TRIAL BY STEEL,
by Levi HR Rosenthal
has "4051" words.
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“Sir Edward Hansard, you have been indicted of kinslaying and rape,” caroled the One Orator, with glee in his tone. They hated me, I decided; they didn’t even try and hide it any more. I saw it on their faces, on their smiles. Those many, many cruel smiles, and those eyes all looking down upon me from their high terraces.
Upon a white stone dais, I knelt bound by iron chains like some savage. Men of the Sky stood beside my dais with their notorious large-shields, emblazoned by a shapeless blue face. They stood there as if I had the aptitude to escape from this place, from these chains. I was weak: my eyes were feeble from weeks in the irresistible blackness of my cell and my mind stung as though it was bleeding from a fresh wound.
“Do you dissent from these claims?” continued the One Orator, from his high table perched above at the second of six balconies. He did not sit there alone; with him were unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar garbs with high titles of lands and sworn-men. All with more influence than me, I thought.
“I do.” The words were a rasp in my throat, and at first I could not be sure if he had heard me. But then he answered with a scorn of naught but sheer animosity.
“Lying in the House of the Sky is an odious crime in itself.” His bright blue eyes and blond hair flashed momentarily brighter as he flicked a glance to Deacon Survan Arollo, who stood taller than any ordinary man on his isolated dais to the far side. He had donned his blue-and-cream longhat that trailed down his spine to whirl and tangle behind him in a long stream, and in his hands he clasped the Book of the Face of the Sky so tightly his knuckles had turned the color of bone.
The One Orator continued, with those cruel blue eyes fixed like stone upon me. “To exercise justice the House of the Sky must not hold residence to lies from liars. Deacon Arollo, have Sir Hansard here swear fealty to the Faith and have him swear naught but the truth shall leave his lips.” This pleased Larman Ahm the One Orator, I knew it; yet disappointment would come to for my answer would not change.
Deacon Arollo may have been of some age, yet he thrust the Book of the Face of the Sky out and up before him with the rigor of a young man and recited the words with a fierce beatitude that silenced all chatter in the terraces. “All men have but one honor; one thing we all share in common. We are graced to stand and die beneath the Face of the Sky, and may we repay His Grace with truth and justice. Sir Edward Hansard, beneath the Face of the Sky swear fealty to the Faith and speak no lies beneath this holy roof above.”
His words were as strong as fire and all the meanwhile he motioned back and forth, up and down, with an undying zeal. My nod was faint in wordless silence, yet seen by all.
“Now then,” sung the One Orator, “let me ask again: do you dissent from these claims made against you?”
There was sadness in my eyes, as I looked back at the decorated man in his long blue robes and shoulders crowned in white silks. “I do,” I said, plainly and strongly. “I do protest against these falsehoods put upon me.” My voice was fierce, though I felt as a mute man inside.
The One Orator did not seem too shocked by my riposte, though he was only one amid many. Ladies and women gasped at my abruptness and whispered behind gloved hands. Noble men and lords and honorable knights shook their heads in disgust and disapproval both, praying to the Face of the Sky for but one thing, I could be sure of it; they prayed for my death.
“Sir Hansard, the City beneath the Sky is a holy place; do remember that,” said Larman the One Orator, unkindly.
I croaked a reply, “I was knighted in the City beneath the Sky and I plan to take my last breath here as well.”
A woman glided in beside Larman Ahm, with long golden hair and a deep-red dress that caressed down her body as smooth as water. She draped an arm around him and leaned in closer to whisper something behind a gloved hand. And then she spoke, louder and clearer than the One Orator. “If you do not stop refuting us a confession, you may very well have your last breath here in our holy city.”
All knew what she meant, her threat; but I could not confess, I had sworn to tell the truth. Though I doubted that that was the reason I didn’t confess to these crimes I did not commit. Maybe it was my honor, the little I had that kept me fighting without true hope. Everything afore me told me it was hopeless, yet I could not give up... not now. “An accusation is not fact,” I shouted back. “No-one saw me commit this…” I wanted to spit in a manner of disgust, though my lips were as dry as salt, “crime.”
The woman reproached immediately, with vigor I could not hope to match. “If you think yourself so blameless, Sir Hansard, we are not holding your tongue to prevent you from telling us of the genuine criminal here.”
I had lost my tongue. My words choked me and I was as wordless as the Sky. I did not know who had murdered my brother’s wife, I didn’t want to know. But if I wanted to walk the streets a free man again I needed to know.
“Ah, see,” the One Orator called out to the crowd, “the mute words of a guilty man.” I could not mistake the satisfied grin on his lips.
The woman in red garbs continued. “Your brother’s servants assured us that you visited Lady Alyssa’s chambers the night of her death and they did not see you leave, however when they entered they found her dead body as bloody as slaughtered swine and you were gone, Sir Hansard.” She paused, as if to muse over the evidence afore her. “I do not know what you expect us to believe in your favor; no-one else entered the chamber in that time.”
“I do NOT have kin’s blood on my hands,” I roared, defiantly, though I knew too well it would only make me appear even more guilt-ridden.
Yet she had an answer for that too, as she had for everything and anything I threw at her and the One Orator. “If you are innocent, as you state, why then did you not leave through her chamber doors?” And with that, all eyes fell upon me.
And with that, I was doomed and I knew it, their justice would demean me back to my black cell. I could say nothing that would satisfy them… unless I told the full truth. But surely I could not. I would shame Alyssa in death, and for what? Yes, I was guilty of a crime, but not the one they accused me of, not a crime worthy of death.
I had loved her... I still did. That night was meant to be our last in the City. On the morrow, we had planned to ride to the harbor and find a ship and new names, with new lives as well. I had gold enough, and I had her love as she had mine. Now… now this mess.
That sundown I had come to Alyssa’s chambers as no more than a good-brother; I had assured her that the servants thought as much and no more. The servants would rotate shifts and those on the new shift wouldn’t even know I was there... they shouldn’t have known.
I had left at high moon, when the streets were lit by moonlight. On my leave I had whispered her promises of my return on the morrow. I did return that next morning, but instead of finding Alyssa waiting for me, I had found my brother weeping over her bloody corpse surrounded by servants and physicians; some had looked at me reproachfully as if they knew but that had not been on my mind, only the sight of her body and the bite of my guilt. I had blamed myself that morning, and now others were as well.
“A man that does not fight for his innocence is undeniably guilty,” Larman cried out at the top of his lungs.
I barely had the strength to lift my head, yet I spoke. “Surely, surely, someone else entered her chambers?” Yet what would it matter; if I managed to wriggle from the grasp of justice I would still be belittled by all men from the City beneath the Sky to the Low Sea. And I didn’t have Alyssa, only my guilt and my brother’s hatred.
At that, I lifted my head and in that moment my cold eyes raked across the crowds of unfamiliar people, from knights to ladies to serving maids. Few amid the masses I recognized; they shunned my glance like the rest of them. Mikael was not there among them; somehow I could be sure of that.
The One Orator and his woman were talking among themselves, perhaps deciding my fate. Their next words would finish me; I was sure I could do nothing to stop that. They would preach justice and the crowds would cheer. Guards would take me by my arms and drag me out like a bad dog to the Port of the Sky, where the smallfolk would find my head shattered like glass across the rocky floor of the Port’s cliff.
“Sir Edward Hansard, your guilt is as palpable as black ink in milk, but beneath the Face of the Sky no tangible evidence brings you down. Hence we must leave this to the Face of the Sky to decide.” Her words sounded surreal to my ears; after all this, they would set me free... “A trial by steel will decide your fate, Sir Hansard.”
Those words were as real as hot metal; they burnt the same as well. If I had had the strength, I would have laughed at the sheer injustice. I may as well confess now. I had been a knight once, but weeks in the dark could spoil any worthy fighter. Naught but dry bread to eat and bitter wine to drink could turn the strongest men to the frailest beggars.
Metal-garbed arms lifted me to my feet like a doll. I did not want to rise, to stand before the masses of people. People who had come to see me die, to succumb to their justice and perish for my sins... sins I would never commit.
“Take him to the yards; the fight will take place there,” caroled the red woman.
I tried to move myself, but their combined strengths were far greater than my own and I was swooped up between their arms and taken from my dais.
I looked back to see the crowds disbanding from their terraces. I was sure they would not want to miss seeing my head planted on a spike and my champion preaching his victory as justice.
Yet I could not hate whoever this man might be, after all he would know no better than to think I was guilty of a heinous crime and believe himself to be ridding the City beneath the Sky of a dirty scum as myself. But he would be ending the wrong man; the killer would still be out there... somewhere.
I stumbled through one of the six high arched-doors that led from the House of the Sky into a small courtyard. I savored the morning warmth. It was heaven in itself compared to the dungeons beneath the House of the Sky, where sunlight was seldom found.
I was walked through the courtyard; the buzz of chatter and the silence of the Sky in my ears. Steel gates as tall as two grown men were swung open and we continued through with the crowds behind and around us.
In that moment, I realized I was not thinking; which was a strange thought. I guess I no longer cared. It was time for my suffering to end; the dark cell would no longer await me and my brother could live on knowing that his lady wife’s killer had faced justice.
As for me, I would be free. I was beginning to welcome it. An eternity of peace in the Sky; or so the Men of the Sky preached: if thou art free of injustice and sin the Sky will await. If loving my brother’s lady wife was no sin, the heavens would be here for me if nothing else.
Thrown down onto the earth, I was as frail as a young child, as weak as an old man.
“Pick yourself up,” groused a nameless guard. I did so hesitantly, glancing up to see them before me. There stood the One Orator and his woman, her dress flooding out like water around her. I stared up at them with hollow eyes — eyes too black to be read.
The blond woman looked to a guard. “Give him your sword and shield... and I suppose your half-helm as well.” He removed them from his person, and placed the lot beside me dutifully.
Once I was standing, I found myself reaching down to don the shield and draw forth the light-weight sword. The half-helm came last, as I flicked it over my head and pulling back my long hair. I would fight for Alyssa, I decided in that moment. I would see justice played out.
The One Orator and his woman had slunk back into the crowds, where I saw them next seated upon a wooden dais above everyone else. The crowds encircled the area where the trial by steel would take place, where they would see blood; but the only blood they wanted was that of a kinslayer and rapist.
I would not let that happen; I pulled up my shield across my chest and placed my sword resting in front of it. Could I do this? I looked out into the masses of people, and they looked back at me. They had loved me once. A time not so long ago they had seen me as a hero, when I had stood guard with the others as our seafaring foes reached the Sky Shores. We had stood at the gates and battered them down with steel and iron. And they had fallen dozen by dozen, score by score. Days had merged into one another; day became night, and night became day on the far horizon. We had forgotten our companions’ names by then and after forty more days we had forgotten our own. And finally it ended on a morning when the Sky blazed red and the piles of dead bodies rose around us like mountains. The smell of dead fresh and the ranting of feasting crows were thick in the air that morning, and I had cried my name up at the Sky as loud as I dared.
“Sir Hansard, I believe your challenger is apt... due to the circumstances at hand,” caroled the One Orator, and I looked to him slowly... dumbly. The crowd broke and there emerged a knight in polished full-armor, with hilt of a long-sword poking up over his left shoulder and a helmet fashioned into the likeness of an eagle head. I could not see his face under that visor, but I knew I didn’t want to.
The One Orator grinned, and the knight flicked up his visor. I could not have mistaken his face, scarred and harassed as it was; I could not, not even in my failing state of mind.
“Mikael... my brother.” The words stuck in my throat, or maybe I just didn’t want to say them and come to realize what I was seeing. Though it did not surprise me; surely it was only right that a knight serve justice to the murderer of his late wife.
Deacon Survan Arollo stepped forth from where he had been amid the crowd, with a blade of his own to hand. It was a short dagger, no longer than a man’s forearm, with a curved blade and a bejeweled hilt. He mumbled some prayer to himself, before raising his arms and acknowledging the crowds of faithful people.
“Beneath the Face of the Sky justice shall always be served upon the guilty. Blood shall be spilt. The Face of the Sky is forever impartial, and if he is to take spoilt blood so must he take the blood of a man of innocence.” Survan wrapped one of his strangely-large hands around the dagger’s blade and a droplet of blood fell, then another and another. He ripped the blade free of his clasp with hot-blood squirting unto the earth.
“Blood of innocence has fallen; now by the grace of the Face of the Sky may the blood of the guilty follow.”
Mikael fixed his visor back into place, and grasping his long-sword with two hands wrenched it from its sheath. And steel sounded against boiled leather.
I stumbled closer; he strode forward. Justice was cruel. I had always known that, but now... but now it was a different cruel. I could not stand against my brother, even if I wanted to. It was time to embrace my peace with the Sky.
The One Orator clapped his hands as he tried to gain attention from the crowd. “Let us see justice played out upon the guilty...” He stepped back to the safety of his dais, and all knew the Trial by Steel had begun.
Neither one of us moved. How could I fight my own kin? Yet that was the very crime I was being accused of. And for all Mikael knew, I was Alyssa’s killer.
“Fight him,” grumbled one of the guards, behind me.
I looked to my brother. Should I just let him kill me? The thought didn’t seem so bizarre, yet kneeling to a crime I did not commit was something I would never do.
My feet fell into a slow gait onward, which quickly broke into strides. My shield was out before me and the hilt of the sword rested securely between my fingers. For a moment, I forgot the darkness that had been my only companion in the dungeons below and the weakness that had sought to eat away my very bones.
But I was reminded of both when Mikael’s heavy sword came around in a wide arch crashing into my outstretched shield. I could not hold the force and my arm shuddered like dry-wood, having me stumbling sideways to regain the little balance I had.
I did not know how this would end, nor did I care anymore. All I wanted to do was fight; fight for Alyssa, fight for myself and my life. Would that I could go down with a sword in hand and courage in my heart.
Silence took to the crowd, as I charged again. I held my shield more firmly this time, and my sword was ready for a reprisal.
It was apparent that I was fronting a deft fighter when the enticing prod with my sword fell into empty air as Mikael stepped lightly aside. In time, I just managed to raise my shield as his sword was about to hack off my left arm. The single blow sent me staggering backward.
This time Mikael did not hold back, springing onto me with long strides, his sword held low. I tried to put my shield afore me, but as he tore his own blade skyward I found myself doing nothing against it. His sword ripped up through my right forearm. Pain sprang up through my body like a rabid fever, sending me into a surreal haze. I retracted my handless arm, blood spewing from the stump thick and pasty onto the ground.
The next thing I felt was Mikael’s knee in my gut, knocking the wind from me as I recoiled wildly off balance and into the ground, flat on my back as helpless as a marooned turtle. Mikael, my brother, loomed over me like the faceless shadow in a nightmare. I looked back at him in my pain; were my eyes pleading for mercy? I didn’t know, I couldn’t say.
Unexpectedly, Mikael bent his knee and dropped to my side. He leaned in as a brother, not my challenger. “I am truly sorry, Ed. You don’t deserve this; I know you don’t.” He caressed my cheek with his cold, gloved hand. “I know you loved her; I should have just let you two be... I shouldn’t have interfered.”
A dry coldness wrapped my body and pain became soft as a lost memory. My eyes trembled as I gazed back at him. And he looked down at me, with eyes as cruel as the others, as cruel as the rest of them.
I knew now. I KNEW. Blood of mine drenched the ground sodden. My body shuddered under the whiteness of my skin; my sword-arm twitched as I looked at him, gazed at the bloody stump that remained.
Wildly, I threw myself at him, and with all my strength I slammed my shield into his armored chest. He stumbled back, as if willingly. In that moment, I threw my shield aside like a mad man and scrambled frantically for my sword. My fingers laced around its hilt and as I rose I turned to face him.
He had drawn his sword to hand as well, and held it readily. Nothing allayed my body, nothing stilled my mind. Yet I could not bring myself to move upon him.
Mikael stepped forward.
“You killed her,” was all I could say as I lurched forward. I could barely see midst my anger, my awoken rage, my heady chaos, my heartbreak.
All I could hear was the piercing sound of steel on steel as blade met blade, and the flutter of feet. I felt myself moving, running forward with each blow stronger and stronger.
I hammered my sword across at him with a remnant of the strength I once had and he knocked the blow aside, but not easily. I fell still, watching him. My head felt light and my skin pale; the pain had returned with the sound of dripping blood.
His sword fell into the earth, as he watched me. “Brother, I see now you truly loved her... I see that now.” He dropped unto his knees. “Brother, if anything... this is my gift to you.”
I could barely hear his words as the thumping in my head thickened... hardened. I could see him, though. See him before me, meek as a child in man’s armor.
He was not meek. He was not innocent.
I wavered forward, feet falling into place in front of the last. The sword of mine flashed in a terrible one-handed slash that sailed through the air toward Mikael’s throat. All he needed to do was raise his blade and he would parry my blow. Mikael could do that; it was not hard. He would raise his blade and parry my blade. Why wasn’t he moving? He wasn’t moving. He just needed to raise his blade. He just...
He just looked at me, and then his eyes closed as he accepted his peace. His head sailed from his shoulders. With the swing of my blade and the hot stream of his blood that followed. I saw neither where it landed nor the blood blemish it left across the grass, only heard the dulled thump it made as it struck the ground. And a headless body bowed over backward afore me.
My sword dropped as my grip slackened, my body shaking. I was a kinslayer. I collapsed beside my brother’s headless corpse. This was no gift. A tear of mine fell onto his lifeless lips as the crowds bawled my name, as loud as thunder in the Sky. For good or for ill, I could not say.
Upon a white stone dais, I knelt bound by iron chains like some savage. Men of the Sky stood beside my dais with their notorious large-shields, emblazoned by a shapeless blue face. They stood there as if I had the aptitude to escape from this place, from these chains. I was weak: my eyes were feeble from weeks in the irresistible blackness of my cell and my mind stung as though it was bleeding from a fresh wound.
“Do you dissent from these claims?” continued the One Orator, from his high table perched above at the second of six balconies. He did not sit there alone; with him were unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar garbs with high titles of lands and sworn-men. All with more influence than me, I thought.
“I do.” The words were a rasp in my throat, and at first I could not be sure if he had heard me. But then he answered with a scorn of naught but sheer animosity.
“Lying in the House of the Sky is an odious crime in itself.” His bright blue eyes and blond hair flashed momentarily brighter as he flicked a glance to Deacon Survan Arollo, who stood taller than any ordinary man on his isolated dais to the far side. He had donned his blue-and-cream longhat that trailed down his spine to whirl and tangle behind him in a long stream, and in his hands he clasped the Book of the Face of the Sky so tightly his knuckles had turned the color of bone.
The One Orator continued, with those cruel blue eyes fixed like stone upon me. “To exercise justice the House of the Sky must not hold residence to lies from liars. Deacon Arollo, have Sir Hansard here swear fealty to the Faith and have him swear naught but the truth shall leave his lips.” This pleased Larman Ahm the One Orator, I knew it; yet disappointment would come to for my answer would not change.
Deacon Arollo may have been of some age, yet he thrust the Book of the Face of the Sky out and up before him with the rigor of a young man and recited the words with a fierce beatitude that silenced all chatter in the terraces. “All men have but one honor; one thing we all share in common. We are graced to stand and die beneath the Face of the Sky, and may we repay His Grace with truth and justice. Sir Edward Hansard, beneath the Face of the Sky swear fealty to the Faith and speak no lies beneath this holy roof above.”
His words were as strong as fire and all the meanwhile he motioned back and forth, up and down, with an undying zeal. My nod was faint in wordless silence, yet seen by all.
“Now then,” sung the One Orator, “let me ask again: do you dissent from these claims made against you?”
There was sadness in my eyes, as I looked back at the decorated man in his long blue robes and shoulders crowned in white silks. “I do,” I said, plainly and strongly. “I do protest against these falsehoods put upon me.” My voice was fierce, though I felt as a mute man inside.
The One Orator did not seem too shocked by my riposte, though he was only one amid many. Ladies and women gasped at my abruptness and whispered behind gloved hands. Noble men and lords and honorable knights shook their heads in disgust and disapproval both, praying to the Face of the Sky for but one thing, I could be sure of it; they prayed for my death.
“Sir Hansard, the City beneath the Sky is a holy place; do remember that,” said Larman the One Orator, unkindly.
I croaked a reply, “I was knighted in the City beneath the Sky and I plan to take my last breath here as well.”
A woman glided in beside Larman Ahm, with long golden hair and a deep-red dress that caressed down her body as smooth as water. She draped an arm around him and leaned in closer to whisper something behind a gloved hand. And then she spoke, louder and clearer than the One Orator. “If you do not stop refuting us a confession, you may very well have your last breath here in our holy city.”
All knew what she meant, her threat; but I could not confess, I had sworn to tell the truth. Though I doubted that that was the reason I didn’t confess to these crimes I did not commit. Maybe it was my honor, the little I had that kept me fighting without true hope. Everything afore me told me it was hopeless, yet I could not give up... not now. “An accusation is not fact,” I shouted back. “No-one saw me commit this…” I wanted to spit in a manner of disgust, though my lips were as dry as salt, “crime.”
The woman reproached immediately, with vigor I could not hope to match. “If you think yourself so blameless, Sir Hansard, we are not holding your tongue to prevent you from telling us of the genuine criminal here.”
I had lost my tongue. My words choked me and I was as wordless as the Sky. I did not know who had murdered my brother’s wife, I didn’t want to know. But if I wanted to walk the streets a free man again I needed to know.
“Ah, see,” the One Orator called out to the crowd, “the mute words of a guilty man.” I could not mistake the satisfied grin on his lips.
The woman in red garbs continued. “Your brother’s servants assured us that you visited Lady Alyssa’s chambers the night of her death and they did not see you leave, however when they entered they found her dead body as bloody as slaughtered swine and you were gone, Sir Hansard.” She paused, as if to muse over the evidence afore her. “I do not know what you expect us to believe in your favor; no-one else entered the chamber in that time.”
“I do NOT have kin’s blood on my hands,” I roared, defiantly, though I knew too well it would only make me appear even more guilt-ridden.
Yet she had an answer for that too, as she had for everything and anything I threw at her and the One Orator. “If you are innocent, as you state, why then did you not leave through her chamber doors?” And with that, all eyes fell upon me.
And with that, I was doomed and I knew it, their justice would demean me back to my black cell. I could say nothing that would satisfy them… unless I told the full truth. But surely I could not. I would shame Alyssa in death, and for what? Yes, I was guilty of a crime, but not the one they accused me of, not a crime worthy of death.
I had loved her... I still did. That night was meant to be our last in the City. On the morrow, we had planned to ride to the harbor and find a ship and new names, with new lives as well. I had gold enough, and I had her love as she had mine. Now… now this mess.
That sundown I had come to Alyssa’s chambers as no more than a good-brother; I had assured her that the servants thought as much and no more. The servants would rotate shifts and those on the new shift wouldn’t even know I was there... they shouldn’t have known.
I had left at high moon, when the streets were lit by moonlight. On my leave I had whispered her promises of my return on the morrow. I did return that next morning, but instead of finding Alyssa waiting for me, I had found my brother weeping over her bloody corpse surrounded by servants and physicians; some had looked at me reproachfully as if they knew but that had not been on my mind, only the sight of her body and the bite of my guilt. I had blamed myself that morning, and now others were as well.
“A man that does not fight for his innocence is undeniably guilty,” Larman cried out at the top of his lungs.
I barely had the strength to lift my head, yet I spoke. “Surely, surely, someone else entered her chambers?” Yet what would it matter; if I managed to wriggle from the grasp of justice I would still be belittled by all men from the City beneath the Sky to the Low Sea. And I didn’t have Alyssa, only my guilt and my brother’s hatred.
At that, I lifted my head and in that moment my cold eyes raked across the crowds of unfamiliar people, from knights to ladies to serving maids. Few amid the masses I recognized; they shunned my glance like the rest of them. Mikael was not there among them; somehow I could be sure of that.
The One Orator and his woman were talking among themselves, perhaps deciding my fate. Their next words would finish me; I was sure I could do nothing to stop that. They would preach justice and the crowds would cheer. Guards would take me by my arms and drag me out like a bad dog to the Port of the Sky, where the smallfolk would find my head shattered like glass across the rocky floor of the Port’s cliff.
“Sir Edward Hansard, your guilt is as palpable as black ink in milk, but beneath the Face of the Sky no tangible evidence brings you down. Hence we must leave this to the Face of the Sky to decide.” Her words sounded surreal to my ears; after all this, they would set me free... “A trial by steel will decide your fate, Sir Hansard.”
Those words were as real as hot metal; they burnt the same as well. If I had had the strength, I would have laughed at the sheer injustice. I may as well confess now. I had been a knight once, but weeks in the dark could spoil any worthy fighter. Naught but dry bread to eat and bitter wine to drink could turn the strongest men to the frailest beggars.
Metal-garbed arms lifted me to my feet like a doll. I did not want to rise, to stand before the masses of people. People who had come to see me die, to succumb to their justice and perish for my sins... sins I would never commit.
“Take him to the yards; the fight will take place there,” caroled the red woman.
I tried to move myself, but their combined strengths were far greater than my own and I was swooped up between their arms and taken from my dais.
I looked back to see the crowds disbanding from their terraces. I was sure they would not want to miss seeing my head planted on a spike and my champion preaching his victory as justice.
Yet I could not hate whoever this man might be, after all he would know no better than to think I was guilty of a heinous crime and believe himself to be ridding the City beneath the Sky of a dirty scum as myself. But he would be ending the wrong man; the killer would still be out there... somewhere.
I stumbled through one of the six high arched-doors that led from the House of the Sky into a small courtyard. I savored the morning warmth. It was heaven in itself compared to the dungeons beneath the House of the Sky, where sunlight was seldom found.
I was walked through the courtyard; the buzz of chatter and the silence of the Sky in my ears. Steel gates as tall as two grown men were swung open and we continued through with the crowds behind and around us.
In that moment, I realized I was not thinking; which was a strange thought. I guess I no longer cared. It was time for my suffering to end; the dark cell would no longer await me and my brother could live on knowing that his lady wife’s killer had faced justice.
As for me, I would be free. I was beginning to welcome it. An eternity of peace in the Sky; or so the Men of the Sky preached: if thou art free of injustice and sin the Sky will await. If loving my brother’s lady wife was no sin, the heavens would be here for me if nothing else.
Thrown down onto the earth, I was as frail as a young child, as weak as an old man.
“Pick yourself up,” groused a nameless guard. I did so hesitantly, glancing up to see them before me. There stood the One Orator and his woman, her dress flooding out like water around her. I stared up at them with hollow eyes — eyes too black to be read.
The blond woman looked to a guard. “Give him your sword and shield... and I suppose your half-helm as well.” He removed them from his person, and placed the lot beside me dutifully.
Once I was standing, I found myself reaching down to don the shield and draw forth the light-weight sword. The half-helm came last, as I flicked it over my head and pulling back my long hair. I would fight for Alyssa, I decided in that moment. I would see justice played out.
The One Orator and his woman had slunk back into the crowds, where I saw them next seated upon a wooden dais above everyone else. The crowds encircled the area where the trial by steel would take place, where they would see blood; but the only blood they wanted was that of a kinslayer and rapist.
I would not let that happen; I pulled up my shield across my chest and placed my sword resting in front of it. Could I do this? I looked out into the masses of people, and they looked back at me. They had loved me once. A time not so long ago they had seen me as a hero, when I had stood guard with the others as our seafaring foes reached the Sky Shores. We had stood at the gates and battered them down with steel and iron. And they had fallen dozen by dozen, score by score. Days had merged into one another; day became night, and night became day on the far horizon. We had forgotten our companions’ names by then and after forty more days we had forgotten our own. And finally it ended on a morning when the Sky blazed red and the piles of dead bodies rose around us like mountains. The smell of dead fresh and the ranting of feasting crows were thick in the air that morning, and I had cried my name up at the Sky as loud as I dared.
“Sir Hansard, I believe your challenger is apt... due to the circumstances at hand,” caroled the One Orator, and I looked to him slowly... dumbly. The crowd broke and there emerged a knight in polished full-armor, with hilt of a long-sword poking up over his left shoulder and a helmet fashioned into the likeness of an eagle head. I could not see his face under that visor, but I knew I didn’t want to.
The One Orator grinned, and the knight flicked up his visor. I could not have mistaken his face, scarred and harassed as it was; I could not, not even in my failing state of mind.
“Mikael... my brother.” The words stuck in my throat, or maybe I just didn’t want to say them and come to realize what I was seeing. Though it did not surprise me; surely it was only right that a knight serve justice to the murderer of his late wife.
Deacon Survan Arollo stepped forth from where he had been amid the crowd, with a blade of his own to hand. It was a short dagger, no longer than a man’s forearm, with a curved blade and a bejeweled hilt. He mumbled some prayer to himself, before raising his arms and acknowledging the crowds of faithful people.
“Beneath the Face of the Sky justice shall always be served upon the guilty. Blood shall be spilt. The Face of the Sky is forever impartial, and if he is to take spoilt blood so must he take the blood of a man of innocence.” Survan wrapped one of his strangely-large hands around the dagger’s blade and a droplet of blood fell, then another and another. He ripped the blade free of his clasp with hot-blood squirting unto the earth.
“Blood of innocence has fallen; now by the grace of the Face of the Sky may the blood of the guilty follow.”
Mikael fixed his visor back into place, and grasping his long-sword with two hands wrenched it from its sheath. And steel sounded against boiled leather.
I stumbled closer; he strode forward. Justice was cruel. I had always known that, but now... but now it was a different cruel. I could not stand against my brother, even if I wanted to. It was time to embrace my peace with the Sky.
The One Orator clapped his hands as he tried to gain attention from the crowd. “Let us see justice played out upon the guilty...” He stepped back to the safety of his dais, and all knew the Trial by Steel had begun.
Neither one of us moved. How could I fight my own kin? Yet that was the very crime I was being accused of. And for all Mikael knew, I was Alyssa’s killer.
“Fight him,” grumbled one of the guards, behind me.
I looked to my brother. Should I just let him kill me? The thought didn’t seem so bizarre, yet kneeling to a crime I did not commit was something I would never do.
My feet fell into a slow gait onward, which quickly broke into strides. My shield was out before me and the hilt of the sword rested securely between my fingers. For a moment, I forgot the darkness that had been my only companion in the dungeons below and the weakness that had sought to eat away my very bones.
But I was reminded of both when Mikael’s heavy sword came around in a wide arch crashing into my outstretched shield. I could not hold the force and my arm shuddered like dry-wood, having me stumbling sideways to regain the little balance I had.
I did not know how this would end, nor did I care anymore. All I wanted to do was fight; fight for Alyssa, fight for myself and my life. Would that I could go down with a sword in hand and courage in my heart.
Silence took to the crowd, as I charged again. I held my shield more firmly this time, and my sword was ready for a reprisal.
It was apparent that I was fronting a deft fighter when the enticing prod with my sword fell into empty air as Mikael stepped lightly aside. In time, I just managed to raise my shield as his sword was about to hack off my left arm. The single blow sent me staggering backward.
This time Mikael did not hold back, springing onto me with long strides, his sword held low. I tried to put my shield afore me, but as he tore his own blade skyward I found myself doing nothing against it. His sword ripped up through my right forearm. Pain sprang up through my body like a rabid fever, sending me into a surreal haze. I retracted my handless arm, blood spewing from the stump thick and pasty onto the ground.
The next thing I felt was Mikael’s knee in my gut, knocking the wind from me as I recoiled wildly off balance and into the ground, flat on my back as helpless as a marooned turtle. Mikael, my brother, loomed over me like the faceless shadow in a nightmare. I looked back at him in my pain; were my eyes pleading for mercy? I didn’t know, I couldn’t say.
Unexpectedly, Mikael bent his knee and dropped to my side. He leaned in as a brother, not my challenger. “I am truly sorry, Ed. You don’t deserve this; I know you don’t.” He caressed my cheek with his cold, gloved hand. “I know you loved her; I should have just let you two be... I shouldn’t have interfered.”
A dry coldness wrapped my body and pain became soft as a lost memory. My eyes trembled as I gazed back at him. And he looked down at me, with eyes as cruel as the others, as cruel as the rest of them.
I knew now. I KNEW. Blood of mine drenched the ground sodden. My body shuddered under the whiteness of my skin; my sword-arm twitched as I looked at him, gazed at the bloody stump that remained.
Wildly, I threw myself at him, and with all my strength I slammed my shield into his armored chest. He stumbled back, as if willingly. In that moment, I threw my shield aside like a mad man and scrambled frantically for my sword. My fingers laced around its hilt and as I rose I turned to face him.
He had drawn his sword to hand as well, and held it readily. Nothing allayed my body, nothing stilled my mind. Yet I could not bring myself to move upon him.
Mikael stepped forward.
“You killed her,” was all I could say as I lurched forward. I could barely see midst my anger, my awoken rage, my heady chaos, my heartbreak.
All I could hear was the piercing sound of steel on steel as blade met blade, and the flutter of feet. I felt myself moving, running forward with each blow stronger and stronger.
I hammered my sword across at him with a remnant of the strength I once had and he knocked the blow aside, but not easily. I fell still, watching him. My head felt light and my skin pale; the pain had returned with the sound of dripping blood.
His sword fell into the earth, as he watched me. “Brother, I see now you truly loved her... I see that now.” He dropped unto his knees. “Brother, if anything... this is my gift to you.”
I could barely hear his words as the thumping in my head thickened... hardened. I could see him, though. See him before me, meek as a child in man’s armor.
He was not meek. He was not innocent.
I wavered forward, feet falling into place in front of the last. The sword of mine flashed in a terrible one-handed slash that sailed through the air toward Mikael’s throat. All he needed to do was raise his blade and he would parry my blow. Mikael could do that; it was not hard. He would raise his blade and parry my blade. Why wasn’t he moving? He wasn’t moving. He just needed to raise his blade. He just...
He just looked at me, and then his eyes closed as he accepted his peace. His head sailed from his shoulders. With the swing of my blade and the hot stream of his blood that followed. I saw neither where it landed nor the blood blemish it left across the grass, only heard the dulled thump it made as it struck the ground. And a headless body bowed over backward afore me.
My sword dropped as my grip slackened, my body shaking. I was a kinslayer. I collapsed beside my brother’s headless corpse. This was no gift. A tear of mine fell onto his lifeless lips as the crowds bawled my name, as loud as thunder in the Sky. For good or for ill, I could not say.
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About the Author: Levi HR Rosenthal is young and unworldly, but finds
himself tackling racism, sexism and even religion in his fiction. He almost
faints over the sight of his own blood, but has no trouble killing off his
characters with varying degrees of brutality. He dreams of happy endings,
but never seems to be able to write them down. His fiction has appeared
(or is forthcoming) in New Worlds Podcast and Dreamscape Press, and you can follow him on Twitter @levihrr. Expect to see more from him in the future.
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