Betrayer's Bane

by Michael G. Manning

  Eal’estea managed to finish her own when a human male rushed her, aythar blazing around his body and forearms. Trusting to her defense she began working on her offense when his armblade ripped through her shield and impaled her right shoulder. Shock and pain ran through her, draining her concentration as she fell back.

  “Damnitt, Sarah! I told you to try and take the females alive!” shouted the man that had just impaled her. He followed her to the ground and before she could recover he cut away her remaining defenses. His bare hand was coming down over her face.

  She felt a surge of power smothering her will as he pushed her onto the ground but her magesight still showed her the fight raging around her. She could see there were at only ten humans, possibly a few more, but half of the She’Har were dead already and most of the others were unconscious.

  Four of her kin had formed a small defensive square, but before they could unify their efforts a small woman charged toward them, black hair flying behind her. A metal snake floated around her and her arms were covered with the same lethal magic that had probably killed Eal’estea. The metal whipped outward, cutting through magic and flesh with equal ease and Eal’estea’s companions were dead before the woman even reached them with her armblades.

  Not that the furious woman seemed to care. She cut into them even as they fell, slicing them into ever smaller pieces. Seconds later she stopped. The woman was panting, her blood covered chest heaving for air even as she smiled. “That’s the last of them, Father!”

  Eal’estea’s consciousness faded but she could still hear the man holding her down speaking in Barathion, “How many did we get? I can probably save this one if we don’t have twenty-three but I don’t want to waste the effort if we already have our quota.”

  ***

  “We did well,” said Ryan, “eighteen females and five males.”

  “I would have preferred all females,” said Tyrion sourly.

  “It was difficult to be precise,” commented Layla. “Too much caution and we might have let one escape or worse, injury one of us.”

  Tyrion nodded, “It probably doesn’t matter. I can start testing with the males and hopefully by the time I finish with them I will be able to complete the process without killing the females.”

  They were back in Albamarl, or more accurately, near Albamarl, in the upper chamber he had hidden underground there. The two Mordan mages had worked for several minutes to transport them all back. It had taken quite a few trips since neither of them could easily bring more than four or five people with them with each teleportation.

  “Line them up on the floor over there,” instructed Tyrion, “and make sure to refresh the sleep spells. I don’t want any of them to wake until I have them safely tucked away. Once you’ve done that you can all leave. Go home and don’t let anyone see you until you have the blood cleaned off of yourselves.”

  All of Tyrion’s children had participated in the raid, as well as Layla and the two Mordan mages. One by one they began to leave, talking quietly among themselves. Most of them seemed energized by their successful foray, but a few were subdued. Abby in particular, was notably quiet.

  “Emma, Ryan, Brigid, and you two,” he ordered, pointing at Brangor and Jordan, “stay. I still have need of you.”

  When the others had left he looked at the two Mordan mages and then pointed at the only two stasis boxes in the chamber, “These are for you.”

  “What?!” asked Jordan, startled.

  “Today’s raid must remain a secret. I trust the others, but you two are outsiders. To make certain of your silence I only have two options,” explained Tyrion. “This option allows you to keep living. Eventually, when everything is over, you will be able to return to a normal life. I also intend to see that you are well rewarded for your service.

  “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what the other option is,” he finished.

  The two men were still, not the normal sort of stillness, but the absolute motionless of men contemplating sudden action. It was something Tyrion was well acquainted with.

  Brangor made his decision first and his body twitched slightly before he fell back screaming. Blood spurted from the stump of his left arm. It had been neatly removed just below the shoulder. Tyrion used his will to clamp down on the artery immediately, stanching the flow of blood. The vessels in that part of the arm were large enough that unconsciousness and death could follow within seconds of such a cut.

  His eyes flickered upward to glance at Jordan. The other mage hadn’t moved, his muscles were slack, relaxed in a way that indicated he had no intention of following his comrade’s mistake. Brigid stood close behind him, a look of disappointment on her face.

  Kneeling over his victim, Tyrion dismissed his armblade and began talking as he worked to seal the wound, “If you had managed to teleport I would have been forced to activate your tattoo. That would have killed you, no matter how far you went, but then I would have had to worry about someone finding your body and asking difficult questions.

  “You should have thought about your decision more carefully. If you had you might have realized that I would prefer to keep you alive so that I don’t have to keep recruiting new Mordan mages. You might also have considered that I don’t really need you to keep your arms and legs to do the job I need.”

  Brangor’s eyes rolled in his head but the man was still conscious. Tyrion had sealed the wound quickly enough to prevent the loss of any serious amount of blood. His eyes focused on Tyrion’s face, fear showing in them.

  Tyrion stood and then used his aythar to lift the injured man and carry him to one of the stasis boxes. He lowered him into the box. “The box isn’t anything to fear, you know. I will close the lid and from your perspective I will be opening it again a second later. No time will pass for you. When you see my face again I will need you for the next raid, and you’ll have to do it while feeling faint from an injury that only happened a minute before, for you. Once you understand that, you will realize how stupid your action was.”

  Jordan had already walked over to his own box and was climbing inside without a word.

  Tyrion smiled at him, “I thought you were the smart one when I first met the two of you. It’s good to see I was right.”

  Once the two of them had been sealed inside Tyrion, Ryan and Emma began moving the sleeping She’Har to the lower, more secret chamber. Brigid started to assist but Tyrion stopped her, “Clean up the blood. I don’t want to start attracting flies in here. You can help after that, if we haven’t finished yet.”

  She pouted for a second, but then complied. It had been a good day. Who was she to complain?

  Chapter 13

  The sun had not yet made its way over the horizon when Abby heard a soft knock at her door. She had a privacy ward around her room, so she couldn’t see who it was with her magesight, but it was unusual for someone to come to her room so early.

  Her eyes were swollen and her face was bound to be unseemly. She had been crying for half the night. Abby disabled the audible portion of the privacy screen and asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Sarah,” announced a voice from the other side. “Can I come in?”

  She rubbed her face quickly with a small hand towel, though she knew it wouldn’t do much good. “I’m not really presentable yet,” she told her half-sister through the door.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Sarah. Her voice sounded shaky. “Please, can we talk?”

  Abby opened the door. Sarah Wilson stood in front of her and she looked much like Abby imagined herself to look just then. Dark circles were beneath Sarah’s eyes and her hair was disheveled. The other girl entered and Abby closed the door while simultaneously restoring the auditory portion of her privacy screen. “You look like I feel,” she said bluntly.

  Sarah’s eyes filled with tears without warning.

  “I’m sorry!” said Abby in a rush. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was referring to myself, I must look terrible…” She stopped, th
at didn’t sound any better.

  “That’s not it,” said Sarah in a half-sob. “I can’t stop thinking about it, about yesterday. I keep seeing them.”

  Abby embraced her then, while Sarah let her anguish have its way for a minute or two. She hadn’t expected so much remorse from Sarah. The other girl always seemed to have her emotions under firm control and she had certainly shown no sign of hesitation during their brief battle the day before.

  She knew everyone thought of her as the most ‘sensitive’ of Tyrion’s children. Abby took no offense at the label. In truth she considered herself the most stable, or perhaps the most balanced. She didn’t hide from her emotions, and consequently she thought she was probably the most adept at dealing with them. Even so, yesterday had shaken her far more than she had expected.

  Abby had been committed to their cause, despite the violence of their mission. She knew it was a necessary evil. No, that wasn’t true. She told herself it was necessary, but without knowing their father’s full plan, she couldn’t truly judge that. Abby had resigned herself to closing her eyes and putting her faith in Tyrion’s design.

  No matter what, the She’Har had a lot to answer for. But was that slaughter truly justified?

  Sarah’s tears made her more uncertain.

  “Thank you,” whispered the other girl.

  Abby hugged her tighter, “For what?”

  “I couldn’t bear it if I was the only one.”

  “The only one?”

  Sarah sniffed, “That was upset. I know we’re all related, but sometimes I feel so alone. Everyone seems so sure, so certain, as if they have no doubts. It’s like the blood doesn’t bother them at all.”

  Abby’s stomach clenched as the word ‘blood’ brought an unpleasant memory from the day before into her mind, but she took a deep breath and mastered herself. “No, you are not the only one. In fact, before now, I thought maybe I was.”

  “You think the others might feel this way too then?” suggested Sarah hopefully. Disentangling herself from Abby’s arms she took a seat on the edge of the bed.

  Abby nodded, “I’d be surprised if they didn’t.” Pouring a cup of water from a pitcher she handed it to her sister. “Probably everyone is dealing with the same thing to one degree or another.”

  “They were practically defenseless,” mumbled Sarah, her voice monotone. Most of the emotion had drained out of her. “We just cut them to pieces, except for the ones we took, and who knows what Father is doing to them now?”

  Abby clenched her teeth, “Most likely some of the same things they did to him when he was first taken.”

  “Does that make it right?” asked Sarah.

  “None of it is right,” replied Abby. “We live in a world full of nothing but wrongs, wrongs and evil. My only consolation is that he thinks he can make some sort of future for those that come after us.”

  “What if he can’t? What if he’s lying, or mistaken, or just homicidal? You’ve seen his eyes. You know he’s gone mad.”

  Abby sighed, “He isn’t the only one. I still struggle with rage and self-loathing when I think about everything that has happened. What they did to Haley, what they did to us, what they made us do. Tyrion’s madness didn’t happen on its own. He may not even be the worst of us in that regard.”

  “Brigid.”

  Abby nodded.

  “She was like a beast,” said Sarah. “Did you see her, naked and covered in blood? But she reveled in it, she would have killed them all if he had let her. I’ve never seen anything so disturbing in my life. Seeing her was worse than looking at the dead. She looked like a greedy child eating candy, or as if she was having…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “I wonder if I might have turned out like that,” admitted Abby, “if I had been forced to do what she did. Haley was her best friend.”

  “It was a mercy then.”

  “What was?”

  “Killing Haley,” answered Sarah. “She had already had to do the same to Gabe. Think what it would have been like for her if she had killed Brigid instead? Or the rest of us? If it broke Brigid’s mind, what would all that have done to her?”

  Abby suppressed a shudder at the thought, “Be glad that Brigid is on our side at least.”

  “She’s on Father’s side and no one else’s,” said Sarah firmly. “If she had the slightest doubt about one of us we wouldn’t live another breath.”

  Abby gave a sad smile, “Good thing we are all on his side then, right?”

  “Are you, Abby? You’re the only one of us with a real heart anymore. The only one that understands kindness. Can you go on with this?”

  Her chest tightened. “Sarah, you think too highly of me. I’m not as kind or pure as you think me. I just don’t hide my sadness, or my compassion as well as some of the others do. The only thing I’m good at, is hiding my anger. I don’t think what we’re doing is right, but when I think of Haley, or Gabriel, or Jack, I’m so filled with hatred that I feel like I’m dying.

  “Remembering yesterday isn’t any better, though. Thinking of it makes me want to vomit. I’m not suited for violence, but I won’t give up what he’s trying to do. What’s the difference between murdering a few people in person, or abstaining from it, when he’s planning to try and wipe out all of them? And I’m helping him with that.”

  “How?” gasped Sarah. “He never said that. You think he has a real plan to do that? It’s impossible.”

  “I’m guessing,” said Abby. “But I’ve watched him. He’s mad, but he’s no fool, and he doesn’t think small. If I believed this was just a small plan for petty revenge I would have nothing to do with it. He wants to kill them all, and if he can do that, then maybe it’s worth it. What is right and wrong compared to that? Who will be left to argue the point?

  Abby laughed, “See? I’m just as evil as he is. We all are. Every single one of us is helping, and it doesn’t matter whether we feel remorse, or guilt, or sick at the sight of blood. Feeling bad doesn’t make us better.

  “But I do love you,” added Abby. “I just hope we can finish what we start.” And that he really does have a plan to create a better world for humanity after this is done.

  But in her heart, Abby wasn’t sure. He may kill them and all of us as well. If he had to sacrifice every single human being to make certain they died, he might well do it, and never blink at the price.

  ***

  Eldin sat in the dirt in front of his home. To be fair, there was some grass too, but the regular traffic in the yard had reduced it to just a few straggling bits of green here and there. But Eldin like the dirt best anyway.

  He was covered in it, but he wasn’t really aware of the fact. At the moment he was crawling along in pursuit of something moving in one of the isolated clumps of grass. It was definitely a bug of some sort.

  At least he hoped so.

  It never occurred to him to worry about what sort of bug it might be. The world was perfectly safe and while his mother wasn’t near he knew his father was watching, a massive looming presence in the background. Nothing could hurt him if Dadda was around.

  That didn’t stop him from looking back over his shoulder, to see if the big man was still there. His eyes spotted the silent man, still in the same place he had been a minute before, sitting on a large log under the eaves of the house. He didn’t seem to be paying close attention.

  Eldin crawled farther away, testing the boundary. His father wasn’t usually the one watching him and the big man seemed to have different ideas about how far he could go before he needed to be captured and brought back. His mother and the others were far more restrictive, more than ten feet and they would haul him back.

  Dadda was different. He often let him manage twice that distance and right now he wasn’t watching. Eldin moved forward, he could probably make it to the clump where the bug was hiding.

  The grass twitched slightly, moved by the creature hiding within. Eldin reached out and pushed it to one side with a clumsy hand. He was re
warded with a good look at his target.

  The bug seemed to glow in the afternoon sun, reflecting the light. Bright yellow separated by bands of deepest black adorned the strange insect. Wings were neatly folded along its back, but it hadn’t flown away—yet. Eldin could catch it.

  His other hand came down hard, pinning it to the earth and he could feel it squirming beneath his palm, trying to escape. Closing his fingers he trapped it within his fist and turned his hand over. Slowly he opened his fingers to get a look at his prize.

  A sharp pain blossomed as the wasp drove its sharp stinger into his skin. Eldin’s mouth opened but a full second passed as he tried to comprehend the magnitude of his injury. The pain was unbearable and as soon as his lungs had filled Eldin began to shriek, the ear piercing cry of one who had discovered the ultimate agony.

  Tyrion’s eyes snapped into focus as the scream activated the most primal and instinctive parts of his nervous system. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream and he forgot whatever he had been thinking of. Rushing forward he snatched Eldin up from the ground and spotted the wasp in the same timeless moment. He crushed it underfoot and examined the boy’s tiny hand. It was red and swollen already.

  The pain was probably intense, at least by Eldin’s standards, but Tyrion knew rationally that it would fade soon. The toddler’s cry did not diminish, however. It gained in volume and pitch as the small child strove to extinguish the horror of his pain with the loudness of his voice.

  Tyrion scraped at the wound with a fingernail, making certain that the stinger hadn’t been left behind, but that only served to send Eldin’s scream to a new octave. He held his son close, probably in much the same way his father had once held him, long ago, but his heart continued to pound.

  He felt a tremor in his hand and his stomach flipped. Tyrion’s heart felt as though it might pound free of his chest.

  “Give him to me,” said Layla firmly, emerging from the house. Despite her new maternal instincts she had a distinctly harsher attitude toward parenting than anyone else in Albamarl. Probably because of her own childhood experiences. “Coddling him will only make him weak. The lessons of pain are for everyone to learn.”