The wind had dropped and the cloudless sky was yellowing with evening, although sunset was still an hour away. That night they were making camp a little earlier than normal. The hilly terrain had been tough on the horses, and the animals had been gently weaned off sleepstop. They would be needed for the return journey.
The campsite selected was in a wide basin just below the crest of one of the higher hills. The vegetation was coarser than on the plains, cut by swaths of bracken and dotted with spindly trees, the first Tevi had seen for days. To the south, the high Barrodens were a towering presence, so close they seemed to be hanging over them.
As she looked at the scenery, Tevi found her eyelids starting to close, and a yawn crept up on her. After attempting to fight it back for a short while, she gave up, flopped onto her side, and closed her eyes. Why not take a few minutes’ sleep if she had the chance? The grass was damp, but not enough to bother her. She was just drifting off when a shadow fell across her face and a foot connected sharply with her ankle.
“You. Get up. You’re wanted.”
Tevi opened her eyes and looked up. The seven witches surrounding her were not her normal guard detail, and if anything, their expressions were a fraction more contemptuous. None of them offered her help to rise, despite her bound hands. Once she was on her feet, they turned without another word and led her through the camp.
The party crossed the hollow and began to climb the slope behind. From the line they were taking, Tevi guessed their destination would be the crest of the hill overlooking the site, but she doubted that she was being escorted there simply to admire the view. From some way off, Tevi saw two figures waiting for them. Both were instantly identifiable from their outline. No one could match Mavek for size, and Tevi could always recognise Jemeryl. The two were clearly arguing, but not until she grew close could Tevi make out the words.
“Mavek, please. This won’t achieve anything.”
“We’ll see.”
“The talisman is near. I know it is.”
“But it isn’t in my hand, and your two days are up.”
The escort of witches came to a halt a few yards from where the two sorcerers stood. Tevi’s eyes fixed on Jemeryl with mixed emotions. It was good to be close to her lover and hear her voice, but Jemeryl was clearly very upset about whatever Mavek was intending. When Tevi added in the possible reasons for her own presence, she felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. The signs did not look good.
The level top of the hill was about twenty feet wide and covered only in grass. Rabbit holes pitted the surface. A fallen tree lay just at the point where the hill started to drop again on the side away from the campsite. The trunk was no thicker than Tevi’s waist and its life on the windswept hilltop had left it twisted and bent like a corkscrew so that it now rested on three points along its length.
Mavek strode to the tree and indicated the highest section where the wood was two feet clear of the ground. “This will do. Bring her over here.”
Tevi looked at Mavek. He was clearly referring to her, yet he would not call her by name. He had not done so since he murdered Bykoda. Was this his true nature coming through? That despite the kindly face he had once shown, he had always truly regarded her, the ungifted warrior, as unworthy of acknowledgement? Had he only acted friendly as a ploy? Or was he now, deep inside, ashamed of his actions? Was he only able to push himself to continue by denying that the people he hurt were the same ones that he had known and liked before?
“Mavek, please!” The panic in Jemeryl’s voice was unmistakeable, and it made Tevi’s skin prickle. Something unpleasant was about to happen.
Tevi’s hands were untied and she was shoved to her knees beside the tree. The biggest of the witches twisted Tevi’s left arm up her back and clamped his elbow around her neck to hold her still. One of his comrades on the other side of the tree grabbed hold of her right wrist and stretched her arm over the trunk. She wondered if everyone realised that the display of physical intimidation was a sham. With her strength, Tevi could easily pull free, but it would serve no purpose. The witches would only counter with magical restraints.
Mavek approached the tree. In his hands he held a large war axe, making a show of hefting it like an executioner.
“Mavek!” Jemeryl screamed the name hysterically.
The blacksmith stopped and looked back at her. “I told you that you had two days to find this rabbit hole. I think you’re playing tricks, but I’m going to be generous and give you another four days.”
From her kneeling position, Tevi looked up at Mavek’s face. The tone and expression she recognised as the smug cruelty of an overconfident thug, and as such, more worrying than honest anger. Mavek had slipped over the edge. His hint at a concession was a game, and a game he was now enjoying as he learnt to savour the power he held over his victims.
Jemeryl also seemed to realise that Mavek’s words were purely to taunt her. She stared at his face in horror and disgust. “Mavek, you know you don’t—”
He cut her off. “Well, sort of generous. Your ungifted friend has four limbs. Today she loses her right arm. Tomorrow her left. After that she had two legs. Don’t worry, I won’t let her die of blood loss. But if I don’t have the talisman by then, she loses her head. And then she’ll be gone, which might give you a bit more motive to find the talisman.”
“No!” Jemeryl’s voice was soft, desperate. She grabbed at the collar around her neck. “Please. Take this off. I only had a brief link with Klara. Maybe if I could make longer contact it would help me find her quicker.”
Tevi’s lips sealed in a tight line. The pleading was pointless. She would not play along with Mavek’s game and add her voice to Jemeryl’s. Tevi turned her face away. The witch behind her had a tight lock around her throat, but Tevi had just enough free movement to look along the length of her arm. It was part of the body she had lived in for twenty-four years. How would she cope without it? The image of Ranenok and his stump shot before her eyes.
Tevi flexed her fingers, felt the tendons shifting in the back of her hand, the muscles bunching in her forearm. The rough bark of the tree scratched the skin on her bicep, even through the thickness of her shirt. Her thumb rubbed along her fingertips. She wanted to remember what it all felt like.
She heard a gasp from Jemeryl and a grunt from Mavek and then the whistle of a blade, cutting the air. In reflex, Tevi’s eyes scrunched shut. The thud of steel biting into wood sounded louder than she would have imagined. The trunk shuddered from the impact. The witch behind her flinched and a sliver of bark hit Tevi’s face, but she felt nothing else.
Tevi opened her eyes. The axe was embedded in the tree, six inches from her arm. An involuntary gasp broke from her lips, but the sense of relief died in an instant. This was not a reprieve, just Mavek drawing the tension out, twisting the knife. He released his grip on the shaft and turned to Jemeryl. Tevi’s gaze followed his.
“Please.” Jemeryl was staring at the gap between axe and arm. Her face was bloodless.
Mavek swaggered slowly across the hilltop to where she stood, but the melodramatic posturing was so overdone that it would have been funny had it not been for the circumstances. Tevi’s lips curled in contempt. Mavek was a joke when it came to projecting authority. He would never be able to dominate by the force of his personality alone. Bykoda could have been more menacing when combing her hair. True ruthlessness did not need an axe.
Mavek paced around Jemeryl, raking his powerless opponent with his eyes. After one complete circuit, he stopped in front of her and then slowly and deliberately slipped an iron key loose from a ring on his belt. The key was tiny, lost in his huge hands, but the right size for the lock on the collar around Jemeryl’s neck. He held it up between thumb and forefinger and waved it in front of Jemeryl’s face.
“You want me to take this off?” He tapped the key on the collar, making a faint metallic clink. He paused, sneering at her. “You must think me stupid.”
Mavek palmed the key and sp
un away, returning briskly to the axe. The tree juddered as he wrenched it free from the wood. The blade rose again.
Tevi looked up, wanting him to meet her eyes, to have him acknowledge her as a person, his victim who had once been his friend. But Mavek’s face was strangely emotionless. His eyes were fixed only on her arm, judging his aim. She might have been no more than firewood for chopping. His hands on the shaft tightened, ready for the downswing. Tevi clenched her teeth, bracing herself for the strike.
The eruption of shouts and screams from the campsite came without warning. All heads turned. The grip on Tevi’s neck loosened as those holding her craned to see what was happening. A couple of witches who were only onlookers moved to the brow of the hill, seeking the cause of the disturbance below. However, the direction they needed to look was not down, but up.
Huge bodies were falling on the campsite, eight or more in number, serpentine necks outstretched, wings pulled back, jaws open. The snap of leathery skin slicing the wind sounded clearly, and then came the thunder of erupting flame. Agonised screams cut above the bass roar. Smoke billowed up against the pale sky. Before anyone on the hilltop could react, a dragon shot by, low overhead. Huge claws plucked one witch from the group around Tevi and carried him away, leaving only a stream of blood splattering in its wake.
Chaos erupted. The dragons swooped and dived around the campsite like monstrous seagulls around a beached carcass. More waves of fire cascaded down, crackling and roaring, but now it was answered. For an instant, one dragon blazed white and then dropped lifeless from the sky.
The remaining witches in the escort broke from their frozen shock. Two turned and fled, but the others raced down the hill to the camp to join their comrades. Mavek dropped the axe and strode to a better vantage point overlooking the battle. His hands began to swirl, drawing patterns in the air.
Tevi seized her chance. Most likely, Mavek had never seen a dragon before, and at first sight, they were distracting enough to claim anyone’s attention. Now he had his back to her and the axe lay near at hand. Quickly, she grabbed it and charged forwards. The distance between them was less than a dozen steps. Tevi lifted the axe up over her shoulder. Her fists, clenched around the shaft, were level with her head.
At the last second, Mavek must have sensed her presence. He spun around. His hands shot out in her direction.
“Duck left,” the voice of prescience yelled in Tevi’s head.
She threw herself sideways, hitting the ground hard. Blue lightning ripped through the air where she had been. The dead tree trunk behind her exploded in a hail of burning splinters.
Tevi rolled onto her stomach. Mavek’s legs were only two feet from her head, but she did not have time to rise. Already his face was turning in her direction. His arms started to move. One-handed, Tevi swung the axe around in a loop. From her prone position, the awkward slash was impossible to control or put any real power behind. Still the blade connected with Mavek mid-calf, cutting into the bone, maybe even breaking it.
With a yowl of pain, Mavek collapsed. Both hands grasped at his wounded leg, and as they did so, a small key dropped onto the grass. Tevi scooped it up and shoved herself to her knees. She glanced back. Jemeryl had been coming to join in the fight but was still several yards away. Tevi tossed the key to her. Before she could do anything else, she heard new sounds from Mavek.
Despite his injury, Mavek was trying to struggle up. Tevi had lost hold of the axe. Rather than hunt for it, she swung a two-fisted punch into his side. Judging by the sound, some of his ribs fractured at the blow. The force sent him spinning sideways. His head cracked on a stone as he crashed to earth again. Blood was soaking through his leggings from the axe blow. Lying flat on his back, he appeared semi-conscious, but if he had time to recover, he would be more than a match for her, or any ungifted person. Tevi dare not give him the chance.
The axe lay on the grass a yard away. Without rising from her knees, Tevi snatched it up and scrambled to Mavek’s side. She hoisted the weapon.
Mavek’s eyes were hooded, barely open. His face was blank. But then, suddenly, his gaze fixed on the blade and awareness leapt into his expression. His fingers twitched, summoning magic to his defence, even as the axe began its downward sweep.
His focus shifted, locking eyes with Tevi. The instant dragged out to eternity. In Tevi’s hands, the axe descended in slow motion, as if it were sinking through treacle, while points of ominous red lights appeared on Mavek’s fingertips, directed at her heart. The axe fell. The lights glowed brighter.
Then Mavek froze. His flesh shimmered, rippling as if seen through a heat haze. His face contorted in a spasm of pain, and static leapt between the teeth in his open mouth. His fingers relaxed and the lights on them faded at the very moment that the axe completed its arc, smashing through his skull. Mavek’s body slumped lifeless. Blood made a red halo around his head in the grass.
Tevi looked up. Standing in the same spot as before was Jemeryl, with the open collar in her hands. Their eyes met.
“You did that? The shimmering?”
Jemeryl nodded.
Tevi stood up. “Which one of us actually killed him?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Tevi went to Jemeryl’s side and hugged her tightly. “True.”
For a moment they stood there, arms around each other. Tevi rested her head on her lover’s shoulder. The solidity of the body in her arms was enough. Nothing else really counted.
Then together, they turned and looked down on the campsite. The battle was already over. Fires burned in the bracken, and the basin was littered with blackened corpses. None of Mavek’s army remained, although dozens of figures could be seen fleeing down the hillside. Two dragons lay among the dead, but high overhead, seven more circled the field of battle like carrion crows.
“We’re lucky they arrived when they did,” Tevi said, looking up.
“Luck didn’t come into it.”
“It didn’t?”
“Nope. I’d say that plan two worked perfectly.”
“Plan two?”
“Would you like your memory back?”
“What?” Tevi brought her gaze down to Jemeryl.
“I altered your memory before you were captured. And don’t look at me like that. You agreed to it.” Jemeryl grinned. “So, do you want it put back straight?”
“You took some bits out of my memory?”
“Yes. And put other bits in that are false.”
“Why?”
“We knew Mavek would want me to wear an iron collar. But in some ways it protected me. With that sort of disruption so close, he wouldn’t be able to get inside my head. So it was a safe bet when I said Klara had taken the talisman away, he’d use magic on you to check. Before we set out to try and kill him, I changed your memories so he’d just see confirmation of what I told him. Mavek was too weak in the fifth dimension to spot my tampering. If he’d got Dunarth to probe your head, she might have noticed, but she’d also have learnt some things that Mavek didn’t want her to know.”
Tevi felt swamped by confusion. “You didn’t send Klara off with the talisman?”
“No.”
“So where is she?”
“Back in Uzhenek. Look, it will be much quicker if I just return your memory.”
Jemeryl lifted her hand to Tevi’s head, but before she could do anything, Tevi caught hold of her wrist. “Hang on. Before you start changing things, I want to be clear on what’s happening.”
“But it will—”
“Just humour me.”
Both relief and affection showed in Jemeryl’s smile. “All right. We had three plans. Plan one was the attempt to assassinate Mavek in the camp. It would have been easiest if it had worked. But if it failed, plan two was for you to get captured and for me to surrender and then tell him that Klara had flown off with the talisman.”
Tevi frowned. “Wasn’t that risky?”
“Very, but it was your idea. You remembered something Shard had said
to you. ‘When you can get him away from it, we will all come.’ We’d worked out that the dragons couldn’t get close to the talisman. However, as long as I had the talisman and Mavek was chasing me, then the dragons couldn’t help us. We had to lure Mavek away from where the talisman was. Before we went to Mavek’s camp, I put Klara into an enchanted sleep, with the talisman tied to her. And then hid her in a magically sealed underground chamber so she was safe from the townsfolk.”
“And plan three?”
“Plan three was, if I got killed, spells would come into play with Klara, so the chamber would open and she could try to get back to Lyremouth on her own.”
“Oh.”
“Any more questions?”
“No.”
“Then would you like all your memories back?”
Tevi was now feeling more surprised than confused. She merely shrugged as a reply.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Jemeryl placed her hand on Tevi’s forehead. For Tevi, the resulting sensation was rather like a hiccup in her thoughts. Something popped, and then there had always been a knowledge that had not always been there the moment before. She staggered and then shook her head.
“Are you all right?” Jemeryl asked.
“Um...yes. I think so.”
They began to walk down to the remains of the campsite.
Tevi spoke again. “Jem.”
“Yes?”
“You were right. It would have been quicker if you’d just given me my memories back.”
The Empress and the Acolyte Page 32