Rowen turned back to the Olgrym again. He gauged the distance then made his decision. He gathered Kilisti in his arms, surprised by how light she was, and carried her to Snowdark. He hoisted her into the saddle. The Sylvan woman winced but instinctively gripped the reins. Then she blinked. “Wait—”
“Be good to my horse. I called her Snowdark, but my friend told me that was a stupid name. I guess you can name her whatever you want.”
Before Kilisti could protest, Rowen turned Snowdark southward and gave the horse’s piebald flank a hard slap. She leapt into motion. Rowen watched them go. He figured Kilisti would make it back to the Wytchforest. He hoped Snowdark would end up in Quesh. The Queshi were kind to horses. Rowen sighed then plucked Knightswrath from the snow. Flames washed over the blade again. Slowly, he turned.
Most of the Dhargots had scattered or ridden on, but a few, either mad or confused, remained in the Olgrym’s path. The Olgrym cut them down without hesitation then barreled on through the snow, toward Rowen. The Knight of the Crane glanced over his shoulder, still half hoping he would see the rest of the Dhargots riding back to assist their fallen comrades. Instead, he saw broad, snowy plains painted by sundown and, a few miles beyond, a squat city shrouded in smoke.
Rowen stared eastward, imagining the faraway Lotus Isles. Then he turned back to face the Olgrym. He raised Knightswrath and saluted the Olgish chieftain, who had outdistanced the rest. To his surprise, the chieftain slowed, hefted his mace, and returned the salute with grave dignity. Then he broke into a wild sprint, his great strides devouring the distance between them.
Rowen held Knightswrath over his head, gripping it with both hands: a position the Shao called hoso no-kami. He took a deep breath. Then he gave in to Knightswrath’s searing heat and the buzzing in his mind. The sword hilt grew hotter still. Rowen screamed.
All his senses blurred into one then vanished in a sea of violet fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Choices
Jalist watched the procession with a forced smile, applauding as a fresh host of Dhargothi footmen marched through the streets of Hesod. Ghastly banners rippled in the wind. Behind the footmen came a host of war elephants, loud and armored, each one saddled with a howdah crowded with archers.
“Let’s get out of here,” Igrid hissed through clenched teeth.
“Don’t talk,” Jalist answered in a low voice. “You’re supposed to be a slave, remember?” He eyed the crowds and noticed another off-duty soldier watching them. He looked to be eyeing only Igrid because of her new, immodest attire, but just to be certain, Jalist turned and scowled at her. He tugged the rope he was holding, the other end of which was fixed to the iron collar around Igrid’s throat.
Igrid gave him a murderous look. “Do that again, and I’ll kill you.”
“Not unless you want to get all of us killed,” Vardan hissed. He stood on one side of her, Braggo on the other. Braggo ran a lock of her red hair between his fingers, pretending to study it.
Igrid blinked. With obvious effort, she looked down and trembled.
Jalist wondered if the trembling was part of the act or really due to the fact that she was standing in the city square, practically naked, in the middle of winter, surrounded by some of the worst men alive. He felt a rush of sympathy for her, but he forced himself to turn his attention back to the procession. “I’m sorry, girl,” he growled over his shoulder. “I know it’s awful, but this is the Bloody Prince marching into the city. They’ll know something’s wrong if we’re not here. Just keep your head down and endure a little longer.”
“Good advice for all of us,” Vardan muttered.
“No Jolym,” Braggo noted a moment later. “Are they all out looking for the Isle Knight?”
“I hope the bastards rust,” Vardan said, a bit too loudly for Jalist’s liking.
Jalist silenced the men with a look then studied the crowds again. Some were off-duty soldiers, but most were common citizens of Hesod who had so far survived their captors. All tried to appear jovial as the armies of the Bloody Prince entered their city, though Jalist could see the loathing in their eyes. The Bloody Prince himself, cruel and handsome astride his bloodmare, had already entered at the head of his host, but Jalist suspected it would take hours for the rest of the army to enter Hesod—and the people of Hesod would have to witness all of it.
Most of the onlookers were old. Jalist guessed that all the young men had already been killed or enslaved. He preferred not to think about what had happened to the women. Not a single Iron Sister in sight…
Jalist had heard tales of the famed, uniquely all-female army all his life, but since the city’s fall, the Dhargots appeared to have erased all trace of it. All the banners were gone. Nearly all the Iron Sisters’ temples had been destroyed, their barracks converted into lodgings for Dhargots. The occupiers had left the Iron Sisters’ statues standing, but only after hewing off each statue’s face and painting vulgar messages across its bare breasts. Not a single Hesodi carried a weapon. Those who didn’t wear slave collars still bowed at the sight of every Dhargot who crossed their path. Those who were struck or abused had learned to endure it without protest.
Though such sights made Jalist’s blood boil, he dared do nothing to help these people. He wanted to be gone from Hesod, but blizzards had kept them there long enough to hear rumors. “The Dhargots think Locke is heading this way,” he’d explained to the others. “That means Silwren’s with him. Either they’ll catch him… and we can free him… or else Silwren will torch a couple hundred of these bastards, and we can follow the trail left by their ashes.”
But after days of the same routine, he wondered how long he could keep his sanity in such a place. He’d expected things to be awful in the city, given the Dhargots’ infamous cruelty toward conquered peoples—women in particular—but conditions in Hesod were worse. He could only imagine how difficult it was for Igrid, perhaps the only Iron Sister who had escaped.
“Just breathe and endure,” he muttered, white-knuckling his long axe, unsure whether he was speaking to his comrades or to himself.
Ahead of them, the procession continued. Behind the war elephants came another mass of Dhargots on horseback, followed by a thick, wrecked crowd of captives taken from other cities. All women and children—most dressed in rags, some naked—were being driven along by Dhargothi footmen with whips and spears, forced to walk through the snow, as well as the mess left behind by the elephants and horses. All who fell were beaten. Dhargots laughed.
“Gods,” Braggo muttered. The man of the Red Watch had his sword half drawn.
“Relax, lad,” Jalist warned in a heated whisper. “You look too much like a man with a conscience. Examine Igrid’s hair some more. Vardan, shove him, like you don’t want him touching your prize.”
His comrades played along with the dishonorable charade—even Igrid, who managed to look frightened instead of murderously angry. Jalist forced himself to watch the slaves being driven into the city, pretending to view them like a man inspecting horses for sale. Though most of the Dhargots’ captives were Human, he saw a handful of Sylvs as well as a few who seemed to have some Olgish blood.
He shifted his attention from the captives to the Dhargots around them. He counted rows of horses and squads of footmen. Trying to estimate how many Prince Karhaati had brought with him, he quickly lost count. At one point, he thought the procession had ended, only to see that the lull had been caused by a gap in the host. More cavalry entered the city, followed by more footmen and elephants, along with yet another mass of captives. Every once in a while, a squad of Dhargots blew trumpets while another beat out a savage rhythm on drums that Jalist suspected had been made of enemies’ skin.
Jalist switched his long axe from one hand to the other. Sweet Zet, did they send all of Dhargoth down here? He thought of Rowen Locke’s reckless hope of driving back the Dha
rgots by forming some kind of alliance between the Sylvs and the Isle Knights. Even if both nations had not been ravaged, Jalist doubted their combined force might have been enough to stop the Dhargots’ advance.
Jalist considered the rumors about a burning sword that the Dhargots were supposed to claim in the name of their new Dragonkin master. Supposedly, the Isle Knight who wielded that sword had incinerated a good portion of the Shel’ai and Olgrym laying siege to the Wytchforest. Jalist didn’t know whether those stories were true or if the destruction they described had been wrought by Silwren instead of Knightswrath. But he imagined those same fires burning away the wretched host before him. The thought made him smile.
The procession continued on and on, until the setting sun bloodied streets and rooftops. Finally, the people were allowed to return to their homes. Most of the soldiers either made their way for the crowded barracks or the taverns, but Jalist and his comrades headed for a small, ruined temple not far from the city gates. Their first night in Hesod, they’d made the mistake of staying at an inn. There, a high-ranking Dhargothi officer had seen Igrid and ordered the others to relinquish her into his care. They’d been forced to do so, intending to rescue her later. But by the time they forced their way into the officer’s room, Igrid had already killed him.
They’d lowered the officer’s body out the window and stripped off his armor so that he appeared to be just a common citizen killed for sport and thrown into the sewers. Luckily, no soldiers had been suspicious enough to question them, though ever since then, they’d taken care to avoid the inns.
Instead, they sought shelter in a tiny temple devoted to Armahg, where all trace of the goddess had been destroyed. There had been other refugees there at first, mostly children, but they had scattered when Jalist, Vardan, and Braggo walked in wearing Dhargothi armor, Igrid in tow. Jalist had been tempted to call them back, promising them safety, then he reminded himself that the fewer people who knew who they really were, the better. But Igrid had pointed out that at least a few of those children had probably died as a result of Jalist claiming their hiding place.
Jalist remembered this as they entered the temple again. Though it looked empty, Vardan and Braggo searched anyway, swords drawn, picking their way through the shadows and debris. Certain they were alone, they nodded. Jalist leaned his long axe against a defiled fountain so that he could help Igrid remove her collar, but she’d already pulled out the pin that kept the halves together. She cast the thing to the floor with a loud, iron clatter.
“Be quiet, damn you,” Jalist muttered. He retrieved the collar, wrapped the rope around it, and set it aside. Then he took off his cloak and handed it to her. Igrid snatched it from him. Shivering, she wrapped it over her torn, inadequate clothing. Meanwhile, Braggo worked on starting a fire.
“I can’t do that again,” Igrid muttered.
Jalist hesitated. “You may have to.”
Igrid looked at him. Despite her grimace, her eyes shone. “I’m telling you, I can’t. I won’t. The next time you have to leave, I’ll hide here.”
“And if the soldiers find you, you’ll wish you were dead.”
“Leave my sword. I can defend myself.”
“Against one man, sure. Maybe even against two or three. But not a whole damn army. And that’s what you’d be facing, once they found out there was a pretty woman running around loose with a sword in her hands.”
Jalist glanced at Vardan and Braggo. Both men fussed with the fire, pretending not to hear. Jalist sighed. He squeezed Igrid’s shoulder. To his surprise, she did not pull away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Igrid stood stone still, then she bent over the ruined fountain and retrieved the pair of shortswords she’d hidden under a pile of debris. She hugged them close to her. When she spoke again, her voice sounded steady. “Either we get some news on Locke in a day or two, or we move on. Staying here will only get us killed.”
“Two days,” Jalist said. “I promise.”
Braggo stood up from the fire and approached. “I’m going out, Captain,” he said in a low voice.
Jalist gave him a skeptical look.
“We need news,” Braggo said. “You stay here with Igrid.”
“Take Vardan with you,” Jalist advised.
Braggo smiled. “Begging your pardon, Captain, but Vardan will stay and keep an eye on you.”
Vardan looked up from the fire and offered a terse nod of agreement.
Despite his foul mood, Jalist laughed. “Still think we’re going to try and get away?”
Braggo loosened his longsword, checked the pair of daggers on his belt, and accepted the small, round shield that Vardan offered him.
“Remember what you look like. When you’re not in a tavern, keep to the open streets,” Jalist reminded him. “These Hesodi might look broken, but I’m sure there are plenty who’d love to backstab a lone Dhargot walking through an alley.”
Braggo nodded. “I’ll try the taverns close to the old Iron Sisters’ barracks this time.” He glanced at Igrid.
“Don’t bother,” Jalist said. “They’ll just be fights and chaos tonight. Head for the taverns by the new prince’s palace. That’s where the officers will be. If anyone has news, it’ll be them.”
Vardan added, “And if anybody who outranks you asks what you’re doing by yourself, remember that parchment in your pocket.”
Braggo checked to make sure he still had the letter Jalist had forged from General Brahasti, ordering Braggo to Hesod on secret business. As far as Jalist had gleaned, Brahasti was somewhere up north. Still, he doubted that any Dhargot would risk incurring the infamous general’s wrath by interfering with his orders. Jalist had even remembered Brahasti’s signature from when they served together in the Throng.
Certain he had the letter, Braggo slipped out of the temple. Jalist glanced out the windows and saw snow falling. “Hope we don’t have another damn blizzard.” He considered heading for the nearby stables to check on the horses, though he doubted they would come to harm, given that the stables’ proprietor seemed afraid of Jalist and his friends. So far, the fact that Jalist was a Dwarr had not roused much suspicion, though they’d seen far fewer sellswords in the Dhargots’ service than they’d expected.
Jalist was strangely relieved by that. Having been a sellsword for a good portion of his life, he’d met plenty with questionable consciences. Some were downright reprehensible. But given how especially cruel the Dhargots had been lately, he was hard pressed to recall many sellswords who would happily participate in such conquests. In addition to making him feel a little better about his profession, he was glad that he’d encountered no familiar faces in Hesod, as he had no desire to answer questions.
He wondered what had become of all the mercenaries who had enlisted in the Throng. Some had been his friends. All had scattered after the Throng was disbanded outside Lyos. He guessed that those who’d survived had returned to the Free Cities or their other towns on the Simurgh Plains with hopes for a life of peace, only to face fresh hardship when the Dhargots began their rampage.
What a world the gods have given us. We hardly survive one threat, and they give us another.
He glanced up at Igrid. She’d shrugged off Jalist’s cloak and girded her shortswords over her tattered clothing. She stood by the fire, warming her hands. Vardan was trying not to ogle her as he sat on the opposite side of the fire, absentmindedly sharpening his longsword. Jalist snickered. Though Igrid appeared lost in thought, he wondered if she knew full well that Vardan had his eyes on her.
Sooner or later, when his guard’s down, she’ll knock him senseless and make a run for it. Maybe tonight, before Braggo gets back. Can’t say I blame her.
Jalist still wanted to find Rowen, and for the moment, sticking to Vardan and Braggo’s mission to help him find Silwren seemed as good a way to accomplish that as any.
But as dangerous as it was for him and the men of the Red Watch to be in Hesod, it was worse for Igrid. Whatever the Lyosi king had offered her, it wasn’t worth the risk.
The Dwarr joined her by the fire. He licked his thumb and tested the edge on his long axe.
Igrid gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you about to try and chop my head off?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“How very kind of you, Captain Hewn.”
Jalist smirked. “Didn’t know you knew my surname.”
“I have ears and a good memory.” She rubbed her hands, then flexed her fingers, cracking them. “Twenty-five thousand.”
“What?”
“That’s how many men the Bloody Prince marched into the city, give or take. I saw your lips moving during the procession. You were trying to count them, weren’t you?”
“I was, but I gave up when my brain started to hurt.”
Igrid glanced at Vardan. She readjusted one of her shortswords then her clothing. “Not sure how many are out looking for Locke or guarding the supply lines, though from what we’ve heard, I’d guess another five or six thousand. Plus all the Jolym.”
“Sounds about right.” Jalist glanced at Vardan, too. The soldier had turned away, probably so Igrid’s revealing attire wouldn’t distract him from keeping watch. Unfortunately, that meant he’d turned his back on her. Igrid picked up a rock. Jalist seized her wrist and shook his head. Igrid frowned, tried unsuccessfully to pull away, then dropped the rock.
“I’ll tell Locke when we find him.” Jalist spoke louder than necessary to muffle the sound of the rock hitting the ground. “If he ever manages to put an army together, that might be useful.”
Kingsteel (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 3) Page 27
