The Ippos King: Wraith Kings Book Three Read online

Given the choice, he would much rather spend his time on patrol, sparring, or battling demons alongside the Kai herceges or, even better, playing a cutthroat dice game with sha-Anhuset. He disliked the drudgery of stewardship. He disliked the notion of thievery under his very nose even more. Bryzant had done a fine job in the role these last five years, giving Serovek no reason to doubt his honesty, his fealty, or his abilities. Still, it was best to remain diligent.

  “No more than a month, I think,” he replied to Bryzant’s question. “I doubt the monks wish to act as our hosts any longer than necessary, and the Khaskem will want his sha back in short order.”

  The sun was well on its way toward the horizon before Serovek finally broke free of his steward as well as those other officers of his household, including one quietly seething cook who demanded to know how exactly he was supposed to cook and serve the vile insect bestowed upon him earlier and not die from the effort. Serovek’s puzzled shrug and short “Just bash it with a club,” didn’t calm the man’s outrage. Certain the cook contemplated every manner of butchering him behind the slit-eyed stare he leveled on Serovek, the margrave chose strategic retreat and left the fortress to find his guest.

  He had no compunction to disguise his interest in sha-Anhuset. From the first moment he met her, she’d drawn him like a moth to a blazing lamp, and he didn’t care that he might burn to ash if he got too close. She was prickly—at least with him—as well as dour. Unwavering in her devotion to the Kai regent, she represented the Kai military and the physical prowess of the soldiers who served at Saggara in the finest manner. She wore her strength and her confidence as easily as she wore her armor, and Serovek sometimes wondered if any weakness existed behind her fierce expression and distinctively beautiful features. Should she ever choose to bond with a husband, the man would have to possess an iron-plated backbone to equal her.

  His effort to break free of administrative shackles failed in the end. He’d only made it to the front entrance’s threshold when he heard Bryzant shout his name. He turned to see the steward racing toward him, pale and wide-eyed with panic.

  “My lord! My lord, wait! We have a problem!”

  His plea was joined by a chorus of shouts and screams erupting from the direction of the kitchen, along with the dissonant bang of pots and pans slamming into furniture or the floor.

  “What in the gods’ names is going on?” Serovek met Bryzant in the hall’s center and just as quickly strode past him as he hurried toward the source of the commotion. The steward jogged to keep up.

  “The scarpatine,” he said between pants. “It’s gotten loose.”

  Serovek halted and glared at the man. “Are you serious?” At the other’s nod, he cursed loud and long and charged into the kitchen.

  Chaos greeted his arrival. Overturned pots and broken ceramic lay scattered across a floor made slippery from puddles of spilled soup and trampled vegetables. Three of the scullery maids stood atop one of the preparation tables, all armed with weapons that included a cleaver, a skillet, and a raw goose leg.

  Those still on the ground joined the cook in ransacking the rest of the destroyed kitchen, lamplight glinting off their knives as they hunted for his lordship’s lethal delicacy. No one noticed Serovek’s presence.

  He leaned down to speak softly to Bryzant “Stay here and make sure no one accidentally stabs or clubs themselves or each other. And keep the door closed. I’ll return in a moment.”

  Bryzant nodded, his eyes darting around the room as he searched for any suspect movement amid the destruction.

  Serovek eased out of the kitchen, closing the door gently behind him before bolting for the bailey. He found Anhuset in short order, sitting amid a cluster of soldiers, a small heap of coins beside her as she watched Carov roll a set of bone dice into the center of their makeshift circle.

  She glanced up and instantly gained her feet, abandoning the game without hesitation. “What’s wrong?”

  “The scarpatine has escaped.” He expected at least a huff of derisive laughter from her at her host’s carelessness, but all she did was bend to gather and pocket her winnings. “Any idea what room it’s in?”

  “Still in the kitchen.” He gave a brief nod to the soldiers who’d risen as well and motioned for them to stay where they were. “The maids are standing on the tables, and the cook is stabbing at anything that moves. What’s the best way to catch Brishen’s fine gift?”

  As tall as she was, Anhuset had a much easier time matching his pace than Bryzant did as they headed back to the fortress. “Use yourself as bait. I’ll do it. I’ve done it before. It’s easy enough if you’re quick.”

  That sounded ominous, and Serovek wanted to ask her what she planned to do and how often scarpatines terrorized the kitchen staff at Saggara, but they reached the scene of mayhem before he had a chance.

  The kitchen was in an even worse state than when he left it only moments earlier, and Bryzant had joined the maids perched on the preparation table, his weapon of choice, a rolling pin.

  At Anhuset’s sharp whistle, everyone froze. All gazes settled on her as she held up a slender finger tipped with a sharp black claw. Her eyes shone like gold coins. “Stay still and quiet,” she said. “Otherwise I won’t be able to hear the scarpatine.”

  No one argued, and all watched with wide eyes and bated breath as Anhuset pulled a knife from a sheath on her belt and made a shallow cut on the underside of her forearm. Blood trickled from the wound to splatter on the floor in crimson drops. She walked a few steps in one direction, leaving the sanguine equivalent of breadcrumbs in her wake. The silence in the kitchen breathed even when the occupants did not.

  Her patience and bloodletting were rewarded when a scrabbling, clicking noise rose from under the shelter of a corner cupboard. A pair of black pincers emerged first, their ends snapping together. The scarpatine inched forward, revealing the rest of its armored body, including a tail that arched over its length, venom dripping from the tip to drizzle down the segmented carapace. Its back legs were longer than the front to accommodate a pair of venom sacs the size of hen’s eggs. Five pairs of eyes on short stalks swiveled in multiple directions before locking onto the drip trail of blood Anhuset had left on the floor.

  A mass shudder swept the crowd. Even Serovek, who thoroughly enjoyed the Kai delicacy that was scarpatine pie, swallowed back a knot of revulsion when the insect’s proboscis emerged from a space between its jaws to suck up the blood.

  Anhuset spared a glance for the cook who stood nearby. “Hand me your apron very slowly,” she said in a quiet voice. At his uncomprehending stare, her tone sharpened. “Now.”

  Serovek tensed when the man did as she ordered, but in quick, jerky motions. The movement alarmed the scarpatine, which whipped around with a hiss to face this new threat and leaped at the cook.

  Once more, pandemonium erupted as people not already standing on the furniture, leaped to any elevated space they could reach. A few tried to escape the kitchen altogether, only to find themselves facing Serovek’s daunting form blocking the door. His glare dared them to try and shove past. There was no way he’d open the door and chance the scarpatine escaping into another part of the citadel. They’d never find and capture it.

  The creature was fast, but Anhuset was faster. She darted after the scarpatine, leaping over upended chairs and broken crockery while eluding the flailing elbows of terrified scullions.

  A pounding on the kitchen door vibrated the wood against Serovek’s back. Voices called from the other side, inquiring, demanding entrance. “Margrave, what’s happening?”

  Serovek held the door shut and narrowed his eyes in warning as three of the younger scullions—lads no more than twelve or thirteen—considered their chances at going through him to get out of the kitchen. Their fear of the scarpatine was fast overriding their deference to their liege. “All is well,” he bellowed over his shoulder to Carov on the other side. “Just give us a few moments.”

  Anhuset had cornered the scarpatine not
far from the hearth. Its tail struck at her, flinging droplets of black venom to sizzle on the floor planks. She danced out of the way, avoiding most of the splatter. The droplets that landed scorched the leather of her boots, leaving behind an acrid scent and tendrils of oily dark smoke. Woman and insect feinted with each other, she avoiding the nasty barb on the end of the scarpatine’s tail, the scarpatine dodging the apron she snapped toward it.

  Suddenly, the scarpatine lunged at Anhuset. The maids screamed, the cook shouted, and the door smacked hard against Serovek’s spine. Anhuset twisted to the side and cast the apron like a net toward the creature. And missed. It darted back at the last moment, hissing its victory at avoiding the trap.

  It lost no time in renewing its attack, launching once more at the Kai woman. This time Anhuset snatched the rolling pin out of a startled Bryzant’s grip and brought it down like an executioner’s ax on the scarpatine.

  The insect burst under the impact, splattering guts, venom, and shattered carapace in every direction. A rancid odor, reminding Serovek of a battlefield under a summer sun, filled the kitchen.

  People covered their noses and mouths with their hands or aprons. The unmistakable sound of retching replaced the shouting. Serovek, who was rarely plagued with a weak stomach, even the most gruesome sights, felt his somersault in warning.

  Unfazed by the smell or the slimy detritus of smashed scarpatine, Anhuset tossed the ruined rolling pin into the hearth and inspected her boots where wisps of smoke drifted off new scorch marks left by the venom splatter. She glanced at Serovek. “You owe me a new pair of boots, margrave.” She didn’t wait for his answer but turned her attention to the others.

  “Check your clothing.” She pointed to her boots to emphasize the importance of that command. “If any of the venom is on it, don’t touch it with your bare hands. Cut your garb off if you have to. As you can see, the venom burns anything it touches. And someone get me a shovel so I can scoop this up and bury it.” She waved a casual hand at the smoking insect carcass as if it were as harmless as a dust ball.

  “Can’t you just throw it in the fire?” Bryzant’s asked, still perched on the table.

  “Only if you want to vomit up your insides once it starts to burn and make Lord Pangion’s home uninhabitable for a week.” She returned her attention to Serovek. “I’m afraid there will be no pie for you, Lord Pangion. Smashed scarpatine means spoiled meat.”

  He straightened from the door to give his guest a quick bow. The kitchen looked like the aftermath of a whirlwind’s visit, but it was now at least safe to open the door. “We’ve squandered the Khaskem’s generous gift,” he said. His statement earned a few disbelieving coughs as well as an indignant snort or two. “But we thank you, sha-Anhuset, for taking care of the problem.”

  As soon as Serovek shoved aside the bar holding the door closed, Carov and a half dozen soldiers stampeded inside, brandishing an array of weapons to save their master and his servants from the monster menacing them. They halted as a group just inside the threshold, awestruck.

  “My gods,” the master-at-arms breathed out, eyes wide. “What happened?”

  “A hard-fought battle with supper,” Serovek replied. “Sha-Anhuset won.”

  The meal that evening was a more humble affair than he originally planned. After the disaster in the kitchen and the colossal cleanup that followed, it was a wonder they ate at all. He considered it prudent to simply avoid the cook and his many knives before the man decided it might be a fine idea to serve his lordship’s own heart back to him and his Kai guest on his best platter.

  Anhuset sat to Serovek’s left at the table, the only two people brave enough to linger in the great hall. She contentedly cleaned her plate and went back for seconds, despite an initial hesitation that had her sniffing suspiciously at some of the covered dishes the servants set before her.

  “I had hoped to offer you a more laudable feast than this,” Serovek said, gesturing to the plates of cured meats, eggs, cheese, bread and butter. A humble repast and one guaranteed to garner disdainful sniffs from even the lowliest Beladine gentryman.

  Anhuset was not Beladine gentry. She shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with anything here. It’s good food.” Her features pinched into a disgusted scowl. “I’m just thankful you didn’t serve those vile, maggoty things humans seem to favor with their supper.”

  He blinked. Maggoty things? He tried to recall what common food resembled something as repulsive as a cooked maggot. Nothing came to mind. “We don’t eat maggots, at least not that I’m aware of.”

  “They aren’t really maggots.” She downed a swallow of ale before continuing. “They just look like them. Hand-sized with a thin brown skin that hides a soft inside which turns to a white mush when it’s cooked. It reminds me a little of candle wax and tastes like dirt.” She shuddered. “Brishen almost didn’t survive his wedding day because of them. His entire retinue contemplated assassination because we had to eat them so as not to insult our Gauri hosts.”

  An image of the food she described filled his mind, and a burst of laughter escaped him. “You’re talking about a potato!” The bland, common potato. The Kai viewed it with the same aversion that most humans viewed scarpatine pie. Serovek laughed even harder at the notion.

  “Whatever it’s called, it’s revolting. The entire ride here, I worried I’d have to eat another one at High Salure. I was prepared to claim a puny gut and skip supper entirely.” She speared half an egg with her eating knife and held it up to him in salute. “I thank you for the small mercy of not serving one to me.”

  Serovek returned the salute with a lift of his goblet. “I thank you saving my servants from the scarpatine.”

  A tiny smile flitted across her mouth. Her lips drew back a fraction, exposing the white points of her teeth. Like her claws, they were among the more obvious and intimidating reminders that she wasn’t human, but a member of the last Elder race still occupying these lands. Indomitable. Fierce. Fading with every generation born. The last wasn’t common knowledge, and Serovek only knew of it from his stint as a Wraith king. He’d be surprised if, in a few centuries, there were any Kai left. The thought saddened him.

  “You’ve gone from laughter to melancholy in less time than it takes me to drain a good ale,” Anhuset said. “You never before struck me as moody.”

  Truth be told, he wasn’t the same man he’d been a year ago. He still appreciated a good joke or turn of phrase, still enjoyed a good romp between the sheets with an enthusiastic bed partner and a fast gallop on his favorite horse, and could still laugh easily at the odd humor of life itself. But a darkness ran through him now, a shallow stream of gloom he couldn’t shake off, no matter how much he tried. He knew its source: Megiddo’s ghastly fate and his own guilt in not being able to save the monk.

  He pushed aside the haunting memory of Megiddo’s eyes as the galla dragged his eidolon into the void of their prison. Serovek shook away the thought. There lay the stuff of nightmares, and they had no place here at his table.

  “I'm as predictable as the sunrise,” he told Anhuset and chuckled at her snort. “I was just thinking you don’t smile much. You should. Your features are made for it.” He didn’t fabricate. There was an austerity to her face that was softened by her toothy smile, and unlike many, he wasn’t intimidated by the sight of her pointed teeth.

  “Like this,” she said, baring her ivories to the back molars in a wolfish grin.

  Serovek rolled his eyes and coughed his laughter into his goblet when she reared back in her seat, grin evaporating. She stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown a third arm or an eye in the middle of his forehead.

  “Are any of you aware of just how hideous doing that makes you?” she said.

  He toasted her a second time. “Only to the Kai, sha-Anhuset.”

  The expression of annoyance was so common among humans, no one thought anything of it. Until he witnessed Brishen’s involuntary reaction to Ildiko's eye rolls, he'd never even noticed the habit. He
’d been careful since then to guard his own expressions whenever he visited Saggara. In the comfort of his own home, he’d forgotten. Anhuset had reacted with the expected loathing.

  Serovek shrugged inwardly. She wasn’t a fragile thing. She’d recover and adjust. He had no intention of tiptoeing around her on this trip or demanding his men do the same. She would resent it if he did.

  After supper, he invited her to join him in the same study where he’d met with his steward to discuss the route they planned to take to the monastery. Once there, he unrolled a detailed map on the table for their perusal, pointing to various landmarks that dotted the way.

  Anhuset stood beside him, studying the map as he traced the meandering line that marked the flow of the Absu river along the borders shared by the Kai and the Beladine before it turned east toward Bast-Haradis.

  “We’ll take a barge down a portion of the Absu and then up one of its tributaries until that branches at a shallower stream. From there, it’s by horseback all the way. We can transport Megiddo by wagon and then by sled if necessary. There will still be snow in some places.”

  “I have better sight in the dark than you do,” she said. “If we travel by day, I can scout ahead at night once we stop so we know what’s ahead at daybreak. I can sleep in the saddle if need be while we travel.”

  Her statement wasn’t a boast. Any soldier worth his sword could sleep on horseback when necessary. He’d lost count of the times he’d done so himself. “Do you want an extra scout? I have one who’s good in both daylight and at night.”

  She tried—and failed—to hide her pique at the suggestion. “No. I’ll cover ground faster on my own.”

  “Fair enough.” He didn’t insist. She had her pride, and he trusted her abilities. “Should you change your mind, don’t hesitate to say so.” He’d grow old and die waiting for such a thing, but the offer was there. She gave a quick nod, her stance relaxing a little as she returned to studying the map.

  They spent another half hour discussing the distance they wanted to cover each day and when they expected to return to their respective homes. Despite the sudden clenching in his gut at the idea, he extended another offer to Anhuset.