The Forgotten King

by Jonathan Dunn

  “You struggle, old man: weakness haunts your eyes.”

  “The eyes of the jaguar are not seen before he strikes,” and he leapt upon Lionel with a sudden flash of vigor. The youth jerked back and slid to the ground, almost covered by the water. De Casanova stood over him, pressing his sword against the other’s chest.

  “Now, it is finished,” de Casanova laughed.

  Silence covered Lionel, his courage a memory. Then he, himself, was nothing more. De Casanova ran him through. His corpse was buried by the flood. Then, taken up by the water’s strong current, it floated away. As de Casanova watched him disappear, a messenger came from the front.

  “The rebels have fallen back,” he said. “We have taken the field.”

  Chapter 90

  The fleet began to disembark the siege equipment, placing them upon flatboats and rafts to be floated to the castle. The current carried them, as that was where it naturally deposited its cargo. Lyndon watched over the process from his command deck: the water had risen high enough for The Barber to come in close. De Casanova came to bring him a report of the battle.

  “It is done,” he said, “We have driven them back to the castle. It cannot be long now.”

  “Very good; if this rain continues, we will not have much time.”

  “The flood begins. But we are islanders and it has happened before.”

  “Have you seen Lionel?” the king asked abruptly, “I thought I saw him passing by.”

  “I have.”

  “And? He is my son, though sons are the curse of the throne. Most are weak and arrogant, a double fault line that cracks the sanity; and humility to the weak is as arrogance to the strong. But Lionel was neither weak nor arrogant and therein lies his fault. Tell me, what of him? Did he fight with honor?”

  “Yes, and with skill.”

  “He can be redeemed to his heritage, yet. It is a shame he endangers himself.”

  “I doubt there is danger where he has gone.”

  The king turned aside his eyes and lowered their curtains. “And where has he gone?”

  “That is not for men to know; I killed him.”

  “There was no other way?”

  “None that would not dishonor him. He fought for the honor of his sister, and he was defeated.”

  “Strength over weakness,” Lyndon sighed. “My daughter sells her beauty to a peasant, and her brother his life for her honor. A pitiful thing, is pride in honor; yet without it, what would become of us? Our pride, our honor – it is the ale of the elite, driving us to madness, fueling our mispronounced sin; but without it we would be damned outright.” Pause. “But let us throw philosophy to the wind, de Casanova. How is the siege?”

  “The castle is garrisoned with several thousand men; how much supplies we cannot tell. The town is gone, so there is nothing in the area to cover ourselves with. Above all, our supplies will not last a siege. We cannot resupply while the sea rages.”

  “Why did they not resupply in Eden? With two hundred ships the room can be found.”

  “We would have, to be sure, if Lionel had not seduced our wrath before we could load what had already been set aside.”

  “The young fool! Still, I am glad because of it: he had my cunning,” and Lyndon laughed, turning his head upwards until the rain disguised his weeping. He was a man of power, for good or ill.

  A man approached the bow, Lyndon’s private deck. He was a scout, sent out by Lyndon.

  “I have news, my lord.”

  “Speak.”

  “A small regiment is encamped to the south, three thousand strong. They seemed alive, but slept so soundly I could not rouse them.”

  “Sleeping, through battle and storm? These Atiltians are stout men,” de Casanova laughed. “And you as well; I, at least, would not rouse an enemy host when I was alone.”

  “They were not enemies but Gylain’s infantry, those he sent through the forest.”

  “Then his men do not have his fire,” de Casanova returned, “For he has not closed his eyes these last four days, nor so much as blinked. If he is undead, they are unalive.”

  “Return to them until they wake,” Lyndon interrupted. “We will continue the siege without them and without their leader,” he glanced to the forest. “Gylain has trained his army well enough that they can fight alone. I did not even expect those sleeping soldiers to remain among the living. As for Gylain, it is neither among armies nor rebels that he seeks battle.”

  “Nor is it among men; for he fights strength and there is only one stronger than he. Begone,” and de Casanova nodded his head to the scout, who turned and fled the scene.

  Meanwhile, Gylain, Montague, and the eight remaining soldiers traveled through the forest at a morbid pace. The canopy stopped the rain but not the water and the ground was the earth’s tear. Where it came down, the water rushed as if it fell off the world. The cloudy air swirled with the sound of falling water. Below, the grass glowed with phosphorous plants, refugees of the angry sea. It was one o’clock and it was midnight, lingering like a jelly fish dream. It was the forest and it was the sea. It was the deluge.

  “William’s blood gives scent to the forest,” fell from Gylain’s lips.

  “I smell only death, and it strongly,” Montague returned.

  “We near the southern rim of the plain, through which the land force must have passed. And they cannot have done so without a large casualty.”

  “So I thought, but it is better to know from your mouth than my head.”

  “In this troublesome life, Montague, you offer me what little comfort can be found.” He paused, then, stopping, “Wait! Do you hear those splashes?”

  “Yes,” and they turned their heads toward the approaching footsteps.

  “Prepare for action,” Jonathan Montague turned to the Elite Guards and drew his own sword.

  They formed themselves into a line and prepared to meet whatever force was coming. But as they did, another set of footsteps broke through the heavy air, coming from behind them.

  “At last!” Gylain cried as he saw who came, “At last, and for the end!”

  Some time before this, on a platform off the southern side of the plain, Oren Lorenzo sat with six rebel rangers. They huddled around a fire contained within a bronze pit that was built into the platform and covered by a canopy of cloth as well as one of leaves. The other rangers had migrated through the Treeway on various missions.

  “We’d best be going. The war will not await our arrival, though victory may,” Lorenzo said, but his voice had no conviction.

  Still, they answered, “We follow your lead, sir.”

  “Very well; and since I am no ranger, I will lead on the ground. We will scout the edge of the forest, to spy any ambush meant for our comrades.”

  The canopy dwelling rangers were born into an aviary. To descend their rope ladders they simply grabbed ahold with their gloved hands and slid down. Lorenzo, however, climbed slowly; for five minutes he was alone in the air, battling the swinging rope with a swinging pulse. Below, the waters had come. Its rivers flowed to the castle. The bodies of the dead were carried along, pushed about like fallen leaves.

  “I am glad the rebellion comes to an end,” Lorenzo said as they left the battlefield behind, “It will be decided in the present fight – for freedom or against – and perhaps it would be better were we enslaved than slain for freedom. The dead have no freedom.”

  “I have lost my father, my brothers, my sons,” a ranger replied. “Years ago I fought for the women and children; but now the women are widows and the children soldiers. If this is liberty, it does not feel such a glorious thing.”

  “Liberty!” another ranger, with a missing eye, laughed. “You cannot get liberty by fighting others, for we are first enslaved to pride, whether our own or that of our king. If we must be beaten, let us be beaten; but I will not beat another for the privilege of beating myself.”

  “And there we differ, old friend” a third said, “For I would not sin as hard, i
f the beatings hit my own back, and neither would our king. If he was beaten for my sin, I would court the devil; no one would gladly bear the beatings of another.”

  “There is one, that I have heard of,” the priest Lorenzo began gravely. “He takes the beatings of criminals, even as they mock him for it.”

  “I would call him a fool, myself,” and they laughed.

  “As do others,” Lorenzo smiled, “But who is the greater fool: the man who is beaten for another, or the man who insists he be beaten as well as the first? It is given if it is taken.”

  “So where is this man to take the beatings of this bloody war? If it is already given, then why do we masquerade as if it has not and fight as if we had to earn our peace with blood?”

  “We are given this life as a mirror to the spiritual, a parable to the truth. For, unless he has been poor, a rich man does not know what he has to enjoy; and if a man has never drunk he cannot be thirsty. In the same way, we cannot know God to be good, unless we first know our ourselves to be wicked.”

  “I can think of easier ways than murdering my countrymen! As we fought an hour ago, I saw a man I know with my arrow through his throat; and last week I ate dinner at his father’s table. I saw him and at once I understood what I have heard in a thousand stuffy sermons by a thousand pond-scum preachers: we are children of our evil father; but he is God, not the devil. So maybe you are right; but if God made us as you say, he made us to be evil and to do these things. If I cut off my son’s arms that I would be strong by comparison, what would I be? And if I scarred my wife’s face that I would be comely in contrast, what would I become? In the same way, God can go to hell.”

  “What was that?” Lorenzo gasped.

  “God can go to hell, and the devil with him.”

  “Not that, fool. By Beelzebub, I heard footsteps to the left!” and Lorenzo dashed through the fog and water, splashing like a waterfall. What he saw caused his tongue to throw aside his lips and he cried out, “To arms, men! Disregard philosophy and fight, for we have met the devil!”

  Some time before this, in the forest adjacent to Thunder Bay, William Stuart strode alone through the flooded forest. He wore a longsword at his side, attached to his belt by two simple metal hooks upon which the handle rested. The blade was bare. A doublet covered his body, tied about the waist with the same belt that held his sword; beneath he wore leather armor. His hands were bare, his face clothed with a rye grass beard.

  “Who goes there?” he boomed, “Show yourself at once, or I will assume you hostile and dispose of you accordingly.”

  There was silence, and the splashing footsteps that caused his outbreak could not be heard. Then, a voice came through, “William?”

  “Meredith! As I thought, you have not abandoned ship! Come, friend, follow me.”

  The martial monk passed through the mist. He still wore his frock, not dissimilar to William’s doublet, but that it was brown and coarse. He wore armor beneath as well.

  “Meredith, old friend, I hoped to see you. Has Gylain passed through here?”

  “Indeed, and bruised my head upon his way,” and the monk rubbed his nude scalp.

  “Then come, and let us bite his heel,” and the two ran into the forest.

  “Who was with him?” the Admiral asked as they went.

  “Jonathan Montague and a dozen men, though four were killed by the rangers.”

  “We are outnumbered, then.”

  “Yes, but it does not matter with Gylain. Montague, perhaps, would fight us full force and take the day; but Gylain will not let his men fight unless there are equal numbers on every side.”

  “He does so now, perhaps, but I remember a time when his morals were not so refined,” the Admiral scowled. “But revenge has come, and not without its allies death and damnation.”

  “You speak grimly, friend.”

  “And yet I speak truth. Listen! What is that noise?”

  “The splashes of many men. This rain has done us that good, at least.”

  “It will do us worse, I fear,” and the two suddenly came through the fog to a large body of men.

  On one side were Gylain and Montague with their men, on the other Oren Lorenzo and half a dozen rangers.

  “At last!” the Admiral’s eyes smoked, “At last we reach the end!”

  Chapter 91

  Alfonzo was the last to pass through the castle gates, having waited for the last of the fleeing rebels to safely enter. The gates closed and the steel bars were run through its latches. Behind them, a dozen stout poles were dug into the ground and a vertical wall of boards inserted, leaving a four foot gap between the first gate and the second. Dirt and debris from the town had been collected onto the walls above, and the gap was filled until it was thicker than the walls beside it. They were buried within their fortress: none could come in or go out.

  The plain extended for a mile in each direction. The castle sat in the center of a wide basin, collecting the surrounding water. De Casanova and his men were arriving, encircling the castle and forming ranks. Yet the rebels had dismantled the town, and there was no shelter to keep them from the falling water or the raining arrows. They could not charge the castle outright, for the water ringed around it like a moat, several feet deep around the walls. The castle, however, was waterproof, so the water did not penetrate inside. The water came in rivers. It collected the debris of the battles around the walls of the castle.

  “Alfonzo, you are well?” Milada greeted him in the tunnel that ran through the inner walls.

  “I am, if not by the greatest margin. The worst has passed, though, for the storm aides us now as it aided them before. They can easily transport their siege weapons, perhaps, but it is not so easy to shoot catapults from a raft. Nor can they bring in their towers, for the wind would overturn them. Their only weapon, then, is starvation; but with Lionel’s courage it will only be their own.” Pause. “Where has he gone? He joined the fight but not the retreat.”

  “I have stood beside the entrance, hailing the returning warriors; he has not passed,” and he writhed in an excited jig as his zeal overflowed his mind to his body.

  As they spoke, de Garmia came up to them with a squadron of his fellow deserters.

  “De Garmia!” Alfonzo called, “Come here and tell me what you have seen.”

  The other came meekly, fully aware of his time in Gylain’s horde. Alfonzo, however, did not seem to remember.

  “De Garmia, where is Lionel? Was he not with you?”

  “Indeed, he was ; but that verb is purely past tense, my lord. I left him on the battlefield.”

  “And have you seen de Casanova?”

  “I have, as they charged, but he disappeared soon after.”

  “He went away to duel a man,” a soldier returned, “I saw them as they left the ramparts.”

  “Whom did he duel?” and de Garmia drew his tongue as if a sword.

  “Lionel.”

  De Garmia fell back, as did his face. He wept.

  “Fool! De Casanova will devour him, as he would anyone. Even my brother, the famed de Garcia, could not withstand him.”

  “Perhaps,” Alfonzo hesitated. “But many have fallen today, on either side; and most were as innocent and courageous as Lionel. If we pay him greater dividends of homage, we can only take it from the plate; and all that fills the tithe box is the blood of martyrs.”

  They fell into a reverie, each to his own remorse. It was broken only after a moment, as the Fardy brothers stormed through the tunnel at a pace that belied their oddly-shaped bodies.

  “Patience killed the porcupine!” yelled the black brother as he approached.

  “If so, we are saved; for I do not possess it in the least,” his blond brother added.

  “Defamation, my brother, and libel above,” the brown Fardy began.

  Alfonzo interrupted him, “I, at least, have none. Why do you come?”

  “To bring word,” the black brother stood at attention, “The catapults have begun the assault.
”

  “By raft? De Casanova is a hard man, but even I did not expect this. Still, we have scoured the area, leaving nothing for them to shoot.”

  “Besiegers often catapult dead beasts into a castle, to spread disease. You say de Casanova is a hard man, but I say he is no man at all!”

  Silence and fear, the realization of a depraved enemy.

  “Come and look,” and the Fardy brothers led them back through the tunnel.

  They passed from the shelter into the warring rain. Still, the castle did not flood, for a series of small drains led the water away to a reservoir beneath the ground and then to the forest beyond. Until the water rose above the outlets, they would not sink. Beside the tunnel’s mouth was a flight of steps, winding backwards to the top of the wall the tunnel ran through.

  “May God forgive us,” Alfonzo whispered as the battlefield around the castle came into view, the air thick with the enemy’s projectiles. “May God forgive me !”

  As the waters brought debris to the castle, it also brought the bodies of the dead, picking them from their open graves and taking them away. The army of Gylain was assembled around the castle, floating on rafts, flat boats, and the smaller vessels of the fleet; the army of the dead was assembled as well, a morbid barrier between the living warriors.

  When de Casanova reached the front after conversing with Lyndon, he was enraged they did not attack.

  “The water washes away the catapults,” the general insisted, “We cannot fire.”

  “Fool!” de Casanova struck the man with an open fist, “Fool! Have stakes driven into the ground and the rafts secured. We will fire the catapults as they float.”

  “But, my lord, there is nothing to fire. The rebels have gleaned the area clean.”

  De Casanova drew his eyes from sheaths of madness, watching the parade of corpses that marched in from all sides.

  “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” he whispered in the general’s ear. “Let the men be used to further the cause for which they have already given their lives!”