It's come to this. I'm sure this wasn't what you had in mind, was it, my
father?
Nothing to do but the horrible deed itself. And after that there was Hael and
more ugliness to come. Holding the Sword high above her head, she rallied the
Kanarekii to her and plunged back into the battle.
A ghoul barred her path.
Nhaille stepped in front of her, ready to come to her aid with the last of
his strength and left-handedly strike down what he took to be a stray
renegade.
A sharp curse was torn from his lips. His sword fell.
It was then that she looked at the swollen, rotting face that even through
the advanced stages of decay still held a trace of the regal.
“Father.”
The word was a plea to be mistaken. But there was no mistaking the regal
bearing, the tattered clothes that had once been cut from the finest of cloth.
His one clouded eye beseeched her.
She couldn't waver. She had not the luxury. Not even now.
Riordan raised the Sword of Zal-Azaar.
The Sword descended in a bright arc.
Riordan put the last of her effort into the swing to ensure her stroke was
true, that she wouldn't cause him more pain than he'd already endured.
She wanted to shut her eyes and forget the sight of blood matted hair and
tattered cloth. She desperately wanted to look away from that one eye that
stared levelly back at her from beneath the battered diadem. But honor kept her
eyes open. Someone had to witness the King's death.
Just as the Sword reached the summit of its killing stroke, the King uttered
a flat moan. The flicker of a thought rushed through the Amber, then was
extinguished.
With a vivid curse Riordan aborted her swing.
Muscles screeched in protest. She turned her wrist, forcing the Sword away
from what remained of the King. It glanced off his shoulder in spite of her
efforts. Her aim went wide, slicing through one of the ropes that secured Rau's
tent. The rope snapped, one side of the tent sagged. The Sword connected with
hard earth, coming at last to a stop. Its fury ricocheted through her mind.
Riordan brought her eyes up slowly, afraid to look into that terrible face
that beseeched her to do...
What?
Even in the advanced stages of decomposition there was no mistaking the iron
will behind that look, nor the temper he'd vented on his youngest child at their
one and only meeting.
He can't possibly know me. It's been years since he's laid eyes on me. He’s
been too long...dead.
Yet there was recognition in that one decaying eye that looked so desperately
back at her. Imploring her to do what? End his suffering? Allow him one last
swipe at the nightmare that had ended his rein and reduced his kingdom to
rubble? She could only guess.
“My Liege.”
Riordan turned at the sound of Nhaille's hoarse whisper to find him kneeling
stiffly in the dirt before his King. She caught the grimace of pain as he
straightened, noted his pallor even in the hot sun.
A million thoughts clamored for dominance in her mind. She had to get Nhaille
to safety, she had to focus her attention on keeping the dead in line. The
Sword's cool flame licked at the back of her mind, demanding the blood she'd so
nearly given it. Her concentration leapt from one task to another, desperately
attempting to juggle them all.
Nhaille shot her a puzzled crosswise glance. Plainly he expected her to get
on with the terrible deed.
“End his suffering, Riordan.” The words were torn from Nhaille's throat,
strain evident in each syllable. He swayed on his feet, caught himself and
managed to hold himself rigid.
“No, he--”
“You must! In Nuurah's Name, ease his pain.”
“He doesn't want me to.”
The expression on his face told her he suspected she'd taken leave of her
senses. “He can't possibly know--”
“But he does. Look at him.”
Nhaille looked incredulously from father to daughter. Plainly whatever she
saw in her father's face escaped him. “This is a travesty! Free him from this
unspeakable existence.”
But through the Amber came the quiet certainty that above all that wasn't
what the King wanted.
“Kayr...” At the sound of his given name, Nhaille's eyes flickered toward the
King, as if his liege might guess the secret of what transpired between the
Captain and his ward. Riordan grasped his arm gently, wary of his injuries. “I
can feel his thoughts through the Amber. Peace isn't what he wants. At least not
yet.”
“Riordan...” Compassion softened his face. Plainly, he thought her incapable
of the task. “There isn't anything left of his mind to think, to desire anything
with.”
“But there is. In the depths of what's left of his mind he knows I command
the Amber, that I've brought home the Sword of Zal-Azaar. He wants to keep
fighting. He doesn't want me to have to conquer Hael alone.”
For an instant, Nhaille looked as if he might actually lose his iron-clad
composure. Then the armor around his thoughts was in place once again. “You
aren't alone, Your Majesty.”
How could he misunderstand what was so plain for her to see?
“He wants revenge, Nhaille. One last swipe at Hael. And I can give it to
him.”
“You can't possibly know what his wishes would have been.”
“But I do.” Deep inside, she did. It was what she would want. Through their
kinship she understood that much. And yet, something else nagged at the back of
her mind.
Riordan sent her awareness down the flicker of the Amber's path, out toward
that single soldier in the army of the dead. Felt the certainty of her father's
thoughts. Dulled by death, ravaged by the process of decay, nevertheless,
something of his indomitable will remained. In his sluggish brain a spark of
hope sprang to flame.
“End it, Riordan.” His eyes implored her. “I can't bear to see him like
this.”
“He doesn't care. All he wants is his revenge. His last wish, Nhaille. Let
him fight.”
The Captain looked quickly from the dead King to his Queen.
“What more can a few days hurt?” Riordan asked.
Around her battle sounds rose to the forefront of her attention. They'd been
too long at this. Father or not, she had battles to win. In his name.
“And we need every soldier we have. Dead or alive.”
“Riordan!”
“Above all, he wants me to triumph over Hael.”
Time to end this discussion. The war would not wait.
“That is the one of his wishes we are both certain of,” she pressed.
“But leaving him like this--” Nhaille looked back at his King.
“If Hael wins his death will have been for nothing.”
Kanarekii soldiers crowded in around them, protecting their Queen. The ranks
of Haelian soldiers thinned with each passing minute, as one by one they
disentangled themselves from the fighting and made off after their fleeing
commander. But Rau being absent did not mean he had vanished nor that he was
beaten. One lapse of concentration, one moment when her mind wandered elsewhere,
and the entire course of battle could change.
“Gods know what awaits us in Hael,” Nhaille said finally in eerie sync with
her thoughts.
Riordan nodded soberly. Gods knew, indeed. Her hand tightened on the Sword's
crystal hilt. She flung her mind back into the Amber's inferno.
It was like trying to control chess pieces scattered haphazardly across the
board. Each move left a searing trail of fire in her mind. And all the while the
Sword's cool fury burned like ice, aching to be appeased, urging her to throw
common sense and strategy to the wind.
She sent the full force of her will sailing down the invisible wires of the
Amber's web, urging the dead to put the sum of their strength into one last
burst, one last consolidated strike against what was left of the forces of
Hael.
They were winning. Haelian soldiers now staffed the dead army. Could the
irony be blacker? Riordan wondered. I've come to the last of my options and
past. When all is said and done, will the history books paint me any less
sinister than Doan-Rau?
#
Filthy and tired beyond belief, Rau scrambled back to Hael like a rat. Only
revenge kept him putting one foot in front of the other. Enduring the pointed
glares of his countrymen, he contemplated his father's wrath to come.
He'd botched matters beyond redemption. His only hope lay in the Amber's
Master Stone. Crawling back to Hael defeated would be intolerably hard to
stomach. But in the end he would triumph. Failure was not an option he cared to
contemplate.
And once he was victorious, then he would deal with Kanarek's Queen.
Vividly, he imagined the jagged stake of amber slicing through the jelly-like
material of her eye. Embedded in her brain, its magic would quash her will once
and for all. She'd be his.
For eternity.
His slave. To do with as he pleased.
The thought brought a tight smile to Rau's lips.
He'd make her pay. For his broken dreams. For making him look like a fool.
For the ruin of a plan that should have gone smoothly, would have, if not for
Riordan-Khun-Caryn.
Like a prized piece of art, he'd display her in his suite, perhaps even in
the garden in the summertime.
In a tiny portion of her mind, she'd know what had been done to her. That was
the sweetest part of it. She'd know, during the long months it took her
mummified body to decay past the point of usefulness, she'd be aware of all he
did to her. And forced her to do.
Driving a sword through Kayr-Alden-Nhaille would be her first order. She
loved him. Even hidden beneath the cold exterior with which they conducted
themselves, he could tell. The knowledge, if one cared to look for it, was in
every glance.
After the murder of her lover, who knew. Uses for Kanarek's late Queen were
endless.
Oh yes, he'd make her pay. The knowledge kept him going. That, and the
thought of laying hands at last to the Amber's Master Stone, feeling its hungry
fires once again in his brain.
Riordan-Khun-Caryn would lead her army to him. Rau sprawled beside a stream.
Cold, black water splashed against his face, reviving him. All was not lost. Did
Kanarek's Queen really think she could beat him with the Master Stone under his
command?
She'd march them all right into Hael. Right into his hands: the cadavers, and
the Kanarekii army. Knowing Riordan she'd march them straight into Hael and
right up the steps of the palace. Into his control.
With the hungry roar of the Amber hot in his blood, he'd turn the tide of
battle in his favor. Seizing the dead once again for his own, he'd add the
figures of Kayr-Alden-Nhaille and the legendary Riordan-Khun-Caryn to his
army.
An example to anything else that lay in his path, anything else he fancied to
claim for his own. A last demonstration to his father, who steadfastly refused
him the throne.
Yes indeed he thought, taking another long drink of cold water, then rising.
There were uses for Kanarek's Queen and her oh-so-loyal Captain.
#
A new voice sounded in his mind. Compared to the other which had lodged like
a knife in his brain, this new voice offered a more gentle persuasion. No less
insistent, however. Command after command poured into his mind.
VENGEANCE! This new order was sweetened with promise, turning his thoughts
toward justice. It pledged that their suffering would not be forgotten. It
offered an end to their torment. Bevan trusted this new authority.
The other mind that had touched his was chaotic, fragmented like broken
glass. This one was vibrant, strong. Young, he thought. For a moment he
remembered the feel of the young, limber body that had been his. Pain rushed in
behind that memory, but the notion fled his mind, replaced by that compelling
voice.
A Haelian soldier reared before him. A sword whistled past his ear, slicing
into his shoulder. The impact knocked Bevan sideways. Memory insisted there
should be pain. Instead there was only that cloudy nothingness. Dull surprise
shook him from the nebula of his scattered thoughts.
FIGHT!
Bevan raised his axe and swung. The blow sliced through the Haelian's helmet,
lodging deep into his brain. He fell, letting go of the sword still embedded in
Bevan's shoulder. His hand clutched Bevan's arm. Bevan looked down, peering out
of one eye, now nearly blind. The shadowy shape fell away from him. Slowly, the
hand loosened, trailing down his legs before the Haelian crumpled to the ground.
With a flat grunt, Bevan stooped and yanked his axe from the dead soldier's
head.
More shapes crowded in beside him. Through dim eyes he recognized Kanarekii
armor. The ghostly shapes stooped over the fallen Haelian. Bevan lowered his
sword and waited, knowing from some deep recess in his mind, these were allies,
not foes.
Kanarekii, his brain offered the flicker of a thought. Like me.
Kanarekii defending themselves against the evil that had turned him into this
shambling, dead thing. Kanarekii trying to right a terrible wrong.
He watched numbly as the soldiers bent over the dead Haelian. One hefted a
mallet. Turning his head, the soldier drove the point of an Amber stake into the
Haelian's brain.
Each strike of the mallet reverberated in Bevan's brain. Over and over the
mallet fell. He staggered, reeling away from the horror his body remembered,
even if his mind refused.
And then it was over. Kanarekii soldiers moved on to see to the next Haelian
victim. Bevan watched helplessly as his former Haelian foe rose to take his
place in battle beside him.
More Haelian soldiers stood beside him as allies than in the battle against
them. It meant something, something that ought to be significant.
Kanarek was winning. His desperate bid for vengeance hadn't been in vain. For
the first time in this wretched existence, Bevan had hope.
The mind that touched his before had been self-absorbed, lost in its own
shattered thoughts. But this entity was single-minded, persistent.
KEEP FIGHTING! it ordered. WE WILL WIN, it promised. AND THEN YOU CAN
REST.
Bevan marched forward, the Haelian's lost sword still lodged in the rotting
flesh between his neck and shoulder.
Beside him dead soldiers in Haelian and Kholer armor marched together into
battle against the last of Rau's army.
#
The bite of antiseptic tore a hiss from Nhaille's lips. Everything ached to
the depths of his bones. He felt as if the entire Haelian army had ridden over
him.
Weak from the loss of blood, he longed to surrender to the potent liquor
Penden offered as a painkiller and go to sleep. But he couldn't risk muddying
his brain in case Riordan needed him.
“That's going to need stitching,” Penden said with an appraising whistle.
Cleaned of blood the wound didn't look any less gruesome. A jagged tear cut
through the muscles of his shoulder, which was already stiffening beyond
use.