Path of Revenge (51 page)

He drew from the first man, the one who had run him through with his blade. Shockingly, he encountered a deep well of raw magic. He immediately tried to withdraw, but the white presence in the man’s head leaped forward eagerly and seized him.

And began to drink him dry.

Whichever direction Robal looked, horrors presented themselves to his shocked mind. The priest moaned, the lorn cry of a man who sounded as though he was in the throes of losing everything. Just beyond him the figure whom the priest had stabbed was…was
drying out,
skin flaking away, eyes popping, blood turning to a crimson powder. The transformation was accompanied by dreadful cracking sounds, like dry timber being broken over someone’s knee.

And the worst sight of all…The guardsman’s heart was not large enough to encompass what had been done to her. He closed his eyes, retched and forced himself to look. Nothing he had ever done was as difficult as opening his eyes again.

Her throat had been cut. Her wrists slashed. She hung from a butcher’s hook embedded in a roof beam. Blood still dripped from her wounds, pooling on the wooden floor. Her chest had stilled; she was not breathing. Her empty eyes stared at him without expression.

Stella was dead.

And at that moment, Most High forgive him, all he could think about was his own failure. His whole life lived under an illusion. His father and grandfather had stuffed his young head full of tales of what he might do for Faltha: golden summer stories of war and renown, of service and reward. None of them had involved leading the Falthan queen to her death.

The golden summer had just ended. He would walk out of this cabin into a bleak winter.

His eye alighted on the small table and the chalice resting upon it.
Oh. Her blood.
Drained and prepared, ready to drink.
As though it is the key ingredient in some ritual.
He took a step back, appalled.
Her blood, is it magical? What does it confer on the one who drinks it?
Something dark and selfish rose up in his breast with the realisation.
Long life.
The reason she appeared so young when she should be in the twilight of her years.

Immortal.

The chance opened to him like a reluctant flower. Something good could come of this tragedy after all. With her blood he could make things right, could devote lifetimes to ridding Faltha of the priests, could lead an army eastwards and defeat the Destroyer, could…
I could make something of myself after all, Granda; you’d be proud of me.

Whimpering sounds came from somewhere in the cabin. He ignored them.

Visions boiled up in his head. Bold Robal Anders taking wound after wound in battle, slaying Lords of Fear with his two-handed blade. Robal the Wise, beloved counsellor, offering subtle correction to a grateful Council of Faltha. King Robal the Eternal at the head of a numberless army, calling defiance against Andratan. All possible—no,
inevitable
—if he were to take a sip. A life without limits.

He stepped over the desiccated remains of the magician and drew close to the table. His hand hung by his side a moment, wavered, and then reached towards the chalice.

‘Don’t drink it, Robal,’ said a woman’s voice.

Robal Anders’ spine turned to ice at the words; at his recognition of the voice that spoke them and the infinite weariness behind them. He did not want to, could not make himself, turn and face the speaker, so frightened was he at what he might see.

Even at this moment his hand continued until it had grasped the chalice’s slim stem. But now the visions in his head were edged with blood, offering an eternity of dealing in death and darkness. Dark armies, darker dungeons. Robal Anders, the new Undying Man. A second Destroyer.

He put the chalice down, careful not to spill a drop, then turned to face her.

‘I would not curse my worst enemy with such a fate,’ Stella said. She drew a shuddering breath. ‘And you are not my worst enemy.’

She still hung from the beam, the meat hook buried in her back. Her feet dangled some distance above the floor. Her sallow face was new-lined with the marks of pain. The scar on her neck grew less visible even as he watched. A last drop of blood fell from her wrists, then they, too, began to heal.

Directly below her feet the priest knelt, his forehead pressed to the floor in what looked like worship.

‘Robal,’ she said, licking her pale lips with an even paler tongue, ‘bring me the chalice.’

Taking the chalice, cupping its bowl in his two hands, then reaching up and placing it against her cold lips, turned him inside out. Blatant confirmation that this woman whom he admired was uncanny, sustained by something intrinsically evil. Her courage, warmth and humanity, all the virtues that had earned his respect, were underlain by this darkness and pain. He watched the liquid disappear as she drank. He watched the expression of loathing on her face.

He placed the empty chalice, now no more than a pretty object, on the table, then took her in his arms and lifted her away from the cruel barb.

‘I cannot stand,’ she whispered in his ear.

‘I will lay you down on the pallet here,’ he said.

‘No! Not there. Take me outside and let me lie in the sun.’ She gasped another breath.

‘You are hurt. You will catch a chill.’

She tried to smile. ‘I have no secrets from you. I have survived a magician’s knife; do you not think I will survive an afternoon breeze?’

He smiled at her courage and carried her outside, handling her as though she were made of crystal. He
found a grassy place next to the path and laid her there. At once she closed her eyes; her features relaxed somewhat and her laboured breathing settled into a regular pattern.

Robal collapsed onto the path and began to weep.

Some time later Conal the priest rescued him from his spiralling thoughts. ‘Robal,’ the man said, tugging at his cloak. ‘Robal, what happened here?’ He groaned then, clutching at his left arm.

The guardsman wiped his face with his hand and turned his gaze on the priest. ‘What do you mean? You know what happened. You saved Stella.’

Conal’s pinched features remained puzzled. ‘Saved Stella?’ he echoed in his irritating fashion. ‘I didn’t. I remember…I don’t remember. Why does my arm hurt so much?’

‘Priest, this mummery is not worthy even of you. Yes, you slew the magician who tried to kill the queen. Showed the speed, strength and courage her guardsman lacked. What else do you want me to say?’

‘But, Robal, I don’t recall any of it. We were standing in the reeds, arguing about where the queen might have gone; then I found myself in a room, on my knees, and she was just
hanging there.’
His voice broke on the last two words.

‘There is something we don’t yet see,’ Robal said, easing himself to his feet. ‘I don’t understand what happened to you; you say you don’t remember it, but you acted like a man possessed. For a moment I thought the Most High himself had taken command of your body. How else would you have been able to charge like a bull through the rushes, bash the brains out of a man who opposed you, and stab a powerful magician to death?’

‘I did all that?’

‘Someone did, but it certainly wasn’t you. Nor the Most High, not unless he is completely unlike what
you priests tell us about him. You behaved more like Achtal the renegade Bhrudwan did in battle training.’ He realised that the priest might well have no idea who he was talking about. ‘Powerful, unstoppable, like a bear on a rampage. Does that sound like you?’

‘No. Robal, the man cut her up!’ Conal’s voice was pitched higher every time he spoke. ‘There was blood all over the floor. He was about to drink it! Is she going to be all right?’

‘Priest, I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t have answers to any of this. But here are my best guesses. She stumbled on a magician, or she was drawn here by him, one or the other. I don’t know how he found out about her secret, but he knew she was immortal and sought to gain that prize for himself. And either you are a hero with special powers who saved her with great courage and skill, or you were used by something or someone who cares about the queen. Or has plans for her. Ah, I cannot figure it out. There are too many unknowns!’

Conal’s eyes grew as big as saucers. ‘Immortal?’ he whispered. ‘When was she going to tell me about that?’

The guardsman clapped a meaty hand to his forehead. Foolish runaway mouth.
He didn’t know. Nor did I, really, until today, not for certain, anyway. But he would have reasoned it out, surely. Eventually.

‘The magician was a Lord of Fear,’ said Stella, her weak voice barely audible. The two men turned, their attention instantly focused on her wellbeing. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you both about my…ah, good fortune. But I thought you must have known.’ She grimaced. ‘No, that is a lie; it won’t do. I tried to keep it secret from everyone, though I don’t really know how successful I was.’

She levered herself up from the grass as she spoke, and rubbed at her left wrist with her right hand. Robal offered her an arm, but she waved him away.

With a wan smile set on her face she told them everything that had happened to her since she had sent them into Vindicare. A thick rage gripped Robal as Stella explained how Ma had betrayed her. ‘What was the price?’ he growled. Stella suggested it might have been a misguided loyalty to the dead king.
There will have been a price,
the guardsman thought, but he kept his views to himself. He listened intently as she gave them the reasons for her belief that the corpse in the cabin was a Lord of Fear, a reduced but still potent remnant from the days when the Destroyer fled his ruin at Instruere. The priest asked questions incessantly, making it impossible for Robal to get any clear sense of what had happened. How many Lords of Fear accompanied the Destroyer back east after his defeat? How powerful were they?

‘How about you let your sovereign tell her story, son,’ he barked in his best barracks-room voice.

For a wonder, Stella agreed with him. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to hear the story behind the Lords of Fear,’ she told the priest. His response was a wide grin, which in Robal’s view served to make him appear even more foolish than normal.

‘I’m coming with you, then,’ the priest said, and Robal could have grabbed him by the throat, such was the complacency in his voice and manner.

‘No decision has yet been made. Stella and I will talk about it and will convey our decision to you when we’re ready to.’ His words didn’t fool the priest, whose grin grew even wider.

An animal-like moan spun them around in the direction of the cabin.
Is the magician really dead? Has he come back to life?

A broad-shouldered man staggered drunkenly onto the path. Robal went for his sword, only to realise it lay on the floor of the cabin, still covered in the magician’s blood.

The man tripped over a tree root and went down on one knee. His teeth clacked together and he moaned again like a cow in distress. His struggle to regain his feet was painful to watch.

‘He has lost his mind,’ said the priest, and took a step towards the path.

‘Literally,’ Robal said. The back of the man’s head had been laid open, the skull smashed and hanging, leaving visible a wet redness.

Stella put a knuckle in her mouth. ‘Do something,’ she pleaded with Robal.

‘This was the priest’s doing,’ said the guardsman. ‘Tell him to finish what he started.’

‘
Conal
did this?’

‘Just before he ran the Lord of Fear through with my sword. Now turn away. Priest, go and fetch my sword. I have a mercy to perform.’

Once before, a decade ago at the bitter end of the Border Wars, Robal had used his blade to end a wounded man’s suffering. Sent east by a nervous Council concerned about the behaviour of the Piskasian army, he and another Instruian guardsman were ostensibly serving as mercenaries when the Hantils, tribesmen from Birinjh, invaded over the Armatura Mountains in search of grain. They had been driven back twice in the previous three years by a ruthless Piskasian force, but a prolonged drought in their homeland gave the tribesmen little choice but to sweep down on the rich cornfields of the Eastern Highlands. The fighting had been desperate, with no quarter given; and at the rump end of victory he and Peler were ambushed by a Hantil family unconnected with the fighting. Peler tried not to take any lives, but his caution lost him his own, hamstrung and then disembowelled by two boys who came upon him in stealth, and then fled in the direction of the mountains. By the time Robal fought off the mother
and father his fellow Instruian was near death, begging for the only release Robal could offer him.

Affected by emotion, Robal’s chest thrust had not been as steady as Peler needed. The harrowing few seconds that passed before Robal forced himself to take his friend’s head dominated his dreams.

The image of Peler’s anguished face, the sound of his screaming, even the involuntary twist of the blade in his hand as he scored a rib, came rolling back to Robal as he took the sword from the priest’s hand and strode over to the suffering man. This time he did not allow sentiment to mar his stroke. He had learned his lesson. The hideously damaged brute died before he hit the ground.

Robal had cleaned and sheathed his blade by the time Stella and the priest turned back to him. He met their questioning faces with a short, professional nod, determined not to let them see how much the task had cost him.

Stella had other things on her mind. ‘Conal
slew
the Lord of Fear?
Conal
saved me?’ She gazed at the moon-faced priest with surprise and something approaching admiration in her eyes.

Robal kept his features smooth, allowing none of his resentment to show. ‘Yes, your majesty, you were saved by the brave actions of a Halite priest.’ If that were not ironic enough to make his point, he would despair of her.

‘Would someone care to explain how this might be?’ Stella seemed unhappy; suspecting, perhaps, that she was being lied to.

The priest beamed his rude grin at her. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to hear the story behind your rescue as we travel,’ he said.