Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Forty-Five

As the sun sank into the sky the following evening, I finally caught sight of my horde.

But what I found did nothing to release the tension inside me. It only added to it.

Rath Kitala had arrived. His darukkars and their pyrokis were camped outside the walls, most standing around fire basins as some of the bikku from my horde wove in and around, offering platters of food for their evening meals.

Not only that…but I saw the Killup had arrived as well. A smaller group than Rath Kitala’s, they were led by the same male I’d encountered with Vienne after I’d slaughtered his pack of jrikkia. The same male I’d bargained with, who was here to hold up his end of that bargain. The Killup didn’t eat meat so the bikku that were trying to feed them seemed flustered and unsure when they approached them with separate platters.

“Vok,” I cursed but I couldn’t worry about either group right now.

Vienne had been in my arms through the night and all through the day. It had been the longest day of my entire life, no doubt. When she woke, it had only been for brief moments. I would trickle water between her dry lips and she would try to speak…saying more about Devina, murmuring something about the heartstone, before she passed out from the waves of pain that were becoming more and more frequent.

The black veins had nearly spread over her entire body. I feared whatever the Ghertun had been giving her would consume her soon.

With that thought in mind, I turned towards the Killup, Nillima grunting and huffing with her sustained effort, the pyroki that Vienne had taken close behind us. The mrikro would feed them and care for them well tonight. They both deserved a much-needed rest.

The leader of the Killup stood when he saw me approach, his face impassive, his movements graceful and fluid. I didn’t bother with pleasantries. The Killup’s gaze went to Vienne as I passed him and I rasped, “She needs help.”

I didn’t bother to wait. I raced through the gates of my horde, which had already been alerted to my arrival. The tension was high. I could feel it. My horde was confused and wary of another Vorakkar so close—of Rath Kitala and his warriors—and of the foreign group of Killup, especially when I had disappeared for days after sending a search party out for Vienne.

I heard the gasps of the horde when they saw Vienne, clutched in my arms. Hedna darted out from the council voliki, followed by Rath Kitala, who looked on with bewildered confusion that morphed to concern when he saw the vekkiri in my arms.

“Bring me the healer,” I ordered to Hedna, who immediately inclined his head in a nod and raced towards Betrika’s—the healer’s—voliki towards the middle of the horde. I guided Nillima towards my own voliki before sliding down her side, Vienne firmly clutched in my arms.

“Thank you, Nillima,” I rasped to my pyroki. My most loyal friend, who would have my eternal gratitude.

Vienne woke with a cry when we hit the ground, the impact jarring her bones, which she’d said felt like they were breaking when she woke once on our return home. I growled, that same feeling of helplessness tearing at my chest. I wanted to take this pain from her. I never wanted her to feel a single slice of pain again. I never wanted her to fear anything again. I wanted to take it all for her. I wanted to protect her, to keep her safe…to love her.

“We are here, leikavi,” I murmured, seeing the mrikro out of the corner of my eye running towards Nillima and Vienne’s pyroki. I nodded at him. “Care for them well, mrikro.”

“Lysi, Vorakkar,” he replied but I was already turning away, my legs eating up the distance to my voliki.

Once inside, I carefully laid Vienne down on the bed of furs and even that pained her. Now that she was awake, her lips were parted, her eyes glassy. She caught my hand when I pulled away.

“Lysi, leikavi?” I rasped, hovering over her, smoothing back the strands of her white hair, which were beginning to cling to her forehead with her sweat.

“D-Dead Mountain,” she hissed, teeth gritted with pain. “Vovic.”

“Vovic?” I repeated, frowning.

Just then, the flaps at the entrance of my voliki pushed open, slapping against the hide. When I turned, I saw the Vorakkar of Rath Kitala entering, his golden eyes surveying Vienne carefully, his brows furrowing in disturbed astonishment.

Hedna entered next, coming to my side. “What happened?”

“Where’s the healer?” I rasped, pinching my temples when they throbbed.

“Coming.”

Sure enough, a few moments later, Betrika pushed into my voliki, scrambling inside without his boots on, looking at if he’d just awoken. He stilled when he saw Vienne, sprawled and writhing on the bed with black veins protruding from her skin.

His lips parted and his eyes flashed to me. My belly sank when I recognized the look in his eyes because it was no doubt what was mirrored in mine. He had no idea what this could be but he strode forward nonetheless.

I was trembling, I realized, and I began pacing as Betrika knelt at her side. Rath Kitala came to stand next to Hedna. Perhaps the Vorakkar had had every right to fear leaving Vienne in my possession.

Because now I was watching her die.

I bellowed my anguish to the domed ceiling, making Rath Kitala’s gaze cut sharply to mine, though Hedna and Betrika didn’t react. I felt that prickle at the back of my neck and immediately, my eyes swung to the shadows, searching, seeking.

They call me the Mad Horde King?I thought derisively. They have seen nothing yet.

“Where are you?” I asked. “Please.”

“Drokka,” Hedna said and I felt his hand on my arm. “Come, my friend, you need—”

I shook him off, wrenching my arm from his grip. Devina’s shadowed face flickered, her eyes glowing before they settled into the familiar red.

“How do I help her?” I asked my sister. The vision of her had to be real. How else would I have ever found Vienne? All this time, I had believed the shadows to be a fragment of my fractured mind. The descending madness that had plagued me my entire life.

But now…perhaps it wasn’t madness at all.

“I do not know,” Devina replied, those sad eyes seeming to cut right through my soul. “But your pain brought me here. I can feel it.”

“Tell me how to save her.”

“I do not know everything, Davik,” Devina replied. The blood began to bloom over her abdomen and her features drew together, as if she could feel it.

“You are dead,” I yelled, the ragged words torn from my throat, leaving cuts like blades, as my chest heaved. “You should know everything.”

“Drokka,” Hedna growled, stepping between Devina and myself. I knew he couldn’t see her. Only I could. Only I could see what lurked and haunted the shadows.

My eyes never left Devina but once again her words dropped away. Her mouth moved but I could no longer hear her.

“Nik, stay here!”

When she vanished again, I clutched my head in my hands, feeling my claws prick into my scalp.

“Vorakkar,” came Betrika’s voice. When I swung around to face him, I saw all eyes on me. Rath Kitala, Hedna, the healer, and Vienne’s. At the entrance of the voliki, the Killup leader had slipped inside. He was regarding me as well, his hands clasped tight behind his back, his face still stoic and impassive. Unreadable.

I went to Vienne, dropping on my knees beside the healer. Tears pooled in her gaze. “She left again, leikavi,” I told Vienne.

“I-I know,” she whispered. She flinched when I touched her skin and I snatched my hand back.

“Vorakkar,” Betrika said quietly, drawing my attention to him. “I do not know what this is.”

“Nik,” I said. “You must.”

Betrika swallowed, the sound audible. His eyes flickered to Rath Kitala, looming just behind me, and then to Hedna.

“I have never seen this before,” the healer told me carefully. “Perhaps it is a vekkiri disease, one—”

“It is vovic.”

The Killup’s quiet but stern voice cut through whatever the healer was going to say and then all eyes turned to him, standing alone at the entrance.

I rose as he approached. His gills flared when he saw Vienne. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rath Kitala tense, his hand straying to his sword at his side. The Killup had the ability to emit poison through their gills. No doubt that was what Rath Kitala feared.

“What is it?” I asked. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Vienne’s eyes had closed again, her back bowing. Cursing, I dropped beside her again, my hands hovering because I knew that it pained her when I touched her. “Vok!”

“It is a plant the Ghertun use to control their slaves,” the Killup said.

“A plant?” Rath Kitala asked, incredulous.

“A poison,” the Killup corrected, eyeing the other Vorakkar curiously, cocking his head to the side. When he saw the Vorakkar still had a hand on his sword, the Killup’s lips pressed together but he didn’t say anything about it.

“How do you know about this?” I rasped.

“Some time ago, one of our own escaped from the Dead Mountain, one that had been taken by the Ghertun, and returned to us,” the Killup said. “The first two weeks, they were well. Healthy. Relieved to be home, among their own.”

I counted the weeks in my head but the days blurred together. Vok, how long had it been since I’d been in Dothik? Since I’d first stumbled upon her late that one night?

“Then they started getting tired. Cold. The blood began to darken in their veins. Then came the pain. For many, many days.”

When I connected eyes with the Killup, I saw within him what I feared.

“How long does she have?” I grated.

“Without a dose?” the Killup asked. “At this stage, a few days. Maybe four. Then again, that is what happened to a Killup. She is human. It may be different.”

“How long have you known about this?” I growled, glaring at the Killup as Hedna subtly shifted between us. “You didn’t think to tell us about the vovic before this?”

My rage was misplaced. Even I knew that but it felt good coursing through me. An old friend.

The Killup never even blinked. With a calmness that I knew I would never possess, he pointed out, “Killup and Dakkari are not allies.” His gaze shifted to the Vorakkar of Rath Kitala briefly. “Nor are we enemies. We have an arrangement, one befitting both of us. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“We have a common enemy,” Rath Kitala reminded him, his tone gruff.

“That is true,” the Killup amended, tilting his chin down. “Which is why I am here.”

That was when I remembered. Our agreement. The one I’d made with him in that dark forest after they’d ambushed Vienne and me on my return to the horde from Dothik.

The Killup had their own poison. One that paralyzed the Ghertun the moment it entered their bloodstream and prevented their wounds from clotting. The Killup had used it on me after all, though I’d responded to it differently than a Ghertun would.

The Killup sought a new home, far from the eastlands. In exchange for passage and protection, they would supply us with this poison to help in fighting the Ghertun if and when war came between us.

“If you have a poison that affects the Ghertun, perhaps you have a cure for this,” I rasped. “Or know of one.”

The Killup’s gaze flickered to my female. He’d been curious about her in the forest that night. It was perhaps why he’d called off his warriors…because of her.

“If we had a cure, we would have used it to save our own,” he said quietly. For the first time, I heard an emotion enter into his voice. Regret? “She died.”

My throat closed up, my nostrils flaring.

“What do you want from me?” I asked quietly. I saw Rath Kitala’s gaze cut to mine in surprise, a frown turning down his lips as he studied me. “I will give anything to save her.”

Rath Kitala stilled as the Killup’s head cocked and he regarded me carefully.

“You want my advice, Dakkari?” the Killup asked softly, stepping towards me. Dropping his voice, he murmured, “End her suffering now before it becomes too great.”

Rage whipped inside me like a lash across my insides. I’d been whipped and tortured and used before but I would gladly experience those things again if it meant never hearing those words from the Killup again.

“Step away from me before I kill you where you stand,” I hissed.

The Killup did as I asked, the tension spiking high in my voliki.

“The female who escaped the Dead Mountain,” the Killup said, “was my mate, Dakkari. I watched her die a painful death because I was too much of a coward to give her mercy. I could have eased her suffering,” his voice changed, going gruffer, his gills flaring, “had I been stronger.”

I stilled.

Everyone in the voliki did.

“We have something to ease her pain,” the Killup said after a long moment, his face unreadable once more, his voice evening out. “But there is only so much pain it can mask.”

I met his eyes.

I inclined my head.

“Thank you,” I rasped.

“If you will not take my advice, Dakkari,” the Killup said after another pause, “then you only have one option left.”

I knew what it was before he spoke.

“The Ghertun created the poison. Only they will have the cure. If one even exists.”