Daughters of Awen: A Battle of Gods and Kingdoms (Rise of the Summer God Book 1) by Summer H Hanford

Author:Summer H Hanford [Hanford, Summer H]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Summer Hanford
Published: 2021-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

XVIII

Kylem helped lift Thaler’s body into the back of the wagon, then climbed up after him to sit by his side. He kept his head down, trying not to let the hardened men of the castle guard or Norstum’s private regiment of sellswords see tears he couldn’t stop. They placed the bodies of the king and his brother alongside Thaler, and Kylem knew his lord would be pleased to travel in such august company.

Two of Thaler’s knights took the wagon seat while the others formed up on either side, followed by the castle guard, Norstum’s men, and the bastard duke himself. They drove the bodies down to the village, where the streets were lined with people. News of their young lord’s death, and that of the king, had sped through the townsfolk as only ill tidings could. Dressed in mourning gray, the peasantry fell in behind the riders as they passed, adding to the procession until all came to a halt at the cemetery gate. The priest of Deyja and his young assistant awaited them. He was the same priest who’d presided over the interment of Thaler’s father, but in the intervening years, he’d lost the uncertainty of youth.

Kylem watched as the bodies of the king and his brother were taken into the small temple of Deyja. The priests would clean them and wrap them in cloth dipped in a special mixture of herbs and oils to preserve the bodies as best they could. The ancestral well of the king’s family was far away in the capital, a journey that would take them through Greypass and across half the western side of the kingdom. A lengthy road at any time, the turmoil created by their death meant the bodies would have to stay, interred in a cellar below the temple, until it was safe to send them home. Norstum said he wouldn’t allow it until he felt certain the royal corpses would travel unmolested and be laid to rest with the honor they deserved.

Once their bodies were taken away, Kylem helped Sir Hanler, captain of the Keng’s knights, lift Thaler from the cart. They set his litter next to the well of his ancestors and two other knights came forward to help them remove the heavy stone lid. Deyja’s priest stood at the head of the grave, his chanting filling the yard as he prepared Thaler’s soul for the afterlife. Kylem took up one of the four ropes tied to the arms of the litter. He and the three knights lowered Thaler inside to rest with his forefathers.

They stepped back, and the priest sprinkled salt into the grave. The language of Deyja rolled off his tongue, and though Kylem didn’t know the meaning of the words, he knew the priest called on Deyja to open the doors to his domain and take the spirit of Thaler in, that he might dwell forever more alongside his ancestors in Deyja’s glorious hall where water tasted as sweet as wine and hunger was never felt, and all those who went before him waited to enfold him in their love.

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