“The entrance is sealed,” the Shaman said reading Khirro’s thoughts. He took a shuddering breath and air gurgled through the wound in his chest. “Take this.”
Khirro didn’t see the Shaman move his hand, yet he held the vial, arm shaking as his strength waned. Khirro stared, mesmerized by the crimson fluid ebbing and flowing inside with the quake of the magic man’s hand.
“No.” He shook his head as much to tear his eyes from the vial as to indicate dissent. “I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I’m not strong enough or brave enough. I’ll return to the fortress. I’ll get someone capable.”
Khirro went to stand, but the Shaman gripped his wrist. Khirro winced, surprised the injured man still had such strength.
“No time,” the Shaman rasped. “You’re the only hope.”
“I can’t do it.”
Khirro’s head sagged, unable to meet the Shaman’s mismatched eyes. Another gurgling breath shuddered the man’s body. His strength flagged and the hand holding the vial slumped to the grass, though he maintained his grip on Khirro’s wrist with the other. The vial rolled from his fingertips and came to rest against Khirro’s boot with a soft clink.
“Come close.”
Khirro hesitated, worried the man might still be dangerous.
It wouldn’t make sense for him to harm me.
He chastised himself. This man kept him alive when Gendred would have killed him.
Khirro leaned close to the magic man’s swollen lips, close enough they brushed his ear as the fallen healer whispered non-sensical words. Khirro listened, brow furrowed, attempting to hear the quiet voice, comprehend the words. It took only a few seconds for him to understand why the Shaman beckoned him.
“Gods!”
Khirro pulled away, but the healer grasped him by the back of his neck, pulled him close with strength impossible for a dying man. Unintelligible words flowed from the Shaman’s lips as Khirro struggled to get free and images flashed through his mind: a wizened old man, an ancient stone keep, a ruby dragon, vast forests, uncountable hills, windswept waters, unknown towns, and finally the meadow outside the fortress walls. Vivid and real, it seemed as though he saw them right here, right now. Sweat beaded Khirro’s brow, his hands shook. The Shaman completed the incantation and released him. Khirro fell back.
“What have you done?” Khirro demanded with shaking voice. “What have you done to me?”
The Shaman’s eyes slipped shut. Only his lips moved as he spoke. “He who seeks entrance to the keep must face the keeper alone.”
Khirro shook his head. “What have you done?”
“I’ve shown you the way to Darestat the Necromancer.”
“I won’t go,” he insisted, voice louder. He glanced over his shoulder-Ghaul continued his search of a fallen Kanosee soldier, unaware of the exchange. “I told you I won’t. I’ll find someone else.”
A pinched smile contorted the Shaman’s lips into an ugly purple gash across his face. “You have no choice, Khirro.”
He stared at the magic man, wanting to believe he hadn’t heard his words. He crawled closer to the Shaman again. “What do you mean?”
“You’re bound to save your king.” The Shaman coughed another gout of blood.
“No. This can’t be.”
Breath rattled from the Shaman’s throat, the gurgling in his chest ceased. Khirro looked past the fallen man, his attention drawn away as the shimmering curtain of air surrounding them faded. Meadow sparrows chirped, but, to Khirro’s ears, it wasn’t the happy sound that makes one glad to be alive, not now. Perhaps not ever again.
“Your friends are dead.”
Khirro whirled at the sound of the man’s voice, grabbing for his dirk. Ghaul took a step back, holding his hands up defensively.
“Whoa! Hold on, friend. What’s the matter?”
Khirro’s strength fled and he fell to his side on the grass, hand contacting the warm glass vial. Ghaul rushed to his side.
“Are you all right?”
Against every feeling in his body and thought in his head, Khirro closed his hand around the glass vessel containing the king’s blood. He’d rather have gotten up and run from it, or hurled it as far as he could, but something made him tuck it under his tunic.
“I’m cursed,” he said in a voice so calm it surprised him. “The Shaman has sentenced me to death.”
Chapter Seven
Khirro sat cross-legged in the grass by the Shaman’s body watching the blood within the vial move as he rolled it back and forth on flattened palm. The urge to squeeze his fingers around it, choke it, throw it away had diminished to an almost forgotten thought in the wake of an inexplicable desire to protect it. The Shaman’s curse had done this to him.
“What’s that?”
He closed his fingers around the vessel, hiding it close to his chest. “Nothing. A bauble.”
“Is this thing the reason you traipsed about the meadow with a Shaman and two warriors?”
Khirro’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m from a village to the north, near the mountains. When the king’s men came to collect men to defend the fortress, I was ill with fever, so they left me behind. When the fever broke, I donned my armor, mounted my horse and came to fight for king and country. Only by the will of the Gods did I come upon you with a Kanosee arrow shoved up your nose. A little more gratitude might be in order.”
“I know a man from the mountains,” Khirro said recalling Tandel’s brogue, absent from this man’s voice. “What village?”
“Epoli.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I’ve probably never heard of yours, either.”
“What of your horse?” Khirro snapped. He stood, hugging the king’s blood to his chest.
“Perhaps the Shaman’s spell scared him off. Magic will do that to some beasts.”
“Quite a coincidence you came to this place the same time as the enemy.”
“Do you think me an agent of those Kanosee dogs?” Ghaul drew his sword and Khirro shrank back, but instead of the threatening, he dropped the blade at Khirro’s feet. “If I’m a soldier of Kanos, why didn’t I let him kill you? Then I’d have taken your bauble and anything else I wanted.”
Khirro opened his mouth but found nothing to say. Could it be coincidence this man happened across a fight while thousands inside the fortress knew nothing of it? He felt his cheeks turn red, embarrassed by his suspicion. Sunlight glinted off the steel of Ghaul’s blade; seeing it lying there convinced him. If he undertook this journey-and, truthfully, he had no choice in the matter-the aid of someone deft with a sword would be invaluable.
“I’m sorry. I should be thanking you for saving my life, not questioning your loyalty. It’s just… I don’t want to go to Lakesh.”
Ghaul’s eyebrows dropped, fashioning a frown. “Lakesh? Why would you go there?”
“The Shaman cursed me to complete the task he set out to accomplish. I’m the only one left.”
“What are you talking about? You make no sense.”
Uncurling his fingers, Khirro extended his palm. The dark red liquid shifted inside the vial with the shake of his unsteady hand.
“So?” Ghaul shrugged.
“It’s blood.”
“Whose?”
Khirro hesitated. “The king’s.”
Ghaul’s eyes widened. “Braymon?”
Khirro nodded.
“The king fell in battle.” Khirro’s gut twinged as he said it, but he didn’t elaborate. No one needed to know more than that. “The Shaman extracted his blood. I was to accompany them to Lakesh, to Darestat the Necromancer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He can bring the king back. He’s the only one who can.”
Ghaul sucked air in sharply through his teeth. “Raise the king.”
The soldier shook his head and moved away, pacing to the nearby body of a Kanosee soldier clad in black and red mail. With a flick of his toe he sent the helm rolling from the rotted head.
“But what of this? The Kanosee fight alongside an army of the dead. Who but the Necromancer could raise such soldiers?”