Hexborn (The Hexborn Chronicles Book 1)

by A. M. Manay

  Shiloh pulled a flask from her pocket and opened it. “Comfort potion,” she told him, and helped him take a swig.

  “You carry Comfort Potion in your pocket?” he asked, voice slurring as the painkiller began to take effect.

  “If you were me, so would you, my lord.” Shiloh began to sing a spell to heal the bones, and in five minutes Mosspeak’s leg was straight once more.

  “You’ll soon have a headache and curse the light,” she warned him, “and the leg’s going to ache something awful for weeks, but the bone is mended.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Mosspeak told her. “Remind me to get you a present,” he laughed weakly.

  “I’ll see who else needs help,” she told him, and dragged herself to her feet. “You stay here and rest a minute, all right, my lord?”

  Her heart fell when she saw that all of the men were gathered in one place. She ran to them to find Jaym lying still on the ground, a bleeding Master Jonn at his side trying desperately to revive him. Rischar looked down at his son, his face blank with shock. Tears poured down Master Deniss’s face.

  “No,” Shiloh whimpered, falling to her knees next to the king’s son. She yanked desperately at the boy’s jacket and shirt, looking for the hexmark so she could add her efforts to Jonn’s. Hope fled when Shiloh recognized the sign of Milton’s Hex, the curse that had nearly killed her in the Cathedral on the day of Princess Loor’s Dedication. Master Jonn continued to chant, performing chest compressions all the while.

  Hatch put a hand on Jonn’s shoulder. “Jonn, he’s gone,” he told his friend gently, his voice hoarse. “You should stop now.”

  “It’s finished, Master Jonn,” Rischar agreed, his voice strange and thin. “There was nothing you could have done. My boy was likely dead as soon as the curse hit him.”

  Shiloh crumpled over the body of her friend and student, sobbing silently into his linen. Silas pulled her to her feet and held her, while Mosspeak embraced Rischar, who continued to stare at his only son over Mosspeak’s shoulder.

  Shiloh took a deep, shuddering breath and pulled her head away from Hatch’s chest. She saw him wince.

  “You’re hurt,” she accused him, wiping her tears on her sleeve as she stepped away.

  “A little. So is Lord Redwood,” Hatch admitted.

  Shiloh turned to see Daved now kneeling by Jaym, straightening the dead boy’s clothes with his good hand.

  “You get him. Jonn’ll get me,” Hatch suggested.

  She nodded and looked up at him. “Thank you,” she whispered, then made for Daved.

  “Are you in one piece?” she asked him, struggling to swallow the rest of her tears.

  “I was about to ask you the same,” Daved replied.

  “Can I see your arm?” she asked.

  With difficulty, young Lord Redwood managed to remove his jacket. Through his linen, and with great relief, Shiloh saw the mark of Fellix’s Hex.

  “Just Fellix’s,” she told him. “It’ll be fine in just a minute.” She chanted to mend the cracked bone beneath as she had Mosspeak’s. “Try it now, my lord,” she told him.

  Carefully, Daved stretched his arm, then shook it out and nodded. “Good as new. Thank you.”

  “Of course,” Shiloh replied.

  They both gazed down at Jaym, their shoulders bowed in their grief.

  “He was brave. Got in some good curses, too, before his luck ran out,” Daved whispered.

  “I bet he did,” she replied with a sad smile. He had been working so hard, had made so much progress. He was such a sweet boy. And now, he was gone. “You were brave, too. Who killed him? Do you know? That’s pretty advanced magic.”

  “No idea,” Daved said. “I had already gotten hit when Jaym fell, so I didn’t see.”

  Shiloh closed her eyes. How did they do this for three years, during the war? How did they bear it?

  They stood and joined a protective circle standing around the king. Hatch and Deniss busied themselves checking the bodies of their enemies for survivors and for valuables, dispatching the still breathing, and using their magic to toss the corpses onto an enormous fire they’d started atop a rise. At the bottom of the hill, they piled helmets and armor they had taken from the dead, equipment that they could now appropriate in preparation for any additional fighting.

  An acre or two of the adjoining vineyard lay blackened by the battle, their grapevines gone as if they had never been. More Deadlands, Shiloh sighed inwardly.

  The Captain of the Guard and Lord Blufeld lay wounded and heavily bound. Neither of them looked likely to expire, though Shiloh had a feeling that death would be preferable to whatever punishment the grieving king might later concoct.

  “Where’s Jasin Gray?” Shiloh asked, refusing to call him Lord Kepler in light of his treason.

  “He ran,” Daved snorted. “The coward.”

  “I don’t think he’ll get far,” Lord Mosspeak added. “I got his horse, and young Lord Redwood, here, drew some blood.” He laid a hand on Daved’s shoulder, and a flash of a smile momentarily brightened the boy’s mournful face. “Well done, my young lord.”

  Hatch and Deniss finished their macabre chore and returned to the circle with their pile of battle gear. “We found nothing that will fit you or Lord Redwood, I’m afraid,” Hatch apologized to Shiloh.

  “I didn’t expect you would, my lord,” Shiloh absolved him.

  “Should we secure Blufeld Castle, then go after Kepler?” Mosspeak suggested.

  “My lords, how are we going to take a whole castle by ourselves?” Daved ventured to ask. “Not that I object, mind you, I just want to know the plan . . .”

  “They’ll surrender,” Hatch assured him. “They had birds up with mirrors, watching us slaughter all their men. Though Honey did take two of them down, I believe two made it back to the castle. And their lookouts can see the pyre. We just slaughtered fifty men, and we have their lord in custody. They can’t have built up their forces much more than that, or someone would have noticed.

  “Lord Blufeld would have left his eldest legitimate son, Veroh, in charge. He’s never had much of a stomach for violence. If he balks at surrendering, we just start sending him my worthless father’s body parts one at a time until he changes his mind,” Hatch proposed with a grim sort of brightness.

  The look Hatch then gave Lancis Beckett could have melted glass. His father glared back with one equally as cold, but the gag in his mouth prevented the traitor from making any comment. Shiloh was surprised the old man was even conscious, given his mangled arm.

  “As long as we have a plan, then,” Shiloh muttered drily. “What about the women? What if their guard turns on them? Don’t we need to get back to them?”

  “Gordan’s men are outnumbered two to one by Northgate’s and my household guard. Rockmore has plenty of his own as well,” Mosspeak replied. “I don’t think any traitors would dare act upon the women without word of a victory from the late Castellan.”

  “I’ll send a message to my captain to take out the Royal Guard. Carefully, of course,” Hatch proposed. “And to make sure none of them get anywhere near the queen.”

  “Perhaps Lady Hana should be kept away from her grace as well,” Shiloh added. “What if she knew of her husband’s treachery?”

  Rischar nodded. Hatch stepped away to compose his warning, and Honey waited patiently to carry it.

  “We might stumble across Kepler on the way to the castle, my lords. Wouldn’t he have fled that way, looking for help?” Master Deniss pointed out.

  “Perhaps,” Mosspeak allowed. “But if he saw the cause was lost, it might be the last place he’d go for fear of capture.”

  “There’s also a Temple out past the vineyard,” Shiloh reminded them. “He could be hiding there, or getting a priest to help him with his wounds. I thought I saw an equipment shed or barn as well.”

  “We should also check the village by the castle. Lots of places for a man to hide,” Jo
nn added.

  “We must also secure our prisoners. I will not be robbed of my vengeance,” Rischar declared, jaw clenched.

  They all stood in silence for a time, thinking through options, until Mosspeak raised his head and his voice to suggest, “Why don’t we send to Lord Waterton for reinforcements? He is at home in the Fingers for the summer. His horsemen could be here in two days. Half could stay to hold the castle, and half could return with us to the City to augment our guard in case anyone should try to rescue Blufeld and Kepler, once we have him.”

  Rischar nodded slowly. “Yes, we must return to the City once we find Kepler. We have a royal funeral and some gruesome executions to arrange. Once Silas is through with them, of course.” The king smiled an ugly smile.

  “Gather up the horses,” Rischar then ordered. “It is time to finish crushing our enemies.”

  Chapter 21

  And Spits Them Out

  Shiloh woke with a start and fumbled for the lamp. Someone was ringing the bell in the village Temple.

  “Feralfolk,” she breathed. She slid on her hook, buckling it with trembling hand, then scampered down the ladder and ran to her father’s bed, shaking him awake. He was beginning to go deaf and could sleep through anything.

  “Da!” she cried loudly. “The alarm!”

  Poll was up in a flash and grabbed his ax from its place on the wall.

  “Into the trees with the rest of the women and children,” he ordered her. “Hide and don’t come down until the all clear.”

  She wanted to argue, but she knew it would get her nowhere. “Yes, Da,” she replied, then gave him a kiss. He ran with her to the edge of the grazing land close to their house, hugged her, and pushed her toward the trees.

  The villagers kept blinds set up in the forest surrounding their settlement for just such occasions. They were quite handy for both hunting and hiding from Feralfolk, or from press gangs, or from tax collectors. Shiloh ran across the field, her bare feet turning blue against the frozen ground. Before Shiloh could make it to her favorite hiding place, however, she heard the crack of a curse leaving a wand and felt dark magic explode behind her.

  She turned to see, and her scream echoed from the surrounding mountains. Her da swayed and fell before her eyes, Feralfolk all around him.

  She felt something shatter and catch fire inside her chest; it felt like an oil lamp that had slipped out of her hand and fallen upon a stone floor. Her legs began running toward her father faster than her mind could keep up.

  The Feralfolk scattered. If she’d been capable of thought, Shiloh would have found that odd. Some of them should have been snatching her up, while the others rifled Poll’s clothes for anything of value.

  Shiloh fell to her knees next to her father, knelt in his blood that steamed in the night air, already cooling on the frosted ground.

  “Da?” she whispered, voice cracking. “Da, please,” she begged. But she could see he was already gone.

  Shaking, she stood and turned to face those who had taken him from her. One of them held up his hands and stepped forward, as though he wished to speak to her. Before he could open his mouth, Shiloh opened hers.

  Her wordless wail of loss crashed over them, and they began to burn.

  ***

  The taking of Blufeld Castle went as easily as Silas had predicted. They raised the white flag merely an hour after the king’s arrival. As it turned out, the household staff had risen up against their masters when they’d seen the king on his horse at their gate. They’d locked Veroh and his two younger brothers in their rooms and surrendered the castle.

  The few guards who had been left behind when their lord had ridden forth went along with the mutiny in an effort to prove their loyalty to the crown. This spared them their lives, but it did not spare them a trip to the dungeon, where they were locked away with Blufeld and the former Captain of the Royal Guard. Lady Blufeld was locked in her rooms, where she could be heard raging against her husband for dooming them all.

  The sun thus set upon a castle under the control of the king and his entourage. They dined in the Great Hall; ravenous and exhausted, they ate in silence. The day’s events seemed to Silas like they’d occurred in a dream. Jaym’s body, wrapped in his father’s green cloak, lay in the castle’s chapel, sad proof that it had been real after all.

  Next to Silas, Shiloh slumped against his shoulder. A ghost of a smile flitted across his face when he realized that she had fallen asleep sitting up. He looked down and was glad to see that her plate was almost clean. Across from them, Daved’s head nodded until he jerked himself awake with a start.

  “To rest, then, Your Grace?” Hatch suggested.

  “Aye. We begin our search for Kepler at first light,” the king confirmed. “No point in pressing on with it now. We could none of us stay on our feet nor in the saddle in our current state.”

  Everyone nodded his agreement, save Shiloh, still asleep.

  The king looked down at her fondly, before his grief reasserted control over his face. “Poor girl, carrying a grown man’s burden. We wouldn’t have gotten through without her, though, would we?”

  “No, Your Grace, I don’t believe so,” Hatch agreed. Mosspeak nodded his agreement.

  “You all acquitted yourselves admirably,” Rischar declared to his retinue. “I am forever in your debt.” The king then turned his attention to the youngest remaining member of their party. “Daved, I am especially proud of you.”

  Daved stood, squared his shoulders, and bowed. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “Come,” Rischar said, placing a hand on Daved’s shoulder. “To sleep. Your presence will be a comfort to me, young Lord Redwood.”

  And with that, they dragged themselves up the stairs to the rooms the staff had hastily prepared for them. Hatch lifted Shiloh and carried her on his tired legs, unwilling to wake her in spite of his own numbing fatigue.

  She stirred slightly when he set her down on the bed. Eyes still closed, she murmured, “Is’t morning already, Da?”

  Hatch allowed himself a smile. “I’m not your Da. And no, go back to sleep.”

  She sniffed and turned onto her side, settling back into her slumber. An errant lock of hair had fallen across her face, and each breath rustled the bright pink strand. He swallowed an urge to tuck it behind her ear, then forced himself to turn around and find his own bed.

  ***

  In the pre-dawn light, they split into pairs to begin the search. Hatch thus found himself riding next to Shiloh as they sped down the dirt road through the vineyards as fast as was reasonably safe. They searched the Temple first. Dusty and run-down, its sole priest in residence had only a handful of teeth to his name, but he was nevertheless intelligible enough to let them know that no injured young traitors had sought help from him the previous day. He did, however, divulge the fact that a horse with no rider had happened by, and that the priest had the gelding tied up in the courtyard.

  “Saw the fine saddle and grabbed him,” the priest reported. “Thought there might be a reward.”

  Silas gazed at the animal. “That’s definitely Kepler’s horse,” he declared.

  “Yes, my lord,” Shiloh agreed.

  Hatch handed the priest two gold suns. “For your trouble. Feel free to sell the horse and tack and pocket the proceeds. The lord to whom he belonged no longer has need of them. Anyone gives you guff, tell them the Hatchet told you to do it.” Silas winked, and the priest’s eyes widened.

  Back in the saddle again, Hatch looked over to Shiloh. “Where to next? The shed or that larger building over there?” The two options were in opposite directions, the shed somewhat closer.

  “The priest said the horse didn’t come by until well after dark. So he must have walked pretty far,” Shiloh surmised. “And if I were Kepler, I’d have wanted to put some distance between myself and the king.”

  “If you were Kepler, he’d have won,” he replied. “Very well, let’s try the farther buil
ding.”

  As the sun rose in the sky, the air turned warm and dusty. They slowed to take a drink of water, and Silas looked over to see Shiloh’s hair plastered to her dirty face with sweat. He supposed he didn’t look much better.

  “We’re getting close enough that we need to be careful now,” he warned, passing her his water-skin.

  She nodded as she drank. “Don’t worry, my lord,” she replied with a grin. “I’ll protect you.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  They approached the building slowly, but all was quiet. The large wooden doors were open a crack; their lock lay shattered in the dirt.

  Silently, they dismounted, wands at the ready. They tied their horses to a sapling and edged closer, careful to keep out of the line of sight of the opening in the enormous double doors.

  Shiloh stood behind Silas. He turned to give her a nod of warning over his shoulder. When she returned it, he cast a spell to swing the doors wide open. They waited, Silas half-expecting hexes to come flying out, but all was still.

  Gingerly, they slipped into the building. Wine making equipment surrounded them, barrels and giant vats and their accoutrements. He heard a buzzing sound and turned to catch Shiloh’s eye.

  “Flies,” she mouthed silently. He nodded. She tapped her nose. “Blood,” she mouthed. He nodded again. She pressed a hand to her chest. “Dark magic,” she mouthed. He nodded a third time.

  An enormous, elevated grape-stomping tub stood before them, a ladder on either side of it. It was the only spot they had not yet searched. Slowly, they each climbed one ladder. Shiloh had to hold her wand in her mouth, her hook rather useless for the climb on the rough-hewn wood.

  “Oh, Gods,” Shiloh cried when she peered over the edge of it, turning away and covering her mouth with her left forearm while she scrambled back down the ladder.

  Silas was silent but no less horrified as he descended to the floor.

  Jasin Gray, Duke of Kepler, Lord of the Fist, lay dead, surrounded by more blood than Silas could recall ever seeing in one place. His eyes were open wide, his wand still in his hand. Along the walls of the tub, written in blood were these words: “With my life’s blood I curse you, Rischar, son of Jeroh, and all of your issue, until your bloodline is extinct and despised.”