by Bruce Blake
“I have seen you defeat a dragon and a serpent, fell giants and save your friends from dire circumstances. The Khirro who last set foot on these plains exists no more. Your journey has not only been one of distance, but one of the soul.”
Khirro’s head nodded minutely, keeping his eyes on Athryn’s. In his hand, the hilt of the Mourning Sword grew warm; he felt its heat radiating, warming the winter air.
The sword’s glow cast on the ground in front of them was difficult to see in the falling snow, but became more apparent as it took shape, gained color. It swirled at first, a whirlpool of red and green and blue in the air, then a building spread out before them.
Khirro recognized it instantly as his parents' farm.
The vision changed perspectives, as though Khirro walked up to the door. It swung open. Inside, the dinner table lay overturned, shards of clay from broken dishes littered the floor, and he saw his father’s axe on the hearth, its handle snapped in two.
His parents lay amongst the debris, dead eyes staring at the ceiling above.
His father’s one arm was pinned beneath his torso, his waist wrenched so far the other way, his legs faced the opposite direction like he might rise and walk away from himself. Blood splashed his mother’s apron, each drop blossoming on the white material like tiny, morbid roses. Khirro stared, mouth agape, wanting to ask Athryn the truthfulness of the vision.
Does he see it, too? Does he already know?
The vision moved forward, approached his parents. He leaned back in his saddle instinctively, unsuccessfully trying to stop it as the scene moved closer to his father.
His eyelids fluttered open and Khirro’s heart jumped with hope. Maybe he wasn’t dead, maybe a chance existed that he would live through this the way he lived through the accident that took his arm.
The accident I caused.
The father in his hallucination turned his head, sat up. Glazed, blank eyes stared at Khirro. A trail of blood ran from the man’s nose into his mouth, another streak of it ran from his ear. His father climbed to his feet, his body still cranked at the absurd angle, teeth clunking together as his mouth opened and closed forcefully. He took a shuffling, awkward step toward his son, and Khirro saw his mother sit up, too, her head swiveling to look at him with the same dead-but-not-dead eyes.
“No,” Khirro whispered and the scene disappeared, the glow receding back into the sword. The warmth waned along with it, leaving him with a shiver rattling his bones.
He faced the magician, looking at him for a long moment. Every shred of happiness he’d felt at seeing his friend again, every ounce of confusion he’d felt at Emeline’s words left him like chaff blown before a stiff wind. Athryn didn’t speak.
“Has this happened?”
The magician shook his head. “You know what this vision is, my friend.”
Khirro inhaled a deep breath through his nose and scented an odor on the wind he hadn’t smelled before or since their visit to the Necromancer’s keep: brimstone.
“This is what will happen if I don’t take action,” Khirro said moving his gaze away from the magician to the spot on the ground the vision had occupied. There was nothing now, only a crust of snow collected on grass beaten flat by the passing of an army.
An army that would destroy his home and kill his family if he didn’t act.
“Nothing is certain, Khirro, but it is likely this or some version of it will come to pass if the Archon is victorious. And not just to your parents.” Athryn looked past Khirro at Emeline and Iana. “The witch will not stop until the world is hers.”
Khirro nodded and prompted his horse to a walk.
“Say goodbye to Graymon and Emeline for me,” he said over his shoulder. “Give my daughter a kiss from her father.”
He coaxed his horse into a trot, a large part of him hoping the magician would call out to stop him. He didn’t. Khirro breathed deep, filling his lungs in the hope of calming the apprehension and dread churning his insides. They didn’t help.
“Khirro!”
Graymon’s voice. He fought the urge to turn the horse around, return to the boy to protect him, to take Iana from Emeline and hold his daughter just one time. Athryn would take care of them, probably better than he could. He set his jaw and urged his horse faster.
“Khirro!” Emeline called. “I’m sorry, Khirro. I did love you in my way.”
He urged his steed to a gallop and didn’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The dragon reared back on its haunches, filling its lungs with the fuel its fire needed. The living men before it scattered, leaving the unknowing dead to stand before the beast.
The dragon came down on its front feet, neck extended and mouth open, and spat a column of fire thirty feet long. Dead men burst into flame like dry kindling in a fire pit, burning with no more sound than inanimate lumber. The living didn’t exhibit the same silence.
Therrador gritted his teeth and hewed through the neck of another dead man come back to life. He hated the sound of men suffering in the breath of the dragon; no man deserved such agony on the battlefield, enemy or not.
The king pushed forward on foot, his horse lying dead with an axe in its chest twenty yards behind him. Luckily, his foes around him were also fighting afoot, most of them undead soldiers knocked from their steeds in death.
Lucky I only have to fight men raised from the dead.
All the men he’d brought from the fortress had fallen, the last of them only a minute before. Therrador fought alone. He spied other living Erechanians not far away, but all of them were as engaged as he. He would receive no help.
A mace caromed off the side of his plate, knocking the wind out of him. He whirled around in time to catch the next blow with his sword, then insert its tip through the eye of the beastly soldier. Another of the undead swiped wildly at him, missing and throwing itself off balance. Therrador hacked his arm off at the elbow and the dead man stumbled away, fell among the other bodies littering the field. The king cursed to himself.
There’s another I’ll have to fight again.
He’d come to realize that, if the contents of any soldier’s head-living or dead-should remain intact, they would be back to fight again, so he wielded his sword with all his might, severing necks and cleaving skulls. His shoulder, unused to such work, ached and complained, but Therrador forced himself to fight through the fatigue.
He engaged two more, one a living Kanosee soldier, the other a dead Erechanian brought back by the witch’s evil. Parry, thrust, block, jab. A well-placed swipe removed the undead thing’s head, adding its limp body to both the pile of the dead and to the lengthening list of once-loyal soldiers for the king to mourn, should he survive. He spun toward the live Kanosee soldier as the enemy’s blade found space between the plates covering Therrador’s thigh, opening a wound.
The king cried out in pain and turned his full attention on the man. The Kanosee soldier was big-wide and tall. As the two of them eyed each other, his mouth tilted up in a hateful smile.
“You’re the king,” he said, panting. “You’re Therrador.”
Therrador’s eyes narrowed. Behind the soldier, he spied a horse galloping across the battlefield, plowing through the throng.
“You have me at a disadvantage, sir. You know me, but I don’t know you.”
The man’s smile broadened. “Oh, I don’t matter. It’s killing the king that matters.”
He swung his sword two-handed overhead, looking to split Therrador’s skull; the king blocked the blow, but his own sword arm wilted under its force. Reflexes bred in battle helped him recover to intercept the next attack, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do so for long-this man was too powerful for his under-trained left arm to handle.
Therrador’s eyes darted from the man attacking him to the bodies littering the ground around them, then back. He blocked another blow. His gaze flickered to the horse approaching more quickly now with fewer men blocking its path. The man attacked again; Therrador ducked under his sword
and lunged forward, striking the man in the chest with his shoulder.
The Kanosee soldier stumbled back but didn’t fall. Therrador pressed the attack, glancing at the horse closing fast at the man’s back. Their swords clanged again and again. Sweat rolled into Therrador’s eyes, stinging them and blurring his vision; his shoulder protested with every swipe and block, but his opponent seemed not to tire.
The horse was close enough now Therrador felt its hoof beats through the soles of his boots. The other man must have as well, because he stole a worried look over his shoulder.
Therrador jumped on his enemy’s distraction and lunged forward, the tip of his sword aimed at the man’s belly, but the soldier side-stepped and the attack grazed off his mail. He lowered his arm, trapping the king’s blade between it and his body. The malignant grin returned to his face.
“We’re done here, King Therrador.”
“Yes. We are.”
Therrador let go of his sword and put his boot to his adversary’s chest, catching him by surprise. The man stumbled back a step into the path of the oncoming horse and the destrier’s training took over; the animal lowered its head and the spike at the center of its champron entered the Kanosee soldier’s skull through the back of his head.
The man’s eyes went wide and a gout of blood spewed from his mouth. The horse skidded to a stop and raised its head, pulling the man’s feet from the ground. His sword dropped from his grip as his body spasmed once, twice, then went still. An ugly tearing sound wrenched the air as he fell from the horse’s spike.
Only when the man hit the ground did Therrador notice the soldier dragged by the horse. He immediately recognized him by his armor.
“Sir Alton.”
Therrador leaped over the dead man to fall to his knees at his general’s side.
Scrapes covered Sienhin’s face, rendering him unrecognizable if not for his bushy mustache caked with blood from his nose and cheeks. The arm tangled in the horse’s reins was twisted around and around, the way a wash cloth is wrung out. One of his boots was gone. His head lolled to the side.
Therrador put his hand on the general’s cheek and propped his head up to look in his open eyes. Life yet remained in them, but it was dim and far off, as though it tried to flee this broken body but couldn’t quite get away. They looked into Therrador’s but he wondered if they saw him. His answer came through the general’s shredded lips and broken teeth.
“My king.” The words hissed from his mouth, breathed without the aid of tongue or lips.
“Don’t speak, old friend. I will find you a healer.”
“Is too late.”
Therrador already knew the truth in his words. His arm was destroyed, his body mangled beyond repair. The manner in which his head hung made the king suspect his neck was broken. It was a wonder he still lived.
“I’m so sorry, Alton. This is my fault.”
The general’s dispassionate eyes stared back at him and Therrador searched them for forgiveness. He found none. He found nothing. The general’s breath hissed into words again.
“Release me.”
The king closed his eyes tight. He knew Sienhin wasn’t asking him to untangle his arm from the reins; he wanted him to ensure the witch wouldn’t bring him back to fight against his own kingdom. He didn’t want to be made into a monstrosity.
Therrador opened his eyes. The general’s gaze remained upon him, though he suspected it was because his eyes no longer moved rather than a desire to look upon his king-the man who betrayed the kingdom-in his last moments of life.
The king nodded and reached for his dagger with his right hand as he held Sir Alton’s head with his left. His lack of a thumb made holding the blade awkward, but he got his fingers wrapped around the hilt and unsheathed it. His grip wouldn’t be tight enough to best a man in a knife fight, but a knife fight wasn’t the task he intended to accomplish.
He raised the dagger, the point held an inch from the general’s left eye. He hesitated.
“Goodbye, my friend.”
He plunged the dagger in to the hilt.
Therrador remained kneeling, aware of the battle raging around him, but exhaustion had crept into his limbs. Part of him wanted to stay there, to give in to whatever monster wanted to plunge its sword into his back and end his suffering for what he’d done to his kingdom, his friends, his son. But another part clung to the hope that, somewhere out there, Graymon yet lived, and that hope for the kingdom’s survival remained alive with the boy.
When he heard a horse approaching at a gallop, it was this part that brought him to his feet and turned him around, tired arms dangling at his sides.
***
The bodies lay thick on the ground, like a macabre snow fallen from malicious Heavens. In the distance, he saw the ruby dragon rise up in the air and spew fire on the men below. Black smoke rose to the sky and the wind picked up the smell of brimstone and burning flesh.
Darestat’s dragon! How can it be?
Khirro stared as the beast dove back to the ground and roared before gathering another breath. He shuddered with the memory of the beast and its fire.
He reined his horse to a stop, looked back over his shoulder; there was still time to turn the horse around, go back to Emeline and Iana. She would understand-she’d already lost Lehgan.
But Athryn wouldn’t. Nor would Maes, or Shyn, or Elyea. His parents wouldn’t understand his decision when Kanosee soldiers marched onto their farm to end their lives like he’d seen in the Mourning Sword’s prognostication. They wouldn’t understand when the Archon transformed them into monsters.
Khirro turned back to the fight and coaxed his horse to a walk. He breathed deep through his nose, pressed his lips together. The smells of the battle brought a lump in his throat large enough to gag him. He swallowed hard to dispel it.
I can do this. I’m no longer a farmer. I’m a warrior.
With the Mourning Sword at the ready, Khirro guided his horse through the corpses, noting their armor: the Kanosee insignia, Erechanian colors, the black splashed with red of the dead. There seemed equal numbers of each.
The fighting began a few yards ahead. A torrent of men ebbed and flowed, swords flashing, blood spilling. Men shouted and cursed, screamed in pain amongst the din of steel and the growl and roar of the dragon.
The runes running up and down the length of the Mourning Sword began to glow, dully at first, but more intensely with each step closer the horse brought him to the battle. The brighter the blade glowed, the more he felt heat build within him, an ember sparking to life in his chest that his blood carried out to his torso and limbs as it pumped through his veins. It fortified him, strengthened him and he sat straighter in the saddle, held the Mourning Sword with a more sure grip.
The first man approached him: a soldier in Erechanian mail and a deep killing wound in his chest oozing blood. He raised the pike he held in both hands, poked it at Khirro’s face; he brushed it aside with his free hand.
“I’m not your enemy.”
The man thrust at him again and Khirro blocked it. He saw the blank look in the man’s eyes and it reminded him of the way his parents' eyes looked in the vision. This man was no longer a soldier of the king’s army, but a servant of the Archon. Khirro brushed aside another poke then brought the Mourning Sword down in an arc that split the man’s head in two. He crumpled to the ground amongst the other corpses and the sword’s blade glowed fiercely. Triumph and despair mixed through Khirro as he stared at the man lying on the ground, brains seeping out of his head. He stared until he heard a voice call out.
“Watch out!”
He raised his eyes and saw the fellow standing by the big destrier, looking like a man defeated, but he only saw him for a second before a score of the undead converged on him and pulled him from his horse.
***
The rider split the man’s head open with an arcing blow of his sword, the blade glowing red as though thirsty for the blood of its enemy. Therrador recognized the Mourn
ing Sword that had belonged to the king’s Shaman-only someone who’d been present when the Shaman died could possibly have it.
Hope that had all but disappeared prickled through Therrador’s stomach and chest.
The bearer of the king’s blood. The ghost was right. There’s hope yet.
A tired smile broke across his face, but the rider sat there, looking at the corpse he’d just created.
What is he doing?
Therrador stumbled forward a step. Dozens of undead soldiers had noticed the rider and were finding their way toward him as thought they had been commanded, but the rider didn’t look up.
“Watch out!”
The rider raised his head at Therrador’s warning, but too late. Dead hands grasped him, pulled him out of the saddle and down to the ground. A second later, they overwhelmed his horse. Therrador watched, breathless, hope fleeing with the soldier’s fall.
This cannot be.
He whirled around and returned to Sir Alton’s horse, cut through the reins with his dagger. The general’s body slumped to the ground as Therrador retrieved his sword and forced his fatigued muscles to pull him into the saddle.
“Sorry, my friend.”
He tossed his dagger aside and grabbed the saddle’s pommel, then dug his heels into the horse’s side with as much force as remained in his exhausted legs. The destrier sprang forward, leaping over Sir Alton’s corpse and past the Kanosee soldier who’d almost brought Therrador his end. He charged toward the downed rider, ignoring the protest of his exhausted muscles, the numb pain of gripping the saddle with his wounded hand.
The big horse closed the distance quickly, each stride eating yards of blood soaked ground, carrying Therrador to the bearer's aid. His heart thumped hard in his chest at the thought of losing him, but he forgot his worry as he saw fire spring to life amongst the undead soldiers.
***
Khirro slashed at the hands grabbing at him, but they were too close for him to use the sword effectively. He sliced a shallow cut on one man’s arm, but not enough to stop him and his fellows from pulling him out of the saddle.