The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [126]
The courtiers who'd remained on Flowfoam seemed to politely take their turns attacking him; the royal blade had spilled the blood of six yestereve. If they ever attacked all at once…
It did not bear thinking about. Not while a man in full plate armor, richly chased with flourishes in the manner of Urngallond, but bearing no device-a man anonymous behind his closed visor-was striding confidently forward with blade in one hand and a long knife in the other, on regicide bent.
"This is not," Kelgrael Snowsar announced almost pleasantly, as he hefted his sword and drifted to the right, moving with a smoothness and a grace seen more in dancers than in ruling kings, "why I Rose. All too many seem to want me dead."
Unlike the others, this attacker made no reply. His sword swept forward with dizzying speed, seeking to reach over the royal blade and pierce Snowsar's right side-and the king's parry left his pelvis undefended against the knife, stabbing in low and viciously.
Its point struck unseen armor, and drove aside, amid sparks. Kelgrael gave his attacker an unlovely smile and ducked suddenly down and forward, taking the man's knife-wrist in his hand and twisting as they fell together.
The move put the weight of Kelgrael's falling body behind the driven knife as it plunged up and under his attacker's tassets, between the high hip-plates and the armored skirt above-and bit deep into the groin, shearing leather as if it had been silk. A thin scream escaped from the visor even before the hot flood of blood gushed forth. The king rolled away, found his feet, and without pause drove the point of his sword between gorget and the bottom of his would-be slayer's helm.
More blood, and the armored form went limp. There was a thunder now, approaching down the long corridors of Flowfoam, as the pounding boots of many guards raced nearer. The king paid them no heed, bending instead to tear away the visor of his attacker.
There was no face within the helm, but neither was he gazing at one of the fabled Faceless. Rather, eyeballs stared crazily up out of a skull shrouded in flesh that seemed to have melted like candle wax.
Guards gasped and cursed at the sight, and one man was sick, but King Snowsar said nothing to them. Frowning down at the sight, he turned away and left them with the carrion, taking secret ways across sprawling Flowfoam, to reach at last the hidden chamber where he'd once met with his four loyal Awakeners.
There he drew a small cylinder of gold from where it rode behind the broad and flaring buckle of his belt, twisted off its unicorn-head top, and with the stick of sparkling clay thus revealed drew certain symbols across the seams where doors and ornate panels and shutters could be made to open in the walls. Those symbols glowed, a radiance that faded only slowly as the king paid special attention in his drawings to the panel that could become a window. Lastly he drew signs upon the floor and-standing on a chair-on the ceiling.
When he judged the room secure, Kelgrael Snowsar made a gesture in the air that would have surprised many wizards, and then did off his sword-belt, and the filigreed bracers he wore upon his wrists, and a pendant from around his neck.
Each item, as he released it, floated slowly up to hang in the air at about the level he'd made the gesture, chest-high for a tall man.
There were very few folk in the Aglirta of today who had even an inkling of what Kelgrael Snowsar truly was. A tall warrior hero with a crown on his head was all most courtiers saw, loyal and noble and a bit of a naive dolt… of course.
Kelgrael gave the room around him a bitter smile at that thought, and went right on unbuckling and unclasping and plucking forth. He was not disrobing, but rather divesting himself of all of his many small items of magic, from the enspelled daggers in his boots to the ring that could call up an unseen shield against blades and his Garter of Slow Healing, identical to those worn by all folk of the court in the