Soulseeker

  It seemed like there was a yawning emptiness, a torn hole within him, and the loss of his twin had seemed to make his inner wounds gape further, while hatred of his mother, well fostered by both his father and Arran, had flared into full bloom.

  She had left him behind. Left Rian to the nonexistent mercy of his crazed father and obsessive brother. Whatever reason she might have had was lost with her death.

  What flaw had she seen within him that made her choose Valen? Was that same wrongness or fault the very reason that Arran treated him with such foulness? The thought that somehow, he might actually have caused those around him to act as they had, was completely devastating.

  Hamon had been riding alongside him in silence, seeming to gather his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice was calm and measured. “I realize that there may be some cross cultural confusion, but I cannot believe that you do not know you are a soulseeker. You even have a wraith as a protector, such as the ancient texts speak of.” Hamon paused, drawing a deep breath as though for patience before pinning Rian with a grim stare. “Are you playing with us, prince? We will not take such mocking well.” The warning was voiced with a low growl.

  Rian reined in Mirish, his temper flaring as he twisted in the saddle to face all of them. Perhaps he was not so completely broken in spirit after all if he had the strength to face his new guards, fearsome though they were. It was as though every slight, every hushed whisper that arose in his path, every averted gaze, the feeling of his own people’s scorn, rose to swamp him, and some surviving sliver of pride he had thought long extinguished refused to let these strangers do the same.

  Drawing himself up to his admittedly diminutive height, he found the will to speak up.

  “I know what my brother will have told you, as he has told every group of ‘guardians’ he has assigned me. Imprisoned me with. As a king, I am sure his word holds far more weight than mine. But perhaps you should remember that all stories have another side, another viewpoint. By believing him implicitly, he who is just as much a stranger to you as I am, you are putting yourself in a dangerous place. There are layers of intrigue here, gentlemen. To know only half seems somewhat foolish even to me, young as I am. Perhaps you should be looking at all angles instead of believing a man who has proven himself to his own people as being incapable of transparency, or anything beyond brutality. This man you trust so much and so swiftly.”

  Hamon’s look was patiently derisive and his tone held cold certainty. “You hold great facility with words, Prince, but you will not sway us in your direction.”

  “Then you are a fool, sir, as are those who follow you. I can only hope you are capable of dealing with the aftermath of your decisions. Observe then, gain your own knowledge, or I fear you will regret your naivety.”

  He heeled Mirish into a full gallop, leaving his icy scorn trailing on the wind behind him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hamon could feel his cousin, Wravon, eyeing him, no doubt feeling the frustration Hamon was currently incapable of concealing. They lagged behind their charge far enough to speak privately, but close enough to bring him to heel should he revert to form and attempt another escape.

  Hamon’s temper could not hide the truth of the matter. The boy had a point. Yet the king had warned them of this very ability. The king, who had been so persuasive, who had not set off any of Hamon’s many warning senses.

  In the end, perhaps there was truth to both ends. Hamon came from ancient high blood, and many of their high chieftains had come from his family line. He was well-versed in how convoluted those in power could be, their minds twisting and turning in ways no normal person could possibly conceive of. His people might be more blunt and generally open, but he was no fool to fall for honeyed words.

  Or was he?

  The boy had not pressed or insisted but left them to gauge their own thoughts, and his angry response had held the first hint of fire in his personality. Hamon felt like that was truth, that his true form had flashed through for the briefest of moments.

  Wravon guided his horse closer, so that they rode knee-to-knee as they so often did. Hamon valued his cousin’s levelheaded views and his ability to perceive what others overlooked.

  At this moment, he needed that more than ever.

  Tearing his glare from the stiff form of the rider some distance ahead, he met Wravon’s concerned gaze.

  “I don’t think we can completely ignore his words,” Wravon said, his tone holding quiet conviction. “I felt truth behind them.”

  Hamon’s lips curled with a silent snarl, but he could not refute his cousin’s statement. Wravon held the position of a truth-seeker within their people’s ranks, and it was a thing greatly respected. If he said that the boy spoke truth, then Hamon had to accept that, however much he wished to believe otherwise.

  If the boy was correct, then that presented the alternate scenario, one which Hamon did not wish to consider. That would mean Arran had lied and had somehow gotten such a thing past Hamon, past Wravon. That should not be possible.

  Wravon clicked his tongue, drawing Hamon’s attention away from his dark musings. “If your thoughts have led to the same place as mine have gone, you are going to ask how such a lie could possibly have gotten past us.” There was a degree of self-annoyance in the words, as Wravon seldom had to contend with mistakes. “We must remember, if the person speaking truly believes what they are saying, it will come across as truth, regardless. I fear, cousin, that we may well now find ourselves in a situation we had not considered. If what I am feeling from the boy is truth, and not some product of his own deep belief, then the king of Rashma is a troubled soul indeed.”

  Hamon’s lips thinned. His father, High Chieftain of the Zala, had sent him to Rashma upon receiving the summons from King Arran. Although his father had not given specific details, it was clear that he expected Hamon to use this opportunity to scout Rashma itself, to gain a better understanding of these hereditary former foes.

  Hamon had obeyed, but now he wondered if he had been too proud, too complacent in their own abilities and strengths, accepting the Rashmaian king by his surface energies and not remembering that by all accounts, those of Rashma had a reputation of being unable to be honest, or at least not able to perceive what truth actually was.

  Hamon hated this, hated the games that politics promoted. He was eternally grateful to be the youngest son of seven and therefore expendable. It gave him freedoms his brothers would never know. In this case however, he had the lowering thought that his siblings would have been far more cautious and skeptical than he had been. It seemed he had grown used to the often brutal honesty of the average Zalan, too long exposed to the common people and their hard work, rather than to the nobility who found manipulation a way of life.

  Self-disgust rose like a tide. He had brought his men into unknown danger and with none of their kin close by to render aid if need be.

  A touch upon his forearm jolted him out of his self-castigating thoughts.

  Wravon gave him a chiding shake of the head. “What’s done is done. We saw no wrong, even as you did not. Now we know to be on high alert. Be thankful we discovered this, and not in a moment of betrayal.”

  Hamon blocked his angry musings at this gentle chastisement. Wravon’s levelheaded calm was often Hamon’s check balance when he swung off course due to his considerable temper. With six older, often bullying brothers, he had had to be fierce until he got to the point where he could outfight them all.

  Unfortunately, that same behavior did not serve him well outside of the family. He knew he reacted far too strongly to even innocuous situations, and therefore was struggling to change his ways. Wravon, particularly, worried about him and sought to guide him into new behaviors. He tried to accept the guidance with compliance and effort, without letting his temper pull him into annoyed rebellion.

  He stared ahead at the prince. If he could get through this time with the boy and not strangle him, perhaps he could claim to be a changed man.
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br />   Perhaps.

  Rian jerked out of his angered fugue as Mirish slid to a stop and half reared. He settled back to four hooves quickly enough but shied nervously, fighting the bit.

  He drew rein and tried to soothe the stallion, to no avail. He felt as much as saw the Hawks pull their mounts to a halt beside him. Mirish calmed somewhat at the presence of the other horses but remained abnormally alert.

  Rian mindlessly reached for his sword—only to curse under his breath when he remembered its absence. Arran had delighted in taking it from him upon his capture. His grip shifted, throwing back the flap of the saddlebag.

  “What is it?” Hamon’s sword had appeared so swiftly that Rian could only blink in astonishment and approval.

  Warriors indeed.

  He shook his head, holding up a hand for silence. He sat motionless, studying the road before them, where it wound through the dunes. All seemed normal, but Mirish was poised on the edge of flight. A desert-born stallion had instincts that Rian trusted far more than his own. Animals were open to energies that mankind had no knowledge of, no ability to sense. He leaned forward in the saddle, a cold suspicion beginning to form…

  The faintest sound of sliding sand…

  “Get back!” he screamed, whirling Mirish round, the stallion ready and willing to run, eyes white-rimmed with terror.

  The Hawks reacted as one, swiftly and with precision, as they turned a heartbeat behind Rian.

  Wravon’s stallion stumbled, only that, but it was enough. A dark form burst from the ground in an explosion of sand. Long fangs sank into the stallion’s rump, as clawed forelegs scrabbled to grasp the struggling horse. The stallion’s screams of agony struck to the soul.

  Rian did not even consider his actions. He was off his almost uncontrollable mount, grabbing the spear from his saddlebag as he went, stumbling and almost falling as he hit the ground hard, his wounds screaming.

  He was running a second later, jerking the collapsible spear open as he went, hearing the shouts of rage from the Hawks, the pounding of their footsteps in his wake, but too far behind.

  Too far.

  Wravon’s stallion was down, struggling, its shrieks heart-wrenching as it fought being dragged over the sands by the huge predator that had brought it down. Sand spider, a younger one, fortunately not an adult, or there would have been no hope at all. Now, there was a sliver of a chance…

  Wravon had fallen clear, but he would never leave his horse. Swinging his sword, his roars of rage sounding over the stallion’s pain, he attacked the massive creature with desperation, following it doggedly as it retreated back to its hidden burrow, unaware or uncaring that he was moving to his death.

  The spider was easily as large as the stallion it had captured. The man’s sword slashes were futile against its armored legs, two of which struck out at him, fending him away.

  Rian shut his senses to the horse’s pain. The fangs had already struck. There was no hope for the poor thing. But the man, the man he might save with fortune on his side.

  He sprinted harder. Small and light he might be, the very attributes that made it difficult to be the strongest of warriors, but here and now, they worked for him. If he had any ability to boast of, it was running. Not one person had beaten him in competition yet.

  Now it might well be salvation.

  The spider had started backing down into the burrow, sand sliding down the edges of the pit around the entrance. If Wravon had sense he would stop now… The sand beneath the maddened warrior’s feet gave way. Wravon stumbled, losing his balance. Rian leaped for him.

  He landed on the crumbling edge of the pit, grasped the spear, and thrust it down beside Wravon’s flailing form.

  “Grab it!” he bellowed, his commander’s voice coming to the fore.

  Wravon obeyed blindly, shocked eyes rising to meet his from where he floundered in the slide, moving inexorably toward the mouth of the burrow where the spider was rapidly disappearing with the dying horse clutched in its mandibles and claw-tipped forelegs.

  Rian saw the grief, saw the moment Wravon considered letting go and following his beloved mount into oblivion.

  “The horse is already dead,” Rian screamed brutally. “Don’t you dare abandon your brotherhood!”

  Fury flashed over Wravon’s face, then he snarled and grasped the spear more tightly. Rian had to fight being pulled into the pit himself at the extra weight, the edge falling away…

  Then suddenly there were hands clutching at him, pulling him back, reaching for the spear to help bear the burden. He sprawled back, watching, gasping with pain from his arm, his back, dazed with relief as Wravon was pulled free, all of them stumbling back, away from the crumbling edge of the pit.

  A hand was thrust into his field of vision as he lay panting on the sand. Rian looked up, wary, heart still pounding with adrenaline.

  Hamon’s expression was grim, but there was something in his eyes that made Rian take the aid, grasping palm to palm. One sword-calloused and huge, one fine and small.

  Rian fought a shiver at the touch, and yet it did not seem to be fear or distrust, something that any touch, innocent or not, usually seemed to produce within him.

  Once on his feet, he quickly withdrew his fingers, feeling an inexplicable flush rise in his cheeks. Brushing the sand from his clothing gave him precious moments to regain his composure, to look away, to disconnect from this strange and sudden link.

  He tensed, froze in place, as long fingers threaded through his hair, tousling it, shaking sand from the ruined braid. His breath suspended as he awaited the inevitable pain, waiting for those fingers to clench, to use his hair to either punish, or take control from him, as Arran so often did.

  Instead, they retreated with nothing of abuse in their wake, and somehow that disturbed him more.

  Wravon stood some distance away, shoulders shaking with sobs he made no effort to hide. His companions ringed round him, clustered closely in comfort, tears on their own faces. Rian bowed his head, trying to make himself smaller, realizing that it was an instinctive reaction to the emotions swirling around him.

  The withdrawal, instinctive or not, was halted in its tracks as he was drawn into powerful arms.

  His mind blanked with pain and panic… His body hovered on the verge of fighting free of the constraint, only to realize with utter shock that he was being hugged. By the leader of the Hawks. By Hamon, who had earlier so despised him.

  “You are either insanely brave, or simply insane.” Hamon’s whisper stirred the hairs on Rian’s neck, making him shiver in response. He stood uncertainly, struggling not to show how the embrace hurt, hands fisted at his sides, unsure what the proper response to this hug should be. From an enemy no less.

  Hamon finally released him, pushing him back gently by the shoulders until they were staring into each other’s eyes, far too close for Rian’s comfort.

  “You gave me back my cousin, my friend, Wravon. We will properly grieve his stallion, but because of you, I do not need to grieve an empty place at my side, in my soul.” The smile was shaky at best, the first Rian had seen upon that grim face.

  Rian nodded, unable to find words in light of this sudden turnabout, with the man suddenly treating him as a companion rather than a burden, an unpleasant duty.

  “By the gods, what was that thing?” The question held all the horror of the entire encounter.

  “A desert ambush spider; Tertilian we call them. They lay in wait in pits dug in the sand, lined with their webs. Sometimes they spring out on prey to drag them back to their burrows.” He brushed a shaking hand over his face, feeling the shock of the incident beginning to take hold. “We have regular patrols to keep the roads clear of them. This will be reported, once we reach the camp.” He felt guilt rise, the fingers of his right hand clenching in response. “I know it is no comfort to your cousin, but I am deeply sorry for the loss of his stallion in such a horrific manner.”

  Hamon was silent, studying him with an unnerving intensity.
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  “Why save him?” the other man finally said. “We have done nothing to endear ourselves to you. Indeed, you could have attempted escape. None of us would have pursued, too concerned with Wravon.”

  Rian could not answer, could not find a way to explain his own actions, even to himself.

  “You did not think, did you? You acted on instinct to save him.”

  Rian flushed. It sounded so foolish put in that manner. “I am often accused of having no self-preservation.” He felt defensive. The conversation was taking a strange turn into something perilously close to praise, and that hug still had him twitching uneasily. He had no inner guide to tell him how to deal with this strangeness.

  “No soul so unselfish could be evil. Nor cruel.” The words were almost- gentle.

  Rian shifted back, more terrified by the gentleness than the former hostility. Anger was something he knew from others. Gentleness held no place in any part of his life, past or present.

  Hamon’s next question caught him off guard. “How did your mare die, prince?” Yet for the first time, the question did not hold accusation.

  Rian took another step, breaking free of that touch, able to breathe properly once more.

  “I killed her.” He threw his head up in sudden defiance, a part of him stunned that such a thing still remained, now, when he thought it destroyed utterly by Arran. Yet here, in Hamon’s presence, it rose wildly, foolishly.

  Hamon’s eyebrow merely rose at the statement, no judgment as there had been before. It seemed he was genuinely asking.

  The turnabout left Rian floundering, unsure how to respond. No one ever questioned Arran’s statements. If his brother spoke, his words must be truth, or at least truth that no one was willing to confront. Yet this stranger wanted Rian’s version.

  To his horror, the words rose up, spilling from his lips as though he had no control over them. “I was escaping, fleeing for the southern border. Arran shot the mare out from under me. It was my fault. If I had not attempted…” He choked off, unable to continue.