Brother, Betrayed Page 21

  “Be still,” said his mother. “Rest, my son,” she said, and closed his eyelids, gently smoothing her palm over his face. Each breath in then was slower, easier. Finally it was deep and slow, and the queen stood away from him.

  “It will take time for his wounds to heal,” she said, turning to the knight. “I will send for servants; we will move him to…”

  “Your majesty,” Denire interrupted firmly but bowed in apology. “To move him now would cause him a great deal of pain.” The queen stopped, her eyes staying on the knight a moment. Then she turned and looked down at Syah. His body had settled on the bed, the lines of pain on his face had softened.

  Her thoughts relaxed a little. As she stood there watching the boy, she remembered that the knight had shared her son’s pain. The queen spoke to Denire. “You will care for him to the best of your skill?”

  The knight’s head lifted, sensing more in the queen’s words. He finally nodded. “I will, your majesty.”

  Syah’s hands fisted on the blankets around him. Then his eyes opened. He realized that he was on the bed, not at first understanding the sting on his back, but feeling his hands tightening on their own and his body tensing. Then it hit him: he remembered… but the pain was different. It no longer reminded him of the blows dealt by the torturer; it was a burn, a low ache, but it was bearable. He clenched his teeth, feeling pressure and moisture on one part of his back again. The sting intensified and drew nearer the pain he had felt when he last woke. He buried his head and caught his breath to stifle a cry.

  “I am sorry you are awake,” said Denire’s voice. “I am almost finished.”

  Syah relaxed, feeling the pain become less intense. Then he felt the pressure being lifted, and the sharp sting returned for a moment. Syah caught his breath, but he felt the pain dulling again. Water splashed nearby. He turned his head and saw Denire’s hands lifting a cloth from a bowl, blood streaming back into the bowl as he twisted it. “Your wounds are healing,” the knight said. Syah felt the cloth on his back again. The pain made his muscles contract involuntarily.

  “How…” Syah tried to speak, but his throat was parched. He tried to swallow. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A few days,” Denire told him, wringing the cloth. “The cuts on your back have mostly healed.” When the sharp pain had again subsided into a muted ache all over his back, Syah relaxed and let go of his grip on the bed. He thought about trying to stand, but realized he wouldn’t be able to avoid the pain. He wasn’t even sure he had the strength to try. So he lay still instead, turning his head to Denire again.

  The knight replaced the cloth in the water and dried his hands, then sat on a chair near the bed.

  “How much longer?” Syah asked, after he had swallowed again.

  “You should be able to move in a couple of days,” Denire told him.

  “Where am I?” Syah asked, looking around.

  “In my quarters,” Denire replied. “Your brothers and your mother have come to visit you.”

  Syah’s eyes closed a long moment. “Yes, I remember.”

  “Your strength will return to you soon,” Denire said, placing a hand on his arm. “I’ll go and get you some food.” He stood and moved toward the door.

  “Denire.”

  He stopped when he heard Syah’s voice. “Can I…” Syah began. His eyes left Denire’s face, shifting unfocused to the room. Denire saw something… dark… in the prince’s eyes. Syah’s voice, soft, quiet, finally asked, “Can I see your scars?”

  Denire let out a sorrowful, troubled breath, knowing why he asked, feeling a cursed fellowship with the young man before him. He was scarred the same. He gave Syah a reluctant, shaky nod and reached for the bottom of his shirt. He pulled it up towards his arms and turned around. He heard Syah’s quick intake of breath and shut his eyes tightly. He knew the prince now gazed upon the disfigured skin across his back, covered with white, thick streaks like a tangled web, their pain silent now. Denire’s hands began to shake as he stood there a moment. Finally, he pulled down his shirt, but he did not turn around. He couldn’t bear to see the horrible realization on the young face.

  Quietly, Denire left the room.

  Taking in a deep breath as he stood in the hallway, Syah could feel the subtle stretch of the wounds across his back. But they were mostly healed, and their discomfort was constant but dismissible. He breathed in the warm, stale air of the castle’s peaceful afternoon, gazing down the quiet hallway as he contemplated returning to his quarters. Some whisper was calling to him, though, and he turned back. After a moment of analyzing his thoughts, he sighed to himself and left his post between the crossing hallways. He walked with a casual step, passing doors on either side of him, till he came to a larger metal one, the soldiers’ common room.

  Several men glanced up as he opened the door. Realizing whom it was, they straightened in their seats, about to stand but Syah’s manner prevented them. He stepped inside, looking down at the game of cards and sticks spread out on the table between them.

  “Good afternoon, Prince Syah,” one of them greeted him. “Can we do something for you?”

  The young prince approached the table and studied their game, some chance, some strategy. When he looked up, they were gazing steadily at him. Syah saw they were somewhat nervous, but ready to serve him.

  “May I join you?” the prince asked them. The soldiers blinked a moment, then nodded, smiling, and brought him up a chair.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  WARS OF ARNITH

  I must confess it, as I have confessed so many other things to these bound pages. I fear for Arnith. Our list of enemies is growing. They are coming together with common purpose against us. Has Arnith been too bold to attempt to join all of the human realms together? Our allies are growing thin, our armies are diminishing, and there is more talk of war with the tribes every day.

  Perhaps it is foolish of me to speak of such things. Of course… how many cycles has Arnith existed with the threat of war, and nothing truly ever comes of it? How many generations have lived, seeing times of war and times of peace pass by? I just can’t help feeling that… something dark looms on the horizon. My feelings are so strong, perhaps childish. Is that all it is? Still a child wishing for comfort, reliability, surety? That I am still just a child in this world and I do not understand the unfolding of events, the passage of history.

  How can I feel this way? Listen to me! I’m babbling on about the perspective fates of our time, and even if something, I strain to write the word, terrible were to happen… we would survive. We would live. History would continue. Arnith would continue. So why worry over it? War will happen if it happens, and who am I to prevent it?

  Great skies… I just still feel I must do something. It swells inside me. I feel we could choose a better path, a safer path. Feelings… Fears. I suppose they will pass as my maturity develops.

  For the three brothers,

  Syah, Prince of Arnith

  Seeming aware of its post, the large, decorated steed raised its head and shook its long, silken mane, as it overcame the summit. Intricately designed leather and metal links draped and wrapped its muscular form, slid over sinuous muscles that twitched, responding to the nudge of the reins. The steed’s mighty head rose, gazing out onto the landscape below, listening to the other horses stop beside him.

  “The enemy camps over there, sire,” a soldier interrupted the silence. They gazed across the hills, finding thin columns of lazy smoke cresting the hills in the distance.

  “Have they advanced?” The king queried as he advanced his mighty warhorse a few paces, taking in the vast scene below.

  “No, your majesty, they have sent scouts outside our camp but have held their position,” the soldier answered.

  “So,” Algoth said and peered beyond hills and through trees, into the mind of his enemy, “they finally have a show of courage and stand their ground.”

  “Do you wish to sound the attack, sire?” the soldier questioned,
but the king did not answer. He lowered his gaze to the camp of men at the base of the hill below them, studying it.

  “No. These Marrians will simply flee again. Since they have grown bold and attempt a military tactic, we shall show them how ruthless true military can be. This is our chance to extinguish this rebellion once and for all.” The king turned his horse and met eyes with his son. “We will not attack them, yet. Let us amass a force that they would not be able to flee from.” He turned to the soldier. “Send word to Commander Lenpece, General Jartrin and Luthrie. They are to gather their squadrons here.” The king looked back to the thin smoke rising above the trees in the distance, betraying the men camped below them. “We will surround them. Within ten setting suns these rebels will wake to find they are outnumbered, their cause is lost, and they will be forced to finally surrender.”

  “Will you lead the battle, Father?” Oman asked him.

  “Yes,” Algoth answered, smiling, “but let us return to the castle for now. If their troops hear rumor that the king camps near their station, it may spook them to flee prematurely.”

  The eldest prince nodded and they both turned their steeds to return back down the hill.

  The stone and floor of the large hall echoed with the clangor of metal footsteps, of armor and equipment casually discarded as the warriors entered.

  “Bariff, a round of drinks for the finest soldiers in Miscia!” the king ordered and a servant bowed and left the dining room. “Seven cycles of squabbling with these dissenters is finally at an end,” the king declared and he seated himself at the head of the table. “I can already feel the victory at hand. Imagine it men; a land with no raids, a people at peace without the threat of attack.” The king stood, making the officers around him start as they began to sit. “Call for the minstrels! Let them serenade us with ballads of conquest and triumph,” the king strode across the hall, ordering the walls and columns of the castle. “Wake the cooks and the servants! Tell them to prepare a feast worthy of a last meal for this army. We shall fill our bellies with the hunt of the forest and our hearts with the songs of ages.”

  “And what has permitted the king to recapture his youth and exuberance?” a voice beckoned softly from the door, yet its sound flowed through the room like the splash of a brook through a silent forest. Its familiarity turned the king but did not alter his energy.

  “Ah, my queen, how suitable a moment for you to join us,” the king said, meeting her with a quick step. “Come, my love,” he sang as he took her hand, “let me tell you of a great worry that will be lifted off of your kingdom’s shoulders.” The king took her in his arms and danced her around the table, as if the minstrels already began to weave their songs through the expectant air of the hall.

  “His majesty has found the cycle's time has stolen from him,” the queen said. She laid her hand on his shoulder and motioned for him to stop. “But I have not.” She met his eyes. Though tired, there was still a smile in them. “Shall we join your men?” she questioned with a gesture to the table where the commanders and knights sat turned towards them.

  “Yes,” he replied, settling, “come rest. We will await the feast as I tell you our plans to rid us of these raiders forever.”

  “Are they preparing to surrender?” the queen asked and sat beside the dark mahogany chair of the king.

  Algoth paused, looking to his officers. “They put themselves into a position that will force them to surrender. They have hung their defeat out like a ripe apple,” he explained, holding out his hand, “and soon we will pluck it from the branch, and savor the taste.”

  “And the outlying villages that have been under raids, how are we protecting them?”

  “Wiping out this force will eliminate any future threat of raids or attack. Their militia will be non-existent.”

  “That is indeed worth celebrating, my love,” the queen conceded then, laying her hand on the king’s thick arm. “So where are your sons to share in it?”

  “Oman has been dispatched to retrieve them,” Algoth explained.

  The queen nodded, lowering her head. The king watched her rub her arms and grasp tightly against her chest. His gaze remained on her a while, waiting for her to return it, but her eyes rested, unfocused on the table.

  “Nasen, stoke the hearth,” the king ordered a general near him.

  “And what of the other tribes? Will you focus efforts on neutralizing them soon?” the queen asked with awareness in her voice of the king’s concern but not responding to it.

  “The Marrians and Rognoth being defeated may send a warning to them. Resisting the power of the Arnith kingdom will only bring them suffering.” The king stopped and gestured to the princes when he noticed them enter. “When the western border is secured, Arnith can continue her expansion of the crude tribes of Miscia.”

  “Like the Dikartians,” Oman added as he sat across the table, “their retaliations and rebellions have become quite a nuisance.”

  “Cities and shipments being attacked is more than just a nuisance,” the queen cautioned, her tone soft but her words striking.

  They paused, absorbing her words.

  “Oman has explained that we plan to ambush and eliminate the eastern tribes,” Syah stated, leaning forward to meet his father’s gaze. “Having one less front to fight will prove easier on our armies.”

  “I hope so, my son,” the king replied.

  The same wood. The same thickness, smoothness, and deep veins like wind-worn gorges across arid lands. The same smell. Thick and warm and sweet of hay. The same sounds. Of rustling hay, the shift of hooves against the dirt floor, the subdued complaints and conversations of the horses. But the air was different, still, the place was different. Once it had been his, but now… he was a visitor.

  “And where do you find the horses you train?” The woman asked and Fasime turned to her quickly, remembering her.

  “Different places,” he answered, patting the side of a grazing mare as they passed her. “Mostly from the surrounding villages.”

  “I imagine it is difficult to decide which ones you will bring to the castle,” the woman paused, allowing her host a moment of thought as he gazed at all of the horses in the stable.

  “Not really,” he answered, stepping to a stall, “see this young gelding? I spotted him at a farm to the south of the city. He was thin and lazy, his owner readying to hitch him for the cart, but I saw something else in him. I knew he could be a soldier’s steed, if he was well trained.”

  “It is so interesting what you do with them, your majesty. These horses are lucky to be able to serve you,” she said as she moved closer to him.

  “I make their destiny to be of battle,” he said. “Because of me they will know war instead of fields and sweet clover. I’m not sure how lucky, as you say, that truly is.”

  The woman didn’t respond, set back. She sighed and joined the prince at the gate of the gelding. “I’m sure the adventure of serving you is better than mundane captivity.”

  Fasime grasped the familiar wood, but in his mind were distant, obscure thoughts. She waited for him to reply, but stepped away from him after a time, doubting his preoccupation would allow him to remember her.

  No echo of the townspeople’s workings rose to the forgotten eastern tower, a sentinel over the city as Syah imagined it. He could see their forms, distant and unconcerned; a woman entering a house, merchants and patrons conducting dealings in the streets. He saw suggestions of the gatehouse keepers surrounding the city and the guards along the walls. He knew that in the streets, among the hovels and shops and workhouses, beside the gatehouses and stables and guard posts, the lulling, calm noise of the city penetrated. But the tower was far above it, its unsealed casements only whispering of distant winds.

  Syah sensed a peace upon the city as he gazed out upon it. They lived, so content and comfortable as if they were all in the world and winter never settled on their hearts. He shared their peace, sitting within the neglected casement, but the caress of the cool
wind was a beckon for the unsettled strife in his soul. He raised his gaze, past the guarding walls of the city. Past the outlaying fields and trees surrounding it. Past a blur of hills and forests, deeper and deeper into the distance. On the unknown horizon, the limited view of the limitless expanse.

  His mind journeyed into the vastness beyond sight, into the unknown futures and actions of others. He remained for as long as his body could tolerate his mind’s brooding, till it had to stand and act. The tower returned to the silence after the thud of his footsteps had faded below it.

  The hallways of the castle were then the corridors lacing through his thoughts. The maze continued, but the prince knew his destination, and it would arrest as well as his feet. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him in hopes of blocking the webbing confusion of passages out of his consciousness.

  “Good evening, Prince Syah,” a voice welcomed him as he entered, dispersing the disorder in his mind. Syah turned to its owner, seeing a scribe, several of the scribes, looking up to him with warm expressions. Welcome and service were on their faces, but something more. It was a gratitude for releasing them from the ordinary life of the city and ceaseless copying of standard texts.

  “Good evening,” Syah replied as he joined them. “How goes your studies?”

  “Very well, sire,” a woman answered, “we think you will be pleased.”

  Syah nodded. “I have something else I would like you to converge on,” he stated and had their complete attention. “I would like you to begin searching for military tactics, weapons or machines other races may have used. Perhaps we can find something useful in these records of the past.”

  The apprentices absorbed his request a moment. “Sir,” one of them began, “do you still wish us to research myths and beliefs of the ancient races?”