Samual

by Greg Curtis

  “My word.” Sam nodded, while somewhere behind him Heri spluttered with fear as he saw himself being skewered by his rival shortly. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  On cue, the newcomer removed his dagger from Ryshal's throat and stepped back into his soldier's waiting clutches, pretending honour. It was all Sam had ever wanted as he fully opened the doorway in his wall and Ryshal stepped through. For once, no one tried to shoot him, and he closed the door a heartbeat after she was inside. She was safe and he would never let her go again.

  “I knew you would come for me. The Goddess promised me.” Ryshal smiled at him. But she looked frighteningly weak as she crossed the last few feet between them.

  “I have prepared for this day with every hour that has passed. I'm sorry it took me so long.” Sam reached down for her and she raised her arms to him. Finally, they touched. Fingers intertwined. For the longest time he did nothing but hold her in his arms after he lifted her so terribly slight frame into his saddle and kissed her. It had been so long, and he wasn't at all surprised to find tears in his eyes. For an age he did nothing but hold her tight, overwhelmed with emotion. Love, pain, relief, anger, hatred and joy. All of them were coursing through him at once. It was all he could do to keep the flame shield alight and not simply burst into tears. Yet his training came back to him, held him secure even in the midst of such overpowering emotion and kept them both safe for as long as they needed.

  Eventually he heard coughing and returned to the world. He turned to see Heri standing there, still pinned between the flaming sword and the fire wall behind him. Without a second thought Sam opened a window in the wall behind him, and watched Heri scuttle back into his own guards' waiting clutches. A moment later, the wall was intact again, and Sam began guiding Tyla out of the chamber, while all around guards scattered as the fire shield approached.

  “You can't leave me here like this! Kill him!”

  Incredibly Sam heard his brother barking orders at him as if he was one of his servants. His half-brother actually thought Sam would help him! Not for the first time he wondered at his sanity. Sam did turn back though, briefly, if only to make sure he had actually said it.

  Heri must have seen the look in his eyes, as he suddenly turned white again. At least he had the sense to finally be quiet.

  “For the creator's sake, somebody get the toad a sword and some armour and then let these two finally do their own dirty work instead of using others for their twisted ends.” At least a dozen heads nodded on cue, and he watched them jump on a young guard and then start stripping him down. At least someone was willing to listen to him. But then he realised, they knew he was still the power in the room, and they didn't want to risk offending him. Ever. In that at least they had more sense than their masters.

  “Oh, and before I forget –” he turned back to the Fallbright Lord who had finally removed his helm as he prepared for a duel. It was Harmion Fallbright as he'd expected, the youngest of the three sons. The one they called the weasel. But not to his face. He had a reputation for vengeance, cruelty and cunning, not to mention attacking from behind.

  “A little thank you from me. You dared to place a dagger against my wife's throat and use her as a bargaining chip against me. You caused her parents the most terrible pain by telling them she was dead.” Even as Harmion opened his mouth to object or argue, he saw the anger in Sam's eyes, and then cried out as Sam sent a sliver of fire to him and cut off the fingers of his leading hand.

  Like Heri before him he too fell to the ground, screaming like a little girl. It was strange how similar the two were Sam thought. It was stranger still how much he enjoyed the sound of his screaming as well. No doubt the priests would be busy counselling him after this should he ever admit what had happened.

  “Good! Now you're evenly matched. Weasel against toad. Have a good fight, and whoever wins, don't ever darken my door again. In these last few years I have achieved true mastery of fire. Elven mastery. And as such I am far beyond your power. Far beyond anything you can imagine.”

  “What I've done this evening – the damage I've caused your keep – is minor. Scarcely a few heartbeats work for me. But it will take a few months hard work and tens of thousands of gold coins for you to make it look like new. Remember that. Because you really, really don't want to see me return.”

  If either of the two would be kings was listening, they gave no great show of it, each wrapped up in their own little world of pain and fear as they were. But their soldiers listened intently, hanging on every word.

  But it wasn't enough. Sam needed these two to learn. He needed them to know fear. Enough to last them a lifetime.

  “Kneel before me now; both of you.” Heri and Fallbright stared at him as he commanded them, and he knew neither of them understood. But in the end he knew they would both understand one thing. Fear.

  “You can kneel before me now of your own free will, or you can kneel because I have cut your legs off at the knees. Your choice.”

  It didn't take any more than that for them to understand how bad things were, and they both quickly found their knees. Neither of them had any true courage. And their men would remember that.

  “Good. Now hear my words worms. Know this until the day you die. I do not forgive you your crimes. Neither of you. No more will I forget them. All that I have done this day is to postpone your punishment. But only while you stay cooped up in your little keeps like frightened mice. Should you ever come into my lands however; should you ever come close to me or mine, or send any more assassins after me, you will not have a keep at all. Or a life. Or a family. Or a kingdom. Nothing will be left of you to bury. And you will die screaming. Wishing that you had never been born.”

  “Do you understand me?” He raised his voice a little and let them tremble with fear as they guessed what would happen if they didn't.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Without another look at either of them, Sam guided Tyla out of the room, down the corridor, and then down the stairs to the throne room.

  It was time to leave for a new life, somewhere far away from this evil place. Somewhere with people he could trust. Even if they didn't like him.

  Leaving should have been a triumph for him. A time of supreme joy. Instead it quickly became another time of worry. In his arms Ryshal had collapsed, her brief spurt of strength having faded, and he realised with alarm that she was weaker than he'd guessed. In fact she was gravely ill. It would be a long time before he could take her health for granted. Even now she was moving in and out of consciousness as he carried her. It was just another sign of how poorly she'd been treated.

  Obviously she had been starved, mistreated and abused. She had been too weak for too long, and there had been a lot of shocks this day for her to cope with. His first priority when they got out of this pit of depravity would be to nurse her back to health. His next might be to inflict some more suffering on his brother for his ill treatment of her regardless of his word. If he survived. Heri was not a swordsman, and Sam would have wagered good coin Harmion was an expert. Then again, neither of them had a right hand.

  Sam didn't yet hear the sounds of swordplay behind him, but then he didn't expect to. Heri was still dressing and yelling orders at his guards, and Harmion was still screaming like a baby. He would likely be long gone before either of the two had worked up the courage to fight. Assuming they actually did. Sam was certain however, that each would try to persuade their own troops to fight for them. Sam only hoped the soldiers had the back bone to resist. Meanwhile he just wanted to leave – something that was proving more difficult than he'd expected.

  It had been a long time since he had been in the castle and somewhere in his travels he must have got turned around. He knew that when he took an extra flight of stairs down and found himself on the ground floor, heading towards the throne room from one of the side passages.

  And when he emerged from the passage it was to meet the rest of the palace guards who were standing in front of the
throne itself. There must have been three dozen of them. Where had they been during the fight he wondered? Not that there had been much that they could have done. Sam paid them little attention, as they all scurried out of the way of the fire shield. But he did see something that caught his interest; the throne. It made him angry.

  All the suffering, all the pain Heri had put him and Ryshal through, and just so he could sit on a chair Sam had never wanted. It seemed so insignificant. In the end it was just a chair. With an impulsive sweep of his hand he sent a spray of fire arrows directly into it.

  The effect was immediate as the inlaid gold and velvet throne caught fire and exploded, followed by the ornate velvet curtains behind it and the tables for the receiving of tribute and taxes. Again it was but the most minor of blasts, and yet the ferocity of the outcome was far greater than he could have hoped for as the pair of bronzed cannon on which it sat began to melt. It was yet another sign of just how strong he had become this past week.

  Meanwhile the stone underneath the throne room began to crumble and melt just before the cannon exploded. Apparently they weren't just real cannon they were loaded and Sam was grateful he hadn't been standing in front of them. The palace guards ran for cover as red-hot fragments of the stone dais and bits of metal shot out in all directions. Unlike the arrows some of them made it through Sam's flame shield but luckily none hit them. He did however, catch the sceptre which conveniently came flying his way in one of the subsequent explosions. It was twenty two pounds of solid gold and was encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones. And while it was somewhat twisted and a little melted Sam figured it would buy an awful lot of food, horses and wagons for the elves of Shavarra. And no matter which of the two survived their duel, they didn't deserve such wealth. Sam shoved it roughly into a saddle bag, determined that they would never see it again.

  In short order, the throne, the dais, and everything else had turned into a ball of fire, and was slowly descending through the castle as the stone floor underneath it melted. In time Sam knew, there would only be a great black abyss where once Heri's butt had sat so proudly. It would be a long time before a new throne was built for whoever would sit on it. Perhaps that would serve as a reminder to whoever the new king was that he had no interest in power. They didn't need to fear his taking their throne – just their lives.

  Sam turned his back on the spectacle and made to leave, but then stopped when he saw the corridor to one side leading to the royal library, and his sense of duty returned to him. Only a single very long week ago, he had discovered much that needed explaining. A new enemy, or perhaps a very old one, that threatened his future, his wife's future, and Shavarra. He had made a promise to himself to protect his mother's and his wife's families. And in any case he was a knight of Hanor and that was his duty. To meet that duty he needed to learn more about his enemy. This was his chance.

  With a flick of the reigns Tyla made her way down the corridor, somehow ignoring the tapestry covered walls which had caught fire, and then turned into the reading room, which backed on to the library. It was here as a child he'd spent countless hours learning not only of magic and science, but of statesmanship and history, of tactics and warfare, and of heroes. It was one of the few parts of the keep which still held some good memories for him, and he chose not to allow it to burn down as his flame shield touched the books. Rather he let the shield go and instead used his earth magic to reshape the corridor behind him so that they sealed at the end. Similarly the windows he quickly turned into stone walls. He could use his fire for light instead, and the main door out to the courtyard he sealed shut.

  “Love, rest here for a bit. I'll only be a short while.” He doubted Ryshal heard him, she was so deathly tired and pale, but he made sure she was told anyway even as she collapsed forward over Tyla's neck. Though unconscious she was at least alive. Once her safety was assured, he dismounted Tyla, and made his way into the library proper.

  The chamber was surrounded by any number of shelves filled with weighty tomes and scrolls which extended from the floor to the fifteen foot high ceiling on all four sides. In the middle sat a dozen heavy desks at which scholars might sit and read, and of course many more comfortable easy chairs. Lamps in their wrought iron frames were dotted everywhere around the chamber, while more hung from the walls. But perhaps because of the lateness of the hour, none were lit. And as always there was dust everywhere. It seemed to be a perpetual problem in the library for some reason.

  Seeing it again brought him back to his childhood. He had been taught here by various tutors. He had spent many long hours with his head bowed over the tomes and scrolls, being questioned about everything he was reading. He had even been coached in his lessons of statecraft here by his father – before he had wed that highly stationed troll and Heri had arrived in the world. This was a good place filled with good memories. And yet all was not right. Tomes were out on the tables, left open and unread when they should have been shelved. The shelves themselves were messy and nothing looked to be in order. Some of the furniture was in need of repair, while the curtains were threadbare.

  Seeing it, and the lack of care that the library had received, Sam found himself appalled. This was a place that needed to be cared for. Not left to rot. Not for the first time he wondered how it could all have gone so wrong. The people of Fair Fields were good people. So was his father. Hard working, honest and open people. And yet somehow they kept finding bad seeds to become their kings. His father had been the single exception in a hundred years.

  A seasoned soldier and knight of Hanor, Eric Hanor had been made king for acts of heroism, after he'd saved the realm from the invading army of an unscrupulous tyrant. As king he'd tried to bring taxes down and the law within the reach of the normal peasant. For that reason he had been known to the people as King Hanor the True, and to the nobility as a nuisance and a threat to their power. For which crime he'd eventually been poisoned by an assassin's dart.

  Then had come Heri, his father's legal heir, but cast in his trollish mother's mould – manipulative, cunning and a liar. Heri in the end had proved to be exactly like all the other kings who had come before their father. Self serving, intolerant, arrogant and petty. He had quickly raised taxes and put the common law back in the hands of the nobles, to win support from them. If he died this night Sam would not shed a tear for him and nor would his people, though it was always possible that Harmion would make an even worse king. Thus far he had certainly seemed no better.

  But that could not be Sam's concern. He was no longer a citizen of Fair Fields. He had never had any position of authority. And after tonight he would probably be considered an enemy. His concern had to be his wife and her people. And an army of steel rats.

  Sam hurried round the shelves until he came to the section on prophecy and promptly grabbed a full two dozen of the major works. He scarcely took time to even read their titles, and instead just shoved them into a canvas sack as fast as he could, before moving on to the magical sections. The fact that he could even do so was a testament to Heri's self-serving machinations and paranoid stupidity.

  The wizard guild had once had its own separate library, as was expected for wizards across the lands. It was believed that the knowledge contained within their arcane works was too dangerous and too precious to be allowed to go free to those not properly trained – a view his father had shared. But then Sam's mother had been a fire wizard before him. His father saw the value in having a strong wizard's guild to defend and support the people.

  In one of his first acts as king, Heri had taken those tomes from the wizard's library and placed them in the general library. His actions were an attempt at both undermining the value of wizardry and symbolically removing the status of its practitioners. Heri saw the wizard's guild as a powerful body and a threat to his rule. It hadn't helped that his older brother was developing into a powerful spell caster even then. Heri had even destroyed many of the tomes over the years, claiming such knowledge shouldn't be permitte
d. Tomes and scrolls that had cost thousands of gold pieces and the sweat of hundreds of scribes each, had been destroyed in a fit of royal pique.

  Thus the library had been pillaged and many of its most important magical works destroyed. All save those that Sam had managed to secretly gather to himself all those years ago. Of course that same act had ensured that Heri had had only minor magic users to defend him today. A good spell caster was worth his weight in gold, and could easily find employment elsewhere. And why would one work for a king who despised him? Then again, Harmion might well have had something to do with his lack of master mages as well. The weasel would realise that they might have been able to protect the king from him, and in so doing ruin all his plans.

  Sam quickly found all the remaining tombs on wizardry – there were only a couple of dozen or so left – and scooped them into the sack as well, and then stuffed the rest into the saddle bags. They were mainly from the schools of air and water. Sam having none of those magics within him had chosen not to save them when he'd lived in the keep. It was quickly becoming a heavy load, but then there were things he could do about that, and he'd already decided that this was going to be a major robbery as much as a rescue. If he could bankrupt whichever of the pair survived, so much the better.