Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1) (22 page)

“It’s a sound idea,” he said and crossed his arms.

Anhuset mimicked his actions, her features drawn into a scowl.  “Until someone skewers her or puts a bolt in her.”

“I saw her handle your horse.  She’s an adept rider.  She can do this.  If you want this to work, she needs to do this.”

“Brishen sacrificed himself to save her.  We risk making that sacrifice for naught.”

Serovek blew out a frustrated breath.  “Stop being so eager to kill him off.  He isn’t dead!”  His body tensed as a furious Anhuset rounded on him, fangs bared.

Ildiko threw off her blankets and leapt to her feet.  “Please,” she said.  The two forgot their fight and turned to her.  “I’ll do whatever you ask of me.  Anything.  I’m sorry I’m not a warrior.  I wish I were.”

Serovek gazed at her with an implacable expression.  “We don’t need another warrior, Highness.  We need bait.”

*****

The sun had burned away the last of the lingering morning fog.  Ildiko reclined against one of the temple walls and tried not to gnaw her fingernails down to the quick with worry.  Instead, she worked to repair the laces on Anhuset’s gambeson and watched as the Kai woman paced back and forth with a hitched gait, her lips drawn back against her teeth as she glared at Serovek.

“This is taking too long,” she snapped.

Seated cross-legged near Ildiko, he didn’t bother to look up from his task of sharpening a knife on the whetting stone he held.  “It’s taking as long as it needs to,” he said calmly.  “You might as well sit down before you wear a path in the stones.”

No sooner had he finished the sentence than Anhuset went still, listening.  “Horses,” she said after a moment.

The scrape of blade on stone halted as Serovek joined her.  “But no dogs,” he said.  A bird’s whistle carried through the trees, and Serovek answered back with a similar whistle.  He stood and sheathed the knife at his waist.  “We’ve company, and it’s friendly.”

The temple ruin was soon filled with both Beladine and hooded Kai warriors and their horses.  They split into two groups, the Kai to gather around Anhuset and Ildiko, the Beladine around Serovek.  One of the Beladine bowed before Serovek.

“We think we know where the raiders are hiding.  A honeycomb of caves no more than a league north of here.”

Serovek’s lip curled, contempt souring his words.  “They’re moving farther into my territory, thinking it safe.”

One of the Kai addressed both Anhuset and Ildiko.  “We recovered our dead on the other side of the ravine.  Two fallen.  The raiders fought only long to capture the
herceges
and flee.”

Ildiko’s shoulders sagged.  She glanced at Serovek.  “You were right.”

He nodded.  “Right now he’s more valuable alive than dead.  Now we just need to discover how many we’ll face when we rescue him.”

The soldier who gave the raiders whereabouts spoke up again.  “We’ve captured one of them.”  He gestured with a nod over his shoulder when Serovek’s eyebrows rose.  “We broke up a raid on a lower holt just within our borders.  They massacred the family steading there and stole the sheep and grain.  We killed all but one and hanged them from the trees as a warning.”

Ildiko closed her eyes.  So much killing and over two people who were never supposed to matter.

The crowd parted as a Kai shoved a human to his knees before Serovek.  An impromptu circle formed, caging in their captive.  Filthy, lice-infested and splattered with blood, the man glared at Serovek before spying Ildiko who recoiled from his lascivious, black-tooth leer.

One of the Beladine grabbed his arm and shoved the dirty sleeve past his elbow, revealing a patterned marking tattooed in blue and green ink on his arm.  “Clansman out of the Serpent’s Teeth,” the soldier said.

Serovek crouched before his prisoner.  His voice was mild, almost friendly.  All the hairs on Ildiko’s nape rose in warning.  “You’ve traveled a long way to butcher farmers for their grain and a few sheep.  How many of you are hiding in the caves?”

The man’s eyes slid away.  “I don’t know about any caves.  We was just stealing because we was hungry.”

“So the four of you made off with an entire herd of sheep and a full wagon of grain?  You have big stomachs.”

“Why do you care?”  The raider thrust his shoulders back and his chin forward.  His bloodshot eyes glittered.  “They’s just farmers.”

Serovek’s mild tone didn’t change.  “Because they were farmers under my protection, and now they’re dead.  I’ll ask again.  How many of you rats are hiding in those caves?”

The man clamped his lips together and refused to say anything more.  He fell back on his haunches with a gasp when Anhuset lunged at him, claws curled.

“He’ll talk for me,” she snarled in bast-Kai.

Serovek checked her advance with one arm.  “Patience,” he said in the same tongue.  “Here, I am the law, and he’s broken it by murdering and stealing within my territory.”

He turned to the captured raider and switched back to Common tongue.  “You’re far from home, and I know there are no Kai from where you hail, so let me enlighten you.”  The circle of Kai and Beladine tightened around them.  Ildiko was unable to dredge up a drop of sympathy for the suddenly pale prisoner.  Serovek cold smile would have frozen a candle flame.  “A long time ago the Kai hunted humans for food.  If you refuse to talk, I’m going to feed you to them.  From what I know, they aren’t concerned whether or not their meal is alive or dead when they start eating.”

Were Ildiko not used to the toothy Kai after months of living amongst them, she would have fled in terror at the sight of so many fanged grins that flashed at the raider after Serovek’s threat.

The man whimpered and promptly lost control of his bladder.  The pungent odor of urine saturated the air.  Words tumbled out of his mouth, so fast and stuttering that Serovek had to make him repeat himself several times over.  By the time the interrogation ended, they all knew the number of enemies hiding in the caves, how many magefinders remained and which cave held Brishen.

Serovek stood and motioned with one hand.  The raider was jerked to his feet.  Ildiko gasped as the Beladine lord moved with breathtaking speed.  A flash of hands, the brittle snap of bone and the dead raider dropped in a heap to the floor.  In the time it took for Ildiko to inhale a breath, Serovek had broken the man’s neck with one swift, practiced motion.  She swayed and clutched Anhuset’s arm, overtaken by dizziness and a distinct buzzing in her ears.

The Kai woman pressed a supporting hand to her back and leaned to whisper in her ear.  “Strength,
Hercegesé
.  Brishen needs you.”

The words worked a magic no sorcerer could mimic.  The dizziness evaporated, and Ildiko’s back stiffened.  She refused to look at the still body crumpled at Serovek’s feet, but she no longer wanted to faint.

The charming, jocular man she’d first met at High Salure and danced with at Saggara was gone.  The ruthless Beladine marcher lord stood in his place, judge and executioner of any who committed crimes within his borders.  He nudged the dead man with his foot.  “Take him back to the holt and hang him in the trees with the others.  If they haven’t soiled their clothes too badly, strip them.  We need their garb.”

Ildiko trusted whatever plan he had in mind, but the thought of wearing a dead man’s clothes made her skin crawl.  “What will we do now?”

The wolfish smile he gave her made her glad they were on the same side of this particular conflict.  “Play raider,” he said.  “And you don’t even need to ride a horse.”

*****

“Are the knots too tight?”  Anhuset tugged on the strips of cloth that bound Ildiko’s hands together.

Ildiko shook her head.  “No.  I can twist out of them quickly if necessary.”

They stood within the concealment of heavy underbrush and the overcast shadow of rocky outcropping.  Within the shelter of the forest, Kai and Beladine waited together as Ildiko prepared to act as the bait Serovek needed.

Her clothes were ripped and filthy, her hair a wild mat of tangles, her face smudged with dirt and streaks of dried blood.  Anhuset strengthened the look by shredding random spots of Ildiko’s tunic.  “I still don’t think this is the best idea.”

Ildiko shrugged.  “I think Lord Pangion is right.  If we want to be sure of entering the right cave, I’m the best thing to draw them out.”

“Brishen will never forgive me if you die during my watch.”  Anhuset tied one of her daggers to the sash encircling Ildiko’s waist.

The Kai woman’s skin was clammy under Ildiko’s fingertips, hints of fever in the darkened flush on her cheekbones.  “I think he would forgive you anything, sha-Anhuset,” she said softly.  “Besides, I have no intention of dying today.”

The other woman stared at her in silence for several moments.  “I once thought you weak.  I was wrong.”  She finished strapping the dagger in place.  “Are you afraid?”

Ildiko nodded.  “Terrified.”

“Good.  You’ll stay alert that way.”

Serovek joined them, accompanied by one of his men dressed in the clothes of one of the dead mercenaries.  “Ready?”

Ildiko exhaled a shaky breath.  “As much as I can be.”

Their plan was simple.  They’d ascertain the captive raider hadn’t lied about his information by luring some of his compatriots out of the caves.  Serovek’s man, acting as one of them, would lead her before them in full view, the captive Gauri woman they so eagerly sought.  That was all they needed from her.  Every Beladine soldier would pair up with a Kai—one to fight in the light, one in the dark, neither helpless as long as the other covered their backs.  They’d rush the caves, fight their way in and back out again, hopefully with a living Brishen in tow.

Twilight engulfed the sky by the time a stumbling, weeping Ildiko followed her false captor as he jerked her by a lead rope across the clearing toward the caves.  Her stomach did somersaults under her ribs, and she peered through the screen of her ragged hair at the cave openings that seemed to watch them from eyeless sockets.

She stubbed her toe against a jut of rocks hidden within ankle-high wisps of yellow grass and fell to her knees.  The soldier leading her slackened the line.  “Highness?” he whispered.

“Pull the rope,” she whispered back.  “Call me names.”  If they heard his earlier question, the masquerade was finished.

The soldier yanked hard on the rope, dragging her across the ground.  She yelped as gravel abraded the exposed skin of her side and the rope welted her wrists.  “Get up, bitch,” he snapped at her.  “I don’t have all night.”

She stumbled to her feet, weaving drunkenly at the end of her tether.  A flutter of movement caught her eye.  Two figures emerged from one of the smaller cave openings, cautious in their approach, until her “captor” waved and raised the rope.  “I caught her,” he called out in a triumphant voice.  Exultant whoops answered, and the two figures became a pair of bedraggled raiders who raced toward him.

Their celebration was short-lived.  The ambush they’d earlier set upon the Kai was turned on them.  Beladine and Kai warriors swarmed from the forest and rushed the cave opening.  Ildiko caught only glimpses of Serovek and Anhuset as they plunged into the cave’s darkness before a Kai warrior lifted her off her feet and fled with her into the forest.

This time she didn’t struggle as she had with Anhuset.  She waited, free of her bonds, amidst a circle of tense, heavily armed guards and watched the cave with eyes that watered because she was too afraid to blink.

Light flashes illuminated the darkness in brief bursts.  The ring of metal on metal mingled with shouts and cries of pain.  Her heart paused in its thunderous beating when the noise died, and all she heard were the soft hoots of howls and the rustle of rodents hiding in the leaves.

It was full dark, and the moon planished the landscape in silver armor.  Ildiko laced her fingers together and prayed to gods she hoped would be merciful this night.  Her prayer was answered when Serovek’s and Anhuset’s warriors spilled out of the cave.  She cried out, feet flying across the brittle grass toward the war party.

Anhuset emerged from their midst to catch Ildiko about the waist and spin her around.  “We have him,
Hercegesé
,” she said in a tight voice.

Ildiko gripped the other woman’s arms.  “Where is he?”

“Ildiko, he’s been tortured.”

Her knees gave, and she sagged in Anhuset’s arms.  Shock quickly gave way to rage.  “I want to see him.  Now,” she said.

Anhuset nodded and guided her through the flow of soldiers until they reached a small knot gathered near the cave entrance.  Serovek stood when he caught sight of her.  He blocked her path and her view.

“Do you have a strong stomach?” he asked.  He looked even more severe than when he’d snapped the raider’s neck.  Blood dripped off the sword he held, and his dark eyes glittered hard as diamonds in the moonlight.

“Get out of my way, Lord Pangion,” she snapped.  He stepped aside, and she brushed past him to fall to her knees beside the prone figure in the grass.

Brishen lay before her, quiet and still.  At least she thought it was him.  A scream swelled in her chest, roiled into her throat, and seeped through her clenched teeth, an inhuman cry of anguish.