Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  Relieved, Reyn looked around.

  Then he started for the door, that solid slab of iron and timber behind which Reyn was fairly sure death incarnate sat impatiently waiting.

  XXXVI

  “It is a source of amusement to me, the irony by which the world works. It is inconceivable, for example, the places in which one might find their greatest allies.”

  —ERGOIN SASS

  RAZ HAD run out of patience six hours ago.

  He had tried everything, everything, to get the damn door to open. He had wrenched at it, thrown things at it, tried to pick—and then break—the lock with bent nails he’d recovered from the wreckage strewn about the room. He’d attempted to leverage the hinges with lengths of wood, had even done his best to bash it open with the stocks of salted meat that had been stacked along the right wall, using two of the heavy barrels as battering rams, one after the other. When that had failed—spilling salt and slabs of cured venison over the floor—he had screamed in fury and slashed at the door, leaving long, angry gouges that crisscrossed over the wood.

  The thing hadn’t so much as twitched.

  He knew why, of course. He didn’t know if he was sensitive to the magic—as he was to sounds and scents—or if the barrier cast about the door was just that potent, but Raz could literally feel the power radiating from the iron-bound wood and the stone around it, vibrating over him if he got too close. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, at first. For a time it was like the song made by a distant waterfall, a dull, low rumble of noise that spoke of something both powerful and beautiful all at once. After the first hour, though, Raz had started to get irritated by the feeling, associating it with his frustration.

  After he was certain half the day had gone by, he wondered if he would ever get over the acute, irrational rage the thrum brought on whenever he neared the ward.

  He sat now—for this very reason—some ten feet away from the door in the center of the room, chewing mindlessly on a thick hunk of meat he had scooped up from the ground nearby for his dinner. The salt tasted good after weeks spent eating unseasoned game, his sharp teeth making quick work of the tough, fibrous flesh, and he sated his thirst from a few clay jugs of what had turned out to be ale and water he’d found intact among the mess. Eating distracted him, allowing him to sit back and think.

  Unsurprisingly, no solution presented itself.

  “Damn trims are going to keep me in here until I rot,” he muttered through a mouthful of meat.

  Great. Now I’m talking to myself even when Ahna isn’t around.

  Briefly amused by the thought, Raz smirked, his eyes never leaving the cell door. For the thousandth time that day he studied the thing, taking in every inch of wood, every line of hammered metal that shone in the glow of magical light and every flicker of shadow cast by the unevenly cut granite around it. He looked for any weakness, anything that might give him so much as a hint on how to escape. He wondered what would happen if he started talking to the door, rather to himself.

  And then, as though in response, the door started talking to him.

  Raz froze mid-chew. He was sure he had heard something, some muffled, garbled noise that sounded all too much like someone were calling his name. He sat there, tense and still, listening.

  “Ar-o. Ar—Ar—ro.”

  Raz was on his feet in an instant, the remainder of his meal tossed hastily to one side, his aversion to the magic totally forgotten as he leapt for the door.

  “Arr-o,” the voice came again. “Ar—ro.”

  It was a male voice, sounding as though it were coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, warped and echoed and faded, like a man were screaming at him from the other side of a very large cavern.

  All the same, it was definitely real.

  “Here!” Raz roared, pounding on the wood. “In here!”

  The voice made no reply.

  There were two slots in the door, one that slid sideways to form a peephole around Raz’s chest height, and one at the very bottom that was meant to swing out of the way so food and drink could be delivered to the incarcerated. Raz had tried both of them before and found them magically sealed, but he tried again all the same now, first digging his claws into the wood and trying to pull the peephole open, then scrabbling once more at the feed slot, again finding no purchase for his claws. He howled in anger again, punching and kicking at the wood.

  And, as he did, feeling it shake.

  In half-a-day of struggling, not once had the door so much as shivered. Even when he’d struck the reinforced timber and iron with the heavy frame of the meat barrels, the door hadn’t even creaked in protest. It had merely existed, like it were part of the wall itself, a silent and impassive witness of his distress. Raz had become sure, in fact, that even if he had used his claws to carve through the wood, eventually he would have been met with a solid, inviolable barrier of magic.

  And yet now, as he’d pounded at the door with bare fists and feet, it had shaken.

  Sizzle… crack…

  At first the sounds took Raz by surprise, and he retreated a cautious step back. Then he recognized them, drawing them from his memory of that same morning, of the bitch woman’s—Petrük’s—ward breaking beneath his hands in the madness Syrah’s absence had thrown him into.

  It was the sound of spellwork being undone…

  Eagerly Raz waited, then, knowing there was nothing and less he could do. Impatiently he shifted his weight from foot to foot, feeling he could guess exactly who it was behind the door.

  “Come on,” he muttered to himself, yellow eyes darting about, watching the latch and the hinges and peephole slot. “Come ooooon.”

  But there was no rushing the process, it seemed, and it was several minutes before a distinct crack came, and the dull hum of magic around Raz became suddenly much quieter.

  Metal shifted, there was a clunk, and the wooden slot slid aside in the center of the door.

  “Carro,” Raz breathed in relief, bending down. “About damn time. I was wondering when you were going to—”

  But he stopped, then, because the face looking through to him from the other side of the door was not that of Carro al’Dor.

  Reyn felt his breath catch in his throat as Raz’s i’Syul Arro bent down to peer through the hole. For the first time he became truly aware of how massive the atherian was, towering and lithe, corded muscle bunching beneath the black-scaled skin of his neck that gleamed in the firelight.

  When Arro’s eyes came into view, Reyn couldn’t help but take a step back, and the man’s words were entirely lost to him.

  He had, for a moment, the impression of looking in on a caged beast, such as he’d heard some of the inordinately rich kept in private sanctuaries in the Seven Cities and Perce. There were several seconds of silence as the amber orbs drilled into him, glinting in the light, one second shining like a wolf’s in twin disks of white, the next sharp and gold, with black, vertically slit pupils that held no warmth for him, no fondness.

  Then the atherian spoke again, and this time Reyn heard him.

  “What are you doing here, Priest?”

  It wasn’t an unkind, question, truth be told. If anything Arro sounded perplexed, as though Reyn were the last person he would have expected to find on the other side of the door that kept him from his freedom.

  Which isn’t all that surprising, Reyn realized, seeing his mistake.

  “They say you know where Syrah Brahnt is,” Reyn said, deciding to clear the air all at once. “Is it true?”

  Arro watched him for a time, blinking slowly, but made no reply. He seemed almost wary.

  “Is it true?” Reyn demanded, hating the desperation that was all too blatant in his voice.

  Another pause.

  “It is,” the atherian said finally. “Why?”

  “Can you save her?”

  “Yes.”

  There was no hesitation to the answer this time, no moment of pondering or consideration. Rather, there was only calm, deadly
confidence, and a coolness to the word that sent a chill down Reyn’s back.

  “You’re Hartlet, right?”

  Reyn startled as the atherian said his name.

  “Y-yes,” he stammered, feeling a fool for not having introduced himself. “I’m sorry for my behavior on the pass. I wasn’t in my right mind. I—”

  “Are you going to let me out of here, Hartlet?”

  The question came in the same cold way, with the same hard conviction. Suddenly, Reyn was all too aware of what he was doing, what he was about to do. All at once it came to the forefront, closing in. As he looked into those golden eyes, seeing the bloody intent lingering behind them, he understood what it was he was about to release onto the world.

  Reyn opened his mouth to speak, unsure, exactly, of what he was going to say.

  He never saw the glint of the magic, nor flash of light as the stun spell streaked out of the darkness from the end of the hall by the stairs, catching him in the side.

  Raz watched with ever-building confusion as Reyn Hartlet tumbled out of view. He’d seen the glimmer, recognized the casting, but hadn’t even had a moment to give warning before the spell struck the Priest in the ribs. The young man’s eyes had rolled up into his head, leaving him suspended like that for two solid seconds in front of the door.

  Then he’d fallen sideways, out of view.

  “Hartlet!” Raz shouted in half-desperation, half-concern, grabbing the peephole with both hands and shaking the door. “Hartlet!”

  “Quiet, Raz!”

  Instantly Raz shut up, the familiar voice strangling his cries.

  There was the muffled rustle of footsteps, and Raz watched the slide of the shadows as someone made their way quickly down the hall. The steps got louder and louder, and eventually a man came into view, peering through the door at him.

  This time the face did indeed belong to Carro al’Dor.

  “Carro,” Raz hissed, still holding onto the hole. “What’s going on? What did you do to Hartlet?”

  “Stopped him from destroying his life,” Carro grumbled, taking a step back and examining the door. “They would have cast him out, if he’d managed to free you. He would have had nothing.”

  Raz paused at that.

  “Then what are you doing?” he asked slowly, watching the Priest take in the door from the hall.

  In the semi-darkness of the subdued torchlight, an ordinary man might not have seen the shift in Carro’s face at the question. The grief, so plain to Raz’s sharp eyes, might have gone unnoticed in the shadows, a twisted exposure of the raw pain that Raz had only seen glimpses of over the last few days.

  “I’ve already lost everything,” the Priest said quietly, his eyes settling on the center of the door. “Now get back.”

  Raz made no argument, and retreated several steps as Carro gathered light into his good hand.

  Carro, it turned out, was much more efficient at undoing wards than Reyn Hartlet. Raz watched in silent wonderment as blinding white flashed in scattered patterns through the open slot, listening to the Priest’s muttered incantations and occasional curses. Within a half a minute the dull thrum of the magic had faded beyond perception, and not long after Raz made out the creak of wood and metal as the door settled on its own weight.

  Then there was a final blast of magic, and the entire thing wrenched open, the heavy latch tearing a chunk out of the wall and scattering stone across the floor.

  After the dust had settled, Raz picked his way quickly over the rubble and out into the hall. Carro had already moved away, further down the corridor to the cell next to Raz’s, and was gathering some spell into his right hand once more.

  “What are you doing?” Raz asked, starting towards him.

  Carro stopped him with a brief shake of his head. “Stay back,” the Priest said. “As much as I’m loath to admit it right now, Jofrey isn’t a fool. He elected to keep your things close by, in case they were needed.”

  And with that, he blasted open the second door.

  As Carro clambered over the ruined iron and wood, disappearing into the room, Raz looked back around, down the hall. He took in the two unconscious men nearer the dungeon stairs, then Reyn Hartlet, passed out beside the broken opening of Raz’s cell.

  “Did you do all this?” Raz said, impressed, turning back as Carro reemerged, struggling to drag a familiar, massive cloth traveling bag behind him with his good hand. It clinked with the sound of steel on steel as he pulled it over the crumbled stone and broken timber slats.

  “No,” Carro said with a queasy frown, not looking towards the men he knew Raz was speaking of as he heaved the bag into the center of the hall. “It took me long enough to build up the courage to stun Reyn, much less the other two. He’s a cretin, but I can’t say I don’t appreciate his idiocy. I figured the council would have a guard on you, and I’m honestly not sure what I would have done if Reyn hadn’t taken care of them first.”

  Raz snorted, amused at Carro’s continued distaste for violence, given the situation. Then he frowned down at the form of Reyn Hartlet.

  “Why did he come?” he asked.

  It took a while for Carro to respond, and eventually Raz looked around at him, assuming the man hadn’t heard him. He found Carro looking at him oddly, though, and when their eyes met the Priest sighed.

  “Because,” he said slowly, “he’s in love with Syrah.”

  That took Raz by surprise, and he looked at the Priest more sharply. “He’s in love with her?”

  “Raz,” Carro said with exasperation, waving his hand at the bulging sack of gear at his feet, “I will be happy to fill you in on every ounce of gossip and drama that floods these halls on a daily basis, but not now! Please! We have to move!”

  The desperation in the man’s voice made it clear that it would have to be a story for another time, and Raz hurried over to him.

  “Where is Ahna?” he asked, noting the distant protruding shape of a sword hilt in the cloth.

  Carro waved into the room. “In there. You know full well she’s too heavy for me, even if I did have both hands.”

  Raz ducked into the cell at once, stepping over the broken door. It didn’t take him long to find the dviassegai, propped up against one of yet another series of tall, food-laden shelves, and he hefted her up quickly before returning back out into the hall.

  As he did he made out the sound of running feet, far off in the distance, echoing louder and louder towards them through the tunnels of the Citadel.

  “Someone’s coming,” he growled, snatching up the bag of gear and tossing it over his left shoulder.

  Carro blanched, but turned at once and started hurrying down the corridor, towards the opposite end from the stairs.

  “Dammit, Hartlet!” Raz heard the Priest curse as he made chase, following on the man’s heels. “They must have figured out what he was about.”

  “What are we going to do?” Raz asked, catching up to the Priest quickly despite the added weight of Ahna and his gear, the claws of his feet clacking against the slate floor beneath him. “Where are we going?”

  “Up,” Carro said, pointing ahead. “There are stairs that will lead us out onto the battlements.”

  Raz thought that peculiar, but as he followed the Priest’s finger he indeed saw a narrow archway set into the far wall, framing the bottom of a thin spiral staircase. As they got closer Raz made to let Carro lead, but the man pushed him forward.

  “Go,” he said, slowing as they reached the arch. “All the way to the top. Wait for me there.”

  Raz was about to argue when Carro started moving his right hand through the air, tracing out a series of complex runes in the space around them, crafting lines of colorless fire that hung, suspended by nothing.

  He’s slowing them down, he realized, watching as the symbols drifted swiftly to latch onto the walls on either side of them, burning themselves into the stone.

  “Raz!” Carro cried. “Go!”

  And he did just that, taking the short s
teps three at a time, his powerful legs carrying him up and up and up. For almost two minutes he climbed, each passing moment making him realize with a mix of awe and shock just how far down he must have been sequestered. Beyond that, there was something odd about the air as he ascended. Whereas one would ordinarily think it would get warmer as one rose from the bowels of the mountains, the temperature seemed to be dropping the higher he went. By the time Raz finally reached the top, arriving on a wide landing accented only by a heavy iron door along the right wall, he could see his breath again, watch it billowing out around his snout.

  He didn’t give himself time to start worrying about the cold.

  Dropping the pack to the ground, Raz tore it open with the claws of one hand even as he leaned Ahna against the closest wall with the other. His things spilled out onto the worn floor in front of the door, his armor clattering about his feet and his gladius and ax tumbling out in a single bundle, wrapped in the heavy fur cloak the Laorin of Ystréd had gifted him almost a month ago now. With practiced efficiency Raz donned his gear, picking through the mess and strapping Allihmad Jerr’s hammered steel into place over his body. By the time Carro joined him, huffing as he staggered up the last of the steps, Raz was in full armor. With a flourish he threw the cloak over his shoulders, feeling the warm weight of it settle about him.

  The Monster of Karth stood tall once more, gladius slung over his back, ax on his hip, and Ahna lifted onto one shoulder by hands clad in familiar steel gauntlets.

  “Outside,” Carro said quickly, pressing Raz towards the iron door, not even pausing as he reached the landing. “Hurry. Hurry. The runes won’t deter them for long.”

  Raz did as he was told, reaching out to lift the cumbersome latch that locked the door shut from the inside. He had to put a shoulder into the metal before it budged, but after a few seconds the whole thing shifted with a screeching whine of rusted hinges and Raz—straining with every fiber he had—pressed it open for what must have been the first time in over a hundred years.

  As they spilled out into the night onto some part of slick, icy ramparts, the wind and snow resumed the relentless barrage that had hounded Raz and Carro all the way up the mountain pass not a day before. Instead of cursing the storm, though, Raz smiled into it, spreading his ears and wings into the blizzard, welcoming the freedom of the open air.