Authors: Usman Ijaz
“He blames me for his mother’s death,” Adrian
said quietly. “In his eyes it’s my fault.”
Connor glared at Adrian so fiercely that Alexis
thought he might attack his cousin right there. “How so?” he asked Connor.
Connor remained quiet for several moments,
scowling at the ground before him. When he answered his voice was low and
harsh. “If not for him she would never have gone away ... and my sisters and I
might actually have known her.”
Alexis suspected it had cost the boy much to say
that out aloud. “Do you wish that he were dead instead?”
“No!” Connor said immediately. “But ....”
Alexis nodded. The two were so young, yet they
already had their share of problems to face, and larger still if they ever made
it out of these infernal woods. He regretted having caused this to them, having
revealed so much to them and breaking their worlds, but the regret was small
compared to his sense of duty.
Sometimes what we have to do is not always
what we want to do,
he reflected bleakly. Someone had told him those words
long ago; his father, he suddenly realized.
“Tell him,” Adrian said quietly, “that if I
could change it I would. My mother died as well, and until recently I saw her
die every time I closed my eyes.”
Connor looked abashed, but he also wore resolve
like a mask. “Tell him ... that I wish I had never met him.”
Alexis stopped, and so did the two boys once
they realized he wasn’t moving. “This is just plain stupid! You two act so
hateful towards one another, when it’s clear to me that your accusations have
no ground. Why can’t you stop this and become the levelheaded boys I met in
Port Hope?”
The two looked at one another, Connor hard-faced
and Adrian openly hurt at his cousin’s words, but neither one spoke to the
other, or to him. Alexis thought of grabbing them both by their necks and
making them speak to one another, but at last he left it to them. “Some people
are born stupid,” he told them as he commenced walking, “others just act it.”
From then they walked in disquiet silence.
By mid-afternoon, when there were still a few
hours before dusk, Connor walked away to urinate behind a large tree. Alexis and
Adrian waited for him silently. The Legionnaire didn’t much like the
uncomfortable tension that seemed to hang between the boy and him. “How are you
feeling?”
“Hungry, but aside from that all right,” Adrian
replied.
“It won’t be too long till we are out of these
woods now,” he told the boy, and realized he was trying to assure them both. He
sighed. “Listen to me, Adrian. I know you may not agree with how we seemingly
abandoned Hamar and Owain, but you have to understand that our main priority
was always you. Getting you away was what they wanted, and it had to happen. We
don’t know what happened to Hamar or Owain; for all we know we might meet them
in the next town. I hope you understand that.”
“I do,” Adrian said quietly. Connor’s earlier
comment still pricked at him, Alexis suspected.
“You spoke of dreams of your mother. What kind
of dreams?”
“I ... don’t feel like talking about them just
now, Alexis,” the boy said. “Perhaps--” He was cut off by Connor’s frightened
screams.
Alexis had his twin guns drawn and was running
towards the tree before Connor’s first scream could die. He imagined seeing
Connor slumped against the tree, his throat slit and the assassins standing
over him, but as he came around the tree, what he saw was nothing as he had
expected.
1
“I want to see the bodies.”
Lord Kenneth Fenar reigned his anger in check.
It’s
not the captain’s fault
, he told himself. But God knew he wanted to blame
someone for what had happened. He handed the reigns of his horse to a guard and
turned to face the captain.
“This way, my lord,” Captain Koran said and led
the way.
Kenneth followed the man inside. It was too hot
out and he had ridden long to be here. A feeling of dread pooled inside him as
he entered the building. That feeling had been growing since he had first
received word, and it had only worsened on the ride here. He hoped against hope
that the note he had received was wrong, and that these were nothing but
ordinary bodies of ordinary men.
He noticed how empty the building was, and then
surmised that most of the guards were likely out on duty. The captain led the
way down into the cellar, and Kenneth followed quietly. It became cooler as
they descended the stone steps. Eventually they came to a small corridor with
cells to either side. These were the cells used for long detainment, Kenneth
knew; at the moment they were all empty. The captain led him to a cell at the
end of the corridor. Kenneth felt like turning away and marching back up the
steps, anything but to face what lay in that bare room. Instead he steeled
himself and followed the captain in.
On the cold ground lay three bodies. Kenneth
studied them calmly: two men who looked to be in their prime and an older man,
all now submersed in the eternal chill of death. The light from the lamps
hanging on the walls reflected brightly off something on a table to one side.
Any last vestige of Kenneth’s hopes that the note had been wrong disappeared as
he stared at the dull-silver revolvers lying on the table. But he had given up
hope as soon as he had seen the bodies; the old man he dismissed immediately,
but even in death the other two looked as though they belonged to the Legion.
“How did they die?” His voice sounded choked.
“Knife wounds, my lord, all three,” said the
captain. He watched Kenneth in sidelong glances. “I suspect it was an ambush.
Shots were fired, we know that as a fact, but we recovered no other bodies,
wounded or otherwise.”
“You have checked their hands?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kenneth bent near the body of one man with
flame-orange hair and a bright scar on one cheek. He leaned over and lifted the
man’s left hand, turning it to look for himself. The mark was there, plain in
crimson. Kenneth shook his head and rose to his feet.
“Have you made any progress in finding out who
was behind this?”
“No, my lord. Our attempts at questioning those
present during the attack have yielded little. When the gunshots rang out it
seems that they all ran, heedless of what was happening. I’ve offered a reward
of ten
sesterces
for any information that leads to a capture.”
“Make it ten silver
sesterces
,” Kenneth
told him quietly, his mind wandering all ready. “Have the bodies cleaned. I
want the two Legionnaires shipped back to Grandal, along with their
possessions. Return the old man to his family ... and assist them with his
burial.” He was walking away even as the captain began speaking.
“As you say, my lord.”
Kenneth reemerged under the hot sun dreading the
letter he must write to the king. He didn’t want to be the bearer of such
terrible news. God knew when men of the Legion started dying something was
amiss, either that or some fools had made a very grand mistake murdering two
Legionnaires.
These were the king’s own men,
he
thought as he rode out of the courtyard.
Men like them don’t die every day.
2
As far back as she could remember, her life had
been filled with one test after another.
When she had been no more than a child Amon had
taken her outside the city and to a farm. There he had taught her the reality
of death; had made certain to instill it in her mind. The memory was still
vivid in Iris’s mind as it came to her; she didn’t push it away or reject it.
Amon had made some sort of arrangement with the farmer. She recalled playing
with the rabbits there, hugging them close to her and running her fingers
through their gray fur and nuzzling her face into their softness. Then Amon had
walked over to her and tossed her a knife. He ordered her to kill every rabbit
within the pen.
She remembered the warm tears that had coursed
down her cheeks as his words sunk in, and her whimpering refusal. Amon only
stood looking down on her, black eyes hard as stone. “Amon, please ... do not
make me do this.” Tears choked her voice and left warm trails down her face.
“You have to learn,” Amon told her. “You have to
learn that death comes for us all. You can await it with a knife in hand, or
surrender to it, but it comes for us all. You can either be the hand that deals
it, or be the recipient of it. Now choose!”
“I ... I cannot ... Amon ...
please
!”
“If you refuse to kill then what good are you to
me?” Amon demanded, cold as stone. He turned his back on her and strode away.
“Amon! Do not leave me! Please! Do not leave
me!” She ran after him, catching up to him at the gate to the pen. She clung to
his leg, begging him not to leave her. He pried her off and fixed her with his
hard gaze.
“You know what you have to do. I have no time to
watch over you. If you wish to travel with me, you need to learn to live as I
do. You need to become a harbinger of death, to kill without hesitance.”
He led her back to the rabbits and pushed her
forward. Iris knelt on the grass and watched as one of the creatures hopped
towards her. She understood that the creatures were used to human contact, but
she doubted they understood the danger Amon and she represented to them. She
held the rabbit before her, looking into its eyes, seeing her own image
reflected in those twin drops of black.
“DO IT!” Amon roared at her, startling her.
He stepped forth suddenly and grabbed the rabbit
from her arms. He held it before him by its drooping ears in one hand. His
other hand darted out lightening quick. Iris watched in horror as the
decapitated rabbit’s body fell to the ground, spilling blood onto the green
grass. She was aware of warm spots covering her face, and felt certain they
were no longer just tears.
Her eyes lifted to Amon again and the severed
head he still gripped in one hand. He looked from the head, leaking blood onto
the ground, to her face. “You see?” he asked. “That was not so hard.” He tossed
the rabbit’s head over his shoulder. “I am going to leave soon, girl. If you
want to come with me, finish your job.”
Iris could still recall the numbness that had
overtaken her then. It was while gripped in that numbness that she had
slaughtered every rabbit within the pen, while Amon gently encouraged her. At
the end she had sat amidst a scarlet field of carcasses and guts, sobbing
helplessly. Amon had come to kneel beside her and told her that he was proud of
her. She had felt comforted by his words and his presence.
Looking at him now as they traveled on the road
heading east she could not be sure she still knew all of him, even despite all
the years since she had met him. He could be a cruel man, usually was, sometimes
even to her, but she knew there resided a good heart deep within him. He rarely
showed that part, and looking at him now, she was not sure which mood of his
would greet her question.
“Amon, what will we do when we find the
Ascillian boy?”
Amon turned in his saddle, pulled from whatever
thoughts roamed his mind, to give her a sour look. “Capture him, of course.
Kill those with him.”
Iris sighed. She had known that, but had asked
in hope of conversation. There wasn’t any to be had, it seemed. Her eyes
scanned the farms and plowed fields to either side of them, and the folk that
worked the fields. For some minutes she was content to simply watch them,
wondering what it must be like to live such simple lives. The wind kicked up
the dust of the road and Iris pulled up her
kurfa
to cover her face. She
felt hot beneath the black robe she wore, but knew better than to complain.
After all, Amon was dressed the same, and he suffered it stoically.
“Why is capturing the child so important?” She
knew better than to ask such questions, especially when he was in a foul mood,
but she couldn’t help but settle her curiosity.
“Because we accepted the mission,” Amon growled
at her from behind his
kurfa
. In the next breath he seemed calmer.
“Perhaps our employer wants to hold him for ransom, or just kill him. It
matters not to us. We have a contract, and we must fulfill it. Not to mention,
it is the biggest bloody payoff we have had so far.”
“Enough to go home?” Iris asked hopefully.
“Perhaps,” Amon replied in a low growl.
Iris couldn’t help but smile. The simple thought
of going back to Xian Anoura lifted her spirits. It wasn’t that they had a home
there, never staying in one place long enough for it to be so, but at least
there they were among their own kind. Out here, crossing borders from one
strange country into another, she felt strangely exposed. It was not uncommon
to see people of one country traveling through another, but she marked every
face that noticed their tilted eyes and dark hair, wondering if that would lead
to their capture. Would anyone draw connection between their land of origin and
what and who they were?
Not if we are careful
, she thought. Usually
priests of any order could travel through any land without being harassed.