The Never King

by James Abbott

  ‘Which is even more concerning,’ Birgitta added.

  Valderon cleared his throat. ‘Why is Mardonius siding with these Voldirik creatures to attack his own people, and especially those who follow religions?’

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  ‘The thing that bothers me the most,’ Xavir declared, ‘is this. I knew Mardonius, despite his lowly station in Cedius’s court. In the Angelic Court, or even the Celebration of Martyrs, he never even made a speech. He had no real position among those glorious limestone spires of Stravir City. There was no merit to his being there, and Cedius confided in me that he sometimes felt the same. So how can this man – how can this little man with no concern for religion – suddenly be driving the faithful out of settlements?’

  The young raven-haired woman with those startling eyes, Elysia, gazed towards Xavir at the mention of his past.

  ‘These things –’ Valderon indicated the plate of armour – ‘these other warriors. Voldiriks. Do we think they’re acting independently in their persecution or on behalf of Stravimon’s king?’

  ‘He’s no king. And I do not think they are working on their own,’ Xavir said, ‘going by recent observations, and what Marva’s people have witnessed. This new race – whoever they are, wherever they have come from – is walking the lands not merely unchallenged by Stravimon’s army but with its blessing. This is a bedevilled alliance.’

  A bird chittered in the distant trees, stark against the comparative calm of their surroundings. The starlight overhead was mesmerizing.

  Xavir rose from the light of the fire and picked up his swords. ‘I’ll take first watch tonight.’

  Elysia’s gaze followed him as he marched towards the arched entrance to the watchtower, before she eventually stared back into the fire.

  A Second Escape

  Nothing disturbed the quiet of the Silent Lake, save the moon’s reflection sailing across its gentle surface. The bareness of the landscape appealed to Xavir. The solitude was peaceful. In gaol, and even before that, it had been impossible to be alone, to find time to himself, to relax and not constantly be strategizing and planning.

  The wolves were sleeping near Lupara, who had joined the two witches. One of whom was his daughter. Xavir walked down the steps, his feet whispering across the stone, his stealth bringing to mind some of the light-footed nightingale postures from his sword training.

  Earlier he had moved his few belongings towards his mare and had tied the horse to a tree many paces away from the others. He had needed the distance. He moved there now, the only sounds around him being that of the lake gently lapping on the sand. The air was so calm tonight.

  His awareness focused all around him, Xavir made no sound as he untied the mare. He walked the animal along the path, rubbing her neck, and mounted the animal when he was about four hundred yards beyond the others. Even then she moved cautiously at his command, going quietly. The wolves would certainly hear by now if they hadn’t already.

  Suddenly, as he was ready to move to a faster pace, he heard his name being called.

  He turned. There, riding behind in the shadows, was another figure.

  How the hell has he seen me?

  ‘I think you must have spotted trouble,’ Valderon said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  Xavir didn’t turn around now, but called back softly. ‘Nothing to concern yourself with, Valderon.’

  ‘Is it not?’

  ‘No. Go back to the others.’

  ‘And tell them that Xavir Argentum, the warrior on whom so many of their hopes depend, is fleeing into the night?’ Valderon brought his animal alongside Xavir.

  ‘I am not fleeing, Valderon,’ Xavir said, ‘I’m doing the sensible thing.’

  ‘Sensible for whom? You’ve just discovered you have a child. That must mean something to you.’

  ‘It is why I am going, Valderon,’ Xavir said.

  Both men slid from their horses to talk face to face.

  ‘I have no business with her,’ Xavir said. ‘I have some acts of justice to mete out and a corrupt king to dethrone, which I can do alone. It will help your cause and allow whatever army you amass to walk through the gates of Stravir.’

  ‘Even you cannot storm the city alone.’

  ‘It is possible I will die in the process. But it is easier if this daughter of mine never knows who I am, if only death awaits me.’

  ‘It awaits us all,’ Valderon said.

  ‘But she will not grow to form a bond, which would be worse. Trust me. I had formed a bond with her mother and her loss still haunts me to this day. I ache – still – like a spear has entered my flanks. Today has only opened that wound.’

  ‘I know a little of your pain,’ Valderon said. ‘But I think it is you who is afraid of being hurt again. Elysia will want to know her father. You are all the family she has. From you she can understand a little of where she came from. Who she is. It will give her strength.’

  ‘And what can I bring to her?’ Xavir scowled. ‘A name tarnished by the blood of innocents? A legend in his own lifetime? My name and my deeds are well known. She will gain nothing from being associated with me.’

  Valderon placed his palm above Xavir’s chestbone. ‘She will want to know you, friend. That is why she came back earlier.’

  Xavir tilted his chin to one side. ‘She was better off running away.’

  ‘She wasn’t running away, I don’t think. Merely . . . running. She came back to discover you.’

  ‘She has barely even looked at me.’

  ‘And you expect it to be easy?’ Valderon asked. ‘You’re a stranger to her.’

  Xavir glanced back across the dark lake. The moon had shifted a little in its surface. ‘I am a stranger to myself.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘It was easier for you,’ Xavir said. ‘Your whole life was the army, a life on the road and few commitments. Being in the Solar Cohort meant . . . additional luxuries and entitlements, and exposure to fine culture. One can get attached to such things, even though I tried not to. This –’ he thumped his fist to his chest – ‘just isn’t the same. This is a half-life to what I had before.’

  ‘You may find reward with a daughter. That may bring something more wholesome.’

  ‘I am going to slaughter those who wronged me,’ Xavir said, ‘and there is nothing wholesome about my future.’

  ‘You mentioned her mother,’ Valderon said. ‘That she has haunted you. What would you think she’d make of your leaving?’

  Xavir closed his eyes and remembered moments of his time with Lysha. He wasn’t certain if his memories were real or not.

  ‘She would hate me for it. And tell me so. She would then scold me with magical flame rather than words.’

  Valderon smiled at the comment. ‘Come back, Xavir. Give that young woman a chance. For her mother’s sake.’

  ‘I loathe the sisterhood and what it has done.’

  ‘She is only half witch,’ Valderon observed. ‘Besides, think what a wound it would be to the sisterhood for you, Xavir Argentum, to have nurtured the warrior in her.’

  A smile came and went from Xavir’s lips. He ran his hand along the mare’s warm neck while he contemplated the suggestion.

  ‘She may prove handy with that bow,’ Xavir said.

  Valderon rolled his lips thinly and placed a hand on Xavir’s shoulder. ‘She may indeed. After all, look who her father is.’

  The two men turned back along the path with their horses, in companionable silence, the wind still gentle, moon reappearing to cast its light across the calm surface of the lake once again.

  Dawn

  The former commander of the Solar Cohort went through his morning ritual: stretches, exercising, rehearsing the forms of complex swordplay. The sunlight was warm on his face and a few birds skittered overhead on dawn missions, but other than that and the occasional splash of water, there remained no sounds save those of his exertion.

  The sun banked higher. I
n the distance he could see the little trail of smoke from the campfire as the others readied themselves for breakfast.

  ‘Birgitta told me to say something to you.’

  Xavir turned to see Elysia – his daughter – walking towards him from out of the long grass. Placing his blades back over his shoulder, he wondered if she had used some kind of witch trickery to conceal herself.

  ‘Well, you’ve now said something.’ Xavir watched her, curiously. The same raven-black hair as Lysha. Those blue eyes were just as disarming, though for completely different reasons now.

  She stood before him, the young witch, just a head shorter than himself. Tall for a woman, he thought. Her bow was in her hand and a quiver half-full of arrows slung across her shoulder. She was dressed in browns and greens, with a decorative leather cuirass.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’ Her voice was absent of emotion.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Xavir replied. ‘This is unexpected, to say the least. I had no plans apart from those concerning where my comrades and I were going.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Dangerous places, is all. I may be killed, and I intend to kill many in the process.’

  Elysia shrugged. ‘I’ve only killed deer so far. Birgitta taught me that. We fed villagers with the carcasses, though.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Why should it?’

  Another silence fell between them, though it was not uncomfortable.

  ‘You shoot them with this bow?’ Xavir asked, holding his hand out to take a look at the weapon.

  She handed it to him.

  Xavir marvelled at the craftsmanship, the way the dark polished wood appeared to shimmer, the balance and tension of it. He noted the witchstone fixed near the grip.

  Xavir handed it back, impressed. ‘Dellius Compol knew how to make weapons. I used to know a man who lived on the borders of Stravimon who said he had rediscovered Compol’s techniques, but they were not even comparable.’

  ‘I’m good with it too.’

  ‘I’ve never really known of a warrior witch in the Ninth Age. Not one that uses weapons other than witchstones directly.’

  ‘The sisterhood doesn’t encourage such things,’ Elysia replied.

  ‘The sisterhood does not encourage much,’ Xavir said.

  ‘You knew my mother,’ Elysia said.

  ‘Evidently,’ Xavir added, gesturing back to Elysia with his left hand.

  His daughter smiled awkwardly. ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Proud. Stubborn. Keen to try new magic. Paid little attention to rules, though neither did I at the time. She was sarcastic and had a temper about her. But, we loved each other.’

  Elysia sat on the grass and shaded her eyes as she stared out across the water. Xavir, uncertain at first, followed suit and crouched down beside her.

  ‘You look very much like your mother,’ Xavir said. ‘Yesterday I thought it was her that I saw. I’d only known her when she was perhaps a year older than you, when she first came to my clan.’

  ‘What was that like?’ Elysia asked. Again, no emotion in her words. ‘What was she like?’

  Xavir spoke more about his early days at his family estate, about his time as a warrior and when Lysha came to join them. Elysia listened patiently, without comment. This was the most Xavir had spoken at length for some time.

  ‘And you?’ Elysia said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m sure you will hear from others soon enough. Suffice to say I am a soldier who rose to a particularly high rank alongside Cedius the Wise.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him. The famous Stravimon king.’

  ‘And a generous, smart one at that. Not like the barbaric fool who now leads. A man may sit on a throne, but that does not make him a king. A man may have the right to rule, but that does not make him a leader.’

  ‘Birgitta told me, late last night, that you might have once been a king. Is that true?’

  ‘People may speculate on that, but here I am – without a crown.’

  ‘Do crowns make kings?’

  Xavir said nothing.

  ‘How did you leave Cedius?’

  ‘I was . . . tricked.’ Xavir revealed, in short, blunt sentences, how he had ended up in gaol betrayed by others in Cedius’s regime. ‘So my travels run parallel to those of Lupara and yourselves, it appears. Do not think ill of me for the deeds I will commit.’

  ‘Why would I?’

  Xavir gave her an uncertain look. ‘It is not my way to kill those who are unarmed, yet I will gladly walk into their homes and butcher them. This is your father now, Elysia. A man who seeks to kill retired generals and politicians, and eventually a man who is not a king, because each of them deserves death. My days of glory are long behind me.’

  Elysia did not reply.

  ‘Come,’ Xavir declared, rising up. ‘I want to see this warrior witch in action.’

  *

  The two stepped into a copse of oak trees in a small gully, at the far end of the lake from their camp. The sky remained cloudless, and the vegetation around the shoreline began to smell in the heat. With the tip of one of the Keening Blades, Xavir sliced an ‘X’ into one trunk. They moved back thirty paces into the gloom.

  ‘Can you hit that, in the centre?’ Xavir asked.

  ‘Are you being serious?’ Elysia said with a smile. ‘That’s not much of a challenging target.’

  ‘Then hit it,’ Xavir replied.

  Elysia reached over her shoulder with one arm and raised her bow with the other. Xavir could see her concentrating, furrowing her brow. She released the arrow and it slammed into the tree. Xavir jogged over to it and could see the arrow had landed perfectly in the centre of his mark.

  As Elysia caught up with him, he acknowledged her cocky stance and folded his arms. ‘Show me something you consider to be challenging, then.’

  Elysia gave him a dark, playful look. ‘Stand there. And don’t move.’

  She walked around Xavir and towards the edge of the copse, skipping over the undergrowth, until she was about the same distance away as before, except from another angle. The major difference now was that Xavir stood right in between his daughter and the target he had carved upon the tree.

  ‘Don’t move!’ she said again.

  Raising an eyebrow, Xavir remained impassive and watched her every move. She was obviously testing him. She took a little longer to nock her arrow this time, but within a few heartbeats he found himself in the centre of her aim. She took her time about it and when she momentarily closed her eyes he wondered if she knew what she was doing.

  Elysia released the arrow. It rushed towards him and began to curve when it was three feet from his head. It swerved around him in an arc, just missing him, so close he could feel the rush of air from its passage. And, no sooner had it passed him, than it curved back onto its original trajectory, and once again struck the tree. All within a heartbeat.

  Xavir marched over to take a look at the impact. Elysia had missed the centre of the ‘X’ by about half a finger-width, if that. It if had struck a person, they would have been as good as dead.

  ‘That is impressive.’ Xavir glanced back to Elysia, who was striding through the forest towards him with a proud look upon her face.

  ‘Was that you or the bow doing this?’ Xavir gestured through the air to mimic the path of the arrow.

  ‘A little of both,’ she said. ‘It’s clearly the source that moves the arrow, but it’s the same as any other witchstone in that it’s part me, part . . . elements, I guess.’ She pointed to the shimmering stone set into the bow. ‘This is one of the few witchstones that I am any good with. The bowstone affects the wind around the arrow and curves it to my will. Curving it is the easy part. Knowing what’s the other side of an object, a place I cannot see, that’s the difficult bit. It relies a lot on memory. And faith, I suppose, though Birgitta never likes to call it that. There are other stones that are set into arrows, which perform different tasks. Some of this
is predefined. All of it requires my will, but I have the bowstone to guide me.’

  ‘This is useful,’ Xavir said thoughtfully. ‘Very useful. Can you use other weapons?’

  ‘I have trained a little with sword, and was reasonably adept – although I have no way of measuring that as there was no one to fight against, other than Birgitta, and she kept saying she wasn’t as fast as she used to be.’

  ‘Sword.’ Xavir nodded. ‘Good. I can help tutor you further if you wish. Anything else?’

  ‘I tried an axe when I was twelve summers, but that was too heavy for me to use. I enjoy the bow the most.’

  ‘What other magics can you perform?’

  ‘That’s not really my . . .’ She paused. ‘Look, as much as I’d like to say I am one of the most talented sisters there ever was, I’m not. Sorry. The sisterhood hated me and I didn’t like them.’

  ‘Well that’s something we have in common, then.’ Xavir said with a sardonic twist to his lips. ‘And I also was never that good at studying, but I knew my way around a blade.’

  ‘Birgitta knew I could not be bothered with learning from books either, so she taught me these ways. She claimed that they were more ancient arts, and that once, many ages ago, this is how the sisters might have been. Warrior covens who moved around the woodlands.’

  ‘Is that true?’ He hoped it was. Something stirred within him.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just going by what Birgitta has told me, but I preferred these lessons to sitting at a desk.’

  ‘It is a more practical life, certainly.’ Xavir could only assess her in terms of her value to his expedition, and he knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. But first and foremost he was a military man – he had no idea how to be a father.

  For a while both of them stood there, the conversation having petered out.

  Eventually, Elysia said, ‘What are we all doing here, in Burgassia? Birgitta has only told me so much, but I don’t really think she had a plan other than getting to this place.’