by Dylan Doose
“I’m not sure I can kill a person,” Aldous said, avoiding Kendrick’s gaze.
Ken looked at the boy and thought of how many times he’d heard those words from boys who went on to kill dozens.
“If our wizard can’t burn him, then he dies slow, by blades,” Ken said.
“We haven’t the time, nor do I have the stomach for torture,” Theron said firmly, but without any anger.
Ken glowered at Theron, and had he been the man he was six years ago he would have come to blades with the hunter over that, but he was not the same man. Perhaps he was a better man now. Or perhaps he was simply a more patient monster.
“Fine,” he eventually said, icy calm. In truth, it didn’t matter how the count died, so long as he died. “Then to answer your question, hunter, no, I do not wish to be the one that kills him. It doesn’t bloody matter now. Let’s just go and fucking get it done.” And he strode into the hall.
* * *
They entered the throne room. The walls were adorned with the heads of dead beasts, glass eyes staring out, fur matted with the spattered blood of the slain who lay scattered across the floor, dead, filmed eyes staring at nothing.
“Same as the kitchens,” Ken said.
“Not entirely,” said Theron, kneeling over the half-naked corpse of a dead woman—more a girl than a woman, really. “She was raped, and her throat was slit. By knife, not by claw. Look around, Kendrick. A great deal of these wounds were made by sword, knife, and spear. Men, not rats.”
“They’re the same,” Ken said as Theron lingered over the corpse too long for a man who knew death. “Who is the woman?”
“I don’t know her name, but this is the count’s daughter.”
Ken thought there was perhaps the slightest bit of sentiment in Theron’s voice, but he could not be sure.
Theron rolled the body over to inspect the girl’s face. He stood abruptly. “Oh,” he said, “no, that’s not the count’s daughter. I don’t believe I know who this is after all.” He shrugged, then gave one last glance. “Hard to tell, in truth, for she was wearing a mask when we fucked in the stables, so I can’t say for sure, you see? But she was quite good, really.”
Strange man, this Theron Ward.
Theron made his way to another set of stairs. These led to the second level at the back of the throne room. Aldous followed the hunter and, after a final look around, Ken did the same. The count’s body was not among the dead, and he was too bloody fat to be missed even if he was half eaten.
There were more bodies still. Dead rats, dead nobles, and dead soldiers. Some of the soldiers appeared to have killed each other, and some of the nobles had taken up arms against some of the soldiers.
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand,” Aldous repeated to himself in a whisper as the trio slunk down the corridors of the royal chambers.
Ken almost told the boy there was nothing to be understood about chaos, but in the end, he held his tongue.
There was yelling up ahead and the sound of something heavy battering against a door. The noise was perhaps only fifty paces away and around a corner. And from the windows that lined the corridor came screams from the street below.
Kendrick went to a window that looked out into the city of Norburg. The city was in flames.
“Theron, come look at this. And you, boy, as well,” he said, motioning his companions to the window. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the rats were swarming in the streets. They broke into the homes of the rich and poor alike and slaughtered and feasted with no prejudice.
“This is the delight of our world, is it not?” Ken asked. “One moment your back is being lashed just before you hang, legs twitching before the hateful screams of the people. The next moment, those would-be watchers of your death are being ripped asunder by a swarm of rats.”
“You are a strange man, Kendrick the Cold,” Theron said, and he too turned to look out the window. After a moment, he said, “It is her.” He pointed. “Her hair has gone gray, but it is her, no doubt it is her.”
“Who?” Aldous asked.
Ken followed the hunter’s stare and saw amongst the swarm, walking through the center, a thing that caused even the voice in his head to fall silent in awe: a woman, wearing emerald green, her black hair streaked with gray. Around her marched fifty of the count’s guards and several seekers, but not as her captors. They were her escort.
“She is a dried husk, drained by her spells, but the same witch,” Theron said.
A witch. Suddenly, Calabaster’s words—at the time of their utterance, meaningless words—echoed in Ken’s mind: The rumbling in the earth started the same day as that Emerald Lady arrived from the northeast. There had long been rumors about the black sorcery and dark deeds of those who lived among the mountains of Romaria, whose towns edged up against the darkest woods, whose people were said to have ties to demons and darkness and all manner of legends. Ken could believe that such a woman might be a witch.
Behind the Emerald Woman and her entourage was a procession of women held in chains, some screaming and begging, others wailing in lament as they were dragged forward. Dragged forward into the angry sea of rats, the writhing, furious tempest of black boils and smoldering pus, gnashing teeth, and imprisoned eyes.
Ken glanced at Aldous and saw the true horror in the boy’s eyes, and when he shifted his gaze to Theron, he saw the mixture of dread and impotent rage etched into his visage.
“Go,” Ken said. “You are probably already regretting your decision to stay.”
“I am,” Aldous said, and plucked at Theron’s sleeve.
Theron pulled his arm away, and said, “Do not question my honor.”
Ken shrugged. “See how the creatures of the plague part, how they split and make way for this Emerald Woman and her parade.” They squealed and shrieked as she passed with her convoy, and they hissed and snapped at the enslaved women behind.
But they let them pass through, untouched.
* * *
One cannot both be a ruler and righteous. To be righteous, truly righteous, a ruler must be able to justify each and every one of his actions, from the way he eats his dinner to the way he wages his wars not only to himself, not only to those close to him, but he must justify all to each and everyone of his subjects. Only then can a ruler be righteous, and that is simply a thing that cannot be done. Therefore a ruler must be powerful enough to make his subjects forget entirely about the concept of righteousness.
* * *
—The Honorable Count Salvenius of Norburg, excerpt from the text Sovereignty.
* * *
Chapter Nine
What is Righteous
The three of them slunk down the hall, quiet as cats—Theron up front—as they approached the sound of hard wood and bodies bashing against a door. There came a monstrous crack, a momentary pause, then screams of fury and steel against steel.
“Slay these traitors, men! They abandoned me for that bitch!” The bold cry was that of the count.
“That’s him. The bastard’s still alive,” whispered Theron as they hid around the corner, mere feet now from the chaotic bedchamber. He peeked his head out to get a look. The attackers were pushing their way through a smashed-in double door. On the ground was a sturdy, solid oak wardrobe, a real monstrosity of a furnishing that had been used by the betrayers as a battering ram.
Theron moved to step out from cover and enter the fray, but Ken grabbed him by the wrist.
“Give them a moment,” Ken said in a hush. “Let them settle in to each other. When they are good and tired, nearly dead, we go in for the kill.”
“Like vultures?” Theron asked.
“Aye. Like vultures.” Ken smiled.
“I don’t know about this,” said Aldous, reaching out to grab Theron and tug him back behind the wall. “I mean, that sounds like a lot of swords. And a lot of screaming. If we were vultures I don’t think we would go in for the kill. I don’t think vultures do any killing, in fact. They just eat the d
ead. So can’t we just wait until they are all dead?”
Ken shot him what might pass for a smile. “That won’t do,” he said. “I need to see him die.”
“What difference does it make? How could you possibly need to see that? All that matters is that he does indeed die, right? That’s what you said, right?”
“Wrong,” said Ken.
“No, no, my good man. The boy is right. I believe that is exactly what you said,” said Theron, suspecting that Ken’s earlier easy acquiescence had been a ruse.
Ken shot him a dark glare and stood, clearly having decided it was now time to enter the fight.
“Stay close, Aldous,” Theron said. “I’ll be outraged if you get yourself killed after we’ve made it this far.”
“I don’t even have a weapon.”
“They will be dying fast, and the dead won’t protest at your taking one of their blades,” said Ken, his back against the wall just outside the door. He looked at Theron.
Theron gave a nod. Courteous of him to wait for that. They charged into the chamber.
A crowd of armed men were in the room, and at the back of it, Count Salvenius himself stood on his royal bed in his silk nightclothes. Hanging from the wall behind him was a painting of a great sea monster, a Leviathan, bursting from the depths.
It was a large room, but not large enough for so many men to slaughter each other. It made Theron’s job easy enough from a physical standpoint, for none of the men in the clash had expected to be flanked by Theron Ward and the infamous Kendrick the Cold.
The easier it was to kill a man physically always made it harder for Theron mentally, for the deed of driving a sword through a man’s back did battle with Theron’s scruples.
Kendrick had no such scruples.
He slit his second target’s throat before his first corpse hit the ground, the severed artery spraying blood like a fountain.
“Stay right behind me, Aldous. I won’t let them get to you.” Theron went into the thick heap of men with a wide stroke of his claymore, neck level. His blade was hand-forged and strong, brought home to him as a gift from his father. It was the greatest gift Lord Wardbrook ever gave his son, for it never failed in cutting, not once since Theron took up the hunt. The claymore took the heads of two men in a single stroke and cut deep into a third. Three men dead in a moment, three human lives taken in one tick of the clock’s quickest hand.
One of the count’s betrayers slit open the belly of a guard and tossed the corpse to the floor, only to take a spear point to the chest from the guard just behind. The spearman drove the betrayer back, impaled him straight through, and barreled toward Theron, who twirled away from the threat and came shoulder to shoulder with another foe. His enemy turned fast enough to see how he would die, but that was all. In the tight press, it was hard for Theron to swing, so he stabbed his claymore from up high, down through the man’s clavicle and into his heart.
As the man gurgled his last bloody breath, still standing when he died, Theron was taken aback by the vibrant emerald glow of the man’s irises.
“Theron!” Aldous yelled.
Theron whirled round to see he and Aldous were now separated by the spearman.
“Pick up a sword,” Theron cried as he lunged at the boy’s attacker.
Aldous obeyed, and just in time, for as he ducked to grab a blade of one of the fallen, the spearman stabbed out, barely missing the boy’s throat. The spearman retracted and readied for another thrust. Theron chopped him hard in the knee, nearly taking the leg off completely, and the man went down.
With his eyes closed, Aldous flailed, his sword coming down on the screaming man. Theron was not surprised when the blade bounced off the guard’s plate mail half-helm.
He ended the man’s pain with a quick and accurate heel to the throat.
Aldous opened his eyes, his gaze darting around, half crazed.
“Stay close now, one hand on my back, the other on your sword,” Theron said in the most soothing tone he could muster, for he feared if he did not in some way diminish the lad’s anxiety he would lose his faculties completely and end up wandering off and getting stabbed, or worse, eaten by some rat still lurking in the corridors.
Theron surveyed the room for Ken and quickly found him; he had a sword in each hand and was parrying the blows of two men, one with a mace, the other with a short-bearded axe.
The one with the axe came down with a hard swing. The man’s head tilted up, and for a split moment Theron locked eyes with him.
A vacant green glow.
He knew that glow.
Here was a spell incarnate.
Theron stepped in to aid Kendrick, his claymore coming up to block an incoming mace. The defense freed Ken to turn both swords on the man attacking from the right. One blade went low, sticking the man in the groin; the other opened his throat, spraying blood onto a painting of the count hanging from the wall, leaving splatters of blood across his throat.
The attacker with the mace swung again, too slow, and he lost his hand at the wrist for it. For a moment he stared in shock at the hot red spurting from his mutilated stump, then Ken stuck him through the ribs, a blade on each side.
Thirty had turned to fifteen, but still no one threw down their arms. It was fight to survive or fight to the end. As the men died, the tides of blood drifted to the dangling dustsheets of the count’s bed, white silk hem turning red.
Theron parried, countered, and beheaded one of the count’s men. The tide licked up and touched the feathered mattress.
Kendrick gave riposte, dodged, and impaled another, lifting the man from the ground with a tremendous roar by the blades skewered through his foe’s chest. The tide sprayed onto Salvenius’ toes. The count shrieked and danced like a woman who’d spotted a rat scurrying across her chamber floor.
“Theron Ward! Hunter, you’ve come to save me!” yelled the count over the cries of the living and the gurgled moans and sobs of the dying, as the bloody tide stained his nightdress to the shins.
Theron answered this by plunging his claymore through the shabby hauberk and meager guts of the next man to die. He twisted the blade and wrenched it upward, the man and his splitting mail screamed in the same pitch. The count was drenched in red to the chest.
“Enough! Please enough,” cried the count. “The betrayers are dead. You’ve done them in. Men, lay down your arms. Let us talk. Let us be civilized.”
Civility was a façade, lost when the sword comes out.
The remaining guards did not lower their weapons, but they edged back, and had no menace left in their posture.
“Civilized?” asked Kendrick, voice calm as always. “Let us talk? Like the way you had me talk to the easterners?”
The count’s eyes went wide, as if he’d just then realized who the second gore-splattered stranger was.
“Kendrick Solomon Kelmoor? Kendrick the Cold?”
“Aye. You were waiting for my execution before you came to say hello? Too busy being civilized?”
“Kendrick, please, I wasn’t going to have you executed, I… I…”
“Shut up.” Even now Ken did not yell, and he lowered his swords to his sides.
One of the guards thought that this was perhaps a good moment to strike. He sprang; Theron saw it coming and took off the man’s head. The others finally dropped their swords before the head hit the ground.
“What about me? Were you going to have me executed?” Theron asked. “I didn’t even know it was your daughter, and even if I did, torture and execution? Over that? She was willing. More than willing.”
Aldous made a choking sound.
Theron turned to Aldous and smiled. “I suppose there isn’t much in your defense, though, my boy. You did burn a priest alive.” Aldous shook his head. “And you did so with sorcery, no less.”
Aldous’ brow caved in and his jaw clenched; his lips curled down in a furious frown.
Theron felt regret at the boy’s expression. Perhaps he had taken the joke too far.
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“Pardons, for all three of you. Full pardons,” said the count.
Theron did not speak. Ken did not speak. Aldous did not speak.
“And… and gold. Ken’s weight in gold,” the count said. “That’s a lot, that is a fair deal.”
“No deal,” said Ken.
The count was about to protest, but an unexpected voice spoke first.
“What happened here?” asked Aldous, his voice cracking. Theron turned to look at him, uncertain what it was he was asking. “Why did your own men try to kill you?”
“Why does it matter?” Theron asked.
“Because he is a bastard,” said Ken.
“Who was that woman? Where did the rats come from?” Aldous stepped out from behind Theron now. “Don’t you want to know?” he demanded, and then turned to Ken. “Don’t you want to know?” He walked forward, toward the count. “Start talking, you fat, cowardly bastard, or I’ll burn you alive like I did to your fucking priest! I want to know what happened here.”
Theron shrugged, startled by the lad’s vehemence. “If the boy wants to know then the boy should know.”
Ken glared at the count, and Theron was certain that Ken couldn’t have been less interested in the answers.
The count looked more afraid now than he had been during the fray. He sank to his knees on his bed.
Aldous took another step forward, his shoulder brushing Theron’s as he passed, and Theron could feel the heat of his skin even through his clothes.
“I shouldn’t even be here! Do you understand me? I should have never been in that church. I should be at home. My mother should be alive, and my father should be alive.” Theron exchanged a glance with Ken. Aldous moved to the foot of the bed, and yelled, “My dogs should be alive! And you took them from me, you took my life from me.” The count scuttled backward on the bed. “I had done nothing wrong. My family did nothing wrong!” Aldous climbed onto the bed, his bloody hands leaving prints on the sheets as he crawled up and screamed right in the count’s face, spittle hitting the count’s cheek. The count’s hands flew to his cheek as if it burned.