by Ben Wolf
“Most of these lands belong to the royal family,” Deoward said. “The lands that don’t are owned by nobles who pay taxes. You know how it goes, having been a lord. I imagine lordship in Muroth is similar to here in many ways.”
“It is,” Kent replied. “Do you own any lands? …are generals in Inoth permitted to own lands?”
Deoward scratched at his grey beard. “We are. I have a few dozen acres south of the city, along the coast. But I’m thinking of selling off ten acres or so. I don’t get down there much these days, and at my age, I won’t be able to properly care for it for much longer.”
“You have servants and workers who handle that for you, do you not?” Kent asked.
“Of course. But I like to oversee their progress. I believe any group of people can become more cohesive and productive if a strong leader is willing to guide them.” Deoward looked at Kent. “Another concept I’m sure you’re familiar with.”
“That I am, General. That I am.”
As much as Kent was enjoying his conversations with General Deoward, the whole reason he’d come on this hunting trip was to grow better acquainted with Prince Kymil. So he excused himself and urged his horse forward.
Kent threaded between Prince Kymil’s and Grak’s horses and announced himself.
“Would you excuse me, Grak?” Kent said. “I would very much like to speak with the prince alone.”
Grak eyed him, and then he leaned forward and looked at Prince Kymil.
“It’s fine, Grak,” Prince Kymil said with a nod. “We’re almost to the tree line.”
Grak shot Kent another glare, then he tugged his reins and fell back next to Deoward.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Kent said.
“You may dispense with the pleasantries, Lord Etheridge,” Prince Kymil said. “You may call me Kymil, and I will call you Kent.”
“If that is your wish, Kymil,” Kent replied.
“It is.” Kymil didn’t look at him as he spoke. “What would you like to discuss?”
“Nothing in particular, I suppose. I inquired of the queen how I might best gain favor in your eyes, and she recommended that I accompany you on this trip.” Kent kept trying to make eye contact, but Kymil kept looking forward. “And so I wanted to state that if you have any questions of me, I am happy to answer them.”
“I have nothing to ask you, Kent,” Kymil said.
Kent’s jaw tensed. Kind of difficult to get to know someone better if they weren’t willing to participate.
Or perhaps Kent needed to try harder.
He scanned Kymil, his horse, and the saddlebags hanging from the horse and saw no weapons of any sort. So how did Kymil intend to hunt?
Back in Muroth, he’d heard of young lords allowing servants to accompany them on hunts in order to do the shooting, tracking, skinning, and field-dressing of their kills. Then the young lords would claim credit for the kills. It had always felt dishonest to Kent, and so he’d never partaken in the practice.
If Kymil meant to do something along those lines, and he meant to have Grak do all the hunting for him, it would aggravate and annoy Kent for the whole excursion. The Murothian lords who’d done it ranged from age six to age ten or perhaps eleven. Kymil was more than twice that age.
“Would you permit me to ask a question of you?” Kent asked.
“You just did.”
“Then permit me to speak freely?”
Kymil sighed. “You may.”
Kent wanted to knock him off his horse for his attitude, but he resisted the urge. “I noticed you do not have any weapons with you. How do you intend to hunt?”
The question brought a smirk to Kymil’s face, and for the first time since Kent had ridden up, he looked at Kent. He said, “You’ll see.”
They arrived at the forest’s southern edge only minutes later, and they slowed their horses to an easy gait as they entered into the trees.
“Deep within this forest lurk dark and terrible creatures,” Deoward said from behind Kent. “But as long as we don’t venture too far into the woods, and as long as we don’t stray too far from the trail, we should be fine.”
Dark and terrible creatures? Kent had heard stories of mysterious creatures roaming forests in Muroth as well, but he’d never met anyone who’d encountered any, let alone seen any himself.
Still, he had believed magic was a curse less than a year prior. Anything was possible, he supposed.
They stopped a few hundred yards into the forest, and then Kymil dismounted. Kent followed suit, and he watched as Kymil opened one of the saddlebags on his horse and pulled out a pouch.
As Kymil tied it to his belt, Kent thought he saw the pouch itself move, but Kymil started walking, and Kent couldn’t be sure of what he’d seen.
Grak stayed behind with the horses while Deoward accompanied Kymil and Kent deeper into the forest. Kent carried his bow in his hands now, and Deoward carried a trio of lightweight javelins.
But Kymil still carried no weapon from what Kent could see. He just carried a straight walking stick with several holes bored through it at regular intervals from the top to the bottom.
Perhaps he intended to use magic to hunt? It seemed like an unfair advantage, as magic had so many possible uses, especially compared to a simple bow and arrow.
The trees loomed overhead, blocking out most of the sunlight. To Kent’s right and left—east and west—he could sort of see through the trees, but they seemed to go on forever. To the north, however, the sunlight faded far faster, cloaking the forest in deep shadows and darkness.
Kent didn’t fear much in life, but nothing within him had any inclination to head farther north into this forest. It just didn’t feel right.
“Shh,” Kymil hissed. He stopped short, lowered his stick to the ground, and reached into his pouch.
Kent didn’t have the right angle to see what Kymil had grabbed, and he didn’t want to move for fear of scaring off whatever Kymil had seen.
Kymil’s right hand began to glow red, and he lashed his hand forward from his hip as if throwing a skipping stone across a pond. A shock of red light zipped through the air, and a dull thud sounded in the distance.
“Yes!” Kymil pumped his fist and tossed the contents of his left hand into the underbrush. Kent would never find it there.
Kymil picked up his stick and walked toward where he’d thrown his magic, and Kent and Deoward followed. They found a brown rabbit pinned to a tree by a glowing red arrow, its back legs still kicking. The arrow had pierced under its neck, near its left foreleg, but the arrow hadn’t killed it.
“Well done, Prince Kymil,” Deoward said.
Kymil shook his head. “I’m out of practice. Usually my aim is fatal.”
“Or perhaps it tried to flee,” Deoward said.
Kymil set the stick down, took hold of the rabbit’s head and its back, and twisted hard. A series of cracks announced its demise.
Kent raised an eyebrow. At least Kymil hadn’t let it suffer.
The arrow evaporated into red smoke and disappeared, and the rabbit slumped to the ground.
“What kind of magic did you just use?” Kent asked.
Kymil picked up the rabbit and secured its legs to one of the holes in the walking stick with a leather string. “It’s blood magic. A type of dark magic.”
Now both of Kent’s eyebrows rose. Dark magic?
From what Ronin had told him so many months earlier, and from he had read in his studies, dark magic was the most dangerous magic to try to master, both to the wielder and those around him. It had certainly proven dangerous for those around Eusephus back in the streets of Goldmoor.
“How does it work?” Kent asked.
Kymil grinned as he tightened the knot, then he held the stick and the rabbit out toward Kent. “If you will hold our lunch, I will show you.”
Kent took it from him.
Kymil reached into his pouch again and this time held out his hand for Kent to see. A grey mouse with a fuzzy white belly
and a pink nose squirmed in his left fist.
“Watch.” Kymil held up his other hand, and it began to glow red.
The mouse in Kymil’s hand writhed violently and squealed, and then Kymil hurled another red arrow into the woods. It embedded in a tree several yards away.
Kent looked back at the mouse which now lay in Kymil’s empty palm. It had shriveled into little more than a skeleton covered in coarse, grey-brown fur.
“Blood arrow. The magic used its lifeblood, its essence, to create the arrow,” Kymil explained. “It’s a simple spell. It took me longer to learn to throw the arrows with any degree of accuracy than it did to learn to create them in the first place.”
“So one mouse yields one arrow?” Kent asked.
“Essentially, yes. Bigger animals have bigger essences, and they yield more powerful arrows or other types of weapons with this particular spell.”
Other types of weapons. Kent thought back to Eusephus’s violet blade and flail. He hadn’t seen Eusephus holding any mice or anything else while wielding them.
Kymil tossed the mouse’s corpse into the brush, and Kent handed him the rabbit stick. “Shall we continue?”
“Yes, lets,” Deoward said. “Perhaps the next kill will be mine.”
Kent walked next to Kymil. “Nearly a year ago, I saw a practitioner of dark magic using a pair of violet weapons that he conjured out of thin air. He had drawn shapes with his hands first, and they just appeared in his hands.”
“Runic magic,” Kymil said. “Another type of dark magic. The mage creates ancient runes with his hands, and they create a variety of effects. It’s high-level dark magic, and it comes at an incredible cost.”
“The mage was not using any animals that I could see, though whenever his weapons hit his opponents, the weapons stole their essences.”
Kymil nodded and stepped over an exposed root. “For runic magic to work, he would have had to harvest essences in advance. The weapons could perpetuate the spell, but he couldn’t have created them without already being steeped in essence.”
“He was an accused murderer.”
“That likely explains it, then. He probably stole essences from other sentient beings and used them to fuel his dark magic.” Kymil shook his head. “A tragic truth of the black arts. Dark magic, if left unchecked, can create urges within mages to seek greater power through more nefarious means.”
And killing mice to create blood arrows isn’t nefarious?
“Or perhaps some people are better used as sacrifices to secure greater power.”
Kent’s back straightened. “I beg your pardon?”
Kymil smiled. “Criminals. Murderers, pirates, bandits, brigands. The infirm, invalids. Rather than allow them to drain the resources and energy of those around them, perhaps it is better that they contribute to a greater cause, one far more significant than their harmful or dwindling lives.”
While he understood Kymil’s point of view, Kent didn’t agree with it. There was a big difference between the execution of a criminal to achieve justice and the stealing of his essence to aid the executioner in gaining more power.
As for the infirm, how would Kymil have reacted if he’d been given power over Kent’s father’s fate? Kent didn’t want to consider the outcome.
Kent certainly didn’t begrudge Kymil the usefulness of the magic. On this small of a scale, it worked well and was practical; the death of one mouse yielding a good meal through the death of a rabbit didn’t bother him.
But he’d seen what the magic had done to that mouse. The idea that a creature’s life—or a person’s life—could be stolen to feed a mage’s appetite for power, that it would simply be reduced to a means to an end, left Kent with a sick feeling in his stomach. It was unnatural and cruel.
The hunt continued for several hours, and both Deoward and Kent hit rabbits of their own—two for each of them. Kent hadn’t used a bow in nearly a year, and he hadn’t fully re-acclimated yet, but Deoward demonstrated prowess with his javelins.
While Kymil didn’t manage to kill any additional rabbits, he did bring down a young stag with three of his arrows. He grabbed three mice, summoned his blood magic, and threw three arrows at once. They knifed through the stag, and it fell, probably dead before it hit the ground.
Satisfied with the day’s progress, they returned to the edge of the forest and reunited with Grak. By then, dusk was settling in, so they decided to begin the ride back to the palace with their trophies in tow. That way they could be back in time for the advisory meeting that night after dinner.
Kent wanted to engage with Kymil more, but Grak refused to leave his side during the journey home, and Deoward wouldn’t stop talking. So Kent decided that though he wouldn’t win Kymil over in one day, he’d at least made a good start.
They reached the palace stables by nightfall and went their separate ways. Grak and Deoward carried the deer carcass and the rabbits into the kitchen for butchering, and Kymil disappeared into his chambers.
Kent sought out Aveyna, first in the throne room. In her place, a wizened magistrate stood on the platform and heard cases from the citizens gathered there.
So Kent headed to her chambers and knocked on the door. A brunette servant girl of thirteen or fourteen years of age opened it, and he glanced over her shoulder and saw Aveyna seated at her vanity.
“Let him in, Giana,” Aveyna ordered. “And then leave us. Close the door behind you, and wait outside.”
The servant girl complied, sealing them in the room alone.
Aveyna stood, wrapped her arms around Kent’s neck, and kissed him. When she released him, she inhaled a deep breath near his chest. “You smell like the woods.”
“As I should.” He embraced her.
“You’re back later than expected. I’d hoped we’d have time before the meeting.”
Kent tilted his head. “Do we not?”
She shook her head. “Not enough for me to make myself presentable.”
Strings tied her dress together at her bust. Kent teased them with his fingers. “You are the queen. The meeting begins when you arrive.”
Aveyna chuckled and batted his hand away. “And what will they think when you and I arrive late together?”
Kent grinned. “On the contrary, I would arrive on time. It does not take me long to prepare for such meetings.”
“Being a woman puts me at a disadvantage. You men maintain unrealistic expectations for your queen’s appearance.”
“Then forget it. You are the queen, after all. No one will say a word.” Kent reached for her bust again.
She caught his wrists and pulled them wide. “But they’ll think it. I don’t want to lose their respect by my appearance, especially given what I must tell them tonight.”
Kent sighed, but she had a point. If she showed up bedraggled and proceeded to tell her other advisors about her proposed peace treaty with Muroth, they would think her all the more crazy.
Aveyna cupped his cheeks with her warm hands, and his stubble grated against her palms. “My love, there will be time tonight.”
“I hope so.” Kent held onto her waist.
“There will be,” she reassured him. Then her eyes brightened. “Oh. I almost forgot. A message arrived for you today.”
Aveyna picked up a piece of parchment laying on the nightstand next to her bed and extended it toward Kent.
He took it from her, puzzled. “Who is it from?”
“You’ll see.” She kissed his cheek. “Now release me so I can prepare.”
“Very well.” Kent kissed her lips. “I will see you at dinner.”
“Please send Giana back in.”
As Aveyna sat at her vanity again, Kent opened the door and stepped outside. He noticed Giana leaning against the wall a few yards down from the door and nodded to her. “You may go back inside now.”
She curtseyed and scurried past him.
As Kent headed toward his chambers to change into more suitable dining attire, he unfurled the parchmen
t and began to read. A message, scrawled in familiar handwriting, described lascivious tales of bedding beautiful Caclosian women, dining on exotic fruits and meats, and drinking “spectacular” wine.
Ronin’s grand signature accented the bottom of the parchment, along with a post-script and a location where he could be reached should Kent decide to write him back. Apparently, Ronin had decided to stay put indefinitely.
Kent shook his head, smiling. Ronin had finally made it to Caclos after all. Kent would have to write him back later.
As Kent turned into the next corridor, he stopped short.
Grak stood before him with his sword in hand.
“We need to talk,” he said. “Now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kent’s shoulders stiffened. He immediately thought to the bow and arrows he’d left with one of the stable boys, and then he found himself searching the corridor for alternate weapons, then for something he could use in conjunction with his magic.
But aside from the walls, the floor, the fires burning in the iron torches behind Grak, and the torches themselves, Kent had no other options.
That was, if Grak actually meant to fight. The sword might’ve just been an intimidation tactic.
“I must change my attire before dinner,” Kent said. “You have time.”
Grak wore his full armor, as he had all day during the hunt. Kent, by contrast, wore hunting attire made of thick wool and leather. If a fight did ensue, Kent had the slight advantages of mobility and speed—both diminished because of the narrowness of the corridor—whereas Grak had every other advantage.
But the image of Grak holding a sword seemed to confirm Kent’s earlier suspicions that Grak was not a mage. He’d meant to ask Aveyna about it several times, but he hadn’t done so yet.
“What do you want?” Kent asked.
Grak shifted his grip on his sword and started forward. Bad for Kent. Right now, distance was Kent’s ally in case he needed to retreat.
But retreating would show weakness and fear. Kent wasn’t weak, and he didn’t fear Grak, so he held his ground.