Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales (17 page)

BOOK: Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales
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Chapter 21

Briar lost all sensation in her body and she wondered if it would ever return. Still, she cradled Sherman's blood-soaked, wilted frame like a child who recovered a long-lost doll. He had saved them, and paid for it with his life. But there might still be time, she hoped.

“Right this way, Madame,” Tarfeather shouted in one of his many voices. He hopped weightless like a flea atop the scatter of broken stones. Then he scrambled down an empty hallway that faced an inner courtyard. It was different from others because it was lined with towering overhead windows.

Briar and Dax followed, their way lit by the haunting crescent moonlight that bled from above. Dax was not paying attention to the jangling of Leon's cage. “Let me out!” he yelled in a croaky voice.

“There's no time,” Dax said back. “Just hang on.”

“Is this a dream?” he asked Dax, looking with his green, bulging eyes.

Dax didn't know how to answer intelligently, so he didn't. “Yeah, I know it's hard to believe that I don't normally dress like a pop-star's backup dancer, circa 1990. But I don't—”

They managed to keep a fireball's pace behind Tarfeather, who streaked along, zigzagging through the maze of dim hallways.

“Is this the way out?” Briar asked. She was huffing and beginning to feel the weight of her many robes.

“The book? Why yes, darling, I know where it is,” Tarfeather parroted from television. “Temple caves havery book of terrible things.”

Finally the dwaref stopped and backed himself against a wall, droplets of sweat glistening on his golden skin. The others all came to a halt behind him and pressed their backs to the cold
walls. Briar saw that just around the corner from where they stood were two of Orpion's wolfguard. Their helmets only allowed her to see their gray muzzles. Standing outside an open door, they bared long swords in a practiced military manner.

Briar and the others tried to control their huffing enough to remain unnoticed and to hear the conversation that echoed in the hollow corridors.

“I don't know how it happened,” one wolf was trying to explain. His gruff voice sounded familiar.

“Have you searched the grounds?” This was unmistakably the Lady Orpion's cold, detached voice.

“We thought it important to report it first,” the other wolf said. He had a cringing, rueful tone.

“Spread the word,” Orpion said to one. “You stay here and guard my quarters,” she said to the other. Then Briar heard the sound of hurried footsteps echoing into the distant halls.

Tarfeather peered around the corner, but the remaining guard saw him. “You there!” he shouted.

Briar knew what she had to do. She tried to hold back her inner trembling. It was the only way past this guard now. Briar set Sherman down at her feet. She took a moment to collect her thoughts. She realized that she was beginning to feel fatigued. Sherman had warned her that the spell could be physically taxing, and now she was beginning to feel it. Nevertheless, she knew it would be just a moment longer and then they would be out of the palace. She stepped out from behind the wall.

“I hope you were not shouting at
me
, fool,” Briar said. Feigning Orpion's cold intensity, she came face to face with the head of the wolfguard again, with his decay and smell of sickness.

“I…I…” The wolf looked down the hall in the direction where he saw Orpion leave. Then he looked back at the Lady approaching him. “I thought I saw the escaped prisoners,” he said. It made Briar feel powerful to see him backing up, his gray
tail tucked between his legs.

Briar, hands clasped at her waist like Gelid, moved toward him with a dignified glide. “It sounds as though your judgment is impaired. Perhaps you should take your leave, soldier.” She felt her legs trembling with weakness and a cold sweat forming across her brow.

“Forgiveness, Lady,” he said. Then he tucked himself low and cringed like a beaten dog.

Briar felt woozy. Her heart pounded as though she had run a marathon, and her skin felt as though it were coming off. She could not speak or move or even stand for a moment longer. The hallway began to swirl, but in her haze she noticed two standing suits of armor flanking one of the soaring floor-to-ceiling windows. But as soon as she saw them, they seemed to blur. She felt herself sink toward the floor, nauseated, her consciousness sinking into a puddle of moonlight.

Briar dropped to her knees, pale as a viper's belly. The wolfguard dared to look up and his distorted, blind-eyed face twitched as he watched his Lady's features contort, blister, and re-shape themselves.

Tarfeather listened from around the corner and motioned for Dax to watch what was happening. As he peered around the corner, he watched the wolf stand above Briar, sword held out, afraid of what he saw. “My Lady?” he asked. But Briar did not respond.

The wolfguard watched as one of the Lady's arms reached out and changed from pale, death-white to flesh pink. The Lady's black robes transformed from somber black to the soft white and gold of Briar's tattered ball gown.

The wolf cracked a sinister smile. “So it's the talebreaker,” he said. He growled and bent low so that he could be eye to eye with his prize. “Think you can just leave me in a prison, tied like a roasting pig?” Briar just wheezed and reeled, unable to do anything. He slapped her hard and her lips bled. Then he loomed
over her and hoisted his sword with both of his paws gripping the sword tightly. “I've been wanting to taste your flesh since the Horn and Hold. Now it's time for a little slice.”

He began to bring his heavy blade down, but it was met by another, blocking it just before it would have chopped at Briar's exposed neck.

It was Valrune. It shocked the wolfguard who was told by the others that the prince was as soft and dithering as his father. The wolf stood at his full height, towering over Valrune by a head or more and he lifted his sword. Valrune began to advance attempting to strike so that the wolf would move away from Briar. But the wolf was quick to meet Valrune's sword with his own and parried it away with a twisting motion of his body, giving him enough time to position himself so that his back was not to a wall.

Briar slowly began to lift herself from the ground. She looked at her tattered ball gown, and she registered the clanking of swords just a pace or two away from her. But she still felt incapable of standing.

“Crap on a stick!” Dax said to Tarfeather.

“What's happening?” Leon asked, from inside the cage.

Dax opened it up and Leon hopped out to Dax's shoulder in order to get a good enough view. “I can't take this anymore. Someone's got to help her,” Dax said.

Something suddenly changed and Briar's eyes blazed with a focused fury. The torches along the walls dimmed and her hands glowed with blue, undulating fire. She noticed the unused sword propping up one of the coats of armor and she lurched for it—as though she knew what she was doing. Despite its weight and size—for it was nearly as long as Briar was tall—she wielded it as though it was a feather in her hands. She stood tall, an iron strength permeating her body, and without giving thought to her next move, she poised the sword like a trained warrior.

The prince and the wolfguard clanked swords in a fiery
frenzy. Blade met blade again and again. Swords sparked ferociously until finally, swoosh! The guard's blade passed close to Valrune's head, but he leaned back in time to dodge it. That was when the prince lost his balance and fell back. His sword skated away.

Leon sprang from Dax's shoulder and hopped madly across the floor. Dax charged behind him until they reached the wolf. Meanwhile Briar, hands tightening on her sword and jaws clenching enough to pulverize her molars, took a lunge at the wolf herself, and thwacked his sword away. It happened just as he was about to plunge it into Valrune's chest. The wolf's sword slid with a metallic scrape across the floor and he looked with eyes of disbelief. Leon hopped from elbow to shoulder and then to the guard's face where he slapped his webbed feet across the wolf's eyes. Dax stepped up and socked the wolf square on the muzzle.

“Ow! Shit that hurt!” Dax said, shaking his hand.

The soldier yipped and shook his head, then he tried to unseat Leon. Briar lifted her sword once more and jabbed it mightily it into the guard's leg. He howled while revolting black blood, like that of the dragon, spurted profusely. He fell backward, clutching his leg with a manic yowl. Then he realized Leon was still on his helmet and he tried to pull it off. But Leon quickly hopped away and averted the wolf who sunk one of his own claws into his blistered, exposed skin. He cried in pain once again, but it was only a moment before he turned the pain into a white-hot rage.

He managed to get up on all fours, tuck back his ears, and prepared to kill. But first he had to be rid of Briar's protectors. He turned with a poisonous rage to Dax, and with a single paw-swipe, backhanded him to the floor. Then he reached behind him and struck at the base of a suit of armor, causing it to tumble with a great crash and the weight of steel across Valrune.

The prince wheezed and his face turned purple. The wolf
realized that it didn't kill the prince so he turned to topple the second suit of armor. Briar lifted her sword once more, and this time she jabbed its point at the center of the wolf's chest. Valrune, meanwhile, clawed at the floor, trying to pull himself out from beneath the pile of armor parts.

The wolfguard backed away. “You'll be found,” he croaked. A thin strand of drool dripped from his mouth.

“Shut up, you freak-ass dog,” Briar shouted. Her eyes were focused and clear, and she continued to hold the sword point sharply at the wolf's heaving chest.

“Guards!” the wolf croaked. But as soon as he did, Briar shoved the sword into his other leg. He arched his whole body as more black blood gushed out. But then he clenched his mouth and gave Briar a defiant smile.

She lifted the sword back to his chest and shoved the sword in a bit deeper. Black blood began to run in a thin stream down his front side. He pressed himself against the window. “They say you're the one from the Omens,” he sniggered. “But you're just an insignificant talebreaker. You're nothing. And you'll never be anything.” He laughed with a snarl, his eyes wild and insolent.

“My, what big fuckin' eyes you've got,” Briar said. She dropped the sword, then powerfully shoved him against the tall window. Her thrust was so great that he lifted from the ground and crashed backward through the window. He fell only halfway through, and jagged sheets of glass pierced his back. He screamed and wailed, his black blood running down the knife-edged pieces. Briar flicked the flames from her hands at the immense razor-sharp shards still dangling above him in the window frame. They loosened and fell, lodging deeply in the wolf's neck with an awful bone crack and a squish.

It was done. Beyond Briar's belief, she had killed twice now. A cold dread clutched her heart. Reeling backward from horror, she tripped on Valrune and the armor scattered across his body. Landing on her hands just beyond him, she blinked in aston
ishment.

Dax moaned and rubbed his jaw. Tarfeather stepped out from behind the wall and tried to help Dax to stand.

“How in the heck did you do all of that?” Dax asked.

Briar sat by Valrune, aiding him until he could stand. He was sore and winded, but he could still get up. “You don't go through six weeks of theater combat class without walking away with
something,”
Briar said. She tried to sound fine. In fact, she was beginning to realize that her fear was because she felt fine. She shouldn't feel that way—not after killing twice. She wanted to feel badly about it all. But instead she felt nothing.

Valrune clasped a hand over his bruised chest. “Come with me, all of you,” he said. Dax went back for Sherman, and then they all followed as Valrune, leaning on Briar, half-jogged down the halls.

“Why, it's my knight in shining armor!” Tarfeather said in a female southern drawl, while he and Leon hopped alongside the group. “Gates lockery. Long walkery by foot,” he added in his own rough voice.

After a few short turns down several narrow passages, they arrived through a side entrance to the main throne room. The lion banners that formerly hung so grand and regal were shredded and torn. Cold night drafts stirred the frayed fringes of their remains.

With a face full of deep, unquiet pain, the prince surveyed the destruction of his home. “Hurry,” he said. He limped with the group to the enormous main doors that had been split and left unhinged. None of Orpion's soldiers stood guard, which Briar counted as fortunate, but peculiar. “Before I found you, I told the wolfguard that you had escaped and headed south to the Ink Sea,” Valrune said.

He scanned the great hall for possible stragglers or spies. Then to Tarfeather he said, “Go down to the carriage house. If it has not been ransacked and looted, tell them that Valrune
requests a carriage with two of the king's fastest horses.” Tarfeather nodded and ran quicker than Briar had ever seen him run. Out into the night past the torchlight of the palace he ran and disappeared into ruined shadows.

The prince turned to Briar, saying, “Take the carriage, all of you. The driver knows where there is safe hiding. Wait there. I will first see that my father is not harmed and then I will join you by horseback.”

Briar shook her head slowly and looked into his deep, sturdy gaze. “We have further to go,” she said. “We came to save Leon here.” She glanced to the floor where Leon sat by her foot, his throat bloating with air. “But before we take him back to his home—our home—we must find the spell that can change him into his own form again. So we're going to the Towery Flowery Hill.”

“I see,” Valrune said. There was more than a hint of disappointment in his voice. He eyed Leon and then Briar. “You have endured these hardships to save this frog?”

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