The Chasing Graves Trilogy Box Set by Ben Galley

Author:Ben Galley [Galley, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher: BenGalley.com
Published: 2019-05-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

A Debt

Beetles. You shipped us four score riding-beetles instead of perfectly good, four-legged horses. Damn things refuse to cross any water: rivers, even a stream, dead gods damn it! I’m surprised you got them on the ships. What am I supposed to do with these creatures, you cretins?

From a scroll sent to the Chamber of Military Might by General Hjebe in 998

It was dawn when Nilith awoke to a soft pecking at her cheek. She felt the light beyond her eyelids but refused to open them.

‘My, my,’ said a small voice near her head. ‘Somebody got shit-faced last night.’

Nilith had to use her fingers to pry her eyelids apart. Even the dim sun was enough to scald the inside of her skull. She felt like ants had crawled into her head and were carving up her brain, piece by piece. It felt like the little bastards were pulling her eyes into their sockets by their nerves.

She had clearly gone mad. There was a bird standing before her. A falcon. Its golden eyes pierced her. And it was talking.

‘Morning, pretty face. Remember me?’

‘What the—? You’re back,’ she managed before retching. Nothing came up. ‘All I remember is a flying donkey.’

‘Don’t know about any flying fucking donkey. What did Her Royalness drink, then, hmm? Or smoke, for that matter?’

Nilith slumped back to the sand, chin on arms. She stared up at the falcon. ‘I don’t feel very royal.’

‘Royally fucked is what you are. Now you know why these nomad types call their wine daemonjuice, don’t you?’

‘Where’s Ghyrab?’ she croaked.

‘The bargeman? Over there, currently downing a whole skin of water.’

Nilith managed to angle herself to see Ghyrab standing by Anoish. He’d woken up a different man. Gone was the crooked back and the scowl he was so fond of wearing. He was shirtless, and for the first time, Nilith saw tribal tattoos curling around his ribs, like ivy around a pillar. He held a waterskin high, half of it missing his mouth and washing the sand from his neck.

He caught her stare and wandered across the sand to drip water over her. Nilith groaned.

‘Morning, Majesty. Falcon.’

‘Old boat person,’ said the bird, dipping his head before pecking at an empty bottle.

‘How are you not… like me?’ Nilith asked.

Ghyrab puffed out his chest. ‘Ain’t the first time I drank daemonjuice. These are desert-folk. I am desert-folk.’

‘And I, clearly, am not.’ Nilith dug up some reserve of strength and staggered to her feet. ‘I have drunk Dolkfang medea, tasted firewine from the northern tribes, even tried the black pirate rum of the Scatter Isles. But never in what precious life I have left will I let that cursed daemonjuice pass my lips again.’

She tottered towards the horse, who took one sniff of her and whinnied. ‘We have to…’ Nilith scratched her head, finding a lump and wondering where it had come from. She remembered dancing. Or at least trying to dance. ‘What were we doing?’

‘Finding Farazar.’

‘Shit!’ The hangover spread its anxiety through her as if her blood had turned to needles.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.