or effectively as he, a lone man with a leather shirt and a sharp dagger.
As he hiked, poking the leaves with his staff, he recalled one night at a tavern with his brothers, when swords had been drawn with rival knights. His brothers had been surrounded, outnumbered, and while all the fancy knights stood on ceremony, Merk did not hesitate. He had darted across the alley with his dagger and sliced all their throats before the men could draw a sword.
His brothers should have thanked them for their lives – instead, they all distanced themselves from him. They feared him, and they looked down on him. That was the gratitude he received, and the betrayal hurt Merk more than he could say. It deepened his rift with them, with all nobility, with all chivalry. It was all hypocrisy in his eyes, self-serving; they could walk away with their shiny armor and look down on him, but if it hadn’t been for him and his dagger they would all be lying dead in that back alley today.
Merk hiked and hiked, sighing, trying to release the past. As he reflected, he realized he did not really understand the source of his talent. Perhaps it was because he was so quick and nimble; perhaps it was because he was fast with his hands and wrists; perhaps it was because he had a special talent for finding men’s vital points; perhaps it was because he never hesitated to go that extra step, to take that final thrust that other men feared; perhaps it was because he never had to strike twice; or perhaps it was because he could improvise, could kill with any tool at his disposal – a quill, a hammer, an old log. He was craftier than others, more adaptable and quicker on his feet – a deadly combination.
Growing up, all those proud knights had distanced themselves from him, had even mocked him beneath their breath (for no one would mock him to his face). But now, as they were all older, as their powers waned and as his fame spread, he was the one enlisted by kings, while they were all forgotten. Because what his brothers never understood was that chivalry did not make kings kings. It was the ugly, brutal violence, fear, the elimination of your enemies, one at a time, the gruesome killing that no one else wanted to do, that made kings. And it was he they turned to when they wanted the real work of being a king done.
With each poke of his staff, Merk remembered each of his victims. He had killed the King’s worst foes – not by poison – for that, they brought in the petty assassins, the apothecaries, the seductresses. The worst ones they often wanted killed with a statement, and for that, they needed him. Something gruesome, something public: a dagger in the eye; a body left strewn in a public square, dangling from a window, for all to see the next sunrise, for all to be left in wonder as to who had dared oppose the King.
When the old King Tarnis had surrendered the kingdom, had opened the gates for Pandesia, Merk had felt deflated, purposeless for the first time in his life. Without a King to serve he had felt adrift. Something long brewing within him had surfaced, and for some reason he did not understand, he began to wonder about life. All his life he had been obsessed with death, with killing, with taking life away. It had become easy – too easy. But now, something within him was changing; it was as if he could hardly feel the stable ground beneath his feet. He had always known, firsthand, how fragile life was, how easily it could be taken away, but now he started to wonder about preserving it. Life was so fragile, was preserving it not a greater challenge than taking it?
And despite himself, he started to wonder: what was this thing he was stripping away from others?
Merk did not know what had started all this self-reflection, but it made him deeply uncomfortable. Something had surfaced within him, a great nausea, and he had become sick of killing – he had developed as great a distaste for it as he had once enjoyed it. He wished there was one thing he could point to that triggered all of this – the killing of a particular person, perhaps – but there was not. It had just crept up on him, without cause. And that was most disturbing of all.
Unlike other mercenaries, Merk had only taken on causes he believed in. It was only later in life, when he had become too good at what he did, when the payments had become too large, the people who requested him too important, that he had begun to blur the lines, to accept payment for killing those who weren’t necessarily at fault – not necessarily at all. And that was what was bothering him.
Merk developed an equally strong passion for undoing all that he had done, for proving to others that he could change. He wanted to wipe out his past, to take back all that he had done, to make penitence. He had taken a solemn vow within himself never to kill again; never to lift a finger against anyone; to spend the rest of his days asking God for forgiveness; to devote himself to helping others; to become a better person. And it was all of this that had led him to this forest path he walked right now with each click of his staff.
Merk saw the forest trail rise up ahead then dip, aglow with white leaves, and he checked the horizon again for the Tower of Ur. There was still no sign of it. He knew eventually this path must lead him there, this pilgrimage that had been calling to him for months now. He had been captivated, ever since he was a boy, by tales of the Watchers, the secretive order of monks/knights, part men and part something else, whose job was to reside in the two towers – the Tower of Ur in the northwest and the Tower of Kos in the southeast – and to watch over the Kingdom’s most precious relic: the Sword of Fire. It was the Sword of Fire, legend had it, that kept The Flames alive. No one knew for sure which tower it was in, a closely kept secret known by none but the most ancient Watchers. If it were ever to be moved, or stolen, The Flames would be lost forever – and Escalon would be vulnerable to attack.
It was said that watching over the towers was a high calling, a sacred duty and honorable duty – if the Watchers accepted you. Merk had always dreamed of the Watchers as a boy, had gone to bed at night wondering what it would be like to join their ranks. He wanted to lose himself in solitude, in service, in self-reflection, and he knew there was no better way than to become a Watcher. Merk felt ready. He had discarded his chain mail for leather, his sword for a staff, and for the first time in his life, he had gone a solid moon without killing or hurting a soul. He was starting to feel good.
As Merk crested a small hill, he looked out, hopeful, as he had been for days, that this peak might reveal the Tower of Ur somewhere on the horizon. But there was nothing to be found – nothing but more woods, reaching as far as the eye could see. Yet he knew he was getting close – after so many days of hiking, the tower could not be that far off.
Merk continued down the slope of the path, the wood growing thicker, until, at the bottom, he came to a huge, felled tree blocking the path. He stopped and looked at it, admiring its size, debating how to get around it.
“I’d say that’s about far enough,” came a sinister voice.
Merk recognized the dark intention in the voice immediately, something he had become expert in, and he did not even need to turn to know what was coming next. He heard leaves crunching all around him, and out of the wood there emerged faces to match the voice: cutthroats, each more desperate looking than the next. They were the faces of men who killed for no reason. The faces of common thieves and killers who preyed on the weak with random, senseless violence. In Merk’s eyes, they were the lowest of the low.
Merk saw he was surrounded and knew he had walked into a trap. He glanced around quickly without letting them know it, his old instincts kicking in, and he counted eight of them. They all held daggers, all dressed in rags, with dirty faces, hands, and fingernails, all unshaven, all with a desperate look that showed they hadn’t eaten in too many days. And that they were bored.
Merk tensed as the lead thief got closer, but not because he feared him; Merk could kill him – could kill them all – without blinking an eye, if he chose. What made him tense was the possibility of being forced into violence. He was determined to keep his vow, whatever the cost.
“And what do we have here?” one of them asked, coming close, circling Merk.
“Looks like a monk,” said
