The Wretched

by Brad Carsten

  He passed the first soldier lying dead on the floor, and then many, many more after that.

  To the side came a bellow like someone was blowing a ram’s horn, and a creature, as large as an elephant, barrelled into the soldiers, throwing them like a brawler swiping his hand across a table, scattering the drinks. It lifted one of the men in its jaws and his bones snapped. Spears and swords and arrows struck at it, and its forelegs collapsed.

  Liam drew an arrow, but one of the knights shouted for him to keep going. “Let them deal with it.”

  To the other side, nightspawn were pouring off the sides of the buildings, running down them like rats, and officers were screaming for their men to reform.

  Men closed in around Liam and the knights, and they were swept off to the side. A man stumbled, and he was dragged underfoot.

  The knights fought their way through the mass of bodies, pulling Kaylyn along with them, and finally broke through into an alley.

  “This isn't the right street,” Sir Tannon shouted. His head turned as a door tore loose to the side, sending wood and stone and two knights flying across the cobblestones.

  A large beast, as wide as three men, and tall enough for two broke through into the street. It roared, the spittle spraying out of its mouth. Liam's arrow hit it in the eye, and Sir Tannon swept through its legs, slicing open its inner thigh.

  He moved as deftly as anyone half his age.

  It swung, shattering the cobblestones like glass. Liam's second arrow took it in the other eye. With a roar like a hundred men, it staggered across the walkway, swinging its axe in a fury, leaving a trail of black blood across the stones.

  Nightspawn were pouring out through the shop into the alley, but charging against the wall of knights was like charging into a meat grinder. They didn't stand a chance.

  Sir Tannon stepped between the giant's hammer, hacking its leg again and again. It collapsed to one knee and another knight brought his axe down, splitting its head in two. They moved together in perfect unison like performers who'd practiced their routines a thousand times.

  Nightspawn lay dead or dying around them and every man’s weapon was covered in black blood.

  Sir Garrett, the young knight, slapped Liam on the back. “Good shooting there. A few more like that and we may soon have to start calling you Sir.” Kaylyn swelled with pride, and Liam couldn't help grinning like a fool.

  “We’re a block away from the shop,” Sir Tannon said. Despite fighting, his breathing had hardly increased. “The cursed nightspawn drew us off course, but we should be able to find our way through the buildings. Sir Irwin, what are you doing?”

  The knight was scraping his tongue on the side of the building. His helmet had come off during the fight and his front, including his face, was covered in black blood that blended in perfectly with his thin mustache. “I’m trying to get this cursed taste out of my mouth. Grout, but it's vile.” A creature lay at his feet with its neck split open, still fountaining blood.

  Sir Garrett tore off a piece of his surcoat, about the size of a belt buckle and handed it to him. “Here, clean yourself off.”

  The other knights roared with laughter, and Sir Irwin flashed him the sign of the plagued.

  “If you're quite finished,” Sir Tannon said, “can we get on now before something else arrives.”

  He disappeared through the hole where the door used to be. That led through a shop and into another alley, and from there it was a quick jog to the flower shop. The kingdom forces must have taken the Pendalon square as the nightspawn had all but dried up. Against ten knights the stragglers stood little chance. The knights left a trail of flesh and blood without slowing a whit.

  Kaylyn led them down a short flight of stairs into the back room. she slid aside a pile of crates and began tapping the wood paneled wall behind it.

  The knights formed a shield behind her.

  Dust covered the floor and water had leaked in through the roof rotting the wooden shelves, causing them to collapse.

  “Come on, come on,” Kaylyn urged under her breath. A panel clicked and she wrenched the door open. “That's it. Let's go.”

  Sir Tannon lit a single torch, and the flickering light played off the roughly dug sides of a narrow passage.

  Half the men went ahead, and the other half covered the rear.

  Water leaked down the wall, leaving a slimy film across the stone floor that had their boots slipping.

  The tunnel must have run a mile at least to the palace.

  The air was stale, and the only sounds were their footsteps and heavy breathing. Liam couldn't hear a thing that was happening in the streets above them. For all he knew, the soldiers may have been routed, and he and the others were trapped in the city surrounded by tens of thousands of nightspawn. He forced that thought aside.

  When they reached the end of the passage, Sir Tannon doused the flame and they all waited in silence until their eyes adjusted to the dark.

  “Ready?” he whispered, taking hold of the handle.

  The panel opened into a library. Shelves had been overturned and swollen, mouldy books lay scattered across the floor.

  Three nightspawn were crossing the room at the time. They scrambled for their weapons but spears skewered two of them before they could make a sound, and Liam took the third down with his arrow.

  The knights dragged the bodies into the passage.

  Kaylyn led the knights to a shelf that had been hacked apart, leaving a giant hole in the wall. “They found this one,” she whispered. Sir Tannon directed her aside with the back of his hand and stepped through.

  Up a narrow flight of stairs, they reached the upper hall. Slashed paintings of kings hung skew on the walls, and the gilded tables had been stripped of their gold and cast aside. Dirt and dried blood smeared the walls.

  Sir Tannon exchanged hand signs with the other men. Three of them slipped past, as quiet as predators stalking their prey, while young Sir Garrett and Sir Irwin stayed back to pick off anything that came up from behind. Sir Tannon signalled for the rest to move.

  The passage led through the royal apartments, with their moulded ceilings three stories high and marbled tiles brought in from across the oceans. Liam had always dreamt of seeing the royal apartments, but not like this.

  He stepped over body after body where the three advancing knights had slipped through them like death's shadow. Liam had never seen anything like it. The creatures, like guards, in their black twisted armour, lay in pools of their own blood.

  One was still twitching, and Sir Tannon put a spear through its head.

  Even though nothing but darkness greeted them through the large diamond pane windows, a few torches along the walls provided enough light for the men to see where they were going. It was strange that the nightspawn would need torches to see anything, and even stranger that the passages were so empty this close to the gateway.

  They were just passing a large display cabinet, with the doors broken open and the shelves looted, when Kaylyn threw her arm out to stop them. “Sir Tannon, call your men. Now.” Liam couldn't see her face, but her voice was rattled. “Call them back.”

  Liam scanned the dark, his heart suddenly pounding. If Kaylyn was afraid then there was good reason for the rest of them to be terrified.

  The old knight gave a shrill whistle like a tiller bird.

  In any other castle, that would go unnoticed, but Liam doubted that anything besides the nightspawn still existed for miles around them. The taint was too strong. “Kaylyn, what is it?”

  “I’d know this residue anywhere.”

  “Residue?”

  She stared down the dark passage as though looking death itself in the eyes. “My old instructor’s here, and she’s close.”

  Kaylyn brushed her hair back, and Liam noticed that her hands were trembling. “What’s she doing here? Fate Liam, she’s strong. We're going to have to rethink everything.”

  “Is this the one that—” he didn't finish. The one that tried to
kill her when she was a child, the one who had deceived her into stealing her father's amulet. Anger burned inside of him at the thought of what the woman had done to her, and his hand tightened on his bow. Even if she was stronger than Kaylyn, he had taken a wretched down once before with his bow, he could do it again. “It's time to end this. You have ten knights behind you, and every arrow in my quiver.”

  The three knights came jogging back up the passage. “The path is clear. The king's chambers are just ahead. We should strike while we still have the upper hand.” Sir Tannon put his hand up to still them. “Your highness? What's going on?”

  Kaylyn looked from the knights to Liam, and her face saddened. She took Liam's hands and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Whatever happens in there,” she whispered, “I want you to know that you saved me. You showed me what it was like to be normal, and I'll never forget you.”

  “Kaylyn, I won't let anything happen to you. We're going to get through this—together.”

  “No. I’ve risked enough people. I can't risk you as well. I'm sorry.”

  Her hand slid up his chest, a force hit into him and he was thrown back.

  Black spears of energy slammed into the ground between them, blocking the way, and she disappeared down the passage, alone.

  “Kaylyn, Kaylyn!” Light failing what was she doing? Liam opened his mouth to shout after her, but that would only put her in more danger. Panic seized him, and he shouldered into the bars over and over, with his mind screaming after her. Each time he hit, the filth flowed into him, but he didn't stop. He couldn't. He pictured her lifeless body lying on the floor, and that only made him strike harder. He kicked at the bars and then drew his sword and hacked at them. His only thought was reaching her before something happened.

  Bootsteps clattered up the passage behind them.

  The young Sir Garrett appeared supporting Sir Irwin, his front still covered in black blood, but he was now clutching a wound to his chest. “We have company.”

  Once in Lyndwon, a drunk had opened a cattle stall while looking for a place to relieve himself. The beasts charged through the market, upending tables, and knocking people aside. All Liam remembered was the sound of hooves drumming towards him, and then he was lying on his back in the dirt. He heard those hooves again and braced himself.

  A black mass of armour and hunks of cruel metal flooded into the passage as far back as the light allowed, and then beyond that, like a creature of the deep.

  “Grout!” Sir Tannon raised his shield as the hoard slammed into them.

  The Knights were driven back. Firelight reflected off the spears and swords and snapping teeth. The sound was like a thousand hounds ravaging a carcass.

  “Stand your ground. Stand your ground,” someone was shouting, but his voice was all but drowned out in the snarling and ringing of metal on metal.

  The only way out of this was through the nightspawn or through the bars. Liam had to get through them. Not for the knights, but for Kaylyn. She was all that mattered. He swung his sword, over and over as hard as he could. “I’m coming, Kaylyn.” Just don't let anything happen to her in there. “Light failing, I’m coming.”

  Chapter 33

  The door shut behind Kaylyn cutting out the light of the passage. There was no going back now.

  She hadn't had time to imagine what it would be like to see the room again, but seeing it now was like stepping back ten years. It was just as she remembered, with those high, molded ceilings and blue silk drapes hanging the full length of the wall. A deep sadness settled over her for a past she could never reclaim. It threatened to overpower the fear of meeting Auralis again.

  The room was the same, but for the giant hole churning above the bed with enough power to consume the city, it sucked the light of the torches towards it, while the walls rumbled under its force. The kingdom didn't realise the force they were trying to contain, when they cut that stone out of the hunter’s heart.

  “Well, well, well, Princess Kaylyn. The mongrel princess returns to her father's chambers.” A woman sat on the king’s throne, with a leg up under her.

  “Auralis.” Kaylyn had to swallow back a lump. She looked a lot younger than Kaylyn remembered, perhaps the amulet was still affecting time here. She looked just as smug, just as cold as ever, but her eyes were black, and visible darkness was radiating from her like heat from a fire. With the amount of evil pouring out of the gateway, there was no way to avoid that.

  “Is this the wretched princess?” Another woman said in a shrill voice. “She doesn't look like much.” Three other women sat around the room in chairs taken from the dining hall. Kaylyn didn't recognise the one who was speaking, but the other two had interrogated her about her father's amulet when she was but a child. She'd never forget those pinched faces, those nasty scowls, and those cold eyes.

  Kaylyn kept her power just beneath the surface. Light failing, there were three of them, and Auralis. She couldn't take on four syphers. Her mind screamed for her to strike first and at least take some of them with her... She'd have one chance. Kaylyn suddenly wished she had the knights at her back, but that would have risked Liam, and she couldn't allow that. No, she'd caused this, and she had to deal with this on her own.

  Auralis stretched a hand towards the king's scepter, propped up on the other side of the room. It snapped into her hand and Kaylyn flinched.

  A smile crept across those full lips. “You were never very smart. I don't know what you were hoping to achieve by coming here today, but I can feel the amulet. You've brought it back to where it belongs. It's ten years too late for him though.” Her eyes slid up above Kaylyn's head.

  Kaylyn turned slowly, keeping an eye on Auralis. She didn't know what to expect, a monster or an assassin perhaps, but what she found pierced her heart far deeper than any blade. Her courage deserted her, and she stumbled back.

  Her father's body hung above the door by his wrists.

  She covered her mouth with trembling hands.

  He looked the same as he had ten years ago, when Kaylyn said goodnight to him for the last time, the night he had died. She'd always remembered him as a powerful man, but up on the wall he seemed so small, so frail. Is that what his injury had done to him?

  The walls seemed to constrict around her, until she couldn't breathe. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice shuddered, but she couldn't control it anymore. “People are dying out there.”

  “Do you think I care about the people out there? Your family destroyed the syphers. You lived in palaces while our friends, our family, were hunted down like dogs. Those people out there cheered when one of our kind—your kind, were pierced with a hundred arrows, and for what?”

  Auralis got to her feet, her eyes blazing. “I gave you the opportunity to make things right and you betrayed us. You betrayed your own kind and sided with them. You knew the truth, and yet you closed your eyes to it. That makes you worse than them. The spiteful, unlovable girl who betrayed her own. That's how the generations will remember you.”

  She pointed the scepter at Kaylyn's heart. “You’ll hang next to your father, and when your brother comes looking for you, I'll hang him there too. I won't kill him. I'll let him waste away until he is nothing but bones, and with the amulet, all three of you will remain there forever, as reminders of the price of tyranny. Generations will spit at you. Humankind will curse your name for what you brought upon them.”

  “Do you think you'll be spared in the end,” Kaylyn said. “Once Gaharah consumes the world? You'll die, just like the rest of us.”

  “I am gaharah. That is my world. I am stronger, more capable now than I've ever been. We will usher in a new era—an age of power, where we will take our rightful places on the thrones of men in a world united with Gaharah.”

  “You're wrong. You haven't left the palace in ten years. The prince has you contained. Even if you kill me, you will die in this palace.”

  “Except for one thing—” a wicked smile crept across her lips. A sliver of power caressed K
aylyn's cheek, and then the amulet slid out of her top and floated up into the air. “You've brought me the stone.”

  Kaylyn cut the thread, and the amulet fell.

  Auralis laughed. “So, you've grown a spine since we last met. That doesn't matter. You think you've seen my power? What I showed you as a child was but a fragment of it.”

  Her power gathered. It drew back like the ocean and then the wave hit. Kaylyn just managed to form a shield as the power slammed into her. She screwed up her face fighting to hold it back.

  Auralis’ smile deepened. She drew more and more until she was barely visible through the black torrent of power coursing through her.

  Kaylyn strengthened her shield, waiting for the power to consume it. Mere seconds passed, but Kaylyn’s mind threw up images of her past and what may lie before her. She'd given this her all, but she’d soon see Kael and her father. They'd be waiting for her on the other side. The thought should have warmed her heart, but it frightened her. What if they weren't there? What if there was nothing but darkness beyond Gaharah? She thought of her own life and all she still wanted to do. She'd promised to take Liam to Petu. She'd promised him... The hands of panic tightened around her throat when she realised she'd never get to do it, and that she'd never get to see him again. She thought of him outside, trapped all alone in the city without her, and she wanted to run to him and hold him. The thought of him gave her the courage to lift her eyes. If she was going to die, she'd do it with her head held high, looking Auralis straight in the eyes, but what she found surprised her. The woman’s smile had slipped and a bead of sweat ran down her forehead. Kaylyn suddenly realised that Auralis had reached the limit of her strength. She was drawing all that she had.

  One of the other three must have realised this as well, and she leapt to her feet. “Enough,” she screeched. “We don't have time for this. Take the amulet and be done with it.” She lifted the scepter with her power and flung it at Kaylyn like a spear. Kaylyn put out her other hand, and the scepter stopped mid-flight. The woman threw all her power into it, but it didn't budge.