Forsaken Kingdom (The Last Prince Book 1)

by J. R. Rasmussen

  Wardin took it reflexively, and saw a fairly accurate sketch of his face, along with a number that represented more silver than he’d ever seen in his life. His ears rang with his thrumming pulse, but he kept the hand that held the paper still. “Wonder what he did, to call for a reward that big?” He forced a laugh. “Whatever it is, I assure you it’s probably beyond my skill.”

  The man reached inside his tunic. Wardin had a feeling it wasn’t for something as harmless as paper this time, and decided he’d rather not wait to find out. He shoved the man as hard as he could, and tried to rush past him to the door.

  The innkeeper tripped him before he could make it, sending Wardin sprawling to the sticky floor. The other man regained his own balance and rounded on Wardin, who rolled and dodged out of his way.

  Both of his opponents turned out to have knives, a kitchen knife for the innkeeper, a nasty-looking, serrated hunting knife for the other. Wardin successfully dodged another attack, but doing so took him further away from the door. He drew his own dagger. He might not have much skill with it, but it was sharp.

  At least the other half dozen or so patrons were only watching (and in the case of two of them, cheering, though Wardin couldn’t tell for which side). The Eyrd stood, but he didn’t join in either, merely walked toward the door. Perhaps these others hadn’t heard Wardin mention the reward. Or perhaps they recognized the authority of the men who were already pursuing him.

  The big man lunged. Wardin avoided his slash, feinted right, then grasped his newfound enemy’s arm and yanked him forward, immobilizing the man’s knife while pulling him toward Wardin’s dagger.

  Where did I learn to fight like this?

  Wardin was momentarily distracted by his surprise, allowing his opponent to wrench out of his grip and twist away with no more than a superficial wound. But before the man could come at him again, the innkeeper got between them.

  “Careful with him, Geordie!” the innkeeper barked, before looking at Wardin. “Let’s be sensible. No need for you to get hurt. Least, not by us. The notice is quite clear, the king prefers to have you alive.”

  Geordie stepped around his friend, knife raised, but he didn’t swing it again. “You ought to do the smart thing, and play the harp for the barn cat so he can set his poems to music.”

  Wardin blinked, wondering if they’d poisoned his ale as part of the trap. Something that caused hallucinations. He couldn’t have heard correctly.

  “Don’t be stupid,” the innkeeper said. “That will never work. You should take the flute, and give the harp to one of the horses. The cat should be given a jug of wine. It will ease his voice.” He looked around, frowning, as if he’d misplaced something. “I’m certain I had a jug ready. Has the cat already taken it?”

  The murmurs and laughter of the other patrons suggested that this was not Wardin’s imagination.

  Geordie turned to the innkeeper. “Did you see the rabbits hop out of the pie earlier? I think you should have cooked it longer. Perhaps they took the wine.”

  “You don’t know anything about managing an inn. Some of our customers prefer live rabbits in their pies.”

  Wardin stared, mouth agape, as the men rounded on one another. Their dispute turned to the question of whether rabbits could dance, and if so, whether it was polite for them to do it in company. (The innkeeper was fiercely in favor of allowing the rabbits a bit of exercise. Geordie raised his knife in protest of such a distasteful notion.)

  While they threatened and insulted one another, Wardin caught a movement from the corner of his eye. The dark-haired man was holding the door open, gesturing wildly.

  Wardin hesitated, but for no more than a moment. The Eyrd was most likely just as dangerous as the others, and only wanted to keep the reward for himself. But even if that were the case, Wardin stood better odds against one man than two. And possibly more than two, if any of the others at the inn decided they’d like to claim some of that silver, too. He would take his chances outside, where he might at least have better opportunities for escape.

  He took one last look around the room as he headed for the door. Nobody was watching him. Some were approaching the innkeeper and Geordie, joining in their argument. Others debated the issues of rabbit dancing and cat singing on their own.

  “Let’s go,” the dark-haired man hissed. “Honestly, are you simple? Hurry up!”

  Without looking back, Wardin ran from the inn on the heels of his rescuer—or perhaps his captor.

  10

  Wardin

  It didn’t take Wardin long to realize that his companion was completely mad. As soon as they’d gotten outside the inn, the Eyrd had taken off at a dead run across the hills and heather, shouting for Wardin to keep up and babbling something about losing his balance.

  Not that Wardin could really blame him for worrying about that; it was treacherous ground for running, full of holes and knots to trip him, and stretches of wet peat and moss to grip his boots. It was also dusk by then, and a perilous fog was descending.

  But those things that made the terrain dangerous also made it an ideal place to throw off pursuit. As the shouts from the direction of the inn and road faded into the distance, Wardin gradually fell farther and farther behind his guide, until he judged the fog thick enough to lose him entirely. Then he dropped and rolled across the damp ground, into a shallow gulch. He followed it, crawling southward, planning to circle back to the road several miles south of the inn.

  The road itself would have to be avoided now, but he could follow its general course from a distance, by night. He wondered how far afield that sketch of him was being distributed; he was surprised it had made it this far. As a man of no consequence, he’d entertained a hope that Bramwell would be glad to be rid of him, and after a perfunctory effort at finding him, might save himself further expense by allowing Wardin to disappear.

  But it seemed that was not to be. Perhaps the king valued that inkwell even more than Wardin had realized.

  The gulch grew gradually deeper, and with it the water at its bottom, until Wardin was finally obliged to climb out and test his luck on the increasingly boggy ground east of it. He guessed it had been a mile, perhaps a bit more, since he’d last seen the Eyrd running west. He couldn’t see more than a few strides in front of him through the fog, but he heard nothing but the calls of insects and frogs.

  It was slow going, constantly testing the ground, stepping gingerly to find footing in spots that would hold his weight. Eventually he misjudged, and sank his left leg to the shin in mud. A good thing he’d been so cautious in his movements; two legs in and he’d have been in serious trouble. As it was, extricating both himself and his boot was going to take an effort.

  Or help.

  “Looks like a tricky situation you’ve gotten into there, War.”

  That laugh. There was something about that laugh that made Wardin’s heart lurch. He gasped as a sharp pain pierced his skull. War. Had his name been on the notice? He couldn’t remember.

  The Eyrd stood no more than two strides away. It was difficult to get a good look at his face in the gathering darkness, but the smirk had been clear enough in his voice. He made no move to help.

  Wardin ignored him and, grabbing his leg with both hands just above the knee, tried to wrench it from the mud by force.

  The Eyrd laughed again, bringing a fresh stab of pain shooting behind Wardin’s eye. After another moment or two of watching Wardin struggle—and sink deeper for his trouble—the other man sighed. “Reach a hand in and pull up on the toe of your boot.”

  Wardin glared at him, but he could see the sense in the suggestion. It would be much easier to pull his foot out if he could break the suction. He bent his knee and leaned carefully forward, then thrust his arm into the mud and yanked as hard as he could at his toes.

  A loud squelching sound, and then he was on his back, filthy and foul smelling, but free.

  The Eyrd helped him up and tugged him backwards to more solid ground. Wardin didn’t res
ist. If it came to a fight, he saw no reason to complicate it with the risk of sinking into the mud again, especially since this stranger seemed to know more about how to get out of it than he did.

  “You need to stay where the heather is,” the man said. “That tends to be safer.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  The Eyrd crossed his arms. “I’d like to think that you got lost. As opposed to purposely running away and making me waste my time tracking you back down again. Which was not all that hard, by the way. I can’t believe you’ve eluded the king for this long, War, you leave a trail like you’ve never traveled across open land before.”

  War. There it was again. Familiar, like the Eyrd’s laugh, the lilting accent of his voice. “I haven’t traveled across open land before. How do you know my name?”

  A moment of silence in the dim light, and then the man said, “It was obvious you didn’t recognize me back at the inn, but I thought it might have come to you by now. I knew you right away, despite all that mess.” He waved a hand at Wardin’s shaggy beard, untrimmed and untamed in the fifteen days since he’d left the palace.

  “How do you know me?” Wardin kept his voice steady and challenging, despite the quickening of his pulse.

  The Eyrd seemed to flinch at the question. For a moment he just shook his head, slightly, slowly. “Well, I guess this explains why you ran and hid from me, then. Were you afraid I was going to turn you over to Bramwell? It was stupid to go into an inn with him looking for you, by the way. But it’s like Erietta said, you were either being an idiot or a traitor. Given those choices, I’m glad to see that you’re an idiot. Still.”

  Erietta. Wardin pressed his palm to his eye as pain blossomed there once again. “Who are you?” he rasped.

  “War, it’s Arun. I guess I can forgive you for not realizing, between the darkness and the fog and the seven years since you’ve seen me.” He scratched his head. “Come to think of it, my voice hadn’t changed yet, the last time we saw each other. Yours either.”

  Arun … seven years … last time. The world tilted, and Wardin gasped again, not even trying to mask the pain. “What are you doing to me? Did you poison me, too?”

  “What do you mean, too? Who else do you imagine I’ve poisoned?”

  “How could you have confused those men in the inn, if not with poison? It was you who did that, wasn’t it?”

  “Of course it was me. Poison? Really?” The man—Arun—sounded downright offended. “Thank you for your confidence, but I assure you, I’m an excellent sage now.”

  Wardin’s mouth fell open, and for a moment he wondered whether he’d lost that fight back at the inn, after all. Perhaps they’d knocked him over the head, and now he was slumped in a cart somewhere, rolling up the road, dreaming. “Sage. As in magic.”

  “Wardin what is wr—” Arun was interrupted by what was possibly the most chilling sound Wardin had ever heard: a hollow, ghostly howl. It was followed by a series of bays. They were horribly close.

  Chest tightening, Wardin turned and drew his dagger. “There aren’t supposed to be wolves in this part of the country.”

  Arun, too, had turned toward the sound, although he drew no weapon. His face was pale in the gloom. “Those aren’t wolves.”

  “What are they, then?”

  But the creatures didn’t wait to be announced. Five of them, gigantic, shaggy, and black, emerged slowly from the fog with hackles raised. Their jowls dripped with what Wardin hoped was only mud and drool, but in the darkness he could imagine was blood.

  They prowled low toward the men, snarling. Wardin raised his dagger and moved forward to meet them, ready to fight.

  Arun pushed him so hard he nearly fell. “What is wrong with you, Wardin? You can’t kill them!”

  Wardin twisted away from the Eyrd as one of the hounds loped forward, close enough that he could feel its hot breath. He slashed with his dagger. To his surprise, the beast eyed the blade and retreated. But its growl didn’t sound cowed.

  “What do you expect me to do?” he snapped at Arun. “Just let them eat me?”

  “Put a shield up!” Arun sounded as exasperated as Wardin felt. “If they can’t get to us, they’ll eventually get tired of trying.”

  Wardin spared him a wide-eyed glance, once again firm in his conviction that the man was a lunatic. “You can see I haven’t got a shield!”

  Judging by Arun’s muttered curses, he had a similar opinion of Wardin. He stepped forward. One of the hounds lowered on its haunches, preparing to leap. Its companions gathered closer.

  The fool didn’t even have a weapon. He would be devoured in a moment, Wardin was sure of it. He watched as the pack of hounds stared Arun down, and tried to decide whether he ought to try to save him, or take the opportunity to slip away and leave them to one another.

  Then, with a soft whine, one of the hounds lay down in the mud. The one next to it bent to lick its ears. Two others turned on each other, growling and snapping.

  But one remained standing, snarling at Arun. And then it sprang. It fell upon the Eyrd, who pushed and kicked and dodged, trying to keep his feet.

  The hound’s movement apparently spurred one of its companions back to its original purpose, and it rushed to join the attack. There was a rending of fabric, then a cry as one of them sank its teeth into Arun’s forearm.

  Muttering a curse of his own, Wardin jumped to Arun’s aid. One of the hounds yelped and rolled back as his dagger cut into its shoulder. Wardin kicked it away and went for the other one, but Arun’s hand shot out of nowhere, grabbing Wardin’s wrist.

  “Wound them if you must, but do not kill them!”

  There was a moment or two more of confused slashing and thrusting, growling and biting, before Arun grunted with effort, as though pushing a great weight, then let out a roar that echoed across the hills. With it came a violent gust of swirling wind, strong enough to blow back hounds and men alike, breaking apart the tangle of limbs and fur and throwing them all every which way.

  When Wardin got to his feet and turned toward Arun, he found that they were opposite the five hounds, with a small stretch of bog between them. The dogs seemed disoriented. Wardin felt a bit disoriented himself.

  “Time to go,” Arun said. “Watch your footing, remember to stay close to the heather!”

  And once again, Wardin found himself running in the Eyrd’s wake.

  Wardin sat on a mossy slope, arms on his knees, the damp seeping into his trousers while he gasped for air. His ears rang too loudly to hear what his companion was saying. He thought it might be a question. Just as well, then, that he couldn’t hear it; he still hadn’t decided whether to trust the Eyrd, or how much to tell him.

  He didn’t know whether the hounds had given chase or not; he’d never looked back long enough, nor been able to see far enough in the fog, to tell. There had been no more howls or bays at least, for which he was grateful. Hearing that haunting cry once was enough for a lifetime.

  Arun had kept them running until Wardin was on the verge of collapse, stumbling more and more often. Only when he fell for the third time and turned his ankle did they stop to rest.

  “I never expected to find you in such soft condition, War.” Arun’s teeth flashed white in the darkness as he grinned, although he was panting heavily himself, half reclined on the ground. “I hope that was enough for my balance. I’ve been doing some strenuous magic lately.”

  Magic. Wardin decided to let the word lie, for the moment. He’d seen the confused men at the inn. He’d seen the confused hounds, too—and they’d had no poisoned ale to drink. Then that miniature cyclone, coming out of nowhere, vanishing just as quickly. He knew he’d just seen magic. But he needed some time to recover before he could face the word.

  Instead, he nodded at Arun’s dripping arm. “How bad is that bite?”

  Arun looked down with a start, as if surprised to find himself bleeding. “Not too bad, I think.” He pushed up his torn sleeve and ran his hand across hi
s forearm, then bent to rummage through his pack. A moment later he sat up straight, his face lit by a candle in his hand. He brought the flame closer to his arm and squinted.

  “I’ll live. I should bind it, though.” He pushed the candle down into the soft earth beside him, just far enough to hold it up, then searched his pack again.

  “What were those beasts?” Wardin asked.

  Arun balanced his arm on his knee and tilted his waterskin over it, then began winding a length of cloth around it. “Are you joking?”

  “Is anything about this funny?”

  “It’s a little funny. The sound of your wheezing, anyway. And you looked pretty funny, trying to get unstuck from the mud before. Here, tie this off for me, will you? Tightly.”

  Wardin knelt beside him and tied the bandage. “You’ll look even funnier, with my boot down your throat. And judging by the way it smells, I doubt it will taste very good. What were they?”

  Arun chuckled, a sound more appreciative than insulted. “Blackhounds, obviously. If their size and shape didn’t give them away, the way that one resisted my spell should have.”

  “Blackhounds?” Wardin sat back again and rubbed his neck, trying to remember whether he’d read about such creatures. The name was vaguely familiar.

  “Feral ones. Descended from the pack that used to live at the magistery near Heathbire. I thought that was only a legend, one of those stories wives tell husbands and parents tell children to keep everyone off the moors at night. But it seems not.”

  “Those things used to live in magisteries?”

  “Of course they did. They still do.”

  “What do you mean, still do? The magisteries were dissolved thirty or forty years ago now.”

  With a sharp intake of breath, Arun picked up his candle and leaned forward to study Wardin’s face by its thin light. “Eyrdri’s teeth. You’re really not joking, or pretending, are you? You didn’t know me, you didn’t know the blackhounds. You didn’t recognize magic. Even the word magistery shocks you.” Arun shook his head slowly. “You’ve forgotten everything. What happened to you?”