The Blackest Heart

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “You are outmatched,” Aeros said matter-of-factly. He spurred his stallion nose-to-nose with Leif’s black steed. Both horses snorted brusquely at each other. The Angel Prince continued, “I’ve two hundred thousand battle-tested warriors behind me, and fifty thousand more already on Gul Kana soil just south of Lord’s Point waiting to join us.”

  “This I already know,” Leif acknowledged, then he beckoned to the knight next to him. “Lord Kelvin Kronnin of Lord’s Point.”

  Lord Kronnin, in the silver armor and blue livery of the Lord’s Point Ocean Guard, held his battle helm stiffly under the crook of his right arm. His head was shaved. He had angular features. An old scar traced a path from the bridge of his nose down his jaw. Kronnin dipped his head to the Angel Prince, though his hard-edged face remained stoic, seemingly unimpressed with Aeros or the Knights Archaic or the two hundred thousand fighters behind them.

  Aeros ignored Lord Kronnin’s bow of deference, cold gaze still on Leif. “Why have you brought so many souls out here to be slaughtered?”

  Leif’s black-rimmed eyes were just as piercing in their intent, dark hair rippling in the breeze. He spoke with a cool nonchalance. “I bring unto you sorrowful tidings in regards to your man, Gault Aulbrek. King Jovan Bronachell did unto Gault what you foul swine did unto Baron Jubal Bruk. Gault’s limbless and cockless body was impaled on a stake and placed atop an oxcart and then paraded through the streets of Amadon for all to see. Spit and piss and shit were all hurled at his pathetic corpse.”

  Aeros paled at the news. Mancellor heard a grumble rise from somewhere deep within Hammerfiss’ lungs. The large man’s fists were bunching in anger. Spades’ face tightened in rage as she drew her sword and spurred her stallion forward, facing Leif, her eyes like shards of ice. “ ’Twill be you I seek to slay first on this fucking miserable seabed battle.” The tip of her blade was instantly at Leif’s armored chest. “I will ride straight for you, and you shall die slowly at my hand.”

  “And what makes you think there will be a battle, you stupid bitch?” Leif snickered, at the same time wisely backing his mount away from her.

  Leif then dipped his head to Aeros. “I thought it the honorable thing, to let you know of Gault.”

  “And you have done so,” Aeros replied. “Why should I not order Spades to just slay you now?”

  “I shall get straight to the point of why I rode out to treat with you,” Leif went on, making sure each of his words was aimed straight at Aeros. “We both desire the same thing. We both of us seek Fiery Absolution. We both of us wish to hasten the return of Laijon. We both of us seek our own glory. As does my own lord, his Excellency, King Jovan Bronachell—”

  “What are you saying?” Lord Kronnin interrupted, his face a mask of red, a hint of betrayal forming behind his startled gaze.

  Leif barely glanced at him. “I’m saying King Jovan has sent me here to offer up the armies of Gul Kana in final surrender.”

  “Are you out of your fucking skull?” Kronnin snarled. “Bloody rotted angels, this is not the plan we agreed upon.”

  Leif met the angry gaze of his partner. “Look about you, man. We are outmatched in every way. The army of the White Prince cannot be vanquished by force of arms.”

  “This was not the plan,” Kronnin repeated heatedly.

  Leif’s black-rimmed eyes returned to the Angel Prince. “I declare our forces shall be joined together. We shall both march toward Amadon, toward Fiery Absolution. And you, Lord Aeros Raijael, shall reign as Laijon returned.”

  “May the wraiths take you, Leif Chaparral!” Kronnin growled. “Prophecy states the armies of Gul Kana shall fight! Fight even unto the death! We are to fight before Fiery Absolution. Nowhere does it say we should just give up in surrender to our enemy and declare him Lord. I have read the words in The Way and Truth of Laijon myself.”

  “This is not up to you, Kronnin,” Leif answered with dry indifference. “It has already been decided by Jovan and the archbishops in Amadon. ’Tis not our task to fight Aeros’ army, merely to show Laijon we are willing to fight to do so. We are here to prove unto the great One and Only that we are men of faith, that we believe in his words and promises in The Way and Truth of Laijon. And yes, I have read the holy book too. In fact, I have had the words of prophecy read to me by His Grace, Grand Vicar Denarius himself. It was none other than the vicar who let me know the truths within scripture. We are here on this battlefield to hasten Fiery Absolution, not destroy each other and prevent it from ever happening.”

  “This is madness!” Kronnin spouted.

  “I am sanctioned by Laijon’s holy vicar,” Leif’s dark-rimmed eyes lanced into Kronnin. “I pay no allegiance to the blasphemous Moon Scrolls I know you and Ser Culpa Barra are so beholden to.”

  Kronnin growled. “This interpretation of scripture you and the vicar follow is naught but bewildering madness and suicide!”

  “With all due respect, Ser Kronnin, you are wrong.”

  Kelvin Kronnin whirled his destrier, set spurs hard to the beast’s sweaty flanks, and raced back toward his army at full gallop, leaving Leif behind, alone.

  “Let Lady Death take him, then.” Leif spit into the sand. “Kronnin has always been a secret goddess worshipper. His days are numbered.”

  “Each time we meet, your behavior bewilders me.” Aeros’ eyes cut into Leif’s with a poorly veiled distaste.

  “I only wish to spare lives by averting a needless slaughter.”

  “A great disappointment, that,” Aeros said. “For today I brought special weapons to lay waste your army. Weapons most desirous to all.”

  Leif unhooked the Dayknight sword at his belt and tossed it, sheath and all, onto the dry seabed before the Angel Prince. “I’ve no wish for war.”

  Aeros’ eyes narrowed to cold pricks of darkness. “I already know that you are the type of man who schemes and betrays. Why betray Kronnin and your own armies with surrender?”

  “I see no point to this war,” Leif answered, bowing slightly in the saddle. “But clearly Lord Kronnin wishes to fight. Give me but a moment with him, and I promise that he too shall throw down his arms and you shall ride freely into Lord’s Point.”

  Before the Angel Prince could agree or disagree, Leif Chaparral spun his mount and raced after Lord Kronnin.

  There followed a moment of silence, then a rush of comments.

  “It’s bullshit.” Spades glowered, hard eyes following Leif’s retreating form.

  “She’s right.” Hammerfiss shot Aeros a frank stare. “They are wasting our time.”

  “I say attack them now,” Ivor Jace added. “Ride them down even as they retreat.”

  Mancellor said nothing. He didn’t feel it his place to offer an opinion, nor did the Angel Prince look to him for one. That ominous cloud that had hung over him, that ill-fated dreadfulness he could not escape, seemed to strangle his every thought.

  Aeros’ dark eyes remained fixed on the enemy host. “Let us prepare our advance,” he said, spurring his mount back toward his own army.

  †  †  †  †  †

  Conflict raged within Mancellor. As he awaited Aeros’ command, he felt the bulging muscles and power of the stallion under him. Shine was bequeathed to him upon Beau Stabler’s death. When one is in the midst of doubt and the collapse of creeds, what makes a man join his enemy? he wondered. Instinct? Self-preservation or selfishness? What can be more ill-omened that that? He did not want to draw his sword and fight today. Though he clung to his faith in Laijon, honorable words like gallantry and chivalry seemed long dead to him, replaced by cowardice and betrayal and murder. His heart had been naught but a hole in his chest for the last five years, a windy cold chasm. And he feared his choices had made him an unfeeling monster in the eyes of the great One and Only. He could only pray Laijon would forgive him.

  Or is it naught but betrayal I’ve found myself involved in? He did not know the answer. But through it all, he knew what lived within his heart. Trust. Trust
in Laijon’s path for him. Trust that the great One and Only would eventually show him the way. But the onslaught of blood and gore and mangled bodies of these last five years had blunted his senses. He had grown inured to war’s horror and devastation. Each callous death at his own hand was as effortless, painless, and soulless as the last. All I do is but an act until Laijon delivers me up into his glory. Leastwise that is what he had told himself nightly, hourly. In the midst of combat, he stepped out of his body, waged war in the name of the Angel Prince as though the battleground were a theater to him. He took upon himself the mummer’s role as Aeros’ devout fighting man out of sheer want to survive. He played the role out of a need to feel as if Laijon had chosen this path for him and would eventually show him the why of it.

  These last five years of captivity have been naught but a trial of survival and faith. Until Laijon revealed unto him that sign he so desperately sought, he did what he could to survive. He knew within the deepest parts of his soul that he had been spared for some grand reason. He felt he had a purpose to serve before Fiery Absolution, felt it in his heart, felt he’d been given a spiritual witness that he himself would play a role in bringing about the return of Laijon. He trusted that Laijon had a plan, and he trusted that plan included him.

  Mancellor had fought beside the Angel Prince for five years, seen Aeros’ keen savagery, watched him slay with a brilliance and heartlessness that never ceased to amaze. And not once had Aeros been injured. Not once had he shed a drop of blood. A feat so miraculous it had even given Mancellor pause from time to time made him question if indeed there wasn’t something divine about the man. But he had also witnessed the unfairness and brutal bullying, the myriad bloody, cruel horrors done in the name of Raijael. He had seen the rape and murder Aeros had personally committed under the banner of this crusade. And there must be a purpose to my witnessing it all!

  Everything in life was symbolic. And Mancellor clung to the symbolism his own Wyn Darrè fighting tattoos represented—the dark streaks of blue ink his sister, Bronwyn, had tattooed under each of his eyes the day before he had gone off to war in defense of his country. Though he had told Aeros that the tattoos were meant to deflect the harsh light of the sun from his eyes, in reality, to a Wyn Darrè soldier, the twin tattoos under the eyes represented a balance between war and harmony, ferocity and guidance, and most of all family. And that is why his sister had been the one to tattoo him.

  He carried Bronwyn’s memory with him every day, wondering if she still lived. One thing he recalled, his younger sister always had a white feather or two tied in her coppery hair. She should be about eighteen now, that’s if she had survived the attack on Ikaboa so long ago. Mancellor had seen his father killed by a Sør Sevier sword. Niklos Allen had been his name. Mancellor’s heart ached over his death every day, for other than Bronwyn, Niklos was all the family had. Mancellor’s mother had died when he was but eight. He remembered little of her. A lump forming in his throat, he pushed all thought of his family from his mind, not wanting to feel sad as well as ashamed.

  He was brought back to the present as Aeros’ stallion began snorting and stomping heatedly in the sand. The Angel Prince calmed his mount. “Bring me my weapon.” He beckoned to Jenko. The Gallows Haven boy spurred his mount forward, a look of almost pained nervousness on his face.

  The Angel Prince untied the bulky canvas sack hooked to the saddle behind Jenko and pulled forth the huge battle-ax Mancellor and Jenko had taken from the boy named Nail in Ravenker. Mancellor’s heart lurched at the sight. It was the most finely honed weapon he had ever laid eyes upon, a gigantic double-bladed battle-ax with curved and gleaming edges and sharp pointed horns. It was a huge weapon, but looked to fit perfect and light in Aeros Raijael’s grip. Murmurs of amazement and awe began to drift through the ranks behind the Angel Prince.

  Jenko eyed the weapon hungrily, a creeping obsession in his gaze. Mancellor wondered if the same look could be found in his own eyes, for he too wanted to possess the ax, suddenly wondering if the weapon would fit as comfortable and light in his own hands.

  “Now the helm.” Aeros beckoned.

  Jenko twisted in his saddle, reaching into the sack with both hands, pulling forth a large battle helm. More murmurs of astonishment sounded through the ranks.

  Mancellor found himself staring even harder. The helm was crafted of burnished bronze with gold and silver inlays, two glorious oxhorns jutting from each side, curved and pointed and striking and marvelous, each one hewn of some shimmering ivory unlike anything he had ever seen. Ava Shay had been right. She had described just such a wondrous helmet as they’d sailed to Mont Saint Only aboard the Eagle Rose.

  Ava Shay . . .

  He did not want to think of her. She had hinted they could take Aeros’ two treasures and run away. He suddenly realized it was not bad omens and dread he had been feeling all day, but rather something else.

  This helm is my sign! The ax and the helm both!

  Aeros donned the helm, and Mancellor’s heart sank, for when the Angel Prince placed the horned helm on his head, he seemed to instantly transform into something straight out of legend, some heavenly creature. It seemed both ax and helm were designed just for him. Astride his glorious white stallion, battle-ax in hand, the Angel Prince looked like a marble sculpture of a warrior angel crafted of the most brilliant white stone.

  With skin the pallor of moonlight, helm aglitter in the sun, Aeros Raijael illumed the already sunlit surroundings like the eastern star ashine.

  He left all amazed who gazed in wide wonder. All bowing in deference to the glorious God before them.

  “Today will be a day long remembered!” Aeros raised the battle-ax high in one hand as if it weighed nothing, his voice commanding the seabed. “Today will be a day marked in The Chivalric Illuminations as the first day of the coming of Laijon returned! For today your Angel Prince goes into battle wielding the Forgetting Moon whilst wearing the Lonesome Crown, two angel stones in the pouch at his belt!”

  Angel stones!

  Mancellor recalled the brilliant blue stone he had previously seen in Aeros’ tent. Flat and oval with polished round edges, its translucent innards had shimmered blue shards of brilliant smoky light and stolen his breath.

  Heart racing, Mancellor made note of the small leather pouch tied to Aeros’ belt.

  The Angel Prince continued, his voice rising, “I, Aeros Raijael, the supreme spirit, the Lord of both heaven and the underworld, the Lord of all worlds, the preexistent world, of this world, and the next, and the ones beyond that, have finally come to fulfill destiny! For I am the long-awaited return of the great One and Only, whose arrival was foretold by the Warrior Angels long ago! I am the giver of life and the bringer of death, created before the very foundations of the world! I am known by many names, the Angel Prince, the true and living Heir of Laijon, the great One and Only! And as the prophecies in The Chivalric Illuminations have foretold, I, Aeros Raijael, the heir of Laijon, Mia, and their one and only son, Raijael, have now returned to reclaim what is rightfully mine! Let this be an announcement to all that the time has come when all the weapons and stones of the Five Warrior Angels shall soon be mine and all will call me God!”

  As if all two hundred thousand of Aeros’ warriors had heard the words—and perhaps they had—a thunderous cheer rose up that shook the very ground. The immensity of the roar startled Mancellor to his very core.

  The Angel Prince shouted, “Prepare to attack!”

  Hammerfiss trotted his stallion out before the armies and raised one balled fist into the air—the signal for all to draw their weapons and ready for battle. The signal was mimicked down the line by every Knight of the Blue Sword. Soon the rasp of two hundred thousand swords unsheathed sounded across the seabed.

  Shine’s hooves padded apprehensively under Mancellor. He heard the wet sucking sounds of his mount’s shod hooves in the now muddy sand. He looked down and saw that the once sunbaked seabed was snaking with rivulets of advancing tide, bla
ck beetles scampering everywhere, some afloat on the thin layers of rising water.

  He tightened his grip on the reins, tried to calm his mount, tried to calm his own beating heart. The tide rises fast.

  Mancellor expected to see the armies of Gul Kana, flags of surrender flying as Leif had promised. But instead, Leif Chaparral and the army of Gul Kana was charging toward him, the bristle and glitter of weapons held aloft.

  They fight!

  And all Mancellor could think of was a shiny helm and battle-ax and two angel stones. Send me a sign, oh Laijon! He had searched his dreams for that sign nightly, searched every landscape he traversed, searched the eyes of every man he killed.

  And today his path was finally laid out before him, his deliverance. The Forgetting Moon and Lonesome Crown. The long wait had all been a test of his faith.

  Yes, today the weapons and stones of the Five Warrior Angels had finally come within his reach.

  And when Laijon provided the moment, they would be his.

  * * *

  Facing the truth shall be your only haven from the gallows.

  —THE ANGEL STONE CODEX

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  BISHOP HUGH GODWYN

  5TH DAY OF THE FIRE MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  SAINT ONLY CHANNEL

  Leif Chaparral and Lord Kelvin Kronnin led the attack, their banners fluttering over the helms and spear tips of the thousands who followed.

  The two armies thundered toward each other, creating a fearsome sound. The very seabed shuddered. Hugh Godwyn, near the middle of the Gul Kana army, could feel the fear welling up all around, sheer and all-embracing. Still they ran. Godwyn too, Dayknight sword clenched tight in hand, blinking against the shards of sunlight bouncing off the shined armor of the knights in front of him. His own labored wheezing echoed under the suffocating gaoler helm jouncing on his head. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face. The heavy iron armor was sweltering and ill-fitting. The cool rippling seawater at his ankles offered scant relief; black beetles tossed in the froth underfoot.