Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  For all but six hundred-odd, who would not be fulfilling Her desires as Lover, but as Avenger.

  Tarma picked her way through the thinning crowds, still wearing her guise of Arton. It was that guise that was going to give the Hawks the entry to the Palace grounds. From all directions, she knew, the Hawks were converging on the Palace; she would be one of the last to arrive. Kethry was already in place, waiting to spring her trap-spells. If they didn't work, she would be in a position to guide Hawks to the mages to deal with them physically while she kept them occupied magically. If they did work, she would be a most welcome addition to their arsenal.

  And just in case Char somehow slipped through their fingers—Warrl?

  :Here, mindmate.:

  Got the horses in place ?

  Warrl's duty was to work with Horsemaster Tindel; the fastest of the Shin'a'in-bred mounts she'd sold Char the year before were to be saddled and kept at the ready, in a cul-de-sac just outside the Palace gate, with Warrl and Tindel guarding them. If Char got away from them, Tarma and the best riders among the Hawks would be hot on his heels—

  :Saddled, bridled, and ready to ride.:

  Good. Let's hope we don't have to use them.

  :Devoutly.:

  Tarma approached one of the side gates, that gave out onto a delivery area. Tonight the gate stood open for the convenience of servants, and the courtyard beyond was dark and deserted. And there was Kethry—still in her own disguise, and looking angry enough to bite a board in two. Tarma altered her walk, swaying a little, as if drunk. She was carrying what looked like a jug loosely in her right hand. As it happened, it wasn't a jug; it was her sword, magicked with another illusion.

  Kethry spotted her; Tarma put a little more of a stagger into her step.

  "There you are, you beast! And drunk as a pig!" she shrilled, to the amusement of the two gate guards.

  "J-janna?" Tarma slurred uncertainly, coming to a halt just before the gate.

  "Of course it's Janna, you brute! You asked me to meet you here, you sot! I've been waiting for hours!"

  "Don't you believe her, Arton," snickered the right-hand gate guard. "She ain't been here more'n half a candlemark—an' she showed up with a big blond lad on one arm, too. Reckon she's been playin' more'n one game tonight, eh?"

  "You—damned—slut!" Tarma snarled, feigning that she had suddenly gone fighting-drunk. She advanced on Kethry, brandishing the jug. Kethry backed up until she was just inside the gate itself, giving every evidence of genuine and absolute fear. "I'm gonna beat you bloody, you fornicating little bitch!"

  Kethry whirled, and threw herself on the lefthand guard, begging his protection, distracting both guards for the crucial moment that it took Tarma to get within arm's length of the right-hand guard.

  Then Tarma pivoted, and took her guard out with the pommel of her sword, just as Kethry executed a neat right cross to the point of her target's chin. Both went down without a sound. Within heartbeats the Hawks were swarming the gate—as two of their number, already bespelled into looking like the two guards they were replacing, dragged the bodies into the gatehouse, trussed and gagged them, and took up their stations. The fighters filled the courtyard on the other side, hidden in the dark shadow of the Palace, waiting for Tarma and Kethry to make the next moves.

  Kethry stood in frozen immobility for a single moment; sensitized to stirrings of energies by her own status as Kal'enedral, Tarma actually felt her spring her trap-spells.

  "Well?"

  Kethry's eyes met hers with incredulous shock. "They're holding—all of them!"

  "Lady with us, then, and let's hope they keep holding. New body, Keth,"

  "Right," the mage answered, and Tarma waited impatiently as the figure of "Janna" blurred, became a rosy mist, and the mist solidified into a new guise—a very ordinary looking female fighter in the scarlet-and-gold livery of Char's personal guard.

  "All right, Hawks," Tarma said, in a low, but carrying voice. "This is it—form up on your leaders—"

  She marched up to the unlocked delivery door, Kethry beside her, and pushed it open. The halfdrunk guard beyond blinked at her without alarm, and bemusedly; he was one of Char's own personal guards and Tarma (in her guise of Arton) had ordered him to stand duty tonight on this door for a reason. He was one of the men that had participated in the rape and torture of Idra.

  She swung once, without a qualm, cutting him down before he had a chance to do more than blink at her. Her only regret was that she had not been able to grant him the lingering death she felt he deserved. She and Kethry hastily dragged his body out of the way; then she waved to the waiting shadows in the court behind her.

  And the Sunhawks poured through the door, a flood of vengeance in human shape, a flood which split into many smaller streams—and all of them were deadly.

  "No luck," Tarma said flatly, as her group met (as planned) with Stefan's, just outside the corridor leading to the rooms assigned to the unattached ladies of the court. "He wasn't in his quarters, and he wasn't with the mages."

  "Nor with any of his current mistresses," Stefansen reported. "That leaves the throne room."

  Their combined group, which included Jadrek (who had accompanied Stefan) and both the other Sunhawk mages, now numbered some fifty strong. The new force surged down the pristine white marble of the Great Hall to their goal of the throne room, all of them caught up in battle-fever. The Hawks had met with opposition from Char's fighters, some of it fierce. The bodies lying in pools of spreading scarlet on the snowy marble of the halls were not all wearing Char's livery. Sewen had been hurt, and Ikan. Garth was dead, and more than fifty others Tarma had known only vaguely. But the Hawks had triumphed, even in the pitched battle with the seasoned troupers of Char's army, and all but a handful of those who had murdered their Captain were now making their atonements to her in person.

  But among that handful—and the only one as yet uncaught—was Raschar.

  Those in the lead shouted as they reached their goal—the great bronze double doors of the throne room—first in triumph, and then in anger, as they attempted to force those doors open. The sculptured doors to the throne room were locked, from the inside.

  Justin and Beaker and a half dozen more battered at them—futilely—as the rest came up. Their efforts did not even make the glittering doors tremble.

  "Don't bother," Stefansen shouted over the noise, "Those damned doors are a handspan thick. We'll have to try to get in from the garden."

  "No we won't," Kethry snarled, audible in her rage even over the frustrated efforts of those still trying to batter their way in. "Stand back!"

  She raised her hands high over her head, her face a mask of fury, and Tarma felt the surge of power that could only mean she had summoned some of that terrible anger-energy she had channeled away but not used in the trap-spells. This was the best purpose for such energies, Tarma knew—anything destructive would do—

  Kethry called out three piercing words, and a bolt of something very like scarlet lightning lanced from her hands to the meeting point of the double doors. There was a smell of hot metal and scorched air, and a crash that shook every ornament in the hall to the floor. The fighters around her cringed and protected their ears from the thunder-shock; the doors rocked, but did not open.

  "Fight it down, girl," Tarma cautioned her, and Kethry visibly wrestled her own temper into control; if she lost to it, she had warned Tarma, she would be prey to the stored anger.

  Kethry closed her eyes, took three deep breaths, then faced the obstacle again. "Oh no," she told the doors and the spell that was on them, "you don't stop me that easily!"

  Again she called the lightning, and a third time—and on the fourth, the doors burst off their hinges, and fell inward with a crash that shook the floor, cracked the marble of the walls of the Great Hall, and rained debris down on all their heads from the ceiling. None of which they particularly noticed, as they stormed into the throne room—

  To find it empty.

&nb
sp; Jadrek cursed, with a command of invective that astounded Kethry, and pointed to where a scarlet and gold tapestry behind the throne flapped in a current of air. "The tunnel—it was walled off years ago—"

  "Figures that the little bastard would have it opened up," Stefan spat. "Think, man—where does it come out?"

  Jadrek closed his eyes and clenched both hands at his temples, as Kethry tried to will confidence and calm into him. "If the records I studied are right—and I remember them right," he said finally, "it exits in the old temple of Ursa, outside the city walls."

  Tarma and her chosen riders had already spun around and were sprinting for the door, and Kethry was right behind them. Because she had already laid most of the spell on them, it was child's play to invoke the guises she'd set for just this eventuality—even while pelting down the hall as fast as her legs could carry her. They were exceedingly simple illusions, anyway—not faces, but livery, the scarlet and gold livery of Char's personal guards, exactly as the guise she wore was garbed.

  They didn't have far to run; and Hawks now held the main gate and had forced it open, so there was nothing to bar the path to their allies. As they pounded into the torch-lit court behind the main gate, a dozen Shin'a'in-bred horses, driven by Warrl, and led by Tindel, galloped past that portal. Their iron-shod hooves drew sparks from the stones of the paving, and they tossed their heads as they ran, plainly fresh and eager for an all-out run.

  Which was exactly what they were going to get.

  As the horses swirled past the Palace door, the Hawks ran to meet them, not bothering to give Tindel the time to bring them to a halt. Instead they mounted on the run, as Tarma had taught them. Even Kethry, the worst rider of all, managed somehow, grabbing pommel and cantle and getting herself in the saddle of the still-cantering gelding she'd singled out without really thinking about what she was doing.

  "Where?" Tindel shouted, over the pounding of hooves as they thundered out the gates again, leaving a panting Warrl to collapse behind them. This was no race for him and he knew it.

  "Temple of Ursa—" Tarma yelled in reply, and Tindel cut anything else she was about to say off with a wave of his hand.

  "I know a quicker way," he bellowed.

  He urged his gray into the fore, and led them in a mad stampede down crazy, twisting alleys Kethry had never seen before, a good half of which were just packed dirt. Festival gewgaws and dying flowers were pounded to powder as they careened through; once a tiny hawker's cart—thankfully unattended—was knocked over and kicked aside; reduced to splinters as it hit a wall. Kethry's nose was filled with the stench of back-alley middens and trampled garbage; she was splashed with stale water and other liquids best left nameless. Her eyes were dazzled by sudden torchlight that alternated with the abyssal dark valleys between buildings. She got only vague impressions of walls flying past, half-seen openings as they dashed by cross streets; and the pounding of hooves surrounding her throbbed like the pounding of the power at her fingertips.

  Then, a startled shout, a wall that loomed high against the stars, and an invisible wall of cooler air and absolute blackness that they plunged through—still without a pause—

  Then they were outside the city walls, continuing the insane gallop along the road that led to a handful of old, mostly deserted temples, and beyond that, to Hielmarsh.

  The moon was full; it was nearly as bright as day, without a single cloud to obscure the light. The fields and trees before them were washed with silver, and the horses, able now to see where they were going, increased their pace.

  Kethry urged her beast up to the front of the herd, until she rode just behind Tarma and Tindel. She gripped her horse with aching knees and tried to see up the road. The temple couldn't be far—not if it was to be reached by a tunnel.

  It wasn't. The white marble of a building that could only be the temple in question stood out clearly against the dark shadows of the trees behind it—at this pace, hardly more than a breath or two away.

  Just as they came within shouting distance of the temple, moonlight reflecting from a cloud of dust on the road ahead of them told them without words that Char had already started the next stage of his flight. This road led almost directly to Hielmarsh, Kethry knew. He was heading for his little stronghold, or perhaps the mazes of the marsh. There would be no pulling him out of there.

  But Hielmarsh was hours away, and that dust cloud a few furlongs at most. And their horses were Shin'a'in, not much exhausted by the race they'd run so far, scarcely sweating, and still on their first wind.

  The little party ahead of them knew they were coming, though, they had to; they had to hear the rolling thunder of two dozen pairs of hooves. They also had to know there was no escaping—

  But the Hawks didn't want a pitched battle if they could help it.

  The dust was settling, which meant the quarry had turned at bay. Kethry saw Tarma give the signal to pull up as they came within sight of Char and his men. The knot of fighters ahead of them huddled together on the moon-drenched road, swords glinting silver as they held them at ready. Kethry and the rest of the Hawks obeyed their leader, and slowed their horses to a walk.

  The King's party numbered almost forty—putting the Hawks at a two-to-one disadvantage if they fought. Tarma's contingency plan, as Kethry knew, called for no such fight. That was the reason for the magical disguises.

  "Majesty!" Tarma called, knowing Char would see the Arton he trusted. "Your brother's stormed and taken the Palace; he's holding the city against you. I got what men I could and tried to guess which way you'd be heading."

  Raschar dug his spurs into his gelding's sides and rode straight to his "faithful retainer." "Arton!" he cried, panic straining his voice, "Hellfire, I heard you'd gone down at the gates! I have never been so glad to see anybody in my life!"

  As he pulled up beside Tarma, Kethry could see his skin was pale and he was sweating, and his eyes were hardly more than black holes in his head.

  "Rein in, Majesty; I've got you some help. Here—" she called up at the mixed group of guards and common soldiers still milling about uncertainly up ahead, "—you lot! Get back to the temple! Split yourselves up, I don't much care how. Half of you head back down to hold the road for as long as you can, the rest of you lay a false trail off to Lasleric. Come on, move it out, we haven't got all night!"

  There hadn't been a single officer among them, and the mixed contingent was obviously only too happy to find someone willing to issue orders that made sense—unlike the frantic babbling of their King.

  They obeyed Tarma without a murmur, sending their nervous beasts around the clot of Hawks blocking the road. Within moments they were out of sight, returning back toward the temple and beyond.

  Tarma waited until they were completely out of sight before giving Kethry a significant look.

  Kethry nodded, and dropped the spell of illusion she'd been holding on their company.

  Char stared, his jaw sagging, as what appeared to be his guard was revealed as something else entirely.

  Then he paled, his face going whiter than the moonlight, as he recognized Tindel, Tarma and Kethry.

  "What—" He started to stutter, then drew himself up and took on a kind of nervous dignity. "Just what is this supposed to mean? Who are you? What do you want?"

  "You probably haven't heard of us before, your Majesty," Tarma drawled, as two of the Hawks closed in on the King from the rear, coming up on either side. "We're just a common mercenary troop. We go by the name of Idra's Sunhawks.'"

  When she spoke the name, he choked, and rowled his horse savagely. Too late; the Hawks were already within grabbing distance of his reins. He tried to throw himself to the ground, but other hands caught him, and held him in his saddle until he could be tied there.

  "Should take us about three candlemarks to get him back—" Tindel began.

  A growl from the ranked fighters behind Tarma interrupted him, and he stopped, looking startled.

  "Stefan promised him to us, my frien
d," Tarma said quietly. "He goes back only when we're finished with him."

  "But—"

  "We called the Oathbreaking on him," Kethry pointed out. "He's ours by the code, no matter how you look at it."

  Tindel looked from face to stubbornly set face, and shrugged. "Well, what do we do with him?"

  "Huh. Hadn't thought that far—" Tarma began.

  "I had," Kethry said, firmly.

  There was still a vast reservoir of anger-energy for her to draw on, and while the coercion of innocent spirits was strictly forbidden a White Winds sorceress, the opening of the gates of the otherworld to a ghost that had a debt to collect was not.

  And Idra most certainly had a long, bitter debt owed to her.

  "We called Oathbreaking on him—that's a spell, partner. I do believe we ought to see that spell completed."

  Tarma looked at her askance; so did the rest of the Hawks. Char, gagged, made choking sounds. "How do you propose to do that? And just what does it mean to see it completed?"

  Kethry shifted in her saddle, keeping Char under the tail of her eye. "It only takes the priestess and the mage to complete the spell, and I know how. Jadrek found the rest of it in some of the old histories. As for what it does—it brings all the broken oaths home to roost."

  "Does that mean what I think it does?"

  Kethry nodded, and Tarma smiled, a bloodthirsty grin that sent a chill even up her partner's backbone.