Lord of the Storm

by Justine Davis

  Shaylah caught herself glancing around the dining room again and resolutely turned her eyes back to her untouched meal. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking of, coming back here. She wasn’t comfortable with Califa, and it was certain Wolf would have no desire to set eyes on her again.

  Of course, she could ask for him again, and he would have no choice. Yes, she muttered silently, and what would you have? You’d have that blank stare, that submissive posture, and a man who would do whatever you said because he had no choice. Just as you gave him no choice that night . . .

  She could, she thought, order him to at least listen until she could make him understand why she’d done it. Would he? Could he possibly understand? He’d understood so much, could he possibly understand what had driven her to using the controller that night, why she’d had to know if the bonding she yearned for was truly only a myth?

  Even if he could, she thought bleakly, how could she ever explain her certainty that only he could teach her, when she couldn’t explain it to herself? No, from his point of view, she had used him, just like all the others.

  “So,” Califa was saying, “what was all the fuss about? They called back two more crews after you left. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  Although Califa generally knew more than most, she no longer had active top clearance, so Shaylah answered carefully. “I ended up playing ferry driver for the general.”

  “Oh.” Califa looked disappointed. “Well, it’s an honor, at least, even if nothing happened.”

  “He insisted on invading Romerian airspace on the way to Legion Command,” Shaylah said dryly. “That was quite enough, thank you.”

  That sent Califa off into a discourse about foolish commanding officers they had known, and Shaylah sat back, relieved.

  Her relief was short-lived. There was something else to deal with: this crazy urge she had to find Wolf and tell him that his people had not been wiped out, that some were alive and fighting. But what would it accomplish other than to send him over the precipice into unrelieved rage at his own powerlessness? If it was hard for him to survive his enslavement now, how much harder would it be knowing he was chained here, helpless, while his people fought a valiant battle?

  Even knowing it was hopeless, Shaylah knew where Wolf would be had he the choice. She didn’t know who Wolf had been on Trios, but there was one thing she had known from the first moment she’d seen him; he had the heart of a warrior.

  Again she caught herself scanning the room, eyes searching for a gleaming, golden mane of hair, for a strong, muscled body. He was nowhere in sight, and Shaylah wondered with a sudden rush of queasiness if he had been sent to someone for the night. The images that flashed through her mind then, visions of Wolf with someone else, giving that woman the sweet pleasure, touching that woman with hands that were gentle yet arousing, surrendering his golden body to that woman’s control, made her shiver in repudiation.

  It wouldn’t be the same for him as it had been with her, she knew, because only she held the secret of his prowess. And only she had the weapon to unlock that secret. Did that make her different, or did it only make her even more of a user, a taker than the others?

  If she had not used the controller, if she had merely asked him to pleasure her, would she have been just another of the nameless, faceless bodies who had taken him? The fight raged within her, and at last, as if her brain had little energy left to keep up its guard, the question slipped out.

  “Where is Wolf?”

  Califa’s brandy glass hit the table sharply. “Wolf?”

  Fear shot through Shaylah then. Eos, had the Carelian dared to come back for him? Was she even now sharpening her talons on him?

  “Is he . . . with someone?” she asked sharply.

  “No,” Califa said slowly.

  “Then where is he?”

  “Shaylah, I had no choice. He went . . . crazy after you left. He fought with everyone. He wouldn’t obey. Even Marcole couldn’t control him.”

  A wave of cold swept Shaylah, unlike anything she’d ever known, because it came from within her. “Where is he?” she repeated.

  “No amount of punishment seemed to affect him.” Califa’s tone was placating. “We had to use the highest blue and yellow levels together just to keep him from attacking. It was charring his brain. I had to stop Marcole before he killed him.”

  Shaylah closed her eyes as the chill settled in and turned her rigid. When she repeated her question for the fourth time, her voice was like chips of ice from the glacial cold that had enveloped her.

  “Where is he?”

  Califa looked at the table. She picked up her glass of brandy. She set it down without drinking. And at last she looked at Shaylah.

  “I sold him.”

  Chapter 6

  SHAYLAH’S NOSE wrinkled involuntarily, as it had frequently since she’d arrived on Daxelia. She supposed she should be grateful it was so dark; she didn’t really want to see whatever it was that made this place smell like—like just what it was, she thought, the dregs, the asylum for the silt of this planet’s population, the place where the slowest, heaviest, and most useless came to rest.

  And the most helpless. They didn’t call this grim colony Ossuary for nothing; it was indeed the burying ground for many who had lost the will to fight for their own lives.

  Wolf. She nearly cried out, the pain was so fierce. No, she told herself, he would never give up. He would never quit fighting, in whatever way he could, be it overtly or with a carefully crafted mask of subservience that merely hid the blazing spirit of the man behind it.

  And that could spell his doom. For besides being the lodestar for the slimy residue of Daxelia, Ossuary was also the last brutal marketplace for slaves, the dumping ground for those who were too old, too stupid, or too weak to work in the better places. Such slaves were sold for simple, cheap menial labor, to be worked without rest until they dropped and were replaced with another.

  And it was also the final breaking ground for those who were too intractable. For those who refused to submit, those who would never surrender. They were sent here to be broken. Like Wolf.

  Her stomach roiled at the thought of him here, dragged by his chains to the auction block, stripped and put on display, to be sold to anyone who had the price. There were many who would pay nicely—by Ossuary standards—for a slave trained by the Legion Club. Just owning a collared slave was a status symbol of sorts, and a gold-collar slave was the epitome. There were always those eager to buy. And willing to do whatever it took to keep their recalcitrant property in line.

  Wolf would fight, Shaylah realized grimly, to the death. Perhaps he already had. She shivered, refusing to believe it. He couldn’t be dead. Not Wolf. He’d survived the destruction of his world. He’d survived the annihilation of his family. He’d survived having to kill the woman he loved to save her from a worse fate. He’d survived the pain, the desolation, the humiliation of slavery. He wouldn’t succumb here, in this pit of degradation. He wouldn’t.

  The words became a litany, a chant, providing the rhythm for her steps. She avoided the shadowy figures who approached her with sordid offers of wild pleasure or the state of intoxication she imagined was necessary to exist in this place. She was intent on her goal, the high-walled, hulking compound she’d seen earlier, its walls darkly slimy even in the light of day.

  It had been all she could do to wait until morning, after wringing the information out of Califa that she had indeed sent the defiant Wolf to Ossuary.

  “I had no choice,” she had insisted.

  “So you sent him to the tamers?” Shaylah ground out.

  “No one else would touch him! Word was getting around about how much trouble we were having with the Triotian. That we couldn’t control him.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill him? It would have been more mercif
ul.”

  “He’s a slave, Shaylah, what did you expect? We couldn’t have him around, infecting the others.”

  “The only thing that’s infected around here are the people who see nothing wrong with this sick, unnatural system,” Shaylah ground out.

  She said no more, but she knew that her relationship with Califa would never be the same again. The fact that she felt more relief than anything else told her exactly how brittle that relationship had become.

  So now she was skulking around in the dark, in a place she had never thought to set foot in, searching for one lone man in this mass of miserable beings. She had forced herself to attend the daily auction this afternoon, although the sight sickened her. She got through it by constantly reminding herself that she could walk away; Wolf was helplessly trapped by shackles not of his making.

  She had begun with some vague idea of buying him. It would cost her dearly, but she could, she thought, sell her air rover back home; she was rarely home long enough to use it anyway. She had dressed carefully with that thought in mind, in her best civilian—this was hardly the place to stand out in Coalition uniform—clothing, simple but of good quality; they wouldn’t believe she could pay if she didn’t look the part.

  But the moment she heard the gavel fall on the final bid for a collared house servant, she knew there was no use. The bronze-collared servant had brought more than her rover was worth; she would never be able to touch the price a gold collar would bring. Especially when a specimen like Wolf was wearing it.

  Jostled by the crowd that consisted, by the smell of it, of a large number of long-unwashed Sowerths, Shaylah had been acutely aware of the looks she was getting. When a slightly less noxious member of the clan that didn’t believe in soaking shouldered his way up to her, she tried to ignore him.

  “Must be here for one of the big houses, eh?” he said, eyeing her garb. “Looking for something special?”

  Shaylah looked at him, trying her best to look upper rank and offended.

  “You know, I could save you a lot of time. I’m here every day, know exactly what they’ve got—and what they’re holding back, waiting for just the right buyer, if you get my meaning,” he said.

  Shaylah’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. He was grubby and unshaven, thin to the point of being cadaverous, and she wouldn’t trust him to pour an honest drink, but maybe . . .

  “Just how long have you been coming here?” she asked.

  The man took this as a signal of success and grinned, showing three broken teeth. “Oh, a long time now. Name’s Wartly,” he said, sticking a grubby hand out at her. He seemed willing to overlook it when she pretended not to see it; she soon found out why. “I can find out anything you need to know about this market, that’s certain. For a fee, of course.”

  “Of course,” Shaylah said with a wry grimace. “I hardly thought you’d be in this out of the goodness of your heart.”

  The irony was lost on Wartly. “That’s what I like, someone who understands the cost of doing business. So, do we have an agreement?”

  “Perhaps,” Shaylah said. “If you can convince me you truly know the . . . market.”

  “Oh, I do, none knows it better. I can tell you things they wouldn’t want you to know, things they try to keep quiet until after the sale.”

  “Prove it.”

  The rather wild brows furrowed. “What?”

  “Tell me something. Say, for example, something that won’t cost you anything, but will show me you know what you say you do.”

  “Like what?”

  Shaylah pretended to consider. She glanced up at the block where the bronze-collared slave was being led off, his steps short and hampered by his leg irons. She swallowed back the burning bile that rose in her throat as she imagined Wolf’s strong, graceful stride reduced to that rattling shuffle.

  She gestured in the direction of the block. “I’m not, but let’s say I was interested in a collared servant.”

  “I don’t know,” Wartly said doubtfully, studying her as if he suspected he was being tricked somehow.

  “Since I’m not interested, you have nothing to lose, do you? And you have everything to gain by showing me how much you know.”

  It seemed to make sense to him, for he nodded. “Well, they don’t come ’round often, you know. Too expensive.”

  “I . . . heard a rumor,” Shaylah said carefully, “that they had a special one here. A gold collar.”

  Wartly’s eyes widened. “The Triotian? Oh, woman, you don’t want to mess with that one. He’s caused more trouble here than all the rest put together.”

  Shaylah took a deep breath. She didn’t dare scare Wartly off, not when it seemed he could tell her what she needed to know. “I don’t intend to, remember? You’re just proving that you know as much as you say you do.”

  “Of course I do,” Wartly retorted, as if she’d impugned his honor. “I know that he’s been here nearly a month and hasn’t seen the block yet. They’re afraid he’ll go crazy, and they don’t want to medicate him. It’d bring down the price, and they paid a lot of funds for him.”

  Shaylah tried to look only mildly curious. “So what will they do?”

  Wartly shrugged. “The tamers’ll keep working on him—for a while, anyway.”

  Shaylah hoped her grimace would be taken for one of worry for her own safety. “I hope they keep him well guarded. Why, if he were to escape—”

  “Not much chance of that.” Wartly chortled. “They got a man posted on him all the time. How do you think I get my information? The night guard’s an old drinking . . . associate of mine. Hates this post, too. Stinking old building, he says.” Wartly snorted. “Can’t treat ’em like that anymore. Fools think it makes a difference to slaves if they got a window or a dry cell.”

  “Just one guard?” Shaylah affected doubt.

  “Way that Triotian’s chained up, and the shape he’s in, don’t need any more.”

  It took every ounce of her will to say briskly, “Well, I wouldn’t want to deal with that kind of problem.” Then with silent, sardonic thanks to Califa, she added, “He could infect all the slaves with silly ideas, unless you kept him locked away from the others. They are doing that, aren’t they?” Her inflection rose in a credible semblance of concern.

  “Sure they are. Got him all by himself back in the old section.” Wartly gestured toward the darkest section of the crumbling edifice. Then he grinned. “But not so far that the others can’t hear him scream.”

  Shaylah covered the violent shudder that took her then with the motion of her arm as she flipped the man a coin.

  “Nice,” the thin man said as he snagged it. “Now, what can I help you with?”

  All Shaylah wanted was to be out of here, but she didn’t want to rouse the suspicions of a man she was certain wouldn’t hesitate to sell the knowledge of the presence of someone who had been asking about the troublesome Triotian.

  “I . . .” she began awkwardly; this wasn’t her territory, and she hadn’t quite thought this through when she’d seized upon the chance that this unsavory person might be able to tell her what she needed to know. Throw him off, she told herself, without having the faintest idea how. Then the words came out without thought.

  “What do they have in the way of females?” She lowered her eyes as if embarrassed. “I’m looking for a . . . personal servant, if you get my meaning.”

  Wartly’s bushy brows rose. “Oh?” Then he shrugged, the differences of a vast and varied population clearly of no concern to him, except as it might bring him some profit. “Well, now, there are some possibilities . . .”

  Shaylah pretended to listen, but she was intently studying the area of the building Wartly had pointed to. It indeed looked older; moss climbed more than halfway up the sides. Windowless sides, she thought grimly; trust fate to make thi
s as difficult as possible. The place would be damp, cold, and dark, and the thought of Wolf trapped there infuriated her even as it made her nauseous.

  Her estimate, she realized now as she sidled through the darkness toward her target, had been high on the comfort side. The place wasn’t just damp, cold, and dark, although it carried those miserable conditions to new heights. Here, in the unrelieved blackness of Daxelia’s forever moonless night, it looked nothing short of evil.

  Shaylah shifted the small pack she carried, digging into it and removing two items. One she wedged behind the belt she’d put on over the black, skin-tight jumpsuit, usually worn under her heavier, protective flight suit. The other she held in her right hand as she slid her arms through the straps of the pack, then settled it on her back.

  It was easier than she expected, but no less adrenaline-inducing. She’d been trained for stealth ground missions, but it had been too long ago, and her fighting since had been from the con of a starship. She knew she was rusty, but that knowledge was nothing next to the need to get Wolf out of this place.

  The worst part was the waiting: for the area surrounding the slave market to empty of people, for the lights in the main building to go out, for the guard to change. The new sentry was as round as Wartly was thin, she noticed as the departing guard handed him what looked like a code key. Shaylah held her breath as, after exchanging a brisk greeting with the man he was replacing, the rotund man stuffed the code key into his belt, made two circuits of the perimeter, and then settled into the chair just inside the iron gate that looked older than the building itself.

  She waited, ears straining for any sound, for what seemed like forever. At last she moved, slinking silently up to the wall, each step carefully chosen to avoid any sound; with the puddles of stagnant water that dotted every few feet of the uneven ground, it was a time-consuming, teeth-gritting process.