The Prelude to Darkness

by Brenden Christopher Gardner

  “You are a slow learner,” Damian said, laughing. “Yet you are not entirely dense. The service of two luggards is worth less than yours, but do not make this a habit. I will not always make the trade.”

  Sheathing his steel, Daniel grunted in reply. He never took to Damian’s threats, and would not do so now.

  “Come see our work,” Damian commanded.

  Not wanting to test Damian’s patience, Daniel acquiesced.

  Rape. Slaughter. Burning. Wailing.

  The sounds were endless, immeasurable, lacing every thought.

  The port-town—Lalton, he remembered, he knew that was important—was naught more than crumbling ruins, burnt foundations, and a cacophony of dread and terror. It was once small and humble, no more than a small loading dock with only the family of the dockhands occupying it. It was vibrant, peaceful, and honest.

  All shattered.

  Damian lead through the main streets, looking side to side, grinning at the work of the Crimson Swords. Slowly, Daniel looked in turn, half curiosity and half fearing what Damian would do if he did not.

  The women had torn blouses or naught at all. Crimson cloaked swordsmen took them from behind, their gauntleted hands gripping and tearing the exposed flesh. Rivers of tears streamed down the women’s faces; some wailed and shrieked, while others accepted their fates.

  “This is wrong, Damian, all of it.”

  When Damian stopped suddenly, Daniel knew it was a mistake, though there was no fury on his friend’s face, only disappointment.

  “You will learn one day that the men must have their flesh,” Damian said curtly. “Heh, do you wish for a mutiny? Cannot take vengeance upon your father if you no longer draw breath.”

  Daniel balled his fists and looked squarely at Damian, trying to block out the fire and fury. “My vengeance, it is not worth this. No, I would be shamed a hundre’ times over if it meant that this ne’er came to pass.”

  Reeling, Daniel felt his head nearly twisted off. Shaking his head, he saw his friend looking down furious.

  Damian had struck him.

  “Coward! Craven!” Damian shouted. “Do you not know what it is we must do—what is needed against these tyrants?!”

  Daniel stared intently at Damian, refusing to even assuage his own hurt. “There is no point to this.”

  “When you are a captain you shall know,” Damian replied before bursting into laughter. “I oft forget that you still cling to your noble life, unaware of the realm all around you. Come down from your tower, Daniel Baccan, and look, look at what we must contend with.”

  “I would rather—”

  Damian gripped Daniel by the neck. The steel dig into his flesh. Daniel wanted to thrash out but knew it to be futile. Damian was much the stronger.

  “You will look, there, to the north-west. It still burns! See, watch! Do not resist me you bastard.”

  Obediently, Daniel watched. A buxom woman, shorn of her garb was on her hands and knees, her head deep in a pile of little corpses. Her head shook to and fro, and a crimson cloaked man—bare from the waist down—took her from behind. The woman’s back was red; crimson streams cascaded towards the dark, muddy ground. Her eyes were wide, pleading, but no help would come.

  “They are dogs!” Damian rasped. “They are no different from that wretched magister. The fools should wear motley, but they do not fool me. None of these cunts do. There is much that the crones revealed, more that these younger sheep know but will not tell. Heh, the men enjoy them—it is all they are good for. Watch them, Daniel, that is the man you will become. The man who will serve as my right hand upon my seat of power.”

  Rape. Slaughter. Burning. Wailing.

  The woman looked straight ahead, never down. Daniel could not help but stare upon the ground; there the little corpses wore torn and ratted rags, their hair matted and shaggy. They were pierced through the heart, eyes toward the sky. If they are, if they are, no, Damian would never, he would not allow…

  “It is power, my dear Daniel,” Damian declared, his grip tightening. “Word will spread along the continent and across the sea. Just as it has for months. They will learn of our strength. The fear that we sow. None will stand ‘gainst our decrees. These will be the last of the stubborn cows.”

  I cannot tell you what I do not know! The words of Pavan Ross echoed in Daniel’s mind. Looking at the woman, he imagined the same words passed her lips. Please! Please! Not my boys. I cannot tell you what I do not know! I do not know! His eyes bulged, but he would not act; naught could be done for the woman.

  Suddenly the crimson cloaked man pushed forward hard, pulling the woman back, and relief and pleasure flushed across his face. Then he reached for a dagger upon the ground, cutting her throat.

  Damian released his grip. “T’was not so hard, was it Daniel? You had the most delicate of flowers, too. Though I would not let these boys hear of it. I do not wish to see any more blood of ours on this day.”

  Staggering, Daniel looked to the pile of corpses, to the twisted and terror-struck faces. Sorrow raced through him; he would never forget the dread and horror of it. It reminded him too much of his father, his cruelty—the very man he vowed not to be.

  The very man that Damian was.

  I am not yours, Damian. I can never be this. “By your will, Damian.” The lie was necessary.

  “Ass kissing little shite,” Damian pronounced, clearly not believing a word of it. “Time will tell. Until then, I would hear your opinion on the words of crones. This was not entirely a useless endeavour.”

  Nodding his head, Daniel hoped it was true. “Small mercies.”

  “Heh, indeed. The crones sang of crystalline stones from three hundred seasons past. There was a woman who named herself Justine the Indomitable—would have liked to see that wench and seen the truth of her title! The shites said that she knew their prophet rather well, who claimed these crystalline stones possessed the power of Mother God, though that they should be kept hidden. So, their forebears hid them in vaults kept within the earth and left no trace of them. What do you make of this folktale?”

  Daniel nodded his head solemnly. He knew that many fled the kingdom long ago, but of Dalian theology he was entirely ignorant of. “It almost sounds like the braying of their priests, Damian.”

  The man grinned like a fool. “Aye, that is what I thought, but even in myth there is some bloody truth to nonsense. Heh, do you think King Marcus is chasing after myth and legend? Does he mean to take upon the power of gods?”

  “I never met the king, not in all my years,” Daniel mused. “I spied him from afar. He was always one for pageantry and servitude, but to be so disillusioned? I cannot say.”

  “I do believe it!” Damian said aloud. “Is that not what the kings have always done? The high priestesses and imperators in these wretched lands, too? Why else would those shites in white kneel in servitude? Why else do the Black Guard cross the sea, seeking riches? By gold or by prayer, they think themselves gods; so too does the king, seeking the most ancient. Heh, the more we learn, the more we spin, the closer to ruin that cunt comes.”

  And you, what makes you so different, Damian? Daniel thought, keeping his head down, ignoring all the laughter from his friend. Do you not search for the same? When these lands change, they will discover a tyrant, but one far crueller; and I will have eased that, but for what?

  Damian pointed towards a wide wooden building that crested a low-rising western hill. The wide frontal balcony was rung with Crimson Swords, and a small stable stood abandoned off to the right-hand side.

  Stepping into the building, Daniel saw it was bare, but for a long table in the middle with a stretched-out map upon it. There a tall man stood, studying the map and running a thick finger across a short-cropped beard. Beyond the man, Crimson Swords stood attentively.

  “Shipp!” Damian called out, advancing towards the table. “Naught but myth and legend are on the lips of these cravens. We will have to move and soon.”

  Shipp simply n
odded his head, not raising his eyes from the map. “We will not learn much more from the Dalians.”

  Damian slammed his fists down upon the table. Shipp still did not look up.

  “What did you say, Shipp?!” Damian demanded. “I know you can read a bloody map as well as I. Jakon remains to the north, see!” He pointed to the north-east coast. “We can evade the order, see if those fools further north have aught to say. Heh, even if they do not, the fire will spread further. That will loosen lips.”

  Shipp finally raised his eyes. Daniel felt them appraising him; he wondered what it was that the man was looking for, but those scathing eyes belied little. Shipp suddenly turned to Damian. “You would slay us all.”

  “I would slay you for insolence!”

  “There, Sherin Forest,” Shipp said, pointing to a lush forest in the Dalian Northlands, some leagues west of Lalton but close to the port of Jakon. “Scouts reported movement near the forest’s borders, though they were not fools and did not wander much closer. The beasts of the north are not to be trifled with. The Dalians, though, they know it well, and the order was spotted near. If we raided Jakon, the holy knights would be on us as the embers crackled.”

  “Those fucking cunts!” Damian yelled and stuck a dagger through Dale, far to the south. “I will have Ser Jacob’s head one day. Lucky for him, it will not be in the coming weeks.”

  “Hmmm,” Shipp murmured, grazing a finger along the map, crossing the sea eastward. “That is where we should move towards.”

  “The northern wastes?” Damian asked, incredulous. “It is not a tantalizing dish. You would have us feast like kings not a week past, then pick at the crumbs best left to vultures? Do you take me for a fool, Shipp?”

  “We have little choice,” Shipp replied, ignoring the threats and accusations. “They left the kingdom, same as the Dalians did, though they have drawn up walls that no man has yet to flatten. Do you see the eastern mountains?”

  Though not asked, Daniel peered at the map. A mountain range ran along the eastern border, south to north, bordering a desert labelled the Desert of Death. He hoped not to pass into it, ever, though his eye drew further north, to the immense mountain range that travelled west and then south.

  “Bloody mountains,” Damian replied. “What of it?”

  “Mount Cimmerii,” Shipp explained, pointing to the immense mountain in the centre of the map. “It birthed the great mountain range—though it extends north and north-east more than it does the south. The passes are high and long; few can pass its labyrinths. All others must travel along the western coasts.”

  “Speak plain, Shipp. I care not for cartography.”

  Shipp continued as if he was not interrupted. “If we sent some longships down south—enough for a light engagement, no more—we can bottle neck them along the coast, whilst we ravage the northern coasts. There will be no aid from the passes. Even if the imperator sent men, we would be long gone by the time that they arrived.”

  “You would send us to plunder when we need lies to feed the wretched king?”

  “It is either that, Damian, or we meet steel with the holy knights. I do not need to remind you that we are no more than a hundred men.”

  Daniel stood silently while Damian stared daggers into Shipp. He had come to the same conclusion, though Damian would have liked no more from his lips

  “Prepare our brave hundred!” Damian declared after a time. “And get out of my sight.”

  Shipp inclined his head, unblemished from Damian’s wrath. He called to a few of the Crimson Swords who followed him out. A handful remained along the far wall.

  And Damian was laughing raucously.

  “All of these learned men, these crones, these young women! They feed us fairy tales and then we are sent scurrying off to the fucking wasteland! They meant little in life, and now less in death!

  “I do wonder Daniel,” Damian continued, slouching back against the table, smiling mischievously. “Will the women of the imperium wail as loudly? The wasteland is hard, they say, will they be like sticks, hurting our pricks with every thrust? Oh, how wonderful it will be to break them!”

  Damian laughed endlessly.

  Rape. Slaughter. Burning. Wailing.

  I cannot tell you what I do not know!

  Daniel remembered Pavan Ross—the beaten, decrepit corpse that he was. His daughter, Sally, too—the maiden who had done no wrong, pleading for her life, ashamed for how the deity would perceive her. Then, Daniel remembered that woman on the streets, and the Crimson Sword who fucked her so near to her dead children.

  Damian no longer stood before him. The man had long, dark brown hair, and a strong, full faced beard. His eyes were cold, scathing, and judgmental.

  “You would disgrace our family name?” His father asked of him. “I, who have given you every opportunity, who gave you knowledge and training that the king’s subjects only dreamt of, you would repay me with such disgrace? This Emily of yours, she is a whore, my son. She spreads her legs for every young boy with a silver to his name, and those with gold are treated to her friends as well. You are my heir, my son, see that you do not forget that!”

  “Where is she, Father?” Daniel asked weakly. He still heard the laughing, but his father’s expression only hardened.

  “Where she belongs, boy. Upon a straw pallet, moaning, while some shite plants his seed in her.”

  “Father … no … Emily, where is she?”

  “The slut is in the whorehouse; do you not understand?”

  “Do not call her that, Father.”

  “She is a slut, boy. A slut. She is a slut, Daniel!”

  Daniel barreled his sire over, felling blows with his left and right hand. Over and over. Tears rolled down his face, blurring his vision. His father’s face turned to a sea of red until—

  Daniel crashed into tables. His father stood above, sword drawn, blood streaming down the sides of his face. “You will leave me scars, you high born shite! I am not your father nor do I know of this Emily. What is wrong with you Daniel?!”

  The man’s face was clean shaven and his blond hair draped down a torn crimson cloak. That is not my father, but Damian. I raised my hands in anger against Damian, and I still live and breathe! He did not regret what he did. “You are no different from my father, Damian.”

  “Take those words back you cunt, or I will open your throat.”

  “No, you will not, Damian. You will let me stand.”

  “Stay on your arse, you cunt.”

  “Let me stand, Damian.”

  The chamber was quiet, save for the shuffling of feet behind Damian. The Crimson Swords stood at the ready, though their hands trembled. Daniel eyed his friend inquisitively, not daring to back down.

  Damian sheathed his sword and dismissed the men. “Stand and speak your peace.”

  Rising to his feet, Daniel gripped Damian by the throat. ‘Tis time that you shall listen to me Damian, though you may not like it. “My father loved my younger brother, Brayan, and hated me that I was not like him. All that I had, all that I loved, he ripped from me, and beat me down. He was a cold, unfeeling bastard—‘tis what we are, what you made me be!

  “Emily, she was dear to me, though I was naught but a mere boy. We snuck away into the commons and unto the thin forests. There we shared the time. I knew who she was, what she was, but I did not care. I loved her and she loved me.

  “My father, he had many friends, high and low. It was not long that he learned of it. He tempted the girl with coin that her family badly needed. Made a whore out of her. He took her himself nearly every night. She never looked at me the same again. All she saw was my father.

  “He took everything away from me!

  “How is that different from what we have done here? How many lives have we shattered? How many families have we broken? Answer you bastard, answer me!”

  Damian pushed Daniel’s hands away. He let it happen, sinking into himself, sorrow overtaking every thought.

  “You press you
r luck too far, Daniel. I will not have these outbursts.”

  Balling his fists, Daniel pushed the anger down. He knew he did not have the strength to rid the realm of the monster before him.

  “Devan Baccan, heh, he is no different than my own father,” Damian said musingly. “I left long before he could wound me but I have not forgotten those shit-eating smiles. Though my mother would have wept, I know the city guard would have found me in the gutter one morn if I did not flee.”

  Damian pointed his right index finger at Daniel. “Do you think you have the only sob story in this fucking realm? You lost a flame? I would have lost my life’s blood! What power do we have here, far away from the kingdom? Shipp did not lie when we said there is but a hundred men. What can we do against men like our fathers? Naught as it stood—and I am tired of that. It is fear that we must sow. Men respect fear. Men will fight for fear. Then the fear will consume those fucking cunts we call fathers.”

  “We are becoming them,” Daniel protested. “We must be better men.”

  “No, not better men. Stronger men.”

  Stronger. Daniel repeated the word in his mind. Yes, I will become stronger—stronger than you, the loyalty of the crimson-cloaked bastards be cursed.

  Time seemed to pass slowly. Damian began to scowl and fidget. Daniel knew he had to speak; he reached down and found the question that would assuage his friend. “Is that why they call me the Corsair?”

  Damian burst out laughing. “I thought you wanted to slay the next man who called you that? Must I disarm you, so that I do not lose my ally?”

  I do not want the title, no more than I want this destruction, but—” The Corsair is strong. So must I be.”

  Damian embraced him, and he hugged the man back. He felt dirty and cold. It was necessary, above all else.

  “There is much for us to learn in the wastelands, my friend,” Damian said proudly, breaking the embrace. “The Black Guard will hunt us down surely as the Order of Light has, but many will notice it. They will fear our strength and join to us. Then, we will cast out our fathers and all who lead as they do.”

  “What name will you hold?” Daniel asked suddenly.