Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3)

by Y. K. Willemse

  Sherwin watched him with growing disquiet, his breathing

  shallow.

  Rafen lowered himself into a cross-legged position at her side and reached for her hand again. Holding it slightly above the bed, he clasped it, rubbing it with his fingers, restoring the warmth. He really should have done something about Annette.

  Sherwin waited a minute. Then he said in a choked voice, “What are yer doin’? Are yer goin’ back to the people, or are yer huntin’ for somethin’ else?”

  Rafen couldn’t tear his eyes off his mother. She looked perfect now.

  “I’m staying here,” he said clearly and quietly.

  “What about the people?”

  “I’ve done what I meant to do.”

  Sherwin stared at him, his face anguished. He lowered the sword so it lay in the center of the room, giving pale, ethereal light. Then he slipped out.

  Rafen found himself smiling slightly. Any minute now. Any moment she would sit up and tell him he had done well, taking her advice and traveling without Robert. She would tell him it was hard to save Siana, but he had done his best, and that was what counted. She would smile at him as she had when he had brought her a dead rabbit and some berries in the Woods.

  “Rafen,” a low voice said.

  Rafen kept watching Elizabeth’s motionless face, counting the seconds.

  “Rafen.” Etana’s small hand touched his shoulder. “Jacob wants to speak with you.”

  A churning awakened in Rafen’s stomach. He gritted his teeth.

  “Rafen, please,” Etana said. “It’s been forever. Sherwin came to us looking like he’d been sick. Please come and speak to Jacob.”

  “Raf, I buried it,” Sherwin said from where he was hovering behind Etana. “Further down the tunnel.” He was twitching nervously, and it was breaking Rafen’s concentration.

  “Go away,” he said. “I’m waiting.”

  “For what?” Etana asked.

  A shadow had appeared in the room’s doorway. Francisco’s breathing was labored.

  “For her,” Rafen said matter-of-factly.

  “Rafen!” Etana cried. “Can’t you understand that she is dead?”

  “NO!” Rafen screamed, springing to his feet and letting Elizabeth’s hand go. It fell back onto the bed with a soft flump. He whirled around to face Etana. “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I CAN’T UNDERSTAND!”

  Groaning, he covered his face with his hands and fell to his knees, pressing his forehead against the dirt floor, the muscles in his back contracted and rock-like.

  Etana ran her hands down his spine, her voice high and insignificant, “Rafen, I’m sorry! I am so sorry. Please believe me.” She was crying now too.

  Francisco had run to his side and dropped to a crouch, half raising Rafen. He threw his arms around his brother, and Rafen held him with the grip of a vice, his teeth set and his face screwed up. They broke apart, Francisco’s eyes wide and red. He squeezed Rafen’s shoulder as they stood up.

  “Rafen?” Jacob said from the doorway, uncertain. He turned to see the corpse in the bed, illuminated by the weak light in the room. “Good Zion,” he whispered.

  “That is what we have to tell you,” Etana said as calmly as she could, her hands were balled into terrified fists at her side. “This Hideout has already been discovered. It was the only place we could get the people to, however.”

  “Where is the royal family?” Jacob demanded.

  “I don’t know!” Etana said, halfway between a shriek and sob. She stuffed her hands in her eyes, turning to face the wall. “I might be all that is left,” she whispered. “For Zion’s sake, help us, Jacob. What are we to do here?”

  “The people must rest here only,” Jacob said. “Then we must move on, Zion knows where. There needs to be a distraction.”

  “Wha’ distraction?” Sherwin said in a tone of repressed panic.

  “We will manage something,” Jacob said. “But there must be at least four hours of rest before anything else is done. For Zion’s sake, don’t let anyone else see this room. Who was she?”

  Standing close to his brother, Rafen raised his eyes to Jacob’s. “Our mother,” he said simply.

  Jacob moistened his lips, obviously unable to think of anything to say.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Elizabeth’s Final

  Suggestion

  “Then there were others in the city, not recorded in the census?” the Lashki said softly, his copper rod jerking nervously at his side as it always did now.

  The bald philosopher before him bowed nervously, gesturing to the smoking ruins behind him. What had once been New Isles was now reduced to a huge black crater, beetled with romping Naztwai and scattered with charred corpses.

  “Their names were recorded at the last moment, Master, but as you can see, the destruction was complete.”

  “Was it?” the Lashki said, surging forward and grabbing the man’s neck.

  The philosopher choked, trying to pull away.

  “Where are those who were with you? Do they have nothing to say? Or did they flee after the intruders escaped?”

  “There were some… particularly children – who were leading the people to an inn,” the philosopher gasped. “What good it would have done—”

  “Was Rafen with them?” the Lashki asked, his grip tightening.

  “Yeess,” the man whined, his hands shooting up to his neck.

  The Lashki released him, and the man massaged himself, gasping in air. A flick of the copper rod, and a line of red appeared across his throat. The Lashki’s streamer of kesmal convulsed the body as it perished.

  Alakil had overlooked this. Of course, Etana would know a passage leading out of the city. Her father would have told her all such things. Near New Isles, there was nowhere but Fritz’s Hideout for a large group of people to hide, nowadays. Either the passage led directly there, or Rafen would have taken the people from it to the Hideout, no doubt disturbing and alerting numerous sentinels. So it appeared Rafen had survived, redeeming some of the lords, after all. With or without armies, they would still hold dangerous secrets and have influence over vast numbers of peasants in Siana.

  The first trap had not worked. It was infuriating.

  He turned to look at the New Isles palace, situated on the slight incline, the blue Tarhian pennants fluttering from its turrets. He had not wanted any of the lords to survive; he had begun to mistrust them months ago. It was better to have them dead, so that he could establish his reign with those he knew he could control. However, Nazt’s persistent screaming was disturbing any equilibrium he had had, and his kesmal was becoming harder and harder to access. He was feverish with impatience. He would send out men to deal with the lords, and he himself would wait another two days for Rafen. Surely now that Rafen was going to Fritz’s Hideout, he would see his mother’s corpse and be driven to confront the Lashki. And if the Fledgling did not appear, the Lashki would publicize abroad his last threat. Rafen did not know whether King Robert was dead or alive. The Lashki could easily make him believe through rumors and announcements that he meant to kill him, should the Fledgling not make his appearance.

  “Gather some men to travel with the Naztwai,” the Lashki said absently to another philosopher who had drawn closer nervously to examine the corpse of his colleague. “They must march against Aronis’ men now.”

  *

  Jacob had taken care of bringing the people into the Hideout. By using grids and maps on the walls, he had familiarized himself with many of the passages and rooms and had spread the five hundred over them, leaving empty the side chamber in which Elizabeth lay. Francisco kept whispering to Rafen that they needed to bury her, but Rafen couldn’t, even when Etana said in anguish, “Rafen, she smells.”

  The people were incredibly grateful, and Rafen couldn’t tell why; their destruction had only been postponed.

  He left the side room once only to converse with Jacob about where he had placed the people. A peasant woman had blessed him, and a noble
man had laid a hand on his shoulder and told him, “If there is any way I may be of service, please tell me, My Lord.”

  The philosopher in the floral robe continually got in people’s way, but found Rafen something to eat and drink. Rafen had refused the food. He took the water pouch into the room and resumed his watch at Elizabeth’s side, unable to sleep.

  Francisco leaned against the wall opposite the bed, staring at his mother with red eyes before falling into a deep slumber. Sherwin had been unable to stand any more of it. He was somewhere else with Jacob. Etana too slept in another room with a group of young peasant mothers.

  Rafen’s hand gripped his phoenix feather as he sat there. “Tell me what to do,” he whispered to Elizabeth. “Please wake up. Please.”

  He bowed his head, wrapping his fingers around his feather tighter than ever. Jacob seemed to have no more idea of a distraction than he did, and the Lashki might already be planning an attack on the Hideout. Rafen’s heart thundered as he remembered what Etana had said: the Lashki had wanted to destroy New Isles mainly to get rid of Rafen. Rafen, along with the Sianian lords, was stopping the Lashki from having uncontested dominance over Siana, if one didn’t include Sirius in that picture.

  What in the world was large enough to distract the Lashki from five hundred missing Sianians, of which maybe ninety were nobility? And what would divert him from Rafen?

  Rafen thought it was more necessary the lords should be saved. He stared at his mother.

  “Fledgling of the Phoenix,” he said softly. “What were you thinking when you named me? You never said.”

  He had asked Elizabeth twice. However, Roger had always been there, interrupting to say: “I would have rathered my eldest son was named after me. Let us not dwell on this topic.”

  The light in Elizabeth’s eyes, when Rafen had questioned her, had made him shy in the end. He had kept telling himself he would get the information out of her someday.

  He supposed the thing that intrigued him most about the Phoenix was sacrifice. The Phoenix had sacrificed himself long ago, Rafen had heard. He had even seen it in dreams, the ultimate death in flames that facilitated the ultimate resurrection, after which Zion distributed his former powers among those he intended to save the world: the Secrai and Runi. How could someone be so strong after giving so much? To an extent, the sacrifice seemed to Rafen to be embodied in the giving of the phoenix feather.

  Staring at Elizabeth, he understood he would never know the answers to his questions. Anger flooded his veins, and he shook with it. Then he knew, as he stared at the bandaged and mutilated fifth finger of his left hand, what he had to do. For the first time since his mother’s death, he could sense her, watching him far away with repressed anticipation, awaiting his decision. It was exactly what the Lashki had predicted of him.

  He must have known Rafen would make the right decision in the end. He had more faith in Rafen than Rafen had in himself.

  He would not wait for Alexander. He would not go with Etana. This was something he must do alone, and now was the time. He rose to his aching legs, his body still remembering the traveling and running of the past few days, even though his mind swirled with all the recent events. His side ached where a Naztwai had cut him. His heart was thrumming with expectation. He wasn’t afraid. It was so strange. He was ready.

  Zion, keus na fikë wri uma sè waëm.

  He turned back to look at Elizabeth’s face and perfectly arranged body. The smell still hung thickly in the room. The reminder of what it signified was overwhelming.

  He moved over to her quickly, bent, smoothed back some hair from her brow, and kissed her forehead. It was so cold.

  It would be the last time, he knew. His eyes were burning when he turned again, this time stooping to pick up his still lit sword. He gave it a flick, and the light went out, but his Wolf’s senses had been stimulated by the realization he had come to. He saw all he needed through them. Quietly, he sheathed the weapon.

  After all, would he really make her proud by reneging once more on his promise to Alexander to keep the others safe? Would he really make her proud by sitting here feeling sorry for himself?

  Leaving Francisco breathing peacefully, he slipped out the darkened doorway and hurried silently through the hall. Some lit torches had been hung in brackets on the walls, and Rafen ducked past them. From the empty doorways of the rooms on either side, he heard the soft, airy hum of many sleepers. There were hundreds more, further in the Hideout. Rafen had been worried that Sherwin had buried the arm too nearby, but no one had panicked or screamed yet.

  He reached the stone panels of the doorway and paused, breathing quickly. Pressing one hand against the sliver of darkness running between them, he murmured the password under his breath. The grating sound of the panels sliding back was an explosion in an otherwise serene hour. Rafen had counted on this, but he started nonetheless.

  “Rafen?” a voice hissed from further down the hall.

  As Rafen had expected and hoped, Jacob was keeping watch near the doors.

  “Jacob,” he said softly, making sure he was ready to flee through the open doorway, “in the afternoon, I need you to take the people to the nearest mansion of one of the lords here. Barricade yourselves in with kesmal and get a message to Alexander about where his lords are. It’ll be safe… I’m buying us some time.”

  A mansion would have been no good originally. Getting over five hundred people through the Woods or along exposed paths would have left them open to attack, and the Lashki wouldn’t have been far from the city he had commanded to be burned. Yet now, if they left in the afternoon, Rafen would have already let sentinels in the Woods know he was traveling through them. The Lashki’s focus would shift. He would no longer care about the lords, and his men would be left directionless.

  Rafen would ensure all this because, even though he knew his actions would likely lead to death, he did not intend this to be a suicide. He meant to do the most damage he possibly could before going down. The Lashki’s attention would be absorbed entirely.

  At Jacob’s silence, Rafen’s heart pounded.

  “Jacob, you must do this. It’s the only way to keep the people safe.”

  A soft sound nearby alerted him that the general was creeping toward him.

  Rafen darted through the doorway and into the cavern beyond, making for the point where he instinctively knew the rope ladder leading out was.

  Jacob’s footsteps pounded after him. “Rafen, stop,” he commanded in a low voice. “What are you doing?”

  As the footsteps came horribly close, Rafen increased his pace. He stumbled against the wall, which was pointy with rocks in places. The rope ladder brushed his hand, and he seized it and clambered up. It vibrated unsteadily beneath his feet.

  Jacob was groping around in the darkness somewhere. Rafen heard the muted swoosh of his movements. As long as Rafen didn’t hit the wall, Jacob would have no way of telling where he was; and because he didn’t do kesmal, he could not provide himself with a light.

  Rafen was close to the top when the ladder shook violently beneath him. His hand slipped, and he swayed back and forth like a pendulum, clinging to the rungs.

  “Get down immediately, Rafen,” Jacob commanded in a ringing voice, shaking the ladder again so it rippled beneath him. The general pushed off from the wall, causing it to veer suddenly sideways.

  The toe of Rafen’s boot scraped sickeningly against a rock, and one foot slipped. He gripped the rung above him desperately with both hands, giving a sharp cry. “Stop it!”

  “You are deserting us!” Jacob accused.

  “I’m not!” Rafen yelled. “I’m helping you!”

  “How?” Jacob said.

  His voice sounded deceptively far away, but Rafen knew by the tremors of the rope beneath him that he was inching upward, ready to seize Rafen. Both boots back on the rung of the ladder now, Rafen surged upward.

  “I told you before,” he replied. “Take the people to the nearest lord’s mansion in
the afternoon.”

  “And where are you going?” Jacob said, more softly now.

  His voice sounded as if it were directly below. Above, Rafen saw the circle of light that indicated he was approaching the surface of the ground. His heart was so sick within him that he paused momentarily.

  “Nowhere,” he said. “I don’t know. Sherwin said the dead go to Zion.”

  A hand closed on his right boot. Rafen yelped, shaking it frantically as he moved his other leg up. Jacob’s pulling was insistent, and Rafen’s fingers were slipping from the rung above him. He jerked his right knee up, dislodging Jacob’s hand. In a wild scramble, he reached the circle of light and heaved himself through the narrow opening, Jacob’s panting a hot wind on his heels. Rafen sprang to his feet before the rock that marked the hole he had just escaped. Whipping his blade out, he pointed it at Jacob when he surfaced.

  “You don’t do kesmal, Jacob.” Though his tone shook, his sword never wavered. “Even if you did, it would be no match for mine.”

  Flames burst into being on the shiny metal directed at Jacob’s heart.

  “Rafen,” Jacob said exasperated. “Stop this nonsense at once—”

  Lunging forward, Rafen brought the sword dangerously close to Jacob’s neck. “This isn’t nonsense, Jacob. Promise to do what I say. Promise to Zion’s Fledgling, or things will go ill with you.”

  Disquieted, Jacob muttered, “I promise, Rafen. Now lay your sword down.”

  “I’m not laying my sword down until it’s done some damage to the Lashki.”

  “Rafen, you don’t have to do this.”

  Whirling around, Rafen sheathed his sword and flew forward, diving at the ground and landing on fleet paws, rushing past the flowering buttonbushes. In the vibrant daylight, he transformed again at the foot of the drop that led to the crater he occupied and clambered up the layer of dirt and tree roots, his feet easily finding holds. He threw himself onto the grass above and rose amid the trees in the heart of the Cursed Woods.

  Wildly guessing where the barriers could be, he surged into the leaves of holly and lancewoods, leaving Jacob standing in the middle of the crater, too nervous to pursue him.