Wrath of Lions (62 page)

Much to Laurel’s surprise, it did. When she passed through the unguarded portcullis and into the castle courtyard, her jaw dropped open. Among a scant few plainly dressed women were at least fifty Sisters of the Cloth, some pulling carts filled with fruit, others walking horses, and still others busily tearing down Minister Mori’s dilapidated old podium. Laurel’s head was on a swivel as she looked all about her. There weren’t quite as many Sisters here as had been present in Riverrun, but it was shocking to see this many in the city. Still, it was entirely possible the other merchants had returned to Veldaren and brought their stables of Sisters with them.

Even more shocking was the lack of purple sashes. Nowhere in the courtyard could she spot a single member of the Palace Guard.
Suddenly two men appeared from the massive doorway of Tower Honor, the first males she had seen all day. They waved to her urgently as they took step after hasty step. Laurel recognized them as Walter Olleray and Zebediah Zane, two of her fellow Council members.

“Laurel…Laurel Lawrence,” Walter said as he approached. He was a balding fat man who carried his girth much less gracefully than the Conningtons. His cheeks were ruddy by the time he reached her. He panted as well, and his breath reeked of eggs, which made Laurel swallow a grimace.

“Walter,” she said. “Zebediah.”

“Laurel, you must come quickly,” Zebediah said. He beckoned her with both hands, stepping backward. He walked with a pronounced limp, the result of having a wooden left leg.

“What’s going on here?” asked Laurel. “Where are the guards? Where is the Watch? Why are there so many Sisters here?”

“Guster will explain everything,” rasped Walter.

“Yes, the Speaker will tell you all you need to know.”

The two continued to lead her forward. Laurel opened her mouth to ask another question, but then shut it and shook her head. Walter and Zebediah were the lowest members of the Council of Twelve other than herself. They had no opinions of their own; whatever Marius Trufont said, they reaffirmed like obedient puppies. Marius was the Council’s second senior member, from a rich family descended from the Mudrakers. If these two were present, Marius would not be far behind.

She nodded to Mite and Giant, and then fell in step behind the two men. Her Sisters stayed to each side of her, not seeming to register anything but her and the path ahead. They seemed blind even to the others of their order. Laurel wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Tower Honor’s tall doors were opened by another pair of Sisters. Laurel entered to find the foyer and the grand hall in complete
disarray. There were scattered bits of parchment everywhere, tables which used to hold finely crafted pots and vases filled with flower arrangements had been knocked over, and the carpet underfoot, which used to be thick and soft, was matted and sodden with a pinkish liquid, squishing with each step she took. Even here, the Palace Guard was absent. Fear began to clench in Laurel’s belly as she watched Walter and Zebediah proceed through the mess. She had the sudden desire to turn around, walk out of the tower, the courtyard, and then the city, never to return. Taking a deep breath, she balled her hands into fists, dug her fingernails into her palms, and forced herself to move onward.

Sure enough, Marius was waiting for them at the top of the steps leading to the double doors of the throne room. Marius was fifty and average in every way, from attractiveness to height, to style of dress. It was only his wealth and aggressive cockiness that made other members of the Council fear or respect him.

Those traits were not currently on display, for Marius was fidgety. He was chomping on his lip and whispering to Lenroy Mott, the councilman from Gronswik, who stood beside him. Neither man looked up until Zebediah cleared his throat. Laurel cocked her head; she heard a faint buzzing, as though water were trapped in her ears. She yawned, trying to release the pressure in her head, but the buzzing persisted.

“Ah, Laurel,” Marius said. Normally, he was the first one to make a lewd comment about her appearance, but not today. His eyes didn’t rake her figure, nor did he utter a word about her dress. His voice sounded as if he had recently been crying, though his cheeks were dry. “They are waiting,” he said, grabbing the handle of one of the doors.

“Wait,” Laurel said. Mite and Giant squirmed uneasily beside her, as if their wrappings had suddenly tightened uncomfortably. Perhaps they’d heard the noise as well. “Where is Guster?” she asked. “Guster is supposed to be here.”

“He’s inside, with the rest,” said Lenroy as he fiddled with his long white hair. “Waiting for us.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, yes,” insisted Marius.

“Please, Laurel, don’t be difficult,” pleaded Walter. His jowls waggled when he spoke.

“Yes,” added Zebediah. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“Wait…what’s going on here?” she asked. This time she did back away, only to be stopped by a monster of a Sister who made Giant look small by comparison. The enormous woman grabbed Laurel’s arms so tightly she thought her bones might snap. Walter pulled a dagger from beneath his shawl, handling it nervously. Laurel’s head spun as she frantically sought out her two protectors, but her girls had disappeared. Her heart thumped out of control.

The Sister began to shove her toward the steps leading to the throne room. Fat Walter paced alongside, the dagger still in hand, though she could tell by the anxious look in his eye that he did not want to use it. Marius turned and faced the doors again, his palms pressed flat against the solid wood.

“I have done nothing wrong!” Laurel screamed as she was forced up the steps. Her foot caught on the hem of her dress, tearing it down the side with an audible rip.

“Unfortunately, that is not for us to judge, Laurel,” said Lenroy.

“But I am the king’s trusted servant!”

Marius shook his head.

“The king is no more,” he said gravely. “This city serves new masters now.”

With those words, Marius pulled hard on the doors. They swung outward, creaking, and the buzz Laurel had believed to exist only in her head exploded into a din so loud the air itself vibrated. She was pushed up the last two steps, then flung headlong into the throne
room. She hit the ground hard, and the buzzing grew even louder in her ears. The doors slammed shut behind her.

Laurel raised her head and almost instantly vomited. The buzzing came from the millions of flies that filled the chamber, forming living black clouds around the corpses that covered the floor. The bodies were naked yet sexless, ripped apart, parts of them black with rot, their spilled insides writhing with maggots. The stench was horrendous, all encompassing. Her head warbled, her vision wavered, and she vomited again. Suddenly, hands were lifting her up, smacking her awake. She stared into Marius’s eyes, which were filled with a haunting emptiness.

“Keep yourself together,” he whispered. “Face the end with pride.”

He released her, letting her fall into the puddle of her own vomit. Laurel froze in place, trying to be brave in the face of such atrocities. Marius’s heels clicked as he walked away from her. She took that opportunity to tear a strip from the top of her dress, pressing the cloth over her nose and mouth. That done, she looked around once more.

The throne room did not remotely resemble the place of dignity she remembered. The banners had been ripped from the walls, and in their place human remains clung to the stone. Everything was dark, and even the flickering torches offered only sparse light. She glanced at the throne, which had been ripped asunder. The grayhorn tusks that had once rimmed it were strewn around the shadowy dais. That was where Marius stood, just to the side of the steps, his head bowed and hands clasped before him as if in reverence.

A moan sounded to her left, and Laurel turned. A man was slouched on the ground only a few feet away from her, his back resting against the gore-splattered wall. He too was covered with blood, glistening in the torchlight, and when he coughed a red mist issued from his lips. She inched toward him, recognizing his slightly crooked nose, his wattled neck.

“Guster?” she asked softly.

The old man’s eyes cataract-filled eyes opened, seeming to brighten as they gazed on her. He reached out with his right hand. It looked as if he wanted to say something, but he coughed once more and grasped his chest.

Laurel scurried toward him on all fours. At first she meant to throw her arms around him, but she recoiled in horror when she saw his injuries. Long slashes covered his chest, yawning wide whenever he breathed. His left arm was gone, in its place a stump that was blackened on the end as if it had been seared.

“Oh…” Laurel said numbly. Her mind went blank.

Guster feebly lifted his one remaining hand, beckoning her to come closer. Laurel could hear the rattle of his lungs through his chest whenever he took a rasping breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she shuffled closer to the mutilated, dying man. She tried to swat the flies away, but they were too many and too persistent.

He grasped at the front of her dress, pulled her toward him. “They…learned,” he croaked. “They…
know
…”

His mouth kept moving after each word he spoke, as if there were other things he was intent on saying but could not verbalize. Laurel’s tears fell all the harder. She was about to ask him
who
learned,
who
knew, but the answer was plainly obvious from the carnage that surrounded her.

Guster’s eyes began to roll into the back of his head, and a long, phlegm-filled gargle bubbled in his throat. Laurel pulled him upright, her fingers slipping on the slick gore that coated his flesh. “Stay with me, please, stay with me,” she pleaded. “Guster, where is the king? Where is Eldrich?”

On speaking the king’s name, Laurel saw a hint of a smile appear on Guster’s blood-streaked face. “The king…is safe,” he said. “The guards…they gathered him up…brought him away…when they first rose up…when they first spoke…”

His voice trailed off, and another croaking moan left his lips. After that his hand loosened, falling limply to the floor. Laurel continued to shake him, repeating his name over and over. Guster’s head flopped forward and back.

“He is gone, dear,” a voice said.

Laurel released Guster’s body, letting him drop to the floor, and spun about on her knees. She watched as a man dressed in a flowing red robe emerged from the shadows behind the throne. His hands were held together, an entreaty to the gods, and his beady eyes peered out between wisps of his thinning gray hair. Marius bowed to him as he backed away from the throne, edging toward the doors.

“He was judged a sinner,” the cleric Joben Tustlewhite said, “and he was punished as such.”

He spoke more confidently than Laurel had ever known him to. Joben was the mumbling priest no longer, it seemed.

“He was no sinner,” she said, her voice sounding small and feeble to her own ears.

“The masters of Veldaren decided it was so,” the cleric replied. “They are the vessels of Karak’s law.”

They are here,
she thought, her body going numb.
I will be shredded like the rest.

The man stepped aside, and sure enough, in the darkness behind the throne two sets of sparkling yellow eyes stared out at her. The two lions emerged side by side from the shadows, skulking slowly toward her. They had appeared large from the top of the roof the night Quester, Mite, and Giant had saved her, but now she understood just how huge they really were. Even on all fours they were nearly as tall as Marius, who was slinking in the corner.

The male lion opened his maw wide, running his tongue over his incisors, while the female simply lowered her head, considering Laurel with eyes that radiated intelligence. The two swung their heads toward each other, exchanged a glance, and then turned back to her ever so slowly. A deep rumble sounded in the male’s throat,
growing louder as he took another step toward her, then another. The female swiped at the buzzing flies with her tail, matching her mate’s strides. They were testing her, she knew, mocking her with the certainty of what would happen next. Laurel drew her knees to her chest, closed her eyes, and prayed.

She refused to open her eyes, even when she felt their hot, stinking breath moisten her flesh. A wet nose, easily the size of her fist, nudged her shoulder, yet still she refused to look. She kept repeating her prayers over and over again, her voice growing louder in defiance.

“Karak has not abandoned me, Karak has not abandoned me, he is the light in the darkness, the champion of order, I love you my Lord.”

“Unsure.”

The word was spoken clearly, though in a voice that was not human. The sound of it broke her from her prayers, and her eyes finally snapped open. The Judges were standing above her, so close that their whiskers tickled her flesh. Laurel didn’t dare move. She simply looked on as the female glanced at the male and opened her mouth.

“Sinner?”
Lilah asked.

Kayne didn’t reply. Instead he gazed down at Laurel, and then his mouth opened wide, and he roared. Massive incisors the size of an infant’s arm dripped with pink saliva. Wind scented with rotting meat buffeted Laurel in the face, and she finally screamed, planting her fists onto the bloody floor and scooting backward, only stopping when she collided with Guster’s slippery corpse.

“Sinner,”
the male lion said. It sounded like he was laughing.

Both lions lowered onto their haunches, looking like they were preparing to leap at her, but they straightened suddenly, their giant heads turning toward the throne room doors, their ears twitching. Laurel followed their gaze, trying to listen through her fear, but she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of buzzing flies and the
thrumming of her heart. Then the doors flew open and Lenroy Mott stumbled in, accompanied by three Sisters. Walter waddled in right behind them. The lions stayed frozen in place, staring at the newcomers with their mouths agape, saliva clinging to their jowls

“Masters, they are here!” Lenroy exclaimed. “The Watch have stormed the front gate!”