The Fourth Runi (The Fledgling Account Book 4) Read online

  Rafen muttered a curse under his breath.

  “Yeah,” Sherwin agreed.

  “What is it?” Francisco asked.

  Richard swept through the two sides of the parade and climbed the steps of the temple with extravagant ease. He turned to face the people and lowered his head fractionally, his haughty form of bowing. Etana ascended the steps slowly and halted beside him, facing the people as well. Her family had been walking behind her, and they settled themselves in various positions on the portico with the philosophers. King Robert’s face was creased with worry as he looked at his daughter. His pointy-headed advisor stood next to him, eyeing the gold circlet on the king’s head.

  “The grandmother’s not ’ere – Adelphia, I mean,” Sherwin muttered. “She probably didn’ want to see this.”

  Francisco looked askance at Sherwin.

  The maniacal cheering from the crowd of peasants was deafening.

  “Long live the Runi! Long live the Runi!”

  Some of the women had tears running down their faces. Rafen supposed this was the moment they had lived for. Their grandparents would have prophesied it to them, and they would have passed the hope onto their children until at last the supposed Runi appeared. And because they wanted to, everyone believed that this stylish, handsome fool before them was capable of finishing the Lashki and destroying Nazt.

  Did Richard ever doubt himself? Rafen looked at his self-assured face and decided that no, he didn’t.

  When Sherwin made to move, Rafen stopped him.

  “We wait until after he speaks,” he said. “See? The people are quiet now. We have to wait until they applaud again before we try anything as bold as getting near the temple. You point the philosophers and guards to the outside city walls, and I’ll grab her and get her to make us invisible. If anything goes wrong or anyone attacks any of us, I’ll ward them off.”

  Sherwin nodded.

  “Rafen, what is this about?” Francisco said urgently.

  “People of Siana,” Richard called across the marketplace in a carrying voice, “some years ago, this country was the home and possession of pagan barbarians who lived on the cliffs and in the forests. In the Age of Parath, King Fritz won the country for Zion and subdued these Ashurites, creating a home for a new nation: the Sianians, descended from the Sartian conquerors of this realm. Your ancestors emigrated from Sarient to bring Zion’s peace here. They toiled with the Sartian powers, your kind benefactors, to make this country a refuge from evil and a base for those warriors who would fight against Nazt. Siana became the home of the Runi and their armies.

  “Then one day, there arose in Siana a Nazt-driven, Ashurite terror. He started with murdering children near streams or the farms where they played. He ensnared King Fritz into granting him free the highest kesmalic training of his day. He lived in King Fritz’s palace and soaked up his counsel and his strategies, until at last he challenged him for the throne.”

  Richard paused, and now he was actually meeting the people’s eyes, glowering the impact of his words at them.

  “Alakil failed in his first battle, but when he combated the king alone, he succeeded in finishing him. Then the supposed Stranger King targeted Prince Thomas, and brought him down in his own blood, growing in power all the time, taking Tarhia for his own, and aiming always for Siana. Men dreamed, prophesied, and dared to hope.”

  Richard raised his index finger.

  “One Runi remained – one hope for a broken world. And here I am.”

  An audible thrumming became a roar of approval. Richard raised both hands to silence the people.

  “You cheer for me now,” he said, “yet you have already accepted another in my place. And how is it, that after all these years of you Sianians, and my father and I along with the Sartians, fighting to keep Siana pure – how is it that you have turned to one of low blood, one who came from Tarhia, even one son of a previous Tarhian general? Perverted Sianians, what do you say? You have settled for someone far below you.”

  Within the wagon, Rafen’s blood turned cold.

  Zion, shut him up.

  “Did we not, in the days of the Honorable Fritz, declare humans had no place in Siana, as ancestors of the low-born Tarhians? Did we not, particularly when Talmon turned against us, declare them twisted, even as the Ashurites are? But you would create another Alakil, for as he lived in the king’s favor, so Rafen has lived even in the king’s palace and in recent times has asked for further education and kesmalic instruction, with a view to a place in government. A year ago, three powers contended in Siana, and while the Lashki and the Pirate King Sirius were rooted out, one filthy-blooded human remains.

  “Rafen saved some of you, certainly,” Richard allowed, pacing the dais above the steps now. At his side, Etana had turned even paler, though she said nothing in Rafen’s defense. “Of course he had to save some nobles, so that someone with means would support his cause. However, some of you will remember he abandoned you in Fritz’s Hideout when he knew the Lashki had discovered that particular place of refuge. And he would not reveal his exact reasons for leaving either. Additionally, we have all heard of his involvement in Sirius Jones’ mass slaughter at Rusem, even before the incident at the Hideout.”

  Richard spread his hands as he spoke. Rafen was breathing heavily now. Flashes of the carcasses at Rusem, of the Cursed Woods, of blood, of sludge flickered in his mind. His muscles relived, for an instant, the pain of his seizure.

  “Once Siana was re-won, he lived on, protected like a king, and often spending time with my bride, whom he traveled with exclusively when he was fighting for Siana. The General Jacob Aneurin tells me he spent weeks within her private chambers after the palace had been successfully stormed. All this, the royalty, nobility, and public of Siana have allowed. And I have mercifully looked over it until this point, though deeply wronged.”

  The guilty silence of the people had become discontented murmuring. Sherwin muttered in Rafen’s ear, “The dirty liar.”

  “The rumors, perhaps, are the worst,” Richard said loudly, pausing his pacing and rounding on the people. “Some of you have doubted my Runiship. Some of you, perhaps, have already accepted the supposed Fledgling in my place, which is doubtless how he would have it! Is he not only waiting for his moment to pounce, as Alakil did? Did I not recently receive a message from him, in which he claimed I was a dictator and a lecher?”

  Now the murmuring had become a blood-tingling shouting. Some of the men were shaking their fists. Near the wagon, someone screamed, “Down with the Wolf!”

  “Sianians, I ask you: is Rafen strong?” Richard continued, and the people bellowed an unintelligible reply. “I am stronger. Is he sacred?”

  The crowd churned and screamed a universal: “No.”

  “I have been truly set apart,” Richard insisted. “He left the nobles in Fritz’s Hideout, but I will not fail the people of Siana. Who has the phoenix feather? I will show you now!”

  Fevered, the crowd was roaring as Richard’s hand moved into his hem slowly, deliberately. In his shock, Rafen was paralyzed. He hadn’t noticed the presence he should have been able to detect better than any other by now. The growing heat of his phoenix feather alerted him; the stickiness on the air was terribly familiar. Sherwin paled.

  “Lashki,” Rafen hissed, and before anyone could stop him, he had leapt down from the wagon and was shoving through the people as fast as he could, following the ghoul-like face that flitted on the air. It was the one advantage of Spirit Awareness: the Lashki would never be invisible to him again.

  “ETANA!” Rafen roared, his throat almost tearing.

  Someone seized him from behind and tried to pull him back. Rafen wrenched himself free. The crowd was too loud for Etana to hear him. Richard had torn something from his hem – it was impossible; it was a phoenix feather; it suffused the air with gold.

  An explosion of blue obscured the temple dais briefly. Etana’s scream was a searing pain within him. He transformed and fell to the g
round, his claws clattering on the cobbles. The people were running from the dais, crushing each other; even members of the parade were fleeing toward the gate. Nothing was visible except the tangled legs he wove through. Some people were throwing stones at him. A merchant hurled a short knife toward his ribs, and then Rafen was on the clear cobbles before the temple steps.

  Richard had stumbled back toward the portico with a scream. When the philosophers tried to quickly surround him, kesmal blasted them back. On the dais, Etana was writhing, encased in a pulsating blue membrane.

  Gray-skinned and visibly rotting, his black dreadlocks floating around his head in a supernatural breeze, the angular Lashki Mirah stood to her right, his rod directed at Richard’s heart. Still clutching the phoenix feather with one hand, Richard whipped his sword from his sheath with the other, sweat streaming down his forehead.

  King Robert had given a strangled cry from the portico. He made to rush forward. The Lashki’s harsh voice stopped him.

  “Don’t move. I will kill them both, Robert. You will be sorry to lose the Runi.”

  The Lashki smiled with yellowed, decaying teeth and turned to face Rafen, but he was too slow. With a prayer to Zion that made no sense even to himself, Rafen had transformed into his usual form once more. He flew up the temple steps and reached with clawing hands for the kesmal surrounding his wife. Her eyes were dilated and her neck strained and stretched, as if she were suffocating. Fire rushed down both his arms. He snatched at the sticky membrane and threw his body weight backward. It flew toward him, billowing. With a tearing movement that felt like it would rip the tendons in his arms, Rafen rent the layer of kesmal in two and cast it down onto the cobbles, where it became steam on the air in response to his flames.

  Rafen hurled himself up the steps to where Etana sprawled, gasping. The Lashki was engaged in battle with a nauseous-looking Richard, who had moved right, closer to Etana once he began fighting. Richard’s beams of pale gold were feeble against the Lashki’s brilliant blue, knife-like explosions.

  Rafen had his arms around a sobbing Etana. Something wild in him, now that he saw his mother’s murderer again and now that he was stronger than before, wanted to fight and destroy the Lashki immediately. Yet Richard deserved to die, and his death would make Rafen’s life infinitely less complicated.

  “Make yourself invisible, Etana, so that you’re safe from harm,” Rafen urged. He wondered with vague disquiet why the Lashki hadn’t attacked him yet.

  As Richard staggered further up the temple steps, the Lashki for an instant changed his aim. King Robert was surging toward his daughter despite all cautions. The slice of blue was scarcely clear of the rod before Rafen leapt up, shot forward, and shoved Richard into its path. Etana was too late to pull Rafen back.

  The kesmal struck Richard squarely beneath the ribs. Richard flew up and backward onto the dais, his arms spread and his mouth partially open. The horror in his eyes was enough to tell Rafen that he had forgotten the ferocity of the Lashki’s kesmal until this point. He collapsed on his back on the stone, silent. His eyes dragged toward Richard’s form by force, King Robert began moving toward the prince. To Rafen, it looked as if he walked dreamily slowly. He himself bolted forward, even as Richard’s bodyguards, who had now recovered from the Lashki’s blow, rushed forward from the portico, their kesmal networking the air above Richard’s body. At least six different sphere-like shields sprang up. Rafen’s hand was extended to the prince. He was directly above Richard and could see his sweating, pain-twisted face. It was the first time Rafen had observed Richard’s countenance entirely bereft of malice and arrogance.

  King Robert had wrenched a short sword from his belt, actually intending to fight. Etana tore her silver ring from her finger and elongated it into a scepter at the same moment that Richard’s other protectors began pulling her away. Her flashes of kesmal were obliterated by at least twenty of Richard’s philosophers, all of whom had to work hard to drag her back toward the temple.

  Whipping his sword out, Rafen gave a wild cry, sending a beam of fire toward those restraining Etana. He made to run to her before realizing the bodyguards behind Richard were aiming kesmal at him.

  At least twenty multi-colored blades flew through the air toward his torso.

  “Rafen!” Etana screamed.

  Rafen staggered back, preparing to erect a strong shield to block the kaleidoscope of kesmal that was almost on him.

  And then he was in the middle of a giant blue bubble. It pulsated around him as the philosophers’ kesmal struck it and died. The air within the Lashki’s shield was surprisingly cool. Rafen could see the Lashki himself through the curved, rushing wall. He watched Rafen with an inscrutable expression on his face. His rotting forehead bore long gash marks from their last conflict. The hot anger that rushed through Rafen was more focused this time. He knew that should he escape the inexplicable shield, he would be able to hurt the Lashki badly, possibly even kill him. That rod would never take Rafen to Nazt again. Gritting his teeth, Rafen made to sweep the shield away. Stubborn, the Lashki’s kesmal remained unmoved. Rafen would have to assail it from within. As the philosophers prepared to attack again, the Lashki snapped into spirit form. The wispy, shrunken head that had marked his arrival floated away above the bewildered and dispersed crowd.

  “No!” Rafen bellowed, swinging his flaming sword into the blue wall before him.

  “Do you not see?” someone’s voice rang out as the shield around Rafen fell to pieces at the steady barrage of kesmal it was receiving. The philosophers paused momentarily.

  Rafen’s eyes moved to Etana, who was now on the portico, surrounded by the royal family and more philosophers, her arms pinioned by several of the men.

  The pointy-headed advisor who had called out stood near Rafen’s pallid wife. Servants bore an ominously limp Richard away into the temple itself.

  “Lord Harte,” King Robert said hastily, moving toward him, putting a hand on his advisor’s arm.

  Rafen lunged toward Etana. Kesmal exploded in his face, and he was forced to shield himself.

  “The Fledgling tried to kill the Fourth Runi!” the pointy-headed advisor continued, heedless. “He is fighting with the Lashki Mirah! The Ghoul protected him!”

  “It’s a lie!” King Robert roared, but no one was listening to him now.

  The philosophers on the dais who weren’t holding back the Secra rushed toward Rafen, brandishing their weapons. Etana shrieked.

  Rafen whirled around in time to see a Sartian guard preparing to plunge his knife into the back of Rafen’s neck.

  Chapter Nine

  Etana’s

  Confession

  Rafen flung himself sideways.

  Trying to escape the restraining hands of those around her, Etana was screaming, “RUN, RAFEN! RUN!”

  King Robert was fighting on Rafen’s behalf, trying vainly to hold the philosophers back. To Rafen’s surprise, Sherwin now shoved him down the temple steps, having run unnaturally quickly back to him from the dais. Rafen hadn’t even seen him arrive.

  “Go. Transform. I’m behind yer.”

  “I’m not leaving without Etan—”

  Sherwin shoved him again. “Yer idiot! Yeh’ll die and Nazt will take us all! We’ll come up with a new plan!”

  His heart plummeting, Rafen transformed and shot across the cobbles and into the confused limbs of the people who had not yet vacated the marketplace. Behind him, Lord Harte snatched a horn from a Sartian soldier and blew on it three times.

  “THE LASHKI AND THE SIANIAN WOLF PLANNED THIS ATTACK!” he bellowed. “THE WOLF TRIED TO KILL THE FOURTH RUNI; STOP HIM!”

  The people around Rafen churned. Someone swung a scythe toward his back, barely missing him. They were knocked aside by a horse Sherwin had mounted. “Raf, let’s make fer the gate!” he yelled.

  Returning to his normal form briefly, Rafen flung out his fighting arm, discharging a warm billow of fire. The shield unfurled itself, blocking off a large arc of the marketpl
ace. The philosophers running toward Rafen from the temple stopped abruptly, their faces ugly.

  The wall of people was becoming denser and harder to get through. Sherwin surged ahead; Francisco was now following on his own horse. Together, they cleared the way. Rafen was nearly there. The New Isles gates loomed ahead of him, thrown open and beetled by guards.

  Still in his Sartian uniform, Sherwin yelled, “THE WOLF! GET THE WOLF!”

  He pointed at a stray dog wandering along, sniffing the grass outside the city gates. Some of the guards began moving in confusion. Sherwin and Francisco flew through the gates, knocking several men aside. Rafen darted onto the grass outside the city and rushed in the opposite direction of the stray dog, aiming always for the Woods.

  *

  Sherwin was remembering. That night, he hadn’t finished his soup before following the trail of Alakil’s story again, despite his own words to Adelphia. Sherwin’s eyelids had dropped as he once more sought those memories that were always pressing against the backs of his eyeballs, always pushing for acknowledgement. Though he had swallowed them and beat them back for years now, they were still as vivid as if he had never resisted them.

  Alakil was a consciousness that rose like a plume of smoke from the corpse lying on the cold stone floor of the Ravine. The body which had once been his bubbled blood and looked as ridiculous as that of any of his victims. He boiled inwardly; he had never wanted to look vulnerable. Yet it had been Nazt’s command. The voices of Nazt seemed closer, somehow. Their calling was more intimate, more alluring than before. He drew strength from them and then began the long task ahead.

  The first part was visualizing. Although this might have taken as long as a week, everything was timeless now. Then he started the weaving, the drawing of gray gossamer-like strands out of the air. He watched his own body forming with a detached and unbiased interest. Nazt provided the materials; he called on the voices whenever he felt dry, and Nazt answered with rot, decay, flesh from corpses, bones formed of stone and blasted wood. All he had to do was dream what he wanted it to look like, and it spun into being: the long shanks, the angular limbs, the gaunt-faced head, the black all-seeing eyes. Most of the time, it felt as if the body wasn’t his conception of himself, but Nazt’s conception of what he was to become.