Reaper Of Sorrows (Book 1) (23 page)

Looking suddenly unsure about his choice, Treon shrank away when the Gathul threw back its head, obsidian fangs masticating around spiteful laughter. Rathe shuddered, for behind those glinting teeth reality had no meaning. As if seen from a great distance, waited a plane of cracked reddish stone and lakes of thick, bubbling black fluid. Beneath a sky of roiling green fire, emaciated figures sheathed in flaking parchment skin capered madly in a horrific parody of dance. Faintly, he could hear their tormented wails, their begging for respite.

The god dissolved into a billowing mass blacker than ten sins, obscuring the vision. Gathul fell upon a screaming Treon, enveloping him.

Rathe scuttled back, sickened as that vaporous form wrapped tight about the captain, at first clinging like a second skin, then pressing inward. Treon’s struggles went on far longer than Rathe cared to watch, but he was helpless to look away.

By increments, Treon’s flailing ceased, his screams died, and his limbs folded and snapped with grisly crunching sounds, until nothing remained save a shrinking ebon ball. Rathe shivered with dread. He had despised Treon, but no man deserved such a terrible fate.

When smaller than the tip of his little finger, the tiny sphere that had been Gathul vanished with a resounding clap of thunder, and an invisible force buffeted Rathe.

After silence fell again, he opened his eyes and found that the entombed captives had toppled from their now open prisons.

Chapter 29

R
athe shot a glance at a groaning, stuporous Sanouk. Where he would not have condemned Treon to such a monstrous sentence as Gathul had delivered upon him, Sanouk was another matter. The Lord of Hilan had knowingly and willingly subjected his sacrifices to unimaginable torments. For such evil, he had earned a slow, agonizing death.

With some effort, Rathe gained his feet, intending to set upon Sanouk, but then Nesaea was before him, her shivering arms thrown around his neck, clutching him tight. They held each other until the wretched sounds of agony, terror and madness intruded upon their reunion.

“We must help them,” Nesaea said in a hoarse voice.

“You need rest,” Rathe protested, glancing again at Sanouk, a bloody and beaten wreck. By all appearances, he was not going anywhere.

Nesaea rested her hands on Rathe’s chest. “Sanouk poisoned me, but now that I am free, I find that my torments have mostly run their course. For some of these others, that is not so.” Whatever she had suffered, she pushed aside, and helped Rathe see to the others.

Where Nesaea went to free the gagging woman with the noose around her neck, Rathe moved to the burning girl. Smoking and charred, she stared at him from lidless eyes. There was nothing he could do, save hold her. She shook violently in his arms, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Trying to speak, her eyes glazed, and her spirit fled.

Shaken, Rathe moved away and saw to the drowning boy, who lay on his back, coughing. When his pale blue eyes rolled toward Rathe, some measure of their fear evaporated. “The Scorpion!” he gasped, as if he had been waiting for Rathe to show himself.

“I have been called that,” Rathe said, sensing that the boy would not tolerate a denial. “You need to rest.”

“Father says I am fierce as a wolf,” the boy said.

“I would judge that you are even fiercer.”

On the far side of the chamber, a man began howling, his arms wrapped around his head. Others who had been imprisoned curled on the ground in tight, protective balls. Before Rathe could go to them, a bloody hand fell on his wrist. He faced the old eyeless man, every inch of his flesh sliced to ribbons. Like the burned girl, his tomb had kept him alive, where he should have perished quickly. Now freed, his time was short.

“I am Undai,” the dying man whispered. “It is I who awakened the god Gathul from its timeless slumber … I who sought its blessings.”

Rathe considered the confession, and knew it should anger him that so many had suffered for one fool’s desires, but looking upon the piteous wretch, he could find only remorse in his heart. Such foolish endeavors were the way of men, to seek easier paths to their wants. As long as men strode the world, limited only by their malleable integrity, such seeking and its consequences would never end.

“Rest easy,” Rathe said, knowing Undai had but moments to live.

Undai’s grip tightened. “You must destroy this place. Break the altar, seal the doorway. Ask after my home—a hovel in the woods beyond the village—and burn all that lies within. No one must ever find my secrets. No one!”

“I will do as you ask,” Rathe promised, despite knowing that in providing one barrier to forbidden fruits, another, somewhere else, would eventually be torn down.

“I … I am sorry,” Undai wheezed, chest hitching as he breathed his last.

A flash of movement drew Rathe’s eye to the open doorway. He glanced at the empty spot where Sanouk had been and cursed.

“You must capture him,” Nesaea called, rushing near.

“I must kill him,” Rathe amended, rising to his feet. He hesitated. “What of these others?”

“Only time and care can heal those yet tormented by the memory of their suffering.”

“I will send others to help,” Rathe said, turning toward the doorway.

Nesaea caught his arm, bleary eyes appraising his nakedness. “Unless you mean to fight as a savage of the western hill country, you need clothing—we all do.”

Rathe glanced down at himself. Dirty, scraped, bruised and bloody as he was, there was still no question that he wore not a stich of clothing. Of his own garb and Sanouk’s, there was no sign. He took up Sanouk’s sword, and gave Nesaea a grin. “Steel is all I need.” His grin broadened as his looked her over. “After a proper scrubbing, I’d rather you remain as you are.”

She slapped him, gently, but her return smile did not light her eyes. “Cut his demon’s heart from his chest.”

He kissed her brow, then ran from the chamber.

It took longer than he wished to escape the catacombs. With all that had happened, with his pains and weakness growing at every step, the map he had constructed in his mind proved fractured. If not for the few torches lighting the way, he might have been lost for hours. Had Sanouk been wise, he would have cast down those torches, but it seemed the lord’s only thoughts were for escape.

In time, Rathe found a long flight of steps. He took them up two at a time. Fury gave him strength, as much as his joy at finding Nesaea alive. At the top of the stairs, he came to a locked door. After several crashing blows with his shoulder, the bolt holding it closed ripped out of the doorpost and slammed open against the adjacent wall.

“Woman!” he roared, halting a servant scurrying down a long corridor. She spun and stared, mouth formed into a delicate circle of shock. “Gather clothing to cover a dozen people, and take it below. Mind you follow the torches,” he warned, thinking of his own troubles with escaping, “or you will become lost.”

“We are under attack,” the woman squeaked, twisting her hands together at her waist. She was young of face, with tired hazel eyes, but old and worn of body.

Rathe stalked forward, hand flexing the hilt of the sword, gaze fierce. She cowered, too caught by fear to dash away. He hated that he must put fear into her, but knew it was necessary in order to focus her mind on helping others, rather than herself.

“Take your fellows with you,” he said when he loomed over her. “Have them bring food and water, enough to last a day or two. Stay in the catacombs until I, or one of my men, return. You will be safe there.”

She fairly quivered before him, tears streaming from her closed eyes. He abruptly relented, and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. She flinched at his touch. “Did you see Lord Sanouk?”

At his gentle tone, she opened her eyes. “Yes,” she murmured, her initial terror melting away. “Just moments past, he ran through the halls, raving and dressed like a beggar, striking down any who blocked his way.”

“He fled the keep?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” she said, dropping her gaze. She made a startled little squawk, and looked away from his unclothed loins.

The keep under attack, Sanouk fled, and I am naked as newborn.
“Do as I say,” he commanded, and set off down the corridor.

He did not go far before coming to the lord’s chambers. He ducked in and squandered precious moments rifling through a wardrobe, before finding leather breeches and a long blue coat embroidered with silver thread at the cuffs and collar—attire suited for feasting rather than battle, but better than having everyone he encountered look at him like a madman. Besides, if he had to mount a horse, doing so with a bare backside would be painful at best. A little more searching found him a pair of tooled leather riding boots.

He ran from the chambers, out of the keep’s open doors, and into the arms of a pitched battle highlighted by raging fires. Pained screams and shouts of command filled the bailey. A pretty woman bearing a long spear with a serrated tip darted past, her cloth-of-gold cape flying out behind, and sliver-chased bronze breastplate glinting with the light of a dozen blazes. Without hesitation, she joined two other women in equally garish armor, who fought against a handful of Hilan men.

Maidens of the Lyre … why are they here?

The shriek of a crossbow bolt flashing past his ear forced Rathe to dive behind a hay cart, scattering a trio of chickens in a feathery burst. With the chaos spreading, he took account of the battle.

The fortress gates stood open, blocked from closing by a discarded timber ram. What might have been an organized assault had degenerated into a dozen separate skirmishes. Some few Hilan men and Maidens of the Lyre tried to organize into battle formations, but the mad confusion of combat had tightened its grip over the hearts and wits of the opponents. Enough, Rathe saw, that some Hilan men were actually fighting each other.

None of that mattered. He sought only one man … and found him. Sanouk, clad in a mix of Rathe’s clothes and his own, shouted orders to a few soldiers ringing him about, defending against both Hilan men and Maidens of the Lyre. In that moment, Rathe realized the Hilan men had split their loyalties between Sanouk and the invaders.

Rathe came off his belly and sprinted across the bailey, weaving through clutches of soldiers and Nesaea’s counterparts, avoiding spear thrusts and slicing swords. He angled toward the widest opening in the ranks arrayed before Sanouk, and leaped.

Like an animal sensing danger, Lord Sanouk spun, glaring. Before Rathe’s feet lit upon the flagstones, Sanouk swept aside Rathe’s strike with his own blade and, still turning, slashed with the dagger held in his other hand. The blade sliced through Rathe’s coat, scoring his ribs. An instant later he crashed into Sanouk, and they went down in a struggling heap.

Rathe slammed his head on the flags, his teeth snapped tight on his tongue. He lurched to his feet, spitting blood, backpedaling. Sanouk came up a breath slower, but no less ready. His protective wall of steel and warriors, fragmented by Rathe’s brazen assault, could not help their lord for the press of their unrelenting foes.

“Even your most loyal hounds have abandoned you,” Rathe panted, circling just out of Sanouk’s reach.

“You will die, Scorpion.”

Rathe laughed. “Seems you have already tried to kill me. Yet here I stand, while your pet snake rots in the gullet of an avenging god.”

Sanouk’s faced hardened. He attacked, sword flashing in a deadly weave, dagger held in reserve. Rathe parried the blows, but he had suffered much abuse over the last many days, and his strength was already fleeing his limbs. If he did not end the contest quickly, he would die spitted on the end of Sanouk’s blade—

A blinding thrust flashed past his neck, bringing his mind to keen focus. Rathe jumped to the outside of Sanouk’s next lunge, and slashed at his face. Sanouk ducked, threw himself into a forward roll to gain distance, and came up in a guarded stance mirrored by Rathe.

They circled each other. The tip of Sanouk’s sword flickered once and again, quick as a serpent’s strike, leaving a gash on Rathe’s belly, another high on his chest. Rathe schooled his face to calm, but his heart quickened. Where he had barely bested Sanouk in a crude brawl, the man knew swordplay with a greater intimacy than had Captain Treon.

“You look worried, Scorpion,” Sanouk said, smiling now.

“Why should I have concern for a man who can now die as easily as any other?”

Around them, the fighting raged, a bedlam of shouts and the clangor of clashing steel, but there seemed to be a turning in favor of the Maidens and their allies. Rathe hoped it was so, for he did not think he could beat Sanouk, and the lord would never leave him alive.

With a shout, Lord Sanouk lunged. The two men beat their swords together, once, twice, and again. Rathe knew Sanouk was trying to force him to lock blades in order to bury the dagger in his ribs. After his last parry, Rathe retreated, feinted, then drew back farther.

Sanouk laughed. “Ever have I heard tales of your prowess, Scorpion, but you are more a chittering rat than a deadly foe.”

“Perhaps you have the way of it, milord,” Rathe said in a self-deprecating tone that was as much a lie as the smile on his face. He thought on the way the man had tried to gouge the dagger into his ribs at the first sign of his false attack. If he could—

He feinted before the strategy was fully formed, tossing his sword from one hand to the other. Sanouk reacted too late to the ploy, already hooking the dagger toward Rathe’s ribs, angled to drive cold steel into his heart.

Rathe caught the lord’s wrist in his free hand and slammed his sword against Sanouk’s, locking the cross-guards. They struggled, chest to chest. The dagger inched closer, eager to drink Rathe’s blood. His shoulder creaked under the strain, his sword arm began to shake. Sanouk’s dagger edged closer … closer … until the tip pricked through coat’s fine cloth and sank into Rathe’s skin.

“I will end you,” Sanouk growled. He spun them about and slammed Rathe against the stone wall of the barracks. The dagger’s point ground into one rib, scraping over bone.