by S J Hartland
Lost within every other sound, a mere wrinkle in air, he heard a bowstring thrum.
“Ambush!” Aric flattened against his horse’s neck. An arrow rippled his sleeve then thudded into earth. Horsemen scattered. A churned stone grazed his arm as he whipped out his sword.
“Archers. Behind you!” Cass yelled. A rider shrieked and toppled. A man plunged to the ground, a shaft in his neck, his startled horse bolting.
Aric twisted, desperately searching tangled steel and flesh for Azenor. “To me!” he shouted.
Indignant crows exploded from grass in a black cloud. In their wake, figures leapt up, swords gripped in gauntleted hands.
Wild with fury and outrage, Aric rode at them. Isles warriors charged after him, bellowing defiance.
Iron clashed in a thunderous clangour as the strangers fell upon his men like ravenous beasts. Aric thrust at one, his sword spilling guts. Gore and blood splattered his tunic. He kicked the body away.
Another attacker, pale-skinned with burning eyes, hammered with steel. Aric slashed his throat. By Saarn, who or what came at them?
Cass cut through attackers to him. “I sent men to protect Azenor’s women. My prince, find Azenor and get—” Two figures fell upon him with streaking metal.
No! Aric hacked. A head flew. Splattered blood blinded him. He swiped his eyes. More blood riveted in sweat, slick on his face and arms, thick in his hair.
The air steamed with cries. Shapes ran wild. Arrows twanged and zipped and clunked. A man screeched. Blades clanged.
Hands groped at his ankle. Aric swung, his sword cleaving flesh and bone. A shield smashed into his chest. For a heartbeat he had a sense of falling, falling. Then a boot struck his jaw. Darkness closed in.
“Aric. Aric, please be alive.”
The words floated as formless as a dream. Flickering light scratched his weighted eyelids. His skull flamed. Cord bit into his wrists and ankles.
Memory rushed him. Cass riding ahead. Whirring arrows. Ambush. By Saarn, by Sauveroken—Azenor. Aric forced open blood-crusted eyes.
Wrists bound, his sister crouched against a crumbling wall, moonlight blinking on her frightened face. Starlight sprayed through fire-ravaged roof beams. Shadows scrabbled along ivy-tangled stone walls, inked with age. A ruin. Where? Who held them?
“Aric. Tell me you’re not hurt. Please.”
Dizziness hazed his vision as he moved his head.
He managed, “I’m alive, Azenor.”
She dragged in a sharp breath. “Thank The Three.”
“Did they—did they harm you?”
“Someone pulled me from my horse. I heard screams. I feared they killed you.”
“Do you know where we are? Or who holds us?”
“No.”
“And the others? Cass? Any of them?”
“I didn’t hear—I don’t know. Aric, I have to tell you something.”
At her tone, unease whipped his back. “What?”
Azenor didn’t answer. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip.
A bite of wind riffled though hair to Aric’s skull. The touch of creeping fingertips. Moonbeams threaded through broken stone.
Awkwardly he rose to an elbow. “Azenor?”
She dropped her head. “I didn’t know, Aric. Oh gods, he didn’t tell me anyone would die.”
“What?”
“I knew about the ambush, but not like this—” She stopped. Her voice shrilled in panic. “They’re coming.”
Booted steps closed. A blurred figure yanked Aric up and slammed him against the wall.
He blinked to clear his sight. At first glance he might think he stared upon a man. Except something predatory marred the face close to his; the eyes veiled with coldness beneath arched brows, the lips sensually red but pressed in a cruel, thin line.
Others prowled behind. Beautiful creatures with gold in their hair and night in their gazes, their tall, slender bodies muscular and elegant. Swords and jewelled knives decorated belts. Silver circled wrists and long necks.
Belly sick, struggling to stay upright, Aric snatched at anger for strength, “How dare you attack us. You’ll answer for it. Who are you and what do you want with us?”
His captor grasped his throat with long, white fingers.
“Shut your mouth and listen, princeling.” He stumbled over the Telorian words. “We have a task for you. Fail—and your sister dies.”
Azenor gasped. Aric shot her a terrified look. Saarn, all the gods of the Isles, protect them. Protect her. “What task?”
“You will strike Khir’s bonded warrior with a poisoned blade.”
Aric didn’t understand. “Bonded warrior,” he repeated stupidly. “Do you mean that boy from Vraymorg?” Why? Who might want a bonded warrior dead except … except …
Horrified, he whispered: “You’re ghouls.”
The ghoul shoved his face into Aric’s, his breath cool. “We are the ancient enemy, our name forbidden. Once we ruled every land with magic and strength. We serve a lord with real power, not like your petty kings.”
“Whatever you want, it can’t have anything to do with us.”
“Is that what you think, princeling? That you’re safe in the Isles, behind the high walls of Tide’s End? Nowhere is safe. Our lord is coming. But first, he needs you to poison Khir’s warrior. You’ll do it, too, or she,” he slid Azenor a glance, “dies painfully.”
Anger flamed through him. “No!” Aric shoved the ghoul back.
His captor staggered a step, grabbed Aric, and hurled him into the wall. “Be still.”
Aric tried to swing his arms. His wobbling legs yielded. The ghoul dragged him up. As he pummelled Aric’s belly, Azenor screamed his name.
Doubled over, he fought for breath. The ghoul fisted Aric’s hair to pull his head back.
“Listen, young fool. I will be brief as I find your language unpleasant. Do as we bid, and she lives. Fail and she dies.”
Aric gagged on bile. The ghoul let him go. He sucked in air.
“Surely this warrior is in the Mountains killing monsters like you. May his gods help him.”
The ghoul punched his face. Aric grunted in pain. His lip split where a ring tore soft flesh.
“He is in the Place of Kings,” the ghoul said. “Dal-Kanu. Your king summoned him.”
Aric squeezed his eyes closed, wanting to shut out this ruin, the ghoul, his terrible words.
“How will I know him?” He knew precious little about Khir’s warriors. Ghouls infested the Mountains, the Downs, but ancient magic kept them from the Isles.
“By Khir’s sigils on his skin. By his hair, pale as daylight.” A monotone. As if the ghoul recited what others told him. “You will know him by his sword. Its ancient Seithin steel, blue in moonlight. The jewels in the pommel, red as blood, black as night.”
“How will I kill him?” Could even he slay such a warrior?
The ghoul held up an ampoule. “This contains Night’s Kiss. One smear on your blade—”
“I know what Night’s Kiss is.” Aric stopped him, his tone frigid with disgust. “I am no assassin. I will not hide in the shadows to strike a brave warrior in the back.”
The ghoul shrugged. “Then poison him in the great hall at Dal-Kanu, before King Cathmor himself. Invite a crowd to your performance. But if Khir’s warrior is not dying three days from now, the king will have no Isles bride.”
Azenor’s sobs raked the stillness, each a spear in Aric’s flesh. If only he had words of comfort. Instead, his thoughts emptied into an abyss.
Did they really leave the Isles only two days ago, the rushing waves breaking on Tide’s End’s salt-crusted walls? Now ghouls held him and Azenor, their escort dead.
Guilt flushed through him. He thought only of Azenor.
“My men—” His voice shattered. “My sister’s women.”
“The women fled during the fighting. Your warriors, though—” The ghoul licked his fingers. “A feast of Isles blood. Rare. We usually feed on those Mo
untains-born.”
Aric drove his knuckles hard into his thigh. He would avenge his men, repay blood for blood. “Why us? We have little to do with your kind in the Isles.”
The ghoul peeled his lips back from white teeth. A grin or a grimace?
“You are the king’s cousin, able to walk freely in Dal-Kanu. Further, you are a Serravan-trained bladesman, perhaps the only man who can poison Khir’s warrior.”
How skilled a swordsman might this bonded warrior be? No, he couldn’t just slaughter a stranger. Aric shoved his back into stone, desperate to crawl through it to escape.
“Your answer?”
“Please. Do what you want with me. Kill me. I offer my blood. Just set Azenor free.”
For a moment the ghoul’s gaze hung on his face. Then he nodded at a companion. “Bring in the first. Our princeling needs a nudge.”
Ghouls dragged Cass into the ruin and discarded him on his knees.
Aric jerked beneath his captor’s hold. “No. No. Don’t touch him.”
Face bruised, his shirt sodden with blood, Cass managed a grim smile. “My prince—”
A whirring whipped up air.
Aric had no time to shout, no time to register alarm before a ghoul swung a chain. With simple, terrible ease, its spiked ball pulped his captain’s head.
Cass crumpled. His blood and shards of bone splattered Aric’s face. Robbed of thought, of breath, he could only stare at his friend’s caved-in features.
The ghoul swung again. The ball smashed into the dead man’s ribs with an awful, gut-wrenching crunch. Aric could not look away as the ball whirred a third time. Cass’s body exploded, the torso and face mashed to red dough.
Released, Aric collapsed to his knees. He beat his roped hands against the ground. Shock offered no protection, no numbing of his mind against the sheer horror of what he’d just seen; the image of his captain’s crushed form trapped in his memory.
“You sick, sick monsters. You’ll pay for that. I swear it.”
“A waste of blood.” The ghoul nudged Cass’s body with a boot. “Bring in the next.”
“No,” Aric said. “Please.”
“You can stop this,” the ghoul said impassively. “Just poison one man and those of your companions we hold die quickly and painlessly, and we spare your sister. But let Khir’s warrior leave Dal-Kanu unharmed and Archanin tortures our captives and slaughters her. Your answer?”
Archanin? Who or what was that?
In blank terror, Aric stared at his captor. The contrast between the ghoul’s beauty and his ugly, callous disregard for life disgusted him.
With golden hair, his body as strong and straight as any Isles warrior’s, this foul beast could be Venivan, from across the sea. The lines of his face were hawkish, the nose straight, his mouth full-lipped. How could something so beautiful be so unnaturally cruel?
Aric snatched a look at Azenor’s frightened face. His will buckled.
“I have no choice.”
“You will strike down Khir’s bonded warrior? You’ll poison him?”
“I will kill him.”
This time the ghoul did smile. Just before he hit him.
Aric woke outside the ruin, his head throbbing. He sprawled, untethered, sword and baldric on the ground, his horse grazing nearby.
Flies buzzed about Cass’s pulped flesh. Aric tore his eyes away fast.
Dazed, he stumbled from the ruin onto a wind-swept, treeless hill. Sunlight, too bright, mocked his despair.
At a stream below the hill he undressed and bathed, every movement pure habit, his tormented mind shut down. He banished Azenor from his thoughts. Nor could he think of Cass or the warriors who rode with him. Not yet.
Returning to the ruin, he searched his saddlebags for food. His fingers brushed smooth, cool glass. As he drew it out, his heart slammed against ribs.
The ampoule of Night’s Kiss.
Aric sank to his knees. He clawed his wet hair.
Did he deserve this? Because he ignored what ghouls did in the Mountains, on the Downs. Let others fight and die in a malefic struggle. Not caring, just so long as the Isles was safe.
Help me, he implored his gods. Saarn, the voice in the wind, Sauveroken, the shadow beneath rolling waves. And Sartaen. Sartaen, the unseen.
For a long while, he huddled, rocking back and forth. At last, the ground too hard to bury Cass, he covered the man’s body with rocks. Aric mounted and rode towards Dal-Kanu, his heart cold, his hand steady on the reins, his will resolute.
Heath
Crows circled as Heath stepped onto the castle balcony, their caws a raucous accompaniment to clanking, ringing swords in the training field below. A warm breeze struck his face with the offal odours of the rambling, ancient city of Dal-Kanu.
“Mud and cabbage,” his brother Velleran had once told him with his usual sneer. “That’s what the fabled Place of Kings stinks of.”
That and the stench of rotting flesh carried by a wind sobbing through the gate tower and its bloody spikes. Eight spikes but just one spiked head. The king’s sword Goffren, now more infamous than in life.
Heath hummed a few lines.
“A knight who poorly serves His Grace,
Shall find the spike becomes his place.”
He chuckled. Three figures watching men trade blows in the ward turned to stare.
“Damadar.” Cathmor passed cool eyes over him. The king’s uncle Cael-Carren grunted. Rozenn of Cahir threw him a tantalisingly bold smile.
He offered her a bow, then dipped his head to Cathmor. “Your Majesty. I passed the grand constable’s messenger just now. Surely there’s no trouble so close to your wedding day?”
Cael-Carren answered for his king. “Ghouls attacked a Downs village. Nate Caelmarsh demands the king sends Khir’s bonded warrior at once.”
Demands? Heath edged up an eyebrow. The king surely disliked that word.
Cathmor knuckled the wall, muscular shoulders tense. Wind danced through dark-brown hair, the match in colour for eyes that should have been warm but instead froze men in their tracks.
Few signs of his Isles mother moulded that stern face. Though he looked every bit a king, elegantly confident with a liquid quickness to his steps and gestures.
“How dare he demand.” Cathmor’s voice tolled like a bell. “I should demand Caelmarsh and Aric Caelan joust for the title of most arrogant lord. The loser keeps his head.”
At a shriek of metal and barked laughter from the training field, Cael-Carren clutched at his sparse beard. As thin as a king’s promises, Heath thought.
“But on the Downs, Your Grace,” Cael-Carren said. “No wonder Caelmarsh is afraid.”
“It’s too close to Dal-Kanu, I’ll grant you that.”
“Word reached us only today about ghouls attacking a village in the Isles. These things grow bolder.”
They fell into an argument. Disinterested, Heath leaned his elbows on the balustrade. Warriors clad in the grey and black of the Mountains lord Vraymorg hewed and hacked with steel below. Occasional laughter broke up oddly accented words.
“A Damadar out of his icy lair.” Rozenn rested ringed hands on the balustrade’s stone.
She, too, might be made of stone with that exquisitely boned face, that sensuous, full-lipped mouth. Brushed hair fell so perfectly over one shoulder he wanted to touch it to see if it felt as silken as it looked.
“What brings you to Dal-Kanu, Heath Damadar?”
“Why the same thing as you, Your Grace. The king’s wedding.”
“Liar.” Her wondrously blue eyes glistened with amusement. They masked secrets, and something beguiling, something mystical. “You’re plotting, no doubt.”
He returned her brazen smile, enjoying her teasing. Or flirting? They had met only once before, in passing, though few men forgot the Queen of Cahir. She must be about thirty now, a year or two older than Cathmor, and still impossibly striking.
“No doubt. I am a Damadar, so I am always up to mischief.”
Rozenn clapped her hands. “Excellent. Weddings are tiresome, and Dal-Kanu is most unpleasant in this last week of summer. The stench is unbearable.”
“I’m surprised you came, Your Grace,” Heath said truthfully.
Rozenn shrugged. “Cathmor still doesn’t trust me. I’m here not only to witness him wed some dreadful Isles girl, but bring my son, Alecc, to be fostered.”
“I see,” Heath said stiffly. “My brother Velleran took it as an insult when you refused his offer to take Alecc as his squire. I had hoped to instruct the boy in swordplay. He’d learn more from me than the king’s sword masters.”
Rozenn playfully slapped his shoulder. “Do not pretend to hurt feelings, Ice lord. No doubt you are a master bladesman, but I could hardly turn down the king.” She paused, considering him with open interest. “I hear you dance with fire.”
“I do, Your Grace. A fight to the death in the fire halls is an ancient Icelands tradition.”
“And you are undefeated.”
Heath laughed, his good humour restored. “Otherwise I would not stand before you.”
“Aren’t you afraid? A fire dancer’s life is notoriously short.”
Heath shrugged. “No. I don’t fear either the fire or death. I never lose.”
“To never lose. To never fear death. Yet fear, death and loss underpin all we do and feel. That is life, no less. Without fear, a man might be dead inside.”
At her unexpected words, Heath’s breath caught. When it released, it seemed nothing more than a whisper stirred by wind. He passed his tongue over cracked lips, mouth stale.
Dead inside. How easily she, a stranger, uncovered that emptiness within. A remarkably shrewd insight, too, for a woman barely older than his twenty-seven years.
Except—were the words even for him? There was something distant about her gaze as if she no longer addressed him, that she was thinking of someone else.
“You see into men’s hearts, I think.” His uneasy laugh ground like rusted spears. “Boredom is my secret torment, Rozenn of Cahir. Long ago the exhilaration of victory tarnished to dull duty. I kill to please the gods, not myself.”