by K. C. May
As he passed through the outer gate and over the rune he'd placed there, the gems embedded in the tablet lit up. A barrier formed around the entire palace grounds, sealing it. None would enter, none would leave, until the runes in the tablet were discharged and the gems returned to this gate. A shudder coursed through him.
He pulled the reins hard and spun his mount. Both horse and rider gasped for breath. “Let his death be quick,” Ronor whispered to the palace.
Ronor turned to the southeast and ran his horse nonstop to Saliria. There he changed horses at the lordover’s stable and continued west and then north to the cave where Queen Calewen and the men-at-arms awaited. The stronghold.
He considered how he would tell the queen of King Arek’s death. Queen Calewen was strong, intelligent and well-grounded. She knew their plan had risks and their options had been few. Yet, she was also a woman – and a wife who loved her husband. Ronor would be there for her. He would pledge his loyalty to her once again, and vow to help in every way he could to raise her child; to teach him about the runes, the gems, and his father’s magic. Where Ronor had failed to protect the king, he would succeed with Calewen and her child.
Once night had fallen, Ronor and the horse picked their way slowly through the dark forest. In the soft glow of his sputtering torchlight, he saw the markers that told him he was almost there, but he heard no voices, saw no flickering torchlight. They're safe inside, protected by the barrier spell, he told himself. He climbed wearily from his horse. In the pale light of his torch, he made out the lumpy form of a body. The Rune Tablet fell to the ground with a muffled thud. “No,” he whispered, breaking into a run. Three men-at-arms and the royal mage lay still outside the cave entrance.
Inside, drenched with blood, nearly two dozen armsmen were strewn across the floor, twisted, their mouths and eyes wide in eternal agony. “No,” he said again. “NO!” Looking around, frantic, he caught sight of Queen Calewen, her neck a mass of torn and bloody tissue. A cry of despair erupted from his throat, and he went to her, falling to his knees and dropping the torch to the rocky cave floor. “My Queen,” he howled. His voice echoed off the walls of the cave. Bending low, he pressed his lips against her cold forehead and wept. “I’m sorry, my liege,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” The king, the queen – both dead. The heir…
He shuffled sideways on his knees and laid his hand flat against the curve of her belly, hoping to feel the child move. Please, he thought. All was still. With his dagger, he cut a slit in the front of Calewen’s blood-soaked gown to reveal the smooth skin of her stomach. He leaned down and pressed his ear against her, listening. The only sounds were those of his own labored breath and the moans coming unbidden from his throat. Even had she been close to her time, Calewen had been dead too long for Ronor to save the baby.
Ronor staggered to his feet and stumbled from the cave. He groped for the mountain wall to steady himself while his stomach lurched. He bent over and vomited again and again, wrenching his gut until he heaved nothing but air.
* * * * *
“Gavin!” Daia sounded alarmed. Her hand was on his shoulder, shaking him. “Say something, damn it.”
Gavin pulled his gaze into focus, realizing he had been staring into Daia’s eyes. He looked around the table, blinking. All eyes were on him. His heart pounded, his skin felt clammy. He began to shiver.
“Are you all right?” Edan asked.
Bile rose in Gavin’s throat. He reached for a glass of water and guzzled it down. What the hell had just happened? He’d had a vision -- a vision of events as seen through the eyes of a man nearly two hundred years in his grave.
Her throat. By the gods! The queen’s throat – ripped apart by a demon just as Talisha’s had been slit by a devil. No. This couldn’t be. Ronor’s face -– slashed. King Arek -– left to die by the claws of a fiend exactly as Gavin’s father...
Gavin pushed away from the table, shot to his feet, and spun, searching for a way out of this madness. He started toward the door.
“It is Farthan proverb living true,” Risan said quietly. “‘Promise made to king shall transcend death.’”
Gavin stopped and turned. Transcend death? Then it struck him like a slap from the gods; Ronor’s vow would haunt him for eternity until it was fulfilled.
Swear it on your immortal soul!
Gavin’s stomach lurched and he stumbled back to the table, collapsing into a chair. “By the seven realms,” he whispered. How many lives had been sacrificed because of Ronor Kinshield’s unwillingness to keep the promise he’d made to the king? Ronor’s failing had become Gavin’s failing. The vow would not go unanswered. As Ronor’s descendant, it was up to him. It was the only way to break the cycle so that Gavin’s nephews, sons or grandsons wouldn't have to suffer what he was facing now. His own words to the pendant thief came back to him. “I have to be the strong one,” he said. “It has to end. Now. With me.”
“End?” Daia asked. “It can’t just end. What about the legend? What about the King's Blood-stone?”
“Ronor Kinshield made a mistake and I'm the only one who can put it right.”
Chapter 63
They rode by pairs east to the mountains, then south through the Vigilant Forest toward the Rune Cave. Brawna rode atop Domach's horse with Edan beside her. Daia and Gavin followed, and Risan and Dwaeth took up the rear. A Hermit Thrush serenaded them as they rode, the vibrancy of its song matching the anticipation that raced through Daia’s veins. This is it, she thought. The day we get our new king. She turned to regard the man riding beside her.
He looked different to her now than he did when they met just a week ago. While he was still unshaven with an unruly mop of dark hair, gap-toothed and his face disfigured by a pair of jagged scars, those features were less offensive now. They defined Gavin Kinshield. They defined the king.
"Will you need help getting the answer?" she asked.
He turned to her, his eyes rimmed with dark circles and crinkled with weariness. "No."
He sat straight in the saddle high atop his huge horse, looking as much a king as a king should look. A breeze ruffled his hair.
Putting a king on the throne was only the first step. Gavin would need to marry. The sooner he took a wife and begot an heir, the better. Daia imagined the crowds of women who would start throwing themselves at him, hoping to be chosen as his bride and queen -- the same women who would have screamed for the lordover’s men-at-arms at the mere insinuation of his affections were it not for the Rune Stones in his possession. And what of Gavin? Did he have the sense to choose wisely, when his choices would include Thendylath's most beautiful women? Under normal circumstances, Daia would have imagined him with the sort of wench who frequently gave herself up to men in exchange for a few ales.
Perhaps that was unfair. Judging from the way his voice had wavered, the tale he’d told her of losing his wife and child had come from deep within his heart. The short glimpses at his soul that he’d allowed her had shown the depth of feeling of which he was capable. No, she was in no position to judge him.
He cast a glance at her as they rode. “What?”
Daia supposed he must be well aware of his need to marry. That he was attracted to her she had no doubt. By Yrys. What if he set his eye upon her? She gulped and turned her head away from him. No, he wouldn't. Her place was at his side, not as his wife but as his guard. She chewed the inside of her cheek. Surely he would agree with her. He'd asked for her pledge, and she'd given it gladly as a soldier and subject of his kingdom. He knew how she felt. Didn't he? Nonetheless, she would watch for signs of an impending proposal. In the event they found themselves alone together, she would find a way to gently guide him from that path should he start to venture down it.
They arrived at the cave in the late afternoon. Daia searched the woods for signs of movement, listened for the rustle of footsteps across the forest floor. Although she neither saw nor heard signs of human presence, the lack of chipmunks and squirrels gave her pause. Brodas
's army of Viragon Sisters was here. Somewhere.
Brawna pointed up at the top of the hill that rose opposite the cave entrance. “That’s where we hid.”
Quietly, everyone dismounted and tethered their horses. If Viragon Sisters waited nearby, surely they were alert to the party’s presence, but they would remain hidden until Gavin came out. Until after the final rune was solved.
The mood was somber with an undercurrent of excitement as they all looked to Gavin and followed him into the cave.
* * * * *
For the last time, Gavin shuffled up to the rock shelf, each step heavier than the last. He had spent his entire life avoiding this very moment, and all he had done was postpone the inevitable at the cost of his father’s, wife’s and daughter’s lives. No more people would suffer for his failures. The time had come.
The tablet looked bare. Only one gem remained in the center of the spiral shape formed by the runes and the holes that once held the other Rune Stones. With a deep breath, Gavin flexed his hands on the jagged edges of the stone tablet. He already knew the name of this final rune. He'd known it all his life. The image of his daughter’s face flashed in his mind as he whispered, "Caevyan."
All at once, the King's Blood-stone seemed to shatter. Millions of shards of brilliant red and green twinkled like stars in a pitch black sky. He stumbled, then fell forward into the rain of glass.
A sound escaped his throat, a hissed HUUMPH as though the wind had been knocked from his lungs by a mighty blow. Awareness of everything around him faded. No sounds reached his ears, no sight spanned before him save that of the King's Blood-stone. Falling, falling, into the red brilliance he fell, his arms flailing wildly to catch himself.
When he was sure he would fall forever into the endless depths of the King's Blood-stone, its brilliance exploded, knocking him backward. He somersaulted through a vast space, seemingly empty yet alive with images, sounds, smells, textures. Images of things he had never seen, yet oddly familiar raced through his mind like a swarm of bees flying to a bouquet. He felt the essence, the power of King Arek, draining from the stone and into his mind, his body, his soul.
A voice spoke in his mind: Ronor Kinshield.
Gavin knew this voice, a voice he had not heard in many lifetimes, a voice that wrenched his heart by its absence from his life. “I am not Ronor, my liege,” he replied. He imagined himself going to one knee, his head bent in reverence.
You have his spirit and his blood. Three times re-embodied, you have rejected my call. This ribbon must be burned.
“You mean, this is my destiny?”
Not destiny, choice. It was the vow you took. You must finish the task, Ronor. You have an advantage now that I did not have. You can defeat the evil.
“Ravenkind?” Gavin asked.
The element you call Brodas Ravenkind is embodied as you are and, therefore, mortal. You must vanquish that which is without a soul. Two hundred years it has waited. Take the key to the gate, enter the palace of the demon and summon it back to its own world. Seal the rift between the realms and end the constant onslaught of beyonders into your own. This task only you can do. You are Wayfarer now.
“Shouldn’t I kill it?”
Ritol cannot be killed, Ronor. Traveling with you is a spring from which you can draw your greatest strength. Use her to find your way home, use the runes to stay alive. Waste no more time.
The drifting feeling began to slow, and he rocked forward, slowly settling back to the present. Back to the cave where the Rune Tablet lay, where his friends gathered and watched him with wonderment. He felt himself melt back into his physical body, still standing by the grace of a strong hand clutching his shoulder. The hand of Daia Saberheart.
“Gavin, are you all right?” someone asked. A voice he knew, a voice he trusted. Edan’s voice.
He bent over, then fell to his knees and hands, weary yet emotionally energized. Questions he had held in his heart all his life had finally been answered. At last, he understood.
The green and red-speckled stone fell from the rune tablet and clinked on the hard rock floor of the cave, bouncing once to land directly under Gavin’s eyes. Several gasps broke the silence in the cave. He hesitated, then reached for it, picked it up. The King's Blood-stone.
“No,” he whispered, feeling a power within him lurch once more. He staggered to his feet and ran, stumbling, from the cave. The sunlight was a thousand daggers in his eyes. He stopped, clutching the gem in one hand and reaching blindly for the mountain wall with the other. His stomach lurched again, again. He bent over, spilling the enormity of his task onto the ground and leaving a sickening taste in his mouth. Again it came, wrenching his gut until he could only choke and gag. He wiped his mouth, now terribly dry, with the back of his hand.
Then someone uncorked a flask and shoved it into Gavin’s hand. He drank deeply and long until the flask was dry. He shook it above his open mouth to get the last few drops. A hand patted his back, voices hummed in his ear. Dozens of footsteps approached, crinkling the leaves on the forest floor behind him. He turned, squinted his burning eyes. Forming a wall around the cave entrance were women warriors, at least two dozen of them, all armed, drawn and ready to attack.
Risan, Brawna and Daia drew their swords. Edan had an arrow nocked before their swords were clear of their scabbards. The boy, Dwaeth, scurried behind Risan and clutched his right hand.
“Daia,” said a haggard-looking blonde with an authoritative air. “And Brawna. What a surprise to find you still alive. And how convenient that you’re here together.”
“Lilalian,” Daia said, “what has become of you that you would sacrifice the guild and the honor of these battlers? To murder Aminda for your own gain?”
“It’s the necklaces,” Brawna said. “Ravenkind controlled them with the necklaces somehow.”
“And I control them still,” Brodas called out as he rode up on a white horse. Dark crimson stained the side of his tunic under his ribcage, but he appeared otherwise none the worse for it. Cirang accompanied him, her sword drawn. When he pressed his horse through the parting swordswomen, she did as well and stopped her mount beside him. “I claim the King’s Blood-stone," Brodas said from atop his horse. "Give it to me, and I’ll command my warriors to spare your lives.”
Gavin drew from his pocket the ring he'd removed from Brodas's severed finger. It must have been the gem, binding their will to his. He focused on it and concentrated. A spell was embedded within the gem -- that much he sensed -- but the harder he tried to see it, to smash it with his will, the more illusory it became.
“I’ll have my ring back, too,” Brodas said. “And the sword. Give them to me, Kinshield, or my army will cut you down.”
“Gavin is our rightful king,” Daia said. "He solved the runes; the King's Blood-stone and all that goes with it are his."
Hazes, Gavin thought. Gems had hazes like people did. Gavin relaxed his eyes and began to sense a series of cords, wrapped around the gem. A thread, as fine as spider silk, stretched from the gem in the ring to the one that lay against the blonde battler's chest. He saw them all -- dozens of threads -- some stretching toward the women standing with the blonde, others disappearing into the trees toward Sohan. One stretched southwest, toward Ambryce.
“Kill them,” Brodas commanded. "Kill them all."
Imagining his will as a blade, Gavin severed the threads with a hard slice.
Lilalian's sword was in motion, but when it reached the top of its arc, Lilalian stopped and pulled it back. One moment her brow was low, her teeth gritted in the fury of battle, and the next, her eyes were wide under arched brows, her mouth open in a gape. She darted a hand out to catch herself on the shoulder of the warrior beside her. “Oh, blessed Yrys.”
“What are you doing?” Brodas shouted. “Kill them.”
Some of the women gasped; others scowled, blinking and looking around as if they didn’t remember how they’d gotten there.
“You're free to choose your own path now
,” Gavin said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Brodas said. “He’s a bloody peasant. I am your true king, and I’ve given you a command. Kill them!”
Lilalian’s face, though full of weariness, grew hard. Her eyes flitted between Brodas and Gavin.
Gavin reached for his sword, hoping that whatever enchantment it contained would work as well against steel as it did against magic. Twenty five to five was hardly a fair fight.
“You killed Aminda,” Lilalian said. Her eyes glowed, and her face reddened. “You killed her right in front of me.” She ripped the necklace off, threw it to the ground and spat on it. One by one, the other women followed suit, stomping on their necklaces and grinding them into the dirt under their heels.
“He killed my mother, too,” young Dwaeth cried. He picked up a rock and threw. Brodas deflected it easily away.
Cirang looked from Brodas to Lilalian and back, a scowl darkening her face.
Gavin seized the moment. “Brodas Ravenkind,” Gavin said, raising his sword, “for the murders you’ve committed, your sentence is death.”
The rest of the swordswomen turned to Brodas. Lips curled, fists tightened around hilts. “Allow me,” said a short redhead. She took a step forward, prompting several of the women to start toward him. Someone reached for his horse’s halter, and another grabbed for his leg as though to pull him from his saddle.
Brodas hauled back on the reins, and his mount’s head snapped up. The horse, wide-eyed, began to prance and neigh, and its front legs lifted in a shallow rear. The swordswomen fell back to avoid the agitated animal.
“Get back, traitors,” Cirang said. She slashed her blade at her fellow Sisters, and a wildness twisted her face. Brodas pulled the left rein. His horse spun. Then, he and Cirang whipped their horses to a gallop.
"Archers," Lilalian shouted.
Gavin focused on the gems in the hilt of his new sword, unsure what to do to stop Brodas’s escape, but wanting, needing to try. Justice for his family's murder was finally within reach.
