The Forever Knight

26

Southeast was the direction I chose. With Diriel’s army directly south and more of his men probably on the march, I decided to evade them, crossing over the river into Kasse and following one of its many branches south and east toward Drin. The landscape was less dreary here, with fewer mountains and plenty of trees to hide me as I rode. But like all the Bitter Kingdoms, Drin was nearly abandoned now, its people scattered by the threat of war, its farms overgrown or fallow. There were good roads, though, built during more peaceful times, and I moved quickly all that first day. Once I saw some figures watching me from the window of a distant farmhouse, but when I waved they quickly disappeared. I stopped and watered Venger from a trough of rain water, hoping they’d come out to greet me, but they never did.

So I moved on, south and east, sometimes following the river and sometimes following the road, and did my best to forget what I’d seen just hours before. Cricket’s screams were too fresh in my mind to examine head-on; I could only approach them sideways, like a crab, and tell myself I did the best I could. If I’d been faster, or listened more, if I’d taken her to Sky Falls or never taken her with me, she’d still be alive. But none of those things happened, so she was dead. I could only blame myself. And I would, but not today. Not until Diriel and Wrestler both were dead.

As the sun sank behind me I continued on, riding into the sound of crickets. The river reappeared alongside me, fat and sluggish, wider than I’d seen it in some time. Mosquitoes bloomed out of the dusk to feed on me. I thought how strange that was: that Malator had made me nearly immortal, but insects could still abuse me. I had hardly gotten used to having my eye back! Everything seemed clearer to me. I could ride with ease through the darkness. Was this how a hawk felt, I wondered? Or a bat? The night made my senses tingle, tuning them like an instrument. I took a deep breath and smelled the dampness of a coming rain. Looking up revealed clouds gathering around the moon, and when I breathed again I smelled smoke in the air.

“Ho,” I said softly, reining Venger back. He stopped, perking up his ears at the noise ahead.

Voices.

Another camp, I supposed, but I was too far south now to turn around, and my newfound strengths made me brash. I eased Venger forward, guiding him around the bends in the river and weaving in and out of the pine trees. Firelight glowed up ahead. The voices gradually grew louder. When I finally slipped out of the cover I saw what looked like a raft on the river, almost empty and tied to the shore by lines of rope. Scores of men stood on the shore, some of them carrying torches, others holding swords across their chests. I drew back at once, not recognizing the standard that waved above them. From the shadows I spied the boat’s cargo-a man-shaped parcel wrapped in grayish cloth, like one of Anton’s mummies.

“A funeral,” I whispered, bending down to speak in Venger’s ear. “Hold back.”

At least two hundred men stood along the bank. Far behind them hid a village, veiled by trees, composed of modest homes and a single cobblestone avenue. People from the village had gathered with the soldiers, mostly women and children, their faces gaunt with sorrow. The soldiers stood nearly silent as a young man stepped out from among them, wading knee-deep into the water. He dressed as the others dressed, in a long, black leather coat with armored shoulders and brass buttons running down his left breast. Articulated gauntlets rode up his forearms. When he bent to touch the raft, his long hair tickled the water. Then he kissed the edge of the raft and spoke a farewell I couldn’t quite hear. I don’t know what made him turn in my direction, but as he trudged ashore he caught a glimpse of me in the shadows.

His eyes met mine, but there was no fear in his young face. Really just a boy, he called toward me. “You-who are you?”

His gathered soldiers turned to see me. I trotted out of the shadows. “My name is Lukien,” I declared. “I’m heading south.”

I didn’t expect anyone to know me, or my name. I certainly didn’t think to hear a familiar voice. So when I did, I started.

“Lukien?”

The voice was incredulous. I looked around, unable to place it until a figure pushed through the throng. And there was Marilius, aghast to see me, looking wholly out of place in mismatched garb. Marilius! He leaned forward, blinking in the torchlight. The boy soldier glanced between us.

“Marilius?” I called back. “Really?”

“Is that you, Lukien?” he asked. He took a few steps forward as I rode closer. “You look. . what happened to you?”

“This is Lukien?” asked the boy. Now he was incredulous too. “Truly?”

My luck astonished me. I dismounted Venger and led the horse toward Marilius. “Cricket’s dead,” I blurted. “They killed her at Sky Falls.”

Marilius turned the color of milk. “Who?” he gasped.

“Wrestler. Others too, I guess. It doesn’t matter. They called down the storm and now they’re going to face it.”

“Your eye.” Marilius inspected my face. “What happened? You look so young!”

“Malator did it,” I said. “So I could beat them.” I glanced around and discovered the soldiers staring at me. A few of the older ones, men of rank, encircled the boy. “Your Drinmen, I take it?”

“We are,” answered the boy.

“Then I need to speak to someone important.”

Marilius took my arm. “Lukien-this is a funeral.”

I looked at the boy, then at the raft, then came to my senses. I’d ridden so hard I’d forgotten myself. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just came from a funeral. Forgive a stupid man for being tired.”

“Lukien, this is Kiryk,” said Marilius, presenting me to the boy. “Son of King Lutobor.”

“Lutobor?” I remembered the name suddenly. I looked at the raft again and my heart sank. “The body on the raft-your father?”

“He died this morning,” answered Kiryk. Despite his grief he kept his head high. “Killed by raiders from Akyre. They were on their way south to war with you in Isowon.”

“So Marilius told you, then,” I nodded. “This village is Drin?”

“It’s called Jelah,” said Kiryk. “But this is borderland. Diriel’s men have been up and down this area for months.”

“Taking men, stealing food and supplies, anything they can get to use against Isowon,” Marilius explained. “Lutobor told me all about it.”

I had a thousand questions but knew they’d have to wait. “I’m sorry for your father,” I told Kiryk. “Let me stay and pay him homage with you. Then if you’ll listen, we can talk.”

Kiryk nodded with half interest, then turned back to his men. I led Venger up the riverbank, through the throngs of men, waiting for a chance to get some answers. That’s when I saw the other corpses. They were piled up at the edge of the village, waiting to be buried or burned. Most were Drinmen in their black uniforms, but others were unmistakably Diriel’s. Quickly I made an accounting of the bodies, putting the dead easily past a hundred. Marilius followed my gaze toward the village.

“That’s only part of it,” he sighed. “Lutobor’s men have been fighting off Diriel’s raids for weeks.”

“He told you that himself?”

“It took me time to find him. I rode for his castle in Prang first, then on to Akja where he was camped. They’d already been chewed to pieces by the Akyrens. Lutobor let me ride with him here to Jelah.”

That surprised me. “You fought with them?”

He nodded. “I did.”

“The legionnaires?”

Marilius turned away, but I knew that look. He gestured to the villagers. “See their faces?”

They were mute. Filled with fear. A girl grasping her mother’s hand stared straight back at me. I almost smiled, then noticed the fresh scar jutting down her cheek. The others looked the same-vacant, joyless, unable to speak. A handful of men stood with them, mostly old, sickly ones.

“Tell me what they were like,” I said to Marilius. “How were they in battle?”

A sharp hushing from one of Kiryk’s men silenced me. I nodded an apology, then watched as Lutobor’s son took a bow and a single arrow from the eldest of his soldiers. He turned to the raft bearing his dead father, then signaled to another nearby man.

“Cut him loose.”

The man pulled a dagger from his belt, trudged down to the ropes, and one by one sliced them, freeing the raft. The current took it slowly down river, and as it drifted away each soldier stood and waited silently. There were no prayers for the dead king, no wailing from the women on shore. A torch bearer stepped forward. Kiryk nocked his arrow, then bent the tip into the torch, setting it alight. He took his time, drawing a careful bead on the raft as it drifted into the darkness. He took so long I thought he’d miss the craft entirely. But he didn’t. He let the arrow fly and struck that raft dead-eyed perfect. It went up like an inferno, nearly exploding. Whatever they’d used to soak it brought daylight to the shore and a huge spiral of black smoke. I watched as Kiryk lowered the bow and moved his lips in a wordless goodbye. The raft burned and sputtered as it drifted down river. Then, as if the crazy gods of the Bitter Kingdoms had held off long enough, it began to rain.

* * *

We met in a house near the center of the village, sitting around a rickety table while thunder shook the window. It was nearly midnight, and we were all exhausted, but Kiryk had agreed to meet with me before retiring. Most of his soldiers had found beds for the night in the homes around the village, but three of them-all confidants of his dead father-sat beside him while Marilius and I made our plea. The house belonged to a woman named Ursilil, chosen for Kiryk because it could be easily guarded. Ursilil was newly widowed, the mother of the scarred child I’d seen at the funeral. As we settled in our chairs Ursilil brought us milk from the only cow in the village that had somehow escaped the Akyren raiders. I was beyond famished, and it was simply the most delicious milk I’d ever drunk.

After the funeral, I’d spent most of the night conferring with Marilius, listening to everything he knew about Lutobor and Drin and their war with Akyre. Kasse, it turned out, wasn’t the only Bitter Kingdom to fall to Diriel. Large swathes of Drin had been taken as well, the lands ravaged and their men conscripted into Diriel’s army. Lutobor’s own army had slowly been decimated, until now there were only a few hundred soldiers. Most of these belonged to the Silver Dragons, the personal guard of the dead king, of which the three men sitting across the table were members. Each wore the insignia of the order on their leather coats, an embroidered firedrake coiling up the left side collar.

Many things had happened in the short time that Marilius and I had been separated, and much of it I could barely talk about. I told him of my battle with Crezil and how the monster had let me live, but I didn’t tell him about my lost soul. That was still too great a burden for me to confess to anyone. Marilius had his own theories about why the beast had spared me but they were all nonsense. I knew the truth-because I was soulless. I just couldn’t confess it.

And of course I told him about Cricket. Under a jutting roof with the rain falling around us I told him how she’d gone to Sky Falls without me, how Wrestler had tracked her there in hopes of finding me, and how he’d killed her. I described it all; it gushed out of me. He listened stoically to the tale of her rape, but I could tell his guts were turning to stone. Revenge began boiling in his eyes, and it remained there as we sat with Kiryk, drinking milk around the table.

I remained quiet while Kiryk conferred with his men. Their names were Sulimer, Jaracz, and Lenhart, and all of them looked like they’d been at war a very long time. They had the grizzled faces of men who’d spent their lives in the sun, training soldiers and leading them into battle, and Kiryk seemed out of place among them. But there was no smugness from the three, only desire to help the boy through an impossible task. Finally, Kiryk turned to the woman Ursilil, who’d been buzzing around the table filling our glasses.

“Thank you,” he said. “Go to your daughter now. Make sure she’s sleeping.”

Ursilil seemed relieved to be dismissed. She was an attractive woman, or at least she had been before the raiders came. Losing her husband had given her face a glaze. She gave Kiryk a little bow, me a tiny scowl, and eagerly left the room. When she was gone Sulimer, the oldest of the soldiers, reached beneath the table and lifted up a sack he’d brought with him. He dropped it on the table with a thud.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Sulimer smirked through his peppered beard and peeled down the wrapping, revealing a severed head. “From this morning,” he said. “A friend from Akyre.”

The head sat upright, facing me with its dead eyes. The horrible pallor of its skin told me at once it had been dead longer than just a day.

“A legionnaire.”

I reached out and bounced my finger off its cheek. A chalky dust fell from the skin. He’d been a man about my age, with just about my hair color too. The eyes still had that empty look I’d seen in Diriel’s castle-dead and alive at the same time. Marilius had told me there’d been at least twenty of them with the other Akyrens, sent in first like fodder for the Drin. Only the Drin hadn’t cut them down so easily.

“Beheading them is the only way to stop them,” Sulimer pronounced. “Nothing else will do it. Not cutting off an arm, not pumping them full of arrows, nothing. You have to get right up close and swing. You don’t get a second chance.”

“Swords?” I asked.

“Axes are better,” answered Lenhart. He’d been the quiet one so far. “Swords weren’t heavy enough for some. The legion started wearing leather bands around their necks once we discovered their weakness.”

“What about just bashing their brains in?” asked Marilius.

Lenhart shrugged. “That should work if you can manage it.”

“Marilius, I didn’t see a lot of axmen with Fallon’s mercs,” I said. “What about that?”

“Axes aren’t a problem. Anton can buy axes. It’s men we need.” Marilius looked at Kiryk seriously. “I pleaded with your father, now I’m pleading with you. Will you help us?”

Kiryk leaned back in his chair. The weight of his decision made his shoulders slump. “The soldiers in this village are almost all that’s left of our army,” he said. “Some are back in Prang, some are on patrol watching the north. That’s maybe five hundred men.”

“And not all of them professionals,” said Sulimer. “Some are just farmers with scythes and forks. That’s all who’s left to defend Drin.”

“Kiryk, forgive me for asking this, but I have to,” I said. “Are you the king now? I’m all out of time, and I need to be talking to the right man. If it’s these others who’ll make the decision-”

“He is king,” said Jaracz, the one sitting just to Kiryk’s left. “The only question of that is in your mind, Liirian. He’s the son of Lutobor. He has the blood.”

“So you’ll follow him?” I asked. “And the other Silver Dragons too?”

“He has the blood,” repeated Jaracz. “The decision is his alone. But he hasn’t decided yet. There are still questions.”

Kiryk said, “Only one that matters. Who’ll defend Drin from Akyre if we leave here, Lukien? If we join you in Isowon, Drin will be wide open. What would stop Diriel from turning his men north again once he sees we’re in the south?”

“He won’t,” I said, “because what he wants is in Isowon. Isowon is the prize.”

“He wants Anton Fallon,” added Marilius. “Not just for revenge but because of his spice routes.”

“Anton Fallon is a merchant,” said Jaracz. “Why should we give our blood to that pirate? He’s a Zuran. I’ve heard he’s not even a man.”

Marilius shot back, “Not a man? What does that mean?”

Jaracz leaned forward. “He likes boys,” he said, then made a kissing noise.

I put up my hand to calm Marilius. “What does it matter who he takes to his bed? You don’t have to like Anton Fallon. No one does. But he’s the one with the army. He’s the only one with the forces to stop Diriel. Are you really going to let his choice of lovers stop you from fighting?”

Their silence acknowledged me. Sulimer, ever the serious one, asked, “How many men does he have?”

I looked to Marilius. “Be honest,” I said. “What do you think?”

“Several hundred probably,” said Marilius. “It depends. If he’s convinced them to stay then at least that many. If they quit and ran off. .” He shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Several hundred,” I repeated. “Those are good enough odds, Kiryk. With your men and Fallon’s fighting together, it’ll be a nearly equal match.”

“Equal?” Kiryk shook his head. “Diriel has twice that many. Maybe more.”

His calculations surprised me. “Why do you say that? Diriel himself told me his forces were devastated by Kasse. Almost all of them starved. He put the number close to a thousand.”

“A lie,” said Lenhart. He reached for the severed head and pushed it aside for a better look at me. “Every man his soldiers snatch is enslaved by them, pressed into his army. Not just his own people but Kassens, too.”

“Even Drinmen,” admitted Kiryk darkly. “Diriel means to deceive you, Lukien. He won’t show up in Isowon with an army that small.”

“And even if he did, how many of them would be legionnaires?” asked Jaracz. “I’ve been asking this one the same questions since he got here.” He pointed at Marilius. “He can’t answer me. Can you answer me, Liirian? Can you tell me how we’re supposed to beat an army of men who are half dead already?”

“Indeed I can.” I picked up the head by its muddy blond hair and held it out like a lantern. “By doing this to every damn one of them! That’s the way-the only way. You’ve already done it! If you come with us you’ll have hundreds of men to help you. And you’ll have me.”

Kiryk looked at me without a word. No one spoke until Sulimer finally stood. “Lukien, Marilius tells us you’re a man who can’t be killed. You’re like one of Diriel’s soulless.” He gestured to my sword. “That’s your magic? That’s what keeps you alive?”

“It’s more than a sword,” I said. “It’s more than magic even.” I lowered the head to the table and let it roll to a stop. “It’s kept me alive through a broken neck and a battle with a demon. Now it’s made me young and strong again just so I could make war on your enemies. This morning I had one eye. Now I have two. But Diriel and his horde could pluck them both out, and I wouldn’t stop. I’m not going to stop until they’re dead. That means Diriel and Wrestler and all his brood. Every damn one of them.”

Marilius rose to stand beside me. “King Kiryk, you can stay here and let us carry the fight in Isowon, but it won’t save you. If we lose, Diriel will be back for you all.”

“You’re brave men, but your fight isn’t over,” I told them. “Diriel won’t stop until all the lands of the Bitter Kingdoms belong to Akyre again. Drin will be a country of ghosts. That’s all that’ll be left.”

Kiryk stood, and then his trio did too. A flash of distant lightning lit his face, revealing how young he really was. “I’ll think on it,” he said. “I can’t decide something this big so quickly.”

“You have to,” I said. “Because we’re leaving in the morning with or without you, and Diriel’s not waiting. Make your choice tonight, my lord. Before you leave this room. I’m giving you the chance to avenge your father. Take it now-you’ll never get another.”

Kiryk’s eyes dropped to the severed head. “This is the one that killed my father,” he said. “It was Lenhart who took this head, not me. The head I want now belongs to another. Will you promise me Diriel’s head, Sir Lukien?”

“I can promise you his death,” I said.

“His head,” repeated Kiryk, “so I may show it off like a trophy. So that every child in Drin can see they’ve been avenged.”

“Then I will get it for you,” I pledged. “With pleasure.”

Kiryk nodded, and that was all he had to do. Sulimer, Jaracz, and Lenhart all bent in a bow, then one by one took his hand and kissed it.

“You are the blood,” said Lenhart as his lips brushed Kiryk’s fingers. “You are our master.”

Those words haunted me all that night, but I didn’t figure out why until the morning.