For one hundred and eight days, the Bogman cut down every Claelish in his path. No weapon formed against him could prevail. Spears pierced his body. Swords cut off his limbs. An arrow struck his heart. Still he lived. He killed whomever he pleased, for such was the natural order of strength and weakness. He did unto others what had been done to him. He welcomed anyone to do unto him as he did to them, but they could not, for he carried the blessing of the Water and of the Shadow.
-The Legend of the Bogman
Island of Le’Me, Grand Archipelago
Six days after their siege began, the Grackenwelsh conquest of the Grand Archipelago was complete. Le’Me went down after a hard fight; the next two islands fell over the next three nights and the rest would have followed, but word of total Archipelagian surrender came via a chain of smoke signals up from the southernmost island, shore by eleven more shores, all the way to the invaders’ mobilized ships. The Garrotins and a pair of supply-bearing ships reversed course and returned to the main island of Le’Me. There, the remnants of a destroyed village would serve as their headquarters until official terms could be negotiated with island elders.
Kimbel surveyed the wreckage with his father. Where primitive houses had stood just a few days prior there were only embers and splinters. Wandering Archipelagians, each staring blankly at something far, far off on the horizon, rummaged through the wreckage to collect their dead.
King Brynh Garrotin wandered the battlefield as though gardening. He wielded his mighty war hammer, Havokond, the most infamous weapon in all the Stone Continent—maybe in all the world. A devastating bladed hammer, legend told that it was forged from steel and layers of gator hide by the Bogman himself. It was House Garrotin’s second most prized possession after the Secret Ledger. Kimbel had only ever laid a hand on it twice in his life when his father was feeling particularly generous, though he was never strong enough to lift it.
Now his father used it to dole out coups de grace to the dying. Grackenwelsh slaves mopped up the village’s unidentifiable remains as if tidying a slaughterhouse floor.
“You missed one,” said Brynh. “Mind your duties, Kimbel.”
Kimbel was armed with nothing but his sword. It had no name—not yet. He was only recently permitted to join expeditions like these, and even still, his father humiliated him with menial work fit for a slave. He felt his sharpening talents were woefully wasted.
“Here he is,” Kimbel sighed. He found the charred Archipelagian crawling along the sunbaked white sand, making a hideous wheezing sound. He ended the poor creature’s suffering with a jab of his blade. “What a mangy band of savages. Isn’t that right, father? Why didn’t we do this years ago?”
King Brynh Garrotin kicked a faintly smoking cannonball out from under a pile of rubble. It rolled to a heavy stop a short distance away down the debris-strewn dirt road, sinking slightly into a mud puddle. “Tactics, my son. In more stable times, this kind of attack would certainly earn retribution from the Eloheed. The Qardish consider the islanders to be righteous among the Tomeless for their observance of the Precepts. Too stupid to read, but they don’t abort their young or take slaves.”
“They’re too stupid to do either anyway,” Kimbel said with a shrug. “Right, Father?”
The king raised a didactic finger. “Ah, there’s the crux of the issue. Where’s the righteousness in not killing a man if you don’t know how to fight? Cut out the teeth and claws of a tiger—does that make it a deer? These islanders would take slaves and conquer their neighbors if they could, just like every other kingdom in the world all throughout history.” Brynh swung his war hammer on a twitching, half-dead native. “This is the reward for their so-called righteousness.”
“They’ll make righteous slaves, I’m sure,” said Kimbel, grinning. “And so will those gold-clad mongrels in Qarda once we’re ready. Wouldn’t you say, Father?”
The king, still lithe and smooth-faced for a battle-hardened man of forty years, winced at his son’s overeagerness. Kimbel secretly felt foolish. “It’s good and right to force submission on those weaker than you,” his father told him. “It’s the way of nature, the way of the world. The only true way. But a wise man always remembers his place. That’s why I never would have ordered an invasion like this with Qarda at her full strength.”
Brynh Garrotin gestured to an Archipelagian corpse untouched by cannonballs or spears but bloody and unmoving all the same; red ribbons of upturned flesh lined the dead man’s back, peeled by whip like an orange. A trio of islanders shuffled over to it timidly. The conquering king stepped aside politely, almost amicably, and let them carry off the carcass.
“This man clearly didn’t know his place in the world,” the king explained. “A thousand, thousand slaves are of no use to you if they don’t know their place. The same could be said of the soldier who killed him. By killing him, this soldier took away Grackenwell’s right to another slave. Took something away from you and me. Destroyed what would have been our property. Being a wise man means knowing when to keep whipping and when to dump them in a cell for a few days with no food. A wise man knows when too far is too far.”
Kimbel daydreamed of all the things he would do one day as king. That day seemed farther away on the horizon than his home nation of Grackenwell, farther maybe than the distant land of Qarda now ripening for its own conquest. He imagined the weight of the crown for a brief moment.
“Do you think I’ll be a wise king?” Kimbel asked.
His father smiled. “Someday. Someday a long, long time from now.” He ruffled his son’s curly chestnut hair, which led to a headlock and then an impromptu wrestling match. The men dropped their weapons and put their all into the scuffle. Kimbel almost flipped the king on his back but lost the upper hand in the end—his father pinned him and Kimbel yielded.
“I almost had you!” Kimbel grunted, scrambling back to his feet, a wide, ambitious grin on his face. They each retrieved their weapons.
Though he won, Brynh still seemed taken aback. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. “That’s enough horseplay for now, eh? Find your good clothes and have Hane draw you a bath. The victory feast is tonight.”
“Father, wait,” Kimbel said, stopping the king in his tracks. “What else is there for me to do now besides this? These are slave chores.”
His father turned on him with anger in his eyes. “What did you just say to me?” Kimbel was too afraid to answer. All of the joy had been sucked out of the moment all at once. Even at this age, his father commanded a fearful respect. “I am out here doing the same work, son. There is dignity in it. We are taking their land. Killing those who are already doomed, who can never become slaves, is proper. You wouldn’t gut a living pig and let it suffer.”
“I’m saying I can do more! Isn’t there any fighting left to be done?”
“They’ve surrendered, Kimbel. There is no more fighting. There is work to be done, and you’re looking at it. Shut your mouth and do the work or go back to camp and get ready for the feast.” His father looked him dead in the eye, and he could see him detect defiance. “I suggest you look at me with some respect before I remind you how, son. Is that clear?”
Kimbel felt the words rising up from his chest—they spilled out before he could stop them. “I’ll just be the errand boy prince, then. Thanks for nothing.” He regretted his words too late.
Brynh dropped Havokond in the sand and grabbed his son by the hair. Kimbel’s scalp burned. He dropped his sword. His father punched him hard twice in the gut, then six more times until the boy finally fell to his knees. Kimbel was proud that he didn’t go down after the first punch like he used to do when he was younger. The king towered over the prince, who doubled over, clutching his stomach, gasping for the wind that had been knocked out of him.
“It’s been almost a year since I’ve had to do that,” Brynh panted from the exertion. He picked up his war hammer and spat in the sand. “I thought you were too old for that anymore. Are you done?” Kimbel gave no answer. “Good. Go back to camp. Now. That’s an order.” Again, Kimbel stayed silent, but he staggered to his feet, retrieved his sword, and hobbled away. “Know your place, son. You’re welcome for the lesson.”
***
Over the course of the day and the early evening, slaves harvested wreckage from sunken Archipelagian boats and used the scrap wood to fashion crude tables and benches. Soldiers snared four wild boars and two domesticated pigs for slaughter, as well as speared a small flock of flightless, rainbow-colored birds. Slaves filled barrel after barrel with oranges, bright yellow lemons, deep green limes, golden cedrates, and piles of bloodred kalikali fruits. It promised to be a far more colorful feast than anything usually seen in Grackenwell.
Two more ships had returned to the main island of the archipelago for the feast. All of King Brynh’s most trusted advisors and generals were present, along with his most elite soldiers and everyone’s slaves. Hane was among those who built a massive bonfire to roast the slain animals on spits.
In all, about two hundred people assembled. Second to the Circle of Kings in Qarda, of course, it was the largest festive gathering Kimbel had ever seen. Slaves tapped barrels of liquor and ale for the high-ranking men and Kimbel received his customary cup of wine. Even the wine had been a tooth-and-nail fight with his father two years ago—he would have still been drinking milk and gnawing on a teething coral if his father had anything to say about it.
The velvety blackness of night was dotted with a great splattering of stars. They looked somehow brighter here than back home in Grackenwell. The bonfire roared and sparked high above the encampment. The skins of the pigs crackled with seeping juices before the slaves finally hefted the animals from the fire for carving; one of them lost his footing in the sand and stumbled, nearly dropping his end of one of the spits, earning the crack of a whip on his back from a supervising soldier.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Your attention, everyone,” said the king, and every conversation at every table was immediately silenced. “I’d like to thank you all for joining me here tonight. Our victory here is a great step in the restoration of Grackenwell to her former glory, and it was a milestone worth celebrating together. The island women can wait until tomorrow night. Isn’t that right, General Cadwynh?”
A burly red-haired man two tables down snickered through his thick beard. “The rest of ‘em can. Already been through four. I’m sure they appreciate my havin’ a more important engagement tonight!”
“Cadwynh, you dog!” the king laughed, and everyone joined him. “Well, save some for the rest of your comrades, why don’t you?” He downed the wine in his cup and banged it twice on the table for Hane to refill it. The tremors in the old man’s hands were obvious as he lifted the wineskin for pouring. “Speaking of islanders, I trust there are none in our midst tonight? No unruly slaves, either?” He grinned at Hane, who flinched and tried to make himself look busy, standing over by the pig carvers. “After all, I called this feast for my friends, not my enemies.”
“With friends like us, who needs enemies?” Cadwynh cackled, and his men joined in.
The king chuckled. “Well, I must be so careful with my words these days. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone here tonight. Another king did that recently at his banquet. They were at his throat for it!” The king banged his fist down on the table as everyone burst into uproarious laughter. Guests carelessly dribbled wine and ale. A few of the cheerier slaves even cracked a smile as they plated pork and island fruit to serve to their masters.
Kimbel found it all amusing in a formal kind of way, but he grew restless in his party clothes, sitting still on a bench for hours. He stared out at the crashing black waves and longed for the next leg of their adventure. He felt brave and strong enough to sail farther west—farther even than the Grand Archipelago, to the edge of the known world, though no one had ever seen what lay beyond these foreign waters. Native legends spoke of explorers who ventured out that way and never returned.
Maybe they were right to fear the unknown. Or maybe they were all too stupid, of a breed too inferior, to do what Kimbel, the prince of the greatest nation in the world, might have been capable of doing one day. One day when he finally had a say in the matter.
Either way, the thrill of that sort of adventure would have been a welcome change in his routine, now that the brief war that made his heart surge was over as quickly as it had begun. The life of a prince had grown dull for him.
And if there was one thing in all the world that Kimbel truly hated, it was boredom.
***
The banquet concluded earlier than Kimbel expected. Unlike the one in Qarda, there was no oddly rigorous schedule or procession of events to adhere to, no forced conversations or cringeworthy entertainment between courses. People had their fill of pork and fruit and drink and passed out in their tents or where they sat.
Even King Brynh drank himself into a stupor by the time Kimbel retired for the night. His father stood with the help of slaves, swaying silently, shuffling through the sand to their shared, partitioned tent. The drunken man collapsed into his feather bed and didn’t stir in the slightest. Were it not for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, Kimbel would have thought his father dead.
The king got this way once in a great while, in times of great celebration and crisis alike. He likely wouldn’t move a muscle until midday the following day. Meanwhile, Kimbel had a single cup of wine in his belly, warm but hardly gratifying anymore the way it used to be. He paced aimlessly around his tent. His midsection was still tender, bruises setting in from earlier.
He and his father’s belongings sat near the mouth of the tent. His sword rested in its scabbard, while Havokond lay flat on the tarp floor, the heavy head of the war hammer half-sunken in the sand through the fabric. There was also their armor; the iron and leather caught the glow of torches outside when the tent flap waved in the breeze.
Then there was his father’s personal trunk. It was a coffin-sized box of polished cypress wood with iron trim and the gator seal of House Garrotin carved into the lid. It contained all of his father’s most personal possessions—diaries, private missives from world leaders, battle plans, the Secret Ledger, and his collection of rare and ancient coins.
He felt his father might have half a mind to correct him for even looking at the trunk for too long.
Kimbel wandered out of the tent. One of the generals and a half dozen soldiers were still awake, huddled around the same table and sloshing frothy ale in their cups. Their slurring words were indecipherable from this distance.
He spotted General Cadwynh standing near the water’s edge. He was relieving himself into a hole in the sand, waving with his free hand as Kimbel walked past. Even in the low light of campfires and the moon, he could see how boorishly drunk he was, sweaty locks of orange hair plastered against his freckled forehead. The man reeked of his drink.
“Prince Kimbel,” the general slurred. “A fine evening to you, young sir.”
“General,” the boy replied curtly.
“What brings you out? Hm?” The wide man faltered on his feet, swaying back and forth. “Still hungry?”
“You could say that.” Kimbel took a couple of steps back, grimacing and averting his eyes. “For something to do. I thought this trip would be fun, but I missed it all. My father told me to mind the ship while he stormed the beaches—acting captain, he called me.” The prince snorted. “He just wanted me out of his way.”
“Yep, that’s father talk,” Cadwynh chuckled, making himself decent again. He kicked sand over the puddle he’d left.
“Everything since has just been cleanup duty. Mercy killings. A cup of wine with supper. I would have brought a book if I knew this historic invasion was going to be such a bore.”
“You wanna be a man, but he’s treatin’ ya like a boy, eh?”
Kimbel blinked, stunned. Even though he could smell a barrel’s worth of spirits on the man’s breath, and each of his words bled into the next, he was strangely perceptive. “Yes,” said the boy.
“Well, you’re grown now. Grown as you’ll be, eh lad? Prince, I mean. Prince Kimbel. Listen...” Cadwynh clapped an overly familiar hand on his shoulder. “You want something in this world, you either hope someone will give it to you, or you take it by strength. Understand?”
Kimbel nodded. “Of course.”
“Pecking order be damned. Customs be damned. You want a fruit? You pick it off that tree. Want a pig? Kill it. Cook it. Eat it. Want an island woman? You take her and be done with it. None of this wooing and courting they do south of the desert, eh? We’re men! Now what do you want?”
He wasn’t sure what to call it, but he wanted something more from his father. Not respect—that wasn’t the right word, as his father did respect him in his better moments. He wanted to be the sort of man his father no longer felt the need to beat into submission. Perhaps being his equal was out of the question. It didn’t stop him from craving it, or something like it. Not knowing what else to say, he said, “Respect.”
“Then you go out there and take it! You have the power, Prince Kimbel. Beautiful feast this was. I need to see if they brought any of the girls from the other island now.” The general waddled off toward the few remaining soldiers who were still awake. “Rorgan! Hey, you! Get over here, ya cockeyed bastard. Got a question for you...”
Kimbel was left alone with the half-shadowed moon and the water lapping at the shore. Briefly, he had a recollection of his mother reading him the Legend of the Bogman, but it was gone in the next breath. He dragged himself back to the royal tent, his boots raking divots into the sand.
Maybe his father didn’t think he was worthy of taking on greater duties as prince. Maybe he was an embarrassment to the king. Maybe he just needed to bide his time, practice patience, and soon what he wanted would come to him.
But the general made a convincing argument. Whether it was insisting upon joining his father in the Grand Archipelago rather than minding Castle Holcort, or harassing his father until he finally let him have his first wine at fourteen, or the time he begged and pleaded and argued his case to be trained in swordsmanship beginning on his sixth birthday... Kimbel was never gifted anything he truly wanted. He had to take it.
When Kimbel returned to the tent, Brynh was still sound asleep. His chest rose and fell every few moments in the near pitch blackness. He lay on his back, limbs spread like dead weight hanging from his body, mouth agape, snoring like a beast. The key to his trunk hung on a chain from his neck; normally it was tucked into his shirt or armor, but now it dangled freely.
Dangled like bait on a line.
It gave Kimbel an idea. An idea that proved too tempting for him to resist.
He checked outside the tent, ensuring there were no soldiers or passing guards who might intrude. His father’s two personal guards were nowhere to be seen. Even the last straggling drinkers had all gone to bed. The beach was silent save for the crackling of campfires and the splashing of the tide, so he snuck back into the tent once more.
The key had a gap in its bow that could be pried open to free it from the keyring. He unhooked the key silently and took a few steps back, studying his father for a reaction. The rhythm of his snoring continued unabated.
Kimbel shuffled silently across the tarp toward his father’s trunk. He lit a candle using his fire steel and raised the key to the lock. His mouth dried with excitement, his heart racing like the day the siege first began.
His father’s trunk contained exactly what he knew it to contain. He didn’t know the contents of any of the letters, though—he skimmed those first. One of them was a letter from the Grand Emissary of Zan Vayonado. Something about arranging a visit to the desert. There was also a formal invitation to the Circle of Kings from the former hierophant of Qarda. He snickered silently to himself.
The coin collection caught his eye next. There were coins from all over the world. He most readily recognized the modern Grackenwelsh coin, the silver scale; it bore the Garrotin gator seal, first minted by his great-grandfather Vil Garrotin, the first of their line to sit the throne. Older Grackenwelsh coins all had the impression of a quindent—he had plenty of those coins from different eras.
There was the silver Dridic triskele, a triple spiral design. The gold Qardish akkah showed the hieratic seal of their holy mountain with the sun at the summit; these included their year of mintage written in Qardish script. The people of Zan Vayonado used round copper coins with holes cut through the middle so they could wear them as jewelry. There were even eight types of Xhengyon coins of different sizes and metals.
Then he saw it. A smaller wooden box at the bottom of the trunk. Kimbel pulled it out, sliding off the flat wooden lid to reveal the tome it contained. The Secret Ledger. The book of House Garrotin. The crown text of all of Grackenwell. The book he only knew about through word of mouth. Now it was at his fingertips, all its precious forbidden knowledge just the turn of a page away.
He knew he shouldn’t have. The impulse raced from his heart to his hands quicker than he could think better of it.
Kimbel pried the cover open gently and devoured the words. Line after line. Page after page. His eyes widened and his mouth broke into a manic grin as he absorbed everything he could.
Finally, it all made sense to him. He trembled with excitement now at the thought of becoming king one day and taking the Secret Ledger into his own possession.
“Guards!” bellowed King Brynh Garrotin.
Kimbel froze where he stood, still clutching the book.
Two armed soldiers appeared in the doorway of the tent.
“Father!” said Kimbel. “I promise this isn’t what it looks like. I was—”
“Don’t lie to me, boy,” his father slurred. He swayed side to side, but the menace in his eyes was unmistakable. He looked like he wanted to wring the life out of him. “You know what we do to liars in Grackenwell.”
“Here, take it! Take it back!” Kimbel closed the book and yanked his hands away as if the pages burned his flesh.
“What did I tell you about wise men, Kimbel?”