Page 67 of Shadow Throne King

Tallu didn’t answer, mounting in one motion and spinning his horse in a quick circle before digging his heels in. As he galloped down the mountain, I raised a hand in goodbye, turning to follow Tallu. By the time we were out of sight of the dwarven arch, Tallu had pulled his horse to a slower pace.

The narrow path widened, and I came up beside him. “So, what do you think?”

My horse sidestepped under me, and I took a moment to get it back under control. When I turned to look, Tallu had the back of one hand pressed to his nose. He pulled it back, and I saw blood.

“Tallu!” I pulled my horse short, but Tallu didn’t stop his, so I kicked my horse just briefly, darting in front of him before stopping again. He was forced to pull his reins or risk an accident.

I turned my body, facing him. “Tallu. What’s wrong?”

“The air is too thin for me. I can feel my heart beating twice as fast for every breath I need to take.” Tallu shook his head again. “And I could not trust the food.”

I thought about how I had watched him eat. After the first bite of bread, each subsequent one had been chewed over and over again so that it looked as though he was eating more than he had actually consumed.

“We should rest. We can stay the night here.” It wasn’t even the worst place that Tallu and I had ever spent the night. “Think of it as a reminder of the first night we spent in each other’s company.”

At the reference to the night we had spent escaping from the Dragon Seer’s temple, Tallu let himself smile briefly. “We cannot stop here. We are still inside Krustau’s borders. It is too dangerous.”

Frustrated, I turned my horse, heading down the mountain first. Over my shoulder, I called, “As soon as we get to the bottom, we are stopping, borders or no.”

By the time we reached the base of the mountain, it was dark, the moon luminescent. We took a rest, the horses accepting bags of feed while Sagam pulled snacks out of his saddlebags. Asahi found a lantern in his and lit it.

Asahi turned his head, examining the light. I could hear his voice as clearly as if he had spoken.

“Do it now. Do it now. Do it now.”

“Asahi?” I asked.

“We should keep moving,” he said. “It is dark, and I do not trust the dwarves not to follow us.”

I finished eating the dried meat, following the rest back onto their horses. With Asahi in the front, we took the path around the lake. I was so focused on Asahi that I missed when something leapt out of the darkness, taking down Sagam’s mount.

Sixteen

Tallu and I spun, but Asahi was faster, moving even before Sagam’s mount screamed in panic. He dropped the lantern, the electric light landing and bouncing hard, sending flickering shadows across my view. With his free hand, Asahi drew his sword.

He sliced downward, and it was then that I saw the creature.

It wasn’t that I had disbelieved General Saxu. But ghost stories were a staple in the north. There were always whispers about men and creatures that lived in the ice beyond the hunting grounds.

My mother was an epic storyteller, and her tales would leave me sleeping in my sister’s bed for days after she told them. So Saxu’s warning had seemed like more of the same. Yes, it may have been frightening, but it was not the story of the creature that snuck into hunters’ camps and ate them piece by piece while they slept.

This creature was monstrous. In the darkness, with the electric light casting uneven shadows across the battle, I could see long talons and longer fangs, a creature that ran on four paws, yet stood to nearly twice Asahi’s height when the Dog raised his sword against it.

Sagam managed to free himself from the tangled straps of his saddle and reins. His horse righted itself, and I grabbed hold of it before it could run off. Sagam turned, bringing his blade down.

He and Asahi fought as two halves of the same person. I had been told of the Dogs’ fighting prowess, been trained in how to defend against two men who fought with one mind. But I had never before seen two Dogs actually fight together.

When Tallu and I had been attacked in the Dragon Seer’s temple, the darkness had prevented me from seeing how Sagam had defended himself. Watching the two of them, it was a wonder that the Krustavian warriors attacking us hadn’t been left in small pieces, even with their bones made of stone.

Sagam lunged, and the creature spun right into Asahi’s blade. It buried deep in the creature’s neck, so deep that he couldn’t free it, and the creature raised a claw.

I didn’t hesitate, drawing one of my throwing daggers and sending it spinning over Asahi’s head, embedding itself where the creature’s spine should be.

It roared, rearing back and arching, turning to face me. Asahi managed to pull his blade free as the creature moved, using the creature’s momentum to yank it out.

The sound of clicking and hissing echoed in my head, a chittering sound that left me frowning anxiously and looking into the darkness beyond the creature. Would a swarm of the insects be joining us on the battlefield?

Pulling my wolf’s claw free, I turned the horse and slashed downward just in time to meet the creature’s paw where it had intended to unseat me.