The Briar King

by Greg Keyes

  “Just where I left it,” Cazio murmured, when they reached the vine-draped entrance to the cellar. The stairs still remained, albeit broken and covered in earth and moss. A cool breath seemed to sigh up from its depths.

  “We'll be trapped down there,” Anne protested.

  “Better there than in the open,” Cazio pointed out. “See how narrow the way down is? They won't get their horses in, and won't be able to swing those pig-slaughtering blades. It will give me an advantage.”

  “You can barely stand,” Anne said.

  “Yes, but a da Chiovattio who can barely stand is worth six men hale and healthy. And here there are only two.”

  “Don't lie to me, Cazio. If we go down in there, can you win?”

  Cazio shrugged. “I cannot say. But out in the open, I cannot.” The words sounded strange to him, though he had already thought them. He took Anne's hand, and she didn't protest. “On foot, outside, you will be run down before you can travel a cenpereci. We should not wish for choices we do not have.”

  Reluctantly, the two girls followed him down.

  “It smells like vinegar in here,” Austra observed.

  “Indeed,” Cazio remarked. “Now remain below.”

  For a moment the world seemed to turn strangely, and the next he was lying on the cold stone.

  “Cazio!” Austra cried, coming to his side.

  “It's nothing,” Cazio murmured. “A dizziness. Perhaps an other kiss might cure it.”

  “He can't fight them,” Austra said. “He'll be killed.”

  “They still may not know we're here,” Cazio pointed out.

  But they heard hooves on stone, and nearby.

  “I'll need that kiss,” Cazio whispered.

  He couldn't see her blush, but Austra leaned close and touched her lips to his. They tasted sweet, like wine and plums, and he lingered on it. It was likely the last kiss he would ever have. He thought of asking Anne for one, too, but she wouldn't give it and time was dear, now.

  “That will be my token,” Cazio said, clambering to his feet. “And now it will be my pleasure to defend you ladies.”

  His legs shaking, Cazio climbed back up toward the sun, where shadows were moving.

  For some reason, he remembered where he had heard of a purple moon. It was in a song his father used to sing when he was a boy.

  And when will the clouds come down from the sky?

  When the fogs down in the valley lie.

  And when will the mountaintops meet the sea?

  When the hard rains come, then shall it be.

  And when will the sky have purple horns?

  When the old man walks who calls the thorns.

  He remembered the line because, unlike the other verses, it never made any sense to him.

  It still didn't.

  In the distance, he thought he heard a cornet sounding.

  To Muriele the world felt suddenly silent, as if all of the sounds of battle had retreated to an infinite distance. She looked at the dead face of her daughter, saw her as an infant, as a child of six spilling milk on the Galléan carpet in her sunroom, as a woman in a wedding gown. The silence gripped beneath her breast, waiting to become a scream.

  Elseny must be dead, too. And Erren, and Charles …

  But the silence was in her, not without. Steel still rang, and Neil's fierce battle cries proved him still alive. And over all that the sound of a horn, growing steadily louder.

  It had sounded far off, at first, as if shrilled from the ends of the earth. Now it called from much nearer, but with a prickling she realized that it wasn't approaching, only growing louder. And the source of the sounding was quite close indeed.

  But where? Muriele puzzled at it, used the mystery to cloak Fastia's dead face and her own imaginings. It didn't take her long to discover the sound came from the wickerwork feinglest Elseny had filled with flowers only the day before. And in her dazed sight, the feinglest was changing, as slowly and surely as the sunrise drowning the morning star in gray light.

  Her gaze fastened and would not waver, and as the horn droned louder she saw the change quicken, the wickerwork drawing tighter and taller. The vague resemblance to human shape was more pronounced with each heartbeat. Muriele watched, unable to move or speak, her mind refusing the sight as anything more than a waking dream.

  It grew on, and the wailing of the trumpet rose so loud that Muriele at last managed to pull her hands to her ears to try to stop the sound, but her palms held no power to diminish it.

  Nor could her brain arrest her eyes from seeing the feinglest shiver like a wasp-wing in flight, throw out arms and sprout proud antlers from its head, and open two almost-human eyes, leaf-green orbs in black almond slivers. A powerful animal musk penetrated her nostrils, overwhelming the sickly sweet scent of the flowers.

  The Briar King towered the height of two men over her; his gaze connected with hers. He was naked, and his flesh was mottled bark. A beard of moss curled from his face, and long unshorn locks of the same dangled from his head. His eyes seemed to see nothing and everything, like those of a newborn. His nostrils quivered, and a sound came from his throat that carried no meaning for her, like the snuffling of a strange beast.

  He leaned near her and sniffed again, and though his nose was of human shape, Muriele was reminded more of a horse or a stag than of a man. His breath was damp and cold, and smelled like a forest stream. Muriele's flesh crawled as if covered with ants.

  The Briar King turned to Fastia and blinked, slowly, then shifted his strange eyes back to Muriele, narrowing them as they came mere fingers from her own.

  Her vision dissolved in those eyes. She saw strange, deep woods full of trees like giant mosses and trunked ferns. She saw beasts with the eyes of owls and the shapes of mastiffs.

  He blinked again, slowly, and she saw Eslen fallen into ruins and swallowed by vines of black thorn with blooms like purple spiders. She saw Newland beneath the stars, covered by dark waters, and then those waters dancing with pale flame. She saw a vast hall of shadow and a throne of sooty stone, and on it a figure whose face could not be seen but for eyes that burned like green flame. She heard laughter that sounded almost like a hound baying.

  And then, as if in a mirror of polished jet, she saw her own dead face. Then it was again the face of the Briar King, and her fear was gone, as if she really were dead and moved beyond all mortal thoughts. As in a dream, she reached to touch his beard.

  His face contorted in a sudden expression of pain and rage, and he howled, a sound with nothing human and everything wild in it.

  Aspar was too far from his bow. The greffyn would reach Winna and Ogre long before he could fit an arrow to string. He did the only thing he could do; he threw his ax. It struck the greffyn in the back of the head and bounced, leaving a gash and drawing a thin train of ruby droplets.

  “So you can bleed, you mikel rooster,” Aspar snarled in perverse satisfaction.

  The greffyn turned slowly to face him, and Aspar felt the fever from its eyes strike straight through to his bones. But it wasn't so bad as before; his knees trembled but did not betray him. He gripped his dirk as it came, but he did not watch it. Instead he focused on Winna, on her face, for he wanted to remember it.

  He couldn't quite remember Qerla's face.

  It was luck to find love twice in one lifetime, he decided, and luck always came with a price. It was time to pay it, he supposed.

  Give me strength, Raver, he thought. He'd never asked Haergrim for anything before. Perhaps the Raver would take that into account.

  The greffyn came, then, almost faster than sight could follow. Aspar turned just slightly, striking the beast above and between the eyes with the iron hilt of his dirk. He felt a terrible shock in his arm and knew he was already dead.

  He heard Winna scream.

  Incredibly, the greffyn stumbled at the blow, and Aspar took the only chance he had. He threw himself upon the scaled back and wrapped one arm beneath the hooked jaw. The creature screamed
then, a shrill cacophony that almost overshadowed the rising sound of the horn.

  He guessed where the heart might be and drove his dirk there, once, twice, again. The greffyn crashed into the courtyard wall, trying to dislodge him, but for the moment his arm was a steel band. Aspar felt larger, like one of the great tyrants of the forest, his roots sinking deep, pulling strength from stone and soil and deep hidden springs, and when his heart beat again he knew he was the forest itself, seeking vengeance.

  Motion blurred everything. He caught a brief glimpse of Winna's anguished face, of Ogre, proud and fearless, rushing to his aid. There was air, and then water, as they plunged into the canal beyond the gate.

  Close the gate, Winna, he thought. Be the bright girl. He would have shouted it, but the water was wrapped too tightly about him.

  All the while his dirk was cutting, as if the Grim had indeed taken Aspar's hand for his own. The water of the canal burned like lye.

  Cazio stood unsteadily at the entrance to the wine cellar, but when he raised Caspator, the weapon did not waver.

  “Hello, my fine casnars,” he said to the two armored men. “Which of you do I have the honor of killing first?”

  The knights had just dismounted. He noticed one of them had more ornate armor than the other, all gilded on the edges. That was the one who answered him.

  “I know not who you are, sir,” the fellow said. “But there is no need for you to die. Leave here and return to a life that might be long and prosperous.”

  Cazio looked down the length of Caspator. He wondered if his father had felt this way at the end. There was certainly no profit in this fight. No one would hear of it.

  “I prefer to live an honorable life to a long one, casnar,” he said. “Can the same be said of you?”

  The knight regarded him enigmatically for a moment, and Cazio felt a brief hope. Then the man in gilded armor turned his head toward his companion.

  “Kill this one for me,” he said.

  The other man nodded slightly and started forward.

  He doesn't have a shield, at least, Cazio remarked to himself. The eye slits. That's my target.

  The horn in the distance grew louder. More knights, probably.

  The knight came hewing. Cazio calmly parried the blows, though Caspator shivered from them. He riposted at the steel visor, but the fellow stayed out of distance, and Cazio didn't have the footing needed to lunge. They fought for several long phrases before the heavy broadsword finally smashed down onto Caspator's hilt, shocking his already numbed arm enough that the weapon clattered to the ground.

  It was then that a cascade of mortar and brick fell on the knight's head. Dust and grit followed, stinging Cazio's eyes. Masonry tumbled past him down the worn stairway, and he saw the knight collapse, his helm deeply dented.

  The gilded knight—who hadn't been beneath the fall of rubble—looked up in time to receive a brick in the face, and then another. Stunned, Cazio bent to retrieve Caspator as z'Acatto dropped down from above the arch of the cellar door.

  “I told you, boy,” the swordmaster grunted. “You don't fence knights.”

  “Granted,” Cazio said, noticing that the gilded knight was regaining his feet. With what little remained of his strength, Cazio leapt forward. The broadsword came up and down, but he turned and avoided it, and this time Caspator drove true, through the slit in the helm and further, stopped only by the steel on the other side of the skull, or the skull itself. He withdrew the bloody point and watched the knight sink first to his knees, and then to a prone position.

  “I'll follow your advice more closely next time,” he promised the older swordsman.

  “What have you gotten yourself into, lad?” z'Acatto asked. He looked past Cazio, then, and shook his head.

  “Ah,” he said. “I see where the trouble is.”

  Anne and Austra had come to the top of the stair and were staring at the tableau.

  “There will be more,” Cazio said.

  “More women?”

  “More trouble.”

  “The same thing,” z'Acatto remarked.

  “More knights,” Cazio clarified. “Maybe many more.”

  “I've two horses,” z'Acatto said. “We can ride double.”

  Cazio crossed his arms and gave his swordmaster a dubious look. “It's fortunate you brought horses,” he said. “Also very odd.”

  “Don't be an empty bottle, boy. The road to the coven goes near the well at the edge of Orchaevia's estates. I saw them arrive.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  Z'Acatto grinned and drew a narrow bottle of green glass from beneath his doublet. He held it up to the light.

  “I found it,” he said triumphantly. “The very best year. I knew I would smell it out.”

  Cazio rolled his eyes. “At least we were saved by a good vintage,” he said.

  “The best,” z'Acatto repeated happily.

  Cazio made a weak bow to the two women.

  “My casnaras Anne and Austra, I present to you my sword-master, the learned z'Acatto.” He hesitated and caught the old man's eyes. “My master and best friend.”

  Z'Acatto held his gaze for an instant, and something glimmered there Cazio did not quite understand. Then he looked to Anne and Austra.

  “My great pleasure, casnaras,” z'Acatto said. “I hope one of you will not mind my company on horse.”

  Anne bowed. “You've saved us, sir,” she said. She looked at Cazio significantly. “The two of you. I'm in your debt.”

  It was then Austra shrieked at something behind Cazio. Cazio sighed and turned, ready for anything.

  Anything except for what he saw. Slowly, tremulously, the gilded knight was trying to rise. Blood ran from his visor like water from a fountain. Cazio raised his sword.

  “No,” z'Acatto said. “No. He's not alive.” Cazio couldn't tell if it was a statement or a question, but z'Acatto drew his own sword and jabbed it through the other eye. The knight fell back again, but this time started to get up immediately.

  “Diuvo's wagging—” Z'Acatto didn't finish the curse, but instead picked up the knight's abandoned broadsword and hewed off the man's head.

  The fingers continued to claw at the dirt.

  Z'Acatto watched that for a moment. “I advise rapid flight,” he told them. “And later, some wine.”

  “We're in agreement,” Cazio husked.

  The rage had almost left Neil when the horz exploded. The Sefry archer on the point of his sword was gaping at the otherworld, and with no other enemies at hand, the red cloud was lifting, allowing reason back into his head.

  He had heard of the rage before; his uncle Odcher had had that gift. In all of his years of battle, Neil had never experienced it before.

  Watching the Sefry slowly relinquish his life, he stared at the carnage around him, trying to remember what he'd been doing when the lightning had entered his soul.

  The sound of shattering stone turned him, and he saw what appeared to be turbid coils of black smoke billowing through the rent walls of the garden. He staggered toward the horz, remembering that he had left the queen and Fastia within. It was only when he actually plunged into what he'd believed to be smoke that focus came, though not comprehension.

  Black tendrils groped past him, gripping at his limbs, fastening to the stone of the walkway. He cut at them, and they fell writhing to the ground, but they were merely the vanguard of the thicker vines they sprang from, wide as a man's legs and growing larger with each moment. The sharp points of thorns tore at Neil's armor. The briars pushed him back to the edge of the causeway, though he hacked at them with Crow. It had been a long while since he'd understood much of anything, and he no longer cared. He'd left the queen in the horz; he had to return for her.

  So he pitched himself forward, sweat and blood sheening his face and stinging his eyes, slowly fighting through the impossible foliage, until his sword hit something it would not cut. He looked up and green eyes stared back down at him.

&
nbsp; It was far taller than a man, the thing, entirely wrapped about in the black vines. They tugged at him, as if trying to pull him into the earth from which they sprang, but he ignored their grasping just as he ignored Neil after a single glance.

  Neil smelled spring rain mingled with rotting wood.

  The green-eyed thing strode past the young warrior, snapping the vines and tearing them from the stone as he went, but wherever his feet trod new growth sprang up. Neil watched him, gape-mouthed, as he stepped into the canal, the deepest waters of which came only to his waist.

  He'd never seen a monster before, and now he'd seen two. Neil wondered if the world was coming to an end.

  The queen, you fool. The end of the world was not his concern. Muriele Dare was.

  He turned to what was left of the horz, slashing at the thick vines with Crow, weeping, for what could tear apart stone must be able to do much more to human flesh.

  But he found the queen untouched upon the stone from which the largest of the vines had emerged, staring at where the dark briars had crept over Fastia's form. Numb of all human feeling, Neil took the queen in his arms, stumbling through the path he had cut in the vines, through the courtyard full of corpses and out the front gates. He saw the thorn-giant again, striding up the canal where it bent around toward the front gate of Cal Azroth, where others stood watching. Neil lay the queen on the grass and fumbled for Crow; they were surely more of his enemies—

  But Saint Oblivion beckoned, and he had no power to resist her.

  The greffyn rolled and pitched beneath the water, and Aspar's lungs would stay shut no longer. His hold loosened, and he was flung away. He struck toward the surface, the dirk still in his hand.

  He came up near the edge of the canal and clambered at it, pulled himself from the water with little more than strength of will. He fought to stand, tremors running through his entire body, watching the roiling water for a quicker doom he felt certain would emerge.