Titon was a bit disheartened, but Keethro looked relieved. “Perhaps not,” he said, exonerating himself of the charge of having been swindled.
The enormity of the castle loomed overhead to their starboard. The closer they had gotten, the larger the structure had become, yet the size of the walls was less impressive than the sheer amount of land they must encompass, spanning as far as the eye could see. A city could fit within with room to spare for farmland it seemed.
“How would you even attack such a thing?” Titon wondered aloud.
“I do not think you would. But we are yet to see how hard it is to get inside. Every giant has a weakness.” Keethro smirked.
Keethro was his old self in truth; Titon could see that now. Should I need to bring down this castle, I brought the right man to help me do so.
They docked at a crowded pier within sight of a bustling gate that would be their entrance to the kingdom. Atop the gate’s two massive turrets flew an identical flag, each larger than a man, depicting a scene not unlike the one it stood upon: a river flowing in front a castle. It seemed an appropriately immense fortification to safeguard the elixirs Titon hoped to find within.
“Let’s carry all the supplies we intend to keep. I do not expect this raft will still be here when we return.”
Keethro nodded in agreement, and they fashioned packs from their bedding and tied what little they still had to themselves. Their bows, knives, salt, purses, rope, and a green copper pot was easy enough for them to carry between the two of them.
They made their way to the open portcullis, hoping to pass through unobstructed just as the rest of the people appeared to be doing. On the top of the structure behind the parapets, four archers could be seen. At the gate itself were four more guards, a pair on each side, heavily armored in layers of ring mail and each with a massive halberd of at least two men in length. They all wore matching tabards with many smaller rivers flowing into one massive vein. Titon and Keethro put their heads down and began to walk through as if they had done so every day.
“Ho!” said one of the guards, waving them over to his side of the gate. “Where are you two brigands off to?”
Considering how well Titon’s last negotiation with guards had gone, they’d already agreed it would be Keethro who would do the talking. “Same place as all these other fine men and women. Inside for some trading.”
“For some trading?” He chuckled. “You don’t look like you have anything worth trading.”
The other guard did not look so amused. “Rivervale has no need of more vagrants. We got enough of them begging and shitting all over the place as it is.”
“We have no need to beg, and we will see that we shit in the proper places,” said Keethro.
“No need to beg, eh? That’s good to know. What about the big one? He dumb?”
“I speak,” said Titon, “but my friend here has the sharper tongue.”
“Well, we don’t need any more sharp tongues either. Might be best if you two just went back to wherever you came from. And where would that be?”
“The canyons to the north,” said Keethro. They had decided not to mention Strahl or Phylan in case word had spread about any of their recent scuffles. Pretending to be Dogmen was the best they could come up with.
“Yeah? And you didn’t meet any conscription parties on the way?”
“Not sure what you mean. We came down the rivers on a raft. We didn’t see much of anyone.”
“That might explain it then,” the guard said gruffly. “Well, it’ll be a mark to get in for you. Two marks for the big one, as he’s like to use twice the water.”
“I don’t see anyone else paying to enter,” Titon challenged. He did not much care for the demeanor of this guard. It reminded him of another lawman who recently got a bellyful of spear.
“No, but you see that one there?” The guard pointed to a hunched lady limping her way through the gate. Her clumped hair seemed to somehow have less color than grey, and she had a putrid look about her that promised a foul stench should they get any closer. “She’s the queen. And that one there?” The guard pointed to a boy being pulled in a wheeled cart by an old man. His arms flailed around with excitement, his lower half remaining completely still. “That’s the prince and heir to the throne.”
Now that specific attention had been drawn to the types of people passing through the gates, it seemed odd how few men there were, only those old and decrepit.
“So you see,” continued the guard, “I have to let the likes of them through because they’re rich and noble, but outsider trash like you pays a fee to enjoy the luxuries of our great city. And now that you mention it, there’s an extra fee for carrying weapons, and those bows look mighty deadly.”
“Aye, they look good and mean, those bows,” chimed in the second guard, now wearing a happy grin.
Keethro placed a hand on Titon’s shoulder and addressed the guards meekly. “We barely have two marks between the both of us. Our true intention is to find work inside. We are both talented at several trades, but we’ve had hard times in the North. We just wish entrance. We’re not looking to cause problems.”
“Give me what you got, and you can go inside and get good and rich, I’m sure.” The quieter guard had a chuckle at the prospect.
Keethro looked to Titon solemnly as if in apology and tossed the guard his entire coin purse. Titon could not believe his eyes as the bag landed with the crunch of many coins into undeserving hands.
The guards laughed openly. “Go on in. And don’t try to leave until you’ve spoken with the conscription officers. They will want to have a word with you.” With that, the guards turned their attention to the coin purse, splitting its contents between the two of them.
“How much was in there?” They had walked a ways inside before Titon asked.
“Some two marks or so in copper. I’m going to need to stock up on purses, though. I think we’ll have need of that trick again. Just make sure you try and look as angry about it as you did back there.”
The atmosphere had changed upon entering the walls. Thick with the smell and noise of too many bodies in too small a place, it threatened to choke Titon’s breath. The stench reminded him of the Dogmen kennels, horrid in its own right, but the sounds were perhaps worse. Hundreds if not thousands of voices from close and far overlapped each other in a growing crescendo of confusion. For a man who’d spent the past decade of his life in the wilderness, beside a gentle stream, with a wife who spoke not a word, it was overwhelming. He figured he’d soon have to shout at Keethro just to be heard as they moved further into the cacophony.
The majesty of the walls had not prepared Titon for the squalor within. Whereas the main road that led to this kingdom, the Eos, was wide and ever flowing, floating graceful hulls in loose formation, these dried mud roads that crossed within were congested with the desultory motion of legs and wheels, both in twos and fours. Those who walked about them now looked to be either starving or suffering from some affliction brought about by the living in filth.
Keethro must have seen it on Titon’s face. “Not as you expected?”
“We have seen battles less hellacious than this. Let’s find a mender and be out of here as soon as we can. Every guard here reeks of corruption, and they may be the least desperate of this lot.”
Just as it seemed the city had declared war upon Titon, it offered an armistice. He and Keethro came upon a section that seemed mostly devoted to food vendors, and Titon realized he was quite hungry in spite of his anxiousness. The vendors had no need for shouting. Long lines formed in front of all their carts, each a similar type of structure with two large wheels on one side and a pair of handles or yoke on the other. Most had small fires going, cooking things that smelled good enough to make Titon forget, for the moment, that they still stood in a cesspit of sweat and feculence from both man and animal.
The vendor that immediately caught both their eyes and which had the longest line served a familiar foe. The head of th
e very beast, if not quite so large as the one they’d battled, was mounted atop the center cart, displayed at a good height so all could see. “River Dragon Skewers, Two for a Mark,” it read.
“I told you it was a dragon,” Titon declared, slapping Keethro on the back. “Let us have a taste of this beast.”
They had a long time to study the process by which the creature was prepared while waiting. The line snaked back and forth from the leftmost of the vendor’s carts, where the monetary transaction in trade for the skewers took place, to the last of its five carts. At the rightmost cart, a tail of the creature was being butchered by a man who appeared well suited for the job, removing the thick, leathery armor with practiced slices to reveal a pink if not purplish flesh. The butcher was a beast unto himself. His head was shaved clean, and two halves of a messy beard clung to either side of his bare chin, the only part of his face not otherwise covered in deep scars. His lower jaw protruded to the extent that his bottom teeth may have been bared if not for his lips being sewn together, done so with crude cordage. The thick muscles of his neck danced to the rhythm of his slicing as he portioned the meat into squares the size of one joint of a finger, stopping only to hack off a new tail from the pile of bodies behind him. The tool for that job fit him almost intimately: a rusted cleaver too large for a normal man to heft with a single hand.
The rest of the workers looked quite similar to each other and nothing like the butcher. They were small and dexterous, completing the remaining tasks of skewering, battering, frying, and salting the meat with alacrity.
The process was engrossing enough to almost distract Titon from the churning anticipation of his stomach. “For such an ugly thing, it looks and smells quite pretty when cooked, does it not?”
“Aye, it does.” Keethro seemed equally captivated, albeit by something from a different direction. Titon followed his gaze and saw that behind them in line, a couple of older men chortled, each encouraging the other. In front of them, a young pair, a boy and girl, looked extremely uncomfortable. “It is not our fight,” Keethro reminded him before he had reason to understand why.
Two men took turns stroking the young girl’s hair, then pretending as if they had done nothing. Neither she nor what appeared to have been her brother, given their likeness, could have been more than nine years of age, and seemed helpless to defend themselves against the harassment. The men had upped their antagonism to that of briefly massaging the girl’s shoulders and pinching her bottom. She would bat away their hands but did not turn to confront them. It was obvious the boy was torn between allowing his sister to be fondled and facing a foe in which defeat was the only outcome, and the battle for the latter was beginning to win. The look of wistful determination in the boy’s eyes reminded Titon of his own son when forced to fight his younger brother in earnest, finally having been provoked to the point of madness during training. Was I as cruel to Titon as these men are? He pushed the thought aside and replaced it with thoughts of Titon being victorious in combat against the Dogmen, at last appreciating his training, and coming home to read the letter left for him—all of which should have already taken place by now. He and Decker had no doubt worked together with synergy on their raid, just as when they hunted, and returned home as heroes.
The boy swung around to face his sister’s molesters and was met with a foot to his chest, shoving him forcefully to his back and out of line. His sister, who was somehow without tears, jumped after her brother as if their lives depended on it, grabbing him and pulling him to his feet. The people that comprised the line seemed purposefully oblivious to the commotion as the small gap left was consumed, placing those who had been behind the youngsters that much closer to receiving food. The burning hatred in Titon’s chest threatened to leap out and engulf the entire crowd. Had this been in the North, he would have given each man a quicker death than was deserved and left them to rot above the ground as he did the Dogmen. Men such as those deserve to die, and men such as I are charged with ensuring it happens.
“Be sure to remain within these walls, cowards. The moment you set foot outside their protection I will rip out your throats with my hands.” He said the words only in his mind. He could not kill them, not here, and any threat of escalation would result in the men retaliating in the only way they could: later, and against the children.
He stared at them with intensity, though the men were too busy chatting to notice, and the final bend in the line caught Titon by surprise. He and Keethro were at the rightmost cart, the home of the butcher. Titon’s attention was again stolen, watching the man work. He was not the lumbering brute one might assume at first glance. His hands were quite deft. They reminded Titon of his own hands, though with shorter, fatter fingers, causing him to wonder with troubled vanity if the butcher’s grip might be stronger than his own. As if to answer, one of those hands—thoroughly covered in the slime of raw meat—reached out and grabbed Titon by the neck of his shirt, drawing him in close. Nose to nose, the butcher looked suddenly familiar. What must have appeared to others like aggression, Titon could clearly see was not. The man’s every feature was that of a monster except for his eyes. Those eyes peered from behind his mask of scars and spoke to Titon, as his mouth could not, begging him to take heed. They told him to leave this place as soon as he could, and Titon understood. The butcher was his brother, a fellow Galatai, and he was not here of his own volition.
CASSEN
The winding stairway refused to end. This was not Cassen’s first time up these steps, but he had never been quite so impatient to ascend them, and, likewise, there had never before seemed to be quite so many. Were it age or anticipation that made the trek now so intolerably sluggish, he could not say, but he would not race up them like some eager boy. Aside from the fact that he would likely not be able to complete the climb at such a pace, not even spurred by his desire, he was more concerned with maintaining his air of dignity. It would not do to be seen breathless. He had waited near a lifetime for this climax, and he would not allow the experience to be sullied by indiscretion.
He recalled how Derudin had looked so recently at the banquet. That slippery trickster had somehow managed to escape capture, but he had not escaped Cassen’s eye. Charlatan though he was, he must truly abstain from the pleasures of indulgent food given the way he beamed at and handled that which was served to him. It was as if Derudin were a virgin of a man presented with a sensual goddess to do with as he pleased. How ironically analogous, Cassen mused.
Master Warin had served in stark contrast beside the mage, tearing greedily into rib after hurried rib, still leaving bits upon the bone without care. Cassen would not be that man. He would leave no bits on the bone, and he would not race to finish what he’d been so patient to procure. Nor would he suffer the same fate as Derudin—poor old fool that he was—who had not managed to yet dirty a finger by the time Lyell began his theatrics. Lyell of House Redrivers, drowned in the red river of his own vomit. Cassen delighted in the thought of how it would be remembered. He had no hatred for the man, but envy, he found, was often a more spiteful emotion.
But Cassen had envied none more than Alther. That such a fool be rewarded with such a treasure was venom in his veins. The look upon the dullard’s face when he realized he’d killed his own father was worth a thousand kingdoms, but it paled in comparison to what lay in wait above. How ever will he manage to eclipse that expression with one greater when I tell him what I have done with his lovely wife? It was impossible to imagine.
“Master Cassen…Your Grace…”
After so many years of enjoying people stumbling over his title of duchess, to see them stumbling over how to best address him now was truly splendid. None wished to draw the ire of the next potential queen or king, whatever it was he might come to be.
The man who presently addressed him was one of a pair of low-ranking members of The Guard standing vigil at the steps, and Cassen despised him at first glance. His eyes shone with the gleam of honor and justice—this was one of
those who’d barred his path for so long, preventing him from visiting the helpless princess in her tomb of luxury. Do I truly hate you? Or do I begrudge your incorruptibility? But Cassen knew that would be little more than begrudging a simple man of his blissful ignorance. This guard was not to be revered. There was no laudability in selflessness. It was a disease that festered in times of abundance, and the tumult that was soon to come would see it culled.
“Sir…?” Cassen asked.
“I am just Harding, Your Grace.”
“Well, Harding, see that you and your friend here do not allow any interruption of my questioning of the princess. I do not care if I remain there for days upon end and you have to shit in your armor. I do not care if Lyell eats the entrails he spilled on the royal table and comes back to life to demand entry. None will pass these steps until I, myself, have passed them for a second time and in the opposite direction. Is your understanding absolute?”
“Yes, Your Grace. You are not to be disturbed.”
“My questioning of her is not to be disturbed. The idiots of your order have been interrogating her for how many weeks now? She has yet to admit to anything, and now the king is dead. I will not have my efforts ruined mid-process.” With that, Cassen continued the ascent of the final stories of stairs.
“Yes, Your Grace,” the guard said quickly, but to Cassen’s back.
A few bends later, Cassen stopped to steady himself. He had allowed the previous conversation to excite him more than he’d wished. He took slow, controlled breaths to calm himself. What physiological quirk is it that makes the area of the heart burn in longing? Cassen held no belief that the meaty organ served any purpose but to push blood around within one’s body, likening any such inclination to belief in deities and magic. But his chest did burn, and toward his left of all places. An invention of a mind with knowledge of its placement, he concluded.
The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1) Page 37