The Jackal of Nar (108 page)

That’s it,
he thought.
Tire yourself.

Blackwood Gayle backed off and Richius sprang, both hands driving his sword at the baron’s belly. But Gayle was agile and expected the counter. He twisted and let Richius skid by, then swung his weapon. The flat of the blade smashed against Richius’ unprotected back, setting the acid-chewed skin afire with pain. Richius gasped and stumbled away. Gayle simply laughed.

“You are weak,” the baron chortled. “No match at all. As I suspected.”

A little prayer sprang into Richius’ mind. He was panicking. Unbearable pain squeezed his breath into short bursts. Fevered drops of sweat blossomed on his forehead. In the windows he
saw Dyana’s mouth moving, urging him on desperately. Najjir was beside her, her eyes wide. Mercifully, Tharn was nowhere to be seen. If Gayle knew he was here …

“Come along now, boy,” jeered the baron. “Your lesson isn’t over yet.”

Richius lifted his sword again and readied for another bout. He needed an advantage over Gayle, but didn’t have one. Already Jessicane had become like lead in his grasp. And Gayle was barely winded.

Gayle charged unexpectedly forward and they clashed again. His sword swung up toward Richius’ head. Richius swiped the blade aside and drove his knee into Gayle’s hip. The baron’s own knees buckled for an instant and he tumbled into the dirt, rolling away from Richius’ attack. A handful of dirt sprang into Richius’ eyes, forcing him to back away while Gayle regained his footing. The two duelists moved apart and righted themselves. Gayle was gasping at last, dizzied by the attack. Richius blinked away the motes of dirt. The flesh of his back still tingled. He shouted and came at Gayle again, pressing him back with a ferocious series of blows. Gayle parried each of them expertly. Sparks flew from the clashing blades. Exhausted, Richius backed away, readying for the baron’s counter. But Gayle was breathing too hard to attack.

“You’re tiring, Baron,” hissed Richius. “You’re getting sloppy.”

Gayle spat a wad of saliva at Richius and wiped a hand over his sweaty face. Blood dripped into his eye, blinding him. Richius saw the chance and sprang forward, growling like a wildcat and flinging himself at Gayle. The Talistanian brought up his defense an instant too late. Jessicane glanced off his blade and across his rib cage, cutting open the leather armor and tasting the tender skin beneath. Gayle swore and thrust at Richius, driving him back. Blood sluiced from his side. He doubled over for a moment, then came at Richius again, screaming and unleashing a berserker barrage.

Jessicane blocked the blows, but the attack went on and on. Fatigue tightened the muscles in Richius’ arm. The flesh of his back roared with pain. He was panting, fighting off the tide of metal by instinct alone. He glimpsed the gate of the castle moving upward and an animal panic shot through him.

“No!” he cried. His eyes swept back to the castle and caught the image of a cloaked man emerging from the shadows.

It was all Gayle needed.

The thundering pain of a kneed groin ripped Richius in half.

Gayle’s sword pommel slammed into his temple. The world winked out of view. A nauseating sensation overcame him, and when his eyes opened he was staring at the sky. The looming figure of Blackwood Gayle blotted out the sun. Quickly he tried to snatch up his sword, but Gayle’s boot came down on his fingers. Richius cried out in anguish, and all his thoughts were suddenly of Dyana.

We are dead,
he thought.

“You have lost,” echoed Gayle. He brought the point of his sword to Richius’ throat and pressed a foot down on his chest. The baron was wheezing and laughing at the same time, favoring his bleeding side as he pushed the air from Richius’ lungs. “I am the best,” he declared triumphantly. “The best.”

Richius fought to remain conscious. He saw Tharn step out from the darkness of the gateway. A trio of warriors was with him, each with a bow in hand and a jiiktar on his back. Richius cursed. What did it matter now? Gayle had beaten him. The castle was finished anyway. He gritted his teeth and awaited the final blow.

“Do it,” he spat into Gayle’s face. “Kill me.”

“Oh, no,” sang Gayle. He leaned a little closer. “Not yet. I want you to see what I’m going to do.”

“You are a butcher!”

Gayle seemed to love the insults. “Yes, yes,” he agreed. “And so much worse, as you shall see. Who should I take first, Jackal? Your pretty little bitch?”

“You will take no one, monster,” declared a ringing voice. Tharn stepped into the courtyard with his trio of bowmen, walking without a cane, as straight and upright as any man. His shoulders were squared and his tufted hair stood in hackles from his scalp, and as he spoke he bared his teeth like a wolf. The voice bespoke nothing of infirmity, but rang in the yard with the might of a trumpet and the defiance of a battered flag. Astonished, Gayle turned toward the castle.

“Who are you?” he asked incredulously.

“I am Tharn,” proclaimed the cunning-man. “I am Storm Maker.”

The sword in Gayle’s grip slackened. “You?” he roared. “You!”

“Back away, savage,” commanded Tharn. The veins on his
face twisted like snakes. He brought up a glowing fist and his broken body seemed to grow, nourished by the glamour he called down from heaven. Behind the castle, the sky deepened to a violent gray. “Away,” he ordered. “Today you are undone!”

“Do not thwart me, sorcerer!” bellowed Gayle. An electrified cloud rose over the castle like a demon’s hand. Gayle drove down hard on Richius with his boot. “I will kill him!”

Tharn twitched a finger and his bowmen loosed their arrows. The shafts slammed into the baron’s neck, piercing his windpipe. Richius twisted out from under the man, grabbing his sword, barely able to hold it and staggering to his feet. The Shadow Angels snapped their reins. Gayle gurgled an order and watched in horror as Richius brought Jessicane down. His skull cracked, and Blackwood Gayle of Talistan dropped in a heap to the ground.

“Inside!” Tharn commanded. Richius turned to see the cunning-man with his arms outstretched, a monstrous, black aura sparking around him. His crimson eyes pulsed with fire. He was a thing of hell, a devil, mad and possessed of some unholy force. The warriors of Castle Dring came screaming out of the gate, storming toward the Shadow Angels. Richius stumbled forward, dropping Jessicane and struggling toward the gate. His crushed hand drooped uselessly at his wrist and the pain through his body made every step an agony. Behind him the Shadow Angels drew their swords to meet the handful of warriors. He could see Dyana rushing out to help him.

“No!” he moaned. “Go back.”

But Dyana dashed out into the yard and grabbed his arm, wrapping it around her neck and dragging him under the gate. The sky outside darkened. Richius turned to glimpse the crazed figure of Tharn raising his hands, and the astonished faces of Shadow Angels as they eyed the raging thing growing over the castle. Tharn’s robes blew wildly against his body. A roaring boom detonated in the heavens, shaking the walls of the keep and sending chunks of stone tumbling down from the towers. Dyana fell and put her hands to her ears. Richius dropped down over her as shards of rock shook from the cracked ceiling. Dyana tried to rise but he held her down.

“Stay!” he ordered, shielding her from the rocky rain. Out in the yard, the Shadow Angels fought against the stiffening wind. Branches blew back from tree trunks and snapped away. The
horses reared as their masters urged them onward. A purple mist twisted around their hooves. And Tharn endured it all like a mountain, tall and wrathful and remorseless.

“Die!” he shouted.

Another vicious hammerblow detonated in the heavens, an earthshaking boom that toppled a handful of horses. Richius felt a viselike pressure squeezing his head. Beneath him, Dyana screamed. In the yard, more horses tottered and collapsed, throwing off their riders as they snorted blood and cried in pain. Richius cried out, too. The terrible pressure made his eardrums pop with a sharp snap. He crawled toward the gate, shaking and stretching out his broken hand.

“Tharn!” he called. “Stop!”

Tharn ignored him. The Drol was almost invisible now, cloaked in the lavender mist. Through the haze, Richius could see the writhing figures of the Shadow Angels as they clutched at their heads, trying to keep their skulls from splitting. The enormous pressure of the air grew to a terrible crescendo. The mist rose with the tortured cries of the men. Richius felt himself losing consciousness, drifting away even as he dragged himself toward Tharn.

“Stop,” he groaned. He clawed at the dirt, crushed by the furious noise. Tharn was gone, swallowed up in the purple storm. Richius put his cheek to the ground and covered his head with his arms, burying himself in the grass. The pressure bore down on him, suffocating him, until he could stand no more. He was going to die. Dyana, too. But not Shani. Shani would live. Richius closed his eyes and let the pain come, calmed by the serene image of his beautiful daughter.…

Then the weight of the storm was gone. Groggily, he raised his head. A dying breeze stirred the dissipating fog. The world was still. He heard a clamor behind him, near the castle gate. He struggled to his feet and heard Dyana’s call.

“Richius!” she cried frantically. “Where are you?”

Numb and baffled, Richius rose, tears streaking down his cheeks as he staggered toward the castle. There he saw Dyana calling for him through the fog. She rose when she saw him and ran to him, throwing her arms passionately around him and speaking his name again and again. Richius buried his face in her hair.

“I’m alive,” he assured her. “I’m alive.”

Slowly the fog lifted around them. Richius embraced Dyana.
And then at once the same horrible notion occurred to them.

Dyana pulled free of his arms and shrieked.

“Tharn!”

A hedge of purple mist rolled back from the yard, revealing the cunning-man’s crumpled body. He lay on his back in a twisted heap, his chest rising and falling with desperate breaths, his fingernails scratching up earth as he tried to drag himself onto his side. Richius and Dyana raced over to him, kneeling down beside him. The glamour had abandoned him. Once again he was a mangled creature, deformed and hacking up blood.

“My wife?” he said in a shaky whisper. “They are dead?”

Dyana lifted his trembling hand and put it to her breast. “They are dead, my husband,” she answered. “You have saved us.”

Another plume of blood gushed from Tharn’s mouth. Beneath it swam a crooked smile. “Saved …” he gasped. “Saved …”

“Tharn,” said Richius desperately. “Don’t move. We’ll help you.…”

“I am dying,” croaked the Drol. His body shook as he spoke, enduring every word like torture. “Lorris calls me. Your hand, Richius, your hand …”

Richius gave Tharn his good hand, placing it with Dyana’s in the cunning-man’s gnarled fingers. Tharn looked up at them with his crimson eyes, and there was something of joy in them before the inner light dimmed. The body seized, the fingers fell away, and the Storm Maker of Lucel-Lor drifted into oblivion.

L
ike most events in Nar, the funeral for Emperor Arkus was a thing of scale. Count Renato Biagio, resplendent in crimson, addressed a crowd of over ten thousand mourners before sealing the giant mausoleum that would house the bones of the Great One forever. It had rained all that day and the night before, but Biagio endured the storms with grace. He himself was past mourning now, and there were schemes in his mind that preoccupied him.

All the nations closest to Nar City had sent delegations to the funeral, all bearing wishes for Arkus’ ascent to heaven. The legionnaires of Nar had been assembled at the order of their supreme commander, General Vorto, who stood beside his good friend Herrith on the ceremonial dais, watching Biagio with his cold blue eyes and stupidly betraying his every treacherous thought. On the dais with Biagio was Admiral Danar Nicabar, Vorto’s naval counterpart, who had docked the
Fearless
in the harbor and who, at Biagio’s order, had recalled the entire Black Fleet from its war in Lucel-Lor. The crowds marveled at the sight of the proud armada, a hundred gleaming warships choking the watery horizon. As Biagio finished his eulogy, his eyes flicked to Herrith. Among the crowds were a thousand of Vorto’s soldiers, religious devotees all. On the sea waited Nicabar’s unflinching armada. Biagio grinned at the fat bishop. He ended his speech and surrendered the floor to Herrith.

Under the shadow of the great Cathedral of the Martyrs, Bishop Herrith stretched out his arms, hushing his flock with the power of his office. He told the throngs of frightened Narens that God was merciful and that He would guide them with His mighty hand by divinely choosing a worthy successor to the Iron Throne. They were a people of morality and faith, said the bishop, and they needed a leader whom God would not shun. Biagio smiled throughout the bishop’s speech, already certain of his nemesis’ plans. The count was not fearful. He was the Roshann, and the Roshann was everywhere. Herrith held no surprises for him.

When the talks were done and the roses thrown, Biagio and Nicabar hurried from the dais, disappearing into the crowd. Swallowed up in the ocean of flesh, Herrith and his lapdog Vorto did not pursue them. A rush of excitement raced through the count as he made his way through the Naren streets. As he had suspected, the awesome sight of Nicabar’s navy had stilled the bishop’s hand. Even Vorto, a man with an army at his beckoning, didn’t dare challenge the cannons of the Black Fleet. Biagio and Nicabar boarded a stout rowboat that was waiting for them at the pier and departed Nar City.

Biagio stood up in the boat as the sailors rowed them toward the fleet, but his eyes were not on the armada. Rather, they lingered long and bitterly on the crowded Black City, on the rows of soldiers who had been ordered to assassinate him, and on the
impossibly tall Cathedral of the Martyrs, that garish monument to Herrith’s merciless God. Biagio waved theatrically. Over his shoulder, the long-range guns of the
Fearless
were trained on the city. The count laughed, happy with himself. The
Fearless
would take them to Crote. For now, Herrith and Vorto would have Nar City. But power was a fleeting thing.