The Born Queen tkotab-4

by Greg Keyes

  Aspar grasped for the reins of the horse, but it galloped off, leaving him no mount or cover.

  The fellow he had just knocked off was moving feebly, but it looked like it would take him a bit to get up, if he did at all.

  Aspar reminded himself that most men on foot killed by knights died with holes in the back of the skull, and it was a good thing, because his legs were telling him to run as Harriot's charger hurtled at him. Grimly, he set the butt of the lance on his foot, pointed the spear tip at the horse's breast, and braced for the impact.

  Harriot shifted his grip and threw the lance, turning his mount an instant later. It thunked into the earth two handsbreadths from Aspar. Aspar wheeled, keeping the spear ready for the next pass.

  The knight drew his sword, dismounted, took down a shield, and came on.

  That's smart, Aspar thought. All he needs to do is get past my point, and I'm no real spearman.

  He caught a blur at the edge of his vision and saw it was one of the Mamres monks.

  Well, good try, he thought.

  But suddenly the greffyn was there, too, barreling at the monk from his right. They went off in a tangle.

  Harriot charged during the distraction.

  Aspar thrust the spear into the shield so hard that it stuck and then ran to the side, turning the fellow half around before he let go of the shaft and drew his ax and dirk. Put off balance by the unwieldy weapon lodged in his shield and by Aspar's maneuver, the knight had to fight to get his sword arm back around.

  He didn't make it before Aspar smashed into the shield at waist level so that Harriot went back and down, landing with a muffled clang.

  Aspar hit his helmet with the blunt side of his ax, and it rang like a bell. He hit it again, then shoved it up to reveal the white throat underneath and finished the job with his dirk.

  He stood, panting.

  The Vaix was just picking himself up a little farther down the hill.

  The greffyn was bloodying its beak in the stomach of the Mamres knight.

  Far below, he saw Fend and the wairwulf approaching Winna, Leshya, and Ehawk.

  Please let me be right about this, Aspar said, but then he had no more time for doubt as the Vaix started for him.

  Aspar did what he had planned, the only thing he could do.

  He ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward his mount. A glance back showed the Sefry gaining even with his wounded leg, even with new blood showing all over him.

  He made it to the horse, swung up, and kicked it into motion. The Sefry gave a hoarse cry and leaped at them, landing on his bad leg, which buckled. He threw the feysword at Aspar. It went turning by his head and cut through a young pine tree.

  Then the yards were growing between them, and each glance back showed the Vaix farther behind, then gone.

  Aspar didn't stop or even slow until after nightfall, when he reckoned he was at least a league and a half away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE HIDING PLACE

  WHEN THE PAIN of the knife wound faded and she ceased to feel her body, Anne for some time knew nothing but confusion and the sudden pull of a current so compelling that she had no thought of resistance. She let it take her, knowing what it was, having seen the lives of men leak away into its dark waters.

  For an instant she thought she was ready, but then from the very center of her climbed dark, delicious, corrupt rage. It informed everything that remained of her as she sought to strike out through the ragged wall of death at her killer, but here she learned the obvious but unspoken truth: Without a body in the lands of fate, no desire of her will could she obtain.

  That was death. That was why the promise of her had forged an alliance with those who had gone before, to give all that rage and purpose, at last, a body again.

  Now all that was failed and moot, and the chance would not come again.

  She felt herself diminishing, melting, and knew that in time the very place she observed herself from would vanish. It wasn't fair; this was her domain, her kingdom. She had nearly had complete control of it, and now it was eating her. What it spit out would invade the dreams of another, be used by another-probably Hespero.

  She caught the strains of a song, and as she focused her attention on it, it began to swell, and her throat yearned to open and join its strange harmonies.

  For some reason that frightened her more than anything.

  She suddenly saw light in the water and heard a familiar voice speak as if from another room. Then something caught her and pulled her in, and her thoughts suddenly became a confusion of voices, as in her Black Marys. At first she thought that it was the end, that she was merging with the river, but then she understood that she was thinking in only two voices.

  Then a place shaped, and a face.

  It took her a moment.

  "Austra?"

  "It's me, Anne," her friend said. "You've been here a while, but you didn't seem to hear me."

  "Where are we?"

  The light came up a little, diffuse strands of it made spidery by the tiny root filaments around the edge of the hole above her. She saw a little more of Austra now and noticed that between them was a stone crypt.

  "It's the crypt," she murmured. "The one we found as girls. Virgenya's crypt."

  "Is it?" Austra asked, sounding confused. "It looks to me like the womb of Mefitis, where we escaped the men who attacked the coven. See, there's light coming down the shaft."

  Anne felt a prickling. She reached across the tomb.

  "Take my hand, Austra."

  The other stretched out her arm, but instead of the familiar grip of her friend's fingers, Anne felt not even the substance of a cobweb.

  Austra nodded. "I tried to shake you awake earlier."

  "Austra, what were you doing just before you found yourself here?"

  "I was with Cazio," she said. "I had been hurt, and there was a battle. I was trying to go to sleep, when suddenly it felt as if something ripped me open." She looked up. "We're dead, aren't we?"

  "I should be," Anne said. "Hespero-he stabbed me, in the heart, I think." She tried to touch the spot where the knife had gone in and found it as intangible as Austra. "But you were just trying to sleep. And why are we here?"

  "Is this the same place we went that time we were trapped in the horz? The otherworld of the Faiths?"

  "I don't think so, or at least not exactly. If that were true, I think Hespero-or the other-could find me. I think we're trapped somewhere, or maybe…" She drifted off, silenced by a sudden revelation.

  "Austra, you walked the same faneway I did."

  "I thought of that," Austra said. "There was a priest, doing things to me, and I-"

  "I remember," Anne said. "I was there. I was looking for you."

  "Saints," Austra breathed. "You were there. I'd forgotten. What does it mean?"

  "I don't know," Anne said. "Maybe I'm dead, but a little of me is living on in you for a while. Maybe all of my power passed to you and it was too much for you. I'm sorry, Austra."

  "Why did you send me away?" the girl asked.

  "I saw you and Cazio dead if I kept you around me." The image flashed through her mind, and she suddenly recognized it. "Saints," she said. "You would have died, both of you, in the Red Hall, protecting me from Hespero. And you would have…"

  "I thought it was because you didn't want us around to remind you of who you are."

  "There's that, too," Anne said. "I have found new parts of me, Austra, furious ones. They are quiet now, because I'm here with you. I needed room for them to grow, to become strong. It doesn't matter now, does it?"

  "I don't want to be dead," Austra said. And more softly: "Cazio asked me to marry him."

  "Really?" Jealousy was quick venom.

  "I know you love him, too."

  Anne didn't answer for a moment. "You're right," she said. "Or at least I'm in love with the idea of him. It's part of the notion that I can do anything I want." She thought about telling Austra about Tam-had she ever
called him that?-but she refrained. "Anyway, congratulations."

  "I love you, Anne," Austra said. "More than anyone."

  "I love you, too," Anne said. Without thinking, she reached for her friend again. This time their fingers touched. Austra's eyes widened. The room filled with white-hot flame.

  "Hespero," Anne snarled, and became.

  All the rage was there, waiting for her, welcoming her back into her poor abused-and nearly completely healed-body.

  She reached out around her, looking for the praifec, brushing aside something near, a heavy, familiar presence that suddenly shrank away.

  Then she saw the Kept, floating there, waiting for her.

  At your service, great queen," the demon said. I am here for you.

  "You promised to heal the law of death and die."

  And so I shall, with your help, Qexqaneh replied. But you have things to do first.

  "Yes," Anne snarled. "Yes, I do."

  And the Kept took her up in his coils, and they went to Hespero's army.

  Edwyn Mylton was graying, long-limbed, and awkward, but he had the eyes of a child with an active imagination and plans his parents wouldn't approve of.

  "What sort of trouble are you getting me into this time, Leoff?" he asked.

  "You won't believe it, I think," Leoff said, "and it is exceedingly dangerous. But I have to ask you. There's no one else I can think of."

  Edwyn peered down his uneven nose for a moment. "I suppose I had better agree, then, before I know the details." He nodded at Areana. "Frauye Leovigild, it's wonderful to see you again."

  "I wish it were as happy as the last occasion," she replied.

  "Yes, well, the company is still good," he said. "Most of it." He nodded significantly toward the door.

  "Berimund and his men are our friends," Leoff said. "Or at least we share some goals. We can trust them, I think."

  "I trust your judgment, Leoff, but they were a little rough in collecting me."

  "I'm sorry, old friend; that was a pretense to satisfy any curious Hansans watching."

  "Yes, so they explained, but I had a bit of trouble believing it until now. So what are we doing, then?"

  "We're going to sing with the dead," Leoff replied. Despite all his worries, he still managed to enjoy the expression on Edwyn's face.

  Brinna handed Neil a small vial containing a greenish elixir.

  "This should help," she said. "It's something I concocted from an old herbal, long ago, at my brother's request. He's hard on the drink."

  Neil hesitated at the scent.

  "What? Do you fear I would poison you? Or are you afraid it's a love philter?"

  The elixir was as astringent and as strong as the drink he'd shared with Alis, but it did make him feel better. He'd been foolish; he might have to fight today. He should be at his best, even if that wasn't very good.

  "Will this work?" he asked. "This thing you're going to do?"

  She parted her hands. "I can't see that, if that's what you mean. But it might. That's something to hope on. But you and my brother, you must keep us safe until we are done. Then, whatever happens, we must find each other. I do not want to die without you."

  "I don't want you to die at all," Neil said.

  She placed her hand on his. "If we survive, Sir Neil, will you take me away?"

  "Wherever you want."

  "Someplace where neither of us has any duties," she said. "That's what I would like."

  He gripped her fingers in his. Then he leaned toward her until her eyes were very close.

  She bent her head, and their lips touched, and all he wanted was to take her away right then and there, forget the war, the law of death, everything. Didn't they deserve…

  She touched his cheek, and he saw that she understood what he was thinking, and she turned her head just slightly from side to side. Then she got up and gently untangled her fingers from his.

  "Remember your promise," she said. "Find me if I do not find you."

  "How will we know when you've finished?"

  "Somehow, I think you will know," she replied.

  Marche Hespero drew on the faneway of Diuvo and made himself small in the eyes of the sky and of men.

  The fighting had ceased at nightfall, at his order. Although his body was warded against steel, there were some things that might do him harm; the blow of a lance or mace, though it would not cut his skin, might well break bones and organs through the skin. And a splintered lance, a broken arrow-he frankly wasn't certain what they might do. During an open melee, any of those things might find him by sheerest accident even though no eye saw him.

  He slipped through the lines of his men, past their fires and amid their grumbling. The enemy had withdrawn into Eslen-of-Shadows and crouched behind a low wall that had never been meant to serve as a fortification. Still, they had managed to hold it passably well. Crotheny might have lost its witch-queen and her ability to slay thousands with a wish, but if anything, the leadership of the army had improved.

  He slipped over the barrier and wove through the alert front ranks, back through where men were sleeping, into the houses of the dead.

  He knew his knights were questioning an attack that was not only sacrilegious and unprecedented but to their minds nonsensical. The only approaches to the castle from the shadow city were steep and fully exposed to anything the guards on the city walls might want to launch or drop on them for hundreds of kingsyards.

  What he wanted, of course, was control of the throne, which finally had shown itself a few days after he had killed Anne.

  He hadn't intended things to be this messy; he'd intended to seize control of Anne's gifts as he had the former Fratrex Prismo's. Her power married with his own would have made it easy enough to slay any who opposed him in Eslen and let his army walk in.

  Instead, he had to make do with talents he already possessed, at least until he appropriated the sedos throne and then took control of the others. That shouldn't be so hard, with the Vhen throne empty and measures taken to keep it so. When he had both of those, he would find the keeper of the Xhes and dispense with him.

  He had hoped to have Eslen-of-Shadows pacified to make the task of winning the throne easier, but he felt the power swelling toward the proscribed moment, and he also sensed the other foe he had dreamed about so long ago. He had no way of knowing who was stronger at this point, but he had taken plenty of risks, and this one last gamble for the greatest prize was surely worth it.

  He was nearing the tomb itself when a soundless explosion of red-gold light came pouring from the door frame. He shrank against a cold marble wall, gathering his will to hide himself as completely as he could yet also ready for battle.

  Something came flying out of the opening, a dark cloud, and a woman, glowing…

  He blinked. It was Anne. It was the throne.

  She was the throne. She was what he had come to claim. But how- Anne was the flashing heart of a thunderhead, moving out over his men, bolts of blue-white lightning arcing out from her to the waiting earth, replacing silence with ear-aching thunder. He watched, frozen for the moment, as knights and soldiers and Mamres monks all perished alike, as Anne Dare-the Born Queen-only shone brighter and brighter.

  His vision had started like this. Had he failed? Was there any chance to stop her now?

  The Black Jester. If he could take his strength, add it to his own…

  "Hespero!" a voice called over the din.

  He jerked around and saw, to his great surprise, Stephen Darige.

  "Brother?"

  "Nice trick," Stephen said. "Good for sneaking about. Too bad you were distracted."

  And with those words, their battle began.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BASICS

  THE CANDLES all flickered when Brinna touched her fingers to the hammarharp, and the small room filled with the sound. Leoff waited, almost forgetting to breathe.

  There it came, Mery whispering a note and then, suddenly, the same tone issuing, clear and
perfect, from the mysterious woman at the keys. It shivered up his spine to know that she was hearing the sound itself, not in this world but in the other. He wished with all his being that he could hear what Brinna and Mery did. He knew it in his mind, of course, but his ears hungered for it, too.

  Now Areana joined in with the quick line, starting low but climbing higher separately from the first theme, never touching it, as if two deaf musicians were playing side by side, each unaware of the other. The melodies wandered like that for a while, tightening but still separate until, in a moment that shocked him even though he knew it was coming, they were suddenly in unison for three notes. It sent a thrill of pure terror through him, and he suddenly very much did not want to go through with this.

  But now it was his turn to sing. He prayed he was up to the task.

  In the house, a hammarharp sounded a single chord, and then a voice lifted in one high, clear note. Neil was startled; it reminded him of frightening a covey of quail along the side of the road. What was more surprising, that surprise or the startlement itself?

  Because it was Brinna, and the depth of that single beautiful note opened a door on everything he still didn't know about her, everything he wanted to learn. He knew she played the harp, and beautifully, and he loved her voice, but he never knew this was hidden in it.

  The note dropped and wavered, and a second voice joined it, another woman: the composer's wife. The song suddenly wasn't pretty anymore, and Neil remembered a time not so long ago when he'd been sinking in the sea, dragged down by the weight of his armor, and he'd heard the Draugs' lonely, jealous song, welcoming him to the cold land of Breu-nt-Toine, a country without love or light or even memory.

  In this music-in Brinna's voice-he heard again the song of the Draugs.

  He walked away from the house not so much because the music repelled him as because he was drawn to it, just as his armor had dragged him toward the sea floor.

  But then another memory came.

  He'd been seven, in the hills, gathering the goats. Goat gathering wasn't such a hard business, and he'd been doing some of the work on his back, watching the clouds, imagining they were islands filled with strange kingdoms and peoples, wondering if he could ever find a way up to them.