“Unfortunately, yes. Were we as strong in our sorcery as our ancestors, such a ritual might only require the strength of a large convocation. Now, for the spell to work, we will have to bleed the magic out of the Kai except for the young who haven’t yet come into their power.”
Anhuset recoiled as if Brishen had thrown something at her. Her eyes burned bright, and her lips curled back, exposing her sharp teeth in a snarl, as if to warn him off. Sickened, he turned away from her.
He dropped his gaze to the floor. “We will lose the ability to harvest any mortem lights.” His throat closed at the knowledge, and he had to clear it twice before he could speak once more. “At least three generations of Kai memory will be lost forever. My dear, treacherous mother,” he breathed. “What have you done?”
Except for Anhuset’s clipped breaths and the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears, the room fell silent, its occupants awaiting his decision. He scrubbed his hands over his face before seeking out Ildiko. “I’ll need to call a
sejm
—a council. Most of my ministers and vicegerents are here already. They’ll support you while you act as my regent during my absence.
She hugged herself, fingers digging into her arms. The muscles in her jaw flexed as she clenched her teeth but remained quiet. Her answer to his announcement was a quick nod and wide, frightened eyes that threatened to roll in panic.
“Anhuset,” he continued. “You’ll guard her while I’m gone.”
His cousin slapped her hands on her hips and thrust out her chin. She looked ready to leap the space between them and pummel him. “Stop! Did you miss the part of the
Elsod
’s explanation where you’ll be run through with your own sword?”
“I would prefer my favorite axe.” No one laughed at his feeble joke, including him.
“You can’t do this,” Anhuset practically snarled at him.
“Then offer me another solution because if we don’t turn back the horde, this kingdom, this world, will be scoured clean of life,” he snapped back.
“And if you fail?”
“I will have already failed if I sit here and do nothing.”
Anhuset turned to the
Elsod
. “I’ll do it. I’m battle-tested and have led armies. I doubt troops of dead soldiers are any more troublesome than troops of live ones, and I’m eager to rip apart a few
galla
along the way.” She smacked her breastbone with a fist. “This is my duty. I consider it an honor to shoulder this task for my king.”
His order for her to stand down hung on his lips, but the
Elsod
spoke ahead of him, admiration in her voice. “You are a credit to your position and your king, sha-Anhuset, but it must be Brishen.”
“Why?” Anhuset and Ildiko asked in chorus and glanced at each other.
The
Elsod
ignored them, her gaze steady on Brishen. “You know the rumors about your mother. The whispers about her beauty, ageless and unchanging though she should have been even more wrinkled and bent than I am.”
He shrugged. “She was always a vain creature. When she wasn’t planning death and world domination at her mirror, she was manipulating magic to hide her age.”
She crooked a gnarled finger at him. “Come closer. The woman who bore you is much older than you think.” Brishen knelt at her feet and closed his eyes as the rough pad of her finger traveled up his forehead, the tip of her claw grazing his scalp. “Behold,” she said.
Images flooded his mind, superimposed over his surroundings. Instead of a room inside Saggara, he looked upon a moonlit village. Humble houses lined a main avenue that was nothing more than a grassless path trenched by wagon wheels and horses’ hooves. A young girl played a game of ball with other Kai children of similar age. Not only did she play, she manipulated the game, slyly tripping a runner, distracting a kicker, tipping the ball. All maneuvers that ensured the team on which she played won.
Brishen recognized her. Secmis. The promise of extraordinary beauty already defined her features, along with a cunning no amount of beauty would ever mask.
The image changed, replaced by others that showed his mother as she aged into the spectacular, vicious queen he knew. She danced at grandiose balls in Saggara’s great hall, hosted by a monarch Brishen didn’t know but who seemed vaguely familiar. He startled when he finally recognized the king on the throne. Mendulis, who ruled Bast-Haradis five generations earlier. His statue stood among those of other Kai kings and queens in the palace’s throne room.
He jerked away from the
Elsod
’s touch, and the images vanished.
“What did you show him?” Ildiko asked her as Brishen gained his feet.
“Memories of those who knew Secmis when she was a bead-maker’s daughter raised in a holt not far from Saggara.”
“When Saggara was nothing more than a patch of ground on an open plain,” Brishen added. “I knew her to be older than my father, a few decades at most. That was common conjecture she never denied.”
“She was born before your grandfather’s grandfather.” A hint of admiration flickered in the memory warden’s faded eyes. “Intelligence, beauty and consuming ambition, combined with strong sorcery, and the woman with humble beginnings rose to become queen of the Kai kingdom.”
Anhuset, in her typical fashion, kicked the pedestal out from under that admiration. “So she was unnaturally old and foul and probably bathed in the blood of innocents to stay alive. Tell us something we didn’t already know, like what does that have to do with Brishen being the only one who can become this Wraith King?”
The
Elsod
laughed outright. “A Wraith King isn’t only a general leading the dead. He will be the vessel that contains and controls the power which makes him wraith. That much magic concentrated in one spot requires the strength of a sorcerer with more magery than you possess, sha-Anhuset.”
Brishen finished the explanation for her. “If the
Elsod
is right, then the magic I inherited from Secmis is from five generations earlier. At least. Thanks to her, I’m the only living Kai strong enough to withstand and manipulate the force of that much power.
“And only for a short time,” the
Elsod
warned. She slumped in her chair. “There’s more.”
“Of course there is,” Brishen said flatly. It had started badly; it turned worse and hinted at becoming ruinous. Then again, he had just agreed to die in order to become a ghost, raise the dead, and fight demons. Never again would he complain about herding cattle as a living Kai, especially when he was about to herd
galla
as a dead one. A bubble of gallows laughter hung in his throat, threatening to choke him.
Ildiko spoke up, her voice soft. “Enough for now,
Elsod
. You and your
masods
have traveled far. We may reconvene after you’ve rested. I’ll have my chamber prepared for your use.”
The old woman rose from her chair, shrugging off her
masods
’ help. “That isn’t necessary, Your Majesty.”
“It is my privilege. I’ll simply share with my husband.”
Brishen edged closer and murmured close to Ildiko’s ear. “You steal the blankets.”
A small smile cracked her grim mask. “And you always tuck your cold feet under my legs,” she countered.
He caressed her back with one hand. Leave it to his wife to lift his mood.
Anhuset poured herself a goblet full of wine, only to stare into the liquid, scowling. “Gods, I need a real drink. Not this weak swill.”
Ildiko bowed to the
Elsod
. “I’ll find Mesumenes or Sinhue, have the chamber prepared for your needs and a repast sent up unless you’d rather eat in the hall.” She then bowed to Brishen. “By your leave, Sire.”
In no time, she had a small army of servants, commanded by Mesumenes, who surrounded the
kapu
kezets
and guided them out of the chamber. Ildiko joined the entourage, her features solemn as she nodded to Brishen before closing the door behind her.
As soon as she left, Brishen searched out a dusty bottle from a nearby cabinet, opened the cork and splashed drams of clear liquid into a pair of goblets. Anhuset abandoned the wine she held but hadn’t yet drunk. “Here,” he said, offering up the new goblet. “We both need it.”
They tossed back the libation at the same time, gasping and sputtering afterwards. Anhuset shook like a wet dog. “That’s more like it,” she wheezed in a thin voice. She smacked the goblet down on the table surface and glared at him. “I can’t believe you’re even considering this crazed plan, much less agreeing to it.” The wheeze was gone, her voice once more sharp and disapproving.
What choice did he have? “As I said, offer me another solution, and I’ll gladly put this one aside.”
“Let me do it.”
“You heard the
Elsod
. This is my burden. Were Harkuf still alive, it would be his. As Secmis’s son, he also inherited her power.” He tried not to think poorly of the dead, but his brother had been a weak-willed sort, and Brishen suspected this task might have yet fallen to himself even if Harkuf had lived. “Either way, it can’t be yours. Besides, I need you here to watch over Ildiko while I’m off herding
galla
into their pen. I’m a pathetic drover, and
galla
make the worst kind of cattle.” He’d take a hoofprint on his leg any day over this.
Anhuset snapped her teeth at him. “Stop joking. None of this is funny. You can’t make the
hercegesé
your regent, Brishen. The Kai will accept her as your consort but not as their ruler. They want a Khaskem on the throne, but not one who comes by the name through marriage and isn’t even Kai. Besides, they may turn on you, not because of your wife, but for the worst act of thievery ever committed in the history of the Kai people.”
“Then keep your tongue behind your teeth about it,” he snapped back. “I’m still trying to reconcile how stripping my people of their heritage is somehow the brave and honorable thing to do. All I need is for word to get out about that little detail of the
Elsod
’s plan, and I’ll find an axe planted in my skull before I’m given the chance to save us.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger and closed her eyes. “This is a disaster.”
He’d lost count of the times he’d said or thought the same thing ever since the Haradis messenger arrived half dead from exhaustion at Saggara’s gates. “Promise me you’ll keep your eyes open and your ears sharp, and if things turn sour in Saggara in my absence, you’ll take Ildiko safely to Gaur.”
Anhuset nodded. I promise, but you already knew that.” She glanced at the door. “I have to leave. I’m to meet Mertok at Lakeside to coordinate the increase of patrols around the lake and at the dye houses. If we’re to host all of Haradis and half the countryside over the next week, I don’t want slippery thieves with quick fingers and an eye for opportunity to make off with barrels of amaranthine.”
Ah, his fierce cousin. Militant, overly protective, devoted not only to him but to the well-being of all Saggara. The stigma of illegitimacy prevented her from rising in station to inherit from him or even to act as his regent, and she’d balk at both ideas even were they possible. Still, she’d make a fine queen in her own right.
He held out his arm, and she grasped it firmly with her hand, their forearms pressed together. “It’s an honor to serve with you, sha-Anhuset. My trust in you is absolute.”
Her eyes narrowed to sulfuric slits. “If that was some kind of botched up final goodbye, I will knock your teeth down your throat.”
He laughed. “When you see Ildiko, tell her to meet me in my chamber. Our chamber for now.”
Anhuset bowed. “Your Majesty.” She pivoted and strode out the door, slamming it behind her hard enough to make the goblets rattle on the table. One splashed drops of Dragon Fire onto the surface where they smoked on the wood.
Brishen lost his grin.
Your Majesty. Your Majesty.
He never imagined the title might become his, and he hated it. Not an address of authority or power, but a malediction laid upon him every time someone uttered it.
CHAPTER SIX
Kirgipa, the infant queen and their protectors made good time after separating from the main body of Kai fleeing Haradis and traveling during the day. The roar of the river now overrode the gibbering shrieks and wails of the
galla
that had clotted the opposite shore. Only a few had paralleled them as they put greater and greater distance between themselves and the others.
The weather was a questionable blessing. It was cold, with the damp seeping into their clothes and the scent of snow in the air, but the sky domed gray above them. Sunlight filtered through heavy clouds in feeble beams. At least daylight hadn’t bludgeoned them into near blindness, and for the most part they journeyed without shielding their eyes.
Kirgipa’s gaze surveyed the suspiciously empty opposite shore. “Are they gone?” She kept her voice low. Even with the river’s boisterous voice drowning out anything less than a shout, she didn’t dare risk drawing the
galla
back to them. Necos shook his head and quickly pointed out the futility of her precaution.
“See? There.” He gestured to a spot across the water, where the forest hugged the shoreline, leaving a strip of rocky shore no wider than a hair ribbon in spots. Within the evergreens’ thick darkness, lurked a deeper black. It coiled, sinuous and serpentine, around tree trunks, draping into the higher branches. Pinpoints of red winked in and out of shadows thicker than cold ink.
She shivered, as much from the knowledge the
galla
still stalked them as from the cold. “How long do you think they’ll follow us?”
Necos had taken the queen from her, and the child nestled in the makeshift sling hung across his chest, amusing herself with a pinecone he’d gathered nearby. He patted the baby’s bottom with one hand, as much at ease with child-minding as he was with fighting. His gaze scanned the opposite shore before settling on Kirgipa. “They’ll follow us for as long as it takes them to figure out how to reach us and eat us.”
Beside him, Dendarah hissed. “Don’t soften the blow, lad. It isn’t as if we’re scared enough.”
He bristled. “Well it’s true.”
“We know it’s true. No need to pummel us with the knowledge.” She edged closer to the water to peer down the river’s path one way, then the other. The writhing blackness raised a hungry whine on the other side. She ignored it. “We should have spotted a boat or ferry by now. I’ve never seen the Absu this quiet.”
Kirgipa hadn’t noticed the lack, but now that Dendarah pointed it out, the river seemed eerily empty of traffic. “Word must have reached Saggara and the outlying dales. The
herceges
probably ordered a halt of all sailing on the river.”
“Maybe.” The palace guard didn’t sound convinced.
They traveled along the shore, wading into the shallows when the land sheered sharply upward and became too difficult to climb. Kirgipa paused in one spot, her skirts eddying around her in the freezing water. The Absu was a clear river, with a sandy bed free of silt. Fish were easy to see and catch in the translucent water, and they’d supplemented their travel rations with a daily meal of trout.
Now the fish swam hidden beneath waters that ran dark and red past her legs in bright crimson waves. She gasped, stumbling back from the liquid streams swirling around her. “Blood. Gods, is that blood?”
Necos scooped up a palm of water. He sniffed before letting it spill through his fingers in pink droplets. He showed the two women his hand, stained pink. “Not blood. Amaranthine.”
She blew out a relieved breath, one cut short by Dendarah’s reply. “Dye in the water. A shipwreck maybe?”
He shrugged, his shoulders tense as he echoed Dendarah’s earlier actions, staring long downstream and upstream as if to catch sight of a boat. “Maybe.” He crooked a finger at Kirgipa. “Keep walking, girl. The quicker we’re back on land, the quicker we’ll warm up.”
They stayed silent, wading through water that flowed pink, red and magenta, until they reached a half-moon shaped oxbow. Kirgipa slogged out of the water, grateful to once more reach dry land. She gestured for Necos to hand her the baby now fretting and squirming in the sling.
“She’s wet,” he warned.
“Aren’t we all?”
He grinned at her quip, and for a moment she forgot their peril and her exhaustion, the memory of her mother’s death and worry over her sister’s safety. She liked this fierce, resolute soldier. A dull sound interrupted her musings. She opened her mouth to question its source and was stopped when Dendarah put her finger to her lips. “Shh.”
The baby’s fretful snuffles and the river’s ceaseless rumble didn’t give them complete silence, but they still managed to hear the rhythmic thumping noise, as if someone beat a plank of wood with a cudgel.
Necos and Dendarah exchanged glances before Dendarah nodded. “I’ll go. If I don’t come back, don’t come looking,” she warned.
Kirgipa’s stomach tied itself into knots at her words. She glanced at Necos who watched Dendarah’s retreat. “Change the baby, Kirgipa. We need her peaceful as much as possible.” His voice was cool, calm, but she heard the tension, the unease as he split his attention between Dendarah and the
galla
across the water.
She fished a scrap of dry cloth out of her ragged pack, folded it and swaddled the queen’s bottom before tucking her back into the sling along with a small piece of
tilqetil
cake to gnaw on. The soiled cloth, rinsed clean in the river, was now pink from its washing.
Except for strands of his hair that had come loose from its leather tie, Necos was stiller than a monolith, listening. A piercing double whistle made Kirgipa almost leap out of her shoes, but Necos only exhaled, his shoulders slumping in obvious relief. He grasped one of Kirgipa’s hands. “Come,” he said, pulling her gently along beside him.
Her pleasure in his touch evaporated the moment they came upon Dendarah and the source of the sound. Dendarah’s features were drawn into harsh lines and hollow spaces as she stared at the riverbank across from them. The Absu narrowed here for a short run, thinned by a moraine of boulders that made boat navigation a challenge for even the best steersman.
There was no steersman on the listing barge that ran partially aground with her pounding herself into splinters on the boulders. Barrels, cut loose of their lashings, piled on top of each other in the low corner, threatening to fall into the river with each bump against the rocks. A few had cracked, spilling amaranthine into the water.
Kirgipa hugged the baby to her at the ominous sight of bones scattered across the pitched deck, as if thrown by the hand of a giant shaman reading fortunes. Some lay in dark, viscous pool, and she feared those crimson puddles weren’t amaranthine.
“Anyone?” Necos asked softly.
Dendarah shook her head. “None alive. Humans sailed this barge I think. Loaded with cargo from Saggara.” She pointed to the barrels. “The cargo is stamped with Saggara’s seal. I’m guessing they were Gauri.”
Kirgipa licked lips drier than dust. “How did the
galla
get to the crew? I thought they couldn’t cross water.” Please dear gods, let that still hold true.
The other woman shrugged. “If I were to guess, I’d say they docked for a short time. Maybe needed to make a repair. The last sailor to die probably lived long enough to release the barge’s mooring in a bid to escape.”
They each fell silent then. Kirgipa wondered if her companions thoughts were as filled with the grotesque imaginings of the humans’ deaths as her own were.
Necos worried his lower lip with his finger. “This isn’t good. If
galla
attacked a barge this far up river and away from the Kai, then they’re spreading beyond the Absu’s shores, hunting for more than the prey on the opposite shore.”
As much as Kirgipa didn’t want to go near the carnage littering the barge’s deck, she still hoped for some small blessing that would speed their journey to Saggara quicker and safer. “Can we sail it to Saggara?”
Necos sighed. “I wish we could, but no. See how she’s listing in the water? There’s damage to her hull somewhere below the waterline. She’s sinking too fast, and we’ve nothing to patch her.”
“And we’d need more than just the three of us to steer a vessel that size upstream,” Dendarah added. “Even if she was undamaged.”
Something flew through the air, glancing off Necos’s shoulder before clattering to the ground. A leg bone, broken at one end, with strips of flesh still hanging from it like tattered rags. Kirgipa screamed, startling the baby who wailed her fright. The sounds echoed back to them, ghastly, warped and unearthly, bellowed from the sullen things slinking and slithering across the barge’s bow where it lay beached on the shore.
Another bone sailed through the air, followed by a third and accompanied by mad laughter, as if a crowd of malevolent children taunted and teased by slinging their ghoulish toys at them.
“Move,” Necos snapped and shoved Kirgipa further away from the river toward the oxbow’s edge and the thin sanctuary of a cluster of trees.
The laughter changed to enraged howls as the
galla
lost sight of their prey, and Kirgipa bit back sobs at the sound of bones striking ground and tree trunks.
“We wait here until they tire of their game,” Dendarah said. “Then we’ll walk again. You might as well get some sleep while we wait.”
“How can any of us sleep after that?” Kirgipa hoped she wouldn’t be sick.
Necos tucked her next to him, his body slowly warming hers. “We can because we must. You’re safe, Kirgipa. Dendarah and I will keep watch.”
Another time, she might have pulled away, conscious of propriety and their roles in the Kai court. But this wasn’t court, and the rules no longer applied. She settled against him, the now quiet baby a comforting weight in her arms. She looked to Dendarah who sat opposite her, her proud features highlighted in profile by the pale winter light. “How much farther to Saggara?”
The guard flicked a quick gaze at her before returning her attention to where the angry
galla
writhed and screeched. “An eternity.”