Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 19. Tragic End.

“Even if you want to, it’s not up to us to get involved,” Tares said with a relative calm, by now having managed to regain his composure. “I have no idea what is going on in that tower, but we have aren’t in a position where we can argue with the General and his choices,” he clarified after noticing the look of disbelief painting itself on Tan’s and Laien’s faces.

“Why?” Tan asked helplessly. “It doesn’t make any sense…!” he bellowed, failing to understand why everyone didn’t want to try and save his mother.

“We should at least try talking with him,” Laien urged, but only after saying the words aloud realized that he was seeking an agreement from Yin instead of acting on his feelings. He looked at Yin, and Yin looked at him. Why did everything suddenly get so complicated? He really hated it.

“Fine, just go,” Yin said with a little sigh and removed his hand from Laien’s shoulder. “See it for yourself, I will wait here,” he added and smiled resignedly, understanding that Laien wouldn’t budge on that one thing. His character was just like that and it couldn’t be helped.

Knowing that Yin didn’t hold it against him made the decision much easier. Laien nodded in thanks and ran into the core district while pulling Tan along.

No one tried to stop the two of them, not even Ruan, but no one tried to help them either. At the same time, however, many of the Iron Knights had long faces. In their minds they knew that Tares was right and it wasn’t up to them, soldiers, to be questioning their General’s choices, whatever they might be. As long as it didn’t relate to the well-being of their Kingdom and the General wouldn’t be actively acting against it, they wouldn’t disobey the orders or break the rules. However, in their hearts… most of them wanted to go with Tan and Laien, even if to only see what was going on with their own two eyes.

“Eh,” Yin breathed out and walked over to the inner wall of the gate, then sat down on the ground and closed his eyes. “You are too good for your own sake…” he thought again, though this time couldn’t help but smile a little. It was painful to see Laien doing exactly what he had done when he was a young kid, but if Laien didn’t care about it at all and just shrugged his shoulders at Tan’s pleas like the others… if Laien was such a person, he would have never come to like him so much.

A short moment later, yet another Qi-enhanced cry of pain rang out. Yet, this time it was slightly different. Not just anyone would be able to tell, but Yin noticed; willingly or not. He knew those cried of pain all too well and despite pushing all those memories into the darkest corner of his mind, he had never forgotten them.

“She regained the clarity of thought for a bit,” the indistinct, unthought thought flew through Yin’s mind. He took a deep breath, quietly hoping that Laien would return sooner rather than later. The spiritual bond of theirs and the awareness that he wasn’t alone with his pain really had made dealing with those memories a lot easier; it maybe, just maybe even made them bearable enough for him to speak about them.

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Although a few hundred steps long, round stairs weren’t much for any martial practitioner to climb up, the many seconds it took Laien and Tan to do seemed like an eternity; especially to the seven-year-old boy. The yells and cries of his mother were frightening him, but they at least let him know she was still alive. That’s why when they suddenly stopped after one especially loud shout, his heart clenched in fear and worry.

Then, just two or three seconds later they arrived at the top of the tower and Laien slammed the unlocked, sturdy door open.

“No!” the words involuntarily escaped Tan’s mouth when he saw his mother sitting on the warm carpet with her legs folded underneath her thighs and his father who had just swung the greatsword in his hand.

The time seemed to slow down for a brief split-second, during which Tan and Laien could swear Clementine noticed them and smiled at her son reassuringly, as if trying to tell him that everything’s going to be all right. Laien managed to even take notice of the painful flinch of Agnes’s face, but he could do nothing to stop the greatsword which swished sideways and at one instant, smashed Clementine’s head into smithereens and sent them splashing onto the wall of the room.

“No…” Tan repeated, this time very quietly. His body went limp and he fell to his knees, his hand slipping out of Laien’s. He stared blankly at the corpse of his mother, which in an act of some terrifying sense of art remained seated perfectly straight, only leaking out blood from the now headless neck.

“If you behead someone and don’t destroy the brain, they are still alive and conscious for a few dozen seconds,” Agnes explained and put his greatsword away, then pulled his wife’s body into his interspatial ring too. He shook his head and sat on the bed, looking at the two boys, one of which was his son with a deep sense of regret and grief.

“Why did you return? And why did you bring my son here, just for him to see it?” Agnes asked, pretending not to see, or perhaps not wanting to see the figure of his broken-down son sitting on the floor and staring blankly at the bloody spot where his mother’s body had been. “I told Cecile to keep him with her too… so disobedient,” he added quietly and released another, this time even heavier sigh. He wiped the blood flowing down his deeply scratched face with his sleeve, then sighed again.

“Do you intend to kill her too?” Laien asked, anger flickering in his eyes. No matter how small the chance was, they should have suffered through it…! They should have tried! Killing his own wife… what was Agnes thinking?

“My daughter?” Agnes asked, the tone of his voice almost surprised. “You think I’m a monster, don’t you?” he asked and laughed, his laugh thoroughly filled with genuine pain and sadness. “I didn’t want to kill Clementine. I wanted to try and confine her here… wait for her to get better,” he began explaining, yet smiled self-mockingly. “You heard her cried, did you not? I guess half of the inner district had. Take a look around, do you think she was as calm as when you saw her?” he asked with a weak laugh, pointing at the utterly demolished furniture in the room and the few cracks in its stone walls.

“She begged me for that tea of hers…” Agnes said helplessly. “When I told her there is none, she cried out for the first time,” he continued and raised his head, making sure to look his son in the eye. “Then, I told her to bear the pain… and she tried. Yet, she failed; she began attacking me and everything around her, then cried out again,” he told what had happened slowly, his words causing the look in his son’s eyes to once again fill with thoughts and no longer be as blank as before.

“Then, when I managed to pin her down, she cried out again… and stopped struggling.” Agnes swallowed, finding it very painful to talk about. “I thought it would be better, but… she called me an oaf,” he said and chuckled nervously and helplessly. “She didn’t call me that for years… I knew it was her talking to me, her real self… I was happy, but she wept, trembled and asked me to kill her.”

“You are lying,” Tan cut in so suddenly and so angrily that he startled even Agnes. “You are lying, you are lying! I hate you!” he shouted, then turned around and almost jumped onto the stairs, only the handrail saving him from tumbling all the way down. He didn’t look behind though and quickly ran away, not wanting to talk to or even to see his father.

“He will get over it,” Agnes said so confidently and dismissively that he caused Laien to wonder whether he believed too much in his son’s mental strength or simply didn’t care about him at all. Was the way he acted towards Tan before all an act? What was this man thinking and were the things he was saying true? Laien couldn’t tell; perhaps no one could tell apart from Agnes himself.

“I will need to go to tie my daughter up soon… if what your friend said is true, then she might just survive,” Agnes brought up, the sudden disappearance of emotion from his voice causing a shiver to run down Laien’s spine. “If there’s anything you want to ask me, do it now and do it quickly,” he added and turned his gaze from the bloodied carpet to Laien, making the twelve-year-old shiver once more.

“Yin was right, this is dangerous,” Laien thought silently. Given the state Agnes was in it wouldn’t be that strange if he were to forsake all logic and lash out against him if he said anything wrong. Against an enraged martial master of the fifth rank, he wouldn’t stand a chance, and sure enough not when fighting alone.

“What, you bring my son here and now you forget the tongue in your mouth?” Agnes asked with a cold, heartless laugh. The moment he had killed his wife with his own hands caused his emotions to seep out, but now they were once again locked and under control; just like the emotions of any real soldier. “If you don’t want to speak, I will. I feel like I need to tell it to someone or else I will explode anyway. You’re here just at the right time to make yourself useful and listen,” he said rather carefreely and laughed at his own words. Without waiting for Laien to respond in any way, he began speaking.

“As of last spring, I am eighty-three years old. I’ve entered the Realm of Heroes at the age of twenty-one and became a General in my early forties. In my early fifties, my father died and I was selected to be the next leader of the Iron Fort. I liked the life of a soldier and a General, I liked keeping the peace and fighting the bandits, or killing the too daring groups from other countries that for some reason thought they could do as they please in our lands.”

“I was never interested in marriage or having a family, but I was the leader of the Iron family. My own opinion mattered little in comparison to keeping our bloodline alive. I must admit, I somewhat looked forward to having a son, but everything else connected with children and a wife was extremely unappealing to me,” he paused for a bit and laughed at himself. He no longer had a wife and if a miracle didn’t happen, he wouldn’t have a daughter either. He would only have a son… who could very well have had come to hate him.

“The Elders quickly arranged a marriage with Clementine; she was of noble background and was a talented practitioner. Moreover, she was beautiful; what else could a man want? As nice at it seemed to be in the beginning, the two of us quickly grew to hate each other. We argued each time we talked; I viewed the marriage as a political one, while she desired to create a ‘true, loving family’ and couldn’t accept that I didn’t love or pursue her.”

“In time, we began tolerating each other and even came to like spending some time together as friends. It was around that time when the word ‘oaf’ in her mouth no longer seemed like a curse, but something more playful. Our arguments weren’t filled with shouts and yells anymore but had rather turned into ironic or sarcastic exchanges. At the time, I thought that Clementine finally accepted the way I wanted to live my life and was content with dedicating all her love to our daughter. I was really glad… so glad in fact that our relationship improved and we made our second child,” Agnes halted once again, his gaze filled with warmth due to the happy memory.

“When my son was born, I was really overjoyed. It was the happiest day of my life. However, after a few months, I began desiring to go out and experience another battle, to sleep under the starry sky within a camp in the middle of nowhere instead of listening to a baby that just wouldn’t stop crying all the time. You know, children are a beautiful thing, but when they are small they are a nightmare,” he brought up randomly, for the first time since he began monologuing directing his words straight at Laien. He didn’t care about a response from him through and went on right afterward.

“Long story short, I left my wife mostly on her own with our two children. I still don’t think I did anything wrong and you won’t convince me otherwise… but when I once returned earlier and found my wife in this very tower, making love with some minstrel…” Agnes laughed bitterly and shook his head. “She rambled about it in her madness; I killed the man and made her swear she would never betray me again. I left her there with his body… now that I think about it, it’s quite an irony. She probably got those flowers from that man’s interspatial ring,” he said with a loud, merry laugh, thus making Laien worry about his sanity.

“You can probably guess what happened later. She distanced herself from me, I kept going out more and more often… I didn’t look at her, nor at my daughter who resembled her so much. There I admit was my mistake, I could have noticed sooner they were poisoning themselves,” he finished and released a very long sigh, then collected himself with an attitude akin to there being no point in regretting the old mistakes which naturally couldn’t be fixed anymore.

“That’s all, I told you everything,” Agnes spoke up, looking at Laien for the second time during this strange conversation. “Make your own opinions and judgments; I have nothing to be ashamed for and I do not regret my choices,” he added in his own defense, but it was hard to tell whether he was trying to convince Laien or perhaps himself.

“Now, I better go and look for my daughter and my son,” he spoke to himself and stood up, walked past Laien. “I would be grateful if you didn’t speak about today’s events frivolously,” he mentioned along the way, his voice carrying the subtlest hint of a threat.

After Agnes was gone, Laien swallowed heavily and his body shook. “That was scary. Even Einrah wasn’t as scary as that,” he mused wordlessly, to be honest not caring about Agnes’s story and circumstances anymore. Yin was totally right; had they been strong enough they could freely get involved in whatever situation they liked, but with how weak they were now what could they truly do in face of a complicated matter like this one? It was better to keep away for their own safety.

After all… what was the fact that Rudford would take revenge for them worth if the two of them were already dead and biting the ground? Laien laughed weakly at this realization, took a few deep breaths and hurried back to the gate out of the core district.

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“Thank all Gods you are back,” Ruan exclaimed in relief when he saw Laien running towards them. He had said nothing to stop him because he knew his words wouldn’t have changed anything, but he was painfully aware that this kind of an explanation wouldn’t satisfy anyone at the Red Dragon School and his head would have likely rolled had Laien killed by Agnes in some kind of an accident.

“Would you mind getting our horses and everyone else over?” The first thing Laien did was to ask that, in a rather polite way too. Ruan revealed a slightly surprised expression, but soon after nodded in understanding and went to get the horses and those drunkards who were partying in the local inn.

“Could you…” Tares began saying, but in the end bit his tongue. “No, it’s nothing,” he said bitterly and shook his head. He didn’t have the right to ask what happened, not after he refused to go there and intervene. He chose to uphold his principles… and he now felt he made a mistake, but wanted to avoid being a hypocrite at the very least.

Yin forced out a smile while exchanging a look with Laien. He raised his hand up, which Laien gladly grabbed and helped him stand up.

“I won’t do anything so reckless anymore,” Laien said apologetically. He thought he had learned his lesson after the incident with the Cail family, but apparently, the lesson hadn’t been harsh enough for him to change so quickly. He really needed to be more careful in his actions if he wanted to live a long life.

“No.” Yin shook his head, the smile on his face turning more natural. “You did the right thing. Sorry, I couldn’t be of much help,” he said with a weak laugh. Had he gotten over his trauma, maybe they would have found some other way to get Agnes’s family out of this peril, as unlikely as it was.

Laien raised his eyebrows a little, but he could tell for sure Yin wasn’t making anything up; he really meant it. On the other hand, instead of feeling like ‘I was right!’, this statement of Yin’s made him feel a bit strange and hesitant. He silently promised himself to be more careful in the future regardless and always consult his more dangerous ideas with Yin first; this way, he at least would have a chance to avoid doing something inconvincibly stupid.

“When we stop to camp in the evening, I would like to talk to you about something… if you will listen,” Yin mentioned calmly, knowing that his words would be clear enough thanks to the spiritual bond between him and Laien. He chuckled a little when he saw how surprised Laien was and smiled when he sensed how happy he felt; though he almost immediately began feeling guilty about feeling happy, what was quite funny and cute in itself.

Laien smiled resignedly and looked into the blue sky of the summer to hide his embarrassment. Why was he feeling shy at such a time anyway, after all that had happened today?

“Let’s go,” Yin said with a quiet laugh and grabbed Laien’s hand, then pulled him into the crowd of Iron Knights and out into the street.

Tares, Lars, Tam, Lucin and Teira followed the two of them with their gazes as they headed towards the War Horses one of their guards had already brought out of the stables. The three youths and the many Iron Knights also watched the boys leave, all of them keeping their mouths closed. Originally they had been planning to send off those two with smiles and laughs, but they couldn’t possibly do such a thing. Not after the events of today’s morning.

After a minute or two, the remaining guards of the two boys’ were also brought back from the city by Ruan, after what their whole group set out of the Iron Fort.

“Hard times await us,” Tares said ominously, though if one listened well he would catch a hint of encouragement, akin to ‘bring it on!’ in his voice. “Enough crowding here, don’t you all have better things to do?” he barked at his subordinates, returning to his usual attitude of a Lieutenant.

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“We will be going through the Anarchic Lands, right?” Laien asked along the way through the maze separating the outer walls and the inner district.

“Either that or by the sea,” Ruan said and grinned a little, though remained mindful of the atmosphere and didn’t try to act too leisurely.

“No way I’m spending months on a boat,” Laien stated outright. Yet, he frowned a little and quickly glanced at Yin. “Umm…?” he inquired awkwardly; he had forgotten this promise to himself about not being reckless for no reason fairly quickly, huh?

“Obviously, that would be way too boring,” Yin replied with a cheeky smile. He had already left today’s events behind, at least as far as his mood was considered. He was of the mind that it was pointless to sulk over anything for too long and he wasn’t fond of the overly serious atmosphere while chatting either.

“Great,” Laien said happily, looking forward to the ‘true’ part of their journey. They would soon leave the Sarkcente Kingdom and well, it could only be better from now onwards. “It’s going to be my first time leaving the country,” he mused aloud and exchanged an excited look with Yin.

“Those two…” Ruan sighed secretly. He would never cease to be amazed how quickly Laien and Yin could shift between one mood and another. “When we enter the Anarchic Lands, no more riding competitions or riding our alone, understood? We need to be on guard because we are likely to be ambushed by the local groups of bandits,” he warned, expecting Laien not to care about his words. However, he unexpectedly received two serious confirmations from the boys. Were they learning something, or was this only a misleading hint of progress?

Either way, it would soon be proven. What awaited them was the most chaotic region of the south; the Anarchic Lands.