Free Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun by James A. West Page B

wanted to know. “Why do you do this?” The Hunter turned a questioning gaze on him. Leitos thought about it, then asked bluntly, “Why do you serve the
Alon’mahk’lar
. Surely their rewards alone do not make you want to betray your own kind.”
    “My kind?”
the Hunter snapped with a bitterness that went far deeper than anger. “By that I suppose you mean humankind, like those who placed me into the hands of the
Alon’mahk’lar
… much like those who did the same to you?”
    “I was not
placed
into their hands,” Leitos insisted, then repeated what his grandfather had always told him. “
Alon’mahk’lar
raided our village and took us captive.”
    “You are a blind fool. I grant that some few of your people still hide and fight from their icy strongholds, but has it never entered your mind to wonder how those places are found in the first place? Do you think
Alon’mahk’lar
wander about, covering league after endless league in search of future slaves?”
    Leitos blinked. He had never considered that Izutarians might be swayed as easily as other peoples. Broached now, that idea troubled him.
    “The last of your people, and you as well,” the Hunter went on, “fail to understand that the age of men died a generation gone, a doom heralded by the destruction of the Three and the burning heavens. Men do not rule anything anymore, boy, save the lost kingdoms of dwindling memory that the Faceless One allows them to rule. There is no war to fight, no matter that they raise banners and steel against him. The world of men is a corpse consumed by rot.”
    Indifferent to the flames licking his fingers, the Hunter tore a chunk of meat off one hare and popped it into his mouth. He chewed for a moment, then sprinkled more spices on the hares. Again, he remained silent long enough that Leitos began to think he would say no more, but then he did.
    “Some few are
taken
,” he relented, “but most men are sold into chains by their fellow men. And here is a secret, boy: most often the price needed for men to sell men is nothing of true worth, rather a pat on the head. For a bit of meaningless praise, and maybe a stale loaf for the reluctant, a loving mother will convince herself that her children would be better off in the hands of slavemasters. If not that, then she will tell herself that
she
would be better off—”
    “You are a liar,” Leitos blurted.
    “Of course I am,” the Hunter growled with a humorless smirk, “as I have learned to be. Lies and smiles, boy—that is how you survive under the rule of the Faceless One. We lie to our masters, bow and scrape, but mostly we deceive ourselves about the reasons and meaning of it all. As to what I said before about men, that was the plain truth.”
    “You are wrong,” Leitos said, outwardly unmoved, but beginning to wonder.
    “Am I? Then tell me, boy, how is it that you are bound and I am not? We are both of us humankind, as you say, yet I am a Hunter, ordained to that station by the very same creatures who enslaved you and your kin. The
Alon’mahk’lar
use me, and those like me, to seek and capture those like you.”
    “You are a
betrayer
.”
    “That I am,” the Hunter agreed once more, unapologetic in tone and countenance. Neither was there shame in his admission, but something very much like pride. “Unlike most, boy, I take satisfaction that I only became a betrayer
after
I was betrayed.”
    “Is that another of your lies … what you tell yourself to excuse your treachery?”
    The Hunter’s dark stare glazed over, as if he were no longer looking at Leitos, but something beyond. “That, boy, is one of the few absolute truths I cling to,” he muttered. “Like you, I was a slave. For five years the pain and disgrace heaped upon me was far worse than anything you have ever imagined or felt. I was betrayed not by the
Alon’mahk’lar
or the Faceless One, but by men … rather, by a woman. From that experience, I learned to accept the truths you