The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three

by Craig R. Saunders

  In the Hall of Dead Kings, a great stone door moved aside.

  The stench of the long dead escaped the tomb. A great pained groan filled the air, and the Lich King arose to walk where the dead should not - through the living - to this cursed fate that awaited it.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Wexel and Asram, the newly appointed third Steward, stood either side of the throne. Roskel Farinder, the Thief King, stood behind the throne. The Thanes waited in their allotted places. The Witches Covenant, every witch of true power in the Kingdom. All waited.

  Rena held the babe in her arms. She shook. Her knees were weak. Sweat ran in a thin trickle down her back, but she felt cold. So cold.

  Selana kissed the young Queen that would have been on the cheek like a mother would a daughter and whispered in Rena's ear.

  'Be strong, Rena. Be strong, for he comes.'

  Rena resolved that she would be strong. Strong as she could be. Some part of that was the glamour that Selana put upon Rena with the kiss, though Rena did not know this. But more than that, Rena was strong in her heart, in her convictions, and in her love.

  But still she shook, a little less, maybe, but still...

  And then, shaking, her sweat drying in the cool air of the throne room, footsteps sounded outside the hall. Thundering footsteps.

  A man encased in heavy armour. The armour of a king.

  For all her resolution to be strong and brave, Rena cried unbidden as her only love came into the Throne room for the coronation that he had never had.

  Once, the Outlaw King, Tarn, the last king to sit upon the Throne of Sturma.

  Now the Lich King.

  A cold and awful king for cold and terrible times.

  His held his helm under his arm and his face was horrific to behold. The ravages of death were evident. He grinned and his flesh pulled tight against his face, gaunt in death unlike he'd been in life.

  Rena looked around and saw that she was not the only one to feel terror and sorrow in equal measures. And his aura...his aura that only she could see...it rivalled Selana herself. Within Tarn rested the power of the Kings...the powers vested in him by the Witches' Covenant...and yes, the power of death itself.

  The crown would bear the touch of none but a true king, and yet it floated in place above the throne. The Crown of Kings was an ancient artefact, as old as Sturma itself, perhaps older still.

  It held the power and memories of all the kings that had passed.

  Tarn, with that hideous grin upon his face, walked straight past his love, his only child, and his old friends without any acknowledgement at all. And as Tarn sat upon the throne, wordless, powerful beyond belief, and awful, the crown lowered itself onto his head.

  A strange light filled the King's eyes, and suddenly, in place of groans, he could speak.

  'Rena,' he said at last, and his voice was choked with emotion and the dust of the grave.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Rena ran forth and put her arms around her one and only love. She found him cold as the winter itself, but she did not flinch. She laid a kiss upon his leathery lips.

  'I never got a chance to say goodbye, my love,' she said.

  'Nor I,' said the Lich King. 'I have been pulled from the grave. I knew I would be. I did not despair in the fog nor beyond the gates, because Tulathia told me I would come again. In this haunted form, if it has to be. One last kiss, my love, for time is short and my time on Rythe is long done.'

  Rena kissed him hard, without reservation. He did not remark upon her missing eyes, and it was almost as though he did not notice. She did not remark on his coldness, for in truth she did not care. He was beautiful in her eyes, and she in his.

  'Show me,' said Tarn, with the best smile he could muster.

  Rena nodded to Selana. Selana brought forth the babe.

  'He's a hearty child.'

  'That he is. Takes after his father,' said Rena with a smile tempered with sadness.

  'He is a beautiful babe. What did you name him?'

  'Tarn. Of course.'

  Tarn took his son and heir in his arms and they both laughed, the babe and the Lich King.

  The Lich King's laugh was all too human, and Rena could not help but cry as her lover and husband, her child, too, laughed at each other.

  Tarn noticed her tears, though he did not notice that her eyes were gone, still.

  'Cry no more, my love. But I must go,' he said. 'Here. Take my son. I have work tonight. The work of a King.'

  Baby Tarn's laughing stopped as the King handed his son back to his wife.

  'Friends...' he said to the assemblage of the great and the bold before him. Epoch makers, all. 'I cannot stay. I am called forth for one purpose and I know it well. Roskel, my dearest friend...I will see you again before I go.'

  Roskel nodded. 'My King. My friend.'

  Tarn pushed himself to his feet and walked from the throne room a king at last, with the Crown of Kings and his grand armour glinting in the firelight.

  Rena stifled a sob as she watched him walk away into the night, and the night's dark work, but she held her back straight, as would a queen.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  A great pall of smoke and fog hung over the city and the armies outside. The witches dread spell allowed the Lich King to walk through the unnatural fog unseen. North, through the carnage, a wraith in armour.

  None saw him. He walked through the dead and living alike. In his path rubble, bodies, discarded goods...the detritus of a war. He stepped over each, his path straight and true. Ever north. Toward the pavilion and the end of his road. Toward his true purpose.

  Once he thought his purpose had been to kill a man.

  And now, dead, a killer still.

  Would he ever find peace? Tarn wondered, but even in his thoughts, he was a cold dead thing. He could feel no pain, not the pain of his death and his dry, creaking limbs. He could feel no emotion, save that which had lead him along this final path of his. The bridge had summoned him forth, from beyond Madal's Gates...to this. To this...afterlife. This undeath. This abomination.

  Even cold as his mind was in death, he knew he did not belong on this world any longer. His time had passed, and things were not as they should be. He should have been granted eternal rest.

  Would there, could there, ever be peace for such as him?

  He did not know. It did not matter. He had one goal, and one goal only. This time, he would not be a killer of men. This was no longer the geas put upon him by his friend and witch Tulathia when he had been a living thing. This was his true duty, and he recognised it as such. No, he would kill no man, no more. Just one death would be enough, could he achieve that which he had been called back for. The death of a creature both cunning and deadly. A creature pure evil. But not a man, this one. No man, but the Hierophant.

  The battle to come would herald a new age, an age of chance and hope.

  Should he lose, it would instead signal the end of Rythe itself. He knew this well, for beyond the gates there was no time, just knowledge. Tarn was privy to knowledge no mortal, no living creature, could ever hold within their fragile minds.

  In his death, he saw all futures, all paths, all of creation itself. Madal's kingdom was everything.

  He had seen. He knew. And the Hierophant and the Line of Kings were the two lynchpins on which the fate of Rythe, of worlds untold, rested.

  He could not lose. He would not lose.

  And, if this undeath of his was the price, then he would pay. For Sturma. For Rythe. For all the worlds touched by the Sun Destroyers dark hands.

  So he walked, straight. North. Through death and destruction. Through the ranks of soldiers as though nothing more than a wraith, though he was solid enough.

  Walked on to meet this second, stolen destiny in the arms of battle.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Tarn entered and the Hierophant, at last, stood before him. Here
he was, the true author of all the tragedies of Tarn's short life. The face of pure evil. The enemy of Sturma, his progeny, his wife, all that he loved, even. The antithesis of love. Hatred, pain, agony...this was what fueled this ancient creature.

  His hair was greying, and on his alien face the lighter hair lent the Hierophant a wise, almost benevolent air. Though none could be fooled, with one look into his scarlet eyes.

  Tarn knew much, from beyond the gate. Knew the red eyes for a sign of what they were. The Blight.

  May one day all your kind fall to it, he thought in his cold dead manner, completely without emotion.

  Cold, like death itself. And the grave was cold indeed.

  Tarn stared into those blood red eyes, looking for some hint of humanity there. Something salvageable. But he saw nothing but an end for one of them...perhaps both. Just as when he faced the Thane of Naeth on the other side of life, this meeting would end with one of their deaths.

  Yet Tarn was already dead.

  There was no one else under the canopy. It was warm inside the pavillion, with braziers lit all around. Yet the warm did little to touch Tarn. He was unfeeling. Thinking, yes, bound by duty, but unfeeling. Nothing could touch him. Nothing.

  Tarn grinned. The Hierophant grinned back.

  The Hierophant, for his part, did not waste time on confusion or illusion. He did not waste time on conversation.

  The whys, the whos, of having a dead man visit you in your pavilion...none of that mattered. Both creatures, no longer mortal, knew the import of their meeting. That Tarn had come for the Hierophant's death was never in doubt.

  Tarn drew his sword. It was a plain steel sword. His blade, hard earned from his old mentor and adopted father Gard...it seemed like an age ago, but in reality it had been a mere two years.

  That sword was not regal. It was plain, sharp. Meant for the business of death.

  Tarn held his sword before his face.

  The Hierophant threw his fire. Baleful fire that burned brightly blue with heat fueled by the Hierarch's hate for all that Tarn stood for, all that he represented. This dead being represented hope, life, love, and the Hierophant's hate for such base ideals and emotions was towering.

  Fire and blade met, and the blade sliced through the ball of blue fire. The pavilion behind caught alight instantly, letting in the cold winter air mixed with the heat of burning canvas.

  Neither creature was bothered by the sudden gusting wind nor the destruction of their surroundings. The Hierophant barked a laugh.

  'Dead man, you will burn...' said the Hierophant, and from his eyes streamed a great gout of continuous fire, hotter than anything natural save perhaps one of Rythe's twin suns.

  Tarn stepped forward, through the fire. He did not strain. He simply stepped deeper into the inferno, driving forward, his blade held before him like a ward, though the fire still reached his flesh. He felt nothing, though he knew his skin was roasting, his skin falling from his face. He knew the smell of charred meat well enough, and knew the pavilion would be full of the stench of it.

  But his dead body did not matter. The Crown of Kings that he wore upon his head kept him whole with its ancient magic. His kingly armour took the worst of the fire, and his flesh did not feel. Why would he feel? The breeze of the cold winter, the baleful fire...it did not matter to his dead flesh.

  At the last, Tarn's flesh mostly gone, he stood before the enemy. The Hierophant cursed and spat as fire continued to pour forth from his blighted eyes.

  The Hierophant was the only enemy of this age that truly mattered. He was the author of Sturma's ills, the greatest threat to Rythe herself.

  And now his flame was burned out.

  The Hierophant saw his end in Tarn's blackened gaze, and then, without words or hatred, Tarn's sword found home.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  In the end, Tarn watched the dried out husk of the Hierophant turn to dust on the floor.

  Years of battle. Thousands dead.

  The ending of loves before they had truly begun. The fall of the great and the good and the evil and the meanest paupers and all the other deaths that surrounded this war of an age.

  And, he knew much more. Knew of the three that would come to oppose the Return. The Return of the Sun Destroyers. He knew of Caeus, and what rested upon that creatures Gods' forsaken powers.

  He wondered, little more than charred meat himself, if he was any different to the Hierophant. Was he so different to a creature that had cheated death for centuries by feasting on mortal souls and agony?

  Of course you are, said a voice in the fog.

  Tulathia.

  Tarn did not grin, but he would have, had his flesh not been charred beyond recognition.

  The Outlaw King, the Lich King, stepped outside the pavilion as the Hierophant's magic reversed, and a great portal opened in the sky. Hierarchy and Protocrat alike, those that had used the portal's magic to travel to Sturma, flew through the air, some screaming, dragged into the vortex, back to wherever it was the vortex lead.

  Lianthre, thought Tarn. A land far distant. May they all die when they fall back home.

  Time to say goodbye, said Tulathia, unseen.

  Tarn nodded. He knew Tulathia waited to guide him back home...back to Madal's embrace. He was not afraid. He removed the Crown of Kings for a moment and donned his full-faced helm.

  His love could not see his ravaged face again.

  He placed the Crown atop his helm, and walked through the mist and screaming soldiers back to the Castle of Naeth, and, he hoped, peace for his warrior soul.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  As Tarn walked unseen through the fog, he sensed the suns' rising not far off. His time upon this land was done. In truth, he should not be here now. He was an abomination. This, he understood.

  Man should not return from beyond the gates. And yet he had. He had. He was here, striding through the fog and fires of a destroyed city.

  Heading, for the last time, to say goodbye.

  Unnatural or not, he could not pass up the chance to say one final farewell to his true love. His Rena. Maybe to hold the babe in his arms once more...maybe to clasp hands, one last time, with his friends.

  Folly and stupidity, he knew, because he did not belong. His time was done. Or, it should have been. He should not be here. Yet the loves of his life lived called to him, held him on the world of Rythe with even more power than the witch kin's dreadful summoning.

  As he strode through the ravaged city, horns sounded, then, shortly, the thunder of hooves. Tarn saw the remnants of the Sturman army, proud men all, ride forth from the castle. Soon, battle was joined. The Hierarchs threw their magic, but within the mystic fog their terrible fires were lost.

  It would be steel against steel, and Tarn thought that maybe, just maybe, Sturma would prevail.

  *

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Roskel waited for Tarn in the Throne Room, his heart full of sorrow because even without the Seer's sight, even just a mortal man as he was, he knew full well his duty, and what must come to pass before the suns early rise, before the dawn of this new, free age. Before the dawn of years, a millenium, without threat from the slumbering and defeated Hierarchy.

  Yes, he thought with overwhelming sadness...I know my duty.

  He smiled sadly at his King, encased in full armour, right up to his helm, as the Lich entered the throne room. This time, for the last time. It seemed the King was destined to die within his throne room one more time.

  'Old friend,' he said. 'Upon your death you told me I would need to perform a service for you. I never knew it would be this.'

  Roskel remembered well the conversation that he and Tarn had will Tarn had died - the first time - upon his throne.

  Tarn, fully helmed, withdrew his blade, tempered in the Heirophant's fires. He turned it hilt first toward his truest friend.

  'You have to,' said Tarn. His voice was husky from death and fire. 'Don't let her s
ee me like this. No more. I'm done, Roskel.'

  'Tarn...Tarn...must it be this?'

  'I would have no other end than this,' said Tarn, and Roskel sensed his old friend and his liege smiling, despite his ravaged dead body and the helm between them. Roskel could not even see his friend's eyes.

  He wasn't sure his friend had eyes left. All he could see through the slit in Tarn's helm was a blackened mess. His friend stank, too...like a charred corpse.

  Of course he stank like a charred corpse, thought Roskel. For that's what he is. He is just a memory.

  Roskel nodded and with a shaking hand took the proferred blade. He knew there was no other way. Things could never be the way they were. This was Tarn, his old friend. But he was a dead man, too. He could not stay.

  Nor would Tarn allow it.

  'Then, farewell at last, my King,' said Roskel and drew the blade back.

  'Stop!' came a sob at the door. 'Stop!'

  Rena stood at the door, her chest heaving with wracking cries. Her eyes streamed with tears. 'Would you leave, once more, without saying goodbye?'

  She held up the babe up to see his father.

  But Tarn could not see. He could not cry. He had no eyes left, and the only thing holding him together was armour, the Crown of Kings, and witches' magic.

  He was a husk, a dry lover. Nothing more than a corpse.

  'Goodbye, Rena, my first and only love. Goodbye, baby Tarn,' he said. 'My son.'

  Rena sobbed harder than she had ever cried before, but she, too, knew what must be done. She turned her head away, even now, unable to witness the destruction of the first and only man she had ever loved.

  Her pain was immense, but her pride in her man, too, huge.

  'Roskel, do it,' said Tarn. 'Take the blade and ends this unlife.'

  Rena held in her tears at the end. Roskel was grateful. The last sound a warrior heard should not be the crying of his woman, but of blade on flesh and steel.