by Bruce Blake
This isn’t how it happened.
The dragon reared on its hind legs throwing Khirro to his back. He closed his eyes against the pain, the scar this very dragon gave him pulsing and throbbing.
Something changed.
The smell of brimstone disappeared and a feeling of floating overcame him as the pressure of his back against the dragon’s belly melted away. He opened his eyes to murky water, silt stinging them. He didn’t have to guess where he was this time; he knew what hid somewhere in the tangled weeds. The surface of the lake moved above him, sunlight flashing on waves. He kicked his legs and stroked with his arms, struggling toward it.
The serpent came at him out of nowhere, its nose slamming into his stomach, forcing out what little air his lungs struggled to hold. Its tail whipped his face sending him spinning, making it impossible to tell up from down. He fought to right himself without knowing where to find right. The surface winked at him and he stroked for it, lungs shrieking for air.
The muscles in his limbs burned, tiring with the lack of oxygen, but instead of coming closer, the surface floated farther from his reach. A dark shadow cut between him and the distant surface, a long, slender body blocking what little light filtered through the murk.
The light vanished. Khirro struggled, but his arms and legs gave out. His mouth opened involuntarily, desperate for air, and his lungs drew silty water, his mouth filling with the dirty taste. He sank, closing his eyes in the darkness of the lake’s depths.
On hands and knees, he opened his eyes coughing imaginary water from his lungs, gasping for air. He looked down at brown pine needles and ancient moss under his hands as he panted, not daring to feel relieved. It was dark, though not dark like in the tunnel.
A scream broke the still, a cry of terror Khirro recognized as Elyea’s. He scrambled to his feet and clamored to the crest of the hill, twigs and branches scratching his face and hands. A fire blazed in the small valley below; Elyea lay on the ground bound by thick hemp rope. Across the fire pit sat the giant, the tip of his spear resting amongst the flames. He pulled the weapon from the fire and jabbed it into her ribs provoking another shriek.
Khirro called out but had no voice. He rushed down the slope and a root caught his foot, sending him tumbling. By the time he stopped himself, the giant had moved to Elyea. It grabbed a handful of rope, lifted her from the ground as though she weighed nothing, and shifted its grip on the spear. Righting himself, Khirro ran, shouting voicelessly, wishing he had the Mourning Sword he so carelessly laid aside.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
Real or not didn’t matter, he had to save Elyea. He loved her.
The giant smiled, lips curled back from rotted teeth as the tip of his spear penetrated between Elyea’s legs. She screamed. The beast pushed harder; blood pooled beneath her, turned the ground into a grisly mud. Khirro rushed on, though he knew it was too late. Rage boiled in him as the giant continued skewering Elyea like a turkey on a spit.
Her screaming ceased.
Khirro slammed into the beast, kicking and scratching, punching and biting. The giant grunted in surprise, then flicked him away with a backhand swing the way a man might shoo a fly. Khirro reeled backward, barely keeping his feet. When he looked up, he stared once more into Elyea’s wide green eyes. The head of the spear protruded from the top of her chest. As it pierced his throat, her face was in front of him, her lips touching his one last time.
The giant withdrew the spear, taking her away from him, and Khirro fell to his knees. Air wheezed through the hole in his throat, blood flowed down his chest.
Why is it different?
The giant’s laughter rang in his ears as his eyelids slid closed and he slumped forward, his lifeblood pooling beneath him. Then cold dirt pressed against his cheek-not needles or moss or mulch, just dirt: a farmer’s nose knew the difference.
Where am I now?
He opened his eyes to dim light he didn’t recognize as the waning light of twilight or the sign of coming dawn. He rolled to his back, hand going to his throat where he found no wound, only stubble. Wiping dirt from his cheek, he peered about to determine where he’d ended up this time.
Dried mud walls surrounded him, cracked and broken. Thatch covered half the roof, the rest open to the stars struggling to be seen in a washed-out sky. The haunted village. A shudder crawled along Khirro’s spine: the giant, the serpent, the dragon were all fearsome, but there was something horrific about the village and the children trapped inside its walls.
He heard Elyea’s voice again, but not in a scream of terror. He sighed, relieved. His mind recognized this was a dream, or perhaps a vision manipulated by someone or something else, but he still worried for her safety.
It seems so real.
Standing on shaky legs, he crossed the dirt floor and pushed open the broken door hung askew in the doorway. Elyea lay naked on the ground in the middle of the clearing, writhing and moaning as a corpse lay atop her thrusting, grinding its hips into her. The dead man looked up at him, bleached white flesh pulled taut across his face, eyes glazed, but he still saw the face belonged to Ghaul.
Something brushed Khirro’s ankle. He ignored it, enthralled and disgusted by the sight before him. He watched embarrassed, excited and angered but unable to avert his eyes.
It’s not real, he told himself again. It’s not real.
The thought didn’t ring with truth.
The sun rose more quickly than it should, casting harsh light on the village, forcing night and shadow into hiding. With the sunlight, Khirro better saw the hideous coupling before him and realized it wasn’t Elyea lying on the ground grunting and moaning with pleasure. It was her voice but Emeline’s face peered lustily up at the waxen face above her. The corpse was no longer Ghaul, either, but Khirro’s brother.
He stared at Khirro, a dead grin stretching his blue lips. Emeline’s swollen belly compressed and expanded beneath his weight, flattening and stretching with each thrust. His eyes met hers and they stared back at Khirro red and black and vacant, dead eyes perched above her mouth as it twisted and contorted in a mockery of pleasure. The urge to call out caught in Khirro’s throat.
Something brushed Khirro’s calf again and he allowed his attention to shift from the hideous copulation twisting in the dirt. He looked down on a pale hand grasping his pant leg, dirt caked under its broken nails. Khirro jumped away.
Bodies writhed on the floor of the hut: young and old, male and female. Their wrinkled, sagging flesh clung to the bones beneath, hanging in sheets with black, dirt-filled veins showing through. Khirro took a step away, hand reaching for the sword he knew lay on the ground of the cavern, wherever that may be.
A figure separated itself from the others-a man whose flesh retained more color than the others, as though recently dead-and lurched toward him. It only took a second for Khirro to recognize Shyn.
Blood trickled from a chest wound, leaving a trail down to his waist and staining his groin. Gray feathers poked through his skin in places, giving him the look of a man poorly tarred and feathered. He held a sword; his eyes gleamed. Khirro sucked a breath in through his teeth and took another step away. His foot hit something too soft to be rock, though there had been nothing on the ground in the clearing when last he looked. Of course, he hadn’t been killed by a dragon, a serpent or a giant, either. The thing against his foot twitched.
And then it cried out.
Tiny and high-pitched, the sound was unmistakable. Revulsion roiled in Khirro’s gut before he looked. With time to put thought to it, he might have expected the mud child-a dream within the dream-but when he looked down, he found the baby at his foot wasn’t the mud baby at all. Strings of dark blood shone against porcelain skin and blank, black eyes like pieces of coal against the snowy face stared up at him. Expectantly? Accusingly?
Khirro’s body trembled. The baby was boy and girl, both tiny sex organs fighting for space between its skinny legs. The umbilical cord, still attached, trailed onto the
ground and across the clearing, dirt clinging to its shiny wetness. Khirro traced its path with his eyes, already knowing where it would end.
Emeline stood at the center of the clearing, the flesh of her empty belly hanging loose like a sail awaiting the wind. The cord snaked between her legs, still attached to a dead placenta awaiting its own birth. She swayed side to side as she stared and raised her arm to point a finger at him as if saying this was his fault. Her lips parted but no moan of pleasure came from them this time, only a lifeless, soul-less croak. Khirro wanted to say something, to apologize. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he realized the corpse with his brother’s face had disappeared, then he remembered the dead Shyn creeping up behind him.
The sword pierced Khirro’s side before he turned. He looked down at the blade inserted between his ribs, saw the blood oozing around the steel, then glanced up into the face of the sword-wielding corpse. He expected Shyn, or his brother, but the face belonged to neither.
The look on the corpse-Ghaul’s face might have been comical under other circumstances: unseeing eyes, leering grin, sagging cheeks. Blood flowed down Khirro’s side, soaked his clothes. He felt it pulse out if him with each beat of his heart. Ghaul’s gnarled hand reached beneath his tunic, pulled the vial of king’s blood from its hiding place.
“Mine,” the Ghaul-corpse croaked through purple lips and yellow teeth.
It withdrew the blade from Khirro’s side and his strength went along with it. His knees buckled and his head hit the ground, bounced, came to rest facing the unnaturally pale baby. Its cold, black eyes stared at him. Even as he felt his own breath fade, he knew the baby also ceased drawing air.
A tear rolled down Khirro’s cheek as his eyes slid closed.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Therrador emerged from the tunnel into the wan light of the new moon, the fortress wall looming at his back like a huge beast ready to pounce. He controlled his breathing, taking quiet, shallow breaths that wouldn’t be heard should anyone be nearby; he’d called off the skirmishers tonight, but one could never be too careful.
He pulled the black cloak close about his chest and crept away from the fortress. With no cover, stealth would be necessary to keep from the notice of the patrols atop the wall. Chunks of stone from catapult fire interspersed with the bodies of both Kanosee and Erechanian soldiers littered the base of the wall, making the footing treacherous as he moved toward the salt flats. Therrador had been a soldier too long for the sight of dead men to affect him, so he ignored the corpses and concentrated on picking his way through the clutter.
Little wind rolled in from the Bay of Tears, leaving the water smooth and glassy; a coolness had come to the air, removing any doubt summer was waning, autumn coming to the land. This business would be done before the first snowfall. As Therrador crept forward, a chill gripped him and he clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.
He stopped.
Still no wind to set him shivering. He glanced around and wasn’t surprised when he saw a black-cloaked figure nearby, a vague silhouette against the dark sky. They faced each other, neither speaking nor moving, but he knew who this person was. Therrador finally broke the silence.
“Why did you summon me?” They were far enough from the fortress there was no chance any might hear, but he still kept his voice hushed.
“You think to cheat me.” The voice might as easily have emanated from the sea as from the silhouette.
A woman.
He hadn’t been in the presence of the Archon before, only communicated in other, more mysterious ways.
“You’re mistaken.”
“Do not lie to me.” She moved closer.
Therrador’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword as he searched the dark around them, wondering if soldiers hid in the night.
“I know your thoughts. You think Braymon’s blood is lost and you have no more need of me or our agreement.”
He gripped the hilt more tightly, shuffled his feet. “It’s not true,” he said knowing his words wouldn’t convince this woman, Archon or not. If she wasn't the Archon, why send a woman against him?
“We have an agreement. The kingship will be yours tomorrow. You must pay what you owe.”
“And if I don’t?”
He tensed as he spoke, expecting one of the hideous undead to leap out of the darkness and put a blade to his throat, but only the figure before him moved as she removed her hands from her sleeves. In the dim moonlight he could make out long nails at the end of slender fingers. She didn’t respond, instead gesturing curtly with her hands.
A signal!
Therrador spun about and pulled his sword from its scabbard, but there was no one there. He looked back toward the woman to see the air between them shimmer and move. He lowered his weapon, stared at the shifting air. Colors swirled, blurred at first, then solidifying into a sight that made Therrador’s breath catch in his throat.
A vision of Graymon floated before him, the boy sleeping under a woolen blanket, his breath shallow and easy. It was not his own canopied bed in which he lay, but a makeshift bed on a pile of straw. The wall behind him moved with an unseen wind, billowing the green material.
A tent.
“What is this?” Therrador demanded, but he already knew what it meant.
“Your son is my guest. He will not be harmed.” A figure entered the vision, a decayed face peering from under a rusted helmet. It knelt beside the sleeping boy, looked at him, then peered directly out of the vision into Therrador’s eyes. “As long as you do as you said you would.”
Therrador leaped forward, sword flashing out at the cloaked figure. The edge of the blade passed through the silhouette but touched nothing. He might have thought the woman an apparition until her fist slammed into the side of his head sending him to the ground. He rolled to his back ready to defend himself despite of his blurred vision, but the woman only looked down at him serenely.
“Do nothing stupid and you will have your boy back in time. If not, your reason for wanting to be king will die with him.”
He stared at the woman as an unfamiliar feeling of helplessness churned his gut. If anything happened to Graymon, everything would be for naught-Braymon’s death, his wife Seerna’s death, everything.
“I will do as you wish,” Therrador said, resigned.
“As we agreed,” the woman corrected.
“As we agreed.”
The air swirled again and the vision disappeared as though dispersed by an unfelt wind.
“We will meet again after the coronation. Watch for my riders a week after you take the crown.”
The silhouette wavered and disappeared leaving Therrador alone sitting on the hard ground of the salt flats, staring at the empty air where she’d been seconds before. The gentle lap of water on the shore found his ear and somewhere out over the sea, a gull cried out-lonely sounds that made him miss his son.
“I will have you back, Graymon.”
The gull cawed an answer as Therrador gained his feet and made his way back to the fortress.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The cavern glowed blue again.
Khirro blinked the rocks and distant walls into focus. He lay on his side, cheek pressed against the ground, one hand immersed in the cool water of the glowing blue puddle. Gingerly he pushed himself upright, head hurting fiercely-he must have banged it when he passed out. The light was harsh and bright to his eyes, his dry throat felt raw and hurt when he swallowed.
How much time has passed?
A dull red glow caught his eye, a warm contrast to the ubiquitous blue light. The Mourning Sword lay on the rocky ground, his gauntlet crumpled beside it. He stretched out to retrieve them, stopped by a pain shooting through his side. His bare hand came away clean when he touched the spot-no blood, only pain. He sat for a minute, shaking his head minutely, confused. Everywhere he’d been injured in his… dream? Vision? Hallucination? Every place a deadly blow struck, his flesh hurt. Perhaps more truth and reality h
id within the vision than he realized.
He drew a sharp breath as he remembered the corpse with Ghaul’s face reaching inside his tunic. His hand went to the hidden pocket, grabbed for the vial.
Gone.
Khirro’s gut wrenched. He jumped to his feet, ignoring his throbbing head, the pain in his throat and abdomen, and snatched up his sword and glove. The feel of the hilt in his hand comforted him, something he would have never imagined could be true. It had always been pick or shovel that fit his hand.
How things change.
The scrollwork on the black blade glowed dully until his hand wrapped around the hilt, then it brightened as though it drew energy from his touch. Grinding his teeth, he crept around the rock hiding his companions without knowing why he felt the need for stealth. Part of him expected to find they’d been slain in their sleep. Another part wouldn’t have been surprised if they lay in wait to ambush him.
His foot sent a pebble skittering across the ground, a small sound made loud by the cavern’s quiet. He paused but saw no sign the noise disturbed anyone. He moved again, more careful of his footing.
He rounded the curve of the huge boulder and was mildly surprised to find his companions alive and sleeping exactly as he’d left them. Athryn lay closest to him. Khirro went to him-the only one who hadn’t been in his hallucination, perhaps the only one to be trusted. He pressed the tip of his boot lightly against the magician’s thigh and his eyes slid open immediately like he’d been waiting for the sign to wake. Khirro signaled for him to be quiet and follow and the magician did without question, moving with the natural ease and grace Khirro envied.
“The vial is gone,” Khirro told him with the boulder safely between them and the others. Droplets of water plopped into the puddle of water from which he’d drunk, distracting him. When he looked back, Athryn had removed his black sleeping mask. He watched Khirro, a look of concern twisting his scarred face into cracks and crevasses.
“What happened?”
Khirro told him most of the vision, leaving out details about Emeline, his brother and the baby because he didn’t want to think about them or what it meant. Athryn listened, brow furrowed, neither nodding nor commenting until Khirro finished.
