Kingsteel (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  And watch him die before sundown.

  The clerics nodded.

  “I’ll see if I can find you more herbs,” Briel promised. As he stepped back, he nearly collided with several more clerics who were hauling out straw pallets piled with corpses.

  Gods, if Silwren were here—

  “If Silwren were here, she could have healed these people herself,” said a voice behind him.

  Briel turned. “Are you reading my mind, Locke?”

  The burly, smartly armored Human with unruly red hair blinked in surprise. The Isle Knight moved one hand to the long dragonbone hilt of the curved sword hanging at his side. Briel wondered if Rowen was about to attack them. Then he realized what the gesture really meant.

  Silwren was still with them, in a sense. Somehow, she’d fed herself into that sword. She awakened whatever ancient magic had been buried there, allowing Rowen to cut clean through Fadarah’s armor and win the battle.

  Too bad that sword can’t heal as well as it burns.

  Before Rowen could answer, Briel said, “I sent your damn messages, by the way. Atheion, Lyos, Sorocco, Ivairia, Stillhammer, Quesh, and the Lotus Isles. I even thought about sending a copy to Dhargoth! Honestly, though, I’ll be surprised if even half of the birds make it there.”

  Rowen frowned. “You sent birds? I told you to send messengers.”

  “Have you seen what happened to my army, Knight? I can’t spare the men. You’re lucky I risked the damn birds.”

  “How will they even know their way? I thought your people hadn’t communicated with the other kingdoms for centuries!”

  “We haven’t, but these are wytch-ravens. The Dragonkin bred them long ago. Each chick is born knowing all the routes of its brood. Trust me, Knight, our ravens know the way. But that won’t help if a predator or some hungry fool with a bow shoots them down.”

  “Thank you,” Rowen said finally. “The people need to be warned.”

  “That a Dragonkin named Chorlga has declared war on Ruun?” Briel laughed. “Even if the birds arrive, whoever reads the messages will think it’s a joke.”

  “Some will. Some won’t.”

  Briel shrugged. “I see you found your armor.” As he spoke, he scowled at the two Sylvan warriors behind Rowen, assigned as much to act as Rowen’s handlers as his bodyguards.

  “In the king’s wine cellar,” Rowen answered.

  Briel almost laughed but stopped when the gesture hurt the stitches in his cheek. “You picked a fine time to grow thirsty.”

  “I was fetching casks for your healers.” Rowen looked around. When next he spoke, Briel strained to hear him over the surrounding cries. “Haven’t your clerics ever tended the wounded before?”

  “Not like this. The clerics we had at Que’ahl had plenty of experience, but the Olgrym killed most of them. We have enough healing lore to fill ten libraries, but nobody thought to stockpile herbs and medicines.”

  “Remind me to have a word with whoever was in charge of this city’s defenses.”

  “Let’s see. That would either be General Seravin, who will likely die within the hour, or the king and his son—one of whom is mad, the other burned to death by—” He stopped himself from speaking Silwren’s name. “By your friend.”

  Rowen gave him a cold look. “I learned a few things on the Isles. Enough to clean and sew wounds, at least. Since there doesn’t seem to be anybody to kill at the moment, at least let me do what I can to help here.”

  Briel hesitated then nodded. “I can’t do much with a broken arm, but I’ll join you. Maybe we can even do some good. But take that pretty armor off first, unless you want to see it soaked in blood.”

  By sundown, Briel felt as though he had spent the entire day fighting for his life. He glanced over at Rowen, saw the Human’s face awash with sweat and splattered with Sylvan blood, and wondered if the man felt the same. With only one arm, Briel could not sew wounds, but he could still bring water and blankets to the wounded. Though he had never been one to whisper words of comfort, his presence alone seemed to hearten them. After a few hours, the cries seemed not so loud.

  Is that because we made a difference or just because the worst ones died?

  Rowen was tending a young woman with a savage cut above her breast, probably from an Olgish axe. Unlike the other wounded in the crowded temple, this woman gritted her teeth and said nothing. Her plain attire and the feathers in her hair told Briel that she was a Wyldkin. As he drew nearer, he heard Rowen whispering to her in Sylvan.

  I forgot he could do that. Some spell wrought by one of his Dragonkin friends had taught him their language.

  Rowen had rolled up his sleeves, but blood covered him up to the elbow. Briel wondered how many battles the young Human had seen. Rowen had been wounded, but all of those wounds seemed to have vanished when Knightswrath came to life. Briel shuddered, remembering violet fire pouring from the blade, engulfing Rowen’s body. Rowen had screamed then—though in pain or panic, Briel did not know. Since then, though, Rowen had worn the sword without any ill effect. He had even drawn it, holding it in the sun after Fadarah fell, without any flames appearing along the blade.

  Maybe the damn sword’s gone to sleep again. Silwren had poured her power, her very life, into Knightswrath. He wondered again if it could heal, too.

  Briel studied Rowen’s expression—if the sword could heal, Rowen had no idea how to use it. In fact, Rowen had seemed in a trance when he’d fought Fadarah. For all they knew, Rowen was nothing more than the pawn of a living piece of steel. And that made him as dangerous as that Dragonkin, Chorlga. They should kill him—or at least take the sword.

  But what if Chorlga comes back? What if Fadarah’s not really dead?

  Briel considered the second matter first. He’d seen Rowen use a burning sword to cut a swath in Fadarah’s body almost the length of a man’s arm. Fadarah’s disciples had carried him off, probably to try and heal him, but the Shel’ai were not Dragonkin. Their magic was impressive but not limitless. If Fadarah had not died right away, he would soon enough.

  “Let’s hope so.” Rowen straightened, covered the Wyldkin woman with a blanket, said goodbye in Sylvan, and started to walk away.

  Briel followed. The two guards assigned to watch over Rowen fell in behind them. Briel ordered them to wait. Racing after Rowen, he caught him by the arm and jerked him to a halt.

  “You can read minds! That sword—”

  Rowen twisted free with a look so icy that Briel drew back a step and reached for his sword, glad he’d learned to fight with his left as well as his right hand.

  “I… don’t know,” Rowen said at last. “I can’t control it. It just happens.” He rubbed his eyes—still green eyes, Briel noted.

  Green, not purple. He’s still Human. For now.

  Rowen shook his head, and Briel wondered if he’d just heard his thoughts again. “The sword did something to me when… when it burned me. It didn’t make me into a Shel’ai. Not quite. That much is obvious. But Knightswrath’s part of me now.” He glanced down at the sword, and Briel could not tell whether his expression was longing or revulsion. “I can feel Silwren in there, sometimes. Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t. But I have to be careful—almost the way Silwren had to be careful.” He smiled weakly. “She was always afraid to use the power because she said it would overwhelm her. I think I understand now.”

  Briel stared at him. Gods, he’s gone as mad as the king, he thought before he could stop himself. “What are you going to do?”

  Rowen straightened. “I have to finish this. I don’t think Fadarah poses any harm now, but I have to hunt down the others—especially Shade. And I have to find that Dragonkin, the one called Chorlga. I have to kill him, if I can. And I have to do it all before… whatever this is… burns me from the inside out.” He looked up sh
arply.

  Briel gasped. For a moment, he thought the pupils of Rowen’s eyes had gone white, though he convinced himself it was just a trick of light from the surrounding luminstones.

  “Can I count on your help?” Rowen asked.

  Briel rested his good hand on the hilt of his sword. “What do you need?”

  “I need you to let me leave. I need you to let me take Knightswrath and go after Chorlga.” He hesitated. “And if I have to fight the Dhargots along the way, I need you to honor the Oath of Kin and give me an army.”

  Briel almost laughed, despite the stitches in his cheek. “You want to borrow my army, Locke? There it is.” He pointed to the sea of injured bodies beyond them. “Even if I didn’t have to protect Sylvos—which I do—I’d be lucky if I could muster two hundred swords right now. Last I heard, the Dhargots have tens of thousands. If it’s help you need, go and ask the Isle Knights.”

  Rowen smirked. “Half the Isle Knights probably want me dead. And the other half couldn’t care less what the Dhargots do to the Free Cities… or the Wytchforest, for that matter.”

  Briel caught his meaning. “If the Dhargots come here, we’ll fight them as best we can. But I don’t think they will. Neither do you.”

  “No,” Rowen admitted. “I think they’ll stick to the Free Cities for now. I think they’ll pillage two thirds of the continent before the Isle Knights get involved. And by then, it’ll be too late. And Chorlga… wherever he is, whatever he is… will sit back and laugh.” He paused. “I think I came here for nothing.”

  The Isle Knight stood, exhausted and blood smeared, then went to reclaim his armor. Briel watched him go, glad that Rowen had not pressed him for an answer. After all, he was probably right.

  I should let him leave, then. And he can take that damn sword with him.

  But Sylvos was not yet safe. Doomsayer was still out there. Briel imagined the howls of protest when the people heard he’d sent away their greatest ally. He wondered if those would match the cries of protest if he let Rowen stay: a Human, an Isle Knight at that, tarnished by magic.

  Briel thought back to Fâyu Jinn’s tomb. Just days ago, King Loslandril and the late Prince Quivalen had made a bargain with Chorlga and tried to kill Silwren in exchange for the Dragonkin sparing the city. Silwren had been stabbed. Quivalen, mad, had struck her with some kind of wicked magical blade. She’d fallen, yet something, maybe Fâyu Jinn’s ghost, had saved her.

  The silent, towering figure in ancient armor had appeared out of nowhere to heal her, then vanished. It had all happened so quickly. Even at the time, Briel had scarcely believed his own eyes. Then the madness had increased tenfold.

  Briel shuddered, thinking again of Rowen stumbling down the Path of Crowns after Silwren threw herself onto Knightswrath, after they watched her melt into the blade and set it on fire. Ragged, burning, he’d reminded Briel of the stories about the Nightmare. Was that really the man he was supposed to trust?

  Apparently, Fâyu Jinn—or his ghost, at least—does.

  Briel had gone back later and opened Fâyu Jinn’s sarcophagus, eager but fearful to see what was inside. He’d found the armor that had appeared to have temporarily reanimated itself: the armor of an ancient Knight of the Lotus. But it was smaller, just the size of an average man. With trembling hands, Briel had removed the Shao facemask, expecting to find a thousand-year-old skeleton staring back at him—or perhaps the open, laughing eyes of Fâyu Jinn himself. But the armor was empty.

  Does that mean that on top of everything else, we have the ghost of some ancient Human hero wandering around our city?

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Last HousEcarl

  Jalist did not know whether to rejoice or curse the fact that the storms had finally stopped. He was tired of running through rain and mud, cold and wretched, as he fled his pursuers. However, his pursuers did not sleep or rest, and he was alive only because the mud slowed them down considerably. But now, the dark clouds had cleared, and the sun shone through the haze.

  Jalist stopped to catch his breath. Ignoring the aching in his legs, he glanced southeast. Sure enough, the creatures, though built more for murder than pursuit, still followed him. Surging over a hill less than a half mile away, the broad glistening column resembled hundreds of footmen in full armor, their weapons perpetually drawn. Jalist forced himself to move.

  For the better part of a week, thunderheads had raged over Stillhammer, unleashing deluge after deluge on the ravaged land. There was something unnatural about the storms, though Jalist had no notion whether they were evidence of the gods mourning the abject destruction of the Dwarrish homeland or just some byproduct of whatever foul magic had unleashed the Jolym.

  He had no time to consider this. For the unliving warriors—voiceless and wrought entirely of metal—had also proved to be eerily skilled trackers. Jalist had thought first to lose them by circling around the mountain, counting on the rain to wash away his tracks. But the Jolym had not been fooled. Once, trusting that he was safe, he’d lain down to risk a few much-needed hours of sleep.

  His instincts awakened him in the middle of the night to find a Jol hovering over him, blades welded to its fists. Like the one he’d fought days before, it had a sardonic grin carved into its face, as though it were wearing a dancer’s mask wrought of iron. Jalist had already learned that the things were hollow—no mind to reason with, no flesh to injure. But he’d also discovered that they could be killed, if that was the word for it, by stabbing them through their dark, empty eyes.

  Jalist had managed to do so to the one that had awakened him, but before it fell in a wrenching crash of metal, the Jol’s hands—a hook and a hatchet—had cut him in three places. Jalist had managed to clean and bandage the wounds before the rest of the host appeared.

  Since then, the Jolym had chased him over hills and plain, through villages that were home now to nothing but rotting corpses. Jalist did his best to avoid both looking at and smelling the remains of his kin. Still, from time to time, he wept.

  “I should try to get to Tarator again.” Jalist touched his weapons. Though he preferred axes and maces, which allowed him to make best use of his strength, such weapons were useless against Jolym.

  Maybe that’s why the Housecarls never stood a chance.

  He’d armed himself with a brace of stilettos, a spear, and a shortsword he’d found in an abandoned house. The shortsword, probably a dead man’s family heirloom, looked as though it had been forged for a woman. While Dwarrish blades were usually wide and heavy, this one was light and thin, practically a rapier, and it had already saved his life once.

  Based on the destruction he’d seen, Jalist was certain now that the halls of Tarator had not been spared. Still, he longed to see the Dwarrish capital for himself, to see if any others had survived. Dwarrish tradition would not have permitted King Fedwyr to flee the enemy, so Jalist had no doubt that the old monarch lay among the fallen. Still, a few of the king’s Housecarls might have been elsewhere when Stillhammer was invaded. Perhaps they’d even fled Tarator altogether, driven not to save their own skins but to protect someone else.

  “Leander…”

  The thought of the prince quickened Jalist’s blood, bringing fresh tears to his eyes. He had yet to encounter even a single Dwarrish survivor. But the way to Tarator had been blocked by countless Jolym, hinting that they had already been there. Surely, his former lover could not have survived such a thorough slaughter.

  Jalist took a drink from his canteen, examined his wounds, and turned southeast again. The Jolym were gaining. Using his spear as a walking stick, he pressed on.

  By sundown, both the Stillhammer Mountains and the Red Steppes were miles behind him. The Simurgh Plains stretched before him, spotted with snow. Tugging at a cloak he’d taken off a corpse days earlier, Jalist marveled that the land could look so different. Within weeks, blizza
rds would replace the thunderstorms that had washed over Stillhammer. Jalist imagined snow falling on those quiet villages, burying the dead. He shuddered.

  I have to keep going. There are villages a ways north of here. I’ll get a horse and warn whoever else is there to run like hell. Maybe somebody can even get a message to Lyos or the Lotus Isles. But would anyone believe it? Jalist laughed, and a fresh rumbling in his stomach accompanied the sound.

  Jolym had not been seen since the Shattering War. People in these parts had already suffered the Throng, the Nightmare, and the Dhargots. Would they believe Jalist’s warning or wait until they saw the Jolym for themselves?

  “They can damn well believe whatever they want. If they’re foolish enough to stay behind, maybe they’ll make it easier for me to get away.” He remembered an old joke he’d heard as a child: “One does not have to be fast enough to outrun a greatwolf, just everyone else the greatwolf is chasing.” He did not laugh, though. He wondered if anyone had already used that strategy to escape the devastation at Stillhammer.

  Within an hour, he had reached a fishing village nestled against a modest river. Though he could remember the name of neither the village nor the river, he recalled passing through there years earlier with Rowen and Kayden Locke. He especially remembered a well-built, soft-eyed lad who ran the sawmill.

  But silence hung thick between the empty cottages and modest shops. Jalist looked around and, to his relief, found no bodies. In fact, he saw nothing but a few wild dogs that, thankfully, kept their distance. The village had been abandoned in a hurry. Jalist doubted the people could have already heard about the Jolym so far north. He thought of the Dhargots and wondered if they’d progressed even farther east than he’d thought.