Khirro lay still for a minute, unsure what to do. If he stayed put, he’d forfeit his life to a Kanosee sword as surely as if he rejoined the fray. His eyes flickered from the wall walk above to the stairs. He saw no one. If there was a best time to move-to go somewhere, to do something-it was likely now, while the enemy was freshly engaged. He turned his head, looked at the man lying dead beside him.
The man’s cheek pressed against the stone landing was curiously flat, crushed by the fall. His eyes were closed; blood ran across his closed eyelids from a gash on his clean-shaven scalp. A scrollwork of enameled ivy crawled out from the corner of his silver breastplate and across his epaulet. Khirro stopped breathing.
King Braymon!
It was the king dead beside him, the man who had rescued him from the red-splashed Kanosee soldier, leaping into the fight to save a lowly farmer-turned-soldier without regard for his own safety.
The king. The man who ruled the kingdom.
While Khirro had chosen to cower on the landing, struggling to find his courage as others fought for the kingdom, Braymon hadn’t hesitated a second.
And now the king was dead, and there was no one to blame but Khirro.
Guilt stirred his gut. What would this mean to the kingdom? To the war? His head swam. Did this mean he could return home, or would it mean more fighting? He thought of Emeline. It was easy to remember why he hadn’t risen after his fall down the stairs when he thought of her and of the child she carried. He only wanted to return to her, to go back to the farm and live out his life in peace and quiet. If Emeline would have him back.
The clang of steel and the shouts and screams of men fell on him like violent rain. He didn’t know how long he lay there listening and thinking, mourning and celebrating, awash in guilt and remorse and relief when another sound caught his attention. He held his breath.
A footstep on the stair?
His eyes darted toward the stone steps, but he couldn’t see beyond the king’s leg twisted at an unbelievable angle. He dared not turn his head for fear a man clad in a red-splattered breast plate may be leering at him from the stair, waiting for an excuse to fall upon him and finish the job. Thirty seconds crawled by, a minute. Khirro began to think he’d heard his own breath. For a while there was only the sound of fighting, then it came again. Not a footstep, but a groan, small and weak, but close. Khirro waited, listening, hoping. Dreading. Then another sound, a whisper.
Haltingly, Khirro moved his gaze back to the face of his king, the man who saved him, the man who so many years ago, saved the entire kingdom.
He looked into the open eyes of King Braymon.
Chapter Two
A helm clattered off the wall walk, bouncing end over end down the stairs. It hit Khirro’s foot, startling him and sending a jolt of pain up his leg. When he looked to see what hit him, he recognized the dead eyes of a member of the king’s guard staring back at him from within the helm. A pained grimace twisted the face, blood dripped from severed tendons and ragged veins. Khirro recoiled, pain flashing down his spine. He kicked at the head, the sound of his armor scraping stone impossibly loud in his ears. His toe contacted the helmet painfully, sending it spinning across the landing. It trailed off blood spatters as it rolled to the edge then disappeared over the brink. Khirro breathed a sigh of relief.
“Help me.”
Khirro flinched. The king’s plea came again, a breathy whisper barely audible above the sounds of battle. Chickens ran about after their heads were removed, but nothing could speak without life remaining within. Khirro shifted painfully onto his side.
“My king,” he whispered.
Braymon lay in a tangled heap, hips wrenched farther than possible, one arm pinned beneath him, the other twisted behind. Blood streamed from his shaven head onto his cheeks and into his eyes, a mask of red through which little flesh showed. He blinked clearing his vision, a slow, lethargic movement, then directed his gaze toward Khirro. A pained smile twitched his lips; it quickly turned to a grimace.
“I thought you lost, lad.”
The blood drained from Khirro’s cheeks.
“No, your highness. I… I was knocked unconscious. I’ve only just woken to find you here beside me.” The lie tasted more bitter than the coppery tang of blood on his tongue.
Braymon coughed a fine spray of bloody spittle. Khirro knew it meant something inside him was bleeding.
“I’ve not much time. I need your help.”
“I owe you my life.”
“Then you can return the favor.”
Fear lumped into a mass at the back of Khirro’s throat. “What can I do?”
“The healer will know I’ve fallen,” Braymon said coughing again, face strained with the effort. “Take me to him.”
Relief. He didn’t ask to be avenged or dragged back to the battle to die a soldier’s death. Khirro glanced at the blood pooling beneath the king’s contorted body, flowing from some unseen spot under his plate mail, and pushed himself up to kneel beside Braymon to better assess his condition. The battle raged above but no one appeared on the stair.
“You shouldn’t be moved,” Khirro said after consideration. The way the king’s body twisted upon itself made him feel sick. “It would mean your life.”
Braymon shook his head minutely. “It matters not. I must get to the healer before the warmth has left my body or all is lost.”
“I don’t think-”
“Soldier,” Braymon said with a tone of command befitting a king. “If you do this thing, all else will be forgiven.”
Khirro gaped at the king’s words. He fought to keep tears at bay as guilt siphoned the strength from his limbs. His mouth moved trying to form the words to apologize for not rejoining the fight, to beg forgiveness, to explain, but his constricted throat choked them. Instead, he nodded.
“You’ll have to remove my armor to carry me.”
Khirro stripped the king’s armor as quickly and quietly as his hurts allowed. Each time he shifted the king, Braymon’s face contorted with deeper levels of pain, but he never cried out, and each piece of armor Khirro removed revealed more horror. The king’s blood-soaked underclothes stuck to him like a second skin; the jagged end of a bone punched through the flesh of one thigh; a loop of intestines protruded from a long cut in his abdomen. As he uncovered each injury, Khirro felt more grateful to be alive and whole and his own injuries seemed less significant. By the time he finished removing all the pieces, the king’s eyes were closed, his face taut with pain, cheeks pale. Khirro had to look closely to ensure he still drew breath.
“We’ve no time to lose.” Braymon said in a strained whisper. “Take me to the center keep.”
Khirro stood, teeth gritted against his own meager pain. He reached for Braymon but stopped, unsure how to proceed. He saw no way to pick up the injured man.
“Don’t concern yourself with my pain, it will end soon enough. Put me over your shoulder.”
A shudder wracked Khirro’s spine as he paused to look around. A few men ran about the courtyard below, but they were distant. Above, the fighting reached the top of the stairs. Two Kanosee soldiers-one wearing gray leather, the other the black breast plate splashed with red-hacked at soldiers of the king’s army who tried to keep them from the stairway. Khirro hoped they’d hold them long enough. He bent and hooked the king by the armpits, struggling to pull the dead weight from the ground. The king clenched his jaw, every muscle he could control straining to help.
Finally, the king’s limp form flopped over Khirro’s shoulder. He imagined he felt the soft flesh of his innards through his leather armor and his stomach flipped, forcing bile into his mouth. He swallowed it. The pain proved too much for the king and a cry tore from Braymon’s bloodied lips as his broken body pressed against Khirro’s shoulder.