Reader and Raelynx (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “Bright Mother burn me,” Justin said in a voice so quiet it was the most frightening tone he could have used. Cammon peered around the Rider’s flashing sword to see another ten soldiers streaming into the garden. Hammond was fading fast; it was a miracle he was still on his feet, still wielding a sword. Justin could not possibly hold off another ten men.

  “Sweet gods,” Cammon whispered, and felt black despair swamp his heart. “We cannot save her.”

  Just then the air was split with a sound that made his blood spoil in his veins.

  For a second, everyone froze—Justin, Hammond, their attackers, the new invaders darting through the statuary. The unearthly sound came again, so venomous, so menacing, that it was impossible not to start shaking with fear.

  Even though Cammon knew what it was.

  One of the attackers uttered a shaky curse and lifted his sword again. But before he could swing his blade, a dark red shape erupted into the sunny garden, announcing its presence with a third horrifying shriek.

  And then it leapt for the nearest black-clad soldier and cleanly ripped his head off.

  Justin started fighting like a madman. “The raelynx!” he cried. He didn’t add the one clear thought he had in his head. Maybe if it kills off the invaders, it will be too tired to go after the rest of us. He just accepted it as the gift from the gods that it truly was and went after his enemies with fresh vigor.

  Hammond was done for, falling against the edge of the marble shell in a dead faint of blood loss and exhaustion. Cammon surged forward, his sword uplifted, but the opponent who faced him could not concentrate when the men behind him were screaming in agony and panic. Emitting a range of truly terrifying cries, the raelynx bounded between enemy soldiers with a fierce abandon, dragging down one, then another, in a bloodthirsty frenzy. In two minutes, it had killed five men. It licked its red mouth, looked around, and leapt. Six men.

  Cammon took advantage of his opponent’s inattention and gouged him through the neck. Burbling and choking, the man fell to the ground. Cammon felt Justin’s intense satisfaction as his own opponent fell.

  The raelynx screeched again and brought down its seventh victim.

  There were only four invaders left now and it was clear they realized their situation had grown perilous. Two of them began to run, and the raelynx went straight after them, catching one before he had gone six paces. The man’s wild yells of pain and fear were abruptly silenced, and the raelynx bounded after his companion.

  Justin charged over the bodies at his feet and descended upon the last attackers, who stood transfixed with horror. One of them turned to make a fight of it, but his fellow stumbled away, hoping to escape. Justin pulled his bloody blade from the soldier’s throat and turned to locate his last enemy. Just then the raelynx sailed over a low stone bench and knocked the fleeing man to the ground. There was an unholy sound of ripping, a cry of utter desolation—and then a spine-chilling noise from the raelynx, who lifted his red mouth and loosed a primitive howl of triumph.

  Now the only ones left alive in the garden were Justin, Cammon, Amalie, and Hammond, and Hammond was as near death as made no difference. Cammon saw Justin make a quick assessment and shift his mental focus. My human enemies are dead. Now I must face this feral creature. Circling just a little, so his back was to Amalie, Justin gathered his sword in both hands and dropped into a crouch of readiness.

  Cammon called out in a low voice. “Justin. No. He won’t harm any of us.”

  Justin relaxed, but not completely. “Is it Donnal, then? I didn’t think, even in animal form, Donnal could move so fast.”

  “No,” said Cammon. “It’s the wild raelynx.” He glanced at Amalie, who had dropped to the ground next to Hammond. “The princess called him.”

  Justin risked one quick look over his shoulder at Cammon. “How did it get out of the enclosure?” Not, How did she call him? Justin had seen the mystical connection between Amalie and the big cat. He could accept miracles, but his mind always ran on practical matters.

  “I think it leapt the wall.”

  Justin backed up slowly toward the marble shell, picking his way carefully through fallen bodies. “If it could do that, why didn’t it ever try before?”

  “I guess it didn’t want to badly enough.”

  “You keep an eye on it,” Justin commanded, pushing past Cammon to kneel beside Hammond. “How is he?” he asked Amalie.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know much about injuries. I think he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Someone taught you how to bind a wound,” Justin commented. “We can’t do anything else for him until we get help.”

  Amalie came to her feet, slowly, shakily. She put her hand out and Cammon took it. She was so cold she was trembling. Or maybe she was trembling with fear and shock. But she was trying hard to remain calm, to not fall to pieces. “What’s happening now?” she asked Cammon, and her voice was almost steady. “What do we do next?”

  Cammon pulled Amalie closer, into a true hug, but kept part of his attention on the raelynx. The big cat seemed to have lost its bloodlust and was now consumed with curiosity. It trotted from corpse to corpse, sniffing at its fallen foes and occasionally licking down a bright swath of blood. “Do you have complete control of him?” he asked her quietly. “Or should he be our next point of concern?”

  “He’s fine,” she said with a touch of impatience. “What’s happening at the palace? Can you tell?”

  There had been so much action here the past few minutes that Cammon had had no attention to spare for the rest of the compound, but now he let his mind skip through the palace grounds, seeking information. Instantly, he picked up good news. “The city guard is here!” he exclaimed. “Five hundred men. All the attackers are dead or disabled, but Tayse and the other soldiers are going through the palace, double-checking.” He grimaced. “Bodies everywhere.”

  “What about our losses?” Justin demanded as he rose to his feet.

  “I can’t tell. None of us have fallen.” He could pick up clear, if weary, signals from Tayse, Senneth, Kirra, and Donnal, and he sent them all a strong message in return. Justin and Amalie and I all live.

  “Ellynor?” Justin asked fearfully.

  Normally he wouldn’t be able to answer that question, but Senneth had apparently anticipated his need to know. She had grabbed hold of someone’s arm and tried to convey a single word of reassurance. “She’s with Senneth.”

  Amalie stirred in his arms, tilting her head back. “My father? Valri? My uncle?”

  “Valri’s alive,” he said—and then hesitated, because Valri had crumpled into misery. Now he felt alarm from Senneth and a sudden deep stab of grief from Tayse. He pulled Amalie so close that she had to struggle for breath, and he shared a look of utter dread with Justin.

  “Tir is dead,” he whispered. “And the king with him.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  SENNETH had never in her life seen a sight so strange as that of Amalie running across the lawns of the palace after the skirmish was over. The princess was filthy, spattered with dirt and blood; her beautiful hair was a tangled mess of color. Ahead of her strode Justin, his sword still in his hand, his face as grim as ever Tayse’s could be. Cammon hurried next to her, holding her hand tightly in his—perhaps just to help her over the corpses littering the field, perhaps to fill her with whatever comfort he could muster.

  The red raelynx loped lazily beside her, his body so close to hers that his fur brushed against her soiled dress. He looked around with bright interest, sniffed the air, noted every fallen body, located every living soul. Even on this day of so much loss and destruction, there was something spellbinding about him, something mesmerizing. Senneth’s head was ringing with pain and for a moment she thought she might be imagining the presence of this feral creature, so unexpected, so unlikely. She stared at him, briefly losing track of everything else in the dazzle of his elemental beauty.

  Then Amalie came closer, and Senneth could see th
e tears streaking the princess’s dirty cheeks, and she realized that the awful message she had come forward to convey had already been delivered. She had never been so grateful for Cammon’s ability; these were words she had not wanted to be the first to speak.

  She should have greeted the princess as majesty. She should have placed her fist against her shoulder as a mark of reverence and respect. Instead, Senneth gathered the girl in a close embrace and whispered in her ear, “Amalie, Amalie, I am so sorry.”

  For a moment, Amalie clung to her, and then she pushed away. Her face was pale, her lips bitten through, but she wore an expression of proud determination. “What happened?”

  “Too many attackers, and he was in an open room,” Senneth said, but she could hardly take her eyes off the raelynx. It had dropped to his haunches and was staring up at her with an unwinking gaze. Was Cammon holding it? Was Amalie? How had it gotten free? Was it safe? Was that blood on its whiskers? “Wen went down—though she’s alive—and Tir battled so hard. Coeval and I fought our way into the room, but there were so many of them.” She took a deep breath. “Once Tir was dead, the king fell. But only once Tir was dead.”

  Justin nodded at the fresh soldiers roving the field, seeking for the wounded among the fallen, identifying friends, making sure that enemies were dead. “What alerted the city guard? Your fire on the walls?”

  Senneth almost smiled at that. “Your wife. No one saw her as she slipped out of the gates and ran for help.”

  Justin only nodded, but Senneth saw pride in his eyes. “And she’s safe?”

  “Unharmed. As are Kirra and Donnal. Kirra’s with Wen, and Ellynor has been called to the ballroom, where they are bringing in our wounded men. We do not have nearly enough healers.”

  “Hammond’s in the sculpture garden. He might be—he was alive when we left. Someone must go to him.”

  Senneth nodded. “I’ll tell Milo.”

  “Where’s my father?” Amalie asked.

  Senneth gave her a compassionate look. “Valri is with him. You might not—”

  Amalie’s voice was almost cold. “I will go to him.”

  “I’ll take her,” Cammon said in a soft voice. As soon as Amalie had pulled free of Senneth’s hug, Cammon had taken her hand again. He had the ability to keep despair at bay—Senneth had seen him do it—but she was not sure even Cammon’s magic was enough to buoy Amalie through the next few hours, the next few days. “Where is he?”

  “Where he fell. The great dining hall.”

  Amalie nodded regally and swept forward, still flanked by Cammon and the raelynx. Senneth stared after them and then turned to Justin.

  “What in the silver hell happened?” she demanded.

  He shook his head. He had pulled out a cloth and was wiping blood from his blade but he didn’t look like, even once it was clean, he planned to sheathe it anytime soon. “We took shelter in this little alcove in the sculpture garden. About a dozen men stormed us—we were in a good position and able to fend them off until Hammond got hurt. And then more came.” He shrugged, but Senneth could imagine the grimness of the scene. “I knew I would not be able to keep them at bay much longer. Cammon was fighting in Hammond’s place—”

  “Cammon? He’s never killed a man in his life.”

  “Well, he killed three today. But he’s no Rider. I knew we would all be dead within minutes. And then—that creature came howling into the garden.” He shook his head. “You think you’ve heard it, when we were traveling on the road or when you were walking by its enclosure some afternoon when it was hunting. But, Senneth, you never heard anything like this. It went after those men, one after the other—just slaughtered them and moved on. I knew the attackers would all be done for, but I thought we might be, too.”

  “Cammon says she can control it.”

  “Well, it sure looked that way to me.”

  “So—now—well, what?” she demanded. “She thinks to keep it out of its garden? She thinks to keep it by her side like some kind of lapdog? Or to let it roam the palace grounds at will?”

  Justin gave her a ghost of his familiar grin. “Doesn’t sound like a bad idea. We might lose a Rider here and there, or maybe a servant or two, but the princess will be safe.”

  Senneth caught her breath. “The queen.”

  THEY found Tayse in the ballroom, checking on the condition of the fallen Riders. His face was utterly set, his expression remote, and Senneth ached for him as much as she ached for Amalie. He had lost his father; he had lost his king. The man he loved, the man he served. Even in the greater turmoil of a kingdom in chaos, these two losses would hit the strongest man hard enough to make him stagger.

  Justin went straight up to Ellynor and took her in a tight embrace. They stood together and whispered, repeating their own tales of this dreadful day. Tayse nodded to Justin, a simple acknowledgment of a job well done, and came toward Senneth.

  “I want to hug you, but I don’t know if that will harm you,” she said to him in a low voice.

  He immediately put his arms around her. She could feel his weariness finally battering down his rage. “How could it harm me?”

  Her voice was muffled against his shirt. “Love might seem like a kind of weakness during a time when you cannot afford anything but strength.”

  He kissed the top of her head and dropped his arms. “You give me strength,” he said quietly.

  She glanced toward the middle of the room, where ten or twelve men lay on pallets on the floor. Milo, the housekeeper, and a handful of servants moved between them, administering herbs and binding up injuries. Two footmen had just been dispatched to find Hammond, but there were plenty of others who also needed serious attention.

  “What’s the tally among the Riders?” Senneth asked.

  “Five dead, twelve badly wounded. The rest of us all have injuries but nothing severe.” His own chest was bound with a thick layer of cloth, white except where the blood had seeped through, and his left arm was also wrapped from wrist to elbow. Senneth had only minor cuts and scrapes, though she was fairly certain she should have someone check out a persistent burning sensation on her right leg. She might have taken a blow there; she couldn’t remember.

  She didn’t want to remember.

  “I have seen Riders fight before,” she said softly. “But today I saw them die. I have never seen such bravery and skill in all my life.”

  He nodded, accepting that compliment on behalf of all Riders, but did not answer it directly. Instead, he said, “Where’s Amalie?”

  “With her father.”

  He compressed his lips and did not reply.

  Senneth added, “And Cammon. And the raelynx.”

  That did startle an expression onto his face. “Someone freed it? Is it safe?”

  “Apparently it freed itself when she was in gravest danger. Justin says it saved all of their lives.”

  “Another weapon in her arsenal,” he commented. “She has many.”

  “Tayse,” Senneth said urgently, “she is queen now. Should there be a ceremony? A coronation? In the midst of all this bloodshed?”

  “Her uncle will know the answer to that,” Tayse said. He took her hand. “Let us go find the queen.”

  AMALIE was in the great dining hall where Baryn had so often entertained high-ranking visitors from across the realm. Now the king’s body had been laid on a bench at one end of the room. Ten yards away, his inner circle of family and advisors clustered around the end of a long, polished table and discussed strategy. Senneth noted that someone had covered Baryn with a purple blanket embroidered with the royal lions. Someone else had set up a half-circle of votive candles around his bier.

  Amalie sat in such a way that all she had to do was lift her eyes and she could see him.

  Cammon sat next to her, Romar and Valri across from her. The captain of Romar’s guard stood stiffly behind the regent, and the Rider Janni, looking even worse than some of the dead, had taken up a place behind Amalie. Kirra was sitting next to Cammon
, trying hard not to look at Romar. Senneth glanced around for Donnal, and saw a small spring hawk perched on one of the upper beams of the high-ceilinged room.

  The raelynx lay on the floor a few feet away from Amalie, its chin pillowed on its outstretched forepaws, but its eyes still wide and curious. Everyone in the room occasionally sent the creature a look of fear or marvel, and Senneth had to guess that it had caused no little consternation as Amalie paced through the palace. But for now, it was quiescent. For now, Senneth thought, it has earned its place among us.

  “Sen!” Kirra called, and waved them over. Senneth headed directly for the table, but Tayse strode first toward Baryn’s body. As Senneth slipped in place beside Valri, she watched over her shoulder to see Tayse drop to one knee and bow his head. Making his farewell to his king.

  “Serra,” Romar greeted her. “Please share your thoughts. We are debating whether to hold a hasty coronation and name Amalie queen. Will that inflame the warring marlords or call the loyal ones to more decisive action?”

  “There was always the fear that the marlords wouldn’t accept a nineteen-year-old girl on the throne. That’s why the king named a regent to begin with,” Kirra pointed out, addressing Senneth instead of Romar.

  “I would still serve beside her. My title would just change from regent to advisor.”

  Tayse came to stand behind Senneth as she addressed Amalie. “Majesty, what do you want to do?”

  Amalie shifted in her seat. One of her hands was under the table, and Senneth was pretty sure it was caught in both of Cammon’s. “I think we need to worry about war first, and then titles,” she said in her soft voice. “Put our energy into battle.”

  “More than one nation has gone to war over titles before,” Romar said.

  Amalie shrugged a little. “Then I say we announce that I will remain princess for one year, with you at my side as regent. At the end of that time—assuming there is still a throne of Gillengaria to be had—we will have a ceremony to name me queen.”