The Kinshield Legacy (55 page)

“Daia,” said a haggard-looking blonde with an authoritative air. “And Brawna. What a surprise to find you still alive. And how convenient that you’re here together.”

“Lilalian,” Daia said, “what has become of you that you would sacrifice the guild and the honor of these battlers? To murder Aminda for your own gain?”

“It’s the necklaces,” Brawna said. “Ravenkind controlled them with the necklaces somehow.”

“And I control them still,” Brodas called out as he rode up on a white horse. Dark crimson stained the side of his tunic under his ribcage, but he appeared otherwise none the worse for it. Cirang accompanied him, her sword drawn. When he pressed his horse through the parting swordswomen, she did as well and stopped her mount beside him. “I claim the King’s Blood-stone,“ Brodas said from atop his horse. ”Give it to me, and I’ll command my warriors to spare your lives.”

Gavin drew from his pocket the ring he’d removed from Brodas’s severed finger. It must have been the gem, binding their will to his. He focused on it and concentrated. A spell was embedded within the gem -- that much he sensed -- but the harder he tried to see it, to smash it with his will, the more illusory it became.

“I’ll have my ring back too,” Brodas said. “And the sword. Give them to me, Kinshield, or my army will cut you down.”

“Gavin’s our rightful king,” Daia said. “He solved the runes; the King’s Blood-stone and all that goes with it are his.”

Hazes,
Gavin thought. Gems had hazes like people did. Gavin relaxed his eyes and began to sense a series of cords, wrapped around the gem. A thread, as fine as spider silk, stretched from the gem in the ring to the one that lay against the blonde battler’s chest. He saw them all -- dozens of threads -- some stretching toward the women standing with the blonde, others disappearing into the trees toward Sohan. One stretched southwest, toward Ambryce.

“Kill them,” Brodas commanded. “Kill them all.”

Imagining his will as a blade, Gavin severed the threads with a hard slice.

Lilalian’s sword was in motion, but when it reached the top of its arc, Lilalian stopped and pulled it back. One moment her brow was low, her teeth gritted in the fury of battle, and the next, her eyes were wide under arched brows, her mouth open in a gape. She darted a hand out to catch herself on the shoulder of the warrior beside her. “Oh, blessed Yrys.”

“What are you doing?” Brodas shouted. “Kill them.”

Some of the women gasped; others scowled, blinking and looking around as if they didn’t remember how they’d gotten there.

“You’re free to choose your own path now,” Gavin said.

“Don’t listen to him,” Brodas said. “He’s a bloody peasant. I am your true king, and I’ve given you a command. Kill them!”

Lilalian’s face, though full of weariness, grew hard. Her eyes flitted between Brodas and Gavin.

Gavin reached for his sword, hoping that whatever enchantment it contained would work as well against steel as it did against magic. Twenty five to five was hardly a fair fight.

“You killed Aminda,” Lilalian said. Her eyes glowed, and her face reddened. “You killed her right in front of me.” She ripped the necklace off, threw it to the ground and spat on it. One by one, the other women followed suit, stomping on their necklaces and grinding them into the dirt under their heels.

“He killed my mother too,” young Dwaeth cried. He picked up a rock and threw. Brodas deflected it easily away.

Cirang looked from Brodas to Lilalian and back, a scowl darkening her face.

Gavin seized the moment. “Brodas Ravenkind,” Gavin said, raising his sword, “for the murders you’ve committed, your sentence is death.”

The rest of the swordswomen turned to Brodas. Lips curled, fists tightened around hilts. “Allow me,” said a short redhead. She took a step forward, prompting several of the women to start toward him. Someone reached for his horse’s halter, and another grabbed for his leg as though to pull him from his saddle.

Brodas hauled back on the reins, and his mount’s head snapped up. The horse, wide-eyed, began to prance and neigh, and its front legs lifted in a shallow rear. The swordswomen fell back to avoid the agitated animal.

“Get back, traitors,” Cirang said. She slashed her blade at her fellow Sisters, and a wildness twisted her face. Brodas pulled the left rein. His horse spun. Then, he and Cirang whipped their horses to a gallop.

“Archers,” Lilalian shouted.

Gavin focused on the gems in the hilt of his new sword, unsure what to do to stop Brodas’s escape, but wanting, needing to try. Justice for his family’s murder was finally within reach.

Thoop! Thoop! Thoop! Thoop!
Two arrows narrowly missed their mark, one hit the horse, the other struck Brodas between the shoulder blades. Brodas cried out. His horse screamed and stumbled.

“My king!” Cirang cried. She reached for him from her horse.

Edan and three of the Sisters whipped another arrow from their quivers.

Gavin felt pressure building in his chest, which turned quickly to heat. He imagined it as an arrow and released it toward Brodas. A formless shimmer sliced through the air toward him. Too late. Cirang pulled Brodas from his horse onto hers, out of the spell’s path. It struck a tree, snapping its ten-inch trunk as though it were a dry reed.

A few of the swordswomen made to go after them, but Lilalian called, “Stop. You can’t catch them on foot. We’ll hunt them down later.”

An archer loosed her arrow, a last effort to take down the escaping wizard. Everyone watched the arrow dive harmlessly into the loamy forest floor.

Then, all eyes turned to Gavin, and a hush settled over the group.

Brawna went to one knee, holding her sword before her, its point on the ground and its hilt level with her heart. “Hail, King Gavin!” she declared, her voice strong and clear.

Lilalian dropped to one knee, and the other swordswomen followed her lead. “Hail, King Gavin,” they cried in a single voice. Edan, Risan and Dwaeth joined them.

Daia smiled knowingly, her eyes welled with tears, and then she, too, went to her knee. “Hail, King Gavin,” she said with the rest of them, her voice ringing out more loudly than the others.

After Gavin had shaken hands with Risan and Dwaeth and waved as they left toward Ambryce on Domach’s horse, he rode on to Tern with Daia, Edan, and a small contingent of swordswomen. At Daia’s insistence, Brawna had returned to the Sisterhood compound to continue her training with Gavin’s promise that she would have a place at his side when she was ready.

As they traveled, heavy clouds darkened road and mood. Gavin’s neck and shoulders ached under the weight of the unseen crown upon his head. He hoped, wished that this was all a horrible nightmare from which he would awaken with a scream, bathed in sweat. What he would have given for such a dream.

“We can build another palace,” Edan said. “There’s no reason we have to get into the old one. We could leave the demon trapped inside forever.”

Thunder rumbled across the valley, warning them away from this dangerous notion.

“Except to give King Arek a proper burial,” Gavin said. ”Except to seal the rift between the worlds and end the invasion of beyonders. Sooner or later, someone’ll have to breach the barrier and face the demon. That someone is me.“ Gavin looked at Daia. ”And I have what I need.“

“We don’t have to do it now,” Edan said. “We have time to study the runes, learn about this demon and enter when we’re ready.”

“Is it still alive?” Daia asked. “It’s been in the palace for over two hundred years. If it’s alive at all, it must be weak. Weaker than it was when King Arek and his men-at-arms faced it.”

Gavin nodded. “Yeh, it’s alive, but maybe that’s our advantage. If we can send it back afore it gains its strength, we might stand a chance.”

“Send it back?” Daia asked, incredulous. “No, no, no. We have to kill it. We gather as many Sisters and warrant knights as we can, recruit some battlers from the lordovers’ garrisons, then storm the palace.”

“We can’t kill it,” Gavin said in a quiet voice. “It’s immortal. We have to send it back to its own realm.”

They all stared at him with gaping expressions. “How?” Edan asked.

Gavin looked up. The dark clouds above took the shape of a demon, shifting like a predator about to strike, and then growled. “I have to go into the realm o’the beyonders and summon it there.”

Epilogue

Gavin was in Tern with all five gems, defenders at his back and his new sword firmly in hand, its magic bound to him. Why, then, did Risan feel uneasy? He was going home. He should have been excited – and he was excited about seeing Arlet again. Remembering the words of the mage Jennalia, he couldn’t help but think he should be with Gavin, lending aid.

“He has a terrible burden to bear, far greater than the promise he made.”

The rushing sound of the Flint River grew louder. Risan reined in his mount as they crossed the bridge, and climbed down from the saddle. He looked over the rail into the water sweeping past below him. This was where it had all started. He looked down at his three-fingered hand. His claw. Had Gavin not saved Arlet, this would never have happened. Two fingers was a small price to pay.

“Risan?”

He turned and looked up at the blond boy still sitting atop the horse, biting his lower lip. Risan smiled at the boy who was becoming his son. “You are ready to meet her?”

Dwaeth nodded, but he didn’t look quite certain about it.

Risan reached up and patted his ankle. “Arlet will love you. No need to worry.” He flung the reins over the horse’s ears and led the animal through Ambryce on foot. People stared at him as he passed, many smiling and nodding. Risan realized he was smiling too. He’d lost a tooth and a couple of fingers, but look at what he’d gained – a son, a king, and one hell of a story to tell his friends at the Red Eye.

A fire crackled in the vast fireplace of the inn’s lobby. Daia was curled up in a large, stuffed chair staring, entranced, into the flame. She and her companions had taken possession of the Elegance Inn as a temporary palace, paying the innkeeper for all of his rooms and his silence with what money they had between them, and a messenger dispatched to the Lordover Lalorian with a request for more. Despite its name, it was not the most comfortable lodge in Tern, but it was more than acceptable to Gavin. He wanted the news of his claim to the throne kept as secret as possible until they could work out a plan for dealing with the demon Ritol.

The task weighed heavily on her mind. If King Arek and his vast army couldn’t vanquish it, what chance did they have? Gavin, Daia, Edan – they did not have the knowledge that Arek and Ronor had. They knew nothing about this demon, or even about the runes, aside from what was in Ronor Kinshield’s letter. She couldn’t decide whether the letter was more of a help or a hindrance. On one hand, it warned them about what they would face when they entered the palace, and that knowledge was invaluable. On the other, it raised more questions than it answered.

“Can’t sleep?”

She craned her neck and saw Gavin, barefoot and bare-chested, coming down the stairs. Daia shook her head. “Too much on my mind.”

“Me too,” he said. He pulled one of the velvet-covered chairs up beside her and sat, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I need to talk to you about something that has nothing to do with the letter or the demon.”