by David Estes
He was brought back to the present in a rush when his brother suddenly stood and snapped, “What about the south? What about the sinmarked?”
His generals flinched at the outburst, their lips opening and closing wordlessly, rendered speechless. One of the Furies, however, was not. “Your wisdom is the light in the storm,” she said. “The sinmarked are as much our enemy as the barbarian Horde. They are unnatural, and an insult to Wrath.”
Ennis wanted to hit something. Or somebody. After everything that had happened…how could ignorance continue to have a voice at the highest levels of society? Because we let it, he thought.
Ennis had always been a good soldier, obedient, content to follow rather than lead. When Rhea had begun making questionable choices, he’d advised her, but never truly forced the issue. In the end, he’d obeyed, up until the point where he’d finally stood on his own two feet and helped Gwenndolyn Storm and Gareth Ironclad escape from captivity. Not once had he regretted that decision.
And now…he refused to be another’s pawn again.
“No,” he growled, stepping forward.
His brother’s stare found him, narrowing slightly. “No?”
“We will not wage war with the south.”
“Thank you for your advice, brother,” Sai said evenly. “I will take it under consideration.”
“It’s not advice. It’s a fact.”
Sai’s jaw tightened, a reaction he’d seen from his brother numerous times from childhood until now. It was what happened anytime someone disagreed with him. “The only facts are the ones I create,” Sai said. “I am the king now, and you chose to follow me back to Knight’s End. No one forced you, brother.”
On this point, Ennis knew, his brother was right. Gaia had been strong enough to refuse Sai back in Phanea, where she’d remained. Wheaton would’ve followed Sai into the hottest part of an oven if he’d commanded it. But Ennis…
Ennis had been running from Rhea more than he’d been following Sai.
Why am I here? he asked himself.
One answer was to protect Knight’s End, the city he’d long protected, first as a soldier in the western army and later as an adviser to Rhea. But now…
He had no place. Not here. Not with Rhea. Not in the north or south or east or west. He was lost and alone.
But he was still a man of honor, and he could not live with himself if he didn’t try to sway Sai’s mind. “Brother. I’m sorry. It is not my place to command you. But please, I ask that you seriously reconsider waging war with the south, at least until the threat from the north has been removed.”
“Like I said, I shall consider your advice, brother. Now go, lest your strong will land you in a pot of trouble.”
Ennis swallowed a retort, spun on his heels, and left.
Ennis stopped to see Leo. Since he’d arrived back in Knight’s End, he’d found the boy to be distant, rarely leaving his room, and even then only to collect his meals on a wooden tray. He’d tried to talk to him, and not only because of the promise he’d made to Rhea, but because he cared about this boy as much as anyone.
He was worried about him. It wasn’t fair that one so young should have to go through so much in his short life. So much death—his mother’s suicide, his father’s murder, his own twin sister taken by a sea monster before his very eyes…
But Ennis didn’t know how to get through to him. Now, he watched the boy set up his toy soldiers. He noticed the way he placed each one with such precision, ensuring their shoulders were square with each other so they formed perfect lines as they faced their enemy, silver-armored legionnaires from the east.
Ennis wanted to explain to him that the easterners weren’t their enemy. Nor the northerners. No, their enemy was themselves and an army of barbarians heralding from a faraway land.
But he didn’t. He didn’t want to shatter what innocence the boy had left. Not yet.
Having placed the final piece, Leo turned toward him, and Ennis could sense a question behind his gaze. “Where is Rhea?” he asked.
Ennis’s heart beat quicker. This was good. He’d tried to tell him about Rhea on multiple occasions, but the boy refused to listen, going so far as to order him out of his room. “Phanes,” he said simply, not wanting to spook him with too much information.
Leo frowned, his fingers rubbing the back of a toy horse mounted by a tiny knight. “Why didn’t she come back to Knight’s End? Is she still banished?”
“I—I don’t think so. Sai is still angry with her, but I don’t think he would forbid her from returning.”
Something sparkled in Leo’s eyes. Unshed tears, Ennis realized. “She hates me, doesn’t she? For what I did.”
Ennis’s heart broke and he had to physically stop his hand from reaching forward to comfort the boy by holding it down with the other. “No, cousin. She doesn’t hate you. She wanted me to check on you.”
“Why didn’t she come to check on me herself?” A tear broke free but gravity couldn’t drag it down, leaving it trembling from his lower lashes.
“You are becoming a man,” Ennis said. “So you deserve to know the truth. You are an uncle.”
Leo’s eyes widened at first, and Ennis could see the excitement in them, but then they narrowed just as quickly. “I don’t care,” he said. “I hate her.”
The sudden changes of mood didn’t surprise Ennis, not after what this boy had been through. And he had a right to be angry. At Rhea. At the world. At Wrath. Even at Ennis, who hadn’t done nearly enough to protect his cousin. “I hate her too,” he said, which seemed to surprise Leo.
“You do?” He dashed away his tears with the back of his hand.
“Aye,” Ennis said. “At least most of the time. But she’s still family. She’s still your sister. And her daughter is your niece.”
“A girl? She had a girl?” Leo could no longer conceal his excitement, which lit up his face.
Ennis nodded, smiling. “Yes, she had a girl. And one day I hope you will meet her.
“Me too,” Leo said. He went back to his battle, beginning the advance.
Later that day, Ennis was summoned to hear the “king’s” decision. It was only he and Sai, the Furies and guardsmen sent away. A sense of foreboding settled in the pit of Ennis’s stomach.
He stood silently waiting as his brother drew out the moment magnanimously, standing slowly, stroking the gray beard he’d begun to grow during the return trip from Phanes.
And then he said, “We will protect the city…”
Ennis quietly let out a breath, genuinely surprised at his brother’s wisdom. His pleasure was short-lived, however, for Sai wasn’t finished.
“…with a small force of two thousand soldiers. The rest of the army shall march on Phanes forthwith.”
“What?” Ennis said, unable to hold his tongue.
“It’s a compromise, brother. Any good king knows he can’t satisfy everyone, but this is the best option available.”
“But why would you march your armies back to Knight’s End only to deploy them south immediately? They will be exhausted from their travels.”
Sai smiled, and it took Ennis a moment to understand why.
The bulk of the army had not returned to Knight’s End, he realized. He’d assumed they were slowly making their way northwest. He’d expected them to arrive each day, only to be disappointed.
Ennis couldn’t keep the venom from his tone. “Where are they? Cleo? You would send them to a destroyed city?”
“No, brother. I am no fool. They are in Felix, resting and awaiting orders. I would command them to march on Phanes immediately, but unfortunately the stream network is…unavailable. But it is no matter—I shall go myself to deliver the order.”
“This was always your plan,” Ennis accused.
“I was keeping my options open, as any good king should. Who knows what the sinmarked might do? I want to attack them before they attack us.”
“You fool,” Ennis said.
Sai’s eyes narrowed
into unlit coals. “Because you are my kin, I will forget that you said that, brother. But I would recommend you hold your tongue in the future. Even I will run out of patience eventually.”
“Knight’s End will be destroyed.”
“You don’t know that!” Sai snapped.
A swell of sadness rose within Ennis. Once, he and his siblings had been close. Even Sai. He’d looked up to him, to the man he was becoming. But now…they were as foreign and distant as the stars in the seventh heaven, except perhaps Gaia, who he’d abandoned in the south. He spoke, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. “I cannot be a party to this,” he said. “I will not march with you. I will stay and defend the city from the darkness that is coming.”
Sai’s eyes narrowed as he slowly made his way down from the dais until he was face to face with Ennis. “You will do as I command you to do. I am the king.”
Ennis shook his head. “Maybe you are, but only because Roan Loren does not want it. He seeks peace, not power.”
“Roan Loren is sinmarked. He is a demon raised by the very heathens we’ve fought in the name of Wrath for centuries.”
“He is fatemarked. And the southerners are not heathens. Even Bane spared my life when he could’ve easily killed me. Is that the act of a heathen?”
“You would defend the very demon who killed our righteous uncle with his unholy powers? Might I remind you that the Western Witch was burned at the stake for speaking such blasphemy."
His brother’s face was inches from his now—a challenge.
Ennis refused to flinch, refused to back away. He wasn’t afraid of death, not anymore. And he wasn’t afraid of losing those he loved, for he no longer loved anyone. “Then burn me, brother. Show your people just what kind of man you are.”
His brother’s jaw clenched, and Ennis could hear his teeth grinding together. For a moment Ennis thought Sai might hit him. But then his face tensed and he took a step back, forcing out a laugh. “I will not burn you, brother. Though I am disappointed you are not the man I thought you were. No, you will receive a more fitting punishment. I am surprised to find myself agreeing with our dear cousin on this point.”
Rhea? What does Rhea have to do with anything?
The answer struck Ennis so hard it was as if his brother had hit him.
Exile.
Sai’s lips curled into a wolf’s smile.
The dark stares of the furia followed Ennis’s every step, but he didn’t meet their gazes. Sai had said a stiff goodbye from his throne and then waved Ennis away like a pesky gnat. Wheaton, however, had surprised Ennis by turning up to see him off. Now he stood by a small eastward facing door, waiting with the ghost of a frown on his face.
This was the door Ennis had chosen, for he would not return to Phanes. He couldn’t fight against his own people—even when he no longer felt like one of them. And last he’d heard Gareth Ironclad was marching his own army back to Ironwood to offer assistance to Annise Gäric and the northerners as they sought refuge in the east. Maybe he could find a place there and do his part against the Horde.
Wheaton met his eyes. “Don’t go,” he said. “You can apologize to Sai. He will listen. He will forgive you. He’s not an unreasonable man.”
Ennis was moved by the unexpected strength of feeling in his brother’s plea. But not enough to change his mind. “I’m sorry. I cannot. Wheaton, you are my brother, and I wish you well. Be your own man, not Sai’s puppet. That’s the best advice I can give you.”
All compassion faded from Wheaton’s expression. “I am no one’s puppet, brother. Now go, lest Sai choose a more ruthless punishment for a traitor like you.”
Ennis wasn’t hurt by his brother’s words, for he could sense what they were. A shield against his own sorrow—a mechanism he had used himself, once upon a time. He placed his hand on Wheaton’s shoulder, and then pulled him into a hug. His brother stiffened at first, but then returned the gesture. When they broke apart, Wheaton turned away without looking at him.
Ennis turned toward the door, hauling it open with a creak. It was the royal woodsman’s door, one that had stood in infamy for many centuries. He remembered a story from when he was a child about how the royal woodcutter at the time, Mortis Ironclad, had allegedly murdered a woman and then fled to the east, intermarrying with the Orians and eventually founding the Iron City of Ferria. Mortis was Gareth’s relative.
As Ennis shut the door behind him, hearing the thump as one of the furia barred it, the old story didn’t sit well with him. Why would Mortis have murdered someone and then fled east? Something about it smelled of falsehood, and he wondered why he’d believed the story as a child.
He shook off the thought and started into the wood, which was overgrown and gnarled, save for a single well-worn path presumably used by the royal woodsman on his daily jaunts.
The air was fresh and a cool breeze wafted through the foliage. Ennis suddenly felt light, like all the troubles of the world were no longer on his shoulders—like maybe they never were.
He inadvertently stepped on a twig and it snapped, the crack sounding as loud as one of the fireroot powder explosions he’d experienced during the Battle of the Bloody Canyons.
He stopped, frowning. Something felt…off, and the back of his neck tingled in response. He scanned the forest, searching for whatever had brought him up short.
He listened for any sound.
Which was the problem.
Silence ruled the wood, which was why the crack of the stick had sounded so loud. No birds sang, no bees buzzed, no animals rustled through the undergrowth.
The silence was complete, more still than the darkest of nights.
Ennis had known fear before, but never like this. Wait. Wait. Something wafted through the trees. Is that…
Smoke? The tendrils were gray and wispy, but more mist-like than the thick vapors caused by a fire. Plus, he couldn’t smell the acrid stench of burning wood. Frozen in fear, he watched the gray mist as it seemed to reach for him, forming fingers.
He wanted to run. Desperately. Please run! he screamed in his mind, but it was like his feet were stuck fast in a bog. He was as likely to run as the trees were.
The first of the tendrils curled around his face, caressing his chin and cheeks.
He jolted as if struck by lightning, his fingers claw-like as they clutched at his head, which was filled with buzzing bees and the scratch of thorns and the burn of fire, images assaulting him in rapid succession, each more horrible than the last.
Bodies, broken and torn, covered in blood, piled as high as the mountains of the north. A city burning, its buildings destroyed, its great towers laid low. Hulking forms loping hither and thither with animalistic fury, cutting off the screams of their prey.
No one survived. No one.
Ennis was dimly aware that he was clawing at his own skull, ripping the very hair from his head, scratching his skin, but he couldn’t stop, for the pinpricks of pain were the only things keeping his own mind from rending itself in two. To fall into such a chasm would sever the thread between reality and insanity forever.
Something touched him and his eyes flashed open, his jaw rigid with pain, like a hot poker had been shoved beneath his skin, drawing its way from chin to cheek to brow. And he screamed. Oh, how he screamed.
The man stared at him, his eyes wild with manic glee. He had a broad jaw coated with dark stubble, his eyes a rich brown bordering on black. “Hello, little mouse,” Helmuth Gäric said.
Pain coursed through Ennis’s entire body until it became too much, his vision fading to black, the world vanishing into gray mist.
Wrath save them all, Ennis thought before unconsciousness and agony dragged him under.
Twenty-Five
The Eastern Kingdom, Ferria
Gareth Ironclad
Gareth had felt the burden of having abandoned Roan the entire trip northeast. I had no choice, he reminded himself, finally casting such feelings aside as he felt the first shred of excitement course t
hrough him.
The excitement came from the shimmering that had only recently appeared in the distance. It was unmistakable, a beacon to a weary traveler longing for home.
Ironwood, he thought, even as murmurs flowed across his soldiers as they too noticed the glittering, dancing reflections of light that marked the edge of the great iron forest.
At the same time, Gareth’s excitement was tempered by the knowledge that he returned to Ferria alone. Well, not alone alone—he had several legions of soldiers with him, after all—but without Gwen or Roan. And he would have no family waiting to welcome him to the Iron City, for they were all gone now.
He was the last of his line, and he knew he would have no children. This knowledge grew like creeping ivy into the dark places of his heart, but he scythed it back again and again. All it meant was that he needed to make his time count even more.
He settled back into the ride, letting the rhythmic clop of his horse’s hooves hypnotize him until he was in a place that wasn’t exactly asleep but not awake either. It was a place where he could think.
To his surprise, it was Gwen’s words, not Roan’s, that spoke to him there. You are no longer the Shield, she’d said as they approached Ironwood the last time. Then what am I? he’d replied. You are the Sword.
He blinked, realizing that the miles had fallen away under his horse’s strides. Ironwood was close enough now that he could make out individual trees, each sheathed in iron, standing like sentinels under the brightness of a spring sun. Silver flowers sprouted from their branches, nestled amongst reflective iron leaves.
Gareth lost his breath. He swore it was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
It was a sight worth fighting for, even if it meant helping those he’d once called his enemies.
The legion’s return to Ironwood was not without fanfare. Orians and humans alike lined the broad avenue through the forest, though the former stood on thick branches that overhung the thoroughfare, while the latter edged the sides of the path. Children ran and laughed, while the adults raised fists in the air, welcoming their brave soldiers.
