For Lord and Land
By: Delilah deSora

Prologue

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I, Dante Kaemon, do solemnly swear . . .

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“Stop! Let me go! Release me!”

A page snarled and struggled ineffectively against the two men who were dragging him from the lush rooms into the cold stone hallway. He fell silent when he caught sight of the two knights watching the proceedings. Both were tall and built like soldiers but it wasn’t their stature that caught his attention.

It was their uniform.

With a howl the page flung himself back, trying to dislodge the knights holding him but failing. “He was right!” He shrieked, “you are trying to control him! Blasphemers! Traitors! You can’t control a god! He’ll show you!”

The dark haired knight gestured sharply and the page fell silent as a blow to the head knocked him unconsious

“Get rid of him. Make sure you are not seen. This must never be spoken of. Do you understand?”

The knights gave him a half bow, the best they could manage with their burden and disappeared. With a sigh the dark haired knight stepped into the room and bent to right a chair.

“He’s going to be angry when he finds out about this, Dorjan.”

Dorjan didn’t spare his second in command a glance as he moved to right a table that had been knocked over in the page’s struggle. “Assuming he even remembers.”

His captain snorted and helped him gather loose pages that had spilled from an overturn desk. “He’s insane, not stupid. He’ll remember. And he’ll be screaming the same thing when he realizes his newest lover has disappeared.”

Dorjan snorted as he moved into the bedroom, stepping up onto the raised dais where the bed was located. With a grimace of distaste he stripped the red silk from it, flinging it at his second. “He can scream all he likes, Errol. Besides, what would you have me do? Leave the page so he can run around crowing about how he topped the Emperor. How he conquered our god? You know we can not allow that. Hell, the populace would rip him apart themselves if they knew what he had done to our Emperor here!”

Errol sighed, gathering up the evidence and feeding it to the oversized fireplace. “It would save us the trouble.”

Shaking his head Dorjan peered under the bed for anything incriminating. “No, it would only make more trouble. Who do you think they’ll blame for the defiling of their god?”

“Maybe we could point out that Emperor Ardel was a willing participant?” Errol grimaced and held a pillow case between two fingers gingerly before adding it to the fire.

Dorjan stood, shaking his head. “It won’t matter. Everyone has a preconceived vision of what a god should or should not do and getting screwed into the mattress by a page doesn’t fit in that vision. Besides, it would only cause people to look more closely at him and start asking questions we can not afford to answer.”

Stirring the fire to make sure the last bit of cloth had been consumed, Errol sighed. “Do you think we’ll find him? The Leviathan?”

Dorjan placed a hand on his second’s shoulder. “Don’t question it. You must have faith.”

The fair-haired knight shook his head. “How can I have faith when I see the man who holds the fate of our country in his hands drop farther and farther into insanity with every passing day? How can I have faith when each morning he looks at us with a little more suspicion? He hates us, Dorjan! He thinks we keep him caged like a bird! What if he decides to dissolve the order before we find the Leviathan?”

The lord general of the Knights of Aidan stepped back, staring at the bare bed. “Then we keep searching regardless of what titles our Emperor chooses to grant or strip us of. Ardel Aidan is our lord and the embodiment of our land. The farther he descends the greater the danger to our land. For thousands of years our order has kept the Emperors safe and provided for them. We will not fail now. Regardless of what the fires of madness makes our current god think.”

Errol shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. “I wish I had your conviction, my lord.”

Dorjan laughed and slapped him on the back. “Give it thirty years, knightling, and give Ardel a chance. You haven’t served under a strong Aidan yet, have you?”

Errol shook his head. “Emperor Garai had already lost his Leviathan by the time I passed my final test as a knight. It was only two years before he died.”

The dark haired knight shook his head. “They are good men, Errol. Smart, fair, and charismatic. It is not just their powers that make people believe they are the embodiment of the god Aidan.”

Errol glanced over to a corner where black burns could still be seen if one knew where to look with a shudder. “I will have to take your word for it, my lord.”

Dorjan stood in silence, hoping his second didn’t see the worry he tried to keep out of his grey eyes. “The younger Kaemon is ready for his final test, is he not?”

Errol blinked and stared at him for a minute, mentally running through the names of the current knights. “Yes.”

“Good. Summon him and his brother Cian to my office.”

His second frowned. “You would send them on this matter? Cian is a good knight but his brother hasn’t even taken the final oath yet!”

“I know but we are running out of options, Errol. We’ve hunted down and checked every Llyr in our records and quite a few who were not and none of them have the power of the Leviathan. There are more out there but they’re afraid of us and anyone looking for their family. Not that I blame them, of course. If my family was in their position I’d have them scattered to the wind as well but we must find them!

“We know there are Llyrs still in Aquilae but none of them will talk to people like us. We need someone they’ll feel safe talking to. And we need someone who knows the land. Both Cian and his brother are from Aquilae and their father is a respected governor down there who has done a lot to keep the Llyrs safe. People will talk to them and hopefully they’ll be able to find the Leviathan where we’ve failed.”

Errol nodded. “I understand that, my lord, but would you really trust them with the truth? Do you think they’ll even believe it?”

Dorjan snorted. “Who said I was going to tell them the truth? All they need to know is that their Emperor requests that they find a Llyr with the unique ability to control water. The fact that it is a quest from the very Emperor himself will be enough to keep them focused on the task at hand and from wondering about what such a strange talent in a member of that cursed family really means.”

The fair-haired knight bowed his head. “As you say, my lord. I will summon them.”

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End Prologue

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