Read Online What Remains of Heroes by David Benem - Free Book Online Page B

known, and one day he would return for the chieftain’s head.
    Such thoughts calmed him.
    He arose, ready. He counted his blades and refastened the straps of his jerkin and scabbards. He then set out, creeping around the encampment’s perimeter and staying just beyond the yellow fingers of firelight.
    He caught the eyes of Paddyn and Fencress in the gloom and nodded to them both. The three of them had worked together on many occasions and knew their business.
    Karnag crept low to the ground, timing his footfalls with the rhythmic snores of the Lector. No one stirred. The camp was serene, the only movement that of the teetering guardsman on the fallen tree. Karnag noticed the lout still caressed a wine bottle in slackening hands. He knew he could not tarry, suspecting it was only a matter of moments before the bottle dropped and clattered on the ground.
    At last he reached the rear of the Lector’s tent. It was closed and tied down, presenting a triangular wall of linen. He withdrew the hunting knife from his boot and poked a hole at the level of his knee. He then worked the opening with his fingers, again timing the fabric’s rip with the man’s snoring. In time he’d formed an entrance.
    He sank to the ground and pulled his torso into the shadows of the tent. There was the bald head of the Lector, the man on his back and snoring deeply. Karnag would sever the jugular and carve out most of the man’s throat. It would prevent the Lector from calling out, but the body would convulse and blood would spray. There was a reasonable chance the nearby manservant would be awakened by the struggle, so he would need to be killed as well.
    Karnag grabbed the Lector’s dry scalp and held the head in place. The man slept soundly. He readied his blade and guided it to a point above the Lector’s throat.
    Just then there was a clamor. The strongman had dropped the bottle. A low groan followed as the lout oriented himself. “What?” A pause, then the sound of the oaf shuffling upright. Clumsy at first, but then the sound of urgency. “Who goes there?”
    Someone had made a mistake. Karnag shook his head and plunged his blade deep into the Lector’s gullet. He shoved the knife all the way through the spine, then pulled it across the width of the man’s neck for good measure. The man jerked and quivered, and warm blood gushed from the wound. It was messier than Karnag would have liked, but there was no longer time to be neat.
    Suddenly there came a rumble like the sound of a thunderhead, then a swift string of words. “Necrista traellus a abridalusi Yrghul y ogo alliata,” hissed a strange voice. “Illienne cradus e Warduren renden e sallem orn argo apocha.”
    Karnag blinked. The words had come from the Lector’s lifeless form. And the man’s lips had not moved.
    Were these words spoken aloud, or whispered only in my head? How ?
    The manservant stirred. “Sleep…” the manservant grumbled. “Go back to sleep…”
    “Wake up, boys!” came the bellow of the strongman. “It seems we’ve caught ourselves a bandit!”
    Chaos. Precisely the thing Karnag always prepared against. He pressed the strange words from his mind and withdrew from the Lector’s tent, into the dark.
    A glance at the encampment revealed what had transpired. Drenj stood frozen in the firelight, arms laden with purses he’d swiped from the sleeping strongmen, and the strongmen were awake and encircling the Khaldisian. Karnag noticed Drenj’s breeches were discolored. He’d pissed himself. Karnag cursed under his breath. The greedy lad must have figured he’d steal a few coins and run off, leaving Karnag and the rest to deal with the consequences.
    In an instant Fencress was within the camp, darting amidst the strongmen like a flickering shadow with her twin blades drawn. There was the sound of steel on steel and the thrumming of Paddyn’s bow. Then the manservant began screaming and there was commotion from where the clerics slept.
    “Ah,