Fifth Quarter

by Tanya Huff

  * * * *

  *Let him finish, Vree.*

  *No. I thought I’d grab him in mid-stream. Add to the surprise.*

  *It’s too early to be so sarcastic.*

  *It’s too early to be so cheerful.* It was the old banter. As much a part of the loosening up before a job as muscles flexed within their sheath of skin. If she didn’t pause to think about it, she could almost believe that everything was all right. *We’ll take him just as he turns, hold the blade to his throat, and hold him hostage for Kars.*

  Bannon snorted. *I was here when we made the plan, sister-mine. I haven’t forgotten.*

  Will alone swept Vree’s gaze over the dead. The three on the ground had pivoted to face the old man, leaning toward him as though he were a fire and they were searching for warmth. The one on top of the out-cropping had stood but looked like it would stay where it was.

  The prince tucked himself away and, frowning, lightly touched a six-inch thorn. Then he sighed and turned.

  *Now!*

  They moved her body together and a heartbeat later her knees drove into the back of his and dropped him down to a height she could better manage. The bard hadn’t mentioned that His Highness was so tall—although to Karlene he probably wasn’t. Her arm whipped about the prince’s throat, pushing up his head, and the point of her long dagger lightly parted the soft whiskers growing under the curve of his jaw. It seemed very strange not to slash through and sever the spine.

  “One move and he dies!” she yelled, adding directly into the prince’s ear. “We’re here to rescue you, Highness. But Kars must believe you’re in danger, or we won’t be able to control him.”

  She caught a fleeting impression of horror on the old man’s face, then the prince began to struggle and all her attention went to not slitting his throat. “Highness! You are in no real danger! I swear it!”

  *Unless he impales himself! Watch his elbow!*

  Otavas heard the voice, but terror drowned out words and meaning. The kiss of the blade had pushed him over the edge and all he knew was that he could not die. He’d seen what happened to the dead.

  Had they wanted to kill him, they could have done so easily. Keeping hold of him and keeping him alive was a lot harder. A trickle of blood ran into his shirt from a thin slice on one collarbone.

  “Otavas, stop it! She’s a friend! Hold still!”

  “Karlene?” The prince twisted toward the voice and nearly lost an ear. “Karlene?”

  “I said, hold still!” Her pale hair streaming like a banner behind her, the bard raced over the uneven ground toward them.

  *So much for the plan …* But Vree continued to hang on to the Imperial shoulders. Although he didn’t seem to realize it, His Highness was safest here with her.

  “You!”

  The old man’s voice stopped Karlene in her tracks. She rocked back on her heels as though she’d been hit.

  “Demon!” The staff stretched out, the shepherd boy’s shoulder bone pointing toward her. “I know you, demon! You will not torment my heart, as you tormented me. Stop her, my children!”

  Wheyra, Iban, and Hestia rose. Hestia held a rock in one hand and she let it fly with a precision little touched by death.

  “Oh, shit.” There had been a boy in the regiment who’d thrown with that same flat, economy of movement. Vree had never seen him miss.

  The rock hit Karlene in the forehead, the impact sounding like a fist slamming into a green melon. She cried out, spun around, and dropped to one knee, both hands clutching her face.

  As the walking dead bent to pick up another rock and the other two continued to advance, Vree realized they’d made a mistake. Kars could not be bribed with the prince’s safety, he was too far gone in insanity for that. Shoving the unresisting young man under the protecting spikes of the thorn tree, she raced the dead to Karlene. The dead were slower, but they were much, much closer.

  “Destroy the demons! Destroy the demons! Destroy the demons!” Tears streaming down his cheeks, the old man swayed back and forth in time to the rhythm of his chanting. “Destroy the demons!”

  “Kars!”

  Still racing forward, Bannon glanced sideways to see Gyhard standing almost close enough to touch the old man. *My body! …*

  *Is in a lot less danger than Karlene’s.* Vree yanked her head back around, threw herself past the dead man, and drove the point of her long dagger up into the armpit of the dead woman with the rock. As a killing blow would be a wasted effort, teeth clenched and able to look at her target only obliquely, Vree slashed through the tendons holding the muscles of the arm to the shoulder. The arm dropped.

  The walking dead would have to be defeated one piece at a time.

  * * * *

  The old man stared at the young man standing before him. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.

  Gyhard held his open hands away from his sides, ignoring the pain the movement caused in his splinted arm. He couldn’t see the tormented boy he’d loved through the changes the years had layered on, but he’d heard him, just for an instant, buried in that first accusation thrown at Karlene. He’d known since the Healers’ Hall that it was Kars who’d taken the prince—taken the body he’d intended for his own—but knowing and facing it, he discovered, were two entirely different things. What am I doing here? What did I think this was going to prove?

  * * * *

  The dead Vree faced were not soldiers; they had no idea of how to defend themselves and less of how to attack. But they’d been told to destroy the demons and they’d do their best to carry out that command.

  *Good thing we don’t have to kill them …*

  *My body, Vree. My body is over there.*

  A clumsy blow from a gray fist nearly connected as she struggled with Bannon’s desire to keep his body in sight. *Do you want to die in this body? Is that what you want.* She got a figurative fingernail’s grip on control. *We only have to keep them from reaching Karlene; buy her enough time to Sing.* A club heavy enough to crush joints would’ve been more use than all her daggers put together.

  Although her skin crawled at the thought of touching them, Vree charged at the younger of the two women and threw her to the ground. From the sudden putrid smell, the impact ruptured decaying tissue, but the dead woman merely adjusted the dried and desiccated thing hanging in a sling around her neck and laboriously started to rise.

  * * * *

  Blinking back tears of pain, Karlene tentatively took her hands off her forehead and examined them. No blood. She’d been sure that the only thing holding her brains in had been the pressure of her palms. I’m all right. I’m okay.

  Squinting against the rising sun, she saw Vree fighting two of the dead and another getting to her feet barely a body length away.

  By all the gods in the Circle, she’s carrying a baby!

  A very small and long dead baby.

  Swallowing bile, Karlene got herself as far as her knees and started to Sing.

  * * * *

  Given the chance, Wheyra was only too happy to follow her baby away.

  * * * *

  The old man cried out as the first pure tones rose into the morning. The demons were taking Wheyra! He couldn’t let that happen. Breathing deeply, he took a step forward.

  “Kars, no.” Gyhard grabbed hold of one skeletal shoulder. “Let her go. Let them all go.”

  “No! They’re my family. If they go, I’ll be alone.” He stared into the eyes so close to his and his expression changed from outrage to confusion. “You left me alone,” he said softly, the Song forgotten.

  Gyhard swallowed and tried to force his voice around the ninety years of guilt stuck in his throat. I would’ve killed an animal in this much pain. But I left you to suffer. “I’m sorry,” he managed at last. “But you were going to kill me.

  “Only so that you wouldn’t leave me.” A hand rose and stroked the air by Gyhard’s cheeks with gnarled fingers. He knew the shape of this kigh the way he knew the shape of his own. “But you
went away. I lost my heart. I had to find it again.” The shadowed eyes widened. “I found it. I did.” He twisted out of Gyhard’s grasp, his strength surprising. “There. There.” His staff swung out to point at the prince. “I found my heart.” Then he frowned. “But you … My heart,” he cried. “Come here!”

  * * * *

  Otavas jerked to his feet, unable to deny the voice. Unsure he even wanted to.

  * * * *

  As Wheyra’s empty body collapsed, Vree kicked the legs out from under the stone thrower.

  Karlene took a deep breath that wobbled just a little around the edges and began a new Song.

  * * * *

  As the prince drew closer, Gyhard felt his jaw drop. He’d seen those dark and long-lashed eyes before. Ninety years before. He’d seen them widening in terror the instant before he’d taken over the body that went with them and he’d seen them gazing up at him in wonder a few moments later from a mountain pool. The rest of the features held little resemblance, but the eyes were frighteningly similar. All at once, Kars’ reason for kidnapping the prince became obvious.

  “I have found my heart,” the old man murmured as Otavas drew closer. Then he turned to look at Gyhard and his mouth began to tremble. “I have found my heart?”

  Gyhard shook his head. “No, Kars, you haven’t. This boy is not the boy who left you so many years ago. Don’t look at him, look at his kigh.” The parchment skin felt cool and dry as he lightly gripped Kars’ jaw and turned him to face the prince. When he heard the old man sigh, he released him. “You know who I am,” he said.

  The old man nodded, tears spilling over and into the wrinkled gullies of his face. “I know who you are.” He sighed again and desperately grabbed for Gyhard’s vest. “Can you tell me, who am I?”

  Gyhard had believed, ninety years before when he rode out of the mountains, that he could never be hurt so badly again. He was wrong. “Your name is Kars. If you had another, you never told it to me.” He’d never spoken Cemandian fluently, but it was close enough to Shkodan that he hadn’t completely lost it. Although he didn’t know why it seemed important that he speak it now, it had been what they’d always used together. “You grew up in a country called Cemandia. Evil people tried to break you, but you were stronger than they thought and you ran away. We met in the mountains.”

  “Gyhard?”

  “Yes.” The smile was almost the one he remembered—sweet and tentative and disbelieving.

  “I am Kars.”

  “Yes.” His hands—Bannon’s hands—fit completely around the old man’s neck. It was both awkward and painful to use the broken arm and he knew he’d pay for it later, but he’d just realized he had only one thing to say to Kars, the one thing he should have said years ago, before he rode out of the mountains. The ancient flesh compacted as he tightened his hold.

  Kars’ smile never wavered.

  All things are enclosed in the Circle, Gyhard thought. And the turning of the Circle had seen to it that Kars had done the one thing that would bring him together with the man responsible for his madness at a time when that man would be able to accept the responsibility. In a moment, it would all be over.

  “I have found my heart,” Kars whispered happily, insanely.

  Gyhard nodded, thankful that, even injured, Bannon’s hands were strong enough for what they had to do. It was time. It was long past time. “Good-bye,” he said and squeezed.

  The attack took him completely by surprise. The body smashing into him from above drove him back, away from Kars, and slammed him into the ground. He screamed as a dead knee drove into his stomach and dead fists pounded at his face.

  * * * *

  Vree whirled at the sound of the scream, but it was Bannon who charged across the uneven ground toward his body. Shoved savagely into the back of her own mind, Vree hurled herself at barricades built of Bannon’s terror and tried to claw her way through.

  The recoil almost threw her out into oblivion.

  His fear fueled by the blood dribbling down from his/Gyhard’s mouth and nose, Bannon heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing but the need to protect his body. Without checking his speed, he dove forward, planted his hands, and flipped feet-first through the air.

  * * * *

  Kait felt no pain when both heels struck her left temple, but the thin bone shattered and the force of the blow lifted her into the air, smashing her into the face of the rock outcropping.

  When she tried to put herself between the old man and this new threat, she found she couldn’t see.

  “Fa … ther!”

  * * * *

  One hand on his throat, Kars jerked around. What had he been thinking? He had family to take care of. Dropping to his knees, he gathered the dead girl into his arms. Although the demons had the others, they must not have her.

  * * * *

  Breath rasping in through mouth and nose, Bannon grabbed two handfuls of the brown silk vest and yanked his body into a sitting position. “Don’t you be dead!” he shrieked. “Don’t you dare be dead!”

  * * * *

  Scrambling backward, the dead man pursuing her like a nightmare that refused to end, Karlene began her third Song.

  * * * *

  “My arm,” Gyhard gasped. It felt as though it were on fire from fingertips to shoulder. “Stop … shaking me.”

  “You’re alive. I’m alive.” Releasing the vest, Bannon patted gently at the blood on his/Gyhard’s chin. “You need water.” Whipping Vree’s head from side to side, he suddenly caught sight of the prince and froze.

  *Bannon! No!* She screamed and fought and threatened but he ignored her.

  Leaping to his/Vree’s feet, he grabbed the prince and threw him to his knees by Gyhard’s side.

  Otavas cried out as stones and stonelike fingers dug into his flesh, but Karlene had said this was his friend and Karlene was the one thing he could be sure of, so he put up no resistance.

  “Do it now,” Bannon gasped. “Hurry, the bard will be finished soon. We haven’t much time.”

  Do it now. Cradling his/Bannon’s arm, Gyhard spat out a mouthful of blood and stared at Prince Otavas. The boy was weak and disoriented. It would be easy enough to claim his body. And after?

  Easy enough. He stared at Bannon in turn. “I will allow you back into this body,” he said, speaking quickly. “You belong here, you’ll need no push, but once you’re in, you’ll have to push me out.”

  Bannon smiled ferally. “I’ve dreamed of pushing you out,” he snarled.

  Vree, still clawing at Bannon’s control, felt something give. Redoubling her efforts, she suddenly found herself alone, her silent cries of protest still echoing in her skull.

  Kneeling across from her, she saw Bannon/Gyhard, Gyhard/Bannon then all at once, Gyhard alone. She knew it was Gyhard, for Bannon had never looked at her like that. Bannon had never loved her like that. His lips moved and she heard him say, “Good-bye.”

  Then it was only Bannon.

  “NO!” Reaching out, she grabbed hold and hung on and refused to let go. And frankly, she didn’t give a slaughtering shit about what he wanted. Her head snapped back, she screamed defiance and the world went black.

  “Vree!” Stumbling over bodies that were no longer prisons for their kigh, Karlene ran toward the outcropping. Her last Song had finished in time to hear Vree scream; in time to see her collapse bonelessly to the ground. She moved as quickly as she could but was by no means the first to reach Vree’s side.

  “Vree? Vree, don’t do this to me. You have to be all right. Talk to me, sister-mine. Please, talk to me.”

  Karlene’s jaw dropped. “Bannon?”

  He looked up, Vree’s head cradled against his chest. “She screamed,” he said. “And fell over.” The features were the same but the man who animated them was not. He looked younger than Gyhard had, and frightened. Although Vree breathed so shallowly her chest barely moved, Karlene could see no wounds, no reason for her to remain unconscious.

  “Karlene?”


  A sudden surge of emotion too complicated to describe, too painful to endure, shoved her concern for Vree aside and, for a moment, Otavas clutched in her arms and sobbing against her chest, everything that wasn’t the prince was forgotten. The iron bands around her heart burst, and she cried like a baby, rocking him back and forth, saying over and over again, “You’re alive. You’re alive.”

  It was Otavas who pulled away at last. He dragged his nose over his sleeve and locked shadowed eyes on Karlene’s face. “The old man,” he murmured.

  “Kars.” Vree’s voice was weak, but it cut through the fog of emotion that seemed to have them isolated from the world. “Where is he?”

  He wasn’t anywhere around.

  Otavas stared wide-eyed at the last place he’d been. “Kait’s gone, too.”

  Vree struggled to sit up, both hands clutching her head. “We have to find him. We have to stop him or this will begin again, somewhere else. We have to finish this.” The last words had risen to a near hysterical shout.

  Confused by the changes sweeping over Bannon’s expression as he stared at his sister, Karlene tucked the prince under one arm and reached out a comforting hand. Before she could speak, the situation slid sideways.

  “No one moves. No one talks.” Rough-edged with exhaustion, the voice clearly expected to be obeyed. “And just maybe, no one dies.”

  Seventeen

  “Captain, my squad has searched the entire area, there’s no sign of this old man.”

  “You’re certain about this, Orlan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It took more effort than she thought she was capable of, but Karlene managed to keep her voice level. “Captain, Kars has a dead girl with him. Your squads won’t be able to find him because their kigh won’t acknowledge the existence of the girl.”

  “Kigh?” The captain spat the unfamiliar word out of her mouth like a bug she’d accidentally sucked in. “But you can find him, Lady Bard?”

  Karlene was too angry to take further offense at the tone of the honorific. “Yes, Captain.”

  “And His Imperial Highness can find him?”

  “We think so. We think Prince Otavas spent so much time with the walking dead that his kigh stopped lying to him about them.”