01 - Empire in Chaos Read Free

even the little ones were spared. This,”
he said with a nod of his head, “is one of those responsible.”
    Grief and horror washed over Annaliese, and the innkeeper put a fatherly arm
around her shoulders.
    The men dragged their murderous captive into the centre of the village
square. A solid, ancient gibbet stood there as it had done for countless
decades, a blackened metal cage hanging from its crossbar. She had always felt a
horrible loathing for the thing, and when she was young had sat aside as other
children threw rocks at the condemned.
    A skeleton was slumped within the torturous, black iron device, the remnants
of a thief who had been placed there a year before as a warning to others. The
heavy chains holding the grisly remains aloft were slackened, and the metal cage
plummeted to the ground with a crash and a cheer from the crowd.
    Leonard Horst, a reed-thin villager with the stilted, stiff movements of a
hunting stork climbed onto a rotting bale of hay, waving a hand for silence. He
was the village warden, and a man with a reputation for harshness. He had once
beaten a trader to death, it was said, for attempting to bypass paying his road
tax. Nevertheless, he was a respected man, for none doubted his devotion to the
village and its people.
    “The farrier Hellmaan and his family, and the families of his two sisters,
have been brutally murdered on the road to Averheim,” Horst said, his voice
bitter and filled with hatred. Those in the crowd before him held weapons
clenched tightly in their hands, their faces angry. The two men holding the
captive pinned to the ground tightened their grip.
    “We return with one of their murderers: a hateful, black-hearted killer of
elven kind.”
    There were several gasps from the gathered villagers. Most had come to
believe that elves were nothing more than stories told to children.
    “An elf?” breathed Annaliese. She stepped away from the innkeeper and inched
further down the hill, to better see the captive.
    “Hang him!” called a man, and others shouted their agreement.
    “Burn him alive!” another roared, a pronouncement that was greeted with a
cheer.
    “Oh, we shall do much worse than that to him,” said the stick-thin figure of
Horst from the rotten hay bale. “He must be made to suffer long for the savagery
that he unleashed upon those poor families.”
    His voice rose in pitch, anger and bitterness fuelling his diatribe.
    “Let us gag his mouth that he may not incant his vile sorceries or cry out to
his hateful gods for aid. Let us raise him in the gallows and pelt him with
stones and rocks. Let us cut out his eyes and feed them to the crows! After a
week in the cage, let us drag him forth and quarter him, his entrails carried to
the four corners of the village. Then he and all his hated kin shall fear us,
and know the true vengeance of Averland!”
    A huge roar rose from the gathered crowd, and Annaliese was shocked and
horrified to see her neighbours, good hearted and caring people, baying for
blood and torture, their faces twisted into masks of hatred. She realised that
it was fear and desperation that was fuelling this emotion—a need to blame
someone for their horrific, hopeless predicament.
    She saw the black haired elf pulled to his feet, glimpsing his pale, arrogant
profile for the first time. Almost as white as the crispest snow, his face was
angular and long, his eyes large, dark and almond shaped. He was aloof and
distant despite the bruises and blood upon him, and she saw how he stood against
the mob with his head held high.
    Screeching metal accompanied the opening of the cage. The skeleton within was
kicked free and the elf was dragged towards the vacant iron device. He struggled
against his captors. Breaking the grip that one had on him, he smashed his elbow
into the man’s face, crushing his nose. With inhuman swiftness he kicked another
state soldier in the face, and then spun, rolling his wrist so that the