Prince of Bryanae

by Jeffrey Getzin

  The guards exited through the arch as Willow neared Snyde, and the gates were closed. The crowd’s cheering dropped to a hush as the spectators craned forward to better hear what would ensue.

  Snyde raised a hand in greeting. “Hello, Willow.”

  She didn’t answer. As she got closer, she could see the beads of sweat on his brow.

  “This is pretty messed up, isn’t it?” he said.

  Willow kept approaching. Snyde took two steps backwards.

  “I know you think I’m a bad person, Willow, but my intentions were good.”

  “I think you’re a traitor,” she said and kept walking.

  Snyde retreated until he backed against the arena wall. He yelped and then began skirting its periphery.

  Willow continued walking towards him, an axe dangling by its thong from her wrist. Snyde glanced at the axe, and then back at Willow.

  He stopped retreating.

  “I guess we’re going to have our duel after all,” he said, a weak smile on his face.

  “I guess so.”

  She stopped walking when she was arm’s length away from him. Their eyes met for a moment, and then Snyde lowered his.

  “You have every right to hate me,” Snyde said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  “I guess that I don’t blame you.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  He showed her his palms.

  “I don’t even have a weapon,” he said.

  Willow remembered the touch of his lips on the base of her neck, the feeling of raking her fingernails down his back. Her recollection was again met with warmth and desire.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I do.”

  She buried the axe in his forehead. His eyes crossed and his hands rose to pull at the handle, but they never made it that far. He collapsed, twitched once, twice, even a third time, and then was still.

  Oblivious to the explosion of cheers around her, Willow pressed her foot against Snyde’s chest and yanked her axe free from his head. She wiped both faces of the blade clean on Snyde’s jacket.

  So far, none of this had gone according to plan.

  Chapter 106

  A fanfare sounded but Willow couldn’t hear more than the first few notes because then the crowd began to cheer in earnest, as though the ear-shattering cacophony that had proceeded had merely been a warm-up.

  Now that the Warlord had used her to enact his revenge—or had she used him to enact hers?—they would be sending real opponents, armed opponents. The question was, what type and how many?

  Willow swung the axe that had killed Snyde experimentally, enjoying the familiar weight to it. She checked the join between the blade and haft and then the strength of the thongs on all three axes: the two in her hands, and the one in her waistband. Again, they were exquisite weapons and would perform as intended. She slipped her wrists through the two thongs and gripped her axes comfortably.

  Before his murder, Ber-Ote had told her that there were two kinds of events the Kards liked to have: the ones that start with humans and end with the creatures and the ones that start with the creature and end with the humans.

  She had a definite preference on the matter. She watched the two gates: would a human emerge from the Enemy Arch or would a creature emerge from the Creature Arch? She forced herself to breathe normally, to stay relaxed.

  She heard the grinding of metal on stone: a gate opening within one of the tunnels. Any moment now.

  A barbarian ran out of the Enemy gate, his axe cutting figure-eights in front of him.

  Willow sighed. It was going to be a long day. She had been hoping for a creature.

  The barbarian was howling with rage and bloodlust, and for a moment, her old fear returned and she flinched. But then she steeled herself, and planted her feet. She would not budge.

  I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.

  Their hold over her was gone. Never again would she freeze up around them, or let them control her in any way. She would not yield any control, because she had … well, because she had discipline.

  Ah, discipline. How good to see you, old friend.

  Willow watched the barbarian charging at her, and her muscles were loose, her face relaxed.

  Then the barbarian was upon her, his axe swinging high in its figure-eight.

  Willow squatted low to her left, almost sitting on her heel, her right leg extended. The barbarian tripped over that right leg. Before he had even hit the ground, she sprung upright again and buried her axe into the back of his skull.

  So much for the human portion of the event.

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much,” Tamlevar called to her. “Not to be a pessimist, but I can sense a lot more fighters coming.”

  “How many is ‘a lot’?”

  “A lot.”

  Terrific.

  A barbarian emerged from the Enemy archway. Another one followed. And then another one. And then another one. Willow had counted up to fifteen by the time the first one had reached her, and more were coming.

  She shrugged. Might as well get started now.

  She began to swing the axes in intricate patterns, carving elaborate and incomprehensible arcs. Her weapons whistled in increasing and decreasing tones. Willow charged at the approaching barbarians.

  They never stood a chance. Limbs, noses, and ears flew in all directions as Willow mowed an elliptical path through her foes.

  They just kept sending more barbarians and she just kept slaying them. She had already lost count and she hadn’t even broken a sweat. She was a terrible diplomat, a poor friend, an inadequate lover, and a dreadful judge of character. But when it came to fighting, there were none better. She had spent over a hundred and fifty years making sure of it. It’s a pity Master Mal never lived to see to what extremes she would take his arts.

  A blaze of pain exploded in her leg, and she nearly fell over. What in the hells?

  She rolled to the side and felt her leg as she did so. Her fingers brushed the haft of an arrow.

  The archers in the tower were shooting at her? They weren’t supposed to do that unless she were refusing to engage the enemy. Wasn’t this interesting enough for them?

  “Willow!” Tamlevar cried, half-running, half-staggering towards her.

  “Go by the tower!” she shouted. “Get as close to it as possible. They won’t be able to fire straight down!”

  Or at least she hoped that that was the case.

  She limped backwards to tower as well, her arms still swinging their axes, barbarians still falling.

  But now the barbarians were getting cautious, were using strategy instead of the direct approach.

  They were fanning out. About twelve of them.

  But getting into position meant a respite for her. She squatted and, letting the axes dangle from their thongs, she grasped the arrow with both hands.

  Now this was going to hurt. But that was what discipline was for. She yanked at the arrow, but she didn’t so much as grunt as the flesh tore from her leg.

  The barbarians had formed a semicircle around her and were starting to advance when another fanfare sounded. The barbarians looked up at the Warlord’s box with expressions of confusion and indignation.

  Poor doomed Ber-Ote had said that there were two types of events: one that began with creatures and ended with humans, and one that began with humans and ended with creatures. He hadn’t mentioned anything about humans and creatures at the same time.

  Willow heard the rattling of a gate opening up in the tunnel behind the Creature Arch. And then she heard an ear-shattering roar.

  Terrific, she thought. Just terrific.

  Chapter 107

  This whole thing was out of control.

  For Willow’s plan to work, she needed a cordon, an animal that, according to Ber-Ote, featured prominently in the Kardic games. She needed a cordon, so what bothered her wasn’t the fact that a trio of barbarians was wheeling an enormous cage into the arena—one that
contained a cordon.

  No, that much had been necessary. That had been the only part of her plan that seemed to be going right.

  But there were a number of elements that were not going right. For instance, that there were over fifty barbarian opponents in the arena in addition to the cordon. That was a problem.

  Or perhaps it was that they had also wheeled out a large yellow bear, native to the southern woods. She had wanted a cordon, not a cordon and a bear.

  No, that wasn’t really the worst of it. The worst of it was that she recognized the particular cordon they had wheeled out.

  It was Pyto-Etha, her childhood pet and lone friend from long ago. Her heart stung at the sight of him under these circumstances.

  The lifespan of a cordon was comparable to that of an elf. They rarely made it to a thousand years old, but a cordon aged in the seven hundreds was not uncommon.

  And cordons grew non-stop during the first two hundred or so years of their lives. So Pyto-Etha was huge. Really, really huge. Even hunched in his enormous wheeled cage, he still stood over twice Willow’s height, and many times that in length. His eyes were wide and red, and white foam frothed at his mouth. And when his pupils centered on Willow, they grew larger, and the cordon dashed at the metal bars of his cage.

  Willow looked up at the Warlord, sitting next to the Prince of Bryanae and two empty seats. The Warlord waved at her, his smile broad.

  Filthy bastard. He had known that Pyto-Etha had been her cordon, hadn’t he?

  As the cordon’s handlers began to slide open Pyto-Etha’s cage, Tamlevar sidled up to her. A rock fell to the ground in front of their feet, dropped from above by the archers frustrated by their targets’ proximity to the tower.

  “Was this how your plan was supposed to go?” Tamlevar said.

  “You know it wasn’t. That cordon there, he used to be my pet.”

  Tamlevar glanced at Pyto-Etha, whose shovel-like wedge of a nose was even now prying its way through the opening of the cage.

  “What did you feed him: horses?”

  “Would you believe cordons eat insects and grass?”

  “Then why is he staring at you like that?”

  Willow frowned.

  “They’ve driven him mad,” she said, her heart aching with pity and rage.

  So this whole thing was out of control. What she wanted was one cordon. What she had now was one cordon, one bear, and fifty barbarians. And the cordon was her old pet.

  This made things rough for a number reasons. For one, the barbarians might kill the cordon. For another, they might kill her while she was working with the cordon.

  Just terrific. Still, it was her only hope.

  “Ok,” she said to Tamlevar. She glanced at the Warlord’s box, then pointed to a spot on the tower. “Do it. Here.”

  “No.” The Szun approached. “Not there. Here.”

  He pointed to a spot slightly higher.

  Tamlevar’s mouth was a horizontal line, and his brow furrowed. “You realize that I’ll be useless afterward, right, Willow?”

  “We don’t have any choice. Just do it.”

  The barbarians had formed a circle around the tower and were closing on them. Willow noted that so far, no arrows had been shot at any of the barbarians. But then again, she hadn’t expected fairness.

  Tamlevar’s breathing slowed and deepened as he did whatever it was Illuminati did when they channeled. Since he had already nearly exhausted himself saving her last night, he surely must not have had much strength left now. Yet they needed this.

  It was part of the plan.

  Tamlevar cocked his right arm, which held an axe. He took a deep breath, and swung the axe at the tower with so much force that wind of its passing whipped Willow’s hair.

  Sparks erupted as he drove the axe into the stone tower wall nearly all the way to its haft. It was an amazing feat: the axe had not broken, the wall had not cracked. It was as if he had driven the axe into dirt. The axe handle pointed straight down. Perfect.

  “Good!” she said, eyeing the encroaching army of Kards. They didn’t have much more time. “Now the second one.”

  Tamlevar swung a second axe, and it penetrated the tower wall, about two hands’ breadth to the left of the first one.

  “Now do the last one.”

  Tamlevar embedded a third axe, this one parallel to the ground.

  That much, at least, worked according to plan. Now came the tough part.

  Tamlevar’s knees buckled, and he embraced the wall to stabilize him. His skin had turned a dark gray.

  “Wish me luck,” Willow said and started to leave.

  The Szun placed its claw-like hand on her shoulder.

  “Kill me first.”

  Willow looked at its alien reptilian face, at the keen intelligence that burned in its yellow eyes. She raised her axe. And then couldn’t do it.

  “Not yet. Later.”

  “Please,” it begged. “You promised.”

  She shook off its hand. “I said later.”

  Favoring her bad leg, she charged the ring of barbarians. Arrows thudded into the ground in her wake, some narrowly missing her.

  And then Pyto-Etha burst free from his cage and roared.

  Chapter 108

  Look at the bright side: at least she wasn’t afraid of the barbarians anymore.

  No, charging at a ring of fifty or so of them wasn’t exactly the action of a petrified woman. She supposed she could cross eliminating her phobia off her list of things to do.

  As she ran towards the side of the arena on which the Warlord’s box was, she saw their ranks break to her right. The yellow bear, no doubt driven insane by taunting and starvation, had leapt upon one of the barbarians. A few of his comrades were hacking at it with their axes or trying to pull it off, but with limited success. Yellow bears were ferocious animals. In her father’s day, only the most skilled hunters dared cross one.

  Willow began to yell as she neared the ranks, a guttural scream of rage and savagery. Her dual axes dangled from their thongs.

  Her wounded leg burned, and each step she took caused that pain to blaze. But she couldn’t slow down: not now. Everything hinged on what happened in the next few minutes.

  Just before making contact with the barbarian perimeter, she abruptly changed targets: the ones who had backed away found themselves safe; the ones who had remained … well, now they had serious problems.

  Willow broke through their line, her axes swinging on their thongs, freed from her grip. When she stopped on the other side of the line, bloody limbs dotted the earth where she had passed. She spun about and began another path. She needed this area clear of barbarians for this to work.

  The barbarians at which she was heading turned tail and ran. Willow was about to stop when she felt the ground thundering behind her.

  Without even looking behind her, she dove to one side. Pyto-Etha dashed by with a loud snort that she could feel in her bones.

  Surprisingly, this was what she wanted.

  “I’m sorry, Pyto-Etha,” she whispered, and threw one of her axes at him.

  It whistled through the air and bounced off his hardened shovel-shaped snout. Pyto-Etha wheeled and charged again.

  Willow glanced back at the tower. The Szun was waving its arm at her.

  “No!” it shouted. “It the wrong trajectory is! It the wrong trajectory is!”

  Dammit.

  She stood her ground before the cordon as it barreled towards her. Then as it was almost upon her, she rolled.

  Oh yes, she’d get the right trajectory.

  The cordon spun about, inflamed by rage and madness, and charged again.

  She heard a whistling sound and then an arrow head was protruding from her upper arm. She grunted, and her other axe fell to the ground.

  “Willow!” cried Tamlevar, which wasn’t much help at all.

  Dammit, come on, Pyto-Etha.

  “Come on, boy,” she whispered as it neared her. “Come on.”

&nb
sp; It grew closer, and then suddenly she spun and ran towards the tower. She saw the Szun signaling her.

  “Acceptable is!” it said.

  Terrific, she thought, as she bled and limped towards the tower, and that third axe embedded in the wall. Behind her, she heard Pyto-Etha’s thunderous hooves pounding into the earth.

  How close was he? How fast was he running? Would she make it?

  She had to. Everything depended on her making it.

  An arrow whizzed into her chest, just below her shoulder. She refused to cry out.

  Discipline!

  Almost there.

  “Hurry!” cried Tamlevar. “He’s right behind you.”

  More useless information. It wasn’t like she couldn’t feel Pyto-Etha shaking the ground at her heels.

  Almost there …

  Now!

  She leapt at that third axe embedded in the wall. She needed to grab it, hold for just a moment, and then throw herself to the side before the cordon hit the tower.

  Time seemed to slow as she glided through the air. She reached for the axe, grasped the handle. Then her hands began to slip. Her palms were sweaty, covered in blood. She fumbled desperately to get hold, but her coordination was thrown by the arrow in her chest.

  Oh no!

  She fell, which was the worst thing that could happen. She’d be trampled to death.

  Suddenly, something slammed into her from the side, and her fall was redirected. She heard the enormous impact of the cordon into the stone tower even as she hit the ground.

  She rolled and winced as the arrow in her chest bumped against the ground. Then she spun on her feet to see what she had wrought.

  Cordons ate insects: underground ones. They used their shovel-like snouts to dig through dirt and rock to expose nests of ants and termites, which they licked up with their long pink tongues. Their snouts were almost as hard as diamonds and capable of withstanding tremendous forces. Such as slamming into a stone wall.

  Pyto-Etha lay stunned at the base of the tower. He had destroyed a huge section of the stone tower wall, reducing it to rubble.

  The tower wobbled.

  Perfect.

  Then she saw a black figure sprawled at the base of the tower, right beside the unconscious cordon, and she felt her heart leap to her throat. Tamlevar!