In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  An empty, silent room met her gaze.

  She hovered on the threshold, caught between entering and turning away. In the end, she crossed to the dresser and checked her journal. Still there—for who would know to look?

  She’d not written regularly for years, and her writings were mostly the maudlin musings of a teenage girl. The only relevant thing it contained was the fact she didn’t originally come here on business, but did that matter? It was business now.

  She shivered with a sudden chill. What would Lyram think if he knew she’d lied to him? He was the most honest man she’d met. Not tactlessly direct, the way she tended to be, but honest while still being somehow gentle. His men adored him. No matter what, he always knew the right thing to say to connect with them, and he meant it. Honest, loyal, and genuine.

  No, she didn’t want him to know she’d lied. Even the mere thought left her hollow inside.

  He wouldn’t care right now anyway.

  Her own entries might not matter, but the contents of some of Malharni’s entries were more dangerous. Malharni had detailed some of the deadlier magic she’d encountered in her life, including how they were performed and with precise instructions on how to counteract them.

  Ellaeva tucked the journal inside her robes. Best she kept it on her, then.

  A soft giggle interrupted her train of thought. On instinct born of training, she wheeled and yanked open the door next to hers.

  A woman—a girl, really—squealed and clapped her hands to her naked breasts. The man straddling her on the narrow bed turned toward the door, freezing when he saw Ellaeva.

  Kastyn.

  A slow flush burned up Ellaeva’s cheeks as she took in the scene in a room twin to her own. How many times could one person possibly walk in on a couple engaged in... The heat in her cheeks doubled.

  Of course, cavorting with a girl didn’t mean Kastyn wasn’t the Rahmyrrim. Worshippers of the goddess of decay were notorious for their sexual practices, which was the primary reason women so rarely featured among their ranks. Those who did tended to despise sex as much as the men revelled in it.

  Ellaeva hardened her expression. “Out.” She pointed at the girl.

  The serving girl squirmed off the bed and snatched up a set of castle livery lying crumpled at the foot of the bed. She fled under Ellaeva’s stern expression.

  “You can’t do this!” Kastyn started to turn, to get his feet under him.

  Ellaeva crossed to him in a controlled burst of speed, knocking aside his hand and seizing him by the throat. With a surge of strength, she threw him backwards and pinned him to the bed. Bulging green eyes stared back up at her, and his cheeks mantled with anger.

  “You’ve no right! You wait until my father hears about this!”

  “Sir Janun will be displeased to hear his son dabbles in the black art of Rahmyrrim necromancy.” She leaned in close, her voice low and controlled. “I have no doubt he will accede to my authority as arbiter of justice in such matters.”

  She put an edge on the word justice, and his eyes flickered to the sword on her hip. He darted his tongue out to wet his lips, the first flush of anger fading from his cheeks and leaving him wan and sickly. A sheen of sweat slicked his features.

  “Necromancy?”

  “The other day I saw you coming out of the stairwell that leads to the catacombs. When I investigated, I found a revenant—a fresh corpse, animated by Rahmyrrim magic, locked up in a storeroom and waiting for some unwary soul to stumble across. It didn’t wander in on its own. Someone put that thing there and locked it in. I don’t know who they hoped would find it, but fortunately it found me.”

  “You think it was me?” His voice squeaked into an upper register on the last word. The blood drained completely from his face and his eyes bulged even more.

  “Right place, right time.” She leaned closer to him, trying to ignore his nudity.

  “I haven’t even gone down to the catacombs in... oh, I don’t know, months. Not since the siege started anyway.” He licked his lips again, and sweat ran rivulets down his face and dampened his hair.

  She narrowed her eyes at him, opening herself to the goddess to read his words. He was telling the truth, but she could only discern the honesty of the words he actually spoke. Much might be omitted. “Then where were you?”

  “Here! I was here.” He squeezed his eyes closed.

  “With her?”

  When he didn’t answer, she tightened her fingers around his throat a little until his eyes popped open and he shook his head frantically.

  “Alone?”

  He hesitated, and she read him this time. Not alone, and he didn’t want to say who was with him, but he didn’t want to incriminate himself by protecting them either.

  “Someone you shouldn’t have been with, then.” She released him and straightened until she towered over his prone form. Her head swam, leaving her reeling a moment, and she closed herself to Ahura, shutting off her ability to detect the truth before she grew too dizzy to stand. “Who? Another serving girl?” Sir Janun would be death on that, and did the girls know, or was he stringing them each along?

  “How many? Three? Four? I bet your father wouldn’t be pleased, and the girls even less so.”

  Kastyn blanched, and his mouth dropped open. “Did you...? Everything they say about Ciotach an Bhais is true. You can see into the souls of men.”

  She grimaced, at both his observation and her failure. The idiot boy would probably spread more rumours about her now, feeding her reputation like some beast that grew greater and wilder with every passing day. As if she needed more exaggerated stories. She couldn’t peer into the souls of men at all—she merely understood human nature, a skill so mundane no one ever wanted to hear that truth. Her ability to read lies only fed the rumours.

  Kastyn rolled away from her and off the far side of the bed, rising with his feet thrust awkwardly into his breeches. His initial shock had faded, but his pallor left him looking ill. “May I go, holiness?”

  She flicked her fingers at him, and he bolted. No doubt he feared she would take the news directly to his father. She might mention the matter to Sir Janun in passing, but she had more to occupy her mind than the indiscretions of a boy still in his teens.

  With nothing to keep her, she left the room and headed for the stairwell. Someone else’s footsteps echoed up from the shadows of the twisting stairway. Halfway down, she came round the bend and found herself face to face with Leinahre.

  Ellaeva started, and the other woman faltered and backed down a step. Ellaeva recovered first, closing the distance between them in a rush and sweeping the knife from her hip. She seized a fistful of Leinahre’s hair, yanked the woman’s head up and pressed the blade to her exposed throat.

  “What have you done to him, bitch?” Her voice rang with fervour.

  Despite her head being yanked back, Leinahre met her gaze with cool equilibrium. “Me? Nothing. A man chooses where he bestows his own affection. What power have I to influence that? I am nothing but a lowly secretary.”

  Ellaeva stared into her blue eyes, trying to read her. The woman was calm, given she had a knife at her throat.

  A tiny amused smile played upon the edges of Leinahre’s lips.

  “Lyram isn’t like that.” Ellaeva glared. “He wouldn’t ignore his responsibilities to his men, to this castle, of his own volition.”

  Leinahre’s smile broadened. “Are you jealous?”

  Rage surged up in her so strongly that her vision clouded. Ellaeva shoved hard against Leinahre, cracking her head back against the stone. The woman’s eyes glazed over a moment, and Ellaeva held the knife in a violently shaking hand. Her breath came in shallow gasps. What should she do? Leinahre was right, damn her—she was jealous. And of what? Something she could never have? Was it because she’d lost Lyram’s attention, such as it was? Or because Leinahre had isolated her again by taking Lyram?

  For a moment, she teetered on the edge of killing Leinahre. So much might be sim
plified if the woman’s interference was gone. But it wouldn’t be right, to murder her out of hand without evidence, and it wouldn’t be just. And yet, it would be done. Cold practicality warred against justice. In a siege, a castle needed its commander, and with all his wits about him.

  As her fingers tightened about the hilt, a clatter of boots echoed up the stairwell. Ellaeva shoved the dagger back in its sheath and stepped up one riser away from Leinahre. The other woman recovered from the blow to the head and measured Ellaeva with her gaze, the corners of her lips turned up. Ellaeva curled her hands into fists.

  Galdron puffed around the corner, stopping when he saw the two women in the shadowed darkness. He glanced from one to the other, like a dog stumbled between two strange cats.

  Leinahre turned, breaking the spell. “Good day, your holiness.” And she climbed on upwards.

  Where was she going? The guest rooms connected through the library to the bathing rooms, the withdrawing room, and then across to the banquet hall, where the wounded still rested—along with any evidence of the poisoning. Was that her intention? To remove any evidence before it could be used against her? Had Everard already searched the banquet hall? With so many attacks on the walls, she’d not even spoken to him in two days. Ahura’s blade, why didn’t she listen to him in the courtyard earlier?

  “Your holiness?” It was the second time Galdron had tried to catch her attention, she realised.

  Ellaeva blinked at him. “Captain?”

  He stared at her from the shadows of the stairwell, brow pinched and lips downturned beneath his huge ginger moustache. “We’ve a new problem.”

  Galdron gestured to the mixed rock and earthen wall of the tunnel deep in the catacombs.

  A chill swept through Ellaeva, and she switched her gaze from the wall to the captain and back.

  “Put your ear to the wall,” he said.

  With deep foreboding, she stepped closer and pressed her cheek to the cool dirt. The smell of damp earth filled her nostrils.

  Silence.

  “I hear nothing,” she said.

  Galdron made a curt gesture, signalling her to wait.

  Silence.

  In the distance, a thud. She jerked away from the wall at the sudden sound, and Galdron quirked an eyebrow. She nodded, placing her ear back to the wall. More thudding.

  “Sappers,” Galdron said.

  Though she’d suspected as much from the moment he invited her to listen to a wall, his speaking the word aloud left her sick to the stomach. “How far down does the moat go?”

  “Don’t know,” Galdron said. “But they do, or they intend to find out. Rumour has it, it’s at least as deep as the second sub-level, down to the middens, but there might be a level below the midden—the catacombs are unmapped. Or they might intend to tunnel under the moat and back up.”

  She nodded, staring at the wall with unfocussed eyes. If the combat engineers were any good, they could do it. Was this a ploy because of the short rations, or was this always the plan and everything else smoke and mirrors to distract them? Yes, they must have begun tunnelling as soon as they arrived.

  “Do you know how to triangulate the source of the sound?”

  Galdron shook his head. “I’m no siege expert, your holiness. A few men in the commander’s guard have worked with him on sieges before.”

  “Send them to me. I know how triangulation works, and if they know anything at all, I can set them to locating the tunnel.”

  “And then?”

  Ellaeva stared past him into the darkness. And then what indeed? Start their own tunnel to try and intercept the enemy engineers, and then hope they could both find the enemy mine and overwhelm the engineers? The only other choice was a sortie to try and find the entrance and collapse it. The first needed more luck than they had, and the latter was nigh impossible. No doubt the enemy had placed the entrance on the far side of the outer ruined wall, and after their successful raid on the enemy food supplies, security would be especially tight at the mine. The odds of infiltrating the tunnel were slim.

  The third option—find the tunnel from the surface and collapse the roof—had its own problems. It would mean either waiting for the engineers to tunnel beneath the walls, which might well be too late, or venturing out into the meadow between the castle and the old wall to try to find where the tunnel ran.

  At least a sortie to find the entrance gave them the chance of stopping the tunnel before the castle was compromised, and the enemy catapult operators would find it difficult to target any force she deployed between the two walls... However, Sayella had eyes on the old gate, and no doubt the enemy would attack as soon as they thought their tunnel at risk.

  Unless I lead my men out at night... which carries different risks.

  Galdron shuffled his feet as the silence stretched, the leather in his armour creaking. “You mentioned you did something to keep the spectres out of the cloister?”

  “Call it more a favour granted by my goddess, but yes.” She eyed him sideways.

  “Can you do the same for the castle? But to keep out men?”

  She stiffened until she stood ramrod straight, her back so tense the muscles burned. Vibrations from the digging tingled in her fingertips where she still pressed them to the wall.

  “In theory.” Her voice dragged on the words. “But what you suggest... is a hundred times harder than a ward to keep out spectres, and a hundred times more dangerous. And an entire building the size of Caisteal Aingeal? Even an attempt would kill me.”

  “Not the entire castle,” he said, tripping over his words in his haste. A slow flush started in his cheeks and spread to mottle his neck. He tugged on a moustache. “If that were possible, I’m sure you’d have done it long since, but what about just the walls of lower levels? A boundary in line with the moat, and perhaps the floor of the midden?”

  That was a significantly smaller task than warding the entire castle, but still markedly greater than what she’d done to protect the cloister. Would the goddess even grant such a large favour—and if she did, would that kind of power destroy her body or her mind, even buffered by the sword? A mild queasiness filled her.

  “It’s too risky, with a more than even chance I would die in the attempt. If that were to happen, then what? The protections against spectres on the cloister would fail, and you’d lose my protection against further incursions in the castle. You’d also be without a commander again. That’s a worse position than the chance sappers might break into the tunnels. Send the men you mentioned to me, and we’ll see what else we can do about these engineers.”

  As she turned to leave, Galdron caught her arm. When she turned her gaze on him, he snatched his hand away and the flush deepened to crimson.

  “Apologies, holiness.” He ducked his head. “The spectres? We saw another one in the courtyard today. The children...” He cleared his throat. “The children we saved are fine, though distraught, and the mother is almost hysterical. How soon do you think you can block the spectres from the main castle proper?”

  The request left her hollow inside. How to break this bad news? But she had no energy left for gentleness, and too many demands on what few resources she had. “I can’t. The necromancer raising them is somewhere in the walls. The wards I used on the cloister prevent spectres from passing their boundaries, but they don’t prevent them from being created. Even if I separately warded each room in the castle to prevent the spectres leaving any one room, nothing would stop the Rahmyrrim going in and raising more. And that kind of warding pattern would be as dangerous to me as trying to block the siege engineers.”

  A stricken look crept across Galdron’s bluff, honest face. The sound of water dripping somewhere nearby broke the silence.

  Unable to bear his distress on top of everything else, she turned for the stair.

  Was she too late to stop Leinahre?

  Ellaeva raced up the winding stairs, past ground level, and on up to the first floor. Leinahre must be at the banqueting hall by no
w, and it might be too late to stop her already. At the first-floor exit, she faltered. If Leinahre was pre-occupied by whatever she sought within the banqueting hall, might Lyram be unattended? Would he be easier to reason with if she weren’t present?

  The decision was made in an instant. She changed direction with only a small hitch in her stride and cut past the barred iron door of the empty prison and across the walkway over the barbican. The murder holes were left unmanned except when the castle was under attack, and all was dark and still above the barbican.

  She passed into the eastern stairwell and descended the three steps to Lyram’s suite. As before, the door barred her way. Without bothering to knock, she turned the latch and stepped into the room. Her body tensed with expectation, and a thin vein of fear thrummed through her.

  The sitting room lay abandoned and unkempt, with clothes and trays of half-eaten meals strewn across the floor and every available surface. Letters and other documents littered the floor, apparently knocked carelessly from the desk. The armour rack lay stark and bare, and the various pieces of Lyram’s armour lay scattered over the rug. The air was close and stifling.

  In the tower part of the suite, the bed stood empty. Chewing on her lip, she brushed past the wreckage of the sitting room and into the bedchamber.

  Without volition, she brought her hands to her open mouth. Lyram sat in an armchair, his face slack beneath an unkempt beard. His hands lay open in his lap, and his blue eyes, normally so piercing, stared into the distance. The clan sword, rarely out of his reach, was nowhere in sight. Only a vacant body occupied the space where the energetic commander of Caisteal Aingeal once sat.

  The sight shot a hot barb into her heart, where it lodged with exquisite anguish. “Ahura curse me.... Lyram, oh Lyram....”

  She crossed the distance separating them with quick steps, sank to the floor beside him, and took his hand in hers. His big fingers lay slack in her smaller palm. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she wiped her face against the black cloth of her sleeve. No time to be overcome with emotion. She drew a long breath. Later she could grieve, if necessary. Right now she need iron-hard control. She quivered from the effort of sealing her emotions away. He’s not lost to me... us, yet.