by A J Allen
Rachel wondered if she had faced her greatest fears in the midst of that bloody chaos of specters and shades as the Holy Seer said she would. Or did that challenge still remain hidden behind another door at the edge of some darker abyss?
But—less of her thoughts. She did not have much time to sit and waste, and there was still the book to consider. Rachel sat at the desk, opened the red book, and read the title stamped in flaking gold leaf letters to herself.
The Lost Sacred Writings of Miradora. A Collection of Fanciful Fragments and Entertaining Apocrypha for the Curious Reader.
Her fingers pricked at the touch of the vellum page. A dark blot, dried red wine no doubt, stained the bottom almost covering the name. For few moments in the wavering light, she imagined it might be something else. She spoke the name under her breath.
“Saint Kaja of Palamor?” Rachel sucked in her breath.
Is this by her true hand… or another forgery meant to prove that she once lived? I’ve seen many claiming the same in the bookseller’s stall on market day.
Rachel turned to the first page. No preface, chapters, or other titles were given. She glanced at the closed door leading to the front of the library then began reading silently to herself. And in those days, before the Age of Heroes, the Winged Queen bade her six dukes to not seek infernal counsel or make dark allegiance, though her people’s enemies pressed down hard upon them from all sides.
“The Winged Queen?” she muttered under her breath. Rachel searched for this mysterious ruler’s name and those of her six dukes. As she continued reading, another voice inside her, that of an older woman, whispered in her mind the same words that lay before her on the page.
And to her six dukes, loyal and true, she promised a holy sword each feared by man and demon alike if they but swear allegiance to her with blood on stone...
Rachel turned the last page and, as she neared the end of the nameless queen’s fantastic tale of unholy treachery and deceit, a piercing, bloodcurdling shriek filled her ears though no other soul was present in the room. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut and clasped her hands to her ears but could not shut out the wailing.
She jolted up from the desk knocking the chair back on the floor. So painful were the pleading cries she could barely open her eyes to see if she was stumbling toward the rear door.
“Who goes there?” A man’s voice rumbled from the other side of the front door leading to the library. It didn’t matter anymore if the Holy Seer had given her permission, she only wanted the shrieking to stop. Rachel rushed through the narrow door.
She darted down and around the stone staircase, almost tripping, but with every step the screams became fainter and fainter until the only sound remaining was the frantic beating of her heart. She dashed down the hall to tell the Holy Seer of her horrible experience, and as she approached the same chair, a woman rose like a phantom in the shadows.
“Stop, young lady. What are you doing outside the women’s dormitory after curfew?”
“Lady Bellemar?” Rachel looked frantically around. “Where is the Holy Seer?”
Lady Bellemar raised her thin brow. “Asleep, as you should be.”
“But I was speaking to her right here.”
“That is impossible. She has been meditating in her sanctuary all evening,” Lady Bellemar said, visibly irked to be lied to.
“But she told me to retrieve a book from—”
Lady Bellemar raised her hand.
“Enough and off to bed unless you wish to heap yet more embarrassment upon the name of House Evermere.” She raised her head in a highborn expression of disdain. “We’ve all seen how that Blackfyre boy looks at you and I know what girls from the frontier towns are like. I had better not find you sneaking down to the men’s quarters again.”
Rachel felt her cheeks flush. She swallowed hard and held her tongue. “I wasn’t, your Ladyship, but I understand. Forgive me. I meant no disrespect.”
She looked downward and hurried past, one hand cupped over her mouth, trying her best to smother her sobs.
Chapter 10
Myth and Monsters
Pale frost greeted the protectors on the field after the morning temple service; it remained, sparkling on the white grass until almost noon, under an impenetrable rust-gray sky.
In the distance, cast in iron clouds, a twist of smoke like that from a cooking fire rose from Roamligor Forest.
Simon scraped the dried earth from a garden hoe. All further competitions had been suspended for the next two days and each house assigned duties alongside the Farrhaven servants under the strict supervision of the Council members.
After a light breakfast of bread, cheese, and black tea, the Evermere protectors, under the stern eye of Lord Lionsbury, labored with the groundskeepers. They tilled the earth, first raking and then removing dead branches and debris.
Lady Bellemar supervised the Strathwalds in the kitchen, helping prepare the day’s meals while the Velizars cleaned, oiled, and sharpened the weapons in the tool sheds under the watchful eyes of Joren and Kovoth.
Lords Dowrick and Fromund had taken the Tiberions into the forest to hunt small game and check the traps.
Callor was overheard boasting that he wanted to hunt wild boar with his bare hands and kill one using nothing more than sharpened saplings as spears.
Simon yawned and tilled a patch of overgrown earth. Reading from one sacred book or another on the high altar, Lady Bellemar had recited long, winding stories about the worlds of light and of darkness, of sword-wielding heroes and soul-devouring demons, of Soru Kentay and spiritual love, and finally, ancient, moth-eaten prophecies auguring the final extinguishing of humanity’s last light of hope in this world.
Simon chuckled to himself. The Choldath? Only peasants and slaves believe in that all superstitious piffle.
Simon had listened politely but the gurgling ache of his empty stomach had proved itself a stronger preacher of need. And this was a need that could only be filled if the supper table was set for another grand feast after their hard day’s work.
“What’s so funny now?” Rachel cut another thorny branch from an unkempt rose bush. “I thought Lady Bellemar was going to throw her book at you if you smirked again.”
“Sorry. I was thinking of Callor’s scared face. Maybe that’s why he excused himself so early. Soiled breeches are very unbecoming for someone hoping to sit upon the royal throne.”
Rachel brought her hand to her lips and stifled her laughter. “Stop it. We have to show respect. It’s serious.”
“Not as serious as cleaning the latrine after these high and mighty noble backsides have destroyed it.”
Rachel shoved Simon’s shoulder, her cheeks florid as the roses. “Simon, stop. I mean it.”
Simon laughed and dug the hoe into a clump of tenacious weeds refusing to give up their hold on the earth. “Do you really believe everything you’ve heard them tell us in the temple?”
“Just because someone doesn’t believe something, doesn’t mean there isn’t any truth to it. I thought you would know that.”
“Fair enough but I, for one, don’t plan on spending all my time at Farrhaven waiting for these mysterious truths to finally reveal themselves.”
Rachel glanced furtively back toward the front doors of the Great Hall. “How can you say that? You returned from the Corridor of Shadows after three days. Lord Rabek says it is a miracle. Everyone does.”
“They can call it what they will, but I swear to you that what I returned from was a deathly fever that would have surely carried me away. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Then destiny favored you to get well. You believe that at least, don’t you?”
“Destiny caring about the fate of one lowly slave?” Simon shook his head. “Sounds like hogwash and magic to me. If only that were true then I should gladly admit my mistake and confess my ignorance about the whole damn thing. All my life I’ve been a bit luckier than most in my situation but I’ve yet to find a spell or incant
ation that can set me free.”
Rachel stared at him a few moments, her bewildered expression her only reply, then returned to pruning the rose bushes near the tool shed.
Simon paused for a few moments and surveyed the other protectors working hard at their grounds-keeping tasks.
No doubt Rachel would find it disrespectful, yet he enjoyed a peculiar satisfaction in the creased and worried brows of the young nobles working alongside the servants. None of the contenders knew where they stood right now.
Let them lie awake at night filled with something fearful and uncertain for once in their mollycoddled lives, he told himself.
Overhead, Esther circled the eastern tower and screeched as though searching for Mr. Byrch’s open hand with a tasty table scrap. Though his friend was not there, Simon was glad to see his hawk keeping a watchful eye on his charges. He hoped to see Byrch again soon, especially after noticing more than once the evil, cruel look in Kovoth’s eye.
He was sure there were others, too, who’d willingly and gladly see Simon hang from a tree instead of breathing a single day as a freeman come winter.
On the high wall a lone sentry horn sounded its herald. There was a pause as the guard waited for a response from Lord Dowrick and his party—but none was heard. He delivered a second call and the only reply this time was blowing of the mountain wind.
Simon rested on his hoe. He scooped a cup of water from the bucket and gulped it down. To the east, over the Mountains of Haramir, a stormy black veil of haze spread over the steep slopes. “Do you think they’ll make us work if it rains?”
Rachel frowned and turned over a clump of earth with her shovel. A long, fat, slimy worm, or something similar with fine, skittering legs poked its head up then retreated back into the exposed dirt.
“Did you see that strange worm?” Simon chopped at the earth with the hoe. “I’ve never seen one so big.”
“Do you want to be a fisherman then? Dig it up and put it on a hook for all I care.” She whacked his garden hoe with her shovel, almost knocking it out of his hands. “The first snows will soon be here and then I can go home to Tillingsgate. My parents are eager for me to begin my apothecary apprenticeship as soon as possible.”
She smacked the earth flat around the base of the rosebush. “And I don’t care who they crown as King either. In the end, perhaps, they’re all the same anyway. Isn’t that what you believe as well, Simon?”
Simon cursed himself for his insensitivity and arrogance. Why did he belittle the fears of the one he cared for most? He paused. “Forgive me, Rachel, I have no reason to speak as I do. Our responsibilities are great and sometimes they overwhelm me.”
He pulled out a piece of bread from his pocket and offered it to her. “You didn’t eat much at breakfast. I saved you a piece in case you were hungry. Would you like a cup of water too?”
“What I would like, Simon Blackfyre of Grimsby, is to be left alone.”
Simon dropped the bread, his breath refusing to exhale from his lungs. “I’m … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.” He returned to tilling his patch of ground wishing he might bury his shame beneath the stony dirt.
“You’ll see your family soon. Don’t worry,” he said.
Marcus dropped another bundle of dead oak branches into the wheelbarrow. “Looks like foul weather coming our way and no sign yet of the noble Tiberion contender. So, who knows? Perhaps poor Callor is cornered alone, deep in the tangle of the woods by a pack of hungry wolves.”
Jack wiped his dirty hands on a rag. “Sounds just like a Tiberion family reunion. Mother Nature may yet show ours a small kindness before the day is done.”
The Evermere brothers laughed and clapped each other on the back.
Lord Lionsbury raised the length of his perspective glass to his eye and aimed it toward the mountains.
Rachel wiped the sweat from her flushed face. “Should we continue with house chores inside, your Lordship?”
Jack tapped the dirt off the soles of his boots with his shovel. “Why? We could use a little rain to freshen our spirits and pits. God knows we’re all becoming riper by the hour. I can barely stand the smell of myself.”
“The young woman was not addressing you. Jack Evermere.” His Lordship lowered the brass cylinder, his expression darkening like the skies overhead. “But since you see fit to answer on my behalf, do you speak on behalf of all present or just you and your brothers?”
Rachel muffled her laughter and turned over more earth with her shovel.
“Honestly, I don’t think any of the young men even know what soap looks like.”
Two servant girls snickered as they raked the leaves.
Goran and his two male protectors, Tanca Nakashian and Balasi Wendaru, paused from cleaning and sharpening their piles of rusty sword blades. Glancing around, they discreetly sniffed their armpits. Satisfied with the results of their inspection they returned to their iron files and whetstones.
Roosting starlings and crows suddenly scattered in all directions from the battlements.
Lord Lionsbury turned his gaze skyward. The descending gloom blended with the clouds, twisting and twirling like wispy phantoms in the dank air.
Almost unaware of what he was doing, Simon clenched the garden hoe’s wood handle and raised it like a halberd against something transgressing unseen on the sickly-sweet wind.
Robert Strathwald ran up to them, out of breath. “Mister Byrch just arrived and needs to speak with you.” He looked back toward the gatehouse. “Lord Fromund has returned with most of the Tiberion protectors but Lord Dowrick, Callor, and the others are still unaccounted for, my lord. Lady Bellemar ordered the drawbridge raised until the storm passes.”
Sentry horns blasted from Farrhaven’s high walls.
Niall dropped his garden trowel and pointed to the spinning funnel of dark mist closing in on all things like a gray pall. “Have you ever seen a storm like that?”
“Once, and I prayed never to see it again.” Lord Lionsbury placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Return to your quarters immediately and remain there until I—” Thunder roared and lightning exploded across the boiling cauldron of the heavens. The swirling column of murky air slammed down on the field, upending people and carts with the force of something huge striking the earth from the sky.
Shaken, Simon and the others dragged themselves to their feet. Everyone looked around the field in shock, for as quickly as the whirling fury had appeared, it was gone. He helped Rachel to her feet. “Are you all right?”
She touched the small cut on her forehead. “Did you feel that?” She looked down at her feet.
Dirt and dust puffed off the walls of the armory sheds and the ground shuddered from the quake tremors passing deep below.
The earth calmed beneath Simon’s feet. “I think it’s over,” Rachel said, sniffing the air and crinkling her nose. “But what is that smell?”
The great oak in the center of the field teetered.
Without warning, the earth shook violently, its tremors threatening to split the ground apart and swallow Farrhaven whole. Slate roof tiles cracked and rained down on the screaming guards supervising the Velizar protectors.
Lord Lionsbury drew his sword. “All of you; back to your quarters and bolt the great door!”
Before Simon and his friends knew what was happening, the earth erupted, uprooting the great oak and sending it crashing down on two guards.
Stinking fumes of decaying flesh escaped from the gaping fissure as something squirmed free and reared itself like a gargantuan centipede. Half the height of the fallen oak and twice as thick, it screeched through its twisted beak, like a thing only glimpsed in the darkest caverns of Simon’s nightmares.
“I see you, boy.” The voice echoed clearly in Simon’s ears, just as before in the Corridor of Shadows. “The final winter is fast approaching and soon, all will bow before me in fire and blood.”
A hail of arrows from the battlements assaulted the creature, yet the b
arrage only seemed to further incense it. It screeched louder and scurried out on its sharp, spindly legs that ran down the length of its mottled, red-scaled body. It streaked across the field and slid up the wall toward the archers reloading their bows.
Rachel and the others were running toward the doors of the Great Hall yet Simon remained fixed to the spot, his chest brand burning, transfixed as he watched Lord Lionsbury march ever closer toward the rampaging wall invader.
“Simon! Hurry!” Rachel screamed yet her voice was faint as if calling from a great distance, her frightened face wavering, dreamlike.
The thing was over the rampart before the archers could shoot a second volley. Snapping and gnashing its bloody way along the parapet, it caught a sentry in its beak and snapped him in two. The thing swallowed his entrails then dropped his legs and gutted torso over the edge. Stunned by its ferocious and rapid onslaught, the guards were unable to regroup and defend themselves.
Lord Lionsbury strode to the center of the field and raised his sword in front of his face like a cross. “I know thine name, demon. Dorach amanai insektivoria satanor... Nekrolos!” His blade glimmered with an unearthly fiery orange light for a few moments, then disappeared into nothingness. Simon stood awe-struck, still unable to move while his friends yelled at him from the front doors to run before it was too late.
He knew not the strange tongue his Lordship had just spoken, yet at the uttering of the word Nekrolos the demon—or whatever it was—wheeled toward Lord Lionsbury shrieking so painfully that Simon had to cover his ears.
The creature leapt off the ramparts and rushed across the field toward them, snapping its beak as it dodged and weaved around the spears thrown by panic-stricken guards.
At the pounding sound of heavily galloping hooves, Mr. Byrch rode out on Shamus from behind the rear wall of Farrhaven’s Great Hall.
His massive horse now abreast of the closing creature, Byrch raised his battleax with two hands and struck, burying the blade deep in the side of its head.
