The Never King

by James Abbott

  Xavir yawned. ‘Fine. Have the men on standby, but tell them to wait in the shadows. Two men on the road will mean nothing, but a dozen of us will raise suspicion.’

  As Valderon gave the orders, Xavir pushed himself to his feet. Even though he had been asleep just a few minutes he felt considerably refreshed. The air seemed sharper, as did his senses. After picking up his sword he followed Valderon, passing the watchful gaze of Landril silently.

  The two approached the road, towards the sound of horses and idle chatter of travellers. Xavir motioned Valderon and they placed their swords against the nearest tree, at an angle that could not be seen from the road. ‘If we are to kill, we should at least get information first.’

  Ahead of them came two small columns of riders, men in the crimson garb of regular soldiery of the king’s legions. A horse at the rear was drawing a cart, whose cargo was covered up.

  The entourage came to a halt before the two men.

  The plump man at the front wore the silver stripe of sergeant across his ornate leather breastplate.

  ‘Fine horse you have here,’ Xavir announced, his bass voice carrying. He rubbed his hand along the steed’s brown neck. ‘Looks like Laussland stock.’

  ‘You know your animals, traveller,’ said the sergeant in reply. He lifted his chin towards Valderon, who was standing silently with his arms folded. ‘What are you men doing on the road?’

  Xavir could hear the blades being unsheathed quietly, but clumsily.

  ‘We’re just two travellers,’ Valderon said.

  ‘You choose to travel in dark times.’

  ‘There have always been dark times,’ Xavir replied. Then he indicated the cart at the back. ‘I didn’t realize soldiers were now tradesmen. What cargo do you carry this far east? I take it you’re not on the trade routes back to the west.’

  ‘Bodies,’ the sergeant said. ‘We bring bodies as evidence.’

  ‘Evidence of what?’ Xavir asked.

  ‘That we have done our job.’

  ‘Efficient men, then,’ Xavir said nonchalantly, wandering around towards the cart. The other soldiers looked at him. Their faces and uniforms were dirtied and spattered with dried blood. ‘And who were your victims?’

  ‘Victims?’ the sergeant repeated. ‘They were traitors to the king. And so we burned them to set an example to the community. The few we carry are evidence of their punishment.’

  Xavir tried to repress his anger. ‘It must take a great deal of bravery,’ he said, ‘to slaughter innocent people like that.’

  Images of the past came to his mind: the blood of the innocent stained his hands too; he knew it all too well.

  ‘We are soldiers doing a simple job, traveller,’ the sergeant continued. ‘I might not like this work, but orders are orders. And who are you to question them?’

  ‘True. True.’ The skies had by now clouded over and a steady rain began to fall. No one wanted to be there, least of all Xavir. ‘Will you let us continue on our way?’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that. You seem mighty interested in business that isn’t yours.’

  ‘I don’t want any more blood,’ Xavir replied, fixing his gaze on Valderon, who was scowling at the soldiers. A bead of water dripped along the man’s jaw. ‘I’ve killed enough men for today. And I have killed enough men for a lifetime.’

  ‘Are you serious? Are you threatening us?’ the sergeant asked, bemused. One of the others chuckled.

  ‘Consider this a warning,’ Xavir said. ‘I have travelled far today and my patience is thin. You can all put your swords away and just be on your way.’

  The sergeant laughed awkwardly. ‘I do not think so, traveller.’

  Xavir could feel his blood pulsing. Instincts, deeply ingrained, rose within him like a broth coming to the boil.

  He saw the glances exchanged between the sergeant and the soldier to the right, who immediately began to slide down off his horse, and knew there would be no stopping conflict now.

  Xavir hurled the man’s unhooked boot upwards before he could reach for his blade, launching him back up over his horse and onto his comrade, and both of them collapsed to the ground.

  Drawing his sword, Valderon quickly dispatched the two soldiers pushing themselves up from the ground while Xavir swept his blade in an upward arc across the face of an assailant, shattering the man’s jaw. Three dead now within moments and the sergeant had not even fully drawn his sword. Six soldiers had dismounted and now clustered around Valderon and Xavir.

  Then the other prisoners made themselves known on the fringes of the road, each of them armed, and Xavir held his arm out for caution.

  ‘I ask you again, sergeant, to call back your men,’ Xavir said. ‘These are young soldiers with lives ahead of them. I do not wish to cut them short.’

  ‘You think professional soldiers should listen to scum of the wild like you?’ the sergeant asked, sliding his blade upwards. Rain fell heavily on the leaves.

  Xavir sighed. Young men will have to die now. All for one man’s pride and stupidity. Nothing has changed since I’ve been in gaol.

  The prisoners spread out into a line and waited for the attack. Xavir wanted this over quickly, and so launched himself into the soldiers first, with Valderon on his heels.

  The sergeant was the first to die. Xavir knocked away his weak strikes and thrust his blade in between the buckles on the side of his leather jerkin. The man’s eyes bulged as his life ebbed away, but Xavir did not pause to see him fall. The warrior was already on to the next man, cleaving away the attacker’s sword hand and smacking a blade-edge back through his gaping mouth.

  By the time the rest of the escaped prisoners had fully reached the melee, Xavir and Valderon alone had reduced the soldiers to just two men.

  Xavir called to halt the assault.

  ‘Don’t kill me!’ said one of the soldiers, a very young man who fell to his knees before the cart.

  Xavir looked at his bloodstained, panicked expression.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Xavir snapped, rain dripping down his face.

  To his right, the other man threw down his sword and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘This is the calibre of the king’s men these days?’ Xavir spat. ‘Cowards.’

  ‘I was wed last month,’ the young man spluttered. ‘My wife is with child . . . I . . . Please don’t kill me.’

  It took all Xavir’s will not to strike both these worthless soldiers down.

  ‘I suggest you give up soldiery,’ Xavir announced. ‘Both of you, to your feet. Remove your armour now. Leave your horses. You are both to go through the forest. Separate directions. I will count to one hundred and then these men –’ Xavir gestured with his sword tip to the mob of former prisoners – ‘will start to hunt you down. This is your final chance. Go!’

  The men frantically stripped off their armour and jerkins, then, slipping on the mud, they sprinted into the trees.

  There was a murmur of laughter from those watching.

  ‘We don’t really have to hunt them, do we, boss?’ Davlor asked.

  Xavir shook his head. ‘Those soldiers think we will. They’re frightened and will run for hours just for the chance to see the sun rise tomorrow. By which time we will be long gone.’

  ‘You should have killed them,’ Jedral muttered, wiping water off his broad face. He was only about thirty summers old, but looked far older. He had the look of a bird of prey, with bushy eyebrows and eyes that constantly darted this way and that, as if nervous. ‘Deserved to die, the frightened little shits. I can still go after them if you want.’

  ‘It’s a waste of time,’ Xavir replied and turned to assess what the soldiers had left behind.

  He stepped over dead bodies to remove the fabric cover that was draped across the cart. Inside there were corpses: old men and women. They had already begun to rot.

  ‘These were civilians, cut down on the king’s orders,’ Xavir announced. ‘Mardonius is insane. This is the world we have re
joined, gentlemen.’

  Landril joined him and stared at the remains. ‘It has been happening all too much, though I did not realize the purge had reached this far east. Mardonius is operating well away from Stravimon’s borders.’

  ‘Is there no one defending these people?’ Valderon asked. ‘What of other rulers and royals?’

  ‘They are few and far between. A handful of clans have resisted the king’s commands and are now his enemies. They fight for their own survival as much as to protect people like these.’

  Xavir looked grimly at the bodies in the cart. ‘We bury them,’ he said. The prisoners muttered a little but quieted at the look in his eyes.

  ‘What about the soldiers?’ Valderon asked.

  Xavir wiped the rain from his face and spat on the floor. ‘Let them rot.’

  Rest

  They buried the bodies and dragged the soldiers off the road, hiding them in the undergrowth in case anyone should come looking for them. After gathering all food, weapons, clothing and anything of use the men washed the blood off the jerkins in the river before slipping them on.

  Landril could feel the anger among the group at the cold-blooded killing of innocent people. Thieves, killers and traitors these men might have been, but they did have a skewed sense of honour. Some muttered of revenge and justice; Jedral in particular seemed to take the deaths hard. Landril wondered what had happened in his past. He talked fondly of his old axe and how he would have taken the soldiers’ heads for their sins. Landril thought him disturbed in the mind and did not entirely trust him. Despite that, the man appeared to have a friendship with Krund – one of the very first men Landril had spoken to in Hell’s Keep. The wiry old lawyer with a long jaw possessed a laid-back manner that made him easy company. Nothing was too much effort. He didn’t complain. He did not interrupt others. He was very accepting of his situation.

  But Landril felt more affinity to Tylos than any of the others so far. He was a handsome individual, the man from Chambrek, and he spoke of the arts in a manner that warmed Landril’s heart. Everything became poetry to him out here: the sky, the trees. Given enough time, he’d probably write a poem about the soldiers they’d just killed, and it would sound beautiful.

  After the exchange of soldiers’ clothing they took the horses, and suddenly everyone’s spirits were lifted. Especially now they didn’t have to walk any more.

  *

  The freed prisoners rode through the late afternoon rain. Landril could see how the one-time leader of the Legion of Six enjoyed being once again on a Laussland mare, to be riding at speed through forgotten country, with the wind and rain in his face and hair.

  As they continued through the wilderness, the spymaster informed the commander of the history and myths of Brekkland, of monsters that were said to have prowled the dark forests, of the kings and queens who claimed it for their own before the world had forgotten about them. It was now an agricultural kingdom, with petty merchants squabbling over land and power. Few people came to Brekkland these days, save farmers, hunters or those who needed to disappear.

  Sunlight drained from the sky. The men made camp around a fire of damp wood that gave more smoke than warmth, but this was the first time that they had properly rested after fleeing Hell’s Keep. A couple of them had found iron razors among the soldiers’ belongings and had started ridding themselves of their unkempt beards. It seemed that, with clean clothes, a shave and the fresh air of freedom, something of their humanity had been restored and their good humour with it.

  Landril listened to the others talk, though he felt little inclination to join in himself. There were wishful thoughts expressed about taverns and whorehouses, jokes and bragging about what they might do there. It was no different from he expected from such coarse men.

  Eventually the conversation turned to what everyone was going to do with their freedom.

  ‘My family won’t want me back,’ said Tylos, who had shared his past. He had been imprisoned not for murder but for thievery on a scale that impressed the others, and this discussion was the first time that Landril had realized he had noble blood.

  ‘Why’s that, black man?’ Davlor asked.

  ‘As far as they’re concerned, the moment I was caught I might as well have been killed.’ He shook his head. ‘At least death has some honour. People speak more kindly of the dead.’

  ‘After all that time in the cold, you’ve probably turned as pale as Davlor’s arse in comparison to your countrymen,’ Jedral muttered.

  ‘Or the back of your bald head,’ Davlor replied.

  ‘Quiet, rat-face,’ Jedral said. ‘At least I wasn’t raised in a barn.’

  Landril had heard how Davlor had been the illegitimate child of the Duke of Grantax. He had been raised by his mother in a tiny village between the town of Grantax and Golax Hold, got into a life of crime and became involved in a smuggling ring. Davlor had been due to be executed with the others, but the duke, as a gesture to the mother, managed to spare the boy’s life – and instead had him whisked away to Hell’s Keep.

  ‘Valderon, what’ll you do? What did you do to get in put in the keep, anyway?’ Davlor asked with open curiosity.

  The old, dark-maned warrior remained silent for a while, staring into the fire.

  ‘I was a senior commander in the First Legion,’ he began. ‘I was disgraced for having an affair with a duchess, whom I was charged to protect on the way back from a campaign. Her husband found out upon his return. He killed her. So I came and killed him as well as several of his men. And that was that. My title was forfeit, my properties taken away and my life spared only because Cedius wished it so for my years of service to him.’

  ‘Typical. You spend your life killing men for your king,’ Jedral said, ‘and then you kill just one with good connections and your life is forfeit.’

  ‘That is politics for you,’ Valderon said. ‘I do not ask for sympathy.’

  ‘Won’t get it among us poor bastards,’ Jedral said. ‘This is what’s wrong with the world. Different rules, boys, depending on where you were born and whose teat you suckled.’

  A murmur of laughter spread across the group. There was truth in such words. It was the way of the world. But Landril knew that many Hell’s Keep prisoners were lucky not to have been executed for their crimes. It was only because of some mercy, or some family connection or a favour owed that these men were even alive.

  ‘I can’t believe you were in the First Legion,’ said Davlor, wide-eyed with awe. ‘I thought you were a good fighter back in Hell’s Keep. So should we salute you or something?’

  Everyone glanced to Xavir, expectantly. The silence was for him to fill, but he was in no rush to fill it.

  ‘Your boss,’ Valderon announced, ‘is the one who would receive the salutes, if we were to return to our old lives.’

  Landril noted that despite their former rivalry, Valderon followed the old military ways still and gave way to rank. Considering the strength of their personalities he was surprised, but glad that there was no obvious tension between the two.

  ‘I thought you were in the king’s legions, too, lad,’ Grend said quietly to Xavir. ‘First Legion?’

  ‘For a while I was,’ Xavir said.

  Valderon spoke for him. ‘He was no ordinary legionary. He led the Solar Cohort, the best of Cedius’s soldiers. They were known as the Legion of Six. He was the king’s closest guard and friend, both on the battlefield and in the white-stoned palace in Stravir City. If rumours were true, he could well have been the king one day.’

  No one said a word. They simply stared in surprise at Xavir.

  ‘What did you do to end up festering with us poor fools?’ Tylos said eventually.

  ‘Well said, black man,’ Jedral muttered. ‘That’s quite the fall.’

  ‘We don’t even know your real name. Which one of the six were you?’

  More laughter eased the awkwardness, though Landril could see the pain flicker behind Xavir’s face. ‘My name is Xavir Argentum
, of the Clan Argentum. I was commander of the Solar Cohort.’ Landril saw recognition dawn on the men’s faces. He knew what the great warrior had done and – from the expressions of the men surrounding him – so did they.

  Xavir continued doggedly, ‘You may have heard about what we did. I killed our own countrymen at Baradium Falls. It was not intentional. But there are no excuses for the slaughter of innocents. And I have to live with their deaths every day.’

  ‘I remember hearing something about that,’ Davlor said.

  ‘The ale houses talked about little else for a year,’ Tylos added. ‘Even in Chambrek.’

  ‘The act brought shame to Cedius the Wise,’ Xavir continued, ‘and to the Solar Cohort. I was taken away to gaol while my five comrades were executed. My incarceration at Hell’s Keep was as a public reminder of the shame I brought to Stravimon.’

  ‘You were set up,’ Landril called across the flames. ‘It was not your fault.’

  Xavir made eye contact with Landril and saw anger at the thought burning there. ‘So you have said, spymaster.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Landril repeated.

  ‘Wait,’ Tylos said. ‘Spymaster?’

  Xavir rose to his feet. ‘Landril here was a spymaster to Cedius, and then to Mardonius for a short while, but he has long since left royal employment. He came to the gaol specifically to provide me with this intelligence. In a way, you all owe your freedoms to him, so you will respect him. Landril has informed me that the act we committed was deliberately created to cause our downfall. Innocents were slaughtered to get rid of the Solar Cohort. So if anyone was to ask what I intend to do now that I am free,’ Xavir announced, ‘I am going to find the people who put me there. And I will kill them.’

  ‘Who was responsible,’ Valderon asked, ‘for betraying you?’

  ‘General Havinir and Lord Kollus were two of the perpetrators,’ Landril said, ‘but much of the planning was done at the estate of Duchess Pryus in Golax Hold. And then of course, the now king.’

  He saw the look of surprise on the men’s faces.

  ‘I intercepted messages from Kollus,’ Landril explained, ‘who was, for a while, my former employer. Mardonius was behind it all.’