Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

A deeper anger was brewing within them now, an outrage at the insulting manner in which Anwyn was treating her. Achmed knew that Rhapsody understood this as well, and that was why she smiled. It was a way of defusing the situation before it exploded in a frenzy of loyal violence.

“I hardly think you should be referring to me as ‘girl,’ given that my birth predates yours by several centuries,” she said calmly.

A haughty sneer curled on the Seer’s lip. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Achmed felt no such compunction to be polite. “It means,” came the cool, sandy voice of the Firbolg king, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd like a slashing sword, “that the girl doesn’t like the way she is being addressed by the hag.”

Laughter mixed with gasps of shock rippled through the crowd. Anwyn’s face contorted in rage, and Rhapsody looked horrified.

“Achmed, you’re out of line,” she said reproachfully. “Anwyn is not a hag.”

“Right you are,” came the furious voice of Grunthor. The assemblage turned toward the sound to see the giant Firbolg commander straining to control his wrath; he was losing the battle, and it was a horrific prospect. The outrage the Cymrians had felt on Rhapsody’s behalf paled by comparison to the rage in the eyes of her dear friend. “She’s a bloody ’ arfy . Oi’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your flamin’ ’ead, missus, and act more respectfully towards ’Er Ladyship, or Oi’ll personally rip out whatever is where your ’eart oughta be and eat it raw.” There was another collective intake of breath from the Council. There was no way that could be perceived as an idle threat. Rhapsody gestured to Achmed, who stood beside the Sergeant, and he touched the giant’s elbow.

Anwyn was livid. “How dare you speak to me that way, you subhuman monster? You ill-begotten freak of nature? Your presence soils this noble ground. As your ruler I command you, leave this Moot at once, and if you ever dare to even raise your cannibalistic face in my presence, I will smite you down into the mudfilth from which you and your people sprang.” She shot him a look of hatred, the dragon-eye attack she had used on the Lirin spokesman earlier, that had reduced the man to a quivering mass on the floor of the Bowl.

Grunthor would have none of it. “ ’Ave at me, then, ya bitch!” he roared, his enraged cry echoing off the rockwalls of the Bowl and over the Teeth, where even the Bolg within the mountains heard it and trembled.

He scrambled down from the outcropping on which he stood and dashed toward the Speaker’s Rise. The terrifying sight caused the assemblage to gasp. He was brute strength in motion, seven and a half feet of infuriated musculature single-mindedly intent on murder. He would have been at the foot of the Rise a moment later had Achmed not vaulted down in front of him and interposed his body between them. The path to the Seer was clear; the Lirin Cymrians who had been standing below Rhapsody on the Summoner’s Ledge had moved back hastily when Grunthor’s exchange with Anwyn had begun.

“Sergeant-Major, don’t lower yourself,” Achmed said in a stern voice. “She is not fit to wipe your boots; don’t soil your hands by tearing out her throat, no matter how much she deserves it.” He looked into the giant’s face; Grunthor was panting with rage, every muscle straining to avoid throwing Achmed out of his path. “As your king I command it.”

“Not fit?” came the powerful trumpet-voice. Anwyn laughed, and the sound blasted the ears of the assemblage. “I, the Lady Cymrian, the victor in the Great War, am not fit? So speaks the evidence that prophecies are generally a disappointment.” Manwyn bristled at her words and clenched her fists. “My people, behold the Three, your purported saviors, the ones my sister said would rescue us all from the wrath of an invisible demon. Look at them in all their splendor. First, we have the giant freak, an animal that appears to have recently escaped from a traveling circus! Beside him his noble lord, the Purveyor of Death, the assassin who, like a whore, served whoever paid him, killing indiscriminately—”

“I believe she means me,” Achmed said to the crowd, raising his hand. He turned his face to Anwyn, whose speech had been choked off with his interruption. A mocking smile crossed his face. “Oh, I’m sorry, Annie, that was presumptuous. Were you referring to yourself? Certainly you earned the title far better than I ever did. The Purveyor of Death? My trophies pale in comparison to yours. I can’t claim, as only you can, to have annihilated a quarter of my own people over a domestic squabble. If only Gwylliam had slapped you harder, maybe he would have broken your bony neck and none of us would be here to have to endure your rantings now. Pity he didn’t.

“And whore? Well, yes, I suppose that applies to you again. Who else would sell out her kingdom and that of her allies, the Lirin, to the same demon who once almost destroyed an entire nation? Would give it the opportunity to do so again? All to avenge herself on her fool of a husband? You are the consummate whore, Anwyn. Get off the Rise and out of my lands before I step away and let Grunthor remove your head from your shoulders and use your skull for a chamber pot.”

The silence in the Bowl was absolute; even the sounds of nature had died away. Anwyn’s face had been frozen in amazement; over the span of her entire lifetime no one had ever dared to speak to her in that manner. Her eyes narrowed to slits for a moment as she formulated her response; when she had done so, she smiled cruelly.

“I thank you for granting me the title of Consummate Whore, but I’m afraid I can’t accept it. That would belong to another in this assemblage.” She turned toward Rhapsody. “Step forward, Your Majesty, and—”

“ Enough !” Ashe’s voice thundered over the Moot, ringing with the multi-toned echoes of the dragon in his blood. He knew what was coming, and would sooner die, or kill Anwyn where she stood, than allow it. He turned toward the Seer of the Present. “Rhonwyn, who is the Lady Cymrian?”

The fragile Seer looked toward the sky as the eyes of the throng locked onto her. “There is no Lady Cymrian,” she said as if in a dream, lost inside herself.

“Thus says the Seer of the Present, the indisputable authority!” Ashe cried. “My fellows, as of this moment, there is no Lady Cymrian! Your claim is rejected, Grandmother!”

After a moment of silence, the Bowl erupted in hoots and cheers. Anwyn was thunderstruck; she glared at Achmed and Ashe, who were exchanging the glance of inadvertent co-conspirators.

“Silence!” she snarled, and the thunderous applause diminished. “You are a leaderless rabble, unable to even discern the difference between royal blood and the self-aggrandizing opportunist who took over a realm of monsters and called himself King.”

“You’re wrong there,” said Oelendra in a commanding voice. “I believe everyone here is able to discern who the self-aggrandizing opportunist is. Give up, Anwyn; spare yourself any further humiliation. This Council has come together to build up what you have destroyed, to fix the trust that you and Gwylliam shattered. The Three have rid this land of the demon you are solely responsible for. Had you been any kind of ruler at all, you would not have sold us to the F’dor for your own petty purposes. Leave and go back to your cave. You are a thing of the Past, in all senses of the word.”

Anwyn turned slowly in the direction of Oelendra’s voice. Unlike the others that had decried her, this particular shout had caught her attention, and the deliberation with which she moved to face her accuser was apparent to the assemblage. The Council grew quiet as the Seer looked down into the Lirin warrior’s eyes, an expression of undisguised hatred disfiguring her face.