The Blood Knight

by Greg Keyes

  “We call it an utin,” Aspar said. “We fought one before.”

  “But these were killed by the slinders.”

  “Yah.”

  “From what you’ve been saying, then, of all of us, the slinders only attacked the utins and Frete Stephen.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Aspar agreed brusquely. “That’s what we’ve been saying.”

  “But you think they took Stephen alive?”

  For answer, Aspar spun on his heel and paced to where he had last seen his friend, where the oak’s unnaturally twisted branches still touched the earth. The others followed him.

  “I’ve seen the slinders kill,” he said. “They either eat the dead on the spot or leave them torn to pieces. There’s no sign of that here, so they took Stephen and Ehawk with them.”

  “But why would they take just those two?” Neil persisted. “What would they want with them in particular?”

  “Why does it matter?” Winna challenged angrily. “We have to go get them back.”

  Neil blushed, but he lifted his shoulders higher and tilted his chin up.

  “Because,” he said, “I understand what it’s like to lose comrades. I know right well the conflict of two loyalties. But you are pledged to serve Her Majesty. If your friends are dead, they are dead, and nothing can be done about it. If they are alive, then they were spared for some reason also beyond your control. I implore—”

  “Neil MeqVren,” Winna said, her voice cold now with fury. “You were there, at Cal Azroth, when the Briar King appeared. We all fought together there, and we all fought again at Dunmrogh. If it weren’t for Stephen, we would all be dead, and Her Majesty, too. You cannot be so unfeeling.”

  Neil sighed. “Meme Winna,” he said, “I’ve no wish to hurt or offend you. But without any other bond, all of us—besides Cazio, here—we all are subjects of the throne of Crotheny. Our first allegiance is there. And if that were not so, remember that we all took an oath before leaving Dunmrogh to serve Anne, the rightful heir to that throne, and see her on it or die.

  “Stephen and Ehawk took that oath, too.” His voice raised a bit. “And we have lost her. Someone has taken her from us, and we—her supposed protectors—are much reduced in number. Now you propose to divide us further, meme. Please remember your promise and help me find Anne. For the saints, we don’t even know Stephen and Ehawk are alive.”

  “We don’t know she is, either,” Aspar countered.

  “You’re the royal holter,” Neil protested.

  Aspar shook his head. “As a matter of fact, I’m not. I was removed from that position. I’m supposed to answer to the praifec, and he charged me to kill the Briar King. Them that just took Stephen are the Briar King’s servants, and I reckon they’ll lead me to ’im.”

  “That same praifec was behind the murders and shinecraft at Dunmrogh and likely was in league with the assassins at Cal Azroth,” Neil pointed out. “He is the enemy of your rightful ruler, and thus you owe no allegiance to him at all.”

  “Don’t know it for sure,” Aspar grunted. “Besides, if I’m the holter, like you say, well, this forest falls in my jurisdiction, and I ought to find out what all of this is about.

  “Either way, it’s my choice to make.”

  “I know it’s your choice to make,” Neil said. “But I’m the only one here who can speak for Anne, and I’m begging you to consider my argument.”

  Aspar met the knight’s earnest gaze, then glanced at Winna. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say but was spared voicing it by the sound of something else coming through the forest.

  “Hear that?” he asked Neil.

  “I hear something,” the knight replied, hand straying to the hilt of his sword.

  “Riders, a lot of ’em,” Aspar growled. “I’d say this matter can wait until we see what new insult has come looking for us.”

  THE DEAD whispered her awake.

  Her first breath was agony, as if her lungs had been blown of glass and then shattered by the intake. Her muscles tried to crawl off her bones. She would have screamed, but her mouth and throat were cloyed with congealed bile and mucus.

  Her head was hammering against stone, and there was nothing she could do about it but watch the sparks that formed in her eyes. Then her entire body bent backward as if she were a bow being pulled by a saint, and the arrows exploded wetly from her mouth, again, again, until finally everything unclenched and she lay quietly, unhurried breaths rasping in and out of her as the pain gradually washed away from her, leaving exhaustion behind.

  She felt as if she were sinking into something soft.

  Saints, forgive me, she silently prayed. I did not want to. I had to.

  That was only half-true, but she was too tired to explain it to them.

  The saints didn’t seem to be listening, anyhow, though the dead were still whispering. She thought she had understood them not that long ago, comprehended the strange tenses of their verbs. Now they flitted at the edge of her understanding, all but one, and that one was trying to lick into her ear like a lover’s tongue.

  She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to listen, for the very simple fear that if she did, her soul would return to oblivion.

  But the voice wasn’t going to be denied by anything as simple as fear.

  No, by the damned ones, it burred. You can hear me. You will hear me.

  “Who are you?” She relented. “Please…”

  “My name?” The voice gathered strength immediately, and she felt a hand press against the side of her face. It was very cold.

  “It was Erren, I think. Erren. And who are you? You are familiar.”

  She realized then that she had forgotten her own name.

  “I don’t remember,” she said. “But I remember you. The queen’s assassin.”

  “Yes,” the voice said triumphantly. “Yes, that’s me. And I know you now. Alis. Alis Berrye.” Something like a chuckle followed that. “By the saints. I missed you, didn’t know what you were. How did I miss you?”

  Alis! I am Alis! she thought in desperate relief.

  “I did not want to be found,” Alis said. “But I always feared that you would catch me. Indeed, I was terrified of you.”

  The hand stroked against her neck.

  “Coven-trained, yes.” The dead woman sighed. “But not by any proper coven of the Church, were you? Halaruni?”

  “We call ourselves the Veren,” Alis answered.

  “Ah, yes, of course,” Erren said. “Veren. The mark of the crescent moon. I know something of you. And now you are my queen’s protector.”

  “I am, lady.”

  “How did you accomplish this escape from death? Your heart was slowed to beating only once a day, your breath stilled. Your blood stank of gallowswort, but now it is clean.”

  “If he had not used gallowswort—if he had used lauvleth or merwaurt or hemlock—I would be dead,” Alis replied.

  “You might die, anyway,” Erren replied. “Even now you are very near. A thing as insubstantial as I cannot do much, but you are so very close to us, I think I might manage it…”

  “Then she would have no one to aid her,” Alis said.

  “Tell me quickly why you did not die. I know of no faneway, no shinecraft that will stop the work of gallowswort.”

  “Our ways are different,” Alis said. “And the law of death has been broken. The markland between the quick and the dead is much wider than it was; the passage both ways less certain. Gallowswort is more sure than most poisons, because it acts not only on the body but also on the soul. There is a very old story in our order about a woman who let herself be taken by death and yet returned. It was the last time the law of death was broken, during the time of the Black Jester.

  “I felt I might be able to accomplish the same thing, and knew the sacaums necessary to try. And I had no choice, really. The poison was already in me.” She paused. “You should not kill me, Sor Erren.”

  “Does my queen understand the aim of your o
rder?”

  “My order is dead. All of them but me,” Alis replied. “I am no longer bound by their mission.”

  “Then she doesn’t.”

  “Of course not,” Alis said. “How could I tell her? She needs to trust me.”

  “At this moment,” the shade of Erren murmured, “it is I who must trust you.”

  “I might have killed her many times,” Alis said. “Yet I have not.”

  “You wait for the daughter, perhaps.”

  “No,” Alis said, desperately now. “You do not understand the Veren so well as you think if you suggest that we might harm Anne.”

  “Perhaps you wish to control her, though,” Erren said. “Control the true queen.”

  “That is nearer the truth, at least as far as the coven was concerned,” Alis admitted. “But I was not of the inner circle. I never fully understood the goals of the Veren, and now I do not care.”

  “You say the sisters are all dead. What of the brothers?”

  Alis felt her heart trip. “You know of them?”

  “Not before now. I guessed. The Order of Saint Cer has its male counterpart. The Veren must as well. But do you understand how dangerous it is if only the males remain? If only their voices are raised in council?”

  “No,” Alis said, “I don’t. I wish only to serve Muriele, to bring her to safety, to help her preserve her country.”

  “Is this true?”

  Alis felt something pinch someplace inside her. It didn’t hurt, but she felt suddenly very faint, and her pulse beat weirdly, as if trying to escape her body.

  “I swear to you it is true,” she gasped. “I swear it on the saint we swear by.”

  “Name her.”

  “Virgenya.”

  After a pause, the pressure eased a bit but did not vanish.

  “It’s so hard to hang on,” Erren said. “We forget, the dead.”

  “You seem to remember quite a lot,” Alis observed, recovering her composure.

  “I cling to what I must. I do not remember my parents or being a little girl. I do not recall if I ever loved a man or a woman. I cannot imagine the shape of my living face. But I remember my duty.

  “I remember that. And I remember her. Can you protect her? Will you?”

  “Yes,” Alis said weakly. “I swear it.”

  “And what if the men of the Veren remain and come to you? What then? What if they come to you and ask you to do harm to her or her daughter?”

  “I am the queen’s now,” Alis insisted. “Hers, not theirs.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “You were coven-trained. If the Church had asked you to kill Muriele, would you have done it?”

  Erren’s laughter was soft and without humor. “I was asked,” she said.

  The hairs pricked up on Alis’ neck. “Who?” she asked. “Who gave you that order? Hespero?”

  “Hespero?” Her voice seemed more distant. “I do not remember that name. Perhaps he is not important. No, I don’t remember who sent the word. But it must have been someone very highly placed, or I would never have considered it.”

  “You considered it?” Alis asked, shocked.

  “I think that I did.”

  “Then there must have been a reason,” Alis said.

  “Not reason enough to do it.”

  “What is happening, Erren? The world is coming apart. The law of death is broken. Who is my enemy?”

  “I died, Alis,” the shade said. “If I had known these things, if I had known what to watch for, do you imagine I would be dead?”

  “Oh.”

  “Your enemies are her enemies. That is all you need to know. It makes it simple.”

  “Simple,” Alis agreed, though she knew it could not be simple.

  “You will live,” Erren said. “Everyone thinks you are dead. What will you do?”

  “Anne is alive,” Alis said.

  “Anne?”

  “Muriele’s youngest daughter.”

  “Ah, yes. I told her that.”

  “She lives, and so does Fail de Liery and many others loyal to the queen. Robert fears that an army will gather behind Anne, and not without reason.”

  “An army,” Erren mused. “The daughter leading an army. I wonder how that will work out.”

  “I think I can help,” Alis said. “The queen is watched too closely, and she is kept in the Wolfcoat Tower, far from any of the hidden passages. I think her only hope for freedom is if Anne prevails, but that must happen soon, before Hansa and the Church can become involved.”

  “How will you help, then? By murdering Robert?”

  “I’ve thought of that, of course,” Alis said. “But I’m not certain he can be killed. He has also returned from death, Lady Erren, but he was wholly dead. He does not bleed like a man. I know not how to kill what he has become.”

  “I may have once known such things,” Erren said. “No longer. What, then?”

  “There is a man the usurper has imprisoned. If I can free him in Anne’s name, I believe even the most reluctant landwaerden will rally to her cause. It should tip the balance.”

  “The passages, then.”

  “It will be a risk,” Alis said. “Prince Robert is alone among men in that he knows of the passages and can remember them. But—”

  “But he thinks you are dead,” Erren said. “I understand. It is a weapon you can use only once, really.”

  “Exactly,” Alis replied.

  “Have a care,” Erren said. “There are things in the dungeons of Eslen that should have died a very long time ago. Do not think them impotent.”

  “I will help her, Erren,” Alis said.

  “You will,” Erren agreed.

  “I cannot replace you, I know. But I will do my best.”

  “My best wasn’t good enough. Be better.”

  A chill passed through Alis, and the voice was gone.

  Her head was suddenly filled with the stench of putrefying flesh, and as her senses returned, she could feel ribs digging into her back. The hand on her cheek was still there. She touched it; it was wet and slimy and mostly bone.

  Robert had lied to Muriele. He’d put her in the Dare crypt, all right, but not in William’s tomb; she was in the same sarcophagus as Erren.

  On top of her. His little joke or a coincidence?

  Maybe his mistake.

  She lay there a long moment, shivering, garnering her strength, and then pushed at the stone above her. It was heavy, too heavy, but she searched deep, found more resolve, and shoved enough to make it budge a bit. She rested, then pushed it again. This time a sliver appeared in the darkness.

  She relaxed, letting fresh air flow in to strengthen her. Bracing hands and feet, she shoved with all the might her slight frame would allow.

  The lid scraped another fingersbreadth open.

  She heard a distant bell and realized it was ringing the noon hour. The world of the quick, of sunlight and sweet air, was suddenly real to her again. She redoubled her efforts, but she was very, very weak.

  It was six bells later—Vespers—before she managed to unseat the lid and crawl off the rotting body of her predecessor.

  A little light was coming through from the atrium, but Alis did not look back at her host, nor did she at present have the energy to replace the lid. She could only hope that no one had reason to come here before she had managed to regain it or find help.

  Feeling as frail and light as a broomstraw, Alis Berrye made her way out of the crypt into Eslen-of-Shadows, the dark sister to the living city on the hill high above it. Looking up at Eslen’s spire and walls, for a moment she felt more daunted and alone than she ever had before. The task she had chosen—that she had promised a ghost she would carry out—seemed altogether beyond her.

  Then, with a wry laugh, she remembered that not only had she survived one of the deadliest toxins in the world, but she had vanished from beneath the very eye of the usurper Robert Dare. Thinking himself careful, he had made himself careless
.

  She would make that mistake into a dagger with which she would strike at his heart and loose whatever strange blood rotted in it.

  PART II

  THE VENOM

  IN THE ROOTS

  Fram tid du tid ya yer du yer

  Taelned sind thae manns daghs

  Mith barns, razens, ja rengs gaeve

  Bagmlic is gemaunth sik

  Sa bagm wolthegh mith luths niwat

  Sa aeter in sin rots

  From tide to tide and year to year

  A man’s days are counted

  Wealthy in children, homes, and rings

  He feels strong, like a tree

  A tree proud in limbs may not feel

  The venom in its roots

  —OLD ALMANNISH SAYING

  STEPHEN WASN’T SURE how long he fought against the slinders, but he knew he had no strength left in him. His muscles were limp bands wracked by occasional painful spasms. Even his bones seemed to ache.

  Oddly, after he stopped struggling, the hands gripping him became strangely gentle, as if he were like the stray cat he once had removed from his father’s solar. When the cat struggled, it had to be held tightly, even a bit roughly, but once it calmed down, he could afford to loosen his hold, stroke it, let it know that he’d never intended it any harm.

  “They haven’t eaten us,” he heard a voice observe.

  It was only then that he realized that one of the hands clutching him belonged to Ehawk. He remembered the Watau boy’s face in the first moments of confusion, when he’d been dragged roughly across the forest floor. Now he was being carried faceup, cradled in interlocked arms and held at the wrists by eight of the slinders. Ehawk was being carried similarly, but his right hand had latched firmly onto Stephen’s.

  “No, they haven’t,” Stephen agreed. He raised his voice. “Can’t any of you speak?”

  None of his bearers answered.

  “Maybe they’re going to cook us first,” Ehawk said.

  “Maybe. If so, they’ve changed their habits since Aspar saw them last. He said they ate their prey alive and raw.”