The Prince of Ravens Read online

  Chapter Five: The Death Watch

  The next few days passed much the same: the Prince woke, was bound and gagged, tied to the horse, and forced to suffer in silence through a long day of riding. The only change was that he managed to devise a way to tilt his head at just the right angle so as to see out from under the hood. What he saw was a long line of trees and green things, with no end in sight. Try as he might to distinguish one mountain pass from another, he was unable to do so. How the Exiles did it he couldn’t understand, and eventually he gave up, head pounding and eyes throbbing due to the awkward angle.

  The Exiles spoke only rarely during the day, and never to the Prince. They would talk more openly at night around their campfire, if they made one, but unlike before, they spoke too softly for the Prince to hear. Even Tomaz, whose voice always gave the impression of a crashing wave or a building earthquake, was sufficiently muted to prevent the Prince from eavesdropping. But they never ignored him completely, especially not the girl, who was always watching him whatever he did. The Prince began to realize that whenever he shifted, she shifted as well. Whenever he moved farther away from the fire, she moved closer, using the excuse of stirring the coals or checking a pack, but never returning to her original spot, always keeping an exact distance between them.

  “Where are you taking me?” the Prince asked on the third night, breaking into the soft conversation between the two Exiles as they ate their supper. The effect he had hoped for, that of a sudden and forceful interruption, was slightly ruined by the fact he was shivering with cold under his thin clothes and blanket. The knowledge of their earlier conversation was still floating in the back of his mind, making him uneasy, and he felt suddenly uncomfortable when they looked directly at him.

  “Where do you think we’re taking you?” the girl immediately retorted, her eyes gleaming in the firelight, mocking him.

  The Prince almost snapped back, but cooled his temper when Tomaz stretched his fingers and rolled his shoulders. They had camped near a running stream that night, and the Prince was cold enough without receiving another dunking in the name of good manners.

  “Never mind,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster, and rolled over to go to sleep. Tomaz chuckled, a deep rolling rumble, and the Prince felt his cheeks burn, but he stayed silent.

  This was the most significant interaction they had over the next few days of travel. The Prince, who all his life had been inclined to introversion, had no complaints. The Exile girl, whose name he was never able to catch no matter how hard he listened to the soft night conversations, was just as quiet as he, and often as not it was Tomaz who spoke up first, commenting cheerfully on anything that seemed to pass through his head.

  And then, on the seventh day of their journey, as they were crossing the highest part of the mountains, the Prince’s shoulders and chest began to prickle with an unnatural heat.

  Immediately the Prince sat up straighter in his saddle. Could it be?

  He shot a surreptitious glance at the two Exiles from under his hood as best he could, and saw that they had noticed nothing. As the day progressed, the dark markings on his back and shoulders grew warmer still as the Raven Talisman sensed life, a fourth life, separate from him, Tomaz, and the Exile girl. There was someone behind them, farther back along the path the Exiles were taking, someone coming closer. No … not just one … many. Hope sprang into the Prince’s heart again, and his fingers and toes began to tingle. The distant pinprick in the back of his mind grew stronger, and he stiffened, barely willing to believe it could be what he wanted it to be. But the bright point of heat came closer still and then split and multiplied.

  A rescue party, it had to be.

  The bright glowing points continued to gain on them until they were less than half a mile away, and they didn’t seem to be slowing. Half of them separated from the others and moved farther away to their right, and then passed beyond the Prince, circling around in front of the three travelers. The Prince again titled his head the best he could under the hood, trying to get a visual to go with what was happening in his mind’s eye, and saw that he and the Exiles were moving through the middle of a wide pass, with high, rocky slopes to either side. Tall trees that provided perfect cover for an ambushing force topped the slopes, and trees grew along the path as well, forcing the Exiles to weave back and forth. The horses’ hooves made barely any sound as they walked over a ground of soft dirt covered by a thin layer of what the Prince assumed were fallen leaves, though they looked as skinny and sharp as needles and consummately un-leaf like. The day was cloudy, the sun hidden, and the sky had an iron gray cast that seemed to flatten everything and wash away the color of the world.

  This is it, the Prince realized with excitement. They’ve come to bring me back.

  He looked out again from under his hood, and his eyes locked onto the shape of the girl walking in front of him, the grays and greens of her clothing blending her into the forest around her even as she walked, holding the reins of his horse. Beyond her was Tomaz, just visible in the gloom, scouting ahead on his enormous stallion. The Prince allowed himself a small smile; they had no idea they were being surrounded.

  The Prince reached out with his mind and felt again the points of light and heat surrounding them, the sparks of men’s lives, moving slowly with them as the Exiles walked calmly toward the end of a ravine, which led out into a wide funnel-shaped valley.

  And then something else tickled the back of the Prince’s mind. He furrowed his brow in concentration, but he couldn’t grasp what it was ... something that whined and shimmered in his head, slipping away as soon as he came close to grasping it. First it was on his right side, then his left, then gone, then up ahead, then above him. He focused harder, and despite the cold, a bead of sweat ran from his temple, traced the line of his jaw, and fell onto his shirt. Finally, he located the source of the nebulous something, and realized the strange feeling was coming from two points of light that felt different from the others. They felt … wrong. They weren’t bright enough somehow … it was as if they were only half there.

  Why is that familiar?

  He’d sensed it somewhere before, but where? His head suddenly ached and throbbed, and an image of the Fortress crossed his mind … but no, no one in the Fortress felt like that. The Children would stand out even more strongly, like beacons, and Guardians were strong, but their abundance of life was directly at odds with this feeling of depletion, this strange sense of hollowness, as if the lights had been shrouded in the cloaking mask of night.

  With no warning, a series of things happened in very quick succession.

  There was a sharp whistling sound that filled the air from all directions and immediately both of the Exiles converged on the Prince. His horse panicked, and he fell off, once more sliding down the side of the beast. As he fell, his hood was pulled away from his face by two somethings the Prince couldn’t see and his heart was suddenly in his throat, choking him with fear. The big man, launching himself from his stallion, grabbed the Prince, and with two quick flashes of silver, a dagger cut the ropes holding him in place. Tomaz pulled him free and dropped him to the ground in a heap as more dark streaks shot past them. Two of them struck the Prince’s horse and it shrieked in pain and surprise, the sound deafeningly loud in the Prince’s ears.

  “Find cover!” the girl yelled. Another dark, blurred shape streaked past the Prince’s face, stinging the bridge of his nose, and he recoiled in shock. He crab-walked backwards as fast as he could up the side of the small valley, and ducked behind a large group of bushes, between two tall trees. More black objects shot through the air all around them and he bent to pick one up: it was a small arrow, both head and shaft painted black, with raven’s feathers for fletching.

  His mind flashed back to the dart the Exile girl had pulled from his neck, the hollow points of the barbed darts. He made the connection, and felt again the two wavering less-than-human points of light, just before they dimmed even further and then faded comple
tely from his mind.

  “Death Watchmen,” the Prince gasped.

  It wasn’t a rescue party. It was an assassination.

  The Prince’s daze was interrupted as a man dressed in all black with a drawn short sword burst into view from the foliage on the side of the ravine. The Prince stood and motioned for the man to halt, pulling himself up to his full height and assuming the stance of a Prince.

  “Stop!” he commanded. The man ignored him, raised his sword, and slashed at the Prince’s head.

  “I am the Prince of Ravens – I order you to stop!”

  Again, the command did nothing, and the man in black attacked once more. The Prince sidestepped, and the man’s own weight sent him sprawling through the bushes behind them. There was the sound of the man hitting something, and then a fading shriek. In alarm, the Prince plunged through the bushes after the man, and immediately pulled up short, only just managing to stop himself before he fell headfirst into a hidden chasm, an ugly five foot gap of black emptiness where the ground and the side of the valley ravine should have met.

  More arrows shot past his head, striking the ravine wall. He quickly ducked and moved back toward the valley floor, diving behind a tree just as a black metal arrowhead hissed through where his he had been not a second before. The sound of steel on steel came from in front of him - he rounded the tree to see the giant engaged with a group of men in black further into the funnel-shaped valley, using the limited space to force his attackers to engage him two by two. No doubt the high ravine walls amplified the sound of their weapons, but the battle still looked extremely fearsome to the Prince’s eyes.

  Tomaz’s cloak had been thrown back and the shirt underneath had been ripped and torn by arrows. Through the tears the Prince could see strange glints and flashes of silver - and with a start of surprise he realized that underneath his shirt the giant wore a concealed layer of armor. A large, hastily donned half helm encompassed his head, protecting the sides and back of his neck as well as the top of his head from the arrows that were still raining down on him. But the arrows were thinning; the Exile girl had scaled the stone walls, how the Prince couldn’t begin to fathom, and was dealing swift and silent death to each of the visible archers with her two wickedly curved daggers. Her dark forest clothing blended perfectly with the shadows of the trees, and her long black hair flowed behind her, drinking in the light, wrapping her in a shifting patch of darkness. Besides brief glimpses, the Prince was only able to track her movement by the shocked cries of the men she came upon like a vengeful spirit.

  But these were all ordinary men. Highly trained, but ordinary just the same. Where were the two Death Watchmen, the true Death Watchmen?

  Before he could focus and search the surrounding area, the bushes rustled on his right and another man burst from concealment. With a short thrust of a black-steel blade, the man attacked the Prince, almost eviscerating him on the spot.

  But instinct and training took over, and instead of retreating the Prince stepped smartly inside the range of the sword, rendering the blow useless. He grabbed the man’s arm and delivered a lightning fast flurry of blows to the soldier’s elbow, shoulder, and knee. There was a series of cracks, and the man let out a gasp of surprise. He tried to swing his sword again, but his arm didn’t work properly anymore. The Prince redirected the poorly executed swipe, struck the man’s wrist with stiff fingers, and dropped to one knee to catch the sword as it fell from the useless hand. The Prince looked up and saw the man gazing down at him in panic. With only a second’s hesitation, the Prince swung the blade upward and ended the man’s life.

  Instantaneously, the Prince felt that life added unto his own.

  The Talisman etched into his chest and shoulders was named for the Raven because it feasted on Death, and when the Prince killed, the Raven fed off the soul of the slain man or woman, augmenting the Prince’s life with theirs. The Prince’s physical strength, eyesight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, speed, all were doubled. But, equally doubled, were the Prince’s sense of pain, his anger, his hate, and all the most powerful emotions and urges of the man he’d killed. In effect, he became two people in one body.

  But worst of all, always worst of all, were the memories.

  The details of the soldier’s life coursed through his mind as the sensations of a lifetime dug into his skin, both with enough force to send him reeling into insanity. Images of a family flashed across his eyes, and a wife whom he loved very dearly. His dedication to the Empress had led him to volunteer for a mission with the Death Watch. For the glory of the Empress, the glory of the Diamond Throne, the glory of Her Legacy and Her Will.

  The sound of footsteps on the hard rock, amplified now in the Prince’s ears, penetrated his split mind, and with a huge force of will his true identity surfaced - was it his true identity? What was true in such a world where this thing was possible? – and he blocked out the memories. His eyes opened, catching details too small for normal eyes to see, and focused on the four men rushing toward him. With sudden strength pounding through his limbs, the Prince raised the dead man’s sword and danced into the middle of the onrushing group.

  He was a whirlwind of steel. In a matter of moments, the four men lay bleeding on the ground, alive, but quite unable to fight. The Prince stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, and tried to control his racing heart and the bloodlust that came from the dead soldier’s instincts. He looked up to see Tomaz and the Exile girl, who had now descended to fight beside the giant, under attack from both sides. He moved toward them.

  A sound in the bushes to his right – so quiet he would have missed it but for his enhanced hearing. He whipped around to see a skeletal form dressed in black armor bearing cruel, twisted spikes at the shoulders, elbows, and knees, slink from concealment. It wore no helm, and the Prince looked into empty eye sockets, from the depths of which glowed not eyes but a sickly green light. A bare semblance of skin was stretched across the skull, showing the half-life nature of the creature. It opened its mouth in a smile, and the Prince saw its withered tongue and gum-less teeth. Shivers chased themselves up and down his back as he looked into the face of a nightmare.

  “My Prince,” the Death Watchman whispered.

  It drew a black onyx sword from a sheath at its hip, a sword that drank in the light around it like a thirsty demon, leaving it cloaked in an ever-shifting halo of shadows.

  “You’ve been missed,” it said, and lunged.

  The Prince dodged back a step, avoiding the sword. The Watchman lunged again with inhuman speed and strength, the onyx blade whistling and hissing through the air like a thing alive and thirsty for blood.

  “Stop!” he cried. “I command you to stop!”

  “I don’t take your commands anymore!” the skeletal mouth sneered at him. It let out a maniacal cackle that bounced and reverberated around the walls of the ravine.

  A chill went up the Prince’s back that had nothing to do with the fearful nature of the thing before him. Death Watchmen traded their souls to the clockwork Visigony for immortality, but in return they were sworn to obey the commands of the Empress and the Children, even if it meant surrendering the last bare shred of life that kept them in this world. A Watchman couldn’t deny the command of one of the Children. It wasn’t possible.

  “You lie!” he screamed in its face, “I’m one of the Children! You owe your allegiance to me!”

  The Death Watchman laughed again with terrifying glee and swung the black sword. The Prince retreated quickly, his enhanced strength and speed allowing him to fend off the attacks - for now. But the Watchmen worked in pairs - if the second one came on him unawares, he was doomed. He tried to reach out through his Talisman, searching for the second Watchman, but the black onyx sword flashed toward his throat and broke his concentration.

  A flash of curved steel shot past, bare inches away from the Prince’s head, and buried itself in the Watchman’s left eye socket, eliciting a shocked scream of anger. There was a sizzling sound, and the Pri
nce watched, amazed, as the dagger burned the skin of the Watchman’s face. But, undaunted, the Watchman continued forward, swung its sword high overheard, and brought it down on the Prince’s blade, shattering it.

  “MOVE!” Roared a voice like a lion’s roar behind him.

  Throwing aside the broken blade, the Prince dove to the side, just in time to see Tomaz and the Exile girl hurtle past him.

  The Death Watchman let out a cry, pulled the Exile girl’s dagger from his eye as what flesh remaining on its hands sizzled and burned, and tossed it to the side just as the two Exiles attacked. Without wasting a second, the Prince took the opportunity to search for the second Watchman. He turned around in a quick circle, searching through the eyes of the Raven Talisman for the sickly half-dead glow.

  But it was nowhere to be found.

  That’s impossible, the Prince thought in alarm, I just felt it a moment ago, where is it?

  He strained his mind and his eyes, concentrating harder, searching for that tiny wavering point of life, but just as he felt he was about to reach it, the first Watchman broke through Tomaz and the girl and headed straight for the Prince. Again reacting on instinct, the Prince stepped forward inside the range of the blow intended to cleave him in two. He returned the attack, striking for the bundle of nerves in the Watchman’s left side just above the kidney, then kicking out a foot to swipe its legs from under it. But the Watchman moved aside like a snake, dodging both blows, and brought its onyx blade around in a chopping motioning, intending to behead him.

  The Exile girl was there waiting, and she dug her second dagger into the base of the thing’s neck, sending the blow awry. The Prince noted mentally that she was well informed – the only way to kill a Watchman was to sever the brain from the body.

  But her dagger missed the creature’s spine, and the Watchman threw her off its back and turned once more to the Prince. It feinted to the left, to the right, and then out of nowhere a heavily booted foot appeared and smashed into the Prince’s chest, knocking him on his back and forcing all of the breath out of his body.

  The Prince rolled to the side as his vision narrowed; stars winked in front of his eyes as his body cried for air. The Watchman’s blade snaked out once more, and with a hair-raising screech dug into the rock not an inch from the Prince’s head. The skeletal face of the monster split into a smile of ghastly glee as it raised its sword once more. The Prince had nowhere to run.

  A flash of silver-and-blue steel.

  The Death Watchman’s face turned to confusion as its sword dropped from its hands, and then it crumpled slowly to the ground, where its head rolled loose from its body. A bare second later, both head and body began to decompose, creating a stench that was truly horrific.

  Tomaz sheathed his sword, slinging it onto his back. He reached out a huge hand and pulled the Prince to his feet, where he clutched at a rock outcropping on the side of the ravine, still trying to pull air into his lungs.

  “That was close,” said the girl, who had retrieved her daggers and stood surveying the scene around them. Suddenly she tensed. “Tomaz, I only count twenty-two. One’s missing.”

  As if on cue, a man dressed in black burst from concealment and raced off. Tomaz shot one glance at the girl, who nodded quickly, and he took off after the man.

  “Well, looks like that’s it.”

  The Prince shook his head desperately, trying with all his might to force breath back into his lungs. The last blow from the Watchman had taken all the wind out of him, and it was all he could do to force himself to a standing position as black spots floated across his vision. Frantically, his eyes darted over the girl’s shoulder, searching the forest, trying to see through the shadows cast by the trees and the shifting clouds hanging low overhead, turning left, right, looking behind him.

  “Did they hit you in the head?” she asked the Prince, obviously questioning his sanity. “We got all of them, you can calm down now.”

  “No,” he gasped, unable to say more, his lungs still trying desperately to take in air. Spots of light danced before his eyes, but he blinked them away and tried to breathe deep. He only succeeded in inducing a huge coughing fit, his lungs burning as if he had pulled in a breath of fire instead of air. Desperately, he started trying to mime the message, flailing his arms about.

  “You’re fine now, your Majesty,” she said, misinterpreting the message as anger. “Not that I expected thanks.”

  He took one last deep pull of air and finally, blessedly, his lungs expanded.

  “Two,” he croaked. “There’s always two!”

  A soft twang followed by a whistling sound reached his ears, and he dropped to the floor without hesitation. There was a cry, and he looked up to see the arrow had flown past him and impaled the girl in the shoulder. Before he could react, the sound of running feet came from behind him, and he turned to see another Death Watchman, this one much bigger and wielding an enormous black war ax.

  “Shadows and light!” cursed the Prince with the little air he’d managed to take in. It was all he could do to dive out of the way of an overhand strike that would have cleaved him in two as the huge creature bull-rushed them. He rose to his feet and backed away quickly, but the Death Watchman followed him without missing a beat. Whoever it had been in life was an enormous hulk of a man already, nearly as large as Tomaz, and the Prince was struck with sudden fear at the thought that this might have been a Guardian.

  The Watchman swung into the series of movements that the Prince recognized as the opening of the Gunn Ax Form, and his fears were confirmed. Frantically, he looked around himself - a weapon, he needed a weapon! Anything to defend himself, even one of the girl’s daggers - there!

  It was a short sword, clutched in the lifeless hands of one of the human Watchmen, and with lightning speed he grabbed it and fell into the Szobody Sword Form, deflecting the Watchman’s swing and retreating quickly. He tried an overhand strike, but it was easily deflected as the Watchman twirled his ax in the form called Spinning the Silk. Despite the speed and strength he’d gained from the dead soldier, the Prince was forced back again by the creature, and as time passed he began to accumulate a series of wounds from the Watchman’s enormous weapon that burned as if they’d been salted. His shoulder stung and ached where a cut had sliced deep into the muscle, and blood flowed freely from his side where the ax had scraped across his ribs.

  At the last second, the Prince ducked a blow that should have taken his head off, but which instead buried the Watchman’s ax in a strange, gnarled tree growing on the side of the ravine. The Prince seized his chance and attacked, striking out with a quick thrust to the Watchman’s arm, hoping to incapacitate it. The Watchman moved so quickly the Prince didn’t even know what happened, but he was thrown through the air. He landed nearly twenty feet away, dazed, at the foot of a pile of rocks. He tried to come to his feet, looking around desperately for his sword, but he fell back as his head throbbed sickeningly and his legs gave out beneath him.

  He looked around, hoping desperately that the girl was nearby and that she might intervene, but she had disappeared. She had cut her losses and abandoned him.

  The Watchman ripped its ax from the tree, pulling with it a chunk of wood so large that the tree leaned drunkenly to the side, and then in slow motion teetered and fell to the rock and grass floor with a ground-shaking crash.

  The Prince tried again to stand, but this time his leg crumpled beneath him and he let out a cry of pain. He frantically tried again, but his ankle shook so violently that even with his added strength it wouldn’t let him rise. And then the Watchman was there, standing over him. He looked up into the enormous skeletal mask, skin stretched too tightly across a once-human face, glowing green eyes staring from the pitted eye sockets and boring a hole into him with their insistent, fiery gaze.

  “The Prince of Ravens,” it said in a voice like the crypt. Its vocal cords had long since dried out, and it was in a rasping whisper that it spoke. It stood towering over him, the ax clut
ched tightly in its right hand, savoring the moment and the Prince’s helplessness. The Prince tried to rise once more, but in vain. He began to pull himself up the pile of rocks, dragging his useless foot behind him, before the Watchman reached out, grabbed him, and hoisted him into the air, turning him so that he was face to face with the creature.

  “I will be greatly rewarded for bringing back your head to the Empress. She is so concerned about your safety …”

  The Prince’s mouth went dry.

  “What … what did you say?”

  “Or perhaps another part of your body?”

  The Watchman smiled, it’s rotted lips pulling back to expose dry, gumless teeth held together by sorcery alone, and swished the great ax through the air, razor sharp black blade catching and refracting the sickly burning light of its eyes in twisting, turning patterns.

  “My orders were admittedly unspecific …”

  The Prince was frozen in horror. It couldn’t be true.

  “Who gave you your orders?” he asked, voice coming out in a croak.

  The Watchman gave a bone-chilling laugh that rasped and coughed.

  “I don’t have to answer any of your questions anymore.”

  The Prince, with a force of will that he would never have thought he possessed, thrust his face forward and let his voice roll out in a crack of sound.

  “Tell me!” he roared.

  The Watchman stumbled, and dropped the Prince, where he landed painfully on his back, still staring into the fiery green eyes. The ax faltered as if it were suddenly unsure of itself. The Prince fought for control of the creature, trying to force his will on the Watchman. How did Rikard do this so easily? Sweat broke from his forehead. The Watchman shook its head, and the moment passed. A thought seemed to occur to it.

  “Do you not know?”

  The Prince remained silent. The Watchman laughed, and eyed him like a wolf that had cornered a helpless deer.

  “My orders came from your Mother, little Prince.”

  The Prince surged to his feet, then stumbled backward as his ankle again collapsed beneath him.

  “Don’t lie,” he said, quietly, and then fear and anger took over and he was shouting. “DON’T LIE TO ME!”

  The green, demonic eyes flamed brighter and the creature cackled, a sound like a thousand nails scraped across stone. The onyx ax swept upward in an arch, and then plunged toward the Prince’s chest. The Prince lay in shock, unable to defend himself even if he had had the strength of limb to do so.

  An enormous swath of rippling steel interposed itself between the Prince and the ax. The gleeful triumph on the Death Watchman’s skeletal face contorted and became a look of fury. It leapt back with a snarl that cut off abruptly as anger turned to shocked disbelief.

  “You!”

  Tomaz stepped into the Prince’s view. He held his huge greatsword loosely in his right hand, as if it weighed nothing. His clothing was ripped, but his armor and his helm gleamed brightly, shining in a stray patch of sun.

  The Prince looked up into the face of the Watchman through a red haze that had settled over his vision. Vaguely, he registered that the Watchman was afraid. If the Prince hadn’t known better, he would have said it was terrified.

  What scares one of the Watchmen?

  “You’re dead!” it screamed, the ghoulish voice twisting the words into a scream of such ripping, throat tearing fury that no living thing could have uttered it.

  “No, Zaraoth,” the giant replied simply. “Not yet.”

  Tomaz flowed forward, steel blade flashing as it hit pockets of sunlight streaming through the clouds above. As big as the Death Watchman was, Tomaz was bigger. He seemed to be everywhere at once, in front, behind, to either side. Scratches began to appear in the Watchman’s black armor as the huge steel blade came closer and closer to sinking into the corrupted flesh; rips and tears formed in the creature’s black clothing, and streaming rivulets of yellow-green ichor began to flow from where the steel blade cut and slashed; the great ax seemed a child’s toy next to the enormous sword that whistled through the air with unholy speed.

  With a final overhand strike, the sword cut the haft of the ax cleanly in two, leaving the Watchman with the ax head in one hand and a long piece of useless black wood in the other. The Watchman turned to run, fear, rage, and inhuman strength driving him – too quickly for Tomaz to follow. It reached the treeline, and threw one last look over his shoulder at the Prince, its face a mask of rage.

  A slim form stepped out from the shadows of the closest tree, and with a flash of steel, a dagger was driven into the chink in the Watchman’s armor underneath the left shoulder. The dagger, long as it was, pierced the thing’s heart, freezing it in place. Another dagger flashed, digging into the back of its neck, severing the spine, and killing instantly. The Watchman dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, and the Prince felt the small wavering drop of life it had left in it disappear.

  The lifeless form of the Watchman slumped to the ground and began to crumble into dust. Within minutes, all that was left was the large black ax and an empty case of armor. The girl stepped into the clearing, eyes scanning the area.

  “You were telling the truth,” the Prince said blankly, “they were trying to kill me.”

  He fell silent, not knowing what else to say, feeling numb and empty. He should feel something shouldn’t he? Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two Exiles exchange a glance. After a moment of tension, the girl knelt and wiped her dagger on a piece of a dead Watch soldier’s clothing.

  “Come on,” she said, the barest hint of softness creeping into her voice. She roughly cleared her throat.

  “They won’t be alone - we need to get through the mountains and disappear for a while, see what we can find out about how many people are hunting you. The Death Watch is bound to have left word of its location, and there are always patrols in this area - two, sometimes three, roaming around looking for bandits. We should … go …”

  She trailed off and pink spots bloomed on her cheeks.

  “Come on princeling,” she commanded with the customary steel in her voice, moving off toward the deeper cover of the trees farther down the ravine.

  Like an automaton, the Prince rose under the watchful gaze of Tomaz and followed. The girl looked back and saw them following, and addressed herself to Tomaz over the Prince’s shoulder.

  “Do you want to do a quick scouting run? We want to know if we’re in the clear or not. We might not survive another ambush like this one.”

  “Wait,” the Prince responded mechanically as Tomaz began to move off, forgetting that the girl hadn’t spoken to him. “There are no more living nearby – only us three.”

  A brief silence followed this pronouncement.

  “What does that mean?” asked the girl, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

  “I’m the Prince of Ravens,” he responded numbly, voice still monotone and lifeless, “I can sense life. There are no more living besides the three of us. Not for nearly a mile in any direction.”

  The girl’s face turned from one of steely calm to one of red-hot hatred and the Prince vaguely registered that this was cause for concern. Yet, he couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to do anything about it. Tomaz laid a large hand on the Prince’s shoulder and turned him around.

  “What are you saying?” he rumbled quietly. Before the Prince could respond, the girl spoke:

  “You knew they were here.”

  It was a simple statement, but it caught the Prince’s attention. His hearing, still enhanced from the soldier’s death, caught the whisk of metal being drawn from a sheath and he turned back around just in time to see the girl launch herself across the clearing, daggers in hand. With a roar of alarm, Tomaz interposed himself between the two, and just in time. The girl pulled up short, held back by the big man’s outstretched and warding hands.

  “You were going to offer us up to save your own hide!” she snarled at the Prince, ignoring Tomaz and shouting past hi
m.

  “I thought they were here to rescue me!” he shouted back at her, shocked at the state the girl was in.

  “NO ONE IS GOING TO RESCUE YOU!” she screamed at him. She turned back to the clearing and gestured in a wide circle, taking in the bodies of the men lying dead on the ground and what remained of the Death Watchmen.

  “They were hunting you, oh great Prince of Ravens! I don’t know where they got their orders, but do you really think that once it’s clear they’re dead there won’t be more? You were kidnapped in the capital city of the Empire, right under the Empress’ nose. You survived, barely clinging to life long enough for Tomaz – an Exile, which I know must gall you to no end! – to save your worthless hide. Now Death Watchmen appear in the middle of the Elmist Mountains to finish the job and KILL YOU, and you’re still clinging to the hope that someone is going to come save you! Wake up, princeling!”

  And with that, she spun on her heel and made her way back into the trees in the direction of where they had first been ambushed. The Prince stood staring at her, mouth open, as Tomaz slowly lowered his hands and walked over to him. The big man grabbed the Prince by the arm and pulled the soldier’s notched sword out of his grip.

  “Come,” he rumbled, pulling the Prince, limping on his bad ankle, along with him. Now that the battle was over, the wounds he’d received had begun to sting with a vengeance. When they reached the end of the ravine, they saw that the girl had already finished repacking their bags and was tending to the horse that had been hit by the Watchmen’s arrows. After a quick examination, she gave two sharp pulls and the arrows came out. She quickly staunched the bleeding with strips of cloth from the same blanket that had provided the material for the Prince’s bonds and gag, and after the shocked, hurt horse had calmed down, it became clear that it had only sustained superficial injuries; the girl reached up her sleeve and brought out a rudimentary set of thread and needle and after the wounds had been stitched and bound, the horse seemed to be fine.

  “You do him,” she said abruptly, jerking her head at the Prince. Her jaw was clenched in intense anger, and it seemed to be taking all the will power she had not to turn and launch herself at him. “I don’t trust myself being around him right now.”

  Tomaz made no comment, but simply nodded and pulled his own needle and thread from a pouch at his waist, and, after removing the Prince’s shirt, began to stitch his wounds. The needle hurt, but the Prince was still in a state of shock and could barely form two coherent words, much less protest the cold metal sewing his skin together.

  Once Tomaz was finished, he pulled a few of the strips left from the torn blanket that had made the Prince’s gag and attached them to two long, straight pieces of wood, which held the Prince’s ankle straight. Then, without any more exchange of words, the big man threw him another spare shirt, fashioned new bonds for his wrists, and tied him to the horse. The girl grabbed the reins, viciously threw the cloak and hood over him, and then the three of them were off once more, almost as if they had never been attacked.

  As if they hadn’t just been ambushed. As if one of the Death Watchmen hadn’t just tried to kill the Prince in the name of his Mother.

  It occurred to him that maybe the girl was right.

  No! he told himself harshly, there is another reason. It must all be a misunderstanding, it’s impossible that …

  But it wasn’t. Here was the hard proof. Not only had he been kidnapped from the Fortress itself, but the Death Watchman had told him its orders had come from the Empress.

  Mother …

  No. It wasn’t possible. The Prince shook his head to clear the treasonous thoughts. It had to be one of the other Children. It had to be. But if it was one of his siblings, how had they corrupted the Watchmen? The ordinary soldiers could have been bought or bribed but the actual Watchmen, the Death Watch constructs that formed the center of the group, they cared nothing for money or material gain.

  This thought led him back to the ordinary man he had killed, and the memories of the man’s life came back to him, jumbled and confused and already fading as time passed. Desperate, the Prince did something he had only done once before, and dredged up the memories from the back of his mind where he had forced them and began to go through them, one by one, looking for any information that could help him.

  The process was painful. Not physically so, but mentally, and the Prince tried to make it go as quickly as possible. Memories of a wife flashed through him, and a sudden font of love sprang up and began to flow in his heart - yes, his wife Marya. Memories of making love to her, of their young children and his pride that his son was growing tall and strong. He had to get back to her; she would be waiting for him to return -

  No! the Prince said harshly, reasserting control over his mind. He wasn’t this man. He was … he was the Prince of Ravens, even if he had no name. Even if Mother had stripped him of his name … even if he was being hunted … no, he was a Prince. He had to be, or else what was he?

  Sweat had begun to bead on his forehead with the force of his concentration, and the hood was now uncomfortably stifling, but he couldn’t stop. He needed answers. So he waded once more into the mire of memories.

  After another few minutes, the Prince finally found what he was looking for: the memory of when the man had received the order to move out from the Fortress … the orders had come from the true Death Watchmen. The two skeletal creatures had called together a cell of the lesser foot soldiers, and they had set out the next day. There was no memory of a conspiracy, no memory of anything but the man’s fear at meeting the two creatures, and of their briefing that they were to hunt down and assassinate a dangerous traitor to the Empress.

  Angry and exhausted, the Prince shoved the memories away, and as he did, felt them fade completely from his mind, along with the rest of the soldier’s strength. His vision returned to normal, as did his hearing and other senses, and his emotions were once again his own, calm and under his control.

  So it was the Death Watchmen themselves who’d received the orders. That meant one of two things: either they had received their orders from the Empress through her Hand, or one of his siblings had managed to corrupt them. If the former, the girl was right and he truly was a marked man. If the latter … the magnitude of the task amazed him. He didn’t even know where one would begin to attempt to corrupt the Watchmen. But then again, his siblings had been alive much longer than he had, and until he received his Inheritance, as was custom, he was only privy to certain information. Rikard alone had been born over half a millennium ago. It was quite possible that they had access to knowledge far beyond the Prince’s own meager seventeen years. But even if possible, would one of his siblings truly move so openly against him?

  Princes of the Realm had conflicting spheres of power in the land of Lucia. The borders of each of the realms that made up the larger nation ruled by the Empress were not defined - and specifically kept that way by the Empress in order to sow discord among the Children. Perhaps one of his siblings had found a loophole in the conditioning of the Death Watchmen and exploited it.

  But it all came back to the single most important question: who would risk such a move? It was dangerous in the extreme for the Children to act openly against each other. The Prince hadn’t been alive long enough to act against or be acted against by one of the others, but he knew the histories. Not fifty years ago, Rikard, Prince of Lions, had moved openly against the third eldest Prince: Dysuna, Prince of Wolves. The Empress herself had seen to Rikard’s punishment, and it was rumored She had spared him not at all because he was Her First Son and Commander of the Imperial Armies. The punishment, of which the Prince of Ravens had only heard rumors, and vague ones at that, had been enough to discourage more acts of violence between the Children for fifty years. It was also rumored that the Empress was angrier that Rikard had failed and been found out than that he had committed the act in the first place. And besides, to Rikard fifty years must seem no more than a brief span of time. To Geofred, the sec
ond eldest at four and a half centuries, who spent all of his time in the mountain castle of Eyrie pouring over the deepest histories and prophecies of Lucia as was his duty, fifty years would be nothing, and the Prince’s own seventeen years no more than a blink.

  The Inheritances … I was Summoned to receive mine on the day I was taken.

  It was well known that the Empress, ever suspicious and calculating, tested the loyalty of Her subjects. In fact, the testing was often more intense the more important a person’s task was to be, the thought being that if the subject survived the test it would prove and ensure their loyalty, binding them closer to the Diamond Throne. When Symanta had delivered his Summons, his first thought had been that he was to receive his Inheritance. All the signs had pointed to it. Could it be that his Mother had engineered this after all?

  Excitement thrilled through the Prince as the pieces lined up and began to form a bigger picture. Could this all be a test? A move to discern the Prince’s trustworthiness as a Child of the Empress? Perhaps the Death Watchmen had been sent by his Mother or even one of his siblings on the Empress’ orders, to be certain that he was ready. Energy surged to the tips of his fingers – of course! This was the answer – he was being tested, and if he was intelligent enough to escape and return to Lucien to face his Mother, She would then give him his Inheritance to the final city and his mandate to sweep the Exiled from the Empire.

  But was he ready for that? He had assumed the Inheritance would come years later, that at most he was going to be told to prepare himself. Could it all be happening this quickly?

  He shook his head, dispelling the doubts in the blazing light of the revelation that his Mother had not abandoned him. If the Empress thought him ready, then he was ready. She was all knowing. But then what was to be his next move? He needed information, that much was certain, and he needed the two Exiles to drop their guard so he could get away. But he didn’t even know where they were, or where they were headed.

  Wait. A thrill shot through him. He did know where they were. The girl had told him, had let it slip while she was berating him.

  “ … appear in the middle of the Elmist Mountains …”

  The Elmist Mountains were a far distance south of Lucien, separating Tyne and Lerne from one another to the east and west, and ended in the south just north of the city of Banelyn. Tyne was the seat of his brother Rikard, and the Prince knew immediately that this wasn’t where the Exiles were headed, for the citizens who lived there, persuaded by the Lion Talisman, were fanatically loyal to Rikard, and such a place would be suicide for the Exiles. Lerne, the seat of Symanta, was equally treacherous, as it was the home province of the Seekers, who were just as dangerous in their own way as the Death Watchmen, if not more so. No, they must be heading directly south …

  Banelyn.

  That was the answer – that was where they were headed, and that was where he would make his escape. The city was large, but not modern enough to be the seat of any of the Children, and in fact was one of the cities that fell in the strange no man’s land between Realms of the Empire, with multiple Children often laying claim to it. It was long suspected that the Exiled used hidden way stations there to spy on the movements of troops in the Empire - and that meant that there was bound to be a Seeker there, to spy upon the spies. The Seekers of Light were feared by everyone in the Empire, Commons and High alike; even the Most High were known to speak softly and carefully when in the presence of the elusive Eyes and Ears of the Empress. But the Seekers were sworn to the Children, just as they were sworn to the Empress, so he had nothing to fear. If he could slip away from the two Exiles in the press of such a large city, perhaps even just on the outskirts … chances were that he would be able to make his way to the Seeker, and once there he’d be safe from the Exiles, able to make his way back to Lucien.

  The Prince peered up from under his hood at the backs of the two Exiles, and felt a strange pang deep in his chest. They had saved his life, even if it had been for their own gain in bringing him back to their people. It didn’t change anything, not really. But the girl could have run, and instead she’d brought back the giant in order to face the final Death Watchman, to save the Prince at great personal risk to both of them.

  But they were Exiles, and a single virtuous act did not cancel out a lifetime of wrongdoing, of that he was certain. However … he realized that he couldn’t turn them in. He owed them a debt now, one he had to repay. In fact, he owed the big man two debts, if, as it looked, he truly had nursed the Prince back to health after he’d been left for dead.

  I’ll leave them in the mountains outside of Banelyn, the Prince decided. If the maps of Lucia he’d seen in the Fortress Libraries were accurate, the city was nestled at the southern foot of the mountain range. He’d leave them there, and make his own way into the city. He’d craft some story for the Seeker, how he had slipped away from them days earlier and had no knowledge of where they’d gone. It was the best he could do to repay them.

  They’re Exiled Kindred – they should be happy I’m willing to do that much.

  But still his conscience panged him, something that he tried to smother as a sign of weakness. But nothing he told himself stamped it out completely, and as the day wore on he was lost once more in a mire of confusion.