On Unfaithful Wings (42 page)

Time slowed as the limp body twisted through the air toward Khirro. He saw the blood caked on lobstered gauntlets; dents and scuffs on silver plate; an enameled pattern scrolling across the top of the breastplate. The armor seemed familiar but his pounding head gave no help in recognizing it as the limp form tumbled toward him.

At the last moment, instinct overpowered shock, fear and pain, and Khirro rolled to the right, teetering dangerously on the landing’s edge. The body hit the stone floor beside him.

The slam of armor against stone was nearly deafening, but not loud enough to mask the sickening pop of bones snapping within. The body bounced once and came to rest, some part of it pressed against Khirro’s back, threatening to push him over the precipice. He wriggled painfully away from the edge, pushing against the unmoving body behind him.

The sounds of fighting renewed. Soldiers must have pushed past the burning catapult that had barricaded them, rushing to engage the enemy and save their king.

Where were they five minutes ago?

Khirro put the thought from his mind. He lived, after all; it was more than he could say for the man lying beside him.

Khirro lay still for a minute, unsure what to do. If he stayed put, he’d forfeit his life to a Kanosee sword as surely as if he rejoined the fray. His eyes flickered from the wall walk above to the stairs. He saw no one. If there was a best time to move -- to go
somewhere,
to do
something
-- it was likely now, while the enemy was freshly engaged. He turned his head, looked at the man lying dead beside him.

The man’s cheek pressed against the stone landing was curiously flat, crushed by the fall. His eyes were closed; blood ran across his closed eyelids from a gash on his clean-shaven scalp. A scrollwork of enameled ivy crawled out from the corner of his silver breastplate and across his epaulet. Khirro stopped breathing.

King Braymon!

It was the king dead beside him, the man who had rescued him from the red-splashed Kanosee soldier, leaping into the fight to save a lowly farmer-turned-soldier without regard for his own safety.

The king. The man who ruled the kingdom.

While Khirro had chosen to cower on the landing, struggling to find his courage as others fought for the kingdom, Braymon hadn’t hesitated a second.

And now the king was dead, and there was no one to blame but Khirro.

Guilt stirred his gut. What would this mean to the kingdom? To the war? His head swam. Did this mean he could return home, or would it mean more fighting? He thought of Emeline. It was easy to remember why he hadn’t risen after his fall down the stairs when he thought of her and of the child she carried. He only wanted to return to her, to go back to the farm and live out his life in peace and quiet. If Emeline would have him back.

The clang of steel and the shouts and screams of men fell on him like violent rain. He didn’t know how long he lay there listening and thinking, mourning and celebrating, awash in guilt and remorse and relief when another sound caught his attention. He held his breath.

A footstep on the stair?

His eyes darted toward the stone steps, but he couldn’t see beyond the king’s leg twisted at an unbelievable angle. He dared not turn his head for fear a man clad in a red-splattered breast plate may be leering at him from the stair, waiting for an excuse to fall upon him and finish the job. Thirty seconds crawled by, a minute. Khirro began to think he’d heard his own breath. For a while there was only the sound of fighting, then it came again. Not a footstep, but a groan, small and weak, but close. Khirro waited, listening, hoping. Dreading. Then another sound, a whisper.

Haltingly, Khirro moved his gaze back to the face of his king, the man who saved him, the man who so many years ago, saved the entire kingdom.

He looked into the open eyes of King Braymon.

Copyright 2011, Bruce Blake & Best Bitts Productions

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form of by any electronic or mechanical means, including information and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review,

This is a work of fiction, names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-0-9868811-5-2