Blood of the King

by Bruce Blake

  A signal!

  Therrador spun about and pulled his sword from its scabbard, but there was no one there. He looked back toward the woman to see the air between them shimmer and move. He lowered his weapon, stared at the shifting air. Colors swirled, blurred at first, then solidifying into a sight that made Therrador’s breath catch in his throat.

  A vision of Graymon floated before him, the boy sleeping under a woolen blanket, his breath shallow and easy. It was not his own canopied bed in which he lay, but a makeshift bed on a pile of straw. The wall behind him moved with an unseen wind, billowing the green material.

  A tent.

  “What is this?” Therrador demanded, but he already knew what it meant.

  “Your son is my guest. He will not be harmed.” A figure entered the vision, a decayed face peering from under a rusted helmet. It knelt beside the sleeping boy, looked at him, then peered directly out of the vision into Therrador’s eyes. “As long as you do as you said you would.”

  Therrador leaped forward, sword flashing out at the cloaked figure. The edge of the blade passed through the silhouette but touched nothing. He might have thought the woman an apparition until her fist slammed into the side of his head sending him to the ground. He rolled to his back ready to defend himself despite of his blurred vision, but the woman only looked down at him serenely.

  “Do nothing stupid and you will have your boy back in time. If not, your reason for wanting to be king will die with him.”

  He stared at the woman as an unfamiliar feeling of helplessness churned his gut. If anything happened to Graymon, everything would be for naught—Braymon’s death, his wife Seerna’s death, everything.

  “I will do as you wish,” Therrador said, resigned.

  “As we agreed,” the woman corrected.

  “As we agreed.”

  The air swirled again and the vision disappeared as though dispersed by an unfelt wind.

  “We will meet again after the coronation. Watch for my riders a week after you take the crown.”

  The silhouette wavered and disappeared leaving Therrador alone sitting on the hard ground of the salt flats, staring at the empty air where she’d been seconds before. The gentle lap of water on the shore found his ear and somewhere out over the sea, a gull cried out—lonely sounds that made him miss his son.

  “I will have you back, Graymon.”

  The gull cawed an answer as Therrador gained his feet and made his way back to the fortress.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The cavern glowed blue again.

  Khirro blinked the rocks and distant walls into focus. He lay on his side, cheek pressed against the ground, one hand immersed in the cool water of the glowing blue puddle. Gingerly he pushed himself upright, head hurting fiercely—he must have banged it when he passed out. The light was harsh and bright to his eyes, his dry throat felt raw and hurt when he swallowed.

  How much time has passed?

  A dull red glow caught his eye, a warm contrast to the ubiquitous blue light. The Mourning Sword lay on the rocky ground, his gauntlet crumpled beside it. He stretched out to retrieve them, stopped by a pain shooting through his side. His bare hand came away clean when he touched the spot—no blood, only pain. He sat for a minute, shaking his head minutely, confused. Everywhere he’d been injured in his... dream? Vision? Hallucination? Every place a deadly blow struck, his flesh hurt. Perhaps more truth and reality hid within the vision than he realized.

  He drew a sharp breath as he remembered the corpse with Ghaul’s face reaching inside his tunic. His hand went to the hidden pocket, grabbed for the vial.

  Gone.

  Khirro’s gut wrenched. He jumped to his feet, ignoring his throbbing head, the pain in his throat and abdomen, and snatched up his sword and glove. The feel of the hilt in his hand comforted him, something he would have never imagined could be true. It had always been pick or shovel that fit his hand.

  How things change.

  The scrollwork on the black blade glowed dully until his hand wrapped around the hilt, then it brightened as though it drew energy from his touch. Grinding his teeth, he crept around the rock hiding his companions without knowing why he felt the need for stealth. Part of him expected to find they’d been slain in their sleep. Another part wouldn’t have been surprised if they lay in wait to ambush him.

  His foot sent a pebble skittering across the ground, a small sound made loud by the cavern’s quiet. He paused but saw no sign the noise disturbed anyone. He moved again, more careful of his footing.

  He rounded the curve of the huge boulder and was mildly surprised to find his companions alive and sleeping exactly as he’d left them. Athryn lay closest to him. Khirro went to him—the only one who hadn’t been in his hallucination, perhaps the only one to be trusted. He pressed the tip of his boot lightly against the magician’s thigh and his eyes slid open immediately like he’d been waiting for the sign to wake. Khirro signaled for him to be quiet and follow and the magician did without question, moving with the natural ease and grace Khirro envied.

  “The vial is gone,” Khirro told him with the boulder safely between them and the others. Droplets of water plopped into the puddle of water from which he’d drunk, distracting him. When he looked back, Athryn had removed his black sleeping mask. He watched Khirro, a look of concern twisting his scarred face into cracks and crevasses.

  “What happened?”

  Khirro told him most of the vision, leaving out details about Emeline, his brother and the baby because he didn’t want to think about them or what it meant. Athryn listened, brow furrowed, neither nodding nor commenting until Khirro finished.

  “The water.” Athryn glanced at the puddle. “Nothing is safe for us here. The very ground we walk upon resents our presence. But what of the vial?”

  “It was Ghaul who took it.”

  “In the vision,” Athryn added. “Ghaul’s corpse.”

  Khirro conceded the point and thought of the slack, dead face and the ghostly pale baby. He glanced away so Athryn wouldn’t see the disquiet the memory brought.

  “Then we will begin with Ghaul.”

  Khirro sheathed the Mourning Sword and sighed, relieved Athryn didn’t question what he’d seen nor think him crazy. The man was a magician and had seen and done things Khirro would have difficulty believing.

  They returned to the others without worry of noise. Ghaul woke before they roused him, hand reaching for his sword as it did every time he awoke unexpectedly. The sign of a well trained soldier.

  Or a man with something to hide.

  As he looked at Ghaul, Khirro thought of the corpse in his vision. In wakefulness, the resemblance seemed superficial. The corpse’s face was loose and drooping, its expression blank; Ghaul’s eyes were hard, full of life and dangerous strength, his taut cheeks clean shaven. Perhaps his mind conjured the similarity.

  “Give me back the vial,” Khirro said, regretting his choice of words as soon as they spilled from his lips.

  “What are you talking about?” A strange look flashed through Ghaul’s eyes, then disappeared as they returned to inscrutability. “I don’t have the vial, you do. Have you lost your mind?”

  “The vial is gone,” Athryn said in a tone free of emotion or accusation. Ghaul’s eyes flickered from Khirro to Athryn and back, hand still on the grip of his sword. “Khirro had a vision. In it, you took the vial.”

  Ghaul’s hard face became stone. “I don’t have the vial. But perhaps I should. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall asleep and lose it.”

  Who is he calling stupid?

  The hair on the back of Khirro’s neck bristled. From the corner of his eye he saw Elyea sit up, a look of confusion on her sleepy face.

  “I was drugged. I saw you take it, now give it back.”

  Ghaul released his sword and spread his arms wide in a mock gesture of welcome.

  “If you’re convinced I have it,” he said through clenched teeth, “then come get it, farmer.”

  Kh
irro surprised himself by leaping forward and throwing all his weight toward Ghaul’s mid-section. A half-step to the left and an elbow to the small of the back sent Khirro to the ground, his shoulder banging against a sharp rock. He rolled, struggling to regain his feet. Ghaul advanced, dirk in hand. Khirro grabbed for the Mourning Sword, already knowing he wouldn’t have time to draw it, but Elyea jumped between them.

  “Stop it,” she said shielding Khirro. “Stop it!”

  Khirro stared up at her, his steel partially freed. Ghaul also halted, face twisted with anger and blood lust.

  “Don’t imagine it’s your place to come between men, whore. It’s a good way to get yourself killed.”

  Khirro couldn’t see Elyea’s face, but he imagined her expression must be like she’d been slapped. She closed the steps between her and Ghaul, stopping with only inches between them, and looked up into the eyes of the man who stood a head taller than her. Neither spoke. Khirro’s breath caught in his throat, stopped by tension fallen on them like a shroud. Athryn finally put a stop to it.

  “Darestat is more powerful than we know,” he said. “His influence is everywhere. It is he who does this to us and he who has the vial.”

  His words broke the hard stare between Ghaul and Elyea as they both turned toward him. The air changed, grew lighter.

  “Then we must find the Necromancer quickly, before he has us kill each other,” Elyea said. “Put your blade away, Ghaul.”

  The soldier looked at her, blinking, then took a step away and replaced the knife in the top of his boot, though his hard expression remained unchanged. Khirro felt a boulder lift from his chest, though the pain in his throat and side remained. He dropped the Mourning Sword back into its scabbard.

  “Let’s go.” He stood and brushed dust from his breeches. “But don’t drink the water.”

  It was a trick of the blue light that made the cavern seem so large. After an hour walking in silence as the picked their way around stalagmites and over debris, they reached the far wall. The blue light ended suddenly at the opening of a tunnel in the middle of the rough stone wall like it dared not cross the threshold.

  They stood at the edge of the tunnel’s mouth, peering into the darkness they’d hoped had been left behind when they entered the cavern. Khirro dreaded the idea of leaving the soft blue light behind. As threatening as it seemed after his hallucination, the black was worse. A minute passed, no one moving; Khirro’s growling stomach reminded him how much time had passed since he last ate.

  “There’s nothing to do but go in,” Ghaul said, finally breaking the hour long silence, but he didn’t move. No one did. Time crawled.

  What are they thinking?

  Khirro longed for the comforting warmth of the king’s blood against his chest. Was it the darkness before them that made him dread pressing on, or the emptiness he felt from the missing vial? He needed to have it back and moving on was the only way to get it.

  Khirro pulled the Mourning Sword from its sheath and held it in both hands before him. Unbidden, his lips whispered a foreign word and the blade sprang to life. Bright white light burned up the steel, the red runes and black blade disappearing behind its radiance. The others stared at Khirro, expressions of surprise and disbelief on their faces. He looked back at them knowing his face showed the same.

  “How did you...?” Elyea whispered, voice trailing off.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dragon fire,” Athryn said. Blue iridescence and harsh white light flickered and fought across the surface of his silvered mask like beasts competing over their territory. “There is magic in you now, Khirro.”

  “No.” Khirro shook his head. “Not me. It’s this place.”

  Once, as a child listening to his mother’s fables, he might have imagined himself a wizard, but those days passed with his youth. Power and responsibility were things he didn’t crave. The Shaman gave him the responsibility for the blood of the king and twice he lost it. Being a farmer, being entrusted with another’s love, these were all the responsibility he wanted, but his life would never be like that again. He looked at the others staring at him and the glowing sword in his hand. Some things couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much you didn’t desire them.

  He strode into the tunnel and his companions followed.

  Darkness fled before the light of the Mourning Sword like a hare before a fox. The harsh white glow lit yards ahead bringing Khirro comfort, as did the feel of the hilt in his hands. What would happen to the light if he used the Mourning Sword as weapon rather than torch? And could he make it stop, or would the sword glow for the rest of eternity? He considered asking Athryn but decided against it until they were safe.

  If we’re ever safe again.

  The tunnel differed from the one they’d followed into the glowing blue cavern, angling upward slightly as water trickled down its walls here and there. The rivulets reminded Khirro of the thirst raking his throat but, though they didn’t glow blue, he dared not touch the water to his lips. He wouldn’t trust anything as long as they remained in this cursed place, not even himself.

  As they moved down the passage, patches of moss appeared on the walls, sparse at first but growing thicker and more frequent the farther they went. The air changed, too, becoming fresher, less cloying. Khirro occasionally thought he felt it shift. Somewhere ahead, there must be an air shaft or an opening to the outside.

  Outside.

  The word sounded good. It would be a relief if they didn’t have to retrace their steps through the cavern, past the dragon, to regain their freedom.

  Will it be day or night when we reach the surface again? Summer or winter? He sighed as he walked. If we reach the surface.

  Time had lost meaning since they descended the twisting wooden staircase...how long ago? Lakesh made its own rules.

  Khirro walked on, parting the darkness as he went, finally feeling like they drew closer to their goal. But it also felt like they no longer traveled alone. His companions trudged along behind him.

  Do they feel it, too?

  On the tunnel floor at the edge of the sword’s light, a glint caught Khirro’s eye. He halted and his companions stopped beside him.

  “There’s something ahead,” he whispered, pointing with the tip of the Mourning Sword. Ghaul stepped forward, but Athryn stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “We go together,” the magician said.

  Khirro stared ahead as they crept forward shoulder to shoulder, but he knew the others held weapons in hand. He’d heard the gentle stretching of Ghaul’s bowstring and the scrape of steel against leather as Athryn and Elyea drew sword and dagger. Khirro breathed slowly through his nose, felt no sense of foreboding, no fear, only emptiness.

  Step by step they advanced, the light of the Mourning Sword reflecting on what Khirro quickly recognized as the blade of a sword. He resisted the urge to stop, inspect it and draw conclusions from afar. A few more steps and the circle of light cast before them fell on a booted foot. He stopped. The others did, too.

  “Is it a man?” Elyea whispered.

  No one answered. Ghaul stepped forward, motioning for them to follow. They moved again, taking small, cautious steps, the edge of the light crawling farther ahead with each footstep.

  The leather boot led to a leg clothed in rough spun breeches. An empty scabbard hung on one side of a wide belt encircling the person’s waist, a dagger at the other. The glow passed the waist, casting light on a dirty red tunic and reflecting on glimpses of mail hidden beneath. Nothing indicated it to be anything other than a man prone on the tunnel floor before them. The sense of emptiness grew in Khirro, becoming a feeling of loss. The clothes looked familiar, the armor recognizable. He knew what the sword-light would reveal and dreaded taking the last few steps before the glow fell across the man’s face.

  “Shyn,” Elyea cried putting words to what Khirro already realized, perhaps known from the moment the light reflected on the sword.

  They hurried forward, forgett
ing caution as they rushed to their fallen comrade’s side. Elyea kneeled beside him, searching for signs of life, but Shyn’s eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, the Mourning Sword’s light gleaming dully on their glassy surface. Gray feathers poked in places from his head and neck, showed under the collar and sleeves of his tunic. A shiver ran up Khirro’s spine as he gazed upon Shyn’s face looking dead and half-transformed as it had in his vision.

  What does it mean?

  “How did he get here?” Athryn asked. He turned to Ghaul. “You were not gone long enough to have traveled so far.”

  Ghaul mumbled something Khirro didn’t hear as he concentrated on remembering his vision, but it was no use. Instead, he found grief. He’d liked Shyn, would have befriended him under any circumstances. He examined the border guard’s face, his expression frozen in a skyward stare, lips pulled into a half-smile. Only a few feathers had pushed completely through his skin; most were trapped halfway so it looked as though he’d been skewered to death by a flock of birds. Khirro’s eyes trailed down his chest to the wound in his belly. Dried blood caked in the rings of his mail and stained his tunic dark brown but none pooled on the ground beneath him.

  “He didn’t die here,” Khirro said interrupting something Ghaul said.

  “That’s what I said,” Ghaul said, annoyed.

  Khirro ignored him, his gaze falling on feathers poking through the sleeve of Shyn’s tunic in a testament to the violence of his transformation. No wonder he normally removed his clothes before changing. Khirro shook his head.

  This doesn’t make sense.

  If the battle had been so sudden and desperate he didn’t have time to change, how had Ghaul escaped unscathed? And why was Shyn here, so far from where he fell? As Khirro mulled over the circumstances, he noticed Shyn’s hand curled into a fist and shifted the Mourning Sword to cast its light upon it.

  He held something in his hand.

  Khirro knelt to retrieve it as Ghaul did the same, their hands coming to rest on Shyn’s at the same time.