Betrayal

by Lara Morgan

  He flinched at the raw anger in her voice. He wanted to tell her that he would have done it if he could, he would have taken Jared’s place if he could, but he had not. It was too late. But it was not too late for her.

  ‘I will honour that debt when you ask it,’ he said quietly. ‘But you don’t need to ask me, Ris. I would gladly give my life for yours. And I would let you pierce my heart now if I thought it would bring Jared back to us. But I know it won’t. All I can do is ask you to give me the chance to fight the one who took him. To try to right this wrong.’

  She stood staring at him for a moment, taking quick, hard breaths. He was reminded of a time when they were both children and he had played a trick on her. He had stolen some of her kill during a hunting bout so when Miram had come to judge their prowess Irissa had lost. She had found out and stood before him later just as she was now, her breath fast and sharp, and he had been filled with shame. He had wanted to take it back so badly — but he could not. Just as now he could not take away her pain.

  There was a look in her face of longing and he suddenly, desperately wished he could comfort her. He reached for her hand but she stepped back and walked away, disappearing back into the Dome.

  He stood for a moment in silence, his chest so tight he thought his bones would snap. His mother must have been waiting for him, because he heard her step again on the roof behind him. She didn’t touch him, just stood with him, listening to the sounds of the night.

  ‘She’ll never forgive me,’ he said quietly, and as he said it he felt a terrible ache as he understood how much he needed her to look at him again without disgust or fury.

  Mailun sighed and said, ‘She’s already forgiven you, son; it’s herself she can’t forgive.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When she says she wishes you had swapped your life for her brother’s, it’s only because she’s glad you did not and hates herself for it.’ She took her hand in his and looked up at him with a sad smile. ‘She has loved you for a long time, son. I’m surprised you could be so blind.’

  Loved him? He felt hollow suddenly. She could not love him, he was … Arak-ferish. Serpent kin, death’s child. As he thought of the serpents, he heard Marathin’s hissing whisper and felt her and Haraka drawing closer to the Dome. They were filled with a wild, fiery excitement that he couldn’t quite grasp as his mind tried to understand what his mother had said.

  Mailun rubbed a hand on his back. ‘Oh, son,’ she said, ‘it’s hard that we can never choose whom we love.’

  ‘Never a truer word was spoken,’ a deep voice said, and his mother stiffened, the colour fleeing her face as they both turned and saw Rorc standing on the rooftop behind them.

  For a long moment they looked at each other.

  ‘Hello, Rorc,’ Mailun said. Her voice was steady but Tallis heard the fear in it.

  Rorc was so still he seemed a statue. Tallis noticed Attar standing several paces back, his expression tense with awareness that all was not right.

  ‘How are you here?’ Rorc said, and then, as if drawn, he looked from her to Tallis and understanding came. ‘You are his mother,’ he said.

  She nodded, her lips pulled tight together, her whole body strained with tension, and Tallis saw him adding up the years in his head, looking at him, looking at her, and then the moment when he realised what it meant.

  ‘He’s mine,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes.’ It was barely a whisper. ‘And Shaan.’

  Rorc’s eyes were cold, but beneath Tallis thought he could sense something else. Guilt, shame? He couldn’t tell.

  There was movement in the sky above them and Marathin and Haraka dropped down to the rooftop, breaking the tension. Their wings cracked loudly in the air, talons scraping, and the sharp scent of serpent rolled across to them as they settled nearby.

  Arak-ferish! The urgency in Marathin’s tone cut through Tallis’s thoughts. Beside her Haraka thumped a wing on the roof.

  More come, he sent. Across the salt water.

  What? Tallis ran to the edge of the roof and leaned toward the ocean, throwing his senses outward, stretching as far as he could. He was rewarded with a flash of vision of many wings beating a path through the air toward him. Arak-ferish. A strange serpent’s voice came like an echo to his mind.

  ‘What is it?’ Rorc said.

  ‘The Isles serpents,’ he said. ‘Ten of them, coming here.’

  Rorc’s eyes widened. ‘How far?’

  ‘They’re coming fast. I could fly out to meet them.’

  ‘Do it.’ He called to Attar. ‘Go with him. See if you can spy the ship from the Isles. Their timing couldn’t be better.’ He turned back to Tallis. ‘Talk to them, see if they will help us to get out of the city. They could make a difference to how many men we can keep alive.’

  ‘I’ll do all I can,’ Tallis said, and looked over to his mother. Her face was still terribly pale.

  ‘A good night for flying, clansman,’ Attar said as he met him by the serpents.

  ‘I hope so,’ Tallis said. They climbed up onto the excited serpents’ backs and Marathin crouched, then leaped into the black sky. The serpent flapped her wings once, twice, and then he couldn’t see his mother anymore as they headed out into the fresh wind that blew over the sea.

  Chapter 19

  Tallis hunched low as Marathin cut swiftly through the air. It had begun to rain again, a light, misty veil that covered his hair, dripped into his eyes and tasted salty on his lips as it mixed with the air rising off the ocean. It was darker out over the water, visibility reduced to almost nothing, so all he saw was the occasional glint of Haraka’s eye on his right and the faint glimmer of reflected starlight on wing and tail as water pearled off the serpents’ wings and hide. But it almost didn’t matter that he couldn’t see because he could feel. Marathin beneath him was a hot, vibrating presence running through his veins, Haraka an answering thrum, and out ahead of them, not far now, came the new host of serpents from the Isles, drawing toward him as moths to candle flame, water to shore. He felt their combined essence like a choir in his blood, flooding his mind and body with energy.

  Soon. Marathin’s hiss was tinged with expectation, and he wondered how Attar, riding alongside him, couldn’t hear the hum that was so loud in his mind it sounded like a thousand bees. All thoughts of worry for his mother and what Rorc might say had disappeared, his lingering sorrow from the look in Irissa’s eye was muted to almost nothing as the Hive came closer, and then suddenly it was there before him. A line of serpents emerged from the dark night like shadows taking form. An eye caught starlight here, a wing stroke visible there, and then Tallis could see them; ten serpents led by one older female, their hides beginning to shimmer in colours of blue and green as they approached him and felt his essence waiting.

  Arak-ferish. It was one voice, an old voice, layered with years. The ancient female. The crest. I am called Asrith. Marathin halted her forward movement, wings beating the air as she hovered in place, and Tallis had to grip harder with his thighs as her body undulated with each beat. Haraka copied her and they waited as the host came toward them, the air growing warmer as their heat spread before them.

  Old one, Marathin hissed, and a shiver passed over her.

  She was right. Tallis felt the crest’s essence like old embers of a still vital fire. She led her Hive toward him until their presence filled the sky like great black birds.

  They were nearly upon them when he heard Attar’s shout and, turning, saw him pointing away to the water below. The old warrior was grinning through the rain and Tallis squinted, rubbing the water from his eyes. Then he saw what the rider had; a light on the water, a small, dipping, but steady light. A ship. Perhaps it was the one carrying Shaan’s friend Tuon. He waved back to show Attar he’d seen it then quickly turned his attention back to the serpents.

  Well met. He sent the thought like a shout across the distance. Will you follow me to landfall?

  The female let loose a high shri
ek, echoed by the others who followed in her wake.

  Lead us, she hissed. We feel its call.

  Grinning, his blood alive with their nearness, Tallis wheeled Marathin about and, with a shout to Attar, led the new host of serpents back toward the coast.

  They landed in a steep-sided valley to the north of the city. By the time they reached it the rain was coming down so thick and fast that Tallis had to squint to see as he slipped off Marathin’s back to the muddy ground. Ducking his head he sheltered against her side as the host swept in to land.

  Attar’s boots splashed mud up his legs as he jumped off Haraka and came to stand beside him. The Isles’ serpents settled to the ground in a storm of wind, the ground shuddering and reverberating beneath their feet. The leading female landed closest to them. She was as large as Marathin, and as she moved her hide changed colour, rippling a metallic dark green. She crouched, watching them, oblivious to the rain.

  Attar leaned toward him, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the serpents. ‘That ship should dock by the afternoon,’ he said. ‘Good news for the Commander.’

  Tallis nodded. ‘You can tell him when we get back. Come on.’ He nudged the other man’s shoulder. ‘She’s waiting.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Asrith. Their leader is a female.’

  ‘Figures,’ Attar grinned. ‘How likely will it be she’ll grant us help?’

  Demand. Marathin’s voice suddenly brushed Tallis’s mind. The crest does not ask.

  He stopped and looked back at Marathin. She had risen and stood, wings slightly extended, her green gaze locked on the female serpent as if in a challenge. Asrith suddenly shifted and Tallis watched her warily, feeling heat rising through him.

  ‘What is it?’ Attar had not heard the serpent speak. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tallis said, but Attar felt the threat rippling through the air. ‘I’d like to be told if the serpents are going to fight, clansman,’ he said.

  ‘They won’t. Marathin has told me I must command her help, become their new crest.’

  Attar raised an eyebrow. ‘The new leader? You sure that’s not going to lead to a fight? I wouldn’t bet a whore’s purse on our chances of living through one.’

  ‘Not a physical fight.’ Understanding filled Tallis then, like a flower opening to desert rain. ‘I have to take over,’ he said. ‘It’s the only way serpents know, it’s how they work … and she knows what’s coming.’ He glanced at Asrith. Her look was flat, considered.

  ‘You’re an expert now, are you?’ Attar said.

  Tallis felt strangely detached. ‘Yes, I think I am.’

  Attar took a step back. ‘You look the same now as in the village,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to have a problem are we, clansman?’ His hand hovered over his sword hilt.

  ‘I wouldn’t fight you.’ Tallis frowned. Marathin hissed and he felt a quickening was circling in his gut, like heat swirling, liquid and dense.

  ‘Step back, Attar,’ he said quietly, and went out to meet the serpent from the Isles.

  ‘No problem there.’ Attar’s voice sounded faint to him.

  Well met, Arak-ferish. Asrith’s surprisingly soft mind voice brushed his thoughts. She thumped her spiked tail on the ground idly and turned an eye on Attar. Who is the azim?

  A rider, Tallis told her. A good man.

  Your other semorphim have gone seeking the old paths.

  Not mine, but yes, he answered, they have gone back to Azoth. Do you know them? Farrith, I think, was one of them. He named the serpent he knew Balkis had once ridden.

  Asrith snorted out a hot breath. I don’t know that name. She shook rain from her head. But soon you shall know all names, Arak-ferish. Her voice hissed on the word and her presence suddenly seemed larger, more menacing, the heat of her boiling hot in his veins. The serpents that flanked her shuffled, talons clicking against hide as they backed away. Violence hung in the air.

  Time for your test. Asrith watched him. Son of the father.

  Or time for yours. Tallis took a breath and reached for the words. A sensation like the earth shifting beneath his feet came and he glimpsed a swathe of light from the corner of his eye, then he was slamming up against the serpent’s mind. Darkness filled his vision and pain, brief but piercing, shot through his skull. He felt the serpent’s resistance like a granite wall against a fist. She was old and strong but he was Arak-ferish and he knew the words that birthed her, that ran through her blood, and she could not stand against him. Her resistance shattered like thin glass and he burst through to seize control of her will.

  Bring your host to the city; feint an attack when I call. Be ready.

  He felt a shudder as the ancient words hit her and a rearing of anger, a roar as she fought to resist, then sublimation as the truth of the language sang in her blood.

  He blinked, swayed minutely, and then the fog lifted and he felt the rain again pelting against his skull. It was still night and Asrith crouched before him, her wings lowered, with what seemed a carnivorous grin as she bared her teeth once.

  ‘Well?’ Attar said.

  Tallis felt suddenly bone tired. ‘They will come,’ he said.

  ‘And what of joining us in the fight against Azoth?’

  Tallis looked again at Asrith, who had crouched down low to the earth, the tip of her spiked tail wavering slightly as she watched him. Every time he used that ancient language he felt it changing him. The ways of the serpents became clearer. He knew now that the way the people of Salmut had learned to ride the serpents, to become their riders, was over. They had sought to work with them as equals and so the serpents had chosen to leave. A Hive did not work that way. There was always one leader, one unquestioned force that directed the whole; the serpents accepted it, it was their way. Born of strength it was strength they respected. There was no word for equality in the ancient tongue.

  ‘They will fight,’ he said. Asrith snapped her teeth at him. A sign of respect. ‘I’ll tell them to go with you to the camp when you go with Balkis.’

  A look of bemusement crossed Attar’s face, almost like a father regarding a renegade son.

  ‘Always thought you were an odd one, clansman,’ he said. ‘Glad to see I’ve not been proved wrong yet.’

  ‘Did you expect anything less?’

  Tallis smiled and felt cold as a sudden wind tunnelled through the valley, bringing with it a burst of freshness from the sea. The rain stopped abruptly, moving away inland.

  Attar gave him a crooked grin. ‘Times change, don’t they?’ he said. ‘When I first found you in the desert I thought I’d have to beat you senseless to get you on a serpent.’

  Tallis’s lips twitched into an almost smile. He remembered being afraid, but it was as if the memories belonged to another person. Now it was the serpents that feared him in some ways.

  ‘When you first found me I didn’t know who I was,’ he said. ‘Or what I could do.’

  ‘Didn’t stop you trying.’

  ‘No. Not when those I love are at risk.’

  Attar nodded. ‘Jared. He was a good lad, I liked him. Hell,’ he smiled, ‘even Bren liked him, poor bastard.’ He sighed and clapped Tallis’s shoulder, then let his hand drop. ‘He would have liked to have been here for this war,’ he said. ‘Loved a good fight, Bren did.’

  ‘He might be the only one,’ Tallis said. The day when he and Attar had been attacked by Azoth’s rogue serpents at that isolated farmhouse was still a painful memory. Bren had been ripped from Haraka’s back to fall to his death, and Jared had taken the injury that had forced them to seek aid in the Wild Lands. He put a hand on Marathin’s hide and climbed up her foreleg onto her back. If he had been better that day, in control of his ability, maybe he could have saved them both. Jared would be here with him now.

  ‘Stop stewing, clansman,’ Attar called out as he mounted Haraka. ‘Weren’t your fault. Men go into a fight, they know there’s a chance they won’t come out of it.’

  Tallis look
ed at him sideways. ‘You sound like my mother,’ he said.

  Attar grinned, his teeth a white shine in the dark. ‘Smart woman that. She spoken for?’

  Tallis only shook his head. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have to get back.’ He touched a hand to the serpent’s skin and she leaped up into the night sky, heading fast and hard back to the Dome.

  ***

  Rorc watched the serpents become part of the night sky then turned back to Mailun. There was a lantern on the stone floor near her feet and it threw slanting light up on her face, illuminating the hard set of her mouth, the wariness in her eyes.

  She was so much the same and yet changed; lines at the corners of her eyes where there had been none, strands of grey in her dark hair, and a look in her eyes of years passed filled with more pain than he would ever have wished for her. How much of that had been his doing?

  ‘How long have they known?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘A day, no more.’ She watched him closely, almost as if he might spring at her. He had forgotten how the blue of her eyes was like a storm-dark sea. Darker when she was angry, or upset, or … He forced his thoughts away from those memories and walked to the edge of the roof to give her some distance.

  ‘You can stop looking at me like that,’ he said. ‘You know I wouldn’t hurt you, Mailun.’

  ‘There is more than one way to hurt.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ He held her gaze until she looked away. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I would have, if I’d known. But you were gone before I had the chance. And perhaps that was for the best. I found another to take your place.’

  There was no bitterness in her tone, but the words nevertheless struck at his heart like cold arrows, which surprised him after all these years.

  ‘I left to protect you, Mailun, not because I didn’t want to stay.’

  ‘Protect me from what?’ She strode toward him, covering the distance in three steps. ‘Your own failings, your own demons?’ Anger made her face pale, her blue eyes blazing dark. ‘And even if I had known to tell you before you ran, would you have stayed? Can you say for sure you would have?’