The Rival (59 page)

Adrian's throat was dry.  He didn't care about the arguments.  He just didn't want to be stranded on this road when the reinforcements arrived.  They might not touch Gift, but they would slaughter everyone else.

"This won't matter if the Fey show up," Adrian said.

"I don't think the Isle will support her," Scavenger said.  "She's as Fey as you are."

"Then it doesn't matter."

"It matters."  Scavenger shook with the force of his words.  "It matters.  He loses without an heir.  He will have no one to give his empire to.  Your uncles are nothings.  If they were something, they would be here with the Black King.  But he hates them.  He wants you.  And he'll get you, unless you're careful."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Gift said again.

Scavenger rolled his eyes.  "I have to tell him," he said softly to Adrian.  "Don't I?"

Adrian didn't know what Scavenger was referring to, but he decided to humor  him. The quicker this discussion ended, the quicker they could leave.

"Yes," Adrian said.  "You do."

Scavenger sighed, as if speaking this next were a great burden.  "You have Black Blood, boy.  You can't trust anyone."

Gift glanced at Coulter and then looked away.  Coulter remained steady, staring at his friend. 

He was wrong, Adrian thought.  Scavenger was wrong.  Gift could trust Coulter with his life.

"The Wisps who raised you are dead.  The Islanders hate you because you're Fey, the Fey hate you for your soft Island upbringing.  Your great-grandfather doesn't want you, he wants your potential."

"What about my father?  My sister?  Sebastian?"

"Your father?  He never came for you, did he?"

"He didn't know."

"He says," Scavenger said.  "And your sister cares more for your golem than you.  And what of your golem?  Hasn't he already taken your place?  Your world is what you make it, boy, and the only way you make it yours is to trust no one."

"Not even you?"

"Especially not me.  I still think we're better off with you dead."

Gift was shaking.  Adrian glanced down the road.  He saw nothing yet, but he wasn't really the one to look.  Coulter seemed riveted by the discussion.  And Leen was watching Scavenger carefully, holding her knife the entire time.

Gift crossed his arms.  "What would my great-grandfather do with you?"

"He'd kill me," Scavenger said.  "if I'd threatened his life."

Gift nodded.

"Let me live, boy, and you prove that you're soft."

Adrian swallowed.  Scavenger had been a friend for a long time.  Unpredictable, dangerous, but a friend.  But he knew better than to interfere.  Maybe when Gift pulled his knife or gave an order to Leen, then Adrian would interfere, but not until then.

"Or maybe I'll prove that I'm smart," Gift said.  "You're the only one who has talked straight to me about this, no agenda at all."

"I have an agenda," Scavenger said.  "I want the Black King out of my life.  I don't want to live like a Red Cap ever again.  And if it means I have to kill you to do so, I will."

"But you'll only live like a Red Cap under my great-grandfather."

"So it seems," Scavenger said.

"Which means you could give excellent advice to me," Gift said.

"As long as you watch your back."

"All right, then," Gift said.  "Let's get off this road."

Adrian let out a sigh of relief.  He let go of Scavenger's arm. 

"No," Scavenger said.  "I have to make one more thing clear to this boy.   If it ever looks as if you'll fall into the hands of your great-grandfather, I will kill you."

"I'll remember that," Gift said.  And it seemed, to Adrian, as if Gift had grown taller.  He glanced at the others.  "You seemed to think you have a plan to protect me.  Let's get to it."

Scavenger got to his feet.  Leen put her knife away, although she kept her hand on the hilt.  Adrian stood, and Coulter took a deep shuddery breath.

"They'll know where we're going," Leen said.  "They know about the farms, you said so yourself, Gift.  And now they know we're on the road.  We have nowhere to go. You need to make a Shadowlands."

Gift put a hand on her shoulder.  He appeared to be waiting for the others to speak.

Adrian didn't have any ideas.  Leen was right.  They couldn't go back to the farm, and they couldn't stay here.   Coulter still didn't seem all himself.

Scavenger sighed.  "Do I have to do all the thinking for you?" he snapped.  "You can't make a Shadowlands.  That's the first thing they'll look for.  Think, people.  They have
Wisps
on you.  Wisps. Wisps can't do anything.  They can just observe, and they'll only do so from the air.  The rest will come along the ground, according to the Wisps' directions."

Adrian smiled.  He saw where Scavenger was going.  "So we turn this to our advantage."

"Advantage," Leen said.  "You are all more optimistic than I am."

"No we're not," Scavenger said.  "Just more experienced.  Come along."

He took her hand (making Adrian smile again  —  it seemed that Scavenger wanted to take her hand) and led her through the corn. 

"They'll see the ears move," Gift said.

"Not if we hurry."  Scavenger's voice was already muffled.  Adrian shooed both Coulter and Gift ahead.  They went, then Adrian followed with a final glance to the sky.  Nothing.  The smoke had dissipated.  Nothing remained.  A life, gone in an instant.

He shuddered.  Coulter had such power, and he never used it before.  But he would use it again.

Adrian took a deep breath and disappeared into the stalks.  He hoped Scavenger's plan was a good one.  It would have to be for them all to survive.

SEVENTY

Rugad strode through the palace gates.  The sun was setting.  It should have given the air the coolness of twilight, but the heat from all the fires lingered.

Heat and stench.

The air smelled of smoke and death.  Already the bodies were decaying in the unnatural warmth.

Rugad kicked aside a sparrow, stuck between its bird and Fey self.  Bodies everywhere.  The ground was littered with them, and slick with blood.  He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the mess.

It had taken most of the afternoon to get his stupid Beast Riders turned around.  No one had out-thought him like that before.  No one had ever used his Beast Riders' nature against him like that.  No one.

He had underestimated the Islander King even while cautioning himself against doing so.

Of course, it had cost the King many men.  Guards lay all over the courtyard, their bodies pecked beyond recognition.  Most died with their arms over their faces in a vain attempt to protect their eyes.  Once the Beast Riders had turned around, they had done the duty they should have done earlier.

Still, it served as a warning, and as a surprise.  Unless Rugad was careful, the Islander King could get the better of him, even without the magick poison.  Rugad had an adversary, and a good one.

For the first time.

Only Jewel's husband simply didn't have the troops.  He had allowed himself to be surprised, allowed the Fey to get the upper hand in Jahn, and he had no way to get out of the city.  He couldn't fight back any more than he already had.

Rugad knew this, but his own soldiers didn't and they were jumpy.  They had lost confidence  —  a brilliant strategy on the part of Jewel's husband, and one he could turn to his advantage if he knew how.

Rugad would never give him the chance.

Craw, head of one of the Bird Rider units, walked over to Rugad.  Craw's bird form was a raven.  He wasn't wearing it.  Instead he was nude and covered with blood and offal.  He carried a sword of a make Rugad had never seen before.

"The palace is secure," Craw said.

"You're certain?"

Craw nodded.  "Checked it myself. We have a handful of prisoners in the kitchen, and the prize is in the audience room."

"Take me there," Rugad said.

Craw smiled.  He stepped over bodies, not seeming to care what he placed his bare feet in.  His feet were less like human feet than talons anyway.  They were black and scaly and probably had less feeling in them than Rugad's fingers.

Rugad stepped across the bodies, ignoring the blood.  It didn't coat his boots; he wore magicked boots made for him specially by Domestics on Nye.  He had been in worse carnage than this, but never in such unnecessary carnage.  Birds and feathers were scattered everywhere.

His people had never panicked before.

Ever.

They would never panic again.  He would see to that.

The main doorways stood open.  A few bodies were scattered across the threshold, mostly Islander servants, from their clothing.  The rest of the bodies in the stone corridor had been dragged to the walls and left for the Red Caps.  Rugad had heard that Islander skin and blood had clean magick.  He hoped so.  They would have plenty of it to use.

If the Caps got to it soon.

The palace was impressive.  Like the Tabernacle, the palace had a fortress's build with towers, turrets,  gates and impervious stone walls.  Late in its history, someone had destroyed its defensive purpose by putting in decorative windows, not arrow slits.  The later additions showed a people who had no knowledge of war.

But earlier  —  earlier someone had need of protection.

He took all of this in at the great doors.  They opened into several halls, one of them looking older than the others.  "Where's my prize?" he asked.

Craw nodded toward the hall that had captured Rugad's attention.  "We have them in the audience room."

"Them?"

"Your great-grandson, his sister, and the King."

Rugad nodded.  He wasn't ready to see them yet.  "Did they put up a fight?"

"Not much of one."  Craw hefted the weapon he held.  "They had thoughtfully provided us with swords."

Old swords with dull blades.  But, while Jewel's husband seemed to be a good strategist, he didn't know weapons.

"Excellent," Rugad said.  "Is Wisdom here yet?"

"He just arrived," Craw said.

"Let him know I want a defensible place to set up headquarters."

"There is one several floors up," Craw said.  "They call it the War Room.  It was built for defensive purpose.  Only one door and no windows."

Sounded a bit like a non-magick Shadowlands.  Rugad nodded.  "Take Wisdom there.  Have him scout it and any other likely location.  Then get the Caps here.  With this heat, this mess will stink by nightfall."

"Yes, sir."

"The audience room is through those doors?" Rugad asked, pointing. 

"Yes, sir.  The large oak doors on the other side of the Great Hall."

"You have sufficient guards?"

"Triple, sir.  Their king seems wilier than we expected."

"My great-granddaughter is a Shifter.  Warn your guards."

"Yes, sir," Craw said.

Rugad nodded at him, dismissing him without a word.  Then Rugad went into what Craw had called the Great Hall.

He understood where Craw got the description.  There were palaces all over the Galinas continent with rooms like this.  Ancient palaces, that dated back hundreds of years before the Fey invasion.  The great hall was always used as a feasting and ceremonial room.  He ran a finger along the stone.  It was well cleaned, but crumbly with age.  The windows had been added later, and the bubbly glass even later.  He glanced up.  The roof had been rebuilt several times.  He would have guessed that in the palace's first incarnation, the roof had been thatch.

Which meant there had probably been a fire once or an attack with fire.  Whether they remembered it or not, the Islanders had war in their background.  Serious war, the kind that demanded strong defenses and even stronger weapons.

Tables remained in this room but they were cleaned.  Apparently this had been where the banquet that Flurry interrupted had been held.  He almost wished he had seen that moment; the Fey arriving in the middle of what apparently had been a large and important banquet.   Even if the Islanders had no knowledge of their history, they did seem to know how to use the room.

He would use it well too.  Perhaps it would even hold a ceremony to show off his great-grandchildren to the Fey.

He hadn't decided which of the children would lead.  He would wait until he met them, until their talents made themselves clear.  He suspected that the older would work since he was raised by Fey, but this day had taught Rugad not to go strictly by expectation.

Across from the windows was a wall filled with weapons.  He wound his way around the tables, and stopped in front of it.  So this was where his Bird Riders picked up their ancient and dented swords.  There were still a good hundred weapons on the wall, some rusted and unusable, but others that had years of use in them.  His people were smart; they never let anything go unused.

Then he smiled.  The Islanders, captured by their own weapons.

He adjusted his shirt and his pants.  They were clean despite the wild ride over here.  Bird shit and feathers had rained on him in the panic, but the Domestic's spell held.  He had washed his face and hands before coming in, knowing that part of the impression of power came from his appearance.

He would meet his great-grandchildren with as much power as he could muster.  This great-granddaughter, this Shifter, would need special attention; she had been raised by one of the most rebellious of the Fey. 

He hoped that his people found his real great-grandson soon.  It alarmed Rugad that he couldn't travel the Links anymore.  That Islander Enchanter was a detail that he would have deal with, and soon.

He made his way through the Great Hall to the narrow corridor on the other side.  It wasn't hard determining which room held the prisoners.  The Fey guards outside were ridiculous in their numbers.  They didn't mill, but they watched.  He had never seen such nervous Fey faces before.

Jewel's husband had been smart.  What he couldn't accomplish with his own troops, he accomplished with surprise.  Rugad's people were spooked.

And his guards looked it.  All of his troops, bloodied as they were, looked as if they'd lost instead of won.  Rugad couldn't face a worthy adversary like this.  If he were to take his own advice, he knew that he would have to stop underestimating the Islander King.  If Rugad could see the fear, so would mighty Nicholas.