by Ty Johnston
“Do you wish me to perform last rites?” Bishop Althgar asked from his seat.
Verkain turned to the old man, thinking Althgar looked like a feverish frog with his wide, yellow eyes. “No need,” he said. “It would be most ironic to have the Ashalite rites provided for this one.”
Chapter Fourteen
Kron sat back on his heels, stunned.
Randall’s throat had been carved open as if by a fishmonger cleaning a carp. Of all the deaths Kron had beheld since returning to Bond, the healer’s was the most destructive to his soul. Randall had never harmed anyone, and had had no intentions of harming anyone. The healer was the purest, most blameless person Kron had ever known.
The man in black collapsed, dropping to his knees on the window’s wide ledge. His back slid against the glass behind him and his head sank between his shoulders. His eyes stared unblinking. Below him, gray smoke swirled up from chimneys to waltz away on the night’s breeze over squalid tenements, narrow brick streets and crooked alleys.
His breathing came as short gasps, the air inching its way throw the narrow gap of his lips.
For the first time in fifteen years, since the murders of his mother and father, Kron knew despair. He knew defeat. Even Adara’s death had not shaken him so.
Everyone was dead. Adara. Randall. Markwood soon. Wyck had died months ago.
There appeared to be no hope.
A single tear dropped from Kron’s left eye and haltingly struggled down his cheek to rest on the edge of his top lip.
He blinked, then stared some more over the city.
The blare of trumpets, far below, were not enough to stir him from his reverie.
The tear dripped from Kron’s mouth, catching on the back of a gloved hand.
He gritted his teeth and slammed his eyes closed, allowing the numbness and pain to turn to hate. It was his way. It was how he survived the world. Hate. Anger. Vengeance.
When his eyes opened again, he looked out, staring at the distant figure of a woman he could have loved. She still hung where he had last seen her, high upon a cross of oak. A ring of torches about the body highlighted her long, dark hair waving in the wind.
He clenched his fists. Then he opened his hands slowly. He was wrong to think he could have loved Adara because she never could have loved him, not as he was. She had told him, in the Prisonlands. She could never love a monster such as Kron Darkbow. She had not been able to deal with his darkness, his hate and anger and want for vengeance. So Kron had lost her before he had had her, all because he would not change.
He grimaced, sucking in air. He swallowed hard, tasting acid in the back of his throat.
Kron pulled his feet around to dangle over the ledge and the far drop to a cobbled street. He stared flatly at the round, pale moon overhead.
What should he do? Killing Verkain was the simple answer.
Kron shook himself. Killing Verkain would accomplish little. It would not bring back Randall or Adara or Wyck. Verkain’s death would only leave a gulf of power in Kobalos that would soon be filled by another, possibly even someone as deranged and dangerous as the nation’s current lord.
No. Revenge was not the key. Something more had to be accomplished than simple vengeance. A reckoning was in order.
A miniature grappling hook attached to a silk cord slipped from Kron’s belt. He looped the rope around a crenalation and allowed himself to drop. He fell a good ways, nearly to the street below, before tightening his grip. The rope snapped with his sudden weight, then sent the man in black swinging through the darkness.
In one motion Kron flipped through the air and jerked the rope, loosening the cord and sending the hook plummeting to the ground. He landed on a rooftop and yanked, pulling rope and hook to him as he took off at a run, his sword and bow and quiver jingling on his back.
A yell from behind meant he had been spotted. He kept running. Within minutes he had jumped alleys and crossed a dozen roofs. He did not know where he was going, but the night air opened his mind, allowing his thoughts to run as fast as his footsteps.
***
“Ash!”
The boy spun around, staring with confused eyes at the woman calling his name.
“Ash, come here!”
He raised an eyebrow. Who was she in her plain white tunic? And why was she so concerned about him? And his name? Was it Ash? He couldn’t remember. His mind was atumble, as if he had only risen from bed and was trying to recall a distant dream that had slipped away from his mind.
“Please, baby, come away from there,” the woman said.
The boy glanced down at the ground, which seemed much closer than it should have. He saw he was also dressed in simple white, leather sandals tied around his feet separating him from the dirt beneath.
“Ash, baby, please.”
He looked up again. She was in her early thirties with lengthy gold hair flying about her face. Fear was worn into her features through groves in the flesh above her dark eyes.
“Do not listen to her, boy,” a new voice commanded, a sturdy voice. “Come to me!”
The lad looked to one side. There stood a man, tall and well built, sheltered in a skin of metal bronze with a golden sword in his hands, a helmet of black iron shielding his features.
“I know you,” the boy said.
A grin appeared beneath the chin of the helmet. “Of course you know me. Now come to your father.”
Father? Ash frowned and glanced to the woman. Was she his mother? She seemed vaguely familiar, but he recollected little of his mother. The woman who had given birth to him had died when he was young. Or had she? He didn’t know. His memories were awhirl, flittering on the edges of his mind’s eye.
“Ash, I need you to come to me,” the woman said. “Everything will be alright if you just come to me.”
The boy looked from her back to the man, then he glanced beyond the two figures. A field of green and red stretched as far as he could see. Bodies were packed in piles, twenty or so dead to a mass. Broken bronzed weapons were strewn across the red-drenched grass between dented pieces of armor and creeks of blood.
The youth grimaced. The blood was everywhere, and there appeared to be no one living other than himself, the woman and the man in golden plates.
The armored figure gripped his weapon tighter, the muscles in his sword arm standing out. “Damn it, Ash, do as I tell you!”
The fear grew stronger in the woman’s eyes and she stepped back, away from the big man.
The boy turned away from them. Something about this, all of it, felt familiar. The woman, the man, the battlefield. It was all known.
Except for the name they called him. His name wasn’t Ash. He could not remember his name, but he knew it was not Ash.
He stared out, over a valley of red stone and sand. For the first time he realized he was on a precipice, a dirt ledge above a drop of hundreds of feet into a rocky valley far below. That was one reason the woman feared, the other being the man in metal. She did not want him to fall. Neither did the man, but his motives seemed less pure.
Ash knew all this. He had been here before. The battle had been because of him. Men had killed because of who he was. Once the warring had finished, he had fled to the valley’s edge. The woman had followed in hopes of saving him. The man had followed for his own, selfish motives.
The boy looked down, watching his sandals kicking dust and tiny stones into the chasm before him.
He knew what he had to do. He had done it before.
He took a step, then fell. And plummeting to the sharp rocks below, the wind whipping back his hair and bringing water to his eyes, he could only think one thing. My name is not Ash. My name is Kerwin. I am Kerwin Verkain.
***
Belgad and Fortisquo had watched events unravel from the front of the long hall, their backs against a wall while they stood lined up with a group of Kobalan officers. They saw Markwood carried away, Randall’s death and a triumphant salute from Verkain to his gathered minions.
“Barbaric,” Fortisquo whispered to his companion as Randall’s remains were carried out of the chamber.
Captain Lendo approached the two as the multitude began to file from the room. “Lord Verkain seeks your presence. Both of you.”
“Now?” Fortisquo asked, taking note of a broken arrow protruding from the captain’s shoulder.
Lendo seemed to take no notice of his wound. “Do you wish to keep him waiting?”
Fortisquo gulped and glanced to Belgad.
“Lead the way,” the bald man said to the captain.
***
The two foreigners soon found themselves seated on cushioned chairs with their backs to a tapestry-shrouded wall. The room before them was narrow, long and dark, a single torch near the only exit providing light. In the center of the chamber was a lengthy iron table, atop it hundreds of glass vials and containers, some empty and others containing liquids of various colors and shades. A hint of sulfur hung on the air.
The door swung open. Verkain glided into the room as if the other two were not present. He paused by the metal table, leaned over it and investigated several of the vials.
Before the door closed, Fortisquo noticed Lendo and other soldiers waiting in the outer hall.
“Why are we here?” Belgad dared to speak.
Verkain’s head came up, the tail of hair down his back swaying over his dark robes. He glanced to the much larger man and his thin companion as if seeing them for the first time. “I’ve slain greater men than you for speaking out of turn.”
“You’ve some use for us or you wouldn’t have called us here,” Belgad said.
Verkain chuckled. “Very perceptive.”
“I suppose you still want Darkbow,” the Dartague said.
“No,” Verkain said. “Kron Darkbow is of little concern. Without Markwood, the man is nothing, not even a gnat to be swiped away.”
A dark grin grew on Belgad’s face. “I suggest you not underestimate the man. I once thought as you.”
“He is one man. What care I if he kills a hundred of my own? I have matters of more import at hand.”
“Then why are we here?” Belgad asked.
“I have need of your combat expertise, and your leadership abilities,” Verkain said. “I will make you captains.”
“Why?”
“I will be invading the Prisonlands within the week.”
Belgad threw back his head and scoffed.
“I will reclaim lands rightfully mine,” the lord went on.
“Not according to the treaty you signed,” Belgad said.
“Then I will break the treaty.”
“And start another war?” Belgad asked. “Is that what all this has been about? Another war between the East and West?”
“The situation is different now. I have the backing of the Eastern pontiff.”
Belgad nodded. “I wondered why the bishop was here. So, the East wants war, too.”
“All true believers of the almighty Ashal will want this war,” Verkain said. “The decadent West has gone unleashed for sixty years too long.”
“Ashal?” Fortisquo muttered.
“That’s right.” Verkain turned his gaze upon the sword master. “I, too, am a believer, though not a worshiper. A war between the East and West, with Kobalos in the middle, will bring about a new age.”
“Adara was right,” Fortisquo said to Belgad.
“This is not logical,” Belgad said to the king. “Another Ursian war will tear the nations apart, leading to another stalemate. The West can’t hold the pope’s armies, and the East can’t compete with the Western mages.”
“But I can,” Verkain said.
Startling knowledge suddenly dawned in Belgad’s mind, causing his eyes to broaden. Verkain was right. The lord of Kobalos was one of the most powerful mages known to the world. With his magic backing the Eastern armies, the West would eventually fall. Western Ursia would put up a good fight, possibly for years, but Kobalan dark magic would give the Eastern pope the edge he would need to defeat the young republic.
“I am ushering in the last of days,” Verkain continued. “I am the Dark King of the North, and I will lay waste to mankind.”
“But if that’s true,” Fortisquo said, “then Ashal is expected to return.”
“Why do you think the Eastern church has agreed to join with me?”
“You want Ashal to return?” Fortisquo asked.
“Oh, that won’t happen,” Verkain said. “I’ve taken care of the matter already. The Dark King of the North will ride forth, as prophesy states, but no agent of the Creator will be there to stop me. I will rewrite history to my own making.”
***
“The man is more mad than I had expected,” Belgad said.
Fortisquo tossed his sword belt onto a couch and reclined on a bed in his personal chambers. “Then why did you agree to us joining his army?” he asked the big man standing in the open doorway to the room.
“What choice did we have?” Belgad said. “Serve or die, that seems his general mode of operation. No wonder this country is in such dreary condition.”
“This doesn’t sound like you,” Fortisquo said with a sly grin. “I never thought I’d see the day Belgad of Bond would bow to another.”
“Just because I agreed to be one of his captains does not mean I am going to remain here to do so,” Belgad said. “I believe it is time we extricated ourselves from this situation.”
“When do we leave?”
“I haven’t made up my mind,” Belgad said. “He might be expecting us to slip away, so we shouldn’t act too soon.”
“What of Darkbow?” Fortisquo asked. “He’s still out there.”
Belgad’s white, bushy brows drew low over his eyes. “Perhaps in our final days here we can find time to deal with him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Kron ran until he could run no more. As he rested atop a warehouse overlooking the sea, he sucked in the cold mist floating off the water. The morning sun was high, but it had yet to take the chill from the air.
He collapsed to the slate rooftop, his black cloak flowing out around him like a tent. Eventually his breathing grew less strained, though his muscles continued to ache. He had not worn himself so thin since his days in the Prisonlands. The night had been one long, constant flight, moving from building to building or alley to alley, running from himself and never escaping.
The guilt was too much to stand. For the first time in fifteen years he felt weak, worthless. Every move he had made had been the wrong one. He never should have brought Randall to Kobalos, he never should have taken Adara into the Prisonlands and he should not have allowed Markwood to go to Verkain alone.
Since returning to Bond months earlier, he had suffered one setback after another. Initially his war against Belgad had been successful, Kron’s actions infuriating the large northerner who ruled Bond’s streets like an emperor. But since the night a dagger thrown by Adara had caught him in the leg, nothing had gone according to plan. The quest for revenge had not served Kron Darkbow well. Now he was alone in Kobalos, his enemies stronger than ever and a list of dead companions behind him.
No. Kron corrected himself. Markwood still lived, or he had the last Kron had seen him.
The man in black straightened, his dark blue eyes gazing upon the cold sea with intent.
If Markwood still lived, Kron could rescue him.
He looked up at the sun. It was still hours until darkness, his time, but he did not know if Markwood had that long.
Tired and weak, Kron drew himself to standing again. It was time for action, no matter how exhausted he had become.
***
Kerwin was flying. For a long time he had been falling, plunging toward jagged, orange rocks. A gray mist had surrounded him, buffeting his face with cold air and brushing through his hair and toga as if a hundred chilled, tiny fingers were at work upon his body. The sensation had been most pleasant.
The fall never ended. Kerwin had e
xpected at any moment to be dashed upon the stones, to die with a sudden fierceness and know nothing more. But that had not happened. His fall had become eternal, until he felt as if he were drifting among clouds.
He could see nothing other than a pale gloom about him. Occasionally a shadow would blossom overhead, then it would vanish. The cold air became warm, then was like ice again, lancing his skin with droplets of moisture that quickly froze into a thin layer of frozen crust; eventually the temperature would rise once more and the ice would melt away, leaving Kerwin with a thin layer of sweat lingering over his body and drenching his clothes.
Then there was a light.
It was as if seeing the morning sun rising through a mist over a deep lake. The light blazed forth, then spread its golden rays out to wipe away the fog around the eternally falling boy.
Kerwin blinked, tears in his eyes, as he spun in the air. He tried to keep his focus on the light. He had been falling for so long with so little change, he needed the light to assure himself he was not losing his sanity.
He did not know who he was.
He had been called Ash, but he knew himself as Kerwin, and it seemed he went by other names as well. Randall. Ashal. Why were those names so familiar?
The light blazed stronger than ever, one of its arms lancing the boy and causing him to shield his eyes with hands folded across his face.
A voice came to him from the illumination, but no words were spoken. Images played upon Kerwin’s mind. He saw a mighty warrior in golden armor laying waste to scores of men with a swing of a weapon. A crying woman cradled a baby in her lap while resting in a thatched hut and rain poured outside to leave puddles of mud everywhere. He saw himself, a version of himself, with his brothers and sisters as they tried to flee a camp full of soldiers in black. He saw a young boy die, his skull cracked by a falling hunk of stone.
He saw so much, it was too much, and it hurt.
Randall cried.
The voice went to him again, once more without words, but this time with images of healing. A young man spoke to a crowd of gathered folk, simple people in simple garb, standing by a summer riverbank. He told them truths. A robed wizard stood atop the walls of a mighty city and launched fireworks over a throng of celebrating citizens. A man in black and a beautiful woman shared a bottle of wine and a moment alone.