Page 34

Chapter

Thirty-Three

ANYA

“ W hat do you know of Durethikal?” I ask, glancing up at Linahna from where I sit cross-legged on the bed. I haven’t a clue where to start looking for Drisk… or Driskal, that is. Sometimes I think I hear an echo of his cackling echoing through the palace and gives me a sort of grim satisfaction knowing that he is probably driving someone mad.

I am not even sure how to free him. How does one free someone from enchanted chains? Kidnap a mage? That will go over well and probably get me killed. No, not killed but a very painful almost death and probably put in similar chains once they see me pop up like a spring flower from it.

Her lips purse thoughtfully around her small tusks. Although she greeted the news of what I shared with shock, she had come to terms with it far more quickly than I had. According to her, it all actually made a startling amount of sense as apparently there was some legend suggesting that he would return. She wanted to verify it for herself but the sudden increase of guards at the dungeon entrance has made it impossible for either of us to get back into them unnoticed.

“I know what you are going to say, but I must know. I need to know this other half of him. One thing I am certain of is that it is most certainly Daghel in that cell. But, as you said, more. I looked into his eyes and beyond the dark, cold fire, he was there, staring back at me. It is like this Durethikal completed him. His face is more emotive rather than watching the world passively, his expressions passing with genuine emotions across his face. It was almost frightening at first to see it,” I admit. “I can’t know how to even begin. I need help and I hope that knowing more about him will reveal some clue to what I need.”

Linahna sighs but inclines her head in agreement. “I know he has become something of a haunting… a story that we tell the children. A merciless dark god who rules the mountains and destroyed everything in his wake as he passed over on his mount—a wyvern as cold and deadly as he, keeping the order of all seasonal tides and powers within the mountains. The warriors, of course, especially like to tell these stories of how the old ways were overthrown so that orc might could reign on the mountains.” She shakes her head, her jaw clenching. “They celebrate it, but mother was always suspicious of such tales told with such relish. The power of the queens has been weakening generation by generation amongst many of the clans, though there are a few that remain loyal to the Black Tower and who keep to the old ways and who, according to rumors, have not been touched by such madness. The stories of his fall also contradict many of the ancient lore that we have of the time of Durethikal. You have seen how we celebrate Gehl, right? Down in the lower villages?”

I nod my head, curious as to where she is going with this.

“That does not seem like something that hearkens some sort of cruel and evil god-king, right? Oh, I know that he could be cruel and merciless, and the festivities were meant to ease his coldness and bring warmth with the promise of a bride, but that does not call for what was done to him. In all of the stories, he was betrayed and bound by clans and imprisoned within ice and stone. That he managed to escape his body to be reborn is something, I think, was always hinted at with the way the drehl were feared. As if their presence would hearken his return or something of that sort.”

I sigh heavily and rub my brow. That doesn’t help me too much. “Too bad the legends don’t say anything about a handy weapon capable of breaking Drisk out,” I mutter.

Linahna’s face brightens, and she grabs my hand in excitement. “Wait, there is! Like Daghel, Durethikal was always fond of using a sword. If he used his power at all in the feast room, maybe his sword gained some of his influence. If we can get hold of that, it might just be enough to break the chains. The mage’s spells might not hold up against it.”

“Perfect! Where is the sword?” I asked urgently and her smile falters in response, her lips twisting in a grimace.

“Oh. Right. Vorn has it. It is likely locked in his chambers.” She licks her lips nervously. “I have often gotten in there without issue, but I have never taken anything out, and especially nothing so large as an orc’s sword.” Her hand tightens over mine. “But I am willing to try. First, I need to see someone. She needs to be made aware of what’s going on even if it interrupts her peaceful recovery. I would not have dared before when it would have made Vorn suspicious of my motivation. I did not want to draw his attention to me too much. But we have no choice. I must see her.”

My eyebrows raise. “Who?”

Linahna’s mouth flattens grimly as she returns my regard. “My mother.”

Although Linahna tries to insist I remain behind, I refuse to relent and, after a brief stop at her chambers so that I might change into a surc and one of her tunics she outgrew in her youth, I remain stubbornly at her side as we evade guards to make our way through the palace to its northernmost wing. I know that I am not as powerful as Linahna, nor do I have the strength or battle acumen of even the most average orc in the village, I can’t believe that I am useless. Not when Daghel has entrusted so much to me.

“You can turn back here, you need not continue if you are afraid,” Linahna whispers as we duck into the shadows of a doorway opening into the next corridor just in time to avoid being spotted by a pair of guards passing. “There is no shame in it.”

I shake my head in silent refusal. Despite her words, I can’t help but wonder if she is saying them because she just doesn’t want me there, or because she is worried that I might slow her down. More than that, I can see that she is worried for me, and somehow that makes me feel even worse, though it strengthens my resolve. This is my life now, not that of a pampered courtesan.

“I can’t,” I whisper back. “Perhaps this is in part me needing to believe that I can do more than just being a courtesan. I know I’ve flown with Daghel and Drisk many times,” I immediately say when she lifts an eyebrow at me, “but I’ve never had to actually do anything except sit there and keep watch since we were never needed to fight. I must be more, Linahna. I need to know I can actually be more, especially when Daghel expects me to do something as significant as rallying the gathols.”

A fleeting expression of surprises crosses her face. “He does?” A wry chuckle bursts from her. “Of course he does. You are a queen—the bride of Durethikal.” She nods thoughtfully. “Very well, come on, bride,” she gently teases, grabbing my hand in hers, “since you’ve pledged yourself, you are an orc now. No soft, tender human here. So let us speak to my mother and get that fucking sword.”

Linahna does not temper her speed for my sake but forces me to keep up now as we dart along the corridors and staircases, climbing higher in the palace as she takes down those who stand in our way with ruthless efficiency. We maintain the brutal pace until we arrive at a cold door with no warmth of a hearth fire burning beyond it. A deep coldness seeps from it as it stands ajar and a look of worry creases her face as she touches the door and nudges it open a little more, enough so that the firelight of a nearby torch touches the dry stain of blood smeared on the floor. Trepidation tightly grips my heart as Linahna pushes harder on the door, but it gives only so far until it won’t open any further, forcing us to squeeze inside one by one. And then we see what is blocking the door.

I recoil with horror, cramming my fist against my mouth and biting hard against my knuckles to silence my urge to scream. A woman lays there, her face a gruesome mess as if claws ripped into over and over, tearing out her eyes and shredding her cheeks, mouth, and neck until a river of bled dyed a once ornate gown with the heavy reddish-brown crust of dried blood,

“It is Deihedra, our spirit talker. Gods, what have they done to you?” Linahna whispers mournfully in a choked voice as she crouches before the fallen body. Her hand reaches to the dead female, her claws skimming along the ruin of the female’s face before dropping away as she lurches to her feet. “Mother,” she sobs and turns toward the inner chamber and breaks into a run, leaving me to race after her. “Mother!”

Blood splatters everywhere in the sitting room with fallen bodies everywhere, the dead staring sightlessly at the ceiling as their ravaged remains bear the tale of their brutal deaths. Throats and bowels torn out, chest cracked open with hearts missing as if someone had torn them out and devoured them. Swallow back my urge to vomit as I hurry behind Linahna into the bedchamber where a shrouded bed takes up a large part of the room. A female lies slumped over and when Linahna touches her shoulder, the corpse falls over, its severed hands rolling across the floor as the body rolls so that a female faces toward us in an image of horror as she stares at us with bloody holes where her eyes had been and her mouth open in a silent scream, filled with blood where her tongue had been severed.

“Ahandra,” a voice calls, a thin whisper of sound from the shrouded bed.

Linahna surges forward, ripping away the curtain and drops to her knees where the corpse had been as she reaches clawed hands to the frail female who had once been large and power in life.

“Mother, the healer is dead,” Linahna whispers.

The queen sighs heavily with a deep wheezing sound in a death rattle that makes my chest tighten with sorrow. Although it had been many years since I heard that sound, it was ingrained in my memory and my gaze falls sorrowfully on the female I had long begun to count as a friend.

“I figured as much,” the queen mumbles. “But when hearing movement beyond the curtain, I had hoped that she had survived. It seems that none of us were so fortunate.”

Linahna swallows and grasps her mother’s hand. “What are you say? You have escaped. You are going to be fine. I am going to get you out of here and I am going to have a gathol take you away to keep you safe.”

The queen chuckles tiredly and my eyes tear as her withered hand lightly touches her daughter’s hair. “Do not be obtuse, girl. I am already dead. Mine was just chosen to be the slower death—damned cowards.”

She gestures to her belly and then I see it in the heavy shadow of the bed. A javelin pierces her through so deeply that it is obviously buried into the bed beneath her.

“As if being slowly poisoned for years was not enough of an insult. This is how I will die.” She shakes her head morosely, the movement small in her weakness. “Ajek always was the cruelest of Vorn’s dogs. It seems that my son has finally made his move. The clan will fall.”

“But he will not win,” I say around the emotion choking me as I step toward the bed. “The clan will not fall.”

Her head turns to me, and a tiny frown pulls between her brows. “A human? Who are you?”

“I am Anya. I am Anastasia,” I whisper. “I am a concubine born to no future and a woman reborn in the hot and ice flames of the wyvern, Driskal. I am the mate of Daghel and the bride of Durethikal. And I swear to you that Vorn will die.”

Faded eyes tear, and she sighs, a tired smile pulling at her mouth. “You hear that, Deihedra, you rotten bitch. We were right. Through Daghel, Durethikal rises and his bride has come as promised.” Her smile brightens, tears flowing down her cheeks as she turns as much as she can toward Linahna to cup her cheek in her hand as her free slides to her chest, her finger dig into what appears to be a healed wound—the healer’s work I presume—her blood flowing sluggishly as she drags out an ice-blue stone on a golden chain with a pained cry. She presses the bloody token into Linahna’s hands and my friend’s face pales in shock as her fingers curl around it. “Rise, daughter of my body, daughter of my spirit, and take back all which the gods deem as yours.”

Her hand brushes over Linahna’s clenched fist but drops away as she sighs her last breath and her eyes drift shut to close forever. Linahna clenches her mother, sobbing her grief as I stand beside the bed with my head bowed and my heart hurting. I refuse to interrupt these last moments and do not look until my friend finally stands, brushing away her tears with her bloody hand as she loops the pendant around her neck. Her head turns to me, her expression grim.

“Let’s go get that fucking sword.”

I nod and follow her as we rush from the chambers and into the corridors as we take a direct shot for Vorn’s residence within the palace. I am rather surprised that not only are the guards notably absent in the halls but that the prince’s chambers have been left unguarded. I glance curiously at Linahna but she smiles grimly and opens the door as a sound shakes through the palace.

“Looks like they were all called away. Drisk’s timing for causing trouble is impeccable,” she observes with a chuckle as she slips inside.

I follow her in, worried that the sword will be so well hidden that our presence will be discovered before we are found. I am, therefore, surprised to see it mounted on the wall like some kind of trophy instead of hidden and secured somewhere. I exchange a glance with Linahna and the female shakes her head with a bark of scathing laughter.

“My brother always was short on intelligence and far too vain for his own good. Of course, he would display a trophy of living enemy right where someone can just… pluck it off the wall,” she says emphatically as she removes it and hands it to me.

I stare down at the sword, nonplused. “That was stupidly easy,” I remark.

“My brother is a cruel, evil bastard, but he is not the mastermind he thinks he is,” she observes dryly. “I will bet you anything that if Ajek had seen it, he would have birthed a pup on the spot. He is the cunning one between the two that you have to watch. I guarantee he told Vorn to hide the fucking things.” She chuckles again and nods toward the sword. “Wrap that up in your cloak just in case someone spots us. Two females in the hall will draw a lot more attention if it is obvious that one of us is carrying a sword.”

I nod in agreement and wrap it snugly inside my cape and tuck the bundle tightly against my chest. Linahna watches patiently and then tips her head to the door as soon as it is secure so that we can make our escape.

“Where do we find Drisk?” I whisper from behind as we take several narrow, largely hidden, servant’s corridors.

I had never been down these halls before, but I am still a little surprised when they take us right out of the palace. I immediately shiver a little when an ice-cold wind sweeps over us and glance over at her

She glances back at me and her lips twist in a faint smile. “There is only one place near the village where a wyvern might be kept: the cavern that connects to the common gathol rookeries. This way! There is rarely anyone that loiters near the rookeries because the gathols get peevish about it, but we can likely expect guards as we get closer.”

Sure enough, the route to the cavern is remarkably clear but the commotion from within the cavern is audible so that we duck down and wait it out. And thank the gods for Drisk’s wyvern fire or else I would be a lump of ice already. I am not the least bit warm but it is better than freezing.

Eventually a group of males storm from the cavern and I recognize Vorn and Ajek at their head. Linahna’s hand tightens on her blade, but she exhales heavily and shakes her head before looking back over her shoulder at me.

“I will see to it that they all are murdered soon enough. Right now, we need to free Drisk,” she whispers, and I nod in agreement.

Although I do not doubt her ability, the odds are currently insurmountable. Daghel and Drisk need to be free.

We slip into the cavern and take the main tunnels that head deeper into the cave system but at an upward angle that lets me know that the shaft somehow connects to all the rookeries in some fashion. We duck into a side tunnel when a group of guards suddenly appear in the main tunnel, their voices echoing around them.

“Fucking wyverns. The gathols all believe that they are so superior to the rest of us. I cannot abide them. Vorn has taken them down a peg at least, but I would be happy if not a single wyvern ever returned to our peaks.”

The other males mutter in agreement and joined in, though I catch no more of the conversation as they head away from us. Linahna shakes her head in disgust as we move back out into the open and take the tunnel they left.

“Short-sighted fools. How do they think they would transport goods easily from the nearby villages, or during raids? Who looks for clan members who become lost on the snow or watch for attacks from the peaks? How do they imagine our way of life continuing without gathols much less wyverns?”

“They think of nothing, but Vorn’s promises,” Drisk’s voice rasps, echoing around us as we run down the remaining length of corridor to him.

I want to cry when I see my mate. Although he still wears his harness as if he were just captured, I know that he has suffered for many hours bound even tighter than Daghel to compensate for his great physical strength. His wings are pinned with chains at his side, and several more attached to stacked manacles around his neck. His gaze shifts to me and he croons softly as I run to him and press against his chest with a sob of relief.

“I’m getting you out of here,” I promise him, my voice wobbling with emotion as I step back and draw the sword from my cloak.

I allow the fur-lined material to drop to the floor as I brandish it and eye the nearest chain grimly. Throwing all my strength behind my swing, I strike the chain and magic flashes, nearly blinding me. I blink my eyes rapidly but, when my vision clears, I am dismayed to find that the chain is still very much intact.

I stare down at the sword dismally as Linahna groans with disappointment. “And of course here is where things get complicated.”