Page 50 of Daghel

Linahna sighs but inclines her head in agreement. “I know he has become something of a haunting… a story that we tell the children. A merciless dark god who rules the mountains and destroyed everything in his wake as he passed over on his mount—a wyvern as cold and deadly as he, keeping the order of all seasonal tides and powers within the mountains. The warriors, of course, especially like to tell these stories of how the old ways were overthrown so that orc might could reign on the mountains.” She shakes her head, her jaw clenching. “They celebrate it, but mother was always suspicious of such tales told with such relish. The power of the queens has been weakening generation by generation amongst many of the clans, though there are a few that remain loyal to the Black Tower and who keep to the old ways and who, according to rumors, have not been touched by such madness. The stories of his fall also contradict many of the ancient lore that we have of the time of Durethikal. You have seen how we celebrate Gehl, right? Down in the lower villages?”

I nod my head, curious as to where she is going with this.

“That does not seem like something that hearkens some sort of cruel and evil god-king, right? Oh, I know that he could be cruel and merciless, and the festivities were meant to ease his coldness and bring warmth with the promise of a bride, but that does not call for what was done to him. In all of the stories, he was betrayed and bound by clans and imprisoned within ice and stone. That he managed to escape his body to be reborn is something, I think, was always hinted at with the way the drehl were feared. As if their presence would hearken his return or something of that sort.”

I sigh heavily and rub my brow. That doesn’t help me too much. “Too bad the legends don’t say anything about a handy weapon capable of breaking Drisk out,” I mutter.

Linahna’s face brightens, and she grabs my hand in excitement. “Wait, there is! Like Daghel, Durethikal was always fond of using a sword. If he used his power at all in the feast room, maybe his sword gained some of his influence. If we can get hold of that, it might just be enough to break the chains. The mage’s spells might not hold up against it.”

“Perfect! Where is the sword?” I asked urgently and her smile falters in response, her lips twisting in a grimace.

“Oh. Right. Vorn has it. It is likely locked in his chambers.” She licks her lips nervously. “I have often gotten in there without issue, but I have never taken anything out, and especially nothing so large as an orc’s sword.” Her hand tightens over mine. “But I am willing to try. First, I need to see someone. She needs to be made aware of what’s going on even if it interrupts her peaceful recovery. I would not have dared before when it would have made Vorn suspicious of my motivation. I did not want to draw his attention to me too much. But we have no choice. I must see her.”

My eyebrows raise. “Who?”

Linahna’s mouth flattens grimly as she returns my regard. “My mother.”

Although Linahna tries to insist I remain behind, I refuse to relent and, after a brief stop at her chambers so that I might change into a surc and one of her tunics she outgrew in her youth, I remain stubbornly at her side as we evade guards to make our way through the palace to its northernmost wing. I know that I am not as powerful as Linahna, nor do I have the strength or battle acumen of even the most average orc in the village, I can’t believe that I am useless. Not when Daghel has entrusted so much to me.

“You can turn back here, you need not continue if you are afraid,” Linahna whispers as we duck into the shadows of a doorway opening into the next corridor just in time to avoid being spotted by a pair of guards passing. “There is no shame in it.”

I shake my head in silent refusal. Despite her words, I can’t help but wonder if she is saying them because she just doesn’t want me there, or because she is worried that I might slow her down. More than that, I can see that she is worried for me, and somehow that makes me feel even worse, though it strengthens my resolve. This is my life now, not that of a pampered courtesan.

“I can’t,” I whisper back. “Perhaps this is in part me needing to believe that I can do more than just being a courtesan. I know I’ve flown with Daghel and Drisk many times,” I immediately say when she lifts an eyebrow at me, “but I’ve never had to actually do anything except sit there and keep watch since we were never needed to fight. I must be more, Linahna. I need to know I can actually be more, especially when Daghel expects me to do something as significant as rallying the gathols.”

A fleeting expression of surprises crosses her face. “He does?” A wry chuckle bursts from her. “Of course he does. Youare a queen—the bride of Durethikal.” She nods thoughtfully. “Very well, come on, bride,” she gently teases, grabbing my hand in hers, “since you’ve pledged yourself, you are an orc now. No soft, tender human here. So let us speak to my mother and get that fucking sword.”

Linahna does not temper her speed for my sake but forces me to keep up now as we dart along the corridors and staircases, climbing higher in the palace as she takes down those who stand in our way with ruthless efficiency. We maintain the brutal pace until we arrive at a cold door with no warmth of a hearth fire burning beyond it. A deep coldness seeps from it as it stands ajar and a look of worry creases her face as she touches the door and nudges it open a little more, enough so that the firelight of a nearby torch touches the dry stain of blood smeared on the floor. Trepidation tightly grips my heart as Linahna pushes harder on the door, but it gives only so far until it won’t open any further, forcing us to squeeze inside one by one. And then we see what is blocking the door.

I recoil with horror, cramming my fist against my mouth and biting hard against my knuckles to silence my urge to scream. A woman lays there, her face a gruesome mess as if claws ripped into over and over, tearing out her eyes and shredding her cheeks, mouth, and neck until a river of bled dyed a once ornate gown with the heavy reddish-brown crust of dried blood,

“It is Deihedra, our spirit talker. Gods, what have they done to you?” Linahna whispers mournfully in a choked voice as she crouches before the fallen body. Her hand reaches to the dead female, her claws skimming along the ruin of the female’s face before dropping away as she lurches to her feet. “Mother,” she sobs and turns toward the inner chamber and breaks into a run, leaving me to race after her. “Mother!”

Blood splatters everywhere in the sitting room with fallen bodies everywhere, the dead staring sightlessly at the ceilingas their ravaged remains bear the tale of their brutal deaths. Throats and bowels torn out, chest cracked open with hearts missing as if someone had torn them out and devoured them. Swallow back my urge to vomit as I hurry behind Linahna into the bedchamber where a shrouded bed takes up a large part of the room. A female lies slumped over and when Linahna touches her shoulder, the corpse falls over, its severed hands rolling across the floor as the body rolls so that a female faces toward us in an image of horror as she stares at us with bloody holes where her eyes had been and her mouth open in a silent scream, filled with blood where her tongue had been severed.

“Ahandra,” a voice calls, a thin whisper of sound from the shrouded bed.

Linahna surges forward, ripping away the curtain and drops to her knees where the corpse had been as she reaches clawed hands to the frail female who had once been large and power in life.

“Mother, the healer is dead,” Linahna whispers.

The queen sighs heavily with a deep wheezing sound in a death rattle that makes my chest tighten with sorrow. Although it had been many years since I heard that sound, it was ingrained in my memory and my gaze falls sorrowfully on the female I had long begun to count as a friend.

“I figured as much,” the queen mumbles. “But when hearing movement beyond the curtain, I had hoped that she had survived. It seems that none of us were so fortunate.”

Linahna swallows and grasps her mother’s hand. “What are you say? You have escaped. You are going to be fine. I am going to get you out of here and I am going to have a gathol take you away to keep you safe.”

The queen chuckles tiredly and my eyes tear as her withered hand lightly touches her daughter’s hair. “Do not be obtuse, girl.I am already dead. Mine was just chosen to be the slower death—damned cowards.”

She gestures to her belly and then I see it in the heavy shadow of the bed. A javelin pierces her through so deeply that it is obviously buried into the bed beneath her.

“As if being slowly poisoned for years was not enough of an insult. This is how I will die.” She shakes her head morosely, the movement small in her weakness. “Ajek always was the cruelest of Vorn’s dogs. It seems that my son has finally made his move. The clan will fall.”

“But he will not win,” I say around the emotion choking me as I step toward the bed. “The clan will not fall.”

Her head turns to me, and a tiny frown pulls between her brows. “A human? Who are you?”

“I am Anya. I am Anastasia,” I whisper. “I am a concubine born to no future and a woman reborn in the hot and ice flames of the wyvern, Driskal. I am the mate of Daghel and the bride of Durethikal. And I swear to you that Vorn will die.”

---