The Silent Shield (Kingfountain #5)

Fallon arrived next, cradling Morwenna, whose head lolled. Her eyelids fluttered and she stared at the courtyard. “Father,” she groaned.

Trynne saw Rucrius cross the bridge, holding his black staff and scowling in naked fury. He had the look of a man betrayed. His strange, catlike eyes glittered white from the torchlight. Then he extended his ringed hand toward Severn, who froze midstroke. He stood rigidly, a grotesque statue of a knight at arms.

He couldn’t move.

Trynne stared in horror as Rucrius advanced on the helpless man. Severn stood frozen in place, his face twisted with fear and hatred. He spoke, lashing out with his words.

“Go on, slay me, you black-hearted villain! You coward! I fear you not. I fear no man. I’d rather die with my sword in my hand than cower like a pup as you do!” His Fountain magic dribbled from him, hardly grazing the Wizr, who gazed at him disdainfully.

“So be it,” Rucrius snarled and whipped his staff around, cracking Severn’s cheekbone with it. Trynne groaned in agony, wanting to save him but knowing that her duty was to protect and safeguard the king.

Gazing at Morwenna with hate in his eyes, Rucrius drew the sword belted at his waist and ran Severn through with it.

For a moment, Severn hung like a man fixed on a spike. Then his sword fell from his hooked fingers and clattered on the stone. Morwenna began to shriek and wail as Fallon bustled her into the fortress.

There was a look of open anguish on the king’s face as he watched the awful scene. As soon as Morwenna disappeared from view, the magic ended and Severn collapsed in a heap.

Trynne felt her heart thump with agony. She knew the kind of pain that Morwenna was feeling. Knew the devastation of losing a beloved father. Grabbing the king by the shoulder, she pushed him through the gap into the doorway. Captain Staeli and the Oath Maidens were thronging the entryway, ready to fight. The last of the knights had made it through.

Destroy the Wizr, the Fountain whispered to her. He is delivered into your hands.

She felt a prick of fear, but it was quenched by a rush of confidence. Trynne looked Staeli in the eye. “Shut the doors,” she said in a low, angry voice.

And then she turned and stepped back out into the courtyard, dropping the mirage from the magic ring on her finger.

The Painted Knight emerged into the gloom of the bailey.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


Vengeance




The magic of the wellspring swept around Trynne like an embracing shield. Although it was invisible to the eye, it allowed her to sense and follow the movements of everyone around her. Time seemed to quiet and still to the point that she felt every throb of her heartbeat. Holding both of her blades, she charged toward Rucrius, sensing in him an impregnable magic—except for his neck. It occurred to her that in the game of Wizr, knight pieces were often sacrificed to claim an enemy’s Wizr. Was that what the Fountain wished from her? Was that how she would best save her king?

Trynne saw the leaf-armored warriors rushing toward her, weapons lifted. The wellspring magic surrounding her made their movements appear lethargic, as if they were fighting in a field of mud. She sliced two of them as she ducked around, marveling that her speed was greater than theirs. She’d experienced the perfect weaving of her magic with the wellspring magic before in the training yard. It happened when she was totally focused and relentless. Nothing else mattered. Glaives swept toward her, but she had time to duck and counter, and she spun around and dispatched her attackers before they could even finish their initial strokes.

Rucrius’s face slowly contorted with anger as he gazed at her. She saw his lips stretch and grimace as he formed words of power she couldn’t hear past the thumping noises of her heartbeat. Two more foes went down before her, splaying on the snow as they clutched their wounds. She passed through the enemy ranks, untouchable, weaving between Gahalatine’s warriors as they tried to strike at her, but none could match her speed.

Rucrius finished uttering the word of power and a blast of lightning struck at her from the wintry storm clouds. But Trynne was just ahead of it. Her skin tingled as if a hand were about to graze her neck, but the energy of the blast could not envelop her. Instead, several of Gahalatine’s warriors were charred from their proximity to the strike.

A glaive blade came toward her middle as a knight squinted his eyes against the light while trying to strike at her. Trynne crossed her blades in front of her, catching the weapon, and it shattered on the impact. She buffeted the soldier with her elbow and he spun twice before collapsing.

Rucrius’s eyes flashed with panic as she cut her way through the soldiers standing between them. Holding his staff and bloodstained blade, he positioned himself into a defensive stance.

Most of the soldiers were still blinded by the lightning, many of them covering their faces reflexively. She struck at several more Chandigarli warriors as she closed the gap, stopping only when she had reached the fallen body of Duke Severn, his eyes open, a gob of blood pooled by his mouth. Indignation filled her with new purpose.

Her magic was shrinking, drawing back into her. She had to conserve it. The strange becalming magic ended as she reached the Wizr Rucrius. The sounds and smells around her filtered back in—she heard the clattering of dropped weapons, the groans of agony from the injured and dying, smelled the singed, metallic odor of burnt stone. But she drove everything from her mind as she launched herself at the Wizr.

“I know who you are!” Rucrius gibbered with terror, swinging his staff toward her head. “And if you kill me, your father will die! It is not too late to save him!”

One of Trynne’s swords deflected the arc of the staff’s blow. She swung the other at his side, but he blocked it.

“I swear to you, he will live! Don’t throw away your last chance to save him!”

She refused to speak to him. He was consumed with revenge. The only thing he feared was his own death. She swung at him again and again, but he blocked and parried, countering with attacks of his own. The warriors around them couldn’t assist him; the blast had damaged their eyes.

Rucrius was full of life and power, and she sensed that he was resistant to aging, that he was one of the Wizrs of old who had lived for generations. Perhaps he was like Myrddin. But he knew he was vulnerable to her. She saw it in his pale cheeks, in his quivering lips as he sought to control his terror. When he decided to flee, she sensed his intention immediately.

Dundrennan was a nexus for the ley lines. It had appeared as such on every map Trynne had ever seen. The ley lines that passed through it went to Ploemeur, Kingfountain, and Edonburick. It seemed that his Tay al-Ard was not functional from overusing it, but he could still flee another way.