The Deadwalk by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime Read Free Book Online

blanketing
everything from the smoldering ruins to the charred remnants of farmers' fields.
Riordan turned her horse in a slow circle, taking in everything that lay in the
radius of her vision.
    In the fields, the scorched remains of wheat and corn thrust their barren
stalks toward an unforgiving sky. The charred corpses of sheep and oxen lay
among the ransacked fields. Yet the leagues of bodies that should have lain in
gutter and square were conspicuously absent.
    Where once towering marble gates had marked the entrance to Kanarek, a heap
of rubble now made passage impossible. Beyond the wreckage of the avenue a
massive bonfire still burned. Within its smoldering embers, Riordan could make
out the burning form of a massive carved throne.
    My father's. She tried to picture the imposing figure of the King and failed.
In a panic, she tried again, but her father's face flickered in her mind's eye
then disappeared.
    Did you truly ever think it would come to this? But he wasn't there to answer
her question.
    An eerie quiet settled over the once bustling metropolis, broken only by the
crackle of the flames and the low whine of the sickly breeze.
    No dying cries were carried on the wind. No rats scurried through the
untended fields. Nothing broke the stillness save for the snap of a twig
succumbing to the flames.
    “Riordan,” Nhaille said gently, breaking into her thoughts. “We can't stay
here, it isn't safe.”
    She nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to twitch so much as a muscle lest the
scream inside her work its way free.
    A shadow swept over the hills toward them, followed by the sure thunder of
hooves. Nhaille's head came up at the sound. Danger flashed in his eyes followed
swiftly by what she took to be the accusation that it was her orders that had
brought them here. The instinct for self-preservation took over. Turning
Strayhorn sharply, she bolted for cover in a thatch of nearby trees.
    Stormback followed closely on Strayhorn's heels. They reached cover just as
the first of the riders crested the hill. Nhaille maneuvered his mount in
closely beside her. Riordan chewed the corner of her lip and waited.
    A battalion of plumed Haelian riders plunged over the hill, trampling all
that lay in their path. Every muscle in her body clenched, fighting the urge to
rush from cover and take as many heads as she could lay across the path of her
sword.
    That may win you a few Haelian scalps, but it won't bring back Kanarek.
Nhaille's right. Our only hope is the Sword.
    The riders disappeared in a cloud of dust. Riordan gathered the reins.
Nhaille's hand shot out, holding her in place.
    And then she heard it.
    Sound reached into her memory, dragging her back in time. To the summer day
much like this one, when she'd come between a goat and the butcher's knife.
She'd thrown off his aim and the animal had screamed in agony until Riordan had
been dragged from the barn and the butcher allowed to finish the job. That dying
scream was merely one note among the chorus she heard now.
    Like an invisible fog, a choking stench nearly made Riordan cough out loud. A
cloud of flies swarmed lazily over the hill.
    The flat wailing crested the hill. Riordan opened her eyes, realizing
suddenly they'd been screwed tightly closed.
    You knew this moment was coming. Open your eyes and look.
    Resolutely, she turned her head to face the nightmare that awaited her.
    At first glance, she couldn't see anything amiss. But as the bedraggled
soldier lurched down the slope of the hill, she noted the awkward movements, the
flat staring eye.
    Sunlight flashed upon the stake of amber impaled through his right eye into
the brain. Riordan forced herself to look beyond this first horrid spectacle.
Behind the first soldier crept the rest of Kanarek's dead.
    The pressure of Nhaille's hand intensified, warning her against sudden noise
or movement. She dragged in a shaky breath, refusing to look away from what
remained of her