The Royals

Chapter 52

They led him to a tent set apart from the others and indicated he should stand guard while they were inside. He smiled to let them know he understood, and made

no comment about the goat-dung at the spot where they directed him. If these men thought it important for him to genuflect in a pile of manure, he'd learned better than to question them. Shovels made very good teachers that way.

The wind picked up after they'd been gone some time. He smelled dead things and dinner, possibly one and the same. He heard the laughter from within the tent and wondered idly what amused them.

Kneeling with his back to the tent, he recognized

what the rhythmic thumping and grunting defined, and

he didn't want to know more than that. He concentrated on the smell of goat-waste to keep his mind off the elves. It worked until the shouting started. 'Stay still, you troll-trash.' A hand smacked loudly against flesh.

A woman cried out. 'Not my 'ffair,' Willam told himself. Affair, good joke,

he thought. Shrill laughter bubbled up from a terrified

place in his back-brain and exploded across the camp. *You out there, shut up!"

'What'd you bring him for anyway?' said the other elf inside the tent. 'Oh, I have my reasons,' the first said. "Isn't that right,

troll-trash?"

From the moment Willam had fallen in the river, fear

and regret had overlaid his righteous anger. He lived

and breathed in a bubble pierced only by order and

obedience. The elves' laughter at the woman's anguished

cries changed that. Their cruelty stabbed him to the core, and his rage crashed to the surface. Suddenly aware of more than his immediate surround ings, though still not entirely himself, he pulled himself erect and scooted back from the refuse. Willam focused

on the woman's voice to decide where to direct his next move. Thinking he needed to cover his abrupt shift in mood, he continued to let out an occasional shriek of laughter. Willam needn't have worried. The elves paid him no

attention. He was just another pawn doing as he was

ordered.

The two came out and walked away without dismissing him from his post. They returned with three others, who took their own turns inside the tent. Willam kept his face blank, and tried not to think how they might well have tried all going at once if the canvas could have stretched to hold them.

The woman's sobs were squelched by another blow. Willam wondered despite himself whether she still lived. He was trembling from cold and anger by the time they finally left, snickering and chuckling at the 'i***t human. 'Wouldn't she make him a lovely bride?' they asked.

He waited, counting slow sets of seven sevens and

another seven sevens again before he rose from the filth

and entered the tent himself.

She did not so much as moan when he let the flap drop behind him and cinched it tight. Maybe she was afraid - as he had been - or perhaps she hadn't heard him.

The poor woman was a ruin. He began with her face, tearing a rag from his shirt and wetting it with his own spit to clean away the worst of the dried blood. He found a puddle of snowmelt and packed it on her swelling eye.

The good eye opened and went wide with alarm.

'Shh, it'll be all right, lady. We'll fix you up. Don't you worry. I always keep my promises."

The woman relaxed and drifted off to sleep. How very like Lyda she was, trusting him even in the face of utter wickedness.

He felt her limbs and belly for broken bones and hidden bleeding. Arms and legs were intact under the bruises, but she had a broken rib. As he tore another strip from his tattered tunic and wrapped it around her, he realized he knew this woman, had known her all his adult life.

Gently Willam finished the task he'd started. Quietly he sank down on the floor, put his head next to hers and wept.

Walther Shortdwarf tried to shed the dragon skin to no avail. The One Land was aflame and he was fated to watch, frustrated and worthless.

Princess Kate led the great magic confrontation against the elfwitch. Prince Henry stood at her side as much a part of her as she was of him. Maarcus the Seventh defended them both. Walther almost missed himself, so short behind the humans.

Where were Abadan and the elder Maarcus? He beheld only a greyness where they should have been, a greyness Walther had never experienced and had never heard spoken of in the many tales of the storytellers.

The dwarf felt the greyness pulling him into its maw.

He fought and struggled to return to full consciousness,

but fell into its absence.

Ah, there was Abadan. A single candle-flame pinpointed the lesson the magician had been trying to teach Walther fo the past two weeks. They had been interrupted so frequentl that he finally gave up in disgust.

Walther focused on the drawing of a triangle surround ing a square. "Think of the Greater Sisters as forming a triangle equal on all sides. The Lesser Sisters make up a square around it, shielding the triangle, protecting their Greater Sisters. Just as we defend the royal house."

Walther shook his head. "But don't the Great Sisters look after the races of humanity while the Lesser watch over the elements? Can't elves, dwarves, and humans safeguard earth, air, water, and fire more readily than the reverse?'

'I've never tutored a dwarf before,' Abadan said. 'I suspect you view the world in such proportions because you are closer to the earth than humans."

'But no nearer than the elves and humans once were,' Walther argued. "Perhaps the religion has been corrupted, reversed in a way. What if it was not the square's work to protect the triangle but the reverse?" He made his own drawings.

'Maybe there is a kinship among the Seven Sisters that has been forgotten,' Walther insisted. 'Can one leg of the triangle change places with one side of the square and maintain the balance?' He stopped. 'Can the twins

a

remain propped up without a third or fourth limb?" he asked quietly. This last was not a question he had considered when speaking with Abadan, but it jolted him from his vision

with unexpected force. 'Henry! I've got to find him. He roused himself from the dusty corner where he'd collapsed when the sight overtook him, and ran toward the magician's chamber.

Furniture had been smashed to kindling everywhere. Bits of food trailed through the hallways and dripped from the walls. Walther offered a quick thanks to the Sisters for protecting him during the mêlée, then instantly turned to worry over what they would eat now that their stores had been sacked.

'No time,' he told himself. 'No time. Have to find Henry.' The door to Abadan's magic chamber hung open. His

magicks were so much bubbling stew thrown to the counter and floor. Walther hurried into the smoke-filled room, shouting, 'Master Abadan!"

No one answered.

They've killed him, he thought. But no, there were no bodies hidden in the bespelled haze.

Outside the door, a man yelled, 'Down with the Dragon Prince. Long live the rightful king.' Walther scooted back into the smoky shadows, hold

ing his breath to keep from inhaling deadly fumes all

the while.

A mob of rioters carrying Prince Hadrian marched behind the man. 'Long live the king!'

The dwarf let them pass around a corner then rushed the other way in search of Abadan. He finally found the magician in the Dragon Prince's

study

Keening over the body of Sir Maarcus. So that was why the physician was missing from the

vision. No time, no time, he thought. He put his hand on the magician's shoulder. 'Abadan, where's Henry?' answer.

Lost to his mourning, the man didn't 'Harmon, where is the prince?"

The elf managed a red-eyed shake of his head. No time, no time, he thought. At last, Walther bel lowed, 'Abadan, where is the King!'

Completely confused, the magician twisted to look at the dwarf. 'What king, you i***t? We have no king!'

'Henry! Where is Henry?'

His mouth hung open in a perfect 'o' before words finally escaped. 'He was looking for you.' The rioters broke into the castle much quicker than

Henry expected. From cracked pottery to battering-ram

took less time than a trip to the privy. Hadrian, all Hadrian. He would kill the man if he ever came within a knife's reach.

Henry ran the wide halls, searching for Walther. If he didn't come across him soon, he'd have to go alone. Kate couldn't wait for reinforcements.

In his haste, he swung wide around a corner and nearly ran down a man old enough to be his father. "Your pardon,' he said without thinking.

'Not b****y likely,' the other returned. A sharp note in the man's voice suggested he might have the authority to do more than pardon if he wished.

Against good sense, Henry stopped to stare at the man. He seemed frighteningly familiar. He might have challenged the man another time, but Kate needed him now. The prince attempted to sidestep the man.

'I was hoping to happen upon you,' he said while