Lady Of Regret (Book 2)

by James A. West

  With an oath, Rathe spun on his heel and started back. He did not go far before the laughter came again, unmistakable, darkly amused. Rathe pressed his lips together. When the man came, whether as spirit or flesh, Rathe would be ready. And by Ahnok, he hoped to fare better than he had the first time.

  When Rathe returned to camp, Loro shot him a curious look. He had already saddled the gray, and was tacking his red. “An ill thing, challenging the wind.”

  The fire had gone to smoldering ash. Without speaking, Rathe squatted and warmed his hands over their dying heat.

  Keeping an eye on his companion, Loro cinched the girth strap. “By your sourness, I expect you must have seen something to put your back up.”

  “Someone hunts us,” Rathe said quietly, “but, too, he is toying with us. Or, maybe, just me.”

  “Truly?”

  “I’ve seen him twice,” Rathe confessed. He showed Loro the cuts in his cloak. “The first time, we fought. Suffice to say, he bested me. Easily. That was before we came to Deepreach.”

  “And you said nothing?”

  Rathe shrugged. “He is no man, but a shadow. I think.”

  “Gods and demons,” Loro snarled. “We have to get free of these accursed mountains.”

  “Just so. But as I saw him again, just now, I expect he’ll try to stop us.”

  Eyes wide, Loro looked down the trail. “Did he say something to give you that idea?”

  “Not words,” Rathe said. “He laughed, the way a headsman might, just before dropping the axe.”

  Loro took that as an invitation to mount up, and Rathe joined him.

  It took them most of the day to skirt the lake. Never did the mists fully lift, nor the day warm. Rathe’s hope of soon getting free of the mountains perished at the sight of the trail climbing into yet another gorge, this one cut through by another small, ice-choked stream. Rathe heeled his mount forward before his disappointment could get a strong foothold in his heart, or Loro could begin complaining.

  The path was steeper and rockier than any they had yet climbed, the going made slower by deep snow laid over uneven rock. They kept on until dusk turned the constant fog pink.

  “That’s the first likely place to make camp I’ve seen all day,” Rathe said, drawing rein at the mouth of a brushy ravine. He was tired and cold. Of hunger, he avoided considering. If they were to fill their bellies, it would be with snow.

  “Aye, if we can find dry tinder—”

  Loro cut off when a figure burst free of clinging brambles, one step ahead of a shaggy black beast with curved horns, its back loaded down with bundles of fur, banging pots, and wicker panniers.

  Rathe recognized the man. Loro saw something else. Before Rathe could stop him, Loro heeled his mount into a scrambling gallop, his sword out and swinging.

  The running man gave a terrified squeal, the beast at his back grunted like an enraged boar, and then Loro was upon them both, roaring a battle cry.

  Chapter 13

  Rathe searched the darkness away from camp. Nothing crept, and he heard no mocking laughter. A breath of wind had picked up, just enough to tear the mist to tatters. For the first time since coming into the Gyntors, stars glinted overhead, cold as chips of ice strewn over black silk. Below them, daunting mountain peaks rose up, moon-lit flanks stark white and laced with black ridges. He prayed the dawn would bring clear skies and some hint of warmth. As well hope for a banquet at a lord’s high table, he thought sourly.

  Satisfied as he could be nothing intended to attack the camp, he picked his way back up into the ravine. Horge sat across the fire with a handful of crusty snow pressed against a bloody lump on the side of his head that Loro had given him. If not for the wretched man’s pack animal, which had protectively shouldered into Loro’s charging horse, Horge would have lost his skull to a vicious sword stroke.

  “What sort of beast is that?” Rathe asked, his tone light. He took a seat on a rock and reached his hands to the flames of their fire.

  Horge looked to the creature grazing the sparse grass near the disinterested horses. “Samba is a yak.”

  Rathe remembered the name from Deepreach, when Horge had mentioned his beast of burden. Having lost too many warhorses to spears and swords and arrows during his time among the Ghosts of Ahnok, he had never taken the habit of naming animals.

  “Truly, friend,” Loro said in an aggrieved voice, “I am sorry to have cracked your head. I thought you were, ah, something else, is all.”

  Horge scowled through strings of greasy black hair. “You mean to say, something other than a man?” His fur coat and leather leggings might have been pilfered from a forgotten crypt. Aside from shadowkin, he was the most ragged looking man Rathe had ever laid eyes on.

  “I suppose so,” Loro said, gaze flicking to Rathe and away. “We’ve heard it told there are fell creatures in these mountains. After those monsters in Deepreach, and with the way you looked coming out of the bushes, well.…” Loro shrugged.

  Horge tossed the bloody clump of snow away with a sigh. “’Tis me who should be sorry. I must have put a terrible fright into you, yelling like that.”

  Loro showed a rare grace in not denying his fear. He spoiled it by asking, “I don’t suppose you have a haunch of mutton, or the like, stowed away in your baggage?”

  Horge’s face lit up. “No mutton, but this morning I caught three of the fattest trout you’ve ever seen. The least I can do is share, as you spared me from Tulfa’s gullet and—” He cut off, looking as if he had been about to reveal a grave secret.

  “And what?” Rathe asked. It was not as though he mistrusted the man, but Horge had a look about him, a jittery agitation that put him ill at ease.

  Without answering, or appearing to hear the question, Horge flitted across the rough camp, began rooting through a wicker pannier.

  There was no question in Rathe’s mind he was hiding something. Loro shot him a questioning look. Rathe made a soothing gesture, in case Loro got it into his skull to wallop Horge again. Horge might be hiding something, but Rathe could hardly fault him for secrecy amongst newly met men, even if they had saved him from getting roasted on a spit.

  “Samba the yak,” Loro said musingly. “Save for that shaggy coat and long tail, your beast looks like a cow. How do they taste?”

  Horge spun, scandalized. “Yaks are too valuable for eating! Why, their milk makes perfect cheese, their fur can be woven into fine coats, they pack in places a goat cannot walk, and.…” He trailed off with a sheepish look. Rathe nodded for him to go on. “Well, as we are being honest, they make excellent traveling companions. Better than most men, I assure you.”

  “Men, mayhap, but not better than a woman or two, I trust,” Loro said with a lewd wink and braying laughter.

  Horge’s long nose wriggled and one eye twitched, as if he were having a fit. “I’ve never traveled with a woman, other than kin.”

  “If the day comes when you must choose between a smelly yak and a buxom wench, best pick the wench,” Loro advised.

  Horge looked to Rathe for a way out of the conversation, and Rathe spread his hands in helplessness. Turning Loro’s mind from women was nearly as hard as turning it from food.

  “Truth is, women shy from me,” Horge said sadly, coming back to the fire with an iron skillet, and what were indeed the biggest trout Rathe had ever seen. “Always have.”

  “Nothing a bath and some proper clothes can’t fix,” Loro said, slapping his knee and laughing boisterously. “Should that fail, there are plenty who will give you more than you know what to do with for a silver piece, no matter how you smell!” He laughed all the harder, until he saw that neither Rathe nor Horge shared his amusement. He went still, took a hasty pull at his flask.

  Horge made several more trips between the fire and his panniers. In short order, he had assembled an iron rack over the blaze, atop which he placed the skillet. As a huge dollop of lard skidded and popped over the blackened surface, he added the trout, seasoned them with coarse sal
t pinched from a small wooden box. With his nervousness focused on a task, his movements became efficient and nimble.

  “So what can you tell us of these lands?” Rathe asked.

  “What would you know?” Horge asked, stuffing small onions and deep green leaves into the trout bellies.

  “The mountains, for instance. Is there a way out of them, or do they go on forever?”

  Horge snorted. “Mountains? Hah! These are no mountains, only foothills. If you had ventured into the mountains, those to the north, which gnaw at the stars of night like demon teeth, you would have long since died for want of breath, but not before the frost had blackened your skin.”

  “Seem like mountains to me,” Loro said.

  Horge looked between Rathe and Loro. “There are some who go so high, seeking things better left to the gods, but they are not those you would want to meet. Do not fret over them, as they would not suffer an audience with you. Or so you should hope.”

  “Priests?”

  Horge shook his head absently, lost in his cooking. “Monks. Better to carve out your own eyes with a dull stick, or drink molten iron, than to mingle with those who walk the Way of Knowing.”

  “I have heard of these men,” Rathe said, doing his best to ignore the rumbling in his belly brought by the scent of cooking trout. “In Trem, along the Sea of Grelar, they are known as healers and mystics—standoffish, but scarcely dangerous.”

  “The Way of Knowing leads different men to different paths,” Horge offered. “Perhaps the monks you speak of seek after the nature of peace, or healing, or, for all I know, how to better cultivate seaweed. The monks hereabouts, those of the Iron Marches, are of another breed entire.”

  “You’ve had dealings with them?” Rathe asked.

  Horge flinched. “Aye, but ours is a bond no man should want. If not for need, I would have looked elsewhere to … earn a living.” His falter at the end made Rathe sure the man was hiding something.

  “Why is that, friend?” Loro asked.

  Horge gave the skillet a shake, turned the trout with a wooden spatula. In a grim tone belying his easy manner, he said, “Dark roads lead to dark ends. The monks of the Iron Marches are masters of both.”

  “Yet you have earned your way with them,” Loro said. “If these monks are so treacherous, you must be a man of many hidden talents, to have come out ahead.”

  Horge crowed laughter. “Talents? If not for you two, Tulfa and his shadowkin would even now be picking their teeth with my bones.”

  “So, these monks pay?” Rathe asked. At some point, he and Loro would need coin.

  Horge flinched. “If you survive their errands, then you are rewarded. Most times, those who seek for the monks perish.”

  “I see,” Rathe said, calculating. His was a life defined by surviving where others could not. Loro praised the life of a thief, and Rathe had allowed him to, but that was not a road he wished to travel, unless forced to it.

  Horge stood up with a toothy grin. “Supper, my new and dear friends, is ready!”

  Among his goods, Horge also carried a set of oblong plates carved from wood. He served the simple meal upon these, handed one each to Rathe and Loro, then took his own. Rathe could scarcely keep himself from scarfing the meal. Loro did not bother to try. Horge separated bones from tender white meat with twitchy fussiness that Rathe did not find the least bit surprising.

  After a second serving, Horge took their plates, scrubbed them with snow, and returned them to the panniers. Rathe opened his mouth to ask more about the local monks, but a furtive noise drew his eye to the darkness down the ravine.

  “Ho the camp!” came an old man’s wheezy voice.

  “Tulfa?” Loro blurted, looking doubtful.

  “Didn’t sound like him.” Rathe stood. While he did not draw his sword, he rested his hand on the hilt.

  “Do you have a place at your fire for a weary traveler?” the stranger called. They could not see him yet, but he sounded much closer.

  A rustle of movement turned Rathe and Loro. Where Horge had been, now his gear sat unattended. Loro cast about. “Where did he get off to?”

  Rathe was more concerned with why he had fled. Before he could say a word, the stranger glided into view. Hovering between darkness and light, the man’s slitted eyes burned like the sun.

  Chapter 14

  “No need for swords,” the stranger admonished, tottering forward. Proximity to the campfire put to rest the illusion his eyes were ablaze, or that he was in any way threatening. He wore a head-cloth held in place with a gold circlet, a fine woolen cloak, robes of deep blue embroidered with sweeping designs done in crimson and gold. Stooped though he was, the man stood a head taller than Rathe.

  “If you had seen the things we have since coming into these foul mountains,” Loro said, “you would have your own steel bared.”

  The old man tugged his long beard, the tips of which fell to a wide leather belt hung with ivory-and-gold scroll cases, and pouches of rich fabric. “I expect you mean Tulfa and his shadowkin?”

  “How do you know about him?” Rathe asked suspiciously.

  “Anyone who has traveled this particular road knows the horrors of Deepreach.” The old man leaned on a finely wrought blackwood staff. Enough golden inlays decorated its length to tempt the wealthiest highborn to thievery. “A wise traveler knows to take other paths.”

  “If you had been our guide,” Loro said, “then our dreams would be the sweeter for it.”

  The old man seemed more interested in Horge’s yak, than anything Loro was saying. He offered a kind grin. “I am called Durogg.” After Loro gave his and Rathe’s name, Durogg turned to the latter.

  “I’ve heard tales of you—or, should I say, tales of a man bearing that name. A great warrior of the southlands, these tales say, who also goes by the name Scorpion.”

  “That’s him!” Loro piped, unaware of Rathe’s startled look.

  Durogg grew speculative. “’Tis said the newly crowned Cerrikothian king has pledged a lordship and generous holdings for the one who brings him the Scorpion’s head. I expect legions of bounty hunters must be after you, for you to stray so far from your homelands?”

  “Those stories are exaggerated,” Rathe said, hand tightening on his sword hilt. “As for men hunting me, I’ve yet to notice.” He did not expect trouble from Durogg, but after crossing paths with Tulfa, his trust in gentle old men had diminished.

  “As you say. Most such stories are overwrought,” Durogg agreed, voice skeptical. “I recognize that beast of burden, yonder. Is its owner, perchance, hereabout?”

  “You know Horge?” Loro asked.

  “As it happens, he and I share a recent, and rather unfortunate, history. I would very much appreciate if you give him over to me.”

  “As we spared him from Tulfa’s cook pot,” Rathe said, “he’s in our care. If Horge has done anything against you, maybe we can help sort out your troubles.”

  “The manner in which I choose to rectify my trouble is none of your concern,” Durogg said, friendliness evaporating. “It will go better between us if you put him into my hands. At once.”

  “I would know the reason you want Horge.” Rathe disliked the man’s threatening tone. He held no great love for Horge, but neither had the man given any reason to turn him over to a stranger.

  Durogg stood straighter, firmer, shedding his guise of frailty. “’Tis enough I ask.” He swept back his cloak with a flourish, slammed the butt of his staff against the frozen ground. The mountains around them rung like a struck bell, and a burst of flame lit the head of the staff.

  “Gods and demons,” Loro cursed, taking a step back. “Look at his eyes!”

  “I see,” Rathe said, sword clearing the scabbard.

  Durogg’s eyes had become orbs of fire. Flames leaped behind his teeth when he said, “Give me that thieving wretch, on the instant, or suffer the consequences of denying me.”

  “Seems we’re at an impasse,” Rathe said. Here was a foe of
flesh, which suited him better than facing one of shadow.

  Durogg’s burning eyes narrowed. Instead of speaking again, he stabbed his staff toward Rathe. A hissing gout of fire shot through the camp, struck the spot where Rathe had been a second before.

  Rathe had expected some kind of attack, but nothing like that. Stunned, he rolled to his feet, only to leap again when another column of fire burst from Durogg’s staff. This time he landed behind a boulder, and pressed his face against the crust of snow. Loro had disappeared into the dense brush above camp. The horses tugged at their ropes, and Horge’s yak was grunting and lashing out with its back hooves.

  “Give me what I want, Scorpion,” Durogg warned, “or I will burn these mountains to cinders, and you with them!”

  Before Rathe could respond, a blast of fire exploded round the boulder. He shut his eyes against heat so intense that it shattered the boulder. As the fire died, Rathe was up and away.

  “There is nowhere you can escape!” Durogg shouted.

  Rathe shut his mind to that, bulled his way deeper into the brush. Another roar of fire charred the foliage closer to camp, but dwindled a few paces beyond. He had no idea what manner of man he faced, but he had learned as a green soldier to seek high ground against all enemies. He did so now. Behind him, Loro scampered up the opposite side of the ravine.

  After losing himself in deep darkness, Rathe made a sharp turn, and began clawing his way up the mountainside, using outcrops and the rare spruce to hide his progress. He went on until his breath burned in his chest and his legs quivered. He halted to peer around a boulder.

  Durogg now stood in the middle of camp, feet planted in the cookfire. Flames licked around the hem of his robes, but did not burn them. He focused on a bush wiggling nearby, and blasted it with fire from his staff. After a brief flare, only smoking branches remained. Higher up the slope, across the ravine from Rathe, Loro darted from one boulder to another.

  Rathe called a warning at the instant Durogg unleashed another stream of fire. It fell short, and Loro threw himself behind a pile of snow-covered rocks. Durogg seared a few more random spots, then moved to Horge’s gear, and began rifling through the panniers.