by S J Hartland
“Khir be good.” Kaell stopped to stare. “You mean to attack Dal-Kanu!”
“I mean to take Dal-Kanu. Yes, I know. Alecc of Adorean long ago sailed his ships up a river to the Falls, took the city but then lost it within a day to King Rainer.”
Rainer Caelan was a sorcerer. He expected Alecc’s attack. Cathmor wouldn’t.
The cave’s entrance was barely a crack in the cliff. Aric fumbled for a torch and waved it about. The narrow space quickly widened to a cavern. “This way.”
“It’s too dark to see.” Kaell groped along a wall. His boots crunched sand.
“What good are you then?” Aric said. “Next time I’ll bring a proper ghoul.”
“Sorry—my lord.” Kaell touched his brow.
Torchlight revealed his grin. Aric smiled back. Gods help him, he did like Kaell.
A stone turned underfoot ahead. Kaell stilled. “What was that?”
Aric listened hard. Beyond the caves the retreating sea sucked and lapped rocks. A gull shrieked, its winds fanning air. The wind surrendered to dawn’s thick silence.
“Maybe nothing.”
“Wait. I hear—” Kaell’s words cut off with a grunt.
Aric swung the torch. His companion grappled with a dark-clad figure, their bodies locked in struggle. With an impatient cry, Kaell hurled his attacker off and tore out his sword.
Shadows ran about. Aric snatched for his hilt as a shape rushed him, hit him hard. He plunged down. The torch spilled. Steel pricked his throat.
“Light,” a man called. “I need light.”
Hewing blades clangored as Kaell exchanged blows with some unknown assailant. Booted steps hastened closer. Torches bobbed.
“Aric Caelan, by all the gods.” Vraymorg stood above him, his sword to Aric’s neck.
“Get off me.” Aric tried to rise. The Mountains lord poked his throat with the tip. “Still.”
Aric tensed, ready to seize his chance to knock the blade aside. Beyond the spill of light figures writhed. Metal shrieked. Men cursed, grunting. One howled in pain.
“Whoever you are,” Vraymorg shouted. “Put up your sword. I have your prince.”
“My lord?” Kaell’s voice was sharp with surprise. “Is that you?”
Vraymorg’s head swung. His sword did not. “No. No. Not you, too.” His breath caught, then dragged out. “Drop your sword, Kaell.”
“Kaell, no!” Aric tried to shove the tip aside.
Vraymorg crushed a boot into his ribs to stop him rising.
“Kaell will always do as I say, Aric Caelan.”
Torchlight flickered shadows across the man’s face. Vraymorg drew back his sword, his sigh heavy with regret. “I am sorry to find you here. You’re not what I expected.”
“No. Don’t!” The hilt flew down. Aric’s skull flamed. Then he slid into blackness.
Heath
“Patience,” Cathmor instructed Heath. “Brings its own rewards. It even delivers one’s enemies to you.” He heaved a satisfied sigh. “Bring them in.”
Heath turned expectantly to the tent flaps, glad of the diversion.
The king proved tight-lipped about which particular enemies patience “delivered” but besieging castles proved a tiresome, bloodless business. A warrior sought relief by downing sour wine or downing some fool with a face he didn’t like.
Or expressions he didn’t like. If only he could swipe off Cathmor’s smug look. One juicy blow. But as he complained often to Judith, you can’t have all you want.
The flaps opened. A guard dumped a man on his knees.
Heath gaped stupidly. Aric should be behind Tide’s End’s walls. Kept safe for him. Not bound and bleeding in Cathmor’s tent.
“The gods sometimes spoil us.” Cathmor laughed. That grated too. One little blow. All right. Maybe a slap. Just to wipe the smile from this vicious king’s face.
Bora hurled a second prisoner inside. Rope circled his hands, but guards and the Telorian lords summoned to the tent edged back. Who was he? Venivan perhaps, given fair hair tumbled about a pleasingly boned face. Venivans, though, rarely had black eyes.
Cathmor circled his captives, humming. He flashed Heath a look of triumph—what does he want? Applause?—then demanded of Bora: “How? Where?”
“In the caves, Your Grace. We expected only to net a messenger.”
“Ah, but this catch is sweeter.” Cathmor rounded on the man who followed the second captive inside. “Vraymorg, you were right. They did use those caves.”
“A fortunate guess, Your Majesty.”
“Traitor! You swore to keep that secret.” Aric sprang at the Mountains lord. Guards grabbed him and threw him down.
Traitor? Curious. Aric was not a man who hurled careless words.
The king twitched a brow. “Whatever does he mean, Vraymorg?”
“I have no idea, Your Grace.” Vraymorg held his warrior’s body stiffly, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes as wary as a cornered beast’s.
Heath knew that look; a bleak fury dulled by fear. Of what? Or for whom?
Cathmor turned on Aric. “Why ‘traitor’? Oh, good gods. Someone find a bandage. My cousin is bleeding all over my expensive rug.”
“He is that and more.” Aric’s voice whipped with scorn as he clambered to his knees. His gashed head dripped blood. “He knows why.”
“Vraymorg?” The king raised another eyebrow.
The man only lifted massive shoulders. His anger slumbered like a sheathed blade, masked to those staring at Aric. Only Heath intently watched Vraymorg. That fierce longing twisted through him. He needed to fight this man. No. He needed to kill him.
“Deceptive words, Your Grace. Meant to distract us.”
“Yes, but distract us from what?” Cathmor stroked his chin. “Just one more mystery my interrogators will uncover.”
Aric jerked beneath the guards’ hold. Heath had heard Blackstone tortured him in Dal-Kanu. Well, what did Aric expect? Defiance sowed pain unless a man proved careful or particularly clever.
Heath was both.
“I see from your wounds Vraymorg got rough—will someone do as I command and stop my cousin bleeding everywhere?—but he doesn’t have the imagination for torture. My questioner, though, invents many unpleasant joys.” Cathmor touched Aric’s hair. “Blackstone. Remember her? She’s terribly fond of you.”
“And you’re fond of your own voice.” The fair-haired captive sneered.
Vraymorg slapped him. “You dare address the king? Be silent or I’ll gag you again.”
The man grinned carelessly then broke into song. “No words from me for kings, Your Grace. That falls to lords who know their place.”
Vraymorg said: “Shut up.”
The young captive sought to mask fear behind a deceptively playful tone. Heath liked to think he’d do the same—if the king ever threw him in irons.
Cathmor patted the man’s fair head. “I was coming to you.”
“About time. I’m bored. Though your neglect allowed me to think up more rhymes.”
“They’re not very good rhymes,” Aric said.
“You’re a harsh critic, Aric.”
Vraymorg hit the prisoner again.
Cathmor threw up a palm. “Now, now Vraymorg. Don’t discourage that creative tongue.” He smiled sweetly at the prisoner. “Find me a rhyme about how the gods love me. They bring me not only my pretty cousin but you also. I shall praise them for a week.”
Heath knew the pretty cousin, but the other? The king valued his capture so a nobleman? Yet every lord, besides those of the Isles, was here and known.
He puzzled over it. A comely face but a bladesman’s shoulders, long legs and calloused hands, his accent that sing-song Mountains nonsense. So less a lord, more a warrior.
“Praise the gods all you like,” the man said. “Just so long as I don’t have to hear it.”
“I’d rather listen to your rhymes, poor though they may be,” Aric said.
“That’s very kind. Do you lik
e Venivan poetry, Aric?”
Cathmor’s smile widened. “I always liked your spirit. You’ll need it when you die. What do you say, Vraymorg?”
The Mountains lord’s voice seemed lost, his eyes hollowed by pain. He stammered, “He is your prisoner, Your Grace.”
“He is that. Hold him. Let me look at him.”
Soldiers pulled the captive upright.
The king fisted a lock of blond hair. “An abomination. A shame about your green eyes. Caelmarsh swore he’d cut them out and wear them on a neck chain. Where is he? He’ll be sorry to miss the sight of you on your knees, about to die. But before you do, answer me this: How did you free Aric?”
Free Aric. Links clicked in Heath’s mind. This had to be Kaell. Khir’s warrior. The warrior raised by the very man who had just delivered him to the king.
Kaell laughed. “No art to it, Your Grace. I pretended to drink the physician’s draught then escaped through the window—well, you know yourself, I like to climb—and set Aric free.”
Cathmor let him go with a shove. “By yourself? Surely not.”
“Did you write a poem about it?” Aric asked.
“I couldn’t find anything to rhyme with Aric.”
Vraymorg struck him so hard he reeled. Grinning guards yanked him up.
“I’m sure you’ll find something to rhyme with Kaell,” the king said cheerfully. “And something to rhyme with dead.”
Heath should have realised who this was at once. In his defence, he’d glimpsed Kaell only from a distance and then again as a figure in the darkened ward.
The king smirked. “How about, hail, Kaell, how he did wail. As for Aric; he can wail, gnash his teeth or recite poetry for my interrogator. Once he’s told all he knows about Tide’s End and its defences, when he reveals where he sent half the Isles fleet—”
Aric shot Vraymorg a murderous look.
“Once he reveals everything I need to know and perhaps what I don’t, then he’ll stand, if he can, crawl, if he can’t, below the walls and call upon his father to surrender.”
“I won’t do that.” Aric’s tone was mutinous.
“You’ll do exactly as I say. My chief questioner boasts she can break any man. I intend to hold her to that. And then—” Cathmor’s smile was hard. “And then,” he repeated. “Once your warriors see you kneel to me. I’ll hang you.”
Gods forbid. Time for his smooth tongue to be—well—smooth. That, or face the storm his sister Myranthe would call down upon his head if Aric died here and not at her elegant hands.
Heath cleared his throat. “Your Grace, the gods willed Aric Caelan should fall into your hands so you may punish his defiance. But he is your cousin. These same gods frown at kinslayers. Imprison him. He’ll make a useful hostage.”
Cathmor nodded as though considering. “A pretty speech. What do you say, Vraymorg?”
“Damadar is right. Send Aric as a hostage to Dal-Kanu. For the rest of his life if you choose, Your Grace. But it is unlawful to hang a man of his birth.”
“My council already sentenced Aric in his absence to hang.”
“You are the king. You are above councils,” Heath said.
“So I am. You both best remember it. And as the king, I say Aric dies.”
A smattering of voices rumbled, then fell away. Only Aric’s breaths, uneven and loud, disturbed the stillness. Until another sound broke out; a ringing, then a toneless beat.
Cathmor dramatically raised a hand to his ear. “Do you hear?”
No one spoke.
“My builders. Oh no scaffold for you yet, cousin,” he said as Aric fought to rise. “Not until Blackstone is done with you. No, this is a platform. High, so even your father on the walls of Tide’s End sees the flames. It might draw the cowering traitor out.”
“Flames?” Vraymorg repeated sharply.
“It’s how you kill ghouls. Kaell will burn.”
“No, you can’t!” Roused at last Vraymorg blazed with alarm. Heath instinctively backed up. That yearning tore through him. How to get this man to the Icelands?
“Can’t?” Cathmor hissed. “Can’t?”
Vraymorg stilled. Jaw locked, lips clamped as if he struggled to contain his rage. “Your Grace, I grant your right to kill him. But the flames? Show mercy. Kaell could not prevent the ghoul god taking his blood. It is not his fault.”
“Bring in the ghoul,” Cathmor said, deceptively calm. “The other one.”
Guards bustled away. Hammers thudded. Despite a warm breeze nipping through gaps in canvas, Heath shivered. A ghoul in camp? The king kept his pieces in this game close.
He stole a look at his companions. Cathmor gleeful. Vraymorg grim-faced. Aric stiff with scorn but unbowed. Kaell adrift, a sleepwalker; his dark eyes peering at nothing.
The guards returned with a tall, typically blond ghoul. Wind through the flap lifted strands of long hair as he shuffled in leg irons. Bands circled his wrists but his clothes were clean, his body untouched by torture. They dropped him on his knees before the king.
“Who is this?” Vraymorg demanded. Menace rippled off him in waves, prickling Heath’s skin with a longing akin to desire.
If he faced this formidable creature with steel, fire beneath his feet, surely fear would writhe down his spine. Surely the contest must enliven every sense, every appetite in a way he’d not felt for years. And victory, when it inevitably came, could taste no sweeter.
That fight must happen. With Judith’s help, he’d abduct this man.
Cathmor tilted the ghoul’s chin with a gloved finger. The captive smiled up at him.
“Who is this?” the king echoed. “Perhaps Kaell will tell us?”
The blond warrior muttered, “His name is Lastenarron.”
“You admit you know him? And he serves this ghoul lord called Archanin?”
Kaell hesitated. Then nodded.
An ugly murmur stirred. Cathmor gestured for quiet. “My outriders captured Lastenarron in the woods. A spy for this creature calling himself a god who sacked the Fern Castle. Lastenarron has told us many interesting things.”
The ghoul shrugged. “It is my nature to serve, Your Grace.”
“Tell everyone what you know about Kaell.”
“Do you mean—” Lastenarron paused dramatically. “About how he pledged himself to Archanin?”
Men gasped, muttered. Heath grimaced with distaste. The ghoul enjoyed himself too much. He might be a liar. He was certainly a disgusting pawn.
“How Kaell knelt, swore to serve—”
“It’s not like that!” Kaell shouted, pushing to his feet. Guards shoved him down.
“How he willingly drank my master’s blood to become one of us.”
Kaell dropped his head. Condemning stares fell on him. The air in the tent thinned, changed. Faces, too, twisted with revulsion.
Vraymorg dropped a hand on Kaell’s shoulder and squeezed, unsurprised by the words.
“Not his fault, Vraymorg?” Cathmor stabbed a finger, his eyes bright with the need to dominate. “A warrior dedicated to our gods bent his knee to this ghoul god. I have every right to not only kill him, but burn him.”
Then Heath understood. This wasn’t about Kaell at all. It was about the Mountains lord. Cathmor feared and envied him. He wanted to hurt him, put him in his place.
What was behind his resentment? Jealousy? Vraymorg was certainly impressive.
“Behead him,” Vraymorg said dully. “That way is sure and tested. The other—cruel.”
“You think me cruel, my lord,” Cathmor said. “What will you make of this?”
He called Bora to him, snapping fingers at Kaell.
“Shackle him to a stake. Let the builders erect the platform around him. The sun may kill him, but if not he can think upon what will come. What do you say to that, my lord?”
Vraymorg did not speak. The man drowned. Gods, that rage, the disbelief, the raw pain must be unendurable. Even without knowing Kaell, Heath’s gut hollowed.
“But I
have even more entertainment planned.” Cathmor’s smile flitted blade-thin. “Burn the other ghoul first. Let everyone see it.” His gaze fell on Kaell. “Let him see it.”
“No.” Lastenarron sprang up. “I helped you. You said if I helped you would not kill me.”
Cathmor shrugged. “Promises to a ghoul mean nothing. Take him and burn him.”
Guards dragged the struggling, protesting Lastenarron off. Heath heard his shouts and curses for a long while, then a sharp crack like a blow.
The king was right. Why honour a promise to a ghoul? But then why his disquiet, this stale taste on his tongue? He already knew what sort of man Cathmor was.
Cathmor turned to his prisoner. “Why so quiet, Kaell? Surely you can find something that rhymes with fire? Liar, sire perhaps? No, let me.” He paused. “How about: The king condemned him to a death so slow, to show his subjects what defiance sows. Not bad?”
Head bent, his lord gripping his shoulder, Kaell stared through them all. No longer there.
Aric answered for him. “You are worthy of your ancestors, Cathmor,” he sneered. “A true son of Penmar the cursed and Mallon the Malicious.”
“I have not finished, cousin,” Cathmor said, his humour restored. “I was about to tell my loyal Vraymorg that when Kaell burns—” He settled his cold eyes on the dark-haired lord. “He’ll put the torch to the wood himself. A test of that loyalty he proclaims.”
The king slid those eyes to Aric. “What do you say to that? No.” He shook his head. “Say nothing. Save it for Blackstone.”
The camp limped to life in the clear, crisp morning. Dogs barked. Smoke from cook fires spiralled against an ivory haze of heat. Hammers clapped a doleful tone, the sound grinding up Heath’s backbone. Sweat dampened the back of his neck.
How he longed for the Icelands and its familiar cold. Its familiar games and rules. He was no stranger to violence, hardly averse to it, but what unfolded here was vindictive and cruel.
Warriors wearing Mountains badges slouched outside a tent. At his approach, they fell silent. He passed on. Urgent whispers picked up. Heath heard, “Kaell” and “the king.”
Ice men roasted rabbit, their gossip about bonded warriors, ghouls and Isles witches.