by Bruce Blake
Seconds passed as they stared at the king’s mark. Hanh Perdaro picked up the letter, broke the seal and unrolled it. He read its words while the others held their breath, awaiting confirmation. Therrador fought to keep his rebel lips from breaking into an inappropriate smile. When Perdaro finished, he set the letter back on the table.
“It is as he says.” He pushed his chair away, moved to Therrador’s side and dropped to one knee. “I pledge fealty to you, my Lord. My life is yours, King Therrador.”
Only the briefest moment of pause passed before Sir Alton’s voice bellowed out across the chamber.
“Long live King Therrador!” The others joined in, thrusting their fists in the air. “Long live the king!”
Therrador sat back in his chair and allowed the smallest of smiles to curl the corners of his mouth.
Chapter Twenty Six
The white tyger squatted on its haunches, silent but for its breath. Khirro stared into its golden eyes, unsuccessfully attempting to fathom who or what lay behind them. They sat for some time—how much, Khirro didn’t know: a minute in a dream could be hours, or hours but a minute. He shifted, moving to his left, and the tyger growled deep in the back of its throat, startling him. He settled back and the beast quieted. Each time he moved, the tyger growled again, fixing Khirro in place.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
In the other dreams, the tyger seemed helpful, friendly. Not so this time. This time it acted as jailer or guard, keeping him from leaving. Khirro scanned the forest surrounding them without recognition. This was not the place of the lake and the moon. He breathed deep and leaned to his left. The tyger growled, but he ignored it this time, leaning farther. The beast bared its teeth. Khirro quickly moved back and the rumble in the tyger’s throat ceased.
“Stray not from the path, Khirro.” The tyger’s voice rang in his head. “Danger lies on all sides.”
Khirro moved directly toward the tyger. It didn’t react.
“Who are you?”
“You will be safe if you follow the path. Stray not.”
Without knowing why he took the chance, Khirro reached out and touched the tyger’s nose. The big cat neither flinched nor moved away. His fingers brushed the soft fur between its eyes, felt the moistness of its nose. He only had a moment to notice these sensations before the animal rose abruptly and leaped away into the forest. Khirro stood, staring after it as a chill ran down his spine.
And then Khirro was walking, though he didn’t remember wanting to walk or starting to do so. Trees and brush slid past and he realized where he was, where he had to go. The Shaman had shown him the path to Darestat’s keep when he cursed him with this burden and he saw it clearly now, knew he walked it.
South. The path lay south. There he’d find an inland lagoon fed by a towering waterfall, beside it a ruined village. There the journey through Lakesh would start.
The trail ahead of Khirro disappeared, foliage and brush enveloping it, and a feeling he was no longer alone overwhelmed him. He scanned the thick brush hoping the tyger had returned to guide him but saw only leaves and branches. He swung back to the path and before him, where there had been only forest a moment before, was the lagoon and the abandoned village, the waterfall cascading soundlessly into a clear pool. Under other circumstances, the scene might have been beautiful, but the feeling of being stalked pressed in, brushing Khirro’s cheek, filling his lungs. Everything dimmed. The huts, the lagoon, the trees, everything faded into darkness. Everything disappeared.
Khirro opened his eyes.
With the dream still fresh in his mind, he didn’t understand what his eyes saw at first. Darkness, but not dark like at the end of the dream. He knew he was awake. He blinked to clear his head and focus his eyes.
Scars criss-crossed the face looking down on him. One eye glared at him menacingly, the other socket empty and pink.
The one-eyed man.
Khirro pushed himself to his elbows, sucking air in noisily. He opened his mouth to call out, but a dirk to his throat stopped him.
“The vial,” the man whispered.
How can he be here?
Mind reeling, Khirro stared into the man’s craggy face. Pursuers couldn’t have arrived already, couldn’t know where they’d land, even if they knew they sought the Necromancer. The one-eyed man pushed the blade painfully against his throat.
“Give it to me.”
Khirro’s eyes flickered side to side.
Where are the others? Did he kill them?
Another cry for help stuck in his throat. He had no doubt this man would slit his throat and find the vial himself, would likely kill him once he had it. Khirro moved his hand toward the opening of his jerkin and the vial it hid, and the stiletto secreted beside it.
“I’ll get that.”
The man pushed Khirro’s hand away and reached roughly beneath his shirt, searching with his fingers until he found the glass container. He pulled it out and tucked it beneath his own tunic without moving his gaze from Khirro to look at his prize, then held up the stiletto he’d retrieved at the same time.
“And just what did you think to do with this?”
Something moved behind the man. Khirro glanced away to see Athryn creeping up behind him, then quickly brought his eyes back to the one-eyed man. A smile twisted the man’s scarred features and Khirro realized his mistake.
“Athryn,” he called out too late. The mercenary whirled, blade flashing moonlight as it opened a gash across the magician’s belly. Khirro scrambled away as he saw the dagger Athryn held fall to the sand, his body collapsing close beside it. The man turned back to Khirro, but everyone else had wakened. Shyn and Ghaul called out, rushing to them with steel in hand. The one-eyed man cursed and hurled the stiletto at Khirro before leaping away into the forest. Khirro rolled on his side and the slender blade sank hilt deep in the sand inches from his head.
“What happened?” Shyn demanded as he and Ghaul skidded to a halt beside Khirro.
“The one-eyed man. He took the blood of the king.”
The two soldiers dove into the trees, leaving Khirro with hand outstretched, intending to warn them how dangerous the man was, but they were gone. He pushed himself to his knees, reaching for his sword belt, his gut burning as he determined to follow them, to get the vial back. Then his eyes fell on Athryn. Elyea and Maes already knelt at his side, the little man cradling the magician’s head on his lap while Elyea hurriedly opened his shirt. Khirro abandoned all thought of pursuit and crawled to her side to help peel the blood soaked clothes from the magician’s torso. As they pulled it away, a thick gray coil slid from his abdomen. Khirro caught it before it touched the sand and slid it back in, his gorge rising in the back of his throat. Memory of his father’s arm twitching on the ground, blood spurting from his shoulder came to mind, the helpless feeling he had then returning with it. Athryn groaned, a low, weak sound that squeezed Khirro’s chest and made him feel sick to his stomach.
“What do we do?”
He looked at Elyea. She looked back with tear-rimmed eyes and shook her head, then turned to gaze into Athryn’s mask-less face.
A pained, indistinct moan from Maes startled Khirro—the first sound he’d heard the little man make. They looked at him, expecting tears and dismay, but the noise was made to draw their attention. He motioned for Elyea to switch places with him and she complied, Athryn’s long hair spreading across her thighs as she stroked his scarred cheek. Maes moved beside Khirro, nudging him aside, and bent over Athryn’s wound, examining it closely.
“What can I do?” Khirro asked, voice choked with emotion.
Maes shook his head, moonlight reflecting on the tears running down his stubbled cheeks. He rocked on his knees like a child come to the end of a fit of rage. Then his lips began to move. An indistinguishable, garbled chant whispered between them. Khirro stared, hypnotized by the rhythm of his rocking which coincided with the chant, and his words which weren’t incomprehensible foreign words, but incohe
rent mumblings of a man with no tongue.
He was trying to cast a spell.
Is this possible?
Khirro looked at Elyea stroking Athryn’s face. Her lips moved, too, but he understood what she said: “It’s okay. Everything will be all right.”
She didn’t look at Maes, as though she knew what would come next. Tears stained her freckled cheeks and, when she looked at Khirro, he saw anguish in her eyes. He wanted to comfort her, to hold her; she looked away. This time, she looked at Maes and gasped. Khirro pulled his gaze away and looked to the little man.
Maes held his left hand extended above his brother’s wound, a knife pressed against his wrist. Panic jumped into Khirro’s throat.
What does he think he’s doing?
Khirro grabbed the little man’s arm to wrestle the dagger from him, but Maes didn’t interrupt his chant as he pushed Khirro away with strength greater than expected. Khirro tumbled onto his back, a half-buried rock knocking the wind from him.
“No!” Elyea cried as Khirro found his equilibrium and righted himself in time to see Maes open the artery in his wrist.
He directed the fountaining blood into Athryn’s wound. Khirro reached for his arm again, but the point of Maes’ dagger came to rest against his throat. The little man never stopped chanting, his rocking didn’t slow, yet the tip of his dirk caressed the vein in Khirro’s neck, telling him to leave him be. Elyea drew a sharp breath.
“Leave him,” she said, the anguish as plain in her voice as on her face. “I don’t need you dead as well.”
Khirro filled his lungs with salty air then stood. Maes lowered his blade as Khirro went to Elyea’s side, sank to his knees and put his arm around her doing his awkward best to comfort her despite of the knot of fear and dread clogging his chest. He looked into Athryn’s face, pink scar shining faintly under the moon, eyes closed, his features slack.
“Is he—?”
“He breathes.” Her hair brushed Khirro’s cheek as she shook her head.
Maes continued to chant, quieter now; his rocking slowed, losing rhythm. The flow of blood from his slashed wrist became a trickle.
Khirro leaned closer to Elyea. “If I can stop the bleeding, we might save him.”
The man’s right hand flashed up, dagger pointing at Khirro again. Khirro didn’t move.
The brothers’ blood combined to flow down the magician’s sides, a thick river soaking everything it touched, turning the sand black in the moonlight. Khirro didn’t think he’d ever seen so much blood, not when the sheep gave birth, not even when his father lost his arm. His stomach moved into his throat and he fought it back. What kind of warrior couldn’t keep his stomach at the sight of blood? And, like it or not, he was nothing if not a warrior now.
The trickle from Maes’ wrist had slowed to drops when he slumped forward across Athryn’s midsection. Khirro moved to help, but Elyea stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Leave him. He’s beyond help. His blood is gone and there’s no one to give him more.”
“What of Athryn?”
She put a hand first to his brow, then under his nose.
“He lives for now. Only time will tell if we’ll dig one grave or two.”
Khirro hung his head, settling back on his knees. Could they make it to the Necromancer without the help of the magician? He chastised himself silently for the thought. At least one man who’d come to support and aid him lay dead, his life forfeit for nothing with the vial gone.
How could I let him take it? I should have done something. Something other than get Athryn killed.
Minutes passed. Elyea continued to stroke Athryn’s face as Khirro brooded over yet another mistake with a high price.
That’s what started this whole thing...my mistakes.
When he heard someone approaching from the nearby forest, Khirro was vaguely aware he should pull his sword but found no strength in his limbs to do so. He breathed a relieved sigh when Ghaul emerged, Shyn following closely behind.
“He escaped,” Ghaul said as he crossed the beach to them. “Wake the midget, we have to go after him now.”
“He’s not sleeping,” Elyea grated, her voice low and tinged with anger. “He’s dead.”
“What happened?” Shyn asked.
Elyea lowered her eyes, shoulders trembling as she sobbed quietly. Khirro pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, legs wobbling beneath him as pins and needles crawled up his calves. He guided the other men away, recounting the details of Athryn’s wound and his brother’s attempt to revive him.
Shyn shook his head. “Maes did that? But Athryn is the magician.”
“Never mind that,” Ghaul snapped impatiently. “Did it work? Did the midget succeed?”
Khirro sighed. “Athryn lives, but whether he’s saved or simply hasn’t expired from his wound yet, we don’t know.”
The muscles in Ghaul’s jaw tightened. He turned and strode purposefully to Elyea kneeling beside the brothers, the little man’s body lying across Athryn’s midsection, hiding the wound. Ghaul grabbed the back of Maes’ tunic.
“What are you doing?” Elyea glared at him. Ghaul stopped and looked at her, his fingers curled grasping the cloth.
“We can’t wait here until the magician gets up and dances a jig. The blood of the king gets farther from us every second we delay pursuing the one-eyed man.”
She looked away. “Be gentle with him.”
Ghaul rolled Maes aside. The dagger tumbled from the little man’s limp fingers to the blood soaked sand. Khirro and Shyn moved closer, but blood covered everything, concealing wounds and flesh.
“Water,” Ghaul commanded.
Khirro retrieved the water skin from his pack, nearly tripping on the stiletto buried in the sand as he did. He retrieved the blade and returned with the water for Ghaul. The warrior yanked the cork and splashed Athryn’s belly, the water turning pink as it rolled down his sides. It took three washings to expose clean flesh. Instead of hanging innards, a long scar stretched across his stomach.
“It worked,” Elyea whispered. She looked into Athryn’s face, a smile tugging the corner of her lips, then she looked to Maes and the smile disappeared.
“It seems there was magic in the little one, too—tongue or no,” Shyn said.
Ghaul harrumphed and handed the water skin back to Khirro. “I’m glad one of them lives,” he said, the sentiment not reflected in his tone. “But we have a thief to catch.”
“We can’t leave yet.” Khirro stared at the spot on Athryn’s belly where he’d replaced his intestines not long ago. “We have to give him a chance to recover.”
He looked at each of his companions.
Ghaul gritted his teeth. “The one-eyed man took the king’s blood,” he said gesturing toward the forest. “Have you forgotten why we came to this God-forsaken land? Without it we are merely a group of fools waiting to die for no reason.”
“We’ll find him,” Shyn said.
Ghaul shook his head. “This man is no farmer. He knows the ways of both hunter and prey and won’t be easy to track.” He looked at the others and Khirro refrained from showing his offense at the warrior’s choice of words. “We’ll leave Khirro and Elyea here to tend the magician while we find the one-eyed man.”
“No,” Khirro said. “We shouldn’t separate. To do so in the haunted land would mean death to us all.”
“He’s right,” Shyn said. “We’ll have better luck tracking him come daylight, anyway.”
The muscles in Ghaul’s jaw visibly clenched and released, clenched and released. He crossed his arms, his brow furrowed.
“Every moment we spend here costs us.”
Shyn put his hand on Ghaul’s shoulder. “Worry not. I’ll find him.”
“Oh, the great tracker honors us again.” Ghaul shrugged away from Shyn’s touch. “Perhaps we should wait for winter. It will be easier to follow his tracks in the snow.”
Shyn’s eyes narrowed, his expression hardened.
“Did I no
t bring horses when I promised?” Both men’s hands fell to their swords. “Was it not I who warned you the one-eyed man pursued us?”
Ghaul eyed him warily, fingers tightening on the hilt.
“Yes, tell us how you knew of the one-eyed man? He followed from a different direction than you came with the horses. How do you explain that?”
“Stop it,” Elyea said. “Both of you stop it.”
“No, he’s right.” Shyn’s voice sounded different, almost relieved. Khirro gaped. Had he been wrong about the man? “I owe an explanation.”
The border guard released his grip on his sword and stepped away. His gaze slipped from theirs, finding instead the ground and the pool of moonlight casting his shadow there.
At first, Khirro thought what he saw a trick of the light. Shadows crawled across Shyn’s face like a cloud across the sky, distorting and discoloring it. Shyn looked up at them, eyes glowing with yellow light, then he cried out, doubled over in pain. Khirro took a step toward him but Ghaul blocked his way.
“No,” he said. “Let’s see what happens.”
Shyn dropped to his knees, hands covering his face as he cried out again. Khirro stared, concern and curiosity locking his gaze firmly on his companion. The night’s trickery continued, making it seem as though Shyn became smaller, but Khirro soon saw this was no illusion—the border guard’s mail shirt hung loosely from his shoulders, his hands disappeared up the sleeves of his tunic. When he looked up, he no longer looked like the man who’d accompanied them from the border: his nose grew longer, his eyes pulled to the sides of his head. Dull gray feathers covered his face.
Elyea gasped. Ghaul’s arm fell away from Khirro’s chest but he no longer attempted to go to Shyn. He had to remind himself to breathe.
Half-a-minute later, the man they called Shyn was gone. His clothing lay in a pile on the sand as though discarded by someone gone for a midnight swim. A gray falcon with liquid-gold eyes stood upon the clothes. The huge bird squatted back, spread wings with a span as wide as Shyn was tall and, with a mighty leap and powerful downstroke, took to the night air. It swooped into the sky, momentarily blotting out the moon, and left them open-mouthed on the beach.