A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  Yet the wall had been broken once, Maddek reminded himself grimly. The Destroyer had crashed his way through it. But although the pounding of hooves in the thundering horde behind Maddek seemed mighty enough to shake the wall down, still it stood. His gaze rose to the ramparts atop the wall, where a metal helm gleamed. Syssian soldiers. Both Yvenne and Tyzen had said that the Rugusians were centered in the citadel and the Syssians had been given orders to guard the outer walls. Maddek would have to go through them—but he had told his warriors not to harm the Syssian soldiers, if they could. For soon their nations would join under Yvenne and Maddek’s marriage, and he would not begin that union by killing her people.

  Yet there would be fighting. Of that he had no doubt. Her father would lock the gates against the Parsatheans, Maddek would make demands and begin his siege—but there would be no reasoning with Zhalen, he knew. It would come down to bloodshed, and most of the crimson that ran would not be Zhalen’s.

  And it looked as if Zhalen was about to make demands of his own. Ahead, the gates opened and two mounted soldiers galloped toward them.

  To deliver another message? A piece of Yvenne at a time?

  Bloodrage rising, Maddek raced to meet the soldiers, Enox and his Dragon at his sides.

  “Ran Maddek!” the soldier shouted—and Maddek knew him. The soldier from the ambush, Jeppen. “Our queen says we are to give you any assistance you need! So you have a clear path through the city to the citadel!”

  In astonishment, Maddek reined his mare to a halt in front of the soldier, and his mount snorted, prancing in eagerness to race again. “You are giving me a clear path?”

  “Against Zhalen’s orders but at our queen’s command.” The soldier regarded him earnestly. “We have not the strength to take the citadel ourselves, or we would. But we will fight beside you!”

  Was he to believe this? Or would he ride through the gates into a trap? Maddek glanced at Enox, who shared his suspicion, and at Kelir, who appeared bemused.

  “Your bride has a habit of unseating us during our ambushes,” Kelir said dryly. “We come to perform legendary feats, and she opens the gates.”

  It was his bride who would be the legend, Maddek thought. In the ages to come, he would rate but a mere mention in the songs they sang of his warrior-queen.

  And did he believe Yvenne could inspire her people to defy their regent like this?

  He did. For the Syssians were prepared to love their queen before they’d even met her. Before he’d met Yvenne, Maddek had been prepared to kill her—and now there was nothing Maddek would not do for his bride.

  They would do no less.

  “All gates?” Maddek asked.

  Jeppen nodded.

  “Enox,” he said to her. “Split our warriors into the directions of the wind. I will take the north. Send your captains to the east and west, and lead the remaining warriors to the southern gate. We will come at the citadel from all sides. Let them know that soldiers who bear the Syssian sigil are our allies.”

  With a sharp nod, she galloped back to the waiting riders. Maddek gave a signal for the north to follow, and brought Tyzen up to ride beside him, now that they would not be fighting their way through the city. He would not have put the boy at the forefront of a battle.

  Instead they seemed at the forefront of a parade as they rode through the gates. A surge of Syssian soldiers came at them from the sides—wielding few weapons, riding fewer horses—and joined their number instead of fighting. The wide avenue leading to the citadel at the center of the city had been cleared, as Jeppen promised, but only of carts and carriages. Syssians lined the street, cries of encouragement spurring them forward, tears streaming down cheeks. And as the soldiers had, many of them joined the riders in their march to the citadel.

  When the first Rugusian guards appeared—a pair of mounted soldiers who appeared into the avenue ahead—no chance did Maddek even have to draw his sword. A mob of Syssians rushed in, wielding sticks and pots and cursing as they pulled the screaming guards from their saddles.

  A large square stood before the citadel gates—and was already full of Syssians as they reached it, wielding weapons of whatever they could carry. Making use of what they had, as warriors did.

  And these would be Maddek’s people, too. Such pride he had in them already.

  Cheers rose as Maddek appeared, and they made a path for him and his riders, squeezing close together on either side of the square. Yet so many the crowd numbered, there was hardly room for Maddek and his warriors to ride two abreast.

  Kelir looked over the scene in astonishment and concern. “What do we do? When the fighting begins, they will be crushed.”

  “So we give them better weapons,” Maddek said, leaning over to offer his shield to an old woman who looked up at him with such hope, tears streaming down the lines on her face. Straightening, he called out, “Syssia! We are here to fight alongside you! Every mounted Parsathean warrior carries an extra blade. Make your way through the streets and back to the avenue to claim your weapons from the riders behind me, and with the warrior whose blade you choose, you will fight together!”

  Quickly the square emptied, giving them an easier route to the citadel gates. Only mounted warriors and a few Syssian soldiers filled the square as he advanced.

  The citadel was surrounded by a wall, and inside was yet another wall protecting the main keep—and at each corner of that inner wall stood a tower that pierced the sky, with entrance only from the interior courtyard beyond the inner wall. Tyzen had told him which was Yvenne’s. The northwest tower, nearest to him now. It stood so tall that Maddek had no angle to see into a window where she might be looking back at him.

  Yet so close she was. Only two more walls to breach.

  He looked to the citadel’s gate, a thick lattice of iron and steel. Through it he could see the inner wall’s second gate—not yet closed, as Rugusian soldiers scrambled to their positions. They must have known the riders had come, yet had not anticipated the Syssians letting the enemy in through the city’s outer wall.

  If the soldiers were not all in position, then they might not be prepared to defend against warriors who would climb this wall. Only a few Rugusians did he see upon the battlements.

  He looked to Tyzen. “Where is the gate’s lever?”

  Tyzen pointed to the stone above the gate, where narrow slits revealed where the gatehouse chamber stood. “It can be reached from—”

  A soldier silently fell from the battlements, a feathered shaft jutting through his helm. Then another toppled over, gurgling and clutching at the arrow protruding through his throat at a deep angle. A screech and clang sounded from within the gatehouse.

  The gate began to rise.

  Two women burst out of the gatehouse entry onto the battlements, carrying heavy chamber pots splashed with blood, racing along atop the wall. An arrow felled a soldier who chased after them.

  “Race to the inner gate!” Maddek shouted through a burst of hearty laughter. Again Yvenne had paved the way for them. His horse surged forward, warriors thundering after him. Within that inner courtyard, they would be vulnerable to attack from arrows loosed from within the wall through loopholes, yet most soldiers would take to the battlements, not knowing that their death sat in the northwest tower.

  “How many arrows does she have?” he yelled to Jeppen.

  “Not many!”

  And no doubt, she would save one for Zhalen. So she would not be able to clear the battlements.

  “Take the gatehouse!” he shouted to the Syssian as they raced through. Yvenne must have sent more maids to keep that gate from closing quickly, for a woman sat gasping against the inner wall, holding a cloth to her bloodied head, laughing and cheering them forward.

  He recognized her. It was the same handmaid Yvenne had sent to Maddek with the message that first lured him.

  Then he met the
charge from the Rugusian guard and bloodrage took him. His sword was a hungry beast, tearing flesh and slinging blood. A war drum pounded in his heart, accompanied by the clash of steel and Rugusian screams. For they had taken his bride and she had suffered. Never would their suffering be enough, the quick death a mercy he hated to give, yet he did, with claws and blade and teeth. With his Dragon behind him, he fought his way to the northwest tower.

  Another gatehouse stood at the base of that massive tower—and Zhalen had not hidden within the citadel’s keep, as Maddek had assumed. Instead he waited in the shadow of the gatehouse, in front of the open gate, mounted and flanked by his personal guard.

  The guards that had raped his mother and tied down Queen Vyssen.

  Dripping with the blood of Rugusian soldiers, a grinning Maddek called to him, “It was you who smote the Smiling Giant? You look not warrior enough to smite a suckfly! Perhaps you blinded him with the shining armor you wear. For certain that has never seen battle!”

  “And you are as arrogant as your parents were, pup!”

  So he was. But not as arrogant as Zhalen, standing before an open gate with mounted soldiers who numbered not even a fraction of the warriors Maddek had brought.

  And though hate and bloodrage blazed within Maddek, Zhalen’s life was not his alone to take, vengeance not only his. Yet no angle did Yvenne have with her father so near to the gatehouse. So Maddek needed to lure him away from the walls.

  Luring away from walls had not worked well with Yvenne, but Zhalen was not near the warrior and ruler that she was.

  Dismounting, Maddek spread his arms wide, grinning ever wider as he dropped his bloodied blade to the ground. “I have come for my bride! If you wish to keep her, then meet me in warrior’s challenge. I vow I will not even use a sword, and never will I break an oath.”

  “And your warriors will stand by? You think me a fool.”

  “True!” Maddek laughed, because in his experience, men such as Zhalen could not bear being laughed at. “But they will also vow not to raise a sword against you. Let this grass here be the battlefield where this war is lost or won.”

  Zhalen looked to the warriors behind him. “I do not hear a vow!”

  Maddek could not order them to make a vow. They had to give it. Yet although he could hear the unease as they did, their voices rose as one.

  Hefting an axe, Zhalen gave a sudden grin and urged his stallion forward. “Prepare to die, barbarian. You are a fool to think you can take what is mine!”

  Maddek’s grin became a baring of teeth. “You are a fool to think that locking Yvenne in a tower would ever be the same as controlling her.”

  He knew not where she would place the arrow. Zhalen wore a thicker helm than the soldier on the battlements had, yet even the force of an arrowhead striking it would likely knock him unconscious from his horse. From almost directly above, not much other angle would she have. Perhaps his arm, holding the axe.

  Or his leg, bent with his foot braced in the stirrup. A whistling streak, and the arrow embedded feather-deep through the top of his knee, straight down—likely splitting the bone of his calf.

  Shattering his knee. As hers had been.

  Yvenne did not want her father to have an easy death. And so he wouldn’t.

  Maddek’s warriors surged around him, heading for the Rugusian guards who hadn’t yet seen what had struck their king. Zhalen had made no sound, though his face whitened with agonizing pain.

  With deadly intent, Maddek started for him.

  Eyes widening, fury drawing back his lips, Zhalen began to rein his mount aside—as if to flee.

  Then he made another fool’s choice and charged Maddek, swinging the axe at his head. Bloodrage volcanic, Maddek dodged the heavy blade and ripped razored claws through the leather girth that secured Zhalen’s saddle to his mount.

  Overbalanced by the swing of his own axe, Zhalen tumbled from the galloping horse, saddle still between his thighs, landing hard on his shattered leg. The king screamed then, clutching wildly for his fallen axe.

  Maddek heaved the murdering dog-king up by his hair. “For the lies you said of my father,” he told him, and ripped out his tongue. “For the rape of my mother and Queen Vyssen.” His silver claws shredded cock and balls. “And for Yvenne’s suffering.”

  This Maddek would have made last longer. Forever. Yet he had not yet seen his bride, and she mattered more than vengeance ever could.

  Still it was slowly, slowly, that Maddek dug his claws beneath the man’s ribs, relishing the agony in his rolling eyes and gurgling scream. All went silent and still when he tore out his heart. He used Zhalen’s own axe to cut off his head.

  Both Maddek carried to the tower, for he’d promised to return to her with these on a pike. Late he was in keeping that promise. Yet it was still kept.

  His Dragon had made a path for him through the Rugusian guard and into the tower’s opulent royal chambers, then ahead up the stairs. So many stairs. A few guards they caught up to, as if the Rugusians had hoped to use Yvenne as protection, for no mercy would they find from warriors whose queen and king the guards had murdered and tortured and raped and beheaded.

  At the top, his Dragon sent more guards into Temra’s arms. Maddek stepped over their bloodied corpses as Kelir swung his axe at the heavy lock.

  Throat thick with emotion, he bade them, “Wait for me.”

  In the center of her tower chamber she stood, and nothing he saw of their surroundings. Only Yvenne, staring at him with armor so thick that he could read nothing from her face. So thin she was again, as if starved or afraid to eat, and the sight made his stomach ache.

  Yet such joy also filled his heart and his throat, that not a word he could say.

  He lifted the pike, showing her the head and heart, before tossing them aside. Because it was done. Vengeance was done.

  There was only Yvenne. Maddek started for her.

  And she said on a broken whisper, “Please do it quickly.”

  He stumbled to a halt, agony ripping through his chest, because she had said that before. With his claws at her throat. “You think I would kill you?”

  She gave no reply, though her lips trembled.

  Silent.

  Hurting.

  Roaring filled his head. Cavernous pain opened within him. His voice was but a hollow echo of it as he said, “Do you not know I would tear my heart from my chest before I would ever harm you?”

  Her moonstone eyes squeezed shut. A short, sobbing breath ripped from her.

  In devastation, Maddek sank to his knees. “What have I done, never saying this to you?” he said hoarsely. “Never telling you these words that I should have said over and over again. What have I done, that you do not know how I would ride across the world just to lay my gaze upon your face? That I would crawl there on the mere hope of knowing your touch again? What have I done, that as I kneel here, you still do not know that with my full heart, I love you?”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks and she buried her face in her hands. Sobs racked her small frame. So alone she seemed.

  Never again. Rising, Maddek went to her, removing his bloodied claws before slipping his hands into her hair, gently urging her to look at him. “You are a queen, but you do not have to hide your tears from me. You say it is not the role of your people to comfort you—that is a duty that I will claim. Do you think I cannot see the walls you’ve built to protect yourself? Do you think I cannot see the scars you conceal or how many more are within you? My only prayer is that your wounded heart will one day heal enough to love me in return. If only a little. And trust that I would give up my life before hurting you. You are my heart, Yvenne, and my strength—and certainly my brains.”

  A laugh shook through her sobs. Finally she looked up at him, moonstone eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “To have you after all of this, I would have to love you more than a little.�
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  Hope filled him. Throat aching, he agreed softly, “After all that I have done, you would have to love me very much. So will you have me, Yvenne?”

  In answer, she wrapped her arm around his neck, urged him down for a kiss. He lifted her instead, brought her to his mouth, where her lips still trembled against his. Her breaths shuddered as he softly tasted her again, and he knew the sweetness of her love for him.

  She drew back, her eyes searching his face, her hands cupping his jaw. “You shaved your beard.”

  “Because no longer will you need to tug on it when you want me to listen,” he told her. “Always I will listen to you. Always I will hear your words.”

  Her eyes shimmered with tears again as she smiled.

  Gruffly he added, “And because it is custom to have a shaved jaw when I marry.”

  Happy were these tears now, he saw. She kissed him hard, then again. “I will still make your life a misery,” she said between kisses.

  The sweetest misery it would be. Cradling her against his chest, Maddek carried her to a door that would never imprison her again. “Then let us begin.”

  CHAPTER 46

  YVENNE

  In the great courtyard still stained with her father’s blood, with bare feet on Temra’s altar, Yvenne married Maddek with all of Parsathe and Syssia looking on. Then celebration began, with Yvenne opening the luxuries of the citadel to all, but there were such great numbers that the feasting and singing spilled beyond the city walls.

  With her brother and the Dragon, she reunited in private that evening around a table—and not one thing upon it did she fear would be poisoned. When Kelir’s sister joined them, Yvenne kissed Seri for her bravery, making the girl flush with embarrassed pleasure.

  So happy Yvenne already was, so happy Maddek had made her—and this only their first day married. Her cheeks ached from smiling and laughing.

  Yet not all was happy news. Toric seemed distracted throughout much of the evening, until finally he said, “I must leave the western realms.”