“Another step and I’ll fry you where you stand.”
“She’s no danger to you,” Lyon said. “She’s merely a paid companion.”
She let out a breath as he played along. “See? You have your main prize and all that gold, you don’t need to bother yourself with a whore.”
“So quickly you desert him,” Mordred said scornfully. “No matter. You show me where he hid it, and I may spare you.”
Her brows lowered. Hid it? When just minutes ago he’d been standing before it?
“Hid it?” Lyon echoed her thought. But then he went on, making no sense at all. “We never even found it, how could we hide it?”
“If you had not found the main treasure, you would not have left those coins as they were,” Mordred said. “You would have gathered them up unless they were superseded by something of even more value. Something you found, and moved. You will tell me where.”
Shaina was beyond puzzled. None of this conversation made sense. The treasure was practically within sight from where they now stood, yet Lyon was pretending it wasn’t there. Pretending Mordred couldn’t see it, as clear as if it were under the Trios sun.
Couldn’t see it.
Was it possible? Could Mordred truly not see what was in fact right before him? Could the treasure be screened as the meadow had been? But if that were true, why had she been able to see it? She was with Lyon, but they hadn’t been touching, as they’d had to be for her to get through the screen.
“I cannot tell you what I don’t know. We found those coins, nothing more. Someone apparently got here before all of us.”
Mordred was too focused on Lyon, Shaina thought. “Perhaps ages ago,” she said. “Perhaps even your precious Coalition, before we chased them off like scalded blowpigs.”
“Enough! I have wasted precious time chasing you around this bedamned mountain. I must be back by tonight, so you will tell me now.”
Tonight? What was happening tonight? she wondered. This was all starting to feel very ominous, in a much bigger sense than simply their own dangerous situation.
Whatever made a man like Mordred feel urgency did not bode well. For anyone.
Chapter 37
THE MAN WAS still a machine, Rina thought. She wasn’t hard pressed to keep up with him, but she was feeling the effort. Living so far away from everything had a side effect she hadn’t considered: extra exercise. But then, this was also the man who had walked miles out of the mountains, horribly wounded, carrying one of his men every step of the way.
Not that she didn’t appreciate his fast pace. She was feeling a sense of urgency herself, coupled with a bit of guilt that she hadn’t pursued her original task of finding Shaina. The fact that both Dax and Califa had agreed the new turn of events took precedence didn’t ease her mind at the moment. Not when Mordred, the right hand of the Butcher of Trios, walked this mountain with Shaina and Lyon.
Not when he walked this or any other world.
The innkeeper had described Mordred as a pale-skinned skalworm of a man, and shown them the direction he had gone. He had not seen anyone answering the description of Shaina or Lyon, although a man from the bar said he had seen two people yesterday, from a distance, heading up the mountain. He had told them where, and since it fit with what they knew from the trail they had thus far traversed, they had continued that direction.
“We will find them.”
Had it not been for that urgency, Tark’s quiet words, uttered without a trace of breathlessness, might have been annoying. She was going to have to add some mountain work to her regimen when she got home. They had been pushing hard, no casual ramble this. Shaina and Lyon had been on the mountain three days, and while they were likely moving much slower, they still had a lot of distance to make up. Even at triple time, they would be lucky to catch up with them before well into darkness.
And Mordred could be anywhere.
“Yes,” she answered. “We will.”
“You have said they are smart, and clever. The campsite they chose at the base of the cliff indicates they are also careful.”
“Or aware someone else is here. Shaina has a . . . sense of such things. And they have been well trained, by the best.”
“Including you.”
She smiled. “I taught them of navigation, orientation and such. But mostly I’m afraid I taught them mischief.”
He laughed. And it warmed her yet again, more so now that it was coming more often. “And what a joy that must have been for them, taught by one of Dax’s own crew. For who would know better all kinds of mischief?”
She gave him a sideways look. “And what kind did you learn?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “According to my parents, my mischief was not being like them, and wanting to learn those same weapons and tactics.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, regretting having asked. But she had wanted some glimpse into his past, some sense of who he’d been before he’d become who he was. “Some people cannot deal with reality, and turn a blind eye—”
She broke off, realizing that hadn’t been the best choice of words. He gave her a sideways glance as they negotiated a narrow turning on the path.
“Don’t alter your language for my sake, Rina. I do not take offense at the truth.”
“Would that more would listen to it,” she said.
His laugh this time held a tinge of bitterness. “I have an inkling of how Kateri must feel, shouting into the wind, having the people you are trying to warn deny there is any danger.”
“They will learn soon enough,” she said, her voice nearly as grim as his.
They had reached a stretch of path strewn with boulders of an annoying size, too small to block them, too large to simply step over. Times such as this she rued her relatively short stature. While it had helped her often, allowing her to be dismissed as no threat, at times like this it was a nuisance.
At the largest he reached back and offered her help. Normally she would have declined, but time was of the essence here, so she took his hand. He pulled her up with an ease that spoke of his strength. She wondered how many never looked past his obvious injury to see that he was still the same powerful warrior he had always been. In a way, she supposed, it was a similar sort of camouflage as her size, allowing people to dismiss at their own peril. Although anyone who looked at the man was a fool if they didn’t see the danger there.
She had seen it. And had rushed in anyway.
She let go of his hand, afraid he would somehow sense the stream of memories that had flooded her. Memories of that that powerful body moving over her, beneath her, within her. Memories of the pleasure they had found, and his stunned surprise at the force of it.
She saw him flex the hand she had released, as if it were tingling just as hers was from the brief contact. With an effort she forced herself to concentrate on their progress. She wished either Shaina or Lyon had a communicator, but when they were off on these rambles, being out of touch was one of the things they treasured. For all their love of her, and the many times she had joined them on their treks at home, she knew that they were complete, with only each other. That they considered her welcome in their private world had never failed to touch her.
She wondered when they would realize they were meant for each other in all ways. Soon, she thought.
I wish you both the kind of bliss I have found.
She sent the thought out on the breeze, and then laughed at her own whimsy. Something about this place seemed to give rise to such silliness. And she set her mind to thinking of all the tales she’d heard since she’d arrived.
It was better than thinking of other things. Such as the fact that while Lyon and Shaina might be destined to be together forever, she had no promise she and Tark would last beyond this day.
THEY WERE TRAPPED here. They could do nothing
, not while they were hemmed in by the cave walls. It was foolish enough, Lyon thought, that they had not explored, that they had not scouted the territory before getting distracted by the fact that they had found what they hadn’t really believed existed. They couldn’t trust that a dash for one of the tunnels would save them when they did not know where they led. They knew from Mordred that they intersected; perhaps that’s as far as they went, perhaps it was only a useless half circle that began and ended in the same place.
They had to get out of here to have even the slightest chance, and he had no idea how to manage that.
“You will tell me, you know.”
Mordred said it easily, with full confidence. A confidence he backed up by using his free hand to pull the laser pistol from his belt. He flicked the power switch, and a small yellow light atop the weapon came on. When it turned blue, Lyon knew, it would be ready. A fiendish weapon, it easily carved away pieces of flesh, cauterizing the wounds as it went to prevent bleeding and prolong the agony. Compared to it, a disrupter on full was a blessing, a quick death.
Lyon had never been afraid of physical risk, had grown up tackling the elements and geography. But in fighting, his early training had been in controlled conditions. Even if told to press him hard, his instructors were always aware of who he was and loath to injure him, so he’d been glad of the chance to later test his mettle in a couple of Coalition skirmishes and come away unscathed.
Only his father, or Dax, ever pushed him beyond the limit, and it was from their teaching that he bore what scars he had. Well, except for the one on his shoulder. That was courtesy of Shay, who as a child had jumped him from a tree as he passed under, laughingly explaining after the bleeding had been staunched, Neuskin applied, and he’d been pronounced fine, that not all enemies were polite enough to give warning.
She had always kept him on his toes, he thought now. And he knew what she was doing. She was trying to keep the man’s attention on her. And while the man thought her merely a paid companion, it would work, at least until he became annoyed with her jabs enough to eliminate her because of that same assumption.
And once he threatened her, Lyon knew he would inevitably betray how much—how very much—she meant to him. And Mordred would realize he had the perfect weapon at hand. Either way, Shay seemed the most likely first victim. And no matter how much she would want it that way—and he had realized that despite the late discovery she was indeed flashbow warrior material to the bone—he would never let that happen. It was a conundrum, and he wasn’t having much luck figuring a way out of it.
“But,” Mordred said, with enough apparent pleasure at the prospect of torture that Lyon’s stomach turned, “where to start?”
Shay continued her reckless taunting. “I’d say your shriveled manhood, but I’d guess it’s already been removed.”
He wanted to yell at her to stop it, but knew it would hand Mordred the one weapon he could not fight. He could use one of those magic screens just now, or whatever it was that prevented Mordred from seeing the gold. He wondered why the man hadn’t considered the possibility, after he’d had to walk through the screen outside the meadow. Or perhaps it had failed? Or shut down somehow, once they’d made it past? But then wouldn’t the one in here have failed as well, once they’d found the treasure? Perhaps—
It hit him then. A possibility. Not much of one, but all they had.
With an effort he quashed the anger that had flared in him the moment he’d realized who they were facing. Lyon had wanted nothing more in that moment than to smash this disgusting being like the skalworm he was.
But now, he had to convince the man otherwise. Convince him that he was cowed, afraid. With his likely opinion of anyone outside the Coalition, it shouldn’t be hard. And he had his fear for Shay to draw upon.
“Just put that thing away, will you?” he said, letting a bit of that fear into his voice.
Mordred’s attention switched back to him.
“I see you’re familiar with this weapon.”
Lyon tried to put fear into his expression, tried to eye the pistol as if it were a giant jumpspider, fangs glistening with venom.
“Then you know what it can do,” Mordred said, his voice disturbingly gentle. “And I’m quite expert in its use, I can assure you.”
It was an effort to hide the flare of anger. He knew too well of the man’s expertise. Many Triotians had died, more had been maimed by this man and his favorite up-close weapon.
“Please,” he said, putting a quaver into his voice. “Just put it away.”
He felt Shaina staring at him. Had to hope she would stay quiet. That she would realize he had a plan, however feeble it was.
“Ready to talk?”
“I . . . you have to promise you won’t hurt us.”
The almost whimpering plea sickened him, but he could see from Mordred’s face it was no more than he’d expected. The flash of pleasure he saw in the man’s eyes sickened him even more.
Shaina moved. Hold, Shay. Please, just hold a bit longer.
He wished he could just send the thought to her unspoken. Now that would be a useful bit of magic.
She went still again, and for an instant he wondered.
“Tell me what I want, and I’ll put this away,” Mordred said, gesturing with the pistol whose light was now glowing a blue even deeper than the warning of the orb. The orb it now seemed more imperative to keep out of his hands than all the gold of the Graymist treasure.
The treasure that might save them yet.
“I . . . there was too much. To carry, I mean,” he said, with the air of someone stumbling hastily through a desperate explanation. “In one trip. We were just coming back for the coins we dropped when you arrived.”
That, he guessed, was the kind of greed a man like Mordred would understand. He knew he’d been right when a small, somehow evil-looking smile curved the man’s mouth as he lowered the weapon slightly. “That’s more like it. Now tell me where you put it.”
“I can’t.”
The laser pistol snapped up, trained on him again.
“No, no,” Lyon threw his hands up. “I just meant I can’t tell you. I’m not very good with directions. But I can show you.”
Again the man took the confusion and expressed cowardice and idiocy as only to be expected. No wonder the rebellion—and its success—had astonished the Coalition, if this is what they thought of everyone outside their own horde.
It had been their downfall.
And this time, it had gotten them out of the cave.
They walked into the sunlight, and Lyon drew in a deep breath. They had a chance now. They had room, cover, and there were two of them and only one of him. Together, they always had a chance. He glanced at Shay.
I love you, he thought fiercely, in the same way he had in the cave.
It was silly, it had been merely coincidence back there that she had stilled just as he had silently begged her to hold. But he did it anyway.
She winked at him.
Only when Mordred jabbed at him with the disrupter he’d thankfully switched to shock level, did he realize he’d stopped dead.
It was worth a try, he thought.
Run. Get away.
This time, he got an answer. It formed in his mind as if he were thinking it himself, only he knew he was not.
Not a chance.
In a split second, he simply accepted that it was all part of the whole, the destiny, amplified by the power of their mating, the establishment of the unbreakable bond. He had no time now to marvel at this new connection between them.
Right now he had to focus on keeping Shay alive. Mordred wanted him alive, but he had no reason to wish her so.
For now he had to stop wondering what else was going on, what it was that made it so imperative for Mordred to be back
in Galatin, the scene of one of the greatest battles of the rebellion, by tonight.
Somehow he didn’t think it was for tomorrow’s celebration.
Chapter 38
THE KING’S SPAWN was supercilious and impudent, just as he had expected, unable to comprehend the full depth of his current situation. He would see that that changed soon, Mordred thought as they emerged into the meadow below.
It occurred to him that perhaps this was some kind of trick, to lure him outside in an effort to escape, or perhaps even turn on him despite his weapons and the fact that he had disarmed them. He doubted either of them had courage enough for that, however. Certainly not the woman.
It was she who was most annoying him, however. Not simply because of her insolence, her outrageous remarks, but because something about her continued to niggle at him. Before now, he’d shrugged it off, had assumed he had seen her in the brothel that catered to all tastes, including his own. He paid little attention to grown women, but he was naturally observant and thought he had probably noticed her without realizing.
But now that he was closer, it began to tug at him anew, as if there was something about her he was missing. Something important. It was not a feeling he enjoyed.
In fact, he was enjoying nothing about this except the fact that he had accomplished his goal and captured the son of Trios. He hated everything else about this world, almost as much as he hated Trios itself. The two places were so closely allied as to be one now, with their ridiculous Mutual Interest Pact, and the fact that the two most powerful men on Trios mated with Arellian women. He snorted. That absurd bonding ritual, as if there was something different, something more about their pairing than the simple, physical act.
He realized suddenly they were nearing that fiendish barrier, whatever it was that guarded this meadow. Had he not been so certain this was the way they had come, he never would have found this place. They had been there one moment, vanished the next, even their footprints. But he was certain. Slowly, he had moved forward, watching only his own feet as if he half expected them to disappear as well.
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