Mighty Hammer Down (2 page)

While bending over for another rock,
he missed the man stepping into the road in front of him. He was
several paces ahead, but he clearly made himself visible and also
made it clear that he would not allow Rommus to pass. Rommus tossed
the rock aside. A cold feeling of panic welled up in his stomach.
Most men would call it fear, but Rommus actually welcomed the
feeling. He felt powerful when he could call upon that feeling and
do damage to others who deserved it.

The man said nothing from under his
black hooded cloak, but stood his ground.

Rommus decided to break the silence if
this man refused to. "I thought only Mages wore black, but you wear
the boots of a soldier."

"Are you of the bloodline Tirinius?"
the man asked in a deep, raspy voice.

"What of it? And just who are
you?"

Instead of a reply Rommus felt a
terrible pain on the top of his skull; a pain so sharp that he
thought he could taste it. Before he realized it, he was on the
ground. He could see the feet of the man behind him who had
apparently hit him with the pommel of his sword.

"He is not to be harmed!" the first
man yelled in his deep voice.

Rommus looked up to see the second man
wiping his forearm across his mouth like some animal wiping blood
from its jaws after a kill. Confused, he staggered to his feet.
Being on the ground was a disadvantage, and he was already
outnumbered. He looked the first man in the eyes and saw them dart
over his shoulder. He quickly turned and caught the other man by
the wrist as he closed in with his attack. Rommus threw him into
his cohort using his own momentum causing both men to stumble and
fall.

"If you know my name, then you know
the Emperor and my father will have you put to death for this!
Leave now before you have more trouble than you can
handle."

The men got to their feet with their
swords drawn. These were Medoran swords, held by Medoran soldiers.
This wasn’t making sense. One of the men lunged and thrust his
weapon at Rommus’s middle. He jumped back and struck the man’s hand
when he was off balance, causing him to drop his sword. Rommus
quickly stepped on it as the man tried to pick it up by the blade,
cutting his fingers badly. The man screamed. Rommus punched the man
while he was bent over, sending him rolling off the side of the
road.

The other man came charging in too
fast for Rommus to pick up the sword himself. He remembered the man
saying that no harm was to come to him, so he wasn’t as worried
about getting stabbed as he might have been otherwise. He fell to
the side as the man came at him, tripping him up and causing him to
fall again. When the man tried to get up, Rommus brought down a
powerful blow to the man’s nose. Finally Rommus picked up the sword
and placed the point quite roughly under his chin.

"Who sent you? Who are you?" he asked
as he checked the position of the man on the side of the road.
"Don’t you know I was a Captain? I should kill you for this. Now
answer me!"

The man just glared in silence, blood
running down over his mouth and dripping from his chin. Rommus made
the mistake of focusing on this man and the other man came at him
again. But to his surprise, as he jumped back, both men seemed to
lose their nerve and ran away; kicking pebbles up behind them as
they ran like scolded children.

Rommus let them go. He didn’t want to
have to explain two dead men to his father or the Emperor. He knew
that the rest of Medora would think him a murderer and since he was
Rommus Tirinius, he could get away with it. He would tell his
father, but he would let these men go.

He watched them go a long way before
he continued on his way to Brinn. He reached up and felt where he
was hit with the sword and he felt blood. He reprimanded himself
for not being more alert. He wondered about this whole incident as
he walked, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Those two men wore
black cloaks, but they were soldiers. He supposed there was no law
that Mages couldn’t be soldiers, and truthfully, no one knew much
about them. Perhaps they weren’t soldiers at all, since they seemed
too clumsy to have had any real training. Not only that, but they
also ran away. What kind of soldier of Medora, the most powerful
nation in the world, runs away? And why would they risk harming him
when they knew who he was?

He arrived at the Temple of the Gods
at the edge of the city just as the mists of dusk began to fall
upon the land. He looked up in awe of the gigantic building just
like he did every time he passed it since he was a little boy. The
great marble columns were so thick that not even ten men could
reach around them and touch hands. This building was the tallest in
the city, but it was at its lowest point, so the great capital of
Medora seemed to loom over it as it rose slowly up onto the
mountains.

"It’s the same as it was the last time
you saw it," came a voice behind him.

"Pirius, where have you been? I came
to the Emperor’s Hall hours ago and your servants told me you were
missing."

"Yes I have been here, watching Ehlom
carve the new statues for the temple. They are much better than the
ones before. You can see muscles and bones, little folds of skin
and fat. They look so real. It’s like the things might step off
their pedestals and take over the city. The clanging of hammer on
chisel is rather annoying though."

"Ehlom Nagelic is here in Brinn? He’s
the one who painted all the frescoes at the Temple of Arius if I
remember right. I thought he never let anyone see him working.
Isn’t that what all these giant curtains are for?"

"Yes," said Pirius as he ran his hand
over one of the red curtains, "but do you think he’d say no to the
son of the Emperor?"

Rommus laughed. "He might be afraid of
your brother, but not you Pirius."

Pirius smiled and clasped his hands
behind his back. "By the way, what happened to your
head?"

"Oh, I was attacked on the road here.
I can’t make any sense of it, but I’ll see if my father has any
ideas."

"Attacked?" Pirius’s eyebrows knotted
together in concern. "What do you mean attacked? By
who?"

"Never mind all that. I’m fine. I was
a soldier not so long ago if you remember. Besides I think you’d
rather hear the story of the woman I met today."

Pirius laughed. "Rommus you wouldn’t
go off meeting girls with that Mirra Odera dancing behind your
eyes. I can see her in there right now, twirling around and
stepping clumsily all over your heart."

Rommus smiled. "So the son of the
Emperor thinks he’s amusing now. For your information, I didn’t ‘go
off meeting’ anyone, she just asked for directions. But she was
like no other woman I have ever seen. She was from Vindyrion. You
would have loved her."

Pirius paused and listened to Ehlom’s
banging coming from behind the curtain, twisting his face in
annoyance with the sound. "I have had my share of Vindyri women,
and they are all crazy, let me tell you. Come, let’s go in and look
at these statues so that Ehlom will stop all that
racket."

Pirius lifted one of the heavy
curtains aside and the tapping of metal on metal grew even louder
and pierced the air almost painfully. Inside the temple was a
colossal mess of marble chips and blocks of all sizes, all covered
with a thick layer of white dust. Footprints in the fine powder
reminded Rommus of the frozen snows of winter. He was amazed that
the artist was allowed to create such a mess inside this most
sacred of Medoran temples. The only things the dust didn’t seem to
cling to were the tall columns inside the temple, made of polished
red stone, and capped with golden capitals. Everything else,
including all the other gold accents, was a filthy, grimy
disaster.

"What have I told you, hundreds of
times?" Ehlom shouted as his chiseling ceased. "Get out of
here!"

Rommus raised his eyebrows and smiled
at Pirius. "End the clanging and exchange it for yelling,
huh?"

"I told you no one else can come in
here with you. Go away!" he yelled again as he threw his chisel in
their direction.

Rommus forgot all about the chisel
when he looked up at the enormous statue Ehlom was working on. The
massive form was obviously far from complete, but he could see the
elaborate scrollwork on the armor of the figure as it struggled to
free itself from the stone. The striking posture seemed impossible,
even intimidating. It was almost alive; it was like nothing he had
ever seen before.

"That’s Arius, god of war," Rommus
managed to say, dumbfounded.

"So the brute knows his gods," Ehlom
mocked as his bony frame shook with rage, "Why don’t you go to some
other temple and pray to him. This one is off limits." The man
turned from them and ran his hand over his dusty giant, checking
for flaws.

"It’s so much bigger than I thought it
would be. It must be the height of three men. Is that Oderion?" he
asked as he pointed at the bearded figure in the center of the
room. "And that one Inshae?"

"Again the boy gets a prize for his
knowledge of the gods," said Ehlom as he patted the marble dust
from his long black beard. "Perhaps you’d like to take your prize
home right now." He picked up a large marble chip and made ready to
throw it at his audience.

"Where are the other gods of light?
Why didn’t you do all three first?"

Ehlom stopped and stared at Rommus.
"Because I don’t want to offend the gods of darkness. I carved
Oderion first because he created us and all the other gods, then
Inshae, god of death, and head of the Dark Three. Then Arius, a god
of light. I will do them in that pattern so that I do not offend
any of the seven gods. Now if you don’t mind!"

He pointed to the curtain, meaning for
them to go. Rommus turned to see Pirius peering out into the blue
dusk. A large marble chip hit the curtain with a dull thud and
clattered to the floor. Pirius ignored it and left the temple with
urgency. Rommus followed.

Outside soldiers were running in the
streets, some barking orders, some pushing men and women aside to
get through. Their bright armor shone a light blue in the failing
light. Their crimson capes unfurled behind them as they all ran
toward the center of the city. One spotted Pirius and ordered his
men to guard him.

"What is happening?" Pirius said with
a seriousness rarely witnessed. "Where is everyone
going?"

One of the soldiers glanced at Rommus,
then back to Pirius. "There is an assassin in the city. General
Tirinius has been stabbed."

Rommus felt another cold panic in his
stomach, but this time, it was not a welcome feeling.

Chapter 3

Two guards threw open the doors inside
the Emperor’s Hall with a thunderous boom. Rommus and Pirius ran
inside, both out of breath from the long run into the heart of the
city. The doors closed behind them and the room was quiet and dim.
This was one of the less decorated rooms of the Hall, but still fit
for any Nobleman or Ambassador who might be visiting. One wall was
decorated with a large fresco of the first war with Vindyrion, some
500 years earlier. Heavy red curtains brightened up the rather
plain, white marble walls, which only offered a few black and gray
veins for decoration of their own. Rommus looked to see his father
sitting in an ornate chair holding a cup loosely in one hand, with
a servant on her knees sopping up blood from the wound in his
stomach. The Emperor Piro Tecadelion stood silently at the window
looking west into the feathery purple and gold remnants of the
sunset.

"Father! Are you all right?" Rommus
asked.

"Quiet boy, I’m fine," he said as he
took a drink.

Tannis Tirinius was not a man that
showed emotion, let alone pain. He made no movement as the servant
dug deep into his wound to clean it. He was much larger than any
normal man and nearly a head taller as well. He had just turned 50
years old, but his hair was still black as pitch, and he had no
wrinkles to speak of, being that he was not the kind of man to
crease his features with any smile. He was a good man, even a happy
man, but his duty to his nation and his Legions kept him as hard as
the armor of Arius. Tannis never wore any armor himself--except
occasionally a black helmet which was given to him by his father.
Instead he tempted his enemies by wearing plain clothing of all
black. This made him stand out and appear all the more menacing, as
black was not at all popular in Medora where they preferred whites,
reds, blues and purples. The Medorans didn’t like black because it
was the color of the Vindyri armor, which bore a straight-winged
silver eagle across the chest. Tannis bore only scars on his chest,
reminding him of past battles. He had only one on his face, which
was rather small, above his left eye. As he sat there shirtless,
Rommus could see all the scars that he’d forgotten.

"Father I was attacked as well, on the
road here from the cliffs not two hours ago."

"Have you been hurt?"

"No I’m fine. I took a hit to the
head, but nothing serious; although I was nearly stabbed as well.
They knew my name. I was asked if I was of the Tirinius bloodline.
Did they ask you that too?"