Chapter 3
Kael Gyre was a smart boy. If he could get himself into trouble, then he can get himself out of it. At least, that's what he told himself as he balanced on a narrow ledge the width of his hand.
He teetered precariously on the edge of the ledge. A fly breaking wind next to him could tip him over. He inched over to the corner of the ledge and tried to make his way around the bend to the safety of an open window. He glanced down and immediately regretted it. Five stories up the palace wall was not a good place to sightsee. He swallowed the bile and inched his way to the window.
Kael had ended up in this predicament because of an unfortunate encounter with a cat. Earlier that afternoon he had been walking through the palace courtyard when he had spied an orange tabby slipping begin some crates stacked against the wall. The creature had been dangerously thin and scabrous from old, infected wounds. He went after her so he could take her to Cook for some food and a warm bath. Father had always taught his children compassion towards all creatures, and besides, Kael needed the entertainment. He had squeezed his long, gangly frame into the gap behind the crates with little difficulty when the cat discovered some on had entered her space. She didn't like it.
The cat had attacked him, a furry puffball of feline fury, and Kael hadn't stood a chance against her. The crates had toppled over, disturbing the commute in the courtyard. The princes' swordmaster, Master Renbrook spied Kael as he scooped the cat up and sprinted away. The weapon master was a strict disciplinarian and he hadn't appreciated Kael's antics.
He had set the palace guards on Kael's trail and the prince had run from them to escape his teacher's discipline, but fortune hadn't favoured him. Kael had run straight into a dead-end and seeing no easy escape, he had quickly scaled the palace wall, which was how he had ended up in his current position. Even the ungrateful cat had abandoned him.
Kael slowly made his way to the open window and threw himself through it as soon as he could. He fell on his side and jarred his elbow but the minor discomfort did not stop him from rejoicing in his sheer mortality. He lay on the floor and panted with victory.
"Ha ha!" He soon sat up, took one glance around the room and immediately blanched. He sat in his father's study, the king's war room.
He definitely wasn't supposed to be here. The king had expressly denied his mischievous children access to the large room. The walls were covered floor to ceiling in detailed maps of most places in Midycru. There were many sturdy tables, all laden with heavy tomes about various subject, from war and strategy to philosophy, and more maps. A chessboard sat in the corner of the room in front of a sunny window with a glass of wine next to it. The game was still in progress. It looked like Logan had merely stepped out for a moment and could return anytime, which spelled disaster for his truant son.
Kael slipped past the overburdened tables, trying as hard as he could to not disturb even a mote of dust. Just as he reached the big oak door he heard the sound of a boot striking stone floors just outside the door. He scrambled for cover and ducked behind a cloth-covered tea table just in time to avoid the notice of the king and his guards.
Logan walked into his war room followed by his guards, Lord Hile and his other advisors. Kael muffled a sound of distress and tried to curl further inwards to avoid their notice. His only hope lay in waiting them out, then sneaking back to his rooms.
Logan walked past Kael to the biggest table which was surprisingly clutterfree. He spun around to confront his nervous retinue and said without preamble, "Lae'knaught has declared war upon Cenaria."
His advisors all gave aborted shouts of shock and dismay before they quieted to hear their king speak. Logan ignored them. "Tantalus has declared war upon us because of our ill treatment of his ambassador, despite it him being the first to cause offense." Logan's tone was wry. "We must prepare for bloodshed as much as possible. Lord Hile, what is our position?"
The General replied steadily, "Our standing army has about three thousand units ready for immediate deployment. Our armory is fully stocked with fifteen thousand arrowheads and shafts, six thousand blades and five thousand sets of cavalry armour. We can fight with these for a few weeks of hard battle."
"Good." Logan hesitated. "There is one thing I wished to share with my trusted counsellors. Remember, this news cannot leave the walls of this room."
The members present in the room nodded their acceptance. Kael kept his mouth shut, barely daring to breathe.
Logan called out, "Come tell them what you told me. "
From an alcove behind Logan, the crown prince Regnus Gyre stepped into sight. All the councillors watched him with blank faces carefully schooled to show no expression. From his hiding place, Kael sucked in a breath from shock. Already this meeting had shown him how secretive and important Logan's news was, but he could not imagine what Regnus had to do with anything. He watched his twin intently through the gauzy material of the cloth.
Regnus stood in front of the assembled nobles and took a steadying breath. He glanced at his father and then began. "Three nights ago I had a dream. I dreamt that Cenaria was besieged by enemies bearing penants I haven't seen before. The palace was burning and my father's flag was lying in the mud next to his sword. I saw a pit where my family was kept as prisoners. I have had this dream every night since, and hence I thought it wasn't like any other dream. It had a sense of urgency to it, so I told Father."
Logan spoke now, "My son speaks the truth. He drew me a picture of the pit he spoke of and it is the Hole. I know he has never seen it and yet he gave me every detail of the Hole, right down to the shaft at the center and the pit beneath it. This proved to me that Regnus' dreams were actually visions."
Kael was stunned. Prophets were valuable to kings but they were invariably considered to be mad. That his twin was a prophet shocked him beyond anything he could think of.
Logan patted Regnus' shoulder in encouragement and nodded to him to continue. Regnus braced himself and said, "I also saw a man with dark hair walking through a dry and cracked region with fires burning around him. I did not know where it was exactly but I saw him holding something in his hand. It was about the size of an egg and it glowed with orange light. That was all I could make out before I woke up."
The Cenarians all looked at one another and then at the king. Logan confirmed their suspicions. "The Hope Crystal. "
Lord Hile frowned in thought, "The Hope Crystal hasn't been seen since the age of Jorsin Alkestes. It was thought to be destroyed during the Betrayal. How is it possible… "
Logan nodded to accede the point. He said, "I have a source in Khalidor that I trust unequivocally. They have confirmed the existence of the Crystal, but I do not know its exact location, except that my source confirms that the Crystal is in a place much like that Regnus described. I have sent search parties but none have returned." Logan hesitated, "However, I received this news from my source a few months back. He hasn't been in contact since. So I do not know how relevant the information is currently."
The king's advisors nodded. Immersed in thought, Kael had almost forgotten that he wasn't supposed to be in the room with the council. He was pondering the implications of all he had heard so far that he almost missed it.
Logan and the war council saw it almost at the same time. Thick black smoke was seeping through the cracks in the only door to the map room and clogging the open window. It started to choke them until Kaldrosa threw open the doors to the room.
Logan grabbed Regnus and steered his eldest son out of the room while the councillors, accompanied by the king's guards poured out the door with cloth held to their noses.
Kael crouched under the table until they left the room and he could wait no longer. He scrambled from his hiding spot and fled out of the room in the opposite direction his father and brother had gone. His heart pounded inside his rib cage and his lungs laboured as he ran to his mother's chambers and the nursery. He had to protect his siblings.
As Kael reached the ornate door leading to his parents' chambers, his heart leapt to his throat. The door had been forced open and hung crookedly from one hinge. The fire had started inside the room and had spread to the drapes on the large windows in the hallway. The thick black smoke choked him as he stood there, stunned to immobility. There was no trace of his family.
Kael watched the flames consume his parents' room when a soldierin unfamiliar colours rounded the corner and spied him. He immediately shouted to his fellows and raced towards Kael with his naked blade in hand and his companions at his back. The boy was forced out of his shock and he turned around and ran back the way he had come. Kael was unarmed and he had no illusions about his ability to defeat the squadron of soldiers. His only hope was in finding his father before he was caught.
He ran past panicked servants and burning rooms until he heard the clash of steel against hard steel. Kael took one last look at his pursuers before he headed to the sounds of battle and came face to face with a bloodied sword. Kaldrosa quickly pulled up her blade before Kael skewered himself upon it.
"My prince! You must not be here," she started before she saw the bloodthirsty soldiers behind Kael. She thrust the youth behind her and threw herself upon the soldiers while they were caught off guard.
Kael looked around for a weapon to defend himself with. He spied a thin rapier lying underneath a dead palace guard and he stooped to pick it up, before something was hurled at him and he was bowled over, the wind driven from his lungs.
He tried to pick himself off the ground when he recognized the weight lying across him as Regnus. Kael looked up to see the biggest man he had ever seen before and his eyes widened.
The brute was huge; thick bull neck planted on shoulders as wide as a cart. His fists were each as big as Kael's skull and could have easily crushed it too. The man's bald head almost brushed the ceiling, and he had huge brass knucklebusters wrapped around his thick fingers and knuckles. He advanced upon Kael and the unconscious Regnus with malice radiating from his tiny piggy eyes.
Kael shoved his brother off and snatched up the rapier. He settled into a ready stance, with limbs loose and coiled like a snake waiting to strike.
The giant hollered and staggered towards him, his small eyes red with rage and bloodlust. He raised a hand as big as Kael's head and brought it down with all the force of a charging bull, right towards Kael. The boy leaped out of the way, nimble as a jungle cat and swung the rapier at the giant's unprotected back.
The blade caught the giant on his shoulder blade and opened a cut as long as Kael's arm. It didn't seem to slow him down and the giant turned to smash Kael.
Kael leaped out of the way and executed a series of complex attacks on the giant, but the man merely shrugged them off as he grabbed at Kael again. Kael's eyes widened as the giant caught the rapier's thin edge in his meaty hand and simply snapped the blade. He tossed the blade aside with all the heed of a bear throwing a twig and he grabbed Kael by the neck and squeezed.
Feeling his air cutting off, Kael panicked to free himself. He aimed a kick at the giant's groin but his only reaction was a tighter grip on his throat. Kael began to hyperventilate as his face turned blue. His struggles weakened and the edges of his vision began to blacken. He gasped to try and get his last breath when suddenly he was released and he fell to the floor abruptly.
Kael gasped in air greedily until he no longer felt the urge to vomit and then he looked up to see the most marvelous sight in the world.
The giant was engaged in a fight with the king himself, and the former was being beaten back. Logan had his opponent on the defensive, his longsword glistening with the giant's blood. His powerful blows were having a larger impact on the giant than Kael's precise cuts.
The king swung his longsword at the giant, never letting the man have space to regroup. He kept up his ferocious attack, hammering blow after blow upon the brute. The giant bellowed uselessly but he could not land a decent blow upon Logan. The king lunged with his blade at the giant's throat and finally drove the man to his knees.
The giant fell gracelessly on his knees as the life left his eyes, and he collapsed on the floor right Ned to a stunned Kael. The prince could not tear his eyes from the brute's dead ones until Logan placed his large hand on his shoulder and pulled him to his feet.
Kael dazedly looked at his father while Logan's eyes roamed over his face and body, searching for any visible damage. The king spoke softly, "Are you hurt?" Kael shook his head silently.
Logan briskly nodded and turned to Kaldrosa. Kael just then realized that the battle was over and the enemy soldiers had been killed or had fled. The king's guards had gathered around them, one of them holding Regnus in her strong arms. The king spoke to Kaldrosa, "We must leave the castle immediately, before they bring reinforcements and it becomes too late. We shall leave through the west servants' exit, as it is closest and leads us to the shelter of the forest. Gather our wounded and move fast."
Kael mechanically followed his father as they headed down a narrow stone passageway with few doors. The made their way to an unassuming wooden door which led to a chamber with a heavier stone door. It took the strength of the king and a few of his uninjured guards to move the door and they quietly slipped away into the cover of the darkening dusk, the Cenarian palace burning behind them.
