The Kinshield Legacy

by K. C. May

  The barmaid held out a hand, and Gavin dropped a pielar into her palm.

  “Fella in here a few days ago was showin’ it off. Might not be what you’re lookin’ for, but I seen it -- a big diamond.”

  Gavin nodded slowly. “What’d this man look like?”

  She held out her hand again, and Gavin put another copper coin into her palm. “Nilmarion, tattooed like any other. What more can I say? I remember him ’cause he ordered wine. Not many comes here to drink wine. He was with two other bucks, one was skinny with dark hair and a scraggly beard. The other was blond.”

  “Did you happen to hear where he was going?”

  She held out her hand once more, and received another pielar. “He paid the skinny buck a bunch of money and said he was goin’ to Saliria to arrange somethin’ afore he went back. I didn’t hear the rest of it.”

  “My thanks.” Gavin handed her another copper coin and watched her walk away. He took a long drink of ale, then took out his knife and began to scratch a line into the tabletop.

  Gavin had left the Lucky Inn in the chilly dawn and arrived in Saliria that afternoon under a warm sun. He looked forward to finishing his business so he could make his way to his brother’s farm where he always had a place to lay his head. He did not need an inn, but he went through the streets trying to remember where Saliria kept its only tavern. Someone there might know where he could find the Nilmarion.

  Gavin guided Golam around the holes pitting the wide dirt streets. Haggard buildings lined the roadway, their dirty walls stained from ill-draining or absent gutters. Windows that were not boarded up were broken and jagged like grinning skulls. If Gavin didn’t know better, he’d have thought the town was deserted. Golam clomped through the gray streets. Bits of trash tumbled across his path in the gritty breeze.

  The layout of the town started to come back to him now, and he turned west down a side street, certain the tavern was in this direction. Not far down the road, a sign hung from a wooden frame beside the road and swayed in the breeze. “Ilfin’s Spirits,” it read. Gavin dismounted and tied Golam’s reins to the hitching post on the side of the building. Just as he reached for the door handle, a man pushed it open from the other side, an olive-skinned man with black swirling lines sewn into the skin around his mouth, nose, eyes and ears, and on the backs of his hands. Nilmarion. His dark brown eyes had an unsettling appearance, empty like the eyes of a dead man. The two men gaped at each other in surprise, then the Nilmarion smiled. “Pardon me,” he said in a lilting voice. He slipped past Gavin and started down the street.

  “Sithral Tyr?” Gavin asked to his back.

  The Nilmarion stopped and turned. “Have we met?”

  Gavin assessed him with a glance; Tyr was unarmed except for a knife in his hip sheath. Gavin approached, moving around the man so he could see the tavern door over Tyr’s shoulder, and pulled the warrant tag from under his shirt to show to Tyr. “You have Queen Calewen’s Pendant. I’m here to retrieve it.”

  Tyr cocked his head. “What makes you think I have it?”

  “The thief you hired to steal it gave up your name.”

  Sithral Tyr shrugged. “I gave it to the man who hired me.”

  Gavin suddenly thought of a cloud hovering at the level of the Nilmarion’s head. Tyr was lying. How Gavin knew this, he couldn’t say, but he was as certain as he was baffled. “You’re lying.”

  Tyr’s left brow went up, warping the tattoo around his eye. “A shadow reading ’ranter? There’s a surprise.”

  Despite his amusement at being called a shadow reader, the hairs on Gavin’s neck prickled. He knew warrant knights weren’t well-regarded in all circles, but most people weren’t so bold as to call him a ’ranter to his face.

  “Who hired you to come after it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  The tavern door opened, but closed again before anyone came out. It remained open a crack, and Gavin made out the dark form of someone standing behind it, and an eye peering out.

  “It matters to me. Was it the lordover?”

  Gavin squinted, trying to see who was watching them. One of Tyr’s friends, no doubt. He put a hand on the hilt of his knife, ready to draw and throw if it appeared an attack was imminent. “Give it to me, and I’ll spare you a brand.” Because the black sleeves of Tyr’s tunic covered his forearms, Gavin couldn’t see if the Nilmarion had any brands yet.

  As a warrant knight, Gavin had the authority to dispense justice by bargaining for compliance, issuing a brand in the form of his initials carved into the forearm, or turning the criminal over to the nearest lordover. Gavin had killed more criminals than he cared to, simply because they’d refused to yield to his authority. Usually those were men with two brands who preferred to chance dying in a swordfight than accept certain imprisonment. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case today.

  “And if I don’t?”

  Gavin stepped closer, emphasizing the difference in their heights. “I search you. If I find it, you get a brand on your arm and I take it.”

  Tyr sighed and withdrew a black velvet pouch from his pocket. He pulled open the drawstring at its top and fished inside, then withdrew a gold chain. Dangling from the chain was a diamond roughly a half-inch wide, held fast in a delicate gold setting. The stone radiated a rosy glow, not so much seen as sensed. Gavin felt as though a missing note from a chord in his heart had finally been played. He reached for the pendant.

  The moment Gavin’s fingers touched the diamond, his knees weakened and he gasped for breath. King Arek!

  Suddenly he felt as though the king was right there with him, standing so close Gavin could almost feel his warm breath on the back of his neck. But King Arek was lost, abandoned long ago to die somewhere unknown, never to be found. Feelings of shame and grief welled inside Gavin. Not since burying his wife and daughter had his heart felt so heavy. Images inexplicably flooded his mind of all the people he’d let down over the years. People whose lives were cut short because of Gavin’s failings: his wife, his daughter, his father. No, he couldn’t think about this now. It was too much. He had to get out of there.

  “Put it in the bag,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. Tyr eyed Gavin curiously, and then lowered the pendant into the velvet bag and tightened the string. Without another word, Gavin took the pouch and hurried to his waiting horse.

  He mounted and pulled hard on the rein. Golam responded with a quick turn, and bolted. Pounding Golam’s sides, Gavin raced down the quiet streets of Saliria. An inexplicable wetness surfaced on his cheeks. He rode to a large grassy field and turned Golam into it.

  For an hour he paced, contemplating the pendant while his horse grazed in the sunshine. The diamond must have been spelled; that was the only explanation he could think of for the rosy glow and the intensity of his reaction. Why it would make him feel King Arek’s presence was odd, to say the least, but it had. Gavin cursed Ronor Kinshield aloud, and not for the first time. The fool was supposed to guard King Arek’s life with his own. What the hell had he been doing while the king was dying?

  “You should have been there,” Gavin shouted to the sky. “You should have been there no matter what.”

  When he realized he was clutching the pendant in his fist, crushing it within the velvet pouch, he unclenched his fingers. Calewen’s Pendant. His hand trembled as he spread apart the drawstring top and dipped his thick fingers inside to draw out the gold chain. The pendant dangled before his eyes, its diamond sparkling in every color imaginable. He took a deep breath and laid the pendant on his palm. The wind whispered King Arek’s breath into his ear. The diamond’s hues winked at him like eyes sharing a secret, while a voice from a dream brushed across his mind.

  He poked the pendant with a finger. Its fleeing colors and the rosy glow that hovered around it entranced him. On the underside of the gold setting was an oddly shaped indentation. What was this? He turned the pendant upside down and moved it into the sunlight. He squinted, bringing it closer to his face. Engrave
d in the gold was the smallest writing he’d ever seen. It took several minutes to make out, letter by letter: ‘A promise to transcend death: forever yours.’

  A shiver ran down Gavin’s spine. Sometime, somewhere, he’d read this before.

  Chapter 11

  The eerie calm of the forest suggested an unseen presence watching the travelers from the shadows. The hair on the back of Daia’s neck stood up.

  The journey from Sohan had been going more smoothly than she’d anticipated. With three swordswomen to protect the merchant’s wagon, no highwaymen were bold enough or stupid enough to attempt a robbery. The first three days had passed without incident.

  Now, on the fourth day, half-way between the Lucky Inn and Saliria, the bushes alongside the road began to rustle. Something kept pace with them, out of sight but not out of earshot. The road wound slowly uphill toward the valley between MountGlory and Twin Peaks. With every turn came a place for robbers to hide. Daia rode with her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Her companion Sisters did the same.

  “I don’t like this,” Cirang said in a low voice.

  Daia and Cirang flanked Yardof’s four draft horses while JiNese took up the rear. They rode in silence; no one had to remind the talkative merchant to remain quiet. Even he must have sensed someone was watching them. Or something.

  The road was little more than a pair of dirt tracks where wagon wheels and horse hooves had killed the wild grass. Daia scanned the forest on each side of the road, looking for motion. No birds twittered from the branches around them. Not a bee, not even a butterfly hovered around the wild flowers that sprinkled the grass.

  A streak of white darted across their path ahead.

  “Beyonder,” Daia shouted. From the glimpse she’d gotten of it, it looked fairly small, but no beyonder was harmless. She signaled Yardof to stop his horses. She drew her sword, and Cirang did the same.

  The beyonder ran into the road again, this time stopping about forty feet from them. Enormous in comparison with the body, its white head was like a giant mouth filled with row after row of pointed teeth. It had iridescent gray eyes set so far back they looked to be an afterthought of whatever vile god had created it. As it neared, Daia saw its skin wasn’t actually skin or fur or feathers, but armor. Rows and rows of white plates shifted with its every movement. Teeth. The beast was born to rip and crush.

  “Watch the horses’ feet,” Daia called out. “Don’t let your mount get too close to it.” JiNese would hang back to guard the girl in the wagon, but Daia and Cirang should have no trouble defeating the beyonder.

  As the ranking swordswoman, the strategy of their assault was Cirang’s call to make. Just as Daia started to ask what the plan would be, Cirang raised her sword and let out a wild “Eeeeeai!” as she raced toward the beast.

  “Blast her,” Daia muttered. She drove her heels into Calie’s sides and bolted forward to join the battle.

  The thing before them went from the size of a coyote to that of a cow. Its armored skin rippled and the plates snapped together, biting the air as viciously as its mouth snapped at Cirang’s sword.

  Taking advantage of its preoccupation with Cirang at its mouth end, Daia raced past on the left. She drove her sword into its flank. Its armored plates came down on her blade with a loud clack. Several of the teeth snapped off. A greenish gray fluid leaked out between the gaps and smoked where it dripped onto the ground. Daia turned her mount and sprinted toward it again for a second pass.

  She bore down on the creature. It turned away from Cirang and leapt at Calie’s shoulder. Every inch of it clacked like dozens of mouths snapping their teeth. Daia yanked the reins to the right. The horse veered and pranced, barely escaping the attack. Calie’s mane bristled.

  Cirang drove her blade into the monster’s body. It shrieked an unearthly cry. The ears of both horses went flat. Daia was sure Calie would bolt, but instead she pranced, turning. Daia twisted in her saddle in time to see the beyonder run limping into the woods.

  Take the initiative. Daia heard Aminda’s voice in her head and knew what she had to do. She heeled Calie and went in pursuit.

  “Daia, leave it,” Cirang shouted.

  Daia heard the command, but she was determined to finish the thing off. It wouldn’t live to attack someone else. She rode after the beast, surprised at how swiftly it moved despite its injuries. Calie’s labored breath sounded loud in the eerie quiet of the forest, punctuated by her hooves pounding the ground.

  The beyonder pulled up short and turned. Its teeth and armor plating snapped in the air.

  Daia reined hard, bringing Calie to a quick stop less than ten feet from the beyonder. Her own chest heaved, and she turned her mount to an angle and awaited its attack.

  It stood and watched her, teeth and armor clacking. Was it truly injured, perhaps unable to run further? Why didn’t it attack her?

  A girl’s scream echoed through the trees. Daia’s blood stilled in her veins.

  The beyonder before her opened its mouth wide. The skin inside its mouth oozed gray-green liquid that coated the teeth, and a thin strand of the saliva stretched from a top tooth to a bottom. It leapt.

  Daia drove her sword deep into the thing’s mouth, past the six rows of teeth and into the fleshy gullet. A flood of the gray-green liquid spurted from the wound and coated her blade as she drew it out and thrust it back in. Steam rose from the creature’s mouth as though it had swallowed fire. The beyonder went limp on the ground. The plates of its skin rolled downward and lay at rest.

  Daia pulled her sword out once more and turned her mount, digging in her heels and urging Calie to a gallop. The sounds of battle grew louder as she neared the road. Ahead, through the trees, Daia saw Cirang battling furiously from her horse. JiNese was on foot fighting with everything she had. Beyonders. At least four of them, and two more bodies lying still on the ground. JiNese’s horse lay on its side, neighing and trying to get up. A reddish beyonder leapt onto the horse’s neck and a spray of blood arched into the air.

  Daia burst through the trees and identified her first target: a slithering snake-like thing with smooth orange fur coiling to strike at JiNese’s back. Daia leaned so low to the side she risked falling out of the saddle. With a sweep of her sword, Daia took its head off as she thundered past. Calie circled around the wagon toward the rear. A ryna was trying to leap into the back with Naylen. A wooden gargoyle flew from the wagon, hit the ryna square on the head and bounced away. Another followed it, and another. The beast turned toward the horse and rider and sprang at the prancing hooves. While Calie danced to avoid it, Daia leaned first to one side, then the other trying to stab at it. Her horse started to buck in desperation. Daia leapt from Calie’s back and into the wagon. The ryna turned its attention to her.

  Daia thrust her sword deep into the ryna’s chest and gave it a twist. The smell of sulfur assailed her as the beast collapsed onto the ground. She jumped down and ran around the wagon’s right side just in time to see Cirang and JiNese slay the last beyonder with a pair of sword thrusts to its black body.

  Daia circled the wagon, looking for signs of more beyonders, but saw none. “Is anyone hurt?” she asked.

  JiNese bent over, her hands propped on her thighs. She shook her head, chest heaving.

  “Naylen!” Yardof cried. He climbed down from his seat.

  “I’m all right,” the girl called back. She jumped down from the back of the wagon and began to pick up the gargoyles lying on the ground. Yardof ran to his daughter, took her in his fleshy arms and squeezed her tight. “Father, I said I’m all right,” she said, squirming free.

  JiNese went to her horse and knelt, running her hand over the huge blood-spattered face. Her shoulders began to shake and she bowed her head.

  “Arek was smiling on us this time,” Cirang said. “We lost JiNese’s horse, but at least we are uninjured.”

  “They coordinated the attack,” Daia said. Such behavior was unprecedented. This could only mean the beyonders had some measure
of intelligence -- and the ability to communicate with one another. “The one with the teeth - it meant to separate us so the others could attack.”

  “Which was why I gave you a direct order not to pursue it,” Cirang shot back.

  Daia drew back, shocked. “You knew what it was doing?”

  “Doesn’t matter whether I did or didn’t. I gave you an order and you disobeyed it, putting our charges and your fellow Sisters in jeopardy.”

  “How was I to know? The danger appeared to be gone. What if the thing survived and attacked others?”

  “Others are not our responsibility,” Cirang said. “These people and this cargo are. Our duty is to deliver them safely to Tern, and once this mission’s finished, then we can worry about the others who hire us to protect them.”

  Daia closed in on Cirang and looked down into her angry dark eyes. “You mean to tell me,” she said in a low voice, “you care only about those we are paid to protect?”

  Cirang stood her ground. “My personal feelings are beside the point and so are yours. I have no choice but to report this incident to Aminda and Lilalian when we return.” The two women stood nose to nose, neither speaking. Daia was unwilling to risk disciplinary action for what she wanted to do right now, but slamming her fist into Cirang’s face would feel so good.

  JiNese stood and walked toward them. Her eyes were rimmed in red, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Daia did what she thought was right, Cirang. I would’ve gone after it too.”

  “Then it would have been your ass in the stockade instead.”

  The rest of the journey was quiet. JiNese and Naylen rode in the wagon while Daia and Cirang flanked it. No one spoke until they were almost to Tern. Daia tried again to convince Cirang she’d done nothing wrong.

  “We lost a horse because of you,” Cirang snapped.

  “I did not kill the horse, Cirang. I wasn’t even there.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  “The horse might have been killed anyway. You have no way of knowing my absence had anything to do with it.”