The Rival (69 page)

My great-grandson?
Rugad mouthed.  He had mouthed that question so many times that Wisdom apparently understood it.

Wisdom shook his head.  He pursed his lips. Rugad didn't like the look.  Something had gone very wrong.

"Your great-grandson is traveling with a powerful Enchanter," Wisdom said.  "Two different troops of Foot Soldiers had him trapped.  One found him in a field, and another on a road.  Both groups were incinerated.  The survivors are all badly burned."

My great-grandson?
Rugad mouthed again.

Wisdom leaned back.  He was clearly still frightened of his Black King's wrath, despite Rugad's condition.  "Your great-grandson has disappeared.  We've had Bird Riders searching for him, ground troops searching for him, and we've found nothing."

Rugad waited for the explanation.

"He had a night's head start on us.  By the time we knew what happened, he had already traveled a great distance.  We believe he's heading northeast, but we have people checking south and west as well."

Rugad grabbed his precious loose sheets of handmade paper.  His hands shook, a weakness he didn't like Wisdom to see.  Rugad wrote,
Check the city.

Wisdom took the note.  "He won't come here.  We have a great presence here  — "

Rugad grabbed the piece of paper, crumpled it and threw it at Wisdom.  The paper hit him in the face.  He blinked once, then said, "We'll search.  My mistake."

Rugad nodded.  Then he crossed his arms and closed his eyes, ending the discussion.

Both of his great-grandchildren were missing, and both were cunning.  They wouldn't let him catch them.  He would have to outthink them, and then he would need a strategy to bring them into the Fey fold.

If he could.

He was so old and so tired.

For all his victories it felt, at this moment, as if he had lost.

EIGHTY-SEVEN

So the Black King lived.

Nicholas sat in the back corner of the Shaman's cave.  The dirt was soft beneath his blankets, the air warm.  She had a fire built at the mouth of the cave, and she was tending it, her back to him.

She thought he was asleep.

He couldn't sleep.

He didn't dare.  There was too much to plan, too much to do.  And the first thing he had to do was acknowledge how his life had changed in the last few days.

When he was not much older than Arianna, the Fey invaded Blue Isle.  With the help of holy water, and with Rugar's arrogance, the Islanders won.  The Fey remained trapped within the Isle.

Four days ago, the Fey and the Islanders fought the Second Battle for Blue Isle.

The Islanders lost.

Nicholas leaned his head against the wall, the rock cool against his skull.  Arianna slept beside him, shadows beneath her eyes, her hand resting on the blanket he had rolled up as her pillow.  She was young, so very young, and impulsive.

But she was alive.

He had lost Sebastian.

But he had not lost Gift.  The Shaman said she knew where to find the boy.

His two real children, born of Jewel.  His assets.  The Black King had come for them, and he did not have them.

That was Nicholas's first victory.

His second had come when he fought back, when he sent those Bird Riders flying.  The Fey, thinking they were unbeatable, learned that they could be surprised.  It had shaken their confidence.  He had seen it in their eyes.

His third victory happened when he slid that sword into the Black King's throat.  The Black King, leader of all Fey, was vulnerable.  He could be defeated.

And Nicholas would be the one to defeat him.

He just had to plan.  The Islanders had to know that their King lived.  They would fight for him if they knew that.  And if they believed they could defeat the Black King, they would fight even harder.

Nicholas had to act while the Black King was still vulnerable, before he put a complete stranglehold on the Isle.  The Shaman would help him plan.  Arianna had proven that she could think quickly on her feet.  His son had survived.

He had tools.

He would use them all.

There would be a third battle for Blue Isle.

And he would win.

--

About the Author

Bestseller Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won or been nominated for every major award in the science fiction field.  She has won Hugos for editing
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
and for her short fiction. 

She has also won the
Asimov’s SF Magazine
Readers Choice Award five times, as well as the SF Age Readers Choice Award, the
Locus
Award, and the John W. Campbell Award.
 
Alien Influences
, first published in England, was a finalist for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award.

 
I09
said her Retrieval Artist series featured one of the top ten science fiction detectives ever written. 

She also writes mystery, romance, and fantasy novels, occasionally using the pen names Kristine Grayson and Kris Nelscott.

If you liked
The Rival,
you might try these books by Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

Changeling: The Second Book of the Fey

Diving Into The Wreck

City of Ruins

Alien Influences

The Disappeared

Extremes

Consequences

Buried Deep

Paloma

The Recovery Man

The Recovery Man’s Bargain

Duplicate Effort

The Possession of Paavo Deshin

The Retrieval Artist

Five Fantastic Tales

Five Short Novels

The War And After: Five Stories of Magic & Revenge