by Jon Kiln
“None,” Forseth said, eyes bulging. “I was told by authority above me where to stop and how to proceed. The men I chose to come with me were just chosen. It haunts me to know the ones I left behind were slaughtered.”
“Who told you to stop us there?” Nisero interjected.
Forseth swung his gaze towards his younger captor. “The King’s own attendants. It was all claimed to be in the name of protecting the late prince. The same men that orchestrated the charges and search for you. They are joining the King in pushing for war with the East.”
“Do you claim the King himself was in on this assassination?” Nisero pressed.
“Never.”
“Kings don’t tend to be supporters of regicide for obvious reasons,” Berengar added. “Why do you now hunt us?”
“It was a long shot, but I was hoping to find you first and help you escape.”
Nisero leaned forward. “Escape?”
“Yes, you both could find your way across the border and into the lands outside of the reach of those that would seek your destruction,” Forseth explained.
“You want us to leave the kingdom?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t go to the eastern kingdom with the winds of war blowing. Though I think it would be best to escape while you can. Forces are closing in and it is only a matter of time before you are caught.”
Berengar’s fist tightened on the hilt of his sword at Forseth’s neck. “Why don’t you help us clear Nisero’s name, since you know him to be innocent? Accept the full mantle of leadership for the Guard and vindicate the dead among our brothers by helping to uncover the truth.”
“I want to. But I don’t see that being a short process. You’ll need to steal away until the time is right.”
“Is that what you would do in our stead?”
Forseth nodded vigorously. “Were I one or the other of you, I would have crossed the border to the north, south, or west, days ago.”
“You said you came to help us with that crossing?” Nisero prodded.
“I can.”
“You have men you can trust to see us through?”
“I do.”
Nisero stood as Berengar lifted his blade away from Forseth’s throat and swiped the sword through the rope above Forseth’s feet. The tree crackled as the rope snapped up in the air with whip like force. Captain Forseth dumped onto the ground and fell to his side.
He rolled up to his knees and started to wriggle quickly away. “They are here! To arms!” he shouted hysterically.
Forseth fought to get to his feet, but his ankles remained bound by the tightened loop of the severed rope. He fell to his face with a grunt. Forseth reached for his sword in the leaves where Berengar threw it.
Nisero stepped on the blade on the ground as he drew his own. Forseth scrambled forward anyway. Nisero kicked the sword away and out of reach behind him. The lieutenant took a step back from Forseth’s grasping hands and lowered the tip of his sword to hang between him and the Elite Guard captain.
Berengar gave Forseth a sharp kick in the ribs and Nisero saw the man curl with the pain, pressing his face into the leaves under him. Berengar kicked again along the edge of Forseth’s jaw, near his ear. The prone man flipped over to his back with his eyes clenched shut and his hands out and open in front. He blindly tried to fend off any more kicks.
Instead of kicking a third time, Berengar lowered his sword down between Forseth’s hands and rested the tip to Forseth’s throat again. Forseth felt the cold steel against his skin. He showed his teeth and clenched his fists, but did not open his eyes.
“That was not your best moment, Forseth,” Berengar observed pleasantly.
“If you kill me, you will have done exactly what you are accused of doing… both of you.”
“I think I can live with that, if you are the traitor and the killer of my brothers,” answered Berengar.
“Why did you let me down then, old man?”
“I wanted to see if your answers and attitude changed once you thought you were free. It happened much faster than I expected. You didn’t even get your feet untied before you tried to turn on us again. Very disappointing.”
Forseth’s eyes slid open and he stared up the length of Berengar’s blade at the former captain. “You are wanted criminals. You set a trap for me and threatened me, leader of the Elite Guard to the King, with a dark, bandit’s sword. Where do you find the gall to lecture me on turning on anyone?”
Berengar bent slightly at the waist to bring his face closer to Forseth on the ground, but kept the point of his sword pressed at the soft flesh of the man’s neck. “You are a bumbling fool that rose to your position when better men were out doing work in regions that the crown had left to rot. You only kept your post because a stronger man supported you from below and kept you from constantly tripping over your own feet. You did not even have the courage to commit your treachery with your own hand and blade. You rode away and let other men do the work for you, like a coward.”
“How dare you?” Forseth said angrily. “Both of you will hang from trees next, and soon, but the ropes will not be around your ankles. They will not be hidden under leaves like snakes in the grass. I’ll be there to watch too.”
“Will you?” Berengar stood back up straight. “Will you bring the other traitors to celebrate the victory of your lies and murder?”
“I murdered no one,” Forseth growled.
“Out of cowardice,” Berengar retorted, “not because you did not do all you could to help.”
“You won’t kill me.” Forseth’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “Speaking of cowards, you play the part of the ruthless bandit, but you can’t bring yourself to see the part through. You might as well let me up.”
“Are you certain about that, old friend?” Berengar narrowed his eyes. “Are you certain enough to bet your life against my rage and disgust for you? Maybe against my desperation for having been backed into a corner?”
Forseth’s expression wavered, but then he said, “Then press the blade home already, brave former captain of the Elite Guard.”
Berengar leaned forward and Forseth let out a choked gag on the ground. As Forseth’s eyes went wide, Nisero took a step forward, but did not reach out. Blood trickled down both sides of Forseth's neck in two, thin tendril. Forseth blinked and hissed, “What is your hesitation, bandit?”
“Tell me who hired you to betray the Elite Guard and why,” Berengar said with menace, “or I will pin you to the earth.”
Forseth coughed and drew his lips into a tight, pale line. “You did not believe me when I hung upside down in your trap. You won’t believe me if I lie to you out of fear for my own skin, making up noble conspirators and a web of political intrigue. I could draw you a maze that would lead you all around the kingdom chasing lies, until you were finally caught as all rats eventually are when there are enough hungry cats searching for them. Is that the game you care to play, Berengar?”
“That is the most poetic turn of phrase I think I may have heard from your limited mind, Forseth. Maybe you were capable of more had you just taken your lips from the rim of an ale mug a little more often.”
“Curse you,” Forseth spat. Tears leaked out from his eyes on both sides of his face to add to the drying trickles of blood. “Curse your daughter and the child that will be taken from her belly when she is hanged with both of you. Curse your dead family that you were not man enough to save. And curse your friendship that will bring you both down together.”
The sword shook in Berengar’s fist and the blood dripped out from around the deadly point afresh.
“Captain,” Nisero breathed. He said no more, so the men did not know which one of them the lieutenant was addressing.
“Do it or I will be going now,” Forseth said.
A smile spread across Berengar’s face, twisting up the scar on his cheek. “If you want to go without giving me answers, then rise up as high as you wish to stand with my blade at your throat. If you feel confident in y
our abilities, grab the blade with your bare hand and move it aside.”
Forseth did not move, but shouted instead. “Help! The outlaws are here. To arms. They are here. Rally!”
Nisero turned and looked about. Berengar lifted his point away from Captain Forseth’s neck. Forseth clutched his palm over his own throat and sat up from the ground still screaming out his call for help.
Berengar rolled his sword over in his fist and brought the knob of the hilt pummel down against Forseth’s skull where his forehead met his hairline. Forseth went silent and swooned in his sitting position before toppling to his back again. Blood flowed dark through his hair and into the leaves from the open gash at the front of his scalp. Forseth was still conscious, but lying still and groaning. He pawed at his wound smearing blood over his cheeks.
“You could have killed him striking his head like that,” Nisero remarked.
“I didn’t even hit him hard enough to knock him out. Grab his feet and let’s get out of here.”
“We are taking him?” Nisero looked down at the bleeding captain with his ankles still bound. “To where?”
“I don’t know yet, but I need more time to get answers out of him.”
“Torture?”
Before Berengar could reply, hoof beats sounded from the direction Forseth and the others had been headed.
Berengar groaned. “We’re out of time. Come on.”
They turned and ran back through the trees toward the ravine, leaving Forseth on the ground bleeding, but alive.
“I’m not sure that went as well as we had hoped,” Nisero commented wryly.
“We got the right man,” Berengar said. “I just don’t know whether he is the one that did the wrong thing or not.”
They topped a rise and ran down a slope toward the mouth of the ravine where they had left Arianne. Four regular army men in uniform stood facing away from Berengar and Nisero as the two men skid to a halt on the leaves.
As the soldiers turned, one of them said, “Did you hear him call from this direction?”
All four men saw the ex-Guardsmen a few feet away. They drew their swords and approached. “You’re under arrest. Drop your weapons,” said a soldier.
Berengar still held his sword in his fist. Nisero drew his. The men were already spreading out as they circled around on both sides of them. Nisero recognized the move and wished that the men were a little less well trained. He squared himself and prepared for a hard fight.
The horses approached from across the top of the ravine from their side. Nisero sighed, feeling the odds slip further out of his favor.
Arianne held the reins of the two empty horses as she charged forward into the sides of the soldiers. The first took the impact of the horse’s chest and spun away to the ground losing his sword. The second tried to run, but tripped and was trampled under. The third dropped his sword and stumbled back, losing his footing and tumbling into the ravine where Nisero had thought Arianne had still been.
The fourth man had a bit more time to compose himself. He dropped to his knees and brought his sword up ready to slice Arianne’s mount out from under her. Berengar reacted by running forward and swiping the soldier’s sword aside. Before the man could turn his attack back on the seasoned warrior, Berengar stomped down on the side of the soldier’s skull and jaw. The man went down hard and covered his head with both arms.
“Let’s go,” Berengar commanded.
Berengar and Nisero mounted the horses Arianne had by the reins. She started to turn about to ride east and Nisero followed her lead, but Berengar whistled and said, “This way.”
They rode southwest through the thick of the trees leaving the attackers behind.
“Why didn’t you stay put?” Berengar asked.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
“If we had gotten through and down into the ravine before you came around…”
As Berengar took a breath, Arianne cut him off. “But you didn’t. The soldiers came looking down into the ravine. I think they heard you. Once they reached a point where they couldn’t see over the side, I rode out the other end to avoid being caught. Then, I saved you,” she finished.
Nisero thanked her and she smiled at him. “Where are we going now?” he asked.
Berengar stared forward as they rode hard through the forest.
“Up the ladder.”
Chapter 10: Giving Orders
He placed the book on his lap as he sat in the velvet chair under the candlelight. His fingers traced over the fine etching of the leather cover. The book was worth more than a year’s wages of everyone in the closest village put together. It was carried across countless kingdoms before reaching his personal library.
He could barely read the ancient words painted across the gold leaf pages. He did not even care so much for the content, which supposedly possessed some level of ancient magic. Magic was the stuff that peasants believed in because they did not have the personal power or wealth to shape the world around them. He did not care about the content as much as he valued the possession and the ability to possess what it represented.
He took a moment to lift his spectacles from the marble side table next to him. The thin wire arms were a level of metal working that only a few people within the kingdom could perform. The glass that was molded to bend light and make reading easier was a skill nearly lost to the world. The cost of bringing this pair through a half dozen kingdoms to his manor house in the shadow of the capital was enough to feed half the kingdom. The charity of feeding the poor might be forgotten the next time they grew hungry again, but having these glasses was an undeniable exercise of power and demonstration of wealth.
Possessing the throne and choosing who sat upon it was the work of powerful men. Deciding who sat upon two thrones was a legendary level of power that could not be ignored, and he would be a part of that, too.
He perched his spectacles on his nose, barely feeling them from their fragile lightness. He folded back the leather cover, stressing the aged spine with a satisfying crackle. The title page itself was decorated with ink that stood up from the leaf and glistened in the shifting light. The single page was a more valuable piece of art than any that hung upon the walls of the palace itself.
He wet his lips in quiet satisfaction before turning the page, feeling its unnatural weight.
“Lord Caffrey?”
He jumped at the sound of his own name within his private library. The doors were closed and he had not heard them open. The heavy leather covers that lined the shelves and the rows of bound pages surrounding the room absorbed the noise and killed all echo, but rising out of the silence, the voice startled him like a clap of thunder.
He jolted and tore the title page. It was a small rip, but it started from the bottom center of the page and broke jagged up through the leaf for about half the distance of Lord Caffrey’s thumb. He could see the broken lengths of gold thread laced within the paper now exposed to the light.
He felt heat in his cheeks and the throb of a vein in the center of his forehead. He stared at the rip like it was a fissure through which an immeasurable fortune had fallen away. This volume had survived wars and the fall of empires. Now a single, impudent voice speaking two words had damaged it where fire, flood, pestilence, and famine could not.
Caffrey shook until his vision blurred with the intensity of it. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “You will regret the day of your birth.”
“Not nearly as much as you will regret the day of my birth, if you did what I think you did.”
Caffrey stilled and felt cold where the rush of blood had made him feel hot with rage a moment before. He rolled his head around the chair to see two dark figures hulking in the shadows. They stood just outside the circle of light from the candles suspended in the metal chandeliers above him.
He pawed at a drawer underneath the marble top of the side table. As the figures advanced, Caffrey cried out. “Someone! Help me!”
The drawer bound in its slats from him trying
to force it free at the desperate angle. The wood screamed against itself, and the thought crossed his mind as the figures advanced from the darkness into the flickering light that he should have spent his wealth on a better drawer.
Caffrey forced his hand into the narrow opening and clawed at the forgotten contents inside. The marble edge and sharp lip of the drawer pressed at the fragile bones in the back of his hand. He came out with the brass spike of a letter opener which tapered to a sharp point, but sported the dullest of edges. It quivered in his fist, his fingers clutched over the ivory handle, supposedly carved from the tooth of a dragon. Caffrey always suspected it was nothing more than a wild pig’s tusk. However, he paid handsomely for the lie.
As he rose from his chair and staggered away, Caffrey noted that the two men left their swords sheathed on their hips like they anticipated no great trouble in dispatching him. “Help me! Robbers. I have robbers in my home!”
The older of the two men, with a scar on his cheek and gray whiskers on his unkempt face, charged. He pushed over the marble topped side table, shattering the cherry wood of the drawer underneath as it crashed to the floor. Some part of his sheathed sword hilt snagged the upholstery of the chair and tore it open, revealing matted fluff inside.
Caffrey raised his hands in defense, still twisted sideways and shuffling awkwardly away. The man first slapped away the tome, sending it flying with its cover open like bird’s wings and its priceless pages splayed open. It landed on its pages crumpling and tearing them. The book then tumbled, casting torn leaf out across the floor and landing with the entire contents broken loose from the spine and cover.
Caffrey stared in gapped mouthed shock and did not think to lift his modest, but expensive weapon as he mourned his precious book. These men had no appreciation for the value of such things.
The man swatted aside the letter opener, bringing a whimper from Lord Caffrey. The blade clattered along the floor and up against the oak base of one of the shelves.