Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) (43 page)

Erik knelt to retrieve his daggers and listened intently for sounds of alarm. Hearing none, he rose, making a mental note to practice with the knives at the next opportunity.

He moved to the stairs and listened. No sounds came to him, and he made his way up the steep steps. A broken window permitted slight illumination to reach the landing at the top of the stairs. He edged around the light and looked down the long hallway.

Five candles lit the passage that stretched the entire width of the Keep.
Well, that’s not fair,
he thought with a grunt. Every door on both sides of the corridor remained in its frame and was closed. Checking each room would cost precious time he did not have to spare.

He started creeping to the closest door, then stopped cold.

The window beside him had begun to vibrate in its frame as a deep howling floated up from the woods beyond the Keep. The sound steadily built in strength to a horrible wailing that resonated through the stone walls. The hairs on the back of Erik’s neck stood on end, while the eerie cry carried on for what seemed an eternity. He remained motionless, until finally, the dreadful sound faded away. Shouts of alarm began to drift up from the courtyard below as guards called to one another, and then screams began to drift on the wind.

Something was wrong. Even without the screams, Erik could feel it at the core of his being. Something had gone horribly wrong. He stood and looked out the window.

The last remaining darkness before the dawn was destroyed by torches; mercenaries carrying them poured from the other buildings out into the courtyard. Some ran to the gap in the curtain wall, while others wandered about in small clusters of confusion.

A rattle and thump from down the hall drew his attention from the window, and he dropped into a defensive crouch, knife at the ready.

“Jagger!” came a woman’s voice through a door midway down the hall on his left. “Jagger! Someone? What is going on?” The rattling and thumping on the door increased in intensity.

Erik hustled over.

Shouts and calls from a battle floated up through the window, as well as screams of terror. Whatever was going on out there, Erik thanked Eos it was giving the bandits something else to pay attention to. The princess’s attempt to draw attention to herself was the last thing he needed at the moment.

“Princess Sacha?” he asked in a pause between her calls and pounding upon the door.

“Erik?!” Her voice was incredulous. “What are you... Oh, thank Eos! What was that noise? Was that you?”

Erik checked the door and found the lock and timber were both more solid than their age should have allowed.

“Stand away from the door,” he said.

He gave her a few moments to back away, then gave the door a stiff kick as he had seen Kinsey do time and again in the past.

The door rattled in its frame but remained intact.

Damn. He makes it look so easy
, Erik thought, while rubbing his numb heel. He tried again, and this time he felt the wood shift and crack. A third kick sent the door flying back to crash against the wall.

Sacha came flying out of the room, flinging her arms about his neck and shoulders. “Brier is dead!” she said without preamble.

Erik didn’t waste time asking for details. “Come on! We have to move.” He took her hand and ran for the stairs he had ascended. Alarm calls within the Keep had begun to sound—their time was up.

The embers of Kinsey’s fire started to glow white hot and the leaves and branches closest to them caught fire. Fingers of orange flame crawled up the tracings of the oil he had doused on the mound of twigs and branches he had constructed. A smile of satisfaction made its way across his face as the fire grew and took hold of the larger logs.

A howl sounded from across the river, not too far from the fire. More howls joined the first, and Kinsey had a good feeling his fire had been discovered.

He knew his scent clung to the ground all around the flaming woodpile and led off in many directions. Hopefully those false trails would buy him enough time to get to Kesh and the horses.
No better time to find out than the present
, he thought, and took off at a run back toward the rendezvous point upstream.

Kinsey had never enjoyed running. Erik would lightly dance across the most broken ground while laughingly prodding at him and his “morbid stomping.” Running in the dark, in the jungle, did not endear the activity to him. Roots, rocks, and vines snagged at him, while low-hanging branches and spiderwebs obscured his vision. Several times, he found himself rebounding from one trunk or another, but miraculously he was able to keep his feet.

He spun from one such night-shrouded trunk just as a figure stepped into his path. Cursing, he plowed right into the shadowed form and they both crashed to the ferns in a sprawling tangle of arms and legs.

Pain blossomed in his gut, and his breath left him in an explosive groan. He rolled to his back, hunched around the unbearable pain radiating from his midsection.

The figure scrambled to its feet. “Did I get you?” Rapturous excitement was so thick in the voice that Kinsey couldn’t distinguish it, though his brain told him it was familiar.

Kinsey gasped for breath but couldn’t seem to get any air. He forced himself to sit and his head spun from the effort. “Kesh?” he rasped, then began to cough, which sent fresh tremors of pain through his tortured body. The taste of blood filled his mouth and he reached up to feel the moisture around his lips.

“Ha!” Kesh’s unmistakable laughter cackled in Kinsey’s ears. “I got you. Finally, I got you.”

Kinsey felt as if his mind had slowed while time continued at its normal pace. Panic edged into his muddled thoughts.
Why can’t I breath?
Reaching up to rub the pain below his chest, his fingers found a hard object protruding from it. He looked down to see a dagger buried deep in the center of his torso. He stared for a long moment, poking at the hilt with a finger. “Kesh?” Lights blossomed behind his eyes, and his body was pitched back to the ground from an impact to his head.

Kesh veritably danced in his fevered excitement, brandishing a large branch. His mirth rolled over Kinsey and his voice sounded stretched-out and slow. “You stupid fool! To think I’ve had to tolerate your buffoonery for these past five years!”

Kinsey’s eyes began to slip closed and he was struck again.

“Wake up. Wake up, damn you!” Kesh’s face looked gigantic, it was so close. “You need to know that I intend to skin your elven friend alive and I’ll take his ears for my private collection, just as I’m going to take your scalp.”

Kinsey’s body convulsed as he felt the knife in his chest slide out. He groaned from the pain but could do nothing; his limbs had gone numb. His head jostled when Kesh grabbed a handful of his hair.

The chancellor’s blade cut into his skin and he screamed as the knife sawed back and forth.

Kesh rose with Kinsey’s bloody scalp. “You know, it’s too bad you don’t have a woman, but then, what woman would have you?” He chortled in delight. “All the same, I’d take pleasure in letting you know she would be mine now as well.”

Something stirred within Kinsey, something he couldn’t identify through the haze and pain. His eyes fluttered and he knew his time had come. If only he had been able to crush Kesh’s throat before he went.

“Oh, one more thing.” Kesh made a hacking sound. “Never let it be said I don’t keep my word.” Then he spit in Kinsey’s face.

The spittle stung as it seeped into his eye, and suddenly, he recognized what it was that crawled within him, deep within his soul. It was the same thing that had attempted to free itself so many times in the past few months. The thing he knew, one day, would escape his control.

Rage.

Kesh fingered the scar on his forehead and smiled while he watched Kinsey play out his death spasms on the jungle floor. He had wanted to kill this man for so long and now it had finally come to pass.
And you thought yourself my better, didn’t you?

Too soon, the howling of the wargs drew near to the bonfire that still blazed behind him.

“I’m here!” he shouted, adding in his normal tone, “you Mot-muddled idiots.” He hated dealing with the filthy creatures and the equally dirty monsters they rode, but necessity drove him to measures he would not otherwise undertake. He turned and walked toward the fire that his former companion had started.

More victories awaited him this night. His princess waited for him within the compound. Yes, Banlor might want her dead, but she would be his. As far as the world was concerned, Sacha Moridin was dead. Kesh intended for that perception to remain, at least until he could find a way to reintroduce her as queen, with himself as king, of course. They would make a much better pair of rulers than that savage who currently sat the throne in Stone Mountain and his faded queen.

Kesh couldn’t remember a time when he had been more filled with elation, with hope, than this moment. One of his two most hated enemies lay bleeding behind him, and another would be caught and killed soon enough. And the prize, Sacha, who loved him.

He knew it must be true. She had saved his life as a matter of her own choosing—not for payment or duty, but simply out of affection. He knew because it resonated with his own surprising feelings for her.

He had desired women before, of course. Lusted after them for their bodies, desired to control them, or simply desired the services they rendered. But now... No, this time was different. This woman talked to him. She challenged him. She excited him. It was obvious that she was infatuated with him, and tonight they could finally put aside the masks they had been forced to wear. She would be his.

Silhouettes of the giant, dog-like beasts and their goblin riders darted back and forth between Kesh and the roaring flames as he approached from the forest. Mangy heads turned in his direction as he stepped into the small clearing, hands raised in greeting. He knew the riders, but more importantly, they knew him. The largest of the pack bounded to a skidding halt before Kesh’s feet.

The goblin sitting on the matted warg’s back was called Qual. He was a broad-shouldered, slobbering little fool who had killed his way through the ranks to attain leadership of the
Gantarr
—the tribe of warg riders that had joined with the mercenaries. The scarred, smelly beast he rode was simply referred to as Hogg. The warg’s head lunged forward suddenly, maw snapping. Qual savagely hauled on the muzzle reins and clubbed his mount with a twisted fist.

“Take me to Jagger. I would have words with him.” Kesh circled wide enough to avoid Hogg’s slavering jaws and took the gnarled arm Qual lowered. “Alert the guard that an elf is attempting to rescue the princess,” Kesh continued.

Qual hoisted him up to settle on the warg’s back. In the firelight, Qual’s face looked more brutal than usual as he turned back to look at Kesh. He smiled, showing his jagged teeth. “An elfish. We feast?”

“Yes. After I’ve finished with him, you may feast.”

The goblin snorted its equivalent to laugher and raised his spear over his head, shouting, “Good! Elf-eats!” The Gantarr circling the fire joined him, making the declaration a chant. “Good eats! Elf-eats! Elf-feast!” Hooting goblin laughter washed through the clearing.