The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,88

impossible to carry despite his considerable bulk.

Heated by her exertions, she welcomed the shade the towering firs offered. She'd miss the warmth later, but for now the chill helped as she climbed the island's slope.

Thorny underbrush clawed at her clothes. She wove through a labyrinth of majestic trees, their needle-shaped leaves whispering to her while they swayed and creaked in the steady wind coming off the water. Serovek grew heavier on her back with every step, and the air in her lungs scorched a path on the inside of her bruised throat with each breath she took.

Exhaustion conquered her halfway up the slope. Dizzy, gasping, and in danger of dropping her burden, she staggered to a spot mostly clear of the rapacious underbrush but still padded with a carpet of fallen fir needles.

The process of lowering herself to the ground and rolling Serovek off her shoulders and onto his back left her seeing double. She collapsed next to him, listening to the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears.

Once her heart stopped racing and her lungs no longer threatened to catch fire, she checked Serovek. He still breathed, the rhythm deeper, slower as if he sensed that for now he was safe in the company of a friend instead of among enemies. Anhuset gained her feet to explore their immediate surrounds. The conifers, statuesque and close together, bound the forest in an endless twilight. Mushrooms and lichen grew in abundant patches on the forest floor and on flat rocks.

Luck smiled down on her when she spotted an expanse of stone with a shallow indentation in its center, a water-catch that still held a gathering of morning dew hidden from the sun. She didn't have a cup to scoop up the water so unwrapped the gag cloth from the knife and saturated it until water trickled through her fingers as she held it in her palm.

Serovek's bloodied lips parted as she squeezed a stream of water into his mouth. He swallowed everything she offered, the tip of his tongue swiping over his lower lip to catch the last drops. Anhuset used the damp cloth to lightly swab his face and break the crust of blood sealing his eyelids shut.

He regained consciousness gradually, his eyes moving back and forth beneath the thin skin of his lids, and his breathing changed once more. One eye finally opened to a bare squint, his gaze made even more hideous by the blood threads marring the whites of his eyes.

“Ah gods,” he said in a rough voice. “We made love, didn't we? And I don't remember any of it.” He shifted position, cursing from the pain it caused him. “You weren't jesting when you said I wouldn't survive you.”

He was a sorcerer in his way with his ability to coax out her amusement in even the direst of circumstances. Pleased more than she could express at his revival and his humor, she pushed his hair back from his forehead with a careful caress. “Obviously, you aren't dying.”

“I'd probably feel better and hurt less if I were.”

She used the cloth again to finish cleaning his face. He flinched away when she touched a particularly sensitive spot on his cheekbone. “Hold still,” she ordered. During her ministrations he'd managed to open his right eye more, though his left remained closed. “How much can you see?”

“Blurry on the right side. I'll let you know about the left when I can open it.” Poor vision not withstanding, he didn't miss the marks of her own stay with Chamtivos and company. “You're wearing a few bruises and lumps yourself, not to mention that rope burn around your neck.” He attempted to scowl but thought better of it. Still, his voice betrayed his anger. “They noosed you.”

She nodded. “Rope looped at the end of a pole.”

“Then there's a Kuram in their midst.” He expanded his remark when she shook her head to indicate she wasn't familiar with the term. “Horseman out of the Glimming. The Kuram are herders and use guras—what was used on you—to capture wild horses.” He pointed to her throat. “When did they give you that?”

“When we were first attacked. They shot me full of darts dipped in dasker poison to keep me that way until they reached camp. How did they take you?”

“Sheer numbers,” he said. “I killed a few, but they swarmed me like hornets.” He reached up to touch a spot on his scalp. “Someone with a club got in a lucky shot, though I don't