Bruce Blake - Spirit of the King

“I didn’t do it for me, I did it for Graymon. And Seerna.”

“Ha!” Perdaro looked toward the guard then back at Therrador. “Do you still think Braymon would have sent you away with Seerna ready to deliver a child? You? His closest friend? He thought you volunteered for it. And did you believe your wife would have named your son after the king?”

“You bastard.”

Therrador’s hands shot through the bars, grabbing Perdaro by the lapels before he knew what happened. The king pulled hard, slamming the man’s chest against the cell door, coaxing a high pitched shriek from him.

“Guard,” Perdaro screeched clawing at Therrador’s hands; the king didn’t let go.

“You’ll pay for this,” he whispered through the bars, their faces inches apart. “And tell that bitch she’ll pay, too.”

Searing pain in his thigh made Therrador release his grip. He stumbled away from the cell door, blood streaming down his leg as the guard’s spearhead pulled out of his flesh. Perdaro glared at him, the dead man standing blank faced at his side.

“You live on borrowed time, Therrador. For your own good, the good of your son and the good of your people, learn to behave.”

Hanh Perdaro-Voice of the People, member of the High Council, friend of the king, and now traitor to the kingdom-turned abruptly, his cape spinning behind him, and hurried from the dungeon leaving Therrador alone with the undead guard and the guttering torch.

Therrador lurched across the cell away from the door until his back struck the wall, then slumped to the floor. Thoughts and emotions boiled within him: grief, sadness, hatred. The Archon had killed his beloved and set him against his oldest friend. For six years, his thoughts and actions were not entirely his own, but the blame was. He hung his head and clamped his teeth together. Seerna was gone-he couldn’t bring her back-but Graymon was still out there somewhere, and a piece of King Braymon. But where?

There’s still hope.

He drew a deep breath and spent the next hours convincing himself it was true.

Branches raked at his face. Each footstep echoed in his ears, convincing him his pursuers were at his back, ready to reach out and grasp him by the collar, but Graymon didn’t look behind him. He didn’t want to know how close they were. Moonlight flickered through tree limbs; wind rustled leaves and swayed branches. Occasionally, the sound of waves rolling onto the shore came to his ears; when it did, he amended his course away from the beach.

Dried tears tightened the skin on his cheeks, his breath became gasps. The escaping from the wagon seemed like it would be the difficult part, he didn’t expect the getting away to be so hard.

Where do I go?

Ahead-though he didn’t know how far-he knew more dead soldiers camped all across the salt flats, and there was water on either side of them. He swam well for a six-year-old, but not well enough to escape in the sea. And where would he swim if he could? Father had shown him his maps, he knew Kanos, the land of the enemy, lay across the Small Sea. He didn’t want to go there, even if he could. He thought of his toy dragon and the way the woman made it fly.

If I could fly, I could get away.

His foot struck a rock painfully and he tumbled to the ground, his head barely missing the trunk of a stout tree. He pulled his knee to his chest and grabbed his toe, biting back the urge to yell and give away his position. The guards were looking for him; they wouldn’t give up until they found him.

The tumult of waves and wind swirled around him, sounding to his ears like men crashing through the brush. He looked around, panicked, pulse racing, until his gaze fell on the tree towering over him. More brown leaves clung to its branches than most of the other trees-leaves that could provide cover. He stood and reached over his head but found the lowest branch a foot out of reach.

I can’t fly, but I can climb.

He jumped, his fingers brushing the branch’s rough bark, and a leaf broke free to float past his head. His eyes followed it to the ground. When he looked up, he saw torchlight bobbing through the trees in the distance. That’s why he hadn’t seen his pursuers since hiding in the fallen tree-they’d gone back for torches.

Graymon leaped for the branch again. Cool moss teased his fingers, but the limb was too high. Shuffling his feet along the ground to avoid tripping, he circled the tree in search of a lower branch or a stump on which to stand. On the far side of the tree, he found a swell in the dirt directly under a low branch; when he stood on it on his tiptoes, he could wrap his fingers around the limb. The feel of the wood in his hands gave him hope.

If I can get high enough in the tree, they won’t see me.

He lifted his feet, hanging from the branch as he struggled to pull himself up, but his arms weren’t strong enough. Dangling like a bat sleeping the day away, he thought desperately, keeping his eyes on the tree instead of watching the torch get closer. He’d climbed trees like this before back home in Achtindel. His favorite to climb was one that grew in the courtyard; nanny was always getting after him for climbing it because she thought it was too high, but the fear of being caught made him forget how he got up to the first branch. He breathed deep and relaxed all the muscles in his body, his feet swinging gently above the ground while he concentrated, remembering the tree.

Then it came to him how he did it.

The soles of his boots scraped the bark of the tree trunk as he walked his way up the side. With a grunt of effort, he pulled himself atop the branch and lay on it, hugging it tight, his body shivering uncontrollably.

After a minute, Graymon realized he couldn’t stay there. The branch might have been high for him, but it left him no higher than his pursuer’s eye level. He struggled to his feet, balancing precariously, and climbed to the next branch, then the next. Pride and a sense of accomplishment pushed fear aside momentarily as the boy perched higher in the tree than he’d ever climbed before.

I wish da could see me.

The snap of a branch brought him back to his situation and he pressed himself tight against the tree trunk. The dead men had come much closer while he was ascending to his hiding place, close enough that when he stretched out to peer around the curve of the tree, he saw the shapes of five men gathered around the torch, searching through the brush.

And looking up into the trees above.

Graymon thought back to when he’d run from his captors.

How many were there?

He closed his eyes and tried to picture the men around the cook fire, to count them again in his head. He knew their number to be more than five, to be sure, but how many? There had been one on the other side, he remembered, but how many around the fire? Six? Seven? He played with the picture in his head, changing the number of men he saw until he thought he got it right. So good was his imagination, he smelled smoke as though the fire burned right here, right now.

“Nine,” he said finally, satisfied with his recollection, then remembered where he was and slapped his hand over his mouth. Something glided past his face, but it was no leaf this time. Whatever it was floated up instead of down.

What floats up?

Pins and needles collected in his right leg, so he shifted his position, carefully keeping his back to the trunk of the tree. Another something floated by his nose and he saw it-wispy and insubstantial. He reached for it and it disappeared through his grip.

Thoughts of fairies and sprites came to mind and he looked around for more. Perhaps they’d come to help him, to whisk him away to their fairy kingdom and keep him safe from the dead men. The tree brightened around him-the fairies had brought a light to comfort him and make him less afraid. He sighed and relaxed against the tree, convinced he’d be saved until realization hit.