The King's Blood Read online

  But life was good in this small valley. He'd made a home, won the love of a woman who could strike down her enemies with a single finger curl, and begun a beautiful family. His decision to leave the Triad behind seemed a wise one, one that rarely rousing him up in the middle of night until talk of war drifted on the wind.

  Now his beloved home was invaded by the royal elite, a far more dangerous enemy than common soldiers. You expect a knife in the back from an invading force dressed in armor, but rarely one from a twig of a woman covered in velvet. Never one for courts, Asim kept mostly to himself, which also suited the King's knights just as well. Some of them had fought along the western boarders and were none too pleased to see one of their own hiding a villain in their midst. But they would all pack up tomorrow, head back to the King's lands and take all the strangers with them.

  A few troops pledged their creaking loyalty to the King's cause and, if Albrant ordered it, so would Asim; but for now, he looked forward to a slumbering winter at home. Tonight should be a joyous occasion for him, but something kept his senses sharp, like a god pricking upon his fate.

  There were too many shadows in the castle.

  He expected the Prince to scurry on up to his father's side, terrified of the Dark Man towering above him, but the boy stood his ground. In fact, he seemed almost curious, twisting his head until the Ostero hair flopped into his eyes. Asim laughed again, and subconsciously pushed it back. His Little Raven was always doing that too, refusing to use the knots the other ladies preferred. The boy caught his hand and held it, turning it over and rubbing to see if the darkness upon him was a trick of paint.

  Just then, the rabble died down, heads turning to watch the woman framed by the mighty fireplace stand and address the crowd. Despite her slight frame, buckling under the heavy undergarments and bustles that were expected of any highborn lady, she still stood as though no wave could move her.

  "Lords, Ladies, Friends. We wish to take this moment in the midst of revelry to offer thanks to the great Scepticar. With his unwavering eye we stand strong against the fading Emperor and his false god and we shall prevail!"

  The knights broke out into applause, banging what they had in front of them together for emphasis creating the world's first Deerduckhen. Asim glanced down at the prince who seemed to have little interest in the queen's words and was now inspecting his other wrist, the boy's fingers lingering over the mark the Dark Knight wished he could shear away.

  "And let us raise a toast to my husband, good King Edric," she motioned behind her and the rolling mound of royalty stood, his hand waving meekly from outside his excessive sleeves uncertain of crowds and loud noises in general.

  Asim was certain that were this not a call for war, the malleable king would have been relegated to the small corner of history that keeps most census workers and a few Lords that were endlessly fascinated with sewage plumbing. But the people loved him, this hulking bear of a man who looked as though he could rip entire forests from the ground even though he secretly preferred a good cuppa and a crude puppet show.

  The Queen was a different matter entirely. Power positively radiated from her, some even whispered that it wasn't entirely a gift from the gods either. But none would dare breathe the "w" word near her, lest they find themselves waking with their own severed head lying in their bed.

  Raising her arms high, her sleeves glowed in the firelight behind, and she called out, "And for our beloved crown Prince Henrik Varnen Ostero." The 'beloved' sounded more the way some would say "shit encrusted work boots," but she still maintained a friendly grimace on her face.

  The crowd clapped again, turning in their seats trying to find the mighty Crowned Prince amongst the sea of commoners and slightly less commoners. Slowly the clapping died to a smattering as no "beloved" appeared and they all looked back to the Queen.

  She raised her arms again and once more called out, "Prince Henrik Ostero. Henrik? Henny? Gods take him, where is that boy?"

  The gods taken boy's father shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't been aware of any of his spawn outside of the occasional wedding or pants wetting since they'd hit the ground. Her false face melting by the heat and rage billowing beneath, the Queen turned from her husband and stormed out, a deluge of handmaidens following behind.

  Edric shrugged again at the audience, "Women."

  This was answered with even greater applause, laughter and a few terse glares from the fairer tables. "Forget the speeches, let's all get drunk 'til it's the dark ages!"

  Asim looked back down to the little prince who had moved past the shadow man and was watching the pair of knights head butting each other until one passed out. If this is what the heads of state are studying, it was no wonder the Kingdom was in the shape it was.

  He was about to suggest the boy head back to his father, who was also leading the front row of knights in a round of "Stab, Stab, Stab Your Sword," when his ears prickled. In the distance, a thud registered, like a large slab of wood hitting the ground.

  Protective fingers searched for the young princeling's shoulder, pulling him close. He shrunk back into the edge, his ear pressed against the cool stone, and through the raucous din of knights doing what knights did best could make out boots tromping, thousands of boots. Aldrin struggled in the tight grip but got nowhere, freezing as a thin blade unsheathed itself beside his face. The Dark Knight opened his mouth, about to scream, "We are invaded!" when the great hall's door blew open and a volley of arrows descended upon the party.

  A black swarm stormed across the bright party. The enemy moved with purpose, while the knights, most more inebriated than Gallo the god of cheap wine, tripped and fell upon their own swords. In the scramble to run away from the fingers of god inching in to sweep them away, a pair of barbarians heaved up one of the long tables and launched it towards the advancing army.

  But the swarm found other holes in the defenses. They poured in from the sides, as unstoppable as the tide against a broken dam. The few elite knights and Lord Albrant rose to their teetotaler feet and readied for battle.

  Asim's hand slipped over the boy's mouth, keeping him silent. There was no chance he could fight without endangering the young prince; his only hope would be to circle around and raise the remaining guards. Assuming they hadn't all been killed by whatever traitor raised the portcullis.

  Moving as silently in the shadows as he could, the Dark Knight inched towards the servants' door, mercifully empty of swords. He clutched the boy close to his chest and crept backwards, his eyes always upon the slaughter as the King's company suffered their own innards spilling out upon the feasting platters.

  Letting go of the Prince's mouth quickly, he reached behind him to grasp the door handle. It was just enough time for a scream laying in wait to claw its way through the boy's mouth and straight into the ears of an invader.

  Asim turned and pushed the prince rather rudely through the open threshold where the boy slipped down a set of stairs and split open his chin. The Dark Knight spun just in time to catch his blade upon the invaders, his superior steel snapping the weaker ones. They hadn't been expecting anything of a fight.

  Ramming his blade through the man's chest, his hilt crumpled the buttons carved with the three circle image of the Empire. Asim pushed the corpse backwards, extracting his entrenched sword slick with blood.

  Just as he turned to follow the boy, a scream high and shrill pulled his attention to the dais and his heart fell as the only master assassin in the bunch roared up in front of the King and, with one pass of his giant blade, sent the King's head flying into the crowd. Asim swore to never look back again, lest he sacrifice both his life and the boy's for the sake of vengeance, and bolted the servants' door behind him.

  Her foot caught on the broken stair as Ciara burst head first into the larder. Normally large enough to easily house a couple dozen deer carcasses should the need and bounty from over excited hunters arise, it was packed with people chattering their heads off.

  Ciara tried to push pa
st the smattering of younglings curled up on the floor weeping wild tears of terror and around a woman who placed a bucket on her head and cried for her granda. The twins clung desperately to a side of lamb that had somehow missed the spit, trying to wedge it to shore up the kitchen door. The fact the door swung outward belied their collected state.

  "What?" she tried to ask them, as the lamb slipped once again from tiny fingers, thudding to the floor. "What happened?"

  The right Matilda glanced back for a moment, but tried to haul back up the lamb carcass, the drippings coating her apron in a gory mess. Ciara grabbed a hold of the left Matilda.7 Eyes sharpened by terror bored into her and all the girl could do was point and scream. Realizing she'd get no answers from the panic stricken hiding with the perishables, she stepped over the lamb carcass still lying on the floor and opened the door into the kitchen. Behind her, the right Matilda silently closed the door while the left once again propped up the mutton barricade.

  If she'd thought the larder was bad, the kitchen was ten times worse. But she was able to get more than just quiet sobs and blank stares. Everyone, in fact just about everyone she'd ever met or known to work beneath the stairs, was stuck in between flaming spits and boiling pots tucked in the hearth, babbling their bloody heads off.

  "I saw it, right through his neck!"

  "There's gots to be thousands of 'em!"

  "With big teeth, and big eyes, and a huge tonker!"

  That had to be mistress Danalean, about all she thought of were tonkers and bigger ones. But this got her nowhere.

  Standing up to her full height above the throng, Ciara cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, "Will someone please tell me what's going on?!"

  For a second the entire kitchen fell silent. Everyone turned very cautiously, lest a dress go up in flames, to the infiltrator in their midst.

  She gulped quickly and tried to shrink back down, but the eyes followed that as well. Instinctively, she stepped back towards the lamb carcass, as eyes surveyed her shoes still coated in meat juices.

  "He's dead! The King's dead!" a girl, not much older than Ciara burst into the kitchen. She didn't recognize her but the trappings suggested a handmaiden, probably one of the Queens who got lost in the maze of hallways and lucked out. Scepticar save the rest.

  "It was them monsters, the ones with the unblinking eyes!" the chef called out from deep in the walls, wedged somewhere behind the flue.

  "No, they was men. Unholy men, who the Underlord turned their arms to blades."

  "I keep telling you, it was a dragon. A giant dragon stormed the hall and chewed the knights to pieces."

  "Ain't no such thing as a dragon, no more."

  The woman, old enough to have grandchildren, turned on her challenger and shoved the girl hard. "Are you calling me a liar?"

  "If the girdle fits!"

  At this point a fight would have broken out if either had enough room to pull a fist back and do anything but glare while mumbling, "Why I oughta!"

  Ciara covered her ears with her hands, a headache already threatening with the echoing cacophony of conflicting stories. She needed to think, and the only way to think was away from the brain drain. There were only two ways out of the kitchen. One was past the sea of servants who, only by the strength of Scepticar, would she be able to part and led straight to the great hall.

  Turning to her left, she fumbled around baskets half full of apples left by a witch beginning to regret her orchard purchase to take out one measly stepdaughter. Tossing the rotting fruit into the hearth, the green orbs bounded into the hissing fire releasing a strange red mist as each ignited. Her fingers dug around the edges of a door caked in soot and the black bits you can never get off the stovetop no matter how hard you scrub.

  Putting her shoulder into it, she popped the door open and raced up a set of stairs lain empty because they led directly to the haunted apartments. Back when the Castle was a far more bustling place, before the Albrant's hit a bit of a bad patch investing in the wrong wars, the entire wing of the castle served to house the servants. Most stacked three to a bed if they were lucky.

  But as plague, calls to battle, and Dunner princes promising them unlimited wealth if they just "send a few hundred coins to secure a cart" claimed the servants, the apartments fell into misuse and eventual disrepair. It was Lord Albrant's father who finally closed the entire place off, saying it was haunted or something idiotically believable that would deter bored children and teenagers who spent their whole lives stirring spoons in sauce pans.

  The dust was thick, like dancing wisps in the low light, coating Ciara's tongue and making for her lungs. She coughed as quietly as she could, and pushed the door back, realizing that in her haste she'd forgotten a lantern. Whatever beam of light emanated from the kitchen and bounced up the staircase would have to be her guide through the maze of broken lives. Widening the door instead, she put one hand to the edge of the room and, finding a sturdy bed post, shuffled along.

  In the silence of the dead, the roar of whatever dragon demons were attacking the great hall was amplified. She could almost make out some words filtering through as she inched along, her fingers dusting bed frames, dressers, and old dolls.

  "...get 'im..."

  "...where's the bo..."

  "...walrus....coo...coo..."

  Shit! Her boot smashed into a bed crashed on its side from the frame half rotted away. She stopped, counting her breaths and praying that whoever was looking for a walrus hadn't heard. But the clatter of battle was more overpowering than a girl stubbing her toe.

  Carefully moving to the middle, she shuffled out, almost to the door and the actually lit hallways. As her fingertips touched the knob, a creak cried out behind her. She paused, afraid to turn around. Another creak, complete with some crackling as wood splintered apart, lapsed to a small whine at her intrusion. Rising on her tiptoes, she cautiously lifted the latch and leaned gently into the door. Nothing happened.

  Oh no, no, no. He didn't board it up again, did he? It'd been years since she'd been dared by her brother to sneak into the haunted wing and got a resound scolding by her mother and a much quieter nod of admiration from her father.

  Leaning again into the door, she prayed that it was simply stuck thanks to warping wood. The bed behind her remained silent, the ghosts watching the living girl for now instead of getting freaky on it. Again the latch gave in, and again the door refused to budge. She shoved a bit harder, pushing upon it with her hand, then her whole shoulder.

  Turning her back to it, she bounced on her heels, cursing everyone and every god she could think of, and, in a final fit of rage, she kicked the door as hard as she could.

  That was the signal. With one final crack, the entire termite riddled bed came crashing down, its posts auguring through rotted boards and shattering. The front half hung precariously over the new hole, threatening to bring sleep to some unsuspecting head.

  Ciara held her breath, hoping that would somehow reverse time and keep that gods forsaken bed from smashing through the floor. Through the background thumping of her heartbeat, she heard voices, very interested voices, giving very pointed orders. She rushed back towards the kitchen door, wishing she'd closed the damn thing in the first place and missed the broken bed leg now laying across her path. Her shoe; however, did not and she crumbled, leaving a Ciara shaped hole in the dusty floor.

  The voices outside grew louder. Footsteps that were once background noise became evident. Crawling into the darkness, Ciara's form receded into the shadows behind a long rotted chest. She turned, afraid to watch the latch on the door lift. The clink of it falling repeatedly with each failed push broke upon her shattered nerves. Ciara bit down on her tongue to stifle a scream, her only hope was to pray they'd give up on the wedged door and move on.

  Grunts, the kind only men can give while trying to do anything from hauling logs to opening a jar, answered from across the room.

  She looked to the kitchen door, its light not touching her. If she riske
d it, she might be able to make for it before they got it open, but if they caught her she'd be as exposed as she could bloody well get.

  Slipping her hand beneath her skirt, her palm found a familiar leather hilt and she drew out the dagger her father insisted she keep on her at all times. It was a sharp blade but she feared it would do little against dragons. But if they were coming for her, she'd make them work for it.

  The door frame rattled, kicking more dust up and obscuring what little light reflected off her dagger. She scrunched in tighter at the sound of stretching wood. Hinges popped, falling to the floor with a clank.

  "Ee..." her hand flew to her mouth before another 'e' could escape.

  One final grunt and the door burst from its frame, sending unbidden light cascading amongst the disturbed remains. A shadow entered. She tried to shield her eyes but they refused to focus as the shadow raised a torch ripped from the wall into the penetrating darkness.

  As the shadow stepped forward, the light from its arm bounded about the room, hunting. Ciara steadied herself, ready to launch to her feet the moment it walked close enough. Another shadow appeared behind it, much smaller than the first and hung about the door frame, but her eyes were only upon this one.

  While torchlight swung to the far side of the room, lingering on the bed now resting comfortably between floors, she sprung. Or she tried to. Her skirts caught on her boot and she rolled, crashing into the shadow.

  It rocked back on its feet but remained upright, thrusting the torch instead of its sword towards the intruder. Ciara looked up into what she feared would be the eyes of her murder and screamed.