Finnikin of the Rock (39 page)

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the moment he could understand words he had been promised by Trevanion that his mother would be there at his death. And where was Balthazar, the mightiest of warriors, who hid beloved Isaboe in a burrow and leaped into the mouth of a wolf to save their future queen?

He closed his eyes, wanting to see something that made sense. But he knew Isaboe would have scolded him for doing such a thing, so he stopped waiting for what made sense and instead turned to what brought hope. He staggered to his feet with the queen in his arms and walked forward blindly.

He heard it before he saw it, and prayed it did not belong to the impostor king and his men. And then it was before him, a horse and cart, steered by a white-haired creature. Ghost or witch?

"Lay the queen on the ground and step back!" she screeched, jumping from the cart, holding a double-edged sword above her head.

She was a tiny woman, but there was wildness in her eyes. Up close, he saw a face the age of Lady Abian, yet the woman's hair was prematurely white. Slowly his senses returned and he heard men roar and the sound of arrows flying in the distance, but he refused to let go of the queen, a snarl escaping his lips when the witch stepped closer.

"Lay the queen on the ground I say!"

"You risk your life if you take another step!" he shouted above the noise. He looked over and saw three young novices crouched in the cart, terror on their faces as they looked from him to the woman. The creature came toward him with the sword in her hands.

"Step back or you die," he hissed.

"You cannot hold the queen and kill me at the same time, boy," she jeered, pressing the sword to his throat. "Lay her on the ground."

"She stays with me."

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He wanted to hurt this creature. The feeling was so intense that it took everything inside of him to fight against it. He stepped forward with Isaboe in his arms and felt the witch's sword press into the flesh of his throat. But still their eyes stayed locked.

"Stop!"

The word was accompanied by screams from the novices. Perri stood at the rear of the cart. His sword was already stained with blood, and Finnikin could see the battle rage in his eyes as he stared at the strange creature between them. Two of the young girls in the cart scuttled to its corners, while the third stared at Finnikin and Perri.
"Demons,"
she hissed.

"Step away from the cart!" the white-haired woman said. The vehemence in her voice was directed at Perri, but Finnikin saw the sword in her hand tremble.

Perri took a step back, and Finnikin read more in the guard's face than he had ever seen before. "Give Tesadora the queen, Finnikin," he said.

Tesadora of the Forest Dwellers directed her gaze back to Finnikin, slowly lowering her sword. "The boy from the rock with the pledge in his heart. I expected someone mightier in build."

"Your father needs you by his side, Finn," Perri said.

Finnikin refused to move, looking down at Isaboe. She felt cold in his arms, and he shook his head fervently.

"Finnikin, if you lay her in the cart, they will do all they can to help. Tesadora may be the only one who can save her."

There was something in Perri's voice that made him surrender the queen; he knew Perri trusted no one but the Guard and Trevanion. Perri moved toward Finnikin to help him lay her on the cart, but Tesadora hissed and the young novices cried out in fear.

"Not a step closer," Tesadora threatened. "Put her on the ground and move away."

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"We will not touch your girls, Tesadora," Perri said impatiently. "Let us place her on the cart."

The novices stared at Finnikin as he settled Isaboe on the cart beside them. Stared as if he was some sort of fiend. Had he turned into one? Could they see the darkness in his eyes? Slowly he bent and placed his lips against Isaboe's cold skin, and then the cart jolted away.

"Do not let the darkness consume you, Finnikin of the Rock." With the reins firmly in her hands, Tesadora disappeared beyond the dark clouds of smoke with Isaboe safely nestled in the arms of the novices.

As Finnikin followed Perri into battle, the lust for killing consumed him. Each time he stared into the eyes of his enemy, he saw a madman responsible for the pain of every one of their people who had burned at the stake, died by the sword, swung from a rope, shuddered with the fever, ached with hunger. Worse, he felt the grief of their loved ones who had stood and watched helplessly. This was the agony that had made the novice Evanjalin stumble after she walked the sleep, her face pinched, her heart black with despair. He could save her from an enemy with a sword, but how could he shield her from her people's suffering?

One thousand arrows had found their target within the first minute. As the enemy began to fall, Trevanion's men and the Monts unleashed a wrath borne of ten years of exile. Axes broke bones. Blades sliced flesh. Men who once were farmers cut down the enemy like crops of wheat.

By early evening they had breached the palace gate and entered the grounds where half the impostor king's men had retreated. Finnikin watched as the area that had been his playground as a child became a slaughterhouse. But there were reports that a mightier battle was raging farther in the kingdom. According to

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one of the Guard, Saro and the Monts were fighting an enemy group that included the impostor king, at the foot of the mountains. Leaving Perri in charge, Trevanion and Finnikin leaped onto their mounts. As they rode through the kingdom, Finnikin took in the inferno around them. Every Flatland village was on fire. He prayed that the villagers had escaped their burning homes. He could not endure the thought of having to search these cottages for the charred remains of their people in the days to come.

When they reached the foot of the mountains, they were confronted by the sight of a hundred men in fierce combat. The Monts were savage in their attack, and Finnikin knew that no Mont would allow the impostor's men to reach the summit of their mountain. He caught glimpses of Lucian and saw what set him apart from the other lads. Not just sheer bulk, but a perfect symmetry in the swing of his ax, an ability to achieve in seconds what took others minutes. Lucian did not hesitate as he fought alongside his father. It was as if he had waited a lifetime to avenge his cousins, and this was the day of reckoning. But Finnikin wondered when his own need for revenge would be satisfied, whether thrusting his sword into enemy flesh and watching the blank open stare of death could make up for what had been lost these ten years. He had never seen anything as brutal as the battle to reclaim Lumatere. He fought close to his father, at times almost sobbing with fatigue, wanting to beg for a sword to be plunged into his body to end it all. But each time he sensed Trevanion by his side. "Stay with me, Finn. Don't let me bury a son this day."

They had always known they would lose some of their own, and as night descended, Finnikin saw Saro of the Monts fall, a sword through his throat. Where he fought, Lucian stopped for the first time in hours, his face registering the anguish.

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"Fa! Fa!"

The Mont stumbled away from his opponent, and Finnikin watched with horror as the impostor's soldier raised his weapon. Finnikin threw his dagger and caught the man between the eyes. "Lucian! Lucian! Protect yourself!"

Then Finnikin was running toward Lucian with his bow. Aiming, shooting, running. Aiming, shooting, running. But the Mont could only think of getting to Saro. He fell at his father's side and gathered him into his arms, his hoarse cry mingling with the clash of steel against steel. Until Finnikin could hear no more sound from Lucian but saw the pure sorrow. And on a day he believed he could feel nothing more, his heart seemed to shatter as he flew onto the Mont's body to shield him.

When he looked up, Finnikin saw the angel of death above him, an ax raised over his head. He knew he would die. The jagged blade would split his head like a watermelon. And in those seconds before death, he kept his eyes on his father fighting less than ten feet away. He wanted his last thoughts to be of this man. And of her.

But the ax, and the hand attached to it, went flying through the air, and the enemy crashed to the ground in front of him. Finnikin stumbled to his feet and stared into the face of the exile from Lastaria. The man held out a hand to him and pulled him to his feet, and then he was gone.

Without hesitation, Finnikin turned back to Lucian and stood guard, lobbing arrows toward anyone who dared to enter the Mont's circle of grief.

Later, those who had lived the horror inside the kingdom for ten long years spoke of vindictive retribution. As if the bastard king, as they called him, had sensed that Lumatere was about to be reclaimed and set their world alight. Those of the Flatlands and

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the River hid with those of the Rock and watched as their kingdom was razed to the ground, watched from up high as their lost ones entered the gate and fought the bastard king and his men on the path leading up to the palace.

Some said it was the end of days and planned to climb to the highest point of the rock of three wonders, where they would plunge to their deaths.

But a sliver of hope stopped them. Hope created by a promise scratched into the arm of a child.

The promise that Finnikin of the Rock would return with their queen.

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***

CHaPteR 26

When it was finally over and Trevanion stared into the face of the impostor, he wondered how such a pitiful human being had created such despair in all their lives. It had been his order to keep the impostor and nine of his men alive, but he fought hard against the urge to plunge his sword into this man's heart.

"Trevanion," Finnikin said quietly as one of the guards threw the prisoners into the back of a cart, their mouths gagged, their hands and feet chained. Trevanion knew that every member of his Guard itched to snuff the life out of these bastards.

"Don't worry, Finn. They'll get there alive," he said soberly. "Perhaps just not in one piece."

When he returned to the palace village, the dead and dying had been dragged into the main square. Villagers tended the wounded, and Trevanion suspected they had emerged from their cottages in the darkest part of the night, when the battle had raged at its worst. Now the world was silent, but for the

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sounds from those who lay dying. This was no place for triumph or celebration.

"Captain, you wounded," Froi said, following Trevanion as he weaved his way toward Perri.

"How many lost?" Trevanion asked Perri.

"Too many," Perri muttered. "The impostor king?"

"Imprisoned in the palace with the rest of his scum," Trevanion said, looking at the wretchedness around him. When he asked about the queen, he could sense Froi's anxiety, almost as if the boy had stopped breathing.

"With those from the cloister of Sagrami," Perri said quietly.

"We need to count them," Trevanion said, gesturing to where the dead had been laid out at the edge of the square.

Froi's expression was one of acceptance. "I know. Make myself useful and count the dead."

Trevanion grabbed his arm. "A sorry task. Mine, not yours. Return to the Valley of Tranquillity and tell Sir Topher that Lumatere is free from the impostor king. Then find the priest-king and bring him home."

Trevanion looked over to where August of the Flatlands sat with his head in his hands, between the body of his sister's husband and Matin, one of Augie's men. He remembered the excitement that night in Augie's home, the bantering and the fierce friendship between these kinsmen. The key Matin had showed him. "It is the key to my house in Lumatere," he said. "I keep it in my pocket at all times as a reminder that I will return one day."

Trevanion had seen Saro fall, as well as Ced, one of the younger guards. Ced had been the first into the palace grounds and the first of his men to die. Ced, the last of a bloodline. Already

Trevanion felt their absence from the earth. In the makeshift morgue, he closed the eyes of one of the men they had

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rescued from the Charynites on the river not even seven days past.

And then Trevanion saw her. When the sun began to appear in the blood-red sky as Lumatere continued to burn. She stood with fresh linens in her arms at the edge of the square. Between them lay rows and rows of corpses and the wounded she had come to tend.

A child was by her side, a miniature Beatriss, with eyes the color of the sky.

He thought of the child they had created together, the child who had died in the palace dungeons where the impostor king was now imprisoned. His face reflected the rage and hatred he felt toward those who had taken so much from him.

And Beatriss of the Flatlands saw the fury as he looked at her child.

Saw the hatred.

And quietly she covered the child's eyes and walked away.

Later, Trevanion returned to the foot of the mountain, where the Monts were collecting their dead. With a sickness in the pit of his stomach, he went searching for Finnikin. He found him with Lucian, sitting alongside Saro's body, their heads bent with exhaustion and grief. Both stood when he reached them, and Trevanion placed his hands on Lucian's shoulders, kissing him in the Mont tradition of respect.

"The last thing we spoke of, Saro and I, was how blessed we were as fathers, and the joy and pride we felt in our sons, Lucian."

Lucian nodded, unable to speak.

"I need to take my father home," he said finally.

"I will have the Guard take care of that, Lucian."