by Aimee Moore
Another Kraw, holding a map of the continent, spoke up from the far side of the righted table. “And we are to hear the words of a traitor during our planning?”
I raised one palm toward him before he had finished speaking and the map he was holding exploded into flames. I raised my chin with a scowl as the Kraw dropped the map with a surprised grunt, trying to put it out. All eyes were on me. Even the Warlord's, whose gaze burned into me worst of all.
“Dal's name has been absolved, and should you need reminding again I will find something else on your person that feeds the flame of my anger.”
Silence settled around the table as the Kraw I warned gave a curt nod.
Everyone's attention returned to Dal, who had found a bit of charcoal and was now drawing on the map, making notations as he spoke. “In the unlikely event that Kraw cannot penetrate the human defenses, we can spread contagion among their food sources and they will be vulnerable within months.
“Here is the line in which the farms end and the housing begins. There are two sections of housing before the inner sanctum of the castle, which is here. The castle rests against the sea, here, and fills this space, making itself an easy target. The lake which houses the leyline is still within the castle walls, yet apart from the main structure, here.”
I watched as Dal drew the most accurate map I had ever seen. His time atop the castle tower was not wasted; I had no idea he’d been scouting. Perhaps it was silly of me not to expect it; he was in enemy territory, after all.
“This indentation,” the Warlord said, pointing to a small mark Dal had made next to the lake, “what is this.”
“One of the Gifted has created an access point here, which leads under the lake, directly to the leyline.”
“Kraw will not waste time with the pathetic city,” the Warlord waved one hand away, “we will strike here, where the wall is unguarded. We will fill the access tunnel and destroy the leyline and the Gifted who guard it,” the Warlord said.
I said, “Sol Jalgon, the Gifted who handles earth, may have closed the passage, and you will then be vulnerable with no way under the lake and no defense against the high castle. The advantage in your surprise will be wasted.”
“Kraw are not vulnerable,” Gurlok growled.
I ghosted an eye roll.
“There will be no surprise, they can see us coming for miles,” Dal said.
Gurlok spoke then. “The other four clans have arrived. We will wash upon the broken shores of their stronghold like a tempest storm.”
Another Kraw spoke up. “The clans Swiftblade and Bloodsong will be here by tomorrow.”
Gurlok nodded at the other Kraw. “I have informed the new arrivals that the humans seek to use light in their favor. The fools do not know that light is in our favor.”
“You have Dal to thank for that, he fed the human council light as a Kraw weakness,” I said.
Gurlok cut Dal a grin. “Kraw wit at its finest.”
On and on the planning went, the Warlord offering keen suggestions alongside Dal's. Dal was intelligent, but the Warlord was a strategist in battle, and this was merely another puzzle box to breach.
In the end, the Warlord, black eyes glittering with malice, commanded that all of the army would assault the front of the human stronghold, laying siege to the mountain-high walls and crops. Then rush into the capital like raging rivers, drowning the humans in Kraw ferocity.
But the tide of destruction was only an elaborate distraction – an infantile distraction for infantile minds, and there was no question that it would work. A small, elite group of us, the Warlord included, would wash through the back along the lake. We would be the Dagger in Shadow. If the passageway to the leyline was closed, then we would take the castle from the rear entrance and force our way through the tunnel while the human forces were distracted with the battle.
The Warlord was going to personally make sure that the leyline was destroyed, because it was his duty. And that meant that he would be breathing down our necks the entire way. If our progress was somehow halted, the massive Kraw army would reach us in due time and ensure victory. Even if the Gifted somehow stopped us, our sheer numbers would overwhelm them.
The night before beginning our journey to the capital, Dal and I lay in each other's arms. He didn’t press me for affection of any sort, giving me the space and time I needed to heal. But both of us, in those quiet hours where the night held its breath waiting for the morning, were quiet with apprehension.
Because in the heat of battle, we were to kill the Warlord. And that terrified me. Even though I had killed by my own choice recently, I was still frightened looking into the eyes of the man who had violated me and seeing the life leave them. But Dal assured me that his plan would work without endangering me, and he would have his vengeance without having to succeed the Warlord.
I trusted.
I worried.
I lost the nerve to carry through with it.
I was emboldened by the plan and wanted to forge ahead.
I was emotionally exhausted by the time a tumultuous sleep took me.
The next morning was an odd cacophony of preparations as excitement electrified the air. Every grunt and chief were fed. Everyone that was not a child put on battle leathers, spikes, bones, war paint, and grotesque oddities. Anyone who was able strapped weapons on their forms. I did not see a single Kraw, male or female, who was not geared for battle.
Dal left to handle preparations for our critical party of leyline destroyers, the Dagger in Shadow. A dagger to the back was a fast death, and we wanted to be done with Elanthia. Kraw children came into my tent, ornamental bones clacking on their leather strung jewelry and sticking out of their tiny, dusky skinned ears and noses. I smiled and let the girls braid my hair while the boys gave me war paint, giggling with joy at being given something to do during this crucial point in their existence.
I marveled at the silky black shocks of fuzz on their heads, some shaved away in parts and some a tangled mess with mud and sticks. Some of the children snarled and showed their fangs at each other while they worked on me, and I tried not to show how they warmed my heart with their fierceness. My own child would be just as ready to pick a fight, no doubt.
I sent some of the children to bring me blood, and some to bring me small, spindly weapons akin to long metal needles. They searched far and wide, gleeful as children are at having important jobs to do, and returned to me with great success. I praised them for their usefulness to the Eyes and Ears, telling them what fine chieftains they would make some day.
When I stepped out of my tent, chin held high, everyone stopped and stared. I had painted myself in blood, with a bold black stripe across my eyes making the whites stand out in fearsome contrast. The spindled spikes of needle-like weapons stuck out of my hair in a half circle around the back of my head, like a glinting crown of death.
The children had woven tiny skulls into my war braids, and even delivered to me curved rib bones of smaller animals to adorn my clothing with. It was woven into my leathers like ribbed armor, hiding the lump of my seashell necklace underneath.
I marched toward the Warlord's tent, heart hammering at coming face to face with the smiling death that had wrecked me so completely only days before. Maggot greeted me at the door to the tent, and a pang of guilt shot through me as his burnt face gave a curt nod of respect, never breaking eye contact.
I returned the nod, shoving aside the tent flap and entering the hot space with the pyre and the throne that had once been my own. Death himself sat on that throne now, halting his conversation with three other Kraw at my entry, a slow smile revealing the pointed teeth that haunted me.
“Tell me,” said that bottomless, hopeless voice, “how is it that my Eyes and Ears has not been made to bear the marks of the people she leads?”
I frowned at the Warlord, and with a soft laugh, he traced a finger over the tattoos that flowed over that cruel face like water.
I walked over to the table of maps
, jittery with the awareness of four pairs of eyes on me, and spoke boldly. “If the Warlord wishes to brand his Eyes and Ears like livestock, then perhaps he fears that loyalty cannot be earned.”
And then that cold voice was in my ear, sending shivers up my spine, making my hands cold with sweat.
“Or perhaps the Warlord just wants to hear a lower creature squeal in pain some more.”
I curled my lip in disgust as I turned and faced those cruel eyes, my own mouth only inches from the stinking pit of teeth that made the Warlord's mouth.
“Then spend your affections on swine, or you can lead your army with only the charred husks of what used to be hands.”
He stepped away in one sinuous move as flame began to dance up my side, scalding him in his nearness. The Warlord gave me a slow laugh, a deep echo in the bottom of a well coming to claim its drowning victim. I ignored the tense looks coming from the other three Kraw and gathered up the maps, keeping my flame from the fragile parchment.
“Come, we must leave,” I said.
“We leave when I say. And you will ride at my side, Eyes and Ears.”
I gave a curt nod, back ramrod straight, and exited the building to find Dal.
When all was said and done, the Warlord had taken the biggest creaking, stinking war wagon of the bunch. It was constructed of fresh bones and wood, pulled by a hulking beast I had never seen before with a smaller, empty harness at its side. The creature was twice as large as a cow, with graying leather skin and a large hump for a back.
Its clubbed tail, massive as a cannonball, swung about in front of the Warlord's obnoxious wagon. It groaned and snorted and stomped at the ground with its oddly stumpy legs. It had a single pointed horn coming from its nose, and nostrils as big around as my splayed hands that snorted and huffed great breaths of air.
I sat atop the creaking wagon, next to the Warlord who was dressed more horrifically than I with unblinking eye orbs woven into his braids. As I had ordered half of the war steeds to be slaughtered, very few Kraw actually had steeds at their disposal, which meant that they had to run behind us. I had no doubt that the Warlord would find some way to make me pay for that, too. If he lived.
Gurlok and a few of the Dagger in Shadow group rode in the back of our wagon, but otherwise the remaining wagons were for children and elderly who cared for the young and the sick, trailing so far back in our horde that the distance swallowed them up. I gasped as Dal strode before our wagon, grabbed the empty harness next to the beast, and put it on with a scowl.
“What is he doing?” I said, keeping my voice neutral.
The Warlord gestured with one black hand. “You requested your Dal be named my third. It only seems fitting that my third lead my army into battle.”
I looked away from the Warlord's nasty grin and the unblinking eyes dotted through black braids around his head. I kept my face neutral as Dal faced away from me and readied to pull the wagon alongside the stomping beast. There was no way that Dal was as fast or strong as the hulking beast next to him. Panic, terror, and hatred swirled together in my gut to make a caustic elixir.
“My Eyes and Ears looks.... displeased,” the Warlord said in a low, taunting whisper.
I shook my braids out, raising my chin. “It is illogical to have a Kraw do the work of a much stronger beast. He will be inefficient.”
“Inefficient,” the Warlord said, as if tasting the word for the first time. “You above all others in this camp could attest to how inefficient my Third is. Perhaps that is why you agreed to a mating with a real Kraw.”
I turned my head to give the Warlord the most hateful glare I could muster.
“Say it Seraphine,” the Warlord whispered into my ear. Death crooned up my spine in cold waves. “Say that this Dal is inefficient, that your body belongs to the Warlord. I will send the useless flesh of my Third away to be replaced by a useful beast.”
Horrifying memories of that one night at the Warlord's mercy struck through my mind like spears. Embarrassment and shame colored my cheeks.
“I would sooner reduce myself to ashes than subject myself to your sickness again,” I hissed.
The Warlord grabbed my throat, quicker than I could call my fire, and brought his face very close to mine as he squeezed. “My frail Eyes and Ears would rather die than live as the people she deigned to conquer.” He leaned in closer, squeezing harder so that my breath came out hard. “You remember this, don't you, Seraphine.” Hot wetness scrubbed the side of my mouth, up my cheek, as he licked me.
My insides recoiled with horror. I brought my flame to my skin, and within moments the Warlord released me, fixing me with an amused grin as I glared hot daggers at him.
“I find you vile,” I said, wiping my face off with disgust. “And under no terms will I ever share a bed with you again. Were I not concerned for the wellbeing of my world I would have left long ago. You are merely a means to an end, an end that cannot come soon enough.”
The Warlord laughed, a cold and calculating laugh, and lifted a long whip from the seat behind him. With one last look at me, he unfolded the whip and cracked it forward, the lash biting into the backside of the large beast with a strip of red. It roared and stomped to life, Dal's gaze barely meeting mine before being forced to run alongside the animal. I clenched my teeth as I watched the corded muscles of Dal's arms and back bunch and release with his footfalls.
“Let us hope then, Eyes and Ears, that you were incorrect about my Third being inefficient. Kraw do not suffer weakness,” the Warlord said with a nasty grin, reeling in the whip.
And then, the entire camp was moving, thousands upon thousands of Kraw, cutting a great swath of footprints and sweat through my world as we neared my capital city.
I looked about me at the Kraw who were forced to run instead of ride, and they never seemed to tire. They never bore a single drop of sweat, never demanded food or water. I knew that they were strong, I had seen Dal perform similar feats, but to behold an entire army with this sort of stamina was humbling. I pitied all of humanity. But not as much as I pitied Dal right now, who would tire far before the beast towering beside him.
“Your species,” said the Warlord over the thundering of feet and wheels and breathing, “is weak compared to Kraw. I see it in your eyes, you bring certain doom to the maggots hiding in their rotting tower. But still, I have yet to decide if it was strength or cowardice that brought you to the Kraw.”
I turned cold eyes to the Warlord, those tattooed lips peeled back in a leer alongside the stinking bones clinking on his person. I didn't like him watching me, didn't like him reading me the way Dal did. I knew I should keep my mouth shut, lest I provoke him more, but I couldn’t quell the need to assert my own strength.
“Do not presume to know me or my species,” I said. “If riding alongside you rids my world of your barbarism quicker, then so be it.” I was keenly aware of the blood smeared across my person as I called the Warlord of the Kraw barbaric.
The Warlord cut me an evil smile, war braids slapping against his neck as the cart rocked, many unblinking eyes sending shivers up my spine. “My Eyes and Ears is so... determined,” the Warlord said on a growl. “Perhaps it is time we bring this procession to a full gallop, to better serve the goals we both so desire,” death said next to me.
The Warlord raised his whip, and I knew where he would strike next.
“There is no need for that. The stinging whip of your voice will be enough,” I said, trying my best to spare Dal more torture.
The Warlord gave a low laugh, then, placing his hand on my knee in a possessive gesture, called out to Dal.
“The Eyes and Ears commands that we double our pace, Third.”
Out of fear for Dal, I let the Warlord's hot, heavy hand remain on my leg. It was too intimate, too close, and my heart thrummed in my throat as Dal turned to glance at me mid stride. With a glare, he turned forward and surged ahead, faster this time.
The beast next to him kept up, and immediately the rest of the army p
icked up the pace, their breathing finally increasing. My heart thrummed in my veins, fueled by anxiety and sadness as I watched the straining back of the man I loved.
The black, tattooed hand had a death grip on my leg. And soon, that bottomless voice carried on above the thundering of Kraw purpose.
“When I was young a war hound produced five fine pups. War hounds can only suckle four, as the nature of our planet is to produce the strongest, fiercest creatures possible. I was tasked with killing the runt. And when I held it, I beheld its tiny heart beating against my strong hands.”
The large hand squeezed my leg. Then the voice was in my ear, sending chills into the base of my skull. “Did it sense death, I wonder? I never knew why its pathetic little heart beat like so, but when I crushed it under my boot heel, the other pups fed stronger, and the world was a better place.”
I raised my chin and leaned away from the Warlord, refusing to give him any more opportunities to hurt Dal. Whether I was a runt or not was irrelevant; I would not be baited.
With a laugh, the hand left my leg, and cold relief flooded the spot where Death's grip had been.
Chapter 28
Warm Bread and Painted Pawns
That night we made camp, Maggot doing my bidding and making my tent fit for the Eyes and the Ears of the Warlord. Dal had kept pace with the wagon, only suffering five lashes, which he insisted were mere scratches. Large pyres of fire were lit all around the legion of camping Kraw, and as I strolled about, no longer needing protection among the Kraw, I lit the few that were not yet lit. Various Kraw approached me, respect in their eyes, to make requests or give salute. A few approached me, laughter in their eyes.
“The Eyes and the Ears,” one said with a sneer.
The other laughed. “I should have broken you when I had the chance, worm. I remember your frail, helpless corpse in my wagon. I remember beating the traitor as he—"
His words turned into screams as I set his clothing on fire with a flick of my finger. The Kraw let out a war bellow that caught the attention of every Kraw within earshot, and I set myself aflame, the writhing hot curls of heat licking up and down my sensitive skin. I drew my sword, the flame arcing down the blade to elongate it, and I aimed it at the panicking Kraw's sneering companion. The sneer vanished.
