by Duncan Lay
Fallon was mystified as to what the King was going on about. Aidan was smiling broadly and at his affable best, which was as usual more disturbing than when he was angry. One thing seemed obvious – the King was not going to stop talking in riddles until they got down to the throne room. So he stepped through the door. The last time he had been hiding in here, there had been no light and he had been terrified of falling. But this time it was well lit, a series of lanterns flickering away in recesses in the wall.
“Straight down, I’ll tell you where to go,” Aidan said cheerfully, the guards between him and Fallon.
Fallon walked down the steps, finding them much easier in the light than the dark. They finished in a landing and he saw the door to the throne room right ahead so naturally reached out for the handle.
“Not that one!” Aidan said. “Keep going down!”
Fallon turned and stepped out to the side, which revealed another staircase leading further down, one he had missed completely in the dark. He was already nervous but now he began to get a little frightened. That level merely held a series of storerooms – and the dungeons. He could not imagine the King wanting to take him down to show off his collection of rare Kottermani wines. Had the Duchess somehow been captured and blabbed about their talks, perhaps even blamed him for the plot to seize the throne and win over the nobles? That fitted into what the King had been saying but, if so, why was Aidan being so pleasant? He would have expected the greeting party to be Kelty and a squad of guards.
He walked down the next set of stairs feeling as though his heart was thumping loudly enough to be heard over the sound of his footsteps.
“This stairway was built to allow servants to bring valuables up to the King without being seen – and for the King to be able to slip down into certain parts of his castle in secret. There are things a King wants to do that his Queen does not need to know about,” Aidan said.
Fallon could feel the hair on the back of his arms rising up now. After all, down here was where Swane and his Fearpriest had been holding their evil ceremonies. Padraig and Rosaleen’s words about a huge evil came back to him and even the air felt colder down here. He was tempted to draw his hidden knives, try and put down the guards and demand answers from the King. But a glance over his shoulder showed him Aidan was several steps behind and the guards were both brandishing shillelaghs. By the time he had taken them out, Aidan would be long gone. Besides, if the worst was behind that door, it was a chance to destroy not just Aidan but Swane and, maybe, the Fearpriest too. He thought of Kerrin and Bridgit with a sharp shaft of pain, then the stairs ended in a thick wooden door.
“Here we are,” Aidan said brightly. The guards stopped right behind Fallon. “I truly think you can lead my army to victory,” he said sincerely. “Now I just need to see the final proof.”
Fallon nodded nervously, not trusting himself to speak. Whatever waited on the other side of the door, he could have a knife at the King’s throat in an instant.
A guard pushed open the door and gestured for Fallon to walk through. After a moment’s pause, he strode through the door. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the blaze of light – and then he was filled with terror and fury.
Time seemed to slow and every breath lasted an age as his eyes took in everything in less than three heartbeats. The first thing he saw standing before him was the Fearpriest, hood hiding his face, arms crossed over his chest. To his right stood Swane, his usual sneer on his face, his hands on his hips and no chains or ropes on either of them. Behind them were men wearing the robes of Guildsmen, as well as a scatter of nobles. Yet all of them wore the same rust-red cloak.
Before he drew his knives out of his boots, he caught sight of the second thing. Small figures, behind Swane and his Fearpriest, tied down onto a stone slab. Three of them. The room was well-lit, braziers at every column driving back the cold and dark, and he recognized them instantly. Feray, Asil and Orhan.
Then he saw the third thing, a small figure tied to a column, looking right at him. Kerrin. Beside him, Captain Kelty with a shillelagh in his hands.
Fallon saw all that and his mind raced through his choices, holding his rage in check only by the slimmest of threads.
“It looks like I should have ordered a new cloak,” he said.
He heard Aidan laugh and had to hold back a shiver of hatred so intense it threatened to rip away his last vestige of control.
“My dear Fallon, you truly are a gem!” Aidan chuckled.
The guards escorted him into the middle of the room. Fallon still felt like his mind was racing almost out of control, going through what he needed to do, and he uttered a silent prayer that he would have the strength for what would come.
“So, this is where Prince Swane has been?” he asked, wanting to get Aidan in closer.
The King sniffed. “No, he and Brother Nahuatl have been locked up. I punished them because they disobeyed my orders by provoking Cavan and then failed to finish the job by killing him and, worse, got themselves captured. Their stupidity and incompetence was more than worthy of punishment but, ironically, without their failure I would never have seen your true value so, in a way, we have them to thank.”
Fallon glanced at the Fearpriest, seeing glittering eyes and the tip of a dark-skinned nose beneath the hood, but nothing more. The Fearpriest stepped back, allowing Fallon to walk into the center of the room. He could see Kerrin, Feray, Asil and Orhan now and they could see him. All were gagged, all were crying and their eyes were desperately begging him to save them. He had to assume Devlin and the other villagers were dead, or as good as dead, for them to be here and the fury within him settled into his chest, a raging ball that threatened to burst out if he gave it even a hint of a chance.
Then he looked away to examine the other men.
He was in a large chamber, presumably some sort of storage room at some time, stone arches and columns supporting the roof above, and they stepped out from behind these, a score of them, nobles and leaders of guilds. He recognized the Count of Londegal and the Earl of Meinster, as well as others who had clapped him in the throne room.
“Sire, why a Fearpriest?” he asked, fighting for calm.
Aidan sighed. “I know what you must be thinking. Why not rely on the strength of the people? And I confess, if I had you by my side six moons ago, I might have tried that,” Aidan said, his voice light. Then it grew darker. “But when the Kottermani Prince Kemal came to me, insulted and defied me in my own throne room, ordered me off the throne and declared we would be a part of the Kottermani Empire, I did not have that choice. What else was I to do? Give up my crown, that my family has worn for hundreds of years? Turn Gaelland into a farm for those filthy Kottermanis? Not be able to make a decision without asking that jumped-up camel-shagger for permission?” The King was working himself up into a fury and Fallon saw the guards and most of the others take an instinctive step back, away from him. Good. “Did he really think that I would just bend over, drop my trews and let him rut me over my own throne?”
“Gaelland should be free and you are its rightful King,” Fallon said.
Aidan was pacing now, his eyes wild. “That is right! But how was I to stop them? We had no soldiers and they knew it. They mocked me and looked down on me! Well, there was no way I was having that. I made a bargain with them, pretended I needed time to hand over the crown and that I had to persuade my people to give up peacefully. So he handed me his three bodyguards, whom I altered with the help of the King’s Wizard Finbar and used to take children off the streets, while Kemal was busy stealing peasants from the coast. He thought he was pushing us closer to becoming part of his Empire but he was working to my plan the whole time. The Kottermanis are always so pious, bowing and scraping to Aroaril, who gives them nothing. I knew my only hope was a power they could never have. And there was only one way to get it.”
“Zorva,” Fallon said flatly.
Aidan’s eyes lost some of their wildness. “What else was I to do? Give in to the
Kottermanis? I would rather die! So I sacrificed to Zorva and he gave me the power to bring Brother Nahuatl here, where he has been instructing my son Swane. I was ready to show Prince Kemal my power and tell him that unless he bowed to me, I would unleash our strength on him and destroy his people. With the power of Zorva behind us, nothing can stop Gaelland from taking over the Kottermani Empire. And now we have an army to help enforce my will over those dirty camel-lovers, we shall be able to keep all we won. But, of course, Kemal ran off. I wondered what it was but now I see that you had your own plans to stop the Kottermanis!”
“So all those missing children?” Fallon asked, his throat almost closing off at the thought, but the men around him were relaxing as he did not react to the presence of the Fearpriest and he could sense the tension that had been there the moment he stepped through the door vanishing like the smoke from the braziers.
“Some were needed for power. Some were sacrifices,” Aidan said carelessly. “Zorva requires a symbol of dedication before he grants his power to you. Every man here has had to sacrifice one of his children to be given this wondrous power. They pretended those children were missing, when we all knew where they were. Of course, my foolish son Cavan had to get involved, running around, trying to solve what he thought was a mystery. Every time I thought I had calmed him down and convinced him to keep quiet, he did something else!”
“And then I came along to help him,” Fallon said, remembering again his horror as he turned over what he thought was Prince Swane, only to reveal Cavan’s face.
“Indeed you did. I thought you might be a problem, then I discovered you could be an asset and now you are my champion,” Aidan said with a smile on his face. “If only I had known how ruthless you could be! Kidnapping the wife and children of Prince Kemal and sending him scuttling back to Kotterman. I take it you intend to make him exchange your families for his?”
“That was the plan, yes,” Fallon admitted.
Aidan nodded approvingly. “And a good plan as well. But when were you going to tell me?”
Fallon felt the tension level in the room rise again. “Sire, I was trying to keep you out of it. I had to threaten Prince Kemal that I would skin his sons alive in front of him before he agreed to my demands. He hates me with a passion now. But I am not Gaelland. If he thought you were holding his family, then he would not rest until Gaelland was a smoking ruin. Instead, his vengeance is focused on me.”
Aidan clapped his hands together and pointed at Swane, then at Londegal and Meinster. “This is what I am talking about,” he exclaimed. “So many of you do not think far enough ahead. But Fallon can see through to the end of things, just as I can.”
Fallon saw the room ease further and he smiled as he planned their deaths.
“Still,” Aidan continued. “Were you really going to hand them back over to Prince Kemal in exchange for your families?”
“Of course not, sire!” Fallon said with a snort of derision. “The moment I did that, Kemal would be after my head. I would use them to keep him here in Gaelland, a hostage to his father’s good will.”
Aidan clapped his hands together. “You see?” he said to the room at large. “I told you, this is a man we need to have on our side. He understands that you have to make sacrifices to succeed. He knows you have to get blood on your hands sometimes.”
Fallon said nothing, but his eyes were watching the men around him. The Guildsmen and nobles were sheep, of no account, but the Fearpriest and Kelty were the real dangers. Take them both out, get his hands on Kelty’s shillelagh and then take the other guards out. Once he had freed Kerrin and the others, he had to find a way out as well. He could see another door at the opposite end of the chamber and wondered if that led to the corridor he had stumbled upon with Padraig and Rosaleen. That took him back into the castle kitchen garden and maybe that was a better way than back up the stairs, although stairs were easy to defend …
“Speaking of sacrifices, sire, what happened to the men who were guarding Prince Kemal’s family?” he asked.
Aidan glanced over towards Kelty, who nodded.
“They are still alive of course,” Aidan said. “A little bruised, I understand, but they should not have refused an order from a King’s man. Consider that a just punishment.”
“They were only obeying my orders,” Fallon said.
Aidan waved a hand at him. “And I understand that. Loyalty to you is important. But loyalty to me is more important. Anyway, as we are speaking of sacrifices, we come to the real reason why we are here.”
“Sire?” Fallon asked innocently but the blood was pounding in his ears now and he itched to free his knives. “Surely you cannot mean Prince Kemal’s family? If they are alive, they are a valuable weapon we can use against him. Dead, they will merely enrage him and bring an even bigger Kottermani army to our shores.”
Aidan straightened up, arms clasped behind his back and all the warmth was gone from his voice. “We no longer need such things. There is no need to bargain with Prince Kemal. He will bow down before us or he will be destroyed. The blood of these Princes, as well as Kemal’s Princess, will deliver us more power than any advantage we can wring from Kemal. Brother Nahuatl cannot wait to feel that power. I have had to prevent him from sacrificing anyone since he was captured by you and Prince Cavan, as a punishment, and he longs to feel power once more.”
“But what of my wife and my men’s families?” Fallon persisted, to cover the relief he felt at the Fearpriest not having his full power. The only thing worse than failing to wipe out these vermin would be failing and be forced to watch as Kerrin was killed. “Prince Kemal will take his revenge on them!”
Aidan shook his head. “He will give everything up when we see him again. You have not seen the true power of Zorva. Even the might of the Kottermani Empire cannot stand against it.”
“What do you want of me?” Fallon asked. He had to hear it all, then he could unleash himself on these bastards.
“I am not so foolish as to hand over my army to an Unbeliever. After all, I know you have a priestess of Aroaril among your followers. I am delighted with what you have done with training the men but I need you to show your devotion to Zorva to go any further. Of course, once you are part of my inner circle, then the rewards will be great. Whatever you want, you get. And what do you owe Aroaril? All your prayers and going to church, what have they brought you? You and your wife have lost endless children. Zorva just wants one.”
“My son Kerrin?” Fallon asked, his voice a husky whisper.
“It does not have to be him. Perhaps there is another you wish to sacrifice instead. Obviously I did not offer up one of my sons but instead a girl who was carrying my child. Do you have one like that? Kelty can fetch her for you while we watch Brother Nahuatl sacrifice the Kottermani Princess and her brats.”
“Kerrin is all I have,” Fallon said.
Aidan shrugged. “Then it must be him. But Zorva will grant you many sons, as many as you want. And they can be as strong as you like as well. Look at what has happened to my boy Swane!”
“What about Kemal’s sons, the princelings? Can I not sacrifice one of them?” Fallon asked. He looked over to where the three of them were strapped down over stone tables, eyes wide and terrified, faces pleading with him.
Aidan shook his head. “They have no blood relation to you. That is the key for Zorva and for myself. Give up something you love and we will give you everything you need.”
Fallon looked around as the Fearpriest Nahuatl drew a long knife with a curious blade with a strange sound. Instead of the expected steel blade, this knife had some sort of dark, jagged stone.
“You must use the obsidian blade,” he said, his accent grating foully on the Gaelish words.
“Obsidian?” Fallon stumbled over the strange word.
“Some type of rock. Sharp enough to shave with,” Aidan said conversationally. “It’s the strangest thing. Where the Fearpriests come from, there is no metal, so they use that. Metal is the
only thing they cannot affect with their magic. That is why you were searched before you came down here and why Kelty and my other guards just have shillelaghs. He hates metal weapons.”
Fallon nodded, following Nahuatl over towards Kerrin, forcing Kelty to step back.
“You will speak the words after me, offering your soul to Zorva then, when I give you my blade, you will cut the boy’s throat,” Nahuatl said.
Fallon glanced at Kerrin, seeing his terror, the way he was trying to control his breathing, and he could take it no longer. He dropped to one knee in front of Nahuatl. The Fearpriest smelled like an old corpse and his rust-red robe was marked with bloodstains and worse.
“Rise, my friend,” the Fearpriest said with a laugh. “Zorva is not like the foul Aroaril. He does not require you to bend the knee to him. He wants to raise you up.”
Fallon kept his head bowed, then raised it and looked right into Kerrin’s eyes, seeing the tears trickling down his face, the way he was trying desperately to say something behind his gag, while thrashing in vain at his bonds. He absorbed that, used it to feed his rage, then released it.
He rose to his feet, smoothly palming the throwing knives from his boots into his hands, as he had intended all along. But he did not want to throw it at this stinking Fearpriest. Instead he rammed it into the man’s stomach, feeling it tear through the cloth and punch through the skin beneath. He twisted his wrist and ripped upwards and across, feeling the spray of hot blood spurting over his arm and the sudden release as the blade bounced off his ribs before tearing back out, followed by the horrible slithering sound as Nahuatl’s guts slid out of the terrible wound and the hideous, high-pitched scream of the Fearpriest.
Fallon turned from the stricken Fearpriest, who collapsed on the floor, fighting to pick up his intestines, looking instead at Kelty. The captain of the King’s guard raised his shillelagh up but Fallon’s arm rose and fell and the throwing knife, covered in blood, spun lazily through the air to slam into Kelty’s throat and send the burly captain crashing to the ground.