Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern

Chapter 9: Iskalon Stands: Medoc

 The Market was in even greater chaos than the baths had been and Medoc felt his exhaustion keenly as he watched it from the upper entrance. Shoppers and Semija swarmed past him, leaving the open cavern in a hurry, and more huddled behind the stalls, where the shopkeepers complained vocally about the mess. A large pit had been dug in the middle and was thick with his own Warriors. Something glistened on the floor in the torchlight, and it took Medoc several moments of straining before he realized, with incredulity, that it was water.

 As he tried to make sense of this, Medoc caught sight of Tejusi shouldering his way through the crowd toward him. Medoc pulled him out of the entrance, trying to find a place in the tunnel quiet enough to speak without shouting. “Report, Cadet.”

 “He—His Majesty fought all of the princesses, General. In that pit in there, like the Semija games . . .” He trailed off, and Medoc nodded impatiently. He had heard rumors of the King’s time spent in the Semija pits and ordered his men not to speak of it. He did not have the energy to reprimand Tejusi now. “He gave them ice. The last two used theirs to make globomb. They were blown to pieces, and the King was badly injured. His Guards carried him out.”

 “By the Lava Lake and All . . .” Medoc smoothed his mustache. A globomb in Market. The King injured. He would not be the only one, not in that crowded cavern. “How many citizens were injured, Tejusi?”

 “They haven’t made a tally of the dead or injured yet, General. But there were shopkeepers in their stalls who reported the shards hitting them. For the spectators close to the pit . . . it was a massacre, Sir. At least one hundred dead, by my estimate.”

 “Who is in charge here?”

 “Serg Linou took charge after the King’s Guards got him out.”

 That was good. Linou was a capable man. Medoc dismissed Tejusi, ordering him to report in an hour on the Serg’s progress, then headed for Dynat’s quarters. Bolv would need to be notified. “Freeze me,” Medoc muttered under his breath as he hurried down the hall. The last thing Chraun needed now was an incapacitated King.

 There were no Guards on Dynat’s doors, and when he knocked, the Semija who kept His Majesty’s parlor informed Medoc there was no one at home. He was on his way to the Throne Room when a Guard approached him with a bow.

 “The King requests your presence immediately, General. He awaits you in your quarters.”

 My quarters? “Is he well?”

 “He has been healed to a full recovery, by the grace of the Fire Spirit. Fireblood protected him from the worst of the blast.”

 Medoc followed the Guard to his own quarters, confused and relieved. When he arrived, Dynat’s honor Guard held his door, Medoc’s wife sat at the oval soapstone dining table, and across from her sat King Dynat, eating delicacies handed to him by Medoc's own Semija. He felt unreal, and wondered if he had fallen asleep in the baths and drifted into a dream. He almost asked his wife to pinch him, but the look on the King’s face stopped him.

 Medoc’s four daughters sat around the table as well, each staring at the King as if he were a slink in a hunt, a little dangerous but still something they would like to tangle with. Of course. The King was not married, and each of Medoc's little ladies would love to be Queen. They were approaching marriageable age, and what better husband for the daughter of the General than the King himself?

 Looking at the angry red flames dancing in his King's eyes, Medoc, in his third traitorous thought of the week, decided that he would die before he saw any one of his precious daughters marry the madman before him.