kindar
patreon
A Creature of War, Book 7, CH04
🕑 Added 2025-08-03 13:00:06 +0000 UTCLRK walked to the city.
From the roads, the harvest looked to be progressing slightly behind schedule, with everyone putting on a show of pressing against time to have the crops ready for inspection in the two days left before the collectors’ arrival.
What LRK couldn’t see from where he stood, and neither could the patrols, were all the already harvested fields, with their crops already stored and hidden. With the help of those with powers to enhance the yield, they had enough to last them through the winter and past the next fall, with the rationing Aemid wanted to implement.
Aemid had confidence the king wouldn’t last past the winter. Without the farm’s products, he had nothing, and with the farms surrounding the city, they could stop anyone coming to deliver food. The lion’s only concern was how to get food to the citizen without it finding its way to the king.
LRK did his best to persuade Aemid not to think of the city. They were at war. He couldn’t waste resources on them. If he focused on his people, with proper care for the stored crops, they could triple how long they’d last, but the lion considered the citizens ‘his people’ too.
LRK entered the city with only a casual check by the guards to ensure he didn’t bring weapons in. His knife was permitted, but since the spring, the guards were more attentive of anyone coming from the farms, reinforcing the lynx’s opinion the king suspected trouble was brewing. LRK wondered I the king knew it was already here.
Possibly.
There was a tension in the city that hadn’t been there the last time LRK visited it mid-spring; a trek to gage the best assault route to the castle. There were no simple paths to it, the main road traveled at an angle, forcing any force to either take the long way, giving the king time to prepare, or to thin itself through small streets and alley, allowing the city guard to pick them out one group at a time.
The city’s layout was a principal reason LRK took the king more seriously than Aemid. He’d put planning into it, directed how the city sprang up around it. What else had he planned for? An extended siege?
The guards were more obvious than his previous visit, patrols being groups of six instead of pairs. The citizens kept to the buildings, to the stores and their homes. Even they could tell something bad was coming.
The castle gates were open, as always, and guarded, still only four guards, but their armor looked newer, their body language spoke of alertness, not the boredom of a post where nothing ever happened.
The guard stepped before LRK as he reached the gate. “Where do you think you’re going?” the human was tall, and muscular, but it was the relaxed way he moved, not feeling the weight of the armor he wore that put LRK on alert. This man was not here for show. He looked at the three others, their attentiveness split between the lynx and the road. None of them were.
“I am here to see the king,” LRK answered.
“The king’s not seeing anyone today. Please move along.” The last part added after a pause. The man wasn’t used to dealing with citizens. Not a guard, but a warrior.
“The king will want to see me. I have important news for him.”
The warrior placed a hand on the pommel of his sword. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
LRK nodded and struck the man in the chest, open-palmed, with the force of the wind behind his blow. The warrior flew back through the gate. LRK shouldered the closest guard, hardening it with the strength of the earth. The wolf hit the stone wall and slumped down.
The last two guards came at him together, swords drawn, movement coordinated. Years of fighting together. LRK downed them with a flash fever and berated himself for not doing that form the start. His goal was to deliver the farmer’s ultimatum, not put on a show.
He stepped through the gate and made it halfway through the open field before the alarm bell sounded. His gaze fixed on the castle entrance, he almost missed the gate on his left, opened as servants hurried through it.
A gate in the field, Jamine’s words came back to him, their urgency. He turned in that direction as guards appeared from the barracks and took position before the castle’s entrance.
LRK mixed with the servants, their panic allowing him to go unnoticed until he was inside. Now, where would he find the king? His chambers? Giving an audience?
“Don’t stand there gawking,” a woman yelled from a room, “until the king says otherwise he and his guest still need to eat.”
LRK left the heat of the ovens before he was close enough to smell the food. The kitchen was a bustle of activity, plates carefully decorated with food. An ostentatious presentation, but not an abundance of it. This confirmed that the king was making his own preparation, hiding his rationing behind making what they ate look too good to be eaten.
He couldn’t tell how much food the kind had in his stores. Aemid’s people had been too busy working the fields and training to survey the incoming caravans. Any of them could bring in supplies for the king.
He followed the servant, drawing glances and glared, but they were too busy to demand he explain his presence, and the guards were outside, making sure the intruder couldn’t get into the castle.
The king sat at the head of a large table, with richly dressed men and women filling half of it, on his side. The conversation was lively, admiration expressed at the artistry of the food. No one noticed LRK, not even the guards stationed around the room, until the livery was done serving them and left.
Even with them gone, it took a full minute for someone to realize he stood a few feet from the other end of the table, and it was a guest, a skunk dressed in a stunning white gown with glimmering green gems. LRK smiled at her with a small nod of the head. She hesitantly smiled back, then whispered to her neighbor, who looked at LRK, frowned at him. LRK wore simple clothing, dirty and worn.
By the time the human whispered to his neighbor, the king became aware of the disturbance, and with his alertness, the guards finally realized LRK didn’t belong. Six of them approached, three on each side.
“King Rumford,” LRK greeted the human.
The king motioned, and the guards stopped. “Who are you?”
“I am a representative of the farmers surrounding this city. I am here to inform you of their terms for continued services. The taxes will be adjusted year to year, to take into account the quality of the harvest and put a priority on ensuring the farmers have enough to live on, not just survive. Any men, women, or child conscripted into stone mining will be paid a wage to compensate for the work they can not do in the field. You will—”
The king stood. “Who do you think you are to make demands on me? Who do they think they are? They live to serve me! They live by my grace!”
“I have more demands,” LRK said while the king caught his breath.
“No one makes demands of me!” The man’s face turned red. “I am the ruler, like my father, his father and many before them. We tamed the land, we turned this waste into a proud city. You think those peasants would be anything if I wasn’t here?”
“So I should tell them you aren’t interested in complying?”
“You will tell them nothing,” the man sneered. “You head on a pike should suffice.”
“Please don’t do this,” LRK said as the guards took a step closer.
“You should have thought of the consequences of trying to invade my castle.”
With a sigh, LRK swirled the air around him, stamping his foot down as it exploded, throwing the guards away and sending plates flying at the king.
LRK tried not to smile as the king found himself covered in food and gravy. He hadn’t considered that when preparing his defense.
“I’ll be leaving,” He said once he trusted himself not to laugh at the king’s enraged expression under his food covered face. “If you send your collectors, we will take that as your refusal to negotiate. If you don’t, we’ll send representatives to further discuss our terms.”
“Kill him!”
LRK turned, sidestepped the first attacker, grabbed his arm and effortlessly threw him at the others. He made it outside without causing casualties, but leaving a number of broken bodies.
The disarray among the guards there, trying to adjust to the intruder already being inside the castle, played to LRK’s advantage, tossing them aside with hands or wind until he had open skies and launched himself in the air.
It had been a long time since he’d last flown, and too quickly he landed on the road before Aemid’s family home with orders to evacuate the farms.
This war had begun.
* * * * *
Organized Chaos, Suff would call it. LRK always found it amusing that the precog among them referred to anything as chaos, but this time, he agreed with her. Men and women ran, carrying only the little they considered essential. Everything required for their survival had been moved to the camp weeks before. Theses were for their spirit, a reminder of who they were among the coming chaos.
LRK had been against it, or at least suggested they should be moved early with the rest of the larger equipment. But Aemid had ignored him on this too, and maybe he’d been right. LRK had expected a level of resignation in leaving their houses, but what he saw was determination. Families entered the camps and were directed to small abodes in the ground or the trees.
He walked into the clearing containing the forge. That had been the toughest piece to move, both in making sure no patrol noticed them, and in explaining why it even had to be moved without revealing its wizardly origin.
LRK helped empty the molten metal, leaving only enough to hide the internal component that would show it was more than a standard forge, but not so much it couldn’t be restarted. When he asked Garina how she’d moved it from the city to this forge, she explained Derik dismantled it, and they replaced the existing forge while they settled in.
Even before the last of the families arrived, news of the fighting reached the camp. It hadn’t taken long for the king to send troupes out, but the news was good. They’d come expecting farmers, and were unprepared for the coordinated attacks.
An hour before the sun set, everyone was settled in, and only minor injuries had to be treated.
That would not last.
* * * * *
It took a month for the king’s army to adjust to guerrilla warfare. One month during which Aemid’s soldiers managed to winnow them down with minimal losses. Then came the day.
The survivors of the ambush spoke of the unit entering the forest, at the position where decoys fires burned to give the impression of a camp. It was the usual twenty soldier, and the ten hiding in the trees had the confidence of many such victorious ambush.
They fell on the king’s men, were through half of them quickly when two other units appeared from each flank. The ambushers had been ambushed. Six of them returned; two able to walk unaided, one supported, and three pulled on makeshift stretchers.
They’d won. Ten versus sixty, and they’d won with only four casualties.
LRK didn’t mention how impressive that was when the soldier gave his report. Aemid was devastated. These were his first loss. The first men to die under his command. LRK had warned him it would happen. Had told him to distance himself from the others so he could survive the loss. One of the soldier who died was one of Aemid’s sisters.
LRK knew, from having lost many of his adopted siblings in wars, that even if Aemid had taken his advice and cut himself off from all of them; there was no mitigating the loss of a family member.
“You need to sleep,” LRK told Aemid.
The lion laughed bitterly. “How am I supposed to do that? All I see when I close my eyes is her broken body.”
“You need the sleep so you will have a clear head tomorrow. Your soldiers will—”
“They’re my friends! My family!”
“Not anymore.”
Aemid cursed the darkness in a florid language that had LRK tilt an ear.
“Leech taught you a few of those.”
The lion smiled weakly. “He said cursing was an art when he was young.”
“We had to do something to avoid going insane after a few hundred wars. Leech took up cursing.”
The lion looked at his hands. “Is this why you wouldn’t lead this effort? The people who died under your command keep you up at night?”
“No. I don’t remember many of them.”
Aemid’s head snapped up in surprise.
LRK looked at the map on the table, with roughly carved figurines marking where the last week’s ambushes took place. “They weren’t people to me. They were pieces on a map for me move about, parts of goals I needed to accomplish to get my revenge. They were going to die. I knew that the instant I made them an army, and I didn’t care.”
“Then who died that you won’t fight anymore?”
LRK looked at his hands. “The men and women my army killed. Those I killed with my own hands, my sword, my powers.” He sat. “Back when I was young, they had a word for the kind of war I waged on the Celeste’s priest. ‘Unjustified’. If a country was deemed to be waving an unjustified war against another. Everyone else put their differences aside to stop them.”
“But they killed your son.”
LRK’s smile was sad. More at how little that impacted him any more than what it had caused him to do. “One man’s death lead to me killing thousands, if not millions. Nothing justifies that. Now I wish there had been someone to stop me, instead of thousands to feed my rage.”
“And will someone stop me?”
“Do you need to be stopped?”
“I’m going to get people killed.”
“Ask yourself why you’re doing this.” LRK said. “If you’re doing it because you think that all this fighting is going to take away some pain you believe this king caused you, then I’ll stop you myself. But if you believe that when this is over, once you’ve won, you’ll have made things better for the people here. Then you find a way to keep going, because they are going to need you.”
“You made things betters for powered furrians, didn’t you? The Celeste cast them as evil; to be killed.”
“That never crossed my mind. That’s what I’m telling you. I didn’t wage my war to make anything better. I needed it because I couldn’t be the only one who suffered. I was going to make everyone suffer with me. Everything else was just lies I told others and myself to justify my actions.”
Aemid nodded. “I am making this better,” he said, although he didn’t sound certain. He looked to the lynx.
“I can’t be the one justifying this for you. All I can do is to be here to help you through it.”
The lion stood. “I’m helping them.” He said confidently.
“Good enough for me. Now you should get some sleep.”
“You should go sleep too.”
LRK smiled. “The sun’s set. Are you expecting me to walk to my tent in the night?”
Surprised, the lion went to the flap and opened it. No lights outside, not even the moon cast shadows through the thick canopy.
“I guess you’ll have to share my cot,” Aemid said.
“I can take the floor. Sleeping on the dirt is still familiar to me.”
Aemid closed the flap. “I’d rather have you with me. I need something to remind me not everyone’s dead.”
LRK held the lion through the night. Held him as he tossed, comforted him when he woke screaming for his sister, or one of the others who died in his nightmares.
When morning came, neither got much sleep.
* * * * *
Aemid changed after that night. The lion tried to hide it, but LRK saw the sadness when he looked at the men and women in the camp. Aemid couldn’t see only his friends and family. Now he also saw the dead, casualties of the war he waged in the hope of improving things for those who’d survive.
LRK readied himself for when Aemid broke, when the burden of all those potential deaths became too much. He had routes ready to lead everyone away from here. Other towns and cities where they could restart their lives. He knew the kind of king they were confronting. He’d only make a gesture of pursuing them; chasing them off would be victory enough for him and his sycophants.
But Aemid didn’t break. LRK spent more nights holding him, but every morning, the lion went back to his maps and made plans for the coming days. Every evening he listened to the reports of the returning soldiers, mourned the dead, had nightmares, but come morning, he set back to winning this war.
* * * * *
It was three weeks after the first deaths that a unit came close enough to the camp LRK had to take action. He felt them approaching and met them well before they could see anyone else.
His appearance stunned them, made them wary, looking for anyone else hiding in the trees, in the branches. One lone lynx could only be the setup for an ambush, and they were alone, no other unit anywhere what could come to support them.
“Surrender,” the unit commander ordered. LRK shook his head. He hesitated, surveyed the forest, then ordered two of his men to capture the lynx.
LRK disarmed and rendered the two unconscious without moving from where he stood. Then came four of them. LRK had to move around to avoid their strikes, but they, too, ended up unarmed and unconscious. The commander didn’t wait after that, he and the remaining thirteen soldiers attacked him.
LRK had to use his powers for that, tripping soldiers, pushing them away with a burst of wind. Desiccating the branches of the tree that grabbed for him. The powered Furrian was the last one standing as she’d counted on her control of the trees to subdue LRK and kept her distances. With only her, she fell quickly, and LRK found himself contemplating what to do with twenty unconscious soldiers.
He knew what the sensible thing to do was; living soldiers could report what they’d learned. Prisoners would be a drain on their limited resources. The sensible thing to do was give them quick, painless deaths.
Kill yet more people.
He’d known it would come to this. War made killers of even to most adamant pacifist, and he wasn’t one of those. And they deserved it; they allowed the king to push the farmers to the brink of death just so he could enjoy the bounty of their work. They were why this war happened. Without soldiers following unjust wars, unjust kings couldn’t rule.
How often had he been that soldier? Following orders he knew were wrong because the man giving them was someone he loved.
They should die.
With the help of the more able-bodied older folk and younger ones, the soldiers were walked back to the edge of the camp where they were tied up to wait for Aemid’s return. LRK remained at their side to ensure none of them tried anything.
* * * * *
“We can’t let them go,” the man whose face was scarred, said. The scars were only a week old, from a battle that nearly cost him his life, but where he managed to save eight of his men. He was angry, the kind of angry LRK knew first hand. The kind that led to thousands of deaths if no one was there to keep it in check. “You should have killed them right there and saved us of the trouble!”
“We can’t keep them,” the hyena said, as she did calculations on a parchment. “We can’t spare the food.”
“Then we kill them,” the angry man said.
“Is that who we are?” Aemid asked.
“It’s who they made us,” the angry man replied. “None of us want to be here, but they chased us from our home! They don’t deserve our mercy.”
“Thunder?”
It took a moment for LRK to remember it was his name. Few people talked to him. “I won’t kill. She’s right that food is a concern, but killing prisoners is not something you want to do lightly. As you said, it will define who you are.”
“If I send them back, they’ll report on the camp’s location.”
“They will,” LRK agreed.
“What do you think I should do?”
LRK sighed and decided to take the coward’s way out of this discussion. “I’m not the one who’ll have to live with the consequences. I can’t tell you what to do.”
“Can’t we just send them elsewhere?” the hyena asked. “Don’t you have an uncle who can alter memories? Couldn’t he make it so they don’t remember any of this?”
“Aunt,” Aemid said, “Malida. Her power isn’t reliable, the scrubbing isn’t total.”
“Still any confusion she causes them will keep them from finding us.”
The angry man snorted. “It’s just going to delay it. If any of them are sent back, no matter the mind scrubbing, they’re going to find us, eventually.”
Aemid nodded. “We leave them where they are for the night, it’s too late, anyway. I’ll think about it and have a decision by sun up.” He excused them, including LRK.
The next morning he proceeded with Malida scrubbing the camp’s location from their minds as best she could and they were escorted away, for the soldier to find their way back.
LRK hated himself for his cowardness, two weeks later he would have even more reasons to hate himself.
* * * * *
The attack came without LRK realizing it. The day was cold, and he was walking around the camp, watching the older folk and young ones keep busy repairing broken armor, torn clothing, preparing food for the returning soldiers. Or playing; the young ones needing the distraction from the stress they could sense.
LRK’s senses were stretched as far as he could, and at the edges he felt the pockets of soldiers clashing. But he didn’t feel the three units who burst into the camp, seemingly out of nowhere, to attack whoever they saw.
It should have been a massacre. It would have been, except for two things. A group of soldier had returned early, only bruised after a fight, but their armors too damaged to stay on the field.
And Derik.
LRK fought hard, stopping only short of killing them, but he lost track of them among the camp’s residents. Having to rely on seeing them instead of sensing them, before he could act. He focused on protecting the children, who the units didn’t seem to care got injured. Fighting them, he saw one of the unit head for the forge. Managed to fell a few with fevers, but the others were out of his sight and he had to protect the children.
When three of their soldiers came to help deal with the few invaders left, LRK ran for the forge already dreading what he’d find. What he found was Derik, a contraption over his right arm and soldiers covered with cooling metal.
Derik screamed on seeing LRK and motioned in his direction. A glob of molten metal flew out of the forge at the lynx. LRK stole the heat from it before the impact, but there was enough velocity behind it he staggered back, shoulder going numb.
Gasps behind the lynx told him the situation had become even worse than having the invaders in the camp. He turned and used the earth to trip the soldier who’d followed him, probably to help deal with whoever attacked the forge, only now he was intent on killing Derik.
With the man struggling to stand, LRK moved between him and Derik, only then seeing Garina on the ground hidden by the forge, a bleeding cut on her chest. The bull’s thick apron had stopped most of the slash.
“Stay away,” he warned the man, who was taking up his sword again.
“He’s a wizard.” He took a step forward and LRK pushed back with the wind.
“He’s under my protection.”
“He’s a wizard,” the man repeated, hate dripping from every word.
“I won’t kill you,” LRK said, “But I will make it hurt if you come any closer. The camp is under attack. We have more important things to do than attack allies.”
“He’s a wizard,” the man said through clenched teeth and didn’t move.
Eighteen people died as a result of the attack, three of them children. LRK couldn’t do anything to save even one of them, as the man threatening Derik didn’t move.
When Garina woke, LRK thought the man would attack as Derik saw to her, but as ready as he was to take on a wizard, LRK’s exploits inspired caution.
The sun was a little more than an hour from the horizon and the situation became even worse. Aemid stepped through the ring of people who had assembled around the forge. Against LRK’s Instruction, Derik still wore the contraption over his arm. There was little metal left in the forge, but it wasn’t needed to inspire fear. The knowledge a wizard was in their midst, had been among them for so long, was enough.
“What is going on?” Aemid asked. He was bloody, had a fresh bandage over his shoulder. Even to LRK, the lion looked the perfect example of a war leader of stories.
“Wizard,” was all that was needed.
Aemid’s eyes went to Garina, but immediately flicked to Derik and horror filled them, replaced by hatred. He took out his sword and stepped forward.
“Don’t,” LRK ordered.
“Move aside,” the lion growled.
“No. Aemid, stop.”
“He’s a wizard,” he growled, the leather on his sword’s grip creaking under the pressure.
“He’s a man. A man who defended the forge as best he could, who saved Garina’s life.”
“He’s a wizard! He’s of the night!”
“He lived among you for years,” LRK replied, fighting the urge to scream. “When have you ever known him to do something against anyone here?”
“What has he done that I don’t know about?”
“You need him,” LRK said.
“Never!”
“You need the weapons he made, that he can make! Or are you going to throw them aside and fight this war with just claws?”
Aemid glanced at the sword in his hand. A gift from Garina when they all moved to the camp. “She—”
“You think he didn’t have a hand in it? He’s her apprentice. He helps with everything she makes.” He almost mentioned Derik built the forge, but caught himself in time. Now was not the time to add to the problem.
“How can you protect him,” the lion hissed. “I thought you knew better.”
“I do know better. There was a time I was considered the monster.”
“And how many people died at your hand.”
LRK punched Aemid hard enough to send him to the floor. He’d heal. He’d seen the ‘powerless’ lion heal from worse. “I didn’t want to be here. You forced my hand. You called in a debt older than you can ever know. You need all the help you can get to win this war of yours.”
“I don’t need his kind of help.” Aemid stood. “I will not have my hands tainted by his kind.”
“His kind,” LRK said through gritted teeth, “killed enemy soldiers intent on killing people here. Your kind,” he added, “Wanted to kill Derik as thanks. Tell me, who’s the monster here?”
“You’re under his magic,” Aemid said, annoyed and saddened. “It’s all that time you spent with them. I can’t trust you any more than him.”
At those words soldiers took a step forward.
“Do you really want to test me, Aemid? Do you think anyone here is a match for me?”
“Why are you defending that?” the lion yelled.
“Because I will not let a good man kill another good man just because he’s been blinded by hate.”
“It isn’t hate when it’s justified.”
“This isn’t just, Aemid, and I told you I would stop you if that happened.”
The lion narrowed his eyes at LRK, and the lynx readied himself. “We’ll take this up in the morning,” Aemid said. “Everyone go home, the sun will set soon. I thought you were better than this, Thunder.” He turned and walked away.
“I’m, s—s—sorry,” Derik said, once it was only the three of them. “I t—tried to use the sword, but they’re too many.”
“This isn’t your fault,” LRK stated. “It’s religion again. Twisting things, making monsters of good men.”
“Thank you for protecting us,” Garina said.
“You have to leave,” LRK said.
“But, we’re needed.”
“I can’t stay here and keep them off you all the time. Aemid will not see reason about this, and even if you stay, they’ll never touch what you make now that they know about Derik. I’m sorry, you have to leave, and do so now, in the night, while no one here will follow you.”
“You have t—t—to come with us,” Derik said.
“The forge?” Garina said.
“I can’t go, and there’s nothing to be done about the forge. I can bury it if you’re afraid anyone will use it.”
She sighed. “No, if Derik isn’t here, they won’t be able to make it work. Aemid thinks you’re under Derik’s influence, won’t he kill you when he gets the chance?”
“He won’t. Others might try, but not him, and I’m not worried about the others. It’ll take a while for Aemid to trust me again, but this war isn’t going to end quickly, less so without your help.”
“Then isn’t it worse than us staying?” Garina asked eagerly.
LRK sighed. “You know what they think of wizards. That’s why you went to such length to hide what Derik is. They won’t accept him, and you need him to make the quality swords we’ll need. Take what you can carry and leave. I’m sorry, Garina, Derik. I was hoping Aemid would be more rational about this.”
“You did the best you could,” Garina said, squeezing his shoulder. She grabbed her large hammer, placed an arm around Derik’s shoulder and they vanished in the darkening forest.
* * * * *
LRK stepped through the tent’s flap with only a sliver of light left. “You’ve made fighting this war harder than he had to be.” He told the lion.
“I did?” Aemid replied, “How do I know he didn’t orchestrate all of this? How do I know there isn’t a wizard whispering in the king’s ear? That they aren’t—”
“Enough! When has Derik told you to do anything? He worked the forge, and that’s it; or are you going to blame the quality of the weapons they make for you, as somehow influencing your willingness to go to war? Is it Derik or Garina that sent you to find me?”
“You told me what to do.”
“Bullshit,” LRK said, reverting to English in his anger. “I made suggestions, I advised, I gave you the benefit of centuries of experience, and I let you go against them even when I figured you were wrong, like right now. I’m not telling you to change your mind about Derik, I’m telling you that because they left, you are going to lose a lot more people.”
“Better a clean death at the hand of your enemy than through a wizard’s treachery.”
“How did Leech let such fanaticism take hold of anyone in your family? He knew better.”
“He didn’t let anything happened, he believed, he’s seen the evil of the night he—”
“Spare me. He and I have seen evil. We’ve seen generals order the decimation of entire cities because they wouldn’t stand by their side. We took part in those destructions, because we were made to follow orders and were too young back then to question them. But he knew evil wasn’t in the night, it’s in people. Some of them are evil, but not because they walk are night, or because they happen to have powers. It’s because of what they chose to do, or let happen. I have done evil. I have murdered in cold blood in the name of my son. I have let people die who did nothing to my son. Yes, I have been a monster. And if you aren’t careful, Aemid, you’re going to become one too.”
“I will never—”
“You were going to kill a man who did nothing wrong. Monsters do that.”
“His kind walks in the night, they are—”
“When has Derik ever walked at night?”
The question stopped Aemid. “How should know? I don’t go out at night, so he can—”
“If you can’t know, how can you be certain he does?”
“You said they left. That means he does.”
“I told them to leave now, because if they stayed, they’d be dead the moment the sun passed the horizon, you’d see to it. I will not let you become a monster without at least trying to stop you.”
Aemid snorted, “Because of that debt you owe my grandfather?”
“No, because I’ve come to find that you are a good man. There are too few of those left in this world. I’d like you to remain one.”
“Then why do you force me to lead them?”
LRK smiled sadly. “Because if I’d taken up the leadership, I’d have gotten all of them killed. I am not the kind of man you want leading anyone.”
“So you’d rather see me turn into you?”
“No,” LRK growled. “That’s not what I’m saying. You care, if you can take those blinders your faith put on you off, you can see it’s not night or day, there are only people and each must decide what they’ll do with that there are capable. There is no higher power governing all of this. Anytime someone tells you there is, they’re trying to control you.”
“I will not have you denigrate my faith. Get out.”
LRK smiled. “Are you going to force me to walk in the night?”
Aemid made fists. “You planned this.”
“I might have made sure to run fast enough to get in before the sun set, yes.”
“You think that you spending the night in my tent is going to change anything?”
“I think that once you have the chance to calm down, you’ll see this was a mistake. And once you see that, we will be able to talk and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Aemid narrowed his eyes at LRK. “Are there other wizards hiding among my people?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” LRK replied, “But then again, it isn’t like I actually know anyone here, is it?”
The doubt in the lion’s eyes was only a flicker, and it might have been the flicker of the candlelight more than anything else. LRK chose to believe Aemid was starting to question what he believed.
“You can sleep on the floor,” The lion said, turning and heading for the cot.
LRK sat and leaned against a pole and spent the night watching Aemid toss and turn.
From the roads, the harvest looked to be progressing slightly behind schedule, with everyone putting on a show of pressing against time to have the crops ready for inspection in the two days left before the collectors’ arrival.
What LRK couldn’t see from where he stood, and neither could the patrols, were all the already harvested fields, with their crops already stored and hidden. With the help of those with powers to enhance the yield, they had enough to last them through the winter and past the next fall, with the rationing Aemid wanted to implement.
Aemid had confidence the king wouldn’t last past the winter. Without the farm’s products, he had nothing, and with the farms surrounding the city, they could stop anyone coming to deliver food. The lion’s only concern was how to get food to the citizen without it finding its way to the king.
LRK did his best to persuade Aemid not to think of the city. They were at war. He couldn’t waste resources on them. If he focused on his people, with proper care for the stored crops, they could triple how long they’d last, but the lion considered the citizens ‘his people’ too.
LRK entered the city with only a casual check by the guards to ensure he didn’t bring weapons in. His knife was permitted, but since the spring, the guards were more attentive of anyone coming from the farms, reinforcing the lynx’s opinion the king suspected trouble was brewing. LRK wondered I the king knew it was already here.
Possibly.
There was a tension in the city that hadn’t been there the last time LRK visited it mid-spring; a trek to gage the best assault route to the castle. There were no simple paths to it, the main road traveled at an angle, forcing any force to either take the long way, giving the king time to prepare, or to thin itself through small streets and alley, allowing the city guard to pick them out one group at a time.
The city’s layout was a principal reason LRK took the king more seriously than Aemid. He’d put planning into it, directed how the city sprang up around it. What else had he planned for? An extended siege?
The guards were more obvious than his previous visit, patrols being groups of six instead of pairs. The citizens kept to the buildings, to the stores and their homes. Even they could tell something bad was coming.
The castle gates were open, as always, and guarded, still only four guards, but their armor looked newer, their body language spoke of alertness, not the boredom of a post where nothing ever happened.
The guard stepped before LRK as he reached the gate. “Where do you think you’re going?” the human was tall, and muscular, but it was the relaxed way he moved, not feeling the weight of the armor he wore that put LRK on alert. This man was not here for show. He looked at the three others, their attentiveness split between the lynx and the road. None of them were.
“I am here to see the king,” LRK answered.
“The king’s not seeing anyone today. Please move along.” The last part added after a pause. The man wasn’t used to dealing with citizens. Not a guard, but a warrior.
“The king will want to see me. I have important news for him.”
The warrior placed a hand on the pommel of his sword. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
LRK nodded and struck the man in the chest, open-palmed, with the force of the wind behind his blow. The warrior flew back through the gate. LRK shouldered the closest guard, hardening it with the strength of the earth. The wolf hit the stone wall and slumped down.
The last two guards came at him together, swords drawn, movement coordinated. Years of fighting together. LRK downed them with a flash fever and berated himself for not doing that form the start. His goal was to deliver the farmer’s ultimatum, not put on a show.
He stepped through the gate and made it halfway through the open field before the alarm bell sounded. His gaze fixed on the castle entrance, he almost missed the gate on his left, opened as servants hurried through it.
A gate in the field, Jamine’s words came back to him, their urgency. He turned in that direction as guards appeared from the barracks and took position before the castle’s entrance.
LRK mixed with the servants, their panic allowing him to go unnoticed until he was inside. Now, where would he find the king? His chambers? Giving an audience?
“Don’t stand there gawking,” a woman yelled from a room, “until the king says otherwise he and his guest still need to eat.”
LRK left the heat of the ovens before he was close enough to smell the food. The kitchen was a bustle of activity, plates carefully decorated with food. An ostentatious presentation, but not an abundance of it. This confirmed that the king was making his own preparation, hiding his rationing behind making what they ate look too good to be eaten.
He couldn’t tell how much food the kind had in his stores. Aemid’s people had been too busy working the fields and training to survey the incoming caravans. Any of them could bring in supplies for the king.
He followed the servant, drawing glances and glared, but they were too busy to demand he explain his presence, and the guards were outside, making sure the intruder couldn’t get into the castle.
The king sat at the head of a large table, with richly dressed men and women filling half of it, on his side. The conversation was lively, admiration expressed at the artistry of the food. No one noticed LRK, not even the guards stationed around the room, until the livery was done serving them and left.
Even with them gone, it took a full minute for someone to realize he stood a few feet from the other end of the table, and it was a guest, a skunk dressed in a stunning white gown with glimmering green gems. LRK smiled at her with a small nod of the head. She hesitantly smiled back, then whispered to her neighbor, who looked at LRK, frowned at him. LRK wore simple clothing, dirty and worn.
By the time the human whispered to his neighbor, the king became aware of the disturbance, and with his alertness, the guards finally realized LRK didn’t belong. Six of them approached, three on each side.
“King Rumford,” LRK greeted the human.
The king motioned, and the guards stopped. “Who are you?”
“I am a representative of the farmers surrounding this city. I am here to inform you of their terms for continued services. The taxes will be adjusted year to year, to take into account the quality of the harvest and put a priority on ensuring the farmers have enough to live on, not just survive. Any men, women, or child conscripted into stone mining will be paid a wage to compensate for the work they can not do in the field. You will—”
The king stood. “Who do you think you are to make demands on me? Who do they think they are? They live to serve me! They live by my grace!”
“I have more demands,” LRK said while the king caught his breath.
“No one makes demands of me!” The man’s face turned red. “I am the ruler, like my father, his father and many before them. We tamed the land, we turned this waste into a proud city. You think those peasants would be anything if I wasn’t here?”
“So I should tell them you aren’t interested in complying?”
“You will tell them nothing,” the man sneered. “You head on a pike should suffice.”
“Please don’t do this,” LRK said as the guards took a step closer.
“You should have thought of the consequences of trying to invade my castle.”
With a sigh, LRK swirled the air around him, stamping his foot down as it exploded, throwing the guards away and sending plates flying at the king.
LRK tried not to smile as the king found himself covered in food and gravy. He hadn’t considered that when preparing his defense.
“I’ll be leaving,” He said once he trusted himself not to laugh at the king’s enraged expression under his food covered face. “If you send your collectors, we will take that as your refusal to negotiate. If you don’t, we’ll send representatives to further discuss our terms.”
“Kill him!”
LRK turned, sidestepped the first attacker, grabbed his arm and effortlessly threw him at the others. He made it outside without causing casualties, but leaving a number of broken bodies.
The disarray among the guards there, trying to adjust to the intruder already being inside the castle, played to LRK’s advantage, tossing them aside with hands or wind until he had open skies and launched himself in the air.
It had been a long time since he’d last flown, and too quickly he landed on the road before Aemid’s family home with orders to evacuate the farms.
This war had begun.
* * * * *
Organized Chaos, Suff would call it. LRK always found it amusing that the precog among them referred to anything as chaos, but this time, he agreed with her. Men and women ran, carrying only the little they considered essential. Everything required for their survival had been moved to the camp weeks before. Theses were for their spirit, a reminder of who they were among the coming chaos.
LRK had been against it, or at least suggested they should be moved early with the rest of the larger equipment. But Aemid had ignored him on this too, and maybe he’d been right. LRK had expected a level of resignation in leaving their houses, but what he saw was determination. Families entered the camps and were directed to small abodes in the ground or the trees.
He walked into the clearing containing the forge. That had been the toughest piece to move, both in making sure no patrol noticed them, and in explaining why it even had to be moved without revealing its wizardly origin.
LRK helped empty the molten metal, leaving only enough to hide the internal component that would show it was more than a standard forge, but not so much it couldn’t be restarted. When he asked Garina how she’d moved it from the city to this forge, she explained Derik dismantled it, and they replaced the existing forge while they settled in.
Even before the last of the families arrived, news of the fighting reached the camp. It hadn’t taken long for the king to send troupes out, but the news was good. They’d come expecting farmers, and were unprepared for the coordinated attacks.
An hour before the sun set, everyone was settled in, and only minor injuries had to be treated.
That would not last.
* * * * *
It took a month for the king’s army to adjust to guerrilla warfare. One month during which Aemid’s soldiers managed to winnow them down with minimal losses. Then came the day.
The survivors of the ambush spoke of the unit entering the forest, at the position where decoys fires burned to give the impression of a camp. It was the usual twenty soldier, and the ten hiding in the trees had the confidence of many such victorious ambush.
They fell on the king’s men, were through half of them quickly when two other units appeared from each flank. The ambushers had been ambushed. Six of them returned; two able to walk unaided, one supported, and three pulled on makeshift stretchers.
They’d won. Ten versus sixty, and they’d won with only four casualties.
LRK didn’t mention how impressive that was when the soldier gave his report. Aemid was devastated. These were his first loss. The first men to die under his command. LRK had warned him it would happen. Had told him to distance himself from the others so he could survive the loss. One of the soldier who died was one of Aemid’s sisters.
LRK knew, from having lost many of his adopted siblings in wars, that even if Aemid had taken his advice and cut himself off from all of them; there was no mitigating the loss of a family member.
“You need to sleep,” LRK told Aemid.
The lion laughed bitterly. “How am I supposed to do that? All I see when I close my eyes is her broken body.”
“You need the sleep so you will have a clear head tomorrow. Your soldiers will—”
“They’re my friends! My family!”
“Not anymore.”
Aemid cursed the darkness in a florid language that had LRK tilt an ear.
“Leech taught you a few of those.”
The lion smiled weakly. “He said cursing was an art when he was young.”
“We had to do something to avoid going insane after a few hundred wars. Leech took up cursing.”
The lion looked at his hands. “Is this why you wouldn’t lead this effort? The people who died under your command keep you up at night?”
“No. I don’t remember many of them.”
Aemid’s head snapped up in surprise.
LRK looked at the map on the table, with roughly carved figurines marking where the last week’s ambushes took place. “They weren’t people to me. They were pieces on a map for me move about, parts of goals I needed to accomplish to get my revenge. They were going to die. I knew that the instant I made them an army, and I didn’t care.”
“Then who died that you won’t fight anymore?”
LRK looked at his hands. “The men and women my army killed. Those I killed with my own hands, my sword, my powers.” He sat. “Back when I was young, they had a word for the kind of war I waged on the Celeste’s priest. ‘Unjustified’. If a country was deemed to be waving an unjustified war against another. Everyone else put their differences aside to stop them.”
“But they killed your son.”
LRK’s smile was sad. More at how little that impacted him any more than what it had caused him to do. “One man’s death lead to me killing thousands, if not millions. Nothing justifies that. Now I wish there had been someone to stop me, instead of thousands to feed my rage.”
“And will someone stop me?”
“Do you need to be stopped?”
“I’m going to get people killed.”
“Ask yourself why you’re doing this.” LRK said. “If you’re doing it because you think that all this fighting is going to take away some pain you believe this king caused you, then I’ll stop you myself. But if you believe that when this is over, once you’ve won, you’ll have made things better for the people here. Then you find a way to keep going, because they are going to need you.”
“You made things betters for powered furrians, didn’t you? The Celeste cast them as evil; to be killed.”
“That never crossed my mind. That’s what I’m telling you. I didn’t wage my war to make anything better. I needed it because I couldn’t be the only one who suffered. I was going to make everyone suffer with me. Everything else was just lies I told others and myself to justify my actions.”
Aemid nodded. “I am making this better,” he said, although he didn’t sound certain. He looked to the lynx.
“I can’t be the one justifying this for you. All I can do is to be here to help you through it.”
The lion stood. “I’m helping them.” He said confidently.
“Good enough for me. Now you should get some sleep.”
“You should go sleep too.”
LRK smiled. “The sun’s set. Are you expecting me to walk to my tent in the night?”
Surprised, the lion went to the flap and opened it. No lights outside, not even the moon cast shadows through the thick canopy.
“I guess you’ll have to share my cot,” Aemid said.
“I can take the floor. Sleeping on the dirt is still familiar to me.”
Aemid closed the flap. “I’d rather have you with me. I need something to remind me not everyone’s dead.”
LRK held the lion through the night. Held him as he tossed, comforted him when he woke screaming for his sister, or one of the others who died in his nightmares.
When morning came, neither got much sleep.
* * * * *
Aemid changed after that night. The lion tried to hide it, but LRK saw the sadness when he looked at the men and women in the camp. Aemid couldn’t see only his friends and family. Now he also saw the dead, casualties of the war he waged in the hope of improving things for those who’d survive.
LRK readied himself for when Aemid broke, when the burden of all those potential deaths became too much. He had routes ready to lead everyone away from here. Other towns and cities where they could restart their lives. He knew the kind of king they were confronting. He’d only make a gesture of pursuing them; chasing them off would be victory enough for him and his sycophants.
But Aemid didn’t break. LRK spent more nights holding him, but every morning, the lion went back to his maps and made plans for the coming days. Every evening he listened to the reports of the returning soldiers, mourned the dead, had nightmares, but come morning, he set back to winning this war.
* * * * *
It was three weeks after the first deaths that a unit came close enough to the camp LRK had to take action. He felt them approaching and met them well before they could see anyone else.
His appearance stunned them, made them wary, looking for anyone else hiding in the trees, in the branches. One lone lynx could only be the setup for an ambush, and they were alone, no other unit anywhere what could come to support them.
“Surrender,” the unit commander ordered. LRK shook his head. He hesitated, surveyed the forest, then ordered two of his men to capture the lynx.
LRK disarmed and rendered the two unconscious without moving from where he stood. Then came four of them. LRK had to move around to avoid their strikes, but they, too, ended up unarmed and unconscious. The commander didn’t wait after that, he and the remaining thirteen soldiers attacked him.
LRK had to use his powers for that, tripping soldiers, pushing them away with a burst of wind. Desiccating the branches of the tree that grabbed for him. The powered Furrian was the last one standing as she’d counted on her control of the trees to subdue LRK and kept her distances. With only her, she fell quickly, and LRK found himself contemplating what to do with twenty unconscious soldiers.
He knew what the sensible thing to do was; living soldiers could report what they’d learned. Prisoners would be a drain on their limited resources. The sensible thing to do was give them quick, painless deaths.
Kill yet more people.
He’d known it would come to this. War made killers of even to most adamant pacifist, and he wasn’t one of those. And they deserved it; they allowed the king to push the farmers to the brink of death just so he could enjoy the bounty of their work. They were why this war happened. Without soldiers following unjust wars, unjust kings couldn’t rule.
How often had he been that soldier? Following orders he knew were wrong because the man giving them was someone he loved.
They should die.
With the help of the more able-bodied older folk and younger ones, the soldiers were walked back to the edge of the camp where they were tied up to wait for Aemid’s return. LRK remained at their side to ensure none of them tried anything.
* * * * *
“We can’t let them go,” the man whose face was scarred, said. The scars were only a week old, from a battle that nearly cost him his life, but where he managed to save eight of his men. He was angry, the kind of angry LRK knew first hand. The kind that led to thousands of deaths if no one was there to keep it in check. “You should have killed them right there and saved us of the trouble!”
“We can’t keep them,” the hyena said, as she did calculations on a parchment. “We can’t spare the food.”
“Then we kill them,” the angry man said.
“Is that who we are?” Aemid asked.
“It’s who they made us,” the angry man replied. “None of us want to be here, but they chased us from our home! They don’t deserve our mercy.”
“Thunder?”
It took a moment for LRK to remember it was his name. Few people talked to him. “I won’t kill. She’s right that food is a concern, but killing prisoners is not something you want to do lightly. As you said, it will define who you are.”
“If I send them back, they’ll report on the camp’s location.”
“They will,” LRK agreed.
“What do you think I should do?”
LRK sighed and decided to take the coward’s way out of this discussion. “I’m not the one who’ll have to live with the consequences. I can’t tell you what to do.”
“Can’t we just send them elsewhere?” the hyena asked. “Don’t you have an uncle who can alter memories? Couldn’t he make it so they don’t remember any of this?”
“Aunt,” Aemid said, “Malida. Her power isn’t reliable, the scrubbing isn’t total.”
“Still any confusion she causes them will keep them from finding us.”
The angry man snorted. “It’s just going to delay it. If any of them are sent back, no matter the mind scrubbing, they’re going to find us, eventually.”
Aemid nodded. “We leave them where they are for the night, it’s too late, anyway. I’ll think about it and have a decision by sun up.” He excused them, including LRK.
The next morning he proceeded with Malida scrubbing the camp’s location from their minds as best she could and they were escorted away, for the soldier to find their way back.
LRK hated himself for his cowardness, two weeks later he would have even more reasons to hate himself.
* * * * *
The attack came without LRK realizing it. The day was cold, and he was walking around the camp, watching the older folk and young ones keep busy repairing broken armor, torn clothing, preparing food for the returning soldiers. Or playing; the young ones needing the distraction from the stress they could sense.
LRK’s senses were stretched as far as he could, and at the edges he felt the pockets of soldiers clashing. But he didn’t feel the three units who burst into the camp, seemingly out of nowhere, to attack whoever they saw.
It should have been a massacre. It would have been, except for two things. A group of soldier had returned early, only bruised after a fight, but their armors too damaged to stay on the field.
And Derik.
LRK fought hard, stopping only short of killing them, but he lost track of them among the camp’s residents. Having to rely on seeing them instead of sensing them, before he could act. He focused on protecting the children, who the units didn’t seem to care got injured. Fighting them, he saw one of the unit head for the forge. Managed to fell a few with fevers, but the others were out of his sight and he had to protect the children.
When three of their soldiers came to help deal with the few invaders left, LRK ran for the forge already dreading what he’d find. What he found was Derik, a contraption over his right arm and soldiers covered with cooling metal.
Derik screamed on seeing LRK and motioned in his direction. A glob of molten metal flew out of the forge at the lynx. LRK stole the heat from it before the impact, but there was enough velocity behind it he staggered back, shoulder going numb.
Gasps behind the lynx told him the situation had become even worse than having the invaders in the camp. He turned and used the earth to trip the soldier who’d followed him, probably to help deal with whoever attacked the forge, only now he was intent on killing Derik.
With the man struggling to stand, LRK moved between him and Derik, only then seeing Garina on the ground hidden by the forge, a bleeding cut on her chest. The bull’s thick apron had stopped most of the slash.
“Stay away,” he warned the man, who was taking up his sword again.
“He’s a wizard.” He took a step forward and LRK pushed back with the wind.
“He’s under my protection.”
“He’s a wizard,” the man repeated, hate dripping from every word.
“I won’t kill you,” LRK said, “But I will make it hurt if you come any closer. The camp is under attack. We have more important things to do than attack allies.”
“He’s a wizard,” the man said through clenched teeth and didn’t move.
Eighteen people died as a result of the attack, three of them children. LRK couldn’t do anything to save even one of them, as the man threatening Derik didn’t move.
When Garina woke, LRK thought the man would attack as Derik saw to her, but as ready as he was to take on a wizard, LRK’s exploits inspired caution.
The sun was a little more than an hour from the horizon and the situation became even worse. Aemid stepped through the ring of people who had assembled around the forge. Against LRK’s Instruction, Derik still wore the contraption over his arm. There was little metal left in the forge, but it wasn’t needed to inspire fear. The knowledge a wizard was in their midst, had been among them for so long, was enough.
“What is going on?” Aemid asked. He was bloody, had a fresh bandage over his shoulder. Even to LRK, the lion looked the perfect example of a war leader of stories.
“Wizard,” was all that was needed.
Aemid’s eyes went to Garina, but immediately flicked to Derik and horror filled them, replaced by hatred. He took out his sword and stepped forward.
“Don’t,” LRK ordered.
“Move aside,” the lion growled.
“No. Aemid, stop.”
“He’s a wizard,” he growled, the leather on his sword’s grip creaking under the pressure.
“He’s a man. A man who defended the forge as best he could, who saved Garina’s life.”
“He’s a wizard! He’s of the night!”
“He lived among you for years,” LRK replied, fighting the urge to scream. “When have you ever known him to do something against anyone here?”
“What has he done that I don’t know about?”
“You need him,” LRK said.
“Never!”
“You need the weapons he made, that he can make! Or are you going to throw them aside and fight this war with just claws?”
Aemid glanced at the sword in his hand. A gift from Garina when they all moved to the camp. “She—”
“You think he didn’t have a hand in it? He’s her apprentice. He helps with everything she makes.” He almost mentioned Derik built the forge, but caught himself in time. Now was not the time to add to the problem.
“How can you protect him,” the lion hissed. “I thought you knew better.”
“I do know better. There was a time I was considered the monster.”
“And how many people died at your hand.”
LRK punched Aemid hard enough to send him to the floor. He’d heal. He’d seen the ‘powerless’ lion heal from worse. “I didn’t want to be here. You forced my hand. You called in a debt older than you can ever know. You need all the help you can get to win this war of yours.”
“I don’t need his kind of help.” Aemid stood. “I will not have my hands tainted by his kind.”
“His kind,” LRK said through gritted teeth, “killed enemy soldiers intent on killing people here. Your kind,” he added, “Wanted to kill Derik as thanks. Tell me, who’s the monster here?”
“You’re under his magic,” Aemid said, annoyed and saddened. “It’s all that time you spent with them. I can’t trust you any more than him.”
At those words soldiers took a step forward.
“Do you really want to test me, Aemid? Do you think anyone here is a match for me?”
“Why are you defending that?” the lion yelled.
“Because I will not let a good man kill another good man just because he’s been blinded by hate.”
“It isn’t hate when it’s justified.”
“This isn’t just, Aemid, and I told you I would stop you if that happened.”
The lion narrowed his eyes at LRK, and the lynx readied himself. “We’ll take this up in the morning,” Aemid said. “Everyone go home, the sun will set soon. I thought you were better than this, Thunder.” He turned and walked away.
“I’m, s—s—sorry,” Derik said, once it was only the three of them. “I t—tried to use the sword, but they’re too many.”
“This isn’t your fault,” LRK stated. “It’s religion again. Twisting things, making monsters of good men.”
“Thank you for protecting us,” Garina said.
“You have to leave,” LRK said.
“But, we’re needed.”
“I can’t stay here and keep them off you all the time. Aemid will not see reason about this, and even if you stay, they’ll never touch what you make now that they know about Derik. I’m sorry, you have to leave, and do so now, in the night, while no one here will follow you.”
“You have t—t—to come with us,” Derik said.
“The forge?” Garina said.
“I can’t go, and there’s nothing to be done about the forge. I can bury it if you’re afraid anyone will use it.”
She sighed. “No, if Derik isn’t here, they won’t be able to make it work. Aemid thinks you’re under Derik’s influence, won’t he kill you when he gets the chance?”
“He won’t. Others might try, but not him, and I’m not worried about the others. It’ll take a while for Aemid to trust me again, but this war isn’t going to end quickly, less so without your help.”
“Then isn’t it worse than us staying?” Garina asked eagerly.
LRK sighed. “You know what they think of wizards. That’s why you went to such length to hide what Derik is. They won’t accept him, and you need him to make the quality swords we’ll need. Take what you can carry and leave. I’m sorry, Garina, Derik. I was hoping Aemid would be more rational about this.”
“You did the best you could,” Garina said, squeezing his shoulder. She grabbed her large hammer, placed an arm around Derik’s shoulder and they vanished in the darkening forest.
* * * * *
LRK stepped through the tent’s flap with only a sliver of light left. “You’ve made fighting this war harder than he had to be.” He told the lion.
“I did?” Aemid replied, “How do I know he didn’t orchestrate all of this? How do I know there isn’t a wizard whispering in the king’s ear? That they aren’t—”
“Enough! When has Derik told you to do anything? He worked the forge, and that’s it; or are you going to blame the quality of the weapons they make for you, as somehow influencing your willingness to go to war? Is it Derik or Garina that sent you to find me?”
“You told me what to do.”
“Bullshit,” LRK said, reverting to English in his anger. “I made suggestions, I advised, I gave you the benefit of centuries of experience, and I let you go against them even when I figured you were wrong, like right now. I’m not telling you to change your mind about Derik, I’m telling you that because they left, you are going to lose a lot more people.”
“Better a clean death at the hand of your enemy than through a wizard’s treachery.”
“How did Leech let such fanaticism take hold of anyone in your family? He knew better.”
“He didn’t let anything happened, he believed, he’s seen the evil of the night he—”
“Spare me. He and I have seen evil. We’ve seen generals order the decimation of entire cities because they wouldn’t stand by their side. We took part in those destructions, because we were made to follow orders and were too young back then to question them. But he knew evil wasn’t in the night, it’s in people. Some of them are evil, but not because they walk are night, or because they happen to have powers. It’s because of what they chose to do, or let happen. I have done evil. I have murdered in cold blood in the name of my son. I have let people die who did nothing to my son. Yes, I have been a monster. And if you aren’t careful, Aemid, you’re going to become one too.”
“I will never—”
“You were going to kill a man who did nothing wrong. Monsters do that.”
“His kind walks in the night, they are—”
“When has Derik ever walked at night?”
The question stopped Aemid. “How should know? I don’t go out at night, so he can—”
“If you can’t know, how can you be certain he does?”
“You said they left. That means he does.”
“I told them to leave now, because if they stayed, they’d be dead the moment the sun passed the horizon, you’d see to it. I will not let you become a monster without at least trying to stop you.”
Aemid snorted, “Because of that debt you owe my grandfather?”
“No, because I’ve come to find that you are a good man. There are too few of those left in this world. I’d like you to remain one.”
“Then why do you force me to lead them?”
LRK smiled sadly. “Because if I’d taken up the leadership, I’d have gotten all of them killed. I am not the kind of man you want leading anyone.”
“So you’d rather see me turn into you?”
“No,” LRK growled. “That’s not what I’m saying. You care, if you can take those blinders your faith put on you off, you can see it’s not night or day, there are only people and each must decide what they’ll do with that there are capable. There is no higher power governing all of this. Anytime someone tells you there is, they’re trying to control you.”
“I will not have you denigrate my faith. Get out.”
LRK smiled. “Are you going to force me to walk in the night?”
Aemid made fists. “You planned this.”
“I might have made sure to run fast enough to get in before the sun set, yes.”
“You think that you spending the night in my tent is going to change anything?”
“I think that once you have the chance to calm down, you’ll see this was a mistake. And once you see that, we will be able to talk and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Aemid narrowed his eyes at LRK. “Are there other wizards hiding among my people?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” LRK replied, “But then again, it isn’t like I actually know anyone here, is it?”
The doubt in the lion’s eyes was only a flicker, and it might have been the flicker of the candlelight more than anything else. LRK chose to believe Aemid was starting to question what he believed.
“You can sleep on the floor,” The lion said, turning and heading for the cot.
LRK sat and leaned against a pole and spent the night watching Aemid toss and turn.
Comments
Marcwolf
Sadly Faith can be a hard thing to change..
