Dishonour by Dee Carteri (simple e reader TXT) 📕

with two loyal knights at his side with Honor Blades concealed under long wool cloaks. On the pommel of their swords was engraved a green-black checkered pattern, the coat-of-arms of the house Bolare. Lakent was his usual pensive self, saying little to his family’s men and walking with a characteristic silent dignity. He took an alternate route home, enjoying a small stretch on a hill he favored. He crested the hill and looked upon his home in shock.

A mob of at least five hundred men had gathered about the outer hedge like a swarm of insects. Most were, drunken, cowardly men from the fields, the kind that scatter like mice when any armed man comes within a hundred yards of them. The kind that support nothing but themselves and live out their miserable existence blind to matters of ideology and freedom. Lakent thought the thugs must have come to raid his house. Many carried torches, but they made no move to force entry into the compound. Nonetheless, the terrified servants inside had doubly barred the gate and doors, and many had armed themselves with knife and bow. A solitary man stood on a table at the gate.

He yelled, and all fell silent.

"Brothers! We have left our workshops, our crops, our mines, our forests to come here, and you have not come in vain. For today is the beginning of a new era, as was Salvation for the people of Ambur and Lecoy. For the last time have we been thrown underfoot by the nobility. We are the Strength, and a man who has his strength has everything. I ask you, friends, to bend your backs in effort once more, but now toil to overturn the knights in their scarlet robes. This time we shall defeat the knights at their own game! This time we shall choose Octania’s future. We are the majority! Fie to the nobility! Fie to Octania! Fie to toil and war! Fie to servitude! Will not Lakent come out to greet his subjects? Where is the man who will lead us to freedom?"

"I am here!" said Lakent, huffing after racing down the hill to meet these valiant, honorable men who had come to serve the cause of peace. Most men went down on both knees, as if Lakent were already king.

The man on the table shouted, "Will you lead us to self-determination?"

Lakent looked about the suddenly silent mob. "Aye," he said strongly.

"Will you end the war that has so taxed our people?"

"Aye" he said, louder.

"If they seek to subdue us with fire and sword, will you lead us into battle?"

Lakent looked with his tired eyes at the men who sat silently gazing at him, all on their knees, hands folded across their chests, looking at him in hope. He saw all their faces, ready to give their lives for him, ready to change Octania forever. He gazed at the bold figure on the ridiculous pauper’s table, and whispered, "Aye. Aye, I will, if it comes to that." Gaia have mercy on me.

The man let out a yell and leaped off his stand to come running before Lakent. "Then accept my oath, Patron of the clan Bolare. I swear by my soul that as long as I have life in my bones, I shall suffer no harm to come to your house." And the man placed a knife, as it were a warrior’s sword, at Lakent’s feet.

Lakent fought the hardest struggle of his life to not laugh. The knife was single-edged and blunt, the kind used to cut meat at dinnertime in merchant households. After a long and almost unsustainable silence. Lakent edged out, "Your name and trade?"

"Taki, Patron, a bowman of the East garrison, of no house but my own, or yours if you’ll have me."

Lakent stood up proudly. "You will serve me as you would serve yourself?"

"Yes, Patron."

"You would freely abandon all previous affiliations save family should I ask it of you?"

"Even should you ask my abandonment of my family would I obey you."

"You will learn swordsmanship, chivalry, wrestling and other honorable arts befitting the personal guard of a Patron?"

"Yes, gladly."

"Then rise, Armsbearer Taki Cooking-Knife of the house Bolare, and go within. My servants shall outfit you with a tunic and armaments befitting of a man as honorable as yourself."

Lakent then stood on the decrepit table and shouted to the dirty, poverty-stricken crowd. "Two nights from now I shall hold a grand feast for the coronation of Armsbearer Taki. All here are invited! There will be a great dinner, with meat and cheese and wine and fruit and fine white bread for all. A dozen minstrels shall play, and a dozen poets shall read, and a dozen acrobats shall perform feats for your entertainment. Tell all in the city, be they peasants or craftsmen or merchants, that are loyal to the cause of freedom to at least stop by and lift a cup in honor of the Strength of Octania!"

Lakent knew, of course, that he could end up having well over fifteen hundred guests. But Maruc had guaranteed him unlimited funds, and he intended to test that promise.

Maruc met Jaku outside the city walls when the moon came close to its midnight zenith. They didn’t leave the manor together for fear of arousing the suspicion of Lakent. They now sat on the ground in a sheltered part of the road that led out the east side of the valley, about a half hour’s walk from the nearest Whiterift gate. They were long past curfew, and would not be able to get into the city until sunrise tomorrow, but they had it on the Beol’s authority that someone would be able to get out this night. They were dressed in the brown tunic and maroon leggings of the rangers that typically watched this stretch of road, and were armed with the typical short-bow and dagger of such men. Maruc had even left his gladius behind in the manor in favor of a more convincing disguise.

"It’s so cold," grumbled Maruc. "We could have just sent some men to do this."

"Maruc, if you’ve any men trusted enough to accomplish this errand, you’re either very beloved or very, very gullible. Not a good trait in either case."

"It sometimes pays to have loyalty among your men, Jaku."

Jaku shook his head sadly. "How you’re not lying dead in a gutter somewhere, even I don’t know."

Maruc got up and walked to the side of the road, looking off the road. The ground sloped sharply for about ten yards, then dropped off into a steep crumbling quarry.

He turned around expressionlessly and called, "Jaku, come here and look at this."

Jaku got up and trudged over, coming to lean against a tree with one hand while scanning the valley. He frowned. "What?"

"Nothing but justice, bastard!" Maruc backhanded Jaku, throwing him to the ground.

"What’s wrong with you?" screamed Jaku. Jaku ran up the incline and tackled

Maruc, knocking them both down to the ground. Jaku threw his fist repeatedly into his adversary’s face. Maruc got a hand free and knocked Jaku off him. The squire jumped to his feet and kicked Jaku in the face, who was knocked backwards, towards the edge. Jaku struggled to his feet and threw a punch at Maruc’s stomach. Maruc caught his Jaku’s arm and yanked him forward, then brought his free hand across to strike Jaku in the temple, who staggered, but didn’t fall. The guildmaster countered with an uppercut, throwing Maruc to the ground, then viciously kicked his ribs. Maruc, now writhing on the ground, kicked Jaku’s ankles out, sending Jaku tumbling down the incline.

Realizing his peril, Jaku clutched frantically at the vegetation. The cliff was getting steeper, closer to the quarry. He grasped a rock but it crumbled from the cliff. His frantic hands finally found a strong root, halting his descent. He glanced down and regretted it, for his hands shook violently as he saw the ground drop away suddenly less than two yards from him. The hill was so steep here that it was as if Jaku was on a ladder, and was covered in slick crumbling stone and soil. Maruc carefully climbed down, finally standing a yard from Jaku, holding fast to a tree, afraid to come too close lest Jaku would pull the squire down with him.

Again, "What are you doing?" he cried with fear at the dark figure above him.

Maruc stated, "You are the one who abducted me when I was six."

"What are you talking about? I haven’t even been running the guild for that long!"

Maruc roared, "Have you owned that cabin for twenty years?"

"No! I bought it last year, I swear. I don’t remember from who. I can find the papers, if you’ll just pull me up."

"Liar!" Maruc kicked the root that Jaku clung to, rat-like as he tried to writhe up the incline. Several fibers of the root broke. Jaku screamed and slid down as more and more of the root was lifted from the ground. He stopped half over the cliff, his legs dangling helplessly over the edge.

Jaku calmed down for a moment. "Maruc listen to me. I’m your friend, have always been your friend, haven’t I? I was the one who gave you that loan back in ’57, wasn’t I? Please, I know why you’re upset, just please, think this through! I wasn’t even a carpenter when you were abducted! Just help me up, I’ll help you find who it was, I promise! I’ll get you the name of the person I bought it from!"

Jaku stopped and heard nothing, as tears flowed down his cheeks and he struggled to hold onto life. His hand slipped a little. He cried out and grabbed hold again, now slick with blood from thousands of little cuts. Gaia, forgive me my sins, for as I die today my body shall give birth to new life and so shall you prevail.

A branch touched his shoulder, and he looked up at Maruc. Maruc said, "Climb up, you damn fool."


An hour of silence passed as the two merchants sat by the road in utter unceasing silence. Rote finally ventured, "How’d you know it was that particular cabin?"

Maruc, grim with the thought that he might have killed his best friend tonight, simply said, "I etched a B into one corner."

"Why a B?"

Maruc sighed. "It’s for Baro, a toy dog I owned at the time. Every night I wished that he was with me, that I might hold and love him, so I wouldn’t have to be alone. I think I missed him even more than my parents. I was so afraid of the dark, but even more afraid of morning, because then the men would come for me."

"You were a child. They couldn’t have hurt you that bad," said Jaku.

Maruc held up his mutilated, two-fingered left hand. "They did. They must have really needed a ransom. Sheriffs are usually targets."

"Why’d they let you go?"

Maruc said, "I don’t know. My father become quite distant after the incident; he never really said anything about it. He refused to answer any of my questions, although we did seem poorer than before, so I suppose he gave in to their demands. He once beat my brother for bringing the subject up."

"And you?"

Maruc said, "He never laid a finger on me, even when I disobeyed him and rightly should have been disciplined."