Nathaniel Grey and the Obsidian Crown

by Farrell Keeling

  ‘Pick. Up. Your. Sword,’ Solas said.

  ‘Solas… don’t allow the Szar to get away with this.’

  His brother lunged forward suddenly, the lance ripping through Nathaniel’s tunic but fortunately only grazing skin.

  Nathaniel gasped and jumped away, clutching his wet side.

  Did he just… No… Please… No…

  ‘Think about what you are doing!’ Nathaniel pleaded.

  Solas launched a boot at Nathaniel’s sword, kicking it towards him.

  ‘I won’t ask you again, brother.’

  Nathaniel glared at the Royal Box, as he bent down to the sand. How dare you? He thought. Framing him for murder was one thing but this… this couldn’t be happening. It had to be some terrible dream he was about to–

  The moment the Regal had grasped the handle of his sword, Solas had launched another attack with his lance. Nathaniel managed to parry the lance tip, as it flashed a few inches from his face.

  In almost perfect sync, they two brothers jumped back and began to circle each other in the sand.

  The addition of the cut in his side, to the wound he’d received from the manticore, made moving awfully painful. Though Nathaniel made every effort to move as if it wasn’t really bothering him.

  ‘I gave you a chance, Nathaniel, and you threw it back in my face!’ Solas barked at him.

  ‘Athrana’s grace, Solas!’ Nathaniel protested, ‘I’m innocent!’

  ‘Then prove it, Kinslayer!’

  Nathaniel batted away the stab of the Solas’s lance. He considered launching an attack of his own but decided to draw back. If he were to win this battle, he couldn’t make the first move. He’d have to draw him into close-quarters and…

  Nathaniel felt a pang of horror at the way his thoughts were shaping. He wouldn’t fight Solas, he couldn’t.

  Solas was unrelenting in his attacks, throwing jab after slash, after jab. Sometimes catching Nathaniel’s arms or legs with the end of the lance. Nathaniel could already feel the bruises forming on his flesh as he wheeled away. The curl of Solas’s lips suggested his brother thought he had the beating of his opponent. The Regal had been trained well but he was leaving himself increasingly open to ripostes with each attack.

  Stop it! Nathaniel scolded himself. I will not hurt him!

  The lance jutted forward again, though stopped, strangely, a foot in front of Nathaniel, whose sword was already travelling to meet the expected blow. So, it came as a surprise when Solas spun around, twisting the lance under his armpit, cracking the staff end against Nathaniel’s wrist.

  Nathaniel cried out in surprise and fell to his knees, cradling his broken wrist against his stomach. Clouds of dust parted for the boots that approached Nathaniel’s hunched form. The round end of Solas’s lance smacked into the sand in front of Nathaniel, so the staff was mere inches from his nose.

  ‘It appears Athrana does not favour you, Kinslayer,’ Solas spoke softly.

  Nathaniel barked a bitter laugh. Given all he’d been through, he sincerely doubted that any of the Gods ever had.

  A flick of Solas’s boot heel brought Nathaniel’s back against the sand, the lance point hovering over his eyes. Rivulets of sweat were streaming down his brother’s face and he panted heavily. Still, he refrained from stabbing the lance into Nathaniel.

  ‘You don’t… don’t want to do this,’ Nathaniel grunted.

  Solas ran his tongue over his lips, as if to consider Nathaniel’s words, then shook his head profusely.

  ‘For the Empire… I have to,’ he replied.

  Nathaniel snorted. ‘You sound just like the Szar.’

  It sickened Nathaniel to his core to see how much Solas liked the sound of that.

  Kusk can’t have taken him body and soul.

  Nathaniel had to know if there was something of his brother left. Some small trace of compassion.

  ‘Whatever you do… save the Lycans, Solas… please.’

  ‘Save them?’ Solas’s lance lowered. The Regal’s jaw almost swung to his chest. Then he laughed. Cruelly. That scared Nathaniel, far more than the sight of his brother’s open admiration for the Szar. His next few words practically dripped with malice and his eyes had set into a hawk-like stare, as if Nathaniel were a juicy worm fumbling in the dirt.

  ‘You still don’t get it do you, brother?’ Solas sneered. ‘The Szar is going to purify Horizon once and for all of those dogs, starting off with your hairy little friends.’

  ‘Solas…’

  ‘SHUT UP!’

  The lance tip tickled Nathaniel’s throat, drawing the smallest trickle of blood.

  Solas’s eyes softened at that. ‘I can promise you they will be killed quickly,’ he said quietly.

  The lance began to rise slowly. Nathaniel became aware of a steady drumbeat, marking each passing second. The cries of the arena were only a dull hum, less perceivable than a fly in his ear. Each fraction of second brought a new face, flashing across the forefront of Nathaniel’s mind.

  Gabe and his easy grin.

  Samir’s dark, hooded eyes, peering over the top of a book.

  Kaira with a wryly raised brow.

  And Brey… with her freckles, her crooked smile, and bright green eyes…

  He couldn’t just let them die. He couldn’t!

  The lance was driven down.

  Nathaniel twisted and, in a fluid motion, reached for his boot. The lance cracked against the paving stone, missing Nathaniel’s neck by fractions, then fell from his brother’s grasp.

  Solas frowned, then the realisation hit him, as he collapsed to his knees. He titled his head down towards his armoured chest and gasped at the dagger embedded underneath his armpit above the chink of his breastplate.

  His hand flew to the handle.

  ‘No!’ Nathaniel yelled. ‘Don’t take it out–’

  The bloodied blade was out before Nathaniel could stop Solas. His brother uttered an oath and then collapsed into Nathaniel’s arms.

  Nathaniel had already stripped off his tunic and bundled it against the wound. Still, the material was becoming quickly sodden.

  ‘So… Athrana favours you after all… brother…’ Solas muttered. He coughed hoarsely, as though an apple core was lodged in his throat, grimacing as the little colour he had began to drain from his face.

  ‘You bloody idiot,’ Nathaniel shook as he spoke. ‘Why did it have to be you?’

  ‘The Empire demanded it,’ Solas said. He eyed his burnished black and gold breastplate and sighed. ‘I could have… served at your side… had everything not gone wrong.’

  ‘Just stay still, Solas. HELP! OZIN’S THRONE SOMEONE HELP MY BROTHER!’ Nathaniel shouted up at the arena’s occupants.

  ‘You don’t remember do you brother?’ Solas gurgled. ‘The girl at the wedding? You still don’t know who she is?’

  ‘Forget about that,’ Nathaniel shook his head, ‘you can tell me later.’

  Solas grinned.

  No one moved, no guard burst through the portcullis with bandages and needles.

  A dark voice cackled in the corner of Nathaniel’s mind.

  Kinslayer, it whispered tauntingly.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Solas, so sorry,’ Nathaniel sobbed into his brother’s neck.

  Solas’s lips parted, releasing a gurgled breath, then his body went limp in Nathaniel’s arms.

  ‘Not Solas,’ Nathaniel shook his head violently. ‘Not Solas.’

  Nathaniel wanted to howl up to the roof of the arena but all he could do was stare down at Solas’ lifeless eyes.

  ‘REGALS OF OBSIDIA!’ the Szar began once more. ‘THE KINSLAYER–’

  ‘NO!’

  Anger bubbled up inside Nathaniel, a deep fury that he was scared to admit even existed. It rested in a place deep beyond the darkest pit of his soul, in a place where not even nightmares would dare tread.

  ‘NO MORE.’

  Only the tears streaming down Nathaniel’s face belied the thunder in his voice. He thought he saw Avien
del shrink back into the shadows of the Royal Box but the Szar, though his arms had fallen, remained resolutely where he stood.

  ‘YOU THINK ALL THIS IS A GAME. HIDING BEHIND THE SACRIFICE OF YOUR OWN PEOPLE?

  At that moment, Nathaniel suddenly noticed the Regals in the arena falling to their knees, bowing their heads, as if in prayer.

  ‘HAIL!’ cried a lone voice.

  ‘HAIL!’ cried a handful in response.

  Others joined, hesitantly at first before Nathaniel was met with a wave of ‘HAIL.’

  What are they–

  The sight of his own outstretched arms ablaze, brought a moment of shocked pause.

  Desperately, Nathaniel tried palming out the flames but if anything he seemed to be helping encourage them. Nathaniel couldn’t understand this. He should have been screaming in pain, begging for an execution, yet he felt… blissful. Perversely so, with Solas lying, not even cold, on his lap.

  ‘ALL HAIL!’

  ‘Stop,’ Nathaniel whispered. Had he the strength, he would have lifted his brother’s body for all the arena to see, to remind them what the Szar’s deception had cost. But he just sat there, as the flames spread to his torso.

  ‘ALL HAIL!’

  ‘STOP!’ Nathaniel bent his head back as the flames began creeping up his neck.

  ‘ALL HAIL THE PHOENIX!’

  Epilogue

  Shadows, black as tar, sprouted from Crow’s palm, rippling in the air around his hands, like flames licking a log.

  Two men garbed in white ceremonial robes stood guard, as he approached. They both died quickly, if not entirely painlessly.

  The first was impaled by shadows the size of stakes, pinning his lifeless corpse to the wall. The other was quicker than Crow had expected, throwing himself forward, the man’s ring beginning to unfurl over his hand. A whip of shadows, flicked from Crow’s fingers, sent the assassin sprawling, before he too suffered the same stake-ridden fate. He had neither the patience, nor the desire, to grant them anything better.

  Crow passed under the stone archway and into the faintly lit room beyond. What he sought sat perched on an altar, in between two gently flickering candles, half consumed, standing in their solidified remains.

  A hairless head, without an accompanying body attached, bobbed back and forth atop the alter as it snored. Its ashen skin was shrivelled and deeply shadowed around its drooping eyelids and sunken cheeks.

  Crow paused before the altar for a moment. So, this was the pathetic little thing these fools worshipped. The source of their balance.

  ‘Can you feel the darkness, thing?’ Crow spoke sharply.

  The head stopped snoring immediately and peeled open a glazed eye. The head trembled, as if shivering.

  ‘I cannot touch it, I cannot see it. Yet, I feel it, this… corruption. I cannot smell it, I cannot taste it. Yet, there it lies, this… living death. Like the rot that consumes the apple from within. It slithers, it crawls. It… It–’

  ‘What you sense, creature, is the coming of a new dawn,’ Crow interrupted, ‘and before all dawns there must be darkness.’

  Crow went into a deep lunge, holding both palms flat to the ground. Black tendrils began to flick out from his shadow, dragging themselves into the mortal world. Whispers followed the shadows’ emergence, promises of darkness, suffering, and exultance. They slithered across the floor to the altar, slowly creeping upwards.

  The head uttered a low hiss. ‘The balance turns… the balance turns!’

  With a snap of Crow’s fingers, the whispering shadows leapt at the head, slipping past wrinkled lips.

  ‘The balance turns…’

  A film of black inked across the grey of the head’s open eyes. It uttered a soft moan and then pinched its eyes shut.

  ‘There’s something I want, creature. A name I need you to pass unto your followers.’

  When the head opened its eyes again, they had returned to their ghostly grey.

  ‘Never…’ it vowed. The head’s cheeks pinched against its brows. ‘I will… not… submit,’ it spoke in a strained voice.

  Crow smiled and, with a flourish of his red-trimmed cloak, stepped into the shadows bubbling up at his feet.

  ‘Oh, you will,’ he promised, before slipping away into the darkness.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  A thousand thanks for getting through to the end of the second instalment of the Phoenix Saga! It being my second novel, it would mean the world if you would recommend the book to your friends, family, the village goat… heck… everyone. (That way my overbearing captors may finally deign to release me from my typewriter cell… ha ha ha… send help).

  When I’m not writing, you can find me spilling nonsense on the Facebook group:

  https://www.facebook.com/farrellkeelingofficial/?ref=bookmarks