Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1) (13 page)

The grip on Kalen’s neck tightened. “This one did,” the man behind him replied.

“A child? A suitable sacrifice, I suppose. Soiris deserved his fate if he let such a youth slay him.”

Kalen narrowed his eyes. How had the Danarite known he had killed someone? It hadn’t been long since he’d been captured, and the red robes were bright enough color that the shadows couldn’t have hidden the color.

“He is the one you’ve sought, Lord Priest,” Garint replied.

A lump formed in Kalen’s throat and he couldn’t swallow it back. He knew about the existence of the Danarite Lord Priests and the things they could conjure, but little more than that. Was the red robe the mark of a Lord Priest? Had the man he’d stabbed been one as well?

“Him?” The Lord Priest laughed and crossed the road. The tips of the man’s fingers were cold against Kalen’s jaw. The Lord Priest twisted his head to the left and then to the right. Kalen made no sound. “This is a Rifter?”

“Not just a Rifter,” Garint said in a sniveling, honey-sweet tone. “He is their King. I’ve his sigil and his brooch, both bearing the Rift King’s mark on them. You wanted knowledge of the Rift King. I’ve delivered, Lord Priest. I’ve brought him to you.”

“What of your man? Why is he not here?”

Garint straightened at the change in subject. “Dead. He suffered from doubt and I didn’t dare compromise my mission.”

“I see. What other proof do you have that this mere child is the Rift King? The Rift King doesn’t leave his precious canyons, not for any reason. Do you expect me to believe this?” The Danarite released Kalen’s chin and lifted up one of the braids. The man’s red-gloved fingers stroked the three beads that were tied to the very end of it. “Silver, gold, and black.”

“The Rift King’s colors,” Garint said. “Just like the sigil and the brooch.”

“And why does the other man live?”

“Derac is a noble’s son, Lord Priest, and one of importance. If we kill him, they’ll have just cause. By ransoming him, it looks as if bandits were responsible. They won’t be the wiser for it until we’re long out of Kelsh. The others had no value.”

Derac ceased struggling, his eyes cold and hard.

“You’ve put some thought into this. Very well. I’ll consider your suggestion. We’re done here. Leave the bodies,” the Lord Priest ordered. At the snap of the man’s fingers, several tunic-clad Danarites emerged from the forest leading horses behind them.
 

Kalen was tossed across the withers of one of the larger beasts and tied there. The Danarites forced Derac to walk, but not even the crack of the whip on the man’s back extinguished the light of hatred smoldering in the Kelshite’s eyes.

~~*~~

The hilt of the jeweled dagger caught the fading daylight. The pommel stone cracked down on the back of Kalen’s hand. Bones cracked. His body jerked, and he swallowed back his scream. He forced himself to meet the Lord Priest’s gaze and smiled.

“Why have you come here?”

The Danarite favored that question, and Kalen once again remained silent. If they wanted to learn anything from him, they’d have to peel it from his cold corpse.

Lord Priest Helethor’s expression contorted from rage. “Answer me!”

The next blow landed on Kalen’s knuckle. Through the pain-born fog in his head, he was aware of the Lord Priest shouting and cursing.

Time lost meaning for him. He didn’t remember being hauled to his feet or being forced to walk. Kalen stumbled, and if it weren’t for the tight grip on his hair, he would’ve fallen. Each step woke the stabbing pain of broken bones. His breath rattled in his chest, and no matter how many times he swallowed, the taste of his own blood remained on his tongue.

No matter how hard he tried to lift his feet to take another step forward, his left foot flopped behind and his right foot didn’t fare much better.

He wasn’t certain if it was night or if he’d been blinded.

“You shouldn’t have defied me,” Lord Priest Helethor said in a low, even tone.

The vellest no longer eased his agony, but it kept him conscious and anchored him in the land of the living when he should’ve been dead. Kalen twisted his bloodied lips into a mocking grin.

A fist caught him in the gut and drove the air from his lungs. When he coughed, the heat of his blood flooded his mouth.

“He’ll die if you keep doing that,” Garint commented in an emotionless voice. “Without getting the answers you seek.”

“I know that,” Lord Priest Helethor snapped. “I’ll just extract the answers from his corpse after the sunset rituals. Fool won’t live that long.”

“As you wish,” Garint replied.
 

Kalen was dropped. He hit the ground hard. He struggled for breath, and choked on his blood. Of all the places to die, it was in Kelsh at the hands of a Danarite.

He wanted to laugh at the irony, but no sound emerged from his throat. In a way, he was almost relieved. His burden would pass on to someone else.

“I’ll leave you to prepare the body,” the Lord Priest said. Kalen strained to hear the man depart, but his ears didn’t work quite right. The sound of the Danarite’s voice was muffled.

Kalen closed his eyes, but he was denied rest.

“Any last wishes?” Garint asked. The man’s hand fell on Kalen’s shoulder and gripped it hard.

“Sword,” he managed to choke out.

“I can’t give you a sword.”
 

“No,” Kalen said and coughed. He spit blood. The breath he managed to draw was shallow, but it was enough to let him speak again. “Finish it. Deny him what he wants.”

Garint’s grip tightened. “Are you certain?”

Kalen tried to clench his hand into a fist, but his broken fingers refused to bend. “Can’t get the secrets of the Rift King if the corpse is not that of the Rift King. Take your sword and take my rank. You wanted power, didn’t you? Take it and guard the secret well.”

“What secret?”

Kalen couldn’t force any more words out. With his heartbeat faltering in his ears, he cursed the vellest and its refusal to relinquish its hold even when his body had long since been broken.

“They’ll be occupied with their rituals for the next hour. Heretics like me aren’t permitted, and they believe they’ve got me reined in. If I remove the gag, Derac, do you so swear to stay quiet?”

There was a long moment of silence. Then, “You killed your own Yadesh. You killed Marist,” Derac hissed out. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t tell you. I can give you a chance, and that is all. Do you understand? I had thought they would delay before killing him. I thought they wouldn’t go to such measures so quickly. I thought they’d keep him alive since they wanted him alive,” Garint replied. “So I give you an option. Escape, die trying, or die. Which do you choose?”

“I can’t trust you,” Derac said.

“I didn’t ask you to trust me. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m doing this because I like either one of you. I’m doing this because I hate them more than you. That’s all.”

“Then why side with them?”

“You weren’t the only one betrayed,” Garint said, and his voice was bitter.

“What do you mean?”

“Kelshite King,” Kalen rasped, and hoped they’d understand his meaning. Derac drew a sharp breath.

“You’re as cunning as rumor says, and I regret that we could not have met on better terms,” Garint said. “I can offer you this. I’m not much of a healer. That man you call King doesn’t like when his Knights learn such things, but I might be able to at least slow your death. You can’t go to Harrold’s Crossing. By now, it’s surely fallen. Isn’t it ironic, Derac, that your very uncle has a villa to the west of here? He keeps a healer, and is a favored stop of the Knights on duty.”

“I know of it. But, why? Why change your mind now?”

Kalen didn’t need to see the man’s face to hear the tears in his voice.

“His Majesty commanded I aid them. That I serve them so that in turn, we could destroy them all. But they suspected. They
knew,
and I think it is because
he
told them. I swore even as I cut my own Yadesh down that I would ruin them all,” Garint whispered. “Decide.”

~Live,~
the First said, speaking for the first time since he’d been captured.

The command gave him the strength to speak. “We’ll go,” Kalen choked out. “Derac’s hand can finish it.”

The simple act of breathing shouldn’t have been so hard, but Kalen refused to be defeated. Not until his last duty was done.

A Rift King lived by the sword and died by the sword, and he refused to be any different.

“Stubborn to the very end. You’ve my word, and Derac has my sword,” Garint replied. “Are we in agreement, then? Do try to at least live through the night, Rift King. I’d hate to see my effort and my loss of Satrin completely wasted. The longer they chase after you, the more time it is before they chase after me.”

“You son of a whore,” Derac growled.

“I’ll take that to mean you’re in agreement. I don’t know how long this will keep him alive. You’ll need to hurry,” Garint said. “Derac, the horses are tied near the stream that way. Hareth’s horse is among them. Take what you can and be quick and quiet about it.”

“Stubborn fool,” Garint muttered. “If you’d only talked, I wouldn’t have had to do this.”

Kalen let out a short and low bark of laughter, but said nothing.

Garint’s hand on his chest was warm. Then, he felt nothing at all.

~~*~~

Each beat of the horse’s hooves jarred Kalen’s broken bones. His foot throbbed, and sharp pain stabbed at his fingers and wrist.
 

The rest of him was numb.

Derac held him in place with one hand. The hilt of Garint’s sword jabbed him in the ribs, but its presence comforted as must as it pained him. It, too, served as a reminder that he lived.

Death should have claimed him in the Danarite’s camp. Whatever sorcery Garint had cast upon him had taken away his awareness of his heartbeat, of his breath, and of all of the things separating the living from the dead, except for the pain.

~Live,~
the First demanded.

Kalen couldn’t laugh at the folly of the word. He couldn’t even manage a smile. Was the presence within distressed at his plight? Was the creature a hallucination that would disappear without a trace when his body finally understood he no longer belonged among the living?

The horse slowed to a smooth walk, and his awareness of his body faded into nothing.

“I find myself questioning why I take you to where you might be saved, when I have Garint’s sword and your blessing to end you here and now,” Derac said. “Are you even able to speak?”

When he didn’t reply, he was dumped from the saddle. The force of the impact was like lightning. As quick as it struck, it faded again. He was dimly aware of the First’s rage boiling within him. Kalen clung to the sensation.

It was another reminder of the life he’d lose soon enough. The irony of it almost made him laugh. He’d spent so long surviving, enduring, and walking the line between life and death, that the reality of his death made him want to experience just one more breath, feel a little more pain, and live a little longer. Kalen blinked, and he could make out the blurred form of a horse’s leg in the darkness.

“It would solve a lot of problems if you died,” Derac said. The glint of steel drew his eye. Kalen managed to lift his head enough to make out the man’s silhouette illuminated by the light of the full moon. Stars twinkled overhead, framed by slender branches decorated with a modest covering of leaves.

“The Rift will Ride,” Kalen managed to whisper. There was a strange echo to his voice. He couldn’t feel himself speaking, but the words he wanted to say emerged regardless.

“Oh, so you can still speak? What in the name of the Lady of Light do you mean by ‘the Rift will Ride’? This isn’t the first time you’ve said it. What will happen if I run you through here and now, just as you ran through Hareth and Uthen?”

“War.”

“The Rifters haven’t come out of their canyons for over a thousand years. Even I know this much. I don’t think I believe you. I’m not even sure if I believe you’re the Rift King, sash and brooch or not,” Derac replied.

Something cold and hard pressed against Kalen’s throat. His awareness of it took him by surprise.

“If you kill me, you’ll find out for yourself,” he said, the strange echo still present. “They’ll come for you first.”

“Why?”

The words were torn from his thoughts and spit from his lips. “Because you will be their King, and you will Ride with them. You will wage war against your own people, and their blood will drip from your stained banner. You will crush them beneath the hooves of your black horse. Then, like Arik before me, like me before you, you will be put to the sword and another will take your place. Your existence within the song of the ancestors will be a blight they will strive to erase.”

The pressure eased against his throat. “And if you live?”

Kalen didn’t have an answer to that. The Guardians always managed to find him, no matter how far he’d ridden in the past. One would appear on his trail and stay a respectable distance behind him, a shadow who watched, listened, and never intervened.

“Well? What happens if you live?”

Kalen couldn’t voice his doubts. Even though he wanted to, he couldn’t force the words out.

“Are you trying to tell me that no matter what happens, this so-called Ride will still happen?”

“How far would you go for your King?”

“You bastard,” Derac said.

“Actually, my mother is a lady, and my father a lord.” The words slipped out before he could stop them, and no matter how much he desired it, he couldn’t take them back.

“It is true, then. You weren’t born in the Rift. Marist told me. The Rift doesn’t have lords or ladies. You were born in Kelsh, just like he thought. You’re one of us, and you’re
their
King?”

“Hellfires,” he muttered.

“Answer me this. Garint said something about being betrayed by the King. What did he mean? Why did you think it was the King?”

“Are you going to run me through or talk me to death?”

“I’ll decide after you answer.”

“If you’re going to break my foot to get answers, I recommend you start with the right one,” Kalen said. “You’ll have to find the truth of it for yourself. He’s your King. Not mine.”