Bound in Stone 3

by K. M. Frontain

  “Majesty! Get down! You glow! You’re a target!” Keth protested. He gasped when an arrow point burst out of the front of Ugoth’s chest. The king slumped to his knees. “Majesty!”

  A roar of combined voices beat the air. Startled, Keth looked below. The enemy had broached the section of wall toward which he and the king had been heading. Stohar warriors rushed their position.

  “No!” Keth screamed. He lurched to his feet and pulled his iron-tipped rods free. Ugoth rose next to him, panting hoarsely. “Majesty! Get behind me!”

  “I will fight till I die!” the king snarled. He met the first soldier with his blade. Despite armour, he cut the man’s head clean off. The azure glow had travelled the length of his weapon, and it bit with his wrath.

  Ugoth screamed then, like an animal, an inhuman, vicious beast. Confronted by his almost unnatural ferocity, the enemy soldiers backed off. A foreign shout urged them on again. Ugoth parried a blow, but another took him in the gut. A third raced for his neck. Something crystalline darted forward and snapped the striking blade in half. Subsequently it took the wielder’s head, leaving a smoking wound in its wake.

  “You’re back!” Ugoth croaked. He fell backward to the earth.

  “Heal him!” the angel roared at Keth. He darted forward and killed three men. The rest shouted in terror and backed off. The angel spread his wings like a shield. “Hurry, monk! Pull the arrows! Heal him!”

  Keth hastened to obey. He broke the shafts and thrust them through. Ugoth grunted but did not scream. Ignoring Keth’s ministrations, he watched the angel. An arrow had just incinerated within the god’s aura. As he observed another such miraculous sight, Keth begin the healing chant. The pain lessened immediately. The aura over Ugoth fired brighter, and the hurt vanished.

  The angel turned his head as if listening to something. His silver brow’s furrowed. “What is that?”

  His amethyst eyes widened in dismay. Ugoth craned his neck to see. Just visible within the shadows above, the sorcerer pointed a finger and uttered the last word of a malediction. The angel gasped. The king’s attention snapped toward him.

  The divine glow on the god had died. Even the crystalline sword had dimmed, becoming almost opaque. Strangely, all Ugoth could think was how the angel’s hair, brows and eyelashes had turned an incredible metallic blue under the dying sun.

  “I’ve been cursed!” the angel cried. “He’s cut me off from heaven! He’s mired the energy in my weapon!”

  Ugoth leapt up. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I am vulnerable! I can’t get back to regenerate my power or to repair the sword, even if the council would let me.” He stepped up the hill toward the sorcerer. “I’m going to kill him!”

  The god paused as the sorcerer bellowed from above, the words thundering down at them.

  “What did he say?” Ugoth asked.

  “He’s calling for them to attack! He’s told them I am vulnerable!”

  The angel whirled. The enemy converged on them. He backed up, grabbed Ugoth by a shoulder and crouched as if to leap. His eyes widened with horror.

  “I cannot lift!” he said. “She drags at me! She drags me down! I cannot fly!”

  “Then fight!” Ugoth roared. He met the first of the enemy coming at them.

  At their backs, Keth watched in stunned amazement; his king cut down men with an angel fighting at his side, and the angel had Vik’s face. He could do naught but marvel. Stohar warriors eventually manoeuvred to surround them, and Keth lifted his iron-bound sticks higher. He was attacked. He fought. He fought for he didn’t know how long, until a blade shot past his guard and stabbed him in the gut. While he was unfocused from the pain, something hit him on the side of the head. He toppled and knew no more.

  ***

  Kehfrey raced past warring men. One took a swing at him, and he darted out of the way. Most of the combatants, from either side, stared as if startled to see him and did nothing.

  He reached the line of fighting closest to the hill. A warrior with a gaudily feathered helmet lunged at him, striking with a jagged spear. A dagger came out of a sheath. Kehfrey avoided the thrust, grabbed the shaft, jerked the attacker forward with a sudden yank and sank the knife blade in the soldier’s eye. It all happened quickly, without a second’s forethought. He pulled the weapon out before the victim had fallen back and ran along the side of the hill, unmolested and with a blooded blade in his hand.

  “I’m a killer!” he whispered. He could murder without thinking.

  He sprinted along the crest. Far in the distance, a figure glowed a dim blue athwart gold and white. The gold and white fluttered feebly on the ground. A wedge of enemy warriors had cut the lone fighter off from allies and they hacked at him from all sides, hewing him and the fallen creature at his feet.

  Kehfrey fixed on the blue figure and almost knew a name. Then, from behind, a female voice cried out in terror. Kehfrey skidded to a stop.

  “Nicky!”

  Another warrior, a large feather dangling broken from his helm, menaced Nicky. Kehfrey sped toward her. Dozens of yards off, he sent a dagger flying.

  The distance was too great. He knew it, but the projectile was enough to distract the warrior. The knife hit him on his plated calf without injuring him. The warrior shouted and turned. He snarled at what appeared to be a weaponless man running to confront him. He spoke a curse. Kehfrey answered in kind.

  “You speak my language!” the warrior cried. “Who are you?”

  “Brother Herfod!” Nicky shouted. She spoke the Cho Korth tongue with a heavy accent. “Leave us go! We fight for the Gryphon!”

  The man frowned at Kehfrey. “You! You were the one running this morning! How did you free yourself?”

  “It doesn’t matter! I must go! Nicky! Get up!” He darted forward and snatched her hand. They dashed away from the bemused Cho Korth.

  “Why did you follow?” Kehfrey cried. “You could have been hurt!”

  “You could have been too!” she shouted back.

  Kehfrey looked ahead. There was no sign of the blue figure he’d seen before. Stohar and Winfellan soldiers hacked and pulled at what had been the white and gold shape on the earth. Others rushed down the hill, carrying drippings lumps of red in their hands, some bearing burnished armour, yet others with clumps of white.

  “Oh!” he gasped. The something had happened! He knew he was going to go mad when he saw it, yet he continued forward. He didn’t realize he raced alone. He’d dropped Nicky’s hand some distance back.

  She had halted to stare miserably after him, at last knowing herself to be the reason Ugoth died. Fearing for Kehfrey, she had delayed the king’s salvation. She knew he lay dead. She knew what the soldiers hacked to pieces near that low rise of rocks. She saw the butchery clearly in her mind. It was terrible. It was brutal. It was a stone to drag her arrogance into a pit.

  Despite the anchor of guilt, her mind flashed forward.

  “Oh!”

  A girl! A girl with Ugoth’s face! She stood beside a monstrous creature of vines with eyes of glowing coals, eyes that seemed to stare in accusation, demanding something of her.

  The image blinked out.

  “Oh!” she cried again. It had been so clear. Ugoth had fathered another child on someone somewhere. That could be the only reason. But the monster?

  A scream of anguish brought her back to now. Kehfrey had seen the tragedy she had prevented him from averting. His lover was murdered.

  Nicky’s anchor of guilt sank her to her knees. The tumult of warfare drowned the torment she wailed to the overcast sky.

  ***

  The Shadow Master stared down in triumph. He had vanquished his enemy. Ugoth lay sprawled and broken upon the abraded earth. He was dead.

  By Marun’s command, Stohar warriors tore apart the angel the Ulmeniran king had protected until Kehfrey’s powerful ward had at last faltered. The soldiers hurried the feathers away, the flesh as well. The flesh would be preserved, the skin cured, the bones gro
und into powder if at all possible. There would be enough potent ingredients for potions to rule the entire coast.

  And the crystalline sword? Once it had been wrapped, it could be carted safely away, a source of divine power for a multitude of mortal lifetimes. Exultant, the Shadow Master smiled at the butchery.

  His gaze lit once more on his rival. Ugoth. Let him walk up here and join the brethren of the dead, and then they would eat him until there was nothing left but fractured bone. Sneering, he began to summon the corpse, but a red-haired figure ran up and stumbled to a halt before the horrific slaughter.

  Marun started. No!

  “Kehfrey!” he whispered.

  He was there. He was amongst the Stohar soldiers.

  Kehfrey stared first at the torn angel. Then his face turned toward the damaged figure that had been tossed aside. He stood frozen for several seconds. A shout cut the air, a wordless cry filled with unspeakable anguish.

  “No!” Marun breathed.

  And it was as if Kehfrey heard, even from such a distance. His head snapped about, and he stared directly at the sorcerer. Marun froze. A wild light entered Kehfrey’s eyes, visible despite the many yards separating them. The eerie glow almost bled down his cheeks as his faced away. He cast upon the ground and spotted what he seemed to want. He strode toward the crystalline sword that lay on the earth. The last man to have dared place a hand on it was nothing but a smear of ash next to the blade.

  “Kehfrey!” Marun screamed down. “Don’t touch it! It kills!”

  Kehfrey looked up. His lips curled into a vicious smile. He bent and plucked the long blade up. A small flash of power rippled down the weapon. Unharmed, Kehfrey grasped the pommel by two hands and faced the man who had torn his life apart. The blade was no longer opaque; the power within it had been unchained.

  Marun gaped in surprise. “Kehfrey?” he said. And then he remembered. Kehfrey was a god.

  “No!” He spun and ran into the shadows.

  Below, the divine blade sparked in the hands of the mortal incarnation. Enemy soldiers near him hollered in terror and fled. Kehfrey raised the weapon right-sided as if for a slashing strike. A flame of white shot over his figure. The radiance leapt high above, a spire of purest divinity. He swung the weapon. The power of the crystal sword snaked down his body and out the blade edge, fanning a massive arc of energy toward the black wall. Where the luminous assault cut, shadows caught fire. Across the slopes of the hill and on to the crown, the cloud altered from black to brilliant white. And somewhere within the conflagration, the Shadow Master screamed in agony. With a grim expression, Kehfrey swung the blade again.

  Marun pulled shadows up and over him, but the remorseless white beat them down. He burned! He burned! He slumped to his hands and knees, withering down to bone and calling more shadows desperately, but the white leeched his power. It sucked at him. It pulled like a flooding river. Soon there would be nothing left in him to fight. He would burn away, and then Kehfrey wouldn’t have a promise left to keep.

  The earth moved beneath his body. Something burst from the scorched ground. A great jaw closed over him and pulled him into darkness. His last thought, before he lost his mind to the torture of his body’s destruction, was of how beautiful Kehfrey had been when he’d smiled death at him.

  ***

  The sword flickered out of existence, its power entirely dissipated. Kehfrey lowered his empty hands and scanned the hill littered with hundreds upon hundreds of dead soldiers. He located a few collapsed female bodies here and there near grey-robed figures. His gaze at last fixed on the great hump in the earth that looked as if something gigantic had thrust through it. He smiled bleakly.

  “Tehlm Sevet,” he whispered. “You live, and I am glad. I am such a stupid fool.”

  His mind seemed to catch fire. He put his hands to his head. He perceived, through a haze of agony, a figure standing before him. It was a woman. He recognised a beautiful, worried, guilt-ridden face. He blurted words that needed saying, unexpected words. They lit within his mind like a wind-blown torch that might douse, and he passed them on before it was too late.

  “Nicky! Don’t let Ufrid steal the bones!” He fell to the earth and curled in anguish.

  His head! His head! His body! The pain! He had no skin! No flesh! He was destroyed!

  “Marun! Marun! Don’t—! Oh!”

  There came a sound as if hundreds of men roared in fury. Then there was only blackness.

  ***

  Awaken!

  He stirred restlessly.

  Awaken! It is not too late!

  He rolled and lifted his aching head. There was a tumult around him. Men screamed in pain and wrath. He realized he lay on a battlefield. He had only the rays of a dying sun by which to see.

  Go to your lover! Go! Take his essence!

  “Who are you?” he said. “Where are you?”

  Get up! Go to Ugoth!

  Fell memory iced his thoughts to a harsh point—a man, maimed and dead, a once beautiful man. He loved this man. “Ugoth! No!”

  He rose to his feet. Men battled all about him. There. Ugoth was there, near torn flesh and crystalline bones.

  He thudded to his knees next to the body of his dead king. “Oh! No!”

  He wanted to die. He just wanted to die.

  You can’t die, the unnatural voice hissed. But you can have him back. Take his essence. It is still bound to him. Take his essence and curse the traitor Ufrid with it. It is in you to do this. I will give him back to you. Your Ugoth will be reborn.

  He couldn’t believe it. He stared at the broken body, hopeless, his spirit destroyed. He had lost everything.

  A screaming man rushed by, followed by another. He hardly noticed. He crouched over his dead lover and wept.

  Take his essence! the voice roared. Take it!

  “How?” he said. “I don’t know how.”

  You can do this. The seed of power winds within every soul of this world. Touch him! Touch what is yours! Let your desire lead the way.

  He lifted his head to confront the open eyes of the dead king. The sapphire irises were very clear even now. He lifted a hand to close the lids.

  “I love you,” he whispered and set his fingers on the cold face.

  A glow filled his hand. It burned strangely dark and white. The blackness, he knew, whispered out of a hidden stone bearing his soul, but the white, this he understood came from him, though he didn’t understand the why of it.

  The mystery mattered little to him, not now. He needed these powers to seize a soul and contain it. He pulled on the glow. The summoned essence charged up his arm, scratched its way into his guts and coiled inside him. He cried out in agony. The essence was angry. It was a beast that raged for vengeance, and its first act was to eat the dark energy he had used to lure it out of the corpse.

  The blackness disappeared from his fingers. He jerked his hand away from the body. The white light stretched a few inches and vanished with a tiny crackle. Shaking, he lowered his limb. The eyes were still open, but they were dull. They looked normal and human, simple dead eyes. He had taken something with the soul. He had claimed power, leeched it from the body and made of the corpse a mundane thing.

  “What was it?”

  The gryphon taint, the voice said. The power attached to it and the soul that refused to leave.

  “It’s real? The taint is real?” He winced as the beast raged again. “Ah, gods! Don’t eat me from the inside out! If I have any shadows in there, just eat those!”

  The voice rose again, the tone offended. Why did you do such a thing? Your own power would have sufficed.

  “He’s eaten enough of that, don’t you think? Ow! Ow! Ha, ha, great intestinal worm of fairy beast, he’s scratching around for more! Ow! Give me some darkness to feed him.”

  No! Contain it! Give it to Ufrid! Curse him with it! One day, his line will father a son who will be his own brother.

  “I have gone mad,” he said. “Why do I even listen to you?”
/>   If you had listened to begin with, this tragedy would not have come to pass.

  A bitter laugh escaped his throat. “This is my fault? This entire war? Who pitched two warlords against each other and forced them to battle to the death? Was that me?”

  Yes, it is your fault! If you had listened, if you had chosen me—

  “I will never choose you! I can’t begin to make sense of your motives! Ahh!” He clutched his gut. His antipathy had set the beast raging. “Ah, fuck.” He crouched over the corpse as he tried to contain the precious soul. “Don’t go. Don’t go. I can’t let you go ….”

  If you want your lover back, you must release the essence into his brother, the voice within the earth hissed. There is no rebirth without me. You will come to me on the mount. You will dance. Dance well, and I will return Ugoth to you. Dance well, and I shall ease your guilt. Guard the bones, and the angel will some day live again.

  The presence receded into the depths beneath him. A spear thudded into the earth next to his leg. He looked at it. He felt no fear, no interest. He set his head on the motionless, bloodied chest of his lover. He shut his eyes and drifted away.

  ***

  “He’s alive,” he heard someone say. He raised his eyelids. Men stared at him. Torchlight played over their faces. His gaze fixed first on predatory blue. He felt strangely hungry looking at those eyes.

  “Kehfrey?” a voice said. His gaze shifted. He peered at the man who uttered the name. He was dirty, haggard. He had very blond hair and clear, light blue eyes. He was tall. A name came to mind.

  “Vik.”

  His brother knelt at his side. Vik reached out and touched his face as if in great wonder. “Kehfrey! The war is over!”

  “Is it? Who won?”

  “We did.”

  Kehfrey frowned up at him. “But I lost everything,” he whispered. He shut his eyes and drifted away again.