Guardian Queen: Epic Fantasy Romance (Hardstorm Saga Book 3) Page 6

  “Is that how it is, then?” I watched the Selorm lords and their tigers among the trees. “Fine well. Go ahead.”

  Marga bounded off in their direction. She had a fondness for Tigran, Lord Karnagh’s battle tiger. They appeared to have a bond.

  The old man under the tree watched her go with relief. He was thin, but not as thin as the woman and child we found. Judging by his richly embroidered sateen robe, he was a well-to-do trader. He had likely started out with a belly, in much better shape than the other two survivors.

  As I drew near, I glanced up at the tree next to him. The gnarled branches were bare now, but probably still held some fruit when he had first sought shelter here. A juicy dindin or two a day—the fruit resembled fist-sized, hairy melons—had kept him from dehydration.

  “Greetings.” I inclined my head to show my respect, but even as I did so, I was already examining the bloodstain at his midsection where he was pressing both his hands against an injury. “I am Lady Tera. I am a healer. May I help you, Grandfather?”

  I noted the intricate symbols embroidered onto the golden-brown silk edging of his kaftan. A well-to-do trader for certain. Maybe even one of Rabeen’s Elders.

  He confirmed his high status by saying in a slight accent I could not place, “I am Boscor, leader of the Rabeen Merchant League and Keeper of the Chronicles. Greetings, Lady Tera.”

  Relief surged through me. He did not appear as distressed as the mother and child. Boscor could answer questions. He could give us something we needed even more than food and water: news of the enemy.

  Chapter Six

  (The Blue Dwarf)

  “Lord Batumar, warlord of the Kadar,” Batumar said as he walked up to us. He cut straight to the point. “When did the attack happen?”

  “Lord Batumar?” The chronicle keeper stared for a couple of startled moments as if seeing a spirit. “Some seven days back, my lord.” He moved to rise but gave up with a grunt of pain. “Boscor, at your service, my lord. Leader of the Rabeen Merchant League and Keeper of the Chronicles.”

  “What fleet carried the Kerghi to your shores? Whose ships?”

  Boscor cleared his throat, watching Batumar with uncertainty. “The Kerghi sailed on Kadar warships.”

  My heart sank.

  “How many ships?” Batumar demanded without pause, as if unsurprised by the man’s answer.

  “Four, my lord.”

  “Carrying how many of the Kerghi?”

  “I do not know. I hid as soon as I realized the harbor was under attack. I did not see them all come to shore.”

  The warlord and I exchanged a look. The last we knew, our ships were safely docked in the largest Kadar harbor, Kaharta Reh, under Kadar command.

  The chronicle keeper added, “We did not realize, until too late, that we were under attack. We never expected… We had treaties in place with the Kadar!”

  Batumar nodded. “Know you the new High Lord of the Kadar? Who is he?”

  “We had news that the Kadar warlords held an election, as you were thought dead, and Lord Samtis was chosen. I am most glad to see you hale, my lord,” the chronicle keeper rushed to say. “And you, my lady.”

  I knelt by the man’s side to take a closer look at his injuries. As he moved his hands away, I saw at once why he had been left behind for dead. He had bled even more than I had first thought, the kaftan soaked through on his abdomen. “Do you know if the Kerghi took the entire island of Dahru? Did the Kerghi overrun the Shahala lands?” I asked, then gestured at his wound. “May I?”

  An injury to the bowels would have killed him by now. At the very least, he would be at death’s door from infection. But, as he pulled his kaftan apart for me, I saw that the blade that had reached him had not been buried in his guts. Thank the spirits.

  “I know not about the Shahala, my lady.” Boscor winced as I probed the edge of his wound. “I am sorry. The last I heard, Lord Batumar pushed the invaders back into the mountains. We thought we were safe. Then, suddenly, the Kerghi were here, in our harbor. In our markets!”

  I glanced at Batumar.

  “So the Kerghi came down the mountain,” he said. “In search of food, most likely. They could not take any of our fortified cities. But they took Kaharta Reh, or at least the harbor, and gained control of our ships, then sailed straight to Rabeen for its market, which they knew to be poorly defended.”

  “How would they know anything about Rabeen?”

  “The pirates who dock in our port sometimes sail to the mainland,” Boscor put in.

  True. We had sailed on such a ship on our way to Ishaf.

  “Do you think the Kerghi came for provisions, then they sailed back to Dahru and went back up the mountain?” I asked Batumar.

  “They could have.”

  I wanted to believe that with all my heart. I wanted my people the Shahala to have been skipped over, not to have experienced devastation akin to the devastation of Rabeen.

  “I think you might be right, my lord,” Boscor put in, giving me hope. “I think they came straight for us. Had they attacked any of the other islands, we would have heard, and we could have prepared. We could have hired mercenaries of our own.” He hesitated before adding, “My lord, I am not certain, but… You understand I know very little Kerghi. It’s only that the language is somewhat similar to Riblian…”

  “Did you learn something from the enemy?”

  The chronicle keeper nodded. “As soon as I realized that we were under attack, I hid myself with our most ancient scrolls in a secret closet at the council hall. I thought I might be able to save the treasures of our past, but then they set the building on fire, and I had to run. Yet while I was hiding…a captain looted the hall with his men. He said something about claiming Rabeen from the Kerghi khan for his services.”

  “Rabeen is not Khan Verik’s to give.” Batumar’s tone hardened. “The khan is but Emperor Drakhar’s dog. The Kerghi hordes are but the emperor’s mercenaries.”

  Emperor Drakhar wished to rule the world. The Kerghi hordes were among the many mercenaries in his service. They just happened to be the ones tasked with invading the islands of the Mirror Sea, including our home island of Dahru.

  “From what I made out,” Boscor said with care, “the Kerghi khan thinks to break with the emperor and rule the islands of the Mirror Sea himself. He plans to make Karamur his capital.”

  My hands fisted at the thought of our fortress city, the seat of the Kadar High Lord, ruled by the Kerghi khan, our people becoming his slaves.

  Not now, not ever. Not as long as I breathed.

  “Did you overhear anything else, anything more?” Batumar demanded.

  “No, my lord. I am not even certain of this much. I was worried about the chronicles. And, as I said, I do not understand the Kerghi language well.”

  While two soldiers ran up to us and distracted Batumar with the latest report, I probed the chronicle keeper’s wound. “How were you injured?”

  “A Kerghi mercenary tried to run me through with his sword.” Boscor’s voice filled with undisguised outrage, as if he thought his title and high standing on the island should have protected him from such a common fate at the hand of a common soldier. “He would have if I did not trip and fall, twisting away.”

  I could see where the blade had gone in, slid sideways into fat, glanced off his rib, and poked out through his side. No sign of infection. The gash, however, was not near as well healed as it should have been after seven days.

  “I kept reaching for fruit,” Boscor said in response to my frown. “I fear I have torn the wound open more than once.”

  I did not want him to lose more blood, yet he was not in any imminent danger from his injury. So, to spare myself an argument with Batumar, I treated the chronicle keeper the same way I treated the woman at the cliffs, cleaning the wound first with boiled water, then stitching it closed. He would need a poultice to ward off infection and speed healing, and I hoped I would have the necessary herbs before the day was out. If
not, I could still use my powers. For now, I just needed to cover up the injury to protect it from dirt and flies. As the chronicle keeper’s rich robe was too fine to cut, I sliced a long strip off my own cloak once again for a bandage.

  “You shouldn’t have, my lady. Thank you, my lady.”

  I noted his slight accent again. “On what island were you born?”

  “I came from the Kingdom of Orh, back when I was a young man, to expand my father’s spice business. I stayed on Rabeen for my beautiful wife.” His face clouded. “Gone these past ten years now.”

  The chronicle keeper’s eyes filled with tears. “She died in bed, in peace, without having to witness the destruction of her beloved island, and I am glad for it. I wish the gods granted me the same mercy.”

  “What gods are worshipped on Rabeen?” I asked as I worked.

  My people, the Shahala, believed in spirits. The Kadar sacrificed to their god of war and his concubines, the goddesses. Numerous other gods were worshipped on the islands of the Mirror Sea.

  I had seen no temple on the island, nor had I thought to ask about Rabeen’s religions the first time I had been here. But if they had a hidden chapel somewhere, we might yet find more survivors there. “Have you a sanctuary?”

  Boscor shook his head. “When I first arrived here, most everyone worshipped at a temple ruin of the ancient god Kratos that stands near the foot of the cliffs. His altar is under water now.”

  Kratos. I shuddered at the name, even as Boscor continued.

  “The people here have always been a mix—like any market town—gathered from all over the islands. Few gods are overlooked in our ceremonies. These days, we cast our sacrifices into the sea from the top of the cliffs.”

  I finished bandaging him. “You may move, but move carefully.”

  “Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady. Have you found many others?” he asked as I washed his blood off my hands. “I called for help during the first days, over and over, but nobody came.”

  “A mother and her child also survived,” I told him, and explained how they were found at the cliffs.

  Boscor frowned. “In a sacrifice hole?”

  “On a narrow ledge.”

  The lines on his forehead deepened. “The cliff was the back wall of the old temple once. You must have seen the rows of crevices.”

  I nodded, thinking again how evenly placed they were, in such orderly rows. “I wondered about their purpose.”

  “In ancient times,” Boscor told me, “followers of Kratos kept human sacrifices locked in those holes behind iron bars, dozens in every temple, to be given to the god on certain holy days. They did not sacrifice slaves or foreigners. Such would be an insult to the god. One offered up blood of their blood.”

  I shivered, staring at the man. “Their children?”

  “The closer the blood, the greater the sacrifice, the more devout the family. They brought their sacrifices the first of the holy year, then every time anyone came to worship, they saw whose sons and daughters were in the sacrifice holes, waiting to serve the god with their blood. There could be no doubt which were the most pious families.”

  I could not comprehend the horror.

  Kratos had taken my child, but the unborn babe had not been given willingly. Before the memory could crush me, I recalled Boscor’s earlier words and hastened to ask, “And now? You said people throw their sacrifices from the cliffs.”

  “Goats, my lady,” he reassured me with a tired smile. “Rabeen no longer keeps with the old ways.”

  I gave thanks to the spirits.

  Boscor, on the other hand, appeared less pleased. “What did you do with the mother and child found in the sacrifice hole, my lady?”

  “They were taken to our ship.”

  He nodded slowly, lost in thought for several long moments. “It is said that once someone enters a sacrifice hole, they belong to the god. No man can remove them but for the purpose of sacrifice.”

  The midday sun beat down on my head and back, but a cold shiver crawled up my spine.

  “The old god…” Hesitation crept into the chronicle keeper’s tone. “They say he does not like being denied a sacrifice. If he is angered…”

  I knew full well Kratos’s angry side.

  “He is a god of darkness. We shall be gone by nightfall.” I tried to reassure myself as much as the chronicle keeper with my words.

  “To Dahru, then, across the sea?” The chronicle keeper’s pinched expression relaxed. “Kratos does not rule the waves.”

  I was not so certain. I would never forget how a watery grave nearly took Batumar from me.

  “I would have you carried to our ship,” I told Boscor, “so I can fully repair your wound there once I have the necessary herbs. Will you come with us?”

  I could not imagine remaining on the island as it stood now, but I had seen men and women hold on to the ruins of their former lives, to destroyed fortresses and burned fields, clinging to memories when nothing else remained. As our army had cut through the mainland and grown in number, man after man joined us, but as many if not more remained in their war-ravaged villages, determined to rebuild. I had grown to understand that some men could leave the lands they were born to, but others were rooted too deep.

  The chronicle keeper struggled to sit up. “I would thank you if you took me with you, my lady. My home and store are gone. The scrolls, Rabeen’s chronicles of which I was keeper, are burned,” he said in a tone as bitter as if the enemy had made him eat the ashes and he could still taste them in his mouth.

  He cast a glance at Batumar, who had dismissed the reporting soldiers and was listening to us once again. “My lord, I can pay for the journey.” He shifted to his side and began digging in the dirt with his bare fingers. “A moment, my lady.”

  Soon the rim of a large bean pot was revealed. When the chronicle keeper showed us the mass of gold coins within, my mouth fell agape. He might not have been able to save the scrolls, but he had saved some of his treasure. He must have come here—the dindin tree to mark the spot—hidden the gold, then was cut down before he could run and hide himself.

  Batumar called back the soldiers who had just left us. He ordered one to dig up the pot and carry it back to our ship, then ordered the other one to carry the chronicle keeper. “Set him up on deck, somewhere in shade. And make sure the man receives food and water.”

  “Aye, my lord.” The soldiers obeyed, one dropping to his knees to begin digging with his dirk, the other one bending toward Boscor.

  Once the chronicle keeper had been carried off, the warlord turned to me. “Shall I escort you back to the market, my lady? Shall we search it for herbs?”

  “And maybe more.” I tilted my head. “If one merchant hid his treasure when he saw the enemy approach, might not others have done the same?”

  To defeat the enemy, we needed a strong and well-fed army. We could not resupply on Rabeen, but we had to resupply somewhere. Which meant we needed funds. War required coin above all else. This I had already learned on the mainland.

  Batumar caught my meaning. “Shorak,” he addressed the soldier who finally freed the buried pot. “I need our men to look under the floorboards in all the merchants’ houses. Search every building for hiding places no matter how small, even if too slight to hide a man. This time, look for hidden coin. Pass the word.”

  “Aye, Lord Batumar.” The man hurried off with the gold, calling to the group who were still talking under the trees a short distance from us.

  “We sail from here to Sheharree and resupply there,” Batumar said to me then, his words bringing an instant smile to my face.

  Sheharree was a Shahala port on the island of Dahru, a city of my own people. I hoped against hope that my people were safe and the mercenaries who destroyed Rabeen had not pillaged the Shahala lands. “Do you believe the city is free?”

  “If it is not, we will need to find another market on another island. Either way, we must resupply before we engage in battle, before we sail to Kahar
ta Reh.”

  “Do you think the enemy is still there? Might they not have gone back up the mountain?”

  “If the Kerghi took the Kadar fleet, they likely took the port city where the fleet was stationed,” the warlord said with reluctance. “And if they took the city, they would want to hold it. We are most likely to find the enemy there. Or, at least, the port is as good a place to start looking for the main enemy force as any.”

  I could not argue with his logic.

  “We shall know more once we reach Sheharree,” he added. “They will have news from up north. It will save us from having to sail our ships blindly into Kaharta Reh. When we first meet the enemy, we must be prepared.”

  We had begun walking back toward the harbor, but a strange sound made me stop.

  “Anything the matter, my lady?”

  I wasn’t sure. “Did you hear anything?”

  The warlord stilled, listened. “The wind?”

  I heard the faint moan again. “Something else.”

  Goose bumps rose on my arms. All around us, the landscape stood empty, except for the retreating soldiers’ backs.

  Yet the breeze brought another soft moan. Batumar must have heard it this time, because he whirled around as if to determine where the moan came from so he could step between me and any possible danger.

  “Aaah.” Louder now. From a small pile of rocks at a short distance to the east of us.

  Another survivor! I ran toward the spot. Whoever was making the noise sounded like he was in pain.

  In but a blink, Batumar caught up then caught me, slowed me. As we approached—more carefully now—the sound became more otherworldly, as if echoing up from the bowels of the earth. Only when we were nearly on top of the rocks could we see that we found an old abandoned well, its stone rim crumbled by the ages. We peered down together, squinting side by side into the darkness.

  A moment passed before my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. And then I saw someone lying on the bottom of the dry well—a little boy.