The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One (22 page)

Old Wren waited until the Lord Commander had come full circle around him, then hocked a thick gob of spit into his captor’s face...

...Or at least attempted to. With the reflexes of Crenshaw the hawk, Indio moved his head to the side just enough to let the spit sail wide. His fist came up and cracked Wren in the jaw, sending the old man to the ground in a heap. Indio calmly stepped over him, the grin on his face like a fissure in stone.

“The bright orange is a color we at the Fort associate with weakness, though garbing you like this was hardly necessary. You Black Wings are just as weak as the sprout-eating nancies from Lazarus Township, and have been since the war. Now get up. I want to show you something. You had better follow me, too. Or else I could get the squires to help you along.”

Old Wren struggled to his feet and took staggering steps after the Lord Commander. Indio walked through an archway and out onto the open air balcony that overlooked the entirety of the Fort at Kingston. The view never failed to impress him.

The balcony was ten stories above the ground, wrapped around the topmost floor of a stone citadel, its walls fifteen hands thick. It was at the center of five concentric walls, each in the shape of a pentagram, each with men working busily atop their battlements, building them higher, thicker, stronger. Beyond the furthest wall, 23 snaked southwards through the Broke Tooth Hills, surrounded on all sides for several eye-spans by sharp stakes. The Aderon Mountains rose in the distance like lamprey teeth.

“Look upon our works, Wren,” Indio said when the old man had caught up to him. “The defenders of the Green Lands, of humanity. Is it not spectacular?”

“Why did you do this to my people? What did they do?”

“What did they do? Don’t play coy with me, Wren. Your people suffered the fate they did because of your actions. My soldiers followed Roderick Solloway’s trail straight to your camp. We know you fed him, clothed him, aided and abetted him.”

“I did. And what of it? He is a soldier from the Fort, is he not?”

“They should really call you Old Wren of the Black Tongues for the way you so easily lie. You knew Solloway had gone AWOL, was wanted for crimes committed against the Fort.”

“I knew… I knew no such thing.”

Indio smiled. He knew the Black Wing would deny any knowledge of conspiracy, would probably do so up until his execution. Fortunately, there had been others who had been more easily pliable.

“I see that the view of the Fort doesn’t impress you. Well, come walk this way, Wren. I’d like to show you something else, something I know without a doubt will get a rise out of you.”

Old Wren shuffled after him, his wide eyes hardly masking the fear gripping his heart. He was on the verge of shattering apart, despite doing everything in his power to keep his composure. If Elon was good, he would be taken to the Dusk soon, allowed to join with his brothers and sisters in the warrior god’s embrace...

Indio led Old Wren around a corner, a cruel smile carved into his face. “Remember I told you I didn’t kill all the Black Wings? That some escaped? Well. I lied.”

Old Wren’s bony knees met the balcony’s hard stone, a groan like the earth tearing open escaping from his throat as he saw what was hung from the battlements before him.

“No. No, no, no…”

“Yes, old man, yes. Look at them! Look at what your hubris has wrought!” Indio grabbed Wren’s head between his calloused hands and made him stare at the bodies strung up from the flag staffs. Rainfall, Robin, Swiftfoot, Starcarrier and Thrush, Black Wings all, their bodies naked and pocked with stab marks. The latter three had been scouts that had accompanied him and Solloway in the search for Brook and Crow. Save for Robin, who was his elder by several years, Old Wren had watched them all grow from children to adults, had taught them to hunt, to read, had nurtured them in the ways of the Black Wings. This was exactly what he had wanted to avoid, since the war, since he had seen so many of his brothers and sisters die pointless deaths. It was why he had traded in the sword for the plough, had led the Black Wings along a path of peace. It had all been for naught, as death and misery had found them regardless.

“It didn’t take my soldiers long to locate them. Your people tried hiding in the trees. No doubt you taught them that. My men are well-trained in the battle techniques of the different tribes and clans in the Green Lands, so we knew to look up in the branches for any capes.

“It may ease your mind to know that not one of them died quickly. The old woman was especially long lived. It took thirty stabs with the spear before she finally bled out and died. But before any of them breathed their last, they spoke. They told me everything, what Solloway confided in you. You knew the Old Bear was on the run, that he was heading east. Yet you still helped him. Not only that, you let him get away with Willis Crane’s boy, and the Sword of Jai Lin that he carried.”

Old Wren barely heard him. His mind had shaken loose, had shattered to pieces on the ramparts below. He could only look at the ravens picking at the bodies, at the sinew hanging from their beaks. The birds had already plucked out the eyes of his brothers and sisters, of those he thought had escaped, would rescue him... 

“War is coming to the Green Lands, Old Wren, and you have already chosen the side you are on. Unfortunately for you, it is the side which must lose. Mandrake!” The silent knight appeared, as suddenly as if he had been waiting just inside the audience room. “Take Wren back to his cell. But first, I want you and your squires to parade him around the Fort. Get the boys riled up. It’ll be good for morale.”

Mandrake raised his fist, then called his squires. They ran in, silent on their bare feet, and resumed their box formation around Old Wren. The Black Wing didn’t seem to notice them. His eyes had glossed over and his cheeks glowed beneath a sheen of tears. He was mouthing silent words, teetering on his knees like a dead tree in the wind.

Indio felt pity for the man, as he did for all old, useless things. If he could rewrite the rules of the world, he would have done so long ago. And perhaps, one day soon, he would have that power. For now, however, the future belonged to the strong, to those forged of earth, fire and iron. The weak, those who clung to the old ways, would be plucked like a tick from an otherwise healthy host and crushed between the fingers of the Fist. It was the only way the Green Lands could survive. Indio was convinced.

The squires picked Old Wren up by his skinny arms and took him away. The soldiers of the Fort would get great pleasure at seeing the old man paraded around in his orange suit, the broken sole survivor of a once proud warrior people. Indio was sure he’d hear whoops of mirth from all the way atop his balcony, and he was glad for it. Soon, his men would be consumed by war, many of them never to return home again. The many inevitable deaths were not a burden he bore lightly, but he knew that such a sacrifice would usher in a glorious future.

“For the Fist. For the Fort,” he muttered, staring out to the east, to where the Hud cut through the Green Lands like a muddy wound, and then south, to the Borderlands and Blight beyond. Everything was about to converge. He would be ready for it.

Chapter Nine

The Ruins of the Nameless

C
ROW WAS PANTING HEAVILY, his coffee-colored skin glazed with sweat. In stark contrast, the young Boat Person who stood adjacent from him was as calm as the cloudless azure above. He still wore his heavy poncho and wide-brimmed hat despite the heat and humidity of the southern climes, but not even a trickle of sweat was on his clean-shaven face.

“Do you like this dance,
mon ami
?” The rakish Boat Person asked, his voice a calliope. He had two hard clubs in his hands, each as long and thick as a humerus bone, tethered together by a small chain. The Boat People called this weapon
nunchaku
, and in their hands it was especially lethal.

“It’s taking me some time to feel the rhythm of it, Oliver,” Crow said, testing the weight of the two knives he held in his hand. “I’ll like it better once I do it better than you.”

“I don’t think that will be any time soon, Black Wing,” Oliver laughed. He was a head shorter than his father, Captain DeMontaigne, but still towered over Crow and all the Boat People who had assembled in a loose circle at various places along the deck to watch the battle.

The air was abuzz with a melange of good humor, fascination and a competitive spirit. He was the first Black Wing many of these seafaring people had seen, after all, and they certainly were an inquisitive bunch, wanting to know everything about him and the ways of his people. This was all contrary to the aloofness he had been taught to believe they had. Instead, he found that his hosts were gracious and with a warmth of demeanor that was not unlike that of the Black Wings. He felt at home amongst them and immensely grateful for their rescuing him from the slavers when they did.

He’d come a long way in the three days since his being taken aboard their ship. He had slept for a full day while the ship’s medics had tended to his wounds. The bullet had been promptly removed from his shoulder and his bruises salved with willow bark and hot compresses, so that he was up and conversing with his benefactors by the following evening’s supper. Captain DeMontaigne took great interest in him, having him dine at his table on the second evening that Crow was aboard the ship. It was there, amidst discussions of killim and the impending war between Dusty Yen and the western cities, that Crow and Oliver had met.

“Strange weapons indeed,” Oliver had said, when talk had drifted to combat techniques. “Throwing knives on strings. I’d like to see how they are used.”

Crow had responded in a manner his sister would have rolled her eyes at. “It would be an honor to show one such as yourself the fighting technique my father perfected in the War for the Green Lands. Perhaps we could have a friendly skirmish, just you and myself, on the decks above? This way, all the Boat People can see how these strange weapons are wielded in the hands of an expert.”

Oliver had gladly accepted his challenge. They were to skirmish at noon the following day. It was only that morning that Crow had begun to hear whispers about Oliver being one of the most skilled fighters amongst his people. He had silently hoped that his battle prowess would prove adequate, but once the battle began and every one of his thrown knives was knocked from the air, Crow was beginning to have his doubts.

“Shall we continue, friend Black Wing? Or have you sufficiently showed us how your weapons are used in the… how did you call it… the hands of an expert?” The crowd began to laugh, and Crow felt his face grow hot.

“I’m just getting started. Friend.” Crow spoke the last word through his teeth, then charged ahead, a knife in each hand.

Oliver had begun to swing one of his nunchaku around. It made it hard to see his movements, as if he were a snake slithering through dense foliage, its exact location camouflaged by its surroundings. DeMontaigne’s son was upon him before he even knew it. Crow felt the thwack of one metal rod on his arm, then another on his ribs. He tried to focus, but the hits were coming too hard, too quick. He knew he wasn’t at his full strength, and his stamina was fading fast.

“
Focus, Crow
.” The voice had not come from anyone near him, nor had it even been a sound upon the air. It had been in his head, just for him to hear. The voice belonged to her, the young woman with the gnarled oak tattooed on her back. Her name was Kara, Kara of the Nameless. Crow looked up, instinctively finding her atop the higher deck, staring at him intently with her gray eyes. “
You know where he will strike.
”

Crow felt another crack of the nunchaku on his hip, then another to his thigh. How could he possibly know where Oliver was about to hit him? The damned man was just too fast.

“Clear your mind, you idiot,” Crow whispered to himself. He had to focus, had to shut off the spigot of doubt flooding his head. He felt the worn leather of the knives in his palms, knew he had to trust them fully to strike and parry where they had to.

He could feel Kara smile and the crowd gasp as he blocked one of Oliver’s attacks with his knife, then another. Oliver was stunned; he had been overcompensating in his attacks, not counting on Crow being able to defend himself. He had left himself completely defenseless, which the young Black Wing capitalized on by spinning around and letting loose a horse-kick into Oliver’s stomach. The kick connected, sending the serpentine young Boat Person careening through the air before crashing back to the deck.

There was a hushed silence, as Oliver lay motionless on the deck. Slowly, he got back to his feet, and when a smile appeared on his face beneath his thin mustache, the Boat People watching erupted into laughter.

“Mercy, sir Crow. You have truly bested me.” Oliver brushed away the dust from his pants. His smile had not left, nor had the laughter from the onlookers. The throbbing pain that emanated through Crow’s body was to such a degree that he couldn’t feel anything else, save for bewilderment as to why everyone was still chuckling and pointing at him. What was so funny?

Oliver continued. “But tell me sir, is it customary for a Black Wing to remove his trousers when victorious in battle?” The laughter on the deck cascaded into a roar. Crow looked down to where Oliver was pointing his nunchaku: somehow, in the melee, Oliver had undid Crow’s belt and his pants had dropped around his ankles. Crow felt his face redden as he rushed to pull his pants back up.