Chapter 68 Zarek
Zarek
A TERRIBLE IDEA
Ifeel like a wild animal in a trap.
I stare at the Vsenrog army encampment with a rising sense of panic.
It’s only dumb luck that I’ve made it this far.
I showed up in the wrinkled Marion uniform I stole from a storage shed and said I was filling in for the day.
The ugly brute who’d asked who I was when I wandered over to the horses following Marion’s royal carriage laughed and said Felis must be slacking off again, and of course, I agreed.
That Felis will take any excuse to miss out on a hard day’s work, won’t he?
We followed the carriages on foot, at a somewhat slovenly pace.
I had to remind myself that Marion, like most of the Seven Allied Kingdoms, doesn’t have a proper army.
The men marching with me were guards, or just regular castle folk, stable men and attendants who happened to have Marion uniforms tucked away just in case their king wanted to impress someone.
As the carriages first pulled out of the courtyard, I kept my gaze on the big, gilded one that had to be carrying the king of Marion.
At first, I assumed Lilias was with him, but then a second carriage rattled out to join the procession.
It was a small, dark box that looked cheap and uncomfortable.
It could have been for the king’s attendants, or scribes, or hells, even his personal minstrel.
But I knew better. So I dropped back to walk behind the carriage that held my wife as we left Marion’s palace and headed east. I thought we’d walk all the way to Vsenrog, that perhaps I’d even have a chance to see Lilias when we stopped at night.
But no, the royal tents of Vsenrog are pitched right here, clearly inside of Marion’s borders. And the king of Marion was just foolish enough to walk into Malrik’s tent.
The back of my throat tastes bitter. I swallow hard, then scan the edges of the massive field as the sun beats down on the empty road behind us.
The river we’ve been following lies to the east, but there’s no cover between the road and that line of scruffy trees.
It would be pretty bloody obvious if I tried to slink off into the forest.
The tents of Vsenrog are much closer than those trees. But hells, I can’t pass for a simple soldier among Malrik’s entourage. Even if I try to keep my head down, all it would take is one bloody idiot from Vsenrog to glimpse my face.
My gaze returns to the Marion carriages. Someone unharnessed the horses and led them into the shade. There’s a group of Marion men standing in the meager shadow of the royal carriage, passing around a flask with all the subtlety of an axe to the face.
And there’s the smaller carriage. The prisoner’s carriage. Baking in the full sun. With its door still open.
I sigh. Gods, this is a terrible idea.
But what are my options? Watch my wife get hauled away by Vsenrog soldiers and then get ordered back to Marion because the idiot leading this group still thinks I’m filling in for someone named Felis?
Or peel off my Marion uniform and try to sneak into one of the tents of Vsenrog, where maybe I’d even have the time to count to one thousand before someone identified me and hauled me before King Malrik to answer his questions about how exactly his son Syvan died?
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath.
And then I amble toward the carriages, acting like I’m bored.
I join the men standing in the shade of the royal carriage, tell a few filthy jokes, and pretend to drink from their flask of nasty rotgut. One of the men shakes his head and says he’s sorry he missed his chance to bang the princess. I clench my jaw until the urge to punch him subsides.
And then a bell rings.
My body goes cold, and suddenly, I wish I’d taken that swig from the flask.
The bell tolls again, then again. The men standing beside me frown, then turn and wander toward the other side of the carriage to stare at the massive royal tent of Vsenrog.
My heart sinks as I watch them go, and my hand drifts up to brush the metal vial around my neck.
If I were a brave man, a noble man, now would be the time to take a stand.
I’m sure Malrik is here; I can almost smell him in the air.
I could walk across this meadow and face him with my sword.
I could demand justice for the kingdom he erased, for the people he murdered.
For my family, dead because of an order he gave years ago.
Dead so he could control a mountain pass, to wring a few more coins from the pockets of travelers and traders.
But I don’t grab a sword, and I don’t demand anything. Instead, I slip through the open door of the smaller carriage and sink into the shadows inside, hiding in the only place I can.
King Malrik’s voice booms through the meadow. I close my eyes.
I am not a brave man.