The Rival (60 page)

Unlike his son, Rugad learned from his mistakes.

Instead of going toward the audience room, he turned his back on it.  He would inspect the palace himself and find the best headquarters.  Then he would insist that the Caps get to work around the palace, clearing out all evidence of the rout. The Islander bodies could remain, but the Fey bodies had to disappear or at least be hidden.  He would bring in fresh guards after that, guards who didn't have a haunted look in their eyes.  He would face the Islander King with strength, and absolutely no sign of weakness.

He could do that.

He stopped and mentally saluted the rival he had yet to meet.  Rugad appreciated a worthy adversary.  It kept him fresh.  King Nicholas would lose, but he would lose after putting up a fight.  A fight so good that it placed the future in doubt.

No man could hope to do better against the Fey.

Many had done worse.

SEVENTY-ONE

He was just an old Aud gone bad. 

His own words reverberated through his sleep.  He shivered with cold and pain.  His body ached from lying on the stone floor.  He knew that Marly tended him while he slept, changed his bandages, kept him covered, and also kept him guarded.  He could relax around her, and he wasn't certain why.

He just knew he could.

There was something that he was missing here, something that his sleep-and-pain fogged mind hadn't grasped.  Something important.  Something life or death.

He was grasping toward it when voices startled him awake.

" … thought at first they'd made it … "

" … a slaughter … "

" … word is … "

" … much worse … "

He blinked awake and tried to sit up.  Marly's hand was on his good shoulder, holding him down.  He shook her off.  He was hungry and thirsty and in incredible pain, but some of the exhaustion had worn off.  The men stopped speaking when he sat up.

Yasep was watching him, darkened face suspicious.

"Go on," Matthias said.  "You've obviously been on the surface.  Let's hear the report."

Yasep jutted his chin out.  If he reported to Matthias, then Matthias was the one in charge.

"Tis na right keepin secrets from him," Marly said.  "Na now."

"She's right," Denl said.  "We need him, if what they're sayin is true."

"What are they saying?" Matthias asked.  He was careful to keep his voice strong, even though speaking hurt.  His facial movement pulled on the scab that had formed over his wound. 

Marly sat beside him and handed him a small cup filled with water.  He took it, but didn't drink.  He didn't want to appear too eager.

"They're sayin the Rocaan is dead," Jakib said.  He was huddled near a box, and he looked terrified.

Matthias's heart thudded against his chest.  He didn't want to know this.  "How could that be true?" he asked.

"Holy water, tis na good," Ubur said.

"N the Tabernacle's been burned.  I seen it myself," Denl said, "from across the bridge."

The Fey had figured out a way to fight holy water, and they had slaughtered the Rocaan.  Matthias's head was spinning.  If that were all true, then the Isle was doomed.

"Is there any way to confirm this?" he asked Yasep.

"Na without dyin," Yasep said.

"N tis worse," Denl said.

"Worse?" Matthias wasn't certain how much worse it could get.  The Tabernacle, his home, his love despite the pain he'd caused it, was gone. 

"Jahn's burned."

"The whole city?"

"Most a it."

"And the palace?"

"Surrounded, guards dead.  If the King's alive, twon't be fer long," Yasep said.

So Nicholas's twenty year gamble didn't pay off.  Matthias felt no satisfaction in that.  He wondered briefly what happened to the poor Aud who'd come through on his Charge, and then sighed.  The boy was probably dead with the rest of them.

Or would be soon.

"What of his children?"  Matthias asked.

Yasep shrugged.  It obviously didn't concern him.  Most of the Isle would feel that way.  The children probably joined their great-grandfather.  Despite himself, Matthias felt compassion for Nicholas.  The man had made the wrong choice, and realized it way too late.

"Tis only a matter a time afore they find us," Jakib said.  "The guards attacked outta the tunnels."

"And the boy came through on the Tabernacle side," Matthias said.  "The Fey aren't stupid.  They'll be down here in a matter of days."

"There's na anawhere else ta go," Yasep said.  He ran his hands through his hair, tugged, and then bowed his head.  Within an afternoon, he'd been defeated, the proud man who hadn't wanted Matthias in the troop.

But Yasep had seen the destruction.  To Matthias, it was simply something he'd imagined.  Not yet real.  He couldn't think of Titus as dead.  In fact, he couldn't think of Titus as anything but that young scared Aud who held the Secrets and the future of the Tabernacle.

Matthias had been horribly unfair to him.

He had been unfair to them all.

"I have to see," Matthias said.

"Ye can trust em," Marly said.  "They wouldna lie."

Matthias shook his head.  "I'm not accusing anyone of lying.  But I have to know if the Rocaan lives."

"What's it ta ye?" Yasep asked.  "Ye said yer na religious na more."

Matthias put a shaking hand to his head.  "Denl, you understand, don't you, what it means if the Rocaan's dead?"

"Tis na anaone ta speak ta God."

"Crudely put," Matthias said.  "And what else?"

"Tis na more religion."

Matthias nodded. 

"What's it ta ye?" Yasep asked again.  "Ye gave it up."

Matthias had to speak to through his dizziness, through his pain.  "The position of Rocaan.  That's what I gave up.  I'm still a Rocaanist."

"Tis just words," Yasep said, "and tis na important to us."

"If you believe that, you're a fool," Matthias said.

People around him gasped.  Marly's grip on his arm tightened.  "The Rocaan makes holy water."

"And it dinna work on these Fey," Jakib said.  "I seen it meself."

"But holy water is only one of the Secrets," Matthias said.  "The Rocaan knows a dozen others.  I've been studying them.  I know them.  I was Rocaan.  And if Titus is dead, I am the only one who knows them."

"All the more reason ta stay away from the Tabernacle," Marly said softly.

"You don't understand."  Matthias eased forward, feeling the pull on his scabs.  "There are legends in the Cliffs of Blood of magic swords that kill with a single touch.  Of foods that shatter your enemy.  These legends even tell of water that melts people."

"Like holy water," Denl said.

Matthias nodded. He had one of them.  "And each of these legends corresponds to a Secret held by the Rocaan.  There is a recipe to holy water.  And instructions on how to make a sword.  I was trying that one the day the Fey attacked me."

"It dinna matter," Yasep said.  "If ye know, or he knows.  It dinna matter."

"It matters," Matthias said.  "If there are two of us, we can test the Secrets quicker.  We can make weapons faster.  We have to find him."

Marly put her hand on his arm.  "We canna go.  Ye canna go through the tunnels.  N what if the Fey wait on the other side?  We're all dead."

"Ye left em once afore," Yasep said.  "Tis their problem now."

"But  — "

"No," Yasep said.  "Tis na sensible ta have ye both die.  If the Rocaan is dead, so be it.  If na, then he can fight, n ye can fight.  From separate places."

Matthias rubbed a hand over his bandages.  The argument was sound, but he didn't like it.  He wanted to know if he were the only one left, if he was the hope of Rocaanism.

Of the Isle itself.

"Tis na smart ta die ta learn something ye can learn by bein patient," Marly said.

"Tis the word on the street that the Rocaan is dead," Jakib said.  "The Tabernacle is burned.  Twould seem right."

"Tis death ta go there now," Yasep said.  "I willna let my people go there."

That was it.  Matthias couldn't go alone.  He wasn't sure he would make the hike without Marly beside him, without supplies, without someone to catch him if he passed out.  He was still very weak.

And they were right.  He would know eventually if Titus was dead. 

If nothing of his past survived.

"Where do you suggest we go?"  Matthias asked, knowing he was giving in by asking.  "We can't stay here.  The Fey will find us.  They will locate these tunnels, and soon, if what the boy said was true."

"I dinna know a lot a places ta hide," Yasep said.  "N if the Fey're as smart as they seem, they'll find em all.  Tis only, as ya say, a matter a time."

Matthias stared at him.  In his proud way, Yasep was asking for help.  "How far east do this tunnels go?"

Yasep shrugged and looked away.  Denl leaned forward, eager and terrified at the same time.  "East?" he asked.  "What's in the east?"

Matthias didn't answer.  He wasn't going to justify himself, not yet.  "How far?" he asked again.

"I been as far as old Jahn goes," Jakib said.  "The tunnels dinna end there.  But I canna say they go much farther n that."

"The end of Old Jahn's good enough," Matthias said.  "Is that part of the city on fire?"

"Tis mostly the west, and south," Denl said.

"Let's hope it stays that way through the night."

"Ye'd better tell us where we're going in case we get split up," Yasep said.  His voice shook and he cleared his throat to cover it.

Matthias debated with himself for a moment.  If they knew, they could tell the Fey if captured.  But he supposed it didn't matter.  With the loss of Jahn, of the Tabernacle, and of the palace, Blue Isle belonged to the Fey now.  They would find take over everything eventually.

"We're going to the Cliffs of Blood," he said.  "It's remote, and the villagers didn't accept the palace's authority.  They won't accept the Fey's either."

"Tis odd up there.  They may na let us come," Yasep said.

"Jakib n I still ha family there," Marly said.  "Do ye, Holy Sir?"

Matthias shuddered, remembering the way they had turned him out, left him for dead more than once.

Demon spawn.

Then he'd come to the Tabernacle and they'd accepted him, with his quick mind and his willingness to learn.  They'd ignored his height, his unusual appearance, and had taken him for who he was.  It wasn't his fault that he didn't believe in the Roca.  He had tried.  He had tried, the Old Rocaan said, too hard.  Maybe if he had listened to the still, small voice  —

"No," he said.  "I don't have family there."

But the Roca had come from the Cliffs of Blood.  Rocaanism had been born there, and many of the Secrets had their origin there as well.  Matthias had lived there for a while after he left the Tabernacle, and he learned that if he left the locals alone, they left him alone.  The Cliffs were defensible, and they would be a good place to make a stand against the Fey.

If Matthias could find a weapon.

"I think if we're going to leave," he said, "we'd better go now."

"Yer in no condition to travel," Marly said.

"If I stay here, I die," Matthias said.  He pushed himself to his feet.  Like it or not, he led this small band of ragamuffins.  His other band, the one he had come to Jahn with, was probably dead.

Like Titus.

And like Nicholas would be before the day was out.

Matthias's heart hurt.  He hadn't thought he had any feeling left for these people.  They hadn't listened to him.  They had coddled the Fey, and lost everything.

He would make a stand, and he would do it for them all.

He only hoped it wasn't too late.

SEVENTY-TWO

Trapped in his own Audience room. The irony of it didn't appeal to him.  Nicholas had never felt so angry in his life.

Nor so helpless.

It had looked for the good part of the afternoon as if his people would win.  Then the birds had come back, clouds and clouds of them, like smoke before a fire, and they had landed with a vengeance.  Their humiliation had obviously preyed on them, and they attacked like monsters.

His guards hadn't had a chance.

And he had watched it all, Arianna at his side.  She hadn't said a word, not even when the birds started bringing the trophies to the windows in the Uprising room. 

But Sebastian had cried.  Finally Arianna had gone to him and held him.

The Fey in the room had said nothing.  They had watched the entire thing as if it were normal.  Maybe Matthias had been right.  Maybe they had no souls.

Then Nicholas had turned away from the carnage, looked at his half-Fey daughter, and remembered his all-Fey wife.  The Fey made war; that was what they did. They were fierce creatures whose lives were defined, not by how well they lived, but how well they fought.

And in this battle, Nicholas had fought well, but that had not been enough.

He stood near the dais in the audience chamber, looking at the family crest.  Two swords crossed over a heart.  How appropriate that had seemed to him once, when he loved Jewel here and created children with her.

"They're still outside the door," Arianna said.  She came over to him, speaking softly, her hand on his arm.  She was as aware as he was of the listening booths.  He wasn't certain if the Fey had found them yet, but they would.  They would.  Just like they had found everything else.

"We don't have long," she said.  "We have to come up with something."

Sometimes he forgot she was just fifteen.  He put his hand over hers.  There was nothing left.

"I could Shift and go under the door for help."

"To whom?" he asked softly, hoping she knew more than he did.

Then she shrugged.  She didn't.  She was just hoping that her father would save everything, that he would make it all better, like he did when she was a little girl.

"There's nothing we can do now," he said.  "The Black King will be here soon.  The best we can hope for is to negotiate."

"I won't work with him," she said.