by Cindy Dees
Something hot slammed into Will’s back, knocking him off his feet and sending him tumbling headlong toward Aurelius. Force magic flew over his head as Aurelius answered the attack. Will rolled to his feet, coming up with his staff in hand, facing his father.
“Resorting to magic already, are you?” he taunted his father. “Don’t think you can take me with weapons?”
He knew full well the risk of infuriating his father during combat, but if he could taunt Ty into using just weapons, he might stand a chance of distracting his father long enough with swordplay for Aurelius to take him down.
Aurelius fell in behind Will, one of his hands resting on Will’s back between his shoulder blades. A protective spell passed over Will’s skin. No sooner had it taken effect than Ty blasted Will with a bolt of force damage that would have killed him had it struck home. Aurelius cast another magical shield on him. For the next few seconds, Ty cast and Aurelius countercast as quickly as the two men could draw the power and say the incants, using Will as their target dummy.
It was surreal being the target of his own father’s best effort to kill him. He’d spent so long thinking of all the things he would say to his parents if he could but see them one more time, all the questions he had for his father regarding his early training, how he’d become a top-notch battle caster and then had all of it locked away, forgotten until he had need of it.
The barrage of magic ended, and he was, miraculously, still standing. He leaped forward on the attack, taking advantage of Ty’s concentration on the magic to finally put his father on the defensive.
Ty darted backward and to the right behind a wall of roots, and Will ran left to cut his father off. As he made the spinning turn, Will glimpsed Sha’Li staggering into the clearing with blood running down the side of her face.
“Is the door closed?” he shouted.
“Aye.” She nodded and collapsed.
* * *
Anton crouched in the shadow of a broad root, motionless and relying on everyone else’s battles to distract them. Tiberius De’Vir—for who else could that outrageously skilled battle caster be?—was fighting his son—for who else could that young man who looked like the very image of his father be?—to a stalemate. Aurelius was helping the son, which was the only reason the boy yet lived. Tiberius had not been called the greatest warrior in Haelos for nothing.
Seeing perhaps his greatest nemeses bashing each other’s brains in was one of the most gratifying sights he’d seen in a very long time. He wished them good speed and good deaths.
Off to his right, Anton spied the nulvari assassin Selea Rouge and Hyland’s boy, Kendrick, chasing a hydesmyn in and out through the chambers. That hydesmyn was fast and elusive and was giving the pair a hard run.
To his left, the Gaged Man was giving all they could handle to that jann girl from the Cabal and to a jann young man—who had to be her brother if family resemblance counted for anything at all. The Gaged Man’s fighting style was old-fashioned, stiff and formal, but he was still a massively skilled fighter.
A kindari elf staring down at the ground moved past him, clearly hunting the trail of some prey. He recalled seeing the fellow in the company of Raina, the White Heart ingénue, a while back. Never caught his name, though. A gypsy Heart healer followed close behind the elf.
A shout for healing over by the body of the Sleeping King made the gypsy lurch and take off running. Raina came into sight by the body as well as another kindari, an elderly woman whose face was marked with spiderwebs and hands were glowing with white healing magics.
All three healers knelt next to someone who’d gone down. He couldn’t see from here who it was. Hopefully it was Tiberius, that traitorous whoreson.
The jann boy and Marikeen came running into the clearing by the king, and then Selea Rouge came out of the trees. The nulvari paused to speak with Aurelius and then went over to the healers to check on whoever was down.
The Gaged Man burst out of the trees just behind the cluster of healers and struck with three lightning-enhanced sword strikes, one to each healer. All three women dropped to the ground. Selea turned with unbelievable speed to parry the swing aimed at him, but instead, a flash of magic came from his right flank and dropped the nulvari like a felled tree.
The Gaged Man leaped off into the maze of chambers just as a paxan burst into sight. The person who’d been down to begin with jumped up and turned out to be a black lizardman girl. He’d seen her before, but he couldn’t place a name to her.
Tiberius raced into the clearing mere seconds after the others left and cast four quick spells, one at each of the downed people—Raina, Selea, the gypsy healer, and the old kindari woman. Given the cold fury on Tiberius’s face, Anton ventured to guess that had not been healing he’d cast. In fact, Anton recalled that Tiberius knew no healing spells. He’d always bragged about being in the business of killing his enemies, not fixing them.
Anton had healing potions in his pouch. Not that he had any great interest in using them on this group of children who had been nothing but a pain in his neck for the past two years.
Granted, he would gain favor with Maximillian if he gained favor with the Heart. And he would surely do that if he saved the life of their precious emissary. But spite stilled his hand. Let the emissary die.
What of the king, lying under his shroud? Should he attempt to destroy the body? Or mayhap cast his lot in with the Gaged Man, who’d been the personal bodyguard of Ammertus’s beloved daughter?
Ammertus had hung Anton out to dry when the Black Ship captain Kodo had stripped Anton of his governorship of Dupree. Anton’s old mentor had declined to speak up for him in any meaningful way at court, and Ammertus had offered no aid, no support to Anton in this entire year of exile. If Ammertus would not help the house of Constantine, then it would not help Ammertus.
Of course, the flip side of that argument was that helping the cause of a Kothite in this battle, even one whom he despised, would still provide a path to redemption at court. The Kothites valued loyalty above all else.
How did General Tarses figure into all of this? Anton had been shocked to recognize the great general on the field of battle outside this place, and he’d been even more shocked to realize Tarses fought on the side of those who wished to wake the Sleeping King. Did Maximillian’s favorite know something Anton did not? Or was Tarses as betrayed and angry as he was, working against his liege lord by waking a rival for Maximillian’s throne?
Caught in twin dilemmas of whether or not to act and who to support or fight against, Anton opted to stay put, waiting and watching the events unfolding before him a little longer before he made any decisions.
If nothing else, he could always sneak out of here and make his way to the Imperial Seat to report on today’s extraordinary events. That alone should garner him a decent amount of goodwill at court.
* * *
Will saw Rosana go down and ran for her as fast as his legs would go. He’d been looking right at her when his father burst into sight, cast a spell at her and the others who were down, and then disappeared back into the trees.
He screeched to a halt beside Rosana and fell to his knees to check her. No pulse. No breath. “She’s dying!” he shouted. “Healing!”
Aurelius skidded to a stop beside him. “All the healers lie before you. And, ironically, the professional assassin among us.”
Will yanked out the only healing potion he had and started to uncork it, but Aurelius stopped him. “That won’t do any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because your father cast imprison spells upon these four. No magic of any kind, including potions or poisons, will work on them as long as the imprison is active.”
“Then deactivate it!”
“To do that, I would have to drop your father. And by the time we find him and do that, these four will have bled out. We only have about a minute to stop them from dying.”
“You’re saying we have to let them die?” Will demanded, even thoug
h he already knew the grim answer.
“Once they’re dead, the magic of the imprison will drop. Then we can renew their lives. But that is our only choice.”
Will groaned. “What if one or all of them don’t make it back?”
“Then we must be certain they did not die in vain. No one among us can help them in their current state, nor can anyone do them further harm. Come with me. We still have to find your father and find a way to stop him.”
“I can’t—”
“You must,” Aurelius retorted strongly. “You’re the only fighter in Haelos who stands even a chance against Tiberius. With me at your back, maybe the two of us can stop him. He’ll kill the rest of them one by one if we fail.”
* * *
Sha’Li sat up, her head pounding, and jolted at the sight of her friends dead beside her. She had some healing, alchemical in nature, but it was not strong enough to revive the dead. The clearing was quiet and empty with no one to help heal her friends. She stood up, blinking away the headache and dizziness that assailed her.
The faintest of noise—whoever’d made it was really very stealthy—was enough to alert her to the presence of someone else. Sha’Li moved off into the shadows quickly as if she intended to stride away in that direction. But instead, she circled back silently and paused in the lee of a great tree root.
It was the petite elven woman who’d jumped through the door while the Gaged Man had attacked. Sha’Li watched her creep toward Gawaine’s bier, hand outstretched, a positively avid expression on her face.
Sha’Li leaped forward, letting out a mighty shout as she did so. Her claws slid out of her knuckles with a distinctive schwing as she swept forward toward the elf.
For her part, the elf started violently, screamed in a high-pitched voice, dropped something, and fled into the forest of ancient roots. Sha’Li chased after the small figure, pausing only long enough to scoop up the object the elf had dropped.
It looked made of wood and was nearly the size of her fist. It was ovoid in shape with one end slightly pointed. Sha’Li only examined it for a heartbeat before stuffing it in her pouch and giving chase to the elf who had dropped the large seed. Now what was that about? Why had the elf been holding it out toward Gawaine?
* * *
Vesper paused, trying desperately not to pant. But it was hard not to in this fragile elven body obviously unused to violent physical activity. She had to get back to Gawaine’s body and soon. His spirit was free from its prison and making its way here now, to take possession of his body once more. She had only minutes to possess the body for herself.
But as long as that cursed lizardman was standing guard, she couldn’t just walk up and make the leap into him. She needed help.
Vesper looked around in desperation and was both stunned and delighted to spot a man with a familiar mark upon his forehead creeping toward the Sleeping King. That was the mark of the Coil, an organization long in service to her father. Its leaders had long been among her father’s most loyal lackeys. This one would do nicely.
She mustered precious bits of her remaining strength and projected a command outward with her mind, ordering the fellow, Anton Constantine, to do her will and come to her aid.
His resistance to her command was both bitter and angry. His mind whirled with enraged thoughts that he’d intended to help the Kothite anyway and didn’t need to be commanded to do it. His main concern seemed to be that now he would not get credit for helping her of his own free will.
Frankly, she couldn’t care less. He was an underling. A tool. Nothing more.
“Come to the Sleeping King and protect me with your life,” she commanded him imperiously.
* * *
Eben and Marikeen had lost touch with the Gaged Man, and a search of the area around the king’s chamber yielded no sign of him.
Eben sighed. “We might as well return to the king’s body and guard him until some of the others return.”
Looking disgusted, Marikeen nodded in agreement. They stepped back into the central clearing, and Eben stared, stunned. A small elven woman and no one other than Anton Constantine himself were approaching the king’s body from the opposite direction.
Lifting Gawaine’s bow and nocking an arrow as he charged forward, Eben loosed his arrow at Anton’s black heart.
The arrow flew true, hungrily seeking his enemy’s blood … except at the last second, the missile deflected wide to one side as if an unseen hand had reached out and slapped it aside. The elven woman laughed in an odd high-pitched voice entirely unmatched to her body.
Marikeen gasped, “Vesper.”
Of course. That was where Eben knew that childish laugh from.
But when he and his sister charged Anton, the laugh cut off abruptly. Rage flooded his mind. Betrayal. Fury that they had turned on her. And just the tiniest hint of fear tinged the mind blast.
“You cannot hurt us!” Marikeen shouted as the elf retreated into the forest of roots. “You’re not strong enough!”
Eben prayed that was true. He’d seen evidence of Vesper’s powers before, and they had been truly frightening.
“You dare to stand against me?” Anton snarled as their charge brought the two of them close to him.
It hadn’t actually been Eben’s plan to attack the former governor, but if the man intended to harm Gawaine or take possession of the Sleeping King’s body, then Eben would by all means attack him. He and his sister advanced more slowly now as Anton backed away from them.
“You killed our father!” Marikeen snarled beside Eben.
“No, I didn’t,” Anton snorted.
“Your mercenaries did. On your orders,” Eben retorted. “Same difference.”
Anton shrugged. “Fine. I concede the point. I killed your precious Hyland. But we all know he was not your father.”
Marikeen charged Anton, and Eben was hard pressed to keep up with her. They’d never fought together, and he had no idea which direction she was going to jump, so their tactics were awkward and ill coordinated. Anton, no slouch at combat himself, took advantage of this to pull out a short sword with one hand and gas globes with the other.
Eben blocked an alchemy globe with his mace but took a rather nasty cut from the short sword. He jumped back, swearing. Marikeen should have waited for him to adjust his armor and perhaps heal himself, but instead she charged anew, forcing him to return to the attack well before he was ready.
Anton actually lowered his guard, and Marikeen, not expecting it, barreled into him. Anton slammed his mailed fist into her nose, and she went down hard with blood streaming from her face. Eben leaped over her, and with a furious flurry of sword and mace swings was able to push Anton back far enough for Marikeen to stumble to her feet. But that left Eben face-to-face with an accomplished alchemist. Anton hit him with some sort of poison gas that made Eben violently ill. He struggled mightily to even lift his weapons through the waves of nausea, let alone swing them with any force.
Marikeen fumbled in her belt pouch and emerged with something slender and white. “Do you recognize this, Anton?” she demanded.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he drawled, “that is the very antler that slew your precious father, Leland Hyland.”
“It’s going to slay you, too.”
Anton laughed. He laughed. Rage filled Eben so full he thought he would explode from it. Ignoring his injuries and illness, he raised his weapon for a mighty charge—
But pulled up short as some sort of … smoke … emerged from the antler all of a sudden. Anton leaped back, clearly as surprised as Eben. Even Marikeen lurched, dropping the antler on the ground.
The smoke resolved into a human-sized cloud and then quickly coalesced into more solid form. Before his eyes, almost more quickly than he could comprehend, Leland Hyland took shape in front of them.
“What the—” Anton blustered. “What are you?”
Leland glanced back and forth between his children and his enemy. “Is aught amiss that you summoned me, Marike
en?”
“Anton is trying to kill me and Eben.”
Leland turned very slowly. Ice-cold fury rolled off of him, and even Anton cringed back from the ghostly figure of Leland Hyland, apparently a spirit warrior. Eben knew well that his father, although slow to anger, was a fearsome man when roused to full rage.
“For Hyland!” Leland roared. “Hope runs free!” And with his motto echoing around him, Leland charged.
Eben fell in on his father’s left side while Marikeen jumped close behind her father, using him as a shield so she could cast magic damage at Anton over Leland’s shoulder. Anton cursed and fell back before the three of them, spraying alchemy globes inaccurately in between wild swings of his short sword.
It was a lopsided fight, and Anton turned tail and fled from certain death.
“Do we follow?” Leland asked tersely.
“As much as I would like to rid the world of that maggot once and for all,” Eben answered regretfully, “protecting the Sleeping King is more important right now.”
* * *
The fight against Tiberius was hard fought and shifted by tiny degrees as Will’s youth and new training in combination with Aurelius’s impressive casting skills bit by bit got the better of Tiberius.
Will used an intricate attack, parry, feint, attack sequence that Captain Krugar had shown him, and Aurelius timed a disarming spell to coincide exactly with the second, actual, attack. The result was that Dragon’s Tooth clattered to the ground.
Will instantly pressed his advantage. This might be his one and only chance to defeat his father. He unleashed a flurry of blows with his staff, using both ends to pummel his father.
Ty fell back before the onslaught, taking several quick, stumbling steps backward. Wary of overbalancing by pursuing too quickly, Will didn’t fall for the trap his father had set for him. Ty tried to force Will to one side with several quick damage spells, but Aurelius was able to replace Will’s magical shields as quickly as Ty burned through them.
A flash of movement startled both Will and Ty, and they both jumped away from the incoming attacker. But instead of striking them, the person veered behind Will and scooped up Ty’s sword.