by Ty Johnston
Sawney Gean had no reaction.
Kron plunged toward the old man, darting around a boulder as he did.
Gean was a good distance away, giving the old man plenty of time to retreat, but he stood his ground while pulling his large sword from its place on his back.
Kron was suddenly in front of the man and swinging his bastard sword with all his might. The connecting blades clashed, sending ringing echoes throughout the cavern. Gean’s blade was heavier, but Kron’s arm was stronger. Gean’s sword went flying to be lost in a dark corner.
The old man did not move as the end of Kron’s sword rested beneath his chin.
“Do what you will,” Gean said.
“I always do,” Kron said. He slammed the man in the head with the pommel of his sword.
***
Randall and the patrol of border wardens couldn’t move fast enough for Adara. Riding through the woods, the woman was always pushing the others in hopes they would speed up their travel and find Kron. She was worried about Kron’s safety, but there was more to it than that.
She had decided earlier that morning, as the sun’s beams glinted over the tops of the trees and the others ate their breakfast of oats and dried fruits, that she was in love with Kron Darkbow. The feelings had been coming for some time, but while she had slept her subconscious mind had forced her into of the man who dressed in black and carried that big sword on his back. What had drawn Adara to the man was his strong moral sense, his unbending independence and his self reliance. For the first time in years, Adara felt comfortable and safe around a man. She felt she could trust Kron.
Kron Darkbow was, in his own quiet and dark way, a gentleman. A true gentleman, not one of those fools who professed it then turned their back on their woman and their morals.
So. Adara was in love.
During breakfast Randall used Kron’s small mirror and his own magic to check on their traveling companion, but Randall was not able to see much. There were images of fire and much movement, whirlings almost like combat or dancing, but wherever Kron was located was too dark to see with the mirror.
Weaver guessed Kron was in the cave Sawney Gean and his clan claimed as home. The captain and the other wardens were familiar with the cave and that was where they were leading Randall and Adara.
But not fast enough to satisfy the woman.
“Faster,” Adara huffed as the line of wardens trotted past her and Randall through the woods.
“We would get there faster if you would stay behind us,” Weaver said as he reined in horse next to Adara and Randall. “We know where we’re going, and if we ride in like all hell is breaking loose, we will alert them.”
Adara could say nothing in response that would sound logical, so she turned her horse and spurred it forward.
Before she got far, she spotted a warden ahead riding against the line of his fellows. Without so much as a glance to her, the rider continued past and on to Captain Weaver.
“We’ve captured a few of them, sir,” the rider said with the two-fingered salute of the wardens.
“How many?” Weaver asked
“We’ve got two of the younger men and a boy,” the other warden said. “All they will say is Gean is in his cave.”
Adara yanked her horse around nearer to the captain. “Did they say anything about my friend?”
The warden shook his head.
Adara spun her horse and spurred it again, flying past the line of wardens in the direction the messenger had come.
***
After knocking Sawney cold, Kron drug him out to the cooking fire at the cave’s entrance. For a moment Kron was stunned at the sight of the skull resting in the campfire, its eye sockets staring at him accusingly.
At that point Kron took some rope he found in the cave and used it to tie Gean’s wrists and ankles together behind the man’s back. Kron considered a gag, but decided against it. He wanted the man to scream.
Then Kron knelt and removed a dagger from his belt. He held the blade to the fire, watching the knife slowly turn black from the flames.
When he rested the heated blade against Gean’s arm, the old man jerked awake with a yell.
“What are you doing?” Gean asked as he stared at the dagger in front of his eyes.
Kron slashed out, slicing open the old man’s right cheek.
Gean flinched, but held his tongue.
Kron slashed again, this time cutting a grove on the man’s forehead.
Gean cried out this time. “What the hell do you want?”
“Justice,” Kron said.
He cut again, deeper.
The old man screamed.
The cutting continued.
***
It was an hour before the man in black finished.
Gean’s blood dripped from Kron’s dark gloves and the dagger.
What was left of Sawney Gean looked like a skeleton painted in blood.
Kron was exhausted. He could only sit on his legs in front of Gean, staring with unblinking eyes at the man that had turned him into a monster. There had been too much. Too much death. Too much gore. Too much everything.
Kron Darkbow did not know if he would ever be the same again. Death had been part of his life since he was a child, but he had never before witnessed the depths of depravity he had seen that day in the Gean cave.
The cloppings of horse hooves did not raise him from his stupor.
Adara nearly galloped past the cave, but she caught the image of the fire in the side of her eyes and yanked on the reins of her riding beast.
As she sat high in her saddle, her mouth dropped wide at the carnage below her. There was not enough of the hog-tied Gean to identify him as human, and Kron was so covered in blood she didn’t recognize him at first.
Then the man in black moved, his eyes staring up at the woman.
Adara spotted the dagger in his hand. The weapon was so congealed with blood there was no glint of its metal shining through.
She knew what Kron had done.
Adara gave a sharp, dry cry, then spun her animal away, speeding back to the wardens.
***
Randall and Weaver were riding ahead of the other wardens when they spotted Adara barreling toward them. Tears streamed down her face.
“Adara!” the healer yelled as the woman accelerated past him and the captain.
She disappeared around a line of trees, then both men glanced at one another and spurred their animals forward.
They found Kron as Adara had, kneeling motionless next to a bloody mess that had once been Sawney Gean. Kron’s eyes stared firmly ahead.
Randall could hardly look at the carnage as he slipped out of his saddle and dropped to his knees to retch. Weaver was made of sterner stuff and held his stomach as he dropped from his horse and slowly approached Kron.
“Darkbow?” the captain asked, stopping to kneel near the man covered in blood.
Kron’s head tilted to stare into the captain’s eyes.
Weaver gave the two-fingered salute.
For a moment, Kron eyes did not seem to focus, then he blinked and returned the captain’s salute.
“Are there others?” Weaver asked.
Kron didn’t answer for a moment as his stare returned to the woods before him, then he coughed. “They’re all dead. All of them.”
Weaver looked behind Kron and noticed the cave nearly hidden beneath hanging greenery. “Are they in there?” he said pointing at the opening.
Kron nodded without blinking.
The captain spun on his heels to find Randall picking himself off the ground. “Can you help him?” Weaver asked.
Randall stared at the blood-shrouded form of Kron Darkbow with a mixed look of repulsion and fear. “I can try,” he said, “but my magic mainly works on the body.”
Weaver stared back at Kron. “His mind might be shattered,” the captain said, “but he’s a former warden and your friend. You’ve got to try.”
Randall nodded and moved toward Kro
n, leaning over the man. “Kron?” he asked.
There was no response.
Randall stood and faced Weaver. “My job will be easier if we can get him away from here and the blood cleaned off him.”
Weaver gave the order to the first of his men to arrive on the scene.
***
It took time rinsing the blood from Kron’s body and clothes. Several of the wardens worked together lifting Kron onto a horse, then leading him to the river where they washed away the red that had seeped into his hair and the wrinkles and crevices of his body.
Throughout the washing, Kron was limp. He stared straight ahead as if seeing nothing.
Adara could not watch any of it.
Eventually Kron was clean again. The wardens carried him away and placed him inside a tent erected in the middle of their latest campsite.
Adara found Randall speaking with Captain Weaver near the river, both men standing on a large flat stone and facing the waters rushing by. The other wardens were busy setting up other tents or seeing to their horses
“I’ve healed any physical wounds he has,” Randall said to Weaver as Adara walked up to them, “but it’s his mind I’m most worried about.”
The two men turned as Adara stopped near them.
“Has he gone insane?” the woman asked.
The healer glanced at the captain with a frown that gave Adara her answer.
“Is that what made him do those things?” Adara asked. “Is that what made him ... chop up that man?”
“That man was Sawney Gean, one of the worst of the exiles,” Weaver explained to Adara. “He got what he had coming . You can ask any of the other wardens. They’ll agree with me.”
“No one deserves that kind of treatment,” Adara said.
“Gean did far worse to those he captured over the years,” Weaver said.
“Then why didn’t you do something about it?” Adara asked with anger.
The captain hesitated, giving himself and Adara a second of breathing space.
“I don’t make the laws governing the Lands,” Weaver said, “I just enforce them. As long as Gean and his family were only feeding on other inmates, we were not allowed to touch them.”
Adara said not a word. She stomped a foot and twisted away from Randall and the captain.
“I’m doing the best for him I can, Adara,” Randall said to the woman’s back, “but my magics have limits.”
“Can I see him?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at Randall.
The healer glanced at the captain as if seeking an answer, but Weaver remained quiet.
Seeing she was not getting an answer from the two men, Adara marched toward the front of Kron’s tent. She paused briefly, standing straight, then pulled back the flap and knelt as she entered.
Chapter Twenty
Adara barely had room to stand in the tent unless she stuck to its center where a pole overhead held the roof just above her dark hair.
Kron sat on the edge of a cot, his eyes focused on a spot on the other side of the tent. He made no appearance of noticing Adara’s entrance, and he continued with his faraway gaze as she sat with legs crossed on the ground in front of him.
“Kron,” Adara said softly.
There was no response.
“Kron,” Adara repeated.
This time the man blinked, and his face twitched as if he wanted to look at her but could not.
“It’s Adara,” she said. “Can you speak?”
Like a bird sailing on a breeze, slowly and with care, Kron’s face turned to her. But he said nothing.
“Randall is trying to help you,” she said, “and so are the wardens.”
Kron’s dark blue eyes blinked, but he gave no sign he heard nor understood the words she was speaking.
Adara pressed on, knowing not what else to do. “We ran into the wardens on the other side of the river where you said it would be safe,” she said. “You were right, as always. There were no exiles over there.
“The wardens have been a help, finding you and setting up this camp. Their captain, Weaver, said he could provide us an escort the rest of the way through the Prisonlands. He doesn’t understand why we’re heading to Kobalos, but he is too busy to ask questions.”
Adara took a breath, giving Kron time to interrupt, but the man remained silent and blank.
“Someone has been giving the inmates weapons,” Adara went on. “Weaver doesn’t know who supplied the weapons, but I don’t think he has time to look into it. He said the wardens are busy tracking down escapees, and his band was patrolling this region in hopes of stopping Gean from escaping. It seems you helped them out there. They captured a few of the boys, and Weaver thinks some of the others might have run off, but you took care of most of them. They’ll never harm anyone again.”
Kron’s eyes seemed to focus more on Adara as if his gaze could burrow into her flesh. He was paying attention to what she said now.
“They found my horse,” Adara said to keep talking. “Two of the wardens caught it getting a drink at the river. Randall managed to remove the arrow from its back, and to — ”
“What of Gean?” Kron interrupted, his lips barely moving.
Adara’s eyes opened wide. “Don’t you know?”
Kron shook his head.
“He’s dead,” Adara said. “You killed him. We found him ... we found what was left of him tied up and ... ”
She couldn’t say the words. Part of her wanted to believe Kron had not committed such atrocities, but she had seen the evidence with her own eyes.
“I ... remember,” Kron said, his eyes drifting away from her. “I remember the screaming.”
Adara winced.
“He didn’t say anything at first,” Kron continued, “but he couldn’t help from screaming when I started slicing flesh from his body.”
Adara’s face fell into her hands.
“I worked on him for ... what seemed hours,” Kron said. “I gutted him and burnt him and cut him and —”
“Stop!” Adara screamed as her face came up to glare at him. “Stop! Stop! Stop! I can’t hear any more. I don’t want to hear any more!”
Kron blinked, his full attention going to the woman. She was before him, her green eyes full of tears that rolled down her face, her body quivering.
“How could you?” she screamed. “How could you do that to that man? Even if he deserved it, what part of you was capable of doing that?”
Kron’s eyes broadened.
“I can’t believe the man I loved could do such a thing,” Adara said, turning her face from him.
Her voice became small. “I knew you had a darker side. I knew it. But after all you had been through, after what had happened to your parents and after what happened to that boy Wyck, I thought you ... I thought you we’re trying to make the world a better place.”
“Do you think nothing else matters but us?” Kron asked.
“I should’ve known better!” Her words splintered the air. “All you dream about is revenge. Revenge against Trelvigor! Revenge against Belgad! Revenge against Verkain or anyone who does you a wrong!
“If you truly wanted justice, you could do so much more! What about pirates who plague the seas? I don’t see you chasing them! What about bandits, or murderers or evil kings? I don’t see you doing anything about them!”
She broke down, bringing her arms across her face as she blubbered into the sleeves of her blouse.
“I’m never free,” Kron said.
With tears blurring her vision, Adara lowered her arms to look at the man. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m never free of the rage,” Kron said. “I’ve had it since I watched my parents murdered.”
“You don’t have to be a monster to fight monsters,” Adara said.
Kron frowned. “I might be the son of a broken man, but that doesn’t make me a broken man.”
Adara blanched and leaned away. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“What?”
/> “You don’t see that you’re already broken,” she answered with a sob. “They’ve won. The demons outside have created demons inside, making you one of them.
“You’re no better than Gean or Belgad or any of the others.”
The words stung, making Kron flinch.
“Your strengths are your independence and your absolute self reliance,” she said, “but those are also your failings. You carry around this code of independence and dark morality, but you leave the world no better than it would be without you. What good is doing away with someone like Belgad if, in the process, you become him ... or Sawney Gean or someone just as bad?”
“If my soul is damned because I try to save others, then I will gladly pay the price!”
Adara shook her head and looked away again. “You’re such the lone wolf.”
“I’m no lone wolf,” Kron shot back. “I want to be a lone wolf, but I can’t. I have others for whom I am responsible.”
Adara’s eyes locked on him once more. “Do you mean me and Randall?” she said. “You speak as if we’re some burden that’s slowing you down, keeping you from saving the rest of the world. Well, the world doesn’t need saving. What the world needs are examples of hope, not more vileness. There’s enough of that already.
“And I’ve never met a person more of a lone wolf than you. The man who shakes his head at all the plotters and planners and then wanders away to solve a problem by himself, in his own quietly violent way, is a lone wolf. The man who is constantly surrounded by people but is always alone, is a lone wolf. Your idea of what being a lone wolf entails is far more radical than what a normal person would think, possibly more than they could comprehend!”
Kron jumped to his feet and made for the tent’s flap as if leaving, but then he came to a stop, his back to her and his body heaving.
“You can keep on with the way you are, Kron, but you will have to do it without me,” Adara said, her voice soft again and the tears on her face beginning to dry.
He turned to see her out of the corner of his eyes.
