Blood of the King - Khirro's Journey Book 1 Page 0,121
cross the room, startling Graymon. He noticed he needed to pee.
“Your father wants me to take you to him right away.”
She took one hand from a sleeve and placed it on Graymon’s knee. He looked down and saw slender fingers ending in long nails painted many colors. Tiny pictures adorned each one. On one: a bunny; on another a fox was painted, then a flower and a sun. As Graymon looked at them, the bunny jumped from one nail to the next and the fox took up the chase, leaping in front of the sun, chasing the bunny past the flower. The boy gasped and giggled.
The black cloaked woman reached out a finger and placed it under his chin, raised his eyes to peer toward where hers would be if he could see beneath the hood. As if hearing his thoughts, she reached up and pulled the cowl back.
Graymon cringed, expecting something dead and decayed to appear from under the black cloth. Instead, long hair so yellow it appeared golden spilled from the woman’s head, cascaded over her pleasant face. Painted lips curled in a warm smile that reflected in her dark brown eyes.
“We must go.” She put her hand on Graymon’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. He pivoted his head, trying to see the pictures on her nails. “Your father wants to see you.”
“What about nanny?”
Graymon allowed the woman to help him to his feet. The king of the dragons flapped its wings and climbed higher until it came to rest on his shoulder. He smiled as the toy nuzzled his neck.
“Nanny is sleeping.” She took Graymon’s hand. “There is no reason to wake her. She will know you have gone to your father.”
Graymon stroked the wooden dragon’s ridged neck; it nipped playfully at his fingers. He didn’t know who this woman was, but he liked what was happening with her around. It would be all right to go with her—Da sent her, after all.
“Will we be riding horses?” He liked horses, they were more fun than riding in a carriage. Warriors rode horses.
“No, I have a quicker way for us to get there, but you have to promise you won’t be frightened.”
Graymon looked into her brown eyes and smiled involuntarily.
“I promise.”
“Good. And you must be quiet so we do not wake nanny.”
He nodded, being quiet like she wanted. The dragon hissed near his ear and the boy stifled a giggle. This would be an adventure like a real warrior would have. His Da would be proud of how bravely he acted. Smiling, he looked down at his hand in the woman’s. Figures still danced across her painted nails, but the fox and bunny were gone. Instead, twisted men with skeleton faces and creatures he didn’t want to see writhed from nail to nail. He looked away, suddenly regretting his promise not to be scared, and glanced toward the woman. He wanted to tell her he’d changed his mind about going but the black cloak whirled about him, fell over his head, leaving him in darkness.
Graymon began to cry, the black cloak swallowing his sobs as easily as it swallowed the light.
Chapter Forty-Six
Once the torch burned down to nothing, guttering and spitting its last bit of light, the darkness stretched on without respite. The tunnel twisted and turned, throwing off Khirro’s sense of what direction they traveled and how far they went. Against reason, it angled ever downward, away from the keep they thought their goal.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Ghaul asked more than once, his tone becoming more angered each time he heard Khirro’s response: “I don’t know.”
He didn’t know. The Shaman showed him the way to the tower, no farther. The dream tyger told him it was he who had to get past the guardian, but no more. Perhaps neither of them expected a simple farmer to make it this far.
Who could blame them?
He dismissed the thought. Both Shaman and tyger wanted him to succeed. They probably didn’t know what to expect after the dragon. When was the last time anyone had passed the guardian to chart what lay beyond?
They pressed on in the saturnine dark, moving slowly to avoid walking into each other until their eyes became accustomed to the constant night inside the tunnel. Even then, they could see only a few paces ahead. When they stopped to rest and sleep, they took turns at what they insisted on calling ‘watch’ though they watched nothing but blackness.