The Ranger's Sorrow: The King's Ranger Book 4 Read online

  The Ranger’s Sorrow

  The King’s Ranger Book 4

  AC Cobble

  THE RANGER’S SORROW text copyright

  © 2021 AC Cobble

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  ISBN: 9781947683280

  ASIN: B0993SDCW4

  Cobble Publishing LLC

  Sugar Land, TX

  Contents

  Keep in Touch and Extra Content

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Thanks for reading!

  Keep in Touch and Extra Content

  You can find larger versions of the maps, series artwork, my newsletter, and other goodies at accobble.com. It’s the best place to stay updated on when the next book is coming!

  Happy reading!

  AC

  Chapter One

  Blood dripped from the dagger.

  Shaking his hand, flinging the crimson liquid in a fan across the room, Raif barked, “King’s Sake, Kallie!”

  Snarling, the nobleman’s older sister lunged at him, swiping her hand-length blade at his face.

  Raif leapt back, his greatsword lying on the plush carpet two steps behind his sister.

  “Stop!” bellowed Cinda, and to everyone’s surprise, they did.

  Kallie stood, panting, her dagger held threateningly in front of her. She was garbed in a fine dress like that of a minor noble. Her hair was bound atop her head, and she wore blush and lip paint. If it weren’t for the blood-stained dagger grasped in her hand, she would've looked as if she were on her way to a formal dinner party.

  Raif gripped his bleeding hand and scowled at Kallie. His armor was dented and scored. Blood, sweat, and dust clung to him like water on a cool mug of ale. A moment before, he’d been in Carff in the midst of a battle with a throng of imps, dozens of spellcasters, swordsmen, and Prince Valchon himself. An hour before that, they’d witnessed the destruction of Stanton. Raif had been flung through the air into a portal and had appeared on the opposite side of the kingdom. Now, he was facing his elder sister, who’d cut him with a dagger.

  The fighter’s bewildered, stunned expression showed he was having some difficulty coming to grips with the change in circumstances.

  Rew turned slowly, appraising the place they’d portaled into. It was a well-appointed sitting room adorned in intricate tapestries and finely-made furnishings. Wide, heavy glass windows were on the wall behind him, but they were thrown open, revealing a large body of sparkling water far below. It was a little cooler than Carff, but not cold. The open window brought the sounds of giant, gray birds that drifted on the wind and called to each other in high-pitched, mournful cries. Rew could see little but the water and the birds and hear nothing but the birds and the wind.

  “Rew,” hissed Anne, “where are we?”

  “Jabaan. We’re in Jabaan, in Prince Calb’s palace,” he murmured, turning to face Kallie Fedgley. “Alsayer brought you here to meet the prince, didn’t he? What did he tell you his plans were?”

  Kallie spit on the carpet and raised her dagger without answering. The side of her face was red, and Rew guessed Raif had smacked her. Had the fighter done it before or after she’d cut him? The lad had been holding his greatsword, so either way, he hadn’t tried to kill her. What did Raif think was going to happen here?

  Sighing, Rew glanced around at the others. “We have several minutes, I’d wager, until Prince Calb returns, and then we’re in a great deal of trouble. We need to get moving. Quietly if we can, but quickly for certain.”

  “There’s the door,” said Zaine, pointing behind Kallie.

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” snapped the noblewoman.

  “Don’t be foolish, Kallie,” retorted Cinda. “We have you outnumbered, and we’re armed. Get out of our way, and—“

  “Come with us,” interrupted Raif, taking a hesitant step toward his older sister, his hands raised as if to show he meant no threat. “Come with us, and we’ll get you to safety.”

  Kallie stared back at him incredulously.

  “What happened in Spinesend… Father… We’re all that we have left, Kallie. We need to talk, but not here, not now. You’re our sister, and we won’t leave you in this place with these people. You’re safe with us.”

  “You really don’t get it, do you?” Kallie asked Raif, shaking her head in disbelief.

  Rew asked her, “When were you meeting with Calb? Were you going to him, or was he coming to this room?”

  Kallie would not look at him, and Rew scowled. She was to meet Calb in the room, then. That bastard Alsayer had set the entire thing up. He’d placed Kallie as the bait and timed it so that Rew and the prince couldn’t help but stumble into each other. What had Alsayer told the prince? What would Calb be expecting when he entered the room?

  In other circumstances, Rew would have been impressed with the complexity and ingenuity of the spellcaster’s plotting, not to mention the fact that so far, it had worked. But now, it just made Rew angry.

  Alsayer had manipulated them as easily and callously as the carved, wooden pieces on a game board, and he’d put them right in the path of danger. They only had minutes to get away, if any time at all. Or… they could follow Alsayer’s plan. Rew seethed at the idea, but Calb would be weakened from his attempt at Valchon and surprised to find Rew standing inside of his palace, waiting for him.

  Would Rew get a better chance than the one Alsayer had given?

  But the room was small and led to nowhere but the open air. If Calb put up a fight, it would turn ugly, and Rew wouldn’t be able to protect the others and strike at his brother. Even weakened from his fight against Valchon, Calb would still be dangerous. He would have armed soldiers with him, and maybe spellcasters and imps. Calb and his minions wouldn’t know what they were facing until someone opened the door, but the palace would be thick with reinforcements. It occurred to Rew that it might not even be Calb who came. After a tussle with Valchon, would the prince come directly to see Kallie, or would he send someone else to fetch her? What sort of clues and tricks had Alsayer used to ensure Calb would come? He hadn’t told the truth to the prince. Rew could be sure of that much.

  “We have to go,” said Rew, deciding that surviving was more important at the moment than the slim possibility they might get a jump on Prince Calb.

  Raif took another step toward his sister. “Kallie, they’re tricking you into—“

  “Into lying and telling everyone that I’m the one with Father’s powers? No, Raif, that is you. You and her,” cried Kallie, spinning and slashing her dagger in Cinda’s direction. “I know it all. You’ve been walking around, convincing everyone that it’s me they should be looking for. Pfah! You set me up as bait and then tell me I am family? Alsayer shared all of your little secrets with me, Raif. Prince Heindaw and the king himself are hunting me because of your lies. I may not have Father’s talent for necromancy, but I have something just as powerful—the truth.”

  “No!” snapped Raif. “Kallie, we can talk about this!”

  Kallie shifted in front of the door, holding her dagger menacingly, blocking the only exit from the room. “It�
�s Prince Calb I’ll be talking to, and then, I won’t be the one in danger.” She grinned wickedly. “I think the prince is going to be quite pleased to find you here.”

  “We have to go,” repeated Rew.

  “We’re going to take her with us,” growled Raif, and he charged his sister, his arms wide to engulf and presumably restrain her.

  While Raif had learned much in their years apart, Kallie hadn’t been idle, and she did what any attractive young noblewoman was taught to do when a suitor was dangerously aggressive. As her brother wrapped his arms around her, Kallie slammed her dagger into his bicep then whipped it across his face as he staggered back, drawing a long, bloody line across his jaw.

  Raif, perhaps acting on instinct, dove for his greatsword, and Kallie went after him. Rew surged toward them, but he was still on the opposite side of the room where the portal from Carff had closed. He was going to be too late.

  A burst of pale white-green light blasted into Kallie’s side, and she was flung against the wall beside the door.

  “Cinda!” cried Raif, staggering to his feet.

  Wailing, Cinda rushed forward, her face locked in horrified shock at what she’d done to her sister. She knelt beside Kallie, picking up the older girl’s head in her hands, looking at her closed eyes. “Oh, no. Oh, no—“

  Kallie swung with her dagger, catching Cinda in the side once, twice, and three times before the younger sister fell back. Kallie’s eyes flicked open, and a smile curled her lips. She crawled onto her knees and raised her dagger above Cinda for a killing blow.

  Raif reached his greatsword and reared back to swing at his older sister.

  Rew, knowing he couldn’t make across the room in time to stop the dagger or the greatsword, flung his longsword. The steel, dark from the blood of the imps they’d faced back in Carff, flashed across the room and skewered Kallie through the chest. She flew back from the force of the blow, slamming against the door. Anger twisted her face until her mad rictus fell, and her features went slack.

  Cinda, lying on her back on the floor, coughed, spitting crimson blood that leaked down her cheek.

  “Anne,” barked Rew, kneeling in front of Kallie and putting his back to Raif so he could draw his longsword from the girl without the fighter seeing. Somewhat less than gracefully, Rew shoved Kallie’s body out of the way to the door.

  “I-I don’t know what… I was going to…” stammered Raif.

  Rew stood and put a hand on the big fighter’s shoulder. “You were going to do what you had to do.”

  “But I didn’t,” muttered Raif. “I was too slow. Cinda—”

  His eyes widened and he spun. Anne was kneeling beside the novice necromancer. The empath’s expression was grim. Raif croaked, “Will she…”

  “I don’t know,” responded Anne.

  “Calb is coming. We have to leave,” said Rew.

  “If we move her, she won’t make it,” murmured Anne. She looked up at Rew, stricken. “I need time.”

  The ranger nodded and glanced at Zaine. “Keep an eye out, will you?”

  The thief, her bow clutched tight in her hands, only two arrows left in the quiver, nodded.

  Rew moved to the door and opened it, stepping out onto a long gallery that overlooked the foyer to Prince Calb’s palace. It was a massive hall, the length of a city block but several times wider. The open gallery was on a second floor and ran the length of the foyer. Across from it was another gallery, dotted with rooms where visitors could be kept until the prince or his administrators were ready to see them. Below was the huge marble floor of the entrance hall. It was filled with hundreds of soldiers who appeared to be returning from the conflict in Carff.

  “Blessed Mother,” grumbled Rew. Then, he adjusted his grip on his longsword and prepared to fight.

  The soldiers were going to be a problem, but a more immediate concern was the two hulking imps that bounded up the grand, marble staircase. The creatures were thrashing their heads, sniffing the air. Evidently, they’d caught the scent of an intruder. Rew looked down at himself, at his torn, bloody, and sweat-stained clothing. He scowled. Imps were known for poor eyesight, but they had good noses and other supernatural senses as well. Calb could have trained his summonings to detect someone who did not belong, but Rew had to admit, he probably smelled something awful.

  On the floor below, Rew heard shouts, and people turned and followed the path of the monstrous imps to where they saw Rew, standing at the marble railing of the gallery, with a longsword in his hand, looking as out of place as anyone possibly could look. The soldiers didn’t have the senses of the imps, but it didn’t take extensive training as a guard to identify Rew as a threat. Maybe he should have just poked his head out first.

  Slavering growls preceded the imps, the sounds of their vicious hunger bouncing off the marble and filling the huge foyer with their bestial rage. Muscles bunched and claws scraped on the floor as they rushed toward him.

  Rew stepped back and kicked open the door to the room the party was in. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Rew,” snapped Anne from inside. “I cannot move her.”

  “It’s not a choice,” argued Rew, glancing over his shoulder. “Raif, Zaine, make a stretcher or something we can carry her on. We have to go, now!”

  The two imps had reached him. There wasn’t time to say anything else, but it seemed the arrival of the imps made the point well enough as everyone started scrambling to get going.

  Down the long gallery, the imps skidded and leapt, their clawed feet sliding on the polished marble floor. It gave Rew a precious opportunity. He ducked close to one of the imps that was flailing off balance in its eagerness to reach him. The other creature’s taloned hand whipped over Rew as he crouched beneath the blow.

  Rew lashed out, taking the first imp along the side with a brutal, raking cut that opened the flesh across its ribs, shoulder to hip. The imp wailed as Rew’s enchanted steel sliced cleanly through skin and muscle, cutting the creature to the bone and sending a shower of blood and gore spraying across the white marble floor and the tapestries that hung alongside the wall of the gallery. Below, in the open foyer beneath them, Rew could hear shrill calls and gruff instructions being issued.

  He knew his time was limited, but those below had been frozen in surprise for a moment watching the imps attack. It gave him a chance to formulate a plan, which was going to be difficult because they were stuck in the center of Prince Calb’s palace in view of hundreds of the prince’s soldiers. Rew wasn’t sure there was a plan that could address that complication.

  It didn’t help that his planning window was being encroached on by the two imps that had spun around and were coming back to finish him. The wounded one was dragging one leg and moving slow, but the other jumped into the air in a springing attack, its arms and jaw spread wide.

  “King’s Sake,” muttered Rew, ducking again and thrusting up with his longsword to stab the creature in the chest.

  He lost his blade as the imp’s heavy body tumbled past him, wrenching his arm around and jerking the wooden hilt of his sword from his grip. Moments before, while still back in Carff, he’d snapped that arm back into the socket following a fall from Prince Valchon’s throne room. His shoulder throbbed with pain, and his arm spasmed at the stress of his movement. His fingers trembled helplessly as the sword was yanked away.

  The second imp reached him and grasped at his head with a clawed hand. Rew got his left arm up to block, but then, the imp simply closed its hand around his forearm and yanked him toward its maw. He tried to reach across his body to awkwardly draw his hunting knife from behind his back, but it was positioned to be pulled free with his off hand, and he couldn’t move his injured arm far enough to reach. There wasn’t time to fumble with it. He kicked up with his feet, launching his lower body toward the imp and wrapping his legs around its neck.

  The imp looked at him with large, yellowed eyes, startled.

  Hanging from the imp’s neck by his legs, Rew locked his an
kles and squeezed with his thighs in a move which could choke the air from a man, but the creature’s neck was three times the size of a man’s, and Rew didn’t have the strength to crush its throat.

  The imp tried to bite him, but with his legs wrapped around it, the creature couldn’t get close to him, so instead, it roared in frustration, drenching Rew’s trousers and tunic with its rancid spittle.

  One of his arms was clutched tight in the imp’s grasp. The other was injured. His hunting knife hung from his back, the hilt on the wrong side of his body. His throwing knives were in his boots, on the opposite side of the imp’s head. His longsword was lodged in the body of the dead imp behind him. It left Rew with few options.

  The imp, gnashing its teeth fruitlessly at him, evidently came to the same conclusion, and decided to rip Rew’s arm off of his body.

  His muscles and ligaments strained as he fought the impossible strength of the conjured beast. Rew punched with his free hand, his fist bouncing harmlessly off the monster’s head. He tried digging his thumb into the imp’s eye. It roared, filling his face with the sound of its anger and the stench of its foul breath. Rew pushed deeper, jabbing into the imp’s eye socket with his thumb.

  The imp flung him away.

  Rew hooked his thumb and tore the creature’s eye from its skull before he went tumbling to the marble floor. Flicking his hand to dislodge the eye, Rew lurched toward the dead imp, wresting his longsword from its chest and spinning in time to skewer the second creature as it fell on him. The steel plunged to the hilt, killing the imp, but the imp continued its momentum and knocked him down. Rew fell to the floor, pinned beneath the dead body.