Damon had moderately recovered from their run. He rolled over onto his stomach and turned himself so he could survey the huge fortress and the small city appended to its outer walls. “How do you propose we get across? I can’t swim that. I daresay you can’t either.”
Hool snorted. “We just need a boat, stupid.”
Damon made a show of searching his clothing. “I seem to be fresh out of boats, Hool.”
“Well what is your smart plan, then?”
“If we go downriver to Dunnmayre, we can take the ferry over. This is what I said before.”
“Dunnmayre is a town. They will recognize me. It won’t work. Besides, that will take two days at least. I want Sahand dead tonight.” Hool searched up and down the banks of the river for any sign of habitation. There was precious little. The land on which they stood was not farmable and was barely suitable for livestock—a cold, gray-green tundra stretched out in every direction, fading into the jagged mountains of the Dragonspine in the east and the green-black fir trees of the Great Forest to the west. To the north, the Whiteflood.
Hool growled, “There must be something.”
Damon shook his head. “Very well. Let’s have a look.”
Into the dusk, Hool prowled the banks of the river, keeping herself hidden behind the scraggly trees and thorn-covered bushes that cropped up along the shore. Damon followed along at a distance, strumming his lute as he went. He was the lure—or at least such was Hool’s plan. Boaters on the river would see him and, hearing his music, draw closer. Then, when they were close enough, Hool would pounce and steal the boat.
There were boats on the river, too—a great many, traveling to and fro, their flat decks piled with lumber and casks and crates—but they all stuck to the northern bank of the river, most of them pulling up alongside the great triangular arm of the Citadel that thrust into the river itself. It seemed no boats came their way because there simply wasn’t anything on the south bank to draw them, music or no.
No boats came. No people. Not even any animals.
Hool growled to herself all that night. If this was what Dellor was like, she hated it. It was ugly and cold and empty and cruel. It was a place where nothing grew except brambles and scruff grass. She hated the idea that she would have to spend yet another day here, where the air smelled only of snow and pine and cold mud.
Yet they had no choice, which rankled Hool even more.
The next day they doubled back over the same ground, Damon walking ahead, Hool stalking behind. Still nothing. Dellor refused to grant them any stroke of luck. Hool wanted to howl.
Damon, though, he had only smiles for her, and his stupid jokes, and his pretty songs. She did not know how he could sing in a place like this.
The second night on the banks, they lay side by side between two big boulders, hiding themselves from everything around. The stars—bright and innumerable as they had been on the Taqar—were visible only in a jagged strip of unobscured sky. It was cold, but Damon strummed his lute and quietly sang a song about summer and the flowers a man picked for his wife.
Hool waited for it to be over before saying anything. “Why are you not upset?”
Damon raised a bushy eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
“We have been wandering this awful place for days, but you are not mad or grouchy or whining. Why not?”
Damon laughed. “Would you like me to complain more often?”
“No,” Hool said. “But I don’t understand. You complained in Ayventry and Galaspin and the Wild Territory, and those were all a lot nicer than this.”
Damon thought about this, then said, “They were. I think that was why I complained.”
“Explain!”
Damon searched for the words for a few moments, idly testing out some chords on his lute. They sounded awful. “All my life I was taught to struggle to be wealthy. My mother, my sisters, and I were poor, our father having fought on the wrong side of Perwynnon’s war and paying for it by losing his life and his lands. As the only son, I had to work my way back up the ladder, as it were. If my sisters were to find good husbands, I had to distinguish myself on the field of honor. If my mother fell ill, I needed to win a tournament to pay the doctor. So I did—I fought and I worked and I struggled and I got my family a small house in the city and I saw my sisters married off to kindly gentlemen and I saw my mother buried with honor.”
“I am waiting for this to make sense,” Hool growled.
Damon laughed. “I was miserable. I felt like a . . . like this wretched thing. A nobody. Gods, I was a nobody. A passably good duelist, but landless and fairly poor and without prospects, and the lack made me miserable. When I entered your service, I saw everything that I ever worked for wiped away—my good name, my titles, my ties with family—”
“You didn’t have to do that! I told you that!”
Damon held up one hand. “Please, let me finish.” When Hool settled down, he continued. “The complaining I did before was a . . . a residue of my old life. I could only see what I was losing. Now . . . now that I’ve lost everything, I can finally see what I have.”
Hool’s ears perked up. “What could you possibly have? A lute? A sword?”
“I have a beautiful sky. I have peace in my heart.” Damon smiled at her. “And I have you.”
“Me?”
“You never believed me when I told you that I loved you. But I do. Not as a man loves a woman, perhaps—that is never to be—but I still love you more than I ever loved any woman, Hool of the Taqar. I am simply blessed to share in your adventures, wherever they lead.”
Hool stared at him. “That . . . that is the stupidest thing anybody has ever said to me.”
Damon shrugged. “I never claimed to be very smart.”
Hool turned away from him. “Let’s go to sleep. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“As you wish.”
Hool tried to let herself doze off, but it didn’t take. Instead, she found herself counting the breaths of the strange man pressed against her, feeling the beat of his heart, and puzzling over his words.
It took a long time before she found sleep.
At dawn, they came upon a boat.
It was a small craft—perhaps fifteen feet long and narrow and pointed at one end, like a giant woman’s slipper. There were two men aboard, each with fishing poles. Hool did not wait for them to notice her from her rocky hiding spot—she pounced upon the boat, intending to hurl the men into the water.
Instead, she immediately capsized the boat.
Hool fell into the water and instantly panicked. The wet was so cold it stole her breath and so dark it obscured her vision. Her nostrils filled with its watery stink. She thrust down with her feet—she could stand! Relief flooded her limbs.
The men were shouting. They swam to shore and were running away. Roaring, Hool charged out of the water after them.
The closest one—an old man—had a paddle that he swung like a club. Hool caught it and tore it away from him before slapping him to the ground with the back of one hand.
“Papa!” screamed the other one—a boy. He had out a small knife and he pointed it at Hool. “Arghhh!” he yelled, slashing through the air. “Back! Back, beast!”
Hool picked up a rock and threw it, hitting the boy in the shoulder hard enough to break a bone. He yelped and fell to the ground, dropping the knife. Hool sprinted over and kicked the knife away. Grabbing the boy by the scalp, she lifted him off the ground.
“Hool!” Damon shouted, scrabbling out of their hiding place. “Stop! Stop, by all the gods!”
The boy squirmed in her grasp and Hool slammed him on the ground. “Why?”
Damon crouched by the man. “They’re not your enemies, Hool! They’re just fishermen, for Hann’s sake!”
Hool looked down at the boy, who was wheezing with pain at her feet. “These are Sahand’s people. These are Dellorans!”
Damon shook his head. “Are they wearing tabards? Mail? These aren’t the ones
who killed your Brana or your Api, Hool! They’re just as much the victims of Sahand as you are!”
Hool frowned down at the two fishermen. She stepped over their prone bodies. “Fine. Just get in the boat.”
Damon let out a long breath. “As you wish.”
They rowed out into the river. Well, Damon did, anyway. Hool sat toward the bow, the Fist of Veroth across her knees, focusing on keeping her center of balance in the middle of the wobbly, thin boat. She scarcely could look around at first. “I think this boat is broken!” she called.
“It’s not broken. Just hold still!” Damon dipped his oars into the water and pulled. The boat shot forward and at good speed. With every sweep of his oars, the Citadel grew closer. And closer.
And bigger.
The walls—weather-scarred and ancient—seemed taller than the clouds. Looking at them made Hool feel very small indeed. Her heart raced. This was her goal. This was where she was supposed to be.
“How do you propose to get in?” Damon asked.
“Keep rowing,” Hool said, her eyes fixed on the towering battlements. “Don’t distract me.”
There were riverboats ahead—large, flat-bottomed barges. These were the kind they’d been watching from the opposite shore the last two days, piled high with all manner of supplies. Hool pointed at them. “Follow those.”
The men aboard the boats used sails or oars or long poles to push themselves toward that outer spur of the Citadel’s huge walls. As they got closer, Hool could make out the base of the wall—it stood open! It didn’t close off the river, it let the river in!
Her ears perked up. “See?” She twisted to look at Damon. “There! We can get in there!”
Damon looked pale. “Hool, there will be guards.”
She waved the Fist of Veroth. “I will kill them. Go!”
Damon obeyed.
Ahead of them, one by one, the barges full of supplies vanished into the belly of the Citadel. What seemed like a small crack at the base of the wall yawned in front of them—a fifteen-foot-tall opening that stretched for fifty yards from the shore. Sniffing the air, Hool could smell the forges and coal fires beyond, and the scent of sorcery beneath that. She heard the jingle of mail and the creak of leather and the clomp of boots on stone—Delloran soldiers.
Her enemies.
They were almost in . . .
Until a chain sprang up on front of them, wet and rusty from the river. In the gloom of the entrance, a rough voice called out. “Halt! Who goes there?”
Hool gripped the Fist of Veroth with both hands, the raw power of her rage funneling into it at once. She stood, for once confident in her balance aboard the little boat. She roared into the dark gloom. “I am Lady Hool of the Taqar! Your master, Banric Sahand, murdered my pups! Now I come to take his hide as my own and wear it as a warning to others! Stand aside or die!”
The Fist of Veroth flared with fiery brilliance, lighting the gloomy opening beyond. Hool could see two squat stone battlements rising out of the water, each packed with soldiers armed with crossbows. She showed them her fangs and howled.
“Hool!” Damon yelled from behind her. “Get down!”
Hool didn’t listen. He was just a frightened little man. This was her moment—she would not be a rabbit.
Today she was the lion.
The crossbows clacked even as Hool made her first swing. Four bolts caught her in the chest, arm, stomach, and leg. Her body crumpled, but she still had the energy to strike the water with the enchanted mace. A huge wave exploded upward where it hit, coupled with a thunderclap that made the air itself shake.
Hool willed herself to her feet again. She willed herself to pounce into that darkness, to swing her mace again and again.
But her legs would not obey. She coughed, and felt blood spill down her chin and from her nostrils. The boat was spinning, bobbing like a cork. She felt Damon’s hand clutch around her wrist. Then there was his face, yelling, but he sounded so distant. “Hool!” he said. “Hold on! Just hold on!”
He went back to the oars.
Hool tried to rise one last time, but the bolts were deep inside her and, next to her, she could feel the Fist of Veroth grow cold and dark.
Whimpering, she closed her eyes.
She had failed.
Chapter 16
Mind Games
Lyrelle Reldamar did not stoop to scratching little marks into the walls to count the days. She knew how many days she had been here. She knew how many hours. If she could not remember something as trivial as that, what point was there to going on?
Indeed, that was the question she entertained most often of late. She was maimed, old, and completely extraneous now—whatever chance she had to manipulate events was past. All her plots were finished that night in Eretheria, just as she had suspected. She just hadn’t expected to live. She wondered daily why she continued to bother.
Out her window gave her a view of the Whiteflood and beyond it the stark countryside of Dellor. Nothing but rocky, windswept hills and scraggly yellow grass. The smell of snow was always in the air, and the wind was like knives when it blew.
Sooner or later, she would take ill. There was no doubt. The hard cheese and stale crackers, the flat, tepid water—in his caution to contain her, Sahand courted her death. In the beginning she had thought to escape—there were ways, especially given that her jailor was a grandiose coward. In any event, she had stopped trying very hard to turn him—why bother escaping? All she did from time to time was weep and do her best to look pathetic when the poor little wretch came to feed her. Neither of these things were much of a challenge.
She ran her index finger along the scabbed-over lump of flesh to which her left thumb had once been attached. Perhaps this was what she deserved. After all those decades making the world dance, surely a quick death was too much to ask in return. Fate wished to see her suffer, and so she suffered. There was no need to get indignant.
She heard a rattling of keys in the lock—Arkald coming to deliver breakfast. She pulled herself out of a slouch and faced the door, waiting. When he came in, he would notice how thin she was becoming, thanks to the light of the sun pouring through her gauze-thin robe. She let her face droop, but not too much—she wanted to look tired, but also look like she was trying to hide it. It was a pointless game, she knew, but she had very little else to do. Playing head games with Arkald was literally all she had left to entertain her.
The door popped open only a few inches—just enough for Arkald to poke his bony, hairless head in. The expression on his face told her immediately that this was not an ordinary visit. His eyes, fairly alight with terror, looked her up and down—confirming her existence—and then popped out again.
Lyrelle took a deep, calming breath. Not a visit from Arkald, then. She adjusted her posture once more, this time seeking to banish any indication of discomfort or fatigue. She flattened her skirt against her legs and brushed her hair away from her face.
She sat prepared to face Banric Sahand.
The door was pushed open all the way, hard enough so it banged against the wall. Just like Sahand—never a gentle touch where a blow might do. The Mad Prince swaggered into the cell with a criminal leer—one would think he intended to seduce her, absurd as that was. He was wearing his fur cloak and a long dagger at his belt, but no sword—a nod to her as a dangerous adversary, she supposed, though the idea that she might thumblessly wrestle a blade away from the old campaigner was completely ludicrous. When he spoke, he grinned widely, his teeth glinting through the ragged hole in his cheek. “Lyrelle.”
Lyrelle nodded politely. “Good morning, Banric. How go the wars?”
Whatever she had said she struck a nerve. Sahand’s gloating expression melted away, replaced by cold fury. He strode across the cell and slapped Lyrelle with the back of a gloved hand. Lyrelle felt as though she had been struck by a horse. She fell on the ground, the room spinning.
Sahand was yelling at her. “You knew! I’ll be damned if I know how, bu
t you knew!”
Lyrelle took her time rising while she digested this information. Interesting. She spat blood onto the floor. “I’m quite sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sahand yanked her off the ground by the collar of her robe and slammed her against the wall, pinning her a foot off the ground with his meaty hand around her throat. The impact knocked the breath out of her lungs, leaving her wheezing. “Who do you think you’re dealing with, eh?” He thrust a thick finger under her nose. “I know you, Lyrelle. I’ve known you for forty years. I know how your mind works.”
Lyrelle forced a thin little smile. “If that were true,” she choked out, “I would have been in this tower long before now.”
Sahand snapped his fingers behind him. “Arkald! Come!”
The bony necromancer poked his head through the door as though expecting it to be lopped off. “Yes, sire?”
Sahand twirled a finger, indicating the walls of the little cell. “Inspect every inch of this chamber—I want to see where the flaw is in your prison.”
Arkald bowed deeply. “I assure you, Your Highness, there is no flaw. I was most careful.”
Sahand whipped his head around to glare at the necromancer. “Do. It.”
As Arkald scurried away, Lyrelle kept herself composed, despite the pain in her face and the pressure on her throat and jaw. Blood leaked into her mouth from a split lip. “You have such a way with people, Banric.”
Spittle sprayed out from Sahand’s ruined cheek. “I know you have been advising them somehow. It’s the only way they could have evaded that little trap—the only way—and I want to know why. What do you hope to gain? Rescue? Ha! They’re a thousand miles away! So what is it, witch? What is your foul little scheme this time?”
The Far Far Better Thing Page 17