Cursed Bones

chapter 47



Alexander appeared next to his sister. She was lying still in the snow, focusing on her breathing. He could see from her colors that she was in great pain and from the unnatural angle of her leg, he could understand why.

Ixabrax howled in misery, his mighty voice fading into the distance.

“How bad is it?” Alexander asked.

Abigail opened her eyes and blinked a few times to focus. “Bad. I can’t walk.”

“Hang on, I’ll be right back.” He vanished and appeared next to Anatoly. Magda was there, carefully helping him disentangle himself from the charred remains of a dragon. She finally worked him free and both of them fell into the snow.

“How bad?”

“Been better,” Anatoly said.

“Magda, can you keep them alive for a week?”

“If I can keep Zuhl off our trail, then yes.”

“Good, stay alive. Help is on the way,” Alexander said, vanishing.

Abigail smiled with satisfaction as she flew over Zuhl’s naval yard and saw two giant ships and the docks surrounding them completely destroyed by fire, smoke still marring the horizon.

She’d spent nearly a week in a cramped snow cave with Anatoly and Magda. By the time the Sky Knights arrived, she was delirious from the pain of her injury, and Anatoly had slipped into a fever and was nearly gone. Several hours after the Knights gave each of them a healing draught, they were both strong enough to fly.

Alexander had organized a rescue mission disguised as an all-out attack. The combined forces of two flights, nearly two hundred Sky Knights had made the journey. With Zuhl’s dragons gone, wyverns ruled the air.

The main thrust of the attack had been the docks in Zuhl’s Crescent Bay. Over a hundred Sky Knights, armed with self-igniting firepots set the entire port ablaze. Even though the ships were all protected with shields, the fire was able to spread along the dock to two of the giant vessels, completely destroying both of them.

While the attack was taking place, a wing of Sky Knights found Abigail, Anatoly, and Magda, bringing with them the healing draughts and a witch who knew a few healing spells. Within a few hours, Abigail was in the air, bundled tightly in several fur coats and blankets.

The channel crossing was cold and painful, her leg still aching, though not nearly as badly as it had the previous week. Abigail smiled again when she saw the bombed-out remains of the Irondale port. Five vessels, all nearly complete, destroyed in their berths, each the target of one of Mage Gamaliel’s explosive weapons. The third prong to the attack. One wing had delivered five explosive weapons, one to a ship. While they were protected by shields as well, the strategy was to allow the weapons to sink into the water beside the ships before detonating them … and it had worked.

Each berth was nothing but a crater blasted into the shoreline, debris littering the water in every direction.

Alexander watched the ship gracefully slip into the cave and drop anchor. A few moments later, a gangplank bridged the gap between the stone shelf where he stood and the deck of the ship. Captain Kalderson came ashore.

Bragador, Anja, Jack, and, of course, Chloe were all there to greet the captain. Alexander’s leg still hurt and he couldn’t run for more than a few dozen steps, but he’d given up his cane and was anxious to be on his way, even if that meant a painful goodbye.

“Hello, Captain,” Alexander said.

“Lord Reishi, it’s so good to see you alive,” Kalderson said, nervously. “I’d have never of left you if I’d known you weren’t dead, I swear it.”

“I know, don’t give it another thought.”

Kalderson drew himself up and nodded. “Right then, I can be ready to sail with the morning tide.”

“Very good, please make the preparations,” Alexander said. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

“Please don’t go,” Anja said, starting to cry.

“Anja, we’ve been through this. You know I have to … I have responsibilities.”

“But I love you,” she said, breaking down in tears.

“Child, this is for the best,” Bragador said softly.

“No, it’s not,” Anja shouted. For a moment it looked like she wanted to run away but wasn’t sure which direction to go, then she hugged Alexander fiercely.

“I love you and I will miss you every moment of every day,” she said through her sobs. “This is too hard. I can’t do it anymore. Goodbye, Alexander.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat as she turned away and ran for the cave entrance, jumping off into the surf and transforming into her true form midflight, roaring in anguish as she took to wing.

“I love you, too,” Alexander whispered, wiping a tear from his cheek.

The journey was long, almost two weeks, traversing nearly half the Isle of Karth. Isabel had insisted that the entire force accompany her back to the Regency fortress, ostensibly to provide her with adequate security, but actually to prevent them from pursuing Trajan and Ayela. The jungles of northern Karth gave way to a vast savanna stretching across the isle, home to many range animals and a variety of large hunting cats.

South of the savanna, the jungle resumed, blanketing the island for leagues in every direction. The south was less rugged territory, with several cities cut out of the jungle, though they all had stout walls surrounding them to ward against predators.

Isabel played her plan over and over in her mind, testing it for flaws, looking for ways that it could go wrong, knowing that she would never see them all but at least she could plan for some of the problems that might arise. Her plan was solid. She was determined to carry it out and her determination only intensified as the journey dragged on.

The soldiers treated her like glass, afraid that any comment might give sufficient offense to warrant a swift death. That suited Isabel just fine. She couldn’t afford to think of these soldiers as people; she might need to kill them in the very near future, best not to be on a first-name basis.

At long last they reached the fortress. Isabel felt the all-too-familiar flutter of fear in her belly. The time had nearly arrived. She saw her plan unfold in her mind’s eye yet again.

None of the walls surrounding any of the cities of Karth was a match for the wall around the Reishi Army Regency fortress. Isabel was actually impressed, even after growing up in Glen Morillian, even after Blackstone Keep, the Regency fortress looked impregnable.

The wall was a hundred feet high and a hundred feet thick, stretching around the entire fortress complex, easily half a league on a side. Atop the massive walls were all manner of battlements, from catapults, to ballistae, to banks of raised platforms where multiple archers could stand and fire all at once. The wall was surrounded by a moat nearly forty feet across and filled with all sorts of dangerous fish and snakes.

A drawbridge lowered and the gate opened, then a trumpet sounded when Isabel entered the fortress. She hoped Phane was waiting for her.

Beyond the gate was a twenty-foot square tunnel cut through the wall, lined with arrow slits and murder holes. Inside the walls was a small city, stone buildings marching away from a large square in front of the gate.

A lone figure stood several dozen feet from the gate when Isabel entered the square. He was tall, well-built, perfectly proportioned and had shoulder-length wavy brown hair and golden eyes. He smiled so disarmingly that Isabel felt her resolve falter. He was boyish, exuberant and full of innocent joy, genuinely happy to see her.

Prince Phane … murderer … tyrant.

She schooled her breathing and calmed her mind, using the time it took to dismount her horse to regain her composure and fortify her determination. He was the enemy. He deserved to die. She meant to kill him—right now.

“My dear Isabel, I have so looked forward to this moment.”

“Prince Phane, I beg your forgiveness for my initial resistance,” Isabel said, looking down as he approached.

“Oh, nonsense,” Phane said amiably. “You’re here now, that’s what’s important.”

“I’ve brought you a gift, My Prince,” Isabel said, holding up a leather bag with her left hand as she went to her knee. “I beg your forgiveness that I could only bring you the Sovereign Stone and not my husband’s head.”

Phane stopped, midstride, breathing sharply, and then approached much more slowly, looking at the little bag held out in Isabel’s trembling hand as if he couldn’t believe it was possible. He swallowed hard, reaching out very slowly, savoring the moment.

Isabel waited until he took the bag. The moment the weight lifted, she grabbed his wrist and lunged forward, bringing her knife up in a fluid arc, driving it up under his ribcage—her knife that had three coatings of blackwort baked onto the blade. For days during her journey, she’d stared at this blade, seeing it plunge into Phane’s heart, seeing his eyes go dark.

The blade hit home, stabbing into his belly, penetrating up toward his heart. Isabel put all of her strength, all of her rage, all of her pent-up fear into her attack. The blade was just inches from reaching its target … Phane’s black heart … when he stopped her. Faster than she could have imagined, stronger than she might have ever suspected, he grabbed her wrist, pushing down hard, pulling the blade free of his belly before it could reach his heart and end him for good.

Isabel felt a sharp stabbing pain where Phane had grabbed her … a needle puncture. She could feel numbing coldness spreading from the tiny wound.

Phane frowned at her in confusion, stumbling backward, looking at the blood on his hand and then looking back at her and smiling with such triumphant glee that Isabel thought she saw madness.

“Well done, Isabel,” he said, coughing up blood, while still backing away from her. “Not to worry, you’ll just be paralyzed for an hour or so.” He held up his ring so she could see the little dart that had punctured her. “Glow-worm venom … you can’t be too careful, you know.”

She slumped to the ground, losing control of her body but not of her senses.

Phane stumbled backward and fell, blood soaking the front of his tunic and frothing from his mouth.

“You got me good, Isabel,” he sputtered, still crawling backward. “No one has ever stabbed me before … really hurts.”

Commander Henna strode up to Phane, looking down at him with contempt and slowly drawing her sword.

“Perhaps our lord and master isn’t so all-powerful after all,” Henna said loudly enough for her entire unit to hear. Nervous laughter rippled through the ranks.

“Ah, that’s a pity,” Phane said, the door to his Wizard’s Den opening behind him. “I actually liked you.”

With a gesture, he picked her up with his magic, lifting her several feet off the ground, then with a flick of his hand, sent her flying into the air … she landed somewhere in the jungle several thousand feet outside the walls of the fortress.

The laughter in the ranks stopped.

Phane crawled backward into his Wizard’s Den with great effort, trailing blood across the flagstones, stopping only when he was entirely inside. His soldiers stood stock-still, watching with a mixture of fascination and fear while Phane struggled with the pain of his wound just like any other human being would.

“Take Lady Reishi to a circle cell,” he commanded. “She belongs to me now.” He broke into a fit of coughing, bright red blood splattering the hand he used to cover his mouth.

Once he composed himself, he waved at Isabel with his bloody hand, smiling his boyish smile, blood smeared across his teeth and face, as the door to his Wizard’s Den closed.

A few moments later, Isabel’s world went black.