Knight's End (The Knight Trilogy) (4 page)

Another hour passed before anything happened. Aston looked up at the wall surrounding the castle and saw a light flash once, followed by two short flashes and then a long third one.

Something was wrong. Someone was signaling for help.
His heart racing, Aston
shook the prince, pushing his shoulder as hard as he could until he heard Talbot murmur.

“Wake up, Sire. We need to get in there,”
he said
. With one final shove, he
stood and crept toward
the wall, keeping low to the ground. He didn’t know if Talbot was following him or not, but he
wasn’t stopping to check. The knight had a feeling the Rogue resided
somewhere in the palace, heading for his target. While he
would have loved to leave Talbot behind, he couldn’t let anything happen to the prince.

Aston
took his grappling hook from his belt, swinging it in a wide circle beside his body as he neared the wall. With one well-practiced throw, the hook caught. A quick look over his shoulder showed him that Talbot was slowly following him. Using the strength in his arms and very careful steps, Aston made it over the wall fairly quickly, despite the moss that kept trying to make him lose his footing. Once over, he dropped to the thin, wooden walkway on the other side. The guard that had been positioned there was dead, his throat slit.
Whatever danger he had seen had already left
, undoubtedly the murderer.

“Dammit.” Aston leaned
over the wall. The prince was two thirds of the way
up
, moving sl
uggishly, struggling to find his footing
. “Prince Talbot! I’m going ahead. Stay close
, and hurry! We don’t know how far ahead of us the Rogue is,
” he shouted, knowing no one was around to hear him. He ran along the walkway until he got to a set of stairs, taking them three at a time to get into the palace.
He heard the prince
clomping along behind him.

All the torches were snuffed out in the hallway he entered. Aston stopped and listened, trying to locate people, but he couldn’t hear anything. It was late, but there should have been guards patrolling every inch of the palace. The duke’s life
had been threatened
.

He could feel his throat constricting as he
crept close to the wall and started down the hallway, more alert now than he had been before.
This wasn’t his first mission, but it was the first time he’d been ordered to save a man’s life. Normally, he was sent to battles or as a messenger. This mission had a completely different feel, and something deep inside told him he was already too late.

The
wide
corridor forked off in two directions at the end. The left side was dark, the right lit. Aston headed left, knowing The Rogue Royal would be somewhere in the darkened corridors. He paused at the end of the second hallway, listening again. Something rammed into his back and he turned quickly, pulling a dagger from his belt and crouching down.

“Don’t kill me, Rogue, please!” Talbot screamed. He looked up from the ground where he’d fallen, slightly dazed. Aston sighed and put his dagger away, quickly shushing Talbot.

“Sire, please! You’ll give away our position. I told you to stay close,” he snapped
in a harsh whisper
, turning back around without offering his prince a hand. He felt Talbot at his back but ignored him, listening intently for the sound of footsteps.

A scream ripped through the silent corridor, a woman crying out for help. Immediately, Talbot went from terrified to
courageous
. He ran off in the direction of the scream,
likely
intending to be a hero.

“Talbot, dammit, come back!” Aston stage whispered. The prince did not listen
,
and Aston took off after him, drawing his sword in case they met the Rogue on
the way. Maybe King Donn
had been wrong. Maybe the Rogue
had targeted
the princess, or the queen.

Talbot entered a room on their left about twenty feet ahead of Aston just as another figure exited the room across the hall. As the man saw Aston, he turned and ran. The cloc
k on the wall began its twelve chimes
as Aston left Talbot to tend to the woman, running after the man racing down the corridor. He jumped over the bodies of dead knights as he chased the Rogue, not glancing down at them for fear of recognizing someone. He couldn’t afford to stop.

The Rogue made it to another room
,
and when Aston entered it, he cursed. Four doors led off in diffe
rent directions from the room, each one a possible escape route for the murderer.
Aston opened each door, listening for running footsteps. Each dark hallway was quiet. There was no way he would catch the murderer now.

Disappointed, Aston retraced
his steps, heading back toward
Talbot, carefully stepping over each fallen guard.
The men
’s armor was bloodstained, their throats slit open. Aston grimaced as his boot slipped in a small puddle of ruby liquid. He kept his eyes ahead of him then, not
thinking about the corpses
. While he’d killed many men in his years as a knight, he’d never murdered anyone in col
d blood or without orders to.

When he finally reached the hall where he’d left his prince, a crowd had gathered, Talbot standing at its center. His shoulders were back, his neck extended in a regal manner as he addressed the crowd. “We were sent to catch The Rogue Royal by King Donn. I am Prince Talbot of Fridel. This is Aston Smith, Knight of Fridel,” Ta
lbot said, motioning to Aston. The knight
nodded
at the faces that turned toward
him, but they quickly looked back at Talbot. “We received word that the Duke of Northsbury would be visiting and that The Rogue Royal would be attempting to murder him.”

“He did not attempt,” a wo
man said, slowly walking toward
th
em. Aston recognized her as Duchess
Viola, the Duke’s wife. Her eyes were red rimmed, dripping with tears, her greying hair stuck to h
er face. She was wearing a thin
white gown and her f
eet were concealed beneath pale
pink slippers. She held a handkerchief to her mouth as she wept. “He succeeded. My husband is dead.” The woman broke down again and a chambermaid came to her, walking her into another room.

King Aric appeared at the en
d of the hallway
,
which was
now flooded with light. His auburn beard was too long and his face looked
older than it should. His blue
satin long-johns would have been comical had the situation been different. He stopped by Aston, placing a hand on the knight’s shoulder before making his way through the crowd and into the room where Duke Aeron had spent his last moments.

Aston sighed and turned away, not wanting to see Duke Aeron in death. He could picture the man in his mind, the Duke’s eyes open, burgundy blood blossoming from his chest. He placed a hand on Talbot’s elbow and motioned in the opposite direction with his head. Talbot nodded and plodded after Aston as they left the palace, their mission failed. The Duke had passed and The Rogue Royal had escaped.

King Donn would not be pleased.

“What was any art but a mould
in which to imprison for a moment the
shining elusive element which is
life itself – life hurrying past us and running
away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.”
- Willa Sibert Cather -

“It’s hot today,” Talbot announced. Aston glanced sideways at the prince, but otherwise remained quiet. “Don’t you think it’s hot?” Again, the knight didn’t answer. Talbot huffed and slouched in his saddle.

Aston had no desire to speak to the prince. Duke Aeron could have easily been saved, had Talbot not been so worried about a prospective damsel in distress. If he had turned right instead of left, they would be going home
as honorable men;
heroes, even. Instead, they would return to Fridel bearing bad news. The knight turned his head to the right, staring at the vast countryside that made up Adion. It was amazing how different the two kingdoms were. Fridel was made up of mostly forest while Adion was open land with hardly any trees.

“Did you see that deer?” Talbot asked, pointing off in the distance. Again, Aston ignored him, instead turning to face the road. “Aston Smith, I order you to speak to me.”

Aston pulled Sterling up short and turned in his saddle, glaring at the prince. “Sire, with all due respect, I have no desire to speak with you right now. I’m a little busy trying to decide how we are going to inform His Majesty of Duke Aeron’s death,” he spat.

Talbot appear
ed taken aback by his comment, but his face quickly turned angry. “You can go to your chambers when we reach Fridel.
I
will deal with my father.”

A
ston nodded and started forward
again. He wasn’t sure if letting the prince do the talking was a good idea, but he was more than happy to let him take the brunt of the king’s anger.

The rest of the ride passed in silence, and when they again reached Fridel
,
Aston went to his chambers, as ordered
. He plopped down on his bed, throwing his satchel across the room. King Donn wouldn’t understand what had happened. He would question Talbot, but not Aston.
The knight p
ondered what would happen to the two of them. If Donn had trained Talbot to fight, as princes normally were, instead of letting him do what he wanted for the past twenty years, then maybe Talbot woul
dn’t be in his current position;
and
neither would Aston

*
*

Talbot
went
straight to the throne room, where he knew his father would be expecting a report.
He’d watched until Aston desc
ended the stairs to the knights’
quarters before going to his father. Once there, t
he prince motioned to the guards to shut the doors with an order to not let anyone in before striding
down the carpet to the king.

The prince stood at the foot of the throne instead of taking his place next to
his father
.
After Aston’s comment, h
e’d spent the day’s ride thinking of a way to pin the failure on
the knight
. His father was a very unforgiving man, and Talbot didn’t want to face
the king’s
wrath so soon after his last mistake in Canterbury. Though Aston was the best knight, this mission proved that he wasn’t perfect. Talbot himself was irreplaceable, so Aston would take the fall for the mission and the prince would be spared. King
Donn would never understand his desire to save the distressed woman over saving Duke Aeron.

“Father, we return,” he started. King Donn nodded, waiting for his son to continue. “I am sorry to say that the Rogue Royal managed to escape.” Talbot had the decency to appear saddened by his news, though truthfully, he didn’t care. He
hadn’t liked the d
uke much and didn’t feel it was such a big loss. How
ever, he knew his father had respect
ed the man
,
and his thoughts would be different.

“What happened, Talbot? How could you let this happen?” His father’s voice dominated the throne room, ricocheting off columns and echoing in the space between the floor and the high ceilings. Talbot flinched, but didn’t look away from his
father’s slowly reddening face as the king stood. He towered over the prince, and Talbot fought not to lose his resolve.

“It was Aston’s fault, Father. The palace at Adion went silent so we crept inside, keeping close to the walls and dodging patches of light. We were halfway down a darkened corridor when we heard a woman scream and Aston left
his position, taking off toward
the woman’s voice. I followed after him and he entered the maiden’s room to make sure she was alright. Meanwhile, the Rogue Royal came from the room behind us.

“He could have killed me, Father! I drew my sword and we fought for a moment in the corridor. Then Aston came out of the room and drew his sword, but the Rogue knew he could not fight us both, so he ran. I followed, but lost him in the maze of the unfamiliar palace. Aston stayed behind to help the woman. We could have stopped him, Father, but we were too late. Aston’s foolish behavior caused Duke Aeron to be killed.” Talbot hung his head in
mock shame and shook his head.

“You’re sure that’s what happened, Talbot?” the king asked, narrowing his eyes at his son.

Talbot swallowed thickly before answering. “Of course, Father? Why would I lie?”