Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  Kalan cried out in wordless despair and sagged against Wrayan with the shock of Rorin’s news.

  He caught her in his arms and helped her sit down on the narrow wooden bench by the fire, where she put her head in her hands, sobbing for her cousin, muttering something about it being her fault.

  Squatting beside her, his arm around her shoulders, he glanced up at Rorin. “And you don’t know where Damin is now?”

  “Nobody’s seen him since last night when he left Mahkas bleeding on the floor of his study with a severed windpipe.”

  “Will he live?” Wrayan wasn’t particularly concerned for Mahkas Damaran, but he was acutely aware of what it would mean if Krakandar’s regent died.

  “He’ll live,” Rorin confirmed. “I healed it as best I could, but I doubt he’ll ever speak in much more than a whisper again. Damin punched him in the throat.”

  “That’s got to hurt,” Wrayan grimaced.

  Rorin nodded grimly. “I imagine it did, given Damin was wearing a spiked battle gauntlet at the time.”

  “Ouch,” Wrayan said, thinking of the pain and the damage a strong gauntleted fist could do to something as delicate as a human throat. “And you say you can’t find Damin now?”

  “It’s like he’s vanished completely.”

  “He won’t have done that,” Wrayan said confidently. “After you’ve seen to Starros, I’ll see if I can sense him. Given enough time, I should be able to track him down. Failing that, Fee may have some luck. Damin Wolfblade won’t get very far in Krakandar City without somebody recognising him.”

  “I thought you couldn’t find a shielded mind?”

  “I said I had almost no chance of finding one shielded mind in the vastness of the southern Medalonian plains, as I recall,” he reminded the young sorcerer. “Finding someone here in the confines of the city is a different matter entirely. I can’t speak directly to Damin’s mind, of course, because of the shield, but I should be able to pinpoint every shielded mind within the walls of the city if I try hard enough. There’s not that many of them.” He turned back to Kalan who was still sobbing inconsolably.

  “Come on, Kal,” he said gently. “It’s not your fault.”

  She turned and buried her head into his shoulder. “It is my fault, Wrayan,” she sobbed, her voice muffled by his coat. “I made Leila believe Starros was dead. She killed herself because she thought he was gone. I know she did. That’s why she was so calm, so serene, when I left her. She’d decided to do it even then . . . Oh, gods, if only I’d stayed with her . . .”

  “There, there, Kalan,” he murmured, like a mother comforting a small child. Wrayan held her close and let her cry, thinking Kalan was probably right. Leila adored Starros. He was the one bright spot in her life, the man who loved her simply for being Leila. “Don’t torment yourself. Leila made her own decision. And if anything, we’re all at fault here,” he told her, holding her close. “Not just you.”

  Kalan lifted her head and stared at him in confusion, sniffing loudly. “What do you mean?”

  “Every one of us who knew about them, all of us who encouraged them, everyone who turned a blind eye to them . . . we’re all to blame. There was no way this was ever going to end happily.”

  “I should have done something,” Kalan insisted, wiping away a fresh round of tears. “I should have told Mahkas to go to hell when he made me promise to back him up in his lie.”

  “And if you had, the chances are Leila would still be dead,” Rorin said. “Mahkas was planning to have his way or a funeral. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  “I wish Damin had killed him,” she announced savagely.

  “No, you don’t,” Rorin told her. “The problems that would have caused don’t bear thinking about. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t do much at all really. No more than you can.”

  She glared at him. “Care to wager on that?”

  Wrayan shook his head in concern. “Kalan, Rorin is right. Don’t buy into this. Damin’s taken enough vengeance for all of you and now you need to let it go. If not for your Aunt Bylinda’s sake, then think of Starros.”

  “I can’t go back to the palace,” she warned, her eyes dangerous. “If I saw Mahkas now, the way I’m feeling, a punch in the throat with a metal gauntlet would seem the least of his problems.”

  “You can stay down here,” Wrayan offered. “I don’t imagine you’ll be missed at the palace for a while yet.” He glanced up at Rorin. “You ready to try a bit of magic on our friend?”

  Rorin nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. “But don’t expect too much.”

  “Do what you can,” Wrayan told him, jerking his head in the direction of the other room on the ground floor where Starros lay. Rorin took a deep breath and headed into the bedroom, leaving Wrayan alone with Kalan.

  She was still sobbing, tormented by the thought that she might have contributed to Leila’s suicide. He sat beside her on the bench, gathered her into his arms, and let her cry against him, whispering soothing nonsense words to her that did nothing but prevent the silence and her grief from completely overwhelming her.

  Chapter 73

  Wrayan eventually found Damin down in the fens. After scanning the city for the telltale feel of a shielded mind that wasn’t at either the palace or the safe house, he located the young prince amid the dense foliage and hidden pools of Krakandar’s water supply.

  Wrayan had never been to the fens in all the time he’d lived in Krakandar, and could quite easily have got lost when he went looking for the prince, but he had an unfair advantage.

  Fixing on Damin’s shielded mind and using it like a beacon in the early morning light, he sought him out with the unerring sureness of a man who had the benefit of supernatural assistance.

  “You know, for a thief, you don’t sneak about very well,” Damin remarked, stepping onto the path in front of Wrayan and making him jump with fright. “I could hear you coming half an hour ago when you stumbled through the gate.”

  The young prince obviously wasn’t pleased to see him. Wrayan got the distinct impression he didn’t particularly want to be found. He still wore his bloodstained leather armour. He had taken off the gauntlets, though, Wrayan was relieved to discover.

  “Not my natural element down here among the wild things,” Wrayan said with a cautious smile, wary about Damin’s mood. The young man gave no obvious sign of his frame of mind. “You can keep your bugs and spiders. Give me a roof to scramble over any day. Besides, I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”

  “You came looking for me, though.”

  “The entire city is looking for you, Damin. Have you been down here all night?”

  “It’s the only place in the whole city I’ve ever been able to hide.”

  Damin turned and walked back along the path a little until he came to a small clearing. Wrayan followed him, looking around curiously.

  “Starros and I claimed this place as our own when we were children,” Damin explained. “It seemed as good a place as any to get lost in for a while.”

  Wrayan could well imagine how the still darkness of the fens would have felt like the only safe haven in Krakandar last night, when Damin had come down here. He would have needed time to calm the rage inside him, time to deal with what had happened.

  And what he’d done. The murky darkness would have suited his mood.

  “How’s Starros?”

  Wrayan shrugged. “He’s still alive.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “To be honest, I am, a little. Rorin’s with him now, but he’s not very optimistic. We may find ourselves caught between two equally unpalatable choices.”

  “What choices?”

  “Letting him die or asking the gods to intervene.”

  Damin looked horrified that he could even suggest such a thing. “Surely it’s not a question of choice? If you can prevail upon the gods to help, Wrayan, for pity’s sake, why are you standing here? Do it!”

  “Even if it co
sts Starros his soul?”

  “Even that! Gods, I thought you were part Harshini! You can’t just let him die!”

  “Not even if he wants to?”

  “Starros isn’t the sort to throw his life away on a whim.”

  “Neither was Leila, I would have thought,” Wrayan replied. “But that was her choice when faced with the prospect of going on without Starros. Why do you imagine his reaction to going on without the love of his life would be any different to Leila’s?”

  Damin glared at the thief and, for a brief moment, Wrayan was reminded that this was Krakandar’s prince, not just Starros the fosterling’s best friend. “Leila was doing more than giving up, Wrayan,” he said with unexpected insight. “She was taking her revenge on Mahkas with the only weapon she had. Her own life. She might have felt she had nothing to live for once she believed Starros was dead, but it was the desperate need to get back at her father that gave her a reason to die.”

  Wrayan studied him closely for a moment, and then shook his head. That wasn’t the observation of a frivolous boy.

  Whether he liked it or not, Damin couldn’t go on hiding behind the veneer of light-hearted charm he worked so carefully to cultivate. And the older he got, the harder it was going to be. “You’re not going to be able to keep this up much longer, Damin.”

  “Keep what up?”

  “This act you put on for other people. Sooner or later, somebody is going to realise you’re not nearly as shallow as you try to make people believe.”

  “And it will be sooner, rather than later,” Damin agreed heavily, taking a seat on moss-covered log that had been slowly rotting away in the clearing for decades, by the look of it. “Along with all the other joy the last few days have brought us, Adham Tirstone informs me there’s a good chance Fardohnya is massing for an invasion behind the closed borders in the Sunrise Mountains. Chaine Lionsclaw is dead, half the provinces have lost their Warlords to the plague, the rest of our fighting capability is tenuous at best, and if we don’t want dear Uncle Lernen leading what’s left of our army into certain defeat, guess who’s going to get that job? I imagine by the time I’ve called up our reserves in the name of the High Prince, trodden all over the tender egos of every remaining Warlord in Hythria and had a stand-up fight with the High Arrion to get her to release the troops we’ll need from the provinces under the Collective’s control, there won’t be a soul left in Hythria who thinks I’m anything like the incumbent High Prince.”

  Marla’s son to the core, Wrayan thought. His best friend is at death’s door. His cousin just killed herself and he all but tore out his uncle’s throat with his bare hands. And what is Damin Wolfblade doing? Hiding down here in the fens grieving? No. He’s down here working out his battle plans because Hythria might be under attack.

  Damin shrugged, and added, “There’s a certain level of protection in being thought of as a fool, Wrayan. Elezaar taught me that.”

  “You know, back when I was an apprentice, long before you were born, I had a discussion with old Kagan Palenovar about you. Or at least the idea of you.”

  “The old High Arrion?”

  Wrayan nodded. “He was one of the men who arranged for your mother to turn down Hablet’s offer and marry Laran Krakenshield instead.”

  “You mean Hablet might have been my father if they hadn’t? Gods, that’s a scary thought.”

  “The notion of placing two provinces in the hands of one man and breaking a signed marriage contract with Hablet of Fardohnya seemed quite a bit scarier at the time. I can remember asking Kagan if he was entrusting a third of the country’s military power and wealth to Laran Krakenshield in the vague hope of an heir some day who’d be more than a pointless figurehead.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He offered me a wager. If my nephew fathers him, Kagan said, I’ll bet you any amount you want, the next High Prince of Hythria will be a man to be reckoned with.”

  Damin smiled thinly. “I think I would have liked this Kagan Palenovar of yours.”

  “Actually, he’s more yours than mine. He was your grandmother Jeryma Ravenspear’s brother, so I guess that makes him your great-uncle, or something. But what I’m trying to say is, Damin, I think Kagan would have won the bet.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, Wrayan, but it’s a bit misplaced. I haven’t done anything to be proud of.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that. Mahkas is still alive because even in the depths of unconscionable rage you had the presence of mind to understand the ramifications of giving in to your desire for vengeance.”

  Damin smiled sourly. “You weren’t there, Wrayan. There’s no honour to be found anywhere in what happened last night. And you have no idea how close I came to giving in.” He shook his head and then ran his hands through his hair impatiently, as if it would somehow clear his head. “Do you remember when I was a boy? Almodavar gave me forty laps of the training yard once because I didn’t kill him. He took me to task again the night Luciena attacked me, because I didn’t kill her, either. He used to tell me I was too sentimental. He told me I’d never be able to make the killing stroke if I stopped to think about it.”

  “He was probably right.”

  “No. He wasn’t. I thought about it, Wrayan. And believe me, there is nothing I have ever wanted more than to kill Mahkas. I was ready, willing and able to do it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He looked at Wrayan sceptically. “Don’t try to congratulate me on my honour or my presence of mind. I didn’t choose not to kill Mahkas. I chose not to kill him yet.”

  “And that makes you a bad person?”

  “I don’t know if I’m bad. But I’m pretty certain I’ve discovered a capacity for being a callous bastard I didn’t know I had.”

  “And that’s why you’re down here in the fens wallowing in self-pity, I suppose?”

  Damin shook his head, almost amused by the idea. “I’d be less of a callous bastard if I was. I haven’t been grieving for Leila or worrying about Starros. I’ve been sitting here all night trying to figure out the best way to deal with Hablet.” Then he added with annoyance, “For all the good it’s done.”

  Wrayan smiled at his obvious irritation. “You mean, even with these previously untapped depths of callous bastardry to call on, you haven’t thought up some invincible battle strategy in the space of a few hours? What good are you, Damin Wolfblade?”

  The young man forced a smile. “I’ve had military strategy forced down my throat with every meal since I was three years old. I should have been able to come up with something in about ten minutes.”

  “How can you? You don’t have any reliable intelligence to go on. For all you know, Adham’s got it completely wrong and Hablet’s just massing his harem behind the border. It’s an easy mistake to make. I understand his daughters alone number close to his standing army.”

  This time Damin’s smile almost looked genuine. “They’re more dangerous, too, from what I hear. The eldest daughter is apparently a shrew of monumental proportions.”

  “I’ve heard that, too. And that’s my point, Damin. Don’t lose any sleep over what you don’t know. Find out what’s really happening over the border. Then, if it turns out we are about to be invaded, by all means, lose all the sleep you want trying to figure out a way to stop it.”

  “Will you help me, Wrayan?”

  “Of course I will,” Wrayan replied, surprised that Damin had even felt the need to ask.

  The young prince nodded and rose to his feet. “Good. Then I want you to go to Greenharbour. I need you to speak to my mother. What I want of her will be less inflammatory if I don’t commit it to paper.”

  “What did you want me to tell her?”

  “She needs to know what’s happened here,” Damin said. “She needs to know about Mahkas.

  And about Starros and Leila. And about Hablet’s possible plans for us.”

  Wrayan frowned, thinking that nothing of what Damin wanted him to tell Marla seemed particu
larly contentious. “And?” he prompted, guessing there was more.

  “And then I want you to have her make Lernen appoint me general of Hythria’s combined armies.”

  “Oh. Is that all?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “There’s one problem you may not have considered, Damin. Even if you had the rank, you can’t lead Hythria’s armies anywhere if you’ve not come of age.”

  “Then it’s time we did something about that, too.”

  “Don’t even think of asking me to magically speed up time so you can reach your majority faster.”

  Damin looked at him in surprise. “Can you actually do that?”

  “I don’t know. And anyway, it’s beside the point. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. So how, in the name of all the Primal Gods, are you planning to get around the fact that your thirtieth birthday is six years away?”

  “By making it irrelevant.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll just change the age of majority to twenty-five.”

  Wrayan stared at him in shock. “Just like that . . . change the age of majority?”

  “Works for me.”

  Wrayan was silent for a moment as he thought about what it would mean to the whole nation if Marla was able to get Lernen to make such a radical change in the structure of Hythrun society. He shook his head, flabbergasted by the very notion. “It would throw the whole country into turmoil.”

  “Only for a little while. And in case you haven’t noticed, Hythria’s already in a fair bit of turmoil now. A little more will hardly be noticed in the general scheme of things.”

  “But think of what it means . . . there are provinces—”

  “Currently under the control of the Sorcerers’ Collective—like Izcomdar and Pentamor—with living heirs capable of taking charge, that will suddenly find themselves with a Warlord again,” Damin finished for him with a smug little grin.