The Waiting King (2018 reissue)

by Deborah Hale

  “How? Was your pledge of homage just empty talk?” Beneath the scornful challenge of her questions, Rath heard a bitter edge of disappointment.

  “I did mean it—every word!” Could he put into words all that had changed between then and now, in a way that would make sense to himself, let alone her? “Like you, I expected to find some powerful warrior king of legend. I would gladly have served him, and you, playing my small part in his certain victory over the Han.”

  A sigh welled up from the depths of his belly. “But there is no magical warrior king. There is only me and you. Whether something went amiss, or this whole Waiting King business is only an ancient jest, there is no way I can do what people expect of King Elzaban.”

  The sharp angle of Maura’s brows slackened and a flicker of doubt muted the righteous anger of her gaze. Perhaps she was remembering the dread of certain failure with which she’d first faced her own impossible quest.

  Rath had done enough dirty fighting in his life to know that he must strike hard while her resolve was weakened. “What good will our deaths do anyone? A failed uprising will only make the Han clamp down harder on the people of Embria and serve to discourage more able rebels who might come after us.”

  Maura caught her full lower lip between her teeth. A troubled look crept into her eyes, like an ominous shadow. Rath knew how she would shrink from the prospect of bringing harm to others. Part of him felt ashamed to exploit such a noble vulnerability, but he told himself it was for her own good.

  If it were only his life at stake, he might have risked it. But he had felt the helpless, gnawing torment of seeing Maura in peril. It weakened him in a way he could not abide. Let the rest of Embria perish—he must keep her safe at any cost.

  “We will do more good by going back to Windleford once all this fuss has settled down.” His tone mellowed as he spoke of his modest dreams. “We can rebuild Langbard’s cottage, make a peaceful living and raise a family in the Elderways.”

  That kind of life would be enough of a challenge for a man who’d lived as he had, but Rath felt confident he could succeed, with Maura’s love and support to anchor him.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he pictured the two of them sitting at a cozy supper table surrounded by several ruddy-haired, merry-eyed younglings.

  He could tell Maura was imagining it, too, for a brooding look softened her features. Her arms angled, as if cradling a phantom child. He prepared to take her in his arms again and kiss away any dangerous ideas of Vestan wizards and Waiting Kings.

  But before he could enfold her, a tremor vibrated through Maura’s slender body. Her eyes misted with tears, even as they flashed with indignant fury.

  “Damn you, Rath Talward!” she cried, shattering his fragile fancy of a safe, peaceful future. “Damn you!”

  Then she turned and fled from the pristine enchantment of the Secret Glade into the tangled peril of the ancient forest that surrounded it.

  There was nothing Rath could do but mutter a curse... and go after her.

  As she fled toward the soothing sound of the waterfall they had passed the previous night on their search for the Secret Glade, Maura heard the pounding of Rath’s footfall behind her.

  Contrary urges battled within her. A powerful one tempted her back to the beguiling haven of his arms and his dreams for their future. Another, less strong but all the more desperate, made her run from him as if a pack of Hanish hounds were baying for her blood.

  “Maura, stop!” he gasped, catching her by the full sleeve of her tunic. “How can we... decide anything... if you will not... stay and listen to me?”

  “I don’t dare listen!” She twisted the cloth out of his grip and ran on.

  It would be as foolhardy as stopping to face a Hanish warrior in armed combat. Rath had shown he was armed with potent weapons of persuasion—weapons she had forged for him.

  “I mean you no harm!” His breathless words held a plaintive plea. One she was powerless to ignore.

  She stumbled to a halt, wilting onto a fallen tree trunk. “That is what makes you so... dangerous.”

  “Me, dangerous to you?” Rath dropped to the ground at her feet, his chest heaving beneath his padded leather vest. “What daft talk is that?”

  He reached for her hand, raising it to graze the backs of her fingers against his stubbled cheek. “I want nothing more in the world than to keep you safe.”

  She had no doubt of that. He had proven it again and again on their journey. Should she not feel the same way about him?

  “You are dangerous,” she repeated, “because you tempt me worse than that Xenoth with his nightmare wand.”

  During the few days they’d spent recovering their strength for the last leg of their journey, she and Rath had avoided speaking of their terrifying battles with the death mage.

  “He made the mistake of offering me the last thing in the world I desire—power. But you lure me with visions of something I want with all my heart—peace.”

  Rath clasped her hand tighter. “If it is what you want, why should you not have it, love? After all you have done and all you have risked, you deserve every scrap of peace and happiness I can wrest from life for you!”

  “But don’t you see, Rath, my task is only half done. What does anything I have ventured thus far matter if I cannot persuade the Waiting King to fight for the freedom of his people? I want what you offer me, so badly my bones ache for it and my heart feels like it will tear itself in two. But I know it is an illusion.”

  “You doubt I could protect you and provide for you?”

  Maura shook her head. “I believe you could give me everything you promise. But how could I breathe fresh air and savor the sunshine on my face when I know there are men forced to labor in the stifling darkness of the mines, breathing that foul slag? How could I watch my children play in the yard or eat their supper, knowing hordes of young beggars run the countryside one step ahead of the Hanish soldiers, with no one to care for them?”

  Rath flinched from the harsh truth—something Maura had never seen him do before. “You are a dreamer if you think all Embria’s problems will be solved by ousting the Han from our shores!”

  “Dreamer? Is that another way of saying fool?” Perhaps she was both, for believing she would find a long-dead hero sleeping in this forest, waiting to be wakened by her.

  “No!” Rath dragged a hand down his face. “I told you of my dreams. They may not be as grand and noble as yours, but they are good and they are possible.”

  His arguments were sensible, sincere... and too convincing by half! Part of her wanted to forget about the mine slaves, the bedgirls and slaggies and think only of herself and her beloved. But another part clung to the beliefs in which her wise guardian Langbard had raised her. Somehow, it felt as if she was fighting for her very soul... and for Rath’s.

  “Can you be so certain my dreams are not?” Her voice fell to a whisper. “That night at the inn in Prum, when I first told you of my quest to find the Secret Glade and the Waiting King, you thought that would be impossible. Yet here we are.”

  Rath made a sudden movement toward her, his mouth open, as if pouncing to contradict her. But the words seemed to stick in his throat. He looked around at the swaths of lacy fern, the ancient, towering trees and the misty beauty of the waterfall, as if seeing it all for the first time.

  “Yet here we are,” he murmured.

  “How many times did my quest appear doomed only to be saved at the last moment? Little by little I began to believe this was my destiny.” She held out her hand to him. “Our destiny. If we have faith in it, I trust that whatever we risk to fulfil it may be difficult, but not impossible. I must answer this summons. Will you go with me?”

  Rath stared at her hand for a long, anxious moment. What would she do, Maura wondered, if he refused? Did she truly have the resolve to go on without him?

  At last a sigh shuddered through his powerful frame and he reached for her hand with a shrug of surrender. “St
ubborn wench. If I could not let you go back in Prum, do you reckon I can now?”

  The force of her relief sapped every ounce of strength from Maura’s body. She pitched toward Rath, throwing her arms around his neck. “It will be well, aira.” She used the ancient Embrian word for dearest or beloved. “I know it will! Think how much we dreaded coming here last night and the parting it would mean for us. Instead, the Giver blessed our union.”

  At length Rath drew back. “If the Giver had offered me a choice last night, between following the Waiting King to certain victory with you lost to me as his queen, or risking defeat with you by my side—this would have been my choice. Do not expect me always to behave in noble ways, just because you saw a crown of stars on my head. I am still an outlaw at heart, whose first instinct is to save his own hide and fill his own belly.”

  She would hear no ill of him, not even from his own lips. “Even when you were an outlaw, there was more of a king in your heart than you ever guessed, Rath Talward. The first time I saw you, you were rallying others to escape a Hanish ambush. If they had trusted in you and held together, instead of scattering...”

  Rath leaped to his feet, brushing away some bits of bracken that clung to his breeches. “Let’s go, before my doubts get the better of me. Perhaps if we travel fast enough, we may outrun them.”

  Before he had a change of heart—or she did—Maura rose and took his arm to begin their new journey. She only hoped they were not rushing into an ambush of Fate.

  Chapter Twelve

  AS RATH AND Maura picked their way down the narrow stone step beside the waterfall, he struggled to suppress the memory her words had stirred. Against his will, he recalled that day in Betchwood when he had failed to keep his outlaw band together, long enough to gain the relative safety of the forest.

  He told himself he had done all he could. Those men had each thought and acted for themselves. When a few had taken fright and bolted, splintering the strength of their cluster, it had doomed the rest. That was why he preferred to act alone. He could always count on himself.

  But one man alone could not hope to defeat the Hanish army that occupied Embria, any more than a single drop of rain could quench a wildfire.

  Spying a hollowed stone filled with water at the base of the rock staircase, he asked Maura, “May we stop long enough for a drink, at least?”

  She nodded, then stooped and gathered the clear water into her cupped palms. “A wise outlaw once taught me I should always eat, drink and rest when I have the chance. Otherwise I might find myself hungry, thirsty and tired at a time when I dare not stop.”

  In spite of all the worries that weighed on him, Rath could feel an impudent grin tug at his lips. “If you want good advice about staying alive, ask an outlaw.”

  A musical chuckle bubbled from the depths of Maura’s throat, in perfect harmony with the splash of the waterfall. “So I shall, outlaw.”

  As she sipped the water from her hands, Rath bent to drink.

  He had never tasted anything like this! If Maura’s life-magic had a flavor, it would taste just so—clean and wholesome, with a wild, vital tang that quenched more than thirst. For a moment at least, it seemed to ease his foreboding and self-doubt, nourishing fragile seedlings of hope and confidence.

  “This is better than ale!” He drank until he could hold no more, then he filled his drink skin and bid Maura do likewise.

  Then he jerked his thumb toward the waterfall and the pool at its base. “Do we have time for a wash up before we head off to Duskport?”

  “The message said, ‘Come at once,’” Maura reminded him with an air of apology. “Besides, I fear the longer we stay here, the harder it will be to make ourselves go. Who knows but we may already have been here longer than we think. Did you not tell me the local folk claim time runs slow in Everwood, and what feels like only a few hours may be months or years in the outside world?”

  “I did.” Rath forced himself to turn his back on the inviting pool and walk in the direction of a giant hitherpine some distance away. “I always thought such tales were only fanciful nonsense. Now that I have been here, I am not so sure.”

  “A pity it could not have been the other way around.” Maura hurried to catch up with him. “Then we might have dallied here a long while with only an hour or two passing in the outside world.”

  “That would have been fine indeed.” Rath reached for her hand.

  Together, they followed the trail of six tall hitherpines until it brought them to the path they had travelled the night before. Now and then, Maura paused long enough to gather a sample of flowers or leaves from some unusual plant they passed.

  “Perhaps one of the Vestan wizards can tell me what magical or healing properties these may possess.” She tucked a cluster of tiny, red, bell-shaped flowers into one of the many pockets in the sash she wore over her tunic.

  Rath also wondered what those innocent-looking little blossoms might do—make his mouth lock shut or knock him into a dead swoon? Since meeting Maura, he had learned the difference between the gentle vitcraft she practiced using plant and animal matter, and the lethal mortcraft wielded by the Xenoth with their wands of metal and gemstones. Though he had come to respect the capricious power of her life-magic, he still had trouble trusting it.

  When he spotted a familiar-looking boulder, draped with moss, Rath beckoned Maura off the path, though part of him wondered where it might lead them if they continued to follow it.

  “Where next?” she asked.

  “A brook, wasn’t it?” Rath glanced around, his ears pricked for the sound of flowing water. “Why don’t you check the map to make certain.”

  “I thought you had it.”

  Rath shook his head. The last time he recalled seeing it was the previous night, after they’d climbed the rock stair beside the waterfall. The appearance of the massive goldenwolf who’d led them the final leg of their journey had driven all thought of the map from his mind.

  Maura patted the pouches of her sash then checked the hidden pocket in the hem of her skirt. “We must have left it behind in the Secret Glade.”

  Rath shrugged. “That might be for the best. I believe either of us could remember how to find the place again in need. But I would not want that map falling into the wrong hands.”

  Not that the Han would find anything of value there. But the thought of them invading Embria’s last sanctum set his blood afire and made his sword hand itch.

  “True enough,” said Maura. “And you were right about the brook. I hear it over that way.”

  The brook led them back to a small glade just inside the bounds of Everwood, where they had left their horses the previous evening. So much had changed since then, it seemed much longer to Rath since he and Maura had entered the ancient forest.

  “Our mounts are still here.” He gave his an affectionate pat on the rump. “And their manes are no grayer than when we left them. I take that as a good sign Everwood has not bewitched our time here.”

  “Unless the horses were caught in the spell, too.” Maura chuckled to show she was only joking then quickly turned serious again. “I hope our time is not out of joint. I would not want the friends who helped us get here to have waited in vain for our return.”

  Rath nodded, remembering the men he had led in the miners’ revolt, the struggling farmer’s family from the south and the beggar boy who had reminded him of his younger self. What would they think if they knew he was the Waiting King?

  With his mind less than half on his task, he retrieved some food from their saddle pouches. “I reckon we have enough to get us as far as Duskport, if we are careful. I only hope this Captain Gull will not want big pay for taking us to the Islands.”

  He had heard of smugglers who kept open tenuous ties with the tiny part of Embria that remained free—whispered tales of the lavish ransom they charged to ferry human cargo. Many of whom were rumored never to reach the destination for which they’d paid so dearly. Rath did not fancy putting his and Maura�
�s fate into the hands of such men.

  They wasted no time eating their bread and cheese in thoughtful silence. Now that Maura had persuaded Rath to accept his destiny, she did not want to linger in Everwood for fear he might change his mind... or she might. After washing their breakfast down with swigs of delicious water from the falls, Rath helped Maura onto her mount and they set off for the coast.

  Nothing about the countryside beyond the borders of Everwood gave a clue as to how much time had passed in the rest of the world while they had sojourned in the enchanted forest. It was clearly still midsummer, though of the same year Maura could not tell. Yet some vague stirring in her heart told her this was their own time.

  Whenever she glanced at Rath, he appeared to be lost in thought. Though she knew two horses would bear them more swiftly and easily than one, she found herself yearning to ride pillion behind him, as she had through the Long Vale—telling him legends from Embria’s past, sometimes falling asleep with her hands clasped tight to his belt and her head resting against his back.

  The sun was high in the sky by the time they reached a narrow river.

  “If we follow this, it will lead us to Duskport.” Rath slowed his mount. “Let us stop for a while to rest the horses.”

  When he helped her dismount, Maura pressed herself close against him as she slid off the horse’s back. And even when she had firm ground beneath her feet, she did not loosen her arms from around his neck. Rath accepted the invitation of her lips as she raised her face to his, but he broke from their kiss far too quickly to suit her.

  “This is not Everwood.” His answer to her unspoken question trailed off in a tone of regret. “We cannot afford to be caught off guard by the Han or whoever else might be lurking.”

  Maura did her best to hide her disappointment. After all, this protective vigilance of Rath’s was a practical token of his love for her.

  “May I hold your hand, at least?” She tried to tease a smile out of him. “And stand close to you? Or will that interfere with your efforts to keep watch?”