***
The storm had blown itself out and the day dawned bright and cheerful, with the flutter of relieved birds in the treetops. Prince Vayel ordered Lon, a slow and timid boy, to saddle two horses from the stables and bring them around to the front of the manor.
"Well, I'm glad that's over with at last," said the prince as he awaited his mount, striding on his long legs back and forth across the mud-splattered open porch.
"No more so than I," replied Captain Drakkar, wincing as she flexed her burned hand. "I must confess, my dear, that I had my doubts."
"Of course you did," replied Vayel, his voice a deep and hearty boom that shook the very trees. "But it turned out all right in the end, did it not? We've a new chance, to travel and see the world, and to take our rightful place at court and in the chambers of the mighty. If I'd hesitated—if we'd hesitated—we'd have died, old and useless, in a very few years. Now we've got the time we need and deserve at last…."
Just then, the horses arrived. Prince Vayel threw his lanky body atop a feisty black gelding, and Malen Drakkar mounted her own brown stallion a bit more carefully.
"Come, come, my dear, remember who you are!" laughed Prince Vayel. "Come now, to court and our wedding!"
The two cantered off into the new day, calling and laughing to each other.
The dimwitted Lon waved them off with his pocket-handkerchief before turning and pattering off up the stairway to check on his tutors.
Finia, busy with breakfast in the kitchen, upset her pot of porridge into the fire when she heard Lon's scream. She ran up the stairs to see what was bothering the boy this time.
On the floor before the study fireplace lay Cala and Ronen, the light of life slowly dying from their eyes. Their right hands were intertwined and both of them were trying to speak.
Lon leaned down to Ronen, while Finia squatted beside Cala.
The two servants weren't quite certain, but they believed afterward that each had tried to beg the other's forgiveness, even as they died.
For what, wondered Lon and Finia?
And why had they called each other Malen and Vayel?
##############
About the author of Keep Friends Close…But Enemies Closer
K.G. McAbee has had several books and nearly a hundred short stories published, some of them quite readable. She takes her geekdom seriously, never misses a sci-fi con, loves dogs and iced tea, and believes the words 'Stan Lee' are interchangeable with 'The Almighty.' She writes steampunk, fantasy, science fiction, horror, pulp, westerns and, most recently, comics. She's a member of Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers and is an Artist in Residence with the South Carolina Arts Commission. Her steampunk/zombie novella, BLACKTHORNE AND ROSE: AGENTS OF D.I.R.E. recently received an honorable mention in the 2013 3rd quarter Writers of the Future contest and will be published soon in Pulp Literature magazine. For more information, visit her blog or email her at kgmcabee@gmail.com
Horror
Queen Elizabeth's Wizard
E.U.C.B.
Mightier Than the Sword
Monarch of the Seas
Double Double Cross
Lord Ghul and the Rat Princes
Double Double Cross
Dark of Night
When the Last Light Fades
Fantasy
With Murderous Intent
A Dilemma of Dark and Dangerous Dimensions
Aunt Clytie's Canning Jars
Currents of Doom
Out of Time: An adventure of The Spectre
Cast Away the Works of Darkness
Oblique Vengeance
Not Poppy Nor Mandragora
The Beauty in the Beast
End of the Beginning
The Fearful Fort
Lost and Found
Steampunk
Lady Abigail and the Morose Magician
Professor Challenger and the Creature from the Aether
A Rollicking Band of Pirates We
Riders of the Purple Stage
Science Fiction
Ray Was Right
Me and the Bank
Time Is of the Essence
Souls Touched – Reasonable Rates
Optical Orifice of the Beholder
Captain D'Artagnan Jones and the Felspindyll from Zardogaz
Historical
The Case of the Sinister Senator
Luke Zane and the Claim Jumper
Luke Zane and the Bushwhacker
Love science fiction? Who doesn't, right? Coming soon:
Crysalis
In the distant future, the last remnants of humanity huddle in fragmented societies deep below ground, struggling to stay alive while threatened with inconceivable dangers. Three strong women from three different cultures are on intersecting paths, heading towards a fateful meeting which may well be mankind's only hope for survival….
Crysalis: Meade's Tale by K.G. McAbee
I'm Mendel Meade, Anthropologist Second Class. Normally, I roam the depths of Haven, dealing with problems and reporting back—when I can't put it off any longer—to my fellow scientists at the Brainery. But this time, I get ordered back, right now and, most disturbingly, alone. That means leaving my constant companions and right-and-left hand men—well, technically they're fourteen—Darwin and Newton, aka The Terror Twins, aka Oh, No, It's Them, behind. They don't like it. I don't like it. But what I find when I get there, I like even less….