Zendefi Wine

The snowfall cleared up the next day, the morning that they reached the gatehouse.

It was a red morning. The clouds that had been casting sleet upon the imperial border hung low and bowed before the Endire. The sky took on the texture of a canvas colored with fields of orange and red acrylics, like an ocean at sunrise flipped over the horizon.

The silence was broken by shouts near the gatehouse. Lavenza listened closer and heard the faint clamor of steel. She drew her staff.

“Wait here everyone,” she said. “Leva.”

Lavenza shrouded herself with a veil of blue light and vanished. She reanimated at the top of the gatehouse rampart a full field away and peered into the courtyard.

The inner courtyard was strewn with bodies, many of them hewn with broad axes or makeshift maces. A great fire crackled in the center of the yard, where wild looking men, bandits with insatiable greed instead of eyes, fed the flames with bodies.

The surviving guards banded together at the far end of the gatehouse, trapped in a corner between the armory and the stables. Lavenza spotted Captain Kerone, even in spite of his bloodied face, for he was the only one dressed still in imperial garb. 

He stood before the enemy as his men cowered. His blade flashed forward, parrying axes and wooden bludgeons from the murderous horde, some of whom Lavenza recognized. The large man that stood ahead of the pack, for instance, hefting a giant club and bronze shield, was a guard that had accosted her and Deme mere weeks before.

“Leva,” Lavenza chanted again. 

Lavenza reappeared at the center of the courtyard. Her spatial magic had not made a sound, and so her arrival caused a stir among the wild men, who had not spotted her walking or falling into their view. The bandit closest to Lavenza raised his axe and loosed a blood curdling cry.

A stream of raw mana burst from the tip of her staff. When her magic caught the bandit, bright white tendrils curled about the man like the appendages of some deep sea creature. Caught in magic’s death grip, the man screamed and struggled until the flow of mana hurled him into the closest stone wall, where a bone splitting crack silenced him for good.

The sight of another crushed in the blink of an eye gave the next man closest to Lavenza some pause, but battlefield instincts proved more powerful than reason. The bandit charged forward with arms raised, his hands hoisting a rare broadsword. 

Lavenza wondered if the man was also a guard or had he simply pilfered the sword from the armory. Lavenza wondered these things because the man had died the moment he took a step forward. The courtyard beneath his front foot crumbled. The ground gave way, and a hail of spears coated in vibrant ruby skewered him from below.

The next closest man did not dare to move.

The giant man at the back of the gatehouse threw his subordinates aside to come face to face with Lavenza. Like the others, his bloodshot eyes and unnatural smirk suggested that a madness had befallen him. But there was something else in his eyes. Recognition.

“It’s you!” the man snarled. “Where’s the child?”

“Is there no discipline within this garrison?” Lavenza ignored the question. “No honor or dignity among even the imperial guard?”

“Don’t think you’ve scared the rest of us because of a few spells, Menuan bitch,” the man spat. “I’ve killed mages before. They’re always overconfident before I gut them.”

“I’ll offer you the same warning as last time,” Lavenza ignored the threat. “Leave me alone. Let your former colleagues live. Lay down your weapons. Do so in this precise order, and I’ll let you leave this place with what time remains of your lives.”

Lavenza had not intended to upset the man. It bewildered her that the truth could ignite so much anger. But her final sentiment, that the brawny man and his scrawny bandit followers had little time left to live, sent the muscular one into a terrible frenzy. Froth foamed and spilled out of his lower lip. His already widened eyes stretched to the point of looking like they would tear themselves off. 

“I want the nomad alive!” the blockhead bellowed.

His men stumbled forward as if pressed on by a hot brand. Lavenza pitied them.

“Aphelion,” she chanted.

A light flashed above the gatehouse. The visage of the Endire appeared, clothed in a fire far more violent than the corpse fueled flames licking at the grass. Those who charged her recoiled at the rays covering the courtyard. They doubled over, hands over their faces as if they had been stricken with boils, their mouths rasping with tortured gasps.

Lavenza wondered where these men should go. They were a danger to any traveler; they could not be allowed to wander close to the main roads, but to slay them all, one by one, was unnecessary. In a time long ago, Lavenza recalled a wasteland far to the northeast, past the purple mountains, where water was scarce and vultures prowled night and day for food. Their madness could run rampant there.

“Ende,” she said.

The bandits around her were touched by a spectacular light that trailed from illusory sun. A cloak of gold enveloped them. One by one, their bodies, even those as large as the brawny man, vanished into tiny orbs that floated back into the visage of the sun. When they all been consumed, the illusory Endire vanished.

Morning returned. The courtyard fire continued to burn, albeit dimmer than before. The survivors at the edge of the gatehouse wandered the courtyard in search of anything. Many began to sob.

“You again. Where?” Captain Kerone limped towards her. “Where did they go?”

“I’ve sent them away,” Lavenza replied. “They will never return.”

“I—thank you,” the captain winced. “Damn it. That last fellow got me good.”

“What happened?” Lavenza asked.

“Orders. From Her Royal Highness,” he frowned. “Shortly after you left, orders came that we were to be stationed here for another few months.”

“Your men weren’t happy.”

“Furious,” he said. “There are bandits roaming the canyons east of here, looking for weaknesses in the imperial border. Some of the men colluded with them to seize the gatehouse. That was last night.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If only my men had worn their armor,” Captain Kerone cursed. “An imperial guard cut down by a woodcutter’s hatchet. Hardly a soldier’s death.”

“Do you and your men need help?” Lavenza asked.

“Most of the survivors are simple travelers and refugees,” the captain sighed. “As for my men…wounds need to be tended to, bodies buried, the portcullis repaired…”

Lavenza surveyed the damage. The crumbling walls and burning courtyard were one thing, but the dead lay littered and butchered in far too many ways. Some, like child bearing women, should not bear witness to such things. 

“I’ll bring some help,” she said. “I shall be back shortly.”

Lavenza returned to the wagons. By now, Deme and others had arrived closer to the gatehouse. They had heard the screams and seen the smoke rising from within.

“What’s going on?” Deme asked.

“Samuel, come with me,” Lavenza ordered. “Deme, set up camp with Old Calvin. You can join us when we’ve finished clearing the gatehouse.”

“Clearing?” Old Calvin murmured. “My word…come child. Let’s look for kindling.”

“Is it safe?” Samuel asked. “I’m not sure we should leave the others. It sounded terrible even from here…”

“It’s safe now,” Lavenza replied. “Do your job with haste, Samuel. We’ll depart from the gatehouse when we’re finished. Centa Muis is not far now.”

Samuel was unconvinced when he saw the carnage inside the gatehouse. He took an hour to himself hacking and retching behind the stables before he returned to Captain Kerone and listened to the soldier’s instructions on repairing the gate and portcullis.

Lavenza performed many tasks that day. She tended to the wounded in the morning, mending broken arms and easing the pain of the mortally wounded. Enteken flowed from her mouth like water. She even tended to Captain Kerone, who would live the rest of his life in possession of only one eye.

“You did all of that, and you can’t fix my eye?” the captain laughed. An eyepatch now covered half of the wound that streaked down his left eye.

Lavenza helped bury the dead that afternoon. She doused blackened bodies in cold water, then wrapped them each in linen from the storehouse beneath the armory. She would have dug the graves too, but the remaining survivors who could still walk insisted on helping.

“If I don’t use my hands, I think I’ll go insane,” one said.

By nightfall, a fresh campfire burned in the courtyard. The smell of charred flesh lingered. Lavenza cracked incense and oils over the flames. The smell of juniper and sage wafted about the air, and the apostate folded her hands to pray. Footsteps approached from behind her.

“Here,” Captain Kerone carried with him two full bottles and glasses. “I won’t ask why you’ve come back, but while you’re here, I thought you’d enjoy these.”

Lavenza recognized the insignia on the bottle.

“Zendefi wine,” she muttered. “Some merchants pass through recently?”

“You were right. This year’s vintage. They arrived the day before yesterday,” Captain Kerone smiled. “Shared a bottle with my men already, with the big guy too. Markus was his name.”

“Markus,” Lavenza murmured. There was no malice when the captain recalled the name. She took one of the glasses and tipped it forwards. “To Markus then.”

“To Markus,” Captain Kerone downed the glass and poured in more wine. “Tough bastard. It’s a cruel world when men like him go mad.”

“He had family?” Lavenza guessed.

“No, no, nothing like that,” the captain replied. “I know he didn’t look the part, but he was a good soldier and a good man once. He never abandoned his post. Everyone else was stowing aboard wagons for Centa Muis. Not Markus. He waited for his orders, for a messenger hawk. Every day. When we received the bad news, I think he felt betrayed. That’s when the madness set in.”

“You don’t feel that way, captain?” she poured herself another glass. “You don’t feel used by Her Royal Highness?”

“I signed up to an imperial guard,” he shrugged. “I live to be used by her. It all has a purpose.”

“A purpose?”

“I’m no scholar like you mages,” the captain said, “but I can read my surroundings. Armies disbanded. Menuans vanishing. The crops wither because what’s the point of next year’s harvest? No one sires children anymore. That would be too cruel. And yet, every day, travelers come through my gatehouse. They don’t push. They don’t scream.”

“Order,” Lavenza answered.

“That’s right,” he nodded. “People still have hope, sure, but order reminds us that we’re still human, that we’re a part of something greater than ourselves, that we’re supposed to live our lives with dignity. Otherwise, we end up like poor Markus.”

“He might have not needed to end up like that,” Lavenza said. “Perhaps I should have slain him when I first passed through here.”

There was nothing sinister about Lavenza’s suggestion. It was mere reflection. Captain Kerone knew this. Neither of them could witness the damage wrought upon the gatehouse and not consider the alternative history.

“Well. Had you killed him then,” the captain thought aloud. “I would have tried to kill you. You would’ve killed me, and we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this moment.”

Lavenza swirled her glass. She counted the number of dead she buried that afternoon and weighed their souls against the taste of black cherry and petrichor. It would smell less like death tomorrow. Samuel would finish repairing the portcullis, and they would be on their way.

“This really is good wine,” she said.