Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Three

He was right,I thought, huddled in the corner of the dark cell, pressing my forehead against the cool stone.

The Dakkari male had been correct in saying I wouldn’t like the Dothikkar’s dungeons. Then again, I assumed that not many would. I had very limited experience with dungeons.

It was cold. And quiet. And dark. However, all these things worked in my favor as I recovered from pushing into that Dakkari’s mind. The things that didn’t work in my favor were the occasional moans from the other prisoners—whom I didn’t see, only heard, but made me jolt with fright every time one of them cried out—the overpowering stench, the lack of food, and the gritty, rough shackles biting into my wrists, bloodying them. I grew queasy from wondering just how many different creatures’ blood had accumulated under the black cuffs.

I closed my eyes, the cold stone soothing my overheated flesh, and thought of Maman. I thought of Viola, my beautiful older sister. I thought of my brothers, Maxen and Eli. They would tell me to be strong, to be brave. But only Maman understood how hard that was for me. They’d always been brave—like my father had been—whereas I didn’t have a brave bone in my entire body.

Sometimes, though I was over a quarter-century old, I still felt like the small child hiding behind my mother’s legs.

But I am here and they are there, I told myself. And if I don’t deliver the Ghertun’s message, if I come back empty-handed…

I couldn’t think of what the Ghertun would do to my family. I didn’t want to think about the consequences when I was not there to intervene.

I only prayed to all the deities in the universe that my gift would be restored in time. I might need it again soon. I’d been foolish to waste it on that Dakkari male.

And I was running out of time. The Ghertun had given me one month to bring back a token of the Dothikkar’s submission. There was only one thing the Ghertun would accept.

The creaking of hinges echoed through the cavernous space. Keeping huddled against the wall, I craned my neck to see a bloom of light and a long, shadowed figure stretching across the wall in front of the cells. Heavy footsteps approached, followed by the murmurs from the guards that stood on duty, muttered, guttural words in Dakkari I didn’t understand. A deeper, slower voice sounded. Then came the approach of his footsteps.

He stopped in front of my cell, peering at me between the thick bars of the gate. I couldn’t make out his features in the darkness but I had the impression he was older. My breathing went a little shallow in my throat, wondering if this was my chance.

“Dothikkar?” I rasped softly, my voice husky and hoarse. When did I last have water? I’d emptied the skin the Ghertun had given me before they’d dropped me off a day’s walk from Dothik.

The figure made a huffing sound, turned, and bit out an order to the guards. They sprang into motion, opening my cell after fumbling with the keys. Once opened, one of the guards strode forward and unchained my shackles from the wall, though he kept my hands bounds.

He pulled me up, surprisingly gently, and I was thankful for it. My bones ached, my limbs felt heavy. I’d twisted my left leg shortly after I’d snuck into Dothik and it twinged sharply when I walked forward.

As I approached the darkened figure, I saw that I’d been correct in thinking he was older. Though his hair was dark—I didn’t think the Dakkari’s hair turned grey like humans’ did as we aged—the lines in his face, deep and weathered, gave him away. His back was hunched slightly and when he reached forward to grab my face, turning it this way and that way, I saw that his hands shook.

His nose wrinkled. The night before, the Dakkari male had said I stunk like rotting flesh, no doubt because of the stream filth I’d used to coat my hair dark. I’d grown immune to it and right then, my hygiene seemed like the last thing I should be worried about.

“Why do you request to see the Dothikkar?” he asked. His voice was strong, hardened. The Ghertun had wrongly assumed that not many in Dothik would speak the universal tongue. Every Dakkari being I’d encountered thus far had.

“I—” I began, but my voice croaked. “I have a message for him.”

I was all too aware that once I delivered the message, the Dakkari might decide to kill me and send me back to the Ghertun as a warning.

“A message?” the male scoffed, peering at me in the darkness. His red eyes glowed, reminding me of the Dakkari male’s eyes last night, twin orbs in the darkness. “What message could a vekkiri bring that the Dothikkar would listen to?”

I swallowed.

“How did you get into the capital?” he demanded, stepping forward. The guard behind me shifted.

“I have a message for the Dothikkar,” I said, proud when my voice didn’t shake, though my limbs trembled. It didn’t matter how I’d breached the city. “A message from Lozza, the Ghertun king.”

The male froze.

“Neffar?” he growled. The guard behind me moved. The guard behind the older male did as well, his hand coming to the hilt of his sword.

“Hanniva,” I said quietly, meeting his eyes. “I must speak with him.”

I hoped that he saw the desperation in my gaze. I hoped that he saw my fear. Perhaps he would pity me. Or perhaps he would have the guards kill me where I stood.

At that thought, a strange sense of quietness draped over my shoulders, as if I’d used my gift on myself, taking away my fear and in its place pushing stillness. Or perhaps it was despair coupled with acceptance.

Because it was in that moment that I realized my destiny wasn’t my own. The guards could decide to kill me and I could do nothing. I could not fight back. Whatever would happen…would happen.

Instead of killing me, the older male said something in Dakkari and the guard grabbed my arm, leading me forward through the gate of my cell and to the door of the dungeon.

Once we stepped from it, we walked down a darkened hallway, passing various Dakkari dressed in black—the Dothikkar’s guards, I guessed. They wore no armor, not like the patrol guards, but they all had swords at their sides. The Dakkari male last night had had a sword too. Had he been one of the Dothikkar’s guards?

We attracted many stares and it was only when I happened to look down at my feet that I realized why. My cloak was gone. Somehow I’d managed to forget that. When they’d brought me to the dungeon, they’d stripped it off, searching for weapons.

I was only wearing my sheer shift dress, the one made of pressed and treated Ghertun moltings. I was walking almost naked through the halls of the Dothikkar’s keep. The eyes of the dozens of guards we passed made my belly clench with dread.

You should be used to it, I thought, clenching my teeth together until my jaw ached. It was what I’d been expected to wear under the Dead Mountain. Then again, I’d been assigned to a single household as a slave and I left only occasionally. Even when I’d been summoned to meet with Lozza, only a handful of Ghertun had been in attendance in his private rooms.

I’d never been looked at so freely as the guard led me through the keep and it made my skin feel tight and wrong.

The older male walking a few paces ahead of me never looked back. He was wearing a long cloak made of brown hide, the tip of his tail flicking out from beneath it. There was an elaborate golden pattern stitched into the material and it shimmered whenever we passed by the lanterns hanging on the walls.

From the darkened hallway, we climbed up a set of spiral stone steps until I was winded and limping. The dungeon had been deep underground, I realized when we emerged from the stairwell into a grand foyer, sparkling and gleaming in gold. It was so bright that I momentarily had to shield my eyes with my shackled hands.

“Hurry,” the older male snapped back at me and the guard pushed me forward. My bare footsteps rasped across the hard, cold floor. We came to a stop in front of two large doors, one with a depiction of Kakkari and the other with a depiction of who I assumed was Drukkar.

The Dakkari’s deities.

I didn’t study them for long before the doors were pushed open and we stepped into the throne room. A grand, cavernous hall that seemed endless. It took everything in me not to gape. I didn’t think I’d ever been in a room so large. White columns and archways soared overhead and I craned my neck to see where they ended.

The grand hall was sparsely furnished, except for a high dais with a single, golden throne atop it. Lozza had one similar. Before the dais was a wide space. Perhaps for dancing and the celebrations I’d heard the Dakkari were so fond of, or for public hearings.

Or private sentencings, I thought, my gaze zeroing in on the group of males that sat around a magnificent long table. It was set off to the left of the hall, nestled before large archways that opened to the outside, that allowed a cool breeze to whistle around the wide columns. And beyond that, there was a perfect view of Dothik, in all its glittering glory. With its tall turrets and high, safe walls.

The older male scurried forward, stooping down next to the male at the head of the table and speaking into his ear.

The Dothikkar.

He was everything I’d envisioned the Dothikkar would be. Advancing in his years, intimidating with his cool glare, and downright terrifying. Though his waist was larger than I thought it’d be—his belly was spilling over the waist of his trews—he still made an imposing figure, lounging back in his chair as if it were a throne.

He met my gaze, his expression darkening at whatever the older male whispered into his ear. When his eyes tracked down my body, I remembered again that I was practically nude and shifted my shackled wrists until they were shielding my breasts from his view.

It was then that I looked at the others seated around the table and all the breath in my lungs whistled out in what sounded like a terrified whimper. Instinctively, I stepped back, gathering energy, imagining it shielding me, but I still had not recovered it.

If I thought the Dothikkar was intimidating, it was nothing compared to the sheer terror of being in the presence of the seven other males seated around the table.

Especially one in particular.

Blood started rushing in my ears when I met the thunderous expression of the Dakkari male from last night. His hair was pulled back from his face, emphasizing his strong cheekbones, the granite line of his jaw, his lips, but it did nothing to diminish the ferocity and rage in his gaze. He scowled, his scar pulling down, his eyes locked on me like I was prey.

Why is he here?I thought wildly. Is he a guard, after all? But if he is, why didn’t he turn me in? Why let me go?

“If you stare at my Vorakkars like that, vekkiri,” came a low voice, “they may take offence.”

Vorakkars.

The hall swayed, black spots pricking my vision. I would’ve stumbled had the guard from the dungeon not been gripping my forearm.

Echoing footsteps brought my attention back to the Dothikkar, the king of Dakkar, and the male I’d been tasked to speak with.

Only my tongue felt swollen in my mouth and my gaze kept flickering back to male whose red eyes burned into me, leaning forward at the Dothikkar’s table.

He was a Vorakkar.

They all were.

I’d heard stories of them all my life. Frightening tales my mother had whispered to us into the night, making them seem more monster than male. Terrible feats of strength and cruelty that they waged in their endless wars, ancient kings in their own right, lording over the lands of Dakkar where even the Dothikkar’s influence and power could not reach.

My father had been killed under a Vorakkar’s orders.

And last night, one had had me in his possession. I remembered the darkness in his mind and I knew, right then, that my mother’s stories had been true. That they were more monster than male.

The shackles at my wrists shook as the Dothikkar approached me. He was almost twice my size and the way he looked at me made my flesh crawl. When he stepped closer, I saw the way his nostrils flared and he immediately reared back.

The stench had probably reached him and instead of being ashamed, I was relieved.

“This will not do,” he rasped, frowning, his arm covering his nostrils. “If I am to have entertainment, how can I even enjoy it with you smelling like death?”

Entertainment?

His gaze slid past me. To the guard, he said, “Have a bathing tub brought in.” His smirk reminded me of how the Ghertun moved sometimes, slithering and unnatural and fluid. “I think I will enjoy this. As will my Vorakkars. Lysi?”

My stomach sank.