Chapter Six
None but those who lived through the Fourth Night know how hopeless it was. I can only assume the previous Nights were the same, but as they lasted much longer I can’t imagine how mankind survived. Without the Lightbringers and Archknights, everything would have been lost.
* * *
Daylen spent the next hour getting used to his powers until they were drained.
“Well, that ends that,” he said, returning to the road. “Seems like I can maintain an hour of full channeling with all bonds.” He most certainly wasn’t going to try and heal his fatigued channeling ability again, what with how it went last time. Don’t bond the power to itself.
It took several more hours of walking before he arrived at the next town. There, he caught a skycoach to the nearest city, the fare taking his last coin.
By necessity, skycoaches were built differently to their wheel-bound cousins, as they required a darkstone core and directional drivers, as with a larger skyship. The coach he flew in was of a less common design where the cabin was affixed underneath the core. This made boarding the small ship easier, because when it was grounded, the entrance was a single step up. Coaches that had their cores underneath required a gangplank or fold-down stairs.
Daylen arrived at a city named Laybourn by the end of low fall, tired and hungry.
The city was distinctly Freysian, where the buildings were either plastered white or made of lighter shades of brick and stone, casting the buildings in hues of cream and pale brown, a byproduct of Frey’s warmer climate. They all had flat-tiled roofs. Streets were paved in distinctive Freysian pale-brown stone, and they often bordered retaining walls, setting the city into differing elevations through the hilly religion where it was located.
With no money to purchase food, Daylen walked a decent way from the main station where the coach had docked and found a clean enough alley to sleep in. The alley was much colder, being in the shade of two buildings, but not so much to be prohibitive. As long as it didn’t rain, he would be fine.
When he had ruled the Dawn Empire, there had been thousands of people who wanted him dead, so Daylen had trained himself to sleep very lightly. He wouldn’t rouse from the wind or other natural noises, but the slightest hint of a footstep or breathing would wake him instantly. Doing so had saved his life many times, and living in hiding for the latter end of his life had only served to encourage the practice.
It didn’t take him long to fall asleep, but a few hours later he was awoken by the sound of someone approaching.
No, they weren’t approaching; they had already approached, and were looming over him—dagger in hand.
Daylen’s hand shot up on reflex, grabbing the man’s wrist as he tried to slit Daylen’s throat.
He was a dirty beggar, obviously intending to loot Daylen’s corpse, and he was strong. The beggar pushed all his weight down on Daylen, the dagger now pointed to Daylen’s heart.
Daylen struggled against the man’s weight, the dagger falling centimeter by centimeter. Strength against strength wasn’t working, so Daylen twisted the man’s wrist and brought his knee up, knocking the man off. He stumbled to regain his footing. Daylen took the brief opportunity to get to his feet and draw his sword. With that, the man was already defeated. Before the wretch could do anything, in a quick flash of steel Daylen took the man’s hand cleanly off.
He screamed, falling to his knees, his uninjured hand grasping at a bleeding stump.
Rage burned inside Daylen as hot as he had trained it to, eighty years of conditioning snapping into action, channeling the rage and using it to strengthen his resolve. “You dayless son of a Shade!” Daylen hissed.
The man tried to get to his feet and run, but as he did, Daylen slashed the tendons behind his knees. He screamed again and fell.
“Try to slit my throat and rob me! Me! I’ve conquered nations, and you think a dagger from the likes of you will be my end?”
The man dragged himself along the ground, whimpering and trying to get away.
Daylen thrust his sword through the beggar’s back, purposefully avoiding vital organs.
The man screamed.
Daylen pulled the sword free and walked in pace with the struggling sunspot.
As the man grasped at the open wound on his chest, he tried to get to his feet once more. Daylen sliced off the beggar’s uninjured arm with a large swing.
The vagabond’s horrified screams brought a measure of satisfaction to Daylen, but his punishment wasn’t done—he was still breathing.
Daylen grasped the man by his hair and hefting him up, growled in fury and cut off his head. Daylen then took up the man’s dagger and, screaming again, bashed the man’s decapitated head against the wall of the alley before thrusting the dagger through the eye, pinning the head to the wall as a sign of what became of people who dared try to kill Dayless the Conqueror.
With the beggar now dead, the punishment served, Daylen’s rage began to melt away, and he leaned against the other wall of the alley.
Footsteps caused Daylen to notice a young man peeking down the alleyway, obviously attracted by the screams. Daylen glared at him and the man bolted.
Starring after the man for a little while, Daylen shook his head and looked back to the alley, truly seeing it for what it was.
It was a massacre.
Daylen suddenly realized what he had done. He had not just defended himself, he had not just killed a man, he had butchered him. Horror overwhelmed Daylen as the reality finally settled into his mind.
“No,” Daylen said in dismay as tears came to his eyes. “No, I don’t want to be like this anymore! Not anymore!”
Daylen wept as he slumped against the wall and slowly slid down to lay there, crying.
He had set out to be a better person but it had only taken the length of two falls to prove that he was in every way the same man he had been.
A violent, merciless killer.
Voices of alarm sounded from down the alleyway. The authorities were finally on their way.
Daylen dragged himself to his feet, breathed in deeply, and ran away.
Daylen made his way to the other end of Laybourn and found himself on a broad open main street with crowds of people walking on either side. Carts, wagons, carriages and coaches were driving down the middle, storefront and food stalls framing the sides.
Daylen’s stomach growled at the smells from the food stalls, but he ignored it.
Light, he was a fool. He shouldn’t have expected anything else from sleeping in a city’s alleyway. Perhaps living as a hermit for twenty years had dulled his wits.
He wanted to be alone and wished he could fly up to one of the building’s roofs. He liked high places and commanding views, especially when thinking.
Hang on—of course I can get up there, my powers! Daylen had utterly forgotten about his powers; even when he was attacked he hadn’t thought to use them. That wasn’t a surprise; using them didn’t come naturally to him yet.
Daylen sighed and turned down one of the alleyways. Paved with brick, it was wide enough for carts to pass through so they could load and unload goods, and the tall buildings on either side cast it in soft shadow.
From there, Daylen found an even narrower alley that ran behind one of the storefronts.
Daylen wondered at how he could employ his powers to reach the roof. Could he make himself lighter and climb? Daylen placed his hand against the brick wall to test the fingerholds.
“Not enough grip…but grip is a quality of my physical body.”
Daylen tried to draw in light, but only found a trickle. It was like dragging something very heavy along the ground.
“The shadows,” Daylen said, remembering when he had tried to channel in Luciana’s barn. The world was usually so full of light that Daylen had taken for granted that he would always be able to use his powers, but clearly in shadow and, of course, darkness, he wouldn’t.
He should have realized this, for he had seen the Archknights figh
t through the Fourth Night and how they had relied on sunstones and Lightbringers to fuel their powers in such darkness.
Luckily there was still enough light in the alley to forge one bond. He channeled it to his grip. As he touched the wall, it was like his hand was covered in glue. It resisted all but the strongest of pulls to come off, and that was with only one bond.
Daylen looked up the wall and tried to make another bond to his weight, but couldn’t. There simply wasn’t enough light.
Still, with his grip enhanced so much, he was able to climb up the wall like a spider; and interestingly, his feet were affected the same as his hands, even through the soles of his shoes.
The roof was mostly flat-tiled, with countless chimneys sticking up over the cityscape before him.
Daylen walked to the low peak of the roof and sat down, thinking.
He had just killed a man. Not the first by a day’s length, but the first in twenty years.
“He tried to murder me,” Daylen muttered to himself. “That was why I didn’t hesitate to kill him. But I did more than that. I let my rage take control and tortured the wretch before ending his life. But the beggar probably had murdered many people before trying to kill me…so the scum deserved what I gave him and more.” Daylen looked at his hands. “The problem is how easy it was.”
That was more troubling than Daylen could express.
If he could fall into a blind rage so quickly, he could do so against a person that didn’t deserve it and pervert the purpose of his new life.
Daylen had done so in the past, had killed the innocent too many times to count, though he hadn’t believed them innocent at the time. In any case, Daylen was certainly capable of such acts.
Was this all a mistake? Choosing to hunt out darkness meant he would have to kill again, and when a man was willing to kill, he might resort to it when killing wasn’t justified.
“Maybe I should never touch a sword again and help people in the little ways I have, tinkering and such.”
But that didn’t reach a fraction of Daylen’s potential. How many Grand High Masters of the Sword were there who were also master tacticians and could wield the power of the Archknights? Daylen had a very unique and specific skill set that would be best employed against the worst and most vile parts of the world. Indeed, there was more of a need for someone to fight for those who couldn’t than anything else. There were those who preyed on the defenseless, the innocent and the weak, and Daylen had great power to stop such things. Save one person at a time.
It was far better for him to face the horrors of the world than to expose the innocent to them. Daylen had faced such before; Light, he had even caused many. His innocence had been destroyed long ago, and with that there was nothing left that he could lose to another life of violence.
So maybe it could be a good thing that killing was still so easy for him.
He could do what better men couldn’t, be the avenging knife in the dark. That was the greatest and most significant thing he could do for others, and indeed the skills he had and the type of man he was all but demanded it.
Daylen’s head dropped and shoulders slumped. “Will I never know peace?” he said softly. “I’ve killed so many, and I hate it… But life isn’t something I deserve to enjoy.”
Resolve returned to Daylen’s heart. “This is what I have to do…but I won’t let myself darken the world any more than I have. So I vow upon the Light that if I ever kill another innocent, I will kill myself.” Daylen looked to the sun. “I don’t care if you want to punish me. Protecting the world from the Conqueror is more important than my misery, so if you really want me to live, help me.” Daylen bowed his head and closed his eyes, speaking fervently from the depths of his heart. “Save me from myself.”
Chapter Seven
When in battle, the Shade are relentless and care not for injury or loss. A Shade would sacrifice itself in an instant if it could but kill a single person, and thus through baiting and feints, we finally turned the tide. But don’t misunderstand me: the Shade never retreat. We only claimed back what was lost by killing every last one in each battle, at great cost. It seems the Shade are physically unable to surrender, and I lost count of the times I should’ve died to a wound if not for the healing powers of a Lightbringer.
* * *
Daylen’s stomach growled.
Standing, he walked to the edge of the building and gazed down to the busy street and the food stalls beneath.
He had no money, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get what he needed. Do a few chores for some shop owner for a quick meal.
As Daylen walked along the edge of the ten story building the tiles he stepped on broke loose and slid out from under his feet. Daylen lost his footing completely. “Crap!” he yelled as his legs shot off the side of the roof.
Flustered by the sudden trip, Daylen quickly remembered his powers and reacted by increasing his balance and speed. But his feet weren’t on anything, and before he realized that increasing his balance would do nothing, he fell, his upper body colliding painfully with the side of the roof, knocking him off in a downward spin to the ground.
Luckily it was easy for him to remember what had saved him from falling in the past.
Just before he hit the ground, he increased his mass, the inertia pulling him to a stop. He was upside down due to the falling spin. He released his mass as fast as possible, not wanting to fall again with it enhanced, which would be disastrous.
He was still about a meter from the ground where he fell headfirst. He rolled as he landed, letting the motion bring him back to his feet—rather gracefully, if he said so himself. “Shade take those loose bloody tiles,” Daylen said as he dusted himself off. “Serves me right for walking along the edge of an old roof.” It was at that time he noticed the hundreds of people staring at him.
“Oh, well, crap.”
He had landed right in front of a food stall that stood on the side of a very busy sidewalk.
“Light’s end!” the red-haired woman behind the stall exclaimed. She had a very long neck and pronounced cheekbones.
“Yeah, um, sorry for the scare,” Daylen said.
“It’s Dayless the Conqueror back from the dead!” an old man screamed to Daylen’s left.
Gasps erupted all around, and Daylen’s heart skipped a beat. Light, he thought with a groan, someone had recognized him. Everyone looked to the wizened old man pointing at Daylen. He was clearly old enough to have lived during Daylen’s time in power.
“What are you talking about?” Daylen said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. “Dayless the Conqueror has been dead for twenty years, and even if he were alive, you would think he would look somewhat older than me.”
“But… But you look exactly like him…or at least, exactly like him when he was young.”
“And people can’t look similar to one another, you senile idiot? Piss off, and stop trying to cause a riot with your stupid conspiracies.”
A murmur arose in the crowd and the old man looked truly upbraided.
“How did you do that?” a woman wearing a top hat and vested dress from among the crowd asked, pointing to the roof Daylen had fallen from.
“Oh, that… Just a stage trick gone wrong,” Daylen said haltingly.
The businesswoman frowned. “That was not a stage trick. Where are the ropes? I know magic when I see it.”
Light, he had been too conspicuous; not that he could have easily avoided it, and there were only two sources of magic that people knew of.
“Can you please keep it down?” Daylen said. “I’m on an important Archknight reconnaissance survey and I’ve been trying to avoid notice, hence why I’m not wearing the mantle and why I was on the roofs. The tiles broke free from under my feet when I wasn’t paying attention, and we’re all lucky no one was standing directly beneath me. Now, with everyone’s curiosity satisfied, clear off!”
The crowed jumped and all went to move away, though many stared at him as they left.
“You look awful young to be an Archon,” the woman behind the stall said.
Young? What’s this girl talking about… Oh. I really need to get used to that.
“Archknights recruit as young as fourteen years old, but most parents don’t let their children join so young.” Though Daylen wasn’t a member of their order, he knew some of their basic practices.
“Oh, of course,” the woman said, looking at the blood on Daylen’s coat. “Is there anything we should be worried about?”
“Oh, that. No, it’s all taken care of.”
Blood spattered across someone’s clothes might usually raise more suspicion, but Archknights were different. The people probably supposed Daylen had recently slain a Shade. After all, that’s what Archknights did most of the time.
Daylen’s stomach growled and, seeing that the damage was already done, he shrugged to himself and walked up to the food stall.
“I was wondering if I could have a pie. I’m starving.”
The knights were given a privileged position in society due to the importance of their mission. A knight never needed to pay for food, lodging, or even transportation. All people honored and respected them.
“Of course, Archon,” the woman said, bowing several times. She opened a paper bag and scooped three pies into it and handed them to Daylen.
“The Light shine on you,” Daylen said.
“And on you too, Archon.”
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 9