Rise of Empire (The Riyria Revelations #3-4)

Although it was the best they could expect, Dilladrum mopped his forehead with his sleeve as he explained the conversation to the party.

The Tenkin howled orders. Torches went out and the rest melted back into the jungle. The leader remained as they quickly broke camp. Then, with a motion for them to follow, he ran back into the trees, his torch lighting the way. He led them at a brisk pace that had everyone panting for breath—and Bulard near collapse. Dilladrum shouted forward for a rest or at least a slower pace. The only response was laughter.

“Our new friends aren’t terribly considerate of an old man.” Bulard panted in between wheezing inhales.

“That’s enough!” Wesley shouted, and raised a hand for them to stop. The crew of the Emerald Storm needed little persuasion to take a break. The Tenkin and his torch continued forward, disappearing into the trees. “If he wants to keep jogging on without us, let him!”

“He’s not,” Royce commented. “He’s hiding in the trees up ahead with his torch out. There are also several on either side of us, and more than a few to our rear.”

Wesley looked around, then said, “I don’t see anything at all.”

Royce smiled. “What good is it having an elf in your crew if you can’t make use of him?”

Wesley raised an eyebrow, looked back out into the trees, then gave up altogether. He pulled the cork from his water bag, took a swig, and passed it around. Turning his attention to the historian, who sat in the dirt doubled over, he asked, “How you doing, Mr. Bulard?”

Bulard’s red face came up. He was sweating badly, his thin hair matted to his head. He said nothing, his mouth preoccupied with the effort of sucking in air, but he managed to offer a smile and a reassuring nod.

“Good,” Wesley said, “let’s proceed, but we will set the pace. Let’s not have them exhausting us.”

“Aye,” Derning agreed, wiping his mouth after his turn at the water. “It would be just the thing for them to run us in circles until we collapse, then fall on us and slit our throats before we can catch our breaths.”

“Maybe that’s what happened to the others we spotted. Perhaps it was these blokes,” Grady speculated.

“We’re going somewhere,” Royce replied. “I can smell the sea.”

Hadrian had not noticed it until that moment, but he could taste the salt in the air. What he had assumed was wind in the trees he now realized was the voice of the ocean.

“Let’s continue, shall we, gentlemen?” Wesley said, moving them out. As they started, the Tenkin’s torch appeared once more and moved on ahead. Wesley refused to chase it, keeping them at a comfortable pace. The torch returned, and after a few more attempts to coax them, gave up. Instead, the man carrying it matched their stride.

Travel progressed sharply downward. The route soon became a rocky trail that plummeted to the face of a cliff. Below they could hear the crashing of waves. As dawn approached, they could see their destination. A stone fortress rose high on a rocky promontory that jutted into the ocean and guarded a natural harbor hundreds of feet below. The Palace of the Four Winds looked ancient, weathered by wind and rain until it matched the stained and pitted face of the dark granite upon which it sat. The palace was built of massive blocks, and it was inconceivable that men could have placed such large stones. Displaying the same austerity as the Tenkin, it lacked ornamentation. Ships filled the large sheltered bay on the lee side of the point. There were hundreds, all with reefed black sails.

When they approached the great gate, their guide stopped. “Weapons are not allowed past this point.”

Wesley scowled as Dilladrum translated, but he did not protest. This was the custom even in Avryn. One did not expect to walk armed into a lord’s castle. They presented their weapons and Hadrian noted that neither Thranic nor Royce surrendered any.

Thranic had been acting oddly ever since stumbling into camp. He had not said a word and his eyes never left Royce.

They entered the fortress, where a dozen well-equipped guards looked down from ramparts and many more lined their route. The exterior looked nearly ruined. Stone blocks had fallen and were left broken on the ground.

Inside, the castle decor was no more cheerful. Here, too, the withering decay of centuries of neglect had left the once-great edifice little more than a primordial cave. Roots and fungi grew along the corridor crevices, and dead leaves clustered in corners where the swirl of drafts deposited them. Dust, dirt, and cobwebs obscured the ancient decorative carvings, sculptures, and chiseled writings.

Over the walls, the Tenkin had strung crude banners, long pennants that depicted a white Tenkin-style axe on a black field. Just as in Oudorro, row upon row of shields hung from the ceiling like bats in a cavern. A huge fireplace occupied one whole side of the great chamber, a massive gaping maw of a hearth, in which an entire tree trunk smoldered. Upon the floor lay the skin of a tiger, whose head stared with gleaming emerald eyes and yellowing fangs. A stone throne stood at the far end of the hall. The base of the chair had cracked where a vine intertwined the legs, making it list. Its seat was draped in a thick piling of animal skins and on it sat a wild-eyed man.

His head sported a tempest of hair, long and black with streaks of white, jutting in all directions. Deep cuts and burns scarred his face. Thick brows overshadowed bright, explosive eyes, which darted about rapidly, rolling in his skull like marbles struggling to free themselves from the confines of his head. He was bare-chested except for an elaborate vest of small laced bones. His long fingers absently toyed with a large bloodstained axe lying across his lap.

“Who is this?” the warlord asked in Tenkin, his loud, disturbing voice echoed from the walls. “Who is this that enters the hall of Erandabon unannounced and unheralded? Who treads Erandabon’s forest like sheep to be gathered? Who dares seek Erandabon in his den, his holy place?”

A strange assortment of people surrounded him, and all eyes were on the party as they entered. Toothless, tattooed men spilled drinks while women with matted hair and painted eyes swayed back and forth to unheard rhythms. One lounged naked upon a silk cushion, with a massive snake coiled about her body as she whispered to it. Beside her an old hairless man with yellow nails as long as his fingers painted curious designs on the floor, and everywhere the hall was choked with the smoke of burning tulan leaves, which smoldered in a central brazier.