Page 7 of Lake of Sorrow

“I… think that’s the Kar’ruk language,” Frayvar breathed, almost too softly to hear.

Kaylina wanted to object. There was no way Kar’ruk warriors would be this close to the kingdom capital, not when the rangers patrolled the mountain passes and borders so assiduously, but hadn’t Vlerion admitted they were stretched thin right now? Thanks to the rebellion requiring they help the Kingdom Guard patrol the capital and surrounding lands?

“I’ve only heard it spoken aloud a couple of times,” Frayvar added, “but I’ve seen phonetical spellings of their words in books.”

“Can you understand it?”

“No.”

The voices grew louder and more intense. Excited. Like they’d found something.

Kaylina swallowed. Her and Frayvar? Why would they want twenty-one- and seventeen-year-old human commoners?

Maybe their age and status didn’t matter. If the stories she’d heard were true, the Kar’ruk would enjoy killing them simply because of their race. The horned beings hated humans because they’d long ago joined forces with the taybarri and driven them into harsher northern lands.

Kaylina gripped Frayvar’s wrist and took the lead, moving away from the voices. Unfortunately, they had to go slowly. Roots and rocks weren’t the only obstacles. Thick undergrowth reached past their knees, and sometimes above their hips, and they risked making noise as they pushed their way through it. The Kar’ruk might have keen hearing or be able to see in the dark. Or both.

“Clak drok!” a voice called.

Kaylina glanced back as the light of a torch appeared, highlighting an eight-foot-tall figure in a chainmail tunic decorated with bones and fangs. The being had a bumpy, broad, gray-skinned face with two stubby horns thrusting from its head above its brows.

She recognized the features from the statues in the catacombs. A Kar’ruk warrior. And it, probably he, was chasing them.

Frayvar wheezed as he glanced back, but that didn’t keep him from increasing his pace. His long legs propelled him through the undergrowth.

Kaylina raced to keep up as she groped for something they could do to escape. Negotiate? Barter? She doubted the Kar’ruk spoke Zaldorian. What were his kind doing here?

Not caring about stealth, the warrior crashed through the foliage, gaining on Kaylina and Frayvar.

The sound of flowing water came from ahead. Maybe Frayvar had run in the right direction, and that was the river they sought. But the Kar’ruk had them in sight. Stepping into water wouldn’t do anything to shake his pursuit.

Frayvar burst onto a trail and picked up speed. Kaylina barely had time to wonder why there was a cleared path through the rarely visited preserve before he ran around a bend and cursed. They’d reached the river, but only a narrow mossy log stretched across it. He stepped onto it, arms spread for balance, and cursed again when his foot slipped.

“Is this?—?”

Something sped out of the darkness and lodged in a tree scant inches from Kaylina’s head. An arrow.

“The way we have to go? Yes.” She didn’t shove Frayvar, but she did shoo him forward as she glanced back.

Several Kar’ruk with torches and axes had come out onto the trail, and there was the bowman, readying another arrow.

Frayvar hurried across the log, but he’d only made it a third of the way before he slipped again. Kaylina lunged, trying to catch him. All she gripped was his cloak, and it didn’t keep him from falling and splashing into the river. It was far deeper than the earlier stream, and he submerged fully, head disappearing among white froth.

“Davrok noft!”

Kaylina glanced back and spotted a nocked arrow pointed between her eyes, poised to release.

Frayvar came up downriver, sputtering as the current carried him away. An instant before the archer fired, Kaylina dove in after him.

No sooner had she submerged, icy water shocking as it enveloped her, than her shoulder struck a boulder. It sent her into a wild spin into the center of the current that swept her downstream after her brother. As she caromed off another boulder, she wondered if either of them would escape the river alive.

3

The gods blessed the world with life but also filled the moon with craters.

~ Summer Moon Priestess Tya

After the river flowed out of the preserve, it grew wider and calmer. Battered and in pain from striking her shoulder, Kaylina alternated paddling toward shore and looking for her brother.

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