Kingdom's Fall

Chapter 12, Part 1

Siv stood over the body of the king, her brow creased in concentration. The body hadn’t been covered up - it hadn’t even been moved - and the dead man’s eyes stared up past her, looking off into a distance that only he could see. There was something wrong with the body. Siv could feel it there, the knowledge lurking in her mind that something had gone - was going - wrong, but holding on to that thought was like trying to catch hold of a fish in a pool. Every time she thought she had it, every time that familiar lurch of recognition lifted in her gut - oh, I see you now, you slippery fish - it disappeared to leave her none the wiser. Siv changed her approach and hunkered down to take a closer look at the wound that had killed him.

The wound was caked with gore, a ragged-looking hole just wide enough to give her a view of something white inside the man’s neck. Siv gulped, and tried not to think of that same pink-white tube in her own throat flexing and convulsing as she swallowed. It was messy for a sword thrust, and far too wide. There was no cut, as though something blunt had forced through the flesh instead.

A hand settled on the back of Siv’s neck, and the thought vanished. In its place, there was nothing but a blank certainty that she was needed for something.

“We need your arm, Siv,” Morwen said. “The prisoners have escaped. There are traitors to find.”

Siv straightened, her head stuffed painfully tight with the certainty of the queen’s words. Her arm was needed. There were traitors to find.

Cuan made it out of the hall and down two near-identical corridors before he realised he wasn’t so much getting out of the palace as he was getting himself lost. Turning back, he started to retrace his steps before realising that his disappearance would have been noted, and that the guards would probably have already been charged with finding him. Gray had marked himself as a traitor, and Cuan by association. If he went back now, he would be questioned. How much did you know? What did he tell you? Lost was better than caught, so he turned back again and started walking. A half-hour and what felt like three repeat circuits of the same square of corridors, he was starting to revise his opinion of getting caught. At the very least, he’d know where he was.

The sound of tramping feet put paid to his deliberations. Startled into action by what sounded like the oncoming approach of an execution squad, he picked the first door he came to and tried it. On the other side, a poorly-maintained staircase led downward to a landing and a second, sturdier-looking door at the bottom. Cuan made his way down to it, fervently hoping that it, too, would be open. It was, the latch turning easily under his hand, and in the rush of relief he ducked through without checking what was on the other side.

Cuan was confronted by the sight of a guardroom. Benches were drawn up around a square table, where a group of solid-looking, grim-faced men were occupied by a game of dice. Not all of them had turned to look at Cuan, but there were enough paying him attention that simply backing out through the door was no longer an option.

“What brings you down here, lad?”A tall man, older than the rest, was looking straight at him waiting for an answer.

“Uh…the stable-master sent me,” he said.

“Ambrose? What does he want?”

Cuan stood mute for a moment, paper-dry lips crushed together as he searched for something to say. The man was wearing a curved sword - a sabre - and at what felt like the last moment, inspiration struck. “He, uh, he wanted to let you know the sickness that’s been killing the horses has passed.”

The man’s face split into a grin. “That’s great news! Did he say how long it’d be before they’ll be back up to proper fitness? When can I get to ride again?”