Kingsblade by Andy Clark

Author:Andy Clark
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-11-21T16:57:45+00:00

Luk’s heart lurched at the sight of Alicia. Gerraint’s consort had borne Luk into this world, and though the Code forbade him from calling a consort from a disgraced house his mother, she was precisely that. Now, in his apparent madness, it seemed that his father was prepared to throw Alicia’s life away as casually as his son’s.

‘What on earth is this?’ said Markos in a tone of disgust. ‘These traitors must really be getting desperate.’

Alicia looked terrified. She was shouting something as she clung perilously to the Knight’s finger, but Luk couldn’t make out her words.

‘We have to, Da,’ he urged. ‘I can’t lose them both on this damn world.’

‘Knights,’ said Danial. ‘Shroud your weapons and hold fire. Advance quarter pace, draw up fifty yards distance. Gustev, no bravado from your men please, sire. Markos, hold ten Knights back at the breach and watch for enemy stragglers.’

‘Be careful, lad,’ warned Markos. ‘Don’t let those traitors get the drop on us just because they’ve a hostage in hand.’

‘We will not risk the death of an innocent woman, sire,’ replied Danial, and despite the panic that gripped him, Luk heard a note of steel in his friend’s voice that hadn’t been there before.

Luk twitched his haptic gauntlets and blink-clicked a sequence of runes in his retinal display. Sword of Heroes purred around him as it gradually bled power from its weapon systems, drawing it back into reserve capacitors somewhere in its mechanical heart.

You’re Freeblade now, lad came a bitter whisper from his throne, the voice of his old great uncle Osraek. You’ve no reason to obey the orders of the dracon whelp. Other voices spilled over and around Osraek’s, some urging caution, others action. Luk gritted his teeth and shut them all out.

‘I won’t do anything to endanger her,’ he muttered to himself, and to his ghosts. ‘But the moment those bastards release her…’ Energy bloomed through his thermal cannon again for a moment, a sympathetic response to his anger, and Luk hurriedly bled it away. His heart thumped sickeningly in his chest as he walked his Knight forward and brought it to a stop on Danial’s left. Sire Sylvest drew up to Luk’s right, and one by one the other Knights took their places in the line. Soon, a long, curved battle-line of loyalist Knights stood facing the three Chimaeros steeds across the rain-lashed compound. Pennants snapped in the wind. Lightning flickered fitfully overhead.

‘Knights of House Chimaeros,’ began Danial through his vox-amplifiers. ‘I declare you traitors to the Emperor of Mankind, and to Adrastapol. Surrender now. Do not tarnish your honour further by harming a defenceless woman.’

Static hissed across the vox. Luk tried to control his pounding heart.

‘No,’ came the amplified reply from the Knight Gallant’s pilot. Sire Hectour, Luk thought distractedly. He’d drunk mead with this man, played regicide. Now, the Freeblade barely recognised his voice. Hectour had never sounded so cruel. ‘You are no High King, draconspawn. Neither was your coward father. The crown belongs to Gerraint Tan Chimaeros.

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