Forever Knight (The Champion Chronicles Book 3) (12 page)

But the arrival of the centurions changed his plans.  A dozen or more came bursting into the tavern, long wooden clubs in their hands.  Most stopped fighting as soon as they came and ran out the front door.  But a few stalwarts who liked to fight stayed and took on the armed centurions.  Although some of the centurions took a beating, it did not take long for the overwhelming force of the soldiers to bring the fighting to an end.  Soon, all that was left were the centurions and a mess of overturned tables and spilled drinks.

Two centurions approached Conner, their bloody clubs on display.

“You started this?” one of them asked.

“Of course not!” Conner replied.

“The bar keep said you and your friend did.  There are many broken chairs and tables.  The bar keep wants you to pay for them.”

Conner looked around, wondering how he could escape.  The only way that he would be able to get out would be to leave Hargon here.  And if he did, and someone took a good look underneath the beard and hair, they might realize that the emperor really wasn’t dead.  Although he had just met the man, he couldn’t leave him to that fate.

“How much?” Conner asked sheepishly.

“More then you have,” the centurion replied.

“How would you...”

“I have seen your likes before,” the centurion said, pointing his club at Conner.  “Dirty, smelly, begging for scraps.  I bet you don’t even have enough to pay for whatever slop they served you tonight.  Get up, the magistrate will decide what to do with you.  A few months in irons, I would guess.”

At least half the centurions that had come into the tavern were now circled around Conner and Hargon.  There was nothing for Conner to do but to go with them.  There was no way for him to escape, not without a blade.  As he started to think about trying to run, the centurions tied a rope around his legs that would keep him from running.  His hands were roughly tied behind his back.  At first he protested and started to fight back, but a club hitting him sharply on the shoulder stopped his fighting.

“The next one is across your face,” the centurion said.

With his arms immobilized by his hands being tied behind his back, and his feet not being able to move more than a few inches with each step, Conner shuffled his way out of the tavern and down the street.  Hargon was thrown over the shoulder of one of the larger centurions who carried him to the centurion’s garrison.

The garrison was on the outskirts of the city in a square wooden building surrounded by a tall wall made of wood timbers sunk vertically in the ground.  The wall wouldn’t have survived a full frontal assault from a well-armed army, but it would offer some defense against a rowdy mob.  On each corner of the wall there was a simple open tower where a centurion manned with a crossbow kept watch.  As the centurions approached, the gate was opened to allow them to pass.

Once the gate was closed behind them, Conner’s hands and feet were untied.  But instead of clubs, the centurions drew their short swords.

“I’m not going to fight,” Conner said.

“Of course not,” a centurion replied.  They all kept their swords out. 

“Pick him up,” another centurion ordered, pointing to Hargon, who had been dumped on the ground.

Conner did as he was told, throwing the emperor over his shoulder.  Then he was led inside the building.

A large fire was burning on the opposite wall, providing more than enough heat for the whole building.  Several tables were setup to his left.  Just past the tables was a doorway leading to another room.  To his right was a wide opening leading to a room where he could hear snoring.  He was pushed towards the back of the room near the fireplace.  An iron bar door was unlocked and Conner stepped through.  It was shut behind him and locked.

“Sleep it off,” the centurion said, shaking the keys.  “You’ll learn your fate in the morning when the magistrate wakes.”

Conner set Hargon gently on the floor.  There was a pile of blankets in the far corner.  He pulled one off and the rest of the blankets moved.  He took a surprised step back to see that there was a body there.  Whoever it was said nothing, but pulled the blankets tighter around his body.  Conner put a blanket around the still form of Hargon before finding a spot on the floor to sleep.

***

Conner jerked awake.  He was stiff from sleeping on the hard floor and let out a groan as he sat up.  With a mind still fuzzy from sleep, it took him a moment to gain his bearings.  He was surrounded by darkness, but there was a soft red glow from the large room on just the other side of the iron bars.  Looking around, he found Hargon snoring softly right next to him while the other person in their cell was still in the same spot as when he had fallen asleep.  Conner wanted to pull the blanket off of him, or her, and see who it was, but he really did not want to disturb the still form.

He stood up and stepped over Hargon to peer out through iron bars of the door that locked them in.  There was little to see other than several rows of empty tables.  He turned his ear to the room, but he heard nothing, not even a crackling from the fire.  He pushed lightly on the door, hoping that whoever had put them here had forgotten to lock it, but it did not budge.  Frustrated, he rested against the cold iron and let out a sigh.

For the first time in many days, he had a moment to be still, allowing fear to creep into his thoughts.  It was happening to him, just like the past spring when he had come across a young lady in distress.  He had acted without thinking and brought her to safety, which was as much luck as anything.  And now he found himself in a similar circumstance, but instead of leading just one person to safety, he was supposed to be leading the entire world to safety.  He did not understand at all why he was given this task.  He was barely older than a boy with no real set of skills for saving the world, and yet this Michael had come to him to tell him that he was to be the one to do it.  He had lived most of his life alone, living off the land using his own self-taught survival skills.  How in the world could those skills help him save the world?

And just what was this Ark of Life anyway?  He didn’t know where in the castle this Ark of Life could be found, much less what it looked like.  He could spend years searching every dark corner of the castle and still not find it.  And in the meantime, this Deceiver would come to South Karmon and take it himself.  He was not a god, and he could never stand against one.  Part of him wanted to just run away.  He could turn tail and head west to where there were lands that he had never even heard of.  Maybe he could even find his way to the land of the Hurai.  He was just one person, a young man who should not have been given the weight of the world on his shoulders.  There was no way that he could complete this task that he was given.  Someone else would have to do it.

“We need to get out of here,” Hargon whispered from under a blanket.

Conner pulled himself out of his thoughts and replied, “The doors are locked.”

“We will fight our way out when they come for us,” Hargon countered.

“We have no weapons.  They will kill us.  Any other bright ideas?”

Hargon sat up and looked over at the sleeping body a few feet away from him.  He could barely see the shoulders rise and fall with each slow breath.  “Who is this?  Maybe he can help.”

“I do not know.  He has been asleep since we were brought here.”

“Let’s ask him.  Wake him.”

“Wake him yourself,” Conner snapped back.  “I’m trying to think of a way to get out of here.”

Hargon started to move, but a voice froze him.  “Touch me, and you will die.”

“He’s awake already,” Hargon said to Conner.

“I have been for some time,” the voice replied.  “It is impossible to sleep with the loud noise coming from your nose.”

“I do not snore,” Hargon said.

“That sound almost killed you.  Another five minutes of that horrendous noise, and I would have smothered life out of you.”

Conner chuckled.

“Emperors do not snore,” Hargon said sharply.

Laughter came the file of blankets.  “You are no more emperor than I am the Creator.  You smell.  Now shut up so that I can sleep.”

“I am Emperor Hargon of the great Taran Empire.  Do not talk to me that way!”

“Fine.  Nice to meet you, Emperor Hargon,” the voice replied.  “Now shut up.  My head hurts.”

Hargon stood and walked over to the cell door and tried to open it with several tugs.  The locking mechanism did not hold the door tight, so it banged loudly with each tug.  He bent over to look at the lock, poking his finger through the keyhole from the other side.

“Pick it,” Hargon said with a commanding voice.

“What?” Conner replied.

“Pick it.”

Conner gave Hargon a perplexed looked.

“Do you not know how to?”

“No, of course not.”

“Oh,” Hargon replied, still bent over, looking at the keyhole.  “I thought all your kind knew how to do that sort of stuff.”

“All what kind?”

“Peasants.  Little people. Riffraff.  Dredges of society.  Your kind.”

Conner looked at the ragged man who stood in front of him.  It took him a moment to realize that the man had been, or claimed to be, the emperor of Taran.  Somewhere, underneath all the dirt, filth, and ragged hair was a man of aristocracy.  His voice and demeanor certainly kept reminding Conner of that fact, but his looks did not.

“When they find out who you are, they will take you back to your brother to properly deal with you.”

“And what about you?” Hargon snapped back.  “Hundreds, thousands, saw you.  If you are recognized, how will you explain that you are alive?”

“
Anyone who saw me is miles away in another city.  I doubt any of these centurions know who I am, either.  I will walk away from here alive, but I don’t think you will.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Silence!”

Hargon and Conner both turned to look at the person behind the voice.  He was hunched over, standing directly in front of them.  A large knot was on the side of his head that looked very painful.  But their stunned silence was not because of the force of the man’s voice, or the large bump on his head.

“You have those ears, too,” Hargon said.

Glaerion had opened his mouth to continue his outburst, but instead he said simply said, “Too?  What do you mean, too?”

“We met others like you,” Conner said.  “They were getting fresh water and we came across them.  They gave us a ride here to Iseron.  We were out of supplies and they were kind enough to help us out.  Are you with them?”

Glaerion narrowed his eyes.  “Kind enough?  Hardly.  I doubt an elven sailor would go out of his way to help the likes of the two of you.  You certainly couldn’t pay them either.  You don’t have enough coin and they wouldn’t take it.  Maybe I should kill the both of you and be on my own way.”

Conner let out a snort.

A smile crept across Glaerion’s face.  “Oh?  You doubt my skill?  Before you could blink twice, I would have you both on the ground, begging for mercy.  But there would be none.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate strangers,” Conner said.  He did not like this elf at all.  There was something about him that was just a bit off.  He’d met many people in the past year that were just plain unlikable, but none quite like him.

“And nor should you,” Glaerion replied.

“How about you both kill each other,” Hargon said.  “And then I’ll hide under your bodies.  When they carry you out, I’ll make my escape.”

Conner and Glaerion continued to stare at one another while Hargon stepped between them.  “How about you both just cool off and we figure out a way to get out of here together.  Then we can go our way, and you can go your way.”

Conner broke his gaze away first.  Everything about this elf just turned him the wrong way.  It was more than just the tone in his voice, or the angry words that came out.  It was as if there was just some deep seeded hatred between them.  He could not explain it, because he didn’t know anything about him.  It was like the hatred he had felt for Neffenmark, but at least with the fat man, he deserved every bit of the hatred.  But this elf had done nothing to deserve the anger, other than be snappy and short with his tone.

“Stand aside,” Glaerion said as he pushed his way past Conner.

Conner did so, but was slow enough to get in the elf’s way.  The elf was light and skinny, thin like Conner, but not nearly as muscular.  Conner felt a bit of satisfaction as the elf could not just push Conner aside.  But Glaerion simply ignored Conner and pulled out a long, thin, pointed piece of metal.  He pushed into the lock from the outside of the door and twisted and tugged until the lock clicked and the door swung open.

“If you could pick the lock so easily, why did you not do it before?” Conner asked.

The elf stepped through the doorway and touched the knot on the side of his head.  “I was unconscious until your snoring woke me.”  He suddenly turned.  “I cannot have anyone follow me.”

“Where are you headed?” Conner asked.  “We are going east to Karmon.”

“I am…” Glaerion almost revealed why he was here in the land of man, but he caught himself before the words came out.  “Not east.”