Chương 6: Chapter 1.6: The City of Fire

While getting dressed in a simple red-orange linen tunic, Favius massaged the scabs over the scar that had developed where the Lireni Centurii had nicked his throat while holding him hostage. Brutus noticed, and his expression darkened in a flash. He went to check on his siblings. He found them huddled together in another room in various states of grief and exhaustion, tended to by a servant and Lia's nursemaid.

His eyes teared up, and he hugged Urania and Marius and tried to assure them that everything would be fine. It wasn't really helping. After trying for the third time to get Marius to talk, Brutus' rough hand found his shoulder.

"Favius, I've seen this before. They just need time. You can be here for them, but you can't expect miracles." Brutus' eyes narrowed slightly.

"Though, you are taking all of this remarkably well." Favius' heart beat faster. Damn it, I'm not acting enough like a ten-year-old child. With all those memories and experiences, it all feels so… distant. But it only took a moment to get in touch with his childish side, and soon his breath hitched and tears welled up in his eyes.

"It's—" He didn't even have to pretend; a wave of sadness washed over him.

"It's just all too much, and with everything that happened, if I'm not strong, who will be?" Urania rushed forward and hugged him tightly, murmuring something unintelligible, while Brutus rubbed his back. Marius still sat distraught in the corner. Favius cried for a long while. Some time later, a servant entered the room and bowed his head first to Brutus, then to Favius.

"Dominus Ovinius. Your father requests your presence, as well as the one of Ovinius Kestrelo." Favius swallowed and squeezed his sister a final time. He turned and ruffled his brother's hair, and endured a painful spike of tightness in his stomach as he didn't even react to this, which had previously been a surefire way to get him to fight back.

He let the servant lead him and Brutus to Marcus, who waited flanked by two guards clad in heavy bronze armor, wearing the same skirt that ran from chest to mid-shin as his family's guardsmen. Marcus finished talking to one of the guards, then turned. For a moment, Favius and Marcus stared at each other. The silence stretched. What do you say to the man who ordered the death of your parents before adopting you? After which you proceeded to pull him into a high-stakes hostage negotiation.

Favius settled on the simplest possible option.

"Good morning, Father." A slight smile crossed Marcus' face, lingering only for a moment.

"Good morning." He paused, then nodded to himself.

"Son. Brutus. We'll be going into town. I need to meet some people." A shadow fell over his face as he continued.

"And I feel it is important you witness the funeral of the Iron Phoenix." Brutus let out a barely suppressed growl, and Marcus tensed, but after a few awkward heartbeats, his new father turned around and began walking. The two of them fell in behind the man and his guards.

They left the well-kept townhouse and walked downhill, moving from the district of high walls and secluded villas into one where four-story buildings dominated, the lower two made of white plastered stone, the upper two constructed from wood with shingled roofs, lining the streets. Displays of wares spilled onto the streets from the ground floors while various signs announced a large variety of services. Favius noted the fashion of the locals.

Most of them were humans with Mediterranean features, but every tenth person had some kind of animal trait. The majority wore tunics of fiery colors—reds, yellows, and oranges. Some clothes were clearly of higher quality with richer colors and embroidered with gold and copper thread. The poorer people wore more muted yellows and oranges, though fire-like patterns seemed to be ubiquitous. After a while, Brutus frowned.

"This is not the road to the forum." Marcus shook his head and responded absentmindedly.

"We are going to see Justice Avenue on the way." He turned around, looking at Favius.

"You need to see the consequences of making the wrong decisions. Consider this my first act as your father." Brutus let out a long breath but didn't say anything until they walked out of a well-fortified gate and stopped at the side of the road. They looked down a broad avenue, almost like a boulevard. On both sides in the distance were smaller houses, only two stories, of significantly lesser quality. Slums, probably, here outside the city walls. But what drew Favius' attention were the hundreds of wooden poles.

Almost all of them were occupied by bound people, their wrists fixed with ropes to the tops of the poles. Each and every one showed the markings of a severe beating. Some were still squirming. Others were obviously dead. A breeze brought a smell of suffering—feces, sweat, and urine—to him. Further down the road, more poles were being raised. And before glancing away, he saw two men in the process of beating a newly hung person with a rod of bound branches. Horror and disgust made Favius' blood curl.

This isn't a world of humanism and civil justice. This is a primitive world with savage values. Finally, Brutus snorted.

"How many?" Marcus let out a long breath.

"Only a few hundred. Those who would not see reason." Brutus growled. But Favius was barely listening to the discussion. He felt sick, his stomach churning, but his eyes could not look away from the atrocity before him. Brutus continued in a derisive tone.

"Punishing those who worked for the good of the Republic the way we punish common criminals. It's disgraceful." Marcus' tone grew harsher.

"That's precisely what they are—criminals. They stretched the traditions and laws of the Republic beyond the bounds of decency, and many of them profited off it. Your Iron Phoenix may have been an honest man, but don't you dare tell me that none of his followers used their power to enrich themselves." Brutus let out a dark chuckle.

"Oh, now you people have a problem with officials using their position to enrich themselves." Marcus made a cutting gesture.

"Enough. I've had this discussion with Severin too many times. And I won't bother wasting my breath discussing politics with you, Brutus." Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. He looked at Favius, who only now noticed that he was swaying with nausea. Finally, it was too much, and he stumbled to the side of the road to throw up. Neither Marcus nor Brutus moved to support him.

After having spit his sparse breakfast onto the side of the road, he kept retching dryly for a short while. After his nausea receded and turned into a cold dread, he straightened. His head was still swimming, and each blink brought flashes of the men bound to the poles.

"Good, son." Marcus nodded.

"I think you have seen enough. Never forget that there are consequences to your actions." A hot anger grew and bloomed in Favius' chest. Know that there are consequences to my actions? I saw both my parents being executed yesterday, you fucking asshole. But outwardly he controlled himself, took a deep breath, and one of Marcus' bodyguards handed him a waterskin. They returned through the gates and began walking toward the center of the city along the main avenue.

He noticed two other groups not wearing the fiery fashion of the city. The first were the Lireni, about half of whom had some kind of seal-like feature. The soldiers patrolled the streets wearing the same equipment he had seen yesterday and were eyeing the local Cindrathi guards dressed in golden bronze with suspicion. Lireni civilians favored flowing robes and sashes of white, grey, and blue. The third recognizable minority was the smallest, but they moved with a confidence either of the other groups lacked.

Men and women alike carried both long and short axes or a bow. Their clothing reminded him of the casual way Brutus wore armor. Bronze armguards as well as armored breastplates were ubiquitous. They seemed to favor leather in various rich reds and browns. Several times he saw glimpses of the five towers of the magic academy overlooking the city from a hill. Soon the crowds thickened, and they reached a central plaza.

One building, its front reminiscent of a classical Greco-Roman temple with pillars backlit by flames, dominated an entire side, though none of the buildings around the large plaza were poorly appointed. Favius had a hard time seeing over the crowds, especially as he was caught between Marcus and Brutus. But he sensed that the crowd was agitated. Murmurs and grumbling were all around him. The two bronze-clad bodyguards carved a path through the mass of humanity using their shields.

Finally, they reached a line of Lireni soldiers. Favius turned to Brutus and whispered to him.

"Where are we?"

"The Senate Plaza, the forum of the Republic. Wait." Before Favius could do anything, the man grabbed him under the shoulders and lifted him up onto his shoulders, and he got a good view over the crowd. At the center of the plaza, there was a large pyre on top of which a man who was maybe in his sixties lay in a surprisingly simple, gray robe. Lines of Lireni soldiers separated the masses from the pyre. There was a small group of well-dressed men wearing similar tunics to the ones Marcus wore.

All of them were accompanied by aides and guards as they stood close to the pyre behind the soldiers. Cindrathi soldiers controlled a number of strategic points around the plaza. Suddenly, the murmurs quieted. A man wearing a deep purple robe, a color Favius hadn't seen before, walked out of the Senate Hall carrying a torch. The crowd's murmuring reached a fever pitch as the man slowly walked forward before throwing the torch onto the pyre.

In an instant, flames engulfed the corpse of the dictator, and an ominous silence settled over the mass of humanity. Favius frowned. He couldn't remember the man's name. Sitting on Brutus' shoulders, he addressed Marcus.

"What was the dictator's name?" Marcus turned around, his face forming a somewhat sour expression. Brutus chuckled, his voice full of pride.

"The Iron Phoenix forswore his name and familia so nobody may question his devotion to the Republic. He even persecuted and sentenced both his brothers for corruption." For a moment, it seemed like Marcus was about to say something, but he just shook his head. He turned to one of the guards.

"Come with me. I need to talk to the other senators." He turned to the other soldier and pointed at Brutus.

"Keep an eye on them. I shall be back shortly." One bodyguard in tow, he walked toward the Lireni lines and was let through after talking to a Centurii. Favius looked around and considered. I have the system quest, and I don't know what Marcus plans are, but I will likely go to another country estate. So if I want to fulfill the quest quickly, being in the city and seeing a market is probably my best chance. He considered for a moment, looking around at what was clearly a volatile situation.

Then he resolved himself with a deep breath and leaned down to Brutus.

"Brutus."

"Yes, Favius?"

"I need you to help me slip away into the city." He waited for a second for the objection that would obviously come. But Brutus merely paused, then nodded.

"Yes, Dominus. Be ready." Favius froze. What? He is just going along with it? Shouldn't he be arguing that it's irresponsible? Before he could think further, he was placed on the ground. Brutus reached into his pouch and emptied half a bag of silver coins into both hands. The guard who stood alongside them frowned. His hand moved to the grip of his sword, and he was about to say something. That was when Brutus threw the coins into the air. Cries of surprise erupted all around them.

The moment people realized it was raining money, the guard began to draw—but it was far too late. Brutus' fist blurred forward while he held Favius pressed to his chest with the other, knocking the guard out cold. As the crowd began to stir and the first fights over coins broke out, distant shouts of the Lireni soldiers could be heard.

Brutus grabbed Favius in a princess carry and forced his way through the crowd, punching or kicking half a dozen people, shoving them into others and starting more fights as the plaza devolved into chaos behind them. Brutus began running, and they slipped away into the streets of the city. Favius shook his head as they left the chaos behind and reached streets where things were still proceeding normally.

"This is so fucking ridiculous." He began to chuckle and smiled at Brutus. The warrior returned a feral smile of his own.

"That was amazing, Brutus." Part of him paused. I should be more upset about the violence. But he just shook himself. Brutus didn't kill anyone. And I need to solve this quest to talk to that weird entity again. Brutus gave a hearty laugh.

"Too many morons think that all that matters to a warrior is strength."

"But the reason why I've killed so many other Magnicultorii even if they should have been my peers?" Favius shook his head.

"Cunning. Fighting is one third about your strength and two thirds about strategy." With those words, they turned around an alley and suddenly faced a dozen Lireni soldiers. A man, apparently their Decurii, stepped forward as Brutus came to a stop.

"Well, well, who do we have here?" Favius felt Brutus' chest tense and then relax as the man put him down. The Decurii, whose paunch barely fit within his armor, gave a menacing chuckle.

"You see, good citizens of Cindrath, me and my men have been keeping order in this town." His outstretched arms and wide smile were all too reminiscent of a sleazy car salesman.

"So we are controlling access to this road. And hope, that as a sign of appreciation, wealthy folk like you would pay us—well, let's just say—" He tipped the spear's butt on the ground and clicked his tongue.

"Three silvers for you and a silver for the boy." His smile was the perfect mixture of apologetic and threatening.

"What do you say?" Favius looked around as his mind took a moment to shift gears from escaping a riot to being essentially mugged. The other soldiers leaned lazily against the walls. Several of them were engaged in conversation and only paying some attention to what their commander was doing. One was throwing pebbles at a pig rooting through a garbage pile. Favius let out a long breath. Amazing. Soldiers engaging in extortion while policing another city. Well, there are worse things they could be doing.

The pause stretched. The corpulent Decurii cleared his throat. Favius realized that Brutus was looking at him. Oh, yes. I am his social superior. Favius considered that Brutus had just thrown away a lot of money, but then shrugged. I have a quest to fulfill. It's probably best just to pay them and not have any trouble. It irked him. But he knew it was the right decision. He turned to Brutus.

"Pay them." Brutus gave a curt nod and reached into his money pouch. He stepped forward, holding out the four silver. Then a skinny soldier with a nasty scar across his face standing next to the Decurii chuckled.

"Wise choice, my friend." His eyes ran over Favius in a manner that made his skin crawl.

"You're lucky that you're escorting a boy. Otherwise, we might have asked for more than coin in payment." The other soldiers chuckled. But Brutus, who had been about to drop the coins into the Decurii's hands, froze. Then he let out a long, satisfied sigh, retracted his hand, and all of the soldiers tensed. The ones who had been talking stopped their conversation and looked up. Brutus handed his axe to Favius.

"Hold on to this for a moment, will you?" Favius' mind stumbled, still thinking about the disgusting comment the scarred soldier had made. Several of the soldiers drew their blades, and the Decurii raised his hands.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Brutus interlaced his fingers and cracked them. There was so much menace in the gesture that several of the Lireni took a step backward.

"Cindrathi, you're outnumbered ten to one. And the kid—" But Brutus interrupted him with a sharp gesture.

"Shut your dirty mouth, sardine-fondler." He stretched his neck and spoke in a low, almost purring tone.

"Y'know, I've had a very bad day yesterday, and all of you just volunteered to help me work out some frustrations." The soldiers chuckled, and several of them stepped forward again and drew blades. But Brutus only continued his stretching routine. Before Favius could do anything else, the violence began.