Fall of Thanes by Brian Ruckley

Author:Brian Ruckley [Ruckley, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dark Fantasy
ISBN: 031606808X
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

VII

In the night, those uncomfortable beneath Kanin's yoke had come for him, seething out of Glasbridge's alleys and ruins. It was not the Lannis folk who rose, but the motley bands of Black Road looters and idlers and thieves that had occupied the town before his arrival. Titles and past allegiances meant nothing, it seemed, in this newly savage world; scores had come, half of them armed with nothing more than staffs or kitchen knives, to test this Thane's determination. They had not found him wanting.

While the mob battered at the iron-stiffened door of the Guard House and smashed in the shutters on its windows, Kanin himself had led his Shield and twenty other warriors out over the wall of the little yard in which Glasbridge's Guard had once drilled. They had fallen on the rear of the baying throng, so suddenly and unexpectedly that the slaughter had been trivially easy. The killing brought Kanin less relief, less respite from his tortured preoccupations, than such deeds once had. It was purposeless beyond the preservation of his own life, and he set little store by that measure of purpose.

In the wake of it, though, standing with the dead and the crippled strewn about him, with groans and whimpers populating the darkness, he had rediscovered some little of the cleansing cold fire. One of his own Shield, a tall man, black-bearded, had cornered some ragged Gyre villager in the doorway of one of the shacks opposite the Guard House. As Kanin watched impassively, the shieldman's shoulders shook, his sword sank to hang loosely at his side. The man he should have been killing was immobile for a moment, bewildered, and then fled into the night.

Kanin seized the shieldman's shoulder and spun him about. There were tears on the man's face, and the sight of them roused all of Kanin's ire.

"What are you doing?" he shouted.

"I cannot, sire." The words were tremulous. The man's brow furrowed. The sword fell from his limp hand.

"Cannot?" Kanin snarled. All of the others were watching now. There was nothing else, in that silent, dark street, save Thane and shieldman.

"It's all wrong. We're fighting our own. I don't understand why..."

Kanin cut him down, and the man fell without a sound, his legs folding beneath him. Another blow, as he lay there staring blankly up, finished him. Kanin stalked back towards the Guard House, pushing through the ranks of his warriors. He glimpsed in Igris' face as he passed the subtle flinch of repressed doubt and distaste.

He turned on the threshold.

"Any who doubt me, who lack the courage to stand by their Thane, their Blood, come to me with a sword in your hand, and test your fate against mine. I don't fear it. I'll gladly face anyone. But if you've not the spine to do that, you'll fight and you'll die for me as your oaths demand. I will bring down those now ruling in Kan Avor or I will die in the trying. So will you."

Now, watching

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