“You just deal with his bodyguards. Brahasti’s mine.” His wrath roiled in her mind, but she kept walking.
They had nearly reached the perimeter of the Dhargothi camp when someone behind them shouted. Word must have spread that some bold warrior had borrowed Ziraari’s favorite prize for his own pleasure. Perhaps even Ziraari had heard. She hoped not, since she did not have the strength to fight, let alone run.
Shade led her to a pair of horses, already saddled and waiting. A young Dhargot held the reins, obviously ordered to mind the horses until Shade’s return. The Dhargot’s eyes widened when he saw Zeia.
“Why—”
Shade whipped his sword across the young warrior’s neck before he could finish. Dropping the blade, he caught the dying man then dragged him behind some trees and deposited his body in the snow. Zeia looked around. It was still the middle of the night. Half the sentries were asleep. No one had even noticed.
She eyed the bloody sword lying in the snow. She started to reach for it, but Shade gestured, and it sailed clear of her grasp and into his.
“Kill me later, if you can. But Brahasti dies first.” He tossed her the dead man’s cloak.
Concealing her gratitude, she threw the garment over her shivering shoulders and fixed the spear-and-dragon clasp beneath her chin.
Shade sheathed his sword and helped her mount her horse. “There’s food and wine in the saddlebags. If we want to get away before they realize you’re gone, we ride until dawn.”
The prospect filled her with dread, but she nodded.
“And don’t fall off your horse,” Shade warned. “Fall, and I leave you behind. If you’re that weak, you’re no use to me anyway.”
Zeia fixed a derisive expression to her face. “I won’t fall, you bastard. I can promise you that.” She grasped the reins, hoping that was a promise she could keep. Then something else occurred to her. “Who was the third?”
Shade frowned. “What?”
“You said you killed three men to get me out. That was before you killed that boy holding your horse. But there were only two men guarding me. Who was the third?”
For a long time, Shade was silent. Finally, he said, “Ziraari isn’t quite as potent as he thinks.”
It was Zeia’s turn to be struck dumb. “You killed Ziraari…”
Shade kept his gaze straight ahead. “Once he discovered I’d left, our alliance would have fallen to dust anyway. This way, his army will be leaderless. They won’t be able to organize in time to pursue us.”
“But the Shel’ai you left behind… they’ll be blamed—”
“I’ll warn them through mindspeak when we’re well away,” Shade said. “I doubt they’ll mind one more dead Dhargot. If they want, they can join us at Coldhaven.”
“But when they find out what you did to Fadarah—”
“If I have to fight them, I will,” Shade snapped. “Honestly, I don’t expect to live that long.”
“On that, at least, we agree.”
Zeia was tempted to thank Shade for killing Ziraari but decided against it. It’s not like he did it for me, anyway.
They rode in silence for a while. Then Shade reined in so suddenly that Zeia tensed, thinking they were about to be attacked.
Shade said, “I almost forgot... ”
“What?”
A cold smile touched his lips. “Just a token of our new alliance. Given what Ziraari planned on doing to you, I took his favorite weapon as a souvenir.” He withdrew a small pouch and tossed it to her.
Zeia caught the wet pouch. She looked inside then wiped her hands on her cloak. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t keep your gift.”
“Do what you will. The point’s been made.” Shade flicked the reins.
“So it has.” Zeia carefully closed the pouch and tossed it over her shoulder. It landed in the snow with a sickening thud.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Captive Protector
Rowen tried to ignore the stares as he ascended the Path of Crowns. Morning light streamed through the broad, towering boughs of the World Tree, shining on the ancient white-and-emerald city. Most of the horrors of battle had been removed, and the walkway was crowded with the living again. Sylvan faces pressed in on all sides. Some eyed him with revulsion, others with reverence.
It’s Silwren they should be revering, not me.
Rowen tried to quicken his pace, but he could only move so fast, surrounded as he was by a squad of Sylvan warriors acting as his bodyguards. Though the warriors seemed none too happy with the duty, they had carried out their assignment faithfully.
Rowen smiled to himself. Only a few months ago, soldiers of the Red Watch had been safely conducting him through Lyos, much as the Sylvs were conducting him through Shaffrilon. Wherever he went, he needed someone to protect him.
He wondered who would protect him once he left the Wytchforest, now that Silwren was dead and Jalist was gone. He tapped Knightswrath’s hilt. He tried to remind himself that Silwren was still with him, somehow. He had only to draw the sword to feel something of her, buried deep within the sword’s magic. But the prospect of drawing the sword terrified him.
The sword’s terrible power seemed to be slumbering, but he still remembered the terrible visions the sword had given him, the firestorm that had nearly driven him mad. Though he’d forced himself to draw the blade a few times since then—and it appeared each time to be nothing more than a curve of finely wrought kingsteel—he still felt what slept within. It might wake on its own, but it would also wake if he called it. Something urged him to do so, even as another part of him longed to ungird the weapon and cast it as far away as he could.
Is this how Silwren felt when she was alive? So much power! Intoxicating but awful at the same time.
He shuddered. Pushing the thought from his mind, he distracted himself by trying to discern the speech of the Sylvs around him. Thanks to El’rash’lin, he had a passable knowledge of the Sylvan tongue. Listening to the heated whispers all around him, though, he almost wished he didn’t.
He wondered where they were taking him. He had asked, but none of his escorts would answer. Rowen had heard a rumor that General Seravin, terribly wounded and mutilated by Doomsayer himself, was miraculously still alive. Perhaps the general had regained consciousness and wanted to see him.
Rowen shook his head. He’d caught a glimpse of the general in the House of Healing, his many bandages soaked in blood. He doubted the general could have regained consciousness yet, if he ever would. Rowen doubted they were taking him to see the king. From what little he could glean, King Loslandril had locked himself in the palace after his son’s death and refused all visitors. He had not even bothered to tour his own city in the wake of the devastating battle. Many had already begun to speculate that Loslandril had gone mad—if he was still alive.
Given that Silwren had turned the king’s son into a candlewick, Rowen understood. Still, the prince had deserved it. “Are you taking me to see Briel?” Though he spoke in Sylvan, he was not surprised when the bodyguards ignored his question. But a moment later, he spied their apparent destination: a squat structure called the House of Questions.
“Another interrogation? Probably shouldn’t have left me armed, then.”
Unsmiling, the bodyguards led him inside, past more guards, to Captain Briel’s office. The Sylvan captain’s arm was still bandaged, his cheek swollen and marked with stitches. The former injury was the result of a confrontation with Silwren. The latter was self-inflicted, as a sign of penance when Briel surrendered to Rowen.
But if he surrendered, why am I the prisoner?
Briel looked up from a stack of papers. He dismissed the bodyguards with a wave and rose to his feet. Without offering to shake Rowen’s hand, he gestured to an empty chair and a full goblet of wine. “Sit. Drink.”
<
br /> “Not thirsty.”
“I’d rather you were drunk when I told you what I have to say.”
Rowen forced a smile. “Is this your attempt to poison me? I’m not sure I can be poisoned anymore.” He gave Knightswrath’s hilt a meaningful tap.
Briel’s expression darkened. “No poison, then. Sit, Human. For the moment, at least, I promise no one’s going to kill you.”
“No one’s going to try to kill me, you mean,” Rowen amended, though his bravado sounded foolish even to his own ears. He sat. He picked up the goblet but did not drink.
Briel sat, too. “For once, this isn’t about you. I have… a problem. It’s an old problem for my people, I suppose, but a new one for me. Another Shel’ai has been born.”
Rowen tensed. “Where? When?”
“Just last night, right here in the capital.” Briel tapped the blade of his sword. His fingernail rang against the metal. “The parents wanted to kill it. More than half my people probably agree. Only there happen to be rumors of some kind of half-Dragonkin wytch teaming up with a crazed Isle Knight to save this city from certain doom, so I guess the parents thought they’d check with me first.” He removed his hand from his sword, picked up his own goblet, and took a drink. “So what do you think I should do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there’s been something of a tradition for as far back as I can remember. Whenever a Sylvan child is born with purple eyes, he faces two possible fates. One is a quick death. The other is a slow one.” Though Briel did not blink, he white-knuckled his goblet.
Rowen resisted the impulse to leap out of his chair and draw Knightswrath. He forced a smile. “I’d suggest neither.”
“I thought as much.” Briel set down his goblet and leaned back in his chair. “So the infant isn’t to be poisoned, stabbed, or left on the plains to starve. I presume you don’t want it raised in neglect until it’s old enough to be banished, either.”
Rowen stared into the contents of his own goblet.
“That puts me in an odd position,” Briel continued. “If I did as Loslandril wanted—as that Dragonkin, Chorlga, apparently forced him to do—I’d have the support of more than half of the city. But I’d be perpetuating the same cruelty that bred this conflict in the first place.” He stared at Rowen as though awaiting an answer.
Rowen took a long drink of wine then carefully set down the goblet. Without standing, he drew Knightswrath and laid it carefully on the table in front of him. He gave Briel a hard look. “You’d also be giving me yet another reason to cut your fucking head off.”
Briel started to smile then stopped himself. “I figured I’d given you plenty by now.” He refilled Rowen’s goblet then refilled his own. “Don’t forget, Human, I turned against my king for you.”
“I’d like to think you did it to save your city.”
“Hard to say.” Briel drank. “Let’s speak plain, then. Shel’ai are going to continue to be born to Sylvs. Sylvs will continue to hate them. Even if I nail edicts to every wall and door and tree throughout Sylvos, even if I spend the rest of my life personally reminding every Sylv that Silwren saved them every bit as much as Fadarah endangered them, nothing will change.”
Rowen considered the change he’d already witnessed in the Wytchforest, but before he could argue, Briel continued.
“Listen, Knight. If you want to be the naïve champion of the weak and the innocent, if you want to put a stop to the madness that got us here in the first place, I don’t need threats. I don’t need your Codex Lotius, with its poetry. I need a place close by—a safe, real place—where I can send these unwanted children. And I need whichever unlucky bastard is going to raise them to swear on every god he holds dear that they will not be raised to seek revenge on the rest of us.”
Rowen caught his meaning. “Me?” He almost laughed. “I’m not a gods-damned wet nurse!”
“No, you’re not a wet nurse,” Briel conceded. “You’re a Knight whose Order wants him dead. You’re a Human who merrily rushes off to fight in wars that don’t concern him. You’re probably the dumbest bastard I’ve ever met. But you’re also the luckiest. And gods save me, I trust you.” He sipped from his goblet. “Take a drink and forget I said that last part.”
Rowen obeyed. “Briel, where in the Light do you think I’m going to take this infant? In case it’s escaped your notice, I still have a war to fight.”
“What war? Fadarah’s dead. The Olgrym are weakened. They’ll be beaten soon. It’s just a matter of time.”
Rowen rose to his feet. “But Chorlga’s still out there. And the Dhargots—”
“Humans fighting Humans,” Briel interrupted with disgust. “Plus one mad Dragonkin who’s probably scared of you—or will be, once he sees what you’re carrying.” The Sylvan captain gestured at Knightswrath. “Stay in Sylvos. Help us hunt down the Olgrym. Cut down Doomsayer the way you cut down Fadarah, and even Loslandril will call you a hero. You can protect the Shel’ai, too, if that’s what you want. Fact is, no matter how many Sylvs hate you, you’ll still be safer here than you will be out there.”
Rowen stood in silence. Then he reached down and picked up Knightswrath. Briel tensed, but Rowen only sheathed the blade. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“Fohl’s hells, you can’t.” Briel stood, too. “I have less than half my army left, Human. I have a mad king who’s starving himself and a comatose general who already had his cock and his hands cut off by an Olg who’s twice my size. And if that weren’t enough, I still have about a thousand more Olgrym raiding and raping throughout the kingdom.” Briel shook his head. “I need help. I need generals, archers, swordsmen, healers, horses, and a good night’s rest. Instead, the gods have given me one mad Isle Knight with a burning sword. Maybe you’re as dangerous to us as you are to that already-hefty list of enemies you’re carrying around with you. But right now, you’re all I’ve got.”
The Sylvan captain sat back down. He took a deep, calming breath.
“Kill me if you have to, but it won’t change a thing. You’re staying here, Locke. Set one foot beyond the Moon Gate without my permission or try to leave Shaffrilon by any of the bridges connecting the capital to the other trees, and my men will shred you with arrows.”
Rowen fixed him with a stern expression. “For a man who complains about having too small an army, you seem to be in an awful hurry to get a lot of them killed.”
Briel shrugged. “If you take Knightswrath, it won’t matter how many—or how few—of my men you kill in your escape. We’re lost either way.”
“Fine. You want the damn sword? Keep it.” Rowen drew Knightswrath and cast it onto the table, shattering the carafe of wine. A red stain spread across the table, soaking like blood into Briel’s troop reports. The door flew open, and Sylvan guards rushed in. Briel dismissed them with a single, hard gesture. When they were gone, he looked from Rowen to Knightswrath.
The Sylvan captain hesitated then reached for the adamune’s dragonbone hilt. He’d hardly touched it when he recoiled, hissing through clenched teeth. He pressed his good hand to his chest, swearing in heated whispers. Then he opened his hand, showing Rowen his blistered fingers. “I’m running out of places you can injure, Human.”
Rowen blinked. “I didn’t know—”
“Get out,” Briel said. Despite his maimed hand, he picked up his own sword. “And take that damn demon-blade with you!”
Rowen scooped up Knightswrath, felt just a tingle of warmth from its hilt, and sheathed it. He stalked out of Briel’s office. Immediately, his so-called bodyguards fell in silently behind him. Despite his dark mood, Rowen noticed that there were a great deal more of them than before.
Zeia tugged at her cloak, alarmed by the growing midday chill. “Did Fadarah really think those children would serve him?”
Shade looked up
wearily from his own horse. “What?”
“The Shel’ai children born of rape. The ones Brahasti wants to make. Did Fadarah really think they’d serve him, after the kind of nightmare they were born in?” Her choice of words reminded her of the Nightmare, and she suppressed a shudder.
Shade was quiet for a moment. “I think he meant to wait until enough Shel’ai children had been born, then he’d sweep in with hands burning, kill Brahasti and their captors, and ‘rescue’ them. After something like that, they’d be every bit as devoted to him as we were.”
Though Shade had shared some of the memories he’d gleaned from Fadarah’s mind, that part of the plan had been absent. Was Shade merely making it up in effort to redeem Fadarah’s memory? That seemed odd, given that Shade himself had been the one to kill him. She asked a different question. “El’rash’lin used to say that only one in a thousand Sylvan children is born a Shel’ai.”
“Your point?”
“That’s a lot of time and trouble to go through. I have no doubt Brahasti could find men willing to do the deed and Sylvan captives to bear the abuse, but still, it would take years. And what about the thousands of other children born without the dragonmist?”
Shade turned and scowled at her. He tapped the hilt of his shortsword.
She caught his meaning. “No wonder you killed Fadarah.”
“He was already dying. That Isle Knight—”
“He probably would have died,” Zeia corrected, “but you turning his skull into a pile of ashes made it certain.”
Shade reined in his horse. “Forgive me, Sister. I’ve spent half the past couple days regretting my decision to haul you out of that pit and the other half running for my life, so my senses aren’t what they should be. Were you just now asking me to kill you or only making conversation?”
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