Tears of War

by A. D. Trosper

  He smirked at the flash of hatred in her eyes. He loved to taunt her with that. She had thought she was so powerful with her shadows until the mate of the rider they captured didn’t so much as flinch when she used them on him. Not only did he not flinch, he’d attacked right back. That had shaken the dark haired beauty some.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps my shadows don’t work as well as I would like them to against certain types of people. This is why I asked you to work your magic on him. We need answers and he remains silent.” She paused for a moment and leveled a considering look at him. “That is, of course, if you can bring yourself to do it.”

  He knew that comment was coming, but it still irritated him. She’d never let him forget that he’d been unable to take part in the torture of the rider they’d captured over a year and a half ago. Those violet eyes—his mother’s eyes had been the same. He couldn’t bring himself to look into those eyes as he caused the prisoner pain. Sadira found his inability to inflict pain and suffering on women amusing.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “I will do what you cannot.”

  “In the meantime, I have sent Dreth to find more magic users with the right temperament.”

  He nodded. “Yes, we need more riders for the eggs.”

  “We need them for more than that. During that battle, the Guardians had more magic users than dragons with them. We shouldn’t restrict our training to only those who can hatch eggs. We need to build our own army of mages to fight.”

  Kovan shook his head. “According to Dreth, the only reason they do that is because a rider must be called by a draclet before they can hatch an egg. We have no such constraints. We have no need of mages.”

  Sadira rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a fool, Kovan. There will be plenty who think as we do, but don’t want to risk death if they are unable to fully hatch a black egg. We should offer them a haven. To do otherwise would be a waste of talent and opportunity.”

  “Fine, do what you wish with that.”

  Before she could say another word, he walked away. If only he could just kill her. But her hair. Her damn hair. Whenever he saw it, he saw another woman with that color of hair. His mother. What had his mother done to cripple him so? He had loved his mother. But even years after her death, his love for her haunted him, and he despised her for it—and himself.

  He set the confusing emotions aside and descended the steps into the dungeon. Torches lit the curving stairs, although he hardly needed them with his enhanced vision. At the bottom, three more torches burned in brackets across from a row of cells. Cells that now had caps welded onto the ends of every hinge pin thanks to one of the new Shadow Riders whose magic did things with metal.

  The torches cast flickering light across the man chained to the wall in the second cell. A Calladaran Border Guard. Light gray eyes stared at Kovan through the bars from under a mat of tangled hair. Festering, blistered skin covered the man’s arms and bare chest, evidence of Sadira’s shadows.

  The Border Guard squinted up at him. “You here to try your hand at torture?”

  “I’m not here to try anything.” Kovan smiled slightly as he unlocked the cell. “Calladar was less than welcoming when we approached them. It took several deaths to put them in their place. Since we cannot maintain a constant presence there, we need to know what kind of resistance they plan, what kind of defenses have been put in place, and whether you have found any allies. You were high-ranking enough, you will know.” He hung the keys back on their hook and grabbed the simple wooden chair from where it stood next to the wall, before pushing past the iron barred door.

  The man’s eyes narrowed as Kovan stepped into the cell and was no longer backlit by the torches. “You are Calladaran. How can you do this? How can you betray Calladar this way?”

  Kovan sat the chair down and straddled it, his arms resting on the chair’s back. “My father was the interrogator in Calladar for many years. He was very good at his job, never killing any of those he put to the question and always getting a confession. He enjoyed the work, a little too much. I knew every pressure point on the human body by the time I was six. I learned more as his son than his apprentice did working with him. I use the healing element of magic, it makes getting inside the body much easier, it makes what I do more intense. I have passed beyond what my father could do.”

  He leaned forward until his chest rested against the chair back and looked the man in the eye. “I tell you this so you understand what you are facing. So you know you will not be facing Sadira’s shadows again. To give you a chance to give the information freely. You will not die until I am ready for you to and you will suffer greatly at my hands. I can make your death quick and relatively painless, or I can draw it out and when the times comes, kill you very slowly. I will give you a moment to think it over if you like, but know that one way or another, I will get the information that I want.”

  “There is nothing for me to think about. I am not you. I will not betray Calladar.”

  Kovan settled back until only his arms were on the chair back again. “It will be as you wish.”

  Power built within Kovan and he reached for the first pressure point. He would move on to other, more painful nerve centers as the torture escalated. Sweat broke out on the man’s brow but his face remained impassive. Kovan kept the original thread of power and added to it, reaching for another pressure point, doubling the pain and working the weaves to intensify it. Though the man’s face remained expressionless, his breathing hitched and the sweat rolled down the side of his face.

  Kovan worked a third a weave and reached out to another bundle of nerves. The man’s muscles quivered and he drew a shuddering breath. He wove a fourth thread and applied it. The first low moan broke past the man’s lips but still he worked to hold against the pain. The moan showed they were getting somewhere, but it was going to be a long night.

  Kovan walked slowly back to his quarters. The halls of the Kormai were silent, even the servants were asleep at this late hour. Quillan gazed down at him as he passed through the main cavern. He barely glanced at the dragon. Using magic for such an extended period and in such a controlled manner left him exhausted.

  He reached his quarters, ignored the map still spread across the table, and went directly to bed. He found little relief in the soft bedding or in the chance to close his eyes. The Border Guard was dead after divulging everything he knew, which was precious little. Calladar was scrambling to come up with a defense against the dragons. They had no allies yet except maybe Shadereen. The alliances between nations weren’t what concerned them. Rather, it was contact with the Guardian dragons from Galdrilene or their riders.

  The torture and killing of the Border Guard wasn’t what weighed on his mind. Those things were necessary. It was what would come after he closed his eyes that stole the relief he should have found in sleep. The dreams that always haunted his slumber after such a task. The dreams that never left him alone.

  Despite his fatigue, he fought his heavy eyelids, reluctant to slide into the subconscious realm of dreams and nightmares. The bed, soft and warm, hugged his body. His eyes closed, giving to the weight of exhaustion.

  The dream started almost immediately. He watched, a part of the dream and yet separate as if he were a spirit, hovering unseen as the door shut behind his father. His mother slid the heavy locking bar into place. She told his father that she did it out of fear of being alone in the house while he was gone fulfilling his duties as interrogator. But Kovan knew better. The locking bar gave his mother a few precious moments in case he should come home early. Time enough to protect herself and her son.

  Down the hall, a young Kovan opened his bedroom door and peeked out. His mother, her smile radiant and her violet eyes alive now that his father was gone, motioned him forward. He ran down the hall to her and she wrapped him in a tight hug. “Would you like to help me make us some breakfast?”

  The young Kovan nodded and they headed to the kitchen. She laughed as she cooked, then she played with
him in the enclosed courtyard behind the house, the only place he was allowed to play. His father had forbidden him from playing with other children, insisting they would poison his mind. They never had company and his mother never left the house unless his father accompanied her. Kovan knew he had grandparents on his mother’s side, but he had never met them.

  Before lunch, she carefully slid one of the books from the shelf. His father had made clear that neither of them were to touch his books, but his mother did anyway. She sat on the floor with him, reading to him and teaching him how to read for himself. Always they kept part of their attention on the door. His mother always seemed to know when his father was coming home early, but she still left the bar in place.

  Thankfully, he rarely came home early and often worked extra days. His mother was a different person when he was gone. She danced, she sang, she let him help bake. Her smiles were beautiful, her love lavish. She was quick to hug and praise him.

  The dream held a golden quality as images blurred from one into another. The warm sunshine in the courtyard as she held him up so he could reach the lower limbs of an overhanging tree. He loved climbing high into the branches and seeing the city. Although he never stayed long. Always there was a nagging fear that he would miss hearing the door and he would climb down to find his mother cowering and his father standing beneath the tree. He could have used the tree to escape. He could have run away, but he couldn’t leave his mother and she was too frightened to attempt it.

  The golden dream drew to a close, shifting and darkening as it always did. The sun sank toward the western horizon and long shadows crawled across the ground. His mother’s smiles began to falter as anxiety tightened her eyes. She put together the evening meal in silence, her eyes flicking toward the door every few minutes.

  Without needing to be told, Kovan gathered his few toys and hid them under the floorboards beneath his bed. He swept the floors and looked carefully for anything that might be out of place. Then he returned to the kitchen and helped clean things up as she cooked. The air thickened with palatable tension.

  Soon, his father would return and something wouldn’t be right. Nothing was ever right, nothing ever good enough. Kovan couldn’t stand straight enough or he stood too straight; he couldn’t respond to questions quick enough or he responded too quick and was accused of trying to anticipate what his father was going to say. His mother changed from a beautiful rose glowing in the sun to a wilted, fading flower. Dinner was too cold or too hot. She had cooked too much food or not enough.

  There was no pleasing his father because his father enjoyed what he did all day too much. He enjoyed inflicting pain and having power over someone. The home that always felt secure and warm after his father left, became cold and hostile upon his return.

  The dream shifted again, growing darker as the claws of black memories dragged him further from the golden dream.

  Kovan no longer looked on, he was part of it. A boy of fourteen cowering in the hall from his father, trying to ignore the pain, trying not to give his father the satisfaction of hearing him cry out. His father stormed closer, in his hand a thin knife used to open the seals on scrolls.

  Kovan screamed as the knife dragged a furrow down the side of his face. The skin ripped open as it tore a twisted path from the corner of his left eye to the line of his jaw.

  Something inside his mother snapped. Out the corner of his other eye, Kovan saw her hurtle out of the darkened hallway behind his father. Candlelight from his parents’ room cast dimly into the hall and glinted off the kitchen knife in her hand.

  His father roared as she plunged the blade into his back. Blood splattered the wall as she yanked it free and plunged it again. She pulled it free as he turned and she buried it in his chest, missing the mark of his blackened heart.

  His father lunged at her as she fled toward the kitchen. Kovan didn’t see everything that happened, but he heard her screams. He made it to the kitchen in time to see his father slam his mother’s head against the stone cooking hearth. She crumpled to the floor in a puddle of blood, her empty eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

  Kovan backed away as the man turned toward him. Staggering forward, his father’s breath wheezed and bloody froth bubbled from his lips. His father fell to the floor a couple of paces away. Kovan didn’t run for help. He sat in one of the chairs in the front sitting room with the side of his face bleeding and throbbing, and watched his father, his tormenter, slowly die.

  The dream shifted again, flickering through short images of the grandparents he’d never known. Taking him in and trying to love him. But he was too far gone, too damaged to give or receive love. Never again would Kovan be put in that position. Never would he allow someone to use the power of love to trap and torment him as his father had. The twisted scar on his face was nothing compared to the deep scars on his heart, the ones that festered and seeped their own kind of poison.

  Vaddoc glanced back as they left the small town behind. Still three days north of Marden, they’d stayed only long enough to take a meal before riding on.

  Kirynn twisted in her saddle to look back. “What?”

  “Hmm?” Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he wasn’t really paying attention. A sharp jab to his shoulder immediately brought him to the present.

  Her green eyes were narrowed and irritation showed plain on her face. Never one to have a lot of patience, she sighed. “Why are you looking back? What has you lost in your head?”

  He glanced back at the town once more, a sense of unease worming its way through him. He turned back to her. “Something is wrong.”

  Kirynn rolled her eyes. “Of course something is wrong. This is the third town we’ve visited where everyone looks beaten. Unless the people of Shadereen normally look whipped and frightened. I wouldn’t know since I’ve never been here before, although I was under the impression they were a bunch of stone faces like you.”

  “Have patience, Vaddoc. You care for her, remember?” Namir’s sending cut through his the defensive irritation that flashed through him at her words.

  “Why should I always be the patient one?”

  Vaddoc heard a rumble of amusement in his mind as Namir answered, “Because one of you must and we both know it won’t be Kirynn. Syrakynn is not much better. Neither of them have much tolerance for round about answers or methods. Both prefer a direct and open approach to everything.”

  Vaddoc sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, allowing the negative emotions to flow out with it. Namir was right, as usual. With his emotions fully under control he answered Kirynn. “Everyone here is not a ‘stone face’ like me, but they certainly do not act like that. I have never seen my people so afraid or tense. If the Kojen invade a town, the people will grab anything that can be used as a weapon and charge into the fight.”

  He shifted the reins in his hands and guided the horse to the edge of the road as a wagon rumbled past on its way to the town they’d just left. Vaddoc tried to catch the eye of the driver, but the man kept his head down, staring dully at the rump of the horse pulling the wagon.

  The driver finally looked up in surprise when the horse stopped short. Kirynn was blocking the road with her horse. Vaddoc watched as wary distrust filled the man’s face.

  She flipped her braid over her shoulder and glared at the man. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Excuse me?” the man asked, clearly puzzled.

  Vaddoc mentally counted to ten and tried to keep his voice civil. “Kirynn, what are you doing?”

  She shot him a glare before turning back to the wagon driver. “I asked what was wrong with you. First, all of them,” she jerked her thumb back toward the village, “are slinking around like dogs that have just been beat. Now here you are with the same manner about you. I was given the impression Shaderians were warriors, but that isn’t what it looks like to me.”

  Anger flashed on the man’s face. “You must be recently come to Shadereen or you would not talk like this. We are warriors, we are brav
e.” His face crumpled. “But what is that in the face of dragons?”

  “Dragons?” Vaddoc tried to keep his voice even.

  The man looked at him for the first time. “She is not Shaderian, but you are, so you should know. Then again, maybe not. These are strange and dangerous times.” He ran his hands over his face. “Yes, dragons. Blacker than a night without a moon and with evil in their eyes, ridden by people with the same evil. There was no defense against them. How do you fight magic shadows? Or fire that is breathed faster than anyone can hope to put out? How do you fight against magic?”

  He looked wildly between Vaddoc and Kirynn. “You can call me crazy if you want!” His voice rose until he was nearly shouting. “Think whatever you will, but magic and dragons are loose again and it will be your own heads you lose if you do not start believing real quick!”

  He slapped the cart horse with the reins, nearly running it into Kirynn. She quickly moved her horse out of the way and watched the man and wagon pass with her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. She turned to Vaddoc. “You have strange people in your birthplace, Vaddoc.”

  Vaddoc stared at her. “He just said Shadow Riders and their dragons were here burning things and you are worried about how he acted?”

  She shook her head and gazed back at him. “I’m not surprised. A little irritated they beat us here, but I rather expected it.”

  “You expected it? Why?”

  She rode her horse past him, reaching out to pat his cheek on the way by. “Because it’s what I would do if I were them. They need control of the nations too. Now it’s up to us to see if we can wrest Shadereen’s freedom back from them.”

  He nudged his horse forward and rode next to her. “Why did you not say anything?”

  She smiled. “Why didn’t you think of it? Besides, I was hoping we would make it here first. Your plan to ride in on horses and approach all of this quietly made sense if we were first. But, we aren’t. Tomorrow we stable the horses at the next town and finish this trip on our dragons.”