She kept her face composed and dismissed them, ignoring the tickling sensation at the back of her neck. Out in the countryside, she would never have ignored the sense that someone was watching her and just waiting for the right moment to stick a knife in her back, but here…here she felt safe. She looked up and saw Eric’s face, smiling at her, and knew that she could trust him, at least. It was a shame that Eleanor had been forbidden to take part in the ceremony, but tradition ruled that if the Emperor had any daughters, they were kept well out of sight during any wedding ceremonies. Hind had never understood exactly why and no one, not even the older Ladies of the Court, had been able to enlighten her.
“You are welcome to my court,” the Emperor said, as she reached the altar. Hind barely knew Eric’s father, but he had a reputation for being fair-minded, which was more than could be said for many of the older noble families. His grand plan to ennoble some of the wealthier commoner families was a sign of his fairness – or foolishness, according to some of the older families. “Do you, Prince Eric of the Emperor’s Bloodline, take this woman to be your wife?”
Eric’s voice didn’t quiver. “I do,” he said.
The Emperor turned to Hind. “Do you, Mistress Hind” – he put a stress on Mistress, reminding the Court that Hind was a Master Magician and therefore not to be trifled with – “take my son, the Crown Prince of the Empire, as your husband, to share his life and to bear his children, to serve him and the Empire faithfully?”
Hind felt history pressing down on her shoulders, remembering what the Oracle had said. The decision she made would determine the future.
“I do,” she said.
“You may now exchange rings,” the Emperor said. Hind reached into her pocket and produced the ring she’d been given. Eric produced his own ring and reached for her hand, taking her hand in his and slipping on the ring. Hind felt the ring react oddly with her wards, but it wasn't dangerous. A moment later, as she slipped Eric’s ring onto his finger, she understood. The rings linked them together. She was suddenly very aware of Eric.
“You will now spend a night in silent vigil before the ceremony is completed,” the Emperor said. Hind nodded inwardly. It wasn't going to be easy, not now that she could feel Eric’s presence at the back of her mind, and he could feel hers. “I now declare…”
He broke off. Something was happening. Hind opened her senses wide and realised that the wards were coming down. Before she could react, before anyone could do anything, the wards had faded out of existence. She felt Eric’s shock through the ring…
A second later, a black knife was buried in the Emperor’s heart.
Chapter Nine
The entire room seemed to come apart into chaos as the Emperor staggered backwards and collapsed to the floor. Hind threw any concerns she might have had for her ugly dress aside and ran over to him, placing her hand against his bare skin and trying to heal him. It was already too late. The black knife, whatever it was, whoever had thrown it, had carried a powerful curse. The wards the Emperor had had for his personal protection had failed completely and the knife had not only struck him, but it had also killed him instantly. No amount of magic, outside necromancy, could bring the dead back to life.
She looked up and realised, in horror, that some of the guests were attacking other guests. The various Lords and Ladies were being cut down like helpless sheep, unwilling or unable to believe what was happening to them. They had all brought their swords and daggers – it would have been a deadly insult to disarm them – but they had also known that the wards surrounding the Golden Palace would have stopped anyone who tried to draw a weapon in their tracks. But the wards were gone and the attackers were slicing through the nobles like knives through butter. Blood was pooling on the floor as the attackers cleared a space around themselves and advanced on the altar.
An instinct warned her and she ducked back, just in time to avoid a nasty slash at her head from a man wearing a servant’s uniform. Hind threw all of her other concerns away and lifted her wards, pushing him away with a wave of magic. She had expected resistance from the castle’s wards – part of her couldn’t believe that they had just failed, or had somehow been dismantled from the inside – but nothing stopped her from using her magic. Her attacker twisted and turned, before coming back at her, sword raised. Hind focused her mind and pushed a pulse of magic at him, shaping it with her mind. The servant – if he really was a servant – had some powerful protections, but they weren't the best she’d seen, or defeated. He shrank down suddenly into a tiny statue of himself and froze. She left him there on the floor, after locking the spell to make it difficult – if not impossible – for someone else to remove. Eric would probably want prisoners to interrogate.
She sensed Eric suddenly through the ring and saw him battling a pair of Lords wearing their full regalia. She recognised both of them from their portraits as men who were lesser nobles – which didn’t stop them lording it over the commoners – and who believed that they should be greater nobles. They’d even petitioned the Emperor to grant them additional lands so they could attempt to develop them and rise higher in the Court. She lifted a hand, preparing to intervene, when another man ran towards her, knife raised. Hind focused a pulse of magic against him and blinked in surprise as the magical spell was deflected from his body. The protections wrapped around him were stronger than the last attacker’s protections. She pushed her own wards out, trying to prevent him from slashing at her, and focused her mind. Before she could use any more magic, he threw a container of blood over her and she howled in agony. Pain flared along her nerves, sending her crashing to her knees, as the blood seemed to crawl over her body. The dress was completely ruined and her wards were gone. It was all she could do to focus her mind to see him standing over her, knife raised to strike.
“No,” she said, but her magic refused to form. It slipped and slithered away from her, mocking her as the blood dripped down to the carpeted floor. The knife in the man’s hand seemed to twist and turn, as if it was something else, something greater, pretending to be a knife. Through her daze, she could see dark streams of power coiling around it, linking it into its user. The blackest of black magic had been used to create the knife. “I won’t…”
Her attacker lifted his hand and brought the knife down towards her heart.
***
Eric had had barely a second to react, to realise that his father was dead, before a second knife came right at him. He’d already started to draw Morningstar and the sword seemed to leap up into the air, deflecting the knife and knocking it to the ground in a shower of bright sparks. He stared into the chaos, trying to determine who had thrown the knife, but it was already too late. Two Lords came out of the crowd and threw themselves on him. He lifted Morningstar, feeling the sword humming in his hand, and knocked their blades aside. He was somehow unsurprised to discover that their blades, whatever they were, refused to break at the Great Sword’s touch.
“Idiots,” he snarled, as he jumped down from the podium, away from the altar. The two Lords were spreading out, forcing him to deal with two threats coming from different directions. Their faces were hidden behind illusion spells, but he knew who they were. Lord Harerin and Lord Calaradur, two Lords who wanted more than they had and willing to do whatever it took to increase their power. His father had warned him about the dangers of such ambition and it seemed that he had been right, but Eric couldn’t understand how they’d broken down the wards or – for that matter – how they’d killed his father. The wards surrounding the Emperor were the strongest personal wards in the world.
He pushed his back up against the wall and concentrated on fighting, pushing thoughts of the mysteries aside until everything was over and he could deal with it at leisure. The two attackers now had to come at him from the same direction, which made fighting them both easier, but they weren't bad at fighting themselves. Eric had had swordplay beaten into his head by a succession of tutors, yet those tutors had never dared to put the Prince
in real danger. The two Lords had fought a succession of duels against equally good opponents and never even looked like losing.
The fight was badly uneven. If he risked a lunge at one of his opponents, the other would take the opportunity to run him through and end the fighting. If he stayed on the defensive, he was certain to run out of luck eventually – even with Morningstar – and one of them would kill him, ending the fight. He dodged a slash that would have decapitated him if he’d allowed it to hit, and then twisted, feinting at one Lord before taking a tiny slash at another. The fighting outside his tiny corner of the room seemed to be dying down, with piles of dead Lords and Ladies. Eric had liked some of them, hated others and hadn’t cared about the rest, but none of them deserved to be cut down like that. It was a fight without honour.
He felt, through the ring, a sudden shock from Hind and he risked a look towards her. She had been knocked to her knees; blood dripping all over her dress, and a man was advancing on her with bad intentions. Eric remembered, as a wellspring of horror rose up in his mind, just what the Oracle had shown her. The two Lords stepped closer and Eric, before he could think about it and realise what a bad idea it was, stepped forward. They hadn’t expected that and he was right next to Lord Calaradur before the Lord had a chance to react. The tiny dagger Eric had concealed in his left sleeve came flashing out and he buried it in the Lord’s chest, before he slashed through the other Lord’s arm. It was hardly honourable, but he was past caring. Leaving the second Lord to bleed out, he turned and ran towards Hind. Her attacker barely had a moment to react before Morningstar sang out and sliced him in two.
Eric caught hold of her and helped her to her feet. She was covered in blood, the stench reaching up and assaulting his nostrils, but he ignored it. All that mattered was her and keeping her safe, somehow. They might not have been completely married, but they were close enough to count. The ring glowed on his finger, reminding him of his choice.
“I’m fine,” Hind said, weakly. She didn’t sound fine, but Eric decided not to challenge her on it. “Just…what happened?”
Eric looked around the hall. The guards had come charging in as soon as they’d realised that something had gone badly wrong, but it had been too late for some of the Lords and Ladies. The attackers had slaughtered them mercilessly. The survivors were looking around the room, their eyes unfocused; Eric realised, suddenly, that they were in shock.
“I don’t know,” Eric said. He reached out with his mind, in the manner his father had taught him, and felt…nothing. The wards were gone. His father had promised to tell him how they had been generated, but that was no longer possible. He looked over towards the body of his father and shook his head. His father was dead.
“Don’t touch the knife,” Hind said, sharply. Eric blinked at her, before understanding what she meant. If the black knife had cut through the Emperor’s protective wards like they weren't even there, it had to be a creation of the darkest magic and even touching it with unprotected skin could be lethal. “I…”
She pulled at her dress until it came undone and stepped out of it, revealing underclothes that would have passed for another dress anywhere else. Eric caught himself looking at her, flushed with sudden embarrassment, and felt her own embarrassment and amusement through the ring. Clearly, wearing the rings would take some getting used to.
“Your…ah, Your Majesty,” Sir Pellaeon said. The Knight of the Golden Order had taken charge of the Royal Guard as soon as he had entered the hall. “You cannot stay here.”
Eric stared at him. He hadn’t realised, at first, that his father’s death meant that he was the rightful Emperor. He should have realised, but he’d been so used to the concept of a slow and peaceful transfer of power, with his father retiring at the end of the year.
Hind was more practical. “Why?”
“The Golden Palace is under attack,” Sir Pellaeon said, flatly. Eric felt his senses reel, but after so many other shocks, it was just water off a duck’s back. “There are armed men attacking the gates with magical support. I suspect that they have help from within the palace. I cannot contact any of the other guardsmen without the wards and they’re all gone. This building is no longer secure.”
Eric gathered himself, feeling Morningstar thrumming against his palm. “Sir Pellaeon, I will not desert my castle,” he said, firmly. The presence of an invading army meant that it was more than just a simple coup or political assassination…it galled him, suddenly, that he didn’t even know who was behind the slaughter. Lord Harerin and Lord Calaradur couldn’t have been the mastermind. Neither of them could have come up with such a plan. “I am not going to abandon everyone in this building to the tender mercies of the enemy.”
“You will leave the building now, while you still can,” Sir Pellaeon said, equally unwilling to yield. “This building is impossible to secure without the wards and there is no prospect of rebuilding them in time to matter. You have to get out of here. If you remain alive, and free, you can rally resistance to the plotters and eventually recover the Throne. If you’re dead, there will be nothing stopping them from placing their own choice on the Throne.”
Eric was unwilling to admit it, but Sir Pellaeon was right. The Golden Throne was one of the oldest magical artefacts in existence – not as old as the Great Swords, to be fair – and it served as the arbiter of Empire. As long as he was alive, no one else could sit in the Golden Throne, unless they wanted to die in screaming agony. If he died, the next person in line would become Emperor.
“Eleanor,” he said, suddenly. He rounded on Sir Pellaeon suddenly. “Where is she?”
“She was in her apartments, the last I heard,” Sir Pellaeon said. Eric cursed, not for the first time, the tradition that kept princesses away from wedding ceremonies. If Eleanor had been with them, it would have been easier to leave the Golden Palace. She might not be in immediate danger if she was taken alive – she couldn’t take the Throne herself, which left her as a useful bargaining chip – but he couldn’t leave her behind. He wouldn’t leave her behind. “I shall send a platoon of guardsmen to escort her out of the palace and to safety.”
“I’m coming with them,” Eric said, sharply. “I will not leave her behind.”
“You will get yourself and your wife out of the palace, now,” Sir Pellaeon said. It was an order, Eric knew. He wanted to disobey, but Sir Pellaeon had more experience in such matters than he had. And he was right. Eric felt like a coward, but Sir Pellaeon was right. As long as he was alive, the coup plotters had failed. “Go.”
Eric bowed his head. “I understand,” he said, sourly. He looked up at Sir Pellaeon. “I am charging you to take personal care of her.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Sir Pellaeon said. “Go!”
***
Hind felt oddly exposed in the undergarment, even though it would have been modest even in the kingdoms that refused to allow their women to show more than their faces and hands to the outside world. The presence of the guardsmen wasn't much of a reassurance, not after the wards had come crashing down, for she knew that that suggested powerful magic. She ignored the debate between Eric and Sir Pellaeon, choosing instead to examine the Emperor’s body and – using part of her ruined dress – pull the knife out of his chest. Up close, the black knife kept flickering, as if it couldn’t settle on a shape or form. The more she stared at it, the more she was convinced that it was far more than just a knife.
She risked opening her third eye, just a little, and recoiled in shock. The knife was twisted with magic, magic that did far more than just kill its target instantly. She turned it in her hand, careful not to touch it with her bare skin, and studied the glowing red jewel in the hilt. It pulsed with evil light, a glow that suggested power, power there for the taking…if she didn’t mind losing her soul. She had no doubt that the knife was nothing less than a necromantic tool, one used to sucking the life force out of a corpse and using it to power deadly magic. How much power, she wondered, could a necromancer draw from the body of
a dead Emperor?
“Hind,” Eric said. She felt his confusion, shame and dismay through the ring. He didn’t want to run and abandon the castle, even though he knew that it was the right thing to do. “Hind…we have to leave, now.”
Hind straightened up, wrapping the knife in the remains of her dress. “I’m coming,” she said. She could feel his fear for his sister, his desperate need to take care of her – and of the woman who had become his wife. Hind giggled suddenly. Were they actually married now, or would that have to wait until the ceremony was completed, if it was ever completed? The only man who could marry the Crown Prince to his bride was lying dead at her feet. “How are we going to get out of here?”
A guardsman ran in the door and babbled a quick message to Sir Pellaeon. “The passageways,” Sir Pellaeon ordered, sharply. “The enemy has broken through the gates and is advancing rapidly towards the Great Hall.”
Hind nodded, opening her third eye again. She could sense dark magic being worked below as the attackers, whoever they were, smashed through the remaining defenders. Most of the servants and slaves would fight, she was sure, but it would be futile against such magic. The wards had provided all the protection the castle needed and now they were gone.
The Black Knife Page 9