Read The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three Online
Authors: Craig R. Saunders,Craig Saunders
The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three (24 page)
The
strange, fey mist covered the landscape for many miles. Beasts howled and
gnashed within it, and the cries of children could be heard in the countryside
even further out than the amassed Hierarch army. Within that mist, a heavier
mist, something almost sentient, roamed. The call that the witches had put out.
The mist coalesced into something more solid, but still ethereal in its making.
A
great, curved, unnatural bridge. A bridge in reality and thought, composed of
magic and of the God of Death's will. Madal's Gates were breached.
The
bridge shifted and wavered, one end tethered to the castle, the other swerving
and swaying like a snake's body...searching.
Searching
until it found what was needed. Found its purpose.
In
the Hall of Dead Kings, a great stone door moved aside.
The
stench of the long dead escaped the tomb. A great pained groan filled the air,
and the Lich King arose to walk where the dead should not - through the living
- to this cursed fate that awaited it.
*
Wexel
and Asram, the newly appointed third Steward, stood either side of the throne.
Roskel Farinder, the Thief King, stood behind the throne. The Thanes waited in
their allotted places. The Witches Covenant, every witch of true power in the
Kingdom. All waited.
Rena
held the babe in her arms. She shook. Her knees were weak. Sweat ran in a thin
trickle down her back, but she felt cold. So cold.
Selana
kissed the young Queen that would have been on the cheek like a mother would a
daughter and whispered in Rena's ear.
'Be
strong, Rena. Be strong, for he comes.'
Rena
resolved that she would be strong. Strong as she could be. Some part of that
was the glamour that Selana put upon Rena with the kiss, though Rena did not
know this. But more than that, Rena was strong in her heart, in her
convictions, and in her love.
But
still she shook, a little less, maybe, but still...
And
then, shaking, her sweat drying in the cool air of the throne room, footsteps
sounded outside the hall. Thundering footsteps.
A
man encased in heavy armour. The armour of a king.
For
all her resolution to be strong and brave, Rena cried unbidden as her only love
came into the Throne room for the coronation that he had never had.
Once,
the Outlaw King, Tarn, the last king to sit upon the Throne of Sturma.
Now
the Lich King.
A
cold and awful king for cold and terrible times.
His
held his helm under his arm and his face was horrific to behold. The ravages of
death were evident. He grinned and his flesh pulled tight against his face,
gaunt in death unlike he'd been in life.
Rena
looked around and saw that she was not the only one to feel terror and sorrow
in equal measures. And his aura...his aura that only she could see...it
rivalled Selana herself. Within Tarn rested the power of the Kings...the powers
vested in him by the Witches' Covenant...and yes, the power of death itself.
The
crown would bear the touch of none but a true king, and yet it floated in place
above the throne. The Crown of Kings was an ancient artefact, as old as Sturma
itself, perhaps older still.
It
held the power and memories of all the kings that had passed.
Tarn,
with that hideous grin upon his face, walked straight past his love, his only
child, and his old friends without any acknowledgement at all. And as Tarn sat
upon the throne, wordless, powerful beyond belief, and awful, the crown lowered
itself onto his head.
A
strange light filled the King's eyes, and suddenly, in place of groans, he
could speak.
'Rena,'
he said at last, and his voice was choked with emotion and the dust of the
grave.
*
Rena
ran forth and put her arms around her one and only love. She found him cold as
the winter itself, but she did not flinch. She laid a kiss upon his leathery
lips.
'I
never got a chance to say goodbye, my love,' she said.
'Nor
I,' said the Lich King. 'I have been pulled from the grave. I knew I would be.
I did not despair in the fog nor beyond the gates, because Tulathia told me I
would come again. In this haunted form, if it has to be. One last kiss, my
love, for time is short and my time on Rythe is long done.'
Rena
kissed him hard, without reservation. He did not remark upon her missing eyes,
and it was almost as though he did not notice. She did not remark on his
coldness, for in truth she did not care. He was beautiful in her eyes, and she
in his.
'Show
me,' said Tarn, with the best smile he could muster.
Rena
nodded to Selana. Selana brought forth the babe.
'He's
a hearty child.'
'That
he is. Takes after his father,' said Rena with a smile tempered with sadness.
'He
is a beautiful babe. What did you name him?'
'Tarn.
Of course.'
Tarn
took his son and heir in his arms and they both laughed, the babe and the Lich
King.
The
Lich King's laugh was all too human, and Rena could not help but cry as her
lover and husband, her child, too, laughed at each other.
Tarn
noticed her tears, though he did not notice that her eyes were gone, still.
'Cry
no more, my love. But I must go,' he said. 'Here. Take my son. I have work
tonight. The work of a King.'
Baby
Tarn's laughing stopped as the King handed his son back to his wife.
'Friends...'
he said to the assemblage of the great and the bold before him. Epoch makers,
all. 'I cannot stay. I am called forth for one purpose and I know it well.
Roskel, my dearest friend...I will see you again before I go.'
Roskel
nodded. 'My King. My friend.'
Tarn
pushed himself to his feet and walked from the throne room a king at last, with
the Crown of Kings and his grand armour glinting in the firelight.
Rena
stifled a sob as she watched him walk away into the night, and the night's dark
work, but she held her back straight, as would a queen.
*
A
great pall of smoke and fog hung over the city and the armies outside. The
witches dread spell allowed the Lich King to walk through the unnatural fog
unseen. North, through the carnage, a wraith in armour.
None
saw him. He walked through the dead and living alike. In his path rubble,
bodies, discarded goods...the detritus of a war. He stepped over each, his path
straight and true. Ever north. Toward the pavilion and the end of his road.
Toward his true purpose.
Once
he thought his purpose had been to kill a man.
And
now, dead, a killer still.
Would
he ever find peace? Tarn wondered, but even in his thoughts, he was a cold dead
thing. He could feel no pain, not the pain of his death and his dry, creaking
limbs. He could feel no emotion, save that which had lead him along this final
path of his. The bridge had summoned him forth, from beyond Madal's Gates...to
this. To this...afterlife. This undeath. This abomination.
Even
cold as his mind was in death, he knew he did not belong on this world any
longer. His time had passed, and things were not as they should be. He should
have been granted eternal rest.
Would
there, could there, ever be peace for such as him?
He
did not know. It did not matter. He had one goal, and one goal only. This time,
he would not be a killer of men. This was no longer the geas put upon him by
his friend and witch Tulathia when he had been a living thing. This was his
true duty, and he recognised it as such. No, he would kill no man, no more.
Just one death would be enough, could he achieve that which he had been called
back for. The death of a creature both cunning and deadly. A creature pure
evil. But not a man, this one. No man, but the Hierophant.
The
battle to come would herald a new age, an age of chance and hope.
Should
he lose, it would instead signal the end of Rythe itself. He knew this well,
for beyond the gates there was no time, just knowledge. Tarn was privy to
knowledge no mortal, no living creature, could ever hold within their fragile
minds.
In
his death, he saw all futures, all paths, all of creation itself. Madal's
kingdom was everything.
He
had seen. He knew. And the Hierophant and the Line of Kings were the two
lynchpins on which the fate of Rythe, of worlds untold, rested.
He
could not lose. He would not lose.
And,
if this undeath of his was the price, then he would pay. For Sturma. For Rythe.
For all the worlds touched by the Sun Destroyers dark hands.
So
he walked, straight. North. Through death and destruction. Through the ranks of
soldiers as though nothing more than a wraith, though he was solid enough.
Walked
on to meet this second, stolen destiny in the arms of battle.
*
Tarn
entered and the Hierophant, at last, stood before him. Here he was, the true
author of all the tragedies of Tarn's short life. The face of pure evil. The
enemy of Sturma, his progeny, his wife, all that he loved, even. The antithesis
of love. Hatred, pain, agony...this was what fueled this ancient creature.
His
hair was greying, and on his alien face the lighter hair lent the Hierophant a
wise, almost benevolent air. Though none could be fooled, with one look into
his scarlet eyes.
Tarn
knew much, from beyond the gate. Knew the red eyes for a sign of what they
were. The Blight.
May
one day all your kind fall to it, he thought in his cold dead manner,
completely without emotion.
Cold,
like death itself. And the grave was cold indeed.
Tarn
stared into those blood red eyes, looking for some hint of humanity there.
Something salvageable. But he saw nothing but an end for one of them...perhaps
both. Just as when he faced the Thane of Naeth on the other side of life, this
meeting would end with one of their deaths.
Yet
Tarn was already dead.
There
was no one else under the canopy. It was warm inside the pavillion, with
braziers lit all around. Yet the warm did little to touch Tarn. He was
unfeeling. Thinking, yes, bound by duty, but unfeeling. Nothing could touch
him. Nothing.
Tarn
grinned. The Hierophant grinned back.
The
Hierophant, for his part, did not waste time on confusion or illusion. He did
not waste time on conversation.
The
whys, the whos, of having a dead man visit you in your pavilion...none of that
mattered. Both creatures, no longer mortal, knew the import of their meeting. That
Tarn had come for the Hierophant's death was never in doubt.
Tarn
drew his sword. It was a plain steel sword. His blade, hard earned from his old
mentor and adopted father Gard...it seemed like an age ago, but in reality it
had been a mere two years.
That
sword was not regal. It was plain, sharp. Meant for the business of death.
Tarn
held his sword before his face.
The
Hierophant threw his fire. Baleful fire that burned brightly blue with heat
fueled by the Hierarch's hate for all that Tarn stood for, all that he
represented. This dead being represented hope, life, love, and the Hierophant's
hate for such base ideals and emotions was towering.
Fire
and blade met, and the blade sliced through the ball of blue fire. The pavilion
behind caught alight instantly, letting in the cold winter air mixed with the
heat of burning canvas.
Neither
creature was bothered by the sudden gusting wind nor the destruction of their
surroundings. The Hierophant barked a laugh.
'Dead
man, you
will
burn...' said the Hierophant, and from his eyes streamed a
great gout of continuous fire, hotter than anything natural save perhaps one of
Rythe's twin suns.
Tarn
stepped forward, through the fire. He did not strain. He simply stepped deeper
into the inferno, driving forward, his blade held before him like a ward,
though the fire still reached his flesh. He felt nothing, though he knew his
skin was roasting, his skin falling from his face. He knew the smell of charred
meat well enough, and knew the pavilion would be full of the stench of it.
But
his dead body did not matter. The Crown of Kings that he wore upon his head kept
him whole with its ancient magic. His kingly armour took the worst of the fire,
and his flesh did not feel. Why would he feel? The breeze of the cold winter,
the baleful fire...it did not matter to his dead flesh.
At
the last, Tarn's flesh mostly gone, he stood before the enemy. The Hierophant
cursed and spat as fire continued to pour forth from his blighted eyes.
The
Hierophant was the only enemy of this age that truly mattered. He was the
author of Sturma's ills, the greatest threat to Rythe herself.
And
now his flame was burned out.
The
Hierophant saw his end in Tarn's blackened gaze, and then, without words or
hatred, Tarn's sword found home.
*