11
By this point the sun had set and the only light was the eerie blue glow from my lamp. I'd seen death before, but only in the medicalized setting. I kept experiencing, over and over, the tension in my hands as I held someone down, the warm rush of blood over my hands as I slit their throats, accompanied by that metallic smell of iron; all murders that rightly belonged to Guimel but were now mine. I tried to busy myself with things around the office, but I kept seeing the blood across my hands and the red of Fionna's hair, vivid copper even in death. More and more I wondered if all of the Dragon Slayers had similar stories, if they were all culled specifically for their violence. The lure of this thought was almost obsessive, and I finally locked my office door and sat back in my chair with my feet propped up on the desk, opening myself to their stories.
Migel was one of those young men who was naturally good at everything. He was charming, good looking, smart and lucky. His sisters teased him for the care that he took with his hair each morning, and his friends teased him for being bookish; he bore all this with an easy smile that made girls swoon and always landed him on the right side of trouble. He was a born horseman, and for the past few years had regularly taken the top prize in barrel racing. Mothers and daughters of their small town agreed that he would make a most agreeable match. His family, while not the wealthiest in the valley, had cattle, land and money and because of his inherent good luck Migel never developed an ounce of common sense.
The summer that Migel turned seventeen, his father started bringing him along when he conducted business. Migel would bring them coffee when the meeting began and take a seat beside his father, nodding energetically and laughing at the customer's jokes, all the while thinking that he would rather die that do something so dull for the rest of his life.
Migel did an excellent job concealing his boredom. He did so well, in fact, that he was invited by name to a meeting of the most influential families in the valley. General Carghetti, a close friend of General Helio, had retired from the army a decade prior and bought up most of the land on the north side of the valley. With his connections at the capital and vast wealth, he quickly became a figure of authority. Every month he would host a dinner for the most important men in the valley. The usual topics of discussion were the price of cattle and the timing of the year's harvest. The conversation was technical and dry, and did not hold the seventeen-year old's attention very well at all.
What did hold his attention was Lalia, General Carghetti's several-decades-younger wife. As the most junior person at this dinner, Migel felt that he should try to blend in, be agreeable, and not open his mouth and reveal his ignorance. When he found himself standing next to the young hostess, he tried his best to mind his manners and be forgettable. He thought at first that she was just being polite, making him feel important by sticking around to talk to him. She looked full up into his face with a beaming smile, revealing small, square teeth. She touched his arm and laughed at his jokes. He hadn't intended to drink, but he was nervous in such close proximity to her, uncertain how to behave. The more he drank, the more he treated her like one of the village girls he had kissed behind the school. She seemed to enjoy this, and insisted that he be beside her when they sat down at the table.
During dinner, she kept touching his leg. Migel became nervous. He hadn't intended it to go this far. He didn't want to offend his hostess by turning down her advances at this point. He started wishing for the dinner to end, and nervously downed several more glasses of wine and moved his rabbit around his plate with his fork. Here his memory became fractured; Migel wasn't paying attention to anything being discussed, the only thing that mattered was that small, warm hand on his leg. I think there were details his mind added later, because there was suddenly a loud, very crisp image of Dilandau that did not move.
Dilandau had been invited to Carghetti's estate to get him out of the capital for a few weeks, to wait for tempers to die down and memories to fade. It wasn't clear what had happened, but even Migel, distracted as he was, picked up on the honor Dilandau was accorded by his rank as well as the faint notes of disgrace that lingered in the conversation. Before Lalai had fixed her attentions on him, he had watched Dilandau. The boy was about his age, perhaps even a little younger. Dilandau's appearance was striking, with his pale skin and silver hair standing starkly against his black uniform with red piping. It was different from the one he wore now, this one with trousers with red stripes down the side tucked into leather riding boots. He had a close-fitting jacket, the seams again trimmed in red and he had a red sash tied underneath his sword belt. Dilandau had been spliced awkwardly into Migel's recollection of dinner in a way that was jarring. My stomach contracted; something bad was going to happen and Dilandau had something to do with it.
When the men left dinner to go to the billiards room, Lalai had grabbed onto Migel's hand with a mischievous smile on her face. She took his arm and insisted on showing him the gardens. There was a moment, a second, where Migel thought of pulling his arm away and following his father and the rest of the guests into the manly sanctuary of the billiards room, but his hand was tucked in her arm. Out in the garden, there wasn't much to see in the dark and at this time of year, but it was quickly made clear that admiring the plants had not been the intention of his hostess. She turned and launched herself into his arms and found his mouth. She tugged him down to the ground and pulled at his clothes. Her flesh was warm and her mouth was sweet, it was exciting and he was seventeen.
No one noticed when he returned to the men in the billiards room with the exception of Dilandau, who leaned in the corner, wine in one hand and a thin cigar of the kind they favored in the capital in the other. The corners of his lips lifted just slightly, his eyes taking in Migel's wrinkled shirt and mussed hair. He knew. Migel was confused and disoriented, drunk off hormones and wine.
He tried to make sense of it as he and his father rode home. His father was talking about a controversy involving grazing land boundaries, but Migel just responded with affirmative grunts, his mind clearly elsewhere and his father eventually gave up.
The following morning, he was awoken by strong hands hauling him roughly out of his bed. General Carghetti glowered over him, his face blood red and contorted.
"To take my own wife under my roof!" He punched Migel in the gut. Migel was dragged without ceremony out of his house, past his parents staring with wide eyes, and whipped with a riding crop on his stoop. It was early enough in the morning that no one was there when they started, but by the end most of the village was gathered around him. He fainted and awoke in a jail cell.
The pain was excruciating and Migel couldn't move. He lay on his stomach on the jail floor, his left cheek pressed against the cold, hard soil. Who betrayed them? With his knowing smile, it must have been the outsider, the albino Dilandau. Anger flared briefly and Migel clenched his fists, but the pain of tensing his muscles put an end to that.
He drifted in and out of fragile sleep and painful semi-consciousness. The cell was dark and he lost track of the hours of the day and indeed where each day begun and ended. No one spoke to him and he was fed once daily. He began to try to convince himself that he was guilty to try to justify his imprisonment, but this justification was difficult when the charge was unknown.
His mother came for him. She opened the door with the heavy iron keys. Her hair was unkempt and she looked gaunt and unwell. Migel struggled to sit up.
"Mama!" Migel began to weep uncontrollably.
"You must be quiet." Her voice was even softer than a whisper. Migel nodded and tried to master his tears.
She helped him to his feet and dragged him out the door, where his horse was saddled. There was a sharp odor of freshly hewn wood. A new gallows cut through the soft blue shadows of the square, its hard angles at odds with the friendly facades of buildings that had witnessed Migel's childhood. She pressed a big leather bag full of coins in his hand.
"You must see a doctor about your back once you are gone from here."
"Gone?"
"Yes. You must go far from here, and never come back." Migel bowed his head and the tears came again.
"My poor, brave boy." She took his chin in her hands and lifted it up. She kissed each cheek.
"Now go, there isn't much time."
Every time the horse's hooves hit the ground, Migel sobbed from the excruciating pain jolting through his back. He rode the horse hard, until it began to stumble, and by then Migel figured that he was far enough away from his home that he could walk the horse safely. The day was beautiful, likely one of the last kind days of autumn before winter hit. When he heard the distant sound of a hunting horn and the baying of hounds, he could pretend that he was just out of a ride. A few hours later, he heard them again, only they were closer. He realized suddenly and sickeningly that they were hunting him. He spurred the tired horse into a canter. Migel knew all the game trails and had been sticking with them, now he employed every trick he learned from hunting foxes. He went in circles, he rode up streams.
His horse sensed Dilandau's big red beast and Migel turned to see him just coming around a copse of trees. Migel cursed and urged the horse forward.
"I don't think he has many more quick getaways in him. I'd let him rest," Dilandau shouted, urging his own destrier forward. Unlike Migel, who sat his horse as though he were a centaur, Dilandau was an awkward horseman, constantly bouncing around and looking at any moment like he was about to lose his seat. Migel reined in his horse and shut his eyes, realizing that he had the advantage and that knocking Dilandau from the horse wouldn't be that difficult. He could steal that horse and still live. His blood boiled. When he sensed that Dilandau was next to him, Migel threw a hard punch at his shoulder, thinking to knock him out of the saddle. Dilandau grabbed his wrist easily and nearly threw him from his horse, letting go and allowing Migel to grab the pommel just in time. Dilandau had speed, strength and rest on Migel, who had been underfed for the better part of a week with weeping, scabbing sores on his back.
"You betrayed me. You were the one that turned me in!"
"You really think I care that much about this provincial shit?"
"Well, you caught me. Now you can bring me back so they can whip me again."
"They weren't going to whip you, they were going to hang you."
"What? But I didn't- "
"Yes, you did. I think half of that dinner party saw the General's wife in the garden with her skirts flipped up over her head, and if they didn't see it then they'll lie and say they did. I was impressed with how quickly everyone turned against you," Dilandau laughed coldly, "Your version doesn't matter, it's what her husband says happened and now that their reputation is ruined, I image he will say a number of things."
"Lalai will tell the truth."
"I haven't seen her since you were whipped. I wouldn't be surprised if she were dead."
Migel's hands gripped the reins until his knuckles were white, to stop the shaking in his arms.
"Anyway," Dilandau continued, seemingly oblivious to Migel's shock, "With you, I officially have a combat unit; you only need two. I will show those fuckers in the capital, and we will go to Codibar where the action is."