K M Frontain, page 33
“I’m not touching her!” Gamis hissed back in disgust. “She stinks!”
Wilf paused in the process of shutting the door, noting the wide open window and the large branch waving outside it. He stared at it suspiciously. He didn’t like that branch. Better to have the door open. If there were trouble, he’d hear it.
“I’m leaving the door open,” he whispered to Gamis.
“Good. It’ll let the air in. Bloody hot in here,” the boy grumbled.
“And stinky!”
Shaking his head in exasperation, Wilf left the room. In Kehfrey’s chamber, Vik slept soundly. The window was wide, but there wasn’t a branch to be seen outside. Still, Wilf didn’t like it. Once again, he decided to leave the door open, though Vik stretched naked over the bed. For propriety, Wilf stepped in to cover him, but when his foot squished on the rug, he paused. A second tentative step met with the same moist sound. An empty tub sat on the floor, hinting from where all the moisture had originated.
“Gods busted Kehfrey,” Wilf muttered.
“Hi, now! What are you doing?” Vik said, sitting up.
“Coming to cover you. I was leaving the door open because of the window so I could hear if there was trouble.”
“They’ve gone already!” Vik said in surprise.
“Kehfrey was right. You sleep like an axed cow.”
“Oh, get off!” Vik slid out of the bed, went to the window and shut it with a bang.
“What the hells did you both do in here?” Wilf said.
“There was a storm in the room,” Vik responded testily. He flopped back on the bed, sprawling over it carelessly. “Shut the gods busted door!”
“You’ll boil.”
“I’ll boil naked! In privacy!”
“You’re on watch later,” Wilf warned him.
“Fine! By then I shall have finished cooking.”
281
Grinning, Wilf shut the door. Vik. He never woke up pleasant.
The elder brother recoiled as he turned. Nicky had been watching from behind and her regard was keen with interest. “He’s very beautiful,”
she confessed her admiration.
Wilf frowned, realizing Vik, damn him, had seen her and made no effort whatsoever to hide his exposure. “He’s not your type.”
“He is, but unfortunately I’m not his type.” With a wise smile, she scrutinized Wilf’s handsome, scowling face. “What’s the matter, Wilf?
I’m not allowed to look? I bet you look all the time. I bet you know exactly what to look for, rich or poor.”
The bitch! Wilf turned away and headed toward his room. He heard her follow him.
“Are you planning to leave your door open, then?” she asked.
“Yes!” he snapped.
“Good. It’ll let a breeze in.”
He turned about to give her a set down. Not a word left his mouth.
She’d already stripped the tunic off of her torso. She walked past, dragging the garment behind, the smooth skin of her back just too much of an invitation to resist. A motion in the hallway attracted his attention.
The servant he’d set to guard this floor stared at him. The man had come several feet closer. Slowly, Wilf backed until he was inside his room. By the time he turned about, Nicky stood naked in front of the bed.
“He’ll come and watch,” Wilf said hotly.
“So?” She bent over the bed and crept on it. His eyes on her beautiful curved bottom, Wilf worried about the servant no further.
***
“They did just have to go up a cliff,” Kehfrey said deprecatingly.
“I let them get too far ahead,” Marun berated himself. One of his hunters, the one missing an arm and part of a face, had broken its back falling off the sheer face. It was useless now. Fortunately, he’d arrived in time to call the rest back down. They stood with their dead faces pointed toward him, waiting with gruesome, blank-eyed patience.
282
“Better drop that one,” the boy said. Fascinated, he watched the false life vanish from the twisted body.
Marun turned toward Kehfen. The thief directed his mount on his own now. “This path? Does it head toward Kortin’s villa eventually?” the sorcerer asked him.
“I’m not sure. These little tracks are for farmers and grape pickers.
I’ve only gone up using the main road.”
“We’ll have the ghouls follow it up anyway. Once we get past this cliff, we will see which way they head.”
“Why bother with them?” Kehfen said with evident disgust. “If you think Rook is being hid by Kortin, let’s just go without them.”
“Do you want to be the one to break into Kortin’s villa?” Marun asked.
Kehfen scowled and shook his head. Better to let the dead go first.
They were, at least, already dead.
“They’ll scare Kortin’s heavies off, Pop!” his little boy said brightly.
“Come on. It’s not that bad. They’re already dead!”
Just what he’d been thinking. His boy was correct. Still, he didn’t like it. Ofmen had been left behind at the lake, but Mur was still with them.
Looking at his animated corpse, Kehfen shuddered in revulsion. He caught a sinister smile forming on Marun’s face and turned away from the man’s knowing stare. The sorcerer ordered the four remaining ghouls up the small path.
“Why didn’t you just use Nicky’s elven path before now?” Kehfrey asked him.
“Humans can’t walk elven paths.”
“Why not?”
“The paths are odd. Human eyes can’t seem to see them properly.
There is a tendency to forget one’s purpose and get lost while in them.”
“Oh,” the boy said in disappointment. He’d been hoping to go with Nicky into one.
“You should have sent the woman to assassinate Kortin,” Olomo said contemptuously.
283
“She’s not an assassin,” Marun retorted. “At best she is a middling good thief because of these paths, also a useful messenger. Other than that, only her seeress powers interest me.”
“And her skills as a hostess,” Kehfen reminded with a cynical voice.
Marun looked back at him. Kehfen’s expression suggested the man was thinking of something other than hostess duties. “Yes, there is that,”
Marun said dryly. He smiled faintly as he turned away. No doubt Nicky would give Kehfen a turn when she tired of Wilf. It looked as if Kehfen was hoping she would.
They followed the ghouls for a further half hour, passing by field after field of night blackened grape vines, the smell of death and sweet rotting fruit in their nostrils. The violent storm of yesterday had sundered cluster from vine, breaking the skins and spilling the aroma of grape into the air. But the reek of the ghouls put a foulness on every scent they breathed.
The path crested the top of the cliff, coming out on a low rising plateau where the night breeze blew the heavy smell of decaying corpse and decomposing fruit away from them. Another trail crossed theirs just above. The undead ignored it and turned into a plot of carefully staked vines. They thrust the vegetation aside, snapping the curling foliage and pressing through.
“I know where we are,” Olomo said. “If we take this path here, it’ll turn about and head straight for the back of Kortin’s villa. We are no more than minutes away.”
Marun called the ghouls back and set them on the indicated path. He was pleased with the turn of events. The ghouls had not led them into the city. That alone saved him trouble. The hunting party hadn’t met a soul during the countryside foray. He wouldn’t have to deal with angered city officials on the morrow, and it wasn’t likely there would be open reprisals against him by the nobility. An attack by the undead upon one paltry wine producer would raise an outcry within the ruling council of Wistal, certainly, but it wouldn’t unify the members against him, especially not without proof he was responsible.
Publicly, Kortin was a respected landowner with no connection to his half-brother, the Minister of the Port. Lord Avehlt would have to act on his own to avenge this assault, if he dared. Marun suspected he wouldn’t.
Without Kortin, without Lolte, Avehlt would have to work through greedy underlings, many of them wanting to grab power while they could 284
and possibly not willing to work under the minister as a minor figure.
After tonight, the Syndicate might be broken beyond repair, unless Avehlt was wise and collaborated.
Even so, once Kortin was taken care of, a key position in the criminal ring would be vacant. Marun had considered his options since yesterday and come up with an ideal solution. Kehfen knew how things worked.
He had shown, when he’d come to fetch Kehfrey, he could be
sufficiently vicious to hold the position of head thief. The man loved his children enough to cooperate for their sakes. Kehfen would be a perfect replacement for Kortin.
Just at that moment, Marun heard the man whisper to Olomo. “Do you think Hiswil will be with him?”
“It is possible,” Olomo answered.
“That son of a bitch.”
“He may not have known,” Olomo pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter! I have to kill the bastard now. Kehfrey took his cussed money.”
“Crud, Pop! I said I was going to give it back!” the child hissed.
“Quiet! All of you!” Marun snarled. This family! Why did he put up with them?
The child squirming between his legs was answer enough, but he did wish he’d stop doing that. It was becoming too distracting.
“Stop the horse!” Kehfrey whispered.
“Why?”
“I drank a gallon of water before leaving! I can’t hold it anymore!”
Marun shut his eyes in exasperation. He pulled the horse to a halt and helped the boy slip down. Dancing on his feet, Kehfrey hauled his tunic up and lowered his breeches. He didn’t take the time to run to the side of the path. He didn’t have time to spare.
“You should have said earlier,” Marun remarked dryly.
“I didn’t need to go earlier.”
“You are a nuisance, Kehfrey.”
Kehfrey glanced up worriedly, but his master looked down at him with an amused expression on his face.
285
“Are you almost done?” Kehfen snapped. “We’re losing sight of them!”
“We can catch up quickly enough,” Marun said with equanimity. The ghouls weren’t rushing. Ghouls hardly ever rushed unless you made them want to, or if they were close to prey.
Kehfrey had stopped dancing and was now sighing in utter relief. “I swear I got a bull sized bladder full of piss in there,” he grumbled. “Look!
It’s still coming out!”
“Kehfrey!” his father snarled.
“Well, it is.”
“We can hear it!”
“Right. I’ll try to make it quieter.”
“Kehfrey! Just finish!”
“Are you in a rush now, Pop?”
“I’m going to kill that brat!”
“Not before I do,” Marun interjected, and that basically meant never.
“Force it out and get up here!”
Grinning, Kehfrey hauled his breeches back in order and grabbed Marun’s hand. Marun sighed in annoyance. The boy’s hand was damp.
“Sorry,” Kehfrey said sheepishly. Shaking his head, Marun settled the gamin in front and kicked the horse forward. The boy belatedly wiped his palm on his tunic front. Marun wiped his there as well. All the moisture might as well go on the same cloth.
They caught up to the ghouls in time to see them approaching a shut gate. Marun sent the barrier flying open with words of power. The instant he did this, Kehfrey squealed and clapped his hands over his ears, but the ghouls trundled through the opening without pausing.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kehfen said anxiously, kicking his mount in line with them.
“He suffers from a strange reaction to magical chants,” Marun told him.
“He does? Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
286
Still with his hands over his ears, Kehfrey stared forward fixedly.
Kehfen reached over and pulled one arm away. “Kehfrey?”
“What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you keep your hands over your ears, then?” Marun asked.
“I was trying to follow the echoes,” the child answered.
“Echoes?” Kehfen said in confusion.
“Did you manage to do so?” Marun questioned.
“No. They faded away. I wonder why?”
“Echoes generally do,” the sorcerer responded. Echoes. The boy had said yesterday the words rang in his head. This phenomenon must be the same thing.
Ahead of them, the ghouls turned a corner in the path, disappearing around a rose-covered trellis. Terrified screams ripped the still night.
“Here we are, then,” Kehfen remarked.
As one, they quickened the paces of their mounts. They charged around the corner in time to see a man fleeing while also desperately hauling up his trousers. A woman, still screeching high and shrill, lay curled beneath a bush. Her bodice was unlaced and her legs visible beneath hiked skirts. The ghouls had already passed her. They moved more quickly now. Their prey was near, but the woman, who wasn’t their intended victim, continued to shriek. Irritated, Marun sent her consciousness flying with an assault of shadows. The screaming cut off abruptly.
“Saw her a few weeks ago,” he muttered tetchily. “Bloody annoying woman. Screamed constantly.”
“She’s one of them you kidnapped, then?” the child said.
“Yes.”
“What did you do to her?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“They say all of them wake up with nightmares,” the child continued.
“They would,” his master responded flatly. Yes, they would.
287
The fleeing man had reached the villa. Shouts could be heard. They crested a small hill and there it lay, sprawling downward on a gentle slope, a well-built villa that climbed the hill like stairs, one story high in every section. Marun pulled his horse up. His companions followed his example. The ghouls were not twenty feet from a back door. Men had come out to see what the fleeing cohort shouted about. They spied the abominations rushing toward them and ran back in. One of them was short, bald and sporting a large, well-formed moustache.
“Well, there goes Hiswil,” Kehfen said as the door slammed shut.
Marun watched his hungry hunters thump against the heavy wood.
They wailed and screeched, the anger in their cries not the least human.
“Block your ears, Kehfrey,” he commanded. The moment the boy had his arms up, he began the words to send the door crashing inward.
288
Chapter Nine
Despite having his hands over his ears, the words rang violently inside Kehfrey’s head. He rocked with agony as the echoes boomed louder and louder, this time not fading at all. The horse pranced in excitement and Marun’s arms tightened around him reflexively. The instant the beast had settled, Marun’s cold hands came up and cradled Kehfrey’s aching head. The boy saw green, a beautiful wash of soothing light, and the horrible pounding diminished, replaced by the sound of his beating heart. For a short moment, he sensed Marun’s heart thundering rhythmically and deep beneath it, somewhere mysterious, a pulse of pure power that kept time with him. There was a split second where Kehfrey felt it calling him down, and he thought, as he edged further toward it, he could hear those horrible echoes again. Just before he tipped over the peculiar precipice, Marun snatched him from the brink.
“Kehfrey!” he snapped.
The child jerked in his arms. His little body straightened. “I know where the echoes went,” he whispered hoarsely.
“I know. Stay with me. You aren’t ready for that.”
“What was it?”
“The source of power. I can keep your head from aching, but you must stay close. We dismount now.”
The man descended and the air felt so cool on Kehfrey’s hot back he shut his eyes, welcoming the freshness of the night air. He drifted again.
The power still called. So alluring. So dark and deep. He thought something sparkled in the pit of shadows, something brilliant and sharp.
Like teeth.
“Kehfrey!”
He looked down at Marun.
“Stay out of it!” the sorcerer snapped at him.
“Why is it calling me?”
“Because it can. Because you hear it. Refuse to listen! It must never be given all it wants.”
“Why not?”
“We have no time for this now!” Marun snatched him off the horse and set him down. He kept a hand on him to be certain of his balance.
“Your father and Olomo have already gone in. Let’s go!” He pulled the boy through the shattered doorway.
Kehfrey noticed the damage for the first time. Marun had not only opened the door, he had blown the entire frame inward. An unconscious man lay beneath the wood. The victim shifted and groaned as they swept past. Blood, lots of it, seeped down beneath the door.
Further within the villa, screams filtered through to them. A lamenting woman burst out of a door and ran toward them. Marun pressed himself to the side of the hall, squashing Kehfrey to the rear of him. She fled by without stopping.
“Hi, now! I can’t breathe!” Kehfrey protested.
“She would have run you down,” Marun said testily.
“Well at least I might have seen something nice as she passed over,”
the child retorted smartly.
Marun scowled. “You are an unnatural child, Kehfrey.” He towed the boy down the hall toward the screams and shouts.
“Vik just said the same thing earlier,” the gamin told him.
“Vik is very observant.”
Another woman came running toward them, this one with a child in her arms and two trailing behind. Marun shoved the boy aside a second time. Silently, they watched the group flee past. They were about to step into the centre again when a short man crashed through an open door and hit the wall just ahead of them. He sank to the floor, burbling red-flecked spit out of his mouth. A large gash in his throat poured the lifeblood out of him.
Wilf paused in the process of shutting the door, noting the wide open window and the large branch waving outside it. He stared at it suspiciously. He didn’t like that branch. Better to have the door open. If there were trouble, he’d hear it.
“I’m leaving the door open,” he whispered to Gamis.
“Good. It’ll let the air in. Bloody hot in here,” the boy grumbled.
“And stinky!”
Shaking his head in exasperation, Wilf left the room. In Kehfrey’s chamber, Vik slept soundly. The window was wide, but there wasn’t a branch to be seen outside. Still, Wilf didn’t like it. Once again, he decided to leave the door open, though Vik stretched naked over the bed. For propriety, Wilf stepped in to cover him, but when his foot squished on the rug, he paused. A second tentative step met with the same moist sound. An empty tub sat on the floor, hinting from where all the moisture had originated.
“Gods busted Kehfrey,” Wilf muttered.
“Hi, now! What are you doing?” Vik said, sitting up.
“Coming to cover you. I was leaving the door open because of the window so I could hear if there was trouble.”
“They’ve gone already!” Vik said in surprise.
“Kehfrey was right. You sleep like an axed cow.”
“Oh, get off!” Vik slid out of the bed, went to the window and shut it with a bang.
“What the hells did you both do in here?” Wilf said.
“There was a storm in the room,” Vik responded testily. He flopped back on the bed, sprawling over it carelessly. “Shut the gods busted door!”
“You’ll boil.”
“I’ll boil naked! In privacy!”
“You’re on watch later,” Wilf warned him.
“Fine! By then I shall have finished cooking.”
281
Grinning, Wilf shut the door. Vik. He never woke up pleasant.
The elder brother recoiled as he turned. Nicky had been watching from behind and her regard was keen with interest. “He’s very beautiful,”
she confessed her admiration.
Wilf frowned, realizing Vik, damn him, had seen her and made no effort whatsoever to hide his exposure. “He’s not your type.”
“He is, but unfortunately I’m not his type.” With a wise smile, she scrutinized Wilf’s handsome, scowling face. “What’s the matter, Wilf?
I’m not allowed to look? I bet you look all the time. I bet you know exactly what to look for, rich or poor.”
The bitch! Wilf turned away and headed toward his room. He heard her follow him.
“Are you planning to leave your door open, then?” she asked.
“Yes!” he snapped.
“Good. It’ll let a breeze in.”
He turned about to give her a set down. Not a word left his mouth.
She’d already stripped the tunic off of her torso. She walked past, dragging the garment behind, the smooth skin of her back just too much of an invitation to resist. A motion in the hallway attracted his attention.
The servant he’d set to guard this floor stared at him. The man had come several feet closer. Slowly, Wilf backed until he was inside his room. By the time he turned about, Nicky stood naked in front of the bed.
“He’ll come and watch,” Wilf said hotly.
“So?” She bent over the bed and crept on it. His eyes on her beautiful curved bottom, Wilf worried about the servant no further.
***
“They did just have to go up a cliff,” Kehfrey said deprecatingly.
“I let them get too far ahead,” Marun berated himself. One of his hunters, the one missing an arm and part of a face, had broken its back falling off the sheer face. It was useless now. Fortunately, he’d arrived in time to call the rest back down. They stood with their dead faces pointed toward him, waiting with gruesome, blank-eyed patience.
282
“Better drop that one,” the boy said. Fascinated, he watched the false life vanish from the twisted body.
Marun turned toward Kehfen. The thief directed his mount on his own now. “This path? Does it head toward Kortin’s villa eventually?” the sorcerer asked him.
“I’m not sure. These little tracks are for farmers and grape pickers.
I’ve only gone up using the main road.”
“We’ll have the ghouls follow it up anyway. Once we get past this cliff, we will see which way they head.”
“Why bother with them?” Kehfen said with evident disgust. “If you think Rook is being hid by Kortin, let’s just go without them.”
“Do you want to be the one to break into Kortin’s villa?” Marun asked.
Kehfen scowled and shook his head. Better to let the dead go first.
They were, at least, already dead.
“They’ll scare Kortin’s heavies off, Pop!” his little boy said brightly.
“Come on. It’s not that bad. They’re already dead!”
Just what he’d been thinking. His boy was correct. Still, he didn’t like it. Ofmen had been left behind at the lake, but Mur was still with them.
Looking at his animated corpse, Kehfen shuddered in revulsion. He caught a sinister smile forming on Marun’s face and turned away from the man’s knowing stare. The sorcerer ordered the four remaining ghouls up the small path.
“Why didn’t you just use Nicky’s elven path before now?” Kehfrey asked him.
“Humans can’t walk elven paths.”
“Why not?”
“The paths are odd. Human eyes can’t seem to see them properly.
There is a tendency to forget one’s purpose and get lost while in them.”
“Oh,” the boy said in disappointment. He’d been hoping to go with Nicky into one.
“You should have sent the woman to assassinate Kortin,” Olomo said contemptuously.
283
“She’s not an assassin,” Marun retorted. “At best she is a middling good thief because of these paths, also a useful messenger. Other than that, only her seeress powers interest me.”
“And her skills as a hostess,” Kehfen reminded with a cynical voice.
Marun looked back at him. Kehfen’s expression suggested the man was thinking of something other than hostess duties. “Yes, there is that,”
Marun said dryly. He smiled faintly as he turned away. No doubt Nicky would give Kehfen a turn when she tired of Wilf. It looked as if Kehfen was hoping she would.
They followed the ghouls for a further half hour, passing by field after field of night blackened grape vines, the smell of death and sweet rotting fruit in their nostrils. The violent storm of yesterday had sundered cluster from vine, breaking the skins and spilling the aroma of grape into the air. But the reek of the ghouls put a foulness on every scent they breathed.
The path crested the top of the cliff, coming out on a low rising plateau where the night breeze blew the heavy smell of decaying corpse and decomposing fruit away from them. Another trail crossed theirs just above. The undead ignored it and turned into a plot of carefully staked vines. They thrust the vegetation aside, snapping the curling foliage and pressing through.
“I know where we are,” Olomo said. “If we take this path here, it’ll turn about and head straight for the back of Kortin’s villa. We are no more than minutes away.”
Marun called the ghouls back and set them on the indicated path. He was pleased with the turn of events. The ghouls had not led them into the city. That alone saved him trouble. The hunting party hadn’t met a soul during the countryside foray. He wouldn’t have to deal with angered city officials on the morrow, and it wasn’t likely there would be open reprisals against him by the nobility. An attack by the undead upon one paltry wine producer would raise an outcry within the ruling council of Wistal, certainly, but it wouldn’t unify the members against him, especially not without proof he was responsible.
Publicly, Kortin was a respected landowner with no connection to his half-brother, the Minister of the Port. Lord Avehlt would have to act on his own to avenge this assault, if he dared. Marun suspected he wouldn’t.
Without Kortin, without Lolte, Avehlt would have to work through greedy underlings, many of them wanting to grab power while they could 284
and possibly not willing to work under the minister as a minor figure.
After tonight, the Syndicate might be broken beyond repair, unless Avehlt was wise and collaborated.
Even so, once Kortin was taken care of, a key position in the criminal ring would be vacant. Marun had considered his options since yesterday and come up with an ideal solution. Kehfen knew how things worked.
He had shown, when he’d come to fetch Kehfrey, he could be
sufficiently vicious to hold the position of head thief. The man loved his children enough to cooperate for their sakes. Kehfen would be a perfect replacement for Kortin.
Just at that moment, Marun heard the man whisper to Olomo. “Do you think Hiswil will be with him?”
“It is possible,” Olomo answered.
“That son of a bitch.”
“He may not have known,” Olomo pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter! I have to kill the bastard now. Kehfrey took his cussed money.”
“Crud, Pop! I said I was going to give it back!” the child hissed.
“Quiet! All of you!” Marun snarled. This family! Why did he put up with them?
The child squirming between his legs was answer enough, but he did wish he’d stop doing that. It was becoming too distracting.
“Stop the horse!” Kehfrey whispered.
“Why?”
“I drank a gallon of water before leaving! I can’t hold it anymore!”
Marun shut his eyes in exasperation. He pulled the horse to a halt and helped the boy slip down. Dancing on his feet, Kehfrey hauled his tunic up and lowered his breeches. He didn’t take the time to run to the side of the path. He didn’t have time to spare.
“You should have said earlier,” Marun remarked dryly.
“I didn’t need to go earlier.”
“You are a nuisance, Kehfrey.”
Kehfrey glanced up worriedly, but his master looked down at him with an amused expression on his face.
285
“Are you almost done?” Kehfen snapped. “We’re losing sight of them!”
“We can catch up quickly enough,” Marun said with equanimity. The ghouls weren’t rushing. Ghouls hardly ever rushed unless you made them want to, or if they were close to prey.
Kehfrey had stopped dancing and was now sighing in utter relief. “I swear I got a bull sized bladder full of piss in there,” he grumbled. “Look!
It’s still coming out!”
“Kehfrey!” his father snarled.
“Well, it is.”
“We can hear it!”
“Right. I’ll try to make it quieter.”
“Kehfrey! Just finish!”
“Are you in a rush now, Pop?”
“I’m going to kill that brat!”
“Not before I do,” Marun interjected, and that basically meant never.
“Force it out and get up here!”
Grinning, Kehfrey hauled his breeches back in order and grabbed Marun’s hand. Marun sighed in annoyance. The boy’s hand was damp.
“Sorry,” Kehfrey said sheepishly. Shaking his head, Marun settled the gamin in front and kicked the horse forward. The boy belatedly wiped his palm on his tunic front. Marun wiped his there as well. All the moisture might as well go on the same cloth.
They caught up to the ghouls in time to see them approaching a shut gate. Marun sent the barrier flying open with words of power. The instant he did this, Kehfrey squealed and clapped his hands over his ears, but the ghouls trundled through the opening without pausing.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kehfen said anxiously, kicking his mount in line with them.
“He suffers from a strange reaction to magical chants,” Marun told him.
“He does? Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
286
Still with his hands over his ears, Kehfrey stared forward fixedly.
Kehfen reached over and pulled one arm away. “Kehfrey?”
“What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you keep your hands over your ears, then?” Marun asked.
“I was trying to follow the echoes,” the child answered.
“Echoes?” Kehfen said in confusion.
“Did you manage to do so?” Marun questioned.
“No. They faded away. I wonder why?”
“Echoes generally do,” the sorcerer responded. Echoes. The boy had said yesterday the words rang in his head. This phenomenon must be the same thing.
Ahead of them, the ghouls turned a corner in the path, disappearing around a rose-covered trellis. Terrified screams ripped the still night.
“Here we are, then,” Kehfen remarked.
As one, they quickened the paces of their mounts. They charged around the corner in time to see a man fleeing while also desperately hauling up his trousers. A woman, still screeching high and shrill, lay curled beneath a bush. Her bodice was unlaced and her legs visible beneath hiked skirts. The ghouls had already passed her. They moved more quickly now. Their prey was near, but the woman, who wasn’t their intended victim, continued to shriek. Irritated, Marun sent her consciousness flying with an assault of shadows. The screaming cut off abruptly.
“Saw her a few weeks ago,” he muttered tetchily. “Bloody annoying woman. Screamed constantly.”
“She’s one of them you kidnapped, then?” the child said.
“Yes.”
“What did you do to her?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“They say all of them wake up with nightmares,” the child continued.
“They would,” his master responded flatly. Yes, they would.
287
The fleeing man had reached the villa. Shouts could be heard. They crested a small hill and there it lay, sprawling downward on a gentle slope, a well-built villa that climbed the hill like stairs, one story high in every section. Marun pulled his horse up. His companions followed his example. The ghouls were not twenty feet from a back door. Men had come out to see what the fleeing cohort shouted about. They spied the abominations rushing toward them and ran back in. One of them was short, bald and sporting a large, well-formed moustache.
“Well, there goes Hiswil,” Kehfen said as the door slammed shut.
Marun watched his hungry hunters thump against the heavy wood.
They wailed and screeched, the anger in their cries not the least human.
“Block your ears, Kehfrey,” he commanded. The moment the boy had his arms up, he began the words to send the door crashing inward.
288
Chapter Nine
Despite having his hands over his ears, the words rang violently inside Kehfrey’s head. He rocked with agony as the echoes boomed louder and louder, this time not fading at all. The horse pranced in excitement and Marun’s arms tightened around him reflexively. The instant the beast had settled, Marun’s cold hands came up and cradled Kehfrey’s aching head. The boy saw green, a beautiful wash of soothing light, and the horrible pounding diminished, replaced by the sound of his beating heart. For a short moment, he sensed Marun’s heart thundering rhythmically and deep beneath it, somewhere mysterious, a pulse of pure power that kept time with him. There was a split second where Kehfrey felt it calling him down, and he thought, as he edged further toward it, he could hear those horrible echoes again. Just before he tipped over the peculiar precipice, Marun snatched him from the brink.
“Kehfrey!” he snapped.
The child jerked in his arms. His little body straightened. “I know where the echoes went,” he whispered hoarsely.
“I know. Stay with me. You aren’t ready for that.”
“What was it?”
“The source of power. I can keep your head from aching, but you must stay close. We dismount now.”
The man descended and the air felt so cool on Kehfrey’s hot back he shut his eyes, welcoming the freshness of the night air. He drifted again.
The power still called. So alluring. So dark and deep. He thought something sparkled in the pit of shadows, something brilliant and sharp.
Like teeth.
“Kehfrey!”
He looked down at Marun.
“Stay out of it!” the sorcerer snapped at him.
“Why is it calling me?”
“Because it can. Because you hear it. Refuse to listen! It must never be given all it wants.”
“Why not?”
“We have no time for this now!” Marun snatched him off the horse and set him down. He kept a hand on him to be certain of his balance.
“Your father and Olomo have already gone in. Let’s go!” He pulled the boy through the shattered doorway.
Kehfrey noticed the damage for the first time. Marun had not only opened the door, he had blown the entire frame inward. An unconscious man lay beneath the wood. The victim shifted and groaned as they swept past. Blood, lots of it, seeped down beneath the door.
Further within the villa, screams filtered through to them. A lamenting woman burst out of a door and ran toward them. Marun pressed himself to the side of the hall, squashing Kehfrey to the rear of him. She fled by without stopping.
“Hi, now! I can’t breathe!” Kehfrey protested.
“She would have run you down,” Marun said testily.
“Well at least I might have seen something nice as she passed over,”
the child retorted smartly.
Marun scowled. “You are an unnatural child, Kehfrey.” He towed the boy down the hall toward the screams and shouts.
“Vik just said the same thing earlier,” the gamin told him.
“Vik is very observant.”
Another woman came running toward them, this one with a child in her arms and two trailing behind. Marun shoved the boy aside a second time. Silently, they watched the group flee past. They were about to step into the centre again when a short man crashed through an open door and hit the wall just ahead of them. He sank to the floor, burbling red-flecked spit out of his mouth. A large gash in his throat poured the lifeblood out of him.
