Starlight's Children

by Darian Smith

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Darnec pulled Tomidan along by the hand and they raced through the palace corridors. The young prince's footsteps were a staccato drumbeat on the floor as he scrambled to keep up. The sharp clang of blades slashing chased them as Brother Taran held the two assailants at bay. This part of the palace was mostly deserted and all but the core requirements of palace guards had been deployed throughout the city to deal with the threats hunting citizenry. Darnec began to despair of finding help.

  “Do you know who those people were?” Darnec asked. This was the second time he'd been responsible for the young prince when there'd been an attack. Street thugs in an alleyway were one thing, but an attack in the palace itself was something else entirely.

  “No,” rasped Tomidan. Their flight had him short of breath.

  Darnec clenched his free hand into a fist and punched a tapestry as they passed. Why couldn't things ever be simple? “We need somewhere to hide.” He started trying door handles at random. Some opened into rooms or storage areas, others to yet more corridors. None offered reliable sanctuary. Still no other guards presented themselves. He pulled Tommy around to face him. “If they catch up with us, you're to run as fast as you can to the throne room, okay? I'll hold them off.”

  The boy nodded, his eyes wide.

  “You know your way to the throne room from here?”

  “I-I think so.” Tommy looked back the way they came.

  “You can't go back that way, Tommy. You don't know how many of them are there.”

  The boy's lip trembled.

  Darnec swore silently. “It's okay. Just do your best. Let's keep moving.”

  Another voice spoke. “Don't worry, Tommy. I'll show you the way.”

  Two men stepped out of an open doorway. One had a pattern of rune tattoos traced over dusky purple skin and dreadlocks threaded with colorful coral beads. The other was Duke Roydan.

  “Grandfather!” Tomidan broke free of Darnec's grasp and ran to the duke.

  “Tommy, no!” Darnec reached for him, but it was too late. The boy wrapped his arms around Roydan and held him close.

  “It's good to see you too, my boy. We should take you somewhere safe, don't you think?” Roydan ruffled Tommy's hair and stared straight at Darnec.

  “You're dead,” Darnec said. He remembered his sword sliding into Roydan in the arena, the warm blood coating his hand. “I killed you.”

  Roydan winked. “It didn't stick.”

  “Tommy, come away from him.” Darnec reached out to pull Tommy away from his grandfather, but Roydan shoved him back. He was strong. Impossibly strong. A chill ran through Darnec. He looked from the duke to the Djin and back again. “Blood and Tears. You're one of them. A Risen.”

  Roydan bent and scooped Tomidan up in his arms. The scared boy buried his face in his grandfather's neck.

  “We go now,” said the Djin, his broken Kalan thickly accented. He held out a warning finger. “You no try to stop.”

  Darnec took a half step forward then forced himself to stop when the Djin's eyes narrowed. “Take me with you at least. I'm a member of the royal guard. I can be useful. You'll have trouble getting out of the palace without me.”

  The Djin hesitated, then finally nodded. “Leave your weapons. If you speak out to warn others, you and boy child both die. Agree?”

  Darnec's gaze fixed on the thing inhabiting Duke Roydan's body. It had a hand on Prince Tomidan's shoulder, the fingers curled like claws. He'd felt the strength in those hands. They could snap Tommy's neck like a dry cracker. There was nothing he could do to get Tommy away from the Risen safely. He took a deep breath and unbuckled his sword belt, letting it slip to the floor. “I agree.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Brannon arrived at the war room to find a stranger guarding the closed door. The man wore a loose-fitting tunic and trousers the color of sand. His gray hair was caught at the back of his neck with a leather tie and he wore a black stone at his throat, flecked with specks of light. The stranger blocked Brannon's way.

  “There's a private meeting inside,” he said. “No one's allowed in.”

  “I'm the one who called the meeting,” Brannon told him.

  The man pursed his lips and gave a little shake of his head. “You called a meeting, Sir Brannon. But definitely not this one.”

  There was a thump from inside the room, and a cry of pain.

  “What's going on in there?”

  The gray-haired man shrugged. “Old friends are best left to sort out their differences alone, don't you think?”

  Brannon curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword and pulled it up, exposing an inch of blade. “Get out of my way,” he said.

  “I have nothing against you, Bloodhawk,” the man said. “But you interfere at your own risk.”

  Brannon narrowed his eyes.

  The other man shrugged and stepped aside. “Suit yourself.”

  Brannon opened the door and stepped into chaos. Three chairs were tipped over, one of them smashed against the table, its frame broken like kindling. Marbella sat on the table, a meat cleaver in her hand, giggling as she chopped at the body of a woman beside her. The woman was sprawled and still. Blood obliterated the tabletop map and dripped onto the floor where it soaked into a tapestry torn from the wall. The physician part of Brannon's mind assessed the woman and discarded her. There was too much blood. She was dead.

  A thin man with dark hair and cracked lips held Brother Taran in a vice-like grip. It was a man whose corpse Brannon had seen weeks ago in Sandilar: Fressin. Brannon's breath caught in his chest. It wasn't the physician in himself he would need. It was the warrior.

  “What in the Hooded hells is going on here?” Brannon put all the authority of the King's Champion into his voice. “Let him go!”

  Taran twisted in the grip of the dead man. “Brannon,” he said. “Run!”

  “I think not.” Brannon drew his sword. “I said let him go.”

  The gray-haired man stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I'm afraid that's impossible,” he said. “You see, we have certain rules in our society. And we've come a long way to see them adhered to. Haven't we, Taran?”

  The priest's breathing was shallow and fast against the arms constricting his chest. He closed his eyes and nodded.

  Brannon circled slowly, shifting to keep all three assailants in sight at once. “Brother Taran,” he said, keeping his voice mild. “I recognize two of our playmates. Would you like to introduce the third?”

  Taran opened his eyes again and they were filled with fear. “Kreegin, the Father of Starlight,” he said quietly. “Master of our House.”

  The gray-haired man gave a little mocking bow. “At your service.”

  “So . . . king of the assassins? Really?” Brannon looked at him more closely. He had no obvious weapons, but that meant nothing. There would doubtless be many blades, throwing stars, and garrotes hidden on his person. And even without them, the man was a living weapon . . . and he'd brought with him a dead one. “When did the Children of Starlight start creating Risen?” He flicked the tip of his sword to indicate Fressin.

  The Father of Starlight smiled. “It's a nice touch, isn't it? We met a friendly Djin along the way. Well, not friendly as such, but we help each other out. Scratch each other's backs, so to speak. Without the thing inside poor Fressin there, we'd never have learned that Taran was still alive.”

  Brannon frowned. “How did you find his body?”

  “I sent it,” Taran said. He stared at the wall. “I . . . I felt bad for what happened. I wanted his body to be among friends. Family. I figured there wasn't any harm . . .”

  “But a Djin could make him a Risen and the kaluki accessed his memories.” Brannon shook his head slowly. A chill rose inside him. “Blood and Tears. They know everything Fressin saw while he was alive and spying on us. Roydan's schemes, Sandilar . . . and you.”

  “That's right, Bloodhawk,” Kreegin said. “We learned of Taran'
s betrayal, and of a way that we could compensate ourselves for the costs of that failed mission.”

  “You took Roydan's body. And used your Djin to get his knowledge too.” It was falling into place now. No matter his betrayal, Brannon couldn't help a feeling of horror at the thought of his friend's corpse animated and used. “Of course. You had him forge the orders to the shipment and you took the gold.”

  “Clever boy!” Kreegin clapped his hands slowly. “Although, is it technically a forgery when it's written with Roydan's own hand? But let's not argue semantics. I'm impressed. You would have made an excellent Child of Starlight.”

  “I don't think so,” Brannon said. His mind analyzed the room and the people in it. There had to be a way to get Taran away from the Risen. “I have morals about who I kill. And given how upset you are about Taran, I'd say that's a problem for you.”

  Kreegin's jaw hardened. “You think so? The Children of Starlight are a family, you know. Did Taran tell you how many of our family he killed for his freedom? Look at poor Marbella. Do you think her madness is her own doing?”

  It was Taran who answered him. The young man's eyes were wet and his voice shook with emotion. “It's your doing. Yours. None of us chose to get hooked on stardust. You did that. You torture us and mold us and addict us. You destroy anyone who defies you. And for what? So we'll murder for you? It's wrong! It's always been wrong. And if refusing you means you kill me too, so what? The Hooded One waits for us all in the end. At least I've stood up for what's right. Like Sir Brannon does. Like Mud did.”

  The Father of Starlight rolled his eyes. “Oh, Taran. All this, over concepts of right and wrong? You betrayed your House, faked your death, and hid in a monastery over this? Morality? How disappointingly pedestrian of you.”

  “You betray your own House,” Taran spat. “You had children kill each other for a training exercise. At least I was trying to save lives.”

  “Saving lives is not the Children of Starlight's purpose.” The older man sneered. “Now we've cut off your stardust supply, I could let you ponder your true purpose while you lose your mind. But to be honest, I'm done with you, Taran. This is not mercy. It's boredom.” He gestured to Marbella and Fressin as he walked out the door. “Kill him and Bloodhawk both.”

  Brannon met Taran's eyes and, as the door shut, they both sprang into action. Brannon leapt forward, swinging his sword at Fressin's head, forcing him to step back and raise his hands to ward off the blow.

  Taran slumped, letting his body slide down as a dead weight, slipping through the Risen's arms. He hit the floor and rolled away, his hands flicking throwing stars as he did so. The spiked projectiles stabbed into Fressin's arm and chest.

  The Risen brushed them off like bee stings, pulled two knives from his belt and dropped into a slight crouch. “Two of us and two of you,” he said. “Who do you suppose has the advantage?”

  Brannon stepped back. He knew full well where the advantage lay. He'd fought Fressin before and found the assassin well-trained and dangerous. And that was before he'd gained the inhuman strength of a Risen. Those skills and that strength were a near insurmountable combination, but at least Fressin was dead. The body now inhabited by a kaluki had Fressin's memories and skills, but it did not have its own spark of life and that meant the creature animating him could only bring a limited amount of power to the fight.

  Brannon stepped forward again and lifted his chin in false bravado. The true Fressin had been willing to engage verbally during a fight. Perhaps doing the same would distract the kaluki. “I don't know,” he said. “My ally is only a little bit insane so far. Yours is all the way there.”

  Marbella sliced a strip of flesh from the serving woman's arm with the cleaver. She popped it into her mouth and chewed happily, licking blood from her fingers. “Mmmm. Candy.”

  Fressin laughed. “Crazy can be fun.” He threw one of the daggers, and Brannon batted it aside with his sword.

  The blades clashed loudly in the enclosed room. The sound echoed off the walls as if they were on a battlefield surrounded by other ghostly combatants. Brannon flinched. Battles meant the death of too many innocents. Already, the woman on the table was a casualty and there had no doubt been others for the assassins to have made it this deep into the palace grounds. If a Risen Fressin were to get free, more would die. No matter what the Father of Starlight had in mind, Brannon wasn't going to allow that to happen.

  It seemed Taran had a similar thought, as he crept up behind Fressin and kicked the back of his knee. The leg buckled but, where a normal, living man would have fallen, the Risen kept his footing, turned, and backhanded Taran. The priest stumbled back, slammed into the wall and slid down a tapestry of the flooded River Tilal.

  Brannon pressed his advantage in the moment the Risen was distracted. He drove his sword in a surgical strike through Fressin's upper arm, severing muscle and tendon alike. A blow to the heart was of little use against a man who was already dead, but if he could disable the body the kaluki inhabited, it would require more power and focus to keep it functional. With enough such blows, it was possible to disable it completely.

  In theory.

  The second dagger slipped free of Fressin's nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor, but the edges of the wound pulled together even as Brannon's blade pulled free of the flesh. They were not healed, not exactly, but they held enough that the arm still worked.

  Brannon swore. He stabbed again, but this time Fressin turned and slapped the sword aside with one hand and shoved Brannon himself with the other. Both blows struck with the force of a hammer. Brannon stumbled back, winded. His chest ached and his hand was numb from the vibration in the blade. The hilt broke free of his grip and clattered to the floor as he struggled to catch his breath.

  Taran scrambled away on his hands and knees, taking refuge behind a statue of General Tayshana. He pressed his back against the wall. His hands reached out as though begging but his eyes were clouded by the past. “Fressin, you don't have to do what the Father says. We can both escape. We shouldn't have to live as killers.”

  “We won't live.” Fressin paused in front of the statue and reached up to snap the stone head from its body. Dust and stone chips rained down. He raised the statue's head high over Taran's skull. “You killed me, now I kill you,” he said.

  “Father knows best,” sang Marbella.

  Father. Brannon felt a surge of hot anger at the name. Of all the abuses the Children of Starlight had heaped on Taran's childhood, making him call that man Father was somehow the worst. No father had the right to turn away his child. No matter what. And this one had callously ordered Taran's death.

  “No!” He drove himself forward, turning at the last moment to slam his shoulder into Fressin's back. The Risen lurched off his feet and slammed into the wall next to Taran. The statue head shattered against the solid stone wall and scattered in an avalanche of crushed pebbles.

  Fressin growled. He jabbed his elbow back into Brannon's chest.

  Brannon felt his rib crack and once more the air was forced from his burning lungs. Fressin swung a punch and Brannon blocked it with his forearm, pushing the blow aside. He thrust his own fist up into Fressin's stomach.

  The Risen grunted.

  Taran, still on the floor, picked up the fallen dagger and slashed the back of Fressin's legs, cutting through his hamstrings.

  The Risen screamed and fell forward. He fell into Brannon and the momentum took both of them to the ground.

  Brannon twisted as he fell, ignoring the physician part of his mind that warned about the risk of a broken rib puncturing his lung, and rolled the two of them so he was on top of Fressin. He started punching the dead man. He aimed for the eyes, the throat—anything that could do damage the kaluki would have to heal. Anything that could incapacitate it. His knuckles were bloody but he didn't dare stop. If the Risen had a chance to fully heal itself, there would be no chance of bringing it down.

  Something hard struck the back of Brannon's head,
driving pain like a spike through his skull. He slipped sideways and Fressin bucked his body, pushing Brannon off him.

  Marbella stood over them both. The chain from her shackles at the orphanage was wrapped around her left hand like a glove and the links were stained with blood. Brannon touched a hand to his scalp and his fingers came away wet. She raised the cleaver. Brannon saw it coming, but the pain in his head still had him dazed. Marbella swung it toward him.

  “No!” Taran flung himself at her and the two of them tumbled across the room. They crashed into the bloody map table. Marbella hit her head on the corner and slumped still.

  Brannon tried to get to his feet but Fressin was faster. The Risen grabbed him by the throat and bashed his head against the stone floor. For the second time, Brannon felt the stab of agony through his skull.

  Fressin's weight pushed on the fractured bones in his ribs as he sat down hard on Brannon’s chest. His hands closed around Brannon's neck, fingers gouging, deep and hard.

  Brannon gasped for breath. The fingers on his windpipe pressed harder. He pushed at the Risen but the lack of air made his muscles weak. He tried to bring his arms up between Fressin's to break the man's grip, but there was no space. Fressin's whole weight and strength were focused on pressing down on Brannon's throat, choking the life out of him.

  The edges of Brannon's vision darkened. There was a roaring in his ears.

  Then a voice spoke, loud and strident. “Kaluki, I banish you! Return to your own realm!”

  A rush of wind flowed through Brannon and he felt a tug as if at his very soul.

  Fressin's hands went limp and he slumped to the side: Dead. Again.

  Brannon gasped for breath and pushed himself up.

  Ula stood next to him. She wiped her hands on her leather smock as if to scrub the touch of Fressin from her palms, but when she saw Brannon looking at her, she smiled. “I be back,” she said in her broken Kalan. “Did you miss me?”