Lady Of Regret (Book 2) by James A. West Read Free Book Online Page A

the next mouth that thought to taste him.
    Through the shifting mass of bodies and filthy limbs, he saw a naked foot, the toenails long and yellowed. He stabbed the arch of that foot, digging the blade deep. A ragged scream ripped through the kitchen, and the foot jerked out of sight. Rathe saw a straining tendon above the heel of another foot. He slashed it. Steel cleaved skin and gristle, grated over bone. Blood splashed, and the second foot leaped away.
    He continued to stab and slash whatever target presented itself. Fists and kicks rained down, but he absorbed the punishment with a grim smile, for where his enemies bruised him, he crippled them. He kept on striking toes and heels and calves where he could, moment by moment gaining more freedom, moment by moment more convinced that no historian would dare jot down an account of such bloody, brutal fuckery, for fear of tainting the glory of war and victory.
    The weight pinning him down suddenly lifted. A flapping shadowkin soared across the kitchen to land headfirst in the huge kettle hung above the hearth. Scalding broth splashed over the coals, steam billowed thick and foul. The scalded shadowkin reared back with a face blistered and red. As the wailing figure thrashed, Loro ended his cries with a ruthless slash to the back of the neck. Head bobbling loosely, the last foe fell.
    “Gods damn me!” Loro raged, spinning in search of enemies who no longer stood.
    Rathe clambered to his feet, spitting blood. Spread across the kitchen floor, some few shadowkin still clung to life, their cleaved appendages and spilled innards swimming though a spreading scarlet tide. They showed no signs of rejoining the fight, or living into the next minute.
    “What do we do with him ?” Loro asked, pointing his bloody sword at the bound fellow.
    “Cut him loose,” Rathe ordered, using his sleeve to scrub his face clean. All he managed was to smear the sticky red mess around. “He might be able to lead us out of here.”
    “What if he’s one of them?”
    Rathe paused in his search for another way out of the kitchen. The man’s patchwork tunic was at least as tattered as anything worn by the shadowkin, his black hair hung lank and oily around a slender, bladelike face. But his straight limbs set him apart from the shadowkin. That, and being tied up. All he lacked was a pinch of seasoning sprinkled over his sweat-damp skin.
    After pointing that out to Loro, Rathe said, “I expect he’s a luckless traveler, much the same as us. Cut him loose.”
    Loro grumbled under his breath about the ills sure to befall warriors-turned-nursemaid, but he severed the man’s bindings. “Up with you,” he said, hauling the man to his feet.
    “What’s your name, friend?” Rathe asked, trying to put the ratlike fellow at ease with a kind tone.
    “H-Horge.” The man’s whiny voice matched his short, spindly stature. “Gods be blessed, thank you! Thank you!”
    Before Horge could start blubbering in earnest, Rathe stopped him. “Master Horge, can you lead us out?”
    Horge bobbed his head. “Aye, I think so.”
    “You can, or you cannot. Which is it?”
    “So many turns,” Horge whispered, closing his eyes in concentration, one finger sketching a winding path in the air before his nose. “Aye!” he said, nodding eagerly. “ I know the way.” He took a bundle off a nearby table, shook it out to reveal a cloak of coarse dark hair, and wrapped it around his shoulders. “Follow me.”
    “What of this lot?” Loro asked, gesturing to the downed shadowkin. Many of those who had been groaning had gone still, eyes glazed over, waxen skin pale next to the blood pooling around them. Some still writhed and groaned, but not much longer, Rathe guessed.
    “Leave them. If our luck holds, Tulfa will find the flesh of his kindred as palatable as ours.”
    Loro’s face blanched. “It’s a foul blasphemy, folk eating folk.”
    At the moment, Rathe was beyond counting blasphemies. “Lead on,” he