Chapter 19 Alarik #2
‘CAPTAIN VINE!’ he roared, just as an almighty crack rang out. Just over the mountains, the sky burst into flames. The earth trembled at their feet, and an ice sculpture crashed to the floor. The ballroom erupted into screams.
Captain Vine barrelled towards the king. ‘GRINSTAD IS UNDER ATTACK!’
Over the rising din of panic, Alarik heard his wrangler’s voice. ‘It’s the elk! They’ve gone for the elk!’
Alarm gutted Alarik as those distant flames rose to lick the sky, spitting up plumes of black smoke.
‘RIDE OUT!’ he yelled. ‘TO THE GRAZING FIELDS!’
Captain Vine rushed past him, barking orders, while the dowager queen leaped into action, trying to calm the startled guests. The king’s soldiers assembled with remarkable speed, but the beasts were still in their pens and the horses in their stables. They had to move now.
He spun on his heel, trying to think.
Focus, Alarik.
What would his father do?
He would go at once, and fast, before those cowardly gliders fled.
‘The bear!’ cried Iversen, pointing to where Borvil was now standing by the king’s throne, jostled awake by all the commotion. ‘He’s swifter than any horse!’
‘Yes, of course!’ Alarik gripped her shoulders. ‘I’ll ride out ahead. Go to the forest and check on the beasts,’ he said, but his wrangler was already turning from him, picking up her skirts and bolting for the door.
Alarik whistled through his teeth, calling Borvil from his perch. The bear lumbered towards him, parting the guests in a fresh sea of screams. Elva alone remained. She waded towards him and grabbed his arm before he could mount the beast.
‘You can’t ride out there alone! Wait for your soldiers!’
Alarik shook her off. ‘Go to your bedchamber,’ he said, urgently. ‘Stay there until we return.’
He leaped on to Borvil’s back without another word, seating himself with ease. Alarik and Borvil had grown up together, after all. He had ridden the mighty ice bear down these hallways more times than he could count, and then later through bloody war after bloody war.
Riding from the ballroom was no great hardship, but the swell of frightened revellers was slowing them down.
At a command from his master, the bear let out a thundering roar, clearing a pathway before them.
Alarik rode right down it, out the door and into the hall, and onwards still, towards the atrium, where a pair of startled guards flung open the front door and let the king and his bear loose into the night.
They raced across the front lawn and through the black gates, the night air whipping Alarik’s face as he rose to his haunches and urged Borvil on, faster and harder, towards those distant flames.
He loosened his collar as he rode, ripping the buttons and rolling the sleeves of his frock coat until he felt as unrestrained as the bear beneath him.
Minutes slipped by but he didn’t feel them. War raged in his veins, heating his blood and narrowing his thoughts until he could see nothing but those greedy flames licking the sky. He cleared the mountain pass in record time, noting the new fissures crawling up the rock.
Not now.
There would be time to worry about that later.
When he finally reached the grazing fields, most of the elk were dead. There was smoke everywhere, all those fine-bred, noble beasts burnt to bone and ash.
Alarik tipped his head back and released a roar of anger. Borvil rose to join him. Alarik fisted his hands in his fur, directing the ice bear towards the edge of the field, where he spied the jutting crimson tip of a downed glider.
Borvil charged towards it, weaving through the fires with the skill of a beast who had seen many wars.
When they were almost upon it, the bear slowed to let his master slide from his back.
Alarik drew his sword as he approached the glider.
He kicked the winged apparatus away, but the soldier was already dead, having collided too hard with the packed dirt.
He wore the infamous crimson armour of Vask, the breastplate stamped with the queen’s golden fist.
Alarik bit off a curse, then stalked to another upended glider, which had crash-landed in the next field. He found the same sorry scene there. He went to the next glider, and then the next, hissing and swearing as he kicked the metal wings from their crimson corpses.
The flames died out, the helpless groans of dying beasts replaced by the approaching thunder of hooves.
As the first of his soldiers made it to the grazing fields, Alarik came to the final glider.
He flung the metal contraption aside with a roar of frustration.
A pair of wide hazel eyes stared up at him from the dirt.
He glared down at the face. It was young and pale and streaked in blood.
Alive. But the soldier was dying, a feeble hand pressed against the gaping wound in his neck.
Alarik pressed the point of his sword there. ‘How many?’ he growled. ‘How many of you are there?’
The soldier grimaced, the blood in his teeth the same shade as his armour. ‘Queen Regna sends her regards,’ he spat. ‘To you and to Halgard.’
Alarik grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, yanking him up until they were forehead to forehead. ‘If you want a swift death, tell me the number,’ he hissed. ‘Or I swear on my crown I’ll use the last minutes of your sorry life to show you the true measure of Gevran brutality.’
Fear flashed across the man’s face, and with the last ebb of his strength, he said, ‘Ten. We are ten.’
Alarik snapped his chin up, counting the downed gliders. Five.
There were only five in the grazing fields.
The soldier laughed, his breath coming out in bubbles of blood. Alarik drove his sword into his heart, extinguishing the sound. He whirled then, dread prickling in his cheeks as he searched the fields, looking for those other five gliders …
Captain Vine was leading her soldiers through the fray, kicking out the flames and collecting the broken gliders, while Vesper hiked up her leather dress to retrieve the spent fire lances.
‘VINE!’ yelled Alarik. ‘How many gliders do you—’
There was a sudden, earth-trembling boom. It was far, much too far from where he stood. And followed, almost at once, by a bloodcurdling chorus. Not screams this time, but roars. Ragged, terrified howls cut through the night.
Alarik whipped his head around, looking towards the palace and the forest beyond, and saw that the sky there had turned amber and gold.
And he knew, with such unbridled horror it nearly brought him to his knees, that his beloved beasts were burning.