"Father!"
"Cia?" the man dropped to his knees and scooped the girl into his arms, letting his sword clatter to the ground. "Oh, thank the pantheon you're alive."
"I heard the screaming and the kitchens were full of servants all babbling. I thought I could help by making it through the apartments, but the way was blocked and..."
He kissed her head, the way he'd always done after a scary bedtime story to help ward off any monsters. If only it could work this time.
"Cia," he tried to pull her face to his. "Cia, you have to listen to me. They've killed the..." he turned to look at the shadow still clinging to the door frame, "they've killed a lot of people."
"Who has?" as far as she knew it was still dragons with swords for arms.
"The Emperor's men. The gate was opened; by whom I know not. I fear there is a snake amongst the grass. Cia, I need you to do something for me."
She nodded, the tears finally falling free of her eyes no longer overburdened in terror, "Anything, whatever you want." Just don't leave me.
Asim sighed and motioned to the shadow by the door. As it inched closer Ciara realized it was a young boy, one who had his fancy clothes blotted in blood, "You must get him to the north of the pass. To Tumbler's End. The northern army rests there, they will take charge of the boy after that."
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, coating her sleeve in snot, "Okay, but you'll come with us, won't you?"
Again he hugged her tight, "I must get to Albrant. Things are very dire."
Ciara broke free of his hug and glared at him. "You can't get rid of me on some pointless errand, this is my home. I'll defend it to the death!"
His mouth slackened as the battle warrior slid away to become a mournful father, "I know you would, but what I request of you is vital. What I am asking is because I can trust only you. Please, my Cia," he picked up the boy's slack hand and placed it inside of hers, "take him to Tumbler's End, to the army's camp."
She looked into a small face, almost as black as hers in the hopeless room. The boy refused to make eye contact, keeping his head low and not uttering a sound as strangers decided his fate.
"I'll do it."
Her father stood then, helping his daughter rise, "Good. I see you still have your dagger, I only pray you will not need it. Keep off the roads and as much out of memory as possible. The castle is swarmed, but Scepticar willing, the Emperor's men will not notice a pair of young servants."
Ciara nodded, her hand still wrapped around the boy's, watching as her father picked up his sword coated in lamb drippings. He did not sheathe it, which would have made her mother mad and instead turned once more to look upon his daughter for what he feared would be the last.
Kissing her upon the head again, he said, "It will be all right," and walked steadily towards the light of the hall and out of her life.
CHAPTER FOUR
Swords clattering against shields, other swords, the walls and, more disturbingly, something soft and gushy faded into the background as Ciara pulled the boy down the stairs into the kitchen.
Things had gone from panic to full blown stampede mode with word of the invading dragons somehow fitting through the narrow passage ways and making towards the kitchen. Every available basket, pot, pan, potato, and the giant roasting spit had been piled up in front of the door. The invading dragons were going to either have a mess to wade over to attack the servants or a very nice appetizer before the main course.
She shook her head, there was no getting anywhere past that mass and even if she could, it would simply lead back to the hall where this all began. Even through the faces distorted in fear she tried to find the familiar one that could make anything right, be it brown butter turned black, a woolen sweater that could now fit the original sheered sheep, or the need to sneak past enemy lines with a wet limbed boy who refused to raise his eyes.
But, her mother was nowhere to be found amongst the crowd. The thought of her caught in the path of the invaders clutched at Ciara's throat but her father had been there. If that were the case, he would have protected his wife and not some nobleman's bastard. Content in that bit of round logic she pushed into the larder, pulling the boy with her. His fancy shoes slid on the lamb juices and he fell into a face full of mutton.
Crying like a small bird that just slipped from the nest and landed in front of the cat, he tried to scramble up, but the sight of so much blood seeping onto his hand caused him to panic even more. Ciara grabbed both of his hands and raised him up, finally looking into a muddled pair of blue quartz.
"Calm down. You're overreacting."
As what happens to anyone that's ordered to calm down, the boy panicked harder, waving his hands around and screeching, the lamb's blood growing stickier in the desert of the kitchen. Fighting back the urge to shudder at the gore, she firmly took his right hand in hers and closed her fingers tight, "I'll get us out of here. No matter what."
The boy looked down at his own hand, still limp in hers and nodded slowly. "Promise?"
Ciara was surprised at the level voice, expecting little more than a whisper in the wind from the kid, "By my father's honor."
Again his eyes met hers and he said firmly, "Then, by mine as well."
She had no idea what he was swearing too, but it wasn't really the time to draw up pre-quest agreements to see who stood the most honor to lose with this deal. There were larger monsters to slay, like how to get them out of the bleedin' castle in the first place.
Marna!
Closing her fingers tight, she pulled the boy down the crumbling black staircase eliciting a gasp from him. The shadows in this place offered only pain as far as he knew. But there was no stopping the woman who had a half a foot on him as she barreled downward, waving her dagger in case a monster should suddenly phase out of the walls.
"Marna!" she wheezed at the bottom of the stairs, her wind finally spent from first the climb, then the re-descent.
The ghost appeared suddenly, like the old tales of the unblinkin' others that never ashed. Her hair was wild with straw, nearly camouflaged inside it. Eyes wide as one of the nocturnal squirrels and bluer than the sapphires in the crown jewels stared upon the boy's soul.
Then she blinked and smiled wide, turning to Ciara, "I was wonderin' where in you'd got ta. We still have half'n the plates to be dryin."
Ciara shook her head, the girl would probably, when facing down a dragon, blink and then offer it a breath mint. Then knick whatever bits of silverware the thing had left lying around. "The castle's been invaded. We need to get out of here before they finally come for the rest of us."
The ghost nodded slowly as if she understood, then shrugged and picked up a sponge. Matters above the stairs were none of her concern.
"Marna!" Ciara shouted, startling the boy whose trembling she felt through their bond. Ghostly eyes turned back upon her, "We need to leave, all three of us. Can you take us through your passage?"
The girl looked back to her vellum, then up towards the sky. "But i's not even past the blinkin' 'our. They'll liable ta hear us."
Thinking quickly Ciara blurted out, "It's all right. I was given special compensation by, by the King! He said we, all three of us, we were to go through your tunnel."
Eyes unused to anything approaching a lie outside of "I din't take nuffin!" widened in joy, "Really? He asked for me tunnel specify?"
"Yep, so you best grab the lantern and lead us through as soon as possible, okay?"
Twiggy fingers grappled for the lantern as the girl stepped over top a set of pots and put one shoe deep into the sudsy water before coming up triumphantly with her prize. Holding it aloft as though it could banish any evil spirits wandering the halls, she dashed to her poster and ripped the whole thing down, tossing it to the side.
Some tiny part of the ghost's intermittent brain registered that she'd never be seeing this place again. She looked around momentarily at the small pile she'd managed to cultivate over the years, her fingers caressing spoons,
iron nails, glass shards and finally coming to rest upon a hilt that she'd found nestled deep in the tunnel. Picking it up, she handed the blade to the boy and smiled widely, "In case we come across any really big dinners!"
The boy took the hilt, the blade drooping in his light grasp. Ciara watched like a mother who'd just seen her dull-witted child be handed a chainsaw and told to get to chopping. But the boy did not wave the sword around, only holding it as extended away from himself as he could. As though he were afraid of its soul.
"Come on, come on. Don't want to leave the king waiting!" Marna shouted, her legs already lost to the blackness as she dangled the lantern one last time upon the strange couple and then ducked back in, taking the only light with her.
Tamping down wild fears that this blackness was nothing more than an actual crevice into the world itself and she'd fall endlessly, Ciara tightened her grip on the boy. The fact that Marna seemed to be skipping and pounding her back into the ceiling did little to counter her fears. It was hard to count the girl as fully human even by the light of mid day. Counting to three, Ciara stepped forward, her boot actually finding stone floor. And without taking the chance to also bid a fond farewell to her only home she stepped through the threshold, dragging her luggage with her.
Scabbering across rocks slick with moisture, his thin soles already damp from the rising ground water, Aldrin tried to steady himself against the pressing walls. The girl paid him no heed, only tightening her grip and calling out to the ghost.
"Are you certain you know where this goes?"
The ghost swung the lantern in a rhythmic pattern as if she didn't really need the light, but enjoyed the sheen it left on the rocks. "Yes, it goes 'til it ends."
They were a strange pair to behold, one black as a crypt the other pale as the body being laid to rest inside it. Aldrin wasn't certain which terrified him more. But neither seemed to want to slice his throat, so they were a better choice than what awaited him back at the keep.
He touched his chin, still tender from the fall, a small crust of blood dusting his fingers. After he'd hit the stairs hard, the dark man appeared, his blade crimson, and hauled the boy to his feet.
"You must stay quiet," the lips whispered into Aldrin's ears buzzing with the sounds of battle a mere sliver of wood away. "Make any sound and they will find us all."
The Knight directed the boy behind him and walked into the darkened staircase first, his sword held out flat to meet any unexpected resistance. Aldrin pulled up behind him, his hands childishly grasping for the man's tunic as if it were a crib's blanket. Trying to stifle whatever sobs were fighting to escape from the royal mouth, the prince stuffed his fist inside it.
Whatever ounce of tenderness the Dark Knight may have shown him, vanished in the first draw of the blade. Instead of comforting the boy, he pulled him along, only pausing to listen for footsteps.
A cavalcade of bangs, leather slapping against stone and not so hushed voices lurked before them. The Dark Knight paused, trying to discern if it was friend or foe awaiting them. It seemed unlikely the invaders would make for the armory first, but he had no way to know who had opened the gate for the swarms of the Empire festering in the great hall.
Turning the boy away from the rising militia, he headed up into the living quarters, searching for someone familiar, someone he could trust. Aldrin followed along like a baby duck hoping for its mother.
Most of the apartments were quiet, rooms long abandoned as their owner's blood congealed in the stone floor's grout. He turned a corner and stumbled across a pair dressed in the Emperor's Black who must have gotten lost on their way to the midden. They each had their long hair braided back, their faces indistinguishable from the typical flat Aravingion. The only difference was in the walk; one limped along, trailing his hand along the wall while the other waddled behind.
The Dark Knight pushed the boy back pointing for him to stay, and blended into the shadows. It was a skill he'd breathed since he killed his first man before he could shave, but proved of little use in his new life. Silently creeping along with the men, he matched the waddler stride for stride.
A noise caught at the end of the hall and limper paused. He turned to his partner and began to raise a finger for a whisper. As Waddler began to nod, a thrown dagger appeared in Limper's throat, blood dribbling out of his mouth.
Waddler turned, his hand fumbling for the sword hilt. A shadow unlocked itself from the wall and, grabbing Waddler's sword arm, shoved the steel right through his rib cage and out the back. Waddler gurgled a bit and slid off, dead before he hit the floor.
Aldrin watched it all crouched down upon the fading carpets, both fists now stuffed into his mouth as the man calmly kicked first one man over, inspecting the damage, and then removed the dagger from the other. All as if he'd finished chopping a log of wood or making a rather good pie.
The boy found himself crawling forward, his fingers lightly touching the black boot, up the greaves, circling around the Empire's symbol -- the only spot of color on the armor -- and finding purchase in the blood no longer gushing forth from a stilled heart.
The Dark Knight caught the boy's wrist in his fist, "Do not disturb the dead." He whispered through his bright teeth, "Do not give them a reason to come back."
"Marna!"
Aldrin's mind snapped back from his reverie. It felt like hours since they'd crossed from the light of death into the underworld.
"It's been near on hours since you led us down here. Where are ya taking us now?" The dark woman growing upset was made the more terrifying as she waved her dagger around.
Aldrin shrunk back, afraid she could do the same unfeeling damage as her patriarch.
The ghost responded with a slight petulance in her tone, "I'm taking where you need to be. And aroun' the giant spiders."
"There are giant spiders?!" the long bidden childhood fear clutched at Aldrin's heart more than the realistic one of them being trapped inside this never ending maze of a cave and starving to death.
His dark warrior sighed, loudly, "If there are giant spiders, you've already trod on them without noticing."
This, alas, had the opposite effect she'd been hoping for and Aldrin squeaked, his eyes imagining every shadow as an eight legged terror coming towards him. He jumped back and forth, twitching his acquired sword until his bound leader yanked on his arm and glared through the darkness. Aldrin shrugged his hunched shoulders and tried to calm down to compliant levels of terrified.
The cave wound about, up and back in on itself, the passageway little more than what seemed to be an escape tunnel carved by an inmate with an inner ear problem and the cartography skills of a man who'd never left his bedroom. The ghost tried to reassure them, at first saying it wouldn't be too long, she was certain the way was just past. She pointed out some things still left in the tunnel by previous occupants, most of it looking like little more than makeshift digging material used by those who didn't have a guide with more air in her head than in the cavern.
It got even harder to convince her tourists when they came across a passage so narrow only one person could climb through at a time. The ghost looked back and told the darkness, "Climb through there. Shouldn't be more than a few hundred feet."
The darkness responded coolly, "Marna, it's near vertical. There's no way anyone without wings could get up there."
"Oh," the ghost raised her lantern up the climb, the light catching a handful of very sparse support rocks interspersed amongst a very smooth tunnel. "Tha's strange. I coulda sworn I went up it before. Why's you want to leave the castle again?"
"People are trying to kill me," it tumbled out of Aldrin's mouth before he could stop it.
The ghost approached him, her eyes taking on a yellow tinge in the orange lantern light. The halo within them caused him to cower back from her finger dragging across his chest, "The dragon's not safe here. Too many want to slay it."
She poked him once in the belly and giggled softly, then cocked her head as if she could hear
something, "Right, it's always right. Ne'er take left. That's where the witches is. I's this way to out."
Turning on her heel, the ghost marched down the right passage the other two hadn't noticed, her finger slowly unraveling the embroidered dragon upon his doublet.
Sure enough, it was another two right turns and they stumbled across a ladder. The ghost pointed up with her lantern and motioned like she was about to toss them out. "Up."
The darkness pushed Aldrin up first, releasing his hand for the first time as his fists caught on wooden bars. She gave a little shove and he began to climb, fear still keeping at bay the exhaustion he knew was coming for him.
As he rose, the torchlight began to vanish, making the climb more treacherous. He closed his eyes and fumbled slowly for the next rung, then the next, until his hand smacked into a flat panel that lifted lightly with his finger.
Climbing higher, he pushed his other hand into the panel and raised it above his head. A jet of crisp autumn mountain air answered back, as his eyes opened upon a field of stars as uncaring and beautiful as a blizzard.
Being able to only reach half way out standing on the bottom step he grasped onto still muddy ground and hauled himself out of the cave. Rolling into fresh mud, he felt a chuckle growing behind his throat. If the Queen knew he'd been playing in the mud in his finery, she'd have such an apocalyptic fit the priests would be working it into their sermons for months.
His darkness rose behind him, only visible by the stars her form blotted out. She had an easier time rising from the hole, being much taller than Aldrin. Sitting over the exit, she called down for the ghost, "Come on, Marna. It looks safe enough for now."
But the ghost shook her head and the lantern, "Nay, nay. Things still need be doin'. I'll see ya later See-ya!" She chuckled at her little joke and walked back into the cave, the lantern her only true friend.
The Darkness called to her again but there was no answer; the ghost couldn't leave her haunt. Aldrin rose, trying to wipe the mud off his arms and legs while the Darkness looked up to the sky. Trees surrounded them, most of them leafless in the encroaching winter, allowing her to chart which side of the castle they'd emerged from.
The King's Blood Page 4