The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One (29 page)

“By the talons of Elon…” Brook whispered.

The fat man giggled, a high-pitched chiming of bells. “Ah, the false god, Elon. You must be a Black Wing, yes? Your name is... Brook, yes? But where is your doggy? I was so looking forward to meeting him.”

“How did you...”

“Know? I just do, that’s all, the same as you all probably know who I am.”

“Dusty Yen,” Mercer said. “I’ve seen your face before.”

Dusty Yen’s two normal eyes shifted from Brook to the young swordsman, the third eye focused on an indeterminate spot floating in space. “Mercer Crane, son of Willis and Tiara. Yes, you have seen my face before, reflected in the moon and in dreams quickly forgotten upon waking. So have all the men who have joined my army. I’ve been most looking forward to meeting you and seeing the sword. That is it, strapped to your back, is it not? I can feel the dark energy emanating from it, even from here.”

“What is it you want from us?” Solloway spat.

“Want? From
you
? Who are you, Old Bear, except a soldier who failed at his duty? A man who couldn’t stop Plaguewind when he had the chance? How many people died because of your inability to act?”

“How many people will die in your foolish war?” Solloway retorted.

“Many. Many, many, many.” Dusty smiled, his two eyes half-hidden by the fat of his freckled cheeks, his third eye burning with maliciousness. “Sylvo! Sylvo, come to me!”

A shirtless young man slinked out from behind one of the bookcases. His hair was long, dark, half concealing a tattoo of a closed fist on his neck. On his back was strapped a longsword. “Yes, Dusty. How can I be of service?”

Solloway began to shake. “Sylvo Lautrec?! By the Fist, what are you doing here?”

Dusty giggled again. “Ah, so you know each other?”

“His grandfather was my mentor. I watched this one grow up, was there the first day he held an axe in his hands… what has happened to you, son?”

Dusty answered for him. “Sylvo is an emissary from the fort and a trusted friend. He has taken the vows of the silent squires and only answers to his superiors. Don’t take any offense now, Solloway, but you’ve been stripped of all authority, all recognition, for what you’ve done.” The fat man laughed and ran a ringed hand through Sylvo’s hair. “Do you not see it now, Solloway? The Fort at Kingston and I are working together. War will not be between a warlord’s army and the west. It will be my army of ten thousand combined with Kingston’s military might versus the cosmologists with their failed science and impractical philosophies.”

Solloway grunted. “I knew as much. That’s why I came to kill you.”

“Your mission was destined to fail before it even began, Solloway. You would never have been able to convince me to turn my forces around and go back east, nor could you possibly hope to kill me. War is coming to the Green Lands whether you want it to or not. Lord Commander Indio knows this, welcomes it even, as we will all get what we want in the end. Once my forces sweep through the Green Lands, Ithaca will be no more, my men will have land all their own and the Fort at Kingston, along with yours truly, will rule supreme.”

“There are greater threats to the Green Lands than the cosmologist reactor. There is a zombie-tongue leading an army of undead north from the Blight. He_”

“I know full well of Willis Crane, the man you were ordered to kill, and his undead army. He’ll be dealt with in due time.”

“You know nothing of his strength, damn you. He’ll destroy whatever is left of the Green Lands after your damned foolish war!” Solloway looked to the young swordsman by Dusty’s side, his eyes flickering like sconces in the wind. “Sylvo, you know not what you do. You can’t trust this man, or Indio. You_”

“Quiet, Solloway, or I’ll be forced to silence you by none-too-pleasant means. Sylvo, be a good lad and get that sword from off the young man’s back.”

As Sylvo approached, Mercer saw that the young man was around his age, maybe a few years younger. His eyes reminded him of a dead man’s, as though there was no emotional life behind them.

“I wouldn’t do this, if I were you,” Mercer said, but Sylvo paid him no heed. He reached out for the sword. His hand had barely wrapped around Jai Lin’s hilt when Sylvo stumbled back, his eyes clenched shut. He looked to Dusty, not sure of what had just happened.

“What is the problem, Sylvo?”

“It… it stung me! The sword stung me!”

Solloway laughed. “There’s a blood lock on it, you idiot. No one but a Crane can touch it. Come on Dusty, you should have known that.”

For the first time since they’d come in the tent, Dusty’s face grew dark. Wrinkles appeared in his face that had been hidden before, adding two decades to a countenance that had seemed ageless. His lips pulled back in a sneer, revealing black teeth in purple gums. He pushed up from his chair and waddled over to Mercer, reaching his pudgy, ringed fingers for the sword. The interplay was no different, was in fact more strongly felt by Dusty than Sylvo as the fat man fell backwards, his wail of pain echoing around the tent.

Solloway couldn’t contain himself. He bent over and began to laugh. “Serves you right, you pompous lard cake! There’s no way you’re getting your hands on that sword unless you can break the blood lock, and the only people who knew how to do that were killed by your pal Indio six years ago.”

Sylvo ran to Dusty’s side, helping the large man up to his knees. Dusty was breathing heavily, his brow beaded with perspiration. “Get the guards. Lock them all up in the prison. Now!”

Sylvo rushed out the tent, but there was no need to alert the guards: they had heard the commotion and were already running back in, spears and swords drawn. Before they could get to Solloway, however, the old sergeant had run up to Dusty and, with one well-placed kick from his steel-toed boots, cracked the warlord in the chin. A spray of blood peppered with black teeth followed the trajectory of Solloway’s kick. Dusty Yen crashed face-down to the ground, the wet thud of his large body a clock-tick before the crack of the guards’ gun-butts on the captives’ skulls resounded through the tent.

Chapter Eleven

Hope’s Soft Light

M
ERCER CAME TO IN THE DARK, not sure of what had happened, only that his body ached and head felt full of cotton.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good.” Solloway’s voice crawled to him from the far side of whatever room they were in. As Mercer’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that there was a small window up towards the ceiling, through which came a flickering orange light. It illuminated just enough of the room for Mercer to make out Solloway’s silhouette up against the far wall.

“What happened?” Mercer asked.

“They beat the living crap out of us, that’s what happened. We’re in a prison cell, most likely set to be executed at first light. I mean, that’s what I’d do if I were Dusty.”

“Well that’s just great,” Mercer muttered. All that had happened before his getting knocked-out came flooding back to him. He’d killed a man, a living person, and had done so without hesitation. It was only the second person Mercer had ever killed, the first being a wild-eyed vagrant who tried to rob Mercer at knife-point in the ruins of an old market. He had done everything he could do to avoid killing the man back then, even going so far as to try and run from him. The man, however, was drunk on the power the knife gave him and on Mercer’s seeming weakness, and wouldn’t stop chasing him. Mercer had no choice but to run him through with Jai Lin. He’d got good and drunk for weeks after, the rivulets of tears ever-present on his cheeks, the guilt never lessening its weight.

This time it had been different though. He felt no regret towards what he did. In fact, he felt justified. The slaver had grabbed Brook, had intended to do things to her which he didn’t even want to think about…

“Brook! Where is she? Is she okay?”

“I’m here, Mercer.” Her voice was low, hurt. “I’m okay.”

Mercer crawled towards her voice in the dark. When he found her, he pulled her body to his and held her close.

“Are you okay?””

“Yeah, but… Ouch! that’s a little tender, where your hand is right there.”

“Oh, sorry about that.” Mercer said, pulling away.

Solloway grunted. “We’re all a little tender. At least you still have your sword. They took all of our weapons, the axe and pistol I’ve had for more years than either of you have been alive. I guess they couldn’t get Jai Lin off of you, though.”

Mercer reached back and sure enough, the well-worn hilt greeted his hand where it always did. The only difference was that the blade was now broken, the hairline cracks that had run through its blade finally coming apart from the bullet of a slaver’s gun. It was a knowledge which made his heart hurt, especially because Mercer felt it all could have been prevented if Solloway had just been honest with them from the beginning.

Mercer turned to Solloway’s shadow and finally let spill the torrent of questions that had been collecting inside of him. “Why have you been keeping us in the dark all this time? You told us you were acting on behalf of the Fort when you were really on the run from them, and why? Because you couldn’t kill my father? And now we’re all stuck in here with you, Brook is no closer to getting her brother back, Jai Lin is broken to pieces, and_”

“Alright!” Solloway growled. Mercer ceased his torrent of questions, while Solloway pondered how he was going to answer. “Mercer… I’m sorry… you have to understand, I’ve only ever wanted to do the right thing, but sometimes that just means doing the lesser of two evils.”

“It’s all well and good to speak vaguely, but I’m asking you why? What is going on? I just want to know that we’re not going to die in vain, that what we did here was for a good reason.”

“It was, Mercer. I want you to understand... the love I had for your father and mother was boundless. They were always good to me. Willis and I fought back to back in the War for the Green Lands, and Tiara helped me pick up the pieces of my life after my first marriage fell apart. They were good, good people. The stresses of life and work drew them apart, though I know that they never stopped loving each other. Soon after the war, your mother was called to Ithaca to help govern, while your father wanted nothing to do with politics or what they were doing there, and stayed in the Preserve to raise you kids and do his own independent research.”

“I was in Ithaca for two years, with my mother, though I never saw her. I was busy with school, she was busy with work. Then the poisoning happened. Everyone said it was an accident, that a chemical pipe sprung a leak and it got into the water supply...”

“It was no accident. Lord Commander Indio was behind the whole thing, killed some of the brightest minds the Green Lands had ever known. The cosmologists were trying to bring back the golden era, to bring man out of this dark age. They… they were trying to bring back the old technologies, the things that killed the world. They were trying to split the smallest of all things again, to make energy far greater than any windmill or coal furnace. Your father was against it, as were all those in the Fort at Kingston. Indio took it upon himself to stop the cosmologists, and did so by poisoning Ithaca’s water supply.

“Your father was called to Ithaca to fill the voids left by many of the deceased cosmologists and thinkers. He wouldn’t have gone if not for your mother being sick. By the time he got there, it was too late…”

“She’d been dead for two days. I remember. I’d never seen him cry before.”

“Willis was never the same, I tell you. After he sent you back to the Preserve, he became a man obsessed. All his research went towards finding a way to conquer death, to evolve beyond the limited lifespans that humans have and become ageless, immortal. He found old texts on the undead, became convinced that they were part of an unfinished progression towards immortality. He started to experiment with them. Indio became aware of what your father was up to, around three years ago, and sent me to kill him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I couldn’t. I brought him out to the Highlands with a group of soldiers, right under the nose of the Ithacan sprocket knights. I was convinced that killing Willis was the right thing to do. I could already see the madness that had appeared in his eyes, saw how stooped and gaunt he had become. Putting him out of his misery and allowing him to be with your mother again would have been an act of mercy.

“But then, he got to talking about you, Mercer, and your sister. He pointed across the Highlands and told me how much he missed you kids, how much he missed watching you grow up. I knew I couldn’t do it. Instead, I turned on the five other soldiers who had come with us and cut them all down with my axe and pistol. Willis just watched, doing nothing to help or hinder me. When I was done, I looked at him, and truly saw how far he had slipped. He mouthed silent words and fidgeted with unseen instruments, his sunken eyes twinkling with a madness that made my skin crawl.

“I tried to speak to him, but he wouldn’t respond. Then, the unthinkable happened. The men who I had cut down began to rise, when I was sure that the blows from my axe and bullets from my pistol had been fatal. They began to lumber towards me, a hunger in their eyes which I hadn’t seen since I fought against Godwin. They had become the living dead, and Willis Crane had made them rise.