A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales (39 page)

“That name is broken. That name is lost.”

And Nàlwyr said only ‘Thou diest for the High King Gilvaleus,
boy, so close thy eyes that thou might not fear the end.’ But to him the Boy
spoke, and said ‘I do not fear thee or any High King who would murder babes in
the night, for I know honor, and with honor I will stand against thee.’ And
with speed and mercy did Nàlwyr slay the Boy, but even as the children of Stondreva
wailed their fear, Nàlwyr saw the blood of the Boy on his blade and hand, and
then did he flee in grief and pain, and did not return.

The White Pilgrim stalks away, limping again. He is shivering, he
realizes, wet air touching him now with chill fingers. “By the grace of the
gods who made us,” he says, “we pay for our sins in death, but death will not
have me. Spared from the end at Marthai, because the peace of death would have
allowed me to forget what I had done. What I had become. And so I pay with my
life. Walking the land I betrayed in the name of my own weakness, and watching
its fall into ruin and war. That is the penance I do for the past, until the
gods are done with me.”

Then in passing days did a message come to Gilvaleus by
courier of horse, which was in Nàlwyr’s hand and said only ‘The blood of
children is on thy hands and mine, my Lord, and so I walk the paths of penance
to which my King hath sent me.’

He feels the Golden Girl’s hand at his shoulder. She is tall, he
realizes suddenly. Possessing the wide innocence of her father’s eyes, the
steadiness of her father’s hand as she grasps his, holds it tight.

And Gilvaleus was pleased, and in his pleasure, the sight of
the Whitethorn did not sense the boy Astyra and all the rest scattered to their
folk as the refuge at Stondreva was emptied, and the spells of warding that
Astyra’s mother had placed upon him sealed him away from the sight of the Sword
of Kings.

“Only the good has been remembered,” she whispers, weeping. “The
people need their king, who vanquished the usurper and restored to Gracia its
honor and peace. The darkness will be forgotten. Your legend has undone all
sins.”

And even as he reveled in the peace he had long sought, word
came from servants and from the sight of the Whitethorn in response that
Aelathar had fled. And the voice of the Whitethorn told him that Nàlwyr was
broken, and that Aelathar was scoured by her guilt, and all would know of their
betrayal, and Gilvaleus turned his sight from them and was content.

“I have heard the legends…”

From outside, through the wickered darkness where it meets the
shadowed sky, the shriek of hassas splits the night.

He remembers suddenly. Shadow unravels like fading storm clouds,
scattered by cold wind. He sees movement against a distant stone fence, a dark
figure walking. A white horse turns to gold, turns to a great bird soaring.
That very morning, they watch him. They follow him. He is a fool.

Shouts rise outside the shrine and within, a challenge raised,
but the words are too faint to hear. The Golden Girl draws her father’s blade,
a blur of silver shadow. The other hand is behind her, slinging free the
scabbard belt that holds the wrapped bundle at her shoulder.

She holds it out to the White Pilgrim.

He hears the voice of the Blade call him with its ancient hunger.

His hands stay at his side. He fights to slow his breathing, lets
the voice wash over and through him, and he is stronger than it.

“You must go,” is all he says.

“I will not leave you. My father searched for you, to return the
sword of kings to you. You must…”

“Go!” he shouts, and his voice is the voice of the king he spends
long years forgetting. The memories slip down into shadow, wrapped tight and
slowly smothered, and he is gone from the pool court before the Golden Girl can
speak again.

Bursting through the doors of dark oak, he runs for the main
entry of the shrine by instinct, slowed by the pain at his chest. He sees the
Golden Girl from the corner of his eye slip in from the courtyard, ducking down
behind the great brazier to wait. He sees the priest and two acolytes at the
door, frantic as they struggle to fit the battered wooden beam that will bar
it.

He tries to warn them, but the White Pilgrim’s shout dies on his
lips as the door disappears in a blast of force and a scouring shroud of flame.

The dying scream of the priest is cut short by the mercy of death
as the acolytes flee. Out through the canvas doors, shouting prayers to Crecinu
for salvation. The White Pilgrim stumbles forward, feels the heat of spell-fire
even as it fades and an unfurling darkness follows it.

A hulking form of armor and shadow steps in from the night as
Arsanc and his steed are the first through the doors. The hassa’s wings furl to
raise a cloud of dust and ash as the charred body of the priest is broken
beneath the great beast’s hooves. The Black Duke leaps down from the saddle,
stepping forward as his mount rears behind him.

The Golden Girl is there suddenly, cloak off and rapier drawn.
The White Pilgrim pushes forward, keeps himself between her and Arsanc’s force
where they push in on foot. More appear to both sides, coming in from the
dormitories, from the kitchens. No blood on their blades tells the White
Pilgrim that the acolytes are safely fled, and he holds the sudden hope that he
understands and can shape the single purpose that brings Arsanc here. A quest
of the Black Duke’s that the White Pilgrim can end.

He feels the Golden Girl go to his back, pushing close within a
rough wall of blades and black armor. It is the sergeant, Gareyth, who steps in
to grab the White Pilgrim by the arm, drag him from the side of Arsanc’s prize.

The instinct of old battles threads through the White Pilgrim suddenly.
He drives arm and shoulder with a strength that belies his age, so that the
young sergeant is caught off guard. Too sure of himself as always, the same
bravado that sees him bested on the dark road. A fist finds the open space of
armor at his waist, and the White Pilgrim sees the telltale lurch of pain that
grants him the instant to swing one foot up, strike at the sword arm.

He has Gareyth’s blade in hand before the sergeant can even
react. Another kick sends the young warrior sprawling even as Arsanc shouts an
order. The White Pilgrim cannot hear it over his own battle cry as he strikes.

Back to back, they fight. The Golden Girl stands single-handedly
against four of Arsanc’s company as the White Pilgrim disarms two warriors who
step in where Gareyth stumbles back. They let the fight come to them, keep a
screen of bodies around them for cover against spellcraft as they move. No word
between them, but their tactics are matched perfectly. Two down, then three
where the White Pilgrim drops a warrior with a fast strike to the leg. Low and
dirty, slashing muscle and tendon at the armor’s weak spot behind the knee.

Fighting in such close quarters, two of Arsanc’s company stumble.
One falls back, exposed for just a moment, a killing stroke left open. But the
White Pilgrim lets it go, watches the warrior slip back into a defensive
posture. Enough blood already on his hands.

The Golden Girl fights to make up for him. Two more down on her
side who will never rise again, her blade flashing lightning-fast. Then comes a
sudden break in the circling press of weapons and bodies, and the White Pilgrim
shouts for her to run.

She stands fast as he knows she will, because he knows the mind
of her father. And so she leaves herself exposed where a bolt of spell-force
from outside the circle catches her cleanly.

The White Pilgrim feels her scream. He hears the bones of her sword
arm shatter beneath the force of the blow. He sees the silver-haired mage, the
standard-bearer from the ruined village. He remembers, images like a flood in
his mind as he pushes past Justain, swings down on the mage, and is suddenly
lifted off his feet.

Arsanc’s spell is a song of pain and sorrow that courses over him
like an acrid rain. His body is thrown against the wall, slamming to the ground
as the Black Duke laughs.

The White Pilgrim feels ribs broken as he rights himself. He
fights through pain and the blood-red shadow of his sight with a fury that
sends the closest warriors scrambling back. The blade he stole from Gareyth is
gone, so he snatches up Justain’s rapier where it falls. He strikes hard to
take the silver-haired mage through the flank, away from the fast blood but
dropping her. Two lurching steps take him back in front of the Golden Girl
where she writhes in pain.

“Kneel!” the Black Duke shouts, and the White Pilgrim feels the
power of spellcraft anchored within the word as it drives him to the ground.

His will is split and splintered. Silence in the shrine except
for the bark of steel on stone where Arsanc’s hassa paws its spiked hooves. The
Black Duke pulls off gloves and armguards, passes them to the closest of his
warriors. A grim smile.

But beneath it, the White Pilgrim sees the sadness of mourning in
the black eyes. He feels a pain there that he cannot understand. Something is
changed.

“I owe you my thanks,” the Black Duke says, as a nod to the limping
Gareyth sees the Golden Girl picked up from the floor with a stifled scream. As
the sergeant and two others carry her to the altar stone, the White Pilgrim can
only watch.

Arsanc motions another of his warriors in, who kneels at the
White Pilgrim’s side with a whispered incantation, and the burning pain is
calmed suddenly by the cool shudder of the healer’s touch.

He feels his breathing slow, a preternatural calm twisting
through him. With it comes the shadow, twisting to cloud his sight. Memories
like splintering glass, reflecting smaller and smaller fragments of the light.

“My duke…” The White Pilgrim’s throat is tight, words choked by
the fear he feels. “My duke, the girl has no hand in your quarrel with her father.
Please…”

The Black Duke laughs. “The girl will pay for the sins of the
father,” he says. “You as a pilgrim should appreciate that. Your kind believe
in the payment of life-debt in the old gods’ names. You believe that the Empire
fell for its transgressions. Men seeking the power of the gods and paying the
price. Is that not what the stories say?”

“Nàlwyr’s crime was not his making. He followed the orders of his
high king’s own madness. You seek to break the scabbard that held the
executioner’s blade, but the blade itself is laid now before you.”

“This is blood feud, old man, and no matter of yours. I told you
that should we meet again, I might need a reason to let you live. You’ve given
me that reason and more. Be on your way.”

Two of Arsanc’s warriors lift the White Pilgrim to his feet. A
pouch is thrust to his hand, heavy with coin. The open space of the destroyed
doors stands behind him. He feels the cool of the night, feels the shadow
drawing him on. Telling him to turn from this, to close his eyes to the Golden
Girl, writhing where she is pinned to the altar now. Surrounded, hands and feet
seized tight, mouth covered by gloved hands.

Her blue eyes find his, the fear in them revealing the child she
is. Thirteen summers behind her.

The White Pilgrim shouts as he hurls the pouch to land at
Arsanc’s feet. “For the girl’s life, I beg your mercy, my duke!”

He tries to find the voice that he knows is his. The voice that
once commanded the armies that turned back a tide of blood from the north and
restored the legacy of his father and grandfather in a land of peace. But the
Black Duke turns on the White Pilgrim with a sudden fury.

“I will show her the mercy Nàlwyr showed when his blade took my
brother through the throat!”

The echo of that voice silences even the great black steed in its
restlessness. A trace of shock shows in the Black Duke’s own expression. This
is an anger he does not mean to show.

But in that anger, in the pain that threads the voice, the White
Pilgrim understands. He knows the horror that lingers behind the dark eyes, the
lined face as it steps close.

“Folk forget the legends.” Arsanc’s voice is the ice of the northlands
that are his home. “Not many know ever knew the truth behind them. Would you
know that truth, pilgrim?”

“My duke… you do not understand…”

“I will tell you of Nàlwyr. Lover of queen and whore,” the Black
Duke whispers. “Right hand and sword of the high king Gilvaleus, and I carry
the memory of my brother’s throat slit by that sword. Havar was his name. A fox
cub killed by a hound knight, torn to pieces by that butcher’s blade.”

The bitterness, the emptiness that rings out in the Black Duke’s
voice is a thing that the White Pilgrim recognizes. A madness built on loss and
on empty years.

“My brother had twelve summers on him.” The distant gaze of
memory fills the black eyes. “And he stood alone with a stolen blade in hand
and a dozen terrified children behind him and no one else to stand with him
against the butcher.”

“You are Arsanc of Thorfin, Innveig, and Reimari,” the White Pilgrim
whispers. “You do not kill children.” He clutches at the words from distant
memory, a faint shard of hope held there.

“For long years, no explanation, no knowledge of who attacked
that night, then fled. A lifetime of waiting while he hid behind his fear.
Nàlwyr the brave. Nàlwyr, killer of children. My brother stood against Nàlwyr
and he died to save the others…”

The White Pilgrim turns from the Black Duke. Cannot meet he dark
shadow of those eyes, blurred with tears to match his own.

“For my brother’s life, the life of Nàlwyr’s daughter. A fair exchange.
Would that the butcher had only lived to see it.”

“My duke, her death cannot bring back life lost…”

And the Black Duke laughs loudly, voice wrapped tight by a lifetime’s
pain. “Her death is not your concern, old man. I have waited half my life for
revenge. I will take the rest of my life to carry it out if I can.”