Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1) (3 page)

At Breton’s feet, the body twitched. Ferethian reared, hopped forward on his hind hooves, and slammed both of his front hooves down. When the stallion was finished, what was left of the figure’s face was too bloodied and crushed to identify. He guessed the person had been female, judging from the way her garb clung to her curved figure. Her sword, a thin short blade favored by many women, was plain. He stooped to pick it up. The weapon’s balance was off, too heavy in the hilt, and the blade’s edge was dulled and chipped.

Breton wrinkled his nose. The blade glistened with fluid. “Poisoned,” he murmured.

Ferethian whinnied and kept close to his side.

“If you’re wise, you won’t move,” a deep voice stated in the brisk and harsh trade tongue.

A man clad in tan robes similar to the color of the grass rose. The tip of an arrowhead glinted in the sunlight. Breton closed his fingers around the hilt of the poisoned blade and kept still. Ferethian’s legs pressed against Breton’s back, and the horse squealed a challenge.

“While I’d prefer you alive, dead is fine too,” the man said. The bow’s angle changed. “Silence your horse or the first arrow goes in his head. It’d be a shame to kill such a valuable beast. I’ll be a very rich man once I get him out of this cesspit.”

“Ferethian, still,” Breton hissed through clenched teeth, wondering if the stubborn horse would even listen to him without Kalen’s direct order. The stallion’s breath tickled his neck.

“Stand up and drop the weapon.”

A long shadow stretched over the grass, followed by a second. Breton loosened his grip on the weapon and let it fall. Careful to step on the blade as he rose, he held out his hands to show he wasn’t armed.

A second robed figure emerged from the knee-tall grass, and the tip of a second arrowhead glinted in the sunlight. Breton ran his tongue over his teeth. The first stood close enough for Breton to reach, if he could avoid being struck.

The second man would prove the true problem. If Breton was hit—or if the archers missed him and hit Ferethian instead—he’d have more than his survival to worry about. While he needed to find Kalen, he didn’t want to lure the Rift King back to the Rift through death.

“That’s right. Easy now. Keep your hands where we can see them, Rifter.”

Breton glanced out of the corner of his eye at Ferethian. The Rift King’s horse stood rigid, the animal’s dark eyes staring beyond the two outsiders.

The pair of large shadows moved closer, and it took all of Breton’s will to stare at the two figures in front of him.
 

“Hands up higher, Rift King,” the man snapped.

Breton hesitated, glancing at each figure in turn. They thought
he
was the Rift King? He frowned and considered the two men. They didn’t exactly go out of their way to describe Kalen to anyone. However, he could recall a few missives talking about how unusually small the Rift King’s horse was. Had they learned of Ferethian, but not of the man who rode him?

“Do it!”

The shadows solidified to the towering forms of black horses. The taller of the two Breton recognized from the familiar warmth in his chest born from being near
his
horse. Perin’s teeth were bared and both ears were turned back. The second horse was covered in river mud and dust, with black patches showing through.

Breton held his breath.

Ferethian lifted his hoof and struck the ground once. A chill ran through Breton. The two large animals took their places behind the robed figures, their movements silenced by the ever-present hiss of the wind.

“Halter your horse,” the man ordered.

 
He lifted his hands to his shoulder to grab the ruined halter. Ferethian snorted and reared back, slamming both hooves down at the same time.

The outsiders fell to the heavy blow of hooves to the head. Angry squeals broke the silence, and Ferethian surged forward to trample the fallen, his long tail bannering.

Breton shivered, stooping to pick up the poisoned blade and the outsiders’ bows and arrows. One of them was carrying a small pouch tied to his belt. He grabbed it and tucked it away in a pocket. Pivoting on a heel, he left the bodies for the nibblers. The three Rift horses flanked him.

He hurried to where the Foristasa cut its way through the plains. The weapons vanished beneath the white caps of its waters. Perin draped his head over Breton’s shoulder and sighed. There was only one reason he could think of for outsiders to make their way to Blind Mare Run. They wanted the Rift King, dead or alive.

If the outsiders learned the truth of the Rift King’s disappearance, he didn’t want to think of the consequences. Breton knelt by the river’s edge and clucked his tongue at the horses. Perin came without complaint, letting him clean the blood from his legs.

The other two horses refused, as though unwilling to wash away the evidence of their devotion to the King no longer within the Rift.

He glanced in the direction of the bodies, shook his head, and headed back towards Blind Mare Run to call for the other Guardians.

~~*~~

The library was the only place in Blind Mare Run that was able to hold all of the Guardians and offer the illusion of privacy. It took four of them to wrestle the stone doors closed. While it wouldn’t prevent anyone from listening at the cracks, Breton was at least confident no one would come in and interrupt them.

The last time they’d all gathered was when Arik died, and the room had been just as quiet. Instead of staring at the blood-stained boy holding Gorishitorik, the Guardians stared at him. The sword was still tucked beneath his arm, and he had no intentions of letting it go.

Breton exhaled in a huff. At a head taller than anyone else in the room, even those who knew him tended to gawk. This time, he doubted they stared at him due to his height.

“I need five volunteers to stay in Blind Mare Run,” Breton announced. No one moved and he doubted anyone dared to breathe for several long moments. The rows upon rows of bookcases cast long shadows from the witchlights hovering near the tiled ceiling. “Gentlemen, it is time to ride. Someone
will
find him, and they’ll try to discover the secrets of our people and his rank. They might even try to kill him, and may their Gods and Goddesses have pity on their souls.”

Breton narrowed his eyes, considered telling the Guardians of the attack on him, but remained silent while waiting for the tittering, nervous laughter to fade. “Every man and woman who wishes to wage war and protect our heritage can. The way of the sword will be taught. The correspondences will not cease until our horses emerge draped in red with banners held high. When we are done, they will remember why they were right to fear the Rift King.”

The door at his back wasn’t enough to block the murmur of conversation in the hallway.

“Arik’s queens have conceded to serve as Kalen’s princesses and will deal with most of the correspondence. Your duty will be to handle what they cannot. A new era of guardians must be groomed. I won’t promise we’ll all return. You will coordinate with the horse breakers, the quartermaster, and the warmongers. The rest of us ride. I will take a group to Kelsh,” Breton said.

“I volunteer,” Gorteth said, lifting his fisted hand high over his head. The man was almost as short as the Rift King, though age rather than nature’s refusal to let Kalen grow any taller than Breton’s elbows.

One by one, hands rose. While none of them were exactly old, save venerable Gorteth, they approached the time where it was honorable to put away the sword to focus on their horses and their women. The last man to raise his hand was one of the youngest of the guardians, and one of Arik’s many sons.

“Father’ll kill us all if we are too cowardly to do our duty,” Joris said.

Breton smothered a laugh. The ‘father’ wasn’t directed at Arik. Almost all of Arik’s offspring loathed the man and hadn’t even mourned his death. But, Joris wasn’t young enough to be Kalen’s son—he was elder by several years.

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard one of them address Kalen as their father, but it’d been in whispers. He’d even seen Kalen’s colors of silver, gold, and black woven over Arik’s in the ancestral blankets.

Breton searched the room for the twins, but didn’t see their brown hair among the more common black. “Where are Varest and Ceres?”

“They’re not here,” Joris replied. Breton felt both of his eyebrows creep upward and he was powerless to smooth his expression. “I did try to stop them. I didn’t try very hard, but I
did
try.”

Several of the other Guardians laughed.
 

“Don’t waste the effort, Breton. Those two don’t have your stifling sense of honor. They tore up the trails the day after,” Dorek called out from somewhere in the back of the group. Of all of the guardians, Dorek was one of the few who could feel the presence of the Rift King and all of the Guardians. “I’ll stay behind as well. Someone needs to keep the records.”

The room quieted. Breton didn’t want to think about how many new names would be added to the volumes. The very existence of the Rift King was akin to dark clouds brewing on the horizon that was yet to break and expose the land to its fury.

If they failed in their duty, it would be a storm of war, violence, and death. It would be their history and heritage brought back to life. His people would seek their revenge over hundreds of years of seclusion, using the Rift King’s demise at the hands of outsiders as their excuse.
 

“So be it,” Breton said. “Split yourselves into groups. No Guardian rides alone. Clear off the map and we’ll assign duties. Someone get the flags.”

The guardians shuffled off of the central mosaic inlaid in the floor and packed into the spaces between the packed shelves. Crafted of colored stone tiles, the floor was both a piece of art and an ever-shifting map of the land. Built from the hundreds of maps imported from the above world, it was as accurate as they could make it. Even the rivers and mountains were portrayed in different colored stones.

The edges of the map were gouged and scarred where the tiles had been pried up, new ones carved, and the mosaic relaid.
 

The Rift, crafted of ruby and moonstone, resembled a bloodied tear through the center of the continent. The Six Kingdoms were of precious stones, while the minor kingdoms were formed of colored granite, slate, and malachite.

One of the scribes, a woman clad in the veil of mourning, hurried forward with a tray of small, colored flags mounted on polished stone bases. Breton took them and crouched at the edge of the map. He found the one with his name on it and placed it over Kelsh’s capitol city of Elenrune. “I will go to Kelsh. Of the Six, Kelsh and Danar are the biggest threats. The clans would kill him and ask questions of the body.”

“What about the other kingdoms?” Joris asked.

“They’re all threats. Kelsh and Danar are just the biggest of our problems,” Breton replied. “Some will disagree with me on that, though.”

“Where was the Rift King born?” Dorek asked.

Breton pursed his lips together and didn’t reply. Of all of the Rift Kings, of all of the failed successors, of all of the men who’d taken up the red banner of war, only Kalen had been born outside of the Rift. Arik had, in the last of his days, seen the worth of the young man and had conspired to forever bind him to the Rift.

By turning an innocent into a murderer, and someone so gentle into a cold-blooded killer, Arik had accomplished what no other Rift King before had: The perfect successor.

One by one, the Guardians picked up their flags and placed them on the mosaic until red covered most of the map. Dorek placed two flags on the map next to Breton’s.

“I believe they’re headed here. It feels like this is the direction they have gone. This is the land of his ancestors, isn’t it?
It
knows, doesn’t it?”

Their secret didn’t have a name, and even if
It
did, Breton doubted that any in the room would be brave enough to speak it.
It
was something he didn’t want to think about for too long, and he shivered at the implication of Dorek’s suggestion. “Perhaps.”

Breton pressed his arm against Gorishitorik to reaffirm the weapon’s presence. He didn’t have Dorek’s strong senses. But, he had Gorishitorik, and he had the Rift King’s horse.

The horses always knew where their masters were, and Ferethian even listened to him sometimes. Breton suspected the stallion would obey. This time, they shared a common goal.
 

He tried to hide his smile by shaking his head and scowling at the map and the flags on it. “Ferethian comes with my group. If the rest of his horses accept your leadership, take one in each group. They’ll know how to find their master, maybe even better than we do. Spread the word.” In a way, the truth hurt, but it relieved him as well. After fifteen years of watching and waiting, he’d no longer have to try to protect his foal from his own people. “The ascension is over.”

The silence in the room was like the moment of calm before a storm.

Chapter Two

Kalen twisted the blade embedded in Hareth’s gut before pulling the weapon free. The man fell with blood pouring from the corners of his mouth. Bubbles formed and popped from the man’s effort to speak, but it was impossible to tell what Hareth tried to say. Kalen struck a second time and drove the blade through Hareth’s throat.

Blood splattered over his arm, his face, and his clothes, but despite its heat, it didn’t ease the chill that enveloped him. The enemy stared at him with slack expressions and stunned eyes. Kalen watched and waited.
 

Men reacted to death in different ways. Some saw their own mortality, and the fear of it consumed them. Others were consumed by their anger and hatred. A rare few accepted it and recognized what they faced and did so with pride and dignity.

There were even those who enjoyed it.

Two of the men ran forward in silence, their eyes burning with their need to strike Kalen down. Ducking beneath the blades that were held too high, he stepped to the side and onto firmer ground. Both let out startled cries as they splashed into the muck. Letting momentum guide his hand, Kalen cracked the flat of the sword across their shins. It took the slightest twist of his wrist to slice the edge through their trousers and into their flesh.