by Jim Galford
“Welcome back,” Arturis told them, walking past Feanne toward the throne. He flopped into it, draping his robe over the edges of the stone seat. “I do love how predictable you all are, even if I had hoped I was through trying to kill you.”
“Phaesys, open that door,” Estin growled, drawing his own swords.
Shaking his head, Phaesys tightened his grip on his weapon, but did not raise it.
“Arturis,” Phaesys said, though he did not budge from his position at the door, “we had a deal. Bring her to me.”
“Oh yes, thank you for reminding me,” the Turessian said, waving toward the stairs. “Let me just call all my little friends.”
“What is this about?” Estin demanded, taking another step toward Phaesys. “Tell me now and we might be able to fix things.”
“By my honor, there are some obligations I cannot dismiss,” the younger male said sadly, wincing with each step Estin took. “He has my betrothed. He promised to bring her to me if I turned you both over. Once she is here, we can try to make this right.”
“You haven’t left our sight in days,” Estin said, raising his sword, only to have it slapped aside by Phaesys’ weapon. Faster than Estin thought he could react, Phaesys had returned his own weapon to his side. “When did you talk to him?”
“When we first arrived in the city, before going to Arturis’ cave. I am so sorry, Estin.”
“The horn?”
“That wasn’t me. I don’t know who that was, but he has more people under his thumb than we thought. That man finds a way to use what we all find most precious.”
“Why would you think he won’t kill you?”
“I don’t,” Phaesys admitted uneasily. “I had to take the chance, though. I did not do this for myself. Please believe me.”
Estin kept his weapons up and ready, while Phaesys let his drift near the floor, the two of them moving in a slow circle around one another. After the fight in Desphon’s tunnels, Estin had little doubt that Phaesys could handle himself and would be difficult in a fight, but he hoped that guilt—or a few magical tricks—might allow him to get the better of the youth.
Coming around to face the throne again, Estin saw that Feanne was in the middle of the room, facing the throne and a single wildling that had come up from the staircase. Though the female was slighter than Oria, Feanne was growling viciously at her, backing steadily away.
The small female was a large-eared fox in Corraithian clothing, complete with a veil that mostly covered her face. Estin did not even have to guess who she might be.
“You would give up everything, including Oria, for a female you don’t know or love?” asked Estin. The female in question waited at Arturis’ right hand, watching Phaesys, while Feanne stood defensively between Arturis and the others. “Is that what your father…a traitor, I might add…taught you to be? I know you’re a better male than that.”
“I should be, but I’m not,” Phaesys answered, his back now fully to the throne. “Duty first, life second. That is what I am. Like your family, I cannot change who I am. I have to do this, and there is no amount of apologies I can make that will ever sooth the pain of doing this to you. Once I make this right, I can at least try to begin making it up to everyone.”
Estin lowered his weapons, drawing a shocked stare from Phaesys. “Go to her, then. If that’s what you want, go to her, so Feanne and I can get on with dying trying to kill Arturis. I just hope that Oria is the one to put a knife in your back for doing this to people who cared about you.”
Phaesys’ sword tapped against the ground as his shoulders fell. He half-turned, looking up toward the shadowy throne and the two people there. When he took a step in that direction, Feanne snarled at him over her shoulder.
“Feanne,” Estin called out, “let him through. There’s no sense in stopping him now.”
Still looking ready to strike any moment, Feanne inched out of the way, letting Phaesys walk past her, though she growled angrily at him when they were close to one another. Once he was by, Feanne hurried to Estin’s side.
“I can move the bar easily, but he will reach us before we can open the door,” she warned softly.
“We need to find another way out,” Estin whispered back. “There’s no way we can face him, even if we still had Phaesys on our side.”
Phaesys was more than halfway across the room, his eyes not leaving the female wildling that stood between himself and Arturis.
“Have you been hurt?” he asked the girl, but she just stood silently.
A thump from one of the side doors drew the attention of everyone in the room. A second impact knocked the door free of its casing, the wood crumbling.
Dust settling around them, six elves—one Estin recognized as Sirella—and Oria walked into the room, dropping a heavy battering ram to draw their weapons. Five arrows flew even before the archers were visible, slamming into Arturis’ chest in a tight cluster.
“We need to run!” Phaesys called out, rushing to the young female, offering his hand. “Hurry!”
The female wildling took a step forward onto the top step and then let out an airy scream that made Phaesys drop his weapon to cover his ears. Eyes flaring briefly red, the female ripped away her veil, revealing a scarred and twisted face. Where her short muzzle should have been, the entire jaw structure had been enlarged and made monstrous. Deadly-sharp and huge fangs filled her mouth as she roared at Phaesys.
Before Phaesys could bring his hands down from his ears, the female—some kind of undead, but not one Estin had ever seen before—rushed toward him. She leapt as far as Estin likely could, tackling her former betrothed, knocking him to the floor. Pinning him down, she began slashing at him with her claws, all the while attempting to bite at his face.
“Now!” Estin told Feanne, stepping between her and the others, hoping Arturis would have too many distractions to stop them.
Feanne whispered a quick spell and grabbed the wooden bar, lifting it like it were a stick. Just as it was about to come out of the brackets that allowed it to hold the door shut, Arturis appeared at their sides, somehow bypassing Estin, as if he had simply vanished from one place and appeared at the other.
“Enough of that,” he told Feanne, slamming the beam back into place.
With a casual shove, Arturis threw Feanne halfway across the room, where she hit the floor and slid until she reached the steps up to the throne.
Estin reacted as fast as he could, driving his sword into Arturis’ chest and into the wooden door behind him, hoping to pin him briefly. His other weapon he slashed across the man, opening his throat briefly, though that wound closed before Estin’s weapon had stopped moving.
Laughing, Arturis smacked his palm down on the sword in his chest, snapping it cleanly off. He then stepped toward Estin, sliding himself off of the broken weapon.
“Come, my pet!” Arturis called toward the back of the room, then turned and walked away from Estin.
Estin ran straight to Feanne, happy for the inattentiveness of Arturis. He mostly ignored Phaesys’ struggle with the small wildling and just barely noticed Oria and her elven allies advancing on Arturis, after checking the other entrances and securing most of the room. His sole focus was Feanne, who was moving, but also groaning in pain.
“Are you…?”
“I am fine,” she snapped, rolling onto her knees, then standing. Stretching her arm, she added, “Just surprised and dazed me. I can still fight.”
Stepping behind the throne, Arturis motioned for something on the staircase to come forward and turned back to those in the room, saying, “The best part about seeing your brethren’s thoughts is knowing what will most easily break a foe that keeps coming back. I had to go all the way back to Altis for this one, but I thought you’d enjoy it. Let me know if I chose your present correctly.”
From the staircase emerged a towering figure, standing nearly two full feet taller than Arturis. Though her fur was burned in spots, the massive brown bear wildling was still recogniz
able to Estin and Feanne’s gasp told him she realized who it was, too.
“Ulra,” Estin said in amazement, as the bear lumbered onto the platform just above them.
The last time Estin had seen Ulra, she had stayed behind to hold off the Turessian forces to give time for others to escape. Her mate had died in the battle and she had chosen not to go on. He had even heard her dying screams. Her sacrifice had saved a goodly portion of the pack and had been the story Estin had often told Oria and Atall as an example of a true and devoted friend.
The once-protector now roared angrily at Feanne and Estin, her milky-white eyes staring through them. Deep wounds on her massive chest gaped but did not bleed as she began down the steps.
“Can you help her?” Feanne asked, backing away. “I would rather not destroy the body of the one who guarded us for most of my life.”
Shifting his vision to search for a spirit, Estin found none clinging to the decaying body. If Ulra could have been saved, that was long ago. Now, it was nothing more than another walking corpse. Nothing in his arsenal of magic would make any difference to the spirit they had once known.
Estin raised his remaining sword, but the wildling zombie continued to advance. “She’s long gone, Feanne. Go clear the door with Oria. I can handle one undead while you open the door.”
“Hurry and we may be able to leave before he sends anything worse after us,” Feanne said, turning toward the door and skirting widely around Ulra.
Behind the bear, Estin could see Arturis walk down the stairs, disappearing into whatever was below. The man appeared to be simply walking away from the battle…escaping, Estin noted grimly.
“Ulra, if there’s any of you in there…” began Estin. He doubted there was, but he knew so little about these undead, and he had to try.
With another roar, Ulra backhanded Estin despite his attempt to block the swing with his sword, hurling him into a nearby pillar.
Groaning and gasping for breath, Estin fell to the floor when he tried to stand. His sword was gone. As the room spun, he could see Ulra marching toward him, her huge feet pounding the floor with every step.
In a mad scramble for something, he called on his magic, summoning the first spell he could think of to buy time while he recovered. As he did, long, ghostly glowing chains rose from the floor, wrapping the wildling corpse’s leg.
Estin knew that would not hold Ulra long, so he concentrated instead on trying to mend his own wounds so that he could better fight. His headache and throbbing spine fading quickly, he looked up to find Ulra charging again, having already ripped free of his magic.
Tumbling out of her way, Estin just narrowly escaped as Ulra slammed into the pillar, cracking the stones. Dust and broken stone flew in all directions as she righted herself and began searching for Estin again.
Estin came up onto his feet, facing Phaesys, who was still struggling with the snarling creature atop him. Now, Oria was with him, driving her knife into the creature’s back repeatedly, for all the good it seemed to be doing.
With no time to tell Oria about Phaesys’ betrayal, Estin had to leap right back into the fray with Ulra to keep her from overrunning Oria.
Ducking a wild sweep of Ulra’s trunk-like arm, Estin touched her stomach, summoning more of his magic. The whispers of the spirits in his mind were growing louder with every spell, but he ignored them, funneling as much energy as he could into the zombie bear in that brief touch.
Roaring again, Ulra kicked Estin away, her stomach burning and smoking from his magic. Undaunted by the injuries, she dropped to all fours and charged him.
From off to Estin’s left, Feanne leapt to Ulra’s back, hooking her arms around the thick neck of the bear. Almost casually, she shredded Ulra’s throat with her claws and tumbled away safely as Ulra crashed to the floor, flailing to reach what had attacked her.
“You can handle one undead?” Feanne asked with a malicious smirk, still squatting from her landing on the far side of Ulra. “Should I leave this to you, or do I need to step in and save you again?”
Scowling back at her, Estin got up from the floor, his ribs aching horribly. Closing his eyes and raising a hand, he brought the spirits’ voices forward again, pulling strength from them. Opening his eyes in time to see Ulra nearly atop him, he let his hand drop, bringing a column of white light down on the bear as his own strength waned considerably.
Ulra stopped in her tracks as the light washed over her, her entire body steaming as though water was evaporating off of her fur. With a soft sigh, the bear collapsed, the energy that animated her broken.
“Why would you not start with that?” teased Feanne, seeming to notice Oria for the first time.
While Oria was wrestling with the other wildling female, her knife buried in the creature’s back, soldiers flooded into the throne room, spreading out to secure all the entrances.
Curled on the floor, Phaesys was shielding himself from his former betrothed’s attacks. His arms and neck were bleeding, but he appeared to have no fight left in him, lying there, just taking the beating.
Growling angrily, Oria grabbed the creature’s neck and rolled backward, flipping her off of Phaesys. Oria turned as she landed, driving the knife hilt-deep into the creature’s forehead.
Grunting, the undead wildling twitched and went still, her arms flopping limply to her sides.
“Why are you all here?” Oria demanded before anyone else could talk. “I gave the signal. You should have stayed away!”
Estin walked over to Phaesys, who was still trembling on the ground. Grabbing the young wilding by the scruff of his neck, Estin hoisted him to his feet and turned Phaesys to face Oria. Phaesys made no effort to resist, instead staring blankly at the bleeding wounds on his arms.
Meanwhile, soldiers secured the entrances to the room and closed the large doors again to keep anything new from getting inside. Several of them took up positions at the staircase behind the throne.
“Tell her what you did.”
Phaesys tried to turn and walk away, but Estin held him firmly.
“Tell her, or I will. You keep talking about honor, so now’s the time to show some of that.”
“What’s going on, Phaesys?” Oria asked, looking to her mother and Estin as she waited. Slowly, she got to her feet. “Tell me what, Phaesys?”
“I sold out the soldiers and lied about your signal fire,” Phaesys answered softly, glancing over to where Norum was helping tend to the wounds of his men. The old human’s shoulders tensed, but he kept working. “Arturis said I could have my betrothed back and he would spare you, Oria. I just had to lead them into a trap. If your parents came, I was supposed to trap them as well.”
“This is why you didn’t want me to come,” hissed Oria, grabbing Phaesys by the shirt and backing him up until he hit a pillar. “You weren’t trying to save the girl you loved, you were trying to keep me from finding out about what you’d done.”
Phaesys stayed silent and would not look at Oria.
While Estin stood ready to grab Phaesys if he attempted to run, Feanne came over.
“Let us leave her to this. She will be the one to decide his fate,” Feanne said, pointing toward the elves who had arrived with Oria. “Your friend Sirella has some interesting information that we need to discuss quickly.”
Estin gave Oria and Phaesys another glance, but the two were not even talking. Oria continued to hold Phaesys against the pillar, staring at him expectantly, while he looked anywhere but at her. Deciding they probably were not going anywhere anytime soon, Estin reluctantly followed Feanne.
Sitting atop the low wall that hid the staircase from easy notice, Sirella smiled at Estin as he approached. Gesturing to the other elves, she sent them away, though they stayed within clear line-of-sight.
“You’re being awful slow about this,” Sirella told Feanne and Estin. “We will need to hurry or the Turessian will escape again. I already talked with Norum and he will send ten men with us.”
“He has beaten u
s repeatedly,” Feanne objected. “My son is dead because of his strength. Why would we throw our lives away foolishly? You told me you had some kind of plan, but this sounds to be a waste of our time.”
Pulling out a sheet of paper from inside the chain armor she wore, Sirella told them, “Not throwing them away foolishly…I hope.”
Estin stared at the paper as it was unfolded and realized that one edge was torn.
“I took this from the book you stole from Arturis,” she explained, giving Estin an apologetic shrug. “Found something interesting. He wasn’t just killing important people randomly when he first arrived. He had a reason. In Corraith, the merchants ruled. Among the merchants, enchanters like Desphon were the most important and thus the highest-ranking. We all thought he was killing off nobility to secure control of the city, but he was actually killing off the enchanters.”
“Why?” Feanne asked impatiently.
“According to this, he’s afraid they’ll find a way to kill him,” Sirella explained, tapping the paper. “I didn’t want to bring it up right away, because I needed to find an enchanter to ask about it.”
Sirella looked pointedly at one of the elven men standing nearby, who smiled impishly back.
“My sister’s quiet friend there is an enchanter. He’s got some ideas what he can try and has the tools with him to do it, but we need to slow down Arturis enough for him to get the chance.”
“Do you really think we can kill him?” inquired Feanne.
“Yes, I do. We just need to hold him down while our man works his magic. Should be easy, if you two can keep him from getting away.”
Without waiting for Estin’s answer—likely because she knew him well enough by now—Feanne practically dove down the stairs. Sirella hopped in behind Estin, with the crowd of Oria’s elves and a group of soldiers following close behind.
While the room above had been unlit aside from the moonlight, the stairs had regularly-placed torches, making the descent very swift and easy. The stairs were long, turning several times as they went farther down beneath the palace.