The Lost Ones

by Christopher Golden

Page 17

  Kitsune could not look at him, he was so beautiful.

  “We know why you have come,” Salacia said, her voice a soft lilt. “But we would hear from your own lips all that you know of the war. ”

  Hope flickered inside Kitsune.

  It was Coyote who asked the question. “Then you’ll help us?”

  Bellona shook her head. “That will be a decision for Artemis. ”

  Kitsune shivered. Her own legend was from the far east, but the name of Artemis still resonated. The daughter of Zeus, she was goddess of the wilderness and the hunt, goddess of the wild animals. Kitsune felt a kinship with this being she had never met, but more than that. Instinctively, she knew that she would follow Artemis to war without question.

  “She lives?” Coyote asked.

  The old gods turned dark eyes upon him and he looked away.

  “Artemis is not what she once was,” Salacia replied. “None of us are. But Artemis bears the scars of time and battle and the betrayal of her father, himself now dead. Her mind often drifts, but our brothers and sisters follow her word. If she agrees to aid you, then those who are willing may join the fight. If she does not, your time has been wasted. ”

  Hesperos said nothing, but Kitsune felt his gaze upon her. Her skin felt flushed with warmth, and she told herself it was the nearness of the aura of starlight that surrounded him.

  But the stars were supposed to be cold.

  He distracted her, but she shook it off. All that mattered now would be the decision of Artemis.

  “And if she agrees, how many do you think will come?”

  Bellona opened her hands. “We three, at least. Perhaps others who still wish to feel alive, or who still have enough pride to punish an enemy who dares threaten us. ”

  Three, Kitsune thought. If only she had time to go east, to try to persuade the gods of Asia to join them. Many of the legends from the eastern lands had begun to come west to aid King Hunyadi, but the old gods were sleeping, there.

  Still, three would be better than nothing. And perhaps there would be more, if Artemis allowed it.

  “Do you think I should speak to Artemis myself? I could tell her the tale of what transpires, try to convince her—”

  “Not if you value your life. She would not trust you for a moment. The animals turned on her, once, and she has never forgiven them. ”

  The tale filled Kitsune with revulsion, but she only nodded.

  Together, she and Coyote began to tell the old gods all they knew of the war and its origins and the threat of the Atlantean conspiracy.

  When they had finished, Bellona made her a promise.

  “If Artemis wills it, we will meet you an hour past dawn tomorrow on the southern road, in view of the city walls, with all of the gods who will join us. For my part, I hope to see you again. It has been far too long since I have seen war, and I yearn for it. ”

  CHAPTER 9

  Rebellion simmered in Palenque, and Blue Jay relished every moment of it. According to the Mazikeen and to the other Borderkind and legends who had joined their underground movement, dissent and suspicion had begun to spread through the city. No matter what official edicts came from the palace, many of the citizens of Palenque weren’t going to believe a word unless they heard it from the lips of their next king himself.

  “Every day that the prince does not return from Atlantis, suspicion grows,” Li said.

  Jay nodded. “But now we’ve got to focus on getting our friends out of that dungeon. ”

  “It’s time, then?” Li asked.

  “Yeah. I think it is. We’ve done Smith’s work. There are hundreds of legends in Palenque—dozens of Borderkind among them—whose hatred of Ty’Lis is rising. Time to get Frost and the Legend-Born out of Atlantis’s hands. ”

  He almost mentioned Julianna, Oliver’s fiancée, but Li didn’t have a personal relationship with Bascombe the way Blue Jay did. None of them had been a part of the original group that had fled across the Veil when they’d been betrayed in Perinthia. Kitsune and Frost would understand.

  Oliver might be Legend-Born—he might have some destiny that made him greater than ordinary men—but to Blue Jay, he was just a courageous, resourceful companion, a man who always seemed to lighten moods and hearts.

  He was a friend.

  Glancing away from Li, Blue Jay took in several of the other Borderkind who had gathered in that room. A Mazikeen stood motionless in the corner. He and his brothers shared an empathic and perhaps telepathic rapport. If anything were to happen within the apartment—if soldiers or Hunters were to attack—the others would learn of it instantly and be able to react, either getting themselves to safety or coming to the rescue.

  At a small table, a jaguar-man sat gnawing on a leg of lamb beside an Ewaipanoma. The latter was an odd, headless thing with a wide mouth in the center of its chest. The mouth panted and its tongue traced its teeth from time to time. Otherwise it seemed entirely without intelligence or purpose. Blue Jay had learned this was far from the truth. The Ewaipanoma ate mostly vegetation and small rodents—rarely humans—and were both perceptive and fierce in battle.

  The trouble was, the thing gave him the creeps.

  Blue Jay smiled softly and turned to Li again.

  “The sun will be up soon. We should wait until tonight. Pass the word to Grin and Cheval. I’ll speak to the Mazikeen and the others who’ve volunteered to help. ”

  Li nodded. “Tonight. Good. I grow impatient. ”

  “Me too, my friend. Me too. ”

  Then a wave of dread passed through Blue Jay. What if Frost wasn’t there when they went to break Julianna and the Bascombes out? Hell, what if they were all dead?

  “Blue Jay? Are you unwell?” Li asked.

  In the corner, the Mazikeen glanced up, perhaps in concern. It was almost impossible to tell what they were thinking.

  “Just hoping nothing goes—”

  He was about to say wrong when the door of the apartment swung open. The timing sent a chill of dread up his spine.

  A vampire serpent—one of the Pihuechenyi—slithered through the door, tall as a man, its wings pinioned behind it as it glanced around the room, searching for threats. Cheval Bayard entered behind the creature. When she stepped into the apartment, her face glowed with uncharacteristic excitement. At her side, she carried a leather satchel, and she seemed more alive than he had ever seen her, a lightness sparkling in her eyes and lifting her step.

  Blue Jay rose from his seat. “What’s going on?”

  The kelpy laughed. “Half the work has been done for us, my friends. ”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cheval reached out and touched his cheek. “It appears that we will no longer need to break our friends out of the palace dungeon, Jay. They have done it without our help. ”

  The trickster stared at her. “You’re serious?”

  “Completely. ”

  The Mazikeen moved to stand beside Blue Jay, motion so fluid he seemed to flow.

  “What, exactly, have you heard?”

  The other Borderkind all began to gather around. Li, eyes now churning with such fire that Blue Jay felt certain his glamour would be burned away, crossed his arms imperiously.

  “Three or four hours ago, a large section of the western wall of the palace collapsed, revealing part of the dungeon,” Cheval explained, swinging her satchel. “Frost and Collette Bascombe escaped through the Veil. Oliver’s fiancée is Lost, but he would not have left her. Bascombe and Julianna Whitney were seen running through the plaza into an alley. ”

  “The damage could have been caused by anything,” Li said. “Even if our friends tried to escape, we have no way to be certain they succeeded. Did anyone see Frost and the Bascombe woman cross the Veil? And this witness who saw Oliver and the other fleeing, do we have reason to believe it? Have any of our allies seen anything at all that would support the story?”

  Cheval seemed irked. She sniffed and focused on Blue J
ay. “The very questions I asked myself. I would not have come in so happily if I did not have answers. ”

  The kelpy bared her teeth in a different sort of smile, then reached into the leather satchel and drew out the bloody head of a soldier of Atlantis. The soldier’s head had been torn from the body and so its neck was a ragged stump, trailing several inches of spine.

  “All that I have heard, I confirmed with this handsome soldier. That, and more. The official alliance with Atlantis will be declared today. Hordes of Atlantean troops will join the war against Euphrasia. And Ty’Lis’s handpicked guards witnessed Frost and Collette crossing the Veil with their own eyes. ”

  Blue Jay felt a strange lightness. “And Oliver and Julianna are out there, somewhere, on the streets of Palenque?”

  The kelpy dropped the soldier’s head back into the satchel and let it fall to the floor. “Yes. Somewhere. ”

  Blue Jay smiled and looked around at the gathered Borderkind. “All right, then, spread the word to friends and allies. Everyone get out there. Let’s find them before Ty’Lis does. ”

  King Hunyadi’s encampment was arrayed along the ridge of a bald hill, a dozen tents comprising the field headquarters of his army. One open tent held the map of the Two Kingdoms upon which he and his commanders kept track of the troop movements for both their own forces and that of their enemies. To the north, at their backs, lay Jamestown. Many of its people had evacuated, to stay with relatives in other towns and cities. They knew without being told that their hometown was ripe for the plucking. There were bigger cities to the west and the northeast, but as the crossroads of midwestern Euphrasia, Jamestown had become the core of the kingdom.

  If the Yucatazcans and the Atlanteans could take Jamestown, the rest of the kingdom would feel as though nowhere was safe. King Hunyadi could not afford such a loss. He needed the people to rise, to fight against the invaders. If Jamestown fell, they might flee instead, thinking the war unwinnable.

  Reinforcements had been trickling in, and Hunyadi would take them all. With every thrust northward that the invaders made, his commanders were reporting heavy casualties, thanks in large part to the presence of Perytons, Atlantean giants, and Battle Swine in the southern ranks.

  This morning, however, he began to believe that the tide might turn.

  Jamestown will not fall today.

  King Hunyadi stood on the hill outside his tent. With a telescope to his eye, he gazed at the broad trade route that ran south from Jamestown. More than a mile to the south, the road curved westward. There, the armies of the Two Kingdoms were at war, staining the ground with blood.

  Through the telescope, he watched a sphere of green flame slingshot into the sky—Greek fire, deadly in battle. It struck a Peryton and the Atlantean Hunter plummeted to the ground. The wind had turned, and Hunyadi thought he could hear the creature shrieking as it fell.

  Swords flashed. This battalion had come with a single giant and it had been slain at the outset of this morning’s fighting. The Battle Swine—stinking, tusked, boarlike creatures who walked on two legs and were savage in combat—swept through Hunyadi’s men like the reaper at harvest time. But the Euphrasian forces had the advantage of greater numbers. One by one, at a cost of a dozen men for each, the Battle Swine were being felled, leaving stinking, putrid corpses on the road.

  Three horsemen rode up the road and then cut across open ground, moving up the hill toward the camp. Hunyadi’s personal guard moved to intercept them—the deadliest and most faithful soldiers in his service—but when they recognized Commander Sakai they parted to allow him to pass. A pair of personal bodyguards attended the king, and they stepped up behind him, now. Sakai had proven himself loyal, but in a world of magic and deceit, it would be foolish to take risks.

  Sakai dismounted. For a small man, he carried himself with immense dignity. Hunyadi had always marveled at how unremarkable he was, both physically and in his features. His face did not betray any particular cunning, and yet Sakai had proven to be his greatest commander.

  “It goes well, I see,” the king said.

  Commander Sakai bowed his head and then looked up. “Very well, Majesty. We suffer great losses, but their spirit is weakening and their numbers are dwindling faster than ours, now that the swine are mostly dead. We will turn them within the hour, and then have all day to drive them south. ”

  Heartened, the king nodded. “You’ll be pleased to hear that couriers have brought word from Boudreau and Alborg. They haven’t had our success, but they have stopped the invasion from advancing. Alborg feels certain he’ll turn them back by tomorrow. ”

  “And Commander Beck, Majesty? Have you word from her?”

  The king narrowed his eyes. “Nothing yet, Hiro. But don’t concern yourself. Damia will stop them at the Oldwood. ”

  Sakai said nothing, but his lips were tightly closed and he breathed through his nose.

  “Something you wanted to say, Commander Sakai?”

  Again, the little man bowed his head. “Once we turn this attack away, Majesty, I thought you might want to send reinforcements to aid Commander Beck. If the division Ty’Lis has sent northeast is not stopped, we will never reach them in time to stop them from attacking Perinthia. ”

  Hunyadi considered for a moment, and then shook his head. “They would have to cross the Atlantic River and travel many long hours. If it came to that, we could catch them. And the city has many sentries. The towers would not fall before we arrived. But trust that it will not come to that. Commander Beck will stop them. I would not have put my faith in her unless I was certain. ”

  “Of course, Majesty. If she has your confidence, I am certain she will prove herself worthy of it. ”

  The king nodded. “As am I. Your counsel is ever appreciated, Hiro. Now, though, return to battle. The troops need their commander. We have the upper hand, and I want to take advantage of it before the invaders receive reinforcements. ”

  Commander Sakai withdrew. His aides had not dismounted. As soon as he had climbed back into the saddle, the three soldiers turned and rode south at a gallop.