by Rex Jameson
Clayton nodded in agreement. He pulled the tattered cloth tighter across his mouth, seemingly afraid that it might fall down and expose the wounds on his jaw.
“There’s only one problem,” Ashton said. “We can’t go back to Perketh. She…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. He might have said several things, but they all failed to form in his throat. She’s dead. She’s gone. She might still be in the square.
“Where do we go from here?” Ashton said. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Clayton nodded again. He grabbed Ashton by the hands and looked into his eyes. All Clayton did was nod, but an understanding passed between them.
Don’t worry about it, his friend seemed to say. Just follow me.
Over the course of the day, Clayton guided him away from the pubs and east toward Axewane, south through Suri and then toward Hell’s Edge. Ashton had never been this far from Perketh and nowhere near this close to the base of The Southern Peaks: orc territory—the stuff of nightmares. He was more than relieved when they headed back west and south of Corinth. Relieved but confused.
“I’m as loath to go to Perketh as you are,” Ashton said as they entered the woods Southwest of Hell’s Edge, “but if you think we have to go there, we have to go there. Why the roundabout route?”
Clayton shook his head vigorously. He nodded and pointed toward a limestone keep poking out of the tops of the trees.
Ashton had never been this far south, but he knew that only one southern lord lived north of the harbor of Sevania and southwest of Hell’s Edge. Lord Mallory: the man who killed Clayton with his carriage.
They walked along the winding road from Hell’s Edge to Mallory Keep for two days, only stopping to eat and sleep in the woods. The area was plentiful with game and edible plants, and they hadn’t run into a bandit party since Clayton killed the men in Caller’s Forest. Clayton came back from the darkness with two rabbits every night. Ashton always cooked them over a fire and offered one back to his old friend, but each time, Clayton refused. So, Ashton saved it for breakfast, which is what he expected Clayton had intended.
At first, Ashton thought Clayton wasn’t eating, and he thought this was just one of the changes his friend was going through. Clayton could no longer walk well, and he couldn’t communicate verbally anymore. He didn’t appear to sleep much, if at all, and he was far more sullen than he had ever been when alive.
However, Ashton knew his friend had to be eating something. The most obvious evidence was the pools of blood that Clayton left when he went to the bathroom. There’s no way all of that blood came just from Clayton. He didn’t have that much blood in him. The other evidence came from the occasional screams from the forest, usually at night.
Clayton would wait until Ashton lay down for the night, and then, he’d sneak off somewhere. Ashton thought Clayton was keeping guard, and perhaps he was, but Ashton had a suspicion that Clayton was hunting for food instead. Something with a lot of blood and that screamed almost like a person when you brought it down. Something big. A deer, maybe. An elk. He hoped Clayton might share such a meal with him sometime. A slab of deer would be a welcome change to his diet of nuts, berries, mushrooms and the occasional squirrel or rabbit.
He found out what Clayton had been eating via second-hand, overheard conversations. They had camped a few hundred feet from the edge of the forest with the parapet and curtain wall of the castle clearly in view. Far away, Ashton heard the jingling of coins against wood and the creaking of wheels. As he and Clayton approached the cacophony, voices carried into the trees.
Ashton crouched down and watched as the armored carriage approached. It bore the king’s purple colors, and along the driver’s box were white furs. The golden royal seal gleamed in the morning sunlight. Ashton thought it highly curious that a king’s carriage would be carrying gold to a Lord and not the other way around, since money tended to flow upward. Maybe from Ashton and Clayton to Lord Mallory, and from Lord Mallory to the royal family but not vice versa.
The coach had two men in the front, both dressed finely in purple and brown leathers. One held a bow at the ready while the other carried the reins to the two horses.
“I’m telling you the forest is unusually quiet,” the archer said.
“It’s just morning,” the driver said. “Everything’s sleeping. Feel free to join them.”
“Not a single bandit the whole way from Alefast to Dona,” the archer said, looking at the woods as if the trees themselves might jump him and demand toll. “They tend to make themselves known, even if they would never dare directly rob the King’s shipments. They’d ask for a bribe, at least.”
“You’re complaining about a lack of bandits?” the driver asked.
“It’s just unusual,” the man replied. “I’ve taken this route as a teamster many times. That’s why the king allocated the five gold pieces for this leg of the journey.”
Ashton exchanged a look at Clayton. Clayton avoided his eyes.
“Perhaps Lord Mallory cleared them out,” the driver said. “He knows we’re coming. He wouldn’t want anything endangering the King’s payment.”
“Maybe,” the King’s archer said incredulously.
“You don’t think Lord Vossen killed them all, do you?”
The man with the bow wrinkled his nose and forehead. “You know… that never occurred to me. Just like Lord Mallory knew this payment was coming, so did Lord Vossen. He’d be even keener on making sure the money made it through, I reckon.”
“I’ve heard they’ve both raised bandit armies,” the driver agreed. “Set ‘em on each other, pillaging the roads between small towns. Harassing each other.”
“The games of Lords,” the archer said, “bunch of idiots!”
The carriage went on. Ashton looked at Clayton, waiting for his friend to acknowledge the contents of the conversation.
“They say bandits frequent these woods,” Ashton said, “but we haven’t come across any, and neither have they…”
Clayton shrugged. He very briefly looked at Ashton but otherwise kept his eyes on the ground or somewhere else in the woods.
“The pools of blood?” Ashton whispered. “Are you the reason there are no bandits in these woods?”
Clayton’s brown eyes met Ashton’s, and there was shame there. There was a kind of simmering anger and confusion, but shame too.
“OK,” Ashton said. “OK.”
Clayton mumbled and whined something unintelligible.
“It’s alright,” Ashton said, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m sure they were bad men…”
Part of him believed that. The other part didn’t want to think about the implication. Clayton had obviously never eaten anyone when he was alive. If Clayton was eating bandits, then something fundamental had changed inside of his friend. He wondered what else had changed with Clayton and desperately wished he could have a real conversation with his friend.
Ashton appreciated not being involved in or having to watch those meals. He felt bad enough about the label of necromancer. The last thing he needed was the thought of being a necromancer raising cannibals. He took some comfort instead in realizing that what Clayton was doing was making them both safer. He was getting rid of threats. Fewer arrows pointed at them. Fewer swords at his throat when he woke in the morning, as happened in Caller’s Forest. There was a noble purpose somewhere in this act. Somewhere.
The carriage rolled down the road toward the main gate, which opened about a thousand feet from the edge of the trees. Between them and the rolling fortune on wheels was a beautiful, rolling green hill with gold, purple and blue flowers dotting the surface of the meadow. The white and orangish-brown brick of the castle walls looked clean and pristine. Guards leaned against the parapet, hailing the driver and archer as they passed underneath.
Ashton and Clayton sat down in the sun, looking at the castle.
Ashton felt a pain building in his chest, a feeling that fought against the warmth of th
e sun, the smell of spring, and the jokes and commotion of the people above and behind those walls.
“This seems so unfair,” Ashton said. He picked at the grass beside him as he continued to look at the castle.
Clayton grunted.
“Behind those beautiful walls, protected by all these men, is the man who killed you,” Ashton said. “He’s inside there, eating a nice fat steak. His wife is probably laughing with her friends. His children are probably riding horses in these woods somewhere.”
Clayton gave a softer grunt—more of an acknowledgment.
“For taking your life,” Ashton said, “Lord Mallory will never receive a punishment. He might have been late for a stroll in his gardens. He might have had no particular reason to be in a hurry. According to the law, you were just unlawfully in his way.”
Clayton was silent. He put his palms against the grass behind him, propping himself up.
“But giving you back your life,” Ashton said, “Somehow, that’s deemed worse than taking it. Lord Mallory took you away, and then when I somehow got you back, they took Riley away. An innocent woman. This doesn’t seem fair… Is this all we can look forward to in our lives?”
Clayton grunted. He pointed toward the castle and back to himself. From a sort of unspoken language between them, Ashton knew what Clayton had said. I’m thinking the same thing. That’s why I brought us here.
Ashton nodded.
“I don’t think they’re done taking from us,” he said. “When they realize you really did rise from your grave… When they find out that Riley wasn’t the one who brought you back…”
He let the statement hang there.
Clayton shook his head. Again, Ashton knew what he was thinking. I won’t allow it.
Ashton picked a blade of grass from the earth and threw it over his shoulder. “We’re just two guys. We’re not even fully trained blacksmiths. We have no money. We have no power. We’re nobodies.”
Clayton looked down and then up at Ashton and nodded. You do have power. He pointed at himself.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Ashton said somberly. “I can’t ask you to be a part of this. Riley is waiting for you. Maybe it’s time we put you back into the ground…”
Clayton looked at Ashton briefly and then returned his gaze to the high walls and the gate that was closing behind the carriage. He slowly shook his head.
“Nrrrooo,” Clayton said with some effort. “No.”
Ashton nodded in understanding. Clayton felt he had something left to do. Perhaps, some type of justice for Riley or maybe for his own death in the streets of Perketh. Maybe the loss of the beautiful children that might have come from him and his dark-haired wife.
“Someone should be held accountable,” Ashton said. “If not for the accident with the carriage, then at least what the people of Perketh did to Riley.”
Clayton closed his eyes and moaned softly. Ashton reached across Clayton’s back and pulled him closer, ignoring the pungent smell of decay that lingered under the mingled perfume of daisies, dandelions, and black-eyed susans. Clayton cried on Ashton’s shoulder, and Ashton patted and squeezed his friend’s shoulder. They stayed there in the grass for the better part of the afternoon, watching the sun rise and hang high overhead before beginning its descent.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ashton said finally as he stood up. “I’m getting hungry.”
Clayton nodded as he too got to his feet.
“We may have to go east a bit to find you a good bandit though,” Ashton joked.
Clayton playfully punched Ashton in the arm, and Ashton smiled in return as they walked side-by-side on the road north toward Dona and Perketh.
7
The Lords Mallory
Julian sat up in his soft, silken bed on the top floor of Mallory Keep. He could still hear the phantom creaking wheels jostling along cobblestones from his nightmare. His long black hair clung to the sweat dripping down his chest, shoulders and back. He rubbed his palms against his eye sockets and face before pulling aside his stylish white and black sheets and slipping into a pair of dark sandals. His loose white blouse and pajama bottoms rustled quietly against his skin.
He hadn’t been able to sleep well since he had poked his head out of the carriage and seen the young man being dragged behind it in Perketh. He always woke to the faint smell of flowers and the sound of pained cries drowned out by the horse hooves.
He had no fear of punishment, at least not by any court. He knew a lord always had the right of way on the roads. His father had told him as much. His tutor Kratos had reiterated the same, but both of their looks had been hard. They were disappointed. Ultimately, it was his father’s judgement that kept Julian up at night.
“Death happens,” his father had said coldly upon hearing of the accident. “Laws are for the common folk. Murder is often necessary. But when you kill, son, make it count for something. Did this death count for something? Did it further your goals? Did it move our family closer to something?”
Julian had no idea how to answer his father at the time, so he had said nothing. The death was an accident, but Julian knew he was at fault. He had asked the driver to speed up as they passed through Perketh. Not because he had anywhere to be in a hurry. He just wanted the noise.
He opened the door to the main corridor that connected the three remaining members of his family. He listened at his father’s door across the hall for any kind of movement inside, but it was late—maybe two or three a.m. No guards patrolled this floor. They remained on the terrace and stairs unless called upon, and he had no need of them at this hour.
He walked softly down the hall, past the empty rooms of his dead brothers, casualties of the aggressions of the orcs. Past his mother’s unused room—the same one that his father’s previous wife had inherited before her own untimely death. He knew what the servants claimed. He felt the truth revealed every time his father looked at him coldly, matter-of-factly. A silent reinforcement of what Julian thought about himself and his family. Whatever a man in the Mallory family wanted, he got, no matter the cost. Still, the human part of him felt guilt when there was collateral damage like this. This time, again, he got what he wanted, and someone else paid a price. Soon, he felt it would be his turn to feel the pain of his decisions.
He stopped in front of the wooden door with the dark brown stain that ran down it like dried blood at the end of the hallway. It was his half-sister Jayna’s room. She was the only other person in the carriage with him that day. She alone would understand why these nightmares continued.
He tested the knob, and the door creaked inward. A sliver of light broke into the chamber, illuminating Jayna’s sleeping form in the high feather bed. White drapes hung from the four poster bed and framed the crimson sheets that matched her fiery hair and spirit. The darkness retreated across her face, and her eyes opened. He smiled and she returned it warmly as he closed the door, immersing the room in darkness.
“Nightmares again?” she asked without a hint of drowsiness.
She had been awake.
He nodded as she propped herself against her pillows, her sheets pressed firmly against her chest. The glow of soft moonlight hit her shoulders from a nearby window. She noticed him looking.
“It’ll go away,” he lied. “I’ll forget.”
“If only you’d let yourself,” she said. “You have the power to stop them.”
“You know I can’t do that,” he said. “How many times have I tried?”
She grinned and let the covers fall, exposing her naked breasts.
The last time he had seen her nude had been in the carriage that day. He had asked the driver to speed up as she had taken off her dress. The vibrations of the carriage always put her in a mood, ever since they had been fifteen and sixteen. He had only wanted the rattling carriage to mask the sounds from inside, to keep the driver from reporting what they had hidden from their father for nearly a decade.
“Why can’t I resist you?” he asked sull
enly.
“Why do you feel you must?” she asked. “Do you really think father would disapprove?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because he wants to marry you to some other lord to gain favor and prestige,” he said. “He still has hopes of securing an heir to a major house.”
“I don’t want some other lord,” she said, “and besides, a dowry costs money from his estate. Money he can’t hand to you when he’s gone.”
“Fine,” he said, “because you’re my sister. Because we’re both of his blood.”
“Is there any other blood that I should be?” she asked, turning toward him as she slipped from her silken sheets. “Is there any other man I should want?”
Julian gulped hard.
“We’re doing nothing wrong,” she said as she left the bed and walked slowly toward him. He felt her own longing, an irresistible pull between them. “Only love.”
“Tell that to the boy in the street,” he said lamely as she pressed her fingers against the loose fabric on his arm, sending a chill of excitement across his senses.
He was powerless against her—always had been. For as long as he could remember, she had been the red-haired woman of his dreams. Then she became the stuff of his waking nightmares. When she had relented to his glances and stares, he had blamed himself, and every night he paid the price. For the first year, in his dreams, his father strangled him in his bed. His tutor and father’s closest friend Kratos killed him in numerous ways for a year or so after that. Sometimes, his father and Kratos both jointly killed him, plunging long knives into his chest for what he had been doing with his sister.
In some deep recess of his mind, Julian wanted to be punished. He knew that his relationship to his half-sister would never be truly accepted by his father. It wasn’t just that she was blood. It did not expand the interests of the House of Mallory. Like death and murder, marriage must serve some lasting purpose.
Lord Janus Mallory had wanted Julian to marry a Vossen to secure the south. Maybe even the heir Jeremy, a strong fighter and friend to the crown. The banditry across the northern roads was nothing but a twisted but common type of game played by his father Janus. The monetary losses were intended to build up pressure over time to get Lord Vossen to the table, to make the commitment that would bond the southern kingdoms together.