The Ippos King: Wraith Kings Book Three

by Draven, Grace

  He proceeded to relay the events of the trip from the time Anhuset arrived at High Salure to when Ratik arrived with his troop, leaving out the parts about his intimacy with the Kai woman and changing the story line from Anhuset standing next to him on the battlements to her leaving for Saggara the moment they put Megiddo into the monks' safekeeping. He wanted to leave out the part where they visited Haradis but suspected Ogran or Bryzant had already relayed that information to whatever go-between messenger they used to relay information to the king.

  Rodan's harsh features didn't change through the narrative or when it ended, nor did his raptor gaze turn friendly. “What happened to your horse?”

  The question confirmed for Serovek the wisdom of having Anhuset ride Magas to Saggara. He adopted a pained expression. “Lost in Chamtivos's raid on us. I didn't recover him, nor did the Nazim.”

  A flicker of disappointment caught in Rodan's eyes. “A loss. He was a magnificent animal.”

  And one that will never be yours, Serovek thought. Even if I don't survive this ludicrous circumstance.

  He bowed his head in a supplicating gesture. “May I speak more, Your Highness?” The action must have appealed to the king for he nodded. “If you want absolute proof that my journey to the Jeden Order wasn't to open negotiations for an alliance with Chamtivos, then bring one of the monks to Timsiora to witness in my defense, or better yet, have them bring Chamtivos's head with them. I was the one who took it off his body. I'm content in my role as margrave. I visit the capital only upon your summons, not because I'm enamored with court and its trappings. Belawat already has a king who rules the kingdom with a deft hand.”

  “So does High Salure” Rodan replied in a voice gone icy. “All you lack is a crown, and I find it hard to believe that a man of your standing with a powerful and loyal army of your own might remain content to govern a backwater. Especially one so far from the seat of real power. You understand if I'm convinced of your treachery, you will be executed for your crimes.

  “I do.” It wasn't Bryzant's letter and machinations he'd have to conquer, but the king's own perceptions of his influence and his ambitions. They, more than some falsely histrionic letter from an unimportant steward, would determine his fate.

  Rodan motioned to something behind Serovek, and the rhythmic march of boots grew louder as they neared. Serovek tensed but remained kneeling. “I'll speak to other witnesses over the next few days,” the king said. “I may even wait a little longer with my decision and do as you suggested, summon a Nazim monk or two and have them bring Chamtivos's head. Until then, you are a prisoner of the crown.” He gestured again, and this time the guards behind Serovek hauled him to his feet. “Take him to the Zela. Prison accommodations won't be as fine those in the palace guest wing, but you're a soldier. You've quartered in worse.”

  Dismissed without further word, Serovek was escorted from the audience room and greeted by a sea of curious onlookers. This, he thought, would be his fate if he ever wanted to take the throne. Every door opening to a mob like this. He didn't know which was worse, the cell waiting for him in the Zela because the king considered him a traitor, or the cell constructed by the very nature of the kingship he didn't seek. In that moment, and for the first time, he truly pitied Brishen Khaskem.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lover of thorns.

  Anhuset was afraid she'd have to sling Erostis over her shoulders the way she had done with Serovek on the island, but he managed to keep up with her as they raced behind the monk leading them to the stables. There they found Magas and the horse she'd ridden on their journey saddled and ready. With only a wince and a short expletive, Erostis swung into the saddle on Anhuset's gelding and guided it into the stable yard, leaving Anhuset and Magas to eye each other.

  “Now isn't the time to play the spoiled princess, Magas,” she said. “I'd leave you behind for convenience's sake and take a more agreeable horse, but your master has asked me to do otherwise. Don't make me regret agreeing to his request.”

  Whether it was the tone of her voice or even if the stallion actually understood what she said, Anhuset could only guess, but Magas snorted once and stepped forward of his own accord to wait for her to mount, docile as a sheep. Anhuset swung into the saddle and followed Erostis into the stableyard.

  The monk who led them there stood closest to Erostis. “Have you heard of the old trader way?”

  She shook her head, but Erostis nodded. “I have. All the caravans used it before they built the bridges across the river to reach the valley. It takes twice as long to get anywhere.” His scowl matched Anhuset's.

  “Only if you're pulling a wagon,” the monk argued. “Go that way. You won't cross Rodan's troops. They came here from the main route and will return that way to head north for the better mountain passes.”

  That was good enough for Anhuset. “Let's go.”

  The back gate the abbot described was actually a tunnel carved through the hillside into which the monastery was built. It looked even older and more mysterious than the monastery itself, its rock walls lit from within by an unknown luminescence. Strange murals and sigils decorated its ceiling. Whoever had carved out the tunnel expected a great deal of traffic to pass through it at one time. The passage was wide and the ceiling high, with a dry floor on which the horses' hooves clopped dully with every step. It went farther than she anticipated, and they moved slower than she wanted, but they dare not risk laming a horse that had lost its footing on the rock floor. A sheer wall greeted them at the tunnel's end. If not for the faint draft and scent of outside air reaching her nostrils, Anhuset would have thought it was a dead end. They turned almost at the wall, discovering a natural cave with a short ascent onto flat ground.

  “How is it no one's discovered this entrance?” Erostis wondered aloud.

  He had his answer as soon as his horse set down the first hoof onto the cave's wetter, more uneven floor. A visible ripple of air stirred around him as if he and the gelding had parted a veil and stepped through. From Anhuset's vantage point in the back, they disappeared only to reappear on the other side of the shifting curtain. Magic, she thought. Either the monks' or the Elder race's.

  She coaxed Magas through after Erostis, skin prickling with the otherness passing over and around her. Her soul clenched for a moment, grieving the loss of her own meager magic. This sorcery didn't belong to the human monks. It was far older, definitely Elder, much like the remnants the Kai once possessed.

  Erostis had paused to watch her pass through the invisible wall. “Look behind you,” he said. She did, staring at what appeared to any who might glance inside or even explore the cave, a wall of ghastly looking vines the color of boiled intestines covered in formidable thorns and twining so thick around each other, they presented an impenetrable barrier to the viewer. “I wouldn't go near that if I'd stepped in here for some shade or shelter from the rain,” he said.

  Curious, she reached out to touch one of the vines, expecting her hand to pass through. Instead, the vine's solid mass quivered under her fingers, cold and damp. Even stranger, the thorns closest to her hand extended, like those of a cat's claws. The tip of one grazed the knuckle on her forefinger, drawing blood. “A powerful illusion,” she told Erostis and held up her finger. He whistled and backed the gelding farther away from the wall.

  They left the cave, entering directly into the woodland Tionfa had described. The trees grew so tall and close together, they blocked out much of the sun, leaving a stunted undergrowth of lichen and mushrooms to thrive in the encompassing shade and damp. Bars of sunlight still managed to get through, but Anhuset didn't have to raise her cloak to protect her eyes, even with the late morning light pouring down bright and blinding on the treetops.

  “We need to find a clearing,” she said, “so we know where the sun sits and can find our way out of here.”

  They rode for several moments before finding a place where an ancient oak had finally succumbed to rot and toppled, taking some of the surrounding small
er trees with it. Its demise and fall had created an oblique pathway of light that pierced the woodland's tenebrous world. Anhuset let Erostis stand in its brilliance and look up, his hand at his eyebrows to shield his eyes. “We head that direction,” he told her, pointing north and into an even more shadowed part of the wood.

  They rode most of the day through the forest, emerging from the trees at sunset onto a road rutted deep and overgrown with grass. “Do you recognize any of this?” Anhuset asked her companion.

  Erostis stood up in the stirrups to survey their surroundings, and to her relief, gave a certain nod. “Yes. If we keep to a steady trot, we'll reach a spot where the road splits into two. One leads to High Salure, the other curves west toward Saggara.”

  If the road wasn't in such poor shape, she would have urged Magas into a full gallop, to eat up the distance and shorten the time it took to reach Saggara. Her patience had worn thin as they'd picked their way through the wood, every moment spent there punctuated by the memory of Serovek's face when he told her and Tionfa that he intended to turn himself over to Rodan's troops without a fight—grim, resolute and worst of all, accepting of the possibility of a death he didn't deserve for crimes he didn't commit. She admired his nobility and still wanted to punch him for it.

  That mocking inner voice spoke up once more to vex her. You're afraid.

  “Of course I'm afraid,” she muttered under her breath, but fear had never slowed her down, much less stopped her. It was only a weakness if one allowed it to lead instead of follow, and the only two things Anhuset followed were her reason and Brishen Khaskem. Gods be damned if she was going to race to Saggara only to wait there, pacing a trench into the floor wondering what was happening to Serovek. She set a faster pace for Magas, and Erostis matched her, taking his horse on the other side of the path where the grass had rooted and the ground beneath was more level than that rutted by countless wheels.

  Erostis predicted correctly and they reached the split in the road close to nightfall. Anhuset pulled back her hood, no longer plagued by the bright light of day. Erostis nodded in the direction of Saggara. “Methinks we'll part company here, sha-Anhuset.”

  She wasn't surprised by his announcement. If he were still in poor shape from his injuries, she'd insist on him returning with her, but he looked none the worse for their journey except for a bit of stiffness in the way he held one shoulder. Still, she'd offer him the option of accompanying her if he wished. “The margrave wanted you to travel with me. If Bryzant is in control of High Salure or even acting the puppet to another controlling it for your king, you'll be imprisoned if caught. Or killed.”

  He shrugged. “I'll take the risk. I'm more useful to his lordship there, and I can help without going anywhere near the fortress itself. I know enough people in the surrounding villages who'll help and feed information to me. I can even send someone to Saggara with news if you wish it, and no one at High Salure will know.”

  It was a good idea and one she embraced. She tossed him the pack, weighted with a supply of road rations. “Take this.”

  He caught it neatly in his arms. “What about you?”

  “I'm not the one still convalescing and getting my strength back. You need it more than I do, and I can hunt.” She offered him the Kai salute. “Good luck to us both.”

  He returned it with a Beladine one. “Sha-Anhuset, it has been a privilege to travel and fight alongside you.”

  With a last wave, he turned the gelding and continued down the path that would eventually take him to High Salure and its surrounding territories. Her vision sharpened with the falling light. The less traveled path she took leveled out, and she put Magas back into a steady canter, feeling the earth beneath them gently descend toward the distant plain below.

  The days it took to reach Saggara stretched for eternity, though her reason told her she made good time. She rested Magas when necessary, foraged or hunted only when her belly tried to gnaw its way to her backbone, and dozed for no more than an hour or two during the day, resolutely shoving back the memories of her time with the margrave at the monastery and the worries that plagued her now over his fate.

  By her best guess, she was a day out from Saggara when she spotted a lone rider taking one of the roads that led to the ferry Serovek's original party had used to get them down the Absu. She recognized the rider's posture and as they rode closer to where she watched, half hidden by an outcropping of rock and trees, she recognized the rider himself. Ogran.

  “You murdering piece of shit,” she said through clenched teeth. Cold fury washed over her.

  Her claws bit into her palms with the urge to split the lying, betraying bastard from gullet to bollocks. She had no doubt he'd turned on his unwary traveling companions the instant they were out of Serovek's sight, killing them without hesitation. The gods only knew where he'd tossed their corpses.

  Had he returned to the valley to ascertain the fate of the rest of Serovek's party and report back to Bryzant? Anhuset smiled thinly. His unfortunate comrades wouldn't be the only ones never to reach their destination.

  In no hurry, he kept a leisurely pace on the road. Anhuset eased Magas back into the trees before dismounting and tying his reins to a low branch. She'd cover more ground and make less noise on foot. Keeping parallel to the road, she raced through the forest, descending slope so that by the time she was even with the road, she was ahead of her prey, waiting.

  She hurtled out of the concealing tree line so fast Ogran only had time to jerk in the saddle and grunt before she leaped on him, her weight and momentum throwing him clear of the horse to land on his back with Anhuset atop him. The horse bolted, leaving its stunned rider behind.

  Ogran howled when she struck him, breaking his nose. Blood spurted from his nostrils, and she shoved his arms down when he grabbed for his face, pinning both under her knees. “Who paid you to betray the margrave, maggot?” Anhuset knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  He struggled under her, glaring and spitting expletives at her. She grabbed his head by his ears and slammed it back into the dirt, hard enough to make him see stars but not enough to crack his skull. His breathing turned to gurgling gasps when she laid her palm against his throat and pressed just enough to feel his larynx spasm. “I will break every bone in your body, one by one, Ogran, and then I will gut you like a fish if you don't answer me. Who paid you?” She wanted to hear him say it so she could force-feed the words back to him.

  “Bryzant,” he finally said on a wheezy gasp. “High Salure's steward.”

  Anhuset lifted her palm, and Ogran inhaled a deep breath. Even bloodied and pinned with a vision of Death looming over him, he still glared at her. While she couldn't always read emotion in the bizarre movement and coloration of human eyes, she recognized hatred when she saw it. “Figures you'd manage to survive, you yellow-eyed hedge whore,” he spat.

  If he thought to offend her with vulgar disparagement, he was sadly mistaken. She'd played drinking games with her fellow Kai soldiers that centered around the exchange of creative insults that would set his ears on fire. “Worse luck for you, isn't it, maggot?” she said. “What did you do with the bodies of the men you killed?” She didn't bother asking if he killed the other three Serovek sent with him. She knew he did. She struck him across one cheek. “Weson?” A second strike on the opposite cheek as he spewed even more invectives. “Ardwin?” A third strike. “Jannir?” She raised her hand, threatening a forth.

  “Enough!” he shouted, cheeks stained scarlet from her blows. “I'll take you to them if you promise not to kill me and get off me.”

  Liar, she thought.

  She stood up, stepping out of the range of a swinging fist or kick. He scrambled to his feet, and she waited to see if he'd try to run. He didn't, and that told her what she needed to know. “Who's the closest and where did you leave him?” she asked. The question simply bought time. She was saddened and angered to have her supposition about the fate of the three men verified, but she couldn't recover
their bodies, not now, even if Ogran had actually told her the truth.

  His lip curled into a sneer. “Weson,” he said. “We teamed up together.” He pointed down the road where his horse had bolted. “Another two leagues that way. I left him in the trees.”

  After all this time there probably wasn't much left of Weson thanks to the elements and scavengers, but Anhuset pretended to consider. “My horse isn't far,” she said. “I ride there; you walk ahead of me.” She deliberately turned her back to him, ears perked as she put four steps between them and quietly pulled one of her knives from its sheath. Ogran was right-handed, like everyone in their earlier party except Erostis. She'd noted those details for each man, knowledge that always came in handy whether or not you fought with a comrade-in-arms or an adversary.

  The warning sound came as she expected, the soft hiss of steel sliding against leather, the shift of dirt under a boot with a step forward. She twisted fast to the side, caught the twinkle of a blade as it flew past her and flung her own weapon in an underhanded throw that took Ogran in the belly hard enough to knock him off his feet. He lay on his back, hand gripped around the knife's pommel, the blade sunk to the hilt. Blood trickled out of his mouth as he stared first at the knife and then at her in disbelief.

  Anhuset felt no pity for him. No doubt he'd dispatched his trusting companions in just this way. She crouched beside him and stared into his rattish face, his once-ruddy complexion turning pale. “It takes a long time to die from a gut wound,” she told him. His eyes widened. “And I want my knife back.” She wrapped her hand around the pommel and yanked hard. The blade slid free with a jerk and a gout of blood. Ogran tried to scream, but Anhuset cut off the attempt with a quick swipe of the bloodied knife across his throat. He was dead before his head hit the dirt.