by Kris A Hiatt
“It won’t matter that he does,” Shamir replied. He turned to Drokier then. “Have you arranged what we discussed earlier?”
“I have,” Drokier confirmed.
“Arranged what?” Brental asked. He wasn’t aware of Drokier working on anything of note.
“A little insurance for Disdane’s arrival,” Shamir replied.
“The price has went up,” Drokier said. “But, considering the nature of the request, I agreed.”
“Ever the opportunist,” Shamir mused.
They were being secretive about their plans. Not that Brental was angry about that. It was the way it worked. He held many secrets, why would the King be any different? While he was curious about what exactly was going on, he decided that if it was important, he’d hear about it eventually. Besides, he didn’t want to ask and be turned down. It would give Shamir another thing to try to hold over Brental’s head. By feigning disinterest, he hoped to spoil some of Shamir’s fun.
“Always,” Drokier replied.
Both men looked to Brental with smiles upon their faces. He wasn’t going to bite. They could keep their secret to their graves. Which is where he hoped they both would be sometime in the very near future.
“But you and I should discuss it further,” Shamir offered when it became clear Brental wasn’t asking questions. “In private.”
Drokier nodded.
“You can go see your bookworms now,” Shamir told Brental. “I’ll send for you when our meeting is over.”
Brental frowned, pretending to be angry over the King’s dismissal, but in truth, he was glad to be away from them. He was tired of Drokier’s false bravado and Shamir’s incessant need to show dominance over him. He bowed and started to walk away.
As soon as his back was turned and the College was in view, he smiled for just a moment before being interrupted.
“On your way, drop this body off with the others,” Shamir commanded.
Brental turned around and motioned to two nearby guards. “Pick him up.”
“No,” the King interrupted.
The two guards stopped in their tracks.
“You can take him,” Shamir told Brental. “I’m sure you can just drag the body if you can’t lift it.”
Brental wondered which of his transgressions bothered the King more. Was it that he said something about Drokier getting another chance to kill Treace? The King wanted Drokier to kill The Wolf so that he could make an excuse to replace Disdane with Drokier. Drokier was far easier to control than the massive man, so Brental could understand the reasoning. Or was it that he refused to play along and ask questions about Drokier’s side project? He supposed it didn’t matter either way.
He walked over to the body and grabbed the man by his left foot and began to drag him away. There was no way he was going to get blood all over his robes.
Shamir smiled wide and watched intently.
“Where am I taking him?” Brental asked, realizing that he didn’t know where he was going.
“Just keep going toward your old home,” Shamir replied. “You can’t miss it.”
Brental continued on. He dragged the man through the streets, waiving away those few who offered to help. He didn’t want to anger Shamir further should the King find out that he didn’t accomplish his task personally.
When he passed the buildings and into the field between Kilindric and the College he realized just how right the King was. He couldn’t miss it. Most likely not even with his eyes closed.
Hundreds of bodies, perhaps more than a thousand, were stacked in rows that were several hundred feet long. Snow covered most of those that were on the bottom of the stack, but there were faces of those on top that were clearly visible. Their skin was ashen, clearly frozen, but yet kept their pained facial expressions from their deaths.
He held no true love for any of the men or women of the city, but neither did he want them dead. But, the part that truly bothered him was seeing the bodies of the children mixed in with the adults. Even the normally uncaring Brental couldn’t help but to feel bad for them. They surely had done nothing to deserve their fate.
This was what Shamir wanted him to see. It was the King’s reminder of what would happen should Brental continue to question him. For now, Brental remained useful, but when the point came when he was no longer, he knew full well he’d share the same fate as those that lined the fields of his College.
Chapter 19
Rogar sat in his chair near the window and looked over the lake, wishing the snow would recede and the ice would melt so he could fish once again. He didn’t mind the winter, but he longed to fish on the lake. Some of the others took to hunting in the winter, but not Rogar. He was too old to go up into the foothills and hunt. He preferred to sit on the bank of Silver Lake and fish. It was much easier on his old body.
“Grandpa, when’s he going to come home?”
Rogar turned around to regard his grandson. Bararr was a good kid. He was smart, kind, caring, and loved to learn. He would most likely grow to be a much better man that his father was. Rogar couldn’t blame anyone other than himself for that, though. His son, Feldon, was a decent enough man, but he didn’t care for his family the way that he should. He didn’t spend enough time with them. He supposed he had learned it from no one other than himself. When Rogar was younger, he was too busy working in the mines or fishing on the lake to spend time with his wife and child. When he wasn’t working or fishing, he was at the tavern. Which is most likely where Feldon was now. “Soon, I’d think,” he told the boy.
“I wish he’d take me with him,” Bararr said. “I can hunt.”
Rogar smiled at the boy. At ten he was old enough to hunt with his father, but he wasn’t old enough to drink. Which was, by Rogar’s estimation, part of the reason Feldon never took his son with him when he went out to hunt. “I’m sure you can.”
“Will you take me, Grandpa?”
“I’m too old to go traipsing through the woods,” Rogar replied. Truth be told, he never enjoyed hunting the way he did fishing. Many of the remaining people in the town of Hassir hunted to keep food on their plates and to barter with, but it wasn’t always so. The town used to be busy with miners and their families. Well over a thousand people lived there at its peak. But now, only run down shacks and deteriorating, long forgotten homes remained in their place. Less than two hundred people resided there now.
“You’re not that old, Grandpa,” Barrar replied with a deflated voice.
He sure felt like it. All the years of working in the mines had taken a toll on Rogar. Like all the others who worked in the mines up until they closed, he had to deal with long hours, collapses, and poor ventilation. Many of the men he worked with in those mines were already dead or had moved away. There were many families that stuck around and lived off the land, sold their fresh fish in the other cities, or, like Feldon, worked in secret around the mine to find more silver. The metal wasn’t plentiful, but every now and again enough was found to keep food on the table and clothes on their backs. Rogar was against it at first, but Feldon was just as stubborn as his father and refused to listen. Rogar hoped that Feldon would remain safe. Mining was dangerous work. So much so that Rogar felt lucky to be able to move around as well as he could. He couldn’t exert himself like he used to, he ran out of breath quite easily, but at least he was still alive. That’s why he enjoyed fishing so much. It didn’t require much physical activity to do it and he didn’t run out of breath. “I’ll tell you what,” Rogar began. Barrar became instantly excited. The young man knew he was going to get something out of this. “You go get my fishing pole and your bow.”
“Yay!” an excited Barrar squealed.
“Hold on,” he told the boy to settle him down. “Get the pole and the bow. We’ll walk slowly down the river and when I find a spot that isn’t frozen over, you can sit quietly and maybe a deer will come by. How’s that?”
“Thank you, Grandpa!” the boy blurted as he ran off to collect the items.
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Rogar didn’t think either one of them would have much success, but that wasn’t always the point. He’d get to spend more time with his grandson and be able to fish while doing it. The boy would get to feel like he was becoming a man by being able to hunt. Rogar didn’t see any harm in that.
“Here,” the boy said, already eagerly handing Rogar his fishing pole.
“Put on some warmer clothes,” he instructed Barrar. “I’ll do the same, then we’ll go.”
~~~
Rogar smiled at the boy. Barrar didn’t see the smile, of course. The young man was too busy trying to be careful where he walked. He had his bow at the ready and was listening hard for anything that made a sound.
Barrar’s head snapped to the right and he peered intently into the trees.
Rogar didn’t see anything, and highly doubted that he would. Deer didn’t typically let you walk right up on them.
He kept walking the river’s edge toward the ocean. It was much flatter ground here on the south side of the lake compared to the north where the foothills truly began. He had hoped to find a spot in the river where the ice had broken away and left him an opening in which to fish from. So far, though, he hadn’t seen anything of the sort. They had travelled quite a ways from the town and he was about to tell the boy they needed to turn back.
“What’s that, Grandpa?” Barrar asked, pointing over the rise.
Rogar followed the boy’s finger to the tops of the trees that stood on Bear Isle. It was named for the numerous amounts of the animal that used to inhabit the place. No one’s seen a bear on the isle for many years since hunters banded together to kill the animals for their hides. The bears may be gone, but the name remained. The boy had seen the island before, but he might not remember it. “That’s Bear Isle. Don’t you remember being there?”
“Not the island, next to it,” the boy clarified.
Rogar looked again and immediately spotted what Barrar was talking about. He wasn’t sure how he missed it before. It was a sailing ship. He couldn’t see the whole thing because of the trees, but he could see the masts and stern of the ship. The sails were down, so they weren’t moving. He wondered if the ship ran aground. But even that close to the island, he figured the waters were deep enough that the ship wouldn’t hit bottom. “It’s a ship. They are used to catch fish.”
“Is that where you wanted to go fish?”
“No, it’s not,” he replied. While he didn’t originally intend on going that far, curiosity got the best of him. He wanted to know why the ship was there. If something had happened, the least he could do was offer to help. “But we are now.”
“I bet they catch a lot of fish with that.”
Rogar didn’t disagree. The rainbows that he caught on Silver Lake were freshwater fish and weren’t as large as the fish that could be caught with a sailing ship and nets. Still, the people in the city bought a lot of rainbows that were caught from the lake. It was different from the fish they were used to and not only was it quite tasty, but it fetched a good price. But just the sheer number of fish one could catch with a ship more than made up for the price difference. “Let’s check it out.”
As they got closer to the coastline, more ships came into view. Rogar counted five. It was possible that a single fishing ship had ran aground, but the chances of five ships doing the same was nigh impossible. That meant they were anchored there for some reason. Something was out of place and Rogar no longer felt like finding out what was happening. It was then that he noticed the throngs of men milling about on the shore. Dozens of smaller boats lined the shoreline. Those men were not fishermen. Rogar didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he no longer cared. He just wanted to get himself and Barrar home safely. “We’re going home.”
“You don’t want to fish?”
“No, I don’t,” Rogar replied.
“Can I hunt on the way home then?”
“Just keep quiet and get moving,” Rogar instructed.
Barrar hesitated but did turn and did as he was bade. Rogar got going and set a much faster pace than their initial trip here. He just hoped his old body could maintain it.
“Why are you in a hurry?” Barrar asked.
“Just keep moving.”
The boy didn’t reply but matched his pace.
There were a few trees between here and the coast, but not many. Luckily, there was a ridge that protected their retreat from the view of those on the shore. There was a tree line several hundred yards from where Rogar stood. If they could make it to the trees unseen, they could make it back to town safely.
Rogar didn’t make it all the way to the line of trees before he needed to stop. He leaned over and tried to catch his breath. Damn those old mines!
“Grandpa, are you okay?”
“Give me a minute,” he replied through hitched breaths.
It took him a few minutes, but he thought he was about ready to give it another go when Barrar spoke.
“Those men look angry. Did we make them mad by getting too close to their fishing spot?”
Rogar looked to where Barrar was looking, which was the direction of the coast, to find a group of at least fifty men running in their direction. They were separated by a couple hundred yards, but Rogar could clearly see the weapons they carried. He couldn’t hope to outrun them. But Barrar might. “I need you to run to the bar and find your father. Can you do that?”
“What about you?” a confused and scared looking Barrar asked.
“I’ll be fine. I’m just going to stay back and talk to these men. But I need you to go tell your father what we found.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go, boy! And don’t stop for anything. No matter what you hear or see. You just run all the way to the bar!” Rogar’s voice was harsh, he knew it, and he meant it. It came from love but it made Barrar cry all the same.
“Grandpa, you’re scaring me,” Barrar choked out between sobs. The boy absently wiped the tears that streamed down his cheeks.
“Just run, dammit!”
The boy took off, running hard. Rogar hoped he’d make it in time.
Rogar looked back toward the men who were fast approaching. The stag of baron Shamir’s emblem was clearly visible on their armor. These men were certainly not fishermen. They were Shamir’s soldiers and all of them were armed. Most of them had their weapons drawn. Rogar had heard that the two barons were feuding, but he never thought their argument would affect his little town in any way. It wasn’t the first time in his life that he’d been wrong. But if he didn’t miss his guess, it was most likely going to be the last.
Most of the men slowed when they neared him, but a handful continued running, obviously giving chase to Barrar. “He’s just a boy.”
“Are you going to be a problem?” one of them asked.
“I’m too old to be a problem,” Rogar assured them.
“How many others were with you?” the same man asked, making Rogar believe he was the leader.
“Just the boy. He’s a good boy, too. Don’t hurt him.”
“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“I’m not.”
“Are you from Hassir?”
“I am.”
“Keep him here,” the man instructed another. “Disdane will want him,” the man said, motioning over his shoulder.
Rogar looked beyond the few men here to see a very large man approaching. He had never seen a man so large. The breastplate of the man’s armor probably weighed as much as Rogar did.
“I’ve got him,” the soldier assured his superior.
At that, the men continued on, though this time they were walking instead of running.
“He’s from the town,” the soldier informed the hulking man.
“How long have you lived here?” the large man asked.
“My whole life.”
“Bring him,” the man commanded as he strode by.
“Move,” the soldier said, motioning his sword in the direction of town. “And do
n’t try anything.”
They had barely begun moving when Rogar heard screaming from in front of him. It was the scream of a frightened child. He sighed heavily, knowing Barrar was caught.
The screaming got louder and it wasn’t long before a shrieking and crying Barrar was brought before him. A soldier had him by the collar behind his neck and was pushing him along.
“Shut him up,” the large man Rogar assumed was Disdane said.
“Barrar! Barrar, it’ll be okay. Come here boy,” Rogar said, opening his arms.
At first the soldier holding the boy wouldn’t let go, but after a nod from the large man, released him.
Barrar flew into Rogar’s arms, sobbing into his chest.
“I tried,” the boy blubbered.
“It’s okay, son. It’s okay,” Rogar said, stroking the boy’s hair in an attempt to soothe him.
“This is your son?” Disdane asked.
“My grandson,” Rogar corrected.
“Do you love him?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then tell him to come to me and stop his damn yelling and crying.”
“He’s scared is all,” Rogar protested.
“Do it,” the large man commanded.
The way he said it left no doubt in Rogar’s mind that if he couldn’t get Barrar to quiet down, then both of them would be dead.
It took Rogar a few moments, but Barrar did finally stop crying. “Go to the big man,” Rogar told him. “And no more crying.”
Barrar was hesitant, which of course was understandable, but did as he was told.
“Do you love your grandpa?” Disdane asked Barrar.
“Yes, sir,” Barrar stammered out.
“Then I need you to do something for me, because if you don’t, I’m going to hurt you and your grandpa. If you make me do that, it’ll be your fault. It will be just like you hurting him. You don’t want to hurt him, do you?”
Tears streaked down Barrar’s face again and while he didn’t make a sound, he shook his head.
“Good,” Disdane said, smiling. “Now I need you to walk with me. You’re not going to run, or scream, or cry. You’re just going to walk with me. If you do any of those other things, what’s going to happen?”
