Mya swallowed bile as she recalled Saliez’s delighted recital of the many ways one could inflict pain without quite killing.
Like a professor lecturing a favored student, the Grandmaster continued to speak as he strolled around the inner pillar. “In my early years of training, I discovered a talent for inquisition. Although my imperial duties keep me busier than I want, I make time to come down here and practice my skills. Training in inquisition will be useful to you, Mya. I cast no aspersions on your expertise as a Hunter, but inquisition is your means of punishment, your control, and control is key.”
Mya struggled to maintain her composure, clenching her hands in an effort to control her body language. She couldn’t afford to let the Grandfather discern her true reaction to this ghastly place.
“Norwood!”
Lad’s exclamation froze Mya in her tracks. His face shone pale, the muscles of his jaw bunched. She followed his gaze, and wished she hadn’t.
The captain of the Twailin Royal Guard hung in an iron cage, his wrists manacled over his head. Sharpened screws threaded through the bars had pierced his body at hips, knees, and feet. Norwood’s skull was pinned in place by four iron rods, also sharpened and screwed down tight. Blood seeped from the wounds and puddled on the floor beneath the cage. His eyes were closed, but Mya could still detect the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He was unconscious, but alive.
The Grandmaster looked mildly amused. “Needless to say, Lad, Captain Norwood will no longer function as your informant. I hope, however, that he will provide me with information on his investigation into Baron Patino’s death.” The Grandmaster shot a sour look at Hoseph, then turned his attention to Mya. “I’m sure he could also provide insight into the Twailin Royal Guard, which would undoubtedly benefit your future operations, Mya. Perhaps you’d like to aid in the inquisition.”
“I…” Mya’s stomach clenched on the few sips of wine and bites of food she’d taken, and she looked away. The view in the other direction, however, was no better. “Dear Gods of Light…”
Hidden until now behind the massive pillar, six waist-high stone slabs stood like the spokes of a huge wheel. Each was grooved and canted to drain into a central iron grating in the floor. Atop one Mya saw…herself, bleeding and torn as the Grandfather had once displayed her, strapped down, skin flayed from flesh. Mya clenched her eyes and choked back vomit. Not me… Not real… When she opened them again, she realized that she was both wrong and right. It wasn’t her, but it was all too real, and worse than she could ever have imagined.
The Grandmaster chuckled. “Let me assure you, Mya, the Gods had nothing to do with what you see here.” He strolled over to the slab. “I had originally intended this to be a gift to my newest guildmaster, but, since I intend to accept Mya’s proposal, think of it as a last concession before you relinquish your position, Lad.”
Tynean Tsing plucked a glistening steel hook from a tray beside the slab and gestured them over, waiting until they stood beside the wreckage of what had once been a human being. “Let it also be a reminder that this is the consequence of insubordination. I have spies everywhere, both within and outside the guild. This is control.”
Positioning the hook in muscle, the Grandmaster pulled his victim’s bleeding face toward him. To Mya’s horror, bloody lips gasped for breath, a thin mew of agony issuing from a ravaged throat. The mutilation had been very carefully performed to keep the victim alive. Mya wondered if this poor soul was still sane…and thought not. She could almost feel the Grandfather’s knives once more parting her own flesh.
Never again!
“Who…is she?”
Lad’s voice, so contorted by disgust, snapped Mya from her morbid musing. She? Now she noted the spare patches of blond hair, the delicate hands twisted and broken, the small, dainty feet scorched by live coals. It was indeed a woman.
“Why, Kiesha, of course! The woman who killed your dear Wiggen.”
He tortured her for…what? Punishment, information, entertainment? Suddenly Mya’s mind leapt ahead. If Kiesha had killed Wiggen at the Fiveway Fountains battle, had watched Lad and Mya fight, how much had she seen of Mya’s abilities, her magic, her secrets. And how much did she tell the Grandmaster? Did he know Mya was a monster?
Lad stepped forward and stood beside the slab, gazing down at the mutilated woman. “Why would you do this?”
The utter revulsion in Lad’s voice drew every eye in the room.
“As an example.” The Grandmaster’s lips curled back in contempt. “When Kiesha learned that your wife wore the guildmaster’s ring, she should have brought the information to me. Instead, she took the initiative and murdered your wife. There were other solutions that could have been employed without earning your enmity. She then went to Baron Patino, risking exposure of my dual identity. She cost me much, and she has paid the price. Perhaps you should heed the lesson.”
“You think this will make me fear you.” Lad’s words weren’t a question, but an accusation. “You think this will make me obey you.”
Mya gaped at him. He’s mad! The Grandmaster will kill him for that. He’ll strap Lad down and flay him alive, and I’ll have to stand here and watch it. She opened her mouth to explain, to intervene, but another glance at Kiesha kicked in her innate sense of self-preservation. I can’t save him. If I try, I’ll die here, too…or worse. She edged back, feeling exposed in the wide-open area between the slabs and the central pillar. Thankfully, the blademasters paid her no mind, assuming defensive positions around their master.
“I hoped it might, but I see you still don’t understand.” The Grandmaster ran a fingernail down an exposed nerve in Kiesha’s ravaged arm. The woman’s raw, inarticulate wail of agony shivered up Mya’s spine. “This is the path to control.”
“Stop it!” Lad’s shout echoed off the walls. He stumbled back from the slab, horror and disgust twisting his features.
The Grandmaster turned with murder in his narrowed eyes. “That almost sounded like a command. I see that you’re in need of this lesson if you’re going to be of any use to me at all. Take care that you don’t displease me as Kiesha did.” His eyes flicked to Mya, and his lips thinned in a razor-slash smile. “Mya understands, don’t you?”
“I understand, Grandmaster.” Mya curtsied deeply. It sickened her, but there was no way she could tell the man who owned her life that he was a sadistic pig. Her eyes flicked up to Lad’s. She willed him to follow her lead, to kowtow and escape, to sign anything, do anything, to survive. Think, Lad! Think like an assassin!
“Yes, I believe you do. You were greatly prized by Saliez for both your mind and your obedience. That, along with your recent successes as Master Hunter, are why I offered you the Twailin guildmaster position.” Tynean Tsing gestured, and his blademasters flanked Lad. “Saliez understood my methods. He was using them to send Duke Mir running into my arms for help. With my magistrates and soldiers to institute my edicts, the city would have been fully incorporated into my system of control.” The razor smile returned. “That was the reason you were created, Lad; to be used as a weapon, to grant me control through fear. That is your only function.”
The tendons in Lad’s neck tensed, and Mya cringed.
“All those murders…” Lad’s voice quivered with rage. “It wasn’t about trade restrictions or pressuring the Thieves Guild out of drug trafficking at all…”
“Of course not! It was, and always will be about control, my control.” The Grandmaster snapped his fingers. “Hoseph! The contract.”
The priest drew a rolled piece of vellum from beneath his robes. Mya recognized it immediately. She’d signed one herself. The vellum was cured human skin, the script embossed on its surface imbued with rune magic. Once signed in blood, the spell would bind the signatory to the guild for life, rendering escape and rebellion impossible. Things had come full circle. If Lad signed, he would become nothing but a weapon once again.
“This is the only way you’ll walk out of this room, Lad.” The G
randmaster drew a gleaming kris from his embroidered robes and held the tip under Lad’s nose. “Prick your finger and sign.”
Lad looked down at the document, then at the blademasters surrounding him.
Sign it! Mya thought. He had no hope of besting them, not five. And even if he did, he still couldn’t touch the Grandmaster. There was no way out.
“Bide,” she whispered for his ears only. His eyes flicked toward her, then back to the Grandmaster. “Lissa,” she whispered. “Think of Lissa.”
That hit him hard.
Clenching his jaw so tightly she thought his teeth might shatter, Lad looked toward Mya, and she quailed. Madness lurked behind those twin chips of mica. He would die before he became a slave again.
I can’t let him die.
“Sign it!” Mya stepped forward, closer, but still outside the ring of blademasters. “It won’t change a thing, Lad. I’ll be your master as I was before.”
“Listen to her, boy. I’ll make her guildmaster, and she’ll wield you. I need your expertise in Twailin if I’m ever going to get Mir to capitulate.” The Grandmaster thrust the kris forward, almost pricking Lad’s nose with the tip. “Sign it or die!”
Lad took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked right into Mya’s soul.
He’s mad…
“I’m sorry, Mya.” He shook his head and pushed aside the blood contract. “No. I won’t sign it.”
They’ll kill him! A pit opened in Mya’s soul, a swirling void that swallowed her fear. She couldn’t let them kill Lad, but she knew better than to think that they could win. They couldn’t kill the Grandmaster. They might escape, but he’d hunt them down. Think! Think like an assassin. She needed some advantage, some trick, but if Kiesha had told the Grandmaster Mya’s secrets, she had nothing.
Nothing but death.
Everyone dies. Strangely, the thought brought Mya solace. It didn’t matter if you were good, bad, pious, or irreverent. In the end, death took everyone.
At least it won’t hurt. Her tattoos made sure of that. Mya looked down at her hands, the hands from which she had washed the blood of her mother, and wondered about the afterlife. Would their souls meet? Would she murder her mother again in hell?
Mya stared, helpless as the Grandmaster drew back the dagger, Lad’s death glinting in the torchlight.
Yanking loose the laces of her dress, Mya prepared herself to die.
Chapter XXIV
The gleaming kris thrust toward Lad’s throat, a killing strike that he could not block.
He could, however, move.
To Lad’s hyper-accelerated senses, the knife moved like syrup on a cold morning. He twisted just enough to let the serpentine blade pass harmlessly by.
The blademasters surrounding him tensed, but didn’t intervene, awaiting their master’s commands. Frustration contorted the Grandmaster’s face, and he slashed again.
Again, Lad moved.
Without adjusting his stance, he bent away from the stroke. The wavy blade sliced through the air an inch from his eyes, so close that Lad saw his reflection in the fine, layered steel. He straightened and regarded the Grandmaster’s flushed face. Tynean Tsing wasn’t accustomed to being so easily thwarted. Lad couldn’t attack, but perhaps he could provoke a reckless action or even a heart-attack; the emperor was not a young man.
“I was made to kill, Grandmaster.” Lad unfastened the buttons of his jacket with provocatively slow ease. “Not to stand like a steer in a slaughterhouse.”
“You impudent…” Spittle flecked the Grandmaster’s lips and his hand quivered with rage. Five swords hissed quietly from their scabbards as the emperor’s blademasters prepared to kill at his word.
“Wait!” Mya lurched forward, hands out and open, her eyes wide with horror. Shouldering her way through the cordon of blademasters, she interposed herself between Lad and the Grandmaster. “Please, Grandmaster. You needn’t kill him! I can control him!”
What’s she doing? Lad’s mind spun. He hadn’t expected help from that quarter. Ruled by fear, Mya always put her safety and self-interest first. What is she plotting? Lad’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. She’d tricked him before. He focused on the vulnerable spot at the base of her skull. Never again.
The Grandmaster waved her away. “Not without a contract, Mya. He’s too dangerous. Stand aside!”
Motion caught Lad’s eye. Glancing down, he saw the laces of Mya’s dress hanging loose. She’d untied them. Why? Mobility? Was she preparing to fight with him? She has to know I can’t win, and Mya never plays a game she can’t win.
“No!” Mya’s tone shifted from pleading to demanding. “Don’t be stupid!”
Lad gaped. She’s provoking him! Could she be planning some trick, some bluff? Can I trust her?
The Grandmaster’s face flushed with rage. “Do you wish to die with him, Mya?”
“If you’re foolish enough to waste such a perfect weapon, then yes. I’d rather die than be the slave of a sadistic moron!”
The dagger thrust came without warning, but still slow to Lad’s perceptions. Mya could have dodged the clumsy attack easily...but she didn’t.
The kris slammed between the stays of Mya’s corset. Her agonized cry echoed through the room, but rang false in Lad’s ears. Mya felt no pain. The Grandmaster jerked the blood-drenched knife free and stepped back.
When her knees folded, dread pierced Lad to the core. Did the blade pierce her heart? Was it poisoned?
“Mya!” Lad caught her before she struck the floor. Her face was contorted in agony, her hands clutching the wound in her belly. Something wasn’t right. Why would she—
The soft rip of cloth drew his gaze down. She’d torn her dress open at the bottom of her corset, and her bloody fingers pulled two slim hilts from beneath the hard metal stays.
She’s shamming! The Grandmaster didn’t know of her runes. Her ruse gave them a slim and transient advantage.
“You’re brilliant,” he whispered.
Her feigned cry trailed off pitifully, but her eyes were clear as they met his. “Flip me.”
Always thinking…lies within feints within subterfuge.
“Yes,” he whispered back, gripping her beneath the arms. Two daggers…two targets. Who? “Hoseph.” The priest’s magic was a deadly unknown.
Mya nodded minutely.
The Grandmaster backed away, the tread of his hard shoes loud in Lad’s ears. “Kill him.”
“Ready?” Lad asked Mya.
“Always.”
As the blademasters advanced, Lad flung Mya up in a twisting flip. Her voluminous dress fanned out like a crimson flower opening to the sun, detracting attention from the short, slim blades that flew with unerring accuracy. One struck Hoseph in the upper chest, and the priest staggered back. Another plunged deep into a blademaster’s eye. The man’s head snapped back, his sword clattering to the floor as he fell dead.
Two more blades flew before Mya landed, but the advantage of surprise had been spent. Steel sang as one blademaster parried the flying metal. Another dodged so that Mya’s blade only scored a deep gash in his cheek. Bright red blood pulsed from the wound, but the swordsman seemed not to notice.
Mya landed and drew two more blades, whirling to set her shoulders firmly against Lad’s. They assumed the opening position of the dance of death, perfectly mirrored. Her ploy had evened the odds slightly, with one blademaster down and Hoseph struggling to remove the dagger from a splintered rib. But four blademasters remained; a deadly circle of steel.
“Kill them!” the Grandmaster shrieked.
With blinding speed and perfect coordination, the blademasters struck.
Mya flung her last two daggers with little hope of a lethal strike. The flashing steel did force her opponents to parry and dodge, however. Mya used the opportunity to crouch and sweep a leg out from under one of the swordsmen.
Lad’s foot whipped past her shoulder as he spun high, striking Mya’s other opponent in the wrist hard eno
ugh to shatter bones. To balance his move, she spun low, tripping one of his opponents. The man turned the trip into a flip and slashed at her, his sword slicing frills from her billowing petticoat.
Gods, they’re fast! Faster than any human she’d ever fought. Maybe they weren’t human. Maybe they were monsters like her. What gifts might Koss Godslayer bequeath to his warrior monks?
As her spin brought her back around, Mya’s first opponent lunged again, not at her, but at Lad’s back. Mya parried the strike to Lad’s spine with the flat of her hand and lashed out with a foot. The hard heel of her shoe struck the joint of the blademaster’s knee with a satisfying crunch. The man went down, splinters of bone protruding from his torn trousers. Before she could finish him, however, his companion slashed.
With a broken wrist? Mya dodged the surprising attack an instant too late, and the tip of the blade snicked through three corset stays. Warm blood flooded down her belly, and for once she blessed the restricting garment; it had saved her life by preventing her viscera from spilling out. Her wrappings slithered together over the wound even before the flesh healed.
Two wounds already, and the fight’s just beginning. If she lost too much blood, she would weaken and slow. Against these opponents, that would be deadly.
Wood and metal crashed behind her, and she hoped that Lad fared well. With her would-be eviscerator slashing at her throat, she didn’t have time to look. Mya snapped her head back, and the blade passed within a finger’s breadth of her nose. Lashing out with a twisting double kick, her first snapped her opponent’s elbow like a chicken wing, but her second, intended for his head, missed entirely. The man spun impossibly fast, ignoring his broken arm as he shifted his sword for a reverse thrust.
Weapon of Vengeance (Weapon of Flesh Trilogy) Page 33
