Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- TOR BOOKS BY JACQUELINE CAREY
- PRAISE FOR JACQUELINE CAREY
- GODSLAYER
- Copyright Page
“All right.” Aracus Altorus climbed to his feet, looking weary. He rubbed at his brow with one hand, leaving a smear of blood alongside the Soumanië. “Give him … give him a proper burial,” he said, nodding at the still figure. “If the Were keep their word, we’ll owe him that much, at least.”
There was grumbling among the Borderguard; the Ellylon made no complaint, assuming that the order was not intended for them. But it was Lilias who found her voice and said, “No.”
Aracus stared at her. “Why?”
“The Were do not bury their dead,” she said harshly. “Leave him for the scavengers of the forest if you would do him honor. It is their way.”
He stared at her some more. “All right.” Turning away, he accepted his reins from a waiting Borderguardsman and swung into the saddle. “Blaise, send a rider to Kranac to notify Martinek of this bargain. Tell him I mean to keep my word, and do any of the Regents of Pelmar break it, I will consider it an act of enmity. By the same token, do the Were break it, they will be hunted like dogs, until the last is slain. Let it be known.”
“Aye, sir.” Blaise moved to obey. In a few short minutes a rider was dispatched and the remainder of the company was remounted, preparing to depart. There was barely time for Lilias to take one last glance at Phraotes. It was hard to remember the Were ambassador as he had been; a keen-eyed grey shadow, gliding like smoke into the halls of Beshtanag. Dead, he was diminished, shrunken and hairy. His eyes were half slitted, gazing blankly at the trees. His muzzle was frozen in the rictus of death, wrinkled as if at a bad scent or a bad joke. Phraotes did not look like what he had been, one of the direst hunters ever to touch the soil of Urulat.
We shall dwindle, and pass into legend.
Lilias shuddered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, horribly aware that if she had not given counsel to Aracus, the bargain might never have been struck. “I didn’t know what he would ask. Phraotes, I’m sorry!”
There was no answer, only the Were’s dead, sharp-toothed grin.
If it were a bad joke, she hoped it was on Haomane’s Allies.
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-ONE
A HALF DOZEN RAVENS PERCHED in the green shadows of the outermost edges of the Delta, drowsy in the midday sun. Beneath them, Ushahin Dreamspinner crouched, watching horses grazing on sedge grass.