John Marco - The Devil's armour

King Lorn the Wicked knew the knives were out. In the past days — days he knew were the last of his kingship — conspiracies were everywhere, with no one to be trusted. It was the reward for a life lived in treachery, where alliances shifted like sand in the storms kicked up by war. It was how Jazana Carr wanted him to end — alone and afraid.

Tonight, darkness fell heavy on Carlion. Soldiers milled about the castle courtyard and its many towers, keeping an uneasy eye on their foes in the distant hills. Clouds obscured the moonlight. An abrasive breeze stirred Lorn’s cape. He drew his wolf-fur collar closer to his face and squinted against the dust and sand, filth that constantly tumbled through the streets of his capital out of the crumbling mountains. From atop the wall-walk King Lorn could see for miles. The turrets of Carlion provided an excellent vantage against invaders. As he had for the past three nights, he watched as Rihards’ forces waited in the hills, their many torches glowing defiantly, announcing their numbers. They had not yet advanced on Carlion, but Lorn and his men knew time was short. Perhaps the duke awaited more of Jazana Carr’s mercenaries to bolster his own forces from Rolga. Perhaps the siege would start at dawn.

Or perhaps they were waiting for one more traitor to make a move. King Lorn’s mind turned on this as he stared into the hills. There was work to be done tonight and he had very little time. If he was to escape this trap he needed to be sharp. Jazana Carr was clever. The bitch-queen from Hanging Man had held his stones in a vice for months now. One by one she had co-opted his barons, cooing to them with her endless supply of diamonds. Lorn wondered how much Rihards had cost to turn. Not long ago, he and the duke had been close allies. They had even been friends, though Lorn had always used that term carefully. As he continued to stare out into the hills, counting up the torches of Rihards’ massed army, he was sorry the duke had betrayed him. Yet in an odd way he was also glad. It had opened his eyes to treachery. He turned away from the hills just for a moment and looked down at his soldiers. Twenty feet below, the main gate of Carlion stood in rock-solid defiance to the army in the hills, fortified with stout beams and armed with fighting men carrying bows and lances. Among these men stood Jarrin, his Captain-at-Arms and garrison commander. Jarrin was pensive as he milled about his troops in his distinctive armour, his head topped by a falcon-faced helmet with a crest of dangling feathers. A few of the men wore their helmets back, Lorn noticed. Not so with Jarrin.

Afraid to show your face?

Lorn’s gaze lingered on his captain. It was he who had brought Jazana Carr’s letter to the castle, he who Duke Rihards had summoned forth. And it was he who had agreed to the dangerous mission, almost without pause. Jarrin had always been a brave man. For a moment Lorn felt puzzled.

He looked away from the captain, up over the castle toward the city beyond. His capital was bleak, blacked out by fear of the coming invasion. There were no peasants or drunks in the streets, no watchful citizens waiting to defend their city. They were all barricaded into their shabby homes, totally unwilling to bolster their king. Once, a very long time ago, the city had been a jewel. Now it had been bled dry, a necessary evil of civil war. Lorn grunted as he looked at his city, deciding its fate wasn’t his fault.

‘My lord is troubled,’ came a voice. Lorn turned to see his manservant, Uralak, crossing the wall-walk toward him. Uralak wore a doublet and chain mail shirt, both too large for his slight frame. He was an older, slender man not much Lorn’s senior. Years of hard work had roughened his hands and face. Like all those who had remained in Carlion, Uralak had prepared himself for battle, though Lorn doubted he would last more than a few moments in combat. He was a good man, one of the few whose loyalty Lorn never doubted. ‘You should go inside, my lord,’ said Uralak, keeping his voice low. ‘It does none of us good to see you brooding here.’

King Lorn kept his eyes on the capital, the city he was sworn to protect. Such was the weight of his kingship. It was a promise he had kept for almost two decades. Mostly.

‘They have never loved me,’ he said with a deep breath. He took note again of the city’s darkness. ‘Look, they do not even come to offer arms or comfort. Not one kind word has come from them.’

‘They are afraid, my lord,’ said Uralak. He did not argue Lorn’s point of being unloved. The manservant clenched his collar around his neck and turned to look out over the hills. ‘You were right, my lord. Duke Rihards is a patient man.’ His old eyes narrowed on the numerous pinpoints of torchlight. ‘And persuasive. His men follow him willingly in this treason.’

‘Rihards has a potent tongue,’ Lorn agreed. His old ally the duke had come from Rolga with a robust army, spurred by Jazana Carr’s promise of wealth. The Diamond Queen, as she called herself, had thusly persuaded many of Norvor’s fractured barons to join her. She had done what Lorn himself had never been able to do, bringing a kind of tyrannical peace to northern Norvor. She seemed to have all the wealth of the world at her pretty fingertips.

‘I should have killed him the last time he was here,’ lamented Lorn, recalling Rihards’ last visit to Carlion. It was hardly a month ago, when the two had planned their defence against Jazana Carr’s coming mercenaries. ‘Do you think he knew then, Uralak? Was he laughing at me while we drank our wine?’

‘Who can say, my lord.’ The old man’s face tightened. ‘We are strong. We will resist them.’

Lorn leaned out over the wall-walk, wrapping his hands over the castle’s pitted stone. He ached to speak the truth to Uralak — to anyone, really — but knew he could not. For a moment he wished Rinka was with him, and that he could lie just one more time in her loving arms. But his third wife was dead and as cold as the mountains, leaving him an infant daughter to protect. Rinka had died with screams in her throat. On nights like this, it seemed to Lorn that he could still hear her cries echoing through Carlion’s battered halls, bloody and exhausted as she pushed their daughter from her womb.

‘And now that bitch wants to take my daughter away from me,’ spat Lorn. It was Jazana Carr’s final insult to him, delivered by a man he had once trusted. In her letter she had described her wretched plan, to kill every man in Carlion but to raise Lorn’s daughter as her own. And what was he to do? Kill his own child? He had considered it. There were many who thought Poppy should die simply because she was useless. And it might have been worth killing Poppy to keep her from falling into the bitch-queen’s care, but Lorn had a better idea.

‘We will protect Poppy, my lord,’ Uralak assured him. Unlike many of Carlion’s servants, Uralak loved the child. ‘We won’t let her be taken.’

The King of Norvor, troubled and weary from what seemed like a lifetime of fighting, looked at the man who had been his servant for years. ‘That won’t be enough, Uralak.’ He studied him, astounded by his ignorance. ‘You do know that, don’t you? Duke Rihards has ruined us. When they come, they will kill us.’

Uralak stiffened. ‘No, I don’t know that.’ He set his jaw a little higher. ‘And the men don’t know that either, my lord. They are with you.’

King Lorn the Wicked needed to say no more. There had never been any question of Uralak’s fealty. There was no treachery in him.