“Stop!” The Kai man broke, fury mixed with regret, despair, and most of all, love in his eyes. He raised his bound hands in a plea for mercy. “No more. I’ll tell you where the hercegesé is. Just don’t maim her anymore.”
Behind Brishen, the imposter tried to shout garbled commands around her gag. The man flinched, looking away for a moment before turning his gaze back to Brishen.
“She’s at Orshulgyn.”
The rush of relief roaring through Brishen made him lightheaded. They were one step closer to ending this ordeal. “How many guards?” he asked, surprised by the dead calm of his voice when it took all his strength not to leap to his feet and bolt for his horse.
Mouth twisted into a sneer, the other man spat to one side. “For a human woman? Just one.”
If there was one thing Brishen could count on, it was his enemies’ predictability in overestimating his mercy and underestimating his wife’s prowess. “Is she wounded?”
A casual shrug. “No worse than how my mistress appeared when she first approached you.”
“Please, holy gods,”Brishen silently prayed.“Let that still be true.”
He stood and strode to Anhuset standing over the Kai woman. “Gag them both and bind them to separate trees away from each other. Then you and Dendarah ride hard to Saggara with Tarawin. You’ll no doubt cross paths with one or more of our other trackers. Send them back here to retrieve these two.” He glanced at his wife’s double as she violently shook her head. He shuddered and looked away.
“You want to leave them alive?” Anhuset’s outrage startled a pair of doves hidden in the trees into flight. “Brishen, they took the queen! That’s treason!”
He grasped her elbow and pulled her to a spot out of his captives’ earshot. Anhuset’s eyes were white-hot as she practically vibrated with fury. “I know nothing of the magic she wears other than that it’s powerful but temporary. If I kill her now, she might die still disguised as Ildiko. I want to know who she is. If she’s one of Vesetshen’s relatives, then that matriarch will regret the day she ever crossed me.”
His explanation went far to cool Anhuset’s temper, though her eyes remained pale. “I can take them back on lead lines, one tied to my horse, one to Dendarah’s.”
If they didn’t have his daughter, he might have agreed to the idea. “They’ll slow you down too much if you try to bring them with you. Tarawin is the first priority. I’ll risk one or both of them escaping in favor of getting the queen safely home. Speed counts most here.” He scanned the forest surrounding them, praying no one else lay in wait to ambush them. “Take down anyone who gets in your way.”
She nodded. “That goes without saying.”
He left her to carry out his commands, halting in front of Dendarah to take Tarawin in his arms and hug her tightly. The little queen squealed and planted a slobbery kiss on hischeek before head-butting his nose in a demand that he play “horsey” with her. He kissed her forehead and handed her back to Dendarah. The royal guard nodded when he relayed the same commands he’d given Anhuset. “Remember you’ll have to sneak her into the fortress,” he said. “We’ve spread the lie the queen is still at Saggara under Kirgipa’s care. See it stays that way.”
Dendarah saluted him. “As you command, Herceges.” Worry flashed across her grim features. “Be careful, and may all be well with the hercegesé.”
Rain clouds had moved in by the time he rode out of the woodland for the wide swath of fields stretching like a gentle sea to the bottom of rolling hills and the ancient necropolis built for dead human sorcerers. The sullen sky hung low, a dull gray with hints of lightning flashing across its underbelly.
To keep from exhausting his horse, he altered its pace between a walk, a trot, and a gallop. The hills silhouetted against the building storm hid the most precious thing in Brishen’s life, and he urged his mount onward as they raced toward the shadowed slopes.
The sky opened, washing curtains of rain across the landscape. Orshulgyn crowned the peak of the lowest hill, its flanks made treacherous by the loose rock covering the ground. Brishen scouted one side where a worn path—almost choked to invisibility by weeds—snaked its way up the incline. Thunder rumbled in every direction as he coaxed his horse up the narrow road, gaze sweeping the terrain for any movement or possible ambush.
Nothing rushed him from behind the large boulders standing sentinel along the route. Lightning lit the way as he rode closer to the circular buildings capped with pointed thatched roofs. He listened for the warning whine of an arrow shot from a bow, but only the thunder serenaded him. His mount stumbled twice on the now slippery ground, and Brishen dismounted tolead the horse the rest of the way to the necropolis. If Ildiko’s guard waited for him, he’d have plenty of time to prepare for a confrontation.
Except for its dead, Orshulgyn looked deserted. His hopes of swiftly finding his wife plummeted even as his fear and anger soared. If the Kai had lied to him regarding Ildiko’s whereabouts, Brishen would make him wish Secmis were alive to dole out his punishment.
He spun around at a soft whuff and spotted a gray gelding still bridled near one of the columbaria. The animal paced toward them, tossing its head and whickering a greeting to Brishen’s mount. Both horses snorted and shied when a lightning bolt kissed the field below, leaving a crack of thunder to boom its disapproval.
Brishen caught the gelding by its dragging reins, noting the saddle nearby with its familiar tack and the tell-tale presence of bow and sword still inside their saddle scabbards. No Kai soldier with any training would leave their weaponry unattended. Something had happened to the guard tasked with watching Ildiko.
Torn between relief and worry, he led both horses to a columbarium where the wall shielded them from the worst of the wind-driven deluge and looped their reins around a wooden post planted in the ground. Sigils carved into wood and weathered by time and elements, shimmered faintly in the rainy murk. The fine hairs on his arms rose as the feel of old sorcery danced across his skin.
Brishen unloaded his weaponry from his horse, then emptied the quiver belonging to the Kai guard, adding the arrows to his supply. He broke the bow in half and slid the sword under a gap between the ground and the building, hiding it from sight.
Drenched to the skin, he navigated the necropolis grounds, sloshing through puddles and small rivers of muddy water thattumbled over his boots. He paused before an ominous stone slab, stained and glistening in the downpour, and wondered how much blood had once been spilled on its smooth surface. A whisper of malevolent laughter mingled with the chatter of raindrops, as if something found his revulsion amusing.
Blade and bow were useless against entities that defied death and wielded sorcery, but he wasn’t defenseless. Elder magic still coursed through his veins, thin as watered-down ale, but strong enough to protect him if needed. He prayed he wouldn’t have to use it. All hope of one day rescuing Megiddo lay in what little magic he still retained.
The rain gradually lightened to a heavy drizzle, heralding in a twilight of starless gloom and a quagmire of mud that threatened to suck his boots off his feet. He stopped at every columbarium to either shove or kick open the door to look inside. Each one stood empty except for a solitary urn chained to the lid of a stone bier. It wasn’t until he reached one with a hole in the roof that his heart smacked against his ribs, this time in triumph.
Ildiko had been here. He had no doubt of it. And she’d escaped using a tattered rope and a pair of soggy trousers hanging from its length.
He bolted from the house of the dead, cursing the rain as it had destroyed any hint of tracks that might have told him which way she’d gone. Her name hung in his throat, wrapped around a bellow he held back until his jaw ached. “Where are you, Ildiko?” he whispered, the question drowned out by the steadily falling rain.
