A Warrior's Burden: Book One of Saga of the Known Lands

by Jacob Peppers

  “Ah,” he said, smiling at the old woman’s troubled expression. “It seems we’ve found the crack in your armor after all.”

  “Leave them out of this,” she said, “they got nothin’ to do with it. They ain’t none of your business.”

  “Well, now, that’s where you’re wrong, peasant,” Feledias said. “You see, I’m High Prince of the realm which means that every single person—noble or commoner, even old innkeepers and backwater hicks—are my business.”

  He glanced back at the door once more, at the villagers huddled, frightened inside the inn. He caught sight of one, a girl in her teens, perhaps early twenties. Pretty, for a peasant. He motioned to one of the soldiers at the door. “Bring me the girl.”

  The girl in question screamed as they approached, backing away, but the soldier grabbed her, dragging her out of the inn to throw her at Feledias’s feet beside the old woman.

  “N-Netty?” the girl asked, her brown eyes wide and confused, clearly looking for comfort.

  “I-it’s okay, Emille,” the old woman said. “Everything will be okay.”

  Feledias’s grin widened as he saw the fear in the old woman’s face magnified as she stared at the girl. A close friend, perhaps? A stand-in for the daughter she never had? “Everything will be okay?” he said, then gave a sad shake of his head. “Oh, but I’m afraid that’s just not true.” Feledias paused, meeting the girl’s eyes. “In fact, my dear, things are very far from okay. You see, your Netty here will not answer my questions, and so you’re going to die. Badly, I’m afraid.”

  The girl whimpered then, her tanned farmer’s skin growing pale as she looked at the woman. “Netty,” she said. “I don’t—”

  “Hush now, child,” the old woman said, but she was not looking at the girl, was instead looking at him. “Go on, then,” she spat. “Ask your questions.”

  Feledias said, “That’s better, isn’t it? Now, we can all get along. So tell me, peasant, how long ago did my brother leave?”

  The old woman shrugged. “A day? Day and a half? He traveled—”

  She cut off with a gasp as Feledias casually reached over and backhanded the young woman. The woman screamed in shock and pain, falling onto her side in the dirt.

  “You’re lying,” Feledias said calmly. “Tell me, lass,” he said, looking at the weeping girl, at the undeniably shapely figure beneath the simple linen dress she wore, “have you ever known the touch of a man?”

  “Leave her alone, you bastard,” the old woman hissed.

  The girl said nothing, only looked at him, trembling. “Well,” Feledias said, “you will. If your Netty here tries to lie to me again or does anything other than tell me exactly what I want to know, I’ll see to your education myself. And when I’m done with that, I’ll give you to my soldiers—they are not so kind as me, I’m afraid, not so…gentle.”

  “An hour ago,” the old woman sneered. “No more than that.”

  “That’s better,” he said, offering her a smile. “And tell me, where did they go?”

  “And how in the name of the gods would I know that?” she asked. “It isn’t as if they asked my opinion on it, is it?”

  Feledias watched her for a moment then shrugged. He motioned to one of the soldiers, and the girl gave a panicked cry as the man stepped forward, hefting her to her feet.

  “I really don’t know, damn you,” the old woman said. “They didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” Feledias said, offering her a grin. “It’s only that, now that I think on it, a roll with a farm girl might be just the thing. Unless, that is, you decide to be a touch more cooperative.”

  He turned back to her and saw that she was no longer studying him but instead was looking over his shoulder, something like relief and pleasure in her gaze. “Can’t tell you where they were going,” the old woman said, “but I think probably I can tell you where they are.”

  “Oh?” Feledias asked, not liking the sudden confidence in the woman’s tone, for he did not understand it, and he never liked things he did not understand. “And where is that?”

  The woman smiled. “Behind you.”

  Feledias grunted. “A pathetic ruse, and one which will serve you no purpose,” he said, turning, “for if you do not—”

  The words were gone. Torn from him by a shock that thrummed through his entire body as if he’d been struck by lightning, a shock which was greater than any he had ever felt or thought to feel. He had hunted his brother for years, ever since his betrayal, and he had known that he would find him one day, that he would make him suffer. Now it seemed, that day, that moment, had come. But in all his fantasies, in all the dreams he’d had of this moment, his brother had cowered before him, weak and broken and afraid, begging for his life.

  But he did not look weak now, nor broken, and he did not beg. He only stood, regarding Feledias over the intervening distance between where he stood beside a house wall. Stood as big and imposing—perhaps even more imposing than he remembered—and seeing him standing there, in the ruddy, flickering torchlight, Feledias felt a shock of surprise and something else. Something very close to fear.

  “Hello, brother,” the hulking figure said, the words like two great boulders shifting against each other.

  Feledias’s mouth was suddenly unaccountably dry, and despite the many dreams of this moment he’d had, imaginings in which he had cut his brother down with words before he began the cutting in truth, he found that now that the moment had come, he could remember none of the phrases he’d used, and he was left only to stare at his brother.

  “It’s been a long time,” his brother said. “Now, if you have questions, ask me. Not them,” he said, glancing past Feledias at the innkeeper and the girl, both of which he had dismissed in his surprise.

  Questions. That word struck a chord in him, bringing him out of the stupor of surprise and back to himself. “Questions,” he sneered, feeling the shock which had clouded his mind departing, vanishing like mist in the sunlight. “Only one, brother. The same one that I have carried for fifteen years. Why?”

  His brother’s features twisted in something like grief, which Feledias knew could not be right, for his brother, the Crimson Prince felt neither compassion nor grief. “Feledias…I am sorry—”

  “Why?” Feledias asked again, this time aware that he was screaming but unable to stop himself. “Why did you take her from me?”

  His brother winced. “I was a fool, Fell,” he said softly. “A selfish fool. And…and I loved her.”

  “Love,” Feledias spat. “What does the Crimson Prince know of love? You betrayed me, brother. I, who was willing to do anything for you, I who was always pleased to be the lesser prince, to watch you accept all the glory and the praise and the love of the common folk. I wanted nothing, asked for nothing, except…” He swallowed hard, his mouth dry. “Except her.”

  “I know,” his brother said, so quietly he almost thought he’d imagined it.

  “I loved her,” Feledias said. “And she loved me. I would have been okay with you having the world, brother. I did not mind that you were the famous one, the one everyone looked up to. I was proud of you. But her…”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. And what’s more, it seemed that he meant it.

  That took Feledias back even more than his brother appearing seemingly out of nowhere had. He had known Bernard his entire life, had followed him around like a lost puppy for most of it. He had seen Bernard angry, had seen him curse and yell and scream and spit with rage, had seen every variation of fury on his face. But in all that time, in all the many years in which he had known him, in which he had followed him, he had never known his brother to apologize.

  He would have said, if asked, that the man didn’t know how and that he had no interest in learning it. Hearing the words come from his mouth was like hearing thunder from clear skies or as if a dog had opened its mouth but, instead of barking, demonstrated that it had learned to speak instead. But as amazing as it was, as shocking as
it was, it would not bring her back, would not fix what had been broken. Nothing would. “You’re sorry,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Feledias had never expected to hear such a thing from his brother, had always thought of him as someone larger than life, not a person, not really, but some force of nature disguised as one, a devil, likely, one sent to the world with one mission and one mission only—death. But now, looking at him, at the hair on his temples that had begun to go white, at the haggard lines in his face where time had scarred him, he realized something. His brother was not a force of nature, not half-god as he had sometimes suspected. He was not like a plague to be avoided, or a mythical figure to be feared.

  He was only a man. He was not invincible. He was just blood and bone like everyone else. Just a man. Feledias felt something stir within him—love, perhaps? Affection for his brother, so long lost to him, for his entire life, it seemed, and only just found?

  No.

  The voice which spoke inside his head was his. And yet it was not. It was the voice which the last fifteen years had formed, which had been born in his hate and his rage at all that he had lost, at a betrayal that was unforgivable. It was a voice that knew nothing of love or affection, that knew hate and that only. A voice that demanded satisfaction, a satisfaction that could only be carved out of the body of the man who had betrayed him.

  That voice could not be appeased, knew nothing of redemption, only of loss. “No,” he said, and though it was not his voice, not really, it used his voice, ragged with grief and rage. “Sorry,” he hissed. “Do you think that changes anything?”

  “No,” his brother said. “But I’m sorry just the same.”

  How long, he wondered, had he sought such a reaction, such humanness from his brother? How long had he sought to have a relationship with him, to be, in reality, what they had always pretended in fantasy, or at least what he had, creating and maintaining the illusion, as he had for so long. There had been a time when he had done so well at feeding that fiction that he had convinced nearly every man and woman in the kingdom of the truth of it, that their princes were the best of friends, loyal to each other—and to their kingdom—above all else.

  A pretty lie, one that much easier to tell because they had wanted to hear it. Easier to tell because he had wanted to hear it, for now he could admit that he had always craved his brother’s affection, his love. And for a time, despite all of the atrocities he committed, despite the fact that the Crimson Prince had never cared for anyone except in as much as they might be a victim through which he might vent his unending rage, the kingdom had believed it.

  Even though he had laughed and mocked Feledias for his many attempts at building his brother’s reputation, calling him “womanly” and “weak” as he sat around getting drunk and reliving battles with his inner circle—always the most bloodthirsty troops in the army, though never as bloodthirsty as Bernard himself, never that—Feledias had, after telling himself the lie enough, come to believe it.

  But the truth, as was so often the case, was far grimmer than the fantasy. The truth was that his brother had not killed to save or to build his kingdom as Feledias had always claimed. Instead, he had killed simply because he had enjoyed it. The truth was that instead of appreciating Feledias’s efforts on his behalf, his brother had scorned them, treating him like some pathetic dog following him around, eager for any scraps he might drop him. And the truth was that he had been.

  But the biggest truth, the one which could not be ignored, was that his brother had taken everything from him, had taken her from him. The truth was that the dog, no matter how pathetic, how bent on its master’s approval, would bite if it were kicked enough.

  “Damn your sorry,” Feledias hissed, his voice choked with emotion. “Perhaps it would have mattered before, before her…but it does not matter now. Now there is only one thing that matters.”

  “I know the thing you mean,” his brother answered, his voice sounding full of regret, another thing he had never expected to hear from the man, “and blood, death, they never fix problems, Feledias. I know that better than most. They only cause more. A man cannot create by destroying and killing me will not fill that hole in you. That hole you can only fill yourself.”

  “And you, brother?” Feledias sneered. “Have you filled your own?”

  “No. But I’m trying.”

  Feledias stared at the big man standing there by the edge of the building, a storm of emotions raging inside him. And he thought, in that moment, that perhaps he could forgive him, that perhaps together they could heal, could become whole once more. But he realized something as he stood there. He did not want to be whole, did not want healing. He only wanted revenge. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said finally. “Perhaps killing you will fix nothing. But then, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

  He smiled then, withdrawing his two swords, sheathed at either hip.

  “I do not want to fight you, Feledias,” Cutter said.

  “Want?” Feledias hissed. “Do not speak to me of want, brother. And do not think me such easy prey. You might have beaten me at every sparring match we ever had, might have taken pleasure in embarrassing me, of making me into a joke, but you will find that I am not the same man I once was, and I have you to thank for that.”

  “Prince,” Commander Malex ventured quietly from beside him, “we outnumber him. If we were all to attack at once—”

  “No,” Feledias growled. “Not another word, Malex. He’s mine.” With that, Feledias started forward. And then his brother surprised him yet again, doing something he had never seen him do before, something he had never expected to see him do no matter how much he might have changed.

  Bernard, the Crimson Prince, the most feared warrior in the realm, known for his bloodthirsty nature and for never backing down from a fight no matter how uneven the odds, gave one final look at his brother, then turned.

  And ran.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I asked him, after the battle, why he did not retreat, for while the battle was won, it was won at a great, a terrible cost. I asked the Crimson Prince why he did not flee to fight another day.

  And do you know what he told me? Nothing.

  He only laughed.

  And in that, he told me everything.

  —Exiled Historian to the Crown Petran Quinn

  Cutter did not want to fight his brother, for what was broken between them had been broken by him and him alone. But that was not the main reason he did not draw the axe at his back, did not rush to meet him as he once would have done without hesitation. No, the biggest reason that he chose to turn and sprint into the darkness instead was Matt, him and the others who were even now creeping behind the inn or perhaps there already. They were counting on him, them and all those villagers of Ferrimore who had not perished in the Fey attack. Cutter had chosen the path of violence, of death often in his life—always, in truth. Now, he chose life.

  He chose to run.

  He turned and sprinted into the shadows. He did not wonder if Feledias would follow him—he knew he would, for the creature his brother had become, the creature he had made him, could do nothing else. He knew this just as he knew that they would catch him. Soon.

  As he ran, he could hear Feledias shouting furiously at his soldiers, ordering them to spread out and give chase. With so many men after him, it was not a question of if they would catch him, only how much time it would take them. And, more importantly, how much time he could buy the others before the death which had been stalking his steps all his life finally found him.

  ***

  “That son of a bitch,” Maeve whispered.

  “What?” Matt asked from where he and the others, Chall and Priest, crouched behind the burned-out remnants of a house behind the inn. “Did he abandon us? I knew it! He only cares for himself and—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth, boy,” Maeve hissed. “What he does now he does not do for himself.”

  Matt recoiled, obvi
ously hurt. “What…what do you mean?”

  “Do you not see, boy?” Chall said sadly, his voice soft. “Our prince sacrifices himself for us.” He paused, turning to look at Matt. “For you.”

  The boy was clearly confused, not understanding. But then, he did. “You mean…he’s going to get killed?”

  Maeve grunted. “Eventually. Feledias has been hunting his revenge for fifteen years, lad. He will not squander his moment.”

  “And neither, then, should we,” Priest said, and they all turned to him. “Our prince buys us time,” he continued, “we must use it.”

  Maeve blinked. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You mean to leave him alone? To let him die?”

  “He is our prince,” Priest said calmly, not reacting to her anger. “I mean to obey.”

  Maeve stared at the man, hesitating as her emotions raged inside her.

  “What do we do, Maeve?”

  She turned to look at the mage, watching her, waiting for her to make the decision. Then she cursed. “Priest’s right. The villagers need us. Come on.”

  She nodded to Valden. “Best go see what we’re up against.”

  The man returned the gesture and then grabbed hold of the stone wall of the ruined house. Maeve watched as the man scaled the wall as easily as someone else might have a ladder, climbing to the top where he crouched low, taking advantage of the relative height the building afforded him to get a better view.

  A moment later, he climbed back down. “There are ten guards at the back, fifteen stationed at the front. And Maeve?” he went on, his expression grim as he met her eyes. “They’re stacking wood around the inn.”

  “Wood?” Matt asked. “Why would they—” He cut off, his eyes going wide in the darkness. “They mean to burn them.”

  “Shit,” Maeve said. She had been hoping that the appearance of Cutter, the object of his hatred, would have goaded Feledias into doing something foolish, had even gone so far as to entertain the hope that the man might order every armed man with him to chase his brother down in his rage. But even twisted by hatred, it seemed that the man had retained his cleverness. Damn him.