The enemy had a face, and in every line, in every crease and wrinkle, it could encompass all that was wrong with the world; all that was unjust; all that was evil. Nothing could be simpler than this moment of recognition, or the relief one felt when it arrived, bright as revelation, to burn away uncertainty and doubt, to scour from the mind the sins of subtlety.
She had felt its sharp talons drag down through her mind, making wreckage of time and need, of cautious planning and preparation. This was not war, unless an entire war could be reduced to a single battle. On this day they would strike down the enemy: they would rake their own claws down that bitter visage, slicing through the bones underneath, and spilling out for all to see the mundane truth of evil. Blood the same as our blood. Flesh the same as our flesh. The pulped ruin of brains no different from what we might splash out to a mace’s blow. All disassembled and beyond repair.
Then we’ll look on in silence, and wonder at the howling emptiness inside us. It will not last long. The horror will return, standing over spent rage.
Nothing goes away. It just piles up inside.
Staggering, her horse reached the crest and she reined in the poor beast. Within her exhaustion, something cold and hard had pushed through. She could see clearly into a future too bleak to comprehend. She faced Rint again. ‘At the very least wait a day! Abyss take us, the enemy is rested!’ Her desperate gaze shifted to the others surrounding Rint. ‘Traj! We are done in!’
‘You’ll not fight,’ Rint told her. ‘Lahanis will remain with you—’
At that, Lahanis hissed. ‘I will not! See the blood still on my hands? This day I will add to it!’
‘I ride at your side,’ Feren told her brother. ‘But we need to pause. Here and now. We need to recover our strength—’
‘I am ready for this,’ Traj said.
‘Listen to me – Rint, Ville and Galak – we have seen those Houseblades! We have watched their drills!’
‘And remember how few they were!’ Rint retorted, almost shouting. ‘Too heavily armoured besides – we will dance circles round them! Feren – there must be eight hundred of us here! Against what? Two hundred mounted Houseblades at best?’
‘Do you think we will meet their charge?’ Traj demanded. ‘No, we will part before it. We will sweep in from the sides, joined by the skirmishers. We will drag them down from their mounts and gut them all!’
‘All very well – but let us rest first!’
‘Sister,’ said Rint, ‘it will be noon before they ride out to meet us, assuming they have the courage to face the challenge of our banner. They know why we are here! We will await them, this I swear!’
She subsided, looking away from her brother, away from all of them. Do I so fear righteous vengeance? No. My brother grieves. All those here grieve.
But this makes no sense. Has Lord Draconus lost control of his Houseblades? But then, is that so impossible? There is civil war and their lord has left them. They have chosen a side and they acted – striking us first to remove the threat from their backs; and would now face the east and south without risk of being surrounded by enemies.
That makes tactical sense.
Except for the fact that our fighters were all away, and now we are here.
She twisted in her saddle to the young girl with the stained hands. ‘Lahanis. Did you see heavily armoured Houseblades? Did you see warhorses? How many attacked?’
The girl stared at her in open distaste. ‘I saw Houseblades,’ she said. ‘I saw the standard of House Dracons! I am not a child!’
‘Activity from the gate!’ someone shouted.
Feren turned with the others to see two riders emerging from the keep, picking their way down the slope. One bore the standard of Dracons.
‘They accept our challenge,’ Rint said, baring his teeth.
The two distant figures rode out to rein in directly in front of the Borderswords’ banner. The one bearing the Dracons standard thrust it into the ground, next to the first offering. A moment later, both Houseblades were riding back to the keep.
‘After we have slain the Houseblades,’ said Traj, ‘we break into the keep. We kill everyone we find. Then we ride down to the village. We slaughter everyone and burn everything. If I could, I would see the ground salted. But I will settle for shattered bones. Curse upon the name of Draconus, by the blood of my soul.’
Feren felt a chill creeping through her, spreading out through her muscles. She reached up to touch the scar disfiguring her cheek, and felt her fingertips cold as ice.
‘Everyone dismount!’ Traj called out. ‘Rest your horses and see to your weapons! Drink the last from your flasks and eat what’s left in your saddlebags!’
‘That would be leather string, Traj!’ someone yelled back.
Low laughter rippled out.
Feren hunched in her saddle, studying the wiry grasses fluttering along the crest. The baby stirred in her, twice, like a thing making fists.
* * *
Sandalath emerged from the house. Although the day was warm, the skies clear, she drew her cloak tightly about her. Her walk through the house had awakened the horror that gripped her soul, and although the bloodstains had been washed away and all other signs of the slaughter removed, the unnatural silence – the absence of familiar faces – crumbled her courage.
She had made of her room a fortress against all that lay beyond its door, but in the days and nights that followed the killings her abode became a prison, with terror pacing the corridor beyond. She feared sleep and its timeless world of nightmare visions, its panicked flights through shadows and the flapping of small, bared feet closing behind her.
It still seemed impossible that the daughters of Draconus could have, in a single night, become so transformed. She saw them now as demonic, and their faces, hovering ceaselessly in her mind’s eye, made evil the soft features of youth: the large, bright eyes and rosebud lips, the flush of rounded cheeks.
Captain Ivis insisted that they had fled the keep. But he had sent trackers into the countryside and they had found no signs of their passage. At night, lying awake and shivering in her bed, Sandalath had heard strange sounds in the house, and once, very faint, the sound of whispering, as of voices behind a stone wall. She was convinced that the girls were still in the house, hiding in secret places known only to them.
There was a forbidden room …
She saw Captain Ivis and made her way to where he stood. Soldiers crowded the compound, silent but for the sounds their armour made as they tightened straps and closed buckles. Grooms rushed about burdened beneath saddles and the leather plates of horse armour. Ivis stood in the midst of this chaos like a man on an island, beyond the reach of frenzied waves thrashing on all sides. She drew assurance from just seeing him. He met her eyes as she drew nearer.
‘Hostage, you have seen too little of the sun, but this is not the best of days.’
‘What is happening?’
‘We prepare for battle,’ he replied.
‘But – who would want to attack us?’
The man shrugged. ‘It is not our way to struggle in search of enemies, hostage. Some have suggested that the invasion of the Jheleck but delayed the brooding civil war. An unpopular opinion, but so often it is the unpopular ones that prove true, while those eagerly embraced are revealed as wishful thinking. We deny for comfort, and often it takes a hand to the throat to shake us awake.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘I regret the risk you face in our company, hostage. Whatever may befall us, be assured that you will not be harmed.’
‘What madness has so afflicted us, Captain Ivis?’
‘That question is best directed at poets, hostage, not soldiers like me.’ He gestured at the scene in the compound. ‘I fret at the loss of our surgeon, and fear that I will not stand well in my lord’s stead in this battle to come. He instructed me as to the training of these Houseblades and I have done what I could in his absence, but on this day I feel very much alone.’
He looked exhausted to h
er eyes, but even this did not shake her confidence in him. ‘His daughters,’ she said, ‘would not have dared do what they did, captain, if you had been home that night.’
Though she had intended her words to be assuring, she saw him flinch. He looked away, the muscles of his jaws tightening. ‘I regret my foolish wanderings, hostage. Alas, it soothes nothing to promise never again.’
Sandalath stepped closer, overwhelmed by a desire to give him comfort. ‘Forgive my clumsy words, captain. I meant but to show my faith in you. On this day you will prevail. I am certain of it.’
The gates had been opened and the Houseblades were mounting up and riding through them to assemble outside the keep. Corporal Yalad shouted out troop numbers, as if to impose order on the chaos, but to Sandalath’s eyes it seemed no one was paying him any attention. And yet there was no confusion at the gate’s narrow passage, and the flow of armed figures riding out was steady, although it seemed that that could change at any moment. She frowned. ‘Captain, this seems so … fraught.’
He grunted. ‘Everything is going smoothly, hostage, I assure you. Once we lock with the enemy in the field beyond, well, that is when all sense of order is swept away. Even there, however, I intend to hold on to control of the Houseblades for as long as I can, and with luck, if that is even a fraction longer than the enemy’s commander is able to do, we will win. This is the truth of all war. The side that holds its nerve longer is the side that wins.’
‘No different then, from any argument.’
He smiled at her. ‘Just so, hostage. You are right to see war in this way. Each battle is an argument. Even the language is shared. We yield ground. We surrender. We retreat. In each, you can find a match to any knockdown scrap between husband and wife, or mother and daughter. And this should tell you something else.’
She nodded. ‘Victory is often claimed, but defeat is never accepted.’
‘It is an error to doubt your intelligence, hostage.’
‘If I possess such a thing, captain, it gives little strength.’ She shook herself. ‘My life is measured out in lost arguments.’
‘The same might be said of all of us,’ Ivis replied.
‘But do win today’s argument, captain. And come home safe.’
When she looked up and met his eyes, she felt a rippling sensation travel through her, as if a wave of something was passing between them. It should have shocked her, but it did not, and she reached out to rest a hand against his arm.
His eyes widened slightly. ‘Forgive me, hostage, but I must leave you now.’
‘I shall take to the tower to watch the battle, captain.’
‘The day will lift dust and so obscure the scene.’
‘I will witness your victory none the less. And when Lord Draconus at last returns, I will tell him the tale of this day.’
He nodded to her and then departed, calling for his horse.
When she looked round the compound, she saw that it was almost empty, barring a dozen or so servants preparing cots along one wall and stacking strips of cloth to use as bandages. Two small kilns had been dragged out from the smithy and apprentices were stacking bricks around them, along with buckets, some containing water and others with what looked like iron rods bearing a variety of shaped ends. These were set down close to the kilns. More servants arrived with braziers, shovelling into the black-rimmed mouths of the kilns the coals and embers they contained.
Surgeon Atran should have been there, snapping out instructions and standing with her arms crossed and fury in her face at the thought of the wounded and dying soon to come. Sandalath could almost see her, just as she had almost seen Hilith in a corridor, and the keeper of records, Hidast, at his desk through the open door to his office. And her maids, showing her the welts Hilith had inflicted on them for some invented transgression. In her mind, or in some timeless corner of her mind, they still lived, still moved through the house bent on their tasks and doing all the things they were supposed to do.
She wanted them back. Even Hilith. Instead, all she had now were stones that whispered and the faint scuff of bared feet out of sight past some corner, and that chilling sensation of hidden eyes tracking her every move.
And now Captain Ivis had ridden out to join his soldiers. She saw the armourer, Setyl, with his terribly scarred face, standing near the kilns, motionless as he stared into the embers. Near the stables stood Venth, openly weeping at the thought of the horses soon to die.
Sandalath looked at the tower she had told Ivis would be her perch to witness the battle. To ascend, she would have to pass the locked door that led into a chamber she had once heard Envy call the Temple.
If the daughters remained in the keep, they were hiding in that room. She had no proof, of course. Not even Ivis had a key to that chamber, and just like her he knew not what lay behind that door.
She had been given a fighting knife after the night of the murders. It was heavy, wide-bladed and weighted at its tip. The captain had shown her how to chop with the weapon. It could be used to slice and cut as well, but these techniques involved practice, and a wrist stronger than hers. The thought of killing the Lord’s daughters did not disturb her overmuch; the faith she lacked was in her own courage.
Beneath the cloak, she closed one hand about the weapon’s grip, and then set out for the tower and its stairs that wound up the inside of the outer wall. There were four levels to the tower, if one included the open platform at the top. Shuttered windows were visible on all but the floor with the hidden chamber, and that one was just beneath the ladder to the platform.
Reaching the door, she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see the horse master, his eyes still red and streaked tears on his lined cheeks. ‘Master Venth, what do you wish?’
‘Your pardon, hostage. But when the captain took from me the reins of his mount, he informed me that you were intent on watching from atop the tower.’
She nodded.
‘He asked that I escort you there, hostage. And, if you so desire, that I keep you company.’
‘Is it dangerous to be up there, horse master?’
His eyes shied away. ‘Not from anyone outside the walls, hostage.’
‘Then at last Captain Ivis is convinced. They are still here, aren’t they?’
‘Food’s gone missing, hostage. Corporal Yalad shared your conviction and he has been diligent, and like you he believes that they hide in secret passages.’
‘Then, Venth, I will welcome your company.’
‘Permit me to lead the way, then.’
‘Of course.’
* * *
Clearly, Envy reflected, something was wrong. Malice was rotting. They huddled under the floor of the kitchen, sharing between them a loaf of bread Spite had stolen just before dawn. They were all filthy, but the smell coming from little Malice was rank with something much worse than grime and sweat. Each time Malice opened her mouth to take another piece of bread, the stench grew worse.
‘All the house guards trooped out,’ said Spite. ‘I was behind the hearth wall at the crack. Envy, we have the house to ourselves.’
‘We can get to the hostage then. Good.’
‘Not yet. She went out, too. Something is going on. I don’t know what – we heard all the horses. I think they’ve gone to fight somewhere.’
‘War? Could be. Everyone’s closing in on Father. About time.’
‘He’s not here, though,’ said Malice in a dry, cracking voice.
‘Then he’ll come home to ashes,’ said Spite.
‘I don’t want to burn,’ said Malice, each word spitting out crumbs of bread.
‘We can use the tunnel,’ Envy said, but her mind was not on the subject. She kept her gaze averted from Malice. ‘We have other problems right now. Spite, you know what I mean.’
Her sister nodded, wiping at her nose. ‘If they bring dogs inside, like Yalad was saying, we’re in trouble. I know what to do, though, and we should do it now.’
‘What are you ta
lking about?’ Malice asked.
‘Don’t worry about it. You thirsty, Malice? I am. Envy?’
‘Parched.’
‘There’s no one in the kitchen. Some nice sweet summer wine – it’s all I can think about. This bread is like a lump of wax in my belly.’ She lifted one of her hands to study the red scar the surgeon’s cutting tool had made. ‘We won’t heal up all the way until we get more food and drink in us. That’s why we sleep all the time. We’re starving.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Malice. ‘I’m never hungry.’
‘Then why do you eat with us?’ Envy asked.
Malice shrugged. ‘It’s something to do.’
‘Maybe it’s the food inside you that’s rotting.’
‘I don’t smell anything.’
‘We do,’ snapped Spite. ‘But some wine should fix that.’
‘All right, I’ll drink some, then.’
They set out, gathering again at the end of the passage beneath the kitchen floor, where it opened out into two further tunnels. The one on the left led under the entranceway and ended up under the stables, in a room shin deep in mud soaked with horse piss, while the one on the right ran the length of the main chamber. At the junction of these passages there was a chute that reached up to behind the larder. There were no handholds and the only means of ascending this shaft was to wedge oneself against the walls, with knees drawn up. It was difficult and left scrapes and bruises, but it was the only way into the kitchen.
Envy went first, since it had turned out that she was the strongest of the three and so could reach down and help the others up. The walls had become greasy with constant use, making the climb still more treacherous, but at last she reached the ledge that marked the sliding panel at the back wall of the larder, and slid it open so that she could pull herself up and then into the room. She had to huddle since she was beneath a shelf stocked with jars. Reaching down, she let her right arm dangle. Moments later she felt Spite grasp hold of it and then use it to climb up the chute. Each yank shot pain through Envy’s shoulder. Spite’s harsh breathing drew closer, and then her sister was clambering through the trap. As she squeezed past Envy, she whispered, ‘The oven.’
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