Yes, thank the gods for Anhuset. He treasured his fierce cousin. “There is, but she isn’t recognized as an official member of my house.” Ildiko’s eyes widened at the revelation. “She’s gameza, a bastard sired by a stable hand on my father’s sister. Khaskem by blood but not by validation.” What little color remained in his wife’s face drained away at his words. “Ildiko?”
She blinked, then shook her head, the brief smile flitting across her mouth tight and insincere. “Sorry. It’s been a very long night.”
He couldn’t agree more. The day promised to be even longer. “Bed?” he asked.
Ildiko shook her head. “Not yet. Do you think Sec—”
Brishen pressed a finger to her lips to stall her question. He knew what she was about to ask. Anhuset had expressed a similar suspicion earlier. She’d made sure to murmur it low enough that only the two of them could hear, and such conjectures were best left unspoken at the moment. Those who suffered and those who feared would find someone to blame. The Queen was likely dead of her own twisted machinations, but her younger son and his immediate family were not. He refused to shoulder the blame of Secmis’s evil.
Ildiko’s gaze flickered, first in confusion, then in understanding. She took up the conversation when Brishen removed his finger as if she meant to speak his mother’s name in the first place. “Securing borders now is a good idea? What if the population panics?”
He smirked, admiring her effortless transition from dangerous conjecture to innocuous question. “Having galla show up unexpectedly on your doorstep would cause more than panic. Ignorance and oblivion are only illusions of safety.”
“If word of a freed galla horde reaches Gaur or Belawat, there may be war.”
Such a scenario had occurred to him and every Kai who gathered around the maps earlier in the great hall. “There’s no possible way for us to hide the presence of a galla horde. We just have to hope the Gauri and Beladine leaders have enough sense to recognize we’re all the least of each other’s problems. I can’t hope for an alliance between all three kingdoms, but if they manage to keep their swords sheathed and their armies from each other’s throats—and ours—until we can resolve this disaster, I’ll consider it a triumph.”
“Wise words,” she said. “Mark of a good man. Mark of a good ruler. Her expression turned even more solemn. You will make a magnificent king, Brishen.”
Something in the way she uttered the last sent an icy splinter down his spine and urged him to gather her even closer. “You will make an equally glorious queen, Ildiko,” he whispered into her hair.
She hugged him in return before pulling away. Her gaze was oddly bleak. “I’m ready to find our bed now. If what the messenger says is true and accurate, I suspect we won’t see much rest after this.” She slid out of his lap and stood, offering her hand.
He clasped her cold fingers and joined her, intuition warning him of some unnamed threat beyond the galla and everything their invasion entailed. Ildiko’s appearance had never truly frightened him until now.
He resisted when she tugged him toward the bed. “Do you love me, Ildiko?” He forced the words from a throat closed tight.
She halted and gripped his hand harder, the crescents of her fingernails digging into his palm. “With everything I am, Brishen,” she said in a soft, fervent voice. “And for as long as I live. You must never doubt it.”
He believed her, yet her words churned his stomach and hummed discordant in his spirit. She uttered them, not as if they were a declaration of devotion but one of farewell.
CHAPTER THREE
The galla never rested and never quieted, but they learned from those they devoured and those they hunted. A writhing black wall of shrieking, gibbering shadow, the horde tracked the refugees who survived the attack on the capital as they followed the Absu’s opposite shore toward Saggara.
Kirgipa did her best to ignore the horror across the water. The galla mimicked the dying screams of those they consumed—people, animals, anything born of magic or flesh and blood. The shocked and grieving Kai around her had gone silent after the first hours of their escape. She suspected that, like her, none wanted to hear the last cries of a dying relative or friend echoed back to them by the foul things that continuously screeched their frustration at the impenetrable barrier of water between them and their prey.
She risked a single glance and wished she hadn’t. A section of the shadow wall twisted in on itself and reformed into Kai faces—twisted and terrified, frozen in mid-scream. She stumbled, clutching the infant queen to her breast.
“Eyes on your path, little maid.” Dendarah clutched her elbow to steady her. “Nothing good comes from watching them, especially when you know they’re watching you.” She pivoted in front of Kirgipa. “Give me the child. You’ve carried her since early this morning with little rest in between.” Her yellow gaze flickered over the procession of Kai who flowed around them as they trudged steadily toward Prince Brishen’s garrison. “It’s safe enough to put my sword arm to other uses at the moment.”
Kirgipa happily shouldered off her sling and handed the sleeping baby to Dendarah. In this small thing, fortune had favored them. The normally restless child was quiet, as if sensing the threat on the other side of the river and the need not to draw attention. The palace guard slipped on the sling and tucked her burden gently against her brigandine. She handed Kirgipa the three skin flasks of goat’s milk and single pack of tilqetil. “Considering the king’s ransom we paid for those, you’re still carrying precious cargo. Whatever you do, don’t drop or spill.”
Dendarah didn’t exaggerate. She and Necos together had given up a sword, two daggers, and every piece of jewelry they wore to a Kai weaver on the safe side of the Absu in exchange for the milk and four thick cakes made of whipped animal fat, berries and dried fish. Kirgipa had never liked tilqetil, but she was grateful the baby did, and a little bit went far in making and keeping her full.
“Don’t worry,” she assured the guard. “I know the value of your weaponry and your jewels. I only wish I had contributed.” She wore nothing of value on her with which to barter, and the weaver had shaken her head in disdain when she offered her plain shawl.
“You’re her nursemaid. Your loyalty to her is your greatest treasure. Steel and baubles can be replaced. We don’t barter loyalty or honor. Those can’t be replaced.” Dendarah’s severe expression softened infinitesimally. “I know you worry for your sister, that you’ve been tempted to leave this child and search for her.”
Kirgipa’s throat constricted. They had traveled along the Absu for four days now. The majority of the capital’s population had been devoured in the galla attack, but there were still many Kai who had made it to the river’s safety and those who dwelt on its other side. Dendarah had kept her promise to Kirgipa and searched each day for Atalan, always returning alone. Today, however, Necos had volunteered to scour the crowds.
After a sparse breakfast of bits of tilqetil and water cupped from the Absu, he’d left them that morning, first to hunt in the forest for any game not yet flushed out by other Kai, then to seek Atalan. Kirgipa prayed he would find her. She had lost her brother in a Beladine raid during his service to Prince Brishen, then her mother in the suicidal defense of the fleeing Kai from the galla. She and Atalan were all that remained of her family. She considered herself loyal and honorable, but she was also terrified and missed her sister. “Please, Necos,” she whispered under her breath. “Find Atalan.”
As if she summoned him, he suddenly appeared beside her, returned not with Atalan, but with a split lip and bloodied knuckles. Kirgipa’s stomach plummeted. Oh gods, her sister. Something happened to her sister!
She clutched Necos’s arm. “Atalan! She’s hurt!” He shook his head and pulled her to the outskirts of the crowd away from listening ears. The weight of a hundred stares settled between her shoulder blades.
Dendarah followed. “What happened to you?”
His gaze ran the length of Kirgipa’s for
m, searching for something. “What?” she snapped and looked down at herself, confused by his action.
Satisfied by a discovery she couldn’t see, he turned his attention to Dendarah, and his eyes narrowed. “She isn’t wearing anything to give her away, but you need to strip your insignia and anything else you’re wearing marking you as palace staff or guard.”
Dendarah obeyed instantly, ripping the patch off her sleeve identifying as her one of the elite royal guards and handed it to Necos. He tucked the patch inside his brigantine and dropped to one knee in front of her before clasping the hem of the tunic she wore under her armor. Fabric tumbled into his hands as he cut away the hem of its amaranthine border.
Kirgipa gaped at both guards. “Why are you doing this?”
Necos stood and held up one of his injured hands. “I was attacked while looking for your sister. It seems more than a few folk want to punish me for the galla.” He hid the amaranthine border with the patch. His own tunic hem was torn and ragged, lacking the magenta-colored strip, and his sleeve bore a rip where his insignia had been stitched.
She licked suddenly parched lips. “Why do such a thing? It makes no sense.”
“It does in its way.” Dendarah’s gaze slid past Kirgipa’s shoulder to the boiling darkness defiling the opposite shore. “These are frightened people looking for someone to blame for their suffering and the loss of their loved ones and homes. The galla emerged from the palace first. Many saw it happen. The event has been recounted to those who didn’t.”
“They want revenge.” Necos further destroyed his tunic by tearing off another strip, plain brown cloth this time, and using it to bandage his hand.
Dendarah shook her head. “They want justice, and the guilty are dead and beyond their reach. Except for her.” She patted the baby’s bottom. “And us.”
Kirgipa bristled. “We didn’t do anything! My muta died for those people! And this is a harmless baby.”
Necos motioned with his hands for her to lower her voice. “It doesn’t matter,” he said softly. “That malice across the river sprang from the castle. Don’t think anyone with time to wonder didn’t suspect this disaster is the queen’s doing. You are her granddaughter’s nurse; we’re palace guards. We’re guilty by association.”
Dendarah’s severe features hardened. “We need to leave now. Follow the river but stay well ahead of the others. We’re in as much danger from our own kin now as we are from the horde.”
A rushing in Kirgipa’s ears made the guard’s words sound as if they came from a tunnel. They were leaving, parting from the protection of the Kai, leaving her sister behind. She slowly backed away. “No,” she said,” torn between her sense of loyalty to the royal line, ingrained in her since childhood, and love for her sibling.
Necos blocked her and turned her gently to face him. His handsome face, marred by the split lip, was its own comfort. His hands were warm and heavy on her shoulders. “Unless she’s crowing to all and sundry that her sister is a royal nursemaid, then she’s safer with the crowd than she is with us.” His claws tickled her skin. “We are all traveling to the same place, Kirgipa. The three of us just need to get there faster, with that baby alive and well to greet her uncle.”
She sagged under the weight of his hands and closed her eyes. “This is so hard.” Her lids sprang open once more at the light brush of his lips across her forehead.
“Indeed it is, little maid,” he said, using Dendarah’s address for her. “Indeed it is.”
She nodded once. “I still hold you both to the promise that you’ll find Atalan and unite us.”
Dendarah inclined her head. “And we will fulfill that promise.” She turned to Necos. “The Absu meanders away from Saggara toward Belawat territory, but we can trek back. I’d rather take my chances with a longer walk and human raiders than being stuck in the open as galla food and no river in reach for safety.
“What will we do for food?” Kirgipa tapped the pack of tilqetil she held. “This won’t last long, and most needs to be for her.” She pointed to the infant resting peacefully in her sling.
“We’ll fish from the river and raid farms if we have to.” He sighed at Kirgipa’s silent disapproval. “If we don’t, the masses behind us will. The forests are already emptying of anything to hunt or forage. We’re turning into locusts.” He drove home his defense with “And we can at least warn some of them of the galla’s approach if we move fast enough.”
Dendarah tightened the sling’s knot at her shoulder. “Then we leave now. Walk all night and into the day. Sleep in short intervals and again walk at night. We won’t be as fast as if we rode, but hundreds moving together are slower than three. We can put a fair distance in a short period of time between us and any Kai wanting vengeance.”
“Horses have become rarer than gold and ten times more precious now. Stealing one will take some doing.” Necos clasped Kirgipa’s hand, twining his fingers with hers. She drew strength from that reassuring grip. “Ready?”
She turned a last gaze at the Kai behind her. Somewhere in that gathering, her sister had found shelter and safety, temporary though it was. Kirgipa would pray for a lot of things; uniting with Atalan soon, a horse for Necos, delivery of the infant Kai queen to her uncle’s protection at distant Saggara, and a way to send the galla back to whatever horrible place they thrived in and called home.
She briefly squeezed Necos’s hand and nodded to the waiting Dendarah. “Lead on.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Three days had passed since the messenger from Haradis arrived with the stomach-dropping news about Haradis, a full week since the fall of the city itself. Ildiko’s breath fogged in front of her as she stood besides Mesumenes in one of Saggara’s many storerooms. She wrapped her woolen shawl more tightly around her and stared up at the sacks of grain piled one atop the other until they covered most of the floor and reached nearly to the ceiling. This year’s harvest had been a good one, a fortunate thing since half of Haradis was set to arrive in Saggara any day now, hungry, frightened, and homeless, with both winter and the galla hard on their heels.
“Are the other storerooms this full?” Were they in different circumstances, she’d rejoice at the bounty before her. A room of plenty were it not for the fact they’d soon have a city’s worth of mouths to feed.
Mesumenes checked the roll of parchment he carried with him, running a claw lightly across tallies of numbers. “Most of them. One or two are about half this, but we’ve asked those fleeing their farms to bring what harvest they’ve stored, so we’ll get a little more.”
Ildiko skirted the perimeter of the chamber, waving away the clouds of grain dust floating in the air, burnished and sparkling in the torch light. “We’ll have to start rationing immediately. I’ll need every grain sack weighed, and its contents calculated so we can estimate how many people each sack will feed.”
Mesumenes’s nacreous eyes rounded and flared. His horrified expression mirrored her own thoughts. Ildiko waited for the inevitable protest, pleased and surprised when none were forthcoming. The steward wrestled his stunned expression into a more stoic one, nodded, and scribbled additional notes on the parchment he held.
“I’ll help with the counting,” she said.
The quill paused. “That isn’t necessary, Your Highness. This is a clerk’s work.”
“Such a counting is a monumental task and requires the work of an army of clerks and weeks to complete it. We don’t have weeks. Every hand not busy with some daily task needs to be put to this one, including mine.” The flick of a rodent tail caught Ildiko’s eye before disappearing behind the shelter of the sacks. “I also want every available rat-catcher searching the storerooms and barns. We don’t have the luxury of sharing food with rats.”
Mesumenes cleared his throat before speaking. “The herceges may protest at you climbing up on grain stacks to count, Your Highness.”
Were her husband of different character, Ildiko would be inclined to agree. Brishen, however, possessed a nature
almost as practical as her own. “I doubt it. When he’s not on patrol hunting galla or appeasing the parade of nobles arriving at Saggara, he’ll probably help with the count as well.” She didn’t say it aloud, but she had no plans of allowing their noble guests to lounge about while everyone else worked themselves to exhaustion. Now wasn’t the time for mollycoddling simply due to birth and rank. The galla didn’t differentiate between the nobleman and the peasant. Neither did famine. And now, neither would she.
She and Mesumenes planned their strategy for setting up a work force and dividing the storerooms between them, pausing only when one of the doors squeaked opened. Anhuset stood at the entrance, dressed in training garb: loose shirt and trousers with padding tied at the elbows and knees. She wore a padded breastplate and held similar gear in her arms, along with a bundle of sticks in various lengths.
“Are you ready, Your Highness?”
Ildiko sputtered. “You must be jesting. We don’t have time for training, Anhuset.”
Since Brishen’s recovery from his capture almost a year earlier, Ildiko had trained with Anhuset, learning the basic skills taught to a young Kai barely off of lead strings. They met three times a week, every week. Ildiko held no delusions about her martial prowess, or lack thereof, especially should she ever face a Kai adversary, but anything was better than nothing. A damsel in complete distress was a burden to her protectors; one familiar with self defense, not as much.
Anhuset remained unswayed at Ildiko’s protest. “There is always time for training, Hercegesé.”
“Now?”
“Especially now.”
Ildiko accepted her fate and returned a sheaf of parchment to Mesumenes. “I’ll join you again soon,” she promised. She passed Anhuset who fell into step beside her as they crossed the open loggia toward the manor house itself. People, livestock, and wagons crowded the open space. Unlike at the firelit festival of Kaherka earlier, the Kai wore grim expressions, their revelry forgotten with the news of the galla and the possible fall of Haradis. She was almost thankful for the mountain of preparation and work to be done. Fear found fertile ground in idle minds and idle hands.