A Matter of Blood

Author's Note

Part 9 may be somewhat delayed as it is going to be quite a bit longer than average (estimated at 20k words at this time) and I want to take the time to get it right in revisions, even though most of it is written already. Live or die, Finn's story will end.

Family Tree - Updated for End of Part 7

Each generation is separated out and ordered by age.

* * *

Grandmother (Mother of Father and Syrlin, other two sisters are his half-sisters) - Deceased, was a Weirdling. Could float and make people temporarily lose memories.

* * *

Father (Artan) - His relationship will all three of his sisters was fairly good, if sometimes tempestuous. Was in actual love with Syrlin. He cared for family but could be ruthless, cold, and cruel. He never hit women, but had no such compunction about his sons. Confirmed dead. Killer will perhaps forever be unknown as neither Bayrd nor Tyr took responsibility for his death.

Seigaldia - Mother of Tyr (1st Child) and Adewyn (2nd Child). She's more or less loyal to her son, but she has equal devotion to her daughter. Wife. Proud and has a temper. In Marche Grodayn, status unknown but alive.

Bayrd - Brother, Finn's Uncle. Has no known children. Was not permitted to marry any of his sisters and has many affairs with commoner and lesser noble women. Spymaster for kingdom. Is in obsessive love with Syrlin who he forced into his bed and later sent demons to abduct leading to her maiming. Was a conspirator with Tyr and at least imprisoned his brother immediately prior to his death. Encouraged Tyr to act against Finn although he claims that he did not plan to murder him, only keep him imprisoned. Is summoning and using demons to enforce his grip on power.

Syrlin - Mother of Finn (3rd Child). Made First Wife due to her unquestioned love and loyalty to her brother. Social butterfly, renowned for her beauty and charm. Capable mage. Escaped from Marche Grodayn and is currently with Finn. Lost her right forearm during Bayrd's attempt to abduct her using a summoned demon of hunger.

Cedyr - Mother of Merwyd (4th Child) and Raisa (5th Child) and source of their red hair. Concubine, not full wife. Raisa's name is different from the others out of respect for a friend of hers who died. Concubine without full rights of a wife, reason why is not public knowledge. In Marche Grodayn, status unknown but alive.

*. * *

Tyr - Elder brother, former heir and attempted murderer of Finn. Killed in open battle.

Adewyn - Ex-wife of Tyr, rejected. Legal Wife of Finn. Very much in love with Finn but will not put up with his shit. Finn loves her and trusts her advice on all military matters. While she is independent by nature, she is also the most traditional of his sisters, and takes her role as wife seriously. Hell of a temper. Is the mother of Finn's firstborn son, Artan.

Finn - He has married Adewyin and Raisa, but not Merwyd as of yet. Reputation for sleeping around, although this was during times when Adewyn and/or Merwyd were not with him and before Raisa as of age, so it is somewhat undeserved. Mostly.

Merwyd - Finn's first head-over-heels love. First Wife of Tyr, had a daughter named Gwyn with him. Suffered under Tyr's brutal sexual demands. With Finn now.

Raisa - Legal First Wife of Finn. Loyalty and love for him is complete, although she seems a bit naive and innocent from time to time. Finn loves her deeply and is as protective of her as she is of him. She was trained to be a shadow-magic assassin and is smarter than she gives herself credit for. Is pregnant with Finn's child. The child is a Weirding, and will be born with a strange appearance and probably some natural magical abilities.

* * *

Gwyn - Daughter of Merwyd and Tyr. Precocious, adopted by Finn. Has bonded with Caliban.

Artan - Finn's firstborn son, named after his grandfather.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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Raisa and Adewyn were arguing in a good natured fashion when I found them in what the mayor called the eminence room, where speakers waited prior to addressing the Assembly. The Assembly of Guilds met in the adjacent room, which we had taken over for our own purposes. Right now the greatest mages and priests of the North (and also many of the coastal cities elsewhere) sat there, doubtless both irritated at being summoned like accused criminals and afraid at the implications of dire need. Priests and mages essentially wielded the same art, but did not enjoy being reminded of it. Only in dire emergencies would one work with the other. I considered this such an emergency.

"I heard that they're calling you the Ice Dragon again," Raisa said, needling her elder sister a bit.

Adewyn merely laughed.

"Better than what they're calling you," she replied.

"What?"

"You don't know?" Adewyn twisted the knife, as only elder sisters can.

"Just tell me!"

"The Wraith-Queen of Cymru."

"What?" Raisa sounded shocked, the poor dear, "That's not even..."

"You have to admit," I said, stepping into the room, "it is pretty catchy."

"Finn!" Raisa protested, "It isn't very nice!"

"Neither is 'Finn the Lusty'," Adewyn said, starting in on me now, "but it's true."

"Ugh," Raisa said, "You're both the worst."

Then she pouted, adorably. For a moment, we were all children together again, joking and making fun. Not adults responsible for a kingdom and its salvation. It was nice. Merwyd coming in, looking disheveled and a bit awkward and completed the scene. She always was adorable like that when she'd been studying. And I had no doubt that she'd been up all night with the task I had appointed her.

"I'm ready," she said, simply, offering me her wide smile, "and I didn't have to make many changes. You did a good job with the basic diagrams, Finn. I just clarified things."

I smiled back. Doubtless she brought the clarity of her brilliance to my post-sleep scrawlings. My sisters and I were together again. We could do anything. We entered the room.

I'll spare you all the details of the meeting. In total we spoke to around a hundred people. Priests, priestesses, lords of various arcane guilds and societies, and royal mages. It was our job to get them all to understand the threat and why we needed their cooperation. Merwyd explained the technical details of what would need to be taught and how quickly it could be learned. By the end of her presentation, all in the room knew how to draw the wards and purify magic.

Then she explained how little we knew of the threat itself. Bayrd could bring forth physical monsters, but that took much effort, and he probably wasn't capable of conjuring them in great numbers. Spirits were easier, but again, they were largely powerless without a host, and they couldn't simply possess anyone without preparation or permission. It was likely that Bayrd would find a way to use both, and perhaps other forms as well, so she stressed the importance of being wary and warding as much as possible.

Naturally, when I stood up and made my final request for aid in securing the kingdom and its people was when things broke down.

One gentleman questioned whether I had the right to demand anything of them as king. I gave him the classic "you must of course follow your conscience" answer, but I believe it was just for form. I agreed, in spirit, to many tax reductions as well as further royal donations to various temples and colleges.

The real problem came when I couldn't deliver it all at once, so one of the older and most respected members wanted it all written down and signed. If anyone could agree on anything, that probably wouldn't have been a problem, but as it stood he wanted to adjourn for a few weeks and then come back and negotiate. Around half or more of the audience there rolled their eyes, understanding the dire nature of the threat. Eventually, I was forced to ask myself what my father would have done.

Octavius, the older priest who had healed my mother and killed a demon, was my greatest advocate, desperately attempting to bring the intransigents over to my point of view. When he failed, I stepped up.

"I suppose I understand your concerns. There's nothing about royalty that makes men honest. My father lied quite a bit, often to me."

As I was getting into the field of royal fallibility, the wiser members of the audience began to become concerned.

"The problem is, simply, that I don't have time to negotiate. And neither do you. We have, regrettably, found that the traitor Bayrd has suborned individuals who were in our service. Anyone who does as I ask today will be remembered and the magical and religious institutions that they serve will be rewarded. It is in the kingdom's best interests. That said, anyone who doesn't assist me will be considered to be in Bayrd's pocket."

There was an outcry. The gentleman from the front stood up, indignant.

"Are you saying we'd be considered treasonous?"

I smiled broadly. He'd taken the bait.

"No. As the succession was in question for some time, I couldn't really do that. However, Bayrd is a proven diabolist, so you too, as fellow arcanists, would be considered the same. Merwyd, dear, please remind me what the punishment for consorting with demons is as recorded in the most ancient and sacred laws of Cymru?"

Merwyd looked surprised to be called upon, but did a fine job, speaking so the entire room could hear her.

"Crucifixion."

"Ah," I said, firmly, "there you have it. Make up your minds or I will be forced to start making assumptions. You have until the chancellor calls your name to decide."

I wasn't sure if it would have the desired effect, but having killed my own brother made me seem like a credible threat. It probably helped that Merwyd and I were the two strongest mages in the room. I stood and watched as each and every person in the room agreed to do whatever it took to preserve the kingdom from the demonic threat. Which amounted to all of the battle-trained mages being sent to my army as soon as possible and the rest getting to work on warding everywhere of importance in the north and eventually south.

"Crucifixion! Ha! He's definitely his father's son," I heard Octavius say from the front of the room to his neighbor. I'd be offended but he clearly meant it as a compliment.

* * *

Once we had as many mages as we could stand, we marched south. We made it through the pass with no resistance. The men loved it but Adewyn didn't. Bayrd wasn't a military genius but he was intelligent. Smarter than me, anyhow. Adewyn pointed out to me that even a token force would have been able to slow us for days if not weeks, with sufficient magical support. It just meant that he'd be focusing his forces elsewhere, and had plans to wipe us out at a place of his choosing. A place with no opportunity for retreat or escape.

The worst part, for me, was that Raisa had no intelligence on what was happening in the mid-south. She had plenty of news from the coastal cities that Bayrd held and inland and even from the western mountains and valleys, but virtually nothing from the deep interior where we were headed. The south of Cymru is rolling hills and fertile valleys, until it hits the mountains and coastline. Farmland and good pasture as far as the eye can see. So, it stood to reason that someone, somewhere would have some news, and share it, accidentally or not. But they hadn't. Raisa felt incompetent but I knew her to be an extremely capable spymaster, so it was probably something far worse.

We didn't discover how much worse until we neared Marche Grodayn after almost a week of free movement. We heard it before we saw it. Hell, we heard it before we'd made it entirely through the pass. The scouts riding back looked like they'd seen death.

They had.

We hadn't heard anything from here because nearly of the population was dead, murdered at Bayrd's command. We hadn't seen any bodies because they were all standing between us and the castle. Standing, walking, and worst of all, screaming.

These weren't the quiet dead that the death singers of the Eldest sang into being long before man walked here. They had voices, and low animal cunning. To Adewyn's dismay, they did not oppose our entrance into the valley under Marche Grodayn that I had not seen in over five years. They waited for us to file in, smiling with inhuman hunger.

My family and I stood on a hill together, the army making camp beneath us, our mages setting up wards as fast as they could work, protected by archers. Every now and then a few of the things rushed our lines. Arrows brought them down.

"Tyr was mad and vile at the end, but not stupid," Merwyd said. She had figured it out first. "He was murdering those villages in the north so that they could be possessed by demonic spirits. He must have expected Bayrd to aid him with the process, because it never happened. Thank the gods we burned our dead before we left."

"Can they inhabit any corpse?" I asked, my mind filled with images of graveyards vomiting up generations of the restless dead.

"No. They must be fresh. Relatively. Probably three days or less, maybe a week. By a fortnight they would be completely spoilt as vessels. They won't rot while they are inhabited, however. They trick nature into think that the corpse is alive, and thus does not decay."

"You know much of this subject," mother said with unhidden suspicion.

Merwyd didn't gat angry, to her credit. She just sighed.

"Father had me research the topic and bring him information. He forbid any practical learning, however. Which is unfortunate because, illegal or not, I could have perhaps wrested control of Bayrd's new army from him if I had but an ounce of knowledge of..."

"No," I said, firmly, "you will not become a diabolist because you perceive our situation to be desperate. That is the path that Bayrd has chosen. I do not pretend to wisdom or understanding, but I've grown to understand my uncle through his true actions. He most certainly believes himself to be aggrieved in some manner," as I said this mother looked away in disgust, I did not blame her, "and is acting accordingly. He did not set out to be a mass murderer, and probably feels like he was pushed into it. As if he had no other path to deal with his family."

"But that's ridiculous!" mother said, "You must know what kind of man he is by now! I can't...I can't have been the only one he..."

"Peace," I said softly, putting my arm around her, "I do not mean he is good, or ever was. He's always treated women poorly, and I simply willed myself not to see it. I do not defend him. I understand him because it would have been easy for me to become like him."

"Rot," Adewyn said, and Raisa nodded, "you're nothing like him. You'd never have harmed your mother or us like that. Even when you were at your most selfish or angry, the worst you ever did was argue, never hurt us or take what wasn't freely and enthusiastically offered."

That made me feel pretty good, to be honest.

"It isn't rot," I said, sighing, "It's just the truth. I came out of that lake changed. I was stronger of will, to be sure, and mercenary service made me powerful, but the feeling of being wronged can lead a man down an awful path. Every day I thank the gods for Raisa's love. Without it I would have been lost."

She blushed and I held her hand. Her child was growing at a much slower rate than Artan had. Her stomach was only slightly visible through her clothing. Every time I saw it I was reminded why I had to kill Bayrd and finish this fucking war.

"Merwyd," I said, "will the wards stop the possessed bodies?"

"Yes. In fact if they cross the ward they will be banished and the corpses will become inert. They can be stopped through simple physical harm as well, but not as easily as a man. On the bright side, as such things go, they will not have a venomous bite and are fairly simple minded and unlikely to use armor effectively. They probably can pick up swords and such but will be clumsy with them. They won't have strength or abilities beyond that of the body they inhabit, either. They can also be dangerous to have around, so Bayrd is probably keeping them outside of the castle."

"So they have numbers but lack skill." Adewyn said, "We've beaten worse odds than this."

"Well," I said, "I'm not the expert here but I know enough about the wards to know that they will break if the diagram is significantly damaged. So expect Bayrd and his mages to target them when they are ready to attack. And probably his soldiers as well."

"I agree," Raisa said, "I think that means that they aren't likely to attack at night, though. They need to see their targets just like we do."

"Tomorrow we'll give them some battle," Adewyn said, "and see how things go. We'll probe. No overreaching. If we can we'll advance the camp a little more each day, like a movable fortress. I'd expect Bayrd to have more of those flying fucks and maybe some other surprises. What do you think, Finn?"

"I think that it's nice that you asked me, honestly," I said, "but everyone on this hill knows who runs the army. I'm just the guy who has to look pretty in a shiny hat."

Adewyn laughed and then came closer. My family began to split up and talk about what each of them had to do. Almost without any intervention on my part, both mother and Merwyd had found responsibilities for themselves, largely of a magical nature. They argued with each other and it was clear that mother had some distrust of Merwyd still, but I could also see genuine affection. I suspect that most of it game from Merwyd sharing a bed with Tyr for so long and her own projection over her similar situation with Bayrd. That bothered me too, but it didn't make me trust Merwyd any less. It made me want to dig Tyr up so I could kill him again.

My selfish revenge fantasies were interrupted by Adewyn's hand on my ass. Her touch was hesitant, almost delicate. It had been a while for her, and we had not been together since she had given birth. I had been on my very best behavior with her. Barely.

"You know," she said, casually, "my six weeks are up tonight. The priestesses said that we could..."

She didn't get another word out. I picked her up as a groom would his bride and carried her off, to her great amusement and some cheering from my family.

You only get one life to live, after all, and the undead would still be there tomorrow.

* * *

I took Adewyn back to my own tent. She giggled and distracted me with kisses on my face and neck all the way back. I lay her down gently upon my bed.

"You're not being quiet as fierce with me tonight," she said, looking up at me with dreamy, half-lidded eyes, her voice husky with desire.

"I can fuck you hard if you want," I said pulling off my shirt, "but right now I'm still getting used to you being the mother of my child."

"Finn...you don't have to treat me any differently," she said, "you know what I like. All it means is that I'm more in your debt. I'm yours as long as you'll have me." It was flattering the way that she couldn't keep her eyes off of the muscles of my torso.

I could see the devotion in her eyes. What we had was changed, but it wasn't unwelcome.

"Well, if that's so, then take your shirt off for me, slowly."

I said it rather intending it as a joke. The idea that she'd do exactly as I had said without any backtalk was completely absurd. But that's just what she did.

She got on her knees first and then, slowly, hesitantly, took her shirt off. She wore no binding or underclothes and as she took it off her enlarged breasts popped into view. I'd of course seen them since she'd given birth, but she had been feeding our son, so sex hadn't been the first thing on my mind. Her skin still had its natural tan. Her belly wasn't quite as toned, and had a bit of fat, but it merely added additional curves. She sat and looked up at me with expectation...and maybe a bit of anxiety.