Chapter 6
GALLMAU
G allmau supposed he should recite prayers of thanks to Saint Attilio that he wasn’t dead, rather than taking the Saint’s name in vain every time he moved his head, but the after-effects of Mother Naghwe’s spiked brandy were on par with the worst hangover he had ever had.
For Meri, the poison in the vial’s spikes had hit much harder.
His hand brushed against her forehead as she shivered and cried out. The head wrap she usually wore had come loose, tight black curls spilling out.
He remembered when they had first met. Meri had shaved her head down to her scalp and wore gold earrings, looking like a Kushian goddess of old, fierce and uncompromising. Saints, she had seemed so tall and intimidating then.
Now she was like a sleeping child in his arms, crying out in a nightmare she couldn’t wake from.
He shifted his position on the hard wooden planks of the wagon the Gardes Soissons had commandeered from the passing wine distributor who had discovered Meri and Gallmau in the wreckage left after the battle between Sinan and Cliona.
The merchant had sent a rider ahead to alert the soldiers, and Gallmau reminded himself to make sure the man received compensation for his good deed.
A few expensive electromantic lanterns had been hung on the sides to provide light as they waited for sunrise, and the wine barrels had been rolled off to accommodate those who couldn’t make it back to the city on horseback.
He and Meri fell into that category, along with the three bodies that lay still and cold on the bed of the wagon.
“Wake up.” He lifted a piece of cloth soaked in the honey solution Meri drank after her forays into speed and pressed it to her lips. This time she swallowed a little. “Please.”
“I won’t go to Paradise.” She twisted in his grip, eyes still squeezed shut, her words slurred. “The Bone Lords will keep me as an undead slave. The Prophets won’t save me.”
“Shush.” Gallmau desperately wanted Meri to become more alert and have something to eat.
Speed fighters, despite their invariably thin physiques, needed even more food than strength fighters such as himself.
Without nourishment after forays into their Gift, they could slip into insensibility and die.
Meri had done far more with her speed than Gallmau had ever seen. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
A creak and thump on the wooden boards announced the return of Tumas.
His former commanding officer during his stint in the army was now a captain in the Gardes Soissons, and the sight of his familiar face leaning over Gallmau’s poison-wracked body had been the one bright spot in the longest night of Gallmau’s life.
“How is she, Your Highness?” Captain Tumas was a few years older than he was, broad of shoulders and with the stance and bearing of a man born to wear a military uniform. “We’re close to moving out.”
Gallmau sighed. He hadn’t hoped to return to Lutecia without the Court knowing, of course, but arriving with the Gardes Soissons after a dramatic Bone Lord attack near the capital was hardly the discreet entrance he had planned.
Being referred to by a royal title he didn’t have any legitimate claim to made it worse. “You shouldn’t call me that.”
“If it’s Monsieur le Roi you prefer, I’m happy to use it.” Tumas gave him a bright smile as he uttered words of sheer treason.
The captain was a good man, and a better friend, but Gallmau had left the country in part to avoid the constant speculation that as the dead King’s only son—illegitimate or not—he could take the throne away from the foreign-born queen and her daughter.
Well, that and the Sorcier du Roi telling him to get out of town.
“You know you shouldn’t be saying that.” Gallmau returned his attention to Meri, who was stirring in his arms. He pressed the wet cloth to her lips again. “Any sign of the two necromancers?”
“I think they left a while ago.” Tumas jerked his head in the direction of the grove where Meri and Gallmau had first encountered Sinan. “We didn’t find any of the bodies you mentioned, but there’s a path of broken brush and trees leading out onto the fields. Maybe they dragged them away?”
Gallmau thought back to the horror of facing his friends Karabil and Tharin as undead puppets controlled by a Bone Lord. It still made him want to vomit. “They made them walk out.”
Tumas held up seven fingers—the Sign of the Saints—and bowed his head. “These are dark times, my friend.”
They would be less dark if Gallmau had Meri by his side again. She knew more about fighting death magic than any of the arrogant sorcerers at the Noviodunam. He shifted her gently into more of an upright position.
She moaned faintly, and her eyelids fluttered.
“I wish she would wake up.” Gallmau murmured the words, mostly to himself, but Tumas heard them.
“You were quite weak when we found you, and now you’re back to your usual complaining self.
” Tumas came closer and leaned over Meri.
“If the death witches used the same poison on her as you, it would take longer for someone her size to recover. Besides, from what I’ve heard of the Lioness of Abdju, she’ll be up and fighting soon enough. ”
“I hope you’re right.” Gallmau stretched out his legs.
He felt sore and stiff, his head throbbed, and he had nowhere near his usual strength.
Sinan and his poisoner of a mother could rot in Hell as far as he was concerned.
Of course, since they were both Bone Lords, they were damned no matter what. “Has the runner returned?”
“He’ll be back soon enough. He’s the fastest messenger in the Gardes.” Tumas straightened. “The Secrétaire will know about it now, and we’ll have both an Army surgeon and a Noviodunam medicus waiting for us when we arrive.”
“I don’t want to make a spectacle of myself.” Gallmau was used to blundering into court etiquette disasters, but this Bone Lord catastrophe was on a whole new level of awful.
“Maybe it’s best if the common people know you’re back.” Tumas laid his hand on Gallmau’s arm. “If anything happens to you in the palace, get word out to me. There are many in the Gardes and the streets who will rally to you.”
Gallmau had hoped the treasonous rubbish he had overheard in the towns they stayed in during their journey wasn’t widespread in the capital as well, but apparently even soldiers in the army agreed with some of it.
“The Queen is the closest thing I have to a mother. I won’t hear any talk against her.
You’ve been spending too much time drinking with those university radicals who want to overthrow the monarchy. ”
“You’ve been spending too little time learning about the politics of Soissons.” Tumas shook his head, then turned to respond to a call from outside the wagon. He gave Gallmau’s arm a squeeze and jumped off to talk to one of his men.
Gallmau clapped himself on the head in frustration, and the jolt finally woke Meri.
She tried to pull away from him, her eyes now open and wild.
“Everything’s fine.” Gallmau held her in one arm while fumbling for the bottle of fortified water. “We’re alive, and we’re safe. Drink this.”
She drained the contents, then took in a breath. “What happened?”
“That antidote vial was Mother Naghwe’s idea of a hilarious prank.
” Gallmau helped Meri into a sitting position against the side of the wagon, regretting the loss of her warm skin against his.
He didn’t bed women—at least not often—but holding someone close he cared about had felt powerful and comforting after the awful events of the night.
“I was able to see and hear what was going on after she poisoned us, but I couldn’t get my arms and legs to move for hours. ”
“Maybe they thought we were dead.” Meri took the bag of army rations Gallmau handed to her and began devouring the contents with wild abandon. She didn’t even stop to ask if the food met her religious standards.
“No, they knew we were alive.” Gallmau hesitated, overcome by the guilt and shame of how badly he had failed to protect his companions.
All of his strength and training had done nothing to save Karabil and Tharin, and he had been helpless while Meri tried to fight both Sinan and Naghwe.
“I kept trying to get my body going again, and you slid off me. My arm was over your face and then…” He had to stop for a moment, his voice choking with the memory.
“I was crushing you, stopping your breathing. Saints, it was horrible. I managed to make some kind of noise, and Sinan came over and moved you so you could breathe. Then the cheeky son of a bitch told me to stop wiggling around so much.”
“Why would he do that?” Meri stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth.
Her hands were shaking as she reached out and tried to lift the bottle of water to her lips. Gallmau had to help hold it up before the bottle dropped from her weakened fingers. She was as powerless as he had been hours ago, but if he had recovered, she should too.
“Sinan knew who I was, and he knew you were King Syagrius’s son.” Meri sounded incredulous, like she was outraged Sinan and his mother had spared their lives. “He was arguing with me about Tomb Fighters killing baby necromancers for relics right before Cliona attacked.”
“A Bone Lord lecturing us about morality.” Gallmau rolled his eyes. “He and his mother were doing the same things to the bodies while we were lying there.”
Meri stopped trying to drink, her lower lip trembling, as Gallmau cursed himself for letting that slip. She struggled to her feet, pushing off his attempts to stop her. He gave up and held her by the waist.
“When I saw Karabil and Tharin, I wasn’t sure what to think, and Tumas didn’t know either.” Gallmau prayed he had done the right thing. Meri didn’t need more trauma tonight.
“What did that bastard do to them?” Meri couldn’t walk yet, but that didn’t stop her from trying to fling herself across the bed of the wagon.