An Insurrection
Authors: A. S. Washington
Tags: #Action, #Adventure, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Sword, #Sorcery, #Juvenile, #Horror
An Insurrection
A Sword and Shield Short
A.S. Washington
New Jersey
Published 2014 by Brickhouse Publishing.
Copyright © 2014 by A.S. Washington
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the internet or a Web site without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover design, A.S. Washington
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead; is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
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An Insurrection
The blood couldn’t be washed away, even with all the rain. The faces of men were caked with muck and rotting entrails. Those lucky enough to still be alive could only stare and hold back the lump in their throats, if their stomachs were strong enough to hold down the bile in their empty bellies. Dead men strewn across a battlefield was enough to make a coward retreat. Seeing Norman Khan, who many believed to be the strongest man in all of Lorencia nailed dead to the king’s wall, made the most battle worn warriors ready to drop their swords and tuck tail.
Only Garvin Desh, an assassin of the highest order turned patriot gave them pause to stand and fight. Desh sat atop a brilliant black steed, shelled in navy blue armor and a flowing white cape. His blood soaked sword gripped in his right hand, and the flesh stuck between the spikes on his gauntlets, were the only signs that proved he’d seen any combat.
Desh watched with piercing blue eyes as the castle gate opened for the first time in two days. He was sure it was another wave of well-rested soldiers, but King Thurstan Dyork, himself, emerged flanked by Ludan and Carmine Bisch. They were known as The Black Twins, and champions of Lorencia. As King Thurstan strode from the gates atop his mount, thirty thousand of Lorencia’s finest parted to make room for him. He made his way down the aisle of soldiers with his snobbish chin stuck firmly in the morning air. Large drops of rain pelted his helm as Thurstan made a beeline for Desh, a smug smile dressing his face as he approached.
Giving his horse a kick, Desh started on a line to meet the king. Two men, dressed in similar fashion, looking twice as deadly as Desh, found themselves on his flanks. Desh slowly checked both sides to see who was following, and then set his gaze back toward the king. They were men of his order, Brack the Bald and Morn Shademaker. Few better to have at your back and steady enough to listen to some talk before blood was shed. Matching the king’s smugness with a grin of his own, Desh cracked his neck to both sides.
‘Still as pretty as a woman I see,’ Thurstan said, looking at Desh’s striking features, bringing his horse to a halt.
‘Save your worthless sophistries for the politicians,’ Desh said spitting to the side.
Thurstan was surprised at Desh’s austere response, but smiled nonetheless.
‘When I heard it was you out here leading the charge after Khan fell, I had to see it with my own eyes,’ Thurstan said. He narrowed his eyes as if to improve his vision. Desh titled his head to the side and the king scoffed at him.
‘Then the thirst of your curiosity is quenched?’ Desk asked, giving the king a sharp look.
‘Not quite.’ Thurstan paused for a moment and nearly turned around completely. He eyed Khan’s body and gave Desh a matter of fact look. ‘What is it that you are trying to accomplish here? Your troops are nearly spent, vastly outnumbered, and their morale is lost. You are not foolish enough to believe you’ll succeed here.’ Thurstan gazed upon Desh’s pretty face, hoping to comprehend the thoughts in his mind by reading them on the lines his expression would make.
‘The success of war isn’t determined by how many men lie dead.’ The king huffed at his words. ‘I would gladly move this army from the field if you would but grant the people food and protection.’ Desh’s face turned stern as he leaned forward, his sword steady at his side.
Thurstan scoffed, and then laughed as he began to speak. ‘You call this rabble an army? They are little more than brigands and peasants with knives and pitchforks.’
‘Better a pitchfork at your side than a sword in the chest,’ Desh replied harshly.
‘True.’ Thurstan couldn’t deny the fact. ‘But why do you care?’ He continued, looking Desh up and down, almost as if analyzing his very intentions, a confused annoyance written across his face. ‘Let’s not fool ourselves here. You’re a murderer, a thousand times over. How many men have you slain? How many families have wept because of you?’ Thurstan’s accusations were sharp and meant to sting.
‘The men standing behind me do not have me on trial for my crimes. I am a killer, ruthless in every way. The highest bidder has my allegiance. I do not claim to be something I am not.’ Desh smiled lustfully, licking the blood from his blade and swallowing heartily. ‘You on the other hand, claim to love your people openly, but allow them to be butchered by foreign invaders. Did you not expect that they’d rebel, being hungry and afraid of your enemies?’ Desh smiled again. ‘They don’t think rationally. They are debase and impulsive. As you say, they are indeed peasants and brigands, not noble men.’ Desh turned sideways on his horse, surveying the men who stood behind him in defiance of the king.
‘But why you?’ Thurstan asked. He could not fathom why an assassin, one he had employed on many occasions, would lead men into battle against him. There was no gold in it. Surely there was glory, but Desh’s reputation for butchery was well known. ‘What do you hope to gain?’
‘Consider it a change of heart. With no motivation other than gold, I’ve killed the dirtiest politicians, the most fearsome warriors, harlots, and priests. I’ve even killed the nameless at the whims of royalty like you and rich men with vendettas. Now I kill for a cause, one I thought you stood for. But I was obviously wrong.’ Desh huffed, almost cracking a smile. ‘Have you visited your wife’s grave since I slit her throat in your bed.’
The hairs on Thurstan’s finely trimmed beard stood up, his forehead a wrinkled mass of anger. If it were possible to see his knuckles through his leather gloves as he gripped the reins on his horse with the fervor of a dying man struggling for life, they had surely changed colors. Thurstan scowled at Desh, and closed his eyes to compose himself, as he breathed in slowly. The image of his naked wife in bed with her throat cut roused his anger. Her infidelity was a grievous enough injury to his ego. Yet, losing the opportunity to punish the queen in his own way angered Thurstan to no end.
‘I see I’ve hit a nerve,’ Desh said full of pride.
Thurstan snatched his sword from its scabbard, his teeth bared like a raging beast. Ludan and Carmine followed suit, their broadswords cutting through the cold air. Brack and Morn were armed now, unsettling their horses as they moved about. Thurstan pointed his sword at Desh with murderous intent, grinding his teeth and growling like a mad dog as he searched for words to speak. Desh stared at him unfazed.
‘Lorencia belongs to me! I say who has right to eat and be protected. March this mangy army from the gates of my city or suffer the wrath of Thurstan the Mighty.’ Thurstan whipped his horse around quickly and darted toward the middle of his army, followed by his trusted champions.
Desh yelled at him in the distance. ‘I’ll meet you in the middle mighty king!’ Mocking Thurstan’s threatening outburst, he laughed as he watched him ride away.
‘He looks angry,’ Brack said in a tone of indifference. He appeared bored as he scratched his baldhead.
‘More killing…’ Morn said as he let the words hang in the air as he stared at Brack and Desh with an unmatched lust in his eyes. Those grey dead eyes. Desh was happy the Shademaker was on his side and under his command. Morn was the biggest man he'd ever seen; ungodly strong and ungodly fast. His grave voice was more frightening. Reason enough to beg for mercy.
‘Aye brother…and I think he might actually fight. If so, he is mine…understood?’ Brack and Morn shook their heads in agreement and rode off to rejoin the rebels of Lorencia. He knew they didn’t care who got to kill the king, as long as they got to kill something.
Desh trotted toward the small army that stood awaiting his orders. The hope beating in the hearts of his men was that he’d send them home and tell them they’d be fed and watched over. They were not foolish. All of them saw the king’s anger boil over as he whipped out his sword. There’d be no retreat today, and many of them knew that they would soon die. It was better to die fighting for the barest necessities, than to spend day after day starving or waiting to be butchered before hunger took you. That’s what Desh kept telling them. He’d told it to them so much that they’d actually started to believe it.
If they couldn’t see it, Desh could see that each of them wore the eyes of men who had nothing to lose. The eyes of a man hanging off a cliff by one hand with his only choices being to fall to a rocky grave a hundred feet below, or to hang on long enough to pull himself over the ledge. Even the hardest of men didn’t wear those eyes, save for a few deadly moments, swinging a sword against a foe willing to drink his blood. Desh knew it well. He had worn those eyes many times. You couldn’t pay for those eyes in a soldier with all the gold in the king’s treasury. Desh knew that more than half the king’s men were mercenaries. They weren’t there for justice, honor, or glory, but for gold. Gold. It had a funny way with a man’s heart.