by Spurrier, Jo
‘Well, it’s not like they’d drive me away with sticks and stones, and since I’m female and a civilian I won’t be subjected to a court-martial, but ultimately it’s my fault they lost the Spire. It was me who took Sierra out of the slave camp —’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference if you hadn’t,’ Isidro said. ‘We were prepared to act either way.’
‘But I did what I did, and there will be a price to pay.’
‘What kind of price?’
Delphine sighed. ‘They’ll probably assign me to decades of public service. A mage of my class is too valuable to waste to execution or imprisonment. Most likely I’ll be sent to the arse-end of the empire, building aqueducts or excavating harbours or some other tedious task.’ The work she was doing, deciphering the theories of Ricalani mage-craft and unravelling the mystery of Nirveli’s entombment, would be far too important for someone of her standing. ‘I know no one wants me here, and one day I will have to go home and face the consequences of what I’ve done … You must think me a wretched coward for putting it off.’
‘Madame Delphine,’ he said with a wry quirk to his lips. ‘In all the time I’ve known you, courage is not something I’ve ever seen you lack.’ He sighed then, turning away as a flicker of pain crossed his face.
Now, with the detachment of distance and time, Delphine could look back on her early infatuation with a kind of rueful humour. She had been a fool to imagine a man like him could leave his kin behind and be happy with her in the land of his enslavement.
‘It’s my fault you’re in such a wretched position,’ Isidro said. ‘And it’s all been for nothing.’
‘Oh, don’t talk like that!’ she snapped. ‘What you’ve achieved here is hardly nothing.’
‘And what, exactly, have I achieved? The woman I love has delivered herself into the hands of a monster —’
‘That wasn’t your fault! You did all you could, and Sierra … well, mages like her are a phenomenon, a freak occurrence. If you hadn’t done all this, do you think those poor folk up above would be free right now?’
Isidro raked a hand through his overgrown hair and fixed his gaze on his feet with pain written on his face.
He was the reason she was still here. Finally, she could admit it to herself, even if she’d furiously deny it to anyone else. Months ago in a dingy storage-tent smelling of wet laundry and wood-smoke, she had looked down on a beaten and bound man who was determined to die and promised herself she would do all she could to save his life. The same despair that overwhelmed him then was again riding on his shoulders like a shroud. This was why she would not leave. He was standing on that precipice once more, faltering and unsteady, and one strong gust would push him over.
And that was only part of it. Her own people were responsible for the desolation that hung over this place. Nothing had compelled the empire to march into these lands and enslave those who lived here. The Raiders who targeted the Akharian coast launched from the south — taking slaves this far from the front was nothing but opportunism, a way for the empire to recoup the cost of the invasion. These folk had their lives torn apart for the sake of keeping taxes low in a nation they’d hardly heard of.
‘Look,’ Delphine said. ‘I know I’ll have to go back one day. When I do, I’d like to have one memory of this time on which I can look back with pride and say “I did a good thing”. If I can help your people reclaim their mage-craft so they can defend their lands once more … that will be enough for me.’
‘It’s a noble thought, Delphi, but with Sierra gone, who are you going to teach? We have no other mages.’
‘Well, what about you, you great fool?’
Isidro began to reply, but a peculiar expression crossed his face, and he flinched. She leant closer, peering at him. ‘What was that?’
Isidro turned away. ‘Sierra,’ he muttered. ‘Her control slipped, just for a moment. She …’ He flinched again and broke off, pulling away from her to grind the heels of his hands against his eyes. He began to rise, but Delphine grabbed for his arm. ‘No, stay here! I can help you block it out, if that’s what you want.’
The look he gave her was one of desperation, and Delphine wondered just what he was seeing through the girl’s gaze. ‘Sit down,’ she said, taking his hands in hers, both his good one and the wasted, useless claw that was his right hand. She quickly built a shield around them both, not the normal sort against physical attack, but a shield against energy. It was something Delphine had been thinking over since her encounter with Rasten the week before. ‘Is that better?’
Isidro’s frown eased and he nodded. ‘I can’t hear her now. How did you do that? I thought it wasn’t possible to shield against that sort of thing.’
‘It’s a matter of cancelling out one stream of energy with another — remember the interference patterns I told you about, back in Earthblood? Sierra could push through it if she wanted to, but if it’s an inadvertent spill I can keep it out. I …’ Delphine hesitated, unsure if this was a wise thing to say. ‘I suppose you must be very angry with her.’
‘Of course I am,’ Isidro said. ‘But I know she couldn’t have made that decision with a clear head. She must have been desperate, and overwhelmed …’
‘She was,’ Delphine said softly. ‘I could see it in her eyes. That poor child.’
He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘She’s not a child.’
‘Oh, of course she is — she’s what, eighteen years old? She’s barely more than a babe in arms.’
Isidro leant back in his chair. ‘Men fight and die in battle at that age.’
‘And women die in childbed, but what difference does that make? She’s so young, and so very frightened, and all she learnt was telling her she could only be a danger to those around her.’ Delphine could see that talking of her was only making his pain worse, so she changed the subject with a toss of her head. ‘Look,’ she told him, ‘I don’t know if Lady Mira will let me stay now that you’ve set me free, but as long as I am here, we may as well continue your lessons. It would be a shame if you never learnt to use your talent to its full potential.’
‘I … I think I’d like that,’ Isidro said. ‘But I’ll make sure that Mira doesn’t send you back until you’re ready to go.’
Delphine nodded, though she wondered just how much influence Isidro would have now that Sierra was gone. ‘It’ll be days before you’re able to raise power again — you must eat well and rest often to regain your strength. But we can work on theory in the meantime.’
Isidro nodded. ‘Can you explain how you built that shield?’
‘If you wish,’ Delphine said, reaching for a clean tablet. It was a little more advanced than she’d had in mind, but why not see just how much his mind was able to cover in a standing leap? She opened the tablet and began to draw, while he leant in close. ‘It works like this, you see …’
Cam poked half-heartedly at the bowl of meat and beans, and set it aside with a sigh. ‘Ardamon, we’re getting nowhere. I think it’s time we turned back.’
Ardamon said nothing. Cam knew he’d been thinking the same thing for days, but he’d held his tongue rather than start an argument when the men were looking to them for leadership.
They’d never really had a plan. They’d left in too much of a hurry for that. Rasten had a head start, and any time they spent devising a strategy only increased his lead. Cam had insisted they go at once, hoping that once they were riding some means of reaching Sierra would come to him.
I’m a fool, Cam thought to himself.
Ardamon may have had the same thought. He was scowling into his half-empty bowl as he struggled to find the words. ‘Look, at least we tried,’ he said at last. ‘And who’s to say there was any way to get to her? I’ve only faced Rasten the once, but I’d rather wrestle a rabid bear than meet him on a battlefield. I’m not sure even Mira or Isidro could have come up with a plan that had any chance of working.’
From Ardamon, that was a heroic attempt at tact, and Cam n
odded. ‘Fires Below … should we have waited for Isidro to wake? Should we have stayed in the Spire so Mira could help us plan?’
‘There’s no sense going over should-haves now,’ Ardamon said. ‘We have to deal with the matter at hand, as your brother is so fond of saying.’
‘I suppose so.’ The taste of defeat was bitter in his mouth. There was no way out. He would return to the Spire and tell Isidro he’d failed. That was, if Isidro had woken yet. If he was still alive.
When he thought of Sierra his first reaction was anger. How could you do this to him — to us? Don’t you know how much this will hurt him? Hasn’t he suffered enough? And after all we’ve done for you …
Even after a week and more, the sense of abandonment and betrayal hadn’t faded. When he thought of her skulking out of the cavern like a thief, he couldn’t help but clench his fists in anger. With an effort, Cam forced them open again, and stood. ‘I’m turning in. We may as well let the men have an extra hour of sleep in the morning — when they wake, we can tell them we’re heading back.’
The springtime snow softened during the day, but at night it froze to a hard, icy crust. It was not quite thick enough to walk on, but a man crawling on his belly could cross it without breaking through, as Osebian discovered when he and his captain crawled to the top of the ridge where the sentry was keeping watch.
Although the season was turning, it was still cold enough for sound to carry easily, so he and the captain looked over the small camp in silence, and retreated to the bottom of the slope before speaking. ‘So,’ Osebian said. ‘Three tents and sixteen horses. What do you say?’
‘I’d guess a dozen men, sir. With so few, they must be rotating their sentries often, with no more than an hour or two on duty per man.’
The camp site had been chosen because there was no cover to mask an enemy approach, but Osebian was not concerned with that. After a week of quiet nights the sentries would be more interested in staying warm than watching the empty hillsides, and there was enough snow on the ground to camouflage their white war-coats.
‘Would you have us rush them, sir, or approach by stealth?’
Osebian shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose it matters. Strike quickly, before they can arm and fight back. The prince must be taken alive.’
Chapter 10
After a while, Sierra stopped caring where each day’s journey took them, and she grew practised at avoiding thoughts of those she’d left behind. She allowed Rasten to take her to his furs whenever he wished, and when he did she released all the limits she’d placed on herself in the past, letting herself be greedy and demanding, drawing power and sensation from him in a way she’d never dared before. For the first time in her life she truly tested her strength, giving her power free rein to devour and consume him, and it forced him to react, to stand against her and pull back the life-force she drew from him. The furs became a kind of battleground, each evening a training session every bit as strenuous as those she’d had in the Spire. Sometimes she won, but as often as not it was Rasten who bested her and left her breathless and gasping as he pressed her down into the furs, but however the tides of battle went, each night Sierra felt herself growing stronger.
But in the morning, when the golden song had died down to let her think once again, she was utterly ashamed of the things she’d done, the things he’d done to her, and the fierce, burning pleasure that swept over them both as her ravenous power rose to his bait. Blood, sweat or the slick wetness of lust were all the same to that wild beast within her, and at times she felt as though it was taking her over. During the day she loathed herself for it, but by evening she welcomed the lure of the furs, and the respite they brought from the self-loathing that dogged her mind.
She avoided thinking about their destination until the king’s fort came into view and she could deny it no longer. The Gods had granted them an unusually clear day for that time of year, but whether it was a blessing or a punishment Sierra couldn’t decide. She wanted nothing more than to wheel her horse to flee, but as she focussed on keeping her hands steady on the reins, she thought of Isidro clinging to life in the caverns beneath the Spire, while she’d cowered within the shielded rooms, helpless and trapped. It’s the only way, she told herself. The only way you’ll ever be free, and the one thing you can do to help the friends you betrayed and left behind.
This was not the camp she’d escaped from all those months ago. The king and his court had since appropriated a fortress that once belonged to the Bear Clan, and the rest of the army was encamped around its walls in a sprawling expanse of grey tents that marched across the hillsides bordering the river valley.
The valley floor was a ruin of vast proportions. The earth had been torn open in dark wounds, as though rooted up by giant hogs, while amid it all the Greenstone River meandered like a shining ribbon. It took her some time to realise the upheaval was the result of the magical battles that had kept Kell pinned in the west. Far across the valley, beyond the torn and ravaged ground, a smear of smoke marked the Akharian camp, a different branch of the invasion from the one that had taken her to the Spire, comprising legions unaffected by the negotiations to the north. The invaders had been fought to a standstill, held back by the power Kell raised from his human fuel.
When the rains and floods came, all this would be gone, Sierra told herself. The denuded hillsides would melt away under the rain, and the swollen river would cleanse the ruin of the valley floor. It will all be over by then, Sierra told herself. It has to be. If, when all this was done, all that remained was the same blasted wasteland that had marked the battle of Terundel, she reckoned the whole of Ricalan would consider it a fair price to pay for destroying Kell.
It was late afternoon when the camp came into sight, still several hours’ ride distant. ‘Do we push on and reach it tonight, or make camp and arrive fresh in the morning?’ she asked Rasten.
He gave her a disbelieving look, as though he couldn’t imagine how she could be so stupid. ‘No sense putting it off,’ he said, and twisted around in the saddle to summon the captain. ‘Has there been much fighting lately?’
The soldier nudged his horse closer and gave Rasten a crisp salute. ‘No, sir, there’s been naught but a few skirmishes for the last month. Word from the interrogations has it the Akharians think to wait out the winter and fight in summer. It seems they don’t realise what the warm season is like in the north, my lord.’
‘Or perhaps they hope their alliance with the Wolf Clan will give them another route south,’ Rasten said.
‘I suspect they’re waiting for our supplies to run low, my lord, or else hoping the treasure they seek will give them some weapon to use against Lord Kell.’
‘Either way I doubt they’ll stay their hand much longer,’ Rasten said. He dismissed the captain with a nod, and waited until he’d dropped back out of earshot before speaking to Sierra again. ‘Once the Slavers know they’re facing three mages instead of one, they’ll have to act. Kell will be under pressure to present you for battle sooner rather than later. He’ll likely take only a few weeks to teach you your place, not months, and he won’t take the risk of maiming you unless you try to run again. You must make every effort to appear submissive and contrite, Little Crow. He’ll make you pay for what you’ve done, but you can get through it. Just stay focussed on our goals.’
She ought to be nervous, Sierra thought. She ought to be shivering with fear, but instead she felt quite calm, as still and cold as a frozen lake. Stay focussed on their goals? It was all she thought about. Just learn the skills you need. After that, we can kill him and put an end to these horrors.
Rasten seemed to expect her to lose her nerve, for as they made the final approach, climbing the steep, switchback path to the fortress and Kell’s domain, he shadowed her through every step of the ascent. It was after dark when they reached the pinnacle, but the gates swung open at once to let them through.
Her strange, unnatural calm persisted as she guided her horse through the archway,
and soldiers came forward to take hold of the beast’s bridle. Sierra paid them no mind as she looked around the gate-yard, the corners choked with filthy snow and the flagstones slick with moisture, beginning to freeze now that the sun had gone down. The men around her were all bundled up in furs against the night-time chill, but she still wore her salmon-skin coat, and rode bare-headed and bare-handed. The cold of a spring night was nothing compared to the ice wrapped around her bones.
Rasten reined in beside her, and reached across to grab her forearm. ‘Steady, now,’ he growled softly, and kept his grip as he swung a leg over his horse’s withers to slip down to the ground. Sierra copied his movement without bothering to try and break his grip. She had no intention of trying to flee, but she could imagine how her cold detachment must look to him. He must have taken her stillness for terror, like a spotted fawn hoping to escape all notice when hunters stumble across its nest.
The thought spurred her to anger. Why should she be afraid? What did she have to fear? Hadn’t she already seen the worst he could do in the years she’d spent as his servant and slave? She’d already felt its echo as her power drew strength through her nerves and senses. What could he do to her that she couldn’t survive?
And Rasten — how could he think that her resolve would break now, after coming so far? The men in the courtyard, too, all of them watching her, and the king as well — how many folk had they seen dragged through this courtyard to end their lives underground after aeons of torment? Did they expect her to scream and beg, to collapse, weeping and be dragged away? She’d sooner spit in their faces.
As her anger rose it brought a comforting heat, a miniature sun of rage and fury burning within her ribs in a counterpoint to the ice that sheathed her bones. But as she let herself indulge in the voluptuous heat it brought, Sierra felt her power awaken and begin to rise up within her.
No, she thought, pushing it down again. The fact that she could do so showed her just how far she’d come in these last few weeks, even though she had a seemingly impossible distance still to go. Not yet. It’s too soon. Don’t let them see what you truly are. Let Kell think of me as weak and fearful; it suits my purpose.