by John Marco
I bid them all to sit, then stood behind my chair for a moment. “We’ve all come for the same reason,” I said. “Before another word is spoken, thank you. Thank you for not running away. Thank you for helping me.”
“We all want to save ourselves, Lukien,” said Anton. On the floor beside him rested two chests, their lids closed to hide their contents. “We can only do that by fighting together.”
“We want justice,” said Kiryk, “for all those Diriel has murdered.”
“We want vengeance,” said one of Anton’s mercenaries. “For all our brothers murdered in this room by Diriel’s monster.”
Anton and Marilius both flushed at his statement. Their men still thought Diriel had sent Crezil against them.
“Forget the monster,” I told them. “The monster won’t come again. Your enemies are out there, just beyond this city.”
“So you’ve beaten the monster, then?” asked Anton. “We should at least speak about it.”
“The monster’s not the problem. I’ve dealt with it,” I said.
I didn’t like putting Anton in his place, not in front of all his men, and not in his own home. He’d impressed me by keeping his mercenaries together, and I could already tell by the bare walls of his palace that he’d given up a good part of his fortune to keep his men paid. I stood behind my chair, the entire chamber staring at me. Even the servants stopped pouring to hear my words. I felt lost suddenly, but when I thought about Cricket I knew what to say.
“We’re all outsiders here,” I began. “Especially me. I look around this room, and I see faces from different corners of the world. Even you, Anton. You came from somewhere else. You built this place and now someone wants to take it from you.”
“That’s right,” Anton nodded.
“Everyone in this room has lost something,” I went on. “Friends or brothers. Family.” I glanced at Sariyah. “Sons.” I looked around the room at all the diverse faces. “I barely knew the Bitter Kingdoms before I came here. I was warned not to come. A very good and wise friend of mine tried to stop me.”
Inside me I felt a little tremor from Malator. No gloating. Just sadness.
“Pride’s my downfall, you see. It always has been. Some of you think I’m blessed. I’ve not found a thing yet that can kill me. The spirit inside my sword tells me I have no soul any more, and I know he’s right because I can’t feel it. The only thing I feel now is the need for revenge.”
“Then let that be enough,” said Kiryk’s man Lenhart. “It’s enough for me. It’s enough for us all.”
Chuluun said, “In Zura we know of Diriel. We know he will come one day for our lands. So my brothers and I claim vengeance against his intentions.” He and Nalinbaatar both nodded. “It is enough for us, too.”
They all nodded, in fact. Every man around the table, so many of them strangers to me. Sariyah kicked out my chair for me.
“Sit, Lukien,” he offered.
I took my seat. “Marilius?”
Marilius stood, clearing his throat and taming his nerves. He had a riding crop in his hand that he used to point at the map. All heads turned toward him anxiously. Anton shifted aside a bit, giving his man room.
“Diriel’s army is camped in a place called the Sklar Valley,” said Marilius. He made a circle around the valley with his riding crop, in an area just to the north and west of Isowon. “That’s barely two miles from here, and between Isowon and Sklar there’s nothing but flat ground. It’s barren. Mostly sand. Some trees and brush, but no hills, no caves. Nowhere for them to hide.”
“Flat ground is good,” considered Chuluun. “Good for horses.”
“That’s our one advantage,” said Marilius. “They have horses, but not as many as we do.”
“That’s because they ate them all,” I said.
“And because I brought in as many as I could,” said Anton. “Horses are good business around here.”
“They don’t expect us to come after them,” continued Marilius. “They expect us to hold up here in Isowon.”
“We’re not doing that,” said Anton quickly. He looked around the table where the teams I’d brought to the fight were gathered. “I’ve already explained this to my men. There won’t be a siege of Isowon. I won’t have it. There’ll either be a victory or a massacre.”
“We signed up for either,” said Kiryk. “My Drinmen came to fight, not hide. We’re ready to go right now.”
“Good,” said Marilius, “because I only bought us a bit of time. A day and a half ago I rode out to see Diriel. That was at your request, Lukien. I gave him your message.”
The faces around the table looked puzzled. “Go on,” I told Marilius.
Marilius parried nicely. “I saw his camp, and I saw how strong they are. He’s cocky, and he’s out of his mind. He has no intention of backing away.”
“Tell them what Diriel said to you,” urged Anton. “Tell them word for word.”
Marilius hesitated. “He said everyone of us would be disemboweled. Even the children, he said.”
The girl near me dropped her pitcher. The crystal shattered into bits. She looked down at what she’d done and almost fainted. Two more of Anton’s servants rushed to help her.
“Go, get her out of here,” said Anton. He flicked his wrist at all his servants. “All of you, get out.”
Leaving the broken glass and wine strewn across the floor, the servants fled the chamber. But not a man around the table flinched at Diriel’s threat.
“We’ll feed him his own intestines,” said Chuluun. “To threaten little ones. .”
“He’s not lying,” said Kiryk. “We’ve already seen his handiwork.”
“Numbers, Marilius.” I leaned forward. “What’s he got?”
“Two-thousand,” he estimated. “Maybe twenty-five hundred. Maybe a bit more.”
“And us?”
“A thousand counting everything. A bit less probably. That’s a few hundred mercenaries, a few hundred Drinmen, men from here in Isowon, some men from Kasse. .”
“How many from Zura?” asked Chuluun anxiously.
Marilius replied, “Ninety or so. That’s just a guess.”
Chuluun translated the news for his brother, and the two of them shared a grimace. “There would be more if there was more time,” said Chuluun. “They will come. But by then. .”
“Ninety is enough,” I announced loudly. “Ninety Zuran horsemen are worth a thousand Akyren goat fuckers. Kiryk, you were right. Diriel lied to me about his numbers. So what? We all knew we’d be outnumbered.”
“How many legionnaires?” asked a helmeted merc.
Marilius shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell, and Diriel wouldn’t say. But he’s got his conscripts too. And he’s got dogs.”
“Dogs?” said Lenhart. “They didn’t use dogs in Drin.”
“Well, they have them now,” said Marilius. “Scores of them, chained up and starved mad.”
“They’ll send those dogs in first,” guessed Jaracz. He spoke softly, as if talking only to his king. “Which is why you’ll need to stay in the rear, Kiryk.”
“No,” said Kiryk. “I’m a Silver Dragon. I lead tomorrow.” He turned to look at me. “The battle starts tomorrow, Lukien, yes? We’re all ready.”
I didn’t know how to answer, so I looked to Marilius. “Are we ready, Marilius?”
Marilius put down his riding crop. “Anton has spent everything he has to keep his men paid. The men at this table and the others that follow them aren’t going to run. Yes, I think we’re ready.”
“Anton?” I looked at him across the table. “It’s your city. I’ll be in charge of the battle but you’re Isowon’s leader. Tomorrow?”
“You were the last piece of the puzzle, Lukien,” said Anton. He mustered a smile on his golden face. “If this doesn’t work I’ll be ruined.”
“You’ll be dead!” joked Lenhart.
The room broke with laughter. Only Sariyah, ever stone-faced, didn’t grin.
“Anton?” I looked at him from across the table. “It’s your decision.”
He couldn’t hide his fear, but he didn’t hesitate either. “Tomorrow we make war,” he said. “Unless the Akyrens attack before then.”
“They won’t,” I said. “Diriel wants his monster, and only I can give it to him. I still have time, and Diriel will honor our bargain.”
Anton nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”
I pushed back my chair and stood. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” cried the men, all of them standing to echo me.
“Tomorrow,” said Sulimer, and took his big axe and smashed it flat side against the table. The table bounced, shattering glasses and spilling food and wine. “Remember your axes,” he chided. “Remember to take their heads!”
“And remember that Diriel’s head is mine,” said Kiryk.
Anton said, “I think I should have that trophy for my own.”
“Kiryk has claimed it, Anton,” I called. “But if you want, I can cut off his balls for you.”
The men laughed again, even Anton, and raised the remaining glasses. Only Sariyah remained seated. I didn’t know how many of the men knew what had happened to him, or to his son Asadel. The only one I’d told was Marilius, who took pity on Sariyah from across the chamber, lowering his glass and meeting Sariyah’s sad gaze with encouragement. I put my hand on Sariyah’s shoulder and bending to his ear said, “We carry your wounds inside us, my friend.”
Sariyah nodded, then stood, then pounded a fist on the table as heavily as Sulimer’s axe. “Listen to me, all of you,” he boomed. “My son Asadel is out there with Diriel. Taken from me. If you see him tomorrow on the battlefield, spare him.” He gazed into every face. “I beg you to see he is not your enemy. But if he has lost his soul-if now he’s a mindless one-then I beg you to destroy him.”
Young Kiryk, who didn’t have a glass to raise because his trusted Sulimer had shattered it, put up a hand to speak. “My father’s name was Lutobor, King of Drin. He was taken from me, and none of my tears have returned him. In his name I swear: if your Asadel lives, we Drinmen will find him for you. And if he only half lives,” Kiryk’s hand fell to his heart, “we will end his misery, friend Sariyah.”
“We will,” said Lenhart.
“We will,” said Jaracz.
Sulimer, oldest of the Drinmen, dragged his axe from the table. “I will,” he swore.
His words chilled me. I knew he meant to die tomorrow and drag a thousand souls to hell. Sulimer had reached his own valley in life, a place few ever reach, where a person has no fear at all. He had his mission of vengeance and needed nothing else. He was why we could win tomorrow, I told myself. He and all the men like him, who had nothing else to lose, could change such terrible odds. Sariyah gave the Drinmen his thanks and sat back down again. One by one the men around the table all returned to their seats. The servants scrambled back into the room, and the chatter rose around the table, about archers and strategy and how it felt to lose one’s soul. I kept myself out of this talk, drinking and watching Anton and Marilius field the questions. Both had done remarkably well. Marilius had become a leader almost overnight, and Anton. .
Well, I still disliked him to be sure, but he was less of a snake than I’d thought.
We went for hours, long into the night, loosening our fears with Anton’s good wines and admiring the curves of his servant girls. The captains gave orders to their underlings to make ready their troops, each a tiny army under my supreme command. We decided our assault would not come at dawn-there was no sense in that, not when sleep would be so precious. The men outside the council chamber would drill and organize and make all the preparations, but the men here, in this bawdy chamber, would drink themselves mad and sleep late enough to regain their senses.
But none of them had my stamina, and one by one the men around the table took their ease, Sariyah first among them. Then came Nalinbaatar, sick from foods he had no taste for, and then the mercenaries. Kiryk and his Drinmen surprised me with bottomless stomachs, but even they succumbed eventually, and left the chamber as a drunken herd. By then Chuluun had moved into Sariyah’s vacant seat. He’d stopped drinking long ago but refused to leave my side. When at last Marilius said his good-nights, there was only Chuluun and myself, and Anton Fallon on the other side of the table, looking tired and oddly content, resplendent in his robes and womanly hair, a silver bowl of some unknown spice at his fingertips that he snuffed up his nose. He offered it out to me from across the table, and when I shook my head he looked at Chuluun.
“What about you, Bogati?” he bade. “Alwani spice. It will give you courage for the battle tomorrow.”
Chuluun smirked at his fellow Zuran. “I am unafraid, Anton Fallon.”
Seeing them together made me realize how different they were, and how vast Zura must be. Where Chuluun was savage, Anton was regal. I could tell they didn’t much like each other, only tolerating each other for my sake. Anton shrugged, pinched up more of the spice and sucked it up his nose. I realized suddenly how he’d managed to stay so awake. I had my sword to keep me vital, and Anton had his spices.
“Chuluun, will you leave us?” asked Anton politely.
“If Lukien wills it,” Chuluun replied.
“Go on, get some sleep,” I told Chuluun. I knew Anton had something to ask me. I even knew what it was. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Chuluun gave Anton a courteous bow, then bent down as if to whisper to me. Instead he kissed the top of my head.
“Sleep well,” he said softly. “Dream of victory.”
He staggered out of the chamber, drunk on his feet, watched with surprise by Anton, who seemed almost jealous of the attention. We were just two, now. He had dismissed the servants long ago. For the first time in our long night, I noticed the blood stains still on the chamber’s ceiling. I reached out for my goblet then remembered it was empty. Anton clicked shut his silver spice case. He’d managed to stay awake with me, but his eyes were bloodshot and cried for sleep. Beside him still rested the large, unopened treasure chest.
“Is that the money you owe me?” I joked.
Anton turned his chair, stretching out his legs and resting his feet on the chest. “Did you kill the monster like you were supposed to?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You told Diriel you’d bring the monster to him. Why’d you tell him that if you didn’t mean to kill it?”
“To buy us time. I needed to tell him something.”
“You’re lying, Lukien. I’ve made my living selling lies so I know one when I hear it. Besides that, you’re no good at it.” Anton’s voice slurred as he spoke. He reached for a dirty, nearly empty glass of wine, tipping drops from it to his outstretched tongue.
“Go easy now,” I warned. “We’ve got a fight tomorrow. Between the wine and that spice of yours you won’t be able to stand.”
“It’s the only thing that gives me courage,” said Anton. “They think I’m a coward, but I’m not. All my men-they think I have a flower in my chest instead of a heart. I’m not like that, you know.”
“I know, Anton,” I said. “I see that now.”
He smiled. “You called me Anton.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t betray me, Lukien,” he sighed. “Don’t give me to Diriel.”
“Is that what you think I’ve planned?”
Anton wiped his mouth. “I dunno. You told Marilius you were going to give Diriel what he wants. I thought that was the monster. But here you are, empty-handed as usual.” He pointed at my face. “Except for that new eye. I like that eye.”
“Anton, you’re drunk. Why don’t you go to sleep now?”
“Can’t. First you have to promise me. Promise me you won’t give me over to Diriel, Lukien. I figured it out. That’s the only way you can save yourself.”
“I don’t want to save myself, Anton. The last thing I want in this bleak world is to save myself.”
“Why?” He got out of his ch
air and shambled toward me. “Look at you-you’re young again! Beautiful, like me! You made a bargain with that thing inside your sword, didn’t you?”
“Only to have my vengeance. Do you believe me, Anton?”
He sat down on the table with a slump. “I suppose I have to. I’m sorry about the girl. Marilius told me what happened to her. It is right that your heart breaks for her, Lukien. But I did warn you of Diriel’s horrors.”
“You did,” I admitted. “But I never listen, you see. I’m the one who got her killed. Tomorrow I’ll make everything right.”
“All right,” he whispered. “If that’s the best answer I’m going to get. .” He pushed himself from the table, wobbling back to the big chest. He waved me closer. “Come. I have something for you.”
I was curious as I got out of my chair. The room swam a bit around my head, but I straightened and swallowed my nausea. The one thing Malator couldn’t cure was a hangover, it seemed. Anton stepped aside when I reached him, gesturing to the chest. There was no lock on it, just a latch keeping it closed.
“Open it,” he proffered.
I did and had to shut my eyes at the brightness of the contents. Gold, I thought at first, a whole chest of it! But when my sight adjusted and my thinking cleared, I recognized the shining helmet staring back at me, the very perfection of handmade armor. It was my own, bronze and beautiful, better than new, and it blinded me with its glittering. I must have said something, because I remember my mouth falling open in awe.
“You like?”
I touched the helmet, then the gleaming breastplate beneath. I’d last seen it ruined, first by weeks of dusty travel, then by Crezil’s brutal battering. I’d left it in Isowon, dented and forgotten. But here it was again, reborn, more like gold than bronze, a suit of shining precious metal.
“Anton,” I lifted the helmet out of the chest, “how?”
“I like shiny things, Lukien. I have many smiths and jewelers here in Isowon to make my world pretty. Fixing your armor wasn’t easy. The monster left it quite a mess. It’s amazing what real craftsmen can do, no?”
“It is,” I agreed. “Almost perfect.”
I was tempted to try the helmet but didn’t. I just stared at my reflection in its surface, the way the finish distorted my face, and saw my giant smile. My armor was new again, like me. I wondered if Anton knew how great a gift he’d given me.