“Well now. So the honorable queen of Pars plans to ignore the suffering of her people and escape alone?”
Torchlight struck a silver mask, scattering tiny bursts of light across it.
“You and Andragoras make quite the pair. One abandons his soldiers and flees the battlefield, the other abandons the city and its people and goes into hiding. So much for the duty of the throne.”
Behind the eerie masked man, dozens of figures lurked in the darkness. The woman, shaken with fear, remembered her duty.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Her simple yet serious inquiry was met with a sneer through the mask.
“I am one who seeks to establish true justice in Pars.”
His voice echoed off the walls and water, before dissolving into the darkness. He wore a cold smile, but there was no note of mockery in it. At the very least, the man in the silver mask did not doubt his own righteousness.
Trembling with fear, the woman tried to run. Water splashed at her feet. As her gaze passed over a familiar face, she cried out, “Marzban Qaran? My lord! What are you doing here?”
“My lord?” The silver-masked man’s suspicion turned into certainty in an instant. “You’re not the Queen!”
His hand ripped away the veil, revealing a young woman’s face—neat-featured, but nowhere near the beauty of Queen Tahmineh. Staring at her face, made ashen by fear, the man in the silver mask seemed to understand the situation completely.
“First, that old fool Vahriz, and now this. Every single one putting on a show of loyalty, standing in my way.”
The grinding of teeth slipped from the silver mask’s thin mouth, and the surrounding knights shuddered and shrank back.
The court lady’s face twisted in terror, then in overwhelming pain. The masked man mercilessly tightened his grip around her throat. A harsh red glint seemed to burn through the narrow eyeholes of the mask.
Even after her arms went from clawing at the air to falling limp at her sides, he did not loosen his grip. Only when her neck snapped did he finally release her.
Her body collapsed into the shallow water like a stick, splashing droplets onto the silver mask.
Without a word, the man in the silver mask started walking through the water. It was as though he had consigned his rage, hatred, and disappointment to a watery grave along with the woman.
“Hold it!” A sharp voice stopped the silver-masked man in his tracks.
The group turned to see a young man of almost elegant beauty advancing toward them, illuminated by the wavering light of the torches.
“Even if she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world, how could you kill a looker like that? If she had lived, she might have repented and devoted herself to me.”
Only one person could have said something like that—the wandering minstrel known as Giv.
“How about you show your face, pretty boy?” Giv said.
“…”
“Or does mercury run through your veins instead of blood, so you ended up with a face like that?”
“You lot, crush this noisy mosquito. I’m going after the real queen,” the masked man said, then turned away.
Qaran followed him, and five knights stepped in front of Giv.
Swords were drawn from their sheaths, and five blades formed a net before Giv. He kept the wall of the waterway at his back to avoid being surrounded from all sides. When he drew his sword, the first strike cut through the air.
The walls and ceiling of the underground channel echoed the clash of blades over and over. Water splashing up to his shins overlapped, adding a sinister hue to the torchlight.
“One down!”
A particularly large splash of water burst upward, mixed with red.
Each time Giv’s blade caught the torchlight, blood and water rose up like an inverted waterfall. Had the man in the silver mask been present, he would not have been able to ignore the brilliance of Giv’s swordsmanship.
But by the time the fifth man fell beneath the arc of steel, Giv had already spent a fair amount of time and stamina. They had not been easy opponents.
“Now then,” Giv muttered, stroking his chin, “do I go save the deceitful queen, or do I stop here, having given them their money’s worth?”
After thinking it over, he chose a third option. He would return through the underground channel to the palace and use the chaos to quietly help himself to a portion of the treasury. He trusted he could handle things on his own just fine.
He took a step, then stopped. He searched the bodies of the Lusitanian knights he had just killed and pulled out small woolen pouches. After opening one and confirming the gold coins inside, he gave a shameless little nod of approval.
“Dead men don’t need this. I’ll put it to good use, so you’re welcome.”
Of course, the corpses did not reply. Giv did not seem to care in the slightest. He stepped over them and made his way back through the dark underground waterway toward the city.
When the disturbance broke out in the palace, Marzban Saam was still on the gates, directing the defense.
That night, the Lusitanian assault grew fiercer than ever. They scaled the walls on ladders. The defenders met them with a rain of arrows and drove them back time and again, yet each time they re-formed their ranks and surged forward again.
Needless to say, this pressure was launched in coordination with the infiltration of the silver-masked man through the underground waterway. The Parsian forces could not be allowed a moment’s respite.
Below the walls, bodies of Lusitanian soldiers piled up, and new ladders were raised over them as the men continued their climb up the ramparts.
It was well past midnight when flames rose inside the royal palace. From the wall, Saam saw the fire and immediately ordered his men to hold the defense. He climbed down, mounted his horse, and raced toward the palace.
The royal complex was shrouded in smoke, and the sound of clashing blades echoed through the halls. Saam leaped from his horse and cut down two attackers who rushed him. When he met a third, he froze in shock.
“Q-Qaran!”
Holding his bloodied sword in one hand, Saam stared at his old comrade in disbelief. But only for a moment. A half-dead soldier who had staggered back from Atropatene told him that Qaran had betrayed them and that betrayal had caused their crushing defeat. At the time he had not believed it. But now, the answer lay before him. You are reading on novelping(.)com, the official source.
Saam’s wrist stirred a gust of wind. Blades collided, sparks bursting in the dimness. In the next instant, their positions had switched.
Qaran struck first on the second exchange. His blade tore through the night air, but Saam knocked it aside with his sword before it reached his neck.
Amid smoke and the screams of courtiers, the fierce duel raged on. Qaran’s helmet flew off. A crack ran across Saam’s armor. Their blades tangled at impossible angles as they closed in, glaring at each other at point-blank range. Neither of them could remember how many exchanges they had already fought.
“Qaran, why did you betray your country?” Saam demanded.
“For reasons you wouldn’t understand,” Qaran said.
“Of course I wouldn’t!”
Their blades broke apart, and they sprang away from each other. Saam was stunned to find himself completely surrounded by Qaran’s men. He did not even notice the silver-masked man standing behind him with a javelin in hand.
Unlike Saam, Qaran was calm.
“Surrender, Saam,” he said. “Convert to the faith of Yaldabaoth, and your life and rank will be spared.”
“A dog like you talking about rank is laughable,” Saam spat, then drove his sword straight at Qaran’s face. Qaran twisted aside to dodge.
Seizing that brief opening, Saam sprinted past him. He cut down a knight who tried to block his way in a single exchange, then found open space ahead. He appeared to have broken through the encirclement.
That was when the javelin flew from the man in the silver mask. The heavy, long spear pierced Saam’s armor and drove from his back through his chest. As he arched backward, two knights caught up and drove their swords into him.
Even with a javelin and two blades in his body, Saam remained standing for a moment longer. Then, with the heavy clatter of his armor, he finally collapsed onto the flagstones.
“A shame.”
The silver-masked man’s murmur should have been swallowed by the night air, yet Qaran nodded, perhaps thinking the same.
He looked down at his old friend, his expression shifting slightly, then knelt on the ground to check Saam’s pulse.
“Well, what do you know? He’s still alive.”
Through the gate that Qaran opened, the Lusitanian army poured into the city. They trampled fleeing citizens of Ecbatana beneath their horses’ hooves, split skulls with passing blows, and drove spears through backs and out through chests. Women and children were no exception. Every heathen killed, they believed, brought them one step closer to heaven.
Garshasp endeavored to stop the tide of human and horses. Shouting at his wavering troops, he raised his sword and planted his horse squarely in the invaders’ path.
A Lusitanian spear thrust forward and pierced the base of the horse’s foreleg. The animal screamed and threw its rider from the saddle before collapsing. Garshasp struck the ground hard. As he barely managed to push himself upright, Lusitanian swords lunged at him from above, left, right, front, and rear.
Marzban Garshasp became a bloodied mass of flesh.