“And if Lord Raze returns?”
Benjmur sighed. “Delay him in the rear yard.”
“Ai, my lord.”
Arrick departed, and Benjmur scarcely had time to decant a cup of tea before the steward reappeared at the door. “Lord Benjmur, Sajem to see you.” The bald slaver strolled in, grabbed the old steward by the shirt and thrust him out, kicking the door closed behind him.
“Must you?” Benjmur asked.
“You kept me waiting.” The muscled slaver joined him at the sideboard, poured himself a goblet of wine, and sniffed it.
“Raze Anvrell made an appearance.”
“I saw him trying to bull his way into the rear yard.”
“You were supposed to kill him at his farm. I want you to finish the job.”
Sajem took a chair, leaned back, and put his feet up on the low table. “Same price.”
“I already paid you.” Benjmur had lost his patience with the man a year ago.
“I brought you the girl as bait.”
“I never asked for her. In fact, I’m returning her to you, and you can use her as bait.”
Sajem shrugged, rolling the tattoos that spanned his shoulders. He wore slavers’ garb, body almost bare but for his leather breastplate and a short skirt beneath his belts. A russet cloak hung from one shoulder, and new scabs traversed his skin.
Benjmur issued orders to the guards outside the door and sat behind his desk, rubbing knots from the back of his neck. “After this, we will be strangers for a long while.”
A knock on the door preceded the entrance of two guards, Belizae bound and gagged between them. Her eyes bulged at the sight of the slaver, and Benjmur understood her fright. The man was a human horror.
“Where do you want her, my lord,” a guard asked, eyeing Sajem.
Benjmur pointed to a corner. “Over there and gently. She’s a runaway bond. We’re simply restoring her to her owner. It’s the law.”
“Six years.” Sajem grinned, showing the guards his serrated teeth. He flicked his forked tongue at them.
“Yes, my lord.” They dropped her in the corner, and despite her muffled pleas, they left her there. Thankfully she stayed put. For a moment, Benjmur contemplated having them all slain, including the slaver, a welcome end to the chaos.
No sooner had the guards left than the door opened once again. Athren halted in the portal, swollen eyes staring at Sajem. “Why is he here? Why is he in our home? Arrest him!”
“Athren!” Benjmur darted from behind his desk, and Sajem laughed.
She charged at the slaver, fingernails and teeth bared, clawing and snarling. Sajem’s hands flew up, and he thrust her off. She landed on the floor and burst into tears. Her cries faltered when she spotted Belize. She scrambled to her feet. “What is she doing here?” She spun to face him. “Benjmur. What are you involved in? Raze told the truth, didn’t he? All of it. You had Laddon killed. You murdered my son!”
“Nae, oh, my dearest, nae.” He signaled to Sajem and caught Athren’s arms. She attempted to pull free, and he held on. “Nae, my love. I wouldn’t do such a thing.” Sajem took his time, but he pushed himself from the chair.
“Let go of me!” She struggled, and Benjmur tightened his grip. Her eyes darted to the slaver as she tried to squirm away.
“Do it before she screams,” Benjmur ordered.
Sajem’s hands wrapped around her neck from behind, and he squeezed. Her mouth gaped, fingernails scratching at his wrists. She stared at Benjmur, face blotched and veins bulging. Over her shoulder, Sajem’s blood-red eyes flared with delight. The gold chain bearing her soulstone broke and the pendant dropped to the floor.
Benjmur broke away and retreated to his desk, unable to watch. The woman Bel cowered in the corner, terrified, and honestly, he required Sajem to kill her too.
When the struggle ended, he looked up. “Put her on the settee as if she’s sleeping.” Sajem obeyed but without any attempt at care. Athren’s eyes stared at the ceiling, mouth open, head at an awkward angle. Benjmur would have to position her himself. “Just get out of here and take that one with you.” He waved a hand at Bel. “Kill her or sell her in Ezar. I want her gone from the Vales.”
“My gold?” The slaver canted this head toward Athren.
Benjmur stifled an urge to scream and tossed him a gold chit. “Now, go.”
Sajem yanked Belizae up by the arm. She struggled, her efforts a waste of time and irritating. The slaver punched her in the face and hauled her out.
Benjmur inhaled. He arranged Athren into a peaceful repose, brushed her hair along her cheek, and smoothed her dress. The toe of his boot, kicked her soulstone beneath a small table, and he left it there. Another unbound soul free to tell her story, one Raze wouldn’t survive to hear.
Satisfied with the display, Benjmur left the room and closed the door. With a weary sigh, he dismissed his guards and sought Arrick. “I’m retiring to my chamber for some much-needed solitude. If Lord Raze returns, usher him into my salon and fetch me immediately.”
“Ai, my lord.”
“Immediately.”
“Ai, my lord.” The man bowed. “I’ll see to it myself.”
“Thank you. I knew I could count on you.”
Benjmur retired to his room and lay on his bed in his shoes. Less than an hour passed before the knock came. He leapt from the bed and raced down the stairs ahead of the old steward. Raze exited the salon his face flushed and nostrils flaring.
“Where’s Athren?” Benjmur shouted. “Guards! Stop him! Where’s Athren?” He shoved past Raze into the salon as the guards closed in. With a wail of grief, he fell to his knees beside the settee. “Gods, nae. Athren, my love. Athren. He murdered the Lady of Ildus.”
~30~
Johzar flexed and curled his hands into fists. His lip lifted in a snarl. He spotted Sajem towing the woman Belizae through the streets of Avanoe like a bridled horse. Her wrists were bound, her mouth gagged and face bruised. The city folk stared in horror or backed away and fled. Even the guards meant to secure the peace on the curved streets averted their eyes when brutality bared its ugly mug in their faces.
Bondage served Ezar, and regulations legitimized it. Without the structure provided by rules, what remained was unpredictable and volatile, making the whole business perilous. Sajem defied the law and gave slavers a bad name. He jeopardized Johzar’s trade, and no less irksome, the bald man’s overt cruelty rankled.
Johzar’s crew hadn’t shown up. Now he’d have to handle the madman by himself, and that wasn’t a fair match. Even if Sajem’s crew didn’t interfere, the beast of a slaver carried more muscle, more height, and all those souls, their skills and lack of restraint. A fight between them would end with one of them bleeding out. Probably himself.
He trailed the duo toward the southern seaside district. Storehouses and mills leaned over lanes cluttered with refuse. Smoke coughed from chimneys and the stink wafting from the dye houses watered his eyes. Distinguishing urchins from messengers, and workers from beggars was no easy task. The inhabitants loitered in the shadowed alleyways, and furtive movements caught in the corners of his eyes.
Sajem veered into a cross street, hauling Belizae behind him. Johzar slowed, letting the distance between them lengthen. The numbers of men and women dwindled, curtailing his ability to blend in. He edged around the corner, spied the woman disappearing into an alley.
The red-eyed slaver had tried to purchase Belizae soon after Johzar had acquired her, and Johzar’s refusal to sell had driven a barb into the man’s craw. Sajem had stalked her since. All this trouble over a bond. Was she worth his life? He rubbed the indecision from his forehead. This was someone else’s battle. No one would know if he swung around and saved his hide. He would slay the monster on his own terms, his crew evening up the score.
He turned to limp away. Ahead of him, a slaver with a thicket for a beard entered the street and ambled his way, a sword in his hand. The man growled and feinted a lunge at an elderly couple lug
ging a cart. He laughed when they abandoned their wares and fled.
Johzar’s blade slid from its scabbard, and he pivoted, certain of what he’d find. Three slavers strode toward him, one of them a woman with tattooed snakes climbing her arms. Another two entered from a side alley, closing off any chance of escape. He cursed himself, too late to back out. With a two-handed grip, he raised his sword and steadied his nerves, honing his focus on the coming battle.
The slavers formed a loose ring, in no hurry to spill his blood. If they intended to amuse themselves, he’d see to it that one or two of them chuckled as they rolled into their graves. One of the men leapt toward him, blade arcing toward his gut. Johzar dropped to a knee and easily blocked. He pushed the man away, and rising to his feet, parried a swipe at his hip before it landed.
His steel flicked back and scraped against armor. The bearded slaver danced in and lunged, sword tip piercing Johzar’s shoulder. He winced and kicked. His heel cracked into the man’s chest, and his opponents misplaced their smiles. They approached from opposite sides. No way out, he spun and cut the air. The woman swayed from the strike while another man swept in and won a nick on his thigh.
“Johzar!” a voice roared.
His assailants backed away, and Johzar dragged in a breath, heartbeat pounding in his ears. He shouted his reply, “Sajem.”
Laughter rolled from the alley into the street. “Johzar, I suggest cooperation. They want you to join me.”
Who “they” were, Johzar could only guess. “They should have said so and saved me some trouble.” His shoulder stung, and the blood trickling down his arm itched.
“You needed convincing first.” Sajem’s voice beckoned, “Join me.”
Johzar edged toward the alley, sword raised to the slavers’ blades as they herded him. When he stood with his back to the building’s wall, he sidled around the corner and glanced over his shoulder. Sajem held Belizae bent over a busted crate, a knife tip resting on the nape of her neck. Tears glistened in her swollen eyes and the gag carved into her cheeks. Sajem stood behind her, forked tongue sliding over his filed teeth, and Johzar had no question as to what the slaver intended. He stole closer, his back against the alley wall, eyes darting between Sajem and his crew.
“I’ve hunted this one for a long time,” Sajem said. “I always wondered why you didn’t partake. All these easy pickings with no rights. It’s hard to stop once you start, isn’t it? But there aren’t any rules in the Vales. Not when we own them.”
“I’d like to see her bond.”
The madman laughed. “I misplaced it. You’ll have to trust me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll tell you what?” Sajem rubbed a hand over his bald head, red eyes reduced to feral slits. “You throw down your weapon, sign over your time for ten years, and I’ll let her go.”
“I don’t like that any better.”
“Then you can watch, and I’m going to kill her when I’m done.” Sajem pulled up her skirt. Bel screamed into her gag, and though she bucked and twisted, she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Why should I make anything easy for you?” Johzar asked. “You’ll rape her and kill her anyway.” He eyed the female slaver with the tattooed snakes. Her eyes were riveted on the scene at the crate, her teeth clenched.
“I give you my word.” Sajem pressed his free hand over his heart, the other still holding the blade to Belizae’s neck.
Johzar edged nearer, back chafing the wall. “Your word is worthless.”
“Not this time.” Sajem laughed. “Maybe. I dare you to take the risk. A decade, Johzar, as my personal pet. How old are you, thirty? You’ll have plenty of years left after I’m done.”
A storm brewed in Johzar’s chest. If he wrote the woman off, he was still neck deep in shit. He wouldn’t survive ten minutes against Sajem’s crew, not alone. And yet, death seemed preferable to groveling like a dog at the slaver’s feet. Not slaying the man on the cliffs of Celes had been the biggest mistake of his life.
Johzar raked a hand over his face, coughing up the one option entering his sorry skull. “Put us on a ship to King’s Fist, and I’ll sign.”
“Not the deal,” Sajem snarled.
“We go down to the docks; you sell both of us to a ship headed for King’s Fist. Ten years each.”
Sajem scratched his jaw. “What’s the trick?”
“No trick,” Johzar said. “That’s my offer. Otherwise, you can kill both of us and walk away with nothing.”
“I’ll deliver the woman there,” the female slaver said. “And I’ll kill her if either of them tries anything.” She strode up to the crate, grabbed Belizae’s arm, and yanked her from beneath Sajem’s knife. He growled, knuckles paling on his hilt, and for a moment, it looked as if he might carve the audacity out of the slaver’s chest. The woman hustled Belizae away from the lethal stare, a knife pressed to her ribs.
Sajem broke into a smile and laughed. “You’ve got your deal, Johzar. And the Vales are all mine.”
An hour later, the crew had stripped Johzar of his slaver’s garb, tossed him threadbare trousers, and bandaged his bloody shoulder for good measure. He stood on Avanoe’s quay while the galley’s captain huffed, impatient to get underway. Johzar’s hand trembled as he signed his name to a standard bond. Ten years. The sentence sucked his breath from his lungs, and he refused to acknowledge the irony of his situation.
The ship’s strongmen hauled him onto the deck and snapped chains on his ankles securing him to a rowing bench. Nothing was more evident than the fact that he’d made another terrible mistake.
~31~
Viewed from the sea, Avanoe filled Nallea with a disorienting blend of joy and trepidation. Her home for most of her life, the city captured all the sights, sounds, and scents of childhood, years of memories packaged and tied with bows for her to open at will. She’d grown up an only child, her mother dead before she was old enough to forge more than a dreamy recollection. Her father had filled the place in her heart for those warm remembrances, and she loved him.
Now, those memories she’d gathered with the confident eyes of a child felt naïve—an innocently skewed vision of the world where there existed, in truth, a great deal of darkness. She wasn’t even heading home but to the Governor’s Hall, a place she’d never lived.
The ship’s captain shouted orders, and the coxswain turned them into commands for the ranks of oarsmen. The gusty wind whipped up the sea, and the chop near the cliffs challenged the best of sailors. The galley spent an hour maneuvering into place at the quay.
“Are you worried?” Azalus stood at the rail beside her.
“Ai.” She leaned into him. “I cannot fathom how we are suddenly in the midst of all this turmoil.”
He rolled his shoulders. “My father believes it began with the Ezari conquest, but I wonder if the cracks formed as far back as the shattering of the sea. Who knows? Perhaps people have always been this way.”
“Our nature? That’s a discouraging concept.”
“True, but there are always those of us who will stand up for what is right. And there’s hope in that.”
She smiled and kissed her husband. To him, she’d vowed her love and loyalty. And if required, she would confront her father and bear the consequences, even if they broke her heart.
They disembarked down the gangplank and climbed the ramps to the bustling dockyard. The market clamored with farmers hawking harvest crops, and Kestrel’s guards made a gallant show in their emerald cloaks as they stood at attention, awaiting orders.
Nallea brushed a windblown strand of hair from her face, certain the current trouble had started as a string of misunderstandings. Perhaps Danzell was wrong. For all they knew, Raze and Bel might already travel the road home. Rydan had listened to her words of caution, and against Azalus’s advice, decided on a peaceful discussion as a first step. Kestrel’s Guard was a weapon Rydan would wield only if Benjmur forced his hand, and Nallea was determined to ensure no such thing occurred.
Azalus hired a formal carriage, and they sat in stony silence as the wooden wheels clattered over the bricked streets. A company of guardsmen led, while another marched at the rear, and they passed through the hall’s gates without a challenge. When the carriage rattled to a halt at the elegant entry, Nallea’s heart grasped at hope and pushed her trepidation aside. “My father will listen to us,” she assured Rydan. She alit from the carriage and smiled at the bank of twenty Avanoe guards, though their number poked holes in her confidence.
Eight of her father’s armsmen decked in garnet cloaks escorted them across the courtyard to the front steps. An equal number of Kestrel’s guards accompanied the party, hands ready on their hilts. Arrick, her father’s steward, appeared at the door, face haggard as if he suffered from an illness, and though he smiled upon seeing her, she sensed no joy in the greeting. Six additional guardsmen with metal tipped spears lined the steps as he descended.
“Lady Nallea. My lords.” He bowed. “This is a difficult time.”
“You look distressed, my old friend.” Nallea placed a hand on his arm. “Are you unwell? Is my father here?”
Arrick glanced at Azalus and Rydan, face paling to a whiter shade of ash. “It pains me to inform you, but Lady Athren is dead. Your father discovered her murder yesterday.”
Nallea gasped. The news piled atop the sorrows and worries already heaped on her head. “Athren was murdered?” She retreated and clutched Azalus’s hand.
“Our deepest sympathies,” Rydan said. “We apologize for imposing on the Lord Governor. However, it is of the utmost urgency that we speak with him.”
The old steward inhaled, and Nallea grasped the unspoken implications. Raze. She steeled her voice. “I will see my father now.”
“I’m here.” Benjmur stood in the doorway, a wrecked version of the man she’d depended upon her entire life. His clothing was rumpled, face unshaved. Fatigue and grief smudged circles around his eyes, lending him the visage of death itself. He pointed at Rydan. “Guards. Arrest the Anvrells.”
Legacy of Souls (The Shattered Sea Book 2) Page 19
