Shadow and Flame

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Patience.” Marat Garin lounged in Pollard’s favorite chair near the fireplace. “Such ‘trivialities’ become important in the grand scheme. Time is on our side.” Garin, Pollard knew, was one of the most loyal of Reese’s followers, maybe one of the first fledges Reese had made. He did not look like he was of Donderath, with a forehead a bit too high, eyes a little too close-set. Pollard did not doubt that Garin had his sights set on becoming one of Thrane’s trusted lieutenants.

  Kiril looked out of the window at the darkened grounds, seemingly indifferent to the conversation. He was stocky, with a fighter’s build and the look of a man who had seen serious battle before he had been turned. He said nothing, but Pollard had the feeling Kiril was listening intently. That was his role, keeping a low profile but always remaining within earshot so as not to miss out on important information. Elise, yet another of Reese’s brood, moved from bookshelf to bookshelf, perusing the titles with a studied air of ennui. Her dark hair was pinned up in a knot. With her thin, finely featured face and slender build, Elise might well have been noble before Reese added her to his ‘collection’ of followers.

  That left Sonders, a dark-haired man who looked like he was probably a pickpocket or worse during his life. He appeared to be in his early thirties, relatively old for the mortal age of the talishte Pollard had seen, Sonders had a streetwise look. Other talishte had wandered in and out of Solsiden since Thrane made his reappearance, but these were Thrane’s inner circle, or at least appeared to be his handpicked minions until someone better came along.

  Putting up with all of them was the price Pollard paid for a chance at the throne of Donderath. Nights like this, he reminded himself repeatedly that he was playing a long game, one with a crown at the end if he was savvy and successful.

  It took more than a candlemark for Hennoch to present himself. Pollard knew the delay was entirely reasonable, given the distance and Hennoch’s desire to make a respectable appearance to the man who held his life and that of his son in the balance. The talishte, however, grew bored with the wait, so far removed from the constraints of mortal speed and mobility that they imagined sleights where Pollard was certain none were intended.

  “Finally,” Thrane said as Hennoch entered the room. From his flushed features, Pollard was certain that Hennoch had ridden at full speed. He wore what nowadays passed for his best uniform, mended and clean of fresh bloodstains. His face and hands were clean, and his boots, while battered, were free of mud. All in all, Pollard thought, it was the best one might hope for, given the realities.

  “My lord,” Hennoch said, making a deep bow. “I came as quickly as my horse would carry me.” Larska Hennoch was a decade younger than Pollard, but one look made it clear he had spent his years soldiering. Stocky and solid, Hennoch was built like a boxer and carried himself like a man who had seen his share of fights. He wore a patch over his right eye, and a jagged scar marred his face on the same side, running from hairline to chin.

  “Then you’d best get a faster horse,” Garin remarked, to the mirthless chuckles of the others. Hennoch flushed, but remained silent, mindful that his son, Eljas, stood in the shadows between two talishte guards.

  “Let me have a look at you,” Thrane said, striding forward. “Older than I expected. Getting fat.” He turned to Pollard. “Is this really the best you can do for a commander?”

  Hennoch’s cheeks burned. Pollard was careful to keep his voice dry. “As you know, m’lord, these days we make do with what we have. All in all, he has been suitable.”

  Thrane’s expression made it clear that he was not entirely satisfied. He walked once around Hennoch, and Pollard knew the inspection was intended to be as menacing as it appeared. “Still,” Thrane remarked, eyeing Hennoch as if he were a horse for trade, “there’s some muscle beneath the lard. And I imagine he has a trick or two up his tattered sleeves or he wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

  Without warning, Thrane lashed out one hand and grabbed Hennoch’s left wrist, twisting so suddenly and with such strength that Hennoch had no choice except to go down on his knees or have his arm broken. He sank his long eyeteeth into Hennoch’s forearm and drew several mouthfuls of blood.

  “From now on, I am your lord,” Thrane said, his voice cold and utterly terrifying. “You are nothing aside from what you achieve for me, and if that ever becomes less valuable, you have no existence at all.”

  Thrane tore a gash in his own forearm with his teeth and pressed the bloody slit against his prisoner’s mouth. “Drink, or I will drain your son dry while you watch me do it.”

  Hennoch’s eyes flashed in anger, then his gaze flickered to the pale young man on the other side of the room. Eljas strained for valor, though he looked as if he might throw up from sheer panic. Hennoch let out a defeated breath and parted his lips, allowing the cold, black blood into his mouth.

  “It’s not that bad,” Thrane said in a voice meant to be triumphant instead of reassuring. “Perhaps eventually, as I bind you further, you’ll reap the benefits of a bond. If I choose to bind you tightly enough, you’ll heal faster, move quicker, and live longer. Just like Lord Pollard. He’s been Pentreath Reese’s vassal for years.”

  Hennoch’s expression made his revulsion clear as he struggled not to gag. Eljas turned and retched, shaking and heaving as if he might pass out. Both of the guards looked amused at Eljas’s discomfort.

  Vedran Pollard watched the spectacle from his place to the right of the ornate wooden chair Thrane used when he held his ‘court.’ Pollard winced as Thrane made public his closely held shame, and he knew that shaming him was intentional. Until now, only two trusted confidants had known Reese regularly ‘read’ Pollard’s blood, forcibly taking the information he wanted from a feeding meant to be as painful and demeaning as possible, to remind Pollard of his place. Then again, Pollard thought, Thrane relied on such tactics so often and openly that his own secret was unlikely to have remained hidden.

  Thrane released Hennoch’s arm, and the large man dropped to the floor like a stone. Two deep, bloody puncture wounds marked Larska Hennoch’s left forearm. All his military prowess, his thousands of soldiers, his valor in battle did Hennoch no good now, on his knees before a dark nightmare returned from exile.

  “Remember this,” Thrane warned, as Hennoch clasped his wounded arm with his other hand to staunch the bleeding. “I can read every memory, every action, and every thought from your blood whenever I please. The kruvgaldur bond lies between us now, unbreakable except by your death. We are bound together. Your fears, your victories, your dreams—I will know. And if you show bad faith, I will also know, and I will drain your precious son of every drop and turn him to serve me forever. Are we clear?”

  Hennoch nodded, though it was evident from every line of his posture that he fought the servitude. “Clear,” he muttered.

  “So good to hear it,” Thrane replied, walking over to where Eljas stood. Pollard had taken the young man captive months before, as a surety for Hennoch’s loyalty. Thrane had raised the stakes.

  Eljas was sixteen summers old, no longer a boy and not yet a man. Pollard grudgingly gave the boy credit for having comported himself with dignity during his captivity. For Eljas’s compliance, and his father’s allegiance, Pollard favored the boy with better treatment, contingent on obedience. Thrane did not believe in leaving anything to chance.

  Thrane clapped a hand on Eljas’s shoulder, and the young man winced. Eljas tried to be strong, but his fear was evident in his face and manner. Pollard knew that Thrane relished that fear. “I thought you might want to know I’ve taken your son under my wing, made him my personal servant,” Thrane said, watching Hennoch’s reaction.

  “It’s quite an honor,” Thrane continued, enjoying the discomfort he was causing both father and son. “I’m never without his presence. He has served me well.” He ran his hand down Eljas’s arm, turning the pale flesh of his soft forearm upward. “I may extend his service,” Thrane said, deliberately baiting Hennoch. “Crea
te the kruvgaldur with him, too. Like father, like son.”

  The room was silent, waiting for Hennoch’s reply. “As you wish, m’lord,” Hennoch spat out through clenched teeth.

  Thrane smiled, having bent the two men to his will. “Very well. We have an understanding.” He looked to Hennoch. “Go back to your army. There will be more survivors straggling in from what remains of Rostivan’s and Lysander’s armies. I’ve sent messengers to the north to gather additional soldiers. When the time comes to fight Blaine McFadden’s army again, you must be ready to shatter his defenses and annihilate his troops. I do not hold to half measures.”

  “Yes, m’lord.” The words were grudging, but Hennoch knew his duty. He rose to his feet, his hand still pressed against the wound that had been inflicted with intentional, and unnecessary, cruelty. Hennoch glanced to Eljas, and gave a curt nod. The young man gathered what dignity remained and replied in kind. Then Hennoch turned and left the room, followed by the guards.

  “Sit,” Thrane said to Eljas, and the young man took up his spot on the floor at the left side of Thrane’s chair like a favored pet. Much as Pollard hated to admit it to himself, there was not so much distance between his own situation and that of the lad.

  “I think that went well, don’t you?” Thrane asked, taking his seat once more.

  “Quite effective,” Pollard agreed tonelessly.

  Thrane held court in the room Pollard had previously claimed for his own office and war room. Solsiden was a stronghold occupied because Pollard’s family manor home had been destroyed in the Great Fire. Even so, the Cataclysm had not gone easy on Solsiden, badly damaging much of the upper floors. With Thrane claiming the only respectable room as his own, it left Pollard seeing to his tasks out of a small room that had once been a pantry. Thrane made sure everyone around him knew their place.

  Thrane chuckled. “Don’t fret,” he said, tone thick with insincere reassurance. “You remain my favored commander. And if we succeed, you’ll be my agent on Donderath’s throne. Surely such a prize is worth the aggravation.”

  He says ‘agent,’ Pollard thought. He means ‘puppet.’

  “Show in the next guests.”

  The guards brought in two men Pollard did not know, but he was certain they were talishte by one look at them. Both men had the appearance of down-at-the-heels aristocrats, but then again, in post-Cataclysm Donderath, even the nobility could not muster a better showing than that. One of the men carried himself with the unconscious entitlement of someone of noble blood, while the other moved with the furtive grace of a predator.

  “You’re not of my brood, but you both might be useful to me,” Thrane said without preamble. “I intend to raise a puppet mortal government that will never subject our kind to purges again, never drive us into the wilderness, never burn us to quell their own fear. I am assembling an army. This is your opportunity to join me. What say you?”

  The aristocrat looked to have been turned in his early thirties, and by his manner, Pollard guessed the man was already well on his way to being a wastrel when his miserable life was cut short. He possessed the bland good looks of a Donderath blue blood, with the horsey face that came from too much noble inbreeding.

  “What’s in it for me?” he asked, regarding Thrane with an acquisitive look.

  Thrane moved more quickly than Pollard’s mortal sight could track, and apparently far faster than the much younger talishte could respond. In less than the blink of Pollard’s eye, Thrane left his chair, swept the young aristocrat’s head from his shoulder with a casual jerk of his right hand, and returned to his seat, blood-spattered but unruffled, before the body could crumple to the floor.

  Thrane turned his attention to the furtive one with the clothing of a noble and the manner of a pickpocket. “Now,” Thrane continued calmly, “as I was saying. You have an opportunity to join me. What say you?”

  The pickpocket talishte licked his lips, an old mortal habit, and the look in his eyes was sly and calculating. “Sure thing, sir. You can count on me. My fledges, too. Just say the word. We’re your men.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Thrane said with a flat, cold tone that said he was already thinking about the next action to be taken. “I will let you know when I have need of you.”

  The pickpocket turned to go.

  “Oh, and remember,” Thrane said, with a glance toward the body that lay in a pool of its own black ichor on the floor, crumbling to dust. “I take promises very seriously. Don’t disappoint me.”

  The pickpocket swallowed hard, avoiding looking at the dead aristocrat, and gave a nod.

  The guards showed him out. Thrane regarded the pile of dust and looked at Pollard. “What do you think? Have it removed, or let him stay for a bit? We hardly got to know each other.”

  Pollard guarded his thoughts carefully. At close range, Thrane could read him through the kruvgaldur Pollard shared with Reese, Thrane’s get. But because that link was removed a generation, Pollard had discovered he had a bit more freedom when he was out of Thrane’s immediate vicinity.

  “You might as well leave him for now,” Pollard replied. “Since we’ll have trouble getting the stain out of the carpet.”

  One after another, men came to Thrane. Most had been called to Solsiden to swear allegiance, talishte who were either those Thrane himself had turned or, more often, those who were brought across by talishte of Thrane’s making. The ashes of the dead talishte cut the conversations short and ensured compliance. No one else made the same mistake.

  After a few candlemarks, Thrane tired of his game. “I have plans to review with you,” Thrane said, standing and stretching. He walked around the black stain on the carpet and over to the desk that Pollard had once claimed as his own. Pollard was certain Thrane knew just how annoying it was to confiscate every small trapping of power that had been Pollard’s, including Pollard’s stock of whiskey, which Thrane could not drink.

  “Can I pour you a glass of something?” Thrane asked, watching for a reaction.

  Pollard pushed down his irritation. Whiskey was an essential tool in surviving Thrane’s occupation. “If it pleases you,” Pollard replied diffidently. He had learned that Thrane enjoyed denying objects of desire. Therefore, affecting a manner of complete indifference was key.

  Thrane withdrew a bottle of whiskey from the desk, pouring it into a chipped crystal glass and sliding it across the surface. “It’s been several hundred years since I could appreciate a good whiskey as it was meant to be enjoyed,” Thrane mused, leaning back in Pollard’s old chair. “I’ve found that it doesn’t fully infuse into the blood in the same way. Pity.”

  The implied threat was not lost on Pollard. He ignored it and sipped the whiskey, taking small comfort where he could.

  “How may I be of service?” Pollard asked. He could not allow his pride to get in the way of the longer game he played and the ultimate prize at its end. I wouldn’t be the first man to survive humiliation and emerge with a crown, he thought. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let that fall to someone else. Quillarth Castle is worth bending my knee.

  “I’ve called together the former members of the council, the ones sympathetic to our cause,” Thrane said, toying with a small, smooth onyx sphere he kept on the desk, rolling it back and forth between his fingers.

  “They have gathered their broods—their extended get—and are sworn to support us,” Thrane continued. The now-disbanded Elder Council included some of the oldest talishte on the Continent. The number of people they had turned during their long existence would be large, and the extended get would be substantial.

  So many, Pollard thought, and yet not sufficient to overthrow armies without mortal help.

  “Our space here at Solsiden is limited for such a large gathering,” Pollard warned. The usable space of the ruined manor house was already fully occupied, and the only thing worse than the present situation, in Pollard’s mind, would be being overrun by dozens—perhaps hundreds—of additional talishte.

  Thrane
chuckled, a cold, mirthless sound. “I have no desire to host them on my lands,” he said, and his casual declaration of ownership over the holdings Pollard had claimed for himself was a calculated barb. “Calling attention to our numbers at this point would be unwise, and the number of mortals needed to slake our thirst would place too high a strain on the surrounding area. People would notice. That kind of threat would not be ignored. We are still… vulnerable.”

  For all of Thrane’s arrogance, and in spite of his inhuman speed and strength, the talishte were still prisoners of their Dark Gift during daylight. Only the oldest could recover from any significant exposure to the sun, and while it was light outside, their strength and other abilities waned. During their enforced rest, they were relatively easy prey should substantial numbers of mortals launch an effort to exterminate them. Such purges had been devastatingly effective in the past. It was wise of Thrane to remember that.

  “The army continues to grow,” Pollard replied. “Our forces should equal McFadden’s soon.”

  Thrane made a dismissive gesture. “Equal is not sufficient. He still has allies. Traher Voss’s mercenaries are a powerful fighting force. The Solveigs remain in control of their lands and their army. And with things as they are, there’s little profit tilling the land or working a trade. That leaves men to be recruited—or pressed—into service on both sides. We have work to do.”

  “Agreed,” Pollard said. Talishte could not lead armies in daylight, nor could they win the allegiance of those soldiers, and they would never win the acceptance of the mortal population as king. Those realities were why Thrane still needed Pollard and Hennoch. Pollard suspected Thrane’s frustration over that truth spurred his more spiteful efforts to humiliate both men. It was the only true power Pollard had, and he intended to use it carefully.

  “You’ve been very useful to me,” Thrane said. It was as close to praise as he was likely to come. “And you can make yourself more so in the weeks to come. We will have new allies, and it’s important we keep an eye on them to ensure their loyalty and make certain their goals align with ours.” Thrane’s smile was cold. “I can’t think of anyone better at subterfuge than you,” he added, a left-handed compliment to be sure, but any acknowledgment from Thrane came dearly. “I’ll want you to suss them out, make sure they are keeping to their bargain.” He paused for effect. “You’ve suffered much on Reese’s account. Continue as you have been, and when all is settled, you’ll have your share of the spoils.”