The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 02 - The Yellow Palace

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The sprites returned as Kestrel finished his thought, and gathered around him. “Keep yourselves safe,” he told Alicia and Lucretia, and then he disappeared from the house, and returned to the small closet through which he had left the palace the night before.

  Chapter 20 – The Last of Invisibility

  It was late afternoon, and the sunlight fell at a slant as it poured in through the windows of the palace at Center Trunk. The cozy brightness conveyed an atmosphere of warmth and comfort, but Kestrel couldn’t see the sunlight when he arrived in the dark confinement of the pantry in a back hall of the palace. “Are you satisfied tobe here?” a sprite asked him.

  Kestrel listened to the sounds of conflict in the halls of the palace, the noise penetrating into his pantry space. “Yes, this is where I want to be,” he said. “Thank you again for your service.”

  The sprites vanished, leaving him alone. Dewberry would have stayed with me to watch out for me, Kestrel idly thought, as he put his hand on the handle of the door. He missed the sprite princess with whom he had such a strong bond, and he prayed that she was safe. Then he prayed that he would find the palace was safe, and he prepared to move forward.

  He pressed the door just an inch ajar, then peeked out. The sounds of conflict were much clearer, but not coming from the hallway immediately in front of him. He stepped out into the hallway, and heard the cacophony of battle, loudest to his left, the direction of the ballroom where the reception had taken place the night before. Just twenty four hours earlier, the palace had been the refined location of a glittering gathering of royalty, nobility, military high command, and the privileged classes; now it was suffering battle and mayhem, he thought to himself as he trotted cautiously along the back hallway, passed through the kitchen, and came to the entrance to the ballroom.

  He pressed the door open, and entered a heated battle, where small clusters of rebels and guards battled in knots across the ballroom floor. The red robes seemed to be defending the far side of the room, while the guards seemed to be fighting desperately to break through the defenses. Kestrel threw off the red robe he had taken from Lucretia’s home, then settled into a kneeling position on the floor and began to fire arrows at the isolated rebels he could see clearly and pick off. The chaos of battle was too continual to allow him to spot many safe targets, so after two minutes of frustrating effort, he dropped his bow, pulled his knife free, and looked for the best sure target.

  Two guards were outnumbered by four attackers across the room, a cause that Kestrel felt deserved immediate help – he threw his knife at the man who appeared to be leading the attack, then picked up his staff and waded into the battle in the center of the room.

  His staff was a singular weapon, the only staff being used in the battle. He wheeled it freely about, striking opponents, blocking attacks, and knocking rebels unconscious with blows to the head, as he joined a small bloc of guards that seemed to be making the most determined push to break through.

  “Lucretia,” he called, then ca ught the obedient knife, and flung it at one of the rebels fighting his group. “Lucretia,” he called again as soon as it struck, and the knife returned, to be thrown again, then quickly called again, and Kestrel changed his strategy to one of stepping back from the conflict so that he could focus solely on tossing the deadly knife at the opponents.

  Within a minute he had killed six more of the rebels that blocked the route across the ballroom floor and out the main door of the hall. “You, come with us,” a sergeant grabbed him, “and bring that enchanted knife.”

  “Where are we going?” Kestrel asked.

  “We’re going to rescue the princess,” the sergeant answered. “Let’s go, and keep your knife ready.”

  Kestrel slide his staff over his shoulder and into the strap of his quivers of arrows, then pulled his sword in his right hand as he held the knife in his left, and followed the small group that slipped past the door and into the front hallway of the palace. The hallway was empty.

  “We need to go this way,” a voice in the front called, and the half dozen elves began to run down the hallway to the right. Kestrel brought up the rear, and turned to look over his shoulder. He saw a rebel in a red robe pulling a bow to take aim at them, and he released Lucretia as he ran, then called the knife back after he saw the archer fall.

  They reached a set of crossing halls, and stopped. “Is the princess trapped somewhere in the palace?” Kestrel asked.

  “No, a group is trying to kidnap her and take her hostage,” one of the guards replied, then gagged and fell to the ground, an arrow through his throat. Kestrel turned to the left and threw his knife, as the others all crouched reflexively. There were other archers behind the first, he saw as he watched the knife twist through the air.

  “Everyone lie flat,” Kestrel called. “Lucretia,” he summoned his knife, then threw it again at another archer, as arrows flew just above them, or skidded along the floor towards them.

  He called the knife back, then threw it again, and again, so that the band of archers turned and fled the methodical death that was visited upon them. “Let’s go,” he said, rising to his feet, as the others also stood.

  “There! Out the window!” someone called, and they all looked to see a large mob of men in red hustling out of the palace grounds, leaving through a gate where a number of bodies lay motionless on the ground.

  “They’ve gotten her into the city! We’ve lost,” the sergeant said dejectedly.

  “Not yet,” Kestrel said. He knelt and began to pull off his boots.

  “What do you mean? What can we do?” another guardsman asked.

  Kestrel took a piece of leather lace from his boot, and tied his knife to his shin, then took off his weapons and his shirt. “Save these for me,” he told the sergeant. “I’ll be back for them.”

  He opened the vial of precious fluid that Kere had given him, and tilted it to his lips, then raised it higher, until he felt the last drop trickle to his lips, and heard the others gasp. He dropped the vial, and removed his pants. “I’ll be back with the princess if it’s at all possible,” he shouted, then began to run, conscious of the feel of the knife tied to his foot. He hoped that it would be less visible if tied low, less likely to give his unseen position away to an unwary quarry.

  He found a door and sprinted out into the dim twilight air of the city, and darted on a straight line towards the empty gate. He reached the gate and stopped, looking to the right, where he saw no sign of the retreating group, then looking left, where the trailing men in the red-garbed group disappeared around a corner. Kestrel ran with determined energy, and rounded the corner in time to see the full body of men cross a bridge and turn another corner, the begin to run along the road that ran parallel to the river they had just crossed.

  Halfway down the stretch to the next bridge they stopped suddenly and spread out in a semi-circular formation, then began to make a low, throaty, growling chant. Kestrel stopped before crossing the bridge completely, and stood at the middle of the span, looking down at where the kidnappers stood, watching to see what they would do next.

  There was a sudden, dark red burst of light that momentarily blinded Kestrel, and when his vision returned he saw that there was a thrashing in the water below, an indication that the water lizards in the river were paddling towards the spot where the rebels stood, streaming towards a union with their companions. The air grew filled with the dangerous stench that accompanied the lizards.

  Kestrel felt another of the strange flashes of intuition, one that filled him with certainty about what was about to transpire. He reached down and pulled the knife loose from the binding on his foot, then jumped over the railing of the bridge and hit the surface of the water, his legs already moving at a running sprint, and he started stepping on top of water and lizards alike as he began to run to save the princess.

  The struggling girl was screaming as she was held above the group of rebels, her form visible to Kestrel for the first time, as the red-robed arms and
hands propelled her aloft towards the waterfront.

  There was a man wearing a head dress, holding a knife with a long, complexly jagged blade,waiting at the water’s edge, clearly a priest or other type of leader of the group, and he was about to plunge his evil blade into the princess, Kestrel knew. The girl was being held extended out over the water, as lizards gathered beneath her, their jaws open, waiting from her blood and flesh to drop down to them.

  Kestrel approached the priest, creating a wake upon the surface of the water as his invisible feet rapidly trod his rescue path. Kestrel’s arm reared back and he flung his knife, then swerved atop the water and raced in to grab the girl while the men holding her started to drop her in shock, as their priest suddenly tumbled forward into the water with Kestrel’s own knife in his chest, and a startled expression on his dying face.

  Kestrel felt the teeth of a lizard scrape the bottom of his ankle as he stretched his arms into space and grabbed hold of the shocked princess, then pulled the screaming girl tightly against his invisible chest and gave his greatest burst of possible energy, ignoring the shouts and the flailing of the princess as he held her tightly and sought to escape.

  “Lucretia,” he gasped between gritted teeth, then unceremoniously hefted the princess up over his shoulder and held her with one arm as he held his other hand out to recapture the returning knife.

  He was running as fast as he could, listening to several water lizards tear apart the body of the dead priest who had fallen into the water with Kestrel’s knife in his chest, while other monsters paddled angrily after Kestrel and the princess, splashing and snapping at him in a close chase, while he looked for a way to escape from the water. The sides of the river were tall slabs of stone, a miniature canyon in the heart of the city, over whose high walls he could neither climb nor jump nor even throw the princess, as he felt the muscles of his thighs start to burn with exertion and stress.

  There was a small staircase opening up ahead, he saw, a way for those on the street above to access the river and vice versa, he thankfully realized, but the lizards behind him now were so close he knew they were gaining, he knew he was losing speed as his legs tired and the water rose over his toes, and he knew he wasn’t going to make it to that one chance for escape.

  With a desperate maneuver he turned and began to reverse course, stepping on the backs and heads of the lizards, the princess still screaming as he began to head back towards the following mob of outraged fanatical red-robed rebels, then he stopped while standing on top of one of the lizards, as the great reptiles attempted to turn themselves around, and as they momentarily floated virtually motionless in the water, he reversed course and sprinted back towards the staircase once again. His maneuver gained only a narrow margin of safety ahead of the closest lizard, and he reached the safety of the lowest step just as one unseen monster, one that must have been approaching him from the upriver direction, suddenly reared up out of the water at the foot of the stairs and grabbed hold of his leg with its knife-like teeth.

  He had one foot on the stone step, one foot engulfed in the lizard’s mouth, and the screaming princess across his shoulders. He flung his knife down at the animal, then pulled his mangled limb free from its slack-jawed mouth, feeling no pain in the shock of the moment, aware that some of the rebels had the presence of mind to begin to run along their side of the river road to follow him.

  “Reasion, Reasion, Reasion,” he gasped as he hopped up one more step away from the water, then carelessly let the screaming princess slide forward onto the step above him.

  “Who said that?” the girl asked as she landed on the stone surface.

  “Lucretia!” Kestrel called as another lizard arrived with its jaws open.

  “Friend Kestrel? Where are you?” a sprite asked, as Reasion and two others appeared in the air abovehim. “We can’t stay long; we shouldn’t be here at all – we’ve been called to a conclave.”

  The princess screamed, and Kestrel flung his knife again at the threatening lizard as soon as the handle touched his fingers.

  The sprites disappeared in confusion and dismay.

  “Shut up!” Kestrel roared at the princess. “The sprites are here to help! Don’t scare them away. Just be quiet!” he let his invisible rage vent itself on the hysterical girl.

  “Reasion, Reasion, Reasion,” he called again. “Lucretia!” he called again. “Return!”

  He turned and flung the knife up at a rebel who was pelting down the stairs from the road towards them, a sword held high, as the sprites came back into view. The knife killed the rebel, who began to tumble downward.

  “I’m invisible, Reasion! Find me! Take me and the girl to Lucretia’s house! Take the girl first and then come get me,” he shouted the orders.

  He stepped aside as the dead rebel body fell down beside him and into the water, where a new pair of lizards began to tear it apart, their sharp teeth ripping into the flesh fiercely.

  “Lucretia, return,” he ordered, as he saw the princess disappear among a blue robe of sprites, provoking a cry of anger from another rebel coming down the stairs at the head of a long line of attackers.

  An arrow flew at him from an archer high on the far river bank, and he flung his knife yet again, starting to cry in anguish at the unending hostility that was engulfing him. There were rebels above, monsters below, his leg was a mangled, useless, throbbing source of pain, his body was exhausted, and he had run out of hope

  “Lucretia,” he called, and felt the knife touch his hand, and then he was engulfed in sprites, and gone into the darkness and the silence of unconsciousness.

  Chapter 21– The Kingdom Saved

  When Kestrel returned to consciousness he was visible, and he was naked, lying on Lucretia’s bed, as Alicia’s hands wrapped improvised bandages around his wounded ankle, calf, shin, and knee, while the princess looked over the doctor’s shoulder at him. He felt searing pain rising from the leg that the monster lizard had nearly torn from his body before his knife had killed it.

  He closed his eyes again. “Are the sprites okay?” he asked.

  “They seemed to be. We dismissed them,” Lucretia’s voic e sounded behind him. “Was there some problem?”

  “I just wanted to be sure,” Kestrel said. “There at the end there were lizards and arrows and rebels and not enough safe space or air left to take a breath; I was afraid one of them might have been hurt. We got out of there just in time,” he looked up at the princess.

  “May I have a cloth, a cover, anything?” he asked, conscious of his exposed state.

  “You’ve got nothing left to hide; why bother?” Alicia asked, but Lucretia threw a towel over his midsection, to his relief.

  “Thank you, Lord Kestrel,” the princess said. “Great gods! How did you turn invisible like that?”

  “I had a gift from the gods,” he agreed, “a potion that turned its user invisible for one hour. The last dose is what I used to set you free.”

  “You saved my life, over and over again,” she said. “My father will do anything you ask to repay you. Thank you, my lord.”

  “Don’t make his head swell,” Lucretia said in a sour tone. “He still thinks he would have won that archery tournament, and become your favorite the easy way.”

  “I’m not a lord,” Kestrel added. He twitched as Alicia wrapped the last bandage around his injured leg, squeezing one of the spots where a piece of his leg’s flesh had been torn away by the savage teeth of the monster.

  “Has there been any further signs of battle here on the base?” he asked.

  “No, nothing recent. It sounds quiet, but we don’t know if that’s a good quiet or a bad quiet,” Lucretia answered.

  “Were there rebels fighting right here on the base too?” Elwean asked.“Have they taken over the whole city?”

  Kestrel sat up, and looked around for his staff to help him walk, then remembered he had left it at the palace with his clothes. “Mastrin, return,” he called softly.

  “Your chest
is beautiful,” the princess told him, watching him as he tried to tuck his towel around his waist.

  “Careful, he’ll ask to see yours in exchange,” Lucretia wisecracked, drawing a startled expression from the princess.

  Kestrel was glad to hear the spark that seemed to have kindled in Lucretia. She was not the depressed, wrecked being he had discovered upon his return to Center Trunk two days before. Under the pressure of the unfolding crisis her vitality had seemingly reemerged.

  “Look out, everyone,” he told his companions. “My staff should be here soon.

  “When it gets here, would you go take a pair of pants from one of the dead men in the front room,” Kestrel asked Alicia. There was a thumping sound out front as he spoke, and then his staff came bouncing off the door frame and returned to the palm of his hand.

  “Where did that come from?” the princess asked.

  “I left it in the palace, when I became invisible,” Kestrel answered.

  “Tell us what happened in the palace,” Lucretia asked.

  “And tell me who you really are and what is happening,” the princess added, as Alicia slipped out of the room.

  They sat and explained events to one another for the next half hour, as the girls turned their backs while Kestrel pulled on clothes, and then he shut his eyes as the princess shed her finery and pulled on an oversized uniform from another of the dead men.

  “We need to move out of here and find out what the situation is out there, see if we can join a larger unit and find a safe place until we’re sure all of this is resolved,” Kestrel told the others, as Lucretia nodded.

  “We’re not exactly a formidable squad right now are,” the former guard chimed in. “You’re crippled, I’m not on active duty, and these two don’t have any training.”