The Wayfarer King

by K. C. May

  The following morning, he pulled Cirang aside while Red adjusted his mount’s tack. “Will the friction between you and Red prevent you from performing your duties?”

  She cocked her head as though curious why he would ask. “No, my liege.”

  “Then he didn’t force you last night?” Brodas asked.

  One side of her mouth lifted. “Hardly.”

  Once they were on the road again, Cirang and Red began to bicker over idiotic nonsense such as whose horse was kicking dust into whose face. “That’s enough,” Brodas said. “For the rest of this journey, you will both address me and only me. I won’t spend the next two days listening to you squabble.”

  “Cirang thinks you don’t have any claim to the throne,” Red said.

  “That’s not true, my liege,” she called from behind. “I was just asking is all. I never doubted it.”

  Brodas waved dismissively. “It’s a fair question, one I expect to have to answer many times before the matter is resolved.” Cirang clicked her tongue and moved her horse to ride beside him. “As we know,” he began, “King Arek died in the year fourteen thirty-one without an heir. Arek was King Dantrak’s only surviving child, but few are aware that Dantrak’s brother had fathered a son and daughter. King Arek’s successor should have been his cousin Hent Engtury, but because of the conspiracy designed by Ronor Kinshield and Portulus Celónd, then Lordover Tern, Hent’s right of succession was denied.” Brodas didn’t see the point of mentioning Hent’s mental defect that supposedly prohibited him from ruling or even marrying, and that caused him to rape his sister, begetting his only child, a daughter. The way Brodas saw it, Hent’s daughter had the purest of blood. She had not one, but two parents descended from King Ivam. “My mother is descended from Arek’s grandfather, King Ivam, so rights to the crown fall to me.” Of course, Brodas’s mother wasn’t yet dead, but since she had no interest in claiming the throne for herself, she would abdicate to him anyway. Naturally, he had to secure what was his.

  “I see,” she said with a thoughtful expression. “Don’t you have cousins or uncles who could make the same claim?”

  “Quite possibly,” he admitted, “but I’m willing to challenge them for it. All my life, my mother has told me I’m next in line for the throne. I promised her I would claim what’s mine.”

  “The people believe the rune solver is the rightful king,” she said. “How can you lead if no one will follow?”

  “Despite what Ronor Kinshield claimed King Arek had said, the throne belongs to a descendant of the royal family, not some ignorant peasant who made a few lucky guesses. In time, I’ll make the people realize that Kinshield and Celónd had no right to invent that ludicrous law proclaiming the rune solver the true king in the first place. A couple of years ago, I hired a scholar to research my lineage. With those documents, I can prove proper succession. I merely need to get Gavin Kinshield out of the way first.”

  “But if you’re the rightful heir and have proof of it,” Cirang said, “why not show your documents to the Council of Lordovers and have them declare you our monarch?”

  Brodas didn’t expect a woman to understand these matters. Speaking slowly, as if to an idiot, he said, “Because as long as Gavin has the gems from the Rune Tablet, he gives legitimacy to the law that would declare him the king. If he couldn’t claim the throne, there would be no question who should sit upon it.”

  Two days later they arrived at their destination. Though Sithral Tyr had called his shack a farmhouse, nothing had been cultivated on its surrounding acres for perhaps centuries. Weeds and grass had long ago taken over the field, and the dilapidated barn had only a partial roof, the rest caved in over years of neglect.

  The one-room house was furnished with only a table, a single rickety stool, and a musty, bug-ridden pallet that Brodas had no intention of using. Without a hole in the ceiling, the shack couldn’t even accommodate a fire in winter. Even in the brightest hours of daylight with the door open wide, it was too dark to read without a lamp.

  The original house had burned to the ground, but when Tyr discovered the hidden cellar beneath its ruins, and the treasures within, he built the shack over the cellar’s hatch and claimed the land by squatter’s rights. Among the abandoned items within the cellar, he’d discovered a journal that had once belonged to the infamous wizard Crigoth Sevae. Though the pages were frail and the ink faded, the information within was still quite legible. Brodas had managed to negotiate cheaply for it before Tyr fully understood its value. Over the course of several months, Brodas painstakingly copied the original text into one of his own journals to create a working copy for himself that he could read repeatedly without risking damage to the fragile tome.

  They unloaded the horses and settled in. Cirang went around killing spiders and clearing away their webs while Red gathered wood for a cook fire. Brodas found an old candle, dug the burnt wick out of the wax and lighted it. With an assortment of quill pens, bottle of ink and his journals on the table, he sat and leafed through the journal he’d marked with the numeral one. He crossed out the first name on his list, then copied the location of Gavin’s brother’s house to a sheet of paper he ripped from the back of his current journal.

  “Red and Cirang, I have a task for each of you.”

  Chapter 7

  Gavin ran up the street, back toward the city square, shouting at the fleeing citizens to make way, and they parted for him. He pulled on his leather glove as he ran. Daia shouted at him to wait, but he couldn’t. Not when his people were in danger.

  “Please help,” an elderly man said as he hobbled toward Gavin. He stopped long enough to point in the direction from which he had come. “Beyonders. A dozen of them.”

  Aldras Gar, the sword whispered.

  He reached behind his head and pulled the sword from its scabbard. In the hilt, the gems glowed with an inner light, brightening with every step he took. A foul stench grew stronger as he neared. The sounds of screaming became louder, as did the sounds of men shouting commands and curses.

  He rounded the corner onto Barrel Street and came upon a horrific scene. Three of the lordover’s men-at-arms lay bloody and still on the ground. Gavin relaxed his vision but saw no hazes around their bodies. They were dead.

  Three more soldiers were surrounded by six monsters, each about the size of a pony and stinking like a privy. Five of the beyonders were covered in tiny scales like a snake that shimmered a rainbow of color in the sunshine. Under any other circumstances, they might have been comely, but their fingerlike appendages dripped the blood of their victims, and their naked bodies were splattered with bits of human flesh.

  The sixth was the tallest, similar in structure but gray and black, with eyes so terrible that even Gavin had to look away. That one came toward him, uttering a choking sound that he took for a laugh. He stepped into a battle stance and readied himself for the attack. Its five friends turned their attention to Gavin, giving the men-at-arms an opportunity to focus their attack on one. It fell with a horrific scream.

  The gray one whipped a pair of long fingers, like a pair of frogs’ tongues, toward Gavin. Their edges frayed, revealing tiny suckers on the ends. He swung Aldras Gar and severed one. The other snapped back, then lashed out again so quickly, Gavin caught it on his back swing. One finger snaked out toward his face. He leaned back, timing a narrow miss. Another stretched out and wrapped around the blade of Aldras Gar, its sucker ends latching onto the steel. He felt the sword being torn out of his grasp. No. The gray beast shrieked and released the sword. Smoke trailed upward from its seared appendage.

  An arrow lodged itself into the gray one’s shoulder and another into its chest. It roared.

  From his right, Daia stepped in with her sword raised and speared the thing. One of the remaining four luminescent beasts halted its attack on the men-at-arms and launched itself at Daia.

  Gavin had little time to react. It was coming from her left. She wouldn’t have seen it. He stepped in and pivoted from the waist,
slamming his right elbow into the thing’s face. It leapt toward him. He stepped through, turning, bringing his sword up in his left hand to spear it in the gut. Daia’s sword joined his in the thing’s body. It slumped to the ground with a gurgle.

  Arrows buried themselves into the gray one’s flesh. It took shaky but determined steps toward the archer, who kept backing away while firing one arrow after another.

  The men-at-arms killed the fourth luminescent one, and the last, already injured, went down easily by Gavin’s sword.

  He turned to slay the one the archer was working on and saw him toe the corpse warily. Daia appeared free of injury. One of the men-at-arms clutched his bloody arm. He was being tended by his fellow, but Gavin went to see if it needed his attention. With only a touch, he sealed the cuts and started the healing process.

  “Thanks,” one of the soldiers said. “It was good of you to help, but, uh, the Lordover Tern doesn’t pay valour-gild.”

  “I know,” Gavin said. “I didn’t expect any.”

  Behind him, Daia muttered something about cheap and selfish.

  “Pardon?” a soldier asked her.

  “Nothing.” She took Gavin by the arm and led him a few steps away, out of earshot of the soldiers. “Listen, Gavin, you can’t do this kind of thing anymore. You’re the king.”

  “What kind o’thing are you talking about?”

  “Running into battle like that. I’m here to keep you safe, not the other way around.”

  While he understood her concern, it was unfounded. He’d been a warrant knight for years, protecting people from dangers like this. Between his skill, experience, the healing magic he got from the gems in the Rune Tablet, and Aldras Gar, there’d been no danger to himself. “You’re worrying over nothing.”

  “It’s my job, remember? You made me your champion, so trust me to do your fighting for you. You need to exercise more caution.”

  “You mean cowardice,” Gavin snapped.

  “No! Think of it as protecting the country. We need our king healthy and alive.”

  “I can’t sit around and let people die.” He pointed at the remains of the three who’d been slain. “I got to fix this, and it’s only getting worse.”

  She cocked her head. “Worse?”

  Gavin grabbed the leg of a beyonder carcass to drag it from the street. “Ha’n’t you noticed the beyonders coming through more often lately? Two years ago, seeing one in a city like Tern was unheard of. Now they pop out in numbers right here in the middle o’the town square, in the full light o’day.”

  “The attacks have gotten more frequent and more violent in the last few days,” a guard said. “As if they’re on a mission.”

  Gavin stiffened. Ever since he’d solved the last king’s rune?

  Daia grasped the beyonder he was holding. “I’ll help clean up. Why don’t you go back to the inn and have our horses saddled for the ride?”

  Chapter 8

  Daia and the men-at-arms dragged the beyonder corpses to the side of the road and heaped them into a pile between two shops until the city custodian could come to haul them away. They were heavy and difficult to move, trailing a foul-smelling substance she took care to avoid stepping in. Passersby held their noses and watched in disgust, murmuring to each other and pointing more at Daia than at the beyonders. She wondered whether they noticed her resemblance to the lordover or his other daughters but tried to ignore them. She hoped that no one would call her by her birth name and attract unwanted attention.

  When the last beyonder was out of the way and the deceased soldiers’ bodies loaded into the sexton’s wagon and bound for the graveyard, Daia nodded to the men-at-arms and headed back toward the inn.

  “Wait a moment, Lady Sister.” The man who’d spoken was a good two inches shorter than Daia, with a belly that strained the fasteners on his red and black uniform. He nudged the one beside him with his elbow.

  “You’ll need to throw your weapons to the ground,” said the tallest of the three.

  “What?” Surely she hadn’t heard correctly.

  A third soldier drew his sword. “He said throw your weapons to the ground.”

  Her mouth dropped open in shock. “What crime could I possibly have committed in the last five minutes while you were standing right here?”

  “By carrying a blade longer than ten inches within the city, you’re in violation of the Prudent Law of Arms. Will you come along peaceably?”

  “I helped saved your lives,” she said. “As a Viragon Sister, carrying a sword is part of my job.” Her statement was only half true. The whole truth would have required a lengthy explanation that Gavin wouldn’t have approved of.

  “The law applies to everyone,” the short armsman said, “Viragon Sister or not.”

  “You’re both carrying blades longer than ten inches,” Daia said. “You didn’t stop my companion. His blade was far longer than mine.”

  The third man glanced at his fellow soldiers and grinned. “I beg your pardon. The law applies to all women.”

  “That’s absurd!”

  “You can argue your case to the lordover.”

  “Listen,” she said, “you’re making a mistake. Trust me on this. The lordover won’t be pleased to see me in his gaol.” Not to mention the king.

  “Are you resisting arrest?” the tall one asked, moving a hand to his sword.

  Anger heated her face, but she tossed her sword and dagger to the ground. “Send word to the Elegance Inn that I’ve been arrested.”

  “We take orders from the lordover, not from the Viragon Sisterhood.” The middle one bent to retrieve her discarded weapons.

  The short soldier held out a leather strap. “Your hands, if you please.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Daia asked, presenting her wrists, one over the other.

  “Standard procedure,” he answered as he bound them not quite tightly enough to cut off the circulation to her hands.

  The soldiers escorted Daia through the city toward the lordover’s complex, about a half-hour’s walk away. The citizens stared, pointed and whispered at the sight of a Viragon Sister under arrest. Although she was tempted to walk with her head bowed so people wouldn’t see her face and perhaps recognize her, she held her head up proudly. She’d done nothing wrong and wouldn’t behave like a guilty criminal. The matter would be resolved once she talked to her father, but she tried to convince the armsmen to set her free without putting everyone through all this trouble.

  “Save your breath,” one of them told her. “We’re following our orders. Your appeal will be heard by the chancellor. The lordover will announce his verdict and decide your punishment.”

  Chapter 9

  Two of the soldiers walked Daia through a gloomy corridor past a row of leering, shouting prisoners, reaching for her through the openings of their cell doors. “Take me to the lordover,” she said.

  The short armsman said, “The lordover doesn’t speak with criminals. You’ll plead your case to the chancellor.”

  “The chancellor is a drunkard and an imbecile,” she said.

  “I’d mind my tongue if I were you,” the tall armsman said.

  “I need to speak with someone sane. Is Jophet still Captain of the Guard?”

  “He is,” the tall one replied. He opened the door of a cell and gestured for her to enter.

  “Send him to see me, if you please.”

  “Your name?”

  She hesitated, deciding which name to give him. “Daia Saberheart.” Jophet might remember the name and make the connection.

  The shorter soldier wrote the name on a list, asking twice for the correct spelling. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Do yourself a favor. Don’t delay.”

  The soldiers shut her door with a bang, and the noise echoed down the corridor. Their footsteps grew fainter, and in the distance another door opened and shut. Then, silence, interrupted only by a cough and a muttered curse from another inmate.

  “Daia,” said a w
oman nearby.

  “Who’s there?” Daia asked. Was a Viragon Sister imprisoned here? She tried to look out the tiny window in her cell door, but saw little beyond the cell door opposite hers.

  “It’s Tennara.”

  “Tennara! Thank Yrys you’re safe.” Then Daia pressed her lips together and shook her head. Damn her father for arresting Gavin’s guards. “Is Hennah here too?”

  “Yeh. She was brought in this morning.”

  “I’m here,” Hennah called from down the corridor.

  “What did they tell you? How long are they going to keep you here?”

  “They haven’t let me plead my case to the lordover’s chancellor yet. I’m told he’s busy.”

  Tennara had championed Daia in the first year of her training at the Sisterhood. When the other women laughed and jeered at the prissy girl at their door, Tennara ran them off. When the guild mistress was inclined to deny Daia the opportunity to train as a Viragon Sister, Tennara offered to oversee her lessons. That was eight years ago, and Daia had risen to a rank far above that attained by any other Viragon Sister thus far: she was the king’s own champion. She owed much to her friend Tennara. “I’ll get you out,” she said. “As soon as I get out of here, myself.”

  Tennara laughed. “You didn’t tell those guards your birth name. They have no reason to summon anyone. They could let us rot in here, and neither Lords Gavin nor Edan know we’re here.”

  “If they know what’s good for them, they won’t,” Daia muttered. Not only would the lordover skin them alive, but their own captain would too.