by S J Hartland
Shaking his head at such nonsense, Heath glimpsed Judith in a crowd jostling about carpenters building a platform. Necks extended, stones or rotting fruit in their fists, the throng pushed towards a figure chained to a stake. Guards forced them back.
Even in a fire hall, the bloodthirsty mob fed off each other’s baser instincts, never pulling away, only pressing forward to watch a man plunge to his fiery death.
“Come to see the changeling ghoul, pretty?” A woman with breasts spilling from a russet gown grinned at his sister. Heath shoved through sweating bodies towards Judith.
“That’s ‘my lady’ to you.” A soldier slid an admiring look at Judith.
The woman shoved her hands to her hips and laughed. “It’s ‘my lady’ to you, too, lack wit.” But she dipped her head at Judith. “Beg pardon, my lady.”
Judith noticed Heath. She dropped into an elaborate curtsey. “Am I a lady, Heath?” Her laugh bubbled. “That sounds terribly dull. I’d rather be not quite a lady.”
“My dear, you could be quite anything and never dull.”
“Damadar,” an insolent voice interrupted. “I suppose you’re well used to seeing someone burn. But surely you should spare your sister such a grizzly sight.”
Nate Caelmarsh appeared. Heath fought the compulsion to edge back.
“Judith, sweetness.” He frowned with mock concern. “Do you feel faint? Shall I fetch smelling salts or some strong, handsome young man to carry you off when you swoon?”
“The spectacle disgusts me,” Judith said. “Surely it’s usual to keep a condemned prisoner locked away from prying eyes and bring them out only to die? This is cruel.”
Caelmarsh’s lips twitched. He found this amusing? Revolting creature.
“It’s so he sees what’s coming,” Caelmarsh said. “He’ll have time to plead with his gods.”
Judith squinted into the sun. “His gods serve him poorly to lead him here. But tell me, my lord. If he’s a ghoul, why isn’t he dead? Doesn’t the light burn them?”
“This one has powerful blood, my lady.”
“Powerful blood?” Judith scoffed with a short laugh.
“They say the ghoul god drank him dry then filled him with his own blood.”
They also said magic bound Kaell to an Isles princess. Heath even overheard nonsense that a Seithin witch whelped Kaell. All ridiculous. A siege camp washed with silly lies.
“I saw a man burn once,” Caelmarsh said. “Never heard anyone scream so much.”
“Really?” He’d like to hear Caelmarsh scream in a fire pit, skewered on a sword tip. Actually, his sword tip.
“Screamed more than any man I’ve given to my questioners.”
Judith summoned a haughty glare. “I hope Kaell does not give you the satisfaction—my lord.” She grabbed her brother’s arm and led him away.
Dillon waited outside their pavilion, his round-cheeked face strained with weariness.
“We’ve landed in a murky muddle, friend,” Heath said, as soon as Judith disappeared inside. “Cathmor has Aric—that boy Kaell too—and is unlikely to give them up. All thanks to Vraymorg. How did you take them?”
“Vraymorg guessed Aric used old caves to get messages in and out. We expected to arrest his spies. Instead, the Isles commander turned up, Kaell with him.”
“Damned bad fortune,” Heath muttered. “I understand Vraymorg surrendering Aric to the king—a valuable prisoner—but Kaell? He raised the boy, gods help him.”
A dutiful man.
“The boy surrendered at his lord’s command. Stupid. He gave us no end of trouble.” Dillon laughed grimly. “If he hadn’t put up his sword, I may not be standing here right now.”
“You live a charmed life. Did Vraymorg say anything to him?”
“Vraymorg was too furious for words. Kaell, though, begged his lord to set him and Aric free, muttering about ghouls and the Fern Castle. Vraymorg gagged him.”
The man couldn’t bear to hear Kaell’s pleas after all. So dutiful, but not a cold man.
The boy was his weakness. How could he use that? Heath always played a long game, put his pieces in place early. Judith, for example. But he was yet to see how to snare this lord.
Dillon fixed a hard look upon him. “Talk is the king plans to burn the boy.”
“It’s true. I wonder if Vraymorg would have been so dutiful had he known Kaell’s fate?”
“Vraymorg may act now. Would you be able to watch a child you raised die like that?”
“If I had to, yes.” Heath slapped Dillon’s back. “You would too, if the gods demanded it. What is it flatlanders say of we Icelands folk? That ice is in our veins.”
“Then ice is in the Lord of Vraymorg’s veins, too.”
Heath could not fault that observation.
Val Arques
Vraymorg jolted awake. The nightmare vanished like a wind sighing across the sea, its elusive, shadowy remnants sweat dampening his skin and a drumming in his chest.
He reached for Judith before remembering their farewell the night before, how she had waited at his tent wearing travelling cloak and boots, how he said only, “You’re leaving.”
“My brother thinks it’s safer.” She stretched on her toes to kiss his cheek. The stab of loss as he drew her to him, too aware of the perfume of her hair, her skin, surprised him.
Judith pulled away to see his face. “About the boy—”
“No, don’t.” He waved a hand through air. “Don’t.”
“You could defy the king. You could save him. Save Kaell.”
“My duty is to the king. What else is there but duty?”
“There’s love,” she said softly.
“My duty is to the king,” he repeated, his gaze falling away.
She put a hand on his arm. She looked into his eyes. She said: “Is it, Val?”
In the quiet of dawn, alone in his tent, her words lingered. Uncomfortable. Confronting.
Vraymorg rose, pulled on pants and tunic and draped a cloak over his shoulders; every movement mechanical, his mind shut down.
He knew where he must go. He knew why he did not want to.
If he walked outside this tent now, he risked destroying his carefully structured world; the one where neither the past nor love could ambush him. The one where he was only Vraymorg, guardian of Khir’s warriors, the king’s man. That was all.
Was it all? What else was he? A son—once. A child longing for praise from his splendid father. Longing for attention. Like Kaell.
He closed his eyes. He could see his father, how he moved; the brisk strides Val never kept up with.
He could see Teynan Caelan thrust his calloused hands into gloves to snatch up his sword, every action, every gesture sharp with intent and a contained impatience.
He remembered the crisp linen of his father’s shirts rubbing his cheek, the scent of leather and soap and warmth, when Tey drew him into an embrace.
A lord. A man responsible for keeping the Isles safe. Keeping his sons safe.
Would this man hide behind his lordly mask if his young son needed him? Gods, how he wished Teynan was here now, that he could ask him how to become someone other than Lord of the Mountains, be who Kaell needed him to be.
Except, except if he let down his shield, what splintered him within would not be the world’s envy or hatred or even judgement. It would be love, the joy and agony of it.
Love. Val could taste the word, smell it, and it was brackish. A brackish stream of doubt.
It shouldn’t be like that. It should be simple.
I am a coward. How easy to risk my body as a warrior, but never my heart. My position, my title, the rigid forms of duty, all a coward’s barrier against the world.
What did Judith say? There’s love. And he always knew he was loved.
Another image from the past came into his mind of his father stooped over a table, his curling, dark hair falling across his face, an iron-pommelled sword in his belt.
Despite lines of worry tighte
ning his mouth and the warriors urgently gathered, he made time to lift his head at the sight of his son and smile.
Then he called Val to him, threw an arm about his shoulder, held him close as men discussed war, tapping their fingers on maps. Teynan Caelan feared nothing. He certainly didn’t fear love.
With a sigh, Vraymorg pushed through tent flaps into the labyrinth of canvas and silk. Ivory light glazed lifting fog. Mist prowled over the sea to steam off dewy grass, wet on his bare feet. His body fell into a familiar stride but his mind broke up into chaos.
Smouldering cook fires silted crisp air with wood-smoke and charcoal. The silence fell soft, expectant, waiting to embrace the dull thud of hammers.
His backbone crept with unease. Too quiet. As if the ghoul’s death cast a pall upon the camp.
Last night Vraymorg had stood at the king’s side as commanded, gagging on the stench from the fire. He didn’t see Lastenarron. It was Kaell he imagined against that stake.
When Vraymorg staggered, Cathmor reached to steady him. The king’s lips thinned, but he said nothing.
Snared by memory, Vraymorg didn’t realise he paused.
Blankly he stared about. Above the tents, the stark wooden bones of the king’s trebuchets etched the dawn. At night he lay on his pallet and listened to their eerie creak in the wind. But there was no wind now. There was nothing.
He strode on, his legs leaden. How could he be the man his father was? He dropped his eyes to his wrists. It took strength he didn’t possess.
At the platform, a sentry thrust a spear in his path.
“Let me pass.”
“My lord, the king says—”
“Let me pass.” Vraymorg let the guard hear the iron in his voice, glimpse the threat in his expression. The man stood aside.
Slumped in fetters, back to the stake, Kaell slept. A bruise purpled his cheek, his tunic ripped away from his body. Gently Vraymorg touched his shoulder. Kaell blinked awake.
“You came,” he said.
Words choked. I should have protected you. How do I save you? What do I say?
Easier to surrender to anger. “Who hit you? The bruises, the gashes.”
“Does it matter? Or does it matter because it wasn’t you?”
The blows in Cathmor’s tent. “I taught you to hold your tongue, boy. You’re lucky the king didn’t take it out.”
Kaell’s bitter laugh slipped into the mist. “He’d never do that. He wants to hear me scream. Lastenarron didn’t scream. I knew he wouldn’t. Not him.”
In the half-light, Vraymorg glimpsed in Kaell’s drawn face the child he took from a sobbing woman in a city soon to burn, a child who beat small fists against a stranger’s chest. A child he failed. This was his fault. All of it, his fault.
“How can I—” His voice broke up.
Kaell did not look at him. “You can’t save me, my lord.”
“Kaell—” The back of his eyelids burned.
“Leave it be, my lord,” the boy said quietly. “This will be over soon. It’s better like this. You know what I am.”
“I know who you are. Who you still are.”
Kaell violently shook his head. “No. You don’t understand. I can hear your blood, my lord. Khir help me, I smell it. Every day it gets worse, this hunger. How long can I hold it back? How long until I become a monster? A week? A month? Am I even that strong?”
“Don’t say that. You’re not a monster. You’re not like them.”
“I’m becoming exactly like them. If I were free now, my lord, I might fall on you like a rabid beast. Part of me badly wants to sink my teeth into the soft tendons of your neck. You can’t imagine this overpowering need to kill.”
Vraymorg remembered that kick of fear and dread in his gut when Kaell told him in the Mountains what he was. He knew he had to take up the sword and save him. Death was kind. Kinder than letting the child he raised become a monster.
“Let it end, my lord,” Kaell said. “Or one day you’ll have to hunt me down like any other ghoul. Let me die knowing at least I didn’t become what Archanin wants. A killer.”
The dawn fell away. Sunlight strained at mist. A gull wheeled.
Vraymorg dragged his hands over his eyes. His body ached from holding in pain, holding in rage.
Kaell said, “Is Aric alive?”
“For now. Cathmor intends to force him to call upon his father to surrender.”
“He won’t do that. He’s stubborn.”
Vraymorg released a breath. “About the girl—” The camp ran rife with gossip about evil ceremonies and secret rites.
Kaell wrenched his head aside. “She stabbed me,” he said, his voice fractured. “So their high priestess could perform some foul ceremony.”
“What?” Vraymorg tore fingers through sleep-knotted hair.
“She let me think she cared when she really wanted me dead.”
“I don’t understand. Azenor stabbed you?”
“No,” Kaell muttered. “I can’t talk of her. Not her. Not ever.” He slid his lord a nervous look. The yearning in it cut at Vraymorg with guilt and pain.
“You told her something. A secret you kept from me. About you.”
Vraymorg looked away. The camp stirred with muted voices, clattering cooking pots. Dampened by mist, the sounds were unreal, an echo of the real world. Somewhere.
The tension in him hurt. He longed to take up a sword, shrink his thoughts to that mechanical beat of kill, survive. The beat of battle. Tomorrow it began. That monstrous trebuchet The Beast would pound the walls of the city of his birth. After …
“Kaell.” The disused words were there. So close. Words his father would never be afraid to say. You never disappointed me. You’re loved, like a son. That’s what you are to me.
“Kaell—”
Footsteps tapped the stairs. Vraymorg whirled. Guards grabbed his arms. Outraged, he thrashed in their grip. “What is this? Release me.”
“My lord, the king bids you step away,” Bora said.
“How dare you put your hands on me. Release me.”
“Bring him.” Bora snapped his fingers.
“Kaell,” Vraymorg cried, as they bore him off. “They’ll have to hear my words but I have to tell you—Oh gods help me, it’s too late. It’s always too late.”
They forced him back to his tent. The guards let him go, watching him with carefully impassive expressions.
“The king demands your word you won’t again approach the prisoner,” Bora said. “If you don’t give it, I’m to clap you in irons. Do you give your word, my lord?”
Vraymorg fisted his hands at his side. A helpless fury boiled his blood. Time ran away from him. He needed to comfort Kaell, tell him words he should already have said, if not for his selfish, stupid fear.
Even now he feared these words. Simple words that would strip him down to someone raw and vulnerable. Coward, he thought again. Coward, coward, coward.
“I have no time for this. I must speak to Kaell.”
“Then.” Bora’s expression hardened. “You choose irons.”
“Wait.” Vraymorg whipped up a hand as men moved in. He panted in anger. “I give my word.”
Bora searched his face. Then he nodded, gestured to his companions and stomped away.
Vraymorg slumped beneath the bath water, escaping into the silence of this other world. But his despair pursued him, strangling the quiet with thumping breath in his skull.
Reluctantly he lifted his head. Sounds breached the tent’s canvas. Laughter. Voices. A blade scraping stone. A fire’s crackle. The distant, dull thud of hammers.
So ordinary. How could it be so ordinary? Tomorrow Kaell died.
A silhouette fell on canvas. “Who’s there?” Water surged against the tub as he rose.
Shadows twitched. Boots padded across rugs. Someone waited beyond the wreath of candlelight.
“Ewen?”
“Don’t move, Vraymorg. I only came to talk.”
The voice had a hard edge but s
till he knew it, even before the man stepped forward, a crossbow in his hands.
Stunned, Vraymorg forced words through his tight throat. “You’re dead.”
Dead. The air soured. The silence that rose up, it too, tasted bitter. He could not move. Water dripped from the fine, dark hairs on his chest, trickled down his thighs.
Arn Tranter lifted his eyes to his. Eyes dulled with anguish. Haunted eyes.
Arn here. Alive. Impossible unless he fled, abandoning Kaell to his enemies. This man dared come here now? With Kaell about to die he dared show sorrow?
This man had no right to feel anything but guilt and shame.
Vraymorg’s disbelief contorted to fury. He leapt from the tub and surged at Arn. “Coward! You ran. You let ghouls take him, torture him.”
Arn’s finger twitched. A bolt tore into Vraymorg’s thigh. He buckled, choked back a scream. Fell. Arn nocked another quarrel. “Please be still, my lord.”
Panting, Vraymorg struggled to sit up. He clasped fingers to the bloody wound. Instinct shouted, yank the shaft out. But if he did that, he’d only bleed more, might pass out.
Arn tossed him a cloth. “Stop the bleeding.”
Vraymorg pressed, trembling from shock. He must not surrender to it. Not until he knew what this man had done and what he wanted.
“Val?” Ewen stuck his head through the flaps. “I heard—” He gaped at Arn.
Arn swung the crossbow. “Back off, Ewen.”
“What is this? How is he—?”
“Go,” Vraymorg wheezed through clenched teeth.
“You’re hurt.”
“This is a command. Go. Say nothing.”
Once Ewen disappeared, he briefly squeezed his eyes shut, lightheaded. Hold on.
Arn circled. “Why make me shoot you? You always were stubborn.”
“What I am hardly matters. What do you want?”
“I was sent to deliver a message,” Arn said.
“What?”
“Do you think I want to be here? I had no choice. You need to understand what to do.”
Vraymorg struggled to take the words in. His mind still snagged on how Arn was alive. “Did you run? Did you see them take Kaell? Did you know what they’d do to him?”