Bitterwood (46 page)

He opened his eyes. Shandrazel stood before him assisting Androkom, wrapping fresh bandages around the blunt stub of the biologian’s tail.

Blasphet rattled the chains, testing them. They held him securely but the locks wouldn’t hold him for even a second. He reached to his legs, for the lock-picks hidden amidst his scales. He suddenly found out why he was so cold.

“Looking for those?” Shandrazel said, pointing toward the mound of translucent feather-scales. “I remembered your nasty reputation for hiding poisoned needles. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Blasphet felt his face burn at the indignity. Still his curiosity was greater than his embarrassment. “How did you escape?”

“It cost noble Androkom his tail, yet another crime for which you will be brought to justice. He reached the acid pool with his tail tip, soaked it, and then brought it back to eat away the iron chains which held him.”

“It took many soakings,” Androkom said. “Fortunately, after the first few, the nerves burned away. You may be interested to know that the acid cauterized the wounds, just as you predicted. Still, you’re lucky to have been apprehended in Shandrazel’s presence. I would have tossed you into the pool without a second thought.”

“We do have laws in this kingdom,” Shandrazel said, “even if my father seems to forget them.”

“You fool!” Blasphet laughed. “Albekizan is the only law. I’m too valuable to him. As long as he’s king, I will be free!”

“You’re right,” Shandrazel said. “Which is why he cannot remain king.”

JANDRA CRADLED VENDEVOREX’S
head in her arms and closed her eyes, concentrating. The tiny machines that swam in Vendevorex were controlled by his mental commands. If he had lost consciousness before willing the molecular engines to heal him, they wouldn’t do so. Jandra wished she knew the skills needed to mend damaged tissue, to knit together once more the ruptured blood vessels. She couldn’t bear to lose him. All that had happened today, all the death, all the sorrow, had made her understand the lesson of Bitterwood. Holding onto hate, even for the most-deserved cause, would kill your soul. Hate would grow until there was no room for anything else. She couldn’t let that happen. Vendevorex had to live, not to kill Albekizan, not to fight to save mankind, but simply so she could tell him she forgave him.

Unfortunately, Vendevorex was unlikely ever to wake. His breathing grew even more labored, his pulse weaker with each beat. She began to cry as a wave of convulsions wracked his body. If only she could tell the machines what to do, she could…

Of course. Her head wound. Vendevorex had commanded the machines in her blood to heal her head wound. Not even a full day had passed—they might be active still.

“Give me a knife,” she said to Pet.

Pet handed her a blade, shining and sharp. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Quiet. I need to concentrate.”

She cut a gash across her palm, releasing a ribbon of red. She took her mentor’s talon and did the same, then placed palm against talon and squeezed.

“Go,” she whispered. “Heal him.”

A long time passed as the sun grew ever higher in the sky. Pet gave orders to Ragnar and Kamon, telling them to gather together the men remaining in the Free City and prepare them for the coming battle. Jandra couldn’t allow the clamor to distract her. With sweaty concentration, she guided the active machines into Vendevorex’s blood. There weren’t enough of them. She told the machines to multiply themselves and, to her relief, they did.

As they spread, she blocked the outside world, listening only to the reports of the microscopic explorers in Vendevorex’s body, plotting, in her mind’s eye, a map of her mentor’s wounds. After a time, she could see the extent of his internal injuries, as if her eyes could see through skin. She willed the machines to knit his ruptured blood vessels back together, and they obeyed. She found a clot of blood choking Vendevorex’s right lung. As she willed it, the tiny machines began to eat away the blockage. There was too much fluid pooling around his heart. She stimulated his kidneys and opened his bladder to remove the excess fluid. She’d never concentrated on anything more intently. She trembled from the effort, sweat soaking her clothes. His wounds were closing but was she doing it right? Was she doing him more harm in ways she couldn’t guess?

As if in answer, Vendevorex arched his back in pain and coughed blood. A blood vessel leading to his heart had ruptured.

Despite all her sweat and work and will, his heart fell silent. His body went limp. Jandra looked up at Pet who stared at her, his eyes reflecting her anguish.

The porch shook as someone ran onto it. It was one of Ragnar’s men. He carried a metal bowl, dented, covered in mud. Its silver edge glinted in the light. Jandra gasped. It was Vendevorex’s skullcap.

“I found this where he fell,” the man said. “I thought it might be important.”

ALBEKIZAN WAS FINISHED.
The bandage he made from the tapestry torn from the wall had finally stanched the loss of blood from the wound of the second arrow that hit his right thigh. Albekizan pulled himself back to his feet, steadying himself against the wall to compensate for the loss of strength in the leg. The arrow had sunk deep, hitting bone. As he stepped forward the pain was sharp and focused, in contrast to the dull numbness of the wound in his shoulder.

“You look weary, Albekizan,” the ghostly voice said from somewhere in the gloom.

Albekizan looked up the spiral stairwell heading to the tower’s roof, high above. The voice had come from there but he saw no hint of movement in the shadows.

“Two arrows and already you’re dying,” the voice mocked. “It took so many to lay Bodiel low.”

“I’ve strength enough to kill you twice!” Albekizan yelled. As his voice echoed throughout the tower, he listened to the words as though a stranger spoke them. Such bluster. Such boast. Was this all he’d become? Then he swallowed, and said, “Just as you killed my son twice, taking both body and flame.”

“Then we have something in common,” Bitterwood answered.

His voice seemed closer now. Albekizan limped forward. He clenched his teeth to beat back the pain, then climbed the stairs in pursuit of his tormentor.

“My family died twice as well,” Bitterwood said from somewhere just ahead. “We killed them together, you and I, just as together we killed Bodiel.”

Albekizan climbed faster now, driven by the nearness of the voice. He expected to catch sight of his foe any second.

“Hurry!” Bitterwood taunted. “Faster!”

“Cease your prattling!” Albekizan commanded.

“Soon enough,” the voice said, trailing into the distance.

JANDRA PLACED THE
misshapen helmet on Vendevorex’s scalp. She placed her hands upon it, closing her eyes. The helmet was the interface between Ven’s mind and the nano-machines. It was sensitive to his every thought. Could it allow her to reach into the last traces of his mind?

“Wake up, Ven,” she said. “I need you.”

“Jandra,” he answered, his voice as strong as ever. “You’ve come back.”

Jandra opened her eyes, expecting to see her revived mentor. But Vendevorex still lay lifeless and limp in her lap. Had it only been her imagination?

“No,” Vendevorex answered, the voice coming not from his lips but from inside her mind. “Not your imagination. The skullcap is responding to my last flicker of life and relaying my thoughts to you. My soul stirred when I heard your voice. I’m so happy you’ve returned.”

“I had to tell you, Ven,” she said, blinking back tears. “I… I forgive you. You were right. Fifteen years of kindness and devotion do pay the debt of a single horrible decision. I love you, Ven. I had to let you know.”

“Thank you,” he said, his mental voice fading. “There’s something I should say to you.”

“Save your strength,” she said. “Heal yourself.”

“It’s too late. You did good work, but my body was too torn. I may have only seconds remaining. I must say this. You’ve grown to be a good, strong, willful woman, Jandra. I’ve always thought of you as my daughter. Seeing the woman you’ve become fills me with pride.”

“Oh, Ven,” she said, squeezing his talon, searching his face for any flicker of life.

“I will always love you, Jandra,” he said, his voice faint, distant, vanishing, at last, into static.

ALBEKIZAN PRESSED ON,
lifting himself up the stairs one step at a time, knowing that soon the stairs would end and his opponent would have no place to go.

“Do you hear it?” Bitterwood said, so near, so near. “The Angel of Death hovers above. He grows weary of waiting. The children are all dead, and the sins return to the fathers.”

Albekizan found a gray cloth stretched over the open trap door leading to the flat, circular roof of the tower. He pulled it aside and squinted as bright sunlight chased away the shadows.

He pressed the cloak to his nostrils. It bore the same scent as the cloak Gadreel had fished from the watery tunnel.

Albekizan rose through the door, and on the tower wall facing him stood a man, his hair gray, his eyes dark. His cheeks were moist with tears. So great was the grief etched in his features that Albekizan actually found his vision fixed upon the face, rather than on the bow held before it, and the red-feathered arrow aimed at him.

“You’ll only live long enough to kill me,” Bitterwood said, slackening the hand that held the bowstring.

The arrow flew home, catching in Albekizan’s throat.

He tried to scream but managed only a gurgling
hiss
. In silent rage he leapt at his foe who made no move to avoid him. Albekizan closed his outstretched jaws around the human’s belly. Momentum carried them over the wall, and Albekizan stretched his mighty wings to the onrushing wind.

He couldn’t breathe. The man in his jaws grew limp and Albekizan flew on, driven by the emotions piercing him more deeply than arrows. He was dying, and in that was fear. Bitterwood was dying but without a struggle, and in that was frustration. But the frustration gave way to joy as he looked at the earth below. The fall forest had turned bright red, the treetops swaying in the wind like flames dancing, and he was falling, falling, falling toward his eternal pyre, with all the world ablaze.

BITTERWOOD FELT THE
king’s jaws slacken as they spun toward the distant ground. What Albekizan’s teeth hadn’t ripped from his body, the ground would. Bitterwood could see the broad, deep river beneath them now, and found a song Hezekiah had taught him passing through his mind.

Shall we gather at the river?

With a splash the water took them, and Bitterwood fell through darkness.

Still alive.

Could nothing kill him? Could nothing end this?

“
You can end this,
” she said.

Bitterwood looked toward the voice and saw a distant light, and in the light she stood, her body aglow, her hair floating around her in a breeze Bitterwood couldn’t feel.

“Recanna,” he whispered.

“
You can end this
,” she said once more and turned toward the light.

Bitterwood tried to chase her but his feet had nothing to push against.

“Recanna!” he cried.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her face bore a cryptic smile. “
You cannot follow me, not yet. But we may still be together
,” she said, as the light around her faded. “
You can end this
.”

“Recanna!”

She was gone. All was dark. Bitterwood opened his eyes. Sunlight flickered on the water’s surface far above him, bubbles rising from where he had shouted her name. His shirt was snagged in Albekizan’s jaws as the dragon sank to the bottom.

With a single movement of his hand, he could rip the shirt free and fight back to the air above where each breath promised further pain. Or he could sink lower and stop his struggles, and be free of pain forever.

The light grew ever dimmer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: JUSTICE

“FATHER!” SHANDRAZEL’S VOICE
echoed throughout the throne room. Shandrazel felt his heart sink when he saw the dead torches throughout the hall. He didn’t truly believe these torches carried the spirits of his ancestors, but it still filled him with sorrow to see them extinguished. Who would have done such a thing?

“Father!” Shandrazel shouted once more. He approached the throne. His nostrils twitched at the scent of blood. He knelt before the throne, spotting a dark, sticky splatter. The blood was now hours old. Perhaps it came from one of the guards? By this time they had discovered a score of corpses.

“No one’s here,” Androkom said, looking around the chamber, sounding a little spooked.

Then, to contradict the biologian’s observation, a familiar voice said, “I’m here. Your father won’t be answering, Shandrazel.”

“Show yourself,” Shandrazel said, looking around the hall.

“I didn’t mean to hide from you,” the source of the voice said, stepping from behind a pillar. It was Metron, looking especially frail and weary as he hobbled toward them. “I wanted to be cautious. I escaped from Blasphet and returned here to report our plight to your father. I arrived to find everyone dead. I heard your father’s voice and followed it to the roof where I saw him flying off with a human held in his jaws. The king crashed into the river and never came back to the surface.”

“You lie,” Shandrazel said.

“No,” Metron said. “My words are truth. You’re king now. You must respect the words of the High Biologian… Sire.”

“So I shall,” Shandrazel said, with a nod of agreement. “However, I’ll not be listening to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“On this day, I accept that I am king. Though I do not intend to remain so for long, I will take advantage of one of the privileges by appointing a new High Biologian. Androkom is my choice.”

“But,” Metron protested, “you may not appoint a new High Biologian until my death.”

“Or until you are convicted of treason. And who is the final judge in such matters?”

“The king…” Metron said.

Shandrazel held forward a slip of paper. “The note you sent Blasphet informing him of our visit and asking him to dispose of us. The penalty, as decreed by all previous kings, is death.”