The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,53
of sympathy on his face from earlier transformed now to one of awful pity. “Ah, firefly woman, Brishen shared very little of our battle here, didn't he? And I'm guessing the refugees refuse to speak of what they saw.” He gently pushed the hand holding her knife away from the clothing. “The stains you see on the clothes, they're all that's left after the galla consume their victims.”
Anhuset's heart vaulted into her throat and she leaped away from Serovek and the gruesome memorial to Haradis's dead. The horror she'd beaten back outside the gates nearly overwhelmed her once more. “I didn't know,” she said in a tight voice. The memory of her cousin's face, the flicker of horror in his eye when anyone mentioned Haradis by name had been the only tell or reaction he revealed. “My gods, the burden Brishen shoulders.”
The margrave stood and closed the distance between them. “It's a heavy one indeed. Think hard as to whether or not you want to share with him your visit here. If you do, I'll offer my own observations as well. If you don't, and we find nothing of import, then it will be our secret.”
“Why would you do this?” He had no reason to ally himself to her in this way, no obligation to keep any secret for her.
“Because Brishen is my friend, and I suspect he, like Megiddo, came away from the galla war more scarred by it than the rest of us. Why add to the burden you say he carries?”
They left the square then, Anhuset sick to her soul by every proof of Haradis's complete annihilation. She tried not to look at the numerous mounds of clothing dotting the streets. Instead, she scanned the few shops and dwellings that remained standing, peering inside with the conflicting hopes of finding something and finding nothing. She was spoiling for a fight, a way to bleed off the angry despair engulfing her. The gods help any human or Kai scavenger who might be looting their way through what was left. She'd carve them into pieces small enough to fit inside thimbles.
A thin echo of bone-chilling laughter drifted on the wind from the direction of the palace. Ice water trickled down Anhuset's spine. The laughter was like nothing she'd ever heard and prayed she'd never hear again.
“That's the sound of galla,” Serovek said. No pity or sympathy remained in his expression. Dismay had replaced both. Dismay and fear. The laughter pealed once more, this time closer and just as terrifying. “Water,” Serovek snapped. “Run for water.”
They sprinted back the way they'd come, toward the crumbled walls and broken gates and beyond that the safety of the canals and the prison they made of Haradis. More of the gibbering laughter sounded, nearly on their heels, and Anhuset stretched her legs for all she was worth to reach the gate. Serovek kept pace beside her, a swift runner despite his size.
She caught a roiling motion from the corner of her eye and glanced to the right. “Fuck!” she shouted, and the abomination rushing toward them on a writhing cloud of shadow shouted back in a voice that mimicked hers.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The shout pitched higher until it became a scream that made her ears throb and teeth grind.
Suddenly Serovek veered away from Anhuset, sprinting directly across the galla's path. Both Anhuset and the galla shrieked, she in shock, it in triumph as it darted toward its victim.
“No you don't, you bastard,” Anhuset snarled, unsure if she spoke to the galla or to the margrave, figuring it applied to both.
Desperation pushed her to greater speed. She reached Serovek before the galla did, grabbed his wrist and yanked him toward a broken fountain set in the middle of a rubble-filled courtyard. They hurtled over the fountain's ledge, splashing ankle-deep into stagnant water deposited there from previous snows or rain.
The galla's gleeful shrieking changed to unearthly howls of rage at finding its prey snatched out of reach. It twisted and writhed midair, collapsing in on itself in a miasma of oily smoke before bursting outward to reveal a jumbled mess of every kind of body part as well as misty images of faces, mouths wide in silent screams.
“I thought the Wraith kings forced them all back into the void and sealed the gate.” The idea that they'd failed made her stomach knot itself into a ball of nausea.
Serovek kicked a spray of slimy water onto the galla, slinging even more as the thing recoiled out