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areiacannaid · 1 year

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Declination

What if Halt joined Morgarath instead of the Rangers? A small AU based off of this prompt/story idea from @nilswolf8.

Link to read on AO3

“I could use a man like you in my ranks.” Morgarath said, finally getting to the point behind the clandestine nighttime meeting he had summoned Halt to.

“I can’t say I care much for the idea of being used.” Halt replied, truth cutting through the sarcastic way he had phrased it.

“Merely an expression,” Morgarath assured with a wave of his hand. “Regardless, I would value someone with talents like yours. And there’s much that I could offer you in return for your services.”

And, now that the offer was out in the open, Halt allowed himself to consider it.

When he had first come to Araluen, he’d had a vague idea of joining the Rangers. That was how he had been trained, and their high, influential, position in Araluen was no secret. He’d been interested in seeing what he could gain by working his way up to the top of such an organization. Although he had always preferred to work in the shadows, power promised a sense of control and protection in a way nothing else could manage. Halt had spotted his opportunity when he met, and saved, Crowely in that tavern. But the Rangers were not the seat of power they had once been and the tides of war were shifting.

Which left his choice between Crowley and Morgarath. He knew enough to guess that Crowley might be the safer person—but, in the end, it really wasn’t about people.

Halt had learned long ago there was no such thing as love or loyalty. People only ever used others for as long as they had something to gain, and then simply discarded them when that use had run its course. All that really mattered was how much one could extract from those connections before they invariably died.

The choice really came down to what could be attained in the end, and what path offered the greatest chance for survival.

Halt had no real sense of connection to the Rangers. That had ended the day his old life had, deep within the cool blackness of the river that had nearly claimed his life.

A sharp memory of pain caused him to reach a hand towards his chest. The passage of time had done nothing to temper his memory of that day, and he doubted it ever would. He’d been reborn from the water that had been intended as his grave. He’d clawed his way to the bank, gasping for breath, water stained red and pink with the blood his injuries dripping around him. His mouth had been seared with the ash of desperate but unheeded words—the last time he had ever called for mercy or help.

His fingers brushed against the twisted scar tissue beneath his clothes, but felt no sensation save for the numbness of severed nerve endings. It was a blank nothingness that matched the cavernous feeling that had settled deep inside his chest since that day. He didn’t know if he even remembered anymore what it truly felt like to feel.

Everyone he'd ever thought he’d loved had either tried to kill him, or had left him to die. So, connections and sentiment meant nothing to him.

In the end it really was an easy choice. Morgarath simply had more to offer than the Ranger’s ever could. He had the greater odds for victory and therefore promised a greater chance of survival and a greater chance of potential gain. It was the smarter, more logical option. And he’d be lying if he said he was unsympathetic to anyone daring to rebel against a vitiated King and bring an end to the corrupt nobility he so despised.

“Well, what do you say?” Morgarath’s sibilant voice broke the grip of his revelry.

“I’d say we should talk terms,” Halt said.

Morgarath smiled, eyes bright with a calculating light. “Let's hear them then.”

He listened as Halt stated his counter offers, reasonable terms for spoils and a higher more autonomous position on Morgarath’s ranks.

“Prove your worth to me and you will have all that you asked for,” Morgarath said, holding out his hand to signal his agreement.

Halt took the offered hand.

~x~X~x~

Halt stood in the wreckage of a burning village, the place where the last vestiges of the King’s army had fled after their crushing defeat at Hackham Heath. The King and several of his knights had escaped—but they had been the only ones to do so.

Halt’s strategy, combined with Morgarath’s Wargal army, had decimated the King’s forces. They had chased the last of them here to this village; a place they had tried, and failed, to find refuge and defensive footing.

The broken remnants of the King’s army had not been enough to defend this small village from the massive force of Wargals Morgarath had sent. That was clear enough from the carnage around him. The bodies of Wargals, soldiers, and villagers lay intermingled where they had fallen: the unavoidable price of war.

Halt inhaled the sharp smoke from the fires burning around him, his bow at full draw and leveled at the last standing soldier—if a child could really be called an enemy soldier.

The boy, no more than twelve years old at the most if Halt had to guess, stood defiantly, sword held defensively in front of him, eyes shining with wild determination. Before his feet sprawled the unmoving bodies of Wargals and even a few men that he had slain. Behind him, clinging desperately to his legs was a younger boy, probably no older than five if he had to guess, and very likely the last survivor of the villagers that had once called this place home. His large brown eyes were blown wide in pain and primal terror.

“Why haven’t you released your arrow?” Morgarath’s sneer came from behind him. “He is the enemy. One less of them breathing is all the better for us. Or is his age too much for your scruples, Halt?”

“It isn’t that,” Halt said blandly. “It’s that killing him would be a waste. I saw him before when I reconnoitered the King’s army camp. He’s the son of Sir David; the newly appointed Battlemaster to the King. I figured he'd be worth more to you alive as leverage.”

“Indeed?” A vicious gleam came to life in Morgarath’s eyes even as his lips curled in a cruel smile. “Then size him and kill the village boy.”

Halt saw the older boy’s eyes widen at that callous order, flashing for the first time with fear and, just as quickly, calculation hastily covered.

He brandished his sword as the soldier’s closed in.

“If I’m worth something to you alive then so is he,” he addressed Morgarath, indicating the younger boy with a tilt of his head. “He’s my brother. If it’s ransom you want, my father would pay for us both.”

“Your brother?” Morgarath challenged scathingly.

“Illegitimate, but yes. My father fell in love with his mother when he was last stationed near this village,” he explained hastily.

As Halt watched the boy, he found himself feeling an unexpected measure of interest towards him. He was skilled in combat, seemed more intelligent than the average knight, and was quick on his feet.

He was also a liar.

The young village boy was not any blood relation of his despite his story, Halt was certain. His tells were minor ones, but they were there. He was merely trying to protect the younger boy from death, though Halt couldn’t piece together a motive as to why—he couldn’t fathom what the boy possibly stood to gain from it.

Every word had been a falsehood. But the greed in Morgarath’s expression showed plainly that he hadn’t caught it. He seemed far more interested in the added leverage of a potential scandal. Halt, for his part, said nothing. It wasn't his responsibility to keep Morgarath from being manipulated by a child. That was something the Warlord should be able to do for himself.

“Take them both,” Morgarath ordered.

Halt shrugged. It didn’t matter much to him either way.

~x~X~x~

“Perhaps you could tell me why it is that your father doesn’t value your life enough to agree to my demands?” Morgarath’s raging carried almost as loudly through the dungeon passages as the anguished sounds of screaming did.

It had been over a month since the capture of the two boys, since the Battle of Hackham Heath where King Duncan had escaped with his a few of his knights and commanders. The King had holed up in a fortress in the far north, with eighteen fiefs still under his command. Morgarath’s ploy to use Sir David’s son, or rather ‘sons’, as leverage had not met with the success he wanted.

Having received a less than favorable response to his ransom and blackmail demands, Morgarath had flown into a rage and decided to vent it on the object of his anger. Halt’s mouth turned down faintly at the uselessness of it all. Like all emotions, rage was ultimately pointless and would fix things as little as torturing a child for the decision of their parents. Which was to say, not at all.

Morgarath would have been better served to lower the conditions he set for the boys’ safe return. Halt had always known that no knight with the barest trace of loyalty or duty to his King would have agreed to such concessions—even if he did profess to love his son. The life of two boys weighed against the safety of what little remained of Duncan’s kingdom was a clear logical choice.

Halt rounded the corner, stepping past the guards there. They did nothing to stop him as he’d become a more than familiar figure.

“Were you just that much of a disappointment to him or does he just not care?” Morgarath demanded of the Battlemaster’s son.

Halt entered the cell silently, watching as Morgarath lunged at the helpless knight’s son, watched as the youngest boy strained against the chains holding him, tears streaming down his face as he screamed desperately, despite his obvious exhaustion, for Morgarath to stop. For his part, the knight’s son was far past the point of words, past even the point of screaming anymore. He did not answer the furious warlord. The lack of response only seemed to infuriate Morgarath more.

“Maybe my demand wasn’t taken seriously enough. Maybe I’ll start chopping off pieces to send to him. Maybe then he will listen! Maybe then he will start to care!”

As he said it, he drew and raised his sword, edge down for a cutting stroke at the boy beneath him. The boy’s eyes, though barely conscious and filled with pain, still glistened defiantly. Brave and defiant, just as the younger one was.

Halt felt something unidentifiable stirring in his chest at about the same time he felt the idea, which had been stirring in the back of his mind ever since he’d predicted the failure of Morgarath’s ransom scheme, solidify into clear purpose.

“Hold a moment, if you would, Lord Morgarath,” Halt said calmly, but loud enough to be heard as he stepped forwards.

“You had better have a good reason for interrupting me,” Morgarath hissed venomously, stopping his blade mid-swing by only the barest frenzied grip of his self-control.

“I do. Before you damage him irreparably," Halt said, gesturing toward the downed boy with an inclination of his head. “I have a proposition. Why don’t you give both boys to me?”

“For what purpose?” Morgarath asked.

The rasp in his voice and the clenching of his fingers told Halt that he was only seconds away from losing his temper entirely. Halt knew he needed to be concise and quick if he wanted to be successful.

“The way I see it, if their father already refused the deal, it's unlikely there is anything you can do that would cause him to suddenly value his children more than his duty or position. But they can still be useful to us. The King still has many Rangers left at his disposal and they even now give him a greater advantage in this war. I figured that you could use a similar advantage. What if I could train for you, your own force of assassins with the skills of the Rangers? We could rival and surpass Duncan in every aspect. These two,” he indicated the boys, “could be the start to it. I see potential in them already.”

“And if you are wrong about them?” Morgarath asked, though Halt could see that he was already growing interested in the idea, the familiar hungry gleam was back in his gaze.

“Then,” Halt shrugged, “you can finish what you started.”

Morgarath seemed to think a moment before sheathing his sword.

“If you want them, take them,” he said dismissively, words languid. “They are no longer of any use to me.”