oh, we will. But we have to be prepared to lose a great number of ponies in the process. That’s why going south is going to be so expensive. Coffins, life insurance payouts, not to mention treating the wounded. That’s on top of the usual expenses.”

“What are the other options? There’s got to be someone we can pacify on a budget.”

Romulus scratched his chin. “There’s the Uktu of the Southern Isles. They’re aquanomadic kangaroos.”

“What else?”

Romulus scratched his chin. “The griffon territories are getting uppity again. We could repacify them.”

“We’ve already done that three times. There’s no glory in it anymore.”

“The greatest glory comes with the greatest risk.”

“And the greatest expense,” Giesu grumbled.

Romulus took another bite of his duck. A dry smile cracked his weathered face. “If I march my legion halfway around the world, I need to sell them on a story. Otherwise they’ll abandon me and march home. We need to sell the public a story too, so they won’t string us up when we increase taxes.”

“Then make something up. I’ll codify it. Anything to avoid that sort of expense.”

“Power is something you can’t simply purchase the same way you could purchase an election. Elections are straightforward.”

“My senatorial seat didn’t cost four million bits.”

“That’s because your senatorial seat isn’t worth four million bits.”

A murmur rippled around the table. Giesu looked as steamed as the vegetables on his plate.

“I mean no offense, senator. I just want you to look at things from an outsider’s perspective. The senate and the army both run on bits. But no amount of bits will get the senate to stop scheming.” He speared another piece of duck. “Pay an army well, feed them, make them believe in the flag they’re flying, and ten thousand ponies will gallop to their deaths for you.”

“I’m glad your troops are finding honor in their lot,” Giesu said in a flat voice, “but honor isn’t usable capital.”

“isn’t it?”

“This tiff in the mountains put me out nearly two million bits. What do I have to show for it?”

“The parade was nice.”

“Be serious.”

“You want serious? This tiff gave you leverage, senator. Our empire is ten percent bigger and who-knows how much richer because you backed me when no one else did. Your political rivals see me, and by extension my army, as your asset. As far as they’re concerned, all these festivities are really for you.”

Giesu let the words soak in. “My asset...”

“Yes. The others see me as a rabid earth pony. You know what they call me in the senate.”

“We don’t need to sully this space with libel—”

“No, the nickname’s a blessing in disguise. Ratdog Romulus. And just by being here right now in your manor, they’re inferring that you hold my leash. That’s leverage. And with enough leverage, you could bend the senate, or even other foreign powers, to your will without ever coming to blows. Not Derecho’s will. Your will.”

Giesu nodded. “How many more campaigns will it take before we can move internally?”

“Maybe one. Maybe two. Maybe five.”

“Five?”

“Maybe less. We need to keep raising the stakes until some crack in the senate’s armor reveals itself. Maybe it already has. We need to be vigilant. That moment will be sweet, but we can’t force it.” His nostrils flared. His voice rose until it echoed in the cloudstone arches. “Perhaps after this next campaign I’ll march back and throw the head of the buffalo chief onto the senate floor and proclaim the senate is dead. And if I say the senate is dead, no one would dare cross me. And since I’m merely an asset in the pocket of senator Giesu—”

Just then, his eyes flashed like those of a predator to his plate. He snatched it up and lapped up a spot of congealing duck fat. The pony next to him gagged. Giesu raised an eyebrow. The ballroom was absolutely, perfectly still, so still the sound of Romulus setting down his plate echoed like cannonfire.

“Vigilance,” he said into the vacuum of silence. “Vigilance and four point two million bits. That’s the price of victory.”

LeBaine chose that moment to clear his throat. Giesu’s eyes flickered to the lineup of prisoners in the corner.His features lit up, a twisted mask of a smile. “Seems like we’re all done with dinner.” Giesu stood. His guests followed suit. Romulus remained seated. “I’ve provided drinks in the courtyard, if you wish to partake. General, if you’d be so kind as to indulge me and stay behind a moment. I have some gifts for you.”

Hypha’s heart shot into his throat. This was it. The hall grew quiet as the other dinner guests filed out. Romulus picked up a roll and chewed it absently as he made his way over to the lineup. He was even smaller than Hypha first thought, though that didn’t make him any less intimidating.

Romulus looked over the first prisoner in the lineup with a dispassionate eye. “What are you good at?”

The prisoner, a bulky stallion, opened his mouth, but a tremor wracked his body, stifling his reply.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. I need to know what skills you have.”

“I can... clean. And cook. Manual labor too.”

“Do you know any trades?”

“Back in Vermillion, I was an architect. I worked in cloudstone and traditional stone.”

“Impressive. If given the chance to design a bridge that would collapse and kill the soldiers crossing it, would you do it?”

The stallion seemed taken aback. “No, of course not—”

“Good.” Romulus gestured to LeBaine. “Have him folded into my engineer battalion.”

The pegasus was dumbstruck. “I don’t—I—”

“Please. Every senator and their asshole uncle gave me ten prisoners today. I don’t need any more of those. Give me ten years in the legion, and you’ll be discharged with full honors and titles.”

“Okay,” the pegasus nodded. The tremor returned. “Okay.”

And so, one by one, Romulus went down the line of captured ponies, listening patiently to their stories until he could deduce some niche into which he could fold them. The looks of relief on the servants' faces could have lit up the hall by themselves.

As Hypha’s turn drew near, an odd sense of calm filled him. This was why he’d been spared all those times. Why the spear found Wrender instead of him. Why the grasslands led him to Median. Why the infection had abated after the amputation. All the other paths that could have been fell away.

Romulus stepped up to Hypha, noting the poorly-made prosthetic. “Why would Giesu give me a crippled servant?”

“Why do painters paint skulls?” Hypha asked.

Feel it, receive it, let it go. In a single swift motion, Hypha coalesced an orb of magic on the tip of his prosthetic limb. He drew a blank rune circle and kicked it with all his might.

His prosthetic exploded into a million pieces. Wooden shrapnel flew everywhere. The impact sent a wave of energy crashing through the air, cracking the cloudstone tile and sending Romulus staggering. Servants tumbled over like dominoes. The hall filled with cries of panic.

With his good hoof, Hypha picked up a sharp tile shard and launched himself at Romulus. The general tried to throw a punch, but Hypha batted it away and cracked him over the head with what remained of the prosthetic. Romulus collapsed. Hypha pounced. “This is for Roseroot,” he said, and plunged the shard down.

Romulus caught it an inch before it pierced his chest. The shard sliced deep into Hypha’s hoof where he gripped it. Blood trickled onto the general’s face. But Romulus seemed unconcerned by that. In fact, he looked downright confused. Suddenly, his eyes went wide. He turned his head to one side and hollered, “Wait!”

The four burly guards in red and black armor froze where they were. Hypha hadn’t noticed them racing towards him. They would have skewered him with their swords had Romulus waited a second longer. Funny, the little things one can miss in the heat of the moment.

Hypha took advantage of the lull and leaned his weight into the shard. A bright red bead of blood sprayed across Romulus’s mouth. He grimaced. Hypha hoped he could taste it.

“Roseroot,” Romulus grunted. “The temple. In the Stonewood—” He jerked one way, then the other. Hypha wouldn’t budge.

The guards stirred. “Sir—”

“No!” he roared. “Stay back.” He turned back to Hypha. “The temple in the Stonewood mountains.”

“Yes,” Hypha said through clenched teeth. “And Yangshuah, and Gleeful, and Shining Rock.” For a second he thought he’d actually stabbed the general. Then he realized it was just more of his own blood.

“I didn’t know—hrrk—any of you were still alive.”

“Think again.”

Romulus found just enough wiggle room to plant a hoof firmly in Hypha’s gut. Hypha let out a sound like a deflating balloon and rolled off Romulus. He lashed out with the shard and caught the general’s ear at the base. The shard sliced clean through. Romulus barely made a sound as his ear bounced across the floor.

Blood flew everywhere. Hypha’s already mangled front hoof was covered with it. He picked up the shard again, wincing, and prepared to make another strike.

Then Romulus said, “So you’ve taken the mushrooms too.”

Hypha froze. Too? His heart pounded in his ears. His hoof throbbed, though the adrenaline kept the pain at bay for the moment. Romulus sat down on his haunches and stuffed a corner of his cape into the wound where his ear used to be. His eyes had an arresting quality to them. They towered over his physical body.

“You don’t take them,” Hypha started. “You—”

The guards tackled him.

Comments

[hehelover]

At least this assassination attempt was better prepared than the previous one.

[SirCarrot]

Did Girsu want him to do that? I can’t tell