chapter 74
W
rayan paced his room anxiously for several hours after Brak left him there, envisaging all sorts of dreadful fates about to befall him. He had never imagined the night he’d spent with Shananara—which had seemed so wondrous at the time—might be the cause of so much trouble. What if Shananara really had conceived a child? Would the gods kill him? Would Brak? Would Shananara have to die too, or would the Primal Gods simply demand the child be killed in the womb? And how would the Harshini manage such a thing, anyway? They couldn’t hurt a fly.
He had an even more immediate problem, however, than the wrath of the gods. What would Lorandranek do? Would the king have him thrown out of Sanctuary? Was there some punishment for breaking the taboos of the Harshini that he didn’t know about?
And why am I wearing the blame for this anyway? Shananara came to me!
The door to his room opened and Brak strode in without knocking. He was dressed not in the white robes of the Harshini, but in close-fitting dark leathers that seemed moulded to every inch of his tall, muscular body. He was carrying a bundle in his arms of similar material and tossed it to Wrayan. Wrayan couldn’t tell if the Halfbreed was still angry. But he certainly didn’t look happy.
“Get changed.”
“What’s this?”
“Dragon Rider’s leathers,” Brak explained.
“We’re going dragon riding?” Wrayan asked in alarm.
“Unfortunately, no. You ever killed anyone?”
“Not that I recall.”
Brak shrugged. “Well, you’re about to learn how. It’s frighteningly easy, once you get the hang of it.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” Brak asked him coldly. “Get changed. I’ll meet you down by the Gateway in half an hour. I need to find out what those damn demons did with my pack. It had all my weapons in it.”
“But Brak—”
“Not here,” the Halfbreed warned. “I’ll explain when we get outside. And shield your mind until we leave. If anybody around here picks up on you thinking about killing, they’ll be distraught and this will just get infinitely harder for everyone.”
As promised, Brak was waiting for him by the gate, his pack slung over his shoulder and the two demons, Eyan and Elebran, scampering around his feet. The Gatekeeper bowed as Wrayan approached, smiling as always.
“Good afternoon, young sir. You’ll be joining Lord Brakandaran on his trip into the mountains?”
“So it would seem, my lord,” Wrayan agreed warily, looking to Brak for his cue.
The Halfbreed nodded and shouldered his pack a little higher. “Don’t wait up, Jerendenan,” Brak advised, heading out through the arch.
Wrayan hurried to catch up with him, feeling strange in the dark Harshini leathers. He didn’t know what type of leather they were made of, but they were as comfortable as his own skin and allowed a freedom of movement Wrayan had never experienced when wearing simple human garments.
Brak strode on ahead into the dense forest that was budding with the wild regrowth of spring. It was a glorious day, cool but clear, and the mountains seemed to be teeming with new life. Wrayan followed Brak without saying a word until they were several miles from the fortress. There Brak stopped in a small clearing and tossed the pack to the ground. When he squatted down to open it, Wrayan was astonished at the array of weapons concealed inside.
“They’re all yours?” Wrayan asked, as Brak began to unpack the weapons. “I thought the Harshini couldn’t kill?”
“I’m a halfbreed, remember? My human side doesn’t have any trouble with it at all.” He lifted out a beautifully crafted Fardohnyan dagger in a dark leather scabbard and tossed it to Wrayan. “Know how to use a knife?”
Wrayan balanced the dagger in his hand for a moment. It felt comfortable. He nodded cautiously. “I think so.”
“Good. Because we’re going to have to do this quietly.”
“Might I enquire about who we’re going to kill?”
Brak sat back on his heels and looked up at the young man. “Jerendenan spotted a Karien priest and a small guard of Karien soldiers heading toward Sanctuary. We have to take them out before they find it.”
“But Xaphista’s a god, isn’t he? Doesn’t he know where to find it anyway?”
“Only the Primal Gods can feel it. The others have to be told.”
“But even if he’s an Incidental god,” Wrayan mused, testing the weight of the knife absently in his other hand, “surely he can find it, even when it’s hidden out of time? I mean, the demons come and go as they please. So do you, for that matter.”
“The demons can’t find Sanctuary. It’s the Harshini inside it they can feel. Xaphista took all his clan with him when he left the Citadel, so there’s nobody there he can sense. Anyway, Sanctuary was built after he abandoned the Harshini, so when it’s hidden he’s as blind to it as any human.” Brak glanced up with a wry smile. “Or did you think Lorandranek goes to all the trouble of hiding a settlement of several thousand Harshini every year just because he gets a kick out of it?”
“I suppose not. But why doesn’t Lorandranek simply send Sanctuary back out of time until the danger passes?”
“He’s not there.”
“Where is he?”
Brak shrugged. “Roaming the mountains, I suppose. He hates being cooped up in Sanctuary. When it’s back in the real world he spends as little time there as possible. And he’s not the only one. A good third of the Harshini are probably wandering around these woods at the moment. Like I said, we have to do this quietly.”
“Did Jerendenan have any idea what you were planning when we left?”
“He might have suspected,” Brak replied, sliding a vicious Hythrun blade down the side of his boot. “But he won’t allow himself to dwell on it. As far as he’s concerned, we’ve gone out for a stroll in the mountains.”
“They’re pretty good at turning a blind eye to things they don’t want to know about, the Harshini, aren’t they?”
For the first time, Brak seemed amused. “You have no idea how good they are at it, Wrayan,” he agreed. “You can’t even imagine. It’s how they survive.”
He tossed a small pouch to Wrayan and tucked a similar one in his own belt. Wrayan emptied the contents into his hand and looked at it curiously. It was a weapon of some sort—a piece of coiled wire about a foot-and-a-half long, with a small bone handle at each end.
“What’s this?”
“A Fardohnyan garrote.”
“What’s it do?”
Brak stood up and held out his hand. Wrayan gave him the garrote. The Halfbreed shook it out and took a bone handle in each hand. “You sneak up on your victim,” he explained, walking around Wrayan until he was standing behind him. “And then you do this.”
Before Wrayan realised what was happening, the wire was round his neck and Brak was pulling on the handles so hard he thought his head would be severed from his body. The wire sliced sharply into his throat, white lights danced before his eyes and he couldn’t breathe. Wrayan had just enough time to think this whole thing had simply been a ruse for Brak to get him out of Sanctuary so he could kill him, when the Halfbreed let him go with a shove and the air rushed back into his lungs.
“Works pretty well, actually,” Brak continued in a conversational tone as Wrayan bent over double, wheezing. “It’s quiet. Easily concealed. Only trouble is, it’s rather messy. But your victim can’t raise the alarm. The larynx is the first thing to go and a garotte’ll slice through that like a hot knife through butter.”
Wrayan glared at Brak, but decided not to ask for any more weapons demonstrations. He may not survive the next one. “How . . . how did a troop of Karien soldiers . . . and a priest . . . get this far into Medalon, anyway?” he gasped instead, rubbing his neck.
Brak shrugged. “The Sisters of the Blade have a treaty with Karien, and it’s held for nigh on a century and a half now. There’s nothing on their northern b
order but an old ruin. It wouldn’t have been difficult for the Kariens to simply walk into Medalon and head for the mountains. I’m sure the Defenders would take a very dim view of them being here, but the chances are pretty good they don’t have a clue about it. All the Kariens had to do was keep a low profile and nobody would have even noticed them. They couldn’t have got here this quickly from Karien this spring, though. I’m guessing they came over the border last spring and have been hanging around the mountains, waiting to feel Sanctuary come back, since last year.”
“They can feel it?”
“Like a beacon in the night,” Brak confirmed. “The priests can feel the Harshini, at any rate. Xaphista lets them drink his blood when he initiates them. It creates a link with him through their staff and lets them wield a bit of magic. Not enough to seriously threaten the Harshini, but enough to be an irritation. And speaking of magic, if you get near the priest, don’t touch his staff. Or let him touch you with it.”
“Is it a weapon?”
“It might as well be. It reacts to anybody who can wield magic. One touch of a Karien priest’s staff and you’ll be on your knees begging for mercy, sobbing like a little girl. And don’t try to use your own power, either, while we do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Karien priest will feel it. Even worse, so will every Harshini between here and Sanctuary, and they’ll know what we’re doing. It would destroy them to think we were killing anyone—even a Karien priest—to protect them.”
Wrayan stared at Brak with sudden understanding. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Taken out a danger to the Harshini without them even knowing about it?”
“More times than I care to count.”
Brak had laid out the rest of his weapons while he spoke, slapping away Eyan and Elebran’s curious little hands as the demons tried to help. It was an awesome array. There was a Hythrun short bow, waiting to be strung, with a full quiver of black-fletched Hythrun arrows. There were two swords. One was a curved scimitar, like those favoured by the Fardohnyans. The other was a long, well-made, and very serviceable looking Defender blade, along with sundry other throwing knives, another couple of garrotes and a savage-looking mace.
“Didn’t you grow up in the Citadel with the Harshini?” Wrayan asked curiously.
“Yes.”
“Then how come you know so much about killing people?”
“When I was about seventeen, I got a little . . . fractious,” Brak explained, rising to his feet. “A hot temper, coming into my power and the Harshini didn’t sit very well together. My mother sent me to live with my father while I grew out of it and settled down a bit. He was a Medalonian human. I stayed with him until I was nearly twenty-five.”
“He was a soldier?”
Brak shook his head. “Medalon didn’t have soldiers in those days. This was long before the Sisterhood came to power. He was a farmer. One evening in winter we were bringing home the sheep to pen them for the night when we were attacked by bandits. They killed my father and left me for dead. It was a rude awakening. I discovered that day not everyone believed in the sanctity of life the way the Harshini did. So after that I made a point of learning how to defend myself. And my people.” He smiled grimly. “I’ve been around a long time, Wrayan. I’ve had plenty of opportunity to learn.”
“Is your mother still in Sanctuary?”
“She was killed in the Sisterhood’s first purge.”
Wrayan wasn’t sure how to respond to that so he tactfully changed the subject. “If the priest can only wield a minimal amount of magic, why is it so important to stop him finding Sanctuary? He couldn’t do it any damage, surely?”
“The staff links him to Xaphista, although, granted, the Overlord would have to be watching at the right moment for him to learn anything useful. But if the priest finds Sanctuary, you can bet everything you own on him calling to his god. If Xaphista learns where Sanctuary is, we’d probably have time, this year, to get it hidden before they got here, but by next year there’d be an army waiting in these woods to tear the place apart, stone by stone, the moment Sanctuary returned.”
“I thought the gods created the Harshini?”
“The Primal Gods did. But Xaphista’s an Incidental god. The Overlord—he gave himself that name, by the way, which should tell you something—is just a puffed-up demon really, who’s managed to acquire most of the powers of a god because he’s got several million believers.”
“So why does he have it in for the Harshini?”
“Because they worship all the gods. And when they’re around humans, they tend to encourage them to do the same. Xaphista’s trying to create a world in which he’s the only god.”
“Can’t the Primal Gods do something about him?”
“You’d think,” Brak agreed. “But Xaphista’s probably as powerful as most of the Primal Gods combined, these days.”
“So they just leave it to you?”
Brak smiled grimly. “It’s not so difficult. The Harshini are safe provided Xaphista never learns where they are.”
Wrayan knew Brak was right. And that the Harshini had faced this threat before. He could do no less than the Halfbreed in protecting them. Besides, after the Feast of Kalianah, it seemed he had some fences to fix with Brak and saving the Harshini from extinction seemed a fairly useful way of mending them.
“How do we do this?”
“That’s where these two troublemakers, Eyan and Elebran, come in,” Brak said, pointing to the demons, who both puffed up self-importantly at the mention of their names.
“We’re going to help save the Harshini,” Eyan announced proudly—or was it Elebran? Wrayan could never tell them apart.
“We do stuff like that all the time,” the other demon added.
Wrayan looked at Brak doubtfully. “They’re going to help?”
“The demons and Zegarnald,” Brak replied. He grinned at the horrified expression on Wrayan’s face. “Now here’s the thing, Wrayan, m’boy,” he added, tossing the scimitar to the young man then buckling the Defender sword around his own hips. “There’s really not much use in being Harshini with no aversion to violence if you can’t call in a favour from the War God every once in a while.”
chapter 75
T
he God of War appeared at Brak’s summons, barely larger than a normal man, dressed in an elaborate suit of archaic armour wrought in gold that was even more tasteless than Dacendaran’s motley garb. Brak was glad to see Zegarnald looking quite diminutive. At his most powerful he would tower over them, his polished helmet, with its tall golden plumes, brushing the tree tops.
“Looking a bit seedy today, aren’t we, Divine One?” he asked with a grin. Zegarnald annoyed the hell out of Brak and he enjoyed seeing the god like this, even though they both knew it was only temporary. “Ah, but that’s right! It was the Feast of Kalianah last night. The whole world was making love not war. How is your delightful little sister, Kali, this morning? Has she been around to gloat yet?”
“What do you want, Brakandaran?”
“Why, nothing more than the chance to honour you, Divine One.”
The god stared at him suspiciously. “You are my most reluctant disciple, Brakandaran. You rarely honour me willingly.”
“But you must admit, Zegarnald, that when I do, it’s usually in style.”
“Say what you want of me,” the god snapped impatiently. “I have better things to do than listen to your pathetic attempts at flattery.”
“There’s no need to be so testy. I just thought you might be interested to know there’s a Karien priest and six of Xaphista’s followers in these woods about to stumble over Sanctuary,” Brak announced, a declaration which instantly got the god’s attention. “I thought you might like to help in making sure they don’t get out of here alive. And it would be nice if you made certain the priest doesn’t get a message back to Xaphista before I kill him, too.”
“Seven of Xaphista’s believers?”
> “In the flesh.”
“You have a plan, I take it?”
“Don’t I always?”
“And the thief?” Zegarnald asked, glaring at Wrayan, who had wisely remained silent and unmoving throughout the exchange, as had the demons, who were uncharacteristically subdued in the presence of the god. “What part will Dacendaran’s lackey play in this?”
“For the purpose of this little enterprise, Wrayan Lightfinger belongs to you, Divine One. Just as I do.”
Zegarnald smiled. “Dacendaran will be most put out.”
“And you look so upset about that.”
Actually, the god was positively gloating, but so long as he did what was asked of him, Brak really didn’t care.
“Do what you must to protect the Harshini, Brakandaran,” Zegarnald ordered with a decisive nod. “No magical force will be able to penetrate these woods until the deed is done.”
“And the Harshini will know nothing?”
“As usual, they will remain ignorant of your activities,” Zegarnald promised. “I know how much it distresses them when you honour me.”
Zegarnald vanished, leaving Wrayan staring at Brak with a puzzled look. “As usual?”
“As you so astutely remarked earlier, Wrayan, this is not the first time something like this has happened.” He turned to the demons without waiting for the young human to answer. “You know what to do?”
“I’ll be the bird,” Eyan offered. “And Elebran can come back to you with the message when I’ve found them.”
“No!” Elebran objected. “I’m the bird and you’re the messenger.”
“I’m the bird!” Eyan insisted, stamping his little foot soundlessly on the needle-covered clearing. “I said it first!”
“But you always get to be the bird.”
“That’s ‘cause I’m better at it.”
“But I want to be the bird, this time!” Elebran demanded. “Can I be the bird, Brak? Please? Please?”
“Oh, for the gods’ sake! Take it in turns!”
“Then I’m going first!” Eyan announced petulantly, and without giving his companion a chance to argue about it, changed into a large and ungainly sparrow.
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