Savants of Humanity (The Scholar's Legacy Book 2)

by Joshua Buller

Lord Hawke and Lord Uraj towered before him. The Forge kept his arms crossed, one hand clenched around the shaft of his hammer, its head buried in the mud at the moment. The Scholar drummed his fingers along Symphony's hilt, ready to draw. I stood at a distance, next to Mirth, among the gypsies and family that came to witness the event.

  Othenidus scowled at the Old Kings. “So, you're going to play this game,” he rumbled. His words slurred a bit, and he still looked a bit addled.

  “Othello Gottfried,” Uraj started, ignoring his jab, “also known as Othenidus the Great, Sovereign Lord of Val'Hala of Astra. You stand trial on counts of conspiracy of regicide, collusion with intent to usurp, and incitation of war, as well as over one-hundred counts of murder.” He turned slightly, still speaking. “Lheona Gottfried, Sovereign Lady of Val'Hala of Astra, you stand accused of the same charges.”

  Othenidus managed to turn his head enough to see his wife kneeling beside him. She was chained just as thoroughly, not bothering to struggle. She stared at the ground with a dead look, responding to none of the accusations. Othenidus sneered at her before turning back to his accusers.

  “Just kill us and be done with it. I won't grovel before the likes of you two,” he spat.

  “Then you won't deny these accusations?” Uraj leveled at him coolly.

  “The only thing I deny you is the hope of your laughable plans. If you actually think you can reach peace with the demons, you're insane. Now take my head already, that I won't have to listen to you anymore.”

  “Normally, such charges would warrant immediate execution,” agreed Uraj, “but in this case, we are making an exception. That is, of course, unless you try to bring your power against us again.”

  Othenidus laughed dryly. “I can only use my power a couple hours a day. As much as I'd love to rip you two to shreds, I'll have to wait until tomorrow. And make no mistake, if you don't kill me here, I will try.” It was no idle boast. The hunger was in his eyes, unfocused as they were.

  “Oh, we never claimed that we'd keep you captive.” Uraj stepped aside, allowing Hawke to approach Othenidus. He squatted down, meeting the Lord of Val'Hala eye to eye.

  “Othello Gottfried,” said Hawke in deadpan, his face unreadable, “for the crime of conspiracy, you are stripped of your title as Lord Sovereign of Val'Hala. All lands and incomes are henceforth in possession of King Kuznetsov and King Morau, until such a time as a suitable replacement can be found.

  “For the crime of collusion, you are exiled from the Old Kingdom and Fertile Lands of Astra. You may reside in the Madness, or barring that, leave the country through any means you find available.”

  “Don't tell me you expect me to follow you to Grankul on your fool's errand,” said Othenidus.

  “For the crime of intent to usurp,” Hawke continued, “you are stripped of your right to attend Conclave.” He reached forward and ripped the nullstone off of Othenidus' neck. He slid the necklace into the sash at his waist. Othenidus rolled his eyes.

  “If you're not going to kill me, I can't wait to hear what's next,” he drawled.

  “For the one-hundred plus murder charges, against those you swore to protect as a Lord of Astra,” Hawke started again, before his tone suddenly grew sharp and quiet, “and for the hell you put Micasa through, you forfeit the right to your soul.”

  “What?”

  Hawke put his palm to Othenidus' chest and pressed gently. There was a sharp crack, like a block of ice thrown into a kiln. For a moment, no one moved, no one dared to breathe.

  Then Othenidus let out a howl of the damned.

  He thrashed with enough intensity to almost throw off the Riders trying to keep him still. His back arched, his muscles locked up, his eyes spun in their sockets, and his tongue flailed out of his mouth as he let out an unbroken, unending shriek.

  Hawke brought his hand back, an ethereal shimmer cradled in it. With his other hand, he removed something from his waist sash and stuck it in the cupped hand. The shimmer changed to a radiant azure glow, and he held it up to inspect. It was a shinestone, near as big as his fist, illuminating his face with its light. Next to me, I heard Mirth let out a moan of anguish.

  “Lheona Gottfried, you are hereby stripped of your title and status. You'll be held in confinement until further deliberation,” Hawke added, almost as a side note. Lheona didn't seem to hear him. She was transfixed on her husband, terror etched across her face.

  Uraj beckoned with his hand, and a pair of Riders lifted Lheona and began to carry her back towards the camp. The remainders wrestled with the spasmodic body of Othenidus, trying to drag him to who knows where, all the while his screams filling the clouded air with a different sort of chill.

  The crowd began to disperse, dark whispers and furtive glances being thrown around. There was a lot to be done by everyone now that the fighting was over. Uraj led a great number of them toward Val'Hala to begin the work of preparing it for the arrival of the Damkarein forces that would soon occupy it. Others shuffled back towards where the camp had been stowed to prepare for burying old friends.

  Blake left to check on the Mad Riders. Ze had been giving a lot of orders to the Mad Riders over the last few hours, and I got the sinking feeling that Jo had been killed in the fighting. I wanted to go with them, but I didn't know what I could do to help Blake feel better. I watched, helpless, as ze marched away.

  Only Hawke, Mirth, and I lingered behind. The old gypsy leader approached my friend, his face ashen. Hawke stared at the shinestone in his hand for a while, then held it out to Mirth.

  “Would you do me a favor and keep this with the others?” he said. Mirth looked at him like he was being handed a scorpion.

  “I will, but I must say, I'm insulted that you would do this,” Mirth told him. He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and used it to handle the stone, carefully wrapping it up before stowing it in his travel pack. “I thought you would know better than to copy this curse from me.”

  “I…I didn't,” said Hawke. Mirth gave him a quizzical look, and he averted his eyes. “I've felt this power inside me for some time, ever since I regained my soul. I think…I think I somehow learned it from Rouge.” He fidgeted, as if desperate to run away right there.

  Mirth's anger dropped away, replaced with overwhelming sorrow. “I see. I'm sorry, child. I leapt to conclusions.”

  “No, it's alright. Really.” Hawke looked at me, something pleading in his expression. I came to his side and hugged him. I couldn't think of anything else I could do to ease the burden he must have felt. He put an arm around my shoulder.

  “Mirth, have you ever regretted breaking someone's soul?” he asked.

  “Every time,” Mirth admitted. “It's the only way to deter others from threatening our way of life sometimes, though.”

  “I can understand. I just hope you understand why I had to do it, then. Othenidus may have been trying to save Astra in his own way, but he was willing to sacrifice too much for it. To protect what remains of humanity, everything we have,” he gave my shoulder a squeeze, “he had to be made an example, that we will not forgive those who threaten us.”

  Chapter 29: The Six Nullstones

  The days in the aftermath of the short but bloody civil war spun by in a haze. We may have won, but the price of victory was felt with every grave we dug for our fallen comrades. It was a grim fortune that the periodic rains made digging all that much easier.

  I helped Blake bury the Mad Riders that had been slain, Jo among them, as I suspected. Ze kept quiet during the process, digging holes faster than any two others put together. When the last body was interred, we stood for a long while in silence. The impact of it seemed to hit Blake all at once, and ze collapsed into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. I cried with them until I couldn't find any more tears.

  The gypsies buried their own where they had been killed, to mark that the gypsies had crossed that land. Mirth told me that, over the long history of the gypsies, nearly all of Astra had been used as a burial site for their people. It
offered them some small consolation for them, to know that they spanned the country in death as well as in life.

  The family made their own plot, well away from the others, and held nightly vigils to mourn their fallen brothers and sisters. Liore had returned to stand at the forefront for each one, looking grim, the stump of his arm bandaged. Vance led them in the ceremonies, demonstrating his oration with elegant eulogies for every single family member lost. I attended as many as I could, moved by their unity. Hawke came with me to every one of them.

  That isn't to say that tending to the deceased and grieving was all that we did. Val'Hala was now under the control of Hawke and Uraj, and there were a lot of complications that had to be ironed out now that the Lonely Kingdom lost its patriarch.

  The citizens, nearly all of whom we had been fighting just the other day, were left questioning what all of their work had been for. The family and Mad Riders helped keep the peace, but tensions rode high constantly. A few fistfights were started, though altercations were stopped before they could escalate too far.

  The Damkarein army arrived on the second day after the battle ended. Their presence helped alleviate a lot of the pressure from the family and Riders, letting them tend to their own matters while the royal soldiers kept the peace in their stead. They kept their camp outside the walls of the city to avoid crowding it, though they had patrols scouting night and day for any sign of upheaval. Uraj ran a tight ship with them, and the altercations grew less frequent with each day they were there.

  I saw little of Uraj himself. He did appear from time to time to walk the streets of Val'Hala among the people, listening to the woes of its citizens and offer thanks and encouragement to those who had come to his aid. In his polished armor, striding tall, he looked the part of a noble king paying homage to his people. Even the people of Val'Hala seemed reluctant to show him disrespect.

  Most of his time was spent holed up in the great keep, tending to whatever matters needed in keeping Val'Hala running as normally as possible. He had also enlisted the help of Tweet the gypsy, using her special friends to send out messages across the kingdom. A nonstop stream of birds could be seen coming and going from the top of the keep from sun up to sundown.

  Hawke, on the other hand, spent his time helping the gypsies and others prepare for departure. As much as their help had been invaluable, I was glad to see them able to return to their own lives. I only wished we could have seen each other under more pleasant circumstances.

  The family took its leave as soon as their own were buried and the soldiers came to relieve the need for guards, slipping away in the night. I wanted to say goodbye to them, and maybe even apologize to Vance for my mistrust, but I knew it was their ways. They hated being too conspicuous, and I think they were more than glad to return to the relative peace and quiet of the Fertile Lands. I myself had seen more of the Old Kingdom than I cared to for a while.

  The Mad Riders were being assigned a special position in the Astran military. Though we had killed many of Othenidus' captive grinel, and many more had been subdued by the Damkarein army, some of them had slipped through the cracks and escaped into the countryside. Uraj had reluctantly asked the Mad Riders for their assistance in tracking them down, and Blake- now taking the reins as their leader- had accepted.

  I went with Hawke to see them off at the eastern gate. It hurt to see how few of them remained in the aftermath, but Blake assured me that not all of them had ridden out for the summons.

  “It's goin' to be rough for a while, but we'll manage through it somehow,” ze said. In spite of everything, ze put on a strong face for the other Riders, who had been hit just as hard by Jo's passing. I gave Blake a big hug before ze saddled up their camel.

  “Scholar, it's been an honor to help you,” ze said with a casual salute. Hawke raised a hand in farewell.

  “If anything, the honor's been mine. I only wish I could have gotten here sooner,” he said.

  “No point in worryin' about it now. We all have to move forward, if we don't want their losses to be worth nothin'.”

  “A very mature way of putting it,” Hawke said. Blake snorted.

  “As if there's any other way to put it. Anyways, we have some demons to hunt down. If you'll excuse us.”

  Blake gave me one last smile and snapped the reins. Their camel started down the Astral Road, the others offering brief salutes of their own before following Blake. I watched them until they passed a bend and out of sight, and continued standing there until I could no longer hear the steady beat of the hooves. All I could hope is that it wouldn't be the last time I saw them.

  “We have to make sure we try our hardest, too, until we see them again,” said Hawke, as if knowing what I was thinking. He always read my feelings like a book.

  The gypsies were the last to leave, and their farewell the most bizarre. We met with Mirth outside the southern gate, but Chestnut went with us to say goodbye as well. Mirth laughed when he saw how confused I looked.

  “Chestnut is her own troupe leader, child,” he reminded me. “She's staying behind to help you all a little longer.”

  “The Forge is still requesting help from Tweet,” Chestnut said, “and she is in my care. We will remain until our help is no longer necessary. That may take some time, considering the state I found the stables in.”

  “Alas, I wouldn't mind staying a little longer to help,” Mirth said with a sad smile, “but I can tell the others need the open country to deal with what we've experienced. They're eager to live twice as hard for the sake of those who can't even live once anymore.”

  “You've done too much already. Thank you for everything,” said Hawke. Mirth gave us both a fatherly hug and wandered off to oversee the loading of the wagons. Chestnut followed Hawke and I back through the gate, the Damkarein guards on watch closing it behind us.

  “If you're gonna be around a while, you think maybe we could go for a ride soon, Chestnut?” I asked her. A little fresh air and open space to clear my head sounded appealing right about then.

  “Let's hold off on that for the moment,” she said. “We'll have plenty of time for riding soon enough.” She wandered off towards the stables, leaving me wondering what she was talking about.

  * * *

  As it turned out, I didn't have long to wait.

  About five days after the takeover of Val'Hala, I heard a ripple of gossip from the guards that a caravan from Damkarei was seen on the Astral Road, coming fast. I was eating breakfast in the common area of the local inn where I had been sleeping when I heard, and my curiosity got the better of my stomach. From the sound of it, the soldiers weren't expecting any reinforcements. In that case, who would be coming from the capital?

  With the gypsies and Mad Riders long gone, and Hawke and Uraj running about with their own duties, I had mostly been left to my own devices. That usually boiled down to grooming Sir Brown Horse or working on my swordsmanship, but this new caravan sounded like an interesting diversion, if nothing else. I slipped on my cloak to ward against the early chill and slipped out the door.

  Five steps outside, I ran into Hawke going the other direction down the street. Without looking at me, he grabbed me by the elbow, spun me around, and forced me to march with him. I made an annoyed noise, but one look at his face held my tongue from anything else. He was wearing the face of the Scholar; something serious was happening.

  “Is this about the caravan?” I said.

  “In a way,” he answered cryptically. I hated it when I had to wheedle a straight answer out of him.

  “Who's in it? Enemies?”

  “It's the others Uraj chose for Conclave. We're all meeting in the Great Keep.”

  With everything that had been going on, it had slipped my mind that we were supposed to be preparing for our trip to Grankul. We finally had all six nullstones in our possession, but I didn't know if we still had time to reach the departure point.

  “How much time until they leave without us?” I asked

  “About six
days,” he said. His brow furrowed. “It seems that's part of what Uraj wants to discuss.”

  “You haven't already talked about this with him?”

  Hawke shook his head. “I've barely seen him the last few days. He's been running all over the place, or locking himself in the keep. I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't slept since we got here.”

  “It's almost like he's a ruler or something,” I commented as we entered the training grounds leading to the keep. Uraj had been encouraging the Val'Halans to continue using it for drilling as they liked, and they seemed almost awed at the thought of not being forced to train on some strict regimen. Every so often I'd see some locals sparring in the yard, but today there wasn't a soul present as we approached the stairs leading up.

  “I've been trying to help our friends. We owe a lot to them, more than I might ever be able to repay,” he said indignantly. He glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “Are you saying you want me to be more like Uraj, running around and fussing over mundane tasks of state?”

  “I don't think you'd have the stomach for it. You'd go crazy the first day,” I said. He clicked his tongue. With the stairs right in front of us, I added without thinking, “I'm just glad to have you here again.”

  He stopped, looking at me like he was expecting me to follow up with some quip. I returned the stare, feeling stupid for just blurting that out. He broke into a grin and mussed my hair with a hand.

  “You mean you're just happy there's someone to help carry you up all these stairs,” he said. I pushed his hand away and tried to look angry, though I couldn't quite keep the smirk off my lips. I'd spent so much of my life with Hawke around, I hadn't realized how much I missed bantering with him. Those few days without him had felt unbearably long.

  “I'll have you know I can handle these just fine! I made it out of here by myself, don't forget!” I threw at him.

  “Well, the king of Astra awaits us, milady. Please, lead the way,” he said with a mock bow. I punched his arm before starting up the stairs. I hadn't been completely lying that I was fine; my heart only plunged into my stomach twice on the ascent.