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When the light peered into his chamber, Darshan wasn’t asleep. Sleep didn’t come easy to weary old men like him. Instead, he turned and twisted in his bed, listing to the groans of the castle, the wind outside, rummaging on broken promises. You failed the boy.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Ser,’ a voice said as the door slowly crawled open.
‘There is no need to apologise.’ He saw the Cook’s apprentice entering the room. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.
Darshan rose and seated himself at the edge of the bed, massaging his sore muscles. ‘I’m guessing it’s urgent whatever you require of me.’ He looked towards the boarded shutters, tried figure out what time it was, morning or night? It was futile, the world outside was dark, it was always dark.
‘Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir, but we… we found him. We found John.’
Darshan knew it was a trap.
Shaw had murdered John — there wasn’t a doubt in his mind — and now he was next. He had coaxed the boy to do as he wished, even to lure out Darshan with a false promise. But he decided to take the bait, he had nothing to lose now, he had already lost everything. Everything but the chance for justice.
‘Lead the way, Boy,’ Darshan said, and followed the boy out into the night. He wanted nothing else but drive his sword through that black heart.
*
The storm had calmed, but the cold was still fierce. In the darkness the pines rose like dark columns, it brought back memories of lord Callus great hall. But unlike it, there was no herald to proclaim his arrival, nor hushed rumours, or grand proclamations; there was only a seething silence.
And all he could do in his trudge through the cold, quiet, darkness was to remember.
‘Darshan,’ Lord Callus had said, that faithful day so many years ago. ‘My son is not a man yet.’
‘Sire, your son’s sixteen name day has passed, by the reckoning of our laws, he is a man grown,’ Darshan had told him.
‘And yet he is soft as silk. He plays the harp and the lute with the skills of a fawn, but he is a dullard at swordplay. I know you have done your best to tutor the boy, I do not put the burden of this misery on you. Alas it’s the castle that has made the boy soft. His mother has blessed him with an appearance of a fairytale prince but cursed him with her tender manners. And I have failed him with a kind heart…’ Lord Callus rested his head against the palm of his right hand. ‘The world has become cruel. The gods have abandoned us without reason. Brothers and sisters cut each other’s throats for an empty throne. It was not the world I imagined for him. I have failed to chisel him into a rock that could weather this tide.’
Darshan saw the sorrow in the old lord’s weathered visage. The misery of his failure asserted itself in the dark rings under his eyes.
‘You have done your best, Sire. John is a good lad.’ It was an empty kindness, Darshan knew. It couldn’t lift the old lord’s burden. But those words were his duty.
‘I thank you, Darshan. There is no man that I trust more than you, a proud man among all these wicked carnivores.’ He smiled. ‘That is why I have this request. Take my son to the far fridges of the north, to Castle Lock. That place shall harden him and keep him—’ Lord Callus threw himself forward in a fit of violent coughing.
‘Sire?’ Darshan sprung forward and caught the old lord.
‘Maybe it shall be my last request, a dying wish,’ Lord Callus said as the coughing stopped, his smile returned. ‘Do you accept?’
Darshan took his hand. ‘I shall lay this burden on my soul. Let it burn if I shall fail.’ He kissed Lord Callus hand. ‘And I promise that you shall see your son again.’
Lord Callus gave a sad smile. ‘I fear that is a promise you can’t keep.’
The old Lord had passed a year after John and Darshan had left for Castle Lock. Darshan had burned that letter; he hadn’t wanted to burden John with the news of his father’s passing. The North was hard enough on the boy.
Now they were both dead. The little hope he had vanished through the cracks in his heart when the kitchen boy led him out through the east gate and towards the woods. He feared that John had walked the white path as the brothers called it. When hope had been wrung out from a man, he walked the path to find peace in the cold. If he only knew that the boy had been troubled. Had he found out about his father’s death? Was the John’s life the price of Darshan’s lie? If the boy is alive, I shall never lie again.
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‘We are here,’ the Cook’s apprentice said.
Darshan was yanked from his stream of thought and looked around. The scenery hadn’t changed, and he saw no trace of John.
‘Where is he?’ Darshan said. But his answer didn’t come from the boy.
‘He is here, old friend.’
Darshan saw Shaw walk out from the darkness like a Draeger. His red hair leapt like flames in the wind, and his scar was more hideous than Darshan remembered. But his gaze didn’t linger on his features, for the sack Shaw held made his hand tremble.
Shaw threw the sack, and John’s head spilled out in the air. Darshan saw his eyes pleading with fear, his last thoughts crystallized. He remembered those eyes; how bright they were when they train in the courtyard. The determination.
I failed both a father and a son.
He had been entrusted with a life that had now been taken by a man Darshan had trained himself. A cruel jape, a bitter irony.
He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword, sighed, saw his breath turn to white smoke.
‘I knew it was you, Shaw,’ he said.
Shaw grinned. ‘You did. Unfortunately, the truth will die with you, old friend.’
He whistled.
Darshan felt a sharp pain shoot up from his leg. He looked down and saw a knife sticking through his thigh, dripping wet with blood.
‘I’m sorry,’ the boy said, and his eyes told him that it was true.
‘I want you to know it wasn’t malice that killed him,’ Shaw said.
‘Then what?’
‘His foolish sense of justice, honour. Your honour, Darshan. If he would have only listened nothing of this would have happened!’
Darshan felt a burning, searing sensation spread out from the wound. The pain throbbed through the numb void, fuelling the hatred that it spawned. He fixed his eyes at Shaw.
‘He did the right thing then,’ Darshan spat. ‘The honourable thing. Don’t excuse your own sins, Shaw.’
‘I do what I must to survive.’ Shaw drew John’s sword.
‘Those who draw the blade, must be prepared to die by it.’ Darshan said.
‘I know. You were fond of that lesson.’
‘Good.’ Darshan drew steel, and it sang in the crisp air. ‘Then I have nothing left to teach you.’ He charged.
*
Darshan stumbled and collapsed before he could reach Shaw. It was an amusing sight to see his old friend wriggling in pain, his anger almost catching flame between his gritted teeth. Shaw put his boot on the sword before Darshan could swing it again.
‘BASTARD!’ Darshan screamed.
Shaw answered with a kick to the old man’s jaw. Darshan’s head jolted backwards.
Shaw watched his old friend sprawl out in the snow, spitting blood. He saw his lips moving.
‘Can’t hear you,’ Shaw said, crouching down.
Darshan spat blood in his eye. It itched and burned; it made Shaw fumble. Darshan’s weight fell over him, beating him to the ground. He heard the scrape of steel, put his hands up and clasped the dagger that was aimed for his heart. Warm blood dripped from Darshan’s gritted teeth. The veins on his hands bulged as Shaw tried to steer the dagger to the side, but the old man still had fight in him. Darshan had been the one to kick sense into him, in the young fool he had been. He had taught him swordplay, proper swordplay, not the hacking and slashing he had learned on his own. He had taught him to respect a weapon, to respect an opponent. Only a fool fight with overconfidence, for it is a slow and insidious killer. Shaw felt his hands tremble, feeling the weariness run down his arms. Maybe he hadn’t fully heeded the lesson, and for that, it seemed, he would pay a painful price—
Darshan’s head flew sideways, something had hit it. With the old man dazzled, Shaw threw himself forward all his weight. Darshan tumbled over, and Shaw snatched the dagger as he fell. With quick ease of movement, he placed himself on top of Darshan and drove the dagger near his heart. The old man bit down on his own scream, his legs thrashing, his hands desperately searching for the dagger. Shaw twisted it slowly, watching Darshan’s face wrinkle and contort, eyes trying to shut out the pain.
Shaw drew out the dagger and a gushing of dark red was quick to follow.
Darshan gasped, spitting blood. ‘I promised…,’ He rasped. ‘I promised…’
‘It was a promise to a dead man. You are now relieved of it. Your duty ends.’
Darshan gave a pained grin. ‘You will burn,’ he whispered. ‘You will burn, Shaw. The great pits await you. You burn.’
You will burn, Shaw. The gods see your sins. You will burn! His father’s voice whispered.
Shaw threw down his fist against Darshan’s face. He could hear a crack, feel blood splatter. He heard himself scream. Crunch. Pain blaze through his hand. Crack. His knuckles were crying red. It burnt, burnt, burnt.
Darshan laughed, breathless and coughing.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Pain drove through his arms. ‘Why are you laughing!’ Blood splattered.
In the end Shaw couldn’t recognize Darshan’s face anymore, except for his golden eyes staring through all that was swollen and broken. He got back on to his feet with ragged breath. Turning, he saw the cook’s apprentice standing in the snow, still and silent, pale as a ghost, and holding a stone in his hand.
‘Burn,’ Shaw mumbled. ‘Burn.’
Above, nestled in the wicked branches, Shaw could hear crows and ravens laugh.