by P. J. Fox
Somewhere deep inside, something twisted.
Maybe he should just bed Callas. He thought again of Bjorn’s laugh, Bjorn of the eleven children and three wives. Eleven children, seven of them masculine children. Would they come to avenge his death? Would this war ever end? Did he even want it to?
When he thought of Bjorn’s children, part of him longed for peace. A small, fading part of him. But the greater part, the greater and growing part, was terrified of the concept. A quiet kingdom held no place for one such as he. What would he do, pray for the Dark Lord’s help in farming?
“His calling you a werewolf was a compliment.”
Hart said nothing.
“Among the clans, those called brother to the wolf are considered the finest of fighting men. They fight for Bragi, the chieftain among their gods. The wolf is Bragi’s special creature.” Callas paused again. “Bjorn…would have been pleased, I believe, that you survived.”
Bjorn had been an adult man, Hart tried to tell himself. He’d understood the risk he was taking. Except…. “Why did Silverbeard betray us?”
“I don’t know.”
Hearing the admission from Callas was startling and did more to cool Hart’s blood than all the wind and snow combined. Callas, owing to his position with Tristan, knew a great deal that Hart did not. Hart hadn’t realized, perhaps up until that exact moment, how much he relied on Callas. Not simply to know but to be.
“Perhaps he thought we couldn’t win. Perhaps he was offered a fatter purse.” He turns his head sharply, his eyes meeting Hart’s. They glittered in the gloom. “We will find out, brother. From his own lips. And then….”
NINETEEN
“Prepare yourself.”
They’d found the villagers.
Hart had forced himself to rise, before he should have. Before Callas thought he should have. But he’d spent nearly a week lolling about doing nothing and he had—had—to get home. Messengers had gone on ahead, of course; two of those few able-bodied enough to ride had been hand picked by Callas the night of the battle and dispatched, in darkness, while Hart still lingered in the twilight between worlds. But their muddled descriptions could not replace Hart’s. And they couldn’t protect Isla.
Or….
Another pair of eyes gazed back at him now, when he stared into the fire.
“When?”
“Only this morning.”
It was now afternoon. A fresh coat of snow hid the worst of the evidence. Now the village merely looked abandoned. Not like the site of a massacre.
They’d burned their own dead, also that first night. Bjorn had gone to his fathers and Hart hadn’t been there to see it. A fact that made him feel like he’d killed Bjorn, himself, every time he recognized it. He tried to argue with himself—that Bjorn had been an adult man, that Bjorn hadn’t needed a nursemaid—but got nowhere. Bjorn had been an adult man. One who no longer needed anything. And what of the other men who’d died?
Hart had been outside, currying Cedric. The air still smelled faintly of smoke, but also of pine sap and good things. Cedric, when he stepped back, favored him with a baleful eye.
“Are your innards in your boots yet?”
Callas sounded entirely too interested. Hart tossed the brush to one of the other men. So few remaining, now. “Take me.”
He did.
They moved near silently in the snow. The world around them was silent, too; so quickly did nature reclaim her own. A quarter mile from the camp and there might not have been one. He couldn’t bring himself to call it village, even in his own mind. It wasn’t. Not now. For some time, there had been speculation on how the traitors had disguised their presence. There had been no sign of substantially more in the village than usual. And during those conversations, there had been a growing fear. A shadow, especially in Hart’s mind. That they all, deep within, knew full well how the deed had been accomplished.
Callas stopped. And then, again, “prepare yourself.”
But there could be no preparation.
He took a deep breath in, and then exhaled. He forced himself to stare. The pit was a good twelve spans deep, and as many across in each direction. No attempt had been made to cover its contents. Spring might be spreading its slow fingers through the lowlands, but mountain winters lasted long. There was no far-reaching stench to attract visitors and even those animals whose sense of smell was much keener had given the place a wide berth. The only reason this place had been discovered at all was because they’d been looking for it. The unforgiving terrain was enough to discourage casual visitors.
The men, women and children of Molag were in that pit. Some lying prone, others frozen solid in their final moments of terror. They’d gone in alive, hands reaching to the sky as others were piled on top. Some bore obvious wounds. A man whose eyes were half-closed had a gaping axe wound in his forehead. An infant lay face down on its mother, one tiny hand clutching at her breast.
He closed his eyes briefly. The image remained. The adults he could handle but the worst…the worst was the children. So many children. So many of whom had died with their eyes open, sobbing for help that never came. How many had tried to waken dead parents? How many had tried to leave the pit?
How many others, like that infant, had simply been left to die of exposure?
Northmen were guilty of much that would be considered sociopathic in the South, Hart knew this. Their world was a different one. But only a rabid wolf attacked its own young, or the young of its kind. No Northman would do such a thing, however crazed. His friends would kill him before he had the chance. And these were Southrons.
They’d killed children for—for principle. To prove that theirs was the better leader. The nobler. The divine right of kings his foot. These people had been Morvish, too.
He swayed a little, and steadied himself. He hadn’t been conscious of the fact until this moment, but he was in bad shape. His wounds were like lash marks, tongues of white-hot fire licking up and down his side. He’d pushed himself too hard, climbing to this place, but the need to see, to know had kept him going. Now….
Without realizing what he was doing, he turned and stumbled toward the woods.
A white expanse spread before him, pristine and untouched. There was no sound, save the pounding of blood in his own ears. Around him rose a ring of firs, pointing toward the sky. They seemed black in the bright light. The glare stung his eyes.
He squeezed them shut and, when he opened them, there was a steer.
It froze, one leg lifted, its eyes on his.
Hart’s breath caught. The moment seemed to stretch, as silent and still as the snow. As perfect. He didn’t move. Couldn’t.
And then, jackknifing forward, he vomited until there was nothing left.
TWENTY
“Burn it.” Hart swung up into the saddle. “Burn it to the ground.”
Digging his heel cruelly into Cedric’s side, he brought the beast around and headed toward the path. Let his men deal with the aftermath. Those who were still living. His hands on the reins, black gloved, were white knuckled under the supple leather. All of Hart’s wardrobe was black, save that which bore the Duke’s green stripe.
Obsidian raiment for an obsidian heart.
Callas fell in beside him. The same wilderness that had seemed so forbidding on their journey north now seemed as prosaic as the words of his fellow soldiers. The promises of vengeance. Pointless promises. When would vengeance come, and how? No amount of killing could bring back the dead.
He wished for a drink.
By the Gods, just one good swallow.
“The Lord of the Flies will have vengeance upon their souls.”
Callas sounded certain. Hart wished that he could be so certain. He said nothing.
“The killing of children is the worst crime.”
Because children had not yet reached the age of decision, and could not thus be accountable for their actions. When walking under the light, harm no one. If someone harms you, ask him to stop.
If he refuses to stop, destroy him. That was their creed. Or one of their creeds, at least. The killing of children was the one act considered a crime by the outside world that was also considered a crime by the Chosen.
There had been no need for it. A babe in arms couldn’t fight back. Neither, for that matter, could its mother. Hart wondered, with an unwanted stirring of desire, if the women had been violated before death.
Gods, he truly was a monster.
They rode on in silence.
A silence that lasted for hours.
A light snow began to fall.
“You should have children, brother.”
Hart didn’t respond.
“I find it astonishing,” Callas continued, “that you have none. Considering your heroic exploits.” He paused. “Surely you are fit?”
I might not be now. “I’m careful,” was what he said.
“You should be less careful.”
“I don’t want children.”
“All men want children. And besides,” Callas added, “as you intend to take a wife, you do realize that such an act will necessitate bedding her as the Gods intended.”
Although Hart wasn’t so sure about that. If it was his wife, he could do as he wanted. The law made a woman her husband’s property, unable to even testify in court against him. And he did intend to do as he wanted, in the bedroom and otherwise; although in his deepest fantasies, he had to admit, his wife wanted this.
She’d have the same appetite for…alternate pleasures as he. There was more than one access to pleasure, in a woman’s body. And even if one went the more usual route, a little self-control was all that was required. For the seed to quicken, it had to spill inside. Hart had, admittedly, undergone a few scares when he was younger but as he’d matured into manhood he’d learned.
Women often didn’t want children, but were too afraid to say so. Or they did, and were too afraid to say so. A man had to be responsible. No momentary pleasure was worth cursing some hapless woman with a child, a woman he neither looked on with particular affection nor had any desire to support. And, more and more, he had to ask: what child deserved him as a father?
Women shrunk in terror from him.
Lissa hadn’t.
But he’d paid her.
The Viper of the North, the Witch Duke’s dreaded henchman. A silent figure who pulled men from their beds in the wee hours, doing the Gods knew what with them. A man who, since coming to Darkling Reach, had discovered an aptitude for—and a pleasure in—torture.
He was lost in these familiar and unpleasant thoughts when he heard an equally familiar voice.
Equally familiar, and equally unpleasant.
At first, he thought he must be suffering a delusion brought on by the extremis of stress.
But then Callas reined in his horse and Hart realized that Callas heard it too.
Heard it, and saw it.
Hart blinked.
“That,” Callas said blandly, “is your sister.”
“Your talent for stating the obvious, brother, is heart-rendingly beautiful.”
They sat side by side, watching Rowena struggle up the path. She was waving. Having ridden on ahead of the others, Hart and Callas were alone. Had planned to make the trip alone, sharing a camp and their thoughts. To see Rowena and, behind her, the rest of his family…Hart couldn’t have been more surprised if Bjorn Treesinger had risen from the dead.
“I know.” Callas sounded pleased with himself.
“Well aren’t you going to help me?” Rowena, waddling through hip-deep snow, looked about as graceful as a sow. Her cloak was soiled, and so was the dress beneath. She, her hair dull as straw and wrapped around her head in a peasant’s plait, looked nothing like the smooth operator he remembered. The one who captivated every room she entered, with her artificial beauty.
A change for which Hart was oddly grateful and that Rowena didn’t seem to recognize. She was, charm or no charm, as imperious as ever. Despite presumably not knowing that he—or anyone—was within a hundred leagues until a few moments ago, she now expected immediate service.
“Where is your horse?” he asked.
“It died.” Rowena stopped. “Well?”
What Hart was supposed to do, he didn’t know. He swung down, landing easily. In his time here, he’d learned the art of moving through the rugged winter landscape. A time that seemed decades long, until confronted with proof of his recent arrival. Proof he scarcely credited, even to himself. Seeing Rowena was like seeing a nightmare come to life. A nightmare wherein everything he’d built for himself was brushed away in seconds and he was forced to return south. To his old life. A life that no longer seemed to belong to him.
A sister who no longer seemed to belong to him.
Had he really only seen her months ago?
Rowena peered up at him, a hand shading her eyes from the glare. The sun would set in a few hours but it was strong now. “You look older,” she said.
It wasn’t a compliment. She looked older, too. He said nothing.
“We should make camp.”
Rowena whirled to face Callas. “No! Absolutely not. I want to go home.”
“This is a fair campsite,” Callas said reasonably, “the fairest we have a hope of reaching before sundown.” He gestured at the sky. “Which comes soon in the mountains. You can rest, while we give our men a chance to catch up with us. Then we can reapportion the gear.”
Rowena’s eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. “You—you’re seriously—do you know who I am? I refuse to ride some—some dirty pack animal!”
Hart had to process this for a moment. “Of course I do,” he said finally, “you’re my sister.”
Rowena made an exasperated noise. A winter in the North hadn’t softened her. “I’m betrothed to the son of a baron!”
“Who cares?” Come to think of it, she looked like a pack animal. Although admitting as such would be an insult to the pack animal. Even his long ago pet pig had worn less straw in her hair. Rowena’s eyes were pig-like, though. Small and scheming.
“Now, children.” Hart could hear the humor in Callas’ voice. Curse the man.
“I refuse to be treated like—”
“Then walk!” Hart bellowed.
The rest of his family had joined them. Family that Hart, if he were being honest with himself, had fully anticipated never seeing again. And with no small degree of satisfaction. But here was his father, looking ten years older. Beside him, Apple looked even more sour than usual. She, too, had—if not aged then hardened even further. Hart wondered, briefly, what their winter had been like. Truly.
Well, they were alive.
“Be sweet, Rowena.” The earl patted her arm. Then, turning his limpid gaze up to Hart, “so good of you to meet us.”
Hart spoke before he could stop himself. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What?”
“Language!”
“I’ll show you language, you little twat.”
“You are,” Callas cut in, “ah, somewhat off the beaten path.”
Hart and Rowena glared at each other.
The earl looked bewildered. “What? We’re ten leagues north of Hardland.”
Hart’s eyes widened fractionally.
“You’re a good twice that—or more—north of Barghast.”
The earl’s mouth dropped open, his lip as pendulous and soft as a slug and quivering as though he might commence to weeping at any second. He blinked once, then twice. “But—”
“I told you we should have waited.”
The earl shrank visibly from his wife’s wrath.
“We can’t wait.” Rowena stamped her foot. She actually stamped her foot. “We need to get home and prepare for my wedding. I have to marry Rudolph. He probably thinks I’m dead and is preparing to marry someone else, even as we speak.” Now she looked on the verge of tears.
Hart, who’d had no patience to begin with, glanced up at the sky to gauge the time. A sk
y from which the morning’s bright blue had been leeched, leaving behind an ominous gray. The flurries were a harbinger of something worse, then. Potentially.
“If so,” he replied, not bothering to look at her, “then he isn’t too ardent. Now is he.”
Rowena, praise the Gods, didn’t respond.
Apple was still ranting, but Hart had tuned her out. His thoughts were all on getting home. Rowena could have her wedding. Or not. He could not have possibly cared less.
They had to get home.
“We camp,” he said, in a tone that brooked no conflict. Callas was right. There wasn’t a better spot within safe traveling distance. He’d do no one, least of all his lord and master, any favors by driving his newly enlarged party—none of whom were good riders and several of whom were noticeably ill—ahead of him into the darkness. He, himself might have cleared another few leagues but even riding all night he wouldn’t reach Caer Addanc before morning. And that was if he didn’t manage to kill his own horse.
Or himself.
Ignoring the outburst that followed, he stalked off into the woods to relieve himself.
He unlaced his breeches. The wool was well made, and warm. He didn’t wear a codpiece; he didn’t need one. Men like Rudolph used them as purses, presuming themselves safe from robbery. But what man thought about one set of coins, while a beautiful woman—or man—was cupping the other?
He unlaced his braies. He wondered briefly who had sewn them. In a small manor such as Enzie, that answer was obvious: the lady of the house, and her ladies. But Hart could hardly imagine Isla sewing his underclothes. He didn’t want her hands, directly or indirectly, on the women with whom he kept company. He pressed his eyes shut for a moment, in an attempt to erase the image.
Standing knee deep in a snow drift, his hand on his cock, thinking about his sister.
He sighed.
The release of his bladder felt magical. He’d always enjoyed his comforts, both large and small. That was the mistake most made in assessing the hedonist: assuming that he craved only overblown, foolish pleasures. The rarer and pricier the better. When the truth was that he enjoyed everything. He was a creature of sensation. The soft touch of a woman’s fingertips, the warm, inviting crevices of her flesh. That first swallow of water after a long march. The clean, honest smell of fresh hay. It was all equal.
