Is that what he told you?
“Tragen!” he called out suddenly, not really meaning to do so, acting impulsively and without thought. The Tracker turned. “Whose body did you find if it wasn’t Culph’s?”
Everyone was staring. “What are you talking about?” an irritated Arissen Belloruus asked him.
Kirisin ignored him, watching Tragen. “You said you found Culph’s body. But he wasn’t dead. So whose body did you find?”
The big man shook his head. “You’re mistaken. I said I found evidence of a struggle. I said it looked like someone had been killed in Culph’s house. Just remains. No complete body.”
“No,” Simralin said quietly. “You told us you found Culph’s body. You said that he was dead.”
There was a hushed silence as the members of the High Council, not quite sure what was happening, looked at one another in confusion. The King was leaning forward, dark gaze intense. “What body do you mean? What is this all about?”
“Whose body did you find?” Kirisin pressed, his eyes locked with Tragen’s. “There wasn’t one, was there?”
Tragen sighed. His smile could not quite hide the trapped look reflected in his eyes. “You always were a bright boy, Little K.”
Then he produced a long knife as if it had been conjured by magic and drove it into Maurin Ortish. The captain of the Home Guard gasped in shock and dropped to his knees, hands reaching futilely for the killing blade. Tragen was already leaping toward Kirisin and his sister. He was much quicker than either had expected and was on top of them before they could react. He backhanded Simralin so hard she was sent sprawling, her head snapping back as she crashed into the far wall. A moment later the Tracker had Kirisin in an iron grip, his arm about the boy’s neck as he yanked him off his feet and pinned him to his chest.
The Home Guards were rushing forward by now, weapons drawn. But Tragen produced a handgun, an automatic weapon hidden within his clothing, black and short-barreled and wicked-looking, and shot all four in a span of as many seconds. Kirisin had a second or two to recognize that having a weapon of this sort confirmed his worst fears—that Tragen wasn’t what he appeared to be, wasn’t Elven, likely wasn’t even human. Then the Tracker was dragging him over to the Council chamber doors and throwing the locking bar that kept anyone else from entering. As the members of the High Council rose, yelling for help, Tragen leveled his weapon and sprayed them indiscriminately. Kirisin watched Basselin and the sharp-featured woman and several others collapse. The King was hit and knocked backward. Blood splattered on the walls and dais and chairs in a red mist. Bodies tumbled in heaps and lay unmoving.
Kirisin fought to break free, but the arm that pinned him was like a band of iron across his neck, and he couldn’t begin to loosen it.
“Stop struggling, Little K,” his captor hissed in his ear. “You have a duty to fulfill, and you’re going to fulfill it! You mustn’t disappoint all those who depend on you!”
Kirisin screamed at him, calling him something unmentionable, something he had never called anyone, furious and almost in tears. Across from him, not ten feet away, Maurin Ortish knelt with his hands locked on the knife handle where it protruded from his chest, his body limp. In front of the dais, one of the Council members moaned softly. Fists pounded on the locked chamber doors, and voices yelled in fear and frustration.
“Enough of this foolish pretense,” Tragen muttered, eyes on the door. “Time for you and me to be going, Kirisin.”
In the next instant Simralin slammed into him, all three of them sprawling across the floor. Tragen, caught off guard by the attack, lost his grip on the handgun and on Kirisin, as well. While he didn’t let go completely, he did release the boy enough that he almost twisted free. Almost. One hand clung to him by its fingertips—a hand that had shed its skin and become scaly and clawed—fighting to retain its grip as the three combatants tumbled across the stone floor of the chambers and rolled to a stop. But Simralin landed on top and began tearing at the Tracker’s face and eyes. Roaring in fury, Tragen let go of the boy and struck out at Simralin, missing her head but landing a blow to her shoulder that was more than sufficient to dislodge her.
Rolling free, he came to his feet with a second long knife in his hand and scrambled toward her.
But Kirisin was quicker. Freed of Tragen’s grip, he reached into his pocket and snatched free the blue Elfstones. Having discovered what they could do in the ice caves of Syrring Rise, he knew they were his only hope. Tragen wasn’t an Elf and he wasn’t human. He was a demon, and only magic was going to be enough to stop him.