The Forest King

by Alex Faure

  “Like the Darini.” Fionn said it without rancour, as a statement of fact.

  “Yes,” Darius said. “In any event, there was a petty king in North Gaul by the name of Mendelwulf. He took my company hostage as we rode out to negotiate with a friendlier king. Mendelwulf brought us into their public square and ordered me to execute my own men. If I did, I would go free. If I did not, he would execute them himself—slowly.”

  Fionn raised his eyebrows. “How would that raise his stature among his people?” He thought it over. “He would paint himself as the only one strong enough to challenge the invaders, and rally the other tribes around him.”

  “And also spite his brother, the king who had opened negotiations with us,” Darius said.

  Fionn glanced down at Darius’s hands. “And you refused.”

  Darius didn’t speak for a moment. He could smell the fetid stench of that Gallic square, so unlike Glenvaneach and the Darini villages he’d seen. The Gauls allowed their waste to trickle down the wagon trails to be washed away by the rain—or to linger in the summer heat. He could hear the laboured breathing of the translator, his eyes darting from Darius to Mendelwulf. “At first.”

  “At first?”

  “Mendelwulf made the same offer to my second-in-command. He…he acquiesced.” Darius pushed the words out. “He gave three of the soldiers—there were forty-two of us—a clean death. They died bravely.” Darius saw each man fall, one after the other. “But after that, he broke down. He began to rage at the Gauls, many of whom had brought their children to watch the brutality, spitting on them and promising retribution—not that any of them could understand him. Mendelwulf cut off his hands and put out his eyes and left him to bleed out in front of us. He did the same to the next five men in line. He would be more inventive next time, he told us, if another man refused him. As he spoke, the ravens began to gather around the bodies. Several of the men were still alive when they began their feast.”

  Fionn touched Darius’s face. Darius couldn’t tell if the sorrow he saw in his eyes was for him or the torment of his men. Probably the former, he had to admit. “And that was when you took up your sword.”

  Darius nodded. He wasn’t looking at Fionn—he couldn’t see anything except that square, the faces of his men. “I gave them all good deaths, even blessed them first in the name of whichever god they requested. After they were dead, Mendelwulf wrapped my hands in coarse ropes and strung me from a post in the square. A primitive form of crucifixion. He claimed he was being true to his word—if I was still alive in the morning, he would let me go. The ropes might kill me, but he would not.”

  They were quiet for a long moment. Fionn continued to stroke Darius’s face. “And you survived until morning.”

  “I survived. And by that time, Mendelwulf’s brother had arrived with many men. They had wondered why we didn’t make our rendezvous. At first, he was reluctant to free me, fearing there would be retribution if the Romans found out what his brother had done. I managed to negotiate my way out of the situation, in part by conveying to him that there would indeed be a reckoning, but it would concern his brother only. He was a reasonable man, having known for many years that his brother was a hindrance to his own ambitions.” Darius flexed his hands. “It took a number of days before I got the feeling back in my fingers. The surgeon was concerned he would have to amputate. But I’ve always been fortunate in such cases.”

  “Fortunate?” Fionn echoed. Darius, who had been lost in his own remembrances, was startled by the cold fury in Fionn’s eyes. “You call what was done to you fortune?” His hand tightened painfully around Darius’s. “One day, I will send emissaries to Gaul to seek out every man and woman who shares this king’s blood, and I will have them answer for what he did to you. And in the end, they will wish for ravens to release them from their suffering.”

  Darius found himself oddly lightened by Fionn’s characteristic savagery. Smiling, he brushed the silver hair back from his face. “Do you know where Gaul is, my love?”

  “You will tell me,” Fionn said, as if stating the obvious.

  “Please don’t waste your energy dreaming up revenges for my sake.” Darius kissed him. “You said that you wished to see the world. It is not all like that village in Gaul. I will tell you about my empire.” His voice was low and earnest. “I’ll tell you stories of all the places I’ve visited, both terrible and wondrous. As much as I can, in—in whatever time we have together.”

  Fionn’s lips were parted. He gazed at Darius as if he were an enigma he would never understand.

  “What is it?” Darius said softly. He brushed Fionn’s lips with his thumb.

  “It’s—” Fionn shook his head once. “It’s just that I never expected you to be like this.”

  Darius tried to riddle out Fionn’s words. He sensed there was something beneath the surface of them, something that could clarify many things about Fionn and what lay between them. “You mean, because I’m Roman? We’re not all unfeeling logicians, you know.”

  Fionn let out a quiet breath, as if resigning himself to some inalterable truth. Then, suddenly, he drew himself sharply upright, his gaze drifting from Darius’s.

  Darius had seen that look before. He felt a shiver of dread. “What do you hear?”

  Fionn leapt to his feet. “They’re coming.”

  “Who?”

  Fionn was already running, back towards camp. Darius followed, or tried to, but he soon lost sight of Fionn’s pale shape ahead of him. In the distance he heard the sound of shouts, and then the clash of metal on metal.

  Darius burst into a narrow clearing to find Fionn circling a Robogdi warrior. Darius could easily recognize the differences now—the Robogdi tunics were of a different cut than the Volundi, their boots shorter and made from heavier leather. A man lay dead at the edge of the clearing, also Robogdi.

  Fionn had an arrow in his leg.

  He limped only slightly as he circled the other man, giving off the impression that the injury barely troubled him, despite the dark blood staining his trousers. Yet even that limp was a shock.

  Darius had never seen Fionn hurt before. Part of him had thought the man was impossible to injure. He remembered another arrow flying through the air towards Fionn’s back, then somehow passing right through him. The Robogdi must have caught him completely unawares.

  Fury beat in Darius’s veins. The Robogdi had betrayed their alliance in the most dishonourable way. They had arranged for Fionn to pay them a friendly visit, ensuring he brought no significant force with him, and then attacked while he was enroute. Even by the standards of barbarian tribes, it was appalling.

  Fionn seemed to be waiting for the Robogdi warrior to attack, to spare himself the discomfort of rushing the man. But the warrior only feinted, refusing to advance. Darius soon found out why. Two more Robogdi warriors emerged from the trees behind Fionn, sprinting directly towards him. They were going to attack Fionn from behind.

  Darius surged forward, shouting a warning. Unfortunately, in the same moment, the first Robogdi lunged at Fionn, forcing him to direct all his attention in front of him. Darius kept running. He had no weapon and no idea what he was going to do.

  It didn’t matter. Fionn was in danger, and Darius wasn’t just going to stand there.

  Fortunately, the ambushing warriors weren’t looking in his direction; they were only looking at Fionn. Darius collided with one of them, knocking the man to the ground. Using the element of surprise to his advantage, he dealt the man a savage blow to his windpipe. He managed to get his hand around the warrior’s dagger before his companion turned back to deal with Darius. He rolled away before the man could slash open his neck. But that only bought him a few seconds—the Robogdi lunged at him again. Darius brought his dagger up, slashing wildly and meeting only air.

  The man froze, and let out a choked sound. To Darius’s astonishment, something was projecting from his chest—it looked like the sharp tip of a branch. What on earth was going on? The warrior sagg
ed forward and would have landed on top of Darius had he not rolled out of the way.

  Behind him stood a creature made of leaves and boughs.

  Darius made a choked sound. He had seen this creature before—or one like it. Its fingers were nearly as long as its arms, sharp branches that dragged on the ground when it moved, and its head was a mass of leaves and moss. Its yellow-gold eyes gleamed among the foliage, crinkled at the edges as if it were laughing at Darius. Then it was gone, crossing the clearing and slashing open the neck of another Robogdi warrior.

  Shaking, Darius searched for Fionn. He had dispatched his opponent and was now fighting two more. The Robogdi were pouring into the clearing. Darius heard a familiar laugh, and whirled to see Sedd kill another Robogdi—at some point he, Bedwyr, and the other members of their party had joined the battle.

  Darius slit the throat of the Robogdi warrior with the damaged windpipe—he still lay hacking and coughing among the grass. Then, taking up the dead man’s dagger in his other hand, he ran to join the fight.

  Fionn was his priority. Darius had seen how the Robogdi had crept up behind him in an attempt at ambush. He had no doubt that they knew who Fionn was, which meant that they actually intended to go so far as to execute the king of their former ally. Darius doubted this had been a decision the Robogdi assassins had made for themselves—no, they were under orders from their king.

  Which meant that they were all in grave danger.

  Darius dove into the trees. There were other arrows sticking out of the ground in Fionn’s vicinity—someone had tried to fire on him more than once. Darius was only somewhat better at archery than he was at hand-to-hand combat, but he was well versed in the theory behind it from years of positioning archers in the field. He made directly for a slight rise in the land he had noticed before, and sure enough, that was where he found them.

  The two Robogdi archers were surprised when Darius crept up behind them—he was lucky that the noise of the battle below drowned out his footfalls. He managed to kill one immediately by driving his dagger into his throat, but the other gave Darius more trouble. It took several minutes of dangerous knifeplay before Darius managed to stab him through the shoulder, and then drive his dagger into the wounded man’s heart. He fell back, his heart pounding. He doubted he would have been successful at taking down one of the Robogdi assassins—the archer had evidently been out of his element in hand-to-hand combat.

  More Robogdi kept pouring into the clearing. Fionn stood in the shadows, his blade flashing. He had accumulated a pile of bodies around him, and his clothes and pale skin were streaked with blood. He didn’t bother with any flourishes or feints as he had when he fought with Marcus. He simply killed with brutal efficiency.

  Darius knew he needed to move, but for a moment, he could only watch, spellbound.

  He’d seen Fionn fight before, but this was on a different level entirely. He was a force of nature, spinning and thrusting and slashing, each movement as natural as a breath, and yet he was so quick that Darius’s eyes had difficulty following him. There was a superficial similarity, Darius noticed with disquiet, between how Fionn fought and how he made love. Both were uncalculated, unselfconscious; carnal, yet full of grace. Darius wondered how the Robogdi brought themselves to engage with him at all. Hoping to defeat Fionn was like hoping to best the wind.

  One of the Robogdi warriors was heading towards Sedd—he was fighting a dark-haired man almost as large as him, and didn’t see. Darius charged the second attacker and engaged him.

  It was an uneven fight, that was clear from the beginning. Darius almost had his dagger knocked out of his hand twice, and then all he could do was defend himself. Fortunately, Sedd dispatched his first opponent, and then turned to help Darius. After a series of short, brutal strokes, he drove his blade into the other warrior’s chest.

  “Darius!” Bizarrely, the big man was grinning. He clapped Darius on the back, almost knocking him over, and added, “Och meneawyn!” Which, Darius now knew, meant ‘welcome.’

  “Irinorr,” Darius replied. Thank you.

  Sedd laughed again. Then he was charging back into the main fight—which was, essentially, Fionn against a dozen Robogdi—while motioning Darius back into the shelter of the trees. The advice was wise, Darius knew, but he wasn’t going to abandon Fionn. He was injured, and that meant he was vulnerable, no matter how invincible he looked.

  Darius went back to the dead archers and retrieved a bow and arrow. Then he set about firing at any Robogdi who presented a target. He fired until the arrows were spent, and though he only managed to kill two, he injured at least half a dozen badly enough that they were easy pickings for the Volundi. Bedwyr sliced open a man who had taken an arrow to the shoulder. He turned to meet Darius’s gaze, and gave him a small nod before turning to greet his next opponent. It was the first warm gesture Darius had received from him.

  The Robogdi had stopped running at Fionn—only a few remained in the clearing, battling the other Volundi. Coolly, Fionn stepped over the scattered bodies of his victims as if they were strewn branches, and moved to help Sedd with his two opponents. That was when the man stepped out from the trees.

  He was a giant. He had a good foot of height on Sedd, at least, and was as broad and solid as a tree, with cords of hard muscle in his bare arms. He wore Robogdi clothing, and bore a Robogdi dagger. And he was moving directly towards Fionn with a slow, confident stride.

  Darius’s breath caught. He had never seen a man so large. Fionn, of course, was unimpressed. He stood still a moment, sizing the man up calmly.

  “Fionn, behind you!” Darius shouted. A boulder was hurtling out of the trees, propelled by two Robogdi warriors. It plowed into Fionn, and he let out a muffled sound of pain that Darius hadn’t thought Fionn was even capable of. Fionn fell, his legs pinned between the boulder and the pile of dead. He lay there without moving. He was unconscious, unable to defend himself.

  And the huge man kept coming.

  Darius didn’t even think. He charged out of the trees, Fionn’s cry of pain still ringing in his ears. He put himself directly in the giant’s path.

  “Darius,” Sedd’s voice yelled, but Darius didn’t bother to wait for whatever warning was coming next. He struck at the giant with his dagger.

  And was blocked, brutally. The giant’s dagger met Darius’s and sent it spinning into the undergrowth. Fortunately, Darius had two, and brought the second up, slicing into the giant’s arm.

  The man hissed, and some part of Darius registered that, the strangeness of the sound. He struck at Darius—the movement was almost as quick as Fionn’s, but miraculously, Darius was able to block it, for the stupid man had signalled his intent with his stance before he even moved. The next strike was like that, and the next.

  Darius began to wonder how a man of such poor fighting abilities had become a Robogdi assassin—perhaps his size had been the only requirement. Fionn could have killed him in the time it took to blink. As it was, after a few feints, Darius knocked the giant’s dagger from his hand. Then, barely able to believe his luck, he drove his dagger into his gut.

  The man hissed again. He sank to his knees, his eyes drifting to the wound as if in disbelief. He was so bulky that Darius was surprised he had gone down after the blow, but he wasn’t about to question it. He withdrew the dagger and slit the giant’s neck.

  The man fell forward and hit the ground like a tree. Darius hovered over him for a moment, stunned, then he choked on a cry.

  The assassin’s eyes were yellow gold, flashing in the dim light like an animal’s.

  For the briefest of seconds, the man seemed to smile at him—a dark, feral grin. Then his face emptied and his eyes closed.

  Darius was shaking. But even through his shock and confusion, he had one thought: Fionn. He turned, and found Sedd was also hurrying towards where his king lay, having dispatched the two Robogdi he had been fighting. He got there first and crouched over Fionn.

  “Is he all right?” Darius demanded.
He wanted to shove Sedd aside and see for himself.

  Sedd said something in reply. He looked at Darius strangely, as if he’d never seen him before. Fionn’s eyes were closed, and a trickle of blood ran down his temple. Darius was relieved to see that he was breathing, at least. Bedwyr joined them a moment later, and he and Sedd spoke in hurried, quiet voices. The remaining Robogdi were fleeing back into the forest, some chased by the Volundi. Darius could hardly believe it. Somehow, the ten of them had defeated a force of dozens of trained Robogdi assassins. It should have been a massacre.

  It would have been, Darius realized, if Fionn hadn’t been there. He had slain half the Robogdi force himself, even with an arrow in his leg. Together, Bedwyr and Sedd hoisted the boulder off Fionn’s leg. He still didn’t move.

  The others Volundi joined them. Darius had never been so happy to see Kealan, who had a line of blood across his cheek. The translator knelt and spoke to Sedd.

  “Is the king all right?” Darius demanded.

  Kealan darted a peculiar look at Darius. Sedd was still speaking. The other Celts listened intently, their gazes also darting from Sedd to Darius. Darius had no idea what was going on. Sedd gently lifted Fionn in his arms and bore him back to camp.

  There, Bedwyr and another man removed the arrow in Fionn’s leg and cleaned the wound, packing it with moss that Darius recognized from his own convalescence. They examined Fionn’s head and applied more moss to the injury there.

  Darius hovered, watching. A distant part of him knew that it would seem strange for him to be so distressed—he was Fionn’s captive, after all—and he tried to appear composed, but it wasn’t easy. He had never seen Fionn look vulnerable. His lips were slightly parted, his face boyish and guileless as he slept. The blood staining his hair, hair that Darius had run his fingers through only moments ago, accented his pallor.

  Once Fionn had been seen to, Bedwyr, Sedd, and Ellish conferred apart from the others. Ellish was motioning towards the horses, and Sedd seemed to be taking her side in an argument with Bedwyr. Darius wondered if they were proposing to set off now.