Aeduan stepped into the clearing, distantly pleased when the earth chose to tremble not two breaths later. The lone guard outside spotted Aeduan. His beard was greasy, while his fine, oiled cloak had clearly been claimed off the back of a traveler. He threw anxious glances at the sky before advancing on Aeduan.
But the idiot didn’t draw his weapon. Then again, neither did Aeduan.
The man stomped forward, silicate gravel crunching underfoot as his gaze swept over Aeduan. Whatever he saw, it didn’t impress him.
Which was good. The closer he came to Aeduan, and the farther he stepped from that tent, the easier this fight would be.
“You should not be here.” The guard was close enough now to be heard over the earth’s quaking, the forest’s creaking. His beard was trimmed to a long point like men in the northlands favored. “Turn around and leave.”
Again, a sharp look at the sky. Then a shadow hurtled over, swooping up winds and drawing Aeduan’s gaze too.
A mountain bat soared overhead. Distantly, it occurred to Aeduan that he’d never seen such a creature before. It was both larger and leaner than he’d expected, and with a long tail whipping behind. Otherwise, though, the monstrous bat looked exactly like the smaller fruit bats in the jungles to the south.
Aeduan supposed he ought to be afraid.
He wasn’t. The cold in his blood needed release, and the child trapped inside that tent needed help. That was all that mattered now.
He twisted back to the slaver, who was clearly at a loss for who posed more of a threat: Aeduan or the mountain bat. To Aeduan, the answer was obvious. “You should run now,” he warned the man. “Or I will kill you.”
The man’s lips curled back. “Seven of us and only one of you.” He grabbed Aeduan’s shirt.
“Exactly,” Aeduan said. “Which is why you should be running.” Then, with a speed that no man could match, he clutched the man’s hand to his chest, and punched up. His fist connected just above the elbow, breaking the joint and snapping the humerus in two.
Bone tore through flesh; the man screamed.
This was only the beginning. With the man’s arm angled in a way it was never meant to be, Aeduan thrust the limp elbow toward the man’s neck. The jagged tip of bone that had erupted outward now pierced soft throat.
The man’s beard was instantly red, and with a soft flick of his wrists, Aeduan pushed the body over.
After that, everything was a blur of shaking earth and screams and blood. Of terror that expanded in men’s pupils when they realized that they were going to die.
Six more men. Aeduan killed each one in less time than it took him to tie his boots. But the last man, the leader who stank of broken knuckles, Aeduan took his time with that one.
Or that was the plan, but as Aeduan pinned his knee in the man’s back, the creek lapping over the gravel around his face, as he grabbed the man’s hair and snapped back his head to expose a pocked chin speckled with open sores, the human filth began to speak.
“The king,” he rasped, “is waiting for us.”
“I doubt that.” Aeduan unbuckled a knife. The first weapon in this fight, and he rested it against a pressure point just behind the ear.
The man shivered, though not with fear. A monster like this had no capacity for fear, and Aeduan could smell pleasure pulsing in the man’s veins. He seemed to relish how the knife tip slowly pierced the skin, how it buried into a cluster of nerves that sent pain shrieking through his entire body. “The king … in the north. Ragnor.”
At that name, Aeduan’s blade stilled.
“Ragnor,” the man repeated. “He’s … the Raider King, and he’s waiting for us. For our cargo.”
A long moment passed. The mountain bat was coming this way, kicking up wind and leaves and branches.
Yet Aeduan stayed still, watching the slaver’s blood slide down his neck to mix with the creek.
Then Aeduan shoved the knife in all the way. One puncture, in and out. Blood spurted. The stench rushed over him.
Before standing, Aeduan carefully wiped his blade on the man’s back. The darkness in his gut was colder now.
Run, my child, run.
Aeduan glanced at the sky, sheathing his knife. The mountain bat was headed this way, its membranous wings almost transparent.
It shrieked, setting Aeduan’s teeth to chattering. But he couldn’t run yet. Not without the child who’d drawn him here in the first place.
Aeduan spun for the tent. The girl—for that was what he sensed amid the roses and the lullabies—was inside.
The space within was cramped with supplies and crates. Tucked behind one such box was a tiny figure curled into a ball. Her Nomatsi-pale hands were tied, a sack wrapped over her head.
Aeduan dropped beside her, his fingers flying to release his smallest blade. While he cut the ropes at her wrists, he spoke to her in Nomatsi. “I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help, Little Sister.”
Overhead, the mountain bat screamed again. Wind billowed against the tent, shaking the sides with rhythmic beats, as if the creature hovered directly overhead.
It wasn’t attacking, though, so Aeduan ignored it.
The girl’s flimsy sage-green gown was soaked from the muddy floor. Her skin was ice, her bare toes almost blue. She shook, but didn’t fight as Aeduan turned to the sack tied over her head.
She was even younger than he’d expected—and grimy too, her black hair wet and matted.
Whatever tribe she’d come from, she had been captured by the Red Sails at least a few days before. Which made no sense to Aeduan. Surely, his father wouldn’t work with slavers. Not after everything.