James A. West

Reaper Of Sorrows

Chapter 1

Guttering torches clutched in crude iron claws flared at Lord Sanouk’s arrival, but did little to brighten the small circular chamber spread beneath a vaulted ceiling. Before the flames grew steady and true in their burning, misty figures detached themselves from undying shadows. They danced near, coiled between his legs, their spectral gray fingers caressing him and the bound girl slung over his shoulder. The whisperings of Gathul’s fleshless servants filled his ears, vile utterings to wither a man’s soul. Sanouk steeled his mind and will against those jeering blasphemies. They were nothing in the face of what was to come.

In time silence fell, and the vaporous fiends departed for realms mortal flesh never ventured, seeking livelier sport. Unease stayed with Sanouk, quickening his pulse. Treating with a god was no small matter.

He took a calming breath and grounded the torch that had led him through the twisting warren beneath his fortress, then stepped fully into the sanctum of Gathul. Riding the vault’s walls, the ensconced torches burned brighter still at his advance. Save for the shimmering greenstone altar and the wizened mystic entombed behind a translucent wall of flowing blood, the subterranean room might have been a crypt built for an ancient ruler during the Age of Glory, when gods had shared truths that men had long since forgotten. Whatever the chamber’s original maker intended, by chance or design it had become the gateway to Gathul’s realm.

“Within this mean place,” Sanouk said to the girl, needing to hear a human voice, even if his own, “I will gain the power to build my own kingdom, and regain my stolen honor.”

She flinched at his words, her naked flesh wriggling deliciously against his shoulder. She could not speak for the gag stuffed in her mouth. What possible answer could she give, even if able? It was a rancorous thought. Despite sharing his bed, she was like the rest of the villagers, believing he had made a bid for the throne destined for his brother, Prince Nabar. Sanouk was lord and master of Hilan and the northern reaches of his father’s realm of Cerrikoth, but he was also a disavowed outcast, a fallen prince. The respect he garnered from his subjects came only at the threat of punishment.

“For now, my father and brother can keep their decaying throne,” he went on, defending himself against her unspoken accusations, “and I will make my own. Trust that the day will come when my strength will prevail over theirs, and I will take in truth what I was accused of trying to steal.” Before any future ambitions came to fruition, however, Gathul demanded a price.

Lord Sanouk flung Aleena off his shoulder. She struck the stone floor and let out a muffled scream. Clad only in corded bindings that cut into her wrists and ankles, she thrashed and kicked, leaving a serpentine curve in the dust coating the floor.

Sanouk eyed her lolling breasts, marked her flashing doe eyes, and for a moment regretted that Aleena’s sacrifice would deny him further samplings of her nubile flesh. But there were others. Many and more. A grin stretched his thin lips into a bloodless line, and his eyes narrowed in thought. Aleena had a sister a little younger, and her mother, a scullery maid in his own kitchens, was not so old or worn to be without certain charms….

Pushing that aside, Sanouk spun on his heel and eased past the greenstone altar, its oblong top standing waist-high and carved with a depression the length and width of a large man. He dared not look deeply into the altar’s cloudy green depths. He had before, and found strange figures frolicking within. Illusion, he told himself then, a trick of the stone’s properties. He did not truly believe that, but it was easier to think so.

With the alter behind him, he halted before the old man trapped within one of a dozen upright niches hollowed out of the bedrock walls. A hundred wounds over Undai’s body wept the crimson flow that sustained his prison. Undying, he wailed mutely and beat at the barrier, to no avail.

Sanouk could not resist drawing his dagger and slowly raking it across his palm. The keen steel bit deep, severing flesh and tendons. But after the blade passed there was no mark, no wound, no blood. A tingle of excitement crept up his spine at the sure knowledge that as long as Undai remained locked away, no blade could kill him.

“Thank you, Undai,” he breathed, sheathing the dagger. Of course, the aged conjurer could not hear him, nor could he see his captor’s taunting face hanging mere inches away, for Sanouk had dug out the man’s eyes, leaving wide, unhealing sockets.

Sanouk studied the other niches, all empty. How many times have they been filled and emptied down through the ages? Undai had found the chamber of Gathul but, drunken fool that he was, he let slip its purpose, and that of the niches, to the wrong pair of ears. In due course, that knowledge had come to Sanouk. After putting Undai to the question, Sanouk discovered the means to gain what he desired but had long since abandoned hope of ever having. And what he wanted was so much more than Undai’s wine-sodden mind had ever conceived for himself.

When Lord Sanouk turned back to Aleena, she went still under his obsidian stare. “You do not die this day,” he assured her, “for your living flesh will serve me.”

Where the night before she had looked on him with tentative, virginal passion, now fear and loathing shone in her gaze. Lust stirred Sanouk’s loins, but he tamped it down. There was no time for dithering.

He moved to the altar and undressed, folding his deep green robes and smallclothes, and setting them aside. Aleena turned her gaze to the floor, as if his nakedness shamed her. Or, perhaps, her desire leaves her troubled? He laughed aloud, his voice pounding through the bone-filled labyrinth beyond the chamber. Aleena curled into a weeping ball.

On one end of the altar waited a collection of small jars containing purified sands brought from shores of distant seas. Near these sat assorted vials brimming with fragrant oils. Undai, drunkard or not, had been thorough in gathering the materials required for the cleansing rite.

Lord Sanouk mixed oils together in a filigreed golden bowl, muttering prayers to the dark god he served. Next he slathered the liquid over his skin and gray-shot black hair. He followed this by dusting himself with the various sands, then rubbing the tacky paste over himself until his flesh tingled. Finally, he used a shell-shaped bronze scraper to remove the sticky sludge.

Purified, Sanouk lifted Aleena from the floor and placed her within the depression in the altar’s top. At the first touch of her warmth, soft suckling noises sounded within the chamber, as the verdant stone molded itself to her body. Howling behind the gag, she writhed and bucked in an effort to escape. Ever her eyes sought his, pleading for clemency.

Perhaps I could find another? But no, he had delayed too long already. A moon’s turning was all the time the god had granted him between sacrifices. The only other conditions were that he should never sacrifice the innocent, or suffer a willing victim. Failing to meet Gathul’s demands would imperil his own soul and, by extension, destroy his plans.

After clearing his mind of all distractions, Sanouk arched his back and spread his arms. Arcane words of summoning flowed from his throat, words given him by Undai, just before he had cut out the sorcerer’s tongue. “Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

The incantation filled the chamber with a power far beyond mere spoken words, spread through the catacombs, seeped into the bones of the earth.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

A stirring cold raised the fine hairs at Sanouk’s neck. The torches brightened from gold to blinding silver, and their leaping flames roared against the curving ceiling like claws of fire. A shadow drawn from the deepest reaches of the underworld oozed into the base of the greenstone altar, obscuring its odd luminosity. The unformed figures trapped within, those Sanouk had tried to deny existed, darted like fish in a pond. As that shifting darkness imbued the stone beneath her, turning its vibrant hue a featureless black, Aleena flailed all the more.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

The spirit of Gathul flooded over Aleena’s skin, forming a vision of a girl soaked in boiling tar. Her screams cut off as that sludge squeezed around the gag and poured down her throat, yet still she fought.

Sanouk stared, as enthralled as he had been when Undai had lain in Aleena’s place. He could not guess what it was to have the essence of a god envelope your flesh, its soul taste your soul, and neither did he care to find out.

All at once, Aleena went still.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!” Sanouk cried a fourth time, belatedly putting an end to the summoning.

Gathul rose like oiled smoke from Aleena’s flesh. She appeared unscathed, but she stared at nothing, and might have been dead, save that her breasts rose and fell with each shuddering breath.

The god’s nebulous shape swirled and pulsed as it moved before Sanouk and solidified. Even now, at this second summoning, Sanouk’s heart quailed with a terror so deep as to threaten his sanity. The color of old bruises, the god’s warty hide clung to hanging mounds of loose flesh. Six sagging breasts depended from its torso, capped by horn-like protrusions and tufts of wiry black hair, yet its unbound loins declared Gathul to be grossly male.

Sanouk flung himself at the god’s clawed feet. “I have brought another offering, master,” he stammered, his fear bringing him not shame but pride. A lesser man would have soiled himself at the mere description of Gathul, and never would such a man dare speak with the deity.

“Indeed you have, human,” Gathul said, its voice that of a millstone grinding corpses to pulp. Burning red eyes, a score at the least, each sunk into its lumpen face and about its skull, regarded Sanouk. A dribble of reeking muck spilled from the ill-formed rent that served as the god’s mouth. Sanouk jerked back his outstretched arms, lest any of that slaver touch him. “You have leave to make your petition,” Gathul invited, revealing a forest of ragged teeth pitted by corruption.

Bent double, Sanouk scuttled to the altar. He upended a tiny jar, spilling a honey-thick line of resin over Aleena’s hands bound at her waist, then continued to her neck. When finished, he flung the empty jar away with shaking fingers, and retrieved a blazing torch.

Where shock at Gathul’s touch had frozen Aleena, she thawed now. The girl wailed at the raging silver fire descending toward her flesh. Her struggles increased, tearing the delicate skin caught under her bindings.

Sanouk cursed when one of her feet broke free and her legs began scissoring. Gathul’s pestilent flesh rippled with displeasure, and the god made a terrifying chuffing noise at Sanouk’s back. The lord tried to hold Aleena down, but she squirmed like an eel, enough to break free of the altar’s sucking grasp.

“Fail to meet your obligations, human,” Gathul warned, “and our covenant is broken.”

Sanouk threw himself on Aleena, terror closing his throat. Should he ever fail to appease the god’s hunger, the cost was his own soul-not locked away, but taken, imprisoned as Gathul’s eternal plaything. Desperate to avoid that, he struck Aleena, once and again. The third blow dazed her, and she went limp. The gag had loosened enough for her tongue to push it away.

“Please, do not do this thing,” she begged.

“I must, and I will,” he said, and jabbed the torch into the resin smeared over her belly and breasts.

Sputtering flames quickly engulfed her. Her shrieks gave him pause only a moment, then he caught her up and spun from the altar, grinding his teeth against the red pain of his own sizzling skin. As he raced toward an open tomb, fire and smoke roiled before his eyes, blinding him. The reek of scorched hair and meat filled his nose. Flames poured down his throat, searing his lungs. He took one more step and threw the girl. Swirls of black smoke and leaping tongues of red-orange fire blocked his sight. Aleena was still screaming, screaming-

Silence fell, and only the fast-fading echoes of her cries gave evidence that she had ever made a sound. With that abrupt quiet, the fiery pain that had swarmed over Sanouk, an agony that had begun to sink into his flesh with deadly hunger, vanished. Even knowing what to expect, he fell to his knees, a sooty arm held before his awed eyes. His flesh was nearly whole, the last blisters fading as he watched. Like steel before it, fire would never again threaten his life.

His black eyes darted. Aleena screamed at him in terrible silence, not beautiful any longer, but a charred, undying ruin. Where Undai beat against an immovable wall of running blood, Aleena pounded her blackened fists against a barrier of flame. The agony of immolation was in her, marrow-deep, but she would not perish by fire … and neither would he, as long as she remained trapped within her fiery tomb.

“You have done well, human,” Gathul mocked. The god paused before adding, “Your offerings have stirred my hungers. It would serve you well to bring the next sacrifice sooner.”

Sanouk jerked his head around. “But, master, you allotted a moon’s turn between each offering.”

“I have changed my mind, human, as is my privilege. Do my will, and all will be well with you. Fail, and your suffering will be limitless.”

Before the last syllable was complete, the god’s hideous form blackened and shrunk to the size of a rat’s eye, then vanished with a blast of lightless energy that threw Sanouk against a rough stone wall.

For a long time after Gathul departed, Sanouk sat in a stupor, looking on Undai and Aleena, but not really seeing them. Their sacrifices ensured he was invulnerable to steel and flame. With but two sacrifices, he could achieve much uncontended. With a few more, he would become impervious to all manner of deaths, save that wrought by time. All that pleased him, but what if Gathul once more changed their pact? “Do my will, and all will be well with you.”

For the first time, Sanouk saw clearly the trap in dealing with the god of grief and avarice. Once the sacrifices began, they could not be halted, save by the death of the conjurer. And yet, if he became invulnerable to death by all means except long years, then he would need to make timely offerings the rest of his days. That obligation had never troubled Sanouk, for hapless fools were as numerous as grains of sand. But what if Gathul’s hungers became such that the god required a daily sacrifice … or more? Even fools would notice such a harvesting of their flock.

Sanouk swallowed back the bile on his tongue, told himself Gathul would never make such impossible demands, for to do so would end the feedings altogether. Why would the god want that?

Feeling better about the whole affair, confident that he had not erred in treating with Gathul, Sanouk departed the chamber to attend to the other intricacies of building his future kingdom.

Chapter 2

“Another fine victory for the Scorpion!” Lieutenant Thushar shouted to Rathe. Grinning as if the smell of ashes and death did not touch him, the strong-jawed Prythian tied back his long brown hair with a leather thong, then poured water from a leaky wooden bucket over his broad chest to rinse away blood and dust. Hours had passed since the village’s last defender had fallen, but the lieutenant’s green eyes still glinted with the heat of battle.

The Scorpion, Captain Rathe Lahkurin, commander of the Ghosts of Ahnok, nodded in acceptance of Thushar’s praise, even as he held back what he thought of the so-called victory. It had been a slaughter of innocents, nothing less, and one of a dozen such massacres in the last year. Such mindless bloodletting had never sat well with him, and less so now.

“Do not forget the Ghosts of Ahnok!” Sergeant Girod cried, slapping his scarred chest as if he alone had won the village. The other three sergeants chuckled uneasily. Girod, a brutish beast with a face to match his demeanor, the bastard of the head of the king’s council, was a man shunned. He had not risen through the ranks, as had all the other Ghosts, but rather had been placed amongst them. Such was unprecedented, and sparked suspicion that Girod was a spy.

Shaded by spreading willows, Rathe ignored Girod and wetted his mane of black hair with a dented cook pot. The water was cold and clear and sweet, but did little to lift his mood. Around the broad wellspring’s ancient stone-and-mortar wall, the rest of his subordinates went back to scouring away the residue of battle, leaving it to mingle with the mud squishing between their toes.

Rathe knew he should bury his dissatisfaction, but could not. He was a soldier, a skilled man of war, yet in the hands of the king to whom he swore fealty, he had become a murderer’s savaging sword. Of late, nothing he had done brought him honor, nor could those atrocities please Ahnok, the god he served.

In the last year, King Tazzim of Cerrikoth had ordered Rathe and the Ghosts to avoid battling Qairennor patrols, and instead to lead the company against undefended villages throughout the enemy’s realm. The king intended to break the faith the Qairennor lowborn had in Queen Shukura, rumored to be a witch with eyes set upon Cerrikoth.

Thus far, Rathe’s bold assaults had caught every settlement unawares, but he had yet to discover any evidence that Queen Shukura was a practitioner of dark arts, or had any designs for invading Cerrikoth. As for breaking anyone’s will, this morning had proven once more that Queen Shukura’s people stood firm in their fealty, and were willing to fight and die under the Rose of Qairennor banner.

From far off, the whistling crack of a scourge evoked a man’s scream. The note of pain echoed down streets empty of all but blowing dust and corpses fresh enough to leak blood. Where the sounds of agony made Rathe’s insides roil, they disturbed his men no more than the sprawled dead. Why should it bother them, or me, to conquer sworn enemies?

His thin resolve failed when he glanced around at a scene that had become as common to him as his reflection. Smoke rose from the village’s charred shops and homes. A gentle wind tugged apart the sooty plumes, dragging the remnants east across a rolling grassland toward the Mountains of Arakas. That boundary between the kingdoms of Qairennor and Cerrikoth rose to peaks high, jagged, and crowned in snow through every season.

Farther down the village’s main street, a pack of wild dogs converged on a small, half-burned corpse, snapping and growling to see which would have the first bite. Rathe’s teeth ground together as the dead boy’s thin limbs thrashed lifelessly. Other boys, girls, men, and women awaited the curs’ jaws and ripping teeth. As well, vultures circled above, black scribbles on a cerulean canvas, patient for their turn at the butchers’ leavings.

Yes, it was all too familiar, and he’d had his fill of it…. But he was a soldier of Cerrikoth, the king’s champion, the most esteemed Cerrikothian warrior in five generations. How could he balk at his liege’s will? And how can I not? he considered, as the scourge’s unseen leather tongues snapped again.

Rathe lifted his face to the breeze. It favored him by bringing on its foul breath a pleading chorus from the other captives. The questioning had begun three hours past dawn. It would continue until some wretch disclosed the information Rathe sought at the behest of King Tazzim. What offerings does the witch-queen demand? Is there gold within the village?Have you seen Qairennor patrols riding east … supply caravans?

The prisoners would speak eventually, they always did, but what they revealed was common knowledge, and nothing of value. A few trinkets would be found, a healer’s cupboard of potions, foodstuffs meant to hold the villagers through lean seasons, maybe even a few odd swords and spears held over from campaigns of old-heirlooms and necessities, nothing more. Yet that bric-a-brac would serve as evidence of Queen Shukura’s treachery … at least in the eyes of King Tazzim. Afterward, Rathe would command the villager’s executions, as he had so often in the last year.

How many dead at my order? Hundreds, without question, and that blood stained his soul more than that of the soldiers he had slain in honest combat during the border wars between Cerrikoth and the kingdoms of Unylle and Trem.

When another scream soared over the village, Thushar said, “The banner of our glorious god stiffens their tongues.” He used wet sand to scrub away stubborn bloodstains from his hands.

As if livened by praise, the company’s crimson banner bearing the golden face of Ahnok, the Cerrikothian god of war, lifted and flapped. Rathe looked askance at the head of that snarling lion, with its mane of fanged serpents. At one time, he would have killed the one who let even a corner of that banner touch the soil men tread upon. Now … well, now, things had changed. His greatest regret was that his actions had sullied his god’s likeness and name.

“It’s wise that they fear our device,” Rathe agreed in a somber tone. He hesitated, the proud words he must speak as the leader of the Ghosts bitter on his tongue. “A hundred years of victory are bound up with the standard of the Ghosts of Ahnok. When seen, the hearts of our strongest enemies quail.” In a smaller voice, he added, “More’s the pity that fear now breeds hatred, giving rabble the strength to resist at the price of their lives.”

Thushar gave a mystified snort. “Why should you care? Your people have been fighting these scum a generation.”

“Before that,” Rathe answered, “these enemies were our allies, and we fought against your forefathers.”

Indifferent about a point that still brought anger to many of those of the eastern kingdom of Pryth, Thushar shrugged his thick shoulders. “In Pryth we fight family against family-ofttimes brother against brother. If honor needs restoring, or vengeance taken, then blood wets steel and soil. To do less is the way of the craven. Were I you, I’d be happy to be rid of all Qairennorans, along with the witch who rules them.”

Fury boiled up inside Rathe. He stabbed a finger at the torn remains of the child the wild dogs had left behind. “Should I be happy for his death? He was but a boy! What did he do to me, or any of us, that we should cleave his spirit from his flesh? As to witches, have you seen sign of sorceries anywhere in Qairennor? Has lightning struck our ranks, have fireballs burned our brothers, have abominable words come on the wings of the night to still our hearts? I have not seen any of these things, have you?”

Sergeants Girod and Saros paused in cleaning themselves, and listened with heads cocked. The faces of Algios and Zalvid stiffened.

Thushar, Rathe’s dearest friend, shook his head, baffled. “In ten years, that boy would have fathered sons to raise swords against the sons you and I will one day sire. It matters naught if Queen Shukura is a witch. King Tazzim has declared Qairennor and its queen the enemies of Cerrikoth, and he pays good coin to destroy his foes, and grants the right of pillage against the vanquished.”

Rathe stared back, wondering if his doubts were treacherous weakness, or if simple exhaustion had sapped the fire and lust for battle from his spirit? It seemed possible, for fatigue was the destroyer of courage. Possible, but doubtful. Making war against farmers was abhorrent … yet, he had waged that war, and could not condemn the men under his command any easier than he could accuse King Tazzim, not without judging himself. Trapped between conscience and duty, he surrendered to the latter.

“Forgive me, brothers, I am simply weary in my bones,” he said. “It’s been a long expedition. More than anything, I yearn for shade, a flagon of sweet summer wine, and a woman with which to share both.” That last, at least, was true. The affections of women, he had found, erased the stains of furious, bloody battle from his soul.

Silence held as the words expected from the Scorpion, the Champion of Cerrikoth, the Captain of the Ghosts of Ahnok, sunk into the minds of his men.

“As you say!” Thushar boomed, his abrupt laughter loosening the tension as if it had never been. Looking more than a little relieved, the sergeants guffawed and whooped, then began a lively debate about the qualities of various slatterns they had encountered in Cerrikoth’s most sordid districts.

Rathe breathed easier. There were men he trusted and men he did not, but the Ghosts of Ahnok were brothers bound by blood and steel, and all the more dangerous for it. While the king’s law held sway, often a harder law governed the Ghosts. He held his position by strength and skill, cunning and victory-a custom as old as the first warrior-gods themselves. If the leader of the company showed weakness, he faced not banishment but death.

Sensing that his standing was still firm, even if his heart remained uncertain, Rathe poured a last pot of water over his chest and back, a lithe collection of corded muscle and sinew under smooth dark skin, then stepped away from the shaded wellspring to let the warm summer sunlight dry him. Afterward, he donned his undergarments, supple leather trousers, and a linen tunic under a shirt of black chainmail. He knelt to tug on his riding boots.

“We should find some of that wine you spoke of,” Thushar suggested. “Even goatherds must appreciate revelry.”

After he snugged into a black-scaled tabard, the big Prythian strapped Rathe into a breastplate of boiled leather, its chest emblazoned with a golden image of Ahnok. As they made ready, the crack of the scourge and the subsequent howl of pain floated over the conquered village.

“If ever there was a time to get good and drunk,” Rathe said, struggling to sound enthusiastic, “it’s now.”

“We should also feast the men after sundown,” Thushar hinted. “As you said, it has been a long, wearying expedition.”

“Just so,” Rathe agreed, buckling his sword belt. Already, sweat coated his ribs and chest, but as with the weight of the breastplate, it felt right to him. Despite his discontent with the king’s standing orders-and, more, his part in carrying out those commands-arms and armor made him feel whole, his purpose true. He did not crave the death and bloodshed that came with war, but when those things found him, he prevailed.

The last thing he retrieved was his bronze helmet fashioned into the head of Ahnok. A layer of dust dulled its gleam, and a smear of blood festooned one side. The woman who had left that maroon print had tried to take off his head with a cleaver, bare heartbeats after he had cut down the man he supposed was her husband. Rathe left the blood as a reminder to himself and his men that this day he had taken lives, innocent or not, the same as them.

Turning back to his sergeants, he commanded with forced joviality, “When you are finished primping, gather men to help in the search. If the queen or her lords have hidden anything hereabouts of worth or threat to Cerrikoth, I want it found before nightfall. We leave on the morrow.”

Nods of agreement met his orders, but quizzical expressions seemed to ponder the necessity of haste. Ofttimes, the company would spend a day looting the choicest plunder, before venturing off on another mission.

To that unvoiced question, Rathe said, “This place reeks of the blood of cowards.” The village did not reek of cowards, only blood. A thought occurred to him then, an answer to his troubles. “To keep our skill and honor, we will seek out worthy foes-Qairennor patrols have been denied us too long.” And in so doing, I will discover if the fight has fled from my heart, or if I have only grown weary of mindless, disgraceful slaughter.

The questioning looks vanished, and the sergeants cheered the coming challenge. They would follow the king’s orders to sack helpless villages, but a side mission to test their might and courage against a formidable enemy would serve as a welcome test.

If I have my way, Rathe thought, there will be no more villages. Going against the king might mean his head on a spike, but he would sleep easier between now and the day the headsman’s axe fell.

Chapter 3

Rathe led Thushar toward the village green and the torturer performing his bloody work before an audience of threescore prisoners. Thushar held silent until they turned down a shadowed alley. One huge hand fell on Rathe’s shoulder. “As a friend,” Thushar began, “I offer you a word of advice.”

Rathe shot him a curious look. “As you will.”

“Each of us have our dislikes,” Thushar went on mildly, “things we loathe. Me, it’s razing a town, even if filled with enemies. There can be no greater waste.”

Rathe gazed deep into his friend’s eyes, silently demanding answers he would never receive. What of the women who plead for the lives of their children, before the falling blade silences them? What of the boys who have yet to fill their hands with the hilt of a sword, or to draw an arrow and fire it in anger-do you dislike wasting their lives as much as burning a village?

Aloud, Rathe said, “I have no stomach for slaying lowborn armed with shepherds’ crooks and crofters’ hoes. I long to fight warriors that test my strength and wits. Such battles make men of boys, and heroes of men.”

“Just so,” Thushar said. “But we have sworn the oaths of allegiance to King Tazzim. To betray that loyalty is to betray the god we serve. As such, I keep my mouth shut about what I dislike-as should we all, until our time of soldiering has passed, or until we have been called home to sit at the feet of Ahnok.”

“Should we hold our tongues even when dishonored by orders to raid and pillage, like a band of godless plainsmen?”

“You command the Ghosts of Ahnok,” Thushar said. “You know the answer to that question, better than most. If you have forgotten, brother, then the answer you seek is yes. We do as the king commands. If we do not, who can blame the loyal warrior for turning on his treacherous commander?”

Rathe understood that warning well enough, and thought to mollify his friend. His war of conscience was his to bear, not Thushar’s, and he had already made his decision to fight warriors, not villagers. “As I said earlier, I am weary in my bones. It’s long past our time to be relieved.”

“I agree, brother, but promise you will be more careful.”

“Is there a reason I should, beyond your liking of my head’s current placement upon my neck,” Rathe asked, smiling.

Thushar did not rise to the jest. Instead, he pitched his voice low. “Girod. He is bastard-born, true, but carries in his veins the blood of nobility. If there is gain in it, he will not hesitate to report anyone he imagines is a traitor-even you, Scorpion.”

Rathe offered a sober nod. “I promise, Thushar, to be more careful. Like you, I mistrust him. He looks and acts the dullard, but his eyes are too knowing by far. Still, I cannot believe he is anything besides a nuisance foisted upon the Ghosts by his father, Lord Osaant.”

At another drawn-out scream, they resumed their approach to the green. Unpleasant as Rathe found his current mission, it must be finished, as all his former missions over the last twelve years had been.

Twelve years…. A finger of melancholy touched him as he envisaged the boy he had been when the wizened Captain Nariq had placed a spear into his hands … hands that had never held anything more dangerous than a hoe in the ten years after his birth. After a year of training to become a legionnaire, blood, strife and death had come to define him and his purpose. Without hesitation, with unmatched skill, he had performed countless deeds, both heroic and heinous. As reward, he had risen quickly through the ranks. To the minds of some, he had heard whispered, his rise had been too quick.

Twelve years, barely a third of the time he needed to serve in the king’s army before rising to commander, the highest rank a Cerrikothian commoner could hope to gain. Gain it he would, and far younger than most. Perhaps then he would have influence enough to gain King Tazzim’s ear, and turn him to battles worth fighting. It was a hope-thin, perhaps, but a hope all the same.

Before they reached the village green, Thushar covered his nose to block the cloying reek of blood and spilled innards. “By all the gods, it’s always worse when the sun is high.”

Flies swarmed as they stepped from shadow into stark daylight. Rathe steeled himself for what waited, but it was no use. His gorge rose at the sight of what he himself had ordered done. He had seen it all before, in one village or another, but this day the sight left him reeling.

At every sacked village, Rathe commanded the planting of a rough-hewn, ten-foot cedar pole within sight of the captured villagers. After a year, bloodstains gone to black streaked the pole’s length. By the pile off to one side, he judged that three men had died hanging by their wrists, their ruined flesh giving up every drop of life’s blood to the close-cropped grass under their dangling feet. The flyblown corpses looked like shredded bags of meat.

Kneeling shamed and naked, hands bound at the small of their backs, the villagers watched the tortures from one side of the green. A handful of laughing soldiers guarded them, untouched by the brutality.

“This is close enough,” Rathe said, barely keeping iron in his voice. He told himself again that this barbarity must be done for the Kingdom of Cerrikoth and King Tazzim. As a Ghost of Ahnok, it was his duty.

“After a proper bath, I would hate to get all bloody again,” Thushar muttered, misunderstanding Rathe’s order.

Legionnaire Pellos, another Prythian giant, had stripped to the waist to better swing his scourge. Unlike Thushar, Pellos kept to the grooming traditions of his homelands, choosing to wear his black beard fashioned into a pair of thick braids held taut by heavy brass rings. Fresh spatters of crimson covered him from toe to crown, overlaying drops of dried blood that had flown from the torn flesh his previous victims.

“Tell me, little man,” Pellos urged with sinister kindness, “where does your queen keep her gold. Tell me … and all this can end. I will even hold off my brothers from ravishing your womenfolk. Wouldn’t that be fine?”

The villager eyed his family and friends, then looked back to the massive Prythian. His lips peeled back in a terrible grin, and dried blood cracked and fell off in flakes. A disturbing chortle spilled from his throat. “Gods curse your snake’s heart!”

“Hmm,” Pellos rumbled, lifting the waterskin hanging from his studded leather sword belt. He poured a few swallows into his open mouth, swished it around, and spat it on the prisoner. The man laughed and wept in the same breath. Pellos silenced him with a blinding fist to the ribs. Rathe grimaced at the crack of breaking bones, a sound akin to green saplings snapped over a knee. I should halt this farce, he told himself, but his wavering sense of duty held him fast.

Pellos took another long drink, letting half the water spill over his broad, hairy chest. Rivulets of pink-stained water pattered around his boots. With a satisfied smacking of his lips, he thumbed the cork back into the waterskin and dropped it to dangle from its strap. The prisoner watched the waterskin swing, and missed the sidearm stroke that slashed the scourge across his face. Leather tongues embedded with sharp metal teeth tore the man’s cheek, nose, and one eye to ribbons. A thin whimper squeezed past his gritted teeth, but he did not cry out.

Calm as ever, Pellos asked again, “Where is your master’s gold? What foul rites does your witch-queen demand of you? Where are you hiding the Qairennor soldiers, those who dare not show themselves, even to defend their own smallfolk?”

“Leave him alone, demon!” a young woman wailed.

The prisoner’s remaining eye widened at the desperate plea, and he shook his head before he noticed Pellos’s unfriendly grin. “If your pain is not enough to loosen your tongue, little man, perhaps hers is. Is she your sister, a cousin … your lover?”

The prisoner squeezed shut his remaining eye, refusing to answer. Pellos motioned to Legionnaire Noor, a golden-haired Prythian with a comely face and icy blue eyes. “Give her a taste of your spear, Noor,” Pellos invited, chuckling wickedly.

Noor nodded and came forward. The woman cowered away from him, perhaps thinking he meant to run his spear through her heart. Instead, he stabbed it into the ground between them, for the spear Pellos spoke of was a different weapon altogether.

Rathe’s teeth ground together, knowing what was about to happen. End this … before it is too late. The thought was his own, but the sentiment seemed foreign in his mind. Too late for what … the girl, or something else?

The prisoner opened his eye, saw what was afoot, and began thrashing. Pellos stunned him with a backhand. Snatching a handful of hair, he dragged the man’s head up. “Watch, little man, and maybe you will learn a trick or two.”

“Cut her bonds and hold her,” Noor said to a pair of his companions, yanking off his tabard and hanging it on the butt of his spear.

Two legionnaires freed the girl’s wrists and threw her to the ground. Before she could move, each man took an arm and a leg, holding her for Noor’s pleasure. She struggled in vain, sobbing.

Rathe closed his eyes. Noor would ravish her, as he had so many such girls. In the end, she would be put to the sword, so as not to breed future enemies. Her cries pierced his heart. Stop this. For your soul, you must end it now.

The prisoner lashed to the pole began to beg for mercy. Other villagers added their voices. Noor had just hiked his breechclout to expose his manhood, when Rathe shouted, “Enough!” Thushar reached for his arm, but Rathe shook him off with a curse.

“What are you doing?” Thushar snarled. “I warned you about this. Brother, cease this madness!”

“I intend to,” Rathe said, stalking toward Noor. The soldier waited with a confused sneer twisting his lips.

Rathe had to crane his neck to lock his black eyes on Noor’s face. He raised his voice so all could hear. “From this day forth, the Ghosts of Ahnok will no longer sully themselves by raping the vanquished,” he said, with the presence of mind to offer up a reasonable excuse to deny the right of pillage. “Disobedience will earn death.”

Silence, full of brooding menace, met his words.

Noor glanced from Pellos to Thushar, then to the rest of the soldiers. Save for Rathe, all of those gathered were Prythians, a hard people more easily given to administering harsh questioning than Cerrikothians.

“Our wages are plunder, honor for our names, and all the women we want,” Noor said.

Rathe saw murder in the huge man’s implacable stare, but his voice was steady. “Plunder and honor you can have. If you wish to mount everything we conquer, then I will reassign you to the Night Walkers. Their soldiers are even granted the right to despoil boys, if they so choose.”

Noor’s face blanched. “You cannot offend me, Scorpion. Stand aside, and I will take what is mine.”

Rathe’s eyes went hard. “I will not tolerate-”

Noor’s blow struck like lightning, and points of light exploded before Rathe’s eyes. When he could see straight, he found himself sprawled in the grass some distance from Noor and his intended spoil, uncertain how he had come to be there.

The girl gazed on him with tear-filled eyes. She was younger than he had first thought, and though no words passed between them, she pleaded for his help. In that instant, they were enemies no longer, but kindred fighting against a common foe. Calling out to his brothers, Noor dropped between her legs, tugging himself to arousal.

Thudding stones seemed to pound against Rathe’s head. He gasped a breath. The breath burned … and so too did the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword resting against his palm. His movements were unwieldy, obvious, but the girl’s nudity held Noor’s attention. In turn, the attention of all the other soldiers was on Noor.

“Disobedience will earn death,” Rathe croaked, getting to his feet. As he had defied the king’s orders just moments before, the black irony of his ruling was not lost on him.

The Prythian jerked his head toward Rathe, who tottered forward on wobbly legs. Noor opened his mouth to say something, but like the deadly creature that was his namesake, Rathe’s strike was a blur. His sword cleaved flesh, crunched into the bones of Noor’s neck, and stuck fast. Noor’s mouth gaped around a breathless gasp. Blood pumped from the grievous wound in time with the beat of his heart, poured over his torso and onto the girl, covering her in a spreading scarlet gown.

The legionnaires holding the girl shouted and dove aside. Pellos dragged them both up by the scruff of their necks and ran clear. The girl might have screamed, she must have, but Rathe heard only the grating screech of steel, as he ripped the sword loose from Noor’s neck. The Prythian pawed at him, clumsy on his knees. Rathe’s next stroke shattered the top of Noor’s skull like an eggshell, hewing off a bloody swath of his scalp. Noor fell and lay twitching.

Rathe stabbed the tip of his sword into the grass. His men had become as statues, anger mingling with disbelief on their faces. To the girl, he said, “Go to your family.” Silent and dripping blood, she ran to her people.

“By all the gods,” Rathe heard someone mutter. It had sounded like Girod, but it could have been any of the Ghosts. Soldiers rapidly gathered, as if instinct had warned them of impending trouble.

Rathe waited. The voice that had urged him to put an end to the barbarity had gone silent, abandoning him to whatever might come.

When the bulk of his company had gathered, he raised his eyes from the corpse at his feet. He spoke calmly. “Noor died for assaulting a superior. Had he ravished this girl against my orders, his death would have been the same. Obey my orders as if they were the king’s, or I will cut any or all of you down without pause or mercy.”

He looked from one set of eyes to another, knowing in his heart that he had made a terrible mistake in giving an order that directly countermanded the king’s own decree to wreak merciless destruction on the enemies of Cerrikoth. When he finally rested his gaze on his old friend, Thushar shook his head in dismay.

Men began to stir, muttering. In a moment, Rathe knew, they would come for him. The first few would die, for the Scorpion had never failed to defeat a foe in close combat. After the first, more would come, and then more, until they overwhelmed him. So be it, he thought, a placid smile stretching his lips.

“Hawk!” someone called from the edge of the green, instantly stilling the rising babble of fury. “A message comes!”

For the barest moment, Rathe feared that King Tazzim had already learned of his transgression. But that was impossible. Tazzim sat his throne a hundred leagues to the east.

The company’s scribe drew a slender bone-whistle from a belt pouch and blew a shrill note, calling the hawk to his gauntleted hand. After hooding the hawk, he untied the knot securing a tiny ivory scroll case to the raptor’s leg, and brought it to Rathe.

Rathe nodded thanks, but the man had already scurried away. With a regretful sigh, he drew the rolled bit of parchment from the case. It was from Commander Rhonaag, second in command of the Fists of Rydev Legion, of which the Ghosts of Ahnok were the most revered company.

“What does it say?” Thushar asked, having joined Rathe’s side.

Rathe read the message again, dismay furrowing his brow. A day sooner, and none of this would have happened!

He crumpled the parchment in an angry fist, closed his eyes and rubbed the lids with bloody fingers. “We are called home.”

“Good,” Thushar said. “That is best. For you … for all of us … that is best.”

“As well, King Tazzim is dead.”

Thushar cursed softly, and word of the king’s demise spread.

Chapter 4

Rathe paced the tiled floor of Commander Rhonaag’s stifling anteroom. Unlike the grasslands west of the Mountains of Arakas, the Kingdom of Cerrikoth was higher, drier, and hotter, nearly a desert in the summer months. But it was home, and Rathe held that dear. He had been away far too long.

Not an hour after he had passed through the gates of Onareth, a runner had brought word that Rhonaag required his immediate attendance. He feared the meeting would end with him in chains, but he had made his decision to put an end to dishonorable conduct in that last village. If so, then so be it. A girl lived and Noor had died, but Rathe’s conscience was clear for the first time in many years.

Three hours had passed since his arrival to his commander’s quarters, and still he had not been granted leave to enter. He took a seat on a dusty bench, rested his head against the rough brick wall, and closed his eyes. It felt good to sit on something other than a saddle.

He had driven the Ghosts hard across the hilly grasslands of eastern Qairennor, through the mountains, into Cerrikoth, and finally to the city of Onareth. Their halts had measured in short hours. Remembering his men huddled around the nightly cookfires, studying him with narrowed eyes, Rathe had no doubt that they would have turned on him, if not so exhausted from the grueling pace. That, he supposed, and the troubling word of King Tazzim’s death, were the only two things that had kept him alive after killing Noor for a crime that, in the strictest sense, had been no crime at all.

The journey had given Rathe plenty of time to think on his own heart, and he concluded that he was like a scarred pit dog. Where does such a dog go when freed, he had wondered, when the very fibers of its being have been seeded with brutality? Can there be any redemption for such a beast? More troubling was the idea that such a creature could never receive absolution, but instead would remain as it was … a hunter and a killer. The only difference was that he meant to choose his battles from now on. Of course, that was easier thought than done. He had never chosen any battle, rather the battles had chosen him. Like a strange curse, troubles sought him out.

The door at the end of the anteroom opened and a young, ginger-haired legionnaire said, “Commander Rhonaag will see you.”

Rathe stood, straightened his scaled tabard, and strode into the chambers. Just inside the doorway, he bowed his head and pressed a fist to his heart in salute. “I have come at your request, commander.”

Rhonaag, squat and stern as a timeworn boulder with the dark coloring of a southern Cerrikothian, sat unspeaking behind a bloodwood desk. To one side of him, double-doors let out on a broad balcony overlooking the barrack’s training yards. Polished armor and assorted weaponry stood in every corner of the room. Campaign maps hung on each wall, marked in symbols representing victories and defeats. Save the fine desk heaped with piles of parchment, it was a lifelong soldier’s quarters.

“Leave us, Idursu,” Rhonaag ordered. The aide shot a troubled look at Rathe, then hastily bowed his way out of the room. Rhonaag went back to reading from the sheaf of parchments before him.

Rathe was accustomed to this game of waiting for a commander to acknowledge a subordinate. He had played it himself. Still, he was sure he stood at attention longer than was normal before Rhonaag’s stare found him again.

“You are a proud one,” Rhonaag said, sounding mildly amused. The amusement began and ended with his voice. His dark eyes spoke of disdain.

Unsure of Rhonaag’s point, Rathe said, “I serve Cerrikoth and the king. My heart is strong in the belief that I serve well. If that means I am proud, then it must be so.”

Shoving the parchments to one side of the desk, Rhonaag chuckled. “I suppose such arrogance is not unwarranted. The list of your exploits reads like a bard’s heroic tale.”

“Stories do not tell the truth of blood and pain,” Rathe muttered. “I am no more a hero than any man who kills at the command of others.” He realized the bitterness of his words, but he could not take them back.

“Pride and wisdom are rare qualities found together in one man,” Rhonaag said. By his expression, he seemed doubtful that Rathe was such a man.

He stared unblinking for a long time, idly fingering a scar that ran at a diagonal from one temple into his short, iron-gray hair. Stories told that he had taken the grievous wound while defending his captain against plainsmen raiders north of the Shadow Road, some many years gone. At last, in a voice tinged with disbelief, Rhonaag went on.

“Captain-General Midak has seen fit to promote you to legion commander of the king’s guard.” Rhonaag’s lips twisted in disgust when he finished. He had come to the legions younger than Rathe, but was now twice his age. He had given his entire life to the kingdom, yet before him stood a mere boy by comparison, and already raised above him.

Rathe fought for a calm demeanor. Where he had expected to learn he was sentenced to some black cell, he found instead that all his troubles had vanished. All the questions he had struggled with in that Qairennoran village mattered no more. He would miss the feel of sitting astride a warhorse charging into battle, the camaraderie of his brothers-at-arms, but not enough to long for the feel of his sword stilling a beating heart.

After a steadying breath, he said, “As always, I will serve to the best of my abilities, giving my heart and blood to king and kingdom.”

Rhonaag dismissed Rathe’s oath with a snort. “Sergeant Girod is to fill the office you vacate, so-”

“Girod?” Rathe could not believe it.

“You disapprove?” Rhonaag asked, offering a sardonic smirk.

“He is not, and never will be, fit to lead the Ghosts of Ahnok. Better to send him to a forgotten outpost in the Mountains of Arakas, where his limited talents might be better utilized fetching firewood, buggering goats, and drinking his life away.”

Rhonaag’s smirk widened. “Girod is Lord Osaant’s bastard, and Osaant is the head of the king’s council. Such appointment has afforded Girod a rare, perhaps unfair, opportunity-such are the follies of life. Be that as it may, does it bother you that he is rising faster than even you have?” The gleam in Rhonaag’s eye spoke of spite, not interest.

“Only a lesser man would feel so,” Rathe said. Rhonaag’s nostrils flared and his scar grew red, proving he had understood the barb. Rathe went on.

“I protest because Girod is unfit for command. Lieutenant Thushar is my second, and my rightful replacement. Even if Thushar were a green recruit, he would be better suited to lead the Ghosts than Girod.”

“Protest and recommend as you will,” Rhonaag said, “but not to me. Give your ideas to Captain-General Midak. You are dismissed,” he finished without preamble.

“Would you hear the report of the Ghosts’ last mission?”

Rhonaag sat back in his chair, fingers steepled before his nose. “Submit the report at your leisure, or not at all. It matters little.”

“Commander?”

“With King Tazzim’s death, black change has come swiftly upon Cerrikoth,” Rhonaag said. “Mark me, his fall will bring the end of Cerrikoth as we know it.” He eyed Rathe as if he had some part in the dire changes of which he spoke.

“I cannot see how that-”

“Can be so?” Rhonaag interrupted. “Prince Nabar has taken the throne. He is a fop and coward. I can only wish Prince Sanouk had been allowed to stand in Nabar’s place.”

“Sanouk tried to murder his brother,” Rathe reminded his former commander.

Rhonaag made a shooing motion with his hand. “An unproven allegation. Trust me, if ever a mistake was made by our mighty king, it was exiling his better son to the godsforsaken fortress at Hilan.”

Rathe’s assessment was not so harsh. “Nabar is inexperienced, as are all princes when first they sit a throne. His father’s council will guide him until he learns to make his own decisions.”

“You forget Nabar has always fancied Princess Mirith of Qairennor, the witch-queen’s youngest daughter. Doubtless, Mirith is also a witch. Inside of a year, Nabar will have her as his wife, and Onareth will become a den rife with necromancers and mystics. Gods help us.”

“As were King Tazzim’s fears, I believe yours are exaggerated,” Rathe said. “In the last year, the Ghosts found not one indication of Queen Shukura’s plans to invade Cerrikoth, nor any sign that she is a witch.” That was as close as he intended to come to accusing Tazzim of starting a war based on false conclusions, but he had long suspected as much. “A union between Nabar and Mirith will bring Cerrikoth and Qairennor together again, as in the days of old. I cannot imagine how that would be an evil thing.”

Rhonaag glowered as if Rathe had lost his mind. “On the morrow, you will be my superior,” he snarled, “but today you still follow my orders.” Rathe conceded that with a nod. “Get out of my sight!” Rhonaag spat.

Rathe was pulling the door open when Rhonaag spoke again, his voice low, strangely eager. “Your promotion is based not on merit, but pity for a once great soldier who is now broken.”

“I am at a loss,” Rathe said, though he thought he knew what Rhonaag was coming to.

“You killed one of your own men for following a command issued by King Tazzim’s own tongue,” Rhonaag declared, proving Rathe’s suspicion.

“And the reason I punished Noor is in my report,” Rathe said, anger rising. “For your benefit, I tell you the man assaulted a superior-me, as it happens-and he paid the price for that blunder.”

“Truly?” Rhonaag snorted. “It had nothing to do with the girl Noor intended to despoil?” Rathe’s silence confirmed Rhonaag’s question. “Rest assured that no one will mention what you did, but your peers, the king’s council, King Nabar himself, all know exactly what happened with Legionnaire Noor. Had he been Cerrikothian instead of a Prythian brute, you would soon join him in the afterlife.”

Rathe stood stock-still. Only one man could have ensured the king’s council learned the details at that last village so soon, the man set to replace him, the man he had underestimated: Girod. Of course, word would have spread whether or not Girod had kept quiet.

“Your actions sicken me as much as your promotion,” Rhonaag was saying. “I have seen men like you rise, but ever they fall because of weak characters. You are no different. Mark me, Scorpion, you will fall lower than the trampled shite of swine. Now, before I do something we will both regret, take yourself from my sight!”

Chapter 5

“Legion commander of the king’s guard,” Thushar laughed. “At this rate, you will be captain-general by this time next year!”

“Men of our birth do not rise to such heights,” Rathe said, sipping the last of his wine. Until me, he thought.

The babble of voices and the music of lyre and pipes filled one of a dozen inner halls of Lord Osaant’s palace with an air of festivity. A night breeze poured through terracotta-latticed windows, cooling the guests who strode across glistening white marble floors. Burnished steel mirrors reflected the light of scores of oil lamps, ensuring that no shadows could fall within the hall.

“Commoners do not rise to legion commander of anything, but here you are,” Thushar countered.

Rathe could not help but grin. He still found it hard to believe he had risen higher than any other lowborn in the history of Cerrikoth, even surpassing his highest ambition. Despite Rhonaag’s final derisive words a half a month gone, Captain-General Midak and his subordinates had welcomed Rathe into their fold.

Thushar nodded a greeting to a yellow-robed lord walking arm-in-arm with his concubine. The rotund, hawk-nosed man raised his nose imperiously and quickened his pace, making the ridiculous ostrich plume poked into his dainty blue turban jounce as if in affront. By his lidded dark eyes, swarthy coloring, and oiled black chin beard fashioned into a narrow spike, he was one of the spice-lords from the far eastern isles of Yehute. His buxom paramour, clad in diaphanous rainbow silks caught snugly about her narrow waist with a belt of turquoise and gold, eyed Thushar with more than passing interest.

After they moved off along a pillared gallery interspersed with potted palms and flowering shrubs, the big Prythian shook his head and laughed boisterously, green eyes alight with excitement. “I must thank you again for promoting me to serve as your aide. May the gods be merciful on my soul for the sins in which I mean to indulge!”

Rathe laughed with him. While his new position demanded that he suffer incessant court intrigues and a steady stream of pompous buffoons, he could not be happier. Life had never been so good. He would miss his men and the thrill of charging across a battlefield, but not so much that he would ever wish to return to that life of dealing death. I will never again order the destruction of an innocent village. His hope was that King Nabar had a gentler heart than his father.

A tingle across his shoulders turned Rathe. When he had felt that sensation before, it always presaged danger. Instead of a threat, he found a fiery-haired woman appraising him from the far side of the courtyard’s bubbling fountain. He offered a slow smile, which she returned, before venturing into a clutch of emissaries from various kingdoms, all come to Onareth to secure trading pacts with the new king. Some sought to gain aid in battling common enemies, others to take advantage of the crumbs falling from Cerrikoth’s table. King Nabar and his retinue were about somewhere, doubtless wading through gaggles of sycophants eager to insinuate themselves into his good graces.

“What do you make of our host?” Thushar asked, nodding to a skinny old man with a bulging potbelly. In no way did it seem the man could have sired Girod. Sipping his wine, Thushar leaned against a pillar carved with playful nymphs, climbing vines, and mythic beasts.

Distracted, Rathe tried to find the woman again, but the throngs of colorful, strutting highborn made that impossible. Mildly disappointed, he appraised Lord Osaant at Thushar’s request. The man was holding forth near a marble soldier of powerful proportions, yet wearing his own vulture-like countenance. He was a member of a breed Rathe despised, men granted the king’s ear and who always whispered of war and conquest in a bid to stuff their own coffers, but had never swung a sword in anger, and rarely stirred from the comforts of their palaces.

Before Rathe could say a word, the red-haired woman reappeared on the nearer side of the fountain, where she took a keen interest in the fragrant flowers she found potted there.

Thushar nudged Rathe, redirecting his attention to Osaant. Rathe shook off his ire, choosing to make a joke of the moment. Affecting a haughty tone, he said, “To be sure, he is wealthy-as you can see by the stunning appointment of his palace. And while he serves as the head of the king’s council, surely he garners respect not by sage advice, but in flaunting his riches. Even with his esteemed birth, he is a most wretched creature.”

Thushar laughed. “As well, I have heard it that his manhood is a tiny, mangled thing,” he said, drawing a giggle from the red-haired beauty.

Rathe flashed her a cocky grin. She returned his gaze with stirring boldness. As a three-time champion of King Tazzim’s yearly games, Rathe was not unaccustomed to women of all stations seeking his affections. For his part, he had never found cause to be stingy. Now was no different. He was not so drunk to deny her gown of sheer crimson silk, open from her throat to her bellybutton and revealing more of her breasts than it hid, played a role in his judgment.

Thushar’s grunt of irritation drew Rathe from his pleasant study. The Prythian pointed out Girod, meandering toward them through the jovial throngs. The brutish man traded banter with the highborn, but after he had gone by, they eyed him with the same mistrust as the Ghosts of Ahnok. If not for his father, he would never have been allowed within the walls of the palace.

“More wine, captain?” Girod asked as he joined them, offering a fresh goblet. He had oiled and tied back his long dark hair, seemingly in a bid to make himself more presentable. He had not bothered cleaning his sculpted bronze breastplate of dust and fingerprints. A greasy smear ran across the snarling face of Ahnok, as if Girod had used the god’s face to wipe his hands.

“Legion commander of the king’s guard,” Thushar corrected with a glower.

Girod displayed an oily grin of crooked teeth. “Of course. I misspoke. But then, I forget that I am now captain of the Ghosts.” His expression made it clear he had forgotten nothing.

Rathe snatched the goblet from Girod’s outstretched hand and tossed it back in a single gulp. He would need that and more, if he was to suffer the lout’s company.

Leaning in close, the reek of old sweat and sour wine wafting about him, Girod inclined his head toward the beauty by the fountain. “She favors you.”

Rathe swayed on his feet, and cautioned himself to slow his intake of wine, no matter his distaste for Girod. It would not serve him well to be seen stumbling about like a common sot.

“Her name is Lisana,” Girod offered, leering.

Rathe blinked dazedly, his cheeks hot and tingly. “Who is she?” he asked, slurring a little.

“Does it matter?” Striding away, Girod added, “Do be gentle with the girl.”

Thushar looked after the captain. “I do not trust that bastard.”

“Nor do I,” Rathe agreed, blinking in a bid to stop the room from spinning. “But he’s no longer any trouble to us.”

Thushar grunted noncommittally.

“Go on, brother, enjoy yourself, as I intend to.”

“Very well,” Thushar said, “but have a caution. Here you tread the path of serpents.”

“As do you,” Rathe said, smirking like a fool.

After giving him a lingering look, Thushar eased into the milling crowd. A moment later, the woman at the fountain strolled to Rathe’s elbow. By all the gods, she’s beautiful, he thought, his mind flaring with lustful images.

“Does the Scorpion always get what he desires?” she asked pointedly. Her lips pursed prettily when she sipped her wine.

“Just so,” he said, feeling giddy. Her eyes, their pale blue irises ringed with a darker shade, regarded him boldly despite her demure tone. His pulse quickened.

“I am Lisana,” she said, toying with the open neckline of her dress.

“I know who you are,” Rathe murmured. The room kept trying to spin him around. He shook his head, collected himself. Doubtless, the wine Girod had given him was his father’s private vintage, and all the more potent for it. He dabbed sweat from his brow, forced his mind to focus.

“Do you indeed?” she asked, with something beyond mere surprise.

“Well,” he amended, wishing he could throw himself into a bath of iced water to clear his thoughts, “I know only that you are Lisana. My friend, ah-” he paused, trying to come up with a name to match the loutish face in his mind “-Girod … yes, Captain Girod, he told me. Of course, that slovenly bastard is no friend of mine, but a … ah …” his words trailed off as he watched Lisana’s fingers move in slow swirls about her neck, easing the plunging neckline wider.

“Would you like to play a game?” she invited, smiling coyly.

Rathe grinned back, his lidded gaze following her fingers as they moved with a lover’s touch over the inner swells of her breasts. “What game?” he asked, voice throaty.

“We will pretend I am a highborn lady with a very, very jealous husband.” The way she spoke suggested those words were closer to truth than a contrived lark. Before Rathe could reply, Lisana spun away and went wide around the fountain, then passed under a horseshoe arch and into a corridor leading deeper into the palace.

Despite a voice of caution in the back of his mind, Rathe fell into the sport, belatedly making sure neither he nor Lisana were under scrutiny. The game’s hinted risks cleared his head a little.

As if stalking elusive prey, Rathe went after her, wending amid groups of highborn and wealthy merchants from lands near and far. All nibbled exotic dainties plucked from golden platters held by barely clothed servants, and sipped wines from gem-crusted goblets worth more than the lives of a dozen crofters. Laughing and jabbering, the nobles leered at each other’s displayed wealth with wooden smiles and eyes glittering with either envy or condescension.

Lisana led him a merry chase through various halls, courtyards, and open gardens replete with babbling fountains, guests and servants. Rathe paid them little mind, his attention on catching fleeting glimpses of Lisana.

She eventually passed into a corridor that led to a set of richly appointed double doors worth more than he would earn in a dozen lifetimes. Doubtless, Lord Osaant’s private quarters waited beyond them. Lisana, you are a wicked girl. With a grin that set his heart to racing, Lisana slid into the room and closed the doors behind her.

Feigning interest in a marble figurine, Rathe waited a slow hundred count-both to calm his excitement, and to make doubly sure he was not seen entering Osaant’s most hallowed domain. Guests laughed overloud from a nearby garden, but no one was watching him.

Moving to the doors, Rathe took a deep breath, and entered the last place a wise man would have wished to find himself uninvited.

Chapter 6

Rathe’s reservations faded when he shut the doors. Incense perfumed the air, and oil lamps sitting atop ornamental bronze stands burned low around the pillared chamber, casting an intoxicating, mellow glow over mosaicked floors and alabaster walls embossed with erotic scenes. An archway hung with sheer white drapery let out onto a balcony facing the palace of King Nabar, which blazed like a golden crown in the night. Lisana, a precious flower blooming at the center of all that carnal extravagance, waited on a gargantuan bed with only with a thin coverlet drawn over her.

What am I doing? Rathe wondered absently, even as the detached, spinning feeling he had observed since drinking the wine from Girod’s hand whisked away his concern of violating the bed of a highborn.

Lisana eased one bare leg from under the coverlet, a silent appeal for Rathe to join her. After a moment’s more hesitation, he cast aside his concerns, stripped out of his formal uniform, and fell into her welcome embrace. She brushed her full lips against his ear, his neck. One breast pressed against his palm, the other against his chest. A tingle of arousal flashed over his dark skin as her fingers slowly wandered over his nakedness. When their lips met, Rathe thanked Ahnok for such a blessing as-

The doors to the bedchamber crashed open, and Rathe threw himself between Lisana and unknown danger. His head spun at the sudden movement, but he made ready to fight.

A shadow moved through the doorway and drifted into the light. Lord Osaant’s wizened face showed no emotion. “You dare defile my bed?”

Lisana snatched a pillow to her breasts. “Milord,” she stammered. “I-”

“You filthy, ungrateful slattern,” he said in an improbably bored tone. “I brought you into my home, sparing you from gods know what sort of wretched life you might have had, made you my concubine, and you repay me by rutting in my own bed with this lowborn scum?”

Concubine … impossible! Rathe tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick in his mouth. His head whirled worse than ever, making concentration nearly impossible. He looked between Lisana’s horrified expression and Osaant’s bland visage, and saw the undeniable light of recognition in each of their eyes. Dread boiled up in him. Commander Rhonaag’s words rose like a poisonous vapor within his skull. “I have seen men like you rise, but ever they fall because of unseen weaknesses. You are no different.”

“What is your will, father?” Girod asked, moving next to Osaant with a wicked smile turning his lips. Gone was the brutish dullard, replaced by a man of terrible cunning.

Osaant smirked. “He’s dangerous, everyone knows it. All will understand that much force was needed to subdue him-but keep him alive.”

“Better to kill him,” Girod argued, a jealous heat burning in his gaze. “He is tricksome, and despite his treasonous actions against Noor and the king, he seems favored by some black fortune. Best cut his throat, rather than risk him ever gaining freedom again.”

Osaant shook his head. “I want our newly risen king to understand that even beloved champions can have a betrayer’s black heart. Nabar must learn to never make the mistake of raising a commoner to heights reserved by the gods for men of noble blood. By King Nabar’s tongue alone, this puffed up fool will die. After that death you, my son, will take his place.”

Rathe looked between the two men, struggling to overcome the debilitating potion in his veins and mind, trying to understand how he had never seen the plots against him.

“Mercy!” Lisana blurted. Still not understanding that she had been duped along with Rathe, she pointed at Girod. “It was not supposed to be this way! Rathe was only to be dishonored, taught a lesson. Your son said nothing about death.”

“You are beautiful, Lisana,” Osaant murmured, his voice all the more dangerous for its calm, “but yours is the heart of a greedy, imprudent whore. I’d hoped you would not accept my son’s offer to engage in this game, so that another might spread her legs for this cur. As you did accept, the penalty for betrayal is yours to bear.”

Osaant glanced at Girod. “She cannot be allowed to tell her tale, but again, mind that you spare the Scorpion.”

Girod was already moving. Too late, Rathe threw up a hand to block the man’s boot from slamming into his face. Dazed and bleeding, he reeled off the side of the bed and crashed to the floor. The blow shocked him into awareness. With clarity came the implacable killing rage he had embraced for so many years when joining battle. As he moved to rise, Lisana screamed. The sound of steel striking flesh ended her cry.

Rathe bounded off the floor, eyes burning like black fire, and found Girod balancing on the mattress above Lisana, her pale white neck parted like an obscene pair of crimson lips. She made choking sounds as blood poured over her chest and clutching hands. The blow had nearly decapitated her. Girod’s sword rose to finish its grisly work, and Lisana’s glazing eyes followed the glimmering blade.

Howling, Rathe leaped, naked and dreadful. Girod whipped around. Rathe saw the sudden fear in the bastard’s face, and rejoiced at the horror he wrought. He slammed a fist into the man’s groin, and Girod’s mouth sprang open. Rathe caught Girod’s wrist before he could swing the sword and take off his head. The effects of the drugged wine still surged through him, but for now wrath overpowered it, and he drove Girod back against the headboard.

“You will not live long enough to benefit from this treachery,” Rathe growled, squeezing Girod’s wrist until the joint under his palm cracked. As the sword fell, Rathe reached across himself and caught the hilt. With a roar, he rammed the blade through Girod’s bowels and deep into the carved wood at his back, pinning him there.

“Rathe!” Thushar bellowed from the doorway, followed by Osaant’s outraged squawk.

Rathe tore the sword free and thrust Girod away. The man tumbled to the floor, not yet dead. Lisana slumped to one side and went still. The fury left Rathe as quickly as it had come. Confusion and uncertainty, emotions from which he had never suffered, crashed over him. The sword fell from his limp fingers, and he crumpled to his knees at Lisana’s side.

There came a scuffling behind him, but he did not turn, even when Thushar’s strong arms wrapped protectively around him. The Prythian warned Osaant’s gathering guards to stay back, but to Rathe his voice came from far away.

“Do not make my troubles your own,” he murmured, sinking into a dreamscape of bemusing hues as the drugged wine fully addled his wits. “Let them have me, brother.”

Unheeding, Thushar threw Rathe off the far side of the bed and jumped down next to him. “Take up your sword!” the Prythian bellowed.

Rathe sat sprawl-legged, limbs numb, head reeling. Everything was distant-Girod’s death, Lisana’s blood covering his hands and arms, the clash of steel not a pace distant. Some part of him wanted to fight, but the world around him became a muddled nightmare.

Thushar, a snarling wolf defending his leader, wielded his sword and many of Osaant’s men fell. Those who survived dragged themselves clear of the carnage missing limbs, gashed to the bone, or eviscerated. A true Ghost of Ahnok, Thushar fought longer than any man should have been able to, but in the end, Osaant’s guards were too many. More swooped into the chambers and battered Thushar and Rathe into submission.

Osaant ordered, “Keep them alive!” Quivering with fury, he spared a single glance for Girod, whose eyes had been dulled by death. “By all the gods, I will see that you both suffer before you die.”

Chapter 7

Lost in the murk, Rathe shifted on the damp dirt floor of the cell, making his chains rattle. He had been imprisoned long enough to grow accustomed to the reek of spilled chamber pots, moldy straw, and unwashed prisoners, but the clinking of his own chains still chilled his blood. He tried to judge the passage of days, but could not. Twilight was eternal in the deep cells, where only a single oil lamp, somewhere outside his barred cell, kept absolute darkness at bay. He slept and woke, tried to ignore the rumble of hunger in his belly, contemplated the palpable weight of misery upon his heart and soul, then slept again. He knew for certain he had slept a dozen times since Thushar had lost his life for the crime of protecting his commander.

Shifting into a slightly more comfortable position, Rathe watched through the rusted bars of his cell as his companions slunk along the corridor, nosing through moldering straw, hunting for any morsel. Three-leg, a great black rat, slid between the bars of another cell across the way, making straight for a bare foot covered in running sores. Nose outstretched, it sniffed cautiously at the waiting toes. The prisoner, a man Rathe had never fully seen, did not stir. Taking that as an invitation, Three-leg took a tentative nibble. The foot thrashed weakly and drew back, a moan came from the darkness. Three-leg moved on, hunting a more submissive meal.

Nub, a small gregarious rodent bereft of a tail, scurried quickly from cell to cell, as if knowing exactly what it was looking for and how to find it. Nub veered toward Rathe’s quarters, halted just out of reach and sat up, beady eyes giving him a curious once over.

“Nothing for you this day, friend,” Rathe croaked. “Of course, you know that, don’t you?”

Nub’s whiskers twitched, its head bobbed as if in answer.

“Like as not, I will be dead soon,” Rathe continued. “Then, little one, you can have all the meat you want. How would that be?”

Nub bobbed its head again, front paws held before its chest like a pleading supplicant.

“Off with you,” Rathe said. “I am not dead yet.”

Perhaps it was encroaching madness, perhaps imagination, but Rathe felt sure that Nub considered his words and, finding such an arrangement acceptable, it dropped to all fours and continued its rounds.

In watching Nub’s progression, Rathe spied Patches. The two regarded each other. A one-eyed rat dotted with snowy spots, Patches did not move around much, as though trying to blend in with the shadows and crumbling brick walls. When it deigned to explore, it did so with heightened caution.

“You have had a rough go of it, haven’t you?” Rathe said. Until coming awake the first day in the deep cells, he had never reflected on the conduct of vermin. He had discovered they had a hierarchy, and it seemed poor blemished Patches was at the bottom of its pack.

“You will have to find your stones, if you ever want to make something of yourself,” Rathe advised with a wry chuckle.

In answer, Patches lowered its head and slowly backed into the darkness of another cell.

Rathe sighed and leaned his head back against the rough brick wall. Other vermin squeaked and hunted in the gloom, pausing occasionally to nibble a toe or finger on the chance that the owner of that appendage had died in the night. If the prisoner yelped or groaned, the rats scurried on. If not, they feasted until one of the gaolers collected the corpses.

None of that bothered Rathe anymore. He supposed hunger made him lethargic, or maybe the lingering effects of whatever potion Girod had put into his wine. Or, perhaps I no longer care about anything?

With that thought came a jumble of visions and sensations from that night: wine and celebration, surrounded by highborn with no greater cares than who to bed; Lisana’s seductive smile and the blue of her eyes; after, the scarlet flood pouring from the gruesome tear across her throat, those beautiful eyes glazing in death; Girod sword in hand, readying to strike her again. Rathe’s fist clenched tightly, as if around a hilt. In his mind, he skewered Girod’s bowels anew, pinning the brute to the headboard. The longer he let the ghastly images cavort inside his skull, the more tangled they became, losing all connection to reality. Maybe I am losing my mind? Given that he counted vermin as companions, even named and spoke to them, he guessed that made sense.

Around him his fellow prisoners wept, moaned, or held silent vigil. Rathe closed his eyes which, improbable as it was, snuffed out the visions of his downfall. As he dozed, he saw Thushar’s severed head bouncing out of the stone basin in the executioner’s yard, the stump of the big Prythian’s neck spurting blood. He dared not allow himself any measure of self-pity, not with Thushar’s death cavorting his mind. Even as the executioner’s axe had fallen, with a smug Osaant and a chained Rathe looking on, Thushar had never lost his defiance or pride. Such a man as that did not deserve me for a friend.

The hardest thing for Rathe was that Thushar had not condemned him for falling so easily into the trap laid by Girod and Osaant, nor had he regretted guarding a stuporous Rathe until the end. His last words, spoken in the dark of their shared cell, had been confident, even joyful. “The wine of the gods is surely better than the goat piss we have shared so often. I will wait for you at Ahnok’s feet, brother, with a plump wench on my knee, and a drunken smile on my lips.”

I will remember you, brother, until we meet again, Rathe thought. That day could not be far off. Falling into a troubled slumber, Rathe could only hope to meet death with the same dignity….

A kick to the ribs jarred him awake, but the blinding glare of a torch closed his eyes again.

“It’s time,” a voice said with sinister jubilance.

Blinking, Rathe saw that Cartach had come for him-the worst of the gaolers. He struggled to get up, but found he was too weak-food was not wasted on the condemned, much to the disappointment of his vermin friends. When he fell back, Cartach stabbed the torch against his belly. The pain was immediate, as was the sizzling stench of charring flesh.

Rathe roared and scrambled back, legs thrashing. His bare shoulders slammed against brick, and his feet dug grooves in the urine-soaked floor. In trying to escape Cartach’s torch, he managed to stand. It was then that he noticed that his shackles had been taken off.

“Knew you had it in you,” Cartach drawled. He was tall, with a cruel face, his body seemingly made of rawhide stretched drum-tight over corded muscle.

Hunched over, arms clutching his singed belly, Rathe glared at his assailant through lank strings of filthy hair. As soon as it crossed his mind to attack the gaoler, Cartach’s fist rocked his head. Rathe hit the floor, shuddering and spitting blood.

Cartach did not bother cajoling him to stand again. Instead, he grabbed a handful of Rathe’s hair and wrenched him up. With a shove, the gaoler sent him stumbling out of the cell. Companionable Nub and slinking Three-leg had long since darted for cover, but timid Patches looked on from the shadows. You know this game, yes?

Rathe laughed at the madness of holding communion with a rat. Cartach’s fist crashed into the back of his neck, cutting off his remorseful mirth.

“Gods be with you,” a wheezy voice called from deeper shadows, followed by mad, wailing laughter.

Rathe shambled along, head down, heart flopping like a rabbit caught in a snare. He had thought he was ready to meet Thushar in the shadow of Ahnok. Now he was of a different mind. I do this for you Patches….

He spun, reaching for Cartach’s neck. The gaoler struck again, his blow like the kick of horse. Knocking Rathe to the ground did not satisfy him. The torch in his hand thrashed wildly as he stomped Rathe’s skull and put a boot to his ribs and back, and anywhere else left undefended.

When the gaoler ended his attack, he was breathing hard. “Saw it in your eyes, same as I see it in every man’s. Your friend, a trueborn Prythian, was the only one in the last four years who died with dignity. Almost hated to see him lose his head.”

Barely hearing, bloody and dazed, Rathe lay sprawled, too weak to curl into a protective ball.

“Engus!” Cartach shouted. “Get down here.”

A door opened at the end of the long, dim corridor. The second gaoler filled the doorway. The man was huge, head and shoulders taller than Rathe. And simple as a slug, he thought. He hated Cartach for his wanton cruelty, but Engus, trundling toward them with a slow-witted grin stretching his bland features, was a child poured into a killer’s body. He had wielded the blade that struck off Thushar’s head, but to Engus the brutal act had probably been no more momentous than slicing a melon.

Engus shuffled to a halt above Rathe. He said nothing, only grinned his idiot’s grin.

“Pick him up,” Cartach ordered with a strange, paternal kindness.

Engus obliged, silently and easily lifting Rathe and cradling him to his massive chest. Engus’s vapid gaze shone a clear, pale gray in the torchlight. With a gentle touch, Cartach urged the giant forward.

Rathe’s head lolled. Above him, the rotten brick ceiling gave way to firmer masonry beyond the doorway. They wended through twisting corridors for good while. After a last turn, the air cleared and brightened, and then a cloudless blue sky opened above his eyes. The cool air of his last dawn rippled his skin.

High stone walls guarded the executioner’s yard from sight of the citizens of Onareth, but that did not keep a handful of observers from climbing up and taking a seat to watch the fulfillment of the king’s judgment. Jeering calls echoed around the yard, and Rathe wondered if they knew the famed Scorpion was about to die.

“Put him down,” Cartach ordered, and Engus carefully settled Rathe on his feet.

Rathe might well have been floating, for all the lack of feeling in his limbs. Under his breath, he began muttering prayers of supplication to Ahnok, but his heart skipped when he glanced at the block atop a high, broad platform of dressed stone. The block was fashioned from a slab of black granite, with a smooth groove at its center. Beneath the groove sat a stone basin-just large enough to catch a man’s head. It did not catch Thushar’s.

“Where is the priest of Ahnok?” Rathe asked woodenly.

Cartach gazed at him so long that he thought the brute had not heard. “You have no need of a priest.”

“All men of Cerrikoth are granted the right to seek absolution,” Rathe said. “As I draw breath, I demand that right.”

“Demand all you want, but no priest is coming to hear you.”

“This is sacrilege-”

Cartach cut him off with a slap. “Engus, bind this whining maggot to the pole.”

Rathe’s blood went to ice when he looked beyond the block to a tall wooden post stained black with old blood. He had seen the same at every village he had sacked in the last year. By his order, scores had suffered the scourge while bound to such a pole. And so Ahnok passes his judgment in kind.

“I do not understand,” Rathe said, as Engus prodded him forward.

Cartach shrugged. “King Nabar took mercy on you. You will taste the lash to appease Osaant, then you will suffer banishment. Seems too kind to me, but….”

Rathe heard what followed as a distant yammering. The irredeemable were banished to only one place in Cerrikoth: Fortress Hilan. Some said such a fate was worse than death. Besides the shame of banishment, in the forests thereabout lurked creatures forsaken by the gods, stalking nightmares with a hunger for living blood. In the end, life in Hilan was no less a death sentence than losing your head, only slower. Yet, I will live … and Nub will have to find another to sup upon.

As Engus tied a hank of rope around Rathe’s wrists, a tall lanky fellow that might have been Cartach’s brother came out of a darkened doorway. He held a scourge with a dozen leather tongues, their tips glinting with steel barbs.

Singing a tuneless lullaby under his breath, Engus attached Rathe’s bindings to a rope that ran through a pulley at the top of the pole. From the pulley, the rope stretched to a winch. After testing his knot, Engus moved to the winch, caught the handle, and began cranking. Squealing and clattering, the device pulled Rathe’s arms above his head. Engus stopped and threw the locking lever when Rathe stood on his tiptoes.

“Make him dance, Engus,” Cartach called with a grin.

Engus chortled merrily, and started cranking again. Rathe bit back a groan as his bindings dug into the raw skin around his wrists. Engus did not stop again until Rathe’s feet lifted from the ground.

Heart pounding, Rathe vowed to face his penalty with as much dignity as Thushar had. Our places should have been reversed, brother. It is not right that I should live, where you perished.

When the scourge fell, his teeth clenched so hard he thought they might shatter. When the next heavy stroke tore his back, he began to scream.

Chapter 8

As the birth of dawn drove the aged night into the grave of memory, the mounted soldiers followed a dusty road cutting through a sparsely wooded grassland. With the vanishing darkness also faded the glinting stars and the waning moon’s silver curve. Waking birds called from bush, shrub, and the occasional copse of bushy trees. The dewed greenery made for a heady scent, but went unappreciated.

Rathe rode at the head of seventeen outcasts surrounded by forty unkempt, rather malicious-looking soldiers clad in rusted mail and tattered leathers. At the head of the column rose the winged Reaver banner of Fortress Hilan.

It was a farce, that banner, Rathe knew as well as any true soldier of Cerrikoth. The scarlet skull of a fanged serpent hung between a pair of batwings, and rode a field of white above a brace of crossed, half-moon battle axes. There was no reaving in Hilan, the northernmost settlement of Cerrikoth, lying hard against the dark bastions of the Gyntor Mountains. Men sent there tried to survive terrible winters, disease, and the nightmarish creatures that hunted within those rocky crags. And such will be my home and my fate.

Days had passed since Rathe suffered the lash, but he could still hear and feel the whistling snaps of barbed leather parting his flesh. A hundred stripes. Death would have been easier. It was not the pain that troubled him most, rather the disgrace of losing all he had fought and bled for since setting aside his father’s hoe for his king’s sword. Moreover, he was banished from all lands and cities of Cerrikoth, with the exception of Hilan and surrounding villages. If he chose to escape, the king who had shown him mercy would place a bounty on his head so large that every able-bodied fool within ten realms would devote their lives to capturing him. Once taken and brought back to Onareth, he would face execution, and such a death would neither be swift nor easy.

Out of habit, Rathe glanced over his fellow outcasts to make sure none were getting up to any mischief. He winced as crusted scabs stretched across his back. He might as well have saved himself the pain. Scoundrels the outcasts might be, but Rathe saw men just coming to the full understanding of what it meant to be sent to Hilan. They rode in silence, heads bowed. The shoulders of more than one shuddered, as they wept quietly at their fate. Prisoners no more in name, but prisoners all the same.

Captain Treon, a whip-thin despot with a witch’s long white hair, the piercing stare of a serpent, and the aspect of a starved corpse, had appointed Rathe the leader of the banished.

“Other than assigning minor duties, you lead nothing,” Treon had informed him, his voice a thin, rasping whisper. “Your purpose is reporting to me their past crimes, strengths, and weaknesses. Should any of these scoundrels misstep, you will pay the price of their folly with them.”

Rathe agreed to that readily enough. What choice did he have?

“You and your men are still soldiers of Cerrikoth, but until evidence proves otherwise, you are worth less to me than a smear of shite in a lackwit’s smallclothes. Should you or any of your men attempt escape, you and they will be executed on sight. As their leader, I will hold you responsible for their flight, or anything else they do. After all, a proper leader knows the minds of his men, no?”

Again, Rathe had seen no way or purpose to argue against that. The life he had known ended the night he pinned Girod to the headboard … or perhaps even farther back, when he had hewn the life from Noor. Like his fellows around him, King Nabar had given him a chance at a new life-not much of one, to be sure, but a chance.

Shifting in the saddle with a groan, Rathe pulled the cork stopper on a leather flask filled with a syrupy concoction so revolting he had at first believed it was poison. A grizzled healer had given it to him after tending his wounds with the admonition: “Drink this thrice a day until it is gone, and you will heal well enough.”

And so he had taken the brew as directed. Unfortunately, the flask never seemed any emptier. Whether it helped in mending flesh, Rathe did not know, but when he could keep the potion in his belly, it eased his wounds and lessened the sting of his fall.

His bald head glimmering in the sunlight, Loro trotted his mount up from behind the company and slowed at Rathe’s side. Formerly a sergeant of the City Watch of Onareth, Loro had lost his rank once for drunkenness, again for brawling and, like Rathe, this last time for sharing a bed with a woman he should have avoided. Even in the cool of dawn, sweat soaked the neck and underarms of the leather jerkin stretched taut across his chest and swollen belly. Fat though he was, Rathe judged that Loro carried a fair quantity of hard muscle and a warrior’s heart under those layers of suet. Of all the outcasts, only Loro seemed untroubled by his banishment.

“You are supposed to be scouting ahead of the company, not behind,” Rathe grumbled, glancing at Captain Treon to make sure the man had not observed Loro’s arrival.

Loro shrugged by way of explanation, then gave Rathe a long, appraising look. “Sooner you let your old life wither and die, the sooner you will feel better about the new.”

“And I should trust the wisdom of a viper?” Rathe rejoined, startled by the man’s insight.

“You sting me, friend,” Loro said, grinning broadly. “I am no viper, but a boar with a savage hunger for wine, plump teats, and lusty wenches.”

Rathe could not help but laugh at the man’s vulgarity. Loro joined in, bellowing wild guffaws to unnerve an executioner. Captain Treon gave them a withering stare until they fell silent, then faced forward. If he thought it odd that Loro had come up on the column unseen, he did not mention it. The man had seemed distracted of late, his flat gray eyes ever scanning. He might have been keeping a look out for raiding bands of plainsmen, but Rathe thought not. Treon seemed to be looking for something he had forgotten.

Rathe said, “I trust you didn’t find anything?”

Loro laughed again. “On the contrary. A caravan of women travel this way. Might not be women my mother would approve of … but then, she was an eyeless hedge witch with a taste for sour wine, and was convinced that smearing bat guano on her cheeks would keep her young.”

“What are you going on about?” Rathe asked, thinking he had misjudged the man’s sanity.

“Maidens of the Lyre draw near,” Loro said in exasperation. “They sing, dance, tell tales of heroes and fanciful places-surely you have heard of them?”

“I have,” Rathe said. “I would not have expected to find them so far from a proper city.” He had heard many stories of the traveling women, but had never come across them.

“It’s said they are daring,” Loro shrugged. “All that matters is this night I will have something prettier to look at than Lord Snake.” Rathe raised an eyebrow. “Captain Treon,” Loro said, lowering his voice.

Rathe sighed. “I should tell him what you found, before he thinks we are being attacked, and puts an arrow in the first woman to show her face.”

“Good idea. I will stay here and keep an eye on our sulking brothers,” Loro said with a sympathetic grin.

As Rathe reached Treon, a woman riding sidesaddle topped the rise ahead and drew near before halting. Her horse, pale as morning mist, had a regal bearing and fine lines. Rathe had seen a thousand such horses. He had not seen a thousand such women. A breeze played with her emerald green riding cloak, showing the silken folds of a pale yellow gown clinging to a figure that dried Rathe’s tongue. She noted his appraisal, and returned the favor with a lingering glance of her own.

He told himself to look away, but neither his eyes nor his head obeyed. What finally convinced him of his folly was a vision of Lisana as she had died. She had betrayed him, but he found it difficult to hold her to account, as she had been deceived herself.

“I am Lady Nesaea,” the newcomer said to Captain Treon. Sable ringlets tumbled over one shoulder, looking freshly washed and glowing in the sunlight. “In trade for your protection on our way north to the Shadow Road, the Maidens of the Lyre will gladly provide your gallant men our services.”

Nesaea glanced from Captain Treon to the other soldiers, her eyes so deeply blue as to look violet. When her gaze fell again on Rathe, she offered a smile seemingly meant for him alone, and he knew trouble had found him once more.

In his whispering rasp, looking as if he had stumbled across a hidden chest of gold, Captain Treon readily agreed to Lady Nesaea’s proposition. Rathe noted the man’s eagerness, though he did not share it. A pretty face, Rathe accepted, was one of those weaknesses Commander Rhonaag had mentioned. If he would have any sort of meaningful life, Rathe knew he would need to put his head down, follow orders, and behave as a green recruit eager to serve.

He told himself that and more, but when Nesaea wheeled her mount and rode back to her companions, Rathe could not look away from the curves of her figure nestled in the saddle, nor forget the enchanting expressiveness of her eyes. I am a man cursed, he thought without humor.

Within the hour, without slowing the march, the Maidens of the Lyre had merged their caravan with the column of soldiers. For the first time since setting out from Onareth, the Hilan men rode with something more than bland indifference to the world around them, and the outcasts shed some of their misery. Music and song helped, rising from the backs of a score of wagons that bore the look of broad-bellied ships, all painted gaily. The melodies were pleasant, but the beauty of the singers made the soldiers sit straighter in their saddles. Some even attempted to wipe off the dust coating their mail.

Captain Treon seemed to suffer their presence, but Rathe noted that he took a keen if furtive interest in Lady Nesaea. For her part, she returned his glances with coy looks of her own. A dagger of jealousy prodded Rathe’s heart, but he pushed it aside. If she would rather have a filthy snake for company of an evening, then so be it.

When Treon called a halt for the night a full two hours before they had ever made camp before, the Maidens of the Lyre wheeled their mule-drawn wagons into a broad circle.

“Well,” Loro said appreciatively, dismounting with a weary grunt, “they are not fools.”

“Because they know how to defend themselves does not make them wise,” Rathe countered, dropping his saddle next to a bush where he had chosen to sleep. “It’s known that brigands and plainsmen rule these lands, yet this Lady Nesaea saw fit to bring her troupe here? If that’s not a fool’s errand, I don’t know what is.”

“Gods, man,” Loro snorted, “did a spider nest in your breechclout, or are you in love?”

Rathe cursed the man for a dolt and stalked away, leading his mount to the picket line.

Chapter 9

Some hours after setting camp, Rathe stood alone in the darkness beyond the company’s firelight and jubilant noise. After a fine meal prepared and served by the Maidens of the Lyre, Lady Nesaea herself had spun the heroic tale of Alendar the Valorous and His Ten Thousand, an old story about a great king battling evil men and the gods they served. With the deft weaving of a skilled bard, she had managed to subtly link the tale of Alendar to Captain Treon, of all things ridiculous.

Afterward music, merriment, and dancing ensued. It had been going on for hours, and while the liveliness offered a pleasant distraction from the normal routine of eating goat soup and lintels before posting the night’s watch, Rathe had listened and watched enough. His body ached head to toe, his wounds itched with healing, and he wanted for sleep.

A soft tinkling turned his head. Lady Nesaea glided near, and his tongue withered anew at sight of her. Now she wore only a few swaths of cream silk and a girdle of small medallions that accentuated her figure to a startling degree.

“Do you find our entertainment objectionable?” she asked with a hint of smile.

“Not at all,” Rathe answered gruffly, unsure how he should proceed. Before Lisana, such had never been a question he entertained. Now all had changed. He decided sternness would suffice, but keeping his eyes to himself proved difficult.

Nesaea casually settled a hand on his arm. He let it stay, drawing the scent of her perfume into his nose. “Perhaps you found my dancing disagreeable?”

“It was splendid,” Rathe said, trying not to think of the way she had leaped and swayed to the rhythmic thrumming of zither and the beat of tambour. He had never seen the like, even from the dancing girls of Trem.

Nesaea looked out into the night. “Then why did you leave?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested.

Rathe took a deep breath and answered honestly. “It was the allure of a beautiful woman that set me on the path of the banished. If I want to live to long enough to see gray in my hair, reforming my character is the wiser choice.” The sentiment was pure, but holding to it was another matter. He felt Nesaea’s pull on his will, and feared he would not be able to resist.

Nesaea seemed to dismiss his subtle praise of her attractiveness. “So it is true: a set of pretty eyes brought low the Scorpion of the Ghosts of Ahnok,” she mused. “And now he fears all women? I assure you, hearts will break at word of that.”

“My former commander would say my downfall came from an inner weaknesses, not Lisana. I must agree.” Rathe found Nesaea looking into his eyes. She was taller than he had guessed, barely a hand shorter than him. Her full lips parted in a wide grin, mere inches from his own.

“I might ask how you recognized me?” he said, knowing full well how she had known his face. Do not wait for an answer. Tell her you need your rest. Flee now, while you still can.

He did not budge.

Nesaea looked into his eyes, her own gaze steady. “It’s the rarest hermit who does not know the face and exploits of the Champion of Cerrikoth,” she said. “For everyone else, the Scorpion is a figure of countless legends, many of which my companions have been known to spin, especially for our female audiences.”

“Did you intend to seduce me this night?” he asked bluntly, and tried to ignore the tingle of arousal he felt at her nearness. Perhaps he did have a weakness for beautiful women, but having fallen as far as a man could, what did it matter now?

When she laughed, she deftly hooked a hand under his arm, and began caressing his shoulder with the other. “In light of what you said, the art of seduction is wasted, as you have apparently foresworn your ‘inner weaknesses.’ I’d rather know why men of war are so easily charmed by a pair of pretty eyes?”

Rathe shrugged, his skin heating at her touch. “Carousing can bury the horrors soldiers see and feel on battlefields. What I know for certain is that after a man kills another, he must seek out life and light and joy in order to steal away the taint of death from his soul, before it sinks too deep. Women, more than wine or revelry, provide the only lasting escape to such a man.”

“Come to my wagon,” she said abruptly.

Rathe laughed, and it felt good to do so. “You do mean to seduce me!”

She stood away, favoring him with a flat expression.

Rathe raised his hands in surrender, not a little disappointed. “Very well, you do not wish to ravish me. But if not, then why invite me to your wagon?”

Nesaea paused before answering, favoring him with a speculative eye. “So I can give you answers to questions you have not yet asked yourself.”

Intrigued by her cryptic answer, he walked at her side to a wagon styled after a war galleon of narrow beam. A breeze fluttered azure and saffron pennons hung from the short mainmast, giving the illusion of billowing sails. Webbed shrouds of white silken rope stretched from the mast to the deck, more decoration than serving any use. A gilded raptor jutted from the prow, caught in perpetual flight.

Within the circle of wagons, the merriment continued. Captain Treon watched the proceedings with a narrowed eye, while the rest of the men clapped and shouted encouragement to the dancers wheeling about the various campfires, while a handful of their sisters played a frantic but merry tune on panpipes.

Nesaea ran her hand along the hull of the ship-wagon, fingers dancing lightly over graven reliefs of people and fanciful creatures. Amidships, she halted at a winged leopard, twisted an inconspicuous rosette below its paw. There came a soft click, and the seams of a hidden hatch showed themselves, sharply defined by a welcoming glow within. She eased it fully open, and a ratcheting mechanism produced a short ladder. She climbed up and in, beckoning him to follow.

Not knowing what to expect, Rathe went after her and found himself standing in a cabin fit for any shipmaster. While his gaze roved over the elaborate furnishings, all built to a small but useful scale, Nesaea turned a diminutive windlass that drew up the ladder and closed the hatch on the celebration outside. In one corner stood a writing desk and chair, overshadowed by book-lined shelves; in another stood a wardrobe with elaborately carved doors. Toward the stern, a small table and two matched chairs sat across from a tiny stove and an iron rack laden with cookware. Beyond a sheer curtain waited a bed, lighted by flameless orbs of golden radiance.

He moved nearer to the fist-sized glass spheres. They gave off light, but no heat. After considering what she had said more fully, he asked, “Are you a sorceress as well as dancer, singer, bard, and musician?”

She laughed, a lazy finger toying with a dark curl of hair at her neck. “I am many things, but no conjurer.” She inclined her head toward the radiant orbs. “As to the Eyes of Nami-Ja-the god of light on the far jungle isles of Giliron-they are but useful trinkets gifted to me by a wizard after hearing me sing. I dare say, my reward was greater than his.”

Rathe disagreed, and Nesaea blushed at his praise. He added, “I didn’t know the Maidens of the Lyre travelled so far as Giliron. It’s said that such a voyage to those far western islands is fraught with pirates and terrible creatures of the deep.”

“The Sea of Muika is no more dangerous than any other. As to why I was there, suffice it to say that it was not my choice, but leaving was. Returning would mean my death.”

Rathe’s eyebrows shot up. “You must have made quite the impression. Giliron is not known for its upstanding citizenry, let alone punishing them. You must tell me-”

Nesaea stilled him with a raised hand. “I didn’t bring you here to prattle about my life, but to speak of your fortune.”

Rathe bellowed laughter. “I have no desire to hear how I will spend my days in Hilan, growing old and forgotten, probably dying in the jaws of some foul beast I always believed was a legend.”

Nesaea fixed him with an unwavering stare.

Rathe resisted as long as he could, then said, “Why do you wish to tell me these things?”

“As to that,” Nesaea replied, failing to completely hide her disquiet, “when I feel such compulsion on my heart, I follow it.”

“So will I wed a beautiful woman, or give my soul to a toothless crone?” he chuckled. His experience with mystics and the like suggested that men, no matter their station, always learned they would end up with the former.

“I will not paint so clear a picture, but rather divine the essence, the flavor, of the remaining days of your existence.”

“Do what you will,” Rathe said, losing what little interest he had. He knew well enough what his life held.

Nesaea cleared an area between the stove and table, then rolled out a sea-blue, hexagonal carpet embroidered with all manner of arcane symbols. “Sit in the center,” she instructed.

After he settled himself with an accommodating grin, she placed a candle at each corner, no two the same color or size. Poking a wooden taper into the stove, she coxed its tip to flame with a gentle breath. Murmuring strange words, moving right to left around him, she lit each candle. Rathe thought he sensed the small flames as cold prickly fingertips caressing his skin, but dismissed that. Drafts rising through the floorboards, nothing more.

Nesaea knelt before him, the individual candle flames shining like golden sparks in the depths of her eyes. Their slow, fiery dance brought to mind Nesaea’s dancing earlier. How she had moved, a beautiful flame to excite passions….

He noticed the candles dimming, radiating a smoky, sullen light. At their dimmest, an eldritch aura materialized around the tiny flames. Crimson flecked with black, they seemed to press in, threatening to extinguish the candles’ infinitesimal heat.

A skirling wind suddenly whipped around him, disturbing neither the flames nor the curtain before Nesaea’s bed, nor the sheaves of parchment atop her desk. The gust touched Rathe alone, bringing with it profane words spoken in a mocking tongue. Both the Eyes of Nami-Ja and the candles dimmed … dimmed … and went out. A smell wafted from the dead wicks, that of meat rotting in a winter wood.

Rathe sat in the dark, trying to beat back a child’s fears. When that failed, he spoke, longing to hear Nesaea’s voice. “I suppose that always happens?” The camp’s joviality filtered into their confined space, seeming every bit as irreverent and scornful as that voice he had heard.

“Never,” Nesaea breathed, sounding terrified.

For a time, she said nothing more. In the silence, the ensorcelled orbs from the isles of Giliron gradually regained their luminance, revealing the stark terror in Nesaea’s gaze. As if that light gave her leave to speak, she whispered, “The blasphemous voice was that of the Khenasith, the Black Breath. Rarely is it heard, for it speaks only to the irredeemably accursed.”

Rathe digested that. “So I spoke the truth when I guessed my own fortune, and I will be eaten by some fell beast?”

“No,” she muttered hollowly. “Yours is a fate buried in shadow, a life of woe, a harrowing storm to trouble your every step. Turn this way or that, but you will never escape distress until the grave draws you to its loveless bosom.”

He mulled her grim words. “What other fate is there for a man?” he asked, trying to comfort her more than himself. “Is not life but pinnacles of brief triumph and joy, followed by valleys of tedium and misery?”

“Perhaps,” she allowed, looking to her hands fidgeting in her lap, “but the Khenasith has spoken, revealing the curse upon you. That’s what I sensed in my heart, that yours will be a life of woe.”

Rathe snorted. “Maybe you should have kept it to yourself?”

“I should have,” she agreed.

“Well then,” Rathe murmured, edging closer to Nesaea, “if I am twice cursed, then to the darkness with my vows of reformation.” He swept her into his arms and stole the kiss he had coveted since first laying eyes on her. Her soft lips tasted of honeyed spices-

With surprising strength, she shoved him back, a shocked light replacing the apprehension in her eyes. He grinned sheepishly, and she slapped him, hard.

Blinking, Rathe worked his jaw, wondering how he had misjudged her earlier desire. He made to stammer an apology, then her fingers were suddenly tangled in his hair, pulling him close. Before their lips met, she whispered, “Promise you will always act with caution. Promise me!”

He nodded, and sealed his promise with a lingering kiss. A scream from outside broke and scattered all other plans he had in mind to prove his pledge to Nesaea.

Chapter 10

Nesaea pushed him away and jumped to her feet. Before either could speak, an iron arrowhead punched through the flank of her wagon, followed by a second and a third. Calls of alarm buried the first warning scream, mingling discordantly with the ring of crashing steel.

Sword in hand, Rathe shouted for Nesaea to open the hatch. She was already there, spinning the windlass. The hatch sprang open and the ladder descended.

“Stay inside!” Rathe commanded, leaping through the opening. He landed and spun, ensuring that Nesaea had followed his order. The ladder had already ratcheted back up, and the hatch was closing, blocking sight of a grim-faced Nesaea.

He turned and found a seething wall of swords and bucklers, spears and burning arrows. In all directions, the soldiers of Hilan fought against what Rathe first mistook for furred demons, then reason asserted itself. Plainsmen!

The Maidens of the Lyre darted for their wagons. There was no organized defense, and Captain Treon, the man who should have been calling orders, was nowhere in sight. With the battle lines broken before they had ever formed, all that mattered now was surviving, and cutting down as many plainsmen as possible.

A soldier feathered with flaming arrows fell headlong into a campfire. Another flung down his sword and raced toward Rathe, wide eyes blind with panic, his fear-tightened face spattered with blood. The man took two steps before a hurled spear drove through his back and burst from his chest. He stumbled to a halt, trying to withdraw the deadly splinter with grasping hands. His lips parted, a crimson flood welling over his teeth instead of words, and he toppled facedown.

Unable to choose a single target in the spreading melee, Rathe sprinted into the storm of death. Before he reached the fight, a slouching shape covered in a patchy fur cloak slammed into him. Thrown off balance, Rathe hacked his sword into the bestial face. The plainsman lurched back with a yowl, spear held at the ready, his bearded cheek laid open to the bone.

Rathe regained his footing and feinted, provoking the plainsman to block. Rathe feinted again, found his desired opening, and reversed his stroke mid-swing. Sword flashing in from the side, steel met flesh and bone with a sickening crunch. The plainsman’s arm parted at the elbow, and the brute howled. Rathe whipped around in a tight circle, and the plainsman’s cry ended abruptly.

Rathe bounded over the headless corpse, caught up a discarded buckler, and drove between a scattered line of six soldiers. “Reavers! To me!” he shouted, rallying men to his side as a lodestone will draw iron. Others took up the cry, making a fearsome, cohesive racket in the maelstrom of butchery.

Where a foe loomed, Rathe ended him with bloodied sword, or smashed his face with the buckler. As the chaos of battle increased and the stench of blood and spilled bowels filled the night, Rathe’s mind grew keen and cold. Where an enemy’s blurring speed and skill unmanned his fellow Reavers, Rathe saw predictable, clumsy attacks.

Like a demon of death, Rathe slaughtered his way free of the Hilan men, the constricting wagons and tangles of dying men, until he stood apart, a lone slayer, black eyes burning with bloodlust. Even as the assaulting plainsmen scrambled clear of his deadly blade, the gap closed behind him. Hilan men initially roused by his attack, now shouted for him to fall back, even as the plainsmen cursed him in their barbaric tongue. From both soldier and wildling, the words came to Rathe as senseless gibberish. Beyond the confines of his peers, he was free to labor as he would, and labor he did.

A trio of plainsmen swept in, hunched shapes barely human, wielding clubs and spears half again the length of a tall man. Rathe crushed aside a spear thrust, drove his sword into a plainsman’s belly, grinding the point against the man’s spine. Without slowing, Rathe shoved forward, then jerked back, dislodging steel from the man’s guts. Even as the brute tripped over the ropey spill of his innards, Rathe dove low, knocking the feet from under the second attacker.

An instant later Rathe came up, whirled, and crushed the man’s neck with an overhead blow of his buckler. Crippled, the plainsman crawled on his belly, squalling like a heretic doused in boiling oil. Stalking the third attacker, Rathe reversed his grip on the sword as he went, and drove the blade into the back of the downed second plainsmen, skewering his heart.

He dragged his blade free, spun the hilt against his palm, and launched an overhand strike at the growling plainsmen still standing. Blood flew from the blade in a scarlet arc, and the sword cleaved through the third plainsman’s blocking club to pulverize his skull. Rathe sent his boot into the gaping face, freeing his sword once more.

His solitary charge had galvanized the Hilan men, and the barely held defense became an assault. Within the camp, the Maidens of the Lyre had armored themselves in gilded corselets and caught up bows, quivers, and long-hafted pikes from hidden compartments in the bellies of their strange wagons. More maidens climbed rope ladders to the decks of their shiplike conveyances, hauling sloshing buckets of water to quench fire arrows. Capstans spun and, with a clatter of chain and whirling cogs, double rows of six-foot spears tipped with serrated steel thrust out below the rails, creating deadly phalanxes.

Standing tall on her war galleon, a goddess of snow and silver, Lady Nesaea bore a buckler with a spiked silver boss. She raised a wicked trident overhead, shouting commands as crisply as Rathe had ever heard. A conical helm sporting wings of snowy ostrich feathers covered her dark tresses. Her legs flashed under a kilt of studded pale leather, and a sculpted cuirass of burnished silver protected her torso.

“Have no fear,” Nesaea called, lips turned in a fetching grin. “I will watch over you.”

“I could ask for no greater comfort,” Rathe answered, feeling alive and whole for the first time since Thushar had stood over him in Lord Osaant’s chambers.

“Down!” Nesaea shouted.

Before Rathe could register the gravity of her warning, a flaming arrow singed his cheek. He gave a last look at Nesaea, who shook her head in mock disapproval, then he put his mind back to the battle, and melded into the darkness beyond camp.

Stealthy figures rushed forward with him on all sides, silent and grim as specters. The occasional fire arrow arced back toward them, but the plainsmen had quit the fight. Rathe, the Hilan men, and the outcasts gave chase, mercilessly dispatching any fallen wounded they found.

Sensing the skirmish was ended, Rathe came to a halt. The Hilan men also came to rest, all looking to him for guidance. “You have fought well,” he said simply, earning a triumphant cheer.

Farther away, Loro issued a taunting challenge to the retreating plainsmen, then rapidly degenerated into a rant of such offensive oaths that the grinning Hilan men looked from one another with expressions of unease. Rathe could only smile at a trueborn warrior purging the last of his fury.

A feminine cry pierced the gloom. Rathe spun, horrified to see how far he and the others had chased the plainsmen. “To camp!” he bellowed, sprinting back the way they had come.

As the gap narrowed, he spied hump-backed figures harrying the wagons, firing arrows and throwing spears. The Maidens of the Lyre answered arrows with arrows, but the savage brutes were too eager to be driven off. Cries of alarm entwined with the gurgling screams of men dying with blood in their throats.

Rathe stretched his legs, feet flying over the uneven ground. He looked for Nesaea, but could not find her atop her galleon. In her place stood a man holding a beaked maul. The plainsman slammed the weapon against the false decking, shattering wood.

With a shout, Rathe hurled his sword like a dagger. Pommel and tip traded ends, throwing off glints of firelight, hissing as it cut air. The bestial man twisted aside at the last instant, allowing the sword to soar past his ear. Eyeing his new adversary, the figure leaped down with a roar and ran at Rathe.

The two crashed together. Stunned by the impact, Rathe went down, buckler soaring free of his arm. Dazed, he bounded to his feet, pawing for his dagger and looking for the vanished plainsman. Shadows danced beyond the fires, the Hilan men fell on other wildlings with clashes of steel, but of Nesaea’s attacker, there was no sign.

A noise alerted him a heartbeat before a stony fist slammed against his chin. Rathe reeled and fell. Before he could draw his dagger, his foe pounced, sending them into a rolling knot of flying fists and kicking feet.

Rathe came out on top, his fingers curled around a thick neck. Snarling, the plainsman drove his knees into Rathe’s chest, flinging him off. Rathe slammed against the ground, and an instant later the man’s smothering weight pressed down on his torso. The cloying odor of old sweat and rank meat poured off his assailant, stealing what little breath he had found. The ragged fingernails of one powerful hand throttled Rathe as the maul climbed above his face, the deadly iron beak poised for a killing blow.

Rathe lashed out, a desperate flailing that gained nothing. Fighting for breath, his eyes rolled back in their sockets. Nearly unconscious, Rathe wrenched his head to the side when the maul fell, and the murderous beak gouged deep into the ground. He thrust out his hands, fingers rigid. His thumbs found the man’s eyes and plunged deep, bursting the orbs.

Screeching like a fiend, the savage tried to scramble away, but Rathe held tight. Growling, he sank his thumbs deeper. The brute bounced his knees against Rathe’s chest, crushing the last of his breath and strength. The plainsman pulled free, leaving Rathe choking.

He rolled to his belly and tried to stand, but the blinded savage landed on his back. Shrieking curses in a harsh tongue, the plainsman dragged at Rathe’s hair, yanking his head back until his neck creaked, then brutally rammed his face against the ground. Blood fountained from Rathe’s nostrils, as his head was wrenched back again. Something popped in his neck, and a painful tingling spread over his shoulders and arms. Rathe gulped a last breath, his neck nearing the breaking point. He reached blindly over his shoulder, as the skin of his throat stretched taut and his windpipe closed. His fingers brushed the savage’s long beard … then fell back.

Sensing the weakness, the savage shifted. Hot, fetid breath tickled Rathe’s ear. “You take Uar’s eyes, but I eat your dead heart,” the man grated, each word spoken in a thick, barbaric accent. “Uar will feed your flesh to his children, little brown man. Before you die, Uar will make whores of your women.”

The imagery of that threat bored into Rathe’s mind, fueling him past overwhelming weakness to black savagery. His hand shot up, this time catching hold of the plainsman’s beard. He yanked with all his strength, and Uar’s weight disappeared.

Rathe staggered up and threw himself onto the man’s back before he could twist around. The next Rathe knew, he was flipping end for end. He struck on his head and shoulders, landing face-up, his shuddering limbs striving to do his will.

Uar stumbled toward him, arms outstretched and hands groping, his face a mask of blood and knotted black hair. Rathe’s breath rushed into his lungs, freeing his limbs from their terrifying paralysis. The toe of Uar’s hide boot struck Rathe’s leg. Grinning malevolently, the plainsman stooped, gnarled hands outstretched, forearms bunching under thick grime. Rathe drove his dagger into the man’s chest, stilling his heart, and Uar of the plainsmen fell away with a quivering smirk on his lips.

Rathe lay back on the ground, breathing deeply. Moans and the awful stink of brutal death fogged the night air. The sounds of battle, so loud before, were absent. The plainsmen, having tasted enough defeat, had fled.

“The Scorpion,” someone muttered. Then, louder, a yell of triumph. “The Scorpion!”

Chapter 11

With shouts of, “Scorpion!” filling the camp, Rathe clambered to his feet, certain he suffered no broken bones, but bruised over every inch of his body. By the hot trickles of wetness coursing down his back, many of the scabbed stripes crisscrossing his skin had torn open. He smiled ruefully, thinking of his supply of the old healer’s revolting potion. If nothing else, a good dose of that concoction would help him sleep.

Before he worried overmuch about mending his hurts, he stumbled toward Nesaea’s wagon. Around him smiling, bloodied, dirty warriors continued to chant his namesake. He ignored them.

As he reached the wheeled galleon, Captain Treon materialized from the opposite direction. He alone of the small company looked untouched by the battle. Treon halted in his tracks, scowling at the whooping men. He glanced at Rathe, a look of pure hatred. “Seize him!”

The revelry cut off, replaced by confusion.

Vaguely aware of what was transpiring around him, Rathe focused on Nesaea’s wagon, which stood battered but whole … and far too quiet. He pushed aside his concerns, telling himself that she had locked herself away, and did not yet know the skirmish had ended.

“Damn you lot of goat-buggering fools,” Treon shouted. “Bind him!”

Men shuffled their feet, a few took reluctant steps forward.

Rathe kept going, too worried for Nesaea and too tired to care what the cowardly imbecile was raving about.

“Halt where you stand!” Treon bawled, his face purpling with rage, “or you will taste the lash!”

Rathe was reaching for the rosette under the winged leopard’s foot, when Treon issued the next command. “Put an arrow in him, or I will see that the headsman’s arms grow weary striking off your heads!”

The full import of Treon’s words fell on Rathe. He dropped his hand and turned. He stood weaponless, but he had killed men without steel before. “You dare stay my hand, Captain Treon,” he said, “when not a fleck of dust or blood mars your sword or uniform?” He had known such men, those who always managed to avoid battle, even when caught in the thick of it. Such cowards often hid behind their rank, using it to badger men into submission, rather than earning respect.

“I will have your hide flayed for this insolence,” Treon said in his rasping voice.

Upon hearing that the champion of the battle should receive such treatment or worse, a few men looked askance at each other … but not all, not by half. Such was a tyrant’s power, the ability to press a man to do what he knew in his heart was unrighteous.

“Crawl back to your nest, snake,” Rathe said, sweeping a hand over the arrayed men, “and leave be the true warriors in your ranks.”

Treon gaped.

Rathe turned the rosette. The hatch popped open, showing the same welcoming glow as before. It troubled him that Nesaea had not shown herself by now. He reached to ease open the hatch-

“Take him!” Treon ordered.

It did not surprise Rathe that only a handful of the Hilan men obeyed their captain’s order, but their viciousness did. A firm hand spun him around, and a fist pummeled his jaw. When he fought back, a hilt crashed against his temple, toppling him to the ground. Blackness swarmed before his eyes. Rough hands forced him into a kneeling position. Skull ringing, he tasted blood on his tongue, felt it drip from his split lips over his whiskered chin.

“Here now!” Loro snarled, pushing between a cluster of Hilan men, all who looked on with growing uncertainty. “What’s the meaning of this?

“If you would live to see the dawn, you blubbering heap of shite, shut your accursed mouth.”

Loro glared, one thick fist closing on his sword hilt. Rathe stopped him with a look of warning.

Sneering, Treon faced the soldiers. “Form ranks, or suffer alongside this despicable bastard!”

Most seemed reluctant, but in the end they did as ordered. Seeing the same light of loyalty come alive in Loro’s eyes that he had seen in Thushar’s that distant night with Lisana, Rathe shook his head again. Do not do it brother, please.

Loro hesitated a moment more, peering hard at Rathe, then abruptly wheeled away, grumbling under his breath. He took his place among the assembling soldiers, of which, Rathe noted, their numbers were greatly diminished. He had not believed so many perished in the battle. For certain, he had not seen that many dead.

“Bind and hood this uncouth lout,” Treon ordered, his serpent’s eyes locked on Rathe.

“What crime have I committed?” Rathe demanded.

Treon smiled thinly. “Disrespect aside, you failed to tend your flock of malcontents. No less than five of those I put in your care escaped during the attack. As I told you before, a leader knows the minds of his men. I suspect you must have known some number of your outcasts had waited for just such a chance to make good their escape. Time will tell if you had a part in planning their flight.”

Rathe shook his head, baffled, furious. “The blood is still warm on the dead! How can you know if they are escaped or perished, before you have ordered a proper search?”

Treon’s laughter sounded like dry leather rubbing over sand. “I know, because I am the leader you are not, and have never been.”

“Name yourself as you will,” Rathe growled, “but I see before me only a craven wretch who shrinks from battle, leaving better men to bleed for him.”

Captain Treon loomed over him, smirking. “Lady Nesaea would not name me so if she-”

“Nesaea?” Rathe blurted, his troubles forgotten. “Where is she?”

The captain’s face showed false empathy. “I wish I could say otherwise, but last I saw her, plainsmen were dragging her into the night. I do not know if they despoiled her before or after they opened her throat, but naked, ravished, and dead she was. A pity and a waste.”

“You lie! Show me where she fell!”

“Demand nothing of me, dog.” Treon’s flinty smile widened, just before his heel crashed into Rathe’s face. Another kick flung him to the ground.

“To ensure that you never stray too far,” Treon said in a cruel tone, “You will wear a leash, much like a willful hound. And like any troublesome hound, your spirit must be tamed. You will run behind me until we reach Hilan.”

“Are you mad?” Rathe said in shock, knowing the fortress was at least ten days distant.

As if no protest had met his ears, Treon ordered his men, “Make ready to march. We depart within the hour.”

“What of the Maidens of the Lyre?” Loro called.

Treon’s stare showed no hint of compassion. “I must report to Lord Sanouk this grievous attack. Let this brood of simpering whores fend for themselves.”

The armored women gazed on him with contempt, but did not protest.

“You condemn them all!” Rathe shouted in their defense.

Without warning, one of Treon’s sycophants cracked his jaw with a blinding fist. Rathe fought clear in a wild frenzy. The butt of a spear slammed across his shoulders, and another struck the back of his head, then all became a flurry of crushing blows that drove him to his back. A boot crunched down on his wrist before he could raise his dagger, and the tip of Treon’s sword pricked his throat, ending his struggle.

“I fear you will make for a poor hound,” Treon said, flicking his sword to the side, nicking the skin under Rathe’s chin.

Treon stepped away and drew a coil of rope from the company’s supplies. With a harsh grin, he threw it at Rathe’s face. “Your leash, dog. Do not make me rescind my mercy and turn it into a noose.”

Rathe climbed slowly to his feet, the rope dangling from his fingers like a dead serpent. He was too dumbfounded by his own humiliation and remorse for Nesaea’s dreadful end to feel anything, save impotent wrath. He bared his teeth at Treon. “Be sure the pace is swift-I like to run.”

The soldiers who had so recently chanted his praise, now changed allegiance and laughed with Treon at his defiance.

After he tied the rope around his waist, one of Treon’s sergeants dragged a sack over Rathe’s head, cutting off all sight. The first threads of desolation wormed into his heart. In that moment, he fully understood what it meant to be an outcast condemned to a life at Fortress Hilan.

Chapter 12

“You may leave us, sergeant,” Lord Sanouk said to the leader of the twelve soldiers who had taken Nesaea and two of her girls captive. Nesaea had marked the sergeant and six others as Hilan men. The remaining five had been part of Rathe’s outcasts-by their readiness to abduct innocent women at a word from Captain Treon, they were outcasts no longer.

Having delivered only two of the three women he and his men had taken during the battle against the plainsmen, the sergeant looked infinitely relieved that his head would continue to sit atop his shoulders. He bowed deeply, murmuring gratitude for his master’s mercy, and left Sanouk, Nesaea, and Carnala alone. They stood within a graystone corridor that stretched to darkness one way, and led to an open door at the head of a stairwell in the opposite direction.

As she had since the soldiers had tied the three women into their saddles many days before, Carnala kept her head down, weeping quietly. Each night, during their brief halts, Nesaea had tried to console the flaxen-haired wisp of a girl, to no avail.

Better had I freed her, Nesaea thought for the hundredth time since the night she cut Fira loose, and sent her off to find the rest of the Maidens of the Lyre … and, if possible, Rathe. She did not know what Captain Treon and Lord Sanouk had in mind, but did not doubt that evil intent controlled their hearts.

Sipping the wine Sanouk offered, she let the heady flavor quench her rising fear. She took in Carnala’s hanging head, slumped shoulders, and tear-streaked cheeks. Yes, it would have been kinder to free Carnala, but the poor girl would never have made it back to the Maidens. Fira, a fiery woman of great courage, would.

Nesaea forced herself not to think of the alternative, and set the silver-chased goblet on the small round table at her side. Carnala had not touched her wine, which Nesaea considered a pity, for it was possibly the finest she had ever tasted. Pleasures of any sort, she judged, would be soon be absent.

“Why have you done this?” Nesaea asked, striving for a meek tone, despite wanting to gut the man before her.

Sanouk, a handsome man with a noble bearing and the most impassive stare she had ever seen, made a flourish with his hand, inviting her to look toward the stairwell.

It gaped black and cold as a demon’s throat. A smell oozed from those lightless depths, that of vermin, mold, and the musty rot of the spiced and shrouded dead.

“You are to aid me in gaining my rightful place in the world,” he said, voice smooth as the rare vintage she had set aside.

“I care not about your place in the world,” Nesaea said, “or helping you achieve it.”

He smiled enigmatically. “You will,” he said, fingering the hilt of a serpentine-bladed dagger at his belt. “Soon, your part in my destiny will be all that you care about.”

“Do you mean to kill us?” Nesaea asked, wishing she had been able to hide the knife she had used to free Fira. Before being presented to Lord Sanouk, however, the soldiers had searched her and discovered it. Carnala moaned in horror at the question. There were worse things than death, Nesaea knew. She had suffered some of it across the Sea of Muika, on the isles of Giliron. Neither before nor since could she understand how a single year had passed so slowly, as it had while she served as a pleasure slave.

“What use would your death serve?” Sanouk asked.

Though he strove for a conciliatory tone, Nesaea detected a bald lie in his voice. Her gaze skimmed over the goblets on the table and landed on the tall bottle. If I am to die anyway….

In one fluid motion, she caught the bottle about its neck, and flew at Sanouk with all the coiled fury of a provoked adder. With a surprised squawk, he flung himself outside of Nesaea’s swing, twisting away. The dense glass shattered against the stone wall, and she danced to one side, the dagger she had deftly plucked from his belt held in one hand, and in the other the bottle’s jagged remains.

Carnala wailed, bloodshot eyes rolling. Nesaea shoved the girl behind her, and whipped the wavy-bladed dagger under Sanouk’s nose. He leaped back, nimble as a dancer, and settled his feet in a relaxed stance. Unaccountably the brief, fearful surprise he had showed dissolved, replaced by amusement.

“Come any closer,” Nesaea warned, “and your place in the world will be the grave.”

“Indeed?” Sanouk drawled. He advanced, driving Nesaea and Carnala toward the stairwell. He smiled, prepared to utter some inanity, and Nesaea slashed the bottle at his eyes. Sanouk knocked it from her grasp, even as she raked the dagger across his face.

Lord Sanouk spun away, hands clutched to his face. Then, slowly, like a conjurer revealing a fine trick, he dropped them.

Nesaea shivered in dread at the impossibility before her. She had felt the steel slice his face to ribbons … but no wound marred his flesh, not even a pinprick of blood showed. He laughed at her shock, and the dagger fell from her nerveless fingers.

“You will understand my gift in time,” he said, all amusement gone. “Between then and now, I would prefer you were more docile.” His fist flashed, and Nesaea felt the blow only as a fleeting, thudding pain, then all the world passed beyond her sight….

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

Those dark words swirled around her like living things, lighting upon her skin, defiling her flesh.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

The incantation echoed into oblivion, and Nesaea came around by increments, groggy, head pounding. She lay on some sort of table, its top molded around her body. Though she could not see it, she felt a pulsing, bulbous knot at her temple. What happened … where am I?

She blinked, thinking her eyes betrayed her, but without question a rough-hewn rock ceiling hovered a few paces above her. Spider webs and dust motes danced on hot currents rising from strange, silver-flamed torches ensconced around the grim chamber.

Chamber? she thought uncertainly. The last thing she remembered was coming under attack by plainsmen. “I will watch over you,” she heard the memory of herself say to someone … a man.

“I could ask for no greater comfort,” he had answered, with a breathless grin that quickened her pulse. Who …

… Rathe!

All came back in a rush-the battle, her capture along with Fira and Carnala, the slogging ride to Fortress Hilan.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!” came the dread incantation, spoken in a voice she now recognized: Lord Sanouk.

A creeping breath of ice teased her skin, and she knew that she had been disrobed. That concern became a mere curiosity when the torchlight lost a measure of its radiance. Nesaea sensed a presence rising below her, an upwelling of cold. Dread coated her bare skin in a greasy sweat-

Suddenly all went blacker than a starless night, and flashing horrors passed before her vision. Some suffocating substance poured down her throat, choking off her cries. Cold, jellied hands-dozens, scores-at once caressed and tormented her bare flesh, and a grinding voice filled her mind, stilling her heart. Hers was the torment of the beset and the ravaged, the countless victims of life’s follies and cruelties, all pressed into her being and made her own in a single instant-

Then a creature drifted above her, a devilish god of gangrenous flesh and goggling eyes, an abomination with the grotesque attributes of both male and female. The foul deity glided away and spoke to Sanouk.

“This offering is fit and timely,” the creature grated.

“Indeed, master?” Sanouk babbled excitedly.

“And now you must dig deeply into the bones of the world, make a thousand and a thousand tombs. Enshrine therein your offerings, for my ageless hunger has been rekindled. You will nourish my appetites unto your final, gasping breath steals from your breast.”

“But I cannot-”

“You will … unless you yearn to slake my hungers with the meat of your own soul?”

“No,” Sanouk murmured humbly. “I will do your will. Of course. Anything, master.”

“And so shall I grant your petty wants.”

“Thank you, blessed Gathul!”

“Ask of me what you will,” the god bade.

Instead of answering, Nesaea heard Sanouk jump to his feet, followed by a wretched mewling sound that drew her gaze. Disheveled, compliant and utterly broken, Carnala knelt before Sanouk, who stood as naked as his captives.

“What are you doing?” Nesaea said, her words slurring and thick. He was not the first man to beat her into unconsciousness, but she feared something else troubled her speech and wits.

Sanouk did not answer. Carnala shuddered as if stricken with ague, her alabaster skin slicked with sweat and dirt. From her neck hung a noose. Before Nesaea could protest, Sanouk yanked the tail of the rope, cinching the noose tight.

Carnala’s eyes bulged, her whimpering became a strangled hiss. For the first time since her capture, the shell of her terror broke and she fought. Her resistance came far too late. Sanouk dragged her kicking before a tall, narrow niche carved into the wall of the chamber. Stooping, he caught the girl in his arms and flung her into the bizarre grave. Face purpling, Carnala lurched forward-only to slam into a pearlescent gray barrier. Tongue protruding, she yanked at the noose, but it held fast. She threw herself at the barrier, mouth yawning wide to draw a breath that would never come.

Nesaea’s gaze swept around the chamber, finding a charred and flailing figure wreathed in flame, and an eyeless old man covered in bleeding wounds. Roaring fires entrapped the burning figure-Oh gods, it’s another girl! — and a faintly transparent wall of flowing blood entombed the old man.

Nesaea shivered in horror. “Please, do not do this!” she begged, mortified by the fleeting idea that she would do anything to avoid what had befallen the other three.

Sanouk faced her. Over his shoulder, a handful of blazing pits formed where eyes should be in Gathul’s face. “Alas, it’s already done,” Sanouk said with a greedy smirk.

“What is done?”

“Can you not feel the poison’s taint in your blood?

What poison? She nearly asked, but she already knew. Had not her fear and dismay been so great, the strange confusion and effort to speak would have alerted her earlier.

As though enlivened by recognition, the effects of the poison fell fully upon her. She tried to clamber out of the queer depression in the tabletop, but it held her fast. Her insides clenched violently, and her skin came alive with an awful crawling, burning sensation.

“I am … dying,” she rasped.

Sanouk touched the table, and a sucking noise sounded beneath her, even as the pressure on her limbs dwindled. He heaved her up off the table, and her head dropped back so that all appeared inverted. The table was an arcane, greenstone altar, its heart alive with dark, agitated shapes. With not a whit of care or caution, he tossed her into a nook in the wall-her tomb.

Struggling, Nesaea clawed her way to her feet and spun drunkenly. Already a barrier stood between her and Sanouk. He was laughing, but no sound came to her ears, save the pounding of her own heart and ragged gasps. She fell against the barrier, its color that of decaying flesh.

“Let me out,” she moaned, wishing for the first time in her life that she would die, for surely in death she would escape the wracking ills plaguing her body.

Sanouk cocked his head, making a mockery of trying to catch her words, then he threw back his head, laughing his silent laugh. As if seen in a dream, he departed.

Death did not come, but Nesaea’s pains increased tenfold, a hundredfold, more. She retched until blood replaced bile, her limbs quivered, and the poison gained potency every passing moment. Mind awash with the delirium of endless pain, she sank to her knees. Do not come, Rathe. For your life, stay away, she managed to pray, before delirium swept away her wits.

Chapter 13

Raining….

That recognition meandered through the valleys of Rathe’s weary consciousness, trying to reach the surface of greater awareness. He groaned, rolled over, and threw an arm over his head to block the drizzle. Half-asleep, he did not want to sacrifice even a precious moment of rest to worry over something so minor as a little dampness.

Warm, stinking rain….

Rathe came fully awake, sputtering at the bitter taste on his lips. Unconsciously knowing what was happening, he lunged to his feet, but the staked tether tied to his waist jerked taut and he slammed against stony ground. The stream followed, running over the back of his head and down his neck.

“A dog needs a bath, yes?” Treon rasped in his leathery voice.

Crablike, Rathe scuttled away, the tether forcing him into a circular flight around the stake. Treon came after, spurting jets of urine and chuckling.

After he drained his bladder, the captain said, “Looks to be another fine day for running, dog.” Still laughing, he spun away and returned to camp, now readying for departure.

Rathe lay shaking, piss dripping from his head to the yellowed grass and lichen-crusted rocks under him. His fists clenched, grimy fingernails digging against his palms. It was not the first time Treon had made water on him over the last several days, and was not the worst of his abuses, but frequency and degree did not ease Rathe’s outrage.

“I will not break,” he murmured through clenched teeth. Always before, the mantra had allowed him to face each new mistreatment with some measure of dignity, had given him strength to rise above encroaching weakness. Taking longer than ever, the words eventually diluted the black hopelessness within his heart.

When Treon returned, the light of dawn had fully come upon the thinly forested land, and he found Rathe sitting cross-legged, a serene smile on his lips.

The captain smiled in return, the breeze tugging his long white hair. “As my dog seems hale, I suppose there’s no use wasting this on you,” he said, holding up a waterskin in one hand, and a heel of bread in the other. “Of course,” Treon added slyly, his narrowed eyes the hue of a winter sky, “if my dog were to beg, even a little, I might concede that he needs sustenance.”

Rathe’s defiance withered as he tried to imagine another day without food or drink. His belly cramped with hunger, and his dry throat convulsed painfully. Somehow, his smile remained affixed to his face, but it felt as brittle and as false as it was.

Treon waited awhile longer, shrugged, and tossed the bread away. He leaned over and pulled the stake from the ground and gave the tether a snapping tug. “Come along, dog. We have leagues to travel this day.”

I will not break! Rathe’s own voice of warning shouted in his mind, even as he saw himself catching hold of the rope and jerking it out of Treon’s hands, envisioned himself rising up and wrapping that hempen cord around the captain’s neck and pulling the ends tight; he saw Treon’s eyes bulge, heard the man’s wheezing struggle to draw breath….

He saw those things, desperately wanted them, but he lowered his gaze and clambered to his feet. Treon laughed as he led Rathe to camp. Standing apart from the others, Loro glared at the remaining outcasts and the Hilan men. When his eyes fell on Rathe, his face briefly softened in pity before tightening in anger. Before the man could say anything that would bring suffering upon himself, Rathe caught his glowering stare and shook his head. It was the same every morning and evening, when the sack came off his head.

Taking Rathe’s suffering as his own, Loro looked ready to balk, then abruptly wheeled and stomped to his mount. After he climbed into the saddle, he refused to look at Rathe again. Anger did not twist his face, but abject misery.

As in days past, Treon hooded Rathe, tied the leash to his saddle, and ordered a fast march. Rathe shambled along behind, nostrils thick with the reek of sweat, urine, and burlap. Choking dust made breathing all the more difficult.

Though it strained his eyes, he could look at the ground through a gap in the hood and see coming obstacles in the roadway. Unfortunately, he had less than a heartbeat to react to any jutting stone or fallen tree branch that might trip him, and the effort of looking down at such an acute angle made his eyes ache. Worse still, to avoid anything on such short notice left him mincing along like a drunken dancer, much to the brutal delight of Treon and his sergeants.

“Dance, dog!” someone yelled, as Rathe stumbled into yet another deep pothole. He had almost regained his balance when Treon heeled his mount into a canter, jerking Rathe off his feet. He landed hard on the roadway, the breath crushed from his chest. Rathe tried to rise, but Treon rode on, leading the chant, “Run, dog, run!”

The rope about his waist bit deep, scoring already chaffed skin. He bounced and rolled over the road, like a fish on a line. Gritting his teeth, Rathe caught hold of the rope and heaved himself up its length toward the captain. When he had ample slack, he let the rope slip through his hands and jumped to his feet. Rathe had only an instant to revel in his success before the captain kicked his mount into a gallop. The last foot of rough cord burned through Rathe’s grasp, snapped tight, and wrenched him off balance. He cried out when he struck the road again. Treon kept on for a hundred paces, dragging Rathe, then drew rein.

“Get up, dog,” Treon called. “I will not have you weary my horse by dragging you all the way to Hilan.”

“Get up, dog!” came a chorus of laughing shouts from the handful of men ringing him about. “Dance, dog!”

Hooves drew nearer, kicking up dust and flinging a hail of stinging pebbles. Groaning, Rathe curled in on himself, fearing one of the horses would crush him. Every limb shook from the bruising abuse, and fury was an inferno in his breast, but Rathe fought against his instincts to retaliate.

“Water my dog!” Treon invited in a merry tone.

At once, men bounded from their mounts and, forming a circle around Rathe, pissed on him as Treon had done many times before. Outraged murmurs went up from those holding back, but no one made the attempt to intercede on Rathe’s behalf.

As urine splashed over him, burning his many cuts and scrapes, Rathe thought of Nesaea’s warning about Khenasith, the Black Breath, and the curse upon him. “Yours is a fate buried in shadow, a life of woe, a harrowing storm to trouble your every step. Turn this way or that, but you will never escape distress until the grave draws you to its loveless bosom.” He had made light of her telling that night, but now it seemed all too accurate.

A blunt object rudely prodded Rathe’s ribs. Through a tear in his hood, he saw the leering serpent’s skull of the Reaver’s banner flutter past. The standard bearer jabbed the tip of the pole into his ribs again, followed by a clacking blow to his head. Someone else pelted him with a ball of steaming horse dung. A heckling chant went up above him.

“Up, dog! Up, dog! Up, dog!”

As Rathe struggled to his feet, he thought again of Nesaea. While her end had been terrible, it had been short-lived. There was a mercy in that, which he could not help but envy.

“Does my dog have any more tricks?” Treon asked.

Rathe stood with his head bowed, unspeaking.

“My dog looks overheated,” Treon announced. “Strip him.”

Rathe stood impassively while Treon’s men tore off his jerkin, tunic, and trousers. A final indignity was to deprive him of his breechclout. They left him only his hood and boots. When they retied the rope around his waist, its weight alone burned his tender skin.

“That’s better, yes?” Treon drawled.

“Dance for a treat, dog!” someone jeered, but the sport had gone out of the moment, and no one else took up the new chant.

Treon ordered the company on, and Rathe ran after, doing all he could to stay on his feet. Without garb, to fall and get dragged would tear his flesh all the easier. Moreover, he feared that if he fell again, he would never get up.

As had all the days prior, the present day progressed slowly. Now, more often than not, the roadway tilted upward, making the going all the harder. Rathe stubbornly kept on, refusing to bow to exhaustion. Despite his resolve, he fell more often than before. Treon always kept on, dragging him over the rock-studded roadway. By will alone, Rathe would scramble up and stumble after, gasping for breath, feet and body blistered and bloody. I will not break, he told himself, a mindless conviction with little potency.

By the time dusk fell, Rathe noticed the air had grown cooler and damper, chilling his bare skin. Despite the stench of his hood, he scented a high mountain forest of fir and pine. Without question, the company was finally climbing the flanks of the Gyntor Mountains, and thus nearing Fortress Hilan. He vowed to hold on a little longer, to endure as would a true Ghost of Ahnok.

After night fell, Treon called a halt, and led a staggering Rathe away from camp. “A poorly mannered dog cannot be trusted to eat at the feet of his master,” Treon explained, the same as he did every night.

Although Rathe did not resist, the captain jerked hard on the leash, grinding the rope into the raw wound around Rathe’s middle. Thoughts muddled after two full days without food or water, covered head to foot in new bruises and scrapes, Rathe noticed the fresh pain distantly.

“Here we are,” Treon said, using a rock to pound a stake into the ground. He whipped the hood from Rathe’s head, glared at him a moment, then sauntered back toward camp.

“Water,” Rathe croaked, forgetting himself in his desperation.

Treon spun on his heel with a sneering grin. “What’s this, my dog has learned to speak?”

Rathe’s jaw clenched tight in anger at his weakness, and he studied his worn boots. The toe of one had been worn away, and a wide split showed in the other. Turbid thoughts and images revolved in his mind, leaving him uncertain what he intended, doubting his resolve to hold fast to his dignity.

Captain Treon produced his waterskin and let it swing before Rathe’s eyes. “Beg for a drink of cool, soothing water, dog,” he suggested. “Bow down on your knees … and I might even throw in a morsel of food.”

I will not break! In his confused state, those words did not mean what they had before. Did asking for water and food truly mean his spirit had been broken? Yes, a voice answered simply, but he did not think he could trust that voice.

“I … I,” Rathe struggled, “I request water.”

“You request?” Treon sniggered. “A dog does not request-he begs … on his belly.”

Bending is not breaking….

Oh, but it is….

Bend now, grow stronger later….

Rathe groaned in answer to the warring voices in his head. He knew the last voice spoke true, but hearing truth and accepting it were not the same. His knees bent and he sank down. Slower still, he pressed his face to the ground at Treon’s feet. Already he could feel the water’s cool, sweet wetness cleansing his palate of the dust he had eaten all day. The thought of refreshing liquid blinded him to his humiliation.

“Water … just a little … a taste.”

Treon laughed, a sound deeper and richer than the voice with which he spoke, and jammed his boot onto Rathe’s neck. “Come, men,” he urged. “My dog has learned a new trick!”

Fury swept through Rathe’s mind, clearing his thoughts, and he tried to push Treon’s boot aside. The captain pressed down all the harder. The soldiers gathered with haste, eager to see what their captain was going on about.

“See how he begs?” Treon said proudly. “Show them how you can plead, dog. Quickly, now, before your master grows angry at your silence and beats you.”

Rathe could only see the array of shifting, dirty boots gathered around him in the gloom, but he felt the weight of many expectant eyes. Some might sympathize, even share his outrage, but others wanted him to concede defeat, to surrender as each of them must have done at one time. In seeing the famed Scorpion of the Ghosts of Ahnok beg a man he would have raised his nose at not a month gone, he knew their sense of worth would be elevated, allowing them to regain some measure of lost pride. If he resisted, he rebuffed not just Treon, but all of them.

“Beg!” Treon eased his weight onto Rathe’s neck, crushing his face against the damp loam.

“Ask for the water,” Loro said in a pained voice. “We will not think less of you.”

Others took up the advice, all but pleading with him to beg a drink of water.

“I cannot,” Rathe groaned.

“What was that, dog?” Treon snarled. “Speak up!”

Surrender now, and fight the battle of your choosing later.

I will not break, Rathe thought in answer, knowing it was too late for such resistance, but unable to accept his downfall, even now, with the boot of his oppressor pressing him down.

“Seems your training is not as adequate as you thought,” Loro snapped, provoking a few derisive sniggers.

“Beg for the water, you slinking cur,” Treon said, mockery giving way to seething wrath, “and you shall have it.”

Rathe fought for breath, filling his lungs. “Bugger your arse with a flaming torch!”

Treon jumped back, his boot swinging. Rathe reared back, mere inches, caught the captain’s passing heel, and shoved it past his head. Thrown off balance, Treon tumbled to his backside, spewing curses with all the thrashing zeal of the enraged snake he resembled.

Rathe scrabbled forward, balled his fist, and smashed the man’s lips against his teeth, once and again, before a pair of sergeants slung him aside.

Rathe struggled up, swaying, weak, so unutterably weak. “Any who stand with this serpent,” he grated, “are not men, but bleating sheep awaiting the slaughter.”

“Unlike you, dog, we sheep eat and drink our fill,” a man said, one shadowed figure among many.

Contemptuous laughter bubbled past Rathe’s lips. “I misspoke. You are not sheep, but worms crawling through the dung of your betters.”

Pensive silence held for a moment, allowing Rathe to believe he had convinced at least a few to look inside themselves and find the men they had been.

Spitting blood, Treon growled, “Take him.”

A handful of his men attacked. Weakened though he was, Rathe gave back until the flood of fists and boots drove him down into a thudding, bloody darkness….

Shivering and naked, Rathe gradually came awake sometime later, eyes swollen, face puffy, and covered all over in bruises and crusted blood. All was dark and quiet, save the faint rustlings of night creatures. In letting one hand wander over his torso in search of broken ribs, he found a waterskin nestled against his hip, and with it a loaf of rock-hard bread.

Rathe remembered the derisive sniggers at Treon’s expense when Loro had questioned his training tactics. Where one man openly criticized, a handful of others felt the same, even if they held the silence. Loro had probably left him the food and water, but there was a chance a Hilan man might have, and Rathe found in that possibility something upon which to rest a little hope.

Chapter 14

Twice over, for concentration of any sort taxed his wits, Rathe counted back the days. Each time he came to the same number. A fortnight had passed since his leashing, where Rathe had feared only a ten day journey. Despite all his talk of haste, Captain Treon seemed more interested in prolonging Rathe’s torments than returning to Hilan. The torments had not eased in the slightest after the night he pummeled the captain, but thanks to Loro, or some other commiserate soul, food and water had become less scarce.

Night was falling when Rathe’s feet thumped onto a wooden surface. All around him, hooves clattered to a halt. He smelled the smoke of hearth fires on the air, and under this the distinct scent of penned livestock.

“Open the gates!” Treon bawled, his voice hoarser than usual after berating and taunting Rathe throughout the day.

“Captain Treon?” came a man’s shocked voice, who doubtless was looking on Rathe’s state of abuse.

“Open the damned gate,” Treon roared, “or I will cleave off your manhood!”

Rathe waited in hooded obscurity, listening to the clack and rattle of a rising portcullis, then the groaning squeal of unoiled hinges swinging open. Where Rathe would have expected calls of greeting, even insulting hoots at his bloodied nakedness, silence prevailed. He supposed the men of Hilan-all outcasts at one time or another-were sizing up the newcomers.

A moment later, hooves rumbled over what Rathe guessed was a wooden drawbridge. His rope snapped tight, forcing him into an agonized trot. After the bridge, the pitch of iron-shod hooves changed, ringing against stone flags. Captain Treon halted a final time, and dismissed his men with a sharp word of caution about showing up to dawn formation with a head of wine. Raucous chuckles met this, dwindling as the men moved off. From far away, a crow croaked greeting to the coming night, and a drizzle of rain began.

“You are home, dog,” Treon said. “Soon, we will begin your training in earnest.”

Rathe said nothing.

Treon grunted to himself, then shouted, “Alfan, Remon! Lock my cur in the Weeping Tower.”

“Should we feed him?” one man asked, provoking an unwanted rumble in Rathe’s belly.

“Water. No more. He can eat when he learns proper respect.” Knowing laughter met this, bouncing off stone walls.

Rathe stifled a relieved sigh when the rope was slashed from his waist. Hands shoved him forward with a warning, “Struggle, and Alfan’s like to toss you over a barrel and have his way with you.”

Rathe had no intention of resisting, threat or not. For the time being, he wanted only to sleep and to regain his strength. After, he would decide what he intended to do with his new life.

Alfan and Remon hustled him up a winding stair, hurling an endless parade of insults at his back. After the long climb, one of his guards dragged him to a stop, and the other rattled open a door. They shoved him through a doorway, and the door began creaking shut.

“Did you idiots forget Captain Treon said I was to receive water?” Rathe said.

“Nah,” one growled.

“Leave it by the door,” Rathe instructed. “I can help myself.”

A sloshing bucket crashed into his head, the blow dropping him to his knees. The door slammed on brutal laughter, and a key turned in the lock. Rathe knelt there, head thumping and drenched, listening to the retreat of heavy footsteps. When the door at the base of the tower boomed shut, he dragged off the reeking hood and cast it aside. He wanted for sleep, but he took the time to study his quarters.

Four windows circled the Weeping Tower’s highest chamber. Plain wooden shutters, gray and cracked with age, blocked off three of those windows. Disrepair or a storm had taken the fourth shutter, allowing a damp breeze to slither in and steal the heat from his naked skin. The last prisoner had used a bit of stone to decorate the walls with obscene, childish scrawls.

He stood and shuffled to a scatter of straw in one corner. Judging by the threadbare blanket nearly lost in that rat’s nest, Rathe supposed he had found his bed. Wincing at the prickly straw, he draped the blanket over his shoulders, crossed frayed carpets thick with mold, and came to the fireplace on the other side of the chamber. Miraculously, a store of cordwood and tinder waited to provide warmth. Flint and steel hung by leather cords from an iron peg driven into a crack in the wall.

He built a fire and warmed his hands, grimacing as he looked over the map of red misery covering every inch of his skin. With scant hope in his heart, he returned to the bucket lying on its side. A couple of mouthfuls still splashed about inside. He drank it down, wishing for more as he set the bucket aside.

A bawdy shout from the courtyard below drew him to the open window. Resting his hands on the sill, he looked on Fortress Hilan’s rain-soaked defenses with an eye trained for war.

It was a stronghold meant to secure nothing but itself and its occupants, and looked the part, stark and foreboding. The keep had been built into the side of a mountain, exposing only one graystone wall. Other than the glow of torches brightening scores of arrow slits, it resembled the face of a cliff sheared smooth by the axe of a god. A high, crenelated curtain wall ran around the bailey, shaped like tongue that jutted toward a grassy, rock-studded slope. A half mile down a broken cart path, a terraced village slouched behind a wooden palisade. Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys, chickens scratched outside the wall, and bedraggled villagers went about their evening chores. Beyond that, the forest pressed in on all sides, stirring with night shadows.

Nearly asleep on his feet, Rathe turned his attention to the lightly armored men striding the wall walks. All thoughts of sleep vanished, and his teeth began to grind together. Within nooks, flaming braziers and flickering torches sheltered from wind and rain, casting a fitful light on men he knew: Joeth, Othan, Elgar, Wyin, and Kevel. They were outcasts from Onareth, the same five that Treon had claimed escaped. He scanned the other guards and found a handful of Hilan men who had ridden with Treon-all had been presumed dead at the hands of the plainsmen.

Rathe recalled the night Treon had come from the darkness beyond Nesaea’s wagon to accuse him of colluding with the escapees. Rathe had no doubt that Treon had not only known they were alive, but guessed the man had sent them ahead…. But why the deceit? Treon surely knew that Rathe would eventually discover the men’s whereabouts, and in doing so would know he had been wrongly punished.

The answer came slowly, and with it Rathe’s mind became a cesspit of vengeful thoughts. Treon must have intended the discovery to be a final blow to his willfulness, a stark reminder that he was the Scorpion no longer, was nothing at all, save a slave to the whims of his master.

Rather than wild fury, peace fell over Rathe. Having Treon single him out marked him as the man Treon considered the greatest potential threat to the continued obedience to Hilan’s garrison. And a threat I will be, he thought, an idea of revenge taking shape in his mind that was not so much murderous as malevolent….

Rathe slept soundly that night in the litter of straw, and started awake at the rattle of a key. Loro flung open the door and bustled in carrying an armload of firewood, a large sack, and a plump waterskin. Seeing the fire had burned down to ashes, he built it back up. Only then did he turn, the sack dangling from his fist.

“Seems your master has decided to feed you after all. I think he sent me, in case you had it in your mind to bite him.”

“You have brought a feast,” Rathe said, feeling refreshed.

“A wedge of sour cheese, a heel of molded bread, and a skin of water is no feast,” Loro grumped. “The clothing, however, should suit you.”

Rathe considered Loro. “Was it you who brought me food and water on the road to Hilan?”

Loro looked surprised. “Had I gone so far, I would have cut your bonds. Seems you have an admirer or two amongst these Hilan dogs.”

With that knowledge, Rathe’s plan of bringing Treon low firmed in his mind.

Loro upended the bucket to use as a small table, and spread out the food while Rathe dressed in tunic, jerkin, and leather trousers. Most surprising was the new pair of boots, which fit his feet as if made for him.

Rathe picked up the cheese in one hand, the bread in the other, and took alternating bites from each. Between mouthfuls, long gulps from the waterskin washed it all down. He intended to get well as soon as possible. There were scores to settle, and he would need his strength.

While he ate, Loro sat cross-legged on the floor, his belly bulging over his wide belt like a small boulder.

“You are too kind,” Rathe said when he finished eating, and wiped crumbs from his chin.

“And you are so full of sheep flop, it’s dribbling out your mouth.” Rathe looked a question at him. Loro threw his hands up in exasperation. “Do you intend to suffer that snake’s abuses until he kills you, or do you mean to put that stump-buggering fool in his place? Say the word-I beg you-and I will sheath a dagger in his scrawny throat.”

Rathe sat across from Loro with a sigh. While he had indeed made up his mind, he did not want to tangle Loro in his troubles. The problem was, Loro was the rare type of man who, after tying himself to another, would fight and die with him, even if doing so proved to be wrongheaded. Only the harshest betrayals would turn his loyalties, and Rathe was not the betraying sort. The other problem was that he would need Loro’s backing when the time came. For the sake of his conscience, he had to make Loro understand the consequences.

“We are outcasts already,” Rathe began. “If we misstep here, our lives are forfeit. Even if we escape, we will be hunted until we are found, then drawn and quartered. Our other choice is to settle in, make our place here, and serve like honorable soldiers.”

Loro snorted in disgust. “I have never settled for anything I did not want, and I will not make a habit of it at this godforsaken heap of stone. Better to live as a brigand, even a beggar, than chained.”

Rathe nodded grimly. “Then we are of the same mind.”

Loro jumped up, a roguish glint in his eyes. As he reached the door, Rathe asked, “Where are you going?”

“We will need supplies, weapons. And do we climb the wall, or bribe someone to open a postern? These things and more need tending. Sooner done, the better.”

“Plan as you will,” Rathe said slowly, “but I am not leaving until I settle my debt with Treon. I could almost forgive him the abuses, but not the lie that earned me those abuses.”

“So you saw them too?” Loro asked.

“If you mean our five brothers from Onareth, yes.”

Loro considered that. “Better to escape first, then plan your revenge. Doubtless Treon leads patrols on occasion. When he does, we will be waiting and watching, and can feather his skinny shanks before he can hiss a word.”

“Perhaps,” Rathe allowed, liking the idea of firing an arrow through the serpent’s conniving heart. But he had something else in mind altogether, something that would destroy the man’s spirit, as Treon had tried to do to him. Vengeance was not in his nature, but justice was.

Loro listened while Rathe spoke, enjoying the ends, but not the means. “It will be difficult, and is unlikely to work as you hope,” he advised.

Rathe shrugged. “That’s my plan. You can join me or not, but I intend to carry it out. If it doesn’t work … well, then I suppose we will just have to ‘feather his skinny shanks.’ “

Loro nodded. “Your scheme is devious and beautiful, and properly sinister, but were I standing in your hide, I’d not be able to do it. A man has his pride. To lose it, even as a farce, is no small thing.”

“No,” Rathe said grimly, wondering if he could do that which he had proposed, “it’s not.”

Chapter 15

At dawn of the sixth day in the Weeping Tower, pounding on the door woke Rathe. As Loro clumped in bearing two large buckets of water, Rathe sat up with straw in his hair.

“Lord Sanouk commands your presence,” Loro said in a grave tone. He hefted the water buckets. “These are for cleaning.”

“So you have seen him?” Rathe asked, as he set to washing away many days of dirt and old blood. The water was cold, the washcloth rough, but a bath had never felt so fine.

“Aye, me and the other outcasts met with him … together. Seems we are as much the wayward curs as you. Until told otherwise, we are to walk a thin line. Step left or right, and he will have off our cocks. Blunder again, we lose our heads.”

“Threats aside, what do you make of him?” Rathe asked, drying himself with his blanket.

“He’s an arrogant whoreson, like any highborn.”

After dressing, Rathe gulped a mouthful of the potion given him by the healer in Onareth. It had taken some doing, but the brew was about gone. Along with rest and food, it had done its work to heal his wounds.

He stalked out of the chamber ahead of Loro. The worn stairs spiraled down, and Rathe trailed his fingers on the graystone wall to keep his balance. He felt much better than the day he had arrived, but stiffness still troubled more of his flesh than not.

At the tower’s base, two guards bearing halberds cowered against an icy wind in the lee of a curving buttress. Rathe nodded in greeting. They responded with silence and squinty eyes, as if he were something foul smeared on the bottom of their boots.

Rathe strode out, stretching his legs. Clouds obscured the sun, casting the world in mourning garments of gray and black.

“Are you prepared?” Loro asked.

Rathe glanced a question at him, absently wondering how high summer could be so damnably cold.

“Your plan,” Loro elaborated, “calls for a fair measure of bootlicking. Are you ready for that, Scorpion?”

“As ready as I can be. Sanouk might not give me a chance to explain or bootlick. Far as I know, he might skip the part about walking fine lines and go straight to hacking off my manhood. After all, I did accuse his lackey of cowardice.”

“You also invited Treon to violate his bunghole with a flaming torch,” Loro chuckled. “Doubtless, battering the snake’s face will surely be frowned on.”

Rathe shrugged, feeling oddly optimistic about the whole affair. “I can only play the game as it unfolds.”

Outside the towering wall of the keep, they paused before two more guards, both as surly in countenance as the two at the Weeping Tower. Neither looked at Rathe or Loro, but one did deign to shove open the iron-banded wooden door. After they passed into the gloomy hall, the door slammed shut, blocking out the scant daylight.

The keep’s barrel-vaulted corridors of lifeless gray granite were only a touch warmer than outside. Of ornamentation, there was little. A tapestry here, dull armor and armament in a nook there, all lighted by guttering torches. For all the want of cheer and warmth, Rathe felt as though he were treading an ill-kept tomb. There were few servants going about menial tasks-cheerless old women and shy young girls, for the most. All wore the drab livery stitched with the ugly head of the Reaver.

“This way,” Loro advised, leading Rathe down a dank side corridor. “The keep, if you can call it that, was carved out of the mountain. Far as I saw, only Lord Sanouk’s chambers are exposed to the light of day.”

At the top of a broad stair ending at a door, Rathe and Loro halted before a third pair of impassive guards. After a tense moment, during which no one spoke or moved, Loro bristled. “Are you going to open the door for the legion commander of the king’s guard, or stand there like a couple of drooling fools?”

“Ain’t no legions here,” one drawled.

“Nor kings to guard,” the other sniggered. “Even if there was, all I see is Treon’s mangy dog.”

“Lord Sanouk is expecting him,” Loro said, fingering the hilt of his sword. “Open that door, or I will slice off your stones and stuff them up your bloody bunghole.”

“Who do you think you are?” the guard snarled, taking a step closer.

Loro laughed humorlessly. “I am the man your mother pleasured while your father was off buggering sheep and chickens.”

The guard lunged, dragging out his sword. “By all the gods-”

The door to Sanouk’s chambers flew open. “Enough!” Captain Treon bellowed.

The command froze the first guard, and the other pressed a fist to his heart in salute. Rathe and Loro followed suit, leaving the first guard fumbling to ram his blade into the scabbard.

Treon’s pallid stare fell on Rathe, and a thin smile touched his lips. “Enter … dog.”

Rathe steeled himself with a deep breath and strode into the stifling chamber. Loro stayed outside. After the door closed, Rathe half-expected some kind of commotion to ensue, but silence held as much beyond the door as within the chamber.

Clad in burnished mail and a black tabard emblazoned with the winged Reaver, his long white hair held back by a leather thong, Treon took up a position between Rathe and Lord Sanouk. The lord stood with his back turned, fingering a fan of parchments on his desk. Off to one side, logs heaped in the stone fireplace burned and crackled, driving back a chill that, as far as Rathe considered, had little to do with the weather.

Rathe saluted. “Your will is mine to do, milord.”

Treon scowled, perhaps having expected Rathe to attack the man, rather than show respect. Sanouk faced Rathe, and time slipped by a grain at a time under his impassive scrutiny.

Tall and lean in a green robe of fine wool, his idle fingers traced the curve of a jeweled amulet hanging from a thick silver chain about his neck. Rathe guessed women would find him handsome enough, would probably desire to run their fingers through his wavy, gray-shot locks. Of course, those affections might be reconsidered when they looked into the cold emptiness of his dark eyes.

“I was led to believe you would not be so amenable to anyone’s will, save your own,” Sanouk said at last.

Rathe bowed his head. “I must beg the forgiveness of Captain Treon,” he said, pleased that he had not faltered on words that would have choked him mere days before.

“Indeed?” Sanouk said, arching an intrigued eyebrow. Treon made a strange barking, retching sound in the back of his throat.

“As the former captain of the Ghosts of Ahnok and, for a far briefer time, the legion commander of the king’s guard, I found it difficult to adapt to the lowly station earned by my unpardonable actions against Lord Osaant.”

“A pity you have lost your ambition,” Sanouk said. “I have need of strong leaders in my ranks.”

“Milord?” Rathe stammered, even as Treon’s face reddened with angry disbelief. His eyes bulged, he made that terrible gagging sound again, but no words or protest were forthcoming.

Sanouk turned his cold stare on the captain. “Are you well, Treon?”

In answer, Captain Treon fell into a coughing fit.

Rathe shook his head and put on a dejected face. “I am unworthy to lead men any longer.”

“Nonsense,” Sanouk exclaimed. “All men under my authority stand guilty of one crime or another, and most are responsible for much worse than pleasuring the concubine of a puffed up lord who has far outlived his worth to the realm. As to killing a bastard … well, there are a great many bastards in the realm that need killing. For myself, I was accused of treason against the throne-by mine own blood. That betrayal was never proven, yet here I stand … a fallen prince.”

“My condolences for your father’s passing,” Rathe said, at a loss to say more in the face of Sanouk’s proclamation of innocence.

Sanouk shrugged. “All men must die. My father lived a worthy life … as counted by fools who make such judgments. But enough of that. We are discussing the future of the man who earned the name Scorpion.”

Trying desperately to maintain his ploy of a man beaten into submission, Rathe said, “I am that man no more.”

“Oh, I think you are,” Sanouk chuckled softly.

“My future is in your hands. You may call me as you will, and use me to whatever purpose you see fit. Again, your will is-”

“Is yours to do. Yes, of course,” Sanouk said, waving an indifferent hand. “As we both agree on that score, then it’s my will that you should gain the rank of lieutenant, and perform as first officer to my esteemed Captain Treon.”

Rathe could not believe what he was hearing. Where he had intended on the first steps of his plan taking months or longer to reach fruition, here Lord Sanouk had set him well on his path to destroying Treon in the only manner fit for such a cruel, arrogant fool.

“I must protest!” Treon blurted, the stubborn wad of phlegm lodged in his throat at last flying free. Sanouk glanced irritably at the mess glistening on the stone floor near his feet. Another inch, and it would have lit upon his boot. Treon did not notice his lord’s ire. “This wretched cur deserves death, not promotion! I cannot abide-”

Sanouk raised a finger, severing Treon’s tirade. “You can and will abide my wishes, unless you wish to apprentice with the master of hounds. It’s said Zarik enjoys the company of his hounds to men-or women, for that matter-but I am sure you two will get along splendidly.”

Treon fumed a moment more, then slammed his fist against his thin chest, making the winged Reaver on his tabard flutter. “As you command. Lieutenant Rathe is now my first officer. I will take him under my wing, train him to your standards.”

“How generous of you,” Sanouk smirked. “With that out of the way, attend me.”

Following Lord Sanouk to a large vellum map hung on one wall, Treon hissed in Rathe’s ear, “This is not over.”

Rathe put on an exaggerated expression of innocence, resisting the urge to tell Treon that he fully agreed, and that by no measure conceived in the minds of men or gods was their score settled.

“In light of the plainsmen attack,” Lord Sanouk said tersely, eyeing the two officers, “it occurs to me that blood should follow blood.”

“I do not understand?” Treon said. “We routed those beasts-”

“You merely pricked the fingers of a lone band, Treon. For their assault on the realm’s law-abiding citizenry, they must lose a hand or two. To do that, we will root out their collaborators.”

“Collaborators?” Rathe echoed. “Surely no man is fool enough to treat with the plainsmen.”

“As a man of the hospitable and civilized southlands, you would believe so. But along the feet of the Gyntors, all men are made beasts, and behave as such. Here-” Sanouk stabbed a finger on the map “-in the village of Valdar, a certain cohort of malcontents have made a pact with the plainsmen. In exchange for peace, these mongrels supply information on the comings and goings of merchant caravans and my patrols. Reeve Mitros has been good enough to apprehend these traitors, and I require a patrol to fetch them.”

“I will put them to the question,” Treon promised.

Sanouk shook his head. “I want them brought to me, and treated well. Honey, I have found, often works better to loosen a tongue than the lash. In my own manner, I will extract the information I need.”

Something about the way Lord Sanouk said that last troubled Rathe. In truth, the entire situation made no sense. Unless things had drastically changed, plainsmen did not commonly have dealings with those not of the clans.

“Treat them well … of course,” Treon agreed, his thin lips turned down in disappointment.

Lord Sanouk smiled broadly. “You leave on the morrow, and I expect you back within a fortnight.” His smile faded, and a ghost of unease showed in his eyes. A moment more, and it was gone.

“A fortnight, no more,” Treon agreed again.

Rathe thought about that shadow of disquiet he had seen in Lord Sanouk’s gaze, but counted it as a lord’s burden of responsibility. Though Sanouk was an outcast, he ruled in the north of Cerrikoth. If he failed in his duties to protect northern trade routes, the king would send a legion to quell the violence and instill order, perhaps even take away what little power Lord Sanouk held.

“You may take your leave, lieutenant,” Lord Sanouk said abruptly. “Treon and I have a few matters to discuss about the forthcoming mission. He will give you the details he deems necessary.”

“Of course,” Rathe said, saluting. He turned on his heel. Behind him, neither man said a word as he left Sanouk’s solar, but without question, they watched his every movement.

Chapter 16

“You are disappointed?” Lord Sanouk asked lightly.

Treon paced, boots slapping against the stone floor. “It’s not my place to say,” he answered, anger making his voice more of a rasping hiss than ever.

Sanouk glided behind his desk and sat, fingers steepled before his eyes. “You seem to have a startling dislike for Lieutenant Rathe.”

“I detest him!” Treon spat. “With his every action, he thinks to raise himself above all others, yet he was born a commoner.”

“As were you,” Sanouk pointed out.

“Just so,” Treon said, eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s my point. He’s no better than I, yet he believes he is. You told me yourself that he killed a Prythian soldier under his command for attempting to take spoil granted by the king-your own father. Then he had the audacity to sleep with Lord Osaant’s concubine … in the lord’s own bed!”

“The Scorpion is audacious,” Sanouk chuckled. To his mind, such a man could prove invaluable. Of course, such innate boldness could also become troublesome, so he must tread with care in regard to molding Rathe to suit his needs.

“He’s a blithering fool!” Treon retorted, lips flecked with spittle.

“Long have I been away from Onareth, but not so long to have forgotten that few fools march within the ranks of the Ghosts of Ahnok. Fewer still have ever led them. Rathe has a recklessness about him, to be sure. However, I believe he will prove to be an asset to myself and Fortress Hilan.”

Treon’s features molted from purple to ash. “By all the gods, you cannot be serious?”

“You forget yourself,” Sanouk cautioned, growing weary of the captain’s tantrum, and more so of his easy insolence.

“Forgive me, milord,” Treon said, biting off each word as if he were anything but repentant. “May I speak freely?”

Sanouk spread his hands, relenting. Treon had his uses-trustworthiness, an abiding fealty, and his penchant for cruelty being the highest qualities-and as he planned to do with Rathe, Sanouk had carefully harnessed Treon’s valued traits, and would continue to do so, as long as they served his ends.

Treon began pacing again. “I believe he may suspect that the three Maidens of the Lyre came north with his outcasts who, I am sure, he has seen by now, along with the Hilan men.”

“He has no reason to ever suspect the women were brought here,” Sanouk said. “As to the outcasts, Rathe has likely learned by now that you lied about them dying in the battle. Trust that he will suspect you did so as a means of breaking his spirit.”

“So I did, but he will likely seek retribution,” Treon said, looking uncharacteristically anxious. “He behaves as if there is no grudge, but I see it in his eyes.”

“Ah,” Sanouk said in understanding. “Hate does not fuel your anger against him, but fear.”

“I fear no man,” Treon said, gripping his sword hilt as if he meant to demonstrate his considerable prowess with a blade.

“It’s of no matter,” Sanouk said. “So what if he detests you for the deception? He was the captain of the Ghosts of Ahnok, and surely knows such tricks are tools used in tempering recruits. As for the Maidens of the Lyre: I say again, he will never learn their fate.”

“What if one of the outcasts mentions what really happened … or a Hilan man in his cups?”

Lord Sanouk teeth flashed in a predatory grin. “Rest assured, none of them will utter a word-even among themselves-about the women they brought to me.”

“How can you know?”

“Would you agree that there are worse fates than death?” Sanouk countered. Treon nodded slowly. “And so, too, do they know … chiefly because I described a number of particularly gruesome dooms that will befall them, should they betray my trust.”

“What of the girl who escaped?”

“By now, she’s with child or dead-both ends meted out by the plainsmen.” Sanouk waited then, knowing Treon’s next question before it came.

“What did happen to the Maidens?” He shook his head, showing his greater confusion. “I do not understand why you wanted me to capture anyone in the first place. In truth, had the Maidens of the Lyre not crossed our path, I would have been forced to raid a merchant caravan to find what you required.”

Sanouk stood slowly. “What I now show you can never be revealed to another. Stand by my side in this and all future matters, and one day you will rise above a mere captain of this forsaken outpost….” He let that vague promise hang between them, trusting Treon’s lust for authority to fire his imagination. By the glassy light in Treon’s eyes, he was already dreaming of becoming a lord, or more.

When Treon reaffirmed his fealty, Sanouk moved to the hearth, and there extended his hand into the flames. Treon’s eyes flicked between that hand and Sanouk’s face, each passing moment the dismay growing in his eyes. Long after his lord’s hand should have become a blackened bit of meat and bone, Treon lunged forward and caught Sanouk’s arm. Before he could drag him away, Sanouk struck him across the face, driving him to his backside.

“Are you mad?” Treon wailed, scrambling to his feet. “Come away!”

Sanouk withdrew his hand from the licking flames. Smoke rose from the smoldering sleeve, but his skin remained unblemished. “I tell you, Treon, I have discovered a means to escape death in its many forms … and in that lies power to raise thrones and topple them. Yet there is a price, and those women you sent me, and a few others, have paid it. More, still, will pay in the future.”

“Milord?” Treon gasped.

“Continue to serve me faithfully, and I will bestow upon your flesh the gift of invulnerability. And, as I said, one day you may rise above your birth, and don the mantle of high office.” Sanouk smiled at the astounded captain, having no intention of ever fulfilling any of those promises.

“How … how can it be?” Treon asked, covetous of the hidden knowledge.

And so Sanouk confided in the man, if revealing only a little of the truth, just enough to whet his desire. As well, he told of the conditions demanded by Gathul, although without mentioning the god. That was his secret alone.

“… and so that is the real reason I am sending you to Valdar,” Sanouk said, “to collect the prisoners who Mitros has set aside for my purposes.”

Treon’s eyes took on a cruel gleam. “Surely there are worthy choices within your own village? I could name ten scoundrels without thought.”

“Only a blind fool would beggar his own keep by sacrificing those who supply the food.” Sanouk did not admit that besides the two Maidens of the Lyre, Aleena and Undai, he had already abducted others from the village, for fear of failing Gathul.

Thoroughly humbled, Treon asked, “But what of Rathe? He’s canny. If he learns what you are about, he will seek to upset your goals. You must kill him.”

He is persistent, Sanouk thought. “I leave it in your hands to ensure he learns nothing. Besides, as you say, Rathe is a commoner by birth, yet he has tasted glory reserved for men of noble blood. Now that he has been stripped of all honor and prestige, he will do my biding in order to redeem what he has lost.”

“Why should you care to have him at your side?” Treon said, all but whining.

“He’s a born warrior, a weapon to be used. And use him I will, where I see fit.”

“What if he fails in his usefulness … what if he turns on you?” Treon asked. Again, a question lay buried under his words, and was perhaps his only true concern.

“Should he fail,” Lord Sanouk said slowly, tossing his wearisome hound a treat, “I will grant you the privilege of killing him at my command.” In his heart, he suspected he would rather have Rathe as a subject than Treon, but decided to let each man’s fortunes determine which of them would remain standing.

Treon grinned. “Forgive me, milord, but I pray for the day you see his true nature.”

Sanouk dismissed the man with a wave of his hand. In Treon’s eagerness to bring Rathe low, he might well provoke the Scorpion to a fight in which either man might perish. Who, I wonder, will return to Hilan from Valdar?

Chapter 17

“I cannot believe this plan of yours is working so quickly,” Loro said, riding beside Rathe on a treacherous mountain road barely deserving of the name.

He had said as much several times in the days since Captain Treon had led the twenty-man company from the gates of Hilan into the Gyntors, mountains of grim granite and deep vales choked in evergreens. It took little imagination to understand why the mountains had such dire repute. More than once, Rathe had been sure he spied creatures flitting amongst the deep shadows, as though stalking.

“It’s not working so well as you think,” Rathe answered, tugging forward the coarse black hood of his woolen cloak. A soaking rain had changed over to wet snow around midday, frosting the dark woods around them. To his mind, a land that could feel winter’s bite no matter the true season in hospitable realms, was a land cursed.

Loro arched a dubious eyebrow. “One day you are a whipped dog, the next you are a lieutenant. From where I sit, that is no small feat.”

“Until I prove otherwise,” Rathe said, “I am still the dog to these men. You notice that I do not ride with Captain Treon, nor does he confide in me. Instead, he positions me behind the prisoner wagons, back amongst the rabble-present company excluded, of course,” he finished with a wry grin.

“Of course,” Loro grouched good-naturedly. “Still, I believe you are well on your way to succeeding.”

“Perhaps,” Rathe allowed, eyeing the forbidding wall of trees bracing the road. Beyond a few paces, he could only make out a few details for the tangled undergrowth. A rocky stream, high from recent rains, whipped itself to a dirty froth to one side of the road, and in some places murky eddies submerged the unforgiving path.

“I am looking forward to Valdar,” Loro said loudly, scowling up at the damp gray sky. “All this wet is like to make me sprout fins.”

“After three days,” Rathe said, “a proper roof, a blaze, and a cup of mulled wine would lift my spirits.”

“Mulled wine?” Loro scoffed. “I have a taste for strong ale, and a longing for pair of plump women to warm my bones.”

“You will find naught but piss and hags in Valdar,” one of the two wagon drivers muttered sourly. Wizened by an abundance of years and toil, he had been so quiet up to that moment that Rathe had not noticed him. Of that last, he could say the same for Carul, the other driver farther back, who slouched on his plank seat beneath a pea-green cloak, his face hidden under the wide brim of a floppy leather hat.

Loro eyed the driver who had spoken. “Breyon, is it, from the village?”

“ ‘Tis the name my mother saw fit to give me,” the man grunted, tucking a hank of gray hair behind his ear. “And, aye, I was born in Hilan. I serve as Lord Sanouk’s woodsman.” Unlike the others in the company, the long-faced fellow endured the weather without a hood or a hat, and his oft-patched brown cloak looked to have more holes than a sieve.

“To hear it from my brothers,” Loro said, “Valdar is full to brimming with lusty wenches who serve the finest ales in all of Cerrikoth.”

“Fools all,” Breyon disagreed, peering at the two riders from his high perch, the reins held loosely in big, knotted hands made for swinging an axe. The wagon, more a rolling iron cage, creaked and groaned over the uneven roadway.

“They say Valdar is so rich with gold dust,” Loro persisted, “the gutters glitter, even in the night.”

“Aye, there’s gold in the mountains, but it’s for the king’s coffers. For the likes of you, it’s piss and hags,” Breyon said once more, cracking a smile to show each of his four remaining teeth. The smile became a leer. “O’ course, after a few days bunked in with those scoundrels in Lord Sanouk’s barracks, I will grant even a one-legged trull with a set of leathery dugs might seem a rare find-mayhap you will even find one to pinch a lump of gold for you.”

Loro’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot be serious-”

“Piss and hags,” Breyon cackled. He withdrew a leathern flask from his cloak, pulled the cork, and took a long, grimacing swallow. Hooting gleefully at Loro’s disappointed frown, he added, “Better off findin’ a knothole to dip into-or mayhap a lively sheep!”

“Have your knotholes and sheep, you toothless, uncouth wretch,” Loro growled, absently hiking a leg to scratch his backside. “You’d not recognize a fine woman if she fell in your lap.”

Rathe burst out laughing, only to be stilled by the call to halt. He heeled his mount past bedraggled soldiers, thinking it early to make camp. Still put out by Breyon’s estimation of what they would find in Valdar, Loro trailed after, casting rude aspersions on their cohorts. Sullen glares met his ridicule, which only served to encourage him.

At the head of the company, Rathe found Captain Treon conferring with two riders. Behind them, the stream curved, its breadth spanned by a rutted stone bridge just wide enough to accommodate the wagons. On the far side, the road cut through a soggy glade with a broad muddy knob dotted with rock fire rings. Firs and pines leaned over the clearing, their boughs hung with moss and dripping icicles.

Treon turned at the sound of approaching hooves, his cheeks rosy for the cold, his stare emotionless. An unexpected grin turned his lips, alerting Rathe to trouble.

“Lieutenant,” he said, managing to twist the title into an insult, “Aeden and Eled found something upsetting.” His gaze shifted to Loro. “They will lead you and that slovenly dung heap at your side to their find.”

Loro hawked and spat, then passed wind, not once looking away from Treon’s snaky glare.

Rathe glanced at Aeden and Eled, paying particular attention to the latter, a wan fellow with stringy black hair and an unfortunate potato nose. Fingers of steam rose from their cloaked shoulders, and both peered between Rathe and Treon with affrighted stares.

“What did you find, Eled?” Rathe asked.

“There’s … it … it’s,” he mumbled, before doubling over and spewing his last meal.

“By all the gods,” Loro growled in disgust. “Did a witch harvest your stones for potions, or are you that much the craven?”

Rathe looked to Aeden. “Can you tell me?” he invited.

The soldier blanched. “Best see for yourself, lieutenant. It’s not far.”

“Have a care,” Treon said lightly. “Wolves, lions, and bears make their homes in the Gyntors. Also, there are creatures beyond the ken of man, the progeny of demons and sorcery, evil given life and flesh. And brigands are as common in these parts as rocks and trees.”

Rathe bristled. “Then I would request a larger party.”

“No,” Treon said. “Four are enough.”

Rathe’s sword flashed from its scabbard. Treon flinched back, belatedly groping for his own blade. By then, Aeden had spun his mount and clattered across the bridge, followed by Rathe and a chuckling Loro. Eled hung well to the rear, his tight features tinged an unpleasant shade of green.

The foursome rode through the glade, crested a rise, then left the road and plunged into the forest, following an overgrown game trail. After a few hundred paces scrambling their mounts over downed trees, crossing muddy brooks and bogs, the way opened on a grassy meadow. A stag bounded away when they came into the clearing, its antlers crashing through the brush. After a moment, silence fell.

“Over there,” Aeden said, pointing at a distinct silhouette hovering amongst a stand of white-skinned birch.

Rathe gradually detected the contours of a wagon hidden within the murky greenery.

“What’s that stench?” Loro asked, raising an arm to his nose.

Rathe had smelled the same many times over, on countless fields of battle. “Death,” he muttered, a finger of unease coiling through his insides.

Loro cast a baleful look at Aeden. “Has a dead huntsman’s camp so unmanned you?”

Aeden dismounted. “See for yourself.”

Rathe climbed down, tied the reins to a bush, and followed Aeden, their boots sinking ankle-deep in the miry ground. Cursing the damp under his breath, Loro came along as well. Eled stayed put, glancing nervously from shadow to shadow.

The wagon stood empty and missing one wheel. A pillar of rock stacked under the bed kept it upright. The spare wheel leaned against the bole of a nearby tree. Rathe squatted, studying the wagon’s route that led to its final resting place. The driver had wended his way between the trees, following a path that might have been a road long before, but was now choked with low bracken and grass. For the most part, the grass had sprung back, but faint ruts remained. “Hasn’t been here long.”

“A fortnight, no more,” Aeden said.

A bitter gust fell off the misted spires of the Gyntors, pushing before it the cloying reek of corruption. Raising his face into the wind, Rathe spied a ragged tent hunkered a little deeper into the forest. He looked a question at Aeden, and the man’s jaw tightened in answer.

The closer they came to the tent, the stronger the stench of rot grew. Skin prickling with unease, Rathe halted several paces away, tried to get an image of what had happened. Animals had scattered stores of dried goods around the tent, and its sides had been shredded to flapping tatters. By the pile of wood shavings and kindling next to the blackened fire ring, it looked as if the huntsman had been about to start a cookfire. On a nearby stone, flint and rusted steel waited for hands that would never pick them up. From a picket line, four ropes fell to a cluster of carcasses-oxen, by their size.

“Is this all?” Rathe asked.

Aeden pointed to a place of dense undergrowth, the murk made deeper, more substantial, by the coming dusk. Fresh footprints in the slushy skim of snow showed where Aeden and Eled had already walked.

Wanting to get back to the company before full dark fell, Rathe moved to the spot, searching, and halted mid-step. The legs of a pair of corpses clad in woolen trousers poked from under the brush, as if they had died trying to find cover. As scavengers had been at the camp’s stores, so too had they been at the dead, savaging rotten meat and strewing entrails. Beetles and grave worms, sluggish with cold, churned through the soupy corruption.

“Fever must have taken them,” Loro said.

“No fever did this,” Rathe said, nodding toward two rounded lumps covered in strands of dark hair. Heads. While a wolf or bear might have torn the skulls from the dead men, neither animal would have placed them upright and side-by-side, as if to grant the gaping eye sockets leave to watch the slow decay of their bodies. Such as that took the calculating mind of a higher order of creature.

“Something watches,” Loro warned, looking back the way they had come. The trio moved together, brandishing swords. The forest gazed back with bland menace. Shadows lay thicker than before.

“By all the gods,” Aeden whimpered, the wavering tip of his sword pointing at a group of pale shapes flitting between tree trunks. A moment later, the creatures vanished into forest.

The three men stood mute, still as iced statues.

“What-”

“We must get back to camp,” Aeden said. “Come!”

Chapter 18

They ran to their horses, all looking in different directions for another glimpse of the elusive creatures. The forest revealed nothing. Eled sat his mount where they had left him.

“Did you see?” Aeden asked.

Eled, who had regained some of his color, paled again. “See what?”

Aeden swallowed. “The Shadenmok and her demon hounds!”

Eled let out an agonized moan and sawed the reins, dragging his horse around. Without a word, he kicked the mount into a hard gallop.

Rathe leaped into the saddle, waited just long enough for Loro and Aeden to do the same, then went after Eled. Rathe fought against whipping branches and his horse’s plunging stride until breeching the forest’s grasp. Having caught up with Eled, the foursome raced back along the road to the first glade.

Captain Treon and the rest of the soldiers looked around at the thunder of hooves. Before Treon uttered a word, Eled began screeching, “Strike camp! We must flee. Now!”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Treon demanded.

“Shadenmok!” Aeden cried, provoking a few startled outbursts.

Treon glanced at Rathe, for once his gray gaze showing something different than anger or hate. Fear leaped within them. “What did you see?”

Rathe shrugged. “I know not what I saw,” he admitted, then described the creatures as best he could. “Perhaps it was mist, or a dark fancy conjured after seeing the dead huntsmen.” He did not quite believe that, but then, he did not want to believe the alternative. He had been frightened as a child by tales of fell creatures lurking within the black forests of the Gyntors, things that stole flesh and mortal souls with equal abandon. He did not wish for those stories to become reality.

“Are you sure you did not see bandits?” Treon asked, voice trembling.

Loro shook his head at the same time Aeden blurted, “It could not have been.”

Eled shivered. “I saw nothing.”

Treon regained some of his composure. “Probably a pack of wolves-”

An agonized shriek rose from the south, stilling the captain’s words. Another cry followed, and abruptly cut off. The soldiers scanned the woods, goggling eyes twitching back and forth.

“That was Alfan,” someone muttered. “He went out to hunt.”

“Fool’s been drinking again,” Treon said unconvincingly, “and is toying with us.”

“Or the Shadenmok hunts him,” Aeden blurted.

“We must organize a search,” Rathe said.

“No,” Treon countered. “I will not risk good men for a single, buggering fool with no more sense than a stone.”

“Then I will find him on my own,” Rathe said. He was not keen on locating the man who might have ravished his backside over a barrel, had he misstepped the day he arrived at Hilan, but Alfan was a soldier under his command, and a brother-in-arms until he proved differently. Moreover, now was an opportunity he had waited for in which to begin implementing his plan against Treon. All the better that the cause was just.

Treon sneered. “The Shadenmok is a race of she-devils that fill their wombs with the seed of dead men, then give birth to Hilyoth, their hunting hounds. You would challenge such a creature alone … in the coming dark?”

Behind that derisive expression, Rathe saw the face of pure cowardice. “If I must,” he said, praying to Ahnok that no such hellish creature actually existed … or if it did, he prayed for his god to lend him the strength to defeat it.

“I will join you,” Loro said. “There are torches in the wagons.”

For a moment, no one moved. Then, hesitantly, a handful of the Hilan men stepped forward, then more. None looked to Treon for permission or guidance. Instead, all eyes fell on Rathe. I am the whipped dog no more.

Not waiting for Treon to argue, Rathe squatted, drew his dagger, and stabbed the tip into the churned snow and mud at his feet. “We are here. Alfan is in this area. And here,” he said, scratching a deep groove, “is the road where we will form up, with no more than ten paces between each man. At my word, the line will beat the forest until we find Alfan … or whatever hunts him.”

He looked up, marking each face. “If we do not find him before our torches fail, the forest may become his tomb.”

Treon scanned the soldiers around him, and Rathe could see his mind trying to work out a response. If Treon refused to allow the search, he would lose more respect than he already had. Moreover, he had to know Rathe would go, whether granted leave to do so or not, and that act of defiance would further bolster his standing.

“Take half the men, lieutenant,” Treon snapped, his face reddening. “The others and myself will remain here-to guard camp, and build fires to ensure you find your way back.”

“I would expect nothing more from you,” Rathe drawled.

Before Treon could register the insult, Rathe called for every man to take up a torch. After the torches were lit, the soldiers hurried down the road. Rathe came last, and Breyon halted him with a touch.

“Your captain has it only part right,” he whispered, one muddy brown eye hidden by a fall of disheveled hair, snowmelt dripping off his crooked nose. “The Shadenmok … she has a taste for the seed of men, aye, but she will slaughter anything with the blood of life in its veins. In the last moon’s turn, six have been taken from Hilan, and only two were men. The rest were womenfolk.”

Rathe looked after the soldiers, the need to hurry hard upon him. “I have not heard this before. Are you sure your people did not wander off, get lost?”

Breyon shook his head slowly. “We searched, but Lord Sanouk and his pet viper will not trouble themselves with the cares of the village. We could have used the soldiers, but most are from Onareth. The villagers are of Hilan and the northern forests. We know these lands, but we found naught. Besides, those who vanished are not folk who would have left without word. Something took them.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Rathe asked.

Breyon cocked his head toward Treon. “Because you are the Scorpion. Even in Hilan, we have heard of you and your deeds. I hoped you would listen … hoped you would help, where others will not.”

Rathe shook his head. “I am not sure-”

“I am sure,” Breyon insisted, and clapped him on the shoulder. When Rathe nodded, he spun away without another word.

Rathe looked after the lanky woodsman a moment, then ran after the soldiers. The plan he had revealed to Loro had been to rise above Treon, show the man for the brutal coward he was and depose him, all without shedding a drop of blood. In that way, Treon would suffer a disgraced life, lose the authority he held most dear. He still meant to do those things. Yet Breyon’s plea for succor changed things, for it placed upon Rathe the responsibility that should have been held by Lord Sanouk. Should he lend himself to Breyon and the folk of Hilan, he would be treading upon dangerous ground. But how could he turn away from them?

Rathe pushed aside matters that did not need addressing at the moment, and caught up with the soldiers. The snowfall had increased, the sifting white beating back the shadow of dusk, even as it obscured visibility. He positioned the searchers, then moved to the midpoint in the line, between Loro and Aeden. Feet shuffled and wide eyes peered through the burry gray veil of falling snow. No one wanted to be the first to step away from the protection of the road.

“Begin!” Rathe called, motioning the men forward with his torch.

After little hesitation, the soldiers stepped off. To the last, each had drawn his sword. Inside of four paces, the forest engulfed the searchers. Twilight marched rapidly toward full dark under the gentle, hissing voice of drifting snow. Trees loomed, muting forest sounds.

“See anything?” Aeden called, sounding a short step from panic. He waved his torch overhead, peering into shadowy undergrowth.

Rathe shook his head.

Aeden pushed forward, slashing the brush with his sword. He gave a startled squawk and disappeared. Snow-topped bushes shook where he had been, and the sounds of struggle intensified. Rathe’s heart lurched into a gallop, his hand tightened on the sword hilt. He had taken his first step toward the fallen soldier when Aeden popped up, covered in snow and wet leaves.

“I fell,” he said, looking morosely at his extinguished torch.

A gurgling howl rose up, not twenty paces ahead.

“Alfan!” Aeden bellowed. “Where are you?”

Rathe stared through the whirling white. Something shifted under a leaning fir.

“You see that?” Loro demanded, even as the pale figure faded into the gloom under the tree.

Aeden made a strangled noise and ran back toward the road. Rathe ordered him to stop, but the soldier never slowed. Drawn to the yelling, the other searchers converged, their advance marked by bobbing torches.

“With me,” Rathe commanded, and crept toward the skulking murk under the leaning fir’s snow-clad needles. A metallic glint dancing with torchlight caught his eye, and he halted the others with a word. The men formed a half-moon circle around him, torches raised.

Between them and the hoary evergreen, a sword rested on a skim of snow, its clean edge running with reflected flame. A fan of crimson splashes steamed around scattered boot prints. Alfan, bleeding and battling, had run to that spot, spun round and round, striving to keep an enemy at bay … an enemy that had not left any tracks of its own.

With the scent of fresh-spilled blood in his nose, Rathe looked to upper boughs. “Alfan?”

No answer came.

“I will climb up,” a gravelly voice said. Rathe turned to see Remon’s lean, whiskered face. “He’s a dullard, but he’s my friend. I would know if he’s dead or maimed.” Eyes tight with fear, he handed off his torch, ducked under the lowest branches, and set to climbing.

“Mayhap wolves chased him,” one of the soldiers said.

Rathe pointed out what the man had missed. “The snow is new-fallen, the blood fresh enough to steam, but there are no tracks, save Alfan’s.”

“He’s not here,” Remon called in a glum tone. “No blood … nothing.”

“He vanished,” Loro said, swallowing loudly.

Rathe tried not to consider what Breyon had said of the missing villagers, but he could no more ignore those dire words than he could dismiss the falling snow.

“He was taken,” someone spoke up, garnering a few mutters of agreement. “Such is the way of the Shadenmok.”

Rathe looked around, hoping against hope to find some indication where Alfan had gone, but there was nothing. He bit back an oath. “With no tracks to follow, there is no way to search without ending up lost ourselves.”

Mutters of regret met the pronouncement, but no one disagreed, and Rathe ordered them back to camp.

At their approach, Treon strode past the ring of firelight and confronted Rathe. “I do not see Alfan in your ranks.”

“There was blood, his tracks and sword, but nothing else. Unless he gained the ability to fly … something took him.”

Breyon, huddled next to a silent Carul, looked up at this, his gaze unreadable.

“ ‘Took him?’ “ Treon said, lip curling. “I would judge, lieutenant, that you have failed your first crucial mission as a man of Hilan. Were it not against Lord Sanouk’s wishes, I would strike off your head at this moment.”

Rathe took a deep, steadying breath. The only thing that kept him from knocking Treon’s skinny backside into the cold mud was the disapproving rumbles from the soldiers at his back-discontent aimed squarely at Treon. This night, Rathe had gained supporters. In the end, that mattered more than satisfying a personal grudge.

“Forgive me, captain,” he said, turning.

The men stared back, their faces a grim tapestry. They were malcontents, lawbreakers, the broken warriors of Cerrikoth given a last chance to demonstrate their worth. Some might prove irredeemable, some might earn death by his own hand, but at that moment they were his men, and he was their leader.

“I ask the same forgiveness from all of you,” he said, raising his voice. “Would that the gods had rewarded our efforts, but our brother’s fate is now in their hands. However, trust that should any of you come up missing, or fall wounded in battle, or suffer any of a hundred trials that can trouble a soldier, I will aid you to the best of my strength.”

“We could ask no more,” Loro said from the back, earning nods of approval.

Treon glared at the men, opened his mouth, but a shout cut off his words before he spoke them.

“Glory to the Reavers!”

“And to the Scorpion!” another added.

“The Reavers and the Scorpion!” thundered eighteen men.

Only two of the company did not shout or bat an eye: Rathe and Treon. They stared at each other. The others beat a hasty retreat, talking overloud about Shadenmok, poor buggering Alfan, the women of Valdar, and anything else to distract from the motionless confrontation.

“You think I am a fool, dog,” Treon rasped when all had moved out of earshot, “but I know your game. Make your bid for my station in Hilan as you will, but before letting you take my place, I will strew your reeking guts, and drive my dagger into your miserable heart.”

A slow smile spread across Rathe’s lips, but his eyes were cold obsidian. He stayed that way, unmoving, unflinching, unspeaking, until Treon cursed him and turned away.

Chapter 19

Hood pulled well forward to ward against falling snow and inquisitive eyes, Lord Sanouk hovered in the shadows beyond the village green, watching the boy wander among wagons and hawkers. Innocent eyes wide and bright, the boy halted, entranced by jugglers tossing flaming batons up into the snowy night. A moment more, his gaze fell on dancing wenches clad in naught but ribbons of multihued silk, despite the unseasonable cold.

When those charms lost their allure, the boy meandered to the far side of the green, where aged mystics sat rickety stools and scried futures from bowls heaped with glistening frog entrails, or deciphered good tidings or ill from smokes rising from acrid potions. Around the boy, bedraggled men and women wearing the soil of the field upon their faces and poor garb, clapped and squealed at each new trick.

Sanouk turned his attention from the boy to the lively trading. The rabble he ruled showed vitality only when a caravan called, trading homespun cloth for trinkets, graven idols of stone or wood for buttons and needles. Sanouk’s lips curled at the sour taste on his tongue. Pathetic scum, offering up wishes for dreams.

He demanded little of the smallfolk, yet they loathed him. Oh, they bobbed their heads and wrung their hands when in his presence, babbled platitudes, offered up thanks and blessings, but his spies told that when out of sight, they cursed him for a would-be usurper, and grumbled incessantly over their daily labors. When compelled by his soldiers to perform their duties, they did so with a lethargy that fired visions in his mind of putting them to torture. If nothing else, a knife or a glowing brand applied to their flesh would enliven them.

Lord Sanouk gusted a breath. This night the swine did not matter. From their midst, he would pluck the ripe fruit he needed, and leave the ignorant fools to blame wolves or spirits, or gods knew what else, never knowing the enemy had passed through their midst undetected.

He had sworn off taking sacrifices from the village after the last he had taken, but with Treon still not returned from Valdar, need pressed him-Gathul’s appetites were gluttonous, to say the least, and growing.

No more, Sanouk silently vowed. Not from Hilan, at any rate.

The boy moved away from the seers, a pitiful wretch with not even a copper to spend for a telling of his life. If not destined for a far different future, Sanouk could have predicted the boy’s fate. A life spent in squalor, made old before his time by lowborn toil, suffering a harridan of a wife and suckling babes who would grow into wastrels with not the wit to bathe the shite from their stinking backsides.

I will save you from that, boy. I will lend purpose to your otherwise meaningless existence. At the thought, the bitterness behind his teeth sweetened, a faint smile quirked his mouth. The child would endure suffering, to be sure, but in comparison to whatever else his life might have been, that anguish could be counted a blessing. It was a small kindness, but a kindness nonetheless.

Following a cart path, the boy vanished behind a row of wattle-and-daub houses. Sanouk followed, moving from shadow to shadow, careful to draw no attention. His boots, taken along with his befouled cloak from the oaf of a groom who minded the keep’s stables, squelched through mud, dung, and kitchen leavings.

He raised a hand to his flaring nostrils, trying in vain to block the stench. After he gave this next offering to Gathul and received another blessing, a bath would be in order. Long and hot, with scented oils to rouse his own hungers. Afterward, flaxen-haired Milia would share his sheets. She had come from his holdings in the west, the village Noerith. From her lips, a wall-eyed crofter’s son did not meet her expectations for a suitor. “I would rather serve the Lord of the North,” she had said, leaving no doubt what she meant about serving. She was not the prettiest thing, but she was eager … so deliciously eager.

With a pleasant shudder, Sanouk put away thoughts of Milia, and hurried along a path that would intersect with the boy’s route. With the arrival of the caravan, the village beyond the green lay quiet. Cheerless candles burned in windows covered in sheer, oiled cloth, thatched roofs slumped in disrepair, and wandering mutts snuffled at offal thrown out along with buckets of night soil. He longed for Onareth, with its pomp and finery, but only in Hilan could he meet Gathul’s needs.

But is that true? he wondered. Perhaps the god would have no qualms relocating to more suitable hunting grounds? After a few more sacrifices, I will broach the topic.

Sanouk quickened his pace, moving behind the boy on a path that led to the area of Hilan reserved for craftsmen. After a scan of the surrounding houses, making sure no drunkard loafed in the shadows, Sanouk called out. The boy, lost in some daydream, whirled.

“All is well, boy,” Sanouk said, keeping his tone light.

The boy, walking backward, suddenly froze. “Milord?”

How did he know? Did my hood slip … and if so, did others see me? Sanouk shook away the guilty flash, schooled his features to calm. What did it matter if he had been seen? This village and the lands upon which it sat were his holdings. And if some sheep-buggering lackwit managed to connect his visit with the boy’s vanishing, what did it matter?

“It is I,” he said, then waved a dismissive hand. “There is no need to bow, lad. I have come to enjoy the trading, same as you.” Sanouk drew back his hood, shivering at the wet snowflakes lighting on his brow. Gods, I hate summer snows.

Close-shorn hair dark and clumped, the boy stood awkwardly, poised between bowing and bolting.

Sanouk put on a disarming smile. “You leave early, lad. Are the festivities not to your liking?”

“The dancers and jugglers are fine, milord, but….” The boy fidgeted, his blush of shame apparent even in the gloom. “I have no coin, and nothing to trade.”

“Well,” Sanouk consoled, “these are trying times, what with Cerrikoth warring against the witch-queen, Shukura of Qairennor. Even I must tighten my belt.”

“Father says your table is always full,” the boy muttered, then went rigid, knowing he had overstepped his bounds.

Impudent bastard! I will rack him … gouge out his eyes … I will…. Sanouk bit back the unspoken words and managed a dry chuckle, but his eyes felt like beads of hot glass. “Of course it is,” he explained, struggling to keep his voice even. “I am your lord. As such, it’s my duty to remain sound in mind and body, so you and yours do not have to worry about brigands and the like. If I or my soldiers went hungry, who would protect you?”

“The Scorpion,” the boy said with troubling surety. “ ‘Tis said he watches over the weak. If trouble comes, he will remember he’s one of us, and lend his protection.”

Sanouk’s teeth grated in irritation. Do they forget so easily that I am their protector? “Come, boy. I need your assistance.”

The boy raised his eyebrows in question, and Sanouk baited his trap.

“There is an assassin in the village. I need your help finding him.”

“Truly?” the boy whispered, plain features pinching in a ferocious scowl. He whipped a stubby knife from his belt. “I will help, milord. Father says I am fierce as a wolf.”

“Is that so?” Sanouk asked, glancing over his shoulder to ensure they were not observed, or worse yet, followed. All was clear. Feigning worry, he clamped his hand around the boy’s arm and dragged him behind a wagon loaded with old wine barrels.

“What is it?” the boy blurted, eyes round.

Sanouk pointed toward the shadows back the way they had come. “Do you see him?”

The boy searched the empty darkness. “I see nothing. Who is it?”

“The assassin,” Sanouk whispered harshly. “You cannot see him, for he is a specter conjured by the witch-queen, sent out to murder all who stand opposed to her rule.”

The boy glanced doubtfully at Sanouk. “But you see him?”

“Of course. I am blessed by the gods to know all who seek to harm me,” Sanouk said, earning an open-mouthed appraisal from the youth. “I’d hoped my joining the celebration would confuse the killer. It seems I was wrong. You are not safe. Go, there, into that alley beside the tannery. I will follow.”

He shoved the boy to get him moving, then waited a slow hundred count, letting the boy’s imagination run rampant. Keeping up the game, he scurried across the path, cowering as if sought, and joined the boy. The alley stank of rancid tallow and the scrapings of hides, but it was dark and sheltered, hidden from all eyes.

“Is the assassin coming?” the boy asked, hiding behind a stack of hides that had not yet made it to the tannery.

Sanouk could not stifle a laugh. “There is no assassin, only you and I.”

Confusion pinched the boy’s brow. “But….”

“I thought to have a little sport with you.”

“You tried to trick me!” the boy said.

“I would say I succeeded rather than tried,” Sanouk answered blandly. “By your stench, I’d also say you that shat your breeches. A pity. You will never make much of a man.”

Tears shone in the boy’s eyes. “Leave me alone. Go away!”

“You are naught but a scared child,” Sanouk said, herding the boy to the back of the alley. “And hardly worth my effort, yet I have a need of you and your miserable life.”

The boy backed away, eyes bulging. “I am sorry, milord. Please, let me go.”

Sanouk moved closer, forcing the boy to a wall. Leaning in one corner stood another barrel. “Please,” the boy whimpered, then tried to dart past. Sanouk slashed the edge of his fist against the boy’s throat. Gagging, the boy retreated, brandishing his knife.

Sanouk advanced.

“I am a w-w-wolf,” the boy sobbed, bumping against the barrel. Water sloshed over the rim, and Sanouk decided at that moment what manner of death he would avoid with the boy’s sacrifice.

Sanouk halted, just out of reach of the boy’s slashing blade. He doubted the witless child would attempt to-

The boy hurled the knife. Sanouk stumbled backward with a startled curse, clutching his neck. There was no wound, no wetness of blood, for Undai’s sacrifice protected him from steel. Had that not been so, the knife would have gravely wounded him … or worse. The ingrate tried to murder me!

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sanouk growled, and struck the boy.

Screaming like a thing possessed, the boy flew at him, and Sanouk drove the tip of his boot into the boy’s groin. He went down in a writhing heap. Catching him by the hair, Sanouk jerked his head up. “I do hope you like water, boy,” he said, and began laughing.

Chapter 20

“Are you thinking what I am?” Loro muttered, eyeing the ten-foot palisade surrounding Valdar. Four weathered wooden towers rose at the corners of the pathetic wall, stark against the clear morning sky, each with a pair of archers standing watch.

“Yes,” Rathe answered, “if you are thinking that a mining village nestled within the wilds of the Gyntors, with the constant threat of marauding brigands, hunting Shadenmok, and gods alone know what other creatures lurking about in the forest, should have heavier fortifications.”

“This would barely hold off a pack of starving urchins. A modest siege engine would bring the wall down in a quarter turn of the glass.”

“You are right,” Aeden said, riding up next to them.

“So what keeps dangers at bay?” Rathe asked, genuinely curious.

Aeden pointed to the winged Reaver banner at the head of the column. The same banners hung from the watchtowers. “Once, that banner meant nothing. Then Lord Sanouk came to Hilan.”

“Why should a fallen prince matter to bandits, let alone a hunting Shadenmok?”

At the mention of that hellish creature, Aeden paled. “Shadenmok attack those who are alone or are in small groups, but never a village … at least, not usually. As for bandits, Lord Sanouk did not come to Hilan a broken outcast, like the rest of us. He came with fire and authority. He came to rule as would a king of a troubled realm.”

“Not much of a kingdom,” Loro snorted. Aeden continued as if he had not spoken.

“After arriving, Lord Sanouk led a company of Hilan men on the hunt for lawbreakers and the like. In less than a fortnight, he had captured three dozen of the most notorious brigands and smugglers, and ordered them impaled outside the gates of Hilan, Valdar, Noerith to the west, and more along the Shadow Road to the south. On the pole below each man, he wrote a warning in blood that the same would happen to all who flouted his laws.”

“Still,” Loro said, “brigands are not known for heeding threats or laws-that’s what makes them brigands.”

Aeden shrugged. “There’s only one obligation any lord of Hilan must do to avoid the king’s ire-help fill the king’s coffers. None have done a finer job of it than Lord Sanouk.” Despite his words, there was no note of praise in Aeden’s voice.

“That answers nothing,” Rathe said.

Aeden cast his gaze left and right, then lowered his voice to a hush barely heard over the horses’ hooves and the wagons’ rattles. “He allows bandits to raid a select few caravans passing through his holdings. Should that same band make the mistake of touching any shipments of ore bound for Cerrikoth they, and anyone they are suspected of associating with, are hunted down and taught that having a spike thrust up through your bowels is an easy death. In the end, Sanouk gets what he wants, as do the rogues.”

Loro shook his head. “Sounds like the bandits are getting shorted.”

“Mayhap they are,” Aeden allowed, “but they keep their lives and gain rewards, all without fear of Lord Sanouk’s wrath.”

“I wonder,” Rathe said, “does Sanouk receive a share from those raided caravans?”

Aeden shrugged. “I would expect so.”

Rathe was of the mind that Sanouk was more calculating than he had imagined. Making such a pact with brigands allowed Lord Sanouk to gain a favorable reputation both in the north and in the king’s court. All the while his brother, the foppish King Nabar, was seen as a weak and ineffectual leader unworthy to sit his father’s throne. One way or another, Rathe considered, Lord Sanouk might yet win his crown. The question was, did he have such aspirations? While he had been cast out from Onareth for plotting to seize reign from his brother, it had never been proven.

As the last riders of the company rode into the broad, frosted clearing surrounding Valdar, a single blast of a ram’s horn alerted the village to the newcomers.

“I suppose I should do my duty,” Rathe said, and kicked his mount into a canter to the head of the company. Aeden joined him, but Loro stayed behind.

Captain Treon eyed Rathe when he came abreast. “You will keep your mouth shut, lieutenant. I will deal with Mitros.”

“Of course,” Rathe answered. The command suited him, for it made observation all the easier. As before, it struck him odd that a cohort of traitors might reside in Valdar. To what purpose would civilized men have in treating with plainsmen?

Before they reached the gates, Mitros, the village reeve, strode out through a postern gate, braced by two men-at-arms wearing grimy tabards embroidered with the image of the Reaver upon their chests. As the voice of Lord Sanouk’s authority in the village, Mitros wore his badge of station as poorly as his men. Grubby furs and dark leathers covered his corpulence from throat to toe.

“Treon,” he called with mock joviality, whiskered jowls florid from the chill air. He held a flagon in one wine-stained fist, though it was morning. “Come to collect the rubbish of Valdar, have you?” A clump of straw fell from his thin black hair when he laughed.

“Have you been bedding swine again, Mitros?” Treon said with a disapproving sneer.

“As ever,” Mitros said, the smile on his lips belying the glassy anger in his eyes, “your wit unmans me. As it happens, I was interrogating one of the prisoners. Seems she disliked my methods, and put a boot to my stones.”

“She?” Rathe said, startled. It was hard enough to imagine any man fool enough to deal with the plainsmen, but a woman was unheard of.

“Aye,” Mitros answered, rounding on Rathe. His eyes, dark and bloodshot, narrowed. “I know you from somewhere … or have heard spoken your likeness.”

Rathe did not bother to explain who he was, so Treon filled the silence. “This is the Scorpion of Cerrikoth,” he snickered, “now bereft of his stinger.”

“You are the one who bedded that highborn’s concubine!” Mitros said, bellowing roguish laughter. “By all the gods, you are either more foolish than you look, or have a pair of stones the size of my fists!”

Rathe smiled thinly.

“Take me to these prisoners,” Treon said. “Once loaded into the wagons, we will depart. Too long was the journey here, what with all that damnable snow and flooding streams.”

“So soon?” Mitros drawled. “Surely after coming so far you will let me feast you? What can one night hurt? Of course, if it’s not a feast you want, the tavern has the finest ales in the north … and I encourage the serving wenches to gladly trade their wares for coin.” He looked down the line and raised his voice. “What say you, men of Hilan? Would you rather not remain in Valdar this day and night, and taste the bounty of the north?”

A cheering roar erupted from the company. Rathe never looked away from Mitros. He is not so much the steward of Valdar, but a whoremonger.

Treon thought briefly about the offer. “Very well,” he said, eliciting a cry of approval. “We leave on the morrow. Be forewarned, any man not armed and ready for duty will suffer.”

Rathe let the eager shouts wash over him, eyeing Mitros and his men, the dilapidated fortifications, and wondering just what he would find within the village.

Chapter 21

“Four women and a pair of codgers,” Loro mused, sipping ale from a wooden mug. “That dark-haired wench seems feisty, to be sure, but the rest are addled. Hard to believe anyone, especially the plainsmen, would strike a bargain with such a motley group.”

Rathe propped his elbows on the aged bar and leaned in close, raising his voice above the raucous merriment stirring the tavern’s rafters. “I am going to talk with the prisoners.”

“Why?” Loro asked, distracted by a buxom serving girl.

She in no way seemed eager to attract attention, nor inclined to offer her flesh for coin. A soldier slapped the girl’s rounded backside. She squealed, dropped her serving tray, and ran from the common room. Ribald laughter followed her, as did the gazes of the other serving girls, all who looked as if they would rather be anywhere else.

“Something’s wrong here,” Rathe said.

Loro scowled into his empty mug. “Aye. My cup’s run dry!”

The old one-legged barkeep replaced the empty mug with another dribbling foam over the brim. Loro flipped him a copper, and the wizened fellow tucked the coin into a leather purse at his belt, then clumped off to serve a grubby miner at the other end of the bar.

Everything about Valdar seems wrong. Rathe supposed the barkeep could wear a brooding scowl all the time, but it seemed out of place, considering his custom had doubled with the arrival of Hilan men. Of the miner, he took no pleasure in his ale, but rather quaffed mug after mug in bitter silence. Missing three fingers on one hand and two from the other might have accounted for that, but Rathe thought not. He had seen men drink so before, in a bid to drown the memory of the loss of something dear. Moreover, from the serving wenches to the barkeep, to the miner, all moved through the smoky tavern as if in a daze, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped.

“I am going to talk to the prisoners,” Rathe said again. Save for the woman who had tried to make a eunuch of Mitros, he had doubts the others could tell him anything of worth.

Loro gulped from his mug. “Go ahead,” he grumbled. “I am of the mind to find a wench willing to let this old boar nuzzle her teats.” He squinted around the tavern, then back to Rathe. “It’s never too late cast all this soldiering and vengeance aside and go find our fortunes elsewhere. Mercenary or brigand, caravan guard or trader, opportunities abound in the west, all along the shores of the Sea of Muika, and beyond on the isles of Giliron.”

For the first time since Loro had mentioned that scheme, it did not offend Rathe to hear it. And for the first time, he actually imagined living such a life. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “But now is not the time.”

“Suit yourself,” Loro said. “You change your mind, don’t forget I put you up to it.”

“I won’t,” Rathe agreed.

He made his way out of the stifling tavern and into the frosty night. A double handful of cloaked soldiers from Hilan and Valdar lounged on stools at either side of the door, drinking and jesting. A few eyes met his, nods were exchanged, and the men turned back to their companions.

Rathe drew his dagger and made a show of cleaning his nails, peering at the shadows from under his eyebrows. Since arriving to Valdar, it had crossed his mind that Treon might have put a watch on him. If so, the spy was stealthy. Save for a half dozen goats wandering by on the street, the village slumbered. Of course, even during the day it had seemed bereft of normal activity.

He sheathed his dagger and stepped off the wooden walkway, heading for the prisoner wagons. For expediency, Treon had ordered the traitors locked in the wagons overnight. Since giving that order, Rathe had not seen Treon or Mitros.

“What do you want?” one of two guards demanded when Rathe came near. Unfortunately, he was one of Mitros’s men, depriving Rathe the luxury of easily sending the man off.

Seeing no point in explaining himself twice, Rathe waited for the other guard to join the first. The spirited woman who had assaulted Mitros crawled closer to the bars of the nearest wagon. Her wide eyes glowed in the moonlight, as did the guards’ bared swords.

“I have come to interrogate the prisoners,” Rathe said.

“And who are you?” the second guard asked.

“Second in command of the winged Reavers,” Rathe said.

“Ah, the Scorpion, is it?”

“I have been called that.”

“Don’t look like no king’s champion to me. What say you, Gadein?”

“Well, Caisel,” Gadein said in a philosophical tone at odds with his dullard’s low, sloping brow, “I says he’s too pretty by half to be aught but a highborn’s plaything. What happened Scorpion, did your lord tire of poking his scepter into your sweet mouth?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Rathe chuckled, stepping forward.

Put off by his light manner, their swords rose too slowly at his approach. Rathe swatted Gadein’s blade aside and slammed his fist into the man’s throat.

“Wha’ the-” Caisel managed, before Rathe wheeled and drove the heel of his hand into the man’s nose. Bone exploded, and Caisel dropped his sword and reeled away, hands clamped over his face, blood squeezing between his fingers.

Rathe spun back to a gagging Gadein and clubbed him across the back of the neck, dropping him to his knees. A viscous kick shattered the man’s jaw and sent him to the ice-crusted mud-

He whirled at a scraping sound, found Caisel coming, lips and chin coated in a running fan of blood, sword raised high to strike off Rathe’s head. In one motion Rathe dropped low, stepped inside the man’s swing, and drew his dagger. Just before his blade liberated the man’s intestines, he reversed the dagger and drove the pommel into Caisel’s groin. An explosive grunt sprayed blood from his mouth, and Rathe pummeled him again, ending whatever hope the brute had of siring children.

Wheezing, Caisel staggered back, hands cupping his groin. Rathe stalked after him, mind afire with a hundred ways to destroy his enemy. Caisel made a whimpery noise and fled. Rathe followed a handful of paces before convincing himself that slaughtering idiots was not his purpose this night.

Turning back to the wagons, he sheathed his dagger, and wiped Caisel’s blood off his brow and cheeks.

“Have you come to free us?” the dark-haired woman asked. The others, all pressed against the bars of their rolling prison, gazed at Rathe in varying states of bewildered madness.

“What’s your name?”

The woman gazed at him in confusion. “Erryn.”

“Well, Erryn, why would I free a traitor?”

“I am no traitor,” she snarled. “None of us are.”

“Then how did you end up here?”

“Mitros decided that if I would not bed him or his pet wolves, then I was not worth keeping in Valdar. These others are here because they are witless, and so a burden. If Sanouk had not ordered us brought to Hilan, we were to be hanged.”

“Tell me about Valdar and Mitros,” Rathe invited.

“Are you mad? Caisel, that goat’s festering bunghole, will already be back at the barracks, telling how you attacked him. There’s no time. Free us!”

Rathe tapped his toe, waiting. She might be right about Caisel, but he hoped the man was proud and shrewd enough to decide that it was better to keep quiet about how one man had bested him and Gadein.

Erryn shoved her face as far as it would go between the iron bars, trying to see up the road. Nothing stirred. She sat back with a disgusted oath, lines of dirty rust running up her cheeks. “What do you want to know?”

“I have been in many villages,” Rathe said, “but I have never been to one quite like Valdar-”

“I was a child when Lord Sanouk came north,” Erryn interrupted. “Until then, Valdar was like any other village, save that we serve Onareth by mining gold, rather than growing turnips. After Lord Sanouk came he named that pig, Mitros, Reeve of Valdar. Since then, we have been slaves to the brigands we once helped defend the north against.”

“You are saying that Mitros conspires with brigands?” Rathe asked, considering what Aeden had told him and Loro outside Valdar.

“No, you fool, I am saying Mitros is a brigand. Him and all his men once skulked in the forests, preying on shipments of ore when they could, and raiding caravans when they could not.”

“And the people of Valdar?”

“Mitros made whores of the women and girls. The men and boys, he forces to work the mines, day and night. All this he does on the authority of Lord Sanouk.”

Rathe inclined his head, indicating the others. “What afflicts them?”

“Joshil went mad after Mitros forced him to watch the rape of his wife and daughter-her crime was refusing to sell herself. Karmath, there, is the lucky one. He was born simple, and used to help the blacksmith. The rest of the women, Mitros broke in the same way he broke Joshil’s wife. Seems neither Mitros nor his men enjoy bedding insane women.”

“And how did you manage to avoid such a fate?” Rathe said. He could not understand what was afoot, but without question it had nothing to do with traitors receiving justice.

Erryn’s eyes fell. “I didn’t avoid anything … until this last time,” she said, face reddening in the wan moonlight. She looked up, hatred burning through the tears in her eyes. “Are you going to let us out, or not?”

“No,” came a hissing rasp. “He’s about to join his fellow traitors.”

Rathe faced Treon. Before he could challenge the captain, Erryn shrieked a warning. Rathe turned at a flicker of movement off to one side. Caisel, lips and chin still coated in blood, swept toward him, while another shadow closed from the other direction. Rathe’s sword whispered out of its scabbard as he stepped toward Caisel, preparing to relieve the fool of his burdensome head.

“Behind you!” Erryn cried.

A cudgel slammed into Rathe’s back, driving him to his knees. He tried to bring his sword to bear, but Caisel and some other brute fell on him, using fists and boots. The cudgel fell again, smashing his sword from his grasp, then again. Erryn screamed, and Treon laughed.

Rathe blocked a boot swinging toward his face, but another stomped his head, and yet another slammed into his ribs. When the cudgel fell again, it brought a throbbing darkness filled with a woman’s screams.

Chapter 22

Flat gray light streamed into Rathe’s eyes. His head felt cracked, swollen, muddled. The rest of him fared no better. He had come awake before, but this was the first time he felt lucid. It took a moment to realize the squealing racket stabbing into his ears was not the voice of a demonic harridan, but wagon axles wanting for a coat of grease.

Wagon …? The thought drifted, unanswered.

Eventually things started coming back. Arriving in Valdar, drinking ale with Loro in a raucous tavern, beating two guards, speaking with a woman … Erryn. For a long time, that was all he remembered. Then he recalled someone’s hissing laughter, and a trio of men battering him senseless.

A cool hand touched his brow. “Not much of a champion, are you?” Erryn said with a smirk.

Rathe squinted at her, realizing that she cradled his head in her lap. “How long since we left Valdar?”

“Three days and nights, and now most of another day.”

“Help me up.”

“Rest easy,” Loro said. “Those bastards beat you near to death.”

Rathe craned his neck, wincing at the stiffness. Loro rode beside the wagon, his bulk hidden under a heavy woolen cloak. Disregarding the man’s suggestion, Rathe sat up with a groan, ignoring a wave of queasiness. He had less success pushing aside the pounding in his head.

Gingerly, he probed his ribs, back, arms, and anywhere else that had suffered from the beating. Of pain, there was plenty, but he found no broken bones. The worst was his swollen sword hand. He flexed it, gritting his teeth against the silvery bolts of agony that ran from his fingertips up through his forearm. If trouble came, he would have need of that hand. He kept opening and closing his fingers, warming and loosening them.

“What’s the mood of the men?” Rathe asked.

Loro shrugged. “First off, they griped, as men will after a night of heavy drinking. Now, I expect they just want to get back to Hilan and a proper bed.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Rathe said.

Loro faced him, stubbled jowls waxen and eyes tight in the muted light. “As to you, most doubt you are a traitor, and name it folly that Treon has locked away the Scorpion. Their favor won’t help you any once we reach Hilan. If I do not miss my guess, your days as a soldier are over. If you are lucky, you might squash turnips for his lordship’s supper until the years are through with you. If not, an executioner will be sharpening his axe for a bite at your neck.”

Rathe could not argue those points, which meant the last decision he wanted to make, must be made. Envisioning his head falling free of his neck and plopping into a bloody basket was almost as terrible as imagining a life spent in Sanouk’s kitchens. In the end, he decided that he had no real choice … and maybe he never had one, if what Nesaea foretold about the Khenasith, the Black Breath, held any truth.

“Can you break us free?” he asked.

Loro’s eyes went wide in mock surprise. “You no longer want to shame Treon by becoming the captain of Hilan? You’d rather shrug off the chains of honor and duty, and ride free as a brigand?”

“We can laugh at my foolishness later,” Rathe growled. “For now, I need to know if you can get me out of this cage?”

“Us,” Erryn growled.

Loro patted an axe’s wooden haft protruding from under his blanket roll. “Aye. I also have your sword and dagger. Treon was so excited to catch you up to no good, he missed me collecting your weapons. I suppose I must ask if you are sure you want to take the road of a lawbreaker? As you once told me, to do so is to be a man hunted all his remaining days.”

“Seems I have no choice,” Rathe said. “Besides, a deeper treachery is stirring in the north than we have been told.” At Loro’s questioning look, Rathe explained all that Erryn had told him about the former brigand Mitros, and his odd pact with Lord Sanouk.

“I can understand Sanouk’s idea to use brigands to keep the peace,” Loro said slowly, “but not his need for taking prisoners. There are no mines in Hilan, and he has servants enough from the village. And, far as I can see, most of the prisoners he’s getting are mad. What use are they?”

Rathe shook his head, brow furrowed.

“He needs food and rest,” Erryn said to Loro. “Once we are freed, we can sort out these matters.”

Loro warned, “Be ready, for tonight you will become a lawbreaker in truth. For now, get some sleep, brother.”

Loro kicked his mount into a quicker pace, and Rathe let Erryn guide his head back to her lap. She pulled a loaf of bread and a wineskin from under a pile of straw in one corner.

“You can thank your friend for this,” she said, careful not to let any of the other soldiers see her feeding him. The wine tasted sour on his tongue, but he gulped it down, along with the bread. Erryn took some for herself, but not much.

After the meal, he began to drowse. Just before he dropped off, he murmured, “Where are the others who were with you?”

“Your captain put them in the other wagon. Seems he thought it amusing to leave the ‘lovers’ together.”

“Perish the thought,” Rathe grumbled.

Erryn smacked his head a stinging blow. “I may not be as tempting as one of those perfumed slatterns you are used to in Onareth,” she growled, “but neither are you as fetching as the stories say.”

Wincing, Rathe rubbed his head where she had hit him. “Don’t let my present untidiness deceive you. I clean up nicely.”

“As do I,” Erryn assured him.

Rathe cracked an eyelid, imagined her without a grimy face and matted hair, and decided she just might be telling the truth.

“Wake me if there’s trouble,” he said without disclosing his opinion, earning another smack and the shocking suggestion that his lineage ran to various beasts of the field. Despite castigating him, Erryn did not move his head from her lap.

The day passed with Rathe sleeping and waking by turns. The leaden skies darkened further, and began spitting a cold drizzle. When the company halted to make camp, Rathe woke feeling refreshed, if still bruised and battered. Most importantly, his sword hand felt better-stiff, but better.

Beyond the rusted bars of the wagon, Rathe observed Treon posting guards, while the other men hauled dead wood out of the forest to build fires. Someone had taken a stag during the day, and now a group of soldiers skinned the animal, cut it into large pieces, and began roasting the meat over a cookfire.

Treon saw Rathe watching the goings-on, and sauntered over to the wagon. Before he came close enough to speak, a blood-curdling cry washed over the camp. Treon jerked his head around, palm slapping his sword hilt. Before the weapon was half-drawn, a blurring shape slammed him into a spinning tumble, and vanished back into the dark forest. Shapes covered in hairless, wrinkly yellow hides raced through camp, knocking men aside.

Rathe gripped the bars, looking beyond the shouting soldiers. The forest, indifferent to the plight of men, gazed back. The strange creatures that had rushed through camp had vanished.

Treon bounded to his feet, ordered the bewildered soldiers to take up their spears and form a defensive circle around camp. It was not lost on Rathe that the captain stood in the middle of the that circle, braced on two sides by a pair of men, and on a third by a roaring fire. Neither did he miss that the prisoner wagons sat outside that border, undefended.

“Death stalks us,” Erryn said in a flat tone.

Rathe moved to the other side of the wagon, putting the camp and its firelight to his back. As moments stretched, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Picketed horses snorted and stamped their hooves. Men murmured, indifferent to Treon’s demand for quiet. From the other prisoner wagon, a woman’s reedy voice cackled, “How the shadows dance … how they hunger!”

“Be still!” Treon hissed.

“Soon we will all be still!” the woman screamed in demented mirth, then began whispering a cradle song, rocking simple Karmath in her arms, as if a nursing babe.

“You see it, just there?” Erryn breathed.

“Yes,” Rathe answered. The hair on his neck prickled and gooseflesh wandered over his skin at the sight of a milky figure ghosting through the forest, just at the edge of the firelight. It vanished around a tree, then reappeared, closer than before. Rathe struggled to track its approach as it flickered from one place to the next.

“Captain Treon,” he called. “Let me help defend the camp.”

“Bugger yourself bloody,” Treon shouted.

“So be it,” Rathe answered. “But the best I can tell, I am completely safe in here.”

Within two heartbeats of that assertion, someone cried, “We need all the swords we can get!”

“Shut your poxy mouth, and hold the line!”

The argument washed over Rathe, as he searched for the creature in the forest. He found it climbing in the trees, its snaky limbs bending with revolting suppleness. Reddish hair streamed down its naked back. The creature paused again, small hanging breasts heaving as it breathed. Its head turned slowly, revealing a long, feminine face. Rathe’s heart shuddered.

“ ‘Tis a Shadenmok,” Erryn gasped. Her breath wheezed into her chest, then she screamed, “A Shadenmok hunts!”

Turmoil erupted in the camp, but Rathe could not turn from the creature. From a face white as cream, protuberant black eyes rimmed in crimson regarded the panicking men. The nostrils of its blade-thin nose flared, as if catching a pleasing scent. Its lipless mouth split impossibly wide, a hole ringed by tiny, spiked teeth. The Shadenmok flung back its head, producing a keening wail that drove a spike of terror through Rathe’s heart. He threw himself backward, clawing for his absent sword.

“She summons the Hilyoth!” a soldier warned, an instant before his words proved true.

Chapter 23

The Shadenmok’s devil-hounds, the Hilyoth, swarmed out of the forest, dogs in form save for rounded, apelike heads with massive, underslung jaws bristling with slanting teeth. Some few impaled themselves on thrusting spears. Most broke through, mouths snapping shut over arms and legs, grinding muscle and bone.

The line of soldiers disintegrated under the onslaught, becoming a confusion of screams and howls, stabbing spears and slashing swords. More soldiers fled into the forest. The Hilyoth gave chase, sundering hamstrings with taloned paws, then falling on their prey like starved wolves.

“Fight, you stoneless whoresons!” Loro raged amid the teeming throng of men and beasts. The company continued to scatter in all directions, abandoning weapons to the mud. The Hilyoth flooded over the soldiers, a writhing tide of destruction.

“FIGHT!” Loro roared, charging through the fray, one hand wielding a sword, the other a woodsman’s axe, both weapons drenched in gore.

“Free me!” Rathe called to Aeden, who turned this way and that, mouth hanging, eyes glassy. Aeden found Rathe, blinked stupidly, then dropped his spear and shambled toward the wagons, heedless of the surrounding carnage. He managed two steps before a Hilyoth abandoned the savaged leg of a screaming soldier and bounded toward Aeden.

Rathe’s blood froze. “Behind you!”

Aeden kept on, a bemused grin touching his lips. The streaking Hilyoth leaped on his back, its jaws closing over his arm. The creature’s weight flung Aeden to the ground and, as if he had tripped from his own clumsiness, Aeden gazed at Rathe with the same confused expression, while the devil-hound worried its prize. Twisting and shaking its head, the Hilyoth tore off Aeden’s arm with a grinding, ripping sound and bounded away, the sundered appendage waving from its dripping maw.

“Get up!” Rathe urged. The man had little time to bind such a wound.

Teeth bared in a sickly grimace that was at once a baffling grin and a sneer of agony, Aeden made to push himself up, unknowing that one of his arms had been stolen. Off-balance, Aeden heeled over and fell on his face. His breathless sobs carried over the tumult of battle, but he drew his knees under him and, by inches, staggered to his feet.

“Hurry, Aeden!” Rathe called.

The soldier turned like a child coming awake and finding himself in a strange place. The Hilyoth continued their murderous assault against the few soldiers still fighting. The dead lay sprawled, dismembered, eviscerated. The terrible screams of the Shadenmok drove her beasts to greater frenzy.

Rathe fixed his eyes on Aeden, trying to will strength and awareness into the soldier’s mind. In the wavering firelight, crimson welled deep within his gaping shoulder socket. Then it gushed. Aeden’s head turned toward that flow, jerking in fits and starts.

“Look at me! At me!”

Aeden did not heed Rathe’s command. His gaze fell on the wound. Crimson freshets pulsed over the shredded edge of his cloak. He raised his remaining hand, allowing blood to wash over his fingers. His eyes went wide and wider, his mouth yawned in a silent howl. His chest hitched, drawing breath, and loosed a piercing shriek.

Then Loro was at the end of the wagon, battering the lock with his axe. Iron broke in a shower of sparks. Rathe booted open the barred door and jumped out. Before his feet had settled, he whirled and slammed the door back. “Erryn, keep this closed, and stay inside!”

Face pale but set, she nodded.

Loro, covered in blood and bits of yellowish hide, thrust Rathe’s sword and dagger into his hands. “If we survive this-”

“We will survive,” Rathe said.

With a curse on the gods, Loro barreled back into the fight. Rathe chose out a horse still tacked, and vaulted into the saddle. He caught up the reins, slashed his sword through the lead rope, and wheeled the blowing steed to face the madness of the Hilyoth attack. As though breaking free of a thick skim of filthy ice, his mind fully embraced the unspeakable truth of the moment. We are all of us dead.

Inflamed by that certain knowledge, released from any burden of fear, he kicked his mount into a charge through the camp. The pain in his sword hand a distant nuisance, he swung the blade overhand into the leaping face of a Hilyoth.

Flashing steel ripped through its blunt snout and sank deep into its skull. The howling creature’s limbs quivered as it shook its severed head, threatening to tear Rathe’s sword from his grip. He kicked a foot free of the stirrup, slammed his boot into the blood-slicked face of the devil-hound, and wrenched the sword loose. Before the beast fell, Rathe had heeled his trumpeting horse into another charge.

As he fought back and forth through camp, Rathe shouted commands to the remaining Hilan men, even as Loro berated his fellows for stinking cowards. Those soldiers who had taken flight did not rejoin the battle. Those who had stayed behind, or had been too slow to depart, either decided to test their courage and fight, or decided they had no choice. In the end, all that mattered to Rathe was that he and Loro did not stand alone.

Whirling his mount for another attack, Rathe spied Treon cowering, ratlike, behind a wheel of a prisoner wagon. He did not have time to consider the man’s cowardice. Rathe booted the charger, sword raised, eyeing his next target-a hellish hound buried to its neck in the open belly of a supine Hilan man.

The horse reared, its front hooves smashing the beast’s face. His mount leaped forward as another creature of slick, hot skin struck Rathe from behind, driving his chest against the pommel. Talons furrowed his back, and drove a scream through his gritted teeth. Growling, spraying hot slaver over the side of his face, the Hilyoth sank its fangs into the junction between Rathe’s neck and shoulder. Before it could rip loose a mouthful of flesh, Rathe rammed his sword into the creature’s bulk. With a whining growl, it leaped away.

Rathe hugged his mount’s neck as it spun in tight circles. His mind reeled at the magnitude of carnage filling his eyes. In all directions, blood sprayed from torn necks in lurid arcs, severed limbs fell to spasm in the churned mud, savaged bellies spewed coiling entrails. Cries of dying men joined with the baying of the Hilyoth to make a dire song foretelling the battle’s outcome.

Somehow, Aeden was still on his feet, now wielding a sword in clumsy, hacking strokes at a pair of circling devil-hounds. One blow chopped across a hideous face, driving back the snarling beast. Aeden raised his sword to strike again, but the second Hilyoth fell on him before he could bring the weapon to bear, tearing at him with gnashing teeth and ripping claws.

His back and neck afire, Rathe raised his sword, and kicked his horse into a plunging gallop. Aeden’s eyes, wide with keen awareness, found Rathe’s desperate gaze. Before Rathe could ride near enough to help, the Hilyoth tore out Aeden’s throat. Howling fury, Rathe drove the horse on, its front hooves crushing the monstrous creature’s blood-slathered muzzle, its rear hooves smashing the Hilyoth against the ground.

As he tugged the reins to turn, a pale shape dropped from above and landed on his horse’s head. Rathe recoiled from the Shadenmok’s hateful black gaze. Squealing, the horse began bucking. With hooked nails, the Shadenmok dug into the horse’s flesh and screamed into Rathe’s face, spraying him with droplets of reeking wetness. The horse heaved and kicked in a frenzy of terror, throwing Rathe from the saddle. He slammed into a tree and fell headlong to the ground.

Mane of red hair flying, the Shadenmok scurried over the bucking horse, its stubby claws rending hide and meat. Its round mouth gaped wide around a gurgling screech, baring rows of spiked teeth, then its head flashed down against the horse’s neck. Quivering, eyes rolling, the steed bolted, only to fall after a few short leaps, scattering the few soldiers defending against a handful of circling Hilyoth. The Shadenmok flung itself clear, rolled, then raced back and thrust it face into the lurid fount pumping from the dying horse’s neck.

As Rathe struggled to his feet, Loro charged out the gloom, drenched in mud and blood. His axe whistled as it fell. The Shadenmok flinched away, but the axe slashed down across one withered breast and through the creature’s cocked leg. Its black eyes bulged and its pale white flesh rippled. It slashed a clawed hand at Loro, driving him back. Before he could settle his feet, the creature leaped clear.

Loro eyed the scrawny leg twitching in the mud, then roared a victorious battle cry. All at once the Shadenmok surged back from the darkness beyond the camp, bowling over the fat man. The creature, ungainly on one leg and two arms, rushed toward Rathe, a mad fury lighting its eyes.

Dropping into a crouch, Rathe raised his sword at the last instant. The Shadenmok’s gaze darted toward the blade, calculating. Before those eyes returned to his face, his opposite hand ripped his dagger across the creature’s belly. The Shadenmok screamed, clutching its middle, and Rathe swung his sword with all his remaining strength into the she-devil’s neck, ending its cry. The remaining Hilyoth turned as one to face the killer of their master.

Loro retrieved his axe and joined Rathe’s side against the now cautious devil-hounds. Four remained, eyes glaring with the same bestial cunning their dead master had shown. Behind the stalking creatures, the last of the soldiers gathered.

The closest Hilyoth sniffed at the headless corpse of the Shadenmok and raised its muzzle, growling.

“Doesn’t seem happy,” Loro panted.

Rathe took a deep breath. “No, it-”

The beast sprang. Rathe dodged to one side, sword flashing low to high. Steel gouged through the Hilyoth’s underbelly, disemboweling it.

Another Hilyoth leaped for Loro, battering aside his axe, and striking him on the chest. They went down, rolling in the muck. Loro’s thick fingers sank into the pallid skin of the devil-hound’s neck. Its jaws snapped shut an inch from his face, splintering a fang.

Before Rathe could help Loro, the last two charged, one behind the other. He lunged aside, striking the first Hilyoth’s back with an overhand blow as it swept past. His blade sank deep, severing its knobby spine. The other rammed him from behind, throwing Rathe into a forward roll. Twisting as he came up, he slammed his dagger past the Hilyoth’s teeth and into its throat. The creature bit down on his forearm-weakly, for a hand span of bloody steel thrust out from the base of its skull.

Loro came up bearing the other Hilyoth by its throat. Face to face, each with teeth bared and snarling, he throttled the creature. Its hind legs kicked madly, talons shredding the leather jerkin covering Loro’s belly. Cursing, Loro sank his teeth into the creature’s misshapen muzzle and tore loose a portion of its snout. The Hilyoth yowled, and Loro’s powerful hands strained, fingers sinking deep into its wrinkled yellow hide. Skin parted, muscle ripped, bone cracked, and the Hilyoth died with a shuddering whine. Loro hurled the monstrosity away, then swiped at his mouth with frantic hands.

“If I’d known you were so hungry,” Rathe said, extracting his dagger from the dead devil-hound at his feet, “I would have spared you some bread.”

“To the Abyss with you,” Loro snarled, running the back of his hand over his lips. “All that aside, Hilyoth do not taste that bad.”

They laughed, long and loud, wounded and battered, but alive. It was more than Rathe could have hoped. The Hilan men looked on with stunned expressions, or knelt beside fallen companions.

Treon crawled from under the wagon. Besides some mud smeared over his chest, he might not have been anywhere near a battle. “You there, Remon, get my men back here on the instant. I want this traitorous dog back in his cage,” he hissed, pointing at Rathe.

Friend to poor buggering Alfan, presumably the first soldier taken by the Shadenmok days before, Remon studied Captain Treon, the scattered dead, the wounded. “Captain, Rathe killed the Shadenmok. He saved us-”

“Shut your festering hole and obey me!”

The lean-faced soldier looked to his brothers, each bloodied and disbelieving, then glanced at Rathe, indecision warring in his eyes. Though Remon did not want to, Rathe feared he would do as commanded.

“You cannot stand for this madness,” Loro said, leaning in close to Rathe’s ear. “It’s time to leave. I will stand with you, but we need to go now.”

Rathe sighed. Treon was a hateful fool with a passion to see him dead or chained, and of course Lord Sanouk would side with his pet snake, no matter how many supporters Rathe had amongst the Hilan men. Upon returning to the fortress, any chance of taking his freedom in hand would disappear. Yet, to escape the headsman’s axe, he would have to fight the survivors of the Shadenmok attack. Still, he did not mean to be taken prisoner, which meant more men would die this night.

As he prepared to attack, his searching eyes wandered to the cage he had so recently escaped. His heart froze. The barred door to the wagon stood open. Erryn was gone.

Chapter 24

A quick search revealed Erryn was not among the dead or wounded. As well, the second wagon’s lock had been broken, and all the prisoners were gone, suggesting she had freed them and fled. Does Treon know? Rathe imagined the captain might not. Any man who would cower behind a wagon wheel, while others fought and died for him, was doubtless ruled by a fear so great that he had missed all else going on around him.

Rathe almost cursed Erryn’s imprudence, but reconsidered. She had run the moment she was able. As I should have done. He glanced at Treon, who glared at Remon, and decided to buy Erryn and her fellows a bit more time.

“If you want to cage me, Treon,” he called, “you will have to do it yourself.”

Treon turned slowly, lips moving without sound, pale face going red with fury.

“Did you take a blow to the head?” Loro murmured.

“Erryn and the others escaped,” Rathe whispered from the side of his mouth. “I need to make sure she gets as far away as she can. Besides, these men will heed Treon … unless I kill him, here and now.”

“Before you make the attempt,” Loro said, gaze darting to the blood oozing over Rathe’s boot, “you might want a little more life in your veins.”

“You will need to flee,” Rathe continued, having barely heard Loro’s concern.

“You are mad,” Loro said.

“Seize him!” Treon bawled.

No one moved, save a foursome of soldiers creeping out of the forest trailed by Carul, the second wagon driver. There was no sign of Breyon among the dead or the living. Rathe supposed he might have fled with Erryn, or fallen in the forest beyond the camp. Dismayed, the newcomers took in the charnel scene littered with their friends, dead Hilyoth, and the Shadenmok.

Remon turned back to Captain Treon. “I cannot-I will not-allow this man to be bound. Not after what he did for us.”

“You will obey,” Treon hissed, his gray eyes flickering from face to face, pale lips twitching with unease.

Remon raised his chin in a defiant jut and addressed his fellows. “The Scorpion could have run, but he fought and killed the Shadenmok. He chanced his life, when half our number ran into the trees, and-” he stabbed a finger at Treon’s face “-while this craven pile cowered under a wagon. The rest of you choose as you will, and let gods and demons judge your souls. For me, I stand with the Scorpion!”

A few agreeable mutters met this.

“The Scorpion!” Remon bellowed. “The Scorpion and the Reavers! Stand with me, here and-”

A foot of sharp steel ripped through Remon’s sternum, ending his defiant shout. Before anyone fully registered what had happened, Treon gave his sword a brutal twist, cracking bone, forcing Remon up on his tiptoes. The soldier shuddered, and his eyes rolled to show the whites.

A reckless fury burst to life in Rathe’s chest at the cowardly, senseless murder, and his fist clenched hard on the hilt of his sword, and he made to step forward.

Loro dropped a restraining hand on his arm. “That might have been his undoing,” he advised, but Rathe did not believe it.

Treon shoved Remon away, wrenching his blade free as the man toppled into the mud. “The rest of you gabbling idiots can join Remon,” he announced, bloody sword held before his eyes, inspecting its edge, “or you can bind this traitor. The choice is yours.”

Unspoken words seemed to pass between the Hilan men. A dozen against one. Rathe could almost hear them weighing the odds, but he knew their decision, and the why of it, before the first man drew his sword. As he had surmised before, these men had used up their chances through whatever crimes had sent them to Hilan. To stand against Treon would earn them a hunted, miserable life.

Twelve men edged toward Rathe and Loro, all refusing to lock eyes with their quarry, mouths turned down in regret. Rathe sighed. Unless fortune favored him, he would never get to Treon, let alone kill him. I will make my own luck, he thought.

From the corner of his mouth, Rathe said, “I have to distract these fellows so Erryn can flee deeper in to the forest.”

“Were I you, I’d worry less about Erryn,” Loro muttered, “and more about myself. End up back in that cage, and you are lost.”

“Do what I tell you, and there will be no cage to ride in,” Rathe said. “If I live, I expect you to free me between here and Hilan.”

“How am I supposed to manage that?” Loro sputtered.

“You will,” Rathe said, “or mine will be a crow-picked head on a spike above Hilan’s walls.”

“But-”

“Before you go, fire the wagons, and scatter as many horses as you can. Treon will not want to recapture the prisoners without a means to get them back to Hilan.”

“You witless fool,” Loro said, as Rathe dashed forward.

Taken off guard by his unexpected charge, the Hilan men stared as he swept around them, bearing down on a gawking Treon. Rathe struggled to free his sword from its scabbard, and his movements told him he had miscalculated his ability to fight. He had lost much blood, and with it his strength. The sword weighed down his arm, his feet clumped rather than danced. Gritting his teeth, opening himself to blind rage fueled by the need to see Erryn safely away, he pressed on, swinging the sword in a sidearm strike at Treon’s throat.

The captain scampered back, just deflecting the blow. Steel rang out as Rathe stumbled past. He whirled, nearly lost his footing, and parried Treon’s deft thrust. Then another, and another, until he was in full retreat.

Rathe stumbled away from Treon’s attacks, worried more than ever. Coward though he was, Captain Treon knew swordplay. At his best, Rathe judged that he might have held his own against Treon, but it would have been a close thing. Now, his back torn, shoulder and neck ravaged by the Hilyoth, weakened from his beating in Valdar a few days before, the odds were stacked against him.

“You expected an easy kill?” Treon taunted, circling to Rathe’s left. His sword darted, flashing under Rathe’s nose almost playfully.

Behind Treon and the gawking Hilan men, Loro caught up a flaming brand from the campfire and dashed to the first wagon. He swept the flames over tallow used to grease the axle, setting it alight-there was not much to burn, but enough. He cast fleeting glance at Rathe and the others, then went to the next wagon. In moments, both wagons were burning. Rathe did not have to ensure the wagons burned to ash, only that the fires rendered them useless.

“No more than you,” Rathe lied, making a half-hearted stab at Treon’s belly. His real intention was to keep Treon focused on him, instead of the wagons.

The captain swatted the attack aside with a contemptuous sneer. “I have no intention of killing you, Scorpion. I will give you into Lord Sanouk’s hands … at least, most of you. I dare say, he will have an exceptional form of torture in mind for you.”

“Will it be the rack,” Rathe said, struggling not to gasp, “or perhaps hot pincers?”

Treon lunged, the tip of his sword slicing Rathe’s cheek. The attack could have easily sunk into his throat. Rathe stumbled away, certain Treon was toying with him.

“What you will suffer,” Treon chuckled, “is unlike anything you can imagine-and your pain will never end.”

Disregarding such meaningless drivel, Rathe launched a wild assault. Treon blocked the blows without surrendering an inch of ground, even as he delivered a half dozen slices and pricks to Rathe’s flesh.

Feigning exhaustion that was as real as the blood trickling over his skin, Rathe lured Treon close, then feinted with a slash at the captain’s neck. Treon’s sword deflected the attack, and Rathe sunk his fist into the man’s belly. Treon’s breath whistled as he lurched back. Rathe swung his blade as if chopping cordwood. Treon fell to one knee, reflexively bringing up his sword. Rathe’s weapon missed splitting the captain’s head by an inch. His sword slammed into Treon’s, and then both blades crashed against the captain’s brow. Rathe swung again, but Treon pivoted on his knee, his opposite foot sweeping Rathe off his feet.

Rathe landed hard, rolled, and came up sucking precious air. Treon jumped to a defensive crouch at the same instant. Blood oozed from a cut on his forehead, but otherwise he seemed unhurt. They took measure of one another, waiting, tensing-

“Fire!” a soldier yelled.

Treon shot a quick glance that way, and Rathe attacked, his only goal to keep everyone focused on the fight. Blades flickered and crashed together in a blurring silver whirlwind, rebounded and fell again. Every breath burned like a poison vapor in Rathe’s chest as he fought. Treon moved much like his namesake, darting and striking, a deadly viper playing with its prey, wearing it down. The murderous heat in his gaze did not soften, and the longer the struggle went on, the more it seemed he might forget his desire to see Rathe into Sanouk’s hands.

Through it all, no one moved to put out the blazing wagons, and the sound of horse’s neighing in alarm grew louder. Loro stood between the wagons, trapped between helping Rathe and obeying him. Rathe kicked a glop of mud into Treon’s face, distracting him long enough to motion for Loro to leave. The fat man hesitated a moment longer, then vanished into the forest behind a trio of horses.

Rathe barely caught a sword blow aimed for his neck. Steel shrieked as the edge of Treon’s sword slid down Rathe’s, jarring to a stop at the cross-guard. Pressed chest to chest, Rathe slammed his knee into the captain’s groin, then he flung him away with the last of his dwindling strength.

Staggering, sweat pouring into his eyes, Rathe tottered back. The tip of his sword dragged through the mud, his stumbling feet struggled to hold him upright. He could not last much longer. Without a chance of defeating Treon, he must surrender to keep the man from killing him, and hope that Loro would find a way to set him free before reaching Hilan.

Treon charged, white hair flying, screaming like a scalded woman. Rathe brought his dagger to bear, using it to parry strikes he missed with his sword. A debilitating ache grew in his shoulders, his guard became a series of flinches. Treon pressed the attack, but could not sneak or batter through Rathe’s defenses. At last, he stumbled back, panting every bit as much as Rathe.

“Enough! Take this fool, and cage him!”

For a moment, everyone froze in place.

“There are no cages,” Carul said.

“And no horses,” a soldier added.

Treon put another two paces between himself and Rathe, and glanced at the burning wagons. “You dirty, cheating cur!” he screeched, points of red blooming on his cheeks. “You planned this. You and that corpulent heap of shite!”

Rathe had no breath for words, so he put on a mocking grin.

“Three of you, bind this fool,” Treon snarled. “The rest, fetch the horses. Do it, or I will cut the beating hearts from every one of you mother-buggering idiots!”

Had the men challenged his threat, Treon would have died. Instead, they obeyed the order and came for Rathe.

Having accomplished what he set out to do, Rathe offered no resistance as the Hilan men bound him. Erryn had escaped with the others from Valdar, but Rathe must give them all the extra time he could, and that meant becoming a prisoner again. Doubtless, Loro watched from the forest. Come for me, brother, Rathe thought, scanning the motionless woods. Come for me, or I am a dead man.

Chapter 25

Having ordered all the torches and braziers extinguished, Lord Sanouk ghosted along the crenelated battlements in utter darkness. He halted behind a lichen-crusted merlon and peeked around the edge. Lit by roaring bonfires, the terraced village shone like a tawdry jewel in the night. Where he had commanded the fortress made dark, he ordered the village to burn brightly. Something stalked within the brooding forest. He knew not the face it wore, man or beast, but he wanted its gaze drawn to the village, not the now vulnerable keep.

Two patrols lost…. It was not the first time the thought had assailed him, nor the hundredth. The first patrol set out at dawn three days past, but had not returned. Initially, Sanouk dismissed their absence. His soldiers often rode into the forest, passing the time drinking, hunting, and getting up to all manner of mischief. By the second evening, he had grown apprehensive that something was amiss. The next dawn, he was certain trouble had befallen his men.

He sent more soldiers to seek the missing patrol, having decided that if a rogue band of bandits had attacked his men-perhaps a group not in his service-then they would reap the rewards of such foolishness. That decision, along with Captain Treon’s absence, greatly weakened the garrison, but Sanouk had carried no fear in his heart.

Another day and now half a night had passed, and he had heard nothing, seen not one wounded survivor. The villagers, having lost many of their own in recent days to Sanouk’s secretive hunts, thought sure they guarded against a Shadenmok and her devil-hounds. But Shadenmok only attacked well-armed and — armored companies when desperate to feed. Other devilish creatures haunted the deepest reaches of the Gyntors, as well, but like the Shadenmok, such beasts usually sought the weakest and most vulnerable.

If not a Shadenmok or some other fell creature, then what had dispatched over thirty hardened soldiers? Surely no marauding party of witless brigands. With Captain Treon late returning, Sanouk had no choice but to consider that Mitros, scoundrel that he was, had grown weary of his role as a servant, and decided to rejoin his life as a brigand leader. Hard as it was to believe, the possibility existed that the brutish drunkard was making a bid on taking the north for himself….

The thought turned Sanouk’s bowels to water. His concern was not for Treon, or any threat Mitros might pose, but rather that without prisoners from Valdar to offer Gathul, the god’s insatiable hunger would turn on him. “… unless you would rather slake my hungers with the meat of your own soul?” so Gathul had asked of him.

It had been no question, rather a threat of a fate worse than any endured by his sacrifices, who lived on in their tombs under the fortress, suffering the pangs of various deaths, but undying. In his heart, Sanouk understood that Gathul would destroy his body, but that his soul would linger in eternal agony, a toy for the cruel god.

He glanced at a passing soldier carrying a spear slanted across his chest. Any sacrifice would do. Sanouk shook the thought away. He could not very well offer up his men … at least not yet. There was still some small time, a day, perhaps two, before Gathul grew restless. In truth, he did not know. I must hurry.

Sanouk scanned the village, filled with slovenly wretches with no real purpose in existing save to serve him. For now, he needed but one. But who would garner the least resistance?

A long thin face bearing the ravages of a childhood pox showed itself in his mind, dull muddy eyes, hanks of greasy gray hair. The master of hounds … Zarik. Yes, he would do.

An accusation of treason or thievery would suffice to place him in Sanouk’s custody without worry of protest. No one, even among the villagers, loved Zarik. The man’s sacrifice would purchase Sanouk another few days to find more offerings … unless, that was, Gathul once again changed their agreement. Already, what had been a month between sacrifices had become a fortnight, had become a meager handful of days. And what if it comes to pass that the demon demands multiple sacrifices in a single day?

Sanouk told himself that would never happen, for such a demand would lead to his inability to provide the sustenance the god desired. Another question rose up, one that had started him from a deep sleep some nights past. Needs aside, what of Gathul’s deeper cravings?

When first considered, he had convinced himself that Gathul wanted nothing more than the occasional offering in return for his rewards. Since then, the idea had begun to trouble Sanouk that Gathul considered the sacrifices appetizing morsels, but actually desired to glut upon the flesh of just one soul-that of his servant and conjurer-even if that feeding locked the god within his realm for another long age.

Sanouk swallowed, his mouth and throat dry as bones bleached white under the desert sun. The unholy words he had used to summon the god, also bound him to Gathul. Agreements could be met between the god and the summoner, Undai had told Sanouk, but never coerced. And I agreed to every word Gathul has suggested.

Sanouk swallowed again, almost gagging on a sudden wave of terror. Had Gathul been manipulating him all along, pressing him to accept more and more difficult measures … measures that if not met assured that the final, most sought after sacrifice, would be his own?

“What’s that?”

The whispered question intruded upon Sanouk’s terrorized considerations. Two soldiers stood nearby, pointing. Following their fingers, Sanouk detected stealthy movement within the wooded murkiness west of the village, where the forest grew closest to the wooden palisade. With movement came sounds, ponderous groans and creaks.

“Siege engines,” someone gasped.

Sanouk frowned, denying what his eyes showed him. No force had dared attack the fortress of Hilan in generations. Denial or not, a dozen or more wheeled ballistae and mangonels trundled from the edge of the forest toward the village. The warriors pushing the light weapons wore raiment out of a bard’s tale, all of bright colors and burnished helms. No banners led their advance, and the distance was too great to make out the devices on the glimmering breastplates worn by the assaulting force.

Instead of panic spreading through the village, the western gate scraped open, disgorging a stream of folk to surge toward the rolling weaponry, all cheering like a band of lackwits. After a brief consultation with the garishly clad soldiers, the villagers lent their strength to pushing the siege weapons. Those who had remained in the village began dousing the bonfires, torches, and all else that provided light within the village’s walls. In moments, the cleared land beyond the fortress lay under the blanket of night. The sounds of wooden wheels clattering nearer mingled with the chant of, “Heave! Heave! Heave!”

“They mean to attack the keep!” a soldier cried in disbelief.

Sanouk turned his mind to the dusty chambers below the keep, where waited throwing arms, wheels, and all else needed to construct a half dozen catapults. Years and termites had rendered them unusable, long before he had found himself the Lord of Hilan. The curtain wall had once supported hoardings from which soldiers could drop stones or pour boiling oil, but like the catapults, they had long since been deemed unnecessary and dismantled. That left the curtain wall itself, and the dry moat filled with slanting wooden spikes and barbed caltrops.

“Duras!” Sanouk called to the sergeant serving in Treon’s stead.

The old soldier, who had lost and eye and half his nose in some bygone skirmish, trotted near. “We are under attack, milord!”

“I know that, you imbecile! I want archers placed-”

The thunder of hooves crossing the drawbridge cut off his command. The drawbridge!

Sanouk peered down, fearing a column of cavalry had come upon the fortress unawares. Instead he found a small cluster of riders. Has the enemy sent a representative to treat with me?

“Open the gates,” Captain Treon called out.

“Let him pass!” Sanouk shouted.

He wheeled and ran, all thoughts of the defending the fortress pushed to the back of his mind. He was standing before the gatehouse, surrounded by torch-bearing soldiers, before it struck him that Treon had returned without the prisoner wagons, and his company was half the size it should be.

“Milord,” Treon said, climbing out of the saddle, “I fear that-”

“Where are the prisoners?” Sanouk demanded, heart fluttering in his chest. If he had no sacrifices to offer Gathul, his life was forfeit.

“We were set upon by a Shadenmok and her hounds.”

“Where are the prisoners!” Sanouk shrieked. A Shadenmok attack might have merit at any other time, but not now. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he could feel the stirrings of a presence rising up from the stones underfoot and caressing his skin. And was that the cold, dead breath of the god in his ear? Sanouk felt clamped inside a great, invisible fist. His inner thoughts, usually cool and calculating, began to gibber. Someone, any soldier or servant, must soon be offered up!

“During the battle-” Treon faltered, then regained his composure “-they escaped.”

“Escaped?” Sanouk blurted, thrusting his nose against Treon’s, forcing the man to step back. “I warned you how vital these prisoners were. That you have failed means only one thing!”

Treon stepped back farther, shaking his head. “No. Not me. Take him-take Rathe! He freed the prisoners, then set upon me!”

Sanouk took in the hooded figure bound to the saddle, and the uncomfortable shifting from the other soldiers at Treon’s accusation. “Is this true?” He had hoped to turn Rathe to his needs. A man of renown would serve well as his voice and hand of authority.

The hooded head shifted in his direction, and a tired but proud voice said, “It is.”

Then I have my sacrifice. It was a pity, but he had greater concerns than using the esteemed Scorpion to enforce his will-

The short blast of a horn cut off his thought. Then, from beyond the wall came a series of heavy, clacking thuds, followed by the whistling screams of falling arrows and shouting men. A moment later, a rain of stone shot crashed against the curtain wall, while more hammered into the bailey.

“Raise the bridge and bar the gates!” Sanouk bellowed.

As men scurried to obey, Treon rasped, “We are under attack?”

“It would appear so,” Sanouk answered in an acid tone, his mind turning inward to more important matters. “Keep the fortress intact, Treon, or I will have off your head.”

“What of the traitor?”

“Trust that I will see to him.”

Chapter 26

“… I will see to him….”

Rathe did not resist when hands dragged him from the saddle. Though he could not see, the racket of yelling soldiers scrambling for cover as hurled stones crashed against the walls, and the distinctive whickering hiss of massive bolts fired from ballistae, painted a clear picture in his mind of the attack. He wanted to believe Loro led the assault, but could not conceive how the man would have come upon the means to lay siege. It was, Rathe supposed, a mystery to which he’d never learn the answer, unless he could find a way to get free.

There came a meaty thwack, followed by a gurgling scream; one of the spear-sized arrows had found its mark. The horns beyond the curtain wall sounded again, and another volley of stone shot exploded around him.

“Come!” Sanouk ordered, dragging Rathe across the ward by a length of rope tied to his bound wrists. Like a calf to the slaughter.

Rathe stumbled blindly. “Free me, and I will lend my sword to defending the fortress and the village.” He had no intention of fulfilling that pledge, only wanted a sword back in his hands. Two days had passed since the Shadenmok attack, and he was barely stronger than when he had fought Treon, but with the keep under attack, he might just have an advantage to escape.

“I think not,” Sanouk said, slamming heavy doors on the clamor of battle. “My intentions require that you live, after a fashion, not perish guarding this blasted heap of stone.”

“Is that supposed to be a riddle?” Rathe said.

Sanouk ignored the question, bustling him down echoing corridors filled with murmuring servants. As they moved deeper into the keep, Rathe went back to loosening his bindings, much as he had been doing since Treon tied him into the saddle. By now, the ropes had chaffed his skin raw. He ignored the discomfort, subtly twisting his wrists against each other.

When Sanouk pulled him up short and rattled a key in a lock, Rathe tried to wrench free of his bindings. The ropes scraped over the back of one hand, nearing his knuckles. So close!

Sanouk shoved him into a cooler space, a door thudded closed, then the lead rope tightened again as Sanouk set off down a steep flight of stairs. After those ended, the ground underfoot became uneven rock and dirt. Rathe made an effort to map every twist of their path. After a series of sharp turns, Rathe collided with a wall of undressed stone, and he imagined a warren of caves, perhaps an ancient mine.

After some time, he detected a cold, musty odor passing through the weave of the sack over his head. Below that, the scent of moldering linens. The farther they went, twisting and turning, another smell intruded, dominating all others. Burial spices. A catacomb? Sanouk’s words rose up. “My intentions require that you live, after a fashion….”

Combined with the certainty that he now strode amongst the dead, the tenor of Lord Sanouk’s odd pronouncement drew a clammy sweat from Rathe’s pores. The living did not mingle lightly with the dead. A word flitted through his mind: Necromancy. Sanouk had not struck him as a mystic or conjurer, but that meant nothing. Nesaea had denied being a seer, yet she had seemingly described his future, a truth he could not deny, as he had been beset by troubles since the night in her shiplike wagon. Whatever Sanouk was, it meant trouble for Rathe.

He redoubled the painful labor of extricating himself from his bindings. Blood began to seep, working like an oil between his skin and the hempen cords. Closer … an inch more!

Sanouk halted abruptly, and a prickly sensation slithered over Rathe’s skin, like a presence … a spirit of darkness given life.

“I had not expected to find you waiting,” Sanouk said to someone else, his fearful tone at odds with his normal air of authority.

“You play a dangerous game, human,” a deep voice grated, as if from a bottomless well. “You agreed to my terms, yet at every turn, you push the bounds of my leniency.”

“Forgive me,” Sanouk groveled. “There was an unforeseen hindrance. But you see, I have not failed!” he added, his tone a queer mix of pleading and triumph.

At the first syllable from that other being, Rathe had abandoned secrecy, and he began wrenching violently at his bindings. Blood slicked his hands and wrists, but the cords stubbornly held fast.

“Prepare yourself, human, for I will not sup from a plate given me by tainted hands.”

“Of course,” Sanouk babbled. “But I … I have a request.”

An affronted quiet held. The air grew colder, denser. “Speak.”

“The keep is under attack. If you would but lend your strength to the battle, then I can continue to … to adequately serve you.” This last sounded forced, as if Sanouk had only just admitted to himself that he ruled nothing, not even his own flesh, but rather labored at the behest of that other.

Booming, mocking laughter fell like a blow. “You serve, human, at my pleasure and your own foolishness. Your petty conflicts are the strivings of a witless race enthralled by the acts of rutting, gluttony, and the spilling of blood. You sought to gain advantage in those pursuits by awakening me from my long slumber. The rewards I promised, I have given. I will grant no more beyond them. See to your own battles, human, and give unto me the requirements of our agreement-soon-or suffer the reaping of your own wretched soul.”

“Of course,” Sanouk babbled. “Anything you desire, master. Anything.”

Feet scuffed near.

“What do you mean to do?” Rathe demanded, wanting no part of whatever madness Sanouk had conjured. He continued to tug at the cords about his wrists.

A soft whooshing noise filled his ears in answer, followed by a thudding blow and the sound of shattering earthenware. Skull ringing, Rathe jerked stiff as a board, and fell into the arms of a gripping emptiness….

Chapter 27

The nightmare had no beginning and no end, broken only by Sanouk’s ever more frequent comings and goings. Nesaea languished in the agonizing grasp of a formless adversary, every inch of her flesh tortured in a thousand different ways. When she built a defense against the suffering, that sentient pain sought the breaks in her feeble armor and burrowed deep into her thoughts.

Always madness threatened, an alluring entity with its own purposes and desires. She resisted succumbing to that inviting spell, for no more reason than that it was an enemy she could recognize and fight. Ofttimes it wore the face of Lord Sanouk, at others the likeness of the god Gathul, who had fettered her soul in invisible bonds that licked and tasted her being.

When two figures entered the chamber, she almost dismissed their arrival, too weary to witness another innocent fall to Sanouk and the deity he served. The second man, hooded and led on a rope by Sanouk, roused her from lethargic indifference to full awareness. Something about the set of the second man’s shoulders drew her eye. She peered through the impenetrable, gangrenous wall between them. Caught between hope and horror, recognition dawned.

Moaning, Nesaea sat up, crusted vomit and dried blood flaking off her skin. Every inch she moved brought more pain, more weakness, but she fought it. Despite knowing he could not hear her, any more than she could hear what went on outside her prison, she cried a warning. The words, unintelligible, spilled off her dry tongue. She worked to bring saliva to her parched mouth, grimacing at the acidic flavor of old vomit. Clawing her hands over the walls of her tomb, she got her feet under her and managed to stand.

“Rathe,” she croaked, stomach lurching with a fresh wave of nausea. She pounded the transparent wall before her nose. “Rathe!”

Gathul hove into view, wearing its spirit form, a menacing darkness little more substantial than the wall of her prison. That was better than its bloated corporeal body of corruption, all of hanging male and female flesh. Sanouk and the god conversed, the lord’s face growing more fearful by the moment.

Nesaea ran shaky fingers over the stubborn obstacle to her freedom, seeking any means by which she could pry open the barrier. As ever, no chink showed itself. “Rathe!” she shrieked again. “Go! Run!”

Lost beneath a dirty sack, Rathe’s head turned toward Sanouk. He might have said something, for Sanouk looked his way, then glanced at Rathe’s frantic efforts to loose the bindings at his wrists. Without warning, the lord retrieved an urn and smashed it against Rathe’s head. Shattered crockery and sand flew as Rathe pitched over, rigid as a dead man.

“No,” Nesaea moaned.

Sanouk struggled to heft Rathe onto the greenstone altar, then dragged off his clothing. After he had his sacrifice arranged, Sanouk darted out of the chamber and returned a moment later with a tiny bronze brazier in one hand, and a dark flask held in the other.

With practiced efficiency, he kindled a small fire, poured bits of charred wood onto the flames from an earthenware pot. Once the coals went from black to a glowing, smokeless red, he settled the flask amongst them.

He conversed again with Gathul. Then, fingers shaking, he stripped off his clothing and began to perform the cleansing ritual. Blocking the chamber’s sole doorway, the god’s misty form roiled, a chaos of eager smoke.

Nesaea fell back weeping, fearing the manner of death Sanouk would choose to inflict upon Rathe. She slid down the rough stone wall at her back, her fleeting hope threatened by the madness she had kept at bay so long.

Chapter 28

Rathe came awake, head splitting. He kept his eyes closed, listening to soft scraping sounds, smelling a sweet fragrance intermingled with wood smoke. Ropes still bound his hands at his waist, and he lay upon a cold surface that conformed to his naked body, and seemed to hold him in place like the mouth of a leech. Held though he was, he felt sure he could break free when the time came.

“As you are here already, master,” Sanouk asked in a quaking voice, “should … should I speak the words of summoning?”

“Speak them, human,” came a stony growl, “for they fill me with pleasure.”

Rathe dared not move his head, but cracked his eyelids. A rough stone ceiling vaulted over him, and a pocket of shifting blackness hovered at the edge of his vision. Tentatively, he tested his bonds. When the rope slid over the knuckles of one hand with little effort, he forced himself to stay put, knowing he must learn all he could of his enemy before he acted. Too soon, and any limited advantage he had would perish.

Sanouk cleared his throat, once and again, then cried out, “Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

Those arcane words cascaded around the chamber, gaining strength with echoes, and filled Rathe with a sense of utter loss and despair. He fought those emotions, trying to find courage, strength, fury, anything that might ward against a sense of absolute futility.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

A cold stirring raised gooseflesh on Rathe’s skin. Shadows multiplied and deepened. Fear, stronger than any he had known fighting on countless fields of battle, threatened to unman him.

Will you die here, unresisting, on this stone slab? Rathe’s heart jolted in his chest at the significance of that unspoken question. Will you be the calf to slaughter … will you allow your soul to be stolen? Denying the possibility, Rathe shook his head, and in so doing looked directly at the darkness he had previously seen from the corner of his eye.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

That dark menace basked in the resounding wickedness of Sanouk’s incantation, a creature of lightless spirit. Rathe now knew that Sanouk had raised a churning ebon blasphemy from beyond the outer darkness.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!” Sanouk cried again, building into a fervent crescendo. Neither the worshipped nor the worshipper were paying Rathe any mind.

With Sanouk and the deity distracted, Rathe heaved himself free of the table’s grasp, thinking only to find a means to escape. All that changed when he hit the floor and found himself staring into the bulging eyes of a young boy trapped behind an impossible wall of rippling water. The child showed no outward indication of being submerged, but his mouth worked as if drowning.

Thinking he had lost his wits, Rathe turned and found a charred figure behind a wall of roiling flame. Without question it was a woman. She flailed and screamed soundlessly, burning toe to crown … yet the fires did not consume what was left of her flesh. By all the gods-

The thought cut off. Trapped within upright tombs, more people lined the walls of the chamber, all held behind various barriers. Through a misty gray pane, a woman who looked vaguely familiar clawed at a rope around her neck; behind a wall of flowing blood, an old man bled from gaping eye sockets and from dozens of stabs and cuts.

Revulsion welled in Rathe, becoming horror as he took in more victims of what could be no less than Sanouk’s contemptible offerings to the monstrous god he served. His sweeping gaze halted on a staring figure beyond a wall hued after rank corruption. Nesaea?

Her eyes rolled, blinking dazedly. Unknown filth covered her face and breasts in crusted lines. Her hair stuck out in wild tangles. Madness and recognition battled for dominance in her stare, but it was Nesaea. By Ahnok, what has he done to you?

All the fear and hopelessness that had fallen on Rathe at hearing Sanouk’s vile conjuring became as oil-soaked tinder. Nesaea reaching out to him with trembling fingers served as the spark that ignited a murderous conflagration in his heart.

“Blessed be the Reaper of Sorrows,” Sanouk howled, “accept this offering from the hands of your imperfect servant!”

Rathe stood up behind the greenstone altar as Sanouk turned. He gaped at the man’s nakedness, wondering fleetingly what manner of madness had taken the Lord of Hilan. Before Sanouk could react, Rathe threw himself headlong over the altar and slammed into him, driving him hard against a wall. To one side the god boiled, a black and shapeless thing shot-through with agitated webs of crackling energy. The hair on Rathe’s head stood up when the creature loomed nearer.

Desperate to get clear, Rathe smashed a fist against Sanouk’s mouth and spun away, his feet tangling in the lord’s clothing folded on the ground. Next to the robes waited a scabbarded sword. Without pause, Rathe caught up the blade and slung the elaborate leather scabbard away. Naked and gasping, Rathe danced back, weapon at the ready.

Sanouk grinned, lips spilt and bloody. He spoke to his god. “Master, though he was meant for an offering, I beg your leave to destroy this wretched man.”

“A sacrifice must be prepared according to my precepts,” the god rumbled. “Thus far, human, you have only begun the rites. Finish your preparations, or it is your soul which is forfeit, not this other’s.”

“As you command,” Sanouk said, sounding none too happy.

Rathe wasted no time with honor or fair play. He slammed the sword past the lord’s ribs, skewering his heart, and leaped back, tearing the blade free, his mind already turning to dealing with the fiendish god.

Sanouk’s laughter arrested his attention. Instead of dying, he strode forward, no evidence of a wound upon his breast. Rathe stared, shaken. Before debilitating confusion could sweep over him, he attacked again. The unhindered blade hewed through Sanouk’s neck, the steel cleaving flesh and crushing bone. It flashed clear … leaving Sanouk unblemished. He did not slow his advance.

Were it not for the presence of the deity, Rathe’s mind would have unraveled. He had never had any dealings with dark gods or those who summoned them, but tales spoke of their powers, and the unholy gifts they granted their servants. Doubtless, Sanouk had been given immunity to death-at least by way of edged steel. But there are many ways a man might die, Rathe thought.

When Sanouk came close enough, Rathe dropped the sword and wrapped his fingers around the man’s throat, his thumbs pressing hard against Sanouk’s windpipe. The lord rammed his head against Rathe’s nose, bringing a gout of blood.

Rathe retreated, eyes watering, face throbbing. As he moved, his gaze flickered over the eyeless man behind the wall of blood, the woman straining to tear the rope from her neck, the burning girl, and finally Nesaea. Others suffered, all subjected to various forms of punishment.

Not punishment … death. Understanding flared in Rathe’s racing mind. Lord Sanouk’s resistance must be linked to the entombed! So, what if they are freed?

Rathe darted around a smoldering brazier with a flask nestled within its glowing embers, and slammed the heel of his palm against Nesaea’s prison. It was akin to striking a block of unyielding ice. She stared out, eyes forlorn, pleading.

“There is nothing you can do to release them,” Sanouk laughed, as Rathe picked up an ewer near the alter and bashed it against the greenish barrier. The earthenware jar fragmented, spilling a flood of fragrant oil.

“What do you want?” Rathe shouted, backing out of Sanouk’s reach.

“To drown you in boiling oil. You see, Scorpion, your flesh must suffer, so that mine will-”

Rathe struck with his fist, rending the skin over Sanouk’s cheekbone, then rammed the other fist into his naked belly. Where nothing else had served to harm Sanouk, Rathe’s fists did. For the barest moment Sanouk appeared shaken, then he pounced. Outcast prince or not, he was no weakling, and not inexperienced to the ways of using fists and feet as weapons.

A flashing series of blows to Rathe’s ribs, chest, and jaw left him gasping through a mouth pouring blood. A solid kick to his groin doubled him over.

Rathe crabbed back, groaning. Sanouk closed in, cautious, but with confidence burning in his eyes. He reared back to drive a fist against the back of his opponent’s neck, and Rathe dove under the strike, slamming the top of his skull against the middle of Sanouk’s chest, driving out his last breath.

They fell into a writhing heap, bloodied knuckles lashing out, elbows and knees battering vulnerable muscles and joints. Dust flew around them, and the swirling god grew more agitated, its flesh changing.

Rathe heaved to one side, rolling atop Sanouk, and set to pummeling the lord’s face. Sanouk flailed about and inadvertently jammed a thumb in his eye. Rathe floundered back, and Sanouk threw him wide.

Half-blind, Rathe somersaulted unsteadily to his feet. Covered in smears of bloodied dirt, Sanouk came up with his sword in hand, the point aimed at Rathe’s heart.

Rathe chuckled wetly and spat. “A pity you cannot kill me. Unless, of course, you have another offering hidden near to hand?”

Lord Sanouk halted, a measure of his fury dwindling from his gaze. A moment more, he bared his teeth. “I cannot kill you … but there is nothing stopping me from hacking off your limbs.”

With that warning alone, Rathe threw himself backward as the sword split the air, narrowly missing his legs. He toppled to the ground and rolled clear. When he came to rest, he felt baking heat near his face. An inch more, and the brazier would have seared his cheek. With a clear if desperate strategy in his mind, he clambered to his knees, grasped the brazier’s wire handle, and flung the brazier and its smoldering contents into Sanouk’s face. Even as the flying embers struck, Rathe thought of the burning girl, and his heart sank.

The brazier bounced off Sanouk and struck the chamber’s floor with a dull clang. Then Sanouk was screaming, scrambling away, an oily sheen spreading over his reddening torso and groin. Where he had begun his retreat lay the broken flask that had been nestled within the brazier’s coals, the last of its steaming contents soaking into the dust.

“… to drown you in boiling oil,” Sanouk’s voice whispered in Rathe’s memory. By all the gods, he meant it!

Rathe went after the howling sadist. Grappling him to the ground, ignoring the searing heat of the oil, he twined his fingers through Sanouk’s hair, and began pounding the back of his head against the floor. The lord fought back, clawing and punching, but his efforts weakened quickly.

In the back of Rathe’s mind, he was grateful for the man’s pride and shortsightedness. Sanouk had never bargained with the god to gain protection from someone trying to beat him to death, for highborn did not oft suffer such base abuses. But you will this day … milord.

As that derisive thought flickered though his mind, a rasping hiss alerted Rathe to a newcomer.

“Whoreson!” Treon shouted, slamming his boot against Rathe’s chin, knocking him off Sanouk. He tumbled, the chamber a flickering kaleidoscope of flaring lights and blurred images swimming before his eyes. He fetched up against the bloody man’s upright tomb and lay gasping.

One step ahead of the hovering god-which had taken the shape of a nightmare made of bruised and hanging flesh-Treon knelt by Sanouk. His tabard was torn and slashed, and one side of his face was a mass of charred blisters, but he seemed not to notice any pains. “Milord?”

Sanouk groaned, eyes rolling.

“Stand away, human,” the god grated. “Your lord has failed to finish the prescribed rites, and so has failed to meet his obligations … and so, at last, I will sup upon the sweet tenderness of his soul.”

Treon threw himself over Sanouk’s chest and raised a hand, forestalling the deity. His face writhed with terror, but also defiance. He cast a look at Sanouk, eyes burning with a hound’s devotion to its master. “Take me!” he blurted. “I will serve as the offering!”

Rathe chuckled grimly at the futility of such a gesture, but the god’s reaction stunned him to silence.

“Indeed?” Gathul growled, its oddly intrigued voice booming within the chamber’s confines. Dust sifted down from the ceiling.

“Y-yes,” Treon stammered, his pale face fearful but resolved.

The god stared, a score of deep-set eyes glowing crimson from a lumpen, inhuman face. It reached out a hand sporting too many clawed fingers, and touched Treon’s quivering brow. The captain’s eyes rolled up and his lips went slack; drool collected at the corners of his mouth, dripped to his chest. Abruptly, the god withdrew its touch.

“Yours is a heart of treachery, a soul of emptiness filled with pathetic cruelties … but in your proclamation, you are sincere. In the judgment of gods, such unrestrained sacrifice absolves past transgressions, making yours a worthy ransom. The covenant between your lord and myself is sundered, his deeds and blessings undone by a sacrifice of the willing. What is done cannot be undone. And the price, human, is your soul.” The god did not sound displeased, but eager.

Looking suddenly unsure about his choice, Treon shrank away when the Gathul threw back its head, obsidian fangs masticating around spiteful laughter. Rathe shuddered, for behind those glinting teeth reality had no meaning. As if seen from a great distance, waited a plane of cracked reddish stone and lakes of thick, bubbling black fluid. Beneath a sky of roiling green fire, emaciated figures sheathed in flaking parchment skin capered madly in a horrific parody of dance. Faintly, he could hear their tormented wails, their begging for respite.

The god dissolved into a billowing mass blacker than ten sins, obscuring the vision. Gathul fell upon a screaming Treon, enveloping him.

Rathe scuttled back, sickened as that vaporous form wrapped tight about the captain, at first clinging like a second skin, then pressing inward. Treon’s struggles went on far longer than Rathe cared to watch, but he was helpless to look away.

By increments, Treon’s flailing ceased, his screams died, and his limbs folded and snapped with grisly crunching sounds, until nothing remained save a shrinking ebon ball. Rathe shivered with dread. He had despised Treon, but no man deserved such a terrible fate.

When smaller than the tip of his little finger, the tiny sphere that had been Gathul vanished with a resounding clap of thunder, and an invisible force buffeted Rathe.

After silence fell again, he opened his eyes and found that the entombed captives had toppled from their now open prisons.

Chapter 29

Rathe shot a glance at a groaning, stuporous Sanouk. Where he would not have condemned Treon to such a monstrous sentence as Gathul had delivered upon him, Sanouk was another matter. The Lord of Hilan had knowingly and willingly subjected his sacrifices to unimaginable torments. For such evil, he had earned a slow, agonizing death.

With some effort, Rathe gained his feet, intending to set upon Sanouk, but then Nesaea was before him, her shivering arms thrown around his neck, clutching him tight. They held each other until the wretched sounds of agony, terror and madness intruded upon their reunion.

“We must help them,” Nesaea said in a hoarse voice.

“You need rest,” Rathe protested, glancing again at Sanouk, a bloody and beaten wreck. By all appearances, he was not going anywhere.

Nesaea rested her hands on Rathe’s chest. “Sanouk poisoned me, but now that I am free, I find that my torments have mostly run their course. For some of these others, that is not so.” Whatever she had suffered, she pushed aside, and helped Rathe see to the others.

Where Nesaea went to free the gagging woman with the noose around her neck, Rathe moved to the burning girl. Smoking and charred, she stared at him from lidless eyes. There was nothing he could do, save hold her. She shook violently in his arms, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Trying to speak, her eyes glazed, and her spirit fled.

Shaken, Rathe moved away and saw to the drowning boy, who lay on his back, coughing. When his pale blue eyes rolled toward Rathe, some measure of their fear evaporated. “The Scorpion!” he gasped, as if he had been waiting for Rathe to show himself.

“I have been called that,” Rathe said, sensing that the boy would not tolerate a denial. “You need to rest.”

“Father says I am fierce as a wolf,” the boy said.

“I would judge that you are even fiercer.”

On the far side of the chamber, a man began howling, his arms wrapped around his head. Others who had been imprisoned curled on the ground in tight, protective balls. Before Rathe could go to them, a bloody hand fell on his wrist. He faced the old eyeless man, every inch of his flesh sliced to ribbons. Like the burned girl, his tomb had kept him alive, where he should have perished quickly. Now freed, his time was short.

“I am Undai,” the dying man whispered. “It is I who awakened the god Gathul from its timeless slumber … I who sought its blessings.”

Rathe considered the confession, and knew it should anger him that so many had suffered for one fool’s desires, but looking upon the piteous wretch, he could find only remorse in his heart. Such foolish endeavors were the way of men, to seek easier paths to their wants. As long as men strode the world, limited only by their malleable integrity, such seeking and its consequences would never end.

“Rest easy,” Rathe said, knowing Undai had but moments to live.

Undai’s grip tightened. “You must destroy this place. Break the altar, seal the doorway. Ask after my home-a hovel in the woods beyond the village-and burn all that lies within. No one must ever find my secrets. No one!”

“I will do as you ask,” Rathe promised, despite knowing that in providing one barrier to forbidden fruits, another, somewhere else, would eventually be torn down.

“I … I am sorry,” Undai wheezed, chest hitching as he breathed his last.

A flash of movement drew Rathe’s eye to the open doorway. He glanced at the empty spot where Sanouk had been and cursed.

“You must capture him,” Nesaea called, rushing near.

“I must kill him,” Rathe amended, rising to his feet. He hesitated. “What of these others?”

“Only time and care can heal those yet tormented by the memory of their suffering.”

“I will send others to help,” Rathe said, turning toward the doorway.

Nesaea caught his arm, bleary eyes appraising his nakedness. “Unless you mean to fight as a savage of the western hill country, you need clothing-we all do.”

Rathe glanced down at himself. Dirty, scraped, bruised and bloody as he was, there was still no question that he wore not a stich of clothing. Of his own garb and Sanouk’s, there was no sign. He took up Sanouk’s sword, and gave Nesaea a grin. “Steel is all I need.” His grin broadened as his looked her over. “After a proper scrubbing, I’d rather you remain as you are.”

She slapped him, gently, but her return smile did not light her eyes. “Cut his demon’s heart from his chest.”

He kissed her brow, then ran from the chamber.

It took longer than he wished to escape the catacombs. With all that had happened, with his pains and weakness growing at every step, the map he had constructed in his mind proved fractured. If not for the few torches lighting the way, he might have been lost for hours. Had Sanouk been wise, he would have cast down those torches, but it seemed the lord’s only thoughts were for escape.

In time, Rathe found a long flight of steps. He took them up two at a time. Fury gave him strength, as much as his joy at finding Nesaea alive. At the top of the stairs, he came to a locked door. After several crashing blows with his shoulder, the bolt holding it closed ripped out of the doorpost and slammed open against the adjacent wall.

“Woman!” he roared, halting a servant scurrying down a long corridor. She spun and stared, mouth formed into a delicate circle of shock. “Gather clothing to cover a dozen people, and take it below. Mind you follow the torches,” he warned, thinking of his own troubles with escaping, “or you will become lost.”

“We are under attack,” the woman squeaked, twisting her hands together at her waist. She was young of face, with tired hazel eyes, but old and worn of body.

Rathe stalked forward, hand flexing the hilt of the sword, gaze fierce. She cowered, too caught by fear to dash away. He hated that he must put fear into her, but knew it was necessary in order to focus her mind on helping others, rather than herself.

“Take your fellows with you,” he said when he loomed over her. “Have them bring food and water, enough to last a day or two. Stay in the catacombs until I, or one of my men, return. You will be safe there.”

She fairly quivered before him, tears streaming from her closed eyes. He abruptly relented, and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. She flinched at his touch. “Did you see Lord Sanouk?”

At his gentle tone, she opened her eyes. “Yes,” she murmured, her initial terror melting away. “Just moments past, he ran through the halls, raving and dressed like a beggar, striking down any who blocked his way.”

“He fled the keep?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” she said, dropping her gaze. She made a startled little squawk, and looked away from his unclothed loins.

The keep under attack, Sanouk fled, and I am naked as newborn. “Do as I say,” he commanded, and set off down the corridor.

He did not go far before coming to the lord’s chambers. He ducked in and squandered precious moments rifling through a wardrobe, before finding leather breeches and a long blue coat embroidered with silver thread at the cuffs and collar-attire suited for feasting rather than battle, but better than having everyone he encountered look at him like a madman. Besides, if he had to mount a horse, doing so with a bare backside would be painful at best. A little more searching found him a pair of tooled leather riding boots.

He ran from the chambers, out of the keep’s open doors, and into the arms of a pitched battle highlighted by raging fires. Pained screams and shouts of command filled the bailey. A pretty woman bearing a long spear with a serrated tip darted past, her cloth-of-gold cape flying out behind, and sliver-chased bronze breastplate glinting with the light of a dozen blazes. Without hesitation, she joined two other women in equally garish armor, who fought against a handful of Hilan men.

Maidens of the Lyre … why are they here?

The shriek of a crossbow bolt flashing past his ear forced Rathe to dive behind a hay cart, scattering a trio of chickens in a feathery burst. With the chaos spreading, he took account of the battle.

The fortress gates stood open, blocked from closing by a discarded timber ram. What might have been an organized assault had degenerated into a dozen separate skirmishes. Some few Hilan men and Maidens of the Lyre tried to organize into battle formations, but the mad confusion of combat had tightened its grip over the hearts and wits of the opponents. Enough, Rathe saw, that some Hilan men were actually fighting each other.

None of that mattered. He sought only one man … and found him. Sanouk, clad in a mix of Rathe’s clothes and his own, shouted orders to a few soldiers ringing him about, defending against both Hilan men and Maidens of the Lyre. In that moment, Rathe realized the Hilan men had split their loyalties between Sanouk and the invaders.

Rathe came off his belly and sprinted across the bailey, weaving through clutches of soldiers and Nesaea’s counterparts, avoiding spear thrusts and slicing swords. He angled toward the widest opening in the ranks arrayed before Sanouk, and leaped.

Like an animal sensing danger, Lord Sanouk spun, glaring. Before Rathe’s feet lit upon the flagstones, Sanouk swept aside Rathe’s strike with his own blade and, still turning, slashed with the dagger held in his other hand. The blade sliced through Rathe’s coat, scoring his ribs. An instant later he crashed into Sanouk, and they went down in a struggling heap.

Rathe slammed his head on the flags, his teeth snapped tight on his tongue. He lurched to his feet, spitting blood, backpedaling. Sanouk came up a breath slower, but no less ready. His protective wall of steel and warriors, fragmented by Rathe’s brazen assault, could not help their lord for the press of their unrelenting foes.

“Even your most loyal hounds have abandoned you,” Rathe panted, circling just out of Sanouk’s reach.

“You will die, Scorpion.”

Rathe laughed. “Seems you have already tried to kill me. Yet here I stand, while your pet snake rots in the gullet of an avenging god.”

Sanouk’s faced hardened. He attacked, sword flashing in a deadly weave, dagger held in reserve. Rathe parried the blows, but he had suffered much abuse over the last many days, and his strength was already fleeing his limbs. If he did not end the contest quickly, he would die spitted on the end of Sanouk’s blade-

A blinding thrust flashed past his neck, bringing his mind to keen focus. Rathe jumped to the outside of Sanouk’s next lunge, and slashed at his face. Sanouk ducked, threw himself into a forward roll to gain distance, and came up in a guarded stance mirrored by Rathe.

They circled each other. The tip of Sanouk’s sword flickered once and again, quick as a serpent’s strike, leaving a gash on Rathe’s belly, another high on his chest. Rathe schooled his face to calm, but his heart quickened. Where he had barely bested Sanouk in a crude brawl, the man knew swordplay with a greater intimacy than had Captain Treon.

“You look worried, Scorpion,” Sanouk said, smiling now.

“Why should I have concern for a man who can now die as easily as any other?”

Around them, the fighting raged, a bedlam of shouts and the clangor of clashing steel, but there seemed to be a turning in favor of the Maidens and their allies. Rathe hoped it was so, for he did not think he could beat Sanouk, and the lord would never leave him alive.

With a shout, Lord Sanouk lunged. The two men beat their swords together, once, twice, and again. Rathe knew Sanouk was trying to force him to lock blades in order to bury the dagger in his ribs. After his last parry, Rathe retreated, feinted, then drew back farther.

Sanouk laughed. “Ever have I heard tales of your prowess, Scorpion, but you are more a chittering rat than a deadly foe.”

“Perhaps you have the way of it, milord,” Rathe said in a self-deprecating tone that was as much a lie as the smile on his face. He thought on the way the man had tried to gouge the dagger into his ribs at the first sign of his false attack. If he could-

He feinted before the strategy was fully formed, tossing his sword from one hand to the other. Sanouk reacted too late to the ploy, already hooking the dagger toward Rathe’s ribs, angled to drive cold steel into his heart.

Rathe caught the lord’s wrist in his free hand and slammed his sword against Sanouk’s, locking the cross-guards. They struggled, chest to chest. The dagger inched closer, eager to drink Rathe’s blood. His shoulder creaked under the strain, his sword arm began to shake. Sanouk’s dagger edged closer … closer … until the tip pricked through coat’s fine cloth and sank into Rathe’s skin.

“I will end you,” Sanouk growled. He spun them about and slammed Rathe against the stone wall of the barracks. The dagger’s point ground into one rib, scraping over bone.

Rathe tried to rouse his fleeing strength, only to grow weaker. With every heaving breath, the dagger gouged deeper into his rib, inching along the bone’s length, the blade slicing through skin and muscle as it went. Sweat poured over his brow, stung his eyes. He ground his teeth against the biting agony, but could not escape it. A finger’s width more, and the dagger would plunge. If he tried to butt his head against Sanouk’s, the dagger would skewer him. Neither could he shift the lord’s balance without suffering the same fate-

The dagger slipped, burrowing an inch between two ribs. Rathe bit back a howl, and Sanouk leaned his weight against the pommel of the dagger. Rathe squirmed, seeing not Sanouk’s over-bright black eyes before him, but Nesaea’s deep blue. Somewhere below his shifting feet, she waited for him to return.

“I will remember this night,” Sanouk snarled, pressing his nose against Rathe’s. “The night the Scorpion’s sting was made impotent. After your heart stills, I will drain your blood and trade it to a witch to use in her potions. I will remember-”

A bearlike growl rose above the discordant, steely clashes of battle. The lord jerked his head around, eyes going wide at the sight of a lumbering shape surging out of the shadows. A spasm of fear rippled his muscles, and the dagger pressed deeper into Rathe’s side.

Loro flew out of the fire-gilded night, smashing aside all obstacles, a woodsman’s maul raised above his head. At the last instant, Sanouk flung himself away from Rathe. The head of the iron maul crashed down, shattering the flagstones upon which the lord had stood. Off balance from his failed attack, Loro tripped and crashed headlong into a collection of empty crates and barrels.

Rathe plucked the dagger free of his flesh and hurled it at Sanouk’s face. The lord’s sword flashed, slapping the twirling blade aside. Still seeing Nesaea’s eyes in his mind, imagining the pain and horror Sanouk had wrought upon her and the others, Rathe charged.

Their swords clashed, and Rathe drove Sanouk back. With his free hand, he struck the lord’s chin a thudding blow. Eyes rolling and glazed, Sanouk fell. Rathe knocked aside the lord’s clumsy block and rammed his sword deep into the man’s groin. Sanouk shrieked like a woman, but with strength lent him by agony, he kicked Rathe away. Rathe reeled back, caught his balance, and again fell on Sanouk, his spirit burning with the need to dispatch this beast before him.

The lord came up before Rathe reached him, sword at the ready, but all his previous confidence had fled. Fear lit his eyes, and his lips trembled. He fought defensively now, with Rathe the aggressor. Rathe shouted his rage, and his blows crashed against Sanouk’s blade, again and again. Sanouk stumbled once more, and threw up his free hand in a warding gesture. Rathe’s sword flashed, and a pair of fingers flew. The lord staggered away.

“Your god awaits,” Rathe growled, and lunged. The tip of his sword skipped over the bridge of Sanouk’s nose and pierced one eye. Sanouk retreated, wailing. Rathe followed, each step deliberate, poised to take the lord’s head with his next blow-

A spear flew out of the night. Rathe twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding having his bowels skewered. With a vile curse, he spun back, but Sanouk had vanished. He cast about and found the lord racing toward the open gate. Rathe gave chase, but his rage gave him less strength than a man running for his life. For every step he took, Sanouk managed two.

“Stop him!” Rathe shouted. “Close the gate!”

Heads turned at the force of his command, but with the heat of battle still high, no one moved to obey. Unhindered, Sanouk leaped over the abandoned ram and sprinted free.

Rathe followed doggedly, but stumbled to a halt at the far end of the drawbridge, all his pains and weariness falling on him at once. He pressed a palm against the wound in his side, gulping breaths, and slowly sank to his knees.

Get up!

He tried, but could not. There was no strength left in him.

The night loomed all around, a motionless black curtain. He could make out the dim shapes of abandoned siege engines dotting the open field beyond the curtain wall, but nothing stirred.

“This is not finished between us!” Rathe bellowed.

“No, you shite eating cur, it is not.”

Rathe jerked around at that soft, hateful voice, and saw a smirking, blood-covered face floating in the gloom. He clambered to his feet. Before he managed a single step, an arrow cleaved the night and buried itself in his shoulder, scant inches from his throat. He staggered back, tugging at the offending shaft.

Missing fingers or not, Sanouk managed to nock another arrow. “You will fall by my hand,” the lord snarled. He raised the bow and drew back the string, making the weapon’s limbs creak.

Despite the darkness, Rathe saw his death in the man’s one-eyed stare. “I may fall,” he growled, “but I will watch you die before drawing my last breath.”

One arm dangling uselessly, Rathe gritted his teeth and ripped the arrowhead from his shoulder. He saw the hot wash of blood soak the sleeve and drip off his fingertips, but his wrath had grown beyond feeling such a trifling scratch.

Sanouk’s expression shifted from morbid glee to open-mouthed shock. And all the more so when Rathe rushed for him at a dead sprint. Rathe heard the snap of the bowstring, felt the shaft score his temple, but he did not slow, did not so much as flinch.

Out of arrows, Sanouk lifted the bow like a club and delivered a cracking blow across Rathe’s face. Stunned though he was, Rathe ducked the next swing, and rammed a hand’s span of the arrow’s length under Sanouk’s ribs. The breath blasted wetly from the lord’s mouth. Rathe ripped the arrow free, then jammed the crimson slathered broadhead into Sanouk’s throat. Before Sanouk could draw back, Rathe gave the slippery shaft a wicked twist, and then jerked the arrowhead free.

Sanouk stumbled back. Blood poured from his neck, and more bubbled over his lips. He tried to speak, but could only manage a gurgling hiss. Rathe struck once more, driving the arrowhead into Sanouk’s remaining eye, and deeper, piercing his brain. Jittering violently, Sanouk fell at Rathe’s feet, and abruptly went still.

“May you dance for Gathul,” he said, thinking on that other place he had seen behind the god’s teeth.

After a time, Rathe turned back to rejoin the battle, doubting he would achieve anything beyond getting himself killed. A triumphant shout gave him pause.

Loro burst through the gate, trailing a tangle of rope from one foot, and holding a broken barrel stave in each huge fist. He halted and caught Rathe in a rib-cracking bear hug. “You have done it!” he declared, settling an unsteady Rathe back to his feet.

“Done what?” Rathe asked, blinking in confusion. Only then did he recognize that the din of battle had ceased.

“When Sanouk fled,” Loro answered, “most of the men who sided with him dropped their swords and surrendered.”

“And those who did not yield?”

Loro’s face wrinkled sourly. “Those who the Maidens did not shoot full of arrows while scampering along the battlements, escaped over the wall.”

Rathe clapped Loro on the shoulder, and ended up leaning on the man. “If not for you, brother, that bastard might have gutted me. From now on, I should call you the Scorpion.”

Loro bellowed laughter. “I am a boar, not a creeping bug. Always was, always will be.” He grew serious. “You don’t suppose one of those fine wenches would let me nuzzle her-”

“I cannot help you with that,” Rathe interrupted, grinning wearily.

At that moment, Loro’s gaze fell on Sanouk’s corpse. “Gods and demons, you caught him? I thought he had escaped with the others.”

Rathe considered how the lord had waited for him in ambush-the man’s last and greatest gamble-but instead of trying to explain the encounter, he shrugged. Loro nodded, though questions burned in his eyes.

“Ask me on the morrow,” Rathe said, and Loro nodded again.

They walked back through the gates, Loro half-carrying Rathe. All the while, the fat man turned from victory to prattling about plans for seducing any number of the Maidens of the Lyre.

Rathe laughed at all the right places, but all he wanted was to get Nesaea out of the catacombs, and find somewhere to sleep.

Chapter 30

A steady rain fell from a leaden sky hung low over Valdar. Save that no watchmen stood in the turrets, the village looked much the same as the first time Rathe had gazed on its weathered wooden palisade.

“You think any of Sanouk’s men are in there?” Loro asked.

Rathe shrugged. “If so, then Erryn must have captured them, and is now sharpening an axe for their necks.”

Half a turn of the glass gone, the young woman, accompanied by a handful of Hilan men and the wagon driver Breyon-who turned out to be her distant cousin-had passed unmolested through the rickety gates. The sound of clucking chickens and a shutter banging against a windowsill were the only sounds from within Valdar. All had remained too quiet to think anyone with ill-intent waited behind the palisade.

Quiet or not, if Erryn did not show herself soon, Rathe meant to ride in, despite her insistence that she be allowed to deal with Mitros, and anyone else she found who had played a part in making her people suffer. “This fight is mine more than yours,” she had told him. “If any remain when I am finished, you can have them.”

Ringing the village wall, a number of the Maidens of the Lyre stood ready for battle atop their shiplike wagons. The rest aimed wheeled ballistae or mangonels much the same, Rathe suspected, as they had against Hilan. It astounded him that the Maidens had gone to such elaborate extents to rescue their leader, even using one of their own to bewitch Sanouk. Without the young woman Milia, who had garnered the lord’s affections and earned a place in his bed, the gates of Hilan might never have opened to her sisters.

Rathe caught Lady Nesaea’s eye. She smiled coyly, a striking figure, again the goddess of silver and snow he had seen on that distant night against the plainsmen. Like a true general, she cast her gaze back over her warriors, ensuring they were arrayed and ready. Nesaea had not spoken of her time behind that infernal barrier below Sanouk’s keep, but more than once she had screamed herself awake, then lay shuddering against him until sleep once more stole over her.

Thinking of sharing her bed furrowed his brow. She was a fine, strong woman, to be sure, but he suspected that his life-the uncertainty that awaited him-was not for such as her. He would have to broach that topic at some point, but a few more days delay would not hurt anything.

“I don’t think anyone from Hilan is here,” Loro stated, scratching himself, then taking a swallow from a wineskin. He wore as many scabs and bruises as Rathe, earned by fighting his way through the forest back to Hilan along with Erryn, Breyon, and the other prisoners taken from Valdar.

“They wanted to go to Valdar,” Loro had explained, “but I told them Hilan was the riper plum-and the first that should fall, if they had any hope of taking back their homes. It took little enough to convince Erryn that I needed to pull you out of the fire.”

Afterward, Loro had come across the Maidens of the Lyre, and learned of their plan to attack Hilan in order to rescue Nesaea. He promptly aligned himself with the woman Nesaea had freed after being taken captive. Fira was her name, a beautiful if stern woman who had since taken Loro into her wagon, and into her bed.

From what Rathe gathered, during the confusion of the plainsman attack north of Onareth, Treon had ordered Fira, Nesaea, and Carnala taken captive. No one knew if Sanouk had commanded Treon to specifically target the Maidens of the Lyre, or if their capture had merely been coincidental. By design or not, it had proven to be a grave error, for the full fury of the Maidens of the Lyre had fallen upon Sanouk and his fortress.

“Sanouk’s men may not be here,” Rathe said to Loro, “but do not forget their tracks. If they are not here now, they were at some point.”

On the dawn after the battle at Hilan, once Nesaea and the others who served as Sanouk’s sacrifices had been tended, along with those wounded during the battle, Rathe had trailed Sanouk’s devoted soldiers far enough to know that they had made for Valdar. It had been in his mind to pursue straight away, but there had not been enough able-bodied soldiers to form even a small company. Moreover, his own strength had been so limited that tracking Sanouk’s men a few miles had left him feverish and weak. Faced with that, and knowing that Mitros and his bandits were entrenched at Valdar, Rathe had reluctantly decided that attacking the village would have been a fool’s errand.

Near on a week had passed before he had enough hale soldiers and Maidens of the Lyre to set out. Another week had been squandered traveling the unforgiving mountain road to Valdar. His instinct, though he loathed to accept it, was that after coming to Valdar, Sanouk’s men had refitted and turned south for Onareth and the lord’s brother, King Nabar. As such, Rathe knew he must soon get as far from the Kingdom of Cerrikoth as possible. King Nabar’s affections for his brother might have been weak, but not so weak as to allow what would doubtless be spoken of as Sanouk’s murder.

Rathe sighed heavily, finally accepting what he had avoided thinking on over the last few days. “I accept your advice.”

Loro cocked a scabbed eyebrow at him, then poured more wine down his throat. “What advice is that, brother?”

“That we live the life of bandits, mercenaries, and gods know what else, in order to earn coin enough to feed ourselves.”

“I will miss Fira,” Loro said without batting an eye. “Truth be told, she’s a bit vulgar for my tastes.” His eyes went wide, oblivious to the irony. “Some of the things she does would make a slattern blush! By all the gods she-”

Rathe cut him off with a raised hand and a chuckle. Before he could tell Loro to keep such things to himself, Erryn strode through the gates, her motley retinue trialing behind with hard grins. In one hand, fingers curled around a few thin strands of hair, she bore Mitros’s head. Where the rest of him was, Rathe could only wonder.

“His days of raping and torturing are over,” Erryn announced when she drew closer, holding up the grisly trophy.

“What of the others?” Rathe asked.

Erryn flung the head away and watched it bounce across the muddy grass. “Lord Sanouk’s men were here. They took Mitros’s men, but left him behind. Many of my people had been locked in the mines, forgotten. The rest are like to be in the forests, or fled altogether. Mitros we found lying in his own squalor, drunk and insensible.”

“You know your people cannot remain here,” Rathe advised. He had told the same to the villagers of Hilan. Whether or not King Nabar sought to avenge his brother’s death, word of rebellion would enrage the king and the nobles of his court. Highborn of no land would tolerate rebellion.

Erryn scanned the decrepit palisade, and then the crags rising into the sodden mists beyond. “The greatest part of Onareth’s wealth yet lies within the mines. With so much gold, we can build a fortress and an army to resist anything Nabar dares to throw against us.”

“So you would make yourself a queen?” Rathe asked in jest.

Erryn’s lips spread in a mischievous smile. “Stranger things have happened. Perhaps naming myself Queen of the North is not so strange after all.”

Breyon shouted, “Queen Erryn!” The cry was quickly taken up by the soldiers at her back, and the Maidens of the Lyre.

“I could use a wise general,” Erryn said after the raucous chanting faded. “A man of war and honor … a man who was once the king’s champion, and who could treat with potential enemies and allies alike. Such a man as that,” she added, her cheeks reddening, “could, perhaps, rise higher … even become a king.”

Loro whistled softly, looking between Rathe and Nesaea.

Rathe cleared his throat, avoiding Nesaea’s pointed glare. “You honor me, but such is not my path.”

Erryn looked at her fingers, red with Mitros’s blood.

“However,” Rathe added, “I will remain here awhile-a fortnight, no more-to help you begin building a proper army and defenses.” Even a fortnight was too long, but Rathe could not live with the idea of abandoning Erryn and her people without the smallest assistance. He would give advice, and leave it in Erryn’s hands to see that advice put into practice.

Erryn’s face cleared at his offer, and her eyes brightened as if he had secretly given her a chance to persuade him to accept her idea of kingship at her side. Nesaea’s countenance grew stormier.

Gods, Rathe mused sourly, will I ever tread an easy path?

The gods, whether amused by his plea or sympathetic to his plight, kept silent.

He should have told Erryn she was a fool for thinking to stand against Onareth with naught but an army of crofters, miners, and a smattering of outcast soldiers gathered from the foothills of the Gyntors, but as she had said, stranger things had happened down through the ages. If he did not miss his guess, she had the fire within her to oversee the rise of a new kingdom.

Once the storied Scorpion, now an instigator of rebellions. Life he decided, was strange indeed.

Epilogue

Rathe halted his mount, motioning for Loro to rein in abreast of him. He cocked his ear, listening for the thunder of pursuing hooves, but hearing only silence. Perhaps we outran them? The thought held more hope than truth.

The party hunting them was large, no less than a score of armed horsemen. They might have split, with one group riding ahead, while the other pressed in on their heels. The Gyntors lay hard to the north, and the grassy steppes of Qairennor waited many days west. The only route that offered any chance of escape was the one he least wanted to take.

His time in Valdar, twice the agreed fortnight, had taught him that where the foothills harbored many a stalking abomination, the heart of the Gyntors was worse. Over brimming mugs of ale, he had heard it told that folk once lived in great cities perched atop high plateaus, or sheltered within deep vales. Those were dead places now, all the tellers of such stories agreed, shunned by even the most brazen treasure seekers. Why those civilizations fell into ruin, no one knew for certain, but suspicion ranged from dark sorceries to vengeful gods, to men forgetting they were men and becoming bloodthirsty beasts.

“I don’t suppose you regret leaving Valdar so soon?” Loro asked, scowling at the forest rising around them, grim and indistinct in the gloaming. Snow-clad cliffs and crags loomed higher still, peeking down at the world from behind streamers of mist.

Rathe arched an eyebrow. “Was it not you who spoke fondly of the life of a bandit? Besides, we had delayed too long already-that we are running now, is proof of that.”

Loro glared. “I intended that we should be profitable bandits on the shores of the Sea of Muika, not a pair of hungry dolts running from bounty hunters through these accursed mountains.”

“I think you have heard too many bard’s tales, brother. A bandit’s life is a mean affair, and usually ends under the swinging axe of a headsman, or in a deep, lightless cell.”

“If you thought so,” Loro snorted, “then why did you agree to it?”

Why indeed? The question was simple, the answer harder. On one side Erryn, the other Nesaea. Caught between two women, each jealous for his affections, was a poor position for any man.

Also, there was his surety that those hounding them now were from Onareth. While no definite word had come that the esteem once granted Rathe by King Nabar had been revoked, he sensed that disavowal as keenly as he felt the changing of the seasons. Like a foul odor drifting on the wind, he had detected a looming danger drawing near some days before seeing the first sign of those who pursued them.

Luckily, he and Loro had ridden from Valdar before that threat found them. Had they remained in the village, Rathe’s presence would have brought down the full wrath of Onareth upon Erryn and her people before they were prepared to repel such an assault. For a time, at least, Erryn and her people would stay safe in relative obscurity.

Before Rathe could form a simpler answer to Loro’s question than what had passed through his mind, the metallic ring of an iron-shod hoof striking stone turned him. A shadow stirred farther down the trail, within a dense thicket of pines.

“Which way,” Loro breathed, looking west as if to tip the balance in favor of his choice.

An arrow flashed an inch above Rathe’s head and thudded into a tree. “North,” he growled, wishing he could have advised any other direction. Sawing the reins, he put heels to his mount.

“Gods and demons!” Loro cursed, following hard after.

Cool and dark, the waiting forest welcomed them into its ancient embrace, promising sanctuary for the moment, but telling nothing of the future, or revealing the wonders and evils that it kept hidden.

Content

James A. West
Reaper Of Sorrows

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue