Shield and Crown

by Michael Jason Brandt

  Jak needed to protest. “My King, I am in no way capable of living up to this.”

  “You need to be, Jak. I don’t know exactly when, but your wisdom and powers are going to be vital to the empire, and your status should reflect that.

  “Listen, we are all being called to do more than expected. You’re not alone in this. You do what you need to do, then return to me and show us a better path forward.”

  “But I don’t know what’s right.”

  “Perhaps not, but you know what’s wrong, and that’s a start.

  “Now, I’ll hear no more complaining. Someone needs to teach you not to argue with a king. We all have work to do, and little time in which to do it.”

  Pim helped Jak awkwardly climb onto his mount. He experienced a moment of panic, but the animal seemed as unconcerned with him as he was terrified of it.

  “Luck and speed, you three,” Nicolas said, echoing the words of a stranger from the distant past. He turned away.

  “Wait,” Jak called. “You said we should return to you. Here?”

  The king paused a long moment, considering. Then he shook his head. “Cormona, I think.”

  Cormona. That was an odd coincidence, for Jak’s destination was in the same general direction, though he knew not precisely where. An ancient shrine, tucked away in the Asturian desert. Perhaps his destiny and the king’s were more tightly interwoven than he realized.

  Though the two kingdoms were technically at war with each other, the borderland between Akenberg and Asturia showed no signs of the conflict. In fact, in this remote corner, it showed few signs of life at all.

  On some maps Jak had seen, the official border cut through the forest the three travelers were skirting around. More recently, for reasons unknown to him, the line of demarcation had moved southward, gifting Akenberg with extra land at their southern neighbor’s expense.

  The forest itself was known as Krankensheim in Akenberg and the Crooked Wood in Asturia. Jak had read legends of twisted trees and unusual wildlife within, but had neither time nor inclination to investigate those tales for himself. The three riders gave it a wide berth.

  With the forest left behind, the land quickly turned drier and more barren. The farmsteads were few and far between, and soon the signs of habitation became as sparse as sources of water—rare, but not entirely absent.

  When they did see other people, however, Jak made it a point to speak to everyone.

  That the locals remained untouched by the war—wars, he corrected—was a fact reinforced by the free and easy manner in which they treated the young strangers. Friendly, open with their food and sometimes their homes—but not one had ever heard of Bloodspire, or the Pillar of Blood. Both names he had seen written in ancient texts, though he knew not what it was called now.

  He had not had time to pinpoint its location on a map. All he had to go on was legend and guesswork. There was nothing to do but press on, farther into the barren kingdom, longer and longer beneath the cloudless sky and blistering sun.

  The horses were a tremendous boon, for the heat was so overpowering that even riding pushed the companions to the brink of collapse. Walking would have been impossible, even without the sickness that overtook Calla.

  She was now vomiting for the third straight morn. Jak tried not to let that bother him, and did his best to remind her how normal this was for an expecting mother. He repeated the mantra even though he knew the sickness usually came in the earlier stages of pregnancy, not when the woman was showing as much as Calla now did.

  More distressing, however, was hearing her sob into her sleeping roll each night. At first, he had attempted to comfort her. Then, only to encourage her to talk. Now, all he could do was hope that she would soon get past whatever mental demons inflicted her thoughts, and wish he had something or someone to whom to pray.

  Maybe it was merely the incessant throbbing in his hand turning his mind down unwanted paths, but the whole thing seemed wrong—and he knew the others felt that way, too.

  “The Pillar of Blood? You must mean the Devil’s Prick. Never ‘eard that other name before. Et’s an old pilgrim site, though no’un goes there nowadays, so far as I know.”

  The nearly toothless old man said this after his third long swig of the fiery liquid he called wine. He had offered the bottle to share, but other than Jak’s single sip, the man himself had been the only one doing any drinking.

  Jak looked at Kluber, who shrugged.

  “What lives there?”

  “What lives there?” The man scratched his head. “Et’s a canyon, in the middle of a desert. Rocks live there.”

  “No people, no…animals?”

  “Well now, there is an old cave near as a day, if I recall. Camp for those pilgrims what worshipped there. But I don’t see as likely there’ll be anyone there now.”

  Jak considered showing the man his map, hoping to get more accurate directions than this confusing garble. But he doubted the man could read a map, and a vague pointing was probably good enough for now.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I wish we had something to offer for your help.”

  “Well now, as to that, ‘ow about you just give me the rest of your portions of this ‘ere wine, and we say we’re even?”

  Now that they were nearing their destination, Jak was overwhelmed by second-guessing. The stress had been building for a long time, and all three of them had become alternately snappish or morose.

  That was all the more reason he was so glad to hear Calla suggest they find a quiet place to watch the sunset together. They did so with few words, taking a short hike up a rocky ridge line that looked out on the span of canyons where, somewhere within, lay their destination.

  They sat and stared at the brilliant hues of yellows and reds, blending on the horizon with the orange and brown of the terrain. Jak put his arm around her shoulder, and she rested her head against his.

  “I never thanked you for honoring Da,” she said.

  “The name, you mean?” Henrik had been the one who first introduced Jak to books and lore. The choice had only seemed appropriate. “I always admired him.”

  “I know. He liked you, too.”

  The colors on the horizon reached their apogee, then started to slowly diminish. The two of them watched in silence, and he foolishly allowed himself to hope that her worries were abating like the sunset.

  “I’ve come to a decision,” she said quietly, as the bloom of the vista faded to nothing. “I owe it to you to tell you.”

  Jak’s shoulders tensed. He had a feeling what was coming, and did his best to control his emotions.

  “The baby?”

  But Calla shook her head. “Nay, Jak. Me. I could never kill a baby and live with myself.”

  Jak closed his eyes, trying not to cry. He could not stop his body from shaking, however.

  “You understand, then?”

  “Nay, I do not. I know it’s been difficult—”

  “It’s going to be a monster, Jak. You’ve turned your whole life into fighting these devils. How can you want me to bring another into this world?”

  “You don’t know that, Calla. The strain has been too much for us all, and the worst has been on you. But things will be better.”

  “When? How?” She had somehow gotten this far in a perfectly calm tone, but now the emotion began to show. “You make empty promises, Jak. You’re protecting yourself.”

  “I am,” he admitted. “I cannot go on without you.” The tears came then, and he did not try to hide them.

  She wiped his cheek with one hand. “I know how you feel. I couldn’t go on without Da.” She wiped again. “We figure out a way to, anyway.”

  He made one more attempt. “I would do anything for you, Calla.”

  She smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t even stop using that cursed stone. You’re in too far, Jak. I see that, and I don’t resent it. But I have my own path to follow, and it ends tonight.”

  He could not deny the truth of what she said, n
or his own sense that the guilt he had carried for so long was finally naming its price. But he was not yet ready to let go.

  “Just…hold my hand awhile, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Jak wanted to believe there were solutions to every problem. That he could, in time, fix every wrong. But never had he felt so defeated. The unbelievable knowledge he had learned, the oft-frightening power he had gained, had only come with sacrifice. And he had always been willing to accede.

  Until now.

  8

  Akenberg

  Nico took Pim’s attack on the shield, then countered with a high thrust that drove the other man back a step. Nearly too slow, Pim barely brought his shield up in time to stop the point of Nico’s practice sword from tagging his shoulder.

  But the shoulder was not Nico’s target, for he suddenly swept the weapon down at a sharp angle, connecting solidly with the leather leg guard strapped to Pim’s shin. The contact was loud enough to make a gratifying smacking sound, and the quiet soldier hopped backward with an uncharacteristic grunt.

  In ten minutes of sparring, Nico had learned two important lessons: first, that he was not as rusty as he had feared; second, that the unusually hot summer—for it felt like midsummer, though the timing ought to have been no further than late spring—was a more substantial threat than any opponent.

  As to the former, Nico’s inner confidence was growing by the minute. He had feared, during and after his confrontation with Second Devero, that the duty of ruling—and neglect of his training—had dulled his skills. Instead, he found the opposite to be true. His movements were as crisp and precise as ever, his mind processing the instinctive give-and-take of swordfighting at a speed he had never experienced before.

  Part of that was natural maturation, for a warrior generally ascended to his or her peak in their early twenties, which Nico was slowly creeping toward.

  But the greater reason, he believed, was his battle with Arturo. That duel had been magnificent in many ways, and not just for the spectators. Nico still recalled the wide spectrum of emotions he had felt—determination, desperation, fear, and acceptance—as his mind struggled to keep up with the chaotic flow of combat. Advantages and disadvantages, angles and momentum, inertia and resistance.

  He had learned things in that one epic duel that he never could in all the years of drilling and instruction from Renard. Life and death moments had a way of doing that.

  Pim was a gifted fighter, yet no match for Nico, and the sparring turned into a one-sided affair after only a few passes.

  The practice would not have lasted even this long, if the two of them had not mutually agreed to cast aside their chain mail. The difference was as that between night and day. The hauberks they normally wore weighed over twenty pounds apiece, and though light and flexible by the standards of heavy armor, even a minimal restriction of movement necessarily slowed down a swordfighter. Weight, effort, and the relentless sun had a cumulative effect on fatigue, and fatigue was the mortal enemy of a warrior.

  “Are you ready to stop?” Nico asked.

  “Praise Theus,” Pim replied, dropping his wooden sword on the grass. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Lima took the opportunity to approach her king and commander. She had known better than to interrupt the sparring, but the agitated look on her face suggested she was anxious to pull him back to his duties.

  “What report?” he asked.

  “Word from General Boisson, Third. First contact with the enemy. No fighting to speak of, yet. Just sightings, he says. Shadows in the forest, glimpses of movement. Growling of animals, and maybe other things.”

  “Where are our friends?” This was still the term he used for the bat-like creatures that had circled Allstatte for several days, then disappeared. He did not remember the name Jak ascribed to them, nor did he like using the word demon. In fact, he still had difficulty reconciling his mind to the fact that that was what he faced. An army of demons. Gods help us.

  Or not. Jak would not approve of the prayer, innate though it was.

  “No sign. Yesterday was the last sighting.”

  “They were only scouting, then.”

  “Probably, Third.”

  He did not love that possibility, for it suggested a greater level of intelligence than he had hoped the enemy possessed. It was easy to remain hopeful when he thought of them as animals and mindless abominations, less so when admitting to demons, devils, and—worst of all—infected people.

  He wanted to face this Kevik the Corrupt in single combat, to cut off the head of the beast and destroy the source of their cunning.

  But that was exactly what Devero had attempted. Proud as he was, Nico doubted he would be any more successful with such a direct approach. And he could not leave his army and his kingdom without a leader, not at this crucial juncture, not with two other wars occurring simultaneously.

  “What of the integration?” he asked.

  Nico was very interested in this important step, for he longed to see the kingdoms working together again as they had under Emperor Eberhart. No easy task, considering the propensity for selfish motives and petty animosities that dominated Imperial relations. Speeding the process of cooperation, he believed, was one of his most critical responsibilities.

  At the same time, he had to stay true to Akenberg, for her people’s welfare was always his highest priority.

  “General Boisson requests twelve companies of infantry and three of cavalry,” Lima reported.

  “Make it ten and two. Put Captain—make that General—Anika in charge. She is to obey Boisson’s orders within her judgment, so long as she maintains the protection of Allstatte. Put all that in writing, if you would.”

  “Aye, Third.”

  “Koblenzar won’t like it.” The older general would neither approve of the reduction of Akenberg strength, nor the bolstering of Dauphi.

  “Nay, Third.”

  The dissent of the man in charge of intelligence collection was, at times, distressing. Yet Nico still felt that he provided more value than detriment. Koblenzar’s loyalty to the kingdom was never in question, even if he had no love for the man who ruled it. As for that—well, the day that Nico stopped welcoming the opinions of those who disagreed was the day he became a tyrant.

  “This is foolishness, to weaken our army while we still fight a war.”

  Nico had been right about the old general. If anything, he had underestimated the anger this move would provoke.

  “I’ll remind you that we fight more than one war, General Koblenzar. We cannot do everything at once, so we must prioritize. The Veldt is the bigger threat.”

  “Let them overrun Daphina, My King. That makes one less enemy for us.”

  “Daphina is no longer an enemy.”

  “They killed your own brother, yet you treat them as friends.”

  Nico felt the unwanted anger building inside. “Don’t speak to me of my brother, General.” The exchange left Nico wondering, for the dozenth time, how far the conspiracy against him had permeated. He had never delved into that, for he did not really want to know. In order to run the kingdom, he had to have some faith in those who served him, and he could not if he learned that once they wanted him dead.

  Yet the whole affair bothered him immensely. His heart was full of poison, and each mention of his father or brother pushed it further into his blood.

  I need Leti, he thought, with a kind of desperation he had never before felt. She is innocent of these intrigues. She was always on my side, even when her own father believed me a traitor. She will be my shield against the pain of betrayal.

  But what if she does not forgive you? You made a promise, then you murdered a man who was almost her kin.

  She will understand. She has to. I need her.

  “The Third is tired,” Lima was saying, urging the rest of the council to disperse. She had General Koblenzar in her one hand, and Pim was already moving toward Reikmann and Anika.

  How they protect
me.

  “No, Lima. Pim, it’s all right. Just a touch of the heat.” Nico rubbed the sweat from his forehead. “Let’s continue.

  “General, if you are done lecturing me, I have a question for you.”

  “Of course, My King.”

  “Did you locate the other Thirds, as I asked?”

  With the deaths of Devero and Hawkes, the ranks of Swordthanes were becoming woefully thin. Second Garrett would soon take charge, but there remained a vacuum of leadership that needed to be filled. Either the most senior Thirds would be promoted, or trials arranged to determine the hierarchy. The former would be quicker and more efficient, the latter more glorious—and might even allow Nico an opportunity to test himself against his peers.

  Koblenzar coughed, his tone growing defensive. “Not yet, My King.”

  Nico could see where this was going, and was in a hurry to get there. “Have you tried and failed, or simply not tried?” He knew the proud veteran would take umbrage at the suggestion of failure, and so would admit to the truth.

  “Your pardons, My King, but we don’t have time for the affairs of your Order. We have a war to conduct. Several, as you pointed out.”

  Holding back the better part of his rage, Nico narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “Eberhart himself believed the affairs of my Order were worth his time. They should concern you, because they concern me.”

  Koblenzar sulked but said nothing.

  Nico looked at the others in the room. Lima and Pim were Lima and Pim. Steadfast, reliable. Always by his side, like twin shadows.

  Reikmann was politely deferential. He loved his status, and would do nothing to threaten it. Thus far, the new young king had been a boon for his professional career. But Nico would not wish to push the limits of the man’s personal loyalty.

  Anika was a bit of an unknown. Probably the most capable of the three, she had never shown a hint of excessive ambition. She had received one advancement after another at Nico’s direction, and had neither balked nor thanked him. The young officer simply did her duty.