Gregory Keyes - The Blood Knight

His head snapped up, and he realized he’d dozed off.

The Briar King was watching him.

He was only about twice the size of a man now, and his face was almost human, albeit covered in light brown fur. His leaf-green eyes were alert, and Aspar thought he saw the faintest of smiles on the forest lord’s lips.

“I guess I did the right thing, yah?” Aspar said.

He had never heard the Briar King speak, and he didn’t now. But the creature stepped closer, and suddenly Aspar felt bathed in life. He smelled oak, apple blossoms, the salt of the sea, the musk of a rutting elk. He felt larger, as if the land were his skin and the trees were the hairs upon it, and it filled him with a joy he had never quite known, except perhaps when he was young, running through the forest naked, climbing oaks for the sheer love of them.

“I never knew—” he began.

And with the suddenness of a bone snapping, it all ended. The bliss went out of him like blood from a severed vein as the Briar King’s eyes grew wide and his mouth opened in a soundless scream.

There, on his breast, something glittered like the heart of a lightning bolt…

The king locked eyes with him, and Aspar felt something prickle through his body. Then the form that stood before him simply fell apart, collapsing into a pile of leaves and dead birds.

Aspar’s chest heaved as he tried to draw a breath, but the scent of autumn choked him, and he clapped his hands to his ears, trying to shut out the deep keening that shuddered through the earth and trees as with a single voice the wild things of the world understood that their sovereign was gone.

Like lightning flashing before him, he saw forests crumbling into dust, great grassy plains putrefying, leagues of bones bleaching beneath a demon sun.

“No,” he gasped, finally managing to breathe.

“Oh, I think yes,” a familiar voice countered.

A few kingsyards behind where the Briar King had stood was Fend, with a bow in one hand and an evil grin on his lips. He was dressed in weird armor, but the helm was off. His mouth was smeared with dark blood, and he had a light in his eyes that was crazy even for him.

Aspar fumbled for his dirk; he didn’t have his ax or any more arrows.

“Well,” Fend said, “that’s that. You killed my woorm, but that’s not all bad. You know what happens when you drink the fresh blood of a woorm?”

“Why don’t you tell me, you piece of sceat.”

“Come, Aspar,” Fend said. “Don’t be so angry. I’m grateful to you. I was supposed to drink the blood, you know. The problem was how to get to it once the beast had served its purpose. And you solved that problem rather neatly. Even better, you gave me the one thing I needed to slay His Majesty Stickerweed.”

“No,” Aspar said. “The arrow could only be used seven times.”

Fend waved a finger.

“Tsk. It’s not like you to believe in the phay stories, Aspar. Who told you it could only be used seven times? Our old friend the praifec? Tell me, if someone could make a weapon this strong, why would they limit its use?”

He walked over to the pile of rot that was all that remained of the Briar King and lifted the arrow out.

“No,” he said. “This will be useful for some time to come, I think. You still have the case, I imagine. Ah, there it is.”

“Yah. Come and get it.”

“Killed Ashern, did you? These Mamres monks are always a little too confident in their speed and strength. Makes them forget that skill—and in your case simple hardheadedness—can go quite a long way.”

He fitted the arrow to his string.

“I shouldn’t think this will hurt much, considering,” Fend said. “That’s fine with me. You took my eye, but I consider the debt paid now. I’m sorry you can’t die fighting, but it would take too long for you to heal, and you’d continue to be a nuisance. But I can let you stand, if you’d like, so you can die on your feet at least.”

Aspar stared at him for a moment, then propped his makeshift crutch under his arm and pushed himself painfully up.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said, “before you kill me. Why Qerla?”

Fend grinned. “Really? Not ‘Why kill the Briar King’ or even ‘What’s this all about’? You’re still on the Qerla thing? But that was so long ago.”

“That’s it. That’s all I want to know.”

“I didn’t want to kill her, you know,” Fend said. “She was a friend of mine once. But I thought— we thought—she was going to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“The big Sefry secret, you dolt.”

“What the sceat are you talking about?”

Fend laughed. “Living with us all those years, and you never guessed? I suppose that’s fair. Even some of the Sefry don’t know.”

“Don’t know what ?”

“What we are ,” Fend said. “We’re Skasloi, Aspar. We’re what remains of the Skasloi.”

“But—”

“Ah, no, sorry. I’ve answered your question. That’s all you get.”

He raised the bow, and Aspar tensed himself for one last try. The dirk wasn’t balanced for throwing, but—

Did he hear hoofbeats? He had a sudden image of Ogre come back from the dead and nearly laughed.

Fend’s eyes narrowed, then widened in shock as an arrow struck his breastplate, followed quickly by another in the knee joint. Aspar turned to find there was indeed a horse thundering up behind him, but it wasn’t Ogre; it was a dappled gray he’d never seen before.

The rider he recognized by her pale skin, black bangs, and almond violet eyes. She had a bow and shot it again, this time at Fend’s head. But he twisted aside, and the arrow missed. The horse thuttered to a stop, and she leapt off, slinging her bow on her shoulder.

“Come on,” she commanded. “Mount.”

“Fend—”

“No, look,” she said. “There’s more. Get on!”

She had to swing the broken leg over for him; the pain was so acute, he nearly fainted. But he saw what she meant: Several armored figures were coming to Fend’s aid. Fend himself was rising, fitting the deadly arrow to his string.

Leshya whirled her mount, and they were running. Aspar meant to take her bow and have a parting shot at Fend, but a hard bounce struck pain through him like a sledgehammer, and he sank away from the world.

Anne blinked in astonishment as the Sefry went down on their knees before her.

“I thought Mother Uun said that Sefry wouldn’t fight,” Austra said.

Anne nodded and squeezed her friend’s hand.

“Which one of you leads?” she asked.

A black-eyed fellow with pale yellow hair and silvery mail dipped his head.

“I am captain of this troop, Your Majesty.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“Cauth Versial, Highness,” he replied.

“Rise, Cauth Versial,” Anne said.

He did so.

“Did Mother Uun send you?” she asked at last.

“She told us what the Kept promised you.”

“But that was only moments ago,” Anne protested. “How could she know? How could you arrive so quickly?”

“We were waiting, Majesty. Mother Uun foresaw this possibility.”

“I don’t understand,” Anne said. “Mother Uun said she was one of his guardians; she helped keep him imprisoned. Why should he go to her?”

“These are very ancient matters, Your Majesty,” Cauth said, “and I do not understand them completely. Only that it was part of our geos that if he were ever freed, he could command us in one thing.”

“And he commanded you to save my life.”

“To protect you and serve you, Majesty.”

“Then your service isn’t over?”

“No, Majesty. It is not. Not until you release us or we die.”

“How many of you are there?”