forever. I had no choice but to act…”
“ A strange god that loves you so much he makes you murder your own father.”
“ SHUT UP!” Mustor screamed in a voice that almost sobbed with sorrow, flinging Sherin away as he advanced on Vaelin, sword levelled. “Shut your mouth! I know what you are. Don’t think He did not tell me. You are a practitioner of the Dark. You shun the Father’s love. You know nothing.”
Still the blood-song’s tune failed to change, even as the usurper’s blade came within a hand’s breadth of his chest. “Are you ready?” Mustor asked. “Are you ready to die, Darkblade?”
Vaelin noted the way Mustor’s sword-tip trembled, the moist redness of his eyes and the hard clench of his jaw. “Are you ready to kill me?”
“ I will do what I must.” His voice was grating now, forced out through clenched teeth. His whole body appeared to tremble, his chest heaving, seeming to Vaelin like a man at war with himself. The sword tip wavered but did not move, neither forward nor back.
“ Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “But I doubt you have any killing left in you.”
“ Just one more,” Mustor whispered. “Just one more, He told me. Then at last I could rest. The Eternal Fields would finally be opened to me where I was denied before.”
From beyond the door came the first sounds of battle, many voices raised in alarm soon drowned in the clatter of iron-shod hooves and the hard ring of clashing steel.
“ What?” Mustor seemed bewildered, his gaze flicking continually between Vaelin and the door. “What is this? Do you seek to distract me with some Dark illusion?”
Vaelin shook his head. “My men are storming the keep.”
“ Your men?” His face took on an expression of deep confusion. “But you came alone. He said you would come alone.” His sword fell to his side as he stumbled back a few steps, his gaze distant, unfocused. “He said you would come alone…”
Kill him now! A voice shouted in Vaelin’s mind, a voice he had thought lost in the Martishe, the voice that had endlessly mocked his preparations for Al Hestian’s murder. He’s within reach, take his sword away and break his neck!
The voice was right, it would be an easy kill. Whatever madness or disturbance clouded Mustor’s thoughts had left him defenceless. But the blood-song’s tune was unchanged… And his words raised so many questions.
“ You have been deceived, my lord,” Vaelin told Mustor softly. “Whatever voice speaks in your mind has played you false. I came here with a full regiment of foot and a company of mounted brothers. And I doubt my death, or any death, would buy you a place in the Beyond.”
Mustor staggered, almost falling to the floor. He froze, only for a moment, but it was a moment of complete stillness, standing as if carved from ice. When he moved again the depth of confusion marring his features had vanished, replaced by the face of a man in full possession of his faculties, one eyebrow raised in amused consternation, but the eyes cold with hatred. A voice Vaelin had heard before issued from Mustor’s lips in a tone of calm certainty. “You do continue to surprise me, brother. But this ends nothing. ”
Then it was gone, Mustor’s face once again the mask of confusion from a second before. It was clear to Vaelin that Mustor had no knowledge of what had just transpired. Something lives in his mind, he realised. Something that can speak with his voice. And he doesn’t know.
“ Hentes Mustor,” he said. “You are called by the King’s word to answer charges of treason and murder.” He held out his hand. “Your sword, my lord.”
Mustor looked down at the sword in his hand, turning the blade so it gleamed in the torch light. “I washed it and washed it. Ground the blade on the stone for hours. But I can still see it, the blood…”
“ Your sword, my lord,” Vaelin repeated, stepping closer, hand outstretched.
“ Yes…” Mustor said faintly. “Yes. Best if you take it…” He reversed his hold on the hilt and lifted the sword towards Vaelin’s hand.
There was a sound like the beating of a hawk’s wing, a soft rush of air on Vaelin’s cheek and a blur of spinning steel. The blood-song roared, full of wrong and warning, making him stagger with the force of it. He found himself instinctively reaching for the empty scabbard on his back and felt and instant of complete and utter helplessness as Hentes Mustor took the axe full in the chest. The impact lifted him off his feet, laying him arms outstretched on the chamber floor.
“ Got the bastard!” Barkus exclaimed, advancing from the shadows. “A fine throw, if I say so-”
Vaelin’s blow caught him on the jaw, spinning him to the floor. “He was giving up!” Anger boiled in him, stoked by the blood-song, making his hands itch for his weapons. “He was surrendering, you stupid bloody oaf!”
“ Thought-” Barkus coughed red spit on the floor. “Thought he was going to kill you… Had a sword, you didn’t… Saw the sister lying there. I didn’t know.” He seemed more bewildered than angry.
The certain, awful truth that Vaelin had been entirely willing to kill Barkus in that moment shocked the anger from him. He reached down, offering his hand. “Here.”
Barkus stared up at him for a moment, a red swelling already forming on his jawline. “That really hurt, you know.”
“ I’m sorry.”
Barkus took his hand, hauling himself upright. Vaelin looked over at Mustor’s body and the dark pool now spreading out from it. “See to our sister,” he told Barkus, moving to the body, Barkus’s hateful axe still buried in his chest. Is this why I couldn’t touch it? Did the song know this is what it would be used for?
He had hoped there would be some vestige of life lingering in Mustor’s breast, enough breath to impart a final answer to the mystery of his murderous and deceitful god. But there was no light in Mustor’s eyes, no movement in his slack features. Barkus’s axe had done its work all too well.
He knelt next to the body recalling the man’s fevered words: the Eternal Fields would finally be opened to me where I was denied before. He laid his hand on Mustor’s chest, reciting softly, “What is death? Death is but a gateway to the Beyond. It is both ending and beginning. Fear it and welcome it.”
“ I hardly think that’s appropriate.” Sentes Mustor, undisputed Fief Lord of Cumbrael, was looking down at his brother’s body with a mixture of anger and distaste. A naked, untarnished sword dangled from his hand and his chest heaved with unaccustomed exertion. Vaelin was impressed he had made his way here so quickly, apparently by failing to trouble himself with any part of the battle. “He would want the Prayer of Leaving from the Tenth Book,” Lord Mustor said. “The words of World Father…”
“ A god is a lie,” Vaelin quoted harshly. He rose, offering the Fief Lord the most cursory of bows. “I think your brother knew that.”
“ How many?”
“ Eighty-nine in all.” Caenis nodded at the bodies laid out in the courtyard below. “No quarter asked and none given. Just like the Martishe.” He turned back to Vaelin, his expression sombre. “We lost nine men. Another ten injured. Sister Gilma’s seeing to them.”
“ Impressive,” Prince Malcius commented. He had his fur trimmed cloak tight about his shoulders, his red hair fluttered in the chill wind sweeping the battlements. “To lose so few against so many.”
“ Between our pole-axes and Brother Nortah’s archers on the walls…” Caenis shrugged. “They had little chance, Highness.”
“ Does the Fief Lord have any instructions regarding the Cumbraelin dead?” Vaelin asked the prince. Lord Mustor had been notably absent since the conclusion of the battle, apparently busying himself with a close inspection of the keep’s wine cellar.
“ Burn them or throw them from the walls. I doubt he’s sober enough to care much either way.” There was a hard edge to the prince’s voice this morning. Vaelin knew he had been at the forefront of the charge through the gate, Alucius Al Hestian close behind him. There had been a brief but frenzied defence of the courtyard by twenty or so of the usurper’s followers, Alucius tumbling from his horse and disappearing under the crush. After the battle he was pulled from beneath a pile of bodies, alive but unconscious, his short sword dark with dried blood and a large lump on his head. He was in Sister Gilma’s care now and still hadn’t woken.
Make him play with a sword for ten days and lie to him that he’s a warrior, Vaelin thought heavily. Better if I’d tied him to his saddle on the first day and set the horse on the road back to the city. Vaelin pushed the guilt away and turned to Caenis.
“ Do you know anything about how the Cumbraelins treat their dead?”
