"Keth?" he repeated gently, but insistently.
"It's -- it's the she'enearan bond between us," she said at last. "We each can feel things the other does, sometimes. Jadrek, she's in a killing rage; she's just barely keeping herself under control! And I can't tell why."
She looked up at him, and he could see fear, the mirror to his own, in her eyes. "I've never felt anything like this out of her; she's usually so controlled, even when I'm ready to spit nails. It has to be something Char said or did -- but what could bring her to the brink like this? There's enough rage resonating down the bond that I'm half prepared to go kill something!"
"I don't know," he said slowly. "And I'm almost afraid to find out."
They stared at each other helplessly, until finally he reached out and laid his hand over her clenched ones, offering what little comfort he had to give.
After that, it was just the deadly waiting.
Finally, after both of them had fretted themselves into a state of nervous exhaustion, they heard Warrl's nails clicking on the wooden steps outside. Tanna's presence was revealed only by the creaking of the two trick boards, one in the fifth step, one in the eighth -- otherwise she never made a sound. Kethry jumped to her feet, ran to the door and flung it open.
Tarma/Arton stood in the light streaming from the door, so very still that for a moment Jadrek wasn't entirely certain she was breathing. She remained in the doorway for a long, long moment, her face utterly expressionless -- except for the eyes, which burned with a rage so fierce Kethry stepped back an involuntary pace or two.
Warrl came up from behind her and nudged Tarma's hand with his nose; only then did she seem to realize where she was, and walk slowly inside, stopping only when she came to the table.
She did not take a seat as she usually did; she continued to stand, half-shrouded in shadows, and looked from Jadrek to Kethry and back again. Finally she spoke.
"I've found out what happened to Idra."
"... so once Char had downed a full bottle of brandy to enhance the tran, he'd gotten himself into a mood where he was talkative, but wasn't really thinking about what he was saying."
Kethry tensed, feeling Tarma's anger burning within her, a half-mad fire at the pit other stomach.
Tarma spoke in a tonelessly deadly voice, still refusing to seat herself. "Alcohol and tran have that effect in combination -- connecting the mind to the mouth without letting the intellect have any say in what comes out. And as I'd been hoping, his suspicious nature kept him from wanting to confide in any of his courtiers. And there was good old Arton, so sympathetic, so reliable, always dependable. So he threw his rump-kissers out, and began telling me how everybody abused him, everybody turned on him. Especially his sister."
She shifted her weight a little; the floorboard creaked beneath her, and Kethry could feel the anger rising up her spine. Channel that -- she told herself, locking her will into Adept's discipline. There's enough pure rage here to bum half the city down, if you channel it. Use the anger -- don't let it use you!
With that invocation of familiar discipline came a certain amount of relief; the fires were partially contained, harvested against future need. It wasn't perfect; she was still trembling with emotion, but at least the energy wasn't being all wasted.
And there will he future need --
"Then he told me about how his sister had first supported him, then betrayed him. How he had known from the first that the hunt for the lost sword had been nothing more than a ruse to get her across the border and into contact with Stefan. He carried on about that for long enough to just about put me to sleep; what an ungrateful, cold bitch she was, how she deserved the worst fate anyone could imagine. He was pretty well convinced she was she'chorne, too, and you know how they feel about that here -- I had just about figured that was all I was going to get out of him, when suddenly he stopped raving,"
Kethry felt a prickle of fear when the bond of she'enedran between herself and Tarma transmitted sent another surge of the incredibly cold rage her oathsister was feeling. I've never known anyone who could sustain that kind of emotion/or this long without berserking. Had Tarma been anything other than Kal'enedral -- someone, or several someones, would be long dead by now, hacked into many small pieces....
" 'I fixed her,' he said. 'I fixed her properly. I planned it all so beautifully, too. I had Zaras bespell one of his apprentices to look like me, and sent the apprentice off with the rest of the Court on a three day hunt. Then Zaras and I waited for the bitch in the stables; I distracted her, he hit her from behind with a spell, and when she woke up, her body belonged to Zaras. He had her saddle up and ride out just as if it were any other day, but this time her destination was my choice. We took her to the old tower on the edge of Hielmarsh; it's deserted, and the rumors I had spread about hauntings keep the clods away.' "
From there, what Tarma told them horrified even Kethry, inured to the brutality of warfare as she was. And she, of the three of them, had been the least close to the Captain; Tarma's own internal torment was only too plain to her oathsister, who was continuing to share in it -- and Jadrek's expression could not be described.
Idra's torture and "punishment" had begun with the expedient most commonly used to break a woman -- multiple rape. Rape in which her own brother had been the foremost participant. Char's methods and means when that failed became more exotic. Jadrek excused himself halfway through the toneless recitation to be audibly sick. When he returned, pale, shaking and sweating with reaction, Tarma had nearly finished. Kethry's stomach was churning and her throat was choked with silent weeping.
"His own sister -- " Kethry shuddered, her eyes burning and blurring with her tears. "No matter how much he hated her, she was still his sister!"
Tarma came closer, looming over the table like a dark angel. She took the dagger from her belt, and held it out into the light of the table-candle. She held it stiffly, point down, in a fist clenched so tightly on the hilt that her knuckles were white.
"Oathbreaker, I name him," Tarma said, softly, but with all the feeling that she had not given vent to behind the words of the ages-old ritual of Outcasting. "Oathbreaker he, and all who stand by him. Oathbreaker once -- by the promises made to kin, then shattered. Oathbreaker twice -- by the violation of king-oath to liegeman. Oathbreaker three times -- Oathbreaker a thousand times -- by the violation of every kin-bond known and by the shedding of shared blood."
"Oathbreaker, I name him" Kethry echoed, rising to place her cold hand over Tarma's, taking up the thread of the seldom-used passage from the Mercenaries' Code, She choked out her words around a knot of black anger and bleak mourning, both so thick and dark that she could barely manage to speak the ritual coherently through the chaos of her emotions -- She was still channeling, but now she was channeling the emotion through the words of the ritual. Emotion was power; that was what made a death-curse so potent, even in the mouth of an untutored peasant. This may well once have been a spell -- and it was capable of becoming one again. She knew that even though she was no priest, channeling that much emotion-energy through it had the potential of making the Outcasting into something more than "mere ritual."
"Oathbreaker I do name him, mage to thy priest. Oathbreaker once -- " she choked, hardly able to get he words out, "by the violation or sacred bonds. Oathbreaker twice -- by the perversion of power granted him for the common weal to his own ends. Oathbreaker three times -- by the invocation of pain and death for pleasure."
Somewhat to her surprise, she saw Jadrek stand, place his trembling, damp hand atop hers, and take up the ritual. She had never guessed that he knew it. "Oathbreaker, I name him, and all who support him," he said, though his voice shook. "Oathbreaker I do name him, who am the common man of good will, making the third for Outcasting. Oathbreaker once -- by the lies of his tongue. Oathbreaker twice -- by the perversion of his heart. Oathbreaker three times -- by the giving of his soul willingly to darkness."
Tarma slammed the dagger they all had been holding into
the wood of the table with such force that it sank halfway to the hilt. "Oathbreaker is his name;" she snarled. "All oaths to him are null. Let every man's hand be against him; let the gods turn their faces from him; let his darkness rot him from within until he be called to a just accounting. And may the gods grant that mine be the hand!"
She brought herself back under control with an effort that was visible, and turned a face toward them that was no longer impassive, but was just as tear-streaked as Kethry's own. "This is the end of it: he couldn't break her. She was too tough for him, right up to the last. He didn't get one word out other, not one -- and in the end, when he thought his bullyboys had her restrained, she managed to break free long enough to grab a knife and kill herself with it."
The fire-and-candle light flared up long enough to show that the murderous rage was still burning in her, but still under control. "I damn near killed him myself, then and there. Warrl managed to keep me from painting the room with his blood. It would have been suicide, and while it would have left the throne free for Stefan, I'd have left at least two friends behind who would have been rather unhappy that I'd gone and gotten myself killed by the rest of Char's Guard."
" 'Unhappy' is understating the case," Jadrek replied gently, slowly resuming his seat. "But yes -- at least two. Good friend-sister -- please sit." Kethry could see tears still glinting in his eyes -- but she could also see that he was thinking past his grief; something she and Tarma couldn't quite manage yet.
As Tarma lowered herself stiffly into her accustomed chair, he continued. "Our plans have been plagued by the inability to bring a force of trained fighters whose loyalty is unswervingly ours into the city. Now I ask you, who served under Idra -- what would her Sunhawks think to hear this?"
"Gods!" Kethry brought her fist to her mouth, and bit her knuckles hard enough to break the skin. "They'd want revenge, just like us -- and not just them, but every man or woman who ever served as a Hawk!"
Jadrek nodded. "In short -- an army. Our army. One that won't swerve from their goal for any reason, or be stopped by anything short of the death of every last one of them."
Now, for a brief time, they fought their battle with pen and paper. Messages, coded, in obscure dialects, or (rarely) in plain tradespeech left the city every day that there was someone that they judged was trustworthy enough to carry them. Tarma, from her position as trusted insider, was able to tell them that the few messages that were intercepted baffled Char's adherents, and were dismissed out of hand as merchant-clan Warrlng. The rest went south and east, following the trade roads, to find the men and women who wore (or had once worn) the symbol of the Sunhawk.
The answers that returned were not of paper and ink, but flesh and blood -- and of deadly anger.
The last time Justin Twoblade and his partner had entered Petras, it had been with a feeling of pleasant anticipation. Petras bad been the turn-around point for the caravan they'd been guarding, and it was well known for its wines and its wenches. He'd had quite a lively time of it, that season in Petras.
Now he entered the city a second time, again as a caravan guard. Three things differed: he would not be leaving, at least not with the traders he was guarding; his partner was not Ikan Dryvale --
And his mood was not pleasant.
He and his partner parted company with the caravan as soon as their clients had selected a hostelry, taking their pay with them in the form of the square silver coins that served as common currency among the traders of most of this part of the world. Then, looking in no way different than any other mustered-out guards, they collected their small store of belongings, loaded them on their horses, and headed for a district with a more modest selection of inns.
And if they seemed rather heavily armed and armored, well, they had been escorting jewel traders, it was only good sense to arm heavily when one escorted such tempting targets.
"What was the name of that inn we're looking for?" Justin asked his new partner, his voice pitched only just loud enough to be heard over the street noise. "I didn't quite catch it from the contact."
"The Fountain of Beer," Kyra replied, just as quietly, her eyes flicking from side to side in a way that told Justin she was watching everything about her without making any great show of doing so.
"I suspect that's it ahead of us." His hands were full; reins of his horse in the left, pack in the right, so he pointed with his chin. The sign did indeed sport a violently yellow fountain that was apparently spouting vast quantities of foam.
"If you'll take care of the lodgings, I'll take care of the stableman," Kyra offered. "We've both got tokens; one of us should hit on a contact if we try both."
"Good," Justin replied shortly; they paused just at the inn gate and made an exchange of packs and reins. Kyra went on into the stableyard with their horses, as he sought the innkeeper behind his bar. Justin bargained heatedly for several minutes, arriving at a fee of two silver for stabling, room and meals for both; but there was a third coin with the two square ones he handed the innkeeper -- a small, round, bronze coin, bearing the image of a rampant hawk on one side and the sun-in-glory on the other. It was, in fact, the smallest denomination of coin used in Hawksnest -- used only in Hawksnest, and almost never seen outside of the town.
The innkeeper neither commented on the coin, nor returned it -- but he did ask "justice Twoblade?" when registering them on his rolls.
"Justice" was one of the half-dozen recognition words that had come with Justin's message.
"Justin," the fighter corrected him. "Justin of the Hawk."
That was the appropriate answer. The man nodded, and replied "Right. Justice."
Justin also nodded, then stood at the bar and nursed a small beer while he waited for Kyra to return. The potboy showed them to a small, plain room on the ground floor at the back of the inn.
"Stableman's one contact for certain sure," Kyra told him as soon as the boy had left. "He wished me 'justice,' I gave 'im m'name as Kyra Brighthawk, and then 'e tol' me t' wait for a visitor."
"Innkeeper's another, gave me the same word. Always provided we aren't in a trap." Justin raised one laconic eyebrow at Kyra's headshake. "My child, you don't grow to be an old fighter without learning to be suspicious of your own grandmother. I would suggest to you that we follow 'enemy territory' rules."
Kyra shrugged. "You been the leader; I'll live with whatever ye guess we should be doin'."
Justin felt of the bed, found it satisfactory, and stretched his lanky body on it at full length. "It is a wise child that obeys its elders," he said sententiously, then quirked one corner of his mouth. "It is also a child that may live to become an elder."
Kyra shrugged good-naturedly.
A few moments later, the boy returned with a surprisingly good dinner for two, which he left. Justin examined it with great care, by smell and by cautious taste.
"Evidently we aren't supposed to leave," Justin guessed, "And if this stuff has been tampered with, I can't tell it."
Kyra followed his careful inspection of the food with one of her own. "Nor me, an' my grandy was a wisewoman. I don' know about you, friend, but I could eat raw snake."
"Likewise. My lady?" Justin dug a healthy portion out of the meat pie they'd been served, and handed it to her solemnly.
She accepted it just as solemnly. It might have been noted, had there been anyone else present, that neither partook of anything the other had al' ready tried. If any of the food had been 'tampered with,' it would likely be only one or two dishes. If that were the case -- one of them would still be in shape to deal with the consequences.
When, after an hour, nothing untoward happened to either of them, Justin grinned a little sheepishly.
"Well -- "
"Don't apologize," Kyra told him. "I tell ye, I druther eat a cold dinner than find m'self wakin' up lookin' at the wrong end'f somebody's knife."
They demolished the rest of the food in fairly short order -- then began another interminable wait. After a candlemark of paci
ng, Kyra finally dug a long branch of silvery derthenwood out other pack, as well as a tiny knife with a blade hardly bigger than a pen nib. She sat down on the floor next to the bed and began the slow process of turning the branch into a carved chain. Justin watched her from half-closed eyes, fascinated in spite of himself by the delicate work. The chain had only a few links to it when the wait began; when it ended, there was scarcely a fingerlength of branch remaining. Then, without warning, a portion of the wall blurred and Kethry stepped through it.
Kethry just held out her arms, welcoming both of them into an embrace which included tears from all three of them.
"Gods, Keth -- " Justin finally pulled away, reluc-tantly. "It has been so damned hard keeping this all inside."
"I know; none better -- Windborn, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you two! You're the first to come; may the Lady forgive me, but there were times I wondered if this was going to work."
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