Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi) (22 page)

Blinded by the smoke, stumbling and staggering, we rounded a last corner and burst out into the Great Hall of the house. Ahead of us, people fled through open double doors into the refuge of a wet and rainy night. I stopped to catch my breath, panting, lungs burning from both the smoke and the exertion. The girl in the bedgown ran for the door without a backward glance. Beside me, Cullin leaned against the balustrade of a marble staircase, chest heaving. Kerri lay limply over his shoulder, arms and hair dangling. Her eyes were closed and she was pale as chalk.

“Is she alive?” I asked.

“She’s breathing,” Cullin gasped. “Let’s get out of here.”

I nearly tripped over something soft as I began to run. I looked down to see a young boy, perhaps four or five years old, clinging mutely to the body of a woman. She had obviously fallen or been pushed down the stairs, and from the ugly, unnatural twist to her head, had broken her neck. The boy’s black eyes were wide and staring in shock and terror above the round, childish cheeks. There was no colour in his face in stark contrast to his midnight hair. He winced away from my boot, but otherwise didn’t move.

Maeduni. Even shocked immobile as he was, the air around him shimmered with the dark aura of latent magic. A hatchling sorcerer. Perhaps he would grow to be as powerful as the General, but he was yet only a child for all that, and frozen with fear. Left here, he would surely die, either trampled by people fleeing the upper levels in panic, or in the flames.

“Hellas-birthing,” I muttered. He was only a year or so older than Keylan back at the Clanhold. I couldn’t leave him here to die. I swore again, then sheathed the sword and bent to scoop the child off the stairs. “It’s all right, laddie,” I said. “You’ll be all right. Come with me now.” Small, chubby arms tightened convulsively around my neck and he burrowed his face against my throat, his small body trembling violently. Cullin gave me a wry grin and we ran for the door.

Nothing,
nothing
, will ever taste as good as that sweet, wet, fresh air I drew down into lungs burned raw from the smoke in the house. And nothing will ever again feel as good as the cool rain on my face as we ran down the steps into the courtyard. Behind us, every window in the house glowed with the  demented glare of the fire. Even as I turned to look, a section of roof near the centre collapsed, sending gouts of sparks exploding high into the air like lost stars.

“The stables,” Cullin called. “We’ll need Kerri’s mare.”

I nodded. It seemed unlikely that anyone would try to stop us. I swept the uncomfortable helmet from my head and discarded it as I ran, still holding the child.

“You there! Tyr! Stop!”

I swung around to see the Maeduni general thrusting through the milling knots of people in the courtyard. The child in my arms gasped aloud and held out his arms. “Papa!” he whimpered.

Illuminated by the harsh, unholy glare of the burning house, the General was smudged and soot-blackened, his clothing singed and torn. He stopped suddenly when he saw the child in my arms, his face stark white under the dirt.

“Horbad,” he cried. Slowly, he stiffened and looked at me. For that moment as our eyes met, the darkness around him faded and he looked no different from any other father concerned about the safety of the child he loved. In that brief instant, there was almost a sense of kinship between us.

“You have my son,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying above the uproar behind him.

“I took him out because he was alone,” I said. “I couldna let him die in there.”

“He shares my magic. He will be powerful when he’s a man.”

“I know that, but he’s only a child now.”

“What will you do with him?”

“I intend to give him back to you.”

The General did not move, nor did his steady gaze waver. “He will be your enemy when he’s grown.”

“I knew that when I picked him up.” I brushed the wet, dark hair back from the child’s forehead, thinking briefly again of Keylan. The child rested quietly, exhausted but content, in my arms, his head laid trustingly against my shoulder. He smiled at me before turning his gaze back to his father. “Nevertheless, General,” I said softly, “I dinna make war on children.”

He took a deep breath. “I owe you a life then,” he said. He nodded toward Cullin who still held Kerri over his shoulder. “Hers. I give you the woman’s life in exchange for my son’s. Take her and go. No one will try to stop you. Give me my son.”

I laughed. “You’ll pardon me if I don’t quite trust you, General,” I said. “You’ll find the boy safe at the house of Grandal the Merchant.” It was the name etched into the stone above the gate where we had seen him in the city.

He looked at the child, then at me. “Oddly enough, I trust you,” he said. “I believe you’re a man who keeps his word. You and I will meet again, Tyr.”

“Aye, we will, General Hakkar,” I agreed. “I have a name. I’m called Kian dav Leydon ti’Cullin. You would do well to remember it.”

“I will remember,” he said. His voice grew hoarse. “You’ve set me back half a lifetime, Kian dav Leydon ti’Cullin. And you very nearly killed me back there. By breaking the transfer spell, you’ve forced me to drain most of my energy just to recover. To survive the breaking. Half a lifetime.” His voice rose. “All that time wasted. Wasted! How could an ignorant barbarian have so much magic and I not know it?”

I laughed. “I’ve been called a barbarian by better than you, General,” I said. “And you’re wrong. I have no magic. Just a sword.”

“You should have killed me then.”

“Aye, mayhap I should. But you live yet. And so does your son.”

“The next time we meet, we owe each other nothing.”

“Only a death, General. Yours—or mine.”

***

There was no need to wake anyone at the merchant’s house to leave the boy there. The whole household, from master down to the lowliest scullery boy, was awake and staring at the spectacle of the conflagration on the bluff above. I placed the child safely into the arms of the housekeeper, telling her the boy’s father would come for him soon, and Cullin and I hurried back out into the street.

I carried Kerri while Cullin led the mare back through the crowded streets . An odd, carnival flavour pervaded the city as the citizens of Frendor watched its lord’s house burn. Around us, hawkers cried sweetmeats, ale and wine, and the sound of voices raised in excited chatter and laughter filled the air. No one paid any attention to Cullin and me.

We found the stablemaster on the street outside his establishment and reclaimed our horses. As we mounted to ride out of the city, Cullin cast a glance back over his shoulder at the fire, blazing like a beacon on the hill.

“You may have made a mistake letting that hatchling sorcerer live,” he said.

I settled Kerri securely against me on the saddle and met his gaze. “Could you have killed him?” I asked.

He smiled ruefully and shook his head. “Of course not. But that only proves we’re both of us fools.” He kicked the bay stallion to a canter and we turned our backs on the city of Frendor and the fiercely burning manse of its lord.

It was two hours past dawn when we found a spot in the forest to make camp. Kerri breathed deeply and regularly, and her heartbeat was strong but slow. She had not regained consciousness. I laid her on her bedroll and turned to Cullin who was tending the horses.

“Let me see your hands,” I said.

“They’re all right,” he replied. “See to Kerri first.”

He was going to be stubborn and noble about this. Well, I could be just as stubborn. I had already had a head start in obstinacy when I began learning from him, the master of intractability himself. “Cullin, your hands. Now.”

He gave me an exasperated look, but he held out both hands. The blisters had broken and his palms were raw and bleeding, weeping clear fluid. The skin of his right wrist was red and blistered. It looked intensely painful. I took his hands in mine and drew in a deep breath. As I stared at his hands, healthy new skin began to appear over the worst areas. I had healed wounds for him before, and I knew his patterns now. Moments later when I let out the breath in an explosive gasp, his hands and wrist were pink with newly healed skin, tender still, but whole. He stared at them and shook his head.

“It still takes a lot of getting used to,” he muttered. “Better see to Kerri while I set up camp.”

I knelt by Kerri and examined her carefully, but found no sign of injury save a small bruise along her jaw and a split lip. Nothing to explain the deep unconsciousness. I placed my hands to either side of her head, gently cupping her temples between my palms, fingers spread in the silken softness of her hair. I wondered if I could do this. An obvious injury, such as Cullin’s hands, was not difficult to heal. All I had to do was concentrate on visualizing it whole and healthy. It took a lot of energy, but it was not particularly arduous. But what was I to do when I detected no injury? How could I see something as whole and healthy when I didn’t know what was wrong? The General had given me her life, but it might be a life spent in a trance.

I stared at her blank, pale face for a long time. Then suddenly, bright images swirled and darted through my mind. I knew them this time for what they were: Kerri’s memories. I thrust myself deep into them, searching through them for some indication of what held her in the unnatural sleep. I walked through her memories as one would walk through a garden, the images like bright flowers or deep, cool shadows in green shade. I recognized her father in some of them, Cullin and myself in others. Surface things only. I had to go farther into her memories if I could.

I pushed deeper...

...And met blackness. The same hard, dark armour that surrounded the General. It surged outward, seized me and tried to drown me too in its darkness. I fought it, but it was like wrestling with the night itself. Smothering, hungry, clutching, it was all around me. I could not find anything to hold onto. It slipped through my fingers like quicksilver, only to wind tendrils of itself around my throat. I tore away wisps of it, but could not loosen its hold, neither on me, nor on Kerri. Choking and gagging on the foul stuff filling my nose and mouth, I struggled to breathe. I could not cry out, could not break away from the bond with Kerri that lashed me to the dark and formless enemy.

Then I thought I heard Kerri’s voice, desperately faint, hopelessly distant. “The sword,” she cried the sound frail as a whisper on the wind. “Kian, the sword...”

But I could not tear my hands from her head to reach for the hilt at my left shoulder. My strength ebbed quickly. I would not be able to fight much longer. In despair, I felt the sense of triumph throbbing and pulsing through the black, formless entity invading Kerri.

Then, in a flash of lucid understanding, I knew what I had to do. As the last of my strength drained into the darkness, I formed an image of the sword. I saw its plain, leather-bound hilt fitted comfortably into my hands, saw the polished, graceful blade with its glittering runes spilling down the centre. I made it glow with that radiant brilliance it had first showed me on the gravel strand of the small burn. I saw the light in a burst of colour raying out to slice the darkness to shreds and tatters.

Terror and rage suffused me. Not mine. Not Kerri’s. It emanated from the dark mist itself. In one last burst of passionate fury, the mist blew apart, fragments raining like splinters of rock around me. Then even the shreds were gone, and Kerri’s eyes opened to stare wonderingly into mine.

“Kian?” she asked, puzzled.

I fell back, exhausted and drained. It startled me badly to see it was dark, and the moon rode among the dissipating clouds in the night sky. Cullin knelt on the other side of Kerri’s bedroll, facing me, worry and relief warring for dominance on his face. Dizzy and weak, I put my hand to my forehead, unable to believe I had spent the whole day battling that black horror the General had set so deep into Kerri’s mind.

“Are you all right?” I asked Kerri, my voice rusty and hoarse.

She nodded. “Yes,” she said faintly. “Just very tired. What happened?”

I hadn’t the strength to reply. “Later,” I mumbled.

“I was afraid to touch you,” Cullin said, his voice sounding as rough-edged as mine. “I thought you were both going to die on me, but I was afraid to touch you. Are you all right,
ti’rhonai
?”

He held out one hand. I reached across Kerri, caught it in both of mine. For a moment, we simply looked at each other, both of us grinning like idiots.

“I need sleep,” I muttered, and crawled toward the pack I had left beside a thatch of willow scrub. I don’t even remember wrapping my plaid around me before I was asleep.

I dreamed
of the low hill crowned by the dance of stones. Again, I stood at the foot of the hill, my sword on my back, while the Watcher, still and erect as one of the menhirs, regarded me calmly from above. An odd sensation of peace permeated the eerie light. There was no disturbance to indicate the approaching presence of the opponent I expected to step forth at any moment from a darkness of his own making. But the pearlescent light remained tranquil and serene, and at last I knew he would not come this time.

I turned to the Watcher and set my foot to the gentle slope of the hill. The Watcher remained unmoving as, one slow step after another, I climbed the hill. It took far longer than I thought it would to reach the outer ring of capped menhirs, and when I looked behind me at the way I had come, it looked a dizzying height above the small, circular patch of grass at the bottom. My breath caught in my throat and I turned quickly back to the Watcher. But when I tried to step between two of the standing stones, I found I could not. I detected no physical restriction, yet something held me back, something intangible as air, but impenetrable for all that.