Blood of the King - Khirro's Journey Book 1 Page 0,128

a fly. Khirro reeled backward, barely keeping his feet. When he looked up, he stared once more into Elyea’s wide green eyes. The head of the spear protruded from the top of her chest. As it pierced his throat, her face was in front of him, her lips touching his one last time.

The giant withdrew the spear, taking her away from him, and Khirro fell to his knees. Air wheezed through the hole in his throat, blood flowed down his chest.

Why is it different?

The giant’s laughter rang in his ears as his eyelids slid closed and he slumped forward, his lifeblood pooling beneath him. Then cold dirt pressed against his cheek—not needles or moss or mulch, just dirt: a farmer’s nose knew the difference.

Where am I now?

He opened his eyes to dim light he didn’t recognize as the waning light of twilight or the sign of coming dawn. He rolled to his back, hand going to his throat where he found no wound, only stubble. Wiping dirt from his cheek, he peered about to determine where he’d ended up this time.

Dried mud walls surrounded him, cracked and broken. Thatch covered half the roof, the rest open to the stars struggling to be seen in a washed-out sky. The haunted village. A shudder crawled along Khirro’s spine: the giant, the serpent, the dragon were all fearsome, but there was something horrific about the village and the children trapped inside its walls.

He heard Elyea’s voice again, but not in a scream of terror. He sighed, relieved. His mind recognized this was a dream, or perhaps a vision manipulated by someone or something else, but he still worried for her safety.

It seems so real.

Standing on shaky legs, he crossed the dirt floor and pushed open the broken door hung askew in the doorway. Elyea lay naked on the ground in the middle of the clearing, writhing and moaning as a corpse lay atop her thrusting, grinding its hips into her. The dead man looked up at him, bleached white flesh pulled taut across his face, eyes glazed, but he still saw the face belonged to Ghaul.

Something brushed Khirro’s ankle. He ignored it, enthralled and disgusted by the sight before him. He watched embarrassed, excited and angered but unable to avert his eyes.

It’s not real, he told himself again. It’s not real.

The thought didn’t ring with truth.

The sun rose more quickly than it should, casting harsh light on the village, forcing night and shadow into hiding. With the sunlight, Khirro better saw the hideous coupling before him and realized it wasn’t Elyea lying on the ground grunting and moaning with pleasure. It was her voice but Emeline’s face peered lustily up at the waxen face above her. The corpse was no longer Ghaul, either, but Khirro’s brother.

He stared at Khirro, a dead grin stretching his blue lips. Emeline’s swollen belly compressed and expanded beneath his weight, flattening and stretching with each thrust. His eyes met hers and they stared back at Khirro red and black and vacant, dead eyes perched above her mouth as it twisted and contorted in a mockery of pleasure. The urge to call out caught in Khirro’s throat.

Something brushed Khirro’s calf again and he allowed his attention to shift from the hideous copulation twisting in the dirt. He looked down on a pale hand grasping his pant leg, dirt caked under its broken nails. Khirro jumped away.

Bodies writhed on the floor of the hut: young and old, male and female. Their wrinkled, sagging flesh clung to the bones beneath, hanging in sheets with black, dirt-filled veins showing through. Khirro took a step away, hand reaching for the sword he knew lay on the ground of the cavern, wherever that may be.

A figure separated itself from the others—a man whose flesh retained more color than the others, as though recently dead—and lurched toward him. It only took a second for Khirro to recognize Shyn.

Blood trickled from a chest wound, leaving a trail down to his waist and staining his groin. Gray feathers poked through his skin in places, giving him the look of a man poorly tarred and feathered. He held a sword; his eyes gleamed. Khirro sucked a breath in through his teeth and took another step away. His foot hit something too soft to be rock, though there had been nothing on the ground in the clearing when last he looked. Of course, he hadn’t been killed by a dragon, a serpent or a giant, either. The thing against