Blood of the King - Khirro's Journey Book 1 Page 0,83

grass, flagellating his face, dancing away then reaching for his eye. Suath swung his sword, called on ingrained combat skills to quell the sickening feeling in his stomach. His steel swept left to right, right to left, each time cutting empty air as the wind pulled the grass away only to send it back with every opening. A grin crossed Suath’s face; he’d never have guessed a pasture would prove the most formidable swordsman he’d ever faced.

He cut at the grass again, but this time his sword halted in its path as though striking a tree. He pulled to free it, looked down and laughed throatily. Grass wound around his steel, hundreds of blades holding it. He wrenched it, cutting some of the grass. It fell away only to be replaced by still more twining itself about his sword. Suath planted his feet and pulled again, leveraging all his strength and weight as he’d done so many times on so many battlefields.

It didn’t move.

The wind rose higher, howling across the field. A wave crashed through the grass, tore the sword from his hands. He watched in disbelief as the weapon floated away on the tops of the grass as though passed hand to hand until it disappeared in the distance. The muscles in his jaw flexed; he pulled his dagger from his belt. He’d not die here—not in this country, not in this field. Too many worthy opponents had tried to take his life to die like this.

The mercenary spun, intending to retreat from the unearthly field, but nearly tumbled to the ground. Blades of grass wound around his ankle held him fast. He tried to move the other foot only to find it fettered, too. He swung his blade to free himself, but more grass caught his wrist, twisting his arm, forcing the dagger from his grip. The wind screamed, a banshee howl filling his ears, pounding in his head. The tall blades of grass bent and swirled, whipping his body, pulling him down. He fought against the impossibly strong grip, but the more he thrashed, the stronger it became.

The wind died, the howling ceased.

Flat on his back, Suath stared up at the blue sky. Tendrils of grass crawled across him, coiling about his neck and limbs, reaching up his sleeves and under his belt like so many snakes. The grip grew firmer still, pulling at him, crushing him. He laughed, the sound strangled as the blades around his throat tightened. Suath had known since the beginning of memory he wouldn’t die of old age, but he’d expected to be felled by a superior foe on the battlefield, or done in by a stealthy knife in the dark. What would he have thought if he knew he’d lose his life to a weed?

His laughing ceased, his smile fled. The mercenary didn’t cry out, he never had before this, he wasn’t about to start now. Instead, he looked up at the sky, unblinking and unrepentant, and saw that the falcon no longer circled overhead.

Chapter Twenty Nine

They stood around the body in silence, but not the reverential silence with which they’d gathered for Maes. Horrified awe inspired this silence.

Athryn refused to cross the bare ground and enter the sea of grass, though he didn’t say why, so he and Elyea waited for the others at the forest’s edge. Khirro, Ghaul and Shyn picked their way cautiously along the knee-high, rust colored path, aware the taller grass might hide anything or anyone. No wind stirred the uncut grass; each blade drooped near the top like heads hung in mourning.

The one-eyed man’s body was so sunken into the shallow grass, they didn’t see it until almost upon it. Spatters of scarlet darkened the rusty grass around him. Khirro had never seen anything like this done to a man and if his companions had, they didn’t say.

The man’s head still clung to his neck, his scarred face laced with fine cuts. Both eyes were missing. His body lay open gullet to groin, all contents except backbone removed—organs, arteries, bones—everything gone. The husk of a man lay before them, a skin with only arms and legs and head. Khirro wiped the back of his hand across his lips and found his mouth dry as the beach they’d left behind, but his stomach didn’t churn, he felt no urge to retch. The extremity of the mutilation made it seem unreal.

“What do you think happened?” Shyn asked, his tone cold. None of them took their eyes from