by Spurrier, Jo
Kell stopped in his tracks. As his face contorted with rage, the choking cord around Isidro’s neck fell away, but he could feel the Blood-Mage’s power still building.
The sorcerer loosed all his fury into the rock that rose above them. With a deafening roar, the cliff overhead burst apart.
Isidro snapped up a shield. Sierra’s power leapt like quicksilver to his command, and the veil of light that sprang up around him was streaked with her vivid and brilliant blue, threaded through with lightning bolts.
Kell shielded himself almost as an afterthought as rubble rained down. The blast changed the course of the stream flowing through the canyon, and once the noise and the rubble settled, the waterfall some way behind Isidro’s back petered out, leaving silence as its thunder dwindled to a trickle and then a drip.
‘You’re bargaining with me, boy?’ Kell demanded. ‘You’re trapped like a rat. I could kill you with one blow!’
‘But what use am I dead?’ Isidro said. ‘I’m worth far more alive, and if you want to keep me that way, you’d best keep your hands and your knives to yourself.’
‘You think you’re clever, you wretch? You crippled and worthless coward. I made you beg for mercy once, and I can do it again!’
‘If you try,’ Isidro said, ‘you’ll lose your only chance of making Sierra come to you on your terms instead of hers.’
Kell curled his lip and spat on the rocks at his feet. ‘If you think you’re going to escape me to hide behind her skirts, you’re a fool. You should have been born a woman, boy, for the way you snivel and cajole. Get up! Get on your feet. We’ve a ways to go yet before dawn.’
Sierra stayed in the tiny, makeshift tent until she could be certain that Isidro was not in danger, at least for the moment.
Rasten had left in silence some time before. Once she had her frayed and exhausted nerves under control, Sierra went after him.
He stood a few hundred paces away, with his back to her, and as Sierra strode towards him she felt her hands bunch into fists of their own accord.
She struck him with all the force she could muster. He was ready for it, and tried to wrest her power from her, but Sierra was quicker now, and smarter. She whipped it away before he could get a grip, letting it melt and flow like water through his grasp. As Rasten turned to face her she struck again, blasting away the ground beneath his feet to open a crater that sent him reeling. With one more shove she laid him flat on his back on the broken earth.
‘You knew this would happen!’ she snarled, and hurled a bolt of lightning at him. Rasten scrambled to catch it on a shield. ‘You knew he laid a false trail! You made us waste hours doubling back and searching for his true path. Black Sun take you, Rasten, we could have stopped this!’
With one great effort Rasten summoned all his strength and shoved aside the tangled cords of power that held him against the ground. He sat up, scrubbing the loose earth from his hair. ‘And what if we had?’ he asked. ‘What if we’d ridden day and night, until we were close enough that Kell couldn’t pause without us catching up? What then? We’d be exhausted — and we’d have killed our horses as he has done his. Perhaps we could have run him to ground … but he knew your friends were there. What would have stopped him from taking them hostage, or simply killing them all and riding on?’
‘I could have warned them!’ Sierra snarled. ‘They have the Akharian mage with them, she could keep them hidden, and if we were that close he wouldn’t dare stop to hunt them down.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ Rasten demanded. ‘And then what? Would you have ridden on without seeing them? Spurred your foundering horse past without even stopping to see how your friend Cammarian fared, without stopping to ask forgiveness from the lover you abandoned?’ He looked away from her; the last few words were more spat than spoken.
Sierra felt herself go very still. ‘So that’s what this is about.’
Rasten got to his feet. ‘Isn’t it? You were happy enough to make camp for the night while Kell flogged his dying horse to pull out of our reach, but Balorica’s in danger and you fly into a towering rage! What would have happened if we’d pressed on? Would those friends of yours have given us shelter?’
‘Of course they would!’ Sierra shouted.
‘And would you have raised a hand to stop them when they wanted to put a knife in my back when I slept?’ Rasten thundered. ‘I can imagine what they’d say! You’ve done enough by destroying the king’s household and driving Kell from cover. The Akharians can deal with the rest of it. A Blood-Mage on the run is a Blood-Mage half in the grave.’
‘I … that’s …’ Sierra frowned. ‘That’s not a bad plan.’
Rasten just snorted and turned away.
‘Don’t you walk away from me!’ Sierra snarled. ‘This isn’t over!’
‘Oh, but it is,’ Rasten said. ‘Balorica is Kell’s prisoner, and you won’t rest until he’s safe. That’s all there is to the matter. Now I know you won’t desert me. Now I know you’ll see this through to the end.’
He walked away, leaving Sierra standing amid torn earth while power coiled and crackled around her. He was right. Now she had no choice in the matter, not unless she intended to leave Isidro to Kell’s utter lack of mercy. Sierra felt sick, and she folded her arms across her belly. ‘By the Black Sun herself, Rasten, I was prepared to trust you!’ she called after him. ‘I was going to give you a chance to show what kind of man you could be without Kell forcing your hand.’
‘Neither of us are free of him,’ Rasten said. ‘We won’t be until he’s dead, and I don’t trust anyone else to see that job to the end. The Akharians won’t care if he vanishes so long as he ceases to trouble them, but now you’ll chase him to the ends of the earth if need be.’
Sierra stared at him, not quite believing what he’d just said. ‘That’s why you’ve done this? You honestly thought I’d back out and leave you to deal with Kell alone? After all I’ve been through?’
‘All you’ve been through is nothing!’ Rasten shouted. ‘Ten years, Sirri! You were on the rack for what, a month? For ten years I’ve been in your place, so don’t you dare talk to me about all you’ve endured! And at least you have somewhere to go — friends to fall back on once it’s all over — there’s not a soul in Ricalan who will take me in!’
Sierra drew a ragged breath and pressed a hand to her eyes. ‘Rasten, Kell killed my family just as he killed yours. Yes, I’ve made friends on the outside, but he tore their lives apart, too!’ She was struggling to hold on to this small shred of calm. ‘They give me more reason to want him dead! When I left them at the Spire I vowed I’d see this to the end. There was no need for you to go and pull another innocent life into this Gods-forsaken mess.’
‘Innocent?’ Rasten demanded. ‘What innocent?’
‘Isidro had no part in this!’
Now it was Rasten’s turn to scowl at her as though she’d started speaking gibberish. ‘He’s no innocent.’
‘How can you say that? He’s had no part in this filth —’
‘Are you mad? Of course he has!’
‘But it wasn’t his choice! He never wanted it.’
‘And we did?’ Rasten demanded.
Sierra found herself speechless. ‘It’s no excuse,’ she spluttered at last.
Rasten stared at her for a long moment before explaining, as though to a child. ‘He’s not an innocent. He knows what Kell can do: he knows he must be destroyed. The others with him? They are innocents — they’ve never been in his hands. I thought you understood this. I know Balorica does.’
Sierra dashed tears from her cheeks. ‘How can you know that?’
‘He protected them, didn’t he? I know what happened there as well as you do, Sirri. He led Kell away to protect them, and then he allowed himself to be taken. He made his choice —’
‘There was no choice —’
‘There was!’ Rasten roared. ‘He could have died! He chose to live and help us instead —’
‘What kind of cho
ice is that?’
‘It’s more than we had! And it’s more than you gave him!’
Sierra tried to speak. The words died in her throat. She was weeping again, and she struggled to speak while choking back sobs. ‘I … Rasten, I don’t understand, I don’t know what you’re saying at all …’
He folded his arms and gazed down on her with his chin stubbornly raised. ‘You left while he was unconscious. You left without a word to your friends as to where you were going or why you’d made that decision. And yet you were surprised that Cammarian put himself in danger to come after you? Since you came into his life Balorica has lived and breathed for you, Little Crow, even I could see that — and you left him without a word. And yet you say I gave him no choice in the matter?’
‘That’s not the same thing at all!’ Sierra said. ‘I didn’t put his life in danger —’
‘Really? You took away the one thing that gave these folk you call friends any power to bargain with.’
‘You … you wanted me to leave!’
‘I don’t deny it, but you can’t deny that you left them all in the lurch.’
‘They would never have let me go!’
‘You don’t know that! Balorica’s a clever sod: the Gods only know what he might have come up with. He’s suffered at Kell’s hands, too — don’t you think he’s earnt the right to help bring him down?’ Rasten turned away, raking his hands through his ragged curls. ‘In any case, Sirri, I had no part in setting Kell on his trail. Balorica managed that himself by looking in on us after Greenstone. If you and I felt it, Kell certainly did, as well.’
‘You should have told me,’ Sierra said. ‘I could have warned him!’
‘If I had, your friends would be dead,’ Rasten said. ‘Kell would have killed them if he couldn’t take his prisoner, and then he’d strike at us while you were mired in grief. It’s better this way — the innocents are still alive and Balorica is in a position to help us.’
Sierra couldn’t think straight. She felt utterly torn. She crouched down on her heels, blinking away tears as she gazed up at the great cloud of volcanic ash still spread across the night sky, illuminated from within by the flicker of lightning. ‘They’ll be worried sick, not knowing what’s happened to him.’
‘They are innocents,’ Rasten growled. ‘They don’t know what they’re facing, what they stand to lose or gain, not like Isidro did.’
‘And so you’ll use him —’
‘Yes, just as I’m using you. But you knew all along what I wanted from you, Little Crow, and you came back to my hands anyway. Why shouldn’t we use him? Doesn’t he have a debt to settle as well?’
Sierra ground her hands into her eyes and gulped a breath of the green spring air. She couldn’t argue any more. She was sick of it, sick of the struggle and the fear, the worry and the guilt. ‘I won’t forget this,’ she told him. ‘If Isidro dies, the blame will be yours. Remember that, because by the Black Sun, I won’t forget it.’
Rasten hooked his thumbs into his belt and watched her from beneath lowered brows. ‘That’s neither here nor there. I’ve taken so many lives already; do you think one more will trouble me? I’ll do whatever it takes, Sirri, and you’d best remember that. Now go get some sleep. We’ll be riding on at first light.’
Kell made Isidro kill all but one of the horses. The first was the poor beast he’d ridden near to death — it was too weak to stand, and Isidro suspected it was foundered and would be in agony by sunrise. Cutting its throat was a mercy.
Kell knew about the other two horses, and the tent that had been abandoned at the onset of the heavy rain. Isidro’s heart sank as he made him march back to the camp, and it took all of his concentration and his will not to let his nerves show.
Once they reached the tent Kell hobbled straight up to it, poked his head inside and, after a moment’s inspection, pulled away with a grunt. ‘You’re out here alone?’
Isidro was tall enough to see over his shoulder, and inside the tent he made out a single bed on a dense bed of branches, and the ashes of a cold fire with river stones strewn all around for want of a stove. ‘We came to look for Cam,’ Isidro said, spilling the first tale his mind could dredge up. ‘We found his horse dead, but no sign of him. The others got spooked by the storm Sierra brewed up, and the earthquakes. They went back, but I stayed.’
‘Alone?’ Kell demanded. ‘A cripple like you?’
‘A cripple and a nuisance, with no kin to complain if I don’t return,’ Isidro said. ‘The horses were lamed and would only slow them down. They said I might catch up once they healed, or I could stay here and keep searching.’
‘The wretched prince must be dead, along with his worthless mongrel brother,’ Kell said. ‘But never fear, you’ll join him soon enough. Go trot those horses out. You’d best hope they’re sound, or you’ll be carrying a pack instead.’
One of the horses was mostly sound, thanks to Cam’s efforts. The gelding still limped badly, so Kell drew a long dagger and ordered Isidro to run it through. Isidro had no choice but to obey, aiming behind the gelding’s elbow with one swift, clean thrust. Then, he butchered the warm and bleeding carcass at Kell’s order, gutting the beast and pulling out the liver and the heart. As he cut some meat from the hindquarters, Kell sliced up the offal with his little eating-knife, and ate it a scrap at a time. When he’d had his fill he sliced off a chunk of liver and threw it to Isidro, who fumbled the catch with his clumsy and blood-slippery left hand.
‘You’d best eat that,’ Kell said as Isidro frowned at the bloody morsel. ‘For you’ll get nothing else until sunset, and then only if I’m pleased with you.’ With a gesture he cast a wall of light around Isidro, an enclosing shield, and then stomped away into the cave.
He stayed there for so long that Isidro’s heart began to pound once again. But he forced himself to eat, even though the raw and steaming flesh made his stomach turn. He would need the strength before the day was out, and Drosavec had taught him and Cam to eat fresh raw meat and keep it down — hunters and warriors both had need for energy derived quickly without the luxury of a fire.
After a time Kell hobbled back out of the cave, his expression dark, and Isidro relaxed a little. The others ought to be long gone — someone had arranged the tent as though he was surviving here alone, and then retreated — though perhaps they were lingering nearby to see what became of him, hiding beneath an enchantment and not daring to move.
‘Saddle the horse,’ Kell said, ‘and pack up all this gear. I want you with a pack on your shoulders in fifteen minutes, boy, or else you’ll feel my cane on your back. I can’t imagine you’re going to tear your own guts apart for the sake of avoiding a beating. Get to it, before I grow impatient.’
It is, Isidro thought, going to be a very long night.
Chapter 18
Cam jammed his fists against his belt, looking down at the butchered carcass of the horse. ‘Son of a bitch.’
The sight of the dead beast, legs limp and guts spread out across the ground, made Delphine’s stomach turn. Was Isidro lying like that somewhere in these hills, with crows swooping down to eat out his eyes? She’d been having such thoughts all night.
She turned away as Mira returned from her circuit of the cave and the old camp site. ‘He’s still alive, I’m sure of it. The only blood is from the dead horses, and the gear we left is gone. One old and crippled man couldn’t move it all, and wouldn’t bother to take it just for himself. He means to keep Issey alive, I think.’
‘Given what keeping him alive involved in the past I’m not sure that’s a comfort,’ Delphine snapped.
Cam gave her a dark look. ‘Sirri got me out of the king’s fort right under Kell and Rasten’s noses. She’ll pull Isidro out of this, too.’
That was luck, Delphine thought. And her luck is bound to run out eventually. This time, she bit back the words before they could spill. ‘I’ll see if I can find the gear we hid under that cursed enchantment,’ she said instead. ‘Or else we’ll have a
wretchedly cold time of it until the others return.’
They’d spent a miserable night crammed into a crevice high on a neighbouring ridge. None of them had slept a moment, and Delphine was cold, exhausted and faint with hunger.
There had been no time to carry away their gear. It had all been piled in a hollow near the camp and hidden beneath the camouflage enchantment. It took her nearly an hour to find it.
Once their belongings were found they held a brief discussion; or at least Cam and Mira talked while Delphine listened in silence, having nothing of value to offer. The question was whether to move to another location, which would be difficult without horses to carry the equipment, or establish a new camp nearby. There was no suggestion that they would set up again on the site where Isidro had been captured.
In the end they decided to stay in the area. If Kell returned, Cam reasoned, he could find them wherever they went. Moving would only make Ardamon worry when they were not waiting where he expected.
The rest of the morning was spent constructing a tiny lean-to, huddled beneath an overhang sheltering them from the still-threatening sky. Once the frame was covered with lashed-down branches, Cam took his shovel and stalked away without a word. Delphine poked around inside the shelter for a bit, trying to convince herself that the glow of the lanterns would drive away spiders. However, even with the light and the stove warming the rock-face that glowered down on them, the interior was so lonely and grim that she soon joined Mira at the fire outside, even though it was trying to rain and a chill breeze had sprung up.
Delphine tried not to think about Isidro as she drank a bowl of scalding tea. ‘Where’s Cam?’ she asked Mira once she had shaken the dregs from the bowl.
‘Seeing to those horses,’ Mira said. ‘They’ll only draw predators if they rot where they lie.’