The cultists had already struck down more than ten guests and several of the palace guard were lying on the ground too. The archers were shooting at random into the crowd of nobles while the other cultist followers were shielding the archers and preventing the guests from escaping.
Ahren suppressed the rage that was overwhelming him. The lesson of his last battle was still fresh in his mind and so he sought out the Void, while at the same time setting his arrow and aiming at an archer.
A green shimmering shield was forming over the heads of the screaming guests as the two Ancients together created a protection against the cultists’ arrows.
The apprentice saw the attackers’ arrows bouncing harmlessly off the sparkling magic spell, and he quickly decided to alter his plan. As fast as he could, he volleyed his arrows into the dagger and sword-carriers who were threatening the nobles, all the time taking care that the flight path was low and flat so they would pass under the magic shield. The cultists didn’t spot him at first, and his many hours of practice now came into full effect. Each of Ahren’s arrows met their target, and as the attackers were wearing no armour whatsoever, the effect was devastating. Within only a few heartbeats the eight arrows shot had produced seven victims, at which point the line of attackers collapsed. The nobles stormed forward in wild panic, pushing their way past the cultist archers, who couldn’t use their weapons anymore on account of the mass of people.
Ahren had two arrows left in his quiver, and he quickly glanced around the room to see how he could use them most effectively. The palace guards had withdrawn to the king’s table, and had created a closed line at the foot of the shallow step that led to the podium where the members of the high nobility were cowering. The remaining cultists were trying to break through the line so they could get to the barons and the king. Falk was standing in the middle of the king’s guard and his sword was crashing down on the attackers, who were disguised as attendants. The cultists were unable to counter the heavily armoured Paladin, and under Falk’s command the battle was soon over.
From outside more palace guards were forcing their way into the ballroom and attacking the remaining archers from behind. The battle was over as quickly as it had started and was replaced by an unnatural silence, punctuated by cries for help and the groans of the wounded. Jelninolan had worked a second shield around herself and the king, which she now dissolved. She and Uldini ran into the middle of the room and called the palace guards to bring over all the wounded.
While the pair began to heal the nobles in order to save as many lives as possible, a stunned Ahren walked over to Falk. The suddenness and violence of the attack had been a bolt from the blue and now the realisation was beginning to dawn on him that he alone was responsible for more than half a dozen deaths. The fact that it took him less than twenty breaths to do it made things somehow worse. He stared at the bow in his hand. Then his fingers lost their strength, and the wood clattered to the floor.
Falk planted himself in front of the apprentice and pointed down at the weapon.
‘Pick it up again’, he ordered quietly.
Ahren didn’t budge and Falk repeated the command.
‘Pick it up again, Ahren.’
His master’s voice was more urgent, more commanding this time, and his eyes bored into Ahren, but the apprentice couldn’t bring himself to take the bow in his hand. The bow was now a symbol of death and Ahren was shaken to the core by the carnage he had wreaked with this weapon.
‘You have saved many lives this evening and because of this you have had to take a few. You have to come to terms with that fact, because it’s going to happen again. If you surrender now, if you give up, then we are all lost’, said Falk insistently to the traumatised apprentice.
Then he stood up to his full height and looked at Ahren with a commanding look.
‘Pick. The. Arrow. Up!’ There was steely determination in every word, and with every word Ahren flinched.
Ahren stood paralysed for several heartbeats, unable to move a muscle, then his resistance to his master’s willpower broke and his fingers circled the wood of the bow. He had almost expected its polished surface to feel different somehow, but the bow was as familiar as ever to the touch, and with a sigh of regret, he slung the bow over his shoulder. There was no point in blaming the weapon. He himself would simply have to find a way of dealing with situations like this, for they would be a part of the monumental task that awaited him. He decided he would follow this tactic in future: if he acted cleverly, then nobody would need to die. But then, if he failed, it would result in battle and lives would be snuffed out.
He stared over at the cultists, who lay on the floor motionless, the shafts of his arrows projecting out of chests, necks and heads of the dead. The new cord, made from Selsena’s hair, had given the arrows far more power, and Ahren saw that none of his victims had stood a chance. The arrows had driven in twice as deeply as expected, and even fluffed shots had inflicted severe injuries.
‘I should have aimed at their shoulders’, he mumbled sadly, ‘then they would still be alive’.
Falk shook his head and looked mercilessly down at the bodies.
‘That’s wishful thinking, young man. These were murderers and traitors. If you had simply wounded them, they would have been executed later anyway, and probably more innocent lives would have been lost today.’
Falk laid his armoured hands on Ahren’s shoulders and fixed his steel-blue eyes on the apprentice.
‘You find it hard to come to terms with the fact that you have killed these people? Then just imagine how you would feel if an innocent person had died because you had hesitated before doing the necessary. That’s the day when you will really hate yourself, and I really want to spare you that.’
Ahren was confused, and his opposing emotions were waging a private war within him. Falk’s words were true. But Ahren was not sure if he was afraid of killing, or of the responsibility that went with it. He needed time to think things over, and all he wanted to do now was bury his head in Culhen’s fur…
He spun around.
‘Culhen! Selsena! The stables!’ he shouted, and started running towards the exit. If there had been an attack here, then why not in other places?!
Falk followed him and tried placating him, tilting his head at the same time.
‘Selsena says they’re fine. Two attackers targeted them, but the wolf finished one of them off and the old girl dealt with the other one.’
Ahren slowed down but continued walking, nevertheless. He wanted to confirm with his own eyes that they were unhurt, and anyway, he also urgently needed to be with Culhen.
They passed by the healing magicians, and Uldini, his robe and arms bloodied, looked up.
‘Go with Ahren. This here was the Illuminated Path’s last desperate throw of the dice. There could still be the odd remaining assassin in the palace or in the gardens.’
‘And bring Khara to us’, called Jelninolan after them. ‘She still doesn’t really understand our language and I don’t want any nervous palace guard drawing the wrong conclusions.’
A wave of fear came over Ahren when he heard the girl’s name. But surely she was safe within the palace. Or wasn’t she?
He exchanged a concerned look with Falk, and they began to run.
The palace gardens lay dark and still in front of them. In the distance they could see many guards patrolling the expansive palace grounds, their torches casting streaks of light through the darkness of the night.
They could also hear sounds of fighting in all directions, and so they drew their weapons and ran on. It wasn’t long before they reached the stables, and Ahren was relieved when he spotted Culhen, standing guard at Selsena’s smashed-up stall. A bloodied cultist was stretched out on the floor. Bite marks provided eloquent testament that the wolf had overpowered him. Another attacker was draped across the dividing wall, looking like a rag doll. The indentations in his chest suggested that Selsena had kicked him full force with her hind legs and t
ossed him to his resting place.
Culhen looked a terrible sight, the embodiment of the blood-soaked wolf, but Ahren didn’t care. He embraced the animal lovingly, and his friend reacted by whining cheerfully and wagging his tail.
Selsena was radiating scorn and indignation. Emotions that Ahren was feeling like prickly thorns.
‘What’s wrong? Is she injured?’ he asked, concerned.
Falk snorted. ‘Only her pride. If there’s one thing Selsena hates, it’s being attacked in her stall. She thinks it’s very inelegant and quite unmannerly. I never really understood that’.
The Elvin warhorse gave an offended whinny and deliberately turned her head away.
‘Let’s go and check on Khara. Selsena’s going to be sulking for a while yet. The mercy of the THREE on any attacker who comes near her when she’s in this mood.’
He shoved the remains of the stall door to the side so Selsena could leave the stall whenever she felt like it, but the Titejunanwa still refused to look at him.
Falk sighed and murmured, ‘women!’, then he left the stable and trotted towards the palace.
Ahren smiled quickly at Selsena, who took no notice of him, then followed his master after giving Culhen the order to stay by his side. The wolf let out a joyful bark and the three of them hurried through the palace gardens.
As they were running through the trees of the park, Ahren imagined for a moment that they were back in the Eastern Forest of Deepstone in the middle of one of Falk’s training sessions. He felt a stab of homesickness, but he pushed it aside when he heard a cry of pain the distance. There had to be still cultists on the grounds. Falk nodded in affirmation for he too had heard the noise, and so they hurried on.
The entrance to the palace was full of guards, but they quickly made room to pass when they saw the fully-armed Falk rushing in. The Paladin wasn’t going to waste time on explanations and just stormed through them and headed straight for Jelninolan’s rooms. Ahren and Culhen stayed close behind Falk and slipped through before any of the guards could stop them.
The way through the palace corridors seemed longer now to the young man, and the more he thought about Khara, the more concerned he became that something might have happened to her. His fears increased when they turned into the corridor containing the guest quarters and saw four palace guards and three attackers lifeless on the floor. The smell of blood hung heavily in the air and the stillness in the palace created an air of danger and threat.
Ahren placed an arrow on his bow and stormed forwards. The door to the elf’s rooms was slightly ajar. Falk opened it and now they could hear the sounds of fighting. Ahren was overcome by blind rage when he heard Khara’s scream of pain, and he rushed after his master through the doorway, his bow stretched as far as his new cord would allow.
The living quarters resembled a battlefield. Three figures, dressed as palace attendants were lying on the floor – two men with deep sword wounds and a woman with her head twisted in a terrifying way. Khara was fighting off two other attackers with Windblade in her left hand while her bloodied right arm hung uselessly by her side. The cultists had pushed her into a corner of the room and hemmed her in. A third, not in attendant’s livery, but dressed in the white robe of the Illuminated Path, stood a little to the side and watched the scene, a horrible, contorted, bloody dagger in his hand.
The attackers reacted immediately to the new danger. The man with the dagger, obviously their leader, pointed at the new arrivals, and the two cultists stormed forward. Ahren instinctively let fly an arrow, which hit the dagger carrier in his left shoulder, spinning him around and throwing him against the wall. Falk let his blade do an elaborate dance, which fended the wild attacks of the other two fanatics. Khara leaped forward with a scream and plunged Windblade into the back of one of Falk’s opponents, at which point the Paladin sent the other to the floor courtesy of three perfectly executed thrusts.
The cultist leader, however, took advantage of this opportunity and picked something up that had been lying behind Khara in the corner of the room, before throwing himself out of the window. Ahren prepared his last arrow and as he crossed the room, Khara screamed in rage.
‘Tanentan!’
As if electrified, Ahren drew back the arrow and stared out into the night. The cultists had been after the Elvin artefact, and if this man escaped in the darkness, then Ahren’s Naming would be condemned to failure.
Two paces below him he could barely make out a movement. Luckily, the cultist was still wearing his white robe, but shooting from the brightly lit room of the palace into the darkness of the garden was hard enough as it was. Ahren could just make out the outlines of his target as it moved away while he set himself up at the open window. Any moment and the enemy would be swallowed up by the night.
Ahren breathed in deeply, sought out the Void and imagined where the man would be in following heartbeat. Then he let the arrow fly and was rewarded with a strangled cry.
As Ahren dropped his bow, Culhen was already leaping powerfully out through the window and then he ran growling to the place where Ahren imagined the fallen attacker to be lying. The apprentice called out a warning, but the wolf had already disappeared, and a few moments later all that could be heard were the sounds of a scuffle and a wet gurgling noise.
Ahren quickly clambered out while Falk supported the injured Khara. The apprentice wanted to rush to Culhen’s aid, but the wolf was already trotting back, visible in the lights of the palace. This fur was covered in fresh blood, but he held Tanentan in his mouth, just as when he had secured the Artefact in the Weeping Valley.
‘This is becoming a habit, my friend’, said Ahren. ‘If it goes on like this, the bards will soon be singing your praises as the wolf with the lute.’
He carefully took the instrument from Culhen’s mouth, and the wolf looked up at him proudly. Then he raised his head towards the night sky and gave a triumphant howl.
‘I don’t think your vain friend gives a hoot for the nickname. Just as long as the bards call out his name and praise his deeds.’
Ahren joined in as the old Paladin laughed in relief, and Culhen threw them a self-confident look with his proud wolf eyes, before walking in a stately manner away from them and in the direction of one of the palace ponds, where he had every intention of having a luxurious bath.
Chapter 12
54 days to the winter solstice
The seagulls circled the harbour above the hurly-burly of port activity. Wherever you looked, you saw wide-bellied cargo vessels being loaded or unloaded. Heavily laden carts hurtled over the cobble-stoned streets, sailors joked and cursed in half a dozen different languages, and traders haggled with them over shiploads of goods.
Ahren was completely exhausted, and all these sights and sounds overwhelmed him. It took all his concentration to examine the ship which would be their home for the following two weeks.
The Queen of the Waves was the flagship of the Knight Marshes’ royal fleet and with her narrow hull and three tall masts she looked like a hunting animal among the heavy cargo ships, as she pulled impatiently at her ropes, eager to slide swiftly off on her adventures.
The sailors on board were similarly distinguishable from their fellow sailors in the harbour. They all wore impeccably clean and tailored uniforms. They too were laughing and joking, but nobody was dawdling or wasting time. Each member of the crew had an air of focussed discipline, and the apprentice, who was about to go to sea for the first time in his life, found their attitude very reassuring.
‘If you’ve stared at everything enough, we wouldn’t mind going on board’, mocked Uldini behind him, and Ahren hurried up the gang plank, which he had been blocking.
The wood moved under his feet to the rhythm of the waves, and for the first time Ahren was fully aware of the awe he felt for the vastness and power of the sea, a feeling that had been with him since he had first set eyes on it. Ahren felt tiny when compared to this mass of water with all its inner strength. None of his training wo
uld be of any help if this collection of planks, nails and ropes succumbed to the power of the waves, and they were delivered helplessly to the ocean’s dreadful deeps.
His face, as he looked around, spoke volumes, for behind him he heard Khara say something in her mother tongue, and then he heard Jelninolan laughing with her. By now, Ahren recognised the tone of voice that they used whenever they said something unflattering about the men in the group. The elf had really taken her new servant into her heart, and since Khara’s fierce defence of Tanentan the previous night, their relationship seemed more like one of close friends, rather than mistress and servant.
Ahren stopped himself from asking for a translation of Khara’s comments, as he suspected he wouldn’t like to hear what it meant. He boarded the ship and stepped quickly to the left to hold onto the railing. The wood under his fingers was reassuring, and to distract himself he studied his travelling companions as they climbed on board.
They all looked as worn out as he felt. Uldini and Jelninolan had been healing the wounded until deep into the night, and the overdose of healing magic had made them listless and melancholy. Ahren had known that destructive magic could make its transmitters aggressive, even driving them into a frenzy, but he was surprised that healing magic could also affect them negatively.
Falk had only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘healing magic joins what has been separated, takes the patient’s pain away. It’s alleviated by the healer, who absorbs the agony and then disperses it. Feeling the wounds of others for hours on end, and strengthening them in the process, has a powerful effect on the magician. When you get down to it, it’s very simple: there is hardly anything in this world that is healthy if you have too much of it. This is true for worldly things and also for magic’.
Khara stayed close to Jelninolan’s side, holding Windblade, something she had been doing since the elf had healed her. She still didn’t quite understand the events of the previous night, and since then she had looked daggers at every liveried attendant that they passed by. She had almost attacked a merchant on the way to the harbour because he had been wearing a white robe, but the elf managed to stop her in the nick of time.
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