A trail of terror, ice and snow
And broken bodies; death comes slow
Four days later, Hawk sat on the kelp-strewn rocks beside the sea, eating his lunch. The ocean stretched away before him, wide and grey and restless. Far in the distance, a red, perfectly semicircular shape rose against the brooding western sky, like the ghost of a giant setting sun.
The Aegis had been there so long that Hawk couldn't imagine the horizon without it. It would be as though the Barlakks had suddenly vanished: inconceivable. From his vantage point, it looked the same as it always had, and the last time he had been there, a few weeks ago, he had not noticed any sign of it deteriorating. There was weird stuff going on on the Isle, that was for sure; that strange black metal that the miners were digging out that was having unpleasant effects on people, for instance, but Hawk couldn't see how that was related.
As the Arkanian Ambassador had said: no magic lasts forever. Perhaps the Aegis was failing now just because. There didn't have to be a reason.
Mekka had told him and the Freeroamers about the King's meeting with the Ambassador in Sel Varence. He had been brief: there wasn't much to say. The Aegis was failing, and that was that. Everyone was morbidly aware of what would happen when it did, the only question remaining was: when?
Hawk took a bite of his sandwich, wondering. If there were known to be at least two sorcerers left alive, perhaps they might be persuaded to help? Perhaps the Aegis did not require the full power of ten to be restored: maybe just a little bit of magic would be enough? The shield only needed to keep going for a while longer, until the remaining Dragons were dead.
He shook his head. No matter how powerful or evil or twisted those sorcerers might be, surely even they would not want to see the Dragons escape? There was a reason those creatures had been imprisoned in the first place. In light of this new information, perhaps General Dreikan's plan to launch a full scale attack on the Dragons wasn't so crazy after all…
Of course, he thought, finishing his sandwich, it was easy to be so academic about it when he wasn't in the army any longer…
A chill gust of wind blew at his back, making him shiver. The temperature had dropped unexpectedly as he travelled north, and the wind had shifted, coming not from the sea but from inland. There was a sharp edge to it, as though autumn had arrived early. Grey clouds had crept in from somewhere and hidden away the sun, giving the landscape a monotonous, gloomy cast that seemed determined to bring Hawk's mood down with it.
In any case, the Middle Isle wasn't his problem any more. Hawk had his own mission, and a certain black-winged Angel, to worry about.
Frowning, he fed a pebble to the slapping, hungry sea. Mekka had disappeared again.
Hawk couldn't work him out. First the Angel had insisted on travelling with him, and then he had flown off to do his own thing. Hawk hadn't seen him the entire journey, since Mekka had almost spooked him off his horse.
He sighed, rolling his eyes. Maybe I offended him with that joke, he thought. Again.
Mekka took everything way too personally. Hawk knew that the Angel couldn't stand being teased, which is exactly why he did it, of course. But perhaps there was a reason. He wondered if something had happened in his past, in Arkana, to make him this way, to leave him with an intense loathing for other Angels (apart from Aari) and choose to exile himself from his homeland. Perhaps he had lost more than his eye in that place…
Yet for all that, Hawk reflected, Mekka was a decent guy. If Carmine liked him, then Hawk saw no reason not to like him as well. He did his best to get along with the Angel. Mekka just made things… difficult, sometimes.
He knew why, too: all three of them did. Mekka and Carmine had been close friends before Hawk came along, and that was a sore spot that wasn't ever going to heal. But Mekka had taught Car a lot and looked after her when Hawk wasn't around, and did not interfere in their relationship, even though he easily could have. Not many people were so honourable...
“Hawk!”
The Freeroamer looked up in surprise. As though sensing that Hawk had been thinking about him, Mekka finally appeared, landing gracefully on the cobbled roadway behind him. Ardance danced aside from the rush of black wings and stood some way away, glaring at the Angel suspiciously.
“Where have you–”
“Trouble ahead,” Mekka cut him off.
Hawk sighed and stood up, brushing crumbs off his uniform. “The Watch?”
“No.” Mekka's expression was dark, and there was an urgency to his voice. He shook his head and gestured at the highway ahead of them. “It appears a terrible storm passed through here recently, and hit the royal entourage as they were returning from Selvar. There are bodies all over the road.”
“What?!” Hawk leapt up onto the road.
Mekka nodded grimly.
Hawk ran at once to Ardance and mounted as the Angel took off.
He raced after Mekka.
A few miles later, he arrived at a scene of devastation unlike anything he had seen before, even on the Middle Isle.
There were, indeed, bodies all over the road.
There were bodies everywhere.
Several royal carriages had been smashed to splinters, the gilded wreckage spread far and wide; across the highway, through the fields, in the sea. Jewellery, fine clothing and other personal belongings lay strewn across the cobblestones like glittering entrails. There were dead horses, dead servants, dead guards, their armour gleaming even in the dull light. Nearby trees and fences had been broken as well, their splintered remains marking a trail of destruction that led all the way to the Barlakks down the road to Tulstan.
There were survivors too, both men and women sitting beside the road in their finery, weeping or just staring into space. Others milled around, not all of them from the entourage: there were farmers and travellers and townsfolk who had either heard of the accident or had just been passing and stopped to gaze at the horror.
As yet, there were no looters, everyone simply wandered around in a daze or tried to comfort those who were stricken.
And Hawk noticed something else, ominous amongst the debris; frost coating the ground, and piles of melting snow.
Then his gaze came to rest upon a group of people gathered beside some boulders on the seaward side of the road. Some of them were huddled over what was presumably a figure lying on the ground.
“Gods,” Hawk whispered in cold realisation. “The King!”
Quickly, but carefully, he spurred Ardance forward through the mess, until he reached the group, and dismounted.
“The King,” Hawk said to the nearest man. “Is he...”
“Stand aside!” The man was one of the Royal Guard, his golden armour battered but gleaming. He stepped towards Hawk, sword raised. “The King is fine! Step away from the King!”
“Don't be an idiot!” Another of the Royal Guard pushed forward, addressing not Hawk but the first man. “The King is not dead, but is gravely injured. You!” he pointed at Hawk. “You have a good horse. Go and fetch help immediately!”
Hawk opened his mouth to respond, but a bystander spoke up. “Tulstan is destroyed as well!” the man said, face deathly pale. There are no healers for many miles!”
“Then ride to Sunsee,” the guard demanded. “Now! Go quickly!”
Hawk hesitated, mind racing. He could not go back to Sunsee. Besides being wanted for assaulting a Watchman, he needed to find Ferrian. Urgently, if his suspicions were correct…
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Uh,” he replied, mounting Ardance. “Right. Um. What should I tell them?”
The guard glared at him, but the bystander spoke up again.
“Tell them a sorcerer tried to assassinate the King!” he said. “A sorcerer on a white horse! This was no storm, it was an ambush! A plot by the Angels! He fled that way, towards Arkana!” The man pointed north.
Hawk nodded at them all. Then he spurred Ardance forward.
“Stop!” the guard screamed from behind him. “Stop in the name of the King!!”
Hawk urged Ardance faster, heading north.
“Well done!” a voice drifted down sardonically from somewhere above Hawk. “You've just earned your Freeroamer badge!”
“Yeah!” Hawk called back. “Treason! A fine crime! I just left the King to die by the side of the road! I'll lose my head for this!”
“The King's life is not the most important consideration right now,” Mekka replied. “We cannot allow Ferrian to reach Arkana, if that is indeed where he's going.”
Gods, Hawk thought. Face grim, he rode hard.
* * *
Sunlight reached tentatively through the large, round window set in the balcony doors of Lord Requar's bedchamber. The panes were arranged artfully in the shape of a sun: but this was a sun that was cold to touch.
The light made its way across the blue carpet and fell upon a black-haired figure slumped in a chair beside the bed. A book lay open in his lap; one gloved hand rested upon the page, the other hung at his side. Numerous papers, scrolls and other books were scattered at his feet.
Blinking awake in the unexpected brightness, Arzath lifted his head and squinted at the light in confusion, as though he had forgotten what it was.
Then remembrance crept slowly through his hazy thoughts. Ferrian has left the castle. The Winter has retreated.
Arzath didn't care. Neither the boy, nor the weather, was of any consequence to him. Nothing mattered, any more. The only thing he cared about, in the entirety of existence, was getting rid of the accursed trigon.
The black poison that was slowly killing him, creeping through his veins like a vile parasite, consuming him, a little more each day. He was beginning to forget things, as he had when he had lost his magic. He could feel bits and pieces of himself slipping away, his thoughts becoming fragmented sometimes, not making sense.
But he fought it. He would not let it win.
Yet, he could not defeat it on his own, he knew. He needed Requar's help. Except that his brother was… gone.
He looked down at the book on his knees and his black-gloved hand curled into the paper, scrunching it.
It should have worked! he thought in despair. It should have WORKED!
In sudden frustration, he swept the book off his lap and climbed unsteadily to his feet. For many days, or weeks, or however long it had been now, he had gone through every piece of Requar's research that he could find. Any scrap of paper with anything written on it. He had read it all.
The research was extensive. Requar appeared to have tried everything, thought of everything. He had surely known everything about trigon that there was to know.
And Arzath had discovered something incredible.
His brother had succeeded. Requar had known the cure for trigon all along! He had been holding it in his hands the whole damned time!
It was the Sword of Healing.
It should have worked!
Arzath staggered across the room to the mantlepiece and snatched down the Sword. It was nothing but a shiny piece of metal, now. Without its magic, it could not heal a scratch.
But it was made of silvertine, just as all the Swords of the Gods were. Silvertine was an indestructible substance, like trigon, that could only be obtained from Caer Sync, the Holy Tower in the heart of Arkana. The Angels had once supplied it to the SOMS for the sorcerers to forge into their signature Swords.
Arzath had gone to great lengths to obtain silvertine for his own replacement Sword. He had captured an Angel and convinced him to steal some from the tower. He had then severed the Angel's wings so that he could not escape and confess to anyone what he had done. He had not wanted Requar to find out; his brother would have interfered with his plans. He had removed Cimmeran's memory of the incident as well, just to be sure.
And because he had not been able to bear the man's insane screaming afterwards.
He closed his eyes bitterly. Now he, himself was mutilated, consigned to an horrific fate as though Cimmeran had come back and stabbed him with that dagger himself.
He regretted what he had done to Cimmeran, but he regretted a lot of things now. In any case, the silvertine had been retrieved. It had come from the upper reaches of the tower; trigon could be found in the depths. They were opposing forces; they cancelled each other out, and the energy released when they did so was immense. That was why Arzath had wanted the trigonic dagger; he had wanted to combine it with his Sword to create a monstrously powerful weapon with which to destroy his brother.
He shook his head. He had been a fool.
But silvertine infused with healing magic should have repelled the trigon, should have driven it out of Requar's body.
The White Dragon knew, Arzath thought. She knew the Sword should work, and that was why she had tried to use it, through Ferrian…
Requar knew, as well.
He had also known that it didn't work.
Clenching his hand around the sapphire hilt, Arzath realised how frustrated, how maddened Requar must have felt all of these years; knowing the answer and yet, not knowing it…
He turned and stared helplessly at his brother's body on the bed. There had been no change. The trigon continued to seep through the cor–
NO.
He looked away abruptly, refusing to think of Requar that way. Ferrian had not been able to accept Requar's death, had gone riding off to some library to try and find a cure. Perhaps the boy might find one. The answer was so close, it was within reach…
He lifted the Sword and stared at his hand curled tightly around the hilt.
I WILL make this Sword work. Somehow!
If only he could retrieve some shard of Requar's mind, only the barest piece; if only he could be woken up…
Despite what he'd told Ferrian, Arzath had continued to conduct Mind Sweeps on his brother; searching, searching for something, anything that was still intact in there…
He'd found only terrible emptiness.
But he would not give up.
A thought occurred to him, suddenly, as he regarded the Sword in his hand. The Swords can be bound in blood only to one wielder…
Bound in blood.
He and Requar were brothers…
It was unlikely, he thought, but he was desperate...
He walked across the room to the dresser and started opening drawers, rummaging through them until he found was he was looking for. An ornate letter opener. He dropped the Sword of Healing on the dresser, heedless of the items that rolled off onto the floor, and pulled the glove off his left hand.
It was awful to look upon: black and rotting away. Only parts of his hand still retained any feeling, but his index finger and a patch of skin underneath it remained pale and undiseased. He swiped the letter opener across it, watching the line of red well up with blood. Then he grabbed the Sword again and strode to the bed.
Removing his other glove, he lifted the Sword of Healing, gripped it with both hands and positioned it over the body. With a single, quick motion he cut through the bandages wrapped around Requar's chest. Then, trying not to look at the inky, festering wound beneath, placed the tip of the blade against the ruined skin. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
His own magic responded, slowly, burning up through him from the depths of his soul, sizzling through his veins. Summoning it was agonising, but he did not let go of it. When the magic reached his hands, it slowed further, but Arzath pushed it through them, through the foul, black morass. The trigon devoured most of it, swallowing his magic like an endless hungry pit, but he managed to force some past and into the Sword. He pressed his cut hand hard against the hilt, feeling pain flare up, but nothing else.
He concentrated harder, pouring everything he had into the Sword, searching for its magic, willing it to respond, then finally screaming at it in his mind for it to respond...
Still nothing.
The pain grew so intense that Arzath felt himself begin to lose consciousness, and then his hands simply released the Sword of their own accord, and he collapsed, dizzily onto the floor.
His hands twitched violently, sparks jumping off his fingers, but the Sword of Healing lay dead and cold, just like its master.
Arzath slumped against the bed, head hanging in despair. Blood leaked down his hand and dripped onto the soft, blue carpet.
Starshadow Flint sat alone at the long dining table, attempting to repair the grandfather clock. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to repair it, only that it was something to do and the silence was painful. He'd cleaned up the rest of the foyer as best he could, piling the broken and charred pieces of furniture near the hearth for kindling.
Mopping the blood off the floor had been the worst part, and something that he was trying hard to forget.
But since Ferrian had left, all the ice had started melting. It ran in literal rivers down the walls and staircases; it was like living inside a melting ice sculpture. Flint had given up trying to deal with all the water, the best he could do was open all the doors and windows and hope the castle leaked itself dry before the real winter arrived.
The only rooms left that remained reasonably dry were Requar's chamber, his study, and, mostly, the dining room and kitchen. Flint spent most of his time here beside the hearth; Arzath spent every day shut away in Requar's study or brooding around the halls...
Flint looked up as the door at the end of the room opened, and Arzath staggered through. He moved beside the table on the other side of Flint, hunched over and hugging himself, then slumped into an armchair beside the fire, shivering.
Flint shook his head. He guessed the sorcerer had been trying to use magic on Requar again, heedless of the fact that he was hastening his own death by doing so.
“Shot a couple of rabbits this mornin',” he said. He gestured at a pot beside the fire. “There's still some stew left, if you want it.”
Arzath ignored him.
Flint sighed. Arzath rarely ate, and that wasn't a good sign.
He stared gloomily at the disassembled clock spread out across the table in front of him. He wished that Ferrian hadn't left. Sure, the kid was dead too, but at least you could have a conversation with him…
He picked up one of the cogwheels and turned it around in his fingers. He missed the Bladeshifters, too, sometimes. He'd gotten on all right with most of them, except Nightwalker of course. He'd had some amusing chats with Bloodmoon Grim. But he hadn't been keen on their style of entertainment, and had never been comfortable in their presence. They had been companions, but they had never been friends, not like…
He closed his hand around the cogwheel, squeezing it so that its teeth bit into his palm.
It had taken him far too long to admit to himself that Requar had been a friend. Someone he could talk to, someone who would watch his back instead of stick a knife in it, someone who would forgive his mistakes…
Blinking away a sudden flood of emotion, Flint wiped his nose with the back of his hand, tossed the cogwheel back on the table and got up. He picked up his Justifier, strapped it onto his back and went out into the foyer.
He wasn't sure why he felt the need to carry his crossbow everywhere he went, but he had gotten used to its weight upon his back. It made him feel safer. He also thought half-heartedly that he might go hunting again.
His feet splashed as he walked. The foyer was practically a lake. He went out the open front doors and started wandering aimlessly along the bluff.
The sun had finally returned, but its warmth brought Flint no comfort.