Death of a Darklord (35 page)

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, last door to the right. Ashe had come running, with Konrad behind him. It had worked better than Harkon had hoped. Only Konrad had followed. He waited in the shadows, expecting the others.

“Where’s Elaine?” Konrad stalked into the room, axe held ready.

“I don’t think I’ll tell you,” Ashe said.

“Tell me where she is, and I won’t kill you.”

“I don’t think you’ll kill me at all.” He backed away toward where Harkon was hiding. “I think you will be the one who dies.” He swept the drapes aside, revealing Harkon.

Lukas had to smile. He did so love a dramatic gesture.

“The bard. What are you doing here?” Konrad said. He stood in a crouch, axe at the ready. He was surprised but still sure what to do. Kill it if it threatens you, no matter who it is.

Ashe was smiling out at Konrad, eager for the show to begin. Harkon stabbed the narrow undertaker through the back. He fell to his knees, a startled expression on his face. His hands groped at the sword point coming out of his chest, then he fell slowly forward, sliding off the sword on his own.

Harkon stepped away from the wall. “We don’t have much time. I’ll take you to Elaine.”

“What were you doing here with the undertaker?”

Oh, he was nicely suspicious. “From the smell of things, we don’t have much time. She’s locked in. She’ll be burned alive.”

Doubt passed over Konrad’s face.

“I suspected Ashe, but needed proof. When he ran in here, I hid. I was certainly glad to see you.”

Konrad lowered his axe but did not put it away. Harkon sheathed his own sword. “We must hurry. Without our help, she’ll never escape.”

Harkon walked toward him, hands loose at his sides, showing himself unarmed without being obvious about it. “She’s just across the hall in the next room.” He pointed out the open door.

Konrad turned to look, and Harkon slid a hidden dagger into the man’s heart. Konrad gave a wordless cry, and his axe dropped from suddenly nerveless hands.

Harkon lowered the dying man to the floor, holding him close. He grabbed the amulet and tossed it over Konrad’s neck.

“Sleep. Sleep forever, my suspicious friend.”

Something hit him in the chest, like a club. Harkon stared down to find a knife in his chest. Konrad’s hand slipped away from it, and he fell backward, collapsing to the floor.

Harkon grabbed at the knife, trying to stop the blood. It bubbled, hot and wet. He tore it out of his chest with a scream. Blood poured over his hands. Darkness ate at his vision.

Harkon fell forward, on hands and knees. He tried to change into wolf form, but it was too late. He was dying. No, he was dead.

It was his last thought before the darkness ate the light.

Elaine pounded on the door, screaming. Smoke was pouring through the cracks. The door opened inward, and she stumbled backward. Konrad stood there, half-lost in smoke. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the choking cloud, then into the next room where there was a window with a rope of drapes tied to a heavy chair.

“Climb,” he ordered.

Elaine didn’t ask questions, there was no time. She grabbed the makeshift rope and climbed down. When she was halfway down the wall, the rope sagged as Konrad climbed on.

“Drop, and I’ll catch you, girl.” Thordin’s voice.

She took a deep breath and let go. Strong arms caught her, tumbling them both to the ground.

Konrad dropped the last few feet, landing on hands and knees in the snow. Elaine ran to him, throwing her arms around him. He hugged her back, face pressed into her shoulder. Smoke billowed out of the window they had escaped from.

With a shuddering roar, the floor collapsed, and flames whooshed to the ceiling. Blaine’s body was in there, but clean flame was taking it. It was a better end than the fate of most of Cortton’s dead.

Konrad raised his face to hers. He was so close, so close. He kissed her, and she let him. His lips were soft, and his skin smelled of smoke.

The amulet around his neck glinted in the flames. Elaine didn’t remember him ever wearing jewelry.

Konrad ran his soot-blackened hands through her hair and laughed. He kissed her again, fierce and hard, as if he would push himself inside her through her mouth. It almost hurt.

Thordin and Gersalius stood over them, watching the house burn. She looked for Jonathan and found him huddled in the snow, beside the burned body of a zombie.

“Jonathan.” She called his name, but he didn’t move.

Gersalius put a hand on her shoulder. “Tereza came back as one of them. We had to destroy her.”

Elaine looked at Jonathan’s huddled form. She wanted to run to him, to tell him it would be all right, but in her heart of hearts, she knew it was a lie.

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bard was bringing in a lot of business.

Kelric was a man of medium height but broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He had learned to play the guitar, harp, and harpsichord with larger hands than he had now, but these fingers were long and slender, made subtle by thievery, not practice. He had used that suppleness, re-teaching the fingers to play music rather than lift money from unsuspecting backsides. Kelric Cutpurse had become Kelric Sweetvoice in a matter of months.

He missed his reputation as Calum Songmaster, but at twenty years old, he had years to rebuild his lost fame. Kelric had a higher, cleaner sound to his voice, which Calum quite liked. It was merely a matter of choosing new songs that suited his new voice, a new beginning in every sense of the word.

Harkon Lukas had brought the young Kelric to Calum’s bedside. He had placed the amulet on the young man’s neck. A few words, and the change had been complete. Calum couldn’t even remember a sensation. One moment, he was lying in bed, racked with pain, the next he was standing staring down at an old shriveled man.

It had been so long since he had looked in a mirror that he was shocked. His skin was parchmentlike, wrinkled, hanging in folds from his bones. The skin of his skull had slid downward like half-melted wax. Only his eyes were familiar. Only the eyes were left of what he remembered. Calum Songmaster had died a long time ago. He just hadn’t known it.

Those eyes blinked up at him, mouth wide with a silent scream. Kelric had volunteered for this—he truly had—but he hadn’t understood. No one could explain the pain. He screamed, wordlessly. The tongue flopped in the toothless mouth, lips so thin there was nothing but the wordless hole.

“I can’t, I can’t,” he screamed. “Take me out, oh, gods, take me out.”

“What do you think, Calum? Should we trade bodies back?” Harkon touched the strong, new shoulders, kneaded the new muscles with long fingers.

Calum stared down at the dying body. He looked at the panicked, pain-filled eyes. His eyes. But not anymore, not if he simply said no.

Harkon’s lips gave a slow, spreading smile, like those of a well-fed serpent. He stalked to the bed, his gliding walk almost dancelike. He was enjoying himself.

“I will take away this pain, Kelric. I will free you of this terrible burden.” He knelt on the bed. “Come Calum, move round so there is eye contact. That is very important.”

Calum started to say no, but something in Harkon’s face stopped him. He shifted so he could see his old body with a stranger looking out of it.

Only then did he realize it was not just age and illness that made his old face look strange to him. The facial expression was
alien, too. It was Kelric’s personality staring out.

Harkon knelt, touching the aged face gently. He smiled sweetly, as if tucking the old man into bed for the coming night. Calum half expected Harkon to ask that the man close his eyes, but he did not, instead slowly drawing his belt knife, making a great show of it.

The eyes widened. “No, you promised.…”

Calum wondered what Kelric had been promised. What could Harkon have offered for this?

“No, please!” The old man looked at Calum, at his own body standing there. He raised an age-spotted hand out, beseeching, “Help me!”

Harkon lay alongside the aged man. He rubbed the flat of the knife blade along the bedclothes, over the thin chest. “You have failed to grasp something, dear Kelric. He wants to keep your body. He had no intention of ever giving it back.”

The pale eyes widened, and the knowledge of the betrayal was plain on his face. His mouth opened, and Calum tensed for the accusations, the recriminations. But the knife slipped upward, touching the soft flesh of the neck. The mouth froze open, eyes wide.

“Get on with it,” Calum said with the young voice, his voice.

“And how would we explain slitting his throat?” Harkon jerked a pillow from under the man’s head. The man gave a startled sound, and Lukas pressed the pillow over that face. He sheathed the knife with one hand, then bore down with both palms on the pillow. Thin, bony fingers beat at the case, plucked at Harkon’s sleeves.

Lukas pressed the pillow down a long time after those frantic
hands fell still. He stared into Calum’s new eyes, a small smile playing along his lips.

Calum’s nightmares had been haunted by that smile.

But then word had come that Harkon Lukas had died in a fire in Cortton. He had died heroically, trying to save the village.

Kelric Sweetvoice gave a bow and left the small stage at the Iron Goat Tavern. The bartender, who was also the owner, slapped his back. “I’ve never had such crowds. I wish you would you sign a contract with me.”

Calum smiled, but shook his head. “I like to be free to go where I please, but I thank you again for the offer.”

A second pair of hands clapped him on the back. Calum turned to find Konrad Burn standing before him. He started to greet him as Calum would have, but saved himself, just in time. They were strangers now. This instant recognition was one of the reasons he had gone far away from his old home grounds. Konrad’s was the first old face he’d seen.

“You remind me of an old friend, a famous bard named Calum Songmaster. Did you ever hear him sing?”

Calum nearly choked on his drink. He managed to shake his head, not trusting his voice.

“Let me buy you your next drink,” Konrad said. “I’d like to request the ‘Ballad of Omartrag.’ It was one of Calum’s favorites.”

He found his voice at last. “I don’t know it, friend.”

Konrad’s smile slipped, but he regained his unusual good cheer.

Calum could not help himself, he had to ask. “You seem to be in a good mood, stranger. What’s the occasion?”

“I’m engaged.”

Calum fought with all the training he had ever had to keep the shock from his voice. “Whom to?”

“You wouldn’t know her.”

“Give me a name, and perhaps I’ll write a song about her.”

Konrad laughed; he actually laughed. “Elaine Clairn—perhaps not a poetic name, but she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“A fiance should always think his woman is the most lovely in the world,” Calum said. He wanted to hug Konrad, to tell him how genuinely happy he was that he had found love again. And to find it with little Elaine.… Calum wished he could congratulate her, too. But he couldn’t. He could never risk seeing them again.

Konrad bought him the drink even though he did not know the ballad. Calum kept slipping glances at this new, laughing Konrad. The change was remarkable.

Calum wanted to say how glad he was that Harkon had died, that Konrad had survived to find happiness at last. But he sang other songs for the patrons, and after a few hours wanted nothing more than to be out of the stifling atmosphere of the tavern. He walked outside into the late spring night, leaving Konrad in the bright laughing crowd.

Calum stood in the small paved courtyard, breathing the faint growing smells of the meadows just outside of town. A sound made him turn.