The Dark Glory War (49 page)

Brencis glanced at him and snorted. “Given where we’ve been, it’s likely to seep bone to stone and not the other way around, my friend.”

Even the queen liked that joke, so she laughed then clapped her hands and the feasting began. The food was not the strangest part of it, but rather having a servant whose body shifted to become the proper utensil. My servant’s right hand became a ladle to provide me soup, then made the shift to pincers to get me meat. As I ate, I saw her eyeing my food with a certain desire. Since I had guessed the urZrethi here were not eating well and getting stuck between transitions, I always left something on my plate that she might gobble down later.

As bizarre as the setting and servants were, the food was very good and very spicy. The soup, which was a rather thin broth with mushrooms, some vegetables, and a bit of other stuff I didn’t want to recognize floating in it, still tasted very rich and hot enough to make my lips throb. Leaving some of it behind for my servant was harder than I would have imagined.

Most of the other dishes came covered in brown sauces, which I considered a virtue when I couldn’t clearly identify some of the bones which came in the meat. It all tasted rather exotic and not bad at all, but I was certain I wasn’t eating chicken, pork, beef, or even mutton. Whatever it was, it tasted better than dried beef, so I wolfed it down.

The wine proved to be surprisingly good. I didn’t have Leigh’s facility for guessing vintages and ages from a single sniff, but I very much liked it. The dark wine had good body and just a tickle of berry flavor to it. It didn’t strike me as anything that had laid in casks for ten centuries, so either the urZrethi of Boragul had vineyards hidden in high mountain meadows, or they maintained some limited trade with peoples outside the mountains.

The centerpiece of the feast came later, after soup and a few preliminary dishes. From a gourmet’s point of view it might well have been a spectacular dish, but it was served in a manner that left no mystery to its origin. The main beast lay on a platter as it might lie before a hearth. Into it had been stuffed a smaller creature and into that a yet smaller creature, much in the way we might expect one to end up in the other’s stomach if swallowed whole. Most damnably of all, the dog stuffed with cat that was stuffed with a rat had been so deliciously spiced that my mouth watered even as I wanted to recoil from the table.

The queen looked at me. “It is my understanding, Tarrant Hawkins, that you are the youngest person here. To you, then, goes the honor of the choice cut.”

I coughed into my hand to cover my surprise. I glanced at Faryaah-Tse, but she only stared at me and nodded curtly once. My mind reeled. I’d never considered eating a dog before, so thinking of a dog as food was completely beyond me. And the choicest cut, what would that be? I wasn’t a butcher given to knowing what part of an animal tasted best. I didn’t know what choice to make, but I knew I had to make one, and having the image of every dog I’d ever petted flying through my mind didn’t help. I could feel their heads under my hand, see their eager eyes looking up at me. I was lost.

Faryaah-Tse’s second nod forced me to make a decision. “Queen Tzindr-Coraxoc, in Oriosa, from whence I come, there is only one tidbit that can be considered the choice cut.” I pointed to the dog’s skull. “There, the little strip of muscle on the top. I’ll only take the right side, leaving the left for someone else.”

The queen smiled slowly. “Excellent choice.”

I bowed my head to her. “Thank you.”

She tapped a finger against the table. “You will tell mewhy it is the choice cut.”

Muscles bunched at my jaws as I sought to cover my surprise and consternation. I’d been lucky once, but again?

I looked over at her and calmed myself as inspiration struck. “It is the choice cut because that is the muscle with which the dog chews, and we must chew it. It is the only cut that works on us as it works on the dog.”

The queen clapped her hands. “Splendid, splendid! Now you will all enjoy our main course.”

We all ate of it, but sparingly. It struck me as odd that they would eat dog and cat and rat but keep temeryces as pets. It would have probably struck the Boragul urZrethi as odd to know I’d eaten temeryx, and you can rest assured that temeryx, though gamier, tastes better than dog.

Once the main dish was cleared we were served a sweet wine and tarts filled with berries and nuts. These combined to wash away the last of the dog taste from my mouth and I did not leave any for my servant to finish. The wine did relax us and loosen tongues. We spun tales of our adventures, leaving the queen agog at all we had done and how far we had come.

In the perpetual twilight that was Boragul, we had no idea how much time had passed. Soon enough, though, yawns came to match laughs and we knew it was time to retire. After thanking our hostess, we followed Faryaah-Tse back to our rooms and, save for Drugi who wanted to wander around until his stomach settled down, we headed off to bed.

Seethe and I did make love that night, half blaming our ardor on the wine and the other half on the urZrethi enchantments worked into these rooms for the convenience of urZrethi females who wanted to breed. Everything came slowly that night, soft and warm and slow. There was no urgency, no sense of holding off death or doom, just the chance for the two of us to share pleasure with and in each other.

I awoke, assuming it was morning, but having no way of knowing. I pulled on my clothes and wandered out into the main chamber, finding others of our company rising and brushing sleepsand from their eyes. None of us were hung-over, which was good, and all of us agreed we’d eaten enough dog to stand us for a lifetime.

Brencis looked around and frowned. “Hawkins, did you see Drugi?”

I shook my head. “He’s not back in that room?”

“His blankets are laid out, but he did that before we left for the feast.”

Lord Norrington descended the steps from the upper sphere. “Did anyone see Drugi return last night?”

No one had.

I shivered. “I don’t like this.”

“Nor do I.” Lord Norrington regarded those of us who were awake. “We’ll need to search for him. We’ll do it under the pretext of enjoying the splendor that is Boragul. We’ll go out in pairs.”

Aren Asvaldget raised a hand. “With Drugi gone we are one shy of a final pair. I will go alone.”

“No, 111 be alone.” Lord Norrington smiled. “You work well together with Edamis. I’d rather have you together. All of you, go armed. We don’t know what’s wrong, and with any luck nothing is, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

I returned to the chamber I shared with Seethe, woke her and told her what had happened. She quickly dressed and I strapped on Tsamoc. I scabbarded a gibberer longknife on my right hip and tucked the boot dagger Nay had given me in my right boot. She belted on her sword and dagger, and we went out for our search.

The pretext Lord Norrington had given us wasn’t as thin as it might have sounded. The halls were certainly stupendous, and though I could not see much, Seethe described many things to me in exquisite detail. I heard awe in her voice at what she saw, and disgust, too, for how it had been allowed to be soiled by bats and other feral creatures.

“What they have allowed to happen here is akin to what the Aurolani have done to Vorquellyn. It is evil.”

As we moved through the hallways I took the precaution of looking around and committing to memory the nature of the turns we’d taken. In places where the dust lay thick I used my bootheel to scrape a cross. The dust also proved useful because it held tracks, and I looked for Drugi’s footprints wherever traffic had moved off the main thoroughfare.

Up some stairs and around some corners I saw some tracks that I wasn’t sure I recognized. They were not made by booted feet, and though most of the urZrethi seemed to go around unshod, their feet tended to be smaller than these. Moreover, these steps had an even gait which was highly unusual since most of the urZrethi were lame. Seethe crouched and studied them for a moment, then silently waved me on down the dark corridor into which they led.

The tracks continued for twenty yards, past several portals, then curved in toward one to the right. A big stone door blocked it and though we listened, we could hear nothing. I pantomimed knocking on the stone, but Seethe shook that idea off. Instead she had me stoop down and take hold of her legs around the knees. As I stood up again she was able to reach up and touch the keystone in the round portal.

As the stone rolled back, a musky scent I recognized very well rolled out of the room. I stumbled back and fell, Seethe landing on my chest. I coughed in spite of myself, then let her bounce off to the left. I twisted around, coming up on my knees and drew Tsamoc.

“It can’t be,” she breathed as she armed herself.

“It is, Seethe.” Bile burned my throat. “It’s all been a trap.”

The portal opened onto a massive room with muted lights playing along into its depth. Raised platforms dotted the floor, but could barely be seen for what, at first glance, appeared to be thick carpet covering everything. The problem was that the carpet moved—wriggled really—in little bits and pieces working their way up to the summit of each platform.

Mounted atop the platform were huge creatures, as fat as sows but with the size of oxen to them. The white fur on their bellies revealed a dozen red teats. The brood mothers did not move much at all, but their offspring, hundreds of puling mottled kitts, clawed and snapped at each other in their quest to feed. . “ , “Boragul, nursery to gibberkin.” Seethe shook her head. “Run, Hawkins, and hope we can run far and fast enough.

Run we did, but not far enough or fast enough. Tsamoc sang as it parried short spears, then cut up through the bellies of gibberers. One lunged at my gut, but with both hands on Tsamoc’s hilt I took the longknife around and carried it high, then shifted my grip and chopped down, hard. The blow carved a third of the gibberer’s face off, sending him reeling, trying to piece it back together.

Seethe grinned a terrible grin, her white teeth shining in a face splashed with gibberer blood. We ran from that knot of gibberers, the dead and whimpering, and sped through the corridors. Mostly we found gibberers, but occasionally urZrethi with packs of little temeryces came after us. They’d shifted themselves into what they thought warriors should be, which left them half-armored and under-armed. Faryaah-Tse would have ridiculed them if she’d seen them.

They came at us recklessly. I assume it was because they thought us beneath them. We took their sense of superiority and carved it into little bits, leaving them on the cold stone floors with their pets delicately picking at them.

We knew we were dead and we both howled at the insanity of it. Our howls matched those of the gibberers hunting us.

We called all the louder to them, challenging them, and they howled back.

Had they been men, I would have said the ferocity and daring of our attacks were what surprised them, but these beasts had little intelligence. Their surprise came when we did not shy from their snarling, when we dared attack, and from the fact that the blood of their kind drenched us.

I followed Seethe, running hard to keep her in sight. Her eyesight allowed her to see more than I could, and in some ways, I was happy I could see so little. Just the bits and pieces of her tunic flapping loose meant she’d been nicked up as badly as I had. No mortal wounds, but enough to eventually slow me down and let them catch me.

Urging me along, Seethe ran ahead, into an intersection. She twisted to the right and a gibberer lunged with a spear and stuck her through the chest, high on the flank. I heard her scream and saw the spear-point poke through her tunic at her back. He hoisted her up, her legs kicking, her arms flailing, and shook the spear to harvest more screams from her.

In a heartbeat I was on her attacker. Tsamoc slashed down, cutting through the spear. I hit the gibberer with my right shoulder, knocking him back and down.

I spun around to the left and brought Tsamoc up, sliding the blade beneath another spear—this one meant to catchme. I slashed a gibberer across the belly, then parried another spear wide to my left. Dodging right I let that gibberer dash past me, then I whipped my blade around in a flat arc. The sword sang as it excised a bowl-like hunk from the back of his skull.

A slash caught me across the back of my left leg, but scored nothing more than flesh. I continued my spin and hacked Tsamoc down. I caught the gibberer between shoulder and neck, cutting enough to free a geyser of blood. He collapsed and I turned, slashing high right to low left. The blow caught the first gibberer, the one who speared Seethe, cutting off his hands and slicing through his neck. It would have opened him from shoulder to hip, had he not been on his knees mewing for mercy.

I ran to where Seethe had dragged herself against the wall.

She’d left a smear of blood behind her and the broken spear-shaft still quivered with each breath. A glistening blackness welled up around it. I reached out to press my hands against the wound, to do something, but her hands closed on mine.

“Go, Tarrant, go. Leave me.”

“I can’t leave you.”

Her chest heaved heavily with each labored breath. “You can’t carry me. I can’t run. Go. Go!”

Tears blurred her image, softening it. “I can’t go. I love you.”

She laughed and, if not for the pain tingeing it, I’d have thought it beautiful. “Dear Tarrant. You must go. If you love me, grant me this.” She coughed lightly and blood flecked her lips. “Let me die knowing you are free.”

“Seethe, I can’t leave you.”

“You must.” She reached up and stroked my cheek. Her thumb brushed away a tear. “Go, Tarrant. Find help for me, yes?”

I nodded. “Don’t die on me. I’ll be back for you.”

“I know you will.” She kicked weakly at me. “Hurry, Tarrant. Find the others. And come back.”

I picked Tsamoc up and stood, then turned away because I did not want to see her die. I looked around and recognized nothing, so I picked a direction and started off. I made myself run hard and strong, so she could see that I was going to get help. It didn’t matter that we both knew help would never arrive in time. I just wanted her to die with hope, and to comfort myself knowing I’d supplied it.