Phoenix Unbound (Page 31)
The poultice Halani had applied to his ribs was meant only for the bruising yet went deeper than skin and sore muscle. He swore he had felt the bones knit themselves together. And Gilene was right. He should still be in agony with every breath he took. Riding would be a torture and sleeping on his back an impossibility. Yet he had done all three now with only a twinge to remind him of his injuries.
“I know little of healers and their ways,” he said. “But the trader woman knows what she’s doing. Should Hamod decide to stop robbing graves and whatever else he does to obtain his goods, he could sell Halani’s salves to keep them fed.”
Silence fell between them again, and Azarion turned his attention back to watching the steppe and listening for the sound of hoofbeats. For now, there was only the whisper of grass bent to the wind, and the lively buzzing of insects interrupted by the occasional birdcall.
“Tell me something,” she said. “The empress is known throughout the Empire for her cruelties, but you were a valuable slave. Hanimus said you were her favorite, so why inflict such punishment on you?”
Gilene’s unexpected question, asked in a voice soft with compassion, made his gut twist.
Over the years, Dalvila had done far more to Azarion than just beat him. His mind shied away from the worst memories, the worst degradations. The carnage in the Pit, with its blood-lusting crowds screaming endlessly for more slaughter, was gentle play compared to the brutality of the woman all of the Empire feared. The last six years of his captivity had been the most trying, and that horror he would lay at the empress’s dainty feet. The only thing that had stopped him from killing her long ago was his absolute resolve in regaining his freedom. To kill her was to die himself, and he wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.
“The empress,” he said slowly without looking away from the sunlit steppe, “enjoys pain. Sometimes of those she beds and sometimes her own. But most of all she enjoys humiliation, risk, death, blood.”
He glanced at Gilene. The burial chamber was too dim to make out subtleties in expression, but Azarion thought he spotted the brief flicker of sympathy—of knowing—in her eyes.
“Not so different from her subjects then.”
He snorted, amused by her wry remark. As a surviving Flower of Spring, she’d certainly see it that way. “No, I suppose not.”
“You must hate her.”
Somehow, that seemed too mild a word for what he felt for the empress. “I do.”
“I hate them all. Were the Krael Empire wiped off the face of the world, I wouldn’t weep.”
He didn’t blame her. As the day waned, Gilene slumped sideways, eyes closed, lips partially opened to emit a soft snore.
Azarion watched her for a moment, noting her smooth skin, the curve of her cheekbone, and the shape of her mouth. Her features, softened in sleep, lost the pinched sourness stamped there when she was awake. She was long legged and slim, with forgettable curves and memorable scars. And a will the Empire had not yet broken and likely never would.
He left her in the barrow to check the horses and survey the necropolis. So far, he’d heard nothing beyond the natural music of the steppe, but he had caught a faint whiff of smoke. It was too wet and too early in the season for a grass fire, so that meant a campfire. If the Nunari drew no closer, he’d have to decide whether they should leave the barrow at nightfall and chance being spotted or heard, or stay one more day and risk losing the distance they’d gained earlier. Neither option pleased him.
The agacin was still asleep when he returned to sentry duty at the door, and he took a moment to ease her to her side and drape one of her shawls over her back. The sun beating down on the grave’s threshold and several hours of no sleep made Azarion drowsy. He occupied himself with recollections of his home and family: horse herds stretched as far as the eye could see, and Savatar women, dressed in their long tunics and flared trousers, dancing to the music of flute and mouth harp. He was so close to the Sky Below now, he could almost taste it on his tongue.
At nightfall, the gathering vibration of hoofbeats rose up in the earth to tickle his feet through his shoes. The vibration was soon joined by the sound of those hoofbeats and the distant pitch of voices.
Gilene jerked upright when Azarion shook her shoulder. He pressed a finger to her lips. The whites of her eyes shone in the dark like sickle moons. “Shh,” he whispered. “Get up. They’re coming.”
She scrambled to her feet, snatching up her shawl to toss it against the adjacent wall where the rest of their gear was hidden from view. Azarion guided her to the opposite side and tucked her behind him. To see them, their visitors would have to enter the grave instead of crouch at the threshold.
The voices grew louder, along with the hoofbeats of horses. Azarion eased the longer knife he carried out of its sheath and waited.
While he couldn’t see the riders from his hiding place inside the barrow, he could make out the various tones of their voices and counted three different ones. There might have been more who didn’t speak, but if his questionable fortunes held, then he’d have to deal only with a trio of Nunari.
The voices changed, rising in pitch with their excitement when they discovered the two mares ground-tied between the barrows before falling ominously silent. The Nunari were on the hunt.
Azarion imagined the scene: a slow, careful dismount from their horses and silent hand signals communicating instructions and commands. Were he coordinating the hunt, he’d have at least one man outside, bow drawn and arrow nocked, in case his quarry barreled out of the grave ready to fight.
He and Gilene waited in the darkness, hardly breathing as the Nunari systematically visited each barrow, saving the one they sheltered in for last. Azarion took the time given to push Gilene a little farther away from him to allow him room to move. All his senses centered on the sounds outside—a carefully placed footfall, the nicker of a horse, the scrape of cloth on cloth as those who hunted for them stepped closer to the barrow’s entrance.
The first man to enter approached from the side that wouldn’t cast his shadow in relief on the stacked stones of the inset doorway. Azarion sensed his presence by the sudden pungent odor of sweat and wild onions that seeped into the barrow. He lingered at the threshold, close enough to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, far enough back to leap out of reach if someone or something tried to grab him and drag him inside.
A small, lit torch soon hurtled into the barrow’s center from the doorway. It rolled once before coming to a stop, its flames large enough to reveal the lower levels of the burial platforms and the arched expanse of the opposite three walls. In their hiding spot next to the door, Gilene went up on her toes in an attempt to keep her feet out of the illumination that edged the space where she stood behind Azarion.
The scout crept across the threshold, sword drawn. Torchlight bounced off the blade, giving Azarion a good view of the weapon he carried. The man was past the threshold and turning right, away from them, when Azarion snatched him by the back of his tunic, yanked him into the shadows, and cut his throat in one clean swipe.
He held the twitching body as blood bubbled up from the open gash to spill down the man’s chest. A few gurgling gasps and he slumped in Azarion’s arms.
Azarion slid him gently to the ground and eased the Nunari’s small shield off his arm. More a buckler than an aspis, the shield didn’t offer much protection from arrows but worked well in conjunction with a sword. He sheathed his knife and retrieved his victim’s sword where it had fallen in the dirt with a dull thud.