Despite the pain, he focused on the sole task of removing the poison. Because of its malignancy, it was more difficult to eradicate than the drug, but the methodical process was the same. Being encased in stone and soil helped immeasurably, since he could draw bits of earth into his body through the open wound and dispatch them as needed. He wasn’t concerned about the negative effects of having dirt in his body - long term impacts were the least of his worries. As The Lord of Earth, he could cleanse them away later. Their presence in his blood wasn’t good but it was the best of bad alternatives. For the moment, this was all about survival. Once that goal had been achieved, he could consider what was next. Someone was going to pay. The desire for revenge stoked his survival instinct.
* * *
Three crimson blossoms marred her previously pristine dress. Myselene had sprouted arrows in both legs and on her left side, just below the ribcage. At some point, she had lost her footing and now lay in a heap on the floor, watching in numb horror as her protectors were systematically butchered. Her eyes raked the room for Sorial but she couldn’t find him, although she knew he had been one of the first to drop. Sound tactical strategy - take out the wizard first. It was an ominous sign that she was still alive. Greeg’s intentions weren’t merely to eliminate her. He wanted her taken alive, although she doubted that condition would persist for long.
Strangely, there wasn’t much pain, although at least two of the arrows - the ones in her legs - were deeply embedded. The shaft was all the way through her left calf, with the head having emerged on the far side. Shock was likely holding the pain at bay; at the moment, she was too stunned to feel much of anything. She would have been frightened for her baby’s safety if her own survival wasn’t so much in doubt.
It wasn’t a fair enough fight to be considered a battle. With archers above and swordsmen below, those loyal to her didn’t stand a chance. The butchery lasted less than five minutes, although it seemed to go on forever. No one except Myselene and those neutral or aligned with Greeg was left standing. When it was all over, the door behind the throne opened to admit another figure. He was wearing a priest’s robe with the hood pushed back. The face was so like that of a young King Rangarak that Myselene wondered for a moment if she was hallucinating. Then she assembled the pieces. From the beginning, she had viewed Rathbone as her most dangerous adversary. Now, too late, she recognized that her suspicions had been true. His capitulation had come too easily and at too mild a price. She should have remained wary but instead had chosen to believe something because it was what she wanted rather than because it was likely.
“Hello, sister,” he said in a calm, quiet voice as he approached her. He might look like Rangarak but his voice was different. The timber was more gentle. The footfalls of his hard-heeled boots echoed off the chamber walls. Everything else was silent - everyone watching, waiting. “Our acquaintance will of necessity be brief but I wanted to meet you before the end and to thank you for opening the path to the throne for me. You proved to be the unifying force that Obis needed. Without you, no doubt Otto and Greeg would have spent the next year vying for the crown while I was forced to continue waiting in the temple. After removing the rest of your family from contention, I sent a man to Vantok to finish the job but, by the time he got there, war had muddied the picture. I’m so glad you gave me this opportunity to finish things. I hate loose ends.”
Radiating menace, Greeg stepped forward. His well-honed blade was unsheathed but hadn’t yet tasted blood. His underlings had done all the killing.
“Get him out of here or shut him up,” he barked at one of his men, indicating the whimpering vice-prelate, who lay near Myselene. The soldier moved quickly, helping the priest to his feet and escorting him out the entrance through which Rathbone had arrived. Although Greeg might have no compunctions about killing priests, most men still venerated them.
With the distraction removed, the general’s attention was focused on his prisoner. “Let it be known, Your Highness, that this is an execution. You’re not going to be kept prisoner in some dungeon. There are equal parts value and justice in your death. Some present here - the legalistic ones - might argue that the charge should be the treasonous usurpation of Obis’ throne by a foreign power, but that’s trumped by a more serious crime - as vile an offense as I can imagine.
“As you know, I was in Vantok with your father when he was murdered by means that could only be considered sorcerous. I can only guess at the fullness of your responsibility for the death of the greatest man to lead Obis in centuries, but it had to be significant. And not only him but your bother - Rangarak’s rightful heir - and your sister’s husband. If there was an opportunity, I would place you under arrest and allow you to undergo the ordeal of a public trial so the multitude of your sins could be called out for all to hear, sullying your character to the point where the people would demand your head on a pike. But, as you have oft repeated, time is short. An army marches against Obis. We must be united under one rule to face this threat. So the execution will be carried out without a trial. No one present doubts your guilt. My only regret is that, as the apparent victim of an assassination by disaffected loyalists of Duke Otto, your death will be mourned.”
Pleading was not in Myselene’s nature; she had too much pride to resort to it now, and it wouldn’t do any good. Greeg was an inflexible man. Once his mind was set, nothing would change it. She could weep like a little girl and it wouldn’t alter her fate. So she gathered the frayed strands of her pride to speak. She only wished her injuries would permit her to rise, but the arrows had rendered her legs useless. She was conscious now of a throbbing sensation in her midsection and an impossible weakness in both of her lower limbs. The floor beneath her was becoming slippery with her blood.
“You stupid fucker, you ignorant son-of-a-bitch.” The rancor in the words was muted by Myselene’s shortness of breath, which caused them to emerge hoarse and whispered. “It’s true I bore no love for my father but if you think I’d contemplate regicide and patricide, you’re a fool. As for this coup, all you’ve done is to doom Obis and the rest of the continent to bend knee to The Lord of Fire. My only consolation - if it can be considered a consolation - is that no one in this room will outlive me by more than a handspan of weeks.”
Greeg was impassive. He hefted his sword as if testing its balance. “Myselene of Vantok, you are condemned to die for multiple crimes, not the least of which is the attempted usurpation of Obis’ throne by a foreign agency. In the old days, the executioner would at this time commend your soul to the gods for their final judgment, but there are no longer any gods. So I’ll simply consign you to whatever hell, limbo, or oblivion to which you’ll travel. With the gods having abdicated their responsibilities in this matter, let the wrath of men commence!”
And it did.
* * *
He was alive. Still. His mind wasn’t functioning properly, although he was sufficiently lucid to be aware of that. His jumbled thoughts were jointly ruled by anger and agony. He had managed to leech the poison from his system before it had stopped his heart but he hadn’t escaped its ravages. The arrow that had punctured his neck was gone, ripped away as he had slipped into the earth during his escape, but the wound remained, now clogged by hardening clay. That would prevent blood loss. But the flesh under the closed wound had suffered irreparable damage and Sorial feared that, no matter how long he lived, the anguish would never go away. Perhaps it would fade but it would likely become a lifelong companion.
Myselene was in mortal danger. He recognized that much. Perhaps she was dead already. Greeg wasn’t the type to waste time and energy on something as profitless as gloating. He would dispatch his enemy and savor the victory once it was complete. Still, thinking Sorial to be dead might cause him to relax. From a tactical perspective, Myselene had little value. That meant there was a chance.
Given time and opportunity, Sorial could have concocted a sleek escape plan. But he had neither and plotting was beyond his current menta
l capacity. The only thing he could do was act with brute force and hope the end result wasn’t a complete disaster. Crippled and in pain, he swam through the ground on his way back to the throne room.
Once he reached the surface, he used his earth-vision to identify Myselene. She was lying on the ground, her blood staining the thin layer of tile that separated the rock base from her body. Sorial reached up through the floor with his good hand and contacted her bare lower calf near where an arrow protruded. He doubted she was aware of the touch. Then, with a sudden movement, he wrapped his hand around her lower leg near the ankle and yanked. She fell through the floor like someone treading water sucked under from below. Her panic notwithstanding, she was safe from what the conspirators had intended for her. And from what Sorial intended for them.
The palace was a massive, solidly fashioned structure. It had been built by masters who intended it to last for millennia. The foundation had been erected on the bedrock forming the city’s base. Thick granite columns provided support for the higher levels of the building which, from foot to apex, towered one hundred feet at its highest point. The palace had been made to withstand the occasional earth tremors that shook the area. Next to the Citadel, it was the most robust construction in all of Obis. None of these things had meaning for Sorial as he brought his will to bear while a terrified Myselene struggled to break his grasp - an action that would mean instant death if she succeeded.
It took little effort to crack the supporting columns. They were stone and stone responded to him. Having undermined their integrity, he created fissures and fractures in key load-bearing walls. It didn’t take long for the damage to reach the point past which the outcome couldn’t be changed. In the throne room, where the bafflement surrounding Myselene’s sudden vanishing was begetting a frenzy of activity, the palace began to quake and buckle. All it took was one column to give way and, with the rest of the supports weakened and eroded, the results were catastrophic and inevitable. By the time Greeg, accurately assessing the situation and its cause, muttered, “Oh shit,” the noise was too loud for anyone to hear.
Twenty feet below the surface, Sorial felt the concussion of the collapse. It reminded him of the time he had gone underground to escape the power of Alicia’s massive wave. Only this time, the destructive force was of his making. It had taken three decades and hundreds of men to build the palace. The wrath of men - one man in particular - had brought it down in less than a minute.
Thus died the conspiracy against Crown Princess Myselene, taking with it the conspirators, the Council of Nobles, and everyone else unfortunate enough to have been within in palace when it collapsed in a cloud of dust and rubble. Three hundred lost their lives that day, but the toll would pale in comparison with what was yet to come. Obis had a new ruler but the dark days had arrived.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE WILL OF THE GODS
The cold came in hard and fast, reminding Warburm of one reason why he left the North in the first place. How long had it been since he’d spent a Winter on this side of the Crags? Since before Sorial, that much was certain. Nearly two decades ago. It didn’t seem that long. Time had a way of playing tricks on the unwary. Now, even though his paunch was bigger, he had grown too accustomed to the southern temperatures to be able to treat Sussaman’s Winter with the stoic indifference he once had. Damn, it was frigid!
At least he had a woman to lie next to at nights for warmth - when duties for Ferguson allowed him to make his way to bed, that is. Once, the conception of simply sleeping with a woman had been foreign to Warburm. Slumber had often been involved, but it had come after. Now, he found he didn’t miss the other part so much. Time’s influence again. Facing reality was difficult - while his attention had been elsewhere, he had become an old man. The great adventurer had been transformed into an innkeeper and the innkeeper had morphed into the lackey of a priest with delusions of grandeur. All through his life, he had believed himself to be involved in something momentous. Now, in retrospect, he wondered. He had outlived the gods, but what was the point in that? Children, after all, were supposed to bury their parents. That was the order of things. What waited for him on the other side of the grave was something he’d worry about when he got there.
He stroked his wife’s fragrant hair. In the ruddy light cast by the glowing embers of the dying fire, it looked as black as when he had first met her - a young girl trying to capture the attention of a vaunted adventurer. By day, however, he could see the strands of gray, more numerous every year. His own hair had mostly turned already - at least what hadn’t fallen out.
Ponari stirred in her sleep but didn’t awaken. She could sleep through a gale. He inhaled, smelling the odor that was distinctly her. He had deflowered her at the ripe age of 16 while living in her village following a military expedition against bandits up near The White World. Less than a year later, they had been married. For a while, their attempts to start a family had been stymied. After several miscarriages, however, a living babe - their beloved daughter - had been born. Ponari had then moved into Warburm’s house in Sussaman - this house - where she had spent the next ten years of her life. Now she was back again. Warburm could tell she liked this place better than he did. He had outgrown Sussaman, just as he had outgrown Ferguson and all his “the will of the gods” talk. Was the bitterness he felt a symptom of aging?
He supposed the term for his current spiritual state was apostasy. For many years, he had served the Prelate of Vantok because of an unquestioning belief in what Ferguson stood for. Now, the world was a mess and his master was more a part of the problem than the solution. Warburm felt trapped by life, circumstances, and the fear that if he turned away from Ferguson now, his entire life would have been for naught - another mote of dust blown to obscurity by the winds of history. But was it too late to change how future generations would think of him, if they would think of him at all?
He slid quietly out of bed, pulled on thick boots that were too small for his swollen feet, and wrapped himself head to toe in furs before venturing out into the black of night. The sky was clear which wasn’t necessarily good since it resulted in the most bone-numbing weather. There was no moon and the stars winked down at him with astonishing clarity. Just as cold and equally mesmerizing, they were the same stars he had gazed up at forty years ago during those days when he had slept out in the open more often than under a roof. The previous night’s snow, turned to slush during the day, had refrozen into a solid icepack. He had to pick his way along carefully to avoid falling on his ass. Sorial’s healing of his broken back hadn’t been perfect. When it was this cold, he could feel the soreness in his spine.
By all rights, he should still be in bed, snoring into his wife’s neck as they shared body warmth, but sleep wasn’t the friend it had once been. It was elusive and he didn’t feel up to the chase this night. So, rather than doing all things possible to keep warm, he was out on the streets of the North’s forgotten community, wandering alone in the dark with the widely-spaced pole-torches to light his way. The only others up and about at this hour were the men on patrol. He nodded to a pair as they strode past.
Avoiding the inevitable never made it go away. The time had come for him to confront Ferguson. Perhaps the small hours of the morning weren’t ideal for the discussion but, with the prelate, this might be the only time when he could steal a few moments alone. He didn’t worry about waking Ferguson. He supposed the man had to sleep but he wasn’t sure when that might be. One time when Warburm had asked him about it, he had laughed and said there would be time enough for sleep when he was dead.
The prelate’s rest cabin was no different from anyone else’s. Sussaman was the kind of settlement where a house represented shelter not status. Big houses required more tending and maintenance, which made them less desirable. Those who needed more space could build another cabin. Materials and labor were no problem - there was wood aplenty and the men of the town would pitch in to help with the construction. That was how Warburm’s house had been buil
t all those years ago.
On cold nights like this, sound carried, and he heard Ferguson’s voice from within before knocking. It was surprisingly clear, a testimony to how poorly constructed most of the cabins were. Drafts found their way in and sound found its way out. Reluctant to disturb the prelate in the midst of a conversation, Warburm hesitated, his hand frozen inches shy of rapping on the door.
“Four of the six cities are mine, although there’s so little left of Earlford that it no longer merits the designation. My army is large enough that it will be able to match whatever the bitch queen can field.” The voice was unfamiliar to Warburm but he liked neither the tone nor the content.
“Then it’s certain? She has the throne?” That was Ferguson. Although that was good news to Warburm, he could tell that the prelate didn’t share the opinion. Had Ferguson wanted Myselene’s bid to fail?
“So I’m told. If it really mattered, I would have been more diligent in finding out, but it’s of little import who’s in control when I arrive. If intercepted spies are to be believed, Obis’ Council of Nobles has ratified her appointment as Crown Princess. She’ll have to wait until after the battle for the coronation but, since she’s unlikely to be alive at that point, what they call her is moot.”
Warburm was unable to contain a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t take much in the way of detective work to identify the speaker. No betrayal could be more heinous.
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