Forsaken Kingdom (The Last Prince Book 1)

by J. R. Rasmussen

  Now that the last of the retreating soldiers had found their way out, Alaide, Bartley, and Arun stood before the front door, each adding their own brand of magic to fasten that one, too. Unlike an enchantment, the effect on the door would only be temporary, and the Harths would no doubt be battering it down before long. But in the meanwhile, the magicians needed a moment to regroup, and prepare for the next phase.

  Wardin stood at Erietta’s side while they watched them work the spell. “Bramwell wasn’t here.”

  She smiled, recognizing a disappointment that matched her own. “Nor Tobin. But don’t worry. They can’t hide all day.”

  He winked at her. “I like our odds better now than I did an hour ago, at least.”

  “Yes.” Despite the smell of blood from the corpse a few strides away, Erietta couldn’t help but laugh. “As do I.”

  When the door was fastened, Wardin strode over to Odger and clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Fetch the others, will you? The Dark Dragon is ours.”

  The streets of Avadare were a tumult of screams, splattered blood, and smoke. Wherever Arun and his sages went, casting the enemy into confusion, Erietta’s contrivers followed with their army of the dead. Wardin and the two others who’d been able to master the spell struck fear into the soldiers’ hearts, sealing their flight from the terrors that stalked them.

  The Dark Dragon had been shockingly easy to take. They’d surprised an opponent who had no doubt underestimated them. Out here, things hadn’t gone quite so smoothly. What they were doing required more power than most of them had ever used in a short span of time, and many of the casters were teetering dangerously on the edge of imbalance.

  Erietta felt her own usually tight control slipping. Occasionally she found herself laughing, though nothing around her was the least bit amusing. Twice she realized she’d broken into song without meaning to, without even hearing herself.

  Then there were those who couldn’t be tricked to contend with. Whether because they hadn’t partaken of the tainted water, or because they were simply made of heartier stuff than most, some of their enemies resisted.

  And Eyrd or Harth, those who stopped to fight must be fought back against. Their resolve not to spill Eyrdish blood was soon broken. Erietta had already stepped over the bodies of three of her magisters, biting her lip until it bled to keep from crying out and giving in to rage or grief. There was no honor in letting her own people die in an attempt to spare the opposition, countrymen or not.

  She’d prepared herself for death, sorrow, fear, ugliness. But for some reason, she’d failed to anticipate the utter chaos of battle. She’d been obliged to call several of her people away from the fray to put out fires, lest the whole village go up in flames. Sometimes, she couldn’t tell the difference between her allies and her enemies.

  But then, the latter had been part of the plan. Once they’d brought their three crews of casters out into the streets, the rest of their small force followed, wearing the cloaks that made them look like Lancet soldiers. They melted away among the enemy, spreading the hysteria, leading the fleeing men away into the mountains. They were also charged with finding and capturing either Tobin or Bramwell, if they could. And if they happened to kill a few Harths along the way, well, that was helpful too.

  Many of the villagers had deserted the cause in favor of trying to save their homes and possessions. An understandable preference. But the Harthian numbers were dwindling faster. In the scarce moments when she was able to grasp on to a coherent thought or feeling, Erietta found that she was hopeful.

  Most of the remaining combatants had left the streets behind now, and were converging on the slope on the south side of the village. There, the last of Bramwell’s men were making a stand, backs against the gaping hole they’d been digging into the mountain for the past several days. There had been no sign of the king himself, nor of his son.

  Until now.

  Erietta was at the front of her cluster of contrivers, filling the hillside with the dead, when the King of Harth emerged from the newly made cavern behind what was left of his company of men.

  The songs and tales of Bramwell Lancet’s battle prowess always made mention of two things. First, the intimidating form he cut, such a tall man, always riding a great charger. But warhorses were impractical in these mountains, and Bramwell was too large a man to sit on a pony. He certainly would have made a much less impressive figure atop one. So when he came striding out of the mountain, it was on his own exceptionally long legs.

  The second thing was his temper. It was said that Hart himself had put fire in the hearts and minds of the Lancets, and then marked them with their famously red hair as a warning to any who dared cross them. Some also said that fire had gone out, when old Cadric was on the throne. In spite of that—or more likely because of it—it burned hottest of all in Cadric’s son.

  That part of Bramwell’s legend held true: the King of Harth was in a red temper indeed. His walk, his bearing, his very face halted Erietta in her tracks, and chilled the blood in her veins. He was no magician, as far as she knew, but that thunderous expression was more fearsome than any spell she’d cast that day.

  He was surrounded by a cluster of men, all Harths, by the looks of them, and all with an air of experience and self-possession. His personal guard, perhaps. Tobin was not among them.

  Bramwell bellowed at the men on the field as they quailed before Graddoc and his ghosts. Although Erietta couldn’t make out his words, it soon became clear what the king was shouting about: the fact that the so-called dead were no real threat. He demonstrated this amply, throwing himself among the illusions, not even returning their blows, letting them slash at—and directly through—him.

  Wardin and Arun were there to answer, redoubling their efforts, while other magisters flocked to their sides to protect them from those who were not bewitched, and would cut them down before they could cast. Arun and the sages spread their confusion, Wardin and his battlemages their fear, with a vengeance.

  Erietta snapped out of the momentary daze Bramwell had inspired and called out to her contrivers, rallying them, commanding them not to falter in their own casting. The field was soon flooded with a fresh wave of apparitions.

  The enemy soldiers began to break and flee once more. Nearly every Eyrd Erietta could see was deserting the king. They had no intention of fighting an army of the damned for a Harthian cause.

  With the utmost of malice, Bramwell Lancet stopped them in their tracks.

  Wielding a two-handed sword, he charged not at the magisters or the villagers, nor at the sole Rath on the field, but at his own retreating soldiers. He cut them down, one after another.

  The pack of men who’d come out of the cave with him soon followed his example. Erietta watched in horror as they killed their own men—her own people. Those who remained alive, caught between fear of the illusory dead and fear of the very real monster before them, stopped running and turned once again to face their king’s enemy.

  But ghastly as that sight was, it wasn’t what terrified her the most, stealing her breath and nearly stopping her heart. That dubious honor was reserved for Wardin’s face, red as his cousin the king’s hair, contorted in a cry Erietta could not hear.

  She didn’t need to hear it. She knew what it meant. Bramwell Lancet’s temper might be the stuff of legend, but it seemed Wardin Rath was working on a legend of his own. As Erietta watched, helpless to stop him, he dropped his spell and abandoned the magisters, his own carefully laid plan, and all sense. Rowena let out the long, ghostly wail of a blackhound in distress and tried to follow, but Alaide took hold of the dog’s collar and held her back.

  Wardin charged alone across the field, sword raised, directly at Bramwell.

  26

  Wardin

  Boldness isn’t always a virtue, Wardin.

  It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

  It didn’t matter that he was charging a legendary warrior. He came from a line of legendary warriors himself.
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  It didn’t matter that he knew his friends couldn’t come to his aid; if they dropped the spells they were casting, what remained of Bramwell’s force would be released from the trick, and they would all be slaughtered.

  It didn’t matter that this fact only highlighted how foolish he was being himself, for abandoning a plan that had been working.

  Wardin knew all these things, as he rushed across the field. Not that he could have voiced them coherently. His thoughts were not nearly so organized. How could they be, when his ears pounded so, when the edges of his vision had gone so blurry that it required a great deal of his attention just to run across the rocky ground without tripping? But he was quite clear that what he was doing was both reckless (boldness isn’t always a virtue) and stupid.

  It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

  What mattered was that Bramwell Lancet’s sword was dripping with the blood of Eyrds. And Wardin intended to kill him for it.

  When the king saw him coming, he kicked away the body of the man he’d just hacked apart, and turned to face the cousin who’d once served as his adept.

  At once, the blistering rage left Bramwell’s eyes. Instead they froze over—and died.

  A wiser man than Wardin would have faltered looking into that hollow, black void. Wardin ran harder. He hastily cast a shield around himself, preparing for Bramwell’s first blow.

  He parried that blow with ease. It was the last advantage he would have.

  From the moment their swords crossed, Wardin knew he’d misjudged his enemy. Perhaps fatally so.

  In Narinore rescuing Erietta, and on the road back, it had seemed so easy to win a fight with magic. Particularly when one’s opponent had none. Wardin had actually wondered how his family could have lost the last two wars against the Harths. He’d wondered whether his uncle and grandfather were, perhaps, a bit smaller than their legends.

  Now he understood. Battlemage or not, he was barely twenty years old, inadequately trained and not at all experienced, facing a true swordsman, a true warrior. The old archmagister had once told him that magic couldn’t solve every problem. A magician could be outmatched, by skill, by experience, by power.

  Wardin was outmatched by all three. It seemed every blow he tried to strike, magical or otherwise, Bramwell blocked. Every move he made, Bramwell anticipated. Every move he anticipated, he judged wrongly, and Bramwell managed to surprise him.

  It didn’t help that the arduous fear spell he’d been casting over and over had sapped him of so much energy. His shield proved laughably weak. The king sliced through the invisible blades with such ease, Wardin could almost imagine them as paper, flying away in the wind. He did his best to reinforce the spell, though he knew it would prove futile in the end. At least it would distract his opponent for a while; even a nuisance could serve as an obstacle.

  But it wasn’t long before the dancing blades shattered, along with the rest of Wardin’s magic and all his powers of concentration. Not to mention his flesh, in several places. If not for his hauberk, he no doubt would have been dead almost instantly.

  Not that he was going to last much longer than that. Before he knew it—and without any clear idea of how it had happened—Wardin was thrown off balance and sent reeling. Bramwell pressed his advantage, attacking relentlessly, pushing Wardin farther and farther back, downward, until Wardin was about to fall backward into the mud.

  I’m going to die.

  This knowledge slammed into Wardin harder than any weapon, knocking the wind out of him, turning his blood to ice.

  This was his last moment. Bramwell Lancet’s face would be the last he ever saw. He was going to die.

  Fine. Then I will die well.

  The panic eased as quickly as it had flared, leaving a strange stillness in its wake. The very certainty of his demise was his salvation; he could do nothing but accept it. And choose how he would leave this world.

  This was the man who’d killed Wardin’s father. And despite the unspeakable horror of his execution, Draven had died bravely. So Wardin had been told.

  Draven’s son could do the same. He would not weep or cower before this plundering king.

  His mouth set in a grim line, his mind oddly calm, Wardin fought back with all his might, though he knew it would prolong his life by seconds only. People would at least say that the last Rath had died like one.

  Those seconds passed quickly. Wardin landed on his back, mud squelching in his ears and along the back of his neck. The ground around him smelled of blood and rotting leaves.

  Bramwell’s sword loomed above him. And then his face—grinning ferociously. “Farewell to you, boy. May you—”

  The king’s next words were drowned out by a clear, bittersweet sound echoing across the field, stirring Wardin’s blood almost painfully. A horn.

  A horn?

  Harths did not use horns in battle. Nor did Eyrds—anymore. But they had once. Baden Rath’s own horn was likely still at Narinore, somewhere. Had Erietta conjured his grandfather’s ghost?

  Wardin’s eyes flicked to one side, then the other, as Bramwell too seemed to hesitate. Of course, the battle had gone on around them, while they were focused so intently on one another. Now all the rest of it, the sights, the sounds, the very existence of the others, came rushing back.

  No, Erietta had not conjured Baden’s ghost. Neither she nor her contrivers were conjuring any ghosts at all. The army of the dead had simply disappeared. They’d dropped the spell.

  How could she do such a thing? Not for Wardin, surely. She would always put Pendralyn first. So why would she take such a risk?

  A rush of wind passed, churning like a small cyclone.

  He’d seen such a cyclone before. Arun had conjured it, to scare away the feral blackhounds on the moors.

  Wardin just had time to register this, before the whirling gust bowled Bramwell over. As the king landed on top of him, Wardin rolled and kicked, trying desperately to get away while his opponent was still down.

  This strange interruption brought with it a glimmer of hope. If he could regroup, if he could catch a breath, perhaps he could come back at the king with renewed vigor.

  In the next moment, Wardin saw that he would not be doing it on his own. The tugging and pushing of many hands brought him to his feet. Erietta was on one side of him, Arun on the other. And they were not alone.

  Eyrds. Dozens of them. They gathered all around him, casting aside their blue cloaks and their stag pins.

  Bramwell too was on his feet, surrounded by the remaining Harths. The two factions faced one another, and horror and rage registered in the king’s face as he realized what Wardin had already seen: the Eyrds’ faces were clear now.

  No confusion, no enchantment, no unnatural terror. Only the ordinary fear and determination and bloodlust that came with any battle.

  Erietta had indeed dropped the spell, and Arun too, and the other battlemages. And though they’d undoubtedly hoped to save him, Wardin knew that wasn’t the only—or even the biggest— reason. They’d done it because they no longer wanted the Eyrds to flee. They wanted them to turn, and fight for them instead.

  And somehow, they’d gotten their wish. The archmagister wasn’t abandoning her cause. She was rallying everyone else to it.

  Wardin’s heart seemed to swell as it slammed against his ribs, pushing warmth outward, into limbs that were eager to take up the fight once more. He looked at Bramwell, and grinned.

  Perhaps the house of Rath would not be extinguished today, after all.

  27

  Bramwell

  He stood on a muddy field, a storm raging overhead, swinging his sword again and again and again.

  Blood splattered across his armor, his face. It flowed over the ground, making it even more slick and treacherous.

  His arms burned with exhaustion. His breath came in hitched gasps.

  He hacked and hacked at his uncle’s fallen body until it was no longer a body at all, until it no longer resembled anything human. It
was just part of the mud now.

  And still he swung his sword.

  That battle had ended long ago. Yet it was to that battle that Bramwell returned, every time, on every field. He woke smelling the blood and the rain.

  Woke? Had he been sleeping? What was this?

  No battle, that much was certain. He was on his back. It was dark. Only the slightest glow of orange from a brazier showed him he was inside a tent. He heard frogs, crickets. The call of an owl.

  But he had been in battle. Just moments ago, fighting, slashing. Not at his uncle, but at …

  “The boy.” Bramwell’s voice was hoarse. Either he’d been ill, or he’d been shouting. Possibly both.

  He’d been fighting the boy. Had been, in fact, about to kill Draven’s hideous spawn, that obscene mockery of Toby, and rid himself of Raths once and for all.

  How had he come from that moment to this one, waking in a tent, in a camp, with the most monstrous headache he’d ever known? His skull felt like it had been split straight down the back. So much so that he checked for a bandage. He found none. His hair was matted, though whether with mud or blood, he could not tell.

  Bramwell tried to sit up, but the moment he lifted his head, the world tilted. His stomach churned, and he immediately began to sweat. With a bark of frustration that ended in a groan, he forced the heaving contents of his stomach back down his throat. He was not some weak commoner who’d eaten a bad bit of meat. The King of Harth did not vomit.

  “Majesty!”

  At least his stirring had gotten someone’s attention. Bramwell rolled—gently—toward the voice, but saw only the tent flap falling back into place.

  Perhaps whoever it was had gone to fetch Walter. Bramwell thought the old sage had some skill at healing. Or Darren, perhaps?

  Neither. It was Tobin who came into the tent moments later, a lantern in one hand and a smug smile on his face. Judging by that look, the battle Bramwell could still barely remember had ended in victory.