“Perhaps destroyed,” suggested Haplo coolly, speaking for the first time.
“And what do you think, sir?” Jera demanded of the Patryn, ignoring the pressure of her husband’s hand. “How do your people treat their dead?”
“My people, Your Grace, have all they can do to keep the living alive, without worrying about the dead. And it seems to me that this, for the moment, should be our primary concern. Were you aware that there is a troop of soldiers headed this way?”
The prince sat bolt upright, tried to see out the screened carriage. He stared into nothing but mist and rain and hurriedly ducked his head back inside.
“How can you tell?” he demanded, more suspicious of them now than he had been when he first encountered them in the cavern.
“I have extraordinary hearing,” Haplo replied dryly. “Listen, you can hear the jingle of their harness.”
The jingle of harness, the stamping of what sounded like hooves on rock came to them faintly above the noise of their own carriage.
Jonathan and his wife exchanged startled glances, Jera appeared troubled.
“I take it, then, that troop movement along this highway isn’t exactly normal?” Haplo asked, leaning back in the carriage and folding his arms across his chest.
“Probably a royal escort for His Highness,” Jonathan said, brightening.
“Yes, that’s it. Surely,” Jera agreed, with rather too much relief in her voice to be entirely convincing.
Edmund smiled, ever courteous, despite whatever private misgivings he might have had.
The wind rose, the mists thinned. The troops were close and clearly visible. The soldiers were dead, new dead, in superb condition. At sight of the carriage, they came to a halt, formed a line across the highway, blocking the way. The carriage stopped on a hastily given command by Jonathan to his dead driver. The pauka snorted and shook its head restlessly, not liking the beasts the soldiers rode.
Lizardlike creatures, the soldiers’ mounts were ugly and misshapen. Two eyes on either side of the head revolved, each independent of the other, giving the impression that they could see in all directions at once. Short and squat, built close to the ground, they had powerful hind legs and a thick, barbed tail. The dead rode on their backs.
“The troops of the dynast,” Jera said, speaking in an undertone. “His soldiers alone are permitted to ride mud dragons. And the man in the gray robes leading them is the Lord High Chancellor, the dynast’s right hand.”
‘And the black-robed person riding beside him?”
“The army’s necromancer.”
The chancellor, mounted astride a mud dragon and looking extremely uncomfortable, said a few words to the captain, who guided its beast forward.
The pauka sniffed and snorted, shook its head at the mud dragon smell, which was foul and rank as if it had climbed out of a pit of poisonous ooze.
‘All of you, please step out of the carriage,” requested the captain.
Jera glanced at her guests. “I think, perhaps, we better,” she said apologetically.
They trooped out of the carriage, the prince graciously assisting the duchess. Alfred stumbled down the two stairs, nearly pitched headfirst into a pit. Haplo stood quietly toward the back of the group. An oblique gesture of his hand brought the dog padding to his side.
The cadaver’s expressionless eyes peered at the group, its mouth forming the words the Lord High Chancellor had bidden it say.
“I ride in the name of the Dynast of Abarrach, ruler of Kairn Necros, regent of Old and New Provinces, king of Rift Ridge, king of Salfag, king of Thebis, and liege lord of Kairn Telest.”
Edmund flushed darkly at hearing his own kingdom thus claimed, but he held his tongue. The cadaver continued.
“I am looking for one who calls himself king of Kairn Telest.”
“I am prince of that land,” Edmund said, speaking up proudly. “The king, my father, is dead and but newly raised. That is why I am here and he is not,” he added for the benefit of the waiting necromancer, who nodded the black hood in understanding.
The cadaver captain, however, was somewhat at a loss. This new information came outside the scope of its orders. The chancellor indicated in a few words that the prince would serve in place of the king, and the captain, reassured, carried on.