by Hal Emerson
In a flash of understanding, the Prince realized they were throwing daggers, and he quickly nodded, moving his head up and down so vigorously that he cricked his neck. The Eshendai turned to the man behind him, and soon the whole group had removed a number of gleaming metal implements.
The guards were getting closer, and the Prince caught the attention of the Kindred waiting on the other side of the doorway and held up three fingers. He dropped one, then a second, and finally a third, and stood up, right inside the doorway.
The guards immediately caught sight of him, and let out a cry.
The Prince turned and ran for his life, and as he did, he heard the guards following close behind, and then –
Sharp whistling sounds filled the air and a number of the yelling voices cut off and died as the Kindred descended on the guards from behind. Those who hadn’t thrown knives stepped up as the guards turned around and engaged them with short swords and daggers – and in a matter of seconds, all of the guards lay dead on the ground.
The Kindred gathered their weapons and dragged the bodies off to one side of the large room, piling them out of the slash of light that lit the long hallway, and started once again for the audience room.
The corridor turned once, twice, and then opened onto a small waiting hall, both floor and walls made of a beautiful polished wood. They moved between the tables and chairs that had been set up here and crossed quickly beyond through the next door, only to find themselves in a huge room – the audience chamber.
They’d come out from behind a cleverly concealed entrance wall, no doubt meant for servants to pass through quietly and unobtrusively, and now stood about halfway down a large, open hall with a domed ceiling, painted with an amazing mural of a battle featuring the Fox himself on a charging horse. The Prince turned and looked toward the far end of the long hall, and saw his brother, Tiffenal, lounging on a huge throne, covered with so much gold, silver and precious stones that the wood beneath it was almost invisible. It glittered like the starry night sky in the guttering flame of oil lamps set in brackets around the hall.
There was a heavy sound of wood on wood and the Prince spun back around, turning just in time to see the door that had led them there slide shut and bolt itself closed in flash of red Bloodmagic runes. The sound was echoed, once, twice, three times, four – the rest of the doors in the chamber, including the huge doubled entranceway, had slammed shut, sealing them inside.
He turned back to Tiffenal – oh Shadows and Light, the Fox himself – and saw his brother rise up from where he’d been sitting and descend, making his way toward them. The Prince felt his blood run cold.
“This was all a trap,” he whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Prince of Foxes
Davydd turned to him with a look of shock, just as hidden guard doors opened to either side of the main entrance. Guards came pouring out of them, so many that they began to fill the chamber. It looked to be nearly a hundred men – twice their number.
The Prince turned and quickly scanned the room, and saw again that there were no unbarred exits. He looked back up at the throne dais.
The Fox was smiling broadly. He wore a heavy breastplate and a long fur cape that made him seem nearly three times his actual size. He had two short-swords at his waist, each with extraordinarily ornate handles, though the Prince knew that for all the ostentatious show, they were very functional.
But what always drew the Prince’s gaze was his brother’s face. Like all of the Children, Tiffenal was blessed with the same beauty as their Mother, and as such the left side of his face was stunningly handsome. It was beautiful, full of nobility, framed by dark black hair that fell in thick curls to the nap of his neck.
But the other half was a black, burned mask, cracked and peeling, revealing raw, red flesh beneath. Over the top of this terrible wound glowed golden veins – veins that pulsed with the beat of his heart. Liquid luck, Tiffenal had always called it. The Talisman affected his very blood, producing golden ichor when he was cut. The myth had always been that when he’d been granted the Talisman, half of his body had been burned and taken from him, though after the initial pain subsided he’d become strong again. It was the Talisman’s way of balancing the scales – it took from him half of his life, to give him luck forever.
“This is bad,” the Prince hissed at Davydd, trying to make him listen as the red-eyed Ranger watched the Prince of Foxes stride toward them down the center of the long audience chamber.
“What do you mean?” The red-eyed Eshendai asked, obviously not listening.
“He knew we were coming! It’s a trap!”
“Of course it’s a trap!” Called out Tiffenal.
Davydd pulled free of the Prince and stepped up to the front of the group, flashing a series of signals to the Rangers.
“Do you really think you’d be able to approach my palace and not have me know? You, who grew up with me and all of my tricks? I knew you were here as soon as those fools on the walls died. I hope you gave them some good words before you sent them up … their deaths were not quick.”
Something glittered around Tiffenal’s neck and caught the Prince’s eye.
“He has the sambolin,” the Prince said to Davydd. “He’s wearing it!”
Davydd nodded and smiled.
“GO!”
Immediately the Rangers fanned out, splitting into two groups. The first group turned and attacked the soldiers behind them, throwing knives and shooting arrows across the long chamber. The soldiers were completely surprised, but responded quickly, unsheathing swords and rushing forward.
The second group, made of Lorna, Davydd, and three Eshendai, rushed at Tiffenal with Valerium weapons.
Lorna was the first to reach him; she swung her huge, white ax in a long arc, driving him back. Davydd rounded her to the left and thrust forward with his sword. The three Eshendai ran around behind the throne, trying to keep him from retreating further.
And then Tiffenal unsheathed his two short swords and flowed into the Szobody Sword Form.
It was a massacre. He turned and cut down the three Eshendai behind him with no trouble at all – he struck the sword of the first at a lucky angle and the Valerium blade broke, leaving the man defenseless. Tiffenal thrust his sword through the man’s neck. He turned to the next one, a woman, and struck out with a booted heel, just as she moved forward; the blow caught her knee just right, breaking bone and tearing ligaments. She fell to the floor, screaming in pain, and Tiffenal removed her head. The third wielded two daggers, just like Leah, and Tiffenal simply stepped forward smartly, burying the daggers in his layers of clothing, and eviscerated her with a blade through the gut.
Davydd and Lorna cried out in dismay and raged forward to engage him. The Prince turned to gage the other battle – and saw that they were winning it. The Kindred Rangers, while no match for Tiffenal, were certainly worth two or three guardsmen, particularly in the relatively confined space.
Tiffenal cried out a single word, a spitting sound, harsh and grating, and a ring on his finger lit up with a bright, dazzling light. A banging sound followed, and the Prince spun to see four additional doorways slide open. Giant forms stepped through, unsheathing weapons with arms as big around as a normal man’s thigh.
Guardians.
“They’re on loan from Mother!”
The Prince whirled and saw that Tiffenal was calling to him. He had just managed to trip up Lorna, sending her sprawling into Davydd, leaving him momentarily free.
“She was worried you might come here – she’s allowed Guardians to follow the Children to our capitals for the first time in recorded history!”
The Fox leered at him, and the Prince felt his blood chill.
A white ax flew through the air and sliced past Tiffenal’s nose just as the Fox took an unconscious step back, his Talisman directing him. He turned his leer on Lorna and shook a scolding finger at her.
“Help them!” Davydd shouted to the Prince. “We’ll keep him busy!�
��
And true to his word, he moved forward, his white Valerium sword clashing against Tiffenal’s two shorter ones. Lorna rolled past the dais, grabbed up her ax, and attacked from the opposite side. They wouldn’t be able to beat him, but they were holding him for now.
The Prince turned and ran for the other side of the room, just in time to see one of the Guardians cut a man clean in half with his sword. Nearly half the Rangers were dead or dying, lying scattered about the room, having dispatched nearly twice their number of Formaux guardsmen, but they stood no chance against the Guardians.
The Prince flowed forward, unsheathing Aemon’s Blade, stepping into the same Szobody Sword Form Tiffenal was using, the kind you’d employ if you were going up against a group of skilled opponents. Two regular soldiers ran for him, shouting and raising their weapons high. The Prince stepped forward, turned one blade aside, hamstrung the first soldier, and killed the second with a thrust through the chest, the Valerium blade parting flesh and bone like butter.
Immediately, the Prince felt the soldier’s life added onto his own. Memories rushed through his head, of a son and a wife, of devotion to the Empire and fear of Tiffenal. Strength flooded his limbs, and his vision sharpened, his ears hearing more, his nose smelling the stench of sweat and blood.
He ran forward, his speed and strength now that of two men, and engaged the first of the Guardians.
The man was over seven feet tall and built like a bear, but he was no Tomaz. The Prince exchanged a flurry of blows, the man’s sword hammering down on his with great force, but then the Prince managed to slip inside his reach and ram his sword through a chink in the Guardian’s armor.
The Guardian gasped, and collapsed to the floor.
The man’s strength flowed into him as if he’d killed three men together, and the Prince staggered back under the weight of it. He shook his head, trying to clear it, pushing the memories to the back of his mind, forcing himself to ignore them for now, and moved on to the other Guardians.
Ten of them – a full fist.
His first thought was to kill them all – the savagery that came from killing had almost overcome him – but he knew he couldn’t. He needed to be in his right mind to fight Tiffenal – he had to incapacitate them. He could only kill one more or else he risked pushing himself over the edge.
“The Guardians are mine!” He called to the remaining Kindred, who immediately disengaged and went for the few soldiers that still stood.
The Prince flowed forward into the middle of the group and struck out with perfect balance and precision. The world around him seemed to move so slowly now – he had the speed of one man and a Guardian on top of his own, and it was enough to give him a significant advantage. He darted in-between them, striking left and right, often turned aside by their armor, but striking blows to the back of their legs and reaching for their necks, using his sword to cut straps and flesh with equal viciousness. A breastplate clattered to the floor and he stove the chest beneath it, and felt the life added to his own, the strength so overwhelming, the memories boring into him, the rage and savagery brought by battle forcing him onward.
That’s it – that’s the last one – hold onto yourself!
He turned to the remaining Guardians, all of whom were watching him with disbelief. He cut them down one by one, leaving them broken and bloodied … but alive.
He looked around him and realized that only Kindred were left standing, though their number had dwindled to a bare handful. Smynt and Handel lay dead, and nearly thirty others. Spinning to look at the dais he saw that Davydd and Lorna were still engaged with Tiffenal, though he didn’t know how much longer they could hold.
The doubled entrance doors behind them banged open to reveal another squad of guardsmen, fresh and ready to fight.
“Damn!” Shouted the Prince.
What are we going to do? We’ll all die if we stay here – the sheer weight of numbers will kill us.
His eyes fell on a discarded Guardian sword.
In a flash he picked it up and ran forward, shouting for the other Kindred, yelling at them to follow him. They did, and in a huge rush they pushed the guardsmen back, forced them to retreat through the door, and then slammed it shut.
As soon as the wooden wings had crashed together the Prince thrust the sword through the handles and jumped back.
Shouts and yells came from behind the door, and thumping noises that said they were trying to break it down, but the heavy wood barred them.
“Go,” he hissed to the other Kindred. “There’s nothing more you can do here – we need to get as many of you out of here as we can.”
“We’re staying with you!” Jemphas insisted, his face smeared with blood.
“Autmaran needs to know what happened here,” the Prince said quickly, turning to speak to them all. “We have to let him know. That is the only thing you can do now – he will mount a renewed assault on the gates if he can, or he’ll think of something else. Go back through the kitchens, take the servants passages through the corridors, don’t let them catch you – sabotage anything you can on the way out.”
“What will you do?”
“I took an oath to avenge Goldwyn’s death,” he said fiercely, the bloodlust from the deaths he had absorbed driving him. “I stay until my brother is dead.”
Without waiting for their answer he spun and raced toward the throne, just in time to see Davydd slip.
“NO!”
He ducked down as he ran, grabbed a discarded throwing knife, and hurled it end over end at the dais as Tiffenal raised his sword, ready to end Davydd’s life.
The knife flew true and ripped through Tiffenal’s clothing on his left arm. The Prince of Foxes let out a startled cry – half of pain and half of disbelief – and staggered back.
The Prince of the Veil landed on the dais, interposed between his brother and the pair of Lorna and Davydd. He turned quickly to them.
“You need to leave – now.”
As if to punctuate this, the door to the throne room groaned and creaked as the guards on the other side thrust something heavy into it.
“Not a chance,” Davydd hissed, coming to his feet. He was bleeding from multiple wounds on both his face and arms – his armor was dented in a number of places as well, and he looked much the worse for wear.
“GO!” He roared at them, the rage boiling up inside him, needing to be released. He saw that the Fox was coming forward with a smile.
“I killed two Guardians and a guardsman, I have their strength,” the Prince hissed at the two Rangers, “you need to go. You need to tell Autmaran what is happening, you need –”
“Lorna,” Davydd said, breaking through his speech. “Take them through the doors and come at the guards from the other side.”
She nodded, and left, running to the group of Kindred nearby.
“We’re not leaving,” Davydd said. The Prince gritted his teeth and growled low in his throat, but made no further protest.
They turned and faced the Prince of Foxes, standing side by side, Valerium swords drawn. Tiffenal watched them, seeming not the least bit worried about anything that was happening.
He doesn’t need to be, Raven thought, as long as he holds the Talisman it will all work out in his favor.
Tiffenal left the dais, turning his back on them, and perusing the room. Lorna and the Kindred had broken down and left by the door they’d come through, leaving the chamber empty but for the cries of the dying men that littered the floor. As Tiffenal walked, the stolen sambolin swung about his neck, hypnotizing, glittering in the dim light of the chamber. He walked over to the Guardians that the Prince had left alive.
“Not very effective after all,” he mused.
And then he killed them, his short sword swirling in a blur of motion.
The Prince flinched but made no move to go forward. He and Davydd needed to do this together – Tiffenal was nearly two centuries old. He’d had a lot of time to practice with those swords, and even with h
is added strength the Prince didn’t know if he was a match for the man.
“So brother,” Tiffenal said, turning back to face them with a wide grin, “you’ve turned against the Empire! How delightfully unethical of you.”
“Unethical?”
Davydd moved forward, and the Prince was barely able to hold him back before he launched himself at the man, which was no doubt exactly what Tiffenal wanted.
“This city of yours teems with filth and corruption,” Davydd screamed, red eyes wide and deadly. “And you stand there and question the morality of the one Child of the Empress who fights against it?”
