Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Idra's torture and "punishment" had begun with the expedient most commonly used to break a woman—multiple rape. Rape in which her own brother had been the foremost participant. Char's methods and means when that failed became more exotic. Jadrek excused himself halfway through the toneless recitation to be audibly sick. When he returned, pale, shaking and sweating with reaction, Tarma had nearly finished. Kethry's stomach was churning and her throat was choked with silent weeping.

  "His own sister—" Kethry shuddered, her eyes burning and blurring with her tears. "No matter how much he hated her, she was still his sister!"

  Tarma came closer, looming over the table like a dark angel. She took the dagger from her belt, and held it out into the light of the table-candle. She held it stiffly, point down, in a fist clenched so tightly on the hilt that her knuckles were white.

  "Oathbreaker, I name him," Tarma said, softly, but with all the feeling that she had not given vent to behind the words of the ages-old ritual of Outcasting. "Oathbreaker he, and all who stand by him. Oathbreaker once—by the promises made to kin, then shattered. Oathbreaker twice—by the violation of king-oath to liegeman. Oathbreaker three times—Oathbreaker a thousand times—by the violation of every kin-bond known and by the shedding of shared blood."

  "Oathbreaker, I name him." Kethry echoed, rising to place her cold hand over Tarma's, taking up the thread of the seldom-used passage from the Mercenaries' Code, She choked out her words around a knot of black anger and bleak mourning, both so thick and dark that she could barely manage to speak the ritual coherently through the chaos of her emotions. She was still channeling, but now she was channeling the emotion through the words of the ritual. Emotion was power; that was what made a death-curse so potent, even in the mouth of an untutored peasant. This may well once have been a spell—and it was capable of becoming one again. She knew that even though she was no priest, channeling that much emotion-energy through it had the potential of making the Outcasting into something more than "mere ritual."

  "Oathbreaker I do name him, mage to thy priest. Oathbreaker once—" She choked, hardly able to get the words out, "by the violation of sacred bonds. Oathbreaker twice—by the perversion of power granted him for the common weal to his own ends. Oathbreaker three times—by the invocation of pain and death for pleasure."

  Somewhat to her surprise, she saw Jadrek stand, place his trembling, damp hand atop hers, and take up the ritual. She had never guessed that he knew it. "Oathbreaker, I name him, and all who support him," he said, though his voice shook. "Oathbreaker I do name him, who am the common man of good will, making the third for Outcasting. Oathbreaker once—by the lies of his tongue. Oathbreaker twice—by the perversion of his heart. Oathbreaker three times—by the giving of his soul willingly to darkness."

  Tarma slammed the dagger they all had been holding into the wood of the table with such force that it sank halfway to the hilt. "Oathbreaker is his name;" she snarled. "All oaths to him are null. Let every man's hand be against him; let the gods turn their faces from him; let his darkness rot him from within until he be called to a just accounting. And may the gods grant that mine be the hand!"

  She brought herself back under control with an effort that was visible, and turned a face toward them that was no longer impassive, but was just as tear-streaked as Kethry's own. "This is the end of it: he couldn't break her. She was too tough for him, right up to the last. He didn't get one word out other, not one—and in the end, when he thought his bullyboys had her restrained, she managed to break free long enough to grab a knife and kill herself with it."

  The fire-and-candle light flared up long enough to show that the murderous rage was still burning in her, but still under control. "I damn near killed him myself, then and there. Warrl managed to keep me from painting the room with his blood. It would have been suicide, and while it would have left the throne free for Stefan, I'd have left at least two friends behind who would have been rather unhappy that I'd gone and gotten myself killed by the rest of Char's Guard."

  "'Unhappy' is understating the case," Jadrek replied gently, slowly resuming his seat. "But yes—at least two. Good friend—sister—please sit." Kethry could see tears still glinting in his eyes—but she could also see that he was thinking past his grief; something she and Tarma couldn't quite manage yet.

  As Tarma lowered herself stiffly into her accustomed chair, he continued. "Our plans have been plagued by the inability to bring a force of trained fighters whose loyalty is unswervingly ours into the city. Now I ask you, who served under Idra—what would her Sunhawks think to hear this?"

  "Gods!" Kethry brought her fist to her mouth, and bit her knuckles hard enough to break the skin. "They'd want revenge, just like us—and not just them, but every man or woman who ever served as a Hawk!"

  Jadrek nodded. "In short—an army. Our army. One that won't swerve from their goal for any reason, or be stopped by anything short of the death of every last one of them."

  Now, for a brief time, they fought their battle with pen and paper. Messages, coded, in obscure dialects, or (rarely) in plain tradespeech left the city every day that there was someone that they judged was trustworthy enough to carry them. Tarma, from her position as trusted insider, was able to tell them that the few messages that were intercepted baffled Char's adherents, and were dismissed out of hand as merchant-clan warring. The rest went south and east, following the trade roads, to find the men and women who wore (or had once worn) the symbol of the Sunhawk.

  The answers that returned were not of paper and ink, but flesh and blood—and of deadly anger.

  The last time Justin Twoblade and his partner had entered Petras, it had been with a feeling of pleasant anticipation. Petras had been the turnaround point for the caravan they'd been guarding, and it was well known for its wines and its wenches. He'd had quite a lively time of it, that season in Petras.

  Now he entered the city a second time, again as a caravan guard. Three things differed: he would not be leaving, at least not with the traders he was guarding; his partner was not Ikan Dryvale—

  And his mood was not pleasant.

  He and his partner parted company with the caravan as soon as their clients had selected a hostelry, taking their pay with them in the form of the square silver coins that served as common currency among the traders of most of this part of the world. Then, looking in no way different than any other mustered-out guards, they collected their small store of belongings, loaded them on their horses, and headed for a district with a more modest selection of inns.

  And if they seemed rather heavily armed and armored, well, they had been escorting jewel traders, it was only good sense to arm heavily when one escorted such tempting targets.

  "What was the name of that inn we're looking for?" Justin asked his new partner, his voice pitched only just loud enough to be heard over the street noise. "I didn't quite catch it from the contact."

  "The Fountain of Beer," Kyra replied, just as quietly, her eyes flicking from side to side in a way that told Justin she was watching everything about her without making any great show of doing so.

  "I suspect that's it ahead of us." His hands were full; reins of his horse in the left, pack in the right, so he pointed with his chin. The sign did indeed sport a violently yellow fountain that was apparently spouting vast quantities of foam.

  "If you'll take care of the lodgings, I'll take care of the stableman," Kyra offered. "We've both got tokens; one of us should hit on a contact if we try both."

  "Good," Justin replied shortly; they paused just at the inn gate and made an exchange of packs and reins. Kyra went on into the stableyard with their horses, as he sought the innkeeper behind his bar.

  Justin bargained heatedly for several minutes, arriving at a fee of two silver for stabling, room and meals for both; but there was a third coin with the two square ones he handed the innkeeper—a small, round, bronze coin, bearing the image of a rampant hawk on one side and the sun-in-glory on the other. It was, in fact, th
e smallest denomination of coin used in Hawksnest—used only in Hawksnest, and almost never seen outside of the town.

  The innkeeper neither commented on the coin, nor returned it—but he did ask "Justice Twoblade?" when registering them on his rolls.

  "Justice" was one of the half-dozen recognition words that had come with Justin's message.

  "Justin," the fighter corrected him. "Justin of the Hawk."

  That was the appropriate answer. The man nodded, and replied "Right. Justice."

  Justin also nodded, then stood at the bar and nursed a small beer while he waited for Kyra to return. The potboy showed them to a small, plain room on the ground floor at the back of the inn.

  "Stableman's one contact for certain sure," Kyra told him as soon as the boy had left. "He wished me 'justice,' I gave 'im m'name as Kyra Brighthawk, and then 'e tol' me t' wait for a visitor."

  "Innkeeper's another, gave me the same word. Always provided we aren't in a trap." Justin raised one laconic eyebrow at Kyra's headshake. "My child, you don't grow to be an old fighter without learning to be suspicious of your own grandmother. I would suggest to you that we follow 'enemy territory' rules."

  Kyra shrugged. "You been the leader; I'll live with whatever ye guess we should be doin'."

  Justin felt of the bed, found it satisfactory, and stretched his lanky body on it at full length. "It is a wise child that obeys its elders," he said sententiously, then quirked one corner of his mouth. "It is also a child that may live to become an elder."

  Kyra shrugged good-naturedly.

  A few moments later, the boy returned with a surprisingly good dinner for two, which he left. Justin examined it with great care, by smell and by cautious taste.

  "Evidently we aren't supposed to leave," Justin guessed, "And if this stuff has been tampered with, I can't tell it."

  Kyra followed his careful inspection of the food with one of her own. "Nor me, an' my grandy was a wisewoman. I don' know about you, friend, but I could eat raw snake."

  "Likewise. My lady?" Justin dug a healthy portion out of the meat pie they'd been served, and handed it to her solemnly.

  She accepted it just as solemnly. It might have been noted, had there been anyone else present, that neither partook of anything the other had already tried. If any of the food had been "tampered with," it would likely be only one or two dishes. If that were the case—one of them would still be in shape to deal with the consequences.

  When, after an hour, nothing untoward happened to either of them, Justin grinned a little sheepishly.

  "Well—"

  "Don't apologize," Kyra told him. "I tell ye, I druther eat a cold dinner than find m'self wakin' up lookin' at the wrong end 'f somebody's knife."

  They demolished the rest of the food in fairly short order—then began another interminable wait. After a candlemark of pacing, Kyra finally dug a long branch of silvery derthenwood out other pack, as well as a tiny knife with a blade hardly bigger than a pen nib. She sat down on the floor next to the bed and began the slow process of turning the branch into a carved chain. Justin watched her from half-closed eyes, fascinated in spite of himself by the delicate work. The chain had only a few links to it when the wait began; when it ended, there was scarcely a fingerlength of branch remaining.

  Then, without warning, a portion of the wall blurred and Kethry stepped through it.

  Kethry just held out her arms, welcoming both of them into an embrace which included tears from all three of them.

  "Gods, Keth—" Justin finally pulled away, reluctantly. "It has been so damned hard keeping this all inside."

  "I know; none better—Windborn, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you two! You're the first to come; may the Lady forgive me, but there were times I wondered if this was going to work."

  "Oh, it's working all right; better than you could guess." He wiped his eyes and nose on the napkin from their tray and locked his emotions down. "All right, lady-mage, we need information, not waterfalls."

  "First—tell me how you got here so fast."

  "We weren't about t' let anybody beat us here," Kyra replied. "Not after that message. Sewen sent me on ahead t' tell ye that Queen Sursha give us leave t' deal with this soon's we get some of her new army units in t' replace us. The rest of the Hawks'll be here in 'bout a month."

  "Ikan's out rounding up all the former Hawks we can track down," Justin continued. "We'll be trickling in the same as the Hawks will—no more than two or three at a time, and disguised. One of the merchant houses is going to let some of us use their colors; Ikan took the liberty of taking your name in vain to old Grumio. We have the support of Sursha's Bards, and half a dozen holy orders. We'll be everything from wandering entertainers to caravan guards. You've got a plan, I take it?"

  "Tarma has; she's worked it out with a couple of highborn we can trust," Kethry told him. "All I really know about is my part of it, but generally we're hoping to accomplish the whole thing with a minimum of bloodshed."

  "Specific blood," Kyra replied, with a smoldering anger Justin shared.

  "Oh, yes. One of the lot we've already taken out—Raschar's Adept. But the others—" Kethry allowed her own anger to show. "—Tarma's identified every person that had a hand in the deed. And they will answer to us."

  Justin nodded, slowly. "What about arms? There's going to be at least half of us without much, given the disguises."

  "Being smuggled in to us from an outside source, so that Char won't be alerted that something's up by activity in forges and smithies. We're getting everything Tarma could think of; bows, arrows with war-points, various kinds of throwing knives, grapnels, climbing spikes, pikes, swords—the last is the hardest, that, and armor, but we're hoping most of you will manage to bring your own. Do either of you have a guess how many there might be that we can count on?"

  "Six hundred at an absolute minimum," Justin said with grim satisfaction. "That's four hundred Hawks and the two hundred that either retired to Hawksnest or that Ikan knows for a fact he can get hold of and will want in."

  "Gods—that's better than I'd hoped," Kethry said weakly. "There're four hundred regular troops here. about a hundred and fifty assorted militia, and fifty personal guards belonging to Char. There're some other assorted fighters, but Tarma tells me they won't count for much; there're Char's adherents, and their private guards, but we don't know but that they won't turn their coats or hide if things look chancy. That means we'll be going pretty much one-on-one; all the professionals starting the fight even."

  "Even with his mages?" Justin asked dubiously. Kethry raised her chin, her eyes glinting like emerald ice in the light from the window beside her. "He hasn't a mage that can come close to me in ability, and I have more power at my disposal than any of them could hope for."

  "Where are you getting that kind of power?" Justin asked in surprise. "I mean—you're alone—"

  "You—and the Hawks. Your anger. I can't begin to tell you how strong a force I've already tapped off just you two; when I start to think about six hundred Hawks, it makes my head reel. It's the kind of power a mage sees perhaps once in a lifetime, and if I weren't an Adept I'd never be able to touch it, much less control it."

  "You're Adept class now?" Justin said incredulously. "Great good gods—no wonder you aren't worried!"

  "Not with power like that at my disposal. I can channel all that anger, harvest it, and save it for the hour of striking. We're the attackers, this time. I can set up as many spells as it takes as far in advance as I need to, spells specifically designed to take out each mage; and wait until the moment of attack to trigger them. I'm assuming only half of those will work. The rest will probably be deflected. But the mages will be off-balance, and I can take them out one at a time. I know how mages think—when they're under magical attack they tend to ignore anything mundane, and they seldom or never work together. White Winds is one of the few schools that teaches working in concert. I think we can plan that they will be concentrating on me and not on anything nonm
agical. And that they won't even think to band together against me."

  Justin nodded, satisfied. "Sounds like you people have a pretty good notion of what you're about. Now comes the hard part."

  "Uh-huh," Kethry nodded. "Waiting."

  Singly, or by twos and threes, the Hawks came, just as Justin had told Kethry they would. Each of them arrived in some disguise, some seeming utterly harmless—a peasant farmer here, a party of minstrels there, a couple of merchant apprentices. Day by day they trickled into Petras, and no one seemed to notice that they never left it again. Each went to one of the dozen inns whose masters had bought into the conspiracy, carrying with them a small bronze coin and a handful of recognition words. Each was met by Kethry, or by one of the other "official greeters"—Justin, Kyra or Ikan, who had arrived within days of the first two.

  From there, things got far more complicated than even most of these professional mercenaries were used to.

  Beaker coughed, scratched his head, and turned his weary donkey in to what passed for a stableman at the Wheat Sheaf inn. The stableman here was, like most of the clients, of farm stock; and probably had never even seen a warhorse up close, much less handled one. Beaker's dusty donkey was far more in his line of expertise. The "stable" was a packed-earth enclosure with a watering trough and a pile of hay currently being shared by three other mangy little donkeys and a brace of oxen. Beaker had serious second and third thoughts about this being the contact point for a rebel force, but the instructions had said the Wheat Sheaf and specified the stableman as the contact.

  "Ye wanta watch that one," Beaker drawled, handing the wizened peasant the rough rope of the donkey's halter with one hand, and four coins with the other—three copper pennies and one bronze Hawkpiece. "She'll take revenge if she even thinks ye're gonna lay hand to 'er."

  "Oh, aye, I know th' type," the fellow replied, grinning, and proving that a good half of his teeth had gone with his lost youth. "Ol' girl like this, she hold a grudge till judgment day, eh?" He pocketed all four coins without a comment.