Seven Princes

by John R. Fultz

  “The shadows!” squealed Rathwol, grasping now at the Prince’s boots.

  Tadarus pushed him firmly against the corridor wall and slapped his face. “Calm yourself, man. What’s the matter? Whose blood is this? Yours?” He kicked away Rathwol’s filthy hands as gently as he could.

  Thunder rumbled, and the stones of the keep trembled as if mimicking Rathwol’s terror.

  “Oh, so much blood…” Rathwol cried. “All spilled and burned… Now the shadows drink it. Save me!”

  Tadarus shook him. “Where is your master? Where is Prince Fangodrel?”

  The name cast a weird calm over Rathwol. He looked into Tadarus’ face, silent for the space of three heartbeats. The storm beat against the windows.

  “Gone…” whispered Rathwol, eyes staring at nothing. “Gone into the shadows… into the blood!” Now he keened and wailed like a woman. “Keep him from me, Master! Keep him away! I’ll serve you, not him! Only save me!”

  A great wind gusted along the corridor, like a hurricane suddenly unbottled. It swept Tadarus off his feet. A flying, howling blackness tore Rathwol away in a blind instant. Now his cries of terror rang in some other corridor, echoing from the darkness. All the torches in their sconces were blown out by the terrible wind. Tadarus crouched in the darkness, the Giant-blade ready in his hand. The only light came from the partially open door of his chamber, where the fire bowl still blazed.

  Something moved, crackled, shifted in the dark at the end of the corridor, in the direction the sentinel had gone. Tadarus stared into the gloom. Could it be Uduru making that rumbling sound, or was it only thunder? Had some window been smashed, letting winds howl into the keep? From the infinite darkness at his back came a long, thin scream of agony. Rathwol. Darkness claimed the citadel in both directions; winds shrieked like ghosts through the distant hallways. Tadarus wanted to run inside his chamber and bolt the door, hide himself from this plague of darkness.

  The thing at the end of the corridor pulsed, and something came flying through the air. It hit the floor several spans before Tadarus and rolled like a small boulder, a trail of black blood in its wake. It stopped at his feet. He looked down and caught his breath. Two bulging, fist-sized eyeballs glared at him, dead and sightless. It was the head of the Giant sentinel, severed at the neck by some jagged instrument… or a vast set of claws.

  Now anger overcame Tadarus’ fear. He yelled along the corridor. “Come forth! Face me! What are you?” He thought of the Wyrm skeleton on the wall of his room. Surely there could not be—

  “I called you brother…”

  The voice drifted from the pulsing mass of shadows. That darkness moved closer now, drinking up the dull glow from the chamber fire.

  “Fangodrel?” he called. Was this some jest? Had his brother gone mad? In the back of his mind a voice whispered, This was always meant to happen. Fangodrel was never right. What did you expect of him but murder and disaster? Blood and doom? Now, at last, the wait was over.

  “… but you are no brother to me.”

  The voice was Fangodrel’s, but obscured in echoes and amplified by thunder. Tadarus could see nothing in the darkness but the writhing darkness itself.

  “Show yourself!” he yelled. “Let us spill familial blood if we must. Come!” He raised the Giant-blade high above his head.

  “Steel? This is your answer for every problem, Tadarus. There are things in this world stronger than metal.”

  Tadarus could take no more baiting. He rushed headlong into the darkness, swinging his great blade, slicing only emptiness. Something grabbed him up in formless claws, biting into his thick skin with unseen fangs. He swung the blade about him, back and forth like a reaper’s scythe. Nothingness… he hovered in the grip of nothingness and now he could not see at all.

  Suddenly Fangodrel was there, lit by the red glow of his own flaring eyes. Naked, emaciated, his skin wrapped in skeins of running crimson. The blood danced across his chest, ran along his arms and legs, defying gravity with its slick flow. Or was it shadows that danced across that pale skin? Some mixture of scarlet and ebony, living, sliding, throbbing…

  “My name is Gammir,” said Fangodrel, lips dripping with blood, teeth stained black by it. “Gammir, Son of Gammir. Prince of Khyrei.”

  Tadarus heard the shrieks and wails of dying warriors, bellowing Giants, throughout the castle. The storm assaulted the exterior walls, while a storm of blood and darkness assaulted the interior. This was the heart of the bloody storm right here. This thing before him was not his brother. It had never been his brother. How could he not have known this?

  The greatsword fell from his hand. No, his hand was sheered away from his wrist. Sword and hand fell clanging into the dark. The pain washed over him a second later, a burning wave to drown his senses. His warm blood squirted into the shadows. It did not reach the floor. He screamed now, for that was all he could do, held tight in the grip of some amorphous, unseen, vast thing…

  Fangodrel – no, Gammir – crouched below the fresh stump of Tadarus’ wrist, blood pouring into his open mouth. A flood of screams and blood gushed from Tadarus. He saw the face of Vireon, his sister Sharadza, and his weeping mother. His father’s face was a gray blur, like an underwater vision.

  “Your blood was never my blood,” said Gammir, lips running with crimson. “But it is sweet… Uduru and man, a potent blend…” Gammir raised his mouth to kiss Tadarus’ throbbing neck. “Sweet and potent…”

  Darkness stole the breath from Tadarus’ lungs. His final sensation was that of a ravenous beast tearing at his throat. Mercifully, he heard no more of the terrible screams that filled the halls of Steephold.

  11

  People of the Cold Flame

  He decided to call her Alua, the name of a splendid white flower that bloomed among the Uyga vines in winter. Although she did not speak, she understood immediately that this was now her name. She knew his moods and his thoughts before he spoke them. A simple glance into her onyx eyes, or the slightest caress of her hand, these were their sublime modes of communication. So when he set about putting his plan to work, she went along in her wordless way and was eager to help.

  After three days of bliss in the valley where the last days of autumn held sway, Vireon and Alua ran north again into the cold mountains. She took her fox form and he ran beside her. She guided him along the safest ravines and kindest escarpments, going ever higher into the realm of wind, snow, and ice. He found the spoor of a tiger, and they tracked it along a pale ridge. The white fox ran ahead of him, following the tracks of the beast to a shallow cave lair. Vireon climbed to a high ledge above a great precipice, and the fox pranced before the cave mouth.

  The tiger sprang from its den. Its pristine hide gleamed white as the breath that billowed between its fangs. It stood larger than a stallion, a mass of rippling muscles, black claws, and yellow fangs. It roared, and across the divide an avalanche fell into the gorge. Now the great cat chased the fox. Alua ran ahead of its snapping fangs along the mountainside. It swiped a massive paw at her, claws raking through her bushy tail. She pounced forward and the chase resumed. When the tiger was almost upon her, she turned back, baring tiny fangs. The cat lunged for the kill, so focused on the fox that it failed to sense Vireon crouching on the high ledge.

  Vireon sprang boots first into the tiger’s skull. Its head smashed into the ice and rock, and he fell back against the wall of the mountain. The feline head rose and turned on him. The maw could tear off both legs in a single snap, but it was too late. The force of his two-legged kick sent it spinning toward the precipice. Scrambling, it slid over the edge into nothingness. It struck out with both front claws, digging into the ice. Now it hung there above the black depths of the gorge, struggling to pull itself back up onto the path. Its yellow-green eyes burned into Vireon’s as it pulled itself forward and upward, bit by bit. Its massive shoulders had cleared the edge when Vireon took up a boulder and hurled it against the feline head. With a final roar of defiance, tiger and stone
plummeted into the icy gulf.

  Alua approached Vireon in her girl form, wrapping her warm arms about his shoulders. She kissed him, and her quiet eyes said, I knew you would let no harm come to me.

  They hurried down the mountain and found the body of the tiger on a bed of icy rocks. Vireon skinned the carcass methodically with his long knife. Before the sun had set, he wore its white hide for a cloak, tied about his neck by its front legs. Twin claws dangled upon his chest, and the hollow shape of its furred skull rode atop his own as a crude but beautiful helmet. He gave thanks to the Sky God and buried the beast’s remains under a cairn of rocks that were soon covered with a mound of fresh snow.

  “Now I look the part of a proper ambassador,” he told Alua. “And this skin will keep me warm should I enter that cold palace again.”

  Alua ran her delicate fingers along the fur, and her eyes said, You look like a King.

  Back in the foothills, where snow was light and the wind hardly blew at all, he found a thin, straight tree and sliced its trunk clear from the roots. He pared off the bark and limbs, carving it into a perfectly round pole. He tested its strength against boulders and larger trees, wielding it like a staff against imagined enemies. She watched him with infinite curiosity, tilting her head this way or that. Finally, he took the ropes of tendon he had cut from the tiger’s body and used them to secure his knife, point forward, to the end of the staff. Now he had a great spear worthy of an Uduru. He was ready.

  Vireon told her with his eyes, Do not follow me. You are my secret. If they capture me again, you may need to free me again.

  Her eyes responded, What if they kill you?

  His eyes laughed, and he kissed her pink lips, ran his hands through her saffron hair.

  “Stay here,” he said aloud. “I will return soon.”

  He stalked alone into the highlands. Despite his plea, she would follow him in her fox form, but stay well back from the domain of the Udvorg. She was clever and elusive, his Alua. She was much more that he did not know, but hoped to learn eventually. He turned his thoughts forward, and they carried him into the mountain depths.

  A day of following the scattered and obvious tracks of Udvorg hunting parties, and he found the great plateau that was the center of their territories. He climbed the wide trails, avoiding now and then a group of hunters coming or going. Wrapped in his white tiger-cloak it was easy to hide himself among the snowdrifts. One group of hunters lumbered right past him without ever noticing. They were six blue-skins carrying the immense carcass of a shaggy mammoth. He recognized its great tusks as the substance from which the throne of Angrid the Long-Arm was built. There must be vast plains to the north where such behemoths grazed.

  At last he topped an escarpment and saw the blue-green spires of the ice palace. He crossed the naked plateau during a snowstorm, the glacial towers growing larger with every step. A ring of frozen peaks hemmed the Udvorg tableland. The sky was a sliding mass of gray and black cloud, an aerial sea pouring tempests upon the world.

  When the vast open gates stood before Vireon like the maw of some gargantuan beast, the guards first caught sight of him. There were only two at ground level, though he supposed more must be stationed along the battlements of the outer wall. Eight guard towers lined its forward expanse. He walked unhurriedly through the flying snow toward the sentinels at the gate.

  Both blue-skins took up their spears. One hefted a great axe in his second hand, while his companion held a war hammer of stone and iron. One yelled something at Vireon, raising his spear in an unmistakable command. Vireon did not catch the words, but the gesture was obvious.

  His own voice pierced the wind. He spoke loudly and slowly, so they could understand every word through his accent. “I am Vireon of Udurum! Son of Vod, King of Uduru! I escaped your dungeons days ago! I come to surrender myself to King Angrid!”

  The Giants blinked, exchanged a fierce glance, and lumbered toward him.

  “But only to King Angrid!” shouted Vireon. “Only to the King himself!”

  The blue-skins rushed at him, grinning, their crimson-dyed furs swirling in the wind. He vaulted above the thrust of the first spear, coming down to catch its haft under his boots. The blue-skin’s spear snapped in half. The second guard tried to impale him as well, but Vireon’s own spear came up in a blur and turned it aside.

  He rolled between their legs and swept the blade of his spear across the back of a Giant ankle. The guard howled and fell to one knee, while the other swung the big hammer. Vireon avoided the blow – Uduru, blue-skinned or not, were powerful but slow. He was the wind and they were clumsy trees. The hammer cracked open the ice-floor of the plateau and Vireon sliced at the wrist that held it. The Udvorg leaped back, dropping the spear in an attempt to staunch his bleeding. Both sentinels kneeled in the snow, dripping ichor. Vireon tore the battle axe away from the one whose leg was useless. He stood before them now, far enough away to avoid their grasp. They stared at him with red eyes more fierce than any tiger’s.

  “I surrender myself only to the King!” he yelled again, loud enough so those in the guard towers might hear him. Blue-skins moved along the battlements now, and someone blew a note on a great horn. The two wounded guards yelled up to their fellows.

  “A little demon has come among us!” they bellowed. “Come, brothers, squash this insect! He bleeds us with his sting!”

  The wind howled as the bleeding Giants crawled and stumbled back to their post. A moment later, a dozen blue-skins filled the gateway. They marched into the storm bearing axes, swords, hammers, and maces. Some of them grinned, others grunted, some looked at Vireon with eyes colder than the ice itself.

  “I wish to surrender to King Angrid!” Vireon shouted at them. “Send for the King!”

  They seemed unsurprised that he held up a Giant’s axe with one hand, a weapon as large as his whole body. Perhaps they thought he could not wield it effectively. He disabused them of this notion when the first of the twelve came at him swinging a broadsword. Vireon ducked beneath the blade and his axe lopped off the swordsman’s arm just below the elbow. As the Giant fell screaming, Vireon sprang atop his broad shoulders and shoved a spear into the eye of the next Udvorg. This one’s writhing broke the wooden haft in two, but Vireon spun and picked up the fallen broadsword. He faced ten more blue-skins with an axe and a sword of their own making.

  Now I am no exhausted fool, famished and chilled from days of running.

  Now I am the Son of Vod at my full strength.

  Let them see this and understand.

  How many will have to die?

  He was too fast for their weapons. They were like Men trying to swat a wasp with iron bars. These Udvorg moved even slower than the Giants of Udurum – perhaps it was their cold blood. Vireon pounced from shoulder to shoulder and cleaved skulls, darted between legs and severed tendons or entire limbs. He left the axe buried in a Giant’s skull and began fighting with only the sword, which doubled his speed. Once an iron spearhead plunged toward his heart, but his dense skin turned the blade aside. It left a shallow gash from nipple to ribs. They never touched him again. He whirled and struck, darted and punished, vaulted and thrust, ran and hacked. After some time he stood alone amid twelve fallen blue-skins. They moaned, dead, or dying, and his cloak of white fur was drenched in their violet blood.

  A host of Udvorg lined the walls now; faces looked out from the oval windows of towers or stood on balconies watching the slaughter.

  “I surrender myself!” he shouted so that all might hear him. “But only to the King! Angrid come forth! No more will die!”

  He expected more blue-skinned warriors to come howling at him, but they did not. The two at the gate had gone within, and four more took up the post, keeping their distance. A few of the beaten Giants crawled back toward the gate, though most lay unmoving in the snow. Some few would never move again. The storm wailed in Vireon’s ears. He stuck the Giant-blade into the ground before him and pulled the bloody cloak tight about his shoulders
.

  Twice more he shouted his message, and the roof of clouds turned to the infinite dark of night. Cold azure flames danced along the walls at intervals, and the blue-skins stared at him, whispering among themselves and passing orders to and fro. Would they leave him standing here all night? Would they ignore him until he went away? If so, he would have to brave the depths of the palace himself to find Angrid. He pondered his chances of surviving such an incursion alone. The gigantic palace glittered before him, a masterwork of sapphire and emerald bathed in starlight. He waited, and snow obscured the bodies of the fallen Giants.

  A great cold-fire glow lit up the gateway. Another horn blew somewhere inside, and dark shapes moved within. They emerged as a procession of warriors in oval formation about a central figure. Angrid the Long-Arm walked amid his armed escort, twenty Udvorg sentinels bearing spear and sword. The King carried his great axe casually at his side. A shaman, robed and hooded in a cloak of black wolfskin, walked behind him with a tall staff. The tip of the staff burned with a blue flame that did not consume its wood. The King’s tigers accompanied him too, twins to the wild one Vireon had slain. A sentinel on the King’s right held the leashes of these beasts as they strained forward. If he let go, they would pounce upon Vireon in an instant.

  The forward sentinels moved apart, and King Angrid strode to the head of the column, shaman and tiger guard behind him at either side. Vireon stood his ground, arms crossed, the stolen sword planted before him. The wind whipped at his cloak, which had gathered a mantle of snow on its shoulders.

  Angrid spoke first in his antiquated dialect. “Little One,” he said, voice like grinding icebergs, “you already escaped my grasp. Now you give yourself to me?”

  “I do,” said Vireon, raising his voice above the shrieking wind. “On one condition!”

  Angrid the Long-Arm lifted his axe and rested it on his brawny shoulder. His tigers growled and strained at their chains. The shaman stared from the black depths of his hood.