James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

It did not surprise Rathe that only a handful of the Hilan men obeyed their captain’s order, but their viciousness did. A firm hand spun him around, and a fist pummeled his jaw. When he fought back, a hilt crashed against his temple, toppling him to the ground. Blackness swarmed before his eyes. Rough hands forced him into a kneeling position. Skull ringing, he tasted blood on his tongue, felt it drip from his split lips over his whiskered chin.

“Here now!” Loro snarled, pushing between a cluster of Hilan men, all who looked on with growing uncertainty. “What’s the meaning of this?

“If you would live to see the dawn, you blubbering heap of shite, shut your accursed mouth.”

Loro glared, one thick fist closing on his sword hilt. Rathe stopped him with a look of warning.

Sneering, Treon faced the soldiers. “Form ranks, or suffer alongside this despicable bastard!”

Most seemed reluctant, but in the end they did as ordered. Seeing the same light of loyalty come alive in Loro’s eyes that he had seen in Thushar’s that distant night with Lisana, Rathe shook his head again. Do not do it brother, please .

Loro hesitated a moment more, peering hard at Rathe, then abruptly wheeled away, grumbling under his breath. He took his place among the assembling soldiers, of which, Rathe noted, their numbers were greatly diminished. He had not believed so many perished in the battle. For certain, he had not seen that many dead.

“Bind and hood this uncouth lout,” Treon ordered, his serpent’s eyes locked on Rathe.

“What crime have I committed?” Rathe demanded.

Treon smiled thinly. “Disrespect aside, you failed to tend your flock of malcontents. No less than five of those I put in your care escaped during the attack. As I told you before, a leader knows the minds of his men. I suspect you must have known some number of your outcasts had waited for just such a chance to make good their escape. Time will tell if you had a part in planning their flight.”

Rathe shook his head, baffled, furious. “The blood is still warm on the dead! How can you know if they are escaped or perished, before you have ordered a proper search?”

Treon’s laughter sounded like dry leather rubbing over sand. “I know, because I am the leader you are not, and have never been.”

“Name yourself as you will,” Rathe growled, “but I see before me only a craven wretch who shrinks from battle, leaving better men to bleed for him.”

Captain Treon loomed over him, smirking. “Lady Nesaea would not name me so if she-”

“Nesaea?” Rathe blurted, his troubles forgotten. “Where is she?”

The captain’s face showed false empathy. “I wish I could say otherwise, but last I saw her, plainsmen were dragging her into the night. I do not know if they despoiled her before or after they opened her throat, but naked, ravished, and dead she was. A pity and a waste.”

“You lie! Show me where she fell!”

“Demand nothing of me, dog.” Treon’s flinty smile widened, just before his heel crashed into Rathe’s face. Another kick flung him to the ground.

“To ensure that you never stray too far,” Treon said in a cruel tone, “You will wear a leash, much like a willful hound. And like any troublesome hound, your spirit must be tamed. You will run behind me until we reach Hilan.”

“Are you mad?” Rathe said in shock, knowing the fortress was at least ten days distant.

As if no protest had met his ears, Treon ordered his men, “Make ready to march. We depart within the hour.”

“What of the Maidens of the Lyre?” Loro called.

Treon’s stare showed no hint of compassion. “I must report to Lord Sanouk this grievous attack. Let this brood of simpering whores fend for themselves.”

The armored women gazed on him with contempt, but did not protest.

“You condemn them all!” Rathe shouted in their defense.

Without warning, one of Treon’s sycophants cracked his jaw with a blinding fist. Rathe fought clear in a wild frenzy. The butt of a spear slammed across his shoulders, and another struck the back of his head, then all became a flurry of crushing blows that drove him to his back. A boot crunched down on his wrist before he could raise his dagger, and the tip of Treon’s sword pricked his throat, ending his struggle.

“I fear you will make for a poor hound,” Treon said, flicking his sword to the side, nicking the skin under Rathe’s chin.

Treon stepped away and drew a coil of rope from the company’s supplies. With a harsh grin, he threw it at Rathe’s face. “Your leash, dog. Do not make me rescind my mercy and turn it into a noose.”

Rathe climbed slowly to his feet, the rope dangling from his fingers like a dead serpent. He was too dumbfounded by his own humiliation and remorse for Nesaea’s dreadful end to feel anything, save impotent wrath. He bared his teeth at Treon. “Be sure the pace is swift-I like to run.”

The soldiers who had so recently chanted his praise, now changed allegiance and laughed with Treon at his defiance.

After he tied the rope around his waist, one of Treon’s sergeants dragged a sack over Rathe’s head, cutting off all sight. The first threads of desolation wormed into his heart. In that moment, he fully understood what it meant to be an outcast condemned to a life at Fortress Hilan.

“You may leave us, sergeant,” Lord Sanouk said to the leader of the twelve soldiers who had taken Nesaea and two of her girls captive. Nesaea had marked the sergeant and six others as Hilan men. The remaining five had been part of Rathe’s outcasts-by their readiness to abduct innocent women at a word from Captain Treon, they were outcasts no longer.

Having delivered only two of the three women he and his men had taken during the battle against the plainsmen, the sergeant looked infinitely relieved that his head would continue to sit atop his shoulders. He bowed deeply, murmuring gratitude for his master’s mercy, and left Sanouk, Nesaea, and Carnala alone. They stood within a graystone corridor that stretched to darkness one way, and led to an open door at the head of a stairwell in the opposite direction.

As she had since the soldiers had tied the three women into their saddles many days before, Carnala kept her head down, weeping quietly. Each night, during their brief halts, Nesaea had tried to console the flaxen-haired wisp of a girl, to no avail.

Better had I freed her , Nesaea thought for the hundredth time since the night she cut Fira loose, and sent her off to find the rest of the Maidens of the Lyre … and, if possible, Rathe. She did not know what Captain Treon and Lord Sanouk had in mind, but did not doubt that evil intent controlled their hearts.

Sipping the wine Sanouk offered, she let the heady flavor quench her rising fear. She took in Carnala’s hanging head, slumped shoulders, and tear-streaked cheeks. Yes, it would have been kinder to free Carnala, but the poor girl would never have made it back to the Maidens. Fira, a fiery woman of great courage, would.

Nesaea forced herself not to think of the alternative, and set the silver-chased goblet on the small round table at her side. Carnala had not touched her wine, which Nesaea considered a pity, for it was possibly the finest she had ever tasted. Pleasures of any sort, she judged, would be soon be absent.

“Why have you done this?” Nesaea asked, striving for a meek tone, despite wanting to gut the man before her.

Sanouk, a handsome man with a noble bearing and the most impassive stare she had ever seen, made a flourish with his hand, inviting her to look toward the stairwell.

It gaped black and cold as a demon’s throat. A smell oozed from those lightless depths, that of vermin, mold, and the musty rot of the spiced and shrouded dead.