Free The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes Page B

what is really happening there. I want you to find the Briar King, and I want you to kill him.”
    A moment’s silence followed the praifec’s words. He sat there, watching them as if he had just asked that they go hunting and return with some fresh deer meat.
    “Kill him,” Aspar said carefully, after a moment.
    “Indeed. You killed the greffyn, did you not?”
    “And it nearly killed Aspar,” Winna interjected. “It
would
have killed him, except that the Briar King somehow healed him.”
    “You’re sure of that?” the praifec said. “Do you discount the saints and their work so easily? They do keep an eye on human affairs, after all.”
    “The point is, Your Grace,” Stephen said, “that we do not know precisely what happened that day, what the Briar King is, or what he truly portends. We don’t know that the Briar King should be slain, and we do not know if he
can
be slain.”
    “He
can
be slain, and he must be slain,” Hespero said. “This can slay him.” He lifted a long, narrow leather case from behind his desk. It looked old, and Aspar saw some sort of faded writing stamped on it.
    “This is one of the most ancient relics of the Church,” the praifec said. “It has been waiting for this day, and for someone to wield it. The Fratrex Prismo cast the auguries, and the saints have revealed their will.”
    He opened one end of the case and gingerly withdrew an arrow.
    Its head glittered, almost too brightly to be looked at.
    “When the saints destroyed the Old Gods,” Hespero said, “they made this and gave it to the first of the Church fathers. It will kill anything that has flesh—beast canny or uncanny, or ancient, pagan spirit. It may be used seven times. It has already been used five.”
    He replaced the arrow in the case and folded his hands before him.
    “The madness Ehawk witnessed is the doing of the Briar King. The auguries say it will spread, like ripples in a pool, until all the lands of men are engulfed by it. Therefore, by command of the most holy senaz of the Church and the Fratrex Prismo himself, I am ordered to see that this shaft finds the heart of the Briar King. That, Aspar White, is the charge and the duty I am asking you to take up.”

CHAPTER FIVE
The Sarnwood Witch

     
    “WE CAN’T TAKE THEM ALL,” Anshar said grimly as he drew back the string of his bow. There was nothing to hit—the wolves were nothing more than shadows in the trees, and he was certain every shaft he had fired thus far had missed its mark. The Sarnwood was too dense, too tangled with vines and creepers for a bow to have much worth.
    “Well, no,” the one-eyed Sefry to his left said coolly. “I don’t imagine we can. But we didn’t come here to fight wolves.”
    “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Fend,” Brother Pavel said, pushing wet brown bangs from his gaunt face. “We haven’t a choice.”
    Fend sighed. “They aren’t attacking, are they?”
    “They tore Refan to shreds,” Brother Pavel observed.
    “Refan left the path,” Fend said. “We won’t be so foolish, will we?”
    “You really think we’re safe if we stay on the path?” Anshar asked, looking down dubiously at the narrow trail they all three stood on. There seemed no real boundary between it and the howling wild of the forest, just a muddy mingling of earth and leaves.
    “I didn’t say we were safe,” Fend amended with a grim sort of humor. “Only that the wolves won’t get us.”
    “You’ve been wrong before,” Brother Pavel pointed out.
    “Me?” Fend wondered. “Wrong?”
    “At Cal Azroth, for instance,” Pavel persisted.
    Fend stopped suddenly, focusing his single eye upon the monk. “In what way was I wrong?” the Sefry asked.
    “You were wrong about the holter,” Pavel accused. “You said he wasn’t a threat.”
    “Me, claim Aspar White wasn’t a threat? The one man who ever gave me a real wound in single combat? The man who took my eye? I don’t think I ever claimed, in anyone’s dreams,