The Shards by Gary Alan Wassner

Author:Gary Alan Wassner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Sword & Sorcery, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Horror, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Genre Fiction, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: E-Reads
Published: 2013-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

“Get up!” Fobush ordered. “Though I would like to leave you here, as you well deserve, I swore allegiance many tiels ago to your parents, and out of respect for them, I cannot! Now get up off of this floor and walk with me through these doors, or by the First, I will carry you like a child over my shoulders!” he yelled.

Kettin stood up slowly and sheepishly in the comer of his bedchamber.

“Put this on. You look foolish in your sleeping gown. It is bad enough that you have dirtied the family name with your actions. At the least, when you leave here, do so with a bit of dignity,” he said disdainfully, and he threw a tunic to the cowering young man.

Kettin turned his back on the general and like a small child, he slipped what he was wearing over his head and put the fresh clothing on. Fobush kicked a pair of boots over toward him and tossed a cape and a belt his way as well.

“Hurry up!” he commanded. “If you wish to stem the flow of citizens out of the city, you must do so immediately or there will shortly be no one left. They have physically deserted you as readily as you deserted your principles it seems. In the absence of your ‘surrogate’…” he found if difficult to utter Margot’s name, she was so distasteful to him, “…they have also abandoned their allegiance to you as quickly as you did your own honor,” he derided him.

Kettin finished putting on his clothing and he walked over to his dressing table in the comer. He pushed the implements around with his hands until he located the box, opened it, and slipped his ring upon his index finger. He rummaged through the other items searching for something that seemed to be quite important to him.

“We have so little time left. What are you doing?” Fobush asked with angry impatience.

“My medallion! I must find my medallion!” Kettin cried.

“Rings and necklaces? Those are the things you are thinking about now?” he asked, astonished at the young Duke’s foolishness.

“I have to find it! I cannot leave without it!” Kettin said, growing more frantic with each passing moment.

He was pushing things off of the table now and tossing them carelessly to the ground. He broke a frame and a porcelain container in the process, and he was flinging papers and documents in all directions. Suddenly, his fingers clasped a blackened silver amulet from which a heavy chain dangled, and he lifted it up gleefully before his eyes. Like a man possessed, he quickly placed it over his head and let it hang upon his chest. Immediately, the color returned to his cheeks. His back was to Fobush at this time so that the man could not see how his eyes darkened and how his expression changed. Keeping his movements hidden, he slipped a small dagger that lay upon the table under his cuff and then turned toward the door.

“Ah,” he sighed to himself.

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