Reaper Of Sorrows (Book 1) (21 page)

Sanouk swallowed again, almost gagging on a sudden wave of terror. Had Gathul been manipulating him all along, pressing him to accept more and more difficult measures … measures that if not met assured that the final, most sought after sacrifice, would be his own?

“What’s that?”

The whispered question intruded upon Sanouk’s terrorized considerations. Two soldiers stood nearby, pointing. Following their fingers, Sanouk detected stealthy movement within the wooded murkiness west of the village, where the forest grew closest to the wooden palisade. With movement came sounds, ponderous groans and creaks.

“Siege engines,” someone gasped.

Sanouk frowned, denying what his eyes showed him. No force had dared attack the fortress of Hilan in generations. Denial or not, a dozen or more wheeled ballistae and mangonels trundled from the edge of the forest toward the village. The warriors pushing the light weapons wore raiment out of a bard’s tale, all of bright colors and burnished helms. No banners led their advance, and the distance was too great to make out the devices on the glimmering breastplates worn by the assaulting force.

Instead of panic spreading through the village, the western gate scraped open, disgorging a stream of folk to surge toward the rolling weaponry, all cheering like a band of lackwits. After a brief consultation with the garishly clad soldiers, the villagers lent their strength to pushing the siege weapons. Those who had remained in the village began dousing the bonfires, torches, and all else that provided light within the village’s walls. In moments, the cleared land beyond the fortress lay under the blanket of night. The sounds of wooden wheels clattering nearer mingled with the chant of, “
Heave! Heave! Heave!
”

“They mean to attack the keep!” a soldier cried in disbelief.

Sanouk turned his mind to the dusty chambers below the keep, where waited throwing arms, wheels, and all else needed to construct a half dozen catapults. Years and termites had rendered them unusable, long before he had found himself the Lord of Hilan. The curtain wall had once supported hoardings from which soldiers could drop stones or pour boiling oil, but like the catapults, they had long since been deemed unnecessary and dismantled. That left the curtain wall itself, and the dry moat filled with slanting wooden spikes and barbed caltrops.

“Duras!” Sanouk called to the sergeant serving in Treon’s stead.

The old soldier, who had lost and eye and half his nose in some bygone skirmish, trotted near. “We are under attack, milord!”

“I know that, you imbecile! I want archers placed—”

The thunder of hooves crossing the drawbridge cut off his command.
The drawbridge!

Sanouk peered down, fearing a column of cavalry had come upon the fortress unawares. Instead he found a small cluster of riders.
Has the enemy sent a representative to treat with me?

“Open the gates,” Captain Treon called out.

“Let him pass!” Sanouk shouted.

He wheeled and ran, all thoughts of the defending the fortress pushed to the back of his mind. He was standing before the gatehouse, surrounded by torch-bearing soldiers, before it struck him that Treon had returned without the prisoner wagons, and his company was half the size it should be.

“Milord,” Treon said, climbing out of the saddle, “I fear that—”

“Where are the prisoners?” Sanouk demanded, heart fluttering in his chest. If he had no sacrifices to offer Gathul, his life was forfeit.

“We were set upon by a Shadenmok and her hounds.”

“Where are the prisoners!”
Sanouk shrieked. A Shadenmok attack might have merit at any other time, but not now. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he could feel the stirrings of a presence rising up from the stones underfoot and caressing his skin. And was that the cold, dead breath of the god in his ear? Sanouk felt clamped inside a great, invisible fist. His inner thoughts, usually cool and calculating, began to gibber.
Someone, any soldier or servant, must soon be offered up!

“During the battle—” Treon faltered, then regained his composure “—they escaped.”

“Escaped?” Sanouk blurted, thrusting his nose against Treon’s, forcing the man to step back. “I warned you how vital these prisoners were. That you have failed means only one thing!”

Treon stepped back farther, shaking his head. “No. Not me. Take
him
—take Rathe! He freed the prisoners, then set upon me!”

Sanouk took in the hooded figure bound to the saddle, and the uncomfortable shifting from the other soldiers at Treon’s accusation. “Is this true?” He had hoped to turn Rathe to his needs. A man of renown would serve well as his voice and hand of authority.

The hooded head shifted in his direction, and a tired but proud voice said, “It is.”

Then I have my sacrifice.
It was a pity, but he had greater concerns than using the esteemed Scorpion to enforce his will—

The short blast of a horn cut off his thought. Then, from beyond the wall came a series of heavy, clacking thuds, followed by the whistling screams of falling arrows and shouting men. A moment later, a rain of stone shot crashed against the curtain wall, while more hammered into the bailey.

“Raise the bridge and bar the gates!” Sanouk bellowed.

As men scurried to obey, Treon rasped, “We are under attack?”

“It would appear so,” Sanouk answered in an acid tone, his mind turning inward to more important matters. “Keep the fortress intact, Treon, or I will have off your head.”

“What of the traitor?”

“Trust that I will see to him.”

Chapter 26

“… I
will see to him….”

Rathe did not resist when hands dragged him from the saddle. Though he could not see, the racket of yelling soldiers scrambling for cover as hurled stones crashed against the walls, and the distinctive whickering hiss of massive bolts fired from ballistae, painted a clear picture in his mind of the attack. He wanted to believe Loro led the assault, but could not conceive how the man would have come upon the means to lay siege. It was, Rathe supposed, a mystery to which he’d never learn the answer, unless he could find a way to get free.

There came a meaty
thwack,
followed by a gurgling scream; one of the spear-sized arrows had found its mark. The horns beyond the curtain wall sounded again, and another volley of stone shot exploded around him.

“Come!” Sanouk ordered, dragging Rathe across the ward by a length of rope tied to his bound wrists.
Like a calf to the slaughter
.

Rathe stumbled blindly. “Free me, and I will lend my sword to defending the fortress and the village.” He had no intention of fulfilling that pledge, only wanted a sword back in his hands. Two days had passed since the Shadenmok attack, and he was barely stronger than when he had fought Treon, but with the keep under attack, he might just have an advantage to escape.

“I think not,” Sanouk said, slamming heavy doors on the clamor of battle. “My intentions require that you live, after a fashion, not perish guarding this blasted heap of stone.”

“Is that supposed to be a riddle?” Rathe said.

Sanouk ignored the question, bustling him down echoing corridors filled with murmuring servants. As they moved deeper into the keep, Rathe went back to loosening his bindings, much as he had been doing since Treon tied him into the saddle. By now, the ropes had chaffed his skin raw. He ignored the discomfort, subtly twisting his wrists against each other.

When Sanouk pulled him up short and rattled a key in a lock, Rathe tried to wrench free of his bindings. The ropes scraped over the back of one hand, nearing his knuckles.
So close!

Sanouk shoved him into a cooler space, a door thudded closed, then the lead rope tightened again as Sanouk set off down a steep flight of stairs. After those ended, the ground underfoot became uneven rock and dirt. Rathe made an effort to map every twist of their path. After a series of sharp turns, Rathe collided with a wall of undressed stone, and he imagined a warren of caves, perhaps an ancient mine.

After some time, he detected a cold, musty odor passing through the weave of the sack over his head. Below that, the scent of moldering linens. The farther they went, twisting and turning, another smell intruded, dominating all others. Burial spices.
A catacomb?
Sanouk’s words rose up.
“My intentions require that you live, after a fashion….”

Combined with the certainty that he now strode amongst the dead, the tenor of Lord Sanouk’s odd pronouncement drew a clammy sweat from Rathe’s pores. The living did not mingle lightly with the dead. A word flitted through his mind:
Necromancy
. Sanouk had not struck him as a mystic or conjurer, but that meant nothing. Nesaea had denied being a seer, yet she had seemingly described his future, a truth he could not deny, as he had been beset by troubles since the night in her shiplike wagon. Whatever Sanouk was, it meant trouble for Rathe.

He redoubled the painful labor of extricating himself from his bindings. Blood began to seep, working like an oil between his skin and the hempen cords.
Closer
…
an inch more!

Sanouk halted abruptly, and a prickly sensation slithered over Rathe’s skin, like a presence … a spirit of darkness given life.

“I had not expected to find you waiting,” Sanouk said to someone else, his fearful tone at odds with his normal air of authority.

“You play a dangerous game, human,” a deep voice grated, as if from a bottomless well. “You agreed to my terms, yet at every turn, you push the bounds of my leniency.”

“Forgive me,” Sanouk groveled. “There was an unforeseen hindrance. But you see, I have not failed!” he added, his tone a queer mix of pleading and triumph.

At the first syllable from that other being, Rathe had abandoned secrecy, and he began wrenching violently at his bindings. Blood slicked his hands and wrists, but the cords stubbornly held fast.

“Prepare yourself, human, for I will not sup from a plate given me by tainted hands.”

“Of course,” Sanouk babbled. “But I … I have a request.”

An affronted quiet held. The air grew colder, denser. “Speak.”

“The keep is under attack. If you would but lend your strength to the battle, then I can continue to … to adequately serve you.” This last sounded forced, as if Sanouk had only just admitted to himself that he ruled nothing, not even his own flesh, but rather labored at the behest of that other.

Booming, mocking laughter fell like a blow. “You serve, human, at my pleasure and your own foolishness. Your petty conflicts are the strivings of a witless race enthralled by the acts of rutting, gluttony, and the spilling of blood. You sought to gain advantage in those pursuits by awakening me from my long slumber. The rewards I promised, I have given. I will grant no more beyond them. See to your own battles, human, and give unto me the requirements of our agreement—
soon
—or suffer the reaping of your own wretched soul.”

“Of course,” Sanouk babbled. “Anything you desire, master.
Anything
.”

Feet scuffed near.

“What do you mean to do?” Rathe demanded, wanting no part of whatever madness Sanouk had conjured. He continued to tug at the cords about his wrists.

A soft
whooshing
noise filled his ears in answer, followed by a thudding blow and the sound of shattering earthenware. Skull ringing, Rathe jerked stiff as a board, and fell into the arms of a gripping emptiness….

Chapter 27

T
he nightmare had no beginning and no end, broken only by Sanouk’s ever more frequent comings and goings. Nesaea languished in the agonizing grasp of a formless adversary, every inch of her flesh tortured in a thousand different ways. When she built a defense against the suffering, that sentient pain sought the breaks in her feeble armor and burrowed deep into her thoughts.

Always madness threatened, an alluring entity with its own purposes and desires. She resisted succumbing to that inviting spell, for no more reason than that it was an enemy she could recognize and fight. Ofttimes it wore the face of Lord Sanouk, at others the likeness of the god Gathul, who had fettered her soul in invisible bonds that licked and tasted her being.

When two figures entered the chamber, she almost dismissed their arrival, too weary to witness another innocent fall to Sanouk and the deity he served. The second man, hooded and led on a rope by Sanouk, roused her from lethargic indifference to full awareness. Something about the set of the second man’s shoulders drew her eye. She peered through the impenetrable, gangrenous wall between them. Caught between hope and horror, recognition dawned.

Moaning, Nesaea sat up, crusted vomit and dried blood flaking off her skin. Every inch she moved brought more pain, more weakness, but she fought it. Despite knowing he could not hear her, any more than she could hear what went on outside her prison, she cried a warning. The words, unintelligible, spilled off her dry tongue. She worked to bring saliva to her parched mouth, grimacing at the acidic flavor of old vomit. Clawing her hands over the walls of her tomb, she got her feet under her and managed to stand.

“Rathe,” she croaked, stomach lurching with a fresh wave of nausea. She pounded the transparent wall before her nose.
“Rathe!”

Gathul hove into view, wearing its spirit form, a menacing darkness little more substantial than the wall of her prison. That was better than its bloated corporeal body of corruption, all of hanging male and female flesh. Sanouk and the god conversed, the lord’s face growing more fearful by the moment.

Nesaea ran shaky fingers over the stubborn obstacle to her freedom, seeking any means by which she could pry open the barrier. As ever, no chink showed itself. “Rathe!” she shrieked again. “Go! Run!”

Lost beneath a dirty sack, Rathe’s head turned toward Sanouk. He might have said something, for Sanouk looked his way, then glanced at Rathe’s frantic efforts to loose the bindings at his wrists. Without warning, the lord retrieved an urn and smashed it against Rathe’s head. Shattered crockery and sand flew as Rathe pitched over, rigid as a dead man.