Heart of the King Read Online Free Page A

you doing?”
    “Ascertaining the man’s cause of death.”
    Khirro chuckled. “Did you not see the hole in his chest?”
    “Yes, but it came after his death, put there by your friend, Mother Rat.”
    “Then what?”
    “Pestilence.”
    “You mean disease?”
    “Worse. Magic caused this. Evil magic.”
    “Someone cast a spell on this man?”
    Athryn shook his head. “If only that were so. It is worse. Much worse.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Athryn strode away without answering. Khirro looked at the rat and its babies, at the man’s parched skin and empty eye sockets, then followed his companion, curious to find out what he thought happened. They covered fifteen paces before Athryn stopped again, lifted his hand and pointed. Another corpse.
    They crunched across the dried vines and found the body of what they thought a teenage boy, though it was impossible to tell his actual age with the way his skin shrunken against his bones gave him the look of an old man. Khirro looked at this body, then back over his shoulder at the other they’d left, aware of the obvious similarity between them.
    The same thing had killed them both.
    “There will be more,” Athryn said looking down at the face of the dead boy.
    “How do you know? What caused it?”
    The magician faced Khirro, the set of his jaw grim, his blue eyes serious. “You spoke of undead soldiers.”
    “Yes.”
    “A price must be paid for the use of this kind of magic.” He gestured toward the corpse. “Only the true Necromancer can perform such feats.”
    “But Darestat is dead.”
    Athryn shook his head. “There is much you do not understand about magic, Khirro. Darestat is gone from our world, but did you not see him with me?”
    Khirro remembered the disturbance in the air he’d seen shimmering in front of Athryn, thought of the way his friend had spoken to it and it answered, but he’d dismissed it as an illusion despite what Athryn had said. Khirro saw Ghaul kill the Necromancer, saw the old man become mist and disappear.
    “I don’t know exactly what I saw.”
    “Then you will have to take my word on faith. Darestat lives. Perhaps not in the form of life you understand, but he does. And there can be only one Necromancer. When another seeks to usurp his power, balance is lost. There are consequences.”
    He gestured toward the withered corpse at their feet. One of the boy’s arms and his legs were curled tight to his body, the tendons beneath the dried flesh shrunken and tight. His other arm stuck up in the air, extended toward the Heavens, as though he reached out to touch the fields of the dead.
    “How many more will there be?”
    Athryn shook his head. “I do not know. The usurper must have expended much power. Many, to be sure.”
    Khirro’s thoughts flashed to Emeline, the baby, his parents and brother.
    Did this happen to them, too?
    “Hey.”
    The word came from a distance, floating across the dried-out autumn field. Athryn grabbed Khirro’s arm firmly enough it hurt and it took him a second to realize the word they’d heard was spoken in a different language.
    He looked up and saw the horsemen, close enough to make out the armor on their bodies and the swords hanging at their belts.
    “Gods,” he cursed.
    True warriors aren’t caught off-guard. Shyn wouldn’t have been. Nor Ghaul.  
    The thought of the traitorous Ghaul set his teeth on edge, but Athryn’s grip wrenching him away from the corpse pushed it out of his mind.
    “We must go.”
    Athryn released his hold and broke into a run; Khirro followed close behind. Their feet beat the dried tomato plants, crushed brittle vines and rotted fruit beneath their boots. Khirro scanned the field ahead as they ran and saw nowhere to hide, no place to slip away or make a stand. The sound of hooves pounding earth soon overtook the crackle and crunch rhythm of his own feet beating the ground.
    We can’t get away.
    “Athryn,” Khirro called between gasps of breath. “There’s nowhere