Within the Hollow Crown

by Antoniazzi, Daniel

  Devesant laughed a booming laugh. Vye couldn’t move her legs. She crawled as Devesant took another step forward. He was over her now, looking down. Vye crawled into a corner, drawing her sword and looking up at her assailant. Devesant grinned.

  He inhaled.

  He breathed fire.

  In reflex, Vye put up her left hand. The hand that was marked with death. The hand that had stopped Gerard from killing her.

  The fire hit Vye like a heat wave, but when she got together the courage to open her eyes, she could see that it wasn’t hurting her. It was moving around her.

  Devesant ran out of breath and looked down at Vye. What manner of woman was this, he thought? Is she of the same breed as the stranger who came earlier?

  But he didn’t have time to think. Michael and Corthos, having picked themselves up, had sprinted across the Great Hall and were now attacking the Wyrm from both sides. Vye rolled out from under the beast, dragging herself to safety.

  Jareld watched from an alcove as Devesant slapped his tail against Corthos and picked up Michael with his claws. To gain distance, he flew up into the fourth level balcony. Michael was swinging the whole time, jabbing the Saintskeep into Devesant’s right front paw.

  Finally, Devesant was forced to release Michael. Michael was airborne for a moment, but managed to grab hold of a third level balcony, and pulled himself up into it.

  As he secured his footing, several loose bricks came falling. As Jareld was positioned right under him, he was forced to dive further into the alcove.

  Vye felt a shooting pain in her left arm. The magic had come back to her, but it hurt to use it. Also, she felt weak. She didn’t know how much she could do.

  “Why?” she said to her own mind, “Why can’t I do what I once did?”

  It was then that she remembered Halmir’s words to her, when she had helped him escape into the woods. He had explained that he ran out of magic when he wasn’t in the woods. That he was weak because he had been in the stone prison for a week.

  A stone prison. Vye had been underground for days. The magic hadn’t totally abandoned her, but she wasn’t replenishing herself. If she had known more, she would have realized that she was borrowing from her own life in order to cast more spells. In her own way, she was casting The Beyond.

  Devesant scanned the Hall from his alcove. The woman had resisted her, but she was still sitting against the wall. The pirate was picking himself up from the ground. The “King” was collapsed in a third level balcony. He had seen the pathetic man scurry into one of the small alcoves in the room. Devesant had never known what was in those alcoves, since he couldn’t fit inside to see.

  He didn’t know where the jester was, but at least he wasn’t near the Queen. Even in the dark, Devesant could tell because he couldn’t see anyone in the Queen’s balcony.

  Anyone…

  Anyone at all…

  Devesant suddenly became more alert. He looked around. Left. Right. He looked in every balcony. Where was the Queen?

  “Corthos!” someone yelled. “Corthos! Get Lady Vye and get out of here!”

  Devesant looked straight down. The pathetic man, Jareld, had emerged from his alcove. He was shouting orders to the others.

  Corthos, still dazed from his encounter with Devesant, didn’t wait for an explanation. He sheathed his sword, picked up Lady Vye with both hands, and started carrying her to the door. He would have liked to sprint, but there wasn’t that much power left in his legs.

  “Your Majesty!” Jareld called up. “Your Majesty, can you hear me?”

  Devesant would not sit still for this. He leapt from the balcony and swept down to the floor. He ignored Corthos and Vye, who were staggering to the door. He had more than ample time to kill them, if he decided to.

  “What is your game, little runt!?” Devesant demanded of Jareld. “What are you playing at? Do you want to fight me?”

  Devesant closed in on Jareld, but Jareld held his ground.

  “Your Majesty, if you can hear me, I need you to do something for me,” Jareld called. “There’s a small sandbag in the corner of the balcony you’re in. I need you to grab a hold of the rope attached to it. I need you to grab it and not let go.”

  “The others, they have swords. They have magic. They have courage, training, prowess. What do you have that could possibly help you now?”

  “A rudimentary understanding of theatrics,” Jareld retorted, scurrying back into his alcove.

  The alcove he had run into was actually the fly rail system for the Great Hall. Because of the complicated nature of the curtains, staging areas, and movable walls, this small room had been built to operate the whole affair.

  Jareld had never worked in theatre, really, but he took an architecture class which included complex diagrams of famous theatres. Also, he had taken the Towers’ only theatre practical training, but only because he knew that Olivia Watkins was taking it. That two-week course had taught him the quick and dirty of running a fly rail system.

  Because he couldn’t fight the Dragon, Jareld had spent his time hiding counting the balconies. He figured out the numbering system. He knew where the curtain ropes were.

  He found the ropes for the balcony in where the Dragon had deposited Michael. He pulled the back rope, forcing the sandbag up. It felt heavy enough to convince him that Michael was holding on. He was lifting the King out of the balcony.

  When he had lifted the ropes about ten feet, he switched to the other one. The weight was on his side now, as Michael had cleared the balcony, holding onto the curtain ropes. All he had to do was add resistance, to make sure Michael didn’t fall too fast.

  ---

  Michael was almost out of it. He almost didn’t have the presence of mind to follow Jareld’s instructions. It had taken what he thought was the last of his strength to climb into the balcony. After being slammed against a wall, and crushed in the claws of a dragon, and bitten in the shoulder, he wouldn’t have thought it possible to grab the rope.

  But fortune bore him out, and he had deposited himself right next to the curtain. The rope was right in front of him. While his brain tried to reason with him, and explain to him that it wanted him to pass out, he decided to ignore the pain, ignore the weariness, ignore the sense of death, and grab the rope.

  As soon as he had grabbed it, the rope tugged suddenly up, pulling Michael out of the balcony. He was now dangling from the sandbag over the open space. Devesant was directly below him.

  Then, about ten feet up, the rope changed directions. Now it was lowering Michael down. Slowly. And Devesant was waiting for him.

  But Jareld hadn’t been working out. While his leg muscles had improved from all the hiking and climbing, his arm muscles weren’t up to snuff, and the rope started to slip. He tried to control Michael’s descent, but the rope burned his hands, and the weights were gaining momentum.

  Michael saw that he was falling fast towards the dragon. Right into the Devesant’s mouth. His speed was increasing. Devesant was poised to snap his jaw down on Michael’s ribcage.

  But Michael was also spinning. The rope hadn’t been properly unwound, and the kinks were opening themselves as he fell, so he was also turning, slowly, while falling, quickly.

  Before Michael could think about what he was doing, his legs made contact with the wall. He pressed into the wall, then ejected himself as far as his body could manage.

  Devesant was waiting. Waiting with bloody breath. Waiting for his prey. Michael kept falling to him, falling to him, almost there, almost there…

  Devesant’s jaw snapped forward to consume Michael. Michael repelled off the wall and swung over Devesant’s head, positioning him right beside Devesant’s neck.

  Michael held the Saintskeep out and swung hard, catching Devesant just under the jaw. The sword dragged down, slowing Michael’s fall, and also tearing Devesant’s neck from jaw to torso.

  Michael landed with a thud. Devesant screamed. But the wound in his neck, from where he made his fire, was
split open. He was losing his control, the fire blasting across the walls as the behemoth staggered around the Great Hall.

  Jareld felt the room shake, and even felt the heat searing through the stone wall as Devesant struggled against his own death throws.

  Jareld pulled one more lever, then ran.

  In the Great Hall, Jareld scurried out from the alcove only meters away from Devesant. The Wyrm’s eyes were bloody. His mouth was making a constant stream of fire. Blood and smoke were gushing and steaming out of his neck, making the room wet, noxious, and thick.

  Jareld saw Michael, dragging himself toward the door. Jareld didn’t know the extent of Michael’s injuries, but he could see Michael was not going to make it on his own.

  Jareld ran around Devesant, put himself under Michael’s arm, and dragged/carried him to the doors.

  Devesant turned to them, with as much motion as he could still control. It wouldn’t take much, Jareld thought, to wipe them both out. Michael was as far as you’d want a human to go before dying, and Jareld had the stamina of a lame raccoon.

  Devesant couldn’t inhale, but he could flail about, and his body was now expelling powerful forces of magic.

  But before he could deal the final blow, the first boulder hit him.

  That last lever Jareld had pulled, the one he pulled just before leaving the fly rail room, was the reason a boulder hit Devesant. While he had been hiding in the fly rail room, Jareld had noticed that particular lever, the one that was with many flags and had the word “Danger” written on it in ten languages. It was the lever that opened the glass ceiling, in case you wanted to let the pure sunlight in.

  The glass had broken long ago, and the rocks and boulders that had falling in their place had balanced themselves perfectly, but the framework was still there. The four bars that held the windows in place, once upon a time, were still there, resting, as part of the balanced rock formation.

  So, before Jareld left the alcove, he had pulled the lever. He had disturbed the perfect balance. He had hoped to be clear of the room before the real damage happened. But as with everything since the finding of the erroneous journal entries, back in the Towers, things hadn’t gone according to Jareld’s plan.

  The first boulder hit Devesant in the left wing. It didn’t do any major damage, but it would leave a bruise the size of a door.

  It was the second boulder that broke the Dragon’s spine.

  Jareld moved as fast as his body could carry himself and the King. Rocks started falling around him, each one redefining the word, “close.”

  Jareld saw the door, fifteen paces away, but knew he only had the energy for five more steps. Then, a boulder exploded three feet from him, and he and Michael fell over, coated in dusty debris.

  There was nothing left. Jareld couldn’t move. Michael couldn’t move. The door was only a short distance away, but it was a short distance too far.

  And then, over the sound of the crumbling rocks, and over the dying gasps of the dragon, and through the smoke, and through the fire, and through the blood, Jareld heard the most gorgeous sound he had ever heard.

  It was a tenor, singing a beautiful rendition of a beautiful song. It was from some opera, and when Jareld recovered from the concussion, perhaps he would remember which one. But it was an uplifting piece, about dreams, and triumphs, and surviving the death of your father, or some such nonsense.

  Jareld couldn’t even remember the translation of the words, but he was comforted by them. He was soothed.

  And then he heard another sound he did not expect. It was someone laughing. Jareld turned his head, and saw through the eye that wasn’t covered in blood Michael, lying on his back, most of his bones broken, bleeding, and dying. But he was laughing. Jareld didn’t understand why, but he was laughing.

  “He can sing!” Michael said through his laughs/death-coughs, “Who would have thought he could sing?!”

  After that, Jareld couldn’t remember much. The singing got louder, and then he and Michael were lifted up and run out of the room. The stones collapsed around them as they went through the doors. Then, Jareld felt himself getting very dizzy, all of a sudden, and he passed out.

  Book 7

  Futures Forged

  Chapter 87: The Siege

  The day was growing long.

  Landos looked out over the battlefield. The grass just north of Hartstone Castle had become a sea of dead bodies. Almost all of them were from the Kingdom.

  Landos had started the battle with approximately fifteen thousand soldiers, fighting against Argos’ twenty-nine thousand. With the Castle around them, the scholarly assumption would be that it was an even fight. But anyone watching the battle knew that the Rone didn’t stand a chance.

  The soldiers of the Kingdom fought hard, and fought well. But the Turin seemed to be catching every lucky break in the book, while the Rone seemed to be falling at the first touch of combat. It was a magic that none could explain, even when they could use it. And Argos could use it.

  Besides the devastating mismatch between the ranks of soldiers, Argos himself was a factor. At several points, he would unleash a meteor of fire, or a sweep of lightning. Occasionally, he just drew his sword and charged into a group of spearmen. When the melee was over, he was always the only one standing.

  Landos watched, helplessly, as his army was depleted. Scores of dead bodies fell in every direction, and the Turin marched nearer to the Castle.

  Finally, Landos sounded the retreat. Those soldiers as could make it to the gates ran for cover. The others perished. Landos closed the gates. The siege was on.

  If someone had time to count, they would have discovered that on the battlefield outside, ten thousand Rone soldiers had died. By comparison, only two thousand Turin soldiers had perished. It was the greatest loss the Turin had suffered, and it wasn’t nearly enough.

  The Turin didn’t have many siege weapons with them, but as it turned out, Argos could double for one in a pinch. The north wall didn’t collapse at the first spell he cast, but after causing a minor earthquake under the northeast corner of Castle Hartstone, the walls came tumbling down.

  Landos ran through the halls.

  “Calvin!” he shouted, “Calvin!”

  The very earth shook as the north wall continued to give way. Landos stumbled a bit, but then kept running. A soldier ran the other way, carrying a missive.

  “Have you seen Calvin?” Landos asked the soldier.

  “Sir,” the soldier said, “Calvin died at the gate getting the last units in.”

  The rumbling stopped, but then the Turin let out a battle cry and charged over the rubble and into the courtyard. Through a window, Landos was able to see the onslaught continue to get closer and closer to the keep.

  “Who’s in charge of the west wall?” Landos yelled over the din.

  “A Lord Kelliwick from Arwall,” the soldier said.

  “Tell him to get his men off the wall,” Landos said. “They’ll do more good in the courtyard than they will dying when the wall collapses.”

  “Yes, sir!” the soldier ran off.

  Landos kept running. He didn’t even know what he had set out to do, and he was pretty sure it was pointless anyway. They were all going to die.

  Chapter 88: The Eye of the Storm

  Jareld woke to a warm sensation in his chest.

  The warmth started at his diaphragm, then spread to each muscle, each bone, each limb. As it spread, it found pain that Jareld didn’t know was there, but then released the pain before Jareld truly had to experience it. It was soothing. It was refreshing.

  Finally, he tried to remember who he was. Before he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the smell. For the first time in a long time, he smelled fresh grass. It was the sweetest smell he could remember.

  Then, he became aware of singing in the background. It was the same beautiful tenor, singing a different song now, with a slightly faster tempo and slightly sillier lyrics. Something about a cow falling in love with a f
ence.

  Finally, Jareld opened his eyes. It hurt to do so, because there was a bright light shining down on him. He realized that the bright light was the moon, which was nearly full, and was coming down onto the clearing of grass upon which he was resting.

  Then Jareld noticed the woman standing over him, pressing her hand against his abdomen.

  “Lady Vye,” Jareld said. “How long…”

  “You’ve been unconscious for nearly seven hours, as best as I can tell,” she said. “I was also unconscious for a while.”

  Jareld turned his head, feeling his neck muscles move from complete stiffness. Corthos was sitting against a tree, resting. Flopson was in a branch of the same tree, singing.

  “Sorry,” Vye said. “I came to you last. It looked like you’d pull through anyway.”

  Jareld lifted himself onto his elbows, taking in the landscape. They were near a fortress, which rested up a hill to the south. Currently, they rested in a small alcove of a forest. Jareld could see an old rope ladder that climbed up into a large oak tree. The rope was very old, and probably wouldn’t support more than a child at this point.

  “We’re just outside the House of Vye,” Lady Vye said. “This is a place I used to go, when I was younger, with my brothers. When we were leaving the dragon’s lair, I decided to transport us all here. I figured it would be safe.”

  Vye recounted briefly how Corthos had carried her out, and how she decided then to open a portal, even if it killed her. It nearly did. Not being able to think clearly, she thought of the one place she was very familiar with, and found the strength to open a door of smoke.

  She didn’t accomplish this without a penalty, however. Her left hand, which had been dying, was now completely useless. She hadn’t been able to move it since then. She was wearing a metal gauntlet, which was strapped to her arm with a leather belt. Jareld could see the black veins crawling up her elbow, like little arms of death.