Inkway to Albreton

Chapter Twenty-three

When they got back, Castle Albreton was under siege. King Allard and his knights faced not one bunyip, but twelve all vicious and snarling. Three knights had already fallen dead in their blood and Prince Albert and the others arrived at the Hall of Truth just in time to see the King be stricken down.

"Father!"

Prince Albert was jostled as Enkaiein kicked a bunyip into the wall by the entrance. It writhed and then died; that's how hard it had been hit. But that one had already been injured, bleeding at its mouth and jugular. The others wouldn't go down so easily.

"Father," Prince Albert called, leaping right off of Enkaiein into the fray. Jasmine dismounted Kurventhor and followed him, managing just barely to duck below a bunyip's sharp-edged flippers before they decapitated her. These things were slow, but they were strong, and she suspected getting hit even once would be a death sentence.

"Jasmine, Albert!" Salina yelled over the noise of battle, over the pinging of blades and the scrapes of armor against the walls as knights were pushed into them.

An arrow struck true through the neck of the bunyip that had stabbed its tusk through King Allard's chest. It did not die but it did fall, stumbling back, shaking and choking. It screeched in pain, immobile for the moment. Then Kurventhor realized the red knight was no longer riding atop his back. Instead, he was following Jasmine and Albert towards the King, slipping over the spilled blood and regaining his momentum in a flurry, shooting in front and behind him to keep the bunyips from getting close enough to bash him away with their tusks.

Prince Albert dropped to his knees by his father. King Allard coughed, blinked up at his son through bleary eyes.

"Albert," he rasped.

"Oh my god," said Jasmine. Allard grabbed at Prince Albert's tunic and Albert took his hand in his. Jasmine had never seen him so scared.

"I'm here dad," he said. "Don't speak, just breathe."

"Albert," said the King gruffly, "It is your duty... to rule the kingdom now."

"I asked you not to speak, dad." The prince was crying now, and his tears fell upon his father's chest where the blood would not stop running.

"You will make," said the King as he turned paler and paler, "A fine King, my son. You have a good heart. Use it."

"Please, dad..."

"That is the only advice... I have for you..."

Jasmine realized she was crying herself only when her vision blurred ever so slightly. She felt the wetness run down her cheeks silently and cupped a hand over her mouth.

"Stop talking, father," Albert latched onto King Allard and wept, forgetting the battle around him.

The King's last words were, "Your mother would be proud." Then his body went slack and the soul left his eyes, which remained opened as Albert held his body tight, as if he could keep his father's spirit inside if only he held him strongly enough.

"Jasmine," the red knight said frantically, snapping her attention back to the bunyips surrounding them. One was leaping towards her and Albert and the prince showed no intention of letting go of his father's body, let alone moving out of the way. Jasmine got in front of him, spreading her arms out wide, very much intending to act as a human shield. The red knight hollered her name again just as Kurventhor's tail smacked down in front of her, beating the bunyip who had been charging towards her and Albert all the way across the room. When it flew through the air, its protruding tusks nearly cleaved the red knight's head off and he ducked, cursing under his breath before he stood up straight again.