For the Killing of Kings

by Howard Andrew Jones

  He was surprised when Varama slid two arms about his waist, though he quickly realized she was belting him in place. She touched a buckle slightly off-center. “Pull here if you need release immediately.”

  He couldn’t possibly imagine why he’d want to unstrap himself from Lelanc while in the air, but he held off asking about that. “If you hate heights, how do you know so much about how this saddle works?”

  “I designed them.” A hint of a smile turned up Varama’s lips.

  “What are we going to do about the Naor?” He meant to ask a more nuanced question, but he felt Lelanc stir beneath him and sensed they were out of time.

  Varama answered swiftly. “Drive them back.”

  Was that a joke? He’d meant her to be more specific, and had wondered how the Naor raid would affect the rest of their problems.

  Lelanc unfolded her wings and sent a gust blooming again. Her long neck turned sideways so she could observe him. “You are ready now?”

  “I am.” He resisted the impulse to click his tongue, as he’d have done with his horse.

  “Grip the front of the saddle if you need. Varama, fare you well.” Lelanc leaned out over the cliff edge and Rylin’s heart hammered as he felt her gather her weight into her back legs. Then, without any further notice, she flung herself into the air.

  Rylin grabbed for a handhold, but found none as he was jerked back by the sudden drop. His heart slammed with terror, as if desperate to communicate to him that he was shortly to die. He might have screamed, except that he didn’t seem to have any air in his lungs.

  For a few stomach-lurching moments they plummeted toward the greenery waving along the valley floor, then the wind caught Lelanc’s wings and she leveled out.

  Rylin closed hands around the pommel at last, clenching it with whitened fingers. Lelanc beat her wings to gain more altitude, and Rylin felt his body lurching up and down against the saddle in a way very different from riding a horse. It felt almost as though he were kneeling in a boat on rough waters.

  As Lelanc tilted her wings and rose into a glide, the wind eased, only stirring his hair. He looked out upon the distant valley below. His heart still thumped frantic alarm, but he laughed in a mix of relief and delight, then let out a whoop and raised one hand in an exultant salute as they soared on. The view was somehow far better than that from the outcrop. Spines of tree-steepled mountains swept far east and west, green and brown and lovely, ornamented by shining strands of silvery-blue creeks and rivers, mirroring the perfect cerulean sky.

  Yet marring an otherwise glorious experience, he could now see several dark pillars rising skyward, marking what was probably horrific destruction below. Only one had been visible before, but now clearly there were five columns of smoke, fading in strength as they stretched into the distant east. Rylin thought to direct Lelanc over to the nearest, but noted suddenly there were no reins, nor any clear method of communication over the rush of wind. He didn’t dare kick at the ko’aye beneath him. Apparently he was not to be in control of their route.

  Rylin had fought the Naor as a squire, upon the plains of Kanesh. It was there, too, that he’d first seen the fierce aerial hunters. Most had served as scouts, only a handful ever welcoming mounted companionship. But it had never occurred to him to inquire about how the rare couples coordinated in the air.

  He wondered again what had kept Lelanc and Aradel together after the war. He’d met the famous alten briefly in Kanesh, long years before, but could hardly say to have known her well enough to guess the reason her bond with the wind rider remained so strong. The short, no-nonsense woman had been N’lahr’s second-in-command and handpicked successor, just as N’lahr had been Renik’s. Traditionally, the previous commander’s opinion counted for much, but after N’lahr’s death the queen had overridden his express wishes, and those of the Altenerai, and chosen her own, after which Aradel had resigned. At the time, Rylin had been a little disappointed with her, thinking it was poor form on her part. Now he understood that she must have guessed how things would rot under Denaven’s stewardship.

  Aradel had been instrumental in many of the victories late in the war. Kyrkenall might have been N’lahr’s shadow, Kalandra and Asrahn his chief counselors, but Aradel had been his right hand, the alten he most trusted to lead large forces in his absence, sometimes on the back of Lelanc. While other Altenerai were perfectly capable—and Enada was justly famed as a daring cavalry officer—Aradel was the only one who could duplicate anything like N’lahr’s famed battlefield improvisations.

  They passed through a cleft in the pine-covered mountains and Lelanc slowed and dropped altitude. There was no missing the distant, snaking line of Naor troops moving west in two columns. Rylin’s eyes narrowed. This was an especially large force, probably numbering in the high hundreds, at least. Ranged out well in advance was a contingent of horse troops, some of whom neared a rocky, scrub-covered hill where a band of mailed warriors from The Fragments had set up a defensive post. Hidden as they were by the foliage, he couldn’t get an exact count, but they didn’t seem terribly numerous. Nearly two dozen Naor had dismounted to charge the hill. Dozens more lay twisted and still at its base.

  Lelanc trilled a warning call and banked lower. “I have been gone too long!” she cried. Her voice carried more clearly back to him than he’d have guessed.

  Rylin pulled a javelin. Had his preparations put Aradel and others in jeopardy? He couldn’t have left without grabbing weapons, so there was no point in regret, and certainly no time.

  He could just make out bands of unarmed men and women peering out from the forest highland up from the lower rise where the defenders had taken position. Carts and animals had been abandoned near the hill. That explained the strange choice of battle sites. Aradel was protecting refugees.

  “My sister is attacked!” Lelanc shouted.

  Sister? There were no other ko’aye, so Lelanc had to mean Aradel, almost surely the woman he saw shouting orders to the defenders from the front. Why wasn’t she wearing her khalat?

  Because Aradel had resigned from the corps, of course. He shook his head at himself and prepared to do what he could to thin out the enemies on their approach.

  Lelanc dropped suddenly, presumably anticipating a landing somehow on the defender’s ridge. Rylin’s stomach somersaulted. He gripped tight to the saddle, alarmed by the amount of pressure against the belt. He prayed it was secure.

  A little lightheaded, Rylin nonetheless sent his javelin hurtling through an enemy shoulder. He took out another before Lelanc’s shadow scattered their horses. His javelin supply exhausted, Rylin whipped up his bow and sought more targets.

  Javelin fire and archery were trickier than he supposed from the back of a ko’aye. Lelanc was a steadier platform than a horse, but provided a more narrow field of fire owing to the vast spread of her wings. Still, he killed three before the horsemen swung too far away to right and left.

  The Naor wouldn’t abandon the attack, but there’d be a delay before they regrouped to assault the slope. A quick look confirmed the defenders had finished off one wave and were feathering another ten to fifteen Naor as they struggled for the top.

  “Can you get us down?” Rylin shouted.

  “There’s no room to get to ground.” Though there was no condemnation in Lelanc’s voice, he felt the fool. Of course there wasn’t. The rough, scrub-covered earth was littered with Naor dead and weapons, and otherwise filled by the defenders and the living enemy. Even supposing Lelanc could settle, she’d be exposed and unlikely to be able to get airborne once more.

  “I’ll drop!” Rylin called up. And to think he’d been wondering why a quick saddle release would be necessary. He’d practiced spell-assisted jumps as an upper ranker, but he’d never imagined he’d try one from a moving platform higher than a roof.

  Rylin barely had time to reflect that this wasn’t one of his better ideas. He grabbed bow and arrows, and called up his sorcerous energies as Lelanc drew closer and closer to the hill,
a good thirty feet below.

  “You will be hurt,” Lelanc replied with a backward look.

  “Can you get lower? Or slow down? A little?”

  “I will turn. It will be dangerous.”

  He didn’t know if she meant for him or for her. He could make out the clang of weaponry, the shouts and cries as the next wave of fighting had joined while he searched for a clear spot. The wind rider banked, and her words were lost in her warning vocalization.

  Rylin ignored every instinct of self-preservation, pulled at the release mechanism, and pushed off the saddle. He just missed the downsweep of Lelanc’s wing as the ground closed fast, but his magical sight was active and he aligned the threads of his will with the vagrant wind currents, which he sent to correct his angle of descent.

  The gust hit him from below, knocking his legs askew, and he adjusted and frantically sent another blast, choking with dust and the scent of sweat, pine, and blood. It slowed him mere handspans from the ground, so that when he struck, it was as though he’d only dropped from six or seven feet onto the uneven slope. Still the jolt lost him hold of both bow and quiver as he threw out his hands for balance.

  There was no time to seek them, for one of the nearby Naor had already turned to attack. Rylin drew his sword in a flash of steel and lopped clean through the man’s arm before he could block. The bearded attacker screamed and fell to join dead or dying Naor scattered leaf-like before him.

  The largest number of bodies lay uphill clustered about a short, dark woman he knew for Aradel. There was no missing her for a warrior of stunning skill. She caught a blow on her shield at the same moment she skewered another opponent, then maneuvered the dying man into the first as she parried a third.

  An attacker shouted from the rear, swinging wildly. Rylin’s khalat absorbed a blow, but the man’s strength knocked him forward. He pivoted and parried a spear thrust before sending threads of fear coursing toward the three closest Naor. One actually turned to stumble downhill; the other stood gaping.

  He cut into an enemy shoulder, then butted him in the face with his sword hilt. At Aradel’s shout, defenders pierced the surprised Naor with arrows, and they dropped, all but silent in their death throes.

  That was the end of the current assault, but before Rylin clambered over the bodies to join the beckoning friendly soldiers, he scanned the battlefield.

  Lelanc swept after a trio of fleeing Naor. That was promising, except that another group of horsemen was only a few minutes away from reaching the hill, some three dozen strong. It wasn’t going to be easy, but if they could hold that group off, they might have time to get away, because the column of Naor foot soldiers he’d seen from Lelanc’s saddle was at least an hour out. It would all depend on how swiftly the refugees could move. His eyes raked up the slope beyond the rocky defense and saw at least ten faces peering down at him from the trees, some of them very young. His heart fell. This was no place for children.

  He bent over a dead Naor to retrieve his bow when he realized that the defenders were still beckoning and shouting intently. “Alten! Help! The governor’s been injured!”

  He hurried past the panting, frantic-looking Alantran soldiers in dark ring mail. It was only when he stepped around a young pine bole that he saw Aradel down, holding her left thigh while two ripped open her leggings to apply a tourniquet. He stepped over a bearded Naor corpse staring sightlessly at the commotion, passed his bow to a bright-eyed woman warrior, and bent beside the governor.

  She was older than he’d remembered, and her flat brown face was hardly glamorous, streaked as it was with blood and sweat. Strong white teeth were bared in pain. Her helmet lay beside her and her damp hair was flattened to her scalp.

  Rylin wasn’t a healer, but he could tell when someone was bleeding out. That tourniquet wasn’t going to be enough to save her.

  The woman saw her fate in his look. It startled her only for a moment. Then she was once more composed. “Should have worn the khalat.” Her voice was a husky growl. “Rylin, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Let me see if there’s anything I can do. You, get her some wine.” He said this to the warrior woman he’d handed his bow but didn’t look at her, for he was already opening his sight to the inner world.

  When he tapped into his magical strength he felt lightheaded. He was near his limit. He saw the overlay of patterns and the countless ruptured threads of Aradel’s life leaking energy away. Gods! How did healers do it? How could you even tell what thread went where?

  He froze long enough to be worried that he waited too long, then fought off panic and decided he’d best do something for Aradel’s life energy paled with every heartbeat. There were just so many threads. He started touching them together and strengthening them. Each expenditure of energy linked one, probably the wrong one. With the fifth connection he felt he was trying to bail out a sinking boat with a spoon.

  Aradel’s hand gripped his arm, and he heard his name hissed. She was urging him to stop, to listen. “Don’t waste it,” she said. “There are more on the way.”

  Waste it? She meant his magical energies. He dropped out of the inner world.

  Aradel’s eyes were fever bright as they bored into his. Her voice, quavering, yet had strength. “Naor are invading The Fragments and Arappa both,” she said.

  Could the news be any worse? “Both realms? Raiders, or armies?”

  “Armies. Thousands strong. Mazakan himself is attacking Arappa. He’s riding for the city of Vedessus.”

  He felt blood draining from his face. Mazakan, king of the Naor, warrior supreme. Fated only to die by the hand of N’lahr the Grim, wielding Irion, both lost for seven years.

  Aradel winced, then resumed in a softer voice. “Once they have The Fragments and Arappa a third army’s coming for Erymyr. Caught a scout and made him talk. They’re—”

  The young woman, oblivious to Aradel’s words, pushed in at his shoulder and drowned her out. “Can’t you save her?” she pleaded.

  He could only shake his head. Right now he was trying to honor the dying woman’s final wish, which was to be heard. And the last words of a brilliant veteran were more precious than jewels.

  Aradel’s eyes narrowed in irritation, and she gritted her teeth. Her grip was unnaturally tight, and he had the sense the moment she released him she would be gone. She locked eyes with him. “Third army is coming,” she whispered. “For death blow against the Allied Realms. Some kind of secret weapon. You’ve got to get queen and Denaven to hear.” Her voice grew softer. “Evacuate settlements to Alantris. High ground east of Alantris. Lure Naor into ambush…” She blinked, slowly, and he felt her hand slackening. But then it tightened and her paling eyes wheeled. Her voice was a croak. “Promise me you’ll save Alantris!”

  When dying, she was more afraid for The Fragments and its capital than herself. That sense of dedication brought a lump to his throat, and his reply was hoarse with contained emotion. “I promise.”

  That seemed to appease her. Her fingers slipped from his arm.

  “Where’s Kyrkenall?” he asked quickly.

  Confusion washed across Aradel’s face. As her arm hit the ground he saw that her lips still moved.

  Rylin leaned down as the young woman beside him wailed in sorrow.

  By putting his ear to her lips he could just hear Aradel’s last words. They had nothing to do with Kyrkenall. “Thank Lelanc. Shield my people. Hail Altenerai.”

  Her eyes relaxed and stared only into the great mystery.

  The woman beside him wept inconsolably, and tears tracked the blood-smeared faces of the two who’d given up trying to bandage their governor.

  Numb, Rylin climbed to his feet. With N’lahr gone, Aradel had been their best chance. And now she, too, was dead, expired beside him because he’d never studied the healing arts. A living legend had perished practically in his arms and he hadn’t been able to do a thing.

  A fractured corps, a traitorous queen, a second Naor war.

  And Kyrkenall, appa
rently, hadn’t met with Aradel at all. Did that mean he and Elenai were dead?

  What should he do?

  He looked down at the small, dark woman in the old armor and realized he’d been luckier than her, at least. And probably less deserving of it. Would he be thinking of duty in his final moments? He glanced up at the pale faces of farmfolk and fighters, alike in expressions of desolation no matter the differing shapes. He felt his jaw quivering. He noticed that she still wore the sacred sapphire. Aradel might have resigned, and never again donned her hard-won khalat, but she hadn’t laid the ring aside. Once Altenerai, always Altenerai. He put his hand to his heart in salute, then turned to see the Naor approaching in two separate groups, front and left, almost close enough for him to make out individual faces.

  This was no time to mourn. Somehow he had to lead six tired, wounded, and demoralized defenders against almost thirty Naor horsemen.

  21

  The Rider on the Black Horse

  Rylin grabbed his sword from beside Aradel’s body. No point in wiping it now. There’d be more blood on it shortly.

  The blade shook in his hand until he tightened his grip. Between his earlier spell use and his fruitless efforts to save the governor he was mostly spent. A quick glance over the troops didn’t give him a great deal of confidence. They looked bereft, staring dumbly at Aradel’s body or out at the Naor riding on their position. Up slope, among the trees, he heard wailing from the civilians. If he had a few moments he might be able to organize them into a makeshift spear wall, for surely they had knives they could tie to tree limbs.

  But he didn’t have enough moments. He ordered the dull defenders to range themselves and got a quick count of their arrows. They had eleven.

  “Hold your fire ’til my command,” he said. “Each shot has to count!”

  Either eager or foolhardy, one enemy rider pressed hard toward the hill, two horselengths ahead of his companions. He threw himself from the saddle and started up the slope without a backward glance.