Rather, for the first time in his life, a woman filled Raz’s dreams. A human woman, pretty and smiling, her skin as gentle and pale as the snow that fell around her, her white, braided hair spilling about her shoulder, and her eyes filled with a rose fire that burned with such hope and warmth that it stole Raz’s breath away.
XII
“I know nothing of fear, nothing of terror. No, this is not a boast, though it may be an exaggeration. I am familiar with both emotions of course, and would be a fool and a braggart to say otherwise. What I mean to say, rather, is that my experience with fear and terror are mere shadows in comparison to what I know is possible, to what I have witnessed in the eyes of too many I have come across. Those cursed souls made to suffer in the Cages. Children convinced they were destined for slaughter in the pits of the Arena. Slaves in Perce, atherian and human alike, passed like currency from one set of hands to another, not knowing which are crueler. No, I know nothing of terror, nor do I have any wish to educate myself in its secrets.”
—THE DRAGON OF THE NORTH
AT FIRST, Syrah thought the boot that woke her from her fitful sleep seemed oddly gentle, the blow it dealt her thigh muffled and dull. As she jerked up and away, however, she realized the lack of pain had nothing to do with any peculiar mercy from the wearer, but rather from the distinct numbness that layered her skin like a blanket. The chill of the hour was so deep, so tangible that the air itself seemed to have taken on a new texture, a sharp, harsh grit that bit at her dry tongue and throat and stung her chapped lips.
“Ras, Wyth.”
A hard voice, speaking the harsh enunciations of the mountain tongue.
Rise, Witch.
It took a moment for Syrah to get her bearings. She lay atop a layer of dirty furs, tucked in the corner of a small tent, numb arms awkwardly pinned under her body. A thin, ragged blanket had been thrown atop her, but the worn threading did even less to keep her warm then the ripped fabric of her Priestess’ robes. There was no fire in the tent—nor any place to build one, it seemed—the only light offered coming from the torch the man who’d woken her held low and to the side, keeping the flames away from the thick cloth canvas and revealing a plethora of bags, crates, baskets, and leather traveling sacks piled about the floor.
Syrah saw none of it, her eyes fixed on the tribesman standing above her. Sigûrth, she could tell by the braided hair. The hand not holding his torch was clasped tight around the hilt of a short-sword, bared steel feebly glinting in the flames.
And he was alone.
Syrah moved instinctively, planning to take full advantage of her enemy’s solitude while she could. She didn’t know where she was, but she doubted she’d ended up anywhere she wanted to stay for even a moment longer than she had to. There might not be another such chance, and hesitation was ‘a good way to a bad death,’ as Talo had drilled into her head. Leaping up, she started to draw the magics into her hand, intending to hit the man with a paralyzing blast that would lay him out for hours.
Things could have gone much better.
Instead of landing on her feet, something snapped taught about Syrah’s ankles, sending her tumbling back down towards the cold furs. At the same time, another something caught around her wrists behind her back, preventing her from throwing her arms up to stop herself, much less strike with the intended spell.
It was only after Syrah had landed painfully, half on her shoulder and half on the cut right side of her face, that she realized she’d been chained.
As panic began to set in, Syrah looked down to see the iron manacles clamped about her feet, their insides lined with thick straw so the metal wouldn’t frostbite the skin of her shins through the leather of her boots. Beginning to regain some sensation in her fingers, she felt around to discover that her hands were similarly bound.
Rapidly, the panic turned into anger.
“Cowards!” she snarled, whipping her body around and kicking out at the man with both legs, trying to catch him in the knees. “Craven! Fucking ball-less sacks of…”
Syrah let out a flow of curses in every language she knew, which was quite a few. The Sigûrth, for his part, didn’t so much as blink at the berating, nor did he seem much bothered by the clumsy attack. Stepping aside easily, he brought the flat of his short-sword down hard across Syrah’s thighs. Instantly her screams of fury turned into a wail of pain, and she rolled over, away from him. Despite this, the man struck her twice more with the steel, once across the side of her leg, then again across her upper arm and chest.
This last blow knocked the wind out of Syrah, and she gasped and wheezed even as she heard the man sheath his blade and bend over her.
“I said RISE, Witch!” he hissed into her ear, grabbing her firmly under her throbbing arm and hauling her to her feet.
Syrah stood as directed, or attempted to. Almost immediately she stumbled and fell as the chains tangled between her feet, and at once the Sigûrth brought her up again roughly. From there she was half-led, half-dragged out of the tent, pulled through the heavy hanging leathers that made up the entranceway.
As the sting of the winter air hit her in full, Syrah looked around with equal parts awe and fear.
The Woods’ gnarled trunks towered up around them like dark sentinels, holding up the denseness of the canopy that formed an almost-impervious ceiling of branches, spiny leaves, and layered snow several meters above their heads. Ordinarily it would have been pitch black there beneath the trees—despite Syrah not actually knowing what the time was—but the Woods were alight with an eerie orange glow, a ghostly reflection of a hundred small camp fires scattered out before her in all directions. The flames reflected across snow-strewn ground, and again off the bluish canopy high above where the worst of the storms had built up in the branches. They even shone off the trees, in patched lines where moisture had frozen over bark, leaving thin sheens of ice.
Despite her personal predicament, a small part of Syrah became immeasurably saddened by the sight. She had failed.
Gûlraht Baoill’s vanguard had successfully entrenched itself in the Arocklen.
“Move, woman,” her escort snapped, pulling her along again. This time Syrah did a better job of keeping up with him, adapting to the distance her legs could make with every step. She only tripped a few more times on the uneven floor of the forest as she was led by the arm through the camp. All manner of faces turned in her direction as they walked, but only the Sigûrth they passed jeered and threw whatever was at hand in her direction.
The rest of the tribes seemed distinctly more sober. While there was no pity in the blue eyes that she caught as they passed, nor was there shared any of the pleasure and amusement that struck the Kayle’s clan.
They walked for only a few minutes, winding their way through the encampment. Syrah didn’t ask where she was being led. She had her suspicions, and they were rapidly confirmed as yet another grouping of tents —much smaller—appeared atop a hill as they came around a particularly thick set of trees. The mountain man beside her didn’t slow as they took the incline of the earth, and twice more Syrah fell, though she kept her curses to herself.
Or at least kept them for Grahst, when she saw him.
Soon Syrah could make out the roaring laughter of a dozen men, as well as the hearty smells of meat and bread and ale. As they stepped between the first row of tents the air steadily lost its chilly edge, warming until they passed into the bright glow of a wide, low fire in the middle of a flattened clearing. Lounging and sitting around the heavy stones that caged the flames, Grahst’s favorites were talking and joking, some arguing, some playing with dice, and some digging into heavy haunches of deer and elk meat, the carcasses strung up in the dark beyond the fires. Grahst himself was at the head of the circle, seated atop the stump of an old tree over which someone had thrown what look like a wolf pelt.
It had been Syrah’s hope and intention to meet the man eye to eye. To face and challenge him, at least in defiance. Grahst had robbed her of her courage du
ring their fight, ripped it from her as no other man had ever been able to do so before, and she had silently sworn to herself that it would not happen again.
Unfortunately, her plan was thrown to the wind when the man who’d taken her from the tent planted a heavy boot in her back and shoved her forward into the group.
Syrah didn’t have a prayer of keeping her feet. Even if the log that tripped her up—upon which sat a pair of conversing Sigûrth—hadn’t been there, the chains around her ankles would have done her in. As it was, Syrah barely managed to take two stumbling steps before her shins caught the wood and she fell heavily directly into the middle of the clearing.
And directly at Kareth Grahst’s feet.
A roar of laughter went up around her. They howled and jeered, laughing as Syrah struggled to get herself up, to lift herself from the ground.
“No.” Grahst’s voice cut across her efforts. “Stay there, Witch.”
There was a shuffle of approaching feet, then a boot dealt Syrah a hard kick that doubled her up, forcing her to curl around herself on her side, hacking and heaving. Another gale of amusement arose, and Syrah felt the fear start to creep back up her spine.
Still, she refused to go down so easily.
Fighting the nauseous throbs emanating from where the blow had landed in her gut, Syrah slowly began to edge herself up again, leveraging her body awkwardly on a bent elbow. She was allowed to attain her knees on this attempt, and looked up just in time to see Grahst give a nod to the man standing over her, the one who’d escorted her to the camp.
This time a fist caught her in the side of the face.
Syrah went down again, tumbling to the ground where she groaned, helpless to stop the sounds as pain radiated from her stomach and head simultaneously.
Through the fog, she heard shouts of “More! More!” in the mountain tongue.
“Enough fun, Krehnt,” Grahst said. “Get her up.”
Hard hands grabbed her by the front of her torn robes, and Syrah was hauled up onto her knees again. The world spun for several seconds at the motion, and Syrah bowed and sucked in air as she fought the queasiness that ripped through her. Her hair was falling loose of her braids, tumbling over her ears and face. She could feel her left eye start to swell from where she’d been hit, and the cut above her right had opened again. Blood dripped to the ground before her, and it was a long time before Syrah gathered the strength to look up and gaze into the face of a demon.
Grahst met her stare levelly.
“You’re brave, Witch,” he said softly, and Syrah realized that the cacophony of noise about the fire had deadened, all attentions fixed on them. “A fool, yes. But also brave. Like my father, in fact. I’ve thought about what you said, considered your words. In the end… I think you may have been right.”
Syrah didn’t respond to him, watching the man lean forward, eyes fixed—as always—on hers.
“My father was brave, as you insisted. For many years, and as many winters he was brave. I saw him fight men and animals alike with no more fear than stone itself. I saw him meet every provocation without doubt, without concern for his own life. He could have drafted a champion to fight in his place to face my cousin, when Gûlraht challenged him. He could have, but he didn’t. Rather, he faced a man half again as strong, half again as fast, and half again as young as he in the circle.”
Grahst’s eyes narrowed. “Bravery killed my father, Witch. Bravery spilled his blood and ended his life. Bravery is what made him a fool!”
He paused, letting the words ring clear.
“With that in mind…” he continued evenly, “I wonder if you will prove yourself to be just as much a fool.”
“The only thing I intend to prove, Grahst,” Syrah replied in the man’s own tongue, so that the others seated around them could make no mistake to the meaning of her words, “is that—as much of a fool as he may or may not have been—you will never be a glint of the man your father was. Whereas he sought to save his people from sacrifice and bloodshed at his own expense, you seek to thrust them into war and suffering for your own pleasure. Whereas he built, you destroy. Whereas—”
“I seek no such thing for my people, Witch! I seek glory for them. I seek victory. Blood and life are sacrifices, I’ll give you that, but much must be sacrificed in war. Much must be sacrificed for the betterment of my people.”
He smiled, then, and it was a reflection of the cruel smile Syrah had seen play upon his face only moments before he’d butchered Egard Rost and thrown the former Priest’s head at her feet.
The fear deepened within her, hardening to ice.
“But you call me destroyer,” he purred, as though enjoying the title. “Yes… Yes, I don’t believe I can argue that. I do destroy. I destroy that which stands in the way of the rising of my King and our people. I destroy that which hinders the glory of myself and my men. I destroy that which seeks to seed the mind of those devout to the Stone Gods with treacherous filth and flawed faiths. I destroy all this—” his eyes suddenly gleamed with wicked excitement “—just as my King will destroy the nest of vipers that thrives upon the mountains above us.”
“The Lifegiver hears your pompous bleating as you and I might hear the screeching of bickering rats in the wall,” Syrah spat. “The High Citadel is beyond you, Grahst. It is beyond you, your men, and even your King.”
“Perhaps it is,” Grahst said with a slow nod and a conceding motion of his hand. “And yet, perhaps not. Perhaps—for example—if I and my men had the means in our possession by which to could gather information, our chance would be greater. Significantly greater.”
Syrah felt her heart sink at the words, realizing what Grahst meant.
“Perhaps—again, just for example—if I and my men had someone within our reach who knew all there is to know of this ‘High Citadel’ and all its holdings, then conquering it might not be such a challenge after all.”
His grin widened, and he rested his chin on a fist as he watched her. “My King is going to kill you, Witch. There is nothing and no one who can stop it—not that any here wish a different fate for the likes of you. He’s going to kill you, and he’s going to do it the moment he arrives. You will die, in this dark place. Your life will end here, beneath the bleakness of these trees. But there are things that can change…”
Syrah felt herself paling at the words, but in the pause that followed she refused to voice the question she knew Grahst wanted her to ask, requesting what could be changed. Instead, she just continued to glare at him.
After a time, Grahst seemed to realize he wasn’t going to win this small battle, and he continued. “There is the question of how you will die, of course. There are quick ways, even among the Sigûrth. Gûlraht could claim your head with one blow, if he so desires, or perhaps one of the more zealous of our clan might be convinced to fall upon you and slit your throat in the night. These are peaceful ways to pass, Witch, and you know this. You know too, that there are other ways. My King might bind you to a tree at the edge of camp, leaving you for the Stone Gods and the wolves that prowl the Woods at night. He may have you slain in the ways of old, flayed alive until you die from shock and pain upon the rack. He may even make it as slow a death as possible, smothering you beneath a plank of wood upon which just enough stone will be added that it takes you hours—or even days—to suffocate.”
He raised an eyebrow. “But in talking of time, you must also know that it could be more than a fortnight before Gûlraht reaches us with the bulk of our army. A fortnight before he arrives, and a fortnight during which my men and I—” he waved his other hand and looked about at the half-dozen that surrounded the fire “—do with you as we see fit… Or not.”
He looked back at Syrah, still ever smiling. “Do you understand what I mean, Witch? Do you understand what I imply, woman?”
Syrah had thought she understood, but the way in which he said this last word left her with no doubt.
She could feel what little bravery she had left slipping r
apidly way, and she scrambled to hold onto it, praying silently to the Lifegiver for strength.
Grahst took her silence as understanding.
“Good,” he said, slapping his knee as though they had just hammered out an excellent business deal. “Then let us begin… How many of your ‘Priests’ man this Citadel of yours?”
Syrah set her jaw, held his gaze, and said nothing.
After several seconds, Grahst lost a little of his smile. Looking away from her he glanced at the man still standing over her left shoulder—Krehnt, he had called him—and gave a small nod.
Without so much as a hesitation in which to give Syrah a chance to prepare herself, Krehnt stooped down, grabbed the smallest finger of Syrah’s right hand, and broke it with a twisting snap.
Syrah screamed, partially collapsing as agony ripped through her, lancing into every limb and digging into her mind. She barely kept to her knees, head touching the cold earth as she continued to shriek, writhing in pain.
“Let’s try again!” she heard Grahst shout over her howling. “How MANY, Witch?”
It took all the strength she had for Syrah to roll her head to one side, and her words came through teeth grit in pain.
“More than you can handle, vrek,” she said in the Common Tongue. Though she thought it likely Grahst knew enough of the language to have understood everything, the slur, at least, was not lost upon the rest of the group. Several men roared in fury, a couple even reaching for sword and ax handles, leering in her direction.
Grahst held them up with a raised hand, but he, too, seemed to have lost much of the cruel amusement that had toyed across his face before she’d spoken.
“You are dangerously close to sealing your own fate, woman.” He said the word carefully again, as though attempting once more to remind her of certain vulnerabilities.
Then he managed to smile again, though it was somewhat more forced than usual. “Perhaps I am asking too much too soon,” he said, almost politely. “Krehnt, help her up again.”
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