The Last Rune 5: The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  “This man you saw,” she said to Aldeth. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  The Spider stroked his beard. “Vaguely. There was nothing remarkable about him. He was dressed like a peasant.”

  “Was he tall? And with good skin?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes. Why?”

  Grace moved to Durge and gripped his arm. “The bundle you found on the road—the one that peasant who ran into you dropped. Do you still have it?”

  “I had forgotten about it, my lady. But I believe so.” He rummaged inside his tunic and drew out the small leather purse the man had dropped in his haste.

  “Open it,” she said.

  Durge fumbled with the strings and upended the purse. Something sleek and black clattered on the table.

  “What is it?” Lirith said, drawing closer.

  Grace picked it up. It was smooth and hard, shaped like a river pebble, but made of plastic, and fit easily into her hand. There were two buttons on one edge, and a circle of small holes on one side. Her finger brushed the topmost button.

  There was a hiss of static, then a man's voice—tinny but clear—said, “Base here. Is that you, Hudson? Over.”

  Grace flung the device down as if it had stung her. It lay on the table, silent now. She looked up and met Travis's startled eyes.

  “It's some kind of radio, Grace.”

  The torches had burned low, making a shadowed cave of the great hall, by the time Grace and Travis finished explaining what a radio was, what it could do, and how such things were common on Earth. As they spoke, Grace cast frequent glances at Boreas and his son. All of the others knew about Earth, but she had never told the king she had spent most of her life on a world other than Eldh, or that Travis was not from Eldh at all. However, Boreas listened with interest rather than surprise. Prince Teravian, in contrast, was obviously shocked—but only for a minute, and after that he watched in narrow-eyed fascination.

  “This makes little sense to me,” Durge said in his somber voice. “Surely the intruder could have caused more damage if he had placed the incendiaries in the castle's main keep.”

  Beltan shook his head. “There are more guards in the main keep. Someone would have seen him.”

  “No, that's not the reason,” Aryn said. The young woman's blue eyes were strangely hard. “His goal wasn't to destroy the castle.”

  Beltan gave her a puzzled look. “Then what is his goal, cousin?”

  “Fear.”

  A cold needle pierced Grace's heart. Yes, she understood, but Travis voiced it before she could.

  “If we're frightened, we won't fight,” he said, his words soft, so that they all had to lean in to catch them. “That's what they want. They're trying to distract us, to make us afraid so we won't fight.”

  The king gave him a sharp look. “Whom do you speak of, Goodman Wilder? Who is trying to do these things?”

  Travis stared at the communication device on the table, then picked it up. He clenched his fingers around it and whispered a word. “Reth.”

  Travis opened his hand; like the shell of a walnut, the black plastic had been shattered. He picked through the black shards and pulled out a green circuit board covered with transistors. A sharp laugh escaped him. Printed on the circuit board, white on green, was the shape of a crescent moon merging with a capital D.

  “Duratek,” Beltan said as if he were chewing stones. He seemed not to notice as he pressed a hand to the inside of his left elbow.

  That's where they would have attached the IVs, Grace, the ones that infused him with the blood of the fairy.

  Boreas gave Beltan a keen look. “You have encountered this enemy before, Nephew? Then you know how we can fight them.”

  “No,” Travis said, letting the shards of plastic slip through his fingers. “You don't understand, you can't fight them. They have everything—weapons, technology—things you can't even imagine, things that would seem like magic to you. They could take this Dominion apart stone by stone. And they will. They want to take everything they can from Eldh and sell it on Earth at a profit.”

  Boreas fingered the knife tucked into his belt. “Whatever weapons they might have, these men of the kingdom of Duratek sound like bandits. I do not know how things are on your world, Goodman Wilder, but here we know what to do with bandits.”

  Travis shook his head, and Grace gave him what she hoped was a look of understanding. She could talk to Boreas tomorrow, but not right now. She felt so terribly heavy.

  A small form crawled into her lap. Tira. The girl looked up and yawned, and Grace yawned back.

  “We can speak more of this in the morning,” Melia said, rising. “It has been a dark day.”

  Lirith met the lady's eyes. “I can concoct a tea for anyone who wishes for sleep . . . without dreams.”

  “I believe we could all do with a cup, dear.”

  As they rose from the table, Aldeth cast a look at Vani. “I'm sure you're thinking what I'm thinking, so we might as well go together.”

  She rested her hands on lean hips. “The intruder you saw will not have gone far. The voice that spoke through the device implied that the one called Hudson had not yet returned to their base, wherever it is. No doubt he wishes to stay close to the castle to see the result of his handiwork.”

  The Spider and the T'gol exchanged looks, then both vanished into the dim air.

  “Who else thinks their habit of disappearing is getting a little annoying?” Falken said.

  A number of hands went up around the table.

  The bard sighed. “Come on, Melia, let's do our own vanishing act.”

  The two rose and departed the hall, along with Sir Tarus. Boreas was asking Travis more questions about Earth as they walked from the hall, with Beltan, Durge, and Teravian following behind. Grace picked up Tira's limp form and headed after them, along with Sareth, Lirith, and Aryn.

  Grace had just reached the doors of the great hall—the others had already passed through—when she heard a snarl echo off stone. It was like the feral sound of a wolf, but higher-pitched, and full of malice. There were shouts, and the ringing of a sword being drawn.

  “Travis, get back!” came Beltan's voice through the doors.

  Grace set Tira down. “Keep her safe,” she said to Lirith, then dashed through the doors.

  She turned to her left and saw Travis and King Boreas with their backs to the wall. A spindly gray form wove toward them, maw open. Boreas slashed with his knife, and Travis gripped his stiletto before him, the gem in its hilt blazing crimson. They were holding the feydrim off, but just barely; the knives were pitifully small.

  On the other side of the broad corridor, Durge, Beltan, and Teravian had been cornered by two more of the monsters. Beltan stood in front of Teravian, pressing the prince back against the wall. Like Boreas, he had only a small knife, but Durge gripped his Embarran greatsword in his hands. Only there wasn't enough room to get a proper swing. The two feydrim hissed and spat, looking for an opening.

  Grace knew she should feel fear. Instead outrage rose within her. Before she thought about what she was doing, she had drawn Fellring from the scabbard belted at her side. The slender blade gleamed in the dim light, the runes on the flat undulating like things alive.

  “Get away from them,” she commanded.

  Snarling, the two feydrim closest to her turned, glaring at her with yellow eyes. Her hand sweated around the sword's grip. Maybe that hadn't been such a good idea after all.

  Before she could move, Durge let out a roar. The two feydrim had scuttled a few feet toward Grace, and now he had room for a proper swing. The beasts tried to leap aside, but Durge's sword caught one of them on the neck, and the thing's head flew across the corridor. The blade continued its arc, cutting a deep gash in the other feydrim's belly. Its black guts spilled onto the floor. The thing kicked and whined, then went still.

  The last remaining beast lunged at Boreas, going for his throat. Travis thrust with his stiletto. The move was unskilled,
but the blade was sharp, and it pricked the feydrim. The beast hissed and turned on Travis. By then Durge had crossed the corridor in three strides. He lunged, and his sword pierced the feydrim, passing entirely through its body. The light flickered in its eyes, then went dark.

  Grace thrust Fellring into its scabbard and hurried to the king. “Your Majesty, are you all right?”

  “I am, but that stone hit me harder on the head than I thought. I didn't even see the beast leap at me from that doorway there. Luckily Goodman Wilder did. He drew his blade and kept its jaws from closing around my neck.” He gave Travis a solemn look. “I owe you my life.”

  Travis took a step back. “Not me. It was Durge who killed them. He was the one who—Durge?”

  Grace turned around, and her blood froze. Durge's face was pallid and lined with pain, and he was gasping for breath. He leaned on his sword and clutched at his chest with his left hand.

  “Durge, what's wrong?” Grace said, rushing to him.

  “A pain in my chest, my lady. But it's nothing—it's already passing.”

  His breathing was growing easier, and color was returning to his face. All the same, Grace grabbed his wrist with a thumb and two fingers, checking his pulse. Durge was in his mid-forties, and he had exerted himself strenuously that day, first digging through the wreckage of the tower and now fighting the feydrim. He was in excellent physical shape for his age, but that didn't mean he couldn't be having a heart attack.

  Except he wasn't. His pulse was rapid, but not erratic, and it was already beginning to slow, as was his respiration. He wasn't just being stoic; the pain had passed. All the same, she should be certain. She pressed a hand to his chest and shut her eyes. Yes, his heart was strong and healthy, beating at a regular pace. She started to let go, then halted. There was something else in his chest, small and shadowy . . .

  “Travis, you're bleeding,” Beltan said.

  Grace opened her eyes and turned around. Travis held up his left hand, staring at it with a look of confusion. Blood streamed from a long gouge in his forearm where the feydrim had clawed him. She hesitated.

  “Do not concern yourself with me, my lady,” Durge said, standing straight now. “I am getting old, that is all. Go see to Travis.”

  She nodded, then hurried to Travis. The wound was not deep, and it was bleeding freely, which was good, as that would clean away any contaminants from the feydrim's talon. She pulled a kerchief from her pocket and started to bind it around his arm.

  He pulled away from her.

  “Keep still, Travis.”

  “You have to be careful, Grace.”

  She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was in Castle City. I . . .” He glanced at the others. Boreas was bellowing for his guards, demanding to know how the feydrim had gotten into the castle, and Teravian knelt, examining one of the dead creatures, but all of the others were nearby, watching.

  Grace touched his hand. What is it, Travis? You can tell me anything.

  Surprise registered in his gray eyes, then he nodded. It's about the scarab's blood.

  What about it, Travis? You used the last drop to open the gate to the Black Tower.

  No, Grace. I didn't.

  She didn't understand. But if you didn't use it, how did you get here? And where's the last drop of blood?

  It's in me, Grace.

  An image formed in his mind, and she saw everything: Travis's final encounter with the sorcerer in Castle City, and the way the last drop of blood in the scarab—the blood of the god-king Orú—had fallen on his hand and had entered a wound, merging with his own blood, changing him.

  Stunned, she let go. “Oh, Travis . . .”

  “First Jack made me into a runelord. Then Krondisar destroyed and made me again. Now this.” He shook his head. “I don't know who I am anymore, Grace. I don't know even know what I am.”

  Shock melted away, replaced by a fierce resolve. She took his arm and deftly bound the handkerchief around his wound, then took his hand in her own. “You are and always will be the man we love.”

  Travis smiled at her, but the expression was as sad as it was beautiful. “Sometimes I don't know if I'm cursed, or if I'm the luckiest man alive.”

  Grace felt a tingling and looked up. Beltan stood a ways off, but his green eyes were locked on Travis.

  “Lucky,” she said.

  7.

  Three days later, Travis sat on a wall in the lower bailey, soaking up the scant warmth of the winter sun. Across the bailey, fifty men—peasants impressed into labor by the king—swarmed over the wreckage of the guard tower. They had been working since the day after the explosions. Already they had cleared the castle gates and shored up the tunnel with beams. All of the debris had been removed from the yard of the bailey, but the guard tower itself was still a heap of shattered stone.

  In another corner of the bailey, more men worked to repair the breach in the wall where the tower of the castle's runespeakers had stood. From his vantage, Travis could see through the outer wall of the castle, across the snowy landscape. Dark clouds hovered on the horizon, not approaching yet, but gathering all the same.

  It was no use; the workmen would need many months to repair the gap in the castle wall. Only they didn't have months. Travis didn't know when the dark clouds would start marching toward them. Only that it would be soon. After all, winter was his time.

  Except it's not just the Pale King that's coming, Travis.

  Vani and Aldeth had returned to the castle at dawn the day after the explosions. They had not found the Duratek agent, the one named Hudson. However, the T'gol and the Spider had discovered an empty hut in the town beneath Calavere that contained signs of a hasty departure, as well as an item they could not identify, but which Travis recognized as a roll of black electrical tape. Aldeth had found three distinct sets of footprints on the dirt floor.

  But how had Duratek gotten three of its agents from Earth to Eldh? Maybe they had learned something in their workings with the sorcerer on Earth. They had possessed one of the gate artifacts—albeit an incomplete one—for a time. No doubt they had studied it closely, and who knew how much of the fairy's blood they had taken? They could have gallons of it frozen in a vault somewhere.

  They're smart, Travis, and they're learning. First they were able to send guns through. Now people. What's next, entire armies?

  No, they couldn't have perfected the technology yet. Otherwise, they would already be here in force. However, they were getting ready for a full-scale invasion, that much was clear. Yesterday, Boreas had received a missive from Queen Inara in which she described a mysterious concussion that had destroyed one of Perridon's border keeps. That meant the Duratek agents who had blown up Calavere's towers weren't the only advance team sent to Eldh. There were others here, and their job was to sow strife and confusion, to weaken the Dominions and its peoples, so that when Duratek's main force arrived they would be assured an easy victory.

  Except Duratek was going to find itself fighting over the spoils. The Pale King gathered his strength again, preparing for the coming of his master, the Old God Mohg, Lord of Nightfall. At the Black Tower, the man in the dark robe—the one they believed to be another Runebreaker—had gained the rune of sky. If he broke the rune, he would shatter the borders of the world, allowing Mohg to return to Eldh. Then all Mohg would need were the three Great Stones. With them, he could break the First Rune and forge the world anew in his own image.

  The Pale King already possessed one of the Imsari—Gelthisar, the Stone of Ice. At the Black Tower, he had tried to wrest Sinfathisar, the Stone of Twilight, from Travis, but his minions had failed—though just barely. Then Tira had appeared, and she had given Krondisar, the Stone of Fire, to Travis.

  As long as the child goddess had guarded Krondisar in the heavens, there was no way the Pale King could have gained it, and no way Mohg could break the First Rune. Only now all three of the Imsari were on Eldh; all the Pale King had to do was come and take th
em.

  “Why did you give me the Stone?” he had asked Tira last night in Grace's chamber. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  She had only given him a shy smile, then had run off and buried her half-scarred face in Grace's skirts.

  Some things ought to be broken, a raspy voice echoed in his mind.

  Brother Cy. That was what the strange preacher had said in Castle City. Travis knew now that Cy and Samanda and Mirrim were all Old Gods. They had helped lure Mohg beyond the circle of Eldh a thousand years ago, and they were trapped there with him when the way was shut. Only then Travis had traveled back to Castle City, to the year 1883, and his Sinfathisar came in contact with the version carried by Jack Graystone. Two copies of the Stone couldn't be in the same place at the same time, and a rift was opened, allowing Mohg and Cy to slip into Earth. And, decades later, the Pale King's forces as well, along with the infant who would grow to be Grace Beckett.

  Travis rubbed his aching neck. What had Brother Cy meant? He found himself thinking of Beltan's words from a few days earlier. Sometimes, when something's ruined, the only way to repair it is to destroy it first.

  But a world wasn't the same thing as a building, and Travis was not going to destroy Eldh, no matter what the prophecies of witches and dragons said.

  He watched the men work for a while more. One thing was certain: The attack on Calavere meant that war was no longer coming; it had already begun. King Boreas had sent messengers all over his Dominion, calling for a muster. Even now, his barons, dukes, earls, and knights would be readying for battle and preparing to march to Calavere. Boreas had sent messengers to the rulers of the other Dominions as well, reminding them of the pact they had made over a year ago at the Council of Kings. He had even sent word to Tarras.

  Travis shivered. The sun had edged close to the top of the castle wall. He slipped down from his perch and started back toward the keep. Near the archway that led to the upper bailey, he ran into Aryn.

  “Hello,” he said, startling her. She had been absorbed, watching the men work as he had. She blinked and turned toward him.