Bark gulped down a whimper against the blade’s edge. The terror tickled Burdock’s rage. A sinister smile cracked his lips as he started to run the knife vertically along his prey’s neck. The bristles of the mongrel’s stubble crackled. He let the man anguish a little longer, then withdrew the blade, turning back to the horse. “If you value your pathetic life, you will answer my questions, donate your horse to King Urlifec, and stay out of my way.”
“But, my lord!”
Burdock threatened Bark with the knife again, “If you are truly as loyal to King Urlifec as you claim, a ‘yes, my lord’ is the only thing you should have to say.”
“Y-yes, my lord.” The mongrel bowed away.
Burdock swung up into the saddle. “Now, open the doors and tell me where the traitor went.”
“She ran toward the healer’s house, that’s all I know.”
“You didn’t send scouts after her?” Burdock scolded as he nudged the gelding through the door. “You wouldn’t even be valuable as dung keepers in the training camps.” The bartender was walking toward him, a sack full of jerky and scones in his arms. “Secure the pack behind me,” Burdock ordered, and the man tied it to the back of the saddle.
“Here’s two filled water skins. There should be plenty enough streams ta fill ‘em ‘round here,” the man informed. The horse started to paw and prance from the tension, snorting in disapproval. Burdock turned the gray toward the gallows and kicked him into a trot. “Mark my words, Srift,” he shouted as he left the worthless town. “You will pay for your treachery!” He then kicked the horse into a gallop, down the path of the traitor.
It was securely morning by the time he reached the second clearing with a stream. Dismounting from the wheezing gray, Burdock knelt down to inspect the pile of horse waste. It was fresh. He cursed to himself; she had spent the night there. The grass was torn and bent from the weight of a galloping horse, giving him her retreat into the woods. Tearing the gray from the stream, he remounted and spurred the animal in pursuit.
A scream tore through the field, causing the gray to whirl out of control. Burdock looked up to see a cohe and its rider diving just to his left, landing with an earthquaking thud. Dismounting and tying the nervous gelding to the closest tree, he rushed toward the monsters. Burdock knelt twenty paces away, a distance that didn’t challenge the cohe but was still within the creature’s fang reach should it decide to punish. “Great Domotrec, Lord King Urlifec’s slave is at your mercy.”
The hooded rider steadied the cohe as it hissed warning to Burdock, tail writhing at the control. The vacuum of fearful silence dimmed the area. His nails dug into his palms as the Domotrec let the silence linger. Then, her ghostly voice made his skin crawl. “I have not found the dying gasps of Traitors nor the gorging of Lord King Urlifec’s servants’ victory. What I have found is the blood-stench of defeat and a lone servant filthy with failure.” The cohe hissed in agreement.
Burdock didn’t move; his eyes bore into the earth. “Great Domotrec, it is this slave’s shame to report the loss of an entire troop, a Grand General, and sect of Traitors.” Glaring up to the rider, his rage got the better of him, “and it is all due to a creature where ‘Traitor’ isn’t enough of a title!” The cohe flared its leathery wings and roared as Burdock collapsed to the ground in agony.
YOU WILL REMEMBER YOUR PLACE SLAVE!
The Domotrec’s command billowed and reverberated through his entire body as if she demanded that his very life disappear. Burdock cried out as ten hammers split his head and the sun’s embers burned his eyes. The agony welled up and became all he knew. He shook with fear and tore the fragile grass at his chest to anchor his existence.
As swiftly as she attacked, she released him with echoes of her command stabbing his mind. Tears streamed from his scorched eyes as his lung began to remember how to breath. “You are full of rage, slave, but not for your Master’s loss. Why is it that only you survived without a scratch?”
Burdock willed himself to get back into a kneeling position as he gasped his answer. “I don’t know, great Domotrec. Perhaps she didn’t put enough poison into my glass. But I truly intend to find her and deal her severe punishment.” A thought glimmered in the back of his mind: why had she spared him? Nausea rolled over him as she spoke in him.
You are not focused on your master’s will. You seek revenge, but not for the Great King Urlifec.
The image of Grand General Kent being stabbed by Blaze played in his mind’s eye, the last image he had before darkness. Pain and rage twisted inside of him, and he felt like the rag the bartender nervously handled that morning.
“You must return to Eclamai for report,” the Domotrec ordered.
Burdock resisted the urge to glare at her. “I am sorry, my guide, but I wish to enact the Great Lord’s justice upon this Traitor. I will find her and kill her.”
The cohe hissed. Do as you are ordered! “I will personally see her capture and treatment. Return to Eclamai and await orders,” her cold voice ground into his ears.
“Yes, great Domotrec,” he conceded. She was his guide, the voice of King Urlifec, and selfish motives were subservient to her orders.
Good.
The Domotrec urged the cohe to take wing. With a growl, the beast opened its wings and leapt over Burdock, pummeling him with wind. The gelding squealed as the monster soared over it, climbing with every powerful wingstroke. Burdock got up and walked to the horse as the Domotrec disappeared into the northern horizon.
Her orders were clear, go to Eclamai for report. Mounting the horse, he started back toward Srift, but Blaze’s treachery played fresh in his mind. Burdock turned to look down her trail, plain as day, leading him into the woods, and he boiled with raw emotion. His loyalty to Urlifec couldn’t quench the need for revenge. Blaze made her final mistake by leaving him alive; he was going to make her pay. He turned the horse around.
Chapter 7
7 Days After the Trial
Blaze cracked her back with a groan. She couldn’t decide which made her more irritable: being equal parts sore and stiff from riding for days, a lack of sleep due to nightmares and uncomfortable rocks for a bed, having stale bread and jerky for every meal, or hearing the incessant, monotonous clacking of Lily’s hooves reverberating from the cold, overbearing cliffs. The only luxuries of her journey were fair weather and a lack of malicious beasts. Wolves howled in the distance but never drew near.
“Hold Lil.” Having ridden since dawn, Blaze needed to get out of the saddle and lowered herself to the stony ground. Stretching to ward of the ache of travel, she yearned for everything that had existed before the trial. If only she could arise rested from a bed with Jonathan’s tea wafting through the air. If only she could be greeted by Tawnya’s unyielding smile. If only Obrae could be there to push her forward.
The heaviness she had been fighting threatened to crush her once again. Breathing deeply, she sat upon a boulder and fought to maintain control. “Tears and pity will not defeat Urlifec.” She grabbed her head as her vision blurred. With a growl, she reached for her anger. “I am strong, and I will not let Urlifec win. I am strong!”
A tug of leather in her hand drew Blaze back as Lily tried to make her way to the grassy forest edge. Allowing herself to be pulled up, she walked with the mare and allowed her to graze while Blaze drank some water. The spring greenery immediately made her feel better. “Think we’ve traveled long enough on the stone?” Lily simply continued to enjoy her lunch. “Maybe we could enjoy the company of trees and soft ground for a bit. It’ll be nice to not hear every footstep you make, girl.” Blaze closed her eyes to enjoy the quiet of wind fluffing newly budded limbs. Then, she listened closer. Faintly in the background was a rumble that never ceased, like an ever-blowing wind. She turned to face the rumble’s direction and opened her eyes; she was facing north.
Chest pounding, she pulled Lily toward the sound. Blaze paused after walking a good distance and listened. The rumble remained. She walked further on, paused,
walked more, and paused again. The rumble continued to sound, and it slowly gained volume. With a smile, Blaze hopped back into the saddle and urged Lily forward. “Lil’ just think. We can have a fresh stew, fresh hay, and a safe place to sleep by nightfall.”
As the day progressed into late afternoon, so did the rumble to a deafening roar. The cliffs remained her guide as the forest lightened from its thick, concealing cover to a sparse outline of Lake Thundrum. Blaze stopped Lily at the edge of the forest, unable to fathom the wonder before her. Her path ended at the rocky clay beach, and beyond the beach shimmered the waters of Lake Thundrum. Instead of the opposite shore, there was nothing but dancing water in the sunset’s orange colors. To her left, the cliff face edging the lake was garbed in a mist. Plummeting, swirling, thrashing, Thundrum Falls beat relentlessly into Lesira with a deafening roar.
And to her right where Krute should be was infinite water. Blaze’s spirits dropped as her hope for shelter and food disappeared. Lily snorted and stamped her hoof impatiently. Blaze dismounted and lead her to the water’s edge. As she filled her water skin, she continued to gaze to the southeast. Surely, one window would reflect the setting sun; perhaps the Falls was covering the sound of a market.
But no glitter of glass nor any whinny from a pack mule brought her hope from the other end of Thundrum. Blaze hurled a stone with all of her might, cursing as the projectile plummeted into the water. “Kaff it all! Of course this would happen. Am I ever supposed to have any kaffing luck?” Rock after rock, she threw until her shoulder burned and her heart thudded louder than the Falls.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lily straightened up, ears and head pivoting at attention toward the woods. Then she nickered in greeting. Whirling around, Blaze whipped out Obrae’s sword at the sight of Burdock sitting upon Bark’s gray gelding at the edge of the trees. His sword rested unsheathed in his lap as he smiled malignantly. Revenge reddened his eyes. He mouthed something to her and spat to the side, but the falls made hearing him impossible.
Blaze eased her way to Lily. Burdock grew excited and shouted something as he shook his sword in threat. Blaze sheathed Obrae’s sword and launched herself into Lily’s saddle, driving the mare forward along the lake’s shore. Even though both horses galloped at top speed, no horse in Srift matched Lily’s speed. They quickly exited the Zantar Cliffs’ evening shadow, and Blaze looked back to see Burdock and the gelding distant but still charging. A small explosion of thrill elated a victorious laugh from her as Lily’s speed made the sparse trees to her right blur into a muddy green while the glowing waters became a lake of light.
“Go Lily! Show that creature who can run!” A scream that bested the Fall’s roar answered her. Out of instinct, Blaze jerked Lily to the right, and a cohe crashed down next to them; debris and the gail from its wings assailing them. Lily found new speed as she bolted in pure screeching terror. Ducking under her arm, Blaze looked back in shock as the cohe screamed after them, and its hooded rider urged it back in the air. Pulling the reins, she turned Lily into the woods.
Blaze tried to weave Lily through the trees, but the mare was moving at such a pace that Blaze had to trust her to not run into anything. Burning streaks along her arms and face alerted her to the reaching branches or vines she couldn’t avoid. The cohe cried again, and she glanced toward the lake to see it gliding just beyond the trees, matching Lily’s progress. The rider looked straight at her, the hood pressing against its head in the monster’s flight.
Such power!
A revolting rage ignited and consumed her like a fever at the foreign thought. “Hayah!” She pushed Lily into a faster rampage and deeper into the woods, not caring about the wooded obstacles. Getting as far away from the cursed cohe was all that mattered.
Out of the deep woods came ten galloping black horses, each with an Urlifican rider. Lily’s strides started to feel more labored, and Blaze knew that she was trapped. Continuing southeast, she was pressed closer and closer to the open beach and the gliding cohe by the troops. Pulling out Obrae’s sword, Blaze turned her focus and Lily toward the flying gray beast. Lily squealed in terror as she burst from their forest cover, and the cohe screamed its blood curdling call, throwing its wings down to gain altitude. Blaze shouted at the top of her lungs as she thrust the sword towards the cohe, and Lily galloped under the beast.
The sharp point smacked against the cohe’s belly but didn’t pierce the leathery skin. Instead, it bounced back toward Blaze and knocked her off balance. Panic electrified her as the sensation of falling backwards shrieked through all of her body. Without warning, her shoulders pulled upwards while her chest was crushed. Her stomach lurched as she was yanked out of the saddle into the sky. No air was left in her lungs to scream as she saw the ground sink beneath her, and Lily continued on riderless.
With her shoulders painfully by her ears, she looked up to see a taunt rope attaching her to the flying cohe, the rider securing the lasso around the horn of the cohe saddle. The gail produced by the cohe’s frantically thumping wings spun and tossed her as it struggled to climb. Out of desperation, Blaze tried to add to its strain by swinging and curling her legs toward the supposed direction of Lake Thundrum. The beast started to succumb to her added directional weight and curved toward the shimmering waters. Blaze’s swirling soon became a focused direction as she worked the straining cohe over the sickeningly distant waters.
Blaze looked up while fixing Obrae’s sword against the rope. With all of her might, she pulled the blade along the rope.
“NO!”
There was a snap, and for a moment, Blaze remained suspended in the air with the rider’s exclamation echoing through her memory. This was the same cohe from nine cycles ago; the same rider whose words were the last she heard that awful night.
With a breath, she fell. They flew apart faster than Lily galloping, but her eyes remained fixed on the murderers of her past. The water hit her like solid ground as she felt every body-part crash through the water’s surface. A dazed blackness filled her vision, only to be immediately sharpened by a lung full of water. Blaze snapped her eyes open in a panic. She couldn’t find the surface.
Light headed and cold, she kicked to propel herself forward, and her right foot slammed into solid ground. Broken pain shot up her body, and she looked down to see black boulders. She use the rock to forcefully push toward the distant surface with all of her might. Red and black dots tunneled her vision, and her right foot uselessly burned and throbbed with every movement. The heavy metal of the sword still in her firm grasp threatened to pull her back down into the depths. Frantically digging toward the surface, Blaze felt the panic of drowning start to consume her. Her lungs painfully pulsed in an effort to get her to breathe, and her heart raced to keep her alive.
Blaze knew that she broke the surface after her second choking breath. The dizzying air nearly made her unconscious from its overwhelming relief, and her shocked pause made her sink back down into the water. Panic again compelled her to kick, and her hands reached up to the waving surface. Searing pain from her broken foot and the weight of the sword hindered her assent. Finally thinking to secure Obrae’s sword with her belt, Blaze clawed at her watery surrounding, launching herself into air. Sputtering and reacquainting her lungs with a steady supply of air, she appreciated how a current had swept her a good distance from where the Urlifican troop convened.
The cry above her destroyed all of her hope of escape. Blaze looked up to see the beast diving for her and quickly submerged into the safety of the depths. Water writhed above her as the cohe extended its wings and planed out just in time for its claws to strike the water. She surfaced as it rose into the air again. The troop saw the cohe’s attack and headed her way, a gray gelding in front. Her insides quaked as she swam toward shore. She was trapped.
Thudding to the ground, the cohe landed in front of her, tail thrashing madly as it’s rider restrained it from plucking her out of the water. Three body lengths from shore, Blaze stood on her good foot an
d drew Obrae’s sword. She would not die without a fight. Burdock thundered toward her. Whinnying in protest, the gray was forced to charge straight for her as his enraged rider held sword high. Blaze braced herself for the attack.
“Burdock, no!” thundered the Domotrec, her voice full of anger and power. Both Blaze and Burdock winced. The gelding panicked and swerved back to shore, and Burdock was thrown off, splashing down in front of Blaze. She leapt toward the Urlifican and thrust her sword point just in front of his face, making him freeze kneeling in the cold water. His sword was nowhere, and he looked up at her with pure hatred while they both panted.
“It has been a while since I smelled your blood, Traitor child,” The Domotrec hissed as the rest of the Urlificans formed a semicircle on shore. Blaze looked down to see a deep red streak wafting from her broken foot. The cohe lurched in bloodlust, but its rider contained it. “So what now?” the monster continued. “Will you kill the wretched Urlifican before you? His mentor is the reason for all of your grief, for the loss of your friends and your freedom. And he will surely continue the legacy.” Her voice smoothed over like a temptress cooing. Blaze looked down at the kneeling Burdock as her rage and hatred for Urlificans intensified. The madness on his face slowly melted into fear as he realized his situation.
Blaze could easily thrust Obrae’s sword into the last of that cursed troop. Why had she spared him in the first place? Without him chasing her, she might have slipped into Krute unnoticed. Burdock winced as she tensed up, ready to stab him at any moment. However, she looked down to the sword she held, shining in the last of the setting sun. The death-distorted face of Kent flashed in her mind, and Obrae’s final lesson of mercy resurfaced. If she killed him, what next? She was still trapped. “Do it!” the Domotrec spat, and the cohe added a deeper roar to the order that made Blaze’s skin crawl.
Traitors (The Traitor King Saga Book 1) Page 11
