Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1) (16 page)

“This beast is dead.”

“I can see that the horse demon is dead, fool! Tell me something I don’t know, like whether or not there are any Kelshite filth remaining at this villa.”

The man’s robes slapped against Kalen in his haste to dart up the stairs and onto the porch.

“Ah, this one.” Kalen nudged the Yadesh’s body with the toe of his boot, leaving a bloodied print on the golden shoulder. “I finished this creature off with that Lord’s sword. A nice enough blade, but unfit for such a novice’s hand. I trust you don’t mind, Garint. It wouldn’t do if it talked, would it? Even in the Rift, we’ve heard rumors of these foul creature’s cunning.”

Garint stared at him with baleful eyes, but said nothing.

“I will provide you with sufficient reward if you spared me the trouble of eliminating the man myself. I am impressed you avoided its curse. You’ve done me quite the favor, Rift King. At the very least, we must work together so that the faithful can descend into your Rift with more ease. This would let us both become more powerful. There are few feared as much as the dark riders of the trenches. You continue to surprise me.” Lord Priest Helethor paused when the first of the robed men staggered out of the villa. Kalen glanced out of the corner of his eye. The man was young, and his dark skin had an ashen cast to it.

“Well?”

“They’re—they’re all dead, Lord Priest. Slain in their beds. The men, the women, the children. All of them. Even the walls are stained red with their blood. It reeks of death and fear.”

Lord Priest Helethor’s brows arched high. “You’re merciless.”

“For one such as you, I will take that as a great compliment indeed. They refused to cooperate. I trust you understand that.”

“Together, we can do as no others have before. They will turn to the true way, or they’ll die. Those Kelshite filth. Had I known, things would’ve been much different. You speak the true words with grace, unlike our friend here.”

At that, Garint scowled.

“They weren’t very satisfying, I must admit. I hope you can offer me a greater challenge. This worthless blood is an insult to the sword,” Kalen said, flexing his fingers. The pain of it let him keep his smile in place.

“How does annexing the whole of Kelsh sound to you? I’ve heard rumor of your dislike for that heretic. Together, we can bring it beneath the rule of our Lady Selestrune. I could have you crowned as the Kelshite King,” Lord Priest Helethor said, swinging down from the back of his horse. The Danarite stepped closer, but was careful to remain out of the reach of Kalen’s sword.

“If we work together,” the man continued in a whisper, “we can ensure his undoing. We can ensure his death, and the death of all of his council, and all of his Knights. They’ll be defenseless against us.”

“I’d like that very much, I think,” Kalen replied. One by one, the men returned, their breaths heavy from running in their robes.

“They’re all dead. If there were horses here, they were set loose or slain,” one of them gasped out. They fell back into ranks behind their superior and stared at him with expressions no less terrible than Garint’s undisguised hatred.

“What do you think, Garint? You’ve been silent all of this time,” the Lord Priest said.

“He’s a very dangerous man.”

“You’re wiser than you look. Well, Rift King? What is your answer?”

“Wealth, power, women. They’re tempting things, this is true. You present an offer that is very difficult for a sane man to refuse.” Kalen smiled and leaned back against the stair. “Tell me, Lord Priest Helethor—ah, it is Helethor, isn’t it?” The Danarite nodded. “Very good. I wouldn’t want to mistake your name for another’s. As I was saying, it is very difficult for a sane man to refuse.”

The Lord Priest’s smile widened. “Then you’ll do it.”

Kalen longed for a left arm so he could touch his fingers together, brace his elbows against his knees, and stare at the man, just as Breton liked to do. Instead, he settled with crossing his right boot over his left and making himself more comfortable. “I like what I hear. I will tell you my secret, just as you desire.”

“Tell me.” Lord Priest Helethor stepped forward again, eyes bright with greed.

“Not only can I kill people,” Kalen said in Kelshite, lowering his feet from the Yadesh’s back. “I can resurrect them, too. Let me show you.”

Satrin surged up from the ground and let out a challenging call. Arrows rained down from the roof of the villa and from high up in the trees surrounding the clearing. Feathers protruded from the chests of those before him, and many fell without a sound. Lord Priest Helethor let out a scream of rage and pain. The Danarite grabbed the feathered shaft embedded in his arm and jerked it out. “You fool!”

“It is such a shame that no one has ever accused me of being sane,” Kalen said.

The Yadesh charged forward, hooves lifted high and slapping against the ground with the same rumble of thunder. Garint let out a wild cry and stumbled back. “No! It can’t be! It can’t be!”

“Oh, but it can be,” Lord Delrose said, stepping out of the villa with a drawn sword, Derac at his side.

Breaking off the charge, the golden stallion swerved off into the trees and another volley of arrows fell.

When Ceres and Varest charged out into the open astride their large, black horses with war cries on their lips, the survivors scrambled onto their horses and fled through the trees.

Kalen let out a displeased grunt at the departing backs of the two men he wanted dead.

“Do we pursue?” Varest asked.

“Good work,” Kalen said. Standing hurt, but he managed without help even though Lord Delrose and Derac held out their hands to aid him. “Round up the horses. I recommend you leave while you still can. He’ll be back.”

Ceres wheeled his horse and rode out through the trees with the Yadesh trailing behind him.

“What now?” Lord Delrose asked.

“Do what you want.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t see how that is any of your business,” Kalen said. “We leave as soon as the horses are rested, Varest.”

“It’ll be a while, Father. We’ve been riding them hard for a month chasing after you,” Varest said.

Kalen stilled. For all he heard the words, it took him a long moment to comprehend what the Guardian said. He frowned. How had an entire
month
gone by without his awareness of it? “It isn’t wise to stay here.”

“I know someone who owes me a favor who has a small villa within a day’s ride to the south of here. Will that do?” Lord Delrose asked.

“They can go that far if we don’t push them hard,” Varest said.

“Do what you want,” Kalen said, limping toward the bodies of the fallen Danarites. He rolled a corpse over with the toe of his boot and ignored the jolt of pain that went up his leg. Disbelief was forever etched on the man’s features. “I’ll search them. Go help Ceres.”

“As you wish,” the Guardian said before sighing.
 

It wasn’t a simple task with a hand that didn’t bend right, but it bought him time to think without someone hovering over him every time he winced. What had happened in the past month? Why had Ceres and Varest been the ones to find him? How had he gotten to Kelsh?

Just how had he managed to get so far without his boots? Kalen managed a strained laugh and focused on searching the corpses. At least they didn’t ask questions or demand answers.

~~*~~

Ceres rode ahead to make room for Lord Delrose at Kalen’s right side. Glaring didn’t bring the Guardian back, nor did it make his sire vanish, so Kalen tried to pretend that none of them existed.

“How do you like Kelsh?” Lord Delrose asked.

“Cold, wet, miserable, dark, and the hospitality could use a little work,” he replied.

“Summer is not so far away.”

“I’ve no intentions of being here during the summer. I’ve duties to return to.”

“That I can understand. How is your hand faring?”

Kalen grunted. Holding the reins was a battle he didn’t want to admit he was losing. If he hadn’t picked a tired, docile horse, he’d have been bucked off and left in the mud.

“I’ll have Marissa attend to it as soon as she’s rested,” Lord Delrose said.

Clenching his teeth together until his jaw ached did little for his mood, but it did keep him from snapping at the Kelshite outright. “Thank you.”

“I’m amazed,” Varest muttered from his place at Kalen’s left side.

“When do you plan on returning to the Rift?”

“As soon as possible.”

“You could do a great deal of good improving the relationship of our kingdoms if you would consider going to Elenrune.”

“Maybe when I’m dead,” Kalen muttered on a breath. He straightened and looked Lord Delrose in the eye. “I’ve heard this story before. Lord Delrose, the Rift is a neutrality. I aided you for one reason only.”

“And what reason is that?”

“I dislike them more than I dislike you.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Varest whispered in the Rift tongue.

“I heard that,” Kalen hissed at the Guardian.

Varest cleared his throat. “I think I’ll go find out what Ceres is doing.”

“What a good idea,” Kalen said in the driest tone he could manage.

“Aelthor wants to change that. He’s growing quite desperate. I’m certain you could take advantage of that for the benefit of the Rift.”

“If you call sending a missive once a week begging me to accept his daughter ‘desperate’, I suppose he is. I don’t even want to think about his absurd trade proposals.”

Anger numbed him to the pain in his hand, until it was a throb he could manage, if not completely ignore. Kalen shifted in the saddle and controlled the urge to sigh. “You’ve gotten all you’re going to get from me. The Danarites are your problem now, just as you are theirs.”

“They kill our people!”

“No, they kill
your
people. And you kill theirs. Neither side even remembers just what you’re fighting about. Neither of you will accept mediation, although it has been offered to you many times by the Six Kingdoms, and it’s been offered by myself and every Rift King before me for hundreds of years. We
do
keep track of these things. Don’t assume we’re not aware of how neither of you care to listen to reason. Now, the other four are so torn on the situation they don’t dare interfere at all. The Rift is neutral. I won’t say it again.”

“Why?”

“That isn’t your concern.”

“Very well. I recognize a lost cause when I see one. Tell me, then, why is it so difficult to make a trade agreement with your people?”

“How do you propose to get wagons and pack animals down trails that my Walkers and Runners struggle on? I’ve had a trail collapse under me and my horse before. Even if the way is survived, most don’t make it out. It is rather tiresome having to clear the trails of the goods they leave behind because they get themselves killed. When Wanderers refuse to venture into the Rift, that alone is a good reason to not establish a trade route. You’re asking to kill your people for profit.”

“There are those willing to take that risk.”

“The nibblers can have them then,” Kalen replied.

“Clearing ahead!” someone called out.

“Ah, excellent. We’re almost there,” Lord Delrose said.

“Good.” Guiding the tired bay with his legs, Kalen shook his hand to free it of the reins. Jolts of pain raced up his arm, and he held his breath to keep from gasping. His fingers twitched, but only his thumb moved at his will. Letting the reins fall to the horse’s neck, he rested his palm on his knee. In a way, he welcomed the pain. It keep his worn body awake and his mind alert.

It let him resist the urge to tumble from the horse’s back and rest on the first patch of moss he could find. Even the mud was starting to look a little too tempting for his comfort.

The clearing was little more than a ring of moss-covered stones surrounding a pool that fed a brook. A trail led from it through a dense stretch of trees.
 

“The villa is at the end of that path. The stream runs by the villa, so we can water the horses there,” Lord Delrose said.

The horse sighed when Kalen nudged her forward.

“Is it true that you don’t have a Queen? You’ve two sons.”

“Seventy-eight, actually. Eighty-six daughters, too.”

“S-seventy-eight?” Lord Delrose’s mouth hung open.

“Stop taunting him, Father,” Varest said from ahead, twisting around in the saddle to face them.

The Kelshite Lord swallowed. “How old is your youngest?”

“Ara’s fourteen,” he replied.

“How old were you when you had… her? Is Ara a girl’s name?”

Kalen couldn’t swallow back his laughter. “Ara is a girl. I promise you I didn’t have her. First, I’m not a woman. Second, as you’ve been told, I don’t have a Queen nor have I ever had a Queen.”

“I don’t understand.”

The heat of embarrassment raced from Kalen’s chest to his neck and up to warm his cheeks. Lord Delrose watched him with the expectant stare. “I’m not explaining this to you!”

Ahead, Varest jerked around to face forward. The Guardian doubled over, his shoulders shaking from his laughter.

“I don’t understand. Did I somehow offend?”

Kalen glared at Varest’s back. The man let out a strangled laugh. Even the gelding pranced in place, ears forward and tail bannered.

Varest quieted and reined his horse around to face them. “Delrose, let me explain.”

“Bresalan,” Lord Delrose said.

“Delrose, there is but one requirement to be a Queen of the Rift. Can you guess what it is?”

“And you were telling me not to taunt him,” Kalen muttered in the Rift tongue. He was ignored.

“You have to marry him?” Lord Delrose asked.

“Oh no, nothing so elaborate as that. We give our women an equal chance at him. With those eyes and his looks, we’d be fools not to. Don’t come between a woman and her prey, Delrose.” Varest start to laugh again.
 

Kalen’s ears burned. “Enough, Varest.”

“Ah, don’t be so serious, Father. We don’t have this ‘marry’ thing in the Rift, whatever that is.”

“It’s like a court mating without the serpents and the death penalty if you violate the oath,” Kalen said.