The Innkeeper's Son

by Jeremy Brooks

  The horses were magnificent. Like nothing he’d ever seen before. They stood over ten feet in height, with pristine white coats, and perfectly toned quarters and flanks. Their smell was intoxicating. The odor that he inhaled, deliberately savoring each treasured breath, was akin to the smell of a trival’s heart. His frenzied desire to rip into their sweet flesh was pitching.

  In each hand he held a dagger. He needed to be careful. If he failed to kill all three, there was the chance that an escaped horse could make it back to that cabin and warn Farrushaw’s group. Though it was difficult to believe, he had observed them in a human interaction with that writer and the palace whore. It appeared as though they were capable of communication.

  He watched the horses grazing for awhile to study their movements. A good hunter could always anticipate his prey. It was well that they seemed unaware of danger. There was no urgency in their grazing. It was almost casual. None of the three horses ever appeared to even look around for threats as any instinctive grazer would. Was it possible these horses had no natural enemies?

  Prianhe knew the stories of Nal’Dahara’s history. He had heard of the legendary horses that were hunted by the Daikhir. Until earlier that evening, he assumed, as most did, that those stories were just silly legends, and nothing more. Perhaps there was more to it.

  He began to edge closer, slithering on the ground like a snake in the grass. When he was close enough for the horses to catch his scent in spite of his upwind advantage, Prianhe made his move. He sprang and aimed his blade thrusts at the horses' hind legs. If his strikes were precise, he would sever their ligaments and spoil their chance of outrunning him.

  The first horse fell backward as Prianhe sliced through both of its hocks. He quickly went for the second horse, taking advantage of the confusion created by his sudden attack. Same as the first, he severely gashed both of its hocks, and it fell over with a cry of pain.

  The third horse started to run, but abruptly stopped and turned to face him. Prianhe brandished both of his daggers and smiled. Did the beast truly mean to fight him?

  He started at the horse, charging to meet it at a sprint. Suddenly it disappeared. Prianhe held up and looked back at the other fallen horses, but they had vanished as well.

  For a moment he growled in frustration. Then he caught their scent. They may have vanished, but their odor still clung thickly to the night air. He went back to the spot the others had fallen. With his dagger he poked at the air and was startled when his blade pressed against something unseen. He pressed harder and a cry broke the silence. Blood formed out of thin air at the tip of his blade, trickling slowly to the ground.

  Something hit him from the side sending him sprawling to the ground. Instinctively, Prianhe rolled to his right, and witnessed the ground where he had landed puncturing as though it had suddenly been stomped. He pulled out his sword and swung at the air. Blood sprayed out from an invisible wound and Prianhe used it to track the horse. He followed the wound as it wove through the air, and struck repeatedly in its direction. After several more blows landed, the horse reappeared and fell to the ground. The other two horses materialized as well, struggling in vain to stand and walk with their injured back legs. Prianhe didn’t vacillate. He went to each beast and unceremoniously slit their throats. He licked the blood from his fingers and felt the nascent rising of his lifelong addiction for the taste of fresh heart.

  He started with the horse that had given him the most trouble. Even in the soft moonlight, Prianhe could see its bright orange mane and tail. He worked his dagger into its girth splitting its insides right down to its penis. Entrails spilled out onto the ground, steaming in the cool night air. Prianhe reached up under its breastplate and searched until he found its heart. He ripped it out and held it up to inspect it in the pale moonlight.

  It was white. Prianhe had never seen a white heart. The flesh seemed almost to glow. Unable to resist its allure any longer, Prianhe began to feast. Like an explosion of senses his whole body ignited in euphoria as he devoured every last incredible piece. The trance didn’t end until he had consumed all three hearts. Each bite was more delicious then the last.

  When it was over, he lay there in the moonlight, encapsulated in a sensation that was beyond anything he had ever felt. The intensity of his altered state surpassed even the first heart he’d ever consumed when he was just a boy back on the Reikkan plains. He felt stronger than he’d ever felt. Nothing was beyond his grasp, everything was possible.

  Eventually he staggered in a daze back toward the Imperial encampment. His mind was lost in a stupor, drifting between reality and dreams. He imagined himself a god, drifting above his creation. Then like a cancer on the perfection of his mind's inner consciousness, the pellucid visage of his old nemesis clouded all that he surveyed. Farrushaw was a blight on his existence. A blemish on his otherwise perfect record as Desirmor’s monomach. A filthy human who didn’t deserve to inhabit the world that Prianhe dominated. In the morning, Farrushaw would die, because Navan Prianhe was a superior being.

  Chapter Thirty: Into the Storm

  In the wee hours of dawn, Sim watched Nehrea sleep. Sleep hadn’t come easily for her. Sometime after they’d all gone to sleep, Nehrea had become unsettled. She told Sim in confidence that something was wrong. For some reason, she could no longer feel the distant presence of Firetail, Fallastar, and Shearwind. She told him that the loss of her connection to them had awoken her from a sound sleep. Nehrea felt certain that something had happened to them.

  Sim believed her. With everyone asleep there was little they could do. He tried his best to comfort her, and eventually she fell back to sleep. But Sim couldn’t help but wonder if they were in danger. He lay awake for most of the night staring through a window at the star filled sky, silently praying to the Creator that all would be as it should in the light of a new day.

  “You barely slept,” Nehrea whispered as the first glimmers of sunlight harkened the start of a fresh day.

  “Neither did you,” Sim answered, tenderly running his fingers over her back.

  “My sleep was troubled,” she said.

  “Dreams?” he asked.

  “The same dream all night.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I was standing in a field overlooking all of my clan. One by one they began to disappear, until I was all alone,” she explained.

  “Are you afraid of being alone?” Sim asked.

  Nehrea contemplated the question for a moment. “I’ve been alone for most of my life.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he insisted.

  She looked up at him, staring deeply into his eyes. “I’m afraid of being who I was again.”

  “And who were you?”

  “A palace whore.” The words stuck in her mouth like bile.

  “A whore has a choice. She can choose to lie in a man’s bed. Were you ever given a choice?” Sim asked.

  “I suppose not,” she answered weakly.

  “Then you were a victim, Nehrea, not a whore,” he told her.

  She kissed him deeply with tears wetting her eyes, making them sparkle. “How will I manage to live without you?”

  Sim shook his head sadly and wiped the tears from her eyes. “We must both learn to accept the longing in our hearts. But one day we will be together again. One day we will be free of all these distractions. Then you’ll wonder how you manage to live with me.”

  She playfully slapped his chest. “Never, it is I that must worry.”

  Sim didn’t understand what she was talking about. “What do you have to worry about?”

  Nehrea bit her lip, cursing herself for letting the conversation turn to her own insecurities. She motioned to Enaya, who was still asleep in Roswell’s bed. “Her.”

  Sim looked at Enaya and felt his stomach turn. It had been foolish of him to assume that Nehrea wouldn’t feel some jealousy toward her. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Nehrea. Enaya has made it very clear to me that her feelings are strictly platonic
.”

  Nehrea sat up and hugged her knees. Her eyes studied him carefully. “And are your feelings toward her also platonic?”

  Sim wanted to put the issue to rest, but he couldn’t lie to her. Trapped in the beauty of her eyes, he knew that honesty was the only path to take. “Only a few days ago, I believed there were feelings passing between us.” The injured flash that forced her to look away cut him to the core. “I asked her if she felt the same. Enaya was very clear with me. She told me that all she could offer me was her friendship. I’m not going to lie to you, Nehrea. It hurt me. Rejection is never an easy thing. But then you happened.” He reached for her hand and though she resisted his touch, he grabbed it anyway. “I know all of this is new, and I know it's only been a few days, but you have stolen my heart. I’ve never felt like this before. Not with anyone. Please, Nehrea.”

  “I’m not a fool, Siminus,” her voice was a broken whisper. “I see the way she looks at you.”

  “I promise you, Nehrea. My mind is clear, and my heart has made its choice,” Sim pleaded.

  For several moments she refused to meet his eyes. When she looked up, tears stained her cheeks. She leaned forward and took his face in her hands. Then she took a deep breath and kissed him with an urgency that stopped his heart. At last she pulled away and took his hands. Fighting to speak clearly over the need to weep, she spoke to him.

  “I hold you to nothing, Siminus Kelmor Harvencott. These last days you have possessed my heart and opened my soul in a way I never imagined possible. But I will not ask for your oath. It may be months, perhaps years before our paths cross once more. I ask only that you remember me, this way. Not only as a lover, but as a woman who has given herself to a man. For I choose you. I will return to my clan and assume my duties as Collora. My heart will always hold a place for you, but if in our parting you choose another path to follow, I will accept that choice. I will accept a life without you.”

  “Nehrea…I,” Sim tried to reason with her but she cut him off.

  “No. I don’t want your oath, Siminus. If you choose to come back to my arms, I will be waiting. Always waiting. But if happiness lies with another woman, do not hold back on my account. For in the end, you will regard me not with love, but resentment. And if I am to have you, I want all of you.”

  “Nehrea,” Sim swallowed hard and chose his words carefully. His heart felt as if it might break. “I can’t tell you what the future will bring. I may be dead by tomorrow. But I will never forget you. I have been walking around in a daze since my parents were murdered. I’ve felt cold and empty. Hollow. You’ve filled that void. You breathed life back into my heart. I will see you again. And on that day, you will learn the true nature of my feelings toward you. Wait for me, as I will wait for you.”

  He pulled her into a tender embrace, taking in her soft floral perfume with a deep, retentive inhalation. He wanted to lay her down right there in the cabin, and make love to her. Sadly, he had to let his desires go unrequited.

  Givara and Farrus were awake on the porch outside, keeping watch. Quinn snored soundly on the floor surrounded by books, but Roswell was already up and beginning to prepare breakfast. He was careful to not deliberately eavesdrop, but Sim had caught his eyes watching them once or twice.

  As Roswell prepared breakfast, Sim and Nehrea laid back down and enjoyed their last moments together in silence

  The smell of bacon filled the air, bringing Quinn to his feet. Enaya soon followed, yawning loudly. Roswell served them at the table. Sim was happy to have another hot meal. He still remembered the aching feeling of two days on an empty stomach.

  Roswell had prepared a breakfast of bacon and fried apples with biscuits and cheese. It was as delicious as the fish they had eaten for dinner the night before.

  After everyone had eaten, Roswell announced that he would set up a partition so that they could take baths with some privacy. Enaya’s eyes lit up. Quinn volunteered to help his father fill the tub.

  “Won’t the Dahara be coming to get you soon?” Enaya asked Nehrea, when Quinn and Roswell left.

  Nehrea shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “I still can’t feel them,” she whispered to Sim.

  “Why don’t we have a seat on the porch?” Sim suggested. “At least we can keep an eye out for them.”

  Farrus was sitting on the front steps sharpening one of his belt knives on an oiled whetstone. He grunted an acknowledgement when they came out and took a seat beside him.

  “Where’s Givara?” Sim asked, scanning the land around the cabin for the slender guardian.

  “She’s out doing a sweep,” Farrus mumbled.

  “Did you sleep last night?” Sim asked.

  “A little. I didn’t want Givara out here on her own all night,” Farrus motioned to the Water Woods behind them. “Supposed to be some nasty things living in that place.”

  “You two ever have your talk?” Sim nudged him in the ribs.

  The old guardsman grunted and spat on the ground past the steps. “I know what she is, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “And has that changed anything for you?” Sim persisted. He could tell Farrus was uncomfortable talking about her, but he loved making the crusty old soldier squirm.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Farrus stopped sharpening his blade and faced Sim squarely. Most people would have trembled with those steely gray eyes bearing down on them, but Sim had seen that look a thousand times.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged mischievously. “Just seems to me like you two have been growing awfully close of late.”

  Farrus grunted and returned to his blade work. “You just worry about yourself. Givara and I have one concern and that’s keeping you and old Queenie back there alive.”

  “Whatever you say, Farrus,” Sim threw up his hands.

  “Where are your friends?” Farrus asked Nehrea.

  She watched the horizon with a sick look on her face. How long would she wait before it was time to start searching for the Dahara?

  “She lost her connection to them last night?” Sim answered for her.

  Farrus put down the whetstone and faced them. “You can feel them?” she nodded. “All of them, or just the ones that are close?”

  “All of them I suppose,” Nehrea replied. “The clan is more distant than Firetail, Fallastar and Shearwind, but I can sense them to the north.”

  Farrus scratched his scarred face inquisitively. “So you’re saying that all of a sudden last night, you couldn’t feel the three closest horses?”

  “That’s right,” Nehrea agreed.

  Farrus stood up and put away his belt knife. He looked alert and on edge.

  “What is it?” Sim asked.

  “I don’t like it, Sim,” Farrus explained.

  “You think something happened to them?” Sim stood up as well. It felt good to have Farrus on his side.

  “I don’t know.” Farrus stepped down off the porch and spat. He looked around the side of the cabin where Roswell and Quinn were filling buckets for the bath tub. “Dammit Givara. Where are you?”

  “What troubles you guardsman?” Givara suddenly appeared on the other side of the cabin. Sim hadn’t even heard her approach.

  “It’s the Dahara. Something’s happened to them,” Farrus said.

  “Are you certain?” Givara asked.

  “Sim!” Nehrea suddenly shouted, grabbing his arm.

  “What is it?”

  Nehrea pointed to the north, where the land rose in a steady swell. On the top of the rise, men began to appear, spanning the whole horizon. Some were on horseback. Others were on foot. In a matter of moments they covered the entire rise in a wide arc around the cabin. Sim could only guess, but he estimated at least five hundred men.

  “Enaya!” Givara shouted, and dashed inside the cabin.

  “Is it Prianhe?” Sim was already reaching for his sword.

  Just then a small group of five, broke off on horseback, riding straight for the cabin.

  “How did
they find us so bloody fast?” Farrus snarled.

  “What are we going to do?” Sim asked.

  Roswell and Quinn came running up from the side of the cabin. Roswell cursed loudly when he saw the situation.

  “Do you have a boat? Anything we can use to escape across the water?” Farrus demanded.

  Roswell shook his head. “Boats are practically useless. We wouldn’t last five minutes before something under the water took us down.”

  Enaya and Givara burst through the front door.

  “What's going on?” Enaya snapped.

  “We’re in trouble,” Farrus stated the obvious.

  As the five on horseback quickly approached, Sim immediately noticed Navan Prianhe. He rode with his head held high and a triumphant grin that bared his canine fangs. A man in full uniform rode at his left. The half-man Sim fought in the alley in Nal’Dahara rode at Prianhe’s right. Two figures in black cloaks, their faces hidden behind hoods, rode at his back.

  “Bale Farrushaw,” Prianhe called out almost gleefully.

  “Navan,” Farrus grunted.

  Prianhe brought the horses to a halt about twenty yards from the cabin. He gracefully dismounted followed by the officer and the half-man, Baneur Deuseau.

  “Did you truly believe you could elude me forever, Bale?” Prianhe gloated.

  “By order of King Desirmor, you are all hereby under arrest,” the uniformed officer announced. “Throw down your weapons and come peacefully. The terms of your surrender will be considered during your execution hearings.”

  “Come now, Corsia,” Prianhe laughed, merrily. He walked right up to Farrus and touched the scar that marked the left side of his face. “We both know they have no intention of coming peacefully,” he sneered delightfully. “Do you, Bale?”

  Sim watched the half-man with rising degrees of anger. The little man’s beady black eyes were fixed on Nehrea. He licked his lips repeatedly, and his left hand clenched and unclenched with a rapid persistence. He had an almost feral undertone that made Sim inch closer to Nehrea. When he put his arm around her waist, the little man sneered visibly like a hissing cat.