by RJ Blain
“Put out the call,” Breton said, and then huffed out a sigh. With Avern’s failure, a gathering of the Guardians was inevitable. Invoking it admitted that the bad had gone to worse, and things wouldn’t get better until they found the missing Rift King.
Avern ran out the door, a streak of black against the pale stone that Blind Mare Run was carved out of.
Breton slammed his fist against a stack of the parchments and vellum perched on the edge of the giant desk. They scattered to the floor and knocked over several other piles as they fell. “Hellfires.”
There was no one present to hear him use the Rift King’s favorite curse. He could almost understand the lure of the oath, since he would’ve been more than pleased to drop a torch in the middle of the mess just to be done with it.
“He’ll flay you when he learns you threw his work on the floor.” A woman’s voice said from the hall. Riran laughed, leaning against the door with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. The hem of her tunic had been pulled down low to reveal her cleavage.
Breton scowled and ignored the aging woman and her tricks to get his attention. He wasn’t an eager foal anymore. He did not need to prove he was a stallion. While she was talented with horses, he wasn’t about to let her rein him in.
“You haven’t found him,” she continued when he said nothing.
“Not yet,” Breton replied. “I’ll be the one to do his work.”
There was always someone who dealt with the constant stream of messages meant to serve as the Rift King’s prison. The aboveworlders only assumed one man handled it all.
The aboveworlders were fools, all of them. They were just kings and queens who sat on their precious thrones and vied for dominance while fearing a man they’d never met and worked hard to keep contained within the vast desert canyons.
Breton clenched and then relaxed his hand. It throbbed. How many times had he taken his frustrations out on the stone desk and its precarious stacks in the past few days?
“You’re worried,” Riran whispered, weaving her way through the maze of unfinished work. “He’s a strong man. He’s proved that many times.”
“You only consider him strong because he refuses to spear you and make you one of his Queens,” Breton retorted.
Riran laughed. “He’s still alive.”
The confidence in her voice didn’t surprise him. Even if he hadn’t confirmed the truth with her, the Rift Queens always knew. It didn’t matter if they were Queens of the current Rift King. If His Majesty died, they would know. Like him, the Queens had known the moment that Arik had been replaced by the very man who’d killed him.
That man had only been fifteen years old.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I wish to prove my craft. I would act as a Princess. All of us. All of Arik’s Queens would serve as Princesses to the Rift King.” Riran lifted her chin and her dark eyes were hard with challenge.
Breton kept his expression neutral. Taking up one of the missives from the floor, he thrust it to her and nodded at the desk. While he couldn’t stop her from trying, he could demand perfection from her and all of Arik’s Queens.
And he’d get it. “It won’t make you Queen again.”
“I know,” Riran replied. “This is my fault, and it could destroy us all.”
Breton waited in silence. If he spoke, the temptation to break the Code and strangle the woman would be too strong. She told the truth. Without her machinations to replace the Rift King with a man who’d make her Queen again, he would be glaring at a diligent young man rather than at a woman consumed by her thirst for empty power.
For all Arik had speared many women and sired over a hundred children, he had mated with a purpose. His Queens were intelligent and capable of matching any handwriting. They were wise enough to know when a Guardian’s touch was needed for a reply.
Some of them, like Riran, were serpents clad in human skin.
But Kalen wasn’t Arik, and few understood that. Most wouldn’t call the Rift King by name, because it would be an acceptance of all that he was. Breton couldn’t erase the name of the boy who’d grown to be the most feared man in the Rift.
“Breton?”
He shook his head and met Riran’s eyes. “What is it?”
“Do you think they’ll actually go to war this time?” she asked, lifting up the missive and waving it in the air. The vellum crinkled, giving it the appearance that it had been read and considered several times.
“That isn’t our concern,” Breton replied. He hesitated before continuing. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Kelsh and Danar have always been at war. The question is whether or not it’ll be official this time. Unless they call the Council, we can do nothing.”
“If we don’t find him before someone else does, they’ll go to war with us.” Her brow furrowed as she picked up one of the root quills and dipped it in ink. The scratch of writing was the only sound in the room until she finished the reply. “We’ve been practicing since it happened.”
Breton didn’t need to ask what she spoke of. Something was happening, but he didn’t know what. No one did. He wasn’t certain if he could call it evil, but it wasn’t good either. There was one thing he was assured of: Whatever caused the feeling was dangerous and it was affecting all of the Guardians.
“Do Arik’s Queens feel it too?”
Riran nodded. “We want to help find him, but we can’t risk our mares. None of us have geldings or stallions. But, we can free you of this work and make it so you can go out and find him for us.”
She refused to meet his eyes, staring down at the vellum as though it held the secrets of the world within the letters written on it. The corners of Breton’s mouth twitched up.
“By ‘you’ do you mean me or the Guardians as a whole?”
Riran thrust the sheet of vellum at him. He took it and read through the document. The message from Kelsh was neither report nor letter, but the vague sort of missive that Breton hated the most. It wasn’t addressed to a man. It wasn’t even addressed to the Rift King or His Majesty. Even worse, the tone of the writing was so dismissive that Breton wanted to shred the page.
The sight of Kalen’s handwriting partnered with the careful and neutral tone of the Rift King hurt. The pressure in his chest grew until he wanted to lash out from the frustration of it all. She’d done it just right, even mastering the flicked curl added to many of the letters. It was a Kelshite habit that Breton hadn’t quite managed to convince the Rift King to remove from his writing.
“Are all of you this proficient?” Breton asked.
“Yes,” Riran replied.
“Get this mess cleaned up and I’ll think about it,” he said. He lifted Gorishitorik from the desk and held the old sword in the crook of his arm.
“We’ll need a few days.”
“Fine. Oh, Riran?”
The woman looked up from the stack of papers in front of her. “What is it?”
“Scheme against Kalen again and I’ll separate your head from your shoulders. Understood?”
Riran paled and jerked her head in a nod. Inclining his head, Breton turned and walked through the room, not caring how many of the stacks he bumped against on his way out.
~~*~~
Calling for the other Guardians would need to happen, and soon, but instead of heading straight for the library, Breton wandered through the carved tunnels of the underground city to the plains skirting the Foristasa.
The winds sweeping down from the cliffs dried out his nose and mouth with each breath. He sighed, lifted his fingers to his lips, and whistled. A whinny answered his call, but instead of his tall gelding, a much smaller horse charged at him. Underneath a flaking layer of yellow dust and brown, drying mud, the tiny King Stallion of the Rift skidded to a halt in front of him, letting out an explosive snort.
“Ferethian,” Breton greeted, clasping his hands behind his back. The stallion snorted again, both delicate ears turned back. A frayed rope halter hung on the horse’s filthy
head, one of the nose bands severed. The others were close to breaking. Dark eyes bore into his, and with an unrepentant toss of his head, Ferethian presented the halter’s clasp to him.
Breton shook his head, but obeyed the animal’s command. The halter was caked in muck and was damp. “Where have you been this time, Ferethian?”
Ferethian ignored him. Draping the halter over his shoulder, Breton hesitated before holding out his hand to Kalen’s horse. The animal sighed and eyed him before relenting and bumping his fingers with his soft nose.
“I’ll bring him back to you,” Breton whispered. One of the stallion’s ears pricked forward.
The crunch of dry grass under foot approached from behind, quiet enough that Breton tensed and listened to the cautious steps. Ferethian’s ears twisted back, and the stallion’s snort was one of warning. A squeal startled Breton into whirling around in time to see a pale-robed figure leaping towards him, a short blade thrust out. Breton dropped his hand to his sword and he managed to get half an inch of steel free before something large and golden lunged out of the grasses.
Pale hooves lashed out, and bone broke with a crunch. Blood fountained from the figure’s mouth and nose before crumpling to the ground. Breton’s mouth dropped open. For a moment, he thought the bright chestnut was Kalen’s Honey, but when the animal whirled and galloped away, he was certain the horse was too large to be the Rift King’s mare—and he was a stallion.
At Breton’s feet, the body twitched. Ferethian reared, hopped forward on his hind hooves, and slammed both of his front hooves down. When the stallion was finished, what was left of the figure’s face was too bloodied and crushed to identify. He guessed the person had been female, judging from the way her garb clung to her curved figure. Her sword, a thin short blade favored by many women, was plain. He stooped to pick it up. The weapon’s balance was off, too heavy in the hilt, and the blade’s edge was dulled and chipped.
Breton wrinkled his nose. The blade glistened with fluid. “Poisoned,” he murmured.
Ferethian whinnied and kept close to his side.
“If you’re wise, you won’t move,” a deep voice stated in the brisk and harsh trade tongue.
A man clad in tan robes similar to the color of the grass rose. The tip of an arrowhead glinted in the sunlight. Breton closed his fingers around the hilt of the poisoned blade and kept still. Ferethian’s legs pressed against Breton’s back, and the horse squealed a challenge.
“While I’d prefer you alive, dead is fine too,” the man said. The bow’s angle changed. “Silence your horse or the first arrow goes in his head. It’d be a shame to kill such a valuable beast. I’ll be a very rich man once I get him out of this cesspit.”
“Ferethian, still,” Breton hissed through clenched teeth, wondering if the stubborn horse would even listen to him without Kalen’s direct order. The stallion’s breath tickled his neck.
“Stand up and drop the weapon.”
A long shadow stretched over the grass, followed by a second. Breton loosened his grip on the weapon and let it fall. Careful to step on the blade as he rose, he held out his hands to show he wasn’t armed.
A second robed figure emerged from the knee-tall grass, and the tip of a second arrowhead glinted in the sunlight. Breton ran his tongue over his teeth. The first stood close enough for Breton to reach, if he could avoid being struck.
The second man would prove the true problem. If Breton was hit—or if the archers missed him and hit Ferethian instead—he’d have more than his survival to worry about. While he needed to find Kalen, he didn’t want to lure the Rift King back to the Rift through death.
“That’s right. Easy now. Keep your hands where we can see them, Rifter.”
Breton glanced out of the corner of his eye at Ferethian. The Rift King’s horse stood rigid, the animal’s dark eyes staring beyond the two outsiders.
The pair of large shadows moved closer, and it took all of Breton’s will to stare at the two figures in front of him.
“Hands up higher, Rift King,” the man snapped.
Breton hesitated, glancing at each figure in turn. They thought he was the Rift King? He frowned and considered the two men. They didn’t exactly go out of their way to describe Kalen to anyone. However, he could recall a few missives talking about how unusually small the Rift King’s horse was. Had they learned of Ferethian, but not of the man who rode him?
“Do it!”
The shadows solidified to the towering forms of black horses. The taller of the two Breton recognized from the familiar warmth in his chest born from being near his horse. Perin’s teeth were bared and both ears were turned back. The second horse was covered in river mud and dust, with black patches showing through.
Breton held his breath.
Ferethian lifted his hoof and struck the ground once. A chill ran through Breton. The two large animals took their places behind the robed figures, their movements silenced by the ever-present hiss of the wind.
“Halter your horse,” the man ordered.
He lifted his hands to his shoulder to grab the ruined halter. Ferethian snorted and reared back, slamming both hooves down at the same time.
The outsiders fell to the heavy blow of hooves to the head. Angry squeals broke the silence, and Ferethian surged forward to trample the fallen, his long tail bannering.
Breton shivered, stooping to pick up the poisoned blade and the outsiders’ bows and arrows. One of them was carrying a small pouch tied to his belt. He grabbed it and tucked it away in a pocket. Pivoting on a heel, he left the bodies for the nibblers. The three Rift horses flanked him.
He hurried to where the Foristasa cut its way through the plains. The weapons vanished beneath the white caps of its waters. Perin draped his head over Breton’s shoulder and sighed. There was only one reason he could think of for outsiders to make their way to Blind Mare Run. They wanted the Rift King, dead or alive.
If the outsiders learned the truth of the Rift King’s disappearance, he didn’t want to think of the consequences. Breton knelt by the river’s edge and clucked his tongue at the horses. Perin came without complaint, letting him clean the blood from his legs.
The other two horses refused, as though unwilling to wash away the evidence of their devotion to the King no longer within the Rift.
He glanced in the direction of the bodies, shook his head, and headed back towards Blind Mare Run to call for the other Guardians.
~~*~~
The library was the only place in Blind Mare Run that was able to hold all of the Guardians and offer the illusion of privacy. It took four of them to wrestle the stone doors closed. While it wouldn’t prevent anyone from listening at the cracks, Breton was at least confident no one would come in and interrupt them.
The last time they’d all gathered was when Arik died, and the room had been just as quiet. Instead of staring at the blood-stained boy holding Gorishitorik, the Guardians stared at him. The sword was still tucked beneath his arm, and he had no intentions of letting it go.
Breton exhaled in a huff. At a head taller than anyone else in the room, even those who knew him tended to gawk. This time, he doubted they stared at him due to his height.
“I need five volunteers to stay in Blind Mare Run,” Breton announced. No one moved and he doubted anyone dared to breathe for several long moments. The rows upon rows of bookcases cast long shadows from the witchlights hovering near the tiled ceiling. “Gentlemen, it is time to ride. Someone will find him, and they’ll try to discover the secrets of our people and his rank. They might even try to kill him, and may their Gods and Goddesses have pity on their souls.”
Breton narrowed his eyes, considered telling the Guardians of the attack on him, but remained silent while waiting for the tittering, nervous laughter to fade. “Every man and woman who wishes to wage war and protect our heritage can. The way of the sword will be taught. The correspondences will not cease until our horses emerge draped in red with banners held high. When we are done, they will remembe
r why they were right to fear the Rift King.”
The door at his back wasn’t enough to block the murmur of conversation in the hallway.
“Arik’s queens have conceded to serve as Kalen’s princesses and will deal with most of the correspondence. Your duty will be to handle what they cannot. A new era of guardians must be groomed. I won’t promise we’ll all return. You will coordinate with the horse breakers, the quartermaster, and the warmongers. The rest of us ride. I will take a group to Kelsh,” Breton said.
“I volunteer,” Gorteth said, lifting his fisted hand high over his head. The man was almost as short as the Rift King, though age rather than nature’s refusal to let Kalen grow any taller than Breton’s elbows.
One by one, hands rose. While none of them were exactly old, save venerable Gorteth, they approached the time where it was honorable to put away the sword to focus on their horses and their women. The last man to raise his hand was one of the youngest of the guardians, and one of Arik’s many sons.
“Father’ll kill us all if we are too cowardly to do our duty,” Joris said.
Breton smothered a laugh. The ‘father’ wasn’t directed at Arik. Almost all of Arik’s offspring loathed the man and hadn’t even mourned his death. But, Joris wasn’t young enough to be Kalen’s son—he was elder by several years.
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard one of them address Kalen as their father, but it’d been in whispers. He’d even seen Kalen’s colors of silver, gold, and black woven over Arik’s in the ancestral blankets.
Breton searched the room for the twins, but didn’t see their brown hair among the more common black. “Where are Varest and Ceres?”
“They’re not here,” Joris replied. Breton felt both of his eyebrows creep upward and he was powerless to smooth his expression. “I did try to stop them. I didn’t try very hard, but I did try.”