Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1)

by RJ Blain

  Just like his sword.

  He slid along the wall to where the narrow alley opened to the main street and peered in both directions. The dawn lightened the eastern sky, offering just enough illumination to chase away the worst of the shadows. The cobbled streets were deserted. With a satisfied nod, he slipped out onto the street. His feet slapped on the cobbles and splashed through the increasingly frequent puddles. He didn’t slow until he was long out of sight of the building he had escaped from.

  A flash of blue caught his eye and Kalen glanced down at the sword. A dark sapphire caught the dim light and the pale lines of a six-pointed star stretched across its smooth surface. He drew a sharp breath and lifted the weapon up. The guard was that of serpents and horses, with the leather wraps coiling down to the sapphire pommel stone.

  He almost dropped the sword. It wasn’t his usual weapon; that sapphire lacked a star and was a paler blue. The weight of its age hadn’t dulled the silver inlays or the accents of gold. Just like he remembered.

  “Gorishitorik,” he whispered. It wasn’t the duplicate, but the real thing. The true Rift King’s sword. Kalen tightened his grip on the hilt and clacked his teeth together until his jaw ached. Heat radiated from the center of his chest and spread up his shoulders and down his lone arm.

  Those men he’d escaped weren’t Rifters. Rifters didn’t wear metal armor.

  The Guardians wouldn’t have relinquished the blade, not while they still had breath and life within them, and only one would’ve dared to take it out of the Rift at all to bring it to him.

  Breton.

  His throat tightened. Closing his eyes to suppress the burning sensation, he drew long, deep breaths until he could hear the rain instead of the drum of his heart in his ears and throat. He turned to face the city’s center.

  “To the deeps with the Covenant,” he said, and didn’t care if anyone heard him.

  Kalen lifted his chin and clucked his tongue. First, he needed to find a place to rest. To catch his breath. To plan.

  Then he’d show them a real reason to fear the Rift King.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Breton shielded his eyes against the rain and glared up at the thundering clouds. Lightning arced across the sky with blue and white flashes that drove away the darkness.

  A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to face Maiten. The Guardian shook his head. “She’s probably long gone by now. Maybe we should ask Verishi why those priests would lock a handmaiden in a cellar.”

  “I also want to ask her if handmaidens can all fight like that,” Breton replied.

  “I’m not sure I’d call that fighting. She kicked me in the shins and ran away. That’s not fighting. That’s something a child would do.”

  “Don’t forget she knocked Ceres and Varest down a flight of stairs and stole Gorishitorik,” he muttered.

  “So she got a little lucky.” Maiten shrugged. “It’s His Majesty’s sort of luck, but just luck.”

  “Breton! Maiten!” Ceres called out. Breton spun around. Kalen’s son splashed forward with a swath of red and yellow fabric in his hands. A red cloak and a yellow robe, just like the girl had been wearing.

  “Where’d you find that?” He snatched the robe out of Ceres’s hands and passed the cloak to Maiten.

  “In an alley not far from the cellar,” Ceres replied. The Guardian paused to glower up at the lightning that flashed across the sky. “Who’d be so foolish to strip off their clothes in this mess?”

  Breton flipped the robe over. The girl had shrugged it off and discarded it inside out. Large patches of dark brown stained the right sleeve, the front of the robe, and splattered the rest of it. “Blood.”

  “And lots of it,” Maiten agreed. “It’s all over the cloak, too.”

  “I thought Verishi said it was one of their gravest sins to injure a handmaiden,” Breton said.

  Someone splashed through the puddles accumulating on the streets, and he looked up to see a gasping Varest skid to a halt. “Trouble!”

  “What now?”

  “They’ve made their move, and they’re only a few streets that way,” Varest said, jerking a thumb in the direction he’d come from. The Guardian swallowed and hesitated.

  “Hellfires. We should get out of here,” Maiten said.

  Breton rubbed the material of the robe between his fingers. The rain was washing away layers upon layers of grime. If it weren’t for Gorishitorik, they could just turn and walk away. They could hunt for the sword after and stay out of the skirmish. They owed the Mithrian Captain nothing. They’d done their duty.

  He pressed his lips together. Varest kept looking over his shoulder with wide eyes.

  “You’re not telling me something,” he said.

  “They… I think they’re going to execute the children,” the younger man whispered.

  “Thrice blast them to the deeps and all of their descendants with them!” Breton threw down the robes and reached for his sword.

  “What should we do, Breton? We can’t get involved,” Ceres said in a weak voice.

  “Kill them all,” he snarled. “To the deeps with the Covenant.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Maiten replied.

  As one, they drew their swords.

  “This way,” Varest said, and led them deeper within the city.

  ~~*~~

  Breton slowed to a walk and approached the junction ahead with his sword held at the ready. His breath emerged as clouds that the wind whipped away. He pressed his back to the rough brick and glanced each way before signaling to the Guardians behind him.

  Swallowing didn’t ease the tightness in his throat and chest. With each bolt of lightning that forked across the sky, his fingers tingled and the scar on his chest and shoulder ached.

  “I don’t like this,” Ceres whispered from behind him. Breton jerked his head in a nod of agreement, but didn’t risk looking back.

  “It’s a storm like any other,” he replied, doubting the words even as he spoke them.

  Lightning wasn’t supposed to be the bright yellow of the sun. The shade reminded him of the Yadesh’s vibrant coat, and Verishi’s hair.

  “The alley will turn ahead and open to the market square. The foals were caged on the other side,” Varest said. Lightning descended from the sky with a crack of thunder. The ground trembled beneath Breton’s feet.

  Hurrying forward, he paused at the turn in the alley, peeking around the corner. He stopped short. Someone pressed against his back and peered around his arm. Maiten drew a sharp breath.

  The flashes of lightning and the driving rain didn’t hide the red that stained the pale cobblestones. Streams of blood mixed with water and washed down the gentle slope to pool against the buildings nearby.

  Bodies lay strewn across the ground. The girl stood in the center of the market with her back facing him. Her hair whipped in the wind, and in the rare moments when the storm calmed, it fell to her waist. Bracing her foot against the back of a fallen mercenary, she yanked out Gorishitorik from the man’s gut and stepped back a pace.

  Several lines of mercenaries formed an arc between her and the other end of the square, swords drawn and held at the ready.

  “It’s that girl!” Varest exclaimed.

  “I noticed,” he replied.

  She lifted her left arm and Breton felt his mouth drop open. Rain glistened on golden scales that reflected the lightning. Tufts of hair that reminded him of the feathering of a horse’s hooves circled her—no, his—wrist. Curved talons stretched out where his fingers should have been, and they dripped blood.

  Breton drew in a deep breath, held it, counted to ten, and let it out in as slow an exhale as he could. He did it again and blinked several times to make certain he wasn’t hallucinating. The scaled arm didn’t disappear, and neither did the growing nervousness that fluttered in his chest. The tickle of a hysterical laughter was in his throat.

  He’d been too late. It wasn’t like when Kalen had become the Rift King. That ar
m wouldn’t vanish. Not this time.

  “That,” Maiten said in a wry tone, “is no girl.”

  “No, no he isn’t,” Breton agreed, and was relieved that he managed to keep his voice steady. Part of him wanted to scream, shout, or even cry, but all he could do was stare while the weight of hopelessness settled over him. If only he hadn’t obeyed Arik so blindly. If only he had seen through Arik’s choice of successors.

  If only he’d found Kalen just a little sooner.

  “Should we stop him before he kills them all?” Maiten asked.

  “Do you really think we can stop him with just the four of us?” he asked. Lowering his sword, he considered the Rift King and mercenaries who defied him, and pushed back the grief that sought to suffocate him. “They’re brave, I’ll give them that. Foolish, but brave.”

  “Either that or they’re more afraid of who is behind them than who is in front of them,” Maiten replied.

  “Then they’re more the fools for it.”

  “Take her alive!” someone bellowed.

  The trilling call of the skreed sounded out, and two dark shapes emerged from the shadows of alleys across the market. The creatures moved forward and stone cracked beneath their taloned feet. The mercenaries advanced, but not fast enough for the skreed.

  They didn’t hesitate, cutting through the ranks and leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Breton stepped forward. Maiten grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Don’t do it. We can’t fight two of them. We can’t fight him, either. You’ll die for nothing, and then what? You’re the best one to succeed, thrice blast it all!”

  The wind stilled, the skies darkened, and even the rain receded to a drizzle. Two more skreed stepped into view, their blocky heads thrown up high and their talons stretched out in search of something—or someone—to shred. They let out hooting calls that were immediately answered by the first two.

  “Wonderful. There are four of them.”

  “We have to get him out of here,” Breton said, jerking his arm free.

  “He’s gone where you can’t follow,” Maiten snapped. “Accept it! We’ve our duty and oath.”

  “I know that.” Breton forced himself to stand still when all he wanted to do was run forward.

  Even if it meant facing off against four skreed and the Rift King all at once. Even if it meant he broke his oath, broke the Code, and threw his life away.

  He struggled to find reasons why he shouldn’t, and just like the rain, each one slipped through his fingers.

  “T-that can’t be Father, can it?” Ceres gasped out.

  “It’s him,” Maiten said.

  “But he has blond hair. Father has black hair. He also doesn’t have a left arm!” Varest pointed. “That person definitely has a left arm. He can’t be Father.”

  The drizzle stopped. It was so still and quiet that Breton could hear his own breathing.

  “Your Father’s dead, Varest. Ceres. I’m sorry. It was his price,” Maiten said, “now it has become its power. Forget you ever had a Father because he’s gone now. Forget about him because he has forgotten you. What stands before you now isn’t a man. Not anymore. I’d rather face all four of those skreed, and their summoners, than that thing he’s become.”

  Breton bowed his head in acceptance of the words he couldn’t refute.

  “Breton?” Ceres asked, and it was the plaintive whisper of a child who didn’t want to believe the truth.

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to stop him now.” Breton drew a deep breath. He shook his head and let it out in an explosive sigh. “Not without another four or five more of us. If you get a chance at him, take it. Don’t hesitate, or it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

  The rain once again began to fall, in large, slow drops that mixed with his tears. The clouds were the black of a mourning shroud, and he stared up at them and wished they’d descend and blind him to the truth.

  “Maybe if we could sense him, and he could sense us, we could do something,” Maiten said, “but we can’t. Not like this. And certainly not when he has Gorishitorik. The best we can hope for is that one of us gets lucky and we kill him before he kills us.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Varest hissed.

  “It’s true.” Breton hesitated, hating himself even as he struggled to speak the words he had no choice about saying. “We kill him, if we can.”

  “And what if we can’t?” Ceres whispered.

  “Then we’ll just be among the first to die.” Maiten touched his elbow. “I’m sorry, Breton.”

  “So am I,” he replied. He wiped his eyes, clenched his teeth together, and drew several deep breaths. “Wait until we have an opportunity. Then we get this over with, one way or another.”

  ~~*~~

  Breton kept close to Maiten, sliding his feet over the rain-slicked cobbles. Without the lightning, the day was as dark as night. The rattling of the chain armor was loud without the thunder to mask it.

  “Wait,” he said. Maiten twisted around to face him, and Breton held out his sword. “Hold this, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” a woman’s voice whispered just loud enough to be heard. “Your life will surely end without it.”

  “Crysallis,” he said. The rain pattered on the ground, and he stared at the ripples each drop left at his feet. “What are you doing here? How did you get here? We thought the Rift had taken you!”

  “May the divines save me from fools,” the witch said with a huffed laugh. “I’m helping you, of course. You have been quite difficult to find. Even harder than it was to find him.”

  “We’re too late for him,” he growled out. “You must enjoy watching the succession.”

  “I could say the same for you,” she replied. “Or do you intend to take part this time as the main participant?”

  Breton whirled around. As always, her face was ageless, the visage of a middle-aged woman still touched by beauty, but there was nothing kind or beautiful about her smile. Her dark eyes bore into his and challenged him. At her feet, Ceres and Varest lay still. Flashes of gold sparked around her hands. “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t hurt them. Now, will you be a good Guardian and obey, or will you join them until my business here is finished? Aren’t I generous, Breton? Maiten? I spared them from seeing something they really shouldn’t.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, swallowed, and tried again, but no words emerged. Crysallis closed the distance behind him and reached up to stroke his cheek. A tingle spread across his face. “You haven’t been taking good care of him, Maiten. He’s gotten thin.”

  “What are you doing, Crysallis? May the divines serve as my witness, if you harm them, I’ll destroy you.”

  Crysallis narrowed her eyes and her nails dug into Breton’s cheek. He tried to pull away, but his muscles refused to obey his command. The breath he meant to draw remained trapped in his throat and choked him.

  She laughed. “As perceptive as ever. But, you can’t do anything to me, Maiten. You’re not a real witch. You’re little more than a charlatan with a clever mind and a little more will than most. None of you will interfere with me. Not this time. Not you, not him, none of you. Their lives for your oath that you won’t involve yourselves in this. Choose quickly.”

  “Crysallis!”

  Breton’s vision darkened, and all he could hear was a throb and a buzz in his ears.

  ~No!~ The denial hit Breton with the force of a blow and freed him enough from Crysallis’s influence to let him draw a ragged breath. The heat of anger chilled to a wrath so cold and unforgiving that the pain of it freed him completely. He staggered backward and Maiten caught him before he could fall.

  Something hard and sharp pelted his head and shoulders from above. Maiten let out a startled, pained curse. Chunks of mortar and brick splashed into the alley.

  “Impossible!” Crysallis cried out, looking up.

  Breton jerked his head skyward.

  A skreed clung to the roof of the building. The structure
buckled beneath its weight. It opened its mouth and its trilling song erased every other sound, mesmerizing him with its beauty. It bobbed its head. Its long, red tongue darted out to taste the air and the rain.

  Claws dug into Breton’s left shoulder from behind. Pain lanced through his shoulder and a cry was torn from his throat. The stench of a skreed’s breath was hot against his face and head. The skreed yanked him backwards, throwing him down on the cobbles of the market square. Maiten landed on top of him. Two of the skreed stood over them, bobbing their blocky heads while their tails slapped down against the ground. The blows broke through the stones, showering them with mud, rock, and water. The skreed pounded out a steady beat, a tempo that made his heart beat quicker.

  The drums of war sounded, and they were played by the skreed.

  “Take them all,” a voice shouted in Danarite

  Crysallis screamed in reply, and the thunder answered the woman’s rage with a crash. The sky burned with golden light. Bursts of static danced over the chain armor. Breton’s body jerked and twitched. The ground glowed white and blue.

  Lightning arced across the sky and lit the clouds with the same intensity of the noon sun.

  Maiten scrambled off of him, and Breton struggled to get to his feet. The back of Breton’s head collided with the skreed that towered over him. Claws drove him down to the ground and held him there. Maiten writhed and let out a curse before hammering at the creature’s leg with his fist.

  “Let me go, you overgrown legged serpent!”

  The laugh burst out before Breton could stop it. The skreed holding him let out a hooting call, and it was accompanied by the sense of amusement. Maiten’s command wasn’t obeyed. When Breton ceased to struggle, the skreed held him with the lightest pressure, pinpricks of pain marking where the tips of its curved talons rested.

  “Stay still,” he hissed at Maiten. The red-haired man jerked his head in a nod and obeyed.

  Through the muscular, scaled legs of the skreed, Breton watched the mercenaries draw closer. Half of them split away from the main ranks to circle the creature who had once been Kalen. His throat tightened. In the scuffle, he had lost his sword. Despite his height, he couldn’t beat such long weapons. Not with his hands alone, and not when there were so many of them.