Syrah had never been more afraid in her life.
When she’d come to an hour or so ago, the fear had taken its time to settle in. She’d been groggy, her head still muddled from the beating the men who’d come to fetch her from her tent had given her, pummeling her into unconsciousness. The confusion had since cleared slowly, replaced by a dull, deep ache between her temples.
And the overwhelming, all-consuming sensation of sheer, paralyzing terror.
She was on her back, her arms wrenched painfully up above her head, wrists shackled to a support post in the corner of the large tent she had found herself in. Thick furs muffled the roughness of the ground beneath her, and the air was warm, heated by a number of small, wood-fed braziers scattered about the space. Even through her grogginess and the headache it hadn’t taken Syrah long to figure out where exactly she was.
Grahst’s tent.
Syrah had wondered—for weeks now, in fact—why Kareth Grahst had never paid her a “visit.” It had been part of the fear, part of the horror of every moment, wondering when she would hear boots crunching over snow and dirt, wondering when that entrance flap would be pulled open once more, and what cruel, bearded face she would see when it did.
Eventually, the wait and fear had become worse than the actual acts the Kayle’s men had forced, one after the other, upon her.
And now, that terrified anticipation was layered tenfold.
She understood, now, why Grahst had denied himself her body. She’d wondered if the man was impotent, or perhaps preferred bed partners of a different sort. She’d gone through a hundred reasons, trying to convince herself that he wouldn’t come, that she wouldn’t have to bear the memory of him taking her, of his gruff hands pinning her down and stifling her screams, as a dozen had before his.
She blinked away a tear building in the corner of her good eye, brought forth from the unbidden, hateful pit that was her stomach bottoming out at the thought.
But Syrah had never screamed for help, despite the constant urge to do so. She had refused to cry out, refused to allow herself to be lost to fear and desperation and physical pain the men’s abuses had inflicted. In the days that she had been held captive, Syrah hadn’t once broken before the men who came to take advantage of her, hadn’t once given them the satisfaction of seeing her bend to their cruelty. Half a week prior she’d had the meager pleasure of overhearing—from a Sigûrth who’d either forgotten, didn’t know, or didn’t care that she understood the mountain tongue—that this fact was slowly enraging Grahst. She’d taken pleasure in that knowledge, drawn strength from it. It had given her something to survive on, something that didn’t let her die, even when she’d wanted to.
Now, though, her situation had stripped her of that strength. Kareth Grahst was coming, and Syrah knew with agonizing certainty that the man wouldn’t be done with her until he had shattered her resolve completely.
This realization had driven her half mad, for a time. For several long minutes she had struggled with her bindings, fighting and pulling at the irons until her already-raw wrists bled once more and the muscles of both arms ached from the stress. In desperation she had tried heating the shackles with magic, hoping to soften the metal, but the results—repeated as they had been the ten times she’d tried before on other days—were only her seething in pain as the cuffs burned into her skin. She had then considered every other spell she knew, every attack and ward and rune. Nothing played in her favor, the possible results ranging from a benign waste of strength to the risk of blinding herself completely with wood shards and splinters if she tried to blast her way free.
Magic, in the end, fell short once again.
And so Syrah had taken a ragged gasp of air, her body shaking despite the warmth of the tent, and begun to pray.
She found comfort in speaking to the Lifegiver. It had been her only source of comfort, in fact. It had carried her through the worst of the last weeks, lifting her up when her mind drifted to the darkest places. Her relationship with Laor had changed, she knew, had shifted through the course of these trials, but her faith had remained unbroken. She’d prayed and made her devotions, doing her best to plead for the wellbeing of everyone she cared for as often as she begged for release from this gauntlet she was suffering through. It had leveled her, kept her earthbound and sane, forced her to draw up the faces of her loved ones, her friends, and others who’d driven themselves unforgettably into her life. Now, as she felt something terrible descending upon her, she drew up these faces once again, thinking of Talo, of Carro and Jofrey and all those others far above her, likely mourning her from the confines of Cyurgi’ Di where the mountain men had them trapped. She prayed for their lives, for their happiness after she was gone, after Kareth Grahst—and then very likely the Kayle—were done tearing her down to nothing. She prayed for their safety, even if it meant the cost of her own life.
Then, when she was done with her prayers, Syrah conjured up one last face, one more monstrous and terrifying than any before, and settled into the old, comforting habit of studying the grace of his inhuman features, taking in the fierceness of his golden eyes that always made her feel safe, always made her feel calm.
The crunch of snow ripped that peace from her in an instant.
Syrah’s good eye snapped open at the sound, and she gasped involuntarily, feeling adrenaline wash through her in an unbearable cascade across her back, arms, and legs. A few times she had heard men’s voices about the tent, but they’d all been either grouped up or too distant to be of any relevance to her current situation.
This time, though, the approaching man spoke not a word.
It seemed an eternity then that she waited. Each of the man’s steps rumbled through her mind, echoing in the cavern of terror that opened up once more within her. She tried not to listen, tried not to care as she made out the rustle of his armor and furs, then the light pant of his breathing. She failed though, the sounds warping together to pull at her, to bring her to a state of near panic as her own breath began to come in shallow heaves, her heart pounding in her chest like someone where striking her from the inside with a heavy club.
There was the bending sound of creasing leather followed by the chill of icy air pouring in from the outside, spilling around Syrah like some vile omen.
Then the man stepped into the tent.
XXXIX
KARETH GRAHST stood over her for some time, leering down with a look of such inhuman anticipation that Syrah felt herself go numb. She was stiff with fright despite having known what was coming, unable to move or speak or even breathe. She took him in with her one eye, marking his worn leather and fur armor, the sword slung on one hip, and the beads and metal rings wound into his dirty hair and beard. She saw again the thickness of his form, the terrifying breadth of his shoulders and the wretched hunger with which his gaze sought her out. She saw again the demon who had butchered the Priests and Priestesses that had stood alongside her at the bottom of the mountain pass.
This time, though, his attention was directed wholly and undistracted at her, and his bloodlust had been replaced by simpler, raw desire.
At last the man spoke.
“Welcome, Witch,” he said, not moving and not taking his eyes off of Syrah. “I hope you’ve been comfortable while you wait.”
The way he said it made Syrah understand without a doubt, then, that Kareth Grahst had known all too well the sort of torment delaying the inevitable must have caused her. It was a tactic, a ploy to shake her, to start the final, gradual process of breaking her.
Instead, it just reminded Syrah of what sort of man—of what sort of monster—stood before her. Instead, it drove the terror and trepidation away, shoved it aside for something harder, stronger.
Fear was suddenly replaced with cold, shivering anger.
“Let’s get on with this, Grahst,” she said in the Common Tongue, shifting herself more comfortably up on the furs and spreading her knees in mockery of his lust. “I doubt you’ve ever lasted long enough
to be entertaining, so the sooner you embarrass yourself, the sooner the real men can get about their business again.”
It was only for a half-a-moment, but it was there. Grahst’s face twisted, his smirk vanishing to transform into a furious grimace. In that time Syrah felt a thrill of victory.
Then Grahst smiled again, and the viciousness there, lying in wait like some half-starved wolf, made Syrah suddenly wish that she had kept her mouth shut.
In a flash Grahst’s sword was in his hand, and he swung it down at her, striking at her leg. Syrah screamed instinctively, first in shocked fear as the blow descended, then in pain as the flat of the man’s cold blade struck the inside of her exposed thigh, hammering into the bruised flesh. She had just enough time to close her legs, rolling her body to one side, when the blade fell again, this time striking her calf with such force she thought any more would have broken the bone. After that it fell a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth. Each time the steel connected with some fleshy part of her hips, thighs, and shins, but Syrah—after two weeks of being fed little and less—was not the fit, healthy young woman she had been in the High Citadel. She was too thin, too ragged, and the hammering metal sent waves of fire through her bones and limbs. She screamed with every strike, wailing in pain.
When the blows finally stopped, she laid there, awkwardly twisted on the furs, shaking as her legs spasmed, half-numb and half-burning below her.
“Speak out of turn again, bitch,” Grahst said, standing directly over her now, sword held by his side, “and it won’t be the flat of the blade when I strike you next. Do you understand?”
Syrah said nothing, partially in defiance but mostly because she had no space to give thought to respond. She was dominated by the torment, trying not to cry out while struggling with the residual pain of the blows, her breathing coming in uneven, anguished inhalations.
There was a thump of a knee settling down beside her, and a hard, calloused hand clamped suddenly around her jaw, wrenching her face up again.
“I said,” Grahst repeated in a low, threatening hiss that didn’t match his smile, “‘do you understand?’”
Given little choice, Syrah nodded.
Grahst smiled wider. “Good.”
Then he backhanded her, striking her across the face so hard Syrah felt her lip split as she gasped.
There were stars dancing across her vision as she looked back around at the man, her vision blurred. Grahst was busying himself by unfastening the loops of his armor, stripping out of the hardened leathers piece by piece until his torso was covered by nothing but a stained cloth shirt. She blinked up at him, still kneeling across her, and it took a moment for the horror to return as she realized what he was doing.
Grahst was getting undressed.
Suddenly overcome with panic, Syrah did the only thing that came to mind. The man was half-straddling her, a knee on one side of her, a boot on the other. Bucking herself up, Syrah drove a leg upward, aiming for his crotch, yelling vengefully as she did.
Grahst, though, was faster. Demonstrating all the speed and agility he had shown as they’d fought up the first steps of the pass, he blocked the blow by shifting his high knee down, shielding the fragile parts of his anatomy from her abuse. Then, before Syrah had so much as an instant to brace herself, he drove a gloved fist into her stomach, right in the center of her gut.
“Pitiful,” Grahst said, watching Syrah retch and hack as the breath was driven out of her. “You’ll have to do better than that to save yourself. And if you can’t even fight me off, imagine how little amusement you’ll provide the Kayle on the morrow.”
Syrah said nothing, trying to curl around herself as waves of nausea wracked her body. Grahst, though, wouldn’t hear of it, and his smile only widened as she struggled against his touch, tears of desperation and panic forming unwillingly to trail down her left cheek while she fought to breathe. Syrah gasped and heaved, trying to free herself of the man’s hands even as she felt them begin to wrench her legs apart. She fought him, this time, thrashing about even after Grahst settled his hips between her knees, preventing her from closing them again. Finally catching her breath, Syrah began to shriek, her composure broken, the beating having done its job.
Grahst just pulled off a glove with his mouth and shoved the leather between her teeth.
Syrah retched again, then, gagging on the taste and feeling of the hide against the back of her throat. She kept trying to scream, though, as she watched Grahst reach down with his other hand and shift his hips out of the thick cloth pants he was wearing. It took a moment, but soon he was free of them, the fabric falling about his knees. Syrah began to buck again as he revealed himself. He struck her once more, this time across the other side of the face, then moved his hand to pull at her robes, trying to hike them up and out of the way. As he did a wave of cold fear washed over Syrah, tingling across her skin and drawing gooseflesh to its surface. She looked around at him again, blinking as the blow and the braziers played tricks on her muddled mind, shifting the shadows so that it seemed Kareth Grahst became a demon in truth, dark wings blooming out to either side of him while he smiled, managing finally to get the torn cloth of her clothes out of the way. He laughed in wicked triumph, starting to press his hips forward. She could feel him now, feel him seeking the space between her legs where he could take his pleasure.
Schlunk!
Abruptly, Grahst’s laughter cut short. In the same moment, he stopped fighting, his eyes growing wide, their gaze shifting slowly from Syrah’s terrified face downward, towards his chest. It was only when they rested there that Syrah, too, looked to see what had drawn the man’s attention away.
The leather glove muffled her howl once again.
Grahst’s ragged shirt, originally loose and baggy around him, stood out from his chest in two twin points. Even as Syrah watched, the cotton around these tips grew steadily darker, spilling downward to form ragged, thick lines of uneven blackish red along his torso. Grahst started to make a noise, a bubbling rasp of agony and death, but before he could get it out in full it was swallowed by a different, much more terrifying sound.
A throaty, deafening roar that chilled Syrah to the core.
Grahst made a last “urk!” as he was lifted off his knees, pulling the glove from Syrah’s mouth as he hung suspended three feet off the ground on the end of whatever strange device had impaled him. As the roar pitched higher he was whipped sideways, his body careening into the side of the tent to Syrah’s left. There was the ripping sound of thread, and the cloth and hides split as the man’s corpse tore through a section of the wall and tumbled over the ground to come to a rest, twitching, in the basking glow of the Sigûrth camp’s main fire.
Syrah, though, didn’t see the hole. She didn’t see the flames, or the shadows, or hear the shouts of men come running to see what the commotion was about. The only thing she noticed, in fact, was the cold brought in from the night outside. The cold, mirroring the chill of Grahst’s entrance into the tent.
And the cold moments before, which she’d thought was fear, but was in fact the winter air pouring through a great slash that had been in the back wall, behind the figure that stood over her now.
A figure she had never thought to see again, except in her dreams.
He was a massive, terrifying thing, far bigger than she remembered, all dark scaled muscle and worn steel armor. The membranes of his ears and wings glowed red in the firelight now, long matured from the sunset shades she had last seen. He had an ax on one hip, the hilt of a sword peeking over the opposite shoulder, and a massive, twin-bladed spear held in hands gloved in clawed gauntlets. His face had changed, too, the angles of his serpentine features having grown sharper, harder than she recalled.
And almost every inch of him, from the leather wraps about his arms and thighs down to the matted brown furs of the huge mantle that hung over his shoulders, was splattered with blood.
All these details, though, Syrah only vaguely registered, barely noting them
as her gaze lifted, seeking the most striking thing she remembered about the man. She found what she was looking for at once, meeting his eyes even as they sought hers.
Those sharp, amber eyes, the color of burnished gold, warm—to her—as the rising sun.
For several seconds they just stared at each other, she drinking him in, he doing the same.
When she finally spoke, it was in a choked, sobbing whisper of unbearable relief.
“Raz?”
For an instant Raz i’Syul Arro’s face changed. As she recognized him, Syrah witnessed a relief of equal measure wash over the atherian, dragging the anger and hardness from him. She saw, in that brief second, a glimpse of the boy she had met so many years ago, the boy who had thrown himself into the wolves’ den to save her, the boy who had killed for her.
And the boy who hadn’t, when she’d begged him not to.
Then there was a howl, and one of Kareth Grahst’s Sigûrth came leaping into the room, closely followed by two others. In a blink the atherian’s face settled into a beastly calm.
Then he was between her and the mountain men.
What Syrah witnessed in the minute that followed was something she would only ever be able to describe as terrifyingly beautiful. Too shaken to voice any denial, with sickened fascination she watched Raz i’Syul Arro dispatch the Kayle’s warriors one after the other, never granting them so much as an inch in her direction. The great spear in his hands moved with the grace and speed of a bird of prey, twisting and turning and diving into the melee, joined by striking kicks, lithe lashes of a heavy tail, and blurred slashes of steel claws ripping through leather and flesh or else darting out to pluck swords from hands and wrench shields out of the way. In less than thirty seconds the three men were slain, then a fourth, delayed behind them, a fifth, and finally a sixth. After that it seemed all who had been nearby lay dead or dying at the atherian’s feet. There were shouts in the distance, others who had made out the sounds of the fight, and for the space of a breath Raz kept his back to her, the red blade of his crest rising threateningly above his head, wings spread to either side.
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