Nolyn Page 33

  Nyphron knew that the infestations of ghazel in Avrlyn and Calynia were advanced invaders. The real strength of the Blind Ones—the creatures called moklins by the Fhrey—lay to the far east in the ancient lands, where it was rumored that they ruled a powerful empyre.

  One day they will win. But not today.

  Nyphron led the others to the gate. He wished Tekchin had come with Sikar. He would have liked having his old comrade in arms beside him. These new kids were Instarya in name only. Where were his Galantians? Where was Eres, Medak, Grygor, Vorath, Anwir, and of course, Sebek? Dead, centuries ago—victims to the Great War that had given Nyphron his crown. Surrounded by a host of armored Fhrey, Nyphron felt alone.

  “Nolyn!” Nyphron shouted as he spotted his son running across the city’s plaza toward him.

  “Father,” his son said, and stopped just short of the gate to offer the legion salute. “I thought you might need another sword.”

  Nyphron couldn’t help beaming with pride.

  Perhaps there is one last Galantian, after all.

  Nyphron was framed by the gate, just across the plaza—approximately seven hundred feet away. Back when Sephryn used to train every day, she could reliably hit her mark at five hundred. Even though Nyphron was much bigger than an acorn, shooting him where he stood was unlikely. She needed him to come forward.

  Anywhere near the fountain. Don’t think. Don’t aim. It’s like throwing a ball.

  Sephryn pulled back on Audrey, testing her. Then she checked the placement of her feet. Everything had to go perfectly. It wasn’t like throwing a ball and nothing like anything she’d done before. When Sephryn let go, someone would die. At that moment, it hardly mattered that it was Nyphron—that it was the emperor.

  That queasiness in her stomach was growing. Sephryn struggled to breathe as the memory of the Voice crept into her thoughts. “That’s not how this works . . . I guess I’ll just have to kill him. Is that what you want?”

  She pulled air into her lungs, clenched her teeth, and swallowed down the rising bile.

  “That’s better, but don’t take too long. I don’t think little Nurgya likes it here, and you wouldn’t want to scar him for life, would you? So do hurry, for his sake.”

  Sephryn checked her grip on Audrey. When she looked back, she spotted Nolyn running to his father.

  “We need to cut our way to the oberdaza ring,” Nyphron told his son. “Reports say they are in the arena down in the West End. If we can reach them and disrupt their enchantment, the legions can enter and finish off the rest.” Nyphron looked at his son and thought a moment. “It might be best if you hold the line here, while I lead a handful of the others to the arena. Just in case.”

  Nolyn shook his head. “Today, I fight at my father’s side.”

  Nyphron couldn’t hold back his grin. “In that case, I feel sorry for the ghazel.”

  Ahead of them, the goblin horde rushed up the Grand Marchway and poured into the plaza, flooding the far side of the great square. Nyphron drew his sword, as did Nolyn and the rest of the Instarya. Together father and son led the attack, rushing forward into the square, meeting the fray halfway.

  The clicking whine stopped the moment the two sides crashed.

  Centuries of idleness blew away as little more than dust the moment Nyphron came against his first foe. His heart pounded; his arms felt their old grace and balance; his feet remembered the steps. Ghazel blood was his reward as two of the creatures lost their heads to his blade. He expected to see Nolyn fighting at his side, but his son was missing.

  Concerned that his boy had been wounded, Nyphron stopped his push and turned. His mind had nothing to do with his next action; there was no thought nor purposeful intention. Pure reflex saved the emperor’s life as his sword deflected his son’s. Nolyn had tried to stab him in the back, thrusting his weapon at a gap beneath his breastplate. Nyphron was stunned, not so much that Nolyn had tried to murder him, but that he did so in such a cowardly way.

  Plymerath was there in an instant, driving forward against the ghazel, filling the gap Nyphron’s pause had left. There, beside the Ulurium Fountain, in the eye of the hurricane that swelled around them, father and son faced each other.

  “You’re not my son!” The idea came to Nyphron with such perfect clarity that it freed him. He struck out with the pommel of his sword, hitting Nolyn in the face.

  The boy fell at Nyphron’s feet. As he did, the illusion flickered and Nyphron caught a glimpse of the Miralyith on the ground.

  Mawyndulë?

  “You!” Nyphron shouted. “This is all your doing! All of it. I should have killed you centuries ago. Time to fix my mistake.”

  Nyphron raised his blade.

  Mawyndulë hastily moved his hands, weaving a spell, something to defend himself. Nyphron had seen the gesture before. It wouldn’t work. Nyphron’s blade was etched with the Orinfar, his whole body tattooed. The Miralyith’s magic was useless.

  Sephryn watched as Nyphron and Nolyn charged out into the square, father and son defending the city, or maybe the entire empyre, against a raging horde of—of what? They were undoubtedly the imagined maggots she’d heard in the alleys, but these strange and terrifying creatures wore armor, held curved swords, and possessed massive claws and mouths filled with sharp teeth.

  That wasn’t what she’d expected. Nothing about that day made sense.

  Being Founder’s Day, there were supposed to be speeches, music, and a parade. Instead, there were . . .

  Goblins?

  Nolyn had told her about them, but those monsters were distant threats on the periphery of the empyre. Centuries ago, he had been sent to fight them, and Nolyn had—

  Nolyn! Is that why he’s here? Did the goblins break through? How is that possible?

  She hadn’t heard any rumors of an attack. No warning that the new war was going badly. There hadn’t been any refugees. So how could goblins be in the city—and in such large numbers? Lost in ignorance and confusion, Sephryn was baffled.

  What am I going to believe? Common sense or my eyes? And why today? Why now?

  The coincidences were too numerous to ignore: the Voice, a goblin invasion, the order for her to retrieve the horn, her missing son, Nolyn’s arrival, and the demand for her to kill the emperor. Everything was linked, all part of a bigger picture. A plan of some kind.

  But whose?

  Sephryn’s stomach did a backflip. She knew in her heart—felt it with unquestionable certainty—that the Voice had lied. “My son is dead, isn’t he?” she called out. “You killed him. He’s been dead all along, hasn’t he? Hasn’t he?”

  Silence.

  “Answer me!”

  The Voice wasn’t talking. It didn’t have to. Her baby had been killed on the day he was taken.

  Sephryn put down the arrows, her body losing strength. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I won’t be part of your plan. I’m not killing anyone.”

  “Yes, you will,” the Voice finally spoke.

  “My son is dead. So you can kiss my culling ass, you brideeth eyn mer! And if I—”

  “Your son still lives, but Nolyn’s life hangs by a string. It’s up to you to save him.”

  Down in the square, she watched as the emperor, Nolyn, and the Instarya charged into the plaza and attacked the goblins.

  “You can see him, can’t you? In the square with Nyphron?”

  The Instarya advanced in a formation like the flight of geese. The emperor formed the point as they crashed into the sea of goblins. Fewer than two dozen Fhrey, and Nolyn, fought against hundreds.

  Where are the legions?

  Sephryn nocked her arrow again.

  Only twenty-four arrows and there must be nearly five hundred goblins.

  “I don’t have to kill him. The emperor is going to die anyway.”

  “Keep watching.”

  Sephryn stood up and placed one bare foot on the iron rail that decorated the base of the dome. She loaded five arrows in her draw hand—the
way her mother had always done. The act felt natural.

  “The daughter of Moya the Magnificent, who is also endowed with the Fhrey blood of an Instarya father, would be amazing.”

  Nyphron slew the first four goblins in his path. The rest pulled back.

  Nolyn and the Instarya followed behind his father. They were in a tight pack, pressed in from all sides.

  Sephryn looked toward the river and the Grand Arch.

  Where are the legions?

  When she looked back, Sephryn saw Nyphron turn around and strike Nolyn in the face with the butt of his sword.

  Nolyn went down, lost within the sea of Fhrey and goblins. Over the roar of battle, she distinctly heard Nyphron say, “You’re not my son!”

  With Nolyn lying somewhere on the ground, Nyphron raised his sword, and proclaimed, “This is all your doing! All of it. I should have killed you centuries ago. Time to fix my mistake.”

  “Nolyn!” Sephryn cried out.

  Don’t think—feel. Let your body take over. Arch like the wood, then release the tension and fly.

  It wasn’t until she saw the arrow hurtling toward the emperor that Sephryn realized she’d launched it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Miralyith

  Still unable to draw their weapons, Nolyn and Jerel had bolted for the docks. Demetrius—or whoever he or it was—had run off in the opposite direction, working his way upstream as the ghazel horde descended. The two men ran past white limestone columns and pale granite walls. In the past, Nolyn had always thought of Percepliquis as locked in an eternal winter—stark and cold. That morning, as the monotonous pallor blurred by, he saw it as a tomb, a monumental sepulcher to the folly of man and Fhrey.

  Nolyn didn’t understand exactly what had happened, but magic was involved. Of that he had no doubt. Someone, or something, had disguised its true form, and the city was being overrun by ghazel—a plan worked out well in advance.

  Is Demetrius a goblin warlord? Or maybe a Ba Ran ghazel chieftain trying to end the war in one bold stroke?

  That would make sense, except . . .

  “The Blind Ones have the Art. Terribly crude, you understand. Although they’re much better at it now; I had to teach them proper techniques.”

  Whoever was pretending to be Demetrius wasn’t a ghazel. That left only a student of his aunt Suri or a Miralyith.

  Nyphron’s words came to his mind. “Once upon a time, I knew a son who actually did kill his father. He wanted his father’s throne for many of the same reasons you want mine. They were Fhrey, so the son paid a terrible price.”

  Nolyn had been so young when the Great War ended. But everyone from that time knew about the one-on-one battle between Nyphron and the former Prince of Erivan.

  “Demetrius is Mawyndulë!” Nolyn shouted to Jerel as they ran. Whether his fellow soldier knew that name and what it meant was impossible to tell.

  The Grand Arch came into view, and both of them stopped running. The race was over, and they had lost. Blocking the way, a crude line of ghazel warriors stood.

  “Back to the palace?” Jerel asked, panting for air.

  Behind them, a dozen goblins closed in.

  Nolyn tried again to pull his sword but found it still frozen in its scabbard. Whatever enchantment Mawyndulë had used was still in effect. “We’ll never make it.”

  Jerel and Nolyn shifted to stand back-to-back.

  In response, ghazel closed in from both sides. They didn’t rush. The two teams fanned out like hunters working to secure their trap. The white marble colonnades outside the Imperial Baths stood on either side of the broad way, offering possible refuge but no escape. Nolyn considered running inside, then rejected the idea. If the two of them had access to their weapons, perhaps that would work. But running for cover would only delay their deaths. Hope, both for them and the city, lay in reaching the river and the legions, then finding a way to break the enchantment. Mawyndulë wasn’t the one keeping the others out. There had to be oberdaza somewhere, and with any luck, the witch doctors were nearby. But luck hadn’t been with Nolyn that morning, and he had no reason to suspect that would change. He had no hope of reaching the river.

  It’s Founder’s Day. Normally, the city would be filled with people, even at such an early hour, but no minstrels filled the air with music; no drums announced the parade; not a single tremble stand had been set up to sell the sweet, seasonal drink. What a sad holiday this is.

  The ghazel that approached held spears and shields. Not often had Nolyn seen them use weapons. Usually, blades and armor were reserved for elite troops; these did seem bigger, but it was difficult to tell with ghazel. They had a habit of bloating themselves, inflating their size like grouse or howler monkeys. Their glowing eyes flashed brightly at the sight of their prey.

  “This god of yours,” Nolyn said to Jerel, “did he mention this?”

  “Sadly, he was light on specifics.”

  “They always are, aren’t they?”

  As the ghazel closed the distance, his mind flew to Sephryn. Nolyn remembered the way she braided her hair back in four lines; how to most she hadn’t appeared to age, but he had noticed that her face became longer and thinner over the centuries. It had lost its youthful fullness, allowing a more mature definition that he preferred. In summer, her cheeks were dappled with faint freckles—so un-Fhrey-like. So was her one crooked tooth. Most never noticed that, either; Sephryn agonized over it.

  She was so close, likely still asleep in that little house of hers on Ishim’s Way. If the route had been clear, he could have run there in less than ten minutes.

  I don’t have ten minutes.

  Nolyn wished he could see her one last time, but also wished she was a hundred miles away.

  Maybe she is. Maybe she’s visiting her father in Merredydd.

  As the ghazel neared, Nolyn formed the only weapons he had left, clenching his hands into fists.

  This city is a tomb.

  The piercing clang turned everyone’s heads, even those of the ghazel, who pivoted toward the river like a flock of pigeons caught off guard. Another clang and then a shriek. Not a human sound—the scream came from a ghazel.

  Everything about the goblins disturbed Nolyn. The inhuman way they moved, the clicking, the leathery look of their lips and the forest of teeth they framed—all of it was unnerving. Their death cries were no different. When stabbed, they wailed like demons, a soul-shaking shriek. That is why he aimed for decapitation when possible. At that moment, however, Nolyn found himself elated with the sound.

  He was even more pleased with the next shout.

  “Nolyn! Jerel! This way!” Amicus yelled from the river side of the piazza.

  The Sik-Aux! They’re here!

  “Go, sir!” Jerel shouted as he put himself between Nolyn and the onrush of goblins.

  The bravery of the man was undeniable, and Loyalty itself could learn a thing or two from Jerel. Nolyn thought about staying, but only for a moment. He would best serve Jerel by running. His hesitation, so as not to appear a coward, would only prove to kill them both.

  Seeing the Sik-Aux, Nolyn had hoped Mawyndulë had lied, and that he would also find the full contingent of legions pouring into the city. Instead, he found only a small band of Teshlors wound up in a ball, battling an angry hive of goblins.

  Seeing Nolyn, Amicus broke free, stripped himself of caution, and ran toward his commander. Three ghazel tried to stop him. Two died. The last one lost an arm and, with it, his will to fight.

  One ghazel remained between Nolyn and the First Spear. Guessing correctly that Nolyn was the easier kill, the ghazel set his feet.

  Nolyn accepted as fact that the Prophet saw into the future. His only question was whether Amicus had determined his next move before starting his run.

  Two swords were thrown into the air.

  The first was the Sword of Brigham, which was thrown with such perfect accuracy that its handle practically landed in Nolyn’s hand. He caught the sword an instant
before the goblin impaled himself on its tip. The second, the Sword of Wraith, was hurled with more strength, passing high over Nolyn’s head.

  Seeing Amicus barehanded, the nearby ghazel swarmed him—but not before the big blade came off his back. The Sword of the Word rang out with a mournful whistle as it cut through the air, but that sound was soon drowned out by soul-shaking shrieks.

  Catching movement from the corner of his eye, Nolyn spun, his blade raised. What he found was Jerel, holding the Wraith. The bloodstained blade indicated it had arrived similarly gift-wrapped.

  The other Teshlors made their way to Nolyn, Amicus, and Jerel, cutting a hole through the ghazel’s ranks. Where once there had been thirty goblins hunting two unarmed men, now seventeen of the creatures faced eight swords. The odds were still in the ghazel’s favor, but recent history suggested the tide had turned. They stayed back.

  “Welcome home, sir!” Mirk greeted him with a great grin, punctuated at the corners by his wounds.

  “How’d it go with Daddy?” Smirch asked as the Teshlors formed a circle defense.

  “Perplexing,” Nolyn admitted, feeling the weight and balance of the sword in his hands. He hated fighting with an unknown weapon, even if it was a legendary heirloom. “Family holidays are never comfortable or, in this case, what you’d expect.”

  “You’re alive.”

  “Like I said, never what you expect.” Nolyn gave his new blade a quick practice swing, then nodded toward Amicus. “Thanks for the sword. Ours aren’t working today.”

  “Figured as much,” Amicus said. “But remember, it’s just a loan. There are generations of Killians who’d haunt me if I lost them.”

  “Where’d you find the ghazel, sir?” Myth asked Nolyn as he took a moment to wipe the sweat from his hands on his chest.

  Before he could answer, Riley said, “Strange, I’m seeing a surprising number of Urgvarian Ba Ran, the smaller ones without claws. They are seafaring goblins, unlike the Ankor warriors we’ve been fighting in the Erbon. Don’t see them much around here. They’re usually on the Green Sea.”