Free He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) by Rob Buckman Page B

for interesting reading.”
     
    “Sir?”  Mike asked, keeping his face expressionless.
     
    “Oh, I don’t mean Kellman.”  The King smiled at him. “But I can understand why you felt it was necessary to hide the fact that you are from Avalon when you entered the Marines.”  Internal, Mike cringed.
     
    “I…”  He closed his mouth on another lie, and nodded instead.  From his expression, the King wasn’t upset about the lie.
     
    “Your secret is safe, a sort of state secret you might say.
     
    “Thank you, sir, I think.”  The King smiled.
     
    “I was somewhat intrigued that they still permit dueling on Avalon.  Isn’t that a bit barbaric?”
     
    “Yes, sir, and no, they do permit it under strict rules and supervision.  It’s also one way of settling a lot of personal disputes that otherwise would go unresolved, and possibly lead to intolerable situations.”  He smiled slightly.  “It also gets rid of a lot of lawyers.”
     
    “I see.  Good point.”  That brought a smile to the King’s face.  “And that includes the duels you participated in?”  Mike colored slightly, wondering just how much the King knew about the details.  It also spoke of a good spy system on Avalon, which there shouldn’t be, or…  The second thought was more disturbing than the first.
     
    “Did you tell Seaford that you had three duels yourself?”  The King asked, carefully buttering a piece of toast before adding Marmalade.
     
    “No, sir, I thought it better to leave that unsaid.”  It was clear the King knew a lot more about the goings on, on Avalon than he should.  Mike felt a little uneasy, wondering what the King thought about his duels, and what else he might know.  Again, Mike had that feeling there was more going on behind the scenes than he suspected.
     
    “Yes, he might not have been so eager to cross swords with you if he had.”  The King left it unsaid that Mike killed two men in the last duels.
     
    Nor the fact that his last dual was the main reason he was here on Earth.  Most duels ended in first blood, but on the last occasion Mike had killed two people.  Not because he wanted to, but because he lost his temper, and paid the price.  It wasn’t something he was proud of, just the opposite in fact.  His last deployment with the Marines was another stinking mess, and again he’d only just managed to get his men and himself out of it alive by the skin of his teeth.  That action never made the headlines, just a ‘police’ action of some half-forgotten world no one cared or thought about.  Why they’d ever sent them there in the first place was unknown, only that they had.  Three months of insect infested jungle, rain, humility jungle rot and the constant harassment by the locals let him in no mood to be fucked around with by anyone.  He’d lost too many good men for no damn good reason and blamed himself, again.  They should never have put him in command in the first place, but they had.  His enlistment was up, and after signing a mountain of papers, he left in the middle of the night without saying anything to anyone.  His mood was so dark he failed to pay attention to orders, and failed to report to the med center to have his implants deactivated, plus a few other things like receiving his combat medals and VC.
     
    He took the first flight out on a broken down tramp freighter and sent a miserable three months getting back to Avalon.  Even after betting home, he couldn’t shake himself out of his depression.  He remembered the afternoon it happened as if it were yesterday, the bright blue skies with fluffy white clouds sailing majestically across as he walked home from the Dojo.  Central Park should have lightened his mood, children running and playing, girls in their summer dresses, the smell of fresh cut grass, but all he could remember was the look on the faces of his men as they died.  Why the Joslin brothers decided that day to pick on him, he never