by Frank Miller
“But of course.” Merlin offered him the torque.
Gingerly, the Leper King fastened the necklace around the skeleton’s neck. He stepped back to admire it. “Look how the Fey Fire catches the jewels.”
Merlin nodded, impressed. “A luxurious flame indeed.”
“Nothing but the finest for us, eh, Merlin?”
“Nothing but.” Merlin’s eyes lingered on the movements of the Fey Fire.
Rugen scratched his chin, relishing the skeleton. “You are complete again, my queen.” He nudged Merlin, nearly knocking him over in the process.
Recovering, Merlin nodded. “In life, even more so. Flowing red hair. Skin white as milk.”
“You knew her, did you, you old dog?” Rugen chuckled, anxious for the story.
Merlin demurred. “My friend, that is a conversation best had over wine.”
A few hours later Merlin was the guest of honor at Rugen’s feasting table, an oak monstrosity surrounded by the crumbling thrones of several different eras, attended to by liveried lepers of all shapes, sizes, and deformities.
But the mood had changed. Rugen’s expression was sour as he slouched in his great chair. He yawned as Merlin overfilled his goblet, spilling red wine onto the floor and continuing a rant as he slurped. “—but that was always the way with Charlemagne. I told him it was a mistake to trust the Church, that eventually they’d get ideas of their own, try to overrule him, but did he listen to me? No! That’s the problem with these mortal kings—”
Rugen’s eyes drooped. “Mm-hmm,” he answered, not listening.
“—always thinking they know better.” Merlin lurched out of his chair and refilled his goblet, apparently forgetting it was still full, spilling more of Rugen’s wine onto the floor. “Bloody fools! Whoever tells them what they want to hear, that’s who they believe. But no more.”
“Yes, no more,” Rugen said.
Merlin crept toward the Leper King. “No longer will we dance for them. Or soothe them with pretty lies. Our alliance will topple their false God. We will be their true lords once more!” He slammed down his goblet before Rugen, knocking a wine jug into the king’s lap.
“Blast the gods, Merlin!” The Leper King leaped up as servants swarmed.
Merlin tried to help, using his own robes to clean off the Leper King, but managed to tangle himself more. “I am sorry, let me—” He fell into Rugen’s arms.
“You’re drunk,” the Leper King sneered.
Merlin clutched Rugen’s shoulders to hold himself up. “And you are surprisingly fit.”
The Leper King stepped away, flopping Merlin to his knees. “Pathetic.” He gestured to his servants. “Take him out of my sight and let him sleep it off. We’ll see if I still have use for him in the morning.”
The lepers hoisted the half-conscious Merlin by the elbows and dragged him away.
“Unhand me, brutes!” Merlin slurred dramatically, freeing his right hand and spiriting the Leper King’s pickpocketed vault keys into the hidden pocket of his sleeve.
TWENTY-TWO
LONGING TO BE USEFUL, NIMUE lugged a bucket of water through the winding tunnels of the Fey refugee camp. Her shoulders throbbed and the burning torches made the caves stifling and hot. Sweat poured down her cheeks. Despite this, she told herself this was all temporary, that a semblance of normal life, or at least a less broken life, was still possible. She feared her letter to Merlin had been too strident in tone and that she had made an enemy of the one man on earth who might help her.
Why him? Why is my mother protecting this legendary sword? Why does she want it to go to Merlin? A traitor who has turned against the Fey?
Still another side of her felt the paladin maps burning a hole in her saddlebag. We know where they are. We can save Fey villages. And kill more of the red bastards. But her entreaties had as yet fallen on deaf ears. The needs of the camp were too overwhelming.
As the tunnel opened into the cavern, Nimue saw Fey children dancing in a circle. The sight made her smile, until she heard their song: “Paladin, paladin, jump in the ditch, hiding from the Wolf-Blood Witch.”
Nimue stopped to listen. They’re singing about me. It was bizarre and embarrassing and secretly thrilling. The children were holding hands and smiling and falling down with laughter.
“Paladin, paladin, horse is hitched, sniffed out by the Wolf-Blood Witch.”
Her heart thudded in her chest. She was back in the glade: feeling the push of the blade through the paladin’s ribs and the slick pull as she opened him wide, the cold pond turning warm with blood and splashing against her neck like soothing tub water, her ears delighted by his shrill screams.
“Paladin, paladin, choke and twitch, bitten by the Wolf-Blood Witch . . .”
While she was lost in her reverie, a Faun woman with small antlers and almond-shaped eyes tried to take Nimue’s bucket.
“Adwan po,” she said. “Semal, semal.”
Nimue gently pulled the bucket back. “No, please. I want to be useful.” For the past hours and days, Nimue’s every effort to carry, assist, lift, and lug had been thwarted by Fey Kind who wanted to place her on a pedestal.
“Tetra sum n’ial Cora.”
Nimue smiled and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
The Faun woman struggled with her English. “Name is Cora.”
“Nimue,” she answered, touching her chest.
Cora smiled. “Yes, yes. Come.” The Faun woman took her by the arm and led her to a circle of Fauns, actively engaged in twisting leaves and vines into decorative shapes, weaving them into salvaged cloth along with boughs of gathered flowers to make dresses of forest beauty.
“Tomorrow night there is Amala. A Joining.” Cora put one of the dresses up to Nimue’s shoulders.
Again Nimue tried to fend off the Fey Kind’s generosity. “No, please, not for me. This is beautiful. You should wear it.”
“You will wear. You will come.” Cora smiled. “You and the handsome Man-Blood boy.”
The Faun women chuckled at this.
Feeling her ears and cheeks redden with embarrassment, Nimue hastily thanked Cora, took the dress, and escaped.
She hurried the dress to the cave she shared with Morgan and swung around, only to find Arthur waiting for her in the archway.
“I beg your pardon? This is the ladies’ chamber.”
“I need to show you something,” Arthur said with a cattish grin.
“What about the maps?” Nimue started in again, following Arthur down a new set of tunnels that she had not yet explored.
“We’ve only just got here,” Arthur said.
“But when they find out those maps are missing, they’ll change their plans. We’ll lose our advantage!”
“Peace, Nimue,” Arthur said. Then, lowering his voice, he added, “I’ve been meaning to tell you, you’ve gotten a bit whiffy of late.”
“I—you what?”
“It’s true,” Arthur went on. “The Fey children have a new name for you.” He turned to Nimue with a serious expression. “They’re calling you the Wolf-Blood Stench.”
Nimue shoved Arthur into the wall. “Are you wanting to be hurt?”
He held up a warning finger, then pulled her up a small rise and onto a tiny cliff above a grotto. A pool at the center of the grotto was fed by a series of small falls. “It’s the snowmelt,” Arthur told her. “Comes from the top of the mountain and heats up as it works through the rocks.” He handed her a misshapen brown rock.
“What is this?” Nimue stared at it.
“Wood-ash soap. Trust me, you need it.” Arthur winked at her as he pulled off his shirt, showing off a lean, muscled frame. His pants were down around his ankles just as quickly, leaving very little to the imagination. Nimue turned away, eyebrows raised, as Arthur whooped and jumped into the hot spring.
“Oh, thank the gods,” he muttered as he floated below. “Come on!”
“I’m fine here, I think,” Nimue said, stealing glances whi
le Arthur dove and splashed.
“I have seen a woman naked before,” he offered.
“How nice for you,” she said. Then she flicked her finger, and Arthur dutifully averted his eyes.
In truth, Nimue was eager to shed the rags she’d been wearing all week. They reeked of death. But as she stepped out of her leather shoes, a modesty took over. She’d never undressed in front of a boy. You’re a fool, Nimue told herself. After all that’s happened, this is what you fear the most? She tried to shake it off, but her breathing was still shallow and her fingers still shook when she fumbled with the buttons of her stolen trousers and let them fall to her bare feet. She wriggled out of her sleeveless tunic and dropped it to the stones. When she looked down at her body, she could barely recognize it for all the bruises, mud, dried blood, and lacerations. She felt her ribs. She’d barely eaten for days and could see her ribs much more clearly. Both of her knees were torn open. She felt her tangled, knotted hair and her tongue probed the sore, bloody hole where her lower right molar used to be.
Holding on to a smooth boulder, Nimue put her foot in the hot water. It warmed her blood to her cheeks. She slid into the steaming pool and almost wept for the relief of her aching muscles. She submerged into the silence, into a scalding bath that burned away the dirt and blood and sweat. For just a moment, Nimue felt different, like steel melted into a new shape.
Arthur was busy scrubbing himself with his own wood-ash soap, his white derriere above the water for all to see.
“Oy!” he shouted at Nimue when he caught her looking. “Do you mind?”
Nimue rolled her eyes and laughed, her first real laugh since Hawksbridge, since Pym. Arthur plunged back into the pool and popped up nearer to her. She backed away, eyes on his, conscious of facing him. Her scars were a modesty she would allow herself. And Arthur somehow sensed this.
“You don’t have to hide them.”
Nimue played dumb. “Hide what?”
“We all have scars.”
Nimue felt a spasm of embarrassment and swam for the shore.
“Nimue,” Arthur started.
“Nothing. It’s fine. It’s too hot,” she said.
“Look! Right here!” Arthur shouted, raising his left leg out of the water and pointing to a pink splotch underneath the buttock. “We used to race and bet on rats when I was a boy. My first race, rat got scared, ran up my pant leg, then panicked and tried to eat his way out. The boys had a good laugh as I cried and ran all the way home with a rat in my trousers. You want embarrassing? You can only imagine the nicknames.”
“Arthur,” Nimue said, trying to stop him.
He pressed on. “Here.” He indicated his left armpit and a puffy scar. “Morgan bit me after I kissed her friend. I was ten and Morgan was eight.” He cleared his hair away from crisscrossing scars over the part. “These are from an ale-drinking contest, which, if you are interested to know, I lost. Got so drunk I fell off a bridge onto a pile of cod on a fishing boat. Lucky break, if you ask me.”
Nimue smiled. She couldn’t help it. Playing along, she pointed to a dark scar along his ribs. “And that one?”
Arthur looked down at the scar. “Oh, that.” His smile faded. “That’s—that’s from the first man I ever killed.” He was quiet for a moment. “He stuck me pretty good before it was over.”
Nimue settled back into the water as unwelcome memories passed over Arthur’s eyes. She swam nearer to him, curious. “Who was it?”
“One of the brutes who killed my father,” Arthur said quietly, “or so I thought.”
The air was very still, and Nimue didn’t look away from Arthur. She wanted him to finish.
“Turns out I’d pegged the wrong gang for it. The fellow was no angel, mind you . . . but . . . Anyway, I was young, drunk, and angry.”
“You wanted justice for your father,” Nimue offered, wishing there was a better way to show just how much she understood.
“There is no justice. That poor idiot was in the wrong place at the wrong time and died for it. And the sad truth is: it would have broken my father’s heart to know I did that.”
“Thank you,” Nimue said.
“For what?”
“Telling me.”
Arthur shrugged. The space between them had dwindled. Nimue moved even closer. She reached out and touched the scar on his rib. He put his hand over hers.
“Nimue.”
“Yes?” She was close enough to feel his breathing.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” He pushed back a bit. “I can’t stay.”
The spell had broken. Nimue looked away.
Arthur frowned. “I have debts to bad men. Not just Bors. There are others. You don’t need my problems too. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“You deserve someone good.” Arthur’s voice shook. “I know I’ll never be what my father wanted. I’ll never be a true knight. But maybe somewhere I can find my honor. Maybe somewhere I can find justice. And the courage to serve it.”
“Are you searching or just running away? They can look the same, you know.” Nimue was feeling more and more foolish by the moment.
“Come with me. You don’t even know these people. You don’t owe them anything. Come with me and we can be across the Iron Peaks in a fortnight. And then we can go anywhere. The Sea of Sands? The Gold Trail? What do you want to see?”
What do I owe them? Nimue wondered. But the question also bothered her. She thought of the children singing. What would they think if she simply left in the night? Left them to their hunger and their fear? And what of her promise to her mother? “But what happens to them?”
“I don’t know. But I do know a lost cause when I see one. No point in sharing their fate.”
“It’s only a lost cause when everyone gives up on it. And is that all you care about? Just surviving?”
“No, I told you. I think, out there—”
“A knight doesn’t have to search for his honor, Arthur. And he sure as hell doesn’t run from a fight.” Morgan was right about him. Nimue folded her arms, feeling very exposed and vulnerable and angry. “Well, I thank you for your help. Are you leaving soon?”
Arthur shrugged, and that annoyed her even more. A child’s gesture, she thought. “A day, maybe two. Listen, about the sword. If you’re determined to stay, I think the best way to help your people is to give the sword to Merlin. Don’t listen to Morgan; she’s mad at the world. You said it before: this was your mother’s dying wish. She must have known that he would help you.”
Nimue shook her head. “She never said a word about him.”
“Take my advice for what it is, I guess. But I—I really don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You won’t,” Nimue said, swimming to shore. “You’ll be gone.”
TWENTY-THREE
MERLIN COVERED HIS MOUTH WITH his sleeve for the smell and crept past sleeping piles of lepers. He knelt down and left the end of the rope he’d been trailing in the center of the tunnel, then hurried to the iron doors of the Leper King’s vault. He freed the stolen keys from the folds of his robe.
It took an eternity for the great hinges of the vault door to cease their screeching. Once inside the hall, Merlin moved swiftly and silently, passing rows and rows of priceless treasures, eyes fixed on the Fey Fire flickering in the brass brazier set before the skeleton of Boudicca.
Merlin glanced at her glowing emerald eye sockets. “Forgive my earlier lies, milady. It would have been a pleasure to know you in life.”
With that, he fished a cup of Snake clay from his robes, no larger than the size of his palm. Whispering ancient words, he coaxed the flame into the cup. It resisted at first, as though aware of improper influence, but soon began to yield, bending its flames toward the shiny clay and then leaping over. A new Fey Fire burned in Merlin’s cup. Lidding it with another cup of Snake clay, Merlin pocketed the Fey Fire and hurried for the vault door. He swung it open and found Kalek staring back at him beneath
her cow-skull mask.
They stared at each other for a moment. Might she betray her king? Merlin wondered. Tempting fate, he held the door open and jerked his head to the treasure vault behind him.
This was a mistake.
Kalek lifted her rotting finger to Merlin’s face and unleashed a guttural ululation that shook the tombs of Rugen’s subterranean castle.
Merlin shoved the witch aside and charged down the tunnel, grabbing a rusted mace from one of Rugen’s ghoulish wall decorations. Ragged lepers poured in behind him. They crawled in from out of the floors and the walls and the ceilings. Kalek’s unnatural scream swelled in his ears and popped the fragile membranes within. Merlin grunted with pain. Warm blood pulsed in his ears, and the sounds around him became fuzzy and distant.
Three lepers charged him from the front, so he spun the mace and sent one of their melting faces spraying into the walls. He pushed his way past the others, nearly losing his footing. He raced past Rugen’s lair as the Leper King’s misshapen shadow fell across the walls and his booming voice roared, “Merlin!”
Merlin cursed himself. A quick escape was critical to the plan, for once Rugen was able to employ his magic, Merlin’s chances of survival plunged. His path was blocked by three lepers clutching rusted swords.
I may not have my magic, but I am far from helpless.
Merlin charged the Afflicted, blocking their blows with his mace and turning their frenzied movements against them. The lepers hacked at one another as Merlin dodged between them, rising up from behind and crushing their spines, shoulders, and skulls.
“Hashas esq’ualam chissheris’qualam!”
Rugen was casting. The words of earth magic echoed through the caves. Merlin swung wildly, shattering faces, time running out. The walls shook and the dirt and clay of the cave floor transmuted to a sucking ooze that captured Merlin’s boots. He could see the opening of the cave in the distance, dripping and collapsing. The Afflicted were caught as well, flailing and crying out as the ground melted under them. He’ll kill them all to prevent my escape, Merlin realized, as he fell into the morass, swallowing mud, no longer feeling any solid ground.