The Serpent and the Crown

by Sam Puma

  “Bends like flesh,” said Jankaro to Orion as they walked from the keep to the barracks.

  “Best fake leg I’ve ever had.” Orion forced half a smile as he manipulated the strings that controlled the bend in his knee. “My wife was right about wearing the pants over it. It makes me look normal.”

  They entered the barracks and called out for the soldiers to gather. Jankaro was dismayed to find that many of the soldiers were still distracted with smoke and drink, convinced that defeat was inevitable.

  “Damn these idiots,” he grunted. “They should be sharp and ready. They look like slobs.”

  “We need to lay out the whole plan for them,” said Orion. “We will show them that there is still hope.”

  They arrived in the large sparring chamber to find a scene very similar to the day before. “At least a few more are sparring,” Orion noted.

  Jankaro frowned as he looked around. “That’s not enough.”

  “Listen up, soldiers of Galdea!” Orion’s voice boomed all throughout the chamber. The soldiers stopped sparring and turned to face him and Jankaro. Most of them fell silent except for a few in the back who continued with their festivities. “Your commander has orders for you!”

  “You mean that piece of jungle shit?!” A man called out from the back.

  “You!” Orion’s eyes flared with rage as he pointed to the man. “Get down here!”

  The man took one last swig, set down his bottle of wine and made his way down to the practice floor.

  “I was there on the wall with Titus when this coward ran. Now he’s sleeping in Valera’s bed! He left Titus up there to die so he could steal his woman!” The man picked up a sparring sword. “Come on commander Jan-coward-o! You’re just a tit-sucking infant! You can’t fight!”

  “Stand down, Tyvek,” Orion commanded sternly, stepping in front of Jankaro. “This is insubordination.”

  Tyvek waved his sword around as others began joining in with the taunts. “That’s right, you left Titus to die so you could fuck Valera’s sweet pussy!”

  “Is that true?”

  “What you gonna do? Gonna fight him or what?”

  “This guy is one sick pervert. He can’t be commander! The king must have lost his mind.”

  Rage welled up inside Jankaro as he ripped a practice sword away from a soldier standing near him.

  “Wait a moment,” said Orion as he put his hand on Jankaro’s chest to restrain him. “Let me get them under control. You shouldn’t fight this man.”

  Jankaro pushed his arm out of the way and charged at Tyvek.

  Their sticks clashed, and Jankaro was lost in his rage. He swung wildly at Tyvek’s head. Tyvek deftly blocked and struck Jankaro across his ribs. Jankaro stumbled sideways, regained his balance and launched into another frenzied assault. The other soldiers continued with their taunts as Orion shouted for order.

  “Place your bets!” A man laughed through a smoky haze and sipped from his bottle of wine.

  “He can’t even fight!”

  “I got next!”

  Some were excited to watch, and others were disgusted by the disgrace of the spectacle. Jankaro took a blow across his head and fell to his knees. Orion and a few other responsible soldiers tried to step in and put a stop to the fight. Others jumped in to resist them, and more sparring broke out among them. It was turning into a chaotic brawl. Jankaro was getting beaten up. His anger helped him get back to his feet but Tyvek was clearly the better swordsman. After blocking Jankaro’s tired swing, he brought his elbow up into his chin, knocking his head and sending him down on his back. Jankaro reeled with the pain and his vision went black. Someone fell and landed on him as the battle raged on.

  “I AM YOUR KING!” The voice of Oranos boomed throughout the chamber as he ducked through the entrance. The soldiers were stunned and looked up at the disfigured brute with ram horns growing from his temples. “KNEEL. All of you. Kneel before your king.”

  His transformation had deepened. He stood eight feet tall, his shirt was gone and white hair covered his chest and back. His face bore steep angles and his lower jaw jutted forward. Long canines protruded up and down out of his mouth. The only features that made him recognizable were the crown wedged between his curled ram horns and his blue eyes burning with indignation.

  Most of the soldiers knelt down but some of them began to protest. “That’s not Oranos. Who is this crazed creature?”

  “How did that Cruxai get in here?!”

  “It’s Oranos, damn you,” said Orion. “I saw him eat the elder seed to transform himself. Kneel, you fools.”

  “It is I, Oranos, son of Rasharek, son of Agathon. I have eaten the elder seed to become the Ram of Caladon like my great grandfather before me. Kneel or leave now and join the Cruxai.”

  His deepened voice echoed through the hall and shook the soldiers. All of them knelt before him. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the escorts, who cautiously made their way out. The smoke dissipated.

  “Rise, commander.” Jankaro heard the king beckon him and slowly rose to his feet. He reached up and wiped the blood that trickled down his chin. “This is my chosen commander,” Oranos said to the soldiers. “If you will not heed his commands, you may leave now and join the ranks of the Cruxai. Or go wander in the jungle and see if you can survive on your own. I don’t care. I need soldiers, not sloths!”

  He ripped a bottle of wine from a woman’s hand and threw it against the far wall, shattering it and splattering the nearby soldiers with shards of broken clay and drops of red wine.

  “Now rise and take your seats. We must review the plan for the defense of Calixo. Those who wish to go: go.”

  Oranos waited and watched with a stern expression as the soldiers took their seats. Orion directed a number of them to clean the floor of the practice swords and put away the wine. Jankaro stood next to the king and kept his fear of the soldiers hidden behind a stoic expression. He caught his breath, straightened his uniform and combed his hair with his hand. He was grateful the king had arrived. He suspected some of the soldiers might have killed him if the melee was allowed to continue.

  “Some of you think the war is over.” Oranos spoke to the hushed audience. “There were moments when I felt the same way. But my mind has changed. I won’t give up. We can still beat them. We, the war council, have devised a plan for defeating the Cruxai. Commander.”

  He turned to Jankaro and motioned to him with a hand encrusted with a coarse outer layer made of the same stuff as a ram’s hooves.

  “We have composed a plan to defeat the giant and the Jurugas with a powerful poison that is being brewed as I speak.”

  Jankaro began laying out the details of the plan that the war council had agreed upon at their meeting when Franco came running into the hall.

  “Commander!” Franco cried out. He paused for a moment and looked at Oranos with a startled expression. When he recovered himself, he said, “The Cruxai have mobilized. They will attack tonight!”

  Oranos held up his hands to quell the stirring and muttering of the soldiers. “Silence! It is just as I suspected. There is little time. We must prepare for their assault tonight. Continue, commander.”

  “Did you make the capture?” Jankaro asked Franco.

  “Yes, we have one.”

  “Take him to Maximus and test the poison.”

  Franco turned and hastened away. Jankaro squinted to hide the pain that throbbed in the various places he had been hit. He looked around at the men and noted that most of their focus had been restored. The king had done what he had failed to do: command the respect of the soldiers. He forced his doubts and concerns from his mind and focused on the task at hand.

  “If all of us give it all we’ve got, we have a chance.” He glared at Tyvek and any soldier that didn’t look ready as he laid out the points of their battle plan.

 
“Assuming it all goes well,” a man stood to challenge. “In spite of the fact that all of our best archers died in Caladon, we take out the Jurugas that guard Agustin and you gain a path to his ankle. The king distracts him from swatting you, you pierce him and he dies. With luck he doesn’t fall on us and kill us. By that time the horde will be streaming over the wall. This wall is less than half the height of the wall in Caladon, and we have less than a third of our force. Even if every aspect of your unlikely plan goes perfectly, they will easily overwhelm us.”

  When the man finished, many of the other soldiers spoke up and echoed his concern.

  Jankaro’s heart sank. He saw the man’s logic. Ixtlayo couldn’t kill all the Jurugas alone. The archers with their poison-dipped arrows would eventually be overwhelmed.

  “Just a moment,” Oranos spoke gravely as he raised his crusted hands in the air. The soldiers fell silent again. “I agree. It still looks bleak. But we still have to fight. We’re not going to roll over and concede defeat. Once a path has cleared for Jankaro and the giant has fallen, it won’t be long before we must concede the front wall. We will fight them from the rooftops of the city, falling back as we go. Eventually we will concede lower Calixo and fight them from the inner wall. Eventually we may need to concede the inner wall and retreat to the keep. And eventually they may take the keep. If we all die, we all die. We die as warriors, fighting to the last. We die and the women and children can sail away and start a new colony on an island. If all is lost, some of you may evacuate with a fishing boat and follow the larger boats. If there is still hope, we keep fighting!” The king roared out the last few words, exposing his fangs and thrusting his fist in the air. The men roared out a battle cry in response.

  “Death to the Cruxai!” The king roared and the soldiers fiercely repeated his words back to him, thrusting their fists in the air. “Ready your weapons and armor, tonight we fight!”

  Jankaro stalked to the arena with the humiliation still fresh in his mind and blood seeping from his split lip. He was still angry at the insults cast his way, and there was nothing he could do about it. The sad truth hurt worse than his aching joints and muscles: he couldn’t beat any of them in a swordfight. For a moment he wished he had insisted that Orion take command. But he was the one who rode the Ashtari. They had agreed it was reason enough.

  The thought of Agustin and the Cruxai horde storming the walls of Calixo frightened him to his core. Part of him wished he could go back into the barracks and drink away the pain. But he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, and made his way to the arena to find Ixtlayo.

  He found Ixtlayo sleeping in the sunshine while Janesa and Altamont hovered over him, conversing in hushed tones. Jankaro approached and knelt down in front of the steel paw that they had surgically attached to his ankle. It was a metal ball, flat at the bottom, with several spikes protruding in all directions.

  “It looks dangerous,” Jankaro commented to Altamont. He looked up at the thick bandages wrapped around his ankle. “How did the surgery go?” He asked Janesa, who looked down at Ixtlayo with a concerned expression.

  “It went very well, but…” She looked up past the top row of seats and grimaced. “We drilled through the ankle bone so we could fasten the new paw to his bone with a metal bolt. That way it won’t come loose. You could ride him, but…”

  Jankaro waited as she paused and rubbed her eyes. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she was about to say.

  “With this kind of surgery, it would be best to let him rest for at least a month.”

  “We can’t.” Jankaro grimaced as dread welled up inside him.

  “He will be in a lot of pain. Excruciating pain.”

  “Juzi stick?”

  “You can use it, but… it won’t keep him going all night. If you use it more than a few times in a row, his nerves will give out and he will pass out.”

  “So…?”

  “Only use it when you really need it. He will simply have to bear the pain.”

  Jankaro watched as the breath streamed in and out of Ixtlayo’s nostrils. He looked around and noticed piles of bloody bandages strewn about with the fish bones. “I’ll get this place cleaned up,” said Altamont as he walked off and started picking up the bandages.

  “We gave him a heavy sedative. He’ll wake up before sunset. We need to let him rest as much as possible before we use him. He’s going to be in so much pain…” Janesa’s eyes teared up as she looked away.

  Jankaro reached out and drew her into a hug. She uncrossed her arms and hugged him back. “I need to go check on Maximus and Franco and the poison,” he said as he released the embrace.

  “Here,” she said, reaching into a pouch at her side. She pulled out a thick cloth and tied it around his head to cover his mouth and nose. “Remember you must not breathe it in. They are in the warehouse behind the arena. Be very careful. Don’t touch it.”

  “I dare not,” he said as he walked out. The cloud of worry hanging over him grew heavier.

  He trudged over around the arena and found a man with a fuzzy hat standing at the door. “Commander,” said the man. “You don’t look so good. Let me help you with that before you go in there.”

  He reached up and adjusted the cloth, tucking it under Jankaro’s shirt.

  “Who are you?” Jankaro found himself irritated by the delay.

  “I am Rayvon, Franco’s helper.” He gradually shifted from adjusting the cloth to rubbing Jankaro’s shoulder muscles. “You’ve had a hard day,” he said with sympathetic eyes.

  “Franco has a helper?” He didn’t hide the irritation as he shrugged away from Rayvon and moved past him.

  “Only when he is home here at Calixo,” said the man from behind him. “I can’t handle the thin air up in the mountains around Caladon. It gives me headaches.”

  Jankaro ignored him and walked toward the two men standing over the steaming cauldron suspended above a smoldering fire by two large, flat stones. A lone, bloodied Cruxai was tied to a post in the corner.

  “Is it still alive?” Jankaro asked.

  Maximus and Franco stepped back from the cauldron and met Jankaro before he got close to it.

  “He is alive, commander,” said Franco from behind the cloth tied around his neck. “I captured him personally.”

  “The poison will be ready to test soon,” said Maximus. “We should have enough to dip about 200 arrows.”

  “That’s it?” Jankaro grimaced. “It’s enough to kill all the Jurugas if one in two shots hits its mark. But the Jurugas carry shields and most of our best archers are dead.”

  “It’s all we have,” said Maximus. “Send us the arrows and the lance you wish to use and we will dip them and dry them.”

  “There is one more thing, commander.” Jankaro followed Franco’s eyes to a pile of armor lying in the corner. Together they walked over to inspect it. “This one rode alone. When he saw me he raised his sword and rode around in circles. Foolishly I believed he was Titus. I should have recognized the smell of Cruxai coming from him. He lured me in close and nearly killed me.”

  Jankaro recognized the finely crafted sword, the elaborate etchings on the metal breastplate that covered the yanigo armor, and the helm fitted with rams horns.

  “And?” Maximus urged Franco on. “Tell him.”

  Franco cringed and forced the words out.

  “He wore Titus’ face.”

  “What?” Jankaro’s face twisted in disgust and he felt the cut on his lip open up again.

  “You know how they are, commander.” Franco spat the words out quickly. “They strip off the faces of our dead and wear them into battle to trick us and taunt us. Just like they wear our armor and use our weapons.”

  Jankaro felt nausea from the hint of poison that he inhaled. “They sent him to taunt us, to wave Titus’ death in the king’s face.” He looked back at Rayvon an
d saw a sword hanging from his side. “Rayvon! Bring me your sword.”

  Rayvon covered his mouth and nose, hastened over to Jankaro with his sword, and quickly returned to the fresh air by the door. Jankaro walked to the cauldron.

  “Careful, commander,” Maximus warned. Jankaro dipped the tip of the sword into the cauldron and walked over to the Cruxai.

  “Wake up.” He kicked the Cruxai in the ribs and it jerked its head up. It tugged on its bindings to no avail. Jankaro observed its scaly skin with a faint hint of wonder at the craft that went into the creation of such a beast. He returned his attention to the rage he felt toward all the Cruxai, and stabbed it in the shoulder. He passed the sword to Franco. The three men stood back and watched as the Cruxai coughed, convulsed violently for a few seconds, spit up bloody vomit, and died. “It works. Dip the arrows and the lance.”

  Jankaro took three steps and stopped when he saw Titus’ armor. “What did you do with the face he wore?”

  “No one needed to see that, commander,” said Franco. “I pulled it off of him and buried it once he was bound.”

  “Good. Let no one hear of it.”

  “What do you want us to do with all this?” Maximus gestured at the sword and the pile of armor.

  A swirl of unsettling emotions arose in Jankaro as he imagined giving it to the king, giving it to Valera, giving it to the civilian soldiers to wear, or putting on the helmet himself. Nothing felt right. “I don’t know. Leave it there.”

  Agustin’s mocking gesture had achieved its desired effect. Jankaro was disturbed by the question.

  “You look terrible,” Valera gasped as she opened the door for Jankaro and led him in. “Sit down here.” She beckoned him to sit in the lounge chair. “Let me put something on those cuts.”

  “I can’t stay long. I just came to say goodbye.” Jankaro collapsed in the chair and the macaw in the corner squawked at him.

  “Don’t say goodbye.”

  “I mean… just in case. I wanted to see you once more before the battle.”

  Valera held up a moistened cloth and dabbed at the cuts on his face, leaving a stinging sensation where the medicine met his open wounds. “Remember my promise. I will dance for you again.” She took a wet rag and cleaned his face and smoothed back his hair.