“You can see that we have made improvements to the post’s original design,” Pendek said, chattering and pointing as they crossed the base to his modest little office. “When I came there were no—”
A decivate opened the door smartly just ahead of Caelan, who strode inside, taking in the modest space with a single glance. Someone had had enough wit to get a fire going, and the room was warm.
Stripping off his gloves, Caelan stretched his cold hands gratefully to the fire for a moment before swinging around to face the others.
“We have a rebellion to crush,” he said quietly. “Let us get down to business.”
Thirbe wasn’t sure which was worse—being trussed on a donkey like chattel under delivery to its new owner, or having a skull that throbbed and threatened to split in twain while riding trussed on a donkey like chattel. He was thirsty. He was angry. He was insulted. Most of all, he was embarrassed.
Caught like a flat-footed noddy too gut-swabbed to know better than to turn his back on a devious sprat like Hultul. He must be getting old.
Aye, old and a fool who had failed the sweet lady entrusted to his charge. The frustration of having been so close to her, close enough to almost put his hand on her and get her out of those foul blood drinkers’ clutches, was enough to choke him.
Thanks to Hultul, as devious a swinegullet as a Vindicant, Lea remained behind—still a prisoner of the foulest, most vile scoundrels imaginable. It was like a sick kind of joke, only Thirbe couldn’t laugh. Nothing he said made any impression on Hultul, and he heartily wished the Ulinian had simply killed him rather than keep him alive.
Glancing over his shoulder, Hultul broke off the little song he was singing and asked, “Ready for your turn with the water skin, my friend? There will be nothing else to break your fast today, for we must reach Muhadim by nightfall.”
Barely lifting his pounding head, Thirbe went on glaring between his donkey’s long shaggy ears at the precise place in Hultul’s spine where he wanted to ram a dagger. “Keep your damned water,” he growled. “I hope you end up swinging from a gibbet, with crows pecking out your eyes.”
“And you, my friend!” Hultul called back merrily. “May you end up chained to a rock with ten thousand vultures stripping the flesh from your bones while worms swim in your diseased bowels and four virgins whom you will never bed cry out their joy at your demise.”
Thirbe blinked. It wasn’t enough that he’d been knocked cold, abducted, tied up without a saddle on a donkey with a backbone like a comb, but now he couldn’t even deliver an insult without being bested. Biting back a reply, Thirbe sulked instead.
“It is no good refusing to accept what is,” Hultul said to him. “I was your prisoner, and now you are mine.”
“We were working together, you scab of a leper,” Thirbe said.
“Only because you forced me into that terrible place. You were not good to me, my friend. Yet I have saved your miserable life before you got us both killed.”
“I let you go,” Thirbe said furiously. “I gave you back your amulet.”
Hultul gave him a mocking salute by touching fingers to lips and forehead. “And I thank you for your generosity. But you should not have taken it in the beginning. Some things are not done with honor, my friend.”
“I’m not your damned friend.”
“No,” Hultul agreed cheerfully. “You would like to kill me now. If ever I give you the slightest chance . . . zzzsst! You would cut my throat.”
“Filthy traitor! I was this close to rescuing Lady Lea, and now—” Thirbe broke off, his jaw muscles knotting so hard they ached. He’d said enough earlier. It did no good to repeat his protests.
“But my most beloved and esteemed lord would not wish you to rescue the lady,” Hultul called back. “He would wish me to warn him of the evil that awaits him from those he considers friends. Perhaps it was not wise of him to trust the shadow priests, but they are clever and full of tricks. I think perhaps they deceived my beloved master before and now it is important that he learn what they truly are.”
“Fine,” Thirbe said. “Warn him. But let me help her while there’s still a chance.”
“I do not think the chance remains,” Hultul said, the mocking gaiety fading from his voice. “There was much commotion in the priests’ camp last night. Much trouble, and I think it was good that we left when we did, before they caught us and fed us to the dead.”
The thought of Lea possibly sacrificed in some savage rite sent cold chills through Thirbe. Stay alive, Lea. Stay alive, he thought desperately, wondering what had happened last night after he was knocked unconscious. If he asked, Hultul would only tease him and refuse to give him straight answers. It was no good assuring himself that the Vindicants wouldn’t hurt her. They cared nothing about her ransom. As vile and twisted as they were, they knew no honor. And if they . . .
Hastily he shut down his thoughts, knowing he was tormenting himself to no good effect. As for this fool, just one slip was all it would take, and Thirbe would gladly send him to the gods for judgment.
“No longer do you talk to me,” Hultul said. “No longer do you ask questions. Are you tormented by worry for the maiden, my friend? Perhaps she is a maiden no longer. Or perhaps they have drunk all her blood.”
“Shut up,” Thirbe spat out. “You can mock any other woman in the world, but not her. If you had any decency in that black heart of yours, you would not joke about her plight.”
“A rich, pretty princess . . . why should I care? Or perhaps she is not even pretty. Perhaps just rich. But spoiled she must be. Ordering you here and there, like her lapdog. Are you not, somewhere in your heart, relieved to be rid of her?”
“Listen, jinja-face, I’ve listened to all the insults against her I’m going to.”
“No, you have not, my friend. My esteemed lord’s enemies are my enemies. The sisters of enemies are my enemies. And when we are called to war, we give no mercy, no quarter. It is our way.”
“Your way is puke,” Thirbe said. “You’ve never been out of this dust pile you’re so proud of. You can’t imagine the rest of the empire or its wonders.”
“Wonders built on Ulinian backs. Paid for with gold squeezed from Ulinian blood. We have nothing, dog. Nothing! And always the emperor takes from us, takes and takes, until we are dried and withered to the bone. And he wants even that.”
“It’s his right, damn your eyes. The emperor’s wish is my law, and yours.”
“No! I serve my esteemed Lord Vordachai. I obey the customs of my land, and the laws of my aziarahd mahal.”
“Sure. You’re so obedient that you could have captured Shadrael, but you didn’t. You should be dragging him home by the hair instead of me.”
“Capture Lord Shadrael?” Hultul asked in astonishment. “And why should I do an unkindness to the brother of my esteemed and beloved lord?”
Thirbe scowled. “I knew you were lying to Pendek about bringing him in for arrest.”
“Not then, no. Then I would have obeyed my esteemed lord. Now it is different.”
“Gut-snapped nonsense,” Thirbe grumbled, refusing to follow the man’s illogic.
“Ah, you do not understand the force of passion.”
“What?”
“The force of passion. It is the defense of vendetta, of honor. We call it,” Hultul said reverently, “halya a daulma nyaem. When it is upon a man, you respect it, even if it means he kills. My most beloved and esteemed master possesses much of this quality. His temper is what you would call high.”
“Possess a fair amount of it myself,” Thirbe muttered.
“And so when my warlord ordered the arrest of his brother, he was in halya a daulma nyaem, and I obeyed his wishes. Now it will not be so. Sometimes you must understand what it is that your lord really wants, instead of only what he says. You must know whether he gives orders from anger or from judgment.”
“Nice excuse for anarchy.”
“Yes? I do not know this word, anarchy. But I kno
w the heart of my master, and I do not hunt Lord Shadrael without new orders. The wish of your heart, that I help you to capture Lord Shadrael and do him harm, I do not obey. That is surely clear, even for a stinking foreign dog of an Imperial Protector such as you.”
“Go piss on yourself.”
Ahead of them something shimmered in the desert, like a mirage. Hultul threw up his hand, yanking his donkey to a halt. Swiftly he gestured, touching his fingers to his forehead and each eye. “Great One on High,” he said solemnly, “preserve us from what comes.”
“What is it?” Thirbe said.
Hultul kept staring, his posture alert and rigid, his hand now on his sword hilt.
Thirbe did not ask again. Instead, he watched, too. The air felt strange and unsettled. The morning sun was barely up, but already it was glaring into Thirbe’s eyes, reflecting off the barren ground and making it hard to see. He refused to let Hultul’s obvious alarm infect him, although he was well aware that strange kinds of danger could be found in the desert. He longed desperately for a weapon.
“Gods, you itty-witted knave,” he whispered after a tense moment. “If there’s trouble, at least untie me.”
Hultul didn’t seem to hear him. “There!” He pointed. “Behold!”
Straining his eyes, Thirbe looked through the glare at the shimmering haze. For a moment he thought he felt a shift in the very fabric of the world, as though someone was opening the Hidden Ways. Then he heard a small goat bell tinkling, and saw four individuals swathed in sand-colored robes and head wraps. They emerged from the glare and dust, approaching Thirbe and Hultul warily as they drove a small flock of bony goats before them with long staves.
Thirbe let out his breath with a grunt. “Faure’s hell,” he said in disgust. “Behold the great Ulinian warrior, scared of a pack of goats and some serfs.”
“They are nameids, not serfs,” Hultul corrected him. “And it is evil luck to insult them.”
“Well, then—”
“Quiet. Something is very wrong. I think . . .” Letting his voice trail off, he kept watching.
By now the nameids had reached them and stopped. The goats stayed bunched up, bleating softly, their yellow eyes giving Thirbe a queer feeling. Or perhaps it was their owners, these nomadic people he’d heard about but never seen before. They were very tall and stick thin, their skin extremely dark and their eyes pale and somehow . . .
Hastily he averted his gaze, knowing a mind spell when he encountered it. The nameids did not speak when Hultul greeted them politely. He offered them his water skin, but they ignored the gesture and instead pointed where again the mirage was shimmering.
“Paru. Paru,” they murmured.
“What are they saying?”
Hultul glanced briefly at Thirbe and drew his sword. “Danger.”
At that moment a tremor went through the ground, startling the donkeys into braying. The goats scattered in all directions, and Thirbe caught an unmistakable whiff of rot and decay that nearly stopped his heart. For one wild moment he thought the Vindicants had come after them, but as a black maw opened, it was a lone man who stepped out. A man who staggered two steps and sank to his knees as the opening closed behind him. He was carrying a woman, either unconscious or dead. Her long tangle of blond hair dragged in the dirt as she tumbled limply to the ground.
Thirbe felt a stab of fear so deep it felt mortal. “Lea,” he whispered. “Great Gault, no!”
Hultul, meanwhile, was staring as though he could not believe his eyes. “Lord Shadrael?” he said.
Chapter 21
Half-blinded by the sunlight, bleeding from scratches across his face, his arm trembling from the weight of Lea’s unconscious form as he shook the last demon off his sword blade, Shadrael staggered out of the Hidden Ways into the world. His heart was bursting inside his chest. He could not think, except to get her out of the darkness.
One more step . . . he found his knees buckling under him. With a groan, he sank down and released the spell holding the Hidden Ways open. Pain clawed through him, and he found himself shaking in the aftermath of having used shadow magic. It felt foreign to him now, foreign and wrong.
What has she done to me? he wondered.
“M’lord!” came a distant shout. “Lord Shadrael!”
Instinct made him turn toward whoever was coming. “Shut up, you fool,” he said, but it was too late.
A pale gray raven with a band of white at its throat came flying from the darkness just before the Hidden Ways closed completely. Cawing harshly, the bird circled over him, and landed on the ground close by.
Panting for breath, his face wet with sweat and tears, Shadrael braced his free hand on the ground even as he strove for enough strength to kill that bird. He should be masking his point of exit with another spell, and quickly, but he couldn’t remember the word to say. His fingers fumbled for his dagger, failed to draw it, and closed on a rock instead. He threw it weakly at the raven, and missed. Flapping its wings, the bird flew, only to circle overhead, still cawing.
They will come, Shadrael thought desperately.
The man who had called out ran up to him. “M’lord, are you hurt?”
Shadrael squinted up at a dark face half-hidden beneath a head wrap. He slashed awkwardly with his sword, and the man jumped back barely in time. “Get away,” Shadrael snarled.
“M’lord, forgive me. Let me give you water.”
“Get away!”
“Hultul!” shouted another voice unfamiliar to him. “Damn you! Untie me!”
Confused, disoriented, Shadrael could barely hold his eyes open in the glare of sunlight reflecting off the desert. He knew there was danger, knew he had to keep moving, yet he seemed to be caught in an invisible web, unable to move, unable to take action.
“Quiet,” he said hoarsely, but the men were arguing and did not listen.
“Release me!” the old man kept shouting. “Let me go to her. Release me, you damned spawn of a demon!”
Ignoring his prisoner, the one called Hultul crouched beside Shadrael and touched his shoulder. Shadrael flinched as though he’d been burned. He was shaking so hard he could barely hold himself upright, yet he fumbled to take Lea’s icy hand and hold it in his.
“Please,” he mumbled. “Please . . .”
And then he felt the heaviness in the air and that shift of reality as the Hidden Ways opened. Despair filled him. To have come this close to escape, only to fail . . .
He drove himself to his feet, standing over Lea’s crumpled body like a man demented, swinging his sword and snarling curses at an enemy not yet before him. Hultul stumbled out of reach, holding out both hands in appeasement.
“Shadrael,” a deep voice said behind him.
Shadrael froze with his sword in midswing. He knew that voice, and knew that he had failed in this, the most important task of his life. He wanted to cry aloud in despair. Instead, he pulled himself erect, still holding his sword in both hands.
“Look at me,” the voice commanded.
Do not. Do not, warned a voice inside his mind.
“Shadrael, look at me.”
Unwillingly Shadrael lifted his blurry gaze. His eyes were streaming from the intense light. All he could see was a dark shape coming toward him, cowled and hooded, all of shadow. Other figures followed the first. They spread out to surround him, Lea, and the two men. The menace that hung over them was unmistakable.
“No!” Shadrael whispered.
The leader’s hand closed on his, and prickles of magic shot through Shadrael. Shadow magic.
Revulsion gripped him. Gasping, he dropped his sword and wrenched free, feeling as though he might vomit. And as he bent over, wracked with misery, he saw his shadow at his feet, cast by the sunlight. Astonished, his mind tumbling with confusion and disbelief, he stared at it.
Could it be true? he wondered. Was his soul restored to him? It must be true, and if so, then Lea had done more than give him enough strength to open the Hidden Ways. She had done much,
much more.
“Lea,” he whispered. Overwhelmed, he dropped to his knees beside her. Inside, his wits were reeling. Had he been hit on the skull with a maul and left a simpleton, he could not have been more stunned.
Urmaeor struck him aside with magic, sending him tumbling helplessly into the dust. “Get away from her,” the priest said coldly.
Burning with resentment, Shadrael struggled to his hands and knees. By then, two priests had rolled Lea onto a blanket and lifted her.
“Let her go,” Shadrael said hoarsely. “What more can she do, now that your chief priest is dead?”
“Thanks to you,” Urmaeor said, and struck him with magic again.
This time, Shadrael was knocked nearly unconscious. A kick brought him around, and he groaned as he forced open his eyes.
“She belongs to us until we are finished with her,” Urmaeor said. “As do you. Now get on your feet.”
Invisible bonds had closed on Shadrael, making it impossible to struggle. He felt helpless, caught in a queer lassitude as he dully obeyed Urmaeor’s order. As the priests carried Lea away in the blanket and he followed Urmaeor like a whipped dog, Shadrael raged inside.
He had vowed to save her, but instead she had brought him back from the brink of destruction; she had made him whole.
Now, as the Vindicants carried her into the Hidden Ways, Shadrael could not bear to see her looking as pale and still as death while she was returned to the darkness. All the hope inside him, so briefly born, sputtered and died to mere embers.
“Follow,” Urmaeor commanded him, and Shadrael could do nothing but obey.
Later, back in the Vindicant camp, he found himself locked in a cell with Hultul and the old man with the flat nose and caustic temper who apparently had been Lea’s protector. Thirbe claimed they had met in a Kanidalon tavern, but Shadrael did not remember. He shook his head, refusing to answer Thirbe’s questions, and kept a wary eye on Hultul as well. There were no friends here, and until he regained his strength and got used to the restoration of his soul he dared not relax his guard. The fact that the Vindicants had not already killed him made him worry that they planned a far worse fate for him.
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