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Victor Blackstar ran as he had never run before. His footing was sure, even though tears were running from both of his eyes. These saw and followed the trail he was on automatically. His conscious mind was occupied with other sights.
The weeping faces of his children…and the crumpled form of his wife.
He and Cole had been away from Kingston. A meeting with Lord Felson of Chelmsford. Cole had pleaded to come along, and he had granted the request. It had seemed fitting preparation for the day when Cole would become lord of Kingston.
But his wife and daughter had not stayed at the citadel to await their return. Instead, receiving word that Victor and Cole had left the hidden town of Massie, they had traveled forth to meet them. But instead of Victor’s party, they met a pack of wolves. Lady Blackstar’s own escort had been slain in the fighting, all save two bucks.
One of those brave rabbits had carried Heyna to safety. The other had fled for help, finding Victor’s party a short distance away. Because of him, Victor had arrived in time to save Heyna and her protector. The wolves had fled in the face of the new arrivals, leaving behind their victims…including his wife.
Cole and Heyna had knelt at their mother’s side, sobbing. Victor, numb with horror, had set his bucks to tending to the fallen. The last survivors of his wife’s escort had been set to watch over his children. He had quietly walked out of their midst, and soon located the trail of the wolves.
And he began to follow it.
Now, what might have been an hour or an eternity later, Victor at last took stock of where he had run. The trail had climbed a familiar mountain: Hammertop, the last great peak of the western Low Bleaks. Above him lay the summit, and the signs he had followed were but minutes old. Now, mastering his grief, he proceeded stealthily.
It wasn’t long before voices became audible to Victor. He could hear the harsh pants and grunts of several wolves, and the grotesque sounds of them gulping water. A few mutters of conversation reached him, most of it unintelligible. Then, to his shock, Victor heard a voice speak clearly-and it was the voice of a rabbit.
“Your brutes made a fine mess of that, Blenk. All of my bucks dead, along with those idiot guards who didn’t know when they were beaten. It took me months to find and recruit rabbits willing to aid in this scheme. Now I’ll have to start all over again.”
“Whine to someone who cares, turncoat. Your bucks brought it upon themselves by fighting my wolves to make it seem as though they weren’t on our side. They should have turned on their comrades rather than worry about being found out. As it is, one of the real guards escaped in the fighting.”
The rabbit voice laughed scornfully. “Cutting off escape was your part in this scheme, Blenk. A pity the real wolf officers are all off hunting Jupiter’s accursed heir. They might have actually pulled this off as planned, even if Garlackson has only the one red eye.”
“Do not mock our Prince Captain, turncoat,” the wolf voice responded in a dangerous growl. “It is indignity enough that he is known among you preylings by the name of his fallen father or that accursed nickname. He will teach you all his rightful name by the time he is done.”
“Spare me the grand pronouncements, Blenk. Botched or not, the deed is done. Now we must both make our ways home-me before I’m missed, and you before the pursuit arrives. I have a new network to build, and you have a promotion waiting for you if your boasts are accurate.”
Had Victor been able, he might have felt relief as he heard the wolves making their way down the opposite slope of the mountain. Perhaps they indeed feared pursuit, or simply thought it the swiftest way to return to their place of origin. In any case, he apparently did not have to fear being discovered. Victor felt, however, that it would only have been about the fifth worst thing to happen to him this day.
Losing his wife was the worst, of course. The peril and grief their children had endured, and would endure, ranked highly. So did the fact that he had arrived too late to prevent either. But now, contending with these, came the day’s latest impossible horror.
Victor recognized the rabbit voice.
Once he was sure the wolves had moved off far enough that they would no longer be able to hear him, Victor completed his ascent. The summit of Hammertop was flat, as though it had been struck by a massive hammer. Across from where he stood, another buck had his back to him as he looked down. Perhaps he was following the departure of the wolves he had been speaking with.
Even from behind, Victor knew his hearing had not deceived him. The caped buck’s form matched the voice he had heard and not wanted to believe. Victor had known this rabbit for many years, and recognized his stance and bearing. It was impossible not to, for he and this rabbit had been many things to each other over the years.
Playmates.
Brothers in arms.
Advisors.
Family.
“Challabat Blackstar…why?”
The Lead Captain of Kingston, Victor’s own nephew, spun round, momentarily startled. Then he drew his sword, and his expression became resigned. “I had really hoped to keep my part in this from you, Victor. It would have made things less…complicated.”
“What’s complicated, Chal? My wife-your aunt-has been murdered. I followed the wolves who killed her here. And with my own ears I have listened to you conspiring with their leader!”
Sighing, Challabat nodded. “True enough. I do regret the loss of your wife, and the bucks-loyal to me or to you-who died with her. But it was necessary. She was an obstacle.”
“Obstacle? She loved you like a son!”
“I am not her son,” the buck replied coldly. “My parents are dead. Dead in the service of the king to whom your wife was so devoted. Dead like so many Kingston rabbits in the service of Whitson Mariner and his incompetent descendants.”
Victor was appalled. “Those are our kings and our kin, Chal! Whitson’s daughter, Lucianne, was our foremother. And the descendants of Fleck Blackstar have always served Whitson’s line faithfully, as he did!”
“How have we been repaid, Victor? With lordship? If Whitson had any honor he would have conferred his own crown upon Fleck Blackstar. Instead he gave him a name and a lesser title, and left him to deal with the enemy he lacked the wits and courage to face!
“When he and his sons failed to defeat the oathbreakers, they turned to our ancestors again! Yet, when the battle was ended in victory, did Lander recognize his father’s folly and his own ineptitude? No! Lucianne Blackstar should have been a queen, and Kingston rabbitkind’s capitol!
“Every royal afterwards was even worse. They never did us a greater kindness than when they ceased to embroil us in their petty reigns and disputes. Just as Fleck Blackstar’s rule prospered after Whitson left Ayman Lake, Kingston prospered when his line left us alone. Then Jupiter came along, and took our best to provide the backbone for his army.
“My father-your brother-and my mother were thus lost to us. But even then, you and your wife remained devoted to the heirs of Whitson. Even after he was slain by Morbin Blackhawk, you clung to your senseless devotion! I endured it, Victor, longing for you to see sense-but you didn’t. And so I took the one action I thought would open your eyes.”
Rage threatened to consume Victor as he stared at Challabat. He could hardly believe that the nephew he had romped and played with, and who had romped and played with his own son in turn, had said such words to him. Chal had often seemed grave and stern to him in the years since his parents’ deaths. But that even those tragedies could have led Challabat to this…
“Your parents, and all our ancestors, would be ashamed to hear what I have heard, Chal,” Victor said as he drew his own sword. “But as they cannot be here to tell you so, my sword must speak for them. You have thought to make Kingston a kingdom unto itself, in league with the predators we have fought for over a century. Instead, you shall face justice.”
“Don’t be a fool, Victor. It wasn’t so long ago you called me the best swordsbuck you ever trained.” With that, Challabat came at Victor, his sword whirling masterfully. Victor’s own sword met it, deflecting its killing edge skillfully. Challabat was forced back, and stunned when the razor keen tip of Victor’s blade left a thin line across his left cheek.
Challabat’s surprise turned fearful as his eyes met Victor’s, now filled with a chilling resolve. “The key point there, Chal, is that I trained you.”
When a party of Victor’s guards caught up to him, they found him standing over the prone Challabat. The younger rabbit was lying rigid on the ground, with Victor holding both their swords crossed at his neck. In a tight voice, Lord Blackstar told his bucks what he had seen and heard. With grim faces, the bucks of Kingston hauled their Lead Captain to his feet, searched him, and then bound his arms with his own cape.
A short distance from the site of the battle, Victor stopped the party. With a last hard look at his nephew, Victor gave instructions to his bucks. “Take the prisoner back to Kingston and place him in the most secure cell. See that he is guarded, and that no one speaks to him…until I return.”
Once they were out of sight, Victor made his way back into the midst of the bucks who had been left behind. He saw the relief on several faces as he appeared, and nodded to the faithful rabbits. Most of them were standing beside the bodies of their comrades. Victor paused briefly, contemplating the fact that some of the fallen at least were party to Challabat’s treachery.
Putting the matter aside for the time being, Victor gave the signal for his bucks to bring the bodies back to Massie. He then made his way to where Cole and Heyna waited with their two guards. Someone, he saw, had attended to the body of his wife in his absence. Looking at her, you might have thought she was only sleeping.
Kneeling before his children, Victor looked into their eyes. Both had obviously cried many tears, and he had no doubt there would be more in the days…and years…to come. Gathering them to him, he felt fresh tears of his own come. For today, at least, he resolved that his children would cry only for their mother…and not for the one whose treachery had taken her from them.
“I am so sorry, children.”
Their little arms wrapped around him tightly, and all three wept together for a long, long time. Finally, they broke apart, and Victor rose to his feet. The two guards looked at him, a question in their eyes. With a sad but grateful smile, he shook his head.
Stooping down, Victor lifted his wife’s body and cradled it. One of the guards moved ahead of him, and the other took up a position behind him. Cole and Heyna walked to either side of him as he slowly began to walk back towards Massie. As he did, Victor thought of his ancestors, and of the loyalty that Chal had scorned.
His voice hoarse, Victor began to sing. “My place beside you, my blood for yours, till the Green Ember Rises, or the end of the world…”
“I’ll stand by my brothers, my sisters, my own,” Heyna’s voice continued bravely. “I’ll be firm and sure as the solidest stone…”
Cole’s voice was next to take up the song. “My place beside you, my blood for yours, till the Green Ember Rises, or the end of the world…”
And though her voice could not now join in, all three of them could hear in their memories the voice of Lady Blackstar, taking up the part that had always been her favorite. “I defy the darkness, will to it never bow, and to this resistance, add the old vow:
“My place beside you, my blood for yours, till the Green Ember Rises or the end of the world!”
For the three Blackstars, and for Victor in particular, it could easily have felt like the end of the world. But somehow, all three of them knew that it was not, and that no one would have been more adamant in that affirmation than their wife and mother. And so father and children sang the last verse together. “My place beside you, my blood for yours, till the Green Ember Rises or the end of the world! Till the Green Ember Rises or the end...of the world!”*
The End
*This song was originally featured in the third book of the Green Ember series, Ember Rising. However, in more recent editions a different song is used.