Heart of the King (32 page)

She dropped the staff.

Sheyndust leaned forward until her face was inches from Therrador’s. Her lips pulled into a smile full of pointed teeth and blood stains, and Therrador felt sure she’d use them to tear out his throat. He raised his shoulders to protect his neck but, instead of killing him, she kissed him.

Her lips felt soft against his and her tongue darted into his mouth, touched his tongue. He tasted the blood on her teeth, and desire and disgust stirred in his abdomen, then she pulled away and looked into his eyes.

“I’ll deal with you later.” Her breath smelled of raw meat and decay.

The witch climbed off him and Therrador immediately moved to gain his feet, to engage her.

Kill her.

He couldn’t move.

He strained to raise his arms, but they were not his to lift. He struggled to get his feet under him, but his legs were not his to command. Sweat rolled from his temple into his ear. He blinked. His eyes shifted to watch her.

His eyes saw the dragon born of man and snow and mist.

Men raised from the dead fell before the Mourning Sword’s blade, and Athryn felt the exchange of power between himself and the weapon. It flowed down his arms, through the sword’s grip and into the runes, then back again. Each fed the other, the steel satisfied by blood, the man satisfied by gathering power.

Through the attack, Athryn sensed the cadence of hooves and looked away from the fight to see the horse bear down on the Archon and Therrador leap from the saddle. His shoulder struck her and they went to the ground, hidden from the magician’s sight behind the forest of dead advancing on him. He redoubled his efforts, death turning the glowing scrollwork upon his flesh into writhing snakes hungry for the blood of his enemy.

With their maker distracted, the intensity of the dead soldiers’ attack waned and they fell easily beneath his blade until they finally stopped and stood motionless. Athryn hesitated. He could chop them down like a farmer harvesting a field of hay, but he didn’t. These were puppets, not men, and he couldn’t bring himself to slaughter them if they neither threatened him nor defended themselves.

But they will again if we do not stop Sheyndust.

He stretched to see past his adversaries and spied the staff lying on the ground.

Athryn threw the Mourning Sword aside and shouldered his way through the crowd of disoriented dead men, emerging from their midst to see Sheyndust on her feet and Therrador prone on the ground behind her. Things pulsed and moved beneath her flesh, stretching it, warping her beauty into monstrosity. Magician and sorceress both eyed the staff on the ground between them, but neither moved.

“What now, magician?” She spat the last word like it tasted foul to her mouth.

Behind him, he heard the sound of a growl rumbling in the throat of a beast.

The time has come.

“Now we die.”

He thrust his hands toward the sky and the mist swirling above his head fell upon him like water pouring out of an opened trap door. It raised him into the air, feet dangling above the ground, and the snow and mist gathered into a shape around him, transforming his fingers into talons, sprouting wings on his back, forming a tail.

Athryn saw clearly through the mist as the Archon darted forward to retrieve the staff. Hands gripped wide, she held it up toward the misty dragon he’d become, her dark eyes gleaming as she parted her lips to command the staff.

Athryn’s mouth opened, and the dragon’s did, too. The beast’s roar amplified the magician’s cry of rage; the force of it blew the witch’s hair back, filled her lungs with hot breath that stole hers and prevented her from speaking.

Athryn and the dragon raised their foot and brought it down on the staff, driving it to the ground and snapping it in two.

***

The Archon stumbled back from the beast’s taloned foot, a look of shock on her face as green lightning leaped from the broken staff and up the leg of the mist dragon. The undead soldiers still standing motionless dropped to the ground like rag dolls tossed aside by the hand of a bored child.

Therrador lay helpless on the ground, watching as Sheyndust’s shocked expression became anger, then satisfaction at the green fire spreading from the staff, climbing the dragon. The beast threw back its head and roared, a sound tinged with triumph and agony, but hidden beneath it was another sound, the roar of another beast.

Therrador’s eyes moved toward the sound and he saw the tyger stalk out of the heap of fallen men, an arm dangling in its fiery teeth. The ground—wet  with snow and blood—sizzled  beneath its paws, the mud drying hard and cracked under its steps.

“Khirro?”

The burning tyger charged and the dragon—its  scaly mist-flesh crawling and flashing with green light and viridian flame—reared  back its head, filled its lungs, and belched fire down upon the Archon.

The woman lifted her arms defensively as the fire engulfed her, but it lasted only a moment. The dragon’s size diminished, as though the act of breathing the flames tore its insides out to collapse on itself, then it breathed no more. The mist that had formed the beast thinned and faded to green-tinted wisps before disappearing like the smoke of an extinguished taper.

As the dragon’s fire ended, the tyger let out a thunderous roar and leaped at the Archon without allowing her an instant to recover. It raked her chest with a massive flaming paw that left four deep gashes down her torso. Sheyndust stumbled back, clutching at the wounds and smearing dark red blood across her pale flesh, then the tyger was on her again, driving her to the ground. She screamed and tried to fend off the fiery beast as it sank its teeth deep into her forearm, then her screaming took a different shape.

The words the witch hollered were foreign and unintelligible to Therrador, but something understood them, and the earth heaved, shooting pain through the king’s broken arm. Dark clouds gathered above them, twisting and whirling, pregnant with power and the promise of death.

Finish her!

As if it heard the king’s command, the tyger jerked its head and wrenched the woman’s arm free at the shoulder. An agonized scream interrupted the words of her spell and the black cloud hanging over them faded to gray. The tyger tossed the arm aside, fresh blood crackling on its burning lips, and lunged for her throat.

The beast’s teeth sank into her pale flesh, turning her scream to a blood-filled gurgle. Therrador’s breath caught in his throat as the witch’s life blood fountained from the wound and he realized this would be the end of her, that she would be taken from him forever.

Sheyndust’s body jerked and twisted as she tried to release herself from the tyger’s grip, but the beast’s jaws held tight, digging deeper into her throat. Its flames spread to her hair, then to her skin, and the smell of burning flesh and boiling blood found its way to Therrador’s nostrils, gagging him and pulling him away from his false feelings. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the tyger.

Go on, Khirro. Kill her.

The tyger shook its head and another gout of the witch’s blood spurted onto the beaten grass. Her hand fell away from where it clutched the scruff of flaming fur at the big cat’s throat, her body spasmed and lay still.

The beast held on a few seconds longer, ensuring the woman was dead, then it backed away, leaving her body burning on the muddy ground. Triumph blossomed in Therrador’s chest.

If the witch is dead, her hold on me should be gone.

The king concentrated his effort on gaining his feet, but his limbs refused to move. A spark of despair came to life in the pit of his stomach; he forced the jubilation of victory to extinguish it for the time being. The witch’s magic would wear off and, if not, Athryn would know what to do.

He looked back to his fallen foe and saw the tyger standing over her, the fire covering the man beneath the beast beginning to flicker and die as he watched the flames devour Sheyndust’s flesh. A minute later, it wasn’t a tyger watching the witch burn, but a six year old boy standing with his smoldering back to the king.

Therrador’s eyes widened and the spark he’d extinguished burst into a wildfire.

“Graymon,” he called, his voice strained. He tried uselessly to lift his arm, to move, to crawl.

The boy crumpled to the ground.

***

Despite her terror at the missing children, Emeline stayed with Khirro until he drew his last breath, then she left him lying in a muddy pool of his own blood to search for Iana and Graymon. She looked amongst the corpses, threaded her way between undead soldiers standing like puppets without strings until the dragon snapped the staff and they all tumbled to the ground.

Green fire covered the dragon as it breathed a column of flame at the Archon. Emeline raised her arm to protect her face from heat intense enough to dry the tears on her cheeks. The sound of the dragon fire roared in her ears; she smelled the creature’s acrid breath as it tore the air.

When it stopped, she lowered her arm and saw the flaming tyger pounce on the Archon, driving her to the ground. Beside them, the dragon shrank until it disappeared in a puff of vapor.

But Khirro’s dead. Where did the tyger come from?

The living warriors who remained all stopped fighting to watch, Kanosee and Erechanian standing side by side as the unbelievable fight unfolded before them. Emeline skirted around them, trying not to draw their attention, but one man saw her and stepped into her path.

“What have we here?” the Kanosee soldier said.

Mud smeared the warrior’s face and his left arm hung limp at his side, a gash near the shoulder oozing blood. He smiled to show the gap in his teeth where one was missing, and Emeline froze, her body remembering the man’s rough touch and the terrible things he did to her even before her mind recalled his name.

“Hektor,” she said.

“I told you we’d see each other again, didn’t I?” He held his sword’s scabbard steady with his left wrist, wincing in pain as he did, and slid his weapon into its sheath. “I just didn’t expect it to be here.”

He moved in close to her and Emeline’s jaw clamped tight. She smelled the odor of his sweat, felt his touch on her arm, and the memory of their trip to the fortress came back. In her mind, she saw him kill her husband.

Anger and worry for her child forced fear from Emeline’s mind. She moved a step closer to the man so their bodies were almost touching and put her hand on the top of his chest.

“I hoped we’d meet again,” she said.

With one quick movement, Emeline plunged her fingers into Hektor’s wound. He cried out and jerked back a step; gripped in Emeline’s other hand, his dagger pulled from its scabbard and she leveled it at him.

“What are you doing, woman?” He raised his good hand for a moment, as if in surrender, then lowered it. “You won’t hurt me. You’re just a farm girl. You don’t have it in you.”

His lips curled up in a smile again, revealing the gap that had haunted Emeline’s dreams. He took one step toward her and she planted the dagger in his throat. His eyes went wide with surprise, his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, blood bubbling on his lips. Emeline pulled the knife from his throat and drove it in again.

Her rapist—her  husband’s murderer—collapsed  at her feet, and she stared down at him as he twitched on the ground, his life spurting onto the grass. She felt his blood on her fingers and tasted the metallic tang of fear and disgust on her tongue, but her body felt numb, otherwise. When she looked up, she saw Therrador lying prone a few yards from where the tyger was mauling the woman and immediately forgot the dying man at her feet.

Maybe he knows where Iana is. Maybe he took the children to safety.

Emeline dropped the knife and stepped over the first man she ever killed, moving toward the king as quickly as she dared. She crouched, shuffling between the bodies scattered across the ground, but hesitated with only five paces separating her from Therrador to watch the tyger back away from the Archon, leaving her burning to ash upon the plain.

The animal’s flames flickered out and Graymon stumbled back a step before his knees gave way and he crumpled to the ground. The king called out to his son; Emeline found herself unable to do more than stare at the tendrils of smoke rising from the boy’s clothes, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes saw.

Graymon has become the tyger?

She stared, mouth agape, fear and anger and death forgotten until the boy rolled onto his back and she saw the bundle he held in his arms. It felt to Emeline like her heart leaped into her throat, choking her before she found the breath to call out her daughter’s name.

She ran across the scorched and cracked earth where the fight between dragon, tyger and Archon had occurred. The hard ground scraped gashes in her legs as she fell to her knees at Graymon’s side.

Other than a smudge of black soot across her soft, pink cheek, Iana’s face looked peaceful, like it did when she slept. The baby didn’t move.

A weight fell on Emeline’s chest, compressing her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. Her shoulders trembled; a cry of grief began deep in her throat, clawed its way up into her mouth and between her lips. She reached a shaking hand out toward her daughter’s cheek to wipe the soot away, but stopped short of touching her and put her hands instead over her own face, stifling her sorrowful wail. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and let the sobs shake her.

“Em...ah...leen.”

Through her grief, she barely heard the quiet syllables. She sniffled deeply and moved her hands from her face, wiped away her tears. Graymon’s looked up at her from beneath drooping lids.

“I’m here,” she said.

The boy’s face pinched with pain and discomfort for a second, then he looked back into her eyes.

“Iana. She...she...”

“Sshh.” Emeline brushed sopping hair from his sweaty forehead. “Don’t speak.”

Graymon nodded minutely and Emeline inhaled a deep, shuddering breath; in it, she smelled her daughter’s familiar scent mixed with the stink of brimstone and singed grass. She forced an unconvincing smile on her lips for the sake of the boy and reached out to take the baby from him.