“This is the part where we wait, my nephew,” Maran said to the prince.
To their intense disappointment, they didn’t have very long to wait. Within a quarter hour, they heard voices and movement outside the door to the crypt. They had already ascertained that Rill knew how to defend himself and was almost as capable with a weapon as Birch and Maran. Birch wasn’t worried about the young prince in a fight unless the odds were overwhelming. Unfortunately, judging by the increasing sounds on the far side of the door, overwhelming would only begin to describe the forces arrayed against them.
“If it won’t offend either of you, perhaps we can block the door and at least stall them,” Birch said. “If we use the covers of these sarcophaguses, we can barricade the door and give them one more thing to get past before they reach us.”
Maran shook his head. “It won’t work. The door swings both in and out, and if they can’t move it in toward us, they’re likely to just swing it out instead.”
“But we can make it more difficult for them to rush us by putting a few obstacles in their way,” Birch persisted.
“If we can move them, I wouldn’t mind,” Maran replied. “Your highness?”
“Our ancestors will forgive us this necessity. Let’s do it,” Rill said resolutely.
Maran and Rill each took one end of the nearest sarcophagus lid ─ which turned out to be that of Maran’s brother ─ and Birch stood facing the door and gripping the long edge of the lid. They pushed and strained until Birch was afraid blood vessels would burst in his face, but only managed to shift the lid an inch or so. They left off, red-faced and panting heavily. Just before Birch ceased, however, he felt a surge of strength and focused inwardly. A rush of fire swept through his blood in an instant, suffusing him with power.
“Move aside,” he managed to shout, then abruptly he flung the lid across the room to crash into the doorway. The stone slab boomed and cracked, but held together. It lay flat and carved-face-up, almost touching the door. Maran and Rill stared at Birch in stunned amazement, but he was already moving to the next sarcophagus. With a better idea what to expect, he was able to control the sudden, inhuman strength, and he lifted the stone lid like it weighed nothing at all. Birch walked closer and laid it carefully down atop the first one, creating a small wall of stone over a foot high.
“One more should do it,” he said as he dusted off his hands and walked to the next sarcophagus.
“No time!” Maran cried.
The door shifted inward and ran into their barricade, then pulled back and out to reveal a hallway filled with red-tinged elves wearing black clothing and bearing a lethal assortment of weapons. Pressed by those behind them, two leapt forward overzealously and immediately tripped on the barricade of stone lids and fell with several others pressed atop them. All too quickly, the next few elves rushed into the room past their fallen comrades.
Birch gripped the stone lid nearest to him and hurled it across the room, crushing the foremost elves beneath the tremendous weight of the sarcophagus cover. They collapsed backward, bearing more of the attacking elves to the ground beneath them. The general chaos caused by this jumble gave Birch and the others time to react. Maran and Rill darted forward and killed whatever elves were in reach, adding to the immovable mass that blocked the door.
Birch slid another sarcophagus lid halfway off so it bridged the narrow aisle between the rows of tombs, giving him quicker access to another crushing attack if necessary. Then he stood near a closer sarcophagus and gripped the stone, preparing to launch it across the room.
Maran and Rill fell back as the chaos subsided and their attackers regained some semblance of order in their assault. They gathered behind the wall of stone and dead bodies, then rushed out from the sides. Birch lifted the stone lid high over his head and yelled, “Duck!” then threw the lid as hard as he could.
One unlucky elf couldn’t evade as quickly as his comrades, and he was lifted off his feet by the flying stone and smashed against the stone obstacle. The elf’s chest was completely flattened by the force of the impact, but the stone knocked other lids out of the way and cleared more of the doorway for the attacking elves to enter. Before Birch could turn and use the other lid as a weapon, the room was filled with red-tinged Do, and he took up his sword instead. His hand burned even more intensely than before, but he shut the pain away in the rush of the moment. With a brief thought, and without knowing quite how he did it, Birch was suddenly clad in full, shining platemail armor instead of just his breastplate.
Thought disappeared under the necessity of battle, and Birch lost himself as elf after elf fell under his blade. Maran and Rill fought with deadly efficiency, and for a while they were able to press their attackers back to the doorway and hold them there. But their numbers proved too great, and the trio was forced further and further back into the room. Maran broke away from the fight long enough to provide a new shadow light to illuminate their battle, which gave Birch an idea.
“Maran,” he said through clenched teeth as he fought off another attack. “Can you extinguish not only your light but any they might put up?”
“We won’t be able to see,” Maran protested.
“You won’t, and they won’t, but I still can,” Birch replied, breathing heavily as he found himself without an opponent for a few seconds. “Can you do it? Between you and Rill, can you keep them from making their own lights?”
“We can try,” Rill replied instead. “At the very least, it may buy us a little time and thin their numbers that much more.”
“Do it.”
At his next break, Maran stepped back and pointed at the light he’d created, which was now in front of them. The light disappeared, and their attackers faltered for a moment. Birch took advantage of their confusion to cut down two elves, and he wounded another before he could fall back. The light in the room grew even more dim as Rill cancelled out another light further away, and then Birch was relying on his fiery night vision alone. He quickly finished off the nearest elves before they could recover, then moved forward as quietly as he could to attack the others. His platemail was gone in an instant so it wouldn’t clank and give away his position, but Birch kept his thoughts carefully poised to bring back the plate-armor protection.
In the noise and confusion of the sudden blackness, Birch was able to creep up on several more elves and kill them before they knew he was there. One or two put up feeble defenses as they sensed his presence, but by the time black lights started to flicker into being, Birch had already cut down a dozen more elves. Maran and Rill tried valiantly to cancel out the lights as soon as they appeared, and for a time the flickering confusion of lights going on and off helped Birch’s endeavors, but eventually the sheer number of lights being created outweighed their ability to stop them, and Birch lost his momentary advantage.
He resumed his platemail and continued fighting as Maran and Rill rushed forward to help him. They had regained nearly all of the ground they had lost.
The fighting raged on and off for what seemed like hours, and Birch was certain they had been within the crypt for days with no hope of a respite. Bloody elven faces swam in Birch’s vision as a dozen elves died before them, then a dozen more. It seemed their numbers were never-ending, and Birch momentarily despaired. Then he noticed a new sound and grinned. Hoil’s bellow echoed from the hallway outside the crypt, and Birch let out a yell of his own in answer. The elven assassins made a desperate attempt to finish them off before Hoil arrived to reinforce Birch and the royal elven pair.
And then Hoil was there with a vengeful Siran at his side. The elven guard clove through the attacking Do elves with a fierce efficiency, and within minutes there were none left to stand before him.
The silence was deafening in the wake of the bloody battle, and the five survivors stared mutely at the carnage around them. Elves lay hacked to pieces and crushed beneath stone slabs, and the floor was coated with thick puddles of sticky blood. They left bloody footprints where the stones were cle
an as they walked from the room into the hallway. Each of them bore numerous wounds, and Hoil limped from a deep gash on his right leg.
“Is it over?” Rill asked.
“Yes, your highness,” Hoil answered respectfully in a tired voice. “Or very nearly so, I imagine.”
“How long have we been here?” Birch asked.
“It’s nearly midday,” his brother answered. “It took us forever to find you three. The two main contingents of assassins were concentrated here and in the throne room. You and your grandfather were the targets,” Hoil said, looking at Rill.
“And my grandfather?” Rill asked, turning to the elven captain.
Siran’s mute eyes tightened. “Your majesty,” he said finally, bowing deeply.
“I see.”
“How did it happen?” Maran asked, his face a stone mask.
Siran was silent. Barely discernible behind his impassive face, Birch could see the elf’s eyes were haunted.
“There were too many of them,” Hoil answered when it was clear Siran would not. “There were only a dozen guards left alive when we arrived, and three of those invisible Do were helping to defend the king. I don’t even want to speculate how much they threw against us, but whatever it was, they lost it all. That elf in the purple robes, Duckhead or whatever…”
“Decein,” Rill supplied.
“Right, him. He said he was the one behind it, but then one of the attacking Do killed him anyway, which I’m not sure I understand,” Hoil admitted. He shrugged. “Maybe they were just using him. Regardless, they whittled down our numbers until it was just Siran, myself, that big elf bodyguard from this morning, and one of the loyal Do who refused to leave the king’s side. The king died only after the Do had been stabbed twice through the chest. The second blow went through his body and into the king as he tried to protect him.”
“Who was he?” Siran asked, breaking his silence.
“He was no one,” Maran and Rill replied in one voice.
- 2 -
In the aftermath of the regicide and attempted coup, Siran headed a task force devoted to wiping out any remaining assassins in the palace. They found only a dozen or so not already slain and cut them down without mercy. Rill had wanted to hold some for questioning, but it turned out to be unnecessary, so he gave the order to kill.
Thanks to the insights of Perklet, Moreen, and Nuse, while the battle in the palace was taking place, Maran’s faction of Do had been busy tracking down the invaders’ hiding places and purging them of traitors, several of whom were captured. Maran’s warning had come in just enough time for the Do’Fidel to assemble and block several groups from reaching the palace, else the fighting would have been much worse. The attacking elves had evidently intended to take the entire palace by surprise and fill it with their own forces to make the structure unassailable until they were firmly in power. Maran’s sister had provided enough warning and upset their timetables so they’d had to hasten their attack before they were all assembled.
Only a few of the loyal Do had been able to infiltrate into the castle in time to help defend the king, and most of them had died trying to reach their liege. The pair that arrived to reinforce the king’s lone defender were all that survived that far. The battle had taken a terrible toll on the royal guards and Do’Fidel both, but with the remaining traitors being rounded up and either questioned or slaughtered, the danger was past.
Birch found that Nuse and Perklet had taken Moreen and Selti to a cellar to hide and had passed most of the battle without seeing anyone. Perklet used his skills as a healer to help the survivors recover more quickly, but the quiet paladin eventually exhausted himself, and he fell asleep for a whole day. Nuse’s limited healing abilities tired out much sooner, but he aided wherever he could by making people more comfortable until he, too, succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed. For their part, Birch and Hoil slept for a few hours as soon as they could, then woke up and helped set things to order.
Maran found himself with free time on his hands and a belabored soul in his heart. He grieved for his father’s death and even for the loss of his sister, despite their continued differences and animosity. She was family. First his brother, then his sister and father. Rill was the only family Maran had left, and he couldn’t acknowledge the as-yet unannointed king as his son. Rill had to live under the continued lie that he was the son of Maran’s brother, else, as the son of a traitor, he would face the same condemnation and banishment Maran had suffered. Aside from Maran himself, there were perhaps only one or two elves left alive who knew Rill was not the son of Maran’s brother, and of the non-elves present, only Birch and Hoil knew the truth.
“The sun follows the night,” Maran murmured to himself, his voice softer than the drone of a hovering hummingbird. “It was me. I was the signal.”
While the captured Do rebels had been less than forthcoming, Maran was able to glean enough to realize that the target of the coup had been his entire family, including himself. They knew he would be unable to resist returning in the wake of his brother’s assassination, which is why Rowin had been killed so far in advance of the main attack, to give time for word to reach the exiled former prince. Indeed, he had confirmed with one captive that the whole plot hinged on his return – had Maran not come back at all, the plot was to be suspended until they could confirm his presence within the palace walls. Apparently they considered Maran a greater threat at-large in the world and – rightly so – assumed he would find some way of infiltrating the palace and slaughtering anyone who had usurped his family throne.
Maran’s foolhardy and thinly veiled attempt at contacting his father had been confirmation of his presence in the palace, the final signal for the plot to commence. Maran’s sense of duty and love of his family had been the spark that lit the fire that had consumed his father and sister.
And so Maran returned to the royal crypt, which had long since been cleansed and returned to order, the sarcophagus lids replaced and repaired by Li Stoneweavers. New lids had been commissioned for Maran’s sister and father, and the bodies were being prepared for cremation. Maran stood surrounded by his ancestors, trying to decide what to do with his future.
“You are troubled, Do’n’El’Maran,” a voice said from the shadows. Maran whirled, but saw no one. His ability to see the invisible had faded shortly after the fighting ceased, and he had no shadow light glowing. The words rolled out in rich, deep tones, a voice clearly used to power and authority.
“Who are you?” Maran asked. “Who are you to come to this place? To know my name?”
“You once asked for an audience with me,” the sonorous voice replied. “I have now granted it.”
“Do’Valoren,” Maran said, his voice filled with awe. He sank to one knee and inclined his head in respect, only a fraction less than he would have shown his own father in life.
“Rise. I would speak with you about your future, for I can see it vexes you much.”
- 3 -
Within a week, Birch and his companions were ready to depart. With the turmoil settled for the time being and having been established as non-demonic in nature, Birch had no reason to stay and every reason to depart. They needed to make their way to Nocka and check for word on James and the other half of their jintaal. Perhaps they had found something in Merishank, or perhaps they were waiting in Nocka for word from Birch.
Hoil had decided to accompany them to provide whatever aid his considerable resources as a thief could bring to the expected war at Nocka. Moreen was, of course, accompanying Birch, but Siran was also accompanying them with a force of a hundred of the Elan’Vital. Rill had decided to send a small company of the elven elite warriors to provide what help they could, and he promised to send more aid when things were more stable and the safety of the kingdom was assured. Siran was selected to lead the force to give him a sense of purpose. The captain of the Elan’Vital felt keenly his failure to protect the king and had even asked for permission to commit ritual suicide. Rill had decided that
placing him in command of the force was a better use of his skills and convinced Siran that he would better serve his nation alive than dead.
The only member of their company who was not returning with them was Maran.
“I have a place here now,” Maran replied when Hoil asked him.
“How? You’re an exile.”
“Exactly,” Maran said. “Few here even remember that I exist. I am no one.” He paused. “And no one advises the king.”
Hoil stared at him, then nodded slowly.
“Good luck, my friend.”
“And you. Tell Danner I wish him the best in life, and he must come visit someday when things are less volatile,” Maran said. Then he smiled thinly. “Of course, no one will speak to him. You’ll have to explain it.”
“I will,” Hoil promised. After a long moment of silence, Maran pulled a black balaclava over his face and vanished from sight.
And with that, they said their final goodbyes, boarded a sleek river craft, and followed a fleet of similar vessels down the river. A pair of elven ships would meet them in El’antor’ma and accompany Birch’s vessel back to the mainland.
As they sailed down the river, none of them could resist a final glance back to see the radiant pillars of light shining brilliantly behind them.
Interlude
Complete protection hinders one too much. Who is safer from attack, the hawk or the turtle?
- Gerard Morningham,
“A Treatise on Modern Warfare” (991 AM)
- 1 -
Two weeks they’d been fighting. Two weeks of darkness and vigilante mayhem wreaked on the overwhelming Merishank forces. Shadow Company was performing better than a dream ─ more of a nightmare of sorts for their enemies ─ but Gerard wondered if they were doing enough damage. The army was simply too large for them to affect as Gerard might want, but with his limited resources he already was doing far more than any other unit could dare to hope. Still… he hoped to do more.
The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Page 24