Return of the Guardian-King (58 page)

If it was this bad in Andol, he could imagine how bad it must be in Esurh.

When they were forced to return to the main thoroughfare for the third time, Abramm abandoned his first plan and went to his second: He’d head for the amphitheater and see if anyone was interested in purchasing some slaves for cheap. This plan was far less thought-out than the first had been, in part because he had to know where he was going and have some potential for contacts, and he had neither. The “plan” amounted to little more than going in the general direction of the amphitheater and hoping something useful turned up.

They proceeded along what he hoped was the main road, though as narrow, winding, and crowded as it was, he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t help that the thick mist overhanging the buildings had confused whatever sense of direction he’d had when they’d entered, so he could do little more than let the tide of people carry him and his companions along.

Having experienced Eidon’s providence time and time again, however, he was not surprised when that tide bore them up a hilly street and into the plaza that surrounded the city’s gaming amphitheater. A medium-sized venue, its outer walls bore the scallops and engravings typical of Andolen architecture. From the lights in its gateways and the windows at plaza level, he guessed the warrens were open for viewing but saw little point in going over there. The plaza itself was more packed than the street, with people camped out to get good seats for tomorrow’s Games, and he’d not likely find a buyer there anyway. Better to look in some sort of eating or drinking house . . .

As he looked back toward one he remembered passing, his eye caught on a face in the crowd—a man who seemed to have been staring at him but turned away the moment Abramm’s gaze fixed upon him. Though Abramm had only a glimpse, familiarity rocked him: The dark, hatchet profile, the crescent cheekbone scar, and a flash of gold honor rings reminded him sharply of his old friend Katahn.

Already off his horse in pursuit, Abramm pushed aggressively through the crowd, even as rationality argued against his impulsive conclusion. Why would Katahn be
here,
of all places?

It took only seconds to lose the man in the crowd, even with Abramm’s height advantage. As his excitement ebbed, he had to admit he’d not seen enough of the man to know more than that he was Esurhite and wore a rank of honor rings—which Katahn had not worn for years. And how often of late had he seen familiar faces only to have them turn out to belong to strangers?

Sighing, he glanced again at the brightly lit teahouse on the corner, then returned to his men. Giving Borlain command of the troop, he left Newbanner’s reins with Cedric and headed back for the teahouse.

It was a larger establishment than it appeared from the outside, but it was about to burst with its clientele that night, which were mostly civilians, gamers—as he’d hoped—and their people. The tea’s strong, spicy scent filled the air, overlying the aroma of meat and curry—and beneath it all, the faint, acrid odor of fermikia, illegal under Esurhite rule. The house was furnished with the usual pillows and low tables preferred by the southlanders, scattered throughout a honeycomb of dark, smoky spaces marked out by draperies, wooden screens, and beaded curtains. Several larger spaces were positioned amidst them, with communal tables and pillows arranged for those who sought company as they ate and drank.

Taking a seat on one of the nearest open pillows, Abramm deliberately put himself in a conspicuous spot. Even if Katahn didn’t come into the teahouse, Abramm would be able to gather much information in a short time at the communal table. In fact, he’d made it a practice in each town they passed through to seek out the place of local gossip and linger, nursing his tea and eavesdropping on the conversations around him.

Now, as he settled onto the pillow and took off his helmet, he saw the dark eyes of the men around him flick toward him in surprise, saw them note his blond hair, the scars on his face, and the width of his shoulders. Several sized him up and made their way over to speak to him. At first he feared they had recognized him. But it wasn’t long into the conversation before he learned they only regarded him as one of many who’d taken on the guise of the avenging King Abramm, returned from the dead to take back his regalia from the thief, Leyton. It was a coveted role for which likely candidates had to compete and be willing, if they won, to have their faces sliced in imitation of the man they pretended to be. In fact, there were a series of qualifying matches that had been played out before Leyton even arrived. The winner had already been determined and ritually cut at the end of his match—and would face the Chesedhan king tomorrow.

Since Abramm had toyed with the notion of entering the arena as a competitor himself, that news effectively ended such speculation. Besides, as one man told him, he wasn’t even scarred on the correct side. Everyone knew the Pretender’s scars were on the right side of his face not the left, so they’d have refused him outright.

A serving man brought him hot, syrupy, very spicy tea in a small, thick glass cup and, taking his coin, hurried away. Abramm nursed it slowly—the only way he could drink the potent stuff even after weeks of trying—and listened to the men on his right argue over whether it would really be Leyton Donavan who appeared tomorrow or a substitute, and then whether it was fair to pit Leyton, middle-aged as he was, against the younger contenders, especially since Abramm, had he lived, would be older, too.

“Aye, but come back from the dead, Abramm would be young again,” another countered, and they fell to arguing the increasingly esoteric points of a mortal fighting an immortal. Abramm’s interest waned, then fastened with sudden intensity on the utterance of a single name in the conversation unfolding on his left side: Madeleine.

The Pretender’s woman and queen of Chesedh had remarried, they said, yoking herself to a powerful Sorite lord who could give her troops and galleys for the protection of her land. The new alliance was received with open chagrin and much worried speculation about how much longer the war would last because of it. As the conversation drifted to the Sorite himself, Abramm found himself increasingly agitated. The first time he’d heard this rumor he’d laughed it off as absurd. But when in every town it was repeated, built up, and embroidered upon, he was finding it less and less easy to dismiss. With all the furor surrounding Leyton’s arrival, he’d hardly expected to find anyone talking of Maddie, yet here they were. And after what he’d seen today— Kiriathan soldiers marching out of the temple and into Horon-Pel under the banner of the Black Moon, literally under his nose—it was obvious Chesedh needed an ally. And if it was considered the duty of the First Daughter to make alliances for her people, as he knew it was, how much more would it be considered the duty of a widowed queen?

Movement in the shadows on the far side of the room drew Abramm’s eye to a tall man in a white tunic sashed with gold, standing in the shadow of a long hallway. He had the shaved head and long braided topknot of a Sorite warrior, with the gold-scaled cheekbones of a high-ranking noble, and as Abramm looked at him, the other’s gaze snared his own. Dark, long-lashed eyes, exotically shaped, and seemingly bottomless above the scaling, held him riveted with familiarity. Then the stranger smiled and a chill rippled up Abramm’s back.

Just then a party of revelers came trooping across the main room toward the hallway, swallowing up the Sorite. When they had moved into the shadowed corridor, he was gone, but the image of his face remained. It was the man from Abramm’s dream in Caerna’tha. The one where the dragon had come to visit.

Sudden fear clenched his stomach and dried his mouth.

“I will take it all from you. . . .”

Moroq was here. Now. Had been waiting for him, and wanted him to know it. . . .

“So, you look like you’ve been in a few Games yourself, friend,” a voice said at his shoulder, startling him so badly he jumped.

Looking around, he found a short, heavyset Esurhite settling onto the pillow beside him.

“Aye.” He hardly knew what he was saying. Terror still clouded his mind, along with images of the throne room and the great pillar in the Hall of Records. Moroq could do nothing Eidon did not allow. But Eidon had given him free rein.

“Do your worst, then. . . .”

The man nodded, eyeing Abramm’s hair and scars. He said something that seemed to require a response, but Abramm had no idea what it was. Desperately he wrenched his thoughts back to the here and now. “I’m sorry?”

“I said, your face is scarred on the wrong side. The Pretender’s scars were on the right.”

“Oh. Aye . . .” Abramm grimaced. If Eidon had allowed Moroq free rein, it meant Abramm could handle whatever came.
“His reward will only be
greater for it. . . .”
It would all be for the best. He had only to trust. And after all he had seen, all he had been through, how could he not?

The panic subsided and his rattled thoughts ordered themselves again. As he finally truly focused on the man at his side he realized the other had sought him out. But had Katahn sent him? Or Moroq?

“I’m looking for a Gamer, actually,” Abramm said, plunging onward. “I’ve slaves to sell tonight.”

The man lifted his thick glass in long, swarthy fingers and sipped his syrupy tea. “I have a friend who might be interested. He doesn’t buy from just anyone, though.”

Abramm snorted. “I’m sure your friend has already seen me and what I have to offer, or you’d not be here.”

The man smiled, sipped again, then set down his tea glass and said, “Come with me.”

He led Abramm from the common room into the same hallway where Moroq had disappeared, then along a series of narrow, plaster-walled corridors. They passed numerous closed carved-wood doors from which the fermikia smoke clouded so thickly it made him dizzy just walking through it.

Finally they crossed a quiet courtyard, descended a short span of steps, and the man pushed open a heavy door to lead him into a large, dark chamber that smelled like the stable. A tin lantern with a spiraling top hung from a rafter in the middle of the room, the light of its kelistar turning the chamber into a puzzle of pooled shadow and dim light. In the corner, horses shifted and snorted, and all around him he sensed men watching him.

His guide abandoned him there, stepping back through the door and closing it behind him. Abramm waited, knowing he was being scrutinized. Was the shaven-headed Sorite out there somewhere, drawing that long black bow of his as he prepared to put an arrow into Abramm’s heart?

“So you’ve come looking to sell some slaves, have you?” said a voice from the shadows beyond the lantern.

“I have,” said Abramm, turning toward the speaker and hoping his start of surprise hadn’t been noticeable.

For another long moment they all stood there, Abramm in the lantern light, the unseen others breathing softly around him. Then a man stepped from the shadow into the light—short, broad shouldered, that familiar hatchet face now adorned by a gray goatee, which matched the hair in the warrior’s knot on his nape. He wore a dark tunic, a rank of combat honor rings in the margin of his left ear, and a broad grin on his swarthy face.

“Khrell’s fire!” Katahn ul Manus cried as he came forward to catch Abramm in a rough embrace. “Will you
never
stay dead?”

Abramm laughed as they stepped apart. “I
thought
it was you I saw in the street.”

“No one was more surprised than I,” Katahn countered. “What were a pack of Esurhites doing up here this early in the night? I thought. And with a cart of slaves, no less. Then something caught my eye. There’s no missing the way you move, old friend. Even if you are supposed to be dead.” He paused, then shook his head. “What
are
you doing here?”

“That is a very long and complicated story. I am more interested in why
you
are here. Though I have my suspicions.”

Katahn’s eyes narrowed. “You were the one who destroyed the temple at Aggosim, weren’t you?”

Abramm cocked a brow at him. “Why would you guess that? Aggosim is hundreds of leagues away.”

“Aye, and it’s been four months since it happened. Rumor said the Pretender had come back from the dead through its temple corridor, destroying it in the process. The blast went through the links to Oropos and Xorofin, destroying those as well and triggering earthquakes in all three places. I have to admit the stories perplexed me. I knew you were dead, but who else could do such things? I thought maybe it was Meridon.” He shook his head again. “It really was you.”

“Actually, Eidon did it. I just went along for the ride.”

“Eidon seems to take you on quite a few rides,” Katahn said dryly. He shook his head. “Destiny swirls around you still, my friend.”

Before they went any farther, Abramm asked if they might bring in the men he’d left outside before some of the locals decided to make trouble. Soon, all seventeen of them had been brought into the stable, the street gates closed securely behind them. It turned out Katahn had come to Horon-Pel as leader of the group Maddie had sent to rescue her brother, and when Borlain and his Chesedhan countrymen met those who’d come with Katahn, a second reunion ensued.

Eventually, though, they all settled down, and Katahn was ready to plot. As the others scattered about the stable, taking seats on barrels, boxes, and kegs, he told Abramm that the man who would fight tomorrow was indeed Leyton Donavan. “I’ve seen him with my own eyes. And Belthre’gar is here, as well.” He flashed Abramm a sharp look at that point. “Though you don’t seem very surprised.”

Abramm smiled. “I would never have come to Horon-Pel if it had been up to me. My plan was to head north from the pass to Zereda on the strait. But the earthquake closed the pass, and the only other road led here. Eidon would not have brought me to this place on practically the same day Leyton is supposed to appear if it weren’t really him.”

“Or at least,” Katahn added with cocked brow, “if it weren’t really your regalia he’s got. He has two of the pieces that we know of. The scepter and the crown. They paraded him around this afternoon. Of course, both could be fakes.”