Adsuni was silent for a moment, summoning his courage. Then, finally, he gave an order, possibly the last order that he would ever have to give to his friend: “go get him.”
“What?”
“The boy. Go get him.”
“You can't be serious – you expect me to leave you alone, through all of this?”
“I can handle myself,” Adsuni lied. “And even if I can't... I won't have any more innocent blood shed on my account. Go save that boy, Glanen. That's an order.”
“Very well, my prince,” Glanen said, dipping into a bow.
Adsuni was rather surprised when his friend did not continue arguing.
“I expected you to put up more of a fight,” he admitted.
Glanen grinned, looking very much like his old, boisterous self. “You're not one to take 'no' for an answer!”
“Ha! I really hope you're right.”
For all our sakes.
As it turned out, Glanen was being completely sincere in his suggestion to knock on the door to the palace – one of many doors, anyway.
Along the way there, they found a handful of disgruntled civilians that volunteered to come along with them, for various reasons. Some of them seemed confused about their mission, and what they might get out of it – which, if they were lucky, happened to be their very lives. Several of them had missing loved ones that were taken away, like Telma's brother, and the prince agreed to free them (if he managed to live through the present situation).
Adsuni and Telma led their band to the front gate, to find that their enemies were expecting them. Lady Kharqa, Sir Konrad, and a handful of the councilmen were standing spread out between three different balconies, with Kharqa just outside of the king's study, Konrad outside of the prince's office, and the councilmen standing outside of the late queen's room.
The prince's jaw clenched when he noticed that. How dare these traitors disrespect his mother like this? No one went into her room, not even the prince himself! If they so much as touched anything in her workshop...
Adsuni pushed the thought from his mind.
“We are glad to see that you have decided to join us,” Kharqa called from above. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“I live here,” Adsuni said plainly.
“I wouldn't be so sure of that! You deserted your kingdom, former prince. You disrupted the execution of an enemy to the state. You incited a riot. You fled with the condemned prisoner. And you dragged helpless civilians into your schemes!”
“I did what was right! I was looking out for the people!” the prince shouted back at her defiantly. “Which is more than I can say for you – any of you!”
He glared accusingly at Konrad.
“All of us agree that you have become a problem,” Konrad fired back.
“And my father? Was he a problem, before you betrayed him?”
“Don't speak to me of betrayal!”
“Have you killed him?” Adsuni asked, fearing the worst.
“Foolish child, you think we would murder our own king? He is right here!”
Adsuni was about to call him a liar, the word was on the very tip of his tongue, but Konrad suddenly disappeared. He came back a moment later, with King Zaeem trailing behind him. He was standing strangely, something wasn't right – were his hands bound behind his back? Adsuni couldn't tell from his vantage point, but he was, however briefly, relieved. His father lived! But he was in danger – all of them were in danger.
“Let him go!” Adsuni called, desperation sneaking into his voice. He didn't care; he saw the last living member of his family being held captive, held firmly in place by Konrad, whose hand remained upon the king's upper arm. “I – I will surrender. Just let him go!”
“Prince, are ye sure about this?” Telma whispered to him. “Ye don't know they'll keep their word! They might just take ye and kill him!”
“He's my father, Telma. I can't just leave him to die.”
Konrad looked to Lady Kharqa, who merely stared down at the prince coldly. Her lip curled.
“There is no chance that I will release him. I have kept him alive long enough only so that you might see him fall! You must bear the consequences of your actions, and so must the king. The people of Dinavhek deserve better, don't you agree? How long have they suffered under weak leadership, toiling away to sustain a government that can't even be bothered to offer them aid in a crisis?”
“You're not wrong that we have failed our people,” Adsuni admitted.
“What are ye saying, boy?” one of the men behind him asked. Adsuni pressed on, ignoring him.
“But we failed them because we were being undermined at every turn. Sir Konrad, mark my words that when this is all over, you will be tried for treason!”
“Now, now,” Kharqa said, holding a hand up to silence the knight as he was surely prepared to sling a few more insults the prince's way. “What happened to this whole saving your father business? Have you already given up so easily?”
“What more can I offer you?” Adsuni asked, exasperated. “I have offered my life. Is that not enough?”
“We should take a shot, prince,” the man said, readying his crossbow. When he and Telma met him, his friends insisted that he was the best marksman Dinavhek had ever seen.
Of course, he was also a drunkard that Telma had pulled from a tavern on the way there, so the prince didn't put much faith in him. Still, he wasn't about to turn down support, especially not after sending Glanen away on a separate mission.
Adsuni stared at him incredulously.
“Ye can't be serious, man,” Telma argued on his behalf. “A shot like that – ye'll hit us before ye hit them!”
“If I do let him go,” Lady Kharqa said, drawing their attention back upon her. “Well... you'll have to come here. I'm not about to discuss this in front of them! Let him through,” she called, and the gates opened. Several guards ran out, surrounding their group.
“Don't trust her!” Telma whispered to the prince.
“Aye, it's a trap!” the man with the crossbow protested.
Adsuni ignored them and stepped forward. I have to do this. I can't be the reason my father died.
“Prince!” Telma protested, taking a step forward. One of the guards brandished his sword at her, bidding her to stay back.
“Just – just trust me!” Adsuni said back to her.
Two more guards came forward, each taking their place at his sides and leading him through the gate. Once in, four more guards came – two walking ahead, and the other two behind him. They stopped short of the front doors, and the prince felt his hands being bound behind his back.
So be it.
The double doors opened, and Lady Kharqa strode up to him, a slim sword clutched in her left hand. She dismissed four of the guards with a lazy wave of her hand, leaving only the two men to his sides. “On your knees,” she ordered.
The guard to his left didn't have to kick him to get him to comply, but the prince suspected he was doing so either for his own enjoyment or to please his new ruler. Still, Adsuni complied with her demand, sinking down to his knees and bowing his head.
“No, I want to see you,” she snapped.
Adsuni looked up at her. She brought the tip of her sword to his face, resting it underneath his right eye. So that's how this was going to go.
“My father?” he dared to ask.
“Is watching us, right now,” Kharqa purred. “He will see all of this, I made sure of that.”
He heard it, then, a faint snap.
Kharqa shrieked and fell back, her sword grazing the soft flesh above his cheek. Adsuni clutched a hand to his eye, feeling the pain underneath it, and hot, sticky blood leaking between his fingers. He closed his right eye, holding it tight.
The man to his left fell limply to the ground, a crossbow bolt jutting out of his throat. The man to his right fell, too, but he was not yet dead. He warbled, blood clogging in his throat from a bolt that was lodged lower down, just above his chest.
As for Kharqa, she was, to the prince's dismay, still very much alive. She had a bolt stuck in her left shoulder, a large circle of blood staining her extravagant robe.
Before he knew it, Telma was there beside him, pulling him away. “We've gotta go!” she was shouting.
“No – not without my father!” Adsuni said, trying to pull away.
But Telma was stronger than she looked, and she was not about to let him go.
“Yer father's not gonna make it. Ye're the only hope now! Ye're all Dinavhek has!”
“No—”
“GO!” Telma screamed, dragging him out of the courtyard.
Adsuni was too weak to put up much of a fight, and in a matter of seconds, he was thrust behind one of the decorative stone pillars, along with the crossbow-wielding commoner.
“The best archer Dinavhek has ever seen?” Adsuni mumbled, still holding his eye.
“Marksman, sir,” the man corrected. “Different connotation.”
This man seemed too well-spoken and educated to be a drunken commoner, though he seemed to have sobered up some during their trek to the palace. That, and he was said to have a dwarf-like tolerance for alcohol.
“Former soldier?”
“Yup, fought in the last war. Didn't sit too well with me. But damn if I'm not still a good shot!”
“Can you take her down from here?” Adsuni asked.
“You don't need to ask such a thing!” the man snorted, taking aim and firing at Lady Kharqa as she attempted to flee into the palace.
The jail was far busier now than it had been when he'd visited Aasimah. Each cell was full of commonfolk, and Glanen could recognize a couple of them. He suspected that the majority of them were part of the riot. Try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to feel very much sympathy for them – except those few that were of Dre'shii. He recognize those faces!
He recognized, too, the face of the little boy, who scampered forward eagerly when he saw the knight. So, he did remember him!
Glanen was on borrowed time; he knocked out the two prison guards that were stationed at the entrance, and he couldn't afford to wait around to see if more would be coming. The people of Dre'shii were mixed in with the rioters – he would have to free all of them.
The knight put his stolen set of keys to work, setting all of the commonfolk free. A few of the rioters cheered him, others tried to clap hands with his. He refused, remembering how eager they'd all been to see his friend killed. He watched the group filter out, hoping that he wasn't making a tremendous mistake in setting them free.
“Go on, back home!” Glanen said to his comrades. “Telma's orders!”
All that was left was the boy. The knight opened his cell, too, and stood back to let him walk through. The child did not immediately run off and stayed back instead, gazing at the knight intensely. He held out the now-empty pouch that Glanen gave him earlier.
“Why don't you leave?” he asked the child curiously.
“I've – I've nowhere to go, sir.”
“What is your name, boy?” Glanen asked him, kindly kneeling so that he could bring himself to the child's level.
“I – I was never given one, sir. I didn't really know my parents... the lady that had me, she – she used to call me a little demon. But there was someone, that one guard – he used to buy bread for me in the market, he called me something.”
“And what did he call you, lad?”
“He called me a 'rascal.' Some of the other guards would call me that, too, but they never meant it like he did. He... he called me 'rascal.' I was a little troublemaker, he said. 'This is the last time, you hear?' He said that every time, but he kept coming back. Then... he stopped.”
Glanen's heart sank; he had a feeling he knew the guard in question. He was a man who wanted to become a knight, like Glanen. He settled for becoming a guard, and was slain not long after while trying to protect a woman from her enraged lover. That man had a soft spot for anyone weaker than himself, and Glanen remembered well his father's reaction to the news.
His father.
Maybe there was still time to join the prince's side.
But as the knight looked at 'Rascal,' he knew the boy was in dire need of help. Adsuni would want him to help the child first.
Glanen took the child's hand in his own, leading him out of the jail.
He knew of at least one place that would be safe for him.
Chapter 25
Fang and Blood
∞∞∞
Adsuni had not moved from his position for a good while. Fighting erupted from all around him as the people that he and Telma brought with them clashed with the guards. Adsuni recognized some of the faces, but several of the men were clearly not of Dinavhene blood.
Was this Takirar's plan – to destroy Dinavhek from within?
None of it made sense, but the prince couldn't afford to take the time to really think it all over. Bodies fell all around him, men and women gagged on their own blood, and the stench of death was absolutely smothering.
The prince dearly wished that he hadn't sent Glanen away – that is, until the reinforcements arrived.
A half dozen men and women soon joined the fight, rushing to Telma's side – and wisely backing off, for Telma was wildly swinging away with a slain guard's poleaxe. Their drunkard marksman was nowhere to be seen, but as another guard fell before his bolts, Adsuni knew he was still around somewhere.
They held out for a good while, and before they knew it, the fighting had spread throughout the city. They were forced to retreat further and further, and Adsuni realized with a heavy heart that there was no hope for retaking the palace.
Dinavhek had fallen.
“Get the prince out o' here!” Telma roared at her people, after clobbering one of her opponents and knocking him into the ground.
“No! I can't leave without my father!”
“Ye won't be leaving at all if ye don't go now!”
“Sorry, lad,” said one of her men as he came over to Adsuni, grabbing hold of his upper arm. “Telma's orders!”
Adsuni struggled, but it was useless; this man lived a life of unending physical labor, and he had the muscle mass to prove it. He pulled Adsuni along easily as though he weighed nothing at all, and the prince's attempts at resistance were utterly meaningless. The bigger man suddenly shoved him when they neared the gate, and Adsuni fell unceremoniously to the ground.
Groaning, the prince forced himself to roll over onto his back, that he might see what had happened.
Telma's man was dead.
Standing above his corpse, looking down at Adsuni, was one of Kharqa's men.
On his back, exposed, and unarmed, the prince was defenseless. There was nowhere for him to turn, no way that he could block his enemy's attack. As the man's sword came down, Adsuni shut his eyes tightly. In that split second, he thought himself a great coward for being unable to look Death in the eyes.
He didn't care.
He was terrified.
Adsuni laid there, eyes closed, waiting for the explosion of pain, the terrible sensation of a sword skewering his internal organs, the triumphant smirk of his killer (not that he would see it anyway), the last journey of his soul as it separated from his mortal form – would it venture off into the heavens, or would it go elsewhere, perhaps to desolate plains of Hysia where it more likely belonged?
He waited, but death did not come.
Adsuni hesitated before opening his eyes, afraid that perhaps he would meet an even worse fate than Death itself.
Alas, he would not be going to Hysia this day, for Glanen stood above him, fending off his attacker! Glanen, his dear friend! His knight, his brother, his peerless protector. Glanen took the man down in no time at all, before bending low to help his fallen friend to his feet.
“Glanen – how?” was all Adsuni could say.
“Xanthus is still the fastest horse in the land,” Glanen said with a wink. “That, and I did not stay in Dre'shii as you instructed me
to.”
Relieved as he was by the knight's unexpected appearance, he couldn't even bring himself to be angry at his friend for disobeying his orders. He blinked back tears and raised a trembling hand to his eyes to wipe them away.
“What, you're not happy to see me?” said a rough female voice from behind him.
Adsuni turned around, finding himself face-to-face with Aasimah. She, too, was smirking, but she appeared strained. The prince could tell that she was having some sort of internal battle, and he suspected that it had less to do with trust, and more to do with the beast that continued to rage inside of her. For her, that fight could never possibly end – not on its own, anyway.
The prince looked around, seeing more people joining in the fight. It was, as Telma might call it, a real “dung show. She would be much more vulgar than that, but Adsuni, raised to be a proper young prince, would not disgrace his tongue in such a way – or his mind.
There was no glory to be found in the battle that raged all around them. The prince watched helplessly as people of all sorts joined in the fighting, slaughtering each other in droves. Civilians, guards, soldiers, criminals... it was a nightmare, with no end in sight, and nothing truly to gain.
Nothing except for his father's life, assuming he hadn't yet been dispatched.
“Aasimah,” Adsuni said, licking his lips nervously. His throat was scratchy, his heart fluttered, and his legs shook so violently beneath him that he feared they might just give out. He couldn't believe he was about to ask such a thing of her, but he needed her strength.
There were monsters up in that palace right now, threatening his father, his kingdom, himself, and his friends.
Why not fight monsters with another monster? If what his father said before was true, the beast-folk were immensely powerful when transformed.
“I know I have no right to ask this of you, but – but I – I need... I need your strength. Please! My father... my friends! My – my people. We need you!”
“What?” she and Glanen asked in unison.
“You can't be serious,” Aasimah said almost pleadingly.
Dinavhek- The Fall Page 28