Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi) (45 page)

Another huge, scaly man-thing appeared in the room, towering over Kerri. It reached out knife-like claws toward her. I didn’t turn, didn’t take my eyes off the General.

“Another illusion?” I asked softly. “Surely you can do better than that. Where’s your real magic?”

He kicked the hassock, sending it spinning toward my feet. I jumped over it easily, but I couldn’t get close enough to him with the chair between us.

“Did we hurt you that badly, Cullin and I?” I said. “You have nothing left, General Hakkar. You’re a dried husk. You’re nothing but an illusion yourself.”

“I have enough magic, Tyr,” the General snarled.

The air between us thickened with foul, black mist. It wrapped itself in tendrils around my throat, suffocating and strangling. Cold as lost hope, it fastened itself to my soul, draining my strength and will, sucking the spirit from me, replacing my lifeblood with its own chilling void. I coughed, choking and gagging on the loathsome stuff, tasting death against the back of my tongue. Fingers of the mist closed about my heart, squeezing until each laboured beat was agony.

The General laughed. “Can your magic defeat that?”

Celae magic. Tyadda magic. Gentle magic. It would not allow itself be used as a weapon. But I could use it in a different way. With the last of my strength, I reached out, grasped one of the threads of power surging through the ground beneath my feet. The darkness of blood magic within me burst and shattered as it met the clean earth and air magic. I wove the Celae magic like strands of spider web into a noose, threw it and snared it around the General. I
yanked
.

We stood
facing each other at the foot of the hill crowned by the stone dance. The sky glowed in twilight colours, neither dawn nor dusk, but a time removed. At the top of the hill, the menhirs rose starkly and blackly silhouetted against the sky. Beneath my feet, the grass released its fresh perfume into the air, rising about me in a soft cloud. This wasn’t my place, but it was a neutral place. The General faced me, wearing the face of the opponent who had called me to battle in this place so often before.

“Now we see, General,” I said. “My magic won’t work here, but neither will yours.”

“Your son is dead,” he said. “Your woman is dead. What do you have left?”

“The pleasure of killing you, General.”

We circled each other warily. I watched him, picking out small details of stance and pose. He balanced easily on the balls of his feet, sword held in both hands. Dark eyes narrowed to slits, he studied me as carefully as I studied him. He was as accomplished with the sword as I, perhaps more. But neither of us was at the peak of strength; his weakened yet by the effort to recover from the shock of being torn from the magic transfer; mine by the effort to Heal Kerri. Which of us was stronger now?

“I admit there is a small possibility you might succeed in killing me,” he said, his lips stretched back over his teeth in a dreadful parody of a smile. “But Kyffen’s line is dead. You will sire no sons on the Celae wench, even if you survive this meeting.”

“I will have more sons, and by her.” I sidestepped quickly to my right, searching for an opening. He countered, his sword making small, purposeful sweeps before him.

“She’s dead.”

“Not a good wager, General.” I stepped to my left, took a quick, experimental swing at his legs to test the balance of my sword and his alertness. He parried the blow and our blades met with a quick, whispering slither.

He disengaged and stepped back. “You will die here, and Maedun is safe,” he said.

“Maedun is not safe,” I said. “My son is not dead.”

“You saw his belly opened like a gutted fish. He is dead.”

I laughed at him. “Just another of your flimsy illusions,” I said. “You scraped your fingernail along his cheek, General. I saw the welt it raised. Dead flesh will not show a welt. You did not kill him.”

“But I will,” he said. “Horbad will have his magic yet. When my warlock arrives—”

Circling, circling, each of us looking for an opening to attack. Sudden spurt of black-red blood as my sword flashed past his guard and thrust into the muscle of his arm. Spray of darkness from the black sword as he leaped back and away from the next attack.

He lunged at me, his sword making a wide, sweeping arc toward my head. I blocked it, then cut at his belly. He parried the blow deftly, and jumped back out of reach.

“My son,” he panted. “Horbad will kill your son. The day will come, Tyr...”

I flexed my wrists. The sword felt light in my hands, eager as a leashed hound for the hunt. “My son will be able to fight his own battles,” I said.

“Horbad will have my name and my power,” he said. “He will add his own power to mine. Your son cannot stand against him.”

“The boy may gain your name,” I said grimly. “But he won’t have your power. You can’t give it to him if you die here.”

He feinted to his right, came at me with a slicing cut from the left. I swung my sword down, blocked his with a ringing clang, then carved a blow at his belly. He leaped back, brought his blade up to parry mine.

“And I do intend to see that you die here,” I said, disengaging quickly and dodging back.

Again, we circled. He attacked and I lunged forward to meet him. Back and forth across the trampled grass, each straining and striving to tear the guts from the other. Blind to everything but the swing and slice of the other sword. Breath rasping in great gulps, his face pale, sweating. My own cold as the wind of my own movement dried the moisture on my brow and cheeks.

Whirl and thrust and sway. Feet moving in elaborate patterns on the level grass. A spasm of pain in my left shoulder, my own blood vivid red spilling down my arm. My arm trembled from the chill of the black blade.

Circle and circle. Warily watching each other. His eyes black as night, black as the pits of Hellas. Soft brush of the topaz in my ear against my cheek as I swayed to my left. The blade of his sword sucking in light, spitting out darkness and cold. Brilliant luminescence of my own blade, glittering in its aura of colour.

I gripped tighter to the plain, leather-bound hilt nestled into my hands. “Dance with me,” I whispered to the sword, a lover to a lover. “Dance for me.
Now!
” I sprang forward, the sword in my hands singing fiercely and sweetly in the eerie light.

Light and shadow, day and night. My sword and his. Flashing, flaring, and I was lost in the intricacies of the dance. Clash and clang of steel against tempered steel. Fire and searing heat from my blade; darkness and foetid chill from his.

How we danced, the blade and I. Lost in the complex movements, the precise rituals of the dance. Back and forth under the glowing sky. Slicing, parrying. Slash and riposte. Cut and carve. Whistling blades flashing—mine singing, his howling.

We danced, the General and I. Death in his face. Murder in my heart. Back and forth, we battled each other. Muscles shrieking in protest, weariness building inexorably, the sword heavy in my hands. His face drawn into lines of strain.

I saw the opening I sought so desperately. A sudden, slight uncertainty in his stance, a hesitancy in his guard. I leaped forward, taut with purpose.

I swung the sword in a short, backhand sweep. The glowing blade flicked under his guard and into the muscles of his belly, spilling his intestines around him in a bloody pile. The black sword spun off into the dark at the edge our circle. Shock and astonishment widened his eyes as he dropped to his knees.

“My son—will kill—your son,” he gasped, then fell to his side, glazed and empty eyes looking through me, beyond me to eternity.

I stood leaning on my sword, gasping for breath, sweat running in streams down my face, my shirt soaked, the waistband of my breeks sodden with it. I reached up with a hand that might have been made of lead and wiped the stinging moisture from my eyes.

The General lay crumpled on the grass. As I watched, a dark mist rose from him and slowly dissipated in the clean air of the circle. His body withered and shrivelled until it was little more than a husk, frail enough for the gentle breeze to shred and fray.

Something moved beyond the circle. I straightened slowly to meet the opponent who stood just outside the circle, cloaked in shadow, a darkness of his own making swirling around him. He was younger than the General, his features less firmly shaped. The dark aura of power that surrounded him was thinner, more tenuous.

“That is mine,” he said, his voice a rustling whisper in the mist surrounding him. He pointed at the black sword resting in the grass an arm’s-span beyond the General’s clawed fingers.

Still breathing unevenly, I raised my sword and moved to stand between him and the black sword.

“Then come and claim it. But you’ll have to go through me.” I stepped back, inviting him into the circle with me.

He stepped forward, barely onto the grass. The mist parted around his face, revealing features familiar, yet foreign. He glanced at the black sword, then back at me.

“You cannot touch it,” he said. “Remember how it burned you when you tried to take it from my father?”

“I don’t want it,” I said.

“Then you have no objection if I take it?”

I grinned, baring my teeth at him. “Come and try.”

He held up both empty hands. “I have no weapon.”

“But I do.”

I sensed rather than saw him tense himself to dive for the sword. I lifted my sword and slammed the brightly glowing blade down on the obsidian sword. The glaring explosion nearly blinded and deafened me. The black sword shattered under my blade. Numbing shock travelled up my arms and into my chest, smashing the breath out of me.

My opponent howled with rage and scrambled away from the dark splinters on the grass, a long fragment embedded in the flesh of his palm. He rolled back to the edge of the circle and staggered to his feet, cradling his injured hand to his chest.

“It was mine,” he shouted. “Curse you! It was mine.”

I lowered my sword and rubbed my tingling arms. My sword still sang a high, clear note of triumph. I had no breath to reply. I merely watched him as I stood, sucking in deep, gasping gulps of air.

The dark mist swirled around him again, and I thought it might be thinner, more tenuous, now. He looked at me, black eyes glittering with rage.

“You have won for now,” he said quietly.

“I have gained time,” I said.

He gave me a small, mocking bow. “Put it to good use,” he said. “You should have killed me, too, when you could.” He stepped back out of the circle and vanished into the whorling mist.

***

I came back to myself, panting and gasping for breath, standing in the room of the merchant’s house. The body of the General lay at my feet, his blood staining the carpet in a wide, black pool. Fingers like talons reached for the hilt of a sword that was not there.

I lowered my sword, and fell to my knees, exhausted. The boy Horbad came slowly from the hearth to stand before me. The hard, dark aura of latent power shimmered around his head. He stood before me, trembling, cradling an injured hand to his chest.

“My father is dead,” he cried, his voice shrill and piercing. “You killed my father.”

I looked at him. He would grow to be the mortal enemy of my son. But he was only a child. A five-year-old boy. The sword in my hands twitched, but I could not bring myself to lift it and remove that childish head from the small shoulders. Keylan would have to learn to deal with him, for I could not.

I looked into the small, immature Maeduni face. It wavered, began to change, until another face lay superimposed above it. An adult face. The face he would wear when he was grown. He laughed as he saw my recognition.

“You killed my father,” he said. “But you didn’t kill me.” He turned and ran, stumbling across the carpet and out into the passageway.

Chest heaving, breath still rasping in my throat, I crawled across the carpet to Kerri. She lay slumped against the wall, Keylan cradled in her arms. Groggily, she looked up at me.

“You disappeared,” she muttered. “You and the General. What happened?”

“We went somewhere else,” I said. “It’s all right,
sheyala
.” Keylan moved sluggishly in her arms, whole and unharmed. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “You used magic?”

I nodded. “I used the sword’s magic.”

She looked up at me, then smiled and shook her head. “You used your own magic,” she said. “The sword always responded to you.” Keylan stirred again and she stroked his forehead soothingly. He reached up and put his arms around her neck, burrowing his face into the hollow of her throat.

“Is he all right?”

“I think so,” she said. “It must have been a holding spell. As soon as you and the General vanished, it broke the spell.”

I gathered them both into my arms, my cheek tight against Kerri’s hair. “It’s time to go home,” I said.

Dun Eidon,
ancestral home of the Prince of Skai, sat like a jewel at the head of the deep inlet where the River Eidon emptied into the sea. Built of white stone, its graceful colonnades and soaring towers glistened against the background of winter-bare trees and mountains, secure behind its tall, crenellated walls of granite. A small village nestled close to the walls, the neatly thatched roofs of the buildings golden in the sun against the layer of snow still lying thick on the ground. At the foot of the road leading down from the west gate of the palace, a stone jetty thrust out into the clear, blue water of The Ceg. Two tall-masted ships rocked gently at anchor at the end of the pier amid a cluster of small fishing boats like two swans amongst a flock of ducks.