The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 04 - A Foreign Heart Read online

  He felt a sudden churning in his torso, a twisting, grinding reordering of the elements of his body and soul that made him fall to his knees. The discomfort abruptly ceased, and his hand tingled sharply, as though it were being continually pricked with needles. His hand glowed brightly for a stretch of seconds before the light within became a bolt of bright energy that shot from his hand, through the crowd in front of him, to reach the haft of his knife, as it remained in the body that lay on the floor.

  The portion of the knife that was visible took on a glow, rising to a bright flash that instantaneously illuminated the entire hallway battlefield with brightness that rivaled daylight, distracting all the fighters momentarily. After the flash the knife returned to its normal appearance for another long moment, and then suddenly freed itself from the flesh of its victim and flew back to Kestrel’s hand.

  “Lucretia!” he shouted delightedly, as he stared at the knife that nestled in the palm of his hand.

  He knew what he had done; it was astonishing. He distantly heard the clash of battle resume among the others in the hallway, as they recovered from the shock of the momentary flash of light, but he remained on his knees, staring at the knife, and realizing that he had already unleashed the power that the goddess Kai had directed to take up residence within him. It had been a momentarily wrenching experience, and he had no idea what had triggered it, but he knew that he had made Lucretia regain the potency that the knife had originally held when Kai had given it to him, invested with her own powers at the time.

  Kestrel stared at the battle in front of him. He was still on his knees, looking through a forest of legs and torsos, and he searched for just a moment to spot the largest opponent facing him on the far side of Philip’s forces, then released his knife.

  “Lucretia, return,” he called seconds later, gratified by the behavior of the blade. It had acted just as it had before; the knife had flown directly at the opponent he had looked at and selected as his target, and it had maneuvered among the interceding bodies without hitting any other person on its way to the man he had wished for it to hit.

  The knife came flying back to him. He stood up as soon as his fingers had a grip on the handle, and he threw it again at the next target he selected.

  Philip’s forces flinched back momentarily as the men they were facing began to fall, but then surged forward, gaining space, making progress five or six feet at a time with every knife Kestrel threw.

  “Can we help, Kestrel friend?” Stillwater asked, floating behind Kestrel.

  “Is Philip nearby?” he shouted as he threw his knife again, this time at one of the fighters facing his own small squad.

  “He is in the room next to us, the one behind that door,” Stillwater indicated a door that Philip’s men had been defending.

  “Go inside and tell him we’ll be there in a few seconds,” Kestrel told Stillwater. “Odare, go see how Wren’s forces are doing,” he added. The imps flew away, as Kestrel threw his knife again.

  The palace defenders on the far side of Philip’s forces broke at that moment, turning and running down the hall, and moments later Namber’s remaining forces surrendered, shouting out their acquiescence.

  “Stop!” Kestrel shouted. “Everyone put your weapons down!”

  “Listen to the elf!” Philip’s voice sounded as he opened the door and saw the situation. “Everyone put your weapons down! Do as Kestrel commands!”

  There was sudden silence in the hallway. “Did you say, ‘Listen to the elf’?” Kestrel asked.

  Philip looked at him, then grinned. “I guess I did. Who knew I’d call a man an elf who happens to be one of my best friends!”

  Kestrel grinned, and saw that the men around them were grinning as well. There was a thought in the back of his mind, seeking to spring forward, an introspective consideration of his own feelings about being called an elf, but he pressed the point backwards, knowing that there were too many other things to focus on.

  “What’s the situation?” he asked as the groups began to sort themselves out, with the new prisoners pressing their backs to the wall.

  “Why’d you join the other side?” one of the prisoners asked one of the members of Kestrel’s squad.

  “The goddess appeared! Kai came to the palace. She told us to follow him, the elf!” a nameless follower replied.

  “The goddess?” one of Philip’s rebels asked, looking at Kestrel.

  “Yes! And Growelf was there too! They made him a god, just like they are!” another member of Kestrel’s squad spoke up.

  “He’s a god? A god of the elves?” another question arose.

  “Stop! Everyone stop!” Kestrel shouted. “We have a mission here; we’ll answer all these questions later. Now Philip, tell us what we need to do,” he paused, as Odare returned.

  “Kestrel friend, Wren’s soldiers are in trouble! Follow me!” the imp called, then began flying back down the hall behind Kestrel.

  “My squad, come with me. Philip, we’ll be back! Carry on and use Killcen to send messages when you have something to tell us. Killcen, stay with Philip,” Kestrel spat out the stream of directions as he began to run after Odare, and heard the sound of his followers coming behind him in the palace hall.

  They rounded a corner, and started down a broader hall, as Killcen appeared and floated along beside Kestrel. “Kestrel being, Philip says to tell you that the palace has more defenders than expected. The false prince is already back in the city, and sending his men to the palace. He wants everyone to escape immediately,” the imp reported.

  Kestrel felt a shock of horror at the thought that they might face massive forces from Prince Namber’s defeated expeditionary forces, returning with unexpected speed from Hydrotaz. They would be sure to seek bloody revenge on everyone they found causing havoc in the Prince’s palace during the tyrant’s absence.

  “Tell Philip that I’ll get Wren and her squad, and we’ll meet him at the escape gate, unless he needs us to do something else,” Kestrel passed the message to the imp, just as he turned a corner and saw a terrible battle underway in a wide foyer.

  Wren’s squad was trapped against a wall, with two score or more guards loyal to Namber attacking them savagely.

  Kestrel stopped, saw an officer, and threw his knife, then pulled his bow off his shoulder and began to fire arrow after arrow into the attacking crowd.

  “Get ready; they’ll be coming at us anytime now. Spread out in line,” Kestrel instructed his small group as he continued to fire arrows. One of his supporters apparently had a bow as well, because other arrows began to fly, and the two started to cause heavy carnage among the attackers.

  “Odare, go to Philip and ask if he can send anyone to help us,” Kestrel instructed his imp companion. “Lucretia, return,” he called, and stopped firing arrows to catch his knife.

  He saw Wren’s sergeant facing a large attacker who was about to overwhelm the man who had come to Kestrel’s side after the goddess’s revelation. Kestrel threw his knife at the sergeant’s opponent, then fired another arrow into the crowd of attackers.

  The forces opposed to Wren’s embattled group began to shift their focus. “Lucretia return,” Kestrel called as he saw men swinging into a line that was prepared to charge at Kestrel’s own group. He received the knife, then threw it at the officer preparing to lead the charge down the hall, and fired another arrow as he called for his knife to return once again.

  He tossed the knife, then saw that the charge towards his small force was underway. While it had relieved Wren’s squad of considerable pressure, the numbers coming towards Kestrel and his men were unstoppable. “We’ve got to fall back,” Kestrel motioned his men to go backwards and around the corner, and followed them as they did so. As they got several yards along, around the corner and momentarily hidden from sight, a squad of Philip’s men came running to help them in response to Odare’s plea.

  Make a line here,” Kestrel told them all. They would be able to create a deadly encounter for the at
tackers as they blindly came around the corner, and with the additional men they had received, he was sure they could overcome their opponents. And as the palace defenders came upon them seconds later, a terrific battle ensued, with quick victory for Kestrel’s men.

  The slaughter turned into a reversal of the chase that had just occurred, and Kestrel led his reinforced rebels down the hallway and into a bloody melee, where they managed to set Wren’s small force free from entrapment.

  “Let’s get back to Philip and help him get out of the palace,” Kestrel said over his shoulder as he knelt to administer some of the water from the healing spring to an injured fighter who had accompanied Wren.

  The full group now numbered more than two dozen, and they began to return to Philip’s location, taking their wounded with them.

  “Hurry! Philip needs to talk to you! Prince Namber is already back in the city!” a guard exclaimed as they came around a corner of a palace hallway.

  “It’s true,” Philip confirmed moments later, as they met him out in a courtyard, standing next to where the throne had been loaded onto the wagon for transport. “Apparently Namber and his most loyal followers got on the first ship to leave Hydrotaz and caught a very favorable wind back to Graylee. They’ve already disembarked and started hurrying towards the palace when he heard about our attack.”

  “Would you stay here and fight if you had enough men to defend the palace?” Kestrel asked impulsively.

  “Of course, but we don’t,” Philip replied.

  “Let’s get some,” Kestrel said. “Everyone stay here. Philip and I will be back in ten minutes,” he told the encircling group. “Stillwater,” he called, “take me back to Hydrotaz, and then bring Philip there as well. We have to hurry!”

  Seconds later Kestrel stood back in a dark room in the Hydrotaz palace. He opened a door to admit light, just as Philip arrived.

  “There are no words to describe that experience!” Philip reflected on being carried by the imps.

  “Stillwater, go back to Blackfriars now and talk to King Jonson. Tell him we need hundreds of imps instantly. We’re going to carry an entire army from Hydrotaz to Graylee this hour. Go!” Kestrel commanded loudly.

  “Guards!” Kestrel stepped out into the hallway and called loudly. “Guards! Take us to see Princess Yulia! Tell her Prince Philip is here from Graylee on urgent business!”

  Five minutes later a sleepy-appearing Yulia and Philip squeezed one another in a fierce hug, as Kestrel tried to explain the situation to Ferris as quickly as possible.

  “You want us to send out men to Graylee right now?” Ferris asked in confusion.

  “Instantly!” Kestrel confirmed. A dozen imps appeared along the ceiling of the room suddenly, drawing exclamations from the befuddled occupants. “Here’s our means of travel. Everyone who can be ready to fight in five minutes can go right now. Send us a battalion if you can.”

  “Bring the palace guard up,” Yulia called out loudly. “Go awaken every squad we have within reach. This is our chance to finish the battle that started three days ago!” she sent runners out with messages.

  “I’ll go back and prepare our men to fight, Kestrel. You organize them at this end,” Philip directed as he regretfully broke his clinch with Yulia.

  The imps saw Kestrel’s motion, waving them to carry Philip away, and they swarmed around the presumptive prince. “I’ll come back to invite you to visit my palace soon!” he smiled at Yulia, and then was gone.

  “We’ll have to send men one at a time,” Kestrel explained, as the first few guards started appearing with full armament.

  “I’ll go first,” Ferris spoke up. “You’ll want to have an officer ready to give our men direction when they arrive in Graylee.”

  Kestrel motioned again, and more imps descended. “I’m telling them where to take the human fighters, Kestrel commander,” Stillwater called out.

  Kestrel grinned at the imp, then watched Ferris disappear.

  The pace of transfer quickly increased, as more imps and more fighters began to arrive in the small meeting room, and Kestrel quickly increased the pace of movement, so that the Hydrotaz forces were shipping out four at a time, and soon ten at a time on their way to the most unexpected battle they had ever engaged in, but one that gave them all glee. The opportunity to fight against the Prince of Graylee, to deny him admission to his own palace, appealed to them all greatly, as did the wonder of traveling via the magical powers of the imps.

  “Everything is going well, Kestrel friend,” Odare reported ten minutes later as she returned from Graylee.

  “Really?” Kestrel asked, pleased to hear the report.

  “Well, not completely,” Odare admitted. “There is some confusion among the humans about who is in command. Some of the new humans we are taking to the other city are not willing to listen to the humans that were already there. And the battle is very close to starting, they say.”

  “Here,” Kestrel stepped in among the next group of soldiers preparing to transfer to Graylee, “take me with this group, and keep bringing more men over,” he instructed, and then he was surrounded by imps and taken to Graylee.

  “What’s the problem here?” Kestrel immediately barged through the soldiers in search of someone in command.

  “These blockheads won’t follow orders; they’re not going where they’re assigned, elfling,” a Graylee rebel explained to Kestrel as he gestured towards a large group of Hydrotaz soldiers who stood together in a garden square; the Graylee rebel did not recognize Kestrel as anyone of authority. “Now we’re bringing in your type?!”

  “You’re going to obey ‘his type’ when it’s Kestrel,” a man’s voice sounded. Kestrel turned to see the sergeant who had been working with Wren inside the palace, the one who had been divinely ordered to become one of his initial followers at the pool house. “This elf is the goddess’s champion; she’s even given him divine powers.”

  “This is the time for everyone to follow orders and pull together!” Kestrel shouted. He turned to the Hydrotaz soldiers. “Why aren’t you going to positions?”

  “We were told Ferris would be here to take command of us,” a sergeant replied. “We’re not going to listen to some Graylee jackhead.”

  “Will you listen to me?” Kestrel asked loudly.

  “You fought for us against the invasion, so we’d follow you,” the sergeant replied immediately.

  “Where do you need us to go?” Kestrel asked the Graylee sergeant.

  “They’re assigned to the main gate, that way,” the sergeant pointed.

  “Let’s go,” Kestrel said, starting to briskly walk towards the gate. “Odare, tell the imps to start delivering the rest of the soldiers directly to our new location,” he directed his imp.

  “You need to hurry,” the Graylee sergeant called, and Kestrel broke into an elven trot, which forced the Hydrotaz men and women to start running to keep up with him as they headed towards likely battle.

  “We need you over here,” a man’s voice shouted as they came within sight of the gate. “Namber is only five minutes away, the scouts said.”

  As he approached the gate and started to climb the ladder to the top of the wall, Kestrel heard the first faint sounds of the prince’s army approaching. There were drums beating and men shouting, as well as the glow of many lanterns illuminating the road for the approaching ruler.

  Philip and a handful of others already stood along the walkway above the gate, facing the open public square beyond.

  “I’m glad to see you arrive,” Philip said wryly. “It was starting to feel lonely up here.”

  Hydrotaz soldiers were climbing the ladders, filing along the wall top to create a formidable force. Killcen, he saw, was staying near Philip. Kestrel waved his approval, then beckoned the imp to come close.

  “Yes lord friend Kestrel?” the imp inquired.

  “You’re with Philip, Odare is with me; where are the others?” Kestrel asked.

  The imp paused momentarily, then spok
e. “Stillwater is back in Hydrotaz, and Canyon is with your cousin, the lady Wren.”

  Kestrel nodded his thanks, and saw another squad of Hydrotaz forces arrive, as the transporting imps delivered them directly to the area by the main gate.

  And then the prince’s army came into view, rounding a corner of a boulevard, and parading into the great square that stood before the main gate to the palace. The drummers that accompanied the tyrannical ruler thumped a rapid beat as squad after squad arrived in the square, and spread out, filling the space, while more soldiers continued to arrive.

  “You are the failed usurper,” Prince Namber shouted directly to Philip several minutes later, after watching his forces continue to arrive and fill the space. “I have returned to reclaim the throne that is lawfully mine, and mine alone

  “I will be merciful. If you and all your followers will file out peacefully right now, and put down your arms, I will promise that you all will receive swift and painless deaths, all except that evil elf, who must answer to a higher power,” he indicated Kestrel, who was visible in the torch light atop the wall.

  “But if you do not comply immediately, then you will face a terrible fate, and you all are doomed to the worst tortures my men can inflict upon you. So what is your answer? Will you be sensible, or will you suffer?”

  In response, Philip suddenly lifted a golden scepter, one that had been hidden in a burlap bag, and he held the ornate rod high over his head. “This was a symbol of your reign over our nation,” Philip said loudly.

  He paused, then threw the scepter to the paving stones far below, and everyone watched as the wand broke into pieces when it hit the surface. “And that is a symbol of your leadership. Your cruelty led to your fall, and your control of our nation has been broken as thoroughly as that scepter is shattered.

  “You may come and pick up the pieces, if you wish to take them with you when you go into exile,” Philip shouted. “But you will not re-enter this palace as the ruler of Graylee.”