by Ijaz, Usman
The Krillen had been in the kingdom of Grandal for years, long before Aeiron’s reign and before his father’s. It had been passed down from king to son, and king to son again. Aeiron had received it when he had been hastily ushered onto the throne after the death of his older brother. The Krillen showed what it wanted and when it wanted, it seemed, but had nonetheless proven to be a great advantage for Grandal through all the years and wars.
It rested in a chamber of its own, a bowl of water on a small plinth..As Aeiron and Nemar approached, the king saw that the water was glowing brilliantly.
“It’s Alexis,” he whispered as he looked into the water carried from Urd’s Well.
In the Krillen he saw Alexis and two small boys on a hilltop. They stood in a field of golden flowers that carpeted the ground all around them. The simple knowledge that they were alive brought a small smile to his lips.
As they watched, Alexis turned and for a moment looked directly at them. One of the boys appeared to say something, and Alexis’s gaze fell away. There was no sound from the Krillen, its gifts did not extend that far, so they could not hear what was being said.
Then, as simply as it had come, the image began to dissolve and change. What the king saw next gripped him in inexorable fear. It was the sight of the two boys hanging from nooses around their necks, and of Alexis being pulled onto the platform.
The image dissolved away, and there was nothing left but a darkness that seemed to shift and move like trapped smoke.
“No,” Aeiron whispered as he stirred the water with one hand. “No ...” The Krillen remained as calm and opaque as ever.
“Your highness, perhaps it is best to leave it alone for now,” Nemar suggested quietly.
Aeiron looked into the still water for a few moments longer, and then stepped back. “What does it mean, Nemar?” His voice was soft and cracked, unrecognizable even to himself.
“I don’t know, my king. It showed us two different sights, perhaps they are what might be?”
“Perhaps,” Aeiron said after a while. Or that they could follow one another. He didn’t voice this dismal thought.
“What matters is that for the moment they are still alive,” Nemar said.
For a few moments they lingered there, but it became apparent that the Krillen had nothing more to show.
2
The courtyard was silent, but for the whimpering sounds of the man and woman who knelt before the lord of Hanna, awaiting his judgment. A small crowd of onlookers had been gathered to witness the proceedings. They all watched with differing levels of composure.
Jonas massaged his forehead with his right hand, but his head would not stop aching. The loud pulsing behind his eyes would simply not go away. It felt as though his brain were swelling and in the process splitting his head apart. His eyes throbbed, and he imagined they must pop out of their sockets and fall into his lap any moment. Better if they did, he thought miserably. They were not the ones he had been born with, those eyes would have condemned him on spot, and he despised the fact that he had had to change them.
He looked up from the large throne-like chair that had been dragged out to the courtyard so that all could witness him carry out King Jerome’s law. The crowd consisted mainly of guards and servants with a few townspeople to further spread the tale. Jonas looked at all the faces, and wondered if the hate he felt for them was reflected in his hazel eyes.
He saw Logan standing apart from the rest in the shade of the outer walls, and regarded him pensively for a long time. The man stared back like a hawk, and he might as well have been one for all the emotion he showed. But he’s dangerous, that one. Jonas didn’t for a moment believe Logan could harm him, he was simply too weak and knew too little, but among men he was a superb killer. The man’s reasons for leaving the Legion were his own, and he didn’t relinquish his secrets so easily, another quality that Jonas found admiring in him, but when offered the chance for vengeance he had come willingly enough. But Jonas felt it wasn’t just the promise for vengeance that had drawn Logan to him. The man had his own motives. As long as they don’t counter mine. How much does he know? How much has he seen and overheard? He wondered if it was time to be rid of the man, and then dismissed the thought. Not yet. Logan still had his uses.
Rubbing at his sore eyes he turned back to the pair before him. The two looked at him with upturned faces and pleading eyes. As he watched the woman began to weep. He wanted to sneer at them and the whole situation. To be caught stealing porcelain and silver from the palace and selling them in the streets was a crime punishable by time in jail or by the loss of one hand. It was their unfortunate luck to have been apprehended on such a day. The infernal headaches had put him in a foul mood.
“Take off their heads,” he said mildly to one of the guards.
The woman looked at him a moment longer, eyes wide, and then collapsed unconscious. Good, thought Jonas, now the executioner can do his damned job in peace. The man was already weeping and begging for forgiveness. Jonas stood up and turned away from the onlookers and the condemned and strode back into the palace, massaging his forehead. Behind him he could hear the wild cries of the man as the pair was dragged away and the babble of the onlookers.
This world, their world, was beginning to take its toll on him. This ruse was a cancer that was eating away at him. He wanted to rip it apart and be done with the entire deception ... but knew he must suffer it a while longer.
I need the boy! he thought as the ache in his head suddenly became worse. He stopped in the dark hallway and massaged his forehead with tented fingers. It worried him a little, the headaches, they had been pestering him for the past several days, with hardly a rest in between.
He heard the sound of footsteps behind him and turned to see Logan coming towards him. He let the other man catch up before continuing down the hall.
“Any progress?” Jonas asked, more harshly than he intended to.
“No,” Logan answered in his cold-as-ice tone.
“What was the last you heard from your assassins?”
“They passed into Arcadia and are hunting the Legionnaire and the boy’s trail.”
“Idiots!” Jonas hissed. “If they take much longer I will take their heads off as well, no matter if they capture the child or not!”
“If they fail,” Logan said, “I’ll kill them myself.”
Jonas thought he spoke the truth. It irked him to trust in others to do what he wanted done, but he knew that it was necessary. He himself could not go chase the boy down. There was too much risk of being discovered, too much risk of jeopardizing his plans when they were so close to fruition. To send Logan might well result in disaster. When in a rage, the man did not plan, he simply acted. Sending Logan might well have resulted in a shootout on the Great Road, and despite the man’s reputation, there was no telling if he could best three Legionnaires. And who did that leave? The low for a low job.
The run of thoughts made him feel disgusted. “Where is my son?”
Logan stared ahead as he answered. “Last I saw him, he was with his usual comrades and forcing himself on a woman old enough to be his mother.”
That feeling of disgust bloomed larger. Mordred’s “usual comrades” were a few guardsmen that were as vile as him, always hoping to earn favor by him. Like attracts like, the old saying went. And if earning his favor might involve egging him into forcing himself onto a woman or a girl, what for it to them? The boy would agree only too quickly with any suggestions offered by those fools. In the past Jonas had gotten rid of such men, but Mordred seemed to attract them like flies. Like attracts like.
“Find him,” Jonas growled. “Get him away from those fools and send him to me.” One son I was given, and he is proving more and more useless everyday!
Logan bowed his head acquiescently and marched off. Jonas started up the stone steps leading to his chambers. There he would stand on the balcony and stare out at the world and imagine how he would shatter it, rebuild it, end it ... whatever he
pleased. His whims changed on a daily basis. Today, he could only think of destroying the hopes of men and sitting back and watching them sink into madness.
It was the only comfort that was left to him; to wait and dream.
3
“Your father wants you.”
Mordred regarded him coolly for a few moments. “I’ll join him later.”
“He wants to see you now,” Logan told him. He glanced behind the boy, saw the four guardsmen that he was with, and thought he wouldn’t trust any of them to hold their ground in a battle. He dismissed them.
“What right do you have to order my companions around?” Mordred demanded. The men lingered.
“While they are in uniform they aren’t your companions, but under my command.” Logan faced the men again. “Go back to your posts.” They slunk away with dark scowls as Mordred stared at him with restrained anger.
“You are stepping above your position, Abarrai,” Mordred said in a tight voice.
“Not nearly,” Logan told him as he turned away. “I’m simply doing what my position states I must. Come, your father is waiting.”
The sensation of having the boy at his back was more than Logan could bear. He could feel the boy’s eyes like darts. Only his guns at his sides allowed him to keep his composure. He wondered if he would be able to use them if it came down to it. The boy was more than he seemed.
“My father will hear of this,” Mordred told him sullenly.
Logan said nothing. As they neared the palace he asked, “Where is the woman?”
Mordred laughed. “Don’t worry, Logan. I let her go.”
After you were done with her. Logan kept his anger in check. The boy took full advantage of the fact that Lapos was one of the few countries remaining where commoners could not challenge their betters in court.
“You seem angry, Logan,” Mordred said with a laugh.
Logan didn’t reply. He led the boy up the steps, towards Jonas’s chambers. They passed dark, mute corridors with bleak hangings covering the walls. Up and up they walked.
“Where do you spend all your time in town, Logan? Could it be that the great, fabled Captain has a love for whores?”
Logan nearly tripped as the boy asked the question, a sudden burst of panic flaring within him. He managed to keep his composure as he led the boy up the stairs, refusing to give him any sort of answer. I have to be careful, he thought as they approached Jonas’s chambers.
He opened the doors and led the boy inside. He immediately felt the wind blowing in through the open balcony doors. Jonas stood out there. The old man was staring outward, with a fixation that Logan had seen many times before. He left the boy and exited the rooms.
He spent his climb down the stairs with doubts assaulting his mind. He suspects something, or does he already know? He forced his mind away by reflecting on the news he had received from his informant in Grandal. The two Legionnaires killed by the Blood Assassins had been Hamar Ronan and Owain Lannit. It was being spread that they had died on duty while investigating a smugglers den, but the timing fit with what Logan knew. A part of him felt heavy by the news. He had known Hamar and Owain both, had trained with them. And now they were dead by his command.
Accept it. Move on, he told himself as he reached the first floor and headed outside. One more Legionnaire left, from what Amon had reported. Logan hadn’t been able to find out who it was from his informant; the mission was a strict secret, it seemed. He doubted one Legionnaire could escape the assassins, but didn’t reject the possibility either. Logan knew that alone it might be possible to escape the hunters, but with a child in tow it was made much harder. And why does Jonas want an Ascillian child anyway? There was too much that was being kept from him. He headed out under the afternoon sun, heading for the shooting ranges in hopes of clearing his mind.
I’ll serve him as best I can until he betrays me, Logan thought. Then I’ll put a bullet through his head.
Chapter 14
The Dark Forest
1
The woods were dark. They made Connor wary. On the other side of the river the Bramble Woods had been full of tall trees, but those trees had been thin and allowed some sunshine to break through. On this side of the river the woods were large and the canopy thick, shrouding everything in shadows. The three headed into the dark embrace of the forest.
“How deep do you think these woods are?” Connor asked the Legionnaire. “I mean, how long before we put them behind us?”
“I don’t know,” Alexis replied. “But I do know that no woods run on forever.” He slipped the haversack over his shoulders and led them into the woods.
“Why didn’t we simply travel down the river?” Connor asked after several moments.
Alexis glanced back at him. “Would you want to attempt a longer journey on that raft?”
“I suppose not,” Connor said as he pushed a branch out of his way. He followed the Legionnaire with quiet reservation, watching the forest around them. Shadows lay thick everywhere and there was a silence to this place that he found greatly uncomforting. He glanced up towards the canopy and saw small shafts of sunlight filtering through. They’re just dark, these woods, he thought. Other than that they’re not that different from across the river. No different at all. He glanced towards Adrian to see if he felt the same way; his cousin watched the oppressive forest with wary eyes, as though expecting an ambush to befall them any moment. Alexis was much the same way, alert gaze always scanning the ground and the woods around them.
Sometimes Connor’s thoughts drifted to the other two Legionnaires that had left Port Hope with them. He hoped they were all right, but worrying about them always reminded him of their own situation. If this was an adventure, then it was nothing like what he had expected from all the bards songs and tales.
But more often than not, he found himself wondering what was going on back at the Golden Lilly. He wondered what his father and sisters were doing at that moment. That place had begun to chafe at him, but how quickly he had come to miss it now. He remembered the other night when Adrian had found him weeping near the river, sobbing like a babe. He did miss his family, more than he would have ever thought possible, but he was glad that Adrian had not brought it up since then. He looked to his cousin, and felt a jumble of emotions stir within him. I have no reason to blame him, he thought, and felt a great weight lift off him. He realized then how much he had held his cousin responsible for his mother’s death.
They rested in the early hours before noon and ate a little of Rebecca’s hard bread and drank water from the skins. Then they were on the move again. The trek through the forest was aimless and tiresome. They passed tree after tree that Connor could have sworn were all the same and it began to feel as though they were moving in place.
Rebecca had warned them that these woods were dangerous, and if she spoke true then they had possible danger behind them and before them. But at least they knew the danger to their backs, what might lie ahead was a mystery. But nonetheless, Connor thought he would have chosen their present course rather than risk encountering the assassins again. Assassins that were capable of killing Legionnaires, men that were admired even outside of Grandal, albeit grudgingly. He imagined there had to have been many assassins to kill two well-trained Legionnaires, if indeed they had killed Hamar and Owain.
Lost in his thoughts, and watching only the tops of the trees in the distance and the darkening sky beyond them, Connor tripped over a rock half-buried in the ground and fell.
“Are you all right?” Adrian asked.
“Yes,” Connor said, standing up and brushing dirt off his trousers.
Alexis stopped and looked up at the sky.“It might rain. Let’s pray that it doesn’t.”
Then they were on the move again.
2
The ground beneath their feet was hard, and the sky above them dark, threatening to release rain. Alexis didn’t much care, it was the waiting that irritated him. If it was going to rain, then let it rain, and i
f there were people in these woods, then let them show themselves. He led the boys deeper into the woods, worry gripping his head; worry for his lost companions, whom he could only hope they would meet up with eventually, worry for the safety of the boys, especially Adrian, and worry for the reception they would receive in Gale, if ever they reached it. Stop thinking so far ahead, he warned himself.
He wasn’t too worried about whether or not they would ever come out of the woods; as he had told Connor, no woods ran on forever. But he was concerned with just where they would come out. The Great Road they had been following had led straight into Teihr, but God only knew where they were now. For all Alexis knew, they might come out a great distance from their destination.
He scanned the woods, all too aware that every tree and every shadow could hide danger. He also scanned the ground from time to time for tracks. Rebecca had said there were people on this side, and Alexis believed her. They hadn’t caught a whiff of anyone so far, but he knew that in a forest so grand, they could be anywhere. He didn’t find any human tracks, only those of animals, and even those seemed rare.
The night darkened, and the three stopped and made shelter.
It didn’t rain, but the night was far from easy. The blankets Rebecca had given them were a great comfort, but they were not enough. After eating some more of the hard bread and drinking some more water the boys lay down for the night and Alexis took up his vigilant watch, a large blanket wrapped around him.
The fire they had made was small, so as to not give away their location to any seeking eyes. Alexis began to wish that they had made it larger. The wind seemed to pass through the blanket and his coat. He sat before the fire like a still statue, but for his brown eyes which constantly searched the dark. His ears pricked at the tiniest sounds. He was at his most alert.