The Winds of Crowns and Wolves (23 page)

“You are meant to… abort the King’s chipper
spirit in three days’ time,” Tyrin said softly.

Neach looked confused at the choice of words
Tyrin had espoused.

“Abort the King’s ‘chipper spirit’? And how
am I meant to do that?” Neach asked, again commanding a dominant
role over Tyrin for the time being.

Tyrin paused for what seemed like an
eternity before he humored Neach’s question with a response.

“You are meant to kill the King, Neach” his
words were met by horror in the face of the young man who hailed
from a western village not too long ago. He had barely been fit to
kill his sheep, and now he was meant to kill the most powerful man
in the Kingdom.

“You’re insane!” Neach shouted, immediately
hushing his voice after the initial disbelief.

Some of the men who were training in the
area looked backwards, but continued on in their task momentarily
afterward.

“You expect me to kill the King? What am I
to do after that?” Neach begged for a reply which would spare his
own life. He was not in the business of bartering his head for
honor, and he did not intend to begin today.

Tyrin glanced around the corner of the hut
and looked Neach directly in the eyes with his steely gaze.

“Two days from today, a day from the
‘morrow, you are to maim the King whilst he has you performing your
feats of archery. I, Dirk, and Plix will have snuck into the Castle
that day, and will be present during your show. When the arrow
leaves your bowstring, we will do everything in our power to ensure
that we all leave the grounds with our heads intact,” he spoke the
words coolly, but they threatened to burn his mouth with each
syllable. What he was suggesting was regicide, a direct act of
treason against the King. People had lost their heads as a result
of much less in times past.

Nevertheless, Neach agreed to the plan set
forth by Tyrin.

“Fine, I will do it. Let us hope that the
Gods are in our favor when we follow through,” Neach spoke as if he
were a military commander in the presence of men who were all as
young as he. Their faces still smooth, their chests bare, but their
hearts were filled with the anger and passion of a hundred warriors
dead. So many of their own had died in the struggle against the
King, and they felt it was their duty to end the bloodshed, once
and for all.

Tyrin and Dirk left without another word, as
they shook hands with their brother, who they were sending into the
deepest chasms of danger for the good of their house. As Neach
watched them walk away, through the gates of the Castle, he could
not help but think of Jenos. Her beauty seemed to radiate through
the walls of the fortress, as if it were the strongest star in the
universe. In just a few short days, everything he had known had
been turned on its side. The identity he had started forging when
he left the confines of Spleuchan Sonse now seemed a distant
memory, and he feared that it still had some settling to do before
he could finally sleep easy.

His dreams.

They burned white hot in his memory, and
twisted like a sharp knife in his mind every time they came.
Luckily, when they left, there was no permanent damage to either
his body or his psyche.

As he tossed and turned in his sheets, his
eyes fluttered back and forth in rapid succession, as if they were
searching for an undefined object in his room.

Inside Neach’s mind, he was frozen.

He looked down at his feet and they were
exactly as he knew them, but he was incapable of moving them. When
he looked at his hands, they too were just as he expected, but
stuck in one place without any flexibility. They were raised high
above his head, as he lay down on the ground, and his legs were
pointing directly downward.

His breath exploded into the night air with
every inhale, and a cloud of fog seemed to be rising up from the
ground around his body. In complete contrast to the fear that he
held deep within him, the sky above was completely clear. Neach was
thankful for this, until he realized that his eyes had not deceived
him.

The sky was completely devoid of any clouds,
but it was also devoid of starlight. A grand moon presided over the
field which he laid in, and he took comfort from the fact that he
wasn’t completely isolated in the dark. As he looked down again, he
saw a familiar sight.

Coming toward him, slowly, but with
determination, was a frail wolf.

It was black in color, with eyes that shared
various hues of red and yellow. Its fur had streaks of gray in it
that made his body shiver at the sight. He had read about this wolf
before: the wolf of death. Glinjatuk, as it was known in the book,
was strolling toward him slowly as it licked its lips.

The wolf circled him for a few minutes, and
Neach’s heart stopped, as it came to a halt next to his right arm.
Slobber ran out of its mouth and onto Neach’s hand, as it stood
over him, looking more ominous as the time passed.

Neach couldn’t understand why he was having
this vision. The wolf represented death: that much was sure, but
was it present because of the King’s imminent death, or his own?
The very thought of dying in the catacombs of the Castle made him
shudder in his bed, as his mind continued to race at a terrifying
pace.

At the moment when he thought Glinjatuk
would claim his body, a strange thing happened; Neach heard a
rustling from close by. The dastardly wolf growled and bore its
teeth, but after a few moments paused completely.

Out of the brush, another wolf emerged.
Neach knew it by a name that was close to his own heart: Fenris.
The purple eyed creature moved with pace toward Glinjatuk, and when
they met, they both evaporated into a colorful smoke above his
body.

Neach was awake.

The night was not kind to Neach, and as more
time passed, and his task grew closer, he found difficult to do
anything without his mind wandering to the inevitable. He was out
of bed for near an hour when he headed to the hall to grab his
morning respite, in the form of ripe fruits and hearty breads. The
hall he knew from a few nights earlier was a distant memory, and
Henrig’s family crest hung low from the ceiling above, representing
the commencement of celebrations.

He remembered something that Fenris had told
him in Rosalia: the King hailed from a long line of righteous men,
one of the most revered in all of the Western Empires.

This meant little to Neach at the time, but
as he ventured deeper into his role as an entertainer, he realized
that the King was held in the highest regard of the people of
Duncairn. It would be a tall task to convince them that their own
loyal, noble leader was in fact a traitor. This thought, however,
was senseless. There would need to come a day of reckoning before
that would have even the slightest relevance.

It was almost as if the blood was already on
his hands. When he would take to the bath to cleanse himself, it
was a subconscious effort to cleanse his body of the wickedness he
would be participating in, just a few days from the current
time.

Succulent strawberries and blueberries were
left in a bowl for him at the high table, most likely by the King
himself. He had taken a great liking to Neach in the few days he
had been here, and had seen to it that he was treated to various
amenities that the other subjects were not privy to. They looked on
in disdain, as he grasped the fruit from within its bronze
cask.

A woman walked toward him with yellowed
teeth and smiled an incredulous smile.

“If it isn’t the King’s bitch himself,” she
jested, “Come to dine after a long night with our Highness?” when
she laughed, the others followed suit in a caucophony of laughter
that threatened to make Neach’s ears bleed.

Alas, he kept his cool and returned the
favor of jest.

“Unfortunately, no; when I called upon the
King it seemed your boy son had already taken my position,” Neach
said with a brazen smile, taut with lines of outright hatred for
the putrid woman who stood before him.

With a look of horror, the woman walked
swiftly away before yelling out at him.

“You be careful boy! There are secrets
within the confines of these walls that none would dare speak;
there is most certainly room for more,” she warned with a gravelly
claim. The ominous tone in her voice sent shivers down the young
man’s back, but he proceeded to indulge in the fruit left for him
by Henrig.

Sans drunken debauchery and merry song, the
hall was a beautifully decorated place. Functioning as the center
of the bustling castle, the hall was where men and women of the
crown came to dine and drink in the presence of royalty and their
fellow subjects. On any given night, the hall would see hundreds of
visitors who lived within the borders of the castle walls, some
staying till the sun rose the next morning.

But something was different about the hall
this morning.

It had been thoroughly cleaned the night
before, and Neach could not help but notice the fine detail which
was put into the décor. Though the crest banners fell low, near to
the table, they were held up by ornate golden rods that protrude
from the wooden ceiling beams. On each table, sat a collection of
flowers, gathered from the garden just outside his window. Summer
snaps, fire roses, and spring lilies completed a molten bouquet,
which threatened to light the wooden table below it aflame. The
flowers of spring and summer were a welcome sight for the weary
Neach. He always remembered the coming of the season was marked by
the first fire roses sprouting from the ground outside of his home
in Spleuchan Sonse. In the winter, none but the frost thistle
survived the harsh weather, but in the spring and summer, grand
blooms took place and covered the ground, as far as the eyes could
see.

He was admiring the stunning centerpieces
when a familiar voice whispered just behind him.

“Hello, fleet-footed boy,” it cooed in his
ears, tickling with every word.

Neach wanted to spin around quickly, but
decided it would be best to play it off as normality.

“How long we’ve known each other and you
still don’t know my name?” he quipped with a beaming smile.

She sat beside him and placed her hands
within her lap.

“Now, now, Neach, don’t be so hasty,” her
black hair flipping over her right shoulder, “there will be plenty
of time for niceties.”

Though he was unsure exactly what she spoke
of, it caused butterflies to erupt within his stomach. Jenos looked
stunning as usual. She was wearing a red, yellow, and orange based
dress that resembled the flowers placed atop the tables. No doubt
planned for the celebration, the gown contrasted with her black
hair miraculously, and caused Neach to become short of breath
momentarily. In her hair, there laid a sprig of summer thistle.
Different from its winter peer, the summer thistle lost its hard,
prickly, spikes, and was left with soft hair in its place. The
green of the thistle met the green of her eyes and they danced
together in sweet harmony.

He must have been staring oddly, because
Jenos tapped him on the shoulder.

“Neach?” he struggled to regain functional
consciousness as she laughed, “Perhaps there won’t be time for
niceties, then.”

His cheeks must have turned the color of her
crimson dress from embarrassment, but he did his best to
recover.

“My apologies, Lady Jenos, I’m afraid last
night’s sleep was not kind to me,” his quick witted response seemed
to please her, as she pushed her hair behind her ear.

“Well whatever it is, I’m sure it can be
fixed by a day in the city,” she said shyly, all the while
smiling.

“Don’t try to use your feet on me again,
Neach, my father has already approved of it,” Jenos beamed from ear
to ear, and Neach couldn’t help but follow suit.

He rose from the table, and was grabbed on
the arm by the fair lady, the daughter of the King of Duncairn.

Never before had he seen a more beautiful
summer’s day in the Kingdom. He had been lucky enough to experience
wonderful weather in the recent days he spent at the castle, and
this day was unfolding into what would prove to be its
pinnacle.

Jenos bowed to the guards as she led Neach
out the front gate of the castle, toward the heart of Leirwold and
the city seemed to open its arms in a wide embrace to the
gallivanting couple, as they left the safety and security of the
large stone castle behind them.

There were few words spoken in the first few
minutes of their walk, but Neach found comfort in the silence.
Their minds existed in sync, a mental harmony, and they expressed
their joy without a single phrase uttered. A gnawing cold had once
bitten at Neach’s insides when the winter was young and he feared
it would reach its maturity quickly. But now, in the warmth of the
summer, his heart filled with an unbridled heat, that he would have
attributed to the meal a night previous, if it weren’t for Jenos by
his side. Never before had he seen a girl as beautiful as her, and
he was struggling to make the impression that he desired.

Yet, as they walked through the university
district, past her library and favorite tea place, along
cobblestoned grounds, their hearts mended as one. Engaged in a
perilous dance that threatened to drop their very hearts to a
hungry pack of lions at any second, the two forgot their lives
momentarily and lived as if they were free creatures. Free to roam
the lands, unencumbered by human suffering; free to speak and laugh
as they please; the burden of man’s intelligence a distant
memory.

They reached their destination, as the sun
raised high above them in an effort to shed its everlasting heat
all at once, atop their unprotected bodies. Jenos had jested with
Neach when he asked the location they were headed for, and she kept
the secret held deep within her until it was directly evident
before them.