Free Demontech: Onslaught by David Sherman Page B

anything. So, what was to be done with this child? The queen certainly could not have a son who was not acknowledged as the king’s.
    Overruling his councilors, Honritu reasoned that this fourth son was a “half bastard” and therefore out of the line of succession. The councilors begged to know what a half bastard was, as they’d never heard of any such thing. The king explained that since the fourth son was conceived and born out of wedlock, he was a bastard. However, since the king was his father and was married to the boy’s mother, he was only half a bastard, with no more right of succession than a complete bastard. The councilors grumbled that one was either a complete bastard or not a bastard at all, and at any rate, that reasoning begged the question. The king, as kings are wont to do, prevailed.
    But no one had given a thought to what it would be like to be the fourth son of the King of Matilda. No one gave a care to how it would feel to grow up being universally known as a half bastard. Anyone should have known that a boy raised as a prince but with nothing to succeed to would risk growing bent. But no one paid it mind. Needless to say, nearly all were surprised when the half bastard fourth son became the Dark Prince, so called for his black moods and his red temper.
    The half bastard found the “Dark Prince” an acceptable name, even a grand one. But what he was called by his childhood playmates, his siblings, the nobles, and—worst of all—by his own father, was Lackland. “Lackland” was not an acceptable name to the Dark Prince.
    Lackland rankled. Lackland seethed. Lackland envied. Lackland hated. Lackland desired vengeance.
    The Dark Prince swore that the mocking use of the scurrilous name would not go unpunished.
    There was no royal crown for the Dark Prince to inherit. No Earl of Easterwood for him to become. No armies for the Dark Prince to command. The Dark Prince must remain Lackland for so long as he lived. Or at least for so long as he lived in Matilda.
    The Dark Prince planned, but not in hopeless scheming. He knew of the raids the Jokapcul were conducting against the mainland. He understood why those raids were little enough successful that they were considered no more than nuisances, and minor nuisances at that, even with the demons the Jokapcul commanded.
    He took to studying seacraft and sea craft, magicians and the control of demons. He did not undertake the study of seacraft and sea craft in order to become a shipwright or a sailor, nor did he study magicians and demons for the purpose of practicing the arcane art himself. He studied the former in order to acquire knowledge tradable to those who had only fishing craft. He studied the latter in order to learn how to gain control over the practitioners of magic.
    A day came when a Jokapcul knight was captured during another nuisance raid and was held captive in the king’s keep. The Dark Prince quietly visited the captive on a number of occasions, conversing with him in order to ascertain that his understanding of why the Jokapcul raids were merely nuisances was correct and that his understanding of how to make them more serious was equally accurate. Then, one night, he slew the soldier standing guard outside the captive’s cell and freed him. Together, they slipped out of the palace, out of the city, all the way to the harbor. There they boarded a small ship that carried them across the sea to the Jokapcul Islands, where the knight got word to the High Shoton of Jokapcul that a parley was requested. This High Shoton was the first shoton in all of Jokapcul history to rule all of the clans and all of the islands of the nation. He agreed to the meeting, at which he listened intently to all the Dark Prince had to say. Then he smiled slyly and agreed to the Dark Prince’s plan.
    The High Shoton called the Dark Prince “Lackland.” So did his councilors, his kamazai, and his generals.
    The Dark Prince smiled tightly, but objected not a