Author's Note: I place Sparrow at seven years old at the beginning of Fable 2, which means he left the Dweller Camp when he was 17. By the time he departed for the Spire, I put Sparrow at 19 years old to accomplish all the things that are part of this storyline. He was 30 when he defeated Lucien Fairfax, and at 33, Theresa instructed him to return to Albion (as described in Part 1 of this series "After: A Fable Love Story"). Therefore, he is 36 at the beginning of this story.
Also, while I recommend you read After: A Fable Love Story, it isn't essential.
Chapter 1: Arousal
"Walter, Jasper, my fine gentlemanly friends, I think I would like to get married…again."
Walter Beck and Jasper Whitson exchanged glances with each other, and eyed their friend Sparrow over their playing cards. Walter, a dashing soldier in his mid-thirties with unruly brown hair, wild beard, and a burly frame nearly bursting through his well-worn uniform, said slowly, "Are you serious when you say this, Sparrow?"
Sparrow smiled earnestly at his friends. "Of course, Walter. I was happily married once. I think I could do it again."
Walter and Jasper stared at each other in their mutual loss for words. Sparrow was the latest in the lineage of long-forgotten Heroes and the aspiring candidate for the title of King of Albion. He was far from being ineligible for marriage in any way.
In his early thirties, he still exuded a boyish charm with his crystal blue eyes and almost eternal smile, but there was a rugged, mature appeal in his square jaw, repaired broken nose, flowing ebony locks, and powerfully husky body. Sparrow was also a significantly wealthy man without a ring on any of his fingers, as his fine brown leather gloves, brown leather pants, black leather boots, and white cotton shirt attested.
"You aren't referring to either of us, are you?" Jasper could easily have been Sparrow's elder brother with his dark, graying hair and angular, hawk-like nose. However, Jasper was slimmer, smaller, and had forbidding brown eyes while Sparrow's were shimmering blue with his overflowing goodness.
Sparrow laughed uproariously. "Jasper, I am perfectly heterosexual."
"This isn't the sort of thing one randomly introduces at a card game," Walter admonished while he stroked his beard.
"Agreed, how much time have you…?" Jasper's question was cut short by the shrill, lethal whistle of an incoming mortar shell.
"Hit the deck!" Sparrow yelled. He and his two friends dove beneath the rough-hewn card table only seconds before the mortar shell struck the ground with an earth-rattling boom.
The land of Albion was in the midst of the Noble Wars, a bloody, widespread series of conflicts that had lasted more than three years. In the dearth of any centralized power, Albion was under the thrall of mercenaries and thugs. Towns such as Bowerstone and Bloodstone had become independent principalities with shared natural borders of land and water, with their own standards of measurement, currencies, and hindered free trade. Merchants especially suffered because it was impossible to build an extensive trade network in such a volatile climate. The bandits ruled the roads while civilized citizenry cowered in cities.
Into that void stepped the Hero of Bowerstone. After a mysterious absence of three years, the Hero was revered still but only a few people had known immediately of his return. Walter and Jasper were among his first followers. While other men followed Sparrow in pursuit of adventure, for brutality and slaughter, or for wealth, Walter and Jasper had sought out Sparrow at the side of a road in Oakfield while the Hero ate apples and plotted his strategic attacks on powerful warlords in each region. From that day forward, the three men had become inseparable as Sparrow regained his fame in Albion.
"Is everyone alright?" Sparrow yelled in the limited space beneath the table.
"Yes, Jasper and I are alive, well, and whole. Although, as a precaution against future direct attacks, it might be wise to consider not flying a flag of the bloody bird for which you're named over your tent on the field of battle!" Walter said gruffly.
Sparrow rolled his eyes, even though he was confident Walter could not see them. "I'll keep that in mind, Walter. I just wanted to make
myself a target rather than the men around me."
"It stands to reason that if you are someone's target, then it is inevitable that the men in your vicinity become targets as well," Jasper added. He glared at Sparrow in the small space.
The Hero swallowed the warning with gravity and suppressed a snicker at the gentleman's askew wig. "I'm sorry, Jasper. I…."
The whistle of a second mortar shell catalyzed a thought deep in the recesses of Sparrow's mind. "Avo's toe fungus, the bloody bandits are ambushing the camp!" Sparrow leaped to his feet—or tried to, as he immediately rammed his fine head of hair into the card table, denting it and causing colors to dance before his eyes.
"Brave and noble, you are, but coordinated and insightful, you are not," Walter scoffed.
Sparrow ignored his friend's remark. He dashed from the tent in which he slept more cautiously than usual, but still tripped in the dirt and fell just outside the tent. A mortar ripped through a tent to Sparrow's left. The anguished cries of the men who survived the immediate blast filled the Hero's ears and tugged at him to pull their bodies from the wreckage. He could not, unless he wished to sacrifice his own life to the flames devouring the canvas tent. 'Murderous gits think they can stonewall me by attacking my men? By Avo, I'll rally these men to victory, or my name isn't Sparrow Kenway!'
All around the camp, horses, carts, and men rushed hysterically to put out fires, tend to the wounded, or carry weapons from one part of the camp to another without a direction or goal. The onslaught of mortars had come in the middle of the night, while most men were either asleep or winding down. Soldiers streaked across the camp naked or in pajamas, trying to load rifles, dress, or strap scabbards to their waists.
Sparrow became as visible as possible, knowing that the frightened, battered men drew inspiration from his undefeated spirit and indefatigable energy. Weapons-bearing soldiers flowed by the Hero to the edge of the camp, so the Hero raced to the defenses at the edge of the camp with his pistol in one hand, ax in another.
Fortifications made from hewn trees sharpened to deadly cuspate ends formed the perimeter of the camp. It had been Sparrow's policy since the first battle against the bandits dominating the pilgrimage roads between Oakfield and the rest of Albion to build fortifications with trees, stone, or even simple mud bricks. At that battle, the forces of an aggressive warlord named Fennis ran rampantly through Sparrow's camp in guerrilla raids intended to undermine the confidence of Sparrow's army. Building defenses typically came easily, especially as local citizens were eager to help the Hero of Bowerstone, but Rookridge was one area with a scarcity of natural building resources.
A few feet from the defensive perimeter, Sparrow saw that the entire span of the wall stood resiliently. 'Bloody bandits think they'll break into my camp in the middle of the night and ambush my men? Ha!' His elation was short lived as another mortar blast only a few feet from his position sent him flying across the rocky ground, and the Hero landed achingly on his back. 'That nuisance must be eliminated, or else I won't have much of an army after this battle.'
Sparrow's enemies in the Noble Wars were the united bandit factions of Albion. From Rookridge to Mistpeak to the gangs of Old Town, the return of the valiant Hero of Bowerstone had driven an iron-sharp wedge of fear into the hearts of Albion's cutpurses.
While Sparrow's victory over the power-hungry chieftain of Knothole Island had brought followers to his cause, most bandit leaders were old enough to remember an embellished version of his defeat of Lucien Fairfax. Few recalled his defeat of Dash of Rookridge or how the young Hero undermined the extortionist activities of Nicky the Nickname in Old Town. It was understood somehow that the Hero was not fighting for the bandits.
The merchants and farmers of Oakfield collectively had poured out financial support for his cause. Knothole Island and Brightwall provided hearty plebian men, and Mistpeak Valley provided weapons. The bandit leaders quarreled amongst themselves, which divided them and hastened their downfall. Then a leader had risen from among them.
Sparrow climbed to atop a cart filled with barrels, removed a telescope from his belt, and raised it to one eye to gaze upon the front-lines of the bandit army. 'I don't see him leading the charge, but that doesn't mean he's not with them. If I want to take down the body, I've got to cut off the head.' Another mortar shell screeched toward the exposed Hero. 'If that thing strikes, a lot of men in these tents around me die too.'
He unleashed a Force Push spell fueled off his anger that flattened the cart on which he stood and shoved backwards anyone within a ten-foot radius. As the shell screamed to the end of its arc, Sparrow launched into the air, somersaulted, and nimbly landed on his feet ten yards away. The shell blasted a crater where he had stood, but no one was within its blast zone.
'"Never fight from selfish motives. Only fight to protect those who are weaker than you." That's what Talos taught us,' Sparrow remembered as he dusted off. 'These Rookridge bandits are going to decimate my army, unless I decimate them first.' Ignoring his own aches from the acrobatic landing, Sparrow checked the condition of each man around him and distributed small doses of health potions he always carried in a satchel on his waist. For Sparrow, the gooey red liquid healed open wounds without leaving scars, but for the men on the field without his Heroic heritage, a drop could mean a second chance at life.
When all the men around him had been treated, Sparrow returned his attention to the battlefield. Men screamed in anguish all around the Hero, and hardened his heart into merciless vengeance. However, the opposing camps were separated by one of the steep chasms that gave Rookridge its apropos name, as only birds willingly lived on the rugged mountainsides between Bowerstone and the rest of Albion. Short of wings unfolding from his back, Sparrow had no way to traverse the chasm.
'I can't get to them, but they can get to me and my men. Avo's beard, how is that a reasonable outcome?' He casually glanced around his battered, smoke-filled encampment and spotted the solution almost immediately.
Behind the lines of mostly smoldering tents and cavalry preparing for a vulnerable ride into the bandits' camp, catapults and trebuchets launched flaming debris into the brigands' territory. Through his telescope, Sparrow saw that the debris inflicted less than a tenth of the damage of the bandits' mortars. 'They spare none of my men; I'll spare none of them.' He raced to the catapults and authoritatively called, "Corporal Swift!"
Corporal Jack Swift, still a teenager but with the impeccably dressed presence of a man twice his age, saluted the king. With his coiffed raven hair, smoky blue eyes, and distinguished bearing, Sparrow imagined that the mature young man had a wife waiting for him at home. "Yes sir?"
"I want you to catapult me into the bandit's encampment."
Corporal Swift stared at the Hero of Bowerstone with his mouth agape. Like many others, he had come of age with tales about the fantastic exploits of Heroes who roamed Albion half a millennium earlier. Sparrow was a living legend, and it was reverence rather than gold or glory that secured the teenager's allegiance. "Sir, you can't be serious!"
Sparrow seized the soldier by his uniform lapels. "There are friends of mine and yours who are dying on this battlefield. We are scarcely hitting these criminals with everything we have. I am no coward, Corporal Swift, and I will lead the charge body and soul."
He released the teen's uniform, and he stumbled to the ground. Still agape with shock, Corporal Swift said, "Climb into the basket, Hero. And may Avo be with you."
"I know what I'm doing." Sparrow dashed up the sturdy wooden trebuchet beam and settled himself in the low-hanging woven pouch. A smear of pitch surrounded him. "What have you had in here?" he yelled to Corporal Swift.
"A few diseased animal carcasses and some loads of hot tar! We thought they'd enjoy a proper bonfire!" Both men chuckled. "Are you ready, Hero?"
Sparrow clasped his hands together and mumbled the incantation for the Force Push spell. 'I'm not as skilled at this as Garth, but hopefully I retained some knowledge from those months of lessons. And I won't die in attempting this. That would be good too.' Sparrow built up the spell until it continued to grow without reciting any words. "I'm ready!"
The Hero heard the grind of a lever. When the massive pile of stones at the opposite end of the trebuchet glided to the ground, the arm flung Sparrow into the air. Wind whistled by his speeding body, slapping his face into a grimace. He tucked his arms, legs, and feet as closely together as he could while he continued to murmur the incantation strengthening the Force Push Spell. The gathering Will threatened split him apart. Sparrow had to ignore that feeling and the sight of other flying projectiles to control the lethal spell.
He landed, crouched with outstretched arms to dissipate the power of the spell. The ground beneath his boots quaked from the magnified Force Push spell. Everything standing or resting within a forty-yard radius was upset: Waiting carts shattered; food and munitions crates smashed into flattened tents; and weapons broke into shards.
Bandits took the brunt of the damage. The fortunate ones slammed into the ground or each other and were rendered unconscious or mildly injured. Unfortunate men tumbled into the mountain looming over the encampment or the nearby stockpile of volatile mortar shells, dying instantly.
As Sparrow rose to full height, bandits approached the Hero in a heavily armed circle. Sparrow cut his eyes around him. 'Bloody hell, I left my weapons back in the camp! I should have thought this through. That spell nearly drained me.'
However, the bandits were timid to approach Sparrow even with the advantage of their weapons. 'Ah yes, even with my feats, magic still isn't commonly practiced in Albion. I've got the upper hand, so to speak.' Sparrow mumbled the Shock incantation, and sparks began to leap from his fingertips. A few bandits took a step back. 'Well, I'll just let my Will build until one of these morons decides to attack,' the Hero laughed.
After a few moments of stalemate, a youthful blond bandit boldly stepped forward, raised, and fired the blunderbuss in his right hand. Sparrow cartwheeled from the bullet's path, crouched, and launched a bolt of lightning at the young man's stomach. As electricity fried every cell in his young body, the bandits around him stepped back from Sparrow's fury.
"Look, he's killing Johnny!" one brigand exclaimed.
"Poor Johnny, he was so young and pretty!" lamented another.
The Hero smirked and called forth his Inferno spell. Waves of flame spilled from both of his hands, frying anyone in their path. As he swept his outstretched hands around the circle, the odious smell of roasting human flesh and the screams of flaming men filled the night air.
"He's killing our friends!"
"Stop killing our friends, you murderer!"
Cutlasses rattled in leather scabbards, and the noisy night air swelled with the cacophony of upset bandit roars and bullets fired. Sparrow rolled across the ground and seized a glowing blue ax that a soldier (now a human torch) had dropped, and the rifle from another's smoldering remains.
As Sparrow rolled into a crouching position to aim, two bullets grazed his right shoulder. He grunted in pain, fought the burning sensation, and hoisted his rifle high. Four bandits succumbed to bullet wounds in their throats, heads, and chests. "He shot them, right through, the bugger!" exclaimed one bandit.
"Instant death!" added another.
"You won't get away with that, you mangy swine!" Two bandits, one with an unsheathed sword and the other wielding a mace, stalked toward the Hero of Bowerstone.
Sparrow tossed aside his rifle and cocked back the axe, as if to throw it. The mace-wielding brigand stopped in his tracks, but the sword-wielder rushed forward with an almighty yell. Sparrow swiveled to the left, avoiding the unskilled sweep of the sword, and brought his axe-carrying right hand against the outlaw's shoulder. The criminal gaped as his arm separated from his torso in a torrent of blood, and still had that shock on his face when Sparrow decapitated him with one stroke of the axe.
The other brigand advanced warily. Sparrow blocked the swing of the club with his left arm, kicked the bandit in his pudgy stomach, twisted the club from his hand, and used the bandit's own arm to somersault into the air and sever his spine from the base of his skull with ruthless accuracy. While the criminal collapsed in a paralyzed heap, the Hero loomed triumphantly over him with the bloody axe raised high. "Who's next?" he bellowed.
Without a moment's hesitation, the remaining outlaws turned coat and ran. Sparrow shook his head. 'I'm outnumbered one hundred to one by that army of thieves, and they run off when I slaughter a few of their friends? Hopefully, my men will meet them at the gate, because I have bigger fish to catch.'
Sparrow placed one boot-clad foot on the bandit's broad back and leaned close to the thief's right ear. "Where is Blackbrow?"
"I-I don't know! And I wouldn't tell if I did know!" the brigand exclaimed.
The Hero dragged the ax along the bandit's back until he bled copiously. "That was the wrong answer. I doubt you can feel it, but I just cut your back open, very near your kidneys. Since I also doubt you know what that is, let me tell you it's a valuable part of your body." The outlaw whimpered.
"If I cut your kidneys, you will bleed to death very slowly. Is that what you prefer?"
"Y-You wouldn't do that! Y-You're one of the g-good guys!"
Sparrow leaned into the bandit's ear. "I may be good, but I'm not exactly pure."
"Blackbrow's…" The ground beneath them quaked violently. A heartbeat later, it shook again and again, as if a powerful pair of feet trod upon it. The bandit yelped triumphantly.
"Ha! He's here! Black Brow is here! And he's going to beat your puny arse into a grave in Bowerstone Cemetery, mark my words!"
Sparrow took the bandit's steel flintlock pistol as the rumbling ground heralded the rapid approach of the gargantuan brigand leader. He checked and spotted a mere three bullets in the chamber. 'Come out, come out, wherever you are.'
With a footstep that flattened every remaining tent, a mountain-sized man burst through the incinerated remains of the encampment. His skin and eyes were so incredibly dark, the flames seemed to flicker from within his glistening skin. The man grinned broadly to reveal gleaming ivory teeth, each the size of a large rock. Everything about him was gargantuan, from the muscles rippling on his shirtless torso and arms to the bone-like jewelry adorning his arms, neck, and waist. His lower body was clad in yellow linen pants large enough to house a family, a bone-belt, and yellow shoes covering feet as long as Sparrow's entire arm. Atop his massive bald head, he wore a black tricorn hat.
"Hero," Blackbrow, the Samarkander Bandit King greeted in a deep rumbling tone.
Blackbrow was a legendary figure who was believed to be descended from the renowned Hero Thunder. Legend held that as an infant, he was enslaved by a wealthy merchant in Rookridge, and the boy-slave grew to the height of a full-grown man before his twelfth birthday. According to the legend, Blackbrow executed his master after he was severely beaten at thirteen and recruited his fellow slaves as followers. Before he was fourteen, Blackbrow had embarked on a conquest of the roads of Albion and was famed among highwaymen and cutpurses alike. At only 21 years old, the gargantuan bandit was hailed as the king of bandits.
Sparrow replied to the Samarkander's greeting with a curt nod. Blackbrow seemed to peer straight through the Hero's skin into his very soul. "Why have you come here, Hero?"
"Blackbrow, your reign of terror over Albion must be ended! I have come to put a stop to your madness!"
The giant laughed heartily at Sparrow's pronouncement. "I am not mad, Hero. In fact, it is the wisest course of action for one such as I am."
He unsheathed a pair of lethal double swords, which were stolen directly from Twinblade's Tomb according to rumors. Sparrow feebly raised his axe too. If Blackbrow even batted at the axe with one of his gigantic paws, the Hero of Bowerstone's axe would shatter into splinters. 'By Avo's toe jam, I should have brought my weapons with me. They're made of sturdier stuff than this bandit gear.'
To Sparrow's surprise, Blackbrow struck his swords into the dirt and rested his folded arms on their crossed hilts. The giant bandit looked like a neighbor stopping for a chat with his large face resting atop his arms. "Why would I do anything but openly exercise control over Albion's lucrative trade networks?"
"I cannot allow you or anyone else to control Albion by force and intimidation," Sparrow warned threateningly.
"You cannot allow?" The behemoth nearly doubled over laughing. "Hero, if you are chosen to rule this land, how will you exercise your power?"
"I would reign by the popular choice of the people."
"You would reign by force and intimidation."
"That would be the rule of a tryant!"
"That is the way any monarch stretches his dominion. To replace anarchy, there must be monarchy. Monarchy institutes its own set of authoritative commands and spheres of influential control. Anyone who acts outside those regulations or who refuses to behold the sphere, in which the monarch deems, is in violation of what that monarch has decreed to be law. To enforce the law, the rule of one necessitates a proliferation of armed men with the dictate to implement appropriate aggression commiserate with the violator's actions."
Sparrow gaped at Blackbrow's analysis. "I will not rule my kingdom that way. And I will not have some low-level bandit instruct me on the conduct of government!"
With a fierce growl, Sparrow lunged at Blackbrow. He held his axe aloft over his shoulder and aimed for the Samarkander's rippled abs. The gargantuan calmly folded his hands behind his back and stood upright. He remained in that position even as Sparrow leaped into the air and propelled the axe into Blackbrow's gut. Gravity aided the Hero's lethal move as his weight pulled the blade along the length of the Samarkander's gut.
The Bandit king collapsed to his side while the Hero of Bowerstone hovered over him. "I…suppose this makes you…the new king…of Albion?" the goliath Samarkander grunted.
"You killed dozens of my men and tried to kill me. I take no joy in your death." Sparrow tossed the axe into the packed earth. "I just rid Albion of one more bandit."
"Heh," Blackbrow wheezed, "you killed…hundreds of my soldiers…Hero. We both know…I could have easily…disposed…of you." He coughed a wad of blood onto the ground.
"Why didn't you?"
"A kingdom…born in blood…will only thrive…in blood…and it will end…in more blood…your Majesty."
Blackbrow painfully raised himself to his knees. Somewhere in the distance behind him, Sparrow heard the charge of enraged and armed men. "Your men…approach. It's time…to give them…your crowning…victory, Hero." Blackbrow yanked one sword from the ground and thrust it into Sparrow's hands. The Hero nearly toppled from its weight. "Prove…you're as valiant…as they believe."
As the sounds of clanking armor and winded men approached within a stone's throw, Sparrow shoved Blackbrow's sword through the Bandit King's chest. No expression of shock crossed the behemoth's face, nor did he cry in pain. Blackbrow histrionically slumped backward in his death and sprawled on the ground.
Walter reached Sparrow first. "We couldn't get all the bandits before they left the camp. But the buggers won't go far. They'll be on the roads in no time." He glanced at the corpse of Blackbrow.
Jasper joined them and stood opposite Walter, on Sparrow's left. "Well, you rid the world of that bandit scum. Well done, your Highness!"
He abased himself in a reverential bow. Without a word, Walter and the rest of the army gathered behind Sparrow lowered to one knee as well with their faces to the ground. "Long live the King!" cried Walter.
"Long live the King!"
"Hail Albion's new King!"
"Long live the King of Albion!"