by J. P. Ashman
Correia knew the palace well, very well, and knew the stretch of corridor they were entering. She gritted teeth as more bells pealed in the near distance, and another horn sounded, closer. Walking the corner, she saw a set of double doors and two halberdiers. She knew them both.
The two men raised their polearms and stood to attention as the group approached. Their heads faced front as ever, but their eyes searched, quested those behind Grannit and Correia in a way they normally would not. Finally before the two guards, they turned and rapped on the large door, which opened from the inside. Through went Grannit, Correia on his heels and Errolas and Salliss and Amis on hers.
‘Correia!’ Will Morton stepped from a window, two of his knights flanking him. All three were armed and armoured and liveried in the Duke’s colours. All three kept their hands on their sheathed swords despite knowing who entered the King’s outer chamber, much the same way Grannit had. ‘Sergeant,’ Morton added, nodding to the veteran. Grannit nodded back and peeled off to the side, to address two halberdiers and two crossbowmen stood there, bows spanned and bolts loaded.
‘What’s happening, Will?’ Correia dropped formalities and rushed to her father’s brother-in-law and friend. She heard the double doors thud behind her as they met.
Morton’s eyes past her to those who’d entered behind her. He looked back, brow creased.
‘They’re reliable. They’re with—’
‘Aye, lass, but where are the others? Sergeant Falchion and company.’
Correia swallowed hard. ‘There’s much we need discuss, you and I, and fa— King Barrison.’
Morton grunted a laugh. ‘That’s an understatement at a…’
Shouts from beyond the door. Threats of violence. Tension in the room rose. Hairs stood to attention on necks and arms and anywhere a lack of armour allowed it.
‘Correia, we’re to the King,’ Morton said. ‘Sergeant Grannit and his men will hold this room. We need to move Barrison—’
‘Who’s with him?’
Morton grimaced.
‘He’s alone?’ Correia said through clenched teeth.
‘We move, now,’ Morton said as all went quiet beyond the doors.
Grannit growled orders and Morton’s knights drew their swords, nodding to Morton as they did so.
‘With me,’ Morton said, drawing his bastard-sword and moving to and through a small side-door, his men between him and Correia, who followed, curved swords in hands, her companions doing the same. Again, she didn’t have to look back to know they were with her.
They practically ran down a tight corridor in single file before ascending yet more curling steps, up into the broad tower Barrison held as part of his private quarters.
‘Do we have mages with us?’ Correia asked Morton over his knights’ shoulders.
‘Not here,’ Morton replied, ‘not in his chambers. He forbade it.’
‘He what?’ Correia balked at what she was hearing. Where were all the soldiers that could and should be flooding these rooms and corridors?
‘You know him, Correia,’ Morton continued as they climbed up and along, round and across Barrison’s abode. ‘I’ve stepped up all I could around the palace. Gods, all I could around Wesson and Altoln. But here? I have no say here, Correia.’
‘I know,’ she shot back, as much to silence Morton as anything else. She needed to think. She needed to get her head around it all. She hadn’t even known there was a mark on her father until the palace bells had tolled.
They crossed a lounge and passed through another door, up, up once more, armour clanking and boots scuffing stone steps, voices echoing.
‘There’s been several attempts thwarted over the past few days—’
‘What?’ Correia was incredulous. Several? Who was ordering…? Well, that wasn’t hard now was it? Whoever was organising the war in Sirreta and the plague and gods knew what else was doing this. Several attempts?
‘We had a poisoner in the kitchen. Found by a dog and its handler. Thankful I am that I pulled those two from the City Guard, much to Stowold’s annoyance for he wanted them for his own household.’
Morton reached a door, stopped and took a breath. He turned back and his knights shifted so he could see Correia. ‘He doesn’t want to believe it, lass. Our King’s confidence in our protection of him is enough to make me cry, but these assassins…’ Morton swallowed, shrugged and knocked on the door without looking. ‘That’s why I needed you back here, Correia.’
‘Enter!’
Correia recognised her father’s chamberlain’s voice through the door and over the shifting and panting of those before and after her in the corridor.
Morton pushed through the door. Correia and the others followed.
Chapter 70 – Arrow in the dark
‘Sir Merrel, get down to Sergeant Grannit, now!’
Errolas turned and saw Morton directing his stunned knights. Stunned. Everyone was stunned, none more so than Errolas. He looked down to his shaking hands, strung and recently used bow in one, second arrow in the other. He’d drawn the second in case he missed with the first. The sound of the running assassin in the sudden, impossible darkness had been hard even for Errolas to hear, but the shock of the assassin’s trick had quietened everyone, thankfully for Errolas, and the King. Errolas looked to King Barrison, who was looking in turn at the dying assassin before him, the ageing King’s breaths coming quick and heavy.
‘He came so close,’ Amis de Valmont said, walking towards the bleeding, unconscious assassin, sword in hand. Correia moved towards the King with Amis, who plunged his sword into the assassin’s back to finish him off. An accurate thrust that surely found his heart, Errolas knew.
‘If I had missed with that arrow…’ Errolas didn’t bear the thought. He jolted as a steel-clad hand slapped his back.
‘But you didn’t!’ Morton grinned at Errolas, wrapping the further-stunned elf in an uncomfortable hug, all edges of cold plate and riveted maille. Morton barked a deafening laugh in Errolas’ sensitive ear. ‘You’re a hero, elf.’ He pushed Errolas out to arms-length, grinning at him some more, scar pulling at his lip. ‘A bloody hero!’
Correia shrieked. Errolas turned, heart missing a beat.
Morton released Errolas as Amis moved for the King, bloody sword held offensively, Correia in a heap near the dead Eatrian assassin. Confusion took the room again and it was all Errolas could do, whilst seeing the stunned look on Correia’s face as she glared in horror at the yellow chevalier, to knock and draw his second arrow.
King Barrison roared as Amis came at him, raising his own sword in defence. Barrison managed to parry the first blow as Amis attacked with unbridled aggression.
Errolas loosed his arrow and, with utter disbelief from him and all present, Amis knocked the missile from its flight, his gauntlet batting it away like so many pesky flies.
Too risky to draw and loose another with Barrison so close to his target, Errolas threw the bow and drew his sword, launching into a sprint which saw him overtaking Morton’s roaring charge.
I won’t make it, Errolas thought, as Correia surged to her feet and lurched towards Amis, anger and fear overpowering her and allowing her hasty attack to be swatted away with as much ease as Amis had swatted arrow from flight.
Barrison attacked back, sword thrusting, but doing little to best Amis’ effortless defence.
The chevalier-come-assassin turned, palm open, eyes… black. A surge of nothingness pulsed from that palm, punching Morton and Errolas back as if struck by a destrier’s kick. There was no pain in the impact, only the reversal of momentum and the gut-wrenching shock of it as man and elf, Duke and Ranger, slid back across the floor.
A flare of white drew Errolas’ eye before he could right himself. A flare that came from Salliss’ sword. The woman surged forward, sword trailing, and Errolas knew not whether the woman he’d grown to know and care for was for or against him and his friends; for or against King Barrison.
When Errolas looked to th
e now shrieking Amis, a sound the elf wished never to hear again, the hatred in Amis’ eyes told him all he needed to know. Salliss was not an ally to this beast, and as if to prove it, her rapid assault caused Amis to fly in defence from his attack on King Barrison. Literally fly!
Wretched wings erupted through cloth and armour both, causing a wind in the chamber as the incubus swept away from the oncoming Witchblade. Salliss jumped to intercept, her leap impossible if not for the powers Errolas knew she possessed.
Part-armoured incubus and energy-wreathed Witchblade met mid-air. They fought as they descended to the floor, before the great, stain-glass window closest to King Barrison, which glowed with the remaining yet fading light of the day.
Correia scrambled backwards, away from the ensuing violence. She rushed around the fray and took up a defensive position by the King, who stood panting behind her, then by her side.
Errolas was on his feet and rushing towards the duelling duo whilst Morton ran to his King, flanking the man along with Correia.
Salliss screamed and the purest white light bathed her and the room and those within, to a painful level. Errolas slowed and flinched away, hand raised to block the radiance.
The following agonising, demonic shriek dropped Errolas to his knees, hands now across his ears as his sword clattered on stone. More shouts of anger and fear followed. Errolas knew them to be Correia and Barrison and Morton.
Glass shattered, a crack and smash followed by a tinkling of colourful shards and lead on stone, but not many; Errolas’ mind flew back to Fal’s home and a fleeing witchunter, but for a heartbeat – glass falling out, not in. Someone’s left via the window?
‘Or some thing,’ Errolas whispered, standing and seeing the scene before him through blinking eyes. Salliss knelt, blood on the hand she studied before her ashen face. And Correia hugged Barrison, who hugged her back, crying the both of them. Morton stood, hands on knees, bastard-sword forgotten to the floor as he shook his head and sucked in great, audible breaths.
Errolas staggered towards Salliss, their eyes meeting as she looked up to his approach. A smile touched her lips. Not a cocky smile, or one of mirth even, but relief, Errolas knew. Relief that it was over. Relief that she’d survived the fight and caused Amis de Valmont, the incubus, the latest in a line of assassins, to flee.
Crouching by her side, relief struck Errolas too as he saw that the blood on Salliss’ hand was not her own. It turned black as they looked at it, a demonic smear of wretched blood that Salliss proceeded to wipe on her clothes as quick as she could. ‘I wounded him… it,’ she said, voice trembling through the shock of it all.
Pulling her into a tight embrace, chin on her head, rocking slightly, Errolas looked to the trio by the open window and smiled. Morton was stood now, fists pressed into his lower back, arching in age-related aches and pains, whilst Barrison held Correia at arms-length, bearded cheeks wet with tears; joy and thankful relief in his blue eyes as he looked at Correia.
The arrow that entered through the broken window with the rain-flecked wind was visible to Errolas for but a moment before it thudded into the side of Barrison’s head, exploding with blood and skull and brain-matter from the other side. His corpse tumbled sideways to the floor like the falling of a grand oak.
Noise and time was lost to Errolas as he saw Barrison fall, the moments dragging on in horror and disbelief as the great man left the world.
Errolas’ heart ran cold as Correia screamed, as he saw the flights of the assassin’s tool sprouting from Barrison’s head.
‘No,’ Errolas whispered, whilst Correia continued to cry out in shock and pain, and Morton did the same. ‘No… It can’t be…’
The black arrow was elven.
Chapter 71 – Tumultuous and bleak
‘And there you have it, milord.’ Sir Bollingham sipped at the red wine he’d been given and watched Stowold’s latest reaction to all he’d told him; he pursed his lips and pressed both index fingers to his chin, the rest of his fingers linked. He nodded slowly.
‘What’s your take on it all, Biviano?’ Stowold said, eyes shifting to him.
Biviano saw Sir Bollingham frown, near on snarl.
It’s not my fault Stowold wants my opinion, Bolly.
‘Well, milord…’ Biviano hadn’t been prepared for this. He’d been too busy relishing the wine and food they’d been given, and the fact that Stowold didn’t seem to like folk in his attendance unless they’d been cleaned up good and proper. ‘My initial worry was of a baronial war—’
‘Pah!’ Stowold sat forward, face lit up with mirth. ‘Truly?’ he managed, eyes locked on Biviano’s.
Oh, now you smile, Biviano thought of Sir Bollingham. Shrugging, Biviano simply said, ‘Yes.’
Shaking his head, Stowold sat back in his chair and glanced around the company. ‘Well, we have news from the man you took—’
‘Already?’ Pelse asked, impressed. The fact he’d interrupted an Earl seemed lost on him. Until, that was, he noticed everyone else staring at him with incredulity. ‘Pardon, milord, I—’
Stowold waved it away. ‘Yes, Pelse, already,’ Stowold confirmed. ‘I set a mage I have at my command to it. Spilled as soon as the woman put on an illusionary show of some creature or other.’ Stowold grinned but said nothing.
‘And, milord?’ Biviano dared, although his mind fell into a thankful realisation that their captive hadn’t been tortured. No matter his taking of Biviano in the Beresford camp, Biviano didn’t wish what he’d seen Ellis Frane endure on anyone. He glanced to Sears, who was being suspiciously quiet. Big ginger get is embarrassed for getting drugged, I reckon. Biviano did his best not to chuckle aloud at that. Sears offered him a minute sneer, just for Biviano to see. Oh, how well he knows me.
‘And, Biviano…’ Stowold held his empty glass out and waited, not long, for a servant to fill it. The pause pulled several forward, to the edge of their seats. ‘And,’ Stowold went on, ‘he told me all about Rell Adlestrop’s human-crafted cannon. He told me all about that and he told me all about Adlestrop’s planned harrying of the north.’
‘Eh?’ Pelse again, mouth running before his brain.
‘Eh, exactly, Pelse.’ Stowold smiled. The smile faded, replaced with a worried look none of the men missed. A rare look for a man with Stowold’s power and confidence.
‘Milord?’ Sir Bollingham ventured.
Stowold sighed and sipped at his wine. ‘I fear,’ he said, meeting all of their eyes, one by one, ‘that our little Duke of Adlestrop intends to increase his holdings in the north. More than he already has, I might add. And to do that… well, how would you think he intends to do that?’
There was a silence before Sears beat Biviano and Sir Bollingham to the punch, both men looking to him, surprised. ‘By marching on Northfolk,’ Sears said, a bitterness tainting his tone.
‘By marching on Northfolk,’ Stowold confirmed.
‘Which is why he drew his southern forces to assist his father in taking Beresford back, rather than his closer levies in the north?’ Biviano stated, more than asked.
‘I fear so.’ Stowold took more wine and rubbed at his brow. ‘We’ve enough going on in Altoln without this,’ he admitted freely. ‘But for Adlestrop to bring his southern army north and leave his northern captains in place, what are we to think he will do with his well-travelled and blooded southern lot now Beresford is back in the hands of his father?’
There was hardly a pause before Biviano and Sir Bollingham both said similar.
‘Ride north with them,’ Biviano said.
‘Take them north,’ Sir Bollingham said at the same time. Both flashed a competitive glare each-others way.
Stowold nodded. ‘Indeed, he will.’
‘Or so we think, milord,’ Big Dom rumbled.
‘Or so we know,’ Stowold countered. ‘According to Rell’s arrogant ways and according to his mercenary that you brought back with you from Beresford.’
‘What does this mean?’ Sir Bollingham said
, wine forgotten.
‘It means,’ Sears said, ‘that the little shite’s men will be burning villages and raping women before winter comes to steel what little they have left.’
There was a hint of fire in Sears’ eyes, Biviano saw. He felt near on the same as his friend at the horrific thought of it all. ‘But why?’ he managed. ‘Why now? Why risk a war with Northfolk when there’s enough shit happening?’
‘Hubris?’ Stowold offered. ‘He’s been raised being told that everything he wants he can have. Gods below, he’s an heir to the throne of Altoln, albeit a slight one what with Edward in good age and health. If someone has hinted to him that he can take Northfolk for his own, or that he can’t, even, then the little shite may want to prove them right or wrong on the matter. It’s not like he hasn’t raided there before, either.’
‘Surely he wouldn’t go through all this planning for such a boast, milord?’ Sir Bollingham asked.
Stowold shrugged. ‘Perhaps not for such a reason, but he is going to do it, or certainly seems to be, from what we’ve learnt. And my fear, gentlemen…’ Stowold met all of their eyes once more. ‘My fear is that we will need our brittle alliance with Northfolk come long. Big things are happening. Grand, scary things and we will need every friend and their sword that we have and can find and make. Creating new or awakening old enemies now is not an option.’
Pelse frowned all the more as a thought clearly occurred to him. ‘Isn’t Edward Prince of Norfolk?’
‘In title alone, Pelse,’ Stowold confirmed. ‘It’s a tradition and nothing more. He holds no power there. No more than any other Altolnan royal, anyway.’
‘Tell the King,’ Sir Bollingham said, matter-of-factly. ‘He will stop this, my lord. I’m sure of it.’
Stowold shook himself at his knight’s words, then continued on in what seemed to be stoic determination, whilst some unknown decision warred behind his eyes.
