The King's Blood

by S. E. Zbasnik

  What little color Isa had drained as she looked over at the assassin on his Pence horse and back to the priest patting his Avarian's rump as if it were a cushion. She cursed the gods in every language she knew, nearly ten if you include sow-avarian, and, batting away Kynton's hand, tried to scramble onto the Black Beauty. The priest smiled as her tiny legs kicked and jumped, unable to find purchase, when Bedros dropped to his knees and formed a step stool with his hands.

  Summoning whatever dignity remained after this month long trip to madness, Isa rose onto the steed and tried to hook her thighs along the horse's bony rump, its spine digging into her tailbone. Kynton smiled and looked over his shoulder at her.

  "All on?" he asked, "Good. Clutch tight!" and spurred his horse with all his might. "Lets see what this baby can do!" he shouted as Black Beauty went from 0 to 20 in ten seconds. Isa screamed and instinctively grabbed onto Kynton's robes to keep her body upright. The horse, priest, and witch burst through the camp and onto the battlefield as people scattered out of the way.

  "Does he know where he is going?" Bedros asked, watching the retreating figures.

  "No," Aldrin said calmly, turning his bay around towards the supposed tomb. "He'll catch on soon enough," the prince said before guiding his horse into a cantor.

  Most conversation was light, only the occasional scream from Isa and laugh from the priest crossed over to the riders and they tried to hide their chuckles. Kynton seemed hell bent on crashing his horse into a tree. When they all stopped for a break to water the horses, the humans and keep the witch from shaking to death, Aldrin talked to the soldiers.

  One was a local boy; he spent near his entire life growing up only a few acres away from the Tower. He looked at Aldrin's maps, nodded along with the other illiterate soldiers as they tried to track their destination, and said quietly, "You means the ol' Crypt?"

  "You've heard of this place?" Aldrin asked, afraid they would waste days hunting for a stack of rocks 'Wat looks a bit like a boar's pizzle but not.'

  The soldier nodded, "Sure, we were always sworn off it by mam, but most of us olders would use it to...you know..." He looked over at the few members of the fairer sex in their party who were currently rubbing their sore backsides, but doing it in a fair fashion, "have some alone time."

  "How can you be alone if you're with others?" Aldrin pressed.

  The other soldiers, who also grew up under more controlling parents concerned about feeding and housing unwanted branches off the family tree rubbed their necks and tried to whistle nonchalantly. This had the opposite effect on the prince certain now he missed some important detail. The local soldier glanced at the others, hoping for someone to save him.

  "He means they had sex," Ciara called out, breaking the stalemate.

  "Oh, oh, right, jolly good," Aldrin said, trying to save face and slightly relieved that every man turned bright pink. "So you can take us to the se...the tomb, then?"

  "Sure! No problem. It's less'en a day's ride from here," he said, happily switching the subject.

  "Does this mean we have to get back onto the flea bags?" Isa asked Ciara loud enough the fleabags could hear. Black Beauty snorted at the witch, lodging a wad of horse snot in her hair.

  "Mount up," Aldrin ordered, which led to a good five minutes of giggling before they could finally set out to the tomb and hopefully the sword of Cas(amir).

  "It's smaller 'en I expected," Kynton said, peering over the map and back to an unimpressive hole in the ground. Well not entirely the ground, at least part of the hole was still vertical. Time was not kind to doors.

  The local soldier dismounted quickly off his horse and dashed to the crypt, long abandoned as most of the local kids who would never share their secret with nosy younger siblings grew up or out of it. He hauled away a stack of false branches piled over the entrance by some of the more ingenious lovers who didn't want to deal with a draft. Sticking his head in quickly, a familiar scent of candle wax and lamb membrane wafted back. "This is the place!"

  The land here crested as if the earth waves broke upon invisible cliffs, spreading out with scattered rocks and grass. Valleys could become death traps if one didn't know where one was walking, especially while trying to run from a paramour's pitchfork collecting father. The tomb was near invisible if you didn't know where to look, shrouded under the giant swell of a land wave in the middle of a storm. Aldrin unrolled his maps and tried to search for the rocks, the trees, all landmarks that were long since lost to time and the intrepidness of peasants facing starvation. Ciara stepped beside him, running her finger over the map searching for the same proof that this was the place they'd nearly lost everything to find.

  "I can't find a bloody thing," he muttered under his breath to the only other reader there.

  She calmly brushed up the corner of one map as if to peer under it for hidden secrets and said back, "So we go in and poke around. Either there's a sword in there or there isn't."

  He nodded slowly, and felt her fingers run along his thumb as if to say "It'll be all right." By the time he tried to return the message, she'd already broken away to join Isa who was trying to shoo a horse from her meager rations. Kynton grabbed the maps and began to play with them, uncertain if he had any stake in this endeavor, but enjoying the change of scenery for the time being.

  Taban smiled warmly at the soldiers, who felt themselves sliding away from the assassin each time his amber eyes landed on their throats. Aldrin didn't bother to explain who he was or what he was doing there, but some things ran in the blood. "Princeling," he called to the boy, "have you managed to reach a decision?"

  The soldiers grumbled, that a foreigner dare be rude to their Lord, but he had a good point. Light wouldn't last much longer and every moment they spent standing in front of a hole in the ground was battle missed.

  Aldrin looked at the man and grimaced, "Yes, we go in."

  "Wha' all of us? In that teeny hole?" Kynton asked, waving his hands at the ten people, some in heavy armor, standing about.

  The local soldier coughed into his fist and said, "The most I heard ever got in there was five."

  "Five?" one of his fellow soldiers asked, in shock.

  The local boy shrugged in response. There was a lot of free time on the farm, and it seemed as good a way to burn the doldrums as any. Though he always had to play as the stupid thimble.

  "Well Isa's got to count for at least two and a half," Kynton joked, getting a hard whack against the back of his head as the witch swung her walking staff wide, knocking about the few bit of brains the priest contained.

  He stumbled to his knee from the attack and one hand rose to protect his throbbing head while another balled up in a fist. Isa stepped up to him, "Try it. Put your brawn where your mouth claims it to be. It should be enlightening to say the least."

  "The soldiers will remain out here to guard the tomb's entrance," Aldrin interrupted the war of the priests and witches, "we shall head inside to hunt the tomb."

  "That is not wise," a soldier said, glancing towards Taban and quickly adding a "my Lord."

  Aldrin looked over at Taban himself and closed his eyes, "Do as I command," he said to the soldier. The assassin bowed his head slightly to the baby king.

  "Very well, my Lord," the second title was much colder than the first as the soldiers slipped off their own steeds and began to make a quick camp.

  Kynton, still trying to wave off Isa as if she were a well-armed mosquito, looked into the cave and back to the prince, who was whispering quietly to the dark one, "So, who wants to go into the pitch black hole first?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A brief flicker of light danced across the pressing walls then faded back to night. "By all the..." the flicker danced and vibrated before rising up to life.

  "There," Isa said smugly, "this should light our path." The crystal in her palm buzzed in an ethereal hum as it shed light across the over crowded cave just as Kynton, the last of their small group, slid down the doorway.

&nb
sp; "That's a right pain in the knickers," he muttered, staggering to his feet and searching his backside for fresh holes. However the adventurous kids got in and out without ripping their trousers was the real mystery.

  Ciara pulled her hand down from her face, grateful to finally be able to see it. Whatever brief radiance the sun could sneak into the cave was vanishing quickly as she settled under the horizon. Their only chance lay in Isa's crystal, which the witch seemed to have some trouble controlling. It rocked back and forth in her palm like a child that couldn't find the midden. The witch tried to hold her hand high, but couldn't break much past Taban's nose, which illuminated a bogey goldmine inside the assassin as he stepped back into the safety of the shadows. Aldrin bumped into Ciara, his rusty sword still drawn. Surely, the Queen had supplied him with something fresh and less likely to crumble with a first swing, but he clung to the thing like a safety blanket.

  "Well, this is all rather cozy," Kynton muttered, trying to keep his mass out of everyone else, "but unless you had something more bacchanal in mind, perhaps we should move deeper."

  The meager light cascaded around old rocks, painted with symbols and time-consuming etchings, most of them crude drawings of anatomy and the occasional attempt at initials. Walls of rock, craggier than the most grizzled of knights, rose and fell across the ground like fingers of the mountain.

  "It's a wonder anyone could find proper footing," Aldrin muttered, his boots slipping across another protruding rock slicked from slime water.

  Isa ignored the grumbling prince and the peasant chuckling and helping him rise. Instead, she pushed back, her tiny feet easily slipping into the divots. The towering priest slammed his head on the low ceiling trying to chase after her. She chuckled, causing the light to bounce and flicker more as her concentration broke. The magic grew stronger and more obstinate with each passing hour. Her other hand reached out towards the darkness and found only rock. The witch's eyes narrowed in concern and, with her hands still firmly on the wall, she trailed it around, searching for a hole.

  Kynton watched the systemic search of the witch poking and prodding at the wall, willing it to bend to her will. After she crisscrossed a few times around the back wall and came up with nothing, the priest walked into her, earning a tilted glower. "Do not look so glum, my dear. It does nothing for your complexion."

  To punctuate his nonchalant take on their predicament, Kynton leaned onto the back wall with his elbow and then kept falling. Isa jumped back, her own feet scrabbling across the rocks before she could raise the light across a priest sprawled halfway across an opening hidden behind some rock formations and five feet above the ground. Kynton struggled to his feet, trying to slide out of the hole and Isa smiled warmly at the small dribble of blood leaking from his crushed nose.

  "It must be a new age for Kynton has finally proven useful," she called to the others, "he has found the way." And she raised her light high, shining the crystal into the hole ignored for centuries.

  The rest peered in, not large enough for more than one at a time. "Who shall be the first?" Isa asked brightly.

  Being the only royalty around Aldrin decided he should go first, proving how little he still understood being royal. Isa stood guard, climbing on top of some old crates left behind in case any adventurers wandered by and needed something to smash to search for loose change. Her light barely made it around the prince's backside as he crawled through the shaft, jagged rocks trying hard to pierce through the armor Moren insisted he don.

  "I think there might be a drop off," he said scientifically. This was followed by a pause, then a slide of rocks and finally a loud "Oof!"

  "Yes, definitely a drop off," Aldrin called back.

  "Is there anything dangerous ahead?" Taban shouted into the hole.

  "How can I bloody tell? I can't see past my face."

  "Strange," the assassin muttered, "I'd thought his pasty skin could light the way."

  Ciara hitched up her oversized greaves and grabbed onto the sides of the hole, "I'm coming in!"

  "Mind the rocks," Aldrin tried to be helpful, remembering the clangs of metal against gloves.

  "Which ones?"

  "Um, all of them," he cringed, but she laughed and dropped to her forearms, letting the armor take the brunt of her weight. It was slower going but eventually she felt the open air brush past her face. Hooking her arms around the top of the edge, she worked her legs around until she could land gracefully beside the prince.

  His blind hand reached out and landed against a flat piece of armor. "Cia, is that you?"

  "Yes, my chest at least," she scolded.

  Aldrin yanked his hand back, probably turning a deep red in the inky blackness. But she ignored his honest mistake, and if it weren't one she was actually rather impressed. Instead, she reached out and drug her own hand along his arm before finding a touchstone so they wouldn't risk bumping into each other.

  "I'm through!" she called to the others.

  It was a fight to get Kynton's heavy mass through. A few times he claimed he wedged himself, but Taban talking of smoking him out got the priest moving again. Far more cursing than any man of goddess should know followed as the hulking priest scraped and slid his way out the birthing hole onto a slimy mold pile below. Isa pointed to Taban, encouraging the assassin to go next, but he glowered at her. He wasn't about to leave himself open to the witch, nor was she to him. This continued for quite some time until a dangerous blue spark flared up around the crystal. Dead were near.

  Twisting her mouth as a pain trickled across her spine, Isa closed her fist cutting off the light. But still she scrabbled up to the hole unassisted and crawled through, somehow managing to avoid all of the rocks wanting so badly to make friends with someone's flesh.

  As the witch poked her head out at the end, she lifted her palm and opened it, directing the light to the slick below. Carefully descending, she plopped to the ground and just as carefully trod on Kynton's toe.

  "What about Taban?" Ciara asked, slightly worried about leaving the assassin behind. It seemed everything went to the midden when he was out of sight.

  But a familiar scrabbling answered her question for her. "Perhaps he stole the eyes of a cat," Isa quipped. "Now, let's see what we have here," she said, closing her eyes and trying to tap into the raw power cascading around the walls. Slowly, sparks flared as light inched and coiled from the far walls and around her fist before flattening out and illuminating the entire cavern.

  And what a cavern it was. The jagged rocks had been smoothed out centuries past and chiseled to represent laid stone walls. Some paint even clung to the rocks, an ivory fading to a sickly green from the creeping hand of moss. A red, nearly crimson, marked the floor in straight lines running under their feet in confusing patterns. The largest disappeared deep into the cavern where even Isa's overcharged light couldn't penetrate. But the others crossed to the left and right, before circling around each other and darting in a diagonal fashion. Afraid of what could pull them under if they dare step a foot off the red line, they all shifted onto the track.

  "Hey, a sign!" Kynton shouted, before running off to read it.

  Aldrin followed, giving chase after him like a beleaguered parent. "What sign?" he looked around at the smooth landscape as if it were still dusted and polished by shadow servants who lived in the dark. The priest pointed to a chunk of rock that broke off its stand long ago, now more welcome mat than sign.

  "Can anyone read Elvish?" he asked as his fingers traced around the curly letters and curlier accent markers the Elves seemed to love so much.

  Aldrin shook his head. He'd just mastered the mix of Arvarian and Dustonian that made up most Ostero writing. Ciara and Isa glanced at each other, not wanting to call the other out for not knowing Elvish.

  "It says 'Welcome to The Tomb Of Cas the Dragon Destroyer and Aunt Molly's Fine Jams. Please visit our gift shop to your left,'" a smooth voice called out from the darkness.

  As the young eyes turned to the assassin, Taban
smiled and waved his slightly mangled fingers, "Surprise!"

  "Cas," Ciara muttered.

  "Aunt Molly?" Kynton asked to the gods.

  "What's a gift shop?" the prince asked, always focusing on the important topic.

  "Why don't you go and find out for yourself," Taban said to Aldrin, "Or have you never learned which your left is?"

  The prince turned to glare but something shimmering in the deep caught his eye. He dashed off from the group into the darkness of the edges. Occasional shadows from Isa's bobbing light would blanket and then recede from a pile of what looked like...Yes! His fingers hunted through mostly rusted and crumbled metal, hoping to find a single still functioning one. Accidentally, a loop hooked upon his middle finger and a metal box rose with him. It was lighter than he expected.

  He pushed a button at the top and heard a clicking noise. Nothing happened at first, so he did what anyone with an ancient malfunctioning device would do and shook the thing a bit and questioned its parentage before trying again. Click click click whoosh! The fuel inside the cylinder took and a comforting warm glow burst from the box.

  The prince all but danced back to the group, the metal box dangling from his fingers as if he'd picked a bouquet of posies for them. "I'd only read about them previously; I never dreamed I'd see one in person," he crowed as he held the glowing box up to their unimpressed eyes.

  "It's a hunk of iron that glows," Kynton stated slowly, as if the over stressed prince had no idea what was in his hand and believed it to be a bag of jewels or a puppy or something.

  "Watch," Aldrin said, before unhinging a clasp and opening up a metal wall. Light, brighter than anything Isa could manage, poured into Kynton's eyes and the priest staggered back, shrieking like a vampire that overslept. "It's a Dwarven Light Box! No fuel needed, no smoke produced. They're a marvel!"