Chapter 16
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.
I drew back, but the horse was not trained in war. It was an emperor’s show mount—intended for beauty rather than battle. It reared under me, panicked.
Forced to turn it twice before it faced the direction I needed, I had the feeling that I was going to be too late.
I was. Lightning flashed, so fast that all I saw was a streak of pure light followed by a thundering boom that echoed in my chest. My lungs vibrated with it. Tallu’s sword was extended, pointing directly at the creature, the tip nearly touching its mangled eyeball.
Smoke drifted up from the seared eye socket. The creature staggered, a low growl building in its throat.
Tallu sent another bolt into the creature, longer this time, and the creature was thrown back, landing hard and skidding on fallen pine needles. Asahi leapt, Sagam a moment behind him, and between both of their blades, the creature lost its head.
At the scent of blood, all of the horses began shifting, panic building between them. I tightened my grip on my reins, and Tallu turned his horse toward the castle.
Sagam’s mount stood near a tree, its leg lifted. The creature—or the fall—had lamed it. Asahi’s horse had fled into the night.
“What was that creature?” I asked.
Asahi cleaned his blade with his shirt, sheathing it and approaching Sagam’s mount. Sagam continued to stare at the creature.
“I have never seen anything like it. And no creature should be able to survive Your Imperial Majesty’s electricity.” Sagam bent low, examining the creature’s severed neck. He tilted his head, frowning, and then sliced at the very back of it, as though skinning the creature.
He came out with a long insect, and I recognized the segmented body and pointed legs, even if it was missing its head. Walking over to us, he held it out for Tallu’s inspection.
Asahi had managed to calm the horse and pick up the lantern, bringing it close so that we could inspect what Sagam had found. Given where the insect had been severed, I said, “It was inside the creature’s neck? Its throat?”
“Atop the spine,” Sagam agreed. Making a face, he tossed it to the side.
Frowning, he ran a hand along his mount’s neck. Then, he looked out into the darkness.
“We will double up,” Tallu said.
Without being asked, I dismounted, letting Tallu reach out and help me onto the back of his horse. With the saddle, it was uncomfortable, but I ended up pressed against his back, both arms curled around his stomach because of the narrow seat.
Asahi and Sagam both sat on my horse, taking a moment to settle before starting the horse on a slow trot. We followed behind them, Sagam’s horse limping to follow.
“Did you hear it?” I whispered, hoping the sound of the horses, their hooves crunching over gravel and debris, would cover my words.
“Hear what?” Tallu asked, his voice thick.
“The creature. The insect—not the monster that attacked us. Maybe…” I shook my head, not liking the direction my thoughts were taking.
I thought again of when we had caught General Maki and King Inor in the light. The strange way their bodies had been shaped, the awkwardness of their movements.
“What did you hear?” Tallu asked.
“It sounded like a voice, like a chittering, clicking sound. It echoed in my ears, in my head.” It was as though I could hear it again, a sound I could not be rid of. I pressed my face into Tallu’s shoulder.
“I didn’t hear that.” Tallu’s voice was a rumble against my palm, a vibration on my fingers.
He lifted one of his hands from the reins, and I thought he would cover my fingers with his own, but he wiped his nose, holding his knuckle there for a few moments before dropping it back down.
“I heard it when the creatures attacked me at the Mountainside Palace.” I frowned, the weave of the robe’s fabric so soft against my cheek that it felt like a silken pillow from Tallu’s bed. “Perhaps it is my animal speak returning?”
“Returning with monsters, but not with the animals you seek to converse with?” Tallu dropped his hand, this time squeezing his fingers around my own.
“Or perhaps I am going mad.” I tried for a smile, lacing my fingers with his and squeezing them between my own. “If so, I find myself in good company. I could not ask for better.”
“Seeing ghosts does not make me mad.” Tallu rubbed his thumb along my forefinger, the motion sending sparks through my body. “It is what they urge me to do that makes me so.”
For a while, I let that be the last thing we said, let myself feel the soft fabric of his clothes, the tenseness of his muscles as he rolled with the horse, the jostle as we broke into a trot again when we reached flatter ground.
“What do you think Vostop meant?” I asked.
Tallu briefly turned his head, and I couldn’t see his expression with my face still pressed to his back, but I could hear the confusion in his words. “When?”
“Vostop said that General Maki didn’t come up the mountain path like we did.”
“I took that to mean that he had a prior relationship with King Inor, so his route to Inor’s throne room was already smoothed for him.” Tallu pulled on the reins of his horse, guiding it around the boulder. “But you think he meant something more literal.”
“I think he meant that there is a way into the palace that bypasses the mountain roads.” I looked out.
The moon was reflecting on the lake, and now that we were closer, I could see the water, choppy with a breeze.
“I think he was telling us how to get back to the palace, if we wanted to enter without alerting the Shadow King or anyone in his guild.”
Tallu hummed. “Where, though?”
“I don’t know. It would be somewhere Maki was familiar with. The servants didn’t mention him ever leaving the palace to walk the countryside. And I would hope they would have mentioned if he left by boat.” The thought occurred to me. “Did they actually say they saw him leave?”
“Quuri said that he left.” Tallu spoke slowly, considering. “But she thought he left with the two men he had killed.”
“So maybe he didn’t leave at all. Maybe he disappeared, and they assumed he left in the night.” I let the words linger, let myself wonder what it meant that Tallu’s steward was lying to him. What else might she have lied about?
“If he didn’t leave through the front door, then that means there is another way from the Lakeshore Palace to Mountain Thrown City.” Tallu considered each word. “We need to check Maki’s workshop again.”
“After a full night’s sleep.” I inhaled deeply, the scent of Tallu’s sweat and the warmth I could feel through his clothes reassuring. “I worry for Asahi.”
For a moment, Tallu didn’t speak, then he turned his head just slightly, his voice a low rumble on my palm. We both kept our words to a whisper. “I noticed him in the throne room. He tried to take off his mask?”