A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales (2 page)

Those who claim it lay claim to the power of kings.

Then the mage saw the warrior fall.

With a groaning crunch, the lattice of the ceiling gave way
beneath Morghan’s weight, the first arrows from below nocked and fired wild
past him before he even hit the ground. Without a thought, Scúrhand launched
himself into the air, cloak clutched tight and spread behind him as he soared
silently to the apex of the arched ceiling. There was room in plenty to fly, the
library huge, four passageways wending out of it where the great stairs ended
their twisting path down.

The figures below didn’t notice him, understandably distracted as
Morghan landed with sword in hand and proceeded to carve his way through them.
Scúrhand saw three down already, the rest pressing, but the warrior moved with
a speed and grace that belied his size.

Then all at once, a pulse of white light wrapped Morghan like a
shroud. The warrior’s battle-scarred voice was choked off with a sudden finality.
Rigid, he stood locked in a stillness that captured all the fury of his
suddenly silenced attack. His eyes were dark between the line of his steel helm
and the carefully trimmed beard. His blade was gripped tight, well-muscled arms
locked in the midst of a backhand blow, held unwavering where he was frozen
fast.

Scúrhand alighted on a section of shelf he hoped was sturdy
enough to hold him. He saw the red-haired woman step up, hands still twisted in
the complex gesture of the incantation that had taken Morghan out, another
spell already on her lips that Scúrhand didn’t want to wait to see the effect
of.

“Stand down or die consumed by arcane fire!” he called with what
he hoped was suitable bravado. He saw reflexive movement below, bows drawn and
arrows nocked with a common bead on his heart, but he was already airborne
again. He extended one fist, the plain copper ring there spouting flame to wrap
his hand. He saw uncertainty in the eyes of those closest to him, fire flowing
up his arm to the shoulder now. Where it billowed around him, the black cape
gave him the imposing tone he hoped for, enough to hopefully hide the fact that
the ring presented less threat to the foes scattering below him than if he’d
simply fallen on them.

It was a relic claimed when he and Morghan first met, happenstance
travelers who found themselves fighting at each other’s backs when a cache of
unguarded gold they had pursued independently on the frontier turned out to be
less unguarded than was publicized. The ring’s power was defensive, its dweomer
swallowing the heat of mundane flame and eldritch fire alike, but its
presentation proved almost as effective at keeping him out of the thick of
combat as any blade might prove within it. Since that day he and Morghan met,
the thick of combat was a place Scúrhand preferred to leave for the warrior
whenever humanly possible.

On the floor below, the red-haired woman took a step toward him,
and in her bright gaze, Scúrhand saw suddenly the youth she was trying hard to
hide.

“If you wish to parley, say your piece,” she said in the Imperial
tongue. A tone of authority in the words but no strength in her voice to back
it up, barely an apprentice’s age by her look. Her accent marked her as Norgyr
even if her ruddy features suggested Vanyr or the Kelist Isles. The guards with
her all bore the pale hair and blue eyes of the north where they watched him
coldly.

Scúrhand responded in the Norgyr tongue as a hopeful token of
concord. “My partner and I mean no trouble nor harm. On the contrary, depending
on your business here, we may find ourselves in a position of mutual benefit.”

“Your partner has a unique way of introducing himself.”

Scúrhand caught the dark looks of the three wounded men behind
the girl, but the fact that they were merely limping was more than fortune.
More times than the mage could count, Morghan had demonstrated a ruthless taste
for the blood of those who deserved to shed it. However, Scúrhand had just as
often witnessed the warrior’s almost preternatural ability to leave less
threatening foes standing, if a little shakily.

“My partner was set upon by your overzealous associates before
being given any chance to explain his untimely entrance. Having watched him
make it, I assure you that gravity was at sole fault. No one here intends murder.
Least of all you.”

The comment wasn’t subtle, but the sudden darkness of the face
beneath the rough-cut red hair told Scúrhand it worked. Not much of a gamble,
given that of all the magic she could have cast, this one had chosen to simply
freeze Morghan in his tracks rather than attempt to kill him outright. But
before she could respond, from behind them both, a third voice barked out
suddenly.

“Presume to know another man’s intent often enough, and it’ll
eventually be the last mistake you make.”

The tone was imperious, edged with a dark smile that Scúrhand
could feel even before he saw it. He caught no sign of surprise from the
soldiers, but the girl flinched. Scúrhand glanced back, careful not to move too
suddenly.

A figure in silver mail strode up through the shadows at the back
of the library, a squad of six archers arrayed to either side, shortbows drawn
on the mage where he hovered. Scúrhand fought the urge to lift for the ceiling
once more, dropping with a flourish instead, the cloak swirling in a calculated
display. He managed not to stumble as he touched down.

“I am Naethdraca, called by some the Stormhand.” It was the
common translation of Scúrhand’s patronymic that he never used himself, but
which he had long practiced speaking with just a hint of menace. “That is
Morghan. Our business here is research, nothing more.”

He felt his dark features appraised as he let his long hair hang
to cover them. The girl and the newcomer ignored the theatrics, but a look of
sudden unease among the troops behind them told Scúrhand they had done the
trick. He saw more than one figure glance to the dragon stitched in gold at the
edge of his jacket collar, the mark of his given name. Naethdraca, the War
Dragon who had been a grandfather he never met. They were old names, both
promising power that the mage had yet to fully live up to.

“Ectauth,” the mailed figure offered by way of a name, blue eyes
ice-bright beneath a shock of pale hair. “My overly talkative servant is
Thiri.” Scúrhand nodded to the girl, her green eyes the color of wet leaves in
the glow of the evenlamps. “Our business here is none of yours.”

“Nor would I seek to know it,” Scúrhand said evenly. “But if it
please you, accept my services. I could not help but overhear that you search
for some key within the lore here. Lore in which I am well versed. If my skills
and knowledge can in some way smooth over the potential for conflict, they are
yours.”

Ectauth made to speak, but the girl Thiri cut him off. “Take the
mage up on his offer, my lord. The sage’s death has cost us time.” She
appraised him carefully, Scúrhand patient, ignoring the silver warrior’s dark
look. There was an odd dynamic here, one he wasn’t quite certain of. The girl’s
skill with the spellcraft that held Morghan fast was good enough, but her
demeanor marked her as a scholar, not a warrior.

Ectauth was another matter, though. The careful set of the armor,
no weapon at his waist. Mail sleeves cut back of the wrist so that the movement
of his hands would be unobstructed. He was a combat mage. A battle-caster of
the Norgyr, his magical craft was focused and honed as a weapon. Whatever
information might be hidden here, whatever this group had come in search of, it
would be beyond Ectauth, leader though he was. He was thus obliged to depend on
the girl’s scholarly arts, Scúrhand decided. An obligation bound to rankle a
combat mage.

“I expect you intended only to threaten the sage,” Scúrhand said
carefully. Another speculation, but a correct one from the reaction in the pale
blue eyes. “Let us take the arrival of my companion and I as fortune, then. Or
at the very least, let us get on with our research and leave you to yours.”

Where he stood, Morghan watched and heard it all, motionless
within the grip of Thiri’s spell. His intact senses focused past the paralysis
that the warrior suspected felt far too much like death would someday, and
which was fading with each slow step Ectauth took around him. For all
Scúrhand’s postured tact, Morghan knew that the mage’s words were also designed
to fill up as much time as possible, allowing him to fight the effect of the
spell that bound him.

From the start, the warrior had still been able to feel the sword
against his fingers, the faint warmth of life pushing through his arms even as
he forced himself to keep the blade steady in its interrupted stroke. As Ectauth
considered Scúrhand’s words, Morghan could feel sensation return to his legs as
well, fought to stay steady. Thiri was watching him, though, where she paced
around him. Cautious of any first sign that her binding was close to the
breaking point.

The shield was slung to Morghan’s arm, and he could see the faintest
sign of the green eyes straying down to the mark there as the Myrnan smith’s
had. A thing that only one who knew of it would notice, the dark rune all but
invisible.

Those who know it will kill for this mark.

Morghan couldn’t shift his eyes without giving away that the
spell’s effect had passed, but at the edge of his vision, he saw the look of
shock on the girl’s face.

Ectauth saw that look, too. He saw the black rune that inspired
it. With a shout, he twisted his fingers in a silent summoning of spellpower,
a blade of white light suddenly erupting in his hand to stab for Morghan’s
heart. The warrior was already moving, though, finishing the stroke he had held
motionless, driving the battle-caster’s eldritch blade wide and catching him
hard on the backswing as he wheeled away.

Morghan managed to fall back toward tall shelves at the closest
corridor, protecting him from the first volley of arrows. Scúrhand took to the
air to twist away from the knot of blades that erupted around him. As he sailed
toward Morghan, he heard Ectauth’s voice.

“Kill them both!”

“Call it,” Scúrhand shouted.

Morghan appraised the mass of figures circling, another volley of
arrows hissing past as he pressed back.

“Run,” he said.

They ran. Out and down the narrow course of a winding stair, then
into the shadow of uncounted corridors beyond. By an instinct Scúrhand couldn’t
name but was grateful for, Morghan lost their pursuit faster than he had any
right to hope for. From shadow to darkness to shadow again, they ran blind
through a maze of stairs and corridors where Ectauth’s forces were already
exploring ahead of them.

More than once, they tripped across patrols with no warning, the
soldiers of the black boar left incapacitated by Scúrhand’s spellcraft. The
guards came by pairs, mostly. A squad of six once, but where the mage came up
short against them, Morghan’s sword was a blur of red and grey that made up the
difference. No quarter given, the warrior slipping into the well-honed
reactions of a lifetime at the blade.

Scúrhand was slower than the warrior, but Morghan kept himself
and his armor between the mage and pursuit. He lost track of the turns they had
taken, empty and crumbling chambers flashing past to both sides, when he had to
signal Morghan to stop. In a five-way staggered intersection, he fought to slow
his breathing. Morghan stepped far enough away to listen for any sign of
pursuit, but there was only silence above and behind them.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” the mage whispered. Morghan
shook his head. “Just checking.”

“Traffic through here, though,” the warrior said. He bent low to
the floor, traced the dust with one hand, Scúrhand trying in vain to read the
faint tracks there. All around them, pale light glowed from the frames of
arched doorways, intact here. Marking off the deadly traps of Razeen’s
workrooms and archives, which Scúrhand would have struck any bargain to peer
into under other circumstances.

“Where do you think…” the mage began, but then Morghan was on
him, one hand pushing him to the wall while the longsword came up in the other.
Scúrhand registered the footsteps racing toward them only an instant before he
saw motion in the dark intersection, five figures on top of them. Morghan’s
blade slashed out even as Scúrhand stumbled back.

He felt the moment stretch, blind in the near-darkness that
crippled his ability to target his magic with any accuracy. However, he knew better
than to raise a light. Morghan was at his best in the shadows, able to pick out
his targets with an uncanny ease. Scúrhand heard strangled cries, caught the
movement of blood-dark steel in the half-light as five bodies fell.

“Light,” the warrior hissed. Scúrhand set his dagger’s lightning
to life as he pressed back, the storm glow illuminating the landing and the
stairs around them. Four Norgyr guards were beyond any aid he could give them,
Morghan taking no chances in close quarters. The fifth figure was still moving,
however, trying to crawl back into the retreating shadows. Morghan was there
first, lifting the body as if it weighed nothing, slamming it back to the wall
with a force that stunned it, head lolling forward as the figure went limp in
his grasp.

“Blood and moons…”

It was the girl. Thiri. Scúrhand saw the gash where Morghan’s
blade had cut her leg almost to the bone. He noted the pool of blood spreading,
the pallor of her face where the red hair framed it. Then he glanced to
Morghan, following his gaze to the girl’s shoulder. He realized that it wasn’t
the recognition of the young mage that had inspired the warrior’s look of
absolute shock.

Even before they stumbled out through Eltolitinus’s ruined gates
and gave thanks to sky above and ground below for their lives, Scúrhand had
recognized a darkness lurking in Morghan that hadn’t been there when they
parted a year before on the Norgyr frontier. He had gone east then, Morghan
catching up to him as promised by the time winter turned. But in that lost
year, something had happened to the warrior.