Death After Death

The declaration of war followed quickly after that, but because of petty pissing contests in the wording of the agreement that had to be sabotage, the alliance that Ionar desperately needed took somewhat longer. Somehow, despite the attack on him and a few other scattered attacks throughout Ionar that were almost certainly the work of the Murani, it was months before Ionar officially allied with the Kingdom of Brin to push the invaders back in any real way.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be about how long it took Simon to shake himself free of the terrible urges to use more transfer magic. It was hard to spend time with anyone, let alone his son when he was hopped up what amounted to magical drugs.

In the moment, his actions had been reasonable and even justified, but now there was no denying that it was a budding addiction. This time, he vowed not to let it control him. So, for better or worse, during that time, Simon's life changed almost as drastically as the world around him.

The first and most obvious change was that he was always armed now. For a long time, he’d rarely even worn a dagger unless he was leaving the city. Now, he was always armed with both sword and dagger, and he made sure that Seyom was with a real short sword as well. Simon rarely left the palace after that day, and he never left the city anymore.

Instead, he spent all his time with either the children, the generals, or in seclusion, coping with the withdrawal symptoms of his foolish act and planning for what he could do in the face of the new threats. One thing that his most recent opponent's methods had done was make it clear that there was more he could be doing. Just because he didn’t plan to start using blood magic to fuel powerful rituals didn’t mean he couldn’t use the power of his foes to more effectively eliminate them.

He felt badly for locking himself in his study more often than not, and neglecting his students, sometimes for days on end. Still, these efforts all bore fruit, and as time passed, he felt more and more ready for any surprise. Despite that, it was aggravating that even in failure, the assassins had still managed to shatter the perfect little life he’d been building.

He rarely held lessons in the gardens now, and even those were always accompanied by a detachment of the Queen's personal guards. Worse than that, though, was the fact that his curriculum had become almost entirely martial.

Seyom was only just fourteen, and two members of Simon’s class were only twelve. They were old enough to know their way around wooden blades but far too young to worry about killing or dying. Yet those were now inevitable consequences of what he was teaching them.

It was unavoidable. One assassination attempt would lead to more and next time, he was unlikely to be the target. So, he taught them basic first aid and where the most vulnerable spots on armored training dummies were. He taught the girls to aim for the throat of anyone that they suspected might be a mage, and he taught them all what signs to look for that indicated that magic might be afoot.

He still found little moments, like when Seyom asked him, “What is it like to kill someone?” Simon had a long heart-to-heart with him that day, and the line between student and father blurred as much as it ever did.

“It can be hard to bear,” Simon admitted, trying to remember what he’d felt like when death really had been a hard thing for him to bear. “But it is never wrong to defend yourself.”

The Queen expressed in private that she thought Simon was being a touch paranoid, but she never did so in public, nor did she ask him to stop. Where the safety of their son was concerned, paranoia was acceptable, it would seem, as long as it did not cause too much of a stir.

He wasn’t the only one who was more paranoid than usual, though. Guests to the palace were limited, fortifications were increased, and guard patrols were doubled.

Elthena eventually even took on a full-time poison tester, which was something she’d resisted for a long time. It was something that Simon had never worried about too much since poison was easy enough for him to handle, but it was a gesture that she was taking all of this very seriously.

How could she not? The battle reports came nearly daily now, and though the fighting itself was still far away because the northern front was holding up well, that didn't make it any less inescapable.

More than that, though, most of their legions were trained, equipped, and dispatched from Ionar, and the upper market had been converted into a drilling space and parade ground. This made the sounds of that far away war inescapable, even from the palace. The northern cities and the island kingdoms still supplied money and men for the war effort, of course, but it was dwarfed by the contributions of the capital.

Still, when the hammer finally dropped, Simon was surprised only by the timing, not by its nature. He’d known that a betrayal was coming. He could feel it in his bones, even if he couldn’t figure out who the one to cause it would be. The Murian wielded money and magic as well as armies, so bribery was certainly a tactic that he expected.

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Still, he hadn’t expected it in the middle of one of his lessons. He’d been in the classroom teaching the children about phalanx tactics and the importance of spears against cavalry attacks when he heard a scuffle in the hallway. That was unusual enough, but when armed soldiers in full kit threw open the door and demanded, “The Prince is to come with us immediately!”

Knowing something was going to happen and experiencing it were very different things when he experienced his first palace coup. Simon didn’t hesitate, though. He strode toward the Prince even as the two soldiers did, while Seyom looked around like a deer in the headlights.

“What is the meaning of this outrage!” Simon shouted, waving his empty hands about as if he had no idea what was about to happen. “The Prince is in the middle of his lessons and is not to be disturbed unless the sky is falling, do you understand?!”

For what happened next, it was imperative that they think him nothing more than a harmless old man. Any violence that happened in the same room as his pupils had to be as quick and precise as possible, or young lives would be shattered and lost.

Of course, the fact that both men had swords in their hands and blood was pooling in the doorway where they’d taken out the Queen’s guard that had been positioned there made it more than obvious what was happening. The sneer of the man in the lead certainly made no secret of the fact that they were about to run Simon through and kidnap his son.

That was the way coups worked. Capture or kill the high-value targets, then take control for everyone’s good. The Queen was a reasonably popular ruler, so he wasn’t sure this would go exactly the way that whoever was in charge wanted it to, but Simon aimed to make sure that it didn’t happen at all.

When the sword came for Simon’s guts, he twisted just enough that it stabbed into his robes but missed his flesh. Then he grabbed the man’s overextended wrist and twisted it, disarming the first soldier even as he flung him to the floor.

The second soldier had time to react to this and dropped into a ready stance. Simon didn’t hesitate. He reversed the grip on the stolen sword and shoved it through the man’s unprotected throat before he could raise his own blade high enough to parry the unexpected blow. Then he turned and stomped on the first man’s skull before he could rise and collapsed face-first onto the stone floor.

Normally, Simon would have delivered a coup de gras then, just to be sure. The man was limp and probably had a skull fracture from the way his head had bounced violently off the stone floor, but with the way that his class was looking at him, now was not the time for more unrestrained violence.

Instead, he picked up the second sword from where the man who was still in the process of drowning in his own blood had dropped it. “I hope that everyone has been paying attention because we are now going to have to fight our way to the throne room to make sure that all of you are kept safe,” he said, trying to keep his tone light despite the bloodshed that had just happened, and the shocked look on the faces of some of the children. “Now, quickly, don your arming jackets and ready your weapons. Time is of the essence.”

He would have preferred a couple more years before this had happened, he realized as he watched the door while the children burst into action. No, I would have preferred they’d never known war at all, he corrected himself. But if they had to know war, I just wish I’d had more time to train them.

That wish was in vain. Unfortunately, you went to war with the army you had, not the army you wanted, which meant that Simon would have to do more of the fighting himself.

For a moment, he thought about taking some of the dead men’s armor for himself, but he decided against it. He would have killed for the chance to return to his room and put on his own well-worn leathers, but at this moment, looking like a strange soldier was not likely to be an advantage.

Instead, he waited impatiently for the boys to draw their swords and the girls to string their bows, and then he said, “Alright, we move as one. No matter what you see next, follow me, and just keep moving.”

Then he moved out into the hallway. There was no hiding the dead body; he didn’t even try. He just urged them to keep moving as he took the way that was likely to have the least traffic between where he was on the garden side and the grand hall. A quick look out some of the windows revealed that the city was placid, but he could hear chaos coming from the courtyard side.

There was other fighting going on. It simply hadn’t spilled out into the city yet. Depending on who won, that was a foregone conclusion, though. As they transitioned to the south side, he saw exactly what he feared: an entire legion of at least 500 freshly minted soldiers marching up the long path toward the palace. If loyal soldiers controlled the gates, they’d never get inside. But then, if loyal soldiers still controlled the gates, he reminded himself, then the coup plotters weren’t doing their job.

Simon wanted to rush there immediately, but with his tiny entourage, he couldn’t. Instead, he continued on to the throne room. Along the way, there was blessedly little fighting. There were two stampedes of servants and one soldier that Simon disemboweled as he was chasing after a particularly pretty maid.

It wasn’t until he got to the main hall that he found real opposition. There, he found more than a dozen men facing off the last four of the Queen’s guards that were still standing.

Simon’s first impulse was to behead all of them with a wave of force, but he decided against it. It was far too public for such an overt act. So, instead of that, he told his students, “Boys, stay back and defend the girls. Girls, do what you can to hurt these brutes, but aim carefully. Those bows won’t even penetrate light armor.”

He didn’t expect much, but as he drew his skull-marked dagger and prepared for real combat, he didn’t want much from them. A few arrows would cause a little chaos, and the archers would provide the boys with something to guard without feeling like they needed to strive for something more heroic.

This place is going to be a bloodbath, he told himself. But there’s nothing I can do about that.