CHAPTER TEN

King’s Court, Calpurnican Empire

12th Month, 25th day, 24th Year, The Quiet Age

Iskul stood in the center of the room lost in thought and the crowd around him became more violent by the second. He almost couldn’t comprehend what the Emperor had told him, let alone believe it. His father had always been an honorable man and Iskul firmly believed that within his heart. Iskar might have had a tendency to drink too much and a bit of a temper but he had always been a good father. He contemplated if what he had heard was really the truth but he also couldn’t readily deny it when everyone else seemed to be so sure. The mention of his mother’s name gave him enough cause to doubt. A feeling grew in the pit of his stomach and Iskul knew that whatever was said next would decide his fate.

“We will have order in this court room!” The head knight loudly declared from the front, and the robed minister’s all slowly returned to their seats out of fear of the possible repercussions. Iskul waited for the commotion to subside before carefully addressing Marxis.

My liege, you must be mistaken. My father’s name wasn’t Iskar, it was Uskan.”

“How dare you! You can’t speak back to the Emperor!” A minister in the back shouted from the back of the court.

“Off with his head!” Another man yelled who was garbed in the clothes of the nobility. Iskul tried his best to not show how nervous he was to the bloodthirsty audience gathered around, but couldn’t help but swallow when faced with a room full of animosity pointed directly at him.

“There’s no need for such hostility,” The Emperor said, quickly quieting down the crowd and stopping anyone else from making anymore brash outbursts. “The boy is new to our court so we can forgive his lack of etiquette this time, but please be careful with your words in the future Iskul.”

“Yes your majesty, I only wanted to convey that my Father wasn’t who you think he was.”

“Oh really? I had always assumed that Iskar created a false identity for himself to help escape punishment, but to have the brazenness to pick the Adballan word for ‘Beast’ as his alias says a lot about the man’s guile, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand how this could all be possible…”

“Allow me to elaborate then. After all, I was there that fateful day and saw everything with my own two eyes. Twenty-three years ago, The Second Offensive was about to reach its conclusion. I myself had gone off to war with my four siblings because our father decided that the child who accomplishes the most in battle would be the one to succeed him. In all honesty, the campaign was a bloodbath.

We fought many terrible battles and lost a million soldiers in the span of a month. Three of my older brothers perished in combat. The amount of lives lost during the campaign unfortunately kept rising, but we eventually managed to surround the enemy in a natural rock formation called Yuger Canyon. It was there that the Demon Lord was finally slain and we claimed our victory, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Yes, my liege.” Of course Iskul was aware of it, the legend of that campaign was extremely popular. Iskul was sure that every citizen in the Empire must have heard it at least once in their lives.

“Good. So you know then that during the campaign, thirteen heroes appeared in our darkest hour and managed to successfully end the war with their personal accomplishments. After the battle ended, the heroes were all to be rewarded by the current Emperor Mars, my father, for beating back the darkness that emerged on our doorstep.

A gathering was held here in this very capital to celebrate the heroes and all the people who rose up for the sake of all mankind, but secretly, Emperor Mars actually was trying to recruit the heroes to his country permanently in a bid to remain more powerful than our neighboring nations. One of those people was the lord you just met, Ilan Koga, who actually struck the final blow in that war, but another one of the lesser-known heroes was an Adballan warrior who distinguished himself by being an absolute savage animal on the battlefield. Many scholars who have examined the events of that war consider him to have had the largest impact on the war out of all of the thirteen heroes. As someone who actually fought beside him, I can guarantee you that his insane strength was the real deal. That man’s name was Iskar Farzhin, and he was known as the 'Bloody Beast of the Battlefield.'”

“After a week of festivities in the capital, the group of heroes were finally summoned to this very court room and made to appear in front of Emperor Mars, but not everyone decided to come. Your father happened to be one of the heroes who decided to make an appearance and he declared his allegiance to the Empire just like the others,” The knight named Sir Galvain added which caused Iskul to visibly furrow his brow in contemplation.

“You seem bothered by something, speak.”

“I just can’t imagine my dad as a hero… He was my father and I obviously loved him… but to me he was just an old, lazy, one-armed, out-of-shape fisherman with a pension for cheap booze and salty food.”

“Hahaha! That actually sounds like he didn’t change too much, young man.”

“Does that mean the two of you were well acquainted?”

“Of course we were! Both of us were in the same unit, after all. I can tell you that Iskar always seemed happiest enjoying the little things in life. Which is partly why I knew my father’s plan was never going to work on him. Trying to entice the heroes into staying, my father offered them their own regions to govern over and more wealth than they could possibly imagine. Most of them willingly accepted, but Iskar and a Minotauren hero named Rovalk had no interest in the offer.”

Iskul could only imagine the amount of power such a position would hold and couldn’t help but ask, “Why would anyone turn down such a prize? Again that doesn’t make much sense.”

“Yes, let me ensure you that their refusal was a shock to all of the people who were present, but Iskar or Rovalk didn’t want any territory. Instead of land or vast wealth, all Iskar wanted was the hand of one of my sister’s named Madeline. You see, he had become smitten with Madeline during the time they spent together over the course of the festival that week, and he believed a marriage between the two could bring their people together. Rovalk on the other hand was tired of his people being taken as slaves and wanted the Minotauren to be an officially recognized species of the Empire.

This proposal… surprised my father greatly. My father Mars never liked Adballans in the first place and I must admit that he could be a cruel man when he wanted to be. The idea of his daughter marrying a man from the endless desert and the declining of the reward he thought was more than satisfactory made him extremely angry. Also the idea that the Empire, who relied heavily on Minotauren slave labor to rebuild the damage from the war would lose part of its workforce, didn’t help alleviate his anger either. Despite Madeline’s intentions to willingly go with your father, Mars denied Iskar what he had wanted and sent the man off with nothing, but not before repeatedly embarrassing him in front of the court. Rovalk’s treatment wasn’t much better I’m afraid… he was told that he had one week to leave the borders of the country or he would be forced into servitude. Iskar left the hall but only after vowing to take revenge for the way he was humiliated in public. I’m assuming you know what happened next, correct?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Again only vaguely, your highness. We only get bits and pieces of information out in the Northeast and we are talking about something that happened over twenty years ago.”

“Well to put it rather bluntly and to spare everyone hear the nightmare of reliving it; I will skip most of the boring details and get to the important parts. The rest of the court was not impressed with the pettiness my father had displayed that day. Embarrassed by the rumours that began to swirl and worried that he needed to curb the minister’s unrest, the Emperor decided to declare Rovalk and Iskar enemies of the state and started a motion to toss out any unrecognized species from the country. Any Minotauren who lived within the city’s walls was immediately tossed out of the capital that same night, but it immediately backfired on us. The capital was full of people of different creeds for the festival who weren’t very happy with my father’s decision. The streets were immediately plunged into chaos as sides formed and different ideological groups clashed. We call this period ‘The Capital Race Riot’ and it proceeded to last for five days. It was during the end of these riots that something absolutely horrible happened, and it had such an impact on the Empire that it still is considered a taboo topic to this day. Around midnight during the fifth straight night of the riot, someone managed to break into the castle during all of the commotion.”

“The Night of Silence…”

“That’s right. It was an absolute massacre. Over three hundred people were slaughtered indiscriminately, most of them being guards or members of the servant class. My father was found in his bedroom with his throat cut from ear to ear and was left hanging from the ceiling posed like an Argossean Eagle, the symbol of freedom for the empire. The perpetrator had also had carved the word “Vengeance” into the skin on his chest in Adballan and had flayed all the skin from his face, replacing it with a solid-white masquerade mask that was sewn haphazardly onto his skull. My poor sister Madeline was nowhere to be found, taken at some point from her room during the commotion. The strangest part of this story is the fact that the rest of us who we’re in the castle and survived the night didn’t hear or notice anything peculiar. Not one of the survivor’s had heard a sound or seen a soul all night. Many of them doubted something had even happened at all that night… if it wasn’t for the bloody mess and all the corpses left behind they probably still would. Only three of the soldiers who we’re on guard that night inside the palace managed to not perish immediately and we’re sequestered for questioning. We needed answers, so they were given Greater Life Potions to prevent them from succumbing to their wounds.”

Greater life potions?! The fact that the Empire would use the strongest and most expensive potion in the world on a couple of guards showed how important their information was to Iskul.

“These few living witnesses gave their testimonies to the authorities. There was some discrepancies that we don’t need to get into right now, but all of them had only seen one person at the scene of the crime. They each reported seeing the same Adballan man who had come to the court earlier that week, a man recognized for his larger-than-life size and the dual axes he fought every battle with. That man was your father. To this day no one really knows how Iskar actually managed to do it, but the facts are admittedly, undeniable. He was spotted at the scene of the crime by different witnesses, the woman he loved was missing and the man who wronged him dead. Therefore, the Empire put a large bounty on Iskar’s head. He was given the moniker of ‘Iskar the Rotten’ and still had not been found after twenty years.”

Iskul tried to poke holes in the story he had just been told but couldn’t find any logical inconsistencies. Judging by the serious look on Marxis’ face, he figured the Emperor had been honest with him.

Iskul couldn’t help but quietly spit out, “My mother’s name was Madeline.”

“Well, I figured as much. You definitely look like your father, but you have your mother’s eyes and facial features.”

“If your Madeline’s brother does that mean…”

“That I’m your uncle? Yes it does, which makes you Calpurnican Royalty.”

“WAIT-WHAT?”

“If you don’t mind, can you please tell me what happened to her?”

Iskul proceeded to tell the court exactly how he got away from Kigan. He told the court about how his mother and sister had been brutally killed by a fiend when he attempted to return home. He tried his best to remember all the different things he had seen and how he finally got away in his fishing boat. As he recounted his tale, many of the ministers made horrified noises and looks of fear could be seen all over the gallery. It was obvious to him that they thought this threat was very real. They had been spared the gruesome details of the attack earlier during Talan’s account of events, but Iskul figured his own life depended on them knowing the gruesome details. ‘Good, they look scared,’ he thought to himself. Marxis listened to his account patiently and then turned to the head knight who stood next to him. The two men exchanged a glance that seemed to last forever but no words were exchanged between them. The knight eventually nodded signalling an end to their silent conversation and Iskul wondered if they could somehow read each other’s minds or body language. The Emperor turned back to Iskul and had a sad look on his face.

“It pains me to do this; especially to one who I know I share blood with, but somebody has to be punished for what your father did or others may attempt to do the same in the future. Do you understand?”

“Are you going to execute me?” Iskul nervously asked but the Emperor quickly shook his head.

“As much as this crowd here today would probably like that, you and I share the same blood. Your father’s deeds may require you to be punished, but the blood running through your veins means I must treat you like family. It’s because of this, that I feel like a different punishment is necessary for this special circumstance. We stand on the precipice of a new danger that none of us know very much about. It’s quite possible that the evil we all know from the past has risen and shown its face once again. The armies of the forsaken have not been seen in our lands for nearly three decades. To be spotted now is not just a mere coincidence, but an omen for disasters yet to come. I fear that this age of quiet has come to a close and we’ve wasted too much of our time as it is. We must get ready for another war as soon as we can or risk being caught unprepared. One thing is for certain, the dreaded forsaken age that we have all feared was coming is finally upon us.” The crowd audibly gasped at his dreaded pronouncement but Marxis didn’t hesitate and kept right on going with his speech.

“To throw away an asset in such a time of calamity would be an absolute waste and would not help the Empire in the slightest. Does anyone here disagree?”

There was a few murmurs from the crowd but none of the ministers dared to question The Emperor out loud. “Lives have been taken from the Empire, so only life can be offered in service. Death does not make for an equivalent exchange. Considering the fact that you aren’t necessarily responsible for your father’s crimes but will serve the punishment anyway, I think a sentence of mandatory conscription would be more just on this occasion. A lifetime with Royal Knights should suffice as punishment.”

The crowd clearly did not like this decision and broke out into dissent again. Iskul couldn’t help himself and shouted out, “A lifetime?! I didn’t do anything though! This isn’t fair how can you-” He was cut off by the Head Knight who had approached him so quickly Iskul had barely noticed the man even move. He grabbed Iskul’s shoulder firmly and whispered into his ear. “Unless you want to this crowd to rip you to pieces, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and come with me. Quietly.”

The man had an iron vice grip and Iskul could get a grasp of how much stronger the man was than him, but his rage had grown to the point we’re he hardly cared. Iskul looked at the knight before violently ripping himself free of his hold, despite how much it hurt to get out of his grip. The knight was surprised, but quickly pulled Iskul in closer. “Pick your battles, Kid. This isn't the time. Not now.”

The feeling of anger that had welled up inside him slowly began to fade as the knights words entered his mind, so Iskul relented and finally relaxed. The knight forcefully turned him around and promptly marched him out of the room while the ministers shouted their various opinions about the matter, but Iskul didn't care what they had to say anymore. Iskul couldn’t help but glance one last time at Talan before the doors to the chamber closed and was surprised when he finally made eye contact with him. Talan had a look of anger and pure disgust on his face that Iskul had never seen before, and for whatever reason, that anger seemed to be squared directly at him as he walked out with the knight. Before the doors to the chamber closed completely, Iskul heard the emperor make his final proclamation for the day.

“Now ladies , gentlemen and ministers of the courts, we shall begin to plan another offensive into enemy territory in an attempt to strike the demons before they're ready. Last time it took us eight years to prepare and many people throughout the land suffered while we built up our strength. Their sacrifice is the only reason we were able to prepare and form a resistance in the first place, but I will not let them common folk pay the same price as they did for us previously. This time, I would like to be ready to launch our forces in approximately five years. Dismissed.” The meeting hall broke out again into calamity. A mad scramble took place in the upper decks of the hall as assistants and minister’s departed as fast as they could to start on the mountain of work that was just unveiled.

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