The Warrior King (Book 4) Read Free Page B

for his part, stood with the sheath in one hand and his other hand on his sword hilt, as if itching to draw the weapon and take a swing at Chantmer’s head. The instant he did so, Chantmer swore that the boy would die.
    He’s no longer a boy. Don’t underestimate him.
    Markal was nothing if not practical, and at last he sighed and held up a hand to urge his young companion to calm down.
    “Very well, Chantmer the Betrayer, we’ll help you remove Sofiana from Marrabat. And then we will have our reckoning, you and I.”
    “Chantmer the Tall . That is what they call me. I don’t much care for your other title, and if you insist on using it, we will have trouble.”
    “You are a proud and arrogant man.”
    “And you have no dignity. You are a petty, simple-minded fool.”
    Markal glanced at Darik, and the two of them shared a look of disgust. Then Markal turned back to the other wizard. “Very well, Chantmer the Tall. What is your plan?” 
    “It must happen tonight. If we wait until tomorrow, the sultan will have taken the girl to his bed.”
     
     

Chapter Three
    Roderick woke to a nasty shout and a lash across his back. Dogs barked and snarled, and their odor was everywhere, together with other smells that overwhelmed his senses: horses, steel, sour sweat, blood.
    He stumbled to his feet, blinking in confusion. The sun stood overhead, but it looked as though a gray curtain lay in front of his eyes. Roderick felt his head, remembering nothing for the moment but the arc of a war hammer toward his skull and a blinding flash of light. A groove ran along his skull beneath the hair, but otherwise his head was whole.
    I am dead, he thought. My skull was caved in like a crushed egg.  
    “Hah!” a man’s voice said. “He wakes.”
    Roderick blinked and looked back toward the voice. Four men stood above him. Everything came back to him. He had died when the deathless enemy attacked his Knights Temperate on the Old Road. His men had fought valiantly; he remembered Darik fighting desperately toward him, Hob shouting for him to pull back. Then, what? He’d been slain by a crushing blow to the head.
    And after that he’d suffered a terrible nightmare. Some of it, he now realized, had not been a dream. A man had whispered an incantation to keep his soul bound to his body, and then another man had branded him with a hot iron, some ancient cartouche of power. He’d risen, struggling against his captors, and they’d fastened a skull mask to his face. And then he’d fought his own men, the Knights Temperate he’d sworn to lead and defend. He would have slaughtered them to a man, dragged them into his same nightmare, if not for the attacking griffins, led by the young flockheart, Daria.
    Now, he stood in the midst of camp on the dry foothills below a looming range of mountains behind them.
    The men laughed and cracked braided whips in their hands. Behind them, another man struggled with a rope that held back a dozen collared mastiffs. The dogs snarled and barked and fought against the rope and each other. Their eyes bugged out and slather dripped from their muzzles. Roderick wondered what madness or magic possessed the beasts.
    They stood on a dirt trail that led down from a forest of scrubby oak and thorny brambles. Bits of dripping, melting snow clung to the branches of the trees, and frost coated the rocks on the ground. The woods and underbrush stood high enough to prevent Roderick from viewing their extent. He was barefoot, but the cold had not yet begun to penetrate his feet. Only rags covered the rest of his body, which otherwise felt whole and strong.
    “Welcome to our company, my captain, ” the first man said. Irony dripped off his voice. 
    He was a tall man, built much like Roderick, with a two-handed sword over his shoulder, and he wore a helm with the stag of the House of Crestwell on the brow. Roderick had seen this man before, on the road to King’s Crossing before the Battle of Arvada. His skin was