by Grace Draven
“This many Kai gathered in one spot...they will have hunted out any game in the area by now and consumed whatever food stores the garrison keeps.” Dendarah’s gaze swept the field, her mouth turning down even more with each pass. “This isn’t a good place to be.”
“With galla roaming about, it’s the safest place for now.” Necos stared down at the bundle in his arms, smiled and bent to bury his face in the cloth. Gassy sounds erupted from the swaddling as he blew bubbles against the baby’s belly. The infant chortled her delight, tiny fists waving in the air before she planted one in Necos’s hair and gave a hard yank.
The guard’s whole body jerked. “Ow!”
The baby’s gurgling laugh rose even more as her fingers wove ever tighter into his hair until the side of his face was pressed hard against her. He froze in place, eyes squinted tight in pain. “Don’t just stand there!” he ordered his two grinning companions. “Pry her loose!”
Kirgipa didn’t bother stifling her giggles as she gently opened the infant’s tight fist and unthreaded Necos’s hair from an impressive iron grip. Once free, he straightened with a wince and rubbed his offended scalp with one hand. He scowled at his charge, still nestled in the crook of his arm. She cooed at him, and his face softened. “I might forgive you for that in a decade or two.”
“You might want to consider braiding your hair like we do if you hold her again,” Dendarah suggested.
Kirgipa nodded. She had learned that trick the first night she pulled nursemaid duty. There was still a thin spot on the side of her head where the infant queen had snagged a fistful of hair and come away with several strands as her prize.
“Dendarah? Is that you?”
The guard lost her lazy grin at the sound of her name. Her back stiffened, and she slowly pivoted in the direction of the voice. Wearing insignia that marked him as a member of the garrison, a Kai soldier approached them. He tapped his chest with a quick fist in greeting.
Dendarah returned the salute, her face wiped clean of expression, her gaze wary. “Amasis. Good to see you.” Even her voice was bland. She maneuvered in such a way that as the soldier turned to keep facing her, his back was soon to Necos and Kirgipa.
Necos clutched Kirgipa’s elbow, and gestured with his chin. They melted into the crowd, leaving Dendarah behind to distract her acquaintance with small talk.
“That’s an example of the challenge we’ll face until we can reach the hercegesé,” Necos said. “People who recognize one of the three of us. Who know that we’re not related by blood or marriage, and that you haven’t recently had a baby.”
“Should we stay on the edge of the crowd then?” Kirgipa hoped so. They were already packed like salted fish in barrels in the procession headed to Saggara’s gates.
“I’m not sure. You can easily hide in a crowd this size, but it might be better to stay on the perimeter and keep to ourselves.”
Kirgipa peered into the hive of Kai. “Do you think my sister is in there somewhere?”
She didn’t bother to hide the wistfulness in her voice. Her heart ached at the thought of leaving Atalan behind with the main body of Kai refugees fleeing Haradis. She had done her duty to the royal house as any good Kai would, but that knowledge didn’t lessen the guilt of not hunting for her sibling. She was desperate to see her again—to celebrate the fact they had both survived and to mourn their mother who had not.
A light touch grazed her chin. Necos’s thumb glided softly on her skin until she raised her face to his. “The Haradis survivors haven’t arrived just yet,” he said. His expression was both gentle and determined. “Remember the promise I made. I swore I’d find her for you, and I will.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, the hard ache in her chest lightening at little at both his words and his touch. “Thank you, Necos.”
Dendarah caught up with them just before they entered the first set of gates into the bailey. She crooked a finger, and they separated far enough away from the line to not be overheard. “I think it’s too risky for us to go inside the garrison together. Too many of Saggara’s soldiers first served in Haradis, and they’ll recognize one or both of us. That isn’t a bad thing if we were alone. But two of us traveling with a young girl and a baby might make a few curious, and I don’t want anyone curious about anything.”
“What do you think we should do?” Necos surrendered the baby to Kirgipa. “I don’t want to split us up.” He nodded to Kirgipa. “They’re better protected with both of us here.”
“Agreed, but there are ways to look separate without actually being so. And one of us will have to hunt down the hercegesé’s personal servant, so we’ll have no choice but separate at one point.”
“Do you know what Sinhue looks like?”
Dendarah shrugged and glanced at Kirgipa. “I vaguely recall her., but it’s you who know her best, and you she’ll speak to if you approach her. Until she returns from Saruna Tor with her mistress, we just need to wait and make ourselves invisible as much as possible.” Her gaze slid over the milling crowd passing nearby. “For all that no galla roam here, I suspect this child is in more danger now, and her enemies are her own kind.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When the sun finally cracked the horizon, Ildiko fell asleep only to awaken alone a few hours later to the smell of a cooking fire and the scent of more snow in the air. She threw back the covers to search for her discarded shift. A shadow paused at the tent’s entrance, followed by a scratching noise on the canvas.
“Good morning, Sinhue.” Ildiko gave the servant a quick smile of thanks when the woman bowed into the tent, immediately found the shift and passed it to her mistress. “I assume I’m the last to wake.”
“We’re all a little slower than usual, my lady,” Sinhue replied diplomatically.
She was indeed the last to join their group, refusing the last bits of breakfast but accepting a mug of tea. Brishen stood to one side conversing with the Elsod. He was clad in brigandine and mail but without his pauldrons or vambraces.
Serovek, a big man in plain shirt and trousers, looked enormous in protective gear that was a combination of mail and plate, boiled leather squares and a long supple coat that swept around his ankles. Beside him, Megiddo had donned a calf-length mail tunic, strengthened with scale armor over a silk tunic embroidered in runic designs. Gaeres wore the lightest harness of hardened leather with baldrics criss-crossed over his chest to hold two back scabbards for a pair of swords. All impressive and intimidating, and Ildiko wondered why they had armored themselves to fight against shadow that couldn’t die.
Anhuset came to stand next to her, unarmored but bristling with weaponry. “They’re armored on the Elsod’s suggestion,” she said as if Ildiko had voiced her musings aloud. “Galla can’t kill Wraith Kings, but would you want something that foul touching your spirit form?”
Ildiko frowned, her stomach roiling. She tossed her cooling tea onto the ground. “Can this get any worse?” She sighed at Anhuset’s deadpan stare. “I suppose it can.”
Brishen left the men to join them. Anhuset spoke first. “We’ll break camp whenever you’re ready.”
“We’re ready,” he said, his gaze steady on Ildiko.
Anhuset bowed and strode away to smother the fires and speak with Gaeres’s retainers. The camp broke into a flurry of activity that eddied and swirled around king and queen. Brishen lifted Ildiko’s cold hand to his mouth, turned it and pressed a kiss to her palm. She stroked his cheek. “You left me too soon this morning,” she said.
He straightened and pulled her against him. “Had I choice, I wouldn’t leave you at all.” His lips brushed hers. “Grow old with me,” he whispered.
Her fingers dug into the hard shell of his brigandine. “Come back to me and I will.” Queen or concubine, mistress or scullery maid, she’d somehow find the means to remain with him.
Brishen’s features, tired and gaunt in the morning light filtering weakly through the snowfall, drew even tighter. “I need to tell you this befo
re we leave. If I don’t survive…” He hushed her burgeoning protest. “If I don’t survive this battle, you’re to abandon Saggara and flee to Gaur. Anhuset will take you.”
She jerked in his arms. “No! You made me regent, to hold the throne. I won’t walk away.”
He gripped her tighter. “Ildiko, if I’m defeated, there will be no throne to hold, no Bast-Haradis to save. We will fall, as will Belawat and the Quereci clans of the Dramorins. Everyone will fall, including Gaur. But her capital is near the sea, with islands that can offer sanctuary from the horde. You have a chance to live.”
The horror of such a world, such a fate for him and everyone else, made everything inside her recoil. She wanted to argue, to protest that she wasn’t a coward, that she wouldn’t run. But it wasn’t cowardice he was suggesting.
If the Wraith Kings failed to conquer the galla, kingdoms would fall, one right after the other with Bast-Haradis dying first. There would be those who would refuse to accept such an end and see Brishen’s death only as an opportunity to seize power. As wife of a fallen king, Ildiko’s status would plummet from regent to human outlander, an obstacle to be removed in the quickest way possible, and that way would be murder.
She stared into his strange Kai face, scarred, handsome, and so dear to her. “You’re right,” she said softly. “You cannot fail.”
His body loosened, and he lifted her braid to kiss the tip. “No, I can’t.”
The camp was cleared and their gear packed in short order. The Elsod rode pillion in front of her male masod and gave a short bow from her seat in the saddle as Ildiko’s horse came up next to hers. “Your Majesty, have you ever been to Saruna Tor?”
Ildiko’s curiosity when she first met the memory warden had hardened to dislike. Unfair it might be to blame their circumstances on someone who had found a way to possibly save them all from the galla, but she couldn’t help it. The dreadful plan seemed as dark and malevolent as those things it was supposed to banish. She couldn’t find it within herself to feel anything other than resentment for laying this burden on Brishen’s wide shoulders.
“No,” she replied in cool tones. “We passed it on our way to Saggara shortly after I married Brishen, but I’d heard about it beforehand. The magic of the Gullperi is said to still linger there within the circle of menhirs.”
It was why they traveled there to perform the ritual. Anything to strengthen the power Brishen would drain from the Kai people to fuel the spell used to create the Wraith Kings and the one that would raise and control the dead.
“You disapprove of this plan, don’t you? Or is it that you disapprove of the king’s new duties?” The Elsod’s voice lacked anything that might give away her emotions, but Ildiko wasn’t fooled. Such a question, no matter how objectively asked, revealed its purpose. The time for planning had passed. Now it was the time to do. Ildiko knew she had some influence over Brishen; so did the Elsod. And now the Elsod wondered if Ildiko would try to dissuade him from this path of madness at the last minute.
She met the old woman’s gaze, hardly bothering with politesse and not at all with a smile. “I disapprove of the first, most heartily. The second is an unfortunate consequence. Neither is avoidable and how I feel about it of no consequence. We are, each of us, duty-bound.” The two stared at each other until Ildiko asked “Is there anything else you wish to know, Elsod?”
The Elsod did smile briefly at her. “Nothing else, Your Majesty.” She inclined her head. “May your regency be successful and brief, to end with the safe return of the Khaskem.”
Ildiko slowed her horse and let the Elsod ride ahead. Sinhue caught up to her. “Is everything all right, Your Majesty?”
Ildiko didn’t turn her gaze from the warden and her masod. “I hope so, Sinhue. I truly hope so.”
Brishen turned and motioned her to ride alongside him, and she gladly acquiesced. Around and behind them, the others had grouped together into pairs or trios. Gaeres rode with two of his clansmen while the others fanned out around their entire entourage with the memory wardens in the center. Megiddo rode between Serovek and Anhuset, and Ildiko had seen more than once the smoldering looks the Beladine margrave had leveled on the Kai woman. She stared straight ahead, mouth grim and downturned.
Were they involved in less dire circumstances, Ildiko knew she’d find Serovek’s dangerous courtship of the lethal Anhuset entertaining. She’d deny it with her last breath and back it up with a swing of her sword if necessary, but the Kai woman was attracted to the Beladine as much as he was to her, and she chafed at the idea.
Ildiko wondered if Anhuset feared censure or ridicule by her people for the attraction. Surely, none would fault her. Serovek wasn’t Kai, but he’d been instrumental in rescuing Brishen from his captors months earlier. He’d saved Ildiko and Anhuset from a pack of magefinders and their handlers and tended the arrow wound a raider had plowed into Anhuset’s back with adept, gentle hands. What woman, Kai or human, could not help but admire such a man?
They halted at the base of the tor, and Brishen turned to address their party in Common tongue. “We need a few people to stay here and keep watch. Warn us if something untoward suddenly appears on the plain that we don’t see.” Amusement curved his mouth at Anhuset’s immediate mulish expression. Ildiko suspected she wore a similar one. Brishen turned to Gaeres. “You’ll want to bring one or two of your people with you to the top of the tor, but can the others stay here?” Gaeres nodded and lapsed into the language of his people. Four of his six men reluctantly nodded but didn’t argue.
The Elsod spoke then. “The ritual is both powerful and fragile. It can’t be interrupted once it’s begun. If it is, I have no idea of the repercussions or if it can be started again. Whoever witnesses it must remain only that—a witness.”
Ildiko didn’t like that sound of that at all. Before she could demand the Elsod explain more fully, one of Gaeres’s men gave a warning whistle and pointed south. A dark speck on the horizon grew bigger as it drew closer, becoming a single horseman approaching them at a gallop.
“And who might this be?” Serovek wondered.
Ildiko gasped when the rider was close enough to make out the barding on his horse and the crest of his shield. “I don’t believe it.”
Brishen turned to her. “Believe what?”
She shielded her eyes against the watery sunlight, trying to see their visitor better. “So kind of them to not only rush with their reply but to provide so much help in a single man.” She didn’t bother hiding her bitterness or embarrassment. Some ally Gaur proved to be. Her lip curled. “Of all the soldiers Gaur might have sent, I would have never guessed they’d send Andras the Forsaken.”
Serovek snorted. “That’s promising.”
Brishen glanced back and forth between her and the rider. “You know him?’
“Not personally, but I know that family crest. It belongs to a nobleman everyone believed would die forgotten in exile.”
Brishen arched an eyebrow. “Then his fate has gone from bad to worse if he’s exchanged exile for this.” He dismounted from his horse and awaited the newcomer’s arrival.
The rider reined his mount to a stop in a swirl of snow and swung from the saddle. He removed his helmet with its concealing face shield, and they got their first glimpse of Andras the Forsaken.
Such weary eyes, Ildiko thought. Light gray, piercing, they took measure of her, Brishen and the others. She wondered what he saw. Brown hair hung to his shoulders in waves, and he carried himself proudly. His gaunt face, dominated by a prominent nose and sharp jaw, might have looked too harsh except for his mouth which was finely shaped. For now, it was downturned but Ildiko suspected, for reasons she couldn’t explain, he smiled more often than he frowned.
His gaze finally settled on Brishen. “You are Brishen Khaskem? King of the Kai?” When Brishen nodded, he bowed. “I bid you salutations, Your Majesty. I am Andras Frantisek of Gaur.” He bowed to Ildiko. “Lady Ildiko. I haven’t seen you since we were both children.”
He remembered her, but she didn’t remember him. Childhood was a long time ago. “Lord Andras, tell me you’re here because my uncle received my message.”
“He did.” His fine mouth quirked, and the tiny laugh lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “When the king summoned me to court, I thought I traveled to my execution. Sangur the Lame had other ideas for my fate.” He eyed the others in the crowd. “I read the letter you sent him and offer my service in Gaur’s name. That is if you still need Gaur’s help.”
“We do,” Brishen replied. “Though I’m curious why you agreed to this. Has Sangur the Lame threatened to punish you if you don’t volunteer?” He scowled. “I need a fighter willing to serve, not one forced to.”
Andras shook his head. “I’m more than willing.” He tucked his helmet under his arm and settled in to give an explanation. “Your wife already knows this story, I’m sure. My father was a high-ranking general who started an uprising in an attempt to force Sangur off the throne. He was defeated and executed. I refused to join the uprising but also refused to fight against my father. For that, Sangur spared my life but banished me and stripped my family of all our lands. If I fight this battle, and we succeed, the king will award some of my lands back to me. Enough that I may dower my daughter when she’s of marriageable age.”
Silence followed his speech until Megiddo spoke. “Others have fought wars for reasons far less important.”
“Indeed they have.” Brishen held out a hand, and Andras grasped it in his. “Welcome, Lord Frantisek. We are grateful for your service.” He introduced the other men who would become Wraith Kings and then Anhuset, the memory wardens, and Gaeres’s men. “Let’s get on with it then,” he said once the introductions were finished. “I’ll explain to you what’s ahead of us as we ride to the peak. You’re free to go your way should you change your mind once you know.”
Andras stiffened. “I’m no coward.”
Brishen swung onto his mount’s back. “No one here is. And you still won’t be a coward if you decide to walk away.”
