Shadows of Blood

by L. E. Dereksen

  “And you sure this stone is it? She’s a crafty woman, they say. She could have set you a trap.”

  “You think I haven’t considered that? Trust me, I made sure. Three years, Aunt Tan. Three years. All the while pandering to her and her bastards like a slave. And that right there, that look you’re giving me, is the reason I have to get it back. No one will believe me ‘less I prove it. If I show up in Marrentry saying I solved it all, with nothing to show for it, the Duke . . .” he stopped.

  “He’ll call you a liar and a coward?”

  Mag shook his head. “You think this is about my pride?”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen!” Mag’s voice broke. He blinked red-rimmed eyes. “They’ve got Father. And Tannis. The Duke of Marrentry told me . . . he said . . .” He swallowed, fighting to control himself. “We have to go back.”

  Tandra Yourk stood there, staring at her nephew, and she didn’t know what to do. The situation was even worse than she feared. She was good at making snap decisions, even the difficult ones when she had to. But now she just didn’t know.

  It’s too dangerous, she wanted to say. No. And leave it at that. But her nephew was a pace away from hysteria over this thing, and if she put all the clues together, he was right. Madric and Tannis Yourk were in trouble, and who knew what the Duke would do if Mag failed.

  To the ten-fires with that pig. They were all the same. The Duke of Marrentry, the Contessa of Terryn Dal, and all the petty lords between. Once they’d had a king—so long ago it was a gods-tale. Right about the same time the Kyre’an empire was dissolving, after the Teeri Wars and before the rise of the Lendahyn empire and the red trees. He’d been king for an age, like one of the gods himself. But even he hadn’t been able to stop the warring factions after his disappearance. Wars and squabbles that still wracked the Manturian Isles nigh on a thousand years.

  “Let me think about,” she said at last.

  Mag blinked. “What?”

  “I said let me think about it. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  “But if that Kyre’an man took it, he’s getting further away every minute. We can’t just let him take it, we have to go after him, we have to go now.”

  “Mag.” Her voice was firm. “If that man took it, for whatever daffy reason, then it’s probably long gone no matter what we do. Considering he put us both on our backs in a flash, I doubt there’s getting anything from him he doesn’t want to part with. What I’m thinking is maybe you dropped it back there and it’s still lying in the grass. But that’s three days out of our way, and three days back. If you do the math, that means Garden’ll have six days up on us, and I don’t like how that adds up. So I’ll think about it, and I’ll give you my decision in the morning. Now in the meantime, clean this mess up and give me a spot, you hear?”

  The young man looked distraught. He ran a hand through his blonde feathers and kept it there, his mind racing behind his eyes. Then he came to some decision. Bringing his hands down to his sides, he nodded. It was enough for her. She turned and left him to deal with the rest.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jerad Amanti

  TWO DAYS AGO

  “Feddel!”

  Garden’s shout brought Jerad from a dead sleep to his haunches in a blink. The man’s voice echoed over the pre-dawn camp, almost bright with anticipation.

  Jerad stifled a groan.

  Right. Tracking.

  They’d spent the last day paddling down river, which is when Jerad realized that, despite the vicious beating, his arms and legs had been conveniently spared. No broken bones; no excuse not to paddle.

  It had been a long and wretched day. Every sweep of his arms was a knot of pain twisting and untwisting, and twisting again. His head was still ringing. His jaw felt like a rock. But he remembered his promise to himself: he would be everything he had to be. For his own sake. For the Imo’ani. For Hyranna.

  She was alive. She had escaped. Jerad refused to believe otherwise. But was she really free? He remembered the dark power that had seized her at the road. She had nearly killed him. She would have, if the man calling himself E’tuah had not intervened.

  Jerad didn’t like that man. And he liked this so-called Aktyr even less. If she was alive, then she was alone with all that. And Jerad trusted that no more than he did Brit Garden.

  He had to find her. He had to free himself.

  But in order to do that, he needed to be strong. Which meant he needed favour. Which meant . . .

  Jerad hid his scowl and paddled with a firm stroke, giving no word of protest, not even an acknowledgement of his pain.

  Garden watched—and smiled.

  “You know, Feddel,” he said after a long while, “I always knew you’d be the first.”

  Jerad grunted. “First?”

  “The first to put it together in that skull of yours.”

  Jerad’s blank look brought a chuckle from the man. He tapped his revolver against his knees. “See, there comes a time in the life of a slave when it clicks. He sees his lot. He sees he could fight. He sees he could make every day a kick to the stones if he really wanted—for himself, for his masters, for everyone in spitting distance. And there’s pleasure in that. To the ten fires with ‘em, seyah? But eventually, something gets knocked into place in his kretch.” Garden knuckled his head. “He wakes up one night with a revelation of sorts: what use is it, I ask, getting beat down for naught?”

  What use is the beating? Jerad almost muttered aloud, but for the amusement of your own cruelty? Still, he managed to keep his mouth shut, and maybe that was answer enough.

  Garden chuckled and wagged a finger at him. “Indeed. See here, boyo, I know. I understand your mind. Hope is not fled—not yet, at any rate. But escaping will take energy, planning, time. And don’t all those things require a speck of good health, a strong body, surety of limb and mind? So why not pander to the master, for now, the slave says, assuring himself of his future emancipation. For now. And ever that rosy future recedes before him. You see, Feddel—hope is both the slave’s great strength, and his great undoing.”

  “‘Cause his strength just gets stolen from him,” Jerad muttered.

  “Oh aye, that’s one way to put it.” Garden nodded agreeably, as if this were some casual conversation he might have with any acquaintance. “But hope’s truth is more insidious than that. For step by step, it drives the slave to shake hands with his own fate. By doing so, he is both saved and destroyed.”

  Jerad grunted, continuing to paddle. “I’m glad you have it all worked out. Must help you sleep at night.”

  Garden’s smile widened. “Like a babe. Now see here, Feddel, I will beat you again, regardless. But I do see it in your eyes. You’re the smart one.” He nodded. “You’ll do alright.”

  Jerad ignored the bait. “What does it mean?” he asked. “Feddel.”

  Garden brightened at the question. “Why, that’d be the big dumb beast of burden, no good but to haul around my effects.”

  “Play drums on my kretch again and you won’t be wrong.”

  “Hah!” Garden leaned forward conspiratorially. “I have a secret for you, though. We say in Terryn Dal that when the horse charges the line, the donkey laughs.” And his eye glinted when he said it.

  Jerad’s paddle switched sides and he kept on, hardly breaking stride.

  “Tell you what, Feddel. You do good for me, and I’ll set you up somewhere proper. A quiet Foxwyn vineyard? A Middle-Isles estate? With a bit of training, a few Manturian words, you’d make a proper house-guard, I’ll bet. Might even share a bed or two, if the mistress takes a fancy.”

  Jerad tightened his jaw.

  “How old are you, boy? Sixteen?” Garden chuckled.

  “Eighteen.”

  “No.” He tapped his gun, considering. “Sixteen. You’ll fetch me a higher price.”

  Fuck your price, Jerad almost snapped. But didn’t. It wasn’t going to happen anyway. It wasn’t.

>   “You ever been with a woman?”

  His whole neck must have gone scarlet. He looked away, concentrating on the paddle.

  “She never let you poke her, eh? Ah, too bad. I could have fixed that for you.”

  Jerad’s fists clenched.

  “But maybe it’s just my luck. Higher price for an unspoiled youth.” He winked. “You must be right sore though, given my knife got between her legs before you.”

  Jerad froze, half-out of his seat before he realized what he was doing. A tremor ran through him. A blackness that could have crushed Brit Garden’s skull if it weren’t for the tilt of that gun. A small motion. Pulling back the hammer, and up, so it stared Jerad straight in the belly.

  “Found it,” Garden smiled. “Always good to know what hurts.”

  Jerad sat back down, hard—and without a word, continued to paddle.

  When they finally landed, the Northmen hauled him out and the beating began again. Jerad bit his tongue, saying nothing as they knocked him down, enjoying a few more kicks to his kidneys, laughing at the way he seized up into a ball.

  Garden interrupted the sixth or seventh blow. “Nanif,” he said, with a few words in Manturian. Then for Jerad’s benefit he added, “and one less every day he does what he’s told.”

  Jerad refused to huddle and whimper. He caught his breath, then limped towards the line where they tied him. This time, when Rees sneered at him, he held the man’s gaze. Me, Jerad thought, so it won’t be you. And Rees looked quickly away.

  Jerad ate a little. He tried to move his arms and legs, anything to keep from freezing up, then eased himself to the muddy ground, turned onto his side, and shut his eyes.

  “Stay strong,” the woman next to him murmured.

  Jerad almost sat up in surprise. No one had said a word this whole time. Not since Letti had been killed.

  “Mirren,” he whispered, recognizing the woman’s voice. She was the eldest of them, had been a leader of sorts back in Tellern. Jerad knew it, even before she’d told him that first day they’d paddled together.

  “Don’t let them beat you down. Do what it takes. For all of us.”

  The slaver on watch was already stomping towards them, but Jerad understood. He squeezed her hand, saying nothing, feeling the weight of her words like a heavy cloak enshrouding him. Protecting him.

  The next morning Garden dragged Jerad off the line himself. “Now you and I will do some hunting, won’t we Feddel?”

  Jerad nodded.

  “And you won’t give any trouble now, will you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Garden clapped him on the back. “That’s my boy. We’re gonna bind your hands, just in case, and . . .” he glanced back at the slaves. “And that old craf will get a bullet, should you even think of threatening me again. You hear?”

  Jerad nodded.

  “Good. Now I want your take on this fool’s chase of ours. Your honest take.”

  Jerad glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Honest?”

  “I don’t like having to repeat myself.”

  “Alright.” Jerad took a deep breath. “You’ve no idea where you are, or where your thieves are either. That’s the fact of it. You’re going downriver because that’s the last lead you had, but for all you know, you could have passed them somewhere in the forest. How far behind were you in Tellern? Your best guess?”

  Garden’s eyes glittered at him, but Jerad refused to back down. He’d said honest.

  “Near on a pair of weeks.”

  “And they were walking?”

  “Cart and horse.”

  Jerad knew nothing about horses, except he’d glimpsed the creatures once on the road. They had seemed fast to him, until Hyranna and he had discovered the bodies strewn across their path, the vengeance of the Cay-et.

  Garden leaned forward. “Not much beyond a walk, boyo. On account of the cart.”

  Jerad thought about it. Perhaps like paddling a heavy-laden raft upstream? That made more sense. It also meant Brit Garden was following an old trail. Had someone already been sent—and failed? Maybe these traders knew what they were doing after all.

  “So you lost a day going to the road and back with . . .” Jerad swallowed. “You lost a day. Maybe another at Tellern. You’ve gained a handful by river, but not enough to catch up, if your estimate is correct.”

  Jerad glanced around. The landscape had certainly begun to change. The trees were thinning out, patches of open ground appearing, meadows of purple and gold. And the ground was softer here than in Elamori. The river banks were sloughs of mud, obviously prone to flood-swells. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt clean. Even the Northmen couldn’t keep their clothes and boots free of the muck.

  Maker’s breath, Jerad missed Elamori.

  “If they have a horse, they’ll have to lead it to drink,” he decided. “Which means at least occasional visits to the river. Giving you another day or so. Meaning you’re probably a week behind at this pace.”

  “Oh?” Garden’s smile was dangerous.

  He nodded. “But they have to come to the river at some point. And look.” He waved an arm at the stinking fen they were forced to call a camp. “The soft ground will betray them. We start combing it for tracks, and we’ll have them.”

  “Good.” Garden nodded. “Start here.”

  “Here?” Jerad glanced around. “No offence, sir, but your men make every piece of land they touch a trampling ground. Send most by river, with the Imo’ani. They can go at an easier pace, get some rest, and we’ll move overland. Ahead of them. That’ll give me a chance to actually see what’s going on here.” He gestured to the ground. “I’m a fair tracker where I’m from, but I can’t see anything with a dozen Northman boots all over it.”

  Garden watched him, and Jerad had the keen sense he was being weighed. But he knew he was right. It was the only chance to find these thieves, short of stumbling across them by dumb luck. Jerad didn’t say so, though. He wanted to display confidence, not a death wish.

  “Well, Feddel,” Garden smiled at last. “I suppose we’d better get a move on, then, seyah?”

  It was rough going, trying to balance in the muck with his hands tied in front of him. Not to mention the threat of a Northman whose sole job was aiming a gun at Jerad. The man’s name was Rin. He kept a few feet back, but close enough he wouldn’t miss if Jerad made a break for it.

  As if he would. Hyranna’s escape had cost the life of the girl. Jerad had no illusions about the consequences of a similar attempt. No. When he turned against his captors, it would be all or nothing.

  But how?

  He needed a plan. Wildly throwing himself at Garden wouldn’t solve anything; even if he could get a gun, he didn’t know much about using it. Him against all the Northmen? He knew how that would end.

  He tromped through the mud, shoved along by Garden, who never thought he was going fast enough. His eyes scanned for tracks. There were prints of deer, rabbit, fox, and other creatures, but none human, as far as he could see.

  He knew his plan wasn’t foolproof. He had tried to sound confident, hoping to win Garden’s trust, but there were a dozen ways this could go wrong. Maybe the traders carried enough water they didn’t need the river, or maybe they found other streams or ponds along the way. Maybe they were clever. Jerad was used to following deer and elk, but such creatures didn’t stop to mask their trail. Worst of all, maybe the traders had never come this way at all.

  Jerad could go mad thinking of all the possibilities outside his control. So he didn’t. He presented Garden with simple confidence: the traders would come this way, and he would find them.

  So they marched. They marched all day with nothing, and at the end of it, they rejoined camp empty-handed.

  Jerad was greeted with a few more kicks and blows. They were hard enough to hurt, hard enough to drive the message into his so-called kretch, if not hard enough to cause serious damage. True to Garden’s word, the blows stopped one shy of the night befo
re.

  He slept painfully. He dreamt there was a knife in his side, turning and turning with every move, but Garden just laughed and made him keep on anyway, sometimes walking, sometimes paddling. In his dream, Jerad wanted to take the knife out, but his hands were bound, and every time he tried, they shouted at him and hit him. The knife became a part of him, sinking deeper and deeper, until his skin closed over the handle, sealing the blade inside. He thought regretfully that he would carry that knife forever, never free of the pain. Never free.

  He woke in the night, regret still lingering, as if somehow he could have done more to defend himself.

  When he turned over, his side twisted in pain and he almost cried out. He wondered if he was going to die, slowly and painfully, bleeding from an inside wound, as sometimes happened after a run-in with a tusk or hoof.

  And then he heard the woman next to him weeping: a near-silent litany, going on and on and on, cutting through the core of him more painfully than the knife in his dreams.

  Laris, he thought, recalling her name. He wanted to comfort her, assure her, but how? What could he say that would make any of this better?

  Maker’s breath, he wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t. That was the best he could do.

  He tracked all the next day. Garden grew increasingly impatient, shoving him whenever he stumbled or faltered, growling at him to move faster, move, until Jerad found himself face-down in the river bank. Mud soaked him like a second layer of clothes, but it was cool where he lay, almost enticing. He could shove his bound hands into the mud, feel the cold earth envelope them, ease the throbbing sores and let it coat his skin like a glove.

  “Eet atch in!” Garden snapped, kicking him hard in the side. “Every tick is another lost. Go faster, or I’ll make you, seyah?”

  Jerad shook his head. “I can’t.”

  A knife rasped free in response. Garden seized the back of his shirt, twisting, poking the blade into Jerad’s battered cheek. “How about now?”

  Either Jerad’s capacity for fear had already been saturated, or he was getting used to such threats. He hardly blanched. “Want me to go faster? Give me my hands back.” He uncurled his fingers, showing wrists chafed raw, new blood crusted on top of the old.