By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2)

by David J. Houpt

  There, on the afterdeck, Darwyn said, pointing to their brother standing next to a goblin. New anger struck her as she saw their prey standing at ease with one of the oldest, worst enemies of Dunshor.

  Traitor! she thought, not finding the thought incongruous at all. She did think it odd that Lian—whose illusory appearance did not fool any of them, even Alec—was standing free of the railing instead of clutching the ship’s structures for dear life in the gale, but dismissed it as irrelevant.

  The other four people at the stern held her attention more than Lian, however. The helm was manned by three men, straining against the wheel to keep the merchantman from heeling over, but her gaze was immediately drawn to the woman lashed to the railing on the windward side of the helm. The woman’s hair whipped in the gale unbound, and her attention was wholly focused on Lian.

  She must be the necromant, Radiel said. Why else would she be outside in this gale, other than to ward and guard their quarry? Why else would she be watching their worm of a brother, other than to keep an eye out for hostile magics? No doubt, she’d felt the magical nature of the storm and brought her employer and his boggle servant out on deck so she could work her will against the magic.

  Why hasn’t she tried to fight back the storm? Alec asked, screaming in pain when Radiel utilized the lash on him, taking his question as defiance.

  Because the spell locus is up here out of her reach, darling brother, Darwyn said tauntingly, pleased that Alec was in pain, but only paying it a tiny fraction of the attention she typically would. Her eldest brother’s anguish was unimportant compared to the drive to strike at her youngest.

  Radiel turned to their other brother. Lightning on the helm, Keven. Darwyn, you and I will strike at the necromant together. All of us will remain at the edge of our engagement range, she ordered. The necromant might have spells that could compel, disrupt, or even destroy a wraith, and their attacks would originate from the rain and spray with no warning. With Lian’s defender out of the picture, and the merchant ship no longer under control, it would be a trivial matter to kill the prince.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  “There are Undead nearby,” Lord Grey said suddenly. “Two points past the starboard beam and high. There are…they’re casting!” Whatever else the necromancer was going to say would have to wait.

  Gem focused her formidable magical senses on the space between Lord Grey’s bearing and her prince, but the attack wasn’t directed at him. Whirling blades of green light descended on Olivia Quivell, driving her back off the railing, blood spraying from a dozen cuts. The blades were followed by a long spear of ice that pinned the lady merchant to the deck, splintering into shards as long as her arm to pierce the sides of her ribcage from the inside out.

  At the same moment, twin bolts of lightning crashed down on the helm, killing Qan and the others instantly, although the electricity didn’t even raise the hairs on Lian and Snog’s arms. The lightning scorched the helm post but didn’t destroy it, and the wheel began to turn to port.

  Lian didn’t have time to think about it; he leapt to the wheel and fought it back to starboard, straining against the rudder’s resistance with all of his might and ignoring the pain of the heat from the bolt. “Cut loose the sail!” he bellowed, the need to make way much less important than defense at the moment. “And you two get up here and man the helm!”

  Four of the sailors on the sheltered part of the main deck heard his well-projected command voice and hopped to without question. A fifth had seen the attack on Quivell, however, and he shook his head in terror and began running away from the stern. The four had been blinded by the lightning bolt—Bes’ hand, they were no doubt thinking—and two climbed up to the stern while the others hauled hard on the releases for the storm sail’s hawser. In the darkness they didn’t recognize Quivell’s body for what it was.

  The moment the sailors cut loose the sails, the storm winds blew the sail free, to whip out into the dark waves uncontrolled, the long lines allowing it to play out into violent but ineffectual irons. Indigo Runner lurched as the strain lifted from her mast, and Lian found it easier to push the helm over back to starboard. As the two sailors took the helm from him, he said, “Keep her angled into the waves as best you can.” Under sail, the ship’s bow had plunged beneath the waves, but Lian hoped it wouldn’t happen again with the sails no longer under tension.

  Leaving the men in control of the helm, he moved away from the wheel to look up into the darkness. “Where are they, Lord Grey?” he asked over the winds as he scanned the skies.

  “Waiting to see if the ship was going to capsize, I would imagine,” the skull replied. “There are four of them, Lian, all wraiths. They revealed their position to me when they cast the spells against the others.”

  At that moment, lightning crashed down on Lian and Snog, scorching the deck and shattering part of the railing. It would have been a fatal strike had the necromancer’s protection spell not been in place, and all four of them knew that was just the beginning.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Lian’s warded against lightning, Keven said, ceasing his storm-calling immediately to conserve his power for other purposes. And whatever other magic he’s got on him, he’s ignoring the wind and waves, too.

  His sisters nodded, considering what had just occurred. True, their strikes had come out of nowhere, but that “necromant” had died far too easily. None of the force of their spells had been blunted by the woman’s defensive magics, and a spellcaster strong enough to create the malaise they had all been feeling should have been a much more formidable target.

  We need to rethink this, Darwyn began, before breaking off in surprise.

  Despite Alec’s promises to his little sister that he’d wait for her order, he’d been waiting for a distracted moment, the promise forgotten nearly the moment he’d uttered it. Seeing an opportunity to escape as Radiel focused her attention on the aftereffects of their spellcasting, Alec yanked hard on the magic that held him connected to her, like a terrier suddenly lunging against its handler’s leash. All at once, the bond shattered and he hurtled down toward Indigo Runner, heedless of his own warning about the black-robe and heedless of Radiel’s instant and insistent shrieking that he stop.

  I’ll finish him! he called back to the others as he descended. Too long had he been under his sister’s yoke! And now the cause of that misery, Lian himself! was before him, and nothing would stop him! The other three wraiths watched helplessly as Alec surged ahead of them, a pale streak across the dark skies, aimed at their brother’s heart. Each of them longed to follow, to pounce, but they knew better than to make such a reckless assault. Elowyn had trained Lian well, and he would not be without defenses.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  The rain had stopped instantly, leaving the skies clear—if completely cloud-covered and black—and Lian spotted the attacking wraith at the same time as Gem. As the pale figure approached, he warned Snog to be ready. Drawing Gem, he took a ready, defensive stance. The necromancer’s voice was silent, to Lian’s surprise, but he didn’t have any attention to spare for the skull’s actions.

  The wraith flew faster than nearly any bird, and it grew close in frighteningly little time. As it neared, its form became more and more familiar to Lian, and his throat choked shut and his heart slammed its beats against his chest. “Alec,” he managed to say aloud, his heart breaking as the specter rushed toward him, arms outstretched toward Lian’s neck. It was unmistakably his oldest brother’s form, dressed in a spectral version of the armor he’d worn when he led Evan’s armies. While Lian hoped against hope that it was some kind of dark illusion, he knew it to be in vain; it was Alec.

  He could sense Snog beside him, Fang at the ready and, far stronger, he could feel Gem’s anguish at the apparition that was bearing down on them both at breakneck speed.

  Lian! Alec cried out, his voice clearly heard in the minds of everyone on deck. Now you die!

  The wraith’s exultation snapped him out of his horrified reverie in
time to leap aside, Gem slashing across the wraith’s side as Lian swung her with the muscle memory of long drilling. Gem’s mental anguish intensified as her deeply enchanted blade—strongest of all, enchanted against Undead—bit hard into the former Crown Prince’s form. The armor, as with all of a wraith’s accoutrements, wasn’t really there and did nothing to slow Gem’s progress.

  Had she been a living thing, her heart would have burst from the horror of cutting through the soul-form of the man who was, in effect, her oldest son.

  Lian turned as the wraith pulled back to the mainmast, careful to keep the Truesilver blade firmly between him and his opponent. “Alec,” he said, his voice filled with his grief. “Don’t do this, brother.”

  Alec’s scream of anguish and rage—directed solely at Lian—seemed to press in on Lian from every side, the sheer volume of it threatening in that instant to drive him mad, even though to everyone else, it was utterly silent. His elder brother swung about and flashed in to attack again, heedless of the blade that had wounded him on the first pass. Even Lian could see the wraith was far beyond reason, a ravening entity focused on one thing and one thing only: Lian’s destruction.

  Snog leapt onto the afterdeck’s forward railing, seeing that the wraith was going to ignore him, and as it passed, Fang slashed at Alec’s form. Despite the pain, the wraith didn’t flinch from his goal of clawing out Lian’s soul.

  Lian took full advantage of his lashthirin blade’s ability to interact with the ghostly creature, parrying its claw-like hands with painful effect, slicing pieces of what remained of his brother’s spirit apart as the Undead attacked. Unlike the wraith in Firavon’s Tower, there was no guile, no planning in Alec’s onslaught, and the spirit had no weapon, giving Lian the advantage of nearly three feet of reach. That advantage was largely offset by the sheer speed of the wraith, and had Alec been craftier in his attack, Lian might have been forced to make a fatal misstep. Even with Alec’s direct attack, Lian was giving ground across the afterdeck, his blade continuing to take its toll on the wraith’s form.

  Behind the elder brother, Snog was slashing steadily with his enchanted dagger, aiding in Lian’s defense, but very wary of the wraith turning on him. The dagger had proved immediately destructive of the lesser wraiths Lyrial had sent against them in the battle outside of Greythorn City, but whatever magic had created Alec’s Undead form was far better woven, and the goblin’s strikes accomplished little, even as a distraction.

  Both of Lian’s spellcasters had remained silent during the onslaught, for reasons Lian didn’t have time to ponder. In Gem’s case, it was shock and horror, and she struggled to shake it off. Do you want me to bring forth the spirit flames? she asked Lian haltingly as he parried Alec’s attacks. She referred to a permanent enchantment she could invoke through one of her gems. She’d used it in Firavon’s Tower to coat her blade in blue flames that were anathema to Undead.

  No, there’s the other three to worry about, Lian said, careful to maintain his concentration on Alec, and I’m hoping they don’t realize you’re here with me and intact. Rishak sent them, I’m sure of it, and I’m betting he thinks you destroyed. He changed his course across the afterdeck, careful not to let Alec pin him against the railing. His mental voice had gone cold, detached, and distant as he fought his brother with every scrap of swordsmanship he could muster.

  Alec suddenly broke off, forcing the alert Snog to roll to the side to avoid being passed through. The wraith pounced in a flash on the sailors manning the helm, and they screamed as his arms passed through them, ripping their souls asunder in his passage. That’s what I’m going to do to you, Lian! he exclaimed as their bodies fell to the deck, already dead. Not taking time to savor his victims’ demise, the wraith came back in screaming, ignoring the goblin and his magic dagger as no kind of threat at all.

  Lian raised his sword into an overhand defensive posture that he hoped Alec would recognize, seeing as he was the one who’d taught it to him.

  “Be careful, boy,” Lord Grey warned urgently, seeing immediately that the stance left his lower extremities completely exposed.

  The wraith didn’t let the skull say anything further, sweeping in high to attack, then suddenly dropping headlong onto the level of the deck to strike at Lian’s legs, but the prince had been expecting Alec to do just that and Gem flashed downward and across both of Alec’s arms, severing them as Lian agilely side-stepped the now-armless wraith. The lack of arms wouldn’t have mattered in the long run; Alec could have “grown” them back. A wraith’s limbs, appearance, and accoutrements were more a memory of what they were than necessary parts of their essence, but in the moment, to Alec, it felt like Lian had severed his arms.

  Redirecting the energy of his stroke, taking advantage of Alec’s sudden shocked immobility, he thrust Gem into the wraith’s head and the wretched form of his brother immediately dissipated into the sea spray and mist, obliterated completely.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Some small part of Radiel’s being was pleased that her troublesome idiot of an elder brother had been destroyed, but most of her mind was filled with inhuman rage at Lian’s temerity.

  Gods-damned moron didn’t even finish the goblin, Darwyn hissed angrily as they watched Lian fight past new bouts of nausea to recruit additional sailors to the helm. No magical defenses, no ward against us, and Alec couldn’t get the job done. She was clearly itching to rush down and show her two remaining companions how it should be done, but she was also wary, for all three of them still felt the necromantic magic; it had not ended with the woman’s death.

  Radiel stared at the remnants of the binding magic she’d used for so long to keep her brother in check. No spellcasting, she said. When Alec hesitated after killing the sailors, it was a perfect opportunity to blast his spectral form, but nothing happened.

  Keven nodded, eagerness beginning to fill his features. You’re right, R’iel, he said, using without realizing it the diminutive he’d often called her in affection when they were alive. If there were a caster down there, it was the perfect opening.

  Darwyn rolled her eyes in disgust. Or he was biding his time to see if Lian could handle Alec alone, she said in derision both of her siblings’ reasoning and Keven’s use of the endearment. They know we’re sorcerers, after all, and that there’s at least two if not three of us. It was a good guess that any mage still alive on Indigo Runner was aware that three near-simultaneous spells had struck the ship’s company.

  In other circumstances, Darwyn wouldn’t have risked displeasing Radiel—not only the most powerful but the one with the Queen’s favor—with her defiant words. It wasn’t worth the trouble. But with Lian so close, their goal at hand, she didn’t care what Radiel thought. Or even the Queen, for that matter.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Lian was bent almost double, one knee on the rain-soaked deck, clutching at Gem’s hilt out before him with both hands. Snog worried that he’d slip and the longsword would slice into him, for she was far sharper than any razor, but the prince kept his balance against the sword, her tip sunk inches into the deck. Lian’s eyes were clenched and his body wracked with sobs of anguish and pain. His grip tightened on Gem’s pommel as he rose, his eyes red and tears streaking back in the salt air.

  “UNCLE!!! AUNT!!!” he screamed into the sky. “Damn you! Killing them wasn’t enough?!? Murdering them wasn’t enough?!?? Gods damn you both!”

  He ripped Gem out of the deck and screamed as he slashed her down on the railing beside him, cutting through the wood as if it wasn’t even there with the supernaturally sharp lashthirin blade. “And you, Dalgarin!” he shouted. “You knew this was coming…!” He broke off suddenly, shaking his head so violently he saw spots before his eyes. He let Gem’s tip drop to the deck, though he kept his grip on her with his right hand. He took a deep shuddering breath and let it out.

  “Keven, Darwyn, and Radiel are out there,” he rasped, now comprehending the meaning of visions. It was, as Lord Grey had predicted, crystal clear in hind
sight. “All of them are accomplished casters, so this was just the beginning.”

  Gem said, “Can we assume any of the others are degraded like…the first…one was?” She couldn’t bring herself to say his name and wondered how she could even talk at all when all she wanted to do was scream and scream and scream. My blade has destroyed…I…have destroyed my son, the spellblade thought to herself miserably.

  Lord Grey replied, “Not unless a fifth assailant is in the clouds. The storm, the blade spell, and the ice spear were all the work of disparate casters.”

  Lian’s voice was laced with anger. “I said it’s the three of them,” he stated harshly. “I’m certain of it in fact! Debating it is meaningless!”

  “Go easy, milord,” Snog said, recoiling slightly as Lian turned on him, his face full of rage. The three companions watched Lian struggle with his long-suppressed anger, and somehow he choked the worst of it down.

  “You’re right,” he rasped. “Anger will only serve Rishak’s cause.”

  “More lightning!” Gem cried out as a bolt crashed down on Indigo Runner, slashing lines and smashing timbers. The foremast burst briefly into flame and a crack ran up its side. Lian could see that some of the crewmen had been close to the stroke, and several were now lying still on the main deck, their bodies moving about with the swaying of the ship. Another bolt struck the helm, killing more of the crew, and that was all it took to panic the remaining sailors. They fled the deck, piling down into the merchantman’s lower decks and closing the doors against the weather.