David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

“Those are mighty impressive,” he said, a look of awe on his face.

“Your brother thought the same.”

Patrick worked his way down the line, shaking each hand in turn. When he took the hand of the sandy-haired youth named Tristan, the youngster seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but he kept his lips sealed, his eyes averted. In fact, all but Preston and the two Flicks refused to truly look at him, which made Patrick moan inwardly. When he was finished, he stepped back, taking them all in. Part of him thought they looked like a group of guilty children lying to their parents about stealing a loaf of bread.

“You know, you said that until two weeks ago you served in Karak’s Army, but I don’t think you ever said why you stopped. The pay not very good? Perhaps the food was terrible?”

The group fell silent, and Preston cleared his throat before he continued.

“Every person standing here was conscripted into service months ago,” he said. “None of us wished it. My sons and their friends here were guards for the Garland family in Gronswik, and I was second guard master. A convoy came to Tod Garland’s estate, demanding men, and he offered them half his regiment. Not even the high merchants were exempt from paying their dues to the realm. Already having been trained as fighting men, we were shipped off to Haven to join the Lord Commander’s battalion.” The older man swallowed hard but kept his composure. “They made us help clean up the bodies. That’s a hard duty, Patrick, especially when every blackened face might be your brother’s. After that, they sent us south, into the swamps.”

“To do what?” Patrick interrupted.

The others looked away, even Preston.

“We were ordered to leave no survivors,” Big Flick offered. “And so we didn’t.”

The news sent Patrick back a step. He felt stupid for being surprised by it, for hadn’t Peytr Gemcroft sailed to the Pebble Islands to avoid such a fate? Still, part of him had hoped Karak would focus on marching west instead of seeking petty vengeance. He gestured for Preston to continue.

“When word came from Veldaren, we crossed Ashhur’s Bridge into Paradise,” the older man said. “We went from village to village, and each time it was the same. Those who bent the knee lived. Those who didn’t, plus the Wardens, well…” He shook his head, and when he looked up at Patrick, tears made his crow’s feet glisten. “It was horrible. I was trained to fight, but it was always to protect the innocent from bandits, thieves, and the like. What they made us do? We were burning homes with people still in them. No one was safe. Not the elderly. Not the women.”

“Children,” Little Flick said, and the conversation halted once more.

“Yes,” Preston said, wiping at his face. “Children. That bastard Gregorian was the worst of them. He beat Ragnar one day for not running through a child of four, then forced him to hack the young one apart with a sword at his back. I have never seen my boy so defeated .” Preston grabbed his son’s arm and yanked up his sleeve, showing Patrick a jagged slash across his wrist that was crusty with scabs and leaking pus. “He tried to kill himself that night. That’s when I decided we would leave that fucking place and disappear into Paradise. These boys are young, Patrick. Edward’s the oldest at eighteen. Even the Flicks are still teenagers, big as they are. They don’t deserve this life. They aren’t killers.”

“And yet they’ve killed,” Patrick whispered. “How many?”

“What?”

“How many? How many helpless souls have your lot put to the sword?”

Preston shook his head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t know. Too many.”

“I…this…fuck…” Patrick rubbed his hand over his nose angrily, as if he were going to rip his face off. “I really don’t know what to say.”

“Just let us go on with our lives,” Brick said. “We just want to get away from all that…butchery.”

“No one has to know we’re here,” Preston added. “You can move on, pretend you saw nothing.”

Patrick grumbled and shuffled from foot to foot, trying to channel Bardiya’s penchant for forgiveness, if nothing else.…

“You’re in Ashhur’s land, the part ruled by Bardiya Gorgoros. Clumsy and numerous as you are, you won’t stay hidden forever, which means we need to figure this out here and now. Look, I’ve killed before, but those men were armed, and if I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me. What you’re talking about is different. You’re talking of the murder of innocents . Ashhur preaches tolerance, love, and forgiveness, but I also watched him storm onto the battlefield and tear Karak’s soldiers to shreds when he saw innocents destroyed. Why do you deserve different?”

Tristan stepped forward and dropped to one knee. Patrick could see a no forming on Preston’s lips as the youth opened his mouth to speak.

“Because we’re sorry,” he said, head bowed. “Because we want to make amends. We all do.”

In his peripheral vision, Preston visibly exhaled in relief.

“Is that true?” asked Patrick.

Mumbles of confirmation followed, accompanied by nods and sniffling. Patrick felt his heart break at the sight of them. Young men, burdened with such acts, and there was still something they weren’t telling him. What could it be? He couldn’t imagine what could be worse than cutting down children with a sword. To do such things must make a man less than human.…

“If you truly seek atonement, then I know of a far better way than hiding in the middle of nowhere,” he told them. “And if you do as I propose, I promise you we will indeed be friends. Good friends. And together we just might find a way to have ourselves a good death.”

“Ten good deaths,” Big Flick said, and he clapped Patrick on the back. “A good number.”

“Good indeed,” Patrick said, allowing himself to smile.

The first sounds of combat pulled Ahaesarus’s mind back to Algrahar. He remembered his bright world growing dark, saw the sky tear open as if it were a thin sheet of black cloth ripped through by an invisible knife. He watched fire rain down from the sky, looked up in terror as great winged demons swooped down on his people. He heard thousands of innocents wail as they were put to blade and spear, heard the sickening thud as the demons dropped them from great heights, their bodies breaking when they struck the unforgiving ground. He felt the last breaths of his wife, Malodia, released in ragged gasps. He gaped at the wrecked bodies of his children as he was forcefully ushered away by the demons and rounded into a pen with his fellow survivors, where a vicious death surely awaited them.

He experienced the memories all at once, and tears welled in his eyes.

Fighting the dirge of sadness and terror, he squeezed the reins tighter and slapped them against his charger. The steed picked up speed, careening forward at a reckless pace. A litany of pounding hooves sounded from beside and behind as his brother Wardens, fifty of them, did the same, all in a desperate rush to arrive before it was too late.

The burning heat of early summer did not seem to reach the far north of Paradise. With the sun now set, a distinct chill hung in the air, and a breeze came from the east, gusting over the raging Gihon from the destitute Tinderlands beyond as if carrying the dead land’s message of hopelessness. Hopelessness. Even the hope he had felt as he watched Geris and Penelope disappear into the forest fled him. With the memory of his own dead world fresh in his mind, Ahaesarus struggled to not let himself fall into that miserable pit.

The land around Drake was rocky and harsh. If not for the abundance of great pines that grew on the ever-rising mountains, it might have looked just as lifeless as the elves’ old homeland. As it were, with the half-moon partially concealed by wayward clouds and the mountainside forests shrouded in darkness, it looked to be a land of ghosts. The fact that the town of Drake itself had been abandoned, as Isabel had warned them, only served to heighten that impression.