The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2) (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

“I am not done passing judgment on you, Captain.” Fitzwilliam stated. Vazura’s head came up. For the first time, the man noticed me, recognized me. “Lady Dayna Chrissie says that you may actually be useful to her. She has also requested your release and has vouched for you. Is that correct, Lady Chrissie?”

Actually, that was stretching things a bit. I’m not sure that I’d have trusted Vazura with a pair of sharp scissors, let alone vouch for his character. But the king was going somewhere with this, it was helping my cause, and given his mood I wasn’t about to piss him off again.

So I nodded. “Yes, Sire.”

“Then I am releasing Vazura into your protective custody. He shall follow your directives for as long as I see fit, or he shall return to his cell. You in turn shall stand by your judgment of the Captain, honor the custody, and abide by the fact that his word is now yours.”

I hesitated. This was getting stickier than I anticipated.

“Lady Chrissie,” the king barked, “you are wasting my time! Do you accept?”

“Yes, Sire!” I gulped.

“Then release the Captain,” the king said, motioning to the guards.

No sooner had they removed his leg chains than Lady Behnaz ran to him. She cried out his name, kissed his sweaty, dirty brow before composing herself. In fact, it wasn’t until the sound of hooves echoed from the hallway behind us that she disentangled herself from Vazura’s arms.

Galen had to duck as he entered the chamber. He bowed and addressed both me and King Fitzwilliam. His deep baritone echoed in a rumble off the stone walls.

“My apologies if I have interrupted any of the proceedings,” the wizard said as the torchlight reflected off of his bell-shaped silver buttons. “Both Grimshaw the griffin and Liam, the Heir Protector of the Fayleene have arrived. They bring information for Lady Chrissie that may be of great importance to the realm.”

Fitzwilliam looked over at me with a slight gesture, which I took to mean that I could speak.

“Are they all right?” I asked. “It was a long distance for both of them to travel in the time given.”

“In truth, they are rather worn. The griffin in particular badly needed victuals and water after his long flight to and from the griffin aeries, so they await us at the gatehouse across the main courtyard.”

“I doubt that a griffin will fit down these tunnels,” Fitzwilliam noted. “And I wish to speak to the Fayleene, given that Lady Chrissie’s mission originates from him. So lead the way, wizard.”

Galen bowed, and we followed in the wake of his retreating hoof beats. Lady Behnaz tried to get Vazura to lean on her, but he shook her off and moved to walk at my side.

“I owe you thanks for speaking on my behalf,” he began.

“You don’t have to speak with this trollop!” Lady Behnaz flared.

Vazura actually stopped and took her firmly by her upper arm. Behnaz gaped at him.

“No,” he gritted. “You shall not. Ever. Speak to Lady Chrissie like that again.”

King Fitzwilliam, Galen, and the two guardsmen watched the proceedings with interest, but did not intervene. Vazura’s hand trembled as he released his grip from Behnaz’s arm.

“Pardon, my liege,” he said, and we got going again. Behnaz’s blush had returned and redoubled, but Vazura paid it no mind. “I, too, once used the word ‘trollop’ to describe you, Lady Chrissie. I was in the wrong, and I apologize. No one within my earshot shall ever use that term again, lest they taste my wrath.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said, not sure of how to respond. I was grateful, though. “I mean, you can still just call me ‘Dayna’. I’d prefer that everyone did, actually.”

“You do me more honor. I pledge to serve you to the best of my abilities.”

“You don’t have to pledge,” Behnaz pointed out, though her voice had gentled. “King Fitzwilliam has placed you under her custody.”

“Yes, I do need to pledge,” Vazura said, as we made our way back up the spiraling stone stairs. High above us, the late afternoon sun made the walls glow. He gazed at that glow hungrily. “I couldn’t see the sky down there. That was very difficult for an Air Cavalry man to endure. And your husband, Lord Behnaz? He passed on all of the blame for what happened with Magnus to me, so that he could return to his estates. To get fatter on draughts of summer wine, to sleep between cool silken sheets, and to enjoy your charms whenever he wished. I’m done with his service.”

“Surely, you are not done with me?” Lady Behnaz protested.

“No, not with you,” he reassured her. “Thoughts of you were the only things keeping me from dashing my head against the stones in my cell.”

“My love…”

“But for the time being, I shall put myself in Dayna’s hands.” We finally reached the top of the staircase as he finished with a question, which he addressed to me. “So. I am yours to command. Perhaps you can start with the basics for a poor, addle-pated soldier like me. What is our quest, where do we go, and what do we do?”

The sun had advanced far along its track and hung just above the western battlements. The gray stone framed the wide rectangle of turf that made up one of the palace’s main courtyards. Across the swath of green, next to where a squad of soldiers guarded the open gate, stood a familiar deer-shaped patch of brown and white. Next to him, sprawled out on the grass, Shaw was doing his best imitation of a dire wolf as he made short work of a freshly slaughtered side of mutton.

“Prince Liam of the Fayleene is slated to become his people’s next Protector of the Forest,” I explained, as our party continued to follow the centaur wizard as he high-stepped across the grass. “But he’s bound by his oath to defeat a dragon that threatens his realm before he can take his title. According to the Lead Does of the Fayleene, this is an ancient stone dragon by the name of ‘Sirrahon’. Given your familiarity with dragons, I felt you could help us–”

Vazura made a choked sound. I looked at him. The man had gone a full shade paler than when he’d been pulled out of the dungeon.

“Sirrahon?” he breathed, as if he were having trouble processing the information, “You…there is no defeating a dragon like that! All you can do is get out of his way!”

Well now,
I thought,
At least he knows the creature’s name. That’s a step forward.

“How do you know of this dragon? Galen looked into the royal archives, there’s no record of him.”

“Scholars put too much faith in the musty scent of libraries. Not every scrap of knowledge is captured in the old books! The dragon tamers of old know their own lore, and it is passed down through story and song, the way of the first Barrow-Men.”

“I know I’m going to regret this, but what did the lore say of this Sirrahon?”

Vazura looked pained as he recited, “Sirrahon is one of the eldest of dragonkind. The stories tell that his egg hatched more than three thousand years ago. And he is as aggressive as he is difficult to harm. Sirrahon is called a stone dragon because his scales are like slabs of granite. And legend has it that because of his prowess, he was the equivalent of a rising captain in their last Great War.”

“But…we have dragons too. In the royal stables.”

Vazura waved the thought away as if it disgusted him. “Our dragons are scarce two, three decades along in their growth. You and the wizard defeated a pair of them. If Sirrahon appeared, and we could instill a suicidal sense of duty in our creatures, they wouldn’t last ten minutes. There are those who say that Sirrahon may be insane. He has been held apart from others of his kind…because he relishes killing and eating them.”

“Sirrahon kills and eats other dragons,” I muttered. “Oh, this just keeps getting better. Well, I don’t think ‘getting out of the way’ is an option anymore. We’re counting on you to figure out how to fight him.”

Vazura set his jaw. “You ask for the impossible…but I will figure out something. Because I will prove to you that I am worthy of your service, Dayna. Every dragon has a weakness, either physical, magical, or otherwise. We can find it, and we can beat him.”

“Now that’s what I want to hear,” I said approvingly. I began to ask another question, when a flicker of movement caught my eye. Up on the western battlement, something was silhouetted against the brightness of the sun. I raised a hand to block out the worst of the glare.

A dark shape stood on the battlement. It had the figure of a man, but it was vague, indistinct. It wasn’t exactly like a shadow, for within it swirled a roil of brown, black, and red. As if it were a human-shaped container of ink, dirt, and blood that had been given a healthy stir.

It raised an arm. It held something – a tube? – up at the end of its outstretched extremity, where a hand should have been.

“Look out!” I cried. “On the battlement!”

A percussive
thwip
as something tore through the air near me. A
thock!
of impact nearby, like someone throwing darts at a cork board.

“Guards! To me!” Fitzwilliam roared, as he moved towards the battlement stairs. More
thwips
filled the air. The king took about three running steps before the two guards in our party tackled him, holding their shields up in a desperate attempt to block the assassin.

Galen galloped forward, shouting magical incantations. Shaw dropped the leg bone he’d been gnawing on and took off like he’d been shot out of a cannon.

A soft, wet sound from behind me. I turned. Stared in horror.

Captain Vazura had fallen to his knees. His face swelled and turned red as if charged with blood. His lips turned the purple of a fresh bruise. Eyes bulged, whites hemorrhaging scarlet as I moved to help him. He began to fall backwards. Lady Behnaz clutched at the Captain’s arm while I tried to grab hold of his shoulder.

Vazura jerked out of both of our grasps as he began to convulse. He fell to the ground on his back, knees bent painfully underneath his prone form. Wet, choking sounds burbled from his mouth. The Captain’s head drummed twice, three times against the lush turf.

And then he went still and silent.

Chapter Twelve

Shaw let out a lion’s roar as his vast wings beat the air. In a flash, he reached the upper rampart of the palace. Claws extended, he brought one massive paw down in a powerful swipe at the shadowy figure.

The griffin’s aim was true, but the blow passed through the figure without resistance. Suddenly overbalanced, Shaw smashed shoulder-first into the stony battlement. He tumbled to the rampart’s walkway, stunned.

His target swirled in place for a moment, the man-figure almost slashed in half by the griffin’s blow. It reformed and leapt into the air. Galen’s voice boomed as he flung an arm up towards the figure.

“
Liom a heiceáil stoirme!
”

A bolt of blue lightning sizzled from the centaur wizard’s outstretched hand. It struck the shape as it began to accelerate into the sky. The thing emitted a
crackle
like a moth hitting an electrified grid. With a meaty
pop
, it disintegrated. Handfuls of dust and debris rained down into the courtyard nearby. A rancid, sulfurous smell drifted by on the breeze for a moment before it dissipated.

A terrible cry erupted from Lady Behnaz’s lips. She released her grip on Vazura’s limp body. She stood and looked around with blank, wild eyes, as if utterly lost. Then she focused on me and pointed a quivering finger. Her voice shook.

“My love…he died doing your bidding!”

“He didn’t–” I said haltingly, but my voice rasped to a stop. I hadn’t done more than outline the task ahead to her paramour, but how the hell was I going to point that out at this moment?

“Damn you, outworlder!” she wailed. “May all your plans come to ruin!”

And with that, she ran off, sobbing. Her cries of sorrow faded and were replaced by the creak of leather armor straps and a man’s groans. The two royal guardsmen that had tackled the king helped him to his feet, apologizing profusely in continuous strings of ‘beg forgiveness’ and ‘pardon, Sire’. With an annoyed wave, Fitzwilliam shut them up.

“Silence, both of you! Are you soldiers or fishmongers?” Fitzwilliam turned to address the new company of guardsmen who had run up from their posts, Liam at their side. “I am hale and hearty, but for the bruises given by my over-zealous protectors. I want four of you at that open gate, the rest sweeping the battlements!”

As one, the red-and-black guards raised hands to chest in the Andeluvia version of the salute, then ran to do his bidding. Liam stepped forward and bowed graciously to King Fitzwilliam. With a triple beat of wings, Shaw alighted next to him and also bowed in turn. The king nodded to the griffin, and then turned his attention to Liam.

“Most honored Fayleene.” Fitzwilliam’s voice hadn’t returned to the angry coldness of before, but his jaw set as if he were pulling reins on a restless mount. “It seems that your troubles have suddenly expanded to include my own demesnes.”

“It does seem so, your Majesty,” Liam replied carefully. “It was not my intent.”

“Your intent does not seem to have influenced your enemies,” Fitzwilliam said in an acid tone. He next directed that tone at me. “Lady Chrissie!”

I looked up from where I still knelt by the captain’s body. “Yes, Sire?”

“You heard my words down in the dungeon guardroom. The late Captain Vazura did not ride high in my favor, as you might guess. But he was a member of the royal court of Andeluvia. One for whom you swore an oath of protective custody not five minutes earlier!”

My stomach clenched. It tied itself into a drum-tight knot as he went on.

“I shall summon a man from the
mortuarium
. To bring Vazura where he can be laid to rest in honor. As for you, Lady Chrissie? Out of respect for your work to unmask my sire’s murderer, I had not pressed for an answer from you. An answer to whether you would become the court’s official forensics examiner.” He leveled a regal finger at me, fixed me with eyes that had gone icy gray. “But now I charge you: find me Vazura’s murderer, so that I may avenge his death as I see fit!”

His words fell on my ears like claps of thunder. Fitzwilliam turned away from me and stalked back towards the palace, his royal robes torn and smudged with grass stains.

“Dayna,” Galen said in a low voice, “what, pray tell, shall we do now?”

For a moment I simply remained where I was, stunned at this sudden reversal of fortune. I looked to my friends. Saw them waiting. For me to take charge.

I’d done it before. Though I had no idea what to do, maybe I could make it up on the fly.

What other choice did I have?

I released Vazura’s shoulder and let it slump into the soft grass. Steeled myself to do what I needed, just as whenever I’d stumbled across a particularly awful murder scene with the LAPD’s finest watching me. Though I felt as rattled as dice in a cup, I’d be damned if I let it stop me.

“Galen,” I directed, “I’m going to want to analyze the remains of…well, whatever that thing was you zapped. Go gather up the dust and whatever else you find in a bag, before the wind scatters it to kingdom-come.”

The centaur nodded, and then trotted a few yards away to begin the task. I looked at the griffin next and pointed skyward.

“Shaw, I want you airborne. Do a circuit above, see likely paths of entry for something that flew in. Then inspect the rampart. Check for scents, items left behind. Sing out if you find anything, no matter how small or inconsequential it seems.”

“Aye, gladly.” The griffin launched himself into the air.

“Liam, I need you here with me. Use your fey magic to detect and find any magical trace or ‘spoor’ in the area. Start here at Vazura’s body and then spiral out across the green.”

“Of course, Dayna,” he said. Canting an antler at me, he asked, “What do you plan to do?”

I took another deep breath to steady myself. “I’m going to inspect the body for wounds. See what it can tell us about Vazura’s death.”

With that, I turned my attention back to the captain. His body was heavy, and worse, it was indeed still warm. It gave me the shivers as I realized how far outside my element I felt.

I did my best to put my feelings aside and began my visual sweep of the body. God! Not a minute before, this had been a man who’d given me my first ray of hope in this nightmare. Now he was just ‘the body’. I didn’t come across any interesting marks or wounds on the captain’s feet, legs, or torso. I paused as a shadow fell across my vision.

Galen’s voice came from above me. “This wasn’t your fault, Dayna.”

I looked up to see the centaur looming over me. His face, with its wild, dark hair and bushy eyebrows, was sad and gentle. In one strong hand he grasped a brown cloth bag tied shut with a drawstring.

“I know,” I breathed. “I’ve never had to examine someone like this. So freshly…in fact, I’ve never seen anyone die in front of me before. And Vazura seemed so damned sure that he could come up with some way to defeat Sirrahon.”

“Mayhap that was the likely reason for his assassination?”

“As likely as the sun rising in the east tomorrow morning, my friend.” I nodded at the bag. “Not much in there, I gather.”

“Two handfuls of rock dust, nothing more. There is nothing distinctive about the collected material, at least to my untrained eye.”

“Alas, for I did not find a spoor of any kind,” Liam added as he returned.

Shaw landed with a muffled thump on the grass next to us. “I also found no scent, no trace, no objects on the parapet. Nor anywhere else.”

“Great,” I groused, “that’s singularly unhelpful.”

“Similar news I must convey,” Shaw continued. “Mine own fortunes amongst my clan were similarly full of vagaries. Yet not completely without import, methinks.”

“Let’s hear it,” I sighed.

“Upon the mere mention of the name ‘Sirrahon’, my clan’s elders acted as if they’d stuck their beaks into a hornet’s nest. Worse, they withdrew into counsel and bade me return the next day past noon!” The griffin made a disgusted sound. “Acting like mewling chicks upon a molt-day! Hadst I not seen it with mine own eyes, never wouldst I have believed it.”

“They sound frightened,” said Liam. “And while I hate to add to the ever-growing pile of ominous tidings, I don’t really have much choice in the matter.”

“Go on,” I began, and then did a quick double-take. “Liam, your antlers…”

The Fayleene nodded, and then turned his head so that we could see more easily. His snapped-off left antler had not only grown another two or three inches, it had budded at the end into three stubby knobs. His right antler had also grown, though not as robustly, and it had sprouted an extra tine.

“Doubtless it is a side-effect of my inheriting the magical mantle of Heir Protector,” he explained. “I don’t know the exact workings of this magic, but it continues to be helpful. I was able to summon birds again – large, far-ranging raptors this time – and I was even able to see through their eyes.”

“What did you find out? Did you see Sirrahon?”

“Well, no…not exactly.”

Galen, Shaw, and I traded puzzled looks.

“Thou art taxing my brain,” Shaw complained. He rubbed one lion paw against his feathery head for emphasis. “Do start talking sense, Fayleene.”

“The fey magic allowed me to summon a golden forest eagle to my service. A fine bird in its prime, able to fly higher and faster than anything in our world. I tracked it in my mind for hours as it sped away from the Fayleene woods. Felt it labor to breathe as it flew over the high pass of a range of mountains, a solid fortnight of hard riding to the north. That’s where I saw…”

Liam had trailed off. I tried to nudge him into finishing.

“Yes? Where you saw Sirrahon?”

“Only evidence of his passing.” He shuddered. “Dayna, that entire northern forest…it’s
gone
.”

Galen snorted. “I find that slightly hard to contemplate. The forest you speak of is lightly trafficked, free of settlements…and it is of considerable size, if the mapmakers are at all adequate in their craft.”

“Believe what you wish,” Liam said pointedly. “But I saw what I saw. Piles of ash. Heaps of trees that had been slashed, uprooted, burned, and gnawed upon. Smashed boulders, befouled waters, and air so rank with sulfur that it nearly brought the eagle down and smothered it.”

We all went quiet at that. I thought of what Galen’s book had said about the size of older dragons. How the normally fearless griffins had recoiled at Shaw’s news. And what Vazura had said about the dread beast…

I completed my visual inspection. The only anomaly that I’d seen was the bright red-purple of a fresh bruise at Vazura’s neck. I reach out to touch that spot and my fingers encountered something hard. Something that stuck out from the side of Vazura’s neck like a picture nail projecting out of a wall.

My friends watched with intense curiosity as I carefully removed a pair of thin, brown darts from the side of Vazura’s neck. Dark red blood ran from the wounds as I did so, but it simply oozed slowly from the openings like tree sap in winter. The muscular pump driving the blood through his vessels had stopped beating.

The wizard pulled a piece of cloth from a saddlebag and held it out. I placed the darts on the fabric and examined them critically. The weapons were dark brown, bloodstained at one end, and had been fashioned out of twisted lengths of a wiry substance. A subtle scent tickled my nose, over the iron-filing smell of blood.

Pine tinged with peppermint.

“These wiry things, could they be…pine needles?” I wondered. “No, that’s impossible. Too fragile, for starters.”

“Not true,” Liam corrected me. “Needles from the sacred pines of the Fayleene grove are strong enough. And the spoor of the spellcraft used to hold these things together…I could not sense it until you pulled the darts from this man’s flesh. It is
fey
magic. I’m sure of it.”

“You think these darts came from one of the Fayleene?”

“If so, there’s only one stag who wants so badly for me to fail that he’d murder someone.” Liam pawed the turf and growled out the name. “These darts must have come from Wyeth!”

“Crafting these without opposable thumbs?” I objected. “No offense, Liam, but I don’t think that someone in deer form could construct something like this.”