Tyrant's Throne

by de Castell, Sebastien

  Kest had been dealing with the Saint’s Fever and not the Adoracia fidelis which was still coursing through Valiana’s veins, but the effect was not dissimilar. The instant she let the adoracia take over, you could see the red rage inside her eyes. Suddenly the heavy blade she’d brought with her looked almost too light in her hands and within seconds she was cutting into our enemies with so much speed and force that the first man barely had time to see that he’d lost his left arm at the shoulder before Valiana took his head. Again and again she swung without regard for the Avareans’ armour or weapons, oblivious to everything around her. It was enough to shake the confidence even of the war-mad Avareans, but before long they began focusing their attacks on her.

  ‘Kest!’ I shouted as an archer from their rear took aim.

  ‘I see it.’ He leaped up high, just to Valiana’s right and raised his shield over her head, but even as he deflected the arrow, Kest had to spin away – in Valiana’s uncontrolled rage she’d nearly sliced him with her blade.

  ‘Damn, Falcio,’ Quil said, thrusting her longsword into the belly of the man I was fighting. ‘Where are you getting these new Greatcoats from?’

  I didn’t answer; I was too busy working through how long we had left, because however much the Avareans loved their song, ‘Seven for a Thousand’ was almost certainly bullshit. Seven fighters, no matter how skilled, cannot long withstand a thousand enemies. Fortunately, we only needed to survive long enough to make one thing happen – and it finally did. Morn, seeing his own warriors and the horde above beginning to look upon him with doubt, was forced to join the fight.

  Come and get me, you bastard.

  *

  He came at me with that great long glaive of his, the sixteen-inch curved blade at the end of the seven-foot-long spear slicing the air on an angle as it came for my neck. I pushed off on my back leg into a diagonal lunge, ducking under his blade and thrusting my rapier for his belly, but I came up short. That damned glaive gave him too much reach.

  ‘You stupid shit,’ he spat, smoothly bringing his weapon back up only to bring it crashing down on me as if it were a hammer and I a nail. ‘You think this changes anything?’

  ‘Actually,’ I replied, jumping to my right and letting the blade of his weapon slam into the ground next to me, ‘I think it might just change everything.’

  I tried to step on the shaft – a reflex from fighting too many men with spears – but Morn spun it in his grip, turning the sharp-bladed end up and pulling hard towards himself. I lifted my foot but still felt the edge cut into the sole of my boot. The sting hurt like seven hells – its only virtue was that it meant the cut had been too shallow to reach the tendons. The only problem was now I was limping.

  ‘Falcio!’ I heard Darriana call out.

  ‘Stick to the plan,’ I shouted back.

  ‘The plan?’ Morn asked. ‘The plan? Is that what you call this suicide?’

  He started to press me back and the others made way for him even as they continued to hold off the rest of our attackers. Morn was deadly fast with his glaive, using the long weapon to slice through the air, forcing me to back away, only to suddenly drive straight for me, leaving me no choice but to push off my injured foot and dive to the right. Soon he’d left the narrow confines of the imaginary cliff walls we’d all so politely pretended existed, but I refused to do the same, staying on my own small patch. I could see some of his own men were gaping at him, horrified that the song they so glorified was being dishonoured in this way.

  ‘We could have worked together, Falcio!’ he bellowed at me. ‘We could have ushered in a new era.’

  ‘I hardly think Tyanny is new, Morn,’ I said, stumbling back to stay out of the way of his weapon, ‘but I hardly think tyranny is all that new.’

  He screamed something incoherent at me, swinging his glaive in ever-wilder arcs. A glaive is a versatile weapon, and it can even be graceful, wielded by a master like Morn, but it isn’t light, and for all his outrage, Morn was beginning to slow. Though the pain in my foot and a dozen other small wounds I’d not even noticed before were wearing me down, I’d been conserving my strength. I needed only one opening; one small gap in Morn’s defences and I would ignore the creeping agony in my foot and execute one long lunge too fast for him to evade. I thought I had it, too. For just a second, as he brought his glaive up for a downward strike, I truly believed I’d found that opening – then I saw Morn’s smile and remembered: he’s a better actor than I am.

  Somehow, as he’d been forcing me away from the others and I’d been moving in ever-so-slight increments to angle him where I wanted him, we had both achieved our aims. The problem was, Morn had cheated: suddenly two of his men were on either side of me, breaking the unspoken rules their fellow warriors had followed. They grabbed my arms and twisted hard, forcing me to drop both my rapiers.

  ‘How in the name of every Saint have you stayed alive this long?’ Morn asked.

  ‘Well, it’s a little complicated,’ I replied, ‘but if you want, I’d be happy to explain it to you.’

  ‘What I want,’ Morn began, signalling to his men, who grabbed onto me tighter and began to slowly force me to the ground, ‘is for you to finally do what the world has been waiting for all these years, Falcio. I want you to kneel.’

  It’s actually not as easy as you might think to force a man down to his knees, but Morn’s warriors were brutally strong and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold out for long. ‘Why, Morn,’ I said, ‘didn’t you know? If you wanted me to kneel, all you had to do was ask.’

  And with that, I dropped down to my knees and my two captors, unprepared for the sudden lack of resistance, came with me. Morn blinked furiously as the sun behind me went straight into his eyes, preventing him from seeing Darriana – who for once had followed my orders – had waited until that exact moment to run straight for us, leaping first onto my back and using me to propel herself high up into the air. Morn tried to get his weapon up to block her, but with the sun in his eyes and her having the advantage of being far above him, he couldn’t reach her in time. Darriana’s arm extended, joining the narrow blade of her sword to form a perfect line, and for just an instant it was like staring at a painter’s masterpiece, an image so perfect it could only exist in the mind of an artist. Darriana was, in that moment, what swordsmiths dreamed of when they forged their weapons: the flawless union of body and blade.

  She winked at me.

  The tip of her sword drove into Morn’s chest, but not into his heart – this, too, had been part of my orders, although I hadn’t been at all sure if she would follow that one. Instead of dying instantly, Morn took the blade just a fraction below his left lung.

  A better man would have been grateful.

  He shouted something in Avarean, and I didn’t need a translator to tell me he was commanding his men to kill us. I shook off the two men who’d been holding me – they were now blessedly distracted by the blade in Morn’s chest – and threw myself into a roll, coming up to retrieve my rapiers so I could fight for what little time was left.

  I saw Valiana stumble as the strength and ferocity the Adoracia fidelis had lent her finally gave out. Quentis was down, and Quilatta – who’d only met him days before – fought with all her ruthless determination to protect him from an enemy’s spear. Darriana abandoned her blade to run for Brasti, whose bow had splintered under the blow of an Avarean sword. I felt Ethalia’s hand brush mine one last time as she raised her sticks to guard my flank. Kest caught my eye, and nodded once as if to say goodbye before racing to try to shield the others for as long as he could.

  I’m not sure if the other Avareans would have followed through with Morn’s command, or whether tradition bound them to the spirit of their song, but it didn’t matter, because somewhere high above us, a horn blew.

  The Avarean warriors, their faces still full of battle-lust and fury, froze, and every single one of
them dropped to one knee, leaving only the seven of us standing. We looked at each other, our eyes searching each other for signs of mortal wounds, each praying they would find none. All of us were injured, some worse than others. Quil looked pale, and I could see she’d taken a stab wound to the thigh that she was having to hold closed with her one good hand. Ethalia had a cut on her forehead that was bleeding into her eyes and blinding her; even so, she was hanging on to Valiana, whispering soothing words to her as she fought to bring the adoracia in Valiana’s veins back under control. We needed medical care, all of us, but we looked oddly more alive than we had any right to be.

  ‘You fools!’ Morn roared, Darriana’s blade still sticking out of his chest. For once, though, he wasn’t yelling at us; he was yelling at the horde on the cliff-top above. ‘I could have given you this damned country. They wouldn’t have lasted even one more day – but you let yourselves be taken in by a stupid fucking song?’

  The horde looked down from the cliff-top, silent save for a single word that kept being repeated, over and over. Kujandis, Kujandis, Kujandis. It was the Avarean word for coward.

  ‘You know what that is?’ Brasti asked, holding his bleeding arm and stumbling over to stand in front of Morn. ‘That’s the audience telling you they didn’t enjoy the performance.’

  Kest and I stared at him.

  Brasti narrowed his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘“That’s the audience telling you they didn’t enjoy the performance”?’

  ‘You didn’t like it? I thought it was clever.’

  ‘It was a bit on the nose,’ Ethalia said, unsteady on her feet as she came towards us, Darriana uncharacteristically rushing to help support her.

  ‘Your opinion doesn’t count,’ Brasti said. ‘You always side with Falcio; you’re in love with him.’

  She smiled at me. ‘Well, maybe just a little.’

  I took her from Darriana, deciding that I’d be the one to help her walk back to our camp and somehow forgetting that I could barely stand on my left foot and would likely need someone to support me before long.

  ‘What now?’ Brasti asked, staring at the Avareans, who still looked like they’d quite like to kill us. A lot. None of them moved to attack, though. They didn’t even rise to their feet. Apparently they were waiting for some kind of signal. I hoped it wasn’t supposed to come from me, because if it was, they’d be waiting a long time.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I said. ‘I’ve never much liked Pertine this time of year.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  The Last Tyrant

  Tristian legends abound with tales of brave heroes gone to war, facing insurmountable odds and yet somehow emerging victorious. In none of those stories do those same heroes then have to suffer through negotiating an armistice treaty. Note that I didn’t say ‘peace treaty’, because it turns out the Avareans have no word for peace.

  ‘Truce,’ repeated the Avarean negotiator, a man named Kugriek, whose command of Tristian was only slightly better than that of my old friend Reyek. ‘We give you good truce.’

  We sat on opposite sides of a hastily constructed table set in the middle of the very same field upon which we’d shed each other’s blood only days before. The injured had been taken away and the dead burned or buried as each nation’s customs called for, but there were more than enough remnants of the carnage to make me glad of the cold, for once.

  The good truce of which Kugriek spoke promised a cessation of hostilities between our two nations in exchange for what the Avarean negotiator called ‘the rightful return of bludlandeg’, which, Gwyn explained, meant ‘blood lands’ – or in this context, the entire Duchies of Orison and Hervor.

  When I realised what was being demanded of us, I suggested they could have Orison and Hervor but only if they agreed to take Pulnam and Domaris as well. No one but me thought that was funny.

  ‘They will not relent in this, First Cantor,’ Gwyn said. ‘The ­Avareans believe it is their duty to take back the bludlandeg – not simply because those lands were part of their territory in the past, but because they would consider it cowardice on their part to abandon the families who live there to the uncaring rule of Tristia.’

  When a horde of bloodthirsty barbarians tells you that you haven’t been taking good enough care of your people, it’s hard not to cringe a little.

  In the end, it came down to this: we either gave up those two Duchies or we named the date and place where our armies would meet once again to wage war. The best I could do was to negotiate a provision that gave every citizen of Orison and Hervor a year to decide whether to stay as part of Avares or depart for the south, unhindered, with their families and belongings. The Avarean Warlords who stood around Kugriek laughed when this was explained to them, apparently finding the thought of anyone choosing to remain Tristian when they could instead live under Avarean protection as hilarious as it was preposterous. I suspected they might be right.

  In exchange for our concessions, we were offered a truce, to be upheld for three generations. I’d never heard of the duration of treaties being described in such terms, but Gwyn explained that blood-feuds were common in Avares, and holding to such a truce ensured the children and grandchildren of those who’d died in the war would not seek vengeance.

  ‘Very well,’ I told Kugriek, and the agreement was carefully inscribed in both languages on the rounded surfaces of two steel-fronted shields taken from the battlefield: another charming Avarean tradition. ‘I will take this to my King and—’

  Kugriek cut me off with a wave of his hand and proceeded to translate for the other Avarean Warlords. A great deal of bellowing followed. Finally, Kugriek pointed a thick finger at me and said, ‘We make truce only with ruler.’

  I sighed and turned to Gwyn. ‘Could you please explain to them – again – that I am not the King of Tristia. If they give us two weeks we can get Filian here to—’

  ‘Speak to me!’ Kugriek demanded, slamming his meaty fist down on the flimsy negotiating table. ‘I speak you language good!’

  ‘A moment, if you please,’ Valiana told the negotiator before turning to me. The Avareans never seemed to interrupt her. Having seen her fight under the influence of the Adoracia fidelis, they’d promptly named her Bludyirdan, which meant ‘Champion of Blood’ or some such thing. Whenever ‘Bludyirdan’ spoke, they were all remarkably polite. ‘They won’t let us wait for the King, Falcio. I don’t think they’d recognise Filian’s authority even if he were here: he didn’t lead the battle and so he has no standing in their eyes.’

  ‘Fine, then make Feltock sign the damned thing.’

  ‘Leave me out of it,’ the General said. ‘I’d as soon not be hanged for a traitor the moment we get home.’

  Excellent.

  ‘You sign,’ Kugriek said to me. ‘We make truce with Magdan of Tristia.’

  The Magdan of Tristia. I was fairly sure that was going to come back to haunt me one day.

  Also on the subject of Magdans, the Avarean Warlords had demanded – on pain of abandoning the truce altogether – that they be given the right to execute Morn and punish those who’d followed him, in accordance with Avarean law.

  Since I really didn’t give a shit about Morn, other than ensuring he could never threaten my homeland again, I’d agreed – but I’d demanded one concession of my own: the return of the rebel Greatcoats. The Avareans considered this a fair trade; one of the Warlords was even kind enough to offer me his favourite beheading axe – a magnanimous gesture, I thought.

  The Greatcoats who’d sided with Morn were traitors, according to Tristian law, which carried the death penalty. Instead, I tried them as deserters, a lesser crime which afforded the leniency of exile. They could take a ship and depart this troubled continent for ever. You’d’ve thought they would have been a little more grateful.

  ‘Fuck them,’ Brasti told me as we made prep
arations for our return to Aramor. ‘None of them were deserving of the coat in the first place.’

  ‘I suspect they might have shown Falcio a bit more gratitude had he allowed them to keep theirs, actually,’ Kest observed.

  That had been one of my non-negotiable terms. I’d given them their lives and their freedom. The coats came back with me.

  ‘Don’t think this counts as you giving me a proper greatcoat,’ Chalmers complained. I’d found one of the twenty-seven coats we’d retrieved was a perfect fit for her, and actually in much better condition than mine, but she still considered it a poor offering.

  ‘Stop bellyaching,’ I told her. ‘It’s a thing – an object. It’s nothing but leather with bone plates sewn inside the lining and a bunch of pockets with a few tools and tricks.’

  Kest and Brasti stared at me disapprovingly and Chalmers looked hurt. ‘You make it sound meaningless,’ she said.

  I sighed. I was going to have to stop being an arse at some point, so it might as well be now. ‘Put it on,’ I told her.

  She slid her arms through the sleeves and then set about adjusting the straps and doing up the buttons.

  Kest, Bresti and I watched with a kind of reverance as she went through those simple motions. There’s a sacredness in bearing witness when a man or woman – not a God or Saint, but just a regular person – readies themselves to give up everything in service to this strange creation of humanity that we call the Law.

  When Chalmers was done I reached out and adjusted her collar. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Now it’s a greatcoat.’

  *

  My final lesson in the art of warfare turned out to be the discovery that disbanding an army is actually more work than recruiting it in the first place. In all the chaos caused by two heirs to the throne, the secession of half the country and the sudden threat of invasion, there had never been time for proper records to keep track of who had joined, where and when and under what terms. No pensions had been established for the sixteen hundred who’d survived and for the families of more than a thousand who hadn’t, so yet again it fell to me to set terms and sign declarations promising payment for the veterans and families of Tristia’s three-day war.