by Anna Thayer
Edelred spoke again. “But, Serpent,” he breathed, his voice thunderous in the hanging dark, “did you ever think what you would do should I refuse your spurious, ill-attempted grandiloquence?”
“Yes,” Hughan answered evenly.
“And what then?” Edelred’s face broke in a crushing laugh. “What then, Brenuin! What when you lose your life to me? What of your precious land and promise then, Serpent?”
Hughan remained silent. Eamon quivered. He wondered how long the King had grappled, in the countless long nights since he had learned of the right of his house, with the very fear that the throned now named.
Edelred peered at Hughan. “Have you no answer? Did it not come to you that, by your death, you would irrevocably commit all that is already mine to me?” Edelred laughed. “You have no heir, Serpent. You have no house, and without heir or house, this city and this land will have no other help. They will be mine.” He fixed Hughan with a penetrating stare. “Will you risk that, Star of Brenuin?”
For a moment Eamon nearly warned Hughan against the folly, for confronting the throned was surely just that. His trembling lips parted to speak, but before he could, Hughan met his gaze. It stilled him.
The King’s look, as he turned back to the throned, spoke of courage beyond measure.
“If you believe, Edelred, that this land’s promise is ended when my house falls,” he said, “then you know nothing.”
Edelred was unperturbed. “Then leave with your scales, Serpent, and let another bear it.”
“I will not.”
Suddenly there was light about Edelred’s palms. The same light flowed through him like blood. It pulsed crimson. As it grew, the walls and floors of the room flared with it until all was alight and the Nightholt blazed with wrath. All this fire Edelred raised into his hands and he looked hard at Hughan.
“Your blood will answer for your insolence.”
With a gesture that seemed enough to strike down a mountain, Edelred cast the fire from his hands. It cracked and lurched toward Hughan with monstrous speed, blinding in its intensity.
In that terrible moment Eamon thought that all was lost; in that moment he did not remember how the King’s voice had commanded Edelred’s to depart, nor how the King had stood before the palace artillery. In his fear he remembered nothing of the King until he saw Hughan lift his left hand. The blue light danced forth from it.
The flames in the air and in Edelred’s hands died at once, collapsed and dissipated in unearthly hisses and howls. Edelred flinched back with an angry cry.
As the light about Hughan grew, the floor of the room shook and the letters carved in it writhed and churned. The blue light washed over them and drove into them, binding them and breaking them until they fell still, never to glint more. The light ran on towards the Nightholt and engulfed it, dousing the hellish fire that lived on its pages.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the blue light faded away. Eamon’s breath returned to him. He felt that something terrible had been forced from the room.
In the silence that followed, Edelred glared balefully at Hughan; even Arlaith’s face was agog. The King stood calmly and lowered his hand.
“Edelred, once more I ask you,” Hughan said. Eamon heard a patient earnestness in his voice that he had never before known. It was then that he understood that the King truly sought the throned’s surrender. “Turn from your works and receive my mercy.”
But the throned did not answer. Instead Edelred reached to his neck and unfastened his great cloak. He cast it aside with a grand gesture, revealing the glinting, gold-hued plate beneath. Then Edelred drew his sword. The blade was long and broad, riven with letters such as the Nightholt bore, and the weapon’s gilded hilt was bejewelled and finely wrought. As Eamon looked at it the blade glistened red, as though it were already stained crimson by Hughan’s blood.
Silently Hughan drew his own blade. The swordsong as it came from its scabbard was unlike anything Eamon had ever heard, filling his heart with wonder. The King’s cross-guard had on it two unicorns, and a long shining snake had been crafted about the hilt. The blade itself shone like living silver.
The throned laughed. “Your light will not save you. Your blood will go down into the dust, Serpent,” he snarled.
Suddenly Edelred turned the blade in his hands and stabbed for Hughan’s face. The King parried the piercing blow at once, turned Edelred’s sword away, and returned with a strike of his own. The throned blocked.
The two stepped back from each other. Edelred smiled softly as he prowled about the King, flexing his fingers on the hilt of his blade. Hughan moved with him, watching him carefully.
As the King and the throned clashed again, Eamon saw movement from the corner of his eye. He turned.
Now that his Master and the King fought, Arlaith seemed to have been loosed from whatever had held him still and silent so long. Eamon noticed that the Hand had dispensed with the yellow-trimmed cloak he had borne into battle, and his cloak now showed the red trim of the Right Hand.
For a moment Eamon felt a stab of envy, but it did not last. Arlaith took a step closer to the table. Though his face was turned to the duel between King and throned, Arlaith’s eyes glanced every now and then to where the Nightholt lay.
Hating to take his eyes from the King, Eamon firmed his grip on his sword and swiftly stepped to the table. In his distraction, Arlaith did not see him coming until Eamon had reached his side. Hughan’s First Knight halted there and turned the point of his sharp blade towards Edelred’s Right Hand. Seeing the glint of the sword Arlaith looked at him, first in surprise and then in hatred. The Nightholt was but a hand away.
“Don’t touch it,” Eamon commanded grimly.
Arlaith fell back a pace from the table. Eamon glanced back at the King; he and the throned engaged in a series of feints, testing each other’s skill. Neither man had yet been hit, though both came perilously close to receiving crippling wounds. Despite his armour and the fatigue of the morning’s battle, Hughan moved agilely. Edelred seemed almost twice the King’s strength but still he landed no blow – but neither did the King.
Trying to keep half an eye on Arlaith, Eamon watched the two opponents fall apart again. The hall rang with the sound of their swords.
Suddenly Edelred put all his force into a hacking blow aimed at Hughan’s throat. The King quickly turned his own blade, blocking the blow with the flat of it. As he did so, Edelred tore back his sword and pivoted it round with terrifying speed and equal force to strike against the other side of the King’s neck.
As the sword came round, Hughan brought his left arm up. There was a shrill ringing as Edelred’s sword jarred against the King’s gauntlet. The judder ran through Hughan’s hand. A look of enraged surprise flashed across Edelred’s face.
In that moment of surprise Hughan brought his sword down in a powerful stab towards Edelred’s stomach. The throned twisted back and left with a furious cry, escaping the blow. But the motion forced him to withdraw his blade. As Edelred prepared to re-enter the fight, Hughan raised his sword from the stab, drawing the blade thickly across the throned’s abdomen.
Edelred howled as tabard and flesh split before the blade, and blood issued from the wound. It ran in great gushes down the throned’s side. Edelred drove his left hand over the gash.
Hughan returned with another blow. With a cry of humiliated rage, Edelred blocked it. He stepped back a pace. Hughan turned the blade in his hands and brought his sword back for another attack. He stabbed it across Edelred’s left arm where the gilded vambrace ended.
The blade sheered across the throned’s left hand. Blood thickened Edelred’s armour.
Eamon gaped at the two men. Why did the throned not use the red light? Was he too afraid? – or unable?
Eamon’s heart rose into his throat in fearful anticipation.
Would Edelred fall?
He glanced at Arlaith. The Right Hand’s face was paler now than Eamon had ever seen it.
Edelred’s calculated and confident style disappeared. With a thunderous cry – and slashes thick and furious enough to match it – the throned launched himself at Hughan. Hughan gave back before the sudden onslaught. The King’s face set in hard concentration as he sought to deflect Edelred’s rage.
The throned struck down powerfully for a cut at Hughan’s left side; the King blocked. The two swords locked together. The force jarred through both men.
Edelred turned and drove the strength of his whole bloody body against Hughan. He jammed his left forearm up hard into Hughan’s gorget. A series of unintelligible screams came from Edelred’s lips. The King staggered. Edelred ground his armoured arm hard against the King’s throat. Hughan’s sword was still locked against Edelred’s; he was pinned.
Edelred roared with vicious laughter. Hughan slammed his sword hard along the length of Edelred’s blade until his own cross-guard hit the throned’s steel. The King twisted the guard, wrenching the sword away from Edelred’s hand. At the same time, the King took his free arm and brought his gauntleted hand down hard into Edelred’s elbow.
Edelred’s arm came away from the King’s neck. The throned’s sword spun across the floor. Eamon drew a gaping breath.
He should not have stared so long. As the sword clattered to the bloody floor, Arlaith dived forward. A second later the Right Hand dashed to the rear of the chamber at a break-neck speed. He tore aside one of the room’s long drapes, revealing a door. Arlaith wrenched it open and disappeared down into darkness.
The Nightholt was in his hands.
For a second, Eamon froze in horror and surprise. Then he bolted towards the door.
“Arlaith!”
The door was narrow and opened into a stairwell crammed with darkness. As Eamon peered into it he heard Arlaith’s mad clatter down the steps. Eamon heard cries behind him, heard the throned’s voice caught in a great roar of agony, but he could not look back.
He rushed down the stairs in Arlaith’s wake. The Right Hand’s shadow, a tantalizing and fleeing shade, raced ahead of him. It goaded him on until Arlaith reached the foot of the stairs ahead of him. The Right Hand broke into a run down the ensuing corridor.
“Arlaith!” Eamon yelled again. He heard a distant cry behind him. A searing pain shot through his head and palm. It was pain wrought with a scream so piercing that he had to take his balance against the stairwell. Arlaith came to a staggering halt a short distance ahead of him. The Right Hand groped for a wall as he also clutched at his head.
Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the throbbing pain in his brow and hand vanished. Eamon felt a wash of release that left him with peace. Arlaith’s face was greyed and sickened. As their eyes met across that long corridor, they both knew what had happened.
Edelred was dead.
For a moment as long as eternity they stared at each other. Eamon’s heart pounded. Arlaith’s swift breath resounded in the hall. He held the Right Hand’s gaze, somehow also holding him still by it, and for a moment he believed that Arlaith would not flee further.
“It’s over, Arlaith,” he said, and laughed quietly. They were both free. “Over.”
The Hand’s fingers tightened on the Nightholt. A steely glint filled Arlaith’s eyes.
“You’re wrong,” he answered, and took to his heels once more.
“Arlaith!” Eamon yelled, stunned, but the Hand was already a shrinking figure in the dim expanse of the corridor.
With a cry Eamon charged after him, his armour hampering his movement at every turn. “Arlaith, it’s over! Arlaith!”
But the Right Hand did not heed him. He turned down another corridor. Forcing as much strength as he could into his limbs, Eamon pressed after him. Where did the Hand think he could go?
As he whirled into the next corridor, he saw something shining on the ground. He just had the time to realize that it was Arlaith’s cloak clasp before he saw a puddle of darkness covering the floor. He vaulted the cloak, almost losing his footing as a fold of the garment tripped him. Eamon swore and looked up to see Arlaith pitch himself through a doorway into another room. He followed.
The room was broad but short. There was another doorway at the far side. The room’s windows looked down across an interior garden. Dust caught in the streaks of sunlight that fell from the window.
Arlaith took to one side of the room by a long table. Eamon did not stop to wonder why the Hand did; he only cared that he had stopped.
“It’s over,” Eamon called again, coming to a breathless halt. “He’s dead, Arlaith, and there is nowhere in this palace or this city that you can go.”
Arlaith cast him a withering look. “You think you can outrun me?” he laughed. With horrid foreboding Eamon realized that the man was barely out of breath.
“You will not outrun me,” he managed, “and you will not hide from me. I will follow you and I will find you, and I will fight you if I must. But before you run or fight, Arlaith, know that the King’s mercy is also for you. Surrender yourself and the Nightholt, and receive it.”
Arlaith smiled at him. Something about it rocked Eamon’s very core.
“You would have me take the Serpent’s mercy?” the Right Hand asked. “Why is that, Lord Goodman? Perhaps it is because you know that, if I fight you, the next your precious Serpent will find of you is a ruddy mulch in a dark corner?”
“I would have you take it for your own sake,” Eamon answered earnestly.
“Oh, for my own sake?” Arlaith laughed again. “That’s Lord Goodman all over! Always the altruist, always thinking of the other man, whatever his colour. Always trying to do good, always trying to save, always trying to salve his own conscience. It has entertained me,” he added, and as he spoke he set the Nightholt down on the table. “The Raven’s Bane, the Right Hand, the law-maker, the Quarter Hand, the Head-bringer, the Line-defier, the Hand, the first lieutenant, the sword-render, the lieutenant, the ensign, the cadet. That’s my Goodman.” He smiled delightedly and his eyes took on a vicious, sinister sheen. “That’s my Ratbag.”
Eamon’s blood ran cold. He stared.
Arlaith’s eyes fixed on him, smiling and goading. Horror and dread churned in every fibre of his being.
“What did you call me?” Eamon whispered.
Arlaith cocked his head pleasantly to one side. “Oh, I’m sorry – perhaps you did not hear me properly? And who can blame you?” he cooed. “You’ve had a very difficult year.”
As he spoke, Eamon recognized the strange familiarity that he had always seen in Arlaith’s face. It twisted and shivered until it tore away. In its place appeared another face that was known to him. The dark eyes, the unkempt hair, the athletic build – but most of all, the smile.
Eamon lurched as that face smiled, and smiled, and smiled at him.
“Poor Eamon,” it said. “Poor Ratbag.”
Eamon stared at him. A torturous, cantankerous sickness coursed through his veins, devouring each, one by one. The man before him laughed.
It could not be.
“Did you honestly never figure it out?”
Eamon reeled. He scarcely registered the sword in the man’s hand.
“But then, you always were a little dense.” The man laughed again.
Ladomer laughed.
“You had better hope that you’re as thick-skinned as you are headed!”
Ladomer lunged at him.
Eamon’s shaking limbs struggled to respond. He brought his blade up, and barely managed to parry.
Ladomer struck and held the quivering blades together in a vicious and binding block.
“Well, Ratbag,” Ladomer said cheerily, “isn’t this fine?”
He tore his blade from the bind and stepped back a moment; the hilt slipped in Eamon’s hands. He tried to strengthen his grip and his resolve.
“Ware left,” Ladomer cried, stabbing for Eamon’s left shoulder.
Eamon parried but knew that Ladomer toyed with him.
“Ware right!”
Another
clash of blades as Ladomer thrust again. “Very good, Cadet Goodman,” Ladomer crooned. “So very good. Have you been practising?”
“Stop!” Eamon’s voice leapt suddenly to his throat in an angry, grief-fretted cry.
“Tired already?” Ladomer clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Oh dear. Ware!” he cried, and came down hard for Eamon’s face. Eamon blocked the blow, more forcefully this time.
“Stop!” he yelled. Tears burned deep in his eyes.
“Are you at all well read, Mr Goodman?” Ladomer came in with a sweep at Eamon’s arms that forced him back a pace. “I’ve heard some say that you should have considered the university. Had you gone you might have read some of the early epics, or the great sagas out of the north, maybe even a little of the River Poet. I’m told that close reading of some of his tragedies will lead you to the conclusion that spurning the path laid out for you is somewhat arrogant – the erudite call it hubris – and leads to rather unfortunate consequences.”
He laughed and swept down at Eamon’s arm again – an easy parry. Eamon knew that Ladomer knew it. “Yet you have done it. Such hubris! What is it that your friend Anderas used to say?” he added thoughtfully. “Something about style? He forgot, I suppose, that there is only one viable end for a gentleman of such a calibre as yourself. It is so unfortunate that he won’t ever hear how you matched it.”
Eamon parried another blow and gaped. Ladomer feigned surprise.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” he said. “I had your good captain shot this morning. It was a good deal easier than killing Greenwood, or your servants, or those infernal cadets of yours. An arrow loosed in battle strikes, as they say, where it strikes.”
A horrific image leapt before Eamon’s eyes, of Anderas impaled by a black feathered arrow and lying on the plain before Dunthruik in a pool of his own blood.
Ladomer came forward with a cutting blow aimed at Eamon’s neck. Eamon stumbled back to avoid it. His limbs felt weary and his heart grossly weighted. He wanted to cry out his rage – but the face before him was the face of a man he loved.
