Dan Chernenko: The Bastard King

“Do you hear that sound?” King Mergus cupped a hand behind his ear. Scolopax frowned. But for their two angry voices, the corridor was silent. Mergus answered his own question anyhow. “That’s the Banished One, licking his chops.”

The prince went death pale. “You dare,” he whispered. “You dare, when the Banished One whispered in your ear, telling you to wed your whore in spite of all that’s right and prop—”

He ducked then, just in time. Mergus’ right fist whistled past his ear. But Mergus’ left caught him in the belly and doubled him up. Scolopax hit the king in the face. The two old men—the two brothers—stood toe to toe, hammering away at each other with every bit of strength that was in them.

Their quarrel had drawn more servants to the corridor. “Your Majesty!” cried some of those men, while others said, “Your Highness!” They all rushed toward the king and the prince and got between them so they couldn’t reach each other anymore.

“I’ll have your head for this!” Mergus shouted at Scolopax.

“It’s better than the one you’ve got now!” Scolopax shouted back.

And Mergus knew his threat was idle, empty. However much he wanted to be rid of his brother forever, he knew he couldn’t kill him, not unless Scolopax did something far worse than giving him a black eye (he’d bloodied his brother’s nose, he saw with no small satisfaction). He didn’t have many years left himself. With Scolopax gone and his son a child, who would rule Avornis after him? A regency council—and the only thing Mergus feared more was the Banished One in all his awful majesty.

If there was a better recipe for paralyzing the kingdom than a squabbling regency council, no one had found it yet.

Scolopax dabbed blood from his upper lip with a silken kerchief. “You maniac,” he panted. “If you had the Scepter of Mercy, you’d bash people’s brains in with it.”

“If I had the Scepter of Mercy—” Mergus stood there panting, trying to get enough air. He scowled at Scolopax, feeling all the bruises his brother had given him. He tried again. “If I had it—” That was no good, either; he had to stop for a second time. “Get out of my sight,” he said thickly, rage almost choking him.

He was closer to taking his brother’s head for that remark than for all the bruises he’d had from the prince. And Scolopax had to know as much, too. He shook himself free of servants and courtiers and left Mergus without another word.

“Your Majesty—” one of the servants began.

“Go away,” Mergus said. “Leave me.” One advantage of being king was that, when he said such things, people obeyed him. The corridor emptied as though by magic.

But that proved less helpful than Mergus had hoped. It left him alone with his thoughts—and with his brother’s final mocking words.

If I had the Scepter of Mercy… His shoulders slumped. He sighed. No King of Avornis had looked on, let alone held, the great talisman for four hundred years. It had been on procession in the south, to hearten the people against the Banished One and against the fierce Menteshe who did his bidding (and who, then, were newly come to the borders of Avornis), when a band of nomads, riding faster than the wind, swooped down on its guardsmen and raped it away. These days, it stayed in Yozgat, the capital of the strongest Menteshe principality.

The Banished One couldn’t do anything with the Scepter. If he could have, he surely would have by now. And if ever the Banished One found the power to wield it, he wouldn’t merely storm the city of Avornis. He would storm back into the heavens themselves. So the priests said, and King Mergus knew no reason to disbelieve them.

But even if the Banished One couldn’t hold the Scepter in his fist, he kept the kings of Avornis from using it for the good of the kingdom. Mergus thought his distant predecessors had taken its power for granted. People often did, when they’d had something marvelous for a long time.

I wouldn’t. If the Scepter of Mercy came to me, I’d do right by it. He laughed a sad and bitter laugh. Surely every king of Avornis for the past four centuries had had that same thought. And how much good had it done any of them? Exactly none, as Mergus knew all too well.

“Fire beaqon!” Turnix called. The wizard pointed to a hilltop north of the Stura atop which, sure enough, a big bonfire had flared into life.

“I see it,” Grus answered. “The Menteshe are loose, gods curse them.”

Nicator also peered toward the north. “Now—let’s see exactly whereabouts and how bad it is.”

Three more, smaller, signal fires sprang to life to the west of the first one. “That way—a medium-sized raid,” Grus said. Five would have meant a major invasion—a war. Grus pointed west. “We’ll see what the next beacon tells us.” He set a hand on Nicator’s shoulder. “Pass out weapons to the rowers. Who knows what sort of fighting we’ll be doing?”

“Right you are, Skipper,” Nicator answered, and saw to it.

Propelled by sails and oars, the Tigerfish sped down the river toward the trouble. The next flaring fire beacon still urged it toward the west. “We’re on the way to Anxa,” Grus murmured, disquieted.

“And so?” his lieutenant said. Then, perhaps a moment slower than he should have, he caught on. “Oh. That thrall we handed over to the wizards there. Don’t you think they should have figured out whether he was dangerous or not?”

“Yes, I think they should have,” Grus told him. “Trouble is, I don’t know whether they did.”

“Well, even if they didn’t, how much trouble could one thrall cause?” Nicator asked.

“I don’t know that, either. I hope nobody’s finding out.”

He watched anxiously for the smoke rising from the next beacon, which stood on a hill north of the riverside town. The smoke didn’t always predict what the fires themselves would say, but he’d gotten good at gauging it. Even before he saw the flames showing that trouble lay due north hereabouts, the way the smoke rose made him think they would tell him that. He also spied smoke rising from places that did not hold fire beacons. The Menteshe burned for the sport of it.

Just before he came in to the town of Anxa (which, thanks to its wall, remained in Avornan hands), a young officer on horseback waved to him from the northern bank of the Stura. The sun glinted off the fellow’s chain-mail shirt and conical helm. “Ahoy, the river galley!” he shouted.

Grus waved back to show he’d heard. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” he yelled back—the plumes of the officer’s crest were dyed blue.

“We’ll be driving the wild men back this way before long,” the young officer answered. “Driving ’em out of Avornis is one thing. Making sure they don’t do this again… that’s something else, something a lot better.”

“I like the way he thinks,” Nicator said in a voice too low for the lieutenant to hear.

“So do I.” Grus nodded, then cupped his hands to his mouth once more to shout over to the riverbank. “We’ll do our best, Lieutenant. What’s your name?”

“Hirundo. Who’re you?”

“I’m Grus,” Grus answered, adding, “Now we both know where to lay the blame if things go wrong.”

Hirundo laughed. “Here’s hoping we don’t have to,” he said. “Stay there, if you can. I’ll do my best to push the Menteshe your way.” Before Grus could reply, Hirundo wheeled his horse and rode away from the river, up toward the fighting.

“Think he can do it?” Nicator asked.

“You never can tell. A million things might go wrong,” Grus said. “He might get an arrow in his face half an hour from now. But if he doesn’t, I think he’s got a pretty fair chance.”