Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1)
Page 31
Zar swatted the blade off and sliced back. Tiomot blocked the strike and pushed hard on Zar’s sword, powering forward. Zar shuffled back quickly to avoid being knocked over, holding his blade out against the king’s as the man charged, pushing Zar into a wall between two of the pillars where women were mounted. Zar’s back hit hard, but he held the block, and a moment after he struck hard against the wall, he slipped his left hand off his sword hilt, pulled his belt dagger and thrust it forward. Zar moved his head to the right, his right arm not enough to stop Tiomot’s blade from pushing through, and the king’s sword slid over Zar’s shoulder and struck the wall as his body plunged forward into the dagger.
Zar left the dagger in the king’s heart and kicked him away. He saw a flicker of movement in the side of his vision and turned to the body that was mounted there. The woman’s head had dropped from the obscure position of looking upwards to hanging down lifelessly. Tiomot picked himself up from the ground just as quickly as he had fallen—very much alive.
Zar circled away from the man, away from the wall where the woman mounted on the pillar had changed her posture, eyes darting and searching the room for a clue to what was happening. He stumbled into another one of the poles, his shoulder striking against the wood as he spun away from the place he had stabbed Tiomot, where the mounted body had moved. As Zar hit the pole he glanced up at it—it was the same as the others in the room except for the one whose head had dropped. The body was still, head back against the pole and looking up; but this time Zar could see the eyes. They were wide open and unblinking—just like the girl Ramla had shown him.
Tiomot rushed Zar again and Zar met the blade, but all the while he thought about the body that had fallen limp, neck rolling forward over her shoulders as her head hung down. If Zar had assessed the situation correctly he had killed that woman. The art of vessels. When Ramla attempted the craft it had been experimental and harmless, and she had made it clear that the way she used it was not the way it was meant to be used. Zar had stood amazed as he witnessed things done to Ramla show through her vessel, a woman tied to a stake that looked to be in a silent trance. While Ramla looked to be fresh and bright-eyed from their rigorous time in the sheets, it was her vessel that breathed heavily, had a faint smile of satisfaction on her lips and was even wet between the legs.
Zar knocked away Tiomot’s blade, evaded his wild attacks as he eyed the fire in the center of the room. He could almost feel Ramla’s lips against his cheek as he remembered her whispering in his ear, “Only while the fire burns.”
Zar knew at once what he must do. He wasted no time, fighting his way to the pyre, the great iron bowl in the middle of the room where a bonfire now blazed. It had been, without a doubt, stuffed with sticks and tinder so it could be easily lit on short notice, and Tiomot had rushed over to it as soon as he descended into the basement and threw his torch in to light it. He must’ve kept the vessels tied down there, their foreheads already marked with his blood so he could activate the bond in moments, and the way it was all set up it looked as if he had been practicing the art for a lifetime.
Zar knocked Tiomot back and darted up to the pyre, attempting to kick it over. The king roared and scrambled after him. After failing to kick over the heavy iron bowl, Zar parried another reckless attack from Tiomot and kicked the man back again. Zar dropped his sword and grabbed the bowl, its hot iron edges singeing through his leather gloves and burning his palms as he lifted it up and pushed it over. He could feel the desperation in Tiomot’s roars, his twisted face, and his worried eyes as Zar trampled the burning remnants of the pyre under his boots.
Tiomot no longer smiled.
The king charged desperately, not giving Zar a chance to pick up his sword. Zar swayed out of the way of a wild attack, grabbing for the dagger hilt that still stuck out from the man’s body and yanked out his blade. He threw his left arm over Tiomot’s right shoulder, hooked under the man’s armpit to wrap up his sword arm, and stabbed the dagger under the man’s chin, pushing it up through his face.
King Tiomot fell back, gasped, and spit up blood. He stumbled around on his feet awhile until Zar picked up his sword and cut off his head. It rolled until it hit the base of a pillar, its visage facing Zar as if to look at him. The king’s eyes were wide and his face twisted, looking afraid.
Zar smiled at the thought of Tiomot dying in fear, knowing his spell of seeming invincibility had been broken and the next well placed blow would be his end. It seemed a small measure of recompense for the man’s many evils.
A thundering of footsteps sounded from above, and Zar sighed in relief at the noise of what sounded like ten- thousand boots marching over the yard. It had to be Dandil and his army of fire-crowned Cyanans, for the Condor didn’t have those numbers. Zar smiled. Just in time.
The fact that Anza’s decision to have him cooperate in their siege had shaken things up a bit and created a slight deviation to their plan no longer mattered. The end result was the same. The victor of the Condor against the Snowguards would be broken down enough to be beaten easily by the Cyanans. Nothing had changed by Zar being there except his life being in the Condor’s hands, but if the noise he heard from above was indeed Tuskin with Dandil’s army, he no longer had to worry about being killed by the cliff folk once they decided he had lied to them. So, after he had freed every living woman from the pillars, and the lot had gathered around him hugging him, thanking him, and looking up to him as if he were a god, Zar explained the situation to them before creeping up the basement stairs. They followed him to the great hall with not another word spoken, wide eyes looking scared and grateful.
Table of Contents
Contents
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