“Because you are a soldier!” Brock told him, and the gaze he lifted to Brion was filled with wonder and total loyalty. “You are a skilled commander who rarely loses, and arranges the order of battle so that as few of the common soldiers as possible will be slain!”
Brion frowned. “Can this alone be reason enough for loyalty?”
“It can,” Sir Orizhan told him.
“There is more.” Brock turned his gaze away. “The longer I marched behind you, Majesty, the greater my respect grew, for you are not only a good prince, but also a goodly man, loyal to your friends, courageous in the face of any danger, devoted to your fiancee.”
John cried out as though his heart were being stabbed, and Niobhyte snarled, “Traitor! You shall roast in wicker for this!”
“Traitor yourself!” Brock surged back to his feet, face suddenly suffused with rage, pointing a trembling finger at the chief druid. “You lied to me, to us all, you preached a travesty of the ancient religion! I learned the truth of it, heard it from real druids in Erin, aye, from a pouka’s mouth, from one of the ageless spirits of the land! There is no truth in you, betrayer of thousands, and I repent the day that ever I listened to your lies!”
Niobhyte stood unmoving, but his eyes glowed with malice, as though he were memorizing every slightest feature of Brock’s face and form, to work upon him a spell that would cause him endless agony.
The sergeant didn’t even notice. He turned to Brion again, dropped once more to his knees. “The longer I served you, Majesty, the more I came to know that you were as good as your brother was bad, and swore in my heart to serve you. So I still swear. My life is yours, to take or to give as you will.” He wrenched off his helmet and bowed his head, his neck level and naked, waiting for Brion’s sword.
“How did you know!” John hissed.
“Mostly by the silver sickle he had in his pack—he didn’t rank high enough to rate gold, did he?” Matt turned back to John. “He said he took it off a dead synthodruid when they raided a sacrifice and saved a maiden, and I never thought to doubt him. But seeing Niobhyte standing beside you made me realize how tightly politics and religion have been bound together in this, and Brock was the only man who was both caught up in that binding and had the opportunity to kill Gaheris. There were a host of small details, too, the look on his face when he saw Brion for the first time, the superstitious fear that fell over him now and then, his original wariness of me—a dozen of them, plus the fact that the wound in Gaheris’ back was too broad for a sword, but might have been made by a sickle piercing, then hooking to cut its way out.” He didn’t mention that Gaheris’ ghost had talked about a stabbing pain followed by a ripping, only looked down at Brock. “Niobhyte said it had to be done with the sickle, didn’t he? To make Gaheris a sacrifice to the old gods.”
“He did,” Brock confirmed, head still bowed, “and fool that I was, I believed him.”
“So you knocked out the other man who was protecting Gaheris’ back—how were you supposed to know it was Brion, dressed up as a trooper? Then you fought off a townsman or two, pulled out your sickle, and stuck it in Gaheris’ back. After that, you pretended to be knocked out yourself, fell down, and were just one more unconscious victim of a brawl, along with the rest.” Matt turned back to John. “That’s how I guessed I believe you said something about surrendering, Your Highness? A matter of your word of honor?”
“Honor is for fools and weaklings!” John snapped. “If I had known you had the slightest chance of guessing, I’d never have said it! Niobhyte, slay them!”
“I think not,” the chief druid said, though his hands began weaving a spell. “Your army has abandoned you, and it is clear I shall not triumph by supporting you. What say you, King Brion? Would you have your kingdom so securely in the palm of your hand that none dares strike against you? Would you have every subject, from high to low, tremble in fear of your name?”
John whirled, screaming in outrage.
“No!” Brion snapped. “I will never stoop to hold power through fear, with no love! And I will never lower myself to borrowing power from a man who is such a coward that he dares not strike his own blows, but must suborn others into striking for him!”
“Then die, fool!” Niobhyte raised his hand to throw a death-spell—but John, still screaming, yanked a sword from under his cloak and stabbed.
Niobhyte fell, howling, clutching the wound high on his breast.
“He isn’t dead!” Matt shouted. “Sergeant, sap him! As long as he can still chant a spell, he’s a danger to us all!”
Brock stared up, amazed at still being trusted enough for an order. Then life flooded back into his face, and he leaped at the chance to serve—leaped up and over to Niobhyte as he pulled out a small cudgel and cracked his former leader over the head. Niobhyte went limp, but Matt snapped, “Tie the man up and keep him unconscious!” He knew from personal experience that it was quite possible to work magic just by thinking, if there was enough emotion behind the thoughts, and he was sure Niobhyte had some very strong feelings at that moment.
“My lord, I shall!” Brock took up station by Niobhyte, cudgel up, alert for the slightest movement.
“It is you who have unraveled all my plans!” John shrieked at Matt, “it is you who have stolen a tenth of my land, sinking it deep in the ocean! Feel the force of my hatred, fool!” He chanted a verse in an old language as he swung the sword down, but not in a blow, only pointing it at Matt, and a lightning bolt jumped from his blade.
Matt snapped out,
Light blinded him for a moment, and he felt a tingling all over his body. Then the room was clear again, and he was gasping.
“The lightning flowed down over him and into the stone!” Orizhan cried. “Yet he still stands!”
John screamed again, still in the arcane tongue, hands rolling as though molding clay, then hurling something unseen that leaped into burning light, a fireball sizzling straight at Mart’s chest.
“The fire returns unto its source!” Matt shouted.
“Ball, retrace along your course!”
He held up a hand, and the ball of fire bounced off without touching his palm, arrowing back toward John.
But John was already shouting another spell, even as he held up his own left hand, darkening the fireball to a cinder. His right hand snapped down, pointing at Matt. Silver streaks flashed.
“Let fire shroud the ice of hate!” Matt called.
“The strength of frost in flames abate!”
Flame blazed up about the icicles. With an explosive hiss, the ice sublimed into steam and the fire went out.
“You may be a powerful magus by the standards of your fellow aristocrats, Your Highness,” Matt said, “but compared to a real wizard, you’re not even a squire.”
John stared, his eyes wild. “But… but Niobhyte feared my magic!”
“He let you think so, as long as it served his purpose,” Matt said, “but you saw how quickly he turned his back on you when you outlived your usefulness. I’m afraid you weren’t as much in control as you thought.”
“So much for magic.” Brion drew his sword and strode toward his brother. “Now we shall test your swordsmanship.”
“My curse upon you all!” John screamed, and threw down his own blade. Then his nose and chin bulged outward, his whole body swelled, his purple robes turned into maroon and scaly skin, and a dragon stretched its neck ten feet above Brion to blast fire down at him.