The Forgotten Shall Rise

Chapter 12: From Bad, to Worse

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Raoul took a deep breath, as much as he wished he could just keep all that Aleck had told him to himself, he knew it would come back to haunt him if he did. It wasn't just that he was afraid that if he told anyone, it would all become real, he was worried what it would do to his friends, knowing that things were changing, and they, as of yet, had no way to even escape their jail cell.

They were watching him expectantly, if somewhat fearfully. If he stopped now, they'd badger him to no end, which he had had some experience with, back when they were kids. These were not people you wanted on your trail. Gary in particular was watching him closely, with his big chestnut eyes, or maybe it was just that the Prime Minister was closer to him than the others. Either way, he felt his mouth go dry.

"I don't know when any of this going to happen," He began. "just that it will, whether we like it or not, which, sadly, we won't. We probably won't even know when it happens, unless Aleck and the others decide they want to gloat." For a man who hated making speeches, it seemed that he was making a rather lot of them recently. "I'm sorry Gary, but before the end of the week, Marakus is going to kill your father, or, more accurately, have him killed. And then he is going to take your place as Prime Minister, which your father is currently filling."

He lowered his gaze, afraid to look Gary in the eye. Duke Gareth had always been there for anyone who needed him, and the realm would feel his loss. But to the four people in this room, he was more than that. He was Gary's father, Jon's uncle, he had never doubted Alanna, and had helped Raoul recover from his dependency on alcohol. Now, Raoul knew Gary would have helped him had he asked, but he had been too embarrassed and frightened to tell his closest friend. But either way, Duke Gareth had helped him when he needed it most, and now a group of selfish and power hungry nobles were going to murder him for no better reason than that he was loyal to the wrong people.

It seemed as though Gary had stopped breathing. Raoul, beginning to get worried, glanced up again, and once again was caught in those giant brown eyes. Only this time they weren't serious, this time they were threatening to spill over with tears. Gary, eyes wide, mouth open in horror, could only stare back at him. It was bad enough to have your elderly father die from natural causes, such as old age, but to have him murdered for something as innocent as being loyal to his king was simply devastating.

Apparently, Alanna and Jon agreed. While neither of them was on the verge of tears, both had lost both of their parents young, they did look like they were considering ripping their cell apart brick by brick. Raoul couldn't blame them, the look in Gary's eyes made him want to do the same, if not worse. He toyed with the idea of tearing the solid iron strips that made up their door into scrap metal. He quickly discarded it though, he didn't fancy being fried by the shields all around them, and he would do no one any good as a slice of extra crispy bacon.

Unable to do anything that would get them out of here and unsure what he could say to make this situation better, Raoul settled for putting an arm around the Prime Minister, in a strictly platonic way of course, or so he told himself. Upon this, quiet sobs took the place of the silence that had blanketed their cell. Raoul wasn't even sure which was better anymore. The only thing that made this situation worse was that he still had bad news.

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Roald stiffened in his chair, in response to what Lord Marakus had just taken the liberty of telling him. He blinked once, twice, unsure of whether he believed the man or not. He wished he could say he didn't, but something about the matter of fact way he had said it made Roald think twice.

There was no reason for Marakus to lie, because it would be found out in moments, and where did that leave him? No where. So that was why Roald found himself accompanying the lord of Raideirun out to the main entry hall. There they were met by a large congregation of people, all of whom wanted to know what had happened, what was happening, and was going to happen.

Roald, catching sight of his mother's black hair over their heads, shoved his way through the crowd towards her. Breaking free of them, he stopped, eyes glazed over in horror. His mother, Queen Thayet of Tortall, was leaning against her long time friend Buri, crying. He had never before seen her cry, not when Kally had boarded the ship for Carthak, not when he had married Shinko, not even when, twenty years to the day, they had held a memorial for those lost on the day of the Coronation.

At her feet, on a thin blanket, lay his father, King Jonathan of Tortall. Or what had used to be his father, this body was too mangled to be that of a king. Feeling very detached from reality, Roald stumbled towards his mother, unable to take his eyes of the body on the floor. All he could think was that he was dreaming, it was a nightmare, but any minute he would wake up, and it would be all over. His father wouldn't be dead, his mother wouldn't be crying, and he wouldn't be king.

He knew, of course, how his father had become king extremely young, barely into his twenties. But those had been unusual circumstances, Roald's grandmother, the Queen, had been ill for many years before dying, the King deciding not to rule alone, but instead join his lady wife in death. And thus leaving their son behind with a madman. This was slightly different. Or so he thought.

From what he could see, Roald would say his father's death had been caused by a landslide, or a long fall. A flicker of purple drew his eyes from the body of his father, and towards that of his Champion. She lay on the floor beside him, red hair not particularly eye catching because of the blood that stained her skin. From the dirt ground into her tunic, and her equally mangled limbs, he instead combined his two original thoughts, and in his minds eye, could see the two fleeing a deadly landslide, before it caught up with them, and pushed them over the edge of the ravine they had been riding beside.

Buri, seeing the eldest prince approach them, nudged Thayet. The nudge didn't appear to have any effect, as the Queen went on crying, apparently unable to remove herself from the shoulder of a friend. Buri herself offered Roald a sad smile, her eyes full of sympathy. Roald could only imagine how she must feel, she had known his father since before he himself had been born, before he had even been king.

Lord Marakus came up behind Roald, the picture of pity. He rested one pale hand on the prince's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. Roald only glanced at the hand, his eyes unseeing. "I'm dreadfully sorry," the Lord announced. "but I must interrupt your grieving to tell you that we have yet to recover the body of the Prime Minister, we believe he was swept further down, but are making every effort to locate him."

A lady in the surrounding crowd began to sob, her friends attempting to comfort her. No one made such a gesture towards Roald, who was feeling rather lost himself. How could this had happened? Were the gods angry with them? How else could the three most important people in the realm have died in just one day?

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Sylvia closed her eyes briefly, in a vain attempt to calm herself. That failing, she opened them again, and nearly screamed with exasperation. If they had been lost before, it was nothing as compared to now, and they were fast running out of time. The little portion of the map she had been left with after her mare had done a runner had been useless, since they had already traveled through that part, and were now miles away from it, so they wouldn't even be able to find their way back.

But on top of that, she now had to ride double with one of the others in her squad, and she didn't like it. Actually, that is an understatement. A very, very severe understatement. She was currently considering setting off on foot by herself, only remembering that there would be no way she could take on thirteen trained warriors and lady all by her lonesome stopped her.

This decided, she instead began to plan. They could use the lady, she would frighten easier than the knights and soldiers, or the mage for that matter. She might just throw the others off, as it was doubtful they had ever had to worry about someone else while they were fighting, there wasn't exactly somewhere safe they could leave her until the fighting was over. The lady knight however, would be tricky. From what Emerish had told her of the girl, she had proven herself to be quite capable several times over.

Add the fact that all but one of the people she was traveling with were old friends of hers, and she could be someone worth worrying about. Apparently the squad of the army with them had been one she had trained with for four years, and the healer knight was her best friend. But Sylvia wasn't excessively worried, not even moderately so. Some might say this wasn't entirely wise, considering the way things had been going for them lately, but she had complete faith in her squad. They had been fighting together all their lives, and wouldn't stop now.

She just had to keep believing that what they were doing was right, and that no jumped up little girl was going to keep her from finishing. Unfortunately, that was rather hard to do believe when your horse had run off, pack and map in tow, leaving you with only the clothes you wore, and your sword. She wasn't aware of how much worse off the group they were hunting was, or she wouldn't consider turning back. But as it was, she knew that idea wasn't even approaching acceptable, and discarded it with disgust. They would just keep going, and see where they ended up. If they made it to the bridge in time, good on them, if not, they would have to wait a month, which, hopefully, would give them enough time to actually find the damn thing.

Her arms were beginning to ache, they had been wrapped around Tomas for several hours now. And last time she had tried to let go and hold herself on the horse with only her legs, she had fallen off. Which was embarrassing in it's self, but was made worse in that that was the second time she had landed on the ground in one day. If she lived through this experience, she didn't know if she'd ever be able to face anyone every again, be they members of her squad, ordinary citizens, or Emerish.

But it was pointless to dwell on that, first she should worry about actually surviving, because, at the moment, it wasn't looking very likely.

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"Daw-wm!" Neal had an annoying way of drawing out his cousin's name, so that everyone around him considered giving him a good whack over the head, thus rendering him unconscious for the remained of the day. Fortunately for him, no one every actually followed through, for fear of what the melodramatic brunette would do to them when he woke up. Of course, he had never traveled with quite so many people who weren't afraid of him.

When he slumped over in his saddle, Dom looked up into Kel's innocent hazel eyes. This was in a direct contradiction of the devious smirk on her face. Dom grinned, and gave her a mock salute. "Thank Mithros for peace and quiet, eh?"

Kel laughed, and looped Neal's reins around her arm. "Come on Magewhisper," She said. "Let's go let Yuki know her husband will be out of her hair for at least a few minutes."

A few strides behind them, Sebastian gulped, and swallowed whatever it was that he was going to say next, eyeing Kel warily. Noticing this, Dom slowed his own horse to let Sebastian catch up. "Don't worry," Dom said with a cheeky grin. "She won't do the same to you so long as you stay quiet." Strangely enough, Sebastian didn't appear all too comforted by this news. Dom chuckled. "Oh yah, that's right, you don't seem to have that ability. Nighty night!"

With that, he squeezed his legs against his grey gelding, overtaking the mage once again. Smiling to himself, he watched Kel hand over Magewhisper's reins to Yuki, who he supposed he would call his cousin-in-law, with a few words and a smile. Apparently the lady wasn't overly upset over what had just happened, as she laughed appreciatively, and gave her husband a fond smile.

Once Yuki had the other horse under control, Kel returned to Dom's side, Peachblossom looking much happier now that Magewhisper wasn't right behind him. "Now that that's down," Kel told the sergeant, "I wish I had done it long, long ago. You know, before I completely lost all patience with the human race."

"All you have to worry about now is what he'll do when he wakes up and realizes he was beaned in the head by his best friend. I wouldn't worry too much though, he's a real softy when it comes to you, luckily. Otherwise Lord Aleck wouldn't have too much to worry about anymore. Personally, I'm surprised Neal dearest was never approached by assassins, you know, to hire him. I think he could have gone far." Dom said, fighting back laughter. This was why he had missed working with Kel and her friends. It always proved entertaining, and he never regretted a minute spent with the Lady Knight. Of course, he had to question his sanity whenever he enjoyed time spent with his ever gracious cousin. But that kind of goes without saying.

Kel appeared thoughtful for a moment. "Actually," she said at last, "I'm not at all sure he never was."

This statement drove Dom over the edge, and despite his valiant effort to hold back his laughter, all pretense of control was gone, and he nearly fell from his horse, in tears. Kel however, remained stoic on Peachblossom's back, only a slight twitch in her left eye showing her well contained amusement.

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Gary still sobbing on his shoulder, Raoul raised his head to look Jon in the eye. The king nodded slightly, and with one last squeeze for the Prime Minister, Raoul prepared himself for the rage of the King, a rage which was pale and insignificant in comparison to that of his Champion. Speaking of whom, she had noticed the exchange between Jon and Raoul and was sitting up straighter, but in no way ready for the news that would bring her world crashing down.

Taking a deep breath, Raoul tapped Gary on the shoulder, in attempt to get his attention. There was no way he was going to give this news twice, and as the Prime Minister, Gary needed to know everything that was going to happen, he was the only one of the four with a cool head on his shoulders, and even then only sometimes. Sensing that something important was going to be shared, Gary tried to compose himself, taking a few shaky breaths, he dragged a hand across his face, wiping away his tears. "I'm ready."

"Alright. Jon, you're next. Actually, this involves all three of you. They have staged your deaths, Jon and Alanna's 'bodies' have been 'found' and are in the castle. Roald and Thayet should be hearing the news soon, if they haven't already. Marakus has announced that they are still looking for yours Gary. Obviously Thayet will turn the throne over to Roald, that is what you had agreed upon should you ever die Jon, somehow Marakus found out. You already know that Marakus will take Gary's place as Prime Minister, which leaves him as Roald's closest advisor. Roald will have to choose his own Champion, but we all know that Marakus will have a hand in it." Raoul paused, taking in the anger on the King and his Champions' faces, and the anguish on Gary's.

"Keladry will be imprisoned as well when she arrives at the Palace, along with Domitan of Masbolle, and Nealan of Queenscove, but in the normal jail. They will be tried and executed for treason. Then Marakus won't have to worry about anyone arguing his control, except for Thayet, George, Baird, Numair, Daine, Cythera, Buri, and Wyldon. And they can be done away with quietly.

"But this isn't the worst of it. Alanna will be charged with crimes to horrendous to be named, and will be remembered as a monster, not a hero. Marakus and his fellows will then change the law, and prevent any girls from becoming knights ever again. But Marakus will need power to do this, real power, not just political power. Aleck of Ramn is well and good, but he isn't enough. He doesn't even begin to rival Numair in power, and we four know that there are others, long dead, stronger than Salmalin. He will need more power than Numair can wield.

"There is only one place he can get such power."

Raoul paused again, seeing the mutual horror on his friends' faces. He was terrified to continue, but knew he must. If they didn't know what was coming, they couldn't fight it, not even if they somehow managed to escape their prison. But maybe, just maybe, there was a way Marakus greatest accomplishment could be used against him. And there were something's Marakus hadn't counted on, Kally for one thing. Had the man never wondered why it had been her who had been sent so far away, instead of the younger princess Lianne? Roald would be sure to bring his sister back now that his realm was falling apart, there was no way Marakus would be able to stop that.

But besides that, there were secrets to Tortall that no one outside this one cell knew, secrets that could stop Marakus in his tracks, secrets that could help them to no end. Secrets that could change the way this revolution ended.

With a grim smile in place, Raoul continued. "Alanna," he addressed the Champion directly, staring into her beautiful purple eyes. "They're bringing Thom back."