Shadow of the Conqueror

by Shad M Brooks

  “Daylen.”

  “Daylen? But that’s the same name as…”

  “Yeah, I know. Look, it’s a common enough name, so please don’t bring it up.”

  “Very well, and well met. Honestly, I feel as lost about this as you. I don’t have a clue why the Light directed me to stay at your side.”

  “I might have an idea or two,” Daylen said.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, could you share them?”

  “Nope,” Daylen said flatly.

  “Light, why not?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I think the Light’s made it my business.”

  “Then it can tell you. Look, son, I’m a private kind of person, but I’m not exactly going to deny the Light. So you can come with me.”

  “Why do you keep calling me son? That’s what I should be calling you.”

  “It’s just a habit, and don’t call me that. Just be happy I’m letting you come with me.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t need your permission, as I obey a greater power.”

  “Trust me, if I didn’t want you to follow me, you wouldn’t be.”

  “You see, that’s the funny thing,” Ahrek said. “It’s abundantly clear that you don’t want me to, and yet you are. So what you said isn’t really true, is it?”

  Daylen looked at the Lightbringer for a second, before sneering. “Don’t be a smartass.”

  “You know, you’re very much like your father.”

  “More than you can imagine.”

  Chapter Eight

  It was during the Fourth Night that I met my beloved, Tara. Such a strange time to find warmth and love.

  After much fighting, we found ourselves in a position to launch an assault on the underworld. I had never dreamed I would ever venture into that labyrinth. Doing so would have been suicide if I had not been accompanied by the knights who led the charge. Somehow, they were able to sense where the Shade pooled their powers to cast night upon the land.

  * * *

  The white banner from Lyrah’s mantle fluttered gently at her back as she strode through the crowd. The people in front parted without prompting, the mantle serving its purpose to make her stand out.

  The mantle was a thin, bright-white cape with sleeves joined around a high collar, and accompanied by bright silvery bracers and pauldrons. The pauldrons each bore the knights’ golden sigil, a stylized shield that bore horizontal and vertical lines interlocking a central ring. This same sigil formed the broach that closed the mantle around her neck and was also upon the long white banner cape that hung down her back. A pair of white gloves completed the Archknight Mantle. Apart from this, the knights had no other uniform, but were expected to wear darker shades underneath to contrast. Lyrah’s choices were a black shirt with large silver buttons, a wide, polished leather belt with an ornamental buckle, tight gray pants, and knee-high black riding boots. A large two handed warsword hung sheathed on her hip.

  The knights were the protectors of the world, mysterious warriors with great magical powers, beacons of hope and justice, and thus needed to be seen and recognized as such. Hence the mantle, and why the people stared at Lyrah with reverent respect.

  Lyrah had grown used to the attention, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

  Her archbrother, Cueseg, waited for her in the street, the crowds not daring to come within five meters of him.

  Her new companion was a short-statured backward Tuerasian. Not only did he have deep brown skin and short bright-yellow hair that stuck up at the front, he had a prominent mark on his forehead from some savage branding, and wore no shirt under his Knight’s Mantle, leaving his impressively muscled chest bare.

  Tuerasians were considered by many peoples to be very attractive and exotic; their lack of modesty added a taboo fascination, and in truth Lyrah could admit that Cueseg was quite the physical specimen.

  He stood out even for an Archknight.

  Lyrah was a middle-aged Hamahran woman, though she had aged gracefully over the years. She had pale blue eyes and green hair which stood out among the more numerous Freysian reds, though her own hair had a strong line of crimson which spoke of shared heritage. Her hair was tied in a thin plait that hung down over her mantle’s banner. Average in height for a woman, Lyrah was still a little taller than her Tuerasian companion.

  She intentionally avoided bonding light to her ears on this occasion as she could predict what the frivolous women were saying nearby as they whispered, pointing to Cueseg.

  They might have been pebbles on the road for all Cueseg seemed to care.

  Lyrah felt uncomfortable with these thoughts, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as when they had met. Cueseg had been completely naked. It had nearly brought on a panic attack, being the way she was with things like intimacy. As it turned out, Cueseg hadn’t been making some type of sexual advance. Instead, he claimed to have been providing Lyrah the opportunity to master herself more fully, whatever that meant. After a very awkward conversation where Lyrah could barely keep her nervousness at bay, Cueseg covered his loins, sorry that Lyrah was so weak-willed that she couldn’t control her emotions. She almost knocked him out for all of that.

  As if she were actually interested in him, or anyone in that way.

  Cueseg was attractive…very attractive, with a body that looked to have been sculpted from stone. But he was also snobbish, rude, and annoying.

  Cueseg was in the middle of eating a pie. “This is awful,” he said in a thick Tuerasian accent. “The meat is too fatty.” He reached into his mouth and retrieved a half-chewed piece of meat. “You see this? It is like eating a shoe.” He threw the piece to the ground before taking another bite of his pie.

  “Then why are you eating it?”

  “I am hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “And that is why I eat.”

  “Makes sense,” Lyrah said. “I’ve just spoken to the vendor. She confirms the stories we’ve heard. A young man fell from that building there and stopped himself in the middle of the air a meter from the ground, no ropes, no tricks. From the description it sounds exactly like a Mass Break. He had blood on his coat and said he was on a reconnaissance survey, whatever that means.”

  Cueseg tossed the remains of his pie to the ground. “He is asking people if reconnaissance is needed in the city?”

  Lyrah tsked disapprovingly at Cueseg’s waste and lack of cleanliness, but chose to otherwise ignore it. She had to pick her battles with this vexing man. “You do hear how stupid that sounds.”

  “I do, but you people do so many stupid things I cannot know.”

  Lyrah sighed. She really couldn’t tell if Cueseg was trying to offend her or if he was simply ignorant. “We’re assigned to hunt this city and would have been told if any other knights were given a task in our area—unless something serious happened to cause him to come here unassigned, which might explain the blood. But why in the Light’s grace wouldn’t he report it to the Hold? From the accounts, he didn’t seem to be distressed. Quite the opposite.”

  Cueseg rubbed his smooth chin. “People do not like to lose so much blood.”

  “Really, are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I am sure,” Cueseg said seriously.

  He just didn’t seem to understand the concept of sarcasm. “This is why I should be the head one,” Cueseg added.

  “I’m senior, Cueseg. That’s just the way it is, so get over it.”

  “In age, yes, but why you people be leader for age? Is not right. And what does this mean, get over it? Do you wish me to get onto you? Do you want sex?”

  “No! Light, Cueseg, will you get it into your head that I don’t want to have…to have…”

  “Have what?”

  Lyrah could feel the anxiety build. “You know.”

  “Sex. You cannot even say it. This is not good.”

  Her perpetual desire to punch Cueseg had just doubled.

&nbs
p; “You find it hard to control. This is normal. I am very attractive and it is good that I can make you strong in this.”

  “Light,” Lyrah snapped, “all I said was to get over it. Why can’t you understand a simple analogy?”

  “How stupid must you be if you do not understand that I would not understand the words of different language?”

  Lyrah sighed, rubbing her forehead. The two of them really didn’t get along. But they were assigned to each other, so they just had to put up with it.

  The Order usually did this when a hunt became due somewhere. They would assign a brother, or in her case a sister, who spoke the language with another member from a foreign land. It was a way the Order diversified.

  After being assigned together, and after his naked introduction, Cueseg had tried to make Lyrah play with some Tuerasian puzzles, of all things. Lyrah had refused, of course, leaving Cueseg greatly offended.

  “Whatever,” Lyrah said. “I suppose we could talk to the conners…”

  “What does this mean, conners?”

  “It’s slang…”

  “Do not use words I do not know to describe things I do not know!”

  “A shortened name for constable. You know, law enforcement.”

  Cueseg was silent for a short time. “Then that is the way you should say it.”

  “Even though now you know what conner means?”

  “No,” Cueseg said, looking far more embarrassed then he should, “that is not what I mean…”

  Lyrah smirked. “But that’s what you said.”

  “By the Bright One, this is not my language. I was meant to say that you should have said it that way, but not anymore!”

  “So…you know how you meant to say it, but you didn’t.”

  Cueseg usually kept his face blank, so seeing him flustered was a rare event. “You… You… Be quiet, you ignorant barbarian!”

  “It’s okay to be forgetful.”

  “I said, be quiet!”

  This was the first time Lyrah had seen Cueseg so embarrassed. She smiled, happy to know there was a way to shade the Tuerasian’s sun and to get him back for all the drack she had to put up with from him.

  It would have been rather undignified if anybody had heard the two noble Archknights squabbling, but they were speaking softly and were far enough from prying ears.

  Lyrah let an appropriate amount of time pass before she spoke again. “If the blood came from some type of altercation, the patrols might have received a report of it, especially if it was a fight involving an Archknight.”

  “And then we will know if the blood came from his brother?”

  Lyrah paused for a brief moment and decided to test her theory. “Know? It would be impossible to know from the conners. First we would need to identify the man he fought with. I thought you would have realized that.”

  Cueseg seemed to control himself better this time, his face passive, but his cheeks did appear to be flushed. Was he blushing? “I do not mean this!” he said with an embarrassed tone. “I mean to say that we will know who he fights with, if it is his brother or not.”

  “This is the second time you haven’t said what you meant.”

  “This is not my language!” Cueseg repeated, raising his voice.

  Lyrah glanced around to realize that this time their avid onlookers would have heard them. She felt embarrassed and spoke in a lowered tone. “How about we focus on the matter at hand? This young man’s description doesn’t match any brother assigned to the nearby regions. He didn’t wear the Mantle and he didn’t have a brother at his side.”

  “I know this. It is possible that the boy is Seerium.”

  “A Seerium?”

  “Yes, but you call them different. Lightbringers.”

  “He might have been,” Lyrah said, thinking over the possibility. There were Lightbringers who were members of the Order. They made up an indispensable branch amongst the knights thanks to their unique powers. “He would have the miracle of what, movement?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I know the Lightbringers in the Order, and they’re all too old.”

  “Yes, even among my people it takes many years to be Seerium.”

  “So the likelihood of him being a Lightbringer is very low.”

  “Also, if he is Seerium, he can ask for food as Seerium and have no need to be an Archknight. Though I do not know why he would give so much trouble to get what you barbarians call food.”

  “Cueseg, in case you weren’t aware of this, people don’t like being called barbarians.”

  “Then I will not call you this again.”

  “Oh…” Lyrah said in surprise. “That was easy.”

  “Why would it not?”

  “You never admit being wrong.”

  “Not knowing something is different to being wrong. You do not like being called barbarian so I will not call you this. It is just the best word that I know to say what you people are.”

  “Thanks,” Lyrah said sarcastically. “Good to know that’s what you think of us.”

  “I am honor to help.”

  She shook her head. “We need to try and find this boy.”

  “Can you track him?”

  “Only if I knew his scent, but there’s no way for me to know which one is his. This street has had too much traffic.”

  “But if no one has been in the same place, you can find his smell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, then you will find his smell.”

  “No, Cueseg, I just said too many people have passed by. I can’t tell which scent is his. I mean, if I had a piece of his clothing or if he had stood in a place that no one else had recently, then yes.”

  Cueseg’s face was blank as usual, but the tone in his voice sounded very condescending. “Again, you do not see what is clear to see. This is why I should be the head one.”

  “Oh, really?” Lyrah said, before cynically adding, “So what am I missing?”

  “We know where this boy stands that no one else stands,” Cueseg said, pointing to the roof of the building where the boy had fallen from.

  There was a clear gap at the edge of the roof tiles.

  Lyrah looked and ground her teeth in annoyance, knowing Cueseg was right. It wasn’t likely that anyone else had been up on the roof since that fall.

  “Let’s go check,” Lyrah said, walking to the building.

  The people on the street moved out of their way. Once at the building, Lyrah crouched and channeled a power jump, shooting up with great velocity and cresting the roof to land on the edge with ease. Careful not to break loose any tiles under her feet, she stood straight and looked down to see Cueseg rising gently up toward her, obviously using one and a quarter gravity bonds, hands held formally behind his back. Changing the direction of his bond, he floated in an elegant arch and stepped onto the roof. Cueseg had good control.

  Everyone on the streets were watching them, reveling in their chance to see the Archknight magic.

  Lyrah knelt down. Using her free bond, she channeled light into her sense of smell and instantly detected a person’s scent. Her face must have looked confused, for Cueseg asked what was wrong.

  “His scent,” Lyrah said. “He smells like an old person, and there’s something faintly familiar about it.”

  “Old people have different smell?”

  Lyrah stood. “You’re telling me you’ve never smelled an old person?”

  “I have. They did not smell any different.”

  “Of course they do. Okay, not all old people, but most. You know, musty, the smell that brings on boredom and hypnotically makes people speak really slowly.”

  Remarkably, Cueseg’s blank face seemed to convey that Lyrah was speaking gibberish. How was he able to convey expression while never expressing anything? It was very frustrating.

  “What if he has our powers and is not a knight?” Cueseg asked.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “All he needs is to fight evil and do the Vigil.
”

  “But no one actually knows what happens during the Vigil.”

  “Just because we do not know does not mean no one does,” Cueseg said.

  “Even outside the Order?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what, Cueseg…you might be right.”

  “Of course – it was me who said it.”

  “But if you are, this is far more serious than we thought.”

  Chapter Nine

  As we traversed the underworld, we passed many enormous halls and roadways carved out of the stone by some ancient subterranean civilization. As to who they were or what happened to them, no one knows.

  The Shade attacked us each fall as we traveled, and there were many desperate battles, as the strongest of the knights was unable to release the full force of their powers for risk of cave-ins. Of course, the Shade had no hesitation in that regard and they used their dark powers to kill many.

  We were met by the largest collective of Shade once we found their primary nest at an entrance into a great cavern. We fought with everything we had to get the stronger knights close enough to destroy them.

  * * *

  Now that introductions are over,” the Bringer said, looking at Daylen quizzically, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

  “What’s that?” Daylen asked.

  “Is that blood on your coat?”

  Surprised, Daylen looked to his coat. He had been sure he cleaned off all the blood, but when shifting his coat, he saw a few streaks he had missed that were under a natural fold in the cloth. Light, the Bringer must be bloody perceptive to notice that.

  “No, it’s sauce,” Daylen said. “Spilled some on me when I was eating a pie.”

  Ahrek held a very calculating expression, and then smiled. “I see. So where are we going?”

  “The capital. I just have to grab some of my things first.”

  “Your things? I thought your father lived here?”

  “Not anymore. They’re my things now.”

  “He died?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m sorry.”