by Bruce Blake
The men arrayed themselves around the table in their accustomed positions: Sir Alton at Therrador’s right hand, Hu Dondon beside him; Hanh Perdaro at the king’s left with Emon Turesti at his side. Therrador sat and slid his bandaged hand onto his lap, hidden from sight beneath the table. He surveyed the men. It was the first time the full council had met since they confirmed Braymon’s death and Therrador’s right to rule. He wished he could go back and change it all, then his son would be safe.
They looked at their king, waiting for him to tell them why he’d summoned them. It must have surprised them—thus far in his rule, he’d refused their counsel, not even speaking with them before he opened the gates to their enemy, giving up the fortress for the first time in a thousand years. He knew they weren’t pleased by his actions, but the woman had forced his hand. Another action he’d change given the opportunity. If he’d known the Archon would take Graymon away to Kanos—or worse—he’d have defied her earlier. The result for his son would have been the same, but perhaps the fortress would have been saved. On the other hand, doing so may also have kept his son alive.
But for how long?
Somehow, he needed to relate all this to the men sitting before him, watching him with judging eyes disguised as loyalty.
“Gentlemen, everything is not as it seems.”
Nobody responded. Therrador paused, searched their faces one after another. Sir Alton still looked angered and hurt, betrayed by his friend and leader; Turesti and Dondon showed no emotion. Only Hanh Perdaro, the Voice of the People, looked like he might know what the king was talking about. Therrador took a deep breath and collected his thoughts.
Better just to tell them.
“Braymon was no casualty of war. His death was planned.”
The men drew a collective gasp. Sir Alton leaned forward, his ruddy face deepening to a shade of crimson. Dondon’s eyes widened; Turesti’s hand went to his mouth.
“What do you mean, your highness?” Hanh Perdaro asked.
Therrador looked at the man out of the corner of his eye. He’d always liked Perdaro, but suddenly found himself wondering about him. The Voice of the People usually knew all, seemingly before it happened sometimes. Did he already know what Therrador had to tell? Was this reaction for show?
Therrador looked down at his bandaged hand in his lap, at the blood soaked through where his thumb should have been. It didn’t serve to fortify him as he hoped it might; instead, it saddened him because of the mistakes he’d made.
Damn the Archon. Damn Sheyndust.
“It was planned from the start that I should take the throne of Erechania. I’ve been in league with the Archon since soon after Seerna’s death.”
Sienhin stood abruptly sending his chair clattering to the floor; his hand fell to the hilt of his sword. Therrador didn’t move.
“Treachery,” the general bellowed. Even his bushy moustache couldn’t hide the frown on his lips, the hurt in his eyes. “Assassin! You killed the king.”
The other men stared at Therrador, disbelieving or formulating responses. Sienhin was the least political of the bunch, a soldier who rose to the highest ranks on the tail of Braymon’s revolution, so his emotional reaction offered no surprise. The others were no doubt considering in what way what they’d heard would best benefit them.
Therrador thought about how to respond to Sir Alton’s outburst. As the king, he had the right to command him, or he could rise to the inferred challenge. Neither path would solve his problems.
Just the truth, then.
“She has Graymon.”
The room seemed to freeze. No one moved, scarcely even breathed, all eyes on Therrador as he fought to retain composure. He’d never admitted any of this to any save his own reflection, and then even the mirror had looked upon him with judgment in its eyes.
“She has the boy?” Perdaro repeated, his voice quiet. Therrador nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Lord Emon Turesti, the High Chancellor of Erechania asked. “We would have helped.”
“I thought I could set things right myself,” Therrador replied, eyes cast down upon his bandaged hand.
“The Archon is powerful. She--” Perdaro began.
“She’s a devil,” interrupted Hu Dondon, Lord Chamberlain of the Kingdom.
“She has your son,” Sir Alton said through clenched teeth, voice quieter, but his tone still betrayed his anger. “But that doesn’t explain why you killed the king.”
Therrador shook his head and met the general’s eyes. “I made a mistake, and I know I’ll pay for it, but there are bigger concerns for the kingdom now.”
“A treacherous king is a concern,” Dondon said.
“Truly,” Emon Turesti agreed as he fidgeted with his long fingers. “But more importantly, the Kanosee occupy our fortress. What are we to do about that?”
A hush fell over the room as the five men pondered the kingdom’s predicament. Sir Alton’s fingers loosened from the hilt of his sword and he glanced over his shoulder at the chair lying on the floor behind him but didn’t move to retrieve it. Turesti gazed at his entwining fingers; Dondon and Perdaro stared at the king.
“How is Graymon?” Hanh Perdaro asked finally.
“I tried to rescue him,” Therrador explained, his voice quiet. “But I was caught. As punishment, she’s sending him back to Kanos.” A pause, then he brought his bandage-wrapped hand from his lap and set it gingerly on the table. “And she took my thumb.”
“Gods,” Sir Alton spat. “She is a devil.”
“No, she’s no devil.” Therrador shook his head and raised his right hand. “I deserved this. Not for trying to save my son, but for what I’ve done to the kingdom. But she is responsible for raising the undead soldiers who fight beside her troops. She’s--”
“A Necromancer,” Dondon said completing his sentence. Therrador nodded.
Sir Alton retrieved his chair and slumped down into it dejectedly. “Things go from bad to worse.”
“Perhaps not.” Hanh Perdaro leaned forward on his elbows. The others waited for him to say more but he allowed the pause to linger.
“What do you mean, Hanh?” Turesti finally asked. “Out with it.”
The Voice of the People cleared his throat. “The Archon—Necromancer, whatever she calls herself—she holds your son, correct?”
“Yes, I told you.”
“So she thinks you her puppet, Therrador. Her pawn. The king of Erechania will do whatever he’s told in order to keep his son safe.”
“Of course,” Sir Alton agreed before Therrador could. The general once had a son, but the boy had been lost during one of the last skirmishes when Braymon took the throne. Twenty years had done little to dispel the sting of it for the tough old soldier.
“As long as she thinks her word is being done, we can enact our own plans now that we all know what’s happened.”
Perdaro looked around the table at the others, a meager smile tugging the corners of his mouth.
“But what to do about a treacherous king?” Hu Dondon asked. Therrador looked at him, suppressing his ire at the comment—he deserved the punishment that would come.
“Nothing right now,” Turesti said nodding slightly in agreement with Perdaro’s words. “First we must neutralize the Kanosee threat. We’ll have to bring the people of the kingdom together, and for that they must have a king.”
Everyone at the table nodded.
“I’ll get the word to the people,” Perdaro said. “Tell them the version of the truth that will most suit our purposes for the moment.”
Therrador sighed. This hadn’t been as bad as he’d imagined. He’d thought his head might have ended up atop a pole in the courtyard before the end of the day.
“Rest assured, though,” Sir Alton said leaning toward Therrador. “When rightness is restored to the kingdom, we’ll deal with our traitor king.”
Chapter Thirteen
The city reeks of the evil it is rife with, like a stinking fruit hang
ing rotten on the vine. Daylight has recently left the sky as I approach the unguarded gates of the once great city, the place where an empire was born thousands of years ago. There’s no empire found here now, only cutthroats and thieves, rapists and murderers. Statues and temples stand in ruin. Steel is the one God who holds sway here—his last refuge from the Godly brethren who spurned him millennia ago.
I walk through the splintered gates, haphazard on their hinges, and up a shallow rise, keeping to the side of the street to avoid the stream of sewage flowing down the middle. A child with half an arm missing sits against a wall and glares at me as I pass; an unfamiliar feeling twinges in my chest as I wonder how much older the boy will be allowed to grow in such a place. I push it aside, thinking instead about killing the man named Khirro.
A shout and the sound of splintering wood; I’m surprised there’s still anything left here to be broken. I amend my path toward the sounds because I know I’ll find people there, and with people come tests.
The street I turn onto narrows and the stench grows in the smaller space, but I pay it no heed. I’ve been to the Fields of the Dead and had to leave it behind, I’ve spent time in the Void—I couldn't care less about bad smells. Rats scurry past, chased by a cat that looks more like bigger vermin than a feline. As I approach the end of the lane and the square it ends at, my hand finds the hilt of my sword. What little trepidation I might have had disappears at the feel of its leather on the palm of my hand.
There are people in the square, men mostly, staggering and laughing. A group of three sing a bawdy song discordantly, yelling the most offensive words. There are a few women, too, dressed in soiled and torn dresses that may once have been beautiful. They call to the men, shouting to be heard above the drunken din, promising passion for a small sum as they cup their breasts with grubby hands and cracked fingernails. One woman is bent over the wooden railing outside a bustling public house, her skirt hiked up above her waist as a man thrusts into her from behind. She cleans dirt from under her fingernails with the tip of a small knife while he rams his hips against her.
As I watch, he finishes and swats her bare ass, then steps away fastening his breeches. He’s barely three steps away before another man takes his place, gives the woman a coin and undoes his pants. Part of me is sickened, anguished by the memories stirred within my breast, but another part is sympathetic. I understand one must do what one must to survive.
I divert my attention away from the dispassionate coupling and head toward the public house where light spills through loosely shuttered windows, and conversation, shouts and music bubble through the doorway. I pull my cloak tight around my shoulders and against my cheeks. Better I fool some into thinking I’m a man for a while.
At the doorway, I’m uncertain if I look upon a party or a riot. Bodies press together, their sweaty heat keeping the chill night outside the room. A man stumbles past and vomits on the porch outside the door, some of his spew splashing unnoticed onto the bare calves of the man more concerned about getting his money’s worth from the disinterested whore.
In a corner of the room, a scared-looking musician strums a lute and sings words no one hears above the noise of the revelers. To my right is a long bar, its surface nicked and splintered by years of misuse. People dance on it, kicking over others’ drinks; one such incident sparks a fight, but the crowd swallows the combatants and I can’t see the outcome of the skirmish, so I move toward the bar, hoping to gather information.
It’s impossible to tell if the man dispensing drinks is the barkeep or just another inebriated partier. He’s at least as drunk as everyone else and spills more liquor on the stained wooden surface than he pours into the chipped cups. There’s no point asking questions of any of these people. If I interrogated and threatened until the sun rose, I wouldn’t receive coherent answers.
Resigned to wait until the morrow, I take a cup from the bar and carefully choose an edge from which to drink to avoid cutting my lip. The strong liquor burns my throat. It doesn’t refresh me but leaves a warmth in my stomach that’s not uncomfortable. Too much would certainly leave a pain in my head.
I push my way back through the throng toward the door. A man grumbles as I force my way past, another simply topples at my touch, his drink spilling down his companion’s front. The man looks like he’ll make trouble over it, but my stern expression changes his mind.
Halfway to the door, a hand catches my arm, spins me around. I grab the hilt of my dagger and free half an inch of steel, expecting to see the man with the wet shirt, but it’s not.
“I knows you,” this new man says, the lanterns’ light gleaming in the line of saliva running from the corner of his mouth. He might be attractive if not for that and the missing teeth. And the bulbous nose. And the patchy beard. “If I don’t knows ya, I sure wants to.”
His hand finds my breast at precisely the instant my blade finds his belly. I pull him close, burying the steel all the way to the hilt, enjoying the surprised look on his face.
“You don’t know me,” I whisper. “You never will.”
I pull the blade free and step away, holding it in front of me to counter any retribution from him or his companions. His hand falls away from my chest and goes to his belly. He stares at the blood on his fingers, then looks up at me before the writhing crowd absorbs him. I don’t wait to see if he survives or if his friends care what happened. I push my way through the drunken mob and stumble out the door into the cool night, leaving the smell of stale beer and vomit behind. The whore still leans against the railing cleaning her nails; her skirt is back in place, covering her ass. No men are standing around awaiting their turns. I go to her, lean against the railing beside her, facing the other direction to avoid showing my back to the door.
“If’n you wants a turn, you gotta pay,” she says without looking away from her fingers.
“I don’t want a turn.”
At the sound of my voice, she turns her head and appraises me.
“Half price for the ladies,” she says and smiles.
All of her front teeth are gone and I wonder if it happened in a brawl or if she removed them herself to offer special services for her clients. This close, I can tell she’s seen no more than sixteen years.
“Not interested. I’m here to find a man.”
Her smile disappears. “If’n you undercuts me, I’ll slice you.”
She bounces the knife she used to clean her nails in her hand, a lazy threat. Now it’s my turn to smile.
“Not just any man, a man named Khirro.”
She snorts a laugh through her nose. “Ain’t no heroes in Poltghasa, darlin’.”
“Not ‘hero’, ‘Khirro’, with a k.”
“Ain’t none of them here, neither.” She turns and leans with her back against the rail, her shoulder brushing mine. “If you ask nice, I might consider givin’ you more of a discount. Maybe even a freebie.” She shows her gap teeth again.
Memories of nights spent with my nose buried in perfumed hair come to me, bringing with them sadness and anger. The man called Khirro is responsible for taking it from me. Nothing matters but finding him.
“Thanks anyway,” I say and move toward the steps. “I’ll be in town. If you hear of a man called Khirro, find me.”
I feel her eyes on me as I stride down the steps and consider turning back to tell her that life doesn’t have to be this way, but I don’t. We all have to choose our own lives, for better or for worse.
“Come back and see me anytime. I’m right here every night.”
My boot has just touched the dirt at the bottom of the steps when I hear the clamor of people bursting out of the public house, the wooden door slamming against the wall.
“That’s the one, there,” a voice yells, words slurred by drink. “That’s the one what knifed Creeg.”
I turn slowly, without bothering to pull my steel yet. There are five of them leaning drunkenly on one another. One of them points at me, his face twisted into a scowl made humorous b
y the amount of ale he’s consumed. I can’t help but laugh at him, and my laughter serves to anger them further.
“Your man deserved what he got,” I say knowing my voice will give away the secret I hoped to hide with my cloak. If they know they’ve been slighted by a woman, perhaps it will insight them more.
I can only hope.
The first one stumbles down the stairs, falling onto my sword as I draw it. I spit on him as he slides to the ground, showing his friends I’m disappointed by the ease with which he gave up his life.
Two more come at me, blades bared, and in the wan light of the lanterns hanging on the patio, I see the rust of misuse on their swords. One lunges at me. I step aside and the hilt of my sword shatters his jaw. The woman leaning on the railing hoots and claps despite the man who’s taken up position behind her. I determine that when I’m finished with these ones, I’ll kill him, too.
The second man takes his time, stalking me like he wants me to think he knows what he’s doing. Another man has come down the stairs behind him, but the fifth is gone, disappeared back into the saloon, either scared off or gone for help. I care not either way.
The man circles behind me so he and his companion are on either side. I draw my dagger in preparation for the simultaneous attack they’d be fools not to attempt. They don’t disappoint, at least not from a strategy point of view. In terms of skill and challenge, they offer little more than their dead friends. Dodge, stroke, parry, thrust. In less than fifteen seconds, they are both lying in the dirt, their blood draining to feed the worms and I haven’t broken a sweat.
“Look out,” the woman at the railing calls.
I look toward the door and see the fifth man has returned, and he’s brought companions. Ten, perhaps more. I smile and raise my sword to the woman, thanking her for the warning; she goes back to getting fucked against the railing. I ready myself for the men and hope one amongst them isn’t too drunk, at least one who will provide me the challenge and practice I crave. They spill down the stairs and sparks fly as steel pounds against steel.
