The Servant Crown: Ice Dragon Tales, #3

by Hurri Cosmo

  “Wubbing my bunny on you!” Aydin squealed as he rubbed the bunny in Tama’s hair, making the strands stand straight up off his head. Tama could feel the snapping as if the rabbit were alive and tiny paws were pulling on his hair, which made Aydin laugh so hard he peed his pants.

  As if in a dream, Tama reached out and picked the rabbit up, the snapping sparks tickling his hand, and he felt that tingle flow immediately through his body, frightening him even more than the walking trees had. But it had an odd effect. The trees stopped moving right where they were and once again took root.

  Tama pulled on the sleeve of his shirt, which had somehow gotten in the way of one of those roots, but it was held fast to the ground. Tama reached over with the hand that still held the rabbit to either loosen the root or tear his sleeve. Inadvertently, he touched the root with the rabbit, and when it made contact, the gnarly thing immediately withered and died, releasing Tama’s sleeve.

  Amazed and confused, he scrambled to his feet and ran to touch the tree that the king was wrestling. The second he did, it withered in the same way. It seemed to scream, then died, even as it attempted to take root once more. It failed and fell over, void of motion and life. He ran and touched a few more with the same results, the others, sensing that they were about to be touched, hurried off into the darkening forest.

  The princess’s soldiers didn’t stick around either. They pulled their terrified horses around and thundered out of the clearing, which was no longer much of one, now filled with dead trees, some standing, most fallen. It was obvious they intended on getting as far away from Dark Marsh as possible, leaving the princess sitting on the muddy ground, crying out for them to stop.

  It was a curious thing to see. Tama knew he should study exactly what had just happened, but his Aydin was in danger; there was no time.

  Suddenly he was being engulfed by warm arms and wet kisses.

  “Tama! Tama, my angel, are you all right? Oh, Tama, I dreamed of holding you again.”

  “Your Majesty!”

  “Answer me, are you okay?”

  “Yes. But Aydin! That witch has him!”

  She darted around a corner on the dark path that led into more of those gnarly trees.

  Diagus pulled away from Tama. “We need to go after her. Don’t worry, we’ll get him back. Aydin? That’s his name?” Grabbing Tama’s hand, Diagus dragged Tama with him as he set out after the witch.

  “Y…yes. Aydin. It means…”

  “Little prince,” Diagus shouted, not turning his head from his quest to catch sight of the old women once more.

  “Little?”

  “I extrapolated.”

  “It means prince only.”

  “And prince he is. Come!” He pulled Tama toward that same curve in the path.

  “Sire!”

  Tama looked back and saw Stomund scrambling to keep up with them, shouting orders for two of his men to take the princess into custody and one other to keep care of the horses since they were going in on foot. One other man was down off his horse and after Stomund, evidently perceiving he was to follow to help protect the king.

  The path led into the woods. But it was far from a normal wood. It was made from the stuff of nightmares, looking exactly like the trees that had attacked them. The only good thing about these trees was that they seemed to be rooted and were not picking up and coming after them. Still, their sharp and prickly branches bent in a wind that had suddenly come up, and seemed to be reaching for them, grabbing at them, as they tried to pass.

  The king had pulled his sword, as did Stomund and Ritman, the name of the other Blade Rain soldier who followed. Between the three of them, they hacked their way through the barrage of brush attempting to block the way. Tama knew it was the sound the wind was making, or at least would go forward believing it was, but the screams he heard sounded very much like they were coming from the wounded trees as they lost limbs to the fierceness and accuracy of the king’s swords.

  And then, around the corner where the witch had gone, the path suddenly gave way to swamp. Tama search the surrounding gloom, and about twenty feet ahead of them, he spotted the witch standing on solid ground. However, there was a ribbon of moving, seemingly boiling, water right in front of them that had swallowed the path completely. It was impossible to get to where the witch was without going through the water. Tama pulled Diagus to a stop as the witch began to speak.

  “The wildlife in this forest and beneath these waters listen to my command,” she shouted to them. “Come no closer, or I will sic them on you.” To accentuate her words, she raised a hand and bolts of light came from her fingers. Tama looked warily down into the waters that now surrounded them. The small piece of land they stood on had become an island as the water rushed over the path behind them. Stomund and Ritman were stranded on yet another island ten to fifteen feet behind them.

  “She speaks the truth, Your Majesty. There are deadly fish in these waters,” Tama whispered from behind Diagus.

  “Yes, I am well aware. I have already lost a man to her vicious pets.” Diagus put up a hand to stop Stomund and Ritman from attempting to cross to them. “It’s too dangerous, my friend. Stay back.”

  “But Sire, you need my sword.”

  “I need you to stay alive. That is a direct order.”

  “We’re trapped here, Your Majesty.” Tama heard the terror in his own voice as he looked at the laughing witch who was now holding Aydin up in the air. What was she going to do?

  “I know. But I am sure an opportunity will present itself.” He pulled Tama into a hug. “I won’t let her harm my son.”

  Tama jerked his head up to meet Diagus’s smiling gaze. “That’s right! You know!”

  “Yes, I do. I have only just learned this happy news. And I accept Aydin as my own…” A shadow seemed to pass through Diagus. “I have learned other things today as well.” He shook his head and turned toward the witch, who had begun to chant something.

  Tama could not make out the words, but she had taken out a vial and was pouring droplets from it onto Aydin’s head as she shifted her weight from foot to foot in time with her mantra. Aydin stopped crying and stiffened as the chant continued.

  “What is she doing?” Tama cried. “She’s doing something to Aydin!”

  But clearly something was also happening to Diagus, as well. A trance had fallen over him, and Tama watched as the soft skin of Diagus’s arm began to harden.

  “What’s happening?” shouted Stomund from his island.

  “I don’t know!” screamed Tama. “But something is happening to both of them!”

  Bark. That’s what this was. The king’s skin was turning to bark.

  “Your Majesty!” Tama shouted again. “Diagus! What’s happening?”

  “Tama, what the fuck is happening over there?”

  Tama glanced back at Stomund who looked like he was trying to cross without stepping in the water. Finding no way, he appeared to have decided he could brave the malicious fish and made to step forward. Just then a monstrous eel-type thing made itself known by breaking the top of the water, roaring out some ancient bellow, which showed off rows and rows of tiny, deadly sharp teeth, and disappeared beneath the surface once again. Stomund stopped dead in his tracks and lifted a much paler face to stare at Tama.

  “Stay there, Stomund.” Tama whimpered. “You would never make it to the king anyway.” Tama turned again to Diagus.

  “But, Tama! What is happening?”

  “The king is being turned into one of these ugly trees!”

  “What?”

  Tama jerked his head to study the witch and the space that stood between them. So close, yet totally unreachable. Tama saw those horrible fish leaping in the water, chomping their teeth, and coming close to both the king’s and his feet. Only the king no longer had feet. His legs had turned to trunks and where his boots had once been, only roots remained, roots that were digging their way into the dirt and winding their way to the deadly water.

 
If only he could get to the witch! But even if Tama could reach the witch, what could he do? Because Aydin, too, was changing, his skin looking like it was becoming bark as well.

  “You can’t stop it now.” She cackled. “I will finally have my full power back. Oh, finally, once again the blood of that devil, DinRau, will be fueling my magic. No one will ever stop me!” She laughed. “And you, King Diagus. Did you know that you really are not the king? Is that shocking to you? Oh, I know you can still hear me. You will always be able to hear me. Until I have used all your life essence, that is. Then you will become like so many of these dead trees around us. Merely one more decoration in my forest of enslaved spirits. What’s that, you ask? Who is your true father? Of course, I will tell you! I have been dying to tell you! Duke Mormir of Stone Mire. Imagine that, a lowly duke!”

  She laughed again as she shifted Aydin in her arms. “You are getting heavy, son of Diagus. Soon you, too, will be rooted here in this swamp, offering up your young and powerful essence to me. Giving me the long life I will need in order to harvest my Rabbit Rose nectar twenty years from now. But don’t worry, my sweet. I won’t start taking from you until I have finished with your father.” She turned her attention back to Diagus. “One more wonderful aspect of this day, King Diagus, is I finally can bring about my revenge on your mother. Yes! Somehow that clever human was able to kill both of my sisters. And now, I, at last, have the satisfaction of slowly and painfully killing her son!”

  Tama felt a pop in his hand from the fake rabbit and looked down to his hand. The thing was still snapping with energy. He watched, mesmerized, as the fur, continuing to stick out from its body, gave off crackles of light. Tama rubbed a hand over it and the power that surged through it hissed with his touch.

  Could this help again? How? He looked up at the king. If he were to touch it to him, would Diagus die like the other tress? He couldn’t risk it. But there was one being he didn’t mind death taking.

  Tama glared at the witch, lifted the rabbit, said a prayer for accuracy and pitched the thing with all his might straight at the old woman’s head.

  The rabbit flew, seemingly in slow motion, toward the witch and Aydin. A smile replaced the frown on his boy, as the fake rabbit ears appeared to spread and help it in flight. The furry talisman sailed for the witch’s face, and when it struck her, a bright flash filled the air.

  The witch screamed.

  And screamed.

  And was suddenly silent.

  It was just a small fake rabbit filled with forest gatherings. And the love of a child.

  Immediately the witch dropped Aydin who was no longer stiff and was appeared to be returning to normal even as he watched. It was the witch who was now twisting and writhing and quickly turning to bark. Her arms split as the branches formed, crooked fingers reaching for a dull sky, her body bending as it took on the appearance of old wood. Her face contorted into a large burr on the side of the still-forming tree, her mouth welded permanently open in a frozen scream. Soon, she no longer even resembled a person. No leaves formed on her branches. Instead, the tree looked old, ancient, and dead. The rabbit laid at the base of her trunk.

  Aydin crawled over, picked it up, and hugged it to himself. Then looked up at Tama. “Papa?”

  The water receded as well. Tama glanced quickly at the king, remembering suddenly that he, too, had been turning into a tree, but he was fine, just like Aydin.

  Breathing hard, his mouth open, eyes wide, he turned to Tama. “What…what happened?”

  Tama hugged him hard and then splashed across the now shallow water to his Aydin, who held up tiny arms to be picked up.

  “Papa! Bad wady gone!”

  “Yes, my sweet. The bad lady is gone.”

  Chapter 11

  The sun had come out. Diagus hadn’t even realized it was gone until it was brightly shining down on his small group. His skin felt dry and itchy when he rubbed his forearms, and his boots were shredded, but that was about it. Maybe he was a little achy, but there were no other ill effects from being turned into a tree. Even the distant pain, he figured, was probably just his imagination. Being turned into a tree while being aware of the process was a bit traumatizing.

  The waters had not only receded but also cleared. There was no indication of the killer fish or the giant eel that Stomund insisted had been in the water. Clearly, the creatures were part of some ancient magic that had now dissipated. Still, they would be cautious. There was no reason to step foot in the deeper waters. They would stay on the path.

  He had inspected the gnarly old rotted tree that had once been the witch. Was he wrong in thrilling over the fact she had gotten to taste her own medicine in the end? Because it was the end. She was dead. Her magic slowly dying with her. Those other odd trees in the forest, her collection of decorations, seemed to be withering as well, turning to dust, giving up their captive souls finally to a peaceful rest. He could just make them out as they rose like thin smoke.

  They trudged back to where they first encountered the witch, back to where three of Diagus’s men still stood, two guarding the princess and the other, the horses. There, too, where forests of ugly, gnarly old trees once stood, were now normal trees, spread out across the landscape, real trees, not created by incantations and forfeited souls.

  “I wonder if one of those other trees had been Kelay.” Tama adjusted a sleepy Aydin in his arms. “The witch came to our house the day Aydin was born, claiming to be a midwife. She must have taken Kelay because she died while that woman was standing over her bedside. Kelay was young and healthy. Until she came.” A tear spilled down Tama’s face.

  “Yes. Kelay. I remember her. Beautiful and sweet.” And he did. She had been that small talented “man” who had ridden him in the wee morning hours that time out by Gray Valley. The name was definitely familiar. So, that made the babe the rumored “Diagus blue-eyed” person in that area. But of course, Diagus had been looking for a grown being, not a child. Had he inquired about a child, he might have found Tama long before any of this had started. He held his hands out for the child, and Tama gratefully gave him over.

  Holding Aydin with one arm, he pulled Tama to his side with the other. “I doubt any of those trees were her. It seems to me a body was necessary to form them. Most likely they were all people she lured here with her selfish and evil promises. She fed off those people’s greed. But you buried Kelay.”

  “Still, the witch had to have had something to do with her death.”

  “No doubt. But, like all the rest of what she bound in black magic, even Kelay has been set free. She will rest in peace, now.”

  Tama laid his head on Diagus’s shoulder, an act that seemed so perfect in its simplicity. “I hate her. I want to defeat her again just for knowing that now. Use my hands.”

  “Shhhh. No. Never hate your enemy. The only way to survive this and move forward is to accept what has happened, learn from our mistakes, and move on. We were on the winning side today. We need to be grateful.” Diagus almost laughed at himself. He could well imagine his old nemesis, Aric Tamusi, saying such a profound thing. He even remembered teasing the big man mercilessly about his lofty ideals and noble goals. And now he was thinking these things, too? Would wonders never cease?

  It had to be due to an angel’s influence.

  “You will need to show me Kelay’s grave.”

  Tama looked up at him and after a moment, nodded. “Thank you. I will.”

  “King Diagus?”

  Diagus turned to the princess. He was surprised the woman had remained quiet all this time. She had even remained seated on the ground, which Diagus thought odd. As angry as he should be at her for what she had endeavored to do, he just wasn’t. He would see to it that she was punished for her deeds but for the moment, he would give her his time.

  “Yes?”

  “What’s to happen to me?”

  Just then another woman, older, very obviously pregnant, stumbled out of the forest. “Annen?” she called out.

/>   “Mother!” Princess Annen rose to her feet and ran to the woman who was having a difficult time standing by herself. When the princess reached her, threw her arms around her, still shouting out “Mother, mother, mother,” they both went to the ground. Both Diagus and Tama ran to them as well, Tama helping them to stand. “Oh, mother! Both Papa and I thought you were gone forever!” She was crying, unable to let go of the older woman until “mother” was able to pry her daughter’s arms from her neck.

  “Sweetheart! Let me catch my breath!” She held her stomach, looking at it with what appeared to be confusion on her face.

  “I’m sorry, Mother, but I’m just so happy to see you!”

  “And I you, but… I don’t understand what you’re even doing here.”

  “I was here to save you.”

  Diagus raised an eyebrow as he considered Annen’s self-appreciating tone. As if she were somehow a hero by what it was she attempted. “Yes, save you by sacrificing my child.” But even as he spoke, he cocked his head, trying to discern the far-off noise he’d just heard. Was there someone else in the wood?

  The older women jerked her head up to stare at Diagus, who turned his attention back to her. She then studied her daughter. “What are you two talking about? Save me?” She glared at Diagus. “Who are you, young man? And what is it that you are doing here with my daughter?” She glanced at the child in his arms. “Whose child is that?” Then she squinted her eyes at her surroundings, a changed landscape from what she most likely remembered. “And what in the world is going on here? This all looks…different. I’m… different.” She once again gazed down at her midsection.

  Diagus huffed. He hardly cared anything at all about her confusion. It was undoubtedly her fault the whole chain of events had begun, some selfish thing she desired that had brought her to Dark Marsh to bargain for.

  “Oh, I assure you, Your Majesty,” Diagus drawled, “I am assuming you are Ariope Novou, Queen of Thunder Wolf Kingdom? Let me make it perfectly clear, I am not here with your daughter.”