The Forsaken Throne, page 21
part #6 of Kingfountain Series
“Just Deven and a few others. A good hunter with a bow is worth twenty men with naught but swords. The hunter is patient. The prey is careless. I don’t think they realized they were the prey until the end.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Crooked Tree
Despite the reassuring tone in Martin’s voice, Trynne was distrustful. Fallon looked ready to head out, but she caught his arm and gave him a warning look. “How did you know we’d be here?” Trynne asked the grizzled hunter. She couldn’t sense anyone who was Fountain-blessed or possessed magic. Still, she did not feel entirely safe.
“Bah,” Martin said with a snort. “Didn’t know that, lass. But I won’t mistake this for coincidence. I have seen enough in my years to convince me the Medium is real. I knew you two were heading to Dieyre’s army to seek your father. There were rumors about Dieyre’s new strategist. I pieced it together.
“I’ve had my Evnissyen up in these mountains for weeks trying to find a back way in, since the front is heavily guarded. Deven and I made haste here and arrived last night. We were on the lookout for you. We camped high up, so we saw Dieyre’s hunters chasing you. I told you I would aid you if I could.”
His gaze shifted to Owen. “I’m guessing you found the one you’ve been seeking?”
Martin was a canny hunter. She had assumed that he would try to follow their trail through the cursed woods if he decided to follow them. But now that she thought on it, he had already suspected their destination. It made sense that he had taken the safest way there.
“I’ll go out first,” Fallon said to her. “I think we’ll be all right.”
Although she was still hesitant, she gave him a nod and gripped her sword hilt, ready to fight if need be. Ducking low, Fallon crept toward the edge of the cave and soon emerged.
“Well met, Martin,” he said. “Hello, Deven.”
“Well met, indeed, by Cheshu,” said the hunter. “Deven, take the rest of the Evnissyen and hunt down those who escaped. Claim their uniforms and badges. They will come in handy later, I should think. I’ll take yours too, lad, if you’ll not be needing it.”
The sky was beginning to brighten, each moment bringing more light to the interior of the cave. She glanced back at her father. He was watching the entrance, his eyes squinting in the gloom. Reaching out, she put her hand on his shoulder.
He gave her a sad smile and then nodded. “I think we are safe.” They left the cave together and joined the others.
“So where are you bound?” Martin asked when he saw them. “You can’t go back to the queen. When you disappeared like that, snuffed and vanished like a conjurer’s trick, she was all too keen to find you. The whole army is on the look for ye. I can get you a boat if you need one. The Evnissyen are loyal to me.”
“The question is,” Fallon asked, “why are you still loyal to her?”
Martin’s face scrunched up at the question. “You are young, lad.” He bared his teeth in a grimace. “You don’t understand the pull of family.”
Fallon’s face became intense and serious. “I think I do.”
“So long as there is a spark of hope—a single ember burning in the ashes, the faintest puff of smoke—that my granddaughter can be saved, I will cling to it. The Myriad Ones have her, lad. It’s plain enough to see. There was a time, years back, when she was an innocent. We cannot return to the past. No traveler can. But so long as I have memories of her then, it makes me determined to see that cursed hetaera Leering smashed into rubble.”
Fallon pursed his lips and nodded. “I see that you cannot be swayed from your path.”
“Aye, lad. That Leering was taken somewhere. And I mean to find it.”
Trynne admired his courage, his unwillingness to accept that his granddaughter was lost forever. Maybe it was a foolish hope. But it was the kind of hope that she herself had clung to after her father’s disappearance. Now her father stood by her side—evidence that some hopes were fulfilled.
“I had wondered if we could persuade you to join us,” Trynne said. “This war is going to destroy all the kingdoms. Dieyre knows it, but he still won’t back down. It’s not too late to escape, Martin. You can come with us to Muirwood and leave this place.” She hoped he would say yes. She would like to introduce him to Captain Staeli.
Martin sniffed and brushed his forearm across his nose. “Muirwood after all, is it? The sun rises and sets there it seems. I do appreciate the offer, lass. You may not be maston in name, but you have a maston’s heart. And I miss that. But my duty is here. I was given the choice to abandon my granddaughter before and I wouldn’t. I still won’t.”
“I’m glad we met, Martin Evnissyen,” Trynne said.
“Aye, lass. Me too. You remind me of someone else. She had your spunk. You don’t look much alike, but you still remind me of her. She led the mastons to safety, to another land across the sea. They’ll return someday to reclaim the ruins we leave behind. But be careful. The sheriff of Mendenhall has refused to join the queen and skulks around the grounds looking for mastons to kill.”
“Thank you. I don’t know if this will help,” Fallon said, gripping the hunter’s shoulder. “But Dieyre said his wife was building another abbey, one that is concealed somewhere in these mountains. Perhaps that is where the Leering can be found.”
Martin nodded. “Then Deven will help me find it.”
A ray of sunlight pierced the trees over the horizon and stabbed Trynne’s eyes. The new day had finally dawned and she felt hope spark inside her.
She touched Fallon’s arm. “It’s time to go.”
He looked at the tiny speck of sunlight. There was a sad look on his face, as if he was sorry that Martin wouldn’t be joining them. Then he removed the tunic marking him as part of Dieyre’s army and so did her father. They handed them over to Martin.
“Farewell,” Fallon told the man.
“I’m not very keen on good-byes,” Martin said, chuffing. “But I bid you one all the same.”
Fallon brought out the Tay al-Ard. A slight breeze ruffled his hair. His eyes were wells of emotion, but he grinned at her as he held out the device, nodding for her to take hold of it. She clasped it, her hand touching his. Owen placed his hand on her arm, catching on quickly.
The magic yanked them away.
They emerged at the crooked oak tree whose branches were so thick and heavy they sagged to the ground.
They had also appeared amidst a small camp of sleeping soldiers wearing ragged and filthy tunics. A small cookfire at the center of camp was full of cinders, and the makeshift spit straddling it had been stripped of all but the last charred bones.
“What in the blazes!” said the sentry, who had seen them appear out of nothingness. “Get up! It’s them! Up!”
At least a dozen men slept near the tree. Suddenly blankets whipped up across the camp as the rousing soldiers moved, groping in the semidarkness for their swords. Fallon was the first to act, kicking one of them in the head as he struggled to sit up. Trynne and her father unsheathed their weapons as the small camp came alive, responding to the frantic urging of the lone sentry. There were curses and oaths and Trynne found three men charging her and her father in moments, filthy battered swords at the ready. She blocked an attack with one of her swords, clubbed the man on the head with the hilt, and then whipped her blade around to stab another man as he rushed at her. Her magic rushed to defend her, but her father moved in and struck down the third man.
One of the men had throwing axes, and she watched him train his eye on her as he hurled one of his weapons. She stepped back and the axe whirled just past her, the blade sticking into the rough bark of the oak tree. The man scowled as he hefted another and threw it. She dodged that one too and it sailed past her and bounced off the trunk. The man readied his third axe, coming closer before he threw it at her.
His aim was true, but she crossed her swords in front of her and the axe deflected off her blades.
The axeman’s eyes bulged at her prowess and he turned and bolted, shouting for help. “Sheriff! Sheriff! Down here! Down here!”
Fallon had brought down five or six men himself. Owen had disarmed another, and the remainder fled, shouting for reinforcements. The calls were answered by men hidden in the ruins of the abbey. Trynne’s heart was pounding from the unexpected fight. She turned around in a full circle, reaching out to find danger, and discovered that the woods were teeming with soldiers, most already awakened by the chaos.
She kept her swords out and backed toward the tree. “Fallon, get us out of here,” she said worriedly, sensing the presence of others converging on their location.
Fallon had sheathed his sword and tugged off his glove. “Lord Owen,” he said, coming near. Trynne saw him tug at his own finger. “This is yours by right and duty. Put it on. You must be the one to use it.”
The noise of boots crunching in the woods came from all around them. “Fallon, can’t you bring us back like you brought us here?” Trynne asked, confused.
Owen held out his hand and groped for the ring. He slid it onto his ring finger and then clenched his fist.
“What do I do?” he asked Fallon.
“Trynne, take his arm. Put your palm on the tree so that the ring touches the bark. The magic will bring you back to the grove in Brythonica. You’ll reappear in the cave.”
The way he said the words implied that he would not be going with them. A spear of panic spiked into her stomach. “Iago Fallon Llewellyn, you are coming with us!”
She watched him take several deliberate steps backward, away from them, away from the tree.
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head.
“Fallon!” she said angrily. It felt as if everything inside her was as jumbled as rocks tumbling down a mountainside. “Get over here.”
“I can’t, Trynne!” he said, shaking his head. He unslung his pack. “I’ve put a note explaining things in the chest. The key is in the pack. Take it with you. Save Kingfountain from Morwenna. I cannot go back with you.”
He hefted the pack by the strap and threw it to Owen, who caught it with a grunt.
Fallon kept backing away, shaking his head. “I choose to stay willingly. It must be done willingly or the magic won’t work. Good-bye, Trynne. Good-bye, Lord Owen.”
The haunted look on his face devastated her. He had known he would not be coming back with them. He’d kept it to himself, not telling her the full truth until the very end, when there was nothing she could do about it.
A memory from Myrddin’s cave flashed through her mind. The Wizr had said something about rules separating the worlds. He’d seemed on the verge of saying more, but he’d shifted his attention to Fallon and stopped himself. I will say nothing more on that. I see it clearly. There are rules. I did not create them. Even I must abide by them. Myrddin’s gift from the Fountain was the ability to read people’s minds. He had silenced himself because he’d seen Fallon’s intention to sacrifice himself for her father, to trade places with him. Fallon would remain behind so that Owen could leave. It was why Quivel was so desperate. He had been left behind and had wanted to bargain his way back to their home world.
“No,” Trynne said, stifling a sob as she stared at Fallon’s retreating form. He was nodding at her now, seeing that she finally understood. She recognized Dragan’s role as well. It had been Morwenna’s intent all along to trap him in this place. But her plan had changed after he was captured. He knew too much, so she’d wiped away his memories before he could denounce her.
Her heart swelled to the point of bursting. Fallon had done everything in his power to save her father. But in so doing, he had condemned himself to a world that would be destroyed by plague and violence.
“Go,” Fallon said tenderly. “There was no other way. One of us had to stay. If you can’t be mine, then it’s better this way. Tell my parents. Tell my sister. I chose this willingly.”
“Over there! I see them by the oak!”
The noise of people crashing through the woods shattered the moment. Fallon drew his sword and turned to face the soldiers rushing toward the tree.
Hot tears streaked down Trynne’s face. She loved Fallon so much in that moment, it stole her breath away. She would never love Gahalatine like this.
Owen stared at Fallon, hesitation in his eyes. She was duty-bound to save Brythonica, so she could not stay. It would have been impossible for her to choose between them. She loved both of them deeply. Fallon had made the difficult choice for her. It felt as if her heart had been ripped in half, but she clutched her father’s arm.
Trynne hung her head and began to sob as her father placed his hand on the crooked oak. A prick of light came from the tree, swelling until it was so bursting and dazzling it hurt—a radiance so penetrating that she had to hold up her hand to protect her eyes.
Then everything moved.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Wizr Board
The brightness of the glen was replaced by the darkness of the cave. The sounds changed from the ruckus of charging soldiers to the lapping, quiet thrum of a small waterfall moving across stone. Even the air smelled different. It carried the faint scent of eucalyptus. Brythonica.
Home.
Owen put his hand on her shoulder. Light filtered back from the entrance of the cave—just enough for them to see each other in the darkened interior, while the world outside was swathed in rich, vibrant color. She could see the stone plinth, covered with a sheet of crumbled oak leaves. The silver bowl was still chained there, brimming with the Fountain’s magic. She felt so depleted, so drained, yet the grove was a place for magic to be replenished.
“Oh, Papa,” she cried, clinging to him with joy and misery, her heart cleft into two separate pieces. Part of her was dead inside, afflicted by the loss of Fallon.
There was a hesitation on her father’s part. She was a near stranger to him in his present state. But she couldn’t help herself. It was still him, and he was back after such a long absence. Gratitude welled up inside her, squeezing past the tears still falling from her eyes.
Thank you, she whispered silently to the Fountain, hearing the gentle murmur of the nearby brook.
And then there was the crackle of breaking twigs outside the cave and she felt her father’s hand stiffen on her shoulder.
“We’re not alone,” he whispered.
Trynne’s relief at making it back home and her grief at losing Fallon had blinded her to the possibility that Morwenna might have left allies to thwart their return. She reached out with her magic and sensed dozens of soldiers, maybe more, hunkered within the confines of the grove. They were armed. They were waiting for them to emerge.
Trynne lacked the strength to fight so many. She was exhausted from the ordeal, from lack of sleep, and her reserves were diminished. Even someone who was Fountain-blessed had limits.
She could sense the soldiers creeping toward the mouth of the cave. When they all arrived, she and her father would be overwhelmed. These men probably had orders to kill them. If she returned with her father, it would upend Morwenna’s plans.
Owen drew his sword. “We’re going to need to fight our way out of here,” he said softly, looking into her eyes.
Too many. There were too many.
Then the idea struck her. A defense that could help them.
“Father,” she said. “You see the silver bowl? Fill it from the waterfall outside the cave and then pour its contents onto the stone plinth. I’ll distract them until you do. It will even the odds. Prepare for a violent storm.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head.
“You will,” she promised, giving him a crooked smile.
Trynne breathed in the sweet-smelling air as she drew her twin blades. In her mind, she invoked the magic of her ring and turned herself into the Painted Knight, making her face half-blue, changing her outfit to look like the armor of the Maid. Then she marched out of the cave, swords in hand.
“There, there!” someone shouted.
The twangs of crossbows sounded across the grove, and missiles flew at her from several points. She felt herself wrapped in the oath magic and time seemed to slow, allowing her to jerk and dodge the bolts, which clattered harmlessly into the rocks behind her. Trynne marched forward, swinging her swords in matching circles as she had practiced thousands of times. Onward she walked, each footstep thudding in her ears, moving past the stone table, past the silver dish, bringing herself into the middle of the soldiers who were converging on them. The men wore black and carried the badge of the white boar. Men of Glosstyr.
They readied to charge. She saw their anxious, determined looks. She was completely outnumbered.
Trynne stopped on the gently sloping ground, well ahead of the plinth. She was nearly surrounded now—at least twenty soldiers at full alert with unkempt beards and angry frowns had fallen in around her.
They rushed her at once.
Trynne reacted in a blur of motion, her strength sustained by the power of the Fountain, even as she felt it ebbing quickly. She blocked the thrusts that came at her, deflecting blades and countering with her own. She did not fight to kill these men, just to hold them off, to fix their attention on her, giving her father a chance to slip out of the cave and seize the silver bowl. Shouts and grunts filled the calmness of the grove. The men were all bigger than her, but she was quicksilver fast, dodging away from thrusts and jabs, responding with two blades at once to trap and then disarm her opponents. Still, their sheer numbers were like a swelling tide, one that would drown her given enough time.
“There’s the other! It’s Kiskaddon!”
“Kill him!”
These men had clearly been chosen for their resentment against her family, against her husband. These were soldiers of Glosstyr, men fiercely loyal to Severn, not the Sun and Rose, and their loyalty still bound them. Trynne could not stop those who charged toward her father with murderous intent.
She cracked skulls with the hilts of her swords, slammed her elbows into chins and noses. But there were still too many, and she felt her limits straining. Someone grabbed her by the collar, and she felt her boots slip on the brackish ground. She whirled and collided with someone who punched her in the ribs with a gauntlet-encased fist. Another blow struck the back of her head and pain erased every other sensation for a moment. She knew she was going to fall an instant before it happened—and then she slammed flat on her back with a heavy thud.
