Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [261]
Wyrn had sent the monks of Dakhor.
CHAPTER 58
Raoden awoke to strange sounds. He lay disoriented for a moment in Roial’s mansion. The wedding wasn’t slated to happen until the following afternoon, and so Raoden had chosen to sleep in Kaloo’s rooms back in Roial’s mansion instead of staying at Kiin’s house, where Sarene had already taken the guest bedroom.
The sounds came again—sounds of fighting.
Raoden leaped from his bed and threw open the balcony doors, staring out over the gardens and into Kae. Smoke billowed in the night sky, fires blazing throughout the city. Screams were audible, rising from the darkness like the cries of the damned, and metal clanged against metal from someplace nearby.
Hurriedly throwing on a jacket, Raoden rushed through the mansion. Turning a corner, he stumbled across a squad of Guardsmen battling for their lives against a group of … demons.
They were bare-chested, and their eyes seemed to burn. They looked like men, but their flesh was ridged and disfigured, as if a carved piece of metal had somehow been inserted beneath the skin. One of Raoden’s soldiers scored a hit, but the weapon left barely a mark—scratching where it should have sliced. A dozen soldiers lay dying on the floor, but the five demons looked unharmed. The remaining soldiers fought with terror, their weapons ineffective, their members dying one by one.
Raoden stumbled backward in horror. The lead demon jumped at a soldier, dodging the man’s thrust with inhuman speed, then impaling him on a wicked-looking sword.
Raoden froze. He recognized this demon. Though its body was twisted like the rest, its face was familiar. It was Dilaf, the Fjordell priest.
Dilaf smiled, eyeing Raoden. Raoden scrambled for one of the fallen soldiers’ weapons, but he was too slow. Dilaf darted across the room, moving like the wind, and brought his fist up into Raoden’s stomach. Raoden gasped in pain and dropped to the floor.
“Bring him,” the creature ordered.
_______
“Make certain you deliver these tonight,” Sarene said, pulling the lid closed on the final box of supplies.
The beggar nodded, casting an apprehensive glance toward the wall of Elantris, which stood only a few feet away.
“You needn’t be so afraid, Hoid,” Sarene said. “You have a new king now. Things are going to change in Arelon.”
Hoid shrugged. Despite Telrii’s death, the beggar refused to meet with Sarene during the day. Hoid’s people had spent ten years fearing Iadon and his farms; they weren’t used to acting without the enveloping presence of night, no matter how legal their intentions. Sarene would have used someone else to make the delivery, but Hoid and his men already knew how and where to deposit the boxes. Besides, she would rather the populace of Arelon not discover what was in this particular shipment.
“These boxes are more heavy than the ones before, my lady,” Hoid noted astutely. There was a reason he had managed to survive a decade on the streets of Kae without being caught.
“What the boxes contain is none of your business,” Sarene replied, handing him a pouch of coins.
Hoid nodded, his face hidden in the darkness of his hood. Sarene had never seen his face, but she assumed from his voice that he was an older man.
She shivered in the night, eager to get back to Kiin’s house. The wedding was set for the next day, and Sarene had a hard time containing her excitement. Despite all the trials, difficulties, and setbacks, there was finally an honorable king on the throne of Arelon. And, after years of waiting, Sarene had finally found someone her heart was as willing to marry as her mind.
“Goodnight then, my lady,” Hoid said, following the train of beggars who slowly climbed the stairs of Elantris’s wall.
Sarene nodded to Ashe. “Go tell them that a shipment is coming, Ashe.”
“Yes, my lady,” Ashe said with a bob, and hovered away to follow Hoid’s beggars.
Pulling her shawl close, Sarene climbed into her carriage and ordered the coachman home. Hopefully, Galladon and