The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within by J. L. Doty Page A

him
a bowl of table scraps and a blanket. “Thank you,” he
said gratefully.
    “Don’t
thank me,” she snapped. “If it were up to me I’d
cut your throat myself. But Lord Jerst wants you healthy so he can kill you
himself.”
    “Why
doesn’t he just kill me now? I’m here for the
killing.”
    She frowned at him as
if she thought him an idiot. “Why, that would dishonor him. You
have to repay the debt first.” She turned her back on him and
walked away.
    Morgin sat on the
ground and wrapped the blanket tightly around his shoulders. He gnawed on the
table scraps and tried to clean every last bit of meat from the bones. He could
easily untie his leash, but where would he go? Aelldie lay too deep in the
Munjarro, and without the Benesh’ere to help him he would quickly
die.
    As the last of the
whitefaces disappeared into their tents, the camp and the night grew quiet and still. Morgin sat on the ground
and watched the glowing embers of the many cooking fires slowly die, and he
tried to understand how he’d come to this. It seemed ironic to
have gone from guttersnipe, to prince, to outlaw, to debtor, and now a man
under sentence of death.
    The night was warm,
the air still and the camp silent. But in the distance Morgin noticed three men
walking his way, weaving their way among the tents. He could tell by their
relative heights that one was not Benesh’ere. Only when they were
within a short stone’s throw did Morgin realize the shorter man
was Val accompanied by two Benesh’ere warriors. “Val!”
he called. He jumped to his feet, was jerked painfully to a halt by his leash
and forced to remain in a crouch.
    The two warriors
walked on either side of Val, watching him closely as if guarding him. Val
approached warily, stopped about five paces away and said, “I dare
not come closer. Jerst is allowing me to speak to you only because I told him I
have very bad news for you. Rhianne is dead.”
    It took Morgin a
moment to hear Val’s words, to let them punch a hole in his heart.
    “No,”
he pleaded. “It can’t be.”
    Val continued. “She
rode out of Durin following you. She went after you in some misguided hope of
helping you, or saving you, or something. She rode out ahead of the skree, and
they caught up with her before they got to you. They left nothing for us to
bury.”
    Morgin’s
heart lurched, and as his eyes welled with tears he closed them and sat down in
the sand. He pictured once again what the skree had left of the old mare, just
a smear of blood on the grass of a field. They would have left nothing more of
his beautiful Rhianne, just another smear of blood on the grass of another
field. He recalled again the night she’d kissed him in the stables
what seemed an eternity ago, and the way that untamed lock of hair always
escaped the tangle of tresses atop her head. That kiss, the only truly
passionate moment they’d ever shared, that kiss had held such a
promise of happiness for them, a promise that now would never be fulfilled.
    With tears streaming
down his cheeks, he opened his eyes and said, “I’m
going to kill Valso. I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
    Val said, “I
would enjoy helping you.”
    Morgin didn’t
want to think of Rhianne, not with Val and two Benesh’ere looking
on to watch him cry. He asked, “What are you doing here?”
    “Once all
of Decouix had your scent they left us alone. We took Tulellcoe south to
Yestmark where Cort has some friends. When he was doing better she and he
decided to take up residence near a pretty lake, and since I was close to the
Munjarro I thought I’d come and see some old whiteface friends.”
    Val held up his hands,
and Morgin finally saw that his wrists were tied together by a length of rope. “Apparently,
anyone who was with you the night you insulted Jerst is guilty by association.”
    “Enough,”
one of the Benesh’ere guards growled. “Jerst said you
could give him the bad news about his wife. You’ve done so.