David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

“You know I don’t.” His friend took a step forward, placing a hand on the giant’s massive shoulder. “How many times have you told us that doing the right thing is rarely easy? I fear that’s where your anger takes us now. The hard path is overcoming our grief and learning how to kill. The hard way is questioning everything we ever knew and believed. Death, though? Death is easy, especially when clothed in honor and vengeance.”

Again the air around Ki-Nan flickered, and Bardiya felt a strange yet undeniable tightening in his gut. Ki-Nan was. . lying. About what, he wasn’t sure, but his friend’s words echoed in his head.

“Learning how to kill. . ”

Bardiya shoved Ki-Nan away. The much smaller man stumbled and almost fell to his knees on the water-drenched stone.

“You lie,” Bardiya said, his deep voice rumbling.

Ki-Nan’s expression turned into a worried frown. “Lie? About what, brother?”

“I watched you on the battlefield. You wielded your blades with precision, cutting down trained soldiers with ease. How could you, and all those who fled from Ang with you, be so adept in the art of warfare?”

“We trained, day and night, for what was ahead,” his friend replied.

This time, Bardiya saw no wavering, but his gut was still knotted. He sucked air into his lungs. Stay in control. So Ki-Nan and his people did train. . but there was more to it. More, hiding in the words.

“ How did you know to train?” Bardiya asked. “You lived your whole life in Paradise and never touched a sword until that day on the beach when the elves showed us the cache of steel.”

“We. . we did as best we could,” Ki-Nan insisted. “Our race was. . our race is flawed, brother, built for war. You saw when you held that sword in your own hands! The soldiers you destroyed, the men whose lives you ended. . it came as naturally to you as breathing!”

Again that certainty, cinching and snarling in his gut. “You hide yourself from me,” Bardiya whispered. Sadness swelled within him. “I sense it each time you open your mouth. Have I been blind until now? Have I ever truly known you?”

“Brother,” said Ki-Nan, scrambling to his feet. He held his arms out to Bardiya. “You’re tired, confused. Please, come back to the camp. We can discuss this when we-”

“NO.”

In a single motion, Bardiya snatched his friend by the front of his tunic and slammed him to the ground. Ki-Nan gasped, spittle flying from his lips, the air knocked from his lungs. Bardiya loomed over him, a gigantic fist pressed against Ki-Nan’s chest. His anger was beginning to take hold. It would be so easy. A simple push of my shoulder is all it would take. .

“All lies,” he said instead. “I give you this one last chance, Ki-Nan. If you tell the truth, I will let you live long enough to answer another question. If you lie, you will receive the same fate as those who perished before the Spire. Do you understand?”

Ki-Nan nodded, breathing heavily, his eyes bulging from his skull.

“Good. Now tell me who trained you to wield a sword.”

He removed his fist from Ki-Nan’s chest, and the man began coughing, rolling over onto his side. When his gaze rose to meet Bardiya’s, he was quaking with fear.

“I met them nine years ago,” he said, “during the summer of my twenty-second year.”

“Met whom?”

“Traders from the east, stranded in an ill-built ship by the bluffs surrounding the southern islands. They’d pierced their hull, and I helped save their crew as the ship sank.”

The tightening in his gut released, and his vision was clear, so Bardiya knew this was the truth. He nodded for Ki-Nan to continue.

“The masters of the boat were two fat brothers, Romeo and Cleo Connington. In the aftermath, the two fat men lauded me for my help, but they couldn’t stop staring at me. I don’t think they had ever seen anyone like our people, brother. I intrigued them, they said. We talked for hours on end, and they regaled me with stories of Neldar, and I shared of Paradise. They asked if I wished to experience life outside our humble existence of fishing and hunting and praying.”

“And you said yes.”

“I did.” Ki-Nan was shaking now, rubbing his chest where Bardiya had pressed against him. “I have long been restless, brother. What harm can there be in learning of the world beyond our borders? So they taught me the ways of the east, of money and trade and self-defense. They made me a part of their family , for Ashhur’s sake! They said I was to hold an important place in their house. The men I came to know in the Connington household grew to mean more to me than my eleven brothers and sisters.” Soundless lightning flashed overhead, brightening the night and washing out Ki-Nan’s features. He looked like a living ghost. “To those of the east, I became a man of importance,” he said, “while here at home, I was simply a fisherman.”

Bardiya ran a hand through his sopping hair and looked at Ki-Nan sadly. “Do you really require more than what you have been given by Ashhur?”

“Not all of us were granted leadership and respect at birth, brother.”

“Do not call me ‘brother’ again,” Bardiya snapped. “You are my brother no longer. Now tell me: Your leaving me, our disputes-were those sincere, or were they guided by these Conningtons you speak of?”

“Those. . those were real, broth-. . Bardiya.”

A lie. Bardiya lurched, swinging wide to strike Ki-Nan down. The man shrieked and lifted his hands, a feeble attempt to protect himself.

“I did what I was told!” he shouted.

Bardiya backed down.

“I was supposed to convince you to fight,” Ki-Nan rambled desperately. “But you were so stubborn, so damn stubborn. I delivered those weapons to the coast with the intention of feigning discovery later, but then the elf princess found them first. And still you refused. So I did as I was told and left you alone. . until the time was right.”

Fear seemed to have finally scattered the last of the lies off Ki-Nan’s tongue. A dark thought crossed Bardiya’s mind. “The demon in the Clovis Crestwell guise. . did you know of that? Did you know what the creature had planned?”

At that, Ki-Nan shook his head. “I didn’t. I swear on that which I love more than anything else that I didn’t.”

Again, no lie. The words, however, gave him pause. “What you love more than anything else. . it isn’t Ashhur anymore, is it?”

Ki-Nan hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I. . I fell in love early on, during a trip to Port Lancaster, a city on the southeast coast of Neldar. She was the most exciting woman I’d ever met. Elegant. Exotic. And strong, so strong. I fathered a child by her, though I’ve never seen his face, and she is with my child once again. It is them I wish to return to, whom I wish to build a life with.”

“I see.” Bardiya hung his head and rubbed his eyes. “A woman. Children. Glory and praise. And for these selfish desires, you would betray the god who created you?”

Ki-Nan opened his mouth, then closed it and remained silent.

“I should kill you,” Bardiya said. “You have no place in Paradise any longer. What you have done to me, done to all of us. . is unforgivable.” His hand clenched into a monstrous fist around the hilt of his sword.

“Please, brother, no!” His old friend clambered to his knees before him. “You preached of forgiveness your whole life. Please find a way to give me that. You asked once if my intentions were pure, and they are! Is there anything more pure than love? Than dedicating yourself to a wife, to your children?”

Bardiya lifted his sword. “You speak to the wrong man, Ki-Nan. Ashhur has abandoned me as you have abandoned him. I am his weapon now, nothing more, and what you have done is unforgivable.”