Betrayal

by Jon Kiln

  The voice continued. “There are archers on the balconies above. Do not move, if you care to go on living.”

  The doors around the hall swung open and uniformed guards entered. Torches were struck and the light in the hall flared up. Nisero saw Forseth now walking up through the center of the room. The other handful of Elite Guard that had survived the ambush moved along the walls, as mercenaries in unmarked armor moved into position around the room.

  Men Nisero had served with for years marched in around behind him and Berengar. They pushed their backs and walked them up in front of the throne toward the center of the hall to face Captain Forseth.

  Nisero glanced up and saw the archers in their dark cloaks, aiming down from balconies that normally held guests during shows or presentations. He imagined this might be the archers from the night of the betrayal that he had not managed to kill before he made his escape.

  Nisero looked from the arrows to Forseth squared in front of him. “Are these the same men you hired to murder our brothers?”

  “Some of them,” Forseth said with a lazy shrug.

  Berengar reached for his sword and took a step forward. Two blades were drawn behind him, the sharp edges rested at the arteries of both sides of his neck. Captain Berengar froze, still glaring at Forseth.

  “I did not take your swords,” Forseth said, “because I have no reason to fear them. Move your hand or die, Berengar.”

  Captain Berengar lifted his hand away, but the swords remained at his neck. “You looked better suited hung upside down, Forseth. I should have bled you out there in the woods instead of letting you live to disgrace yourself and that uniform further.”

  “I won’t make the mistake of letting you two walk out of this room alive. Put them on their knees, please.”

  The swords drew back from Berengar’s neck and the Elite Guardsmen standing behind Nisero and Berengar stomped against the backs of their knees, driving them down hard.

  “Much better. You will have a shorter distance to fall when you are both cut down.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Nisero asked angrily.

  Captain Forseth groaned. “Why do we do anything that we have ever done? We were ordered to do it by those above us. If the King ordered you to cut down members of his force that he considered a problem, would you refuse him? What sort of servant to the King would you be, if you did not kill who he said to kill? What is the Elite Guard except the hand of the King bearing a blade?”

  “The King ordered you to kill his Guard and the prince of the east?” Berengar said in disbelief. “This is what you are confessing now?”

  Forseth held out his hands to the hall occupied by mercenaries and the Elite Guard survivors. “How would I be in the throne room delivering the sentence of death upon you, if not by the will of the ruling King?”

  “I see no king or nobles of any rank. You may be here like us, merely forcing your way in.”

  “Nobles try not to attend blood baths. They come along after men like me have finished the work and the cleanup is completed.”

  Berengar spat on the floor. “You are a dog that licks blood and filth off the dirt before being kicked aside.”

  Forseth lifted his boot and stomped Berengar in the chest, knocking him to his back. He then kicked him twice more in the ribs. Berengar grunted and grit his teeth, taking the pain. Forseth stepped back. “I owed you that from earlier. Pick him up.”

  The Elite Guard grabbed Berengar by his shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

  “Even if you kill us,” Berengar said, “you will be paid back for your evil. Evil men do not suffer the men that know their secrets and commit their acts of treachery for long. They will cut you all down eventually to hide their deeds and forget their involvement in what you have done. None of them are here to witness it for that very reason.”

  Forseth chuckled. “You want a king present for your fall. That can happen. Bring him in.”

  A great commotion rose at one of the grand doors. A man was hauled in wearing chains. From their knees Berengar and Nisero could see the man with his white beard and hair. His clothing was in rags and dirt marked his face.

  Nisero narrowed his eyes. “The King?”

  Berengar started to rise to his feet, but the swords reappeared at the sides of his neck and he lowered back to his knees.

  They dragged the King up before the throne, bound in his chains. They dumped him on the flagstone floor next to Nisero, Berengar, and Forseth.

  “What have you done?” Berengar growled. “You said you took orders from the King.”

  “I don’t believe I said the King actually,” Forseth said, “but to that point, I did take orders from the King, just not this old King. His replacement commands me now. He is the one that coordinated the fall of the old guard, the eastern prince, and this former king of the kingdom. With war brewing in the east, food shortages stirring up the kingdom, and order slowly collapsing, everything is going as planned.”

  “Whose plan?” Berengar pressed. “Who did this?”

  Forseth waved him off. “That’s not important to you. You two are old guard and should have been killed off long before now. We will remedy that finally. We coaxed you into the palace as planned. I didn’t think it would work, but here you are, just like he said. Now, we orchestrate the assassination of the old King by the hands of those that killed the prince and then the new King can take his place, bringing order to the kingdom and expanding east to boot.”

  Nisero looked down at the King who appeared to be unconscious on the floor. “How could you be a party to this?”

  “Kingdoms are overthrown all throughout history. You can either be part of the old kingdom or the new kingdom when that transition happens.”

  “Is that what your new King told you?”

  “It is, in fact,” Forseth said. “Unchain the old King and dress him in his fine robes for his assassination.”

  The mercenaries laughed as they dragged the man up by his chains. The King’s eyelids fluttered as the shackles were unlocked from his wrists and ankles. His left wrist in particular bore open sores. He had a dark cut on his right palm. Around all the other joints, the King’s skin was creased in painful, purple lines marking the edges of the cuffs. The flesh on either side of the exposed skin was puffy and pale.

  It did not escape Nisero that they themselves had brought in more than a few criminals to be chained away in this manner. Were the situation different, the King himself would have had them locked away for the remainder of their lives. It still stung to see the King treated this way.

  “Where have you been keeping him?” he asked.

  “I’ve been out looking for you two. Little did I know that you would come find me – twice now, it seems,” Forseth said amicably. “The King’s cousin has had him up in the towers. That’s where you keep royal prisoner’s after all, isn’t it?”

  “The King’s cousin.” Berengar looked up from his knees. “Which cousin?”

  “I am terrible at keeping secrets.” Forseth shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “His own family turned on him?”

  Forseth paced in front of his prisoners. “The cousin reached out to willing nobles from exile or perhaps they used him to move on the throne and consolidate their power. The workings of royal politics are complicated and sometime incestuous. It is best to just pick the winning horse and place your wager where you can. Mine paid off. Your old horse is headed to the slaughter.”

  “Cousin in exile?” Berengar narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. “Marlex?”

  Forseth tapped his foot on the ground, getting impatient. “Let’s get him set up so that we can pose this assassination. This is worse than having both my nagging grandmothers present while I’m trying to work.”

  As the mercenaries released the King’s shoulders after rattling the chains aside, the King toppled forward to his face and knees. It looked as if he were bowing to his captors instead of collapsing from exhaustion.

  One of
them shoved the King’s hip with his boot, pushing him over onto his side so that he looked to be curled up like a baby. Berengar growled in the back of his throat, but did not make a motion with the swords at the sides of his neck.

  “Don’t bruise him any further,” Forseth ordered. “It is supposed to appear that he was still upon the throne ruling and feasting while the people starved and their sons were sent to war. Until these two entered to continue there reign of murder and terror on the kingdom.”

  “Then Cousin Marlex steps in to take the crown to be the hero,” Berengar finished for him.

  “We’ll be at war,” Forseth said. “Most will just be happy to have anyone upon the throne. If it is any consolation, history will likely mark you as the slayer of a tyrant. King Marlex rose from exile after the fall of the hated King that put him there, in order to save the kingdom that he always loved. Some will view you as heroes even though we will paint you as heartless criminals that plunged the kingdom into a costly war, one that only King Marlex could save us from. History is complicated too because of the politics, I suppose.”

  Berengar showed his teeth. “Marlex is not fit to lick the boots of King Ramael.”

  Nisero saw hands go to swords’ hilts around the room and the air grew as tense as the drawn strings of the bows in the balconies above them. Forseth waved his hand. “Rest easy, boys. We will have plenty of time to make them pay for their disrespect once the tyrant is slain. I’m just glad the true King was not here to hear such awful curses. Dress him in his finest robes. We need to get on with killing the King… long live the King,” he laughed.

  The men laughed with him and hustled King Ramael up to his feet. They stripped off his rags and threw them aside leaving him standing naked. They laid out the robes, belts, cape, and lastly the crown itself sitting on the floor next to the chains.

  “Where are his boots?” Forseth demanded.

  The men looked around. One of them said, “I can go up to his chambers. Find a pair.”

  “One of you, take off your boots and put them on the King’s feet. We can’t have him found slain barefoot in the throne room and expect there to not be questions we can’t answer.”

  “Why don’t we take one of the prisoners’ boots, sir?”

  Berengar rolled his eyes. “Because when they come in and find our bodies slain after supposedly killing the King, they’ll question why one of the assassins entered the palace barefoot.”

  Forseth stared up at the high ceiling in exasperation. “Exactly. Just give him boots, so that we can kill him.”

  One of the mercenaries began unlacing his leather footwear.

  “Are you going to pretend the King was out hunting?” Berengar smirked at Forseth.

  “What?”

  “The mercenaries wear boots for creeping around the woods. It won’t look believable,” Berengar explained.

  Forseth breathed out between clenched teeth. “Why are you helping?”

  “To demonstrate how unprepared you are for all of this, and knowing that even if you get all the details right, this will still fall apart around you after we are gone.”

  Forseth motioned to the surviving members of the Elite Guard behind Berengar and Nisero. “One of you, give up your boots already.”

  One of the men took his sword away from Berengar’s neck and set it on the floor. He pulled off his boots and tossed them over in front of the King.

  The mercenaries pulled the boots on the naked King first. Then, they struggled to get the pants over. As they belted the pants and tucked them into the boots, two men pulled the shirt over his head.

  “Straighten his beard and hair a little,” Forseth suggested.

  “Do you want us to bathe him?” one asked.

  “No, just smooth his hair down a little. We’ll splatter the blood and then no one will notice the dirt.”

  “You are a sick, evil man, Forseth,” Nisero snarled. “I’m sorry to have ever known you.”

  “I should have left you both to die in the mountains under the sword of Solag.”

  Nisero looked away. “You would have lost your command long ago without my guidance.”

  Forseth drew his sword. “Finish dressing the King. I want to kill these two myself once the deed is done.”

  As more of the Elite Guard gathered the robes and crown, the mercenaries tucked the King’s shirt and smoothed down his beard.

  Berengar turned his head. He made eye contact with Nisero and then looked upon the King. “Your majesty, can you run?”

  The King’s eyes blinked and he turned his attention on Berengar, but did not speak. All the men in the room froze in place. They held robes, capes, and a crown. Some of them turned their eyes to Forseth, looking for guidance.

  “What are you doing?” Forseth snickered.

  “I’m asking the King,” Berengar replied, “if he is well enough to run. Once I kill you and we make our escape.”

  “You are a fool.”

  Berengar kept his eyes on the King. The King gave a slight nod.

  Captain Berengar sprung into action.

  Chapter 14: Long Live the King

  Berengar faded away from the sword that was still at his neck. Still, he took a slice across his cheek that opened and bled, and would likely create a new scar as a companion to the old one on the other cheek.

  Forseth was surprised, but already had his sword drawn. Instead of unsheathing his own, Berengar snatched up the sword left on the ground by the Elite Guardsman that had given up his boots.

  Captain Berengar came up and around in full swing. Forseth managed to brace his blade to parry, but Berengar still overwhelmed Captain Forseth and slashed across his chest at the level of his collar bones. The top of his shirt folded away and began absorbing the blood.

  Forseth let out a strangled gag and staggered into the unoccupied chairs at the banquet tables. As they spilled heavy to the floor with echoing crashes, Berengar charged, leaving Nisero to believe that Berengar was more bent on vengeance than actually saving the King.

  The terror in Forseth’s eyes read that he saw the same intent. Forseth lost the grip on his sword and rolled underneath the table, knocking over the chairs on the other side as he retreated. He hit his head on the solid underside of the table, making plates and empty glasses jump above.

  Arrows stabbed into the table top from the balconies in both directions. One broke through the center of a plate, planting into the table and quartering the platter into jagged pieces. Another pierced a tilted chair just shy of Forseth’s own skull.

  Forseth scrambled along the floor between tables toward the great doors. “Take them! Not me, you fools!”

  Berengar tipped the table spilling the crockery, crystal, and flatware onto the flagstones with an ear piercing rain of crashes. He dropped behind the table as arrows slammed into both the top and the underside.

  While Berengar had pursued Forseth, the Elite Guardsman whom Nisero had commanded and fought with for years stared in shock at Captain Berengar’s blood running down the edge of his blade.

  Nisero dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword while still on his knees. Part of him hoped that this man might find his honor again and join Berengar and Nisero in saving the King from Forseth, the mercenaries, and the dark men that had sided with Marlex against the rightful ruler of the kingdom.

  As the man lifted his sword and took a step toward the action, Nisero still hoped the target was Forseth and not Berengar. By the time Forseth was scurrying away from the action, leaving dribbles of blood from his wounded chest, the guardsman was still bearing down. Nisero knew that his hope was misplaced.

  An arrow zipped past Nisero’s eyes close enough that the feathered tail scratched the bridge of his nose. The bolt skipped across the floor into the corner of the throne room.

  The lieutenant sprung into action. He drew his sword as Berengar overturned the table which masked the sound of his blade and swallowed all other noise in the room. The man was focused on Berengar as Nisero charged from th
e side.

  As the arrows struck the overturned table, Nisero swung into the side of the treacherous guardsman’s head. He felt the rage in his own slash, feeling all the frustration and anger flow out through his arms gripping his sword. The blade opened the guardsman’s smile up to his ear on one side of his head. More than the cut, the force of the blow spun the man twice before he dropped to his knees, facing Nisero.

  The guardsman dropped his sword and lifted his hands. Nisero read fear on the man’s damaged face, but also maybe regret and guilt. He considered forgiveness.

  Another arrow whizzed past Nisero’s ear close enough for him to hear it cut the air. It drove into the chest of the guardsman on his knees. The man folded into the force of the arrow and crumpled to the floor.

  Berengar pushed the overturned table across the room, knocking over other chairs and tables with a crash. Men backed away to avoid being smashed by the falling furniture. Arrows skipped off the edge of Berengar’s battering ram.

  Nisero ducked in beside the captain and helped him shove the table toward the men holding the King. The ones that failed to back away were plowed over. Nisero heard leg bones snap before they began to scream.

  Nisero grabbed the King and pulled him behind the cover of the table.

  Two mercenaries raised their swords and approached. They stepped over their comrades on the floor who were clutching their twisted limbs.

  Berengar came up with a broadsword in each hand and stabbed into the guts of both men underneath their swings. The captain had yet to draw his own sword. Nisero saw that one was the guardsman’s sword Berengar picked up earlier and the other was Forseth’s discarded weapon. Instead of withdrawing the blades, Berengar used the swords to lever the men and swing them out, one each on both sides of him. Arrows intended for Berengar pelted into the backs of the impaled mercenaries.

  A barefoot guardsman grabbed up a sword on the floor from one of the broken mercenaries. He swung in at Nisero. The lieutenant squared himself in front of the King and brought his sword up to block the blow. The guardsman drove forward and twisted his blade against Nisero’s hilt guard, pushing Nisero to the side.