Sins of a Sovereignty (Amernia Fallen Book 1)

by Plague Jack

  The dwarf sprinted forward as fast as he could and leapt through the air. Shrike’s boots hit Finnigan’s chest with a nasty crunch as they fell to the ground. “Never drop your weapon, rookie,” said Shrike as Finnigan wheezed beneath him. The agent’s attempts to push the dwarf off were met by a sharp head-butt that left Shrike’s head ringing.

  The hooded man smashed the hilt of his sword into an agent’s stomach before tossing him aside. Luke ran forward with an axe raised in a wild death charge, only to have the old man’s sword smash against his wrist. War cry turned into agonized wail as Luke clenched his hand and writhed on the ground. A knock from the old man’s sword silenced him.

  A wounded and dazed man tried to stand, but Shrike saw to it that he didn’t. “Hello, Pendragon,” said Shrike. “I knew you weren’t dead.” The dwarf paused. “That was quite clever what you did there. And five men at once without unsheathing your weapon? I don’t know where you’ve been since Norfield, but it’s treated you well.”

  Pendragon pulled off the blindfold and let the wind carry it out to sea. “You are never stronger than when your enemies expect weakness.”

  Ever the truth, thought Shrike.

  “How did you know who I was?” asked Pendragon.

  Shrike nodded at the sword still clutched in Pendragon’s hand. “I recognized the sword. Who are you working for now? Where have you been?”

  “Who do I work for? I work for whom no one works for. I work for the people.”

  “Well, yes, that’s a given,” said Shrike. He was cold and wet and his hands hurt, none of which was helping his mood. “But whose side are you on? You don’t support the Queen—that much is obvious.”

  “My days of serving her are done,” said Pendragon, shaking his head. “I support a different cause now.”

  “The Wild Hunt, then? Have they made you the honorary human member?”

  “Not yet,” said Pendragon. “But they will.”

  Oh my, thought Shrike. He’s gone bonkers. “No, no, they won’t,” said Shrike. “The Wild Hunt want the elfkin to dominate Amernia again. Humans aren’t elfkin, in case you hadn’t heard.”

  “Not all of the Wild Hunt wants to see humanity destroyed,” said Pendragon. “I’ve met some who are much more open-minded.”

  “Do they live in your head? In your happy place?”

  “My head a happy place? Shows what you know. The Hunt is going to accept my help because it would be foolish not to,” said Pendragon, stone-faced. “And what better peace offering than the Queen’s former spymaster?”

  “The Queen herself, bound with vengeance and gagged with justice?”

  “Ha,” laughed Pendragon. “Perhaps, but you’ll do.”

  “And what if I don’t want to come with?” asked Shrike.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “You can’t make me,” said Shrike as Pendragon towered three feet over him.

  They were an odd couple as they traveled north from Voskeer along the Iron Road. More than once Pendragon had to hastily shove Shrike into a barrel stashed in the back of the cart to avoid the eyes of a passing patrol. Spring was around the corner, but winter was still hitting with full force, and the bitter cold abused the duo. There was little conversation the first few days. In protest of his incarceration, Shrike had retreated into a sullen silence. He was under constant watch by Pendragon, whose eyes never left the dwarf for long.

  “I didn’t betray the Queen, you know,” said Shrike as they approached Solace.

  “You didn’t?” asked Pendragon. “That was obvious since you aren’t working with the Wild Hunt. Hmm. Then who did?”

  “I don’t know,” said Shrike. “Could have been one of the Queensguard. More likely one of my subordinates.”

  “You aren’t one for making friends, are you, Shrike? You never have been. Why do you think you were betrayed?”

  “For the same reason anyone does anything,” said Shrike. “Money, sex, and power. It’s always one of those reasons. Hell, it could be all three.”

  “Not everyone is so greedy, Harper. If I wanted, I could return to Voskeer and collect the bounty on your head. I’m choosing to bring you to those who need your talents.”

  My talents or my secrets? Shrike asked himself. “Just because you aren’t greedy doesn’t mean that Archipelago isn’t.”

  “Greed is a symptom of a broken society. I was there when Phineas was killed. His death need not be a bad thing for Amernia.”

  “Really?” asked Shrike. “Seems to have caused a whole lot of problems for everyone.”

  “Phineas was cancer embodied,” said Pendragon. “A living relic of past mistakes, he was killed by someone who I believe meant well.”

  “So you killed him?” asked Shrike. Rumors that Pendragon had killed the Archduke had spread throughout Amernia, but they had been dismissed by the Queen and by Jester House.

  “Perhaps, through inaction,” said Pendragon without a hint of regret. The old knight’s hand shook ever so slightly. “But it was a sudden clarity. As the filth and blood washed over me it was like I was seeing the world for the first time. It was a rebirth. I was not myself that night. It was as if I was feeling years of repressed terror all at once. I panicked and I fled the madness that was Norfield, and in the Nixus I realized that I was living life wrong and have been for many years.”

  “Did you, now?” asked Shrike skeptically. “Isn’t that the story of every military man? Obey now and regret later?”

  “Were you not a military man yourself? Tell me, do you regret your actions?”

  “I was never a soldier in here,” said Shrike, pointing to his forehead. “Only in body, never in spirit, and never in mind. The military life provided me a way out of Morheim and I took it.”

  “So, no regret, then? That’s hard to believe,” said Pendragon. “You condoned the slaughter of thousands just as I did. There is blood on your hands just as there is on mine.”

  Shrike laughed loud and hard. “So what?” he asked. “There is blood on the hands of anyone who matters. Getting blood on your hands comes with importance. It’s a price we pay.”

  “Phineas said something similar. He paid,” said Pendragon, shaking his head. “Do you not feel guilt for any of the things you’ve done?”

  “No,” said the dwarf. “I regret nothing. There is no good, you see, only evils and lesser evils. Had I never existed I might have been replaced by someone even worse. They might have killed more people, or sided with Darius instead of killing him. Then Amernia could be led by an elf tyrant, or a dwarf one, or even worse… a boy king. You and I fill a role, and whoever has to fill our role is going to have to make the hard choices. People like us will always be needed.”

  “Is that so?” asked Pendragon. “I once told myself something similar, but it was just a lie to justify atrocity.”

  “I’m a dwarf,” said Shrike. “Can you see that?”

  Pendragon eyed Shrike suspiciously. “Yes…Yes I can.”

  “I was born in Morheim, a city you and your noble friends helped ruin. King Harendiir and Edgar were greedy. They didn’t side with Darius because they were oppressed. No. That didn’t come until after the Green War. Instead they were promised power and land by Darius. It was greed that made them rebel, and it was greed that was their downfall. Greed, and their obliviousness to Gabriel’s willingness to cooperate.”

  “And how do you justify the death of so many innocents? The poisoning of the north?”

  Shrike shrugged. “Spilt milk. Harendiir could have surrendered. He could have let women and children leave Capricorn, but he didn’t, so they paid his price. Nixus was an effective weapon, and the main problem I have with it is that in large doses? it lingers and spreads. Of course, we didn’t know that when we fogged Capricorn. Morheim was another story. The dwarfs had chemical weapons of their own and a lifetime supply of food. We got as many innocents out as we could, but in the end the dwarfs did themselves in with their alchemy.”

  “I can’t lo
ok at it like that,” said Pendragon. “How can you speak so coldly?”

  “Because I can adapt to the world,” said Shrike. “I don’t look at things that are wrong and hope they’ll change to suit me. Instead I evolve with the change.”

  “And do you not care who gets hurt by your actions?”

  This gave Shrike pause. He stroked his goatee as he rolled Pendragon’s question around in his mind. “The undeserved die often in this world. Good intentions can have bad results, just as the opposite is true. I try my best to protect those around me, but it’s a secondary priority. I always try to look at the end result before fretting over morality.”

  “Then you are cursed.”

  “And you lack perspective,” the dwarf quipped.

  “If you think supporting Minerva is such a worthy cause, why haven’t you escaped yet?” asked Pendragon. “Surely the great Shrike cannot be held by a pair of handcuffs?”

  “Is that permission to take them off?” asked Shrike as he slipped a metal hook from his sleeve and began working at his bonds. “I’ve played the hostage this long because I’m curious to see whether or not the Wild Hunt’s in the business of taking human apologists. Why do you blame yourself Pendragon? Evrill, Stolk, Quintero, Ashen—take your pick. All supported the Queen and some of them did much more than you to destroy the north.”

  Pendragon took on an endless stare. “I fought alongside Gabriel in the Rose Rebellion. I witnessed atrocities long before Darius’s crusade, but I have never witnessed anything as horrific as Nixus. Men were never meant to have such power. I could have stopped its production, but I failed to. That is my burden.”

  “Why did the gods give us the brains if not to use them?” asked Shrike as he popped off the handcuffs. “Harendiir would have burnt Capricorn to cinders before he let the Queen bitch have it. By all accounts he was planning to. Either way, everyone dies.”

  Pendragon shook his head. “There is always another way.” He sent Shrike a piercing glare. “Am I going to have to worry about you slitting my throat while I sleep?”

  “No,” said Shrike. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have found a way by now. For now, I want to see where this goes. Where are we headed exactly?”

  “Harpy’s Point,” said Pendragon with a smile.

  That’s the first place I’d expect to find the Wild Hunt. “Is that their base?” asked Shrike.

  “I’m sure they have a presence there, but that’s not why we’re going. I’m going to convince the Duchess to come—.”

  “Bad idea,” said Shrike before Pendragon had a chance to finish. “If they kill you outright, that’s no real problem, since everyone thinks you’re dead anyway. But if they decide that they aren’t feeling forgiving, then you’ve just delivered them one of the Queen’s favorite nobles.”

  “I have faith that they will do the right thing,” said Pendragon. “Veronica has been nothing but a friend to the elfkin, despite her…involvement in the Green War. Her presence will help sway them.”

  “Or you’ll be executed and Evrill will be ransomed back to the Blood Queen. Or maybe they’ll just kill you both for the joy of it. ”

  “You don’t seem worried about your own safety,” said Pendragon. “Aren’t you worried that they’ll kill you?”

  Shrike shrugged. “Like I said, I’m adaptable. It’s my asset.” They rode through the market square of Solace, where the hanging corpses of elves still rotted. “Why do you think the elfkin are so angry?”

  “Because their capitals were destroyed and the Queen has barred them from holding any power,” said Pendragon. “They cannot become guards and they cannot even lead their own communities. They feel that this country is no longer theirs, and that is why it’s so crucial that Evrill and I show them there are humans who still wish to help.”

  “Wrong!” said Shrike. “They make the Queen out to be some sort of horrible racist when she’s not. Easier to demonize than to understand, and that’s the truth on both sides of every war. Yes, she made some restrictive laws and started calling the elfkin subhuman, but so what? Suppressing those who dissent is key to keeping power. If the Queen was the monster the elfkin say, she wouldn’t have put a dwarf in charge of her secrets. The angry elfkin are just unadapted to this world. Either too stupid or unwilling to make the changes necessary, and so they have next to nothing. Sometimes the hatred of the rich is little more than the unadapted hating the adapted.”

  “The Queen you defend so strongly wants you dead.”

  “Of course she does!” said Shrike. “She has every reason to. She’s wrong, but she’s still got the right idea over all.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t a loyalist?” asked Pendragon. “You speak very highly of very bad people.”

  “No worse than you or I,” said Shrike. “And of course I’m a loyalist,” he continued. “I serve whoever I think best suits the people.” Shrike smiled. “Or whoever isn’t out to kill me.”

  The cold was biting as they continued to travel along the Stone Road, up the Frost Fist Mountains. Coming down the mountainside was a chain gang of prisoners of all races and sizes. They were a malnourished bunch, and they shivered in their clothes, which were hardly more than potato sacks. Tight collars choked their necks, and hanging from each one was a tiny iron statue in the shape of a pterodactyl. Shrike and Pendragon avoided eye contact with them as they passed.

  “That was a poor lot,” said Shrike after the prisoners were out of earshot. “Did you see the symbols around their necks? They were headed for Tilucan Prison.”

  Pendragon shook his head. “I’ve never understood why we bother sending our prisoners to Azmire.”

  “It’s political,” said Shrike, “like everything. The reptile lords take our prisoners and get to make them fight to the death. This appeases their god, Scassix, so he gifts the imbecilic lizards with mutations. I think the Queen bitch was always frightened that if she didn’t pay them in blood sacrifice they might try to invade.”

  “They would have to organize first,” said Pendragon. “Which I doubt they ever will.”

  “May the gods help us if they do,” said Shrike. “I would rather die than get sent to Tilucan. The warden is one of the worst reptile lords. He cannibalizes prisoners daily, at the top of his pyramid where all the others can see.”

  Pendragon grimaced. “Are you sure that’s not a rumor?”

  “I’m sure,” said Shrike. “I’ve read the reports and seen what’s left of the bodies.” The dwarf laughed. “Luckily only the worst of the worst get sent to Tilucan.”

  The rest of their journey went quietly. The pair were afraid to stop at an inn out of fear of being recognized, so they camped in the back of their wagon. Shrike noticed that Pendragon slept very little and instead spent his nights staring silently into the sky. Although brutal and chilling, the snow was beginning to give as the sun roasted it away, and the buds of mountain flowers began to jut from boulders.

  The snow returned in full force as they approached the peak, and the pair had to cover the horse in snow hound fur to keep it from shivering. “Have you ever heard the legend of the Wild Hunt?” asked Shrike just as Teryn’s Landing appeared over a snow-covered ridge.

  “Have I heard it?” asked Pendragon with tired eyes as his breath appeared in a puff of frosty smoke. “I heard it long ago. Before the elfkin started killing in its name. I can’t say I know the specifics.”

  “Most elfkin born before the Green War know the story,” said Shrike, his hands in his coat to keep warm. “It’s one our mothers tell us to get us to behave.”

  “Like the ones they tell about you, Shrike?”

  “Not at all. I’m ashamed to admit the ones they tell about me are mere fairy tales compared to the Huntsman’s legend.”

  “We’ve got some time,” said Pendragon as the entrance to Harpy’s Point loomed in the distance. “Might as well tell it.”

  “All right,” said Shrike with a dramatic clearing of his throat. “Once upon a time there lived a handsom
e elf who traveled across the land with his bride, making his living as a bard. His bride was, as they always are in the old stories, the fairest piece of ass in the land.”

  “You’ve piqued my interest. Tell me more about this fair piece of ass,” said Pendragon.

  “I’m getting there,” said Shrike. “Now, one day the handsome elf bard was called into Capricorn to play before the King, who was at the time also an elf.”

  “Our story takes place before the Vaetorians’ conquest?”

  “Exactly. Anyway, the King took a liking to the bard’s buxom bride and offered to pay him double his bard fee for a night with his wife. The noble bard refused, of course, and had his throat slit and his wife raped like a common whore. Now, the wife in all her misery was said to have prayed to the forgotten god for her husband’s soul. You know the god to whome I refer?”

  Pendragon nodded.

  “Good. They say that upon hearing her prayers the forgotten god raised her husband from the dead as a dreadful spirit riding a horse of bone and twisted, rotten flesh. This resurrected huntsman rode across the sky and into the King’s bedchamber, where he wrapped the King in chains so tightly that his bones snapped like twigs. Rumor says the Wild Huntsman still rides to collect the souls of dead nobility, which he drags behind him as he roams the world looking for more victims.”

  “It’s no wonder they chose the Wild Huntsman as their mascot if the entire legend is a glorification of king-slaying,” said Pendragon as a gust of wind blew flecks of snow at them. “Now, back in your barrel—we’re almost there,” ordered Pendragon, riding towards the open gate below the Harpy statue.

  The tradition of smuggling dwarfs in barrels dated back to the Great Dwarf Barrel Massacre of 965 AC, and it was not a stereotype Shrike liked to encourage. “Let’s shove your wrinkled ass in a barrel and see how you like it,” Shrike grumbled to himself as he fitted the lid over his head.

  He heard the muffled shuffles of the Harpy’s Point guards as they searched through the back of the caravan. Through a crack in the barrel he could see a guard’s purple tabard. “What’s in the barrel?” asked the man suspiciously.