by Ann Lawrence
“We could go up,” Ardra said, pointing to a winding staircase against the wall.
“No, you will not,” the guard said and raised his sword.
“Yeah, Ardra. We don’t have a chance with this guy.”
Lien pretended to turn away, then swung back and brought his stick down on the man’s shoulder. The guard dropped like a stone.
“Well done,” she said, and grabbed Lien’s hand.
Moments later, they stood on the fortress wall. Behind them, warriors and servants poured into the courtyard. Lien gripped his stick until his hand ached. They were too late. Cidre would escape into the woods, and who knew what evil she’d cause somewhere else?
“Stop!” he called after the goddess, feeling as ineffectual as an unarmed slave against a warrior.
Cidre did stop, but not in obedience to his command. She turned at the edge of the woods and raised her arms. Her sleeves fell back, and her arms looked very white against the dark backdrop of the trees. She extended her hands to the heavens. Sunlight glinted off the Black Eye on her chest.
Her voice came clearly across the open ground, carried like a voice over water. “By all that is within me, all the sacred charges given me by my mother, I call down the Darkness.”
An icy wind rose. It buffeted them where they stood, kicked up white caps on the lake, sent the clouds racing across the angry sky.
A rustle as of thousands of leaves stirring came from the castle walls.
Women and children, warriors and slaves, screamed as the vines shifted, heaved, and raised their flowered heads.
“Lien!” Ardra cried. She gripped his arm as the vines near her feet seethed.
“Sweet heaven,” he whispered as all around them vines shimmered and shifted and metamorphosed into thousands of snakes.
Some were as thin as vipers and some as thick as rattlers. They swarmed down the walls toward the hapless slaves and warriors. The vines on the outside walls slithered up and over the ramparts, across Lien’s bare feet and Ardra’s boots—then into the courtyard. They were like a tide of water over sand. More snakes poured from the hall, and Lien knew they were from the attic.
He felt a surge of anger. It flooded his mouth, rushed through his veins like acid. It filled his ears with such a roar, he no longer heard the screams of the people or the swish of the reptiles pursuing them with icy zeal.
He raised his stick. He pointed to the serpents and shouted, “Stop!”
Silence fell. He felt dizzy. Wasps buzzed inside his head. His arm trembled. His mind reeled at the sight of hundreds, perhaps thousands of snakes poised at his command.
Cidre shrieked and cried out for the Darkness to descend. Lien whipped around and pointed his stick at her.
The snakes stirred. They swarmed in a tide of hissing green back over the walls and across the clearing.
Cidre stood her ground, her hands aloft, her voice raised in appeal to some power which Lien knew had abandoned her. The undulating green wave reached her.
It swept over her in moments. And like the tide, the reptiles receded en masse when their work was done. Not to the fortress, but where he pointed his stick—into the lake.
When the silver surface of the lake was once again as smooth as glass, Lien set the tip of his stick with a thump on the stone wall.
Ardra sagged against him. “You are magic,” she said, entwining her fingers with his.
“I don’t believe in magic.” He squeezed her fingers.
“Neither do I.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lien sat in a wide wooden tub in the kitchen garden. He bathed as quickly as he could. The air had grown cold, though the water Inund had brought had been almost too hot to sit in.
He laced up a pair of breeches that Ralen had provided. Black leather Tolemac warrior breeches. He did not put on the tunic that went with it. Instead he put on a leather tunic given him by Inund. One donated by the metalsmith who’d made his snake-stick.
It was not pilgrim garb. It left his arms bare. He picked up the other object the metalsmith had made, a two-headed viper earring, a mini-reminder in case anyone missed his tattoo.
Women scurried away from him when he passed through the kitchen. He merely smiled and lifted his stick, as he would if he wore a hat and was greeting the old lady who sold newspapers in the shop next door to his on the boardwalk in Ocean City.
Once in the hall, he stood just inside the door. He ignored the murmurs rising around him. He was not too late. Ardra stood at the fore of the hall. Her hair was braided into a long golden rope down her back, and she looked the perfect warrior woman in her snug breeches and simple tunic. The silver disk pendant lay on her breast.
His whole body ached with a need to go to her and offer his support. But he remained where he was. She didn’t need him. She had more than enough guts to take care of herself.
Einalem’s body had been laid out on the head table, covered by a turquoise and gold cloth. Samoht sat near his sister, his head down, looking dazed. Ralen flanked Nilrem. The warrior looked weary and far older than he had a day or two before.
Nilrem saw Lien, gave a nod, and then stood up. “For those who have just arrived,” Lien knew the wiseman spoke to him, “we were discussing whether it is time for Ardra to take her rightful place. Her eight days of mourning are over, but she failed to secure the vial. It is a small point, but an important one. Should Ardra rule?”
“Never,” Samoht said. He roused himself a bit, sat a little straighter in his place. “The Fortress of Ravens needs a warrior. A woman cannot rule such a place. A man must stand beside her at the very least. No one will do so now, not now that her father is known to be alive somewhere.”
“Any man would be honored to serve Ardra,” Ralen said.
Ardra kept her face serene. She felt a swelling of pride at Ralen’s words, but she tamped it down. Pride would be misplaced. She had much to prove before the council would accept her without condition. Any concession from Samoht would be a victory.
“However,” Ralen continued, “I agree that Ardra needs a warrior to stand with her.”
“Who will that be?” Samoht asked. He waved a hand. “Who would dare?”
“Whoever it is, he must choose the role himself,” Nilrem said.
Hope drained from Ardra. There was no one to take the place beside her, and surely no man worthy enough to suit Samoht.
“I will stand with her,” a Tolemac warrior called out.
Lien watched the warrior stride confidently to the dais, his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was the man who had challenged Samoht at the feast, and Lien felt a hot surge of jealousy.
“I will,” called out another. Soon there was a cacophony of voices all vying to be heard and a line of men behind the first warrior.
Ardra stared at the line of men in consternation. So many? She watched myriad emotions play over Samoht’s face as his men joined the line.
A sound, a rap of metal on wood, caused everyone to fall silent. It was a small sound, but it had the same effect as if the fortress’s sonorous bell had tolled.
The crowd opened up, and Lien walked down the hall. He was garbed all in black, his pilgrim robes gone. He was beautiful. Her heart jerked as if a viper had struck her.
She watched him come, his snake-stick in his hand. He did not lean on it. It was now as much a part of him as Ralen’s sword was a part of who he was.
“I’ll stand with Ardra,” Lien said.
Something tightened and coiled within her.
“Never,” Samoht said.
“Why not?” Lien asked. He sounded so casual—as if he wanted to know why the meal was not on the table, not whether he could be her champion. “I’m willing, I’ve proved myself, as has Ardra.” Then his voice grew cold and hard. “She’s jumped through enough hoops for you.”
“You are not a warrior,” Samoht said.
“That problem is easily solved,” Nilrem said.
“How?” Samoht and Ralen spoke at the same time.<
br />
The wiseman slapped his hands on the table. “Come. We all know it takes but two councilors to decree a man a warrior.”
Samoht stood up. “And there are two councilors here. Ralen, acting in Tol’s place, is one. But the other is me.”
“It is your place to make this decision,” Ralen said to Samoht. “I will stand firmly on Lien’s side that he be decreed a warrior, but as head councilor, you must decide.”
Samoht walked around the long table. He stood by Einalem’s body. He touched the cloth that draped her form and murmured something only she could hear. Then the high councilor turned to the crowded hall. He shifted his shoulders and raised his head. Something of his old manner returned as he looked over the crowd.
“Let it be so,” he said. “Lien has earned the right to stand for Ardra.”
The ceremony was simple and quick. Samoht asked Lien if he was willing to give his life for the people of the Fortress of Ravens.
Lien answered with a truth that a few weeks ago he’d have laughed aloud to hear. “I will,” he said. It felt like a marriage ceremony, solemn, but quickly done, the results to last a lifetime.
Three silver rings were placed around his arm. A common blacksmith placed a strip of leather under them and moments later touched a hot iron to them, sealing them over his tattoo.
When Lien rose from his knees, Samoht sat down and turned toward his sister, everyone else forgotten.
Tears ran down Ardra’s cheeks, but no one would see them as a sign of weakness.
She kissed her fingertips, then touched the metal arm rings. Heat swirled along his flesh, along the coiled snake beneath the rings—not a bad heat, but a warmth he imagined was going to be a part of how they were connected from now on.
Nilrem said, “Lien, you have assumed great responsibility today.”
“And what of Samoht?” Ralen asked. “There must be more than just a burial today. Resolutions need to be made, penance paid.”
Nilrem walked to where Samoht sat, head bowed, his fingers holding the hem of Einalem’s drape. The wiseman held out the simple robe that had been Lien’s until that morning.
“Put on this robe, Samoht. Return with me to Hart Fell and contemplate your life and future. Take the next conjunction to plan what amends you will make for seeking power at the expense of those who trusted you.”
Samoht stood up and stared at the robe in Nilrem’s hand. He nodded and took the garment.
“All’s well that ends well,” Nilrem said.
Everyone broke up into small groups. Lien followed the old man to a table of food laid out for the evening meal. Lien tossed Nilrem an apple. “So, how long have you been coming and going into the game?”
Nilrem took a bite of the fruit. “How did you know?”
“All the little sayings. So, how long?”
The old man glanced around. “I came by accident years ago. A wiseman on Hart Fell took me in. He taught me to love these people and how to help them without—shall we say—interfering in their natural progress. When he died, I took his place.”
“Do you miss our world?” Lien asked, one eye on Ardra, who moved about the hall in regal elegance despite her humble garb.
“In truth,” Nilrem whispered, “now and then. Once I figured out how to come and go, I sometimes made a trip back to recharge my batteries. The people accept my absences because my mentor used to go on what he called a ‘wander’ and be gone for days of contemplation in the wilderness.”
“And where do you go? Club Med?” Lien quipped.
“Nay!” Nilrem said indignantly. “The Bodleian Library at Oxford.”
Ardra found Lien standing on the shore of the lake. The four orbs poured their light onto the glassy surface.
“I’m still marveling that all those snakes are—”
“Gone,” she finished. They looked back at the bare walls of the fortress. “There are some around here still, I’m sure. We have them at the fortress. They dwell in the crevasses of the ice.”
“Ralen will burn the fortress at dawn. Did you know that? He wants the evilness of Cidre’s tree destroyed.”
“Aye. He told me. I have offered to take all who wish back to the fortress with us.”
“Us,” he said.
Ardra licked her lips. They were suddenly dry. “Are you sure you can make my fortress your home?”
He pulled her into his arms. “I’m sure. I think I’ve learned a simple truth. Home is where the heart is.”
She put her arms around his neck. “I thought you would hate me for deceiving you about my father.”
He shook his head. “I think you were in an untenable position. You’d grieved for him, mourned who he once was, and then arrived here to find him alive and plotting to use your son. I don’t blame you for not knowing who to trust with the information. I certainly didn’t make you feel as if I was here for the long haul.”
“Are you? Here for the long haul?”
“If you want me.” His voice got a bit husky. “I think you’ve got my heart all wrapped up.”
“Oh, Lien. I cannot imagine my life without you.”
“Or I without you. What do you say to a lifemating?”
She found a lump in her throat. “Now? Here?”
“Is that legal?” he asked. He tipped his head and glanced around. His eyes were black in the shining orb-glow, but not the dead black of Cidre’s pendant, a sparkling black, alive and rich.
“What do you mean, legal?” she asked. “A lifemating is but a few words, spoken before witnesses.”
“Then where do we find the witnesses?”
Ardra shook her head. “That part is easy. We will ask Ralen and Nilrem to stand for us in the morning, if you like. But that is just a formality. We can say the words to each other right here…now…and it will be so. We will be mated for life. If,” she ducked her head, “if we seal the vows with copulation.”
He kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to whisper. And I prefer to refer to it as lovemaking.” He folded her in a fierce embrace. “What are the words we need to say?”
“Do you wish to be my lifemate? Now and forever?”
He kissed her nose. “I do. I told you so. Now what words do I say?”
She ducked her head and bit her lips. “Those are the words, Lien. ‘Do you wish to be my lifemate? Now and forever?’”
He smiled and laughed. “I do.” Then he repeated the question for her, and she answered. The words were barely out of her mouth before he snatched her up in his arms.
“It is good to start our time together with laughter.” She stroked her fingers along his lips. “Kiss me.”
The kiss lasted so long, she thought she might expire of the joy of it. The taste of him was both a promise and a vow. Unbidden, tears ran down her cheeks. Somehow she found herself on her back with her breeches unlaced.
His lips were hungry on her breast, then her belly.
“I want you so,” she said, pushing back the leather jerkin from his shoulders. He looked up.
“You are warm. Mine. So strong.” She leaned forward and plucked at the laces on his breeches.
“Not now, Ardra,” he said, clamping his hand on her wrist.
“Aye. Now. Now.” She slid her hand further into the opening.
“Not now.” He wrenched from her grasp, rolled away, and came up on his knees. He snatched a serpent from the grass, just inches away. “Not now means not now.”
The snake was as long as his arm, its red tongue flickering back and forth.
“I still want you,” she whispered. “And now would still be nice.”
He tossed the serpent on the ground and pointed at it. “Go,” he commanded, and when the snake obeyed, he burst into laughter. “I think we’ll have to adjust to snakes as part of our life.”
She snapped her fingers—twice. And smiled.
The small fire she’d lit inside him flared hot. “So you remembered that, did you? You want me, do you? Right now?”
“Come.” She st
ood up and held out her hand.
“I intend to,” he said softly, entwining his fingers with hers.
She led him deep into the orchard, to a spot filled with purple shadows and bright spots of blue-green moonlight. The grass was cool and soft to his feet when he took off his boots.
Ardra jerked her tunic over her head, shoved her breeches down, and tossed them aside. Then she stood still, her hands lightly covering her breasts. She was an ivory column of warm, sweet woman, touched with gold and dusky shadows.
“I think I like watching you take down your pants as much as I liked watching you raise your skirt,” he said.
“And I like watching you, too, Lien.” She tipped her head.
He found that her intent gaze inflamed him. Instead of ripping off his clothes, he pulled them off slowly, enjoying her quickened breathing. She dropped her hands. Her nipples were tight, dark peaks. The moonlight silvered some marks on the rise of her breasts—marks of motherhood.
“You know,” he said, “I was an only child. Until this moment, I’d forgotten how much I used to hope I’d have a home full of kids when I grew up.”
She raised her arms and slowly unbraided her hair, her gaze firmly fixed on his groin. “You are very grown-up, Lien.”
He combed his fingers through the silk of her long hair. “I love how you smell and taste and think and talk.”
“That is a great deal of love, Lien.” She captured his hand and placed it on her breast. “I hope to be worthy of it all.”
“Let’s make some kids.” He kissed the edge of her mouth. He thumbed the hard peak of her breast. Then he wanted her so badly, he knew he could not go slowly and gently. He put his arms around her and pulled her to the ground.
She fell back with equal eagerness, wrapped her legs about his hips, and cried out loud when he surged into her.
He gasped and fought for control, felt her nails dig into his back, and knew it was a battle he’d lose.
