Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3)

by Y. K. Willemse

  A pistol cracked from somewhere, and the Tarhian crumpled, Sherwin staggering back so that the blow narrowly missed his nose. The other four men were on them. Sherwin hacked and sliced frantically with his sword. Rafen whipped his own blade through the air, sending a fan of kesmal forward as he had seen Etana do. One Tarhian fell backward screaming, his navy jacket on fire. Another had ducked, and the kesmal flew over him and set a row of bushes on fire. The Tarhian scuttled away like a crab before springing up fully and fleeing into the trees. Having won her own battles, Etana was between Sherwin and Rafen now, and a ribbon of kesmal passed through the head of a Tarhian fighting Rafen’s friend. Sherwin thrust his sword between the ribs of another. He looked half horrified, half fascinated as the man choked. Though Rafen had seldom seen Sherwin kill, his friend had confided in him that he had done it first the night Rafen had seen Nazt. In private, Sherwin had wept.

  “It is done, then,” Etana said, her voice soft after the explosions and screams.

  “There were twenty.” Rafen sheathed his sword. “I only counted eighteen.”

  “Two fled,” Sherwin said shakily.

  Etana slipped her silver ring on her finger, her expression livid. Her eyes met Rafen’s, and she swung a stinging, open-handed slap into his face.

  “Why?” Rafen demanded.

  “You were not thinking,” Etana said with rage. “We could have all died! I know you had to save your brother; I would have done as much. But we could have gained the advantage while in hiding, not by presenting ourselves immediately.”

  “The Ashurite might have killed him!” Rafen shouted, pointing at the dead philosopher pinned beneath the horse.

  “In case yer haven’t noticed,” Sherwin said, “Etana saved yer life. Without her, yer and yer brother would both be dead.”

  Etana’s eyes were steely. Wiping dirt from her forehead, she moved away from him to where Francisco had sunk down against the tree, a pistol lying a little from him. Rafen lunged after her, his cheek still bearing her red handprint.

  Francisco reminded Rafen horribly of the way he himself had looked after Sirius had beaten him. His black and purple temples were swollen out of proportion. One eye was mostly closed, and his skin was like marble.

  “What happened?” Rafen whispered, grasping his hand.

  Francisco’s lips struggled to form words. His face twisted, and he subsided into silent tears.

  “The family,” Etana gasped. She seized Francisco’s shoulder and shook him. “Francisco, what happened? Is it my family? My father?”

  “Let go of him,” Rafen growled through clenched teeth, pulling her arm off.

  Etana’s eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to shout at him, but Francisco was speaking.

  “My brother,” he croaked. “Do not be… angry with me.”

  “Why would ’e be angry, china?” Sherwin murmured.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Francisco rasped. Rafen could tell by the working of his hands that he was fighting strong emotions. He held onto his brother tighter, trying to imbue his touch with comfort.

  “What happened?” Rafen prodded softly. “You can tell me. Please. It’s all right.”

  “It’s not.”

  Rafen was battling with visions of King Robert lying in his own blood, or the Lashki standing over a pile of corpses.

  “Tell me,” Rafen said, and despite his gentleness, impatience boiled within him. “Tell me now.”

  “Elizabeth,” Francisco said. “She is…”

  He struggled to say the word “dead”, but no sound came out. Rafen’s hands clutched his brother’s arms.

  “What do you mean?” he said wildly. “She’s not. You’re wrong!” he flung out at the trees around them, laughing suddenly.

  “No,” Francisco said with more strength. “No, I saw it.” He opened his eyes as fully as he could and met his brother’s gaze. “She is gone.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The

  Knowledge of

  Sherwin

  Near dawn, after checking the progress of his second band of Naztwai, the Lashki reached his previous camp on the eastern edge of the Cursed Woods. He stared at the empty, churned up space before him, stretching to the horizon. The beasts were all gone now. He had sent them four days ago, and already they would have made great progress. He knew it because their worthless consciousnesses were all connected to his powerful one. Two Tarhians broke through the thin screen of leaves behind him and bowed low to the philosophers standing sentinel there.

  “You Grace, Your Graces, may your stars be good,” they gabbled.

  The Lashki turned bored eyes on them. They had been fleeing through the Woods; their coats were tattered and smeared with dirt.

  One caught sight of him and fell to his knees, kissing the ground, not daring to draw near enough to kiss the hem of his robe.

  “Fool,” the Lashki said, “come here.”

  The Tarhian raised his head, his face shiny with sweat.

  The Lashki flicked his rod, and the blue cord jerked the man to his feet and dragged him nearer by his neck. The Tarhian shrieked and dropped to the ground.

  “What information?” the Lashki said, cupping the man’s chin with his hand.

  The Tarhian couldn’t meet his eyes; his hands fidgeted at his side.

  “We captured one Rafen, but he was not what we thought. His brother attacked us, he was Rafen. They had the Sianian princess with them; they did much kesmal. My superiors said there was a reward for giving his whereabouts.”

  Ah. They had fallen prey to the same classic trick that had fooled Alakil momentarily. Francisco did look accursedly like Rafen. The copper rod even found it hard to differentiate the two of them, because an uncanny connection existed between the brothers. Hence, even Nazt had taken a few minutes to alert the Lashki of his mistake.

  The Lashki’s grip had tightened, and the man howled.

  “You will not kill me? Please do not kill me! I will go back and find him for you. I will bring him to y—”

  “You could put Nazt in a jar before you could bring him to me,” the Lashki said, throwing the Tarhian backward onto the ground. “It is no matter,” he said excitedly to the two philosophers with him. Asiel met his gaze and dipped his head, smiling knowledgeably. “Rafen will come to me in the end. Indeed, it seems he is already journeying West. The destruction of New Isles, the death of his mother, and the disappearance of the Selsons will be too much for him. He will not be able to help himself.”

  *

  Rafen was breathing heavily. His grip had tightened on his brother’s arms, and he shook Francisco.

  “How? You don’t know for sure. You couldn’t have seen!” he yelled.

  “He broke her neck!” Francisco shrieked. “I heard it.”

  “Who?” Etana demanded. “Who broke her neck?”

  Rafen released his brother and clawed at his own face with his hands, screaming a curse. He leapt to his feet, heart hammering, the kesmal undulating through him in waves as if he were in war. He should have killed Annette when he had had the chance. He should have shoved her into the arms of Nazt.

  There was nothing but corpses around him; yet in his mind’s eye, he could see Elizabeth. His mother had been so alive. It was in her eyes, in the curve of her mouth. She had reached for him with gentle hands and told him to accept his name, to lead.

  Rafen shoved past Sherwin at his right and rushed purposefully toward the surrounding basswoods.

  “Stop!” Sherwin shouted. “What are yer doin’?”

  His hand descended on Rafen’s shoulder and jerked him back. Rafen threw him off, the blood flaming beneath his skin.

  “I’m going to find her!” he shouted. “I’ve got to talk to her!”

  When he lunged forward, Sherwin shot in front of him with his hands out. Rafen’s diaphragm collided with him, and Sherwin shoved Rafen back. Rafen hurled himself sideways to bypass Sherwin, but Sherwin moved too quickly, his shoulder hitting Rafen’s chest. Knocked off c
ourse, Rafen struck a tree trunk. Sherwin grabbed him and yelled above the insanity in his head, “She’s dead, Raf! She’s dead!”

  Rafen leaned heavily against the tree trunk, his eyes blistering with tears.

  “No…” he said numbly. “She’s not—”

  His voice cracked. Eyes blurred, he stared at the hawthorn and holly across from him.

  He remembered the distant rocking of a ship, back in the fog of his memory. A soft, smooth tune returned to him, and Elizabeth sang the words in “Spanish”, as she had called it. She sang and sang, and the tune was a steady hum in the back of his mind.

  “Rafen,” she had said, so long ago, and he heard her say it now, her voice low and knowing. “He will be Rafen.”

  “Surely you know what has happened to them,” Etana was saying in a high-pitched voice. “You must tell me!”

  A scuffling ensued as Sherwin knocked Etana away from Francisco. Rafen’s eyes flew open. Etana was backed against a tree, and Sherwin towered over her.

  “Leave ’im alone,” he growled. “Of course he doesn’t know. Grabbing his face isn’t goin’ to ’elp.”

  “You don’t understand!” Etana screeched.

  “We have to go!” Sherwin yelled. “The Ashurites are coming!”

  They had disturbed the barriers. Ashurite voices were audible in the distance.

  Sherwin rushed back to Francisco and flung him over his back; Francisco groaned. Etana stayed against the tree, crying.

  “Raf!” Sherwin yelled, hurrying forward. “We have to go.”

  Shaking, Rafen looked at the trees around and heard the voices drawing nearer, speaking unintelligibly.

  “I don’t know where we are,” he said.

  “We were going to New Isles,” Etana said shrilly. “Surely you can remember where we were going?”

  Etana and Sherwin stared at Rafen, and Rafen stared at the Woods around him as if he had never seen them before. The Wolf had left him. He was breathing quickly.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  “Rafen, for Zion’s sake!” Etana burst out.

  “We’ll try this way,” Sherwin said hastily. “Come on!”

  He ran through the basswoods to their right, glancing behind at Etana for assurance that there were no barriers there. Etana glared at Rafen before sprinting on fleet feet behind Sherwin. Rafen followed swiftly, his mouth dry as footsteps behind him cracked the twigs.

  *

  Once, Sherwin had nearly been eaten alive in the Cursed Woods. He had relied heavily on Rafen to fend for him, to help him find his way, and to save his life when he needed it. When Talmon had mistaken Rafen for Francisco and taken him to the New Isles palace, Sherwin had had to ask Roger to help him escape the Cursed Woods so that he could find his friend.

  He now knew those days were gone. He led the others through the trees with a confidence he had temporarily forgotten. It was the same confidence that had led him to believe Rafen was the boy with the phoenix feather; that Rafen was to be Sherwin’s leader and friend, the one who would fill his life with meaning. It was the same confidence from which he derived his inherent knowledge of Zion, of Nazt, and many other concepts that existed in this kesmalic world.

  Now he had found in himself a perfect sense of direction when he most needed it. He even discovered memories of certain places in the Woods: memories that he viewed through the eyes of another. It was like living the old dream he’d had in which the phoenix feathers floated through the dusty air of a cavern. Life was abruptly a split-screen movie once more, and he could see the world from his perspective and from Alakil’s.

  Sherwin thought it couldn’t be wrong to see things from a murderer’s perspective when it helped save lives. Besides, he had never felt more himself – never felt so clearly that he mattered.

  The darkness was thinning, and dawn approached. Carrying Francisco, he steered a hunched Rafen and a panicky Etana through the densely packed basswoods. Every path was clear to him.

  He wondered why he had never utilized this side of himself before. He liked it.

  *

  Incredibly, they had done it. They had escaped the Ashurites, only glimpsing them. Sherwin guided them for the rest of the night, and Etana continued casting kesmal behind them to protect them from attacks or unfriendly eyes.

  When dawn came, Sherwin lowered Francisco onto the grass and twigs of a tiny clearing. Running her fingers over the leaves and branches of the plants around her, Etana started foraging. Rafen crept over to Francisco’s side. His brother’s eyes were closed. He looked as if he were sleeping, but Rafen could tell by the shape of his mouth that he wasn’t. He was preoccupied with dark thoughts.

  “Rafen, we need a fire,” Etana said.

  Rafen stared at the small pile of twigs she had assembled. Though it would be no good for a naturally lit fire, a kesmalic fire often burned on next to nothing. Rafen flicked his fingers in the pile’s general direction. Nothing happened. His left arm was cold. He tried twice more. Nothing.

  Etana turned from where she had been uprooting some small weeds and stared at the twigs.

  “Did you hear me?” she said.

  “I can’t,” Rafen said hoarsely.

  “What on the Pilamùr do you mean?” Etana said, nettled.

  “Etana, will yer stop that?” Sherwin said, opening a water pouch.

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop treating ’im like that,” Sherwin said dangerously. “His mother’s dead, all right?”

  “Oh, is that all?” Etana said much too loudly, springing to her feet, now tearful. “What about my family? If ‘he’ was the Lashki, which we never found out, they’ll all be dead too!”

  “Shut up,” Sherwin hissed.

  Her face white with rage, Etana fell silent, listening nervously for anyone who had heard them. The Woods were still apart from the subsiding calls of owls and chirps of bats.

  “Yer pestered Franny enough about that,” Sherwin whispered. “Let’s not start again.”

  Etana glowered, red-eyed, while Sherwin passed Rafen a water pouch. Rafen placed it to Francisco’s lips. Francisco opened his eyes and drank frantically.

  “Easy, easy,” Sherwin mouthed.

  Her face streaked with tears, Etana returned to her uprooted plant.

  Rafen stared at his brother’s bruised visage and wished they had time to take him to a river or stream to tend it. He didn’t even know if he and his companions were going the right way, and he sincerely doubted Sherwin did either.

  Francisco had finished drinking. Rafen took the pouch and emptied it. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was.

  Sherwin moved over to the twigs and started rubbing some together to create a fire. Rafen watched him with a growing sense of horror.

  Perhaps he had forgotten how to do kesmal altogether. And it made sense! The woman who had birthed him and marked him as one apart was gone. There was no clearer confirmation of Elizabeth’s death than this. His eyes watered painfully.

  Had she suffered? Francisco said he had heard her neck break. How much did the breaking of a neck hurt? Was it an explosion of pain to rival Francisco’s torture at the Lashki’s hands? Or was it a softly spoken, uncoiling sensation before sudden departure? Had the Lashki tortured her beforehand? Had his kesmal marked her as it had marked Francisco?

  And where was she now?

  That was the ultimate question. Where did the dead go? Did they go to Zion, to shelter in the everlasting, unmitigated warmth of his presence forever? Or – and his insides twisted – did they become smooth and naked, toothless, eyeless, wanting and never having, another vulgar piece of the bloated black jigsaw in the East?

  He wanted to scream, because there were no answers. He gritted his teeth, already hearing the voices of Nazt: “RAFEN! RAFEN!”

  And his mother was among them, reaching with clammy hands, shrieking his name. He gasped and covered his eyes.

  “Raf?”

  Rafen slowly removed his hands to see Sh
erwin eyeing him with concern, still vainly rubbing some twigs together. Near Rafen, Francisco lay with partially open eyes, staring up at the spiraling mesh of leaves against the brightening sky.

  “Was she in pain?” Rafen whispered to him.

  Francisco’s one healthy eye flicked to Rafen’s. “No,” he said, his voice sounding like it came from a deep hole. “It was quick.”

  “Why didn’t anyone help her?”

  “It was too quick.” Francisco groped for Rafen’s hand. He found it and grasped it. “I would have tried. Please do not be angry.” Tears had sprung to his eyes. “The Lashki was chasing me, and she ran in between. Please. Do not be angry, Rafen. I would have died for her. I would have—”

  Rafen tried to say “I know”, but no sound came out.

  “The night we left the Hideout,” Francisco said, “I forgot to tell you what she said, when she told me goodbye. She said she loved you and had complete faith in you… that you would always do the right thing for Zion’s sake.”

  Rafen’s heart plummeted. He had never said that sort of thing to her. He couldn’t remember ever having said, even once, that he loved her. He kept remembering how he had wanted to persuade the Selsons to move to a different place of refuge. How he had had several chances to get rid of Annette forever.

  I never did Elizabeth any good, he realized with horror. I’m to blame for her death.

  “We’ll do without the warmth; it’s summer after all,” Sherwin was saying to Etana. “Can’ make it work, and we won’ be ’ere long enough. Save us the trouble of puttin’ it out.”

  Etana did not deign to reply.

  “These roots are for us?” Sherwin said. “Thanks, Etana.”

  Sherwin passed Rafen one. Rafen gave it to Francisco, who grasped it with clumsy fingers and started sucking on it.

  There was silence while everyone except Rafen ate. He sat very upright, listening to the bluebirds announcing the morning. He wished it were still night, but couldn’t explain why. His fingers traced patterns in the dirt of their own accord.

  Etana leaned against an elm tree, her eyelids dropping closed. Sherwin touched her hand lightly, and she started, breathing fast.