Reaper Of Sorrows (Book 1)

by James A. West

  “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 k
ing’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 o
f 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.