Heart of the King (30 page)

“He is changing!” Athryn yelled as he increased his pace, running past Emeline to help the king. “Don’t let him change.”

Therrador looked over his shoulder at the magician then back at his foe. He lunged forward recklessly, the tip of his sword finding its way past Shyn’s defense to cut a shallow gash on his half-man, half-bird chest. Therrador swung the sword around his head and connected with the taller man’s neck, severing his head.

Athryn fell to his knees beside Khirro. Blood masked his friend’s cheeks and chin, splattered across his chest and arms. There was mud and gore caked on his leg and fresh blood flowing from the wound in his belly puddled on the ground beneath him. Kneeling over him reminded Athryn of the similar wound he sustained on the shore of Lakesh when the mercenary stole the king’s blood from Khirro. Then, Maes had saved him with magic and his own blood, now flowing through Athryn’s veins.

There wouldn’t be the same result this time.

Emeline arrived and kneeled beside Athryn.

“Gods. Does he live?”

Athryn looked at her and nodded. Her face was drawn and haggard with stress and worry; the baby, swaddled in a blanket at her breast as usual, remained surprisingly quiet and undisturbed by the goings-on around her.

“He is alive, but barely.” He removed the mirrored mask and his cloak, pulled open his shirt. “He does not have much time. We have to hurry.”

“So you can save him?”

Hope flickered in Emeline’s eyes, touched her lips. Seeing it made Athryn’s heart ache.

“Emeline,” he said quietly, his voice overflowing with his own emotion. “When Darestat’s spell went astray, King Braymon’s spirit and Khirro’s were bonded. To separate them and save the kingdom, only one will survive.”

She stared into his eyes and he saw that, for a moment, she didn’t grasp the weight of his words. He held her gaze, doing his best to keep his own emotions in check as realization dawned for her.

“You’re going to kill him.”

Athryn licked his lips. “It is the only way to raise the king.”

“After all he did for you, all he did for the kingdom, you’re going to kill him.”

Therrador had arrived and stood between the two of them, looking down at Khirro; he said nothing.

Athryn held Emeline’s gaze as he spoke. “Therrador, fetch your son.”

The king nodded and took a step toward the horses and stopped.

“Where is he?”

“I left him with the horse.”

Therrador took another step, stopped, spun a half circle. Athryn looked away from Emeline.

“Graymon!”

The magician followed Therrador’s gaze to the boy crossing the grassland toward the Archon, a jeweled-handled dagger in his hand.

***

Graymon’s toes dangled above the ground as he lowered himself out of the saddle, his hands gripping the leather tight. He hung from it without letting go, fearful though he knew the ground to be close beneath his feet, but the memory of climbing out of the wagon, of falling from the tree, still lingered. He took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of saddle leather and horse sweat, and let go, dropping the six inches separating the soles of his feet from the ground.

When he turned around, he saw his da fighting a man with feathers poking out of his skin while Athryn and Emeline rushed toward Khirro, who was laying in the mud.

She killed him. She killed the tyger.

Graymon’s eyes moved away from his friends to scan the plain. Through the tapestry of falling snow, he saw the pile of wreckage that was once the dragon—green-hued  smoke rising from a heap of red rock. His heart lurched at the sight, and he thought of his toy dragon and its broken wing, of the way the woman had manipulated it when he first met her. She stood not far away, naked and laughing, her arms outspread, her hair tossed by the winter wind. The entire length of the staff in her hand glowed green.

Graymon’s fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dagger Khirro gave him. He felt the rough feel of the jeweled hilt against his skin, the cold metal of the pommel. He swallowed hard, pulled the dagger from his belt, careful not to cut himself, and started toward the woman.

He felt like a brave hero at first, fortified by doing the right thing, but with each step, his courage flagged; as he drew closer to the woman, fear crept in. He reminded himself of all the things she’d done, of the way she tricked him, of what she did to his da, to the kingdom, and now to the tyger. She was the one who raised the dead, so if a dead soldier killed Khirro and the tyger, then it was her fault, just as if she'd wielded the sword herself.

As he walked, he looked at the ground in front of him instead of at the woman. He knew if he looked at her, or at the fighting around him, he would surely lose his nerve. So he averted his eyes and counted his steps to distract himself.

When he’d gone a hundred paces, he heard his name and took it as the cue to finally raise his eyes again. He looked into the face of the witch.

She stood ten yards away, staring at him with a bemused look on her face. She raised an eyebrow and one corner of her mouth followed it up in a lopsided smirk.

“Well, well. To what do I owe the honor of your company, my prince?”

Graymon stopped and concentrated on making an angry face instead of the afraid one threatening to usurp his expression. He gritted his teeth and pressed his lips together the way his father did when he was angry; he tried hard to make his eyebrows touch like Nanny’s.

“You killed the tyger.” He said the words quietly, hoping she wouldn’t hear the terror steadily building inside him like water threatening to overflow a dam.

The woman threw her head back and laughed. The sound echoed and rolled across the plain. It seemed to toss the falling snow about in its wake and it touched Graymon like fingers groping in the dark. It might have tickled if he hadn’t been so scared. He shivered.

“The tyger should have stayed dead the first time I killed him,” she said directing her gaze back to the boy. “It would have saved a lot of lives.”

“If you hadn’t attacked, it would have saved lots of lives,” Graymon yelled at her, his voice quaking. He breathed a few short, stiff breaths through his nose, held the dagger out in front of his chest and started toward her again. He made it one step before the arm encircled his waist and picked him up off the ground.

Graymon wiggled and fought against the arm, slashed at it with the dagger, but a hand grabbed his wrist. The boy looked over his shoulder and saw his father’s face looming above him.

“Da!”

But his father wasn’t looking at him, he didn’t respond. Instead, he glared at the woman and made a much better angry face than Graymon had been capable of; angrier than he’d ever seen his father.

“Ah. The traitor king has returned.”

Graymon’s feet dangled above the ground as his father backed away. The boy looked from his father to the woman. She didn’t look amused anymore; her faced looked even angrier than his da’s. Hatred and rage twisted and warped her face, dissolved her beauty. Her lips pulled back to reveal gleaming teeth, sharp with points; her hair whipped out behind her as though she stood in the midst of a hurricane; she seemed to grow taller.

The woman held the glowing green staff in both hands in front of her and brought the butt end down hard against the ground. Thunder clapped, lightning jumped toward the sky and the earth rumbled. Behind her, a tornado of white smoke and snow rose up, swirling and twisting higher and higher, expanding wider and wider until it blotted out the sky.

Therrador put Graymon down, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him away.

“Run,” his father yelled.

***

“Get him,” Athryn snapped, but Therrador had already taken off after his son. “I must begin the spell.”

“Do you have to?”

Emeline’s voice held a pleading tone and anger flashed through Athryn. He wanted to ask her why she should show concern for him now, after what she’d done to his friend, but he bit back his ire and gestured at the wound in Khirro’s belly instead. Blood still oozed from it, though the flow had ebbed.

“If not this, he will die anyway, then we lose both Khirro and Braymon. And the kingdom.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Therrador scoop Graymon up in his arm.

“I have to begin.”

Emeline lowered her head and touched Khirro’s cheek.

“I’m sorry.”

Athryn traced his fingers along the tattooed lines on his torso, felt their power flow up his fingers, along his arms, and into his chest to infuse the air in his lungs. The charged air rose into his throat and spilled out of his mouth in words of a language he didn’t know. Finger traced, lips spoke; this is how it needed to be since Maes died and his magic returned. His flesh went cold and numb; sweat beaded on his forehead. A vibration started at his knees and shook its way up his spine.

Khirro gasped a sudden breath and Emeline cried out in concern, but Athryn didn’t let it distract him. The arcane words tumbled from his lips fluently, though his mouth had never formed them before and they felt uncomfortable on his tongue. The world narrowed to Khirro lying on the ground in front of him, Emeline and Iana at his periphery, the sound of the chant collecting in his ears, multiplying in his head.

Dimly through it he heard a crack of thunder, sensed a flash of light. The ground quivered beneath him with a vibration greater than what might accompany the casting of a spell; he focused on his words, on tracing the scrollwork’s path. Power built inside him, churning, straining to break free. He closed his eyes and concentrated on control as his finger continued its path, his lips continued their words.

In the distance, somewhere outside himself, he heard a voice strained with urgency. It came closer and a second voice joined it, this one higher pitched, a woman. He heard his name amongst the words they spoke and focused tighter, concentrated harder to shut them out, to keep from being pulled out of the spell and have the power welling up inside him dissipate.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, grasping it, shaking him. Athryn stopped chanting and opened his eyes.

Emeline stood over Khirro, her hair whipped by strong wind Athryn hadn’t felt in his trance, her face distorted with fear. She gripped Iana tight against herself as the baby wailed. Therrador stood beside Athryn—it  was his hand on his shoulder—and  Graymon was beside him. Thunder rumbled across the sky bringing goose bumps to the magician’s bare chest.

He struggled to his feet and looked around.

Green lightning flickered and jumped from the staff in the woman’s hand, flashing out to strike down the living or raise the dead, depending on which it touched. A host of her newly-raised soldiers ambled along behind her, fresh wounds dripping, weapons covered with the blood of the men now marching beside them. Behind them rose a wall of cloudy white smoke and snow that hid the horizon and reached to the top of the sky.

Athryn bent and retrieved the Mourning Sword from where it lay on the ground beside his fallen friend, then nodded to Therrador. The king guided his son to Emeline and put the boy’s hand in hers. He touched Graymon’s cheek and his lips moved, whispering words of love, a promise, then he returned to Athryn’s side.

“You must stay with Khirro,” Athryn said to Emeline as he and Therrador started toward the Archon. “Without him, all is lost. Your love for him can keep him alive until I return.”

If I return.

For the first time in his life, Therrador wanted nothing more than to flee from the fight before him, to turn and run and leave the fighting to someone else. He imagined himself scooping Graymon up in his arms, taking the boy away somewhere safe, and leaving the kingdom in the grip of the madwoman into which he’d delivered it.

Not much of a king.

Instead, he pressed forward—likely  to his death—at  the side of a man he didn’t know as his son watched.

The first wave of dead men rushed them, putting any thought but survival from the king’s mind. He should have been too exhausted to wield his sword, but knowing his son crouched a few yards away, and that letting one of the things past would surely mean the boy’s death, brought energy and urgency to his limbs.

Beside him, the magician hacked and hewed their adversaries, fighting with a ferocity Therrador wouldn’t have expected from a magic-user. The blade of the Mourning Sword glowed first red like the blood for which it thirsted, then orange and yellow, and back to red again. It shone on the faces of the men it cut down, reflected in their armor before cleaving it in two. Heads rolled and bodies fell as they made their way toward the woman.

Therrador’s sword found the eye of the last standing soldier of the first wave of undead, and he looked up, ready for the next attack. There was none. The other dead men hung back, standing on either side of the woman and behind her, the snowy wall of white mist pressing close behind them.

The king’s gaze fell on the woman. She stood with her legs spread to shoulder width, her arms extended as if awaiting his embrace; the sight of her stole the breath from his chest. His eyes moved slowly from her face to her neck, then her chest, his gaze flowing over her body like honey. His sword drooped in his grasp and he forgot what reason had brought him to this place.

Why should I want to kill such a beautiful creature?

The woman smiled, laughed with a sound like gold, her teeth pearls, her eyes sapphires. The hatred and rage in Therrador’s chest loosened and his mouth opened to profess his love.

Before his throat struggled the words into being, a yellow glow fell on the woman. Her smile faded and she diverted her eyes. Therrador’s chest lurched at the precious gift of her attention taken away, wrung from his heart so suddenly.

The glow brightened, illuminating the woman without shadow, without deceit. Her pearly teeth became fangs dripping venomous saliva, her sapphire eyes flashed jealousy and disgust, her laughter became the growl and roar of a beast.

Therrador shook his head and looked to the magician beside him. He squinted against the Mourning Sword’s blinding glow and raised his hand to block it from his eyes as he realized it was the blade’s golden light he’d seen upon the Archon’s face, reminding him of the truth of her. Athryn lowered the sword and fell to his knees, lips moving with the words of a spell, and Therrador shook the last of the woman’s deception from his head.