Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides

by David Hair

  ‘Mercer!’ someone roared.

  Malevorn Andevarion – no, no, no—!

  Ramita jerked to a stop. ‘Let me!’ she shouted in his face. He had no idea what she meant to do, but she turned and made a vicious gesture with her hand.

  The ceiling collapsed with a deafening roar into the stairwell behind them with a crash that blasted through them both. Dust and smoke spewed everywhere.

  He gaped at her. Great Kore, she’s strong … but—Oh Cym, how will you get out now—?

  ‘Now,’ Ramita snapped, ‘we go.’

  He ran down the last few stairs to the skiff and threw in the pack containing the Scytale while Ramita threw open the sea-doors with a single peremptory gesture. Her words were lost in the tumultuous sound of the sea roaring below. Spray and mist immediately concealed the opening.

  Somewhere in the dust and dark above he heard Malevorn’s voice, shouting faintly. Rukking Hel! He survived? A torrent of earth and stone flew over them and struck the far wall. Shit, he’s coming!

  Alaron whirled and grabbed the mast two-handed, and went to ram it into its socket. He kept praying that somehow Cym would appear, having miraculously got herself out of this impossible situation. There was a second stairwell on the opposite wall. He was desperate for Cym to burst through it, but instead, an armoured warrior erupted from it: a blonde woman with a face of utter perfection, her eyes as cold and dead as corpse.

  He recognised her instantly: she was the Inquisitor who had killed Anise’s brother Ferdi. She came straight at him, reaching him before he’d really registered her presence, and brought her sword hacking down at the juncture of his shoulder and neck.

  Reacting instinctively, he blocked with the mast, and her blade cleaved it in two as effortlessly as if she were cutting butter. The top bit sheared off and spun towards the doors.

  ‘Yield, heretic!’ she shouted, hacking at him again, and he threw himself down just as her blade sliced the air above him, barely missing him. Before he could recover she kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back. He gasped for air, and had barely a moment to draw his blade before she was on him again. Steel rained down on him, blow after blow, ripping his sleeve, slicing his face open from left eye to jaw.

  As his left eye filled with blood, he raised his sword in desperation, but before he could swing it she kicked his hand and sent his sword clattering away.

  She shouted triumphantly, reversed her own blade with a showy grip-reverse and raised it high to impale him.

  He tried to gather his gnosis for one last blast, though he could barely feel it—

  —then the sheered-off mast punched through her back and out between her breasts and she shuddered and staggered forwards. She crashed towards him, and he barely managed to roll clear in time – but he did.

  He stared wildly around him.

  Ramita had thrown the top section of the mast from twenty yards away with the force of a ballista, powerful enough to punch through a pure-blood’s shields.

  But that’s impossible—

  He climbed shakily to his feet and ineffectually wiped the blood from his eyes, wincing at the pain of his cut face. Then he sheathed his sword and hurriedly rammed what was left of the mast into the socket, then began to drag the skiff towards Ramita, all the while trying to control his shaking.

  The Lakh girl was just as unsteady. She kept staring from her hand to the impaled Inquisitor, her eyes round with fear. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Thank Kore you did!’ he shouted. ‘Come on! We’ve got to go!’

  Booted feet hammered on the stairs, too heavy to be Cym. He heard Malevorn again. ‘Mercer,’ his old enemy snarled from somewhere above. ‘Stand and fight, you stinking coward.’

  Alaron’s blood boiled. I’ve stood toe to toe with you for half my life, Andevarion, even though I’ve lost every time. I’ve never backed down from a fight with you – don’t you dare call me a coward.

  But one look at Ramita, clutching her belly, her expression terrified, quelled any impulse he might have had to stay and fight.

  She’s carrying Meiros’ children. I’ve got the Scytale. We’ve got to get out of here.

  He finished dragging the skiff to her. As mage-fire flashed down the stairs, his shields crackled and blossomed about him. ‘Get in!’ he shouted at the Lakh girl and she complied as heavier bolts of energy bloomed about him.

  His shields wavered, but somehow he held them together. Malevorn emerged from the dust clouds about thirty yards away, a bloody sword in hand. He’d lost his helm along the way, but he still looked parade-ground perfect as he strode towards them.

  The world seemed to move slower about him, as if every second was twice as long as normal. He lifted his hand and sent an assault that was a bewildering blend of overwhelming fire, shards of stone from the rock fall and a telekinesis grip to hold Alaron helpless in place as he died.

  He could – maybe should – have frozen in terror, and died then and there. But he’d been fighting Malevorn for years. Losing – but fighting. He knew what to expect. He’d never been able to stop it before, but he knew what was coming. And just as at Gydan’s Cut, his instincts responded before he’d consciously willed himself to move.

  It was as if his mind had fractured into separate brains: one part of him activated the Air- and Water-gnosis of the skiff while another fed his shields. Still another carried him fully ten yards in one bound to land in the centre of the skiff, well clear of Malevorn’s telekinetic grip. It wasn’t that he was stronger than his enemy’s blow; he was just no longer where it fell. He used his own telekinesis to propel the skiff away from his attacker, and now Ramita saw what he was doing and helped to pick up the skiff and hurl it forward. Her strength was truly alarming, but right now it was keeping them both alive.

  Fire blasted out behind them as Malevorn came after them, filled the air in their wake. His gnosis-blasts washed over the craft, but they failed to ignite it, as the Water-gnosis Kekropius had melded into the timber protected the little vessel. But now Malevorn was moving like the wind itself. His sword was raised as he hurtled towards Alaron in a flash, and suddenly he was just yards away.

  Ramita, standing behind Alaron, gestured, shouting aloud, and a wall of force picked up Malevorn and threw him bodily back into the chamber. Alaron saw his nemesis’ mouth go wide with shock as he vanished back into the dark chamber, then their skiff was propelled out over the edge of the landing platform and into the air. He glanced up, saw the Inquisitors’ ship ablaze in the sky above, while lightning and fire still flickered at the top of the pillar of stone. Then the skiff tilted and they plummeted towards the ocean.

  Still his fractured mind did not relent. ‘Cover!’ he shouted, letting his brain translate the word from thought into gnosis, and canvas unrolled around them in an eye-blink, enveloping the hull and closing about them as sylvanic-gnosis sealed the gaps, an instant before they nose-dived into the depths.

  30

  An Irrevocable Choice

  Apostasy

  Which is the greater sin: to insult your neighbour, or to insult Kore? The answer of course is that the sin of slighting Kore is the greater, for in slighting Kore you slight all men.

  FURUS MITRE, CARDINAL OF THE KORE, PALLAS, 589

  What is sin? Sin is whatever I decide it to be.

  SERTAIN, FIRST EMPEROR, PALLAS 610

  Mount Tigrat, Javon, Antiopia

  Zulhijja (Decore) 928

  6th month of the Moontide.

  Elena woke to a dagger pressed to her throat, then rough hands grasped her arms and pulled them tightly behind her. She gasped for air and was reflexively gathering her gnosis to fling her attacker away when a fist hammered into her stomach and she bent in half as pain sheeted through her. A volley of pulverising blows to the face knocked any kind of coherent thought out of her, and she reeled in pain, her senses blurred. She dimly sensed three of them, one holding either side of her, the one with the fists now staring into her eyes. His face was bl
urred, as if seen through wet glass: a vicious scarred Keshi with pitiless eyes.

 

  Her mental call ended in another savage blow and she all but blacked out. She thought there was a fourth man now. His cold hand gripped her forehead. He spoke aloud, in Rondian. ‘Enough, Gatoz. Let me …’

  Then gnostic energy roiled from the newcomer’s fingertips, knives of burning steel carving her brain to shreds while constrictor snakes of power wrapped about her soul, choking her. She tried to scream, but nothing came. Throbbing darkness closed down her sight, then her nerve-endings, and on and on it went as she tried to rally her gnosis to fight this other man, but he was too strong for her. Their silent struggle went on forever, until she had nothing left – nothing at all. No gnosis. Nothing.

  Chain-rune. He’s rukking Chained me. Oh dear God …

  She closed her eyes for a long while, seeking calm, but she failed. She felt defiled, more utterly ravaged than if the intruders had taken turns fucking her. That’ll be next. She tried to move, but the darkness took her down again.

  When she became aware again, no one was near, though conversations buzzed somewhere in the distance. She pulled herself from the lure of oblivion by the barest of margins, drawn by a vaguely familiar voice.

  I know that man … It took a while, but at last it came to her: Stivor Sindon. She opened her eyes and found him bending over her. She flinched involuntarily. His was the Chain-rune, she realised.

  Sindon lifted her chin. ‘Well, well: the notorious Elena Anborn. Do you even know what price Mater-Imperia has set on her head, Gatoz?’

  The scar-faced Keshi, Gatoz, glowered at the Magister. ‘She belongs to the Hadishah.’

  ‘I’m not claiming her, just making a point.’

  Kazim! Where’s Kazim? What have they done with him?

  She didn’t have long to wait to find out. They picked her up and frog-marched her, still clad in her bloodstained nightdress, into the dining hall. Her eyes flew from face to face: Keshi men with hooded, blankly hostile eyes. Then she saw Kazim: standing beside the window with his arm around the shoulder of an older Keshi.

  The betrayal tore at her. ‘You traitorous two-faced bastard!’ she started, and he spun around, his face changing, but what to she didn’t see, because Gatoz whipped around and punched her full in the face. Her nose broke, spraying blood everywhere as her head flopped sideways, and then with exaggerated slowness the shadows leapt from the corners and filled her head.

  *

  ‘No!’ Kazim thrust Jamil away and tried to reach Gatoz. ‘Stop it!’ For a second he thought Gatoz’s blow had broken her neck, so limply her head lolled, so bonelessly she sagged in the arms of the men holding her.

  You traitorous two- faced bastard. Her words seared through him. But she didn’t understand – he’d been pleading on her behalf. Jamil had said she would be given a chance …

  ‘Gatoz, you promised—’

  Jamil caught his arm and held on to him, dragging him back, but Kazim threw him aside. He hadn’t even realised that he was now bigger than his friend until that instant. He strode towards Gatoz.

  The Hadishah commander turned to face him. ‘I promised nothing.’

  ‘But Jamil—’

  ‘Jamil said what I told him to say.’ Gatoz flickered a glance over his shoulder. ‘Take the woman to a secure room and chain her up.’

  ‘She’s on our side,’ Kazim protested hotly, trying to go to her, but Gatoz blocked him.

  He thrust his face at Kazim and snarled, ‘Boy, you’ve been with her for four months. Where does your loyalty lie?’

  Kazim glared at him, eyeball to eyeball. ‘To my captains,’ he growled through gritted teeth. ‘But—’

  ‘Silence!’ Gatoz barked, spraying him with spittle. ‘Go to your quarters, boy.’

  ‘But—’

  Gatoz’s palm lashed his cheek and he reeled, seeing stars. ‘I said silence! Do we need to Chain you also?’

  Breathing heavily, he fought the urge to strike back. Around him the other Hadishah were watching him with hard faces and narrowed eyes. Only Jamil’s face held any sympathy, and even that was muted.

  He stepped back and made obeisance to Gatoz. Then he walked from the room, feeling like an utter coward. Out in the corridor, he saw the two men dragging Elena towards the storerooms. He turned to follow when someone put a hand on his shoulder. Jamil had followed him out.

  ‘No, Kazim,’ he murmured, ‘don’t. She’s not worth it.’

  He turned to face his friend – his blood-brother – as his mind churned sickly. ‘You told me she would be safe,’ he whispered. It had been the first thing Jamil had said to him when he’d realised what had happened. Dhani the shopkeeper had got a message through somehow, and his Hadishah comrades had found him. He’d been overjoyed – until Elena’s predicament became obvious.

  His cheek throbbed from Gatoz’s blow.

  Jamil was watching him warily. ‘Kazim, she was never going to be allowed to remain free: surely you realise that?’

  ‘No – no, I didn’t. You promised me, brother!’

  Fool! I didn’t think it through, though it’s so damned obvious a child could see it. Rashid doesn’t want Rondian allies. Even Sindon is tolerated only for convenience.

  Still he tried to bargain for her safety, for her sake and for his. ‘She has sworn to kill Gurvon Gyle – she’s on the same mission as us!’

  Jamil shook his head. ‘Not here, lad.’ He pulled Kazim towards the nearest door, which led to a scriptorium that he and Elena had never bothered to use. It was open to the skies and strewn with windblown debris, but it was empty and it had a door, which Jamil now closed.

  Kazim faced his friend and spoke as quickly as he could, hoping something – anything – would sway him. ‘Listen to me, please: Alhana is not our enemy. She wants the Crusade defeated as much as we do. She knows Gyle’s weaknesses. We need her to succeed on our mission. You’ve got to help me persuade Gatoz.’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Listen, Kazim, things have changed. Gyle is no longer a target now. An accommodation has been reached. We’re only here to bring you home.’

  Kazim clutched the window frame, trying to steady himself from the feeling that the floor was shifting beneath his feet. ‘You’ve reached a what? He’s our enemy.’

  ‘And also the enemy of another enemy,’ Jamil said quietly. ‘A deal has been made.’

  Kazim felt a wave of physical sickness, and he was overwhelmed by a feeling of utter powerlessness.

  I told Dhani how we could be found without asking Elena if I should. She’d have known it was stupid. I’ve betrayed her with my own idiocy.

  He turned away, blinking furiously. Hatred of both Crusade and shihad swirled inside his belly.

  He looked at Jamil and tried again. ‘She has saved my life, brother. Twice. Even though she knows who and what I am.’

  Jamil blinked. ‘You told her that you are Hadishah? That you are Souldrinker?’

  ‘Of course – she was training me. She knows everything about me, and I about her. She’s not our enemy. She should be our ally.’

  Jamil shook his head and said firmly, ‘We never reveal ourselves to outsiders except under orders.’

  Kazim rolled his eyes, barely repressing his temper. ‘Jamil! You’re my friend – you have to help me save her!’

  ‘Save her?’ Jamil looked at him pityingly. ‘We don’t save Rondian women. If she is fertile, she will be taken to the breeding cages. If not, we’ll cut off her head and burn the body. Those are the only paths her life will now take.’

  Kazim fought the urge to scream until Jamil paid attention and listened to him. ‘What about Alyssa Dulayne?’ he rasped. ‘Rashid makes exceptions for her.’ And we all know why.

  ‘Rashid is an emir. He does as he likes.’ Jamil put a hand on his shoulder, and Kazim had to restrain himself from throwing it off. He knew his friend was trying to help him – but he wasn’t trying to aid Elena, so he was not his friend at all.r />
  ‘Kazim, go to your quarters,’ Jamil said quietly. ‘Accept whatever punishment Gatoz gives you. Please, do not disobey him. He’ll have your head on the pike beside this jadugara’s if you defy him again.’

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Kazim hung his head. Sweet Lord Ahm, I know he’s wrong. But I need to be alone now. I need to think.

  He said slowly, ‘All right.’ He would feign repentance. For now. ‘Where is Haroun?’ he asked distantly.

  ‘He’s with the skiff. We kept him back from the raid in case things got feisty. Do you want to see him?’

  ‘I need someone to help me understand this.’

  Jamil frowned. Piety wasn’t something either of them was prone to. But Kazim had been through a lot these past months, and he accepted the words at face value. ‘I’ll send him to you.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Back to Halli’kut. We have the Ordo Costruo prisoners there, in breeding cages. It’s where we’ll take your woman, if she’s fertile.’ Jamil cocked his head curiously. ‘Is she?’

  The thought of Elena, caged and forced to bear children until she died, was nauseating. Everything about her – the way she walked, the way she talked, the way she lived and fought – she was all about freedom. Confinement would be a slow death sentence. But if I say no, he’ll tell Gatoz and they’ll kill her. ‘She bleeds every month,’ he said truthfully.

  ‘Then Gatoz will likely let her live. She’s older than we like, but she’s a half-blood; she should still produce three or four magi-children for us. When does she bleed?’

  Kazim’s memory for such womanly matters was hazy at the best of times. ‘I think she bleeds with the new moon,’ he said. That was now.

  Jamil grunted. ‘Good. We’ll have her in the Krak di Condotiori before she ovulates again.’ He looked at Kazim with something like sympathy. ‘Listen, Kaz, I know it’s hard to see a woman you’ve been bedding treated this way. Ahm Himself knows I find the breeding cages an ugly necessity. But it’s for the greater good.’ He exhaled thickly. ‘I was born in one, remember?’