The King of the Fallen

by David Dalglish

  “Jerico,” said Elrath. His blue eyes, normally the beautiful color of the sky, were a vicious red. “I…we…”

  Neither had words. Jerico’s sprint plummeted even deeper. His jaw hung open and trembled. His heart halted in his chest. So much blood covered his friend’s body. Too much.

  Jerico’s knees gave out, and he slumped before them. His vision blurred from a sudden swell of tears. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, it can’t be, it can’t. We’ve survived so much, so goddamn much.”

  He cast his shield and mace to the dirt and lunged back to his feet. He took Lathaar’s body from the two youngsters, embracing the corpse of his old friend as he wept. A thousand memories swept through him, of fighting side by side, of rebuilding the Citadel, of that joyous moment when they’d met at the Sanctuary and realized that they were not alone in the cruel world of Dezrel.

  But Jerico felt so very alone now, and he choked down his screams so he would not break completely before his two students. He clutched a corpse, not a man. He wept for the loss, and then he buried his emotions beneath a wave of rage.

  Elrath and Mal remained silent through it all, their gazes cast to the dirt to give him a semblance of privacy.

  “What happened?” Jerico asked once he had composed himself. “Tell me everything.”

  And so they did. Jerico listened, and he realized that first wave of rage he felt was but a prelude to fury. It burned like fire throughout his veins. He listened to the story of betrayal, of Samar’s fatal backstabbing, and of his students handing over Gregory and Aubrienna to spare their own lives.

  “We wanted to bury him,” Elrath said when they were finished. “But it didn’t feel right to hold a funeral or pyre without you.”

  “And we didn’t want the others to watch,” Mal added. “They don’t deserve to be there. They don’t get to mourn him after what they did.”

  Jerico gently laid Lathaar’s body on the grass.

  “Bury him here,” he said. “In the soft soil beside the river. We deserve a grave in the wilderness, the both of us. It’s where we lived our lives. It’s the world we walked when the Citadel first fell.”

  “Won’t you help us?” asked Mal.

  Jerico slid his shield over his back and clipped Bonebreaker to his hip.

  “No,” he said. “I’m going to the Citadel we built. As for you two, follow the river once you finish with the burial. Skirt wide around the Council of Mages, and continue south. Until you reach the ocean, if you must. Make yourself a home in Haven. Live what life you can, in the world the fallen angels would leave us.”

  “What will you do?” Elrath asked, dread hanging heavy on his every syllable.

  Jerico sighed. “Truly? I don’t know.”

  He knelt over Lathaar’s corpse, kissed his forehead, and whispered his final goodbye.

  “We are embers of light from a dying fire, but you burned brightly, my friend.”

  The grasslands passed in a haze of anguish and subdued rage. Jerico’s heart could not burn so brightly and for so long, not when he had several more miles to cross before he reached the Citadel. He barely saw the grass where he walked. His mind drifted through memories, trying to cling to the pleasant ones but often failing.

  “How many friends must I say goodbye to?” Jerico asked the silence. Sandra, his first love; that loss had hurt him most, but there were others. Darius, the former paladin of Karak. Haern, a tortured young man with a kind heart and a brutal childhood. Delysia, who had shown only kindness to a world that sought cruelty. The cranky blacksmith, Brug. The villagers of Durham, whom he’d failed to protect despite preaching daily to them of Ashhur’s mercy and grace. His mind rubbed raw at the death. Velixar’s army of the dead. Thulos’s war demons. The destruction of Veldaren. The siege at Mordeina.

  Through it all, he’d stood shoulder to shoulder with Lathaar, two bastions of Ashhur holding the line against the evils of the land that would see the innocent suffer. They’d fought demons, beast-men, undead, and fallen angels. None had brought them low.

  Until a blade to the back.

  At last he saw the Citadel looming in the distance. Jerico paused a moment to stare at what had been, until that morning, his proudest accomplishment.

  “I can’t keep doing this,” he softly whispered. “I can’t keep bleeding for you, Ashhur. One day I will have no blood left to give.”

  But it wasn’t yet that day. He continued on, veering away from the river and settling onto the worn path that lead to the Citadel’s entrance. He buried his sorrow with his every step, imagining each footfall casting a handful of dirt atop Lathaar’s corpse. Elrath and Mal would bury him, pray over him, and honor him well. Jerico would do the same, only he would do it here, at the Citadel.

  No one came out to greet him when he stopped before the entrance. To his left lay Lathaar’s armor and swords, stripped off and cast aside so the two students could bear the weight of his body. He stared at the now-useless mound of steel and leather, letting the grim sight stir the rage that had momentarily faded beneath his sorrow. A twinkle caught his eye, a hint of gold amid the trampled grass. Jerico knelt down, brushed aside some dirt, and lifted his prize: the lucky coin Tarlak had given young Gregory when they first parted. Jerico clutched the coin in his fist hard enough to hurt, then slid it into his pocket. When he stood and turned his attention to the Citadel, he saw frightened faces peering at him from the windows.

  “Come forth!” he shouted.

  None dared move. Was it fear? Disrespect? He shook his head, not caring. They would not hide in the Citadel, not from him. His lips curled into a snarl.

  “Come forth!” It was a command with power like the stories of old. The faces vanished from the windows. Moments later, the doors to the Citadel opened, and the first of his students flitted out onto the grass. They surrounded him in a semi-circle, not a one capable of meeting his gaze when he glared their way.

  That they came armed did not go unnoticed.

  Samar was the last to arrive, and he pushed to the front of the group and stood with his arms crossed and his jaw clenched. He looked ready to argue, almost eager for it. Jerico stared at the sword sheathed at his hip. He imagined that blade plunging into Lathaar’s back, just beneath the lower edge of his breastplate. He shook his head to banish the thought, and it seemed Samar took it as a sign to plead his case.

  “I saved all our lives,” Samar started. “If not for—”

  “Bite your tongue,” Jerico said, silencing the young man with a glare. “I will not hear a word from your lips. No lies. No truths. No excuses, no reasons, and no arguments.”

  Jerico pulled the shield off his back and settled it over his left arm. The blue-white glow of his faith shimmered across its surface. He turned so all might see it. Despite everything, it still shone brightly. It still burned with holy light. Once finished, he unclipped Bonebreaker from his belt and pointed its flanged edges toward Samar.

  “Draw your sword,” he told him.

  “What?”

  “Draw your sword,” Jerico repeated. “I would see its light.”

  “Is that how you’ll judge me?” Samar argued.

  “Not me,” Jerico said. “I am not here for judgment. That is Ashhur’s place, not mine. I come with a different purpose, now show me your blade.”

  Samar drew his sword, and he held it before him in a combat stance. Sunlight glinted off its naked blade. No glow shone from its surface. Jerico clenched his jaw, his teeth grinding together as he fought off a fresh wave of tears.

  “How did I fail you all so terribly?”

  He moved faster than Samar could react. A single blow from his mace ripped Samar’s jaw from his face and snapped the bones of his neck. The young man collapsed in a heap. The surrounding students cried out.

  “The rest of you,” Jerico said with a leaden tongue. “Show me your faith.”

  The ringing sound of metal filled his ears. Dull, naked steel. No light. No glo
w. The only color he saw was the red that painted his vision. A rage so deep it terrified him.

  “Is this the faith I have fostered?” he asked. “Cast me into Karak’s fire if this is the sum of my work.”

  He thrust his shield forward. Its after-image leaped forth, brilliant in its glow and growing larger as it progressed. It struck down those it touched, knocking them to the ground as if it were a solid stone wall. The students erupted in panic, these young men he’d trained, and those who remained standing lashed out at him with their weapons. Jerico shifted his shield from side to side, his mace parrying what his shield could not block. The attacks were scattered, disorganized. He’d like to think he taught them better than that. Results said otherwise.

  A sword clattered off his pauldron. Another dented the plate on his leg. Jerico blocked the blows, and he saw the pained looks in the eyes of any who made contact with his shield. The holy light stung them. Ashhur’s grace, it would burn them, blind them.

  “Damn my failure,” Jerico whispered.

  He stopped defending and went on the offensive. Bonebreaker shattered through his students’ meager defenses. Swing after swing, limbs were crunched. Pained screams and frightened cries filled the air. Jerico didn’t see or hear them, not really. His training took over as his mind retreated deep inside. With each death, he felt a piece of himself wither.

  Guilt warred with fury each time he brought a body low. He thought righteousness would fuel him. He thought it would blunt the trauma, justify the slaughter. Lathaar’s betrayal, the handing over of the children they were to protect…was there forgiveness for such crimes?

  But there was. Jerico had preached it a thousand times before. He deflected the swipe of an ax off his shield and caved the young man’s head in with Bonebreaker. No forgiveness for him, though. None for the number of dead and dying at his feet. Jerico was screaming now, a mindless pain that infected his entire soul. Another life. Another. Another.

  They were fleeing now, scattering in all directions. Jerico collapsed to his knees, for he had not the spirit to chase. Every beat of his heart felt like a punch to his chest. His face was soaked with tears he didn’t remember shedding. Blood and gore covered his armor and weapons. The stench of the dead overwhelmed him.

  Beyond tired, beyond broken, Jerico looked to the Citadel he and Lathaar had rebuilt, and upon it he saw Ashhur’s face.

  “Is this it?” he softly asked. “Is this our legacy?”

  The ground shook in answer. The foundation of the Citadel broke, and with a terrible roar of stone and earth, the building began to collapse. Jerico bowed his head and stared at the shadow tipping toward him. He would not run. Everything here, the dead, the fleeing, the bodies and the betrayals, he would let it settle upon him, bury him if it must.

  A long, snaking crack split the building in twain. The two halves fell to either side of him, as if ripped apart by enormous hands, and then slammed deep into the ground, leaving him unscathed. Dirt churned. Dust and smoke flooded his vision, for which Jerico was thankful. He did not wish to see the fleeing bodies crushed beneath the rubble. He didn’t need to see more death. The deafening noise of the tower’s fall slowly receded into a painstaking silence broken only by the distant sound of the flowing Rigon River.

  And in that silence, Jerico wept. He finally allowed himself to feel the full horror of it all. He shed his tears at the foot of the Citadel, the weight of his decisions crashing down like so much worthless brick. He had walked in darkness before, but never before had he felt so alone. Even when Thulos had marched upon Mordeina, Jerico had believed in a brighter future. He’d believed, with the confidence of a much younger man, that his strength alone could save the world. Now his salvation carried death on black wings, and Ashhur felt so very far away.

  Yet even now, Jerico would not remain motionless in his sorrows. He’d spent his time in the Vile Wedge in self-imposed exile. He’d had his moment away from the world, and its sins and hardships. Never again. He rose to his feet, mind raw, heart bleeding, and looked to his mace, Bonebreaker. When he visited the Citadel after its first collapse, he’d found the weapon lost amid the rubble. It’d belonged to a paladin named Jaegar who’d given his life defending their home from an undead army. The first Citadel, brought low by Karak. Now Jerico stood before the second, broken by Ashhur’s own hands.

  “Again and again we suffer this dance,” Jerico whispered. “We build, and we break. We stand before an army of hatred and death, and upon claiming victory, we find only another army. Will there be no reprieve? Must it all end in rubble?”

  Jerico flung Bonebreaker to the grass. Perhaps, in a distant future, a good man or woman would find the enchanted weapon. Perhaps it would give them the hope and strength they needed. It would not be his. Not anymore.

  Lathaar’s discarded belongings had escaped the building’s collapse. Jerico lifted his friend’s longsword and withdrew it from its sheath to check its edge. Still sharp. Jerico wasn’t trained to use a sword beyond rudimentary lessons, but that was fine. His shield was his true weapon, as it had always been since his earliest days in the Citadel. He buckled Lathaar’s sword to his waist, set his shield across his back, and looked once more to the rubble.

  Angels had helped rebuild the Citadel after Thulos’s defeat, a symbolic construction to mark Ashhur’s return to Dezrel. Jerico wished he had a proper eulogy to give the building now that it lay in ruins, but he had nothing witty to say, no wisdom to give, and no audience to hear it.

  “We tried,” he told the silent air. “If only it were enough.”

  Jerico trudged west. The miles were many, but he would walk until he reached Mordeina, the city of fallen angels. The world was not kind. It was not just. Nonetheless, he prayed that before his own life reached its end, he would bathe Lathaar’s sword in Azariah’s blood.

  16

  “I thought they’d never leave,” Deathmask said. He peered to his left, where Veliana perched beside him atop Mordeina’s western wall.

  Fallen angels flew overhead by the hundreds, a sight reminiscent of a stirred flock of ravens departing a field. They soared above the combined might of the newly-crowned Paradise. On the ground, making up nearly two-thirds of the army, were the undead soldiers enslaved to Azariah’s whims. They marched along the well-worn road in perfectly even rows, ten by ten. Which made adding up their numbers fairly easy. Five thousand undead, obedient little soldiers ready to punch, bite, and claw at whatever enemy they were commanded to kill. After them followed the collected living soldiers of the lords and ladies that had slowly arrived in answer to the fallen king’s summons. Half the number of the undead, they were still an impressive sight, with hundreds of men clad in shining chainmail. Behind them marched three companies of archers, each carrying longbows across their backs.

  “It’s hard to imagine Ahaesarus having anywhere near the numbers needed to survive against such an army,” Veliana said. They were far enough to the south of the western exit that they need not fear being spotted by the soaring fallen angels, but Deathmask had wrapped the both of them in magical shadows just in case. The last thing he wanted to do was take an unnecessary risk right when things were getting interesting.

  “Rumors claim Ahaesarus has enslaved the beast-men that were rampaging across the north,” Deathmask said. “That alone gives him a sizable killing force. Tarlak is with them, I’m sure, and I suspect so is the Godslayer and his wife. How many undead soldiers do they alone count for?”

  “Though from what you’ve told me, Azariah possesses aid from the Council of Mages. I’d still prefer Azariah’s army over Ahaesarus’s.”

  Deathmask tracked the sky at the mention of Azariah. So far he’d not seen the fallen king lead his army out, which seemed odd. What could be so pressing that would make him linger behind? Thousands of men and women had gathered along walls and on rooftops to watch the army leave. Was this not the display of power the angel was so fond of?

  Veliana tugged his sle
eve and pointed toward the castle. From the grounds beside the tower flew a lone angel. When the soaring form grew closer, Deathmask noticed the ornate robes. There was no mistaking it, that was Azariah, now heading toward his army...but what had he been up to?

  Azariah flew into the great cloud of black wings and feathers. Though they were too high to know for sure, it looked like he was having a discussion with several of his fellows. After a few minutes, Azariah pointed back toward the castle. A trio of fallen abandoned flight with the rest of the army and flew back toward the castle. For a moment Deathmask thought they were to remain behind to rule in Azariah’s absence, but then they veered off from the castle to land in the grounds just to its south.

  “Curious,” Deathmask said, rubbing his mangled chin. “What could be so important that our fallen king would work on it to the very last minute?”

  “You think something is amiss, don’t you?” Veliana asked.

  He winked at her. “Care to go find out?”

  Deathmask and Veliana approached the castle, openly walking the streets for the first time in what felt like ages now that the legion of undead watchers had left for war. Plenty of people stared at them as they passed, but none dared intrude. Deathmask figured a few human soldiers would remain behind to keep order in the city, but he doubted anyone would be foolish enough to summon them. If there was anyone more frightening in the city of Mordeina than the fallen angels, it was him and Veliana.

  Once they neared the castle, Deathmask shifted off the main road, trying to visualize where the trio of fallen had descended. It was not so hard to figure out. Beside the grand outer walls of the castle were the royal gardens. The three angels stood at its entrance, talking amongst themselves. Deathmask darted behind the nearest home the second he saw them, gesturing for Veliana to do the same.

  “They look upset,” Veliana whispered, peering over his shoulder. The road led directly to the garden entrance, which was marked by a gigantic stone archway with the family name ‘Baedan’ embossed along its highest point.