Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (24 page)

Then he is across, and he spins back just as Fourth Son hits the planks with his heavy pounding run. With the merest snick of his claws, he finishes off the rope struts that are already cut through and frayed to the breaking point.

The bridge collapses under Fourth Son's considerable weight. Planks skitter and tumble and rope handholds drop away. He falls into the icy water
—
not that the water will drown him, but here the current runs narrow and strong as it pours itself over the cliff and spills and spins and sprays down.

Down he falls over the Lightfell Waterfall. His body strikes rocks, spins, bumps, tumbles down the ragged cliff face and finally is doused in the pounding roar at the base where the rush of water hammers into the fjordwaters and erupts as mist.

He goes under.

Fifth Son waits atop the ridge, scanning the waters.

There! A head bobs up, ice-white braid a snake upon the water. Arms stroke with stubborn resolve. Beaten, bloodied, and battered by the fall, Fourth Son is yet alive.

He expected this.

But he does not have to wait long for what he knows will come next.

Farther out, where the fjordwaters lie still, movement eddies. A slick back surfaces and vanishes, swift and silent as it circles in. There, to its left, another ripple stirs the surface of the water. And another.

Fourth Son strokes toward shore. He is not dead, of course, but he does not need to be dead. He only needs to be bleeding.

Waters part as a tail skims, flicks up, and slaps down. Too late Fourth Son realizes his danger. The waters swirl with sudden violence around him. He thrashes, goes under. Wet scales gleam, curving backs swirl, a ghastly head rears up, water streaming from the netlike hair which itself winds and coils like a living thing. Fourth Son emerges from the roiling waters clawing at his attackers. From his station at the height of the cliff, Fifth Son hears a howl of triumph as one of the merfolk shudders and sinks, while an inky black trail bubbles in its wake. The merfolk close in. Water boils. Fourth Son vanishes beneath the cold gleam of the fjordwaters. Like a churning mill, the eddies run round, slow into ripples, smooth over.

All is still again
—
except for the shattering roar of the falls. Blood stains the water and mingles with inky fluid torn out of the merman.

A back breaks the surface, slides in a graceful curve back into the depths, and turns toward shore. He waits. A rock shelf juts out along one side of the base of the waterfall. Suddenly, the waters part and the creature rears up to reveal its face: flat red eyes gleaming like banked fires, noseless but for dark slits over a nodelike swelling, and a mouth grinning with rows of glittering sharp teeth. As it rises, its hair and mane begin to writhe wildly, each strand with its own snapping mouth as if eels had affixed themselves to its head and neck. It has shoulder and arms, hands tipped with razor-sharp nails, and a ridged back that the light gilds to a silvery shine. The huge tail, longer than legs and far more powerful, heaves out of the water and slaps once, hard, echoing, on the rock. It makes no other sound.

It tosses two braids
—
one neatly shorn, one slightly bloody
—
onto the rocky shelf. The merfolk are as much beast as intelligent being
—
or so he has always believed. But they know the contest, and they know the rules. It would not do to underestimate them. An ambitious general can never have enough allies. With an awkward roll, arching backward, the merman spills off the shelf and hits the water hard. The huge splash melds with the waterfall's mist. The tail flicks up, as if in salute, slaps down again, and it is gone.

All lies still.

He climbs down the steps carved into the rock beside the falls. Down here, in the cavern hidden behind the spray, the priest hid his heart in a chest. He discovered it because he was patient; he waited and watched, and he listened to the priest murmur and sing about his hidden heart. And when at last one night the priest scurried from his nest cloaked with such shadows as he could grasp in the midsummer twilight, Fifth Son followed him.

Now he controls the priest's heart
—
and the priest's obedience.

He wonders, briefly, about Bloodheart's curse. By his own testimony the priest turned the curse away from himself. But where did it fall? Who will be cursed by the poison of Bloodheart's hatred and thwarted greed?

Hate is the worst poison of all because it blinds.

He reaches the shelf, pauses to scan the waters, but they lie unsullied by any evidence of the gruesome fight conducted a short while before. Water speaks in a short-lived voice, ever-changing, mortal by reason of its endless fluidity.

Yet even water wears away rock in time, so the WiseMothers say.

Out beyond the thrumming roar of the waterfall, the sun makes the water gleam until it shines like a painted surface. Is that a ripple of movement, or only a trick of the light?

He kneels to pick up the two braids. Deftly he binds them around his upper arms like armbands. Three brothers dead. He touches his own braid, making of it a talisman.

Only two left to kill. . .

. . . but they will be the wiliest and smartest and strongest of Bloodheart's sons
—
besides himself, of course. For them, he has laid the most dangerous trap of all
—
the one not even he may survive.

Rage snapped at a butterfly and the bright creature skimmed away, lost in the spinning air.

Alain stood alone by the filled-in grave. Only Rage and Sorrow and a single servant, standing at a safe distance, attended him. Everyone else had gone. His knees almost gave out and his head swam as he staggered to kneel beside the fresh grave. But when he touched the soil, he felt nothing but dirt. Ardent's spirit, with her body, had vanished. A bold robin had returned to hunt these rich fields and now looked him over from a safe distance, head cocked to one side.

"My lord?" The servant came forward tentatively.

He sighed and rose. Now the rest of them would go on, and leave her behind. "Where are the others?"

"My lord count has gone to begin preparations for leavetaking. The clerics have told him that tomorrow is a propitious day to undertake a long journey."

"The curse," Alain whispered, recalling his dream. "I must find out what he knows."

"I beg your pardon, my lord?"

"I must speak to Prince Sanglant." He whistled the hounds to him and went to seek out Prince Sanglant.

There was a commotion in the great yard that fronted the king's residence: two riders spoke urgently with the king's favored Eagle while a cleric stood to one side, listening intently. Princess Sapientia and a party of riders attired for a pleasure ride waited impatiently, but because Father Hugh lingered to hear the news, none of them dared ride out yet. The folk gathered to hear the news parted quickly to let Alain and the hounds through. But he had no sooner come up beside the Eagle when the doors into the king's residence swung open and King Henry strode out into the glare of the afternoon sun. Dressed for riding in a handsomely trimmed tunic, a light knee-length cloak clasped with an elaborate brooch at his right shoulder, and soft leather boots, he waved away the horse brought up for him and turned on the steward who stood white-faced and nervous behind him.

"What do you mean, with
no
attendants?"

"He was in a foul temper, Your Majesty, after he went to the stables, and he was not inclined to answer our questions. And he took the dogs . . . with him, and a spare mount."

"No one thought to ride after him?"

"I pray you, Eagle," said Alain, cutting in now that all others had fallen silent. "Do you know where I might find Prince , Sanglant?"

The Eagle looked at him strangely, but she inclined her head. "He rode out alone, my lord, in great haste, as if a madness convulsed him." She seemed about to say more, then did not.

"Two men rode after him, at a discreet distance," replied the steward who had by now gone red in the face from the heat of the king's anger.

The king grunted. "The southern road," he said furiously. "That is where you'll find him. It takes no scouts to tell me that." His gaze swept the forecourt, dismissing daughter and noble attendants until it came to rest on his favored Eagle. Her, he beckoned to. "Send a dozen riders to track him down. But discreetly, as you say. That would be best."

The Eagle retired graciously, but with haste, toward the stables. The cleric led the two dust-covered riders away as they questioned her about the accommodations that would be available—and Alain suddenly realized that they were not the king's riders but one man and one woman, each wearing the badge of a hawk. Father Hugh had a pleasant smile on his face, and he swung back beside Princess Sapientia and spoke to her in a low voice as they rode away.

Helmut Villam came out to stand beside the king, who lingered, slapping a dog leash trimmed with brass against his palm. Henry beckoned to Alain. "So, young Alain, you seek my son as well."

"So I do, Your Majesty. I saw him earlier this morning. He was agitated, and he spoke of some kind of curse, a trap laid by Bloodheart against any person who sought to kill him."

"Bloodheart! Yet he's dead and safely gone." But abruptly he looked hopeful. "Do you think Sanglant might have ridden north toward Gent?"

Any man would have been tempted to coax the king into a better humor, but Alain saw no point in lying. "Nay, Your Majesty. I think he rode after the Eagle, as you said before."

Henry's expression clouded.

"You should have offered her as a concubine to him," said Villam in the tone of a man who has seen the storm coming for hours and is disgusted because his companion refused to take shelter before the rains hit.

"I did! But I don't trust Wolfhere. She's his discipla. I'm sure it's a plot."

Villam grunted. "Perhaps. But Wolfhere seemed eager enough to remove her from court. On this matter I do not think that your wish and his are far apart."

"That may be," admitted the king in a grudging tone. "What am I to do? If I make Sapientia margrave of Eastfall, then she'll be out of the way, but if I cannot make Sanglant cooperate, see the wisdom of marrying onto the Aostan throne, then what do I do with him?"

"Do not despair yet. I have said before and I say it again: Encourage him in his suit. No lord or lady will follow him if he does not. . ." He hesitated.

"Speak your mind, Villam! If you do not, then who will?"

Villam's sigh had as much meaning as any hundred words.

"He is half a dog. That everyone whispers it doesn't make it less true. He must become a man again and, as the philosopher says, young people are at first likely to fall in love with one particular beautiful person and only later observe that the beauty exhibited in one body is one and the same as in any other."

Henry laughed. "How long did it take you to come to this conclusion, my good friend?"

Villam chuckled. "I am not given up on my study yet. Let the young man make his. He will become more tractable after. Right now he is like to a dog who has sniffed a bitch in heat— he is all madness for her and can't control himself."

Alain blushed furiously, and suddenly the king smiled, looking right at him. "Go on, son," he said genially. "I saw Tallia enter the chapel earlier. That's where you'll find her."

Alain said the correct polite leavetakings, and retreated. The chapel doors yawned invitingly. Inside, he would find Tallia. But the thought of her only made him blush the harder.

She reached the threshold before him, escorted by Lavastine, who smiled to see him coming. Tallia shrank away from Rage and Sorrow, and Alain took her aside, away from the hounds.

"Will you ride out?" he asked, eager to make her happy.

"Nay," she said faintly. She looked unwell, quite tired and drawn.

"Then we will sit quietly together."

"Alain." Lavastine nodded toward the king. "I have already made known my intention to leave tomorrow. It is long past time we return to Lavas."

Tallia had the look of a cornered deer.

"We'll rest this evening," said Alain. "You needn't attend the feast if you're unwell."

"Yes," she murmured so quietly that he could barely hear her.