Fifteen paces in front of them, directly in their line of travel, they saw what to Titon looked to be no less than a dragon from children’s tales, real, alive, and angry. From snout to tail it was easily the length of their raft. It was covered in what appeared to be greenish-black armor with multiple rows of blunted spikes down its neck, back, and tail. Great teeth protruded upward and downward along the sides of its long jaws, smiling death at them.
Titon loosed a shot. The lightweight arrow screamed through the air, striking between the eyes as intended, but bounced off harmlessly, no use against the thick armored skin. The beast disappeared underwater with no hint as to its intended direction. Titon retrieved his own spear, his knife tied to the end, and the two men stood back to back near the center of their raft, poised for action. Titon was sure to not be alone in wishing they had kept the spears from the men they’d recently killed, having discarded them due to their distinctive markings likely identifying them as weapons exclusive to city guards.
“Dawnstar shine light! What was that beast?” Titon was possibly more curious than afraid.
“The river’s guardian from the looks of it. The question is how do we kill it or at least scare it off?”
“Same as anything. We poke it with sticks until—”
Both men were knocked to their knees as the beast attacked their vessel, lifting an edge out of the water and ripping a piece of punky wood from the side. Neither had a chance to strike at it, but that problem resolved itself as the beast burst from the water to the rear of the raft, lunging on top. The raft tipped them both toward danger as half their foe’s body was planted on the stern, its jaws wide open, ready to snap at anything that came within range. Relieved to see no flames spewing from its mouth, Titon righted himself and prepared to attack in sync with his friend.
Keethro’s spear landed in the mouth of the creature and was snapped in half, but the knife point of Titon’s spear bit into the creature’s shoulder. A dark purple blood oozed out of the wound as the angry beast thrashed about, splashing water with its mighty tail as it withdrew into the river.
“Knife,” Titon said.
Keethro complied quickly, tossing him the knife from his belt. Titon heard his friend protest unintelligibly as Titon dove, headfirst, into the water.
The grossly warm water engulfed him as he swam for the bottom. Earlier testing with the long branches had revealed the depth of the river varied, sometimes getting too deep to scratch bottom and with plenty of fallen trees and rocks below on which to get hung up. Titon’s attempt to open his eyes was useless, seeing only darkness.
His hands probed around, easily sliding to elbow’s length into the slimy decay of the river floor, expecting at any moment to touch the armored back or the toothed snout of their adversary.
With throbbing lungs, Titon made his way to the surface, feeling more vulnerable than he had at the bottom. As he swam to the raft, his foot kicked something solid, but a glance revealed it was a piece of their floating firewood. Keethro hoisted him to safety as soon as he was within arm’s length.
“Are you mad?” Keethro demanded of him.
Titon tossed the dark, heavy object he had stuffed in his shirt to the floor of the raft with a clang, smiling after having regained his breath. “I would have been, had we lost old Iron Hips.”
CRELLA
Crella frowned, not knowing if it was a sadistic joke of Lyell’s to have imprisoned her here, in the utmost luxury. Surrounded by opulence, she had been condemned to the very chambers of the former queen, the comforts of which had begun to chafe her.
It was the highest room in the Throne, sprawling and vaster than the size of most nobles’ homes, covered from floor to ceiling in pure lavishness. Not a square inch was bereft of cladding in the richest fabric, all in some shade of deep red approaching purple. The ceiling was a maze of pleated velvet from which several enormous chandeliers hung. The coving, a lattice of corduroy boning framed in ropes of gold sinew, crowned the upholstered walls, and the carpet that covered the floors was near thick enough to fall upon without injury. It had every amenity afforded to royalty, save those sharp enough to be used to sever an artery, and the balcony—the one from which Lyell had thrown her aunt—was sealed off.
Crella had known nothing about the war that saw her aunt dethroned. She lived with her uncle then, and Calder kept her as insulated from reality as a young princess could be. That her aunt had tumbled from this very room was the first she had learned of the entire incident. Crella’s thoughts had immediately gone to those of succession, as she had been trained, and she remembered having been elated that this room would be hers. She had visited it on several occasions throughout her life, though only briefly. It was the queen’s prerogative to ensure that all her luxuries were to be shared with others only enough for them to admire and never enough for them to enjoy.
Crella had raised Stephon as similarly to her own upbringing as she could manage, and to this day she still could not understand how or why Stephon had become so troublesome a child. It must be his father’s Northman blood.
Her current antipathy toward Alther existed only in so much as he was the son of the man who had sentenced her to this hell, and that Alther was so powerless to prevent it. Her only reprieve came in her sleep, when she dreamt of the night she and Alther had uncharacteristically shared. Though it worsened her anguish upon waking to go so violently from the sweetness of those memories to her bitter reality, it did not keep her from wishing for the same dream to come each night, which it often did.
Crella tried to imagine what their life together may have been like, free from Lyell. Earlier on in their marriage, she’d humored Alther by debating what an ideal life would be. Alther envisioned them living far from the cities, in a self-sufficient estate with its own workers, farms, and livestock. She laughed in his face at such a thought, a princess near a farm. Crella detested the countryside and the filth that came with it. The smell of a man, or even a woman, who had been outdoors for just a moment in the Adeltian humidity was enough to make her gag. The thought of living anywhere other than the cool buildings of the Adeltian kingdom with the perpetual breeze provided by wind chimneys was unbearable. She had always described to Alther a life not much different from the one she now lived as idyllic—minus, of course, the imprisonment. Life with Alther on a faraway estate would be infinitely better than her current circumstance—that she had to admit. Provided proper cooling, or perhaps a more amenable climate, such a life could be endured. The North was rife with dangers, but a well-guarded estate must still be safer than the constant threat of impalement by a paranoid king.
But as each day passed, her hope of liberation began to fade, and with it, her memory of that night with Alther and the tea. The image of Alther the dauntless lover was replaced with what she had known him to be prior—a meek man, unable to meet her challenges in the smallest of matters, let alone confront his revered father. I must not delude myself into believing that he will see me freed. He was never that man I dreamt.
A knock was heard at the door, another mock courtesy that was shown to her.
“You may enter,” Crella said, believing it to be the arrival of her third of three daily meals.
She was correct. Her servant placed her tray of food before her, lifting the lids to see the two dishes properly presented. Crella cringed. On one plate there was a pie of sweet cheese with a crumbly crust, baked until beginning to brown on top. It was a decadent dessert, and once a favorite of hers. On the other plate were several overlapping slices of goose liver, covered in a thick cream sauce. Both dishes were so indulgently rich it near turned her stomach. She would have to wait hours to grow hungry enough to touch either. A single spoon rest between the plates. Do they truly think I would shove a fork into my veins? But even so, she had to wonder just how long she could continue under such conditions before she might be forced to consider such a thing.
The servant remained, waiting as if she were still his superior—which, of course, she still was.
“Why do you linger?”
“I have a message,” he replied. “From friends.”
Though he was probably twenty, he looked far younger. He was not the typical stunted boy servant used by Cassen and the like—he was not comely enough for that. His youthful appearance was due only to his weakly nature. This was a man that had willing servitude in his very blood, and it repulsed her.
“I have no friends. Please be gone.” Crella thought she dismissed him with all the spurn and sincerity she could muster, though in fairness she desperately wished to know what he would say, if only to be distracted for a moment.
“Junton has been freed, as will you be if you remain strong and do not speak of his or any other’s involvement,” he whispered. “With you is Peace.” And with his message delivered, the servant turned to depart.
It was a ploy, she knew. Just as soon as she would begin to believe his words and he promised her that her freedom was imminent, they would swap him for another servant in an attempt to crush her completely. And in this he was wholly complicit.
Crella snapped. She grabbed her spoon and rushed the servant, grasping him by the hair and pressing hard the angled edge of the spoon’s handle to his throat.
“You are lying,” she snarled at him.
The weakling in her arms did not even struggle nor attempt to speak. He just remained there, quivering in her grip.
“Tell me you lie,” she demanded.
“I lie, I lie!” The response came without hesitation.
Crella let the spoon fall to the carpet as she released him. “If they send you again,” she promised, “I’ll kill you.”
The servant nodded tersely and raced out the room, failing to even shut the door behind him.
The final words he had spoken, those of Peace, were the words of her family’s people. Some Adeltians, her aunt being the foremost among them, had taken to a sort of faith centered around that of peace and harmony. It was certainly more prevalent among nobility, who knew no hardship and could afford a peaceful existence free from strife, but many commoners as well had adopted the system of belief.
Peace be damned, Crella thought as she looked at the still-open door.
Was it possible the servant had spoken the truth? He’d been so quick to confess to lying, but a man so frail of mind would have said anything she asked in order to be released. You may have just run off your only prospect of freedom, she admonished herself.
Crella walked to the door. Lyell would never let her go free. He had too much invested now in her guilt. And yet it was her innocence that ensured her imprisonment. She knew no names, no plans, no schemes of which to confess in attempt to gain some cause for leniency.
A curving stairway was all that could be seen past the doorway. There would be two armored guards that barred the way at the end of those stairs, and her spoon would be of little use against men covered in steel of their own. But I could distract them, she thought, with a thrown object, just long enough to make my way past. It seemed her only chance.
It was idiocy, she knew, and she squeezed her eyes shut with the strength of her disappointment. How Lyell would love it if she tried to flee; he’d make a spectacle of it as a means of validating her guilt.
Crella closed the door quietly and went to the northern window. She would stand there, alone, for another four hours, staring at the unidentifiable specks that walked below and the forests to the north as the light faded. She’d pick at her food out of boredom before sleeping, then be awoken by a meal with which to break her fast. No Adeltians, nor her docile husband would ever come to rescue her. She was fated to die in this hellish purgatory.
THE BLACKSMITH
There’re pavers under here…somewhere, Davin reminded himself as he pulled his empty cart through muddy streets. He could not remember, though, the last time his cart had been laden enough for the wheels to actually make contact with any.
He was on his way to a vendor in the city square to purchase the bitumen necessary for etching the elaborate knives, swords, and axes made for his wealthier patrons. This was one of many stops necessary to acquire all the materials needed for a week’s work. It used to be that he could stock up a month’s worth of supplies, but money had been hard enough to come by before his second child had arrived and Westport turned to shit. It did not help matters that the younger of his apprentices had spilt the quenching oil for a second time, forcing him to relieve the lad of his duties. The child’s family was like to starve, as his mother was too ugly for whoring, but had a hot sword been in that oil at the time the senseless child could have burned his entire building to the ground—the expense of the lost oil was painful enough.
An ever-growing crowd was gathered in the square, and the angry shouting made Davin wonder. He was pushing through the throng, only wanting to finish his business and be on his way, when he noticed several members of The Guard. They stood arranged around three tall wooden poles, each covered by a black cloth.
Protectors of the King’s Injustice, Davin thought to himself. Stories of abuse at the hands of the so-called Protectors of the Realm were rampant, and though some were difficult to believe, commoners such as he did all they could to avoid the possibility of being the object of one such story.
One of the Protectors unfurled a scroll and began to read.
“Here sit three convicted of high treason with attempt upon the life of the king. Junton of House Elderlunds, former Viscount of Edenholme, now stripped of all lands and titles, his wife Beyla, and his accomplice, Stillun of House Verantia.” As the man reading from his scroll finished his proclamation, another member drew down the cloth, revealing the bodies of two men and a woman, each sitting atop a pole that pierced them through the rectum. They wore only wounds and filth, as if they had been in the weather and pecked by the birds for some time. Their eyes already devoured by ravens, the corpses peered down with empty sockets, threatening to come alive to pull innocents into their ring of conspiracy.
The crowd let out a gasp and staggered, each individual seeming torn on whether to stay or to flee. The same member of The Guard continued to read.
“For three days shall they remain at each of the three cities, to serve as a reminder to those who seek to undermine the benevolence of their king and ruler, Lyell of House Redrivers, that the punishment for treason is death. These men were rich before King Lyell deposed the queen who was unfit to rule, and they remained rich thereafter. King Lyell did not conquer for plunder, but for peace. He did not steal from those he had defeated, but merely requested of them to abide by the laws under which prosperity could take root.”
Davin could see some in the audience nodding their heads in approval while others shook their heads in objection. The rest simply looked on in horror. The man who spoke had apparently finished and began to roll up his scroll for safekeeping.
The growing scent of danger seemed to overwhelm even the fetid stench of entrails, and it felt as though he would be committing some misdeed by being the first of the gathering to resume motion. Nonetheless, Davin nudged the man in front of him so that he might continue on his way.
“I don’t feel prosperous,” came the yell of a man far to the rear.
The crowd stilled in anticipation of a reaction from The Guard, of which there was none. Having ignored the shouter, the lightly armored Protectors continued tidying their things to make an exit.
“Release the princess!”
This time the voice came from very near. Davin turned to examine the man who had shouted. He was in commoner clothing, with the hunched posture typical of a lowborn not wishing to draw attention, but there was something odd about him that Davin was unable to discern.
“Death to the Tyrant!” came a third voice, again alarmingly close to Davin and from a man in similar dress.
The crowd became agitated. When Davin saw the second crier pick up a handful of mud and fling it in the direction of the members of The Guard, he knew it was already past time to leave, but his cart made tr
avel through the dense crowd impossible.
The mud had missed its mark, and it was nevertheless impossible to see just who had thrown it, so The Guard members simply hurried their attempt to exit. Weakness having been sensed, one by one, others began to throw mud of their own. Soon all The Guard were being pelted and covered in wet dirt, causing some to draw their weapons.
Leaving his partially loaded cart would cost him more than he could afford, but remaining seemed equally foolhardy. As he turned away from his possessions, Davin saw the man who had been the third crier, his face consumed with satisfaction. Amidst a throng of mud-flingers, the man’s contrast was clearer to see. The commoner clothing he wore was clean—far too clean. Even after a good wash, none of Davin’s clothes could have ever looked so crisp and new.
Davin stood, paralyzed, as he bore witness to the invisible hand that guides the masses, deathly afraid that it may see him too.
DECKER
Decker kept his focus on Kilandra. Raiding Dogmen had whetted his appetite for the matured female form, and compared to the women he had seen while in the South, whose faces more closely resembled those of their demonic pets, Kilandra stood a statue of consummate perfection. The clothing she wore—often ridiculed in whisper by the other women—embraced her in much the same way he would like to. The tasteful amounts of flesh peeking through her furs showed her confidence in her flawless complexion, begging to be seen in its entirety. Her shameless self-assurance was most evident in her eyes which, in spite of their grey color, appeared more brilliant than those of any other. Even from this distance he could feel them piercing him, provoking him.
“I challenge you to single combat!” Decker heard what he thought to be the voice of his father, but it came from beside him. “To determine who is best fit to lead our clan!”
Decker’s mind was still lost in a fantasy involving Kilandra and him, alone under some furs, when he was pushed with enough force to stumble to a knee. Titon had shoved him with his foot in order to gain his full attention.
The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1) Page 27
