No. He couldn’t fall into their trap. Bron wanted to shout at him but it was not his place. Fiobald’s screams died away to low moans, curdling Bron’s blood even more than the cries of pain as the blood flowed down Fiobald’s chest and his face paled. Bron wondered if the man had a family, a wife. Would she wonder what his last moments were like for the rest of her life? Bron might not live through this day, but if he did, he vowed to find her.
The necromancer waved his arm above the man’s head and Fiobald rose, taking staggering steps, and joined their army.
“Blasphemy!” someone called out behind Bron.
“Murder!”
“Kill the bastard!”
The front lines of the dead army parted again, and three more healthy men stumbled forward, ropes attached to their necks. They wore civilian clothes. These weren’t members of the Royal Guard, but farmers.
Bron spit bile in front of his horse, feeling the urge to shed some black blood.
No. Not more. Would the necromancers force them to watch their friends turn all day, increasing their army before their eyes? Nothing could be more horrible than to see an ally turn into an adversary and know you would have to deliver their death blow.
As the men lined up and the necromancer began his chant once again, King Artemus growled deep within his throat and took off, sprinting on his black battle horse. “In honor of Fiobald!” he shouted. The men echoed him until Fiobald’s name became a war cry. Bron scrambled to stay with the king in the charge. Artemus had let anger and revenge fuel his mind and his deeds and, in doing so, he’d become reckless, squandering their position. The king’s loosening grasp of control sent panic through Bron’s usual calm.
They raced down the hill and across the long grasses, meeting the enemy in the mud-caked sludge seeping from Sill’s festering swamps. The dead were quick, despite their handicaps, fueled by black magic. They charged, blinking in and out of existence like ghosts visiting from another realm.
Some of them blinked in just as the horses reached them and were trampled underneath the hooves. Others dodged the initial onslaught and darted between the soldiers, biting their legs where their armor didn’t cover.
Bron plowed through five walking dead, slashing more with his claymore on either side. He kept Artemus in view and a sword’s width away. He’d sworn an oath to protect the king at all times and for all costs.
The men with the ropes tied around their necks cowered in the confusion. Although their plight called to Bron, he couldn’t save them because he could not leave the king.
“Bronford Thoridian,” Artemus beckoned.
A white-eyed ghoulish remnant of an old man jumped in front of Bron’s horse, black lips drooling froth. Bron speared the man and threw his body to trampling hooves. He reached the king within a heartbeat. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Rescue those men. They aren’t soldiers. They don’t deserve this fate.”
The dead had swarmed, cutting their army into small groups, and even now they whittled away the clusters of the living. If they stayed together, they had a chance. If they broke into even smaller groups, they were done for.
Bron had never talked back to the king. He sucked the sides of his mouth in indecision. “Your Highness?”
“Go.” Artemus slapped Bron’s horse and the beast turned away. Bron took the reins and turned its head back to the king. “I cannot leave you.”
“This is an order, Bronford.” Artemus’ eyes were filled with desperation, as though he couldn’t see another innocent person die. “I can take care of myself.”
Every nerve in Bron’s body screamed for him to stay. The clusters of the Royal Guard were separating farther and farther apart and the ring surrounding the king thinned. But King Artemus was too proud to let the necromancers have another soul. Was Bron supposed to protect the king from even himself?
Artemus swung his sword, cutting down two charging dead men, and looked back to Bron. “You have shielded me long enough, my son.”
The Necromancer King approached the three tied men, weaving through the Royal Guard. A foul cloud tainted every soldier he touched, bringing down his horse.
“You can take him.” King Artemus encouraged as he moved toward the brunt of the dead army. “I will hold his minions back. Taste the sweetness of victory on the tip of your sword.”
Bron’s blood boiled with the thought of the necromancer pulling Fiobald’s face to the sky. This was his chance to put a stop to the army once and for all. The king had given the opportunity to him rather than taking it for himself. “I’ll be back soon, Your Highness.”
Bron ripped through the dead between himself and the three men, pounding them to the sludge with his battle horse. He positioned himself between the necromancer and the cowering men. The fear in their eyes was too familiar, stirring anger in his gut.
He cut their bindings with his sword and shouted over the clamor. “Run to safety in the hills.”
The men nodded and scurried uphill just as the necromancer approached, hovering over the ground. Bron had never seen one so close. He marveled at the hollowness of the man’s face, with skin pulled taut over angular bones and eyes as black as midnight with no whites. How could this atrocity once have been human? His headpiece of thorns and nails cut into his skull, tearing his flesh to seep black blood down his face where flies feasted in swarms, their oily bodies like emeralds on his skin. Pain seemed to fuel his magic.
“You have stolen my prisoners, young warrior. Now you must offer your flesh and blood in return.”
“Never.” Bron growled, raising his claymore. “You have taken your last soul.”
The necromancer held his palm out, and his metal fingernails clicked together. A black mist emanated from his fingertips, growing ever larger.
Even though he’d grown up a farm boy, his mother read to him at night, pointing to letters, teaching him the sounds and the meaning of the symbols in the flickering candlelight. When his father dismissed reading as a waste of time, she used to whisper, “Knowledge is the greatest form of power.”
Later, when he trained with the Royal Guard, he walked to the temples in the inner keep and read the long scripts scrawled by the monks, not so much for the content, but to feel close to his mother again. On one of those dark, lonely nights, a night where he missed the bleat of the goats and his mother’s apple pie, he snuck into the temple and read a passage about the necromancers, a passage about a simple farm husband who defeated a young black-blooded creature to save his wife and children. This peasant claimed the necromancers needed a body for their dark magic. They were weak when they were in-between physical manifestations.
Bron took a chance and threw his sword. His claymore sprawled through the air, hilt over blade over and over again in a blur of silver. It sliced the necromancer’s arm, severing the appendage from his body. The necromancer screamed, and black moths flew from his mouth.
Bron wasn’t finished. As the necromancer blinked out in a puff of smoke, Bron reached for his dagger. The creature would reappear beside him--of this he was certain. He had four directions to choose from, and only one choice to make.
Necromancers were evil. They didn’t fight fair. Bron turned in the last second and threw the dagger behind him, thinking the foul creature would attack from behind.
Even though the dagger tip sailed through thin air, the blade stuck in mid-arc. The necromancer materialized with the dagger through his heart. He fell, lifeless, to the ground. When his body hit, his skin and bones fractured into ashes.
Panic edged up Bron’s spine. He’d left the king for too long. He scanned the battlefield for the gilded lion’s helmet and the golden armor atop the black charger. The king had fought his way across the battlefield, banding the groups together in one last front. They charged at the brunt of the undead, cutting a wedge through the army.
Bron shouted, “No!” He wished he rode by the king’s side. He retrieved his claymore and spurred his horse into action, galloping to meet them.
Dead swarmed the Royal Guard until each soldier squirmed with three or four attackers on top of him. Bron tightened his grip on the reins, pushing his horse to its utmost speed. So many places to be bitten. Every second they lost another beating heart to dark magic.
He fought his way to the king, slashing four attackers into halves. King Artemus had been pulled from his saddle and he panted, falling against a lichen-crusted boulder. Eerily, the gold in the rusty growth mirrored the gold in his armor.
“You defeated him, Bron. Well done.”
Bron knelt beside the king, inspecting his wounds. A bloody slash to his upper arm would heal. At first he thought mud crusted the king’s hand, but then he realized the skin had turned as black as the blotches on the necromancer’s face. An icy hand clutched Bron’s heart and refused to let go.
“Your Highness! You’ve been bitten.”
The king shrugged as if it were old news. “You’ve done well, my son.” He put his healthy hand to Bron’s face and touched his cheek. “I’m proud of you.”
“I have to carry you back. The healers can try--”
“You know how this must end. Even now I feel the evil in my veins. I’d rather not return to my kingdom as a raging, soulless devil, but a king who gave his life for Ebonvale. You must give me this last dignity before the healers find me.”
Bron scanned the battlefield for an answer that wasn’t there. His gaze returned to the king with tears brimming. “You’re like my second father. I could no more raise a hand to my own flesh and blood.”
The king’s emerald eyes grew misty. “Look after Danika for me. Tell her I love her.”
Bron nodded, overwhelmed by emotion. “I will. Always.”
King Artemus took his hand and squeezed. Bron had never seen him appreciate a moment such as this. For a heartbeat the battle was only a memory, and they stood together in heaven with the gods. “You and she are the only good I can claim in this world.”
His eyes closed, and when they opened again, they’d turned black. In moments, the king’s body would become the thing he abhorred, and Bron couldn’t let that happen. The troops would never leave him. They’d take him home in a cart, chain him up and let the healers try all manner of concoctions. He’d turn into a circus freak, and Bron couldn’t have Danika see the monster her father would become.
He raised his claymore. With tears running down his cheeks, he screamed a war shout, and King Artemus was king no more.
Bron awoke with a heave of breath and a face hot with tears and sweat. The dream had rattled him to the core, and he kicked off his sweaty sheets as if the dead had bled their poison upon them. His memory remained as clear as the day the battle happened. His fate for killing the one man who meant everything to him would be to relive that horrifying day until his death.
He stood and leaned on the washbasin. When he’d gathered enough strength, he filled the ivory bathtub with buckets of water the maid had left the night before. He’d clean, shave and find a bunch of cherry blossoms to place on King Artemus’ grave.
Maybe his visit would ease his heart. Maybe not.
Chapter 21
Forgiveness
Danika slipped into cool bath waters, the muck and filth from her journey washing away. As arduous as the quest had been, she reflected on her time with Nip, Bron and Valorian with fondness. The four of them had formed a bond, albeit strange, and she’d always remember those days of freedom from the court’s prying eyes.
She dipped her leg into the water and bent her knee back out again. The bath house was an open platform, shielded by covered porches on every side, with the center open to the rays of sun. Golden light played upon her wet skin, illuminating the effects of the journey on her body. Her muscles had hardened, turning from rounded fat in her arms and legs to smooth, sleek curves. Her skin had tanned from porcelain to a healthy gold. Overall, she looked more like a warrior than a princess and that thought made her proud.
Thank goodness Muriel had sent all of her handmaidens away for the day. Her changed body would be hard to hide in court. She’d have to claim a pastime of walking in the orchards like her mother.
Her mother. Danika’s heart had softened the more she thought about her. If she could relive those fleeting moments at her mother’s cottage, she would have been kinder. She would have asked her if she needed anything. With anger blinding her, she’d left her mother in the woods alone, with no promise of ever coming back.
She’d find a way to see her again. Danika promised the soap bubbles drifting from her hair on the breeze. If they won the battle, and if she could keep Ebonvale safe, she’d find a way to contact Sybil.
Staggering odds piled against her. No one had challenged the wyverns in battles as they swarmed from the deserts in the south. Instead, the Royal Guard had fallen back, leaving the beasts to inhabit the southern islands. Looking back, their negligence had been a dire mistake. The worms only grew stronger, breeding their army to expand their territory. Danika had been tutored in the art of war, and it was hard for her to believe a reptile could outsmart her father.
If it wasn’t for the army of Sill, he would have seen their attack coming. As bad a husband as he was to her mother, no one could question his battle tactics. She wished she could speak with him now to gain wisdom for the conflict at hand. She wished he could see her dressed in silver armor, riding her horse upon the shores of Scalehaven. Of course, if he was alive, he’d never let her go.
Finished with her bath, Danika stood and dried her weary body. A sudden urge to visit her father’s grave came over her, even knowing her questions would ride on the wind unanswered.
She slid on a clean underdress and a glistening, silken moonlight-hued gown and made her way through the bath house to the hill of daisies marking her father’s last resting place.
What she didn’t expect was Bron Thoridian, standing in prayer with his hands folded over his fresh tunic, cleanly washed and shaven at the foot of the hill.
Although she stepped silently, he turned. She could never sneak up on this warrior. Redness rimmed his eyes as if he’d been mourning.
“My lady.”
Suddenly she was aware of the sleekness of her gown over her body and how the silk hugged her curves. She’d chosen the garment for comfort, not thinking of how much of her body lay exposed. He’d think of her as a seductress. Danika crossed her arms over her low neckline, then quickly uncrossed them. She hadn’t meant to make her breasts look bigger. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Or I you.” His neck reddened with embarrassment, as if she’d caught him in a rare vulnerable moment. Seeing him reduced to his emotions made her want to throw her arms around him and bury her head in his burly chest.
“I miss him.” Danika plucked a daisy and tossed the flower before the headstone reading Ebonvale’s most valiant king. “I wish I had his council now.”
“My thoughts exactly.” A cool breeze blew through the courtyard and Bron invited her closer.
As she took her place by his side, he put an arm around her shoulders. He would have never touched her anywhere other than beside the grave. While sharing their grief, this gesture made perfect sense.
Danika nuzzled against him, giving in to her cravings. She thought they’d stay like this in silence, but Bron breathed in and spoke.
“There’s something I must tell you.”
Danika’s heart skipped. Would he denounce her affections? She swallowed a lump in her throat. Rejection was the price she had to pay for making a move. “Go on.”
“Your father was a brave, headstrong man. He commanded me to separate from him in battle, as you know. But I’ve never told you exactly what happened that day after we broke apart.”
Nervous jitters ran through her. She tightened her grip on his arm. All this time he’d left her in the dark, dodging questions whenever she asked. Now she’d know the truth. “I’m listening.”
He caressed her arm with his rough fingers. “This will be hard for you to hear.
”
“I’m ready.” She’d been ready the day he returned without the king.
“Your father commanded me to kill the necromancer king. I’m not certain why. Perhaps he wanted me to come into my own, to follow in his footsteps. Maybe he was aware of my personal connection with the man the necromancer had killed in front of us in cold blood. Whatever the King’s reasons, he’d have it no other way. I have to admit, I wanted to slice open the necromancer as much as he wanted me to have him. The king commanded me, yes, but I was also blinded by my own sense of justice and revenge. I’m sorry.”
Danika smoothed her hand down Bron’s arm. Her anger at him for leaving her father sizzled to a burnt ember. His apology wiped the anger away. “’Tis understandable considering the circumstances.”
He ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it over the back of her head. “I wished a thousand times I’d stayed with him.”
“We cannot look back. If we do, we lose sight of our future.”
Bron nodded. “But, I must look back one last time to tell you the truth. I killed the necromancer king. I know the stories say your father did. In a way, he did by sending me. I made sure to give him that last victory.”
“Bron, you shouldn’t have. You should have taken the glory for yourself.”
“After what happened, I could not in all conscience take any glory from that day.”
Danika steeled her voice. “Tell me what happened.”
“When I found the king, he’d been bitten. He asked me to end his life before he became one of those creatures.” Bron’s voice cracked. “I thought of how the healers would take him back anyway and how they’d torture his body to get him to regain some semblance of consciousness. Either way, even if they found an ounce of who he had been, he’d never be the same.”
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