Riven Earth, page 45
She nodded to the kingsguards. They emptied two buckets of byut blood into the nectar. The fluid flooded with green. Almost instantly, it flowed towards Kaido’s hand. A vine grew up his arm, reaching for his chest. His muscles regained texture, and his skin glowed with life. He became vibrant, almost painful to look at.
Jaswyn stared with both hands over her gaping mouth. Kaido gave her a comforting smile, then turned up to the canopy. “You were right, Raia. The trees are a shield. I can feel Astea flowing off them. My blood has carried across the kingdom. It seeped into seeds eaten by birds, and they took it west. Rain carried it south. I see so much more than I did.”
“It’s strange,” he said. “As we speak, snow falls on Hoverhill. Yet, even now in autumn, Oshati swelters under the blazing sun. The temperature difference isn’t natural. I can hardly feel the west. A fog covers it. I see only small islands where groves like this grow. Astea is not there to protect them, not in her full strength. Mithras dominates.”
Raia shifted, uneasy at the religious words and dryad magic. “Can you cure the blood plague?” she said.
He broke out of his reverie. “Yes, of course. I must stop stealing the strength for myself. Bring him here.”
Raia helped the kingsguards unload her father. He moaned quietly and felt so light in her arms that it broke her heart. “Lay him there.” Kaido motioned to the opposite side of the pool. “Cut his hand and place it in the nectar.”
They did as told. Raia apologised quietly before slashing her father’s palm. Thick, lumpy blood oozed out. Before she’d have to look at it for long, she plunged his hand into the nectar.
Purple-black spread from it, a corruption that consumed the green.
Jaswyn gasped, and the guards cried out in alarm. Kaido stared, wide-eyed. The purple-black swept across the pool. Grass at its bank withered and died – turning gray and then falling apart like ash. Dandelions and mushrooms crumbled. A frog tried to leap away but its hind legs grayed, and it croaked one last time before stone encased it.
Green was gone. Tendrils of blue fought against the darkness but were quickly defeated. Kaido was frozen. The blight rushed towards him.
With a cry, Jaswyn ran to her husband and yanked him away from the pool. He fell back an instant before the purple ensnared the bit of green around his hand. They all stared without a word. The entire pool had been corrupted. As they watched, the darkened fluid turned gray, then solidified into ashen stone.
Raia had pulled her father’s hand out. It still exuded the thick blood, but she held her palm to the wound and stopped the flow. She used all her strength to drag him away from the nectar. A circle of deathly gray was spreading around it, reaching as far as the nearest trees and creeping halfway up their trunks.
The birds had stopped chirping. They were left in eerie silence. Jaswyn clutched Kaido tightly. He lay heavy in her arms, panting, his eyes brimming with disbelief and despair.
Chapter twenty-four
Life and death are in your hands. That is what it means to be king.
Reflections by King Isaiah
One Year Ago:
The Windern Crag wept. Rivulets of water streamed down the cracks and fissures of the great granite wall. Jagged platforms of weathered stone jutted out of the sheer face like spearheads through a body. Algae, red like blood, shimmered in the single, narrow beam of sunlight that split the dark facade. The top was silhouetted against the scarlet sky, half hidden behind the forest canopy.
Kaido pressed himself against a tree, leaned around the thick trunk, and peered through branches to get a better view of the clearing at the crag’s base. “They should be in position by now,” he muttered. A bird trilled somewhere in the forest. He turned to Raia. “Was that it?”
She shook her head.
“Damnit.”
Caedric was halfway across the field and approaching fast. He sat smug atop his lomer, his laughter echoing off the crag and carrying to the surrounding trees. His banner flew on a long pole behind him, green and gold billowing in the brisk breeze.
Kaido had been right. Caedric had come with only fifty men, all on lomer back. A small force, but a nimble one. They could not strike yet. Not before Jorne was in position behind the easterners to cut off their escape.
Time was running out. Kaido had to attack while Caedric was in the open. It was a vast field, perfect to deploy his numbers in. If the easterners made it to the dense forest, catching them would be impossible.
Steel rattled as his men shifted uneasily. Raia held up an arm, and the movement stilled.
“We must have missed it,” Kaido said.
She put a finger to her lips and nodded to the leaves, a plea to be patient. Kaido shook his head. “We need to buy time.” He lifted his hands and made a series of signals. Kingsguards readied behind him, armour jingling. Whispers travelled through the forest as his orders were relayed. Raia shook her head and grabbed his sleeve. He tugged himself free. “Let’s go. Just us.”
He stepped out and only his kingsguard followed.
Caedric’s force halted. Men cried out, and lomers reared. Weapons were drawn, but the easterners relaxed when they saw the modest size of Kaido’s entourage. He walked straight-backed across the field, marking his step by the steady rhythm of kingsguard boots beating on the ground around him.
Caedric smiled a pretentious, punchable smile. Kaido grit his teeth. He stopped at some invisible line, separated from the easterners by a short span of grass speckled yellow with dandelions.
“Look who it is,” Caedric called in a grating voice. “King Kaido himself. What an honour.”
“We should talk,” Kaido said.
Caedric cocked his head and looked around his companions. He gave a playful shrug, then smoothly hopped over the side of his lomer. His guard, Thoman, clambered down from his own beast. Their men cheered, and Caedric waved back at them as he took a few casual steps towards Kaido. Kaido put out a hand to stop his kingsguard. He and Raia walked up until they were five strides apart.
“So, did you bring them for me?” Caedric asked.
“I’ve told you,” Kaido said. “I don’t know anything…”
“Oh, come now, Your Majesty. Enough games. Where are the dryads? Tell me, and my men will spare your life.” He looked over the kingsguard, then back at Kaido, and shook his head. A self-satisfied smile stuck to his face. “You are so stupid. So so stupid. You just gave yourself to me.”
Kaido cleared his throat. “We need not fight. Every sword swung is a failure, any blood spilled is a waste. It’s no good for either of us. Come to the table with me. It’s not too late to negotiate a peace.”
“Always taking the high road, aren’t we?” Caedric said. “Always so self righteous. No. You’re the one who chose blood. You know my demands. Give me the dryads. Allow worship of Astea. End the suncursed abominations.”
Kaido raised his eyebrows. “End the suntouched? That’s new.”
Caedric shrugged and gestured to his men. “I feel I have more bargaining power than last we met.”
“How long will they follow this farce of yours?” Kaido said.
“Astea is no farce, you fool…”
Metal sang as Kaido drew his sword. Armour clanged and spears rattled as men shifted in anticipation of violence. Kaido pointed his blade at Caedric.
“I’ve had enough of you. A thousand chances I’ve given you for peace, but you are blinded by your own folly. You’ve brainwashed them with your lies, and now you’ve led them to their deaths. This worship ends here. I will not allow it to ruin my kingdom.”
“I’ll punch your face in, you cocky black bastard!” Thoman raised his great hammer and charged at Kaido.
Raia stepped between them, her two blades held ready by her side. Thoman swung, air whistling. She sidestepped. He went careening. A flick of her wrist and the longsword severed his arm. She pirouetted around his stumbling bulk. Her shortsword stuck deep in his side. He fell to his knees with a grunt. Her longsword came around and took off his head. Body and hammer thudded to the ground.
“Fucking idiot…” Caedric backed away, his lip twitching.
“Kill him,” Kaido said.
Raia pointed her sword at Caedric. A shrill whistle pierced the din. Jorne’s signal. Kaido smiled and lifted his hand. The forest rustled and armour clattered as his men climbed out to take position behind him.
Caedric dashed to his lomer. Raia didn’t pursue. She stood looking past him. Kaido followed her gaze. His heart stopped, and his eyes went wide when he saw the green and gold banner emerge from the trees on the northern side of the clearing.
It wasn’t Jorne’s men.
Caedric was laughing. “You fucking idiot! Oh, the look on your face! You think I was that stupid? You think you trapped me? You’re fucked Kaido! Fucked!”
“Shit.” Kaido backed up. Raia hurried to his side. The kingsguard closed around him. He peered past their shoulders and shields to the mass of sharp metal gathering at the far side of the clearing.
Caedric’s entire army had come. Thousands of them, to his single division.
A wave of uneasiness rippled through his men. The smell of piss and sweat thickened the air. Whispers and panicked cries rang out, quickly stifled by hissing veterans. “Stand!” Raia’s voice cut through the tension. “Stand and fight for your king!”
Spears were lowered, shields raised. The kingsguard’s weapons blazed alight. A wall of dazzling fire and glimmering metal enclosed Kaido.
Horns bellowed on the far side, low and deep. The earth shook with the thumping of boots. The air ripped with the screaming of men.
Kaido stepped back, heart pounding, sweat pooling around his eyes. His men followed suit. His entire line softened. “Raise your shields!” Raia shouted.
“Loose!” someone yelled. Bows twanged. A volley of arrows arced from the trees behind them and rained like serpents upon the roaring easterners. Men screamed, tripped, and fell. The charge did not slow.
Caedric was getting farther away, his banner retreating behind the swarm of men flowing around it. The sight put a fire in Kaido. He lifted his blade.
Metal slammed into him. He gasped, hurtled backwards, knocked free of the ground, clawing at the armour that pressed him, pushing with all his strength. It did not budge. Another shove, from behind. His head whipped back. He stumbled and tripped, hit his nose bloody on golden plate. A push from his side, then behind, then front again. Crushed and tossed like a limp doll. He would’ve fallen if there was any space to fall. Limbs and legs tangled with his. Sweat and steel chafed his skin.
He held onto his sword, clutched it close, tried not to drop it. Panting, he climbed desperately, gasping for breath. Pale, dirty faces spat over armoured shoulders, hissing and reaching for him with spears. Blood misted the air, splattering wet and hot into his eyes. He tasted the copper tang of it, smelled the guts and burned flesh, felt the acid in his mouth.
He couldn’t hear himself think. Screams pierced the screeching of metal on metal, the cacophony of men killing men. Raia was yelling by his side. “Support the flank! Shields up! Don’t let them surround us!”
There was a great heave as his men pushed back against the easterners’ charge. Like loaded springs, legs pulsed and shields pressed. The enemy tripped over their own dead.
Kaido won some space. He swung his sword at a reaching hand and took the fingers off. Kingsguards pushed ahead of him, battering with their great shields, slicing with wide sweeps of their flaming axes. One of them crumpled to a blade through his helmet. Kaido yanked him back and tossed him aside.
Two enemies charged through the gap. Raia’s blade deflected a spear and pierced a heart. Kaido scored a thick gash across a heaving gut. A hammer smashed into his shoulder and sent him reeling, the jolt of it ringing through his spine. Raia decapitated his attacker. The headless body stumbled, held upright by the crush. Kaido snatched the man’s shield and heaved it up, shoulder pounding, heart thumping. His kingsguard tightened to close the gap.
“Behind!” Raia shouted. Caedric’s men were flowing around to surround his army. Pressed from all sides, his soldiers did not run, could not run. Shields and spears met the attack, cries both heroic and desperate.
Kaido was shoved, pulled, trampled. In the distance, he could make out Caedric’s banner growing smaller. The bastard wasn’t even fighting.
“Push!” he yelled. “Push to the enemy’s command!” He lifted his sword high and lit it ablaze like a beacon. “Push! Kill their leader!”
His voice was lost in the din, but his heart pumped fire. He climbed the kingsguard, reaching for Caedric’s billowing banner. His sword whipped through the air, leaving a trail of light behind it. “Push!”
“No!” Raia yanked him back with a sharp tug on his ankle.
He fell painfully on plated armour, almost took his own head off with his swinging blade. “We have to kill him!” he yelled.
“No!” Raia’s golden armour was covered in blood and dirt. Sweat plastered her hair, dripped from her chin, shimmered on her pale skin. Her sword whipped out and poked through a glaring eye. It hacked a shoulder, severed a head, sliced an arm. “We have to break through and run!” She pointed her blade towards the trees. “Kingsguard to the east!”
“We have to kill him!” Kaido cried. Raia grabbed his wrist. They were pulled and pushed, throttled by pulsing bodies and armour as the kingsguard pressed a slow, desperate passage towards the trees.
“Keep going!” Raia’s voice was hoarse from shouting. “Keep going!” She yanked on Kaido’s arm, tugging him all tangled through the dense cluster of bodies. He fought her. His eyes were set on Caedric’s distant banner, moving farther away with every moment.
“We have to kill him!” he wheezed between breaths. Raia deflected a lance aimed for her king. Her fingers numbed from the impact, sword quivering. She ducked an axe, tried to swing at the arm holding it but was too cramped. Her blade blazed, and she pressed the flat of it into the hairy arm to burn off skin. The axe dropped, clanging off someone’s plate, arm slithering back into the writhing mass beyond the shields.
“He’s getting away!” Kaido cried.
“Let him go! We have to run!” She pulled him under a thrust spear and held him down as she pushed eastward. If she could just get to the trees. If she could just…
Something heavy fell on her. She grunted, dropped Kaido’s arm, pressed up to push the weight away. A dead man plodded to her feet, leaking blood and guts. He’d tried climbing the shields. Spears had poked through him like a pincushion. Others were trying the same thing, clambering over armour and screaming as they were stabbed. The weight of their bodies broke spears and backs as they fell.
The ground was cluttered with the dead. Raia teetered on the carpet of squirming, wet flesh, trying to find something, anything stable. Her helmet jangled with every jostle. Elbows and knees stabbed her, armour rubbing her skin raw as she searched frantically for Kaido.
He was climbing a kingsguard’s back again, fiery sword lifted, making a target of himself.
“No!” She hacked and slashed at men, caring little whose side they were on until she got to him. She grabbed him by the waist and pulled him down. The two of them tumbled into a pile of stinking hot guts. Boots kicked and trampled her, the sky a distant red. She gasped, groaned, floundered, thrashed, managed to find Kaido and hold onto him, trying desperately to shield him from the boots. Chunks of mud and earth splattered her. Blood was everywhere. Air was scarce and filled with death.
Someone grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. She brought Kaido up with her.
Kingsguard bodies lay around them – dented, blood-spattered armour glinting in the sun. More and more enemies fell from above, not all of them dead. A burly man swung a club at her. She ducked. His club smacked into someone’s helmet with a solid twang. Her blade went in below his chin and out through his eye. He crumpled.
Her back touched Kaido’s. He fought two men, swinging his sword in wide arcs. Three more were circling around her. She parried a blow, whipped her longsword back to take out one of his, brought her shortsword around to gore one of hers.
“Fuck!” Kaido yelled, as if he’d finally realised the depth of shit they were in.
Time slowed with his voice. Chaos grew distant, blood and bodies lingering in the air as they fell. The press had loosened its grip. Their lines were broken.
The trees were too far. They wouldn’t make it. This was the end.
Raia felt her king’s back against hers. She brandished her flaming swords, centered her breath, and calmed her heart. Men came at her. She fell into her stance and danced in a blaze of fire and blood.
“General Reyner’s in position!” Wes called down the tree. Light flashed in the branches as he flicked a mirror to the signal man on the hill to the north. “He’s ready when we are!” He started climbing down.
Otto leaned against an old oak. Proper chaos out there on the field. Kaido was in deep shit. The idiot had fallen right into Caedric’s trap.
And Caedric had fallen into Otto’s.
The easterner had brought his entire army. A surging mass of pale idiots, ready for the picking. They flooded the field between Otto and the crag, like fish fillets between board and blade.
Timing had been critical. He’d had to arrive after Caedric engaged. Looked like they’d cut it close though. Too close. Kaido’s banner fell. His line buckled and bowed, overrun and surrounded with nowhere to go.
The screams and shrieks of dying men, the clatter and clash of steel on steel, the rattle and rumble of wood on wood. All too familiar, those sounds. And they reached Otto loud as a hammer on an anvil.
His men were drawing their swords, readying their spears. Lomers whinnied with anticipation, kicking the dirt, huffing, breath crackling in the spring chill. Otto limped over to Jilly and scratched her chin. “What do you say, girl? One more charge?” She nuzzled his hand, licked his fingers. He rubbed her antlers, and her vines hoisted him to her back.
