Lythian looked over at the sea of hungry men, their eyes burning with questions and doubts. He had spoken now to his close allies of what he’d done during his time in the south, spoken of Tethian and Marak and Talasha and Eldur. Ralf already knew; now Sir Adam did as well, and Sir Guy and Sir Storos, who had felt aggrieved that Lythian had not told him the full truth already “We travelled together, Lythian,” he’d said, hurt. “We have been brothers-in-arms for long months. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I was afraid, Lythian had thought. “I worried you would condemn me,” were the actual words he said.

Storos had thought about it long and hard, then given a shake of the head. “If the king does not condemn you, nor will I. I trust that what you did, you did for the right reasons. But I cannot say that everyone will be so understanding.”

No, Lythian thought now, seeing them all there, standing in the rain. He had wondered if he should gather them all together, stand before them and tell the truth of his tale. Rumours were dangerous, wise old Ralf had said, and the men were beginning to warp events as the whispers went from ear to ear. Some said he had willingly participated in releasing Eldur from his tomb, giving his own Bladeborn blood to resurrect him. Others were certain he had done it for the love of his Agarathi ‘whore’, that she had put some dark spell on him and used him to unleash the devil. They even knew of Starslayer, and how he’d lost it in those depths. A sacrifice, many claimed. He presented it before the demon, his own ancestral blade. The demigod drank the mists and laughed, and was reborn in his fiery gown.

“You must tell them the truth,” Ralf had urged him, but what good was the truth to them now? That they could think so little of him, believe him capable of such treachery was the only truth Lythian cared for. He looked at the eyes, shadowed in their hoods, and felt that hate clawing at his heart. The things I have done in service of this kingdom. The sacrifices I have made to help keep them safe…“Let them share in their lies,” he had only said to the old knight. “Those who matter know the truth of who I am.” And the rest can go to hell.

The gaunt man had gone quiet, his arms hanging limp at the sides. Lythian wanted this done. He met eyes with Sir Guy with a look, and the third plotter had his hood removed.

The man was more noble than the rest, the son of a wealthy merchant who had travelled with him to the south. He had seen firsthand how his sire was treated by the Agarathi. How uncouth they were, how barbaric, how his father had been bullied and abused by their unseemly tradesman, how the peasants had pelted them with pebbles and stones as they passed. “You suffered the same, didn’t you?” the young man had said to Lythian in the dungeons. “You were a prisoner there, in Eldurath. You were mocked and scorned and debased by these people. How can you not hate them?”

Because I was a kingkiller to them, he thought. They believed I murdered their beloved Dulian. He had since seen great kindness from many other Agarathi, from Kin’rar and Marak and Pagaloth and Talasha, from Sotel Dar and Sa’har Nakaan and Prince Tethian, even him. His answer had been more simple than that. “There is light and dark in every one of us,” he’d told the merchant’s son. “I tend toward the light, and you’ve let yourself be drawn to the dark. What you did was wrong. And on the morrow, you will pay for it.”

And here he was, paying.

“Any last words?” Sir Guy asked him. “Speak them now, and go in peace.”

“I said what I needed to say to the First Blade last night,” the merchant’s son called out. “To the men here, gods-speed to you in the battles to come. And may I just say, open your eyes. There will be no unity between the men of the north and south. Never. Let it be known that these were my last words. Let my father hear them, and rejoice.” He turned his eyes down at Sir Guy, and nodded.

The stool was kicked away.

The rain had started to come down harder, and more men were pulling up their hoods. The shards of light that had been cast by the dawn were gone, the clouds closing up to cover all the world in shadow. In that sudden grim darkness, the weeping boy’s hood was removed, and at once he looked across at the three men to his right, dangling dead on the ends of their ropes. “No…” he said, in slow encroaching horror. “No, please…no no!”

“Spare him!” came a call from the crowd. “Spare him, my lord! Show mercy!”

The rest responded, a hundred more calling out. “Mercy!”…“Spare him!”…“He’s just a boy! A boy!”… “Show him mercy, my lord. Mercy!”

Lythian closed his ears to them. He could not bow to the mob. “Sir Guy, ask the question.”

The knight hesitated. “My lord, perhaps we should…”

“Ask the question,” Lythian repeated.

Sir Guy drew a breath, turning to the weeping teen. “Any…last words?” he asked him. He had to speak up; the noise was growing louder. “Speak them now…and go in peace.”

The boy did not seem to hear him. He looked at the dead men again, swinging on their ropes as a breeze picked up. Some crows had already come down to perch upon the gibbet, cawing impatiently, waiting for their feast. “Please…please…I don’t want to die…” He looked at Sir Guy. “Please…please don’t!”

The knight looked pained. He turned to Lythian. A voice spoke behind him. “My lord, perhaps on this one occasion…”

“No,” Lythian said, resolute. He met the eyes of young Rodmond Taynar. “No, my lord.” Loath as he was to command a greatlord, he spoke here with the king’s voice, and outranked him on that basis. “We cannot make exceptions. He must die along with all the rest.”

“I know, my lord, but…” Rodmond looked out into the crowd, concerned. “If we follow through, we may start a riot. The men…”

“Cannot rule us, Rodmond,” Lythian cut in. “They cannot rule our course.” He looked back at Sir Guy Blenhard and gave a stiff nod of the head. “Kick the stool,” he commanded.

The knight stepped a little closer, to better hear him over the clamour. “My lord?”

“I said kick the stool. He has had his chance.”

“You hear them…” raked a voice. “I said you’d regret it…wasn’t lying, was I?” Lythian spun in anger upon the weasel Lord Kindrick, but this time the man did not draw back. “You have a chance here, Lindar,” he said, emboldened by the crowd. “You let that boy go free, and maybe you’ll get the men back onside. Show mercy, as they say. I can help.”

“Help?”

He smiled. “All this about Eldur. I’m sure there’s a good explanation. Let me hear it. Let me speak it to the men. You let that lad go and I’ll help smooth it all over.”

Lythian was half tempted to accept, but for that nagging doubt that this lord was behind it all. I will not accede to him. I will not give him that power. “No,” he said, firmly. “It cannot be one rule for him and another for everyone else. He is old enough to take a wife and sire a son, to work a farm and fight a war. Then he is old enough to answer for his crimes.” He turned back to Sir Guy, who cringed at the look Lythian gave him. “See it done,” he said.

The knight obeyed with great reluctance. He stepped back to the wailing boy. “I’m sorry. I…I have no choice, you understand? Your own actions got you here.” There was a final pause, a last intake of breath, and then Sir Guy Blenhard kicked away the stool. At once the boy’s wailing was caught in his throat, his body jerking horribly from side to side as he fought against his own bodyweight, eyes bulging from his skull, veins swelling in his neck.

The sight was as ugly as the din. Lythian watched the boy wriggle, watched him struggle, watched him die. Something inside him was dying as well. Or perhaps it was already dead?

How had it come to this? How had he become so hated? There was a time when Lythian Lindar was amongst the most beloved men in the north, unimpeachable in his honour, near-peerless with the blade. There was no man in the world more proficient in the art of Strikeform, no man so well regarded for his staunch commitment to the chivalric ideals. I am still that man, he told himself. It is the world that has changed around me.

He had been mocked and locked up in Runnyhall, put on trial when he arrived at Redhelm, questioned and queried relentlessly over what happened to him in the south. The lies and half-truths and secrets had eaten away at him. Now this. Commanding an army of the hungry and the hateful. Lingering here with all his failed schemes, his hopes of unity crushed.

He could not stand here any longer. The youth was giving his last jerks and twitches and the noise was dying with him, the crowd growing quiet. A lull lingered, for a moment, another. Then someone shouted out, “Bastard!” and that set them off again, the calls of ‘mercy’ and ‘save him’ turning to heckles and shouts of ‘traitor’ and ‘dragonlover’ and ‘scum’.

Sir Adam Thorley stepped up to his side. “My lord, we’d best go. The crowd is getting ugly.”

Crowd, Lythian thought. It was meant to be an army, not some baying mob. He turned on his heels, brushing straight past Lord Kindrick as he left. Sir Adam’s men fell in around them, and Sir Oswin and Sir Stroros and Sir Ralf as well. My allies, he thought. But for how long? How long before they turn against me as well?

He walked in a state of funereal gloom, his face a mask of sombre dignity, his boots sucking and pulling at the mud as he went. Behind, the men were screaming their obscenities, and on the battlements above he could see them looking down at him, silent. He imagined their faces, twisted in contempt, imagined the grunts and mutters they were sharing, the curses whispered beneath their breath. Sir Ralf had told him that it wasn’t so. Many of the men still admired him, the old man claimed, and respected his drive to seek unity. Not just men among the Brockenhurst banners, but hundreds of good men from the Ironmoors too, even those serving under Kindrick and Barrow. Sir Adam had said the same. The Pointed Watch were with him, he assured the First Blade. They would not waver in their allegiance and would follow him until the end.

The end, he thought. Perhaps this day is the start of it.

He passed through the River Gate, across the dirty cobbles of the square, and made for the sanctuary of his tent. The others did not follow him through. He could hear talking outside, hear the strains of debate, and then old Sir Ralf entered through the flaps. “I told them you would prefer to be alone, my lord. If that includes me, by all means, tell me to go.”

“No. Stay.” Lythian removed his cloak, unbuckled his swordbelt, and took his seat, pouring two cups of watered wine. He invited Ralf to sit, and the old man settled down, his posture upright and neat. A long moment passed as Lythian digested what had just happened. “Did I make the right choice, Ralf? Tell me true.”

“You did,” the knight said without hesitation. “A true lord does not bend to the bleating of the sheep. The boy…the drawn lots. I do not believe it was by chance that he was last. Nor that all of those soldiers calling for mercy were so perfectly spaced apart.” He paused to check Lythian’s eyes. “Perhaps you did not notice? There were calls coming from every corner of the crowd. That was arranged, my lord.”

Lythian nodded, pondering. “Kindrick?”

“I would think so. He and Sir Fitz. Of Lord Barrow I am not so sure. He is a decent man and a calmer head. I do not doubt that some of his captains will have contributed their men, however.”

This was a riddle Lythian could not puzzle out. “What am I do to, Ralf? I look into the crowd and see an enemy behind every hood. No matter who they are, or what they’re truly thinking, I see hate and anger.”

“It isn’t so,” Sir Ralf assured him. “I was watching the crowds as well, and many were there to see justice be served. They agree with what you did.”

“Then I’m growing paranoid,” Lythian grunted. “This hate I see, this anger…” He gave a sigh and shook his head. “I don’t just see it. I feel it too.”

The old knight crossed one leg over the other. “In yourself?”

Lythian drank his wine. Even now the anger was in him, bubbling up through his veins. “I have never been a hateful man, nor one given to rage. Only recently. Since Amron left, and…” He knew the cause, as did Sir Ralf of Rotting Bridge. “The blade,” he said. “Having it at my hip all day and beside my bed at night…that constant connection, the growing bond…” He looked at it, resting by the table. “It is trying to lead me astray, Ralf. And a part of me…a part of me wants to be led.”

“You cannot allow it…”