This is a one-shot attached to my series, Forging a Nation. Although it can be read on its own, I suppose, to gain a fuller understanding please read at least Ashes and ideally what I have so far published of Flames, both of which can be found on my profile. Thank you and happy reading!
I am the storm
So wait
*A Thousand Eyes – Of Monsters And Men*
He paused on the drawbridge.
The smell of smoke and decay wafted about him and his black cloak billowed in the wind as he gazed up at the citadel over him. He had done it. Cair Paravel was his.
Castillo and the other nay-sayers who had stayed behind cowering in the safety of Tel Sol were wrong. The Eagle had appeared to him and told him that this land was ripe for the taking and it had certainly been right. The Narnians had been no match for the might of the Telmarines and had fallen in droves before them. The old citadel in front of him had been their last stronghold. They clearly thought the Telmarines would never be ever to take it. The savages that they were could never have comprehended the sophisticated war machines that had followed behind the Telmarine foot-soldiers.
He smiled cruelly as he thought back on the siege; of the beauty of the machinery, of the magnificence of the rocks hurtling towards the supposedly impenetrable walls of the citadel, of the screams of the garrison trapped inside as the walls came tumbling down. It really had not been much of a fight at all.
His hands went to his belt and his fingertips absently stroked the hilt of the Dirk strapped to his hilt; the symbol of his right to the title of the Merchant King. So far, only his birthdate separated him from the other Merchant Kings of his name since they carried no regnal numbers. He was determined to change this, however. History would remember him and remember who he was.
No longer was he Caspian Orellana, Merchant King of the Telmarines. Now would he be Caspian I, King of Telmar and Narnia. This land was his.
Hoofbeats pounded behind him and he turned to see his general, Lord Scythley cantering towards him. He reigned in his horse and saluted as he drew level.
"Sire! The abominations are scattered," he reported. "Shall we hunt?"
"No, leave them to our foot-soldiers. They deserve some sport after our victory," he replied. "Come, Ciro, my old friend. Walk with me into the great Cair Paravel."
Ciro grinned and threw his reigns to a waiting squire.
"Today has been a long time coming, Caspian," he said as he dismounted.
"And this country is now ours!" Caspian laughed, throwing his arms wide. "Praise to the Eagle for leading us to this utopia!"
With Ciro at his side, he took the final few steps across the drawbridge and underneath the portcullis. As they crossed into the courtyard, Ciro wrinkled his nose and prodded with his bow at one of the corpses littering the flagstones.
"Animals and abominations," he muttered. "Look, it has the torso of a human but the body of a horse! How could such creatures be allowed to roam such a beautiful place?"
"I came here once, when I was a lad," Caspian said, staring up at the towers above him. "Father came to trade. I know the Black Eagle is a bird but it cannot compare to these beasts. They crowded around us and jabbered in their unnatural manner. Even the other things… the fauns, the centaurs – that's the horse thing you are prodding – well, I'd call them uncivilised and barbaric but they had no civilisation to speak of in the first place."
Ciro sniffed and walked forward. "What's up here?" he called, climbing the steps towards what looked like the main hall.
"I don't know. We weren't allowed inside," Caspian said, moving to join him. "The place almost felt like some sort of temple or another hallowed place like Tel Cielo instead of a castle."
They pushed aside the heavy doors and entered the citadel. Their men had already cleared the remains of the garrison out so all that remained were some splatters and smears of blood on the marble floor. Together they made their way through the citadel and into the great hall.
"You think they could have kept the place cleaner," Ciro complained. "Beasts by name, beasts by nature, I suppose. Where do you think their precious Aslan was in all of this?"
Caspian laughed. "Who cares? I cut down a lion on the battlefield yesterday; perhaps I killed Him! Maybe He ran away with his tail between His legs when He saw our might and He saw the might of the Eagle at our backs."
He cast his eyes once more upwards at the delicate columns twisting this way and that and the glass roof they supported.
"How do you suppose they built it?" he asked. "Do you think Archenland helped them with it? I cannot imagine them being able to build it alone."
"However they did it, they've let it go to ruin," Ciro said, his eyes lingering upon the dust and dirt on the windows, the dried leaves scattered all about, and not the beauty his friend saw. "Caspian, we should leave. This place is nothing but full of ghosts."
"Not quite," Caspian said, his eyes falling on something at the far end.
He set off, his boots ringing off the marble floor. "Remember that old myth about the four human monarchs of Narnia?" he called over his shoulder.
He turned, his cloak swirling out behind him, and sat in one of the four crumbling thrones. "I am High King Peter the Magnificent," he said in a twisted, mocking attempt at a Narnian accent. "Bow before me."
Ciro joined his laughter, their two voices echoing around the empty hall. Yet suddenly, he paled and he did bow quickly.
"Lord," he mumbled.
Caspian stood and slowly turned. The wall behind the four thrones had once held a beautiful stained glass window. The glass, however, had shattered a long time ago and the colour in the panels were slowly fading. In the middle archway of the window sat an Eagle with feathers of deepest black.
He took a quick step backwards and then also bowed.
"Peace to you, Ciro Scythley," it said. "Leave us."
Ciro bowed again and then turned and strode off down the hall. Caspian watched him go and then turned back to the Eagle with a confident smile on his face.
"Welcome, Lord, to the new land of the Telmarines," he said, spreading his arms wide. "I trust you are satisfied? The abominations are scattered and my people stand poised at the borders ready to enter our promised land!"
The Eagle stared at him and for a moment he faltered. He had never seen such misery and suffering in another being's eyes.
"Child, what have you done?" it asked.
His hands fell to his side and his brow furrowed.
"Lord, I do not understand," he said.
The Eagle leapt forward, its wings unfolding to their full length. Caspian stumbled back and tripped over some rubble. The Eagle leapt up onto the back of the ruined thrones. Its wings cast a shadow across the fallen Telmarine like an oncoming storm.
"You have massacred the people of this land! You tore through the country like a pestilence; you murdered, you pillaged, you raped, you razed their homes to the ground and tore babes from arms to trample underfoot!" it screeched.
"Lord… but, but, you said this land was for us!" he stammered.
"These people were leaderless! I sent you to them to save them, to be their King!" it said, its eyes blazing.
He struggled back onto his feet.
"I thought you wanted this!" he said, his hands balling like a petulant child's. "I thought you wanted us to take this realm! You said it was for us! This was supposed to be our promised land!"
The Eagle juddered. Its beak opened and it made a strange hissing noise as its feathers slowly puffed up. In a flash, it had leapt from the throne with talons out. It caught Caspian a glancing blow around the head and knocked him once more onto the floor.
He floundered on his back but managed to roll over and push himself onto his hands and knees. His right brow and eye were burning white-hot and the eye itself was refusing to open. He could feel the blood pouring from the wound like a river.
"This was never my Will, Child!" the Eagle roared, its talons skittering over the marble floor. "Let that resonate with your sons, and their sons, and their sons; you may have taken this land by force but it shall never be yours!"
Gasping for air, he crawled away. He somehow managed to get upright and lurched from the hall; the Eagle taking flight and chasing him out, its wings beating the back of his body and head. They burst through the door and back across the drawbridge. As the Eagle rocketed skyward with a final, angry screech, Caspian fell on all fours.
"Caspian!" he heard Ciro shout. "Someone fetch the physician! The King is injured!"
"No!" Caspian snarled. He felt a helping hand grip under his shoulders but he shrugged it off and staggered back onto his feet.
"That was not the Eagle! That was not our Eagle!" he bellowed, swaying on his feet. "That was some Narnian trickery!"
He coughed up a mouthful of blood. It dribbled down his chin and mingled with his beard.
"Tear it down!" he growled. "I want nothing left! Not a tower, not an archway, not a doorframe!"
"Sire, we have yet to find the Treasure Chamber-" Ciro started to say but shut his mouth as the blood-covered King turned on him with a wild eye.
"Bring up the catapults!" Caspian roared, the blood in his mouth beginning to froth. "I want you to raise this citadel to the ground! We shall leave it to the elements and to the ghosts! Let that mangy beast Aslan return and know that this is our land!"
"Yes, sire," Ciro said. He ran back towards the awaiting soldiers, already shouting orders and commands, and left Caspian swaying back and forth upon the drawbridge.
He spat out a mouthful of frothy blood and savoured the taste it left in his mouth, hot and metallic. Then he turned and looked up once more at the towers of Cair Paravel with the only good eye left to him. This time he did not see a place of beauty and mystery. This time he did not see the place that had enchanted him and haunted his memory since boyhood.
This time he saw an arrogant declaration of defiance against him and against his people.
He gritted his teeth as his heart hardened and blackened within his chest.
I am the King, he thought viciously. This land is mine! I have taken it and made it mine! I am the King!
And so a hatred and a darkness was born in his heart that did not pass from his blood until five hundred years had been and gone.
Five hundred years to the day that Caspian stood upon the drawbridge, a boy was born.
The tenth of Caspian's name and the man who would finally heal the hurt and the hatred his ancestor had wrought. The man who would bring together the Telmarines and the Narnians as the Eagle intended Caspian to do.