03 Cry of the Ghost Wolf by Sehesdedt Mark

Author:Sehesdedt, Mark [Sehesdedt, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786959433
Publisher: Random House Inc Clients
Published: 2011-12-06T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

VAZHAD COULD NOT SLEEP. HE KNEW HE SHOULD. IF he survived until the morning, he planned to make his escape, and he would need all his strength. His master’s baazuled were more active at night, and he did not want to execute his plan in the darkness. Vazhad intended to leave by Highwatch’s upper paths, the way he and Jatara had once gone to try to capture the High Warden’s granddaughter. Had that only been months ago? It seemed a lifetime.

Jatara … dead. Kadrigul … dead. Vazhad was the last of Argalath’s chosen. He had lived long enough to see his master become something unspeakable. And Vazhad had stayed too long, endangering not only his life but his soul. Time to be gone, before it was too late.

Once he got into the mountains, he could turn south and emerge well beyond Nar-sek Qu’istrade into the steppe. He had enough food in his pack to last perhaps three days. In the grasslands, he could seek out other Nar and hope that they didn’t know him from Highwatch. Replenish his supplies, steal a horse, then head east. Vazhad intended to keep going until he saw the next ocean. Perhaps then he would be sufficiently far away from what Argalath had become.

“Enough,” he said to himself. He would leave now. It would take some time to make his way carefully to the upper paths anyway. If anyone stopped him, he would say—truthfully—that dawn was the best time to seek a deer in the lower hills.

Vazhad stuffed a good blanket and empty waterskin on top of the food in his pack. He already had his blades and a small axe strapped to his belt. His sword, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows lay on his pallet. If he were caught on the way out, the bow and arrows he could explain. Going hunting for meat. It was no secret that Highwatch’s larders were almost empty. The knives were for dressing game. The sword he would have a harder time explaining. He reached for it anyway.

Something slammed into his door. Not a knock. Just one strike, hard enough that the door rattled in its frame.

“Who is there?” Vazhad said in Nar.

“Vazhad.” The slow, contemptuous tone of one of the baazuled. Unless they were speaking to Jagun Ghen, every word from their mouths dripped insolence. “You are summoned.”

Vazhad looked down at the weapons on his pallet. “Who summons me?”

“The master wants you.”

His breath caught in his throat, and he could feel his pulse in his temples. Had he waited too long? Vazhad looked out the window. There was not even a hint of light in the eastern sky. He loosened the string on the top of his shirt, reached inside, and pulled out the antler talisman he had hung on a leather cord around his neck. He gripped it and offered a prayer.

The baazuled slammed a fist into the door again.

“I’m coming,” said Vazhad. He hid the talisman inside his left sleeve, threw a blanket over the weapons on his pallet, and went to the door.

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