“Where is she?” he shouted. “What have you done with her?”
Squinting against the sunlight that spilled through the doorway behind Vordachai, Shadrael tried to pull himself together. “Go away,” he mumbled.
“Where is she?”
His bellow was loud enough to bring down the mountain. Shadrael winced, holding his head, and didn’t answer.
“What have you done with her? Speak up! And don’t lie to me about taking her to Muhadim. I know she isn’t there.”
“Never found her—”
Growling deep in his throat, Vordachai yanked Shadrael upright, shaking him as a dog might a rat. “I’d sooner spit you on the end of my minzeral’s pike and leave your skull hanging outside my window for the crows to peck. And when they eat their fill of you, they can line their nests with plugs of your hair and raise their young in it. At least in that respect you will have done someone a worthy service. Better than you have served me.”
Shadrael swallowed back another heave of nausea and sent his brother a mocking little smile.
With an exclamation of disgust, Vordachai shoved him sprawling across the cot. “Gods,” he said with loathing, “how you stink. I see what you’ve done these past weeks, you pus-filled demon! Lounged about the alehouses and drunk all the gold I gave you.”
“Why not?” Shadrael muttered.
Vordachai gave him a hefty kick that nearly drove his head into the wall. “Lying dog! I know you captured her. You had her in your hands.” He shook his meaty fists. “And you’ve done what? Lost her? Sold her? Answer me!”
Shadrael closed his eyes, clutching the blanket that was bunched beneath him. He longed for Vordachai to go away. “Never found her. My men deserted. Never saw—”
A golden strand of hair, the one Urmaeor had cut and given to him, landed on the cot beside Shadrael. He stared at it, feeling a surge of unwanted emotions go through him, and forced himself to sit up.
“And what is this souvenir you keep in your pocket?” Vordachai asked. “A bit of your horse’s mane? Now, the truth this time. Where is she?”
“Vindicants.”
Vordachai drew an audible breath, but the shout Shadrael expected never came. Shadrael managed to lift his aching head enough to see his brother empurpled. With eyes bulging, his hands clenching and unclenching, he looked as though he wanted to throttle Shadrael, or else he was on the verge of apoplexy. “And this is how you’ve repaid my trust,” he said at last. He sounded hurt, even bewildered. “I relied on you.”
“Shouldn’t have.”
Vordachai struck him, knocking Shadrael off the cot into the dirty straw. Tasting the coppery warmth of blood, Shadrael didn’t bother to struggle up. He didn’t have to. Vordachai picked him up, only to strike him again. This time the blow rang through Shadrael’s skull, and tiny black dots danced in his vision.
Vordachai was breathing hard and fast. “You’ve given her to—to . . . gods! I cannot look at you, cannot bear the sight of you, or the stink of you.” Abruptly he shoved Shadrael sprawling. “Clean up and stand in my hall to explain yourself, or damn your eyes, I’ll see you thrown off the cliff alive, and fed to the vultures.”
With a slam of the door, he was gone.
By the midday horn, Shadrael thought he might—perhaps—live long enough to see his execution. His head still ached, but it had shrunk to its normal size. He could eat nothing of what was brought to him, but his nausea was gone, thanks to a brewed drink supplied to him by Ban, the warlord’s valet.
Shaved, washed, and wearing clean attire, Shadrael emerged blinking from his cell into the glare of day and could not quite mask his flinch of pain as the sunlight hit him. Many of his brother’s warriors were lounging about; undoubtedly they’d been waiting to see the notorious Lord Shadrael who’d made such a name for himself . . . and come home in chains.
Tight-lipped, Shadrael limped grimly along. The sunlight seemed to be burning him raw. He endured the discomfort, determined not to squint or moan. His knees were weak and shaky beneath him, and he focused his attention on not stumbling. Before he’d walked a dozen steps, he was panting for air. His aching head tended to swim whenever he glanced over the parapet wall at the dizzying plunge below. I’ve become as much a flatlander as an Itierian, he thought in self-scorn.
The citadel of Bezhalmbra was both fortress and palace, built at precarious angles up the vertical slope of Jawnuth Peak, its stone walls shrouded in clouds and mist.
They descended infinite steps in silence, with warriors and workers staring everywhere. In his wake, Shadrael heard them mumble over their amulets when they saw for themselves that he indeed cast no shadow. Once he would have delighted in scaring them; today he felt ashamed. Many of these people he’d known since birth. He hadn’t been back since the day at sixteen he’d left for the army, but this was no homecoming.
Just when he feared they were going to walk halfway down the mountain to the palace, its tiled roof a sun-faded red amidst the brilliant color of the gardens, the guards wheeled smartly and escorted him instead into the armory.
The shade of its interior gave him such respite that he gasped aloud and would have tripped on the threshold had not one of the guards steadied him. An officer reprimanded the man curtly, and Shadrael nodded to himself. Had he been well, he would have seized the guard’s weapon and fought his way out.
But he was too dizzy and weak to cause trouble. The exertion of walking down so many steps had made his chest hurt again, the way it had before he’d drunk enough zivin to dull the pain.
“Come on!” Vordachai’s impatient voice yelled, echoing through the vaulted central hall. “I’ve waited long enough, damn you.”
Pride and sheer grit stiffened Shadrael’s spine. He reminded himself that he was still a praetinor, even if his medal was now a dishonored scrap of charred metal, still a man who’d once won battles for the glory of the empire, still a man who’d been given a triumph by the emperor, still . . . a man, however disgraced. Drawing a breath, he swaggered down that long expanse to the scuffed wood dais where generations of Ulinian fighters had been rallied to war.
The hall was empty save for the guards, Vordachai, the warlord’s protector, and a gray-bearded talhadar, a holy man. Along the walls hung racks of weapons and draped hides of wild animals. The room was old, impossible to heat, and full of memories that Shadrael shut firmly away.
He understood what Vordachai was doing in bringing him here. His brother was not a sophisticated man and undoubtedly thought that he would soften Shadrael with a flood of memories and the kindness of old servants, but this was not home. The army, Shadrael reminded himself stiffly, had been that. Now there was nothing.
Liar, he thought with a burst of anger. Lie to him. Lie to all of them, but not yourself.
Perhaps halfway along the hall, he lurched to a sudden halt. A wave of clammy trembling, impossible to control, washed through him. Little glimmers of half-seen people and faces danced along the edges of his vision. Sweating, he blinked them away, struggling to concentrate. He did not want to collapse here, not in front of his brother. He did not want Vordachai to see him reduced to a pathetic madman.
Please. Please, he prayed desperately. He had to face Vordachai and take whatever his brother chose to mete out, like a soldier, like an Imperial officer. Not collapsed in a heap, gibbering at things that weren’t there.
Vordachai stopped fidgeting about and was watching him. Shadrael heard the guards approaching from behind him as though to shove him the rest of the way. His head came up. He struggled to force the glimmering shapes from his vision.
“Shadrael?” Vordachai said.
Grimacing, Shadrael walked the rest of the way to the dais and halted, panting for breath. He looked up into his brother’s frowning face, blinking as it wavered before him. Another clammy tremor swept down through his body, but he’d locked his knees to keep them from failing beneath him.
“Gods, but you’re still a sorry sight,” Vordachai said. “Didn�
�t Ban give you the remedy? I don’t want you puking in here.”
“I won’t.”
Vordachai drew in a breath, expanding himself. His dark brows knotted above eyes still hot. “Did you intend this betrayal from the beginning? Don’t stand there like a stone. Start talking!”
“What would you have me say? It’s done.”
“I would know your reasons.”
Shadrael felt a sense of unreality, as though he were floating. “Reasons are a waste of time. It’s done. Finished.”
“Not finished!” Vordachai roared, clenching his fists. “Is this all you will say to me? Is this how you repay my trust? I relied on you!”
“Which makes you a fool.”
The guards’ hands went to their weapons, but Vordachai did not rise to that bait. He stood there, red faced and making a sort of growling sound in his throat.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” he asked. “I was this close. This close! I was ready, my warriors mustered, my barons summoned, my armory filled.” He gestured with a thick arm. “And what do I have? Nothing! Nothing but Imperial suspicion aimed at me.”
“You—”
“Did I not instruct you to throw the blame on Thyraze? Did I not tell you to take the girl swiftly to Muhadim? You should have been there weeks ago! Instead, you’ve dawdled along, laying a trail a blind idiot could follow straight to my door. Explain that!”
“I don’t give excuses.”
Vordachai snorted. “Army discipline, I suppose, eh? Did you know I’ve had a decivate up here? A prancing little decivate still wet behind the ears daring to question me. By the gods, that legion may have put my largest city under martial law, ordering my people about and thinking it rules this province instead of me, but some things I won’t stand for! And the girl’s protector right here with him, accusing me of being involved in her abduction.”
“You were.”
“But thanks to you, I don’t have her! Why should I be blamed for what I do not have?”
Shadrael looked away. At the best of times his brother’s faulty logic was difficult to follow. Right now, it was too much bother to sort out.
“Had I hired the laziest, verminous, most pox-riddled blackguard in a mire of filthy pigs, I would have been better served than by you.”
“Naturally—”
“Don’t mock me!” Vordachai broke in, his voice savage. “I’ll not stand for that.”
“If you’re going to execute me, why don’t you get to it?” Shadrael said wearily.
“I’ll throw you to the vultures when I’m ready and not before! I can see what you’re doing! Trying to make me lose my temper so I won’t think. I see your game. Yes, I see it clearly.”
“Stop looking for conspiracies that aren’t there,” Shadrael said. “If you want your gold back, it’s spent. You made a poor bargain, my lord. The girl went to a higher bidder. That’s all.”
“It’s not that simple,” Vordachai said suspiciously. “Nothing with you is ever simple. As for those filthy Vindicants—”
“Will they not accomplish your objective?” Shadrael broke in. “If it’s war you want, there’ll be one. And already I’ve served you better than you deserve, for the decivate found no captive here. You’ve been spared arrest, and nothing can be proved against you. Let the priests take the blame.”
“I don’t want war like this,” Vordachai said, stamping his feet. “I’ll be called up by that pompous legion commander to supply auxiliaries.”
“What of it?”
“Blast your eyes, I haven’t had my chance to pluck the Imperial purse strings!”
“Spoken like a true bandit.”
Vordachai drew a sharp breath, and even his protector took an involuntary step forward at that remark.
Eyes ablaze, Vordachai held up his hand to stay the man and said softly, “Under the old law, it’s death to insult the warlord. You know that. You know that!”
Shadrael raked him with a look of contempt. “Old law or Imperial, you haven’t the spine to obey either. You yell and bluster, but you’re soft inside, afraid that your thick wits will lead you into a corner you can’t escape. As for the Vindicants stealing your plan . . . Beloth’s black heart, man, can’t you see that they likely put it into your skull from the beginning?”
“It came to me in a dream,” Vordachai insisted. “I told you that.”
“And they have dream walkers.”
Looking baffled, Vordachai sputtered a moment and then scowled. “You’re lying to me, trying to confuse and trick me. But I won’t let you. The priests are outlawed and toothless. Their magic is gone.”
“Not quite. They want your allegiance.”
“My what?”
“They want your army behind them.”
“What talk is this?” Vordachai asked, raising his hands. “Are you now their envoy? Would you have me join those devils?”
Shadrael said nothing. Every breath he drew hurt his chest. He felt immensely tired. The fact that he was still obeying Urmaeor, like some puppet hireling, shamed him to his core.
“Drink has rotted your wits,” Vordachai said. “Beloth is broken. Shadow is broken. The priests are the weakest of the factions opposed to the usurper, and you ask me to join them? You’ve gone mad.”
Laughter rose in Shadrael, a wild, reckless howl he could not control. “Oh, well said, my lord. Well said! And what is done with mad dogs in Bezhalmbra? Let’s see, the cliffs await me. What else? A piking, a beheading, and the crows to peck my eyes. Not enough to destroy a donare, you know. I think you had better draw and quarter me, chop my bones into pieces, and boil me in hot pitch. Then you can throw me off the cliffs, but watch out . . . watch out because I might—come—back!”
The consternation in Vordachai’s face made Shadrael throw back his head and laugh harder, only to abruptly choke and sink to his knees. The pain was terrifying, robbing him of breath and wit. He doubled up, groaning.
“Shadrael? Shadrael, what ails you?”
“M’lord,” a man was saying urgently. “Stay back from him. He is surely possessed.”
“Be quiet, fool! Shadrael, can you hear me?”
Gasping, Shadrael could not answer. He thrust out his trembling hand toward his brother, but touched nothing. Fear flashed through his heart. I am a ghost, he thought wildly. I have passed into damnation, and I am lost.
Chapter 12
He came to slowly, adrift on the eddies of semiwakefulness, and found himself in a bedchamber hung in pale draperies. His bed was an oasis of comfort, the blankets soft and warm. The carved cabinetry of the bed was as familiar to him as the lines in his palm.
Lazily he reached out and let his fingers trace the old carvings of his childhood. Those legendary kings and heroes of Ulinia before it was conquered and made a part of the empire . . . their representative figures were cut into the aged wood panels: Nontepi standing with his flock of goats while the sun rays of Adruu, most ancient of gods, shone over him and called him to greatness; Jendralha holding a mighty sword over the kneeling enemies he had vanquished; Seltet the Lawgiver with a scroll in one hand and a spear in the other, standing on a hillside as he rallied his warriors to battle.
Shadrael let his smile fade. His fingers slid away from the carvings. A boy’s dreams . . . a boy’s ambition to grow up into a mighty warrior as legendary as these heroes of his lineage . . . was that all that had driven him these many years?
He blinked, staring upward at the ceiling of his bed cabinet, feeling strangely lazy. It surprised him to find he was still alive, and for the moment comfortable and without pain. The usual buzz of voices and torment in the back of his skull was absent.
The relief of it was so immense he felt tears prick his eyes. O Gault, he thought, to stay here in this warm cocoon, this haven of rest.
“You’re awake,” a voice said.
Hastily Shadrael blinked his tears away. He turned his head to see a stranger lifting back some of the hangings to peer in at him.
It was a kindly face, with gentle eyes and smiling mouth, a face of wisdom and compassion, seamed by years and burned by the sun. Shadrael did not have to see the man’s white robes or their patterned band of blue at the throat to recognize a healer.
He understood now why he felt so lazy and content, why nothing hurt. “You have severed me.” His voice came out thick and slow.
“Yes, my lord. A deep healing severance, as deep as I’ve dared. I’m surprised to find you awake, in the circumstances. Your injuries are—”
“Thirsty,” Shadrael broke in, not wanting to discuss his problems. “Very thirsty.”
“So I imagine.” Liquid gurgled into a cup. The healer lifted Shadrael’s head to help him drink.
But Shadrael smelled the potion and turned away. “Want water.”
“Later perhaps. You need nutrients now.”
“No—”
“This will help you. Do not fear it.”
Shadrael frowned, but something in the healer’s voice reassured him. He drank, and although the liquid was unpleasantly thick it held no foul taste. When he had swallowed it all, he found his lassitude sinking deeper, drawing him down.
And as he crossed the threshold between wakefulness and slumber he heard another individual come in and stand beside the healer. Survival instincts forced Shadrael to open his eyes, but they were too heavy, his vision too blurred for him to see.
“Is he at all better?” rumbled Vordachai’s voice, trying to be quiet. “Is there any hope?”
The healer’s answer was only a babble of sound, like the running water of a stream. Shadrael slept.
The next time he awakened, his head was clear, his body rested. He sat up, thrusting the soft hangings aside, and with a soldier’s honed instincts listened and observed.
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