“With your own hands. It is for their benefit.” He nodded toward Vancien and the others.
Zyreio growled even more. “You want them to see you suffer?”
“I want them to see that I do this willingly. I am their sacrifice.” With that, Kynell laid the cloth on the ground and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Fine!” Zyreio said again, not bothering to understand what he meant. He cracked his knuckles, let out a lusty roar, then charged.
Kynell held his ground, neither moving nor bracing himself against the attack. Zyreio hit him with the force of a thousand orbs, concentrated into one seismic shock wave that rocked Kynell back on his heels. Beyond this, his blow had no impact. Kynell regained his position and invited him to try again. This time, Zyreio took up the sword and charged, meaning to impale his victim upon the blade. Kynell stepped aside, allowing Zyreio’s momentum to carry him several feet beyond his intended target.
“I said no swords.”
The blade dropped to the ground with a thud, leaving Zyreio looking at his hands.
“You were always so arrogant,” Zyreio said, his voice low and trembling. “You always had to set the rules and make me play by them. Now you change them on me again. You are no brother. You are a tyrant! You are a calm, deceitful, over-bearing, simpering, petty king. Well, I am done with you!” his voice had reached a high screech now, causing the Chasmites to writhe even more, echoing his sentiment with their own small screeches. “I will be patient no longer! I will be obedient no longer! I will be kind no longer! I will no longer hold my hand, waiting for your go ahead, for your permission, for your condescension. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME!?”
“Here,” Kynell said, stepping toward him and taking him by the wrists. Then he placed Zyreio’s hands on either side of his neck and started to squeeze. “Do it this way.”
Zyreio, enraged at Kynell’s condescension but equally thirsty to triumph over him, squeezed with all his might. At first it seemed like nothing happened. Kynell looked at him but continued to breathe as normal. Then he sighed, looked to the darkening sky, and closed his eyes. A moment later, he started to kick and jerk like any human, and a moment after that, his final breath gurgled out of him. His body slumped to the ground.
__________
If the world took no notice when Vancien died, it went into convulsions when Kynell did. His still form had no sooner touched the soil of Rhyvelad than it groaned and shook its mantle, as if the weight of a dying god was more than it could bear. The three lunos, which were beginning to rise, shimmered as if losing focus. Then one of them began to fade around the circumference, giving the appearance that its outside edges were crumbling. This indeed seemed to be the case, for in the space of a heartbeat, the lunos faded and crumbled so drastically that it disappeared altogether. The heaving world now became a third darker.
The groundswell knocked the entire Obsidian army off its feet. It destroyed the table where Kynell had dined and went on to shake the foundations of the capitol city. Vancien, Amarian, Telenar, and the others were thrown to the ground. They lay there, with tears streaking their faces, listening to the city behind them shudder. Then as suddenly as it had come alive, the ground stilled, with only dust and a fallen army to prove that the quake had taken place.
Chiyo spoke first, his voice raw with dust and emotion. “We have to get out of here before that army gets up.”
“Let me die,” Vancien whimpered.
But Chiyo wasn’t listening. Neither was Amarian. Together, they were hauling everyone else to their feet and shoving them toward the trees. Bedge led the way, looking behind her to make sure all the humans were following, while the munkke-trophes guarded the rear of the small procession.
“His body!” Vancien gasped as they entered the trees. “We can’t just leave it to be butchered!”
As one, they looked back to the spot where Kynell’s body lay. Zyreio hadn’t touched it yet. He was just staring at it. Then, finally, he held up a hand and three Chasmites came forward. He was obviously ordering them to move it, but they obviously had no desire to do so. He gestured angrily and they vanished—presumably sent back to the Chasm for their disobedience. He brought forward three more, and these obeyed, if reluctantly. Jerking, twitching, and acting as if Kynell’s body was going to set them on fire, they leaned down and hauled him up to their shoulders. Then, with another gesture from Zyreio, they carried it back into the ranks until it disappeared from view.
Vancien and the others watched all of this, helpless. But their grief was interrupted by another great rumble. This time it was not Rhyvelad. Obsidian’s army had recovered and was on the move again, marching toward the broken city. And now there was no one to stop it.
__________
N’vonne had known the moment the Risen Ones left. It felt like a collective gasp, followed by shouts of confusion as those left behind realized what had happened. She was in the process of calming those nearest her when she heard another noise from beyond the firelight at the plateau’s edge. She panicked for a moment, thinking that the Obsidian army was already upon them. Then she remembered Chera’s assurance that these newcomers would be friendly. After that, who knew?
She hurried to the top of the long, narrow staircase with several other women who had heard the sound. There they waited impatiently, watching the distant glow of the host’s torch come nearer and nearer. Only when she could see the girl’s face, calm but worried, could she breathe easy herself. Thank Kynell she had warned the defenders to hold off their attack.
The girl reached the plateau, quickly handing her torch off to someone else so she could catch her breath. She was followed by the queen’s man, An-Sung.
“Lady N’vonne,” he bowed. Behind him, the men and women, looking exhausted and confused, spilled out onto the plateau.
N’vonne silenced him with a gesture. “Not yet, Captain.” She motioned hurriedly to the women around her, instructing them to conduct all the newcomers to the dining tent, then ordering a chair and a bottle of water for An-Sung. Only when these provisions had been made did she allow him to speak.
He sank down gratefully into the chair but only took a sip of the water. “We cannot rest long, Lady,” he began. “The Risen Ones have sent us down here. They fear the city will be taken soon. We must start planning our escape.”
N’vonne nodded. The news was horrible but not altogether unexpected. “If what has happened down here has happened above, the Risen Ones are gone already.”
An-Sung’s face fell. Clearly he had been trying to hold out some hope of success. “Already? Then we are all lost.”
“We’re not lost yet, Captain. We are safe here, remember?”
He shook his head but did not answer. “Where is the queen? I would like to see her.”
She told him where he could find her, then asked him to meet her at the dining tent in an hour’s time. He quickly consented and with great force of will, she waited until his back was turned before she directed her attention to the continuous stream of people emptying out on the steps. Telenar and Vancien must surely be among their number.
An hour later, N’vonne stood in front of the dining tent, swallowing her grief in great gulps and trying to maintain her composure. She had searched everywhere and asked everybody about Telenar. She had seen Bren, Chiyo’s young aide, but he had only seen Vancien, and that had been when he had ridden out on Thelámos for his night attack. Finally, she had found Corfe. With unmasked bitterness, she listened to him tell her that Telenar had chosen to stay with Vancien, that he thought it was better this way, and that he loved her. As she watched Corfe’s lips move, a voice inside her head began to scream,
“Why not you, you miserable coward! Why didn’t you stay behind and send my husband and son to me? Why did they have to die to save you?”
She said none of this and only listened to Corfe inanely repeat his message over and over. He was obviously grieved by what he had to say, but she did not care. All she could feel was a cold, growing ache as the absence of Telenar struck her again and again, like a slap in the face. Finally, she saw him bow low and excuse himself. She watched him go, glad of his absence.
She had wanted to be alone, to walk to the edge of the plateau, past the firelight, and cry out her loss to the distant roof of the cavern. But An-Sung would be waiting, so she collected herself with a trembling breath and went to meet him at the front of the dining tent. On her way, she saw Alisha reunited with Tertio. Ester and Trint were with them, clutching at Tertio’s pant legs to assure themselves that he was real. Alisha was weeping loudly on her husband’s shoulder. Knowing she could not bear their relief or their questions, she moved quickly past them.
An-Sung was waiting. Quinia was nowhere to be seen.
“She is with her sons,” he explained. “The king will come soon to address us. In the meantime, he felt that it would be more suitable for you, as head of the evacuation process, to calm everybody’s fears.”
The cold hatred she had felt before toward Corfe suddenly boiled over. “Is the house of Anisllyr so cowardly that it cannot lead its own people?”
He stiffened, and she immediately repented of her rash words, though her outrage remained. “Never mind. What do we do now?”
“My lady, I was under the impression that you would already know.”
He was right. There was no other option. They had to leave Haven and break open the exit tunnels that led under the Duvarian Range. And they had to do it quickly, before the Chasmites were at their doorstep. So she made the announcement. She gave all the appropriate orders to start the preparations. She pandered to three royal egos, themselves trying to maintain their authority but frightened to death of what was happening. And when, in the midst of this new evacuation, she felt the stone around her rumble and roll, she knew that all was truly over. Whatever they did now was no more than a farce, a game of chase where it was only a matter of time before Obsidian swallowed them. Yet as she saw the frightened faces of Trint, Ester, and the host of other children trapped underground, she knew she had to make the game last as long as she could. If the children could see the light of day just one more time, it might be worth it.
End of Book Two
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lindsey is the youngest of the family—the fifth child—and youngest children like to think they have the most sensitive souls. When one of her older brothers introduced her to the fantasy genre, she was hooked and has enjoyed it ever since. It was her love of a full, mysterious, majestic world that led her to get an MA in Medieval Welsh history and then a PhD in Ancient History.
During her academic career she has written and presented several scholarly papers, but her heart has always been with creative writing: C.S. Lewis is her literary hero because he had a gift of helping readers understand and enjoy the most complex ideas.
Her website, www.lindseyscholl.com, is dedicated to exploring truth in a colorful and sometimes humorous way. She is married to Dr. John Scholl, a fellow historian. Together they have twelve nieces and nephews.
You can find more information about
The Advocate Trilogy
at www.theadvocatetrilogy.com.