Chapter 29
29
There is no way to placate a bitter rival.
~ Chef Sayler Amentour III
Despite her weariness, Kaylina joined Vlerion when he climbed into a tower that looked over the courtyard wall and out to the city. It was the front tower opposite the one belonging to the sentinel. Oddly, he hadn’t chosen the plant’s room for his viewpoint.
She stood at his side as he gazed out the window, past the trees at the corner of the property. The branches allowed only a partial view but hid the window from anyone who might be spying on Stillguard Castle from the streets.
Vlerion’s sword hand flexed as explosions continued to go off and men fought in the streets. He had to be as tired as she, but his jaw kept tightening, and she knew he wanted to be out there, fighting with his men, not hiding in the castle. That was especially true when they spotted rangers riding taybarri over one of the bridges.
At the moment, there was no fighting in the streets and alleys adjacent to the castle, but a couple of bodies promised there had been. Kaylina wondered if the sentinel had sent out any of its purple beams to slay people. She didn’t ask.
Vlerion tensed when a cloaked figure appeared at the front gate and gripped the iron bars.
“Whoever wins, they’ll come for you,” Jana Bloomlong called up, looking toward the sentinel’s tower, its purple glow seeping out the window.
“Does she mean me or you?” Kaylina asked quietly, though she doubted Jana knew Vlerion was there. She couldn’t even be certain Kaylina was there, could she?
“They’ll kill you, girl, for being a druid freak. And you’ll deserve it.”
“Guess that answers my question,” Kaylina murmured.
“You bribed the Virts, didn’t you? They went in and convinced the printer to change what should have gone out in the newspaper.” Jana’s words were slurred. Was she drunk? “They tried to turn that Vlerion into a cursed folk hero. He’s a criminal. Just like you are! Did you sleep with Grittor? He’s the one who was behind things, who has friends on the newspaper—friends everywhere. Is there anyone you won’t sleep with for favors, you slut?”
“That favor was for Vlerion,” Kaylina murmured but not loudly enough for Jana to hear. Let the woman rant to herself and not be certain if anyone heard her.
With her diatribe delivered, Jana slumped against the bars, then slid down them. Something clinked against the cobblestones. A bottle of alcohol?
Vlerion rested a hand on Kaylina’s shoulder. “She’s no threat to you, not right now.”
“I know. I wasn’t thinking of braining her with my sling.”
Not much, anyway.
“By tomorrow morning, I suspect there will be others for you to brain.”
“You know how to get a girl excited.”
“I do know that.” Vlerion gazed at her.
She flushed, remembering how excited she’d been when he’d pressed her against the wall, not that far from where they were now. If only that elixir had worked to keep him from turning into the beast. They could have… No, she reminded herself. They couldn’t have joined fully. That had been the whole point of the elixir, to keep him from being aroused.
She leaned against him, wondering if they would get a chance to be together. If she had to agree to turn herself into a tree to have his curse lifted…
Vlerion wrapped his arm around her shoulders, but the moment didn’t last nearly long enough.
“You may get an opportunity to use your sling before tomorrow,” he said, looking out the window.
Though she didn’t want to, Kaylina turned her head to follow his gaze. Jana Bloomlong had disappeared, and hundreds of uniformed men were heading up the main street that led past Stillguard Castle. The main street that led to it.
Kaylina leaned out the window to peer around the curve of the tower. Across the roof of the keep, she could make out more troops on the river trail behind the castle. As they approached, the clink of armor and arms drifted to her, the whispers of voices.
“How many people are coming?” she asked.
“An army,” Vlerion said grimly. “I may have missed my opportunity to report to Targon and ask for his help.”
Some of the approaching men wore green uniforms—the mercenaries—but others were dressed in the gray of the Kingdom Guard. They’d combined forces.
As the troops drew closer to the castle, Kaylina spotted representatives of the Castle Guard as well. A feeling of foreboding crept into her at the implications. Either the prince had managed to convince the Castle and Kingdom Guard that he was the rightful heir and they had better do his bidding, or the queen had agreed to work with him, sending the troops that had formerly helped protect her and her husband to join her son’s men.
Earlier in the day, they’d been battling each other. What had changed?
Kaylina looked at Vlerion’s profile and answered her own question. Before he had fought the mercenaries in the catacombs, his enemies had only suspected that he was in the city. But now they knew. Had that knowledge compelled them to declare a truce and work to defeat him? To kill him?
His face was as grim as ever. He had to be thinking something similar. Maybe he already knew for certain that was what had happened.
“We can defend Stillguard Castle if we need to.” Kaylina tried to sound reassuring. That was, after all, why she’d wanted Vlerion to come here. If they had to make a stand, this was the best spot.
“You, me, Jankarr, the serving girl, and your brother with his frying pan? Against an army?”
“Don’t forget about the sentinel.” Kaylina wondered if she ought to run down and make it a fresh batch of fertilizer. It had been snippy about Frayvar’s version.
“Ah, of course. You, me, Jankarr, a girl, your brother, and a plant.”
“It’s a bad-ass plant.” Kaylina didn’t think she needed to point out that it had nearly killed his boss. And it had killed others.
“I won’t deny that. I’m tempted to ask you if it can shoot some purple beams, but…” Vlerion spread a hand toward the approaching army.
“Those are kingdom subjects?” Kaylina guessed his objection.
“Yes. I remain conflicted. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in hiding, but I was slow to reach my decision, and now I’ve lost what could have been the advantage of surprise.”
“You don’t think you could walk out there, tell them they’re following the wrong guy, that you’re the rightful king, and they should turn on their superiors?”
Vlerion snorted. “The mercenaries from another province would certainly not do so. And the Guard… likely not, not without some catalyst. If the rangers were among them, that would help, but I can’t be certain of where they stand.” He leaned out the window to study both streams of approaching men. Some, especially toward the back, were mounted on horses, but Kaylina didn’t see any taybarri. “No, I do not see any rangers now.”
“Hopefully, because they aren’t interested in trying to kill you, not because anything happened to the majority of them.” Kaylina remembered Vlerion and Jankarr’s earlier concern about fires around ranger headquarters. What if the prince, knowing Vlerion’s colleagues might protect him, had ordered them taken out first?
“They would not be easily defeated.” Did Vlerion sound like he was trying to convince himself of that?
In open battle, the rangers were unparalleled fighters, but deception could take down even great warriors. Jankarr might not have been the only spy among the ranks. What if another had helped facilitate a defeat from within?
Vlerion thumped a fist on the stone windowsill. “I need to find Targon and talk to him.”
“Late in the night, you might be able to sneak by the army, maybe swim up the river without them noticing.” Kaylina pointed toward the cloudy sky; it was growing darker with the approach of twilight. “You could also go back through the catacombs and find another access point. They can’t all be guarded. Everyone’s out there .” Kaylina flung her hand toward the growing army, feeling it wasn’t much of an exaggeration.
More and more men were filing onto the main routes to the castle, and some were coming from the opposite direction now too, from the city gates. Despite the options she’d mentioned, Kaylina couldn’t help but feel trapped.
That feeling increased as the army reached the courtyard walls, men on foot and men on horseback surrounding Stillguard Castle. And were those siege engines on the way, being pulled by teams of oxen?
Vlerion had looked at her as she’d suggested ways he could escape but didn’t move from her side. He wouldn’t leave, she realized, even if he believed he could slip past the army. Because she was here. He had to worry they would capture—or kill—her to get to him. Or, by now, maybe they hated her too and would happily kill her independent of him.
It took a ridiculously small amount of the total army to surround Stillguard Castle, troops ten deep in the street and alleys and along the trail out back. They’d blocked access to the river. The only way out would be through the catacombs, and Kaylina suspected men were marching toward her root cellar too. That access point was too well known and this army too large for the leader—whoever was commanding it—not to have that covered.
With luck, the troops would be afraid to advance through the root cellar entrance with their allies dangling from vines down there.
Kaylina was about to ask the sentinel if it still had the men ensnared when someone on a white stallion rode through the army, the troops parting to let him pass. She couldn’t tell who it was since he didn’t wear a uniform, instead clanking in full plate armor with a helmet and visor covering his face. A blue cloak without ornamentation spilled down his back to his horse’s flanks. His mount was also armored.
“Maybe you should ask the plant to send out its purple beam,” Vlerion murmured.
Did he already know who that was?
Six more armored men on horses came behind the figure, each carrying a firearm and wearing a sword at the waist. Bodyguards? When the cloaked man stopped in front of the castle gate, the six troops fanned out protectively to either side of him, glaring defiantly up at the glowing purple tower.
They were mercenaries, not the Castle Guard. Men who’d been paid well to be loyal and protect the prince?
That was who this had to be. Kaylina was surprised Enrikon hadn’t sent a minion to lead the army, but maybe he felt suitably protected.
“Can the beast’s claws tear into plate armor like that?” Kaylina asked.
“Yes, but the beast is also vulnerable to hundreds of men with swords and firearms.”
“You’re intimidated by that little army? Goodness.”
Vlerion slanted her a sidelong look.
“You’d better run off and find Targon and the rangers and bring back help.” She smiled and patted him on the back.
“I’m not leaving you here alone when there’s a large army surrounding your castle.”
Kaylina wanted to say that she and the sentinel could protect the castle, but she doubted that was true. Even as the prince sat astride his mount, teams wheeling cannons came through. They pointed one at the front gate and three others at the sentinel’s tower.
“We may all need to flee,” she admitted.
Vlerion started to respond, but the prince rode a few steps forward to speak.
“Lord Vlerion of Havartaft,” he called, his voice echoing strangely since he hadn’t lifted the visor.
“Guess someone told him you went this way in the catacombs,” Kaylina said.
“I am giving you the opportunity to surrender and walk through that gate to meet your fate. If you do not, I will unleash the full might of my army on that castle and raze it to the ground. No mercy will be shown to anyone within its walls.”
Kaylina bristled. Even if she would stand at Vlerion’s side in a fight, Frayvar and Sevarli were innocent civilians. And what about Jankarr? He hadn’t disobeyed any orders, as far as she knew, and didn’t deserve to be razed along with the castle.
“And if I do surrender?” Vlerion called, startling her.
Any hope she’d had that he might hide—or flee—disappeared. Not that she’d expected that.
The armored figure twitched, the visor turning to look toward their dark tower. He had been addressing the front of the castle, or maybe the plant’s glowing window. As if Vlerion would make his last stand from there. Kaylina might, but she was a weirdo with druid blood.
“The castle will be left alone, and your… common-born mead maker and her kin may live.” Enrikon said common-born with the same sneer one might use when speaking of a leech attached to one’s leg.
“Someone’s been filling him in since he arrived,” Kaylina murmured.
“So it seems.”
“What happens to Vlerion if he walks out there?” Kaylina called.
He looked at her, as if he hadn’t expected her to speak, but he didn’t try to cut her off.
A long pause followed before the prince spoke in an incredulous tone. “Is that the mead maker ?”
“What, I’m not allowed to ask questions?” she muttered.
“You didn’t curtsy and put Your Highness at the end,” Vlerion said. “Though it may be Your Majesty by now, I suppose. Usually, there’s a ceremony, but this regime change isn’t going as smoothly as typical.”
“If she wants to live,” Enrikon called, “she had better learn her place. Mute and on her knees when royalty is nearby.”
“My knees ?” Kaylina went from bristling to seething as she squinted at the sentinel’s tower, wondering if the prince was close enough to the walls for it to attack. And if its purple beam could penetrate that thick armor. If the beast’s claws could…
“You didn’t realize that my pomposity is barely existent compared to that of some nobles,” Vlerion said.
“I did not, no.”
Vlerion rested a hand on her arm and looked at the prince. She thought he might make comments about her known irreverence and Targon’s suggestions of flogging, but he didn’t. Maybe this wasn’t someone he would banter with. If so, she approved.
“I would also like to know what happens if I walk out there,” Vlerion called.
He didn’t add Your Highness. Maybe nobles didn’t have to be as obsequious.
“You will be executed for the crime of killing kingdom troops.” The prince pointed, and a hulking man in chain mail stepped forward, carrying an axe meant for beheading.
Kaylina rocked back. The prince wanted to execute Vlerion right there ? While she watched? While the entire city did?
“I’ll remind you that the castle and your audacious mead maker will be spared. That is the deal I offer. You’ve my word that your death will be her life.”
“I need time to consider your gracious offer.” Vlerion spoke in the calm, detached tone he so often used when addressing others—especially those who vexed him.
Too bad. Kaylina thought vitriolic sarcasm would have been more appropriate.
“You may have one hour,” Enrikon called, then lowered his voice to address the men who’d placed the cannons. He didn’t speak so quietly that Kaylina couldn’t hear him. “Give him something to think about during that hour.” He waved toward the tower.
Watch out, Kaylina warned the sentinel.
Of course, came the dry response. Did you think I was napping while the castle walls were surrounded?
I don’t know your sleep schedule. Brace yourself. They’ll have explosives as well as those cannonballs, I’m sure.
The sentinel didn’t answer.
Kaylina debated whether to ask if it could shoot a beam at the prince. If she commanded it, and the plant succeeded in killing him, it would be murder, and she would be to blame. But she had no intention of letting Vlerion commit suicide. For that matter, she also didn’t want to have her castle razed.
While she debated, the first cannon fired. Kaylina gripped the windowsill and leaned forward.
As the cannonball sailed over the courtyard wall and directly at the sentinel’s tower, a purple beam shot out. She’d been envisioning it hitting the prince, but it struck the projectile. It exploded in a white and purple spray of light, and pieces of metal pelted down in the courtyard and the street, pinging off people’s armor.
Three more cannonballs blasted toward the tower. Three more cannonballs blew up before reaching it.
Kaylina looked at the prince, hoping he would be scared and ride off, possibly while wetting himself. But he merely sat on his mount inside his armor, gazing through his visor at the display.
“Bring the explosives,” he called over his shoulder. “If Lord Vlerion doesn’t come out within one hour, we will blow up the castle and the entire block around it if necessary.”
The prince turned to ride away, the men again parting to make room for him. He pointed at the axeman—at the executioner —to stay where he was. To wait for Vlerion.
Shoot him, Kaylina caught herself commanding the sentinel.
Repercussions be damned. The world would be better without that asshole.
The glow of the tower brightened, purple light bathing the courtyard and walls.
“Look out!” one of the troops yelled. A Kingdom guard. Someone who’d been there when the Kar’ruk invaded.
The prince jerked about and dove—no, he fell —from his horse, alarmed as a beam shot from the tower window. It grazed his shoulder as he tumbled and crashed to the ground. Right away, Kaylina knew it hadn’t been a fatal blow.
The sentinel fired again. But Enrikon was on hands and knees and crawling away, his armored men blocking the tower’s line of sight. When the beams struck, they hit soldiers, not the prince.
“Stop!” Kaylina cried, then issued the order silently through her link to the sentinel. Stop, please. Not the men, just the prince.
But Enrikon kept scrambling away, using his men for cover. The sentinel fired several more times but couldn’t reach him. A soldier screamed as a beam cut through his throat, killing him.
Stop! Kaylina ordered, this time summoning the power of her blood, willing the sentinel to obey. The cursed plant was all too happy to kill any humans. Her hand warmed, her whole body tingling as power flowed toward the tower. Stop.
The beams ceased, and the glow lessened.
“Do we fire back?” one of the men at the cannons called.
The prince didn’t answer. Kaylina didn’t know where he’d gone. He was probably still on his hands and knees.
“Hold,” someone else said. Their military commander, most likely. “Give Vlerion his hour.” Whoever he was, the man sounded grim. Almost sympathetic toward Vlerion.
When she was sure the beams wouldn’t start up again, Kaylina bent over and gripped her knees for support. She stared at the wooden floorboards but only saw the beam cutting into that soldier’s throat, killing him. She closed her eyes, but the image remained, seared into her retinas, as if she’d looked directly at the sun. She’d killed that man, as surely as if she’d drawn a blade across his throat herself.
Vlerion rested a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I may throw up on your boots.”
“Don’t, please. I need to address that army.”
“You can’t go out there.”
“I’m not going out the gate. I’ll speak to them from the wall.”
Kaylina straightened, though her stomach lurched with queasiness. “They can shoot you on the wall.”
“After that display, they’ll think twice about firing anything in the direction of the castle.”
“At least wear some heavier armor.” She waved to the leather torso-piece he wore, all the rangers ever wore. That wouldn’t stop a cannonball.
“I don’t have any.”
“Blighted moon craters, Vlerion. You’re a wealthy aristocrat. Why don’t you have full plate armor like that pompous idiot out there?” Kaylina thrust her hand toward the window, as frustrated with the prince for accidentally avoiding death as with herself for ordering it.
“The taybarri won’t abide metal on their backs.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since always. It’s in The Ranger’s Guide to Honor, Duty, and Tenets .”
She looked blankly at him.
“Didn’t you finish it?” Vlerion managed a smile, though she surely couldn’t. He even had a teasing tone when he said, “You’ve been in training for weeks.”
She knew he was trying to lighten her mood, but she didn’t want it lightened, damn it. Everything was so frustrating. “I don’t know how to explain this to you or the author, but it’s not riveting to read. The chapter on medicinal uses for roots and fungi is more torturous than cleaning pots and pans.”
“Our founder, Lord Saruk, wrote it. He was full of knowledge and had an earnest desire to pass it along to others, but he didn’t have a practiced pen.”
“Or ever meet an editor. Vlerion .” Kaylina didn’t know what she wanted from him. Maybe only to share her frustration.
He stepped forward and hugged her. For a moment, they stood there, taking support from each other as twilight crept over the city and the soldiers lit lanterns. It wasn’t a long enough moment, not for Kaylina.
“I will go out and speak with the army.” Vlerion released her and stepped back. “With luck, the prince is busy receiving medical attention for his grievous wound, and I’ll be able to talk without interruption, at least from him, for a few minutes.”
“I hope it is a grievous wound.” But she knew it wasn’t. Unfortunately.
“Captain Lethermon will listen, I believe. The rest… We’ll see. As I said, the mercenaries will have no allegiance to me.”
“Is that the guy who called hold?”
“Yes.” Vlerion stepped toward the stairs but paused to look back. “Whatever happens to me, I forbid you from letting your sentinel or your father turn you into a druid-human-plant rooted in the preserve.”
“You’ll have a hard time forbidding anything if you’re dead.” Kaylina didn’t want him to contemplate his passing. She wanted him to have a reason to fight to live.
“That’s why I’m forbidding it now. Preemptively. You have a future, as a ranger if you want it, but most certainly as a mead maker, as whatever else you wish to be. You’re too young to sacrifice yourself to be a nanny for the preserve.”
“Surely, I’d be more of a bodyguard than a nanny. With the power of the Daygarii.”
“You’ll be swatting axe wielders with vines and hissing at them. I forbid it all, Kaylina.”
“You’re still kind of pompous, Vlerion.”
“Yes, I am. Pompous and forbidding.”
“The only way to ensure I don’t become a tree is for you to live and stay at my side.”
“If I live,” he said quietly, “you might be even more likely to make that sacrifice.”
Kaylina wished she’d never told him about her meeting with her father, about what Arsanti had proposed. Why was she always compelled to honesty with him?