Blood of the King - Khirro's Journey Book 1 Page 0,86
foraged for food, not so much as a mosquito buzzed around their heads. In another place, under other circumstances, such quiet might be peaceful, refreshing, but not here. With every turn they took, every step they made, a sense of doom followed, closing in, attaching itself to their skin, filling their lungs with every breath. Khirro expelled some of the feeling from his lungs with a heavy sigh.
“I don’t know, Elyea.” He didn’t look at her, didn’t want to see disappointment on her face.
“I thought the Shaman showed you the way,” Ghaul said, redirecting his frustration from Shyn to Khirro.
“He did.”
“So get us where we need to go.”
Khirro looked at his feet, frustrated and embarrassed. The Shaman showed him the way but he couldn’t remember it. Don’t stray from the path, the tyger had said. Now he understood the beast’s warning—once off the trail, you might not find your way back.
“It is not that you cannot remember, Khirro,” Athryn said. Khirro looked at him, gaping. These were the first words he’d spoken since they cremated Maes’ body. “You have no reference. What is the first thing you remember Bale showed you of Lakesh?”
They awaited his answer, blame in their eyes, and anger rose in his chest. He’d neither asked nor wanted to lead this expedition. The Shaman cursed him to it. Nor had he begged any of these people to join him, each had insisted. Did they not think there may be a danger this might happen? Yet there they stood, accusing him. In that moment, he didn’t want them there, didn’t need their so-called help.
Then Elyea stood beside him, rested her hand gently on his shoulder, and the anger melted away.
How could I think that about them? They’ve been there for me when I needed them. Saved my life. His cheeks flushed red with guilt.
“What do you remember?” she asked, her voice soothing. He looked into her deep green eyes and nearly fell in.
“A ruined village.” His hands fiddled in his lap; he made them stop. “It sits on the shore of an inland lagoon, south of where we landed on the beach, that much I know.”
“South then,” Shyn said. He pulled his pack on and started out without waiting for the others.
“He said south,” Ghaul called after him derisively. “That’s this way.”
“I’m the one who flies above the trees.” Shyn laughed. “I know where the sun sits in the sky.”
“You wouldn’t know where your ass sits without a map.”
The soldiers closed on one another, both reaching for their swords. Before they got close, the ground shook beneath their feet, stopping them.
“What was that?” Elyea asked, dagger already in hand. The ground shook again.
“That way.” Shyn pointed the direction he’d already begun walking.
They crept forward, Shyn and Ghaul in the lead. The forest heaved and swelled with hillocks and buried roots, forced them to clamor over fallen logs. They moved carefully, straining to be quiet as they climbed up a hill, then down the other side. The ground shook once more, this time accompanied by a low rumble like a boulder tumbling down a distant mountain.
Cresting another hill, Ghaul stopped without warning, breath hissing through his teeth. Khirro crouched beside him peering down into the hollow at the bottom of the hill. Stumps crowded the forest floor, many of them wider across than a man is tall. Directly across from them, the next hill had been hollowed out into a man-made cave, snarled roots dangling from the ceiling.
Khirro stared down the swell trying to make sense of what he saw. His mother’s stories of men bigger than nature should allow, as tall as three normal men, came to mind. These men made meals of any creature they got their hands on, devouring everything, even the bones. But surely they couldn’t be true, they were merely stories told to keep children from misbehaving.
Like the stories of magicians and Necromancers and men who turned into animals.
Suddenly, he understood why they hadn’t seen any animals or birds in the forest. The forest creatures knew better than to be here.
None of them wanted to be food for a giant.
The smell of dirt and peat filled Khirro’s nostrils as they lay atop the ridge watching, waiting. The earth here smelled different than on his farm., altered by the detritus from the trees. Still, it was the earth’s aroma and it provided him some comfort. He shook his head at the thought.
How does one feel comfort while spying on a giant?