The Deadwalk (8 page)

Riordan swung, cutting through his cloak into the leather on the back of his
armor. Rau hissed in pain.

He rolled, using his superior weight to pin her sword arm to the crystal rock
beneath them. He seized her free arm, stopping the punch headed for his jaw.
Anchoring her other arm with his knee, he leaned on her chest with the sum of
his strength.

She bucked against him, would have unseated him, had he not reached up to the
neck of his cloak and yanked open the clasp. She saw then it was not just a
decorative pin at his throat, but a thin stake of amber. And it was poised
inches above her right eye.

Rau glared down at her, panting with exertion. “Now what will it be, Your
Majesty?”

Screams shattered the quiet morning air.

The people of Kholer looked up from their breakfast tables. Chores forgotten,
they flowed into the streets.

The sight that awaited them froze the blood in their veins. They stared,
mouths open in shock at the black-clad warriors swarming down the hill like a
plague.

At the front of the army Hael's black and red standard fluttered in the
morning breeze. Behind them billowed a vast cloud of smoke. As it drew near,
they could make out the dark shapes of soldiers bearing torches.

“Close the gate,” someone shouted. Too late.

With a thundering crash, the battering ram knocked the massive wooden door
from its hinges. For a moment it tottered precariously on its side, then came
smashing down in a rain of splinters. Barriers removed, the Haelian army
streamed through the gates.

Citizens of Kholer scattered, rushing for their swords. Children snatched up
pitchforks, women ran for butcher knives, elders wielded whatever weapons they
could lay their hands on.

Smoke dimmed the sun within minutes. Orange flame danced across thatched
roofs of huts and guttered down the supporting beams of barns and houses. Soon
nothing but charred timber lay in its path.

Cries for help were trampled beneath the hooves of Haelian horses. Moans of
the dead and dying blotted out all other sound. Shock and terror worked in
Hael's favor. Kholer raised their weapons only to find the tide of battle had
already turned against them.

Just when those in Kholer were sure the Seven Hells had overflowed and spewed
the damned upon the earth, a more horrifying sight burst through the city gates.
Enough to stop even the bravest heart, many simply turned tail and fled. Those
who remained fought harder than ever. For the alternative waited at their very
gates.

Dead bodies tumbled through the entrance, falling over each other to
accomplish the task demanded of them. Like a multitude of graves suddenly
overturned, they surged into Kholer.

Soldiers soon discovered the cruel futility of trying to kill the dead. The
blows of swords and axes did nothing to discourage their forward advance. Devoid
of fear, long past pain, they merely cast aside the arms and legs that had been
hacked off. Crawling, hopping, slithering on their bellies when no other means
was left to them, they trudged onward.

Like a disease, they covered more of the city. And as the bodies of Kholeran
citizens piled up in the center square, those still living watched their dead
rise to fight against them.

#

Muffled shouts filtered through Bevan's flaccid eardrums. Around him the
stench of burning flesh reached his failing senses. Flames formed an orange
fence against the sky. Someone thrust a sword into his hand. Bevan trudged
forward, following in the loose ranks of the dead army.

He swung, cleaving through flesh before he hit the resistance of bone.
Someone screamed. Nearby. Hard to see now, through that one decaying eye.

The blow knocked him back on his haunches. Putrid skin parted, tore. Though
he felt no pain, the impact maddened him. Latent survival instincts kicked in.
Bevan clambered to his feet.

A blurry face swam in his vision. The look of fear and loathing made him
pause mid swing. No one ever looked at him like that before. A tendril of memory
wound its way through his mind. For an instant he remembered his own
gut-wrenching terror as Hael claimed Kanarek and turned him against his own
people. The sword slipped from his swollen fingers.

Kill! The voice roared in his brain.

Bevan snatched up his sword and swung again, meeting the steel resistance of
another's blade. Burning timber crashed beside him. He felt the heat, knew in
some lost portion of his mind that fire meant danger. But the shouting voice
urged him on. Stepping over the bodies of his fallen comrades and city natives,
Bevan marched deeper into the fray.

#

“Touch her, you bastard and I'll skin you alive!”

Nhaille slammed a gloved fist against the outcrop that hid him behind a fan
of crystal. He didn't dare come closer, didn't dare show himself, lest Rau make
good on his threat to slit Riordan's throat.

“Harm one hair on her head...”

All those years while he'd taught her the nuances of combat, he'd never
thought to warn her about the cruel things a madman could do to a woman. Somehow
he always thought he'd be there to protect her. He'd failed even in that. If Rau
harmed her...

He'd throw it all away -- Kanarek's revenge, his promise to his king -- for
one clear shot at Rau. He'd toss the last nineteen years to the wind for the
morbid satisfaction of closing his hands around that Haelian abomination's neck.
He flexed his hands, imagining the last vestiges of life leeching from Rau's
body.

Movement drew his attention. From his vantage point, he watched as Riordan
heaved herself upright in the saddle and launched a two-footed kick at Rau.
Nhaille had to restrain himself from shouting encouragements as the Prince
toppled backward.

Perhaps his help was not so badly needed, he realized with a grim smile.
Under the circumstances, Riordan seemed to have the situation under control.
Since Doan-Rau had taken her captive, she'd done her best to make his life a
living hell.

Nhaille squinted across the distance to bring Riordan into better focus. Her
eye was healing. She seemed to be winning against Rau.

“Well done, Your Majesty!” he couldn't help whispering with pride. Riordan
was his progeny, after all.

Pride deteriorated to alarm. Rau gained the upper hand. He watched impotently
as they struggled on the horse, fighting the urge to rush to her aid. A futile
gesture. It would merely blow his cover. He was too far away to be of any use.
By the time he reached them, one would have control. It could mean the end of
Riordan's life if it was Rau.

The amber stake flashed in the sun. Despite his vow, Nhaille bolted forward.
He caught himself, afraid to startle Rau into sudden movement and accomplish the
task for him.

Rau straddled Riordan. He raised the stake of amber poised to hammer it
through her right eye into her brain. For several heart-pounding seconds they
were frozen in that horrible tableau.

Nhaille swore through clenched teeth. “Don't do it, Rau.”

#

“Do it, Rau,” Riordan hissed.

Her challenge caught him off guard. His fingers tightened on the stake of
amber.

“Go ahead,” she goaded him. “Stab the amber through my eye into my brain. Add
me to your legions of zombies.”

Her strange request took Rau by surprise. Plainly he didn't know what to make
of this new tactic. He sat back heavily on her chest and cautiously awaited her
next move.

“Do you have that great a death wish?” he asked incredulously, and she knew
he'd taken the bait.

Got you now, Prince.

“On the contrary, it is you who would suffer. My body might do your bidding,”
she forced a self-effacing laugh. “You know I'd make a capable soldier.”

Rau nodded warily, weighing her words, looking for the trick within them. But
he kept the amber poised mere inches from her right eye.

“Unfortunately,” Riordan continued matter of factly, “all knowledge of the
Sword would be lost with my mind. Forever.”

The hand holding the amber trembled. She noted the tiny movement. A master
stake, she noted, examining its pointed end at much closer range than was
comfortable. One that could control the others. Who could guess the limits of
its power?

“Is that really what you want?” she asked softly. “To wander endlessly
through the crystal caves?”

Riordan played the last card of her bluff.

“Believe me that's what you'll do. Only I have the knowledge of where the
Sword is hidden. And I can tell you this, good Prince, you'd never find it on
your own.”

Rau's hand dropped to his side. He hooked the amber back into the loop at the
neck of his cloak.

Snatching a handful of her vest, he yanked her upright. Riordan dragged in a
ragged breath of relief. He'd bought the lie. She'd escaped the proverbial fate
worse than death. For the moment. Her heart sank.

Great. And what am I going to do when we reach the mountain and he finds out
Nhaille still has the map and I don't have a clue to the Sword's
whereabouts?

This time Rau allowed her to sit upright on the horse, her hands bound behind
her. He even slashed the leather bonds about her feet so she could sit in the
saddle. An awkward arrangement, it was hard not to lean against him. Rau wasn't
the kind of person she wanted to get that close to.

Riordan felt the hard muscles of his chest rigid against her back. Rau had a
wiry strength, a nervous energy, in contrast to Nhaille's calmness and heavier
build. For a moment she desperately longed for the security of Nhaille's arms
around her, then she pushed the thought away.

Amethyst mountains towered over them, a jagged fence against the sky. They
rode into its shade, welcome relief after countless days under the merciless
sun.

Riordan reveled in its coolness. Sleep beckoned to her. Days and nights in
Rau's company took their toll. She was tired of the relentless surveillance. Her
eyes drifted shut, and she realized for the first time in days there was
movement in her wounded eyelid. A nap was perhaps possible.

Rau won't kill me until he knows for sure whether I can lead him to the
Sword. Riordan surrendered to unconsciousness.

“My father often remarked,” Rau said suddenly, the first words he'd uttered
since their earlier skirmish.

Her eyelids flew open. “What?” She realized with horror that her head had
fallen back against Rau's shoulder. Riordan jerked upright.

“My father used to say,” he repeated. “That it was a shame Arais-Khun-Caryn
had only sons.”

Now what are you getting at, Rau?

She twisted to look at him, her face darkening.

“He said stock like yours would make for a good match.” Rau's hand drifted
from the reins up the length of her thigh to rest suggestively on her hip.
Riordan caught a chilling glimpse of where the conversation was headed.

“Pity then, my parents had only sons,” she said, schooling her voice to
blatant disinterest.

“Ah, but I find now that isn't so.”

Riordan offered a non-committal grunt.

“And to think. If your parents had not cloistered you away, you could have
been that match my father so desired. Instead of war, I could have taken Kanarek
by dowry.”

“My father would never have given Kanarek to you. And you're forgetting the
brothers before me.”

“Oh right,” Rau said. “Them.”

And if he did, in some great lapse of sanity, give me to you, Rau, rest
assured I'd have strangled you on our wedding night.

“Pity,” Riordan said, “That Hael's King had only sons. One of my brothers
could have taken Hael as dowry.”

Rau lapsed into sullen silence.

Stupid, Riordan rebuked herself. Should have kept him talking. Know your
enemy, Nhaille’s words nagged at her memory.

“Your younger brothers,” she said in her friendliest tone of voice, “tell me
of them.”

“Nothing much to speak of.”

Riordan read the warning in his voice and ignored it. “Surely there must be.
Are they captains in your army?”

“No,” Rau said. His crisp tone encouraged no further inquiry. “My father
keeps them close at hand. He's grooming the youngest to take his place.”

The revelation slid with bitterness from his lips. Hael was lost to Rau. In
order to rule, he had to claim kingdoms of his own. Riordan opened her mouth to
say something further, but Rau continued.

“And you're wrong. My parents did have a daughter, but she died in
childhood.”

“I'm sorry.” The traitorous words slipped past her lips, taking her entirely
by surprise. Pity was something she never expected to feel for Doan-Rau.

He moved against her, letting go the sigh he held inside. “My father adored
her.” Rau paused, and she felt him suck in a long breath.

“And she was dear to me,” he said at last.

Know your enemy. Riordan shook her head slowly. There was no end, she
realized, to the complexities of the mind of a madman.

It required a strange type of delusion to feel sadness for the loss of one's
family and then to coldbloodedly murder an entire kingdom. A keen blade of anger
clove through her, so sudden, so pure, she gasped in surprise.

“I don't suppose it occurred to you, that maybe my family, my kingdom were
dear to me?”

There was a long pause.

“Unfortunate, but their sacrifice was necessary.”

“Necessary? For what? For your glory?”

“I wouldn't expect you to understand.”

“I don't suppose I would.”

“That was exactly the problem with you Kanarekii. You had no vision.”

The fire racing through her veins ran cold. Riordan twisted again to look at
him. She had to see the cool judgment in his face to believe a human being was
capable of such a thing.

“Suffice to say our vision was different than yours.” She shot him a look fit
to kill.

But Rau was oblivious to the splash of venom launched his way. As if
delivering a well-rehearsed lecture, he continued undaunted.

“If you knew all those years where the Sword lay, why didn't you break it out
of the vault and take down Hael before it occurred to us to conquer you?”

“Destruction from the last time the Sword was unleashed marks the plains to
this day. The Sword is not to be used lightly.”

“My point exactly.”

She stared at him in mute disbelief.

“Kanarek's downfall was prophesied. Your father knew the Sword's whereabouts.
He had sons and brothers, all capable of leading an army. But did he break the
Sword out of its vault and raze Hael? No? He cloistered his daughter in the
forest and sat idly on his throne waiting for the prophesied events to come to
pass.”