Ripples in the Chalice: A Tale of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 2)

by Adam Copeland

  “Philip!” A clear path opened and Patrick charged forward.

  A malicious smile spread across Philip’s lips.

  Suddenly a horse blocked Patrick’s charge. “Patrick, we must go!” Sir Waylan shouted, offering a hand to pull him up into the saddle. The Irishman hesitated, and Waylan urged him again.

  Behind Philip, a hundred or more enemy horsemen were galloping toward them.

  Cursing, Patrick took Waylan’s hand. They bolted towards the Avangarde with the horn.

  “Blow it again!” Waylan commanded.

  The knight blew three blasts, each one longer than the last.

  “Corbin! It is lost! We must go!” Waylan shouted.

  Corbin paused in swinging his sword just long enough to look around, but it was too long. Two opponents jumped him.

  Bisch swatted them away with his giant sword and picked his friend up by the cape.

  “Go!” Bisch shouted, waving Corbin off. “Bad-bad!”

  When he protested, Bisch planted his sword in the ground and threw Corbin over his shoulder. He carried him behind the horn blower and set him down. “Go! Bad-bad!” he bellowed, taking his sword up again and charging the enemy.

  Corbin cried after him in vain.

  Bisch swung his mighty blade, taking out a half-dozen enemy soldiers.

  A smallish figure came forward and pulled two short swords from scabbards strapped to his back. He faced off with Bisch and the enemy mob paused to watch.

  “Now! We need to go while they’re distracted!” Waylan shouted.

  As he, Patrick, and the horn blower struggled to keep Corbin on the horse and flee, Bisch bought them time.

  The short Lost Boy, Diego, dodged and danced around the hulking Bisch like an angry squirrel. He lunged in to swipe at Bisch’s meaty thighs, then would pull back just out of range of the long blade. Bleeding from a dozen wounds, Bisch’s swings came slower and slower, making it easier for Diego to make his frustrating attacks. Finally, he shoved his blades under each of Bisch’s armpits, causing the giant to drop his weapon. He fell to his knees and Diego pounced on him, swinging his double blades in a scissor-like fashion.

  Bisch’s head came away from his shoulders in a geyser of blood. His hulking body fell to the side with hands twitching. Diego laughed gleefully and the Lost Boys swarmed over Bisch’s body in pursuit.

  Corbin slumped where he sat, his protests ended.

  The Avangarde retreated.

  Patrick and Waylan entered Greensprings last, just as a rumbling grabbed their attention: a fireball struck the ground just before the keep walls. Rocks, earth, and cinders exploded in a fountain of destruction, spilling across the earth like liquid fire. The flames leaped across the chasm-moat and splashed against the wall, sticking to the stone like burning pitch.

  “Now the trebuchet is too far,” Patrick said, wiping sweat and blood from his face. “They’ll have to move it again, but only one more time, and only a little ways.”

  Dark smoke roiled into the air.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Patrick slid off the back of Waylan’s horse. An invisible giant held his head in its grip, squeezing.

  “Boys...” he whispered to himself. “They were just boys.”

  He drew himself up, took a deep breath, and told himself Jakob and Josef were also knights, and a knight’s duty is often to die.

  Yet the squeezing sensation intensified. His skull swarmed with thoughts of Jon, Bisch, the dead villagers at the pit, Yvette, and Aimeé. He shut his eyes and tucked the images away in a dark corner of his mind, promising himself he’d face them later.

  The courtyard, already buzzing with the newly returned Avangarde, erupted when Corbin exclaimed, “Twenty? Are you sure?”

  The knight nodded solemnly, responding, “Or thereabouts. We could not retrieve the bodies to make a proper account, but Philip will put them on display. We’ll know then.”

  Corbin grabbed his curly hair and paced, looking about as if trying to find somewhere to run. His face alternated between determination to give orders and spasms of impotent grief.

  “That is a grave dishonor to leave so many of our comrades on the field,” he moaned, the light dimming in his eyes. “It’s my fault. All my fault. Bisch, Bisch...”

  He plucked at the gouges he had made on his gauntlets. The crowd of Avangarde started to look from one to another with concern.

  “We had no choice. It was all we could do to retrieve you,” Waylan consoled.

  “And without Teodorico as a prisoner...” Corbin mumbled, looking as if he might retch any moment.

  “We had to do something,” Waylan continued. “We couldn’t just wait here to be smashed to bits. Your plan was sound. If the girl’s voice hadn’t failed...”

  “The girl,” Corbin hissed, looking around furiously, “where is she? I demand to know what happened!”

  “Er, I saw her enter the church...” Waylan stammered, then moved to change the subject. “Sir, we need to prepare our next move. We need...”

  Corbin ignored him and shot towards the church.

  Before Patrick could chase after him, an excited Lucan approached with Smith, holding up a newly formed spearhead.

  “Where is Corbin going?” Lucan asked, some of the excitement leaving his face.

  “To do something rash, I think,” Patrick responded, a new concern constricting his heart.

  #

  A crowd followed Corbin as he marched up to the altar, where Chansonne stood.

  “You!” he railed at the child, pushing his way through the usual crowd of pilgrims and refugees. “What happened? Why did your voice fail?”

  Chansonne backed away, fear in her eyes.

  “Corbin, I don’t see how this helps anything,” Patrick shouted, close behind. “Leave her alone so we can plan.”

  “Plan?” Corbin said scornfully, turning on Patrick. “I had a plan! It would have worked! That is, until she let us down! Now I want to know why my friends are dead!”

  Chansonne ran to the far side of the altar and hid.

  “She doesn’t know why,” Patrick continued. “You saw her. She strained her voice just as if you or I had strained our sword arm. Now, let us go. The trebuchet will be in its final position soon and we have to do something. There are other options.”

  “Why?” Corbin continued to fume. “So we can delay the inevitable? Any minute now the largest siege engine I’ve ever seen, funded by a rat of a pope and his imperial supporters, is going to smash our walls so two thousand murderers and rapists can overwhelm us. They will bring that soul-sucking she-demon, as well. Jon did not make it to the mainland to warn Wolfgang and Marcus. There will be no rescuing army. We are alone!”

  As Corbin paced, he gestured wildly to the gawking spectators in the room. More people streamed into the building—Father Hugh, Mother Superior, and Geoffrey among them. The severity of the situation dawned on Patrick as he looked around the room at the faces. Despair began to spread through the room like a creeping fog, climbing people’s legs and swirling around their torsos, coming to rest on their faces, smothering them. Some started to cry. Fear and hopelessness infected each new person who entered the church. A knot formed in Patrick’s stomach and threatened to climb into his throat to choke him.

  “Corbin, what is wrong with you?” Patrick said, trying to keep his voice low so as not to travel too far in the echoing room. “Get it together. We need you.”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Corbin shouted, disregarding Patrick’s attempt at civility. “My eyes are opened, that’s what’s ‘wrong’ with me!”

  The knot in Patrick’s stomach twisted like a nest of snakes as Corbin’s darkness slowly crept towards him, accelerating when he saw Aimeé limp into the room under the assistance of Katherina and Candace. Rather than speculate why they had allowed her out of bed, Patrick moved to stop the poisoning despair filling the room before it could reach her.

  “Corbin, there is hope,” Patrick said loudly, shaking the darkness off
. “The spear is finished.”

  “It’s a little late,” Corbin scoffed. “Does it still have miraculous powers? Can Lucan hold the cup now?”

  Lucan looked down, abashed. “It was the first thing I tried when Smith found me. I still cannot hold the cup.”

  “Then so what?” Corbin laughed bitterly.

  “It can still rally the men,” Patrick retorted, “as it did at Antioch. And now that it’s complete, it can act as a weapon against Lilith; it can balance the battlefield.”

  “For what purpose?” Corbin continued to rail.

  “It can cut the trebuchet launch chain,” Waylan pointed out.

  “And how many more good people will we lose this time?” Corbin raised his hands in frustration, showing the marks on his gauntlets. “Maybe all of us will die this time. Even if we successfully destroyed the engine, they would just rebuild it before an army came to our aid. We should just give them the damn cup! Who cares, anyway? What has it done but cause us misery.”

  “You can’t mean that,” Patrick said, scowling, “not after everyone who has died for it.”

  “Yes, look at how many people have fought and died for it,” Waylan added, “and that is just here. Imagine what it will be like when it reaches Christendom under the control of a pretender pope. He will force that little girl to use it to his ends.”

  “Precisely,” Brian interjected, stepping forward. “If he can bring the dead back to life, then what is to stop him from raising dead soldiers just so he can send them back into battle again and again?”

  “Or bring the wealthy back to life who paid for it at the highest bid?” Father Hugh concluded.

  “I don’t care!” Corbin snarled. “Do you hear me? I don’t care anymore! Throw the thing and the girl over the wall and be done with it!”

  With that Corbin dove for Chansonne.

  “Take it!” he cried at her. “Take it and throw it over the wall!”

  Chansonne fled the altar and ran into Patrick’s arms. Corbin came to rest on the far side of the altar and slammed his hand on the marble, breathing hard.

  “I just want it to end,” he moaned, looking at the faces staring at him. “I just want things to go back to the way they were!”

  He swept the candles, flowers, and scriptural texts onto the floor in a cacophony of sound. He swiped last at the source of all the drama, but his hand passed futilely through the cup. He drew his dagger.

  “Bisch...” he mumbled, searching for a spot on his gauntlet.

  In frustration he ripped them off and hovered the blade over his bare hand. A gasp rippled through the room when all saw a series of cuts in his flesh. Some older, red and puffy, some recent and still oozing blood.

  A chill traveled up Patrick’s spine. He held up his own hand, examining the scar along his own palm.

  “Corbin, please stop,” Patrick said, compassion in his voice. He disentangled himself from Chansonne and stepped forward, placing a gentle restraining hand on Corbin’s wrist. “Don’t do this. Trust me, swallowing all the responsibility will only swallow you.”

  “Really?” Corbin sniffed a derisive laugh. “Because from where I’m standing, I’m feeling all alone, with each death hanging from my neck like a millstone.”

  “I know,” Patrick whispered, “and trust me, it will only get worse and drown you. Don’t let it. You are not alone.”

  “How do I keep it from drowning me?” Corbin almost shouted, and his face screwed up to near tears.

  Patrick froze. Yvette flashed across his mind for the thousandth time. He desperately wanted to know the answer to that question himself, yet it eluded him. At this most crucial of moments, however, he had to say something.

  Glancing again at the scar on his hand and feeling the weight of the stares of all assembled in the church, Patrick motioned Lucan forward.

  “By looking to the future for hope, and letting go of the darkness of the past,” he said, nodding to Lucan. “Miracles can happen.”

  Lucan held up the relic, now polished and sharpened. It gleamed silver, though it had a jagged dark scar worming its way across the upper third of the blade. Sunlight caught it, reflecting into Corbin’s face, creating a shimmering patch on his countenance.

  Corbin regarded it with fascination. Slowly, the pain and hopelessness melted from his face as he reached out and grasped the bottom portion. When he drew it near him, he peered long into the reflective surface. A hum filled the air, and the cup shimmered with sunlight.

  A smile spread across Corbin’s face and the darkness truly fled from him. He stood straighter.

  “Hope,” he whispered, and the light reflecting on his face turned red, then blue, then yellow. “God has sent a sign. A promise like that unto Noah after the flood.”

  “Corbin?” Patrick said, frowning quizzically.

  Corbin pointed up and behind him to the upper clerestory windows of the church while still looking into the mirror surface of the spearhead.

  All followed his finger to a brilliant rainbow hanging in the sky.

  Gasps filled the room.

  Corbin looked up to the crowd as if noticing them for the first time, like a waking sleepwalker.

  “Forgive me,” he said, chin held high. Though his voice held a tone of contrition, it came loud and strong so all could hear him. “I let despair get the best of me. You deserve better and I promise you I will not let it happen again. As God is my witness.”

  He pointed to the rainbow with the spearhead.

  Sighs of relief whispered through the room accompanied by a palpable release of tension.

  “That is more than a promise,” Patrick said, though not to Corbin. He regarded the rainbow. “That is a beacon—see—that is no ordinary rainbow. This is an Avalon rainbow.”

  “And?” Waylan asked.

  “In my home country, rainbows point to hidden treasure. A rainbow appearing in Avalon on a cloudless day can only point to one thing: the cave of treasure where I found the cup,” Patrick said.

  “What difference does that make?” Brian asked.

  “I’ve always argued the cup should be returned,” Patrick explained, “I believe now it can. It is as Corbin says, a promise from God. If we return it, peace will return, and it will truly be out of Teodorico’s grasp.”

  A light shone in Brian’s face. “The girl, she can take it!”

  “No!” Mother Superior protested. “She is just a child.”

  “A child whose voice can level a kingdom,” Brian argued.

  “And we need that voice to protect the keep from Lilith,” Geoffrey pointed out. “If she left, we would be exposed to that demoness.”

  Mother Superior shook her head in exasperation. “Her voice is strained from the attack on Teodorico’s tent. We don’t know if she can defend herself during a run for the cave, let alone defend Greensprings.”

  “The enemy doesn’t know that,” Waylan countered.

  Arguing ensued and fingers started to point.

  Patrick clenched his jaw, wanting to jump into the argument, but a disturbance at the edge of the crowd drew his attention.

  Corbin’s spectacle, the rainbow, and then the argument had distracted Patrick from Aimeé. Now he fought his way through the crowd to her side as she collapsed, pale as a ghost.

  “Whatever you do,” Katherina said angrily, “send Chansonne over here with the cup, first! We sent her for it ages ago!”

  The girl darted up the stairs, grabbed the cup as if it were the most ordinary of objects, and brought it to Aimeé. At first Aimeé hesitated, but after urging from Chansonne, she took the cup and drank.

  At first Patrick felt trepidation, recalling what troubles had ensued the last time the cup had touched her lips, but this quickly gave away to relief when color returned to her face and her eyes brightened. Without assistance, she stood on firm feet, back and shoulders straight and strong.

  “Thank you,” she said to Chansonne.

  She breathed deeply as she looked at the shocked faces staring
at her.

  “What is wrong?” she asked. “It is only healing. It is not as if I were raised from the dead again.”

  The implications hit Patrick like a rockslide.

  “Child,” Mother Superior pointed out, “you’re holding the cup.”

  Aimeé’s eyes widened as she realized the truth; she held the vessel in her hand.

  “It’s her!” Brian declared. “She will return the cup to the cave!”

  “What?” Patrick exclaimed, his head snapping towards Brian. “She can’t.”

  “It can’t be a coincidence,” Waylan added, “not with the rainbow appearing when it did.”

  Patrick tried to find a counter argument. Panic rose in him, seeing hope in all the faces around him. Yet he found no argument.

  “It was I who brought it here,” Patrick said, dipping his head in resignation, “so, if she is the one to return the cup, then I must go, too, and protect her.”

  Throughout much of the current debate, Corbin had remained silent, but now he spoke with calm logic. “No. The minute that madman Philip sees you enter the forest he will know something is afoot and come after you with a vengeance.”

  “So we will take a hundred men and protect her,” Patrick reasoned.

  Corbin shook his head. “That trebuchet is going to fire any moment. There is no telling how long it will take to return the cup. We will need every fighting man to stop the engine.” He swallowed hard, but set his chin firm. “However many of us die in the process.”

  Patrick paced. “But if we...”

  “But nothing,” Corbin cut him off. “If Philip sees anyone making a run for the forest, he should only see, at most, two random people fleeing the fighting. Not you. You must lead the charge on the trebuchet with Lucan and the spear, drawing all of Philip’s attention to give Aimeé any hope of slipping away unnoticed.”