A Gentleman's Guide: Interlude: Gale

Interlude: Gale

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Commissioned by Citino

Wordcount: 2500

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I could never forgive those who abandoned us in our time of need.

When the skies darkened, as the monsters came for us, we were left behind to die.

There were a few who cared. Noble knights who stayed behind and defended us and gave their lives to protect us.

But they were ones of hundreds.

As we gathered, village after village coming together for protection, we all heard the news spread.

The knights were being ordered into fortresses of great power and size, which would serve as bases to protect those beneath the branches of the Tree of Light.

Those who saved us were deemed traitors, because we were told to die.

My father died.

My mother died.

My brothers, sisters, and cousins died.

I lived out of spite, out of anger, and out of a need for vengeance.

From those who stayed with us and were deemed traitors to the crown, I learned all that I could. I was blessed with formidable magic and a strong body. The knights who taught me told me that I would’ve been chosen to become one of them. When they perished, I learned from those who spent their entire lives learning how to hunt and kill monsters. The hunters of dozens of towns treated me with wariness, until I proved myself as a capable fighter in the defense of those they cared about.

We fought, we bled, and we lost until we reached the first of the fortresses that made up the defensive line… and we were refused entry.

Some kind souls smuggled in children and babies, but they were few and vanished as time went on. A few soldiers smuggled us tools to work with, means to build wells and craft weapons and armor, but they were sent elsewhere too. Every ounce of kindness given to us, those who were deemed already dead, was dealt with swiftly by the officers of the fortress. They did not kill or punish their valuable knights and soldiers, but they sent them elsewhere to where their kindness would no matter.

Though it was unsaid, we were told to die for the sake of the rest of the empire.

It was not enough that we lost our families and home, and fought without protection from those who promised to protect us all the way to the defensive line.

We had to give them our lives us well.

My heart burned with rage at the crown… and as I fell to a sickness born of magic… I cursed myself for my weakness.

I wished to overcome all of it.

Not only the eternal night and the monsters that it spawned… but also the crown that had broken our promises.

The hunger that I felt, the pain that I endured, and the sorrow that ripped through my heart all paled in comparison to that singular desire.

I wanted to break the world apart and allow something else to grow from the ashes.

The destruction of both the source of the eternal night and the crown that consigned its people to death with a single word.

Both had to perish for any peace to come over my heart.

And, so… I struggled to live until aid was rendered to me by a being whose power, knowledge, and ability I needed to achieve my goals.

I cared not what he would ask of me in return.

For my goals, I would suffer any indignity and endure all trials.

…

When my strength returned to me, I begged the child from the desert to teach me his power.

The people from the other villages spoke of his incredible abilities. No Knight or peddling magician could compare to him in strength, speed, and ability. They saw him not only punch through the beasts, but fight nearly a dozen foes at once with the threads he carried upon himself and wielded with uncanny precision. He slew hordes of monsters with immense ease, while also organizing the entire community and aiding all those who needed help.

He had talent, power, and skill… all of which I needed to achieve my dream.

So, I begged him to teach me.

And, he refused.

He spoke the Crown’s tongue with difficulty, the chime of his voice almost too light for the guttural intonations of our words. When he spoke to himself in the tongue of is people, it was like hearing sharpened winds being briskly conveyed through the mouth. A piercing lilt that travelled well in open spaces, but did poorly in the din of forests.

But that fact mattered not to me.

His reason for refusal did.

“I will not teach to kill. I teach to save.” The virtues of a true knight flowed through him. Not only did he have power, but also the morality hat the Crown lacked. It was laughable. The Crown told us that the desert savages were powerful, but they lacked the integrity to unite and grow strong. Yet here before me stood a “savage” who was well and truly beyond any Knight that the Crown could call their own. Not only in power, but in virtue. “Learn from someone else for your path… after you fully heal.”

He pointed a cloth-covered finger my way and threads came forth from his flowing, white sleeves. They tied themselves around me and lifted me up. Not a single one was wasted, each one moving in perfect concert with the other, as to return me to my bed as he approached with a bowl of viscous broth. He sat next to me and readied himself to feed me by hand.

He was equal to the heirs of the Crown, perhaps even the rulers of the realm itself, but he was feeding me and caring for me with his own hands.

I deserved to be punished for my impertinence, for not relinquishing my goals and heeding the words of the powerful, kind creature before me… but the blaze in my heart refused to falter.

I had to insist.

“You must. The Crown is killing us. It has killed so many of us already. They must be undone so that the people can be united.” The Crown’s will took our protectors from us. They consigned us to death so that their own lives would be saved. All the tithes we paid were meaningless. All the sons and daughters sent to become Knights were nowhere to be found. We gave them power in return for protection and peace, but when peace broke they didn’t even try to give us the former. “We will die, if you do not. We will die because they have already decided that we are dead.”

He was silent. I knew not what he thought as he hid his features behind a cloth that bound his face and goggles composed of some material that I did not recognize. However, through the red lenses I saw the concern in his gaze… and the slightest narrowing of his brow at the mention of the calamities that befell us.

He cared for us.

Truly.

“I have been asked to help your Crown and your people. I will only do so if they help you. I will not fight for them or aid them, if they continue to wrong you and yours.” He pressed the spoon to my limits and forced the meal upon me through my grimace. I did not dare waste food and my body clamored for every drop. Ever since my recovery from the wasting sickness, I had felt myself growing stronger. The trial that I endured strengthened me from within and now I needed immense amounts of sustenance to strengthen myself from without. He provided me with everything I needed even after saving my life. “If they refuse, I will help you all. I will lead you to my tribe. They are strong and you learn to live another life. Is that not enough?”

His offer is correct.

He wouldn’t raise a hand against the Crown out of concern for those that they kept safe. Though he condemned what they did, he would not pursue a justice that would consign those saved to a harsher, more dreadful existence. Not only that, but he would shoulder the burden of caring for those abandoned by the Crown. He was doing more than anyone could ever hope to expect from him for strangers he met mere weeks ago… but it wasn’t enough for me.

The fire within me still continued to rage.

I couldn’t accept such an outcome.

“No. It isn’t. It’s not just nor right.” What the Crown did was murder. They consigned the lives of tens of thousands to save those they deemed worthy of saving. The taxes they imposed upon us, the conscriptions they forced upon us, and all they too from us… all that they took could’ve been used to make walls, village guards, and other forms of security. “They took from us our wealth, those with talent, and our food, not telling us why… and then left us to die!”

I was sure that we would’ve lived if not for the Crown’s efforts in the past decade to gain all they could from us. All the preparation required to create the Tree of Light must have taken many, many years. They knew all that time what was coming, and instead of allowing us to fortify, they raised us like cattle. We were to be harvested from until we could give no more, and when the wolves came we were to be allowed to die as we could no longer be fed.

I was ready for words of wisdom to come from the young boy… only to find discomfort upon his small frame as he lowered the bowl of soup in his lap.

“…That was unknown to me.” The slightest of trembling filled his voice. I was surprised to feel an undercurrent of anger swelling behind his light lilt of the Crown’s more guttural language. It sent a chill through me. My body was warning me that a great threat was mere hand lengths away and that I should run. “Can you prove this?”

Anger and rage continued to exist within me, but all I could feel was the rampant thudding of my heart as a cold sweat and trembling spread across my entire body.

However, as I struggled to speak the others in the tent where he tended wounds spoke.

“My daughter was judged to be capable of magic. They took her from me five years ago. I haven’t heard a word from her since then.” Balth spoke despite his wounds. His silence within the tent for the past five days was broken. He kept himself lying flat on the cot even as his voice hitched. “They lessened my taxes that year. It was because they knew that I had nothing more to give them.”

“My town’s stable found itself without business a year ago and when it began to go to ruin, the Crown’s emissaries came to purchase all the horses. Old Geoff drank himself to death with the money.” Agatha whispered from her cot as she sat near one of the windows. She looked upon one of the simple box gardens. Her eyes investigated the distance as she touched her only remaining leg. “They did the same to the stable in the next town. It was all for the sake of gaining enough draft animals for their new farms.”

“New farms tended to by our best! They recruited the best of us by offering them lesser titles and gave us land we couldn’t hope to tend to!” Marcus spoke up next. His voice was stronger than the other two, even as he lay with all his limbs suspended off a contraption of wires, because they were all broken. His state was undignified, so he was given a simple wall of thatch that hid him from the rest of us, but his words carried through the barrier just as ours did. “I knew that they were being too generous! They were out to buy and take all they could before the end came!”

The words of the others emboldened me to speak as well.

“Physician.” I addressed him by the title he preferred, even though I did not understand what the word completely meant. “This is why I ask for the right to become powerful. I don’t wish for you to wage war against the Crown, but they must be held accountable for what they have done by the people they have betrayed.”

The savior of all the towns of the frontier stood at my words. From my place on the bed, I could not see in the lenses of his goggles any longer. His entire form was also unnaturally stiff as he put away my emptied bowl and fetched another. When he sat again… his eyes shook me to my core.

They were gentle eyes… but filled with unshakeable conviction.

“I understand now. Thank you. To all of you.” He nodded at me, then at the other three present with me. A smile reached his eyes as he held a spoon towards me once again. “Your land is sick and must be remedied. A concentrated effort must be made to ensure that it continues.”

His words frightened me, but I gathered the strength to correct him.

“There is nothing to remedy. It must be done away with. All of it. There’s nothing that can be saved.”

He shook his head at my words.

“Some parts must go, but the system must remain for the most people to survive. Not everyone behind the fortresses protections deserve death.” He spoke calmly and without ill intent, but his eyes bore down upon me with such force that my heart skipped a beat and I found it difficult to breath. “Rampant destruction is not the way… but kings, queens, and leaders of nations can be undone. They have rivals, individuals who hate them, and others who want for power.”

I did not understand until the elderly hunters with me spoke as one.

“Rebellion.”

Clarity would’ve overcome me, if not for the physician shaking his head.

“Too long. Too inefficient. A coup will have to do. Swift, quick, and decisive.” He spoke of killing the ruler of the realm like treating an injury. No wasted moment. Nothing superfluous. No superstition and no prestige. Only an injury that needed to be remedied. “Ms. Gale… I believe that I will need some assistance in this venture. Are you still willing to be taught and learn… at the cost of doing things exactly as I say?”

Though I felt afraid, though I could barely understand the being before me, I bowed my head in acceptance.

No other answer was possible for me.

Not now.

Not after everything.