Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1) Page 3

  Several of the other Guardians laughed.

  “Don’t waste the effort, Breton. Those two don’t have your stifling sense of honor. They tore up the trails the day after,” Dorek called out from somewhere in the back of the group. Of all of the guardians, Dorek was one of the few who could feel the presence of the Rift King and all of the Guardians. “I’ll stay behind as well. Someone needs to keep the records.”

  The room quieted. Breton didn’t want to think about how many new names would be added to the volumes. The very existence of the Rift King was akin to dark clouds brewing on the horizon that was yet to break and expose the land to its fury.

  If they failed in their duty, it would be a storm of war, violence, and death. It would be their history and heritage brought back to life. His people would seek their revenge over hundreds of years of seclusion, using the Rift King’s demise at the hands of outsiders as their excuse.

  “So be it,” Breton said. “Split yourselves into groups. No Guardian rides alone. Clear off the map and we’ll assign duties. Someone get the flags.”

  The guardians shuffled off of the central mosaic inlaid in the floor and packed into the spaces between the packed shelves. Crafted of colored stone tiles, the floor was both a piece of art and an ever-shifting map of the land. Built from the hundreds of maps imported from the above world, it was as accurate as they could make it. Even the rivers and mountains were portrayed in different colored stones.

  The edges of the map were gouged and scarred where the tiles had been pried up, new ones carved, and the mosaic relaid.

  The Rift, crafted of ruby and moonstone, resembled a bloodied tear through the center of the continent. The Six Kingdoms were of precious stones, while the minor kingdoms were formed of colored granite, slate, and malachite.

  One of the scribes, a woman clad in the veil of mourning, hurried forward with a tray of small, colored flags mounted on polished stone bases. Breton took them and crouched at the edge of the map. He found the one with his name on it and placed it over Kelsh’s capitol city of Elenrune. “I will go to Kelsh. Of the Six, Kelsh and Danar are the biggest threats. The clans would kill him and ask questions of the body.”

  “What about the other kingdoms?” Joris asked.

  “They’re all threats. Kelsh and Danar are just the biggest of our problems,” Breton replied. “Some will disagree with me on that, though.”

  “Where was the Rift King born?” Dorek asked.

  Breton pursed his lips together and didn’t reply. Of all of the Rift Kings, of all of the failed successors, of all of the men who’d taken up the red banner of war, only Kalen had been born outside of the Rift. Arik had, in the last of his days, seen the worth of the young man and had conspired to forever bind him to the Rift.

  By turning an innocent into a murderer, and someone so gentle into a cold-blooded killer, Arik had accomplished what no other Rift King before had: The perfect successor.

  One by one, the Guardians picked up their flags and placed them on the mosaic until red covered most of the map. Dorek placed two flags on the map next to Breton’s.

  “I believe they’re headed here. It feels like this is the direction they have gone. This is the land of his ancestors, isn’t it? It knows, doesn’t it?”

  Their secret didn’t have a name, and even if It did, Breton doubted that any in the room would be brave enough to speak it. It was something he didn’t want to think about for too long, and he shivered at the implication of Dorek’s suggestion. “Perhaps.”

  Breton pressed his arm against Gorishitorik to reaffirm the weapon’s presence. He didn’t have Dorek’s strong senses. But, he had Gorishitorik, and he had the Rift King’s horse.

  The horses always knew where their masters were, and Ferethian even listened to him sometimes. Breton suspected the stallion would obey. This time, they shared a common goal.

  He tried to hide his smile by shaking his head and scowling at the map and the flags on it. “Ferethian comes with my group. If the rest of his horses accept your leadership, take one in each group. They’ll know how to find their master, maybe even better than we do. Spread the word.” In a way, the truth hurt, but it relieved him as well. After fifteen years of watching and waiting, he’d no longer have to try to protect his foal from his own people. “The ascension is over.”

  The silence in the room was like the moment of calm before a storm.

  Chapter Two

  Kalen twisted the blade embedded in Hareth’s gut before pulling the weapon free. The man fell with blood pouring from the corners of his mouth. Bubbles formed and popped from the man’s effort to speak, but it was impossible to tell what Hareth tried to say. Kalen struck a second time and drove the blade through Hareth’s throat.

  Blood splattered over his arm, his face, and his clothes, but despite its heat, it didn’t ease the chill that enveloped him. The enemy stared at him with slack expressions and stunned eyes. Kalen watched and waited.

  Men reacted to death in different ways. Some saw their own mortality, and the fear of it consumed them. Others were consumed by their anger and hatred. A rare few accepted it and recognized what they faced and did so with pride and dignity.

  There were even those who enjoyed it.

  Two of the men ran forward in silence, their eyes burning with their need to strike Kalen down. Ducking beneath the blades that were held too high, he stepped to the side and onto firmer ground. Both let out startled cries as they splashed into the muck. Letting momentum guide his hand, Kalen cracked the flat of the sword across their shins. It took the slightest twist of his wrist to slice the edge through their trousers and into their flesh.

  “Stop!” Derac shouted.

  The man’s companions didn’t obey. Kalen stepped back and dug his toes into the moss. The sword was longer than he liked, but it was well cared for and sharp. His teachers would flay him if they learned he used the weapon like most used a scythe, but it let him add power to the strength he possessed. The sharp edge cut through flesh and bone with such ease it left a bad taste in his mouth. His victim fell before having the chance to rise from the mud.

  “By the Lady of Light, stand down, Luca,” Derac pleaded.

  Kalen held his ground, the bloodied sword ready. His arm ached from the strain of holding a weapon too heavy for him. Each moment where he stood still, his feet hurt almost as much as his arm did. While there was no pain from the bite marks, the burning sensation continued to creep up his arm to his shoulder. His breath came as ragged pants.

  “Derac’s right,” Marist said. “We can’t kill him. If we do—”

  “Enough,” Kalen interrupted, twisting around to glare at the talkative man. Marist’s teeth snapped together with an audible clacking. “I’ve no quarrel with you.”

  The unspoken “yet” hung between them. Luca stepped back, spreading the distance between them, and leaned against one of the large trees. The man’s sword was held low enough to be ready for use, but not in preparation to strike. Kalen wanted to sit down or rest against something—anything—but he didn’t dare.

  Enemies always waited for the first sign of weakness.

  “He killed Hareth and Uthen,” Luca said in an emotionless voice.

  “May the Lady of Light watch over them both,” Derac replied.

  The tip of Luca’s sword touched the ground. Kalen let out a sigh, relaxed his stance, and mimicked Luca so he wouldn’t drop his weapon.

  “And you’ll do nothing?” Luca whispered.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Kalen glimpsed Marist shaking his head. “They attacked him first without cause. We are at fault.”

  “But they’re dead!”

  “And I count our blessings that we aren’t too,” Marist spat. “If you’d like to join them, you’re welcome to it, but not I, Luca. Not I.”

  Kalen didn’t mean to laugh, but the sound escaped his throat. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt, he was outnumbered significantly, and they were afraid of him? While he had been attac
ked first, he doubted that he’d withstand them if they decided to press their advantage.

  In the Rift, they would have.

  With as much dignity as he could muster, Kalen cleared his throat to catch the attention of the men who argued around him. Every eye focused on him. “I won’t apologize for your friends. It is a man’s right to defend himself. I’ve no quarrel with you, and have no interest on creating an incident.”

  The men glanced at one another and their attention focused on Marist. Marist nodded acceptance of Kalen’s words.

  Kalen shifted his weight from foot to foot and winced at the pain. His toes were stiff and cold and moving them made them hurt even more. “Hellfires, it is cold here. We’re all filthy and wet. We can go our separate ways. I’m fine with that. I can accept traveling as far together as the road, but I’ve no intention of freezing to death in this forest.”

  “It isn’t cold,” Luca growled.

  “It isn’t for you,” Kalen said. “Where I come from, not even the winter is this ruddy miserable.”

  “Where do you come from?” asked Derac.

  Kalen looked over at Marist and nodded.

  The deepening darkness did not hide Marist’s flush. “He’s from the Rift.”

  Luca’s sword hit the ground with a thud and Derac’s mouth dropped open. The others drew back several steps. Kalen clenched his teeth together and kept his expression as neutral as possible just to stop himself from scowling at their reaction.

  “I’ve seen that mark before,” Marist said, pointing at the mud and blood-covered sigil that crossed Kalen’s chest. “You’ll find it in one place and one place alone in Kelsh.”

  Derac let out a huff. “Stop talking in riddles, Marist. Just say it, already!”

  “He’s trying to tell you that the only place you’ll find this mark is on missives from the Rift King,” Kalen said, taking pity on the floundering young man. The seal was one of the few embellishments added to each missive deemed important enough to warrant it. Every now and again, the archivists let him draw the symbol in gold, black, and silver inks. “You’re someone of knowledge and power, and you’re observant, too. I might have a position for someone with your intelligence.”

  “I know a little of your people,” Marist mumbled. The young man tried to hide behind Derac, but the other man didn’t let him and stepped to the side. “You’re the only one who can wear that mark.”

  “Many men have died trying to take it,” Kalen acknowledged.

  “He’s the—you mean, wait—you’re the Rift King?” Derac’s voice rose in pitch until it cracked.

  “Only in my study and whenever I can’t avoid it,” Kalen muttered. “I have a question.”

  “What is it?” Derac asked.

  “Since I’ve come all of this way anyway, I thought I might acquire some tea. Might you gentlemen know where I might find some?” For a long moment, he was stared at in stunned silence. Kalen stepped gingerly around the dead bodies of the two men and approached where Derac and Marist stood. He offered the filthy sword out hilt first.

  Derac waved a hand. “I’m not foolish enough to think that disarming you would make us any safer, Your Majesty.”

  “I was more thinking of freeing my hand so I could help deal with the bodies. For some reason, I do not expect to find nibblers here,” he replied in a rueful tone. “What do you do with the bodies?”

  “We bury them when it’s too wet to burn them,” Derac replied. “The vultures can take them for their stupidity.”

  “What’s a nibbler?” Marist asked.

  Kalen tossed the sword down at Hareth’s side. “Serpent.”

  “Serpent?”

  “Ah. There is a word for it in your language.” Kalen snapped his fingers as he remembered. “Snake.”

  The Kelshites stared at the bodies.

  “If you would come with us, Your Majesty,” Derac said with a nervous titter in his voice, “I think we can make arrangements for tea and a room at an inn for the night.”

  Kalen masked his smile behind a cough he didn’t have to force. He’d let them think they had won this round. But, he had plans of his own, as soon as he figured out where he was and how exactly he’d gotten into Kelsh. “Very well. The serpents take them, then.”

  Waiting until the men were distracted by their plans to travel on, Kalen lifted up Hareth’s dagger and wiped the blade off on his torn trousers. A knife in the dark was often a more potent weapon than a sword in the day, and he was in enemy territory.

  ~~*~~

  True darkness fell over them long before Kalen could make out the flickering light of a torch through the trees. While he’d been offered a horse, he walked. Without a word, the Kelshites followed his lead. He held the reins of one of the beasts, but it wasn’t his horse.

  It was too docile and accepting. Even if he did like the animal, he refused to ride it in the dark in an area he didn’t know. It was a good way to get them both killed. If the Kelshites questioned his decision, they said nothing of it.

  They didn’t say anything at all, which suited Kalen.

  There were niches in the Rift more spacious than the clearing. Several buildings stood in a ring. The largest of the structures was the inn, which was marked by a sign. Light spilled out of a set of large double doors, and curious horses stared out at them.

  “I’ll get one of the hands,” Marist said, hurrying off to the building with his horse.

  Kalen stared at the structure and tried to puzzle out what it was. It reminded him of a miniature version of the stables within Blind Mare Run. But, from what he could tell, each stall was far too cramped to give the horses the space they both needed and deserved.

  “This is the Black Feather Inn. It’s best known for its large stables, as it is a major stop for traders heading west of Kelsh,” Derac said. “It’s quiet now, since most of the caravans have already made it past this way and won’t be back for another month or more.”

  Three boys hurried out of the stables and came to take their horses. Kalen handed the reins off and ignored the stares at his single arm, filthy garb, and bare feet. “Interesting.”

  “Within an hour’s ride there is a town where the trade road intersects with the way of cities.”

  Kalen nodded. That put him halfway between where the borders of the Rift, Kelsh, and Danar met and the city of Elenrune. On foot, it was several months of travel. It’d be several weeks to a month on a Rift horse riding hard.

  Why didn’t he remember a journey that long?

  “Why did you trust that Marist fellow so readily? You’ve only at my word of who I am. How do you know I spoke the truth?” Kalen asked while staring at Derac. The man’s lip twitched upright.

  “Sometimes something is so absurd that it can be nothing but the truth.”

  Kalen huffed a laugh. It was evasion at its best, and it told him more than he suspected the other man wanted him to learn. Marist had seen the sigil before, which put the young man in a role of power. As the Rift King, his role in the ongoing disputes between the Kingdoms was one that most didn’t like to think about.

  Bully. Enforcer. Violent mediator. Monster needing to be caged.

  That meant that while people were aware that a Rift King existed, few could recognize the mark or what his real role was. He’d heard some of the rumors about himself. Some of them were even accurate, but he didn’t have a taste for human flesh, despite common belief. After seeing so many dead men, he didn’t even like meat all that much anymore, not that meat was plentiful within the Rift.

  He also didn’t share his bed with any of his horses, although he had to chase his stallion out of his study whenever the handlers didn’t manage to secure Ferethian’s stall door. It didn’t help that the small stallion was as clever as he was stubborn.

  A surge of loneliness tightened his chest. Ferethian, Honey, and the rest of his herd was fine. If any one of them died, he’d know, just as he had known when Tavener had died so many years before.

  Kalen stretc
hed to hide the nature of his grimace.

  “What would happen if you died here in Kelsh?” Derac asked him in a whisper.

  Kalen pressed his lips together. It was an answer Derac wouldn’t like. He knew it, but gave it anyway. “They’d Ride.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t want to know.” That much was the truth. It made him glad that he couldn’t hear the song of the ancestors like some could, but he’d been told even they stilled at the very mention of the Ride.

  Marist rejoined them. “We can use the well in the back to clean off. They only had a few free rooms so some of us will have to share.”

  “We’ll deal with it,” Derac said. “But first, time to get this filth off.”

  Kalen nodded his agreement. The mud that wasn’t dried was sticky, and the mud that had dried cracked and pulled at his skin. The naked dagger bounced against the side of his leg with each step. While he had managed to slip the blade through one of the corded loops attached to his belt, it wasn’t the same as having a proper weapon at his side.

  Maybe it was a good thing he’d lost his boots. At least he wouldn’t have to clean them. Marist led them around the building to a covered stone well ringed by trees. Kalen limped after them and watched as Derac and Marist went to work hauling buckets of water from the depths.

  The other three, still nameless and refused to speak or look at him in the eye, helped at pulling up water. They didn’t ask for his help and Kalen didn’t volunteer.

  When it came to be Kalen’s turn to be doused, Marist stared at him apprehensively. Kalen jerked his head in a nod and braced for the cold water. While it didn’t clean him completely, it rinsed off most of the mud and blood. Dripping water and muttering curses, Kalen paced around the well in the futile effort to stay warm.

  Kalen couldn’t stop from flexing his hand and keeping it near the hilt of the dagger. They were too friendly, and the night was too peaceful.

  It was too perfect an opportunity.