Sworn To Conflict: Courtlight #3

by Edun, Terah

  She turned to the major. “I did say that, didn’t I? Right after she collapsed with her ears bleeding?”

  The major turned to General Barnaren, who looked as if his day had just jumped off a cliff.

  *****

  To Ciardis, the move into the stone wall was like being pulled into the mud pools near the hot springs in the Ameles Forest. Sticky, wet, and ultimately unclean. She could feel the walls melting around them and reforming behind them as they went. Like a spear, she and Warlord Inga shot through the underpass and up into the mountains. Time passed in a void. They could have been in the rock for hours or days, but when they finally emerged the distance traveled had taken its toll on both of them. They were surrounded by thick snow and knee-deep in it. No surprise, as Ciardis could see that they were much closer to the mountain pass.

  Ciardis felt weary to her bones, and Warlord Inga stumbled to right herself on her feet. The frost giant race was famed for its tirelessness, so this was serious. As Inga struggled to stand with Ciardis on her back she roared her frustration. At least Ciardis thought it was her frustration until she saw the beasts approaching them at a flat-out run. They poured down the cliff side like a living furry cloak.

  As soon as she scrambled to hook both arms over the edge of the sling to get a better look at the approaching beasts Ciardis thought better of it. She was getting dizzy with motion sickness. Inga was rushing around in a tight circle, trying to keep an eye on all of her opponents. But even she couldn’t have eyes in the back of her head. Not when they were encircled by the beasts. With slavering tongues, a mouth overfull with sharp teeth, and dark gray fur, the things were beasts the likes of which Ciardis had never seen. If pressed she would have said that they looked like the huge black hounds the guarded the banker’s box in the village – dark and slavering beasts big enough to overpower a grown man easily. There had to be at least fifteen of them, and they circled around their prey in an ever-moving mass of taut muscles and snapping jaws.

  Occasionally one would leap forward and snap at Inga’s ankles, but it always hurried back into place with its pack brothers. It was lucky Inga hadn’t taken its snout off with her sword. But it was clear that the beasts were waiting on something. On what, Ciardis couldn’t tell. But she didn’t think that Warlord Inga’s sword would be much of a deterrent. Not against a pack like this. Then a sharp whistle came through the air. It was piercing over the open snow, and as one the snarling beasts halted and sat down. An impressive trick, that. Ciardis hadn’t thought they were intelligent enough to be trained.

  They were nothing more than big dogs. Vicious ones. But obedient.

  Down the cliff came a lone man. He walked across the thick snow with the furs of his cloak swirling around him and confidence in his stride. Behind him a dozen men stood on the cliff with arrows notched in bows, ready to fire.

  As he approached them, one of the beasts broke off from the pack and came over to him. He ruffled the fur on its head and continued on as the beast walked by his side.

  Definitely domesticated, Ciardis thought.

  “One of the frost giants’ own,” said the man when he reached them. “I had thought my kindred were mistaken.”

  Ciardis poked her head over Inga’s shoulder.

  “And a human.” The tone there was much darker.

  Inga reached over her shoulder and pushed Ciardis’s head back into the sling none-too-gently.

  “Ignore the human, blood brother,” Inga growled softly. “She is a pet.”

  Ciardis stiffened in the sling and poked her head back out. For a moment the world was still. The man was staring at them with dark eyes. Too dark. His whole eye were black. With no discernable pupil. Just a jet color like an oval marble had been inserted into his eye sockets. For the first time Ciardis understood that they might be in more danger from the strange figure in front of them than the mass of beasts surrounding them.

  “A naughty pet,” he said with a laugh.

  Ciardis felt the taut muscles of Inga’s back ease. She wasn’t relaxed, but she wasn’t hopped up on a string at the moment, either.

  “Yes,” Inga said, shrugging.

  The man threw up his arms and his cloak flew back. From the mass of his cloak sprang wide black wings that looked like a huge bat had been strapped to his back. Ciardis couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. She had heard stories, listened to the tales, but never had she expected to see a living Daemoni. They were supposed to be extinct. One had not been seen in over two hundred and fifty years.

  Daemoni were the sworn enemies of the Ansari race. Both were kith with human characteristics and mage capabilities. But it was the Ansari who had the wings of a dove and that served the Algardis Empire as citizens and soldiers. The Daemoni were different. A black-winged race with dark visages and magnetic personalities. For centuries the Ansari and the Daemoni hated each other. Even before they fought on opposing sides during the Initiate Wars legend says. But it was the Ansari who had been on the winning side. As all kith with warring factions had been given as a boon, the Ansari had asked for the option to banish or hunt down any and all of the Daemoni race. Not just the warriors, but the children, the mothers, the crafters, and the builders. The Ansari had argued before the magistrate’s council that their winged brethren were evil, had shown that ability during the wars, and any fruit from them would be instilled with the same sort of hatred. And so the genocide had begun. Every single Daemoni was hunted done until all had perished. A civilization disappeared from the folds of the empire.

  At least that was the history. The Daemoni in front of her told her that recorded history wasn’t always fact.

  “Blutschwester,” the Daemoni said in the old language. “You are welcome into our fold.”

  Ciardis’s stomach dropped into a pit and she shivered. This was not good.

  “You have my thanks,” said Warlord Inga. “As you can see, I have traveled a long way to be here.”

  “Yes,” said the Daemoni as he took in her disheveled and weary appearance. “And yet I hadn’t heard of a frost giant troupe near these passes except for the ignorant bitches who serve in Barnaren’s army.”

  Inga smiled a cold smile. “I know of them. I have come from the west where my sisters await. We wish to join the Sarvinian cause alongside our family. We wish to come home.”

  “And you would be very much welcome, if what you say is true.”

  Inga straightened. “You doubt me?”

  “I doubt all,” he said coldly. Spreading his wings, he shot up in the air without a further word.

  Ciardis said, “I thought he called you ‘Blutschwester?’”

  Inga said flatly, “It apparently does not mean all that it used to. In the past Blutschwester was a word of welcome, a sign that home and hearth would be open. Calling someone blood sister meant a bond of trust. No talk of lies and deceit. Now no kith of the North trusts another.”

  Ciardis was silent for a moment.

  “What do we do?”

  Inga laughed. “We have no choice. We would die on the frozen tundra without warmth and food. You, of course, would die long before me. Besides, the slavering beasts around us make it clear we are not to wander off.”

  There was nothing Ciardis could say to that. One of the beasts snapped at Inga’s heels, urging her forward. And they walked up the cliffs into the mountain pass surrounded by the mass of black-furred bodies.

  Ciardis hoped that they would find aid. Either that or escape. What happened when the Sarvinians realized Ciardis was more than a pet? That Inga led the band of frost giant women warriors who had slaughtered countless numbers of Sarvinian troops?

  Trouble, that’s what.

  She slumped farther back into her sling, wishing that for once her life were more boring. When they reached the top of the cliff, they saw a tiered ledge. The uppermost ledge was where the archers had readied their bows and arrows. Just below that lay supplies, and, farther down, on the level where they now stood, was a hidden path. The beasts scr
ambled to fall into line and go first. The path was only big enough for one to go forward at a time, and none of them wanted to let the others go first. Finally the one with a white jagged scar going down its back jumped forward and taught the others a lesson. There were no more quarrels after that. Not after they left the pitiful loser smoking and bleeding on the ground behind them.

  And that’s when Ciardis got the second surprise of the day. They weren’t dogs. Dogs couldn’t set fire to one another.

  “Hellhounds?” Ciardis whispered in shock.

  “You didn’t know?” A hint of amusement laced Inga’s tone.

  Ciardis gulped and burrowed back down into the sling. First Daemoni, now hellhounds. Both were nightmares from the battlegrounds. Both were supposed to be long extinct. What kind of army had the Sarvinians amassed? And, more importantly, how?

  An hour later, after Inga had walked up and down many craggy mountain passes obediently, Ciardis heard the sound of large wings in the air. She looked up. The Daemoni male had been joined by two others of his kind, both male. They all landed at the foot of the mountain pass where they awaited Inga and the escorting hellhounds. As Inga carefully slid down the gravel-strewn path with crumbling rocks in her wake, Ciardis took in the three Daemoni who awaited them. Their wings stretched proudly to the skies. Their chests were bare and their hard abdomens glistened in the sunlight. Their fair complexion was much lighter than Ciardis’s own bronzed skin, they looked as pale as snow with long black hair and dark, brooding gazes.

  Inga walked over to them. “Well?”

  The one who had come for them turned away and faced the large cave opening in front of them. “Put your human down. She cannot be carried where we tread.”

  Inga frowned. “We go into the cave, yes? She will be worse than blind and will only slow us down.”

  Ciardis stayed hunched on Inga’s back, desperately hoping the Daemoni male heeded Inga’s words. She really didn’t want to walk into that cave of who knows what. With or without Inga by her side.

  “She must walk. None can enter under the influence of another,” said the first Daemoni. “Not under our watch.”

  The two Daemoni henchmen stood glaring to emphasize their leader’s point.

  Ciardis got the feeling that they wouldn’t budge. “More of your Daemoni magic?” Warlord Inga said while she bared her teeth in a smile.

  The first Daemoni male smiled back, darkly amused. “Of course.”

  Inga reached behind her to brace Ciardis as she quickly untied the knot at her front. She put the young woman down in front of her and stuffed the cloth in a pouch at her own waist. Ciardis crossed her arms in front of her and backed up as close as she could to Inga’s legs without tripping her up. The hellhounds had decided to go back to snapping at their heels, and one little snap could take off her leg. Inga reached down as if to reassure her pet of her safety and glared at the Daemoni male, telling him without words that if her pet lost an arm, so would he.

  Coldly, he told his hounds to heel. They backed off. And then the three Daemoni warriors walked toward the cavern opening. They spread their wings until they stood side-by-side, wingtip-to-wingtip, and began chanting.

  “Why are they chanting?” asked Ciardis.

  Inga shrugged. “The Daemoni have always done things strangely. The words, though unnecessary, comfort them in their rituals.”

  Ciardis turned on her mage sight and squinted. She didn’t think the words signified squat to the magic, but she could see sigils rising in a dark smoke above the Daemoni’s head. Each man had one symbol written in arcane script hovering about his head. She thought it looked a lot like the spell Ambassador Sedaris had conducted on the open ocean in order to create a platform when she had sought to land. The dragon’s thoughts had become words and the words had become actions, but in this case the thoughts became symbols and the symbols became sigils.

  As the sigils rose with the arc of each individual’s hand, she could see a certain beauty in their magic. She watched the smoke dissipate and the sigils push back until a barrier stopped their advance. A barrier she hadn’t even seen. It was told in the myths of old that the Daemoni were able to disappear in thin air, hide anything shown, and disappear anything sought. Perhaps it was true.

  The three male Daemoni spoke one word in unison: “Ofnen.”

  The barrier came down. With it the vision of the vast cavern disappeared before them. Instead open air stood before them, and vast steps descended down, hewn from the very rock of the mountain.

  Inga swore and said, “Sanctuary.”

  The lead Daemoni ruffled his wings as he looked over his left shoulder with a true smile. “Welcome home, sister.”

  Ciardis wanted to ask what Sanctuary was, but there was no time. She barely got a glance before they were moving forward. She gulped when she saw a shimmer before them where the barrier had previously stood.

  “This is a field,” the Daemoni explained as he walked through. “It will recognize you.”

  Each person and creature passed through the glimmering barrier to the other side where the landing to the sanctuary was. They then proceeded to walk down the stone steps that were so vast that the entire party could have walked abreast had they chosen to. As they descended the sound of voices, of laughter, of children, and of families filtered up. At the base three chimeras waited patiently while sitting on their haunches. They nodded to the Daemoni and two of them came over to politely sniff Inga and Ciardis. A second...or was it third layer of security? Probably fourth, Ciardis concluded. She was sure the Sarvinians had watchers posted throughout the mountain pass, as well. Ciardis’s chimera knelt down on all fours, looking like nothing more than a large mountain cat, before announcing her approval.

  At Inga’s cold glance at the one sniffing her chest, the Daemoni male explained, “Our guards can hunt and track any who enter their presence. They will know should you leave without approval.”

  “Are we prisoners, then?” Inga demanded.

  “Guests,” the Daemoni male said smoothly.

  Ciardis wasn’t so sure.

  They followed him into the cave that led toward the Sarvinian encampment while his flight brothers took off toward a broad ledge that curved around the side of the encampment. They passed by the chimeras and through a short mountain pass. To say she was surprised to come out less than a minute later into open air and bright sunlight would have been an understatement. It looked like they were in a valley. A very large valley surrounded on all sides by the Northern Mountains. And thousands of people and creatures milled below them in its bowl.

  The perfect sanctuary.

  Chapter 15

  As they walked forward, Ciardis Weathervane took in the boisterous children, the loud chatter, and the friendly banter of the adults. They had walked straight into a market. A market. In the middle of a war. She had been expecting death, famine, deprivation. On both sides. While the troops of the Algardis Army endured nowhere near the same level of poverty that she could see here in a glance, they did have to endure stark living conditions.

  And yet I never see such joy on the faces of the soldiers as I do in these families, she thought to herself.

  With widening eyes, she felt assaulted by the colors, the laughter, the beings of all different races. They had one thing in common. They were all kith. Inhuman creatures with the ability to use magic in some form. She was the only human around for miles—she would bet her last winter’s ball gown—in the entire valley. It was unsettling. She sucked in a sharp breath as she looked past a phoenix and spotted someone she had never thought she’d see today.

  Her brother. How had he escaped custody? More importantly, why was he here?

  The only other Weathervane in the Empire stood casually talking to a chimera. A male one, by the looks of his massive chest and proud, tufted tail that arched high.

  Well, I guess that means I’m one of only two humans in this valley, she thought with trepidation.

  Somehow the thought didn’t mak
e her feel any better.

  She didn’t bother turning away from her brother or trying to hide. She wanted him to see her. She wanted to know why he was in the enemy encampment. Why he’d been helping the Shadow Mage kill dozens of innocent kith, and where he had gone the day she had fought the final battle against the man who had killed the head of the Companions’ Council as well as many others.

  As if he could sense her gaze on his back, her brother turned around to face her slowly. Giving her time to take in his visage. The thick, golden hair that wasn’t curly but wavy, the pale, bronzed skin, and the golden Weathervane eyes. He was practically the spitting image of her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before. Admittedly, a spitting image that hadn’t seen a lot of sun in a while. His skin was paler all over and his hair had a washed-out look to it, lacking the luster and sheen of her curls. But still there was no doubt in her mind. He was her twin brother.

  And he was with the enemy.

  His piercing gaze met her own and she saw something she thought she’d never see in a traitor’s eyes: relief.

  He smiled. “Sister.”

  She pinned her lips to keep from returning his smile, aching to acknowledge the only living family member she had ever known.

  As he came forward she muttered one word, “Traitor.”

  He halted his advance to stand directly in front of her, and surprise crossed his face.

  Faux surprise, apparently, as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “Careful, sister, you wouldn’t want our allies to think you are not of our cause.”

  “I’m not,” retorted Ciardis brazenly. She had no fear. She might have been scared shitless of being eaten, but her loyalties were always firm. She wouldn’t betray her friends or her loyalty to the crown.

  “Don’t worry, we had no worries that she was of our cause,” said the same Daemoni male who had met them at the beginning of the trail surrounded by hellhounds.

  Ciardis turned around to frown at him and her brother mirrored her position defensively.

  “Thanar,” her twin brother said tightly.