chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Avery and Kellen darted over to check on Corin. He saw the terror in their eyes, and it was no surprise. The last three minutes had contained three of the most horrifying things he’d ever seen. But if they didn’t act fast, Ephitel might add three more.
Corin waved a hand toward the prince resurgent and hissed toward the others, “You’re both elves. Can you do that?”
Kellen and Avery both shook their heads, the yeoman’s bruised complexion answer enough.
“But Ephitel and Oberon—”
Again they shook their heads. Kellen said, “The only one I’ve ever heard of who could survive a blow like that is…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Corin’s people knew that legend, too. There had been a pagan lord of war named Memnon, invulnerable in battle. He’d been slain by the hero Aeraculanon, who had forged the sword Godslayer to the task.
Then Corin understood why Oberon had sent him for the sword. It was not to save him from the traitor, but so the traitor might be cut down. Perhaps he’d meant that task for later, but Corin would take care of it right now. He knotted a fist in Avery’s shirt and jerked himself upright. Nose to nose, he growled, “Get the sword!”
Avery waved helplessly toward the gloom of the cavern. “It’s lost!”
“And without it, so are we. Find it!”
Avery blinked, then turned and fled into the cavern. Kellen caught Corin under the arm and helped him to his knees. “What about me? What do you want of me?”
“We keep him talking,” Corin answered quietly. “Bless his wretched heart, he loves to talk. So we buy time. And when Avery gets back with the sword, we do everything we can to bury it in Ephitel.”
Ephitel was on his feet now, prodding curiously at his uninjured chest. “That is…interesting,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever died before.”
Leaning on Kellen, Corin climbed to his feet. The motion drew Ephitel’s attention, and Ephitel took a moment to consider them. “So. He is a shrinking Violet. I can’t pretend I am surprised.”
“He has gone to warn the king,” Corin said. “He’s slipped your trap twice now.”
“Three,” Ephitel said, bored. “But that was before your time.”
“When was that? Is that why you knocked his house from favor?”
Ephitel waved an admonishing finger. “I will ask the questions. Who are you?”
“A manling vagabond,” Corin said. “No one of importance.”
“But the druids think that you are outside time. There are prophecies, you know.”
Corin frowned. “Prophecies. I thought they were just rumors.”
“When they come from the lips of gods, they’re all the same.” Ephitel stooped to retrieve the spent pistol. He weighed it in his hands and shook his head. “You taught the coward Kellen how to use his sword. You convinced a Violet to enter my domain. And you know what to do with this. The druids call you Corin Hugh, but that is a false name if ever I heard one. How did your father call you?”
Corin didn’t know the honest answer, but he seized the chance to confuse Ephitel. If there ever were a future, if Corin ever found his way back home, he didn’t want the lord protector to remember him. So now Corin hung his head and offered a dramatic sigh. “Very well. I hoped to preserve my family’s honor, but you have found me out. I’m Ethan Blake of House Vestossi.”
Kellen snickered. Corin didn’t kick him, but it was a close thing.
Ephitel missed that exchange. His attention was focused more closely on the gun Corin had shot him with. “Ethan Blake. I will remember that. You are draped in infamy. You’ve barely been inside my city for a day, and already you have firebombed a public house and assaulted royal guards. Back in the dungeons, you killed old brave Bryer in cold blood!” He chuckled. “But that only saves me the effort. His young partner Pau will be easy to destroy.”
“You monster!” Kellen shouted. “Traitor! Knave!”
“The coward Kellen speaks,” Ephitel said. “Wonder upon wonder. But if you call me knave again…” He grabbed the bundled barrels of the strange gun, turned them easily, then pressed a new barrel against the lock with a clear click. He caught a little leather pouch from off his belt and tipped a bit of powder in the pistol’s priming pan. Then he cocked the gun and lowered it at Kellen.
He smiled at Corin. “Well, you knew most of what to do with this.”
Kellen’s face was ghostly pale and his voice wavered when he spoke, but he said, “I will repeat again, you are a knave.”
Corin elbowed him. “You do not have to goad him.”
The yeoman raised his chin and addressed the prince still. “I marvel that you didn’t balk at traitor. Shall I call you worse? Bastard. Villain. Scientist.”
Ephitel screamed, enraged, and fired. The shot took Kellen in his right shoulder, spraying blood and bone. Kellen screamed and hit his knees. His body shuddered. He caught his breath to scream again and didn’t stop. Ephitel just rolled his eyes and spun the barrels of the gun.
“That was not a miss,” he said, raising his voice above Kellen’s wail. “I have been practicing. I could kill a frisky cat from fifty paces. I’ve three shots left. Enough for each of you.”
Corin forced himself to forget Kellen’s pain. He had to keep the prince talking. “But Avery is gone. I told you, he is heading to the king right now.”
“Unlikely,” Ephitel said. “I suspect he’s safe in the hands of my loyal dwarves.”
Corin shook his head, showing his genuine surprise. “How did you win the loyalty of dwarves?” In my time, they hate your name.
“Bought and sold,” Ephitel said, while he primed another shot. “They’re hungry little curs, and I had food.”
“You used your soldiers’ rations? How did you feed the regiments?”
Ephitel laughed. “They are all enterprising men. I let them feed themselves.”
Just like a Vestossi, Corin thought. This is how tyrants reason. He pretended surprise. “Does that not risk the anger of the farmers?”
Ephitel sneered. “What do I care for some manling’s ire?”
“But Oberon—”
“He’s lost his grip,” Ephitel said. “That’s the beauty of my plan. I bought the resources I need with rations Oberon gave me, from dwarves made desperate for food by choices Oberon has made.”
“What choices?”
“You don’t know? Oh yes, you are a manling outside time.” He laughed. “Oberon always feared the dwarves. He feared the change that comes with guns and cannons. He feared their powder would lead to another yesterworld.”
“But isn’t he the creator? Why make dwarves if he feared them?”
“Make dwarves? Ha! Only manlings can be made. He brought the dwarves, and he brought them because he needed their artifice to build Hurope. He hoped to limit their threat by limiting their numbers. He embargoed trade in food and left them hungry, or I never could have bought the powder that will end Oberon’s reign. There’s a pleasing poetry, don’t you think?”
“I’ll call it treachery and nothing else,” Corin said. “Even with the gun, how can you hope to beat a god?”
Ephitel hesitated. His gaze flicked toward the cavern, and Corin realized he’d made a mistake. He’d hoped to learn some of the prince’s plans, but he’d reminded him about the sword.
“Where has your Violet gone off to?”
Corin’s mind raced, desperate to find some other distraction, but he could think of nothing.
Kellen moved. He’d stopped screaming some time ago, and now he struggled to his feet. He had to use the wall to support his weight, leaning awkwardly against it as he forced himself up in erratic jerks. His right arm hung limp, the sleeve soaked with blood. Corin started over to him to offer aid, but Ephitel said, “No. Stand where you are.”
Corin would not have obeyed him, even with that terrible gun trained on him, but Ephitel now aimed at Kellen. When he saw Corin’s complacency, the prince nodded. “I want to see what Kellen has become.”
A hero, Corin thought. Every motion clearly pained him, but the yeoman held his feet, burying his agony behind an arrogant stare for Ephitel. He risked his life to buy a bit more time for Avery.
“I am only what I’ve always been,” Kellen said. His voice was weak and ragged. “I am my father’s son, and I am loyal to the king.”
Ephitel spat. “You are a coward who has never bloodied his inherited blade. I should have dismissed you long ago.”
Kellen held the prince’s eyes. “I have bloodied it now. I felled three of your men upstairs before some…some coward threw a blanket over me.” He grinned, relishing the word. “You have stained my name in all Gesoelig because I hesitate to steal a farmer’s food. Because I hesitate to beat your enemies to death. Because I’m loyal to the king and to the law. But I will not hesitate to fight your treachery. I will spend my life defying you.”
With his head to one side, Ephitel stared at the yeoman. “You really mean it, don’t you? Well. Your father would be proud. I never thought I’d say that to a Kellen.”
Kellen groaned, sinking lower down the wall as his strength faded. Ephitel chuckled. “So very like your father. Did you know I killed him, too?”
Kellen’s eyes went wide, though from surprise or pain, Corin didn’t know. The yeoman sucked a ragged breath and wheezed. “You did not. He died a hero. In the Pyren Pass. You were at the siege of Old Maedred.”
Ephitel nodded. “Playing cards and drinking tea. It is a boring task, sitting a siege.”
Kellen shook his head. “No. You warred against the heathens—”
Ephitel smiled. “We watched the heathens. We sat and waited while they starved. And when reinforcements tried to come by the Pyren Pass—”
Kellen sobbed, sinking farther down the wall. He was bent double now, every breath a labor.
Ephitel’s grin widened as he watched the yeoman suffer. “I have never told a soul, but I received your father’s message.”
Kellen shook his head, the only answer he could muster.
“I did,” Ephitel said. “That attack was no surprise. I could have spared a hundred men to hold the pass, and no one ever would have known your father’s name. Instead, I made him a hero, and you became the penance for my sin. If I had ever guessed there was true mettle in you, I would have made you something useful.”
“No!” Kellen growled. “I would never serve you!”
“Then I would have killed you long ago and saved myself the shot now.” He lowered the gun to finish the task, and Corin tensed himself to spring, hoping he could knock the gun aside.
But Ephitel withdrew the gun. “No. I needn’t bother. You’re dying from a flesh wound. How pathetic.”
“I…am not…done yet,” Kellen gasped.
“Nor am I,” Ephitel said. “You’ll get to watch your little manling die, for one.”
He lowered the gun again, this time at Corin. And this time he didn’t think it over. He pulled the trigger.
Caught up as he was in other plans, Corin didn’t think to dodge until it was too late. But Kellen moved as soon as Ephitel made his threat. The yeoman straightened with a cry of agony and hurled himself forward. He didn’t aim for the prince’s firing arm as Corin had considered. The soldier was too weak and much too far away. Instead, Kellen the Coward dove between Ephitel and his target. The shot meant for Corin struck the wounded soldier somewhere in his torso, and Kellen crashed down to the floor.
Ephitel rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to kill you?” He spun his barrel and reloaded the gun.
Frantic, Corin looked to the far corner, but Kellen’s sword would not save them. He looked back into the cavern, hoping desperately to find Avery waiting with the legendary blade, but he saw only shadows. He watched Ephitel tip a bit more powder into the priming pan…
And he had an idea. A gunshot hadn’t killed the invulnerable elf, but it had staggered him. It had hurt him, clear enough. Perhaps the same again could buy them time. Corin lunged toward Kellen, throwing his cloak up over both of them just to complicate the prince’s aim. Then he grabbed for the inner pocket where he had stashed the clever little paper shot. He tore the paper with his thumbnail, then peeked past his cloak just as Ephitel lowered the gun. Corin twisted, throwing his pitiful half handful of black powder straight at Ephitel’s face.
Ephitel flinched even as he pulled the trigger. Another crack of harnessed thunder, another flash of tamed hellfire, and this time there was a cloud of dust to catch the flame. It exploded like a solstice rocket in the prince’s face.
Ephitel screamed. It was a banshee’s maddening wail. Corin knew the feeling all too well. Nothing burned quite like dwarven powder. It seared sharper, deeper than any normal flame, and left a wicked stain within the mind. He hadn’t fired a cannon since the accident off Spinola’s coast. He avoided even getting near the stuff.
Now it was the prince’s turn to burn. Even if that wound would heal, it seared right now. Ephitel dropped the gun and batted at his own face, panicking. He shuddered like a tree caught in a gale. Then, with a dreadful wail, he spun and sprinted off into his catacombs, leaving Corin and Kellen there alone.
Corin fought to catch his breath, trying desperately to guess what he should do first. Kellen was clearly dying. Avery was lost. Corin had to find the sword and warn the king. But Ephitel might regain control at any time. His guards might come. All the dangers spun in Corin’s head like a tinker’s child’s toy while he sought how to use this tiny chance.
Then a voice spoke from the darkness behind him. “Pardon me, manling.” From very near behind him. “But that was our master.”
Corin dropped his cloak and turned to see who had found him. It was the dwarf who’d done the talking earlier. And he was not alone. The others stood behind him. All the others. A dwarven army caught in treachery, and none of them looked happy.
Corin spotted Avery among the dwarves, his hands and feet tied up and a gag over his mouth. He saw the sword as well, held reverentially by one of Avery’s wardens.
Corin fought against a feverish laugh, bottled it up, and met the lead dwarf’s eyes with all the sincerity he could muster. “I’m sorry. You should find a better one.”