The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  The lieutenant stopped at a lustrous set of bronze-gilded doors, manned by four more guards. Like the rest, they lost no time in dropping their jaws or smirking. This was a very odd place indeed, full of odd people.

  “Wait here,” hazel-eyes instructed,

  before proceeding uninvited through the doors.

  Artemi kept her eyes to the floor in a bid to stop herself from swaying violently from side-to-side.

  From behind the doors, she overheard the lieutenant’s voice, together with a much more familiar one.

  “... I’m not accepting visitors at the moment, Orwin.”

  “I think you will want to see this one, my lord.”

  “AmI not permitted any bloody peace to think? Fine. Send them in and I’ll tell them whom they can bother.”

  Orwin, as he was apparently known, stepped out through the doors and motioned her in. “The king says he would be delighted to see you.”

  Artemi almost laughed, almost. She took a deep breath and walked through the glittering doorway. Swathes of grey and black marble greeted her entrance, touched by the elegant drift of white silk veils at the windows. She turned to her left to see the king, who leaned over the fireplace and was staring intently at its empty grating. He had a rather sour look on his face. And he was not alone.

  A man of roughly equal height stood a few yards away, arms folded and short blond hair swept forward in a tumbling manner. He could easily be described as handsome. Was it some sort of prerequisite that a man had to be good-looking in order to attain rank at this castle? The blond man’s arms unfolded at the sight of her, and he expressed some sort of curse-phrase that Artemi was not familiar with. “You must be General Forllan,” she guessed.

  Morghiad’s eyes snapped round at the sound of her voice, and then it was his turn to stare. A smile began to grow on his tooagreeable face as he straightened. “Artemi. How...?”

  Silar refolded his arms and grinned. “She escaped.” He walked towards her, “You could really do with some food; there’s barely anything left of you.” He shook his head. “How did you get away from him then?”

  “With the help of some dead men.” She ignored their confused looks. “I saw that ridiculous letter you sent to Febain. Now that I am here, you need to retract it. He won’t think that I’ve made it here in time, and he will probably try to make the exchange using

  another woman.”

  The king nodded. “Why would he think he has the advantage?”

  “Because he has the use of Sky Bridges, and his camp is over one-thousand miles from here.”

  Lord Forllan drew his eyebrows together. “But Morghiad only sent that letter seven days ago – are you saying you crossed that distance in a week?”

  Artemi was beginning to feel very unwell. “Six days. As I said, I had help.”

  He rubbed at his jaw in thought, but the king appeared less surprised. “Reduvi cannot police all of the Sky Bridges, surely he’d know that you’d only need a kanaala-”

  She was growing tired of their questions. “No. He had me quenched.”

  The king’s expression darkened rapidly. “He did WHAT?” he thundered, and began to pace the floor angrily, muttering something under his breath.

  Perhaps he was insane, after all. “It doesn’t matter now. As far as he knows I’m still-” Artemi didn’t finish her sentence, as a sudden wave of exhaustion knocked her swiftly from her feet.

  The air stirred rapidly as Silar swept forward to catch her by the shoulders, and

  missed. Morghiad ran to assess the grounded woman carefully. Artemi was still murmuring in semi-consciousness; it sounded like it was about bandits. He touched her arm tentatively, and wanted to weep at what he felt. The oncefamiliar fires of her skin were completely absent, and her hair - not even the faintest hint of her power. The Blazes had been neatly and comprehensively extracted from her; she could never wield in this life.

  Reduvi and Passerid would pay for this with their souls. They would be tortured and made to feel the pain that she had known, and if he had his way, Morghiad would be the one to do the torturing.

  “I don’t think they fed her anything while she was captive,” Silar lamented.

  Morghiad frowned to himself. He’d

  seen worse-starved people who had no problems staying upright. There had to be something else. He checked over the length of her body carefully, but saw nothing obvious. Artemi was clutching at her abdomen, and he removed her hand slowly. It went limp in his grasp, signifying that she had fallen into full unconsciousness. Oddly, an extra band of fabric had been tied about her waist. Morghiad pulled out his silver dagger and tore it through the thin material, of which there seemed to be many layers.

  “Should you be doing that...?” Silar asked slowly.

  His question was soon answered when he cut down to the blood-soaked layers closer to her skin. Morghiad cursed quietly as he revealed the full extent of her injury. It was

  wide, deep and filled with poison. Worse, the pinh had spread considerably in each direction about the wound. How had she managed to stand with this in her body?

  “Do you think Reduvi did this to her?”

  Morghiad shook his head. “She would not have survived with it like this for six days.” He hoisted her bony form up in his arms and carried her through to his bedroom. She weighed almost nothing. “We have to get her treated now. Send for Aglos and his equipment.”

  Like a hare on the run from its predator, Silar sprinted from the room and barked at the guards to find the chief army medic, before he loped into the depths of the castle himself.

  Morghiad placed Artemi on the bed

  and set about cutting through the rest of her muddied clothing while he waited for aid. Even in her desperate state, he desired to look at her as he undressed her, but she’d probably have bitten his head off if she’d awoken and caught him leering. He no longer had that right anyway, and so he kept her modesty covered with several of the bed sheets. He’d already made a start on cleaning up the wound when Aglos and Silar stumbled back in.

  “Most of the skin around it is done with,” Morghiad stated. “You will have to be... aggressive with it.” It was clear to him that Artemi might not survive this, and he wanted to watch everything that Aglos did. The king leaned on the nearest bed spear to oversee the medic’s work.

  The short, curly haired man seated

  himself on the edge of the bed and pulled out a very sharp, slim knife. In response, Silar strode over to one of the windows and gazed out of it.

  Aglos shook his head. “Are you sure you want to try –? It may just be better to-”

  “Do it,” Morghiad ordered.

  The medic sighed and began cutting carefully through her pale skin a full inch away from the injury. It was plain to see that even the blood there was flecked with black poison. She was perilously close to suffering pinhatar - the poison death. Morghiad all but winced with each incision, and his eyes watered when Aglos plopped an excised chunk of Artemi onto a tray. The remainder of the surgery was performed quickly and deftly, much to Morghiad’s approval. When Aglos had finished, he looked up at his king. “I cannot

  remove the damage to her organs, sire.”

  “I know, Aglos. Do what you can.”

  The medic chose his largest sarkha and pressed it deep into her abdomen, washing out as much of the pinh as he could. When they were both satisfied that the wound could not be cleaned any further, Aglos whipped out a bottle of swift. He poured the entire contents of it into Artemi, and watched as a surprising amount of her tissue began to regenerate. “They tortured her, sire.”

  Morghiad grunted, “I am sure of it.” He knew exactly how torture felt, and the sheer desperation it instilled in its recipients.

  Aglos closed the injury with incredibly neat stitches. No one could deny that he had some skill at making the most horrid things look tidy. “Well, she’s still alive so she’s survived the worst of it,” the medic stated. “It will take a while, but I think she
will recover.”

  Morghiad realised he’d been gripping the hilt of his sword, and relaxed his hand promptly. “Thank you, Aglos.” He leaned over to pull another sheet across Artemi’s slumbering figure. “I’d be reassured if you could come back to check on her tomorrow.”

  “Of course, sire.” The medic stood and gathered together his things. “ShallI send some... ah, female hands to clean her up and bandage her?”

  “Please.” Morghiad studied the woman’s face closely. Even through the trials she had endured, it had retained its serene, eye-burning beauty. “Silar, I want you to guard her untilI get back. Don’t leave her side, and don’t let her do anything too energetic when

  she wakes up.”

  “She will not like me shadowing her everywhere she goes.” Silar took up his position on a nearby armchair, in spite of his own words, and slung his legs nonchalantly onto the edge of the bed.

  Morghiad had no time for arguments and too many preparations to make. “Perhaps you could use your superior ways of dealing with women to convince her of your use.”

  Silar merely raised an eyebrow, and clasped his hands behind his head.

  The sound of doors opening heralded Beodrin’s arrival. “I heard she’s back. Is –?” He spotted her unconscious in the bed, and looked questioningly at the king. Their relationship was still frosty after Morghiad’s eruption the week before, but both parties had offered their apologies in the interim. Not that any man could be forgiven for implying that Artemi was somehow disposable, but Morghiad could see how others would find his agreement to Reduvi’s terms... illogical. It was essential that Morghiad and his army remained united.

  “She’s hurt, but alive. Come, we have some interesting preparations to make for her captors.” Morghiad placed a hand on the captain’s shoulder and led him out.

  “I’m afraid that, if you wanted to keep this a secret, it may be impossible. The whole castle is talking about her return,” Beodrin said shakily.

  Morghiad was pleased to note that the guard at his door had trebled to twelve men. “Reduvi doesn’t know that she’s here. She

  escaped from his camp and covered an implausible distance in a less plausible time. As long as we can keep that information from him, we can use it to our advantage. He will still consider me to be a desperate man, but the terms of my letter have now been negated.”

  “You believe he’ll still try to take the crown?”

  Morghiad nodded. “I know it. And I mean to capture him when he tries.”

  beard vigorously. He was taking a daring gamble to seize the throne from the usurper, but great deeds required great risks. And great risks had always been the true source of his bank’s success. If only that witch hadn’t used her sinister arts to untie herself at such an illchosen time! Passerid had repeatedly said that she was unable to wield, and that there was no sign of The Blazes having been used on her restraints. But Febain preferred caution, and he had made sure every Sky Bridge in the area was checked. In his favour, a little girl like her wouldn’t have gotten very far on foot, and the nearest village was ten miles away. She was probably lost somewhere in the nearby woods, crying over her pathetic situation. He drew his shoulders back and buttoned up his expensive, crimson silk coat. His mother would have been

  very proud of him this day. “Are we ready, men?”

  They nodded eagerly behind him.

  “I can’t hear you, are you ready?!” he shouted again.

  The soldiers cheered this time. That was better. To his left, a bundle wriggled for escape. The false Artemi was a good match in size and shape, and a quenched wielder to boot. She’d do for the exchange, where they’d be forced to kill her and render her body unidentifiable. And it would be too late once Morghiad handed him the crown. No one would be able to deny that he was king when he had that on his head.

  He moved forward and into the woven glow of the Sky Bridge gateway, beckoning his men in behind him. The fine grey gelding he’d

  acquired from Lord di Certa danced over the rising pathway of air, snorting heavily at the change in humidity. It wasn’t long before they crashed down through the dull clouds and found themselves hovering above the verdant Cadran woodland. They waited briefly to ensure no one was lying in ambush at the exit, and Passerid used his tamed wielder to open it. The fresh smells of damp undergrowth and cherry blossom poured into Reduvi’s nostrils as he stepped onto the soft ground. While the first of his men set up camp to wait for the others to arrive, he unravelled his great map of the country. It was one of the few items he’d managed to rescue from the Low Vault at the Reduvian Headquarters, but it had been a worthy find - a wonder that no one had understood the meaning of its linear markings.

  Cadra was only a day’s ride to the south, and a great number of Sky Bridges were positioned in this location. It would provide an excellent route for escape should they need it. Not that they would need it. He rolled the map up again and went to find some half-edible food.

  By early afternoon the following day, the entirety of his large company of men had arrived in the woodland. They’d brought with them a rather-impressive fourteen wielders, captured and tamed with varying abilities. Their kanaala were proven, reliable men who knew the true danger of allowing fire-breathing witches to roam free. Reduvi felt very confident about his mission indeed. He arranged his men into a column, five wide, and led them through the trees, directly for the capital. Evidently Morghiad had one of his spy scouts tracking

  them, for when they exited the trees, an army of thousands of men awaited.

  The soldiers in black and green were lined up in curved row upon row before the gargantuan grey walls of the city. At the centre was a man dressed in shades of dark brown and black, sitting astride a powerful warhorse. The glint of silver from amongst his wavy black hair indicated a crown, and the hilts of two swords jutted out from behind each shoulder. Reduvi was not remotely intimidated by this display of strength; he had the will-die key in his hand, and he knew how to play it.

  As he neared Morghiad’s reception, Passerid leaned over and whispered, “He has wielders with him, a great many of them. They are ready to throw fire, and so are we.”

  Febain was not afraid of the usurper’s

  women. The murderer king would not risk harming his beloved queen for any sort of reprisal. Reduvi had made sure that the writhing bundle was laid on a horse between two meek wielders, and that she was clearly visible to all of the army. He raised a hand to halt his men, and opened his mouth to speak. “As promised, I have brought your woman alive. As per the terms of your bond, you must now surrender your crown to me. If you do not, she will die. Or worse. It is a shame that we Free Men have been forced to do this, but wielders should never be allowed to run around the countryside unfettered. They are a danger.”

  The dark-haired man looked at him grimly for a moment. It was true what the soldiers had said: his eyes really were as green as vine leaves. He wasn’t all that good-looking

  though, nowhere near as handsome as Febain knew himselfto be. “Show her to me,” was all he said.

  The captain did not allow himselfto grow concerned. He had planned for this. “Surely you do not want to humiliate her before every man in your army?”

  “Show her to me,” the severe man repeated more firmly.

  Febain pushed his mount a little closer to Morghiad. “You have enjoyed far too many pleasures in this life, Morghiad of House Jade’an. You may make no demands of me, and I do not think you deserve to look upon her splendour.” He raised his hand to signal to the men behind him. A young kanaala, known as Laurus, drew fire from his wielder and lit the captive’s sacking with it. She screamed loudly

  orange light. Morghiad’s eyes widened. “Enough!” The flames quickly died down;

  presumably one of his wielders was working to contain them.

  “It only takes a few words, my lord,” Febain taunted, knowing he had full control of the situation.

  The usurper nodded with resignation. “Very
well. Men - women, you know what to do.” A thin smile began to creep across his lips.

  Suddenly, a hail of lightning rained down between the horses in Reduvi’s column, causing them to bolt in multiple directions. What was the king doing? Didn’t he know he would kill Artemi like this? The Free Men’s kanaala fought back immediately, disabling

  much of the fire thrown at them and making their wielders respond in kind.

  Febain struggled to regain his composure and looked back towards Morghiad, who had now drawn one of his swords and was galloping directly to him with a glint in his eyes. He knew, Febain realised; he knew she’d escaped. The rest of the entire Cadran army was now closing in on him, and Febain Reduvi of Conmar realised he had no choice if he wanted to live. He turned his mount towards the forest, and fled.

  The frankly unimpressive and frightened company scattered in all directions like leaves in a breeze, but Morghiad had only two targets in mind. Febain’s horse was surprisingly fast, and tore up the slope to the woodland. Passerid was close behind on his less expensive animal, whose terror seemed to propel it forward even faster. Tyshar covered much of the intervening distance in a heartbeat, and ripped through the fallen twigs and soft earth after the two men.