Bastial Frenzy (The Rhythm of Rivalry: Book 4) (60 page)

“That the four kings need to stop fighting each other and start fighting the desmarls…and if they don’t, Fatholl should rule instead.”

It wasn’t long after when Danvell decided to have the ears of his entire staff checked. On the day of the championship shotmarl competition, an Elf was found. She was a middle-aged woman with curly brown hair that hung to her shoulders, completely covering her ears. Although she looked more motherly than dangerous, they’d already restrained her hands behind her back before bringing her to the King, even bound her ankles together. Danvell took no risks, not when she could be a psychic.

“Let me see her ears,” he said.

One of the guards who’d escorted her used both hands to part her hair, showing one long Elven ear pinned to the side of her head.

“Where does she work, and how long has she been here?” Danvell asked his guards.

But the woman answered for herself. “I spend my days in the kitchen. I’ve been doing so for three years.”

“Who are you?” the King demanded. “And what are you doing in Goldram?”

“You set something in motion with your inquisitions about Fatholl.” She spoke with scorn. “You’ve started to unravel the thread, and now it’s coming undone on its own. You’ve made this more difficult for me, finding me before I was ready to be found, but that won’t stop anything.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pressed together. Suddenly, every guard surrounding her began to scream and collapse.

“To answer your questions, I’m Sval, and what I’m doing in Goldram is serving Fatholl.”

She calmly lowered herself until she was sitting on the ground, the guards still screaming in agony. She tilted her body and brought her bound hands under her feet. With them now in front of her, she stood and walked over to the nearest guard. When she began to reach for the sword on his belt as he writhed on the ground, Danvell’s wits finally returned.

He stood and shouted, “Guards, guards!” To his dismay, only two more ran in from outside.

One stopped in the doorway to shout into the hall, “Need more guards!”

The other one who’d come in quickly fell, joining those already on the ground.

“It would be wise to stop shouting,” Sval said. She adjusted the sword in her bound hands and then drove it into a guard’s chest. “Unless you want to see more of them killed.”

Danvell watched in horror as she killed them one by one. He felt nothing from her psyche yet, but he was too scared to be near her. He shouted for help. More guards came in, only to be taken by psyche and killed immediately.

The horror seemed to go on endlessly, Danvell sick with fear. Eventually she closed the door to his throne room and barred it with a solid block of wood. She killed the last guards still left.

Blood soaked her dress and dripped from the underside of her chin, which she wiped as she came toward the King of Goldram.

“Wait,” he urged.

She didn’t stop.

“Wait! I want to kill the desmarls also.”

“You don’t want it enough. If you did, you would’ve shared the Bastial steel with the other territories ten years ago instead of going to war over it.”

Danvell heard someone kicking the door and shouting his name. It sounded like a young man’s voice. With Sval just a few steps away from him now, he realized who it was.

“Jek!” he called. “Hurry.” Danvell was pressed against the wall. Sval was slow, having difficulty moving with her ankles bound.

“Don’t you run,” she warned him just as the thought crossed his mind. But he ran anyway.

The worst pain he’d felt in his lifetime made all his muscles convulse. He fell, unable to move, unable to do anything but scream.

Jek’s voice came into the room. “Almost there!” It was barely loud enough for Danvell to hear over his own screaming.

It was too late. Sval was over him, her sword coming down fast. He didn’t even feel the blade burrow into his chest. In fact, his pain subsided when he was struck. He was strangely relieved as blackness took him.

Outside the door to the throne room, Jek could feel himself losing hope when King Danvell Takary’s screams stopped abruptly.

No!
Just a little longer! I’m almost there!

A guard had come to help Jek break down the door. Together, they kicked with all their strength.

The moment it flung open and Jek saw dead bodies covering the floor, he raced in with his wand ready.

“Get help,” he commanded the guard.

A woman in her middle years was pulling a sword out of the King’s chest. He was covered in blood.

So was she. It dripped from her hair and chin. The chains that bound her wrists and ankles obviously had failed to stop the slaughter.

She sighed at Jek. “I’d hoped not to kill anyone so young.” She spoke with regret, which was at odds with the carnage that surrounded her. But then her eyes hardened and she trudged forward, lifting her palm.

End of Book 4

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by B.T. Narro

Cover art by Ricky Gunawan

Maps by Annette Tremblay: midnightwhimsy.deviantart.com

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