Of course, when I’d kicked Rodrick’s ass and taken back Brakith from him, I had also captured this asshole Edwin, and I’d forced him, along with some other prominent evildoing co-conspirators of my uncle, to confess their crimes in front of the entire town. This had effectively cleared my name and exposed my uncle for the evil, murderous snake he really was.
Edwin, to be fair, had known little about the true extent of my uncle’s crimes and certainly hadn’t known about the murders of the girls. Still, he had been party to the besmirching of my reputation. I might have been merciful, but I wasn’t about to let some jerk-off who had knowingly dragged my name through the mud get off the hook.
Thus, Edwin had been put in the stocks by the city gates every day, from sunrise to sunset, for passersby to insult and shower with rotten food and dung—did I mention the dung before? In Brakith, under my rule, you stir shit up, you get it flung in your face, literally.
“Lord Vance,” Edwin begged, sobbing as the guards manhandled him and shoved him roughly into the wooden clamps, “please, please release me! I’m begging you! I’ve learned my lesson, my lord. I’ve seen the error of my ways! Oh, by the light, please my lord, don’t make me go through another day in these awful stocks! Execute me if you must. Hang me from the battlements or lop my beautiful head off, but please, I can’t take another day of this! Why, just yesterday, a beggar, my lord, he, he crammed his feces into my, my—”
“A literal shit sandwich is exactly what you deserve for what you did, Edwin,” I said. “And just thinking about what you did makes me wanna leave you in those fucking stocks for another few years, just to make sure you really have learned some sort of lesson, as your glib, lying tongue is pretending to right now.”
“No, no, please, Lord Vance, no!” he wailed, crying like a little girl as the guards locked him in the stocks.
I was about to turn and head off when an idea popped into my head. Seeing as I was leaving the next day and heading off into dangerous territory, I got a notion in my mind that having someone who could pass as my twin—or, quite literally, me—might actually be kind of useful in certain situations.
“Actually,” I said, folding my arms across my chest as I fixed the actor with an icy gaze, my jaw set tight, “it’s been three months to the day since you first got your useless ass thrown into these stocks, Edwin. Maybe, just maybe you’ve been punished enough.”
Edwin’s eyes lit up with fresh, desperate hope.
“Lord Vance, please, by the light please, please let me go!” he wailed, wriggling and writhing futilely against the stocks.
“How do I know I can trust you, Edwin?”
“I’ll, I’ll swear on anything you want me to, Lord Vance,” he gasped. “Anything! I’ll sign anything you put in front of me, I’ll swear a blood oath, I’ll do anything, anything!”
“I’ll think about it.” I smiled coldly. “You’ll know my answer at the end of the day.”
“End of the… end of the day?! No, my lord, no, not another day, no, no, nooo!”
His voice trailed off, lost in the hubbub of the growing crowd as I strode briskly away. The fool couldn’t see the grin on my face, and he didn’t need to. One last day in the stocks would hopefully make him grateful enough to serve me with unquestionable loyalty after I freed him at sunset.
I headed over to the armorer’s workshop. The old man was there, adding the final touches to a beautiful full-face helm, a work of art if I’d ever seen one. It was shaped and styled like a skull, and the hardened steel was coated with glossy, rich black chrome.
“A fine helm, good sir,” I remarked as I walked in.
“Some o’ my best work, m’lord,” he croaked proudly. “Fit for a king… or a god, eh?”
I chuckled, folded my arms across my chest, and nodded. “Fit for a god indeed. If ever there was a helm worthy of the God of Death, it’d be this one. How’s the rest of the suit coming along?”
“All done, m’lord! I was just about to send a messenger to the Keep to let you know. It’s in the back room there, if you want to have a gander, m’lord. I just need to finish one or two things on the helm, but then it’ll be done too, and you can take it with you right now.”
I rubbed my hands together with eager anticipation. Last time I’d had a new set of plate armor, I’d been a teenage boy, and I had to admit, this tingly excitement made me feel a little like a kid again. I walked through to the back room and saw the rest of the suit of armor mounted on a dummy.
“Damn,” I murmured, staring in awe.
It was exquisite. The blackest armor I’d ever seen, it gleamed and shone as if it was made of liquid. Symbols of death had been worked into every part of the armor, and the attention to detail was incredible. The shoulder pauldrons were shaped like two troll skulls, with sharpened teeth, while the armor that wrapped around and protected my elbows had been shaped like rotting zombie heads. The gauntlets were like two anatomically accurate skeletal hands, with the fingers looking like hollow bones. On the breastplate, an incredibly detailed battle scene had been embossed. This alone was a work of art worthy of a central place in a gallery or museum. The massive image of war featured my undead
