Circle of Reign (5 page)

“Impressive.” Thannuel raised his head in response to the Helsyan’s word and found him standing by casually looking on without concern. “And most entertaining,” he added with false admiration. “Tell me, do all your people have such curious sounding swords? I would very much like—”

The chase-giver did not get to finish his chiding. Kerr attacked with a velocity that no human could track with his or her eyes. The smell of fury emanated from this man. Such potency. Fury not born of hatred, but of something the he could not easily identify. There was no fear in him as they danced their dance of death. The chase-giver was faster and stronger, true, but Lord Kerr’s vigor was unexpected. For a time Kerr drove him back. This made the chase-giver smile with pleasure. It felt good to have a challenge, even on a small level. He allowed the contest to linger for several minutes longer than he needed to. Pity this man would die; he had begun to admire Kerr’s ferocity and tenacity. He had to know he was beaten. For the moment, though, the chase-giver decided to partake of some sport. He knew the girl was still near. He could smell her unwarranted confidence growing.

Reign sat secluded in the cavity of an old Triarch roughly twenty feet high. The sound of steel had caught her attention as she ran to the hold and she could not pass up watching her father live up to his legend. She had only heard stories of his abilities and prowess in the Realm but had never witnessed it herself. Although nervous seeing her father duel with a man that seemed more beast than human, she knew he was not afraid. He was her father.

The frightening man stumbled back, clutching his lower left leg for a moment before regaining his composure. Blood added its crimson taint to his flesh, mixing with the water of the ground where he stood. The man’s face betrayed him, even for just a moment, as Reign saw surprise and wonder in his eyes. Then came an awful recognition, a revelation that caused her fear to rekindle.
This man does not fear my father
. What manner of creature feared not Lord Thannuel Kerr, a wood-dweller worthy of his fame?

The swordplay became fiercer, more intense. No one could match speed with a wood-dweller in single-steel combat, not in the entire Realm. Reign told herself this over and over, trying to comfort herself as the intensity of the contest waxed. Her father appeared to be driven backward, which must be part of his plan. Surely her father’s wit was as much a weapon as was his steel and speed. Then, in a surreal instant, her world was dashed to pieces. Reign felt absolutely nothing.

Their steel sparked despite the rain as the force of their blows collided. Raindrops split as Kerr pulled his sword with masterful agility through the night air, the glint of lunar rays dimly reflecting outward, giving the illusion of luminescence to their swords. Lord Kerr concentrated fiercely, forcing out all other thought as they danced out of the meadow and crossed back into the tree line.
Think of nothing but this moment
.

The chase-giver lunged with more speed, but Kerr deflected the attack, forcing the chase-giver’s sword into the ground and connected a lightning fast fist to the Helsyan’s face. He heard the grunt of pain that escaped his foe. In one fluid motion, Kerr found a low hanging limb and hurled himself upward and over, bringing his sword down against the right side of the chase-giver’s neck in a forceful downward slash; or, where the neck should have been. His opponent had shifted from the scope of his swing so deftly that his sword only caught the man’s left leg in a glancing blow and continued downward, burying itself deep in a thick tree root. Kerr hastily tried to bring himself upright and free his sword, but overcompensated and stumbled backward. His next deflection was awkward and too slow, still off balance. Facing any ordinary man, even a very skilled one, Kerr could have overcome his mistake easy enough, but a Helsyan was not an ordinary man.

The chase-giver struck in a wide arc with great speed, taking advantage of his foe’s backward stumble. The steel met soft, hot flesh, ripping across Kerr’s chest. The rain seemed to lighten just a bit, which the chase-giver thought to be symbolic.

“Even the Cursed Heavens hold their breath for my finale,” he taunted. He stood over Lord Kerr who, inconceivably, was trying to get up. Kerr found his sword’s hilt and weakly raised it in defiance. The chase-giver would have laughed had he not been completely frustrated and insulted by this man’s lack of fear even in his last moments.
He has even drawn my life’s blood!
his mind screamed inwardly.
Impossible!

The pulsing pain from his wounded leg stubbornly reminded the chase-giver that it was not impossible; and, for the first time, he glimpsed a sense of his own mortality. This enraged him. He sneered, advancing in a blur of rage. In one stroke he easily broke through Kerr’s defensive posture, knocking his blade aside, and with a second stroke, ran him through. The Lord of the Western
Province felt the ground rush up to meet his knees as he turned his gaze upward toward the canopy of trees that concealed most of the night sky. The veins within the Triarch leaves far above shone their luminescence in the night as if stars caught in the living canopy.

“Reign,” Kerr whispered in his dying breath, his
last breath
, and seemed to smile slightly as the light in his eyes faded. His hand slackened and his sword fell free from his grip, revealing the small Triarch leafling firmly pressed against his palm.

Perplexed by his notice and attention of the rain as Kerr’s life slipped away, the chase-giver continued to wait impatiently for the intoxicating final scent of fear and acceptance from his fallen foe. He was not rewarded. Instead, he was further infuriated by the scent that did permeate the Lord’s final moments. It was of a disdainful taste to any Helsyan. Thannuel Kerr died feeling proud.

The Helsyan stared down at the body, disgusted. He was not at all fulfilled, not at all gratified. After a brief time, he turned his senses again to the girl’s scent to recapture it. There was none.
This cannot be
. He directed his powers more fully, taking in all the scents around him. She was not there. It was as if she had disappeared suddenly—almost as if she had died.
Perhaps she had
, he thought, but settled upon the belief that some trickery was at play. He searched his feelings and caught the urge of the Dahlrak still present. She was alive.

Hearing voices and dogs approaching, he decided to retreat for a time. His quarry had not been his, at least not his ultimate objective. A chase-giver cannot be released from a Charge once given, not even by he who gave the Charge. He would succeed or perish in the effort.

He would return, for he must.

TWO

Aiden

Day 18 of 4
^th
Dimming 406 A.U.

IT WAS UNMISTAKABLE.
The sound of steel against steel accompanied by swift-footed steps, the rhythm of men locked in battle. Aiden, master of the hold guard, looked up. He locked eyes with Lady Kerr’s through his long, shaggy black bangs and saw her ashen face, a stark contrast against her ebony hair. She had felt it too and the absolute fear on her face was plain to see, not at all the kind, gentle face he had first gazed upon when first coming to Hold Kerr thirteen years ago.

They stood in the hold’s courtyard, ignoring the night’s rain, and pacing: Moira worried for her daughter who had not returned; Aiden frustrated at being commanded by Lord Kerr to hold his position while Kerr went out beyond the hold’s walls alone, unprotected. Aiden knew Lord Kerr was more capable of defending himself than any of his hold guard, but that did not comfort him. The young man was dedicated to his position and to his lord, a dedication that germinated far from here, on the shores of the Runic Islands when he had seen Lord Kerr perform feats he could not explain, that no one could. He had almost convinced himself it was his imagination after so many years, a memory embellished over time.

Though difficult to tell from this distance, Aiden even thought he discerned a horse’s heavy canter as part of the confrontation. That was odd in the Western Province, as wood-dwellers could outrun the fastest breeds and they were therefore used as little more than beasts of burden in the West. But other soldiers in the Realm, those of other provinces, all used them. This was not mere sparring he felt: not only would the hour of the night be reason enough to harbor suspicion, second moon having just risen, but the intensity of the sound flowing to the wood-dweller through the forest’s intricately woven root system excused any doubt.

Aiden went rigid. Orders or not, his first duty was to protect Hold Kerr and above all else, its lord.

“Order Master Elethol to release the hounds,” Aiden said, referring to the hold’s kennel master. Before waiting for a response from Lady Kerr, the brash young master of the hold guard was gone from her sight. He leaped over the hold walls, heading south toward the sound of the conflict. Aiden resisted drawing his sword, a natural tendency when approaching a hostile situation. Running with a drawn sword made one awkward and slower. He needed all the speed he could muster.

Before he was one hundred paces past the hold’s walls, it stopped. The swordplay was no longer being reported through the ground. Risking a momentary cease in his sprint, he came to the nearest tree and hastily forced his palm flush against the tree’s bark. Nothing. He tried the next tree, quieting his mind further and listening more intently. Silence, save for the animals, birds, and insects. He did feel a current, however, in the trees; almost an emotion being radiated. He did not have time to ponder this now as precious moments were fleeing from him. He resumed his stride in the general direction of the last-felt oscillations.

After only a few minutes of running at reckless speeds, Master Aiden arrived on the scene. Thannuel lay perched upon a fallen tree looking up toward the rain. It beaded off his brow, face, and open eyes. Lifeless eyes.

The torrents of emotion that ran through the young wood-dweller were varied, ranging from rage to regret to guilt. Oddly, sorrow was not present. No, it was too early for that. He knew from experience that sorrow would come later. Memories of his own father’s end briefly manifested in his mind; the surprise on his father’s face as Aiden slipped the short blade between the wretched man’s ribs. The man didn’t think his son had it in him, drunk on wine again, just as always. It was the first time Aiden had killed anybody, but most twelve-year-old boys were completely devoid of such an experience. Yet, the youth from Helving, a remote part of the Western Province, discovered that killing could be as easy as breathing. Now, however, looking upon Lord Kerr’s lifeless body, guilt was foremost among his emotions. Raw and quintessential guilt.

I should have been here
.

Rushing to Kerr’s side, he hoped against hope to be wrong in what he saw, to change the reality so plainly before him. But it did not change and his rage started to rise to the surface.

He moved to place his hand on Thannuel’s chest, to cover his wound, but his hand began to quiver and he retracted it.

“You can’t leave,” he pleaded softly. “Not yet, not now.” His head pulsed with pain. “Where are they?” he asked aloud, knowing there was no answer. “Who did this?” He was so distracted that he did not feel the arrival of other hold guards, and then of Lady Kerr herself.