Red wax had spilled over the account of King Mathia’s binding of the seventh house, a bit of verse he had read countless times and had taken to calling the poem of binding. Though he was in a need for haste, he felt inexplicably drawn to the paper and the congealing scarlet wax. Most of the poem was obscured by the wax but one line remained clear: bound them in the heart’s own blood. As his eyes traced over the line he saw that that the e in heart’s was obscured by a dot of wax and it read as hart’s.
Elias’s breath caught in his chest. His mind raced back to the letter Bryn had intercepted months ago hinting at a hart-hunt, which they had taken to be a clue indicating a plot against the House Denar, whose moniker was the stag, or hart. Hart’s blood; blood of the hart.
“Good God,” Elias whispered in the darkening room. He had finally unraveled the riddle that was right before them the entire time. At last he knew how the Scarlet Hand planned to break the geas, but he feared it was too late.
Having already squandered enough time, Elias resolutely strapped his baldric across his back, in the southern fashion, but he carried his steel naked in hand.
Cautiously, he opened the door with his sword and braced himself for attack. When none came he sidled to the door and quickly ducked his head in and out, wary that an archer or wizard may be lying in wait. Satisfied that both ways were clear, he dashed from his chambers and set off at a run.
He screeched to a halt as he rounded a corner and encountered a scintillating wall of energy. The diaphanous force-field cast the hallway in a red and purple glow. The wall looked paper thin, but Elias did not doubt its power to bar, or to kill. A faint hum filled the air and caused the hairs on his arms to stand on end.
He paced before the wall and cursed. This hall provided the quickest access to the royal wing and both Eithne and Ogden. If he turned back and took the long way, looping around by the rooms of the lesser court and the guest chambers, he would arrive too late to bring warning.
There was only one course of action available to him. He considered only a moment. If his sword could absorb magic directed at him he reasoned it could do the same to protective or warding magic. If the barrier proved too powerful for his sword to absorb or had been designed to resist such measures or, worse yet, explode on contact, it marked his end. If the Scarlet Hand took Eithne, however, all of Galacia would fall under shadow.
With clenched teeth Elias drove the blade of his sword into the wall of humming energy. As Elias’s sword met the diaphanous veil of energy a concussion issued forth that swam around him like a maelstrom, leaving a hollow place between his ears, as if all the sound had vanished from the world. He had experienced a similar sensation once in his youth when Shamus O’Toole boxed his ears during a game of storm-the-castle.
Even as the whirlpool of energy funneled into his sword, Elias knew he could only afford to squander a handful of breaths to recover his equilibrium. He sucked in precious air before dashing through the eliminated barrier, up the corridor leading to the royal suites, around a corner…
…and directly into a Redshield.
The blustering soldier crashed onto his haunches, flinching as Elias nearly lopped his head off with a barely checked cut of his blade.
“Get up, you fool,” Elias growled. “The queen’s life is in danger. The palace is under attack! Rouse the Captain and then make for the queen’s chambers. Now!” The guardsmen’s eyes widened and his bottom lip trembled, but to his credit he rose with an “Aye, sir!” and fled down the corridor in the opposite direction with haste.
Elias first met resistance in the antechamber that preceded the wing of the upper court. He sprinted through the door, turning a shadow-clad figure’s scimitar with a flick of his wrist, danced out of reach of another wickedly curved blade, and skidded to a stop with his back to a wall. The tactic was a gambit for while it discouraged flanking it limited his range of movement, and offered scant opportunity for retreat.
Despite the fact that the swordsmen couldn’t flank him, they struck as one. Elias instantly knew that he couldn’t block both strikes, which slanted toward his skull. Instinctively, he dropped to a knee and the scimitars crashed together in a shower of sparks. Elias had to take one of the swords out of the battle immediately, but he didn’t have a clear line to deliver a deathblow to a vital area, backed as he was against the wall with them right on top of him. With a hunch of his shoulders he adopted a perpendicular guard. The tingle of magic skittered up his spine as he swung.
The only indication to the Senestrati that the one-sided fight was about to take a drastic turn was a whir of blue that gave birth to a red mist followed by a wet THWACK. The maimed man looked stupidly at his squirting stump, never having felt the sting of the blade that severed his hand. Elias didn’t give the Handsman time to deliberate on his quandary, for presently he had gained his feet and with a vicious kick thrust the maimed man into his companion. A heartbeat later, his Dashin followed and showered the remaining Handsman with gore from his ally’s braincase.
The dark warrior danced back and lifted his scimitar into a high guard, sparing his slain compatriot not the slightest glance. “You’ve already lost, Marshal. The queen is ours.”
“For the life of me, I cannot figure out why you bloody people talk so damned much.” Elias considered the impasse for a moment, and then his father’s voice echoed in his mind from a long ago lesson: Always press the attack, even as you defend. Let every parry be a strike that merely intercepts the other’s sword on its path. Don’t cross swords with your opponent. Swing only to cut.
Elias leapt at his adversary with an over-hand strike, mimicking his form. The Senestrati stuck first, but Elias altered his arc so that he made glancing contact with the other’s blade, so as to tilt it away from his snaking torso, and continued his downward slice. The scimitar missed his shoulder by a scant inch, but his blade cut the Senestrati from neck to sternum.
The Handsman expirated a gurgle of blood as he sank to the floor, yet Elias did not see it for he had already bounded through the door leading into the next chamber.
†
Sarad exhaled a sigh of sublime bliss. He felt dark clouds of fear billowing throughout the palace as the alarm rose. Not that it would do the imbeciles any good now. His men had already been firmly in place throughout the grounds before making themselves known. All that remained for them was to systematically eliminate every soul that stood in their way. In the aftermath of the massacre Sarad would offer to supplement the ravaged guard with Knights Justicar, and easily as that Peidra would be his.
Sarad would wait until all but the queen’s honor guard were dispatched before presenting himself to her, and thus at the moment of her greatest despair reveal the architect of her doom. Until then let her cower in the most exquisite of terror, wondering at the spider in her chamber that had eluded her and her precious Marshal for so long.
Sarad had nothing if not a flair for the dramatic, and he couldn’t resist indulging his favorite vice.
Sarad sent his will out amongst his soldiers: Bloody the Marshal if you can, but see that he lives. Him, I want him for myself.
†
Danica cowered in the dark. She was unsure how far she had come, but her feet were sore, bare, and sticky.
She had thought the cave would be a safe haven, but as the ambient light faded she soon became lost. The dark felt dense, heavy and alive, slithering against her skin.
Huddling against a damp wall she gasped, struggling to breathe the viscous air. Panic rose thick in her throat and her heart thundered. Despite the fact that there was no one to see her, she angrily wiped the tears from her eyes, ashamed.
Danica fumbled through her skirt pockets desperately. She sighed in relief as her hands closed around a match. Trembling, she struck it against the cavern floor.
In such absolute darkness the tiny flame was a mighty beacon. Yet, her happiness proved short lived, for the glow revealed a face she knew—a demon’s countenance she could never forget.
&
nbsp; “There you are, my love,” Slade said with a lupine grin. His skin looked pale and waxy, his eyes sunken and black with madness, yet he towered above her, very much alive. “What’s wrong,” he grated, stepping so close she could taste his cloying breath and feel its fetid warmth, “Cat got your tongue?”
Suddenly, she found herself naked with Slade sprawled on top of her, licking her face, slowly, with a grey, swollen tongue. Danica screamed.
“Come, love. My brethren await and I am anxious to be reunited with them.” Slade snapped his teeth by her ear, and…
…Danica’s eyes opened, a banshee’s wail on her lips. She quickly absorbed that she sat propped against a wall in her chambers at the Palace and a wild-eyed Lar held her by the shoulders. “I say, stop shaking me at once,” she said with all the nonchalance she could muster. Truth be told, she had never been so glad to see Lar in her life.
“By the seven hells, woman!” said the normally stoic Lar. “You’re fixin’ to wake the dead!”
Danica bit her tongue, for despite his stern tone, his eyes were wide with worry. They looked at each other then, unabashedly, both aware that she suffered from a dire affliction, and it was getting worse.
Danica looked away first, blinking away tears. Then a sense of uneasiness stole over her, as if someone watched them from the shadows. She shuddered and her breath caught in her throat as a tingling sensation rushed up her spine and across her shoulders, spilling in waves up her neck, face, and crown. Danica heard frantic voices and in her mind’s-eye flashed images of guardsmen engaged with dark-clad scimitar wielding warriors. She blinked rapidly as a burst of white light blinded her momentarily. Then she saw her brother, chest heaving with exertion as he parried one continuous blow after another as a horde of swordsmen closed in on him.
“Danica?”
“Quickly,” Danica said as she rose, “get your sword. Elias is in trouble. The palace is under attack, as we speak.” Lar eyed her as she tore off her shift and pulled on riding pants. She turned to him. “For the love of God, Lar, if you’ve ever trusted me, trust me now!”
Scant a minute later, Lar met her in the hall, having donned boots and ring mail and wielding a greatsword, which, after many hours of training with the Redshields, he had adopted as his preferred weapon. Danica turned her back to him, and he quickly cinched the studded leather armor her brother had acquired for her. Without a further word spoken between them they took off down the hallway at a flat run, fear and determination chasing close behind.
†
Eithne Denar looked on as Bryn paced. She still wore her long-practiced neutral expression, but her thoughts raced along with her cousin, for when Ogden burst into her chambers after midnight, she didn’t need him to tell her that the Sentinels wards had tripped to know that the dark hour they had feared most had arrived: The Scarlet Hand had struck directly for the heart of Galacia.
She prayed the Redshields and Galacian Regulars proved their equal, but hope danced with fear in her bosom, for Galacia’s standing army was but a mere shadow of what it once was, and even with all her efforts to recruit more men, the ranks remained low, numbering some 25,000 swords, a quarter of which had been recalled to Peidra. In any case, if the guard could not safeguard her, her musings would prove moot for she would die before the Regulars could be raised from the barracks they shared with the Blackshields on the east side of the city.
“I should go and see if Ogden and Phinneas need help,” Bryn said abruptly. She had stopped pacing, but bounced on her toes, consumed by an energy she could not contain.
She started toward the door, but Captain Blackwell, who stood sentry, offered no indication he intended to vacate his post. “My Lady,” he said, “with your father’s last correspondence from Phyra two months ago and now presumed missing, you and the queen are the last direct descendents of the Denar line accounted for, and her grace has named no heir. By law…” he paused and drew in a deep breath, “by law, if both of you perish the monarchy will fall to House Oberon. The realm will fall into chaos—perhaps civil war. I am sure that Ogden and Phinneas will return with their report as soon as they are able.”
Bryn opened her mouth, a caustic retort on her lips and then fell silent. She cocked her head to one side and took a step back on numb legs. Her mind reeled. “You’re right we are the last blood descendents. The question is how?”
“What do you mean?” asked Eithne.
Bryn turned to her cousin, and her queen. “Think about it. Your father takes fever and dies leaving you the youngest Monarch in centuries. My mother dies nursing your father, having caught the same sickness, the likes of which the finest healers in Galacia couldn’t cure. She passes the illness onto my father, who barely survives. Then, two years later, our fathers’ cousin Jarvis and his children die in a mysterious fire at their hunting lodge.”
“Bloody Hell,” Eithne choked. “Five potential heirs, dead within two years time. Could it be?”
Bryn’s face drained of color. “Those deaths were no accident of fate,” she said with certainty. “This thing goes deeper then we had dared fear. The Scarlet Hand has been systematically undermining the monarchy and eliminating the Denar line for years.”
“And we would likely have remained clueless if it wasn’t for a whiskey distiller and son of a retired marshal,” said the queen.
Bryn turned from Eithne and her thoughts went to Elias. She wondered where the fledging Marshal was and how he fared. “Heaven’s own luck be with you, Elias,” she whispered.
†
In the end it proved simple locating Elias. First Danica and Lar followed the scrambling Redshields, then the trail of corpses, and finally the din of pitched battle. They skittered to a halt at the hallway that connected the courtier’s living quarters to the main thoroughfare that led by north to the throne room, and by south to the great hall. Here where security was the tightest bodies littered the floor in an orgy of gore. Tangles of royal guardsmen lay strewn at impossible angles, bodies jagged with wounds, faces blistered and blackened in grotesque parodies of human countenances, or in some cases not a single wound but with the grey pallor of the long dead. Amidst the Galacians some few men attired in loose, black pants and black tunics numbered among the slain.
As the two stood aghast at the obscene carnage before them a pair of northmen skidded to a stop, weapons poised to strike the stupefied Danica and Lar.
Abruptly one of the northmen raised a hand to stay his companions. “No,” he said and nodded at Danica, “this one bears the mark of House Senestrati. Leave them.”
Without a further word the Ittamar vanished down the hall toward the throne room.
The encounter snapping her from her stupor, Danica turned to Lar and said, “The attack is pushing toward the throne room, and then on to royal wing beyond and the queen’s Chambers.” Instead of following their would-be attackers, Danica started in the other direction.
“We have to stop them,” Lar said as he chased after her, the revulsion in his gut melting and giving way to red rage.
“The route they take passes through the inner courtyard and onto to the main entrance to the throne room where the Whiteshields are posted,” Danica managed around deep breaths as she ran as hard as she could. She found herself revising her opinion on Elias’s mandate that they all adopt a fitness and combat training regimen. “If we take the servants’ corridor…we can approach the throne room…by the north entrance in almost half the distance…and head them off.”
It’s what Elias would do, she added to herself.
Chapter 26
Unmasked
Elias gained the throne room via the servant’s entrance to discover a handful of Ittamar barraging the reinforced, Sentinel-warded doors that led to the queen’s wing with ragged blasts of puce magic. Some dozen of the palace guard littered the floor, armor scorched or else rent by enchanted steel. Blood collected on the marble flagstones in black pools.
Despite the lump of fear that coalesced into a hard, jagged pi
ece of rock in his chest the Marshal drew himself up to his full height and took a step into the room. “You’re a far way from home,” he said casually, “I’m sure you’re tired. Why don’t lay your arms down, Handsmen.”
The Northerners turned to him as one. One of the pale figures laughed aloud and made a gesture with his hand as he uttered a guttural word. The illusion warbled and then dissolved, revealing a group of men wearing black tunics and black studded leather armor. Another of the uncovered Handsmen slid out from his throng and said, “You are outnumbered. Surrender now and our Lord may yet deign to take mercy on you.”
As the Senestrati spoke his eyes flicked to the northern entrance. Elias followed his gaze and saw another half-dozen men with the aspect of the Ittamar materialize from the court entrance to the throne room, via the Crown’s Council Chamber. The Marshal turned back to his antagonist who said, “You have lost Marshal. Kneel before your new masters or die where you stand.”
The solid mass of fear in Elias’s bosom melted into molten ore in the sudden fire of his rage as he looked on the insolent face of the enemy that had eluded him so long and cost him and his so very much. If he was to die this day then he would sell his life dearly. “Not ever,” the Marshal said and charged into battle.
As he tore toward his enemies Elias reached desperately within, struggling to summon whatever power he might have at his disposal. His grasp of the arcane was yet sparing at best, but he would need every last resource at his disposal if he hoped to have a chance against so many.
Faced with certain death, a peculiar calm stole over Elias and he slipped into a trancelike state. He reacted out of instinct, sliding across the floor in long, sinuous strides, whirling and dipping to avoid a hail of energy bolts, and cutting with each step. He didn’t so much as pause as he swept through the Scarlet Hand’s ranks.
He heard his father’s voice echo in his mind, summoned mystically from the deep recesses of his consciousness.
Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 29
