The Charnel Prince

by Greg Keyes

  “I . . . Anne . . . ah, Saints!” his voice rose to a hideous shriek, and the carriage jarred to a halt.

  “You are nothing, Roderick of Dunmrogh,” she said. She opened the carriage door and walked out into the night, ignoring the protestations of the driver and Vespresern. She limped back along the road, toward the forest, or where she thought it was. She hoped her leg wouldn’t start to bleed again.

  As the moon rose higher, Anne felt more and more certain of her way, and though the crescent’s light was vanishingly pallid, she found that with each step it seemed to brighten and bleed through the shadows. A bell sounded in the distance, and then another, and the music of it seemed to float by like a breeze. She was somehow both calm and angry. She wondered abstractly what precisely she had done to Roderick, but didn’t feel too concerned about it. Something bad, and permanent—that was certain, she could feel it in her bones.

  She stepped beneath the groping trees as the eleventh bell sounded, and there she stopped. She knelt on the damp earth and closed her eyes and pushed away the world.

  When she opened them, she was in a different forest, but it was still night, the moon still a sickle above. In front of her stood a woman she had never seen. She wore an ivory mask and a black gown that glinted with jewels.

  “The fourth Faith,” she said.

  The woman bowed her head slightly. “You have called me, and here I am.” She lifted her head back up. “You should not do this, Anne. You are free—return to Eslen.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I’m tired of running. I won’t run anymore.”

  The woman smiled faintly. “You feel your power waking, but you are not yet complete. You are not ready for this trial, I promise you.”

  “Then I will die, and that will be the end of it,” Anne said.

  “It will be the end not just of you, but of the world as we know it.”

  “I do not much care for the world as we know it,” Anne confided a little haughtily.

  The woman sighed. “Why did you come here?”

  “To tell you. If you are so certain that I must live, then you will help me, I think.”

  “We are already helping you, Anne. My sisters and I have strained ourselves, woven as much into the web of fate as we dare. We foresaw this moment, and there are two paths. One is the path home, to Eslen. At this moment your mother is locked in a tower, and the man who murdered your father sits the throne. A moment approaches there, also, and if you aren’t there to greet it, the result will be terrible beyond imagining.”

  “And the other path? The one in which I face my pursuers and free my friends? The one I’m going to take?”

  “We cannot see past that,” she whispered. “And that is gravely worrisome.”

  “But you said you foresaw this moment.”

  “Yes, but not your decision. We feared you would take the unseeable, and have provided all the help we can. I do not think it will be enough.”

  “It will be enough,” Anne said, “or you will find another queen.”

  The monks had been piling wood in a huge cone all day, but soon after it grew dark, they lit it. Cazio watched the flames lick hungrily up toward the oak branches above.

  “Do you suppose they’re going to burn us?” he asked z’Acatto.

  “If they meant to do that, they should have tied us up to the logs. No, boy, I think they’ve something more interesting in mind.”

  Cazio nodded. “Yes. Something to do with those.” He meant the seven posts the monks had erected earlier, but he also meant the newer, somewhat more worrisome detail they had added only a few moments before—three hanging nooses suspended from a low tree branch.

  “You always said I would end in a noose,” he told the old man.

  “Yes,” z’Acatto agreed. “I never imagined I would be joining you, however. Speaking of which, how is your plan coming along? The one you promised Artoré?”

  “I’ve got the broad strokes of it laid out,” Cazio said. “I’m mostly lacking in details.”

  “Uh-huh. How are you going to slip your bonds?”

  “That, unfortunately, is one of the details.”

  “You work that out while I get some sleep.” z’Acatto grunted.

  They were silent for a while as Cazio watched the play of light from the fire. It seemed as if giants made of shadow were leaping from the trees into the clearing and then retreating again—doing footwork, as a dessrator might. He glanced longingly at Caspator, where the sword lay with the rest of his effects.

  His bonds were loosening again, but if experience was any guide, someone would be along presently to tighten them.

  Cazio himself was tiring, and was almost dozing when it finally started. The monks were leading captives to the perimeter of poles around the mound and securing them there. It took the first of their screams for the drowsy Cazio to understand that they weren’t tying them there.

  “Oh, buggering lords, no,” Cazio said, redoubling his efforts at the ropes. He watched helplessly as a girl who could be no more than five had her arms stretched above her and nailed there.

  “No!” he screamed. “By all that’s holy, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “They’re waking the sedos,” Artoré whispered. “Waking the Worm.” He looked frightened, which he hadn’t before.

  “How can . . .” Cazio stumbled off, overcome by the horror of it.

  “How can men do things like this?” he finally managed.

  “I don’t think we’ve seen the worst,” Artoré predicted. “And I think I’d best bid you farewell now.”

  Cazio saw someone coming in their direction. He lunged at the robe-clad monk, but the rope went taut around his neck and jerked him back.

  “Stop it!” he screamed as the man cut Artoré’s leash. Artoré was faster than he looked. He head-butted the monk in the face. The man jerked back, and then moved with blinding speed, striking Artoré in the pit of his stomach. The man gagged and fell to his knees, and the monk took him in an armlock and conveyed him to the post.

  “Z’Acatto?” Cazio said feeling his breath coming suddenly short.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For desserata. For everything.”

  The old man didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re welcome, boy,” he finally answered. “I could have spent my life worse. I’m glad to be here with you.”

  A monk was coming for z’Acatto. Euric was coming for Cazio.

  “Don’t get too sentimental,” Cazio said. “I’m still going to get us out of this, and then you’ll feel silly.”

  The men were almost on them. Cazio tried to relax, so he could move quickly. He would have just an instant when the rope was slack, and he would have to use that instant well.

  Euric smiled and punched him in the jaw. Cazio felt his teeth snap together, and suddenly he was choking. Just as quickly, the pressure released, and he stumbled forward, dragged by the knight who had him from behind in a wrestling hold.

  “Can’t kill you yet,” Euric said. “You’re one of the guests of honor. I thought I would have to play your part, and I was ready, too, but then we found you.”

  “What are you babbling about, you filthy sod?” Cazio snarled.

  “Swordsman, Priest, and Crown,” the knight said, unhelpfully. “And one who cannot die. We’ve got a priest, and a royal, though she doesn’t know it yet, I’m afraid—and now we’ve got our swordsman. As for the undying—well, you’ve already met Hrothwulf.”

  “Is any of that supposed to make sense?” Cazio asked, as Euric hustled him up the mound and stood him up on a block beneath the gallows tree, then set the noose around his neck. Another man brought Caspator and stuck the blade point-first into the ground in front of him. Cazio gazed greedily at the weapon, so close and so unreachable.

  Now he had a good view of all the victims nailed to the posts. He could see their faces in the firelight. Z’Acatto already hung with them, blood drizzling f
rom his crossed palms, not more than six perechi away.

  Artoré was there, too—and he’d been right. It was getting worse. Going widdershins—one by one—the monks were carefully cutting their victims open and pulling out their intestines. They stretched these to the next post and nailed them into the arms of the next victim, then cut his belly, too. As this happened, a sacritor on the mound began chanting in a language Cazio had never heard before.

  Meanwhile, a new party entered the clearing, a richly dressed man and woman. The man was tall and austere, with graying mustache and beard. The woman looked younger, but it was hard to make out her features from this distance, partly because she was bound and gagged.

  “There’s our royal,” a voice said, just near Cazio’s ear. He turned and saw one of the monks step onto the block beside him and calmly place the noose on his own neck.

  “I honestly never knew,” Cazio distantly heard himself say. “Never. I have seen cruelty, and malice, murder, and casual mayhem. But I never in my worst dreams ever imagined such sick depravity as this.”

  “You don’t understand,” the monk said softly. “The world is dying, swordsman. The sky is cracking and soon will tumble down. And we’re going to save it. You should be honored.”

  “If I had my sword,” Cazio said, “I would show you what I honor and how.”

  The woman was placed on the third block. Her eyes were wild with terror.

  He turned his attention back to the circle. It was half-complete, and z’Acatto’s turn was coming. There was nothing Cazio could do but watch.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KHRWBH KHRWKH

  CAZIO CLOSED HIS EYES as the knife-wielding monk stepped up to z’Acatto, but then forced them open again. If the only thing he could do for z’Acatto was to watch him die, then he would do that. So he set his teeth and promised himself he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of any more outbursts.

  Z’Acatto suddenly did something really odd. He jerked his feet into the air, levering both legs out straight and kicking them as high as his head—an impressive show of agility and strength for a man his age. Then he swung them rapidly back down, slapping them into the post. His face was strangely serene, despite the pain he must have been feeling. The nails ripped through his hands as he arched forward from the force of the reversal, tumbling him to the ground. He bounded up immediately, driving his bloody right hand into the monk’s throat. The fellow dropped the knife, and z’Acatto immediately scooped it up, then sprinted toward Cazio.

  Almost everyone else was watching the invoker, so that his mestro had closed more than half the distance before a shout of alarm went up. The monk next to Cazio wasn’t bound, since he was a volunteer, and he quickly reached to extricate himself from the rope around his neck. But with a muffled cry Cazio tucked his chin against the noose, pulled his legs up, and kicked him with both feet. His own noose went instantly tight, though, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe as both his block and the one the monk perched on toppled away.

  Black butterflies began to flutter in his vision, as the rope turned him forward again and he saw z’Acatto getting up from the ground. The long black shaft of an arrow stood quivering from the older man’s back and he was cursing steadily and inventively. He scrambled up the mound as another hail of arrows fell around him. He was hit again, this time in the calf, but he did not fall.

  Another turn, and Cazio saw the monk, hanging like he was, but with both hands on the rope above him, trying to pull himself upward with one, and loosen the knot with the other. Z’Acatto denied him success, cutting the churchman’s throat in one long slash, then with the next whip of his hand severed the rope that was just short of killing Cazio.

  Cazio thudded to the ground, gasping for air. He couldn’t see z’Acatto anymore, but he felt his bonds part, and with a hoarse shout he bounced to his feet and yanked Caspator from the ground. He turned to find z’Acatto with a third arrow in his ribs, his breath coming in rapid gasps, his eyes going glassy.

  “Stay down, old man,” Cazio told him. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “Yes,” z’Acatto wheezed. “Excellent idea.”

  Euric and two men-at-arms were first on Cazio’s menu. They were a few perechi away, charging, meat-cleavers drawn. Cazio was a little surprised he hadn’t been made a riddle by arrows, as z’Acatto had, but a quick glance around the clearing showed the archers lowering their weapons, and he smiled sardonically as he realized they wanted him alive so they could hang him.

  He set his stance, slipping the noose off his neck with his off-weapon hand.

  Besides their broadswords, they all wore armor, though none of them had helms. Cazio put his blade out in a line aimed at Euric’s face. The knight beat at his blade to remove it, but with a twist of his fingers Cazio dipped his point beneath the searching blade, quickly changed his line, and sidestepped. Euric’s momentum took him past Cazio, as Caspator’s tip caught one of the men-at-arms in the throat. Using the weapon as a lever, Cazio jumped forward and to the left, turning the man to place the corpse-to-be briefly between Euric and the other warrior. This gave him shelter to withdraw the blade and set his stance again. The unfortunate fellow fell, blood bubbling from the hole in his trachea.

  “Ca dola dazo lamo,” Cazio forcefully informed his foes.

  The second man-at-arms thrust past Euric, lifting his hand for a cut, perhaps forgetting they were supposed to keep Cazio alive long enough to hang. Cazio countered into the attack, a fast, straight lunge that hit the man on the underside of his wrist.

  “Z’estatito,” he explained as the man grunted and dropped his weapon. Euric’s blade was streaking down from his right, a blow apparently meant for his leg, so Cazio caught it in an outside parry, then thrust into the eye of the man-at-arms, who was still standing there, staring uncomprehendingly at his bloody wrist.

  “Zo pertumo sesso, com postro en truto.”

  He ducked Euric’s vicious backswing, because his blade was still stuck in a skull. As he yanked it out, Euric charged inside the point, grabbing his neck and bringing the broadsword’s pommel down in a vicious blow aimed at his nose. Cazio managed to turn his head so the hilt grazed along the side of it instead of striking it square, but that was still enough set the world singing. He returned the favor by striking Caspator’s grip into Euric’s ear, and both men fell.

  Cazio scrambled up, and so did Euric. From the corner of his eye, Cazio saw three of the monks running toward him with ridiculous speed, and knew he had only a heartbeat left to act.

  “You won’t escape,” Euric promised him.

  “I’m not trying to,” Cazio said.

  And so—as he had practiced with z’Acatto only a few days before—he flung himself forward like a spear, his body nearly parallel to the ground. Euric’s eyes went wide, and he threw his own blade up in defense, far too late. Caspator’s point hit Euric’s teeth with the full weight and momentum of Cazio’s body behind it. They shattered, and the steel continued over the tongue and through the brain. Euric blinked, clearly puzzled by his death.

  “Z’ostato,” Cazio grunted.

  Cazio had barely hit the ground before someone struck him from behind and caught him in a wrestling hold. It felt like an iron yoke around his neck. Then he was yanked roughly to his feet, and he found himself surrounded. One of the crowd was the fellow in the noble clothing.

  “That was extraordinary,” he said. “At least we can be certain that you are a true swordsman, now. But now we need a new priest and regal. My wife seems to have had an accident.”

  Cazio looked up at the mound and saw that the woman had somehow fallen off her perch and been hanged. He hoped he hadn’t done it in the struggle.

  “We have to hang you all together, you see,” he said.

  Cazio spat in his face. “You sacrificed your wife, you rabid dog?”

  The man wiped his face without any other obvious reaction. “Oh, I would sacrifice much more than that to bring this faneway alive,” he said. Then he laughed, a
bit bitterly. “I suppose I will have to, actually—I don’t have time to find my son, and I’m the only one here with royal blood, I think.”

  “No,” a familiar voice called. “There is one more here with noble blood.”

  They all turned, and Cazio saw Anne standing at the edge of the woods. Her voice rose in a commanding tone Cazio had never heard her use.

  “I am Anne Dare,” she said, “daughter of the Emperor of Crotheny, Duchess of Rovy. I command you all to lay down your arms and release these people, or I swear by Saint Cer the Avenger, you will all die.”

  For a few heartbeats, the clearing was silent except for the crackle of flames and the moans of the dying. Then the nobleman next to Cazio uttered a single barking laugh.

  “You!” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you, you know. All over. Slaughtered an entire coven to find you. My men told me you were dead—and now you walk right into my arms. Outstanding. Come here, girl, and give us a kiss.”

  “You will not mock me,” Anne said steadily. “You will not.”

  “I think I will,” the man replied.

  Anne stepped steadily nearer to the man. “You are Roderick’s father,” she said. A part of her was trembling with fear, but that part of her seemed to be sinking away, melting like snow in spring. “Of course. Roderick’s father and his Hansan knights. And why did you chase me over the great wide world, Duke of Dunmrogh? What fear was in you that made you do that?”

  “No fear,” the Duke said. “I was doing what my lord commanded.”

  “Which lord is that? Which lord commanded my death?”

  “How foolish of you to think I would ever name him,” Dunmrogh said.

  “Foolish is the man who does not ask what his lord fears of a single girl,” Anne spat. She felt, suddenly, the sickness around her, a pulsing fever in the very earth itself, and something turning slowly in the dirt, opening one eye. It was like that day with Austra, in the city of the dead, when they had escaped the knights, but stronger. She took a breath and felt herself expand with it. “He only fears a queen in Eslen,” Dunmrogh said, suddenly sounding the slightest bit uncertain.