Perilous Travels (The Southern Continent Series Book 2) (21 page)

“I want her to heal.  Can I bring her to the palace so that you’ll sing to her?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.  Hold on,” Grace said.

A few seconds later she spoke.  “I have to serve the Queen; she’s going to speak to everyone in the arena.  Come to the palace with your friend afterwards,” she rushed the words.

Seconds later, the Queen’s own voice boomed throughout the entire arena, causing the heads of all the spectators to turn and stare upwards, or swivel from side to side, seeking the source of the extraordinary, godlike voice.

“Cease!  All activity in the arena must cease!” the Queen declared.

“The Melee is over!

“All combatants must return to their flag positions, all fighting must end, and all unnatural acts must stop now!” she commanded.

“And you, Grange, shall approach the royal box,” she added.

The voice went silent, and the whole stadium was also silent for a handful of seconds, astounded by the incredible events.

“Jadie, will you be okay until I can tend you?” Grange asked the girl on the ground.  “All of you,” he motioned to the members of his squad, “gather around and carry her back to the flag.  Get some immediate medical attention for her.

“Casey, you’ll make sure she’s looked after?” he asked.

“Of course Grange, don’t worry.  You go find out what the Queen wants, and thank you for protecting us,” Casey told him.  She rose to a crouch and wrapped her arms upward around him in a tight hug.

Grange reciprocated the hug with one hand, as he waved the other hand and uttered the request to the energy to release the dome over his small band.

“Now, you go see Queen Shajo,” Casey whispered.  She turned and motioned for the others in the squad to lift Jadie, and Grange watched as they gingerly did so.

“Grace, we need to perform for her soon,” he whispered to the distant apprentice.

“As quickly as the Queen will allow me Grange, I promise,” he heard Grace’s voice distantly answer.

Grange looked around the arena floor, where the other members of the melee were streaming back to their starting places.  Grange stood close to the Red flag, closer than he had realized.  His squad had done a credible job of posing a real threat to the Red team, he realized, and as he started to walk towards the Queen’s box, on the other side of the arena, his path intersected with that of a few of the returning Reds.

They looked at him with eyes that were flat and unfriendly, or frightened, or some combination of both sets of feeling.  A woman wearing the red over a black outfit turned as she approached him, and started walking alongside him.  She was a tall woman, and Grange was surprised by her apparent intention to escort him to the Queen.  He turned to look at her, as she turned to look at him, and he was surprised to see that she was Rigan, the seamstress from the embassy, who had produced so many sets of clothing for him.  He was wearing one of her creations at that moment, he realized.

“I’m not really here fighting for the Red cause, my friend,” Rigan spoke to him as they walked.  “And I see you’re wearing the proper set of clothes.  This couldn’t have worked out any better,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” Grange asked in confusion.  “Why are you walking with me?”

“I’ve been protecting you,” she told him, “and the time has come for my protection to reach its culmination.

“I carried you through the waves to where that sweet little girl could take you ashore.  I worked through her father to give you lessons in hand-to-hand combat as this land practices it.  It’s appropriate for a slender fellow like you when it’s taught properly,” she told him conversationally, as he walked along in bewilderment.

“And then when you got here, I put together the protective uniform you wear now, the one that is going to be a life-saver for you,” she said confidently.

“What are you talking about?” he was bewildered by the random things she told him.  They were drawing very near to the front of the Queen’s box, and he needed to focus on what was happening.  He didn’t believe there was any good news in being summoned by the Queen in front of thousands of people.

“I’m talking about this ambush,” the woman answered.

Grange was just taking his spot in front of the royal box, when he stopped and turned to look at Rigan, once again baffled by her babbling words.

“Grange!” he heard Grace’s voice.  “It’s a trap!”

Rigan began to glow, with a darkness that was bright, a glow that absorbed light, yet still glimmered with a dark radiance.  At the same time, there was movement in front of the royal box, abrupt and violent movement.

“Brielle!  Ariana!” without knowing why, Grange shouted loudly, calling for his distant weapons – left behind because real weapons were supposed to be prohibited at the Melee – the ones that were alive with the implanted jewels that gave the blades powers and abilities.

The movement he saw was the eruption of a quartet of armed men – two with swords and two with bows and arrows.  They rose from positions of hiding, and Grange saw other people struggling inside the box.

Rigan’s glow expanded out in the fractions of seconds that the assailants raised their weapons, then the woman beside him contracted instantly into a small glowing black jewel.  Rigan the jewel flew towards Grange’s chest and attached herself to his clothing, the very outfit that she had prepared for him herself.  The contact between the jewel and the cloth produced a profound ringing in his soul.  As she did, his yellow vest turned black, a deep black that matched the clothes Grange was wearing.  His outfit grew hot, and felt alive with power, while it seemed to writhe across his skin, then harden.

The two archers fired their arrows at Grange from point-blank range.   It was impossible for them to miss their target, the center of his chest, and both arrows struck him simultaneously, with their powerful momentum driving them into the material.

Grange sensed that his living weapons were arriving.  He threw his arms out in reaction to being slammed backwards by the arrows, and to try to catch his weapons simultaneously, as their hilts struck the palms of his hands.

Instead of piercing him, the arrows bounced off his clothing, and fell to the ground, while the people in the stands started to panic and shriek.

Not knowing what he was doing, Grange reacted instinctively, all the fighting practice of his days and months and hours with the women-jewels driving his motions.  Grange’s arms tossed his weapons forward, sending both the knife and the sword flying with tumbling somersaults through the air to strike the two sword-wielding assailants in front of him.

At the same time, Grace threw up a protective dome, one akin to the dome that Grange had used only moments earlier on the floor of the arena, and akin to the dome she herself had used many weeks earlier in Palmland.  Grange’s eyes spotted the wizard apprentice, protectively grabbing and hugging the Queen to her chest within the dome as it erupted around them.

“Ariana!  Brielle! Return!” Grange called, and he leapt forward, his hands meeting the flying weapons as he rose into the air to leap at more of the attackers.  He slashed with the sword and tossed the knife, then began fighting with desperate energy against the many armed men who seemed to occupy the royal box.  A number of unarmed royal guests were down, slain or wounded by the group of attackers who had taken over the box, while a small handful of royal guards fought desperately to stay alive, as a part of the attackers tried to fight them and to penetrate Grace’s dome so that they could get to the Queen.

Grange called Brielle back to him, as he swung Ariana, and felt Rigan’s protective clothing repel two strikes that penetrated his defenses or came from behind him.  He waded impulsively forward, always attacking the men who were trying to attack the royal guards, or who were fruitlessly assaulting Grace’s defensive dome, or who were terrorizing anyone else left in the vicinity.

In a matter of minutes the battle was over.  The dozen assailants were all dead, each of them thoroughly killed by Grange or the remaining guards.  Grace cautiously dissolved her dome, at the Queen’s order.  The three royal guards who remained alive rushed to her side, while Grange stood among the bloody wreckage, panting from the exertion.

He stared in uncomprehending shock at the scene of carnage, as his mind tried to digest what had happened.

Rigan the seamstress had been Rigan, the black jewel.  While it was a stunning and unexpected revelation, it was also something that had been hinted at, he realized in hindsight.  She had spoken mysteriously, shown up on occasion with unerring timing, and had exuded an aura of competence beyond simply tailoring clothing.

And the ambush at the royal box was also inexplicable.  He couldn’t comprehend who had set up such an ambush, one that seemed aimed equally at him and at the Queen.

“Grange!  Look out!” Grace screamed.

Grange turned and saw one of the dead combatants rise up with a knife in his hand, and a grisly wound across his abdomen.  It seemed impossible for such a person to be able to live and attack, yet it was happening quickly and frighteningly.

There was something on the back of the man’s neck that Grange suddenly realized was the hind parts of a demon.  He slashed his blue sword, endowed by the goddess Miriam with the power to kill demons, and struck the man’s neck in a bloody attack that sent blood spraying in all directions and killed the screaming demon, making the body fall back to the ground, inanimate and dead once again.

“Dear spirits!” the Queen exclaimed.  “What madness has fallen upon us?”

“Take her to the palace,” Grange shouted to the small coterie of guards who surrounded the Queen.  “Take her there now and keep her safe.”

He watched as the guards looked at one another, apparently without an officer left alive to command them, then they took hold of the Queen and began to escort her quickly away into the private passageway that the royal box enjoyed.

Grange looked at Grace.  Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide with shock.  “We need to perform for all the injured people, but I don’t have my flute with me,” he told her.

She stared at him with vacant eyes for a moment more, then blinked.  “Call it,” she suggested simply.

It was his turn to stare at her, confused.

“Use the power, use the old language, and summon the flute to come to you.  You know where it is, don’t you?  Visualize it and show the energy that you want it to come to you.  That’s what you did with the sword, isn’t it?” she told him.

“Not exactly,” he muttered.

He visualized his room on the fourth floor, and the flute sitting on the table.  Then he thought of Rigan, who had shown up in the room so mysteriously from time to time.  “Oh Rigan,” he said softly.  She was gone as a person, just as Ariana and Brielle were gone, once again in the form of a jewel, no longer flesh and blood.

“Grange?” Grace said softly, bringing him back to the present.

“Your flute?” she reminded him.

He turned and absently looked at the spot where the Yellow team was still congregated together on the arena floor, tense, angry, and frightened by the explosive events taking place.

“Os gwelwch yn dda, grym, yn dod â fy ffliwt i mi,” he called to the power.

“Project your voice to the whole arena,” he turned and said to Grace.  “Let them all know that the Queen is safe, on her way to the palace, and let them know we will make the music to heal their wounds and illnesses, of any and all who are here, if they will wait for us.”

She nodded at the suggestion, but before she could touch her wand to her throat, one of the royal guards approached her.  “The Queen asked that you return to the palace with her,” the man said expectantly.  He glanced over at Grange apprehensively, then stared only at Grace.

Grace looked at Grange, who gave his head a slight negative shake.  A moment later, his flute arrived and smacked against his hand, startling the guardsman.

“I’ll come in a couple of minutes,” she told the guard, then touched her wand to her throat, and spoke.

“Friends, the Queen is safe, and her guards have taken her from the arena, and back to the palace.  The attackers are beaten,” Grace told the crowd, which had collectively gasped when another loud voice had descended upon them all.

“We will play and sing wizards’ music for you; if you are wounded, or injured, or ill, our music will help you to heal more quickly,” she said, then looked at Grange to see if there was any further message he wanted delivered.  He shook his head, and held up his flute to demonstrate that he was ready to play.

“What song?” Grace asked him softly, then cringed when her words echoed across the stadium.

Grange grinned at the small misstep.  He was glad to have something to grin about in the midst of the violence and terror of the arena.

She touched her wand to her throat again.  “What song do you want to play?” she asked again, privately.

“Is there a good palace song, like an anthem, that we’d both know?” Grange asked, then shook his head in the negative, realizing that he didn’t know any such songs from Kilau.

“Let’s perform the song we did the first time in the palace together, ’You Will Always Have Me’,” Grace suggested.

It was a song they both knew well, and it had been received well by the crowd at the palace dance when they had performed it before, Grange recollected.  He nodded his head, and Grace touched her wand to her throat once again, re-engaging her powers to project her voice again.