Last Knight (The Champion Chronicles Book 2) (11 page)

She turned back the Toknon and said, “Now, I have other appointments to attend to.  You will have to excuse me.”

“Very well,” the prince said.  He held out an arm.  “It would be an honor to escort Your Majesty out of the chamber.”

Elissa looked up at him, the man who had led the army that killed her father.  It had taken every ounce of her being to not hate the man.  It was one thing to establish a working relationship with Thell, but it was quite another to be friendly with them.  But Toknon had been nothing but a cordial guest.  He was not the vile villain that she expected.  The events that led to the Karmon army marching to battle Thell were confusing and she did not fully understand everything that went on.  But she knew the true evil in all this was now dead.  Neffenmark lay buried back in a small plot next to his castle.

After a moment of reflection, she knew forgiveness would be hard.  But she had to start somewhere.  She took his arm and allowed him to escort her from the deathly silent room.

***

As the shock started to wear off, the dignitaries started to slowly leave the chamber.  There was some muted conversation, but mostly there was silence.  No one knew what to say or even what to think.  The Karmons and Thellians still did not mingle.  They left with their own kind, wondering what the future would hold for them.

              After only a few moments, Lord Martin and Lord Kirwal were left alone.

Lord Martin turned to Lord Kirwal and said, “And you heard about the water wagons, right?  She’s allowing them to come into the city without paying taxes.  What is our queen doing?”

Lord Kirwal simply nodded his head.  “Yes, I have heard.  But as I will be departing for Tyre in the morning, it is none of my concern.”

“Leaving?” Lord Martin exclaimed.  “But you cannot leave now, we have a kingdom to run.”

              “We have highly underestimated our young queen,” Lord Kirwal said.  “I think it is time for us to let her become the queen that we hoped for her to become.  And she cannot be that queen if we are standing over her shoulder watching and questioning her every move.  You stay and be her advisor.  She will need good ones.  Trustworthy ones.  That will be your responsibility to keep good people around her.  Now, I have been away from my city for too long.  I have my own problems to deal with.  Eventually, these Thellians will make their way to Tyre to trade their wares.  I will need to make sure my guild masters are prepared.  Peace, my old friend, finally seems to be upon us.”

              With a pat on Lord Martin’s shoulder, Lord Kirwal made a quick exit.

Chapter Nine

Conner had been running for hours, stopping only to drink from a small creek that he had come across.  So when he heard voices, he came to a quick stop and fell to the ground, his chest heaving from exertion.  The shooting pain of his wounds made it worse, but he was able to ignore the pain.  His anger and hatred overcame any pain threshold he used to have.  Once his breathing was restored to normal and he was able to move without gasping for air, he stood up and took stock of the woods around him.

              The bandits that he was tracking had moved onto a fairly well traveled path, which made it easy for Conner to catch up.  But it had also exposed him to being ambushed himself.  Whenever he could, he had run parallel to the path so that he couldn’t be caught out in the open.  But the underbrush where he was now was too thick to pass.  Thick bushes with long needles kept him, or anyone, from going off the path.  It would have been a perfect place for an ambush, if he were ahead of them.  But he was still behind them.

              Cautiously, he followed the path, still hearing the voices.  He could not discern specific words, only sounds and laughter.  With the path winding through the woods, he kept expecting each turn to reveal the bandits.  And it took every ounce of his being not to run forward.  With each step, he kept hearing Master Goshin talk about being patient, waiting for your opponent to make a mistake.  Conner realized that patience and anger did not go hand in hand.  The more patient he tried to become, the angrier he got.

              A loud voice suddenly startled him and Conner froze in mid-stride.  “They had no idea what hit them!” the voice said.  Laughter followed.  More conversation ensued, but the words were lost in the wind.

              Conner knew they were talking about Steven and Laurin and the anger turned into rage.  He pulled out his small hunting knife and started jogging forward.  His eyes scanned the trees and the underbrush.  Thick bramble bushes still lined the path, so there would be no escape.  Without thinking why, he turned away from the center of the path and hugged the tree line on the right side of the path as best he could.  There was more talking and more voices, but he heard none of it.  Blood was pounding in his ears and the burning rage in his heart silenced any sounds from the outside.

              The path made a slight bend to the right and he saw them several steps before they saw him.  There were five long strides between himself and the first bandit.  In those five steps, Conner prepared his knife and played out the plan in his mind.  He had expected four, Harmack and his three fellow bandits, men whose names he couldn’t remember.  But it didn’t matter, as he knew they would soon be dead.  But there were three more that he didn’t recognize.  Seven on one.  He liked his odds, because he knew that either he or they would be dead at the end of this fight.

              The ruthless rage surprised him for two steps.  He envisioned what he was about to do and there was just a heartbeat where he wondered whether or not he should be really doing what he was going to do.  But with himself now exposed to the seven bandits, he was committed.

              He drove his knife into the back of the first bandit, who was not expecting an attack from behind.  Conner left the knife buried in the back and pulled out the bandit’s longsword before the fatally stricken man could fall to the ground.

              “Hey!” Harmack called out.  He and four others were dismounted, while two were still on the horses. 

              Conner did not say a word.  He attacked right away.  The last time that he had given a warning, he gave them time to prepare.  The sword felt nearly perfect in his gasp, not quite as perfect as his own light and razor sharp swords.  But it felt comfortable, as if he were born to wield a blade.  In two more steps, he met the next bandit, who had raised his hands in defense.  Conner did not care for any parlay.  He slashed at the man’s head, cutting through an outstretched arm first, and then the blade buried deep into the man’s neck.

              With a hank, the sword came free and the dead man fell to the ground.  Gripping the sword with two hands, Conner parried a blow from a quick acting bandit.  But the bandit was slow and over reached his attack.  Conner simply turned the blade aside and then countered with a thrust directly through the bandit’s abdomen. 

              Conner looked up to prepare to meet the next bandit.  The two mounted bandits charged at Conner, but they were unskilled fighting from atop horses.  Conner was easily able to dodge their attack and keep himself prepared for what was going to come next.  Harmack and the last remaining bandit on foot charged at him, their swords drawn and ready to attack.

              As Master Goshin had taught him, an uncoordinated attack was nearly as dangerous as a coordinated attack.  A coordinated attack, if you knew how to defend it, was easily defended.  But an uncoordinated attack could be too unpredictable to figure out how to defend.  Harmack was clearly the better swordsman, so Conner concentrated on parrying his blows while dodging the other bandit’s wild slashes.  Because they were attacking without coordination, they were trying to occupy the same space, which gave Conner the advantage.  Harmack had clearly been trained to some degree, as his skills kept Conner on his toes.  But the other bandit was sloppy and tried to kill Conner with a single blow, which caused him to be constantly off balance.  With a quick slice, Conner was able to disable the unskilled bandit with a strike to the back of the leg.  Screaming, the bandit fell down, holding his leg.

              Now that he was facing Harmack one on one, Conner slowed his attack down.

              “You are skilled,” Harmack said between attacks.  His words were spaced between gasps for air.

              “You doubt the skill of a Karmon Knight?” Conner growled. 

              “I doubted your story,” Harmack said.  “Why would a Karmon Knight be out alone in the forest?  And you were so easily taken the first time.”  He slashed and Conner easily parried.

              Conner glanced back to see where the mounted bandits were.  But they were nowhere to be seen.  He turned to keep his back to the forest so if they decided to come back, they wouldn’t surprise him.

              “You are certainly good with the sword,” Harmack said with a wry smile.  “And you are toying with me.  You could easily kill me, and yet you do not.”

              Conner did not say a word, he simply kept up an easily defended attack.  Harmack was correct in that he could easily kill the bandit.  But he did not want to, just yet.

              “I could use a man like you,” Harmack said.  “A loner.  A good swordsman.  There is great adventure and treasure to be had!  With a man like you in my employ, there would be no one to stop us!”

              To answer, Conner suddenly leapt forward and sliced open Harmack’s thigh.  The bandit stumbled and tried to put pressure on his leg, but it gave on him.

              On one knee, Harmack lowered his sword and raised a hand.  His voice shook in fear.  “Sir Knight!  I beg for mercy!”

              Conner sliced his sword across the bandit’s forearm, sending his hand spinning into the underbrush.  Then with a backhand slash, he stroked his blade across Harmack’s belly, spilling his entrails onto the grass.  In shock, Harmack grabbed at his innards and tried to stuff them back in.  He looked up at Conner, his eyes wide with fear.

              “You killed my friends,” Conner said softly.

              “But it was just business!” Harmack said, gasping for his life.

              “This is personal,” Conner said.  He put his foot on the bandit’s shoulder and pushed the man over onto his back.  Harmack let out a scream and continued to scream for quite some time.

              Conner kept the longsword and took an empty scabbard from a dead bandit.  He also found some dried meat and fresh fruit in the pack of one of the men.  With Harmack still screaming, Conner continued down the path.  He thought he would feel relief, but he did not.  Then he thought he would feel revulsion, but he did not.  He felt mostly nothing.  There was still some anger, but the rage was gone.  There really was nothing to feel.  He was sorry he lost his friends, but he was not sorry for the loss of the bandits’ lives.

              What surprised him most was what little excitement that he felt.  He had conquered seven men.  Sure, two had run away.  But he knew that it was his quick killing of the others that sent them away.  He wasn’t sure that he could say he enjoyed it, but it sure did seem like it.

***

The centurion stepped over the ripped up body.  When they had arrived, wolves were feeding off the carcasses.  But it was clear that their demise had happened well before.  Two bodies were barely recognizable as human.  At least he thought they were two.  Two other bodies were being tossed onto a burning pyre farther down the road. The centurion held the rank of sergeant and had served in the emperor’s army for too many years to count.  From the cold tundra of the northern campaign, to the disease-infected southern battles, he had seen many things.  And many dead bodies.  Some even worse than what he saw laying strewn about the path.  But not many.

              Two lower rank centurions followed him.  They were green and hadn’t seen the death that he had.  One of them clearly was trying to keep his lunch down.

              “Sergeant Farrus!” another centurion called from far away.  “Over here!”

              Farrus stalked across the well-worn forest path where a centurion was helping a shirtless man up to a sitting position.  His leg was tied up with his own shirt.

              “You witnessed this?” Farrus demanded.

              The man maybe had seen twenty summers.  His eyes were red and tear-filled.  But Farrus had no sympathy for him.  His posting at Iseron was supposed to be an easy one after many years on the battlefields of the far reaches of the empire.  But the bandit gangs that roamed the forests proved to be ruthless and savage.  When they had first come across the carnage, he had thought that they were victims of an assault, but the weaponry and clothes they wore clearly identified them as bandits.  They had found four horses grazing farther down the road, so they had assumed that there were only four bodies.  Finding a fifth was fortunate.

              “What is your name?” Farrus asked with a less harsh tone.  The young man was clearly in shock.

              After a moment, the young man said, “Tom.”

              “Who do you ride with?” Farrus asked, his tone becoming harsh again.

              Tom looked around, and then at his leg.

              “Who did this?” Farrus asked patiently.  He has seen battle shock many times.  He knew how hard it was for victims such as this young man to answer any questions, much less remember his own name.  The sergeant was glad that at least he remembered his name.  Interrogations took time, and it took much patience to get good answers.  Sometimes the questions had to be asked many times to even get a response.

              One of the young centurions, fed up with the lack of response gave Tom a quick kick and yelled, “Answer the sergeant!”

              Farrus turned to the young centurion and calmly said, “Step away before I knock your head off.”  Then, to Tom, he said, “Take your time, we are just trying to figure out what happened.”

              Tom watched the young centurion walk away before he answered.  “A Knight.  Karmon Knight.”

              “How many?” Farrus asked.

              “One.”

              All the centurions nearby laughed, but Farrus asked, “Are you sure?”

              “He snuck up on us.  Killed Trevor from behind, and then just came at us.  He was fast.  So fast.  I had never seen anyone move that fast.  When I saw him take out Harmack, I just pretended to be dead.”

              “You run with Harmack?  He was here?” Farrus asked.  That would be a good thing.  Harmack was beginning to get a following and to have him no longer attacking travelers was a big help.

              Tom nodded.  “He was.”

              “And you are sure he was Karmon?”

              “Yes.  He spoke the language and said he name was Sir Conner.”

              Farrus narrowed his eyes and said, “You said he snuck up on you and then attacked you.  When did he have time to speak to you?”

              “He was the same guy we saw some days ago,” Nilen said, his eyes dropping to the ground.

              “You talked to him, then?  What did he say then?”

              “We was just traveling through the woods and we came upon him.  That’s all.  He went his way, and we went ours.”

              Farrus nodded his head and turned to walk away.  Tom called out.  “You have a cart for me to get back to my home?  I can’t walk with this leg like this!”

              Farrus turned back and lied, “We’ll fix something up.”  The sergeant continued walking until he was out of earshot.

              “You believe him?” one of the young centurions asked.

              Farrus glanced back at Tom.  “About it being a Karmon Knight?  Probably.  About him just meeting up with him some days ago, I don’t think so.  Knight or not, bandits don’t just get slaughtered like this for a reason.”