Vela had called her the Dragon’s sting. So she was this night, as her arrow pierced the soldier’s back, flinging him forward with the impact. A bad angle she must have had on the captain, or she misguessed the direction he would turn in response to the soldier’s cry. Her next arrow embedded into the leather armor protecting his shoulder, yet it was enough to make him stumble and lose his steady aim. With a roar, Kelir dropped his corpse shield and hurled his axe. The blade struck the captain’s chest with such force that he flew back off his feet and was dead before he landed.
Bazir, they left for Maddek.
Now that sly-tongued cur fell back from Maddek in desperate retreat, holding his sword out before him. This time Maddek would not underestimate him or forget Yvenne’s warning about poisoned blades. The body he still carried as shield, and as he passed the fallen captain, he swept up his crossbow.
Bazir’s moonstone eyes widened. “You cannot—Arrrrgh!”
With a feathered bolt jutting from his right shoulder, the cur scuttled back nearer to the balcony, switching his sword to his left hand. Little practice he seemed to have with that grip, wobbling and weak, slashing wildly. Bazir hit the corpse shield that Maddek carried once, twice, before lunging forward as if intending to run the body through and strike Maddek with the poisoned blade. Maddek shoved the corpse at him as Bazir impaled it. Overbalanced by the weight on his blade, Bazir’s grip failed. The weapon slipped from his hand and the cur stumbled.
Maddek caught him by the throat, claws digging in. “Her only return to Syssia will be to claim her throne. Never will your brothers or your father touch her again.”
Gasping and struggling, Bazir wheezed desperately, “She will betray you, as she did my mother and yours—”
Stabbing his fingers between those open lips, Maddek ripped out the wriggling worm of a tongue and released him.
Choking, blood pouring from his mouth, Bazir looked at him stunned. Ragged sounds came from his throat. Not screams. As if still trying to speak.
Maddek yanked Bazir’s sword from the soldier’s corpse and skewered the cur’s gut with it.
A quick death it was—quicker than it should have been, and quicker than Maddek would have liked. No doubt the blade had been poisoned. As Bazir thrashed on the floor, green foam bubbled through the blood coming from his mouth. Then abruptly he stilled, moonstone eyes glazed and unseeing.
“It is done,” Maddek announced.
Toric opened the curtain, revealing Vela’s consort behind him, and the other two occupants of the bed who had waited through this long night—Gareth and Cadus. Both wore grim expressions, though when the prince’s gaze took in the carnage, horror and sickness joined it.
“You heard with your own ears?”
Jaw tight, the Tolehi minister nodded. “Syssia and Rugus will betray the alliance to save their own skins.”
“Zhalen. Not Syssia.” Nothing Maddek had seen of Yvenne’s people suggested that they supported their regent. Only feared him. He knew not if Rugus was the same, but that they would discover when Aezil was dead. Maddek yanked Kelir’s axe from the captain’s chest. “Carry that knowledge back to the council, but travel with care. If they can, Zhalen and Aezil will have you killed before you reach Ephorn.”
“As they will also come for you.”
“So they will.” So the race to the Burning Plains would resume.
“All of Syssia and Rugus against seven warriors? Come with me, instead, and speak to the council. Let them also hear Nyset’s heir.”
“I will not risk her.”
“Two hundred soldiers will serve as escort—”
“And do you trust that Bazir has not filled their heads with his lies on the journey here? Can you assure me that she will not be set upon by soldiers who believe her a demon? You believed it for a time.” When that silenced the minister, Maddek turned back to Bazir’s corpse. “When you remove this body, beware the poisoned blade.”
“Green spittle,” Cadus said, carefully lifting the hem of his robes and stepping around pools of blood as he moved closer to examine it. “Silac venom?”
“Odd choice, if it was.” That from Vela’s consort, who had remained steady through this night. “The venom will kill an opponent, but not quickly.”
That was truth. The poison only weakened those it infected, until they fell asleep and woke a brainless beast. “Not so odd if he meant to turn the alliance against me. Weakened, I could have been defeated and he could have taken Yvenne—and after waking, I would have slaughtered everyone in the palace, with no one aware the cause was poison.”
And no doubt Bazir would have claimed Maddek killed Yvenne in his rampage, so no one would look for her afterward.
“Will he wake?” wondered Cadus, frowning.
Maddek gave answer by chopping off Bazir’s head.
CHAPTER 28
MADDEK
Cadus’s fastest horses they rode to the docks, with an escort to show them the shortest route. Dawn lightened the eastern sky. Over the western horizon, the full moon blushed pink.
No hired bargeship did they have now. Drahm’s prince had offered Yvenne his protection, and as they’d waited for Bazir’s attack, he’d first attempted to persuade Maddek to remain in the city. When that failed, Cadus had insisted on the honor of continuing his protection as they sailed north. His own ship he’d offered for their use—an offer Maddek gladly took. For they truly were in a race, and the prince’s vessel would cross the water more swiftly.
The change had been made during the night. Instead of a wide bargeship, this ship more resembled a swan, with a great sail furled against the curved mast of the neck. Carrying a jute sack, Maddek strode up the gangway. Ardyl and Banek waited, and the deck was busy with crew—but no Yvenne.
“Where is she?”
“The royal quarters,” Ardyl said, pointing to the tail of the boat. “She left to prepare for your arrival after seeing her brother felled.”
In surprise, Maddek glanced to the shore. The nest he could see, a pale shell nestled amid the terraced gardens, but he had not thought her sight able to pierce the dark.
Yet it had not been dark, he realized. The full moon had shone into the bedchamber, as if Vela herself had allowed Yvenne to witness her brother’s death.
“The horses?”
“Aboard.”
“Then tell the captain to set sail.” Striding the length of the deck, he looked to the western horizon again. Never had the moon seemed to sink so quickly. Not much time would he have to prepare Yvenne for a fucking—and now Vela’s gift of cockmonger’s oil seemed not such an insult, but necessary to ease his entry if Maddek had no time to use his mouth and fingers. His cock only needed to breach her cunt before the moon set. Then he would keep his promises to her.