CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
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King Te’Korei
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28th of Decepter, 935 PC
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Why can’t you give me anything I want? Why does everything have to be so spiteful with you? Bring me home, please. I’m tired of this. His face scrunched up in frustration. Bring me home! Now! He let out a loud burst of coughs, blood landing on the bags of grain near his head. His wool mask was drenched in sweat and freezing cold.
“You alright?” Barik asked. He stood at the back of the covered wagon with Colin, impatiently waiting to go into the pub.
“Of course he is,” Tol said, appearing beside the healer. “Come, brother King. We’ll get you some tea.” Even ale would not have been enough to drag him out of the wagon. Tea was about as likely as King surviving long enough to see the tulips blossom all over Morne.
He coughed into his elbow, making as much of a show of it as he could without pushing his luck too far. “I’d much prefer a chance to rest. Would that be alright brother Tol?” He did his best to smile at the megalomaniac.
“I’ll check on you again shortly,” Tol said. “After all, if you don’t belong to Shirk, you don’t belong in Shirk.” Wolfgang had said it to them when he saw them out of his not so hidden hideout and Tol had taken a liking to the saying. And proving it didn’t apply to him.
King wanted to stop Colin as he passed by the opening, to tell him he was sorry, but the lad moved too quickly, like a man without a disease eating away at his body. He didn’t even glance into the wagon. He was Barik’s tagalong now and all the better for it. What better man could there be for a coward to follow than one that could keep him alive with magic? Still, it hurt.
He laid there, alone, watching the curious ruffians pass by what was essentially an unattended wagon, hoping one of them would be ambitious enough to kill him and take the bags of grain. No luck.
He was beginning to think Alaric had never received his messages. It’d been nearly two weeks since he sent the note about Steppe and several days since he’d asked for help in Shirk. Plenty of time to send someone. Any longer and they’d be on the road again, heading wherever Wolfgang claimed General Camdrie was. There’d be no saving Colin at that point. What else should he have expected though? He had used his magic to call for the messenger pigeons after all. He was bound to be scolded for it.
He thought about Wolfgang’s fire lance and what it had done to the poor servant girl. Thought about how it should have been him. Or Savar. Yes, Savar. That would have made getting Colin away from Tol much easier. He thought about the secretive look Barik had given him as they watched the girl die. How it had made him feel good at the time. Had his circumstances truly made him such a monster of a man? Was he truly so selfish now that he thought a few moments of feeling more valuable than a commoner outweighed the death of a perfectly healthy young woman? If only he could turn back time and demand that the healer save the girl.
Suddenly, his own hands caught his eye, useless fingers laced on his chest like a mound of corpses. There had been a time when those very hands would have solved all his problems; fought Savar, killed Tol, rescued Colin. But now, now, they were good for nothing. Nothing at all. The wool around his eyes got colder as the tears soaked into the fabric.
Before he knew it, he was talking to The Creator again. He took a softer approach this time. Hello, Your Magnificence. It’s me, King Te’Korei. I don’t mean to be a burden, but if you could put me out of my misery I’d appreciate it dearly. It’s not like I ask this of you because I don’t believe living life is worth it. It’s just that living this life isn’t worth it. It was. Back when I could help those in need. Give them the shirt off my back. The Leos in my pouch. I was a good person but this is changing me. For the worse. And I want to die as a good person. I deserve better than to suffer like this. Please! I deserve help when I need it too.
“I’m a good person, dammit,” he whispered.
“I’d beg to differ.” A slender figure stepped around the corner of the wagon. Fierce green eyes peered at him from above her red scarf. The rider from before. The crossbow raised slowly. He let his magic flow even though no amount of magic in the world would make her miss from this range. Then he stopped. Is this how you’ve answered my prayers? He deemed it the only answer and closed his soul.
He shut his eyes and waited for the thwack of the weapon being fired, but it never came. Instead, the assailant let out a grunt that opened his eyes. Now a man dressed in all black leather stood in the opening of the wagon, looking at the ground. Then he was on the move. And, lords could he move; elegant as a dancer, nimble as a cat. The assailant was no stranger to dexterity either though. She rolled backward, legs going over her head, until she was on one knee, arms wide, daggers drawn.
The dirt road cleared quickly. Shirk was full of men and women that wouldn’t shy away from a fight, but no one wanted to be around this feat of magic.
There were punches, but they were anything but thrown. Placed would be a better word. Put in place with such precision that they almost looked harmless. Of course, he knew they were anything but. And the daggers certainly weren’t without lethality either. A dagger swiped over the man’s head as he ducked. His kick caught her chest but she caught the kick. She flipped him backward smoothly as if working together on a new performance for the king. They’d somehow turned deadly fighting into something graceful and pleasing to watch. King’s heart raced but not like it would in the arena. No, this wasn’t a battle, this was a show and he was in the gallery.
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The man swung fast and smooth but found nothing. The woman caught his shoulders, bent him forward and rolled over his back. She swept his legs out from underneath him but rather than fall like a clumsy fool, he caught himself with his chest inches from the dirt. He pushed himself up and tucked his feet under his crouched body instantly. A thin coat of dust now tainted his sleek black coat. She came at him with a flurry of punches and kicks that became a string of blurry deathblows but he met each with his own swiftness. He countered the last punch with a thrust of his arm that gave him a small opening to land a slash of his blade across the woman’s chest. She stumbled backward. Gained her balance. Prepared to come again.
Then, it was over. With one punch. Thrown by a monster. The assailant’s head snapped sideways. She hit the dirt shoulder first and lay there unconscious. A man with a boulder for a chest and arms that could lift the world stood over her. He was unmistakable. Garth!
“Garth! You’ve come!” King yelled through the canvas cover. The brute turned in circles. “In here! In the wagon!”
They locked eyes. Garth’s befuddlement reminded King he was wearing his wool mask. He tugged it off his head, its fibers tearing at his skin.
“King!” The brute’s voice was thunder on a clear day.
“Garth! Oh my, Garth!” King let his magic flow again so he could climb to his knees and crawl to the back of the wagon. “It’s so good to see you, my friend!”
A woman appeared. All business. Wouldn’t know a joke if it came out of her own mouth. “Who’s this?” she asked. A boy stepped out from behind her legs, shaggy and dirty, scared of the world around him. Understandably so. King had felt that way several times this week alone.
Garth lifted him out of the wagon with his biceps made of steel and sat him down. A lovely chap, but not nearly gentle enough. “This is King Te’Korei. A friend of Alaric’s.” His big burly cheeks, the ones covered in black facial hair, filled with hot air. “What am I sayin’? He’s my pal too!” He lifted a monstrous hand to slap King on the back but King raised an arm, pleading with him not to.
The brute was even friendlier than he remembered. Of course, the last time he’d seen Garth, they were with Alaric and Alaric would not accept his bodyguard acting like a lovable child.
The woman extended a hand. “Narah Loe. And that’s my brother, Shade.” She pointed to the man in black who was tying the unconscious assailant’s hands behind her back. “And this is Maddy Hallstone.” She put a hand on the boy’s head. Maddy wiggled closer to Narah. “Take no offense. He’s a shy boy.”
“What were you doin’ in that wagon? Three hells, what are you doin’ in Shirk? You know what they say about Shirk…” Garth said.
“Aye, I’m well aware,” King said. “But I’m-”
“Brother King!” Tol shouted as he walked toward them from the pub. King chose Narah as the one he made his face at before he turned. Only logical given what he knew about Garth’s capacity for relaying information secretively and the man in black was still preoccupied. “Who are your friends?” Tol asked as he approached. “You can call me Tol.” He offered no hand.
King began to introduce his saviors but Garth spoke first. “Garth Buxton.” He put out a hand that Tol examined then declined. Garth narrowed his eyes as he tucked his anvil of a hand into his pocket.
Shade handed Garth the rope he’d tied to the assailant’s restraints and stood. He didn’t appear to be one that spoke more often than necessary. His eyes were working hard though, studying Tol closely without bringing attention to himself.
Tol barely acknowledged him anyway. He was too busy staring straight at the boy standing in front of Narah. “And who is this?” Narah put a hand on Maddy’s shoulder like a protective mother.
“His name is Maddy,” she said with just the right amount of defensiveness.
“I’d like to leave with these people,” King said, trying to redirect Tol’s attention to him.
“Is that right?” Tol asked. “Without completing our pact?” A thick blanket of discomfort fell over King. “I did say such a choice would not be met kindly, did I not?”
King often liked to say he considered keeping his word a sacred thing but that was mostly a saying more than reality. Unfortunately, it was as if the very notion of King not seeing a promise entirely through had offended Tol so deeply that he considered the act sacrilege, an indictment on his way of life. Something evil showed through the charismatic mask Tol wore so often, reshaping the hardened lines of his face to look sinister and hateful.
Even his voice changed as he said, “You rewrote fate in Wolfgang’s study but I’m anything but done with you.”
King glanced at the other Purists. They were as uncomfortable as he was but none of them spoke up. Not even Garth and he’d never met a man he was afraid of.
“I-I am aware,” King said weakly, figuring he had less time to live than Tol had time to seek revenge. “But I’m needed elsewhere.”
Tol eyed him so suspiciously that it could not be just a man that was looking at him. “And what of brother Colin? You couldn’t leave him, could you?”
There weren’t many people in the world that King would rather leave Colin with after he died than Garth Buxton. “He will come with me.” He assumed Colin would come with them. He may have been too upset to do so now that he thought about it.
Tol smirked. “For the boy.”
“What?” King said.
“Brother Colin may go with you in exchange for young Maddy.”
“Why not let him go for free? As you are with me?”
“Because I care not what a commoner thinks. I speak for him now. He has value and I am not one to simply give away something of value.”
Garth stepped toward Tol, muscles flexing all throughout his body. Intimidation was a favorite of his if King remembered correctly. “Listen-” Tol’s hand thrust toward the brute’s chest so quickly it appeared as though a black, shadowy form had come out of the human hand and reached into Garth’s body. Before anyone could move, the brute’s muscles vanished, leaving him abnormally tall and abnormally thin, disgustingly frail. He clutched at his chest with his oversized hands that were now little more than long, bony weaklings. They clawed slowly, pitifully, until he dropped to his knees and fell on his face.
“What have you done?!” Narah said, dropping to the ground beside her comrade, rolling him over to see a withered, gray face of death.
Shade moved fast and swiftly but Tol moved faster, catching his wrist, stopping the dagger inches from his stomach. “Don’t make me take your life too,” Tol said quietly, then shoved Shade backward. He straightened out his cloak and glared at King. “Brother Colin for the boy.”
King wasn’t entirely against the idea but Narah was. “Do you honestly think I’d let you take an innocent boy with you?” she said, piercing Tol with her eyes. “Maddy stays with us.”
“So be it,” Tol said and stepped toward King. “Your friend was lucky to die so peacefully. Your death will be a painful one.” King tried to backpedal away but Tol was on him too quickly. His open palm landed square in the middle of King’s chest.
Before King could do anything to defend himself, his magic was being sucked from his soul.