The Raven scowled at the mumbling jailer. “You imbecile. You’ve clearly forgotten which pit.” He went to the adjacent oubliette and jerked the trapdoor open, turning his head to avoid the rush of putrid air. “Here!” he said. “Look here!”
The keeper hurried with his lantern and lowered it into the pit.
Meesha peered into the dungeon even knowing the prophet was not there, and then wished she hadn’t. The man curled up in a muddy mix of straw and his own filth was hardly more than a skeleton. He raised a bony hand in a pleading gesture.
“It’s not him, m’lord,” the jailer apologized.
The lantern was lifted, the door slammed shut, and the wretched creature returned to the darkness of his living death. Meesha swallowed hard to quell the urge to retch. She stiffened her resolve and felt a surge of courage. Even if what she and Valnor had done was discovered, she would do it again.
The Raven lifted the door on the last of the oubliettes.“That one’s dead, m’lord,” the keeper said.
“Is he the one I’m looking for? Can you see?”
The jailer lowered the lantern and shook his head. “The prophet’s hair was white as milk. Even with his scalp mostly et away, you can see this’n’s was dark.”
“Then where is he? He has to be somewhere!” As the Raven raged at the jailer, his eyes flitted to the rotting carcass. He gagged and slammed the heavy door closed. He stood for a long time as if he could still see the man at the bottom of the pit.
Is it possible there is compassion beneath the frightful scars on his chest?
“You have mistaken him for another,” he said finally.
“I think not, m’lord,” the keeper said.
“You keep a register of prisoners?”
“It’s how I knowed where he was. I put him here myself.” He hacked a gob of phlegm from his throat and spit on the floor. “I remember ’cause he tried to put a hex on me. Said I’d suffer the wrath of Oum’lah, whatever that’s supposed to be.”
“When was he put here?”
The keeper dragged a hand across his muddy beard. “Two, three seasons maybe.”
“When was the last time you saw him here—in the pit?”
“We drop ’em bread every day. Most days,” he added with a shrug.
“With the lantern?”
The keeper scratched the stubble on his neck. Something crawled away from his fingers as he shrugged and shook his head.
“Who might have moved him from here? Who has that authority?”
“Captain and me, but . . .” He furrowed his brow and shook his head. “Once a man is thrown to the pit, we don’t ever take ’im out.”
“Even after they’re dead?” The Raven’s face twisted in disgust, and he glanced at the first pit.
“If we get time, m’lord.” He chortled and added, “But what’s it matter if a traitor has to share the pit with the last man ’til he rots away?”
Meesha knew from his sniggering such a horrible thing had happened before.
The keeper of the prison misread his visitors’ sensibilities. The Raven straightened the leather strap across the big jailer’s chest like a commandant preparing a kingsrider for inspection. “Pray tell me,” he said, his voice cold and threatening, “if the keeper of the prison loses a man put in a pit, who should go there in his place to eat all that bread leftover from the rats?” He looked at pit III lest the dullard misunderstand. The burly keeper was reduced to a quivering rabbit.
Meesha saw the Raven staring at the trapdoor of the dead man’s pit. His lips were curled in disgust. She could hear the whispering of his mind: No man deserves to die in such depravity! She spoke almost without thinking.
“No man deserves to die in such depravity,” she repeated.
The Raven looked at her sharply.
“Am I wrong, m’lord?”
His face remained hard. It was not the reaction she’d hoped for. I have misjudged his sympathies. Revealed myself. Meesha flushed and held her tongue. She knew nothing of the man other than what he claimed. She had seen the ugly scars of the ritual oath of fire. Is it enough?
The Raven held Meesha’s eyes. She could feel him reaching into her head, a tentacle that pierced her skull and slithered into the privacy of her thoughts. She broke his gaze and looked away, but he gripped her chin and lifted her face. His eyes were dark and cold.
“You know something of the missing prisoner,” he said with the chill of an icy wind blown over a frozen lake. It was a pronouncement, not a question. “Tell me what you know of this old fool, and tell me quickly!”
Meesha caught her breath and, with it, her courage. “Why has an emissary of the king come so far just to see a man condemned to the pit?”
“You are a cursed child!”
Cursed? Witchchild. Even in the midst of their confrontation, Meesha felt the pain of his insulting words, and heat flushed over the dark side of her face.
“If you did not bear the king’s blood, I would throw you into the pit for such insolence.”
His unwillingness to harm her bolstered her courage. “What do you want of the one they call the prophet?” she asked.
“It is not for you to know the business of the king,” he snapped, his patience spent.
“It is my father’s place to know the business of Stókenhold Fortress, including the hapless souls condemned here by your king.” It wasn’t entirely true, but the confidence of her declaration made it so.
“Has your impudence no bounds?”
“I stand for my father in his absence. What is your true purpose here, m’lord Raven to the King?”
He turned away, but Meesha could see his face redden. He clenched his jaw. The plume of peacock feathers on his velvet hat rocked like a boat in a ripple of waves. His demeanor changed. “I have come to give him his freedom,” he said after a moment. “The king has need of him.”
Meesha was surprised and studied his face for any sign of deceit. “You speak the truth?”
“Would you challenge the word of the Raven to the King?”
Meesha said nothing but answered the question with a twist of skepticism on her face.
“It is the truth, but no one can know of this arrangement. It is an unusual circumstance.” He raised a warning finger and glanced at the keeper of the prison. The man’s head bobbed in promised compliance.
“You have come to set him free?” Meesha said it slowly. There must be no misunderstanding. The Raven nodded, and Meesha took a deep breath. Perhaps I have misjudged him. But even as the hopeful thought swept through her mind, she couldn’t shake the feeling there was something amiss.
CHAPTER 51
The canyon had fallen into twilight by the time Qhuin and Sargon left the mare and wheeled to the end of the valley where the rest of the tarpans had run. The left wheel of the chariot dropped into a burrow with a jolting thud and bounded out. Qhuin saw something scurry in the darkness, and he glanced back. For an instant he was eye to eye with a giant rat standing on its hind legs at the edge of its hole.
The creature curled its purple lips and hissed at the intruders. Its mouth was a snag of yellow teeth with fangs protruding from the upper jaw. One of them was broken. Dried blood dangled in crusty clumps below the rat’s chin.
The sight of it gave Qhuin a sickening sensation. It was the ugliest creature he had ever seen. The size of it was shocking. As the skies darkened, a horde of rats emerged from their burrows and prowled into the dark.
The legendary carnivorous rats of the Tallgrass Prairie are real. And with Qhuin’s musings came the thought, If the creatures are more than legend, then what of the rest of the horrid tales?
“It’s too dark,” the princeling complained.
“Almost, m’lord,” Qhuin agreed. The words were hardly out of his mouth when a mysterious glow spread over the red dirt and reflected from the w
alls. Sargon glanced at Qhuin, who looked up. A column of cumulus clouds boiled high and caught the last rays of the sun. Reflected light accounted for the gloaming.
It was serendipitous good fortune. The horses were contained by the steep walls of the box canyon, and the lingering light meant they had one last chance of catching another wild tarpan.
Qhuin saw the prince standing at the rim of the vale. Jehu was behind with a tight grip on the bridle of a black. He must have driven the prince to the edge of the canyon so they could see into the valley floor.
How long has he been watching? How much did he see? Did the prince see me strike his son? The possibility filled him with dread.
If the prince had seen the altercation with Sargon, there was serious trouble ahead. Qhuin’s threat had frightened Sargon when they were alone, but he knew the moment the princeling was back in the company of kingsriders and kin, what had happened would not be forgiven nor forgotten.
Retribution and punishment were inevitable. This very night? After they returned? The fleeting thought that he may never see another sunrise sent a shudder through his being. The lump of stone in his gut turned to ice.
He cursed himself for losing control. “Always remember the difference between feeling free and being free.” Rusthammer’s wisdom was always there inside his head. “Temper has its place, but only when perfectly controlled. Overcoming your own nature is the greatest of all challenges.”
Qhuin knew he had crossed a line from which there was no retreat.
He reined the milk-whites left to avoid a sinkhole created when a burrow of the giant rats collapsed.
Chor and Horsemaster Raahud left their chariots near the edge of the swale where Qhuin had entered the ravine. They picked their way down the rutted slope of stones and moved on foot across the valley with lasso-poles and coils of hemp in hand.
Four of the Huszárs dismounted and moved swiftly down the slope to join the other men. The other two remained at the top of the swale. The youngest of them was only sixteen. Seventeen at most.
“Baaly, son of Mesqulick, is second cousin to the princelings,” Horsemaster Raahud told Qhuin, pointing.
When Baaly saw Qhuin and the chariot on the valley floor, he spurred his horse down the dangerous slope with whooping bravado. Stepping the horse slowly made the ascent a reasonable possibility. A trot was dangerous. A gallop was a death wish.
The iron shoes skidded on the loose rock. His pony lost its footing and skidded down the slickrock on its side. Baaly’s leg was trapped between the pony and the rock, but he pulled it free as the horse rolled over.
Baaly tumbled to the bottom in a graceless splay of flying legs and grasping hands. With no weight on its back, the pony found purchase, regained its legs and half stepped, half skidded to the bottom where it galloped away.
The young Huszár winced as he struggled to stand on one leg. His bravado was gone. Or was it? He raised both hands and let out a bellowing crow of exhilaration.
The prince laughed out loud from where he stood watching from the rim.
The wild horses had run to the far end of the valley and were trapped by steep walls on three sides. There was only one way out of the box canyon, but the hunters moving toward them blocked their escape.
Qhuin and his trio of milk-whites wound their way through the rat craters on the valley floor in a three-beat gait. The runaway pony hurtled past the chariot with startling speed and headed for the wild herd. Horsemaster Raahud, Chor, his reinsman, and four Huszárs moved forward in a well-spaced line with ropes and poles, and way behind, Baaly hobbled to catch up.
Qhuin looked to the rim where the prince was making his way down a rockfall. He leaped from rock to rock with surprising agility. Jehu followed with a leather satchel strapped to his back, two coils of hemp, and a long lasso-pole wrapped in leather.
Growing up and serving in the stables of Blackthorn, Qhuin had longed for the prince to notice him. The slightest acknowledgment. A grateful nod. A word of “thank you” or an almost unimagined “well done.” It never came, but he could not help himself from trying to please the man who owned him. It angered him that he felt the need, and yet, the old longing for approval had never gone away.
Was he watching? Did he see that it was I who caught the painted horse? He pushed the thought away, but not before the irony struck him and he almost laughed aloud. If the prince saw me lasso the wild horse, then he also saw me knock his son to the ground.
The wild tarpans ran back and forth at the base of the cliff, looking for a way to escape as the chariot rolled and the hunters strode toward them. Eager as the hunters were to wade into the herd with hemp and poles, Horsemaster Raahud shouted for them to move slowly, stand steady, and let the tarpans adjust to their presence. The horses gathered in a hollow of the cliff face that looked like a giant bowl half buried in the sand.
Qhuin positioned his chariot in the center of the human barricade and held a tight rein.
Sargon stepped from the footboard with the lasso-pole in hand even before the milk-whites stopped.
Chor and his reinsman were on the right flank where the dry riverbed ran along the base of the cliff. Seasonal storms had left a ragged wash. It was where Qhuin thought the wild horses would most likely make their break.
Jewuul and Raahud were next in line. The rest of the hunters spread themselves between the chariot and the tumble of broken rocks by the canyon wall.
Sargon stepped ahead of the others and moved toward the wild horses that milled about in nervous confusion. Eager to redeem himself in the eyes of his father, Qhuin surmised. He wanted to stop him but restrained the impulse. The trouble for him was deep enough without humiliating the princeling further.
“Stand steady, m’lord.” Horsemaster Raahud spoke loudly enough to be heard above the rumble of hooves and nervous whinnies.
Sargon glanced back at the phalanx of hunters who watched him with displeasure.
“If they spook, they’re gone,” Raahud warned. “Let them settle. We should wait for your father . . . m’lord.”
Let them settle. It was the same thing Qhuin had said to Sargon. The princeling pressed his lips into a thin line, but to Qhuin’s surprise, retreated to the line with a half nod.
Qhuin felt Sargon’s eyes on him but resisted the urge to look at him. Whatever his expression, the spoiled princeling would construe it as a haughty show of triumph. There was no retreat from his trouble with the princeling. No reason to make it worse.
Kadesh-Cor and Jehu had reached the bottom of the escarpment and moved toward the line of hunters standing steady, waiting for the herd to settle.
Had Qhuin not known the royal status of the man striding toward them, he might have taken him for a huntsman. A man among men, responding to instincts passed down since the high gods were begotten of Apsu and Anu and set the universe in order. It affirmed again why many commoners felt a curious kinship with the Baron Magnus of Blackthorn.
The prince reached Qhuin’s chariot and motioned for Jehu to join him.
Sargon chewed at a fingernail, already bitten to the quick. “I got one, did you see?” he said with guarded enthusiasm. He crossed and uncrossed his arms. His eyes flitted to Qhuin, then away.
“How did you miss it?” Kadesh-Cor said. The question was simple, but the tone sharp. The kindness Qhuin had seen in the prince’s eyes when they met on the King’s Road was missing.
“I didn’t miss. I caught it,” he protested. “I tied it to a tree back where—”
“It was your reinsman who made the catch!”
The wish of a nine-year-old boy to be noticed by the most important man in the world came racing from somewhere in the back of Qhuin’s memory. He felt foolish and angry, but also a tiny flush of pride.
“The reinsman didn’t hold the course,” Sargon insisted. “I was ready to drop the loop, and he let them break away.” He poked Qhu
in in the chest with the lasso-pole. “Didn’t you?”
Qhuin locked eyes with Sargon and for a moment had a vague suspicion they were negotiating a wholly different matter. Knowing that Prince Kadesh-Cor had watched the entire event from the ridge gave him a sense of calm.
Qhuin said nothing. Kadesh-Cor shifted his attention from his son to the bondsman. When their eyes met, Qhuin did not look away.
The rasp of Rusthammer’s voice whispered so loudly in Qhuin’s head he wondered if the prince could hear. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. Do not seek to be great. Seek to tell the truth, and you will become great.”
“You broke away too early, didn’t you?” Sargon demanded with another poke of the pole.
Qhuin breathed deeply. “We didn’t break, m’lord. We held the course.” He could see the prince was startled by his audacity in challenging his master. Clearly Kadesh-Cor had expected a humble concession to the princeling’s lie in spite of what he’d seen.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Sargon gripped a fistful of the rough weave jerkin Qhuin wore and pushed him against the cowling of the chariot. His confidence waxed high in the protective shadow of his father.
“No, m’lord,” Qhuin said. “The ground was rutted. You caught her on the second pass.”
Sargon relaxed his hand and strained to see the ruse behind Qhuin’s eyes.
“Your hand was on the pole. First catch is yours.”
Kadesh-Cor narrowed his eyes in admiration and something else Qhuin couldn’t measure.
“We best move on the horses, m’lord. Darkness will soon be upon us,” Horsemaster Raahud said. “The pick of the herd is yours, m’lord prince, but I suggest the chestnut. She’s sixteen hands at least and young enough to give you many foals.”
“Hemp or pole, m’lord?” Jehu asked as he stepped forward.
Kadesh-Cor nodded toward the lasso-pole without taking his eyes from the large chestnut mare. Jehu put it in his hand.
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