Reardon
If Reardon thought the long journey home from the Frozen Kingdom was more grueling than he’d remembered, then doing the same journey once more with a mystical dagger plunged into his chest was the worst torture he had ever known. At least this time he had the comfort of a wagon, though every bump in the road made him wince.
The only thing that would be worse was if he failed to catch up to Lombard in time.
Reardon and those who’d chosen to join him couldn’t push onward without resting, however. They camped briefly the first night and were doing so again before the final leg to the castle the following morning. If Reardon had calculated correctly, they were set to arrive right on Lombard’s heels. He wished that gave him comfort or eased his pain as he lay down, trying to rest.
This time, he had asked for space, because he hated to see the discomfort on his people’s faces when they looked upon the dagger or saw him cringe. He tried to keep it covered, but anything touching it, even just his cloak, made the pain worse.
He lay beside a fire with the dagger aimed upward at the open sky. Eating and drinking was a chore as well, but he’d choked down what he could. Now he longed for his exhaustion to let him sleep, if only for a little while, so he could forget how much his heart hurt—from so many things.
“Your Highness, I fear I know the answer, but I must ask… is there nothing that can be done to ease your suffering?”
Tilting his head, Reardon took in the visage of the elven guard who’d helped him, the first to speak up and bolster his fellows to do the same. Lombard had taken most of the guards with him, and Reardon had had to leave some in Emerald, but his company was still made up of a great multitude, just mostly artisans, shopkeeps, and farmers.
Watching them all beyond the elf who stood before Reardon reminded him of his first night at Jack’s castle. He’d been awed then to see so many elves and half-elves, to see men cuddled close to men and women holding hands with other women. Now he was seeing that same miracle in his own people.
He tried to smile at the guard, who was handsome without his helmet, his elven ears still prominent without whatever glamour had hidden them. He was tall and dark and stoic, with a poise to his stance that spoke of the honorable man he was. He’d even fetched Reardon’s sword belt from the palace before they gathered at the city gates and left, though Reardon doubted he could put his swords to much use in his sorry state.
“I wish I knew,” Reardon said. It still hurt to speak, but it didn’t hurt much less to stay silent. He glanced down his body at the dagger, bejeweled and beautiful, a once treasured possession. “Lombard said… I’d die if I tried to remove it. Perhaps… that is what I should do. If I die before he completes his plan, he can’t succeed.”
“Highness.” The guard stepped closer, as if ready to stop him.
Reardon didn’t bother lifting a hand to try. “If it comes to that, I might have to… but not yet. I need to reach those gates, to be sure everyone is well.” He clenched his eyes shut, and a tear streaked down his cheek.
The guard still hovered when Reardon opened them.
The guard. The elf.
“I don’t know your name,” Reardon realized. “I usually remember everyone in the castle. Are you new?”
“I was a city guard until recently. Robert, the man I love, is a city guard as well. I feared we were more likely to be caught if we worked too closely together, so I petitioned to serve as a castle guard instead. I’ve only been assigned there a week. My name is David, Highness, house of Zheck.”
“What a week,” Reardon remarked. “Your love knows of your feelings and lineage?”
“He does.”
“Is he here?”
A spark of remorse marred David’s strong facade. “I bid him farewell before we left. I begged him to stay behind and keep peace in the city. A few guards had to remain, and I….”
“You worried for him. ”
“He’s more suited to be an artisan than a guardsman. He’s human, no magic, but he feared that anything other than picking up a spear would have made it too easy to tell… what he was.”
What. Even now, among friends and knowing that Reardon himself had admitted attraction to men, David said it in a hushed voice. “No longer,” Reardon said with an aggrieved raise of his head. “I swear.”
“Maybe I’ve left Rob to a worse fate, if those who still fear us rise up in our absence.”
“Our numbers are greater,” Reardon assured him. “And once my father is well, he’ll see reason after learning what saved him.”
“I hope so, my prince.” At last David allowed some of his tension to recede. “Your love is at the frozen castle?”
Reardon had explained as much as he could to those who followed him, about the once formidable Sapphire Kingdom, and while not giving the details of the curse as he had promised Jack, he explained that some of the people there might look like monsters, but they were not, not any more than an elf or a person with magic. He also hadn’t made it public that his love was the Ice King. He feared that might give credence to Lombard’s lies that Jack controlled him.
So Reardon kept his answer brief.
“He is. And I am going to save him. I am going to save all of them.”
“ We are, Your Highness.” David bowed his head once more and offered a steadfast smile.
Reardon nodded gratefully back at him, and David took his leave to let his prince rest.
Jack
Jack stood on the ramparts, not trying to hide his looming form, with all his court lining the walls with him. Oliver was farther down along another ledge to lead his archers, many others standing guard at any potential entrances onto the grounds, prepared to launch a strategic attack and volley magics they usually saved for quiet, domestic use.
Of Jack’s subjects, only Barclay stood with him and his court as they surveyed the approaching army.
Jack looked to Barclay then, who shook his head. Lombard led the Emerald soldiers, but Reardon wasn’t with them. Still, Barclay’s vision said that he would arrive eventually with a shadow hanging over him and his impending fate. All Jack could hope to do was hold off the soldiers until that path became clear.
“Zephyr,” Jack said, returning his eyes to the arriving troops, “when the fighting begins, if they be so foolish as to declare war, remind everyone to avoid killing unless they have no alternative. We will use fear more than force and hope they see reason. Now, carry my words to their leader.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Zephyr said.
There was a gentle rush of wind, and Jack knew when he spoke that his voice would boom forth as if from the gates themselves or a god calling down from the skies.
“You have your prince!” Jack declared. “Why do you return?”
The line of horses came to a stop with a simple raise of Lombard’s fist. There was a decent expanse between them and the gate yet, closed tight. Like Lombard, everyone at the front wore helmets, though many farther back did not, simple city guards brought along to fill their ranks.
Jack did not wish them any harm.
Lombard was another matter.
“You cursed our prince!” Lombard replied, loud enough that Jack would have heard him, however distantly, even without Zephyr magnifying his words. “You cursed our king! We come to avenge them and free them from your power!”
“I have no ability to curse,” Jack spat. “I merely bear my own.”
“Lies!” Lombard drew a mighty long sword that glittered in the sun. “We will no longer serve your whims! All magic must be eradicated! Only with the fall of your kingdom can ours be saved!”
A cheer rose up from the soldiers, echoing loudly over the castle exterior with Zephyr’s power amplifying their voices. Lombard didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to; he’d clearly bolstered his men by filling their heads with falsehoods, and no one would listen to the words of the damned.
Jack wished he knew what had become of Reardon, but until that revealed itself, he would defend his people and his home with everything at his disposal.
“So be it,” Jack said and rose to his full height atop the ramparts. He saw the Emerald soldiers, with and without helmets, falter back at the sight of him. “If you wish to eradicate magic, then feel its wrath. ”
“Ready!” Oliver ordered, and as Jack gave a nod, he continued, “Aim!” and a row of bows pointed skyward along the wall below the court.
Next to Jack, Branwen waved a fiery hand toward the archers and set each arrowhead ablaze.
“Fire!” Oliver finished, and the arrows arced like falling stars toward the front line of Lombard’s forces.
The horses reared up, frightened by the glow and whooshing sound, but the arrows struck the ground in a nearly perfect line, not hitting any people or creatures, simply creating a barrier of flames.
One by one, the court rose into the air, soaring downward to the front gate, Zephyr to pass on orders and the others to fight. Branwen kept the barrier lit, and Liam fired lightning bolts at the horses’ feet to drive the soldiers back.
Atop the gate wall, previously hidden people rose up on their knees, bearing dull, rounded shields that angled above their heads, as Josie flew by with an elegant touch, alighting the center of each one. The shields caught the sun so unexpectedly with their sudden golden sheens, that Emerald soldiers and horses alike were blinded, staggering back another meter.
As they stumbled and hesitated but didn’t yet retreat, Jack’s own riders appeared atop the few horses they had, led by the young elf Raphael. Behind the cavalry poured their meager but brave infantry, made up of fighters and wielders of magic. Some even ran right through Branwen’s fire, having taken protection draughts against it.
A few Emerald soldiers tried to flee the unexpected barrage, those that held steady looking horrified at the elves and humans alike casting spells to transmute swords into planks of wood or put horses into a dead sleep in the snow.
These men knew nothing of real magic, cast as easily as a bard telling a tale.
“Stay strong!” Lombard cried. “Their wickedness cannot stand against our cause!”
Liam shot a strike of lightning at his horse’s feet—but it bounced harmlessly away and fizzled into nothing, like hitting an invisible shield.
To the soldiers nearby who witnessed it—a miracle.
“To me!” Lombard ordered, riding through Jack’s ranks like parting reeds, with his soldiers swarming in behind him .
As quickly as spells were cast or elemental magic rained down upon Lombard, it all dispelled and fell away like he was blessed. Branwen’s fire even snuffed out when Lombard rode through it, and soon the expanse to the gate was mere meters.
“Now!” Liam ordered from where he floated above the courtyard—above the trebuchet Wynn had constructed.
Liam had told him what compounds to add as ammunition, and Wynn had complied, a full arsenal at their disposal. Nigel was there as well, preparing future rounds, as the first flung forward at Liam’s cry, launching what appeared to be a boulder but broke apart like dust, raining colorful speckles upon the approaching army.
They were too near the gate now, despite those trying to hold them back, and Jack watched Liam call down rain with a roll of dark clouds and thunder filling the sky. The second the water hit the dust that had coated the Emerald soldiers, the reacting combination turned the dust to sticky sludge.
Soldiers off their horses fell to the ground as if wading through muck, and the horses themselves had it worse, knees buckling and causing them to throw their riders.
As before, only Lombard seemed immune.
“He’s using magic?” Barclay darted to the edge of the wall beside Jack. “Or is it alchemy?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jack growled, stepping onto the ledge to finally leave his perch.
“Wait!” Barclay cried. “What of my vision?”
“If your vision changes, we will all learn the truth long before you can warn anyone.” Jack turned his monstrous maw toward Barclay. “The soldiers know not what they do, but him I am not afraid to touch.”
With a crunch into the stones of the rampart wall, Jack leapt off to begin his descent, creating an icy ramp in his wake. He slid down the length of the castle at speeds that eventually launched him like the trebuchet had launched its weapon.
Jack landed with a similar crunch upon the front gate wall far from the line of golden shields, but close enough to where Lombard charged that Jack dropped right down in front of the gates and bellowed.
“Give room!” Then he stared Lombard and the other charging horses down as they all stopped short. “Any who dare touch me will earn an icy grave. So please, accuser , let it only be you. ”
He could see Lombard’s eyes through the man’s helmet, blue and vibrant like his own.
“Jack!” Josie called from above him.
She had refused to use her touch as a weapon and was fearful of what Jack might do—or what might be done to him—but he could not be cowed. Around Jack, and farther out in the field beyond their gates, he saw so many good people fighting the army at their doorstep.
Like Shayla, a wickedly fast fighter with her twin daggers, cutting painful scratches into dozens of soldiers, one after the other, before they could counter, making them hiss and retreat—but not causing fatal harm.
And Caitlin, with her own elemental power, throwing icicles from her palms that hit soldiers’ ankles or shoulders, or she would cover the ground in ice that caused their horses to slip.
Everyone was doing what they could to keep from killing these men, but no one would mourn Lombard, who or whatever he truly was.
Jumping down from his horse, Lombard dropped his helmet into the snow, a cruel echo of when he’d last been there and embraced Reardon in front of those same gates. “You wish to challenge me directly, Ice King?” he said, squaring his stance with his long sword pointed outward.
“Gladly,” Jack growled and barreled forward with a mighty leap.
The sword struck his icy palm, holding him at bay, but no normal weapon could harm Jack, and he gripped it firm as he swiped with his other hand at Lombard’s head.
The ricochet stung more than Jack could have expected, his arm bouncing to the side, deflected like Liam’s lightning. While Jack stared in furious shock, Lombard heaved him away as though fighting with the strength of ten men.
Jack leapt at him again with a roar, but while the sword could strike Jack, whenever Jack tried to reach any part of Lombard, he was repelled. He swung and swung and swung at Lombard anyway, battering at him with palms and fists, each successive blow making him grit his teeth at how much it hurt .
Try as he might, Jack couldn’t touch him.
“You see! These demons cannot touch the righteous!” Lombard called—and then grinned, adding quietly for Jack’s ears only, “Did you think this would be easy?”
Attacking Jack with similarly vicious, battering strikes, Lombard hacked and hacked at him to drive Jack back. It didn’t hurt the way striking that magical barrier did. It barely chipped away even the tiniest flecks of Jack’s ice, but seeing their leader holding his own against the starring villain in their darkest tales, Lombard’s men rallied and began fighting back harder too.
Jack couldn’t allow it. He and Lombard weren’t even able to hurt each other, but he was being backed up to the gate. If the courtyard was breached, there was no telling what Lombard was capable of.
With a mighty stomp at the ground, a burst of ice poured forth from Jack, enough that Lombard’s footing faltered, and Jack was once again able to catch his sword on the following blow. Jack grabbed it in both hands and held firm, allowing his naturally frosty presence to creep upon its blade.
Lombard’s grin widened as they stared each other down, blue on blue, with barely a hand’s width between their faces. “You only make the tales they’ll sing to honor me more epic. Just like Reardon.”
Jack’s stomach plummeted.
“It’s you, isn’t it, the love he spoke of? Such soft skin and lips, that prince,” Lombard continued in a whisper, no strain on his face or in his arms as he continued to hold Jack at bay. “So easily shaped to my will. I would have been kinder to him if he’d only bent willingly, but he chose to stay loyal to you.”
“What have you done to him?” Jack demanded, with everything but Lombard giving way to his power, as even the snow turned to mounds of ice.
“He is far, far away, and when I claim your castle, he will be dead.”
Lombard hurled Jack to the side with such force, Jack toppled, collapsing to the ground and leaving the way clear to the gate. Once Lombard reached it, he used his sword like a battering ram and split the doors apart as though a cannonball had struck them.
Jack’s subjects along the wall scattered, holding their golden shields up to protect them from splintered wood and twisted metal fastenings. Farther above, Jack saw Branwen and Liam both hurling their fire and lightning again at Lombard to no avail. Even Zephyr appeared, trying to blow Lombard over with the force of his wind. Jack feared even Josie would dive down and foolishly try to turn him to gold, but she merely stared in horror.
Lurching back to his feet, Jack felt an awful sense of dread watching the slow pace of Lombard moving across the broken threshold into the courtyard, but before he could race after him and pound upon that shield until his arms broke apart in chunks if need be, Jack heard his name cried out like a scream of agony by a voice he had deeply missed.
“Jack!”