Morgan Rice - Rise of the Dragons

Of average height and build, with dark black hair, a perpetually unshaven face, a wide jaw, long, drawn-out cheekbones, and large black eyes with black circles under them, Merk always looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. And that was always how he felt. But now. Now, finally, he felt rested. Here, in Ur, in the northwest corner of Escalon, there came no snow. The temperate breezes off the ocean, but a day’s ride west, assured them of warmer weather and allowed leaves of every color to flourish. It also allowed Merk to sojourn wearing but a cloak, with no need to cower from the freezing winds, as they did in much of Escalon. He was still getting used to the idea of wearing a cloak instead of armor, of wielding a staff instead of a sword, of tapping the leaves with his staff instead of piercing his foes with a dagger. It was all new to him. He was trying to see what it felt like to become this new person he yearned to be. It was peaceful – but awkward. As if he were pretending to be someone he was not.

For Merk was no traveler, no monk – nor was he a peaceful man. He was still, in his blood, a warrior. And not just any warrior; he was a man who fought by his own rules, and who had never lost a battle. He was a man who was unafraid to take his battles from the jousting lanes to the back alleys of the taverns he loved to frequent. He was what some people liked to call a mercenary. An assassin. A hired sword. There were many names for him, some even less flattering, but Merk didn’t care for labels, or about what other people thought. All he cared about was that he was one of the best.

Merk, as if to fit his role, had gone by many names himself, changing them at his whim. He didn’t like the name his father had given him – in fact, he didn’t like his father, either – and he wasn’t about to go through life with a name someone else slapped on him. Merk was the most frequent name change, and he liked it, for now. He did not care what anyone called him. He cared only about two things in life: finding the perfect spot for the point of his dagger, and that his employers pay him in freshly minted gold – and a lot of it.

Merk had discovered at a young age that he had a natural gift, that he was superior to all others at what he did. His brothers, like his father and all his famed ancestors, were proud and noble knights, donning the best armor, wielding the best steel, prancing about on their horses, waving their banners with their flowery hair and winning competitions while ladies threw flowers at their feet. They could not have been more proud of themselves.

Merk, though, hated the pomp, the limelight. Those knights had all seemed clumsy at killing, vastly inefficient, and Merk had no respect for them. Nor did he need the recognition, the insignias or banners or coats of arms that knights craved. That was for people who lacked what mattered most: the skill to take a man’s life, quickly, quietly, and efficiently. In his mind, there was nothing else to talk about.

When he was young and his friends, too small to defend themselves, had been picked on, they had come to him, already known to be exceptional with a sword, and he had taken their payment to defend them. Their bullies never tormented them again, as Merk went that extra step. Word had spread quickly of his prowess, and as Merk accepted more and more payments, his abilities in killing progressed.

Merk could have become a knight, a celebrated warrior like his brothers. But he chose instead to work in the shadows. Winning was what interested him, lethal efficiency, and he had discovered quickly that knights, for all their beautiful weapons and bulky armor, could not kill half as fast or effectively as he, a lone man with a leather shirt and a sharp dagger.

As he hiked, poking the leaves with his staff, he recalled one night at a tavern with his brothers, when swords had been drawn with rival knights. His brothers had been surrounded, outnumbered, and while all the fancy knights stood on ceremony, Merk did not hesitate. He had darted across the alley with his dagger and sliced all their throats before the men could draw a sword.

His brothers should have thanked them for their lives – instead, they all distanced themselves from him. They feared him, and they looked down on him. That was the gratitude he received, and the betrayal hurt Merk more than he could say. It deepened his rift with them, with all nobility, with all chivalry. It was all hypocrisy in his eyes, self-serving; they could walk away with their shiny armor and look down on him, but if it hadn’t been for him and his dagger they would all be lying dead in that back alley today.

Merk hiked and hiked, sighing, trying to release the past. As he reflected, he realized he did not really understand the source of his talent. Perhaps it was because he was so quick and nimble; perhaps it was because he was fast with his hands and wrists; perhaps it was because he had a special talent for finding men’s vital points; perhaps it was because he never hesitated to go that extra step, to take that final thrust that other men feared; perhaps it was because he never had to strike twice; or perhaps it was because he could improvise, could kill with any tool at his disposal – a quill, a hammer, an old log. He was craftier than others, more adaptable and quicker on his feet – a deadly combination.

Growing up, all those proud knights had distanced themselves from him, had even mocked him beneath their breath (for no one would mock him to his face). But now, as they were all older, as their powers waned and as his fame spread, he was the one enlisted by kings, while they were all forgotten. Because what his brothers never understood was that chivalry did not make kings kings. It was the ugly, brutal violence, fear, the elimination of your enemies, one at a time, the gruesome killing that no one else wanted to do, that made kings. And it was he they turned to when they wanted the real work of being a king done.

With each poke of his staff, Merk remembered each of his victims. He had killed the King’s worst foes – not by poison – for that, they brought in the petty assassins, the apothecaries, the seductresses. The worst ones they often wanted killed with a statement, and for that, they needed him. Something gruesome, something public: a dagger in the eye; a body left strewn in a public square, dangling from a window, for all to see the next sunrise, for all to be left in wonder as to who had dared oppose the King.

When the old King Tarnis had surrendered the kingdom, had opened the gates for Pandesia, Merk had felt deflated, purposeless for the first time in his life. Without a King to serve he had felt adrift. Something long brewing within him had surfaced, and for some reason he did not understand, he began to wonder about life. All his life he had been obsessed with death, with killing, with taking life away. It had become easy – too easy. But now, something within him was changing; it was as if he could hardly feel the stable ground beneath his feet. He had always known, firsthand, how fragile life was, how easily it could be taken away, but now he started to wonder about preserving it. Life was so fragile, was preserving it not a greater challenge than taking it?

And despite himself, he started to wonder: what was this thing he was stripping away from others?

Merk did not know what had started all this self-reflection, but it made him deeply uncomfortable. Something had surfaced within him, a great nausea, and he had become sick of killing – he had developed as great a distaste for it as he had once enjoyed it. He wished there was one thing he could point to that triggered all of this – the killing of a particular person, perhaps – but there was not. It had just crept up on him, without cause. And that was most disturbing of all.