She yelled, partly because she was furious and partly to startle her opponent. She lunged again. Like the last time, her rapier pierced the semi-vaporous form. It repeated its unearthly hiss and brought its arm to bear, as though to launch another jet of burning liquid.
It had caught her once with that trick, but not twice. She sidestepped quickly, and sliced at the “hand” with a cut that would have dismembered a human. Indeed, the “hand” portion of the “arm” vanished.
The creature wailed, and then roared like an enraged animal. It expanded, filling her field of vision. She prepared to counter whatever would come next.
“Captain Willow?” called a voice from the first floor. “Are you up there, Ma’am?”
The voice belonged to Lieutenant Jenz, a competent swordsman and a good soldier.
“Up here!” she shouted, without taking her eyes off the creature.
She heard his boots thump on the stairs as he ran.
The figure swayed to the left and right, as though indecisive. Willow decided to help it make up its mind. She stabbed again, aiming for where its kidney would be if it were a living thing.
The creature roared in agony before a huge flash of brilliant light blinded her. She threw one arm over her eyes, and slashed and stabbed around her, not wanting to give it a moment’s respite in which to launch another of those acid jets.
But when her sight returned, the hallway was empty.
Chapter 19
The door to room six was charred and blackened like the floor. If the King really was in Room Six, she had to get inside … now.
The sharp odor of burnt flesh permeated the air. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Willow knew she should pay more attention to that particular detail.
Willow’s heart was racing as she reached for the door handle. She thought better of it, took a step back, and kicked the door with the flat of her boot. It buckled. After two more kicks, the door’s lock snapped free from the frame and the door exploded into the room.
An acrid black cloud billowed out. The smoke burned her throat, causing her to stoop and cough. She staggered away, covering her nose and mouth with one hand, and waving at the cloud with her other.
Jenz ran down the hallway toward her, then halted with an alarmed look on his face.
“Captain, your jacket!”
She couldn’t speak, or she'd have asked him what he meant. Then she didn't have to; she found out where that smell of burnt flesh was coming from. Her back suddenly felt like it was on fire. She stifled a scream while trying to reach behind her to find the source of her pain.
“Captain, don’t!” yelled Jenz.
The bubbling liquid had pitted and scarred the pine floorboards. She must have gotten some on her.
“Now, Captain,” Jenz shouted. “Get it off now!”
Desperately, she fumbled to remove her jacket. Jenz came up behind her and gingerly held it in place by the edges so she could take it off.
She slipped free, but the fiery agony continued. Jenz tossed her jacket aside. It now had a hole roughly the size and shape of a dinner plate, down below where her shoulders would be. Her gaze darted around, and then she spotted the door to another room. Without preamble, she kicked the door with all of her might and weight behind it. It caved in on the first kick.
Inside, a heavily bearded man sprang from his bed and dived behind it for protection. As Willow dashed toward the dresser in the room, he fumbled on the night table beside the bed, scattering items to the floor. He found his dagger just as she reached the pitcher of water beside his washbasin.
Willow upended the pitcher over her back. The frigid water poured down her shirt; she felt the water splash against her bare, burned skin.
The burning subsided to merely agonizing. Willow returned the pitcher to the basin, but then had an idea. Her shirt was ruined anyway, so she tore a large segment of cloth from her shirttail and doused it in water until it was dripping wet.
She left the room without a word, leaving the astonished guest still clutching his dagger.
She coughed back, her throat aching, “Thank you for your service to the Crown.”
Back in the hallway, she sheathed her rapier; the King might be in there, in which case charging in with a naked blade would risk harming him. She took a deep breath, covered her face with the soaked cloth, and dashed into the room where the innkeeper had put King Eric.
“Captain!” Jenz shouted uselessly behind her, but she had no time for him.
Smoke filled the room. Her eyes burned, and she could see nothing. She squeezed them shut. She breathed shallowly through the wet cloth; that seemed to spare her the worst of the smoke.
She staggered around the room, hands out-stretched, searching for the presumptive King. She barked her shin and nearly fell. Cursing, she used her sheathed rapier as a cane, feeling ahead until she poked the bed.
She felt across the bed until she found his legs and followed them up to his torso. She squatted, and then rolled him onto her shoulder. The burns on her back cried out; she ignored them. Her knees creaked and her thighs buckled as she carried him, staggering, from the room.
Jenz ran ahead, clearing a path as she hobbled down the smoking and pitted hall, and then down the stairs. She swept the half-filled glasses and bottles from the bar, clearing a space onto which she deposited the presumptive King. She rolled him onto his back and caught her first good look at him.
She noticed two things immediately.
First, this couldn’t possibly be the long-missing King of Bryanae. His Majesty the King was nearly sixty years old. This man looked to be in his mid-twenties. Yet the age difference aside, they might have been twins separated only by time.
And second, and more importantly, he wasn’t breathing.
Chapter 20
Years ago, Willow had learned a method to revive soldiers who weren’t breathing. It was something the Szun had discovered. The semi-mythical beings were always inventing something, and Willow had spies tracking such things. While she rarely took the time to memorize the details of any specific innovation, she was glad she had paid more attention than usual in this instance.
According to the Szun, when a person stopped breathing, you could restore his breath by giving him some of your own. There was more to the method, such as how to resurrect a still heart, but the mechanism was complex and she barely remembered the breathing part.
She had little choice but to try what she could.
She took a deep breath and pressed her mouth against the presumptive King’s as he lay on the bar. It was an odd feeling, to be pressing her lips against the oddly younger King of Bryanae.
“Captain?” Jenz said. “What are you doing?”
She waved him away irritably.
She blew into the man’s mouth, but his body would not accept the air. It blew back and escaped between their lips. She tried again and encountered the same results. Her mouth was beginning to taste like a combination of ash and dead moths.
“Captain?”
“Lieutenant,” she rasped through her scratchy throat, “the alarm has been raised. Guards will arrive shortly. Meet them outside. I want you in charge.”
She tried another breath without success. Why wouldn’t this work?
“Select the three best to remain outside to guard the King,” she said. “Send one soldier to run to my office to bring one of my dress uniforms to the Castle. Send another to fetch the King’s belongings from his room and bring them to me and me alone. You,” she pointed directly at him, “are then to go to the castle and prepare for His Majesty’s arrival.”
Lieutenant Jenz opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him with a gesture. She didn’t have time for a discussion.
“Have them prepare the King’s bedroom for his arrival,” she said. “Have the Royal Healers assembled and prepared to deal with poison. Have Her Majesty the Queen notified … as well as the Chancellor.” The Chancellor was not going to like this turn of events. “Now, go!”
Jenz hesitated only a moment, and then sped from the inn. Willow heard the shouts of soldiers as they converged on the building, but had no time to worry about coordinating them. She had to get the King breathing.
She thought about what she knew of human anatomy. Her breath should have gone into his lungs. Yet it hadn’t.
There must be something blocking it.
She tilted his head back and, with only a moment’s hesitation, stuck her fingers into his mouth. She pushed past his tongue and reached as deeply as she could. Sure enough, she felt something cold and gelatinous at the back of his throat. She tried pulling it out, but it broke apart in her fingers.
Time was running out.
She rolled him onto his side. She scooped a handful of the black jelly from his mouth, and dumped it on the floor. She removed as much as possible and then, remembering how a blow to the abdomen could knock the wind out of an opponent, she bunched her fist as tightly as she could, braced his back with her other hand, and punched the man in the stomach. He coughed up a stream of the black substance.
She laid him on his back again, and once more pressed her mouth to his. She breathed into his mouth, and this time, she felt the wind go in. His chest rose and fell several times with her breaths, so she lifted her head.
He still wasn't breathing.
Dammit!
She tried again; still no luck.
She had no idea how long it had been since he last took a breath. She knew that too long a deprivation would damage his brain. Not too long after that, he would die.
This was her one and only chance to redeem her failure and to fulfill her mission.
Once more, she pressed her lips against the man’s and blew into his mouth. His chest rose as before. She moved her mouth from his, took another deep breath, and repeated the process. She continued in this fashion until her lips were numb and her diaphragm ached, and then kept at it.
Come on, live, dammit! she thought.
Suddenly, the man took a wheezing breath on his own, startling Willow. Coughs wracked his body, so she turned him onto his side again, and he vomited yet more jelly.
After a while, he began to breathe normally. She eased him onto his back to give him a minute to rest before she carried him to the castle. As she did, she saw that his eyes had opened.
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and labored, as though it took all his will to speak.
“That kiss was a good first effort,” he wheezed, “but it needs work.”
His eyes fluttered, and she could tell he was moments from passing out again. While she was still trying to figure out what questions to ask, he spoke again.
“I can help you with your … with your technique … later.”
His eyes closed and he fell into what she hoped was a deep, natural sleep. For a moment, she stood nonplussed. Then she remembered what needed to be done, and she set to rolling him onto her shoulder for transport to the castle.
Chapter 21
The three Guardsmen outside helped Willow seat the presumptive King, dressed only in his shirt, on her horse. She clutched him to her body with her left hand and held the reins with her right. Her burned back tortured her, but she kept her face expressionless.
His head lolled, but she felt the regular beat of his heart beneath her hand. Willow was astonished and even somewhat envious of the musculature she felt beneath her arm.
Willow galloped toward the castle with one guardsman riding point before her and the other two riding behind and to her flanks. The streets were largely empty at this late hour, and those who were active knew well to stay clear of the King’s Guard. Rats scuttled into hiding as she rode past. Her burn shrieked at her with every stride of the horse; Willow let nothing show on her face.
King Eric, before his disappearance, had led a largely sedentary life. His only exercise consisted of whoring, drinking, and the occasional foxhunt. This man, on the other hand, didn’t look like much, but had the physique of an athlete. Willow tried to come up with a list of professions that would develop such a physique. A gladiator, perhaps, or a soldier. Or maybe an acrobat; after all, he had been in the company of the Venucha Players.
Physique and age notwithstanding, this man was the very image of the King as he had been thirty years ago. Height, shape … everything.
As she neared the castle gates, she saw that the portcullises had been raised. Jenz had done as instructed. Excellent. She hoped the healers would be in the King’s bedchamber as she had ordered.
This mission had been botched, and the Chancellor was going to be furious. However, it was the Chancellor who had insisted that she bring the boy, so in that respect, he had only himself to blame for much of this debacle … presuming it was indeed Marcus who was behind the leak.
“Make way for the King!” she cried, wondering if it were true.
Even at this late hour, pages and other functionaries scattered from her path as she rode through the entranceway. She entered the main hall and quickly dismounted. As the presumptive King listed and slid from her horse, she caught him over her shoulder and carried him through the castle towards the stairwell, throwing the reins of her horse to one of the waiting soldiers.
He was heavier than he looked. She felt the ache in her legs as she ascended the stairs. Each step twisted her torso, rubbing acid-burned flesh against acid-burned flesh. The pain was excruciating, and she fought back tears. The Captain of the Guard did not cry, not under any circumstance. Discipline.
She needed to exercise more. She had to focus on that. When she had first joined the Guard, soldiers still wore full plate armor on occasion, and part of her training had been to climb up and down flights of stairs wearing the massively heavy suits. She remembered the pain, the sweat, and the humidity beneath her visor as she had struggled to keep up with the other predominantly male and entirely human recruits. It galled her to realize she probably would not be able to achieve such a feat now.
She needed to exercise more. Discipline.
The doors to the long-disused King’s bedchambers were open. As she entered, she saw a group of robed healers setting up their paraphernalia. They scattered out of her way as she laid the presumptive King upon the enormous bed. She exhaled a single, self-indulgent sigh of relief.
They’d all be coming soon: the Queen, the Chancellor, and the Royal Mage. She hoped the soldier that had been sent for her uniform would arrive soon. A battle would be starting shortly, one that called for a different kind of armor, and different kinds of weapons. She needed to be ready.
Chapter 22
The gilt-framed portrait hanging over the bed was of King Eric. Those imperious, bored eyes seemed to fix upon the viewer’s, judging him, and finding him wanting. Yet, as all-knowing as the portrait of the King portrayed him, he seemed completely oblivious to the chaos on the bed beneath him.
Under the direction of Anstis, the head healer, the other healer scrambled to apply leaches, poultices, and grind up herbs with a mortar and pestle. They were all of them old men, but they moved with a sense of urgency the crisis had spurred in them.
Even while stoically enduring the agony of her burn, Willow could not help comparing the wounded man’s appearance with his supposed likeness in the portrait. Without doubt, they were related—the chin, the nose, the jawline: they were all too similar for two men not to be—but were they the same man?
Curiosity was not one of Willow’s strong points. She knew she should care more who this man was, but she was more pragmatic than anything else. She cared who he was only insomuch as it affected her duty. The Chancellor had sent her to retrieve the King: had she fulfilled those orders?
After a while, the commotion died down, and the healers began to relax and take their time. Anstis nodded his head to Willow; the man was out of danger. She clenched her fist to help resist another wave of pain and then she nodded back to him.
She heard the door to the chambers open behind her, and a strained smile appeared on Anstis’s face: one that failed to disgui
se his fear. It took a moment for the significance of that to seep through her agony.
A shadow fell across Willow’s lap as she started to turn. She looked up to see the reedy figure of Antalus Fyrelord, the Royal Mage, towering over her. His face was inscrutable as a cat’s, and as black as sin. His robes trailed behind him like a midnight waterfall.
Willow snapped her finger and directed the healers to resume their ministrations with a gesture.
She stood, and bowed stiffly to Fyrelord as was due a man of his station. The burn on her back howled at her. She kept her eyes on his face, evaluating him. Had he been the one who had sent that attack on this man?
If so, he hid it well. His expression was a mixture of condescension and boredom.
“Captain,” he said.
“Lord Mage.”
“I received your summons,” he said dryly. He stroked his chin in a gesture that he had clearly practiced. “You said something about locating the missing—” His eyes drifted to the recumbent victim. “By the dragon’s tooth!”
Fyrelord brushed past Willow like a wraith. The burns on her back screamed as he scraped against them. Willow resisted the urge to draw her rapier. As this point, the only crime she knew for certain that Fyrelord had committed was being a creepy rotter. However, if she learned it was he who had wounded her …
“He looks so … young,” Fyrelord said, his dark bony hand gliding over the man’s body. “Are you certain it is he?”
“Somebody seems to think so,” she said. She added off-handedly, “He was attacked.”
Fyrelord’s face registered astonishment and outrage. “Who would dare?!”
The mage’s expression seemed to contain no guile. Willow knew that was an act. Fyrelord was a cunning rat.
“He was attacked with sorcery while he slept,” she said, dodging the question. “A particularly cowardly act.”
“Sorcery, you say?” The mage brought his hand to his chin as he considered this.
“Indeed. Any idea who might have done this?” She tried to put just the right tone of I know it was you into her voice to goad him if he were guilty, but stayed clear of outright accusation.
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