by Dylan Doose
It would be both their first and last kiss.
Dammar never did find out who saw the two of them together that night.
If words were enough , Dammar would have spoken them. If tears could have quelled the fires, he would have cried rivers.
He had screamed every foul oath he could conjure, swung his fists and taken a beating from his father’s man, Chevic, the smiling fuck. He was left black and blue and streaked with blood.
He had begged his father, had pleaded after Chevic beat him to a pulp. Dammar had beseeched the Patriarch through his bloody teeth and swollen lips. “Let him go, please, just cut off his arm. Cut off my arm and banish us; please, not this. Don’t do this. It was a mistake. Please, Father. I will do anything.”
To which that golden monster replied, “You should be thankful that you are being spared. I’d be risking much in the eyes of the people if it were to ever get out that I forgave one of the heretics—”
“You’re murdering him,” Dammar cut in, but his father kept talking, just as he always did, and Dammar returned to the silent confines of his broken mind.
“My city will not suffer abomination. Repent on this First Night. Stand before the Luminescent on First Morning, when the pyres that burned all night beneath the spikes and the sacrifices made of sinner’s flesh will cleanse us all. You chose to sin in spite of what you know of the Luminescent’s rule here.” The Patriarch’s golden eyes went wide, the lids pulled back so far Dammar could see the whites, shot with tiny red veins. A zealot’s eyes.
“Death to the heretic. You will watch what you so narrowly escaped, my son, and you will be reborn. The Luminescent has told me this.” The Patriarch raised a golden-plated arm and pointed into the city center. “Now look and watch, and may your soul be purged.”
Dammar turned and saw them being marched toward the pyres. There were fourteen in total, fourteen souls condemned that year to die at the festival as punishment for their pagan practices. Practices that included being seen by the wrong person picking mushrooms in the wood, owning a book that was supposed to have been burned, talking while drunk about the potential of other gods…being in love.
Selkirk was second in the line. He was naked and blindfolded along with the rest of the prisoners. He had been beaten horribly. Dammar clung to the stone banister, for were he to let it go he would crumble.
The crowds gathered around the prisoners in the city center. They let loose every insult and word of hatred. They threw rotten vegetables and fruits, even small stones at the condemned. The Golden Sons were in groups of three, preparing the massive wooden spikes by sharpening the points, smiling gold masks hiding their faces. Were they smiling beneath those masks?
Dammar closed his eyes when they brought the first of the condemned forward, a woman. She had once been a noble, cruel, power hungry, and her death was political. Dammar was thirteen and a bastard that would never take a seat in a noble court, but he saw this. He understood it. The public was told her death was for witchcraft, and they believed it.
Two Golden Sons held her arms and kicked her kneecaps so that she was forced to kneel, then they hit her hard in the abdomen with their knees and she crumpled, prostrated. They held her there as three more of the smiling-masked fiends readied the pike. Dammar averted his gaze from the woman slowly slipping down the spike as she wailed.
The crowd continued to cheer… men, women, and children. They loved it, and as a mob their blood thirst became untamable. They cried for more after the pike had been slid into the center of the pyre, the impaled woman twitching on it as a living, dying, moaning banner.
The sticks were set alight.
The first of the pyres burned.
Dammar had never watched the festival. He and Sel always hid.
In his mind, the woman’s screams became a single name. Sel. Sel. Sel.
Dizzy with horror, he turned and tried to stumble inside. Chevic stood in the way, as did Dammar’s father in his massive golden armor, the moon glowing above him and the sun tower with its golden-domed head towering into the sky at his back.
“You will become an Enlightened man today, be reborn in blood and fire, be smeared in the ash of the heretic,” the Patriarch said in a low, calm voice. “Oh, you poor, wretched heathen. You will watch the festival until the sun rises. Chevic is going to make sure of that.”
Dammar turned to Chevic, and of course his mask was smiling, but he knew the man was smiling beneath it as well. He had not been wearing his mask when he beat him the night before, in front of his father.
Chevic grabbed Dammar by the hair and forced him to the railing. He turned him around and said, “Watch. Watch and be cleansed.”
Hatred so deep it had no beginning and no end rose in him then, and Dammar did watch, not to be cleansed, but because he would remember. He watched the faces of the roaring mob and committed their features to memory, to never forget the monsters that human beings can become. These mothers who nurtured their babes, who wept with joy at their children’s first steps. These fathers who fed their families and socialized as men. These sons and daughters who wished only to be loved by the mothers, the fathers. By the Patriarch, by the Luminescent.
One day Dammar would return and kill them all.
* * *
I rode like the wind from Reirut to Kahlibar.
My men fell behind—the cavalry by hours, the infantry near a day, and the followers’ camp turned back and went home. Only Nephite the Sorceress, my advisor and most loyal friend, kept pace. What we hoped to do when we reached the city besieged by those traitorous Brynthian dogs, I know not. But it was my son who sat on Kahlibar’s throne, my only son, my kind and sweetest son. Far too kind to rule. The fool was I to throw him to the fires of the court; the failure was I.
My only child.
When Nephite and I arrived at the outskirts of the city, when we looked down from the high sand dune on which we stood into the valley, I almost fell from my saddle—the sight before me; even a man who had seen all that I had had never seen that.
Thousands of crosses spaced out for miles round the city walls. On all of them, each and every one, hung one of my people, the citizens I had failed by trusting the Brynthians. And I knew my son was dead.
I dismounted, collapsed to my knees, and drew my dagger. I placed it to my heart, and it was only Nephite who stilled me. Only she could make me believe that things could be made right, as I knelt as if at prayer above the screaming valley of all those paying that most unjustified of costs for their master’s error.
—The Master’s Journal
* * *
Chapter Six
Not Bodyguards
Ken was the first to arrive on the scene, for he was the only one mounted and Theron was too spent to sprint out of the wood. Aldous was more impressive physically than he had been, but the lad was not much of a runner, and he still hadn’t figured out how to turn himself into a bird.
Yegarov was dead. He had a series of knife wounds in his chest and arms. His throat was slit ear to ear.
A pox faced, black-cloaked man lay dead with a bolt in his eye a few feet from Yegarov’s corpse. The cart with the gold was gone. Yegarov’s horse was gone. Theron’s horse, however, remained, and at the steed’s feet lay another bandit, this one with long gray hair and a skull caved in from a horseshoe kick.
“Dangerous country,” Ken said to himself. Still haven’t found a safe one.
He dismounted, took a bruised apple from his saddlebag, and presented it to Theron’s horse as a reward. It trotted over the corpse of the man it had just killed, tail swaying, Theron’s iron helmet and mail clinking, and happily took the apple.
“I can’t help but feel this is on us,” Theron said from behind him. Ken turned to see him emerging onto the road from the woods. He was unsure if the hunter was being serious or joking, but Ken snorted a short laugh. Ironic, he thought, but he wasn’t sure so he didn’t say it aloud.
“So we don’t get paid, then?” Aldous asked in a t
one that made Ken think of a child who has been cheated out of his pudding despite behaving at the market.
Theron sighed. “Of course we get paid. He isn’t dead,” Theron said, pointing at Yegarov’s corpse. “Our client, the man responsible for paying us, is not, right in front of your very eyes, lying in the road. His throat is not slit, his blood is not everywhere. And”—Theron paused and raised a tight fist with his index finger flexed to a point—“and, Aldous, the gold that we were to take our handsome shares from isn’t even gone, along with the chest it was in on the cart that carried it!” Theron’s voice rose in volume with every word, then, smiling and nodding, he quietly said, “So, yes, everything is in order and we are getting paid, Aldous. I’m glad you asked.”
Ken waited it out. He never got in the middle. Theron was the leader; Theron was the one who had given up a good, easy life for a bad, hard one. Gave it up so Ken and Aldous, criminals, villains condemned, could have a second chance. Theron saved them, pushed them to the right path, the good path; at least, it had been when they started. Ken and Aldous owed the man a whole lot. Even if he strayed, they would follow.
“It was rhetorical,” Aldous mumbled, tilting his head down and pulling up his red hood. His sword was sheathed, his staff in his hand. He was soaked with his horse’s blood and still shaking.
“Well, I’m hungry now. After all that,” Theron said after sending Aldous a one-eyed glare for his mumbling. He looked up, and Ken did the same.
It was midday. The sky was clear blue, with faint white clouds drifting lazily above. The sun was fiery gold, and the tall trees that towered on either side of the road framed it, their green-covered branches reaching up into the sky and dampening the intensity of the sun’s rays.
“Only midday. A few miles of road, a beautiful white-tiled square in a rich man’s garden, and the body count is at seven. Six dead men and a beast. We have done much today,” Ken said, more to himself than the others. He had a feeling that count was going to grow. The words of the pig beast unsettled him, all that talk about a battle between gods, old and new. It is all the same war, Ken thought. In the east, in Kehldesh, it was the same. A battle between gods. The Luminescent against the old deities of the east, the destruction of the temples of Shah and Kahl, the blood of their priests running down those holy steps.
“Well?” Theron snapped Ken from his daze.
“Sorry, I was looking at the sky,” Ken said.
“I said Aldous will ride with you. After we nourish ourselves, we continue on the road. We follow the tracks of the cart and we will be on top of those thieving sons of whores by nightfall. They will rue the day they stole the gold of Theron Ward.”
Ken frowned. He did not like riding doubles. It was uncomfortable and made him feel less mobile as a rider, especially now that he only had one hand.
“Fine… Ken,” Theron said, in response to Ken’s scowl and silence. “He will ride with me.”
“It wasn’t a prophecy, what the beast said. It was the ravings of a dying monster,” Aldous said.
Ken, who had never believed in prophecies until Aldous showed him visions were real, turned and stared at him.
“Well, it can’t be real, because when we faced the Emerald Witch, I saw her. If we were to face such an adversary again, I would see it,” Aldous said. “Wouldn’t I?”
Theron looked at Ken. Ken looked at Theron. They both shook their heads.
The hunter pulled himself onto his horse, reached into one of his saddle bags, produced some strands of dried venison, and tossed Ken and Aldous a piece each.
“Yeah,” Ken said, “nourishment.” He looked at the dried meat distastefully. He had been eating dried meat his whole bloody life, it seemed. The past months were venison. In the east and the way there it had been rabbit and beef at first, but when the war got hard and stayed hard, it seemed they were always eating horses and dogs. Was that how the Dog Eater had gotten his name?
Dried venison was edible, he supposed, but he missed Wardbrook. The few months he had lived at Wardbrook, Theron’s estate, he had feasted on the finest meals. Ken missed them, but as he watched Theron bite into his piece of salty leather, the aristocrat by birth showed no sign of resentment. He looked glad for the food. That, too, was why he was the leader. Because he was committed.
Or he had been when they’d started out. Committed to ridding the world of monsters. Now… Ken didn’t know what they were committed to. With any luck, the monster they had just killed was the first step to setting them back on the right path. Problem was, Ken had never been one to benefit much from luck.
They rode at a steady pace as the sun travelled across the sky. The skyline above the trees blazed red and the tracks of the thieves remained clear and constant on the main road.
The wide road wound ahead around a tall rockface to its left, and to the other side was a far fall into a rocky gulch. Although Ken could not see it, he could hear a river raging below.
“This is the ideal landscape for an ambush,” Ken said, and turned to face Theron. The hunter was already taking off his sword and getting Aldous to help him pull his chain mail on.
“Yes, they could be waiting around the bend.” Theron smiled. “They could be well aware we are pursuing them, and lying in wait. Look there,” he said, pointing to a small dirt path that branched off the main road. It went up a perilous steep slope of dirt, roots and small trees that fought to grow on the side of the small mountain.
“I’ll scale it, Theron,” Ken said. “Aldous, take my horse.”
“You only have one javelin. If there is an ambush lying in wait, you will kill the men on the cliff, if there are indeed any there, waiting up high with bows. There will be others down low, waiting around the bend. With your javelin used, you will have nothing left to kill them. You will be better down here,” Theron said. “Aldous, you’re going up. You’ll cover us with your magic if conflict arises.”
Aldous looked at the dirt path. He looked all the way up. Then he gulped and nodded.
Ken looked at his iron fist and then at the hellishly steep hill. At the top of it was an outward ledge of rock that would require the climber to scale the ledge only by hanging and swinging their legs up and over. It would be one hell of a task. “All right, lad, but if you take point and Theron and I get into trouble down here, be bloody careful where you aim those fireballs.”
“I haven’t so much as singed a hair on either of you yet, have I?” Aldous asked, and Ken was pleased that the boy was making a jest and not a complaint about his task. He was growing.
“Let’s keep it that way,” Ken said, then pulled himself back onto his horse.
“It’s settled, then,” Theron said. “And remember, Aldous, the pain you are going to feel in your chest as you make your way up that hellish escarpment is normal. Accept it and keep going.” The hunter offered the lad an encouraging smile and a nod to send him on his way.
They watched the back of Aldous’s red cloak as he progressed the first quarter of the way up the ridge. Ken could see the wizard’s legs were shaking like a hound’s in a storm, but the lad went on with intensity. He only fumbled twice and made good time, far faster than Ken himself would have been.
Regret. That was what Aldous felt as he stared the rest of the way up that gruesome slope. The trees glowered at him, and the moist mud floor promised him that he would slip upon it and slide down, smashing against the jagged stones that sprouted from the hill like deformed teeth, or the angry trees and their spear-like branches.
Perhaps he should have let Ken take point. But it was too late now. He was too far along to want to so much as look back down, never mind go that way, so he reached for another root to pull himself up. His staff was in its leather strap over his back, and he unsheathed his dagger and used it at particularly slippery parts where the mud was still wet from the rain two nights past, by stabbing it into the ground and pulling himself forward. It was something he had watched Theron do frequently when the hunter was faced with a steep inclin
e. And as Aldous was doing now, he would use all four limbs to ascend. Theron made it look easy. It was anything but.
His legs burned, but they had been out here for months, and it seemed the whole country was one steep ravine into the next, so he was ready for that burn. And the sensation of angry mules kicking his chest that was his heartbeat, he was prepared for too. And besides, this was just a hill with a cliff at the top, not a beast, or an enemy mercenary or a Seeker. It was just a rock. I can do this, I can do this, Aldous repeated to himself as the hill inched closer and closer to being vertical where it reached the overhanging rockface.
When he reached the challenge, he finally looked down the mountainside, a deadly, smashing tumble. A long way down was the road, which loomed over a treacherously long fall into rocky crags and the raging river that ripped through them below. From the road the rockface that he now needed to traverse did not look as big as it truly was up close. From below it looked…possible to climb.
Aldous looked right. He could sidle his way only a short distance before he would need to turn with the bend of the mountain and, for all he knew, into a more difficult position. He looked left; as far as he could see, the spine of solid rock protruded. There was no other option.
Just go over the rock here, or go back down and catch up with Theron and Ken and admit you failed. And hope there are no archers waiting in ambush up there.
I don’t want to catch up to find their corpses riddled with arrows.
Aldous sheathed his dagger and put a hand to cold, damp stone. I made it through my own execution, two burning cities, and I have escaped the claws and teeth of scores of beasts. I have slain monster and man alike with my great flame. I reached out and burned their souls from this world.
I can climb this rock.
His fingers curled to grip an inch of the moist stone. His nails were not trimmed. Theron always told him to keep them trimmed. He never listened. Ken blamed it on Aldous’s age, but Kendrick was hardly even a decade Aldous’s elder, and Theron only half that, yet he was constantly treated like a child.
