Shah ignored his playful words, sticking with her anger. “You abandoned me, Vega. You left me in Kesslar’s hands in Ro-Shan. What happened to taking me with you?”
“I was a guest of Lady Hayfa,” replied Vega. “She was courting me, wanting my hand in marriage—”
“Hayfa courting you?” scoffed Shah.
“Believe it or not, little bird, I’m quite the catch! Anyway, her agents got wind of our friendship—”
“Friendship?” said the woman, interrupting him again. “Is that how you’d describe it?”
Vega sucked his teeth. “Our affair, then. She didn’t take kindly to the news, was going to have me killed, such was her rage. I had to get out of Omir quickly, and besides which, Kesslar had already set sail with you aboard the Banshee. There was no way I could go after you without endangering the lives of you and your father.”
“You could’ve come for me,” said Shah, her voice hard but her face soft, tears rising in her eyes.
“You belonged to Kesslar. The Goatlord would never have released you from bondage, or dear old Griffyn for that matter.” He reached forward to take her hand. “I heard what happened to your father. I’m so sorry, Shah.”
She pulled her hand away. “If you were any kind of man at all you’d have come looking for me, and my father.”
Vega’s head dipped, ashamed. “Back then I wasn’t the man I am now. I was more selfish, more cowardly. I’m different now. I’ve learned that some things are worth fighting for.”
“A little late in the day for an epiphany, isn’t it?”
“You can blame Drew Ferran for my change of heart. If I was any kind of noble beast back then I’d have come looking for you, searched the oceans and turned the seas red until I’d tracked down Kesslar.”
Shah arched an eyebrow. “Yet you didn’t, did you? You disappeared, back to the Cluster Isles, your reputation intact.”
“Hardly! The Cluster Isles were no longer mine—Leopold had given them to Ghul, the Squidlord. The only home I had was the Maelstrom, the only family the lads who worked her decks by my side.”
“My heart bleeds for you, Vega,” snapped Shah. “You poor, poor wretch! What a life you were left to live!” She leaned in close, her breath hot in his face as he flinched before her fury. “You left me with child! I was pregnant, and that infant was yours, Vega! You had your fun and were on your way. That baby was taken from me, Shark; taken by my own father and spirited away so that Kesslar never got wind of it. If he’d had that child, he’d have sold him or done worse. So my father gave him to a merchant friend. Brenn only knows what became of my beautiful baby.”
Vega cleared his throat as she slowly pulled away, picking his words carefully. He didn’t want to mention Casper’s whereabouts, not here and now. The lad was aboard the Maelstrom with Figgis. The count had to pick his moment to introduce son to mother, and vice versa. Better to wait until he knew they were close.
“You have to hope Griffyn placed the child into safekeeping. You father will have done right by you and the baby. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“It?” Shah slapped him hard, propelling his head back into the pillow. “He was a boy, a beautiful boy and I’ll never know him! He was your son, Vega. Show some compassion, you cold-hearted swine!”
She went to strike him again, but Vega caught her wrist in his hand. He faced her, cheek still smarting from where she had struck him. There was little he could say that would make her feel any better. He let go of her wrist.
“Hit me, if it helps,” he whispered. “Peck, rake, and kick me if it takes the edge off your pain. But don’t remain angry at me, I beg you.”
He lay back, waiting for the blows to rain down, but none came.
“I’ll remain angry at you until I close my eyes for the long sleep,” said the gray-eyed woman. “I hate you, Vega. Dear Brenn, it feels good to say that to your face,” she gasped, sniffing back the tears and laughing.
“How can you say that?” gasped Vega, horrified to hear her words. He had loved her all this time, yet had been unable to tell her, to find her.
Shah’s laughter was gone in an instant. “Kesslar may have crushed my spirit and bruised my body, but strength of spirit can be found in others, and bruises always heal. You broke my heart, Vega. You ruined me, as sure as the Goatlord ever did.”
Shah turned her back on the weary Sharklord, leaving him alone in the dark room once more, only the candle for company.
• • •
Leaving the Count behind her, Shah stepped through the doorway, her head and heart in turmoil. Despite all that had happened, a part of her still loved the man, but she would be damned if she would let him see it. Her child remained gone, her father still dead, her life in tatters. She could well imagine what he had been through when he had been chased out of Ro-Shan without even being able to say good-bye. She didn’t doubt that every word he had said had been truthful, that he regretted what had happened so long ago. But was he truly a changed man? Could she allow him to get close to her again? Just seeing him again had rekindled that fire that had burned within her. She wanted to hold him in her arms, but now wasn’t the time or the place. The Shark still had penance to serve.
Pulling the door closed behind her, Shah turned, instantly jumping with alarm when she spied the figure in the shadow-strewn corridor. It was Djogo, fellow survivor of the Furnace and another soul who had been abused by Kesslar. For a long time she had depended upon him, and he had been there for her through her darkest moments. They had been close, that bond born out of the trials they had faced. It had not been love, though; not like with Vega. The farther they had traveled away from the hellhole that was the Furnace, the more their passion had cooled, but she would forever consider him her friend. She embraced him.
“You gave me the fright of my life there, Djogo,” she said as he hugged her back. They separated and she looked him up and down. “It’s good to see you again. I feared I would die in this Brenn-forsaken city without seeing those dearest to me again.”
Djogo flinched at her words, a peculiar smile appearing upon his lips. “You’re much loved by us all, Shah. I feared we’d never be reunited.” He held her hands in his own, giving her fingers a squeeze. She withdrew them, though the former slaver was reluctant to release his grip.
“We have so many people to thank for our good fortune,” she said. “Perhaps we can defeat the Catlords after all.” She looked over her shoulder at the door to Vega’s chamber, then back to Djogo. He’d been out here when she left the room. How long had he been standing there? Was he eavesdropping?
“Have you been out here a while?” she asked.
“I came looking for you. I thought you might want to eat: it’s been an awfully long day, and I put some food aside for you.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Djogo.”
“You’ve been crying,” he said, raising a hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. She flinched. He looked past her to the door. “The Sharklord.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Yes,” she replied, annoyance still evident in her voice. There was something odd about Djogo and she couldn’t quite place it. He seemed outwardly calm, but his eye—that one good eye that Drew hadn’t taken from him ages ago—remained fixed upon the door, unblinking.
“Come,” she continued, disturbed by her friend’s mood and keen to lead him away from the House of Healing. “This meal you’ve spared for me. I would eat it, and hear about all that you’ve done since we’ve been apart.”
Djogo blinked at last, as if waking from a trance. He held a hand out before him in the corridor.
“After you, my lady,” he said, as the two set off down the carved, stone corridor, leaving the sickbeds and Sharklord behind them.
PART IV
THE DIE IS CAST
1
RED MEAT
AMID THE CHORUS
of snarls and growls, the merchant could be heard crying out for kindness, for mercy, for his sorry, luckless life. His pleas fell on deaf ears, his scream rising to a terrifying pitch before suddenly being cut short, alongside his life. Trent felt relieved for the poor man, his torment finally over, and more than a little jealous, too. Such a release would be a blessing for him.
Lucas and his Wolfmen had stumbled across the merchant and his caravan that evening. They had killed the guard in short time, but the trader’s death had been drawn out, the Wyld Wolves taking great delight in torturing him while Lucas rifled through the wagon like a common highwayman. He was in there presently, getting roaring drunk on a cask of Haggard ale. For the merchant’s sobbing to have ceased was music to Trent’s ears, but the noises that now followed made his blood run cold. Even lashed to a caravan wheel, some distance from where the man was murdered, he could hear the wet tearing as the Wolfmen ripped his warm corpse apart. When the rending ended, the monstrous lycanthropes scattered through the makeshift camp, body parts in clawed hands, finding quiet spots to devour their meals.
Trent retched, straining against his ropes, but nothing came up, his stomach as hollow as the Werelion’s soul. He looked up as he saw a figure prowl forward on dark fur-covered legs. It was Darkheart, the one Wolfman who still appeared slightly human. The dirty black feather headdress remained entwined through the matted hair that covered the creature’s head. Its distorted jaw was slick with blood, shining black in the moonlight as the Wyld Wolf slurped back a strip of skin that hung between its canines. In one hand it carried a large piece of flesh, bone protruding from it. With another bile-coated heave, Trent recognized it as a femur.
“Not hungry, Wolf Knight?” asked the hideous shaman.
“Go away,” said Trent, looking away as the Wolfman crouched on its haunches before him. He heard teeth seize the meat and tear a chunk loose before gulping it down.
“You need to eat,” said the other.
Suddenly, the meat was in Trent’s face, thrust toward him. He could smell the blood, the raw aroma overpowering. Human or not, the flesh was enticing, causing his stomach to growl and his mouth to salivate. Trent hadn’t eaten for days, not since the awful events in Hedgemoor. He snarled, pulling his face clear as Darkheart swung the leg’s remains beneath his chin.
“Suit yourself,” growled the Wolfman. “I look after my pack. And I’ll look after you.”
“I’m not part of your pack, and I’d rather starve than eat anything you give me,” said Trent, facing the monster now.
While the other creatures feasted around the camp, their shadows moving in the darkness, it appeared this one—Darkheart—preferred the companionship of Trent.
“You don’t mix with your brothers, I see,” said Trent. “You think you’re better than them?”
“Of course I do. They’re blinded by the beast, utterly surrendered to it. They don’t realize that they could have had the best of both worlds if they’d just fought the change that little bit harder.”
“Like you did?”
“Like I did.”
Something toppled over and shattered within the caravan, heralding a string of curses from the drunken young Lion within.
“For how long do you plan to serve Lucas?”
“The king and I understand one another. He can help me reclaim the Dyrewood from the Bearlords. And I can help him seize Blackhand from the throne of Icegarden.”
“What’s his obsession with the Boarlord magister?”
“Blackhand killed the king’s mother. He’s nothing if not sentimental.”
“He’s mad.”
“That may be, but for the time being I’m happy to follow his commands, do as he wills. It gives me pleasure to see the humans and therians of Lyssia cower before our bloody work.”
“So that’s it? Revenge? You travel to Icegarden just to kill the Boarlord?”
“Perhaps,” said the Wyld Wolf. “Maybe he’s more useful alive. Rumor has it the dead roam the Whitepeaks, and it’s Blackhand who pulls their strings.”
Trent sneered. “If the Boarlord killed Queen Amelie, the Lion will want him dead. He’ll have the magister killed. No ifs, no buts.”
“Perhaps the Lion and I will reassess our arrangement at that point,” said Darkheart. “I can be persuasive when needs be.”
Right on cue, the beast gulped down another piece of flesh, red droplets spattering his fur. Trent found himself transported back to Hedgemoor, witness to the awful butchery of Milo at the hands of Lucas. It wasn’t just the lad’s death, it was the horror that followed that would haunt Trent to his dying day.
“The boy,” said Trent, his anger rising again as he remembered the foul deed. “The Staglord. What Lucas did—”
“The king was hungry,” shrugged the Wolfman, “as must you be. Eat.”
Again Darkheart thrust the meat Trent’s way, and again he recoiled against the wheel’s wooden spokes.
“You’ll change, Wolf Knight,” said the shaman, crunching his teeth on the femur’s end, dark tongue trying to poke the marrow from the bone. “You’ll be like us soon enough. Not now, not tomorrow. But when the moon comes . . . then you’ll change.”
“I’ll die before I change,” said Trent defiantly.
“That could yet happen,” said Darkheart. “One of my brothers died during the final change. When the moon is next full, that will separate the wolves from the men. Then we’ll see if you’re truly worthy to be one of us. Then we shall all be equal.”
“You’re not like them, though,” said Trent. “They’re animals. You’re not. You retain your humanity whereas they’ve stripped theirs away. You and your brothers are not equals—you’re the one with the power, Darkheart. You’re the one with the brains.”
“Clever, Wolf Knight.” The monster smiled, more human than ever as he dabbed the blood from his jaw with the back of a dark furred forearm.
“Why? Why do you not throw yourself into the change like the others?”
“I have lived my life in the shadows of others, Wolf Knight: my father, my mistress Vala the Wyrm, even the Lion,” he added, glancing to the wagon at Trent’s back. “It is time I make my own shadows, Trent Ferran, brother Wolf. They shall follow me, and I shall bring about a new dynasty in the Dyrewood. The woods will belong to my wolves, the Wyld Wolves, and I shall return there once I’ve had my revenge.”
“Against Drew,” said Trent. “The one who you’ve to thank for your hideous ‘gift’—you would kill him?”
“The Gray Wolf murdered my father and slew my mistress Vala. I will have vengeance and then return to the Dyrewood to make it my kingdom. You may join me at my side.”
“I’d rather take death,” said Trent, spitting at the shaman.
The Wolfman rose, tossing the half-eaten piece of meat into Trent’s lap where it landed with a soft plop. Trent wriggled instantly with disgust, bucking his groin until the bone tumbled into the leaves beside him.
“You don’t get a choice, Wolf Knight. You change under the moon and you become part of the pack. You’ll become a Wyld Wolf like the rest of my brothers. You don’t have the strength to resist.”
“You’re wrong, Darkheart,” said Trent. “I may not be a Werewolf like Drew, but my heart pumps with the same pride and determination that makes us Ferran boys. If you think I’ll roll over and join you, you’re mistaken.”
“I do, and you will,” said the beast, picking up the meat again and tearing a morsel off it with his clawed fingers. “You’ll be in the dirt at my feet like the rest of them, seeking my approval for every pathetic deed, soiling yourself and rolling about in your own filth. You’ll do all this, because at the end of the day you’re human. You’re nothing like Drew Ferran.”
“You survived the change,” said Trent, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. “What makes you so special?”
The mon
ster dropped before him, one hand seizing Trent’s mouth and prizing it open. He felt like his jaw might tear off as the shaman’s filthy fingers worked the piece of raw human flesh into his mouth. It gripped his face, shaking it one way and then the other before releasing its grip. Trent spat the flesh out, choking, sobbing, retching all over as the monstrous Wolfman towered over him again.
“What makes me so special?” said Darkheart. “I’m strong, Wolf Knight. I’m strong.”
2
OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS
THE ABSENCE OF snow was taking some getting used to. Having spent what seemed like an eternity in the Whitepeaks, first climbing the mountains and then hiding in their shadows, Duke Bergan had given up the notion of ever seeing grass again. Months ago, he and his small band of companions had traveled to Icegarden, hopeful of finding his cousin the White Bear, Duke Henrik, in a charitable mood. As luck would have it, Henrik took them in, only for the united Bearlords to find themselves crushed between two foes: beneath them in the foothills was the Catlord army, while at their backs the city had been seized by Baron Hector, the traitorous Lord of Redmire. When the time had come, the Sturmish survivors had fled deeper into the Whitepeaks, away from their enemies, to face their toughest foe yet: the weather.
Even by Sturmish standards, the winter had been grim. The winds flayed flesh and battered bodies, breaking the spirits of humans and therians alike. Having had the foresight to bring provisions with them in their flight had been the only thing that had kept Bergan and the Knights of Icegarden from the long sleep.
Bergan looked back up the mountainside toward the long train of people who trailed down the barren slope. Though below the snow line, they were still a distance from anything that resembled proper vegetation. The odd withered tree stump or shrub clung to the slopes, talonlike roots gripping the rocky inclines. The Bearlord turned, facing downhill. A staggered tree line weaved along the slope perhaps three hundred yards below, pines swaying in the breeze like lonely emerald sentries. Black Crag rose up at the head of the valley, a steeple of ugly volcanic stone that had stood there since time began. Beyond the crooked mountain, the vast expanse of green countryside rolled out before them, enticing and hopeful, promising better than all they had endured. There would be food down there aplenty, enough to feed his ragged army.
War of the Werelords Page 20