The Scarlet King

By Richard Dearline

The powerful Scarlet King, Redgar Rentlyn, is dying. The same magic that granted him inhuman strength is slowly poisoning him. The curse's venom has already taken his sight... but not his will to live. Redgar's last hope is the Sorceress, Tainna, his greatest enemy. Redgar must fight through the hostile swamp land to reach her. Worse, he must leave his own realm to the scavengers and traitors.

Selena the Fox, a veteran of war that won Redgar his crown, wants nothing more than a quiet life with her children... until Redgar's own soldiers come to take her daughter. Selena must put on her armor once again, and enter a brutal tournament to attempt to rescue the girl from both bandits and lawmen.

Lord Beron Volstrom is torn between attempting to save the realm broken by Redgar's departure, and continuing his war against the western barbarians. Lord Beron only thinks he knows all the enemies he faces. The worst enemies are those he is trying to save.

The Scarlet King, the first book in epic Scarlet Cycle, uses multiple point-of-view characters. The second book, Scarlet Traitor is now available. The third book, Scarlet Witch is coming soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Dearline
• Release date: Jul 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466016477

Book preview

The Scarlet King

Book I of The Scarlet Cycle

By Richard Dearline

Copyright 2011 Richard Dearline

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Scarlet Night

Blind King

Lord Traitor

Axe and Spear

Skywatcher

False Knight

Dear Sister

Black Widow

Small King

Blood and Sand

Little Spy

The Defender

Tainna

Trap

The Reaver

Winter Dreams

The Warrior

Hounds

The Mission

Northern Road

The Lost Lady

Wolven Hills

Serpent’s Blade

Strength of Fist

Liars

The Game

Grey Hold

The Insult

The Secrets

Fire and Silence

The Dead

The Wrong Prisoner

Old Regrets

Fools and Cowards

The Guests

Scarlets Come

The Sorceress

Scarlet Night

The great gate opened.

Selena recognized the sound of the iron hinges turning and thought it was a part of her dream. Then, she found herself in her bed, her husband’s plump arm across her chest, heavy, as if to prevent her escape. There were voices, quiet and distant, and then came the beats of the hooves on stony surface of the road.

Hoofbeats in the night. Horses.

The fat man moaned in his sleep, as she pushed away his arm and struggled out of bed, as good as naked in a nightshirt of thin silk and wet with sweat – the nights of the Eastern Shores were no more merciful than the days. She could see nothing through the window – nothing but the usual black shapes of crooked trees and bushes that served as a second wall to the house. Yet she could hear it all clearer now – the dull thundering of the steel horseshoes. Road circled around the hill, ascending to the very top. Whoever they are, they will be here within minutes.

‘Talin,’ she shook her husband’s shoulder. ‘Wake up, my sun.’

A horse neighed.

He moaned again, and then his bright eyes opened. The bright eyes surrounded with layers of fat, but so clear and kind and so blue, the eyes that were the only memento to remain of the man she had once loved more than anything.

‘Hello Selena,’ Talin murmured.

‘Get up,’ she pulled at his thick wrist. ‘There is someone at the gates. The riders have come.’

‘Riders that come in the night. They come every night. You have dreamed of them again.’

‘No, this is no dream. Get up, please.’

A loud tap behind startled her, and Selena turned to see a freckled face staring at her from the window.

‘My lady duchess,’ spoke the boy guardsman, Tion, whom she immediately recognized. He looked breathless. ‘I-’

‘How dare you spy on us, boy!’ Talin roared behind, leaping to the window unusually quickly for a man of his proportions, covering Selena’s near-nakedness, his own privates swinging.

‘I…No, no, no, my lord, it’s the riders, the riders my lord, it’s the Scarlets my lord, I ran uphill to tell-’

Selena heard no more – she was already outside the bedroom, rushing into the corridor, and to the left, to throw the door open, to find her son Line spring up in his bed, eyes wide, staring at her.

‘Mother…’

‘Get up, wake your brother,’ she said calmly. ‘To the stables, get to the stables.’

I am ready for this. I am. She had been convincing herself that for the last six years, telling herself every day that she was ready. I am ready

Once again in the corridor, she squeezed past Talin, who attempted to grab her.

‘What are you-’ he began

But Selena evaded him, passing into another room.

‘Mother, what happened?’ her daughter Syre spoke. She was up, her light white nightgown making the normally pale girl seem transparent in the moonlight.

‘Come,’ Selena took Syre on her arms, like so many times before, when the girl was half the age she was now. Still light, light as Talin’s kisses were when she still loved him.

Now Talin’s huge body was covering the doorway.

‘Go, please go, we need to get them to the stables.’

‘You are mad, woman,’ he said and Selena stopped for a single moment, watching his face. There was none of the sleep’s drowsiness in him anymore. It was Duke Talin Oaken, the fat boar of a man, whose own servants laughed and jested behind back, and making it worse was that he knew it.

‘Get out of my way,’ Selena whispered and he did.

The boys – Line and Bine, her twins, thin and white shoulders cocked as if they were cold, stood down the corridor, watching her.

‘Mother, where are we going?’ Syre asked, her arms soft and warm around Selena’s neck

‘Down, down to the stables,’ she reached the boys and goaded them down the great stone stairs that lead to the main hall.

‘IN THE NAME OF THE SEVEN AND THE SCARLET LORD VOLSTROM, OPEN!’ the voice made Selena stop, feeling her heart stop as well.

Then came loud rapping at the door, and it was no bare fist that knocked, she knew, but the steel gauntlet of a Scarlet.

‘The door, Talin,’ her lips were whispering to her husband. ‘I am begging you.’

He shook his head and began going down the stairs.

‘I am here, I am coming, my friends!’ he outscreamed the rapping.

‘Go, go,’ Selena, pressed Line’s head down, forcing him to follow to the side of the stairs, into another corridor. Kitchen entrance, only fifty steps away from the stables. I am ready for this, I was, I am.

Her back to the main hall, she heard the front door opening and then then sound of heavy boots with steel tips on the wooden floor.

‘Good evening, friends,’ Talin’s voice spoke loudly.

‘Call your family down, Duke,’ a voice replied. Selena sensed no pity in it.

No matter. They passed the great kitchens, quiet and dark, finding their way between the stoves and basins and the furniture. Just a little more. She kicked at the door, weighty, warm wind blowing into her face, messing her long hair, and Syre’s curls.

‘Run, to the stables, boys.’

They did, and she ran after, as fast as she could, with Syre’s weight in her arms, around the corner of the manse, and along the wall

‘Mother, let me down, I can run,’ Syre said, but she only pressed harder. I will not let go. Not of my daughter. Not of my sons.

‘Ker!’ Selena called out in the darkness of the stables. ‘Ker, where are you?’

Where was the damned man? No, no, this could not end here.

‘Here, my lady duchess, I’m here,’ a man’s voice replied. ‘No light for being careful, but I have a horse ready, had her soon as I heard them pass the gates…’

Ker the stable master’s long shape appeared from the dark and she saw him cover his eyes at the sight of her. Stupid, stupid.

‘The horse, Ker.’

The Lady, the strong, mare, dark as the night Selena needed her for. She put Syre into the saddle and the girl held the reins, her eyes terrified, watching her mother. Ker lifted Line and then Bine, behind Syre and the twins clutched at each other and their sister’s shoulders.

‘Go. Go, my suns.’

Ker struck the Lady’s thigh and the mare rushed away. Lady knew her path, because Selena was ready for this. Selena followed after, running as quick as she could, tears drying on her face as soon as they fell under the heat.

Lady’s dark shape flew along the wall, almost invisible. Over a small stream and down the servant’s quarters alley. Only few more feet.

Another black shape, shape of a human, appeared before Lady suddenly, and there was a loud snap. Selena recognized it, but only moments later realized what it meant. The mare let out a neigh, a screech, a sound that could have deafened her, if it wasn’t for the screams. Her children’s screams – they screamed as the great horse fell under them on its side.

‘No, no, no,’ Selena whispered and ran, watching as the shapes of her children stirred by the horse’s unmoving body. She could hear only their cries now. Then there was steel at her chest, its touch a cold awakening. I lost.

‘I suggest you do not move any further, my lady duchess,’ the man spoke. He sheathed the sword, and dropped an unloaded crossbow to the ground. She watched him, shaking. Syre, Line and Bine were behind the man, on the ground, really unhurt, though their faces full of tears.

‘Here,’ the man said, taking off his cloak, revealing a dark breastplate with a darker mark of a lightning bolt on in. A mark that was Scarlet in the light, she knew. Then his cloak was around her, though she did not stop shaking. To her side, at the house’s front entrance came a dozen Scarlets, Talin in the midst of them.

‘Is this it?’

Selena knew the speaker. Ulin Goodnose, his nose fairer to his name above all measures, and so famous. Scum, a brute who rose high after Lord Redgar Rentlyn had left these lands.

‘I left Timen and Ves to search the underground chambers,’ a female’s voice replied. Selena knew its owner too, and suddenly there was hope. Adria Cairlen. They were friends through childhood. The woman’s gaunt face was watching her from under the cloak’s hood.

‘Adria…’ Selena began and stepped towards her, stopped momentarily, as a dagger sprung out from Ulin’s belt.

‘Do not move, lady duchess,’ he spat each word as if it was phlegm. Selena stopped and watched his eyes, hidden behind the great nose. She wanted a blade. She would gut him, if only she had one. Only she had none, she had nothing but a cloak that was not hers, and her tears. Also, her useless fat oaf of a husband.

Not completely useless.

‘How dare you stick your steel at my wife you son of a whore. She is the lady of these lands.’

‘Lady or not, she broke a law of the Seven, and you, my lord duke, I suspect, had been an accomplice,’ Ulin replied, and put away the blade. ‘Law is the same for a lord or a peasant. And it is simple enough. No harm will come to your wife or yourself.’

No harm.

‘Adria, please,’ Selena stretched her hand to the Scarlet woman. She was ready to beg her on her knees, if need be.

Adria looked like she did not hear.

‘I will help inside,’ Adria said, turned, and disappeared in the house, Selena’s hope turning and disappearing along.

Ulin walked to the children, and kneeled by Syre. His gloved hand fell on the girl’s back, stroking.

‘Do not touch her,’ Selena whispered. The good-nosed man gave no reply.

‘The law is simple, you know it, my lord, my lady,’ Ulin spoke. ‘Which will it be?’

Selena heard herself growl out something incoherent, as she broke through the hands that attempted to stop her. Then it was her hands that clawed at Ulin’s face. The man stumbled away and fell, Selena following on top of him. Her fingers were at the hilt of his dagger, when a dozen of arms dragged her away.

‘I WON’T LET YOU! I WON’T.’

Then she was on her knees, crying.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ someone said.

‘Which ones are the oldest?’

They were asking Talin now. Her face pressed to the ground, Selena looked at Syre, who hugged Bine, Line standing on his knees behind, hugging her in turn.

Her husband made not reply. She saw his eyes, dark holes on the pudgy face.

‘Which ones are the oldest? Let us waste no time, my lord,’ a Scarlet’s voice repeated.

‘It’s the boys. They are twins, don’t you see?’ Talin spoke at last.

Selena’s mouth gaped in a silent scream.

‘Take her.’

‘Come here.’

‘Good day, my lady. My lord.’

‘Get away from my bloody face, soldier.’

They left.

She could see the dark shapes in the moonlight, walking away, back to the road – road that curved north and then west. A long road west.

‘Mother?’

Bine’s arms were around her, and Line’s too. They faces, wet with tears pressed against her shoulders, their small bodies shaking. Selena stood up.

‘Sel…’ the fat man said. He stood away from her, and the boys, Ker and Tion, and other servants behind him.

Selena ignored him, giving a kiss to each of her sons, and rose, feeling her legs ready to break underneath.

On the porch stood a lone figure. Adria. Selena had nothing but poison in her mouth for the childhood friend, but she went anyways. Their eyes met, and there was pity in Adria’s. Yet the pity was worse than a sneer.

‘I could not help you, Sel. Law is law.’

‘I know,’ Selena replied, pushing the words against her will. She would not give the reason for the Scarlet woman to pity her anymore.

‘Good. You still have two boys. They will grow up strong and wise.’

Their father chose them, because she couldn’t. No mother should choose which child to give up. And now they were all she had left. Talin’s trueborn sons, his pride. What did he care for Syre, a daughter, a mistake, his wife’s folly?

‘I shall be going west, to the Hold myself. I will take good care of her, as much as I can afford it,’ Adria said, and stroked Selena’s shoulder. ‘I promise. For the sake of the old times, my friend.’

‘You are no friend. But I will take your promise. The least you can do.’

Adria gave her a crooked smile.

‘Who knows? Maybe you will see your daughter one day and a host of warriors behind her. Maybe she will be a great commander.’

The sickly, almost pathetic Syre, whom only a mother could love, as Talin once put it – a commander.

Selena looked away, to the road. The riders’ torches were blinking through the branches. "Farewell", they spoke.

‘Tell me,’ Selena said, turning to Adria again. ‘Who gave it away?’

‘I am afraid that is a matter of confidence,’ Adria chuckled. ‘I wonder what you would do to the poor fellow, if you found him.’

‘A fellow? No. It was the old widow Underwell, was it not?’

Adria’s eyes shifted and Selena knew she guessed right.

‘The widow? Is she even alive?’

‘It’s her, isn’t it?’

Adria put on her riding gloves. ‘I must go. Don’t do anything stupid, Selena. You are mad with grief, I know, but you have two boys and a bear of a husband to care for. Remember that, they need you. There will be a time for the tears, Sel.’

She walked to her horse, while Selena watched, the last words repeating in her head.

They need you.

There will be a time for the tears. There would be a time to see her sons rise strong and proud, to be vassals to Lord Redgar and Lady Nezarie. But there would not be a time to see her daughter grow, become a woman as Selena meant her to, a woman equally strong and proud, wise and kind.

After shrugging her fat husband’s hands from her shoulders, Selena went to the road, watching the flames at the foot of the hill disappear one by one. She whispered a promise unheard by anyone but herself.

There will be time for everything. But first, there was a debt to pay. And the one thing that Dalie, Lady Detha, another girl from the childhood dreams had taught her, was the Way of the Clans, those who lived east of the Brightset river, their skin brown or white or grey – it did not matter. And the Way said that one always paid their debt – men with metal and silver, women with caresses and gentle words. Then, as they lay on a the bank of a small stream, Dalie whispered into Selena’s ear – even though no other soul had been around to hear – that she disliked the Way’s saying. She rather preferred the men’s choice.

‘You would rather pay in gold and silver?’ Selena had asked her then, wondering more, whether the freckles she could see in the water were so large and ugly.

‘In iron and steel,’ Dalie had replied then, slapping the water, splashing all over Selena’s hair.

They had wrestled on the ground, laughing – Selena remembered that she won, proud of the victory even now, twenty five years gone since.

Iron and steel.

She met the dawn watching the road.

Blind King

The sound of steel meeting steel filled the space beneath the courtyard’s walls. Sniffing, Redgar could tell they were whelps before he looked - only whelps sweated under such frail blows. Each blow came slow, as though the combatants would, in turns, wait for each other to stop moving before striking.

Redgar squeezed between the stone blocks of the rampart and leapt down into the courtyard, landing in a crouch. The fighting ceased at once, both boys glaring at him through visors’ slits, blades lowered. He did not need to order – the first boy held out the sword hilt-first towards him, which Redgar accepted. He swept downwards at once. Blow landed upon the boy’s plated shoulder, causing him to fall on all fours with a yelp. Second blow knocked the weapon out of the other fighter’s hands, sending it flying into the wall. He swept down again.

‘Pathetic,’ he said, looking down at the groaning boys by his feet. Both were holding their shoulders.

‘Next time they should wear no armor, so the lesson sinks in a little better,’ a woman’s voice spoke and Redgar understood why he did not sense her coming – she carried no odor. He turned to face her. ‘Do you wear armor?’

‘Always, under the cloak. Western roads are unsafe even for a lady.’

‘Even? For a lady?’ With a single movement Redgar tossed the sword at her, and it landed by her feet, blade pointing away. ‘Who told you my Hold was any safer, lady?’

‘Your Hold? The Traitor’s Hold, you surely mean, his by your own word,’ the woman leaned forward and picked up the sword. She remained motionless then, while Redgar walked to the wall where the second weapon lay.

‘What’s his is mine, all the same,’ he grunted, bending down.

With the corner of his live eye he saw a grin appear on the lady’s face and her gloved fingers stiffen around the hilt.

‘I heard the Traitor allows no skirts inside these walls,’ she said. ‘Why did he permit you to enter?’

‘Your jests never change,’ Redgar replied, standing straight and smiled back. ‘Maybe the lessons didn’t sink in?’

She charged, passing the distance between them in three steps, her sword slashing at Redgar’s side, only to meet his own, which he gripped blade down. The brown in her eyes became the bronze of her skin, face a dark mask of a statue. Parry followed every blow, while she attacked, sword held by both hands. Redgar watched her.

Maybe her skill with the blade is a little better than her jokes. But she is still a woman. Weak.

Instead of parrying again, Redgar sent his sword in a swing against hers, blunted blades crashing into each other as a cross, then only one emerging whole. The woman let out a short cry of pain and her weapon, cut at the hilt clanked upon the yard’s floor, near its blade. The killing end of his sword to himself, Redgar struck her just where the neck met the chest. Staggering backwards, she gasped, while he followed, pushing her down and caged her wrists with his hands, pressing them to the stone. His knee, naked under the kilt, drove in between the woman’s thighs, dressed in soft wool of her dress.

‘Do you yield, lady?’

Redgar leaned closer to her, the live eye staring into her face which was no longer a mask of concentrated warrior but that of a frightened girl. He suddenly wanted to take her here, and now, and he would have considered it, if the two boys’ eyes were not upon them, following every movement. His knee slid further and he rubbed its end against the junction of her legs.

‘I doubt I will yield if you continue this, Lord Redgar,’ her voice was weak, breath heavy and even, which was surprising – the blunt strike to the throat often left men gasping for air still after hours passed.

‘Yield, woman.’

The next transformation on her face occurred and this time Redgar could tell it was no mask, but truly herself, Lady Dalie – there was familiar shine in her eyes – she was scared of him. As always. Never quite sure whether her kilted lord was only joking.

‘I yield, Lord Redgar,’ she said at last and he released her hands, bracelets of dark marks left around the wrists. Pushing against his bent knee, and feeling the pain in the back return once again, Redgar straightened up.

‘What are you staring at?’ he barked at the round-eyed boys, who still stood, helms in their hands, the plate armor upon their thin frames seeming a jester’s mockery now. At his words, the boys scattered in the direction of the barracks.

Still dazed, Lady Dalie brought her hand to his shoulder, stroking the muscle under the thin shirt. Redgar brushed the hand away.

‘Follow.’

He led her to the Eagle’s Watch, the westernmost bastion of the Scarlet Hold, up and up the long winding stairs, always looking down at his own steps. Last thing he needed now was a broken leg, and whoever built the damned citadel was sadistic enough to make every stair as twisted and thin as possible. Maybe this was the builder’s legacy – to be remembered (and damned) when another soldier slipped and fell and never walked again. A soldier, or an old man like me. And the damned back reminded him of the age now, worse than ever. He wanted to stop and rest, but the sight of Dalie, climbing behind, silent and probably still scared, made him push on. The woman breathed hard herself, however, which was of some consolation. Redgar frowned to himself at the thought – comparing himself to some girl - pathetic, is what it was. Truth is, Lady Dalie, or the Bitch Detha as he liked to call her in his thoughts wasn’t much of a girl, though he contemplated long whether she was still a maiden. Another truth was, he could have lain with her twenty years ago, when they were still children. But I didn’t, I married her sister instead. Not that it took away the opportunity to lay with Dal, but he still didn’t. He thought she wouldn’t object to a quick and meaningless shake now, if he suggested it, especially after he went really far with his knee at the training courtyard. But he didn’t suggest a damn thing. So he climbed, and the Bitch Detha followed.

‘I hope you are leading me to a room at the Eagle Rise, where there is a warm bed, and water and maybe some food,’ Dalie said when they reached yet another circular rampart. Below them was a four hundred-feet long fall.

Redgar was thankful for the moments of rest he was allowed.

‘There are no rooms at the Eagle Rise. Only an outlook hole that Scarlets never use. Last man who stayed over a night up there froze to death, even covered with a barbarian cloth’ coat. He fell out of the lookout nest and was found at the walls below. And that’s been fifty years ago.’

Dalie chuckled. ‘Remember how you almost froze to death? Only a day after the siege began.’

The woman adored reminding him of the times he was weak and pathetic. That seemed to be her job throughout his life. Remind him how he never got Nezarie heavy with a second child. Remind him how he lost the marching orders, was stalled and late for the Moor. Remind him how he almost froze to death. It was the dead winter’s blooming and the ground was god damn cold. Born in the Eastern Shores, he hadn’t even seen snow until coming down the Tear’s Path.

‘And we thought taking Moonbreg was the end of the war. Varland Dromo, that madman. Wanted a bloody siege to signify his existence somehow.’

‘Yes. But gods, Redgar, you were so...’ Dalie laughed again, and feeling she was about to remind him of something else, Redgar began climbing again.

‘So what?’

‘You were like a child. That hot bath Nezarie and I made for you, you remember? The look on your face when you saw it, I nearly gagged trying not to laugh.’

He was near death, and the hot bath Nezarie and Dal and half of the central camp readied for him after half a day’s work probably saved his life. Or at the very least his balls. But he learned. He lived in the cold – within and without for years now.

‘And what of you – I remember myself laughing damn hard when you fell of your horse when we sacked – what was the city called?’

‘Wolf’s Rest. The foot’s never healed, you know.’

‘Sorry to hear.’

He wasn’t.

A foot. What do I care for some foot? His right eye never healed either, and the left one became worse by the year. At first it drove Redgar mad – the notion of going blind, but now that the most he could see was a single step ahead of him and everything a blur an inch further, he thought he could cope. There were tales of blind blademasters in the south, among the Anru, not blind as he was, but completely eyeless. While it was doubtful that he could ever reach such level of mastery, it was well known that no man (none but one) could match Lord Redgar Rentlyn in Moonbreg’s arena until the coup with Nezarie and Dal. And if anything, with years he became only better – cold. Careful.

‘Watch your step here,’ Redgar said, pointing to the stairs behind him, where several stone blocks had fallen off. Dalie, being good two heads shorter than him, stopped before the spot, and he gave her his hand, pulling up and towards him. Though his arms had become used to weights long before his head to making sentences out of words, the woman felt heavy. So she did not jest about wearing armor.

Dalie looked back at the broken stair. ‘How do you expect me to get down?’

‘If you don’t, you spend the night up here.’

She chuckled, but said no more.

They were at the Eagle’s Rest after the next bridge of stairs. Above was them was only a circular spire, where the signal fires burned once. Redgar looked up to it.

‘The highest point in the Northplanes.’

Dalie leaned between the ramparts as tall as Redgar. ‘What a view.’

He stood beside her and nodded at the sea of absolute green that was the Midwoods – the Blood Woods, as barbarians called it, stretching to the horizon, smoking with mist.

‘In a year the Brewer will have the fire machines ready,’ Redgar said. ‘They will burn a path wide enough for the hosts to march. Scarlets, and Greys and the Cloak, cavalry and infantry.’

‘A path,’ Dalie hummed. ‘Did you bring me here to appreciate its length?’

Redgar watched Bitch Detha’s sneering face. The damned woman is too practical for her own good. She could appreciate the future path’s length all she liked, but she would never appreciate what it meant to stand here, where whole world lay before you, waiting.

‘No. I brought you here so you could appreciate the fall. It is a long fall.’

She stared at him, once more unsure whether his words were in jest. Redgar liked that. He made no threatening movement, but her hands came an inch closer to her belt, where a dagger could be kept, under the cloak. He liked that even more.

‘It is a long way down,’ Dalie said and took a small step backwards, her back to the massive block of the rampart. ‘For those who are uncareful enough to stand by the edge.’

‘And all the longer for those who are uncareful enough to climb higher,’ and he looked up to the lookout spire, where a man froze to death once.

‘You speak wisely, old friend.’

‘Not wise enough.’

Or I wouldn’t be near blind now.

‘Wise enough for the people to revere you. West of the great river you are the mightiest Lord the realm had ever seen. East - you are legend.

So she tries her flatters.

Redgar shook his head. ‘I would be foolish to believe that, Dal. All that people will remember me for is the damn law you and others pushed so long to reinstate. Lord Redgar Rentlyn, the child thief. A good legacy to leave, you think?’

‘Hard times pass, and with them the need for the children to be turned Scarlet. Once the west is dealt with…’

‘May be. May be not. May be west will never be dealt with. Ten years past, hard times are as hard as they were. I hadn’t commanded a host since the siege of the Hold, you know?’

It was true. The confusion that was his host at the Moor was best left unremembered.

‘But you will command the hosts that will go west, through Midwoods, once the path is burned.’

Redgar shrugged.

‘And I am still the reaver old Rames cast me as. A reaver on the throne of the Eye. And truth is – I was never meant to rule.’

Dalie did not reply, and looked away, and Redgar understood that she agreed.

‘You were. You and your sister both meant to be. And I am no father. Ruined my son, I did, don’t argue,’ Redgar said.

‘You underestimate yourself,’ Dalie said and put her palm around his, managing to squeeze two fingers. ‘Come the Council, you will see that you rule just fine, and you are not alone in it. I, and sister, and others will help you with everything.’

Redgar shook his head. ‘I will not be returning to Moonbreg. My place is here, Dal. I will be taking a raiding force at dawn and into the Midwoods.’

‘You cannot be serious. The Council...’

‘You can manage the Council… just fine. I have already decided,’ it was his time to squeeze her hand, which felt limp. ‘You are cold. There is something else I need to show you. I will ask you to be my courier today. Come.’

When they were in the Traitor’s round chamber, Dalie asked him if she could spend a night here – there was the only decent bed in the Hold. Redgar refused. I rather like the bed.

‘No. I need you to ride out today.’

‘As you wish, my lord,’ she bowed mockingly.

Redgar sat at the huge, paper-filled table and rolled a parchment into a thin scroll. ‘Sit and listen.’

She did, leaning back, looking him into the live eye, that she knew could not look back over the table. He knew she knew. His wife did not, but the Bitch Detha did.

‘I want this given to Nezarie.’

‘Of course.’

‘Sealed.’

He picked up the seal, the tower-shaped device, big even for his own hand, and pressed it into melting wax.

‘Anything for my dear sister,’ Dalie smiled.

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise, Redgar.’

‘Good,’ he passed the seal to Dalie and held the scroll at the sides before her. She stamped it hard.

‘There is more to consider. Have this.’

A child thief and a reaver. This is how they will remember me.

She left only an hour later.

The next visitor did not arrive late.

‘Are you truly a Knight?’ Redgar wondered, watching the man who sat across the table from him, where several hours ago Bitch-Detha sat. ‘I only ask because the task I have for you may require more than your masters could ever teach you.’

‘I am a Knight, my lord,’ the young man who named himself Knight Sandeian shifted in his chair, looking intimidated. This was fine. ‘I would ask you not to judge me by my age. Knight Penn would vouch for me in Lord Volstrom’s absence.’

‘He did vouch for you, though even so, I have my doubts. Have you been beyond the Midwoods? Have you been to the Stair of the barbarian land?’

‘Twice, my lord. Twice alone.’

Then Perle was not wrong to recommend you.

‘I travel fast and light. I know the Blood River, every foot of its path.’

‘I know none of the river’s path, but my blade knows a sure way to any man’s heart. Tell me, when many a fate would depend on you and you alone passing through the Midwoods safely, would you be ready to protect yourself?’

The young Knight shifted again. ‘I would hate for you to think me an empty boast, my lord. Yet you would not find a better man. Three days each way is all I take to cross. Three days and two nights.’

‘Fair enough,’ Redgar leaned forward, handing Knight Sandeian a letter. ‘Take this to our mutual friend in Moonbreg. He will have my answers ready at once. After that, you ride to me.’

His mind imagining what was going through the Bitch Detha’s head now, Redgar found his way to the citadel’s base again, where an old friend waited.

An old friend. He followed Perle across the bridge drawn over a moat of ice. The short man stepped carefully, threatening frosted stone under his coarse boots made for snow, and Redgar made sure to do so too.

‘All I can say, it will be an honor to ride with you again, old friend,’ Perle let out a cloud of air. His long nose sniffed. ‘There is a stench of burning in the air from your words. Many a village shall burn as we ride.’

‘I left a path of burning villages behind me in the summer of the Coup.’

‘Aye, the Berserker’s Crossing shall long be remembered, by both sides alike,’ his friend’s grin reminded him of the years of his boyhood. Perle aged well – he seemed still a youngster at forty – eyes bright blue on clear brown skin. Though perhaps he shaved his head to hide a bald spot. Redgar ran fingers through his own hair, stripes his wife had tied slipping in between. At least I kept his mane, if not my eyes.

‘You know I hated that name. The Berserker,’ Redgar spoke, looking up, where pieces of steel jingled, shaken by a slight rush of wind.

‘Why? It suits you well, I think.’

‘I thought so too. Intimidating. I thought so until I found out that this was what the few closest Scarlets had called great Savion Nerron during his final days.’

‘So they did? And so what? The man was great in his ways, I doubt even you would deny it.’

He was great all right.

‘I would not deny it.’

Perle shrugged. ‘Nerron was defeated. You took off his head. His title should be yours regardless.’

Redgar stared away, following a blurry line of the hills along the Tear’s Path. Does it matter, the truth? Does it matter when everyone believes Nerron dead? When Nerron’s Battleplate, the near-legendary armor of the Nerrons now hangs on the cross by the bridge to the Scarlet Hold as a symbol of the Old King’s greatest champion’s fall?

He closed his dying eyes.

His sword’s blade enters Nerron’s stomach, covered only with light mesh of chain mail, following upwards for the full four feet. Nerron’s body becomes limp at once, sliding onto him and backwards, as he releases the sword. The King’s champion is at his feet, even as the battle burns on. Too simple. He does not believe it. He does not want to, as he waited for so long for this moment to come. He tears the spiked helm from Nerron’s head, and examines the face’s features. The sight is almost relieving. Though he still has a responsibility to keep to his men, to his land. He severs the man’s head with a single blow, and then throws it into the crowd of his soldiers fighting the few remaining Scarlets. In the darkness, among hundreds of mangled bodies, it would not be accounted for. Holding Nerron’s helm, he walks through the battle and to the great gates of the King’s keep, open, inviting him in.

‘I have more than the battle at the King’s gates to get even for with Savion,’ Redgar spoke at last.

Perle smiled. ‘Old wounds heal slowly.’

‘Old wounds are old because they don’t heal at all.’

‘He is dead, Redgar. Maybe you will have a second revenge for the wounded pride in another life, in another world.’

A good prospect, given my circumstances.

‘Aye. Maybe so.’

Perle looked up to the hanging armor parts.

‘Did you know this isn’t Nerron’s?’ he said.

‘I did not. The Eye’s orders do not count for much now, don’t they?’

‘Volstrom is the Scarlet Lord now, that order issued by the Eye is respected at least,’ Perle laughed. ‘He had this taken down once he took office after the Moor. Ordered to hang Vromo’s instead.’

‘So he did? A strange thing.’

‘Doubt Lord Volstrom knew Vromo had opened his veins when he took the moat and the first wall.’

Doubt Volstrom knew who wore Nerron’s Battleplate on the night of the King’s fall either.

‘He had the Battleplate cleaned and restored, and put in a safe place somewhere in the underground chambers,’ Perle added. ‘Seemed like he had great respect for the man.’

‘Many did.’

‘It is so.’

Redgar put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

‘We shall be gone on the morrow. Do you have your thirty?’ he asked

‘I do. Only a few of them green, but even those are ones I can trust,’ Perle replied.

‘Good. And I can trust you,’ Redgar said. ‘Find two more Knights with schooled thirties. We ride a hundred strong. Hard and fast.’

‘Will do, old friend.’

‘And Den...’

‘Aye?’

‘Promise me a swift death-’

The familiar grin appeared on Perle’s face again. ‘-and the slowest of the climaxes-’

‘-when all time stops, and-’

‘-you know that the life is well-spent.’

‘Well spent, old friend,’ Redgar nodded.

Lord Traitor

‘You are leaving already,’ the woman said. He could see her silhouette in the darkness – she lay on the bed, legs spread at the knees.

‘I have to,’ Beron replied, as he felt the sharp and thick stubble on his chin. And I have shaved clean every morning for over four years now.

‘It is still dark,’ she paused. ‘I really missed you.’

‘I missed you too, Kelin,’ he said, smiling. Where were the damn boots now?

‘Then stay. Just an hour more. I want you again.’

‘I need to go. We have had plenty of each other. I remember coming here two days ago, and I was not naked.’

He heard Kelin laugh. It was quiet laugh he loved since they were both children.

‘I will never have enough of you, my lord Volstrom.’

Sighing, he sat on the bed and took her face in his hands. There was a single kiss, long enough to make him want her once again – yet he had to leave.

‘When will I see you again?’ Kelin asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Beron said. ‘I don’t know. I will come when I come.’

‘I want you and I to come now.’

He shook his head in disbelief. How could she make him blush even now, after so long?

‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll come for you. With your son. I love you, Volstrom, you know that?’

‘I think so, yes,’ Beron spoke and before any more words could delay him, rushed out.

He ordered the first guard he saw outside to give him the boots. Round eyed, the man did as he was told.

‘And make sure the lady has what she needs,’ Beron added. ‘But not in the meaning you first thought of. Because then I’d take your head off.’

The guard saluted. ‘Yes, my lord Beron.’

The boots felt uncomfortable, a little too small for the man of his size. Beron was not tall, like his blood brother Verion, but much wider and more muscular. To add to the discomfort, everything in his groin was swollen, which was no surprise. Two days and two nights he spent in Kelin’s bed, with only interruptions for cold meals and hot baths in the morning and in the evening. The woman was so thirsty for what he had, it felt like her thighs really have waited wait for him four years. Maybe they have. Even knowing Kelin my whole life I would not be able to tell.

He was at the white mass Sunken Hall minutes later – it stood at the lowest point of the by-water district, inside a round square, like a pearl hidden inside river mud. A line of guards stood upon the step of tall marble stairs, each one bowing low, as Beron had walked, sulking, by them. He was too sweaty to be in a good mood. At least with Kelin by his side, the sweat was almost pleasant.

Agrel, the black-haired captain in full ceremonial armor stood at the top of the stairs. ‘The lords await you, my lord Volstrom.’

Two soldiers pushed large wooden doors inside, opening a great white hall before him. There were no sources of light save for the sun rays that came through the grated roof, making the white floor seem like a board of chess. Beron walked several feet inside