Circle of Reign

by Jacob Cooper

  The faintest glint of gray was visible through her window adjacent to her bed. Calder started, just for a moment. Had he seen something? A figure silhouetted in palest gray morning’s light? He snatched the torch up from its wall mount and sprinted toward his daughter’s large bed, putting himself instinctively between the supposed specter at the window and his Kathryn.

  There was no one there. Peering down from the arched opening, he chanced a glance downward, but the torch revealed no one and nothing. His heart beating at a slightly elevated pace, he turned about to ensure his daughter was there and safe. Her breathing was even and steady. He took her left arm that was hanging off the side of the bed and gently placed it under her coverings.

  She will need to make a decision soon, he thought. She has not been intended since she was eight – since Hedron. That was odd in the Realm for a young lady of Kathryn’s standing. Lord Hoyt knew his daughter still held the dead Kerr boy somewhere in her heart.

  “Let him go,” he whispered. But he did not know how he could expect her to when he had not ever forgiven himself.

  Thannuel was no traitor. We betrayed him, his family. His children.

  Then, Lord Calder Hoyt, one of the most powerful men in all the Realm, knelt beside his daughter’s bed and silently wept.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Aiden

  Day 28 of 4th High 412 A.U.

  THE HALLWAYS OF HOLD THERRIUM gave no sound as the assassin slowly made his way along. Save for walking in bare feet, stone would echo the footsteps of the most cautious person, unless he were a wood-dweller. To infiltrate the hold he had to become one of them, at least on the outside. The years of playing a role had morphed him to that person he once pretended to be. Tyjil had been right, he admitted. The caverns of darkness in his mind were fully explored over the years, and he now reveled in the darker parts of his psyche. Forced to be here, yes he was. But as time went on, he came to love his role; to envy the person he was by façade until finally, the façade became his identity.

  The assassin stepped back quickly behind a corner in a tributary corridor. Torchlight was approaching from a perpendicular vector. He drew a short blade—the same he had used to end Moira Kerr—as he crouched farther in the darkness, receding from the approaching light. The stone was cold this night but with a slight touch of moisture as most things in the Western Province.

  The torch and its bearer passed. In a moment he continued, slowly and silently through the hold. After years of preparation, he knew the patterns and movements of his fellow hold guards and who was on duty this night. He had chosen this night for action as he believed the least threatening resistance would be found, and sent word by wing of his intent. The High Duke undoubtedly had put other pieces in play to coincide with his role, but he was oblivious to who or what those other moving parts were.

  Training within these circles had given him an edge, knowing how they fought and thought. His mission would be easily carried out, but he may not escape.

  Ahnia. He thought of his wife. Did she remember him? Did his teenage children? They were barely teenagers anymore. His son and daughter may even be married. Tyjil had not brought him word for years on any matter, much less his family.

  He crept closer, finding the guards more numerous as he closed in on his eventual destination. He was prepared for this. His speed of travel must be slow and deliberate. Though silent, he could still send vibrations that could be felt by others, even though most of the hold was stone and not forest. It still presented a reasonable danger of being detected. Silent in breath and step, he told himself. For them, I must succeed. But he would do this duty even if his family were not under duress at this time. True, it was force that put him into action at first, but he had been changed. He wanted this task now, and was grateful for it. He could no longer tell if this was the Darkness inside him or if he had become the Darkness.

  Tension. Alrikk could feel it in the forest. The trees felt…uneasy. He couldn’t detect any actual disturbance, but also could not shake the warning he felt. Staring out in a predominantly eastward direction, Alrikk concentrated. He grabbed the small Triarch leafling in his pocket beneath his scabbard, closing his eyes, focusing. Even the sound of the wind howling through the sparkling canopy high above seemed to bespeak a nervous apprehension. His brow furrowed in the moment of concentration, almost grasping the loose tendrils of revelation.

  Almost.

  It was Alrikk’s night as hold overseer. He enjoyed the solitude this post offered, high above the forest floor in the southeast tower. The small cage of pigeons rested on the floor at his feet. Though crafted of stone, many trees wrapped their limbs around the tower, aiding the overseer in sensing and feeling the boundaries of the hold. Combined with that aid and the small Triarch leafling he now fervently held, Alrikk was finally getting closer. Deeper.

  Almost.

  He held his breath as it finally came.

  “No! It can’t be!” he gasped in disbelief. He reached for the overseer horn to sound a warning, but it was too late.

  Aiden knew the time had come. He lay waiting expectantly for Shane in Lord Therrium’s quarters. The man had come to be with them a few years earlier, seeking employ as a sentry among them, but Aiden looked long into the man’s eyes. He recognized what he saw, for he had seen it in himself many years ago.

  Aiden remembered well the first time he had killed. He was just a boy then but nowhere near innocent. The irony of putting an end to one that had given him life was not lost on him. He just did not care.

  Cliffs in the west were only found in Helving, and few wood-dwellers chose to live there, where trees were much more sparse. The large Furlop tree, named after the white moss that hung from its branches by lengths as much as fifty paces or more, did populate the land in those parts fairly well, however. The long white tendrils of the Furlop moss were beautiful from afar, extending over and below the cliffs, swaying in the wind like wispy vertical clouds hanging from an invisible hinge. As a young child, Aiden and his friends would dare one another to swing as far out as possible on the hanging moss over the void. Reckless stupidity but fun for the lads. Far below the town, which sat upon several cliff ridges connected by wide bridges, ran the Roniah River as it flowed from the Southern Province.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you, lad?” his father jeered.

  Mehril had come home, wasted on strong drink. It was the typical scene the twelve-year-old Aiden had been used to for years. His mother was unknown to him, a mere story. He only knew what his father told him, that she died bringing him into the world. Mehril made no secret that he wished the reverse had been true.

  “And just what do you plan to do with that?” his father asked.

  Aiden held a blade in his hand between him and his father. The stench of fermented drink was strong upon him. The bruises had not completely healed from the last time his father had been in a drunken stupor. That was only two nights past. For more years than the boy could recall, he had been the outlet of Mehril’s rage when drunk.

  “Maybe you’re finally toughening up,” his father taunted. “That’s all I’ve been trying to do for years.”

  Aiden did not respond but stood ready, tense.

  “Well, come on then, if ya have it in you! You’ll find killin’ is as easy as breathin’. You should know. You killed your mother with your first breath!”

  He was scared after he had done it, seeing that his father did not rise again. The blade’s handle protruding from Mehril’s ribs, the pool of blood spread out underneath him like a dark red river breaking through a dam. But he was also exhilarated. Liberated.

  Aiden knew what it was to be a killer. What it looked like, what it felt like. It was easily recognizable to him.

  And Shane wore the emotional trappings of a killer. Aiden wanted him close to him rather than afar. Shane trained hard, working his way up within the ranks of the hold guard. Aiden had thought that perhaps what lay within the man would eventually fade away—he hoped it would.
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br />   But some three span earlier, Aiden witnessed Shane attaching a message to a falcon’s leg and releasing the bird into the sky. It was an odd choice for a messenger bird, but an extremely fast breed. Shane thought no one had been watching, but Aiden always watched. The death of his Lord and friend Thannuel, ever present upon his mind, kept him sharp and distrusting.

  Silently, Aiden had ascended the trees, through the canopy to the top of the forest. He saw the falcon heading north by northeast. He ran and leaped with all the speed he could bring to bear, tearing across the treetops as if in flight. Before long, he had matched the predator bird’s speed and silently launched himself into the air. The bird screeched in surprise when Aiden’s strong hands grabbed its body firmly but not enough to damage it. He landed gracefully and ignored the falcon’s attempts to peck and claw at him. It flapped its wings wildly as Aiden held it by its neck with one hand and with the other, took rolled parchment from its leg.

  Banner Therrium. First moon, twenty-eighth day of the Fourth Dimming Cycle of the Moons.

  Aiden’s mind swam with questions. He wondered where the bird was headed and to whom. What could the message mean? But Aiden did not need to think long on its meaning. Knowing who had sent the message, he believed he had a clear understanding of its intent. He had stumbled onto a plot, but he did not know all the players. He thought it best to allow the story to unfold to discover the other characters.

  After only a brief few moments, he replaced the message and returned the bird to the sky. It continued on its original trajectory.

  Now, on the day mentioned in the enigmatic missive, first moon had risen. Therrium’s chamber door slowly opened, but no light followed. Impressive, Aiden thought. No vibration could he detect from his visitor. Aiden closed his eyes for the briefest moment, quelling emotion and forcing out all thought, the way he had been trained by his former Lord. Kerr was not just his Lord, but a mentor—the father he should have had.

  The blanket concealed Aiden’s identity, covering his head save for the top of his dark hair, but the dark itself would have been enough. He knew Shane would strike quickly, a short blade to the heart while muffling any feeble cry. He heard the soft touch of a hand grab a pillow next to his head, the slight draft made by it being lifted from the bed. No doubt Shane intended to slam the pillow upon his face as the blade found purchase in his heart.

  Aiden tightened the grip around his sword’s hilt, pressing the Triarch leafling flush between his palm and the grip. The slight tingle he had become accustomed to traveled up his arm and he knew the strange blade was humming again, the way it did when Aiden was tense and focused more centrically with danger close, the way it did that night many years ago when he had failed. As he concentrated, a word formed in his mind, one that was foreign to him. He could not banish it from his mind and so he accepted it.

  In an instant he felt the direction of the air change so minutely but enough for him to instinctively know that something was coming at him. Aiden rose as if in flight, the night’s darkness his terrible cloak as he spun through the air. The word that had rooted itself in his mind found his lips and he whispered, “Faerathm!” His steel was swung with such speed through the darkness that the stench of burned air was joined briefly by the smell of blood. Shane’s head sat for a brief moment upon his neck before toppling to the stone floor, followed by his body sinking to his knees. There was almost no blood, only the smell of burned carnage. The vibrations of the lifeless corpse and head finding the ground caused other guards to rush to the chamber of Lord Therrium, torches in one hand, drawn steel in the other. Upon the room becoming illuminated by the orange-yellow glow of fire, the guards stood perplexed, then relieved catching sight of Aiden. Then the others noticed Shane, which returned some fear to their faces. Aiden could see now that Shane’s wound was completely cauterized.

  “Peace,” Aiden spoke softly. “Shane sought the death of our Lord. His intentions were known to me.”

  “Master Aiden, I don’t under—” one of the guards began, but Aiden cut him off.

  “The details are not important. Lord Therrium is safe with his family and the Archiver Mithi’ah, I having personally made the arrangements. They are sequestered among the far parts of the hold in a servant’s chambers.” The men did not seem comforted by this, as servants’ chambers were not in the normal circulation of the guards’ routine.

  “But Master Aiden, this would leave the Lord exposed. In such a lightly defended portion of the hold—”

  “No one would ever suspect him to be there,” Aiden finished for the guard in a manner that said the discussion was over. “We will go and fetch him now, but say nothing along the way. You men are now his personal escort until he is safely—”

  A loud, tremulous cacophony commanded their attention. All in the room turned their eyes toward the provenance of the sound. It faded, but was followed by another—the sound of terror-filled screams. Shouts of men, the music of steel in battle. Now it was Aiden’s turn for confusion, but stealing a glance at his men in Therrium’s chamber told him they had no explanation, nor did he expect them to. He sped from the room toward the sounds and cries, which came predominantly from the east wall of the hold. He broke into speed, faster than any human could travel and faster than most could follow with their eyes. A green field of grass and shrubbery separated the hold’s wall from the actual hold that by day was pleasant in all manners. Tonight, however, it was enshrouded by death and chaos.

  Aiden stared slack-jawed at what was once the eastern wall, but was now no more than rubble masquerading as hindrances to the men at arms as they fought. Scores of men poured through the breeched wall in small garrisons of axes, swords and short archers. Someone had marshaled a small regime and come against the capital of the Western Province on the very night an assassination attempt had been made on Lord Therrium. And, this force had come largely undetected by the wood-dwellers until the attack was sprung. It was maddeningly perplexing how this could have happened. One side looked disorganized and dazed, the other group of soldiers deliberate and uniformed. It was the hold guard, the wood-dwellers, who were struggling in disorganization with this unknown foe.

  Aiden came to himself at once, barking orders and commands to his men. He commanded easily three hundred of the hold guard, but this attacking force was thousands in strength. The armies of Therrium were scattered throughout the province, serving mostly as peacekeepers at various posts. Easily fifty thousand swords, axes, spears, and archers made up the Western Province’s force, but little good that did tonight.

  Turning to Alrikk, Aiden snapped, “Send word by wing to General Roan at Riley’s Cove of our attack. Bid him return with a force of at least five thousand.” The boy was pale and looked like he wanted to say something. Aiden did not wait for Alrikk’s response but turned immediately back to the scene of carnage before him. He doubted their desperate message would be received in time. The attacking army was dressed all in black, from the hoods that concealed their faces to the boots upon their feet. Aiden let out a bellow of a cry calling his guards to formation. Never had they trained to face a force of strength of ten to one, but a quick scan of the situation allowed Aiden to guess within fifty men that those were their odds. A Lord’s Guard was trained expertly against small forces or single opponents, usually seeking to infiltrate a hold or assassinate some important noble or Lord; but fighting off or defending against an army was not part of their training nor expected of them.

  Was the Realm under attack? From who? Aiden could not waste precious moments on these questions.

  His men retreated to him in speed, answering his call. They were only about two-hundred and sixty now, but the dead of their enemy were at least five times their losses. As deft and quick as a wood-dweller may be, they are still mortal and can be overcome. The force that had come against them was strong and well trained, prepared for the difficulties of fighting against Arlethian Warriors a normal human would face. If they were prepared, then this enemy was familiar wit
h wood-dwellers. That only left a couple possibilities as to their origin.

  The withdrawal of Therrium’s guards from the fray caused a brief lull in the battle.

  “Drake, Ebry, your detachments fall back on the right three paces behind my position, two lines deep and staggered. Shoren, bring your detachment on my left, two paces forward of myself. When they rush your side, retreat back and right as Drake and Ebry swing forward and left to flank their forward attack, then cease your retreat and press into the fray. We will create an uneven arm that pivots as if on a single joint. Both sides will swivel opposite each other, never allowing the enemy to get behind us and always causing them to be flanked as they press. We cannot attack directly, but we can determine where they focus theirs and minimize losses.”

  As he spoke, it was done. It was a subordinate defensive position, Aiden knew, but was the best chance they had to survive long enough to shave down the size of the attacking force to where they could feasibly press an attack or for General Roan’s forces to arrive. If they survived long enough to make the odds three or even four to one, the battle would easily turn their way.

  The army of black attacked with a wicked cry. As Aiden knew would happen, they ran straight to the side of the arm that stood protruding to his left. Shoren’s detachment did not stand against them, but retreated swiftly as planned, seeming to swing Drake and Ebry’s detachments up and to the left with inhuman speed into the flank of the black army. Being vastly outnumbered did not stop the small force of Therrium’s guards from felling their enemies with minimal losses. Shoren’s detachment now pressed back, surprising the overconfident point of the black army even as Drake and Ebry worked death upon the mysterious attackers. For every wood-dweller that fell, no less than three of the black army were taken with them. But this was not enough. If this were to be a battle of attrition, Aiden’s men would not survive. They would have to attack after all, relying on speed and confusion.