Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Konowa opened his eyes and fixed Jaal with a look of mock disdain. "You fight your battles, I'll fight mine, and we will find our enemy is the same, and fight as one."

Jaal bowed his head. Konowa took it for relief.

"So," Konowa said, "my banishment is over, and Marshal Ruwl is still days away. What do we do now?"

The Duke of Rakestraw took a deep breath and sat up straight, looking around the tent for a few moments before returning his gaze to Konowa.

"Swift Dragon, you may have been hugging trees for companionship for the past year, but you aren't that addled yet. We do what soldiers the world over have done when awaiting their orders." He leaned forward and reached into one of the spare riding boots, pulling out a large black bottle. "We drink!"

Despite what felt like a lifetime of virtual isolation in a sweltering, bug-biting, foul-smelling forest with little else to do but think, Konowa Swift Dragon remained at a loss about how one really found inner peace. Was it knowing which question to ask, or merely the act of searching for the answer? With considerable effort he considered his current predicament and gave it a try.

His head pounded like a kettledrum on a sun-baked parade square. Even the long-gone tip of his left ear hurt. It wasn't a result of his battle with the rakkes, nor Visyna's attempt on his life…before she got to know him, of course. It wasn't almost getting decapitated by Her Majesty's overeager cavalry or even the simple insidious torture of riding a horse. It was, and of this he was absolutely sure, the Sala brandy he had been drinking with the Duke of Rakestraw for the past forty-eight hours.

"The commander of Her Majesty's forces in the Greater Protectorate of Elfkyna asked you a question," Marshal Ruwl's wizard was saying.

And that. A fire deep within Konowa rekindled. There were six officers on Ruwl's staff in the Duke's tent, though Jaal had departed earlier that morning without even saying good-bye. Something was bothering his old friend, but as drunk as they had gotten Jaal refused to discuss it, instead finding more bottles and flasks tucked away in sleeves and pockets and regaling him with the events of the past year.

"Did he now?" Konowa replied, turning his attention back to the group crowded around him.

They glittered and sparkled like a flock of magpie dragons, their chests adorned with bright baubles, there to impress other males and woo females. Konowa read their faces and saw their disdain. He yawned and scratched his head, then lurched forward as if he was going to leap at them. They all flinched, all except the old elven wizard, Jurwan Leaf Talker. He calmly stared at Konowa while munching on a bag of nuts. His eyes sparkled with annoying intelligence in a weather-tanned face so craggy it might have been bark. Leaf Talker leaned on a halberd with a burnished, sharpened point on one end, a string of leaves wrapped around the base of the point like a garland. Clad as he was in a many-colored robe of animal skins and wearing an intricate feather headdress of gray, black, and red plumage that drooped down over the tops of his ears, the wizard looked more like a vagabond than the wielder of powerful magic that Konowa knew him to be.

"I did," the marshal said, "and you will be so kind as to reply."

Konowa broke the wizard's stare and finally looked at Marshal Ruwl. He was a hollow caricature of the man Konowa had once known. Despite the light that glowed through the canvas tent the marshal appeared faded. His silver-green coatee hung loose from his shoulders and his bicorn wobbled on his head as if it had shrunk. What surprised Konowa the most, though, were his eyes; rheumy and red-rimmed, too weak to hold a stare for more than a moment.

"No," Konowa said.

"No?" replied the marshal. Several of the officers gasped, while Leaf Talker smiled.

"Are you deaf now, too?" Konowa asked.

At least three sabers rattled in their scabbards as the marshal's staff surged forward at the insult.

A small cough from the wizard caught everyone's attention.

"Gentlemen," Ruwl said, "please vacate this tent so that we may speak alone."

"But, sir-"

The marshal raised a slim hand and quieted his retinue.

"Now."

They left reluctantly. Leaf Talker, however, remained.

"You're drunk," the marshal said without preamble.

"And you're a coward, but at least I'll be sober in a few hours," Konowa said, collapsing onto the Duke's chair.

If the insult affected the marshal, he didn't show it. "You don't like me, do you?"

Konowa stared at him for several seconds. "You wonder if I like you? I despise you. The Iron Elves were disbanded because of you. Fine, court-martial me for saving the Empire, but they did nothing wrong."

The marshal's sword whistled from its scabbard and was pressing against Konowa's throat in a flash. The eyes that had looked so old and tired a moment ago now burned with a fury that caught Konowa's breath. He glanced over at the wizard, who was busy stuffing several nuts into this mouth at once and showed no signs of intervening.

"You…don't…know…anything!" the marshal whispered hoarsely. "I had no choice."

Konowa glared back at Ruwl. "Like hell. You know damn well the Viceroy was in league with the Shadow Monarch. He was doing everything in his power to stir up revolt in this country. I did the world a favor when I killed him, and what did I get for it? A court-martial and my regiment taken away. Tell me, how do you sleep at night?"

"I don't sleep anymore," Ruwl said absently, lowering his sword. He looked at Konowa with eyes that were once again those of a very tired, very old man. Resheathing the blade, Ruwl walked over to the cot and lowered himself to sit. It barely sagged under his weight.

Something deep inside Konowa stirred, and he was shocked to realize it was pity. "Are you looking for sympathy?"

"No, and neither will you get any from me," Ruwl said. "Command is about making difficult choices. Of course I knew who the Viceroy really served. He was as artless as he was ruthless."

Hearing the admission left Konowa speechless.

"I knew," Ruwl continued, "Her Majesty knew, and I suspect most of the Empire knew, but that was beside the point. You took matters into your own hands by going to Luuguth Jor and killing him before there could be a trial. An officer of the crown cannot simply take matters into his own hands. You gave me no choice."

Konowa found his voice. "A trial? He was killing the elfkynan like flies, robbing their temples, digging up sacred relics in search of something for the Shadow Monarch. That mad elf was trying to put Her on the Queen's throne! He had to be stopped. Talking him to death wasn't an option."

"So he didn't tell you what he was searching for?" Ruwl asked. The look of surprise on his face appeared genuine.

"We didn't chat," Konowa said grimly.

Ruwl paused as he considered this, then continued. "When you were at Luuguth Jor, did you see…anything out of the ordinary?"

Konowa threw up his hands. "I saw a sad excuse for a fort, a few mud huts, a river, and an elf who was a disgrace to all the Hynta."

"And what did you do with the Viceroy's body?"

Konowa's next outburst froze on his lips. "We buried it outside the fort. Why?"

Ruwl looked over at Leaf Talker, who swallowed the nuts in his mouth and shook his head, sending the feathers in his headdress dancing. "All things that will be, will be, unless they are destined to be…different."

The pain behind Konowa's eyes increased. "What?"

"Quite," Leaf Talker said, thumping his halberd on the ground. Vibrations hummed through the air; for a moment it was as if a door to another world had opened, and then closed again. "Despite your time among the trees, you have learned very little from them."