“I pray you, Father,” he said. “Let us call for a truce. Let us end this war.”
“Kill him,” said Henry.
Sanglant took one stride, another, and broke into a run. Behind, he felt the hesitation of his kinsmen; he marked it, but he was already at full speed and dared not stop. Would not stop.
He would rid Henry of the daimone. He would rescue him.
Henry’s guard shouted. Several lords leaped forward to place their bodies between prince and emperor, but Sanglant took one in the thigh, shattering that man’s mail, and another in the guts, thrusting so hard it split the man’s mail shirt. He twisted the blade and pushed him aside with his foot. Three others fell to bolts of elfshot.
Henry had not even drawn his sword. He stared indifferently at the death of his companions.
“Damn you! You’re not Henry!” Yet Sanglant could not strike his father. He seized him by the gold brooch that clasped his handsome cloak and yanked him, but he might as well have been pulling on a mountain.
Henry did not move until he himself struck. The back of his hand caught Sanglant under the chin and sent him flying backward, lifting him right off his feet. The prince landed hard, jaw cracking. Blood rimed his lips.
Zuangua lunged, but Henry dodged and raked Zuangua with a mailed hand. Bronze armor gave way as three wide furrows of blood opened across Zuangua’s chest as if Henry’s hand bore unseen claws. Astonished, Zuangua leaped back, still grasping his spear. Although the stark wound did not seem to hurt their leader, the Ashioi were now less eager to press forward.
Sanglant clambered, wincing, to his feet.
“Traitor,” said Henry in another creature’s voice. His voice had the timbre of a bell and it carried far into the forest, out to the ranks of his terrified army. His companions took a step back from him. “You have all along plotted with your mother’s kind. Now we see the truth of it. Duke Burchard. Duchess Liutgard. My noble companions. My captains. Do you see it? Do you mark him for what he is?”
“Murderer!” cried Duke Burchard, rallying. “You betrayed my daughter!”
“Traitor!” cried Liutgard more passionately. “I believed that you were loyal!”
Sanglant stood, unsteady, as the ground shook and he struggled to focus his eyes. His ears were ringing and ringing although there was no thunder. Silence gripped the land, or he had gone deaf but for a whooshing that resolved itself into the griffins, circling above.
Ai, God! The feathers! He grabbed for his knife’s sheath, but in the course of the battle the feathers had torn it right open. They were gone, and half the sheath with them. If only one feather would come drifting down from on high into his hand, he could succeed.
Henry—the daimone—laughed cruelly and lunged forward. Just in time Sanglant stepped aside and parried the blow, but that blow hit his shield so hard that wood disintegrated and he was sent reeling, and tripped, and stumbled, and barely fended off another cut from one of Henrys captains, then went down on a knee. The captain gasped sharply as a dart sparkled in his shoulder.
Sanglant got to his feet. Zuangua had leaped to cover him and now danced back and forth as Henry struck blow after blow, attempting to get through him to Sanglant. The shadow prince was bleeding from face and leg and gut, and still he fought while his warriors pressed back the nobles.
Sanglant pulled his knife out of his boot and leaped in to grab Henry from behind. He kicked him hard at the back of one knee as he wrapped his arm around his father’s throat and pulled him backward. But the daimone caught the blade and just the touch of that hand shattered the iron blade into shards that sprayed out, caught fire, and spattered against the ground in a hissing hail of sparks.
Henry reached back and wrenched Sanglant’s helmet right off his head. Before the prince could react, Henry twisted his fingers into Sanglant’s hair. Sanglant squeezed harder, trying to choke him, but those fingers ground into his flesh and twisted as though to yank his head right off his neck. What claws had cut open the aetherical substance of Zuangua’s shade had no purchase on mortal flesh, but the cutting edge of Henry’s iron gauntlets cut into Sanglant’s skin and seemed likely to sever tendons.
He struggled, but it was futile. Henry’s unnatural strength could not be bested, not even by him. The pain made spots flash and fade before Sanglant’s eyes. The world hazed as the daimone throttled him. His own grip slackened. He could not hold on.
Zuangua’s black-edged spear stabbed right through his father’s head. He felt the whisper of its passing as a hot tingle below his own chin.
Clutched so close, he actually felt the daimone die as the shadow blade pierced its soul and released it. That inhuman strength snapped and with an ungodly shriek it vanished into the aether, banished from Earth. He recoiled and collapsed onto his back with his father on top of him and his arm still wrapped around Henry’s throat.