by David Estes
Tarin’s monster was silent, its wail broken by this formidable foe. He could feel his own heartbeat in his chest, could feel the warmth of the barbarous body pressed against his. And he knew…
He knew.
He’d failed her.
With a snarl of glee, the barbarian snapped at his face for the last time.
It was arrested in mid-chomp, a gasp bursting from its lips, its eyes widening as a blade exploded from its neck, unleashing a waterfall of dark blood that blinded Tarin’s eyes and slicked his face.
The weight fell away from him and he scrabbled at his eyes with his hands until a piece of cloth was shoved into his hands, which he used to clean off enough gore so he could see again.
And then she was there, her proud, strong face hovering over him. His savior. His love. His soul.
Annise.
“Monstrous bitch,” she spat.
Thirty-Three
The Eastern Kingdom, Ferria
Gareth Ironclad
Gareth stormed into the royal streams, his sword already drawn. He had been the Shield for so long that it was hard for him to play this role. But lives were at stake and he was tired of being someone else’s pawn, his own life dictated by the actions of those who believed themselves to be superior.
The haughty Orian stream worker was still there, standing as she heard him enter. “Your Highness, is something wrong?” she said, all empty concern and feigned respect.
“Yes,” he said, flicking his sword with practiced ease. The tip settled in the hollow of her throat and he saw the skin ripple as she swallowed. “You lied to me.” The stream burbled happily behind her, unaware of the thin line between life and death on its bank.
The smugness was gone from her expression now, and Gareth saw the fear set in. Regardless of what kingdom you belonged to, one did not lie to royalty and escape unscathed. In truth, Gareth expected another lie, a grand performance full of tears and excuses—They threatened my family, I swear it on the moons and the stars and the Great Forest of Orion!—but instead he got a sneer. “You think we should help the northerners? You think they deserve our assistance? They are warmongers and murderers. They killed your own mother, have you forgotten? Not in battle, but in the dark of night, in her sleep. And now you would open the gates to the kingdom to our enemies, welcoming them with open arms?”
There was such anger and hate in her tone that it was almost contagious, an airborne plague that Gareth seemed to breathe in. For he had not forgotten what had happened to his mother, and he remembered the nights lying in bed, his jaw clenched in anger, his fists knotted in his bedsheets. He remembered his father’s speech at her funeral, too, not filled with sorrow and remembrance, but with vengeance and wrath. It was a declaration of retribution, which, he had said, was the only way to honor his late wife.
At the time, Gareth had believed every word—and he might still believe them if not for the change Roan had wrought in him. Ennis had played a role, too, when he, a westerner, had saved Gareth from captivity. And then there was Rhea, first his captor, and then the savior of the Four Kingdoms when she killed Darkspell on the banks of the Spear before he could release a potion that would’ve killed thousands…
Any anger the stream worker’s words had begun to conjure faded away, replaced by determination. “Yes. I would. For the enemy we now face is greater than our history, greater than the enmity and violence we have harbored in our hearts, and it does not fall on the shoulders of any one nation, but on all of us. Only then shall we hope to bear it. Now, unless you want to die on this day, in this place, show me where the inkreeds for Darrin are kept.”
“I already told you, Your Highness—”
“If I am forced to repeat myself, my blade shall do the talking.” Gareth himself didn’t know if his threat was empty, but the steel in his eyes must’ve been convincing enough, because the fight finally went out of the woman.
Her sunset-pink eyes bore into him. “Fine. But you will live to regret whatever comes after.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Such is the life of a king.”
Silver hair flashing from side to side, she led him to an alcove where small bundles of inkreeds were wrapped in ribbon, each one marked. Though she’d been lying, Gareth could immediately tell her lie might become truth shortly. For one, there were several noteworthy bundles missing: Knight’s End, Castle Hill, and Calypso. There was one marked ‘Phanea,’ but this was also the bundle she picked up and handed to him. It only contained three inkreeds.
Gareth looked at her. “I relabeled them,” she said. “These are for Darrin.”
“And the ones for Phanea?”
She shrugged. “We have none.” When Gareth began to raise his steel, she went on. “I swear it. The network has been interrupted. No more deliveries of reeds are coming into the east. We are lucky to have these.”
Gareth believed her. These were dark times, times in which generals turned the people they were sworn to protect against their own king. He took the bundle of reeds from her, striding over to a small metal table stacked with clean glass inkwells, dry quills, and blank sheets of parchment held down by a paperweight statue in the form of an ore panther.
The Orian woman didn’t follow, closing the chest and sitting in front of it like she was exhausted from all the truth telling.
Gareth ignored her, cracking open one of the reeds in the center, holding the break over one of the glass vials so the dark ink could drain inside. Assuming the Orian had told it true, this inkreed was harvested from the royal stream in the northern city of Darrin. An eastern courier with special border-crossing privileges had carried it through Raider’s Pass and delivered it to Ferria before setting out again to collect more inkreeds from neighboring kingdoms. There was one thing all the rulers agreed on: they needed the ability to communicate with each other. Even in times of war they allowed each other’s representatives to cross the borders to collect and courier inkreeds from key locations. Of course, everyone also knew the inkreed couriers were spies, but that knowledge made it easy to feed them false information.
Now, Gareth slid a bit of parchment from beneath the paperweight and dipped the tip of one of the quills in the freshly harvested ink, mixing it several times before pressing it to the paper.
Dear Queen Gäric, he began. I find myself compassionate to your plight and hereby offer you and your people safe passage to the east…
When he was finished, Gareth signed the message and used the remaining ink to stamp it with the royal seal.
“Shall I send it for you, Your Highness?” the Orian woman asked. When Gareth turned, she was still sitting with her back to the chest, watching him.
“You have done enough,” Gareth said, not trying to hide the venom in his tone. “I shall send it myself.”
He made his way down the gentle embankment to the water, which flowed slowly south, where it would eventually empty into Dragon Bay somewhere near the Barren Marshes. Not bothering to remove his boots or roll up his trousers, he stepped into the water, which was cool but not unpleasant. He waded a couple of steps as he had seen the stream workers do before, until the waterline reached his knees.
Carefully holding the parchment by the corners so as not to smudge the fresh ink, he read the message one more time. Satisfied, he lowered it to the water, submerging the entire page, which quickly lost its stiffness.
It also lost its ink, the words temporarily affixing themselves to the surface of the stream before fading away. If the woman had not lied again, the same words would now be appearing in the royal stream in Darrin.
He could only hope his response was not too late.
Taking a deep breath, Gareth turned away and climbed back onto the embankment, still holding the soaked, blank sheet of parchment, which could be dried and reused for another message.
He stopped suddenly, realizing something.
The Orian stream worker was gone.
Thirty-Four
The Northern Kingdom, Darrin
&nb
sp; Annise Gäric
In Darrin, the bloody battle was over. Corpses littered the broad area in front of the gates. Rivulets of blood trickled down the inner walls from the ramparts high above. Groans of agony filled the night air, along with the mutterings of the lost and broken.
After Annise had killed the enormous female barbarian, the remaining enemies had released guttural barks, some strange form of communication, and fled, most clambering up the walls and disappearing without the city, gone as quickly as they had arrived.
Tarin lay next to the dead barbarian, his eyes fixed on Annise. She sat in front of him, meeting his stare. Annise was relieved to find his eyes alive with humanity, not distant like she expected. But she was also surprised to see a deep and unrelenting sorrow there too.
“Tarin,” she said, and she wanted so desperately to touch him, but knew the battle was still too fresh.
Thus, it surprised her even more when he reached out and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his cheek, nuzzling against her palm as he closed his eyes. His skin was so smooth, like glass. “I couldn’t do it,” he said, his words rough as they scraped from his throat. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t…”
“What, Tarin? What couldn’t you do?” Seeing the lostness in his eyes when he opened them broke her heart. “You fought like the greatest warrior the north has ever seen. Without you, the battle would’ve turned against us.”
“It did anyway.” His breath was hot against her palm and his head felt heavy, like she was holding him up, both body and soul.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It didn’t. We are alive, as are many others. We were not defeated.”
“So many dead…”
“Not all,” Annise said.
“They will return.” Was that fear in his tone? The only thing Annise had ever known Tarin to fear was himself and the monster inside him.
“We are leaving,” Annise said. “As soon as possible. We won’t get more than a day before the barbarians attack again.”
“What?”
“We have overstayed our welcome. As soon as we have tended to the injured, we make for the Mournful Mountains.”
“But the easterners…”
“Will not respond. That much is clear to me now. But I would rather my people be taken into captivity in a foreign land than die on northern soil.”
Tarin lowered his head, and Annise remembered his unfinished statement from earlier: I couldn’t…I couldn’t…
Couldn’t what, Tarin?
“C’mon,” she said, rising to her feet, her fingers separating from his cheek. “I need your muscle.”
Annise had the urge to cry when she saw Sir Metz leading a large flock of civilians toward her. They looked exhausted and scared, and some of them had injuries—scratches on their cheeks, bruises on their throats, one woman even had what appeared to be four punctures, bite marks, on her shoulder—but they were alive.
And yet, they were too few. Far too few. Focus on the survivors, Annise reminded herself. For if her mind lingered too long on the dead, she would surely fall into madness and despair and would be of no use to anyone. You can mourn the dead later, when the rest are safe.
She strode up to Sir Metz and said, “Report,” with as much mettle in her tone as she could muster.
Her eyes flicked down when she noticed a young dark-haired girl clinging to his leg, her eyes as wide as full moons. But that wasn’t even the strangest thing. She’d never known the eccentric knight to be comfortable with human touch, especially in public, and yet now he looked completely at ease with the child’s affections. At peace even.
Upon seeing his queen, however, he straightened up and saluted. “Your Highness, we might’ve been defeated if not for the great sacrifices of the castle guards and the reinforcements I led onto the ramparts.”
Sacrifices.
“How many souls were lost?” Annise asked, forcing cold indifference into her tone. Not because she didn’t care, but because she couldn’t care. Not yet. Now she needed to treat the numbers as naught but information to be used in the days to come.
“Seventy-six soldiers,” he said, wincing as he paused. “Two hundred and thirteen civilians. At last count anyway, but the number is rising. Many of the injuries have proven to be mortal.”
“And the enemy?”
“All dead. There were…sixteen of them.”
Sixteen. Sixteen of the barbarians killed almost three hundred of her people. The numbers on the frontlines had been slightly better, but not good enough. Not nearly. Zelda and Sir Jonius—who had both survived, thank the frozen gods—were currently gathering updated numbers. A particularly sensible, loyal scout had managed to tally the remaining barbarians as they fled. There were still more than four-score of the enemy alive.
“Why did they run?” Annise said aloud now. It didn’t make sense. Every time she thought she was beginning to understand her enemy’s tactics, they surprised her. Like retreating twice in a row now.
“Your Highness?” Sir Metz said, frowning. The literal man would need a much more direct question if she was going to illicit a useful response.
“The barbarians. They were winning the battle. They had breached the gates, climbed the walls. Our people were dying.”
Sir Metz licked his lips, seeming to puzzle over the question in light of the facts. “What happened before they retreated?”
Annise shook her head. Nothing had happened—that was the thing. At least no major change. They’d just started barking at each other and then took off.
Tarin, who’d been helping to carry the injured requiring assistance into large tents, had stopped to listen. “Annise killed one of them,” he said.
It was true, but didn’t provide any answers, at least not in her mind. “Aye, but it was only one. We’d already killed others. Tarin had killed many. And like I said, we were losing.”
Tarin stepped closer, and Annise was glad to see the sorrow stripped from his eyes, which were alight with calculation. “This one was different. A female. Not just large—monstrous. The biggest one left. It must’ve killed three dozen men before—”
“A woman brought it down,” Zelda said, reappearing with Sir Jonius by her side. “Sometimes it takes a woman.”
Annise didn’t care whether it was a man or a woman or a one-legged chicken that killed the barbarian, only that it was dead. Instead, she was thinking about the little she knew about the barbarian Horde that had long plagued the Northern Fangs of Crimea. Disparate creatures, separated into small tribes. Until her uncle had united them, they fought with each other as much as they fought the Crimeans. Their infighting was one of the main reasons the Horde had never been considered a true threat to anyone. But now…
“Helmuth isn’t with them,” Annise said. It wasn’t a solution to the puzzle, but she thought it might be the start of one.
“Lucky for him,” Zelda muttered.
“No,” Annise said. “I only mean that he was the one who united the Horde. Without him, shouldn’t they fall back into their old ways?”
Sir Jonius frowned. “They sense the destruction of their prey. Wouldn’t that be enough to hold them together?”
Annise remembered the stories she’d heard as a young girl, the same stories her uncle would’ve heard growing up. “No,” she said. “Even when they fought the Crimeans, there are countless tales of the barbarians killing each other in battle, getting in each other’s ways. They were like birds fighting over scraps of food.”
“I didn’t see such behavior,” Sir Metz said.
“Neither did I,” Tarin agreed.
“Anyone?” Annise asked, scanning those gathered around them.
Heads shook. Neither had she. Instead, the barbarians had stayed well away from each other, targeting pockets of humans, almost like they’d been herding them. Annise said, “This was not a mixed group of barbarians. This was one tribe.”
Sir Metz was the first to understand. “Klar-Ggra selected one tribe to pursue us, so he could ens
ure they wouldn’t kill each other.”
Zelda caught on next. “And one tribe would have to organize themselves. They would have a leader.”
“Aye,” Annise said. “The large female.”
“The one you killed,” Tarin said.
That was why they fled. That was why they had retreated the first time, too, until they could select a new leader. It was crucial information if they were going to survive. More importantly, it gave them a timeline for escape.
“As soon as they select a new leader, they will attack again. Come dawn, we must be quit of this place.”
In the royal streams of the northern city of Darrin, Gareth Ironclad’s words of hope bobbed on the dark waters, waiting to be read.
No one came to read them.
No one ever would.
Except for the healers and anyone else helping to tend to the injured, Annise ordered the rest of the survivors to sleep. They would need rest and energy if they were to complete the final trek to the mountains. Any unable to walk would be loaded onto stretchers and carried by the strongest.
Annise knew she needed rest, too. And she didn’t want to sleep alone. “Tarin,” she said, once Sir Metz and the others had departed to carry out her orders. “With me.”
He nodded and fell in beside her, his fingers grazing hers as they walked. A figure appeared before them and she felt him stiffen, as if preparing for a fight. “Be at peace,” Annise said, for there was no immediate danger now. In fact, it was a plump middle-aged woman who blocked the way forward.
“Your Highness, I’m sorry to disturb you,” the woman said. “I lost my husband tonight.” Though there was sadness in her tone, there was something else too, something Annise couldn’t quite place.
“I’m sorry,” Annise said, and despite the bone-weariness she felt, the whole of her heart was in her words. For she knew the great and overwhelming gut-punch of loss as well as anyone.