The King of the Vile (12 page)

“Puppets,” Tessanna whispered, as if her own thoughts mirrored his. “We are all puppets.”

“No,” Qurrah said half-heartedly. “We stopped being their puppets long ago.”

“Then why do we march to war alongside Karak’s faithful?”

It was a question for which he had no good answer. Sighing, he joined the thousands as they crossed the Bloodbrick. Heavy footsteps thudded on stone, armor and weaponry rattled. Qurrah felt himself swept along. When he reached the very end, he stepped aside and lingered while the remaining soldiers crossed. He stood on the very last brick of the bridge and stared west. Weeks ago, he’d entered Mordan in hopes of helping his brother solidify his rule. Now he sought to battle his brother’s army and weaken his angelic allies. How had the world turned upside down so quickly?

“Forgive me, Harruq,” Qurrah whispered as he stepped onto Mordan soil. “But the angels must be stopped. In time, you’ll understand.”

Ahead of him, Tessanna turned, face still a cold, unreadable mask.

“Qurrah?” she asked.

10

F
or Lord Richard Aerling’s sake, it was a good thing Harruq didn’t have his swords on him. If he did, he’d have already lopped off the chubby lord’s head and flung it out the window, like he had with Kevin Maryll. There wouldn’t have been any witnesses other than his guards, and surely he could convince them it was well-deserved justice...

“Let’s try this again,” Harruq said, rising from the ornate throne to tower over the lord. “We wait days and days for your men to gather here, but now that they finally have, you want to march
south?”

Sweat dripped down Richard’s face and neck, but the man admirably held his ground. It only made Harruq want to strangle him more.

“King Bram’s army has crossed the Bloodbrick, heralding the invasion we already warned you was taking place,” Richard said.

Harruq felt like he was talking to Aubrienna during one of her stubborn fits. No matter what he said, no matter how stupid the opposing position, nothing seemed to get through.

“Except there’s already an invasion to the
north
,” he shouted. “Half-human monsters of the Vile Wedge swarming across the Gihon, crushing the Wall of Towers? Slaughtering whole villages? Any of this ringing some fucking bells?”

Lord Richard tugged on his collar.

“They’re just animals. Savage animals. Dangerous, yes, but they’ll scatter and break as winter arrives, and they pose no real threat to the Castle of the Yellow Rose, let alone Mordeina. King Bram, however, has a true army, and a brilliant tactical mind to go along with it. We will not let them pillage our lands in the south just to make up for the failed defenses of the northern lords.”

Harruq stepped down from the dais, put his face inches away from Richard’s.

“I am steward of this realm,” he said. “I speak for the king, and I say you, and all your little lord friends, are marching north to save who you still can. Is that clear?”

Richard entire body was shaking. He could have nodded, or shook his head no, and Harruq wouldn’t have known either way. Wishing he had something he could smash, Harruq was about to retake his seat when Richard spoke up behind him.

“No.”

Harruq slowly turned, staring at Richard as if the man had drawn a knife on him.

“What was that?” he asked, the air in the throne room suddenly ice cold.

Richard stood to his full height, which was still a good foot shorter than Harruq.

“I said we won’t go. The others sent me here as a courtesy for you, and nothing more. Our minds are set. We’re marching south, to stop King Bram before he captures our lands.”

Harruq flew down the steps with a single leap and slammed his fist into the chubby lord’s face. The man let out a cry as he fell to his back, blood sputtering from his nose and lips. Harruq towered over the moaning lord, hands clenched as he struggled to hold back his rage.

“You would come here and tell me to my face you plan to commit treason?” he asked. “What makes you think I will let you leave here alive?”

Richard clutched his face, blood dripping between his fingers. When he spoke, his words were muffled.

“Because you’re not a fool,” he said. “We’re marching to defend our lands, and when we crush Bram, we’ll turn our eyes to the north. But if you kill me, the rest will overthrow you and Gregory and appoint a new king of Mordan. There will be nothing you can do to stop them.”

“I won’t need to stop them,” Harruq said. “The angels will.”

Richard laughed despite his obvious pain.

“Angels fighting human soldiers in the streets? You think you can control the riots that would follow, the upheaval that would sweep across the entire countryside?” Richard spat a wad of blood and phlegm at Harruq’s feet. “Even if the angels stopped us, they’d be too few to save you. Bram would walk into Mordeina, and after such chaos, the people would throw open their arms and beg for his rule.”

It was an all-too-likely a scenario. Harruq reached down, grabbed Richard by the front of his shirt, and yanked him to his feet.

“I may not be able to kill you,” he said, “but I don’t have to send you to your friends in one piece.”

He slammed his forehead into the man’s already broken nose. Richard howled like a wounded dog as blood splattered everywhere. Harruq flung him toward the door, watched him roll.

“Get out!” he screamed. “Run to your little pack of rats and get out of my damn city.”

Richard staggered to his feet, still clutching his face with his right hand, and rushed out the door. The guards shoved it closed behind him.

“Wess!” Harruq shouted.

The older man had stood beside the throne during the entire encounter, and he sprung forward the moment he was called.

“Yes, steward?” he asked.

Harruq breathed heavily as he fought to calm himself down. “Send for Ahaesarus, and Sir Daniel Coldmine as well. If our armies won’t protect the northern lands, we’ll send angels to do it instead. In case I’m late, have them wait here for me.”

“And where will you be?” Sir Wess asked.

“Washing up,” Harruq said, and wiped his wet forehead, then gestured to his stained shirt and pants. “I’ve got some coward’s blood on me.”

Sir Wess bowed as Harruq exited the throne room and marched down the cramped stone hallway toward his room, fuming all the while. He’d known his power was tentative, with Gregory too young and too weakly connected to the royalty to command much respect. He’d been counting on the angels to keep the lords in line. Apparently he had guessed wrong. The angels weren’t protecting him. If anything, they were pushing the lords to act even further out of line.

When Harruq flung open the door to his room, he found Aurelia reclining on their bed with a book. The front cover was in flowery elvish script and laced with gold. Old elven history mixed with elaborate stories. Aurelia had begun collecting them as Aubrienna grew older as part of a blossoming desire to teach their daughter more about her heritage.

“Is something wrong?” Aurelia asked.

Harruq paused, drinking in her beauty as golden light shone through the window and illuminated her face. He desperately wished to tear off both their clothes and just have at it, but instead he began pulling off his shirt.

“I hate being in charge,” he muttered.

Aurelia set aside the book and sat up. “What’s the matter now?”

“Sir Richard has informed me they’re all marching south to fight King Bram,” Harruq said. He used his shirt to wipe the blood from his face and then tossed it to the floor. Aurelia frowned at the bloodstained clothes.

“Did you kill him?” she asked.

Harruq chuckled.

“I wish. Just a broken nose. Ugly bastard will be even uglier, but he’ll live. More than I can say for the people they’ve left to die up north.”

Once his pants were off, Harruq rummaged through their enormous armoire for a change in clothes.

“It’s not your fault,” Aurelia said. She slid off the bed and wrapped her arms around him, pressed her cheek against his back. Harruq sighed and leaned into her.

“Feels like it,” he said.

“Even kings cannot always control their subjects, and you’re no king, only a steward. Right now, we need to make the best of the situation.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.”

Aurelia helped him put on a new shirt, a red one with loose and smooth fabric. Upon being named steward, she’d purchased several such shirts, hoping they would make him look more authoritative. Harruq stared down at it, wondering if his armor and weapons might have better suited him. People didn’t respect him as a steward; they knew him for the power he wielded, skills honed by the Watcher and blades blessed by the gods.

“If Richard, Typh, Foster, and all the others won’t help, then we’ll send what we can,” Harruq said. “We’ll send the angels.”

“Harruq, I’m not sure we can trust them to go.”

Sighing, Harruq turned about to face his wife. She didn’t flinch at his frustration.

“Why not?” he asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

Aurelia nervously ran her hands through her long auburn hair, pulling strands from her face. Not good. Not good at all.

“When I took Gregory and Aubby to the market,” she said, “a young boy came running down the street. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen, and he looked terrified. An angel chased after him. Aubby and Gregory watched him drop from the sky and spear the boy through the chest with his sword.”

Harruq winced and fought down anger at the thought of his poor little girl having to see something like that.

“Why’d the angel kill him?” he asked.

Aurelia frowned. “Because the boy had stolen a piece of Avlimar’s wreckage. That was it. I watched them pull a tiny chunk of gold from his pocket as he lay there, motionless. No questions. No testing of lies, or seeking forgiveness. The crowd was livid. Some threw food, others stones. The angel didn’t care. He never even said a word. I don’t know what happened after that. It wasn’t safe, so I took Gregory and Aubby away from there as fast as I could. I thought about having the guards look into it, but decided there wasn’t much point by the time I reached the castle.”

Harruq rubbed his face, groaning as he tried to make sense of what he heard.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

Aurelia sat back down onto her bed, shrugged. “I didn’t know what to make of it. And why give you something new to worry about if there was nothing you could do? But the more I think on it, the more uneasy I feel. Something is wrong with the angels, Harruq. I don’t know what, and I don’t know why, but they’re not the same as they once were.”

 
“Azariah says Ashhur no longer speaks with them,” Harruq said, tugging at his shirt collar to loosen it. “Bernard Ulath confirmed the same before he traveled south to join the Sanctuary. They’re frustrated and confused, still trying to figure out their place in our world. But they’re still who they always were, wardens of Dezrel. They’ll protect us. They’ll fight for us. That’s the one thing I do know.”

Aurelia slowly nodded.

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “Because I don’t know what we’ll do if you’re wrong.”

Harruq kissed her forehead.

“I do,” he said. “We’ll endure. Always have, and always will.”

He hurried back to the throne room, telling himself over and over that things would be all right. They might be pressed on two fronts, but if Mordan’s army could crush Bram’s in the south while the angels gathered together to save the North, then all would be well.

When he re-entered the throne room he found several angels waiting for him. The big three, as Harruq had begun calling them in his mind. Ahaesarus, looking tall and regal as ever, stood front and center, with Azariah and his brother Judarius on either side of him. All three wore their sparkling white tunics, with Ahaesarus and Judarius also sporting thick gilded armor and weapons strapped to their backs. Across from them, hovering near the throne, waited Sir Daniel. He looked tired and miserable, and Harruq couldn’t blame him. The knight had flown into Mordeina shouting a cry for aid, and as days trickled by, no one seemed to listen.

 “Looks like we’re all here,” Harruq said as he made his way to the throne. He didn’t feel like sitting, so he paced in front of the angels as they patiently made their introductions.

“Greetings, steward,” Ahaesarus said, and the other two echoed him.

“Greetings,” Sir Daniel muttered from the corner.

“Greetings and welcome and all that other stuff,” Harruq said. “Time is short, and we need to act now. Our friendly local lords have all decided to abandon Lord Arthur so they might instead head south to tackle King Bram’s invasion.” Harruq nodded to Ahaesarus. “The North is being overrun, so gather your angels and fly to Lord Arthur’s aid. Once the Castle of the Yellow Rose is secure, we can spread outward from that safe zone, hunting down the beasts wherever they’ve scattered.”

“You speak as if we are your soldiers to order about,” Ahaesarus said. He smiled at Harruq, as if that might remove the sting. It didn’t.

“I’m not giving orders,” Harruq said. “I’m stating the damn obvious.”

“Even so, I’m not sure tackling the beast-men is the wisest course,” Judarius said. “Paladins of Karak march with Bram’s soldiers. With Ker having so stubbornly refused Ashhur’s rule, and now allying with Karak, I fear the fallen god has found himself a new home to re-grow his following.”