“He’ll be there,” said Farris. “His private quarters are just about the safest part of the keep. Any other king would have fled the city, but not Diarmuid. He has always blurred the line between stubbornness and strength.”
Skirmisher glided over the Grey Keep. Despite his best efforts, Farris glanced down at the castle grounds, only for an instant. There, he saw men dressed in the reds and blacks of the city-guard struggling against the undead. The living corpses crawled across the moat, not slowing despite a heavy shower of arrows raining upon them. Two battlemages in green added salvos of rocks to the arrows, but these seemed to help even less. Beyond the moat, a group of four Simian guards stood with their backs to one another, surrounded by a dozen skeletal soldiers. One wight lunged in first, only to be cut down by a living soldier... but the poor souls were unable to fight off the other skeletons that followed. Once the struggle was over, a moment of peace fell over the fallen Simians before their fresh corpses spasmed abruptly. Farris looked away before they started to rise.
“This is as close as I can go,” said Nicole. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? There’s a lot riding on this, Farris. Clear your mind of all distractions and fears. All worries and—”
“Just give me the damn rope.”
Nicole reached under the controls of the ship and fished out a thick loop of hempen rope. She passed it back to Farris without turning back to look.
“It’s already bound to the stern,” she said. “It’ll be strong enough and long enough, provided you don’t go wandering around the keep. Or gods forbid, attempt to fight the dead themselves.”
“Again, with the gods,” Farris said. “Has the sight of the horde turned you toward faith?”
“If we live to see the end of this, I’ll take the damn cloth itself.”
Farris went to work tying the rope around his body. Twice around the waist, around each leg at the waist, over his shoulders, criss-crossing at his back, then around his waist twice more. He leaned out from his seat and scanned the stained-glass windows of the Grey Keep.
“There,” said Farris, pointing even though Nicole couldn’t see him. “The window twice as large as the rest, in the centre.
Skirmisher glided closer to the keep. With each inch it gained, Farris’s heart pounded and resounded throughout his body.
Gods, we’re really going through with this. He cringed. I may share her swears, but I’ll never take the cloth. Even if the horde marches into the sea tomorrow.
Now they hovered twenty feet over the roof of the Grey Keep, the window of the Royal Quarters immediately below.
“Whenever you’re ready,” said Nicole.
“Nobody could be ready for this. But I won’t let that stop me.”
With that, he leapt out over the side of the ship.
Everything seemed to slow as he fell. Each roar and shout from the battle below felt clear in his ear, as if he was standing in the fray itself. He fell face down, allowing himself a full view of the burning courtyards below. More undead were crossing the moat, and two had even started scaling the castle walls.
They might already be inside. He felt no fear, though. Weightless in mid-air, it seemed as if nothing could hurt him. As if there was nothing in the world even capable of hurting anyone. He felt at peace.
Then he ran out of slack. With a sickening crack, the rope went taut, jerking Farris’s body and shaking every positive feeling from his mind. Jarred by the sudden change in velocity, Farris lost his sense of balance. He no longer knew which way was up, or which direction the castle walls were, but he knew he was spinning. And swinging.
As he soared through the rope’s arc, Farris braced himself for an inevitable crash into the solid stone wall. Instead, the crash came with the sound of shattering glass. The shards cut against his hands and face, but Farris gritted his teeth and ignored the pain. Only when he felt the broken glass beneath his knees did he realise he had found solid ground. The next thing he noticed was the stench of thainol, thick in the air like mist.
“F-Farris?” called a stammering voice. “No… no, She said you were dead.”
Farris looked up to see King Diarmuid Móráin, kneeling on the floor. His face was blemished, and his eyes were moist with tears. Next to him stood Padraig Tuathil, captain of the City Guard, with his sword drawn.
Farris sniffed the air again. “Have you been drinking?” He caught sight of a bottle of thainol, half empty, set upon a table with two cups.
Farris fought back a smile. No… it couldn’t be the same….
“What are you doing here?” called Padraig. “The dead are inside the keep. There’s no way out but through the horde!”
“I’ve come for the king,” said Farris. He strode over to Diarmuid, letting the rope run along the ground behind him as he did. Farris held an outstretched hand. “There’s a ship waiting for you. I’m taking you to Penance.”
“No!” cried the king. “She showed me the truth! I am not to survive this night, and you should not be alive. Gods, at the time the signs were so unclear, but as each came to be, our fate became evident.”
What is he rambling about? “We can discuss these matters further on the journey home.”
Farris reached out an embraced the king tightly in both arms. To his surprise, the king did not object, but actually buried his face in Farris’s shoulder, sobbing like a child.
Skies above, he thinks I’m consoling him.
“Unhand him at once,” yelled Padraig, pointing his sword at Farris. “You turned your cloak on your brothers of the Guild just to get a job with the Crown. How am I to believe you haven’t turned it back on us?”
“Have some faith,” said Farris, calmly reaching for the rope behind him. He gave it three sharp tugs in succession. “If you believe your own convictions, strike me down. I stand before you unarmed.”
Padraig smiled. “Not a single day passes when I don’t dream of this moment.” He tightened his grip on his sword.
Before the captain could move, the rope suddenly went taut again, pulling Farris and the king back across the room. Farris held onto Diarmuid’s body even more tightly, and the two went soaring out the window of the keep. Padraig roared and cursed as they went, but Farris didn’t turn back to look.
“Hold on tight,” said Farris, as the two swung through the air. “We’ll be away soon.”
Diarmuid didn’t respond. Whether from the shock that they were both now flying over a burning city, or from whatever madness had manifested in his mind tonight, Farris couldn’t tell.
“There’s a clearing to the south,” called Nicole from above, her voice barely audible. Still, the air of authority in her voice earlier had left. If the situation had been any different, Farris would have sworn that she was actually happy.
However, the sound of Padraig’s roared objections still echoed in the back of Farris’s mind. It was a strange feeling, knowing you left a man to his fate. To be consumed by the horde. Farris shook his head, but the sound of Padraig roaring and shouting didn’t leave his ears.
“Let me down!” the king screamed, each syllable burning with rage. “Stop this madness! Stop it!”
Farris glanced down at the horde below. The mass of bodies wasn’t what caught his eye this time. Some two dozen yards of rope had been left after Farris had made his knots, and it hung down beneath him as they glided over the city. But at the end of that slack was Padraig Tuathil himself, clutching to the rope with both hands, aware that his life depended on the tightness of his grip.
“Let go!” roared Farris. “Let go or you’ll kill the four of us!”
“Gods take you,” spat the captain. “If the world was still the way it was, I’d see you hanged for this!”
“The ship can’t take your weight, fool!”
“It’s alright!” shouted Nicole from above. “We’ll be landing shortly. Just tell him to hold on.”
“Great,” muttered Farris. His muscles were starting to ache, for King Diarmuid was quite heavy for a Human. But despite the drunken, slobbering god-king clutched in his arms, and the raging captain sharing his lifeline, Farris smiled.
He drank it. He drank from the poisoned thainol, after all this time. King Diarmuid shall bear no children. The Móráin line has ended.
.
Chapter 24:
