Damocle waved at a servant, who brought a tray with two horns of mead. Damocle took one and gestured to Hirodias to take the other. Hirodias took the brown and white horn and smelled the mead. It had a note of honey.
Hirodias took a sip then handed it over to Iosifus, who refused.
"Are you surprised that I am fluent in the Eastern tongue?" Damocle asked after he took a gulp of the mead, droplets frosting his beard. "Or would it surprise you more that I knew your father?"
Hirodias didn't answer, but his face must have betrayed him.
"Ah, that does surprise you," he said. "Do you see that throne? Hesperyon was the Fifth Sunset King when he sat up there. He ruled it all, from the shores of the Serpents Gulf in the northeast, the Invisible Sea in the North, and the Sunset Sea in the west. All the land bordered by the Iero-Giganton Mountains and Kolasi Fruoros to the east, all the way to the Ice Crown Peaks to the south bordering the Purged Forest. It's a bit of a big claim to so much kingdom. But before this dynasty, Ignacyon was the Fourth Sunset King. Ignacyon's dynasty had to end to make way for Hesperyon's, just like Uryon the Third Sunset King had to make way for Ignacyon's. And so it goes, and so it goes. You could say that this throne is where dynasties end."
"They ended when there was no living heir," Iosifus said. "Hirodias is the rightful heir."
"Is he now?"
"You said you knew my father," Hirodias said.
"I did. And I hear you've been tucked away in the Smote all these years, as one of their slaves in the fighting pits. I was a slave too, in Gamesh," he walked over to the war hammer hanging from the wall. He removed it and weighed it in his hand, remembering. "This is all I had with me when I made my escape."
"There was an old fighter from Gamesh that spoke of a rebellion and an escape," Hirodias said, trying to remember the name of the boxer who was there with Andreus, Palemedis, and Symian. "Vasilis."
"Vasilis!" Damocle laughed. "That is a name I have not heard in a while. He was a coward. I hope that he is dead or at least doing poorly. It was almost twenty years ago when I escaped Gamesh, and I wandered back home. I met your father in Aredun, where he was looking for you. He had the mark of the Yon, as do you. And like you, his mark bought him men. You know, he had enough men where if he established his clan and built his city, he could have been Yon. But you got in his way. For five years before I met him, he had been searching for you. Everyone was convinced you were dead, but he wasn't. He was certain his entire family had been taken from him and sold as slaves. If he became Yon he could have mustered an army and marched against the Yghrs, but he chose to go alone and find you instead. When I told him that I had previously spent some years in the Smote, he thought that I could help him find you, so that is how I came to be in his service, until his death."
"It is told my father died in battle," Hirodias said.
"Herodotis fought bravely, but foolishly," Damocle said, walking up a couple of steps to the throne. "He would not unify the clans. Warriors follow strength. They follow an army. We needed someone who had such strength to unify us. So when I brought my own army to the footstep of your father's tribe, I offered him peace. Of course he thought his mark afforded him rule over me and my army. So, he chose war."
"Fighting your own chieftain breaks the most sacred of vows," Iosifus said.
"I have fought against the soldiers of Gamesh and defeated them. I challenged Herodotis' clan and emerged as the new chieftain. I will crush any dissenting voice across these lands and bring to them the same result I brought your father—death."
"Never did I think Morathienne the Mother would offer me this gift of revealing my father's killer," Hirodias said. "In the sight of the Mother and all witnesses, I challenge you, Damocle, Chief of the Crownwood, to single combat for the rights to the seat of Arkromenyon. Decline and face shame upon your days forever."
Damocle stood up. "You think you are the only one to have fought in the Yghr fighting pits? I have defeated every opponent in the pits, and since I've become chieftain, I have defeated every challenger to single combat."
"Then I am your next challenger," Hirodias said.
"Then I must decline."
Hirodias turned to face Damocle's men. "Your chieftain declines single combat! Morathienne shuns cowards, and this is the man you follow!"
"Don't bother," Damocle said. "They don't speak a word of the Eastern tongue. If they did I wouldn't have shared the story about your father. They remain faithful to the line of Yons. They think your father fell in battle against an invading band of southerners, claiming a false god. The most prudent thing to do would be to kill you now, and finally end the line of the Sunset Kings. But there are enough clans out there that defy me. So I will use you and your mark to gather the tribes to my army. Morathienne is truly looking out for you today. You will live, until you have served your purpose. Then I will strangle you like I did your father, and watch the life flee from your eyes as it did for him. Then finally all of the west, from the shores to the mountains, shall be mine."
"Your betrayal will be revealed," Hirodias said.
"And who will be the one to reveal it?" Damocle asked, descending the steps to stand next to Hirodias. He bounced his war hammer in his hands. "You, the illiterate son of a long dead line of beggar kings? Or did you mean your translator?"
Damocle lifted the war hammer with both hands and Hirodias lifted his arms to block the blow. Instead hammer struck Iosifus' head, caving it in. Iosifus fell, his head hitting the ground first with the weight of the hammer. The blood from the old man splattered against Hirodias' shins and feet. Damocle pulled the hammer from his collapsed head. "You really are alone now. You have made a terrible mistake in coming here."
Hirodias knelt beside Iosifus and held the dead elder's wrinkled hand. Grief washed over him first, and then guilt. Once he recognized the feeling, he shook his head and told himself this was not his fault. He remembered the words from the rituals when Iosifus helped guide the souls of the deceased. Mother, take this soul back to your bosom, he said in the old words.
Damocle shouted orders and swords and spear tips were at Hirodias' throat. No fewer than six guards shackled him and lifted him to his bloody feet. As they led him away, he turned to look back at Iosifus to complete uttering the words. May his soul be a strand in your stream of colors. Blood was pooling around the body.
Hirodias was led through a fortified gate and into a courtyard surrounded by walls. There were several tall trees in the courtyard, with cages beneath them. The cages had ropes connected to the high limbs of the tree. When they brought to a metal cage, they prodded him to enter but he held himself against the frame of the door. "No more cages," he said.
He felt something pierce his thigh. He turned and looked at the spearhead buried into his leg. He grabbed the spear and pulled it out and snapped the spearhead from the shaft. Six more spears pointed to various parts of his body. He walked backwards and entered the cage.
Damocle's soldiers locked the door and signaled for the cage to be pulled up. Half a dozen men pulled on two ropes to suspend Hirodias' cage twenty feet above the ground. He saw dozens of cages suspended from several trees.
There was a cage with a man that looked like he was already dead. The man seemed familiar until he realized it was Castor, the one who decided to break away from the group after they had made their way through the Kolasi Fruoros. The poor fellow must have ventured too far, or gotten lost, or worse yet maybe stumbled upon Damocle's soldiers and crossed them.
He wished there was some way to warn Palimedis and Symian. Some way to warn Glausus. Some way to warn Velias.
Iosifus' blood on his boots were not yet dry. He rubbed them and looked at the remains of Iosifus on his thumb. He looked at the clouds drifting across the daytime moon.