He stepped ahead of Raynald Lukar and put himself into Blockform, blade held vertically before him, feet set, stance wide. “Sunlord Avam,” he called out. “Do you remember who I am?”
The man did not give answer.
I will remind you, Emeric thought.
He shifted stance in a blink, feet switching to Strikeform and forward he flew. His enemy did not expect it. In a blur Emeric was on him, skidding low to the ground to cut at Gragaro’s legs. The wolf saw him coming, leapt up, but Emeric expected it, following up with his steel. He cut the beast’s hindquarters, slicing hard through armour and fur and flesh to part the meat of his trailing leg. The sunwolf howled and tumbled. Avar Avam was thrown forward, crashing into the body of a dead camel. Dazed, he tried to climb to his feet, tripped and fell. Emeric pressed on Gragaro, the wolf rising, limping, bleeding. Savage fangs flashed against firelight, snarling, red with the blood of the dead.
He sprung forward, Emeric swished sideward, and his eagle-blade flashed down. Blood soaked out through the sunwolf’s mane as he fell, whimpering, to die.
The exile strode up to the sunlord. “Do you remember who I am?”
The man was still dazed from his fall.
“I asked you a question.” Emeric reached out to pick him up by the throat and tore away his helm. The face behind stirred an old recollection of the one and only time they’d met. “Do you remember me, Avar?”
The man blinked. His nose was bloody, lip split. He had the tan skin of the Piseki, the thick black hair and brows, the dark eyes. He did not look fearsome, not like this. He is afraid, Emeric thought.
“You…I do not know you…”
Emeric lifted his visor. “And now?”
The man’s brow furrowed. “I…I don’t…who…”
Emeric threw him back down to the ground. The man was nothing without his sunwolf and no threat to him anymore. He turned around to check the battlefield. The last of Avam’s company were running away through fire and smoke and Emeric saw why. Ahead, not far from where the prince lay, Tathranor stood upon the field, his immense forepaws dripping blood, ragged strips of dragon flesh trailing from between his claws. The points of his spiked crystal armour gleamed red with blood and between his mighty jaws hung the head of his foe, tongue lolling, eyes rolling, faint wisps of smoke curling up from between its teeth.
Timor Ballantris stood triumphant in his saddle. He looked at Emeric, and nodded salute. Then with a thunderous roar, the moonbear swung about and charged away, flinging the dragon’s head aside as it went.
Emeric watched them fade into the shroud. But only for a moment. Much remained to be done, and there was a prince nearby who needed saving. But first…
He turned to look down upon Avar Avam, squirming at his feet. He did not need the man to acknowledge him. He only needed him to die.
His blade cut easily into the sunlord’s throat.
“For Brewilla,” Emeric said, as he twisted.
54
Lythian almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “Rope or blade?” he asked. “I’ll be kind and give you the choice.”
“My lord…please…please, I’m too young to die.”
Lythian disagreed. “I lost a son on the birthing table, Sir Fitz. That was too young to die. You’re five and twenty, and a knight. Now grow up and die like a man.” He did not care to soften his words, not with a lickspittle like this. “So let me ask you again. Rope or blade? Choose now or I’ll make the choice for you.”
“B-b-blade, my…my lord.”
“The right answer.” Lythian waved a hand. “Get him on his feet.” Sir Storos and Sir Oswin did the honours, hauling Fitz Colloway up. The knight groaned in pain from the wound he’d taken to the ankle. “Take him out into the main square with the others. Have them gagged and bagged. I want to get this done quickly.”
The man was dragged away, kicking and screaming and pleading for his life, but Lythian did not hear him. He had made his decree that any man caught deserting would die, and that counted double for knights.
It was raining outside the stone undercroft where Sir Fitz was being kept, a strong fall from grey skies cut with thicker bands of black. Away to the south, the Red Sea was raging wildly, and east the swollen Steelrun River ran furiously into the sea, carrying with it fallen trees and branches and broken boats, even corpses sometimes as well, all swept from the woods and the waterlogged coastlands.
Sir Ralf of Rotting Bridge was waiting outside the building, his grey hair soaked to the scalp. “Another dour day for another dour duty,” he said in a solemn voice. “Is it just me, or does the rain seem to fall with more purpose on these occasions?”
“The rain is always falling,” Lythian said. And men are always deserting. Decree death upon them as he did, that had not stopped the tide. Every night at least thirty or forty men still crept from the city, escaping through whatever breach they could find, and only one or two in every twenty were ever caught and captured.
Sir Fitz had been one of the unlucky ones. An archer had spotted him slipping away with his men and fired, catching Colloway in the ankle, and that had set his fate. A few of his more loyal soldiers had stayed back to help carry him as the others ran off, but Sir Adam’s men had caught up to them quickly and dragged them all back to the city. Well, there was some honour in what those men did, Lythian supposed, trying to save their captain, but it would not be enough to save them. They were deserters too and would pay the headsman’s price.
He strode to the main yard where the men in question were waiting, his stride like his face; purposeful, hard, mirthless. It was a foul business, there was no doubt, plenty enough to scourge the soul of even the noblest man, and Lythian’s had been whipped red and raw by all the lives he’d been required to take.
He hated it. He hated it as much as he hated the men who made him do it, but mostly he had come to hate himself. He remembered an executioner from his youth, a cold-eyed monster who handled the killings in the town of Mistvale where he’d grown up. I am become that man, he thought, as he took the blade from Sir Adam Thorley. A cold-eyed monster, soulless and uncaring.
The blade Sir Adam gave him was an executioner’s sword, a long plain blade of common godsteel to ensure a clean true strike. Lythian would not anoint the Sword of Varinar in the blood of these deserters. Several hundred men were gathered in the square and on the ramparts around the River Gate, standing in the rain or beneath the awnings of their tents. Shadows and scowls, Lythian thought. In the dark of the afternoon he could not make out one man from another. They stood about, still and silent. The only sound was the lash of the rain, washing across the cobbles, and muted whimpers of the doomed men sobbing in their gags.
All six were lined up on their knees before him, soaked to the bone, their hands tied behind them. Each had a bag over his head and a gag in his mouth to prevent him from making too much noise. Lythian gestured to the first man and his bag and gag were removed. The man blinked into the sudden light, taking a deep breath. His eyes were red from tears, and he was young, no older than twenty. “Any last words?” the First Blade asked him. “Speak them now, and go in peace.”
The young soldier blubbered something about not wanting to die, how he loved his mother, how he was a good man and only wanted to go home and fight for his family. There was nothing happening here, he said. They were all just waiting to die anyway, and for what? Couldn’t he return to his loved ones instead? Lythian closed his heart to him as he swung the blade, detaching his head from his shoulders. It bobbled into a depression between a crossroad of cobbles. Blood drained out, spreading through the grooves.
Lythian went to the next man. “Remove the hood.” He stared down, dead-eyed, as he asked him for his last words and saw the man’s mouth move in reply, saw his face twist and contort in fear and desperation. But he didn’t hear the words. He did not see the face. He heard only muffled noise and perceived only a blurred facade. Close your heart, he told himself. You do not have a choice. He swung the blade.
And down the line he went. One man and then another and then another had their bags and gags and heads removed, with a few unheard words spoken in between. There was a strong chance there were some decent men among them. Not every deserter was craven as not every knight was courageous, but Lythian was only a conduit for Amron’s law. His, he thought. Not mine. His orders, his kingdom, his rule…his blade.
At last he came to Sir Fitz Colloway. “Remove the bag and gag.” It was done. The skinny young knight let out a great breath of anguish and began pleading at once for his life.
“My lord…you mustn’t! You mustn’t…please…”
Lythian looked at him blankly. “Any last words? Speak them now, and go in peace.”
