Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [50]
Their purplish fruit were still puny things, waiting for late in the season to grow fat and flavorful.
He remembered how he had staggered out of Vathraq’s house and tasted one-just before he’d tasted Kellein, and she him. Perhaps, he thought, I should bring one with me as a luck charm. Then he again felt the amulet under his tunic and knew that was all the luck he needed.
“Kahless,” said Morath, who had come up beside him.
The outlaw was smiling as he turned to his friend.
“Yes? What is it?”
Morath seemed intent on something in the distance.
He squinted in the sunlight. “Something is wrong.”
“Wrong?” Kahless echoed. He could feel his heart start to beat faster. “In what way?”
Following Morath’s gaze, he saw what the man was talking about. One of the gates in the wall ringing the keep had been left ajar.
“It’s only a gate,” said the outlaw.
But he knew better. And so did Morath, by his expression.
“Where are the sentries?” asked the younger man.
Kahless repeated the question to himself. Granted, it was the middle of the day, but danger could appear at any time. Vathraq wouldn’t tolerate such an oversight … if that was all it was.
Placing his hand on the hilt of his sword, he eyed the place in a new light. The quiet, which had seemed so natural only a few moments ago, seemed ominous now.
And Vathraq’s house, which had been so inviting, began smelling a lot like a trap.
If Molor discovered Kahless was taken in by these people, he might have left some men there to watch for the outlaw’s return. Certainly, stranger things had been known to happen.
“A wise man would withdraw,” Morath remarked.
Kahless looked at him. “Turn from a fight? That’s not like you, my friend.”
The younger man grunted “I said a wise man would withdraw-not that we would. And if I know you, we will not.”
True, thought the outlaw. After all, this wasn’t simply a matter of their own preservation. If the keep had been taken by Molor’s men, Kellein was a captive-perhaps worse. Kahless couldn’t tolerate the thought of that.
“Follow me,” he advised Morath. “But be wary.”
“I am always wary,” his friend replied.
Little by little, Kahless urged his starahk up the river road, toward the open gate. His senses prickled with awareness, ready for the least sign of an ambush. But he couldn’t find any.
At least, not at first. However, as they came closer to the gate, he distinctly heard something rustling within the walls. The swords of Molor’s men, perhaps, as they drew them from their belts? Their arrows, as they fit them to their bowstrings?
The outlaw had to make a decision, and quickly.
iso Should I charge the gate, he asked himself, in an effort to surprise the p’tahkmey? Or continue this slow progress, waiting to see how far I can get before they stop me?
Before Kahless could come to a conclusion, the whisper of movement within the walls became a storm of activity, punctuated by high-pitched cries of annoyance. Before his eyes, a huge, black cloud erupted around the keep.
A flock of krawzamey, protesting loudly as they headed for the slopes beyond the river. The outlaw swallowed, his mouth as dry as dust.
This was no trap. Carrion birds didn’t abide the presence of Klingons. Nor did they gather except where there was sustenance for them.
If Molor’s men had been here, they were gone now. But that was no comfort to Kahless. Clenching his jaw so hard it hurt, he dismounted and walked the rest of the way to the gate. Then he went inside.
What greeted his eyes was a slaughterhouse. Vathraq’s warriors choked the space between the walls and the keep with their gutted, lifeless bodies. Fleshless skulls grinned up at him with bared teeth and hollowed-out eyes, picked to the bone by the beaks of the krawzamey.
Molor’s men could still have been inside the keep, awaiting them, but Kahless no longer cared. He was too overcome with fear for his beloved, too caught up in a current of dread and fascination to worry about himself.
Crossing the courtyard, he tore open the doors to the keep. Inside, it was silent as a