Read Online The Sacred Band by Anthony Durham - Free Book Online

heard squeaking somewhere in the room behind him. Or, not squeaking exactly … more like whimpering, snuffling. There was a pattern to it, as if rodents were making noise and then going silent. Calling and then listening. Come to think of it, the sounds were nothing like those of a mouse or other rodent.
    Dariel rose and crept back into the room. There was a crate there he had hardly noticed before, turned on its side, its opening facing the wall. He approached it and stood silent beside it long enough to hear the whimpering again. With his dagger thrust before him, he caught the crate with his toe and pushed it to one side until he saw what lay huddled within.
    Two pups. Big-eyed and cautious, staring at him. Innocence in rounded features and floppy ears and slightly trembling jaws.
    “Oh … look at you,” Dariel said. He sheathed his knife and reached in cautiously. “Look at you.” He stroked one of the pups on the head. It tried to back away. “Shhh. No, no, it’s fine.” His touch was gentle. His fingers sank into the soft fur, over the ears, and then down under the chin. The other pup inched forward. Its eyes were the same color as its fur, a slightly auburn tint now that he was up close. Just like the hound outside. Dariel offered his hand for it to scent. After doing so, the pup slapped its pink tongue wetly against his knuckles. Before Dariel could smile with the joy this gave him, a realization stopped him.
    “That was your mother, wasn’t it?” Dariel moved to the doorway and scanned the scene. It lay as it had before, dark and glowing at the same time, still and crackling with unseen motion, silent and filled with a cacophony of sounds. Exactly the same, yet different now.
    Looking back at the pups, Dariel asked, “What am I going to do with you two?”

CHAPTER FOUR

    Rialus Neptos went to bed each evening swearing to himself that he was not betraying his entire race. To really be doing what the Auldek asked of him would make him the greatest villain in the history of the Known World. He could think of nobody else who had sunk so low. Not even during the unfortunate years he served Hanish Mein had he been such a traitor. He had just been biding his time then, pretending to serve Hanish and the Numrek. He had proven as much by bringing the Numrek into Corinn’s service and saving the empire! He would find a way to do so again. He would lie and fabricate, confuse and obfuscate, trick and deceive and somehow emerge from it a hero for the ages. He had to. He had a wife, Gurta. He had a child who might already be born and living in the world. Didn’t that matter more than anything?
    Going to sleep thus convinced made waking in the morn all the more peculiar. He found himself surrounded by the enemy. He watched himself go through motions that looked, smelled, and felt like the very treason he so despised. The situation was complicated enough to challenge his capacity for knotted excuses. The Numrek had never, in fact, been true to the Akarans. The “allies” he had brought Corinn had been planning the conquest of the entire Known World all along. The Auldek horde progressing around the curve of the world were every bit the threat they considered themselves to be, and they were daily educating themselves on all things Acacian—with Rialus as their instructor. At what point, exactly, would he transform himself into the agent of Acacian defense that he believed himself to be?
    “Hey, Rialus leagueman!”
    Rialus heard the shout from outside his room. He recognized the voice—Allek’s. He sat cross-legged with a writing cushion before him, pen poised above it. Just leave me, Rialus thought. Go on. He had begun yet another journal attempt at outlining his actions, justifying and explaining how he was handling himself while with the Auldek. He thought such documents would prove useful should he ever be called before Queen Corinn. For some reason, he found it quite hard to organize his arguments