For the Killing of Kings

by Howard Andrew Jones

  At those words, a rain of javelins arced up from the warriors. Lasren deflected two with a deft sweep of Decrin’s shield. Kyrkenall simply stepped aside. Gyldara and Elenai cut at those near them, managing to avert most of the force that impacted their armored coats. None had been aimed for N’lahr, who waited for Mazakan.

  The king bellowed and rushed him. His honor guard came after.

  As N’lahr leapt back from a savage swipe from a sword nearly as tall as himself, the king laughed and advanced against him. Kyrkenall rolled clear of a deadly slash from one of the guardsmen.

  Elenai latched once more into the complex web of probabilities and found her way among the shining strands. She just missed getting her head crushed by a two-handed overhead axe blow. In moments she’d driven her sword through a Naor shoulder and then backed away as Lasren stepped in to shield a thrust from a growling attacker. An axe sailed over him and embedded itself in a warrior’s forehead, then Gyldara was in the thick of the action, fighting two warriors at once as Lasren limped to one side, struggling to fend off his own assailant. Elenai was stepping up to join him when the weaver struck at last.

  She’d faced sleep and panic and pain and even seen Denaven warping the environment, but she’d never before felt the urge to bow in submission. Her ring shining, she tore the impulse apart with her own threads as his attack slipped away. She would have retaliated except that she saw Lasren too hard beset to assist Gyldara, retreating before two stout warriors. These men were good.

  Elenai flanked one, kicked his knee from the side, then smashed his face with her pommel. She sent a tendril of panic winging at the mage and felt his surprise in the brief moment they touched consciousness.

  Thereafter was madness and blood and momentum. Dark shapes leapt at her, and she blocked or ducked, or drove her sword into quivering meat. Some of it was armored. For every Naor that fell another was there to take his place. Three and four times she herself was struck, in shoulder, chest, thigh, and arm, and the fourth blow might have finished her, for it dropped her to her knees, but Lasren was suddenly over her, his shield ringing as he blocked a savage blade swipe. He moaned in dismay as another blow struck his spear into splintered pieces.

  Elenai stabbed viciously at her opponent’s thighs and then she was up and swinging at faces, her throat dry, her muscles aching, her breath a ragged gasp in her throat. It seemed impossible years ago that she’d been hesitant to kill.

  The mage’s spell hit her again, and if it weren’t for her ring the authority in his blast would have reduced her to shaking. He insisted upon worshipful obedience, and even with the sapphire to shield her, his call was compelling. He turned his effect upon Lasren, who dropped to one knee, and just managed to lift the shield against an oncoming blow. Elenai gritted her teeth, dug for magical energy of her own, and found she had nothing left to give. Nothing more to send. She was suddenly conscious of her ribs and their frailty as her heart slammed them. If the mage cared to press his advantage, she was done.

  But he didn’t. Magically, as though clouds had parted, the attack ceased. A snarling Gyldara drove her sword into a final Naor and sent him to the ground in a welter of blood. The last of the honor guard was down.

  Elenai discovered Kyrkenall tensely observing N’lahr dueling Mazakan. Lasren sat on his knees, head bowed as if in prayer, absolutely drenched in blood that probably wasn’t his. Gyldara leaned heavily beside him.

  The nearest Naor was the bannerman, some twelve feet back, still clutching his skull-topped pole with its fluttering triangular flags. The sorcerer waited nearby, dark eyes and broad nose surrounded by reddish facial hair. The more distant line of chieftains stood impassively beneath their feathered helms. Watching.

  N’lahr and Mazakan both were weary. The swordsman favored his right arm and appeared to be limping. And Mazakan weaved, bleeding from a dozen cuts to arms and legs as he drunkenly planted feet.

  “They can take us,” Gyldara said to no one in particular. “Why don’t they call up the other warriors and lead an attack?”

  Kyrkenall answered softly without taking his eyes from the battle. “Mazakan led them to the city, and lost. Mazakan sent men to our bluff, and they died.” He paused as N’lahr narrowly dodged a strike that would have caved in his chest. He then nodded to the distant clansmen. “Mazakan now has to win this himself. And you can bet some of those back there don’t want him to do that.”

  So that was why the mage wasn’t pressing and none of those waiting men would rush forward. Elenai searched the figures at the slope’s end for some clue to identity among the bearded faces. So busy was she that she never saw the opening N’lahr had exploited, only the jet of blood as Irion whipped past Mazakan’s weapon and plunged through the cloth and metal that warded the king’s collarbone.

  Mazakan stepped back, lifted his huge length of steel as if he meant to bring it sweeping in from the right, then toppled to the side.

  His impact upon the earth was substantial; Elenai felt it through her boots.

  Kyrkenall looked over to the chiefs, who shifted uneasily, but N’lahr stood staring down at the unmoving man. He planted a foot on the body and pointed his sword at the remaining Naor. Somehow his arm still was steady.

  Kyrkenall whooped approvingly and called to the watchers. “Now even the skies wear our colors, fools! Come forth, introduce yourself to our blades!” As if on cue, the aurora flared blue the moment he spoke.

  He’s going to get us all killed, Elenai thought. Another attack and they were through. Especially one backed by that mage. She smiled grimly. Kyrkenall was making it clear they’d take more Naor with them when they fell. Everything depended upon their reaction to this theater.

  As the chieftains stared, the mage looked over his shoulder at them, as if for orders.

  A piercing horn call climbed through the night air, high and clear, and Elenai could hardly believe she hadn’t imagined it.

  But of course. It was the Vedessi horse guard. The mounted troops of Vedessus had left the city.

  She had heard that horn call on and off the whole of her life, especially during the war. And why should she not hear it? If they’d attacked before, the Vedessi cavalry would have been devoured by the numbers of Naor, but now the Naor were in flight, and easy game.

  The horn blared again.

  “Is that getting closer?” Gyldara asked.

  “It is.” So dry was her throat that her voice cracked as she answered.

  “Kanesh?” Gyldara said hopefully.

  “Vedessus.” Nothing so grand as the famed riders of Kanesh, but fine enough. That horn call had decided things. The bannerman and the mage were hurrying away and the Naor noblemen were already turning in retreat.

  “Quitters!” Kyrkenall shouted. “Come back here and die with your king!”

  But now they were all leaving, as fast as they could go, and the horsemen waiting to the east of the bluff were skirting its edge at full gallop to reach the canyon.

  Elenai sagged, one hand steadying herself against someone she realized was Gyldara. With help she managed to stagger up with the others to watch a tight mass of cavalry armed with lances slam into the retreating Naor flanks.

  It was a bloody mess punctuated by the terrified screams of men and horses. Elenai was partly glad for the valley shadows, which obscured what was more slaughter than battle.

  Lasren let out a choked gasp. Elenai turned, thinking he was more wounded than she’d first supposed. He struggled to stand on his good leg, backing as if in fright, and she saw his shaking hand point toward the mass of Naor dead upon the slope. He at last managed to speak as Elenai saw what had unsettled him.

  “The blood’s rising into a monster!”

  Tendrils of blood swirled up from the pile of corpses on their slope to feed into the growing figure not of some monstrous being, but a man. He was a moving sculpture of liquid blood, so that as he opened his mouth to show teeth in a smile, they were red. His eyes, fashioned all of the same material, seemed as p
upilless as Kyrkenall’s.

  The Altenerai formed a half circle around him, hands to weapons. The chest of the image took on more and more detail until it was clear he wore leather armor, and that beneath it lay a sleeved tunic. His hair was shorn short, apart from a curling braid stretched back across the top of his head.

  Elenai debated the activation of the hearthstone. Exhausted as she was, if she had to manage any spell work, the hearthstone was her only hope. Yet she held off, thinking that whoever wrought this spell might draw from the hearthstone’s energy, possibly more easily than her.

  The man had formed fully at last, a living being of dripping blood. “I congratulate you, N’lahr.” His words were clear, no matter the Naor accent and a disquieting further distortion, for he sounded as though he spoke while his mouth was half full with liquid. “You have defeated my grandfather. I thank you for that. He’d become an impediment.”

  “Who are you?” N’lahr asked.

  “I am Chargan, conqueror of Alantris.”

  Elenai struggled to show no reaction to this news. Surely the man was lying about Alantris, wasn’t he?

  Chargan’s mouth curled. “You fey vermin have had your last victory. Your days of stealing our children and harassing our people are finished.”

  Elenai’s brows lowered in puzzlement. She wasn’t aware that the realms had ever “harassed Naor,” much less stolen children. Unless the former was some twisted version of their adoption of Naor children stranded when their armies fled.

  He spoke on with profound bitterness. “Your cheap tricks can’t hold us back, and you can’t hide behind your walls. We’re stronger than you. We’re fiercer than you. We’re better than you. We’re going to root you out and consign your soulless corpses to the unending fire.”

  Kyrkenall countered with a savage grin. “Bold words from someone whose army was just obliterated.”

  “You destroyed my grandfather’s army, not mine. Alantris and its lands belong to me. Darassus is next.”

  “You boast well,” N’lahr said.

  Chargan replied with profound self-confidence, and conviction that was strangely alarming. “Not boasts, but truth. I’ve nothing to fear from you, N’lahr. Or your sword. You fulfilled your prophecy. It’s my time, now. If you’re wise, you’ll make peace, and I’ll let you slink off to the useless wilds of Ekhem. We won’t need it for a few more years.”

  N’lahr answered with stern surety. “There will be no peace so long as the Naor occupy our land.”

  “Our lands.” Chargan’s lips twisted in barely restrained anger. “You’ve hoarded our stolen homelands for too long, leaving my people to the scraps, like dogs. Now you’ll feel our bite. Prepare for extermination.”

  These had never been Naor lands. What was the man raving about?

  The horrible blackish crimson simulacrum raised his right fist and then the blood released its hold upon his image and sank once more across the bodies and into the thirsty earth beneath them. Elenai wiped a single drop from her lip, sputtering a little that it should touch her. She strove to ignore the sick pull of dread. Surely the mage exaggerated his prowess. And surely the Naor could be no match for the Altenerai, could they?

  “Have you heard of him before?” N’lahr asked Kyrkenall.

  As he shook his head in the negative, the commander looked in turn to the rest of them. Like Gyldara and Lasren, the man’s name was unknown to Elenai.

  “Do you really think he conquered Alantris?” she asked.

  “I know that he’ll be trouble in the future. And I know we’ve won a great victory this night. Right now, that’s all we need.”

  “That was blood sorcery,” Elenai said, her lip involuntarily curling in disgust. The dark practice was not only difficult to control, it was incredibly inefficient. She recoiled from the thought of just how much blood the Naor must have spilt to power Chargan’s spell to reach them here. And whose blood it must have been.

  “I wonder if they still sell those fried cakes in the Vedessan square—the ones with the flowers on top,” Kyrkenall said, ignoring her as Vedessi cavalrymen picked their way up the slope through Naor dead.

  “What are we going to do about the queen?” Elenai asked. “And whatever she’s planning?”

  Kyrkenall grinned thinly from the patch of ground he now reclined upon. “After we stop the Naor, we’ll stop the exalts, dethrone the queen, and find Kalandra.”

  “That sounds simple.” Elenai joined him on the rocky dirt.

  “It won’t be,” N’lahr said. “But those are battles for another day. We have to care for ourselves, first. Just as you must wipe your sword of blood and polish its edge between battles.”

  “And drink wine,” Kyrkenall added. “That spoils your analogy, I know, but I want some wine. And some cakes. And a really long hot soak. None of that would help my sword much.”

  As the sober Vedessi cavalry leader dismounted and removed his helm, N’lahr stepped forward, and the man addressed him in reverent tones.

  She would have listened in, but Gyldara came over and clapped her shoulder with a tired smile. “Your first battle as Altenerai. You did well.” She sat down at her side.

  “We all did.”

  “The ring doesn’t feel quite like you expected, does it?” Gyldara asked.

  She looked down at the ring and wiped a smear of blood from it.

  Gyldara continued. “I felt like I had to grow into mine. But I’d say yours already fits you.” She hesitated briefly before saying: “I never thanked you.”

  For a moment, Elenai wondered what the other woman meant, for all through the battle they’d each saved the other more times than she could recall. But she must be referring to Elenai interceding in Gyldara’s fight with Kyrkenall. “You would have done the same for me.”

  “Would I? I judged before I had the facts. At some level I knew Denaven was wrong and ignored my instinct. You really did look with both mind and heart and acted with wisdom. You gave greater meaning to those words than I understood, and I mean to remember that.”

  She met the woman’s eyes and realized that their shared experience had forged a powerful bond. She’d heard combat could do that among soldiers, and she’d thought she understood it until experiencing the real thing. She now realized how shallow her comprehension had truly been. Throughout the harrowing ordeal, their trust and reliance upon one another had been absolute. Each of them had risked their lives for one another, moving like connected pieces of a greater whole. And because they had worked so effectively together, they had endured. This woman had guarded her back, and she knew with certainty she would do so going forward. Almost surely this same faith lay behind the deep connection between Kyrkenall and N’lahr.

  Perhaps it was impossible to state the complexity of her feelings in any succinct way, or perhaps exhaustion had rendered her too weary for sophisticated expression. Instead, she simply offered her arm. Unhesitatingly, Gyldara took it, and they clasped one another below the elbow, acknowledging one another with a firm nod.

  “If you two are done,” Lasren said. “Can you help me up? It looks like they brought some extra horses. And I’m eager to get to the city and have my wounds looked at. Or maybe just fall asleep on something with a mattress and pillows.”

  “Stop complaining,” Gyldara grumbled good-naturedly, and stood, then bent to assist the heavier alten. He was on his feet a moment later, and leaned against Gyldara’s shoulder as she maneuvered him toward the horses.

  Elenai rose and turned to stare at the city under the flickering heavens. She looked forward to seeing her family and idly wondered what they’d think to see her as a full-fledged alten. Somehow, though, that wasn’t as important to her as she would once have expected.

  She thought instead about the glory of being clean, and having cooked food, and lying in soft sheets, and maybe another long sleep. And she wondered, too, how they were going to stop the Naor and the queen and the Mage Auxiliary.…

  Later, she promised herself. Later.r />
  She stared down at her ring, then, on a whim, willed it to sapphire radiance.

  Epilogue

  Rylin hadn’t remembered drinking, but his head pounded fitfully. When he opened his eyes he found the sky dark above him.

  His thoughts tumbled suddenly into order as he sat up. Horn calls rent the air, along with shouts of men, the tinny clack of swords, the screams of dying, the roar of the great wyrms.

  The wyrms.

  “Lelanc,” he said weakly. “Where’s Lelanc?”

  No one answered him.

  Rylin forced himself up on unsteady feet. He couldn’t help noting the ruined wall in the southwest quadrant, or the pair of winged beasts sailing over the city, one of which was even now letting go with a great rumbling roar that sent a gatehouse tumbling. Naor foot soldiers swarmed through a gap in the third wall against a thin line of defenders.

  Alantris was doomed.

  It was then he saw the bodies, and remembered. He felt his breath constrict as he hurried on shaking legs. The eyes of the poor signalman stared sightlessly at the stars.

  Varama lay facedown. He threw himself on his knees beside her.

  There wasn’t a pool of blood or any obvious wound in her back, but she wasn’t moving.

  He grabbed her shoulder and shook and shouted her name.

  She didn’t stir.

  He turned her over, panic growing, for she was limp in his hands and her head lolled. He fumbled to undo the stiff collar, then thrust fingers against her throat, knew with rising despair that the coolness of her skin must mean she was dead.

  But a steady pulse thrummed there. Relief washed through him even as the tower shook. Something rattled the ground nearby, accompanied by dozens of frightened screams. Many of them were cut off in mid yell.

  “Varama!” He shook her arms.

  She groaned, almost imperceptibly, then looked at him through slitted eyes.

  He slipped into the inner world. If Varama still carried her hearthstone maybe he could use it to help … but no. There was no gleam of the things about her, even deactivated, which jibed with his memory. Cerai had been using a stack of the artifacts, linked together. Varama must have been pursuing her.