The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  She lost all feeling in her body, and the world turned white as it was supposed to, but her thoughts did not fade. She had existed as nothing but a bundle of thoughts many times before, and there was always an expectation that such an existence had a very finite duration. She waited to have her consciousness extinguished. And she waited. And waited. I am not dead. Fear touched her then, a fear that fate had not found her a body to be reborn

  into. She wanted to see her children again, and Morghiad. Her heart still ached with devotion to him; it did not matter what he had or had not done. None of it was his fault but hers.

  The whiteness began to fade to black. This was it; rebirth would happen soon. But the black faded to grey, and painlessness switched rapidly into agony. Blazes, but her neck hurt worse than anything she had known! Back into her old body? What was she to be, nothing but a floating head? Artemi opened her eyes in horror at the prospect, and saw only the murky water around her. Her hands. She had

  to try to communicate with those. She attempted to wriggle her fingers and move her arms, but neither of those body parts entered her field of vision or sent her any message back about their whereabouts. Or were they still bound? Feet, this time! Toes... nothing from the toes. Follocks!

  Artemi battled to maintain some sort of calmness and rationality to her thoughts. She had to have a blood supply to her head in order to live, and that had to mean that The Daisain had made a shoddy job of executing her. Her body was still attached somehow, and that implied it had a chance at

  healing completely. All of a sudden, her connection with her chest returned, and she could feel how cold it was. But something was wrong with it. As her arms regained their sensation also, she realised that her lungs had filled with water. Artemi had to get to the surface if she was to save this body.

  Her bound hands were useless for swimming, but her legs remained entirely numb. A series of quite disgusting curse words marched through her brain, fuelling the anger that she required. And Artemi was angry. Furious. What sort of sickminded individual told a man that his

  former lover was his mother? What bastard would try to engineer things so that a father killed his own son? And how many years had he been plotting this? Dorlunh’s killing of Morghiad was essential for this to have happened, which meant that he was just another of The Daisain’s puppets. How long ago had he laid his plans in Dorlunh’s mind? And how could he possibly have known that her eldest son would have the power to bring Morghiad back afterwards? And to find a woman capable of conceiving the reborn Morghiad at exactly the right moment was surely an impossible feat? The

  Daisain had always been brilliant, but this level of planning was beyond anything she could comprehend.

  Her disbelief only angered her further, and something ached at the top of her left thigh. Yes! She explored the feeling more extensively, and discovered that her legs were returning to her. Now was the time to stand. If she could have roared with ire and effort, Artemi surely would have bellowed loud enough for the entire castle to hear her. But she could make no sound. Instead the only noise was the thunder of effort and pain that tore through her head. But, at last her eyes

  breached the surface, then her nose, and finally her mouth. She coughed up as much of the water as she could, spluttered, gasped and coughed some more. Light of Achellon, she was alive!

  his eyes, and he could not believe the words contained within. Letoa. His mother. His true mother. And nineteen? Was it possible that he was only nineteen? He certainly felt older than that. He sat against the shelves and considered the problem again. It was possible that these documents had been cooked up... but then, he was sure that the affection between mother and son had been genuine. Yet Kalad was not her lover, and Kalad was the faulty one. The kahr was the twin who had failed at fighting, had failed at morality and who, reports said, was actually part-eisiel. Why would she

  want him alive given the knowledge she had now, and yet seek to kill a good son who had done nothing wrong? And now that he thought of it, did he really have proof that she lay with any of her sons? It did not fit, and he had to be sure he was doing the right thing.

  The queen killed the woman who fostered you, the queen! She did it, Morghiad. Every day of his life he had been told this. Every day he had been instructed that the best way to take revenge was to take another son from her. He had intended to choose Tallyn for execution before her, but had found Kalad the only one available. He frowned again. The acts of this woman toward him, when he was a child, implied she was cold, while his brief attempt at retribution demonstrated she had a heart. And Morghiad had seen evidence of her heart on other occasions.

  He glanced back at the file. He had always believed the old King of Calidell had been his true father, but this record seemed to imply that the man who adopted him at five years of age had shared his blood all along. If she had forged this document, how could the former queen have known that the man she called The Daisain

  was even involved? Morghiad had certainly worked very hard to conceal it from her, and some years earlier his adoptive father had even travelled to Gialdin in order to silence someone who might speak his name. Unless that was a lie, too. He had not considered that the two parties might be in collusion. He looked at the names again. Lady D’Avrohan surely knew the name Felis Hesarde? Why would he have written his real name down on a document she had access to?

  Unless, of course, when Felis had completed this form he had no idea that his son would grow to resemble

  one of the Jade’ans. Perhaps that had been a surprise he only later discovered - assuming he was father by blood. A headache was beginning to settle inside Morghiad’s skull. Either he trusted the man who had raised him, or he trusted the woman who had repeatedly tried to bed him... or he trusted none of them. Letoa was surely the only true victim in this, whether she had been his mother or not.

  Morghiad stood and walked around to the army records section of the archive. It was a relief that he had the use of his limbs again. The last journey through the accessway had

  surely frozen him to the core and left him half dead. For a full half-hour he had been unable to move or think or breathe. He could not afford to travel in that manner for a fifth time that day, which did not bode well in light of the number of soldiers he could hear pacing the corridors outside.

  The truth was more important now. He had to find the truth. The row of books he required was relatively easy to locate, and soon he was leafing through the record for the month in which his village had been razed. Two battalions had been stationed at the border of Hirrah, and another at the

  edge of Orta, but none appeared to have been positioned in central Calidell. There was a small entry, however, which looked to have been written in the general’s hand. “News of bandit movements in The Southern Falls.” And that was it. No detachments sent to patrol anything near the old capital. Morghiad checked through the previous and subsequent months. He found multiple notes about bandit activity in the country and the crown’s efforts to suppress it, but none was remarked as having taken place near Pryandar. Another cover up?

  He considered the logic of it

  again. If the queen had wanted to conceal his existence and her part in Letoa’s murder, then clearly she had done it well here. But if she had been colluding with Felis Hesarde in order to force his hand into murdering Kalad, then she surely would not have bothered to hide such things from the records. That, and she would have to have been a very good actor when presented with the torture of a son she actually wanted dead.

  No. His adoptive father and the queen could not have forged this plan between themselves, but one of them had lied to him. Increasingly, it was his father’s claims that did not stand scrutiny. Morghiad dropped the files onto the floor and made his way to the busy hallways beyond. There was one thing he was now certain of. In spite of his dubious morals, Kalad was as undeserving of death as Letoa had been. No one deserved to die for the sake of uncertain truths.

  Silar shook his head f
or a third time and spat some of the blood from his mouth. He really should have expected to be decisively beaten into the ground by a Kusuru Assassin, but he had certainly not envisioned it to happen with such rapidity. Perhaps his fear or pride or anger... or something else had made him overly bold, and he had paid the price for it. He transferred his weight to his knees, and finally onto two, very unsteady feet. The general was now sure of two things. One: Tallyn Hunter had not murdered Talia, and two: he would not pick a fight with the man again.

  Bloody light, but he was dizzy! His thoughts returned to his former concern: Morghiad. They had to find him. Silar cursed several times and went to collect the sword that The Hunter had so efficiently extracted from his person. A pair of sharp nicks now decorated the blade; it would take days for the blacksmith to repair those! Days! He sheathed the sword in a foul mood and stamped his feet as he made his way down the corridor. Already the soldiers had begun their searches, and were racing about with a satisfying degree of urgency. The sight calmed

  his mood a little, but only a little.

  “My lord-general!” a short man with pale whiskers saluted before him. “We found his guards.”

  “Alive?”

  The soldier blinked. “Well, yes, of course alive. You don’t think our king would ki-”

  Silar sighed with relief. “Good. Bring them to me and have the search continue while I ask them what’s happened.”

  The whiskered man nodded before running to his duty. A tap on the general’s shoulder caused him to turn around, and his face was met by a fist.

  Silar found himself sprawled upon the ground once more, his head spinning with pain and confusion. Had The Hunter returned for a second round? Surely the assassin knew that he was the resounding victor?

  Silar’s vision cleared, and he discovered that he was looking at his brother instead. “What -?”

  Seffe did not wait for him to complete the question, and ran forward to kick his brother’s body repeatedly.

  “Stop it!” The general grabbed at the offending foot before it could make a tenth thump against his side, and pulled at it hard. Seffe was floored

  immediately. “Just what is this about?” The younger man’s eyes were rabid with fury, and he growled through his teeth, “You bastard! You are no brother of mine! I’ll kill you!” Clearly Silar was not going to get much in the way of coherent conversation from his sibling, and a fight was likely to be the only way through this. He really did not feel up to a second battle, but he clenched his jaw and began defending himself against the storm of punches that his brother had unleashed. For some considerable time they tussled, and Silar succeeded in removing any sort of metal blade from both of their persons. But just as he was about to land a juicy hit on his rather deserving brother’s temple, someone held his fist and began pulling them apart.

  “Stupid, damn lumper idiots!” said a familiar voice. His hefty arms were tree trunks to Silar’s twigs, or so it seemed.

  An unseen force dragged Seffe away from him just as rapidly, and they were held apart like wriggling, writhing children.

  “Really, Lord-General Forllan, I expected better of you!” Selieni announced. And that meant it was

  probably Romarr who held him.

  Silar shrugged himself free and attempted to straighten his clothing. “I did not start this. Ask my damned brother what his problem is, and maybe we can sort this out!”

  Romarr walked, or rather rolled, to stand between them. If it was possible, it looked as if he had become more muscular during his absence from Gialdin. “Well, lad? What argument do you have that cannot be solved more sensibly?”

  Seffe appeared to seethe from his prison of Blaze, but there was something odd about the words he was

  about to utter. There was a touch of chaos to them, as if they were under the influence of a certain former king. Silar waited for his brother to speak. “He’s giving my family’s lands, their titles, everything to your commoner queen and her bastard children!”

  The general had not expected that. But before he could refute his brother’s assertion, the light around them appeared to darken suddenly. Silar’s brow furrowed. What was going on?

  “It was a lie.” The voice came from behind him, and it was undoubtedly Morghiad’s. When the

  general turned to see him, he immediately noticed that something was not quite right. It was supposed to be the day, and yet it felt strangely like the sun had gone elsewhere. How could a man carry the night around with him? “I lied to you, Seffe. I wanted you to fight with your brother, maybe kill him. I am sorry.”

  Oh, that was wonderful. His oldest and closest friend wanted him dead. At least the boy-man had apologised for it. Silar suppressed a frown and folded his arms. “Would you like to tell me why?”

  Morghiad shook his head.

  “There is no time. I have done something very bad, and it has to stop before things become worse. The Lady D’Avrohan will live, but her youngest son is in danger.”

  “Where?”

  “Follow me,” he instructed with green eyes blazing, before turning to lope away down the corridor.

  Silar picked up his weapons and feet as well as he could, but he knew that keeping up with this man was going to be another battle. Thankfully, Morghiad appeared to be maintaining a more considerate pace this time. In truth, his strides looked a little ragged.

  “Just what is the danger?” Romarr called. In spite of his cumbersome bulk, he was a remarkably fast runner himself.

  “My father is in the city, he intends to kill Kalad and I have made it very easy for him to do.”

  Down and down, into the base of the castle they plunged. Along the way they collected numerous soldiers, which heartened Silar considerably. What concerned him, however, was the direction in which they were headed. Bloody blazes! He hated vast pools of water and he hated being underground! Follocks! Follocking,

  bloody fires of Achellon!

  They hurtled into the cistern entrances in a tumble of arms and legs and swords, and the general very nearly crashed into Morghiad’s back when he stopped unexpectedly. The former king then stepped forward, before dropping to his knees beside another bowed form. It looked like... The Hunter? But the scene did not become any less confusing, for soon Romarr had prostrated himself upon the ground also. Kalad was stood in one corner, alive and unharmed, but looking as bewildered as Silar felt. And in the middle was a smooth-haired,

  narrow man whom Silar did not recognise; a man who appeared to command the unrivalled respect of three very deadly individuals.

  The general met eyes with this new man, and something very odd happened the moment he did. When he encountered anyone else, he would normally see a series of images and hear the rest of the conversation they were about to have. This time he saw the conversation unravel in its entirety, but their talk would be conducted only in their minds. You’re like me, he would say, and the exchange would leap ahead twenty steps. I am here

  because the end must come as predicted, the man was about to respond. And in an instant Silar knew everything about the intentions of this Daisain, and The Daisain knew all he needed to know about Silar. Artemi was dead. Except that she was not. Silar knew that Tallyn, Kalad and Romarr could still see her stream through their kanaala eyes, but the instant he did, the knowledge transferred to The Daisain. The Kusuru leader looked rather irritated by the realisation, but would not jump back into the water to fix his mistake.

  The steps down to the cistern

  were completely flooded. There would be no air left in the chamber and, if Artemi was weakened, she would not be able to keep her body close to stasis for long. We have reached stalemate, the Daisain was going to say. You and Morghiad are two parts of me: the foresight and the action. Morghiad will be the one to set the renewal in motion, and one day you will see that. One day you will understand what is necessary. You know that Talia’s death was necessary.

  Silar looked the bright, red silk sash at The Daisain’s waist. She saw us; saw
me training him. She had to

  White-hot fury erupted in his mind at that moment, and obscured all predictive thoughts and visions and rational consciousness. It was allencompassing. Silar had become a man maddened with rage. But he smiled as he saw the uncertainty unfold in The Daisain’s eyes. Feel my chaos, the general said with his intentions. And there was still a second lynchpin of volatility: Morghiad. The former king may have been a necessary tool, but Morghiad had always been an area of arbitrary, erratic action for The Daisain to manage. And now this figure of

  unpredictability had Silar to guide him. There was nothing this master of assassins could do to avoid it.

  “Think of the implications!” The Daisain hissed aloud, realising he had no control.

  The general shook his head slowly, and directed his voice to the former king. “Your father lied.” True, what Morghiad would do next, Silar could not say. But he knew that action without thought was a part of his new chaos. It produced the words that The Daisain could not foresee.

  Morghiad’s back twitched once, twice, and then he lifted his head