Authors: Benjamin Tate
Well of Sorrows (90 page)
But Stephan and the humans moved in, taking Thaedoren’s place.
Before Khalaek could gain his knees, the Legionnaires grabbed him, jerked him to his feet, spun him so he stood facing Stephan. His breath came in ragged gasps, and dirt now smeared his face, mixing with the blood.
Stephan drew his own dagger. Without preamble, he growled, “This is for my father.”
He shoved the dagger into Khalaek’s stomach, beneath the rib cage, one hand reaching up almost gently to cup the back of Khalaek’s head and bend him over the blade. He held it there a long moment, Khalaek gasping. Blood drooled from Khalaek’s mouth in a sickening, wet stream.
Then Stephan’s hand shifted. His fingers tangled in Khalaek’s hair, pulled him upright, and with a vicious wrench he tore the dagger from Khalaek’s gut.
He let Khalaek fall. The Legionnaires had stepped back, so that now he faced Thaedoren and the Alvritshai over Khalaek’s body.
“Are the final terms of the treaty now satisfied?” Thaedoren asked, his voice expressionless.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
And without another word, the two rulers turned and headed back toward their respective armies in the darkness, their escorts trailing behind them.
The shadow waited until darkness had reclaimed the flat . . . and then it waited a moment longer.
When night had settled again, the songs and dancing of the celebration thinning, it moved forward to the body left in the middle of the field. It gazed down at the crumpled shape a long moment, barely visible in the starlight, in the faint luminescence of the partial moon.
Then it crouched. Placing a hand on the body’s shoulder, it rolled Khalaek over onto his back.
The ex-lord moaned and coughed up a gout of blood. His guts lay partially exposed, blood bathing his entire front, drenching the earth beneath where he’d lain, but the figure ignored all the gore, moving so it could look into Khalaek’s glazed eyes.
There wasn’t much life left in those eyes, but there was enough.
The shadow smiled. “Ah, Khalaek-khai. If I didn’t have a use for you, I’d sit here and watch you die.”
Walter pulled a vial from his coat, held it up to the starlight a moment so he could peer through the clear liquid within then pulled the stopper.
Leaning close, he whispered, “Drink this,” then dribbled some of the liquid onto Khalaek’s lips.
And the scent of wet earth and dried leaves filled Khalaek’s senses.
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