Samual (12 page)

A couple of fire wizards had also shown up, and he saw them preparing their own fire to attack him. But they were too slow and little more than novices. Where were the masters? Sam couldn't feel them anywhere. Not that they would have posed any risk to him. But right then he didn't care. His target was in his sight, and these mages posed him no threat. He had been carrying his fire for days, building it up by the hour until he was near to exploding; they had had but a few moments. It was ridiculously easy to rip their ice swords out of their hands with a noose of flame, and in the process cause them to collapse as their own life force was splintered by the shock. They would not wake up soon and then it would be weeks before they recovered what strength they had.

In time Heri looked up from the stone floor where he knelt screaming, and managed a few choked words of hatred, calling him a bastard and a half-breed. But then he had called him these things all his life and Sam paid him little mind. He only wanted to know one thing. Why had his little brother killed his wife? Once he knew that he would release Heri from his life.

“Why?” Once more he extended a finger and the fire sword streamed out until it stopped mere inches from Heri's throat, stopping the rant in a heartbeat. Meanwhile Heri became aware that his back was only a few inches away from the fire wall itself. Abruptly Heri stopped speaking altogether as he felt both his back and his neck cooking. No doubt he now realised he was about to die, and was preparing his prayers for the afterlife. But Heri would not die before Sam had charged him with his crimes. This might be vengeance – it was vengeance – but it was also justice. Ry's death had been murder, no more and no less, and her murderer had to be called to account. He had to know why he was going to die.

“I never wanted the throne toad! I said that to any and all who would listen from the very start. I still don't want it. And you knew that from the day you turned five. You knew it and you didn't care!”

He shouted it at Heri in faltering common – he hadn't spoken the tongue in years – and watched his brother's face turn deathly white behind his burning cheeks as he expected to burn.

“Instead you had to set me up, again and again and again. Sending in your agents, your spies. Looking for the first sign that I might betray you. And even when I didn't you still stole my newly wedded wife from me. You locked her up, exiled me on pain of her death, and even then sent assassin after assassin after me despite your promises. None of them will ever return, but you will meet them again shortly – in the underworld.”

“And now, when you've finally got everything you wanted, when you're supposedly secure in your rule, what do you do? You kill her! You foetid, murdering pile of cow dung! You kidnapped and murdered my wife! And you thought to live through this?!”

By the looks of things his half-brother wasn't thinking of anything very much at all right then. He was simply shaking in fear, and there was some suspicious moisture running down his leggings.

“Why? How? Did you think I would not find out? Did you somehow imagine I would not act? Did you imagine you had any way to stop me? That perhaps somehow one of your hundreds of assassins had finally succeeded in killing me? Did one of them perhaps report success a little early? And so you thought you had gotten rid of one problem, you should also get rid of the embarrassment of having illegally held an innocent elf maiden of good station in your dungeons for five years as well?!”

He knew that had to be it. It was the only thought that had crossed his mind in nearly a week of hard riding. His brother was neither brave enough nor stupid enough to kill Ryshal otherwise. He had all the cunning of a rat in a dung heap. It was why he'd looked so surprised to see him.

“No!” Finally his brother spoke, if only to deny it all. But how could he truly deny anything? He was guilty of it all and far more. Sam watched the sweat on his forehead start dripping to the floor, and knew Heri was terrified. Good! Soon he would be dead.

“No little brother? No? I suppose you're going to tell me it was all some sort of accident? That she accidentally stabbed herself in the back with a sword.” He turned up the heat a few more notches and watched his little half-brother start shaking even more violently in his fear. Soon he would be begging. But he would find no mercy in Sam.

“No! No! I'm begging you no! She's not dead. Never! I wouldn't hurt her. Never!”

For what seemed like ages Sam sat there on his horse, taking in the words he'd never expected to hear, and it left him stunned. Shaken so badly he even let some of the fire out of his shield. It was a mistake, as the archers sensing his distraction, a full score of them, fired everything they had at him. Most, badly charred by the weakened fire, bounced harmlessly off his armour but one found the gap between his breast plate and over lapping shoulder piece, skewering him neatly in the arm pit.

The sudden pain pulled Sam out of his shock, and quickly he raised his fire walls again. But for a heartbeat or two it could have gone either way. He could have dropped them completely as he reeled in the sudden pain. It was no doubt exactly as his brother had planned.

A heartbeat later he had his brother once more pinned between the sword and the fire wall, and was preparing to end it.

“So you lie again! Even at your end you show yourself to be a deceiver. Not a warrior, not a king, not even a man. Just a black hearted thief of words. You have always lied. From your very birth you learned deception with every sip of your foul mother's milk, and now even at the end you can't find the truth. How can such a miserable creature as you ever be my brother? Our father's son? Dishonour is your way, and I am grateful that our father is not here to see you like this. You expected me to believe you. Just enough so that you could get me to lower my defences, and then kill me. But guess what brother. It didn't work.”

“You should have known better. Your plan has failed, and your death is near. It will not be an easy one.” And just to emphasise his point Sam pulled the arrow free, threw its bloody wreckage at his feet, and then set it aflame, all the while keeping his wall hot. It hurt. But mere physical pain could not distract him.

“You have cost me five years of my life for nothing. Your evil has caused me more torment than you could even understand as you have held my wife apart from me. You have tormented her as well, and locked her away in a dungeon. It is unthinkable! And now foul demon, you have murdered her! The least you can do is scream for me. Scream as you have never screamed before!”

Immediately he began tightening up the fire wall behind his brother, burning the hairs off his back, and getting the desired reward as Heri screamed with all his worth. And yet he was still trying to speak, to lie his way out of trouble.

“No! She lives! I promise you! On my honour. On my life!”

“What honour? Sewer rats like you have none! Were our father still alive he would spit on you. He would cast you off the battlements and feed your remains to the pigs! But you are finally right about one thing. Your life is the coin that you will pay for your crimes with.” Except that even as he was speaking he was looking into his brother's terrified eyes, wanting to see some sign of regret, and seeing instead the one thing he had never expected to see. The truth. Or at least a lack of lies.

Heri finally had nothing of planning or deceit left to him. He was just a frightened, screaming coward. Which gave Sam just enough room to hope. To dream for the first time in many long years. To plan. And to ask a question that had never occurred to him. Could it be? Could she be alive?

How? Her parents had received the death notice. They had visited the grave. And they did not lie. But could it all be some sort of mistake? It seemed impossible – or nearly so. But still, he had to wonder.

And he also had to understand that if his brother was finally telling the truth, then he was in the strongest position he ever would be. His unstoppable anger had somehow brought him all the way through to the king unharmed, and then let him capture him. This chance would not happen again. He had to find out if there was truly any hope.

“Tell you what toad. Bring her to me now, before I count to maybe a hundred, unharmed and I'll even let you live. Fail, and I shall start slicing you up, piece by piece.”

And just to emphasise his point Sam guided the flame sword down his front, cutting through his night clothes. Sam started at the collar and worked his way straight down while Heri screamed with fear and pain as his skin started blistering. He had never had much in the way of courage, depending on others to do his fighting for him, and in the face of a fiery death, he had none at all.

“Quickly now. Before I begin to doubt you.” And to emphasise his words he started counting – loudly.

It was as the flame sword tip reached his belly button that Heri finally had the presence of mind to stop screaming and start ordering his guards to do as he said. And once he started he couldn't stop. There was a mass exodus of feet as surely a dozen guards went running off for the dungeons as fast as they could, but Sam paid them no mind.

Instead he was simply trying to remain calm as his instructors had taught him to. But it wasn't easy. On the one hand he was praying – even daring to hope – that his brother was telling the truth, and the promise of a whole new wondrous life had suddenly been laid out ahead of him. On the other he knew his brother was most likely lying. He was desperate and would no doubt say anything, just to save his own skin for a few more moments. In between those two raging emotions, he had to keep concentrating. To fail was to let go of the fire, to release it along with his soul. To fail was to die, and maybe take out the entire castle with him.

Closing his eyes – it was something a soldier would never do in battle but in this case he simply had to – he concentrated on moving beyond fear and hope as his teachers had taught him. He looked to find the calm place in his thoughts, and to expand it until it enveloped him. Because it was only there that the wizard could rule. And he needed to be the wizard. Eventually some sense of peace returned to him. Not much, but enough.

Finally he opened his eyes to see his brother staring back at him, and saw both hope and fear written all over Heri's face. The sweat that had begun pouring off his brow was dripping everywhere, until his remaining night clothes were plastered to him, while a puddle was forming around his feet. Sam would have wagered good coin that it wasn't all sweat.

He understood Heri's fear, but why was he hopeful? That was the important question. If Ryshal was dead he had no reason to hope. He would die shortly regardless. And Sam wasn't about to let his walls drop again.

He mulled it over silently, desperately trying to remain calm, while they waited. Heri just stood there and sweated.

Finally, after the longest wait he had ever known, Sam heard the sound of heavy steel shod boots clanging on the stone floors as their owners returned at a run, and he turned to face them, filled with hope and dread. The pounding of his heart in his chest was unbelievable, and the sound almost deafened him.

Finally they came into view, and he saw the one face he had never expected to see again. Ryshal. His mouth dropped as he drank her beauty in. And haggard though she was, she was still beautiful.

Her normal dark tanned skin was pale, and there were blotches on her face. The result of too little sun and a poor diet. Heri had never fed his prisoners very well. Not even apparently, his hostages, despite his promises. Her normal graceful and lithe form had become painfully thin, and he could see her cheek bones sticking out. She also could barely stand. It would be a long time before she would dance for him again. Her beautiful long tresses of hair had been cut short, and what was left was unkempt and matted. She looked to have aged fifty years in just five. Yet still he saw the incredible love and joy that shone from her very soul. Some of the laughter might be gone, but not he hoped, forever.

“Merciful creator.” He barely even knew he'd spoken until he heard the words come out of his own mouth, and then he wondered who said them.

“Ryshal. Beloved.” Actually he called her aylin mi elle, Elvish for light of my heart. But in common it translated as beloved, and seeing her he was once more in Shavarra in his home with her.

“Samual.”

Her voice still sounded of sunny days in forests filled with happy creatures and dancing waterfalls, and it took him all the way back to when they had first met. Of the way she had entranced him with her beauty and love until all else had seemed as nothing. The pain of his flesh as long days training in weapons had left him close to exhaustion. The ache in his very essence as he spent long nights being tutored in magic and science. Even the suffering in his soul as he mourned for his father, and learned to despise his brother. The only thing Heri saw in their father's death was his chance to rule early. But not till he turned eighteen, for which pain he had blamed everyone, but most of all Sam. And he had taken it amiss that Sam should take a wife while he suffered. But when Ryshal had arrived in his life, all of that had become as nothing to Sam. Only she had existed. And that still held true.