Chapter 42
I didn’t get to see the inside of the castle, they frog-marched me through the courtyard, which was paved with interlocked stones in colors and design. The inner walls were andanite granite in blocks the size of oxen and cunningly pieced together with amazingly cut intricate joints. The walls went up 25 feet and were wide enough to gallop a horse across yet were protected by crenellations. There were guard towers atop that.
I saw guards everywhere, most dressed in old-style camouflage that I’d seen in the databanks of Reyjadsk and these soldiers all carried pistols and wands as well as swords. As we marched onto the sand of the bailey, I saw men practicing with their new weapons and others using hand-to-hand combat that was amazing to watch. As they paraded me past, the soldier stopped to stare at me – some even as bold as to follow us causing my escort to warn them off.
They headed for a dark archway near what I smelled was the stables. Several lean heads of fine thoroughbreds watched curiously and one in particular caught my eye. I stopped dead at the sight of the fine chiseled face with a large star and I shivered. “Beau?” I called and was astonished when the gelding whickered.
I screamed. “Diomed! Spiorad capall!” I heard an answering bugle and exploded bolting for the stalls. I ignored the swords pointed at me to and the guards were equally quick in their reactions; they thumbed their wands and hit me with maximum force. It only pissed me off as the bolts hit me and flared in scintillating lights.
Turning, I swatted at them with hands grown to two inch long talons and disemboweled the pair. Their bodies and guts went flying across the sand to land as sodden lumps. The others went berserk and attacked me. I swatted them as if they were no more than flies and their sword thrusts feeble pinpricks. After a dozen lay dead, they backed up giving me space and I opened the stall door to run my hands over the gelding proving to myself that it was he. The cowlicks were the same, even the smell of him.
The scent of blood was heavy in the air and made him tremble. Although he was terrified at the smell, he nuzzled me pushing at my bare chest looking for treats. I hugged his neck and cried, promising to return once I’d found Diomed.
The interior of the barn was like a cathedral, one of the finest stables I had ever seen. The mangers were built from cut marble, the floors smooth stone, swept and bedded knee-deep in sweet oat straw. The stalls were 14 x 14 boxes with gilded bars atop and sliding stall doors. I found the stallion my father had died to protect in a fancy box stall that he was battering down in an attempt to escape. Grooms were backing away from the Dutch doors at my approach wielding pitchforks but they ran from my enraged face.
I flew to the gates and they fell apart at my touch. The stallion bolted free and reared, his eyes wild as mine must have been. “Diomed!” I called and he came down so that I could grasp his now grown out heavy mane to fling myself on his back. We galloped down the aisle and into what I knew must be the next courtyard, an exercise area for the Mounted. Calling, I waited on a dancing horse for the gelding to reach us. He came with a rush of men armed with wands and pistols. But it was the suddenly warming collar I feared more than the robed figure arriving behind them.
“Don’t kill him!” the wizard said. “Wound him! Kill the horses.”
I screamed at the top of my lungs and the sound shattered every window and mirror in sight, sent the men reeling backwards and strangely, stopped the collar from hurting me. Even Blackfin stepped backwards involuntarily as the wave of vibrations affected him. I was horrified to see that all the horses collapsed in their stalls and I prayed they weren’t dead. I shut my mouth and opened the forgotten way just as the wizard recovered. We bolted into it as he raised his pistol and with wavering arms, fired.
I screamed again as the collar ignited even as the horses stepped out into the cavern of crystal where Arianell and I had spent time hiding from them before. It was in fact, the same exact place, I saw the remains of our camp and campfire exactly where we had left them.
I fell off Diomed’s back to land at his feet and he stared at me in astonishment. I had not fallen off a horse since I was six years old. And never off of him. I felt odd, faint-headed, cold and shivery as if the sand was running out my feet. Even the collar was cold and when I raised my hands to it, the metal fell apart under my fingers and slipped off to land at my side. It struck the crystal and chimed with a deep bell-like tone that made the crystal spires vibrate in conjunction.
I could feel the warmth pulsing out of my neck. When I reached around to touch it, my fingers encountered sticky thick fluid that I knew was blood. I pulled up the collar and there on the backside was a mashed silver lump that was clearly a bullet. I puzzled over this for a few minutes and found it harder and harder to keep my eyes open. I quit trying and gave into the darkness worrying about nothing and everything.