OrbSoul (Book 6) (22 page)

   'Give me a weapon,' she commanded.

   'I have no spares. Come with me, to cover.'

   He grasped her arm and pulled her towards the nearby bluff. A grullag rose, struck down at him. Its great jaws descended, open wide, and closed around his head. It shook him, effortlessly crushing his skull, and thrust the corpse away then turned on Issul. She dived
clumsily to the side, managed to grab the slain officer's sword, swung wildly at the grullag's leg. It gave a howl of pain as the blade chewed into its thigh. Its mighty arm came down. Issul dodged, rising, but she was stiff and slow. The blow caught her shoulder, sending her spinning, the sword flying from her hand. She hit rock, bounced off with a groan. Dazed, she was aware that two more soldiers had leapt to engage the grullag.

  
Her eyes wanted to close as consciousness ebbed. She forced herself to her knees. There came an ear-splitting shriek from one side. She twisted, to see Moscul launching himself from his pony, his teeth bared in a rictus, eyes wide and crazed. A long-bladed dagger was gripped in one hand above his head. Issul threw herself to the side, rolling, wincing with pain, and heard Moscul land on the spot she had occupied. She half-rose. The boy came at her again, screaming. She slipped sideways and threw a hard roundhouse kick to meet him as he came. The ball of her foot slammed into his face, snapping his head back. He hit the snow and lay still.

  
Suddenly, a dozen Orbia troopers surrounded her. One of them took her arm and drew her back into the protection of a hollow at the base of the bluff. She allowed herself to go with him, dazed, unable to take her eyes off the little body, the monstrous child who had been her nephew, its neck clearly broken.

iii

   Issul was drawn deeper into cover. More soldiers took up positions in front of the hollow. It rapidly became plain that the grullags were greatly outnumbered, and no matter their strength they could not withstand the storm of arrows that flew from the rocks and the determination of the horse- and foot-soldiers ranged against them. More, with Moscul dead, they became suddenly confused and lost their cohesiveness as a fighting body. The battle continued for a few more minutes, but the troops of Enchantment's Reach easily had the upper hand now. Those grullags that survived sought only to escape.

   A senior knight pushed through the ranks of Issul's protectors, snapped to attention before her and bowed his head. 'Your Highness.'

   'Sir Cathbo!' A familiar face! Her joy
flooded her. 'How? How did you find me?'

   'Luck, as much as anything.'

   She furrowed her brow. 'I think it must be more than that.'

  
'Only just. I was sent from Enchantment's Reach by King Leth, with a mobile force to take concealment in the forest and harry the Karai with lightning raids and sabotage missions. Hence my presence outside the capital. Last night your company blundered into one of my patrols. So many grullags, and especially the organization with which they seemed to work, made me highly suspicious. Scouts spoke of a female prisoner and a child among them. I hardly allowed myself to consider the possibility, but I hoped against hope that the woman was you, and brought a hundred fighting men to ensure we could launch an effective ambush.'

   'What is your full strength?'

   'Three hundred.'

   Far from enough to have any real effect against the enemy army, Issul realized.
'My thanks, Cathbo. You have saved my life.'

   'May I say, my lady, how glad I am to see
you. We had feared you lost forever. But you look weak. You must rest, and eat.'

   Issul desired nothing more, but she recalled Moscul's words, and shook her head. 'I will eat in the saddle, but
I can’t rest. We must ride now with greatest dispatch to Enchantment's Reach.'

   'My lady, you may not know, but Prince Anzejarl has launched his assault. The capital has fallen.'

   'I have been told as much. Nevertheless, I must go. I must be sure. How far is it?'

  
'Under normal circumstances, less than a day's ride. But we are forced to move cautiously; the land teems with Karai.'

   'Do you know that Leth is not in the capital?'

   Sir Cathbo looked surprised. 'No. I did not know that. Do you know where he is?'

   'I was with him until yesterday. He is seeking the means to deprive the
Karai of their ally.'

   The fighting had died. With Sir Cathbo at her side Issul stepped out from the cover of the rocks. The gulch was a scene of slaughter, the huge, bloodied corpses of grullags sprawled everywhere. Mercifully there appeared to be relatively few casualties among Sir Cathbo's troops. The trap had been ingeniously and effectively sprung.

   She stared down again at Moscul's corpse, still hardly believing. So tiny, almost like a sleeping infant. A wave of emotion surged suddenly in her breast. 

   She looked away and said, 'Where is the other one?
The man who rode with us?'

   Grey Venger was brought forward, in the grip of two soldiers. He glared at her with blazing eyes, his face contorted.

   She returned his gaze, looking deep into his eyes, and feeling her own hatred rise.

   'Hang him!' she declared through clenched teeth. 'Hang him high. I want to see the traitor struggle and kick as he swings. I want to witness his last throttled gasp.'

   The muscles of Grey Venger's throat moved. She heard the phlegm gather in his throat, and was ready. Before he could spit she stepped forward and threw a lightning punch hard at his mouth, splitting his lip and dislodging a rotten tooth from its mooring.
   Grey Venger fell back, supported by the two soldiers. For an instant his eyes showed complete surprise, then he sneered. 'You cannot kill me. The Grey Venger cannot die!'

   'We will see if you sing the same tune when you are a corpse,' she said. She was in the grip of a near-hysterical rage, and knew it, but his challenge roused a spasm of doubt in her mind, and she said, 'Hang him, and when the life is gone from his body, decapitate him. Build two separate pyres and burn body and head separately, until nothing is left but vile ash. The same goes for the child. 'She turned to Sir Cathbo. 'Do not stray from my orders. Do you understand?'

   'Of course, my lady.'

   Grey Venger was dragged away, bawling protests and dreadful maledictions. Issul took herself off to one side to calm her mind. Her entire body shook and it was some minutes before she felt able to speak again. She did not watch Venger swing. When it came to it she had no taste for such a spectacle. But she observed, dry-eyed, as the two dismembered corpses and their heads were tossed into the flames. She observed so as to reassure herself, scarcely believing, and aware now that this was hardly an end of anything.

And she felt only emptiness as they burned.

NINE

i

   Orbelon, what must I do now? How do I return?

   'Take the blue casket, Leth, as before. Simply raise the lid.'

ii

*

   'I am the dead. . . I am the dead . . . I am the dead . . .'

*

   The night drew towards its inevitable end. At last, slowly, reluctantly, Prince Anzejarl opened his fabulous, tormented eyes. He remained as he was, kneeling motionless before the high window, and gazed unseeingly into the fullness of the incipient cold grey dawn.

 
He had never expected to see it.

 
It was the end.

 
The end that had not come.

   Now, even more than before, he was confronted by what he had come most to fear and abominate.
The unthinkable, the most repellent certainty; final, irreconcilable proof of what he had become. He had sought everything, had now even successfully taken the Greatest Prize, only to understand that in the process, in the very wanting and taking, he had gained nothing but had relinquished his soul.

  While he strove to take everything, everything had in fact been taken from him.

   'I. . . am. . . the. . . living!' Anzejarl ground the words out between his teeth, heat rising within him, venomous thoughts directed towards Olmana. She had stripped him of all he was, and he had let her do it. Followed her like a trusting pup. He had let her seduce him, let her place enchantment upon him. Had been a willing accomplice from the start. She had brought the Gift of Awakening, and he had accepted it with eagerness. Only now, too late, did he truly see it for what it was: the knowledge of what he had become and of all that he had lost.

   Anzejarl, victorious Prince of the
Karai nation, felt the searing, enervating anguish of utter degradation. The lowly, skulking shock of humiliation. His most sacred legacy, unique to warriors of the Karai, had been taken from him. He was pitched into the realm of his inferiors, a base entity, unable to relinquish his disgrace in the hallowed and prescribed manner.

  
Disgrace!

   Prince Anzejarl bent forward from the waist, gasping and clutching his solar plexus as though he had been kicked there. The knowledge was too great to bear! Any last, lingering hope was expunged; truly he was
Karai no longer. He had become his own enemy, condemned to live in shame when he should no longer live at all.

   This was what she had made him. This was her Gift.

   And his powerlessness was compounded: not only could he not die as he should but, as she had shown him hours earlier, neither could he slay her.

   In his mind's eye Olmana's image rose again in its monstrous form. She was headless upon the floor, and he watched as he had before, disbelieving as she stood and came at him, her severed head mocking him, her clawed hand groping for the head, as she straddled him and forced herself between his lips.

   A drift of tiny frozen motes of snow tumbled past outside. Distantly, as a gust of breeze pushed them against the window, Anzejarl heard them patter on the glass like fleeting insect feet. He saw the low grey sky, the moody clouds that wreathed the topmost towers of Enchantment's Reach. He saw everything that he had and everything he had been denied, and he rose leadenly and with purpose and went to the bedside, where his clothing lay upon the floor. Lifting his belt, he drew free his long dagger from its sheath. He fingered it in his white hands, watching the candlelight glint off the bright metal. He touched the point to his fingertip.

   Was this the only way?

   It was a death that lacked all dignity, but he, who was no longer Karai, had rendered himself undeserving of dignity. The greater shame was to live on in the knowledge of what he was, in defeat and with no capacity to strike back at his enemy. He must not live with this.

   Anzejarl gripped the crafted bone dagger-hilt in both hands and pressed the chill tip to his breast. He steeled himself, closing his eyes.

*

  
No!

  It came to him in a flash of insight. There was one thing he could do that would at least partially thwart her.

   He mulled it over; it required only a word, an essential and irrevocable command. Then he would return here and finish what he had begun, reassured that his death would not be entirely fruitless.

   Anzejarl put away the dagger, dressed, and with new resolve departed the King and Queen's private chambers. . .

   Less than half-an-hour passed, and the dull morning light had barely advanced. Prince Anzejarl returned alone to the private apartments, pensive but satisfied that he had now done all he could. His commanders had responded with complete surprise, as he had known they would, but once he had made plain his intention they had not dared to argue. He rested secure in the knowledge that his orders would be carried out without embellishment or variation. Already the process was in motion. And Olmana, who still slept, had as yet no inkling.

   Almost becalmed in his thoughts, Anzejarl began to disrobe once again. He mused briefly on the idea of postponing his suicide until after he had met once more with Olmana. She would be here soon, venting the full force of her wrath. And he was keen to witness the expression on her face.

   What could she do? Murder him?

   He stood at the window again and considered. There was the likelihood that she would not consider his death a suitable form of revenge. Rather, he might anticipate years of excruciation in cruel and ingenious forms. That he could not bear. No, his life must end now, by his own hand. He let the last of his clothing fall.

   With his dagger in his hand Prince Anzejarl made one last desultory tour of the royal apartments. He lifted items of apparel or personal appurtenances from time to time and raised them to his nose or examined them with fingers and eyes, wondering. Through his mind passed a multitude of impressions, some vague, some vivid - almost all would have been thoroughly alien to him only a short time ago, and even now they were
for the most part cryptic and undefinable. Prince Anzejarl was beset by a deep and curiously almost comforting melancholy. He took his time, walked in a slow, dreamlike state, and eventually approached the door to Leth's private study. In the murky morning light he saw something that puzzled him. An unidentifiable blue lucence was seeping from beneath the door.

   Anzejarl crept cautiously forward, suddenly alert again, and grasped the door-handle, pushing the door open. The study was abrim with hazy blue light. At first he could make out little, then he saw at its centre a strange and forbidding figure: an unearthly warrior-knight armoured in ribbed plate of radiant sapphire blue. A magnificent horned, figured helm covered his head, and a longsword hung in a bejewelled scabbard at his hip. In his hands he held a small blue casket.

iii

   Leth blinked in the dazzle of sudden blue light. As his vision cleared he swept his gaze around the chamber, remotely surprised at finding himself returned to his own private study from which he had been plucked so abruptly - how long ago? There was no one else present, and the room was more or less as he had last seen it. To his eyes, however, it told small tales of disturbance, and he choked back his anger at the thought of others having been here in his most private sanctuary.

   As he made to move the door swung open.

   The figure that faced him, evidently with tense surprise, was quite possibly the last thing that Leth could have anticipated. It was an adult male Karai, taller than average and powerfully built. Not such a surprise in itself, given the circumstances. But he was entirely naked. His face was ashen and deeply-fissured, his expression both proud and mournful, the eyes a molten blue scored with weltering jade green pupils. In his hand he grasped a dagger.

   'Who are you?' asked the
Karai, shifting reflexively into a posture more suitable for defence. 'And how-- how do you come here?'

   Leth was cautious and bemused. Already it was beginning to dawn upon him who this must be.
Anzejarl?
For all his nakedness, the Karai's bearing and mien was unquestionably that of a noble of highest rank. He emanated authority. And who else would be here, naked in Leth's own apartments, but the conquering prince of the invading army?

   Leth assumed there to be
Karai guards close at hand. His first concern was for the blue casket which he held in his hands. Did Anzejarl - if Anzejarl this was - know anything of its significance? It might so easily be destroyed.

   Was it only coincidence that brought the two of them together, here, at this time?

   The Karai prince gave no more than a cursory glance to the casket, but appraised Leth warily.

   'I would ask the same of you,' Leth replied, 'though the answers are already almost known to me. You are Anzejarl, are you not?'

   Anzejarl's eyes signalled in the affirmative.

  'Your presence here is unlawful.'

   The jewelled eyes flickered. Leth wondered,
where is his consort? It is she who I should be most wary of.

   Then Prince Anzejarl said something wholly unexpected. Though his eyes did not leave Leth, his head seemed to sag heavily on his shoulders. His knuckles tightened upon the door-handle, almost as though he
were steadying himself, and he gave a leaden nod. 'I do not acknowledge any unlawful act. There is no trespass for a Karai, except against another Karai. How can there be? Still, a wrong has occurred, of which I am living proof, and I have taken steps to make restitution.'

   Inside the sapphire helm, hidden from Anzejarl, Leth's face reflected his astonishment. 'Make restitution? What do you mean?'

   'I will say nothing more until I know who you are and what you have come here for,' declared Anzejarl. 'You have arrived by magical means, for how otherwise could you have entered undetected? Are you an assassin sent by my enemies to slay me? Believe me, were you King Leth himself, you could be no more sombre enemy than the one I now face.'

   Leth half-smiled to himself, at the same time struck by Anzejarl's enigmatic statements.

   'Where have you come from, and why?' Anzejarl demanded.

   After a moment's pause Leth replied, 'It is
true, I have come to liberate this place, which you have taken illegally, by force.'

   'Alone?' Prince Anzejarl's expression showed a measure of harsh amusement,
then his brow lifted. 'Ah, you are an enchanted assassin sent to slay me in the belief that my death would end all this. But it would not be so. Believe me, it would not be so.'
   'Nothing quite so simple,' said Leth.

   'Then . . .' Anzejarl's expression became intent. 'Are you able to exert influence over her?'

  
Who does he mean? Strymnia? Does he have any awareness of Strymnia herself? Or does he refer to his murderous consort? Does he know that they are in effect one and the same?

   Leth still held the blue casket. He was prevented now from secreting it anywhere. Perceiving that Anzejarl offered no immediate hostility he slipped his pack from his shoulder, laid it down and opened the wooden chest.

   'What do you do?'

   Leth ignored him. He bent quickly and placed the casket inside, then closed the lid of the chest.

   Anzejarl took a step forward. 'I said, what do you do?'

   Leth straightened quickly and his hand went to his sword-hilt. 'Do not question me, invader!'

   A blaze of anger flashed in Anzejarl's eyes.

   He is no ordinary
Karai, thought Leth. He seems to burn with emotion.

   They faced each other, six paces separating them. Then Anzejarl said, 'I have told you, my 'trespass' is done. Not out of compassion for the lowly creatures of Enchantment's Reach, nor out of any sense of moral rectitude or a need to salve my conscience. I have no such qualms or failings. Rather, it is a blow against . . . one . . . of the enemies I now face. You have come to slay me? Do so. I will offer no resistance. My work here is done.' He let his hand drop and the dagger fall. It splintered the wooden floor and stood erect, quivering. Anzejarl rested with his arms at his sides. 'But will you tell me
first, are you an agent of Leth's? Or do you come from Enchantment? Who are you?'

  
My adversary, naked before me, so strangely submissive. Do you truly offer me your life? What is happening here? Do I give you my confidence? Or is this a trick?

   Again Leth reminded himself of the uncountable
Karai guards who must wait just beyond the door. It was too dangerous to reveal himself. And yet, palpably, here was Anzejarl, quite literally bared before him. The strangeness of the encounter defied reason.