Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(188)

“It killed all those goats. It ripped out Serkhan’s throat easily enough. Why didn’t it come for me?”

“I don’t know,” Tan replied. “Perhaps it did, but failed to find an opening. Perhaps Ut and Adiv did not want to take a chance with your assassination, did not want to risk assigning the task to a creature of which they remained uncertain. This is all speculation, worthless as wind.”

“I don’t like to make frivolous offerings to my god,” Pyrre said, raising a hand to slow the conversation, “but it is growing very tempting to stab one of you repeatedly in the neck until the other explains to me what you’re talking about.”

“A Csestriim creation,” Tan replied, ignoring the assassin’s skeptical look. “A creature built to hunt.”

Pyrre laughed. “I’m no historian, but I think the last of the Csestriim died a few thousand years ago.”

“The ak’hanath is not Csestriim,” Tan responded, rounding on her. “It is a creation of the Csestriim.”

“I’ve traveled two continents, from the Waist to Freeport and west beyond the Ancaz Mountains, and I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Now you have.”

The assassin pursed her lips and nodded. “All right. We’ll use the assumption, for now. Why does the thing hate Kaden so much?” She turned to Kaden. “You piss in its nest or something?”

“The ak’hanath follows commands,” Tan replied. “A dog set on a hare doesn’t hate the hare, but it will harry it and tear it apart just the same.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure the hound doesn’t find our rabbit,” Pyrre said, clapping Kaden on the shoulder jocularly. “There are a dozen ways to cover his scent. The next time we cross one of those rushing streams—”

“It doesn’t track by scent.”

“Then what,” Kaden asked, trying to make sense of that, “does it use?”

The monk shook his head. “There’s not a word for it—not a modern one, anyway. The histories call it atma. ‘Self’ might be the best translation. The ak’hanath is tracking your sense of self.”

Kaden stared.

“That,” Pyrre said, raising an eyebrow, “is by turns fascinating, implausible, and horribly inconvenient.”

“Take your pick,” Tan replied grimly. “It’s out there—one of the monks saw it back at Ashk’lan—and it has Kaden’s atma. You put the thing on a boat to the Manjari Empire, and given enough time, it will find its way back to him.”

Kaden shuddered at the thought of those awful, unnatural eyes, those skittering claws, bent to one single purpose—hunting him.

“I’m waiting for the good news,” Pyrre said.

“There is no— Get down,” Tan growled, hauling Kaden beneath an overhanging shelf of rock. “Get the girl and get under cover.”

Pyrre, for once, didn’t waste time bandying words, turning instead to gather Triste up and duck beneath the same shelf. Only when they were hidden away did the assassin turn to the monk.

“What are we doing under this rock?” she asked, her voice curious rather than annoyed.

Tan gestured toward the sky above the Aedolians. “We’ve got more than the ak’hanath to worry about. Now they’ve got a bird, as well.”

Aside from once, as a child, Kaden had never seen a kettral, and he marveled at the sight of the majestic creature. So that’s what Valyn’s been flying around on all these years, he thought, envy, for the moment, threatening to overwhelm dismay as he studied the massive wingspan and huge, raking talons, each big enough to support two tiny figures in black. He watched as the bird circled once, then landed gracefully among the Aedolians. The assassin was not so excited.

“I don’t know anything about your Csestriim horror,” she said, “but this bird is really going to put a hitch in our plans. On foot, those troops are an hour away. By wing…” She spread her hands.

“Will they come for us immediately?” Triste asked. She had woken when the assassin dragged her under the overhang, and was propped on her elbows, staring off into the gathering gloom, fear and defiance warring in her voice.

Pyrre produced a long lens from her pack, peered through it for a while, then shook her head slowly. “It doesn’t look like it,” she replied. “The sun’s just set, and Adiv’s a crafty one. He knows that now that they have the bird, we can’t possibly outdistance them. He’ll wait for the morning, for full sunlight. Then they’ll come.”

Kaden looked from Tan to the Skullsworn, then back. “So we’ve got one night,” he said finally. “What do we do?”