Overlords

by Matthew M Pyke

  “Sire—the key no longer works.”

  King Pallan approached the castle custodian and snatched the keys from him—a large hoop of bronze-coloured instruments for coaxing castle doors open. “Give it here.” He jammed the key into the door lock of the castle loft’s large door and grunted. When he gave the key a turn, nothing happened. “Blast—it bloody doesn’t work!”

  “That is what I was trying to tell you, sire; the key doesn’t work. The lock is probably corroded, preventing—”

  “Yes-yes-yes; you have already said that, Grentyl. I swear, it’s like having a buzzing bee—or a radiant robin—chirping in my ear all day long, with some of you.”

  The castle custodian lowered his head in shame.

  King Pallan repented with a sigh. “Sorry, lad. The door appears stuck …”

  Those gathered in front of the door whispered to each other for a possible remedy.

  King Pallan, in the meantime, tried forcing the lock. After several failed attempts and some swearing, he ended up breaking the key in the lock. “Blast! Good-for-nothing metal workers in the kingdom, making cheap junk. Argh! A schoolchild using a mere candle—and some low-quality tin—could mould a better key than those idiots!”

  “Sire—perhaps some boiling water would free the lock.”

  King Pallan gazed at Lestran, the castle’s chief official, with admiration. “’Tis a good idea as any.” Gesturing quickly to a guard, he commanded, “Bring up a small cauldron of fire-boiled water, on the double!”

  The guard at once bowed. “Straightaway, sire!”

  Several minutes later, the guard reappeared with kitchen help, carrying a small pot of boiling water gingerly.

  King Pallan instructed impatiently, “Stand round; get back. Come on, come on.”

  A kitchen worker with mitts and a determined expression, not taking his eye from the bubbling pot, approached the jammed door.

  “That’s it, that’s it, my good man. Now pour the boiling water into the lock.” King Pallan followed closely behind the anxious cook.

  The cook, after closing his eyes briefly, poured the scalding water into the frozen lock with admirable precision.

  “Oh, quite the lad! Quite the lad,” some in attendance blurted out.

  The resolute cook nearly emptied the contents of the thin wire-handled pot, the boiling water flowing into and then out of the lock and finally onto the castle floor.

  The lock did not budge. The key stem lodged in the tenacious lock seemed to stick out at them like an insolent tongue.

  Grentyl gave the lock a turn but it would not budge. “No effect, sire; the lock remains frozen still.”

  King Pallan groaned. Walking in circles, he smacked himself in the head several times.

  A soldier came forward. “Sire, what if—we gave the door a strong push. We might be able to defeat the lock …”

  King Pallan stopped and looked at him. His expression turned to perplexity. “Do you mean, break the door in?”

  The soldier replied with increasing animation, “Exactly; we might be able to get into the castle’s sky parlour.”

  A brief discussion arose among the many gathered in the hallway outside the castle attic.

  Lestran confronted King Pallan. “What do we have to lose, sire? Our forces are losing badly …”

  King Pallan, with an air of seriousness, answered, “Oh well. It’s just a door. It was specially carved for my father in honour of my grandfather … you may break it in.” Looking around and then back at the door, he muttered, “Blasted room hasn’t been entered in countless days, nay years, by anyone.” He then said loudly, “The door, it mocks me; break it down!”

  The guards present agreed among themselves to send the heftiest guard, a man by the name of Jellan, at the door. The large man approached the door and angled his left shoulder toward it. Looking back at King Pallan, who nodded to him, Jellan thrust his powerful frame into the door with a growl. A terrible splintering sound was heard. Taking a few steps back, snarling, he then flung himself at the obdurate door. The large wooden door with tarnished metal braces broke free with a spine-tingling melody of cracking wood, shearing metal, and armour slamming into hardened wood.

  “By Jove—he’s done it,” exclaimed an official. “Yes, quite the stout man,” remarked another.

  The castle’s attic lay wide open.

  King Pallan, waving his hand in front of his face, began coughing. “Ugh, bloody can’t see a thing.”

  The dust from the large, open space with vaulted roof soon started to clear.

  “Sire—I can see inside.”

  King Pallan half-turned to Grentyl and frowned a bit.

  The heavy wooden door came to a slow, pivoting stop, nearly against the opposite wall.

  “Come on … let’s see what’s inside.” Lestran made a pleading look at King Pallan, who grunted back.

  “Shall we?” King Pallan motioned for everyone to enter.

  The grand attic was littered with a variety of things: old furniture, bundles of clothing, uniforms, pieces of metal, wood planks, a full knight’s suit with lance, small figurines, well-out-of-fashion children’s toys, books, scrolls, pamphlets, harps, tools for fixing masonry, planting and gardening tools, even a bird bath and rudimentary pump to make a fountain for travelling birds. There was a layer of dust so thick that it seemed as a fine hair blanket and cobwebs stretching here and there like hammocks for the dead. The air was damp and cold, permeated by a smell of oldness, sickening mildew. Above, a louvered grate banged in the wind as an occasional snowflake or two drifted about, like flotsam on a sea of rankness. Overall, the immense sky loft was a mausoleum for the Pallan line.

  King Pallan inspected the place with a critical eye. Approaching a bureau, he reached out slowly to pick up a filthy doll.

  “Sire, I think that is an old Katrine Doll—it has, I believe, a cord you can pull.”

  King Pallan looked over at Lestran and made a low growl. Setting his eyes back on the doll, which looked like it had been trampled under the hooves of many horses, thrown into a ditch for several seasons, tossed into a stream, and stained by a thousand dinner sauces from rambunctious tykes, he muttered, “A cord, eh?” Turning the doll over, he spotted a thin thread coming out of its back. When he gave it a yank, the doll spit out muddy water from its mouth, hollering, “Hi!”

  The two startled men turned to each other. Lestran shrugged at King Pallan, who threw the doll back at the tarnished dresser. The dresser’s round, polished plate, meant to serve as a type of mirror but now corroded and faded, rocked in place a little.

  King Pallan scoffed, “A child’s toy … I think not.”

  Lestran looked around anxiously.

  Jamia, an experienced castle guard, approached them and said in a low voice to King Pallan, “Sire, there are few to no weapons here; this place hasn’t been used in years.”

  King Pallan surveyed the space and remarked, “Yes, it seems that way. Blast. Have the storerooms been searched?”

  Jamia replied, “Thoroughly, sire. We have gathered as many weapons as we can. If we are to set a defence around the castle, we had better do it now.”

  King Pallan winced. “There’s nothing to be had here, I’m afraid.”

  An official called out to King Pallan, “Sire, come quickly.”

  King Pallan turned and looked over at the caller.

  “The knight suit … it was your grandfather’s.”

  “Coming, Ared.” King Pallan gestured with his head for Lestran and Jamia to follow him.

  Ared motioned quickly with his hand for them to come over. “Sire, it was probably used during the Antean Wars, when your grandfather—”

  “Battled the Hojir,” King Pallan completed. “Yes, yes, I know, Ared.” He approached the suit of armour, which stood against the attic’s wall, toward the middle of the sky loft in a corner. The knight was holding a lance. When they held their candles up to it, the suit’s metal looked faded. Clearing a cobweb from it and blowing hard to
free some dust from the statue-like figure, King Pallan claimed, “That was probably the suit he used in the Battle of Reeden, near the Iritemm Valley.”

  The group inspected the suit of armour silently. In the meantime, officials and guards dug around, looking for items to use against the enemy.

  Lestran interposed, “It is indeed your grandfather’s; look at the mark near the breast. ‘I’ for one.”

  King Pallan nodded. “Hmm … yes.”

  “Pallan the First,” Ared added.

  King Pallan said very quietly, “We could surely use him now …”

  “What, sire?”

  King Pallan, showing annoyance, said abruptly, “Nothing, Ared.”

  A guard came up behind them and said, “Sire, we have searched the loft and found only a small handful of weapons, many of which are in ill repair.”

  King Pallan replied, “They will have to do.”

  The guard handed him a lance. King Pallan looked it over. As he thrust it at empty air; the head of the lance fell off and crashed onto the uneven floor with a metallic thud.

  The group looked at the floor. King Pallan remained staring at the opposite wall of the loft. Sniffling and clearing his throat, he commented ironically, “Not up to the task.”

  “Your standing orders, sire?”

  King Pallan, staring at the wall a little while longer, tossed the lance to the side and said, “A trove of forgotten things and lost mementos. The vestiges of my family’s past … we have seen all there is to see. Come. Let us go. We shall set up the defence near the main gate, and—”

  At that instant, a castle servant came flying into the loft, shouting, with armoured guards tailing him closely. “Sire—they are here!”

  King Pallan hollered, “Who is here, idiot?”

  Lestran and Ared, along with several officials, insisted that the servant quiet down.

  “Sire-sire, the enemy. They are nearly at the castle grounds.”

  King Pallan, with a look of fury, challenged the guards who had been trailing the servant. “Is this true? Nearly here? How?”

  A guard with faceplate up responded emphatically, “It is true; they have reached the Brooklet of Elin.”

  Lestran gasped. “That is only an e’dekatar (roughly a quarter statute mile) from castle grounds.”

  Ared joined in, exclaiming, “A short distance from the castle wall!”

  A guard entreated, “Sire, we must go. If we have any chance of defending the castle, it is now.”

  “But how? How could they have covered the distance in so short a time?” King Pallan looked stunned.

  The guard who had beseeched King Pallan revealed, “We do not know—they seem to know the timings of our patrols, the lay of the land, and our signals. Weaknesses in our defences. That is why they have come so far so quickly. It is the only plausible explanation for the rapidity of their advance.”

  “Yes-yes-yes, I agree. King Pallan—there is no more time.” Lestran shook both his hands vigorously as he said this.

  King Pallan gazed at Lestran for several moments with restrained worry on his face. He soon asked the guard (Dalren, who had offered his analysis of the situation), “Jerreth—where is he?”

  Dalren answered, “The captain of the guard has deployed beyond the wall, My Lord. Shall we call him back?”

  King Pallan briefly reflected upon this news. He seemed hesitant to confirm the command. “No. Tell him to stay where he is.”

  Dalren saluted King Pallan. “The message shall be sent at once, My Lord.” He pivoted and, with a metal pounding on the wooden boards of the loft, retreated to lower levels of the castle.

  A scribe hurried in with a rolled-up scroll; his face was ashen. “Sire, we heard you were here, in the loft. I bring dreadful news.”

  Vexation bubbled up on King Pallan’s countenance, like a tar spring suddenly heated by a movement deep underground. “What news?”

  The scribe, somewhat out of breath, steadied himself, and after glancing around at those in attendance, said, “We know who the enemy is, the besieger of the kingdom.”

  King Pallan’s icy stare turned to controlled rage. “Who? Who dares attack my kingdom?”

  The scribe became very hesitant.

  King Pallan insisted angrily, “Speak!”

  The scribe stammered, “King Ibren.”

  King Pallan came forward, booming back, “King of Erros?”

  The scribe confirmed anxiously, “The King of Erros.”

  There were several gasps. Some said, “Ibren the Red.” Others muttered, “The Axe Man from the West.”

  King Pallan looked away and growled. “That fiend; I knew one day he would be bold enough—stupid enough—to try my hand at battle. But not now.” He became less furious. “Why would he attack now?”

  The scribe responded apprehensively, “We are not sure, My Lord. But it is certain that it is he.”

  Lestran remarked, desperation ringing in his voice, “He is a madman, sire, merciless.”

  Others agreed. Ared stressed, “We must go now—sire.”

  King Pallan scanned them quickly. Gritting his teeth, he nodded with determination. “I will crush that worm of a man with the heel of my boot and scatter his remains in the wadi by Elerand.”

  “We are with you, sire!” was the response of all present.

  King Pallan barked, “Let us go—let us meet the fiend in battle.”

  There were a few cheers and shouts. Some chanted, “Aye, aye!”

  King Pallan, along with the few men that remained in the castle, gathered what weapons they could from storerooms, even searching a hidden vault beneath the Royal Cookery, and headed for the inner courtyard. Several men were setting up a catapult by the western wall. Torches were being lit frantically, in preparation for the marauding king who was well known for his brutality. Pots and kettles of tar were being heated at the last minute to pour over the wall at King Ibren’s men. Flechettes of sundry kinds were being grouped according to their corresponding bows and overbuilt crossbows. Men ran here and there, shouting to one another, some in armour, others in chain mail, some unfortunate to be dressed only in clothes of cloth, perhaps a few better off in leather, in a last attempt at mounting a defence against the merciless invaders. The castle sat spooky and grey in the background as its inhabitants scurried about like ants, trying to fend off a giant who had chanced upon their prized colony.

  King Ibren’s army advanced toward the castle at an alarming rate, vanquishing everything in its path. King Pallan’s men fought valiantly but were quickly dispatched. Coming to the Grove of Hena, the western king commanded his army to set the trees on fire. The trees were soon fully ablaze. The smoke from the fire could be seen from the castle. The callous interlopers pushed on, slaying, torching, beating, and dispersing a desperate Paladian defence force. In a matter of ninety minutes, they had come to within a mile (dekatar) of the castle. King Pallan ordered his men to meet them in battle; the first regiment galloped toward the western king, who sent a shower of arrows at the charging men. Horses and men fell to the ground, haplessly. Furious, King Pallan directed the catapults to fire their munitions, but the clever enemy was too far out of range for the catapults to be effective. The stones rebounded off the fields in front of the castle, some of them striking and killing retreating Paladian soldiers. A standoff ensued. But this was short-lived. King Ibren had thoroughly beaten the outer guard, and what was left surrendered. The defeated soldiers, hands behind their heads, were forced to march toward the castle, to the taunts of Errosian soldiers. Shrewdly, King Ibren was using King Pallan’s men as a shield, for if the latter commanded that they should be fired upon, he would kill his own men.

  The hostile force approached the castle, flaunting its power. King Pallan, his face burning with rage, watched his men being humiliated. In short time, King Ibren, on horseback, with two powerful aides at his side, also riding horses, halted within six hundred yards of the castle’s wall.

  Smoke drifted across the fields in f
ront of the castle. The large fire in the grove continued to burn, the antagonists having used kindling and tar to ignite the trees. Snow blanketed the land in the purest white. The sky, now cloudless, had grown pink at the horizon, fading so seamlessly into white blue that the two infinitely intricate hues appeared to melt into one another in an untraceable line. What little breeze there was died before long, leaving a stillness that suffocated the land. The frigid air nipped at everything, and large ice crystals hung like stalactites from trees, revealing, intermittently, varicoloured light from a dying sun.

  King Ibren boomed, his breath freezing as it left his mouth, “You are defeated, King Pallan. Surrender, and I may be inclined to show you leniency.”

  There were some laughs among his men. King Pallan’s men stood silently, hands folded behind their heads, the enemy’s swords and lances pushing up against their backs.

  The menacing monarch from the west’s words reached the castle, muted, but just audible enough to be discerned; the dead stillness of the air allowed sound to carry great distances.

  King Pallan growled and shouted back, “I think not, Ibren. It is you that are mistaken; I shall soon be rid of you, and my lands shall be restored to me.”

  King Pallan’s words echoed across the fields, reaching King Ibren’s ears in a moment. The portly western king, clothed in dark animal firs, began to laugh, his bushy, red beard jingling in the process. “May I remind you, King Pallan, that you are in no position to boast. I and my men shall soon be upon your castle; and upon your throne, I shall feast upon suckling lamb and bitter herbs and drink the choicest wine, to the sounds of timbrel and festive dancing!”

  Ibren’s men cheered and roared.

  King Ibren’s threat bounced around the inner courtyard of the castle, King Pallan’s face flushing deep red.

  “Bah! He challenges me! I shall bring him high just so I can throw him to the ground, shattering him like dried clay. The crows of the field shall feast upon his blubbery corpse!” King Pallan grinned. He was now upon the castle wall, looking down at Ibren and his men.