Jonathan Rogers - The Way of the Wilderking

“The general’s orders were to kill you once we got to Sinking Canyons.” From the pleased look on the commander’s face, it was obvious he was telling the truth. “One never knows when a traitor will turn again.”

Despairing, the Corenwalder fell to his knees as the Pyrthen slid from his horse and unsheathed his sword. “I am betrayed,” he moaned.

The Pyrthen raised his sword and spoke. “It is no treachery to betray a traitor.”

Before the Pyrthen’s sword fell on the slave’s wretched neck, the canyon walls echoed with the voice of Errol, bellowing the name of his long-lost son like a war cry: “Ma-a-ay-n-a-a-a-ard!”

The old man appeared from his hiding place and closed on the Pyrthen with his broadsword raised above his head. He brought his weapon down on the seam of the Pyrthen’s black armor, where the shoulder plate met the breastplate. Ten Pyrthens were off their horses before Errol freed his blade for a second stroke. A quick, vicious thrust from an officer’s sword sent Errol to the ground. Arrows whistling down from the canyon rim felled a dozen horsemen. A second volley of arrows dropped a dozen more Pyrthens before the first wave of Corenwalder swordsmen fell on the enemy, making it impossible for the archers to go on shooting.

The Battle of Sinking Canyons was terrible. The Pyrthens were ruthless and efficient fighters. They hurt and killed their share of Corenwalders. But they were hugely outnumbered by the militiamen who appeared from the canyon’s every crack and crevice, like ants boiling out of the hidden holes of an anthill. Corenwalders circling around from the canyon mouth sealed off the invaders’ only escape route, but still the Pyrthens wouldn’t surrender. Three or four Pyrthens burst through the lines, dodged the archers’ arrows, and galloped to safety. The rest spilled their lifeblood on the sands of Sinking Canyons.

Soon after the fighting broke out, Maynard dragged his father to the safety of a small cave. For the slave who had led the Pyrthens to Sinking Canyons was, of course, Maynard, the second of Errol’s sons, who had once tried to pass himself off as the Wilderking in the Feechiefen Swamp. As the battle raged outside, Maynard held his dying father in the cool darkness and wept for the years he had wasted, for the sins he had committed against the father who had traded his own life for the life of a son who betrayed him.

While his life was ebbing away, Errol opened his eyes. When he saw his son, a faint smile flickered across his face. “Maynard,” he said. In spite of his weakness, the voice that spoke the name of his son was so strong with love and tenderness it seemed to bear away all the hurt that had passed between the two of them. “Maynard, you were never meant to be a slave.”

The Pyrthens were coming. Surely they would be coming after those few escaped horsemen returned to the main body of the army. The Pyrthens knew where the rebels were, knew how many they were, and knew that they were enemies.

There was no time to bury the dead with the honors the fighting men would have liked to accord to their fallen brothers. They placed the dead in tunnels-the Corenwalders in one chamber, the Pyrthens in another-and sealed them in.

The Errolsons buried their father in his own grave, out of the canyon in the plain above; they felt sure he would prefer to be buried in more solid ground than that of the canyons. Aidan, Percy, Jasper, and Brennus stood around their father’s grave while Aidan offered up a prayer of thanks for their father’s life. Maynard hung back a few steps, wanting to honor his father but not sure how welcome he would be among his brothers.

By the time Aidan had finished his prayer, Maynard was crying violent tears. He squatted on the ground, his bony arms folded around his knees, and rocked back and forth on his heels. His hoarse wailing echoed across the plain and off the canyon walls a hundred strides away.

Brennus opened his eyes and glared at his brother. “A little late for that, isn’t it, Maynard?”

“Brennus…” Aidan began, reproach in his voice.

“Don’t ‘Brennus’ me, Aidan. Does that howling do any honor to Father? It’s no more than the self-pity of a son who broke Father’s heart a thousand times over. A son who brought the enemy to our front porch, who betrayed thirty-six hundred men, the least of whom is more worthy than he. The son who was the direct cause of Father’s death. No, I don’t see how those tears honor Father at all.”

Maynard’s tears of shame and sorrow flowed all the more. His wailing grew louder, shriller.

“Brennus,” said Aidan quietly, “if you wish to honor Father, then love what Father loved.”

Brennus stomped off without another word, waving a hand behind him. Percy and Jasper weren’t so violent as Brennus in their reactions. But they weren’t yet ready to receive Maynard into the bosom of the family either. They, too, wandered off in the direction of the canyons.

Aidan squatted down beside his older brother and put his arm around him until he stopped his wailing. The two of them walked to the rim of the canyon, still not speaking, and sat with their feet dangling from the edge. They watched the daily activities of thirty-five hundred men, below, getting on with their lives. Men were bathing their wounds in the wash pool, starting fires to cook their evening meals, talking in little groups.

To their left, the sun was going down, the brilliant purples and pinks of its dying light magnifying the colors that swirled in the canyon walls.

They sat that way for five minutes or more before Maynard finally spoke. “His love haunted me, you know. All the way across the ocean it haunted me.” He watched a pebble bounce down the side of the cliff.

“False love I could handle. Flattery, using people, even being used-I understood all that. That made sense to me. But unconditional love was the last thing I wanted, from Father or anybody else. Because to receive unconditional love is to know somebody loves you more than you deserve to be loved.

“I don’t mean Father ever meant to make me feel unworthy. I don’t even think he knew he loved me more than I deserved. I just mean a love that intense can’t help but make you see your own selfishness.

“So I spent my life trying to prove I deserved more than I was getting. That’s why I tried to pass myself off as the Wilderking. Who’s more deserving than a king?

“When that didn’t work, I went to Pyrth. I had something they wanted, and I thought they would honor me for it. I could help give them victory over Corenwald, the one kingdom they had never been able to conquer. I could come home a victor, not groveling for Father’s forgiveness but making him grovel for mine.

“But the Pyrthens didn’t love me. They broke me. They made me a slave, not a general. Then, when it was too late, I understood I needed unconditional love more than I needed anything in the world.”

He began to weep again but softly this time, not violently as before. “I was sure I had finally put myself beyond Father’s love. But after all those years, after all that hurt, it finally tracked me down. And it saved me.”

“He never slackened in his love for you,” Aidan said after a long silence. “I can tell you that.” He looked down into the canyon, which was now growing dark. “And now he’s gone. I can’t get my mind around it. It’s as if we woke up one morning back home and found that the River Tam was gone. Some things you just figure will always be there.”

He waved his hand out over the canyon. “You know, a village used to stand there.”

Maynard pointed down at the canyon floor. “Down there?” he asked, surprised to hear that anyone would put a village in the bottom of Sinking Canyons.