The Fourth Runi (The Fledgling Account Book 4)

by Y. K. Willemse

  The atmosphere had become suffocating. He rasped, surrounded. Their presence felt like a physical assault on his skin. He could feel them crowding him and pressing up against him even though he was in the center of a circle with a radius of four feet.

  He wasn’t thinking very clearly by this time. Nazt’s screaming in his head was a familiar lullaby to him. He breathed shallowly, waiting for something to happen. He remembered vaguely that he had come here to find Sherwin, though something told him Sherwin was already here. He could feel his eyes watching him from a higher plane, and felt at that moment that Sherwin was so much ahead of him. He was an instructor of sorts.

  Rafen glanced up, and sure enough, Sherwin was two feet from him, within the circle. He wore the familiar fixated stare. His balaclava, cloak, and gloves were gone.

  At the sight of him, Rafen’s blood boiled. Nazt was muted as he saw the image of Sherwin falling through the cloud of spirits over and over in his mind. His phoenix feather was searing against his chest, and he only just realized it now.

  When he opened his mouth to say something, only a hoarse croak came out. Sherwin kept watching him with a smile on his face.

  Rafen’s hand dropped to his sword hilt, and a hiss rent the air. His fingers froze. An arrow was embedded in the earthen floor at his feet. He looked up again, and the incarnate spirits around him were as still as before. Not one of them blinked. Sherwin was part of the expectant silence.

  Rafen had to be careful now. He had seen what would happen if he died; it was crucial he survive this.

  Something fighting for audibility in Rafen’s mind told him he and Sherwin had to battle their way out of the circle. Once they were free, he would be able to breathe and think, and they could find Francisco—

  Francisco! The Lashki’s troops would be on him now.

  Rafen whipped his sword from its sheath. The light around became blinding in an instant. He was conscious of many bodies against his, crushing him, even though he hadn’t heard anyone move. The atmosphere was unbearably hot, and Rafen couldn’t breathe. He was collapsing inwards. The sword was in his hand, and he swung it around frenziedly, filling the air with rays of focused flame, hacking at the wall of bodies that had closed in on him. Talons slashed his skin. His limbs were being pulled apart, and still he couldn’t see anything against the harsh red light in his eyes. Something pierced his side below his ribs, and warm blood gushed out. Sherwin yelled, and Rafen wondered if the spell over him had been broken too.

  Fritz filled his mind, looming larger than before. Rafen tugged frenziedly at the king’s presence, throwing in all of his dying effort, and then he felt Fritz’s consciousness break free of the mire he had been trying to pull it out of. The wild throbbing of his heart and the burning of his ring told him Fritz had come, he was going to appear any moment and help Rafen convince Siana he was the Runi.

  It was too late; they were carrying him away, and Rafen struggled weakly, his eyes dropping closed. He tried absorbing his own kesmal, but his efforts to see Fritz had drained him. His limbs were hollow, and there was nothing left. The pain in his side was a giant mouth, eating him up. It was his entire world. Nazt’s screech of triumph only just registered in his mind, and his answering panic was insurmountable as he imagined Nazt rolling past its bounds, vomiting bodies.

  Zion, please help!

  He wished he could have seen his wife one last time.

  *

  Francisco mounted the jagged rocks with tears in his eyes. According to Sianian law, he had become a man at Adelphia’s house, on Ki Zion sixteenth, his sixteenth birthday. He didn’t feel like a man. He felt like dirt.

  He had set Trinity free, he had let his brother go down to Zion knew where, and now the Lashki was coming. He had listened to Adelphia by listening to his brother, and now the last Runi was going to his death. Hot terror churned within him as he thought of it this way. By letting Rafen perish, he was destroying everyone’s hope. Nazt would overrun the world.

  Francisco turned around on the crags and rushed back down to the path’s dead end, near the drop his brother had disappeared into. He couldn’t do this. He was panting, even though he had scarcely exerted himself. Whipping a knife from his belt, he faced the smoky air around the pit, as if he could destroy the spirits he couldn’t see by some physical means.

  A rock-like force flew into his shoulder, and Francisco crashed to the dusty ground sideways, screaming, his knife knocked from his hand. A mouth full of hot breath rushed toward his throat.

  A flash of light passed directly before his eyes, and yellow, luminous blood splashed the front of Francisco’s cloak as the Naztwai rolled off him sideways, headless. Feeling vomit in his throat, Francisco struggled to get up, but he was shaking so badly he couldn’t. The sticky blood smelled like urine and decay.

  A great, muscular hand was extended to him. He grasped it and was pulled to his feet by someone’s titanic strength.

  He was looking into the eyes of King Fritz. He knew it was King Fritz from the portraits he had seen of him in books. The real thing was ten times better. The light in the flecked blue eyes was stronger, fiercer, wilder. The lines in his face were expressions of wisdom and experience; they had nothing to do with age. His teeth were clenched; his mouth was set; the gleaming, ash-colored hair that slid down to his chin was tousled, with particles of snow in it; and one eyebrow was raised in haughty appraisal of the opposition they were about to face. He was a head taller than Francisco.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fritz

  Empties the Den

  “Your brother traveled the wrong way,” he said in a crisp Sartian accent. “I told him not to come here.”

  “I know,” Francisco said, his voice shaking. “It was Sherwin – he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Hang Sherwin,” Fritz said simply.

  He clicked his tongue, and Trinity trotted into view, his head bowed.

  From the path behind the horse, the clattering and whistling of Naztwai was alarmingly close. An explosion of kesmal split the air above Francisco, and he ducked with a shriek. He looked up to see a yellow sheet above him and Fritz. Fritz still gripped his broadsword, which shone with the yellow blood of the dead Naztwai at their feet.

  “What do you fear?” he said. “Mount the horse.”

  He grabbed Francisco’s collar and shoved him over to the horse. Francisco mounted hastily. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see over a dozen Naztwai rushing toward him from the mountain path that led to the pit. Fritz slashed the air with his sword, and with a thunderous roar, rocks crashed down from the stone walls above and fell on the front beasts, crushing them.

  Fritz seized Trinity’s halter and pointed his sword at a large, peaked rock near the right stone wall. It shattered, cascading into dust and revealing a narrow opening.

  “Now!” Fritz bellowed at Trinity, pulling the horse toward the gap in the rocks.

  Trinity whined, and Francisco understood why. He could already feel odd wisps of air tickling his skin and stroking his face. They were the spirits his brother constantly saw now.

  The other Naztwai had managed to climb over the rocks Fritz had sent down, but Francisco, Trinity, and the Second Runi were already in the gap in the stone wall, following the thin path that sloped down and turned in the direction of the pit. The Naztwai paused, whistling uncertainly by the shattered rock. Evidently, Trinity wasn’t the only one afraid of spirits.

  “Have a man’s heart, Francisco,” King Fritz said. “We are entering Nazt’s domain.”

  “My brother would not listen to me,” Francisco said. “Adelphia told me I must always obey him.”

  “And you must always listen to Adelphia,” Fritz said wryly.

  The path wended left and opened out slightly, allowing splatters of icy rain into it. The rain was a relief in the unnatural heat. The path stopped at a great bowl surrounded by rock and wreathed in smoke. Francisco recognized the pit and recoiled on Trinity.

  “Do you have a weapon?” King
Fritz asked, turning back to look at him.

  “I lost my only knife,” Francisco said. “It is back up there.”

  Fritz drew a small dagger set with rubies from his belt and handed it to Francisco. Francisco grasped it, his mouth dry.

  Fritz tugged on Trinity’s halter again, and the horse slowly moved out into the smoke, puffing heavily. His flanks were already damp with sweat, and the whites of his eyes gleamed. An unearthly pull nearly unseated Francisco, and he gripped the reins even tighter and cowered in the saddle. A faint buzzing had started in his head, disturbing any powers of concentration. Feathery tentacles were wrapping themselves around his limbs. The smoke was so thick he could hardly breathe.

  Fritz was leading him into the cavernous opening of the Den Nyolam. The buzzing in his head became a ringing. If he were Rafen, Francisco realized he would have been hearing voices by now.

  Trinity whinnied and shied violently away from the cave’s entrance. Francisco clung on, moaning softly.

  “Yamfir, dor utulih,” Fritz called back to Trinity. “Lur, al na tiu ki Zion inra turma wai. Rafien nia. Tiimarchem ra wai.”

  Francisco drank in the words as if they were the most fortifying of wines. He forced himself to breathe deeply as he flicked the reins. Fritz guided the shuddering horse into the cavern, and Francisco ducked as they passed under the overhanging rock.

  A fiery haze at the other end of the cavern surrounded a huddle of mutilated, indistinct forms. The silence was an assault in itself. Francisco felt his muscles tense as he sat, paralyzed, in the saddle. Every face was looking at him, the black, smoldering eyes gazing at him expressionlessly.

  They were clustered around something one of the grotesque characters was carrying. Though Francisco tried craning his neck to see, the forces within the cavern were at work within him. He felt dizzy and trapped within himself, unable to move.

  “RELEASE HIM!” a voice bellowed, and Francisco started in his saddle.

  King Fritz was yelling. He was yelling in this place.

  “RELEASE HIM AND DESCEND INTO THE DARKNESS!” he roared. “YOU HAVE OVERSTEPPED YOUR BOUNDS.”

  He swung his blade up to point at the creatures, and then they were all around them. Trinity reared, and Francisco almost lost his seat. Spears bristled around them, and many-fingered hands reached for him.

  “Back!” Fritz cried, and flung his blade outward.

  A huge flash of kesmal – like a wave of the ocean – forced the creatures to recoil two or three paces and stand still, looking as if they had never moved.

  “Francisco, get your brother,” Fritz said, sweating visibly with the effort of holding the creatures there.

  Muttering a soothing word to Trinity, Francisco wheeled the horse out of the circle of flickering, translucent beasts and galloped toward the figure now lying on the dusty ground at the other end of the cave. He tried to ignore the glittering pool around Rafen.

  He reached Rafen, and his stomach plunged. His brother was already as pale as marble. Francisco crashed down from the saddle and struggled to hoist Rafen up onto it. His brother was not cold, but he was limp, and he was past even groaning as Francisco shoved him into the saddle, his hand slipping into the large wound in his side. His fingers bloody, Francisco heaved himself back onto the saddle and rode for dear life back toward Fritz, who was lost in the mass of creatures again. Any sounds of struggle were oddly muted, and even the movements of Fritz’s attackers seemed surreal, too fast and too blinding to be happening. There were at least thirty of them, and more blinked into view in the distance. When Francisco reached the huddle, Fritz called, “Get out of the cavern with him! NOW!”

  A flash of red light blocked Francisco’s vision momentarily when he tried to drive his steed onward, and forms pressed against his skin, clinging to him. He swayed sideways in the saddle. Trinity took off with a wild neigh, and Francisco was thrown forward. Hands grabbed his arm, and then were thrown off with another blast of Fritz’s kesmal.

  Fritz stumbled back toward the cave entrance. He stood his ground, and the floor beneath the creatures cascaded downward. His wall, like yellow metal, appeared just in time. The flickering of spirits fleeing toward him was buffeted by its merciless face and extinguished in the rising dust and darkness from the fallen cave floor.

  Francisco had paused in the cave entry. A roar from above startled Trinity into a gallop. Fritz flew out of the cave behind them, dragging something. The entryway crumbled a second after he had passed through it, rocks slamming into the ground. Rumbling filled the air. Trinity was not fleeing back the way they had come; he was taking a thin, winding route through jagged rocks up an incline. Francisco gripped the reins with his bloody hands. Fritz’s heavy footsteps sounded behind them.

  Francisco glanced back. A cloud of smoke and dust rose from the demolished cave entry. The smoke in the pit was already thinner, the air easier to breathe.

  Sherwin was flung over Fritz’s shoulder. He looked as limp as Rafen.

  “Where did you find him?” Francisco whispered.

  “He was among the spirits,” Fritz said unsmilingly, “rather like a sleepwalker.”

  Francisco’s stomach turned over, though he couldn’t have explained why.

  “My brother is dying,” he said with a dry sob.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Fritz said, and Francisco saw where Etana got it from.

  Fritz edged past Trinity, bearing the gangly Sherwin as if he were a light load. Seizing the halter again, he led Francisco on for another five minutes, through a maze of rocky paths until they came to an enclosed area of stone. He laid Sherwin down against a smooth rock and then gently removed Rafen from Francisco’s saddle, his face grim. He propped Rafen up against a stone wall to the right of their little space. Francisco dismounted and removed one of the saddlebags, which contained bandages. He shoved it into Fritz’s hands, and the king set to work in the deepening darkness of the night.

  “You must search for the Jura plant,” he said. “It is red-veined. Go, and be secret. We will be lucky to escape detection for tonight, but we cannot move from here while he is in this state.”

  *

  Rafen’s eyes flicked open. He was shivering with cold, and the pain in his side was so strong he felt sick. His previous wounds from the Naztwai during his flight to Adelphia’s seemed like scratches. Snowflakes spun down between the crags above, and spirits flitted in and out of his vision.

  He had to find Sherwin and shake him and bring him to his senses. He had to survive this, for Etana’s sake. She didn’t deserve the aftermath.

  Zion, help me stand, he prayed, his teeth gritted.

  He pulled himself into a sitting position and nearly vomited, blinded by pain.

  “Rafen, don’t!” someone cried, causing a small explosion in his head. “Please lie down, you’ll hurt yourself. It’s all right.”

  The words were depressing because they were so far from the truth. Sherwin had been watching this happen to him after all; he had been giving his approval. Rafen was shockingly alone. Even his mother was dead – dead, when she could have given him such brilliant advice!

  “Rafen,” Etana whispered. A cool hand stroked his face, and he glanced up.

  Etana leaned over him, intensely beautiful in the pale gray light of morning. Her red-gold hair fell over him and tickled his skin.

  “No,” he said. “Etana, you have to go. They will take you.”

  “Shh, no. You are safe, Rafen. Safe.”

  Her eyes were red-rimmed, and Rafen supposed it was because she was pregnant. Pregnancy often made women cry, he had heard.

  “You are out of the Den Nyolam,” she said. “They got rid of the spirits – beasts – things. The Lashki and some of his men must have made them as an imitation of Nazt years and years ago. They’re gone now. We’re hiding in this little alcove my grandfather found in the Mountains.”

  Something in her tone told Rafen she was no longer talking about Fritz in the past tense. His mind ticked into renewed life, a
nd he realized he could feel Fritz’s presence close by, much realer and bigger than before. At the same time, however, he knew instinctively that it wasn’t forever. He was on some sort of timer. Rafen had done it! He had brought Fritz here. But it wasn’t permanent.

  He gripped Etana’s arm even as she tried to push him back down.

  “They are after us, Rafen,” she said softly, “yet we will elude them in the end. My grandfather knows the paths.”

  “Your grandfather—”

  “You were convinced you had seen him again. Sherwin told me.”

  Rafen licked his dry lips. “I’ll kill Sherwin. Is he all right?”

  “Oh, yes,” Etana said, with an odd smile on her face. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Grandfather came and got you both out of the Den. You would have died if not for that. He said he would have come sooner, but he had troubles of his own. Who can tell what he was doing, or how he has come?”

  Rafen stared at her. Then he smiled rather tiredly, his right hand moving to his left and pulling at the gloved index finger.

  “Zion helped me. I’ve been trying to bring Fritz back.”

  “Yes,” Etana breathed. She was proud of him. “Rafen, I think you are doing what you were born to do.”

  “I say, old chap,” someone said softly, “you can eat something. You look terrible.”

  “That’s Kasper,” Etana said to Rafen. “He’s talking to Sherwin. Sherwin got a terrible blow to the head yesterday. It serves him right. Rafen, I could strangle him. How could you go after him? Why in the world did he behave in such a fashion?”

  She flushed, and Rafen thought she looked pretty. He let out a long sigh by way of answer.

  “We shall move on, Etana,” Fritz’s voice said nearby.

  Rafen’s heart gave a jolt. He recognized the Sartian accent and the smooth, baritone pitch. His blood warmed.