“Can I speak to him?” Brose asked.
“He’s got other problems at the moment. Your news is going to have to wait a little while, I fear.”
No sooner had Wrayan spoken than an outraged bellow exploded from inside Damin’s tent. Rorin and Brose both looked at the tent in concern and then turned to Wrayan for an explanation.
“Ah … now that would be the problem I spoke of.”
“Has something happened?” Rorin asked.
“Nothing you don’t already know about, Rorin,” Wrayan told him. “I suspect that cry, however, was either the Warlord of Dregian Province learning his mother is dead, or Toren Foxtalon of Pentamor learning the new Warlord of Sunrise Province is a woman.”
CHAPTER 73
Luciena gave little further thought to Emilie and her morbid souvenir from Mahkas Damaran’s infected arm. They were getting very close to the day the evacuation was scheduled to begin and she had a great deal more on her mind than what Emilie was up to. With Mahkas temporarily bedridden, she was much less concerned than she had been about her daughter in any case, although Luciena doubted they had more than a few days before Mahkas was up and about again, wreaking havoc and terror with equal abandon.
Mahkas’s wound had been infected, not gangrenous, and once cleaned of the contamination, with the maggots eating the diseased flesh, he was already much improved. His temperature was almost back to normal and Darian Coe was talking about Mahkas being well enough to leave his bed in a matter of days.
It would have been so much easier for everyone if they could have kept him sedated until the evacuation was over, but Xanda wasn’t willing to push their luck. Mahkas’s temporary incapacity had been a gift from the gods, allowing much of the final preparation to take place. They were less than two days away from escaping this place and desperate to give the impression that nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
Something out of the ordinary was going on, however. Not sure what had woken her, Luciena guessed it was past midnight. She turned over restlessly, opened her eyes briefly and discovered Emilie standing beside the bed in her nightdress, holding a single candle, her face streaked with tears.
“Emilie?” she whispered, careful not to wake Xanda. “What’s the matter, darling? What are you doing here? Did you have a nightmare?”
Emilie shook her head as she sniffed away her tears. “You have to come with me, Mama. I have to show you something.”
“It’s the middle of the night, darling.”
“You have to come, Mama. It’s important.”
The child was obviously distraught about something. Luciena threw the covers back and sat up, rubbing her eyes. The movement disturbed Xanda. He reached across to her, his eyes opening when he found only emptiness where a moment ago there had been the warmth of another body.
“Luci?”
“Emilie’s here,” she told him softly. “I think she’s had a nightmare.”
Xanda opened his eyes wider and peered at them in the flickering gloom of the single candle. “Em? What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“You have to come with me,” she insisted. “Both of you. I have to show you something.”
There was a quiver in her voice that begged to be taken seriously. Without another word, Xanda climbed out of bed and walked around the big four-poster to his daughter. “Then show us, Emilie,” he said, offering her his hand.
Emilie accepted her father’s hand and with Luciena on her other side, she raised the candle to light their way and the three of them made their way out of the bedroom, into the darkened halls of Krakandar Palace.
Emilie led them to the day nursery on the ground floor. They encountered nobody on their strange walk, padding barefoot along the cold granite floors of the palace, their way lit by a single candle, the chill eased only by the occasional rug. She opened the door when they arrived and led her parents inside.
“What is it you want to show us, darling?” Luciena asked. She looked around the nursery, but on casual inspection nothing seemed to be amiss.
Emilie left her parents by the door and walked to the fireplace. The banked fire glowed red in the darkness. She reached up to the mantel and lifted down one of the ornaments, and then brought it back to the table where she placed it beside the candlestick.
“Do you remember this, Papa?”
Xanda nodded as he and Luciena approached the table. “Of course I do. It was a present to me from your great-grandmother, Jeryma, when I was six years old. Your Uncle Travin used to have one just like it.”
“It got broken, didn’t it?” she asked. “When your mama killed herself at Winternest?”
Xanda nodded again, unsurprised by the question. Years ago, Emilie had asked why she didn’t have any grandparents and with surprisingly little fuss, Xanda had told her the reason. He hadn’t told her much, but what he’d told her was the unvarnished truth. As for how Mahkas had retrieved the shattered pieces of Xanda’s little horse and knight and rebuilt it for his distraught nephew—that story was a legend in this family.
“And then Uncle Rorin sealed the breaks again much later, didn’t he?” Emilie asked, as if confirming in her own mind that she had the story straight. “When he first came to Krakandar?”
“I believe he was showing off his magical talent to Uncle Damin and the others,” Luciena told her with a faint smile. “Is this what you wanted to show us, Em?”
The little girl shook her head and held out her hand. In her palm was the tiny blue thorn Darian Coe had extracted from Mahkas Damaran’s arm.
“I wanted to show you this,” she said, picking up the little horse and knight. Carefully, she took the thorn and placed it against the broken tip of the knight’s lance.
“By the gods …” Xanda breathed in astonishment.
Luciena shared her husband’s shock, wondering if she was imagining things. Perhaps she was still asleep upstairs and this was just her own nightmare, vivid and sharp, but a nightmare, nonetheless.
But it wasn’t a dream, Luciena knew. And it wasn’t a blue thorn they’d dug out of Mahkas Damaran’s arm.
It was the missing tip of the lance belonging to Xanda’s little blue porcelain horse and knight.
“Darian Coe said it had been deep in his arm for years,” Luciena told her husband a little while later as he examined the horse and the broken tip, still too stunned to take in what it might imply.
Xanda put the horse down and looked at Luciena, his expression bleak. “Which means it’s been there since the night my mother died.”
“So it would seem.” Luciena turned to her daughter. “Emilie, what made you think there was a connection between your father’s old toy horse and the piece we removed from Mahkas’s arm?”
“It was the colour, Mama. Walsark Blue. Uncle Travin told me once that Walsark is the only place in the whole world where they could make a glaze that colour.” The child shrugged. “I didn’t really understand what he was telling me. I just thought it was strange that the thing in Uncle Mahkas’s arm was the same colour as Papa’s little horse so I brought it down here to see if it was the same.”
“But why tell us now? In the middle of the night? Couldn’t this have waited until morning?”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “It was really bothering me once I started to think about it … about how they were exactly the same colour … so I snuck down here and put them together and that’s when I discovered the little thing from Uncle Mahkas’s arm really was the tip of the lance from Papa’s little knight … and then I remembered what Darian Coe said about how long it had been in his arm … and I tried to figure out how it could have got there … so I went and saw Aunt Bylinda, but she didn’t know …”
“You woke Bylinda?” Luciena asked in concern. “That wasn’t very considerate of you, darling. She’s not well.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It didn’t help much anyway, because she didn’t even seem to know what I was talking about. But it kept bothering me, Mama. I couldn’t sleep … not unti
l I worked it out … and then I realised the only way the tip could have broken off so deep in Uncle Mahkas’s arm was if he’d been stabbed with it … and that made me think about your poor mother, Papa, and how she must have been arguing with Uncle Mahkas, maybe, before she killed herself and maybe that’s why she did it … and then thinking about her fighting with someone so hard she’d want to die afterwards made me cry … and then I came up to your room because I thought you might know why …” She sniffled and Luciena gathered her into her arms to comfort her.
“Come now, darling,” she whispered soothingly. “It all happened a long, long time ago. There’s no need to be so upset about it now.”
“Your mother’s right, Em. Why don’t you go back to bed? I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.”
“Do you think so, Papa?”
He smiled. “I’m sure of it.”
Rather than raise the household, Luciena took Emilie back to bed herself, and stayed with her until she’d drifted off to sleep. It was nearly an hour later that she returned to her room only to find Xanda hadn’t come back to bed.
Curiously, she made her way back to the day nursery where she found her husband sitting at the table where she’d left him, turning the little horse over and over in his hands, staring into the darkness. The candle had burned down to a mere stub, but Xanda didn’t seem to notice.
“I’d thought you’d be in bed by now.”
“I won’t sleep any more this night.”
Luciena took the seat beside him and placed her hand over his. “It’s like you told Emilie, Xanda. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.”
“I know what the explanation is, Luci. He killed her.”
“Mahkas?”
“That night is burned in my memory like it happened yesterday. My mother wasn’t suicidal. She wasn’t even particularly unhappy. I remember a letter had arrived. A Raider brought it to my mother. It was Raek Harlen, I think. After she got the letter she went as still as a rock. She didn’t open it. Didn’t read it … she just sat there with the letter in her lap, full of … I don’t know how to describe it really. I used to think it was fear, but now I’m older and I look back on it, I don’t think it was feat It was anticipation.”
“Do you know what was in the letter?”
Xanda shook his head. “I just remember a little while later Mahkas coming in to speak to her. He told us to go find Veruca, that we could have a treat, although I don’t remember doing anything to deserve it. And then later—I don’t know how long it was—Mahkas came out and told Veruca that our mother wanted dinner in her rooms and that he’d take Travin and me in to say goodnight to her.”
Luciena frowned. “He took you to see her? Xanda, do you realise what you are saying? That he hanged your mother with a harp string and then took her sons back to discover her corpse?”
“Sounds like the Mahkas we all know, doesn’t it?” Xanda suggested bitterly.
Luciena put her head in her hands, having trouble thinking even Mahkas could do anything so cruel. “But … it’s almost inconceivable … he raised you. How could he kill your mother and then treat you and Travin like his own sons?”
“Look what he did to Leila and how he behaves around Emilie,” Xanda pointed out. “It’s not out of character for him.”
She was having trouble digesting this. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Xanda. I just don’t understand why. What could possibly have been in that letter that would provoke him to kill your mother?”
“I’m not sure we’ll ever know.” Xanda shrugged. “Raek Harlen might have known what the letter contained, but he’s dead now. The letter came from Laran Krakenshield, I believe, and he’s been dead since Damin was a baby. He died on a border raid with Mahkas …” His voice trailed off. “All the witnesses are dead. All killed by Mahkas.”
“Even Laran Krakenshield?” she said, wondering if Xanda’s grief was getting the better of him. This was tipping over into the realms of the surreal. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Ask any man who was on that raid, Luci, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. The gods know I’ve heard the story often enough. Laran was unhorsed and wounded, but on his feet and fighting with Mahkas on his way to help, the last anyone saw of him. The next thing they knew, Laran was dead and Mahkas was apologising for not being quick enough.”
“That doesn’t mean he killed his own brother, Xanda.”
“In a fight, one can kill just as effectively by deliberate inaction as they can by deliberate action, you know.”
Luciena was getting a headache from trying to unravel Xanda’s train of thought. “So, you’re saying your mother got a letter from Laran Krakenshield and something in that letter drove Mahkas to kill her. At the very least, it made your mother angry enough to stab him with the nearest thing at hand, which turned out to be your little horse and knight. So he kills her, or at least she’s now upset enough to kill herself …”
“Luciena, just consider how upset you’d have to be to kill yourself,” he said. “And how long it’d take you to come to a decision like that. Suicides are not happy people, Luci. An hour before she died, my mother was restringing her harp. You’re not going to take on a job like that if you’re not planning to be around to play it.”
“So whatever was in that letter, Mahkas was willing to kill for it,” she concluded. “How do you know it came from Laran Krakenshield?”
He shrugged. “I think Veruca told me later … much later, actually. We were living in Krakandar by then. All I really know, other than who sent the letter, was that it happened around the same time as the Fardohnyans killed Riika Ravenspear.”
“Who was Riika Ravenspear?”
“My mother’s half-sister.”
She smiled at him. “You people really do get around, don’t you?”
“I know. It gets complicated. Anyway, she was kidnapped out of Wintemest by the Fardohnyans in the mistaken belief that she was Marla. When they realised they had the wrong girl, they killed her.”
“Perhaps the letter had something to do with Riika’s death?”
Xanda threw his hands up. “What difference does it make now, Luci? It’s all just idle speculation, really.”
“What about the spear tip?”
“That just proves he was in the room with my mother, but we knew that. At best it proves she may have been angry enough to stab him with it, but it’s not proof he actually killed her.”
“How can I help, Xanda?” she asked, hoping she could do something to ease the pain in his eyes.
“Kill Mahkas.”
“Other than that.”
“Get yourself and the children out of here.”
“It’s only a couple of days away now.”
“Less than that,” he told her, glancing out the window. The sky was already noticeably lighter than it had been. “It’s almost dawn.”
“Another day closer to honouring Dacendaran with the entire population of Krakandar,” Luciena agreed. “I hope the God of Thieves appreciates what Starros is doing for him. Although I worry we’ll all be counted as his disciples after this for aiding the Thieves’ Guild. What do you think?”
“I suppose,” Xanda replied, but she could tell her poor attempt to change the subject was having little or no impact.
She took his hands in hers and smiled encouragingly. “Xanda, don’t dwell on what this means. As you said, there’s no real proof and nothing can be done at the moment. Besides, I suspect once Damin gets back, your thirst for vengeance will find plenty of blood to sate it.”
“Do you really think Damin will kill Mahkas when he comes home?”
“You saw him the day Leila died, Xanda. You tell me.”
Her husband didn’t seem convinced. “He’ll have cooled off by now. War may even have taught him a little common sense.”
“Now, now … let’s not go looking for miracles, my love.”
Xanda frowned. “He’s not
that bad, Luci.”
“I know. I’m only teasing.”
“What do you think Travin will do when I tell him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Bylinda knows?”
Luciena shrugged. “She’s been married to Mahkas a long time. Maybe she does. Maybe she turns a blind eye to that part of him. If you discount his tendency to murder members of his own family at the drop of a hat, or his unfortunate habit of beating people half to death when he’s feeling a little peeved, I suppose he’s not such a bad person.”
Xanda smiled. “I know what you’re up to. You’re trying to cheer me up, aren’t you?”
“Is it working?”
“Not really. I do appreciate the effort though.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “But for future reference, Luci my love, when you’re trying to cheer someone up, fewer reminders of murder and mayhem would probably be a very good start.”
Luciena leaned forward and kissed her husband’s forehead, wishing again there was something she could do to ease the pain in his eyes.
And some way of speeding up time so that she could get her children out from under the roof of a madman.
CHAPTER 74
It was an odd band who set out from Lasting Drift to return to Krakandar. Besides Damin, there was Wrayan Lightfinger, Prince Lunar Shadow Kraig of the House of the Rising Moon, his two bodyguards, Lyrian and Barlaina, and the messenger from the Thieves’ Guild, Brose Rollin.
Damin had left Almodavar in charge of the Krakandar troops. He was, in fact, far better qualified for the position than Damin, and would supervise their post-battle duties and their eventual withdrawal from the battlefield more competently than any other man alive. Because of his age and reputation, even the younger Warlords deferred to his wisdom on occasion, so Damin anticipated few problems getting his men home once the aftermath of the battle of Lasting Drift was dealt with.
It was no easy task, cleaning up after a battle. There were thousands of dead to be buried, even more prisoners to cater for. They had to be counted and identified, not to mention housed and fed, until arrangements could be made to get them home. With the Widowmaker blocked, unless they were willing to march them, en masse, across Sunrise Province down to Highcastle on the coast (something Tejay was vehemently opposed to because of the manpower and cost of such an expedition), their only other option was to use the Fardohnyan prisoners to reopen the pass. The proposal even had the support of Axelle Regis, who—for the sake of convenience—had retained command of his army, albeit under the close supervision of Tejay Lionsclaw.
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