The Trophy Chase Saga by George Bryan Polivka

Author:George Bryan Polivka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.

CHAPTER 14

Power

The news of the death of the Hezzan, and the sudden shift in power that followed it, swept through the Kingdom of Drammun like a hurricane. The assassination, the jailing of the Twelve, and the dark rumor of the rise of the Hezzan’s wife under the protection of the Hezzan Guard, unleashed chaos.

The traditional mourning period for the passing of an emperor was three months, during which solemn ceremony followed solemn ceremony, and black-garbed officials snaked their way through the cities and the countryside with the funeral bier, followed by agonizing masses of mourners who loudly proclaimed their grief and undying loyalty. Then, the next three months saw formal and informal celebrations led by red-garbed officials who paraded the new Hezzan throughout the cities and the countryside, followed by teeming throngs who loudly proclaimed their joy and their undying loyalty.

But without the Twelve to duly appoint and swear in the new Hezzan, without officials to plan the processions and wear the garb and direct the mourning and the celebration, without a new Hezzan or even, seemingly, the possibility of a new Hezzan, the streets erupted in violence. The riots were led, of course, by the Zealots, who were confident that the end of all morality and the fall of the kingdom had come upon them all, and therefore the palace should be stormed, the Unworthy ones who were holed up within it dragged into the streets to be dismembered and hanged, and the government taken for themselves, they having proven beyond any doubt their own fitness for rule in the process.

The Zealots were unsuccessful, however. They were stopped at the palace gates by Vasla Vor and his grim Hezzan Guard, who killed twoscore of them in a matter of minutes before the leaders of the uprising, the Quarto, called a retreat. They then determined that restoring the moral rectitude of the kingdom might require just a bit more planning.

But no arms or gates could stop the rumors that flew like flashes of lightning in a summer storm. The Hezzan wasn’t really dead, he had gone into hiding. The Hezzan was being held in prison, in secret. The Hezzan had been kidnapped by the Vast. The Hezzan had gone mad and killed himself. The Twelve were all actually Zealots and had killed the Hezzan for marrying a warrior. The Twelve weren’t really in prison but had gone into hiding. The Warrior Wife, Talon, had gone mad and killed the Hezzan and the Twelve. Talon wasn’t Drammune at all, but a Vast spy, and Drammun was now being governed by King Reynard. And—inevitably—Talon was a witch with unspeakable powers, bent on taking the throne for herself.

Talon stood at the window of the Hezzan’s bedroom and looked out over what was now, in effect, her city. Fires burned in a dozen places; dark smoke rose into the summer sky. People chanted at the palace gates, calling for her death. But she looked past this. Beyond the city was her country, peaceful in the evening twilight, and beyond that, the sea.

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