"She is coming!" Coronea shrieked. "Gonatas, please!"
He unsheathed his sword. "Drop your hand." She pulled the chain that bound her right hand until it was taut against the wall. He swung and his blade rang on the iron links, spewing a shower of sparks. Coronea jerked the chain - twice, thrice - but the links were unbroken.
"There is an ax around the corner," she said. "I saw it when they were bringing me in. Look out behind you!"
Gonatas whirled and saw a Bearded Man rushing at him with leveled spear. Gonatas' sword flashed and the blade struck the spear shaft just below the point, snapping it off. The guard dropped the useless stick and drew his short sword.
"I am a Prince of Irrylia!" Gonatas shouted. "Heir to the throne. I command you to stand down."
The guard paused as if in confusion, staring at him insensibly through the blank eye holes in his bronze bearded face. He cocked his head like a dog, but his sword remained drawn.
"Are you deaf, man? Did you not hear me? Sheath your blade at once and release this woman."
The Bearded Man lunged at him and Gonatas parried the thrust with a sweep of his sword. He immediately slashed, striking the guard in the shoulder. Gonatas expected to feel his blade slicing through flesh and muscle. Instead, his blade glanced off the man's arm as if it were made of metal. The guard stumbled and Gonatas stabbed with enough force to drive his steel in one side of him and out the other. But his blade did no such thing. It rang hollowly and skittered off the side of the Bearded Man's gut.
"What are you?" Gonatas asked in astonishment. The Bearded Man launched another attack and Gonatas whirled out of the way.
He fell to one knee and, looking to his side, saw the axe propped against the wall, double-headed, heavy and stinking of blood and corruption. He grabbed it in both hands and whirled on the guard. With a loud chink, the heavy axe split his helm in two, lopping it off at the level of the man's eyes. The top of his helmet clattered to the floor. Where Gonatas expected to see gushing gore and exploding brains, the ruin of the man's head, he instead saw nothing at all.
Nothing but a hollow black space inside an empty bronze helm.
The Bearded Man teetered on his feet like a drunk and then fell over flat on his bearded face.
Gonatas felt a chill go through him. He rushed around the corner carrying the axe. "Coronea! Hands!"
She held the chain taut. He swung the axe and it bit through the thick links with a crashing of steel and stone. Her hand was free.
"They are not human," she said. She wore the manacle like a bracelet around her wrist, the broken length of chain dangling from it. "The Bearded Men belong to the witch."
Gonatas could feel his skin prickling all over. It felt like his entire body was crawling. His mind swam. He struggled to keep hold of it.
"Hand!" he shouted. Coronea pulled the chain of her left hand taut for him, but before he could swing, she screamed. He spun around just in time to block the overhand blow of a sword with the shaft of his axe. A Bearded Man glowered at him through sightless black eyes. Gonatas kicked him away. The thing stumbled backward and tripped over the rim of Pylia's dark pool. It crashed into the black water, sending up a foul, stinking shower that rained back down on them. The thing sank below the surface and the pool bubbled and boiled, and hissed and steamed where the water had closed up over the top of its body.
Gonatas turned, and when Coronea pulled the chain taut, he whacked it with the axe, freeing her other hand. She collapsed into his arms. "Coronea, you are safe," he cooed into her ear. He could feel her soft skin under his hands. He unclasped his bright mustard cloak and wrapped her in it. "Cover yourself with this."
Coronea fitted the cloak around her body, tucking and folding and tying it over one shoulder. Gonatas gave her his sword. Now, they would dash for the door and be gone. He would use his station to get by the guards. With luck, no one outside of the chamber knew a thing.
Then he heard the sound he had feared.
It was a scream, a loud wailing shriek in the voice of an ancient crone.
Gonatas turned with a start and saw Pylia rushing towards him through the shadows of the pillared room. He could not see her legs moving, nor any other part of her, but she came at him, moving impossibly fast. He gave a start, almost dropping his axe and falling over in shock. Coronea uttered a cry.
Pylia stopped short of her black pool and raised her arms. She was uttering unknown words of some ghastly tongue. Naked, she flashed by blinks of the eye between withered crone and voluptuous seductress, her hair a wispy web one moment, a squirming tangle of snakes the next. Serpents seemed to leap and snap at them from all directions. Gonatas feared he had gone mad. The words that spilled from Pylia's lips filled him with terror.
"It is the language of the gods," he gasped. What else could it be? "I cannot bear to hear it."
"It is the language of the pit," Coronea cried. "Cover your ears!"
Gonatas winced as if in pain. Teeth and eyes clenched, he struggled to lift his axe. "I will not cower in fear," he muttered in a strangled voice. "I will end this now. I will cleave the witch in two."
He took only a single step towards Pylia when the surface of the pool began to boil and hiss at the exact spot where the Bearded Man had gone in. A great turbulence rose in the center of the disturbance as the black water began bubbling up in a torrent. Gonatas wondered if the Bearded Man was coming out again. He held his axe ready. Suddenly, from the roiling pool there burst not a drowned bronze man but a great pale serpent. It crashed out of the water and rose ten feet above Gonatas. Its massive head dripping, it looked about slowly, tongue flicking, while Pylia continued to summon it forth in its unknowable language.
Gonatas ran out from under it, sweeping Coronea away in his arms, trying to flee out of the range of its snapping jaws. Fast as lightning, the serpent lashed at them. Its fangs impaled nothing but air, but its head knocked them from their feet. They sprawled on the floor.
In a flash, it was on them again. Coronea rolled over and raised her sword. Her blade pierced the scales of the serpent's breast. The monster reared, flailing its head, and hissed in pain. Coronea clung to the hilt and the sword came free from the beast, leaving a gash behind. Where blood should have poured from the wound, the bodies of half-a-dozen huge snakes soon wriggled free. Their heads thrashed and their jaws snapped as they reared out of the side of the great serpent like a squirming appendage. Coronea screamed as the largest of them swept down and coiled around Gonatas, pinning his arms to his sides. It lifted him, squeezing. More snakes slithered out of the torn scales and reared up until he could see their cold eyes - hypnotic, unblinking and pitiless - seeming as large as saucers in front of his face.
"Run, Coronea!" he shouted. Her escape would at least give his death meaning. He exhaled and the snake cinched its coils tighter around him. Those were the last words he would be able to speak. A snake's jaws yawned before his eyes. Poison dripped from its fangs. Somehow, he knew that it did not intend to bite him; it meant to swallow him whole. If he had the breath, he would have screamed.
He felt as if his eyes would pop from his skull. The edges of his vision were turning black when he found the yawning snake's head was suddenly free of its body, spinning off through the air in a spray of blood. The crushing coils around his ribs relaxed and in the next instant he found himself falling. He hit the floor with a thud and looked up to see half-a-dozen headless snakes thrashing like bloody ribbons. Asander's sword was dripping with the same blood. Snake heads littered the floor around his feet. The great pale serpent saw him at the same time Gonatas did.
"Asander!" Gonatas shouted. "Are you mad?"
Asander turned to face the serpent. "Run, my lord!" he shouted. "Run, damn you!" The serpent snapped at him and he sliced a red stripe into its nose. It reared back in pain.
"Gonatas!" Coronea cried. He could see they had a clear shot at the door now. He tried to roll to his feet, but the serpent saw him darting away and came straight for him. The snake lash
ed out.
"I will not stand by!" Asander shouted and threw himself between Gonatas and the gaping jaws. The great fangs pierced him, one impaling his chest, the other his groin. He let out a gurgling groan. The beast rose to its full height, gripping him in its clenched jaws while blood poured from Asander's mouth.
Gonatas scrambled to Coronea. She grasped him in her arms and whisked him towards the unguarded door. "Asander…" he muttered, his voice breaking. He could not take his eyes off the ghastly image, made bleary by his tears. "You didn't have to…You didn't have to…"
The last he saw of it, the snake was disappearing back into the fathomless black pool, taking Asander's limp body with it.
Outside, Coronea slammed the door shut. They could hear the witch wailing from within as they dashed down the corridor away from Pylia's chamber of horrors.
They could hear heavy footsteps descending a stair ahead. A pair of Bearded Men appeared around a corner, filling the corridor as they raced abreast with swords drawn. Gonatas realized they had left their weapons behind. He had only his dagger sheathed in his belt.
"To Pylia's chamber!" he shouted in a commanding voice. "Hurry!"
They stood aside as the Bearded Men raced past them. Relieved, they continued running.
He tried the same ploy when he entered the throne room, as he directed half-a-score of Bearded Men to Pylia's chamber below. The door slammed shut and they could hear the guardsmen's footsteps receding away behind it. Then all was quiet. They crept down the corridor and saw Demetrius sitting alone on his throne.
"You neglected to give your Bearded Men brains, Father," Gonatas said, emerging from the narrow passage into the room. Gonatas unsheathed his dagger.
Demetrius remained sitting, unsurprised. From behind him, Gonatas could not see his face and the king did not turn. "Brainless they may be, but they are loyal and deadly. Pylia's men. You cannot kill them."
"I have already killed two," Gonatas said. He could not keep a quaver out of his voice. He still felt shivers running down his spine. He was sweating and shaking as if he had a fever.
"Two is not twenty-thousand. I have an army of them, Gonatas. In a moment, this room will be full of them."
Gonatas came around the front of the throne and held the dagger to the old man's throat. The blade disappeared into the king's glistening beard and Gonatas could feel its point pricking the flesh.
"Kill him, and let's be gone," Coronea said.
Demetrius' eyes moved wearily to Coronea. They were heavily bagged, bloody red showed beneath them. He looked back to Gonatas. "I always supposed the traitor to be one of my councilors, betraying me for coin," Demetrius said. "But it is not coin with you, is it, Gonatas?"
"It is revenge, Father. For Mother…"
Demetrius began laughing. "Your mother has been dead for years, but only now do I find a blade at my throat."
From behind the door at the end of the corridor, they began hearing footsteps and the clatter of arms.
"Gonatas," Coronea shouted. "Finish him and let's go. Give me the dagger and I will do it."
"You are a child, Gonatas," Demetrius went on. "It is not revenge that brings you here. It is love. It is this girl and nothing more." He laughed again, scornfully, hatefully.
Gonatas grabbed him and flung him to the floor. He fell on his back and Gonatas was on him in an instant. His dagger hand shook and he could feel the blade slide into the king's flesh. Demetrius jerked, groaning, but Gonatas held him fast. He had only to give it a little shove and it would be over. Sweat from his brow dripped onto his father's face. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth.
"Though it would be a mercy to you and to the world, I cannot kill you," he said, his voice shaking. "But I pray to the gods someone will."
"Gonatas! Kill him! Kill him!"
"Pray to the gods all you like," Demetrius said, chortling. The man was mad. Did he even know his life hung in the balance? "I have no use for your gods, Gonatas. I have Pylia now. Look at you! Your hair is streaked white and your voice is tremulous--"
Though they could not see it, they heard the door burst open and the tramping of running feet. Gonatas struck Demetrius on the temple with the pommel of his dagger. The king's head fell limp.
Gonatas started running. He grabbed Coronea as he dashed past her.
"You should have killed him," she said as they ran.
"Gods help me." He could not keep his voice from shaking.
Chapter 32
Dusk had not yet settled over the city, yet the streets of the Prathian capital, Serusi, were curiously empty. Xanthippus glimpsed faces peering out of windows and through cracks in doors. The only citizen in full view was a little boy playing in the street. As the group neared him, a woman dashed from a house, scooped him into her arms and whisked him away indoors. Xanthippus shot Nydeon a look. He hadn't expected a parade, but neither had he foreseen entering a city of ghosts. Nydeon shrugged and Xanthippus saw Thalen and Myrtilus anxiously scanning the rooftops on either side of the road. The twenty Guardsmen they had brought with them merely followed along behind, the clopping of their horses' hooves echoing through the empty streets.
"The people are fearful," Lyssa said.
"Perhaps they think we are Shadow Riders," said Xanthippus.
"They think you are Menleco." The name stuck in Lyssa's throat. Xanthippus knew the people detested Menleco. It was not for nothing that his own father, the former king, Cleonomus, had disinherited him. He had been cruel and hateful even as a young man. The Prathian people felt themselves cursed with him. "Whenever he came to the city, it was for no good," Lyssa went on. Her voice dripped with hatred. Xanthippus was a little taken aback by it. What she must have endured at Menleco's hands made him long for revenge. "The people would see his troops camped outside and it usually cost them coin - or worse, if he let the men run free. They hated Menleco. They hated his Prathian Guard and his Shadow Riders equally."
Xanthippus ground his teeth. It had not always been that way. The Guard had always been the pride of Prathia, not its bane. How many times had he ridden at Menleco's side through these same streets and not even noticed the fear and the loathing? He had been so full of those things himself that he had been blind to it in others. If it had not been for Xanthippus always at Menleco's side, perhaps someone would have killed him long ago.
"I should have killed him when I had the chance," Xanthippus said.
The street was wide enough for them to ride four abreast. Nydeon rode next to Xanthippus. He turned and regarded him dryly. "Without the Guard, he is as good as dead. You have deprived him of them and destroyed his Riders. What more could you do?"
"It is enough for me to be free of him at last," Lyssa said. Xanthippus had no doubt of that. It should have been enough for him too. "He stole me out of my bed. I can still see them, the grinning skulls gazing down at me when I opened my eyes. They were like demons of the night. They took me to him without a sound, one of their stinking hands clamped over my mouth. That was the last I saw of my dear uncle. For over a year, Menleco held me captive…"
Lyssa's voice trailed off with a quavering hitch. Xanthippus thought back. It was Menleco extracting pain from King Areus, Lyssa's uncle, for a kingship that should have been his. Thankfully, it had been a Shadow Rider operation, and not the Guard's. Kidnapping was not beneath the Riders. He wondered what he would have done had Menleco ordered the Guard to take her, instead of the Riders. By rights, Lyssa should have hated him as passionately as she hated Menleco. He remembered when she had begun appearing in his company, the unhappiest lady he had ever laid eyes on. He had fallen in love with her - thoroughly, completely, helplessly - but he had been unable to say a word.
Xanthippus sighed. "The people will honor us when they know he is gone," he agreed. "But I would feel more peace if I had witnessed him expire, especially with his blood on my blade."
Nydeon shot him a stern look. "It is done, Xanthippus. He is gone. You have destroyed him. It is over."
"I would have liked to see him dead."
Above the rooftops, they could see the palace on its hill, flanked by towering colonnaded temples. It was constructed of yellowish limestone, rose-colored in the dying sun. In a strip under the eaves of its peaked roof were colorful bas-relief images of gods and heroes. When Xanthippus' party turned a corner toward the palace, they found the street blocked by a line of horsemen wearing full armor and carrying spears at their sides. Xanthippus held up his hand and the party came to a halt. Two of the horsemen detached themselves from the line blocking the street, and rode forward slowly.
Both were strong-looking, square-jawed Prathian men. Xanthippus nodded at them as they approached. They replied with grim expressions.
"Who are you and what are your intentions here?" the leader of the two men asked.
"I am Xanthippus, leader of the Prathian Guard. I seek an audience with King Areus."
The man narrowed his eyes. "I recognize you. You are Menleco's man, and the Guard is no friend of Serusi. The king has no use for you."
"You have me wrong, friend. I was Menleco's man, but no longer. I have come to return the king's niece to him, the Lady Lyssa." The man craned his neck and regarded Lyssa suspiciously. Xanthippus could see some of the fire fade from his eyes, but his wariness ran deep.
"No doubt demanding ransom--" the man began, but Lyssa herself cut him off.
"Stand aside at once," she commanded. "Menleco is no more. These men have saved me from him, and now I want only to return to Areus, my sweet uncle."
The man glanced in confusion at his companion and then back at Xanthippus. "You are not sent by Menleco?"
"Menleco no longer commands the Guard," said Xanthippus.
"We are free of him," Lyssa said. "We no longer need fear him."
The man's hard expression melted away. He bowed his head. "We are ecstatic at your return, my lady. Your…absence was a black stain on our honor."
When he raised his head, Xanthippus could see that the man felt his words deeply. "In truth, I bring Areus more than his lovely niece. I am returning to him the Guard itself. I mean to restore Prathian honor, sir. All of it, your stained honor and mine lost."
The Blood Gate Page 41