A Raging Beast

Sarkis knelt before Lord Dain’s desk with his eyes on the floor, arms over his head, too afraid to move, with Lord Dain’s unrelenting gaze peering down at him.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh.” Lord Halius complained from near the window.

Lord Dain refused to answer, his eyes staring unblinkingly into the flame that wiggled and writhed in its silver holder. Feeling gloomy Lord Halius looked out the window in despair finding nothing there to warm him. The night was particularly dark and cloudy. Turning into the room he found no solace in the shadows that drew out and danced like specters along the carpet.

“He’s starting to sweat. When will you have your fill of making him kneel there like that?”

“When he’s learned his lesson.” Sarkis shivered against his master’s coldness.

“He has done well for you thus far. I don’t know why you’re getting upset at this one small setback.”

Lord Dain stood violently, sending his seat clattering to the floor and the things on the desk before him dancing. Sarkis shrunk, the bruising on his left cheek throbbed as if it could still feel the blow, it had been dealt hours before.

“Since when has that pest dared be so bold and to do so publicly, before the emissary, making me look the fool.”

The things from his desk clattered to the floor as he scraped his great arms across its surface. Keeping his head Lord Halius stomped out the candle wick before it could set fire to the rug.

“You didn’t help yourself much. You were overcome by his sudden public accusations.”

“Don’t make it sound as if you managed better then myself. You were as purple as a plum.”

“And you as red as a cherry.” Lord Halius shut the shutters to the single open window, going closer to hearth where a fire burned lustily. “Be honest, you are not upset so much that he embarrassed you with the accusation of an assassination, but rather that he spoiled your second chance to do so.”

Lord Dain went close to a candle that burned happily among its matching brothers on a free-standing candle holder. The assassination of his younger brother had been carefully planned. If the first attempt and its contingent failed another one, designed to bring glory to himself, had been deliberately set up to ensure success. He had over four thousand troops positioned along their intended route. A fourth had been set aside to act as bandits and the other three fourths were supposed to come and, at his command, save the day when the escort party was under attack. Unfortunately, in the process of this assault on their men his younger brother, who had somehow managed the impossible and survived an assassination attempt only months earlier, had tragically died as they were protecting the Centauri Seren’s caravan. He was to have been a flame that had gone out too soon. Lord Dain pinched out the candle, squeezing the wick.

“Three years of planning wasted.”

“Is there no way of recovering things?”

“It took a month to move those troops. Do you think I will be able to retrieve them in less than a week? And you, you idiot,” Lord Dain pushed Sarkis over with a hard drive from his boot, “you were supposed to be distracting him. If you had just managed to keep him away ten minutes more things would have been settled.”

“I’m sorry my lord, please forgive me. I-I tried to stop him. I did. But he began to say all these strange things, and there was such a devilish look in his eyes, and that creature nearly attacked me.”

“Why didn’t you bring anyone with you? Did you honestly think with all his training he would be so easy to command not to go. Eventually that fool was bound to understand that his perpetual obedience was a hinderance not an asset. It is your fault the plan failed.” Lord Dain kicked Sarkis three times, twice in the gut and once in the chest. The latter sent him into a fit of whimpering.

“Are you going to punish mother the same way?” Lord Halius watched his brother with smiling distaste.

“Say such things again and I will show you the same sort of treatment as him.”

“There has to be something that can be done, some way we can get rid of him once and for all.”

Lord Dain wrenched the toppled chair from off the floor and took a seat. “It’s not that there is not another way, it’s whether or not we will be able to execute it in the time we have. He can’t make it to the capital.” He slammed his fist on the table shaking it, the center drawer dislodging slightly.

“You have at least one of his men on your side, surely he will be willing to assist you.”

“It’s not his men that worry me, even if there weren’t one or two that were fed up with his constant disregard for their lives, there is the problem of the elven escort party. It will not be easy to convince them to stay out of things.”

“I think your anger is blinding you brother.” Lord Halius smiled leaning against the mantelpiece.

Lord Dain looked up from the desktop. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you were so angry you didn’t notice the way the envoy looked at him when he said that the Centauri Seren requested Till’s presence in the escort party personally. If I’m not mistaken, I think he was not too satisfied with the idea himself.”

“Do you think that is a possibility, that he was unsatisfied with the concept?”

“Consider it. The Centauri Seren exhibiting earthly bonds is a dangerous thing.”

“You have a point.”

“On our side, there remains the problem of subduing the inconvenience we’ve had to bear for twenty-seven years. Taking a full assessment, we know that there will be those foolhardy enough to remain on his side, other than that he is a skilled fighter himself, as well as having a resistance to poison, and that creature which is a devil in itself. But if we take the risk of projecting that they do take disfavor in his connection to the Centauri Seren the worst thing that can happen is only that we lose our chance for now, but the best thing is that we get an opportunity that may not appear again.”

Having calmed himself Lord Dain began to see things a bit differently. “Get up Sarkis and stop your blubbering. Change and ready yourself. I want you to approach the envoy tomorrow and request a meeting on my behalf.”

Sarkis bowed deeply, holding his badly injured left arm in his right. “As you wish my lord.”

Lord Dain waved his hand and the man left as if chased from the room. With the two of them now alone Lord Dain began to pace. Lord Halius watched him from near the fire where he was warming himself, eyes on the brooding lion.

“Do you now have a clear idea how to overcome our rising star?” Halius finally asked when he was done waiting.

“Strengths are not always so if they have an ability to be turned into a weakness.”

“You seem awfully pleased. I imagine you’ve come up with something truly terrible.”

Lord Dain laughed, cruel levity in his expression. “If we can get these last pieces together Lord Till Bastion, our dearest unwanted brother, can be removed without too much effort.”

“So, then we won’t cry over the thousands of troops we lack?”

“If things go as they should, we shan’t need them.”