by CK Dawn
“No, I wasn’t looking close enough,” Ali-Samuel said.
“There’s one item in here that could reverse the effects of purple hemlock, but I’ve never tested it before,” the Count told him and shrugged his shoulders.
“We have to try. We can’t have Ali-Varis take over as king. And if they don’t allow that, which they should, Tersen will try to claim his right to the throne. He might get it too, as he knows the council would never let the half-wit rule. The albino might be smarter than I gave him credit for.”
“Here we go,” said Count Silzeus as he pulled out a clear vial of glowing silver dust.
“What is that?” Ali-Samuel asked.
“Dragon horn powder. It’s not guaranteed to work and there are some possible after effects,” the Count warned.
“Such as?” Ali-Samuel wanted to know.
“It can turn the skin yellow and it’s been known to drive men mad while the powder works its magic. It’s reported to only last one month and then everything returns to normal. We either do this or he’s going to die in his bed,” the Count said.
“Let’s give it a try,” Ali-Samuel said with little optimism.
The two men raced back to the King’s bedroom and waded through a horde of concerned followers. Ali-Stanley was lying on his back and groaning loudly. The Count found a silver goblet and poured some water into it. He pulled the cork from the tiny vial and dumped in the dragon horn.
Count Silzeus said, “I will need some of the guards to come over here. When he drinks this, he might thrash around and you may need to hold down our King.”
Ali-Samuel moved to his left and saw the black spots behind the King’s ears before several guards surrounded Ali-Stanley. The King tried to talk, but his tongue was too swollen to form words.
Count Silzeus moved in closer. “You need to drink this, my King. Get in place and take hold,” he warned the guards.
The King had trouble keeping down the liquid until his eyes shot wide open and he flopped around on the bed. The guards couldn’t keep him in one place until Sir Gerald jumped on top of Ali-Stanley. It looked like an incredible battle was occurring inside the King of Donegal. Suddenly, he went completely still.
Sir Gerald rolled off the King and onto the floor. The Count put his finger under the King’s nose.
“Is he still alive?” Ali-Samuel asked.
Count Silzeus looked up and replied, “For now, yes. This isn’t guaranteed to work, but it should put him out for several days as the dust works its magic. Only then will we have our true answer. He’s not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination.”
A sobbing Tersen entered the room and ran over to the bed. He kneeled down and started praying for the King out loud.
Right on cue. Has this been scripted by that succubus? I need to watch out for her. The albino finally found a talent in theater. He had everyone convinced he was somebody else.
Seven
Ali-Samuel peered down at King Ali-Baster’s Memorial Tourney from the top row of the grandstand. There were thousands of citizens packed around the grounds. He wasn’t going to attend the events initially because King Ali-Stanley had forbidden him to compete. After a long internal debate, Ali-Samuel decided to watch the last few rounds of the jousting competition.
Ali-Samuel was confident he would certainly win and had almost disobeyed the King and entered. He knew Ali-Stanley in his normal state would never have him killed, but the after-effects of the dragon horn had been significant.
Count Silzeus’ assessment had been correct and the untested medication had caused the King to suffer from a maddened frame of mind. He reminded Ali-Samuel of the previous king during his drunken days as a tyrant. Ali-Stanley talked to people that didn’t exist, but the King’s Guard remained loyal to him and made sure he still made all his appointments and appearances.
Ali-Samuel looked across the tiltyard at the King’s Box and watched Ali-Stanley as he paced back and forth. The young knight shifted his gaze to the perfectly groomed track and waited for the final tilt along with the rest of the crowd. He had watched the last four tilts and was sure he would have won every one of the rounds if he had participated. He had criticized each rider to anyone within earshot and explained all the mistakes the participants were making.
Ali-Stanley didn’t want to risk a member of the Wamhoff family losing to the usurper from the south, who could be named Grand Champion with a victory in the final round. The King had forbidden his entire family from entering the tourney, but Ali-Samuel knew he could beat the Duke of Mattingly in every event.
If Sir Renmark Orwell of Fox Chapel won the final run, he would be proclaimed the ultimate winner of the tourney. The King appeared to be pulling out his red hair as the two men walked their caparisoned horses to the starting stations on opposite sides of the crimson colored fence. Sir Renmark lowered his visor and his silver armor gleamed in the sunlight. The decorated knight had a plain look compared to the Duke of Mattingly.
The tall, blond man with golden skin looked much more suited to be king as he patted his horse on the head. His jacket made of alternating armor plates of gold, white and black gleamed in the sunlight. He put on his golden gauntlets and grabbed his weapon from the lance handler.
The sound of a bull horn ripped through the air and the audience collectively held its breath. Ali-Samuel could hear the hooves pounding the smooth dirt ground as both men built up speed. The competitors tucked into a lowered position as they approached each other. A brown lance cracked Jasper Colbert across the chest and sent him to the ground. Ali-Samuel looked up and saw the King jumping up and down cheering the Grand Champion, but Ali-Samuel knew it wouldn’t last.
The Lord of Honor, Vaden Highcross, actually had honor, which did not bode well for the King.
Vaden screamed, “No victory, no victory. Barricade, he made use of a barricade.” The Lord of Honor looked over to the Court of Honor and Ali-Samuel could tell that they agreed with the man in charge of running a fair tourney. Ali-Samuel knew that the strike wouldn’t count because Sir Renmark hadn’t hit Jasper with the tip of his lance. The knight had extended the shaft across the Duke’s body, which was against the rules.
The two men lined up for another pass and Jasper certainly didn’t lack for showmanship. He grabbed the black lance with a swirling gold pattern all the way up the shaft to the tip and held it high in the air.
The horses took off and charged at each other until Renmark’s new red lance flashed alongside a black and gold one that struck the fess point of the Fox Chapel knight’s shield and exploded upon impact.
A loud thud followed as the unhorsed man landed on his backside and rolled over several times. The stunned crowd watched in silence. The small party from Mattingly erupted in elation and ran out to congratulate their champion. The loser chased after his squire and the groom who had attended to his horse before the final series, blaming them for the loss.
The winner jumped down from his horse and one of his men pulled off the Duke’s helm. Tersen reluctantly gave Jasper the victory purse and he triumphantly held it in the air. Ali-Samuel could hear King Ali-Stanley cursing and destroying various items in his box.
He kicked over two chairs and picked up a dark blue vase of flowers and heaved it into the crowd below. He stormed out of the back of the box and exited from Ali-Samuel’s field of vision.
Ali-Samuel decided to go back to the castle and found the King in the meeting room with Tersen, Ryen and his Falconer.
The King yelled, “How could this happen? Our father would never forgive us for letting this occur.”
Do you think he approved of you killing him?
Ali-Stanley continued, “And at his funeral service, none the less. That common peasant feasts in our Fox’s Den as Grand Champion of a Fox Chapel Tournament. It’s not right. I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him myself.”
“I think we need to control our emotions, your highness,” Lord Lolat warned.
The King screeched, “Relax?
Is that what you propose? We need a plan to kill this man before he takes my head and throne. None of you have anything to worry about because you aren’t worth killing. I have to worry because everyone wants my crown.” He put his hand on his golden band as if someone was trying to take it from him. “We need to kill that usurper now. We need to burn his body. I will set the Royal Road on fire and then he will have to travel it to get home. Stupid southerner would probably ride right into that.” The King let out an awkward laugh.
Someone is being stupid around here, but it isn’t the Duke of Mattingly.
The King kept rambling, “Or maybe we’ll offer him one of our boats to take home but we will put a hole in it. They would never know it. I need to think and I need to think alone. I’m leaving.” The King left and his guards chased after him.
“Well strike for shit, those are some horrendous plans,” Ali-Samuel said.
Tersen quickly replied, “The King is unwell now. Give him time to return to stable mind.”
Ryen said, “Yes, but we need a good plan if we’re really going to eliminate Jasper Colbert, although I don’t really see the need. We could try to install a Duke we know we could control better than this boastful man.”
“I’m not sure it is essential either, but the King’s mind is made on this matter and we need to think about him not returning to his former self. If we don’t carry this out, we could all go the way of Ali-Steven. We need to set a plan that is certain to work because failure would cause an all-out war. It will also reflect badly upon us and put our families in danger,” Jarryd Lolat told them.
Ali-Samuel thought for a moment and said, “The simplest way would be to take a large force down to Snake’s Bend and move up into the woods. When the Mattingly men ride down the Royal Road, we can have a small force following them and once they reach the bends, we can jump out and attack.”
Ryen protested, “There’s no honor in an ambush. He only brought one hundred men with him. We shouldn’t need an ambush.”
Ali-Samuel replied, “True, but if you haven’t heard, he was the only man from Mattingly to enter the tourney against the so-called best of Fox Chapel, and he easily defeated them all. That means his men are probably highly skilled as well. You could fight with honor, but many more men will die in this scenario. Your choice, uncle.”
Two days later, Ali-Samuel waited in the woods with three hundred of Fox Chapel’s finest swordsmen. He was one of the closest to the Royal Road and spotted the golden bull banner with a black background. He started to run around and whisper to the men to get ready. He looked up the hill at all the men kneeling in position. He crossed his forearms to make an X and all the men stood and slowly drew their swords. He could hear the trotting horses approaching.
He broke the X sign and yelled, “Attack.”
The men started to rush the road and Ali-Samuel stayed still. He wasn’t about to rush off to death. He waited until almost every man had passed before he entered the fray. He expected to lurk in the back because his side should easily crush the Mattingly crew. Grunts, colliding blades and the wild screams of the men filled the dusty air.
Fox Chapel had already lost more men than Ali-Samuel expected and he dashed back into the woods. He saw a messenger and said, “Go back and get more men. Two hundred at least. Go.”
The young man heeled his horse and took off. The dusty battleground revealed that Mattingly had lost most of its men, but the remaining ones kept fighting. Ali-Samuel began to worry about which way this small battle would go and took a few more steps away from the action. He wasn’t planning on dying to settle a dead king’s grudge.
The Fox Chapel side wasn’t surrounding anyone or killing them from behind. They were fighting in a chivalrous manner that Ali-Samuel had never seen in the Border Battles. The unit of reinforcements for Fox Chapel arrived and Ali-Samuel rushed out of the forest and back onto the road.
He couldn’t believe Jasper Colbert’s skills with a sword. The man was amazing as he disposed of knight after knight. As he got closer, he could hear the Duke of Mattingly commentating as he fought.
He traded strikes with Sir Harold as he talked. “Ah, see now you know you’re in trouble, big man. You can only block my strikes, but I can work off of yours, like this.”
Jasper parried a right overhand stroke from Sir Harold and countered with a quick lunge.
Jasper said, “You didn’t think anyone could see that little gap in your protection and that’s because you’ve been fighting little boys, not real men.”
He pulled the bloody blade and screamed, “Next.”
Ali-Samuel moved in from behind and started to study the Duke’s armor.
There were barely any men from Mattingly still alive so Ali-Samuel became a spectator. Two men attacked Jasper from the front, but the tall man used amazing footwork and technique as he danced around the opponents.
As the fight went on, Jasper started talking again. “You see, you two aren’t a good pair because you don’t complement each other’s fighting style. You both fight out of control and it will eventually catch up to you against a good opponent. Like me.”
Jasper spun in a circle to attack both men in a completely unorthodox manner and caught both of them off guard. He ended up in the middle of the two men and Ali-Samuel thought this would end everything until Jasper ducked at the last moment and the two knights cut right into each other’s armor. One knight fell dead and the other staggered around until Jasper moved in and delivered a cross-stroke that took Sir Patten’s helm off with his head still inside.
Everyone had underestimated this incredible man. Sir Patten hadn’t even secured his gambeson and paid the ultimate price for his lax attitude. Ali-Samuel moved to the left to inspect Jasper’s armor from a different angle. He smirked and pulled a long knife from his belt.
Jasper was sparring with Sir Robert and before the usurper could start talking, Ali-Samuel Wamhoff sneaked up and buried the knife into a tiny compromised spot in the Duke’s body protection. The blade entered the side of Jasper’s chest and found its mark. Ali-Samuel unnecessarily twisted the knife around several times before removing it.
He said, “Maybe that will shut you up.”
All the remaining men stared at him with their eyebrows raised.
Sir Hyde screamed, “That’s a dirty death, stabbing a man from behind. I would have killed him fairly, once I got my chance.”
Ali-Samuel retorted, “Really? You were going to kill the man who killed about one hundred of your chivalrous cohorts, and by the way, most of them are far better skilled than you. The battle was slipping away. The King ordered me to make sure the usurper died. He’s dead.”
He pointed at the body. “You see, he’s dead. You can bellyache all you want about how the death was delivered, but I’m going back to the castle to tell my King the only words he wants to hear. He’s dead. I carried out my duty. You were going to fail and let the Duke run back to Mattingly if I hadn’t stepped in to avoid that disaster. I guess I better take back some proof.”
He used the long knife to remove Jasper’s head before going back to the castle. He walked through the hallways proudly swinging the head by its golden hair as blood streaked from the open neck and onto the warm stone floor. He walked into the Fox’s Den, where a small celebration had started. Injured men were being attended to at the far end of the room and Ali-Samuel walked around showing off his battle prize.
He retold the story with a few embellishments to make himself look better. More family and concerned nobles kept flooding into the big hall, many eager to see the head of Jasper Colbert. He noticed a wide array of reactions from smiles to some ladies nearly throwing up.
His Uncle Ryen approached and said, “I heard it got quite interesting out there. I’m glad to see you made it back.”
“You should have been there. Another battle where many men died and another battle that couldn’t take my life. I had to put a stop to the Duke after he caused one hell of a mess on the Royal Road,” Ali-Samuel
explained.
“Perhaps it’s best that I stayed behind or we might not be talking right now,” Ryen said.
Ali-Samuel shrugged his shoulders. “The indomitable bastard took out almost all the King’s Guard and he told them how he was going to do it while he was fighting. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it. I thought I had seen the best from around the world, but I was wrong. We only had twenty or so men left and I knew we couldn’t risk letting him get away. So I did what I had to do. By any means necessary, the General always said.”
“That’s a good philosophy to stay alive, I suppose.”
“Look at him,” Ali-Samuel said and held up the head. “He fought with great honor, perhaps drenched in showmanship, but honor nonetheless. He probably killed over a hundred men in fair fights and nothing will make me believe he wouldn’t have killed over one hundred more. He fought fairly and with honor and you can see what it got him.”
“I do. How many men did we lose?” Ryen asked.
“I’d say, at least four hundred. Maybe we should have brought more. Jasper Colbert’s best competition would have come from his own men. He was powerful, fast and nimble, all in one breath and his men weren’t very far behind him in skill. His hundred men were all dead for a goodly length of time as the Duke fought on without them. I wonder if he believed he was going to get away. I saw him look at the twenty remaining men and I couldn’t tell if he smiled, but I bet he thought he was going home alive.”
“And that’s when you came in and ended everything?” Ryen asked.
“That’s right.” Ali-Samuel noticed the King rushing through the crowd and heading his way.
Ali-Stanley said, “We need to speak in private.”
Ali-Samuel held up the head and said, “I got him for you, uncle.”
The King’s face became albino white, his eyes rolled back into his head and he crashed to the ground as Ryen tried to catch him but ending up falling down too. Everyone surrounded the King as Count Silzeus burrowed his way through the crowd and to the fallen man. The King was already starting to come to and he was still angry.
