Usurpers

Renard, alongside Pleione, enters Sebilles’ throne room to present the confined Iron King and parley with the new regent.

The man draped across the throne is one Renard recognises — a local nobleman from a house that advocates Lacren adopt a more Pilamine-scented mercantile culture — but not one Renard expects. Truthfully, though it is obvious that the local aristocracy would swoop in to fill the power vacuum in the Iron King’s absence, Renard’s gut had not imagined anyone so brazen as to dump themselves in the seat without any consideration for ceremony, process, or the existing claims of the Iron King’s distant relatives.

Rather, though he may not be involved in the intrigues of politics, Renard was sure the Iron King had selected a regent to rule if he himself was infirm. That shouldn’t be this nobleman. So who the hell is this guy?

The man on the throne — Herjas of Asbury — picks his fingernails with a letter-opener, bored and frowning as Renard comes in.

Renard stands speechless, his brow knotted, looking from the caged Iron King to Herjas.

Herjas raises his brow over the Iron King’s banging and shrieking. “Haven’t you a report for me?"

“What farce is this?" Renard blurts.

“Timeliness from a subordinate hardly ought be a farce?" He minutely straightens in the throne, frowning as he adjusts the crown atop his head. “Your coalition didn’t dispute my claim, when they wrote to me."

Renard quickly adjusts his tongue, explaining that by his understanding the appointed regent was someone else.

Herjas explains that said regent forfeited his position to Herjas the second he got it. The implication of the Iron King’s legitimacy, represented by his appointed regent, given that the King had been subjugated and his regime so over, tasted poorly on both Herjas and the regent’s tongues. Now, Renard did an excellent job getting the combined heat of the coalition off Lacren’s neck. But Renard’s intentions of reinstating Old Iron to the throne read to Herjas as very transparent.

Herjas nods to a gaggle of guardsmen, who whisk away the Iron King’s cage. Actually, now that Renard sees it properly, this room is teeming with guards all staring at him, each holding a tight grip on their weapons.

Renard’s hands tremble as he steps forward. What of Lacren’s obligation to the purification of soul rot?

Ah, Herjas chuckles, then continues, That’s not something to concern you. He straightens to address the topic more seriously. ‘Cavalier’ Renard, even if you were not loyal—

Renard feels Pleione trying not to be noticed as Herjas makes these assertions. Renard’s back tightens; her face is unreadable.

—to Old Iron, you represent a centrepiece of his regime. It isn’t suitable to this Kingdom that you remain in your current position.

Renard’s hands and shoulders now quake, jaw clenched and eyes peeled as if to rip the man off the throne. Fear and anger demand that he act, but the threat of the guards paralyses him, pouring out sweat, to this spot.

Conscious of Renard’s success in mediating the coalition, and of his basic talent and worth, but also of his ignobly-gained position and devoted tie to a political enemy, Herjas offers a compromise. Renard may retire from the military sphere, surrender his sword as a memory, and accept a position on the outskirts of Lacren as the head of a minor Barony.

The life Herjas is offering flashes through Renard’s mind. It promises a retirement from the Iron King, and from the responsibilities of being so intimately tied to the political future of Lacren, but not such total estrangement as to discard all ambition. If Renard desired, he could struggle up the ranks and assert himself as a legitimate force to pressure Herjas, within a proper framework of decency, intrigue, and legality. But Renard knows he does not desire this. If he were to become some minor Baron, secure in a privileged position but not so direly pivotal as to be expected or needed for anything serious, it’s possible he’d rather settle in to the comfort of that and forget about everything that’s happened.

It’s upon recognising how truly appealing the prospect of relief is that Renard’s fury boils over into explosion. Coursing with rage, blind to all thought or reason, he surges forward to tear this impostor off that seat and bludgeon his skull into mush on the stone.

Two guards aside the throne spring forward with their halberds. They intercept Renard and pin him, struggling, against the wall. Herjas watches dispassionately, cheek in his palm, as though disappointed, but not surprised.

Renard points at him through the halberds crossed over his chest and shouts. Hypocrite! All of you rulers, power-thirsty as the next, caring of nothing but your games of war! You haven’t the dignity the Iron King has in his finger. You wipe your vain taints across the soil and drive daggers into the strong so you raptors can pretend yourself equal! It is perfidy! You grasp honour not in the slightest and serve none but your conceited selves! You…

While Herjas weighs whether Renard’s retaliation warrants unpersoning or execution as punishment, Pleione steps forward and raises her hand. “If I may, a word, Your Grace."

Herjas raises his brow. Is it a word in any way pertinent to him?

Renard, astounded in the background under the press of the two guards, chokes out a derisive laugh at this arrogant attitude. Pleione awkwardly concedes, “…Potentially."

Herjas shrugs for her continue.

She nods, and informs him that he should not fear a political threat from the Iron King if he were purified. She has no doubt that the King would reject the throne, too disgusted by his past to touch it.

Herjas falls into meditative thought, the subtle air of tension dissipating around him. Pleione’s words have apparently worked as assurance that cooperating with the coalition will not spark civil conflicts later, if the purified Iron King tried to stake a claim to the throne. So Herjas may adhere by the coalition’s demands safely, and accept Pleione’s presence, studies, and cause here in good faith or better, encourage it.

To Renard, though, her words just sound like another insult towards the King’s character. He howls and yells at her now, calling her a wretched opportunist that will never know the meaning of virtue.

Herjas rises from his spell of thought, aware again of the Renard issue. The guards pinning Renard look to Herjas for instruction. Herjas nods. “Take—"

In straining to listen to Herjas’ command, their attention wavers minutely. Though truly tiny, the distraction is enough that the strength in their halberds eases a slight, and Renard forces himself forward. He rips a halberd away from one guard, knocks him against the wall, pushes the other back, and breaks free.

Every other guard in the room rushes to respond. Instantly recognising he can’t win this fight, Renard abandons the halberd and bolts into the single corridor out of the room not flanked by guards, heart pounding and muscles tight as he sprints. He realises dimly he is running deeper into the castle, down paths that will eventually lead to a dead end — but as long as he can do anything, he must do something, smarts smothered by reaction and adrenaline.

Heavy metal boots echo behind him, the fear of this growing noise driving him on like a whipped, panicked horse. But sounds of chaos soon peal from ahead of him too — screaming, clanging, rattling — and he turns a corner to see a gaggle of guardsmen struggling with something in the hallway.

Heedless, Renard tucks in his head and barrels through them. Like bowling pins, the first fall, but Renard only clips the next and tumbles. To catch himself and adjust his momentum, he slams this guard against the wall — but stumbles against another guard and trips, tumbling to the ground anyway.

Caught in a tangle of limbs, Renard fails to pull himself free of the mound or push himself to his feet to keep running. Breathless, terrified, he glances up and behind him.

The man he pushed against the wall is screaming, pinned with his feet kicking air by a pair of arms that have coiled around his neck from behind in a chokehold. The wall is not an actual wall — it’s the bars of a prison cell. The Iron King’s cell!, Renard realises dimly, and so too recognises the silhouette looming over the man from behind the bars as the Iron King, whose face is pressed against the metal, fanged mouth gnashing and flapping with spit, desperate as feral dog in its muzzle to devour the man through the prison bars.

The Iron King tears off chunks of the man’s face as if tearing soft mouthfuls of bread. He squeezes these lumps like fruits, thirsting for the blood but discarding the meat. The man’s body slumps, dead or dying. The Iron King’s claws yet mutilate his torso in strips.

Renard, paralysed by the horror of witnessing this and burning from the panic of knowing himself pursued, heaves again to escape the pile.

Though metal boots still echo from corridors behind, the screaming and banging falls quiet. A small metal object scrapes across the ground. The Iron King has retrieved a key from the dead guard’s pocket. With a twist and a ka-chunk, the cell door unlocks and shrieks quietly open.

Renard strains to catch his breath, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. The Iron King, sated back into sanity, steps delicately out of the cell and lifts Renard back to his feet. Though the Iron King’s face is grave, sober in that dispassionate way it often is after a feed, he squeezes Renard’s shoulder as if to reassure him things are well, and to stay steady. Despite his fear, Renard’s cheeks slacken with relief.

The Iron King wipes the wet blood from his mouth with a strip of the guardsman’s tabard, guiding Renard to step over the pile and proceed back to the throne room. That is when Renard’s pursuers turn the corner. They jolt at the sight of the Iron King out of his cell, stooping their halberds as if to charge, but their feet do not move as they all know these weapons cannot even nick him — it is just a gesture for their peace of mind.

Silence stretches along the corridor as the Iron King stares exhaustedly over this group. He soon straightens his shoulders, raises his hand, and smoothly gestures the guards to stand down as he has hundreds of times during his rule. Recognising the sign, and the Iron King’s familiarity towards them, the guardsmen waver and stand aside, shamed like children before a firm parent.

The Iron King and Renard return to the throne room. Again, the massive chamber falls silent the second the Iron King crosses its threshold.

The Iron King spares a withering look to the few guards that remained in this room, who also shuffle awkwardly as if reprimanded, but pauses upon noticing Pleione. A moment of uncertainty holds until he orders a guardsman to take her away and put her into holding for now. Finally, he turns to an extremely nervous Herjas, and informs him that he did not recall instating him as his seat-warmer.

Herjas babbles aborted syllables, unable to find the right words. Realising he can’t talk his way around it, he scrambles down the steps of the throne and presents the crown to the Iron King.

The Iron King dryly considers the offering.

Renard’s shoulders slump with relief. If there’s anything to say about the Iron King, it’s that he’s always been great at firmly, but naturally, establishing easy authority in most any situation. Watching him retake the kingdom that belongs to him with such little argument is breathtaking. Obviously, affairs with the coalition will require finesse to navigate, the kind that Renard doesn’t have and can’t ever envision having, but that the Iron King will doubtlessly—

With an arrow’s precision, the Iron King’s claws pierce through Herjas’ neck. Renard’s throat tightens. The Iron King withdraws his hand and Herjas’ body falls to the floor in a grand spray of blood, spouting jets from his arteries that gradually die down. The Iron King retrieves the crown, brushes it off, ascends the steps to the throne with a frown.

He deposits himself on the seat, knuckles his brow.

“We take blades to the Pilamines," he announces. “So it shall be; bring those zealots to war."