Royal Bastards

by Andrew Shvarts

  Galen stood there, speechless. I could see the gears in his head whirring as he tried to figure out how to change my mind…and I could see the moment when he realized he couldn’t. “Titans’ breath,” he cursed. “You’re a lunatic, just like your father. And you’re going to get me killed.”

  “You’ll fight with us?” Lyriana asked.

  Galen sighed. “You’re the Princess of Noveris. I can’t well just let you die, can I? Yes. I’ll fight with you. And if your father asks, your bastard friends forced me to do it at knifepoint.”

  “That was my next plan,” I said, and turned toward the tower’s door. A part of me wanted to kneel back down and touch Jax again, to kiss his cold face one last time. But I knew if I did, it might give the pain strength, might test this resolve. Right now this resolve was the only thing I had. I had to leave him here. I had to say good-bye.

  I cracked my knuckles. “Let’s go.”

  Zell took the guards outside the door just as easily as he’d predicted, dropping one with a nightglass jab and the other with a chokehold. We armed ourselves with what they were carrying: Zell took a sword and sheath, slinging it across his back, and Galen and I each took a dagger. Lyriana didn’t pick any weapons up, not that she needed any; hell, as it turned out, she didn’t even need her Rings. I had a library’s worth of questions about that, but they would have to wait. For now, I was just grateful to have her on my side.

  We made our way down the tower, creeping along a winding staircase. I’d worried we’d have to fight our way through an army of guards, but the place was emptier than it had been when we’d been hiding out here. Most of my father’s men were probably at Pioneer’s Pass, preparing their ambush.

  Was Miles still here, I wondered, holed up in his room, or had he ridden out after his little tantrum? Just thinking about him got me seeing red. It was his fault all this had happened. It was his fault Jax was dead. And if I saw him again, I’d…I’d…

  Zell reached out and pressed his hand lightly against the small of my back. Stay calm, he said without saying it. Stay focused.

  I did.

  We made our way around a corner to the heavy wooden double doors that led to the Great Hall. They were shut, but I could hear sounds through them: padding footsteps, the clink and clank of metal, the crackle of flame…and a choked, weak sound that might well have been a muffled scream.

  I looked around, at Zell, and Galen, and Lyriana, met their eyes, made sure they all looked ready. Zell and Galen drew their blades. I reached down, wrapped my hand around the hilt of my dagger.

  “Let’s do this,” I said.

  Zell threw open the doors.

  THE FIRST THING I SAW was a Sister.

  She was young, maybe a little older than me, and without her veil I could make out smooth brown skin and a shaved head. She sat strapped to a chair with several tight leather bands, a knotted rope wrapped around her mouth as a gag. Her arms were outstretched, clamped to the chair’s armrests, and the Rings on her fingers were pulsing hot with magical energy, flickering stormy purple and sizzling red, just like that fragment in the mage-killer I’d seen back at Whitesand Beach. Her chest was ripped up with long, horizontal cuts, and several fresh burns glistened on her bare shoulders. But what really caught my gaze were her eyes. They were wide and vacant, all white, like they’d been permanently rolled up into her head. The mind-breaking drug, in action. It was way more horrible than I’d imagined, and I’d imagined it pretty damn horrible.

  One of Razz’s mercenaries stood next to her, an older Western man with white hair and heavy jowls. He held a poker in one hand, its tip glowing red. Behind him, throughout the hall, were at least ten other mercenaries sharpening weapons and drinking wine out of big clay jugs. The long tables had been stripped of food and were covered in knives, axes, and other sharp, pointy things, as if you’d get bored torturing with just one. At the hall’s far end, by the open doors to the courtyard, I could make out the rest of the Sisters, or what was left of them. Fifteen women, maybe twenty, sat on their knees, arms bound behind their backs, gags in their mouths. They looked up in astonishment at the sight of us.

  The mercenaries looked up, too, though it wasn’t astonishment on their faces. They bolted out of their seats as we entered, fumbling for their weapons. The older one torturing the Sister, his beard stained purple from wine, actually dropped his poker in surprise. I decided I’d go for him first.

  “Impressive,” a voice boomed across the hall. A hulking figure stepped into the hall from the courtyard, standing two heads taller than any man there. He was shirtless, and his tattooed pecs were bigger than my head. Each massive hand held an enormous ax, their nightglass blades sharpened to a razor tip.

  Grezza Gaul. The Chief of Clans. Zell’s father.

  Of course he was here. Because my luck couldn’t get any worse, right?

  Grezza didn’t look drunk, unlike the others, but he’d probably have to drink a barrel of wine just to get a buzz. He looked right past me and glowered at Zell. “Have you finally decided to face me, boy?” he demanded.

  Zell strode forward and leveled his sword at his father. “Drop your axes. Surrender. And we’ll let you live.”

  Grezza laughed, a thunderous boom. “I’ll admit this, bastard. You don’t give up. If only you had some balls to back it up, maybe you’d be—”

  “Razz is dead,” Zell said coldly. “You’re running out of sons.”

  Grezza stopped, stunned. Then he let out a bellow that shook the walls, and charged forward, and the room exploded into violence.

  Grezza crossed the room in ten gigantic strides and swung his axes down in vertical arcs, like he was hammering a giant nail into the earth. Zell jerked back, just barely dodging the attack, and the axes hit the ground with a shower of sparks. Grezza had the upper hand; Zell would have to get close enough to use his sword, and he couldn’t do that when his father had twice the range. I wanted to rush forward to help him, but then the other mercenaries charged at us.

  I wasn’t scared. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t. Sure, these were trained killers and they outnumbered us twelve to four. But I had Zell’s training. I had Galen and Lyriana at my back. And I really, really wanted to hurt someone.

  The Princess jerked her hand up, shooting a gust of Lift that knocked two of the mercenaries off their feet and sent them sprawling out on the stone. Another tried to rush her with his sword, but Lyriana flipped her hand over, Lifted a table off the ground, and smashed it down on him in an explosive spray of splinters. The Sisters screamed. The mercenary went down. I didn’t think he was getting back up. A third rushed at Galen, swinging a heavy, two-handed blade. The Lord of the Nest dodged it effortlessly, wove around behind him, and stabbed him in the back over and over again in a dizzying, bloody fury.

  I was distracted from that horrible sight by a drunken holler. The older mercenary with the heavy jowls came charging at me and swung a hand ax at my throat in a clumsy swipe. My brain shut down. My body took over. I threw myself back, and his hand ax’s chipped blade cut through the air in front of me. He stumbled forward. I whipped my dagger up. I’d been aiming for his chest, I think, but I ended up driving it up to the hilt into the meaty part of his bicep.

  The mercenary let out a yelp of pain, his breath reeking of booze. His hand ax flew harmlessly across the room. He staggered forward, my dagger still in his arm, and I wove around him, pressed both hands to the back of his head, and jumped up, putting all my weight on his neck. This wasn’t some graceful khel zhan move, more like a clumsy grapple you’d see in a barroom brawl. But it worked. The mercenary fell forward and hit the sharp corner of a table with his chin. There was an audible crack from his neck, and he crumpled to the ground and lay still.

  I didn’t even have a moment to breathe, because another mercenary was coming at me, a short, husky one with a braided beard. He had a long sword with a subtle curve, like Zell’s way back at the feast. He sliced it down at me in a blindingly fast chop. I jerked to the side
, just barely, the blade’s polished edge scraping the skin off the side of my arm, and then I swung forward, spun around, and hit the mercenary in the back of the head with my elbow.

  That was a khel zhan move, executed flawlessly, if I could give myself credit. The mercenary crumpled to the ground, his blade sliding out of his hands. He tried to get up, but I smashed the heel of my boot into his face. He didn’t try to get up again.

  I took a quick survey of the room. Most of the enemies were down. Galen was in the corner, choking a scrawny mercenary with his knee on the man’s neck. Lyriana was holding her own against the remaining three, hurling chairs at them with her magic as they cowered behind a doorway. Zell and Grezza were fighting toward the chamber’s entryway. Grezza was still on the offensive, driving Zell farther and farther back. Zell was faster, rolling and dodging his father’s strikes, but Grezza was too big and too strong. His broad swings with his axes kept Zell a good yard away, rendering his sword useless. Zell looked desperate, his face slick and his breath fast, but Grezza hadn’t even broken a sweat. He was taking his time. All he had to do was get in one hit.

  Footsteps pounded toward them. Galen had knocked out his mercenary and was running Zell’s way, a dagger in his hand and a clear shot at Grezza’s back. While Zell held his father’s attention, Galen bounded across the room, leaped onto a bench, onto a table, and then dove at Grezza, knife held high….

  But it was like Grezza had eyes in the back of his head. He spun around in a wide arc and hit Galen in midair with the back of his ax. Galen flew across the room like a doll, hit the wall, and crumpled.

  I started to run toward him, when Lyriana screamed. “Tilla! Look out!”

  I spun around. One of Lyriana’s mercenaries had broken away and was rushing at me. It was Pretty Boy, from the alley in Bridgetown, with a bandage on his nose and a furious scowl. His hand darted up from his belt. Something streaked through the air at my face, something glinting and metal and sharp. A throwing knife.

  My hand shot up on pure reflex and caught it by the polished metal hilt, stopping it an inch from my face. Just like the rock. Pretty Boy froze, stunned, and he looked as surprised as I felt. Still not thinking, I hurled the knife back. My throw was a lot less graceful, a wobbly horizontal spin, but it did the job. The edge of the knife clipped his throat as it passed by. A thin stream of blood shot out, like wine out of a punctured skin. The mercenary grabbed his throat with a gurgle and fell to his knees. I let out a wild cry and rushed toward him, and grabbed a weapon off the table, a heavy wooden club with nightglass teeth embedded in the head. Pretty Boy looked up at me, and I swung the club in a wide arc that caught him right in the face. I heard bone shatter and flesh tear. He toppled onto his back and lay there.

  I don’t know if I killed him. But he sure as hell wasn’t pretty anymore.

  I turned around. Lyriana had handled her last mercenary, ripping the door off its hinges and smashing him to the ground with it. The Sisters were watching her in stunned disbelief, and Archmatron Marlena, who I was happy to see was still alive, had a look that seemed somewhere in between admiration and disgust. I didn’t care, though, because in the room’s entryway, Zell and Grezza were still fighting, and it was somehow even worse than when I’d last looked. Grezza had lost one of his axes, but Zell had lost his only sword and was bleeding from a cut in his side. His father kept driving him back with wild swings, but there was only so far Zell could go before he hit the hallway wall. He was unarmed and wounded and trapped.

  Then I saw his face. And I recognized the look. It was the look he’d had before saving me from Tannyn, the look he’d had taking out the skarrlings, the look he’d had throwing that knife in Bridgetown. It wasn’t just determination. It was certainty.

  He gritted his teeth and sprinted forward, rushing right at his father. Grezza growled and swung his ax down over his shoulder, like a massive bladed windmill plunging right at Zell’s head. I cringed. But right before the blade could hit, Zell swerved in his sprint and jumped to the side, running for three whole strides along the wall itself. Grezza’s ax smashed into the ground, and Zell lunged off the wall in an amazingly high leap, as high up as Grezza was tall. Grezza tried to react, but he was too slow and his ax was too heavy. Zell planted one hand on his father’s shoulder, flipped over his head, and landed perfectly behind him….

  Then he threw out a dozen blindingly fast punches, each one driving the full length of his nightglass blades into his father’s back, up and down the length of his spine.

  Grezza let out a wheezing rasp and collapsed to his knees. His ax clattered to the floor. He sat there like that, rigid as a stone. His fingertips twitched, but his arms didn’t move, dead weight hanging off his shoulders. His massive chest heaved with breath, but he didn’t get up and didn’t fall down. The thick, veiny muscles in his neck twitched, but his head was still. It was as if he’d been frozen.

  Zell hadn’t just beaten him. He’d paralyzed him.

  Zell staggered away, panting, as if the reality of the fight had just hit him. The room was still and silent, except for the broken moaning of a few wounded mercenaries. Along the far wall, Galen pulled himself up into a slump and watched with great interest as Zell circled Grezza.

  A grimace of blinding pain crossed the Zitochi Chief’s face, but then it twisted into, unbelievably, a smile. “I underestimated you, son,” Grezza choked out, each syllable a labor. “That was my folly.”

  “You had a lot of follies.” Zell knelt down and grabbed his father’s ax, lifting it up with both hands. He rested the tip of the blade against the base of Grezza’s neck. “Underestimating me was the least of them.”

  Grezza didn’t seem remotely fazed. “It is a father’s greatest gift to see his son surpass him. When we meet again, in the halls of Zhallaran, I shall treat you better.” He closed his eyes. “End this.”

  Zell breathed hard. I could see so much hatred in his eyes. I could see that killer’s rage. So much fury. So much pain. But still, he held the ax straight and didn’t swing it.

  “Do it!” Grezza barked. “Don’t you dare leave me like this! Broken! Dishonored!”

  Zell looked up at me, and I could see it now in his eyes, behind the fury and the pain, the kindness he couldn’t suppress, the mercy that had spared his brother, the compassion that had driven him to protect us all this time. I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t have to. Zell looked at me and nodded.

  “Being dishonored was the best thing that ever happened to me.” He flipped the ax around, so the wooden handle was against his father’s neck. “You give it a shot.” Then he swung it in a hard arc that cracked Grezza in the back of the head and sent him sprawling, unconscious, onto the chamber’s floor.

  I let out a long exhale. The Sisters looked relieved, too. Zell dropped the ax to the floor and looked around, nodding in approval. “Nice moves.”

  “I learned from the best.” I smiled. “How are you holding up?”

  Zell glanced down at his father’s sprawled form. “Good,” he said. “Surprisingly good.”

  Then he collapsed onto the floor.

  I crossed the room faster than I’ve ever moved in my life and dropped down to him. With both hands, I propped him up and eased him against a wall, and my palms came back soaked red. “Oh no,” I gasped, and pulled open his shirt, seeing for the first time just how bad the cut in his side was: a jagged rift from his rib cage to just above his hip. Blood, too much blood, was trickling out, running all the way down his side. I pressed my hands to the wound, desperately trying to keep his life in.

  “It’s okay,” he choked out, even as the color was draining from his sweat-slick face. He tried to force a smile, but he just ended up with a grimace. “I’ve had worse.”

  “The wound isn’t fatal,” a woman’s voice said from above me. I looked up to see the wizened face of Archmatron Marlena peering over my shoulder. Lyriana must have freed her. “The Sisters can mend this. If we can work our magic, he’ll live.” She gently pushed me asi
de and hovered over Zell, laying a strip of cloth from a nearby table onto his wound.

  “Of course he’ll live,” I said, in part because I couldn’t even begin to fathom a world where Zell died, too. “You can save him.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Zell repeated, his eyes locked onto mine. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it through this.” His breath got more ragged, and he struggled to keep his head up. “We’ll…we’ll…”

  “Shhhh,” Archmatron Marlena whispered, and eased his head back as he passed out. I clenched my hand over my mouth and turned away. I’d never been religious, never believed in any of it, but in that second, I prayed, to the Titans and the Old Kings and anyone else who would listen, prayed to hell that the Archmatron knew what she was doing.

  “We need to get to safety,” Lyriana said. “Now.”

  Oh. Right. The mercenaries were down, but we were still ass-deep in enemy territory. “Yeah. We need to move.” I turned to Galen. “Time to go for your escape route. Can you help carry Zell?”

  He rubbed at his side where Grezza had hit him. “Pretty sure I’ve got a broken rib…or three….”

  “I can Lift most of his weight, if you can guide him,” Lyriana said. Her eyes flitted to one of the shattered tables in the room, the one crushing two mercenaries. “Believe me, I can still Lift.”

  By the door to the courtyard, Lyriana was freeing the other Sisters one by one. I’ll give them this: I’d thought they might be shell-shocked or rattled. But the second they were free, each one moved with a purpose, rushing to Marlena’s side, tending to Zell. A few were even ministering to the wounded mercenaries. Lyriana probably thought that was noble. I thought it was a waste of effort.

  The Sister in the chair, the one with the terrible white eyes, must have died during the fight. One of the others gently eased her out of her seat and laid her on the ground, draping a tablecloth over her prone form as she whispered the Cant of Departure.