Drault, smiling his too-ready smile that never touches his eyes. “On my honour.”
Lyram jerked back, releasing Leinahre, and the image faded. She tried to wriggle out from under him, but he seized her again, pressing her back to the floor.
“What was that?” His voice came out hoarse. And he knew, without her answering, that he’d just seen into her memories.
In seeming innocence and solicitousness, Leinahre had told Drault exactly where and when to find his wife—and so killed her. Oh, it was still Drault’s hand on the bowstring, his knife that cut her throat, but Leinahre loosed him as surely as he loosed the arrow into Zaheva’s back. The prince had chosen to act on it—must have deliberately lost Lyram in the woods in order to seize the opportunity—but she’d told him with at least the hope he would.
Leinahre’s lips moved again, but she didn’t speak. He pressed her wrists harder to the stone floor, and she closed her mouth tight.
“What are you doing? Don’t you try any magic on me!”
“I needed her dead,” she said, ignoring the question.
Her lips moved yet again, but he paid it no mind, leaning in close. If she was trying to use magic on him, it was having no effect. “Why? Why did you do it?”
“Because if I used the glamour on you, she could break it. I saw how Drault looked at Zaheva, even if you didn’t, and so I presented him with the opportunity. Then, when he killed her, I thought, What wouldn’t Aharris do to spare her soul from eternal punishment? So I bound her spirit into the ring, but then Bradlin came along to clean up Drault’s mess, and I lost it!”
Black fury contorted her face as she bared her teeth at him in a feral snarl that transformed her face from a demure lady’s secretary to something unrecognisable, and she spat in his face with vigour. As her spittle dripped from his forehead into his right eye, the energy rippled up his arms again.
Drault, sighting down the shaft of a nocked arrow. The still-kicking body of a caparisoned horse lying on the ground, an arrow jutting from its chest. Zaheva, her skirts hiked up, floundering through the snow.
Lyram jerked back again, and this time Leinahre rolled away, kicking up sand. He lunged after her, and caught her foot.
Zaheva, crashing to the ground with the black-feathered shaft in her back. Traeburhn, rolling her over and rounding on the prince in fury. Drault, discarding his bow and loosening his belt.
Lyram screamed, and Leinahre slipped from his grasp, and he collapsed on his face on the floor. Involuntarily, he sucked sand into his throat, and coughed, choking on the coarse grit.
A few yards away, Leinahre scrambled to her feet and spun to face him, her fists clenched at her sides as she shouted at him. “I had to make a ridiculous contract with your idiot prince to fix things, but then you kept refusing to give yourself up and end it all. You forced me to use that damned glamour. You! I’ll never get the filthy touch of you off my skin.”
She flung her hands up, chanting loudly and making no effort to hide her attempt at magic now.
Lyram struggled to his hands and knees, shaking with fury. Leinahre backed away, step by step. He climbed to his feet and followed, quickening his pace. On her next step back, her boot landed in the pool. The chanting faltered, and Lyram threw himself forward. She sidestepped quickly, but his outstretched fingers brushed her leg for a moment.
Traeburhn raises a knife and slices Zaheva’s throat. Crimson blood gushes from the wound.
The vision struck him with all the force of a warhorse’s kick. He whimpered, fighting the tears filling his eyes. The images wouldn’t leave his head.
The arrow. The knife.
The blood.
Leinahre kicked him, toppling him over backwards. Lights exploded in his head as he struck the ground. From somewhere far above came her voice.
“Now I want something for me, Lyram Aharris—I want you to die.”
He shivered with a sudden chill. Groaning, he rolled over, tried to get his feet under him, and stiffened.
Behind Leinahre, tendrils of ice grew out from the pool’s edge.
Instinct kicked in and he threw himself forward, snatching at her in the same moment that she jerked away. His fingers raked down her arm, caught her hand, and prised her fingers open.
Bradlin, forging through the snow, head down and cloak clasped as fresh flakes fall from the sky. Leinahre, scuttling away from the corpse, cursing and tripping over something hidden in the snow. Something small and shiny falls from her hand, disappearing into a churned up drift. She digs for it frantically, watching Bradlin over her shoulder, then flees empty-handed.
Something glittering flew from her hand and struck the stone with the clink of metal as Lyram slammed into the ground. Without a backward glance, Leinahre scrambled to her feet and raced up the tunnel.
In the middle of the grotto stood a spectre, arm outstretched towards him, her familiar features framed by black hair.
Lyram screamed again.
Ellaeva raced through the darkness, her torch abandoned. What had Lyram discovered? She’d felt it the moment it happened: the shock, the raw fury, followed by several more intense shocks. Each pulsed down the link between them like a blinding flash of light, almost paralysing her each time. Now fear seeped through the link between them, mixed with horror and pain.
The tunnel forked, and she took Lyram’s branch, clutching her hilt with one hand to stop the sword bouncing against her leg as she ran. She sped up as the ground sloped slightly down, her feet kicking up rattling waterfalls of stones that slithered and echoed through the tunnel. With luck, Lyram held the full attention of anyone below with him.
The slim, shadowed shape of Leinahre appeared in the darkness, off to the side with her leg outstretched. A fraction of a moment was all Ellaeva had. She changed direction and, instead of falling face-first into the stone, crashed directly into Leinahre. The two women toppled to the ground in a spray of dirt and grit. Leinahre shoved her off, and they rolled apart.
Ellaeva climbed to her feet. Leinahre faced her, a long-bladed knife with a serrated edge in her hand.
“Lyram’s not here to do your bidding this time,” Ellaeva panted, spitting dust and blood from her mouth. She drew the sword of Ahura, easily twice the length of the knife the other woman held. The rasp of the blade leaving the sheath echoed in the tunnel.
“I don’t need him to protect me. To advance this high in the ranks of Rahmyr, I was required to catch and kill my own prey—and it was no animal I hunted. You can be sure I can look after myself.” Leinahre smiled, belying the malice dripping from each word. “He’s not here to rescue you either.”
Ellaeva snarled and lunged forward, but Leinahre spun away with the grace of a dancer.
Ahura’s tits. The woman knew the sword-dance of Dayhl. She was as deadly as a valkyr of Ahura. Ellaeva recovered and dropped back, gritting her teeth. Sword-dancers were dangerous, although the masters of Junjani who taught Ellaeva their arts were no less so.
“Not so easy as last time, no?” Leinahre’s bared teeth gleamed in the green light. “I didn’t want to let you in on the secret too early.”
She raked out with her knife. Ellaeva stepped back adroitly, well out of reach of the weapon, and yet the shoulder of her shirt tore asunder. She gasped and dropped back a step, and another. The knife is longer than it appears. She put one hand to her arm where the sleeve fluttered agape. The unseen tip of the blade hadn’t cut her.
She squinted at the Rahmyrrim in the sickly green glow of the walls. A subtle darkness blurred the shadows at the end of the blade. Though she stared at it with the eyes of the goddess, she still couldn’t see the true length of the weapon. She released her grip on the sight of the goddess. Dammit, what powers does she possess?
She attacked again, this time against the knife more than the other priestess. A good twelve inches clear of the blade’s tip, her sword clanged against something unseen. She judged the invisible blade to be about the same length as her sword. Leinahre snatched her
hand away, and Ellaeva reversed the direction of her sword, slashing at the woman’s face.
Up and down the tunnel they fought, Leinahre twirling and spinning her blade in the characteristic patterns of the sword-dance, Ellaeva slashing and kicking with all the skill she and five Battle Priestesses before her had gained. Sweat trickled down her forehead and into her eyes. Wiping it away cost her a small gash to the forearm. Leinahre’s breast heaved, her breath coming in short gasps, and sweat plastered her clothes to her body. A lucky strike by Ellaeva carved a long shallow cut across her belly, leaving the rent in her shirt to flap open.
From down the tunnel came a wordless yell.
Ellaeva started and glanced away, and a line of fire seared her leg. She recoiled, cursing, and hacked at Leinahre, forcing the other woman back.
“He’s going to die.” Leinahre’s eyes bored into Ellaeva. “If you go now, maybe you can save him.”
Ellaeva shrugged, feigning nonchalance, though her stomach contorted in knots. “He can look after himself.”
She could not ask Ahura to stay her hand twice. Lyram’s emotions boiled too fiercely for her to sort any one emotion besides numb shock.
“After all that effort you went to in order to save him from my hedge witchery? A pretty lie, but a lie nonetheless.”
Ellaeva lunged forward, driving the woman back in a flurry of blows before she recovered and launched a counter-offensive.
Leinahre dropped away, breathing hard. “How did you save him? The only way to break the glamour is true love, and I made sure Zaheva was dead—oh.” Her eyebrows flew up.
In the moment of distraction, Ellaeva drove in hard, aiming blows with her sword and her free hand. Leinahre gasped, pressed hard by the onslaught. The Rahmyrrim recoiled away from each strike of the left hand more than she did the sword—aware of Ellaeva’s power over death? Then she slipped inside Ellaeva’s guard.
Ellaeva stepped back barely in time, and the almost-unseen tip of the serrated weapon tore only the cloth of her shirt over the opposite shoulder.
“How adorable,” Leinahre said, dropping back to wary circling. “I could see you had some attachment to him, but that he should fall for you so completely as well? How tragically romantic.”
A flicker of fury ignited inside Ellaeva, and she fought it down, clenching her teeth. Her gaze searched the other woman’s body for telltales of a sudden attack as she tried to fade the woman’s voice out.
“Did you know your parents are still alive?”
The conversational tone of voice meant it took a moment for the words to sink in. Ellaeva faltered, the tip of her sword dipping. “My parents are dead, killed by Rahmyrrim!”
She attacked all out, her blade hacking and slashing at the other woman so ferociously she drove her up the tunnel a few steps. Any thought of Lyram fled her mind. How dare this filthy Rahmyrrim tell such heinous lies?
“A convenient fiction.” Leinahre forced the words out between frantic gasps for breath. Sweat ran freely down her face now, and three of Ellaeva’s blows landed, nicking her with small wounds that bled profusely. Blood stained her clothes, and in one place dripped from her elbow to the tunnel floor. “But a fiction nonetheless. Something to motivate you against my kind.”
A lie. A filthy stinking lie. Ellaeva’s next swing went wild, and Leinahre’s knife flickered out, licking perilously close to her eyes. Ellaeva knocked the other woman’s arm away with her left hand. Blood dripped down her face where the blade had nicked her forehead, mingling with the sweat. Ahura, please let it be a lie. She turned the gaze of the goddess on Leinahre, seeking the truth.
“The priestess took you from your parents,” Leinahre said, “stole you away, and left them distraught and grieving for their only child. Everything the Temple told you was a lie.”
It was the truth. Ahura help her, every word the truth.
Ellaeva howled and attacked with renewed fury, forcing Leinahre back one step, two steps, three. On the last, she knocked the weapon clear from the other woman’s hand with a wild swing, leaving herself exposed. Too late, she tried to recover, and the Rahmyrrim darted behind her, shaking something loose from her sleeve as she ran. Something snaked around Ellaeva’s throat as she tried to turn and follow. A moment later, the garrotte drew tight.
Ellaeva flailed, trying to reach her assailant, but a kick to the back of the leg sent her to her knees. Leinahre planted a foot in the small of Ellaeva’s back to keep beyond her reach. The garrotte drew tighter, and she clawed at it, straining futilely for air. A breath tickled her ear as Leinahre leaned closer, easing off on the garrotte a fraction. Ellaeva’s lungs burned as she drew desperately on the tiny amount of air dragged into her windpipe.
“This was all for you,” Leinahre whispered. “The death of Aharris’s wife, and his exile, my attempts to control him—well, not the siege, but everything else. All to get to Aharris so we could stop you. We never dreamed I’d be able to crush the life from you myself. The premonition was right: Aharris did lead to your downfall. He led me here to you. My failures will all be forgiven once you’re dead.”
Ellaeva lurched forward to her feet, the sudden burst of motion pulling Leinahre off her feet. The garrotte tightened again, cutting off her air. It didn’t matter—couldn’t matter. Her chest tightened from suffocation as she dragged them straight at the curved tunnel wall. She ran two steps straight up the sloping side of the tunnel before loss of momentum and Leinahre’s weight toppled her.
The garrotte slackened as they struck the floor. Twisting, Ellaeva stretched out one hand to the Rahmyrrim. In that moment, she heard the other woman’s heartbeat.
Thu-thud. Thu-thud.
Leinahre’s face contorted with realisation, her eyes widening as she tried to pull away.
Please, Ahura, oh please.
As Ellaeva’s fingers brushed against Leinahre’s face, the woman rolled away desperately.
When she came to a stop, her eyes stared sightlessly at the roof.
Lyram stared at the ghostly face of his dead wife. The scream had wrung all the air from his lungs, and now his chest felt too tight to draw another.
Fear dug its spurred heels into his flanks, and he scrambled away backwards on hands and feet. His breath came in quick gasps bordering on sobs.
The spectre floated after him.
“Chalon have mercy,” he said. “Zaheva, please, no.”
The spirit made no response—could make no response. Ellaeva had warned him that the unholy power of Rahmyr bound these ghosts, so that they couldn’t deviate from their course, even should they desire it. What evil was this, to force a dead wife to slay her husband against her will?
The ephemeral shape bearing Zaheva’s face drew near. Ahura, can I bring myself to kill her? He reached for his sword, but his fingers found only an empty scabbard. The clan blade lay by the pool, abandoned in his haste to flee the ghost leaning towards him. One touch and he was dead....
He clambered to his feet, backing away one step at a time. The thing followed at the same, slow pace all the spectres used. He drew back to the far cavern wall. The thud and clang of battle rattled down the passage. Ellaeva? He hesitated, wanting to check on Ellaeva, but the spectre was already closing the difference and the cavern was too small for lingering. He cut back across the cave, almost too close to the ghost. A chill brushed the back of his neck as it reached for him again.
He dove towards the pool, the spectre’s near presence like a weight on his shoulders. Sand kicked up into his face as he struck the rock. He spat, groping like mad for the hilt of his sword. Tiny pebbles scattered away from his frenzied fingers, and, he kicked forward, tears streaming from his eyes.
He stretched forward, seized the hilt, and rolled all in one movement, sweeping the blade up and around as he went. His gaze locked with Zaheva’s black eyes, and he flinched, almost pulling back. Ahura, I’m killing my wife… The steel sliced through the spectral shape, flashing red.
But the spectre did not waver. The insubstan
tial hand reached through the weapon, stretching towards him.
Yelling, Lyram hurled himself backwards. Water exploded up around him as he crashed back into the pool, shattering the thin ice on the surface. The shocking cold numbed him immediately, but he forced himself to keep moving. He waded to the other side of the pool and pushed his shivering limbs up the steep rocks. The spectre floated behind him, above the surface of the water. Why didn’t the sword destroy her?
Why do I feel relieved it didn’t?
He hopped away from the rocks edging the pool, losing his grip on his sword hilt as the spectre’s hand swept towards him. Water squelched with each step, and he mopped sodden hair from his eyes. Desperation formed a tight knot in his gut, warring against sick dread. His wife was trying to kill him—and he had no idea how to stop her.
He backed away from the pool. What now? He possessed no way to destroy his wife’s shade, and Ellaeva was caught up in her own struggle further up the tunnel—that much was plain. If his sword couldn’t kill the spectre, what option did he have but to run? But the idea of turning his back on it made his skin crawl. Besides, the things could pass through rock, so she might cut him off by coming out of the tunnel wall ahead of him—or right beside him.
He backed away one slow step at a time, keeping his eyes locked on the floating translucent face of his dead wife.
It’s not Zaheva. It’s not. The repeated litany offered cold comfort. On some level, it was his wife. And on some level, she knew what was happening to her.
The heel of his boot caught on rock. Arms windmilling, he tried to catch his balance, but instead he thumped onto his back again. The spectre closed in. He rolled, desperately trying to stay ahead of its deadly touch.
As he came to a stop, something landed in the sand a foot or two from his nose. Zaheva’s signet.
“The ring!” Ellaeva’s voice shattered the eerie stillness of the cavern. “It’s tied to the ring! Strike it with your sword.”
In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1) Page 36
