“We have testimony from trusted men that says otherwise. These men plotted to cause a riot. They stole weapons from the armoury. Several of them walked into the square and armed the Agarathi prisoners. They armed them, my lord. That in itself is treason. And how many died as a result? How many, Kindrick? Answer me.”
“Six…sixteen, my lord.”
“Sixteen northmen. Four were their allies and deserved what they got. That leaves another twelve. A dozen men who had no part in these plans, and yet died as a result of them. And how many Agarathi were slain?” He waited. “How many?”
“I…I don’t know, my lord.” His voice was a squeak. “Sixty, or…”
“Ninety-four,” Lythian said. “It was butchery, sparked off by the men lined up before you. And you dare tell me I’ll regret this?” Lythian’s hand was on his blade, the knuckle-plates of his gauntlets crunching and grinding together. A mist pulsed and swirled up out of the golden scabbard, moving sharply, angrily. Kindrick drew back from him, inching away as a man does from a predator about to pounce, eyes lowered. Some of the men in the crowd nearby had heard, and were watching, but Lythian Lindar was past caring. He bore the greatest blade in all the world, and held one of its greatest offices. It no longer mattered to him what lesser lord worms like Kindrick and his men thought.
He turned away, showing the man his back. “Sir Guy. Get them noosed.”
Sir Guy Blenhard had command of the executions. The four plotters had been led beneath the gibbet, their heads covered in soaking black hoods. Before each of them a stool awaited. Good Guy gave a nod and his men began moving the prisoners forward, forcing them up, tightening nooses about their necks. The youngest one at the back was sobbing uncontrollably, piss leaking down his leg, begging for mercy. I should have muzzled them, Lythian thought. The other three men made not a sound.
Before long all of them were in place. It was time for the last words.
One by one, their hoods were pulled back, so they could observe the time-honoured custom. Lythian had warned them already not to make a show of it. “Die with dignity,” he’d said in the dungeon where the men were being kept. “Speak a prayer or tell your mother you’ll see her soon. Incite hate or anger and you’ll see a slower end.”
He wondered now if that threat would be heeded. The first man was the eldest, but still no older than thirty-five, a bull-shouldered blacksmith who’d hacked up half a dozen Agarathi with a massive axe he’d made. “Made it special,” he’d sneered at Lythian, when he confessed his part in the crime. “Nice edge for killing scum.”
I ought to have given him the same edge, Lythian thought. I should be doing this myself. That was the way of it among the Varin Knights. In the few occasions where treason had been committed in the ranks of the order, it was the First Blade who swung the sword. But these men weren’t Varin Knights, or knights at all. They weren’t men-at-arms or long-serving soldiers, but swineherds and farmhands and butchers out for blood who did not deserve to see their lives ended by the First Blade of Vandar.
So the rope it would be.
Sir Guy stood before the man. “Any last words?” he asked. “Speak them now, and go in peace.”
“Peace?” the blacksmith snorted. “I’ve seen men hanged before, Blenhard. Ain’t nothing peaceful about it. Just see it done. I’m proud of what I did and would do it again. So you kick that stool you snivelling runt. I’ve made my peace with that.”
“As you say.” Sir Guy kicked the stool. The man did not go in peace.
It took a while for him to stop wriggling, and all the while the youngest of the prisoners continued to sob and whimper, his legs so weak it looked like he might collapse. There was a certain cruelty to making him go last, but that was custom too. The four men had drawn lots and here they were. It just so happened that those lots had lined them up from oldest to youngest, but there was nothing Lythian could do about that. The gods are cruel, he only thought. This is their doing, not mine.
The second man’s hood was removed. He was thin as a spear, gaunt-faced and grim, the very vision of an Ironmoorer, and one of Kindrick’s men. Lythian had seen him guarding his lord by night sometimes, and walking in his retinue as he moved about the city. Sir Guy invited him to speak. “Any last words?” he asked, as he had the first. “Speak them now, and go in peace.”
The gaunt man sneered, the rope tight about his throat. “Was Vandar’s work we did. Work that our First Blade refuses to do himself.” He managed to gather a gob of spit, to send out in Lythian’s direction. “You should be ashamed of yourself, traitor. We all know what you did…”
Sir Guy Blenhard kicked the stool to shut him up and the man went jerking on his rope. His gaunt face reddened, eyes blaring, legs flailing. There was murmuring in the crowd.
We all know what you did.
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!”
