Murtagh

“Why, Murtagh! To think I would find you here, of all places. Whatever are you doing in Nal Gorgoth?”

The words came from a youngish man at the head of the left-hand row of chairs. Murtagh frowned as he struggled to focus. The man’s features sharpened for a moment, and a name drifted to the top of Murtagh’s mind: Lyreth.

Murtagh opened his mouth, closed it.

The young man burst out laughing. “My dear fellow, you look like a fish that’s been struck with an oar.” He moved his mouth to demonstrate.

The rest of the visitors laughed as well.

With a supreme effort, Murtagh found his voice. “I don’t know why I am here.”

“You must forgive him,” said Bachel. Above her bronze goblet, her offset mouth lifted in the smallest of smiles. “The Kingkiller is not himself these days.”

The gathered men again laughed, and the crows above imitated them with harsh, chattering cries.

Then cultists came with food. Swirls of thick, sage-scented smoke drifted from the nearby braziers, clogging the air, and Bachel and the visitors fell to talking with avid desire. Murtagh could not follow the conversation. The incense made his eyes burn and his throat fill with phlegm, and it made it even harder to concentrate, and the food distracted him, although…he found himself strangely reluctant to eat the cut of boar meat placed before him. The meat no longer smelled sweet and savory, and its flavor had lost all appeal.

His gaze kept returning to the faces in front of him. Aside from the one who had spoken to him, he felt as if…as if he ought to know the man sitting by the end, on the right. Something about the man’s features lingered in Murtagh’s mind—an irritant that wouldn’t go away.

He put down his knife and stared at his plate, at the slices of meat that turned his stomach.

Beyond the rows of chairs, in the shadows by the entrance, Thorn sat curled on the mosaic, humming in a meaningless manner while Alín fed him scraps of boar.

Murtagh looked up. High above, in the shadowed vault of the ceiling, he thought he saw the pale circles of crow eyes looking down upon them, cold and cruel.

CHAPTER XIX Choices

It was morning, and though the village remained warm as always, the wind from the mountains was bitter. The contrast made it seem all the worse. Curtains of snow drew across the ridged flanks of the Spine, shrouding the peaks in white, as if protecting their long-vanished virtue.

Murtagh stood next to Thorn, a cloak clasped around his neck; it felt familiar, but he could not recall where he had gotten it. A shield weighed down his left arm, and Bachel smiled as she handed him a pale sword. It was not Zar’roc—he had not seen the crimson blade since…since before—but it was the first weapon he could remember holding in…in…in…

He blinked.

“Go forth now, Kingkiller, and assist my men,” said Bachel, commanding, triumphant, savage. Her hard hand caressed the side of his cheek, and then she looked over at Thorn. “You will serve also, Dragon. Fly as you are told, and when you arrive, you may fight alongside your master.”

Thorn shivered and bowed his head. Yes. It was the first Murtagh had heard or felt from him since…

Grieve approached from across the courtyard. The man was garbed in a corselet of mail, a heavy mace in one hand and a buckler in the other.

“You will do as Grieve tells you,” said Bachel. “In this, he speaks on my behalf, and as he says, you shall do.”

Murtagh bowed his head.

Then the witch removed a vial from the sleeve of her black dress, unstoppered it, and blew the vaporous contents across him and Thorn. With his first inhalation of the Breath, Murtagh’s head grew light, and the courtyard grew even more distant, as if he were viewing it through a dwarven spyglass.

“My Lady,” Grieve said, bowing deeply.

A small smile formed on Bachel’s lips. She touched Grieve upon the crown of his head, and her lips moved silently before she said, “Go now and return quickly, that I might know it is done.”

“As you wish.”

At Grieve’s command, Murtagh sheathed the sword in the scabbard hanging from his belt and climbed onto Thorn’s back. The saddle was already in place. Out of habit, he slipped his legs through the straps on either side and tightened them.

Grieve followed him onto Thorn’s back and settled between the spikes behind Murtagh. The nearness of the man was uncomfortable, and even more so when Murtagh felt a sharp poke in his ribs. He looked and saw a dagger pressed against his side.

“Move with care, Rider,” said Grieve between set teeth. “Else you will not move again.”

Murtagh did not react. In a distracted, uninterested manner, the thought came to him that he would like to kill Grieve.

Grieve tapped Thorn’s neck. “Now fly, beast!”

And with a sweep of wings, Thorn leaped from the ground, and they were airborne.

***