Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Read online

  Elohl was in motion before he knew it. His sword whistled from its scabbard. Sensate sphere tingling, his golden Inkings burning, nothing else existed for Elohl except reaching his target. Frightened shouts rang in the hall. He didn’t hear them. Other Guardsmen began to turn, to react, too slow. Fenton was like liquid lightning at his side, but Elohl was faster. His sword was already slashing the white-haired First Sword across the side of the neck, a deep cut that nearly took the man’s head off, a moment before Fenton’s sword pierced the First Sword’s heart.

  But the damage was done.

  The First Sword of Elsthemen gurgled and went down, his eyes rolling up in pain but not surprise. Clutching his neck, he bled out upon the white marble of the floor as Elohl kicked his sword away. And then he saw the Dhenra. One hand clutched her side. The other still held the gilded pen, her jade eyes wide. Crimson bloomed from beneath her fingers in a broad flush over her flank and abdomen, soaking the rent blue silk of her gown.

  She staggered, gasping. Elohl rushed in to catch the Dhenra as she sank sideways. But her King and now-husband Therel Alramir was there first, scooping Elyasin up. Elohl spun, his back to the King and Queen, sword out, ready for other attackers. Battle-fever roared through his veins in a vicious heat. Red tinged his vision, his sphere wide, feeling for threats. Searing like lightning, his golden Inkings felt alive beneath his jerkin as his gaze frisked the terror and confusion of the hall.

  And he found one man in the hall who was not in confusion. Cold grey eyes held Elohl’s, hands clasped demurely in his grey silk. The King’s Castellan narrowed his eyes upon Elohl. A sea of people obscured Elohl’s vision suddenly. Elohl snarled, frustrated in the melee. When they moved, the Castellan was gone. Elohl cursed, livid, furious. He had no choice but to follow King Therel Alramir, now carrying the injured Elyasin out of the hall, kicking a side door open with one powerful boot. Elohl was on his heels, Fenton and Aldris a step behind, a few of Therel’s burly Highswords with them. Lords and ladies were screaming, fleeing like frightened cows. Luc rushed in, a moment before they barricaded the door.

  King Therel was laying Elyasin down upon the thick cobalt carpet of the empty room. Cradling her head carefully, his eyes were a wreak of concern. Screams still issued from the other room, shouts, a clash of ringing metal, sword on sword. Blood was pooling beneath the Queen, soaking into the carpet in a grisly spread. Elyasin was gasping, short bursts that kept her belly as still as possible. Pain teared her eyes.

  “Let me through!” Luc’s snarl sliced through Elohl’s battle-fugue. The thief pushed roughly past, dropping to his knees by Elyasin and the King. King Therel tried to shove him away, but Luc threw a smart punch, knocking the King square on the jaw. Therel blinked. Elohl saw him go for a dagger. Elohl reached out, gripping the Elsthemi King’s wrist.

  “He’s a healer!”

  Luc was all snarls as he pressed his hands to Elyasin’s wound. “I’m a fucking King’s Physician! She’s my charge, dammitall! Hold on, Elyasin… hold on, girl…”

  She blinked upon seeing the golden-blonde thief leaning over her, and Elohl heard her surprised murmur. “Luc?”

  “Yeah, it’s me… fuckitall… lay still girl, you’re hurt pretty bad. We can’t move you yet. Give me a minute.”

  “Like when I fell from the orange tree…cracked my head…” Elyasin murmured, barely audible, eyes fluttering closed.

  And Elohl saw something he thought he’d never see from the thief. Unshed tears pooled in Luc’s eyes, his face hopeless. “Yeah, yeah… Like the time at the orange tree… gods fuckitall to hell…”

  Pounding began on one barricaded door. “In the name of the Highlands, open up! Or we will break our way in!”

  “My Highswords…” King Therel raised his voice. “Not now!”

  “My liege! They’re calling for your head! We need to get you out! A third of our retinue have already been arrested!”

  Therel blinked, his handsome visage twisting into bleak anger. “Control the hall, Yhurgen! We need a route cleared to the West Stables. Send men ahead to our grooms and protect our horses! And fuck it, they’d better be ready to ride by the time I get there!”

  Another voice growled from the hall, like boulders crushing trees. “Elohl! Fenton! We can’t hold! The Chancellors have taken over the Guard, they’re issuing orders for the King’s death! The thieves rallied with clans Visk and Brackthorn, enough so we could get to you, but the Guard have them pinned! They’ll break through any moment now! You have to go!”

  “Vargen!” Elohl shouted back. “We’re going with the King! Hold them off and meet us at the West Stables!” King Therel lifted his eyebrows, and Elohl caught his look. “Your Queen is going with you. And so am I.”

  “Elohl!” Vargen shouted again, “I’ve got to get Olea out of the cells!”

  Aldris shoved the furniture away from the door. “I’ll go with Vargen. I know a fast route to the cells. We’ll meet you at the stables. Alrashemnari aere alranesh vhekhan! Long live the Alrashemni!” He shoved his way out. Elsthemi retainers flooded in with hooded eyes and weapons bared. Elohl heard a sigh beside him. He glanced over to see Luc, white with fatigue, mop his sweaty brow with one arm.

  “We can move her now. She’s still bleeding, but I can do the rest later.”

  “Come on, my sweetgrape,” King Therel was careful as he scooped Elyasin up from the soaked carpet, her blood-slicked silk clinging. “Don’t let them crush you yet…” She keened as he hefted her into his arms. And then her head dangled, passed out from the pain. “Whoever set this up is going to pay!” Therel snarled, his handsome visage rippling, cruel and cold like he bared fangs. “Alrashemnari aenta trethan lheroun, ahle fhis brethii!”

  Alrashemni keep their promises, to the bitter end.

  Elohl pressed one palm to his heart, his other hand upon his sword. King Therel paused, regarding him, then nodded. Fenton had stepped to the wall and stood by an open servant’s door that had been well-concealed in the wainscoting. Therel turned with Elyasin in his arms, making for the door. Elohl glanced at Fenton as thunder rolled through the room, a hard patter of rain beginning upon the byrunstone roof tiles of Roushenn. Fenton was livid, trembling with a hard rage, his gold-brown eyes so hot with wrath they seemed to burn in the dim light as heavy green storm clouds swallowed the day beyond the high windows.

  He shared Elohl’s glance for a moment, and a lash of intensity between them made Elohl’s golden Inkings surge with fire.

  Fenton looked away, falling into step ahead of King Therel, leading them out by the servant’s passage. Through twists and turns of long corridors, dodging and weaving in tight spaces, they startled footmen and maids as they took back ways through the servant’s passages. Twice they met with a knot of Guardsmen and engaged arms in the cramped halls, protecting King Therel with the Queen still unconscious in his arms. Elohl was a blur of speed, fighting with both sword and longknife in the close confines, his blue jerkin spattered with the blood of other men, Fenton proving a strong and vastly capable fighter at his side. The Guardsmen were killed to a man, slow from their confusion facing some of their own and seeing the dying Queen in arms. But even so, King Therel lost two of his Highswords. They took a turn, angled down a long hall, then another, jogging quickly. Rounding another corner, they found a hall as empty as the last three.

  “Two more passages, and we’re out.” Fenton breathed easy, as if the fighting had affected him not at all.

  Elohl nodded, moving forward swiftly. When suddenly, the walls of Roushenn shifted. One moment, they were running a straight course. But the next, the long hall began to split from the middle, walls starting to rotate, mirrors flashing into view where there had been nothing but bare byrunstone before. Doorways slid into place between the mirrors, and then slid more, creating impossible corners and angles.

  “To me!” King Therel roared.

  Elohl skidded to a halt and backed close to the Elsthemi King next to Fenton, weapons outward, creating a tight knot ar
ound the King and Queen, his heart thundering in his ears. The hallway roiled and buckled in all directions, impossible, terrifying. What had been a hallway was now a maze, branches and multiple halls opening outward from their position, sliding and shifting and sliding again with wrenching grinding sounds of stone on stone. Mirrors reflected each other, creating an infinity of halls. An infinity of men gathered in a tight knot. Only Fenton seemed unphased, standing grim beside Elohl. His face held a hard readiness, his courage steady, weapons trembling not at all.

  Suddenly, Elohl’s world tilted. He staggered. His vision warped. The maze before him seemed to stretch, a faint scent in the air of sweetness and stench, like lemons gone to rot in a honey-crock. Reeling from the poison permeating the air, Elohl sank hard to one knee. His head was full of the lemon-sick stench. His stomach churned with it, bile rising to his mouth. Disoriented, his eyes wouldn’t focus, his muscles could not keep him steady. Everything was reeling, the poison flowing thick as death.

  “Fenton!” He yelled, coughing, choking. “Poison in the air! We need to move!”

  But just then, a roar split the moving hall. A shattering, shrieking roar of something bestial, like a hawk’s whistle given the power of a lion in battle. Mirrors burst in their frames upon the walls, showering glass over the company. A flash of a black leathery body caught Elohl’s eye in an unburst mirror as it rotated past. Fear rushed through Elohl, a vast, obliterating terror that chilled his every vein. A man’s scream sounded behind Elohl, then another. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two Highswords go down in the rear of their company. Fast movements like an animal speared his blurring vision, the creature leather-skinned like alligators but whip-lean and standing upright, twice the height of a man.

  Pressure flashed at Elohl. He whipped his head back as talons big as butcher-knives raked past his neck, red-tipped with gore and stinking of entrails. Screams sounded nearby. King Therel’s roars. Elohl felt the man stagger behind him. The creature shrieked, its piercing tone slicing Elohl’s eardrums. Talons reflected in the churning mirrors. Its massive head with corkscrewing horns like a ram, jaws like a lean, ravaged wolf. Thick with muscle, lean and fast, it dove in, slashing and leaping. Jaws wide and fangs massive, its mouth was full of blood and slicker things. Elohl threw himself sideways, pushing Therel and Elyasin out of the way. The creature lunged, turned, scrabbling for purchase as its massive claws punched and chipped solid bluestone.

  And suddenly, Elohl saw the flash of a man in cobalt rolling in, right under those swiping knives of death. Lunging upward, he drove a longsword right into the beast’s bony chest. The creature shrieked, enraged, looking down at its wound and staggering backwards. Fenton den’Kharel surged upwards, driving his sword to the hilt into the creature and Elohl heard the blade ring as it was wedged between two blocks of stone in a non-moving wall. Twice his size, towering over him with its long, powerful limbs, the beast snarled at Fenton, gnashing teeth, swiping with razored claws, enraged that it was pinned to the wall. So fast he blurred in Elohl’s reeling vision, Fenton rolled backwards, springing up close with both hands beneath Elohl’s armpits, hauling him to standing.

  “Get them up and run, Undoer be damned! RUN!” Fenton roared into Elohl’s face, his brown-gold eyes flashing red in the light of the shifting halls. “The Kets al’Roch is nothing you can best!”

  Elohl staggered, disoriented, watching the spinning walls. The beast whirled in his drugged vision. Fenton grasped him by the shoulders, slapped him hard across the face. Elohl’s golden Inkings surged at that contact, the fire of pain shocking his mind to clarity. “You’re the only one who can get them out! Use your gifts, dammit! Close your eyes and use your gifts to get them out!”

  Quickly, Elohl sheathed his sword and dagger. He took a breath, finding the space of calm that lived below his waking mind. The one that moved on instinct, the one that knew direction and danger without being told. His vision was warping, his head reeling, but through it all he saw Fenton hauling up Therel, depositing Elyasin back in his arms, hauling up the healer Luc and the few Highswords left to their decimated company, roaring at the King to follow Elohl.

  Elohl shut his eyes, feeling out with his senses. A sphere spread in his mind, touching the spinning walls, feeling the position and density of the beast, still occupied trying to claw the sword from its chest. But here in his gift he was steady, needing no sight of his eyes to keep his course. And far off, up to the right he felt it, where the dense walls of stone gave way to air and spaciousness at last.

  The way out.

  “King Therel! Follow me! And stay close!” Elohl bellowed.

  Elohl slid forward, lithe and fast, like a heron in a stream being shot at with arrows, dodging and weaving his way through the ever-shifting halls by the touch of his gift alone. By his gift he could feel the solid, lean bulk of Therel following, the Dhenra in his arms, the others close in a tight knot. But the last thing he felt as he dashed on was a man standing alone, left behind. Facing off with the beast, Fenton stood defiant with two longknives drawn. And a pressure built around him that surged in Elohl’s ears, pummeling through the sphere of his gift like a gathering thunderstorm.

  CHAPTER 36 – KHOUREN

  Khouren was motionless in the churning hallway, eyes wide at the spectacle.

  Of all the things his Rennkavi had planned for this day, it hadn’t included this.

  And here it was, his grandfather facing off with the Kets al’Roch, freed from its ancient oubliette for the first time in ten years. Of the House of Alodwine, only Khouren had ever seen this creature of his great-great-grandfather’s malevolent planning. Seen its ruthless glory, felt its slashing knives as it parted bone from flesh ten years ago, the first time it had ever been freed. Freed to slip silently from room to room, prowling the Hinterhaft, winding its deadly way through slipping walls in the middle of the night, slashing those talons like flashing knives across the necks of Alrashemni Kingsmen. One, after another, after another, until a pile of thousands of corpses had decorated the Hinterhaft’s blue halls, dragged there by mercenaries hired just for that reason, to clean up after the creature.

  Unaffected by the aerial poison, the antidote taken so long ago just as his grandfather had once done, Khouren watched it all with horrible clarity. A demon of legend, of myth. Alive and seething. Screeching unholy hell in the face of Khouren’s defiant grandfather, angry that it had been pierced by a weapon and was pinned to the wall. With a tremendous wrench, it finally broke the sword, freeing itself from the wall and hauling the blade from its own chest, hurling it aside with a deafening roar.

  And his grandfather roared back, furious, his brown-gold eyes flashing red fire in the light of the still-shifting halls. “Back, spawn of the Undoer! Or I will do worse than pin you!” Fentleith Alodwine raised one longknife, pointing directly at the beast. Khouren’s grandfather did not cower, he did not shrink from the demon. He stood tall, imposing as the ancient Kings of Khehem and snarled in its face, matching its livid rage.

  It swiped at him. With a snarling roar like a lupine dragon, Fentleith slashed back. His blade found finger joints, parting talons from the beast. It roared. He roared back. Thunder concussed in the yet-spinning halls of Roushenn. Pressure built in Khouren’s ears, the pressure of a thousand summer storms, his grandfather’s masterpiece. The creature swiped again, fast strikes, lunging.

  And with a clap of thunder that shook the walls, Fentleith Alodwine engaged. He spun in, ruthless, fast. Khouren had never in all his years seen such speed as his grandfather in battle. All he could do was watch from a still spot in the spinning walls. Dodging rotating walls, they battled. A flash of lightning split the dim hall as his grandfather unleashed his unholy gifts. A shriek lanced Khouren’s ears as the creature was struck by that bolt. Thunder broke whatever mirrors were left, glass skittering past. Longknives flashed in the moving torchlight. A sickening, ripping sound came as the creature snarled, out of sight beyond a wall.

  And the scream of a man.
/>
  Khouren’s gut dropped. His heart wrenched. He saw his grandfather stagger around the side of a sliding column, blood seeping from his middle, ducking just as the creature swiped again. He pierced for its eyes with one longknife. The knife hit home, but Fentleith Alodwine paid the price. The creature sank fangs into his shoulder, ripping at the joint. He bellowed, stabbing its long bony muzzle with his free blade. Lightning ripped the corridor, lanced the beast. It screamed, spasming, charring at the neck, Fentleith’s dire mark.

  But Khouren’s grandfather staggered back as he was released, dropping to his knees. Khouren could see the mortal wound he’d taken now. Not the shoulder, but a deep, livid gash across the belly, spilling his guts through his cobalt jerkin, rich red by the light of a revolving torch in its bracket.

  Khouren could stand by no longer. He rushed forward, careening through the spinning walls, to his grandfather’s side. But there was the beast, wickedly fast, is razor-talons coming for Khouren’s neck. He began to spin, knives up to parry, but it was too late. The creature’s talon was deflected by his knife, but the other massive hand of talons slapped Khouren down hard, pinning him beneath the creature’s weight as it tried to crush him into the stones. Khouren was no hero. He was a blade in the night. He was a ghost behind the walls. He’d not been born a fighter, not like this. The creature had him. Its massive jaws descended, opened wide in a bite meant to take his head.

  “Khouren!” His grandfather’s scream of dismay was heartbreaking.

  Out of fear, Khouren did the only thing he could think of. He dropped through the floor. But just at the last moment, he threw his arms around the beast’s hand, drawing it with him as he went. Falling, he landed hard on his back in a dark cellar-passage below. But he’d made his mark. The creature was screaming in the hall above, shrieking, trapped by its own mistake, its taloned hand scrabbling helplessly, trapped in the ceiling above Khouren’s head. An explosion came from the hall above. The blaze of lightning that accompanied it was enough to send light through cracks in the stone above Khouren’s head.