This post is chapters forty-two and forty-three of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule, which I'm serializing here on Steemit.

The story so far:
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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Chapter 42

Duke Benedek and the rest of the nobility slowly gathered in the plaza outside the palace after it was clear that the sorcerous duel had ended. The mighty statue that resembled his wife was cracked and broken, and the sculptor who had presumably made it lay unconscious on the ground. He was no mere sculptor, of course. Benedek would need to have words with him when he woke. If he woke, given the amount of blood he was losing from his wounded thigh. He dispatched Joszua to find a surgeon. There were some other unconscious men in the plaza as well. Benedek was sure that they would all have interesting stories to tell. But now wasn't the time for that. The city was in chaos, and someone would need to set it right. Order must be imposed, but the destruction in the palace had thrown the nobility itself into turmoil. Benedek approached the clump of noblemen that had begun to gather near the Stone Woman's face, half-buried in the ground from the force of her fall.

“Gavril's claim was backed only by his army,” said Count Salamon. “Half of that has fled, and the rest are looting the city.”

“They were looting even when Gavril was sitting the throne,” Baron Toma pointed out. “I don't see how that changes anything now.”

“Still,” said Salamon, “the oaths to Gavril were extracted under threat of force. I say they aren't binding.”

“Oaths are oaths. If you felt yours was illegitimate, then you shouldn't have sworn it. Besides, Radoslav has no successor. Zakhar is dead.”

“Danijela was Zakhar's wife. I suppose she has the best claim.” Even Salamon seemed skeptical of his own words.

Toma sneered with disdain. “Danijela renounced her claim when she made peace with Gavril as princess of Liat instead of pressing her position as Queen of Tarkannan.”

“But surely we couldn't expect a woman to stand strong when she already saw her husband and the king murdered?”

“Surely we have no need for a Liatian queen. If she's even still even alive. Has anyone seen her?”

“Who would you have us follow, Toma?”

“Gavril had a son. Two, in fact.”

“He's just a boy. And the son of a traitorous madman, at that. You would swear fealty to him?”

Sir Grigori entered the conversation. “Of course Toma will follow the son. He was as much involved in the treason as Gavril. Are you all forgetting that Toma was Gavril's agent in the court?”

“Rather than sling mud, Grigori, why don't you tell us who has the most legitimate claim?” said Toma.

“Legitimacy certainly doesn't confer on anyone in Gavril's line,” Grigori answered. “Gavril was crowned by a demon, Toma. From the very pits of hell. Have you forgotten?”

Benedek had hoped to remain silent, but he could no longer hold his tongue. “A demon? What are you talking about?”

“Well, the bishop wouldn't crown him,” explained Toma. “The woman he brought back from the mountains, she revealed herself to be a demon and put the crown on Gavril's head.”

“And none of you did anything to stop it?”

“It... It didn't seem so bad at the time. A surprise, certainly, but... I can't explain it. Clearly it was wrong. Evil. That's obvious now, but at the time, it didn't occur to me to object.” There were murmurs of agreement among the other nobles. “Perhaps we were under some sort of spell.”

“After the mad priest and the moving statue, I don't find that so difficult to believe,” said Salamon. This met with more agreement from the small crowd.

“So if we disqualify both Radoslav's and Gavril's lines, what should we do?” asked Grigori.

“If we have learned anything from Gavril,” suggested Toma, “it's that we shouldn't be so closed minded when it comes to deciding who to sit the throne. It isn't as if Radoslav was a great king. We can name whoever we want.”

“Duke Benedek has the highest rank of all of us,” said Salamon. “He's always served the kingdom well, and never swore fealty to the traitor. We could do worse than King Benedek.”

The nobles in the plaza seemed to be considering the idea, and from their faces they seemed likely to accept. “I can't be a king,” protested Benedek. “There's no link between my line and Good King Nicholas.”

Salamon scoffed. “Archduke, then.”

The crowd was growing more enthusiastic, and many were nodding now. Could he turn them down? This was not why he had come to Kubara. Never sworn fealty? An accident of timing. He had meant to retire, not be elevated. Even so, something deep inside of him knew what he needed to do. Whenever duty had been thrust upon him in the past, he had taken it. Now he would do so again. “Very well, if you all agree, I shall be your archduke.”

Toma was the most likely to object, but the recent reminder of Gavril's unsavory associations must be weighing on his mind. He went to one knee. “I pledge my undying service and fealty to you, Archduke.”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” said Salamon. “Somebody ought to fetch the bishop so we can do this all properly.”

Chapter 43

Lorne woke in an unfamiliar bed. His entire body was in pain. When Petro had come down on top of him it had broken his ribs again, as they had only partially healed from his previous fall at Thornwood. It hurt to inhale. It hurt to exhale. And, perversely, it hurt to hold his breath. His skin screamed from where he had been burned by the priest. As he lay there wondering if there were still more injuries he had yet to discover, he noticed that there was another bed in the room, with another man on it.

The other man noticed Lorne stirring, and spoke. “The surgeon told me that you fought the fire wizard, too. He said that you somehow limited his magic for our final confrontation. Thank you.”

“I stabbed him in the arm,” Lorne said. He felt as if someone was stabbing him as he said it. “What did you do to him?”

“Oh, ah, I was the one who brought the Stone Woman. I am Master Wizard Jonas Terra.”

Jonas Terra? Could it be true? The reason he had been sent to Tarkannan in the first place? The target for his mission? The cause of all his grief? Here, in the same room with him? Helpless? He looked closely, trying to recall the man as he had seen him at Thornwood. It was him. The beard was different and the hair, but those things were easy enough to change. The eyes were the same. The nose. And the fact that he had confessed his name was an important clue, as well. Lorne started to rise, or at least tried. Every inch of him protested even the thought of moving. Well at least one of them was helpless. Lorne chuckled, bringing more pain shooting through his chest.

“What's funny?” Jonas asked.

“I'm supposed to break one of your bones.”

“I think I missed the joke.”

Lorne had been missing the joke, too. “The joke is on me, and this is the punch line. I was supposed to deliver a message to you from the Black Circle and break one of your bones. They even said I could choose which one. But now I'm dying here, and I'm the one with the broken bones.”

“You're with the Black Circle?”

“Yes. We've met before, at Thornwood, but I didn't introduce myself. I'm Lorne Barrowman.”

“You were the one in my room in Thornwood?”

“Yes.”

“But you weren't there to kill me?”

“No. Just the message. And one broken bone. I was planning to get the little finger of your left hand.”

“Huh. A great many things would have turned out differently if I had known that.”

“A great many things would have been turned out differently if I had just done it properly.”

“For what it's worth, I broke a great many bones when I fell off the shoulder of the Stone Woman. If anyone asks, I could tell them that you were responsible for one of them.”

Perhaps Petro had jarred something loose inside him, because he seemed to be discovering more and more things that were funny. “So you had a fall as well, eh? That seems fair. I had a similar experience when I exited your bedroom through the window. And now you're here with your bones as broken as mine.”

“Oh, no, I figured out how to fix my bones. Magically.”

This seemed to be the funniest of all. “Naturally. I should have guessed it.”

Surprisingly, Jonas swung himself off the bed and stood up. He had no color in his face, and the bandages on his leg seemed to have soaked through with blood, but the wizard hobbled over to Lorne and put his hands on Lorne's chest. Lorne didn't have the strength to resist, and wasn't sure if he should. The wizard started speaking in a foreign language. Casting his spell, Lorne supposed. But some of the pain started to recede. Not much of it, but some. The wizard ceased his casting and smiled at Lorne.

“If you've healed me, why does it still hurt?” Lorne asked.

“Oh, I didn't say I could heal you. Just your bones. My magic doesn't work on everything. Although I can carve you a surprisingly lifelike statue of yourself, if you like.”

The wizard broadened his smile, but then fainted and collapsed to the floor, his energy apparently exhausted by the spell he had cast. Lorne tried to call for help, but his voice disappeared into a croak when he tried to push it beyond his normal speaking volume. The surgeon and his helper came in later and carried the wizard back to his own bed. Lorne wasn't sure about his feelings toward Jonas, but he was glad that the wizard wasn't dead.