Taunting the Devil (The Bastard Cadre Book 5)

by Lee Carlon

  “When did you get back? I haven’t seen you for days, and Lomar was…”

  Valan found a pen, but there was still nothing to write on. He tore the shirt from his back and placed it so that a piece free from bloodstains was pressed flat against the hard surface of Lilly’s dressing table.

  “Valan! What happened?” Lilly crossed the room and tried to turn him so she could see him.

  “Wait,” Valan snapped, feeling Omar’s words slipping from his memory. The pen caught on the cotton as he tried to scribble the words.

  “What happened?” Lilly demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Fine? But look at all this blood, what happened…” Lilly’s voice turned hard. “What did you do?”

  Valan ignored her as he recorded the last of Omar’s words, ...not an end to the True Gods, but an end to their rule.

  Lilly shouted something at him, but he wasn’t listening. She slapped his back to get his attention, and he pushed her away. He scribbled other words onto the shirt, each time thinking the sentence he wrote was the last, but as he ended each, he spotted connections and gained insights and kept going until he’d recorded them all.

  He stopped breathless and satisfied. He would take the shirt to his study and transcribe the words.

  Omar had told him much in the Abyss. Valan knew well enough to keep the words below the conscious level of his mind where Omar couldn’t access them. I am much more than a distraction.

  He found a towel to wipe away the blood then pulled on a spare shirt. He left the bedroom and was halfway to the apartment door when he saw Lilly sitting on the couch in the next room. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and her small boney hands were clenched tightly into fists.

  “Your son was asking about you,” Lilly spoke with a forced calm.

  “He’s not my son,” Valan said, trying to keep his tone low. I don’t have time for this. Not today.

  “You can’t even say his name, what’s wrong with you?” Lilly was deliberately not looking at him.

  “He’s not my son,” Valan said.

  Lilly stood up. “He is. I should have been clear when he was born. I shouldn’t have played games with you. He’s your son, and he needs you. I need you, but not like this.”

  “He’s not my son, and you must never—“

  “Say his name!” Lilly screamed.

  Valan forced himself to take a breath. Lilly had chosen that name to provoke him into claiming the boy as his son and offering a different name, but he hadn’t allowed himself to be manipulated. “Lomar is not my son.”

  Lilly started to say something, but Valan raised his voice to speak over her, “And you must never say he is. If Rarick thinks the boy is mine, he will have a knife at his throat every time he wants me to do something suicidal. Don’t talk about the boy, let Rarick believe he is just another one of his bastards.”

  Lilly stepped back. “It’s not Rarick’s fault. He carries a great burden. Maiten, the Gods, ask a lot of their Chosen.”

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The results will be the same.”

  “No, Rarick would never hurt any of my children.”

  Valan almost protested, but he knew it was pointless. He took a step toward the door then stopped. “Wait. Something is wrong?”

  “There are many things wrong.”

  “No. Something… Why am I here?”

  “I don’t know,” Lilly said. “You have to decide.”

  “Not that,” Valan said, then to himself, “Why here? Why did I wake up here?”

  Why did Omar bring me back here?

  A sudden hammering on the door broke the silence between them, and Valan realized why he was there.

  He heard Omar’s voice again. Rarick must die.

  The door shook in its frame with each hard bang from the other side.

  Lilly jumped from her seat and grabbed Valan’s arm. Her voice quavered, “Who is that?”

  “Your brother’s men,” Valan said. He still held the bloody shirt he’d used to record Omar’s words. Disengaging himself from Lilly, he folded it carefully and strode to a tallboy next to the door. He placed the shirt in a drawer next to a stack of frilly placemats and hoped he could return for it before the blood spread and obscured his words.

  There was another bang.

  An ornament on top of the tallboy jumped from its place and would have smashed on the floor, but Valan caught it and put it back in place. A quick visual check revealed a thin line of dried blood on the right sleeve of his shirt. He started to roll the sleeve up, but the door swung violently toward him and hit his shoulder. Valan reacted instantly stepping back, his right leg twinged in protest, and the new scars on his belly pulled tight. He brought his hands up, ready to fight.

  A tall bondsan followed the door.

  His instincts under control, Valan willed himself not to fight back. He couldn’t afford for the bondsan to see him as a threat and stop him from getting close to Lord Rarick.

  The bondsan hit Valan with a wild swinging right hook that connected with his chin. Valan fell into the wall behind him and let it hold him up. The bondsan collided with him an instant later. He grabbed handfuls of Valan’s shirt and pushed him into the wall.

  “You’re not getting away now,” the bondsan snarled at him.

  Valan recognized him as a member of Tar’s cadre.

  “I was on my way to see Lord Rarick,” Valan said in a soft, non-confrontational tone.

  “Lord Rarick does not wait on your pleasure, Wolf. He calls, you heel, understood?”

  Valan nodded once. Nobody in Ardel knew he was a dualist and could take the form of a wolf, but not long after his arrival, somebody had called him Wolf and the name had stuck.

  People don’t know what they know, Valan thought as the bondsan held him, looking for some sign of resistance to justify a beating.

  Lilly had been knocked over in the exchange and sat stunned on the floor.

  “You can beat me, but I doubt Lord Rarick will be so forgiving if he hears you abused his sister.” Valan directed his gaze past the bondsan toward Lilly. In truth, he doubted Rarick would care, but Valan wanted to gauge Rarick’s mood by the bondsan’s reaction.

  The bondsan turned, his complexion paled when he saw his bond-lord’s sister on the floor.

  “Help her up,” the man barked at two bondsan who stood in the doorway.

  One of them rushed forward to help Lilly. His face was badly bruised and swollen.

  The bondsan who held Valan demanded, “Where is the prisoner?”

  “What are you talking about? He’s in his cell. Why—”

  The bondsan shoved Valan and insisted, ”Where is he?”

  Valan composed himself and made a show of looking at Lilly and her helper with some concern before answering. “Do you mean to tell me he’s not in his cell?”

  “You were with him last. What did you say when the cameras went out?”

  “I was interrogating him. I wanted to know who he was working with. I wanted to make sure the threat has been eliminated. What do you mean the cameras went out? Why wasn’t I told?”

  The bondsan pushed Valan back into the wall one last time then let him go.

  Valan went to Lilly. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and smiled in a way that revealed she didn’t understand his ploy. Valan walked around Lilly and used the cover to roll the right sleeve of his shirt up to hide the blood he’d seen before the bondsan kicked the door in.

  “I should have been told. I planned to analyze the recording,” he shrugged helplessly, then turned to the man with the swollen face. “I have medi-strips.”

  The bondsan left the room without acknowledging him. “What happened?” Valan asked the man who’d struck him.

  “Your games happened. Yours and that bastard Amir’s,” the bondsan said.

  “Where’s Tar?” Valan asked. It wasn’t unusual for bondsan to be sent on errands around the citadel, but Valan suspected there w
as some significance in the first-sworn’s absence.

  “With Lord Rarick,” the bondsan said.

  Valan nodded and walked toward the door. He’d known Amir’s words would cause problems. “I’ll be back soon,” Valan told Lilly.

  “No, she’s coming too,” the bondsan said.

  “Me?” Lilly sounded confused.

  The bondsan nodded.

  “My children are due home any minute,” Lilly said. “Let my brother know I will bring them for a vis—”

  “Your children are with Lord Rarick,” the bondsan said and left the room.

  Valan waited for Lilly. She met his eyes briefly, and he saw the realization there before she looked away. She was too soft for the world, too soft to have come from the same place as her brothers Rarick and Warwick. Despite himself, Valan felt a pang of sympathy for her. She didn’t know that their time together was almost at an end, that their time together had served its purpose and kept him close to the Lord of Damar, or that when both of her brothers were dead, he would leave Ardel without a backward glance for her or her children.

  It occurred to him that he didn’t know if she knew Warwick was dead.

  They walked the dark halls of the citadel in silence, cut off from the world outside by ancient, heavy bricks, and unused halls to either side of their path. As they approached the center of the ancient structure, a scream broke the silence, long and drawn out.

  Lilly stopped by Valan’s side. Her eyes going wide.

  “Lilly, we must—“ Valan started, but Lilly frowned and then ran toward Maiten’s Hall and her children.

  14

  Ancient Enmities

  Sand fell from Cali’s clothes and hands as she stood and walked toward the sea, mesmerized by the dragon.

  “Magnificent.” Her pulse had quickened, and she gasped for breath. My ancestors rode dragons, she thought in wonder.

  “Stand back, child,” Tobin said.

  Cali almost glanced back at him, but she decided to ignore him and watch the dragon instead. They were a rare sight since the Cleansing, and she didn’t want to miss an instant of its presence.

  “You were warned,” the giant rumbled.

  The machinery in the back of the jeep purred and clunked as the twin metal tubes Tobin had fixed in place moved, tracking the dragon.

  “What are you doing?” Cali hurried back to Tobin.

  “My job.” Tobin spared her a look, another for the dragon, and then he turned his attention back to the AI in his hand. His hammer was head down in the sand next to him. The thick wooden shaft stood upright, as long as Cali was tall.

  “You can’t,” Cali said.

  The machinery in the back of the jeep continued to purr as the metal tubes swung through a shallow arc.

  “Of course I can,” Tobin said. “You mean you don’t want me to. You’ve heard stories about dragons and believe they are noble creatures. You think you owe a debt of loyalty to dragons because you are descended from a people who once served them. Your stories are wrong.”

  Tobin tapped his stylus on the AI’s screen. A silver spear trailing metal rope shot from one of the tubes toward the dragon.

  Tobin pushed the AI into a back pocket. “Did you ever wonder why the descendants didn’t return to the Dragonlands? They didn’t serve the Dragon Lords. They were enslaved by them. You don’t owe that creature anything. That’s Tralit d’Arathan, and he is the worst dragon that ever lived.”

  The spear struck the dragon, piercing one of its hind legs. The dragon screamed in rage. The machine in the back of the jeep jerked and started drawing the metal rope back in.

  Tobin lifted his hammer and stepped forward. “His father was Sah Pitan. Together they destroyed entire cities.”

  “How do you know that? Were you there?” Cali demanded.

  “My people were there.”

  Cali shouted, “So your people’s stories are true, and mine are not?”

  Tobin stopped and looked back at her. “Don’t interfere. That’s why you’re here. To see if you can do the job you’ve been given.”

  The rope went taut as the machinery continued to retract it. A second later the jeep jerked forward leaving deep tracks in the sand.

  “You can’t kill that,” Cali shouted.

  “I will kill the man, not the dragon.”

  The rope pulled taut again, and the back of the jeep lifted up in the air then fell heavily back to the beach. The dragon was closer now, and only half the rope remained.

  “My ancestors fought dragons for millennia. We know how to kill dragons. This monstrosity is no different.” The giant shouted now, working himself up into a rage. “The only reason the humans were able to take this land from us is because we went to the Dragonlands thousands of years ago to eliminate the dragons once and for all, but when we returned the humans were everywhere.”

  The jeep lifted up into the air again, higher than Tobin was tall.

  The dragon screamed and dove at Tobin. The jeep crashed back to the beach. Tobin swung his hammer as the dragon came at him, but the dragon feinted, extending its neck then pulling back, so the hammer sailed harmlessly past.

  Tobin was twice the size of any human Cali had ever known, but he looked like a child next to the dragon.

  The dragon followed the feint by lunging forward, massive teeth snapping on the space the giant had occupied an instant before. Tobin rolled and turned and swung his hammer again, this time catching the dragon with a glancing blow on its sinuous neck. The dragon landed heavily, the winch in the back of the jeep still retracting the rope and pulling the dragon through the sand so that his counter strike missed.

  The spear was all the way through the dragon’s leg.

  Tobin followed the dragon and brought his hammer around for another blow, but the dragon reared up over him, and the hammer went under the dragon’s head. Tobin spun through a full circle and advanced. The hammer struck the dragon in the chest this time knocking it back, but it recovered instantly and snapped mighty jaws at the giant. Tobin fell back in the sand to avoid the attack, but Tralit followed it with a gust of fire that Tobin evaded by rolling forward under the dragon’s chest and between its forelegs.

  The dragon tried to take to flight, but the steel rope was entirely retracted, and the weight of the jeep kept him grounded.

  Tobin emerged at the dragon’s side and threw himself across the dragon’s back.

  He’s not letting it put any distance between them, Cali realized.

  As Tobin tried to mount the dragon, it threw itself hard against the beach, trapping Tobin between itself and the ground. It beat its wings and took flight this time screaming as it dragged the jeep into the air and then swung the vehicle at the giant. The jeep collided with Tobin, and he cried out in pain as he fell back. The dragon beat its wings again, but the weight of the jeep defeated it, and it fell back to the ground.

  Tobin recovered and swung his hammer hitting the dragon on the jaw. The dragon was fazed by the blow, and its head dropped. Tobin swung again, and the sound of the hammer hitting its target turned Cali’s stomach.

  Tobin reached for the AI in his back pocket, but it was no longer there. He glanced around, but he couldn’t see it. He tightened his grip on the hammer with both hands and advanced on the dragon.

  “No,” Cali whispered to herself.

  The dragon withdrew within itself, shrinking before the giant, shifting into his human form until a powerful man was on his knees before the giant.

  “Who are you?” the man in the sand demanded.

  Tobin stood tall, his hammer held up and ready to strike. “I am Tobin Dragonslayer.”

  No, he can’t, Cali thought, but she knew Tobin would. He planned to kill Tralit d’Arathan on this beach and claim the name Dragonslayer. She took a tentative step toward the dragon and the giant but stopped.

  There was nothing she could do.

  Tobin claimed she was being tested to see if she could do the job, no matter the job, but this was no test. She h
ad no power to change the outcome of this encounter. Valan merely wanted to break her down so that he could use her. First, he had used her to kill Vernie and take away the promise of friendship. Now he sought to attack her cultural identity.

  Tralit spoke, “Tobin Dragonslayer, I have killed many of your people. I had hoped to rid the world of the scourge of your kind.” His words were strong and confident.

  “Giants,” Tobin said the word with pride, “will be here long after the last of your kind are gone.”

  “You call yourselves giants, but you are a small people, you measure yourselves against the humans and the rapuli and the taemarians and the pintarans, but compared to the true people of this world you are small and insignificant.”

  “It is you who are on your knees,” Tobin said.

  Cali looked up and down the beach hopelessly. She couldn’t stand by and watch Tobin kill the dragon, but she couldn’t stop him either.

  The beach was empty.

  A thought occurred to her, and she scanned the skies. Fralit Mars was to the north, perhaps one of Tralit’s people—

  Nothing. The skies were empty.

  Tralit forced himself to his feet in response to Tobin’s words.

  Cali scanned the beach again, but there was nothing there. Tobin, Tralit, the jeep, and the trailer Tobin had brought with him. She even looked back at her Dragonwing, but she had no weapons. There was nothing.

  She turned back to Tralit and Tobin, determined at least to serve as witness to the crime, but this time she saw a small black oblong in the sand behind Tobin.

  Cali stepped forward to see it better. Just Tobin’s AI, she realized.

  She could hardly hit him with that.

  Tralit spoke again, “Swing your little hammer. I won’t even try to avoid it. You are nothing. You cannot kill me. You are just like the rest of your people.”

  “My people are in the Dragonlands killing every dragon they can find.”

  Cali crept forward to the AI and picked it up. Tralit saw her past the giant, but he gave no sign of it, and Tobin didn’t notice her.

  “Tell yourself that,” Tralit said. “Your people are all dead. The Dragon Lords killed them all except for the few that escaped and fled back to Newterra.”