The Immortal Crown

by Kieth Merrill

  Qhuin turned to the company. “And any other man here who is willing.”

  Baaly carried the bag to Qhuin and placed it on the table in front of him with the same display of bravado that almost got him killed. He looked to his uncle, thrust out his chin, and folded his arms across his swelling chest. It was settled.

  In less time than it took for the warbler to whistle another refrain, the mood changed. A stir rippled through the company, but no one stepped forward.

  “Half for each of you, then.” The prince smiled. “You bring me the horse, and you will both be well rewarded.”

  “Master Baaly may do as he wishes, m’lord, but for my part, I do not wish for gold.”

  The prince beamed with pride. He shook his finger at his kinsmen. “You see? Here is true devotion. True fealty. The kind of loyalty I expected from you, who have a better cause to please me.” Then, turning to Qhuin, he asked, “What is your name, bondsman?”

  “Qhuin, m’lord. A’quilum Ereon Qhuin.”

  “The man my foolish son would have executed!” He shook his head. “If you succeed, if you bring me my horse, you shall have your share, lest any judge me unjust.”

  “I will not do it for your gold, m’lord,” Qhuin repeated.

  “What, then? You want my royal ring?” The prince barked a laugh and glanced about for a reaction, but his tone was condescending and the laughter sparse.

  “I want my freedom,” Qhuin said. The absence of the royal title was as loud as thunder across the Tallgrass Prairie. “I wish an oath sworn in the presence of all gathered that from the hour I put the horse into your hand, I am a free man to the end of my days.”

  “And if you fail?”

  “Then I am dead in the Oodanga Wilds and will have a different kind of freedom. Nothing but death itself will stop me if you give me your oath.”

  The prince stared at Qhuin until the silence grew uncomfortable.

  Qhuin feared he’d been too bold.

  Kadesh-Cor lifted his sword from the ground and cleaned the tip on the cloth that covered the table. He held the weapon before his face and turned the blade slowly as if the answer he sought was hidden in his reflection in the polished steel. Sunlight struck the blade. Light danced across his wounded face. He turned suddenly and placed the point of the sword over Qhuin’s heart.

  “Get to your knees!” he commanded.

  An audible gasp swept over the company.

  Qhuin knelt slowly. He did not bow his head or lower his eyes. The muscles at the corners of his face quivered as he tightened his jaw.

  “By what oath do you swear to accomplish this deed? What assurance of trust can I be given that you will not flee the instant you are beyond my sight?”

  “I will swear any oath you wish, m’lord.”

  “By the gods?”

  “I give no credence to the gods.”

  “Neither old or new?”

  “No, m’lord.”

  “By what can you swear fidelity?”

  “By my life and my honor.”

  A twittering of astonished murmurs rippled through the company.

  “Your life belongs to me, and a slave is without honor.”

  “Then I swear by my life as the free man you will make of me and by the honor the great horse Equus shall bring to you.”

  Qhuin’s blue eyes held the prince’s unblinking gaze.

  “I shall hold him to his oath, m’lord!” Baaly stepped forward and spoke in a husky bass with as much manliness as he could conjure.

  “Our noble boy with the courage of a man. Well enough, then!” Kadesh-Cor lifted the sword from Qhuin’s chest and held it aloft. “Hear your prince!”

  A heavy silence fell over the gathering, a sense of reverence hovering in the warm morning air. Some people held their breath. Even the warbler was still.

  “On this twenty-third day of Aru, Red Grass Appearing Moon, in season Res S’atti, of annum 1088, age of Kandelaar, I, Kadesh-Cor, Baron Magnus of Blackthorn and prince of the North, of the Royal House Kublan, do swear an oath and covenant with the slave and bondsman, A’quilum Ereon Qhuin, to wit—when he brings me the stallion, called by us, Equus, I will grant him his freedom from that very hour to the last breath of his mortal life.”

  A spontaneous cheer erupted from the congregation. In that moment, the dream of one man became the hope of all. The welling in the hearts of the men there that day would not be forgotten. Nor would any of them forget the courage of Qhuin, the man of unknown blood, the slave who would be free.

  The cold heat of the stone coruscated from its secret place, sending a shimmer of warmth through Qhuin’s entire being. It was the strongest surge of power he had ever felt, and he could no longer deny that some mystical force was working in his life. A power beyond himself, compelling him toward an unknown destiny.

  The stone sent a second tremor of burning cold through his body. The pain of his wounds rushed before it like a wren before a raging wind.

  “Stand,” the prince said, and Qhuin rose to his feet.

  A voice came from behind Kadesh-Cor. “If you’ll have me, and if by the prince’s good grace he should agree, I shall go with you.”

  The prince turned, but Qhuin knew the voice even before the squire hobbled into view.

  “A slave is unlikely to need a squire to button his britches, Nimmer,” Chor quipped, using the nickname with unusual familiarity.

  “I’d be honored to have any help you could offer,” Qhuin said and gave the squire a modest bow.

  Qhuin did not miss the silent conversation between Kadesh-Cor, his oldest son, and the crippled squire.

  “His ruined leg will slow you down.” Kadesh-Cor frowned.

  “We’ll be on horseback, not walking,” Qhuin said.

  “Let him go.” Chor leaned close to his father’s ear so the rest of his murmuring was lost. It was the continuation of a private conversation. Prince and princeling. Father and favored son.

  The prince turned slowly to look at Qhuin. “Are you certain he’ll not be a hindrance?”

  Qhuin remembered the sound the arrow made when it had sliced through the rat’s head, a wet slurping thud like a fist pulled from a slurry of mud. He smiled. “He’ll not be a hindrance at all, m’lord.”

  CHAPTER 70

  “Who among you calls himself Blood of the Dragon?”

  One by one, the men surrounding the fire looked up in surprise but not alarm. The stranger who spoke wore boiled leather and iron. The helm of a kings­riders’ captain covered his head. He appeared to be alone.

  A tall man with lanky arms and hair to his shoulders drew his sword and swaggered toward the interloper in open challenge. “If you gotta ask, I’d say you ain’t here ’cause ya been invited.” A guttural chuckling rumbled among the men at the fire. Some of them laughed out loud.

  “Stop where you are or you die!” Machous said.

  The man with lanky arms guffawed and pointed his sword at Machous’s throat. The captain didn’t flinch.

  An arrow flew in from the darkness and slammed into the man’s chest, puncturing leather, flesh, and bone, and stopping his heart. The bandit’s eyes froze open in disbelief. He gripped the shaft, sagged to his knees, and toppled to the ground. The men at the fire froze and stared into the darkness.

  “Is your fraudulent prince no more than a mouse who runs to his hole when the hawk is near?” Machous raised his voice to reach into the darkness at the edge of the plaza. He spit the mocking challenge like something bitter from his tongue and scanned the faces flickering in the yellow light.

  A zealous brigand who’d been hunched by the fire leaped up with an unbuckled scabbard in one fist and the hilt of his sword in the other. He bounded toward the captain, but an arrow slammed into his stomach before his blade cleared the leather. He fell to his knees in a rush of anguish, gutshot but painf
ully alive. He howled in agony through lips already red with blood.

  “Show yourself, Drakkor,” Machous demanded. “Step forward and answer to your king. Or are you the coward the harlots mock in the brothels of the King’s Road?” Captain Machous tightened his body, increasingly alert. His eyes darted in all directions, looking for any sign of aggression. Which, if any of them, is the man I seek? “Step forward lest I be obliged to kill every man here and return to my king with a wagon­load of heads instead of one!”

  The fire crackled, and a sputter of yellow sparks whirled into the blackness of the sky above the canyon.

  A third man burst from the circle in an obvious dash for help. Arrows from the archers hidden by the night pounded into him before he could escape with his cry of warning.

  “Pray, hold your archers, worthy captain. Lord Drakkor is not here.” The bandit who spoke hovered over the man with an arrow in his belly.

  Machous continued his inventory of the force, the risk, and the men present. Some looked familiar. Kings­riders who had earned Drakkor’s trust? The thought was knocked aside by a voice from the darkness. It was deep and full, and Machous felt a tremor in his chest when the sound reached his ears.

  “Is it only my head your king wants of me?” Drakkor stepped into the circle of firelight and strode forward until he was face-to-face with Captain Machous. His sword was in his hand, held ready at his side. He wore no helm nor armor. “What of his once-loyal kings­riders? Does he not wish them back?”

  “Your head on a spike will suit him well enough.”

  A mocking smile twitched at the corner of Drakkor’s mouth. “Do you wonder why your kings­riders prefer this to the tyranny of your king?” He spread his arms. A murmur of amusement rippled through his men.

  “I have come to avenge the death of Captain Borklore and—”

  Drakkor cut him off. “Or perhaps you have come to surrender your paltry force or else die like a fool as he did.” Drakkor squinted into the darkness. “There cannot be many of you, or else you could not have survived the curse’ed ones nor passed unnoticed through the gate. How many? Five? Ten, perhaps? Pretending to be an army?” He laughed again but there was no lightness in it. The brightness of the flame reflected in his eyes. “I am insulted you think me fool enough to fall for such chicanery.”

  “Surrender yourself to me and I will spare the lives of your men. I have no wish to slaughter them. Even the misery of the prison at StÓkenhold will be more pleasant than death.”

  “Who is the brave but foolish captain the king has sent to die?” His tone was mocking, and his men sniggered.

  “I am Ilióss Machous, High Commander of Kings­riders.” Machous spoke with such confidence the brigands fell quiet.

  A ripple of wary discomfort passed over Drakkor’s face.

  “Surrender your sword in the name of the king!” Machous demanded.

  Drakkor’s face turned sour. His eyes were black holes, darker than the night. “Are all of the king’s commanders so clumsy in their bluff?” He scoffed with disdain. “Have you really come here with a half dozen archers expecting to take me captive and force my army to surrender?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are more than a fool, Ilióss Machous,” Drakkor snarled. “The finest of the king’s archers are mine!” He turned to a man near the portal. “Fetch my commander of archers. I want him here immediately and my kings­riders with him!”

  “I am already here, Drakkor.” Meshum Tirbodh stepped from the darkness into the light.

  Drakkor’s face twisted in confusion. His mouth moved, but the words were slow in coming. “How did you . . . ? Where are your men?”

  “All here, m’lord,” Tirbodh said and raised his arm.

  The silence was shattered by the shuffling of feet and the rattling of arms. Kings­riders stepped from the darkness on every side and into the firelight. Some wore armor. Others had dressed with haste and stood unclad. All held weapons at the ready—bows, swords, lances, and axes. Akkad and his men were among them.

  “Stand steady,” Machous commanded, and the kings­riders stopped. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a circle that surrounded Drakkor and his men at the fire. A heavy silence settled on the company.

  Drakkor pivoted in a slow circle. His face pinched into a scowl of rage as he realized what had happened. The men surrounding them were not the kings­riders of Captain Machous. They were his men—or had been when the sun had set. Some of them were the traitors who had attempted to flee during the retreat from the Mountain of God.

  He lifted his sword and swept it across the faces of the men in the circle. “You swore an oath by my blood. The taste of it is still on your tongue!” His gaze returned to Tirbodh. “Turn them back to me.” His eyes glared with hate, and his words rasped up from the gravel of his throat. “Have you forgotten the tyranny of your king? What has this lying puppet of the king promised you? Clemency? Forgiveness? Mercy?” He scoffed.

  Tirbodh tightened his jaw and the grip on his bow already at half pull. His eyes flitted to Machous, who affirmed the promises made with steady eyes and a nod.

  “Has your king ever kept a promise?” Drakkor howled. “Have I ever broken mine? Do not be deceived. If you do not die here today, your head will adorn the road to Kingsgate.”

  Murmurs rippled around the circle along with a shuffling of feet and weapons. Machous’s men glanced around warily. Men capable of treachery once might turn on them again.

  “The king will keep the promises I have made,” Machous shouted to the men, though his tone left an edge of doubt. “I will keep them! Stand ready. Today you redeem your honor.”

  Drakkor glowered in a final, desperate appeal to the turncoat kings­riders. “Kill these intruders quickly and be done with this, or else you are all dead men. If not by the hand of these whom you know to be merciless—” He waved a hand toward the brigands who moved toward their weapons. “Then by the bloody blade of the king’s ax!”

  “Surrender!” Machous shouted.

  Drakkor’s laugh was the growl of a wild beast. He turned as if swept up in a whirlwind and lunged at Machous with a slashing blow of his sword.

  Instinct born of battle saved Machous. He parried the thrust of Drakkor’s blade. Steel collided with steel in a clanking explosion of sparks that resounded against the crumbling walls.

  Machous had hoped to force a surrender without the brutality of battle or spilling much blood, but he knew it was in vain. He dropped to one knee and lunged at Drakkor with fierce abandon.

  Drakkor knocked the blade aside and danced away. But not fast enough. The point of Machous’s sword opened a gash in the thickest part of his thigh. Blood stained Drakkor’s leggings red.

  Machous flourished his blade and pressed his advantage with a slashing blow to Drakkor’s side below his leather chest piece. Drakkor faltered and lost his footing.

  Machous swung his blade for the killing blow, but Drakkor blocked it, regained his feet, and staggered backward to the edge of the light. He pressed a hand to the wound in his side and looked at the blood on his fingers. A disdainful snarl twisted his lips.

  Drakkor’s brigands surged forward with a piercing call to battle as if they were a single creature with a hundred heads.

  Tirbodh, Akkad, and the other archers stood their ground and let their arrows fly. The kings­riders tightened their circle in a rush of blades and spikes and whirling bludgeons. The sound of steel striking steel and the thud of clubs breaking bones was swallowed in a cacophony of voices shouting in anger, bawling in pain, and shrieking in death. The bravado was short-lived, however, and the bandits retreated to a defensive huddle, back to back, to defend themselves.

  And then—

  “Enough!” A bloodied brigand threw his weapon to the ground and thrust his arms into the air in surrender.

  Drakkor’s men were huddled like rabbits in a k
illing field. Most followed the lead of the bloodied brigand and threw their weapons at their feet. Those who refused to relent were quickly killed.

  Machous’s eyes flitted from Drakkor to the unexpected shift in the battle raging behind him. His glance was hardly more than five heartbeats, but when he turned back, Drakkor was gone. The bandit king had disappeared into the darkness.

  “Bind them hand and foot,” Machous shouted to his men as he pushed past them to where he had last seen Drakkor. He was about to pass through the gate when he saw movement on the crumbling stone steps that rose to the ruins.

  Drakkor was halfway to the top, climbing awkwardly on his wounded leg.

  Machous gripped his sword with renewed determination and ran for the stairway. A single thought hammered in cadence with the pounding of his heart: Bring me his head!

  CHAPTER 71

  Dawn came early. Sunlight broke over the horizon and struck the highest banner of the royal tent, though it had yet to kiss the grass when Qhuin and his companions rode from the hunting encampment.

  They were mounted on the finest and fastest of the Huszárs’ horses. The animals had been taken from his faithless kinsmen the previous night by Kadesh-Cor and given to Qhuin and the two men who would ride with him to an unknown fate.

  “The only brave among you,” Kadesh-Cor had chided the Huszárs.

  Baaly was given his Uncle Elcun’s horse, to the older man’s shame and humiliation. Elcun protested loudly but was chastised by the prince for his cowardice.

  By the time Qhuin, Nimra, and Baaly had gathered provisions for their journey, Kadesh-Cor had managed to punish or worry each man who had refused his request to go after Equus.

  Qhuin and his companions were fitted with breastplates of boiled leather, bucklers, swords, and short blades. Nimra carried two bows and extra arrows. Elcun insisted Baaly carry a long-pole weapon, though the lad had no training in its use.

  The prince ordered that his Alaunts be sent with Qhuin to give the trio an advantage during the hunt.

  The largest of the milk-whites was fitted with a double pack for provisions: tack and tackle for the horses and for catching the wild stallion, equipment for the camp, extra raiment, and food that wouldn’t spoil. Fresh meat would be taken as needed. If the folktales were true, there was no end of wild beasts to slay for food on the far side of the swamp.