The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [217]
“Saints,” Anne breathed. “He’s got a feysword.”
And indeed, Robert Dare stepped through the gap. Sir Ansgar started forward but paused when the usurper held up his hand.
“Wait a moment,” he said.
“Majesty?” Ansgar asked, glancing at Anne.
“Do as he says,” Anne said. “What do you want, Robert?”
Robert was shaking his head.
“Amazing. He’s gone, isn’t he? You let him go.”
“I did.”
“Why? What could he possibly have promised you? But I can guess, can’t I? He told you he would help you defeat me. And yet here I stand, unvanquished.”
“We haven’t begun fighting yet,” Cazio said.
“Did someone ask you to speak?” Robert snapped. “I’ve no idea who you are, but I’m certain neither Her Majesty nor I gave you leave to speak. Stab me if you wish, but please don’t sully my language with that ridiculous accent.”
“Cazio has my leave to speak,” Anne snapped, “and you do not, unless it is to beg forgiveness for your treachery.”
“My treachery? Dear Anne, you’ve just loosed the last Skasloi upon the world. Do you know how long he’s been planning this? He was the one who taught your mother to curse me, who made me what I have become and broke the law of death. You have fallen into his design and betrayed our entire race. Your treachery outshines mine as the sun does, ah, some small star.”
“You left me no choice,” Anne replied.
“Oh, well, if that’s the case—No, wait, you had at least two other choices. You might have told him no and surrendered to me. Or you might have fought me and died.”
“Or we could fight you and live,” Cazio said.
“You are becoming annoying,” Robert said, poking the shining blade toward him. “Surrender, Anne, and all of you will live, I promise you.”
Cazio would never know what Anne might have said to that, because Cheiso suddenly rushed forward, howling in anguish, and launched himself at Robert.
The usurper raised his eldritch weapon, but not quickly enough. Cheiso plunged his borrowed dagger into the prince’s chest. Robert promptly thumped him on the head with the hilt of his weapon, but the momentary truce had ended, and the flood had come.
Robert’s men surged into the chamber. Cazio leapt toward the prince, but Ansgar was already there, swinging a blow that might have decapitated Robert had he not ducked it, then thrust his feysword into Ansgar’s belly. The weapon went through him as if he were butter, and Robert carved up and out his shoulder, splitting the knight’s upper body into two pieces.
“Now you,” Robert said, turning toward Cazio.
But it wasn’t the first time Cazio had faced a man who couldn’t die or, for that matter, a sword he couldn’t parry. As Robert cocked for the cut, he lunged long and stop-hit the prince in the wrist. Robert snarled and slashed at Acredo’s blade, but Cazio disengaged and stabbed him in the wrist a second time. Then, avoiding the next, even wilder blow, Cazio made a draw-cut to the top of Robert’s hand.
“Not much of a swordsman, are you?” he said, grinning, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Even with a sword like that.”
Robert rushed him then, but again Cazio avoided the beat at his blade and sidestepped the charge as one might a bull, leaving his blade in a high line for Robert to run into. The usurper did, the blade taking him in the forehead so that his skull stopped and his feet went flying out from under him. Cazio had the great pleasure of seeing the bastard land flat on his back.
“Zo dessrator, nip zo chiado,” he pointed out.
He had to say it quickly, however, for Robert’s men—and women—were swarming all around. He placed himself as best he could in front of Anne, engaging two, then three, and finally and impossibly four. He saw Preston and Cuelm fall, and then it was just he, standing between the three woman and the mob.
Worse, he saw Robert in the background, dabbing a cloth at his pierced head.
“Kill them all,” he heard Robert shout. “I’ve lost all patience with this business.”
Aspar threw his arms around the trunk of the fir and gritted his teeth as his body stripped the topmost branches. The scent of resin exploded in his nostrils as the treetop