Spirit of the King (8 page)

“It is time to leave,” the woman said making Graymon jump. He hadn’t seen her emerge from the pavilion.

“I want my da,” Graymon demanded through clenched teeth, making his best angry face. He’d seen it work for his father when he was talking to his men. This time when the woman responded, she didn’t smile and her tone scared him.

“Enough.”

Graymon’s expression drooped, his lip quivered. The woman gestured and green-cheek led him between the rows of soldiers, his feet dragging and scuffing in the dirt. The boy twisted in the creature’s grip, turning enough to see two of the undead guards drag his father out of the tent, each with a hand under his arm.

“Da,” he yelled again, but the woman stepped between them, blocked his view.

Green-cheek wrenched his arm painfully, pulling his gaze back to the front. Graymon sniffled and wept, tuning his eyes away from the rotted faces leering at him. The black-painted wagon drew closer with each step, bringing with it whatever horror lay beyond.

I wake from a dream and open my eyes to white and gray clouds smeared across blue sky. This isn’t the beautiful sky I longed for, but I don’t care anymore. I have another purpose now. One day I’ll return there, but not until I’ve made him pay for his sins.

It’s the same dream every time I close my eyes since my savior showed me my path: the man. Each time he appears in my dream, some new atrocity he performed is revealed. This time I saw him visit three women I can’t name but know were my friends. He hurt them, tortured them, killed them. He raped one after killing her, as he raped me when I was a child. The thought brings the taste of bile to the back of my throat, so I sigh a deep breath of fresh air to wash it away. The dream also ended as it always does, with my sword in his stomach and blood spilling from his mouth. My nausea fades; I smile.

I stand and orient myself. My clothes are damp with dew and I brush the sheen of water from my shirt and breeches, neither recognizing the clothing nor recalling dressing in them. I don’t put much thought to it. If I wasted time on the unexplainable things experienced since meeting the woman in the black cloak, I’d have time for no other thought.

I’m standing in a field of thigh high grass, autumn-faded to the color of straw. Maple and oak trees encircle the clearing, leaves of gold, red and brown decorate their branches and litter the ground at the feet of the trees. I want to find it beautiful, but my thoughts contain too much ugliness. Perhaps I’ll return here to find out if it truly is beautiful when my task is complete and I’ve exorcised the vileness.

I run my hand through my hair cut short and spiky by the sword at my hip. I remember her cutting it, right after she told me who I am.

You are a new person, Shariel,
she said, and she was right. Whoever I was is gone, dead, killed by the man I’ve been sent back to seek vengeance on.

I will have revenge for the woman I was.

Birds twitter and sing in the trees, calling out to each other in the crisp autumn air, but I hear other sounds, too. Boots scraping through grass, leather creaking, a scabbard brushing against a pant leg. I turn toward the sounds, forcing calmness in my breathing while hoping it is the man, hoping this is my opportunity. She said she’d bring him to me.

It’s not.

Three men approach. I don’t know them or don’t remember them, but I know the situation. I’ve been here before. And the man, this
Khirro
, was there then, too. I await them, quelling my disappointment, keeping my hand near my sword.

“What’s this, Barrack?” one of the men comments to a companion. “A comely wench has lost herself in the wilds?”

They speak a language I shouldn’t understand but do. I don’t speak, hoping to draw them closer.

“It’s a good thing she has tits, Dar,” one—presumably Barrack—replies. “With her hair cut like that, I might have mistaken her for a man.”

They’re close enough I could graze their bellies with the tip of my sword. I don’t; that would be too easy.

The third man feels compelled to comment. “Naw, no mistakin’ her for a man. Too pretty for a man.”

I smell them: sweat and ale and dirt. They smell of lust. The mix of odors threatens to turn my stomach and I commit to transforming their stench to the more agreeable aroma of fear.

None of these men are the man I seek, but neither are they good men. They’ve committed sins, brought evil upon the world, and the God Steel will make them pay. I wait while they surround me, thinking they’ll do as they like with me. They will be unpleasantly surprised.

“What are you doing here, little lady?” the second man asks.

“Waiting for you,” I say, both surprised and not surprised I speak their language.
Kanosee,
it is called.

They circle me, each of them appraising me, but they’re not gauging my fighting skills like they might do a man, they’re imagining me without my clothes. Their mistake.

The first man, Dar, steps up in front of me, an arm’s length away.

“What be it that you’re waiting for, exactly?”

“I’m waiting for a man,” I say, aware he hears my statement differently than what I mean by it.

“Mmmm.”

The sound is guttural, the primal noise of an animal. A knot rises to the back of my throat, but it’s not fear, it’s disgust. I suppress it. I’m no longer the victim—she’s dead. I’m in control here.

“Well, you need wait no longer, lass.”

He steps closer until our bodies nearly touch; he’s taller than me, my eyes level with his chin. With another animal sound, he puts his arm around my waist and pulls me against him. I don’t protest as he presses his lips against mine, the salty taste of his sweat raising anger and hatred and power within me. I lay my hand on his chest over his heart and breath in, sucking the air out of his lungs.

His body stiffens; he releases his arm from my waist.

There’s another animal sound, muffled by my lips, but this time it’s the sound of panic and terror, and it strengthens me. He jerks once, twice. I push my hand more firmly against his chest and feel his ribs crack. A twist of my wrist and one punctures his heart. He falls limp to the straw-colored grass.

“Wha...?” one of his companions says.

A half-second passes before they realize what’s happened to their friend and reach for their weapons. In that time, I leap across his fallen body, twisting to face them, and snatch my sword out of its scabbard in one smooth movement. I swing it in an arc, sun glinting on polished steel, its path burned into my vision for a moment, and the tip slices Barrack’s throat. The cut is only half an inch deep, but it’s enough. Blood spurts from the wound, spraying across the third man’s cheek. His eyes show stark panic, but he pulls his sword anyway. I step back, drops of blood slithering down my blade, and wait for him as he brandishes his steel. It shakes in his hand.

“Be on your way and I’ll tell no one what you did,” he says.

The quake in his sword arm shows itself in his voice and brings a smile to my face. This man is scared of me.

He should be.

“Why should I leave you alive?” I flick the end of my sword at him, spattering him with more of his friend’s essence. He flinches and falls back a step. “You and your friends would have had your way with me, probably killed me. Do you not deserve the same?”

“N-no. You’ve got it wrong. We was just having fun is all. We wasn't going to hurt you.”

His eyes flicker away from mine and linger on his fallen friends before returning to me. Had I chosen to do so, he’d have met his end in that second.

“Of course you say that when you’re looking into the eyes of your executioner.”

I see the argument going on behind his eyes: attack me and hope for the best? Turn and run? Wait it out and see what I do? To a man who has just watched his companions fall like untrained children, surely none of the options seem like good ones.

He opts for the first.

His blade lashes out and I deflect his blow with a flick of my wrist. Exhilaration pounds through my veins, fortifies my limbs. The first two kills were surprise attacks—neither man had a chance—but this is one-on-one combat and I know I can best this man without expending any real effort.

He strikes again and I parry. He’s been trained, though not well. Another blow and another, wild and unplanned. I block one and side-step the next, toying with him. Another swing. Another. I haven’t yet swung a blow in offence, yet sweat drenches his brow and his breathing is labored, fearful.

He comes at me again; I step aside and land the pommel of my sword in the small of his back. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. When he faces me, I step in and relieve him of his weapon with the snap of my wrist, then the point of my blade is at his throat. His eyes widen, crossing as they look down on the silver steel, then find their way along its length until he sees the smile on my face. I wait for him to beg for his life. He doesn’t let me down.

“Please, my lady.”

“Shariel.”

The name feels odd to my lips, as though it isn’t mine. Not so long ago, it wasn’t.

“I beg you, don’t kill me. I’ll do anything.”

I raise my eyebrow theatrically. “Anything?”

He nods frantically, like an enthusiastic child, but stops abruptly at the feel of the edge of my blade rubbing against his throat. It’s not enthusiasm that prompts his nod, it’s fear. I believe he really would do anything, though he’d never tell anyone he did. A thought crosses my mind, surprising at first, then comfortable, like a shirt well worn.

He’s young. Underneath the dirt and bravado, he’s not unattractive.

“Remove your clothes,” I tell him, a smile on my lips. He looks at me like I spoke a foreign language.

“My clothes?”

I nod and wait, the sword tip hovering an inch from the man-lump in his throat. He complies, removing his sword belt first, slowly, careful not to lean forward and pierce his windpipe. Next comes his armor, then his shirt and breeches. As his underclothes fall to the grass, my smile broadens. I’m glad for whatever suggested this action to me.

The act is familiar but uncomfortable, though it’s because of him, not because of the act itself. He’s nervous and afraid, clumsy. I make the best of it, coaxing as much out of him as I can. I’ve done this before, I know. Many times.

When I come to my end, he does, too. As my last satisfied gasp fades from my mouth, my lips find his and I take his breath. Then I break his heart.

I use his shirt to wipe his seed from between my legs and discard it on his naked corpse. Fat, lazy flies nearing the end of their lives in the autumn chill buzz around his companions as they grow stiff under the midday sun. A part of me feels reviled by what I’ve done, but whether it’s the killing or the fucking, I’m not sure. Truth is, most of me enjoyed both. They complement each other.

My clothes are back on my body, my sword belt at my waist when she appears. At first I think to hide like I’ve been caught doing something forbidden me, but I stand my ground. I’m no match for this woman, whoever she is, but I know she didn’t bring me back to be a coward.

“How did it feel?” she asks, and I wonder if she means the death or the sex before she continues. “How did it feel to kill your first man?”

I shrug and suppress the excited feeling in my stomach.

“He’s dead.”

The hole in the cowl laughs and I can’t help smiling.

“You have done well, Shariel, but this is only the beginning. Practice, if you will.” She moves closer, the tall grass making it seem like she floats over the ground. “There will be others. And the man Khirro will know you. He is dangerous.”

His name takes the smile from my lips. I tighten my belt one more notch and straighten the scabbard at my side.

“He will die.”

The black cowl moves, nodding, then the woman raises her arm, the sleeve falling away from a pale hand and painted fingertips. She points south.

“Go to Poltghasa,” she says. I recognize the name: the last Free City. The city of thieves and murderers. “That is where you will find him.”

I open my mouth to speak but she’s gone, disappeared as though never there.

“Poltghasa,” I say to the corpses around me. None of them offer comment.

I step over the body of my lover and head for the southern edge of the forest. A gust of wind swirls fallen leaves across my path, some of them the same color as the blood I wipe from my sword. I want to find them beautiful but can’t.

Not as long as the man called Khirro lives.

The copper-sized circle of sky visible through the opening high above was barely distinguishable from the sides of the pit itself. Hours had passed. Khirro’s head hurt; he rubbed his temples, tentatively moved first one arm, then the other. When both worked, he did the same with his legs.

I’m lucky.

He pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his head. Other than the headache, he'd have a bruise on his hip, but nothing else hurt too badly; he seemed to have survived the fall relatively unscathed. That made twice now he’d taken major falls and survived. He hoped Athryn fared so well.

Athryn!

Khirro lurched to his feet, the sudden movement making his head spin and throb. He paused a moment to settle himself, then turned a tight circle, surveying the dimly lit pit. He saw nothing, so shuffled a wider arc, feet leaving divots in the pile of straw and moss that had cushioned his fall. Still no sign of his companion. He fell to his knees, looking for signs of the magician and what happened to him, where he had gone. His fingers grasped dry straw, sifted through loose dirt, but the lack of light made his search difficult as he scuffled around the thick layer set at the bottom of the pit.

This pit isn’t here by accident
.
But why?
The only answer he could think of unsettled him:
hunting.
 

His thoughts were interrupted when his hand found a wide path cut in the mossy pillow, like a track left when something was dragged away. He followed it a few feet until his hand touched a wet and tacky spot of dirt that stuck to the palm of his hand.