A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales (45 page)

The assault gives him an opening as the Blade cuts for the
throat. But the Black Duke only disappears, flashing back a half-dozen steps to
let Whitethorn cleave empty air.

“I sent him into Stondreva,” Arsanc shouts, “so that he might become
more than what I was. The potential in him to lead, and to follow his conscience
like he did the night he stood against Nàlwyr and laid down his life to protect
children who were nothing to you!”

The White Pilgrim feels a sudden chill root deep in his heart. He
feels the pain at his leg flare, only for the instant that the hunger of the
Blade abates. Long enough for him to feel the shadow twist inside him.

Arsanc sees it. A realization shines bright in the black eyes. “What
do you remember, old man?”

Whitethorn makes a brutal slashing attack against the leg, the
broadsword down to deflect it. The backswing comes in high, straight for the
chest, but the dirk sends it wide. The flare of white light again as the
dweomer of the Black Duke’s armor turns the glancing edge of the blow.

Another flurry of strikes is exchanged, Arsanc shifting backward
to cross-parry. And then he slips in the loose rubble of the floor. Only a
moment to regain his footing, but it is enough.

Waiting for this moment, the White Pilgrim lets himself succumb
to the fury of the Blade. He feels the shadow take him, lets it call his body
to service as he lunges, strikes hard. He ignores the wards of the black armor,
finds the softer flesh of the Black Duke’s dirk hand. He drives through and
back so fast that the Blade shows blood only as it pulls away.

The dagger spins away as the White Pilgrim blocks a desperate
swing from the broadsword. In a flare of light, the Black Duke is gone, drawing
on the power of the sword once more to cast himself back across the chamber, to
the far side of the shattered table.

The White Pilgrim is ready for him. Already moving with the warning
of the sight that is the Blade’s, he leaps across the table to slash down as he
drops, cutting deep against the Black Duke’s sword arm. The spell of shielding
flares again, but the Blade tastes blood, cutting through spell and armor,
flesh and bone.

The broadsword falls from the Black Duke’s hand. He tries to grab
for it but Whitethorn bites a third time, taking him through the shoulder as he
staggers back.

An absolute silence hangs in the domed hall of Mitrost, chamber
of marble throne and white table and the fate of a nation. Arsanc twists his
fingers as he snarls, the distant broadsword torn from the ground with the
power of spellcraft, but the White Pilgrim catches it with his bare foot, slams
it down hard.

The Black Duke stands weaponless. No fear in his eyes. Quick
movement comes from behind the White Pilgrim as Arsanc’s own men break for him.
A half-dozen are seized and held by the captains and bodyguards of the other
dukes, as many breaking free to rush the frozen figures at the center of the
hall.

A flick of Whitethorn brings the tip of the Blade to the Black
Duke’s throat. Holds it there.

Arsanc makes no move to wave his warriors back, so the White
Pilgrim does it for him. The Blade trembles in his hand, tastes a trickle of
blood along its razor edge. Six swords are drawn against the White Pilgrim. The
Blade senses the threat of spellpower from two of those closest to him, two
more in the crowd that he can see.

But farther back, around the great chamber and from the corner of
his eye, the White Pilgrim sees the dukes of Gracia kneeling.

One by one, they slip to the ground. Captains and war-mages follow
their lead, all staring at a sight that cannot be. A sight denied by all the history,
all the legends they have ever learned.

The White Pilgrim shakes his head. Does not want to see. “One man
must die tonight,” he shouts to himself, to no one. “Along with any others who
stand in the way of that deed.”

Down the gleaming length of the sword of kings, he meets Arsanc’s
black gaze. “Do you remember me now?”

The Black Duke spits his answer, catching the White Pilgrim on
the cheek. He wipes it away absently with his free hand. He shakes his head to
clear the shadow, tightening like a noose around him now.

“My brother did not yield when your noble Nàlwyr cut him down,”
Arsanc says, pitching his voice for all to hear. “Do you expect different from
me?” A moment’s defiance before the end.

And the White Pilgrim steps back. Lowers Whitethorn to his side.

“No. The mercy denied your brother by the high king’s order is
yours.”

The Black Duke’s warriors are too startled to react, holding
where they stand. Arsanc’s eyes are black pits, seething with a lifetime’s
rage. But the White Pilgrim sees uncertainty showing in that gaze for the first
time.

He feels that same rage coursing through the Blade where it and
his hand are locked tight together. Something is changing. Something is
changed, and the Blade knows it.

Its shrieking fury pounds through him, the memory of all the
nights of darkness spent alone. The taste of the long campaign in which he
raises the banner of his father and uncle before him, hunts the usurper’s
forces across burning fields and through gates of magic to north and south, to
the coast, to the forest wall. The scent of death that threads the mist of
Marthai as falling bodies churn the mud of the field to bloody foam.

Of all the things lost to him, this is the last to return. The
memory of the voice that whispers to him when he first takes the sword of kings
from his dead father’s hand. Telling him of the things he will do, the power he
will wield. The land he will unite under his banner.

Then comes the memory of that voice as it whispers of other
things. Betrayal of the heart. The thirst for vengeance that drives him against
Thoradun, that spikes the hunger for retribution against Cymaris. The shadow
that turns his heart to ice for the sake of a lost son and the prophecy he is
become.

The White Pilgrim takes a step back. He does not think on what
must be done, because he knows that to think on it would betray the action to
the Blade where its sight twists through his mind. He thinks instead of a
woman’s laughter, ringing like a clear bell, faint shimmering of silver on the
air.

His thoughts are clear. Truly clear for the first time in all the
long years of exile that scar body and heart and mind.

It takes all the effort of his will and the strength of both
hands to let Whitethorn drop to the ground before him.

The White Pilgrim feels a peace that he never knows. He lets it
settle in on him, slowly. A chill threads through him that is the cool touch of
old stone, the heat of blood suddenly stilled where the Blade hits the floor
with an echoing clash.

“Too much of the blood of fathers and sons, daughters and brothers
has already been spilled in the name of this same madness,” the White Pilgrim
says. “My blood must end it. My life is yours.”

He drops to his knees.

In another place, in another battle, another lifetime, he falls
into the embrace of death because death is promised to him. He falls at the
hands of his son, the legends say. He feels Astyra’s spear like a dream of
endless falling, endless agony as it shatters ribs and spine, pierces his
still-beating heart.

In that moment of dying, as in this moment of dying, he realizes
how long he waits for that death. Biding time for the chance to make atonement
for the darkness he carries. A death at the hands of the son destined to slay
him will somehow wash away the blood on his own hands. Astyra, Cymaris.
Aelathar, Nàlwyr. Havar, who is a scholar and poet. So many more who die so
that the marble throne might be his.

“Forgive me,” he says to himself, to no one.

A step away from him, Arsanc flicks his fingers. The sword of
kings is pulled from the floor on threads of unseen force, snatched up to his
hand. The White Pilgrim sees the Black Duke measure the weight of the Blade,
feels the shudder as its power threads through him.

Arsanc turns so that the light of the domed hall shimmers on the
cross-guard and fuller in steeled gold. Ancient glyphs of prophecy and power
are scribed there in white, pulsing with a faint glow. An edge and ridge of
dwyrsilver steel shed the shadows as the light of the Blade draws forth the
dark murmur that is risen from the kneeling dukes, their war-mages and sword
captains.

“You know this blade!” Arsanc calls. The White Pilgrim feels the
Black Duke seize the power of this moment never looked for, never dreamed of. A
final and unexpected piece of the fate that will be made here this night. “The
sword of kings decides the destiny of Gracia! Returned from the dead to exact
the justice denied by the betrayal of a king!”

No one moves. The song of blood and hunger that is the voice of
the Blade rises to a new crescendo. The White Pilgrim hears an answer to that
song as Arsanc laughs.

He is ready. He walks beneath the dark weight of his sin for a
lifetime.

The Black Duke wheels to face him, swings back the sword of kings
in an executioner’s arc. In that last moment, the White Pilgrim sees himself
reflected in Arsanc’s black gaze.

Looking down on himself, there in his own eyes, the White Pilgrim
sees nothing but acceptance.

Then a silent blur of naked steel erupts in a fountain of blood from
the Black Duke’s throat.

A scream from somewhere. Arsanc staggers, Whitethorn still held
high as he clutches at the rapier punched through his neck like a lance.
Choking, spinning, he lurches away from the fallen canvas across the chamber,
the wall of shattered glass from which the weapon is thrown.

The Black Duke’s closest warriors are in motion, but none are as
the fast as the Golden Girl. She sprints in from the black shadow of the
garden, slips past the clutching hands of two, four, a half-dozen frantic figures.
She vaults to Arsanc’s back as he stumbles away in fear.

The White Pilgrim cannot move, cannot stand. Forced to watch as
the Golden Girl grabs her father’s blade, tears it from Arsanc’s neck with a
scream of rage and the grinding of bone. Twisting off, she parries two strikes
from guards behind her, spins to run the staggered Arsanc through the hand.

She watches the fight, the White Pilgrim realizes. She sees all
the Black Duke’s strengths of magic, the protective power of his armor. All the
weakness of his rage carefully assessed while she waits.

In a heartbeat, the domed hall is a battlefield. Arsanc’s forces
try to press the Golden Girl but are drawn back by attacks from the followers
of the other dukes. An uproar of voices echoes from the buttressed walls,
prayers and threats screamed over the clash of steel, the pulse of spell-fire
erupting within the chaos.

The White Pilgrim cannot move, cannot stand. All his strength is
gone, drained from him as the darkness of his blood is cleared. The memory of
the sword’s voice in his mind, its shadow in his heart, fading now.

Unhindered, the Golden Girl presses hard, but Arsanc brings
Whitethorn up to parry despite the grievous nature of his wounds. And even as
he falls back, the fountain of blood at his throat slows. The White Pilgrim
feels the power of the Blade, pulsing in time with the frenzied beating of the
Black Duke’s heart.

The Golden Girl spins. Two fast feints, Arsanc slow as he
follows, left out of position. The Blade cuts back where he tries to find an
opening.

She thrusts with all the strength of her body. She drives her
rapier through the unprotected wrist of the Black Duke’s sword arm, drives it
further to strike the black armor. The force of that armor’s shielding magic
flares within her blade, flowing into Arsanc’s arm through a conduit of blood
and steel. Then back into the armor in a blinding pulse of arcane feedback that
lets the rapier punch through plate steel, chain and leather beneath, muscle
and bone.

Arsanc makes no sound despite the pain as his arm is pinned to
his chest. The Golden Girl drives one fist to his eyes, uses the other hand to
grasp Whitethorn by the cross-guard and tear it from his blood-drenched hands.

Arsanc screams then. The sound of a soul sundered. A lifetime of
vengeance sought and promised and taken away.

The Golden Girl is Justain. The White Pilgrim remembers. Daughter
of Nàlwyr, the best blade of the kingdom.

She has her father’s eyes, open wide in blind rage as she twists
around Arsanc to punch the sword of kings through his back, shredding cloak and
armor, flesh and bone.

The Black Duke staggers, clutching for the Blade with his one
good hand as it is torn from him again, ribs splintering, Justain spinning. Using
the momentum of her movement to hack Arsanc’s head from his body in a fountain
of blood that catches her as she screams.

The White Pilgrim screams with her.

The sword of kings slips from her hand. The Blade drops to the
floor as the body of the Black Duke falls.

Something is changed.

The White Pilgrim kneels with the Golden Girl in his arms, feels
her body wracked with sobs as she clings to him.

“There is no absolution,” the White Pilgrim says to no one.
“There is no ending for Gilvaleus…”

The throne room of Mitrost is in chaos, the forces of the Black
Duke fighting to get to his body. Steel and spell-fire ring out loud as the
forces of the other dukes of Gracia splinter off to factions, screaming
betrayal, calling for justice.

“You lie to yourself. You said it before. Deeds and words are one
and the same. You have earned your absolution a thousand times over.”

The Golden Girl’s voice at his ear. He hears the fear in it that
reveals the child she is, thirteen summers behind her. He holds her but he does
not know why. He tries to remember.

“The gods have denied me death,” he says, “and I will never know
their reasons…”

“Then make your own reason for living. Make that reason count.”