The Last Warrior Read online

  “Let them come.” The tutor’s face looked paler in the shadows as they clambered in the wake of Navi’s lantern. “We’ll be ready.”

  He sensed her grit, and could believe her. Of all things, he’d just inherited a Kurel guardian, one who actually seemed credible in her willingness to wage a fight.

  His situation was becoming more bizarre by the minute.

  The boy threw glances over his shoulder at Tao, acting equal parts awestruck and nervous, but the tutor was cool, businesslike and in control, rather like he was when leading his men. If some Kurel could be this capable, why hadn’t any ever signed up to fight?

  Spongers, every last one.

  Elsabeth said, “In case we get separated, head to the loading docks. Down by the kitchens. Do you remember where?”

  How could he forget? They’d stowed away in the departing supply wagons as boys, never knowing what new places they’d see before being discovered by the drivers and shooed away. “Yes. I do.”

  “We can’t dally. The kitchen staff returns at midnight.” She lurched into a run. “Follow, Tassagon.”

  The boy was ahead of them now, keeping a breakneck pace. Literally, Tao thought with increasing concern. Several times the youth slid and almost fell, righting himself with a body that could bend and recover like a sapling. The lantern flickered with each crash, a bouncing ball of light. Tao could barely focus on the details racing past him. A wrong turn could put them out into the moat, where the pipes channeled the monsoon waters in season. Ahead was one such turn.

  “Go right,” he called to the boy. Tao had done this a hundred times, but never so fast and so dark. Here, the liquid under his boots was slicker and foul—algae, affording little traction as the spillway pipe angled steeply downward.

  The Kurel boy fell to his rear, bumping along the pipe’s inner ribs in an effort to slow down and make the turn. Ahead the outlet yawned like an open mouth. He was slowing, but not fast enough.

  “Navi, go right,” Elsabeth warned from behind Tao.

  “Right—now,” Tao yelled.

  Navi’s heels finally caught, but the sudden deceleration pitched him forward. Straining, clawing for a handhold, he fought to stay in place, but gravity had other ideas. He crashed into the grate, hands first. For a heart-clamping moment Tao thought the grate would hold for the boy, but the force of his palms jarred it loose.

  “Navi!” Elsabeth skidded to a stop next to Tao, both of them sucking in air as they peered out, just above the misty waters of the moat.

  Somehow the youth hung on as the grate swung open like a door, but as it bounced off the stones on the exterior of the castle wall, he lost his hold and fell for only seconds before they heard the splash of his landing. “By the arks. He’s in the moat.” Elsabeth whirled to Tao, panic etched on her once-composed face. “The tassagators—”

  “Stay put.”

  Tao dove in after the boy. Hitting the water was a cold explosive shock. Within the depths of the moat, crushed by the weight of the black water, he knew his imagination was playing tricks when he sensed the twitch of awareness of untold primitive minds.

  Bubbles streamed past his face until he slowed his descent and reversed his course with powerful kicks. Was the motion in the water ahead of him the churning wake left from the boy’s plunge? Or was it the stirring of a powerful, reptilian tail? Eyes wide open, he saw only waving fronds of underwater plants in the dim moonlight. Then, ahead, the dark form of Navi struggling upward in slow motion.

  Tao grabbed him. He surfaced, explosively, shoving the boy toward the grate, the lowest rungs still several feet above their heads. “Climb,” he gasped. “Go.”

  Navi clambered up the hanging grate. It swung crazily. Tao reached up to hold it in place to muffle any noise and keep from drawing attention to the moat.

  Elsabeth snatched the boy’s hand, and they disappeared inside the pipe. Tao scrambled up after them, hoisting the full weight of his body out of the moat up with his arms.

  Rung over rung… His battered fingers closed over cold slippery iron, each grab hauling him higher. With his strength flagging from a day of no food or water, his waterlogged boots weighed him down like anchors.

  This is nothing compared to that Furs hunt in the Sarcen Swamps. They’d slogged through mud up to their necks, Gorr all around them, while fighting off clouds of ravenous sting flies. In the end, it had been a major victory, finding and destroying three heavily populated dens, but it had been hell to get there. But you did. With the thought to spur him on, Tao pulled himself higher on the grate and away from the water to keep the beasties from having a taste of him.

  He threw one arm over the lip of the pipe opening, then the other, his weight on his elbows and forearms, his legs pedaling in the air. Elsabeth and Navi grabbed at him, almost frantically, trying to drag him the rest of the way inside.

  A splash, a spray of water shooting across his back. “Come on, come on,” the tutor urged in a whisper. “Hurry. Hurry. They’re all around you.”

  A larger splash. Something hit him. In the legs. Hard. It yanked him out the pipe, but he caught a rung with one hand, stopping his fall. For a second he felt nothing at all below the waist. It was if the entire lower half of his body had departed. Then, a blow of pain rammed into him with crushing intensity, roaring up his body like an out-of-control fire so hot, he was sure he was being burned alive.

  Gator bite.

  CHAPTER TEN

  TAO UNSCRAMBLED HIS thoughts enough to figure out he still had a grip on the lip of the drainage pipe, while his legs were consumed by pain so severe he almost screamed.

  The water was churning. A dark form swept past, as large as a warhorse. And another. Blood in the water: prelude to a feeding frenzy. Like hell if he’d take credit for defeating humanity’s greatest enemy only to end up a forgotten morsel for moat pets.

  Up. He had to get higher. He had to get inside that pipe.

  The Sarcen Swamps were tougher. He chanted the thought, silently, as his breaths hissed loud in his ears. Rung by rung, he hauled himself up the rest of the way, vaguely aware of the two Kurel reaching for him, attempting to drag him farther into the pipe.

  He was in. His burning legs wouldn’t support his weight. The side of his face lay on the cold curve of the pipe, the stink of the seeping runoff water strong, his awareness narrowing to encompass only the gator bite, a blinding, blistering sun of agony.

  “Tao. Nod if you hear me. Tao.” The press of a cool, smooth palm on his cheek. “The noise. People may see. You have to move out of sight.”

  Hands pulled at him. With their urging, he low-crawled a few yards and collapsed again. His pants were soaked with water and blood. He felt himself going into shock, staying conscious only because of his battlefield experience. He was burning alive, his flesh popping and sizzling while imaginary saws dug deep, back and forth, flaying the seared flesh—it was so bad a part of him wished he would black out. Inside he was screaming, screaming until his voice had shredded away to nothing.

  “Get up…Tao… Can’t stay here.”

  He heard her voice. Elsabeth. Pulling…pulling him out of a dark place where he sensed he ought not venture…

  “General. On your feet. Do it now!”

  Tao jerked back to awareness. Another ragged breath and he remembered why he was there.

  The loading docks.

  His escape.

  The Kurel were helping him up to his feet. He leaned heavily on Navi, who was surprisingly wiry and strong.

  “That’s it. You’ll be all right. Hold him, Navi! Walk, Tao. Walk.”

  Tao focused on the fierce female voice directing him, following it like a torch in the dark. “Step, and step. One more. Keep going. We’re almost there.”

  A loss of consciousness in a battle meant almost certain death. This might not be a battle like he was used to fighting, but it was war all the same. He’d been betrayed by his king and now was in the hands of Kurel, who viewed his people as little more than savages
.

  Any enemy of this king is an ally of ours. That’s why I’m helping you, Elsabeth had told him, revealing in her tone a very real determination to see Xim dead. He’d remain a recipient of her aid only for as long as he continued to be of use to her. The thought struck him in between waves of agony. He’d long ago learned to think his way out of situations in spite of trauma to his body. He would do whatever it took to survive to see his sister and his kingdom safe, even if it meant giving the Kurel temporary control of his life.

  He staggered, pausing every few breaths to crush the urge to scream, to fall to his knees. To die.

  “Keep going. You’ll be all right.” Elsabeth’s voice again. “You’re going to live.”

  The pledge of a sorceress. “Swear?” he rasped.

  A pause. “Yes. I swear.”

  Good. He’d hold her to it.

  THEY PLOWED OUT OF the pipe into the muggy haze of night. A pair of bored mules jerked their heads up from grazing. The air smelled of manure and waste-water, and crushed late-summer grass. “Chun, help, he’s hurt,” Elsabeth said, Tao’s weight descending on her as his legs folded yet again.

  Chun vaulted off the wagon, his expression both alarmed and determined, a competent young physician knowing what to do.

  The general’s nose was bleeding, his hair matted with dirt and sweat. Lacerations and welts crisscrossed his quivering hands and arms, and his knuckles were scraped raw. His face was so streaked with grime his gold-green eyes appeared to glow like embers in his agony. She’d seen few people in worse shape in all the years she’d helped her parents in the clinic. “Gator bite,” she told Chun.

  “Great arks. Why were you in the moat?”

  “Navi went for a swim.”

  “I fell!” Navi protested in a loud whisper.

  “He did,” Elsabeth assured Chun. “He slipped. It could have happened to any of us. The general went in after him.”

  Chun took her place under Tao’s arm, and the two men walked him to the covered wagon. The general’s lips pulled back over his teeth, as he seemed to be fighting the urge to writhe or yell, obviously aware they’d made enough noise already. Tassagator splashes weren’t unusual, but on a night like tonight, they couldn’t risk any notice.

  Her ears strained for telltale noise coming from the kitchen. The docks were still deserted, but with each fleeting minute their escape window shrank. The kitchen staff would arrive at midnight, clanking pots and pans, lighting the fires as they prepared the kitchens for the morning meal.

  “Let’s go, get him in,” she urged. Chun jumped in first, pulling the general into the wagon after him. Straw covered a wood floor. Empty produce crates and high wooden sides provided cover from passing Tassagonians. A tarp was thrown over the open top of the cargo area.

  Navi nimbly jumped into the driver’s seat, then held his arm out to her. She grabbed his hand, and he hoisted her up to share the hard bench. A snap of the reins and they were off, the brims of their caps pulled low over their faces. A small lantern swung from the front rail and provided just enough light for Navi to steer. Then, laughter.

  She jerked her gaze up. On a balcony high above, revelers partied, appearing blessedly ignorant of the fact that the general had escaped. Nor did they seem too concerned about their hero rotting in jail. Xim’s loyalists, she thought, sickened by their disregard for anything other than their own personal advancement. The lives of anyone outside the palace, let alone in the ghetto, meant nothing to them. News of her parents’ deaths had probably dropped into the muddy puddle of their ignorance with nary a ripple to account for it. It made stealing Tao from under their noses suddenly more satisfying, the first measurable victory over the king since she’d come to work at the palace.

  And not the last.

  She turned narrowed eyes back to the moat bridge ahead. “Easy, Navi. Not too fast.” The urge to cross it at top speed was almost too fierce to resist, but it would draw too much attention. Curiosity was the last thing they could afford. If they were caught, Xim would have their heads, and quite likely everyone else’s in the ghetto.

  Across the bridge they rolled, as fast as they dared. The waters below were as smooth and opaque as a piece of charcoal silk. A leaf broke free of a tree and floated down to the water. A small splash as a fish rose to investigate, and Navi’s filthy hands shook. “You all right?” she asked.

  He hung his head guiltily. “Sorry about what happened is all.” His eyes slid sideways. “And thankful.”

  She rubbed his arm. “Me, too. I thought we lost you.”

  “I mean, I’m thankful for him—the general. He saved my life.”

  “I know he did.”

  It seemed the people’s hero was now theirs, too. Tao had jumped in to save Navi with no hesitation, an act of raw heroism. It was obvious, looking at the man, that war had hardened him on the outside, but she now understood his toughness reached inside, too. Navigating the pipes with gator venom in his blood, something described as being burned alive by the few who’d survived to tell about it, would take a superhuman strength of will. That kind of inner strength was likely the reason he’d survived to return home from the Hinterlands in the first place, surprising all of Tassagonia.

  Especially Xim. She tightened her jaw, remembering her vow to see the king deposed. Tonight, she’d come one step closer by rescuing Uhr-Tao from his clutches.

  Yet, as much as general’s feats kindled a burst of awe, they served to remind her that he was used to taking charge without consulting others, as willing to risk his life for the Tassagonian Kingdom as he was to save a young, insignificant accountant from the ghetto. Admirable, yes, but not when it was the general’s life on which everyone’s future balanced so precariously. He mustn’t risk that life to save anything—or anyone—other than the kingdom. And the Kurel.

  How was she going to be able to control such a man? She had to. No question. General Uhr-Tao’s life was no longer in his hands; it was in hers.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE WAGON ROLLED OUT the palace gates toward an old, rutted merchant road. They approached Kurel Town via the growing-fields and orchards along the capital’s southern wall. While Navi drove the wagon at a deliberately normal pace, Elsabeth crawled over the driver’s seat to join Chun, ready to assist with the general’s medical care any way she could.

  The physician’s skilled hands hunted over Tao’s body. “Bite wounds left thigh…and the right calf,” he said, having already sliced open the shredded trousers with bandage scissors. The punctures and gashes on Tao’s legs were deep, discolored and seeping fluid as the angry, ragged edges swelled. “Without antivenin he’ll lose his legs.”

  Tao went rigid. “No, Kurel. Don’t you take my legs.”

  “No one’s going to take your legs,” Elsabeth blurted out. Whether it was true or not, she didn’t know, but she knew they weren’t going to keep the warrior in this wagon if they threatened him with the loss of his limbs. “There’s antidote in the clinic.”

  Chun reached into his medical bag. Made of black leather so worn it felt like the softest cotton, it had been her father’s. Doc Ferdinand’s satchel. Every time she saw it in Chun’s possession, it brought tender memories pierced with a poignant sense of loss, and bitter anger. Always that.

  The physician went to work cleansing the general’s wounds. Sweating profusely, Tao was panting, almost too fast, his great fists opening and closing with each wave of pain. No man should have to endure such misery, even General Uhr-Tao. “A strap,” he gritted out, seeing her crouch down next to him. “Get me one.”

  “A strap?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Between the teeth.”

  Mercy. The man wanted to bite down on a leather strap to blunt the pain. It probably wasn’t the first time, either. Primitive, when there was real pain medicine. Sad. “He’s suffering,” she told Chun. “Do something.”

  “I will, Beth. Hold on.”

  Navi hit a pothole in the road. The wagon rocked. Tao grunted ha
rshly, his first real expression of discomfort. Instinctively, she grabbed hold of his hand as she had for countless patients in her younger years. “I’m sorry. Chun has something to ease the pain.”

  “Had worse.” Tao panted some more. “Took an arrow once. In the shoulder. Went straight through. Compared to that, this is like a fleabite.”

  “If that’s the way fleas bite in the Hinterlands, I hope none rode back with your soldiers.”

  That drew a ghost of a smile, although his palm was sweaty in her fingers. If bravado helped him, so be it, but it was inconceivable that anything was worse than the horrific effects of the gator bite.

  Another sharp jolt. Tao grimaced, his teeth bared, his hand clamping over hers. “Navi, please,” she said over her shoulder, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard through the tarp. “Try not to hit every bump in the road.”

  Chun told Tao, “Give me your arm, and hold it still. It’s hard enough to keep my balance in this bouncing wagon, let alone get some medicine in you.”

  Tao’s expression was instantly suspicious. “Why my arm? It’s my legs they got.”

  “The medicine has to go in your arm to reach your leg,” Elsabeth explained, and he made the sign of Uhrth over his chest. The Tassagons fear us as much as we do them. “You can trust us, or you can lie here and suffer your fleabite—” The wheels hit another pothole and they bounced hard.

  “Navi,” she scolded in the general direction of the driver’s bench.

  “Do it.” Tao’s expression was resolute. “Wherever it needs to go.”

  Chun cinched a band around Tao’s forearm. Into a bulging vein he emptied one syringe, then another, taking pains to stow both out of sight in his pocket. Such items were preciously guarded. Possession was considered evidence of sorcery, a charge that carried a punishment of death. “I gave him drowse with some mondosh,” Chun told her.