Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) (42 page)

It seemed an odd choice of vocations by anybody’s standards. Not that he could talk, he supposed. Being a knight
did
involve killing people, too. And monsters. And creatures in between…

Urmugoths, for example.

Eudo’s hired Urms with the silver armbands stood in a ring around the platform, their broad, leather-armored backs to Thaydor.

He figured he could take a couple of heads off from behind with a well-placed swing of the axe. Make a hole in the wall of beasts flanking the dais. Rush the king out of it. His blood thrummed with anticipation.

On second thought, perhaps he should not mock the executioner, for they were not so different. What manner of man enjoyed the holy rage of battle as he did?

Meanwhile, Lord Eudo was speechifying about the necessity of making himself regent, since the king had no heir.

Baynard stood in chains in his nightshirt and braies, the very sketch of misery, staring at the chopping block and the large wicker basket below it, meant to catch his severed head.

Thaydor couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed seeing the old man looking so desolate.
You bloody royal dunderhead. You ought to know me better than that by now. You think I’d let you die?

But the doomed monarch was in his own world, perhaps contemplating joining his dead queen in the next world and having to account for himself on how he had betrayed her.

Through the eyeholes of his grim black mask, Thaydor scanned the area. Just out of sight, around the corners of the four streets leading into Concourse Square, and hidden for the moment by buildings and alleys, he knew his so-called rebel knights waited, in position.

As for the square itself, thankfully, it wasn’t too crowded. Still, one had to figure that despite his men’s best efforts, a few civilians would probably die. It couldn’t be helped. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time and either hadn’t heard or had ignored the rumors he had spread through the city: that there would be trouble and nobody ought to attend.

Ah well.
Now they’d pay the price for being the sort of people who found a public execution entertaining.

“And now, Your Majesty, any last words you wish to share with your former subjects?” Lord Eudo asked. He was not quite able to keep the glee out of his voice while the white banners with the silver thistle insignia flapped in the breeze all around the platform.

Baynard raised his chin and looked around with tears in his eyes. “I have failed you all, and I am sorry.”

Eudo smirked. The aura of evil pulsated from him, sickening and cold.

Even now, it puzzled Thaydor. He had known the Silver Sage for years at court, and while there was no love lost between them, he had detected no such palpable malevolency as he sensed in the man now. If he had, he would have seen him barred from court years ago for the king’s own safety.

Maybe Wrynne was on to something with her theory about some sort of exposure to a poisonous plant. He supposed stranger things had happened.

Having made his simple and obviously heartfelt apology, the king stepped forward to the chopping block, unasked. He knelt with a clank of his chains and laid his neck on the designated spot.

The sight of his liege lord waiting to be murdered brought the battle rage quickly into Thaydor’s veins.

The moment was upon them.

Lord Eudo spoke some condescending prayer to Efrena over him, then nodded at Executioner Thaydor.

As he took the few slow paces over to the king’s side, the three drummers began to pound a noisy rhythm meant to cover up any screaming. Their beat served as the agreed-upon signal to his knights that it was time—and matched Thaydor’s driving pulse.

He raised the axe.

Seconds from taking full power over Veraidel, Lord Eudo seemed practically orgasmic. He watched, riveted.

But when Thaydor took an unexpected step forward and swung the axe horizontally rather than straight down, two of the Urms’ ugly, yellow-eyed heads went flying. He had already grabbed the king and yanked him to his feet before the bodies hit the ground.

The knights charged in, and chaos broke out.

Thaydor whipped off the mask and turned to the king. “Follow me, sire!”

“Stop him!”
Eudo screamed.

And the drums thundered on.

* * *

Except for the knights’ banter, the same eerie silence Wrynne remembered hung over the Harmonists’ retreat.

“Bet it tastes like chicken,” Berold murmured.

“Soon find out,” Sagard rumbled in reply. “Roasted roc breast with a nice cream sauce, maybe?”

“Might be good with vegetables,” Humphrey chimed in from behind her.

“Milady, did you know Sagard can cook?” Berold asked merrily.

“Soothes the nerves after a hard battle,” the burly head-lopper admitted.

“Shh!” Wrynne whispered.

“Would you please be quiet?” Jonty also insisted. “The birds might hear you. If they’re still here.”

“I hope they do,” Sagard mumbled. “I’m hungry.”

The boys snickered, but Wrynne shook her head. “Watch how fast you change your tune once your ‘dinner’ shows up.
We
might be the ones on the menu.”

“Nay, mistress,” Humphrey assured her. “We’ll keep ye safe.”

They had left the horses farther down the mountain to avoid attracting hungry rocs. Still, the men kept Wrynne in the center of their company, the better to protect her.

Though it wasn’t quite the same as having Thaydor there, she felt relatively safe with two massive knights and one wiry but very determined squire ahead of her, two squires and a knight behind her, a bard on her left, and a wizard on her right.

Of course, she was prepared to defend herself, as well. She gripped her crossbow in one hand, her staff in the other, and continuously scanned the underbrush for the huge nest that she had seen before. She just hoped the fire thistle stuck to its side a few days ago hadn’t blown away to some new destination, where it could infect more innocent people.

So far, the whole place was just as she remembered, overgrown and haunting. She spotted a few pigeons roosting on the giant Efrena statue’s head and shoulders, but still no sign of the rocs. Perhaps the monstrous birds had moved on or returned to the mountains. Somehow she doubted she and her companions would be so lucky.

At least they didn’t find any fresh deer carcasses this time.

“Ho, look at that!” Kai said from his spot between Sagard and Berold.

Wrynne tensed as the lad ran a few yards ahead of them and bent to pick up something off the ground.

He laughed as he held up a huge black feather. “Jonty, do you want this? You could write some
really
epic tales with a quill pen this big.”

“Give me that,” Novus snapped, reaching for it.

“You have a use for it?” Wrynne asked, glancing at him.

“Actually, I know of several potions that call for roc feathers. They’re very rare.”

Jonty gestured that the sorcerer could have it.

Wrynne suddenly gasped. “There it is!”

They all looked over and saw the grotesquely oversized thistle clinging to the side of the huge bird’s nest.

Wrynne stared at it, a chill shooting down her spine. She did not know if the others sensed it, too, but as mad as it sounded, she could immediately feel the malice emanating from the dried-out seed head, as before.

All the more so now that she knew what it was.

The dark base of each bulbous seed seemed to study them like the many beady eyes of Argue, the monster of legend, covered in eyeballs.

The fire thistle’s otherworldly evil charged the air around them with tension. The group stopped and gazed back at it uneasily.

“Is it just me or is that thing watching us?” Petra muttered.

“Aye, and it hates us all, remember that,” Jonty said. “It would kill us if it could.”

“Some more than others.” Novus glanced at Wrynne and then at the relatively innocent youths. Then he took out his wand and reminded them of their assignments while he strode ahead.

“You lot,” he said with a gesture to the knights and squires, “keep your eyes open for those birds while I open the portal. And you two, mind you don’t touch that thing when the time comes to shove it through the portal, unless you want to end up evil.”

Wrynne and Jonty nodded.

As they walked closer to the nest where the firechoke was trapped, Wrynne shuddered with the sensation of pure hatred pouring out of the bizarre plant.

Such a thing did not even seem possible…but wasn’t evil always like that? It always took good by surprise, because its motives and its ways were so alien to the way that good creatures thought and felt and acted.

The things that came naturally to evil never even occurred to good, which was why it was always so shocking when the twisted works of evil came to light. It might as well have come from another world, another plane of existence, she mused, for evil
was
absolutely
other
. At least, it seemed that way to her.

When they all stopped near the tree line, about ten feet away from the nest and the firechoke stuck there by its prickles, Wrynne looked around at her companions. The knights and squires got into position, standing sentry on the lookout for rocs.

Jonty glanced at Wrynne, a trace of wry, graveyard humor in the twist of his mouth, while Novus stood nearby and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, the sorcerer lifted his hands, his wand in his right, and began his dark chants invoking the Lord of Shadows.

Wrynne furrowed her brow, wondering if their plan was quite all right with Ilios. She hoped this wasn’t a mistake.

Novus chanted on, his voice growing louder.

When she glanced uneasily at the Firechoke again, she found she could not look away from its blind, malignant stare. She felt queasy being near the thing. It was as though the fleur du mal were pulling her in somehow, luring her under its influence…so it might destroy her.

She almost felt sorry for Lord Eudo, being subjected to this unpleasant presence within him for the past year and a half.

A ball of flame appeared in the air a few feet in front of Novus. He chanted louder and more powerfully, ugly words with harsh accents. The fiery orb widened and grew into a circle, and a hot wind blew around them. Novus’s black hair waved in the gale he had stirred up.

“It’s working!” Jonty exclaimed over the chaos of the supernatural breeze.

All of a sudden, an explosive ripping sound rent the air, and the circle of flame that hung before Novus tore open into a hole between dimensions.

Wrynne was not prepared for what she saw beyond it—a glimpse into the underworld. She took a stumbling step backward, and thankfully, Jonty caught her before she fell on her backside.

Terrible roars of beasts and the howls of the damned reached them distantly from beyond the portals shredded edges, deep in the heart of Hell.

Wrynne cowered, irrationally fearful that she would be pulled into it. She wished with all her heart that Thaydor were there with his unfailing aura of goodness. Her Golden Knight. But he had never seemed more far away…

At that moment, a piercing screech filled the skies above them.

“Here comes supper!” Berold boomed, lifting his sword and shield. The other knights did likewise; the squires waited in position without flinching.

Jonty glanced up worriedly as the shadow of a huge wingspan swirled over their entire company.

When Wrynne looked into the late-morning sky, so bright and blue, it seemed filled with rocs, black as night, their red eyes glowing with fury at this intrusion.

She hunkered down a little where she stood, though she knew Thaydor’s knights would protect her with their lives, if it came to it. She vowed that it would not and brought up her crossbow, ready to fire if any of those creatures came too close.

“Novus, how are you holding up?” she called.

He didn’t answer, deep in trance. Sweat beaded his face, though whether that was from the oven-like heat pouring out of the Infernal Plane or the surely superhuman effort of keeping the door between dimensions open, she could not say.

Arms lifted, he was swaying while the chants tumbled from his lips.

“Right,” Jonty said. “I’ll do this.” He grabbed a long, broken branch off the forest floor. One end fanned out into many smaller twigs. “This should serve as well as any garden rake.”

He hefted it to make sure the wood was strong and wouldn’t break. The last thing they needed was for the firechoke to escape their hold and roll away. Satisfied, he stepped toward the nest.

But then the first roc dived at the knights, signaling the whole flock to attack. Wrynne looked on in alarm. Her mind spun as she tried to grasp hold of a new plan.

That’s it!

“Jonty!” She lowered her crossbow and took the branch from him, instead. “Let me do this. Try your music! You said last time that you thought that it could calm them.”

He started to protest, but when he turned and saw Sir Sagard’s hoped-for dinner fighting savagely to turn the tables on the would-be chef, the bard nodded. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.” He slipped his lute off his shoulder. “But please be careful.”

“I’m a trained gardener, Jonty. I think I know how to use a rake,” she teased, trying to sound braver than she felt. “If you can lull those beasts into a trance, maybe we can all get out of here in one piece.”

“Daresay I’ve played for tougher audiences.” Armed with nothing but a musical instrument, the brave red-haired bard stepped toward the flesh-eating birds and struck up a soft chord.

Then he began to sing.

Chapter 18

Infernal

M
eanwhile, back in Pleiburg, Concourse Square had become a battleground. All around them, the heave and press of the seething crowd threatened to separate the dazed king from him.