Banebringer

by Carol A Park

  The words jabbed at him in spite of himself. Just let it go, Vaughn. Ignore him.

  Perhaps he could simply hurl himself at Gildas. He might get lucky and knock him over and escape. It was his only hope, if a slim one. His father was not someone you scrapped with and came out unharmed, and all it would take was for him to plunge a syringe into any part of Vaughn’s body. Didn’t matter if it were his thigh or big toe.

  The worst part was knowing that death wasn’t even what awaited him. It was spending the rest of his life trapped in his own lifeless body.

  Gildas swept his eyes across the back of the room, no doubt watching for a chance shimmer in the air that would give away Vaughn’s position, and then finally pulled the syringe out of his dinner jacket with his free hand. “No, ‘splinter’ is too kind. You’re a rabid dog, every bit the son of that bitch as you ever were. I’ll be glad to put you down.”

  Vaughn could feel the rage building in him. His father was baiting him, and he knew it. Turning from insulting him to insulting his mother.

  “I never wanted other sons, you know,” Gildas said. “I wanted a daughter or two to sell in alliance, and that was all I ever wanted. I had my son, already being groomed by the time you and your brothers were born.”

  Vaughn did know that. His father had made the inconsequential nature of his and his two other brothers’ existence quite clear growing up. Gildas didn’t want children. He wanted tools.

  “But you—especially disappointing. Always clinging to your mother’s skirts, whimpering when Airell gave you the beatings you deserved. And then when I threw Cheris at you, you went and turned into a simpering fool.”

  Hurt and anger warred in Vaughn’s chest. He always knew his father had preferred his oldest brother, had never entertained hope that his father cared for him in the least. But that he had despised him so…

  “I’ll grant you one use,” his father said. “You kept the fourth one out of my hair.”

  Vaughn couldn’t take it anymore. He clenched his fists and stepped forward, dropping his invisibility. “Leave Teryn out of this,” he said.

  Gildas flashed his teeth at him. “Was that his name?”

  The anger won. Vaughn hissed and nearly threw himself at his father.

  Except at that moment, the room exploded into chaos.

  Ivana crouched behind a crate near the door of the cellar. Of course, Ri Gildas didn’t know she was there. No one ever knew she was there unless she wanted them to. She had caught up with him just as he had stepped into the saferoom, imploring someone—Heilyn, she was certain—to show themselves.

  Why hadn’t Heilyn fled through the back door already?

  She didn’t hear him reply, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

  Gildas was speaking again. “You’re a damned nuisance, Teyrnon, just like you’ve always been. I’m tired of it. It’s time to dig this splinter out of my finger.”

  Teyrnon? Yet another name, probably his name by birth, coming from Heilyn’s father.

  “No, ‘splinter’ is too kind. You’re a rabid dog, every bit the son of that bitch as you ever were. I’ll be glad to put you down.”

  Ivana bristled as though the insult had been directed at her. As if, instead of throwing slurs against his wife, he were repeating the careless words he had spoken over the body of her father to the watching crowd. That’s what comes of letting your daughter whore herself.

  “I never wanted other sons, you know,” Gildas said. “I wanted a daughter or two to sell in alliance, and that was all I ever wanted. I had my son, already being groomed by the time you and your brothers were born.”

  Daughters to sell? Her vision blurred red. The hypocritical, arrogant bastard—

  She found herself creeping closer, her hand drawing the dagger hidden under her skirts without conscious thought. He had already given everyone a good reason for death; an assassin lurking about. A well-placed dagger, and she could slip back upstairs without anyone the wiser.

  “But you—especially disappointing. Always clinging to your mother’s skirts, whimpering when Airell gave you the beatings you deserved. And then when I threw Cheris at you, you went and turned into a simpering fool.”

  The hatred she had tried to set aside so that she could deal with this situation rationally boiled up in Ivana again. She had always despised him, for obvious reasons. But she had never known how truly foul this man was, and she was viciously pleased to see the dagger already in her hand.

  “I’ll grant you one use,” Gildas said. “You kept the fourth one out of my hair.”

  Vaughn suddenly spoke, the loathing boiling in Ivana’s chest bleeding out in his voice. “Leave Teryn out of this,” he hissed.

  Ivana didn’t know who Teryn was, other than by context, his fourth son, perhaps, but what he said next—or more likely, how he said it—snapped something in her.

  “Was that his name?” Gildas sneered.

  She hurled herself at his back.

  Instead of leaping forward, Vaughn stumbled backward, out of the way of his father, who suddenly pitched forward, Sweetblade on his back.

  The syringe flew out of his hand and spun through the air. It cracked against the stone and then landed on the ground, and aether began seeping out.

  He did a double-take.

  “Sweetblade?” he asked aloud. What in the abyss was she doing here?

  But Gildas wasn’t one to go down easily.

  Even with her dagger buried in his back, he managed to throw her off him and rise to face her, the shock of the assault quickly turning to disbelief.

  She yanked her dagger out of him as she rolled away, and then scrambled to her feet and fell into a crouch, hatred smoldering in her eyes—not at Vaughn, but at Gildas.

  Gildas swayed and fell back down to his hands and knees. Blood soaked his back, and after a moment, he collapsed to the ground and didn’t move again.

  Vaughn stared in shock. It had happened so fast he still couldn’t believe it. He didn’t understand. He had offered to pay Sweetblade to do this, and now she had done it of her own accord.

  Sweetblade moved forward, knelt, and placed two fingers at Gildas’ throat. She waited a moment, and then stood, seeming satisfied.

  That was it, then. His father was dead. He swallowed, feeling dizzy with relief? Grief? Shock? He didn’t even know.

  But now would be a perfect time to flee, if he could get that back door open…

  Sweetblade was still standing there, no longer looking at his father, but instead staring grimly at him.

  That…wasn’t good.

  “Your turn,” she said softly.

  He blinked, and then stepped back. “Now, hold on. Let’s not be hasty. You can’t—”

  “If ever there were a good place to spawn a demon, a safe room would be it,” she said.

  “Damn you, woman! I’m not going to betray your secret!”

  “I’m still in shock,” she said, moving closer to him, backing him into a corner. “A Banebringer, under the roof of my own inn? And most likely the assassin Gildas was seeking, no less. They struggled, and he must not have known…”

  Could he win a fight against her? He didn’t know. He was likely stronger, but she was, simply put, deadly. Not to mention, fist fighting wasn’t exactly his strength, and she had a dagger.

  Now would be an excellent time to turn invisible. He might get lucky if he just—

  The back door to the safe room squealed and buckled, and then fell off its hinges with a terrific crash, half-blocking the passage out.

  Vaughn jumped back, and for the second time, a woman barreled into the room and landed on his father’s body.

  Vaughn gaped. The woman’s eyes were wild, and Vaughn had the impression she wasn’t entirely sane.

  She spoke, and her voice was raspy, as though from disuse. “No,” she said. “Such a death is too good for you…”

  She raised her hand, and a moment later there was a scratching sound, like someone dragging a stick haphazardly
over the ground. It grew and magnified, until the floor was writhing. Bugs and worms of every shape and size streamed and slithered into the room from the safe room passage behind them, swarming over the crushed door…and over Gildas.

  The insects quickly ran out of open space on Gildas’ body and started to spread out, toward Sweetblade, toward himself…

  Water, Vaughn, water! Danton was right, he should have spent more time practicing.

  The barrels outside the saferoom…wine?

  He didn’t stop to contemplate further. He reached out and pulled.

  He could feel the wine straining against its confines in the barrels, the pent-up energy burning away his blood as he continued to pull on it, so he knew he was right about the water. But it took longer than he would have liked for it to escape. Finally, the red liquid burst out of half a dozen barrels from the room beyond, seeking the person who called it, until he redirected it to slam into the carpet of bugs covering Gildas, and then beyond.

  The scrabbling sound stopped, and Vaughn swore he could hear a thousand tiny screams as the bugs struggled and drowned in the wash, which he manipulated until all of the bugs had been caught up in it. He pushed the flood of wine with its tiny victims back down the saferoom passage.

  The room spun as he turned back, and he knew he was close to over-doing it. His un-practiced, desperate solution had burned a dangerous amount of aether from his blood. He needed a moment to rest, which didn’t seem likely…because the bug-woman had shifted her gaze, now murderous, to him.

  Ivana had never liked bugs. She was half horrified and half fascinated at the scene unfolding before her; she had never seen Banebringer powers in action so dramatically.

  She shook her head. Enough with scientific curiosity.

  The newcomer—the crazed woman—had shifted her gaze to Heilyn. She didn’t seem pleased he had foiled her attempt at…

  Well, Ivana wasn’t sure what.

  She looked back at Gildas’ corpse.

  Her eyes widened. He was pushing himself off the ground, coughing.

  No. There had been no pulse. He was dead!

  Unless…

  She glanced at the woman. Some sort of Banebringer magic? It had to be.

  The woman didn’t seem to care about Gildas now; she was preoccupied with Heilyn. And, oddly enough, Gildas didn’t seem to care about Heilyn. Instead, Gildas rose to his feet, swayed, blinked, shook his head, and then turned to face Ivana, a grim look on his face.

  “Sweetblade, is it?” he said softly.

  Ivana was an assassin. She did her killing from the shadows, or in secret, and with surprise on her side. She knew how to fight, but she avoided it when at all possible. Especially head on fights with men twice her own size. But this was one man she couldn’t risk letting go.

  She hurled herself into him, hoping to land her dagger in such a way that would cause him to reel back and give her an advantage, but with unbelievably fast reflexes, he caught her arm. After a moment of grappling, he twisted her wrist back in a crushing grip and forced her to drop the dagger. He held her there for a moment, while she thrashed against his superior strength, trying to get enough purchase to kick him in the groin. But he held her away from himself, his eyes cold. “You should know better than to cross the Conclave.”

  He backhanded her across the face and then shoved her so hard that her breath failed her when she hit the wall.

  She collapsed to the ground and gasped for air, tasting blood in her mouth where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek. The room spun around her, and all she could do was raise her head and watch helplessly while someone infinitely more dangerous to her than Heilyn had ever been simply walked away.

  Had his father really just risen and walked away? He had been dead, hadn’t he? Sweetblade wouldn’t have left him lying there if she hadn’t been certain, would she have? And after all of this, why was he just leaving Vaughn?

  The woman’s glare turned into a crazed grin, and she flexed her fist. “Fasss…cinating…” she rasped. Then she closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, saying something else Vaughn couldn’t make out.

  Vaughn glanced desperately around himself, searching for another solution to this problem. But he was already faint, and even if he could come up with a workable idea, he might well kill himself in the attempt. He didn’t even know if he could turn invisible right now without risking himself.

  He didn’t know why the woman didn’t just attack him. Was it because he was a Banebringer as well? Was she sane enough to care? But, now, the woman had ceased paying attention to him at all. Instead, she became interested in a commotion beginning outside the door. Shouts rang out, and before he could wonder what this new development portended, half a dozen guards in the livery of Talesin burst into the room.

  The guards turned on the woman and Vaughn, drawing swords. They ignored Sweetblade, who was still slumped against the metal door where she had fallen.

  Vaughn’s throat went dry, but the woman grinned, snarled and stepped closer to the guards, causing the three in the back to deliberately block the doorway. The space in the safe room was too cramped to be able to effectively slip away, if he even dared; a few wild slashes of their swords in the right direction would easily land a blow on him.

  So he backed farther into the safe room, as far as he could, until he bumped against the crumpled metal door. Perhaps he could use some of his pre-made aether, turn invisible, and worm his way through the opening while they were distracted.

  The woman grabbed the sword of the nearest guard, and heedless of the gash it sliced in her hand, pulled him toward her and placed her bleeding hand on his chest.

  The guard gasped, started coughing, and before Vaughn’s eyes, his face shriveled. The woman dropped the guard, clearly dead, on the ground, and let out a shriek of hysterical laughter that set Vaughn to shivering even more than he already had been.

  It took a moment for the other five guards to regain their composure at what the woman had done, but the first one who did lunged at her and bowled into her.

  She stumbled back, but then lashed out and tossed him across the room like a doll. The third swung his sword and slammed the flat into her back with a blow that should have broken her spine, or at least exploded some sensitive organ, but she merely swatted him away.

  Burning skies. He didn’t know who this woman was, why she was here, nor how she had such extraordinary powers for a Banebringer, but since her focus wasn’t on him at present, he did know that now would be an excellent time to flee.

  Sweetblade had gained her feet and apparently had the same thought. She had already squirmed her way through the half-blocked passage out of the safe room and was disappearing into the darkness.

  He followed suit.

  Chapter Eleven

  Reluctant Companions

  Ivana ran from the second-worst disaster in her life as fast and far as she could, staying off the road and in the woods, until she had to stop from exhaustion.

  She found a tree with branches sweeping down to the ground and crawled underneath the boughs where she would be hidden from view. She laid her head back against the trunk to take stock. She had nothing with her except the increasingly tattered formal dress she wore—a horrid dress to run in as it was—the dagger strapped to her thigh, and a purse of fifteen hundred setans.

  The irony of that situation was such that she almost laughed aloud. A lot of good fifteen hundred setans did her right now.

  But she stopped short of laughing. Now that she had a moment to rest, and the thrill of her flight had worn off, the injuries she had sustained in her brief struggle with Ri Gildas had started to manifest themselves. Her cheek was tender and swollen from where he had struck her; she moved her hand to touch it experimentally, and pain shot from her wrist up her arm. She sucked in a quick breath through her teeth and closed her eyes, holding the injured wrist close to her chest. She moved it, just a bit, with the same result.

  Fantastic. And she wouldn’t be a
ble to find star-leaf at night. She would have to wait until morning.

  She was in no condition to do anything but find a place to hole up and lick her wounds.

  And yet, she was headed back to the one place that was the worst possible place to go.

  She had to. She had to check on her girls. What would happen to them? Despair squeezed her throat in a way that hadn’t happened for years. This was her fault. She had let anger cloud her judgment, and it might well mean harm would come to the only people she cared for.

  She should have never gone to the estate, never followed Heilyn, never tried to kill Gildas.

  She hoped that, whatever happened, they would leave her girls alone. It wasn’t their fault that their mistress was an assassin. None of them knew about it, except Aleena, and she could feign innocence as well as Ivana. Hopefully Aleena could take over. Hopefully they wouldn’t reap the consequences of her failure.

  But the Conclave was known for its swift brutality when it came to people who crossed them, and she had to make sure.

  She couldn’t run without knowing what she had done this time.

  She felt herself starting to drift off, and she hoped fervently as her mind clouded over that the branches would hide her from the view of any pursuers…or bloodbane.

  A stick cracked, and Ivana jerked out of her half-slumber.

  She pulled her legs up to her chest so she was a smaller visual target and leaned over to peer through the branches. Probably an animal, but you never knew once you were outside inhabited areas.

  She frowned, seeing nothing. Yet she continued to hear the rustle of leaves and the snap of twigs.

  She inspected the ground near the tree. These woods weren’t tightly packed, and the almost-full moon shone through the leaves with enough light to see tolerably well. And so she could see the press of undergrowth, moving seemingly on its own. And as she peered closer, a faint shimmer in the air.