Page 98 of To Kill a King
“You besmirch us, pointy-eared scum? You’ll sing before we’re through with you!” The soldiers’ leader screamed and charged him; blade pointed at his neck.
He hadn’t been able to work off some frustration in a truly satisfying way in far too long. Pulling both swords from his hips, he braced and flashed his canines at the human.
Come on, then.
Minutes later, Elessan wiped his weapons on the dying leader’s cloak. He glared at the eight bodies around him. Those who weren’t yet corpses would be soon. Stupid humans, never content to leave well enough alone. Sliding his blades into their sheaths, he hissed at the sharp sting in his arm.
A trail of blood slid down to his elbow from the lucky swipe one of the soldiers snuck in. The cut was on his right bicep, but didn’t look deep, fortunately. Making even stitches with his left hand was easier said than done.
He removed the yellow-green disinfecting poultice from his pack, along with the same bandage he wrapped Aliya’s injured ankle with so many weeks ago.
Spreading the mixture on the gash, he bandaged it and used his teeth to help secure the knot. Ruffling through the humans’ pockets and bags, he came up with a handful of silver pieces and a diplomatic pouch stamped with the royal crest.
Interesting. “What have we here?”
Sliding the tip of the closest human’s sword under the seal, he removed the letter and shook it open.
It was written in some sort of code. Valek.
Undoubtedly to prevent this exact situation. With a growl, he folded the paper back into the envelope, and shoved both in his backpack. He would decrypt it later, when Aliya’s life wasn’t on the line.
With a sigh, he grabbed the arm of the nearest body and dragged it into the brush on the side of the road.
Stupid humans.
Aliya groaned as her head bounced hard against the wooden bench. She opened her eyes and squeezed them closed again as the daylight tripled her headache’s intensity. Beneath her, wheels squeaked and jostled over uneven ground.
It reeked of rotten meat.
She was in a wagon of some kind. Squinting, she glared at the tall black walls surrounding her. Small windows with four metal bars hung near the roof. There were no handles or hinges on the inside of the door.
Fabulous. A new low, even for her. Elessan was probably dead, because of course he’d been tracking her when her captors set off their Whisperer last night. Or was it the night before? How long had she been unconscious? She groaned and pressed her fists into her abdomen. Enough time had passed for her stomach to gnaw a hole through her gut, and for the need to relieve herself to become semi-urgent.
These handcuffs hurt her wrists. She brought them close to her face. Her skin was pink and swollen beneath the iron.
Her head gave another throb as they hit a pothole. Grunting, she pushed off the floor, trying to not clank her manacles together and alert her captors she was awake.
Stretching up to her tiptoes, she peeked outside. They were on a well-traveled road, in a valley with dense forest on one side with no signs of civilization. On the other…
A torn-up field stretched away to the northeast. Discarded bits of metal armor flashed in the sunlight, half-buried in the red-brown dirt. A few posts stood scattered throughout the area, with something round shoved on the top of each of them. Strands of tangled string hung down, blowing in the gentle breeze.
Her gut heaved, filling her throat and mouth with acid. She’d never been so grateful to have not eaten recently.
They were heads. Heads on poles.
The buzz of insects was audible over the creak of the wagon. Carrion birds circled lazily overhead.
A battlefield. And judging from the stench, a recent one.
War had always been an abstract concept, something that could be easily dismissed and shoved to the back of her thoughts. But there were bodies there…just laying out in the sun, left to decompose and spread disease throughout the spring and summer.
A gentle breeze carried another wave of rot that roiled her stomach further.
Turning to face the forest, as if that could block the image of the dead from her mind, she pushed her face against the bars but pulled back at the tell-tale tingle of iron on her skin. The rails were too narrow to squeeze through unless she could shapeshift.
She took two deep breaths through her mouth, but the smell was so strong, it coated her tongue and throat.
Ugh.