by Bruce Blake
“They’re letting us go,” Khirro whispered as the youth with the torch signaled for them to come out.
“It could be a trap. They might think you will bring the wrath of Sol on them again if they try to take us by force.”
The man at the door waited through their whispered conversation, the rapturous smile on his lips unfaltering.
“What choice do we have? Wait here for our fate to find us? Die in a pool of those glowing things?” His gaze flickered to Callan and he shuddered.
Athryn nodded. “You are right. I would rather perish doing something than languish in the dark or be eaten by worms.”
He took a step toward the door but Khirro put a hand on his arm, stopping him. The people waiting for them outside the door gasped as his bandage brushed Athryn’s sleeve.
“Callan,” he said nodding toward the unconscious man.
The torch holder grunted as he and Athryn crossed the cell, but they ignored him and crouched beside Callan. The gentle ripples rolling along his stomach had become cresting waves, the flesh lit from within by a dull glow. Beneath each one, Khirro plainly saw the shapes of grubs wiggling and writhing.
“It is too late,” Athryn said. “It will be a short time before the grubs take him. There is nothing we can do.”
Khirro sighed through his nose. He did not know this man but felt connected by their circumstances.
If only I could help.
As though hearing his thoughts, Athryn put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Khirro nodded his thanks.
The underground-dweller holding the torch spoke and a note of desperation underlying his unintelligible words brought Khirro and Athryn to their feet. He stepped forward with the two women, their bare feet silent on the stone floor. One woman held Khirro and Athryn’s sword belts and daggers, the other their packs and Khirro’s shield. When they didn’t immediately step forward to take them, the women bowed their heads and held the items out like an offering. The man with the torch gestured, insisting they reclaim their possessions; the companions obliged.
With his pack and shield slung on his back, weapons stored, and the sword belt around his waist, Khirro felt renewed. He grasped the Mourning Sword’s familiar hilt and pulled an inch of steel from the scabbard. The runes glowed dull red, their energy sending relief up Khirro’s arm and into his chest through the pain of the gash on his palm. The man with the torch gestured for them to follow and stepped across the threshold. Khirro and Athryn moved toward the door, the two women falling in behind them, but then Khirro stopped him, his hand on Athryn’s arm.
“Wait,” he said and turned back into the cell.
The two women looked at him wide-eyed and stepped out if his way as he crossed the floor, both of them bowing their heads and averting their eyes as he passed. The smooth-faced man gibbered something from the doorway.
“Just a moment,” Athryn said.
Khirro stood beside Callan’s prone form, looking down at his bare stomach; the grubs within him shone through his flesh as though he had swallowed a lit torch. Khirro drew a deep breath through his mouth, tasted the dank air of the cell, and freed his blade. He grasped it in both hands and held it over Callan’s unconscious form, his arms quivering slightly both from the pain in his wounds and a desire not to have to do this. The runes brightened until they became a ferocious glow. The underground-dwellers gasped.
“I’m sorry, Callan,” Khirro said raising the sword above his head.
Behind him, he heard Athryn whispering words too quiet for Khirro to hear. Foreign words, he guessed, archaic, understood by fewer people than the words spoken by the underground-dwellers. Words of power.
The Mourning Sword arced down, cutting through Callan’s neck in one stroke, its tip scarring the floor and sending sparks into the air. Blood spurted from the wound, black in the wan light compared to the brilliant, blood-thirsty glow of Khirro’s blade. Grubs squeezed and wriggled their way through the severed flesh but, as Athryn’s incantation ended, they disappeared in the blinding light that filled the cell at the magician’s final word.
Khirro squinted and covered his eyes with his forearm; he heard their rescuers utter confused, fearful sounds. Feet shuffled and voices cried out in surprise. Hope filled Khirro’s soul like the light filled his vision.
Athryn was right. He’s found his magic.
When the light faded to a bearable level, Khirro lowered his arm. A dimmer version of the light remained, illuminating the two dead men lying on the floor, Callan’s head detached at the neck. Khirro let the Mourning Sword sag to his side, the energy gone from his arm.
I killed him.
Athryn had crossed the cell without Khirro’s notice and patted him on the arm. Khirro looked up to see a broad, relieved smile on the magician’s lips. He understood why his friend wore the expression, but with a man lying dead at his feet, his life taken by Khirro’s own blade, it was difficult to share in his relief. His gaze fell back to Callan, but Athryn tapped his arm again. Khirro looked up and the magician pointed toward the cell door; Khirro turned his head to look.
All of the underground-dwellers had fallen to their knees, bowing before their angels of Sol.
Chapter Nineteen
Wooden wheels grumbled over uneven ground, protesting with each rock and hole they traversed. Graymon held on to the wooden plank under his bum, trying to keep the bumpy ride from unseating him while being careful the rough seat didn’t give him a sliver. The ride already seemed long, yet when he peeked through the canvas draped over the wagon, he still saw the Kanosee camp. He didn’t want to look again-the last time he did, one of the ugly monster-men snarled at him-but curiosity isn’t an easy thing for a five year-old boy to deny.
No, six. I’m six now.
Graymon hesitated, hand hanging in the air an inch from the canvas as he dug deep to raise his courage.
They won’t hurt me.
He grasped the corner of the canvas and inched it away from the edge of the wagon, then crouched to peer through the small space. The water was closer, the tents fewer. He scuttled across his bench and peeked through the other side to find the view much the same.
The water is close on both sides. This must be the land bridge.
His father had told him about the narrow strip of land separating the Small Sea from the Sea of Linghala, but he’d never seen it. Until the woman brought him to the salt flats-he didn’t know how she’d gotten him from the palace to the flats because he didn’t remember riding in a wagon or mounting a horse-he’d never been outside Achtindel, the city of his birth. At another time, he might have marvelled at seeing the seas for the first time and been awed by the sight of the land bridge, but not so now.
A cold wind blew off the water, shuddering the canvas. Dead brown leaves hung limply on trees or skittered across the barren ground, reminding him of the dead men escorting him from his home as a prisoner. Only dead men, not a living soldier amongst them.
The lady lied.
Tears welled in his eyes and Graymon dropped the canvas flap back in place. If he held it up too long, one of the hideous guards always noticed, always scared him.
Why did this happen to me? I was a good boy.
The wind slapped the canvas against the wooden side of the wagon, making him jump; he pulled the itchy wool blanket tighter about his shoulders and closed his eyes. If he slept, maybe he’d dream of better things: his father, or perhaps his mother whom he’d only known in his dreams and stories his da told him. Maybe, when he woke, he’d find this world of cold wind and canvas, dead leaves and dead men was the dream. Maybe he’d wake in his own bed with Nanny dozing in the other room.
The sound of the woman’s voice shattered his flimsy hope.
“Are you all right, Graymon, my sweet?”
Graymon’s eyes snapped open and he jumped, breath catching in his throat. The woman smiled her honey smile and put a hand on his knee for comfort. He shrank away.
“There is nothing to fear.” She glanced at the canvas
protecting them from the wind as though she saw through it. “Are my men treating you well?”
Where did she come from?
The boy stared at her, his bottom lip quivering. Truthfully, the undead soldiers had done no more than glower at him when they caught him stealing glimpses at the countryside bouncing by.
“You lied to me,” he said.
The woman smiled. “I only told you what you needed to hear, dear Graymon. That is what adults do with children. They tell them half-truths and deceptions to protect them and make them feel safe.”
He glared at her, angry, but something in her smile made the ire dissipate from him. Nervous fear replaced it.
“W-where are you taking me?” He hated hearing a shake in his voice to match the one in his lip. The woman continued smiling but didn’t answer.
Daddy would want me to be brave.
He drew a shuddering breath and set his teeth, determination making his voice more steady this time. “Where are you taking me?”
The woman tilted her head the way a dog might, like she didn’t understand his question. She said nothing for a minute and Graymon fidgeted, the wool blanket suddenly itchier on his neck than a moment ago. He fought the urge to reach up and scratch it.
The colors at the ends of her fingertips drew his eye, but he quickly shifted his gaze away rather than see what atrocities might be painted there. The canvas flapped in the wind, startling him, and he stared, worried one of the dead men might be coming to join them.
It’s the wind. Be brave.
The wagon slammed through a deep pothole, jarring his spine and clicking his teeth. The woman continued to smile. Even over the rattle-thump of the wagon wheels rolling over the rocky track, Graymon imagined he heard the footsteps of decaying feet walking beside him, boot heels scuffing through dirt, the butts of spears clicking on stones. He thought if he listened close enough, he’d hear their flesh rotting. A knot formed in his throat making breath difficult.
“I… I want my da.” A fat tear rolled down his cheek onto the itchy blanket.
The woman nodded. “I know, sweetheart. You will see him again. But first, you have to be a good boy. And your da has to be a good boy, too.”
“My da?”
“Yes, dear. Your father promised to do things for me. When they are complete, you will be with him again.”
Graymon chewed his bottom lip and rubbed his cheek against the blanket. The wool wiped away his tear but left another itchy spot.
“But why do I have to go?”
She leaned toward him and he saw flames dance in her eyes.
“Your father cannot concentrate while you are around. He asked me to take you away.”
The air disappeared suddenly from Graymon’s chest, like the time he’d fallen off his bed and landed on his chest. He had thought he might never draw another breath, and though the feeling passed eventually, he’d never been so scared. Not until he met the woman and her dead men. Not until she said his father wanted him to go.
“It will be all right,” she said rubbing his arm. “You will like my palace.”
“But…da?”
The woman’s smile disappeared; some of her beauty left with it. Graymon pushed himself farther back on the bench until a crate behind him pushed uncomfortably into the small of his back.
“If you behave, you and your father will be all right. If your father behaves, you will both be all right. If either of you misbehaves…” She leaned back, her smile returning, but Graymon didn’t think her beauty returned with it. Her stare made him feel cold. “I will have to introduce you to some of my friends.”
Her arm moved quickly, throwing open the canvas before Graymon realized she’d moved. The chill wind whipped decayed leaves into the wagon, swirled them about the boy’s face making him jump back, the crate pressing painfully against his back. He waved the leaves away and looked out of the wagon at three ruined faces glaring back at him. The undead soldiers, their decayed lips contorted in sneers, brandished their weapons. Graymon pulled the blanket over his face as the wind gusted, threatening to pull that little protection off him.
“Remember their faces,” the woman said, her voice distant. “For if you disobey me, you will come to know them better.”
Graymon’s breath came in short in-and-out gasps, dampening the blanket in front of his mouth and making his head feel light. The wind tugged a second longer then died away, but he didn’t emerge from his cocoon for minutes after. When he pulled the cover off his face, the woman was gone and the wagon’s canvas back in place. Tears rolled down his cheeks; he sniffed and gasped, not caring if the beasts outside heard him over the clatter of the wagon.
She didn’t say I couldn’t cry.
After a while, his tears waned. He wiped his nose on the itchy blanket, smearing snot across his cheek. His eyelids drooped, his head sagged, but he fought against the sleep his body craved, afraid of what he might see in his dreams, perhaps more afraid of what he’d see when he woke. He hoped sleep would bring the white tyger that visited him in his dreams once before, but more likely it would be the ugly-beautiful woman or her dead men. He didn’t want to see any more of them. Never again.
As the numbness of sleep overtook Graymon’s limbs, he realized he couldn’t stay in the wagon and be taken to a far away palace. The woman had lied to him: neither he nor his father were safe from her or her monsters. If they both did exactly as she said, she’d kill them. Of this, Graymon felt certain. Escape was his best hope.
His head nodded, chin bouncing against his chest. He snorted and opened his eyes once more, but they didn’t stay open long.
After I have some sleep.
Chapter Twenty
Therrador strode across the courtyard, the others trailing close behind. He scratched at the bandage wound around his right hand, trying to relieve the itch of the healing flesh beneath.
“It’s been more than a week, Hanh,” he said over his shoulder. “We should have heard from someone by now.”
“Whispers sometimes take more time than horsemen, my Liege.”
“I never trusted whispers,” Sir Alton added.
“This isn’t a matter of trust,” Therrador said. “It’s a matter of saving our kingdom. If the whispers are not effective, then I’ll do it myself.”
They approached the white stone building with the arched windows-the fortress’ main stables. A thousand stalls lined the walls of the long, narrow building, each of them filled with horses prancing restlessly, waiting for when they’d be called upon to carry their knights into battle. Therrador shook his head as they neared the doorway.
They’d already have done what they were bred for if not for me.
“What will you do, Your Highness?” Perdaro asked.
“I’ll go to Achtindel. Not all of the king’s army resides in the fortress. After that-”
“But what about the Archon?” Hu Dondon interrupted.
“Tell her I had urgent business at the capital.”
Emon Turesti nodded. “A kingdom has many issues requiring the king’s attention, especially during times of war,” he said, his long fingers fiddling with the clasp of his ankle-length green cape. “I’m sure I could find a convincing task to take you to the capital. At the very least, disbursement of the crops must be handled.”
“She’ll see through such an excuse,” Perdaro insisted. “Remember the plan: do as you’re told.”
Therrador stopped short of the stable entrance and faced the others.
“I may have made a horrible mistake, Hanh,” Therrador said, his mouth pulled down in a frown, “but I am the king. The kingdom is at risk and my son is being taken to Kanos, if he still lives. I won’t sit back and wait for your whispers to take hold, all the while shivering in fear of a woman. If I’m discovered, I’ll live or die with the consequences. If I’m not, then maybe Erechania will have a chance.”
Sir Alton and Emon Turesti nodded while Perdaro and Hu Dondon remained pensive. Therrador entered the stables with
its smell of manure and hay, a familiar odor that brought calmness to him like it did any career soldier. Dozens of stable hands moved about, feeding and grooming horses and swamping out stalls. Therrador went to the closest stall reserved for the king’s steed and called to the nearest stable hand, a boy of about twelve years.
“Ready my horse, boy. I leave as soon as possible.”
“Yes, my king.”
The stable hand bowed and dropped his shovel, nearly tripping over his feet as he rushed to do the king’s bidding. Therrador stood back while the youth swung the gate open and went to work saddling the big bay.
“I should go with you,” Sir Alton said. “The king doesn’t travel alone. It would raise suspicion. You should-”
“He’s right, your Highness,” Dondon agreed. “The king does not travel without a guard.”
“Just so. But not you, Sir Alton. It’s your job to command the fortress in my absence.”
“I’ll collect a guard for you, my Liege,” Emon Turesti said.
“We should tell the Archon you’re going,” Perdaro said. “Perhaps there would be fewer repercussions if we gain her agreement.”
“No. The excuses can be made after I’m gone.” Therrador turned to Turesti. “Gather ten men. We leave within the hour.”
Three of the men turned to leave, but Hanh Perdaro hesitated, looking like he wanted to say more on the subject. Therrador shook his head, letting the Voice of the People know the conversation was finished before he parted his lips again. Perdaro bowed his head in deference and Therrador watched him leave while he waited for the stable hand to finish saddling his horse.
