by Cindy Dees
Will started forward, but his mother grabbed his arm tightly. “Hold,” she breathed. “He wishes to make enough battle noises to draw more orcs this direction.”
“But he’s outnumbered,” he whispered back.
“It is only two orcs,” she replied dismissively. “And it is not as if they are thanes.”
He stared aghast at her unconcerned face. What was he supposed to say to that? Boki were known to be among the fiercest and most skilled fighters in the land. The last time they had poured out of their forest and attacked the humans, they had nearly annihilated Dupree. A clash of weapons captured his horrified attention, and he watched in shock as his father’s gleaming white sword danced like chain lightning, darting in and out, leaving nicks and cuts behind everywhere it went.
If he didn’t know better, he would say that Ty was toying with the orcs. Apparently, the orcs concluded the same, for they began to growl. The pair separated, attempting to flank Ty, concentration now grim upon their hideous visages. Will would have stepped forward again to help, but again his mother forestalled him.
Apparently tired of swordplay, Ty abandoned his light fencer’s stance and settled into a deeper, bent-kneed stance Will recognized all too well from years upon years of beating wheat to knock the grains loose with staves. Which, now that he thought about it, had often been about the heft and length of an actual sword.
With casual efficiency, Ty went on the attack using a swift, turning move that Will had seen many times before on the threshing floor. His mother flinched as the left-most orc’s decapitated head thudded to the ground a second before the body collapsed. Ty reversed the sweep to his right, smashing past the orc’s defenses and burying his weapon in the creature’s chest.
The orc bellowed as Ty yanked his blade free. Before the second orc had barely hit the ground, Ty grabbed the creature by the feet and commenced dragging it into the brush.
“Go help him,” Will’s mother urged. “That roar will bring more orcs than your father hoped for.”
Will rushed down the hill and grabbed the roughly shod feet of the headless orc. The stench was unbelievable as he dragged the heavy corpse after the first one. His father kicked the orc’s head into the bushes just as the sounds of more orcs approaching disturbed the woods.
“Get out of here,” Ty ordered tersely. “Go cover your mother, and give her time to kill orcs as they come. And no more magic out of you unless you are going to die. I’ll continue to use mine so they concentrate on me and not you.”
Will nodded, taken aback at the terse tone of command ringing in his father’s voice. It was unlike anything Will had ever heard from Ty. To Will’s ear his father sounded just what he thought a Kothite general in charge of a great army would sound like.
Numb with shock, Will took the spare quiver of arrows his mother shoved into his hands as she strung her bow and assumed an archer’s stance. His mother? A trained archer?
“Keep the quiver on my back full,” she ordered, her gaze trained on the slope below.
He had a feeling that this time when the orcs came there would be many more. And this time there would be thanes among them.
CHAPTER
5
Princess Endellian did her best to look bored as she followed her father, Emperor Maximillian, down the long hallway to the most isolated corner of the Imperial palace where the Empire’s most secret business was conducted. It was isolated for good reason. Even now, faint screams echoed down the ornately decorated hall toward her. With casual ease of long experience, she blocked from her mind the terror and desperation accompanying the noise.
The smaller “interrogation” chamber behind her father’s throne was used mainly for oracles who had already been made to understand their need for utter cooperation with Maximillian. But the chamber to which they proceeded now was where that cooperation was learned.
Harder to block than the agony accompanying the echoing screams was the random and frequent mind probing her father projected in an all-encompassing net around him. Even his daughter was not exempt from his continuous scrutiny.
In fact, he particularly watched her. As his heir, she posed perhaps the greatest threat to his throne of all. Not to mention that of all their kind, she came closest to matching her mighty father in mental power. Even the nine archdukes who were Maximillian’s contemporaries in origin were not as powerful as she.
And then there was her suspicion that he actually wanted her to intrigue against him. Not seriously enough to threaten his throne, of course, but enough to hone her skills in the art of manipulating the complex politics of the Imperial Court.
Even so, it was a delicate dance to shield her innermost thoughts from her father without him realizing she was doing so. Whether she succeeded or not was anyone’s guess. Mostly, she made sure to couch all of her plotting in terms of how she was serving the best interests of the Empire with her machinations.
“You are unquiet, my princess.”
She turned an innocent gaze upon her sire. “I confess I cannot abide the mewling of these oracles of yours. Please forgive me if I block their whining from my mind.”
“These Children of Fate are a fragile lot to be sure but their gift for true prophesy cannot be denied. Their Mistress has imparted great power in them.”
And yet it is an enduring mystery from whence came their extraordinarily accurate tellings of past and future, as if they see beyond the Wall of Time itself.
Maximillian commented, likely in direct response to her thought, “The Children have a taste of Fae magics about them. Such power allows them a certain freedom from the limitations of our world. While their powers of prophesy are enhanced, their forms lack any real protection from the rigors of that power.”
Ahh, but the weakness of those bodies also gives you power over the Children of Fate.
Maximillian responded to her thought dryly, “True enough.”
A pair of guards swept open the door before her father and she followed him into a torture chamber outfitted to take maximum effect upon the vulnerable flesh of the Children, who were becoming harder and harder to find throughout the Empire. It had been nearly a year since one had been brought in, and Laernan had reported secretly to her that the latest one was not particularly talented or the least bit cooperative. Apparently, this one had expected to be tortured for his visions and flatly refused to give them up shy of torture. Although it was not Laernan’s preference to resort to such crude tactics, he was willing to get his hands bloody when necessary.
The uncooperative oracle turned out to be a shirtless man of middling age chained upon the left-most wall, wrists and ankles manacled in a sprawling X well above the floor. His gut was split open at the moment, Laernan’s fist buried in his innards. The prisoner screamed hoarsely, his voice cracking and abruptly falling silent.
Of course, the prisoner did not die. The Lord High Inquisitor was of sufficient mental power to forcibly hold the man’s spirit within his body, regardless of how broken it might be. The prisoner could be roused to full consciousness with little more than a thought by his torturer, and Laernan did so now. The screaming took up where it had left off.
“How are we doing today?” the Emperor asked his chief inquisitor pleasantly over the din.
Laernan extracted his hand from the prisoner’s gut, wiped it upon a towel, and bowed deeply to his liege. “This one exerts much effort of will to die. He will fail, of course.”
The oracle slumped in his shackles, sweat and blood streaming down his body. Endellian noted that this one had the distinctive hourglass-shaped infinity sign of his kind crudely carved into his right side. It looked as if the prisoner had marked himself thus.
The oracle was bold in his defiance of her father to display his symbol so aggressively. Ahh, well. Laernan would extract the defiance from the fellow soon enough.
“What details have you garnered?” her father asked a little less pleasantly.
Laernan answered, “The Children continue to be stubb
ornly silent on the subject of this nameless one who thinks to threaten you. Either they do not know, or else they guard the secret with particular tenacity.”
“Get me a name.”
“That’s just it, Your Majesty. There is no name.”
She noted with approval that Laernan had carefully avoided any mention of the end of Maximillian’s reign. As unconcerned as her father had seemed that night sixteen years ago at hearing the prophecy, she had always suspected he’d been secretly alarmed by the oracle’s death brought on by the prophecy of his own end.
“Get me a name before I am forced to take extreme measures,” her father growled, openly displeased now. The waves of his ire rolled through Endellian’s mind, and she was careful not to block them in any way. It would not do to show resistance to her father while he was in this mood. He was apt to mind blast first and get around to regretting the results later.
The only other person in the room, a woman leaning against a far wall well back in the shadows, commented wryly, “If Laernan’s Taming does not constitute extreme measures, surely your … guest … must quake to think what actual extreme measures will entail.”
Endellian glanced up and, out of the corner of her eye, spied a yellow tint and hint of vertical, slit irises in the woman’s bland face. She looked more fully upon her father’s ward, and the impression faded away, replaced by entirely unremarkable, brown human eyes.
Endellian’s gaze narrowed. Miralana—short for gudeanandu, a low-quality beast of burden in Maximillian’s native tongue—never let her human form slip with the Emperor. But then, he was probably the only being in Koth who could truly hurt her.
Irritated at her own inability thus far to cow her adopted little sister, Endellian glided over to the woman. “Miralana. I did not feel your presence,” she purred as she rested a hand on the woman’s impassive cheek. The faintest ridges of layered scales and the thinnest blush of blue appeared under her fingertips. Clever girl. How did you sneak up on me without me sensing your presence?”
“Does my ward displease you?” Maximillian inquired lightly.
That made Miralana’s eyelids flicker briefly, for even she feared the wrath of the Emperor.
Without breaking eye contact with her sister, Endellian answered, “Not at all, Father. My sister merely makes a joke.” To her slave, she murmured low, “You never can resist poking at me, can you?”
“Yes, Mistress,” the woman replied emotionlessly.
Child. Endellian sifted through the human thoughts shifting upon the surface of Miralana’s mind. Nothing to be concerned about. But as always, the deeper, alien portion of the woman’s mind was impervious to her probing. Sensing no immediate malicious intent, however, she backed out of her sister’s rather unpleasant-tasting consciousness.
“It took no great insight to guess what Maximillian’s purpose was in raising Miralana at Court. She would be an incredibly useful tool one day. Although the power required to wield her in the way Maximillian planned to was mind-boggling to consider.
Greed for the kind of might her father wielded pulsed through her. The kind that stopped entire armies with a word. That killed with a mere thought. That shaped reality itself with casual, brutal efficiency. Someday, she would have such power, and it would make her impervious to the threat Miralana posed.
Oh, Miralana would never turn against her or Maximillian. She dared not, for the Emperor knew her son, Kane, and where to find him. Ironic how Kane, an accomplished killer in his own right, should be so very vulnerable at the end of the day.
The obvious lesson of Miralana’s position in the Empire was never to fall in love and never, ever, to indulge in offspring. If those things could bring such a being low, they were weaknesses a future Empress could ill afford.
The oracle was screaming again, this time in an even higher pitch and with greater intensity than before. Endellian recognized the sound of a mental invasion by her father. It was utter domination of the mind. Whereas Laernan tamed the will, Maximillian broke it. No one could resist him. She was told there was no more exquisite pain anywhere than when Maximillian stimulated every single nerve in the body to the most excruciating and unbearable agony. His victims were, of course, forced to remain fully conscious all the while, unable to faint, unable to die.
“Tell me!” Maximillian snarled at the hapless oracle twitching on the wall. “Who does this prophecy speak of? Give me the name.”
A liquid splat announced the moment when the oracle’s body literally exploded.
“Revive him,” Maximillian ordered in disgust.
This oracle was lucky. As often as not, Maximillian simply ordered another oracle brought in and strung up. Or perhaps her father sensed special vulnerability in this one. She eyed the mangled corpse of the seer speculatively.
Laernan stepped forward obediently and forced the oracle’s spirit back into its broken body, which the inquisitor also used his mental powers to repair just enough to sustain life’s functions. Whimpering announced that the oracle lived once more. Meaningless babbling announced, however, that the oracle was not in his right mind.
“Enough for now,” Maximillian announced.
“Yes, Your Resplendent Majesty,” Laernan answered. “So shall it be. If I might—”
The Emperor cut him off. “Come, my dear. I am hungered.”
Personally, her appetite was ruined by the sight, smell, and general squishiness of the oracle’s innards, and she made no secret of it as she took a mincing step over the mess on the floor and headed for the door. Maximillian swept out of the room with no further delay, for which she was grateful.
But as she nearly reached the exit, Laernan did something odd. He made direct eye contact with her, which was a blatant breach of protocol. She raised a questioning eyebrow. His urgent gaze darted to the broken oracle hanging limp upon the wall and back to her.
The inquisitor muttered low, “He has not given us the information we seek, but he has been speaking. Quite a bit, in fact.”
Prophecies? “Interesting,” she responded carefully.
He nodded significantly in the affirmative.
She cast a wary glance at the door through which her father had passed. “I will return. Speak of this to no one.”
Laernan bowed in acknowledgment.
With a quick, resentful look over at Miralana watching passively in the corner, a suggestion of a scaled crest topping her skull and disappearing down her back, Endellian swept from the torture chamber, hurrying to catch up with her father before he noticed her delay. Miralana might tease her, but they shared the common bond of being their difficult father’s children. The creature would not tell Maximillian of the brief exchange with Laernan.
* * *
Raina looked up and down the dim hallway, deserted for the moment. She had to escape now. Her mother would expect her to rant and wail for a few days against the whole idea of bearing babes for the Mages of Alchizzadon but eventually to bend to her will. No one stood against the will of Lady Charlotte for long; the woman always got her way. Therein lay her weakness. She would assume Raina would give in. And if she gave her mother time to employ the cajolery and bullying tactics she was so good at, Charlotte might very well be right.
She should go to her father for protection. He would never stand for what Charlotte and the mages had planned for her. Which made her frown. He would never stand for it. Her mother and the Mages of Alchizzadon must have altered his memory. Could they also alter his loyalties? If his mind had been tampered with, she could not trust him to aid her. He might turn her over to her captors instead.
Time. That was her greatest enemy. She must leave right away. Tonight, even. But where to go? How to escape the heavily fortified keep? She knew nothing of such things. Help. She needed help. Justin. As children, he and her brothers had forever been slipping out into the woods to play against the orders of their parents.
He should still be at the feast. She raced for the great hall, desperate to beat her mother there. Hop
efully, Charlotte and her two henchmen would seek her first in her own chambers. Or mayhap the stables.
She slowed to a more moderate pace as she reached the kitchen. Grabbing a rough apron to cover the bright white velvet of her gown, she slipped into the hall behind a gaggle of servants bearing platters of bread. It was said to absorb the liquor in one’s belly and reduce the effects of drunkenness. She looked around desperately. There. Justin was still at one of the long tables in the back, seated upon a wooden bench. She slipped onto the bench beside him, slouching low to avoid being seen.
Her father shouted a toast from the head table, and everyone around her hoisted a mug. Ale sloshed and the crowd grew even more boisterous as the mugs were emptied and refilled.
“Drink up, muckling.” Justin shoved a tankard of ale into her fist. “What’s brought you slumming with the common folk?”
Someone guffawed and made a coarse comment about the Ladies of Tyrel marrying young because they hankered to lie with a man. Any man.
Raina stilled abruptly. Why not? What was to stop her from dragging Justin outside this very minute and lying with him? Even if she didn’t make a child with him, her mother and those cursed mages would have to wait some weeks to find out for sure that she was not with child before they proceeded with their plan. It might buy her enough time to come up with another idea.
She leaned close to him on the bale of straw and placed a shy hand upon his knee as if for balance.
“What the—” Justin brushed her hand aside quickly. “No more ale for you,” he announced, alarm lurking at the back of his gaze.
She murmured under the din, “I need your help.”
“With what?”
“I need you to lie with me, right away. Tonight.”
His eyes popped wide open in shock. “What?”
“Surely you know what I speak of.”
“Of course I know!” he retorted sharply. “I was hoping you did not know what you spoke of.”
She spoke in an urgent whisper. “They want to feed me a love poison and let a stranger get a child on me.”