Hal - The Duellist #1

Chapter Twenty-Three: Orla

The battalion had returned to Colvé for the remaining months of the year. Orla regarded the city as a giant cess-pit, and she was not thrilled to be back. In the wastes of the South she had chance to be alone: to think, to fight. Back here, nothing was real. The city's residents had no idea what crimes were being committed in their name in such distant territories. They had one aim, it seemed, which was to indulge their appetite for pleasure: to dance, drink, eat and share each other's beds. Like animals, she thought, with scorn.

Everything was different back there in Yegdan. At first, heartbroken at the sight of starving children, failing crops and dying animals, she had given away her rations. But after some time she learned that it was pointless to do so. She was left hungry, and such acts of kindness did nothing to alleviate the suffering she saw around her. And so her heart hardened like the stony, infertile earth, and she kept her food, eating it out of sight for fear that she might turn around to find reproachful eyes watching her.

The battalions came and went, each time with the same brief: to destroy the warlords who, controlling parts of this vast, dry territory, threatened the stability of the empire. Yet what, she asked herself, could the Emperor possibly want with such a place? Taking its toll upon the imperial army, the land soaked up soldiers' blood, yielding nothing in return. To the North, the fertile plains and highlands provided the capital with its crops. The great stretch of ocean which determined the empire's natural frontiers in the East brought fish, while the mountainous West was a treasure chest of minerals, its woods hacked down for carpenters, its stones mined for builders. Yet this arid land, almost a desert, dried out by famine and war: what could it possibly contribute to the imperial coffers? Better to seal off the borders and leave these people to their fate.

Like his father before him, the Emperor now dreamed of expansion, and there was nowhere left to go. What did it matter that the land was of no use, its people shattered by violence and horror? It was simply territory, and there was nothing more that the inhabitants of Colvé cared for than to hear that their empire had increased by an inch. That its power had somehow been exerted over a strange land and people of whom they were ignorant. That was all that really counted.

So while the hardships of Yegdan ‒ the hungry faces and dry, weathered landscape ‒ had taken its toll, she found Colvé, with its rich appetites and lack of heart even more difficult to accept. It didn't concern her whether they were courtiers, senators, businessmen, or she reflected bitterly, duellists. They were all the same. They all shared responsibility for crimes committed in their name, and they were all too indolent and selfish to ever want to hear of those crimes.

Orla wandered into the training yard. Here, soldiers – men and women – smashed at each other with broadswords, shot arrows into targets, flung spears high in the air. She picked a sword from a rack, swinging it around a few times, testing its weight. Maybe she could find someone to train with. At least fighting prevented her from dwelling too much upon what she had seen and heard: upon the sights and sounds of villages burned to the ground, the vile taste of the dry desert. Yet fighting here in the city barracks was merely training. Back there it meant killing. No relief could be found in the drawing of another's blood: the final gasp they gave as they sank to the ground and their eyes slowly closed. Such a result meant merely the conclusion of the task to which she had been assigned.

A hand tapped her on the shoulder and she briefly left the dark place her mind had taken her to. She turned round to notice a young lad, one of the barracks' servants.

"Someone to see you."

Orla followed him into the interior of the building along a labyrinthine series of corridors, dimly-lit by burning brands. He led her to a small ante-chamber used by officers for private meetings. A tall woman of middle years stood behind a table, looking as if she were about to give orders in a military campaign. Arms crossed, green eyes piercing and arrogant, she peered through the gloom at Orla, her hair swept tightly back from her face: Cara Thæc.