King of the Rising

by Kacen Callender

  “It was thanks to all of us,” I tell Georg. “I didn’t save this island. Everyone who held a machete did.”

  Georg eyes me warily. His voice lowers. “The way you fought—it was like you were possessed. I’ve never seen a man fight like that before.”

  “I’m grateful to the spirits for their guidance in the battles.”

  “As am I,” Georg says. “But there are some who think that your connection to the spirits is beyond their guidance. There are too many old superstitions connected to kraft.”

  Though our ancestors always believed that kraft was a blessing from the spirits and something to be honored, generations of seeing our people slaughtered because of kraft has twisted our traditions. Many consider kraft to be something that brings ill luck and bad fortune. This is what Georg refers to.

  “I’m telling you this so that you can be careful,” he says. “There are some who respect you, and there are some who do not.” Georg eyes me for a moment before he adds, “I respect you. Malthe is our commander, but you have my loyalty. I think you’ll find I’m not the only one.”

  I’m not sure what to say to this, and thankfully, I don’t have to find any words. Malthe comes to us. I’m afraid he might have overheard Georg, but if he did, he doesn’t indicate this. “A moment, Løren.”

  We walk to the edge of the field and stand together in the shadows of the groves. We watch as people begin to clear the land of the dead, murmuring their prayers and asking for the dead, our ancestors, to forgive us and watch over us. It’ll be work that will last days, especially as we try to give our islanders the respect they deserve in death at sea and bury the Fjern beneath the dirt. If we aren’t careful, the dead could poison what little water supply we have, if the fresh waters from the streams haven’t been poisoned already. The most devastating blow is losing the last of the fruit trees. The Fjern were quick to set fire to the rest of our food supply.

  I remember with a flinch. “Where is Marieke?” I ask Malthe. “Tuve, Geir, all the others?”

  “Tuve is dead,” Malthe says. “He was supposed to be patrolling the bay with his scouts.”

  I curse. “And Marieke?”

  “I don’t know about Marieke. If we’re lucky, she was hiding in one of the manors that wasn’t set afire.”

  I think of the explosion at the Niklasson manor, the oil and fire that must have been set up in advance. There are pieces of this ambush that don’t make sense. Pieces that I’m sure Geir will have opinions on, if he’s still alive. “We need to find the others and reconvene.”

  “I see you’re becoming more comfortable making your orders,” Malthe says.

  I hesitate. I recognize the silky steadiness in his voice. I’ve waded into dangerous territory. Malthe has always had a certain control over me. He’s been my commander since I was a boy, beating me into submission whenever I misspoke and punishing me for any failures. My fear of Malthe isn’t an easy habit to break. “I didn’t make any orders,” I tell him, but he doesn’t respond. I try again. “If I did, I didn’t mean to.”

  Malthe still doesn’t speak as his eyes rove over the work that’s begun. The high of the victory is dropping. As the back-breaking work begins, so does the grief. Some sit, dazed. Others have begun to cry, a woman wailing over the body of a friend, another woman who had worked the fields at her side since they’d both been children. How many were lost on the island tonight? More were killed in this battle than in any of the battles of Hans Lollik Helle before, more than the night of the first revolt. Georg was right about one thing: This is the closest we came to losing the island and the revolution. I glance at Malthe. I see in the set of his jaw, the coldness of his gaze, that he realizes this as well as I do. He usually hides himself so well, but I feel embarrassment at the root of anger. He’s ashamed that he didn’t see this attack coming and that he had been caught unprepared. He’s humiliated that he was caught on his knees, and that he needed me to rescue him.

  He turns his anger toward me. “You’re a guard, Løren. A guard, under my command. You should have been in the barracks where you belong,” Malthe says, “instead of wandering the island as you always do.”

  I’m not sure what the purpose of this statement is or why it would matter if I’d been in the barracks or not. “If I’d been in the barracks, there’s a high chance that I would be dead.”

  “Dead, having followed orders, is better than living as a traitor.”

  “A traitor?” I repeat. Anger bites through me, but I temper it. Malthe doesn’t say anything else to this, and neither do I. I ask Malthe for permission to leave the encampment and help in the search for survivors. We need the clear thoughtfulness of Marieke, the steady mind of Geir, the voice of Olina’s reason and Kjerstin’s biting nature to come together after such a loss. We need to strategize how we will survive the coming months.

  “No,” Malthe tells me. “Stay here and help with the dead.”

  He begins to walk away from me.

  “We need to find the others.”

  “You heard your orders, Løren.”

  To disobey Malthe would mean a whipping, at the very least—though with the anger raging beneath his still and calm expressionless mask, he might just try to execute me for refusing to do as I’m told. But I know what’s important. I can’t stay here at the whim of Malthe’s games of power. I don’t bother to try to convince him of the need. I leave, and while he doesn’t speak, I can feel his gaze following me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There’s only one place I can think to look for the others first. I climb the hill to Herregård Constantjin and move through the courtyard, seemingly untouched by the bloodshed. I’m tense, machete drawn in case a last surviving Fjern bursts through the bushes, but no one does. I climb the stairs and walk through the shadowed halls, to the room where I have been meeting with the others for the last month. No one is here. I pause, disappointment thrumming through me, before I’m struck with a thought. I backtrack through the halls before moving up the stairs of the tower where Sigourney is imprisoned.

  The door is already unbarred. I creak open the door and step to the side just in time to dodge the knife that slashes at my face. Sigourney must have known it would be me—must have felt my presence—but she tried to use the moment as an excuse to attack me anyway. She meets my eye with the slightest smile, acknowledging the truth, while Marieke gasps behind her.

  Are you sure killing me is a good idea? I ask her, then send her a simple reminder. You don’t have many people on your side.

  Her smile falters.

  “Spirits above,” Marieke says, letting out a breath and hurrying over to me. She takes my arm and holds it up to inspect a cut I hadn’t noticed, blood dripping from my elbow. “I thought you’d be dead.”

  “Thank you for the confidence.”

  “It’s not meant as an insult,” Marieke tells me, ripping cloth from the bottom of her skirt and dabbing at my cut. Only now does it sting. “The battle, the fighting, the number of Fjern we could see from this tower—we assumed the island had been lost, and it was only a matter of time before we were found and killed, too.” Marieke has always been straightforward when it comes to death. She’s seen it enough times that its presence doesn’t affect her. And the revolt, everything she had worked for—she’s always had the patience and the faith that, if we fail, there will be others who will try again.

  As Marieke cleans and bandages my wound, I ignore Sigourney’s careful gaze. I have my kraft working as a wall against her thoughts, a cliff that she’s unable to climb. She’s waiting for a moment, a crack, a breach—I can always feel her waiting for a chance to see into me, to learn my secrets and my thoughts and to take control of me in a way that no Fjern or kongelig were able to before. This is what I hate about her most of all.

  “I’m sorry,” she suddenly says, taking me and Marieke by surprise. “I shouldn’t have tried to attack you. It’s an old habit, to protect myself from you.”

  It’s difficult to tell if she
’s speaking honestly with my block between us, but her gaze is unflinching. “Thank you,” I say.

  Marieke is confused, glancing between us. “Where are the others?” I ask her.

  “I left Olina hiding in the dungeons of the Solberg manor. Kjerstin went to find and warn Malthe of the ambush. I’m not sure about Geir or Tuve.”

  “Tuve is dead.”

  Marieke isn’t surprised, though she shakes her head all the same. “I suppose we couldn’t all have survived Hans Lollik Helle.”

  “Tuve and the scouts should have had some warning, but for them to have been ambushed—” It’s difficult to finish the thought. Sigourney won’t look away from me. “There were also explosives at the Niklasson manor. Almost a dozen were killed in that attack alone. Someone would’ve had to set that up, realizing that it was a popular gathering place for the guards.”

  Marieke’s eyes cut to mine. “What are you suggesting?”

  “It’s obvious enough,” Sigourney answers for me. “He believes there’s a traitor on the island.”

  I don’t acknowledge that Sigourney has spoken, but I watch Marieke for her response. Marieke looks between the two of us. She almost seems annoyed by the suggestion. “A traitor, on Hans Lollik Helle?”

  “There have been traitors before,” I tell her.

  “Idiots who wouldn’t know what to do with freedom,” Marieke says. “Fighting for their masters because they’re so brainwashed they can’t see their own humanity.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Why couldn’t one of them be here on this island, pretending to be a friend, while secretly passing on information to the Fjern and acting on their behalf?”

  “There would be too many possibilities to interrogate each and every one of us.”

  “I suppose a particular kraft could help with that,” Sigourney says. She hears how desperate she sounds, trying to find a place where she would be needed to save her from her own execution.

  “It’s a kraft I hold as well,” I remind her.

  “You want me to change,” she says. “This is an opportunity to show that I’m different—that I do care about our people. Let me help.”

  Marieke interrupts us. “You both seem so sure that this is even a possibility,” she says, then speaks over me when I try to insist. “It’s something that we’ll keep in mind and discuss with the others, but it’s hardly the priority in this very moment. Right now, we need to find the others. Make sure that they’re alive, and then meet with Malthe. There’s too much to be done to stand here speaking of a traitor who may or may not exist.”

  She’s right, of course. It’s why I’ve always valued Marieke’s word. It seems that Marieke is always right.

  “It might be safer if you stay here,” I tell her. “I’ll look for the others and then circle back around to you.”

  She nods her assent.

  Olina is where Marieke promised she would be, hiding in the dungeons of the Solberg manor. She’s too afraid to leave even when I promise her that the battle is won. She hasn’t seen so much death. There was a man, once, that had displeased her master when she was a child. He had been hung by his wrists and starved. The man had seen Olina pass one day and had begged her for water with a rasping voice. She told him that she would not. He had disobeyed their master, so that punishment was what he deserved. She grips my arm as we move through the brush.

  “I told the girl to stay,” she says, meaning Kjerstin. Her voice is high-pitched, her words streaming quickly. “Stay—Malthe will learn of the battle soon enough, but she insisted. Gods, what if she was killed on the way to the barracks?”

  We make it through the brush, finding only a few dead. Bodies already bloated in the heat. We make it to the battlefield and the barracks, where firepits have been lit. The sky lightens with the promise of a rising sun, and the prayer songs begin, rising across the island. They swell, the sound of sorrow heavier than I’ve ever heard the songs on this island, until the voices fade away. Islanders are still hard at work. I remember the same expressions of exhaustion, the backs bent as we worked the fields. I’m not the right person to speak to Malthe. He oversees the work from his position at the edge of the battlefield. He sees me, but he doesn’t say a word as I put a reassuring hand on Olina’s and convince her to let go of her grip.

  “Maybe a word to Malthe,” I suggest to her, “to give everyone a moment to rest. It doesn’t help if we kill ourselves with exhaustion.”

  She nods, panic still in her eyes. “Where are you going?” she whispers, though I don’t know why she speaks softly.

  “To find Kjerstin.”

  If Kjerstin had made it to the barracks, she would be with Malthe, giving him her many opinions. Olina doesn’t argue as I slip away, back into the groves. There’s still a chance that there are Fjern hidden on the island, but I decide to take a risk and call out Kjerstin’s name. I find the bodies of islanders and Fjern alike. I see one young girl lying on her stomach. With the twist of my gut I kneel to her side to turn her over, but it isn’t Kjerstin. I march to the fields where the fires are dying, turning to smoldering embers in an early morning drizzle, pink light shining on the horizon. I walk the same path I did the night before with the guards that followed me, to the mangroves and the beach where we’d won our first battle—and I see her.

  She sits with her back against a rock, machete in her hand, a dead Fjern at her feet. Red soaks a wound in her side. Her eyes are half closed, but she still breathes when I run to her side. I grasp her shoulder.

  “Kjerstin,” I tell her. She struggles to keep her gaze focused. “Keep your eyes on me. Don’t close your eyes.”

  She smiles. “Do you really think looking at your face will keep me alive?”

  She hasn’t lost her humor at least. I rip her dress open and involuntarily wince at the wound. It’s deep, and the black-red blood has pooled and congealed. I put a hand on her abdomen and focus the energy of Anke’s kraft. Warmth spreads, and Kjerstin clenches her jaw against the pain. I see movement as the organs begin to mend, but it stops short. Her skin is still torn open. I’m weak after healing so many on the battlefield, and Anke’s kraft is still too young to fully heal. There’s still too high of a chance that Kjerstin could die from this.

  I could carry her to the battlefield, but I’m not sure if she would survive the trip. I yank off my shirt, but it’s covered with dirt and blood. While I might not understand much about the sciences of the body, I know enough about infection. I hurry to the edge of the sand where the sea pushes and pulls onto the bay. I dunk the shirt into the saltwater, wringing it out as I run back to Kjerstin’s side.

  “This is going to sting.”

  “Not much more than getting a machete in the stomach, I bet.”

  I press the shirt against her side and she cries, but she doesn’t push me away. “Hold it there,” I tell her. I rip the ends of the bottom of her dress and dip this into the water also, then try to use the cloth to clean her wound. Her head lolls at one point, and I think that she’s gone unconscious, but by the time I begin to wrap the strips of cloth around her stomach, she tells me that I’m better at bandaging wounds than she thought I’d be.

  “Malthe trained us for as many aspects of battle as he could.”

  “He’s a good commander, then,” she says, but there’s something sarcastic about her tone that makes me glance up at her. She smirks. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to think, anyway?”

  “Your words could brand you a traitor.”

  “A traitor, or someone who is worried about my chance of survival on an island run by a man too in love with his own power,” she says. Her voice is weak, but the words come out in a constant, strong stream. “The hypocrisy of it all makes my head spin sometimes. How much he hates the kongelig and the Fjern, but loves giving his commands.”

  “You shouldn’t be speaking.”

  “Why?” she says. “Will my silence keep me alive longer, too?”

  I sit back, checking the work of the bandage. It’ll keep h
er from losing blood, at least, but she’ll need the steady hand of a seamstress back at the camp, as well as the tea of herbs I’m not sure we have to fight off the infection. How many wounded are like this at the camp? Though we managed to win the battle, we lost so many, and we could still lose more.

  “Don’t look so concerned for me,” Kjerstin says, her voice a whisper. “I never expected to live very long anyway. We are in the middle of a war, after all.”

  I frown at her. “The point is to survive the revolution. Win, and finally live a life of freedom.”

  She laughs at me, though regrets it as she winces. “The people who fight the revolution will never get to enjoy the freedom, Løren,” she says. “We’re not going to live through this. You know that.”

  “If we’re not going to live through this, then what’s the point in fighting?”

  “That’s the thing,” she says. “There is no point. No point to living, either. So I might as well give my life, trying to do something right.”

  Light is dimming from Kjerstin’s eyes. She closes them, lashes fluttering against her cheeks, but she still breathes, her chest heaving with the effort to live. I pick her up and carry her, as gently as I can, while the sun rises and paints the sky.

  The wounded are taken into one of the barracks still standing. What little supplies we have left are gathered for aid. I circle back for Marieke, as I promised her I would. When I arrive, Sigourney asks that I let her out of the room.

  “I could be of help,” she says. “I can’t prove that I’m willing to change if I’m locked away.”

  Marieke is hopeful that I’ll release her also, but I can’t—not yet. There’s too much to worry about on the island still. We have to care for the wounded and find supplies and resources, figure out our next steps. It’s enough without having to think about whether Sigourney is somehow using her kraft to harm others, or if another mob has decided to hang her from a tree. She’s disappointed when I promise her that I’ll return to release her in a few days’ time, when I’ll be able to keep a closer watch on her, but she doesn’t argue with me.