Chapter 43 Resurrection

Food here is easy to find. I eat other wild animals, stags sometimes, and boars, well they’re actually pigs originally imported from Earth that were turned loose by some farmer in the past. I eat things like that. Small animals like rabbits aren’t worth chasing. — Prince Eater, undocumented

Alec deposited Grace behind a group of Annie’s Rebels, and then looked back at Holy King Harrison convulsing painfully from the Holy Lightning. Remembering how Magi Soldiers at Reginald’s Ritual remained unharmed while holding Jon down with their wooden quarterstaffs, he grabbed a staff that had been abandoned on the ground and rushed to the king’s side. When he tried to use the staff as a lever to push the king away from the arc, Harrison screamed more loudly.

“Knock away the sword,” Gil yelled across the Courtyard as he held his visor open with one hand and propped himself up with the other. He climbed to his knees and called out again, “Don’t touch him. Don’t touch the sword. Knock it away.”

Alec smacked the sword with the end of the wooden staff and when it left the king’s hand, he pushed it and the bracelets farther away. The bracelets kept arcing but no longer menaced the king. Harrison stilled, and then moved his eyes toward Alec and flexed his fingers.

Alec stepped closer, knelt to examine how the king was trapped, and then called out, “I can’t move him alone. I need help here.”

“His back is broken,” Gil yelled back. “Look how he’s twisted.” Gil climbed the rest of his way to his feet and lurched over to Alec and Holy King Harrison. He clutched his head and shook it from side to side several times to clear his thoughts. When Alec moved to the king’s head and reached to lift Harrison by the shoulders, Gil pushed himself into a run to close the final distance between them. Shoving Alec backward he cried out, “The horns are still poisonous.”

“Oh, now you care if I die,” Alec sneered angrily. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and asked, “What do I do? I need to make him comfortable. Lay him down somehow.”

“Keep fighting,” Gil said. “Harry will be dead soon no matter what we do for him. How I treated you was wrong. I was wrong to try to make a deal with Ava. I will do everything I can to rectify that. In the meantime, we keep fighting for Jon and Seán.”

Before Alec could process Gil’s words, two Magi Soldiers raced toward them. Instinctively Alec hit one with the quarterstaff. As the Magi Soldier stumbled sideways, the second one advanced, followed by several more. The battle in the Courtyard erupted again with Annie’s Rebels and soldiers from both sides resuming the battle. Holdingfree Fighters ran onto the Courtyard to surround Alec and beat off the attack.

As the skirmish moved away from the downed king, one of the Holdingfree Fighters passed the base of his quarterstaff under the king’s legs and pushed the base of it into the ground. Understanding what his student intended, Alec took the quarterstaff he had used to move the sword from the king’s hand, walked to the opposite side of the king, and repeated the process so that the king’s legs no longer dangled, but were supported where the two quarterstaffs crossed. After quickly collecting more quarterstaffs, they repeated the process two more times. Gil stood for a moment watching them and then broke another quarterstaff into two pieces across his knee. He used the two sections to create a notch that would support Harrison’s head. The king’s breathing immediately eased.

Wrapping one arm around the student’s shoulder, Alec said, “Thank you for that. Run find a healer to help the king.” The student dashed off and Alec hurried to a better vantage point to use his crossbow.

Harrison tried to nod his head but found he couldn’t, so he blinked his eyes several times and whispered, “Allpr…”

“All the Princes,” Gil finished for him. “If I survive the Citadel roof, I’ll help them myself.”

The king moved his eyes away from Gil, blinked once slowly, and then moved his eyes back to Gil and blinked several times, before stopping and staring at him. Finally, his lips moved, and he spat out “Reggie…is…”

“Reggie is one of All the Princes?” Gil asked, trying to understand.

The king blinked several times and looked at Gil pleadingly.

Gil pressed the back of his hand against his mouth in disbelief, and then agreed, “Yes, Harry. The princes first.”

Holy King Harrison blinked several times and stilled.

“Harrison? Harry?” Gil asked. When the king didn’t answer, Gil set his hand on the king’s shoulder and said, “Forever.”

Leaving one hand on Harrison’s shoulder, Gil carefully navigated one of his knees onto a dry section of ground that had somehow remained unbloodied, and then bowed his head and prayed without regard to the battle swirling around him, “Lord, those who die still live in Your presence, their lives change but do not end. I pray for your mercy and grace to embrace Harrison, my cousin, and truest friend.”

One of Alec’s crossbow bolts soared past Gil’s head and into a Magi Soldier who was approaching with his sword ready to strike Gil as he prayed. Gil stood and swiftly dipped his head in acknowledgment at Alec before he checked all his weapons and slammed his visor in place. He ran across the Courtyard, pausing long enough to scoop up the boning knife from where Grace had dropped it, and then raced up the steps to the Tara Citadel and disappeared through the doors to the Great Hall.

Gil strode across the polished floor of the Great Hall, stood at the base of the majestic staircase, and gazed upward. He placed one foot on the first step and then brought it back. As he turned and headed for a second, worn stone stairway, his lips mouthed silently, “Forever Harry.”

He descended to the dungeons where Harry had said that he would find the princes who survived the Ritual unsuccessfully but were never released by the magi. All the Princes Harry had called them. It had been so long since a Chosen had gone through the entire process, that Gil was not certain how many mangled and deformed princes he would find. He suspected that there would only be Prince Reginald. If so, he hoped that he would be able to take Reggie to Braeford Estates where he could live safely and receive medical care.

Gil wasn’t certain how long Harrison had known about All the Princes, but he had itched to do something about them from the moment Harrison revealed their existence to him. Each time Gil attempted to learn more about them, mentioned them in conversation, or asked any question, Harrison shook his head hurriedly, waved both his hands in the air to stop Gil from speaking, and then spent the better part of an hour glancing over his shoulder every few minutes.

When Harrison had finally spoken, they were away from the castle on an extended hunting expedition. Harrison had woken him up before First Sun and the two of them walked a distance from the campsite and sat alone on a downed tree. The king had woven an implausible story about how often the Rituals that they witnessed were charades designed to placate the public. Often something happened during the process that made it necessary to snatch someone physically similar to the Chosen off the street. The look-alike was promised an opportunity to serve the royal family in such a way that his family would be cared for the rest of their lives, and then given the basic knowledge he would need to be convincing. The victim would never be told the actual truth of what was about to happen to him but discovered it for himself after he was shackled to the columns.

Unclaimeds, Gil snorted angrily. That charade had cost Ethan his life. And who knows how many other lives. If she’s alive when I’m finished here, I will kill her with my bare hands.

Gil understood that Ava Most Revered’s manipulation interfered not only with Harry’s decisions and actions but also with the king’s very sense of himself, his honor, and morality. What he didn’t understand is why Harrison would ignore something this base and reprehensible for years. He could have told Gil at any time. The true Harrison would never have allowed All the Princes to exist, would never have tolerated the cruelty and torture inherent in the process that changed them, nor the ruthless brutality to them afterward.

Now that he had Harrison’s permission, indeed his dying command, to help the disabled, imprisoned princes, Gil would do all he could for them, do everything humanly possible to make amends for what they had suffered at the teeth and hooves of those animals.

He took the worn steps slowly, noting the numerous scrapes along the stairwell’s stone walls and the frequent depressions made, he imagined, by the force of war hammers or maces. The stone would not yield like that if a wooden bludgeon had hit it. Near the bottom of the staircase, he paused to examine a hardened gurygum lump protruding around a blackened area that had long dark streaks running toward the ground. It took him a moment to realize that the stains had been blood and that the gurygum held human teeth and chunks of a broken jawbone.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As he stood there wondering about the poor soul who died in such a savage manner in such a dank, unforgiving place, the sound of snarling, chewing, and sobbing leaked up the stairwell. Readying his bludgeon, he moved forward with increased caution. When he reached the corridor at the bottom of the stairs and navigated the corner toward the sound, he was confronted with a row of barred cells, each containing from one to several creatures that were half human and half bull. The cells closest to him contained creatures that seemed like animals in both behavior and appearance – only the occasional grouping of things such as fingers, the turning of legs, or a hairless torso betrayed the creatures’ mixed heritage. In the rear of a crowded cell, a young male creature with blond hair, blue eyes, and the face of a child wept in misery as other creatures consumed him. Gil pulled his crossbow off his back, loaded it quickly, and sent a bolt through the heart of the child being devoured.

The creatures closest to the child ripped at it more frenziedly, while other creatures charged at Gil, making him jump farther back and closer to the wall. The creatures threw themselves on the bars and stretched their hands or hooves through the bars trying to grab him. As he watched, horrified, the creatures at the rear of the cells attacked the ones in the front who had focused their attention on him, dragging their fellow prisoners to the floor, and ripping off pieces of their cellmates to eat.

He kept his back to the wall and moved carefully along sideways until he got beyond the carnage. He passed a long row of empty cells and then went through an archway in a solid stone wall. Beyond it waited were two inhabitants more equally human and beast: the legs and hooves of a bull, the torso, shoulders, and arms of a man, and the head of a horned bull. They stood side by side, blocking his view of someone behind them.

A menacing rumble rose from the throat of one of the creatures. When Gil didn’t run or respond in any manner, the beast said, “What do you want? You don’t belong here.”

“I’m looking for the princes,” Gil responded, trying to hide his wariness, bewilderment, and wonder. “Holy King Harrison directed me to find the princes that didn’t respond well to the Ritual and were locked away. He believed that His Royal Highness Prince Reginald is one of the princes locked here. I am to take him to safety.”

Gil offered the explanation despite not comprehending what manner of creature he spoke with. He sized up the human-beasts and tried to determine his next step – should he kill them? free them? leave them alone?

“You’re looking for All the Princes,” The beast chuckled with a distinct growling laugh. “You’ve found them. Terra Saint Edmunds’ very own minotaurs.”

Gil blinked his eyes, darted a look over his shoulder thinking of the feral, vicious animals destroying each other in the cells, and then looked back at the minotaur talking with him.

“They also didn’t respond well,” the minotaur said. “Some were created from parts of princes. Others were failed experiments attempted before risking a prince. They’re always dangerous, but right now they are worse than ever since they are so hungry. No one has been down to feed us.”

“There’s a battle in the Courtyard. Pure mayhem. That’s probably kept them away,” Gil offered.

“We can hear it. Who’s fighting?”

“The Grays and Annie’s Rebels against the Magi Soldiers. The Magi Soldiers against the Grays, the Rebels, and the Kings Soldiers. The Kings Soldiers against Annie’s Rebels and the Magi Soldiers. Sometimes everyone against the Prince Eaters. And everyone except the magi fought side by side to defend Prince Seán. All of the Kings Guards died trying to protect Holy King Harrison. He sent me here as he was dying. I’m Gil Braeford.”

“Yes, you’re in our memory. I’m Minotaur Reggie. This is Minotaur Tiernan.”

“King Tiernan?” Gil asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yes,” Minotaur Tiernan replied. “He lived through the Insubstantiation Process but, inconveniently, I was created, too. The Ritual you see is the end of the process and is only genuine if the prince has successfully progressed through the rest of it. Otherwise, it becomes a sham designed to convince everyone that the prince died.”

“Uncle Gil?” A weak voice spoke from behind the two minotaurs. “Uncle Gil is that you?”

“Yes, Reggie, it’s me,” Gil reassured him. The minotaurs parted and on the stone ledge that served as a bed, lay Harrison’s eldest son. Handsome, athletic Prince Reginald was reduced to a frail, ashen shell of a human, his left eye gouged out, a portion of that side of him missing as if ripped out by the teeth of a carnivore, the lower part of his left arm gone, and his right leg bent in ways that it shouldn’t. “Reggie?”

“My father is dying?” Reggie asked as if he needed to focus on each word to be able to articulate it. “Who…who’s the Last Prince? The Old Hag was delighted to tell me that Ethan died. Was it Jon?”

“No, he went out to pick flowers for Alec….the archer Alec Mulrian”

“Yes, we remember,” Minotaur Reggie commented. “Jon loves him dearly.”

“Ava thought he was running, so she had him beaten and hauled before the king as a coward,” Gil explained, his eyes cast at the ground. “He very nearly died and is still physically weak, but he’s up there fighting right now.”

“Then it must be Seán,” Reggie said. “Gunnar —.”

“Gunnar is dead, too,” Gil said, too bluntly. When Reggie gasped, Gil plunged on, “There never will be another Last Prince. The people are rabidly against subjecting anyone else to the torture of the Ritual. A large portion of the magi and Ava’s soldiers are dead. Harrison and Ava are both dying. I think that Seán will be king. Jon wants to live quietly with Mulrian. They’re married.”

“We thought so when we talked with him,” Minotaur Reggie agreed. “We wanted to take him from that field to safety ourselves but Mulrian was coming to him. Later we went to the deplorable little attic in SnakeIn to check, and he seemed much better. Not fully recovered, but much better.”

Gil furrowed his brow at Minotaur Reggie’s confession, remembering Jon’s words about a bull, but instead inquired, he said, “I think that he still feels betrayed. Your father harmed him, too.”

“I wish I could kill Ava myself,” Reggie snapped bitterly. “She told me the last time she was here that she was done, that she would let the beasts down the corridor have me.”

“I’m here to take you to Braeford Estates,” Gil reassured him. “You can live safely there.”

“The key is probably hanging in the offices a little farther along. I doubt that Ava would have taken it into battle,” Minotaur Tiernan said. “When Novitiate Ainsley has access to it, she will let us out at night when no one else is around. If she’s there, she will help. Unfortunately, we fear that she may be hurt, or worse. Either way, don’t be thrown off by anything else you see there. Just get the key and come straight back. Remember, get the key, come straight back.”

He turned to find the office, but Reggie called him back by asking weakly, “Uncle Gil! How is Colleen? Did…did they kill her after she tried to free that poor man they killed instead of me?”

“She’s fine,” Gil said. He took a deep breath and turned fully back to face Prince Reginald. “Your son is fine, also. I married her so that she and your unborn baby would be safe. A marriage only in name, I swore an oath to Harry that it would be only in name until after the birth of your son.”

“She can’t be married to you. She’s married to me,” Reggie said softly. “The Commander of the Armed Watch in SnakeIn officiated. My father knew. We told him afterward.”

“Why did he insist on me marrying her?” Gil asked in confusion.

Reggie’s voice was sad and weak as he replied, “Ainsley only told him the truth a little while ago, and then she snuck my father down to see me. He looks so old and so unwell. I don’t think Ava found out that he was here, but she did learn that Ainsley had told him about me. That’s what got her in trouble. Colleen is at Braeford Estates?”

“Not anymore. I ordered her not to fight today, but she did anyway. The last I saw her, she was safe with Prince Jon and Prince Seán. I don’t know if she will be at Braeford Estates when we get there or not. If she isn’t we’ll search for her and bring her home. I will be happy to petition King Seán so that my marriage to her is dissolved and yours can recommence.”

“Colleen is safe,” Reggie muttered to himself. “I’ve worried for so long. But she’s safe.”

Gil tossed another nervous look at the carnage happening in the other cells. Seeing his apprehension, Minotaur Reggie said, “The most merciful thing is to kill them all. They have only a primal existence — they will rampage across the city killing and eating everyone in sight. Give me your crossbow and I’ll do it.”

“How do I know you won’t shoot me?” Gil asked.

Minotaur Reggie guffawed. “You don’t, Uncle Gil.”

Gil heard the shrieks of the beasts being consumed, as he walked to the office. He hoped that Minotaur Reggie would act quickly to put them out of their misery. He hoped that he could live with the memory of what happened to the child-animal and he chastised himself for not being able to do more.

The office door was wide open, so he stood in the doorway and surveyed the room. A large desk with an upholstered chair was set directly across from the door. A simple chair perched in front of it, and two more were lined up along the wall. There was a closed door beyond the desk and a row of pegs near it that held a novitiate’s cape, a bag, and a large ring holding several keys. He rummaged through the desk drawers and found no other sets of keys, so he retrieved the ones from the peg. The ring was too large to shove into any of his pockets, so he gripped the keys in the palm of his hand, trying to keep them from jingling a warning to anyone who might be nearby. He was almost to the corridor when he heard a soft voice call out, “Help me. Please. Don’t leave me to die. Please. Help me.”

Gil stepped into the corridor and walked two steps intending to ignore the plea, but the thought of Harrison begging him to help All the Princes forced him to turn around. He readied his bludgeon, crept across the office, wiped his lips nervously, and then slowly moved the handle on the door beside the desk.

Directly across from the entryway were rows of shelves displaying sealed jars of body parts….ears, fingers, portions of heads…none that he recognized…and the lower half of a chewed left arm that he was certain belonged to Prince Reginald. Not all of the body parts were human, but all of them floated in a clear liquid he imagined was meant to preserve them. To his right were a floor-to-ceiling wall of metal, lights, knobs, dials, and a shelf with trays of buttons with the Earth English alphabet on them.

To the left were glass cages.

In one cage a naked, young woman sat collapsed on the floor, her body bloated, her feet stretched out haphazardly, her arms sprawled from her sides and her head laid back against a corner of the glass. Her jaw drooped open and foamy blood had leaked from the corners. An unrecognizable, hide-covered lump covered the floor in the center cage. In the final glass cage, a female minotaur stared at him with both of her hands pressed against the glass.

“Help me,” the petite female minotaur begged in a weak voice. “Please don’t leave me here to die, like the rest of me.”

Gil waved his hand at the dead bodies in the other cages and said dumbly, “That’s the rest of you?”

“Ainsley,” the female minotaur replied. “Ava Most Revered said that since she couldn’t follow orders, she would honor her by including her in the experiments. We were alive for a couple of days but the Most Revered never came back for us. Now Ainsley has died, and I’m alone and dying, too.”

Gil looked around the room again, sighed toward the ceiling, and then walked over to the glass cage. He took the time to inspect it carefully for any risks or traps before he reached out and flipped the bolt. The door swung open, and Minotaur Ainsley fell forward. He caught her before she could hit the floor, swung her into his arms, and headed down the hall to Reggie and the other two minotaurs.

©2022 Vera S. Scott