Riven Earth, page 22
He was alone again. In the battlefield he’d sown. The bloodiest in the history of the kingdom. Five thousand dead. A tenth of the kingdom’s population.
He woke. Not with a clammy gasp and a start. But slowly, with resignation to the coming day.
Hobar still snored. The leaves were still white, but quiet footsteps approached.
Kaido sat up as the tent flap was thrown open. Verion stood there, a rusty dagger in his hand, surprise on his face – likely from seeing Kaido awake.
“You’re here to kill me,” Kaido said.
The man glanced at Hobar, then back at Kaido. His grip tightened on the blade. “Aye.”
Kaido nodded. “Can we do it outside?”
“You fucking with me?”
“No. Hobar has been kind to me. I don’t want to ruin his home.”
Verion narrowed his eyes. Kaido waited. The man shifted uneasily. “You're fucking with me.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m not fucking around, you black shit,” he hissed. “I’ll cut you up.”
“Okay, but not here.”
Kaido sat up, and Verion jumped back as he crawled out of the tent. He climbed to his feet and put his arms up. “How about in the forest? It'll be quiet that way.”
Verion didn’t say anything, just motioned with his dagger. Kaido started walking, the point of the blade pressing into his back.
“You got some guts showing your face ’round here,” Verion spat. “Kaius, eh? Take us for a load of fools, do you?”
“How’d you know?” Kaido said.
“Saw you in Malderry, when you met with Caedric.”
“Ah.”
And then it was a long and silent walk into the woods. Kaido thought of Jaswyn. Alone and crying over his ashes. His eyes watered. He realised he did not want to die.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Quiet!” Verion snarled, but his voice quivered like a taut bowstring. “You killed them all. Benjil, Gori, Vert, Jonas. You got their blood on your hands.”
Kaido could hardly argue with that truth.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.
Verion’s dagger poked him in the back.
Kaido could imagine disarming the man. He’d done his fair share of fighting. A kick to the knees, send him stumbling. Grab his arm, twist his wrist, take the dagger, and turn it on him. It probably wouldn’t have gone so smoothly, but it would be better than meekly accepting death. Wouldn’t it?
Somehow, he didn’t have the heart for it.
They stopped only a few paces into the trees. “No funny business,” Verion said. With a swipe of his blade, Kaido’s shirt fell away. “Turn around. I wanna see your face when I gut you.”
Kaido turned to face him. The man had found an axe now. His sleeves were rolled up. Scars ran the length of his lanky arms. Pink and welted, fresh and old. Straight lines the same direction as his wrists, formed over each other from repeated cutting.
It was the strangest thing to see those scars on another man, and he could see that thought reflected in Verion’s face. The easterner positively gaped at the pale, faded scars on Kaido’s bare arms. Kaido had been more careful about the work. Neat and evenly spaced, less haphazard than Verion’s. But the same scars and no doubt about it.
“I used to cut myself,” Kaido said. “I thought it helped, back then. Made the pain…tangible. Felt like I had a bit of control, you know?”
“Shut up!" Verion hissed.
“Sometimes it was all I could think of. Couldn’t focus on anything until the blade met skin…”
“Shut up, you black bastard!” Verion’s dagger dropped to the ground. He lifted his axe, hissing as he lunged at Kaido.
Kaido closed his eyes and waited, then gasped when the breath was knocked out of him. They fell in a tangle of limbs, Verion’s sour spit in his face, screaming in his ears. Kaido did not fight back. He just thought of Jaz and waited for his death.
But the axe drew no blood before falling uselessly out of Verion’s limp hand. Kaido realised the man was crying. Crying and punching him over and over in his gut. In his ribs. In his side. The pain finally registered. He wheezed and sputtered.
“You fucker! You killed them! You killed him! You shit!” And then Verion was off him, curled up in a white-haired ball, childlike as he sobbed and rolled in the dirt.
The trees spun around Kaido, every breath ragged and burning. He somehow found the sense to knock the man’s axe away. Then he slowly sat up, crawled to Verion, and collapsed with his arms around him.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re not alone.”
Verion pushed him away. Kaido held on.
“You’re not alone,” he said.
“Fuck you!” Verion elbowed him in the gut, twisting and cursing.
Kaido grunted, barely managing to hold on. “You’re not alone,” he said, over and over, just as Jaz had to him.
“I hate you!”
“I know.”
“You killed him!” Verion shrieked.
“I’m sorry.”
Verion screamed and shook and kicked. Kaido squeezed him until his tears dried and his sobs turned into sad little hiccups.
When he finally spoke again, Verion’s voice cracked, devoid now of venom and filled only with that heavy resignation, that weariness of living. Kaido knew the feeling all too well.
“Kill me,” he said.
“No.”
“Do it!”
“I won’t,” Kaido said.
“Kill me, or I’ll kill you.”
“You won’t.”
Verion started crying again. Kaido held him. “I’ll do it myself,” he stuttered between sobs. “I’ll do it.”
“Do you really want to die?” Kaido said. “Or do you just not want to live this way anymore?”
The man turned red-streaked eyes to him.
“I tried killing myself once,” Kaido said. “My wife saved me. I’m glad she did.”
Verion turned away. After a dozen breaths, he sniffled and pried himself free. The two of them sat across one another. Verion buried his chin in his knees.
“You’re not alone,” Kaido said. “Hobar, Norbert, Firin, Dilar. Those are good friends to have.”
“Bastards,” he muttered.
“And I’m here too.”
Verion looked at him for a long time. Then he lowered his gaze and curled up tighter. “Your wife saved you?”
“Yes.”
“Better if she hadn’t,” he mumbled.
“Maybe you’re right. But I’m still glad for it.”
“Whore-bitch.”
“Don’t call her that.” The hardness in Kaido’s voice made him look up. “Kill me if you want, but don’t insult my wife.”
Verion scoffed, then lost his mirth at the sight of Kaido’s expression. “Fine,” he muttered.
Then it was Kaido’s turn to smile. “How about you? Anyone special in your life?”
His eyes darkened. “Benjil. He died at the Crag.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Verion didn’t say anything.
“Tell me about him.”
Slowly, hesitantly, Verion started talking.
Hours later, the leaves had turned green, and the village bustled with morning activity. Kaido led Ruby away from the tents, having donned a new shirt and his travelling cloak.
The build team’s camp was a sleepy place. Workers chattered around fires, cups of smoking tea in hand. They squinted at him as he passed. Some whispered. A few even followed.
He left Ruby and strolled to the biggest tent. A war camp it looked, a great heaving construction of canvas and pole. But it was only half staffed. Crates were left unopened, supplies strewn about in haphazard piles. There was more than enough lumber but no one manning the shavers, no one sawing it to size.
A group of thickset men stood cross-armed over a table in front of the tent, frowning at schematics.
They looked up as Kaido approached.
“Hey!” one of them yelled and moved around the table. “Who are you?”
Kaido pulled back his hood and stopped the man dead with a stare. He unbuttoned his cloak, and it opened just enough to reveal the ashfang pommel of his father’s sword.
The men looked from him to the blade, then back to him.
“It’s the bloody king!” one of them gasped, awkwardly falling to his knees.
“King Kaido!” And with a clattering of fallen tools and mugs, the whole camp kneeled.
“Who is the leader of this team?” Kaido said.
“It’s me, Majesty. I’m the foreman.” A brute of a man. Southern, Kaido thought, with his red hair and beard.
“Rise,” Kaido said, and the man staggered to his feet, a sheen of sweat across his brow. “These people were promised homes months ago.”
“Majesty…that…there was another team. It wasn’t us…”
Kaido silenced him with a wave of his hand. “I know the story. These people were promised homes. Winter is coming.”
“We are trying…”
“You will finish your contract before the first snow,” Kaido said.
The man stared at him. “But, Majesty, that’s…”
“You will finish your contract before the first snow. Or I will ensure your team never gets another. Is that understood?”
He swallowed and nodded.
“Good.” Kaido turned and walked back to Ruby.
“You think those bastards in the capital give a shit your crop is failing?” The crier stood on a chair, swinging half a cup of ale around. “You think they give a shit that you ain’t got the chips to feed yer kids?”
“Hear hear!” Tankards pounded tables, drinks sloshing out.
“You think they care that our houses are too small to live in? Think they care land is too expensive to lease? Think they care you pay half your earnings for the White Wasp’s taxes?”
“Less taxes!”
“Hear hear!”
“What do they even do with our hard-earned chips, eh? Roads are no good. Houses are no good. Ashes, half the village is still in tents!”
“Corruption!” someone yelled.
“Parasites!”
“Vultures, the lot of them!”
“Hear hear!” More cups pounded the tables. More angry glares filled the tavern, and the barkeep glanced about nervously.
Maisades cracked his neck, leaned against the counter, and idly scratched his stump. He took a sip of piss-coloured ale, almost gagged, and had to put his cup down.
“And where is our mighty king amidst all this?” the crier called.
There were murmurs and whispers. A couple of followers stood up with clenched fists and twisted faces.
“What do you think? He still alive? Or did he feel the wasp’s sting?”
“He’s a lazy fucker!” someone yelled.
“That useless shit!”
“Kaido is the son of the Freedom Gift!” one of the followers cried.
“Shut up, scarface!”
“Get your filth out of our town!” A tankard was thrown across the tavern, trailed by a spiral of foaming brown beer. The follower ducked, and it smacked into the post beside him. His friends started shouting.
A scuffle ensued. Burly men shoved the lanky followers. Fists flew, folk cried out, and the barkeep yelled for calm.
“Don’t fight!” squealed the leader of the followers – an ugly pleb with a burned-up face half hidden behind Isaiah’s hair. “Undue violence is not the pathwalker’s way!” An errant fist smacked into his face, and he shut up.
The doorkeepers marched into the tavern. They nabbed the troublesome followers by the rough collars of their peasant clothes and hurled them out of the building. The rest of the dirty sots scurried after them.
The villagers rose in a drunken cheer. Working men, these. Farmers, forge workers, lumberjacks, builders, and carpenters. The backbone of the kingdom’s economy. And well built from that burden. They were natural soldiers. And they would make far better fighters than the lean, lazy easterners Caedric had riled up. These were folk made of tougher stuff. Bigger, well fed, and healthy. With calloused hands and sun-darkened skin. Men with no qualms about earning their pay.
And with the failed harvest, the rising prices, the increasing taxes, they had more than enough to be angry about.
Maisades smiled.
He closed his eyes, opened his ears, and listened to their talk. Was the future king in this room? It seemed unlikely. Good fighters, they may have made, but they were hardly sophisticated men.
The crier was babbling on, slowly losing his crowd to a more general murmur of conversation. He kept glancing at Maisades, the dumb fool. Maisades shot him the subtlest of nods, turned, and planted four poplar chips on the counter. He snugged his collar and made for the door.
“You know what I heard?” the crier said with a sudden burst of energy. “Rumour’s been making the rounds all the way from Heartsong! A cheer for the latest gossip!”
“Go on, then!”
“Ashes, he won’t shut even if we told him to!”
“Rumour is!” The crier put a finger to lips, eyes wide and mocking as he stuck out his ass and scanned the crowd. The suspense stretched. More people craned their necks to watch him. He spoke quietly, punching each word into the air. “Kaido isn’t Isaiah’s true born son.”
There was a collective gasp. Then whispering. Those who hadn’t been paying attention were rapt with it now.
“Ohh, I know, I know,” the crier said. “I was surprised when I heard it too. Turns out our beloved Heart didn’t quite feel the same about her husband. He was off gettin’ fire. And she stuck around, gettin’ fire, if ya know what I mean!”
“You’re full of shit!” An empty cup hurled towards the man. He ducked, hiding behind an arm as another came for him.
“Get out of here, you fool!” More cups went flying, not all empty. The barkeep cried out as sticky beer sloshed over his floor and walls.
The crier jumped off the table, took a long swig of his own drink, and drunkenly shouted, “Hate the bastard, not the messenger!”
People shook their heads, and the murmur of conversation swelled once more, laughter ringing off the rafters.
Maisades left. He had to squint against the sun and was hardly a dozen steps from the tavern before the idiot crier came stumbling after him. “How was that?” he slurred.
Maisades dragged the dirty man behind a nearby cart. “Try not to get so drunk next time.”
“All part of the act, your lordship.”
“And don’t look at me when I’m there.”
The man lifted his eyebrows and put out an expectant hand. Maisades tsked and flipped him a cedar chip. He snapped it out of the air, peered at it for a moment, then tucked it into his pocket. “Pleasure as always, your lordship.”
Maisades flicked him another chip. “Two more villages tomorrow. Find me or Tyor after.”
The crier bent over in an exaggerated bow. “Your wish is my command.”
Maisades turned and pulled down his hood.
“Ya’know,’ the man said, “I don’t think they like the last part very much. The whole Kaido ain’t Isaiah’s son bit. You sure you wanna keep that in?”
Maisades looked back. “Yes.”
“But…is it even true?”
As if truth mattered. Maisades glared at him, and he ducked behind his hands. “I just mean to say, they don’t believe it, is all. And I’m tired of having things thrown at me, you see.”
“Do what you’re paid to do.” Maisades walked away.
The man was right, of course. They didn’t believe him. And yet, the inklings of doubt had been planted. Seeds of rumour that would be whispered to families at home, friends on the streets, strangers at the shop. Small steps, small profit. Fortunes were built one chip at a time.
The town was small and prosaic. Row after row of standard builds lined a roadside bordered by stunted trees. Stalls in the filthy market at the center boasted withered produce. Hammering rang out from a dingy warehouse. A line of old, brown faces fidgeted outside the infirmary.
Water hissed and smoke billowed from the foundries and furnaces – the driver of their meagre economy no doubt. Hoards of metal treasure were loaded in carts behind a sturdy locked fence. Pots, pans, chains, sickles, and scythes. If Maisades had his way, they would soon be churning out swords instead.
There were far too many women and children in the park though. Not nearly enough men of age in the kingdom these days.
Tyor waited at the stables. The fat man stood with a pudgy hand gripped tight around his lomer’s vines, frowning at the mud and shit of the place. His nose was stuck wrinkled. And his jowls jiggled as he took a careful step. Sweat pooled on his hefty brow, turning white as it ran over the absurd paint on his face. He took another, dainty step. Then he lunged forward and stumbled to the fence, finally free from the worst of the muck. He turned to Maisades with that ever-present, ever-annoying smile.
“Why do you do this to me?”
Maisades cocked an eyebrow.
“This, you lout!” Tyor motioned to the stables with a bejewled hand. The man had quickly regained his weight. And even more quickly, he’d spent Maisades’ hard-earned chips on an assortment of gaudy fashions. He scowled and rubbed his shoes on a wooden post, revealing smeared yellow felt. “Another pair ruined! Why must you insist on meeting in these dirty places?”
“We do dirty work.” Maisades crossed his arms and leaned against the fencepost. He’d given up trying to maintain any semblance of cleanliness, or for that matter, civility. A small sacrifice for the duration of his insurrection. “How did it go?”
Tyor shrugged in his lackadaisical way. “Well enough, I suppose. Nahom and Birhan are in. Kidane needs some more convincing though.”
“We’ve raised enough chips for now,” Maisades said.
“Have we?”
“If you don’t spend it all on shoes that look like puke.”
“These are a genuine Vewes pair! Or at least…” Tyor tried scrubbing his shoes on the post again, “They were.”
