Crown of Three (33 page)

With a whoop, he tugged at the thorrod's neck feathers. The giant bird rose vertically, the down draft from her wings nearly knocking Elodie from her saddle. The other two thorrods followed him out over the chasm in close formation. The tigron and the wolf emerged from a nearby thicket of trees, ran to the edge of the abyss, and watched them depart, ears pricked.

Elodie stared as the three birds dwindled. Seen against the enormity of Idilliam, the massive thorrods looked no bigger than insects.

“I hope he knows what he's doing,” she murmured.

“They will return.”

A hand closed around hers. It was icy cold, but its grip was firm and confident. It belonged to Samial.

Elodie gasped. She clasped her fingers over the boy's smooth, cold skin.

“So that's why you always pulled away,” she said slowly. “So I wouldn't realize that you're—”

“Dead,” Samial finished. He smiled. “Living people hate the cold. You would have fled.” Elodie smiled back. “You're right. But now, I want to stay.”

Fessan's voice rose above the murmuring that had begun in the ranks.

“It is decided!” he announced. “We will restore the Idilliam Bridge and cross to face the enemy. Our queen has commanded it!”

Silence fell. Everyone turned to Elodie. Slipping her fingers from Samial's, she guided her horse alongside Fessan's. Her gaze swept across the sea of faces, living and dead, each looking back at her. She turned to face Idilliam, where her brother Tarlan and his loyal thorrods were just specks of dust against a tableau of war. Above them rose the indomitable heights of Castle Tor. Somewhere over there was Gulph.

She felt that the past few weeks had been designed to bring her here, to this place and this moment in time.
I don't know if it was an accident or the prophecy
, she thought.
But here I am.

“I say Fessan is right,” she said. “Have we come all this way just to turn around and go back into the woods?”

“No!” roared the surrounding soldiers.

“Then we attack. We mend what is broken and we take what is ours. We attack, Trident. WE ATTACK!”

Her words were like sparks igniting Trident into flame. The column—which up to that moment had been resting in a long straggling line stretching far back into the forest—surged into action. Shouts rang out and swords were drawn.

Elodie's whole body was tingling. She urged Discus out of the way as teams of horses hauled six enormous machines out from the cover of the trees. The trebuchets. They looked like great hunched beasts, poised to spring on their prey. The horses dragged them on sleds—there'd been no time to make wheels, she supposed—and even before the teams reached the bridge, they were foaming with sweat.

Fessan ordered the soldiers of Trident into line behind the trebuchets. The bridge was wide enough for them to ride thirty abreast and still leave ample room on either side. Elodie was glad of this: The Idilliam Bridge had no parapet, and anyone straying too close to the edge risked certain death in the chasm below.

But it was a very long way across.

Ready as she was to lead her army into battle, Elodie could hardly believe it was happening. It was less than a month since she'd been living her pampered life in Castle Vicerin, only vaguely aware of the harsh world beyond, believing the crown would simply be handed to her.

So much had happened since then.

Ahead, barely visible as tiny specks against the gray stone of Idilliam, were Tarlan and the thorrods. Beyond the city wall was Gulph.

Beside her, floating in the air as if riding on an invisible bridge, rode the ghost army. Among them was Samial.

This is exactly where I'm meant to be
, she thought.

Elodie straightened her back and lifted her chin.

A bugle sounded. She dug her heels into Discus as the army picked up its pace.

Trident rode out to battle.

W
ith a groan, the rest of the mausoleum wall collapsed. Roof tiles clattered like giant hailstones into the rubble. A fresh wave of dust blasted out over the screaming crowd. Gulph twisted his face away, clawing the powder from his eyes.

Looking back, he saw Brutan, the undead king, descending the sloping field of debris.

He could scarcely accept what he was seeing. How could that monster have been his father?

Brutan's movements were slow and jerky. With every step, he studied his juddering legs like he was seeing them for the first time. He stretched his arms and flexed his fingers, naked to the bone, as if testing their strength. It was impossible to tell where his torn robes ended and his tattered flesh began.

When Brutan reached the ground, he stopped. Sunlight streamed through his perforated flesh. His head swiveled in little jerks on creaking tendons. With each jerk he paused to survey another part of the scene: the wide root of the broken bridge, on which the upturned battering rams had fallen silent; the crowds of peasants pressing against Nynus's soldiers, who were holding them back; Nynus himself, wearing his mask, seated on a raised platform between the mausoleum and the city wall.

How can he see it all?
Gulph wondered.
He hasn't got any eyes.

Even as he thought this, flames lit up inside the undead king's empty eye sockets. Brutan unhinged his jaw and emitted a dry, penetrating scream. The scream went on and on, grating against the inside of Gulph's skull. Fresh ash fell, shrouding Brutan in a cloud of gray.

“Ossilius!” Gulph yanked on the chain to get his friend's attention.

Ossilius shook his head as if coming out of a dream. “I did not think the old stories true.”

“Stories?”

“From the dark times. Stories of wizards.” He stopped to rub his eyes, as if he didn't trust what lay before them.

“What did the stories say?”

“Wizards are not magical in themselves,” Ossilius told him. “They only carry their magic for as long as they walk the world. When they die, the magic remains. If it does not pass to the next wizard in line, it finds another host.”

“Brutan!”

Ossilius nodded. “That is what Limmoni was warning Nynus about before she died. But he was too arrogant to listen. Too arrogant and too stupid.”

Brutan was taking uncertain, but gigantic, steps toward the crowd. His mouth was still open, except now there were words wrapped up in his howls.

“Where . . . are they?” he bellowed. “My wife! My son!” He took another faltering step. “Where is the one who murdered me?”

He continued to move toward the crowd of peasants. They tried to retreat, but ranks of men from the King's Legion were in the way. A second wave of soldiers emerged from gates in the city wall; upon seeing Brutan, they immediately halted their advance.

Let them through!
Gulph thought, all too aware of the panic growing in the trapped crowd.

With each step he took, Brutan seemed to grow stronger. He swung his arms like a bear, his bony fingers hooked like talons. His shoulders were hunched. In life, he'd been an imposing figure. In death—or undeath—he looked unstoppable.

“My killer!” he roared. “I will kill you!”

“Bring him down!” shrieked Nynus, almost simultaneously. His voice sounded thin and shrill against that of his father. Gulph wondered what expression he wore beneath that hideous gold mask. Behind the young king, the expression of Dowager Queen Magritt was unreadable: fury or terror or both.

Swords drawn, a trio of legionnaires pushed through the peasants and lunged at the lumbering corpse. One hacked at Brutan's chest; his weapon sliced through the undead king's shredded flesh and stuck fast between his ribs. Brutan turned away, tugging the sword from the man's grip. His hand shot out and grabbed the legionnaire around the neck. The soldier screamed, but the sound was instantly cut off as Brutan began to squeeze.

The legionnaire's companions dropped their swords and backed away, their faces filled with horror. Brutan's bony fingers clamped tight and blood jetted from the man's throat. His feet drummed briefly against the ground, then his entire body went limp.

Gulph held his breath, waiting for his undead father to drop his victim. But he didn't.

Instead, Brutan maintained his grip on the man's throat. Gray ash lifted from his arm. At first Gulph thought it was the wind, but then he saw the ash was moving of its own accord. It flowed down Brutan's arm to his fleshless wrist, squirmed between the bones of his hand, and swarmed over the face of the legionnaire.

Wherever the ash touched the man's body, decay instantly set in. The skin bubbled; bones snapped and jutted, piercing the flesh from within. The once proud uniform shriveled to rags.

“It spreads,” said Gulph, horrified.

“May the stars help us,” said Ossilius.

Flames ignited in the dead man's empty eyes.

Brutan opened his hand. Moving with unnatural speed, the thing that had once been a soldier of the King's Legion threw itself on its former companion and clamped its hands around the man's throat.

One, two, three
, counted Gulph, watching as thin gray mist writhed from the undead man to the living one. The fresh victim twitched and struggled, but there was no escaping the dark magic. Within moments, he was a moving corpse too, turning on his horrified comrades.

Meanwhile, Brutan was busying himself with another legionnaire. Just a few breaths later, three undead men stood swaying beside Brutan in the swirling ash, red fire burning in their gaping eye sockets.

They lunged out at the terrified crowd and went to work. Gulph's guts contracted.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, bending to pull at the chains. The other prisoners in the gang—most of whom had been watching mesmerized, like him and Ossilius—were now trying to free themselves too.

“There's no time,” Ossilius replied. He was rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on the chaos ahead.

“We've got to work together!” Gulph raised his voice. “Everyone—we have to break these chains!”

Nobody listened. Panic had infected the prisoners, just as it had infected the crowd of peasants. Glancing up, Gulph was faced with a wall of people rushing toward him as they tried to outrun the undead. Those who fell, or were too slow, were instantly pounced on and killed, only to rise again as the enemy. Few escape routes remained open: the rubble surrounding the mausoleum blocked the road to the west, and the chasm made it impossible to run south. Their only choice was to go straight through the gangs of prisoners who'd been drafted to destroy the Idilliam Bridge.

It was like a human tidal wave. Gulph tried to fend off the screaming people as they stumbled past. A fat peasant woman with a long scratch on her face cannoned into him, knocking him sideways. As he threw out his hands for balance, a pale-faced courtier trod on his fingers.

“Here!” Ossilius, come to his senses again, pulled Gulph upright and thrust a hammer into his bleeding hands. “Strike as if your life depends on it.” Shouldering aside a charging tradesman, he added, “Which it does!”

Gulph started to hammer at the chains still holding him down. Ossilius did likewise. The other prisoners looked on in bewilderment. Gulph grabbed a fallen pickax and tossed it to the nearest man.

“Come on!” he shouted. “Strike together! It's our only chance!”

The ringing of metal on metal added new music to the tumult. Gradually the flood of people eased, making it easier to work.

It also means the enemy is one step closer
, Gulph thought grimly.

Sure enough, one by one, Brutan's growing undead army emerged from the dust clouds, their red eyes burning like angry coals.

A ragged cheer signaled the splitting of the chain a little way down the line. The freed men immediately dropped their tools and ran. Gulph redoubled his efforts, pounding at the links that trapped him and Ossilius.

Just when he thought it was hopeless, with a
chink
, the metal gave way, freeing them both. Gulph kicked it aside. The manacles themselves remained tight and heavy around his swollen ankles, but at least he was free!

As he ran with Ossilius in the direction of the city wall, Gulph scanned the crowd for faces he recognized. Where were his friends? Where was Pip? Perhaps the players had escaped over the Idilliam Bridge before it had been breached.

Please let it be true. . . . Let them be safe!

“We need to hide,” shouted Ossilius, steering Gulph toward an isolated tower. “We are still wanted men. Nynus won't forget that.”

A woman screamed close by. Very close. Gulph swerved to avoid a squad of legionnaires hurrying through the dust. Were they charging into battle or retreating? He couldn't tell. He stumbled, recovered, and found himself face-to-face with Dowager Queen Magritt.

She was standing stock-still, her pure white dress seemingly unmarked by the flying dirt and debris. Her hands were pressed against the sides of her head. Her mouth was wide open. She was the one who was screaming.