The Forgotten King (Korin's Journal)

by Beam, Brian

  “But that’s not—”

  “We’ve got a lot to fill you in on,” I cut in absently. My thoughts were distracted by our upcoming meeting with the soldier from my father’s own army. Well, that and the exposed portion of Sal’s chest through her ripped tabard. The slight grin and roll of Sal’s eyes indicated that she’d noticed.

  Cawler stopped and turned, waiting for us to catch up. “They are keeping the soldier detained just ahead,” he announced with a gesture towards a small house. It was one of only a handful of structures that had been spared from the war. The houses on either side of it had been reduced to smoldering, charred remains.

  Sal’ kept up with Cawler as we started forward again. “What has Julus been able to uncover?”

  “We have only tried to obtain his name and allegiance, but he has remained silent. We . . . were awaiting your arrival before questioning him further, Gener . . . Salmaea,” Cawler answered cautiously, his gaze averted.

  Sal’s fingers went to her temples and began rubbing in circular motions. “Cawler, for the last time, Julus is in charge now. Not me. Okay?”

  “It is just . . . it is just that it has been such an honor for all of us to serve under you. Because of you, we were able to save so many.”

  Sal’s expression darkened. “Not without significant losses, Cawler. Tomorrow, I’ll no longer be with you. The odds will be against me, against us.” Sal’ looked at me sadly before turning her attention back to Cawler. “Julus has his orders to keep the squadron moving towards Bherin. The Wizard Guard must help bring the other armies together and take this battle to its source. If we can’t head the war off, all of Amirand could be at risk. We can’t let that happen.

  “I have complete faith in Julus, in all of you. I couldn’t have asked for better men fighting at my side. If my actions in Bherin end in failure, I know that there is still a chance of ending this war and saving Amirand lying with you.”

  Cawler paused just outside the door to the house and turned to face Sal’. His fist went to his heart. “We will do our best to make you proud—even if that means defying the Grand Wizard.”

  Sal’ put a hand to her chest. “Cawler, the blame for going against his orders lies solely with me. It will not fall back on any of you. When this war ends and my father learns of your part in it, you will be honored as heroes.”

  “Even if you are wrong,” Cawler’s fist clenched tighter, “I would not have done anything different.”

  Sal’ gave Cawler a smile, weary yet sincere.

  “Korin,” Max prompted in a whisper from my shoulder, pulling my attention from Sal’s conversation with Cawler. I dropped back a couple of paces. Although Sal’ would’ve never allowed Max to be taken back to the Academy, Max was still reluctant to reveal his true nature around any wizards we didn’t know.

  “That was the third time I called your name,” Max continued. “I suppose I can wait a bit longer if you wish to continue ogling Salmaea’s body, however.”

  Max’s tone was so thick with sarcasm that I could’ve wrapped it around me like a blanket. If he hadn’t been right about where my visual attention had been, I would’ve shot a witty retort right back at him. Aside from Ulys and Isilla back in Auslin, and Kait’, I hadn’t been around many women in a long while. Especially ones so beautiful, so shapely, so . . . I think I’ve made my point.

  “Sorry, Max.”

  “As well you should be,” he replied with a huff. “Listen, I just want to know if you are going to be okay with this.”

  Through my exhaustion, I couldn’t figure out what Max meant. “What do you mean?”

  Max gave me one of his “are you really that stupid?” looks. “The man we are about to question is not only from Paigea, but also potentially from your father’s army. The information he gives us may not be what you want to hear.”

  “Max, I think I’ve gotten plenty used to hearing things I don’t want to hear over the past few months. I can handle whatever he has to say.” It was a lie, and the arch of what I’d consider to be Max’s eyebrow indicated he wasn’t fooled.

  In truth, I felt like spiders were crawling across the inside of my stomach and lungs. I was terrified of what the captured troop would reveal. However, the information he held could mean the difference between ending the war or losing it. Plus, if he revealed that my father was behind everything, better to find out now than by discovering firsthand in Bherin.

  “You are a horrible liar,” Max chided. “But if you are ready . . .” Max flicked his head towards the house. Sal’ and Cawler were standing there, staring at us.

  Cawler turned to Sal’ and spoke something into her ear, his hand hiding his mouth. Sal’s full lips curved upwards. “No, Korin’s not a wizard.” She rotated a finger beside her temple and gestured to me with a nod of her head. “He does like to have conversations with squirrels, though.” She spoke loud enough for me to hear, her eyes shining with amusement.

  “I’m surrounded by smartasses,” I muttered, starting for the house.

  Sal’s attention went back to Cawler. “Cawler, keep watch out here. Korin and I will be questioning this man alone.”

  “Yes, General,” Cawler returned, bringing his fist to his heart and keeping his bemused eyes on me. I’m sure he was wondering who I was to be accompanying Sal’ to question the enemy soldier. He probably wondered why I talked to squirrels as well.

  Sal’ sighed at Cawler’s continued use of the title and pushed her way into the house. I mock whispered to Max while pointing at Cawler as I passed, just to mess with him. My world was crumbling around me, so I figured I might as well have some fun. The look on his face made it completely worth it.

  The house was comprised of a single room, little more than a kitchen area with a bed in one back corner and a stone hearth in the other. Within the hearth, a fire burned weakly, complementing the weak light filtering through the shuttered windows. Though dimly lit, I could see that the house was tidy and clean, the bed made and the shelves and cabinets organized. It was a far cry from the desolation outside.

  The Paigean soldier was seated in a simple wooden chair in the center of the room. His hands were tied behind the chair’s back and his feet to its legs. Two men in blue and black tabards stood just to his side. Upon our entry, the wizards turned and raised fists to their chests. One was older with graying hair and knowledgeable eyes. The other was probably my age, but the dark circles under his eyes and the creases at their corners gave him the illusion of being at least a decade older. Seeing his wild brown hair and stubbled face, I wondered if I looked any better.

  The stout Paigean soldier stared blankly in our direction, as if looking through us. He was dressed as Cawler had reported: red-painted armor with a golden tree inlaid in the center of his chest. His face was devoid of expression, his lips pressed together tightly. His dark hair was pulled back, the tail folded over itself twice and tied. His sword lay sheathed on a table behind him. It was hard to believe he wasn’t from Amirand; his appearance was so . . . normal.

  “Julus,” Sal’ admonished towards the older man with a shake of her head, “I’m no longer your General.”

  “Sorry, old habits and all that,” he responded, dropping his fist with a weary half grin. “Despite the shift in authority, I felt that we should await your arrival to begin questioning.”

  “I’m actually happy you did,” Sal’ assured him. “We would like to interrogate this man ourselves.”

  “Who is this?” Julus lifted his arm towards me.

  “This is Korin Karell, someone who I believe may have better luck in wrenching information from this man than we.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Julus returned, sticking two fingers into a pouch at his side. He brought his other hand up, displaying a crackling blue aura surrounding it in plain view of the Paigean soldier. The soldier closed his eyes but showed no emotion otherwise.

  Sal’ reached forward and grabbed Julus’s arm. “Julus, you know that’s not how this is to be done. Yet.�
�� The captured soldier’s cheek twitched. “Would you allow Korin and me some time alone with him? If we are unable to get the information we seek, then we’ll leave him to your methods.” Another twitch.

  With a wary look in my direction, Julus asked, “Are you sure that is wise?”

  Sal’ shrugged. “I don’t know, General. What do you think?”

  Julus removed his hand from his pouch and rubbed his chin. “I think that I completely trust your judgment. If you believe that you and—Korin, is it?—can get what we need, then so be it. I will round up a few of our squadron to help me tear some information out of this bastard, in case you are unable. I am sure that they would love the chance to return the hospitality shown by this man and his fellow soldiers.”

  The Paigean soldier cringed, his face bloodless; he probably knew good and well that being faced with people who’d been so affected by the death and destruction he’d been a part of would not turn out well for him.

  In theory, the threat in Julus’s words would make the process of getting information from the soldier easier. I think they call such a method of interrogation “good constable, bad constable,” or something like that. More like “good wizard, bad wizard” in this case.

  Sal’ put her fist to her chest, right above her left breast, as Julus and the younger wizard left the house, closing the door behind them. The room was completely silent. Not even the noises from outside reached us. I wondered if it had been spelled to block out sound.

  Sal’ stepped over to the hearth, sliding a hand into her wicker case. “You can open your eyes,” she told the soldier softly. There was no sense of exhaustion in her voice now. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  The man’s eyes eased open and focused on Sal’.

  “Not yet,” she amended with a grim rasp, the fire in the hearth suddenly flaring brightly. The soldier flinched away from the flames. I, on the other hand, almost sighed with pleasure at the heat that suddenly filled the room.

  “Now, my friends have some questions for you,” Sal’ told the soldier as she gestured to me. “You will answer their questions, or I will bring General Julus back in.” Sal’ crossed the room, grabbed the man’s hair, and harshly yanked his head back, drawing a squeak from his throat. She leaned her face over his, leaving just a finger’s length between their noses. The flickering firelight gave her face a sinister glow. “And trust me, you do not want that.”

  Her tone brought me back to the first days I’d known her, when she could go from cheerful to acidic in the blink of an eye. She’d come a long way since then.

  Sal’ gave the man’s hair a sharp jerk upwards to raise his head. “He’s all yours.”

  Stepping back, Sal’ held out a hand, palm up. Above it, a small sphere of flame formed. She started rotating her wrist, the flame remaining just inches above her palm no matter how she turned it. The soldier’s breathing quickened as he watched the flame. Sal’ simply smiled. She left no doubt that the ball of flame was under her control. It could follow her hands or melt the soldier’s face, all according to her will.

  I approached the soldier, feeling quite unintimidating. With my hand resting on my sword’s hilt, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice, I attempted to inject the same deadly grace into my stride as I remembered Bill having displayed so effortlessly. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that I merely looked like a scrawny youth enveloped in a too-large cloak, miserably failing at growing a real beard. I blame Sal’s threatening display of magic for my feelings of inadequacy.

  The soldier didn’t even deign to look at me; his eyes remained locked on the ball of flame weaving through the air over Sal’s hand. His lack of attention on me made my menacing scowl a waste.

  I shot a hand past the soldier’s face and grabbed the back of his chair. I tilted the chair back, prompting the soldier to jerk his legs and shoulders as he reflexively attempted to prevent himself from falling backwards. He finally looked at me, and I gave him an appropriately ominous glare in reply.

  “You’re going to answer my questions, right?” I asked, using my other hand to begin drawing my sword. The soldier’s jaw clenched, his lips pressing into a thin line. I replied by fully unsheathing my sword and pressing the tip to the hollow of his throat.

  The soldier nodded furiously. I shoved my sword back in its scabbard and let the chair’s front legs drop back down onto the wooden floor. The soldier let out a deep exhale. Maybe I was better at this intimidation thing than I thought.

  “Tell me your name,” I hissed.

  “Oreon Brinswill,” the man answered with more conviction than his wan face showed.

  “And you’re a Paigean soldier, correct?”

  Oreon’s head jerked up, his eyebrows drawing down tightly.

  “For the love of Vheros,” Max breathed in annoyance. “Let me handle this.” Vheros is the god of wasted time.

  At the sight of a talking squirrel, Oreon let out a yelp and flung backwards, the chair crashing to the floor with the clack of wood on wood and the solid thump of his head striking the wooden planks.

  “Hey, I’m doing just fine,” I snapped, insulted.

  “We will be here all night at this rate, and I do not know about you, but I am famished. Let me show you how it is done.” Max leapt from my shoulder and scurried onto Oreon’s chest. Oreon’s eyes widened to show the whites all around. I could hear Sal’ snickering, though I wasn’t sure if it was due to Oreon’s reaction or Max putting me in my place.

  The man cringed and turned away with a whimper as Max moved towards his face. “Seriously? Your army, an army whose ranks include the walking dead, was just attacked by Chralex-blooded dragons, and you are scared of a talking rodent?” Max stood and put a hand . . . er . . . paw to his forehead.

  “I only did this to keep my family safe,” the soldier whimpered without looking at Max. “I had no idea we would be fighting alongside those . . . those monsters.”

  Max drew his paw from his face. “Ah, now we are getting somewhere. How does attempting to take over a land that has no quarrel with your own by brute force keep your family safe?”

  Oreon’s eyes flared, burning with anger. “No quarrel?” he snarled. Oreon spat, missing Max and hitting his own leg. “You act as if your spies had no part in instigating the civil wars that plague Paigea, as if you have no plans to take advantage of our weakened state.”

  My throat ached. Ice pumped through my veins. Paigea, the land my father ruled under a banner of peace, was at war with itself. That didn’t sit well with me. Given Max’s sudden silence, it didn’t sit well with him either.

  “What are you talking about?” Sal’ interjected.

  Oreon let out a derisive laugh before seemingly remembering that the talking squirrel on his chest was something he was scared of. He went silent, twisting his face away once again.

  “What if I told you,” Max began, drawing out his words, “that half of the only people in Amirand who even know of Paigea’s existence are in this very room with you now? What if I told you that there is no plot to invade Paigea?”

  “I would call you a liar,” Oreon answered, his eyes closed and his words forced.

  “All right, let us change tack. Who is Gualain’s current king?”

  “Galvin Lemweir, Prime Sovereign of Paigea, has taken that role,” the soldier answered with pride.

  The next thing I knew, I was upon Oreon, my hand at his throat. “Liar!” I think I screamed the word several times before I finally felt Sal’s hands pull me away from him. Oreon was gasping for air as I was drawn back. I couldn’t remember actually choking him.

  “I will answer no more of your questions,” Oreon sneered between gasps for air.

  Sal’ released her ball of flame and let it hover just above Oreon’s face. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “Yes, you will,” she asserted succinctly.

  Sal’ then turned to me with concern deeply set in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  I closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths. “I will be,
” I answered. “There’s a lot you don’t know yet, Sal’.”

  Despite Sal’s attempts to comfort me, I turned away and stalked over to Oreon. Max was on the floor beside him, apparently having been knocked aside during my sudden attack on the Paigean soldier.

  “Look me in the eye and tell me that Galvin Lemweir is Gualain’s king,” I growled.

  “Galvin Lemweir, Prime Sovereign of my homeland, is Gualain’s king,” Oreon replied, though he stared into the ball of flame and not my eyes. It was close enough.

  I took a deep breath, not wanting to hear the answers to my next questions. It took every iota of my self-control not to attack Oreon again. “And this war? This war is by his orders?”

  “Yes.”

  One psychological punch to my gut.

  “And the undead are under his control?”

  “Yes, and also those traitors whose punishment lies with the crystals.”

  Another punch, this one with iron-studded knuckles. Oreon, and most likely the entire Paigean presence in Amirand, believed the green rocks were justified.

  “And he is here in Amirand—in Bherin?”

  “I will never reveal the location of the Prime Sovereign,” Oreon rasped. The ball of flame dropped a fingerbreadth or so towards his face. Oreon squinted his eyes against its brightness and heat. “Yes! Yes! He is in Bherin! Please, do not kill me!”

  “Such masculinity,” Sal’ ribbed from behind me as I took punch number three, this one reverberating through my entire body.

  I licked my dry lips with my dry tongue. “And you believe that Amirand’s rulers plan on entering and conquering Paigea? You believe that we will invade and that the invasion will put your family in danger?”

  “The Prime Sovereign has captured your spies, spies who have admitted to Amirand’s tyrannical plans. We know that you will spare no one in your path as you strive to conquer our land.”

  I turned to Max, sure that I probably looked like one of the undead. I sure felt like I was.

  “Korin, this man has obviously been lied to. Amirand is no threat to Paigea. These soldiers have been deceived in order to fight with blinders on,” Max explained.