by Mason Thomas
Hunter made a quick scan beyond the row of guards. The king was there, too, loitering in the background and inching his way along the wall. He was a large man, matching Hunter’s own height, and his face bore a proud and robust beard. But the man visibly quaked. His hands were pulled up to just below his chin, and his eyes darted from the imposter, to him, and then Dax.
“Nice little trick getting the other prisoners out,” she said. “Like to know how you managed it, but I know you won’t say anything, so I’ll make peace with the mystery.” She took a step closer and shook her head. “You really should have made off when you had the chance. But it hardly matters anyway. We will round up your friends again soon enough.”
“We will stop you,” Dax told her.
“It’s charming that you think that.” Her hand drifted across the bulge around her middle. “You see, I’ve already won.”
The guards brought the crossbows up a little higher.
“I wanted to make your death a beautiful public spectacle, but I’ll not risk putting you in a dungeon again. Your head on a pike will have to do. Kill them.”
Hunter involuntarily took a step back as he watched the guardsmen curl their fingers around the triggers of the crossbows. Her narrowed eyes bore down on him with hate. Hunter could feel a bead of sweat trailing down the small of his back. How sad would it be that that was the last sensation he felt before a bolt entered his heart?
The guard to the far right of their firing squad made a sudden grunt and spasmed, arching his back. The crossbow fired, and the bolt shot up to the ceiling. It took out a chunk of stone as it ricocheted and flew out over the balcony.
The guard made a pathetic gurgling sound as he stumbled forward. An arrowhead protruded out from the base of his neck above the collarbone.
Other guards fired their bolts as well, but the unexpected distraction threw their aim. One bolt sailed wide of Hunter. Another hit the floor at Hunter’s feet and left a sizable divot. Dax twisted to avoid a third, but it grazed his upper arm, leaving an angry gash that immediately started to spill bright crimson down his arm.
A battle cry exploded from the corridor. The guards spun about to meet the charge of resistance fighters flooding into the chamber. The first that broke the threshold was Zinnuvial. She abandoned her bow for a long sword and threw herself into the fray.
The postern door. She had followed him in like she promised she would and brought with her what appeared to be a small army. Corrad sprang in behind her.
Dax lunged for the fallen guard and stripped the corpse of his short sword. He looked back at Hunter. “I fear your wish of no bloodshed may have expired.”
“Fuck them. Those assholes were actually going to shoot me.” Hunter rushed to his side and grabbed his arm. “Dax, you’re in no shape to fight.”
“Dig up that hand.” And he broke the grip Hunter had on him, and he launched into the fight.
A new cry rang out. More of the castle’s soldiers were spilling into the room. Swords clashing and men shouting brought the volume to a deafening pitch. For Hunter, the sudden and frenzied turmoil had an unexpected familiarity to it. Like being on the pitch in the middle of a match. The commotion made sense to him—the way guards and rebels squared off like they would at a line of scrimmage. Only this was bloodier. Many would not walk away from this.
He spun about to scan for something heavy enough to break the stone. A black iron candleholder stood on a side table. A winged fairylike creature posed seductively on a wide square base and held up a flat platform. Hunter tossed aside the wide yellow candle on the top and hoisted up the big ugly thing. It was solid and even heavier than it looked. He turned it in his hand to position the corner of the base and gave it a mighty swing downward.
The corner struck the stone floor with a gunshot-like crack. Hunter expected it to jar everyone to a stop, but no one even seemed to notice. Except the queen. She’d retreated near her massive fireplace and was pressed against the wall, protected by several guards, but she glared at Hunter with fire behind her eyes.
“Stop him!” she cried. But guards had formed a protective circle around her and were too busy fighting back the hard press of resistance fighters.
Hunter gave it another swing. And another. The blows had little effect. The candlestick’s corner chipped the stone at the impact point. A crack materialized down the center of one of the stone pieces. But the mosaic was largely undamaged.
He shifted his weight to one foot and brought it around in a wide circle over his head. The end picked up speed and momentum. At the apex of its flight, he put the strength of his arms behind it and brought it down.
His hands vibrated and stung with the impact. Stone fragments shot off in all directions like bomb shrapnel. Reflexively, he closed his eyes and turned his head away and felt the sting as shards struck his face and arms. He looked down. The floor had a divot the size of a golf ball.
Now he was getting somewhere. As he leaned back to give it another pounding, he heard Dax shout his name.
A guardsman had peeled away from the melee to confront him, his sword high. Hunter swung the iron statue like a bat. The base struck the man’s forearm and Hunter heard the distinctive crack of breaking bone. The blow sent the sword spiraling through the air like a missile out of control, and the guard cried out and tried to turn and pull in his arm.
Hunter followed up with a backswing. The iron base struck the shoulder of the same arm as he attempted to pull himself away. Hunter heard a sickening crunch that sounded like thick ice breaking underfoot.
The guard spiraled about one full turn and collapsed.
For a brief moment, Zinnuvial was in his line of sight. She faced two attackers, both pressing her hard. Her face was rigid, but calm. Corrad was visible too. A guardsman had moved in too close—Corrad bashed his head into the man’s forehead. Corrad laughed as the guard went down.
As always, this was just a game to him.
Hunter didn’t see Dax anywhere. Bodies littered the ground, and a gruesome tide of crimson spread across the stone. His stomach dropped. No—he wouldn’t have gone down that easily. Even as injured as he was. Hunter wanted nothing more than to find him among the chaos—confirm that he was all right—but he fought the impulse and returned his attention to the task at hand. He got two more swings into the floor before another guard came at him.
The new opponent was more cautious, easing in slow and deliberate. Hunter dropped into his defensive stance. He brandished the candlestick in front of him, feeling slightly ridiculous. The guardsman made a slow grapevine left, then right, a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. Even with his size, Hunter couldn’t have looked all that threatening with an ugly and cumbersome objet d’art as his weapon. The guard burst in with a curt downward cut aimed for Hunter’s neck. The heavy candlestick was too unwieldy for quick defense, so Hunter pivoted backward instead. The sword’s edge sliced past Hunter’s shoulder with only inches to spare.
The guard stepped in, closing the distance between them, and spun the sword around over his head, this time bringing the blade straight down. Hunter grabbed the loose end of the candlestick with his other hand and held it aloft in front of him. Sparks flying, the blade sheered sideways and wedged under the wings of the fairy creature hugging the central post. The blade snagged. A moment of panic sparked in the guard’s eyes. He leapt back to slip the sword free again.
It was the opportunity Hunter needed. He pushed in and made a hard thrust with one side of the candlestick while the guard was still within range. The corner of the base smashed into the man’s temple.
The guard staggered backward, arms turning boneless and eyes rolling back. He made a drunken stagger as if trying to recover, then dropped to the floor.
The fake queen continued to screech for someone to stop him while Hunter resumed the task of pounding on the floor. He tried to block out the roar of the battle around him, like he would on the pitch, but it was hard to ignore the number of bodies strewing the floor. The blo
od oozing out from beneath them. Too many people were dying. Too many of them resistance members. Their numbers were dwindling.
Between swings he searched for Dax, his heart bracing itself for the sight of him on the floor with the others. But he couldn’t find him.
This was the bloodshed he’d hoped to avoid. This was his fault. And he had to put a stop to it.
He had to keep going.
The hole was growing, but too slowly. He threw all his strength behind it. Again and again. Pounding away at the stone. His hands were blistering. Bleeding. The candlestick was slipping in his grip. Each new swing brought more sharp stinging in his palm, and the metal edges cut into his skin.
He glanced up again. The queen had snatched a sword from one of the fallen and attempted to push past her protective wall of guards. She was going to go after Hunter herself. But the guards would not let her pass. With arms extended, they implored her to stay back.
The king, in his strange disconnected state, seemed almost unaware of the carnage. He’d fallen to the floor, crawled past the fireplace, and took refuge behind a padded stool.
Hunter again put the full strength of his arms and shoulders into a downward chop. Something felt different. The impact reverberated through the mosaic pieces. The grout fractured into dust and the stones shattered. The force shot outward in a wave. Fragments launched into the air.
Hunter discarded the candleholder, which clanged like a bell clapper as it hit the floor, and he fell to his knees. With his bare hands, he raked out the fragments, forced his fingertips under the broken pieces surrounding the hole, and pried them up one at a time. Shards cut into his already bloody hands, but he ignored the stinging pain and tossed the pieces aside. His fingernail caught something—fabric. He dug harder with frenzied desperation. He swept away the rocks and dust that were beneath the wreckage of the tiles.
A sack.
He pinched strands of the loose-weave fabric between his forefinger and thumb of both hands and pulled. The fabric ripped. It was still wedged in too tight.
He had to clear more away. Still on his knees, he took hold of the candleholder once more and used the corner of the base to break the stone around it. He tried again, but the sack was still too tightly packed into the hole. The fabric only ripped and wouldn’t slip out.
Hunter dug into it. What he’d thought was more stone inside was instead dull white crystals. Rock salt.
Is heart lunged into his throat. With two fingers, he prodded into the bag with greater fervor.
A fierce cry of rage behind him announced that the imposter queen had broken loose from her protectors. He rolled onto his side just as the sword descended. It struck the fragments of stone not inches from his head. Spitting shrapnel from the impact pelted his face.
The image stabbed at his heart. His mother was trying to kill him with a sword. He knew it wasn’t her—but his brain still couldn’t process it.
She made another chop down at him. Hunter rolled, sharp edges of broken tiles cutting into his back. Again, the blade edge slammed against the floor, barely missing him.
He swung his leg in a desperate lateral kick. His shin caught her midcalf, and it sent her tumbling backward. She hit the floor on her shoulder and upper back. An angry and pained yelp burst from her mouth.
Hunter winced, and his stomach clenched. He didn’t want to hurt her. She was pregnant, for fuck’s sake. But what was he to do? She was trying to chop off his head.
For the moment, she was out of action. Her face was contorted as she squirmed in pain, and she retracted her sword arm against her side. Hunter lunged across the floor and snatched the hand that gripped the hilt before she had time to recover. With a bend of his own wrist, he twisted her hand back. She cried out and her fingers released the hilt. Hunter snatched it the moment it was released, and he tossed it across the room. It hit he floor twenty feet away with a clangor.
Her face red with unabashed rage, the imposter queen lashed at him. Her hand transformed into a twisted bestial shape with long vicious claws. She swiped at his head. He turned, but one claw caught him across the cheek and he immediately felt the flow of warm blood spill from the gash. Hatred shot from her eyes like venom as she tried to rise. Eyes that Hunter had never seen with anything but compassion, patience, and love. It was an ugliness so foreign, it made his throat constrict.
His hand contracted into a fist. All it would take was a solid punch to that imposter’s face and it would be over, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Even though it was tainted with malice, the face was still too much like one he loved.
He shoved her back and launched himself away from her, back toward the hole in the floor.
Frantic, he scooped more rock salt out of the hole. His fingers reached in deeper. With a shrill screech, she was on his back, clawing and pounding on him. The claws raked down his back and sudden pain erupted on his ear.
She was biting him.
He twisted and jabbed his elbow up at her. He hit something hard, likely her forehead. She was knocked back, but she held tight to him.
His fingers unearthed something. Something dry and leathery. He had a second, maybe two, before the queen recovered from the blow. He prodded deeper, his skin scraped from the sharp edges of the crystals. The knuckle of his forefinger curled around the buried object and as gently as he could, he slipped it out of the salt.
It came out as one piece. The gnarled, mummified remains of half a hand.
His mother’s hand.
It was exactly the part that was missing from her. The part they had chopped off to use for their illusion before she was banished into his world.
“No!” the fake queen screamed in his ear. She pounced for it from her perch on his back, but he shrugged her off and rose to his feet. He turned to face her as she stared up at him with loathing.
“Give that back,” she hissed.
He held the hand in his palm. It weighed nothing. It was shriveled and dried, but it was her. He could tell somehow. It was his mother. Tears stung his eyes.
“I will destroy you,” the woman screeched at him. “You will perish a thousand deaths by the time I’m through with you. We will not fail.”
He his gaze swept the room. The fighting had tapered to a stop. The palace guardsmen, the resistance, everyone stood in a loose half circle, watching. “You already have,” he whispered. He stood very still, the shriveled fragment resting in his palm.
The fake queen sneered back at him. “We shall see.” She rose to her feet. Blue sparks erupted from her fingers.
“All you’ll do is expose yourself as the fraud you are.”
“Not if I kill every witness here. These men are nothing.”
Hunter could feel the confusion sweeping the room. The guards who only moments before were defending her were now beginning to realize they’d been duped.
“Even the king?”
“He sees only what I let him see. You cannot win.” The sparks shot out farther. Hunter could feel the energy lift the hair on his arms. She was standing on a wealth of power to draw from. Who knew how much destruction she could unleash?
The sparks grew to small bolts of blue lightning that raced across the floor, across the pieces of witchstone embedded in the medallion. Everyone stumbled back away from her and pressed themselves against the wall.
One soldier made a run for it. He dashed for the exit, but the door slammed shut as he approached it. He heaved on the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. She’d trapped them all inside.
“Hand it over,” she said.
Hunter didn’t move.
She snarled at him. “I won’t ask again.”
A sharp clack and whoosh came from somewhere behind her. Hunter looked over to see Dax with a crossbow pressed against his shoulder. Almost distractedly, she lifted her hand, and the bolt exploded to ash just before it struck her.
If she wanted him dead, he would be. There was nothing stopping her. Except the fragment of hand he was holding. She was afraid
of destroying it with her power. The strange blue lightning would incinerate it.
“Come and take it from me,” he said.
Her face contorted with fury, her lips pressed into a hard, white line. Then her narrow eyes lit up and widened. A sinister grin lifted the corner of her mouth. “I don’t think I’ll need to. I think you’ll hand it right over to me.” She turned and scanned the crowd of survivors. Then she lifted her finger and pointed directly at Dax.
“I think I’ll start with him. Give me her hand or I will make you watch as I cook him to a blackened husk.” The lightning shot out in a sudden flare.
Hunter locked his gaze on Dax, who with wide eyes shook his head, silently imploring him not to give it to her. Hunter knew he wouldn’t be able to stand there and watch her kill him. But he also knew that the moment she had it back into her possession, they were all dead anyway. She’d already admitted she’d eliminate every witness if she had to.
His heart splitting, Hunter knew what he had to do. He had to destroy the hand. And fast.
He could crush it to dust in his hand, but he had no idea if that would be enough. He couldn’t take the chance. The flesh had to be destroyed.
He swung his gaze about the room in a wild search. There had to be something close enough that he could use to destroy it. He needed fire. But no torches or lit candles were anywhere around him. The only fire source was the fireplace across the room.
He’d never make it there in time. Dax would be dead before he made it halfway across the room.
The fake queen was lifting her hands, ready to unleash the blue storm on Dax. Others around him were backing away.
On the floor, not far from his feet, Hunter spotted a ceramic vase.
It was nearly the same size as a rugby ball.
He dove for it. The fake queen spun about at his sudden movement, but it was too late. He had already snatched it from the floor and shoved the hand inside. Holding it in two hands at the sides, he cocked his arms back. Then, he lunged forward, spinning the vase as it was released from his hands.
Hunter had never been the greatest ball handler. He was a forward, built for defense. He could run, tackle, carry the ball if he had to, but his main job was to put himself in the way of people trying get to the ball. But when it came to the passing the ball around, it was never his strength. His spin pass was always wobbly and tended to veer left.