No arrows flew from the parapet, no alarm sounded, no call challenged their approach. With each step, nerves and foreboding grew in Khirro’s belly with the feeling things weren’t quite right. It took an effort to keep from squeezing Graymon’s hand too tight.
Dead men wear armor and swing swords. Athryn is gone, maybe dead. The spirit of the king lives inside me in the form of a flaming tyger. Nothing is right.
Not wanting to add to the boy’s fear, Khirro suppressed a shiver, gritted his teeth, and led Graymon through the gate and into the massive fortress, straight toward whatever danger lay beyond.
***
Emeline opened her eyes slowly to see sunlight shining through the doorway-she’d slept longer than she’d expected she could. She lay listening to the silence of the fortress; it had been that way in the time since the battle.
How long has it been?
Since Lehgan gave his life to ensure her safety, time seemed to matter far less than ever before in her life. Several days had passed since the fight, and more than that since she lost her husband. The growling protest of her empty stomach suggested at least that long, and probably more.
She hadn’t been out of their hiding place since before she heard the sound of steel on steel, the shouts of soldiers fighting and dying, since before the smell of blood and death filled the air. The pile of straw that once was their mattress provided cover and somehow, by the grace of the Gods, no one entered the broken down hut.
Somehow, she and Iana survived.
But now her milk was dry, and Iana was hungry and near impossible to quiet. If anyone remained in the fortress to discover them, they’d have no trouble finding them now. And if she didn’t get food soon, the fear of discovery would be the least of their concerns.
She didn’t know if anyone else remained alive in the fortress. She’d heard no sounds other than those made by the baby and her own desperate hiss trying to quiet her. No more fighting, no footsteps, no shouts, no whispers.
For the first few days after the Kanosee army left, when they were forced into hiding before the fighting began, the man who gave her his place at the front of the crowd the day Lehgan died had brought her food, but then he stopped coming and she worried for what might have happened to him. She cried a lot in those first days, grieving her dead husband, killed protecting her, proving his bravery to her.
Iana!
Emeline sat upright suddenly, panic gripping her as she realized the silence was complete: no crying, no mewling, no soft breathing of a baby asleep. She looked first to one side, then the other, frantically searching for the bundled blanket that held her daughter.
Iana was gone.
Emeline stood and scanned the room, then dug through the pile of straw, throwing it over her shoulder and scattering it across the floor. Nothing.
“Where can she be?” she said aloud, the sound of her own voice startling her.
She peeked her head cautiously out the door, looking first one way up the avenue, then the other. Nothing.
“Hello? Who’s there?” she called; the panicked words echoed amongst the broken down buildings. “Who has my baby?”
Emeline went to the right out the doorway, away from the exposure of the courtyard, her bare feet leaving melted prints on cobblestones rimed with frost. She’d gone fifteen paces when she stopped, suddenly feeling as though she’d gone the wrong direction.
If someone stole her, they would head to the courtyard, toward the gates.
She ran back the other way, past her hut, down the street. Corpses leaned against walls or lay in the street; she paid them no attention.
Half a building’s length from the courtyard, she stopped and listened, expecting the sounds of soldiers. She took two more cautious steps, holding her breath, listening intently.
Nothing.
She crept forward a few more steps, scanning the ground for clues without knowing what to look. An item of clothing? The blanket?
Blood?
There was blood. Lots of blood. It was splashed on walls and collected on the ground in dried brown puddles. Could some of it be Iana’s?
No!
A shiver wracked her spine and chattered her teeth, the sound loud in her head, loud enough she almost didn’t hear the unmistakable cooing sound Iana made in contentment. It came from in front of her, from the courtyard.
Emeline rushed into the open, uncaring about her own safety, only about her daughter’s. She stopped a few paces into the courtyard, looked down to her left and saw her child on the ground, still bundled. A line of mud stained the blanket, but at first glance, Iana looked otherwise unscathed.
Emeline scooped her up, searched around inside the blanket. Iana laughed her baby laugh as her mother’s fingers tickled her sides; the young mother found nothing amiss with the baby. She looked into her child’s eyes and laughed a humorless, nervous laugh.
“How did you get here?” she said. “What happened to you?”
Iana cooed an answer and Emeline hugged her close.
“Don’t do that to mama again.”
She half-turned to retreat to the relative safety of the hut when she noticed the two men in the courtyard. Twenty yards separated them, and Emeline and Iana were farther away still, but fear gripped her immediately. She didn’t want to be caught out. She didn’t want whatever terrible thing happened to the nice man who brought them food to happen to them.
Then she recognized the men and knew she couldn’t leave.
***
During the time he spent in the fortress before the Kanosee attack, Khirro had never heard it so quiet. Not even close.
They passed under the open portcullis and into the deathly silence of the courtyard, their footsteps unnaturally loud to Khirro’s ears. He gripped the hilt of the short sword tighter and put his left arm in front of Graymon, stopping him.
Bodies littered the courtyard, some clad in Kanosee armor, some Erechanian, others wearing civilian clothes. The heads had been removed from every corpse.
Graymon reached up and took Khirro’s hand, squeezed it tight.
“It’s all right,” Khirro said suppressing a shudder. “They can’t hurt you.”
He didn’t necessarily believe his own words.
They took a few steps, moving slowly, Graymon pressed close behind, making it difficult to be quiet. Khirro watched the corpses closely, looked into doorways and windows, but he saw no one left alive, nothing moving.
When they’d gone ten paces without incident, Khirro stopped to look to the top of the wall-the wall walk was empty. He looked left, then right and realized that, from where he stood, he could see the staircase where his journey started and, not far from it, the place where an undead soldier came close to ending his adventure before it began.
A donkey brayed and Khirro whirled around, sword raised. The sudden movement threw Graymon off balance and he dropped to his knees as the ass trotted across the courtyard, winding its way through the corpses spread across its path. It disappeared down a side avenue and Khirro relaxed a little.
“Are you all right?” He kept his voice low.
Graymon nodded and Khirro pulled the boy to his feet. He let go of Khirro’s hand to brush dirt off his knees, but stopped, his eyes looking past Khirro.
“Who’s that?”
“It was a donkey. Nothing to worry about.”
“Not the donkey,” Graymon said, pointing. Khirro heard a trace of fear in his voice. “That.”
Khirro turned slowly and felt tension flood back into his limbs and apprehension knot itself in his gut.
The man stood precisely on the spot where the undead soldier came close to ending Khirro’s life.
He wasn’t there a moment ago.