Knights of the Crown

Chapter 20

Haimya ran up the stairs as fast as Pirvan ran on level ground. This was not quite as remarkable a feat as it might seem, as Pirvan was not running as fast as he could. A few steps were enough to tell him that the axe wielder was somewhat ponderous in its movements. If Pirvan ran full out, he would quickly leave the creature so far behind that it might give up chasing him and follow Haimya up the stairs.

The plan of catching it between the two of them would then become precarious. Their best chance of eliminating it before the rest of the guards rallied to the tower or Fustiar awoke from besotted slumber to blast them with magic depended on that plan; its going awry would be no small matter.

Pirvan ran around under the stairs and ducked through the uprights. He hoped the creature would run full-tilt into the uprights, which were roughly dressed tree trunks, hard enough to knock itself senseless, without knocking down the stairs.

The creature was neither that swift nor that witless. It stopped well short of the collision, turned back to the stairs, and began to climb.

Fortunately the risers of the stairs left plenty of gaps for a shrewd dagger thrust. Pirvan did not even have to stretch far to thrust his steel into the creature’s foot.

His problem lay in doing enough damage to draw its attention. He had to strike three times before the creature even broke stride. Only the fourth thrust, which nearly cut off a toe, inflicted a noticeable injury. The creature leaped off the stairs, brandishing the Frostreaver. It went to its knees, nearly dropping its weapon. It tightened its grip before Pirvan could close and try to snatch up the Frostreaver, however, then lurched to its feet, spun ponderously about, and struck wildly at the thief.

The blow missed Pirvan by the width of a fingernail; he felt the puff of air on his cheek. He leaped aside and backward in one movement, slashing hard at the nearer arm. Only the tip connected, but the creature halted for a moment to shift its grip.

In that moment an arrow sliced down from above and struck the creature in the neck. The arrow hit harder than Pirvan’s dagger, against thinner skin than the creature’s leather-tough soles. It pierced the hairy hide, to reach important blood.

The creature waved the Frostreaver wildly with one hand and clutched at its neck with the other. It weaved and lurched, but did not fall. Instead it flung itself once again at the stairs, taking them two at a time. Now it climbed too fast for Pirvan to run under the stairs and discourage it. After letting it get a few steps ahead of him, beyond the swing of the great axe, he followed it.

He tried to keep that safe distance and at the same time be close enough to strike if the creature faltered. It had to be in pain and weakening, but it showed no signs of faltering or even slowing. Nor did it seem to remember that there might be something dangerous behind it. All its bloodlust was turned entirely on Haimya, who had wounded it. It would let the rest of the world go by until it had settled with her.

Pirvan’s experience was that fighters who forgot to watch their backs frequently did not last very long against skilled opponents. However, there was always such a thing as brute strength and speed doing the work of shrewdness and vigilance. This guard creature with the Frostreaver was one such.

Pirvan had wondered why Fustiar had put the Frostreaver in the hands of such a powerful but unskilled fighter. He now understood that the creature had perhaps been bred with some inborn skills.

This gave Pirvan a higher opinion of the mage’s powers, which was not a pleasant thought. It also solved no part of the fight at hand.

Haimya was near the top of the stairs. She faced the creature, with that bent-knee stance that said she was ready to jump. Her sickness seemed to have taken little of her speed. He hoped her agility had likewise survived. She would be coming down on rough ground, from far too high to have a good chance of landing unhurt. Nor would it take a grave injury to make her easy prey for either the creature or the human guards who would soon be rallying to the tower.

It occurred to Pirvan that, in trying to do perhaps too many things at once, he and Haimya had contrived to finally lose the advantage of surprise, about all that would let two people confront a small army and live. Had they marched in with trumpets and drums, they might have learned nothing about Fustiar, but they might have had more success in encountering Gerik Ginfrayson and speaking with him.

The good will of the lords of Istar toward the brothers and sisters of the night work was not worth Haimya’s life-and Pirvan had more than a few doubts that the blood would end with her (or even with him).

The creature lurched two steps upward. It seemed unsteady on its massive legs, and Pirvan saw that the stairs behind it were red and glistening. At least it shed something that looked like blood, rather than some vitalizing fluid conjured out of Fustiar’s evil learning.

Then it seemed that everything happened at once. The creature took another step, then swung the axe. Haimya leaped to one side, thrusting upward with her sword. The axe smashed into the door, tearing through the ironbound portal as if it were silk. Pirvan did not see where the sword went.

He did see Haimya hanging by one arm from the stairs. He saw the creature whirl, heard it let out a terrible, half-choked, bubbling scream, and saw that it no longer wielded the Frostreaver. One empty hand lashed out for Haimya, she slashed at it, and the fingers closed on the sword blade. A jerk, and the creature held Haimya’s sword in a bloody hand.

Then it hissed like a caveful of serpents, threw up its hands, and toppled backward, so swiftly that Pirvan could not clear the way in time. He was lucky enough not to be caught, borne down to the ground, and crushed to pulp under the creature’s massive weight. But it flailed about as it fell, and one of those flailing hands crashed into Pirvan’s left arm. He felt the bone snap; he thought he would have heard it go if the creature hadn’t screamed again.

Then the creature struck the ground with a thud that jarred the stairs and sent pain shooting up Pirvan’s broken arm. He ignored it, covering the last few steps to Haimya at a run. One arm was enough to grip her free hand and help her swing up to the temporary safety of the stairs.

Much too temporary for comfort. She’d lost her sword, he’d lost the use of one arm, and they had between them four arrows, three arms, two daggers, and one bow.

They also had the Frostreaver, at least in the sense that no one else could wield it against them. Whether its possession made any other difference remained to be seen, but to Pirvan seemed unlikely.

“Good company to die in” was an old adage, and it was true here. Truer still, to Pirvan, was his opinion that Haimya would be good company to live in.

He had to drag the Frostreaver with his good arm, but it went inside with them as they staggered through the ruins of the door into the lowest accessible chamber of Fustiar’s tower. It scraped and squealed on the floor, and Pirvan had a nightmare conceit that it was alive and protesting the change of ownership.

Which, given Fustiar’s evident powers, was not altogether impossible.

* * * * *

Gerik led the six guards rallying to the tower. They didn’t really have enough intact humans to guard the place if neither Fustiar nor the black dragon were battle-worthy. Even taking six such to the tower would leave the gate and the ruins close to the dragon’s lair scantily protected, and that by mutes.

Gerik quickly saw that six at the tower might be too few. The guard creature lay sprawled on the ground, its sightless eyes fixed on the clouds, two ghastly wounds in its neck besides the injuries it had taken in falling. Also, the Frostreaver was nowhere in sight.

What was in sight was the door at the top of the stairs, splintered as if by a giant fist-or perhaps a Frostreaver. Gerik turned to the nearest man with a torch.

“Give me your torch. I’m going up alone.”

The man gaped. So did most of his comrades, particularly the man who’d fought the tree spirit up in the hills.

“Ah-one’s not enough-”

“If Fustiar is awake, he can deal with them. If he sleeps as usual, one is enough to keep any human foes busy until he does wake. If the foes aren’t human, one is enough to die learning that. If I don’t come out, no heroic rescues. Do you swear that?”

The men straightened. “No, we won’t. We’ll at least try to learn what befell you, then take word to Synsaga.”

Gerik threw up his hands. “Kiri-Jolith watch over you all.” They might be pirates, but there was some good and more than a little honor in anyone who would face unknown menaces for an almost equally unknown leader.

The gods have a most peculiar sense of humor, to make me a respected leader of righting men under these circumstances, he thought.

Gerik strode forward, sword in hand, passing the dead creature and slowing as he reached the slippery stairs. He would have thought better of his courage had he not gained a detailed description of the “tree spirit” from her victim. It could be a description of many women, but few of these were accomplished fighters, and only one accomplished female fighter was likely to be roaming the Crater Gulf shore at this time.

A reunion with Haimya under these circumstances suggested that the gods’ sense of humor was worse than peculiar. One might say bizarre or even cruel, not without impiety but also not without truth.

* * * * *

For the first time since she’d been aware of her sickness, Haimya wanted to curl up in a corner and lie there until death or healing came. She had poured her remaining strength into that fight on the stairs, and though the creature was dead, she wondered how long she and Pirvan would outlive it.

Pirvan let the Frostreaver fall with a final clatter and looked about the chamber. It had clearly been a hall of some sort, in the castle’s youth. Then it had been cut up into cells or small chambers by wooden partitions, but even the inhabitants of those chambers were long dead and the wood long rotted. The hall was ankle deep in dust and rotten fragments, which would make for treacherous footing when it came to the final fight.

Haimya did not seek a corner, but she did sit cross-legged in the debris and put her head down, until she felt her wits and breath return. Pirvan had unslung his pack and was rummaging bandages, salves, and healing potion out of it.

Or rather, he rummaged out the flask that had held healing potion. A large crack across its base told them where the contents had gone.

“Have you any?” he asked.

“Less we need for both of us. I have taken some, or I might not be here.” She wished she had taken either more or less.

“I wish you weren’t, Haimya. I wish you were in a warm bed a long way from here, with a jug of wine and a plate of cakes on the table beside the bed. I wish you wore a silk bedrobe and perfume. I wish-”

His voice sounded ready to break, and she felt her face going red. Then footsteps sounded on the stairs, a shadow loomed in the doorway, and another voice spoke. She knew it well, knew but did not care for the gentle mockery it held, and felt herself going even redder.

“Friend, who are you to conjure up such pictures of my betrothed? Or were you wishing that I was beside her in the bed?”

“Gerik,” Haimya said. She tried to rise, then realized that one leg had cramped under her. She tried to straighten it, but before she could Gerik had come over to her and was helping her to her feet.

She wanted to brush off both his aid and the dust from the floor, but that would have taken three hands. She contented herself with stepping away from him and brushing herself.

“You do not look well, Haimya,” he said.

“Nothing you have done lately has made my life easier,” she said. At the back of her mind, a small voice whispered that he probably had no more idea of what to do now than she did. A little kindness would not come amiss.

She took a deep breath. “Gerik. It has come to my ears-I have heard-that you swore true oath to Synsaga.”

She looked at him then, and although he was silent, his eyes spoke loudly enough. She wanted to turn away, or slap him, or do something to mark this moment and her disapproval. (She could not call it by any stronger word. He might have been threatened, and their betrothal would not stand or fall on that oath if he foreswore it and fled.)

“Everyone on the Crater Gulf knows that,” Gerik said. “It is hardly a secret.”

“Except to those who have come to Crater Gulf to-to discuss your future with you,” Pirvan put in.

Haimya shook her head at her comrade. The less he drew Gerik’s attention to himself, the better. Gerik had never seemed like a man who would send an imagined rival to his doom, but then he had never seemed like a man who would join the ranks of Synsaga’s pirates.

“We cannot talk of this at any length in this tower, without Fustiar’s consent,” Gerik said.

“Then you do serve him, rather than Synsaga?” Haimya snapped.

“Be easy, Haimya. There is no conflict, for Fustiar also serves Synsaga, and does not go beyond the bounds the pirate sets for him.” His voice and eyes held a plea, for her to believe him and not question him. Not here.

She began to believe that there had been duress a year ago, or at least second thoughts now. He would go with them, and once he was safely free of the Crater Gulf they might speak freely, learn more of Fustiar, even-

“Hup!” Pirvan shouted.

Gerik whirled. Other pirates were pushing through the ruined door. One of them stared at Haimya. She recognized the sentry she’d stunned, after leaping out of Pirvan’s illusory tree.

“The tree spirit!” the man screamed. Then he snatched his cutlass from his belt and hurled himself forward, straight at Haimya.

* * * * *

If Pirvan had enjoyed his normal swiftness, he might have halted Haimya’s attacker without killing him. Between the pain of his broken arm and the darkness of the chamber, he had no chance to do anything useful.

This left only two possible outcomes. Gerik Ginfrayson could resist the man, or Haimya could die on the pirate’s sword.

Gerik whirled, his sword in his hand. As the man passed him, he laid the flat of the blade across the man’s head. Instead of stunning him, it further enraged him. He turned on Gerik, and only a remarkably agile parry kept the man’s cutlass from splitting Gerik’s head.

“Stop it, you fool!” Gerik shouted. “These are my prisoners. You can die for attacking another’s prisoners.”

“Evil spirit!” the man screamed. There was no reason in his cry, nor any reasoning with him. Haimya stepped forward to help Gerik disarm the man and salvage some remote chance of peace.

Instead, the man drew his dagger and struck at Haimya. She was a trifle slower than usual; the point entered her left shoulder. Pain flared, and she felt blood trickling. She thought of the last drops of healing potion and how much they would have to heal.

Gerik did not think at all. His sword flashed three times, and the last time he drew it back dripping blood as the man crumpled to the floor. He stepped back, the pleading look on his face even stronger. Haimya didn’t know who was supposed to honor the plea now-her, or the pirates by the door, seeing a comrade struck down.

She knew then that she had only one hope left. She poured most of the remaining healing potion on her wounded shoulder, then shook the last few drops onto her tongue. Without waiting for it to take effect, she strode over to the Frostreaver and picked it up.

She didn’t know what she’d expected to happen. Would it strike her dead for stealing it, or would all the pirates discover that they had someplace else to go, and that urgently?

Neither happened. What she held in her hand was a fine two-handed, single-bitted battleaxe. It was heavy, but well balanced; clearly the guard creature’s strength had not been needed. Fustiar must know more than a trifle about weapons; a pity he was entirely given to evil-

“Kill the witch!” someone shouted. He was loud enough to raise not only echoes but dust. He raised more dust as he charged forward, cutlass raised.

Haimya’s arms and shoulders fought the first encounter before her thoughts could catch up with them. She held the axe with her hands wide apart and the head to the left, then shifted her grip to swing hard from left to right. The axehead smashed into the down-swinging cutlass and sent it flying out of the man’s hands.

The impact hardly slowed the axe’s deadly arc. It still had enough force to bite deeply into the man’s torso. He stared down at the gaping red ruin where his stomach had been, then clasped his arms futilely over the wound and went to his knees. He had time only to begin a scream before blood came out of his mouth and he fell, choking and writhing.

Before he was still, Pirvan had rushed in and picked up the fallen cutlass. He brandished it in his good hand, though Haimya saw him wince as the movement shook his broken and still unbound arm.

“They are my prisoners,” Gerik said, his voice tight. “Haimya, Haimya’s friend, you can disarm. I promise you-”

“I promise death to traitors!” another man shouted. “The witch killed my brother. She’s no prisoner!”

Gerik, Pirvan, and Haimya had just time to form a rough line before the general rush came. Then, for a minute or more, the fight became the lightning-quick clash of steel (and ice) that left Haimya no awareness of anything more than a foot beyond the reach of her Frostreaver.

She took down two men with it, one of them dead, and remembered too late that a two-handed weapon is not ideal in a melee against enemies who can get inside its swing. But Gerik seemed to have learned more swordsmanship in the last year than in all his previous years combined, and Pirvan was as quick as an eel and as welcoming as a poisonous serpent. Each of them took a man, and Haimya began to hope.

Hope ended when the door was suddenly filled with more men. The battle must have attracted them, and these newcomers were hideous beyond belief, earless, silent, scarred, and frenzied. Even if they’d had ears, Haimya could not conceive of their listening.

She and Pirvan paired off and kept the newcomers at a distance. They were both fighting with strange weapons, she was sick, and he was wounded, but one mind seemed to move both their limbs and take knowledge from both their senses.

The newcomers seemed reluctant to attack Gerik, and Haimya wondered if this was because of his service to Fustiar, who had to be their master. The pirates seemed to have no reluctance to attack anyone, but they divided their forces so that no one was overmatched.

How long the fight might have gone on, only the gods could say. Its end came in one frightful moment, as Haimya relied on Pirvan’s protecting her front to launch a full overhead swing at a pirate wearing a helmet.

The Frostreaver flashed down, it smote the helmet and pierced iron and bone to the man’s nose-then it shattered like a glass globe flung on a stone floor. Except that the shattering did not strew mere fragments of glass far and wide.

Instead, pieces of mage-wrought ice flew in all directions, sharper than razors, as heavy as stones, and as deadly as the claws of a dragon. Haimya saw blood on her leg, saw two men go down, and saw the mutes drag one of their number out the door with his belly laid open as they fled from something that overmatched their mindless courage-

And she saw Gerik Ginfrayson collapse, holding a hand already red over an ice-torn wound in his thigh, over his death wound, until his strength left him and his hand fell, leaving the wound to finish its work.

Haimya knelt beside him until the light went out of his eyes. She remembered kissing his lips before they were cold, then again afterward. She remembered muttering that she had been faithful to him, until this last betrayal, and other things that it was probably as well he could no longer hear. The gods’ hearing them would be enough.

She did not remember if he said anything. Probably he was silent, and even the smile on his face was almost certainly her imagination. But she held the picture of that smile in her mind, even when she felt Pirvan’s hand on her shoulder and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“We have to move.”

“Where?”

“Up or down. It doesn’t matter. We have to be outside the tower where Hipparan can find us-before Fustiar awakes or the black dragon returns.”

“I–I took the piece-Gerik should have had it, and I his.”

He looked down at her leg. “You can’t climb?”

“Perhaps. I-” She forced the words out, even as she uttered them knowing that he would ignore them, that if he had to find a way of carrying her out under one arm, he would do so.

“Leave me here.”

“Haimya, this is the first and probably the last time I will ever give you a command. Come, freely or against your will, but come.”

A lingering remnant of dignity forced her to put one foot in front of another. Surprisingly, the wounded leg could take some weight, even as she felt the bleeding worsen.

Kicking the useless handle of the Frostreaver out of the way, they stepped over the bodies and ice fragments to the door.