Empires and Kings
by A.C. Bextor
Copyright © A.C. Bextor 2017
ISBN: 978-1537548975
Prologue
Vlad
My hand trembles with relentless fury as I dangle the heavy black whip, laced with fresh blood, closely at my side. My chest and back burn with exhaustion, aching after hours of inflicting pain against my target.
Enzen Koslief.
The man tied up before me, a traitor to his own kind, hangs motionless by the thick ropes binding him to an old and splintered wooden cross. The turncoat’s feet dangle haplessly beneath him. The tips of his toes sway through the pools of his own spilled blood in accord with each strike of torture I inflict.
Rarely do I take it upon myself to dole out such physical punishment, but tonight an unbridled desire led me to it. The weight of responsibility I’ve endured over the course of the past year has come to surface and to an irrefutable degree. This traitor has merely given me reason to purge my self-harbored frustration.
The offender in question was once acclaimed to be a sharp, loyal soldier. The captain in charge of Enzen’s block often praised the soldier’s lavish thirst for combat. Throughout his eleven years within my organization, Koslief has dutifully done all he was ever asked and to exact specifications.
To speak of his commitment to this family, after only eighteen months within his position he was promoted. Nonetheless, it was I who ordered his advancement.
The abhorrent shock in finding out this man is a conspirator, collaborating against the brotherhood itself, came with several cardinal questions. If these questions are to go unanswered, the person’s name who baited Enzen to turn against his own not seized, everything my men have worked to procure by way of territory and business thus far stands for nothing.
“You were planning to take over one of my stables, Enzen,” I seethe, raising the whip before slicing another mark into the flesh of my detainee's chest.
His jaw tenses, and his head rears back as the pain inevitably echoes throughout his body.
“A stable you had no right to take,” I add, at the same time delivering another strike in quick succession to the one before.
Obediently, acting as ever the dedicated soldier to his king, the wounded man lifts his head to mine. There, I meet his eyes in challenge. The depth of Enzen’s contemplation is dark, hazing with loss and lurching in agonizing pain. Within the resolve of his eyes, I sense the traitor has finally come to terms, recognizing he’s soon to take his final breath.
“I did as I was told,” the duplicitous man aims to convince as sweat and tears run in tandem down his face, dropping to rest on the edge of his chin. “I didn’t know he was planning—”
My grim leer quickly settles, wordlessly advising him to use careful caution before excusing himself further. His reason trails to a fragile mumble as he bows his head to wait.
Part of me believes my once-faithful brother is silently praying for my mercy to spare his life. The other part surmises he’s praying for my mercy to end it.
In no way would this captive implore my forgiveness. Not now. The willful and resilient never do. Negotiating for pardon after being found guilty would only prove he’s weak. And still he’d die, no matter how—coward, criminal, or traitor.
“Tell me, Enzen, who coerced you to consider an act of treason against your own?” I press, reining in my temper so he can clearly comprehend my question. Still so slow and with attentive calmness, I inform, “The mercy you’ll beg me for is contingent upon your answer.”
When no response is offered, I place the battered whip on top of a cool metal table, freeing my grasp for the next implement in torture.
Fair to say that Enzen’s already been worked over.
The traitor had already come to recognize that his last breath was to be taken inside this dark, damp, and death-impending shed. With only one chained light hanging from the ceiling, giving him a glimpse of the darkness that would soon consume his soul, I’d been told that Enzen didn’t fight. He didn’t speak. He looked around the room, taking in the walls decorated with blades, chains, and metal. He was resigned to die and had already come to peace with death.
Enzen must’ve realized my men had been prepared for this.
Before I arrived, Enzen’s fingernails had already been removed, several of his toes had been broken, and his nose, now three times its natural size, had been bleeding profusely.
My advisor and closest confidante, Abram Wiles, had studiously listened to my order to have my men wound, but not kill, the outed traitor. As always, Abram followed the directive through with precise measure.
“Do you have any last words?” I inquire, half hoping the person’s name I desire so badly falls from Enzen’s lips. The other half wishes for him to remain quiet so that he dies a loyal man—even if his loyalty lies to a traitor much like himself.
“Tell my family I love them.” Enzen voices the requests with sadness while eyeing the the black rod warming at my feet. “Tell them I chose my family first,” he begs.
Family first.
In terms of this organization, family is the brotherhood, the sanction to which all soldiers pledge their lives to protect. Family is not the women in their beds nor the children in their yards.
Family is our organization.
“You love them?” I question.
“Yes,” he gasps.
“You sealed their fate by doing what you’ve done, Enzen.”
“No,” he denies, understanding my intent.
He should understand, being that he’s witnessed this before.
“I’m going to sell them to pay off what your betrayal cost me. You don’t love them at all.”
A guttural wave of anguish spews from Enzen’s throat. More aimless tears stain his cheeks. The once-dormant cords of his neck grotesquely bulge in protest. His chest, openly bleeding from hours of endured torture, strains with the power he uses against the ropes in hopes to gain his freedom from its tethering binds.
As I bend to grab the branding iron carrying the letter ‘Z’ at its end, I consider the irony that not only am I ready to end my first life but that the life I’m about to take belongs to one of my own.
Sullen with diminutive doubt, I press forward, gripping the black rod tightly. Often this implement is used to mark a man, no matter if he’s left dead or alive. Liars, cheaters, thieves, and traitors are given the same recognizable brand. If they’re left to live, they’ll remember what they’ve done to earn the scar to their stomach. If they’re dead, those who find and bury them will know, as well.
Once upright, I cast a confident glimpse to Abram. I find my dark-haired, broad-shouldered, confident advisor standing behind me as he always does—with loyalty, understanding, and certainty.
Abram curtly nods, wordlessly assuring this is what has to happen.
An important message must be sent to others.
A terrifying lore must be decreed.
A critical warning sent for all to receive.
There is no proxy in punishment for those who deceive. No forgiveness offered to those who fall prey to their own weakness. And no loyalty ties resilient enough to exonerate such premeditated betrayal.
The true family, our organization, must always come first.
“Daddy?” A small voice penetrates the room, pulling me from carrying out my planned revenge.
When I turn in place, I survey a small child, who must be all of five years old, standing in the doorway. Her fingers are clutching the silver handle, and her small body remains stoic and unmoving.
A little girl.
A forsaken casualty who will be left to suffer in a war between this city’s mobbed families.
A slight, green-eyed child standing alone, yet seemingly unafraid, thick among monsters masking themselves as men.
With her bare feet hitting the soiled floor one after another, she races faster and faster to get closer. In an unyielding attempt to save her father, she cries in shrieks of terror, piercing every ear she passes.
“Daddy! Daddy, no!”
As she starts to race by me on her way to him, I drop the branding iron and quickly bend to wrap my arm around her small waist. She weighs but nothing, and even with no hope of escaping, her body continues its fight to be free.
“Finish this,” I order Abram, at the same time fighting against her desperation in order to hold her closely to my side.
Her kicking and screaming continues, unleashing her fears the only way a little girl of her age knows how.
“Please,” she begs, sobbing and using her fingernails to shred my skin.
Her small hands push against my arm as her legs thrash against my thigh.
“Daddy!” she cries again.
Enzen’s moan of anguish mixes incoherently with his insincere vow of proclaimed love for this child.
A part of the same family he proclaimed to love.
The moment I turn my back on what I’ve started, life as I thought I knew it flashes before my eyes, caging my mind with doubt and sinking my chest with regret.
The stench of impending death bathes me as I take one step out of the room with her in my arms.
A glimpse of life untouched by death embarks as she finally succumbs to settle in my hold, seemingly giving up hope of ever seeing her father again.
When another of her harrowing sobs releases against my shoulder, everything I ever thought I believed comes to revelation.
With her body trembling in its discerned grief, my strong mind and solemn spirit give way.
As her voice breaks, calling for him once more, my urge to take a man’s life swiftly fades.
I begin to doubt my life’s position and its purpose.
Thoughts of triumph and success no longer seem vital.
For once, my heart breaks for what another will inevitably lose.
And as the beautiful girl with snowy white hair and impenetrable green eyes utters my name in a way I’ve never heard it said before, a darkened sense of uncertainty voices its penance.
In the chaotic shadows of my conscience, the voice tells me this girl will serve as a knot which ties me to a future I’ll one day come to regret.