The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [16]
"A piece for every man," he said, "but some'll have to wait for the second one to cook."
"Ye've two?" another man asked, hunger making his voice thick. "Where's the other?"
Gurkyn squinted up at him. "I'm sitting on it."
There were some halfhearted chuckles, but they didn't last long.
"How much longer are we going to be standing here, while some wizard or other sends bowmen to ring us in, eh?" another warrior snarled. "Where's Bloodblade?"
"Duthjack's up on yon ridge, seeing to it that no one's creeping up on us," Gurkyn told him. "When we've all had something to chew, he'll be down."
"To lead us in a charge clear across the water," someone said sarcastically, "treading on the very waves as if he were a wizard himself!"
"Sargh to that!" someone snarled fearfully, and another man hissed, "Be still! Wait, and hear Bloodblade, and spare us what you think he might say! I've not yet seen proof that ye can think!"
"We've all seen battle, Gloun," a warrior nearby said wearily. "We're not fools. Why else call us here, if not to try to seize the throne?"
"Oh, aye?" Gloun asked witheringly. "And who of us would make a king, eh? I knew Sendrith Duthjack when he was a lad ducking his wood-chopping tasks, long before ye knew him as 'Bloodblade'-and if he were sitting on yon throne right now, with a crown on his head and two lady wizards giggling in his lap, he'd still be no more a king than I am!"
"Oh? And you'll tell him so, just as loud as that, when he's standing here with his sword out glaring at you?"
"Aye," Gloun said, a little more quietly. "Will any of the rest of ye, though, I wonder?"
"I will," said a voice that was as deep as doom and as sharp as the edge of a woodsman's axe.
Heads turned. The speaker was shouldering out of the shadows, a head taller than most of the men there, little gleams of fireflicker shining here and there on his armor where the soot and mud he'd caked it with had rubbed away. Hard emerald eyes, a white moustache…
"Kalarth?" Gurkyn asked, peering up from the flames.
"Aye," the man replied, never slowing his stride, and then added a word: "Rabbit."
The word was a flat command. A dozen hands went to hilts, and there was a shifting and a hissing of indrawn breaths as a dozen men readied themselves for battle.
Kalarth had once held a bridge alone against a Silvertree patrol, and slaughtered them-four-and-ten warriors in all. In the Isles, his blade had emptied boats and villages with swift and glistening ease, and in Sirlptar only a few months back, he'd faced down and fought a mage of note-Arliiryn of Carraglas-in the street… and won, leaving the wizard huddled on the cobbles with his lifeblood pooling in the gutters.
Kalarth turned as he chewed, and his sword was suddenly in his hand. The warrior who'd taken an angry step forward shrank back again, and Kalarth tossed him the rabbit with a smile, fork and all. "One bite, mind," he said, the promise of death bright in his eyes, "and then pass it on, or…"
He didn't bother to say the rest. Nor did any of the warriors make the slightest sound of dispute. The fork was passed around in silence, men striding idly away as they chewed, hands ready on their scabbards, hardly daring to trust that they'd have time to swallow before some foe or other would strike. There were fresh sizzlings from Gurkyn's careful crouch by the fire, and as if the sound had been a herald's trumpet, a man strode out of the night with two others at his back, drawn swords in their hands.
Kalarth spun smoothly to face the newcomer; the glances they traded might just as well have been their swords crossing to begin a duel. The newcomer raised an eyebrow. "All the way from Starn Rock, Kalarth? I'm impressed."
"I don't intend to be hunted down by wizards and dogs because you've roused all Aglirta trying something overbold, Duthjack," Kalarth said flatly. "Things're just beginning to settle down in the Vale-"
"Aye, as we starve," the man who liked to be called Bloodblade interrupted. "When we're all