The Marus Manuscripts (19 page)

“I know, but—”

The door suddenly blew open, the curtains were ripped from their flimsy rods, and light poured in. They all covered their eyes and, when they could see again, the shack was as it had been when they arrived. The Old Judge was gone, leaving only a trace in the memory that he had ever been there at all.

General Liddell was obviously shaken. He helped King Lawrence to his feet. “Sire, we must go,” he said.

“Yes, we must,” the king agreed.

Kyle considered making a dash for the door, but the two men blocked the way. General Liddell guided the king out, and Kyle hoped they had forgotten him. Suddenly the king reached back, catching Kyle by the shoulder. “You’re coming with us,” King Lawrence snarled. “Your power as protector might be greater than his power as a prophet.”

“No!” Kyle cried, struggling against him.

The king leered at him, madness gathering like foam at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll be my lucky charm!” he shouted.

General Darien and his soldiers had left to fight the Palatians. Anna, along with the rest of the civilians, packed a few provisions for the journey back to the Territory of Peace. She had just put her hands on a few of Kyle’s belongings when the vision came. It hit her like a lightning bolt, and she fell to the floor. She saw Anastasia’s shack, and in it were Anastasia, King Lawrence, General Liddell, Kyle, and the Old Judge. She heard every word of condemnation the Old Judge passed on to the king. She felt the burning fury of the Old Judge’s anger. Yet behind it, she also felt sadness and disappointment.

Then it was gone.

Her mind raced to interpret what she’d seen. Surely it wasn’t real. How could the Old Judge, who was dead, be in the shack with the king and General Liddell? And what was Kyle doing there? The dream was all mixed up, as if someone had thrown images together in the wrong place.
It wasn’t a dream,
she decided.
I’m just worried about Kyle.

From outside, she heard a shot and a scream. Then the sound of horses’ hooves came in like thunder.
Another dream?
she wondered as she looked out the window.

It wasn’t a dream. The Adrians were attacking.

G
athered together in the Lizah Hotel, Anna and the rest of the civilians—some 200 people in all—found themselves guarded by Adrian soldiers. Apart from being pushed and shoved, no one was hurt. One of the community leaders, an old man named Morlock, demanded to know why they were being held. The guards refused to answer; instead they gestured with their guns.

Early afternoon, a commotion arose by the hotel front door. A moment later, Baron Orkzy walked in. His normal composure was replaced by breathless worry. His hair was tousled, his clothes askew. He’d obviously been manhandled, though Anna couldn’t imagine anyone being large enough to do such a job.

The baron asked everyone to gather around. Then he addressed them, punctuating his comments with flutters of his handkerchief. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been asked to explain your situation,” he said. “As it stands now, you’re being held hostage.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” Morlock snapped.

“Please don’t interrupt,” the baron replied wearily. “You’re being held hostage as a bargaining tool. General Darien will be intercepted and given a message from my Adrian rulers. Essentially, the message will inform him that if he does not return to Lizah immediately, you will all be killed.”

Several women cried out. Someone began to sob.

“Now, now, none of that,” the baron said. “My Adrian leaders aren’t really interested in hurting you.”

“What
are
they interested in?” Morlock asked.

“They’re interested in keeping General Darien and his soldiers from helping King Lawrence. By using you as collateral, they have a good chance of succeeding.”

Morlock refused to yield. “What makes you so sure General Darien will come back? He may choose his duty to the king over our lives.”

The baron sniffed. “That would be most regrettable since, if he doesn’t return, you
will
die.”

Morlock quickly stepped forward, a knife in his hand. “What will stop us from taking
you
hostage?”

The baron looked at Morlock’s face, down at the knife, then back at his face. “You old fool,” he said angrily, “I’m already a hostage! Don’t you understand? This whole business wasn’t
my
idea. I’m only the messenger. Now I have to wait here with you for Darien’s return. So put that little blade away like a nice little man, and stop being so overdramatic.”

Morlock’s face turned red against his white beard, but he put the knife away. “What do we do now?” he asked glumly.

“Wait for Darien’s answer,” the baron said. “And hope that this hotel has decent coffee.”

A couple of hours passed. Anna sat alone in a red velvet chair to the side of the hotel lobby. She read portions of the Sacred Scroll, prayed, then read some more. She dreamed without sleeping, a variety of images clearly presented and understood.

A blast of cologne suddenly filled her nostrils, and she looked up. The baron stood over her.

“May I sit with you for a moment?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He sat down next to her. Even then he was as tall as she. “You’re one of those . . . oh, what do they call them? A
voice.
For the Unseen One. Do you know what Darien will do?”

Anna did. She had already seen the Adrian messenger stop
Darien and the troops. She decided not to say so, though. “General Darien is torn between his duty to the king and his love for the people here,” she offered.

“I know that,” the baron said. “But will he come?”

“I cannot answer that,” Anna replied.

“Because you don’t know or because you won’t say?”

Anna gazed at him without answering.

The baron examined his fingernails for a moment. Then he asked, “What will become of the king?”

Anna’s heart ached, as if somehow she shared in the pain and disappointment the Unseen One felt at that moment, like a father who had to punish a rebellious child. “The king will suffer the full consequences of his faithlessness.”

The baron let the subject drop. Then, as if he’d just remembered something else, he said, “You have a brother. Where is he? Did he go with Darien?”

“No,” Anna said, her eyes starting to burn. “He is with the king.”

The baron lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, dear. What will happen to him?”

“He will go home.”

The battle against the Palatians was a catastrophe from the start. King Lawrence ignored his generals’ advice to spread his battalions out over strategic areas to the south, west, and north of Kellen. He thought they would be more effective as one solid army, concentrating on the Palatian troops to the west. This allowed the Palatians to circle from the south and southwest, while the Monrovians and Adrians circled in from the north and northwest. Prince Edwin of Gotthard hastily assembled his army and cut off part of the Monrovian and Adrian forces, but it wasn’t enough.

King Lawrence found himself outflanked and outmaneuvered in the Valley of the Rocks. Where he had once trapped General Darien, he was now himself trapped. The Palatians bombarded the king and his soldiers with cannon fire, then moved in for hand-to-hand combat.

Kyle witnessed it all firsthand. The king would not let Kyle out of his sight after they left Anastasia’s shack. “You’re my lucky charm,” he said over and over.

Kyle explained in despair that he wasn’t anyone’s lucky charm. “I’m just a kid,” he insisted.

“You protected General Darien,” the king said. “You’ll protect me.”

“I can’t,” Kyle pleaded. But his words had no effect. The king dressed Kyle as one of his attendants and insisted that the boy stay nearby wherever he went. That included the battle against the Palatians.

The Palatians broke through the front lines of the Marutian army and aggressively made their way along the edges of the Valley of the Rocks toward the Royal Guards—those who were committed to protecting the king. The Royal Guards fell quickly at the hands of the Palatians. The king’s sons, including Prince George, rushed to counterattack. Kyle saw the Palatians strike them down.

King Lawrence watched from his hiding place, his sword drawn. “Tell me what to do!” he commanded Kyle.

“I don’t know!” Kyle cried.

The king grabbed him. “Then we’ll run.”

Blindly, they stumbled through the passages and crevices of the rocks, the roar of cannons and gunfire in their ears. No matter how far they went, however, the Palatians’ shouts seemed close behind. Somehow they wound up at the very cave that Darien had found months before. It seemed like such a long time ago, Kyle thought.

“Maybe they won’t find us here,” the king said breathlessly, panic in his eyes.

Kyle fell to the floor of the cave. It was muddy and cold. “Help me!” he prayed to the Unseen One. “I don’t deserve it, but please help me.”

The Palatians were coming. Kyle could hear their voices echoing in the rocks around the cave.

“Tell me,” the king said to Kyle, “are we safe here?”

Kyle shook his head and began to cry. “I don’t know!” he said.

The king slapped him. “Prophesy for me! You’re supposed to be my protector! Tell me your dreams!”

Kyle put his face in his hands.

The Palatians weren’t far from the mouth of the cave now. Kyle felt sick to his stomach, but it wasn’t a warning. He knew they were doomed.

The king looked around, wild-eyed. “They can’t capture me!” he shouted. “They’ll humiliate me—torture me. I can’t be captured!” He thrust his sword handle at Kyle. “As soon as they arrive, you have to kill me.”

“No!” Kyle said, pushing the handle away. “I won’t.”

“You have to!” King Lawrence demanded.

Kyle refused.

Just then, a Palatian soldier appeared at the mouth of the cave. King Lawrence drew his pistol and shot him. Kyle scrambled behind a nearby rock for cover.

“You won’t have me!” the king shouted to the Palatians. He followed Kyle and begged, “Please, take my life! Don’t let me die in dishonor!”

Kyle looked helplessly at the king. “No. I can’t!”

The king leaned against the cave wall, looking like a puppet that someone had casually thrown there. “This is the end,” he said
mournfully. “Oh, that it should come to this!” A tear slid down his face. “This is what it’s like to die as a coward, without faith. May the Unseen One forgive me.” He lifted the pistol and put it to the side of his head.

Kyle realized too late what was about to happen. He turned away as the king pulled the trigger. The sound of the blast exploded through the cave.

Kyle didn’t remember much after that. He crawled away from the king on his hands and knees, the mud on the cave floor sticking to him like tar. His body convulsed from his sobs. With little strength left, he got to his feet. The Palatians were in the cave now. One raised the butt of his rifle and brought it crashing down on Kyle’s back. The pain shot through his body and he thought,
This is what it’s like to die as a coward. Without faith.
His mind was filled with images of pirates and adventure, of abandoned houses and a room with whispering voices, of guardian angels and being chosen by the Unseen One.
I was going to be a hero
, he thought.
But I didn’t have patience. I didn’t have faith.

He closed his eyes as stars spun in his head. For a moment he thought he saw Anna peering at him through a hole in a ceiling.

Anna didn’t tell Baron Orkzy what Darien had decided because she didn’t want to spoil the element of surprise. She feared that the baron might blab to the Adrians that Darien was coming back to rescue them. As it turned out, the baron had bribed one of the guards and departed long before Darien’s return.

Darien and his army didn’t approach Lizah by the normal route. They circled around the south of the town, to the west, and caught the Adrian soldiers completely unawares. Darien’s attack was swift and merciless. The Adrians who managed to escape told of the
“mad Marutian general” for years to come. Others called it “Darien’s Fury.”

Darien never forgave the Adrians for the deception that took him away from the king in his hour of need.

Anna was still sitting in the red, velvet chair in the lobby of the Lizah Hotel when Darien and a handful of men burst in. The hostages cheered him. He ignored them and went straight to Anna. He knelt in front of her, his face dripping with sweat, his eyes a picture of worry.

“Well?” he asked.

“The king is dead,” she said in a voice that seemed far, far away.

Darien lowered his head. When he looked up again, the sweat had been replaced with tears. They traced lines through the dust on his cheeks.

Colonel Oliver suddenly joined them. “General, we just heard on the shortwave,” he said. “Our armies were defeated. Prince George was fatally wounded . . . and the king has been killed.”

Somewhere in the room, a shout of joy went up.

Darien leaped to his feet and furiously cried out, “No! Be quiet, all of you! There’ll be no joy. We’ll have no celebration. The king—God’s chosen—is dead. Let there be mourning and lamentation. Our king is dead.”

The crowd was silenced, and the people slowly made their way out of the hotel.

“We must go to Sarum,” Colonel Oliver said softly to Darien. “The nation needs your leadership now.”

Darien looked at Anna. “Is it true?” he asked.