“I'm coming,” he said. “You need more than four people to protect Meaghan.”
“No,” Darvin said firmly. “You're too young. You need to—”
“Your son is a man now,” Cal interrupted, and then nodded at Mycale. “I know your character, lad. I know your bravery. It would be an honor to have you with us.”
“Good,” Faillen said and clapped his hand on Mycale's shoulder. “Now let's go rescue Caide.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
RAIN SATURATED the ground, transforming it into thick mud the consistency of day-old pudding. It coated Caide's feet and suctioned them to the ground when he tried to move. He hated it. He hated the way it pelted the buildings, drumming against the windows in a rhythm that seemed to lull everyone into a dream-like state. He hated the way it rolled rivers down slopes in the roads, and pooled along houses. He hated the way it hid the sun and the moon, disguising time behind thick, black clouds. And he hated the way it reminded him every minute, and every hour over the past three days that he had created it.
He had had no other choice after Stilgan threatened to kill Emma. Each task Stilgan assigned him, each spell the Mardróch leader wanted him to create, Caide honored without complaint or question. Stilgan's demands moved from levitating rocks and hypnotizing the Mardróch army to forcing tribal members to dance like dolls, their arms and legs jerking like puppets' through the air until they grew too exhausted to stand. Caide turned from the sight, appalled by his own actions, but he knew what he did served a greater purpose. The tribal members remained unharmed when he was through. Emma would not if he did not convince Stilgan he was as much a puppet as the men who danced before him.
He held Emma's life in mind, using it as justification for his actions, but as the tasks grew harder, he found it more difficult to continue. He wondered how far he could allow Stilgan to push him before Emma's life became too much of a cost for Stilgan's commands.
Caide beseeched the villagers for guidance. Many of them knew his plan, and understood it so that when torture became Stilgan's goal, his victims nodded their consent before Caide began. Knowing they allowed him to hurt them in exchange for Emma's life did not ease Caide's guilt. Each cry of pain drove a blade through his heart. Each drop of blood turned his veins cold. And every second he brought misery to another person's life brought hopelessness to his own.
When focusing on his goal of saving Emma no longer helped him wade through the sea of agony drowning him, he focused on her. He sought her face and the compassion he saw on it. He watched her hands and the way they knotted together with worry. And he focused on her eyes, and the solace she gave to him with her strength.
Lightning coursed across the sky, illuminating the rain soaked crowd and Caide narrowed his eyes at the Mardróch leader's back. Anger swelled within him, though he could not have the satisfaction of lashing out. His power had not grown strong enough to hurt Stilgan, let alone kill him.
That did not stop him from fantasizing about Stilgan's blood mixing with the rain, his body in pieces at Caide's feet.
Stilgan spun on his heels and Caide lowered his head in time to avoid the Mardróch's freezing gaze.
“I've been too easy on you,” he said and spread his lips wide in a grotesque smile. “You're animals, all of you. Certainly no more than that, though even my horse has more value than you.” Stilgan circled, taking a slow pass along the edge of the crowd. “Animals don't deserve pride.”
Caide gritted his teeth when Stilgan stopped in front of Emma and traced an index finger across her cheek. Caide had no idea what point Stilgan was trying to make, but he hoped he would get to it faster. If he continued pawing Emma, Caide's resolve would not hold.
Stilgan drew his fingers up to Emma's hair and pulled her head back. “I've left you your pride,” he hissed, then pushed her to the center of the circle. She fell to the ground a foot from Caide, but Caide resisted the urge to help her up. Stilgan wanted him to show his affection, and in effect, his weakness.
Caide looked from Emma to Stilgan and the Mardróch growled. “She'll choose,” he said. “She'll watch as you destroy what matters to her, what matters to all of you.”
Caide's stomach knotted, though he kept his anxiety from showing on his face. Would Stilgan make Emma choose Caide's next victim? The thought made him lose track of his breath for a moment. He scanned the crowd, the faces of the tribesmen, their eyes drawn down in grief and exhaustion and hoped Emma could avoid the horror of knowing she had subjected another person to Stilgan's torture.
“A building, swine. Your favorite.”
Several people in the crowd gasped and Caide understood. The tribe's culture, and in essence their pride, belonged to their history. They had cherished their village and buildings for centuries, preserving them as a way to connect to the past and extend their lives into the future. Though many would not know the importance of these buildings to the tribe, Stilgan had figured it out. He had figured out what mental toll losing them would take. Even Caide had looked to these buildings for strength and wisdom, gathering it from his ancestors, on a daily basis.
Emma looked up at Caide. Tears spilled over her cheeks, mixing with the rain, but she complied. She understood, as he did, that lives would come next if Stilgan did not feel entertained.
“The Gathering Hut,” she whispered.
Stilgan grinned again, flashing pointed teeth through the black fiber of his mouth. “I can't hear you. And do tell me why you love it so much.”
“The Tribal Gathering Hut,” Emma said louder. “It's where we share our stories.”
“You heard her,” Stilgan said to Caide. “Let's see if you can build a tornado.”
Caide swallowed hard and lowered his head. It did not take him long to find the words he needed to create a small funnel cloud. He only had to imagine Stilgan's head at the center of it. The wind tore apart the structure in minutes. Some in the tribe cried, but he knew their tears would fade in time, certainly sooner than the bruises still covering Emma's body.
Stilgan laughed and grabbed a fistful of Emma's hair again. He pulled her up to her feet and into the crook of his arm. Fear turned her face stark white.
Caide bit his tongue, using the taste of his own blood as a salve, and waited for Stilgan's next vile instruction. With a flick of a finger, his command became clear, and Caide's grandfather's hut became no more than mud and splintered wood raining from the sky. Stilgan's laughter turned giddy with joy, and Caide dissolved the tornado. The small act of defiance went unnoticed by the Mardróch leader.
“It's too cold in this rain,” Stilgan said. “Let's build a fire. What's next, piggy?”
“The…the,” Emma's voice shook.
“The, the, the,” Stilgan stuttered, taunting her. “Spit it out or I'll use you as kindling.”
“Ceremony Building,” Emma blurted.
Though Caide tried to avoid reacting, the thought of destroying the tribe's most sacred building shocked him into widening his eyes. Stilgan did not miss the small motion. He tossed Emma aside and focused on Caide.
“That one matters to you, does it boy?” He stepped closer and Caide could smell rotten flesh on Stilgan's breath. “I'll spare you having to construct a fire spell. I have one you'll love. Or at least, your family loved it.”
Leaning forward, Stilgan whispered it in Caide's ear. Caide did not know if the feel of Stilgan's clay-like skin against his neck or the words of the spell he recognized from his kidnapping that made him dizzy, but it took all his strength not to collapse in front of the Mardróch. He closed his eyes and repeated the spell back to Stilgan. Warmth radiated behind him. He opened his eyes again and turned to view the horror of his handiwork.
Despite the rain, his fire moved quickly over the wood building, eating through intricately painted wood as if it were paper. Caide tried to hold Emma's face in mind as he watched the greedy flames, but older memories found him instead.
So much of his childhood had taken place in the Tribal Ceremony Buildi
ng, so many of the tribe's revered moments had happened underneath its roof. His parents had wed there, as had his grandparents and his great-grandparents.
At least a dozen ceremonies took place there each year, from the annual harvest festival to the winter celebration of life. Caide could still remember the first time he had watched his mother and father dance together during the summer solstice party. They had seemed so carefree. His father had spun his mother around the floor, a grin stretched across her face as her skirt flared around them both. They had held each other close and then kissed in a way Caide's friends had teased him about, but he found comforting.
He had been young at the time, maybe eight, but he remembered it well. As he grew older, their love never waned and he noticed more evidence of it. In the way his father kissed his mother every morning, or comforted her when she cried. In the way he laughed when she made a silly joke, or smiled at her when she said something wise, as she had a habit of doing. And most recently, in the way they supported each other while they lived in Ærenden. They had missed Zeiihbu, perhaps even more than Caide had, but they often said what mattered most is they still had each other. Although the solitude had brought an air of sadness to his parents that Caide had not been used to seeing, it had also showed the strength of their devotion to each other. His father still looked at his mother like a man who regarded a treasured gift, and those looks had often made Caide wonder if he would have a relationship like theirs someday.
When watching the fire became too much to bear, Caide looked toward Emma and recounted the fire spell over and over in his mind. It was the last key he needed to help her escape. Caide had been trying to recreate the spell without success since the day of his kidnapping, but he had not heard enough of it to make it work. His attempts at writing a spell of his own had brought no more than smoke, and twice Stilgan had almost caught him in the effort.
Stilgan grinned at him once more and he steeled his spine for the next task. He could not imagine destroying anything worse than the Ceremony Building. Apparently, Stilgan could. He circled around the crowd once more, and then stopped in front of a towheaded boy not much older than Caide's younger brother. His hand latched onto the boy's shoulder. He dragged him into the center of the circle. The boy cried. His mother howled behind him, but did not get the chance to chase after him before Stilgan's guards dragged her away.
The young boy stared up at Caide in fright, and then whimpered when Stilgan tightened his fingers. Stilgan pushed the boy down to his knees and spoke the words Caide feared most.
“Kill him.”
Caide swallowed the bile wanting to charge up his throat. If he failed this test, the Mardróch would know Caide had been faking his cooperation. Caide pretended to follow through on the command. He strung menacing words together, knitting a spell he knew would be useless. He feigned frustration and surprise when it failed, and then anger when his second and third attempts also did nothing. He acted exhausted, forgetting words and dropping them mid-sentence, but as Stilgan's face turned red, he knew his act had not been convincing enough.
Stilgan handed him a knife and Caide did the only thing he could. He tossed it into the ground at the Mardróch's feet. Stilgan's twisted smile deepened the chill in Caide's blood, and he knew what would happen next. Before he had time to react, Stilgan grabbed Emma's arm and snapped it. Caide would never forget the sound her bone made when it broke, similar to a thick branch crunching beneath a layer of wet leaves, nor could he forget the cry of agony that escaped her mouth as she collapsed to her knees.
Caide's rage overcame him. He pulled the knife from the ground and launched it at the Mardróch. Stilgan deflected the attack, using his impervious cloak as a shield. Then he tossed Caide backward. Caide's head hit a rock, but he did not have time to process the pain before Stilgan slammed into him. The Mardróch circled his fingers around Caide's neck and blackness flooded his vision.
§
HE AWOKE in the middle of the night on the floor of his hut. A fire had long since burnt out, but the dark did not mask the fact Emma sat beside him. Her soft crying filled the room. He hated to hear it, but hated it more when he realized his actions had caused it.
“Emma,” he whispered and reached for her. His fingers brushed her shirt and she yelped. He bit the inside of his cheek, realizing he had brushed against her injured arm and rose to his feet. Rather than try to comfort her again and make the same mistake in the darkness, he found his way to the fireplace. A few minutes later, yellow flames cast light into the room.
Emma leaned over his bed. Her legs looked as though they had crumpled beneath her. She had fashioned a splint from two broken pieces of wood and several strips of torn cloth, but it hung loose. He approached and knelt beside her, then reached for one of the knots holding the cloth in place. She yanked her arm away from him.
“Let me help,” he said. “I know what I'm doing. My father taught me how to bandage wounds like yours. I can't set the bone, but I can make sure it's braced properly.”
He reached for the cloth again and she closed her eyes, paling with the light contact.
“I can't heal any longer,” she said after he had unknotted the bandage.
“You can't heal yourself. It's not possible.”
“No. I can't heal you. You have a concussion. Stilgan said if you're not healed by morning, he'll kill me.”
Caide pressed his lips together to control his anger and said nothing as he lined up the wood she had used as a splint and retied it. The knots he fixed were tight, and she winced, but did not cry.
“I have to heal you,” she whispered.
“No, you don't.” He removed a pillowcase from his bed. “You're in too much pain.”
“But Stilgan—”
“Won't have the chance to hurt you again,” Caide insisted and ripped the pillowcase apart at one seam with the strength of the anger he felt. “We're putting our plan in place first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I can't —”
“You'll do as I say,” he barked and grabbed another pillowcase from the bed. Her eyes flew open, then widened in shock, and the reaction stole the last of his words from his mouth, though his anger did not weaken. He ripped the second case into strips, and then tied them end-to-end. By the time he was through, his anger had lessened some, but her shock remained. Her lip trembled.
“Bend your arm,” he told her. She did, and he slipped her arm into the pillowcase he had left almost whole. He braced her elbow at the back of it, then tied the cloth rope he had created to either end of it to complete a sling. He drew the rope across her shoulder and around her back, and then moved behind her to untie one of the knots, readjusting it until he had the right length. When he sat down in front of her again, she closed her eyes. Tears streamed down her face and he realized his harsh words, not her pain, had caused them. He brought his hand to her cheek.
Her skin felt slick against his palm, and though he did not know why he did it, he leaned forward to brush a kiss across her lips. He tasted the salt from her tears and found it bittersweet. She opened her eyes. His palm slipped from her cheek to seek her uninjured hand.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
Her fingers slid between his. “You have a right to be mad at me. It's not fair that you have to use your power the way you do. I know I'm to blame for it.”
“No, you're not.” His grip tightened. She winced and looked away, but he did not decrease the insistence of his hold. “You're not to blame, Emma.”
Tears splashed down her cheeks again and he reached up to draw her against him, careful not to put too much pressure on her arm. She turned her head into his shoulder
“I'm not mad at you,” he whispered. “I blame Stilgan for this. I shouldn't have taken it out on you, but I worry too much about you to have you stay here. You know that.”
She nodded against his shoulder and drew her free arm around his neck. “I'm worried, too, Caide. If we do this, Stilgan will be furious. He doesn't know when he's gone too far a
nd without my power, he'll kill you. If I stay, I can keep healing you.”
“We've had this discussion,” Caide responded. He bracketed her shoulders and eased her away from him so he could study her face, and so she could see the seriousness on his. “You can't heal me if you're dead. And even if he does keep you alive a while longer, he'll use you to break me down. I can't have that. I don't want to have to choose between your life and someone else's.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Do your best to stay alive for me, won't you?”
“I will,” he promised and smiled. She returned the smile, though hers held as little joy as his.
She left soon after, though he doubted she slept any more than he did. He lay in bed all night, rehashing the escape plan in his mind until he had every detail memorized. The few times he slipped into slumber, he dreamed of the plan and awoke screaming when his mind twisted it into a dark nightmare that ended with Stilgan running his sword through Emma's body. Her hollow eyes haunted him through the night and into the next morning. They even stared back at him from the pools of rainwater gathering at his feet.
He turned his gaze away from the largest puddle to focus on the tribe members surrounding him. Stilgan had corralled them into a semi-circle at the center of town, forcing them to watch, as he had every morning since soon after Caide's arrival. Stilgan allowed only a handful of people to miss his show of command over Caide. The ill or injured, who lay on the cold floor of a hut close by so they could still hear any screams. And those who held cooking duty, though Stilgan had them stand in front of the crowd the next day to ensure they did not forget his dominance.
Stilgan's ritual always consisted of some sort of physical torture. He preferred a whip, though he resorted to more creative tactics whenever he felt Caide had insulted him. Stilgan gained equal pleasure from using knives, fire, and acid. This morning, he clutched a serrated blade in his bony hand. Yesterday's disobedience meant blood would flow. Caide swallowed his fear and recited. His lips barely moved. His voice made only the slightest whisper, but warmth filled him anyway and he focused on it, pushing it outward as Stilgan circled.
Aerenden: The Zeiihbu Master (Ærenden) Page 30