Last Knight (The Champion Chronicles Book 2) (31 page)

Prince Tarcious spun and left the War Chamber to the sound of his own footfalls.  The rest of the military leadership continued to stand in stunned silence.  Just as predicted, there had been a change in leadership.  The coup was now complete.

Their stunned state was not because they were surprised at the events of the last few moments, but because they survived them.

***

“Go,” Prince Tarcious commanded.

              The centurion who was guarding the emperor quickly took his leave without question.  Word of the demise of the two most powerful generals had spread through the ranks of the army quickly.  No one knew exactly what happened and no one was going to ask any questions, either.

              Prince Tarcious approached the bed where the emperor was snoring loudly.  The emperor’s beard had grown wildly.  It was bushy and streaked with gray.  His hair also was long and unkempt, having gone untouched in many months.  He looked hardly the part of an emperor.  At one time, his beard was kept finely trimmed and colored with a black die to keep him from looking old.  His face had once been full and round, but now the skin around his eyes was stretched thin and looked like wrinkled leather.  Dark circles surrounded his sunken eyes, almost as if his face was painted like a lady’s.  He was still a few years from his fortieth birthday, but he looked almost twice that age.

Prince Tarcious’ earliest memories of his older brother were ones of beatings and bullying.  He had always been on the wrong end of the young Hargon’s anger.  But as Hargon aged, his demeanor softened, or maybe it was that he had just ignored his little brother.  With his time busy with learning how to fight with a sword, shoot a crossbow, ride a horse, a chariot, and even learn about politics, there was no time for the little brother.  And all that time, Tarcious lived and played in his brother’s shadow, always wanting to be just like him.  And that continued to this day.

              “I could smother you right now,” Prince Tarcious said softly.  The emperor responded with a snore.  “I could just place a pillow over your head, and you would die.  It would be a peaceful death, one where you die in your sleep.  Much more peaceful than I had originally planned for you.  And I can do it now, as I have revealed myself to the generals.  No one would know.  It would be a silent death that they would say was just natural.  The heart just stopped.  He gave up.  He died.  No one would know that it would be my hand, which is a much different proposition than what I had originally planned.”

              A growing noise from afar fell upon his ears.  Prince Tarcious looked up and could see the top of his great gladiatorial arena through the bedroom’s windows.  Cheers rang out as the day’s events started.  Soon it would be time for King Slayer Conner, the supposed Karmon Knight, to meet his fate in the arena.

              “Another time, then, dear brother,” Prince Tarcious said.  “Your days are numbered, as I no longer need you alive.  I have built my strength and now there is no stopping me.  It will be my greatest victory to defeat the empire from within, and bring forth the new age.  Rest easy and know that soon your pain of life will be over.”

              Prince Tarcious rubbed his hands and blew on them to keep them warm.  The cold of winter was now upon them.  They were far enough south that they wouldn’t get the deep snow of the north, but it got cold even in the middle of autumn.  But he knew soon enough the cold would be gone, and in its place would be the burning heat of hell.

              He stalked out of the bedroom and met the emperor’s guard in the antechamber.  “Go find the prisoner Goshin.  Have him brought up from the dungeons.”

              The centurion glanced back past Prince Tarcious to the room where the emperor was snoring away.

              The prince caught the centurion’s eyes flash past him.  “Do not worry about the emperor.  He is sound asleep.  You will be back before he awakens.”

              “Yes, Your Imperial Highness,” the centurion said with a shaky voice.  With one last look into the emperor’s bedroom, the centurion ran off to the dungeons.

              Prince Tarcious himself glanced back at the emperor before he strode off towards the arena.

***

Emperor Hargon could hear the footfalls of his brother fade away.  He opened his eyes and carefully glanced around, expecting a centurion to be standing near the door.  But the room was empty.  He pulled himself out of bed, rolling off the high mattress onto his knees.  He paused for a moment to keep the world from spinning around him.

              He knew this was his only chance.  The words of his brother had pierced him like a sword through the heart.  He had suspected for a long time that his brother was behind whatever was ailing him, but he had never had the strength at the right time to do anything about it.  There had always been a guard standing watch over him.  Each time he would try and crawl out of bed, the centurion would simply help him back in.  As any movement was exhausting, he had complied.

              But the guard had been sent away, and there was no one to watch him.  He truly had been sleeping and snoring when his brother had first arrived, but the strange footfalls had awakened him.  With a mind that was surprisingly clear, he had kept snoring, feigning sleep for no reason other than he had not wanted to talk to his brother.  And now he was glad that he had, as his dear younger brother had revealed himself.

              The emperor was wearing a long night shirt that was stained and dirtied from many months, or maybe years, of use without washing.  He scratched his head, feeling his long and greasy hair.  He hated long hair and had always kept it cut very short.  And then he felt his beard, which was also long and greasy.  He scratched at it as well.

              With unsteady legs, he stood.  His head throbbed, forcing him to squint his eyes.  The light of the day was causing pain to shoot through his skull.  But he had to ignore it.  He had to find the energy to somehow escape.  If he did not, then his brother would return in short order and finish the job that he had promised to do.

              He didn’t leave through the antechamber.  He had heard the guard leave, but had no idea if there were others about.  And without knowing who the centurions gave their loyalties to, he could not trust meeting up with any one of them.

              The hidden door was tucked into the corner of the room.  There were many other hidden doors just like it throughout the palace.  He knew of most of them and his brother probably knew of them as well.  It would not take the prince very long to figure out how he escaped, so the emperor knew he had to move quickly.  Behind the hidden door was a dark hall, just wide enough for him to squeeze through.  He wished he had a torch or a lamp to light his way, but there were none in easy reach.  He could have returned back to his bedroom, but he knew he had so little time before he would be missed.

              As a boy, he had wondered these hidden tunnels endlessly, so he didn’t need any light to find his way.  He kept his hands on the walls to help guide him.  With each step, his head seemed to throb more, but also with each step, he got closer and closer to freedom.  He could feel his heart pounding in his chest because he knew that he would either escape to freedom, or he would be killed by his brother.

              After some time, he knew there was a stairwell leading down to the first level of the palace.  He moved slowly, touching the space in front of him carefully trying to find the stairs.  If he walked blindly through the darkness, he wall fall down the stairs, likely to his death, and he would help his brother immensely.

              A few steps later, he found the stairs and carefully descended them.  He knew there were a hundred and eight steps as he had counted them numerous times when he was young.  He counted as he descended, and when he reached a hundred and eight, his pace quickened because the exit was only a few yards away.  At the end of the dark hall, he put his head against the wall.  It wasn’t a stone wall, but a wooden wall that held the secret door.  He listened carefully for anyone that might be nearby.  After several minutes, he pushed the door open and he stepped into the kitchen’s dry storage room.

              He maneuvered around the boxes and crates that held the dry goods that the cooks used to prepare meals.  There were small windows high on the walls near the ceiling to give just enough light to see by.  As he approached the main door that led into the kitchen, he saw it swing open and he froze.  He knew he was dead.  He knew it just had to be his brother, and he would smile that sinister smile at him and strike him dead right here.

              A tall man filled the doorway, the bright light of the kitchen casting his face in a shadow.  But the emperor could see that the man was wearing an apron.

              “What is this!” the man cried out.

              The emperor was frozen, unable to move.  His heart was pounding, which made his head feel all that much worse.

              The man strode forward and grabbed the emperor tightly around the upper arm.  The emperor tried to shake away, but he was too weak.  He tried to protest, but he could only get unintelligible words out of his mouth.

                The man was dragging him by the arm out of the storage room and into the kitchen.  “How many times have I told you beggars to stay out of my kitchen?”

              The emperor stumbled along, just barely able to keep his feet.  Other cooks in the kitchen had stopped their work to watch the scene.  They had amused looks on their faces.  Emperor Hargon had expected them to have surprised or fearful looks and certainly he did not think they would be laughing at him.  His face turned red and he tried to yell at them all, but no words would come out of his mouth.  Only spittle and unintelligible words left his lips.

              All the way across the room the man dragged him until they reached a set of double doors that led outside.  The man opened them and pushed the emperor through.

              “If I see you back here again, I will call the centurions.  They will not be as nice as me.  They will toss you in the dungeon and lock the key.”  But before the man turned away, he tossed a small moldy loaf of bread onto the ground.  The anger in his face was gone, and pity had replaced it.  Softly he said, “Please stay away.  We cannot have beggars around here.”

              The man closed the door and Emperor Hargon, the leader of the largest empire the world had ever known, sat on the cold ground, looking hungrily at the moldy chunk of bread.

Chapter Twenty Three

“Do you hear it?” Prince Tarcious asked.  “They are getting restless because they know what is coming.  Do you know what that is?”

              The old man from the far west struggled to keep up with the long strides of the prince.  With the shackles around his ankles, he could only shuffle his feet.  His legs didn’t work very well anyway, so the shackles only made it worse.  Being imprisoned for so long had made it so that his muscles didn’t really cooperate.  Couple that with the beatings that he took when he first arrived, each step was not only difficult, put painful.  But he was not going to give the prince the satisfaction of seeing him limp.  With his head held high, he trudged on slowly, pushing any thoughts of pain out of his mind. 

              Prince Tarcious stopped and looked at Goshin. “Do you?”

              The long hallway that led out to the arena acted as a sound tunnel, allowing the cheering and shouting to echo into their ears.  Goshin could also feel the vibration from everyone jumping and stomping their feet.  He glanced up, hoping the ceiling would not come crashing down on him.

              “No, of course not,” Goshin replied.

              “A few days ago a centurion company arrived from the west with a prisoner.  A warrior of considerable skill that they claim killed many score of my best soldiers.  He looks very much like you.  Well, all your kind look like you to me.”

              Goshin did not respond.  He now knew why the prince had pulled him out of this cell.  He was to be witness to a Hurai paraded in front of the arena, to be used as entertainment for the masses.  “I would doubt the claim of your centurions,” Goshin said.  “They would tend to enhance their stories to make themselves better in your eyes.”

              “I would not doubt that,” the prince said.  “But this one I think is special.  He carries two of the strangest swords I have ever seen.  And the way his fighting style was described, that is strange as well.  He had a name for himself.  Sack Hurai.”

              Goshin glanced up at the prince only for a moment to read his face.  “You claim to have a Sak’hurai?”

              “Oh, is that how it is pronounced.  Like it is all one word.  But yes, he is some special warrior.  Tell me more of these Sak’hurai.”

              “You would not take one alive,” Goshin said.  “They would fall upon their swords before being taken prisoner.”

              “Well, this one did not.  The centurions who survived were able to subdue him and transport him here.  And now we are about to see him in action.”

              With a friendly looking smile, the prince said, “Come.  The crowd awaits our arrival.”

              The tunnel sloped up at a high enough angle that Goshin could only see the bright blue sky of the cool afternoon.  Even from this distance, the brightness hurt his eyes, as it had been so long since he had seen the light of day.  Goshin started forward, heading towards the inevitable.

              The closer they got, the louder the crowd became.  The cheering rose and fell, likely because there was a fight already going on.  As they neared the end of the tunnel, two shadowed figures appeared from the outside the tunnel.  They walked right passed Prince Tarcious.  One of them was armed with a sword, the other held a wool cloak.

              Without complaint, Goshin allowed the cloak to be placed over him.  He was happy for the warmth, but when the hood was pulled lower over his head, he knew that the cloak was not given to him for his comfort.  Clearly he was to be hidden from view.

              As he stepped up to the end of the tunnel, the sound became deafening.  Everyone was on their feet, screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs.  Looking down upon the arena floor, he saw what they were shouting about.  A large tiger was ripping the innards out of a man who was laying on the ground, still alive.  He could see that the man was screaming, but the sound of the crowd drowned out the man’s torturous final moments of death.  The man’s screaming must have bothered the tiger, because it jumped up onto his chest, grabbed the man’s head giving it a quick snap, ending the man’s pain instantly.

              The crowd erupted in boos, disappointed that they could no longer see the man’s death throws.  The tiger, starved for days in the cages outside the arena returned to eating the man’s insides.

              Goshin turned away, saddened for the man’s death.  No man should die in such a way.  He was even more saddened that thousands of people had come to watch this kind of death.  For all its civility, the people of Taran were just as barbaric as the rest of the world.  He looked up at Prince Tarcious and could see the pure evil on his face.  The people of Taran certainly reflected their leadership.

              A covered platform was set up just to their right.  Along the back were chairs where seemingly important people were seated.  As soon as Prince Tarcious stepped from the tunnel, they stood, nodding their greetings.  Any words that they would have said would have been drowned out from the mix of cheering and boos.  The prince ignored them and stepped directly towards the front of the platform.

              As he reached the edge, he raised a hand to acknowledge the crowd and they started cheering and screaming at the top of their lungs.  They had no idea what they were shouting about, Goshin realized.  They were shouting for a man of pure evil, but no one knew it.  No one cared.  Right now, all they wanted was to see blood.

              Goshin took a couple steps forward to see past the prince and down into the floor of the arena.  Twenty centurions with long spears had entered the arena to chase the tiger away.  Although the tiger snapped and growled at the centurions, it let itself be directed back towards an open door.  It remembered those long spears and how sharp they were.  Although it was still hungry and wanted to taste more of the human blood, fear of those sharp spears kept it moving backward.  While the tiger was driven away, someone pushed a cart out to the dead man that lay in pieces on the arena floor.  Without care or thought, the man unceremoniously tossed the dead man into the cart and hauled him away.

              The moment the tiger was pushed out of the arena, the centurions with spears ran back to their tunnel and disappeared.  A moment later another man strode out.

              The man wore two swords sheathed in scabbards strapped to his back.  He wore the light metal sleeveless shirt that was common to Sak’hurai.  Similar to the chainmail armor of the Karmon Knights, it was woven of small pieces of metal that provided both flexibility and strength.  But the metal was a unique alloy that was both stronger and lighter than what the knights used for their chainmail shirts.  With their style of fighting, flexibility was more important than strong armor.  It wouldn’t stop a direct strike or a crossbow bolt, but it would keep a glancing blow or redirected slice from cutting skin.

              He doubted he was a true Sak’hurai, as no such warrior would allow himself to be paraded out in such a manner.  With swords in hand, he should have taken his own life, rather than let himself be controlled and manipulated by his captors.

              And then a second man came out from another tunnel.  He was dressed simply in a chainmail shirt that was missing its hood and sleeves.  In one hand, he held a longsword that had an obvious chip knocked out near the tip.  In the other, he held a shield.  He stood tall and proud, clearly unafraid of the Sak’hurai.  A proud smile crept onto his face as he thought about the arrogance of this opponent.  It would be a quick battle.  In fact, he was surprised that there was only one opponent.  The Sak’hurai would take care of this man in only a few seconds.

              Then he looked closer, and the smile fell from his face.

***

Marik pushed his way through the crowd, fighting to make sure that he was able to find a spot to sit.  When he had arrived at the arena, he was sure that there would be plenty of time before any of the fighting began.  But the street in front of the arena was jam packed with people trying to get in, just like he was.  There were thousands of them, more than he could have imagined in one spot.  He had fought in battles with many less soldiers than the people in the street.

              At some point, the crowd began to move, so he followed along.  He kept trying to make his way towards the front, but so was everyone else.  Several pushing matches broke out, but none with him.  He wasn’t the biggest knight Karmon ever produced, but he was bigger than most everyone else in the crowd.  And because he was nearly solid muscle, he did more pushing than getting pushed.  He got many angry looks, but no one wanted to fight a large man who had the bearing of a soldier.

              Soon enough he reached the stone walls of the arena and walked through one of the many arches that led the crowd inside.  It was a chokepoint where many more people tried to squeeze through the arch than it could hold.  Eventually, he pushed his way inside and found a sight that took his breath away.  He stopped moving momentarily because he could not believe what he saw.  But the moment he stopped, someone pushed him and gave an angry shout.

              The arena was much larger than what appeared from the outside.  Most of the seats were above ground, but the arena was built into a bowl where rows of seats were carved into the ground.  The arena floor was a flat dirt area about the size of the tournament field outside the castle at South Karmon.  It was big enough where horses would be able to run free and a large numbers of combatants would be able to fight.

              The sound of the crowd was overwhelming.  Those that were already in their seats were standing and shouting, yelling and screaming words that he both could and could not understand.  The crowd was pushing forward towards any open seat and he could only go with the flow, or he would have been trampled.  Eventually, he came across a row of seats that had spots that were just open enough for him to squeeze into.  Ignoring dirty looks from the Tarans in his way, he pushed his way into an open spot.

              Now that he was standing still in one spot, he was able to take in the arena more closely.  To his right, a covered platform was built into the seats.  Many people were standing atop it including a tall man in a very black robe and a much smaller man in a dull gray cloak.  The man in the black robe stepped forward and lifted a hand and the crowd began yelling and cheering even louder.

              Marik looked down upon the arena floor where the two combatants faced one another.  To his right was a shorter man with two swords strapped to his back.  To his left stood a soldier in chainmail armor, longsword, and shield.  He had feared that the Hurai that was supposed to be fighting was Master Goshin, but it was clearly not.  The Hurai was easily half Master Goshin’s age.  He only assumed that the man on the right was the Hurai, as he did not look like either Karmon or Taran and had the same darker skin of Master Goshin.  Relieved that it was not Master Goshin fighting, Marik turned his attention to the man on the left and looked at him more closely.

              And the moment he did, his heart sank.

***

Goshin stood quietly at the back of the platform. After having not used his legs for so long, the long walk from the dungeons had exhausted him.  At some point, he knew he would either have to sit down or he would collapse.  But right now, his eyes were on Conner, who stood stoically in the center of the arena.  He was bigger than he remembered.  Still long and lean, but there was something about him that made him look bigger.  The boy that he had trained was gone, and in his place was a man.  But it was still an inexperienced man who needed more training.  Not just in sword play, but in life itself.  He could not image how he had ended up here in this arena, but he feared it would be the last time he would see him alive.

Regret for leaving swarmed over him like a high fever.  For Conner’s sake, he should not have left.  He should have stayed to continue his tutelage of Conner.  He deserved more than being left to his own devices.  He might be a man, but he was still young, simple and naive too much of the world’s influence.  But also had his utmost faith in the One God, trusting Him in all that he did.  Whether he regretted it or not, being here, right now, was the plan of the One God and he could not dispute His plans.  Whether Conner lived or died, he needed to have the trust that the Creator was in control.

With eyes closed, he said a prayer for Conner, hoping that the Creator would have mercy on Conner and allow him to survive this fight.  And then he asked for forgiveness for doubting the power and control of the Creator.  He needed to trust that His plans were supreme, even if they were not understood.

He glanced up at Prince Tarcious just as the prince looked down at him.  He had a smile as sinister as he had ever seen.  Goshin knew that the man was pure evil and his existence was a stench on the Creator’s world.  Tarcious leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“It is your time,” the prince said.  “The crowd is chanting for blood, for someone to die.  It is time to give them what they want.  I have saved you for this moment, if you had not figured it out, yet.  So enjoy the last few moments of the boy’s life, for it is about to end.  And then, I will have no use for you, either.”

Goshin stepped forward until he was only inches away from the prince’s chest.  The prince was nearly a foot taller, causing Goshin to have to look up at him.  “I have said before, and I say again.  I am prepared to end my existence on this world.  What awaits me is a far greater life than this world.  Eternal bliss.  That is what awaits me.  Eternal damnation is what awaits you.  You have sided with forces beyond your understanding or your control.  And you have chosen the wrong side.  You have chosen poorly.”