Comprehending my meaning, the King angled his sword to slice at the straps that held his arm fast to the shield. The Noctua ascended to the height of the rafters and then arrowed their way down towards the stricken monarch. A triumphant battle-cry came from their beaks as Fitzwilliam’s arm fell free from his shield. The King landed on his knees, stunned and completely vulnerable.
I could have aimed at the Noctua. I probably could have scored a hit or two.
But I wanted to take all of them out.
So I aimed at the one part of the dragon that I knew from experience was vulnerable to a well-placed bullet. I squeezed the trigger as I pointed the barrel right at the reptile’s eye.
At this close range, my bullets punched through the protective clear scale. A gout of greenish goo erupted from the impact point. I kept firing, scoring hits against the side of the thing’s head, another to the eye, two more to the lower jaw. Most of my shots bounced off, but all of them hurt.
The dragon let go of Fitzwilliam’s shield. Then it swung its head away from the source of its pain and towards the oncoming Noctua. Blindly, the creature let out a jet of fire that could have come from a fighter jet’s afterburners.
The owls flew right into the flames.
Heedless of the raptors’ shrieks, the reptile thrashed one more time. It let out a blood-curdling moan, and then the light went out in its remaining eye. The dragon lurched forward a couple of steps and then collapsed, pinning Fitzwilliam’s legs under the massive bulk of its neck.
I dove aside as the horned, bloody head came down with a boom. The creature’s armored skull smashed the Eastern Reach’s table to kindling. Pain flared anew in my head as I was tossed against one of the throne room’s stone pillars.
I fought my way to my feet as I felt my head spin. The fight went on against the owls, and many armored or robed bodies now lay across the floor. Yet it looked like the men were finally gaining the upper hand.
Several greasy fires now dotted the open space in the middle of the room. I realized that they were the remains of the Noctua that had charged us. I stumbled my way past the dragon’s body to reach the King. Fitzwilliam had gotten one of his legs free, but his other remained stuck at the ankle. He looked up in alarm as he spotted me.
“‘Ware, Dame Chrissie!” he shouted. “Look to your right!”
A grayish-yellow club came at me from the side and took me in the gut. The wind whistled out of my lungs with a hiss. My gun went flying. I actually felt one of my ribs creak as it bent, just short of the breaking point.
The hit spun me around so that I fell to my knees against the wreck of the table. Dazed and weaponless, I waited for the final blow to end my life.
Chapter Forty-Three
Raisah half-walked, half-dragged her way towards me. One of her wings had been so badly broken that it looked as if it had been dislocated. She held the other up like a cudgel, ready to smash me with it again.
Her head was a fright of frayed, singed feathers. The mask around her face was gray with soot. Her blood-smeared battle talons still gleamed as they scraped with eager anticipation against the floor.
“One wonders what you will do now,” Raisah said with deadly earnestness. “Now that you are weaponless. You are as helpless as a newborn chick.”
I fought to force air back into my lungs. I scrabbled around, my hands fumbling for purchase. Then they closed around the one thing I needed more than anything in the world at that moment in time.
I turned back to Raisah and grinned.
“Even newborn chicks know how to fight,” I gritted out. “At least if they’ve been trained by a griffin.”
Raisah frowned, not understanding. She raised up to her full height and brought her wing down to bash my skull in. I waited until the right moment. The moment that Hollyhock had taught me to wait for.
My hands had closed around one of the broken table’s legs. Now, the heavy wood made a perfect club. I brought it around to parry Raisah’s blow.
Her muscular wing smacked into the wood. The impact almost knocked the weapon out of my hand, but Raisah howled in pain and danced back a step. That was all the opening I needed. Leaping to my feet I swung my club at her with all my might. My blow connected with her head, sending the Noctua leader sprawling on her back. She tried to lever herself back up, but I brought a second blow down. Her remaining wing gave way with a snap.
“That is enough, Dame Chrissie,” Fitzwilliam said, as he stumbled up next to me. “The day is ours.”
The King limped, and he did that half-barefoot. A quick glance confirmed that Fitzwilliam had left one of his shoes pinned under the dragon’s neck. But he’d also retrieved his sword. He held the point of his weapon against Raisah’s singed neck feathers. The owl gasped and lay still.
“I do not expect you to yield,” Fitzwilliam grated. “But unless you want my steel in your throat, I expect you to remain still.”
I looked around and saw that the lords and knights on the royal court had taken care of the remaining Noctua. But there was no sense of victory, no sense of celebration. There were an awful lot of bodies, both owl and human, that lay strewn across the floor.
Commander Yervan nodded at me as he passed by to join his liege. Blood ran from cuts to his arms and face, but none of the wounds seemed critical. Fitzwilliam charged him with watching the fallen Raisah. Then the King walked back to the spot that had held his throne. He still looking surprisingly regal despite his limp and his missing shoe.
“Lord Ivor!” he bellowed. “Lord Behnaz! Step forth!”
The two lords, both of whom looked battered but whole, did as they were told. Their expressions were a mix of shell-shocked amazement and weariness.
“What we have survived was not just an attack,” Fitzwilliam began. “It was the first salvo in an old war which has arisen from the ages past. Dame Chrissie has been fighting this war for us outside of our kingdom. But now it has spread here. We can doubt no more. What say you?”
“I no longer doubt, my liege,” Behnaz said humbly.
Ivor nodded. “It is as you say, Sire.”
“We have been attacked from without,” he glanced to where Raisah lay still, then at the stinking dragon corpse. “And we have been attacked from within. Do either of you believe that we can stay huddled in our castles, count our coins, and dream we are at peace?”
“No longer, your Majesty.” Ivor said.
“Truly, Sire, war is upon us.” Behnaz agreed.
“Then attend me, now!” Fitzwilliam ordered. The King held his sword forth, pointing it towards the step immediately below him. The two lords knelt on that step, and Fitzwilliam’s voice thundered through the silence. “Renew your vows to your king, your country, your people, your homes! If thou must place thy fortune, thy demesnes, or thy body in harm’s way to protect thy lord or to prosecute his cause in war or peace, thou must do so dutifully and without hesitation. Swear it now!”
“I so swear!” the two men cried.
“Then I dub thee loyal lords of the realm!” Fitzwilliam thundered. With that, he bestowed a pair of taps on their shoulders with his sword. Much gentler taps than I had gotten during my own investiture, I noted.
Now a cheer went up from the remaining men, no matter if they were wounded or not. I joined in myself, applauding as the King raised both men to their feet.
The doors to the antechamber flew open with a bang. Galen galloped in, armored from the torso up in chain mail and holding his wizard’s staff high. A dozen soldiers armed with crossbows followed in his wake, though they came to a halt as they realized that the battle had already been decided. Galen pulled up in front of the King and inclined his head in respect.
“Sire, I see that you have things well in hand,” Galen said, as he surveyed the carnage.
“Only thanks to Dame Chrissie’s well-timed intervention,” Fitzwilliam acknowledged. “Attend to my men as best you can, wizard. Save those that you are able to, I beg of you. I shall send for my surgeons as well.”
Galen glanced at me, a worried look on his face. I waved him off to help those in much more need of help than myself. My head hurt, and my torso both ached and burned where Raisah had clouted me. But I’d take care of that when I returned home. Instead, I went to find my gun. It was bad enough that there was a still-loaded firearm lost somewhere outside the Sepulcher of the Eight Talons. I didn’t want to leave another one lying around the ruins of Fitzwilliam’s court.
I found my gun where it had slid up against a pile of rubble. And I found something else nearby. A mass of burnt feather. Wisps of smoke rose from the pitiful-looking pile. But I spotted the steady movement of labored breathing.
I brought the Glock up and sighted carefully on the mass. I walked over carefully, wary of a hundred dirty tricks, but nothing sprang at me. I looked down on the ruin of a raptor that had been called ‘Nox’ only a minute ago.
The Noctua had been bathed in fire from his breastbone on down. Charred stubs of feather projected from crisped, cracked skin. Sticky clear fluid ran from the cracks. His talons lay shriveled and black inside their metal armor casings. But Nox’s eyes focused on me as I stood over him.
“She-from-another-world has prevailed,” he rasped. “This one had summoned the dragon to Sir Talish’s land so that the Albess would breathe no more. This one should have ignored Raisah’s wishes and let the beast continue till its task was complete.”
I hadn’t expected this. It was a deathbed confession of sorts. “So you summoned the dragon to kill Thea, but Raisah didn’t want that? Why not?”
A cough. “The stupidity of the Anointed. Raisah wished the death of the Albess and the owlet to succeed the Albess to be clean. Natural. Hah! The holy ones forget. This one knows that death is always messy. Like the owlet’s.”
The words gripped my heart in a vise. “What do you mean, ‘like the owlet’s’?”
“Time was running short. The little mad one could have lingered for months, no matter how much poison we slipped into his feed and medicine.” Another cough, followed by a horrible, insane chuckle that bubbled up from Nox’s throat. “This one waited until parents and healers were gone. There was no need for battle talons. Merely the weight of this one’s foot on the little one’s chest. Until the air and life were crushed out for good.”
The same red-black darkness that I’d seen when Holly had died descended upon me again. Only this time, it was different. This time, it was fueled by different things than pity or horror.
When I’d learned how willing the Fayleene were to sacrifice Liam’s life, a small part of me had wanted to put the Lead Does down for good. When I’d learned what the Council of Elders had done to Holly, a bigger part of me had wanted to put a gun to Belladonna’s head and end her life.
What Nox had done disgusted me. It brought me to a low place that I never thought existed within myself. He had snuffed out a life that had been so poor, so abandoned and alone, that Perrin hadn’t known anyone like him even existed until I’d shown up. And then Nox done the final deed in his own way…because Perrin was simply being inconvenient.
I pressed the barrel of my gun against the O-shaped black splotch of feathers beside the owl’s eye. Nox squirmed as he felt the still-hot metal against his face. The owl’s beak clacked weakly as he did so.
“Killing this one will do you no good,” he wheezed. “It shall not bring back your owlet.”
“No,” I whispered. “It won’t. But it might make me feel better.”
I squeezed the trigger, once. With a bang, Nox went still. Dark fluid began to pool under the remains of the raptor’s head.
A clop-clop of hooves as Galen came to stand next to me. Quietly, he said, “Nox was critically injured. I don’t believe that he would have lasted another quarter hour.”
“Maybe,” I said flatly. “Then again, maybe I just felt that ‘time was running short’.”
Galen looked pained at that. “We might have been able to ask him questions in the time he was still alive.”
I tossed my head over to where Yervan stood over Raisah. “That one’s still alive. You can talk to her. I’m done with Andeluvia for today.”
Gun in hand, I made my way towards the doors. The red rage faded, and my eyes went as cold as burnt-out cinders. As I walked, I passed several of the knights that had fought in the battle.
Two of them bowed to me.
All of them stepped back out of my way as I left.
Chapter Forty-Four
The buttery smell of pastry greeted like an old friend when I returned to the Parliament building.
It had been two days since the fight in Fitzwilliam’s throne room. A long bruise had blossomed on my right side. The shape of the contusion made it look like I’d been beaten with a police baton. At least it didn’t hurt to breathe anymore. I’d called in sick for the rest of the week, religiously popped my pain medication, and generally tried not to move too much.
I still didn’t feel up to scratch yet, but I needed to talk with Albess Thea, and my brain wouldn’t let me rest until I did. Xandra greeted me happily, though her joy was tempered with sadness. Her son had been lost, along with a great number of her friends in both Parliament and the ranks of the Noctua.
I wasn’t all that sympathetic about the Noctua. But there were a painfully large number of empty perches in Parliament proper. Thea hardly had to raise her voice to ask for privacy. Xandra and the remaining owls took to the air and exited at the top of the cavernous room. That left me alone with the Albess, and her vast buffet table of freshly baked pies, pots of tea, and steaming tureens of mouse-based dishes.
Thea had been enjoying one of her meals as I entered. The Albess still looked underweight, but she had a vitality that matched or surpassed anything I’d seen from her before. She set aside her spoon as I took a seat in front of her.
“Yet more congratulations for Dame Chrissie are in order,” Thea remarked. “The triumph in the throne room belongs to you.”
“The only congratulations I deserve are for surviving,” I said, as my side gave me a twinge, reminding me who was really in charge.
“I have questioned several others about what took place besides Raisah. Fitzwilliam, among other people, is more grateful than you know.”
I waved it off. “I suppose that I saved his life. But he saved mine in turn. There’s no debt of honor or anything like that between us.”
“You misunderstand,” Thea stated primly. “He is grateful for the circumstances that you brought into play. This event has allowed him to demonstrate his physical bravery and leadership to all.”
“Even with the loss of many men and several of his lords?”
“Even so. The carnage that took place before his throne proved once and for all that the lords who do not heed the royal summons shall fall in battle or war. Lord Behnaz and Lord Ivor still dislike each other, and you. But they cannot and shall not go back on a renewed oath of loyalty performed in public, in the heat of battle, and of their own free will.”
I considered that. Fitzwilliam had seen how a common enemy could be the one thing that could topple his realm. Or unite it and bind it together like no other cause could.
“I also wish to congratulate you on the selection of your new sigil,” Thea continued. “Alas, I am not the Lord Pursuivant. Could you explain its significance to me?”
I carefully pulled back my cloak to expose my doublet. A new shield pattern had been embroidered into the fabric, and would soon adorn my ceremonial armor, the entryway to my demesne, even my rugs, curtains, and bedsheets, if I wished. The quartered field sported rich shades of burgundy, bright gold, dark green, and black.
“The colors represent each of the realms that has brought me this far in Andeluvia,” I explained. In order, I pointed at the quarters. “Burgundy for the centaurs. Gold for the griffins. A forest green for the Fayleene. And black for the pooka.”
“Interesting. And what of the symbol at the center? It looks like a tower.”
“It’s my demesn
e, the only one like it in all of Andeluvia. And as the ‘Dame of the Tower’, I asked for one final detail.” I pointed towards the top of the picture. The tower image had an open square for a window in the center, but just below the battlements were a series of small dots. “Those are openings like the ones your people use atop the Parliament building. That’s to recognize that the Hoohan also played a big part in where I am today.”
Thea danced back and forth for a moment, letting out a couple of pleased ‘hoos!’. “So much joy I take in that. We owls are respected, but rarely welcomed or acknowledged within man’s realm.”
“I’m not surprised. No one venerates their tax man.” I leaned forward carefully, and took a more serious tone. “But I have some questions of my own that I’d like answered. To begin with, did we learn anything from Raisah?”
“Not as much as you would wish,” Thea said. Her reply was surprisingly cautious. As if she were still weighing what she could tell me. “Raisah had been planning the rebellion of the Noctua for some time. Moving people like Nix and Nox into positions of power, making sure the rest of our religious caste followed her lead. She would have moved to usurp Perrin as soon as I had passed on.”
“Then why the change in plan? Why go through the cover-up, the poisonings, the fighting–”
“Because the Old War is upon us now. Because powers that begin and end beyond my sight are stirring again. Raisah spoke of a shadow in the shape of a man.”
That sent a chill through my veins. “A shadow?”
“I do not believe she meant that literally. Rather, she could have meant ‘a man in the shadows’. Or a creature that was not a man, but wished to look like one.”
I thought of Holly’s mysterious ‘him’. Of the shapeless demons of the rocks and air, like the Old Man of the Mountain. I suppressed a shiver.
“This being was most interested in me. And you, for that matter.” Thea said. “A choice had to be made: Which to strike at first? The ‘shadow’ suggested that you were the bigger threat, that you had forced their hand. But Raisah insisted that they had to move against me, since I held power over the Hoohan.”
A Perjury of Owls Page 24
