Legacy

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Get me another beer!”

Korrin sat leaned back in his chair, his boots kicked up on the old table. At the head table, his brother slammed his empty glass mug down, shattering it. Foam and glass exploded everywhere as he roared, “Another beer!”

One of the men nearest to Kaven got up and headed to grab him another beer. Kaven looked over at Korrin, and waved him up to the front table. Korrin simply waved back, then turned his eyes away from his brother.

“Get up here, Korrin! Help me celebrate!”

Korrin ignored him, pretending not to hear. The ancient hall was large, but it was packed and loud. Even through the noise, Kaven’s voice boomed. Others cheered at hearing him talk. He had that effect on people.

“You should go up there. He needs you,” a feeble voice said from behind him.

Korrin dropped his chair to all fours and turned around.

“Father! You shouldn’t be out here,” Korrin said. He sat his beer down and helped his father to the chair across from Korrin’s. His father tried to wave him away, but Korrin was insistent.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world, boy,” his father said. There was no love lost between him and his father, but he hated seeing him like this: old, emaciated, broken. His father was a sad excuse of the man he had once been. “And you need to get up there to help him celebrate.”

Korrin grabbed his beer and leaned back in the chair, balancing. “He doesn’t want me up there.”

“You don’t want to be up there, you mean,” his father said.

Korrin growled at him. Korrin didn’t feel love for his father, but he felt respect. He let the growl die in his throat. His father was right, of course. Korrin wanted nothing to do with the celebration. If it had been up to him, he would have been up in a chamber alone, a case of beer and a pitcher of wine as the only company he needed.

“He doesn’t need me.”

His father’s low laugh became a wracking cough. Korrin just watched it happen. He’d tried to help his father during these coughing fits before; all it had earned him was a hard rebuke to let the King handle his own business unless asked. After that, Korrin hadn’t bothered.

Then there was a loud slam and Korrin felt the table shake. His feet shook and his chair leaned backwards. Korrin fought with inertia, almost tumbling onto the floor, but he managed to right himself and come crashing back to the table. With a glare, he noticed that Kaven was standing at the table, smiling down at him, proud that he had almost sent him tumbling.

“I told you to come up there, little brother,” Kaven said with a smile. His voice wasn’t hard, but there was an edge to it.

“You’re not King yet,” Korrin growled.

“You should get used to following my orders, though,” Kaven said, dropping down to an empty chair. He reached out and took their father’s hand, squeezing gently. “How are you feeling?”

“Like hell,” their father replied. Both his father and brother started laughing, together. Korrin dropped his eyes to the table. It was old, a relic of some long forgotten era. Knife marks and stains covered its surface. When was the last time someone had used it?

“Are you more interested in some table than your family, brother?”

Korrin looked up and narrowed his eyes.

“When I’m gone, you two will need to get along, Korrin,” their father said.

“You’re not going anywhere soon, father,” Kaven said. Then he turned towards Korrin, saying, “He’s right. I really will need you, brother.”

“You’ll get along just fine without me,” Korrin said, getting up out of the chair. “I’m getting another beer.”

He left them at the table, bumping into a woman as he turned. She looked up at him and smiled. Korrin ignored her. He had to get away from his family: whenever they were together, they teamed up on him.

“Korrin,” his father said quietly. Korrin kept walking, pretending to ignore him.

“Brother!”

Korrin turned at Kaven’s voice.

“You have to grow up some time,” his father wheezed, then turned away from Korrin. Kaven gave him a hard look, as if daring Korrin to argue. Instead, Korrin turned and made his way through the feast hall.

It was packed to the rafters with those left in the tribe. Before they’d arrived here earlier this morning, no one knew if the old castle was still standing. Rumors had said it had collapsed nearly a decade ago. Luckily, those were just rumors.

It was drafty and made of old, decaying brick. Still, it wasn’t the worst place he had holed up before. He remembered the Glades, a couple of months back: a stinking cesspool of a swamp where their caravan had been trapped for nearly two weeks in a ceaseless downpour. It had taken him a week after they had finally gotten the wagons out of the swamp for him to fully dry off.

At least the castle kept them dry from the downpour. Outside, the storm was raging across the land. The lightning flashed through what few windows remained. Some rain blew in, but Korrin avoided them, as did most of the others. Korrin felt a drop of water land on his head; the castle leaked, it seemed. Well, at least the castle kept them mostly dry.

He refilled his mug from an old tap and turned around, taking in the scene. The long tables were filled almost completely to capacity. Servers walked back and forth, refilling mugs, delivering meaty dishes, and keeping everyone satisfied.

Not everyone here was from his tribe. In the corner, he saw the smaller Grey tribe: about 10 men. Whether that was all that remained, or all that had decided to attend the celebration, he couldn’t be sure. The Hearne’s were one of the larger tribes. They took up nearly a whole long table to themselves. A couple other tribes were spread out throughout the hall.

“Look at them.”

“I am,” Korrin replied. Next to him stood Ruslo, his only surviving cousin on his mother’s side.

“They act like they’re our allies, but they would stab us in the back if they had the chance,” Ruslo said. What he said was true, but he didn’t say it with any kind of venom. Ruslo took many cues from Korrin: he didn’t let much bother him.

“Yeah,” Korrin agreed. “Especially the Hearne’s. I’ve never trusted them.”

Ruslo nodded somberly. “But hey, let’s have a good time tonight!”

Korrin took a drink of his beer. “Yeah,” he said again.

Ruslo shot him a look. “What’s gotten into you, Korrin? Worried about that girl?”

“I don’t want any of this,” Korrin said, deflecting the question. That was certainly part of what was on his mind, but he didn’t want to tell Ruslo that. “This whole ceremony. Electing my brother as King. I never wanted my father to be the King. And I certainly don’t want my brother to be in charge. He’ll probably expect me to do all sorts of s**t I don’t want.”

“The perks of being royalty,” Ruslo said, filling up his cup with a cheery smile. “Cheers!” he clinked his mug to Korrin’s and moved into the crowd, leaving Korrin standing alone.

“The royalty of what?” he asked himself, and started towards his room.

He didn’t want to spend any more time celebrating his brother and father. There would be enough time for him to do that – the rest of his life, he decided. His brother was only a few years older than him. His reign would be long. For that, he was thankful. If Korrin had been the older son…he shuddered just thinking about it.

With his brother in charge, he might actually cut Korrin some slack. His father was tough, but fair, as his subjects saw him. But he was harder on his sons. Hell, he would have never allowed Korrin, Ruslo, and the others to go into town for a night out – so they’d had to sneak into the city.

When he found out the next day, his anger was frightening, even in his weakened state. And Kaven stood behind their father, shaking his head in shame the entire time.

No, I don’t love them, Korrin decided as he left the feast hall. It was warmer in there, with all of the bodies packed close together. In the hallway, it was colder – but he hardly cared. His breath frosted out in front of him.

The hallways were mostly dark. A few torches lit the way, sporadically placed. For those like him, the low light wasn’t a hindrance. He made his way down the hall, hearing his footsteps echo. He was utterly alone. Everyone else was in the feast hall enjoying the festivities.

He would fare just fine up in his room. Or the room he called his, anyway. His father might decide they would stay here one more night, but it wasn’t likely. One of the reasons these places stayed hidden was that they didn’t draw any unnecessary attention to themselves. They didn’t stay longer than they needed to.

He understood, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Korrin went deeper into the deserted castle. Here, there were no torches to light the way. While a few of his kind refused to sleep indoors, most had chosen to stay in the castle, but close to the feast hall. Korrin could never stay that close to so many others.

He took a left turn and pushed through a rotting door. The steel hinges creaked loudly, then he was buffeted by the storm as he walked out onto a walkway towards the tower where he had a room that he called home. He peered off the side: even with his vision, he couldn’t make out the bottom. The storm was just too intense.

He ducked his head and made his way along, drenched within seconds. The wet and cold didn’t bother him, now. He would be in his chambers soon. He reached the end of the walkway and opened the door, closing it against the gale.

He started up the winding staircase towards his room, still utterly alone. Just how he liked it. He entered the darkness of the room, sniffing. No one had been here since he was last in the room.

Making his way to the center of the room, Korrin started setting the room up. He drained his beer in one swift drink and set it on a table in even worse shape than the one he’d sat at earlier. He lit a candle, brightening the room slightly.

It wasn’t much: the room was circular in design, perched at the very top of one of the many towers. A couple others had collapsed over the years, but Korrin had tested this one for stability before moving in. They’d been here once before, nearly 20 years before when Korrin was still a kid and his mother was still alive. They’d stayed in one of the other towers that time; now, it was just a heap of rubble.

The bed was old and musty, but it was dry; how, he didn’t know. The rain beat mercilessly on the tower roof and tried to bust in through the rattling shutters. He sat on his bed and peeled off his boots, feeling the cold stone floor against his bare feet.

There was an old stone tub up here. When they’d arrived this morning, one of the first things Korrin had done after finding his room was lug buckets of water up here. It had taken him hours, but he’d finally filled the tub. Then he’d found some decently dry twigs and logs, putting them under the tub.

Now, he lit the logs and waited for the water to heat up. It would take a while, so he grabbed a beer from his stash.

He had just lowered himself into the piping hot water when there was an urgent knock on his door and a scream from outside.