Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(141)

Kaden winced.

“Hat,” Akiil continued. “About twenty yards of rope…” The process was nerve-racking, but the results were not. Nothing that a normal merchant wouldn’t carry on a long trip. Nothing to lend heft to Kaden’s vaguely adumbrated suspicions.

Then Akiil found the knives.

Everyone carried a knife, of course, and a merchant would have more need of one than most. There were harnesses to mend along the road, rocks to dig out of the mule’s hoofs, frayed ropes to slice and retie, dried meat to cut for dinner. There were a thousand reasons Kaden could think of for a merchant to carry a good knife. A merchant would not, however, need a dozen of them. Akiil laid them on the stone one by one, six identical eight-inch blades, the kind men fought with in the killing pits of Annur, honed and polished edges glinting in the cold moonlight.

“Brought them along to trade?” he suggested. His voice had lost some of its boyish enthusiasm.

“To a monastery?” Kaden asked.

They gazed at the weapons for a moment before Akiil gestured to the oilcloth bundle that Kaden was still holding.

“What’s in there?”

Kaden managed to untie the last knot, then reached into the sack. His fingers brushed over wood and steel. When he had finally wrestled the thing out of the bag, he found himself holding a crossbow.

“It could all be for protection,” Akiil pointed out. “It’s a dangerous road over the steppe. The Urghul don’t usually molest traders, but you never know when you’re going to end up on the wrong end of a human sacrifice.”

“If it’s all for protection,” Kaden replied, “then what’s it doing hidden in the rocks?”

They considered the weapons for a few more heartbeats and then, as though responding to some silent command, began packing everything back the way they had found it. The jovial, larking expression had left Akiil’s face. He looked angry as he thrust the various items back into the satchel. Within moments they had returned the weapons to the bags and the bags to their hiding spot under the rocks. Akiil was replacing the final stones on the cairn when something clattered farther down the streambed, stone on stone.

Kaden spun to peer into the darkness.

“Did you hear that?” he murmured, trying to sort shadow from shape in the meager light.

Akiil nodded, hefting his stave in front of him. Kaden dropped a hand to his belt knife, then decided against it. He didn’t know much about fighting, but he didn’t like his odds if whatever it was got close enough for him to use a knife.

A cloud passed over the moon, plunging the ravine into even deeper shadow. Kaden could barely make out Akiil standing only a few feet away. Beyond him, the bare shapes of the cliffs and crenellations loomed, more felt than seen. He turned in a slow circle, leveling his staff, searching for light, movement, anything that might give him a warning of danger before it arrived.

“You see anything?” he hissed.

Akiil’s only response was a low umph, like a cough that never made it out of the chest. Kaden spun just in time to watch his friend collapse onto the streambed. Before he could cry out, a strong, implacable hand clamped down on his mouth.

Kaden was not soft. Eight years of hard physical exercise high in the mountains had seen to that. He could carry a quarter of his weight in water up hundreds of steps from the stream or run all night over rocky paths. He should have been able to put up something of a fight, and yet the hand that held him might have been made of granite. As he struggled, his adversary’s other arm closed around his neck, crushing his windpipe. This is the result of bad decisions, thought the part of him that could still think. In desperation, Kaden threw an elbow, hoping to dislodge his opponent. The man’s stomach was as solid as his arm. Kaden screamed silently as his mind failed.





33





He woke in a hard wooden chair surrounded by stone walls. Someone had lit a few candles, and when he first tried to open his eyes, the light drove a spike of pain directly through his head. He closed them again with a slight groan. He didn’t know where he was, but when the memory of the attack came back to him, he tensed himself to run or fight. No one had bound his hands or feet, and through slitted eyelids he tried to locate the door. They couldn’t have carried him far. He was in Ashk’lan still—the rough granite walls were proof enough of that. If he could just …

“We took some pains to bring you here silently. Please do not ruin it with clamor.”