by S J Hartland
His sister moaned. He shared her bewilderment, her frustration. All their endeavours to find the right bladesman and the man they chose had done this?
Every muscle clenched, he paced. Judith followed his steps with reproachful eyes.
It’s not my fault, he wanted to shout. Did I put a sword in Aric’s hand? Did I give him poison? Did I tell him to throw his life away?
“It’s all been for nothing,” she said. “If Aric dies, we must find another. Gods, we’ll never get home. How will we get home?”
Heath buried his face in his hands.
“Tell me again, clever brother,” Judith said. “Tell me how we’ll snatch this lordling from beneath Cathmor’s nose?”
Heath, for once, had no words.
Kaell
Beneath layers of racking torment, Kaell moaned. Sweat soaked his hair, streamed down his arms onto the cot. Every bit of his skin glistened, hot and damp, his body aflame.
The king’s physician leaned over him. “Kaell. The king is here to see you.”
A shadow fell over the bed just as a spasm of agony shook him. Kaell flung his head back and forth on the pillow, sobbing. He nearly shredded the sheet with his fingers.
“Can’t you do something, Brenin?” Cathmor grimaced in distaste. “It’s been three days.”
Brenin helplessly tugged his grey beard. “Night’s Kiss, Your Grace. He’s survived longer than most but—”
Kaell groaned. The assassin, whoever he really was, wanted him to suffer.
A fist rapped the door. Through tears of pain, Kaell flicked a fevered glance to a guardsman who dipped his head to the king.
“Well? What is it?”
“Your Grace, an Isles representative is here with a small escort of soldiers.”
“Curse them,” Cathmor said. “That’s all I need. Angry accusations from the Lord of the Isles. We found the women hiding in some ruin. My soldiers searched everywhere for Azenor. But Hatton will think I do too little.”
The guardsman shuffled. “It is not a messenger from Lord Hatton, Your Grace. It is—she demanded I bring her straight here.”
“She?”
“I’m called Ethne, Your Majesty.” A young woman pushed into the room. Untamed, dark hair fell onto bare shoulders, her unblemished skin bronzed by the sun. A simple, ivory robe curtained sandalled feet. “I am a healer. Sent to help.”
Brenin protested.
“Leave,” Cathmor said.
The physician reddened but bowed and departed. The king beckoned the girl inside.
Kaell coughed blood onto the sheets, bracing as pain struck like venom burning in his veins, allowing no escape. He bucked, gasped, trembled.
The girl looked his way. “Let me help him.”
“No one can help. It’s Night’s Kiss.”
“Even so. I know something of this poison.”
The king’s brow furrowed. “Then you are no simple healer.”
She said nothing. Kaell shut his eyes, fists clenched against his belly. A tension swirled in the room. He hardly cared. He wanted to die.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said at last. “I am a healer, but I also serve The Three of the Isles. Not as a priestess. As something else.”
“A sorceress.”
Kaell snapped a startled look at her. Could a sorceress help him?
“If I let a sorceress touch this boy, the Lord of Vraymorg will raise a storm.”
Vraymorg. At his lord’s name, Kaell ached with yearning. As a child, whenever he was ill, Vraymorg was there with soft words, or hands that smoothed hair from his brow. His lord would not care who healed him, only that he survived.
“Please.” Kaell thumped the mattress as a wave of agony rolled through him. “Kill me.”
The young woman edged closer. She brushed her palm over his moist hair. “Let me ease his suffering, Your Grace. My Lord only wishes to correct his son’s foul deed.”
“Even if it means his daughter dies?”
“Hatton believes Azenor is already dead. He does not trust ghouls.”
A silence. Kaell could no longer hold a thought. A torrent of pain pulsed through every muscle, every vein, throwing him to the edge of blackness.
As he slipped away, he heard Cathmor say, “Do it.”
The dream ambushed him near dawn; an assault of burning oil, wet stone and dust, robed figures with crimson lips and clawing hands. Snatching at him.
Yelling in terror, he flailed his arms, scraped his fingernails on walls for a grip. But no matter how hard he fought or screamed, they dragged him along a torch-lit passage.
To the door.
Kaell woke shouting, his palms moist. He clawed at nothing as he did in the dream. The ornate door, the city rising from red sand etched on its bronze, shimmered at the edge of his vision.
“Something’s coming,” he whispered.
A crack of light stole across the floor as a door opened.
“What’s this noise?” Brenin stomped over to the bed. “I heard yelling.”
Kaell swiped at sweat trickling into his eye. “A nightmare.”
The physician touched his brow. “You’re hot.” Tut-tutting, he fussed with satchels. “Drink.” He held a cup to Kaell’s lips.
Kaell shook his head. “No more poppy juice.”
“You need rest.” Brenin swept a professional gaze along Kaell’s battered body. “No one survives Night’s Kiss. You should be dead. If not for the witch. What did she do to you?”
“I don’t remember her.”
“What did the poison feel like? A throbbing or more like fire?”
“I don’t remember.” Every choked scream, every wretched pulse of agony still tormented his mind. But his pain was his, not for a morbid stranger to paw.
“How did the pain spread? Did you feel as though it radiated from your wounds?”
“It’s all a blur.”
“Come, come. Even sentries in the towers heard your screams.”
“Did I scream?”
The man curled a lip in disbelief.
Reluctantly Kaell relented. “My flesh burned. My blood, too, like rivers of fire inside.”
Brenin nodded as though satisfied. He held the cup out again. “More.”
Kaell raised an eyebrow. “Dreamless sleep?” What he wouldn’t do for that.
“I cannot speak to a bonded warrior’s dreams. But sleep, assuredly.”
Kaell sipped, let his head drop onto the pillows and sank into blackness.
When he woke, the nightmare’s remnants clung to him in his sweated fear, in the imprint of moist, impatient hands on his skin. Not real. Only a dream. Stirred up by his fever and that ghoul’s taunts about his master waiting for him in the Waste Mountains.
A shudder iced his shoulder blades. What if this ghoul lord came for him? Weak, injured, he could not protect himself. Not if he couldn’t fight.
Panic swooped in his gut. Kaell tried to stand. Pain lanced his ankle. Gasping, he slumped and thrashed the mattress with his fist.
“Curse it.” He beat the bed again, shouting to the walls, “I have to fight. I have to. And I can’t with this useless leg!”
“What, by Khir, do you think you’re doing?”
Arn leaned against the door, arms folded. He had that look on his face. Part anger, part irritation. All disappointment.
“Arn.” Only at the sight of him, could Kaell name that churning within.
Loneliness. An unsettling feeling. Unfamiliar to a young man raised at a Mountains fortress where lessons and swordplay crowded his days.
A vivid image snapped in his mind of his first weapons master. How sweat stained the man’s padded doublet. How he cursed in his native Venivan when Kaell used the wrong edge of the blade to defend. Grunted when he correctly parried.
Other tutors taught him languages, military history and tactics. Kaell recalled one in particular; a grizzle-haired, stoop-shouldered man who squinted when he held books close to his face to read. By birth Wardorian, he officiously co
rrected every single syllable his student incorrectly pronounced. Mind-numbingly tedious.
Kaell tried to excel at everything. He didn’t want to disappoint his lord, wanted Vraymorg to be proud of him.
Proud. The word caught in his throat. Oh gods, what would his lord think when he heard a stranger beat him? Poisoned him.
“Miss my poems, Arn?” He grinned, forcing down his disquiet. “Though I didn’t think that wearisome physician would let anyone in.”
“The wearisome guards won’t let anyone in,” Arn said, his face stern.
“However many you killed to breach this room, thank Khir you’re here. Get me out of here. I have to train, at once.”
A vein throbbed in Arn’s throat. “You’re not going anywhere. Get back into the bed.”
But the dream—the image of the door lingered. In this strange room, far from his lord, weak from an assassin’s blade, Kaell’s utter powerlessness struck him.
“No, no, Arn, you don’t understand. You don’t know.”
Kaell clenched his fists, unclenched them. Clenched them again. Dread tightened his chest. The door, the ghoul. This master waiting for him.
“I need a sword.” He sliced air with his hand; the practised move dampened his alarm.
“No swords,” Arn said. “Not even poetry. Rest.”
Rest? No time for that. If he couldn’t fight, he’d die. Die. Behind that door.
“I can’t lie here. I need to get strong again. Be at my best.” Better than that. The grin of the warrior who wounded him blazed in his mind. No longer mocking. Sinister. “I have to be ready.”
“For what?”
“For—” Kaell blinked hard. Why didn’t Arn understand? If he couldn’t defend himself against one man, how could he defeat ghouls or whatever waited beyond the door?
Breath stalled in his garrotted ribs. The need to lash out, yell, run, overwhelmed him. Anything to push back this terror. Kaell slammed his fist into the wall. Pain jagged his wrist.
Arn grabbed his shoulders. “What’s wrong with you? Break your hand and you won’t hold a sword for a long while.”
Kaell groaned. “He bested me, Arn. Me.” There, he said the words. A bonded warrior couldn’t lose in swordplay against one man.
Arn let him go. “Not bested. Outwitted.”
Kaell tore up a laugh. Outwitted meant a hacked arm and a thigh wound still weeping pus.
He’d taken blows before, too many, but as Khir’s warrior he healed fast. Except this time.
“And what of the next man who outwits me? The next thrust I’m too slow to hold out?”
“Listen, boy.” Arn slumped onto a stool near the bed. “You didn’t realise he was out to kill. None of us did. Curse that twisted salt-head. Those Serravan-trained, prancing, bejewelled men of the Isles know all the tricks. And Aric Caelan is the best of—”
“Wait.” Kaell clutched at the bed frame. “It couldn’t really be Aric Caelan? What quarrel has he with me? No, it was an assassin using that name. Sent by Caelmarsh.”
“Caelmarsh is cunning. He won’t attack you openly, only hunt you when you’re alone. Like on the Downs. No, the assassin was Aric Caelan. The king’s cousin. Identified by Cathmor and all the court.”
Kaell dug fingers into his temples. “I don’t understand. Why should an Isles lord, a stranger, try to kill me? Why didn’t anyone tell me this?”
“Like who? The king?” Arn shook his head. “The Isles snake said ghouls seized his sister in an ambush—in daylight mind you—and unless he killed you, the Blood Lord killed her. The foul deed done, he didn’t run, just let us arrest him.”
The Blood Lord. Dread throbbed in Kaell’s skull. Bewildered, he sank down on the bed. He wanted to shut out Arn’s words, shut out the world.
“You don’t believe him? About the ambush?”
“They’re all liars in the Isles, Kaell. What with their bloodthirsty gods and their tongues as smooth as their perfumed skin. The king’s questioners will rip the truth from this prince.”
“What?”
Arn’s ragged scar twisted his face as he grinned. Men who didn’t know him backed off when Arn Tranter smiled. Kaell never had. As a boy, he’d followed Arn about like a puppy, firing questions the older warrior patiently answered.
The scar meant this man had fought battles—real battles against ghouls or outlaws—that he knew things.
“The king arrested Aric. What did you think would happen? That Cathmor would kiss his cheek and forgive him? You’re a servant of Khir, boy.”
“But he’s the Lord of the Isles’ son.”
“So the great lords of Telor will recognise his head rotting on a spike. What do you care? He tricked you into fighting to kill you.”
Kaell flushed. Arn had warned him. But he’d thought only of the contest, the chance to test his skill. “His fear for his sister surely drove him to this. To come at me openly, knowing his own death must follow. The girl. Is there word of her? Is she safe?”
“Azenor. The king’s soldiers searched this past week while you shirked your duty.” Arn’s grin flashed but quickly faded. “She’s dead. Especially if the ghoul story is true.”
“Why shouldn’t it be true?”
Arn’s frown fell on the table beside the bed. “Did you bring your book?” His voice roughened. “That thing you scribble rhymes in all the time?”
Kaell brushed his palm over a leather-bound book. “This isn’t mine. My ‘thing’ as you call it is in my room at Vraymorg. Anyway, I’m in no mood for rhymes right now.”
“So what’s this?”
“The physician found it by my bed. He mumbled something about ‘her’ leaving it. And how you can’t trust witches. Then called the book sorcerous nonsense. Sadly, there are no wicked, sorcerous pictures. Only stories about the seer king from the Isles. Roaran Caelan.”
Kaell leaned forward, eager. “His friend, a Cahirean king, murdered Roaran here, Arn. In the great hall of this castle.” The stains might be visible. Blood always left its mark.
Arn stood there saying nothing. A slow shudder ran through him.
He muttered, “I know the story.”
Through the open window, a rising moon pearled the gloaming. A breeze rippled curtains.
For all the coming night’s gentleness, its beauty, it felt oddly remote. The world shifted, became an even more complex place where Isles princes faced impossible choices. Kill a warrior he’d never met or let ghouls kill his sister.
Pity gnawed at him. Could he do as Aric did? Murder a stranger to save someone he loved? Except Aric did not save her.
Kaell tore his hands down his cheeks. Groaned. He lived, and she died. How could he carry this guilt? No, it was too much to even think upon. If only his lord were here. To talk things through, to comfort with reason, to share this burden.
Whenever Kaell took a wound or suffered a winter cough, Vraymorg was there. Sometimes with words like, “hush, it’s all right”, or just sitting in silence by his bed. Kaell always sighed and fell into a deep sleep. Safe.
But what if his lord walked in now with only disappointment in his eyes?
How he wanted to hide from that. As a child, seeing that look, he always dropped his head, shuffled his feet, swore to himself to do better, be better. Earn his praise. His affection.
The door crashed inward. A man stood huge and unbowed on the threshold.
Kaell’s breath choked, then unwound in a muttered, “My Lord.” He pulled his torn body up against the pillows, his dazzled gaze on Vraymorg.
He came. He came! Dizzying relief blazed through him. His lord’s sheer presence and strength meant it would be all right.
But even within that comforting thought, the old yearning ached. If only this man smiled and ruffled his hair, told him it didn’t matter that Aric had fooled him. That he thought no less of him. That he cared.
Kaell nearly laughed aloud at his own foolishness. It was never like that. Not quite. For now, it was enough his lord had even come.
/> Vraymorg kicked the door shut on a protesting guard. Torchlight sparked on bracelets coiled up his muscular arms, its flame etching his furious face.
“How could this happen?” He slapped a glove against his palm. “Did this snake strike you when you turned away?”
Every muscle in Kaell’s back stiffened. Why would he expect anything but anger? He failed, let Aric draw him into swordplay with clever words.
Sweet words. A poisoned blade. It sounded like a minstrel’s song. Or even a poem he might write.
“If by snake you mean Aric Caelan, he didn’t strike me in the back.”
“Olier says you fell down the crypt stairs. Hurt that ankle Paulin put a bolt into years ago. Injured, you still took on Aric Caelan. A prince of the Isles—” Vraymorg’s breath snapped out. “And then to let that woman, to let evil, touch you.”
Evil? “She saved me.”
“A sorceress. A servant of the Isles gods.” Vraymorg struck his palm with the glove again. And again. And again.
“That’s unfair. How could I stop—” Kaell broke off, his mouth dry. His lord had taught him obedience and respect, lessons he learned only too well.
At the lurking bitterness in that thought, shame wilted his shoulders. This man had trained him to obey, yes. But did he forget the rest? His lord taught him to survive, to hold his head high without fear. To laugh. To trust.
To love? No, that was too difficult to sift.
“My lord, so what if she used magic? Spell makers, wood witches, are all common in the Mountains. And the rituals, the training of bonded ones, are steeped in sorcery.”
“What do you know?” The unflinching slap of leather struck like iron on an anvil. “You’re a weapon of the Mountains gods, sharpened and used. That’s all you were born for.”
Hurtful, diminishing words. But his lord’s gaunt cheeks, the shadows of sleeplessness beneath his tormented eyes, did not match them.
Kaell looked away fast, his heart straining at his ribcage. Cool air plucked at his sleeve. The camphoric fragrance of sage, of rosemary drifted from gardens below the window.
His lord’s dishevelled clothes, his unshaven jaw meant one thing. Vraymorg had ridden from the Mountains without stopping. To get to him.