The Axe and the Throne (55 page)

Keethro wasted no time. He sprinted as well, blinking his eyes free of grit. His target was the five-man crew that was closest to being ready to fire another arrow. Despite their extra members, they had neglected to light the tip of their projectile, and the less-impressive arrow was placed into the waiting machine, ready to be fired. Keethro let his final axe fly at the man responsible for aiming the wooden beast. The axe handle slammed the intended target on the top of the head, dazing him. The other men fought to fire the weapon, but with the semi-lucid man vying to do the same, they botched the attack, firing with the machine pointed at an awkward angle and missed completely. Keethro only had a moment to congratulate himself for achieving such a throw while half-blinded and running at full speed. He turned his attention to the next group of men who were trying to finish loading, but Titon was already on top of them as they fumbled with the heavy arrow.

Keethro jumped over the machine that last fired, and its crew scattered and ran—only to find that the giant doors behind them had been closed after the crazed warhorse had run back inside with rider still in tow. He grabbed the first man he could, who shrieked—not unlike a Dogman—as Keethro grappled with him to remove his helmet, then used it to cave in his head. Titon launched an assault on the other men and managed to grab two at once. With one in each hand, he raised them in the air by their throats, choking them until their windpipes caved. Keethro continued to give chase to the men one by one, still using the helmet to end them, while Titon had decided to use a giant dragon arrow as a spear.

The only ones screaming more loudly than the men they killed were those in the stands. The sound was like nothing Keethro had heard before, and knowing that it was in celebration of his victory felt not much different than when he was with a woman. To have gone from almost certain death—a death that was so eagerly anticipated and cheered for by a horde of bloodthirsty strangers—to winning the support of those very masses that had craved his humiliating defeat… It was something that even the thrill of victory in a battle against incredible odds simply could not compare.

Three men had managed to escape the lower ground between the dragons and the doors and ran to midfield. Keethro expected them to arm themselves with the weapons that had been dropped, but they did no such thing. They merely continued to run, and Keethro spat in the dirt in disgust. “Titon,” he called. “Over here.”

Titon finished his kill by cranking the neck of a man under his arm so savagely that his head would have surely come off if not for the unbroken skin. He came to Keethro and appeared delighted when he saw what he had in mind.

“I watched them do it. You arm it like this.” Keethro demonstrated on one of the machines and Titon quickly followed suit on another. The spearmen on the other side of the field must have remained, not allowing the dragons' keepers to escape into the safety of the lower ground. It took Keethro and Titon some time to impale all three men—eight shots in total—and it was as enjoyable for them as it must have been for the onlookers who celebrated each success.

The cheers slowly morphed into a chant. It was difficult to make out what they said as it echoed and reverberated, but Keethro soon heard it clear.

“Northman! Northman! Northman!” sounded the chant of countless voices.
It is not Northmen they say, it is Northman.
But Keethro was not about to pity himself. It was good just to be alive, and more importantly, to have been with Titon as he achieved his glory.
You deserve it, my friend.

The chanting stopped with a suddenness that foreboded danger. A single man draped in a large cape stood in the lowest seats of the midfield—not the one who had done the earlier announcing—and with a single raised finger he had brought the entire arena to silence. Keethro's elation was snuffed as he recalled his thoughts about the men powerful enough to create such monstrous walls, and he feared being crushed by such a man more now than ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drip…drip, drip…drip, drip.
That erratic sound was all that could be heard since Cassen's strange and quiet departure. He'd looked almost morose to Alther, a look that Alther might have been able to take pleasure in under other circumstances, seeing that pompous man in mourning, but certainly not after he'd just begged the man to protect his wife and daughter.

Back and forth Alther rocked on the floor—not out of some madness that had taken him, but because the motion was the best he could do to soothe his mind. And nonetheless, back and forth his mind went, replaying Cassen's words and expressions, attempting to decipher their true meaning. When that failed, Alther then resorted to assigning blame to those most responsible for this tragic state.

The dungeons had not been so quiet his entire stay, a duration that he had lost all reckoning of. Sometime before Cassen's visit a man had been dragged into a cell, screaming and fighting. The man was irate, if not gripped in full by lunacy, and he yelled endlessly for hours approaching on days. His voice filled the vaults, echoing off the wet walls and gliding with freedom through the bars of every cell, preventing Alther from being able to think or sleep. Finally, some men clad in coin purses or chainmail, probably the latter, came to silence him. How Alther missed that man, whose insanity would now be so welcome a diversion.

All that was left to do was throw names and scenarios haplessly around in his mind, none of which were any good, neither past nor present. His father and Cassen were the two that plagued him most, aside, of course, from himself. Alther could not deny that he had a hand, either in action or deliberate inaction, in every event that had led to this: a meaningless existence that would stretch for eternity in this cell. Ethel's life would be in peril just by her close association to him as her stepfather, and his wife remained imprisoned for all he knew. “The Mighty Three hate a coward, boy.” It was a lesson his father had tried to drill into both him and Edwin. A lesson learned far too late, in Alther's case.

Even if Stephon did release Crella, Alther knew their angry, fickle son might send her right back to confinement once she overstepped his new authority as king.
Angry and fickle
, thought Alther.
Those words are a kindness to the boy.
How was it that he and Crella had raised such a charming young woman and such a cold, detached boy right beside her? Again, it seemed to come down to Alther's own contribution: half the boy's blood. Ethel, the product of incest, had better breeding than the one Alther had sired.

Something grabbed hold of Alther, a distant sound. A sweet, alluring aberration from the monotonous dripping. He strained to listen, cupping his hands around his ear and pressing hard against the iron bars.

There were men approaching, many men. Heavy men by the sound of it. Alther thought he could feel their steps through the ground, the vibrations traveling up the bars to tingle the ridges of his hands. It would be foolish and gravely disappointing to hope they were here for him, but perhaps they might have come at least for someone in a nearby cell, or better yet, to bring in a new arrival. Maybe the person would be housed in a cell farther down than Alther. It was yet to happen, but it would be a treat: to actually see another prisoner, to put a face to the man before he began his childlike pleas for lawful justice. It was too much to ask for, Alther knew, but he could not shake the hope that the man brought might be crazy like that other one, requiring not just jailing, but confinement in chains to a cell wall, a perch from which he would sing to Alther for a few blissful hours.

Alther's spirits lifted further as he heard pieces of some sort of disagreement brewing down the end of the long hall.

“…I assure you I had no idea… I was merely doing my job…”

The voice had worry in it…grave worry…mortal worry. But it was not the voice of a prisoner; Alther could tell that much from the sound of it. It was an older man's voice, a familiar one. Alther had heard it before and while down here, he believed. It never spoke many words, but the words had always been spoken with some level of authority or humor. Alther wished he had been more attentive when they'd first brought him here. He'd been so consumed with anguish that he had not even made note of those he passed—not prisoners, not gaolers, not guards.

“Your Grace, I beg you…for over thirty years I've served…”

Your Grace? Is the king here? Could it be Stephon?

“Your Gr—”

The man's pleas were cut short by pained grunts, but little else could be heard over the sound of moving chainmail.

The men came now, marching down the hall, bringing with them answers and more entertainment. Alther buzzed with excitement, tainted only ever so slightly with the concern that their visit could somehow worsen his current situation. It was hard to fathom.

“Your kerchief,” demanded one of the men. Alther knew that voice without question.

Stephon was the first to step into view, wiping his foil clean of what could only be blood, mentioning something to one of his many followers about a scabbard of exotic leather.

To see his face was enough to crush Alther, to put him on his knees. Stephon had not always been contemptible—that realization swept Alther as he saw him. He had been no worse than any other boy in his younger years, and father and son had enjoyed their time spent together. His memories with Stephon play-fencing with wooden rapiers and building shelters in the forest gardens of Adeltia were far better than any he could remember sharing with his own father.
How had I forgotten? And has Stephon remembered as well?
It was suddenly conceivable that all Stephon had needed was the authority that he'd always craved, and after having it, could have become a fair man, if not a bit overzealous with the pursuit of his own form of justice.

“Father, I have come to free you.”
It was all Stephon would need say to give Alther a chance at redemption. Stephon would have his throne and Alther would have his wife and daughter. Truth be told, it would be little different than when his father yet lived—a thought that sobered Alther.

“Alther,
get up
.”

How many times Stephon had given him the command, Alther could not determine, but his son looked far from happy having to repeat himself. Alther stood and instinctively stepped back from the bars.

“How does it feel to be a prisoner?” asked Stephon.

He looked healthy in spite of his time spent imprisoned.
The boy has a certain fortitude to him
, Alther thought with pride. To know his son had endured the dungeons without withering to the decrepit, rocking man he himself had become was a relief on some level.
I should have come to visit him.
He'd had his reasons for not doing so—it would have only angered him more, it would have hurt his chances of ever being freed, and so on, but Alther always had reasons to justify his inactivity.
Now I know how much he must have craved a familiar face.

“I know the feeling well,” continued Stephon. “I spent a good many nights in such confinement. Much longer than you have…thus far.”

Alther looked at the men surrounding his boy. Seven men, heavy clad in plate and mail, but no helms. Their expressions ranged from deadly serious: those who looked to be members of The Guard, to smirks: those who looked to be recently appointed Adeltian knights, and the Adeltian knights outnumbered those of The Guard.

“I am sorry, Stephon, I never meant to wrong you. Your imprisonment was your grandfather's doing. I specifically—”

“You were specifically happy enough to let me rot in a cell. Do not hide behind your father's cape. You may find it is no longer an effective tactic now that you've killed him.”

“I did not mean to kill him.”

Stephon snorted. “You Redrivers are all the same. You fail to hold yourselves accountable for your actions. What you did to Lyell was cowardly, but I'd expect no different from you. You blather endlessly about justice and honor, yet you only fancy one or the other when it serves your purposes. Tell me, Alther, where was the
honor
in ravaging Adeltia? In slaughtering the men, violating the women, and throwing the queen from her tower? What crime did she commit? How was
justice
served there?”

Alther had no response, and again, it was he who was responsible. Had Crella and her aunt found him to be a worthy groom, there would have been no war. But Alther was also stunned to silence by the change in his son. This was not the slack-jawed Stephon who had been dragged down the king's study.

“But I have not come here to condemn you for your father's crimes. If there is one thing I have learned from you—one thing that I have found to be so deplorable, so vile, that I have taken note of it in you, so that I should never make the mistake of mirroring it—it is this: that there may be no worse a quality in a man than the utter passivity you possess.” Stephon let his words linger for a moment. “In truth, I do not feel as though I have ever even had such a tendency within myself. I am a man of action, most
unlike
you.” Stephon stepped forward and put a hand on a bar. “Which brings me to a more important issue…

“As I have already promised, I am not here to condemn you for the actions of your father. You say you never meant to wrong me. Well, I find that to be as contemptible a lie as any man has ever spoken. And I wish for you to confess.”

Alther searched the depths of his mind, something he was already well acquainted with, given his setting. Of the many things he had found to hate himself for, he had not uncovered any dishonesty toward his son. There was the time he kept the truth about the baker's son's parentage from Stephon, but surely that could not be what he spoke of.

“I honestly do not know what you want me to confess. I failed you as a father, by being so weak a man, that I admit, but I—”

“As a
father
? How can you remain so audacious from within a cell?”

Alther could only look at him, stupefied.

“You were
never
a father to me, because you are
not
my father
. I've heard as much from your own mouth.”

Stephon had cried out similar things before, in anger, but Alther had never thought he meant it literally. It was hard to believe he did now. This all seemed some sort of show for him to gain the respect of his Adeltian cohorts. Stephon had always preferred the ways and traditions of his mother's kingdom.

“Stephon, I know—with certainty—that you are my son. I see the best and worst of myself within you, and I blame myself—”

“I warn you,” said Stephon with a raised finger. “Do not take that tone. Lies, it seems, are all you can spout. You
pity
me? The king? No. You grovel to me. You do as I say, as I command, and you hope that I do not take offense to the way in which you have done so.”

Humility. The one thing his father had unintentionally taught Alther was the very thing his son lacked so thoroughly that it threatened to destroy a kingdom. Lyell had insisted the boy be trained in the Rivervalian custom—with swords of true steel, the swords that saw Alther battered and bruised as a child. In this solitary thing, Alther had refused his father with uncharacteristic courage, not wanting his son to endure the pain that he had. Stephon had been trained as an Adeltian fencer instead, learning the dances of civilized combat that resulted in little more than bruised egos, and in Stephon's case, not even that, for he was exceptional at the sport.

Looking at the smirks on the faces of the Adeltian knights—not fencers, for even Adeltians knew their military could not be composed of dancing men with sharp needles—Alther decided to take another tack.

“Have you thought this through, Stephon? If you are not my son, you have no claim to the throne. My sister, Aileana, would be the rightful heir.”

Stephon laughed at him, stepping backward and spreading his hands to either side. “Look around you.” He motioned toward one of the stern-looking members of The Guard. “To you, this man may look an impartial member of The Guard, a Protector of the Realm. But he is an
Adeltian
man, same as the others. Tell me, who do you think here has any impulse to follow the lineage of some murderous foreign people? Do you see any Rivervalian men in power before you?”