Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  Elohl opened his eyes as they burst through the side-door to the palace, rushing across a courtyard that was quickly churning into slick mud from the thundering downpour. Lightning forked the burgeoning green sky. Wind lashed the pines and cendarie upon the mountainside. They were out, but it had cost them. Three more of Therel’s men had been swallowed in the evershifting halls. Only Luc, Therel with Elyasin in arms, and four of his Highswords were left. A grim company, they rushed the stables, still in a tight knot, throwing themselves through the stable doors. Dead Guardsmen in blue littered the stables, blood soaking the straw over the flagstones. A group of twenty of Therel’s men held the stable, roaring at their arrival, but Olea, Vargen, and Aldris were not there. Nor were Ghrenna's thieves.

  “Ride!” King Therel roared above the crash of thunder. All around him, Highswords mounted up in haste. Elohl helped Therel lift the Queen up before him upon his tall black charger, binding her unconscious form close with a belt so Therel had his hands free to manage his horse. A horn sounded. A second wave of cobalt-jerkined guards rushed around the edge of the stables, bristling with weapons in the downpour.

  “Yah!” King Therel wheeled his horse. Whipping it into a rear, he charged the open stable-doors. Guardsmen stumbled back, shouting. Therel’s retinue thundered through the break in the guards, churning muck, splattering Guardsmen. Elohl slung up fast to the only horse left, a heat-eyed grey who pranced sideways and tried to bite. Saying a quick prayer for Olea’s safety, he reigned the beast, hoping Vargen and Aldris were as good as their devotion to her. His heart sundered to leave her behind when they had just been reunited.

  But there was no time. He’d be cut to bits if he lingered. Wheeling his horse, he charged after Therel’s line, charged the Guardsmen trying to block his way. Guardsmen readied swords to stab at his legs. Elohl drew his longsword from over one shoulder, protecting himself and his horse as he galloped past, clashing blades in sparks that lit the dark afternoon. He glanced back as he charged out, to the palace side-door. Hoping against hope to see Olea come bursting through it.

  But there was no one. Not even Fenton, who had stayed behind to save them all. Burying his emotions, Elohl dug his heels in, charging his horse after the Highswords fast as thunder in the driving summer rain. Sleet slashed his face, driven by the wind. Elohl leaned down tight to his horse’s withers, kicking it hard past the gate to the Fourth Tier. Decimated by Therel’s men, cobalt-jerkined guards lay motionless in the dappled puddles, blood spreading from them like ink stains. Up onto the narrow palace hunting-trail Elohl sawed his mount, following churned-up hoof prints. The grey stallion was full of piss, heaving them over boulders to take the trail up into the cover of evergreens, hot with speed in the driving rain.

  Elohl kicked it harder. It snorted, bucked beneath him, but gave more speed, racing up the switchbacks as the trail climbed the mountainside, catching up to the main retinue. Their party was grim, silent, Highswords glancing back with hooded eyes to check for pursuit as they struggled upwards, horses slipping in the muck of the narrow trail. Rain drenched Elohl, sliding down his collar, soaking his undershirt. Flicking it out of his eyes, currying rain out of his hair, he followed at a brisk gallop as the trail leveled, following the curve of the Kingsmount’s southwestern slope up and up. Branches scratched out, catching at his leathers. Lightning split the heavy green sky, eerie in the false darkness of the day.

  Elohl pressed his beast hard, trying not to think about everything he was leaving. Trying not to think of Olea, Eleshen. Ghrenna. Olea fell further behind with every heave of his horse’s flanks. Ghrenna fell further behind with every roar of thunder. Elohl gazed up at the terrible sky, roiling with fury, with agony. His golden Inkings burned with every flash of lightning. His stomach churned, his throat clenched hot and tight.

  Gritting his teeth, Elohl struggled against the pain that was rising. Rising like a demon, like the beast that had smote them in the halls. Bubbling up his throat, it came out as a scream, drowned in a sudden flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. Elohl let his head fall back, rain pelting his face as he hauled in a great lungful of air and screamed out again. His horse whickered in alarm. Highswords looked behind, eyebrows raised. But Elohl’s roars of agony came like the thunder, rolled from him like the rain, until he had nothing left. Until he was empty inside, silent. Until everything that had frozen him for so many years, everything that had burned, was utterly still.

  At last, he heard nothing but the patter of the rain and the hard breathing of his horse as he rode. Elohl felt the heat of his own breath curling away in the chill air. He opened his eyes, seeing the vastness of the forest, dark and brooding in the dim light. Stillness slipped into him from every bough. Stillness dripped into him with every patter of rain upon leaves. Stillness moved him, rocked him with the rhythm of his horse’s muscles. Stillness came to his Inkings, a deep quiet that opened Elohl’s heart.

  And suddenly, he could feel. Everything. His heart breathed in that moment, opening outward, expanding through the storm. Expanding until it touched the city now far behind. Until it whispered softly through those he loved. He could feel them. If he breathed softly enough, he could feel them. Moving his horse into a better line, Elohl came to quiet at last. His focus shifting, he listened to the forest, touched out with his sensate sphere to the back-trail, feeling for pursuit. Focusing on the now, on surviving for today, he let the past go. All of it. Everything. All the pain, all the passion. All the certainty of how his life would go. All the rage at how it had been arrested.

  He let it go, listening to the rain, breathing deeply in the soft silence, riding hard.