When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

from his mind, but it nagged at him. His hazy memory failed in its attempt. Where were they going when Stirk proposed his plan? He stood close enough to the window his knees touched the wall, but didn't lean out as he glanced along the empty avenue running below his room. Though the sound of riders grew in volume, he spied no one.

Ikkundana.

The word came to him out of nowhere, and he expelled the filth from his lungs with force, spit its taste out of his mouth. Who knew what terrible disease the wind in the City of the Sick might carry? He held his breath, but his body's need to breathe betrayed him. Instead of gulping air into his chest, he sipped it like a beverage too hot to drink.

Hoof beats rattled against the buildings and the first rider coming into view caught his eye. He leaned forward, the act stretching the scab over his healing stab wounds and causing fresh pain. Breath hissed between his clenched teeth.

As the abundant clatter of hooves on stone suggested, more riders followed. A line of them came, two abreast, twelve rows, twenty-five in total, each of them armor-clad and carrying weapons. They neared, and Dansil faded back from the window to survey them from a position where he'd escape notice.

The first rider pulled level with the opening and the queen's guard recognized him at once. Few men with one arm sat horses in plate with a sword at their side. In fact, he doubted he knew the name of anyone else who fit the description besides Trenan. The queen's guard's teeth grated together at the sight of the swordsman, the muscles in his jaw bunching and knotting. He forgot the specter of disease and inhaled fresh morning air and the stink of his own sweat through his nose. Anger brewed in his gut until something occurred to him.

He kept me alive.

Trenan rode by without a glimpse in Dansil's direction, and the tension drained from the queen's guard as a question formed in place of the thought.

Why did he save me? He must realize my role in Stirk's attempt to kill him.

His mind reeled as the line of warriors continued riding by. His eyes observed their smooth young faces, their lithe limbs, but he did not register what he saw. They filed past in the brightening dawn, heard but barely seen.

He knows my part in the failed assassination. He kept me alive to make sure I'm punished.

Dansil stepped back from the window, the sounds of the warriors' passage echoing in his dark room. It didn't occur to him to wonder why a squad of well-equipped soldiers rode through the City of the Sick, or why Trenan led them. One line of thought suffocated any others, squashing details which might have appeared unusual or out of the ordinary.

He knows.

Did he tell anyone?

He wants to punish me.

He left me here. Left me to a horrible death.

His jaw clamped tight again, hands curling into fists. His entire life, he'd lived by one credo which always served him well, keeping him alive and advancing his position:

Do it to them before they do it to you.

I have to get out of here. Trenan has to die.

Dansil backed away from the window, a sudden bout of vertigo seizing him. The chamber spun; he stumbled, caught himself. A wave of nausea followed, throwing his belly into turmoil and his throat into convulsions. He reached an arm out, searching for anything to use to steady himself, but found nothing. The dark room went darker, an unsettling haze at the edge of his vision. He shuffled his feet, hoping he'd chosen the right direction to take him to the makeshift straw mattress. He inched forward, groping blindly, until his legs refused to carry him any farther. His knees buckled and the queen's guard toppled to the floor, exhaustion stealing his consciousness.

***

Before he opened his eyes, Dansil knew light filled the room. How much time had passed since he clambered to the window, he didn't know. Might be the same day as when he watched Trenan lead his squad past, merely later, when the sun placed itself to shine into his chamber. It could as easily have been any other day.

The queen's guard inhaled a deep breath, eyes remaining closed, and took stock of his body: manageable pain in the wound in his back, straw beneath his torso but not his legs—he'd dragged himself most of the way on to the mattress, at least enough to soften his fall. Thankful for that, if for nothing else about his situation, he shifted, hand sliding on the loose bedding, the sound of it loud in his ears, seeming to echo in the empty room.

He held himself rigid, breath captive in his lungs. The space he'd traversed on his way to peer out the window wasn't large enough to create a reverberation. Was he not alone?

Dansil recalled vague memories of someone tending to him during his recovery—a clay cup pressed to his lips and water trickling as much down his chin as his throat, soft food forced into his mouth, bandages being changed. He resisted the temptation to reach around and touch the spot where Stirk's knife had punctured him, see if his fingers came away bloody or if they'd find an expertly applied bandage covering the outline of sutures holding his skin together beneath.

He waited but no further sound found his ears, so released his breath in a wooshing sigh, the noise echoing again when he stopped. In his mind, he pictured an old hag bending over him as he sweat and gibbered in the throes of fever and infection. He saw her in a red cowl hiding boils and warts of sickness on her cheeks while age and pain warped and crooked the fingers she used to guide the