“Sister Mahina, she said we could win…”
“There! What did I tell you!” Drendyn laughed. He took a long swig from his wine cup. He looked very pleased with himself. “They know we will defeat them!”
“Shut up, fool!” Palen snorted, before turning his ruddy peasant’s face to Mikel. “Carry on, boy.”
“But she said it would be an expensive victory,” he finished, gaining a little confidence in the face of the elder Duke’s support. “Lord Jenga…he said it might…give you pause. He said an attack in winter…in the mud or the snow…would be hard for armoured knights.”
“Any fool knows that,” Roache muttered
The Fardohnyan captain said something Mikel couldn’t understand, and the others turned to the princess expectantly. “My captain asks if the child heard what the Hythrun Warlord had to say.”
Eleven heads turned to look at him expectantly. Mikel suddenly remembered all the horrible things Damin Wolfblade had said about the lovely princess and paled. He couldn’t repeat that!
“He said…he said that if you accepted the peace offering he would be very disappointed. He said you have too much at stake to withdraw now.” The princess smiled at him before she translated the answer for her captain and his heart fluttered. This was how a true lady should look and behave. Decorous, elegant and modest. And Damin Wolfblade said she had the heart of a hyena! How dare he!
“The Medalonians don’t appear to be suffering under too many false illusions,” Lord Wherland remarked, “if what the boy says is true.”
“Aye,” Lord Palen agreed, “and they are correct about the snow. It would seriously hamper the knights.”
“Then we need to attack before it snows, gentlemen,” Prince Cratyn announced. Mikel’s heart swelled with pride as he watched the young prince. He was so noble and serious. He didn’t joke about death or make lewd comments about women. He was renowned for his piety. And he would crush the Defenders, Mikel thought fiercely. The Overlord was with him and he had the most beautiful, well-mannered princess in the whole world by his side. Nothing could defeat them.
“Aye,” Palen agreed. “We’ve sat on our backsides too long. It is time to teach these atheists a lesson. Only a fool would wait until winter to attack. Do you have anything else to tell us, boy?”
Mikel faced a moment of indecision. Should he mention the Harshini? Should he say he had seen a demon? Lots of demons? If he did, would they believe him? Or would they send him to the priests for Absolution Through Pain for lying? Should he tell them that Jaymes would only be released if they agreed to the peace offering? It had all seemed so clear when he was a prisoner among the Defenders. But now, faced with the war council and their stern expressions, his courage deserted him.
“My Lords, the child is exhausted,” Princess Adrina said, saving him from having to answer. “It is the middle of the night and he is almost falling over with fatigue, as am I. Perhaps I could take the child and see him settled for the night while you make your plans? After all, a war council is no place for a lady,” she added, bringing nods of agreement from the men. Mikel thought she was beyond perfect. She was the embodiment of Karien femininity. “Once he’s rested, I am sure he will remember more. In fact, I would be happy to take it upon myself to interview the child, thus freeing my Lords for more important business. It would be my small contribution to your war effort.” The gathered Dukes nodded, as impressed by her words as Mikel was. “Do I have your leave to depart, your Highness?”
Prince Cratyn waved his agreement with a furrowed brow, as if something concerned him, but he was probably just worried about the princess. She should not have been dragged from a warm bed at this hour of the night.
“Then I bid you goodnight, my Lords,” she said, rising gracefully from her seat. “May the Overlord be with you as you make your plans, so that your victory is quick and decisive. Come, child.”
She held out her hand and Mikel took it in wonder. He didn’t notice the cold as they walked from the tent. He barely even noticed the tall Fardohnyan following them outside. The princess said something in her own language to the captain, who nodded and disappeared into the darkness, then she turned and looked down at him.
“You must be the bravest young man in all of Karien,” she said with obvious admiration. “To have spent all that time in the heart of the enemy and remain so true to your faith. I want to hear about every single moment of the time you spent with those nasty Defenders.”
“I’ll try to remember everything, your Highness,” he promised her. For the Princess Adrina he would walk to the Sea of Despair and back.
CHAPTER 25
“You are out of your bloody mind!”
R’shiel met Brak’s anger with a wall of serenity that she didn’t entirely feel as she dismounted beside him. It was a little bit like having her emotions suppressed by Korandellan, except this time the calm was self-imposed. She was learning.
“There is no other way, Brak.”
“You will never get away with it!” he insisted, pacing the uneven ground. The magnificent sorcerer-bred horses loaned to them by the Hythrun wandered off to graze. R’shiel could the feel the touch of their equine thoughts as they munched contentedly on the fresh grass. The air was cool and still, as if autumn were trying to decide if it should move over and let winter in, or if it should linger on the plain for a time. They had ridden south a ways onto the vast grassland, out of sight of the camp, Brak insisting he had to speak with her alone. She understood the reason for his caution as soon as he opened his mouth. He didn’t want the humans to hear him chastise her like an errant child. Or perhaps he was hesitant to reveal any limits to their Harshini power. It was far easier to keep up the illusion of invulnerability if others were not aware you had limitations.
“One thing! Just one little thing goes wrong and the whole ludicrous illusion will fall apart. You can’t just waltz into the Citadel with a demon meld and expect to confront the Gathering—let alone convince them that the meld is really Joyhinia!”
“It convinced everybody here,” she pointed out.
“And it lasted for a mere five minutes before it fell apart! The Gathering goes on for hours. The meld won’t hold that long.”
“Dranymire says it will. With practice.”
“Practice? Do you have any idea how long the demons need to practise? A dragon is the result of a thousand years of practice, R’shiel! Garet Warner is leaving for the Citadel the day after tomorrow and he’ll barely make it in time for the Gathering. Even if you could get there in time, you would have to convince at least some of the Quorum to support your case for re-appointing Mahina as First Sister, and that could take weeks in itself, even assuming the meld was sufficiently cohesive to do anything so complex.”
R’shiel sighed patiently. She had given this a lot more thought than Brak gave her credit for.
“I can cast a glamour over myself. Nobody will recognise me.”
“Well, that changes everything!” Brak snorted. “Now it’s just impossible, whereas before it was inconceivable! I can’t believe you talked Dranymire into this!”
At the mention of his name the demon popped into being at her feet. He looked up and frowned at Brak. “You’re letting your human temper get the better of you, Lord Brakandaran.”
“I’m letting my human common sense get the better of me,” Brak snapped. It was a measure of his fury that he spoke so bluntly to the demon. Brak was usually more circumspect around them, particularly Dranymire. “How can you let her do this?”
Dranymire pulled himself up to his full height, making him nearly as tall as R’shiel’s knee, and glared at Brak. “Lord Brakandaran, there are some things more important than individuals. Karien priests gather beyond the border, even as we speak. The Harshini must be able to protect themselves, and to do that, they need access to the Citadel. Sanctuary was built as a retreat—not a defence—and it will not stand a concerted attack if the Karien priests cross the border and discover its location. The
Harshini need the protection and the power of the Citadel.”
R’shiel looked down at the little demon in surprise. It had never occurred to her that the Citadel might hold power for the Harshini.
“It will do no good if I protect R’shiel from the danger of entering the Citadel, if in the long run the Harshini are destroyed. Xaphista is aware of the demon child’s existence, just as any other god would be.”
Brak took the demon at his word, it seemed, nodding reluctantly. “Then let me go in her place. Let me call on the demons bonded to my bloodline to create the meld. I’m expendable. R’shiel is not.”
“No,” R’shiel said with utter certainty, although she had no idea where it came from. “I have to do this, Brak. I need your help, but ultimately, the task is mine.”
He shook his head. “You need me? For what? To bring home your body?”
“I need you to help me convince the Quorum,” she explained.
Years of being raised on the schemes of Joyhinia had prepared her for this, more than Brak knew. She had been fed politics for breakfast, manipulation for lunch and treachery for dinner for most of her life. Brak, on the other hand, was more Harshini than he cared to admit, for all that he had killed Lorandranek.
R’shiel took a deep breath, knowing the reaction to her next suggestion was likely to be even more extreme than the idea of the demon meld. “As you said, we need to convince the Quorum, and that could take weeks. So I don’t plan to convince them. I plan to coerce them.”
Brak was aghast at the suggestion. “Coerce them?”
“We will take Joyhinia to the Gathering and when she stands to speak, there will not be a voice raised in protest. Not if we cast a coercion over the whole group.”
He took a deep, calming breath before he spoke. “R’shiel, I know you weren’t at Sanctuary long, but somebody must have mentioned the prohibition on coercing humans to act against their natures. It’s…it’s on a par with killing, as far as the Harshini are concerned.”
She looked at him evenly. “I am the demon child. I was created to destroy. Coercion seems to pale a little compared to that.”
“And when the coercion wears off?” he asked. “What then? What happens when the Sisters of the Blade wake the next morning, wondering why in the Seven Hells they voted Mahina back into power?”
“We’ll have to stay in the Citadel long enough to ensure that doesn’t happen. If anybody makes too much fuss, Mahina can send them away—post them somewhere remote where nobody will listen to them. A leader always removes the loudest opposing voices upon attaining power. It’s a time-honoured tradition. It was also the mistake Mahina made the first time she was elected. I doubt she’ll be so trusting this time.”
“And what of the real Joyhinia? What do you plan to do with her?”
“Not long after the election, Joyhinia will be struck down with a terrible fever that will leave her incapacitated,” she explained. “It will destroy her mind, unfortunately. She will be moved to the villa at Brodenvale where the sisters who are too old and infirm to look after themselves are cared for. She will live out her days in comfort and peace, as befits a retired First Sister, blissfully unaware of the events going on around her.”
Brak let out a long slow whistle. “Gods, no wonder Xaphista fears your coming. A té Ortyn Harshini who schemes like a Sister of the Blade.”
She smiled faintly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t meant as one,” he snarled, turning his back on her. He walked to his mount and patted its graceful neck. R’shiel wondered if he was sharing his disapproval with the horse.
“Brakandaran will help you,” Dranymire assured her.
“I suppose. But what did you mean when you said the Harshini needed the power of the Citadel? I thought the Citadel was just a bunch of temples?”
Dranymire shook his head. “It is more than that, child. The power is there for anyone to see, even humans.”
“What power?” There was nothing she could recall from the Citadel that reeked of Harshini power. And if there had been, she was certain the Sisterhood would have destroyed it long ago.
“You call it the Brightening and the Dimming, I believe,” the little demon explained. “It is the pulse of the Citadel.”
R’shiel’s eyes widened. The gradual brightening of the Citadel’s walls and the eventual dimming each evening had been so much a part of her life, she had rarely given it a second thought. The idea that it was proof of the living Harshini magic enthralled her. The pulse of the Citadel.
“Can I tap into that power?” she asked. If she could access that, if there was some way to leave her mark on the Citadel, to impose the order they needed to be able to fight the Kariens single-mindedly, she was determined to use it. Another lesson learnt at Joyhinia’s knee: use whatever and whomever it takes to achieve your goals. The end always justifies the means.
R’shiel felt so little for the childlike husk that was now Joyhinia, that it was impossible to regard her as the same woman. She felt nothing. No resentment. No burning desire for revenge. The Joyhinia who had raised her, and then cast her adrift to suffer, the woman who had scorned her and ultimately tried to kill her, was dead. The shell that remained was not worth the effort it took to hate. It was strange, though, that after all this time and everything Joyhinia had done to her, it was her foster mother’s influence she felt most. The serenity of the Harshini had healed her. But it was Joyhinia’s brutal practicality that would enable her to survive. There was something vaguely disturbing in the idea.
“Don’t you have power enough?” Brak replied sourly. She had been too engrossed in her thoughts to notice his return. He led his horse toward her and swung into the saddle. His expression was bleak.
She shrugged and glanced up at him.
“I guess we won’t know that until I face Xaphista and we see who is left standing once the smoke clears,” she said.
CHAPTER 26
They rode back in silence, Dranymire sitting atop the pommel of R’shiel’s saddle until they neared the camp. He vanished as the vast followers’ camp came into view. R’shiel glanced at Brak, but his expression was still as sour as it had been when they rode out this morning.
“Stop fretting.”
“I’ll stop fretting when you start demonstrating some sense.”
“We have to do this, Brak. Have you seen the size of the Karien army? We need every Defender on the border. We need Mahina in charge.”
He shook his head, but didn’t answer her.
When they reached the corrals on the southern side of the camp, they dismounted and walked their horses forward. The smell was pungent, with so many animals so close, and she could feel Wind Dancer’s thoughts as the mare sensed the nearness of her kin. Two Hythrun hurried forward as they neared the coral where the sorcerer-bred mounts were kept, a little way from the more ordinary Medalonian cavalry horses. R’shiel waved them away, preferring to unsaddle the beast herself.
Wind Dancer’s thoughts lingered wistfully on fresh hay. R’shiel enjoyed the touch of her equine mind. Everything was so simple. So uncluttered. Brak moved on a little further, apparently preferring solitude to her company.
“We have men aplenty to tend your horse, Divine One.”
R’shiel hefted the saddle clear of Wind Dancer and turned toward the voice in the gathering darkness. “Please don’t call me that, Lord Wolfblade.”
“A compromise, then. You call me Damin, and I’ll call you R’shiel.”
“Done!” She lifted the saddle over the rail and turned to him. “Damin.”
“Did you enjoy your ride?”
“Very much. She’s a beautiful horse.”
“Then she is yours. A gift.”
“I couldn’t accept anything so valuable, Lord…Damin.”
“Why not?” He moved closer, stroking Wind Dancer’s golden withers as she removed the bridle. “I’ve already told Tarja I planned to make you a gift of her. He didn’t seem to mind.”
“I don’t need Tarja’s permission to accept a gift,” she said, ducking under Wind Dancer’s head, which put the bulk of the beast between them. She began rubbing the horse down with more force than was absolutely necessary. “I’m just afraid you’ll read more into my acceptance than is warranted.”
“I see. You think I’m planning to use my association with the demon child for my own political ends, is that it?”
“Aren’t you?”
He laughed. “You and my sister would make a great pair. Kalan thinks as you do. I offer this gift because I like you, R’shiel. If it helps my cause some day, then fine, but I would make the offer even knowing it might harm my cause.”
She stopped brushing Wind Dancer and stared at him. “Why are you here, Damin?”
“Lord Brakandaran asked me to come.”
“So you dropped everything and left your own province vulnerable to attack, to help an enemy? Just because Brak asked you? I find that hard to believe.”
“You were raised by the Sisterhood, R’shiel. Perhaps if you’d been raised among people who place their gods above all else, you’d understand.”
“Perhaps,” she muttered, unconvinced. Damin Wolfblade seemed too sure of his own place in the world to care much about the gods. But it was to him that Zegarnald had delivered Brak and her. The War God had a high opinion of this human Warlord. Maybe that was why she didn’t entirely trust him.
“R’shiel, I will be the first to admit that my association with you will give the other Warlords pause. If I can call the demon child my friend, my position will be almost unassailable. I might even find out what it feels like not to fear an assassin’s blade. But that’s not the reason I came. The Karien army has to be stopped before it reaches Hythria. If not, my people face a war on a scale you cannot imagine. Hythria is a large nation, but the Defenders are a much more coherent force than any my people can muster. They are trained to act as one army. My nation has seven Warlords with seven different ideas as to how a battle should be fought, even if you could get them to agree to fight on the same side.”
Treason Keep Page 20
