Though Titon preferred axes, the sword placed in his hands was well balanced, and he imagined he could wield it with some effectiveness. It certainly responded quickly to the slightest force from his wrist, and he was already becoming eager to test it on flesh.
“As you recall, you took from me a golden guard. His name was Timmons, and in addition to being a fine man, I considered him a friend. Your first command, and the one by which you will prove your loyalty, is to take the life of your friend here, this Keethro. His blood upon your blade shall equal us in this debt that cannot be repaid by the simple sacking of a city.”
The words staggered Titon. He looked to the floor and frowned, committing himself to deep thought as if to decipher the true meaning of what had just been said. Surely this king did not expect from him what had just been asked. From the corner of his eye, he could see the butts of the spears of some of the knights on the raised platform twisting as they readjusted their grips in anticipation of his rebellion. Titon puzzled over his options, attempting to find some escape.
Titon did not yet raise his eyes. “Keethro is a brother. He is not merely a friend. I will need his help if I am to take a castle with only three thousand men, especially so if they are as cowardly as the ones we faced in the arena.”
“You are correct. The men who crewed the dragons were cowards. All the men of worth had already been conscripted to serve stations of greater import. I have doubled my army to nearly twenty thousand of the finest swordsmen, spearmen, halberdiers, and archers, and our cavalry is unmatched. I would not waste three thousand of my forces in a task I thought could not be accomplished. You will find a way if your oaths to the Mighty Three are sincere and if you truly seek a remedy for your wife.”
Two of the nearest guards seized Keethro by either arm. Titon looked at his friend, begging him to reveal a solution, but Keethro must have had none, for he did not speak. He just looked at Titon with worry and disbelief. Titon surveyed the room, seeing no less than he had before: over three-dozen guards. Their armor may have been for show, but their weapons were not. It would not be possible to escape from here alive if he disobeyed the king.
The butcher warned me, thought Titon. Perhaps if we had left immediately, we could have both escaped with our lives.
Titon closed his eyes, squeezing his eyelids together with force. This kingdom had the elixir he had been searching for. One of them must live so there would be a chance that it could reach Elise. If they both were to die, she would be the third casualty.
“Then I would request an axe,” Titon said. “I will not kill my brother with a foreign weapon. Let him have the honor of dying by the blade of our people.”
“Very well.” The king motioned to the same guard to retrieve an axe from the wall. Titon had noticed it hanging there and had hoped for another, but it would do.
The guard traded him weapons. It was a large axe, made to be swung by an equally large man and with two hands. Titon clutched the weapon with violence, its brittle leathern bindings creaking under the strain. He and Keethro had laughed in the face of death countless times—to have their partnership severed in such a way was beyond disgraceful.
He looked to his friend for the last time. Keethro appeared baffled. Not even he could negotiate the waters of the river that had flooded them both. I will see you again, under the Mountain, my brother, should I still be granted access after this.
Titon raised the axe partially above his head, feeling not its weight, but the yoke of sadness that came to rest upon his shoulders. To strike a man in the left of the neck and slice downward at an angle was as humane a death as could be had. But as Titon peeked from the left corner of his eye to gauge the distance of the king, he had no intention of giving that man a humane death. Forgive me, Ellie, but I will not be commanded to kill a brother. And if the Mighty Three condemn me for this, then they were never worth my devotion.
DERUDIN
He had never had a vision before—gazings, yes, but never a vision.
It was no small feat to gaze. With one’s eyes shut, focusing so intently on a well-known place, near or distant, the present happenings were possible to reveal. Mages all had their own tricks. Some imagined themselves as an object in the room, a vase or a wandering rodent. Others gazed while bathing in the power of the Dawnstar, and some did not shut their eyes at all. Derudin’s master had gazed with the aid of silvered glass. Standing across from it, Erober would look into his reflection’s eyes, seeing them stare into his own eyes, already staring into its eyes, and so forth. Derudin’s method was to focus on the element with which he had the strongest bond: that which can be trapped in mouth, but not grasped with hand, that which dries your eyes yet brings the rain. Knowing that the gods’ breath connected him to all places he would ever hope to gaze was his special key to unlocking the doors of distance. It was the wind that carried voices, after all, and when he melded with it, he could float like a breeze to wherever he wished, so long as he knew the place. While some mages had all their senses intact when gazing, Derudin could only hear. His gazings involved no sight at all, a thing Erober taunted him to redress. “Without sight in your gazings, how can you expect to ever have a vision?” It had formed a rift between them, miniscule, but ever present—Derudin’s first failing. My first of many.
Visions were a different thing entirely. To have a vision was to see into the future—a future always clouded by the ambiguity of time. Any man who has been forced to wait for his freedom or to see a loved one could tell you that time is a greater obstacle than any distance. And so it was with visions—for Derudin at least. No matter how he tried, he could never peer beyond the present.
As he awoke from this, his first vision, he was startled by the clarity of it. Perhaps it was just the combination of having all of his senses, where he was used to merely having one, but the events he had witnessed were explicit. And so was their meaning, he believed.
At the center of his vision was a man—a good man, for in his vision Derudin had the power to see within him. His short brown hair was unkempt and drenched with the sweat of fear, and his beard was drenched in tears. This man did not cry for himself, however. He cried for those he had failed, and he feared only for their safety. He had already come to realize his own life was forfeit.
Above him stood what could have only been a cruel man. Derudin could not look into his soul, but the contempt in the man’s eyes was plain enough to see. This man had condemned the other to die and wished for it to happen in a manner that would disgrace the sufferer and elevate himself.
The tearful man was lowered slowly into a muddy pit filled with his own pigs. Thousands of the hungry animals squealed and grunted as they climbed atop each other in the filth to be the first to get a bite of their master. The blood running down his naked legs and dribbling off his toes sent the swine into frenzy. Eventually, one pushed itself off the back of another, grabbed hold of the man’s foot, and yanked him from his perch. On the ground he fought to stand, and somehow managed to, in spite of the many hungry mouths removing the meat from his legs in massive bites, each of which could be heard as blunted teeth crushed through wet flesh.
Though Derudin had no embodiment, the dying man could see him. He looked at Derudin with desperation and pleaded for help, but Derudin felt he could do nothing. Still the man stood as his legs were stripped bare, and his stomach was ripped open, spilling his entrails. It was then that Derudin realized he had the power to intervene. The clouds above darkened and lightning rained down upon the animals. Some were struck dead where they stood while the others fled in mass exodus.
The disemboweled man fell to the ground, sending up a puff of dry dust from earth that had so recently been a sopping pit. The stench that flooded Derudin was that of death—not the death of this man, but the death of the kingdom that would follow.
A boisterous cackle resounded in Derudin’s head, threatening to shatter his skull. He looked up to smite the vile noisemaker, fully expecting it to be Cassen, but the body h
e saw was far too thin. The confusion of it broke his concentration, and thus his vision ended.
Derudin threw off his single sheet and stood beside his bed while he gathered himself. The poor conditions of this home where he’d chosen to stay were at first a comfort, reminding him of simpler times, but now he felt the impotence of being a man stripped of all political power. He had grown accustomed to having his servant bring him words from the town square so that he could remain informed on the happenings of the kingdom. But more so, he had grown accustomed to having some influence over those happenings, and as of this moment, he had neither knowledge nor sway.
He tried to focus and remember what he had seen while asleep, but it felt as though it was slipping from his grasp. This is not right, he thought. A vision should gain clarity with time, not be lost. Derudin found himself wishing for his former mentor. How would Erober instruct me? Derudin flinched as he remembered. Perhaps I was too soft on my students…
One thing remained clear from what he had seen: he must save Alther.
Derudin was bombarded with blows. A knee struck his thigh, an elbow his ribs, and someone’s forehead bashed him in the back of the skull. It defied his imagining that people should require lessons on how best to walk without smashing into each other.
The crowd he now plodded amongst was the worst of the kingdom’s people, Westportians. He counted himself lucky to have made his hideaway home in Westport, however, else he would have never made it in time for the event.
Derudin’s trip to the town square had been quite revealing, and he chided himself for not having checked in regularly. Everything he had learned on his painful voyage to the square had been from overhearing common gossip. Cassen had apparently ceded power to the formerly imprisoned Stephon in a move that Derudin did not yet understand. Why would that greedy man give up the very power he had lied, killed, and self-mutilated to attain? It made no sense, but he had little time to think. Stephon was on his way here, if he hadn’t already arrived. It was said the new king had a major announcement, and he had chosen to deliver it to Westport first of all.
Talk among the people of Westport was not favorable of the fledgling king. Derudin had trouble conceiving of a reason why Stephon would even wish to set foot in this hole of a city. If he has come to raise the levies as he once advised… Derudin could only imagine the carnage that would follow should Stephon try something so foolish and in person, no less. Derudin would be lucky to escape alive himself. Gathering shadows does one little good when being trampled by a thousand angry feet.
Derudin flowed with the crowd around what he believed would be the final corner between him and a proper view of the square’s dais. He could already begin to smell the remnants of the pieces that had fallen off and out of those three Adeltians impaled for treason. There were some smells that simply refused to part, no matter what was done in attempt to remove them—not that much had been done in this city.
Although flanked on either side by several dozen members of The Guard, Stephon’s golden ringlets were the first thing Derudin saw. Every time Derudin laid eyes upon the boy it was as if he had grown another two inches. Or perhaps his childish temperament merely shrinks him in memory, thought Derudin. The boy stood proud, aided further still by the brilliant Adeltian crown upon his head. I wonder which of these peasants will be wearing that crown tonight…or melting it down.
“Subjects of the Adeltian Kingdom,” cried Stephon, “As you all know, I have been wrongfully imprisoned for some time.” Derudin was forced to admit, Stephon’s overconfidence served him well upon a stage, but he could not help but think that the kingdom would have been better off even in the hands of Cassen. Everything Derudin had seen of this boy was the embodiment of privileged ignorance.
“But I am not angry for having been tortured as such… No, I thank my tormentors. For they have opened my eyes to what it means to suffer. Good people of Westport, I have shared in your misery. I have had nothing but stale bread, moldy cheese, and sour wine with which to wash it down. I know what it is to be in want.”
The crowd gave a collective but muffled snigger at the remark. How many of them would kill for such a meal, Derudin wondered, but none of those in attendance moved yet toward aggression. Derudin guessed they were all too entertained by the spectacle.
Stephon either did not notice or chose to ignore it. “You may all wonder what it was that I had wished for most while locked away. Exoneration? Vindication? Freedom?”
Derudin shook his head and wondered how long this travesty of a speech might continue.
“I will tell you what I longed for, as I believe it is the very thing you good people desire as well: vengeance.” Unbelievably, Derudin saw many around him, even the squat old woman in front of him whom he was pressed against, nod in earnest agreement.
“But in order to have proper vengeance, one must know who it was that truly wronged them. Why is it that we Adeltians have been made to suffer for so long? Do we even remember when it began? It started before my birth, and yet I have come to know its origin from my studies and the recollections of other good Adeltians. Adeltians who stood in defiance of the powers that tried to subdue our greatness. Was Westport not the greatest city of the realm prior to the invasion of the Rivervalian scum?”
Now there were even some shouts of agreement from within the crowd, prompting Derudin to rub his brow. What do you think you will accomplish with this riling speech, boy? These people will be angrier and yet just as hungry. And you are the very product of the Rivervalian invasion.
But Stephon seemed to have read his thoughts. “You may be wondering how it is that I can stand atop this platform and speak to you in such a way, given my parentage. And that is among the many reasons I have come today, and first to Westport, the still-beating heart of this great kingdom.” Stephon signaled to some of the men behind him and a path was cleared. Onto the platform was wheeled a gallows, suspended from which was a cage holding a solitary occupant. Derudin felt as though a mighty fist had struck him and collapsed his chest.
“We have all been told a terrible lie—I most of all. That lie has cast a shadow upon this kingdom for so long that most of us no longer realized we were beneath it. Just before my imprisonment, however, I confirmed the truth—a truth so damning that those who shared in its knowledge were falsely accused of treason and impaled. The smell that still festers from their brutal display here, that is not from their rotten remains, but from the fetid injustice that was dealt to them.”
Alther slouched in the cage, which was too narrow for sitting and too short for standing. His hands clung to the bars only enough to support the weight of his upper body. He made no move to communicate with the crowd, to beg for forgiveness, or to plead his innocence. Alther was a man defeated and many times betrayed—that much was clear for any fool to see. He did not deserve the punishment that was being served to him, and it would only be a matter of time before this crowd recognized that and stormed the stage to see him freed.
“This man you see caged, this scum from the bottom of the Eos, he and his kind are the reason we have suffered. It was his father who broke treaty with our beloved queen of Peace and threw her from her tower. And like his father, this man sought to subjugate all of Adeltia with lies and treachery.” With a flourish of his regal cape, Stephon took a step forward and raised his voice in anger. “I ask you, what lie could be worse than telling a true prince of Adeltia that half his blood was of Rivervalian descent? As I stand before you and beside this monster, I ask that you look unto us both to see if there is any resemblance.”
For all his powers, this was something Derudin had not foreseen. Some gasps could be heard among the crowd, but Derudin could not believe they would accept Stephon’s assertion. Stephon had his mother’s hair, but he shared his father’s mouth and jaw. It did not help matters that Alther’s face was now shrouded by an overgrown beard, hiding those similarities.
Speak up, Alther. It is your only chance, Derudin pleaded. But Alther made no m
ove to comply. Instead he looked as though he had endured his final blow and had died within his cage. Derudin looked to the skies in search of clouds, but there were none. What good would a few lightning bolts do now, in any case? It was a diversionary tactic, not a mortal one, and the energy of these angry people was greater than he could hope to channel or disperse.
“I will now tell you the truth,” continued Stephon. “My mother, the beautiful Princess Crella—she is a whore.” Now there were full-bodied gasps. The woman in front of Derudin nearly smashed his chin with the back of her head as she recoiled. Even Alther was stirred to some motion and raised his head. “None of us have wished to admit this, me perhaps least of all, for I love my mother. I love her for being pure Adeltian, and I even love her for her indecency. But I will forever hate her for her cowardice. In fear for her own safety and reputation, she saw fit to allow this horrid lie to persist. We all knew what she was when she had her first bastard at as young an age as one can carry a child, and I will admit to you, in fairness, that I too am a bastard. I do not know who my father was. My mother shared beds with many men. My father could very well be Kevos of House Gangsong, Sir Stormblade.” Alther’s head was turning back and forth in solemn disbelief—Sir Stormblade had perished well over a year before Stephon’s birth. “It would explain how the man fought so bravely, knowing his pregnant princess would be raped if he did not defeat the invaders. How many hundreds did Sir Stormblade dispatch with his two foils before he died upon the banks of the Eos?” Stephon’s flair for rewriting history seemed to have no bounds. Sir Kevos was a berserker who used two swords, not foils. Derudin could not wait for this to be over.
“But I tell you this: I know whose son I am not, for if you cut my veins you will see blood as pure as your own. I am not this vile man’s son. I am the one true heir to the Adeltian throne. I am King Stephon of House Eldaren, your bastard king. And my first gift to you is vengeance!” With that, Stephon went behind the gallows and kicked it as if to push it off the stage in one final gesture. The heavy structure barely moved, and he motioned to the members of The Guard to help. The crowd clamored forward, looking hungry for a piece of the meal that was finally being served.
The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1) Page 48
