The Last Warrior Read online

  Praise for national bestselling author

  SUSAN GRANT

  SUREBLOOD

  “Grant’s skill at rounding out all her characters always makes her story sing!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  THE WARLORD’S DAUGHTER

  “Her latest Tale of the Borderlands…is passion and adventure as only Grant can provide.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  MOONSTRUCK

  “A gripping, sexy new series! I could not put it down!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter

  “This is a can’t-put-down read that draws you in from the first page and doesn’t let go until the tension-filled final chapters. Moonstruck is terrific. I highly recommend it.”

  —Linnea Sinclair, RITA® Award-winning author of The Down Home Zombie Blues

  HOW TO LOSE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL IN 10 DAYS

  “For readers who want strong heroines and sexy alien hunks, [Susan Grant] is definitely still the go-to author.”

  —The Romance Reader

  MY FAVORITE EARTHLING

  “Susan Grant writes heroes to die for!”

  —USA TODAY bestselling author Susan Kearney

  “I loved this book! I can’t rave about this novel enough. From an arranged marriage to royal espionage to saving Earth, this is not a book to be missed!”

  —Sylvia Day, bestselling author of Pleasures of the Night

  YOUR PLANET OR MINE?

  “One of the best books of the year!”

  —New York Times bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson

  “Wow! This book just has everything and I found myself laughing out loud; [Susan Grant has] a real gift for comedy.”

  —USA TODAY bestselling author Lindsay McKenna

  “The pacing is so effortless and the humor awesome! But most of all? [Susan Grant] has the romance totally nailed. I love their chemistry, and there’s something very sweet about them, even though it’s totally hot, too.”

  —Deidre Knight, bestselling author of Parallel Heat

  THE SCARLET EMPRESS

  “Exhilarating…adrenaline-filled…shocking twists and turns keep readers enthralled.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The Scarlet Empress offers a thrillingly pointed reminder of the cost of freedom and the continuing sacrifices required of those who value liberty.”

  —Booklist (boxed, starred review)

  THE STAR PRINCESS

  “Witty dialog, well-developed characters, and insightful explorations of cultural and class differences and political intricacies abound in this funny, sexy story.”

  —Library Journal

  THE LAST WARRIOR

  SUSAN GRANT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I couldn’t create my stories without the help

  of all the wonderful and generous people in my life.

  Big thanks to Caro, aka Midnight Line Editor, Corey Collins

  for the horse help, Donna-Marie for early reads

  and the use of her lovely mountain home,

  my editor Tracy Martin, my agent Ethan Ellenberg,

  George Meyer for all the brainstorming and loving support,

  and, as always, my two wonderful kids, Connor and Courtney.

  For Caroline Phipps,

  with gratitude, for helping guide me back to the joy of writing.

  THE LAST WARRIOR

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  PROLOGUE

  SHEER TERROR PROPELLED Elsabeth through a gauntlet of reaching, sympathetic hands as the people of the Kurel ghetto spilled out of their houses, into the alleys and streets. “The king sent soldiers,” someone called out to her. “Talking sense into them, your mother and father are.”

  No. A moan of fear rose up in her throat. No one could talk sense into Tassagon soldiers, thickheaded ax-wielding thugs. Not even her parents, the shining stars of Kurel Town.

  Her famous-physician father turned no one away from his clinic, not even Tassagons desperate enough for cures to risk setting foot inside the ghetto walls. Her beautiful mother, “the healer’s angel,” ably assisted him. Elsabeth feared they’d be confident enough, and crazy enough, to try talking peace to a people who did not know the meaning of the word.

  “Are soldiers inside the gates?” Elsabeth cried to those she passed. Sweat and frightened tears streamed down her cheeks as she gulped air, breath after breath, step after step.

  “Yes,” came the answers, with hands upturned, helpless.

  Soldiers, here. It had never happened before. Superstitious beliefs kept Tassagons from venturing inside Kurel Town, an overcrowded but orderly warren of row houses and shops. Most were certain they’d fall victim to the wizardry and charlatanry that allegedly occurred inside the walls, and left them alone. Both peoples had shared the capital peacefully, until King Xim had ascended to the throne. A few short months after being crowned, his deep distrust of her people was culminating in this: soldiers inside the ghetto.

  At the gates, a crowd had gathered. Between the bodies, she caught glimpses of bright blue-and-white military uniforms, but no sign of her mother’s shining blond curls or the tall, lean frame of her father, his long auburn hair always neatly tied at the back of his neck.

  She knew now what she’d find. She knew.

  “Beth, no. Don’t go closer.” Some tried to hold her back, but she broke free. No stopping her from her destination. A gut-deep dark knowledge of what she’d find had taken over many streets ago, driving her through the crowd to a scene she could not absorb, let alone believe.

  Her boots scraped to a halt over the gravel in the road. For a moment the world went silent. Then a steady sound like a metronome arose as she took in the sight of her mother lying on her back in a pool of blood, her limbs flung crazily.

  Like a discarded rag doll, stuck in paint. In those seconds, Elsabeth was oddly detached as she turned her disbelieving eyes to her father, who lay on his stomach, two arrows in his back, his outstretched arms forever frozen in the act of leaping to shield his wife from the arrow that had lodged in her throat.

  The metronome was her heartbeat, and it surged in volume and speed until it was drowned out by a howl of unimaginable grief.

  Hers.

  “They’re dead,” the others were telling her, hands stroking, holding, trying to soothe what was utterly inconsolable. “Dead…”

  The loss was incomprehensible—not only to her but to all in the ghetto. Her mother and father’s blazing personalities had eclipsed all who encountered them, including their own daughter. She’d grown up in their shadows, content with her place there, assisting by logging supplies and organizing shelves, working for hours. Tucked away in the hushed peace of the medical storage room, she’d wondered how two people whom everyone noticed could have had a child as i
nvisible as she, whose only adventures were confined to the storybooks she read.

  And now they were gone, taken suddenly and brutally, leaving her reeling in a world she’d never imagined facing on her own.

  Beside the burning bonfires of their funeral pyres, she rocked on her knees, weeping. King Xim had done this, a madman sitting on a throne. The memory of his soldiers’ uniforms danced like flames behind her eyes. Could the wearing of those uniforms legitimize crimes committed in the king’s name? Never. She’d not let the slaughter of her parents be forgotten. She’d not let their deaths be in vain.

  She stared into the blaze until the searing heat dried her tears and cauterized her grief. Then she lifted her gaze, following the trail of glowing ashes skyward, her parents’ final journey. She, too, was reborn, finding new purpose in a vow forged by the heat of their funeral pyres.

  By the holy arks of Uhrth, if it took her the rest of her life, she’d see the king responsible for the deaths of her parents and for violence against a peaceful people removed from the throne. Xim and all his cronies banished, forever and ever.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THROUGH A SPYGLASS, General Uhr-Tao peered at a row of lookout towers whose sentries surely were looking back at him. The spires of the palace they protected glowed like newly forged spearheads in the glare of two suns. Four full cycles had passed since he’d last ridden inside those massive fortified walls to attend the wedding of his sister to the man who was now king. Then, he’d been in the company of only a few horsemen. Today, it was the thousands he’d earned the right to lead.

  Though well defended, the eastern walls were not as thick or tall as the other three. He’d plan his breech there. Once inside, his army would overwhelm the home guard. The gates would open, and the city would fall.

  But of course, none of that would be necessary. Tao lowered the spyglass, holding it to his chest. Satisfaction filled him knowing he’d never have to fight such a battle, and he reveled in it, realizing he could finally put away the mental trappings of war.

  The spyglass went back in his saddlebag, perhaps for good. Even at this distance he could smell the city. Scents of incense and roasting meat mixed with the dust churned up by the men and beasts surrounding him. He breathed deep, remembering. Then, faintly, above the grinding and clanking of his army, shrill horns of welcome pierced the air, signaling the opening of the gates.

  Home.

  All told, he’d spent more than half his life away in the Hinterlands, battling the Gorr, going out on his first campaign before he’d shaved his first whisker. He’d never dreamed he’d see this day, his triumphant return home for good; he’d never allowed the fantasy of it to tempt him for fear it would have distracted him with hope in the face of impossible odds. But here he was, in one piece, all his limbs attached and working, a fate he owed as much to being in the right place at the right time as he did to blood and sweat. Or, he well knew, to not being in the wrong place as so many others were.

  Thank you, Tao thought as the moment hit him, for sparing my life when so many others perished.

  Uhrth rest their souls.

  Then, a slow smile as he lifted his head. “Gentlemen!” he belted out. Blinding sunlight struck his helmet and leather armor as he raised a gloved fist high. “Today, we will bask in glory. Our victory, our peace. Final, decisive, hard-won. This is the last march of the last war, and we are the last warriors!”

  The men’s whoops and howls made his heart pump with joy. Their grins blazed beneath the shadows of countless helmets. Tao laughed out loud as Chiron pranced and blew, sensing the fever of celebration, long overdue. It had been a grueling slog from the blood-soaked killing fields of the Hinterlands, the days dusty and monotonous and the nights interrupted by tortured dreams. Not all battle scars were visible. Survival, however sweet, came with a cost.

  Along the way, the army’s depleted state had left them vulnerable to not only roving bands of Gorr stragglers but to the Sea Scourge as well. Burned in his mind was the memory of the Scourge’s shadowy ships mirroring the progress of his army across the southernmost land-bridge. Part human, part Gorr, the treacherous pirates were the offspring of humans who’d mated with the “Furs”—by choice or by force, no one knew. Human at first glance, they were said to have inherited Gorish eyes capable of charming a man’s soul right out of his body, if he was careless enough to stare.

  Sea Scourge pirates kept the waters off-limits. This time, however, they’d stood down and let the Tassagons pass. Did they fear him, or did they approve of what he’d done to the Gorr? Perhaps it was a little of both.

  Even after entering human territory, Tao had been forced to keep up his guard. The Riders of the sweeping central plains considered the grasslands theirs. They saw nothing wrong with stealing horses and leaving a careless Tassagon without boots or a mount on the open plains.

  And then, there were the Kurel. The people living in self-imposed exile in the Barrier Peaks had allowed his army to use the passes through their mountainous home, saving many weeks of travel, yet they’d never once lifted a hand—and certainly never a weapon—to help stave off the Gorr. Not since their scientist ancestors in the days of the Old Colony had caused the near extinction of human civilization. Not scientists. Sorcerers. Dabblers in the banned dark arts of science and technology. Many emigrated to the capital to live, serving his countrymen through teaching, tallying figures and writing, the tedious chores Tassagons either didn’t want to do or couldn’t do for themselves. But, they wouldn’t join the army. Conscientious objectors? More like cowardly freeloaders. The Kurel accepted the benefits of the peace Tassagons won without being willing to pay. What did they want for that sham? A halo, claiming they were Uhrth’s favored children.

  Privately, Tao wondered if it were true. After all, the fever that had killed so many in the capital had spared everyone in K-Town, even those who’d sickened. Uhrth rest their souls. He made the circular sign of Uhrth over his armored chest plate in memory of his parents, victims of the plague. It would soon be ten years since they had passed on to the other side.

  He lifted his gaze to the brutal glare of morning once more. No matter the differences between the Tassagon, Riders and Kurel, they shared the most fundamental bond of all: they were of Uhrth. They were human. Any discord between them could cause their own downfall. The complete extermination of the human race had always been the goal of the Gorr. The furred muscular bodies, rows of needle-sharp teeth, the strange pale slitted eyes, designed to “charm” and then kill… Tao braced himself against an onslaught of unwelcome images. How many nights had he heard the Furs’ eerie caterwauls upon their taste of first blood? How much sleep had he lost, wondering how many of his men would be killed in the attack? The idea of the Furs emerging from hiding to strike at the heartland chilled him to the core.

  Tao set his jaw. They will not. I have defeated them.

  Pounding hooves dragged his attention to a group of horsemen galloping to meet them. The leader brought his horse to a graceful and expert stop, raising his visor to reveal a relieved, if disbelieving, smile. It was as if Tao’s very presence and the circumstances surrounding it were a wish that not even the most optimistic of Tassagons had expected.

  “General, Tassagonia welcomes you. I welcome you.” Field-Colonel Markam seemed to hunt for the exact words he wanted, then finally shook his head, laughing. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

  Tao chuckled at the man’s wondering expression. “Back from the dead, I am.”

  “And to a welcome worthy of your miraculous return. Wait until you see, Tao. It’s completely spontaneous.”

  “That’s the best kind of celebration.”

  “Most of the time.” Markam turned his horse to head back toward the city with Tao. “Xim wanted to declare a national holiday—for next week—centered on him. Him giving speeches, him handing out a medal or two to you and your officers, him granting awards of land for your men, out in the countryside, where they can be put out to pasture with
wives…but the citizens made their own plans, as you’ll soon see. Xim’s been stewing about it all morning.”

  When their beloved monarch, King Orion, had died unexpectedly three years earlier, leaving control of the realm to Crown-Prince Xim, Tao hadn’t hesitated to give his fealty to the new ruler, his brother-in-law, despite his inner doubts about the man. It was his duty, his calling as an Uhr-warrior, to do no less. Still, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine the king’s petulant expression at not getting his way. Tao had seen it many times before on the younger, smallish boy he and Markam had known as children. But they were men now, the leaders of their people. Above such childish reactions. Or so they ought to be.

  “I won him a war, Markam. The war. If he finds no pleasure in that, I can’t help him.” Tao shook his head, muttering, “Already I miss the no-nonsense laws of the battlefield, where a man says what he means, and there is no time for hurt feelings.”

  Markam’s dark eyes twinkled as he rode at his side. “You haven’t changed a bit. You still have no patience for politics.”

  “Never will!” Tao turned his focus toward the city. “Politics is the pastime for men who can’t fight.”

  The rumble emanating from behind the walls became a wild roar of cheering as his army’s point guard preceded him through the gates. Tao sat taller in the saddle. Pride swelled in his chest as he marched his army into their beloved capital city to the boisterous love of the crowds—and soon, he was certain, despite everything Markam had said, the thanks of the king himself.

  “UHR-TAO, UHR-TAO…”

  The incessant chanting. It had been going on since before sunrise. Elsabeth had dressed for her job as royal tutor while listening to it, the distant sound carrying into her parent’s tidy row house next to their old clinic in the center of Kurel Town. The chanting had persisted like distant thunder all through her solitary breakfast, keeping her from concentrating on the book she’d intended to read with her morning tea.