Dragonsbane (Book 3) (43 page)

  “All right, all
right
!” one of the guards shouted over the din. There was the stomping of steps and then some frantic rattling. “One of you maggots get up and help me — the blasted latch is stuck again!”

Another set of steps marched towards the first. They struggled for a moment before two more joined them. The latch rattled furiously under their efforts, and the thudding never stopped.

“Clamp it, will you? We’re working as fast as we can!”

“Bloody latch …”

“Well, you can’t just rip on it!”

“What does it matter? The blasted thing’s probably frozen to the do — ah!”

Kael’s arrow struck the nearest man in the back of the neck. He fired through the hole he’d made in the wall, bringing the other three down in a quick series of shots. A fifth man charged wildly into the middle of the room, sword drawn. He wiped at his eyes as if he’d just been sleeping.

An arrow pinned his hand to his face.

“Attack! Fight!”

Kael lurched back and narrowly missed having his face split open by the falcon’s twisted beak. It snapped at him, trying to cram its way through. But the hole was too small. It’d leaned back to charge its head against the wall when Kael’s arrow struck its middle.

He waited, breathless, in the moments that followed. But he couldn’t hear anything over Morris’s pounding. When another moment passed and not a shadow moved inside the cottage, he widened the hole and slid through.

The falcon was still alive. Terror ringed its large black pupils and its wings flopped helplessly beside it. Kael didn’t want to look — he didn’t want to have to watch the light leave its eyes …

Wait a moment — that wasn’t
light
, at all. Kael crept closer, leaning in until he stared straight into the falcon’s eyes.

A man’s face stared back. His head was suspended in the black depths of the
falcon’s gaze, floating there without a body. The image wavered like flame battered by the wind. Kael could barely make out the tangled mane of hair, the ragged beard — the cruel mouth that twisted into a grin.

The man’s face dissolved into the blackness as the falcon’s last breath hissed out of its lungs. Kael was staring so intently at the fading image that he didn’t notice the shadow creeping up at his back. He heard the floor planks groan and spun, slinging an arm out behind him.

A sharp, pinching sting bit the flesh below his left shoulder. Kael ripped the hunting dagger from his belt and plunged it blindly through the mass in front of him. There was a moan, a gasp, and then an armor-clad body fell across his chest.

There’d been one more soldier in the room. He stared over the man’s shoulder and saw he’d been hiding in a corner behind the jutting edge of the hearth. Kael had just managed to fight his way out from under the soldier’s body when the pain struck him.

It was sharp, burning with such a rage that it nearly blinded him. No, it wasn’t the pain that made his vision dim: a strange numbness filled his head. It traveled down his limbs, made his hands droop at his sides. His body felt as if he’d just woken from a heavy sleep — as if he had no real control over it, as if his head merely sat atop a tangle of limbs.

Cold whipped through the crack behind him. He could feel the wind’s every pointed tooth as it raked down his skin. His teeth chattered uncontrollably. His body shook even though he told it to stop.

There was a dagger stuck below his left shoulder, its blade half-buried in his flesh. Blood wept from the ragged hole at its base — he knew from how steadily the drops came that there was more blood waiting behind it. If he tried to pull the dagger free, he might very well bleed out. Perhaps if he sealed an edge of the wound closed …

Kael gasped and slumped back. His fingers had done nothing more than pinch fire from his skin. No matter how fiercely he concentrated, he couldn’t turn his wound to clay. He couldn’t remember how it felt to mold flesh back together. He couldn’t remember how he’d done it.   

“Is that all of them, lad?” Morris hissed from around the hole in the wall.

Kael’s teeth chattered too badly to answer. What in Kingdom’s name was wrong with him? Why had everything gone so cold?

“Are you all right in there? Have you got the —? Kael!”

Morris ducked through the hole and stumbled to his side. His nubs circled helplessly over the half-buried dagger. His eyes went from Kael’s chattering teeth to where the soldier had been hiding. He stared inside the small wooden box that lay opened in a shadowed corner of the hearth, and he swore.

“What …? What’s …?”

“Easy now, lad. Try not to fuss.” Morris scooped up armfuls of the soldiers’ bedding and began stuffing it inside the hole, silencing the howl of the wind. “You’ve been poisoned lad — it won’t kill you,” he said quickly, when he saw the panic on Kael’s face. “It’s a poison called
mindrot
. Puts us whisperers in a bad way, it does. Mindrot muddles your head. It’ll make you human for a bit. You won’t be able to use your powers until it wears off.”

Once Morris had the hole blocked, he pinched the box between his arms and toted it over to Kael. There was a large vial inside of it, filled nearly to its top with a dangerous-looking purple liquid. The wax seal had been broken over its cork. Kael realized that must’ve been where the soldier had gotten the mindrot for his dagger.

“One drop is enough to muddle a whisperer …” Morris swore loudly, gaping down at the box. “There’s quite a few drops in here. I don’t know what Titus traded for it, but it must’ve been something grand, indeed. D’Mere’s the only one who knows the formula for mindrot,” he explained. “And she doesn’t hand her vials out lightly.”

Kael sank to his knees. So
that
was how the Sovereign Five had managed to keep the rebel whisperers at bay all those years. If mindrot had been able to defeat the whisperers once before, it could do it again.

Titus knew this. He was planning to use it on the wildmen. He hadn’t attacked them because he’d been waiting for this vial of mindrot. Now that he had it, he planned to crush the wildmen exactly as he’d crushed the rebels …

“That isn’t blood, is it?”

Kael looked to where Morris pointed and mumbled a curse when he saw the purplish stain spreading over his trousers. “Night-fingers. I promised Griff that I’d …”

He stopped.

A mad thought came to him suddenly. He fought against the searing pain in his arm and reached inside his trousers. One of the curled roots had burst. It leaked a large amount of purplish juice down his fingers and stained the beds of his nails. But the rest of the roots were intact, still bulging with their liquid innards.

Between his poison and his beasts, Titus had the wildmen trapped. If Kael moved one way, Titus would leap to block him. There would be endless layers to his plan: he would adapt to every shift in their strategy, mold his army to fit against their charge. If the wildmen met Titus in the field, they could end up fighting a battle every bit as eternal as their war with the wynns.

Kael knew he couldn’t possibly hope to outwit the man who’d brought the Kingdom to its knees, and so he wouldn’t try. He wouldn’t fight back.

Instead, he would take a leaf from Setheran’s book: he would do exactly what Titus expected him to.

Kael would walk straight into his trap.

Chapter 40

Here at the End

“Ho, that was a wicked thing you done, lad!” Morris panted, half-laughing as they stumbled down the frozen slopes. “Are you sure he’ll find it?”

Kael was positive. He was certain the Earl had been watching him through the falcon’s eyes. He’d seen what Kael had done to his soldiers, and he’d likely sent a force to retrieve the vial of mindrot the moment the falcon had perished. When his soldiers arrived, they’d find the vial exactly the way it’d been delivered: corked and with its wax seal melted back into place by the hearth fires. Titus would have no reason to believe anything was amiss.

“How’re you holding up, lad?” Morris gasped as they picked their way down a particularly nasty slope.

With darkness shrouding it, he hadn’t realized just how treacherous the path to the cottage had been. Now a gray dawn had begun to creep over the horizon. The edge of the path that he’d thought dropped a mere few feet actually dropped several hundred — and there was a field of sharp, ice-covered rocks waiting at its base.

Kael’s head spun when he glanced down. “I think I need … a rest,” he managed to say. He felt as if the insides of his throat had frozen over. His breaths slipped clumsily out, and his lungs never seemed to get enough air.

He sat on his knees, careful not to jostle the dagger. They’d managed to bind his left arm against his chest. Morris had held a strip of the soldiers’ bedding in place while Kael had woven a very clumsy, one-handed knot around it. The binding wasn’t as tight as he would’ve liked, but at least having his arm pinned would keep the wound from tearing.

“Aye, take a breath,” Morris said, propping his nubs on his knees. “But let’s make it a quick one — I’ll feel better about things once we’re back amongst those rock-hurling lads.”

Kael agreed. “It shouldn’t be far, now. Just a few more …”

A howl rose over the top of his voice. It trailed faintly in the gray dawn, falling until it disappeared. He hoped he’d only been imagining it, but then it came again — and this time, two others joined it.

Morris’s eyes went wide. “What in Kingdom’s name —?”

“Hounds,” Kael cried, scrambling to his feet. “It’s the Earl’s hounds! Run!”

The yelping grew frenzied, rising as the hounds picked up the scent of his blood. Soon the separate wails molded together. They became a never-ending chorus of screams — a tide rising to take them.

Kael urged his legs into a run. He hobbled across the slickened rock, trying desperately to will them on. Every breath stabbed his lungs. The dagger in his arm dug painfully against the ragged ends of his flesh. He felt as if a second dagger had been thrust between his ribs.

Soon his legs shook as he brought them down. The motion of his jog beat his body too roughly. He felt an unnerving warmth trickle down his chest as his wound spat out a fresh helping of gore. Beside him, Morris wasn’t faring much better: the old helmsman’s gasps had grown so labored that his face was white with the effort.

They might’ve made it another half mile or so, had Kael not lost his footing.

Rocks beat his back. He curled up as he rolled across the frozen ground, trying to protect his wound. But somehow, he managed to catch the edge of a stone at just the right angle — and he was hurled on top of the dagger.

The blade bit deeper into his flesh; the ragged wound wept freely. Kael cried out as the pain clamped down upon him, trying to fight against the blackness.

“Come on, lad!” Morris wheezed. “Come on — throw your arm across me … there’s a good lad. We’ll get there … don’t you worry … we’ll …”

They didn’t get far.

Screams burst up the slope. The hounds were so close that Kael could hear the panting between their frenzied cries. At any moment, they would be overtaken. “Morris, you have to go.”

“No, lad. I’m not —”

“
Go!” Fury raged above Kael’s pain, turning his words white-hot. “The hounds can smell my blood. That’s the only reason they’re after me. They won’t stop until they’ve killed me!”

His shoulder was far too mangled to draw his bow. So he chose a knife from his wallet and tried to ignore the fact that his hand didn’t seem to remember how to throw it. Without the warrior in him, he wasn’t sure he
could
throw it. But he had to try. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Once they’ve got me, they’ll go back to Titus. But you’ve got to run, Morris. You’ve got to tell the others what we’ve done.”

He took a deep breath. He braced the knife against his knee, holding the point upwards. If he couldn’t throw it, then at least he might be able to skewer one of the hounds. If he held it against his chest when they attacked …

Morris’s stocky arm thudded across his shoulder, chasing the darkness back. “All right, lad. I just want you to know … I want you to know that I was happy to be at your side, here at the end.”

Kael took in every edge of his features, every line on his face and every wire of his beard. The light in his watery eyes steeled him, gave him courage — it reminded him of what needed to be done. And he was proud to do it.

Screams split the air between them; the hounds were at the crest of the hill. He could hear their clawed feet scraping against the ground, but he wasn’t afraid. “Tell Kyleigh that I love her, all right? Make sure she knows.”

Morris gazed up the slope, where three twisted, screaming bodies were tearing down to meet them. And he smiled. “No, I’m not going to do that, lad. You tell her yourself.” Then he slammed the blunt of his arm onto the top of Kael’s knife.

The blade went through Morris’s leather gauntlet and deep inside his wrist. He stood and ripped the knife out with his teeth. A red torrent spewed from the ruptured veins as he lumbered for the cliff. The hounds screamed. Their dark-pitted eyes burned beneath the folds of skin on their faces. Their claws screeched against the rocks as they turned from Kael and headed straight for Morris.

The old helmsman stopped at the edge. He turned his back on the hundreds-foot drop and the jagged rock field beneath him so that he could fix Kael with one final, gap-toothed grin.

“You finish it, lad!” he called, raising his blood-soaked arm. “You finish what we started!”

The hounds crashed into him. They swallowed his stocky body and tumbled over the edge, ripping the whole way down. The faint
thud
at the bottom of the cliff broke Kael from his shock.

He screamed.

*******

“No!
No
!” Titus’s fists pounded into the arms of his throne as the last of his hounds perished and their windows went dark.

He’d had him. He’d
had
him! Stupid, blood-mongering beasts. He’d led them straight to the Wright, he’d held so tightly to their chains — he’d
willed
their legs to pound! Then they’d ripped from his grasp at the last moment, charging after that worthless, crippled pirate …

Titus pulled roughly on his tangled beard, trying to force himself to calm. This chance might’ve been taken from him, but there would be others. His greatest weapon had yet to be unleashed. One of the falcons had arrived at the cottage ahead of the hounds. He’d found the vial intact.

The moment will come
, he reminded himself as he paced.
The victory is all but assured. Be patient.

“Your Earlship?” A soldier leaned cautiously around the door. “It’s one of the beasts, Earlship. He wants to speak with you.”

“Send him in.” Titus leaned back on his heels as his most powerful creation stalked into the room.

He’d been right about the man named
Marc
. The weakness of his spirit meant his body had been easily twisted. Sorrow and hate had devoured him at the Tree — spitting out a creature that was a reflection of everything Titus could’ve ever asked for in a warrior. Had he been able to split his soldiers open and pull out their souls, he imagined they’d all look like Marc.

“What is it, beast?” Titus said.

Marc sat on his haunches before the throne. His monstrous claws rested, curled upon the ground beside him. He spoke clumsily around his fangs: “I have information for you, Earlship.”

Odd. Titus hadn’t remembered seeing anything through Marc’s eyes that he thought might be useful. Then again, he rarely looked. For all his hulking size, Marc’s vision was disappointingly dim. He feared the pain that might come from his collar if he ever disobeyed a command, so Titus never had to hold his chain too tightly.

“What do you have to offer me?”

“Memories,” Marc grunted. “I know the boy who leads the savages — I remember him.”

Titus leaned forward, trying to keep his face as smooth as possible. “I see. And how are your memories supposed to help me?”

“You want him stopped. I know how to stop him.”

Titus snorted. “I’ve already got him beaten. His army will be helpless against the bite of my poison. Once I’ve weakened them, I’ll have my pick of skulls to crush.”

“He’s too sly, Earlship,” Marc said. “You’ve got to dig your fangs into his throat and keep them there. Give him a breath, and he’ll crush you with it.”

These were echoes of the worries that plagued Titus’s sleep — the whispered ends of all the little things that might go wrong. The Wright had already proven himself to be rather slippery. If there were any way to ensure he would fall, Titus would gladly take it.

“Tell me, beast — how do I hold him by the throat? How do I make sure he never breathes again?”

“You’ve got something of his, Earlship … you’ve got Amos. March that old coot outside, and he’ll walk straight into your hands.”

“The healer?” Titus breathed. “What would the Wright want with a common healer?”

“That’s not just any healer, Earlship.” Marc’s fanged lips twisted into a wicked grin. “It’s his grandfather.”

*******

Kael wasn’t sure how long he walked. It seemed as if he collapsed at every few steps — and each time he fell, he swore it took the last of his strength to pull himself up. But somehow, he found more. There was always more. No matter how much he’d given, he found he always had a little left to give.

Kael’s knees struck the ground again. He clutched at the dagger in his shoulder, holding it in place as he prepared to drag himself to his feet.
Finish what you started
, he thought to himself.
Finish it — do it for Morris
.

The force of that thought pulled him up, held him steady. He shoved the little black spots aside and willed his legs to carry him on. They were numb — either from the cold, the loss of blood, or the crushing weight inside his heart … he wasn’t sure.

His legs fumbled a paltry few steps before he found himself sinking again. The ground was rushing up; the black was creeping in. His knees were inches from the rock when a pair of strong hands caught him under the arms.

“Well, look what I’ve found — a ragged little mountain mutt.”

“Gwen,” Kael moaned.

She grabbed him under the knees and scooped him into her arms, carrying him like a child. Her neck arched back and she let out a sharp whistle.

A hawk screeched in reply.

“Evening … wing …”

“He went out looking for you this morning — followed your trail, saw what a state you were in, and came screeching to the first person he could find. Lucky for you, I was hunting nearby,” she said with a smirk. “I’m disappointed, mutt. I thought you’d grown out of moaning over flesh wounds.”

Kael’s anger cut through the pain. “It’s not just a wound … it’s poison.”

Gwen pursed her bluish-black lips. “Like wynn venom? Then why aren’t you dead?”

“It’s not that kind of poison,” Kael said evenly. “It’s like venom for whisperers … a poison that keeps me from using my powers.”

Her pace slowed considerably. “I think you’d better explain yourself, mutt.”

He did — or he tried to, anyways. It wasn’t easy to get Gwen to understand what he’d seen at the cottage, and how what he’d seen meant that Titus had a plan for them. When got to the part of what he’d done to the poison, she let out a frustrated growl.

“Why didn’t you just throw it in the fire and be done with it?”

“Things will be better this way. You’ll see,” Kael insisted when she rolled her eyes.

At least she understood what had happened to Morris. Her grip on him had tightened to the point it was almost painful by the time he’d finished speaking, but he didn’t mind it. Focusing on how hard her fingers dug in kept the darkness from swallowing his heart.

“We’re going to stomp him,” Gwen snarled.

For once, Kael didn’t argue: “We’re going to do more than that — the mountains will run red with Titus’s blood.”

They walked in a smoldering silence for a while before a rumbling growl made him flinch. Kael raised his head enough to se
e Silas the lion striding out in front of them.